Eastertide: Servants and Stewards of Christ, 1 Cor 4:1-17, Sulmane Maigadi

Good morning, Church of the Resurrection.

It is a glorious, glorious Sunday.

Deepak is playing the bass, right?

That's awesome. We're glad to see that.

Luke is playing the jembe, a sight that I have never seen

before. Steven is singing without a

guitar. It's I believe in miracles.

You all. Absolutely.

If you are new, my name is Sumani Megadi.

I'm one of the pastors here and over the last few weeks we have

walked through the 1st 3 chapters of First Corinthians.

And Paul has been addressing division in the church.

And the Corinthians were rallying around human leaders

and they were forming camps. They were boasting in wisdom.

They were forgetting about the cross of Christ, the thing that

they should look to. And so our passage today is

First Corinthians 4, verse 1 to 17 found on page 896.

1 Corinthians 4:1–17

And I invite you to turn to that to follow along.

Now this whole letter, keep in mind, is a it's part of a

conversation. And we only get to hear one side

of that conversation. Paul is responding to things

that don't, what we don't fully know about, but we can glean

part of the problems from the text.

One of the problems was how how the Corinthians venerated their

favorite apostles and they excoriated others that they did

not like. So in First Corinthians 41, Paul

effectively says to the church. He says to them, look, I want

everyone to think of us, me, Apollos, and all the other

apostles as servants. He uses the word under rowers or

officers on a ship, and the ship is the church.

Jesus points to the direction that he wants to go and the

underoers move the vessel in that direction.

He says please think of us also as stewards of the mysteries of

God. House managers is what he's

referring to. Jesus has entrusted to the

apostles his mysteries, the mysteries of God, and he's given

them the responsibility as house managers to dispense these same

mysteries to the House of God, to the Church.

And Paul's applying these images to himself and to Apollo's in

the context of the divisions tearing through the Corinthian

church. He's urging them to stop

treating apostles like celebrities or tribal leaders

and instead to see them as servants, stewards of Christ.

There are not personalities to rally behind or to use to

promote division. I believe the same is true for

us as well. Our unity is strengthened when

we all begin to see ourselves as under rowers on Jesus ship and

house managers in God's household.

Not not in the same capacity as the apostles, certainly not in

the same capacity as Paul or Saphus, but in whatever capacity

God has placed us in, in his house, on his ship.

So I want to talk about the disposition of servants and

stewards in God's house because how we see ourselves shapes how

we treat one another and it shapes how we guard against the

kind of the division that Corinth faced.

Let me pray for us. May the words of my mouth and

the meditations of our hearts be pleasing unto you, our Lord, our

Rock and our Redeemer. Let your word take root and draw

us closer to you and to one another.

In Christ's name I pray. Amen.

Amen. So we are stewards and servants

of Jesus Christ. What does that mean about how we

position ourselves? What do what?

What is our disposition? First of all, faithful stewards

and servants know that only Jesus's approval and judgement

counts. In the long run.

No one gets to judge the faithfulness of another servant

in the household of another under over on the ship.

And when I say faithfulness, I am not talking about sin.

Sin should absolutely be addressed and judged within the

church. In the next chapter, Paul begins

to do that. And then in the next chapter he

tells the Corinthians, Don't you know that there you are supposed

to be judging disputes amongst yourselves?

Wise people amongst you should do that.

So in situations where there is sin, there should be judgement,

right judgement, and it should be addressed.

But look at verse 5 in our passage.

It says do not pronounce judgement before the time,

before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now

hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the

heart when it comes to faithfulness related to things

that are hidden, motives, intentions, the purposes of the

heart. We don't get to judge that.

We can't judge that. Because you see, it's like the

Corinthians were saying, look, y'all, let's be honest, Paul,

he's not that great. I mean, his letters might be

weighty and heavy, but he's such an unassuming presence.

He's weak. Not my kind of leader.

Oh, he's not like Apollos. Now Apollos, that guy can hold a

crowd. That guy can talk.

You know what? He's not even one of the

original 12 apostles. I mean, he says he's an apostle,

but he's not like Saphus. He had like a vision or

something. Jesus came and talked to him.

If he was truly an apostle, would he be suffering so much?

I mean, wouldn't his life be more blessed, right?

