Grow Up!

I hope that as we begin began walking together through First Corinthians, that your hearts have grown in love and appreciation for the Word of God.

I want to communicate to you my love for the Word of God and how precious that is.

That's why it's so important to me to just walk through the pages of Scripture because in it we begin to see the heart and mind of God.

Would you do that with me?

Open your Bibles to the book of 1 Corinthians as we look together at chapter 3 this morning.

1 Corinthians chapter 3.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at quite a large section this morning, beginning in verse 1, going all the way through verse 17.

Again, that's 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

If you do not have your own Bible with you, I encourage you to take one that's in the pew there in front of you.

And you can find this passage on page 953, I believe it is.

Again, 1 Corinthians chapter 3.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

If you would follow along as I read, beginning in verse 1 through verse 17.

The Word of God says to us, but I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it, and even now you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh.

For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

For when one says I follow Paul, and another 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 and 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.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it.

Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that any one has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

If any one's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him.

For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Amen.

This is one of the hard texts of Scripture, because in it we get a glimpse of someone else's dirty laundry.

There were times when in college we had open dorms.

So what that meant is that in times of when there were moving in dates, or maybe other times throughout the year when the administration thought it was a good idea, our dorms were supposed to be cleaned up, put in order, and our doors open so that people could come through and visit with us and check out our rooms.

Well, like many guys in our dorm, I would clean up my room by stuffing things in the closet.

Now, don't judge me.

You've done it yourself, right?

There's probably been a time or two when you've stuffed a room full of everything you didn't want guests to see, and then shut the door to that room and prayed the whole time the guests were there that they didn't open that door, right?

This passage in 1 Corinthians is like opening that door.

Let me give you another way to picture it.

There was a time or two when I was young when I spent the night at a friend's house.

Well, I did it more than a time or two, but a couple of times I was present on the night in which one of those dreaded family meetings took place.

You know the kind when as parents it's been decided that an issue in the family needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed now.

We can't wait another day.

The kind of discussion that you want to have alone with no other guest present, just the family.

You know what I mean?

You know what I'm talking about?

I was spending the night with a friend on a couple of those nights, and those were incredibly uncomfortable nights.

I wasn't in the room when the family had their family meeting, but I was close enough to overhear some things.

And that was just awkward.

That's what we have here.

In this book of 1 Corinthians, we are listening in on a family meeting.

And it's not real pretty.

Now let's remind ourselves of what has led to this point.

For 30 verses, the Apostle Paul has emphasized over and over again the need for the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified.

He stressed that theme as the basis for his own ministry, but also as the basis for the church's ministry, because it is the wisdom and the power of God.

He needed to do that because that church in that ancient city of Corinth had drifted away from that anchor.

As they drifted, people began to take center stage instead of Christ.

Worship services became popularity contests.

And the message of Christ crucified was ignored because it was embarrassingly foolish to them.

So in this letter, the Apostle Paul is like a spiritual father leading one of those awkward family meetings.

And chapter three shows us the dirty laundry behind the door.

The basic message of this passage that we've read is seen in the first three verses very clearly.

And we could summarize that basic message in this way grow up.

Grow up.

I want you to imagine something for a moment.

I asked Pastor Vic if I could use him for this illustration.

If you're visiting with us and you don't know Pastor Vic, Pastor Vic led this fellowship for some 36 years.

So try to imagine him coming up here on the platform this morning, looking out at all of you and saying, You people are infantile.

Grow up.

I nursed you.

I fed you.

I set you on the right path for the rest of your spiritual lives, but you're acting like infants again.

Grow up.

Now, imagine that statement to our fellowship being posted on the internet for everyone to hear for the rest of time.

That would be kind of embarrassing, wouldn't it?

It'd be a little uncomfortable.

Well, if you can begin to imagine that, then you can begin to get a sense of what this passage is about.

In fact, it begins with sort of a righteous tongue-lashing.

The word of the cross is God's power and wisdom to those who are spiritually mature.

That's the point we've seen in chapter 2.

Those who are spiritually mature thrive on the meat of the gospel.

They chew it, they digest it, they grow from it, and they are changed by it.

