1 Corinthians 4:6-17 A Call to Less Clout

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his sermon series titled First Corinthians, Sinful Church, Powerful Gospel. Let's listen in.

Welcome and Call to Worship

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and we're going to go ahead and get started. I recognize that some of you are still out in the lobby and some of you in the back, so if you can find your seats here in a little bit, that'd be great.

And when you walked in, you received a connection card. For those of you that aren't around here very much, there's a connection card there. You can fill that out if you're willing to share your information.

Hand that to the person at the welcome table. They would love to give you some Recast swag, maybe a t-shirt or a coffee mug or something like that, your choice. And then if we don't pass an offering plate here, but you received an envelope, you can either recycle that there if you choose to give.

You can put something in there and then put that in the giving slot that's actually in the top of that table that's out there, the welcome table, if you choose to give. We don't want anybody to feel pressured into that.

We want that to be between you and God. It is a spiritual act, but it is an act between you and God. It's really good to be back after a week of surgery. I am recovering well. A lot of people have asked, so I really appreciate that.

There's nothing quite like a week of pain and incapacitation to remind us just how weak we actually are. And so, but I'm recovering well and just got the green light on Friday. Went for my first bike ride again yesterday and feeling okay.

So, we're going to come together. When we come together this morning, we're going to celebrate the God within whom there is no weakness. He never has to have surgery. Amen? Like that's super good. So, I hope we're here in this room united by anticipation for what God wants to do and wants to say to us each this morning.

He's going to speak to us through each other. I don't know if you think about that. I don't know if you prepare for that. I don't know if you plan for that, for God to use you in the lives of others when you gather here, but also to use others in your lives to speak to you.

He's also going to speak to us through the songs. That's a powerful way. And I mean, I don't know if anybody here is like me, but go ahead and raise your hand if you're sometimes emotionally moved a bit in worship.

Like, does that ever get to your heart, ever get into your gizzard, you know? I hope it kind of gets to you at times and you feel that. That's a good thing. Emotions are also God-given. And He will speak to us through the songs and also through empowering our emotions in that.

And then also, obviously, He's going to speak to us through His powerful Word. So, His Word is mighty and has the power to transform and change us. And so, this morning, we're going to come to a text that wraps up a major theme in 1 Corinthians.

Paul is…. Paul in this text is fairly harsh. The Corinthian church has been arrogant. They've been divisive. They have been boastful. The word that we encounter in verse 6 for the Corinthian church in the text is puffed up, puffed up, kind of arrogant and like banging their chest.

We might say that the church has been getting too big for their britches. And it's interesting the way that Paul concludes this discussion on divisions and favoritism and arrogance. He utilizes some sarcasm, some harshness.

And he does so to direct their attention to the way of Christ, the way that Christ did things. The way that Paul has been seeking to model ministry has been the way of Christ. Worldly wisdom will make plans.

Worldly wisdom will execute those plans and get stuff done and owns all the growth and owns all the good things and says, this has been me. And the world's way is to follow strong leadership. And we think about what our expectations are in the realm of leadership.

We expect politicians to tout their own accomplishments. In the corporate world, people seek to build up resumes and to rub shoulders and network with the people who are high up and have a lot of clout.

And if we're not careful within the church, there will be an equal appeal to worldly power, to worldly fame, to worldly influence, giving ourselves credit that we don't deserve. And Paul is seeking to offer another way of ministry here, another way to act as a church, another way that I would like to see us continue on in Recast.

In our text, we will see a call to less clout, a call to sacrificial service, a call to take up our crosses and follow our Lord to the place of execution. And Paul, as a real flesh and blood man, will have the gumption to call the Corinthians to imitate him even as he demonstrates what it looks like to take up his cross and follow Jesus to that place outside of Jerusalem.

This text will speak to us as we consider our own unique calling to serve one another. It reminds us to serve in the way of sacrifice. It will also speak into our expectations of leaders, a leader who is seeking to make a name for himself as a dangerous leader and one who is not following the clear calling on leaders in chapters 1 through 4 of 1 Corinthians, something for us to be aware of, something for us to think about.

