1 Corinthians 3:1-9a

The Workers of God

Open your Bible to…

1Cor. 3:9a For we are God’s fellow workers…

Pray

Intro

√ The work of God

In our previous study in chapter 2 Paul you’ll remember that Paul discussed the work of God and that it was not accomplished by the power or wisdom of Men, rather the work of God is done by the…

Power of God

Wisdom of God

Spirit of God

Therefore, regardless of who brought the message to them, whether it was Paul, Peter or Apollos…

…if the Corinthians would just focus their attention on God rather than the man through whom God worked then the divisions in the church would be healed.

√ The workers of God

Now in chapter 3 Paul calls our attention to the workers whom God sent to minister to the people of Corinth to give them a Godly perspective on the human vessels through whom He worked…

To define the responsibilities of God’s ministers.

To define the responsibilities of those to whom they ministered.

To demonstrate the balance between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.

Each point demonstrates the cooperation necessary between God and His human workers to accomplish His purposes in our lives.

Ex. Salvation and sanctification

God is very clear that no one can save themselves!

Salvation is a free gift of God to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

However, when a person is saved they are not instantly made perfect and holy, rather that’s a life-long process we call that “sanctification”!

The reason is that we still have this old sin-nature that as of yet is unredeemed.

It fights against the Spirit of God dwelling in us.

Thus the work of the Spirit is to sanctify us by working the old nature out of us and working the new nature of Christ into us.

But that work is a life-long cooperation between the Spirit of God and ourselves that is accomplished as we surrender to His will and power.

Well, one of many the problems at Corinth was that while they had been happy to receive the gift of salvation and had initially shown good growth…

…they had rejected the work of the Spirit to sanctify their lives.

So, Paul uses 3 illustrations to help his friends at Corinth to recognize their responsibility in the work of God in their lives…

Families

Farming

Framing

We’ll look at the families and farming this week and framing next week!

Families (vs. 1-4)

1Cor. 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.

1Cor. 3:2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able;

1Cor. 3:3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

1Cor. 3:4 For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?

√ Families

In our earlier studies Paul revealed that from God’s perspective there are only two kinds of people in the world…

Saved ~ spiritual

Lost ~ natural

Here he introduces another distinction and that is that there are two kinds of saints…

Spiritual (growing and Christ-like)

Carnal (or worldly, fleshly)

Both are saved, but one is a mature Christian while the other is immature.

Ex. Family

Paul uses the illustration of a baby to make his point.

Just as in a family there are parents (who are mature) and children (who are immature) so in the church there are spiritual adults as well as spiritual children.

When we first think of a spiritual baby we might think of the person who is a recent convert to Jesus.

They might be 14 years old, or they could be 44 years old.

But, both are spiritual babies because they have only an elementary understanding of God and His ways.

Unfortunately that’s not the person that Paul has in focus here as evidenced by his unflattering description of them as “carnal” ~ fleshly.

Rather, the people that Paul has in mind are those believers at Corinth who have been saved for quite some time…

…but are still acting like spiritual babies!

√ Spiritual maturity

You might wonder what constitutes spiritual maturity.

Well, in our text Paul gives us two criteria by which he was able to accurately assess their spiritual condition.

Note that he tells us to look at their…

Diet

Deeds

That is, the spiritual maturity of a person can be determined by what kind of spiritual food they’re eating…

…and by the nature of their deeds.

1) Diet ~ milk to meat

Note vs. 2…

“I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able.”

This is a great illustration because we’ve all seen newborn babies feed and we understand that they can’t handle anything except milk!

You don’t give a newborn a Double-double animal style burger!

No bacon-wrapped filet mignon!

They don’t have the teeth to chew solid food nor the stomach to handle it.

So, we give babies milk and it’s not until their teeth come in that we begin to introduce solid food into their diet.

The point is that one sign that a child is maturing physically is a change of diet.

They move from a milk to meat.

The same is true spiritually!

The spiritual newborn can only handle the pure milk of elementary spiritual truth.

As Peter writes…

“as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” ~ 1 Peter 2:2

Paul’s rebuke to his friends at Corinth is that by this time in their spiritual journey they ought to be eating solid spiritual food…

…but were instead still stuck on the bottle!

Ex. Taking my bottle away!

Thankfully my mom didn’t let me keep my bottle!

√ Milk vs. meat

So what’s the difference between spiritual milk and meat? Paul’s analogy as well as Biblical commentary in Ephesians, Hebrews and Peter suggest that just like physical food…

Spiritual milk is easy to take in, doesn’t require any real work on the part of the recipient to ingest, and is easy to digest.

Spiritual meat (solid food) requires some chewing to ingest and may take a while to digest.

For example…

Spiritual milk are the foundational truths of the Christian faith ~ the need for a Savior, repentance, salvation by faith, baptism, and the promise of eternal life through Christ (ref. Heb. 6:1-2).

Spiritual meat are those truths that require discernment to apprehend and apply ~ the balance between God’s sovereignty and Man’s free will and the solution to the dilemma of why a good God allows bad things to happen to good people.

Additionally, and I think this is where the Corinthians failed…

Spiritual milk is the knowledge of God’s word.

Spiritual meat is the application of God’s word.

Look at the issues that Paul is dealing with in his letters to the Corinthians and you’ll discover that they had lots of spiritual knowledge…

…but they weren’t actually living out that knowledge in their lives.

