WWUTT 1464 Review of 1 Corinthians 3 (Part 1)

Hey friends, I'm on the road this week, but in keeping with our study through 1 Corinthians, I'll be playing clips from the sermon series that I did through that book, rejoicing in the message of the cross, the power of God for salvation, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

For when one says, I follow Paul, and another says, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the

Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.

For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building.

All God's people said, Amen. Thank you. You may be seated. Over the weekend my son came to me and said,

Daddy, I want to go outside and I want to work in the backyard. That's hard enough to get your kids to do any kind of labor, so I was going to take the opportunity.

I said, okay, let's go. So we'll go into the backyard and we'll go back into our wooded area back behind the house and I'll take my axe and the pruning shears and I'll give

Zeej the hatchet and we'll go back there and we'll start lopping off some branches. So Zeej has enjoyed kind of getting into some of the wooded area and where some of the rock ledges are and doing some exploration and things.

We have a fairly spacious backyard for the most part. It's just that 80 % of it is on a 40 degree slope.

So it's kind of difficult for the kids to be able to run back and forth and things like that in the yard. And Zeej is only just being able to find his footing on that slope.

Aria, however, who just turned two in October, is not so sure -footed in navigating that slope.

Some of the rocks and trees and things like that that are back there. But she wants to spend time with daddy and she wants to be back there with her big brother and so she'll try her hardest to include herself in the work that we were doing.

So Zeej and I, we got down there and he's kind of finding a place down at the bottom of the slope and I'm picking up where I left off last, trimming some of the branches away.

Aria wanders her way out there and stands at the top of the yard and is looking down and the first little bit of dirt there is too slick.

It did just rain recently so she knows that she can't step onto that and be able to make it down safely. She's going to slip and fall.

And so she calls to me and eventually she calls enough times that I leave my tools where they are and I come up and get her and I bring her down to a place where I think that her feet are going to find a little bit more stable ground.

And I set her there. I said, okay, you doing okay? And she's like, yeah. I was like, all right. So I go back to where my tools are and I resume my work again.

Well, Aria just kind of stands there and for the most part, she's satisfied. I'm close enough to dad and to Zeej. I'm closer than I was up there at the top of the slope anyway.

But after she tries her feet a few different places and can't seem to find her ground, she calls out to me again.

And so I pick her up and I take her to where I'm at and I set her down and I continue to work again. But as I finished my work there,

I'm moving further down the slope and Aria can't go any further than where she is. So she realizes daddy is getting further away and I can't get there and so she calls out to me again.

Well, this is time that I'm spending with my son. So I'm either going to have time with Zeej or I'm going to have time with Aria, but one of them is going to get left behind.

So I decided since this was Zeej's idea for us to be out working that I was going to spend time with him.

So I had to take Aria back up to the top of the slope and leave her there. And I said, I'm sorry, sweetheart, I have to leave you here. Well, her heart was broken and of course she cried and daddy's not able to comfortably do what

I was there to do because my daughter is crying up at the top of the slope. But she's just not old enough yet.

Her legs not enough developed, her mind not confident enough to believe that she can navigate those slopes safely and be able to keep up with dad and with Zeej.

So I found something to do with her later in the day. She likes to go shopping with daddy. And so we went to the grocery store to pick up things for lunch and also things for our potluck today.

By the way, I'll try to keep this as short as possible because I know those smells from the kitchen are starting to waft up here and make everybody hungry.

We ran into Tom while we were there at the grocery store picking some things up. That was daddy -daughter time because she knew that she couldn't be out there with daddy and Zeej on the hill, but found something else that I could do with my daughter.

So as we grow up and as we mature, there are things that we are able to do that we could not do before.

And just like this applies to us physically and mentally, it also applies to us spiritually as well.

The Apostle Paul knows that who he's talking to in Corinth, they are spiritually immature.

They are not able to navigate rocky terrains of theology. They are not able to climb the slopes of more difficult doctrines.

But they are infants in the faith, needing the pure spiritual milk first before they have matured into being able to eat the tough meat of the

Scriptures. And so the Apostle Paul, at the end of chapter 2 where we were last week, is addressing them with some difficult spiritual truths.

You have in verse 9 of chapter 2 where Paul says, And then getting into comprehending the thoughts of God.

Who can comprehend the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God? And we've received not the Spirit of the world, but the

Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given to us by God.

In verse 14, Paul says the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him.

And he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the

Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So there are difficult doctrinal truths that Paul wants to teach to the

Corinthians. There are difficult doctrinal truths that the Corinthians think they understand before they even know them.

And so this is part of the problem of what's going on in Corinth, is they think that they're smarter than they really are.

And so they're grasping on to certain teachers and boasting about those teachers, well I follow Apollos, well

I follow Paul, well I follow Cephas, well I follow Christ, none of that is honorable, it is all boasting in the flesh.

I follow the better teacher, so I know better than you do. When Paul is talking about these deep spiritual truths that he means to teach the

Corinthians, we then get to chapter 3 where he says, But, but, but I brothers,

I couldn't address you as spiritual people. There are these deep spiritual things that you want to know.