And maybe the most easily overlooked thing that this text should make us consider is the way that Jesus advanced his mission to save and to rescue. It was through simplicity, through humility, through suffering, through love, through humble sacrifice.

So, let's open our Bibles or your scripture journals or your devices to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 6 through 17. Again, 1 Corinthians 4, 6 through 17. And just a reminder to everybody, if you have the Recast app, you can open it up, you refresh it, and the very first thing that you're going to see there is a sermon slide.

You click that, it takes you right to the text, and there's notes available, a place to take notes there. So, that's an easy way to keep notes if you don't have any other means. But 1 Corinthians 4, 6 through 17, Recast God's precious and holy word to us this morning.

The Corinthians' Pride and the Call to Stay Within What Is Written

I've applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.

For who sees anything different in you? What did you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? 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. For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death because we become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.

We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour, we hunger and thirst. We are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, not buffeted.

My mind was going to say buffeted there and that wasn't right. Buffeted and homeless. And we labor working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. When slandered, we entreat.

We have become and are still like the scum of the world in the refuse of all things. I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers.

For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you then be imitators of me. That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere in every church.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for a word that corrects so many problems in our hearts, so many problems in our culture, deals with the things that we really face day in and day out, doesn't pull any punches, but goes straight for the problems.

Father, I pray that you would work in each one of us to recognize our calling to serve one another out of love, out of sacrifice, to serve our communities out of love and out of sacrifice, to serve the world at large and those outside of the walls of this church with love and sacrifice, even when we are persecuted and even when we are reviled, even when others would insult us and look down upon us, that we would entreat with kindness, with love, with compassion, all because of what Christ has done for us, all because of His model, all because of His example.

Father, no man is equal to this task. Not any woman in this room is equal to the task of rising up to be the person who says, imitate me, follow me, and yet in Christ you choose to do so. And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to see the things that you desire for us to connect to our own lives from this text and even from these songs and even from one another this morning during connection time as we have conversations and check-ins with each other.

Father, I pray that you would speak to each one of our hearts this morning, something that you desire to encourage, something you desire to change, something you desire to rebuke, something you desire to redefine for us, Father, that your Word would have its way in each one of our hearts.

We thank you for the opportunity we have to sing praise to you now because only you are worthy. Amen. Make yourself comfortable but reopen your Bibles, your devices, your journals to 1 Corinthians 4, verses 6 through 17.

And if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts, or use the restrooms, you're not going to distract me if you need to do so. Start off with a question, who do we follow in this world?

Who do we follow in this world? Now, there's a correct answer to that question and just about every single kid back in Recast Kids could answer that for us this morning at face value. The reason being because every kid knows that the answer to every Sunday school question is Jesus.

That's right. It's always, when in doubt, answer Jesus, you know. And like I joke, sometimes it doesn't work for who built the ark, but kind of. So, you know, you kind of get a couple questions in there.

But I want to confess that this passage has been a hard one for me. I'm just going to tell you outright at the beginning. I have often toyed with and struggled with an unbiblical thought at the point of Paul's admonition to the Corinthians to imitate him in verse 16.

I'm sharing a little bit of my heart and a little bit about how I'm putting together in this. But my heart would want to cut out the middleman. And Paul saying, imitate me. Why imitate Paul? Why can't we just cut to the chase?

And why doesn't he just say, imitate Jesus? Why doesn't he just say that and leave things the way that it feels more comfortable, particularly to me as a church leader? Isn't it dangerous to imitate mere humans?

I'd say, yeah, there's some danger in that for sure. And further in our current culture, there's been a complete disdain for any authority or any structures of leadership or any kind of institutional leadership.

And wouldn't it be better to just skip this altogether, Don? Couldn't you just move on to another passage? Yet, the fact that this passage has Paul encouraging the church in Corinth to imitate him shows what I believe are at least two things about the way that God has designed his church to function and the way that church leaders work.

He wants us to be in relationship with one another. He wants us to be learning and growing from one another. He has left us a book, but he has not merely left us a book. It is a book that guides us, but it is a book that guides us into behavior together, how to live out this life together.

