ARE WE BEING MERELY HUMAN

Scrib our bibles. I gotta start that way. I can't start it any

other way. Let's scrab our bibles. If you don't have a Bible with

you, just raise your hand or ushers are passing those out. If you

don't have a bulletin, those are gonna be handy. Because notes, man,

it's good to see you. Oh, it is so good to see

you. Yeah. Turned to First Corinthians chapter three. While you're doing that

that video. I'll tell you what those are, some good looking guys.

I got some feedback already. I was getting feedback while I was away.

Oh and by the way, if you if we haven't met, I am

the long lost senior Pastor of Crossway Bible Church. You may have seen a

clean shaven version of me on the video screen introducing each of our guest speakers

throughout the summer. And the feedback that I got was that there was some

fantastic Bible preaching that was taking place throughout the summer. And I know that

that's true because I know these guys and these co laborers of ours in Christ,

and I'm really really thankful for them. I can tell you this and

I'll tell you more about it at the end of our worship service. This

sabbatical has been enormously beneficial for me, for my family, for my marriage,

for this ministry. I am confident. I am confident that this sabbatical

is beneficial for this church. And so at the end of our worship service,

I'm just going to give you a brief update on me so that when

I see you in the lobby and we're eating donut holes, you can just

update me on you. I'll just ask you what's the latest, because I've

been thinking about you, like what happened with that job? And hey,

how has your mother been? Like I've been thinking about you June, July

and August and never getting an update. So now you you owe me.

Well, that video is apropos in this way. You have had the experience

of a variety of preachers, one different preacher week after week, and I

have had a mirror experience throughout this summer of going to a different church each

week. So now I've been in like a dozen different churches over the course

of June, July and August, and you've heard about a dozen different preachers

throughout June, July and August. And a funny thing happens when you get

a series of teachers or church services or anything for that matter, you start

comparing. You can admit it, it's just us. I'm like, well

that guy wasn't as good as LNG as I. And look, if you're

a teacher or or a leader, really a gospel worker of any sort,

which we all are if we're in Christ, we're in ministry, and so

there's something that's natural and normal and even good that that's involved in discernment and

and and just like sort of okay comparing. But if we're not careful,

there's a corner of our heart, maybe maybe more than a corner that can

get judge, you know, like, I don't know if that's the best

way to say that. I don't know if that's the best way to do

that. And you're like Pastor Josh, I thought you were further along in

your sanctification than that, me too, and and and and and not only

judge, not only judge if you're not careful, If we're not careful,

we could even get jealous, right, Like was it? One church is

this summer and one of their elders lad that congregation in such a beautiful,

rich time of prayer as a congregation and I and I found my mets that

was lovely, that was elevating, and and then that corner. I want

that for us, yeah, like right in a way. But then in

another way, there was another church we went to this summer, and the

pastor was just wrapping up his series of preaching expositionally through the entire prophet Isaiah.

Right, he was just wrapping up chapter sixty six, like this is

great, I want that for us. We shure that good or another church

where while they while we were there, dozens and dozens and dozens of baptism

phraise the Lord. Right now, I'm never r you know. In other

words, if we're not careful, and I'm saying we because I do not

want to feel all alone in this. If we're not careful, we can

find ourselves engaging with the word preached, or engaging with worship, or engaging

with small group or discipleship, or any aspect of gospel work which we're engaged

in, and we can we can engage it at mostly a human level or

merely human level. And so we need to hear again the Word of the

Lord from First Corinthians chapter three. Let's read it and changed pages on myself

first Criptinal I turned fifty. And now these are no longer an option.

They are they are acquirements. 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 yet ready, for you're

still in 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 then 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, 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.

And let each 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 anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious

stones, would pay 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 is 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. 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. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among

you thinks he's wise in this age, let him become a fool that may

become wise, For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. As

it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again the

Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. So let no

one boast in men. For all things or yours, whether Paul or Apollos

or Cephus, or the world, or life or death, or the present

or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ

is God's. This is God's word. Fun facts about the people in the

Church of Corinth. They thought they were amazing, and the way they measured

being amazing was based on worldly standards, being eloquent, being gifted, being

competent, all the kinds of things that you can see from the outside.

