Division Stunts Growth | Sermon 10/27/2024

All right, if you would, please turn with me in your Bibles to the first letter to the

Corinthians from the Apostle Paul. We're finally in chapter three. We're moving along.

We're going to be in verses one through nine today. First Corinthians, chapter three.

Title of the sermon today, church is Division Stunts Growth.

Division stunts growth. So starting in verse one, the first Corinthians, chapter three.

Hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true God. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you are not yet able to receive it.

Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly.

For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly?

And are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, I am of Paul, and another,

I am of Apollos, are you not mere men? What then is Apollos?

What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth.

Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are

God's building. Thus ends the reading of God's holy and magnificent word.

Let's pray once more before we begin. Lord, this has been an important topic for us.

We've come back and forth to division. We've come back and forth to unity in the church, to elevating certain people over others.

Lord, it's been something that you've wanted us to hear, that you wanted the Corinthian church to hear.

And I pray now, Lord, that as we go over this again, this topic, but in a new way,

Lord, that you would continue to impress upon me and your people how important it is for us to be one, how important it is for us to not be in competition, how important it is for us,

Lord, to be united, to love one another, to be long -suffering. And so,

God, please transform our thinking today. We are bred to be competitive people.

We are bred to be individuals here in this culture, Lord. But here in the church, when we have been taken and saved by Jesus Christ, that changes who we are.

And so, Lord, please conform us to the image of your Son. Please be with us now.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, church,

God causes everything to grow. Everything in the world has growth, for the most part.

That's what he's desired. He's desired growth throughout creation. Everything from the fish in the sea to the birds of the air, you have the beasts of the field, you have the trees, the grass, the flowers, the fruits, everything, but especially humans.

Everything seems to start out in our world as one size, one development, and then it grows.

Does it not? It grows. Almost everything in our world does. God even proclaimed to the man and the woman, what?

Be fruitful and multiply. So it's not that humans would grow larger, although that's a 21st century issue, but that the population would grow, right?

We would be fruitful and multiply. But then the nation of Israel came into the picture, and God said, you should grow.

I want you to grow. And as you grow, and you grow in holiness, I want all the nations of the world to stream to the mountain of Gatha.

I want the nations of the world to come too, even the Gentiles, and the world would grow in God.

That was the plan. But sin came in, and that happened to be something that could grow too.

Sin could grow. Bad things can grow. Cancer can grow. Evil things can grow.

The death toll has only grown ever since the first death in human history.

For the Corinthians, they lived in a society where each person aimed to grow as well.

But their growth would come at the expense of other people, okay? And don't get me wrong,

I'm not going to speak here today like growth is a bad thing. Growth is a very good thing. I believe that God has placed an innate sense in you to grow.

That's good. We should desire growth. But that desire to grow, and in what area of your life you grow, should be influenced by the spirit, not the flesh.

That's what we're going to talk about today. For those in Corinth, in Greece here, ascending ladders to personal success came only when you kept those who struggled to climb down at the bottom.

They would never grow. While I grow, you don't grow. While this guy grows, this person doesn't grow.

And that's how the Corinthian culture was. We've seen what they desire. We've seen that they desire achievement.

They desire eloquent rhetoric, charismatic speakers and leaders. And noble blood has been a big thing for them.

Those are their greatest desires. They've believed that those are the ways to grow. Noble blood, eloquent rhetoric, achievement.

They believe that those are the ways they become mature. But the exact opposite has happened to them.

That's what Paul's saying, okay? Go to verses 1 and 2. It says, And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ.

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able.

So what did we learn last week? We learned last week that we all have equal access to the mind of God, the wisdom of God, by what?

By the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God gives us that access to the mind of God. And in that sense,

Paul said, all believers are complete. The word was in the

NASB 95, mature. Still, though, sin puts up a roadblock to that.

It stunts the believer's growth. The spiritual person we saw can appraise all things and come to the right conclusion.

The truly spiritual person has the Holy Spirit in them and can use and have access to the mind of God, the wisdom of God, and then appraise all things and make decisions.

But they're not acting like that. They're not. He couldn't even speak to them as spiritual adults, he says.