There are deep spiritual things which you think you know. But I can't teach you those things yet.

You're not there. You're still infants in the faith. It's like you were born again yesterday.

And so I need to give you pure spiritual milk. I need to feed you the basics.

Not solid food, for you're not yet ready for it.

And even now you're not yet ready, for you're still of the flesh. There's jealousy and strife among you.

So Paul's not even in Corinth, he's writing to them from Ephesus. So Corinthians are going, well how do you know?

How can you know whether or not we're ready for it? You spent a year and a half with us, I mean we got to learn from you.

We've heard from Apollos, we've heard from Peter. What else is there for us to know? How do you know that we're still in the flesh and we're not of the spirit?

And Paul says, I know because there is jealousy and strife among you. If there is jealousy and strife within the body of Christ, people who are warring between one another because of the teachers that they follow, you're behaving in a fleshly way.

This is not a spiritual thing. So because you're still so fleshly minded, because you still think of things in the flesh,

I know that you are not yet spiritually mature to receive those deep spiritual truths. And I need to feed you the basics again until Christ is formed in you, the way that Paul communicated it with the

Galatians. When I first came to First Southern Baptist Church, it was as the worship leader.

And I did teach some classes at that time. I was teaching Bible study out of my own home and there were a couple of classes

I taught here at the church. We even incorporated learning music into the Psalms. So I taught a guitar class and we went through the

Psalms while we were learning guitar and the Psalms. So there was some teaching that I was doing even though I wasn't in that head teaching capacity.

And then once Pastor Nate left to plant the church in Kentucky and I took over in the interim position, even then there were things

I knew that if I taught those things, there was no way that I would ever be made the head pastor of this church.

Like if I jump right into talking about the doctrine of reprobation, superlapsarianism, whether Romans 7 was a pre -conversion or post -conversion experience and we went through premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism, and these were the kinds of things that we were talking about in that window between September and February before I was installed as the senior pastor.

I never would have been hired. Everybody would have been totally lost. Superlapsarianism, what are you talking about?

I don't even find that word in the Bible. What is that? But these are truths that we mature into understanding.

We learn the basics. We get the basic doctrines. We lay the foundation of spiritual growth.

And then as the church matures, as the body of Christ grows in their knowledge and understanding, so does our reception of some of those deeper spiritual concepts.

And the Apostle Paul is saying here to the Corinthians, there are things that I want to teach you. And there are things which, as Christians, you must learn.

You must be knowing and you must grow in your understanding of these concepts. But I couldn't address you that way.

I can't address you as spiritual people. I have to address you as infants in Christ.

Now he says here in verse 1, I have to address you as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I think that's a very important distinction. Because when Paul is writing to the Corinthians at the very beginning of the letter, he is thankful to them for the salvation that they have in Christ.

He's thankful to the Corinthians. Despite the fact that there's all these problems, he's going to spend two -thirds of the letter confronting with the problems that are going on in Corinth.

He's nonetheless thankful for these people who have been rescued out of their paganism and into the life -saving gospel of Jesus Christ.

He's thankful for this people. And they do produce fruit. There is fruit.

There is evidence of their conversion in this church, and the fact that other pagans around Corinth are being converted from their paganism into Christianity.

So the fruit of the gospel of Christ is there in this church.

Paul has no reason to believe that they're not saved. But it has come to him from Chloe's people, some of the strife and the conflicts that are happening within this church, and word has gotten back to him about this.

So there are some mature Christians there who are growing and are teaching the rest of the church in Corinth, but then there are others that are given over to wild, vain concepts.

Just these ideas that they're coming up with themselves off the top of their heads, and they're divided over the different teachers that they want to follow.

And so Paul has to rebuke them because they're behaving in a human way. You're citizens of the kingdom, and yet you're still acting like citizens of this world.

And so Paul is not saying to them, when he addresses them as a people of the flesh, he's not saying they're not saved.

Because he says you're infants in Christ. So clearly they're Christians. They're just very immature

Christians. So now there has to be a return to the basics, a feeding you with milk and not solid food.

And how basic do we get here? Well, you get all the way to 1 Corinthians 15, and we just start talking about the truth, the apologetic arguments related to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's right near the end of the letter. So Paul's going back to some of the more basic, basic concepts.

Stay away from idolatry. Stay away from sexual immorality. You need to be united together. You need to not boast in your spiritual gifts, but it's in service to one another in the body of Christ.

You get to 1 Corinthians 13, he has to even tell them what love is. Because they're not doing it right.

So everything we read about love in the love chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, the Corinthians were doing the opposite.

And Paul has to tell them what love is all over again. And then 1 Corinthians 15, you have one of the heaviest apologetic arguments related to any subject in the

New Testament, and he presents the apologetic for the truthfulness of the resurrection of Christ. But it's going back to topics and subjects as basic as that, as he's teaching these

Christians some of the more elementary truths of the gospel before they can grow up into deeper concepts.

Let's look at another address related to this in Hebrews chapter 5. So keep your finger here in 1

Corinthians 3. Let's go over to Hebrews chapter 5. Hebrews chapter 5, and right at the end of the chapter, so it's verses 11 through 14.