That was what they thought amazing was. And in the soil of their pride

grew up divisiveness, because that's what grows in that soil. They were divisive

about all kinds of things, and here was one of them which Christian leaders

were more amazing. They were taking this gospel work that were involved in that

most importantly transcends the human working, good ideas, organization, eloquence, and

because of God's work results in salvation and change lives and redeemed character and new

identity and eternal life. And instead of focusing on that, they focused on

the merely human workings. Talk about looking at the wrong end of the telescope.

In other words, there is a way for us to be involved in

the things of God among the people of God and blow past God and get

hung up on what is merely human and it actually happens a lot. So

what about us, What's I'll tell you. Here's my assessment, right,

here's my assessment. I know I've been away, but I still think I've

got my finger on the pulse here. And here's my assessment. A cross

way. We need to be careful. We need to be careful, carefully

devoted to our first love of Jesus Christ, carefully devoted to a vertical focus,

or we could easily end up like this personally or congregationally. Now,

what Paul has for the Church of the Corinthians is a straight up rebuke.

You heard that, right, And I think for our setting, really,

what I draw from this is a bit of an encouragement. And I want

to encourage you from this text because you've got your mind on this, like

you're thinking about things like this. You are you want your heart to be

right before the Lord in these matters because I know this, because I know

you, I know this about you, and so I want you to be

encouraged, because what I see amongst us is hearts that care about doing this

right. And yet what I also have for us is a caution. Caution,

that's my assessment. What's yours, especially as a shepherd of your own

heart, we need to be careful because here's here's the main point of this

passage, and put it up on the screen. A heart hung up on

what is merely human in gospel work reveals a heart that's merely human despite gospel

work. A heart that's hung up on what is merely human in gospel work

reveals a heart one if that's merely human despite gospel work. Do you see

him pointing that out here? In versus, especially verses one through four,

he says, in verse one, you're fleshly. But I brothers could not

address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants

in Christ. In other words, you're immature. You're more pushed and pulled,

he says to the Corinthians by the flesh and the world than you are

led by Christ, Jesus and his spirit. You're you're fleshly. Now by

that, he's not creating a new category of Christian like carnal Christians. Oh

wait, these are just people who have received Jesus a savior, but not

as Lord. Yet it's a different category of Christian. Another he's not saying

that there's only one category of Christian. Right, you accept Jesus as he

is. He is a savior and he is Lord. But he's saying here

is that you're immature, flesh focused, which all of us are immature,

immature at some point or another. Right. But another thing he's not calling

them is non Christians. Right, He's not saying you're fleshly, as in,

you're not Christians. You are so still influenced by the way the world

thinks and by the way the flesh thinks. But here's the thing. They

think they're mature, and they think they know maturity when they see it.

But Paul saying, look, you're not as mature as you think you are.

The first two right, I fed you with milk, not solid food.

You are not ready for it. And even now you are not yet

ready. You're you're still of the flesh. And this is where I want

to encourage you as a church like you you are. Let me just say

you are more mature than the Corinthians, low bar. But you are not

boasting about sexual permissiveness. You're not suing each other in court. You're not

running up to the platform and grabbing the microphones. And now I've got a

song I want to sing like this is we're more mature than that, rast

the Lord. I also feel this caution that we should know. It's easy

to assess ourselves as more mature than we are a fleshly focus in church involvement

and and and and ministry assessment and worship experience. It shows a fleshly heart.

So Paul says, to this church, here, of the Corinthians,

here's some evidence that you're not as mature as you think the evidence verse three,

For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of

the flesh and behaving only in a human way. In other words, the

measure of maturity in Christ is a heart that acts like Christ's piling up theological

knowledge good stuff. It's not. It's not piling up leadership skills or organizational

ability or competence. All good stuff. Is that good stuff or bad stuff?

Good stuff, But it's not the mark of maturity. The mark of

maturity is christlike humility. These are matters of the heart, These are expressions

of character. It's about christ likeness, the opposite of jealousy and strife.

This is a big deal because this place of all places, this people of

all people. But this gathering literally has a cross as a banner over it.