That change is so impactful to those who are spiritually mature that they begin to know the mind of God in the scriptures by means of his spirit working within them.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritually mature people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

Ouch! That's the last thing you want to hear from your spiritual father.

People of the flesh is a way of referring to those who are not under the influence of the Spirit of God.

People of the flesh pictures those who are unsaved, who are unchanged, who are unmoved, whose hearts have not been molded and impacted by the gospel.

People of the flesh are those who are characterized by sinfulness instead of holiness, who are characterized by godless desire instead of righteous desire.

That's how the Corinthians were acting.

And when the Apostle Paul received word from someone else how the church was conducting itself, he could not approach them as spiritually mature people because they were acting like godless people.

Rather than displaying themselves as a temple of the Holy Spirit, the local church was a place for self-centered debauchery.

But they were still Christians.

Maybe baby Christians, acting like infants.

And as a result, they had to be fed milk because they were not grown enough to take in solid food.

When Christians are acting like the world, when they are acting like people whose flesh is exercising control, they are infantile in Christ, behaving in a purely human way where basic sinful desires rule.

Permit me to share a long illustration.

I generally like to stay away from long illustrations because you get distracted and lose me.

But hopefully this one will keep your interest.

It's from the life and writing of Dr.

D.A.

Carson.

And many of you will appreciate this illustration because you've lived it.

If you haven't lived it, just use your imagination.

Try to imagine it.

Just be prepared.

Be prepared because what I'm about to share with you is raw life.

Okay?

Carson writes that when his daughter was born, he had the privilege of sharing the midnight feedings.

He says, Tiffany was a dream.

I could zap the formula in the microwave, change her, feed the whole eight ounces, and tuck her back into her crib all in under 20 minutes.

That's a dad for you, right?

Then our son came along.

Midnight feedings with him were horrendous.

Although he had an enormous appetite, he sucked and drank with only three speeds.

Slow, dead slow, and stop.

Worse, he had to be burped about every ounce or so.

A painfully slow process.

Or he would display his remarkable gift for projectile vomiting.

I told you it was raw, right?

Without any warning, he could upchuck what he had taken in and send it 15 feet across the room.

If there were an Olympic event in projectile vomiting, he would have taken one of the medals.

I never got him back in his crib in under an hour.

An hour and a half was much more common.

At least he had an excuse.

He was young and his digestive system was obviously not as well developed as his sister's was at the same age.

Best of all, he outgrew that stage.

But then he goes on, there are Christians who are international class projectile vomiters, spiritually speaking, after years and years of life.

They simply cannot digest what Paul calls solid food.

You must give them milk, for they're not ready for anything more.

And if you try to give them anything other than milk, they upchuck and make a mess of everyone and everything around them.

At some point, the number of years they have been Christians leads you to expect something like mature behavior from them.

But they prove disappointing.

They are infants still and display their wretched immaturity even in the way that they complain if you give them more milk.

Not for them solid knowledge of Scripture, not for them mature theological reflection.

Not for them growing in perceptive Christian thought.

They want nothing more than another round of choruses and a simple message, something that won't challenge them to think, to examine their lives, to make choices, and to grow in their knowledge and adoration of the living God.

So the Corinthians then are wretchedly immature believers.

End quote.

One of the ways they displayed their immaturity was in their division.

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

We need to hear this challenge for maturity in our faith.

There is an expectation of spiritual growth.

When we come to faith in Christ Jesus, it is not okay to remain spiritual infants.

God expects us to grow in his knowledge of him and his word.

He expects us to grow in our understanding of it so that it begins to transform us.

He expects us to grow in holiness, becoming more like him and less like the world around us.

So there's this implicit question in this passage.

Are you growing or are you infantile?

Are you becoming more like Christ or are you characterized by the world?

Now we have to make something clear here.

Note that there is no standard given.

There's no standard set in place saying, if you have reached this point, you are mature.

There's nothing like that.

God will himself do the work of making us into the image of his son.

What is expected of us is not to have reached a certain level of godliness, but that we are growing.

What is expected is that we are more like Christ today than we were yesterday.