You see this spoken about, again in another way, addressing a different people. And this group of people, while the

Corinthians were a combination of Gentiles and Jews and their heritage, the Hebrews were the

Hebrew people. So that's who's being addressed here in this particular letter. Hebrews chapter 5, beginning in verse 11.

The writer of Hebrews says about this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain.

So we've gone from talking about Jesus, who is the great high priest. He's the great high priest.

The priest for the Jews, this is what the priest would do on Yom Kippur, the holy of holies, how he would atone for the sins of the people.

Jesus is our great high priest. We now have access to the throne of God because of our great high priest,

Jesus Christ, who atoned for our sins. And now through him, we are able to have fellowship with God.

Jesus is our fellowship with God. And so as these concepts are being presented to the

Hebrew people, you have in verse 11 an address that sounds very similar to what we're reading in 1 Corinthians 3.

Verse 31. About this we have much to say to you, but it's hard to explain, since you've become dull of hearing.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, some of you ought to even be teachers by this point, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

We got to go back and learn the alphabet again. Let's do your ABCs. Let's learn how to read and write, then you move up into cursive, then you start moving into diagramming sentences and stuff like that.

So we got to go back to the basic concepts here. You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.

This is a concept that we're going to become very familiar with, beginning at least as late as tomorrow in our household, when we bring another infant into our home and go through the process again of growing up in milk and changing diapers and learning to walk and learning to talk and some of these things, which is a joy to go through that process.

It's a labor of love, but we go back to the basics once again with another child that we bring into our home.

I remember a pastor friend of mine, Joe Novenson, a number of years ago, was talking about the importance of discipleship within the church.

And I remember him using this illustration. He said, imagine if a family has a brand new baby child and they bring the baby home and dad brings the other kids into the living room and says to them, well, here's your new little baby sister.

And so we're going to have a family meeting here and we're going to teach your baby sister where everything is at. Over here is where the diapers are.

If you need food, food's in the cabinet. If you need somebody to help you make it, just be sure you let somebody know.

Here's TV over here. You got the TV guide if you want to sit down and watch something. You're expected to self -educate.

So over here is where we have our education books. Here's the Bible over here for you to read and learn some of these spiritual truths for yourself and make yourself at home.

We got a room down the hall. You're set up with your sister. Your clothes are folded there on the bed.

Everything's ready for you to go. So welcome to your new home. And one of the siblings speaks up and goes, dad, we tried this again with one of our previous siblings.

That didn't exactly work out. No, no, no, it's okay. This is the way things need to be done. She needs to learn how to be self -sufficient.

So here's everything in the home and, you know, help yourself. Need to help out with some of the chores.

Maybe you'll have to pay rent one of these days as well, but we'll take it easy on you while you're here. How long is that child going to survive in that home?

And yet in the church, we expect Christians the same, we kind of treat them the same way.

Somebody who is new in the faith. Hey, well, you know, Sunday school class down here. Pick one, whichever one you want to be a part of.

We've got Bibles back there. Sit, listen to the sermon. If you have any questions, just ask us afterward, you know, come find somebody.

Hey, do you need to be baptized? Well, there's the water, go jump in there. These are some of the things that we do sometimes when it comes to discipleship.

We don't want to be bothered with growing anybody. As long as you've been converted, we know we've done the work that is necessary to bring you into the faith.

The rest you do on your own. And it is not the way that the body of Christ is expected to grow one another in the faith.

The members of the body of Christ, each part of the body serving the other parts of the body so that we are all grown and knit together in love into the head who is

Christ Jesus, as Paul illustrates in Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, and other places. We grow up together in Christ.

And so there is an expectation that as brothers and sisters in Christ, we are helping to meet one another's needs.

You know, when somebody is baptized back here, that's not just something that we observe happen and then we go, yay, another baptism.

We can take another mark and we look more impressive to the KNCSB when we have one more baptism in our belts, you know, or one more tab

I can put in my Bible to represent a baptism that we've had this year. What this represents is a person who is appealing to God for sanctification, according to what

Peter says to us in 1 Peter 3, and that we as the body of Christ witness this plea before God to grow up in sanctification.

And we as a body say to that person, I'm going to help you do that. That's why we have baptisms before the whole body of Christ.

So you can see and observe a new member in the body, somebody who is an infant in the faith and somebody who needs help growing spiritually in the

Lord. And so you know there are, you know, you've heard the expression, kid gloves, got to handle a person with kid gloves on.

So you know that there is a person who is new to concepts of grace that needs to be handled a little bit differently than a person who is more mature in their understanding of grace.

And you're not going to be overbearing on that person and think that they should get this by now.

They're an infant. They're an infant in the faith. So I'm going to help you to understand more of these deep concepts, these deep spiritual truths.

I tell you that a church is a dysfunctional church if the expectation of the church is for everybody to be at a certain level of maturity.

A functional church is going to have people who are really mature and people who are really not mature.

People who are being baptized as infants in the faith and then the rest of the church congregation comes around that person so that they might grow in these spiritual concepts.

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