So what is less fitting than jealousy and strife amongst the people who over

whom the cross hangs as a banner. We should be the our laying our

life down people. So Paul says, do you want understand the conclusion that

this evidence is pointing to verse four? When when one says I follow Paul

another I follow Paula's are you not being merely human? Right? If if

while you're sitting under God's words preached, if you're if you're sitting there with

God's praises sung, with God's people gathered, and you're engaged in a sort

of jealous comparison, a sort of strife full superiority or inferiority, and you're

engaging the things of God with a heart that's essentially unimpacted by God. Merely

human, merely human. That's his point, like I said, for the

Corinthians, is a straight up rebuke and I am so thankful to say for

us, it's more of a reminder. But after he makes this point,

he lays out his rationale. Right, he lays out his sets of reasons,

and his first set of reasons goes like this, Right, if a

heart hung up on what's merely human, gospel work reveals a heart that's merely

human despite gospel work, here's kind of how you can understand that. Here's

rationale, here's reasons for that. He's like, just consider the humanness of

these workers. Consider the humanness of the workers. He emphasizes this really in

verses five through nine, and I'm just gonna summarize here. He's like,

what's the policy. What's Paul. We're servants, We get assignments. God

gives the growth. We each get our little pieces of this gospel work.

But God actually gives the results. No, what he's saying. He's saying

that everyone who's involved in gospel work, from the most prominent gospel preacher or

musician to the most obscure Sunday school teacher in the jungles of South America and

everything in between, and all the things that we do, and this work

in this kingdom where all of us just farm hands. We're farm hands.

And I don't know if you've ever been a farm hand. I have,

which was the last time I had a beard? Actually stunt nearly as neat

as this one. Here's the thing about being a farm hand. Where is

a enormous difference between the farm hands and the farm owners. Like the farm

owners they actually know what's going on. They understand the veterinary schedule, they

understand the feeding proportions, they understand exactly how everything needs to be taken care

of him maintained. And the farm hands they just get assignments. Hey you're

on fence repair today, okay. Hey you're milking goats today. Okay.

And not only do we just get assignments, we're eminently replaceable. You're working

on the fence and then you get a tap on the shoulder and it's like,

hey, I need you milking goats too, Casey's going to take care

of the fence, all right. A few weeks later you're like, hey,

where's Casey. I thought he's off the farm, but I want you

to meet stand. Oh, you're the new Casey. And this is farmhand

life for all every one of us, just farmhands and in some way or

another. We are all getting taps on the shoulders saying hey, I've got

something next for you to do, and eventually you're gonna get the tap on

the show and says hey, you're off the farm. Now. God's been

doing this work for generations and you're just one. We're all just one.

Now. That is not to say that we should not appreciate gospel workers.

By all means. We are co laborers in Christ, and the Bible says

give honor or honor is due. We should appreciate one another, We should

show discernment about the work that's being done, like there's a level at which

that appreciation is absolutely right. But God is telling us right here, neither

he who plants or he who waters is anything just God who gives a growth.

So before any of us get too attached to any preacher from out of

town, or what any church is doing across towne or anybody who's back in

town, remember we're all all of us just farmhands. None of us personally

or congregationally have a claim on any sort of pride or on any sort of

despairs. Just look at the humanness of the workers. Right unless, unless,

of course, that is exactly what we're focused on, the merely human,

in which case it may be that our spiritual condition is essentially merely human,

and that's that's an ouche. Well, there's a second set of reasons

that Scripture gives us here, like not just not just consider the humanness of

the workers, but also Paul emphasizes this, consider the non humanness of the

result. Consider the non humanness of the result. He says this, really

emphasizing it in verses nine, second half of nine through seventeen, and and

and I'm not going to spend too much time on it. There's way too

much to harvest here in this part of the field. We're just gonna get

to the main point. But he says in verse nine, you're God's field,

You're God's building, right, you are the church. This is God's

result. And in verses ten and eleven, it's by God's grace that I

contributed this foundation, and someone else, someone else is coming along and building

on that. Right, I gotta tap on the shoulder. I'm out here.

It comes Casey, he's taken over. Somebody else is going to build

on that, and only on that, since that's God's foundation, Jesus Christ,

and in verses twelve through fifteen, he's say, it's gonna be God's

assessment that determines the worth and eternal value of our gospel work. And that's

going to be based on the light that God shines on the purposes of our

arts. Yeah, you can see that in chapter four, verse three,

if you just glance down the page, they're like, okay, what is

this wood, hay and straw? What's gold, silver and precious stones?