And so Paul calls the Corinthians here two things, men or women of flesh, and infants or babies in Christ.

That's what he calls them. He doesn't call them, though this is important, he doesn't call them that basic word for someone who has a soul.

Someone who's just what he called the natural man. He didn't say, now you're the natural man.

No, they have the Holy Spirit. They haven't lost salvation. They haven't lost the

Holy Spirit. Now they need the Holy Spirit back. He doesn't call them that because, believe it or not, and I'm sure you can believe it, people who have the indwelling

Holy Spirit can often act in the flesh. Even though Christ saved us and gave us that spirit, we can still act like just mere men, mere women sometimes.

And we've seen that Paul's written all these things about being informed by the Spirit, being properly spiritual.

But then he says, it's like he's building them up. Oh, the spiritual person appraises all things.

The spiritual person has the mind of Christ, and he said, but you're acting like men and women. You're acting like regular people.

You're acting fleshly right now. And not only this, he calls them infants in Christ, babies.

So they're not acting spiritual, and what spirituality they do have is little.

They have progressed not much beyond the basic gospel message.

But even more than that, this shows that they haven't even properly comprehended the basic gospel message.

No growth, no comprehension. They're like babies. They're like toddlers.

They're acting childish is what he's saying. He's saying they're selfish. They're self -centered.

They want all the attention. That's often what children need, right? And all the while that they're self -centered, all the while they're thinking they're spiritual, they think they're very wise.

They think they're mature in the faith. So Paul demolishes that portrait.

So this is, okay, oh, this is the painting that you've made of yourself, Corinthians? Super spiritual, wise.

Okay, and Paul lights a match to it and says, nope, that's not you. You are infants.

You are acting like mere men or women. Now, what happens to a child who should receive solid food but keeps needing milk?

You ever had that? You ever had a child who they should move on to solid food? They've been on milk since they were born, obviously.

And when you bring the solid food to their mouth, they have an aversion to it. And you're like,

I don't know what to do. You go to your spouse. What do we do? They don't want banana. They don't want squash.

They don't want any of these things. Well, we better not let them starve. Give them milk.

Give them milk again. And now what happens to that child? Does that child just stay the same?

No, the child's body wants to continue to develop, continue to grow. His or her body wants to keep going, but they're not receiving the nutrients they need.

They're just receiving milk. And so what happens is they don't stay the same, and they don't grow. They regress.

They look worse. You keep a child on milk that needs solid food, and soon you'll start seeing things going wrong in their body, right?

They decline. It would be a very bad thing. And you see, in that analogy, think about it this way.

The enemy doesn't stop, okay? The enemy hasn't ceased. The enemy hasn't let up.

The world continues to assault, persecution comes, trials arise.

All these things continue even when a Christian doesn't grow. And that's true.

Church, it's not that your enemy is waiting for you to get stronger. It's that your enemy continues to grow stronger while you stay the same or grow weaker.

It doesn't stop. Your enemy keeps going to the gym, right?

Keeps developing. We can't stay stagnant. But people who think they can stay on milk when they need solid food, they often think they're already holy.

They think they've already arrived. They think they're wise. They think they're mature. And it's interesting. Jesus prays in Matthew 11, verse 25,

I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you've hidden these truths from the wise and intelligent, and you've revealed them to infants.

You see, the ones who are truly wise and mature are the ones who understand they are infants, and that they need

God's growth in their lives. And yet those who believe themselves already to be mature, already to be wise, they're the actual infants.

They're the ones without understanding. They're fussy and unteachable. And so it's irony in the highest degree.

You, I've seen it for many years. The person who sits in a pew and says, I'll go here, but I don't really need this.

I have nothing to learn from anyone here, especially my pastor. That person stays stagnant.

I've seen it. It's amazing that they're even here. I've seen the kind of guys who goes, I don't need any of this anyways, so I stay home and I learn myself.

I've got it all figured out. Those people stay stagnant. They're never challenged and they're often in sin.

The cross transforms the kind of person who sees their need.

The cross transforms the kind of person who sees their need. The person who thinks they have no need doesn't work with it.

Doesn't work. Humility is necessary. Now, it seems here the metaphors for milk and solid food appear to be pointing to something else.