The Christian life is not one of getting alone with a good book and just mining it for theory and mining it for truth and mining it for ourselves. But the Christian life is one of digging into God's Word and then practicing it in increased holy life of fellowship together, in love for one another, in bearing up with one another, in encouraging one another, in rebuking one another, in life together.

But the second thing that I see in this injunction to imitate Paul is that God is pleased to give us models and examples of broken people, emphasis on broken, but broken people leading others in a humble and Christlike way in our modern context.

What is a church elder? An elder is a called out sheep from among the flock who is set in the midst of the flock as an example of living for Jesus in this contemporary moment. And that example even extends to the way that an elder deals with their own sin, the way that they handle that, the way that they confess it, the way that they seek forgiveness.

Not a perfect person held up as an example, but a broken person held up as an example. Paul, a broken person, held up as an example in his context just like elders are held up in our current context. Our text is wrapping up this section on divisions within the local church and for those of you who enjoy outlining and enjoy kind of details and taking notes, we have three movements in this text.

The first, that God is interested in knocking the wind out of our sails. That's the first point, knocking the wind out of our sails, verses 6 through 8. Second, God reveals to the apostle Paul his plan in the second point, modeling the way of Christ, verses 9 through 13.

And third is the final call to imitating the ways of Christ, verses 14 through 17. So it's knocking the wind out of our sail, modeling the way of Christ, imitating the way of Christ through his chosen leaders.

Deflating Boasting and Sticking to the Word

So we'll start with knocking the wind out of our sail because that's what Paul and the Holy Spirit seems interested in doing here at the start. Paul begins by setting himself and Apollos up as examples in verse 6.

They have taken in all the cautions and he says, I've applied all of this to me and my friend Apollos who has ministered among you, Corinth. And they've taken in all those cautions that we saw in the previous paragraphs a couple of weeks ago in 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

They have applied to themselves, I'll kind of rehearse them a little bit for you here, the types of things that leaders ought to apply to themselves is first the great value that God gives to his church.

They've applied that to themselves with a deep caution and a deep thought about how God loves his church. They have to be careful about the way that they minister there. They've applied to themselves a deep caution against godless wisdom.

We don't apply godless wisdom in the attempt to continue on in God's kingdom in his church. They value the simplicity of the cross. They've applied to themselves the status of mere servants and stewards in the church.

They have not bought their own hype. They don't believe their own PR spin. They actually believe that they are just merely stewards of the kingdom of God. Merely stewards of the things that God has written and recorded for us.

And they are not seeking to build up their own little mini kingdoms. They are ministering out of the knowledge that they will give an account to Jesus. That's the final thing from our text last time together in 1 Corinthians.

They will give an account to Jesus as their rightful judge. That's true of all of us. So they have taken to heart all that they have been preaching to the church. And a personal moment if I may, this extensive passage from chapter 1 through 4 has been really good for my heart.

I have never taken credit for the things that God has done here at Recast. And let me just encourage you, if you ever hear the words out of my mouth, look at what I have done, run for the hills. I'm being serious.

I'm telling you, run. Run from leadership that says, look at what I have done. Are you hearing what I'm saying? And there are plenty of church leaders who are very quick to say, look at what I've done.

But what I will say from time to time is occasionally I'll throw out a number. I'll say like the number 40. It's under 40 people that met in a basement in Trussell Creek neighborhood north of Matawan 14 and some change years ago.

And we're more than 40 here now. Did you notice that? And when I say that, that is not me owning that. That is not me saying, look at what I've done. That is only glory to the Lord and our God who has done this.

He has grown this church. His word has grown this church. I wouldn't have the first clue about how to write a book about how to do this again. I couldn't take this to Chicago. I couldn't take this to Boston and go do it again.

I don't know. It is God's. Are you guys hearing me? I don't know. You're kind of looking scared or something. Are you hearing me? Like this is God's church. This is what He has done. And by the way, when I say a number like that, I think that it could be a little scary when a pastor gets up and starts talking numbers.

