How to Respond to Criticism - 1 Corinthians 4:1-7

This is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

But with me is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I don't even judge myself. For I'm not aware of anything against myself, but I'm not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things that are now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

I have 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 be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive?

If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?

So in this text, we see the apostle Paul giving the Corinthians the proper way to evaluate him in Apollos. He says in verse one, "I say these things and this is how you should regard us.

This is how you should look at us. This is how you should view us." Verse six, he says, "I've applied these things to myself and Apollos, so you might not think about us more than you ought to think." He says, "I think it as a light thing or a small thing that I'm judged by you or by any human court." So he's painting a picture of how to evaluate ministers.

Part of the reason why he's saying this is because he's being critiqued by the Corinthians.

They viewed the apostle Paul as a poor preacher. They didn't evaluate his ministry as being that strong or valuable or helpful. They elevated the ministry of Apollos above him. So here, Paul is being criticized and to some sense rejected by the very church that he planted.

And there's nothing harder, I think more painful in the minister's life than to be critiqued or rejected by his friends. I mean, it's hard to be critiqued. It's hard to be rejected.

It's hard to be judged by your enemies. But you expect that from your enemies. But when it's close to you, when it's friends that are dear to you, when they begin criticizing you or gossiping about you or judging you or critiquing you, boy, it stings. It stings. And the apostle Paul must have been wounded deeply by hearing the critiques and concerns of the Corinthians about himself. I think of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was rejected by his own, and that was hard.

He was rejected by his enemies, rejected by his own. They did not receive him. But what must have been like when Christ was rejected by his closest friends? The ones he says, "I don't call you servants. I call you friends." And his very friends, the apostles, they are the ones that turned on him when he was arrested. Even Peter denied him publicly three times.

That had been more painful for Christ than the rejection of the nation of Israel, even the Gentiles, but to have his own friends. And some of you have experienced harsh rejection and criticism.

Some of you have endured this from a spouse who has divorced you or turned from you, who've said hard things about you. It's like, that's hard. It's difficult. It's one thing to be rejected by others, another thing to be rejected by someone you love.

Some of you have experienced that, and I've talked to many of your parents.

And in our congregation, it's not that I'm picking on anyone, because I think we have multiple parents that have grown children, grown children that no longer talk to the parents.

I mean, I can't believe the pain that must be, the pain that you must feel, to love your children and to deeply care about your children, but your own children don't want to come around you and avoid you, especially during the holidays. You're thinking through, I miss this person or I miss that person. Oh, if they would just call, but they don't call, they won't come.

And that's got to sting. In fact, it does sting. And I know it's difficult to endure rejection.

It's difficult to endure criticism. None of us love criticism. None of us love rejection.

In fact, it's probably the hardest pain that we can go through.

Physical pain is light in comparison to the emotional pain of rejection and criticism.

Paul is going through it. He said, "Well, everybody loves the apostle Paul." Well, he loved them now that he's dead, but when he was alive, he endured tons of criticism.

He had to write two books about defending his own ministry.

He does it in 1 Corinthians. He has to do it again in 2 Corinthians.

Criticism comes, rejection comes, but how are we to deal with it? How are we to handle it?

How are we to respond to it? What we see here in this text is the biblical response to criticism, the biblical response to being rejected by a boss or a supervisor or by a colleague or a friend or someone you respect or even by your enemies, how to respond to rejection.

And I think we see the proper response and it's not easy. I promise you the easy thing to do when you're criticized is to retaliate, is to get in the flesh. I mean, it wounds your pride and our pride is the problem when we're criticized. But here we see the apostle Paul respond in such a humble way in a way that it's almost unbelievable. And it's like maybe the Lord will give us the grace that we need to endure criticism the same way that Paul endured it. And the way he endured criticism, he had a proper evaluation of himself. You have to evaluate yourself properly, evaluate your ministry and your calling and what you're called to do, evaluate God properly and your gifts properly. And we see that he does all three of these things pretty well. In fact, exemplary for us to follow. So we see three responses, three biblical proper responses to rejection and criticism. First, we're going to see how you're to take your ministry seriously.

As you're criticized, it doesn't mean as well, it doesn't matter how I'm doing. No, you're to take what God's called you to do seriously. And that's why criticism is going to hurt.

I take parenting seriously. I take pastoring seriously. I take my job seriously. And if I'm being criticized, yes, it hurts, but I don't need to respond by saying I'm not going to take it seriously anymore. I'm just going to forget about it. No, take your ministry seriously.

We see Paul saying that. Secondly, take God seriously. We see him saying that regardless of human court or regardless of my conscience, what matters is that great day of judgment.

That's what matters to me. And then finally, don't take yourself seriously.

Don't overly elevate yourself. Have a low view of yourself. Those who are prideful have a high view of themselves or the ones that are wounded most with criticism. But regardless, criticism hurts, especially if it's unfair and unjust or overly cruel. Criticism is very difficult to endure.

And we see some benefits in learning how Paul deal with his criticism in this text. First response, take your ministry seriously. Take your calling seriously. We see this in the first two verses.

Now, the Corinthians were elevating, evaluating, evaluating and scrutinizing Paul and Apollos' ministry based upon their gifting. They were judging them principally on their speaking ability.

And Apollos, as we learn in Acts chapter 18, it says that he was an eloquent man. He was a gifted speaker. And Paul was not eloquent. We learned that in 2 Corinthians 10 10. It says his speech was of no account. He says of himself in 2 Corinthians 11 6, I'm not a Polish speaker.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

If you want to evaluate and look at me and compare me to Apollos, he's going to win the battle because he's an eloquent, polished, very good speaker. I'm not, he says, he's honest about it.

I'm not a great speaker. I'm not a Polish speaker. And so he was being rejected because of his lack of gifting. Often we too are criticized for our lack of giftings.

