1COR04 1 Corinthians 4 Faithfulness and Successfulness
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1 Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 For I know of nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.
6 Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one against the other. 7 For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
8 You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us—and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you! 9 For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! 11 To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. 12 And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; 13 being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.
14 I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. 15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you, imitate me. 17 For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.
18 Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. 19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. 20 For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. 21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?
From the outset we are introduced to someone: A steward. This is someone who has been given something that belongs to someone else to look after. For example, a steward can be a Pastor; He has been given a flock to look after. The flock’s not his, it is God’s.
In this case Paul is a steward of the church at Corinth; but more than that he has been given the Gospel and the mysteries of God to look after.
What is required of a steward? That he looks after what he has been given to look after; that he is faithful. What does being faithful mean? It means that one is to be loyal, devoted, trustworthy, reliable, dedicated, committed, and true.
As ministers of God those of us who are responsible in Church leadership have to show that we are all of these things to the flock. Who is to judge whether a steward has been faithful? Only God knows the intent of our heart – no one can judge except God – we make value judgements that are tainted with our own sin, with preconceptions of what someone is like but God judges impartially and ministers themselves will receive a harsher judgment.
So that is us as ministers of God in a congregation. It obviously does not impact you, does it? Are only those called to the ministry stewards?
Are we not all called to be faithful, to be loyal, devoted, trustworthy, reliable, dedicated, committed, and true?
We can be very spiritual and say that we are faithful to God. What do we mean? It sounds very abstract, not concrete. What does loyalty to God mean?
We all have been given something to look after. To start with we have been created, and not only that but our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We have been given our own bodies to look after - we are created by God in His image and likeness.
On top of this we have all been given responsibilities by God, whether as a father, mother, son, daughter, spouse, church member and so on. We all have also been given gifts to look after and to fan them into flames for God. We are responsible before God about whether we have been loyal, devoted, trustworthy, reliable, dedicated, committed, and true.
Where will it take us if we as Christians start taking our responsibility seriously before God?
There was such a woman: (In 1925,) Betty Stam said: "Lord, I give up my own purposes and plans, all my own desires, hopes, and ambitions, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee, to be Thine forever. I hand over to Thy keeping all of my friendships; all the people whom I love are to take second place in my heart. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Work out Thy whole will in my life, at any cost, now and forever. To me to live is Christ. Amen." Nine years later on (December 8, 1934), Betty and her husband, John, calmly and bravely laid down their lives for Christ when they were martyred by Chinese Communists.
To take our responsibility seriously before God means putting aside our own desires, our own wishes and living totally dedicated to God and His people.
What does this mean for you, for me? What are the gifts that God has given us? All of us have gifts that are for the building up of the Church. What is the Church? God’s people. So, then, we all have gifts that are for building one another up in faith; gifts such as the gift of encouragement, gifts of mercy, gifts of hospitality, and gifts of prophecy. Perhaps it would be easier to speak of gifts as our talents. It doesn’t matter if you are not the best of the best. What has God given to you?
I know that some of our talents are not demonstrable but pretend then that you are on your own, no audience…what is your talent? Is it prayer? Is it serving? Is it being practical? Is it visiting or calling the sick? Are you being faithful? Are you committed? Are you reliable? Are you putting all your effort into it?
So then you have discovered what God has given you. Maybe you have discovered that you have gifting in 10 areas, others in 5, others in 1 – it doesn’t matter – the only question is are we being good stewards? Are we looking after the gifting and aiming for excellence? Excellence is simply another way of saying we are aiming to be the best that we can be, looking to improve our gifting, and most times the way we improve is with practice.
I do want to be be clear on another matter because this passage speaks to it - success. Who is to judge whether we are a success? The Corinthians thought that they were successful, after all Paul is sarcastically saying this in verse 8:
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!
The world is in a cycle that says to progress, go upwards, succeed, demonstrate it, and progress, go upwards, succeed, and so on. And who is to judge whether we are a success or not? Verse 3 speaks to this about being judged by individuals or by human courts - but how do they evaluate? are they in full cognisance of the facts? Do they know your heart? And do we judge others? It is one thing to see things going on on the outside but we do not know someone else’s heart…we barely know our own as we are told by:
9 The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
God will, in His own time, judge rightly the actions and inactions of people not just on what they did but why. And this goes not just for the negative but the positive. We can be so much in favour of one against another but again we are not the judge of these things. Who know the heart?