More like Christ now than we were last month or last year or five years ago or ten years ago.

Is your walk with Christ growing?

Have you moved from milk to solid food in your spiritual life?

Now, please, please note, there is a place for spiritual infants in the life of the church.

There must be.

Because new believers in Christ are like infants.

They need milk.

But the further you are from the time when Christ saved you from your sin, the more you ought to be consuming food like a spiritual adult.

How does that happen?

How do we grow?

How do we become more like Christ?

How do we move in that direction?

We do that by submitting ourselves to the Word of God, by knowing it, by understanding it, and by applying it.

Isn't that what this same apostle told the church at Rome?

He said, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, something that is holy and acceptable, that is pleasing to God because it's your spiritual service of worship.

Then he goes on and says, Don't be conformed to this world.

How do you not be conformed?

By being transformed.

You renew your mind with the word of God.

In acting like infants, the Christians in Corinth were elevating certain pastors and certain teachers over others so that there was this sort of bickering within the church as to who was the better pastor and who was the better teacher and who was the better communicator.

And in that they demonstrated their immaturity.

But Christians who are spiritually mature demonstrate a humility by properly understanding how God builds his church.

He does that by using people.

By using people like Paul and Apollos and Peter and any other number of names that we could throw in there.

He uses people to build his church, and they are important and necessary in his work, but they must be viewed appropriately.

Anyone who God uses to build his church is merely a servant.

What then is Apollos?

What is Paul?

Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each.

I planted, but 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.

There are three times there that we see this concept of God acting in a giving way.

First, he gave assignments to Paul, to Apollos, to any other servants.

Then we're told a little bit later that he gave the growth.

We see that twice.

And that is then followed by a declaration of ownership.

You are God.

God's field.

You are God's building.

The image is that of a field and farmers.

And in this field we see possession, direction, and causation.

Let me go over those with you.

First, we see that God owns the field and the farmers.

That's possession.

It belongs to God.

Now, we we often understand that and make sense of that by leaving ourselves out of the picture.

We understand God's sovereignty over all of the world, and we understand that it belongs to Him, but somehow when it comes to working that out in practical everyday ways, we're outside of it.

I'm my own.

But that's not true.

In this world, God is the owner, He is the possessor.

And not only does He possess everything, but He gives direction to the farmers.

No matter who you are in your service within the church, God is the one who is directing you.

You could be a missionary, you could be a pastor, you could be an elder, you could be a nursery worker, you could be a children's worker.

Whatever the case may be in your service in the local church, God directs you.

You may not sense it, you may not know it in a real and sensible way, but he is the one who directs.

Do you know why?

Because he's the one who owns.

He possesses and he directs.

And yet his sovereignty extends even further than that because it is God who gives the growth.

He's the one who's doing this.

If God owns the farmers, and God owns the field, and if God directs the farmers in what they do, and he even directs their placement within the field, and if God is the one who causes the growth, who is the most important part of that whole process?

It's God.

It shouldn't be that difficult of a question, should it?

And that's the point being made.

A mature Christian, even a mature church, will look at this situation and understand it and appreciate and praise the God who owns it all.

Will give praise to the God who sets the farmer in place and who gives the farmer direction and who even makes the seed sprout and grow, who gives fruit.

An infantile church celebrates the farmer instead of the God who owns the farm.

An infantile church celebrates the field rather than the God who owns the field.

But a mature church filled with Christians growing in maturity will consistently praise the sovereign God who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

People and plans and programs take a humble place before Christ in Him crucified.

Now at this point, the image changes.

And it's going to change one more time before this passage is through.

To this point, the picture has been that of a farmer in a field, but now it changes to the picture of a builder and a building.

But we must not forget this idea of possession.

Verse 9, you are God's building.

The you are is plural, pointing to a collective meaning.

He's referring to the local church in Corinth.

So by application, God speaks to us here, today, collectively as a local assembly of saints.

We are God's field.

We are his building.

He possesses us.

Paul too was owned by God.

He was a servant of God for the church in Corinth.

That was a gracious gift to him.

And he says, according to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it.

Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

There was no need to elevate Paul above Apollos, or Apollos above Paul, or Paul above Peter, or any other arrangement you might come up with.

Because it's only by grace that God assigns service to anyone in his church.

Paul's assignment was to lay the foundation for a building.

Others have the assignment of coming along after Paul and building up from that foundation.

The building, though, isn't complete.

And it won't be complete until Jesus returns.

So we, collectively, as a local church, are a building under constant construction.

And just like the image of a farmer, God uses people as builders.

That's why it's imperative to take care how we build on the foundation.

Because just as the field belongs to God, so does this building whose foundation we must not forget.

What is the foundation?

Jesus Christ.

He is the foundation.

Now, note what is implied.

What is implied there is that we don't relay the foundation.

That's done.

It's set in place, it's unchangeable.

And from that truth, we have two outtakes.

Number one, sometimes we need to be reminded about the foundation so as to be able to build upon it correctly.

And second, if the building is somehow constructed on a foundation other than Christ, it's not a church.

At least it's not his church.

The person of Christ, God the Son, in his life, in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection, and in his ascension into glory is the foundation of the church.

But the church in Corinth had forgotten its foundation.

And as a result of forgetting their foundation, they were building on a foundation of some kind with improper materials.

So they needed this reminder.

They needed a refresher course in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

They needed to sort of tear down some of the construction because it had been erected on the wrong foundation with materials that wouldn't last.

Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

We must be careful in how we handle the word of God.

Isn't that what the Apostle Paul told Timothy?

Work hard to make sure that you are an approved workman who is able to handle the word of truth correctly.

Had someone who loved to tell me about this passage that this was talking about Christians being in heaven and smelling like smoke while they were in heaven.

You know, saved as though by fire.

Anyway.

Notice that there is no commentary on the building materials.

We often approach this text assuming that the gold, the silver, and the precious stones are better than the wood, hay, and straw.

Now that may be the case.

I'm not saying to you it's not true.

What I am saying to you is be careful about reading into the text because that's not what's said.

There is no comment given about the building materials.

We are simply left to imagine how the building materials will survive the fire of God's evaluation.

And that is the point.

The point is that those whom God has assigned the service of building up the church must ensure that they are building in a way that lasts through God's evaluation.

Let me give you some examples.

And I think the recent devastations in our country can illustrate this for us quite well.

Just begin by imagining two buildings, maybe side by side, constructed on two different kinds of foundations, built by two different builders.

And the hurricane comes through.

The hurricane levels one building, but one remains standing.

Or maybe the earthquakes.

One home is built on a solid foundation, the other is on a simple slab placed on a soft ground that was at one time an ancient lake bed.

One home is drastically impacted, the other's just shaken a little bit.

Or maybe we could imagine the fires in the West.

Imagine two buildings of two different kinds of material constructed by two different builders.

The fire comes through, one building is a little scorched but still whole.

The other is eventually reduced to a pile of smoldering ash.

The goal is to build in such a way that the building endures the storm, that it survives the quake, and that it is still standing after the fire.

There will come a day when God will test how his church has been built.

Has it been constructed on the right foundation?

Have the builders used proper materials?

Have they used the proper construction methods?

And anything that is not up to God's standards will be destroyed.

Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine pouring your heart into serving the Lord for a lifetime?

Maybe it's in the nursery, maybe it's in teaching children, maybe it's in teaching an adult Sunday school class or leading a Bible study, maybe it's in serving in a foreign field, maybe it's as a church leader of some kind.

Can you imagine pouring your heart and soul into that for a lifetime and then watching it all burn up?

It's gone.

There are some pastors, elders, missionaries, and church volunteers of various kinds who will be in that position.

Now they will survive in God's kingdom if they belong to Christ.

But the fruit of their labor may not enter eternity with them.

It's a good reminder for us as a church, isn't it?

But it's a good reminder even for us as individuals.

Because as believers in Christ, we serve the Lord Christ.

We follow Him.

Therefore, we are working, we are building, we are serving for eternity, not for recognition or retirement.

We're building to last.

But that takes spiritual maturity, doesn't it?

According to the text, we will go astray and begin to build incorrectly if we're acting like spiritual infants.