In short, the spiritual baby doesn’t practice what they preach.

That was the trouble with the believers in Corinth.

Ap. Families

So, Paul’s illustration of the family reminds us that God has placed within the church spiritual parents, men like Paul, Peter and Apollos whose job it is to feed the saints.

And, that the believers in any given local church are the spiritual children.

Some are mature, and some are not.

Some are growing, and some are not.

Ultimately whether you grow up or not depends on your willingness to cooperate with the work of God’s Spirit, through the teaching of His word…

…and the application of His word in your life.

Ap. What are you eating?

Obviously if you attend a church like this one you are interested in solid spiritual food!

The person who wants milk isn’t going to last here!

But, before we pat ourselves on the back and esteem ourselves as spiritually mature may I ask you with all humility…

“Are you practicing what you preach”?

One thing I’ve observed over the years is that some folks are drawn to the teaching here because they like the in-depth study of the Bible…

…but they don’t put that knowledge into practice in their lives which tells me that they are still spiritual babies.

2. Deeds ~ carnal to Christ

The other barometer of spiritual maturity is behavior.

That is we can look at the deeds in our life or another believers and discern the level of spiritual maturity by whether the deeds look more like…

…the world’s way of doing things or Jesus’.

Note what Paul writes in vs. 3 & 4…

1Cor. 3:3 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

1Cor. 3:4 For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?

His point is that their behavior…

Division, self-promotion and self-centeredness was evidence that they were still spiritual babies!

Just like a two year old who throws a temper tantrum, or a teen who believes that their parents exist to meet their every whim…

…so the person who is spiritually immature only thinks of themselves!

Quite unlike Jesus whose life was dedicated to serving others.

So, our deeds are a measure of our spiritual maturity.

Ap. Our responsibility

God has provided spiritual food for our growth.

He’s blessed His Church with men like Paul, Peter and pastors today who are called to feed us through the teaching of His Word.

But, God doesn’t force-feed us!

When we were spiritual babies He may spoon feed us…

…but there comes a time when He expects us to feed ourselves and to make sure that we chose solid spiritual food to eat and allow that food to have it’s God-given effect in our lives.

As some point we have to grow up and start acting like Jesus.

Farming (vs. 5-9a)

1Cor. 3:5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?

1Cor. 3:6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

1Cor. 3:7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.

1Cor. 3:8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

1Cor. 3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field…

√ Farming

Paul used farming for his second illustration of how God accomplishes His work on earth.

It’s a analogy that is familiar because Jesus used it in the Parable of the Soils and the Parable of the Growing Seed.

You’ll note that Paul utilized the same symbols that Jesus did so it makes it easy to grasp the illustration.

The workers (or farmers) are the Apostles, specifically Paul and Apollos.

Their work is the planting and watering of the seed of God’s word in the field, which Paul tells us in vs. 9 is the Corinthians (their hearts).

But the growth of the seed into a fruitful harvest is God’s work.

The importance of this illustration is that Paul wanted his friends at Corinth to get a Godly perspective on how God works so that they would take their eyes off of the human workers…

…and focus their praise and affection on God who makes their work fruitful.

√ God’s work

The problem with the folks at Corinth was that their perception was that Paul, Peter, Apollos and the other ministers of Jesus were in competition with one another.

But Paul points out that they aren’t competing with each other…

…rather they complemented each other!

Note vs. 6…

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”

His point is that God had given each of them a specific task to do.

Historically we know that Paul was the first to preach the Gospel message to the people at Corinth ~ he planted the seed of God’s word in their lives.

Paul then spent about a year and half teaching the small group of believers who formed the church there but was called by God to go and plant the Gospel in other communities.

After Paul left Corinth God sent Apollos to continue the work at Corinth by teaching the disciples there ~ he watered the seed that Paul planted.

As a result of their cooperative work God caused the seed of His word to grow in the lives of the people so that some of them grew into spiritual maturity.

Paul’s point to the folks at Corinth was that each minister of God played an important role in their salvation and sanctification…

…therefore, it was silly (and immature) to exalt one man over another because they were simply doing what God gave each of them to do.

So, if they wanted to praise anyone they ought to focus their affection and adoration on God who was the power behind both Paul and Apollos…

“So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. “ ~ vs. 7

The truth is that God’s work to save a person and then grow them to spiritual maturity is always a work of cooperation!

Ex. The sower and the reaper

John 4:34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.

John 4:35 Do you not say, “There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!

John 4:36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

John 4:37 For in this the saying is true: “One sows and another reaps.’

John 4:38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”

Think of your own salvation experience and you’ll see that long before you gave your life to Jesus that God had sent people into your life to prepare you for that moment.

Ap. It’s not a one man job!

You know we often get discouraged because it seems like all we do is sow the seed of God’s word, or water it…

…but we seldom see the fruit.

Don’t panic ~ that’s normal!

Often times God will use you to share with a neighbor, or a co-worker, and while you don’t see any change in their life and while they may even move out of your life…

…be content that you’ve done your part and that God will raise up someone else to bring your work to fruition.

Ex. The lady at McConnell’s

It will be great to meet her someday and share all that God has done in and through my life in part because of her faithfulness to show me kindness and to share the love of God with me.

Close

√ The workers of God

We’re called to sow and water the seed of God’s word but it’s God who makes it grow.

You have a responsibility to cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit so that you might grow into a mature believer.