And in the Bible, milk is often elementary teaching, while solid food is higher teaching.

Okay. I told you last week, we all have equal access to the mind of God. Paul's not talking about giving some of them the story of the cross.

Like, oh, you just get the gospel. And then you, this group, you get high theology.

Come over here. That's not what he's talking about with milk and solid food. In fact, we're going to see him throughout the letter of the

Corinthians talk about some really deep things. And we even see in chapters like 1

Corinthians 15, when he speaks on the resurrection and he says these words, he said, as I told you before.

And then he goes into an explanation about a deep thing of the resurrection. And so what that shows us is that Paul hasn't withheld things.

Paul isn't holding on to deep theology, giving it to some and not giving it to others.

That's not the case. We see something else going on here. All right.

They have this desire for like the synthetic chemical food of the world.

Superiority, persuasive speech, and charismatic leaders. They have reduced down the glorious and true solid food of the word of the cross of Christ.

And they've brought it down and reduced that to elementary school milk. In fact, they thought the cross wasn't deep enough for them.

That's right. They thought the cross wasn't deep enough for them. Can you believe that?

There is nothing like the cross of Christ. It's amazing. Even a child can believe on the cross of Christ.

And then all the way down the spectrum, theologians can study the deep aspects of the cross of Christ.

That's the cross. It's incredible. It can be studied ad infinitum and yet a child can understand it.

The cross is the one thing that can be understood and yet baffle the mind all at once. And so if the

Corinthians understood how glorious this cross is, how beautiful this cross is, there would be no divisions.

There would be no elevating of certain people. There wouldn't be faction making. As one commentator says, their discord caused by selfish ambitions that trample the wisdom of the cross has proved their immaturity.

The divisions are incompatible with following Christ because they emulate the world's wisdom.

It betokens their party making spirit, not the Holy Spirit. So it's not that Paul will never give them solid food.

It's that they won't see it as solid food. He gives them solid food.

They don't see it that way. If they love the wisdom of this world, if they love not the wisdom of God as they should, then it will appear as foolishness to them.

They'll see milk where they should be seeing meat. So go to verse three.

It says, For you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly?

Are you not walking like mere men? This is a church that has elevated themselves and elevated specific individuals because of supposed spiritual giftedness.

But Paul says, you're not spiritual. You're fleshly. And that's our lesson right here.

Fleshliness inhibits growth and maturity. Fleshliness in us inhibits growth and maturity.

It will keep someone in foolish infancy. Now, what does fleshly mean?

In the New Testament, that word is sarx. And sarx can mean just someone's physical body.

It can mean someone who's human. But often in the New Testament, flesh is used in a way to show someone's sin.

They're a believer, but they're acting in the flesh. Because it appears that as Christians, we have one of two ways that we could act.

We can act in the way and go down the road of God's wisdom, the way the

Spirit informs and guides and teaches. This is the righteous way. We can go the spirit way. Or the

Christian can walk down the road of their flesh. And it's that carnal, animalistic, primal desire that comes from still possessing a fallen body in a fallen world.

And that's the dilemma. You know, people read Romans chapter 7.

And Paul says, I don't do what I want to do. And I do what

I don't want to do. This flesh. Oh, if only

I could be rid of this flesh. And that's the cry of the Christian until the end. This flesh.

And that cry is in a license. That cry is a, so now I'm going to go on my knees.

And now I'm going to change by the, Lord, change me. I don't want to act fleshly.

I don't want to lust. I don't want to lie. I don't want to be jealous. I don't want to have all these things.

I don't, I don't want this anymore. And that's the cry of the Christian.

Where you have been sprinkled with clean water. You have had the blood of Christ shed for you.

You are purchased. But this body, we're waiting for it. We're waiting for,

Paul said, the new tent, the heavenly tabernacle, our new skin, he says, in a way.

That's what we're waiting, glorified bodies, that there would no longer be any sin. You see this all throughout the

New Testament. John, Paul, Peter, James, all of the New Testament writers say that the flesh is diametrically opposed to the spirit.

And how this plays out for the Corinthians specifically is in jealousy and strife.