There's a third image here.

And it's one that acts as a warning.

Verse 16.

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him.

For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

We must note here that the you in verse 16 is plural.

In other words, the image here does not refer to individual Christians.

Paul will use this same image later on in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 to refer to individual Christians.

1 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

Here he's referring to the church, collectively.

And up to this point, we have been talking mainly about farmers and builders, those who have been appointed by God to serve in and through his church.

But here this is spread to everyone or to anyone who might destroy God's temple.

Now, in our context, to destroy God's temple points to farming incorrectly.

It points to building on the wrong kind of foundation.

It refers to building with the wrong materials and building in the wrong manner or for the wrong purpose.

And as we serve Christ in his church, all of that is possible, isn't it?

Hear the warning.

God will destroy anyone who destroys his church.

The church is his temple.

And he is jealous about his temple.

He takes very seriously its foundation and its building.

The immature Christians in Corinth were on the path of building on the wrong foundation and with the wrong materials.

And we can do that too if we are not growing up into maturity in Christ.

As we build, we must protect.

As we build and protect, we must use great discernment.

That discernment asks questions like, does this fit on the foundation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified?

Does this fall in line with God's revealed word?

It asks practical questions like, is this song we sing a lasting, eternal part of the truth of Christ?

Is this service honoring and worshipful of Christ?

Is this program that we have about maturing people into spiritual adults by means of God's word who can then become an integral part of the Lord's temple?

Or is the decision pragmatic?

That is, is it being done because it's expedient to do so, because it feels right, because it's culturally acceptable?

Or is it because it will proclaim Christ in his word and therefore bring about maturity in believers because it's about his word?

Is this material that we're using in our Bible studies, in our programs, is it truthful?

Does it accurately convey the truth of Christ so that people are brought from milk to solid food?

That they are brought from infants to knowing Christ, to trusting Christ, and functioning as mature, discerning Christians.

We must always be about asking these kinds of questions.

Because if we don't, we can be deceived into building incorrectly.

And God's temple is simply too holy for us to take that risk.

This text is speaking of the church gathered, the assembly of the saints together.

But these same questions can be asked about our own individual lives.

We can be personally challenged.

Are the activities we are involved in outside of church glorifying to Christ?

That is, do they help me honor and worship Christ?

Are my habits, my hobbies, my activities, my loves, my joys leading me to maturity in Christ?

Is what I'm doing, what I'm reading, what I'm listening to, or what I'm watching moving me to maturity in Christ?

Is it truthful?

Am I immersing myself in the scriptures in order to know them, to understand them, and therefore to know and understand the Christ who changes me?

Challenging questions.

The bottom line is if we are to build properly, and if we are serving properly, if we're following Christ into maturity, then we're going to be focused not on today, but on eternity.

We're going to be focused on things that last.

Things that will endure the examination of God Himself.

Not so that we can build ourselves up and say, hey, look at me, look at what I've done.

But so that we can point to the God of the field, the God of the building, and the God of the temple.

The challenge here is one of growth.

Are we growing up?

Are we growing up into maturity as followers of Christ?

And how are we facilitating that as a church?

You know, it is a challenge and an exciting thing to be involved in as God's people.

To think that that we, this assembly, is the temple of God.

It's just fascinating and astounding and frightening.

But that is why it is so important to grow up into maturity.

Because God is present in us and we are his temple.

So our prayer needs to be that he would guide us and move us and challenge us and instruct us and lead us to grow up, to be mature people in Christ, and to do so in a way that lasts and honors him.

My prayer is that you would join me in doing that.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we come and we bow before you, humbled and honored that you would choose to dwell among us.

That you would make us your temple.

What an astounding truth that is.

But we also know that so often we we act like infants.

Our flesh gets the best of us, we give into it, and we we are at times no different than these people in the church at Corinth that cause us to grow.

Because we know that ultimately you are the one who gives the growth.

Enable us to submit to your word, to love it and therefore to love you as you use us in your world.

May all that we say, may all that we do, and all that we are giving praise and honor and glory to you.

Because it's in your name we pray.

Amen.