Did we not see in Acts, where they were deciding between two people who should be the apostle to replace Judas:
24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen 25 to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” 26 And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
God knows the hearts. Both were qualified in the eyes of the Church but God decided which one was one suited the role.
All that we have as people is what God has given us and we are certainly not to be proud of that fact for they are gifts we receive and God knows why some receive more than others, and it may have nothing to do with their character or to do with holiness or their supposed spirituality. These things are not revealed to us.
And what is the success that we are called to? We are not. We are not called to be successful. We may be utter failures.
Take Noah. He preached for 120 years without a single convert other than his own family. 120 years of telling people the good news that there was a way of escape and nobody took it. I know that some missionaries’ receipt of giving is dependent upon their success in the field and whether they can continue their work. This is appalling. How is their success measured? By the number of saved? By the numbers coming increasing? Is this how God measures success? Was Noah a failure?
The best of God’s people, it seems, suffer more than most and we only need to look at the apostles to see the truth of that. Paul says that they are weak, they are held in disrepute, they are reviled, they are persecuted, they are slandered, they are scum, they are refuse. Was Paul a failure?
Jesus lived out a life on earth, preached, healed the sick, did good, and the result? He was put to death and everyone deserted Him. Was Jesus a failure?
Now, let me give you the crunch line of this whole passage, and it is one that a pastor, who is now in glory, by the name of Malcolm White, used to say often:
We are not called to success, we are called to faithfulness.
Faithfulness is the measure by which God calls something a success or not.
A failure in this life may mean we are a success in God’s sight.
And see what Noah, Paul and Jesus did. Noah, in effect, repopulated the planet. Without him all human life would have ceased. Paul is still having an effect down to this day through his letters. And it can be said that Christianity exists because of him and his evangelistic endeavours. And Jesus, whose death became resurrection giving us eternal life in the process. All could be failures in an earthly sense. Our success is not measured in earthly terms, though it may be by others, but what matters is God’s opinion and thoughts, and to Him we have either been faithful or not.
Paul says to all this: be an imitator of me in verse 16. He also says in
9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
We are to live our lives in the light of what we know about Jesus and the Gospel, to learn from Paul and the other writings, to be faithful in all these things. And as Paul says in:
16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
Again, we come back to seeing those who are walking the walk of faith, and follow their example when they are following Christ.
Every day we preach sermons. You and I declare what we are each and every day.
“We preach some message by our lives. You are saying something to the world and to those around you by your life. You can’t help it. I live my life unto you and you live your life unto me. It’s just that way. We have that kind of influence.” My friend, if you are a believer, you are a minister of Christ. What kind of message are you giving?
This sermon has not been so much about gifts and talents as it is about stewardship; it is about faithfulness, and when we have found out what we have, we have to remember that what we have does not belong to us because we deserve it; does not belong to us because we are fabulous people; but belongs to us because God has given it to us. If God has given these things to us then we have no right to boast, no right to pride, no right to honour, no right to self-importance, no right to the claim of superiority; no, the only thing we have a right to is humility in ourselves and gratefulness and praise to God, and faithfulness in using all those gifts He has given.
We are all on the journey of life. We need passion for our life in Jesus. If Jesus really is the way…if Jesus really is the truth…if Jesus really is the life…then why do we live mediocre, boring, settled, Christian lives…is it because we really don’t believe? Jesus came to give us life in all its fullness. We can experience this fullness by being obedient, loyal, devoted, trustworthy, reliable, dedicated, committed, and true. We need to find the ways that will lock in our desire to know and love God and be all-out for Jesus.
For we are not called to success but faithfulness.
Prayer
Prayer
Communion
Communion
Prayer for communion
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
Prayer for the fellowship
Benediction
Bibliography
Bibliography
McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (1 Corinthians) (electronic ed., Vol. 44). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Um, S. T. (2015). 1 Corinthians: The Word of the Cross. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.