Jealousy and strife. That's how it plays out for them. In Romans 13, verses 12 through 13,

Paul considers these sins to be deeds of darkness. He says they're opposed to the light of Christ.

Listen to this. He says, the night is almost gone and the day is near.

Therefore, let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality.

And then he says, and not in jealousy and strife. He says, these are deeds of darkness.

The light is coming though. And so if the church becomes your arena, the stadium in which you compete to become the chief

Christian, you will have just then become the lowest Christian.

And if your church becomes your stage or the platform to catapult yourself into the eyes of others,

God will turn his eyes away from you. The church is not the place to make a name of yourself.

It's to make known the name of Christ. I've seen it before.

I've seen pastors at the top of the Moses model, top of the pyramid. They get praised by everyone.

I've talked to you guys about this. I've seen men who are striving to become the next pastor or the next deacon or the next leader or whatever.

And they'll do it at all costs. They make everything a popularity contest. They sow seeds.

They twist things in their favor. And these type of men and women want to make an inner circle.

Because if there's an inner circle, then they want to be in it and they want to control who can come in and out of it.

It's unfair. It's unfair to them if everyone has equal access to their leaders.

No, they want preferential treatment. I've seen young men aspiring to the office of overseer and they consider other men who are also aspiring as a threat to their goal.

What is he doing? Why does he get to preach this Sunday? Why does he get to teach this thing?

Why am I not doing it? And I've seen it before. I've seen pastor's wives jealous, wanting to lead and teach as much as their husband.

They do. Sometimes they want to be in that role, wanting double honor.

This type of woman has run the women's studies and run women's retreats like she is the lady's elder.

It's sinful. And I'm not saying that we won't have leaders in the church in some way.

I'm saying that in these particular instances, they are acting in the flesh.

Their motivations are fleshly. You see, ladies, it happens a lot with ladies too.

Just in my experience, my observation, a lady might run a special event and it goes successfully and then another woman is mad that it went well.

They might see how a woman runs her home or practices hospitality and look for ways to cut her down.

Why not celebrate that this woman has had Christ's work in her and continue to grow in this area and that this woman might be someone worth emulating as far as she emulates

Christ. But many are jealous for what they desire. They are jealous of others in positions they want to be in.

They are jealous of others' giftings. You know, maybe you can even, it can come quick.

You could just look at another family and you could be jealous that that's not your family.

You could be jealous of their home. You can be a single person jealous of someone's marriage.

You can be jealous of other people's camaraderie. There's so many ways that we can be tempted to jealousy.

And for this reason, strife is inevitable. Strife comes.

The word is aris in the Greek. It means conflict resulting from rivalry and discord.

Conflict that results from rivalry and discord. It can be overt, but it can also be subtle.

You see, oftentimes in Greek culture, strife came by the way of just coming together with other people and you, in a subtle way, talk poorly about someone who's not there.

And you talk negatively about them. Or maybe in Greek culture, they would never have anything positive to say about one particular person.

You know, I think about some of the most horrible things that we've said.

Maybe not all the time, but there are a lot of bad things that come after. You know, I love them, but,

I love them, but, right? Sometimes there's bad things that come after that.

It can be fleshly. And he says it's walking like mere men. And it's what the world does.

It's what the world does. And the apostle reminds them of the problem that led to this in the first place.

From chapter 1, go to verse 4 in our text. And he brings this back up, the factions.

For when one says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not mere men?

So here's what he's saying. If you're going to say you're of certain men, or maybe you don't overtly say it, but you are inwardly, you are of a certain man or a certain woman, if they've been elevated for you over Christ, he's saying if it's about men and women, then you're just acting like mere men and women.

You're not acting spiritual. You're not acting like a child of God. You're just a regular man or woman.

If it's about men or women and not God, then you're not spiritual.

You're just mere men. See, because Paul and Apollos aren't of opposing groups, maybe in the world's evaluation system, but they are just servants in Jesus Christ.

You see, this is what it is. As a believer, no man or woman is just of themselves anymore.

You are not an individual anymore, folks. People say, oh, I love my individuality.

You lost that at the cross. You lost your individuality at the cross. Your identity is in Christ.