I mean, we are reigning in Christ right now.

We have the Spirit of God. Why is he always talking about

suffering and weakness? And so Paul tells them, look, it

matters very little to me. What you think of me matters

very little. You cannot judge my motives and

my intentions and the purposes of my heart.

But he takes it further. I don't even judge myself.

I'm not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a

faithful steward and a servant before you.

But that doesn't mean much anyway because only Jesus

actually knows the intentions of my heart.

Only he has the right to judge that.

It's like he's thinking of Psalm 139 where the psalmist says,

search me, O God, and know my heart.

See if there's any evil and wicked way within me, and lead

me in the path of righteousness. You and I don't know ourselves

well enough to judge our intentions and motives fully and

rightly. Only Jesus does.

You know, sometimes you write a sermon and something pricks you

as you're writing it. This is one of those, and it

might seem like a funny little example, but I think I think

it's right. I find myself judging fellow

Christians a lot when it comes to the things that I love,

especially Christian music and movies.

Yeah, You know, sometimes I intentionally watch badly

produced Christian films Intentionally.

Sometimes it's because I love to hit them.

Sometimes it's because I want to find out what our fellow

Christians are doing. And, you know, once in a while I

find a diamond in the rough, something that stands like, yes,

that one pops. And there was a movie that was

made in 2018, and I watched it. Was it this year or last year?

I can't remember 2018. And it was one of those movies

that Rotten Tomatoes didn't even bother to make a review about.

Completely understand. It was fine.

But the main actor was so good. It gave a compelling

performance. And I was like, yes, that guy's.

So I'm so glad he's on our side. And I rendered him, and I

rendered A judgement. I wasn't thinking about that at

the moment. I was like, yes, that's so

awesome. But then I decided to look at

his credits, his film credits, and I did some research and

found enough to be like, I'm not even sure this guy is one of is

in the same camp with me. I'm not sure he's a Christian in

the 1st place. And then again, I judged motives

and intentions just like that. I have no idea who this person

is, but because of his product, I was imputing to him motives

and intentions and desires. And I do this with all kinds of

things that fellow Christians produce with the work that they

do. I could seek the Christian music

that I find boring or uninspiring.

I look at the street preacher standing faithfully perhaps, or

unfaithfully on the corner there shouting Ouch out out that Jesus

loves us. And I'm like, hey, you are

making all of us look bad as if that's what matters.

And again and again I assign motives and intentions and

value. I don't have the right to do

that. I mean, how many of these

brothers and sisters, doing the best they can, what they've been

given, will one day hear from the Lord well done, good and

faithful servant while I was standing on the sidelines and

critiquing them. When sin is not involved,

faithful stewards of Jesus don't sit in judgement over the

faithfulness of other servants. We just don't do that.

We also don't pay heed to the world's judgement either.

The world doesn't even know what it's looking at when it sees the

church. It doesn't.

Again, not talking about sin. It's sad, but it's true that the

world can see sin in the church and say hypocrites.

That should not be. And they're right about that

sometimes because of us, the Gentiles or people who don't

believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, blasphemy our God, and

that should not be. But even then, they won't get it

right. Not only can they not judge

intentions and motives, they do not have the spirit of truth

like we read in the Gospels. They have a different standard

from Jesus Christ. I mean, for a simple example,

Jesus defines love in a way that the world does not understand.

And so we as faithful servants of Jesus know that we do not

live by the praise, the approval or judgment of the world.

Other Christians don't judge us, our intentions and motives.

We don't judge our own intentions and motives.

Rightly, the world can't do that either, but Jesus does.

So we need to Orient our hearts towards him, the one who will

bring to light the motives and intentions of every heart.

And when that day comes, and only when that day comes, will

we hear praise from God. There will be moments in your

life when others cry out. How could you?

And yet later God will say, well done, good and faithful servant.

So let's see ourselves as servants and stewards of Christ

who focus on Jesus approval only as servants and stewards of

Christ. Second point, we humble

ourselves. We maintain a posture of

humility toward the Word of God. Part of the Corinthian problem

was verse 6. They were going beyond what was

written. They were stepping outside the

clear teachings of Scripture, and they were adding layers of

human wisdom to judge things that only God can rightly judge.