And let me just say, when I start talking numbers, there's a little bit of biblical precedence. And we ought to not toot our horn too much because it says that on that day in Pentecost, there were 120 gathered in that upper room.

And on that day, 3 ,000 were added to their number. We've grown about 200 in about a decade and a half. I ought to cool our jets a little bit and just say, wow, it's God's growth. Praise Him. But that's nothing like 3 ,000 in a day, church.

It's just amazing to me what God has done here in our midst. And I'd celebrate that and I encourage you. And I also recognize that as He's talking about boasting in this passage and all of that. Boy, there is no room for that.

I know that a church of any size is just a few poor decisions and sinful decisions away from imploding. But the themes of humility and ministry, the theme of trust in the simple gospel, the call to stewarding the church that belongs to the king, these things have been good for my soul as I reflect well past halfway in my ministry and in my life.

But Paul gives a hopeful outcome of the way that he and Apollos ministered with care and caution. His hope is that the Corinthians will learn through their example to not go beyond what is written. Don't go beyond what is written.

So that they will not then, the church will not become puffed up. The language in verses 6 through 8, 6, 7 and 8 are deflationary language. He is seeking to take a pin to their party balloon. He doesn't want them puffed up.

And one particular way he highlights for us to avoid being puffed up is to stick to that which is written. Now, the phrase that's translated that way in Greek is hard to understand, so I don't want to lean too heavy on my understanding of this, but I have at least a couple of commentaries that I read this week that support this stance that Paul is indicating here.

That a pathway to unity within the church is a tenacious commitment to God's Word. It's an individual, that's a leadership kind of commitment. Each one of us, as much as we are tied to and connected to the Word of God, our strength and our unity is formed in that.

You get what I'm saying? As we as individuals dig into God's Word to see how to live our lives, how to relate to one another, how to deal with conflict, how to deal with the the celebrations and the joy and the entertainment and all of the things that we see around us, as we cling tenaciously to God's Word, our unity is forged.

Every time Paul uses the phrase, what is written in 1 Corinthians, that phrase what is written, he's referring to Scripture. And often when he says what is written, he then quotes Scripture. So, it's hard to be puffed up when the Word is allowed to define your identity.

And it's hard to get caught up in your own pet issues and your own favorite heroes and your own cliques and your own factions and your own agendas when the Word is at the center. Keeping the Word at the center of our lives, at the center of our church.

Another way to think of this is that going beyond what is written is a routine temptation for leaders, for church people. It results in internal divisions. And how does it result in internal divisions?

How would shying away and going beyond what is written result in these kinds of divisions? And I think I've seen it. I'm guessing that all of you, when I start listing these things that I've seen over the course of years, you'll go, oh yeah, okay, that.

I've seen this regarding alcohol. You know, a church that says thou shalt not drink. Going beyond what is written and saying having an alcoholic beverage is a sin and making that a law creates divisions.

Parenting decisions, saying you have to parent in a certain way, that you have to school your kids in a certain way, be it homeschooling. I know there are actually churches that I've become aware of that within the last 10 years actually require you, this is crazy, require a family to homeschool in order to become a member.

Can you imagine? And that's real. That's the way that going beyond what is written and saying thou shalt homeschool, I don't see it. So, but how many of you know that's a hot button issue? Like that's an issue that gets into community groups.

That's an issue that can get into relationships. I know there are people sitting here because their last church made them feel bad for their schooling choice. And I fear that people have left here because there are community groups that have made them feel bad about their schooling choice.

You getting what I'm saying? I don't want to be that kind of church where we go beyond what is written and have an unwritten code about A, B, or C. Are you getting what I'm saying in that? Let's not do that church.

Let's not be that kind of church. When we go beyond what is written, we create our own laws and our own rules and our regulations for others. Now, you can have your own convictions and hold them close.

My hunch is that everybody here that's homeschooling has really strong opinions about that. And that's great. And be convinced about what you're doing for your family, for your kids. Be very convinced.