You're not a lone person anymore. You're one of the saints of the church of God.

You see, Christ and the church are our tethers. They keep us connected.

They keep us from ascending above everyone else. They keep us from falling away from everyone else.

So when we separate into camps, and we pick a talented man or woman as who we want to follow, we're then saying that we deny the unity of the church, and we deny the headship of Jesus Christ.

We act as mere men, mere men, not children of God. If you say you are of Christ and act truly as one who belongs to Christ, you won't be like a regular man or woman of this world.

You will be different. You will be spiritual in a way that the world won't be able to comprehend.

Your citizenship has changed. It's of heaven rather than of earth. And these things, these truths, these gifts, this is what's crazy is when these things happen to you, and you're spiritual, and you have the wisdom of God, and your heart's been changed, and you learn this stuff, and it becomes a part of you, it won't puff you up.

It won't make you proud. It'll actually do the opposite. It'll make you more humble. It won't inflate you.

We ought to be ashamed when we walk like mere men, especially when the world sees it.

When someone in the church walks like a mere man or woman, we ought to be ashamed.

So moving on, Paul will shift gears here. He'll bring a helpful analogy to show we are all equal in the church, no matter who you are, and yet none are like God.

God in this story is the real hero. He is the one to be elevated, not men.

So go to verses five through seven, five through seven. He says, what then is

Apollos and what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the

Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.

So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth.

Now, if you remember from chapter one, there were two others in the groups, right?

There was Paul, Apollos. Who else was there? Anyone? Yeah, Peter and Christ, Cephas and Christ.

There were four faction groups that we talked about in chapter one. And you might be wondering, why isn't

Peter and Christ mentioned here again? Well, I told you kind of before, but there is no documented record of either

Christ or Peter ever going to Corinth in Greece, okay? And so Paul and Apollos work together.

That's his point. He's not trying to resolve a real conflict between them, but he's holding himself and Apollos up as the true life examples of men who have worked together men who could have elevated themselves and made themselves look great in front of these people, but instead they work together for the cause and glory of Christ.

And so he calls themselves servants. He says, we're just diakonos, servants, those who tend to others, not those who are tended to.

And so the Corinthians have it backwards. They want to be tended to. They don't want to tend to others, but the greatest among them will be servants, not masters.

This is all to say everyone in the church, whatever gifting you have, whatever the

Lord has you to do for his kingdom or his church, it is complimentary with all the others and under God.

It is not under men. This is not against men. It is complimentary.

It is with men and women. If everyone's divided against each other, what does

Jesus say? That thing will not stand. Who's ever divided against each other, that thing will not stand.

Who is? Anyone in the church, but a servant.

Who's the highest person in the church? Not any of us.

Not even the guy that stands up front. Servants, servant, servant, servant, servant, servant, servant, servant,

Christ, our God. That's what it is. And some will be servants through whom you believed or through whom you were encouraged or through whom you were taught.

But you don't believe in men. You don't believe for men.

You don't believe in something from men. He says you believed in Christ through servants.

That's all. And just so no one elevates the one through whom they believe, Paul says it was the

Lord who ordained each appointment. He says as God gave the opportunity, it was the

Lord who caused these people to be before Paul and Apollos and believe.

God did it. God did it. God did it. And it's the same for you and me. It was

God. And so he says I planted. That's all

I did. Apollos watered. But God was causing the growth.

And so the apostle just called himself a servant. And now essentially he calls himself a farmhand.

He says the plow boy and the water boy. That's who we are. The Lord says you're going to receive my wisdom.

You're going to receive the mind of Christ. You're going to receive the

Holy Spirit. And yet you're going to be farmhands, right? The world gets none of that wisdom, but then the world wants to be kings.

And the world wants to be leaders and presidents and queens and princes and sovereigns and governors.

But they don't have the wisdom. You get the wisdom from God. You get access to the mind of God. And they don't.

But what do you get to be? You get to be servants. You get to be servants.

And it's an honor. It's an honor to serve Christ. It really is.

The lowest manual labor positions on a farm right here. So hear me out, church. Christians here and across the world.