Like how does that assessment gets get made? But you can skip ahead and

see in verse five of chapter four he says, the Lord, we'll bring

to light the things now hidden in darkness, and we'll just close the purposes

of the heart. It's God's assessment. And then furthermore in verses sixteen through

seventeen, God's people are God's temple in dwelt by God's spirit under God's protection.

So, okay, tons of stuff there, We're gonna leave most of

that corn in the field. But here's the main point. This is God's

field, God's building, done by God's grace, on God's foundation, judged

by God's assessment, privilege to be God's temple and dwelt by God's spirit under

God's protection is not really hard to see the major player, and yet we

can get hung up or at least a corner of our heart can on what

we or the people bring to the picnic. What a tragedy of missing out

on worship like letting our hearts focus on the human during the miracle of what

God is doing. That that marks a sad level of mere humanness in our

hearts and some of us, some of us might say, Oh, it's

focused on the human part of things, because that's where our responsibility is.

Right. God's just gonna do what God's gonna do, and so I just

get really focused on the human side of things. That's where my responsibility is.

I get that. I get that totally. But maybe whoever that is,

and I maybe you would, I just have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility

and an underdeveloped sense of worship and awe over what God is doing the only

way that He's doing things that only he can do. And we'll bring our

messages from his word, we sing our songs, who praises to him,

we gather as His people. But what we're contributing is just had impressive by

all means. Let's be responsible by all means, let's be skilled. Paul

says he was. But if we really set our hearts on what's being done

by man, we can expect to see eventually what always comes seeping out of

man, jealousy and strife, divisions and clamor surface level performance, and a

whole lot of exhaustion. So the apostle essentially concludes this way. He basically

says this, So reconsider your wisdom in gospel work. We consider your wisdom

about gospel work. Right. He starts with this in verse eighteen. So

let no one deceived himself. If anyone among you thinks that he's wise,

he's got things figured out, he's really really amazing, let him become a

fool that he may become wise. Right. In other words, if we're

hung up on human wisdom, what God is doing and the way he's doing

it is going to seem foolish. Guess who the real fool is. For

the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it's written he catches

the wise in their craftiness. And again the Lord knows the thoughts of the

amazing of the wise, that they are futile. Have you ever seen a

five year old do a magic trick. It's adorable, but he's not fooling

anybody. It's not impressive. All that we do is bare before the Lord.

The purposes of our hearts are bare before the Lord. He knows them

way better than we know them ourselves. He sees right through us. God

knows what we're really hung up on. God knows what is the purpose of

our heart again, Chapter four, verse five. So let's let's reconsider our

wisdom, to reconsider our amazingness when it comes to thinking about gospel work.

And if we do, we'll see that there is no room for boasting.

There's no room for feeling better than there's no room for feeling lesser than personally

or congregationally, because man just consider the humanness of the workers, consider the

non humanness of the result. And then he gives this one more reason,

And this is my favorite. He says this, it's all yours anyway.

It's all yours anyway, Verse twenty one. But no one bo and men,

for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephus, or

the world or life or death, for the present or the future, all

are yours. And you are Christ's and Christ is God right. So every

preacher who preaches on this true foundation of Jesus Christ is your preacher in a

larger sense because he's Christ's preacher. And you're in Christ through no skill of

your own. Every fervent prayer that's lifted truly in Jesus name, that's that's

your prayer, because it's Christ's prayer. And you're in Christ through no discipline

of your own. Every baptism into Christ and testimony a radically changed, new

and eternal life, it's yours. It's ours because it's Christ. Now.

We're in Christ through no best practices of our own. We're not in Christ

as a result of any human ingenuity. We are in Christ as a result

of what God has been doing in this gospel work through generations by our plans.

Our plans are you know, messages and songs and services, great things

God's plans before the foundation of the world, sinners redeemed by grace right our

sacrifice, some time and energy together as we work as co laborers in this

gospel work. Awesome God's sacrifice. It's only begotten son. Actually, ac

I'm bullishing the gospel work of acquitting you and me and free and you and

me from the judgment of sin that we will never ever face because we're in

Christ. That's worth getting hung up on God's work. So where are you

at with that? We have with that for some of us or maybe just

a corner of our heart, and it's like I really needed that reminder.

I don't really need that caution. For some of us. Maybe it's like,

Okay, that is new. Wherever you're at with this, Here's what

I like to do next is just take that to the Lord in prayer.

Just take it to the low in print,