If there are people in this room that ought not to drink alcohol and be very convicted about that and be okay with that decision, that's okay. But don't put those rules and laws over on each other. There's a man named Bill Gothard.

Does anybody know the name Bill Gothard? Some of you are there. Okay. There's a man named Bill Gothard. He achieved a level of what I would call power in the church back in the 80s and 90s. I didn't find this out until I was watching a documentary recently.

This was shocking to me because he had a major influence in the church circles in which I ran. There were parents who wouldn't let their kids date because of this guy's teachings and certain kinds of discipline and the family and all kinds of craziness going on there.

And I mean craziness. I found out this past week, dude was never married and never had children. And he was one of the leading spokesmen for how to find a spouse and how to handle your kids. And I'm going, that guy wasn't married?

I mean, I was like in my teens and it was like impacting my family, my peer group. And a guy who, a good close friend of mine that I still hang out with from time to time, he went to ask a girl out to like go get a coke and talk and get to know her better.

And her dad showed up at the door with a contract, a Bill Gothard contract with intent to marry. And he goes, listen, I was just kind of interested in a coke and getting to know your daughter. I'm out.

They didn't date. That's the kind of stuff that can get kind of systematized, right? We get into systems and we get into plans and we get into ways of doing things and we can be hook, line, and sinker into those things going beyond the word.

It's a dangerous place for individuals to go. It's a dangerous place for the church to go. A large part of that man's went beyond what was written. But Paul begins to poke the balloon of the Corinthian ego in verse seven with a line of rhetorical questions.

And I can summarize the intent of these questions with a statement. If you have anything of value that you can bring to the church or to others, you got it from God. It was a gift from him. Nobody has served out of the storehouses of their own grace and mercy.

Nobody brings a novel, unique, or impressive contribution. No one does. You come, we come with empty hands, or we don't come at all. And He fills them. When we receive Jesus, He fills them with gifts to employ in His kingdom.

Amen? The glory is being used by Him. It's a glory. And the way Paul does this through rhetorical questions in verse seven is kind of a chastisement of sorts. Are you really getting this? Do you really think that highly of yourself?

Do you really think there's anything that you have that didn't come from God? But in verse eight, he turns to mild sarcasm. You already have all that you need. You're rich. You rule and reign like kings and queens, he says to the Corinthians.

Here in taking the wind out of their sails, he is calling them back to the unifying message of the word. He is reminding them that all that they have comes from God and therefore ought to be, not rather, to be any fuel for boasting.

And lastly, he reminds them that in a worldly sense, that they are an aristocratic, upper-crest, bougie church. That's Corinth. Paul is not inventing this, by the way. Not making it up and not saying something to them that they don't already know about themselves.

They are indeed bougie. Most biblical historians and archaeologists agree that Corinth was a significantly affluent city and their society and culture was one of the crowning achievements of the Roman era.

And they had this really great society going there and they were all fairly wealthy. They're powerful people who expect that power and influence and fame will be the way that the church will advance and they're going to lead the way.

And in this sense, I hope you can see some parallels between America and Corinth. Here it's quite natural for powerful people, when they're saved, to then assume that the church will advance in the same realms of fame and cloud and power and independence and that's the way that God wants the church to grow.

But I say that here Paul is deflating them because he stated that his interest is removing anything that puffs them up. He's calling them to a lower way. They are used to dealing in the higher culture of power and influence and he says this is going to be through love and sacrifice.

Love and sacrifice that his kingdom will expand and his church will minister to one another. And that leads into the second point, which is a contrast between the Corinthian way and the Jesus and Paul way.

Modeling the Way of Christ Through Weakness and Suffering

This section I'm calling modeling the way of Christ because that's what Paul was doing in his ministry. He's modeling the way of Christ in verses 9 through 13. These verses read like an anti-resume. You read them and it's like, I don't want to sign up for that.

A job description that nobody wants. When Paul is done with verse 13, he will have described his experience, described his experience as a minister for Jesus, but more than merely describing his ministry experience, he's prescribing for the church a type of ministry, a way of doing the things.