I want to call out all Christians in this. Maybe some people who will watch later on. If we glamorize certain men, we need to stop.

There are some men in this world who want it and they search for it and they seek it and they want to be glamorized.

But the only reason they keep getting it is because people give it to them. You see what I'm saying?

If they're not going to repent, then the Christian church has to repent from glamorizing certain people and giving them fame.

These farm images would offend those type of people. These farm images were probably offensive to the

Corinthians. But it needed to be said, if they have elevated certain men in their church and these men were receiving praise as they read this letter aloud, it must have been like a slap to the face.

Now with using this analogy, Paul demonstrates a few things. Number one, the labor of one would be useless without the other.

Do you get that? A water boy watering the ground with no seeds in it, it would do nothing, right?

Then you have a guy, the plow boy puts seeds in the ground, but no one comes and waters it.

It would do nothing. They need each other. And yet in their roles, it's interchangeable.

Whoever picks up the watering can first, whoever picks up the bag of seeds first.

What we do though, is we walk hand in hand with what God put in your hand and you go to his field, you go to his building and you labor for Christ.

That's what you do. We do it together. We need each other.

Without one another, without you doing what you do, then what I do would be rendered obsolete.

It'd be rendered to nothing. It'd be nullified. Without doing what I do, what you do would also fall flat.

We've all got to do it. We all do our part. What God has called you to. And yet not one of us is better because of your calling.

The water boy isn't better. The plow boy isn't better. No one is better except one,

God alone. Many of you know, you can plant something, you can water that thing.

Who here has planted something and watered it and then nothing, still nothing happened?

Pretty much anyone who's ever tried gardening in their life. You can plant something and water it and then it'll still not work or grow.

And you see, what makes that thing shoot up? What makes that photosynthesis occur from the sun?

What makes that plant somehow absorb nutrients from the soil, the right conditions, the fruitfulness, everything?

He says that's from God. That's all God. He was the cause that made the effect.

You think about it. Where do the planters get the seeds? From God. They come from God's creation.

Where do waterers get water? Either from rain, rainfall, or they go to some body of water, a lake nearby, or they dig a hole in the ground and there's an underground pool of water that wells up and that's where they get it.

But it all came from God. It's always God. The credit always goes upward, my friends.

And he said it at the end of chapter one. He said, what? No man may boast before God. And so in the end, the planter and waterer are nothing.

The one who performed this amazing feat of causing one who is dead to now be alive is

God. It is God. He says, see yourself as nothing.

See yourself as nothing while God in his rightful place is everything.

And God then will cause you to unite in fellowship with others. If you see yourself as nothing and God is everything, you will not divide with your brothers and sisters.

The more you think your needs and your desires are more important than others or say

God's, the more you will isolate yourself from God and his church. In fact,

I have an example of that. I once knew a man a long time ago, long time ago, even before this church plant.

He wasn't in leadership of any form, but he was upset that he wasn't. And even more than that, he was upset when the pastors would have to have a private elder meeting to go over some issue in the church.

And he was actually mad that he wasn't invited into it to witness it. If he saw, if this man saw somehow on social media that other families were sharing a dinner together or went to an event together, or if he heard it the following Sunday, oh, you got together and he never received an invitation, he was upset with them.

He was upset. He couldn't make it to every private event who can, right?

But he always wanted to be invited, always, to be considered important.

And I'm telling you, he was highly included, highly included.

He was brought into so many things in the church but it was never enough, never enough.

All this led to him becoming unfairly bitter with others. Strife was abounding.

And he started to have even anger outbursts with the pastors. He saw himself as everything, not as nothing, as Paul said.

It was never enough. He wanted everything. And when you can't, because you can't give those type of people everything.

Even if you gave them everything, it would never be enough. And so eventually he pulled away.

He went to another church and he spoke ill of every single person that he claimed to love at his old church.

And I've never seen that type of entitlement since then, but it ate him up. It ate him up.

We've been talking about growth today and it was a cancer inside of him. It was growing in him.

He lost sight of who he was. But more importantly, he lost sight of who God was.

And that God deserved all that attention. If he sought God more than he sought all that praise and coming together with men and women, then he wouldn't have been in his circumstance.