And according to verse 6, when one goes beyond Scripture, one

becomes puffed up in favour of one against the other.

But servants and stewards of Jesus humble themselves before

God's Word and they obey it. No embellishments, no caveats,

no additions, no. Oh, but you don't understand

none of that. They not only believe it, they

obey it. They not only obey it, they

believe it. They accept God's Word as the

final authority on all matters, and they act like it.

And if they don't, pride comes in As servants and stewards, we

maintain a posture of humility toward the gifts that God has

given to us. Basically, between putting

chapter 1 and chapter 4 together, Paul is effectively

saying, yes, I do give thanks to my God always when I think and I

pray for you because I know that he has enriched you in

everything, in all speech and knowledge, so that you do not

lack any spiritual gift. You guys have it all, but come

on, did you manufacture these gifts?

Of course not. And if you didn't manufacture

the gifts, why are you acting as if you didn't receive them from

God, Through me no less. Why are you acting as if you

earned it or you created it? What is all this comparison

nonsense when we're all supposed to be servants of God?

Paul is telling them to be humble about the things that

they have received. Now imagine that you are at a

wedding reception and someone wearing a perfectly tailored

designer suit walks in. Awesome shoes, great tie, and

all heads are turning and they're complimenting this man.

He stands up straighter, adjust his tie like he's on a runway,

and he takes in all these comments and he feels bold and

confident, but nobody knows the truth.

The suit is borrowed. He didn't even pay for it.

He's going to return it in the morning.

I imagine if he starts criticizing others for their

outfit or begins to pretend that he made the suit himself, that's

absurd. And yet how often do we do the

same with the gifts God has given us?

We wear them like we earned them.

We compare, we critique, we get puffed up.

And I'm not just talking about spiritual gifts.

I'm talking about your degree. I'm talking about your

influence, your status, your wealth, all the things that God

has blessed you with, the things you have received.

Faithful stewards know everything we have is borrowed.

And so we wear the suit with humility and with purpose.

And one of the purposes of God's gifts to us is to is to edify

the church. We steward our gifts for the

edification of the church. Paul practices what he preaches.

He took the mysteries of God, steward them towards the

Corinthian church, and he invested deeply in them,

specifically in training up Timothy as a faithful servant of

Christ. And the application for us is

clear. We should steward what we have

received in the same way, especially in the work of

discipleship. If you have been walking with

Jesus for a while now, you should be pouring into somebody

else what you have received. That's what faithful servants

do. So quick plug for the mentoring

program that we have here in the church, if you are interested,

and if you think you're you're the kind of person who has

experienced life in such a way that you can put into somebody

else, please talk to us so that we can connect you with others

who are looking for that kind of discipleship.

We also maintain a posture of humility toward discipleship

itself. Now Paul's primary focus in this

chapter concerns his Apostolic authority, and he returns to

that theme again in his second letter.

But here you see the Corinthians were struggling to submit to

him. They were questioning his role,

resisting his correction. Verse 15 and 16, he says to

them, I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Therefore I urge you imitate me. I get it that we have a

discomfort with authority, especially spiritual authority.

We have multiple examples of how it's been misused.

There are many bad actors who wielded it wrongly, but

Scripture teaches us that we are to submit to the faithful

stewards God has placed over us. And not just your pastors, of

course, that includes your pastors, but looking for people

who have been in the faith longer than you have that are

emulating, imitating Jesus Christ such that you will grow

under them. That's what Timothy did.

Timothy did it. This young man did it to the

point that Paul felt confident to send Timothy to this church

that was having problems and say, hey, listen to this young

man. He's going to remind you of

everything that I have taught him.

Timothy submitted to discipleship and so should we.

And again, there's a mentorship programme here in the church.

If you're interested in receiving discipleship from

people who have walked in the faith, please reach out to us.

So faithful stewards and servants maintain a posture of

humility toward the Word of God, toward what we've received, and

toward discipleship. Lastly, Third Point, Third

Point, Stewards and servants expect to be treated like their

master. And again, hear Paul's voice.

Oh, Corinthians, So you think of yourselves as royalty now, do

you? Because of the manifestations of

God's gifts among you. All hail the Corinthian church

kings at last reigning gloriously apart from the very

ones who first delivered to you the mysteries of God.