This is not meant to be a pity party for Paul of all that he had to endure. It's a model, it's a template for humble sacrificial service in the kingdom of Jesus who suffered and died for us. Don't ever lose sight of that.

Our Lord, the one that we followed, suffered and died for us. So, while the Corinthians are rich and powerful according to verse 8, Paul points to exhibit A in verse 9, the apostles exhibit A. They are like the closing act of the spectacle, you know.

I mean, when you read that, you know exactly what he's talking about, like the way the executions happened at the end of the Colosseum shows, right? No, you didn't know that, but that's what he's getting at.

Verse 9 has a lot of Colosseum innuendo in it. The phrase, last of all, points to the closing acts of the show that they would have all been quite aware of. After gladiator fights and wild beasts pitted against one another and lions fighting bears and tigers and all of that stuff, the finale of a good Colosseum show was to bring out the condemned and dispatch with them.

This was the finale of Roman entertainment. Gruesome, yes, but the way they did it. And Paul likens the role of the apostles to this. Everyone gathers to watch us suffer, says Paul. The world, the angels, and humanity all take in the spectacle that is Christian ministry.

The word spectacle is theatron. We get our word theater from that Greek word directly, but it's a generic place of entertainment and not merely a place of acting. And Paul highlights the painful sacrificial nature of ministry through this illustration of being last of all led to their demise.

He does this by utilizing the pathway of death, much like our Lord did, right? You remember the words of Jesus? He told his disciples to take their cross and follow him. And he calls us and his church to do the same.

Not just his original disciples, but all of his disciples. Take up your cross and follow him. And he will also in this text, verses 10 through 12, he's going to employ three contrasts, six tribulations, and three contrasting actions, all in very, very like rapid succession.

All of these meant to be contrasts to the Corinthian way versus the way of Christ that Paul adopted. In verse 10, we get those three contrasts. Here's the contrast. The Corinthians have worldly wisdom, while Paul's ways are worldly foolish.

In the world's eyes, his message is dumb. In the eyes of the world, the gospel is a joke, like an eye roll kind of thing. The second contrast is the Corinthians are strong. They're powerful. They're rich.

They roll in the elite circles, while the way of Christ is weak in ministry to the low and the down and out. Do you remember who Jesus hung out with and spent all of his time with? The down and out and the low.

The third contrast is the Corinthians are held in honor, while the apostles were marginalized and thought of with disrepute, silly, ignorant, backwater, uneducated hicks. Verse 11, we get six tribulations found in the way of Christ.

Again, things that Paul endured, just talking about the method, the way of ministry. He says, we were hungry, thirsty, poorly dressed, brutally handled, homeless, and strapped with a lot of physical labor.

That was us. That's what it meant for Paul and the apostles to minister. These six things, by the way, were considered by pagan society and even by many Jews to be a sign of God or the God's disfavor on a person.

That you would be hungry, that you would be thirsty, that you would be poorly dressed, that you would be brutalized, that you would be homeless, that you would be strapped with physical labor. Oh, he or she must not be blessed.

Sound familiar? The ministry of Christ and his subsequent way of working through the weak, the feeble, and the marginalized was unprecedented in their day, and it still is today. The idea that those who are most blessed are those who also suffer.

If the job description reads this, long hours of hard labor, homelessness is a must, ready to accept physical brutality, the pay is so little that you're going to be hungry, you're going to be poorly dressed, and thirsty most days.

Who's in? Signing up? Probably not. And I want to clarify something that might be on many of our hearts and minds right now. Being born in America in this era of affluence where it just doesn't take much to do okay.

Do you know what I'm talking about? It doesn't take that much to do okay. Are we supposed to be more hungry and thirsty than we are? Are we supposed to be more homeless than we are? Should we dress more shabby?

Is that the point? Well, I truly believe that this passage is prescriptive, telling us to change our behavior, telling us to do something different. It's telling us the way of ministry, the heart of ministry, the attitude of ministry.

It is not prescriptive down to the level of detail. A far too literal application of this text would be to leave here, put your house on the market, and go live on the bench in Matawan. Right? First of all, there's not enough benches.