So it's important to remember, we're the same according to St. Paul, not one above another.

He says in verse 8, now he who plants and he who waters are one.

We are one. One in purpose, one in goal, one in Christ.

What I want is what you want. And what you want is what

I want. We want to see the gospel save everybody on this earth.

Right? There's no need for division or factions or competition when we all want the same thing.

The problem comes in though, when someone doesn't want the same thing as Scripture.

Now you say, isn't the problem when I want something and someone else wants something? Well, unless what you both want is not what's in Scripture.

But if someone wants what God wants and the other doesn't, then that's where our issue is.

We ought to all want what God wants. It starts there.

He defines what we should want. And so let me put this into perspective for you before we finish out the sermon today.

We saw in verse 5 that God assigned the task, planting and watering.

In verse 6, we saw God was giving the growth. In verse 7, we saw the

God who causes the growth is everything while the laborers are nothing. And now in verse 8,

God is the field owner who will give out rewards to the laborers.

Do you see that? It says in verse 8, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

As Morris says, laborers will be rewarded not according to their success, but according to the work.

You hear that? That should be an encouragement to you. Laborers will be rewarded according to their work and not their success.

That's key. That's an encouraging fact even in the driest of times. Now, Paul will expound quite a bit more fully on rewards on the day of judgment for believers in the text next week, for our sermon next week.

But for now, the point Paul is making is that once again, it's all

God's prerogative. Don't worry about praising certain men. We will all labor for the

Lord. We all labor for our God and the Lord will judge our works and the

Lord will deliver what rewards he desires to give his people on the final day.

We'll talk about what that is, what those rewards are next week. But the key is, this shouldn't make you compete against each other, but compete against the flesh, the world, and the devil and their devices, not one against the other.

I want all the rewards. You just lost them then. You just lost them then.

I want the rewards. No, the one who wants Christ, the one who wants unity, the one who wants righteousness, the one who does deeds for God after being saved, of course.

They are the ones who get the rewards, not the one who strives for the rewards. I'll get them.

I'll get more than you. Then you've just lost them. You've just lost them. I should want you to have many rewards in Christ and you should want the same for me.

Now for our final verse. Go to verse nine. For we are

God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. We are co -workers under God.

We are not independent contractors. We share in the equality of nothingness under God's everythingness.

Think about it this way. You ever take in a rope and maybe as a kid you were bored and you started pulling off all the strands and you could see on a thick rope, there's a lot of strands, are there not?

But that's what we are. You are a strand on the rope of God. Weak, weak without the other strands.

Strong when bound together. That's what the church is. We are the rope of God.

We are not independent strands separate from one another. We are, the word is synergoi.

It's where we get the word synergy. S -Y -N -E -R -G -Y.

Synergy. The togetherness that God made. We are God's synergoi.

The prefix S -Y -N means something that is used to be separate, brought together.

And then of course, ergoi is work. Working together.

We work with each other. And that doesn't mean that we just simply work alongside one another because a team that works alongside each other can be a team different, can be different from a team that works together.

You think about it, very different. Have you ever seen that in sports maybe? You can see that in the workplace.

You can see that when contractors make a building. You can see that in military objectives or when farmhands work the field.

You see, when people are just working alongside each other at the same task, it's not gonna be as good.

It won't work for long. But when we're actually working together, that's all the difference.

That's all the difference. And so he says, the Corinthians and all of us are God's field.

You are the wheat. We are bearing fruit, wheat grains.

There are tares, tares among us in this world. We are

God's field. And one day he will harvest us and bring us to him.

We are God's building, he says. Stones that were brought together to make what was once individual materials.

And now you've been brought and you've been made one whole building of God, the habitation of God.

Next week, the apostle will speak on how and what we use to make that building together.

And what he's gonna tell us is the master inspector, God himself will judge the quality of our building.

For now, let's end on these few reminders in my conclusion. You gotta remember church,

God is growing you. He's growing you even now. What does the word say? He tells us he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in Christ Jesus.

You will grow to full maturity. The scripture says in Thessalonians that the

God of peace will sanctify you completely. Everything that you need, you will receive.