You know, I wish you really were reigning Corinthians, so that we

might reign with you. If you have eyes to see, you'd

notice that the very apostles, even the ones you sometimes call

super apostles, don't exactly have it.

Great. Have you not seen what God and

His wisdom has done? He has made us apostles, like

slaves, like gladiators dragged into the Colosseum, put on

display as a spectacle of death to the world.

Watch, and to angels too. And Paul goes on and on to say

that while the Corinthians see themselves as wise, strong, and

honored, the apostles are treated like fools, weaklings,

and outcasts. They endure hunger, mistreatment

and shame with blessing, endurance and grace.

This is really biting language and Paul is using it to relay a

very important point. Faithful servants and stewards

of Jesus Christ live with the expectation that they will be

treated as their Master was treated.

They are not surprised by suffering.

They anticipate it. Sometimes.

They do not expect right now to live the kind of life that they

will one day have when the Lord Jesus returns that life of the

life, the life of those who will reign with Christ.

Instead, they understand that faithfulness in his house often

means receiving in some form the same rejection, the same

hardship, and the same opposition that Jesus himself

endured. Listen to the following verses

from Scripture. Three of them, four of them in

Hebrews. So Jesus also suffered outside

the gate in order to sanctify the people through His own

blood. Therefore, let us go to Him

outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured from first.

Peter, beloved, do not be surprised at the five year trial

when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange

were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share

Christ's suffering, that you may also rejoice and be glad when

His glory is revealed from Timothy.

All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be

persecuted. Romans 8 as it is written, for

your sake we are being killed all the day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

There are places in the world where Christians memorize whole

books of the Bible because if they own a physical copy, it

would mean imprisonment, torture, maybe even death.

Their prayers are whispered and silent because if they are

overheard, they'll be turned over to the authorities, even by

their own family. I say that with people that I'm

thinking of right now, when there are worship services, when

they actually happen, they actually gather together in

darkness where there's no light, there's no sound.

They mouth the words of hymns because they Can't Sing the

words out loud. If they are heard, they're in

trouble. Yet they continue to gather.

They continue to pray, they continue to serve.

They don't ask why is this happening to me?

Because they know. They know the cost of following

Jesus who was crucified for them.

Now compare that with us. We pray aloud in public places.

We choose churches based on, you know, the style of music, the

colour of the carpet or the ceiling or how good the coffee

is. We gather openly, we broadcast

our sermons online, we sing with microphones and follow Jesus

without hiding and praise God. I'm not saying that to

shameless. We are blessed to have that kind

of freedom. We should be thankful for it,

but we should not be deceived by it.

Because the moment hardship comes, or when obeying Jesus

costs us reputation, income, comfort, some of us are shocked.

We shouldn't be. We shouldn't ask why would this

happen to me? Because our brothers and sisters

around the world in return will ask us.

Why shouldn't it? Faithful stewards and servants

of Jesus don't expect to be treated better than their

masters in the here and now. They know that living between

the cross and the crown in the future sometimes means suffering

now, glory later. And many of us are going through

hard circumstances and hardship for different reasons.

Let us not be. Let us not be surprised.

Thank you Greg for choosing that song.

Leaning on the everlasting arms. Let us lean on the everlasting

arms of Jesus Now. I started out by saying that our

unity is strengthened when we all begin to see ourselves as

under roars on Jesus ship and house managers in his house.

And when we adopt that posture, we stop competing, we stop

comparing, we stop dividing because servants aren't rivals.

Stewards don't claim ownership. So I want you to examine your

heart. Are you judging other people's

motives and intentions, the hidden purposes of their heart?

Are you living by the judgement of others, or are you trying to

be faithful to Jesus? Are you humble before God's

Word, humbly using your gifts, pouring out into the lives of

other people, or humbly submitting to discipleship,

receiving from the life of other people?

Do you have the steady faith of someone who knows that suffering

is part of following Jesus? We are not our own, we belong to

Jesus. Let's be faithful servants and

stewards and we pray for us. You are our Master and before

you we stand or fall. We pray that you would Orient

our hearts towards what you think.

Teach us to be faithful to you that your Son will be glorified

and magnified so that the world may see See Him lifted up in our

midst and they will be drawn to His beauty, His goodness, and

His truth. In your Son's name I pray.

Amen.