All the growth that you should have, God will give you. He will cause the increase.

The growth comes from the Lord, but do not be deceived church. Jealousy, strife, division, man worship.

These things are like a cold snap. On our growth, they're like the scorching of a hot sun.

They set you back. Thank God that they don't kill us completely, but they set you back.

Don't let them. Listen, when you try to grow yourself with your methods over God's methods, you will either stay stagnant or regress in growth.

That's the truth. And so to go along with the oneness that we see in our text today, look out for this.

This is important. If you ever see what you think is growth in yourself while you notice your family and the church is struggling to grow, then

I would question what you're actually growing into. But if the church and your family and everyone around you is growing and you're growing, then that means you're actually growing under the spirit of God.

You're not growing in these carnal, natural methods that Paul talks about.

You're actually becoming spiritual. We need to look for that because it kind of comes in different ways.

You ever meet people who say in the church, you know, I just need a me season right now.

I need a me season. I need to focus on my growth now. My growth is what's important now.

Well, as soon as you say that, as soon as you pull away from the church and you say it's a me season and you don't help others in the church or your family grow around you, you will not grow.

It works the opposite. It's a me season. I've got to focus on myself right now.

I've got to get better. I'm telling you, there are so many people who

I've met in ministry where some of their biggest problems is they keep serving themselves.

Yeah, they're reading the Bible, they're praying, but they don't ever pour into other people. And so they're wondering why they're struggling in these other areas of life.

But it's hard to serve other people. Conflicts can come. Division can come.

It's easier for you to be alone. It's easier for you to be by yourself and have your me season.

But the true growth, and I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I've seen it. The true growth comes when you leave that me season and you enter into the season where we walk water and can, bag of seeds to God's field.

When we do it together, that's when this grows. That's when you grow. That's all the difference.

That's what you need to know. And let me encourage you.

If you feel like you haven't been growing for a while now, examine yourself.

See if you're stuck in the me season. See if you've been acting in the flesh.

See if you're in jealousy and strife. These are real things that inhibit your growth. Examine yourself.

But number two, maybe you've just had a small crop.

I want you to know that's still fruit. You're going to go through seasons in this

Christian life where there's just a couple fruit hanging on the tree.

And sometimes there's a lot. Sometimes there's the bumper crop. But sometimes there's not a lot.

But I don't ever want you to forget you're still growing. And so as much as you and I may weed our gardens, never forget that God causes the growth.

You could weed your garden all you want, but we need God to cause the growth. So if you're not growing lately, don't look inward.

Look upward. You know, is it any wonder that in Genesis, God is walking in a garden with man?

Is it any wonder that we saw in the gospel, according to John, the day

Jesus rose from the grave, he was walking in a garden and he was confused as being the gardener?

Is it any wonder that at the end of Revelation, it says one day in the new creation, from the throne of God will come a river and on each side of the banks of the river will be trees of life.

With leaves that are for the healing of the nations, with fruit that never falls and never spoils.

We, my friends are going from garden to garden and God will grow you.

He says in one of my favorite verses, John 15 five, I am the vine.

You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. But apart from me, you can do nothing.

It's God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for today.

We thank you for your word and God, even though you prune us, you never sever off the trunk.

You never pull us out from the roots. The root is Christ. We are connected to the vine.

Our Lord Jesus, we abide in him and he abides in us and we need that.

We need that, Lord. And so God, do the pruning in our lives that we need and fertilize where we need.

And Lord, cause the growth in us, cause the increase, Lord, and let not division and strife and jealousy, these things that isolate us, these things that pull us away,

Lord, this fleshliness, let us repent from these things. Come back and be with you and your church,

Lord. God, it is hard to live this Christian life with all these other people, but it is the best way.

It is your way. It is the prescribed way. It is the way that you will make us grow.

And so Lord, please bless us as we go out today. Help us to recall these things in our spirit, in our hearts, in our minds.

Help us to live these out by the empowerment of the spirit. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

All right, with that said, let's go ahead and take up the Lord's table today. If you're a baptized believer in the

Lord Jesus Christ, this table is open to you. Please come and partake in joy of the fruit of the vine, the wine here, and joy of the bread that is here.