You know, I would hate to be evaluated too harshly upon my management skills.

Those who know me know that I'm not very good at managing things.

There are two types of people I've learned, the people that can multitask and the people who can't.

You know, I'm more of the person that can only do one thing at a time. And I can think about one thing deeply and long. I can almost, sometimes when people talk to me, I'm in this zone, because I'm not paying attention, because I'm on whatever I'm on. You know, it's a blessing and a curse for me. There's two types of people. You've got the artistic people, and then you've got your managers. And I would hate, you know, to be extremely judged for my inabilities or my lack of gifting in a certain area. Like, no, I'm not good at that. And often we criticize people or we are criticized because we're not good at a particular thing. And it's not the area that God has made us to be necessarily good at.

And it'd be like Paul, he's being criticized because he's just not as good of a speaker as a Paulist. It's like, is this what we should be evaluating them on? On their giftings. And we fall into that trap. Who's the more educated or who's got more ability to do this or do that?

And we begin to judge one another based upon one another's gifts or lack of gifts. Do we not?

That's the criterion that we use. And what we learned in this first couple of verses is, no, it's not the level of gifting or talents that we have. It's the faithfulness that we have.

Someone can have a few talents, but be faithful and little. And someone can have a lot of talents, a lot of giftings, but be not so faithful. That's what we see here. This is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, as required of stewards that they be found faithful. In other words, Paul doesn't seem to mind that he wasn't the most gifted preacher. What he was concerned about was that he was a faithful preacher.

There's a huge difference. So he's evaluating the critiques that he's receiving. And he says,"I'm not concerned about being the best, eloquent preacher, but I am concerned about being a faithful servant of God. Judge me on that. Judge me on faithfulness, not on gifting. Judge me on how well I steward that which has been given to me." So what we need to do when we're criticized, go, "Okay, how well am I as a servant?" You know, it's like, well, I might not be the best writer. I might not be the best speaker. I might not be good at this or that. But how well am I at serving Christ? How well am I with being a steward of the gospel? So many Christians struggle and judge themselves on their giftings. Maybe you're the one that's going, "I'm not good at anything. I'm not a good cook. I'm not a good seamstress. I'm not a good this or that. I see all these other ladies or I see all these other men, they seem to be excelling in all these areas.

And where's my gifts? What am I supposed to be doing?" And you begin to think little of yourself or you begin to judge yourself harshly and you get criticized and you begin to believe the lies about you. So not, "No, no, no, that's the wrong evaluation metric." The Bible tells us to be careful about comparing ourselves with one another or comparing a Paul with a Paulist or comparing this person with his gifts with that person with their distinct giftings. We're not to compare ourselves with one another. That's not how we evaluate. It's a matter of how faithful are you as a servant of the living God. The point is when you are criticized, ask yourself,"Is this criticism about my faithfulness or is it about my giftings or lack of giftings?" Take being a faithful servant seriously. As a servant, this is not about you. Don't be worried about your name. And that's the problem with criticism. It's like, well, it's hard for your name to become decreased. Christ made himself of no reputation. It's hard for us to have no reputation before others. We should be worried about Christ's reputation. We should be worried about His glory, not our glory. And sometimes when we're criticized, if it's a reflection on Christ, it should really sting us and hurt us. I don't want to misrepresent Christ in any way.

I don't want Christ to be shamed in my life. And if you're coming after me and saying you're somehow or dishonoring Christ, you say you're a Christian, but you don't act like a Christian, then I should be ashamed. I should be concerned. But if it's just a matter of how smart I am, then I don't, we shouldn't care if you think we're smart or not smart or educated or not educated.

Let all that stuff fall, but let the name of Christ stand strong.

You see, as servants, this is not about us. This is about the glory of Christ. We should be taking not only service to Christ seriously, we should be taking stewardship seriously. The essence of the Christian life, that's why we all have a ministry. I'm applying this not just to pastors and ministers, I'm applying it to all of us because we're all servants of Christ and we're all stewards. And what is a steward? A steward is someone who's been given something precious to watch, to care for. It's a caretaker, a manager of something that doesn't belong to him.

And so it's a stewardship. It's not ours. It's not our gospels. It's the precious mysteries of the gospel don't belong to us, but we've been given to them to steward. Everything we have is on loan to us to steward. Your finances are yours to steward. Your giftings are yours that are there for you to steward. All everything you have is a form of stewardship. And how well are you stirring the gifts that God has given you? The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 4.10, "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms." You see, because the key to servanthood and stewardship is faithfulness. This is what's important. If your ministry is not yours, it's not for your gain, it's not for your reputation, it's not for building a platform, then the most important trait for any minister, any Christian, is faithfulness. That's what we see in verse two.

We see that the most important thing would be found faithful.

Now, we are to be faithful as stewards of the mysteries of the gospel. We're to be faithful with the truth. That means sometimes we have to speak the truth even if it's going to cost us something. Galatians 1.10, "For I'm now seeking, am I seeking the approval of men or seeking the approval of God?" If I'm trying to please man, if I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. You see, a steward is not worried about his reputation. If you're worried about your reputation, you're worried about pleasing men, you're worried about the criticism, and you say, "If criticism is going to keep you away from being faithful to the Word of God, then you're not a servant, or at least you're not a faithful servant, and you're not a faithful steward. If you're going to be a faithful steward, you've been giving something, and you're to care for it, you're to protect it, you're to treasure it, you're to share it." In fact, I think the word stewardship has the context and the idea of a dispenser, one who takes what he's been given and dispenses it out for the good or the betterment of others.

Whatever you've been given is not for your own benefit, principally not for your own benefit.

It's for your usage to serve God's people. So how faithful are you in loving and caring for the saints? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 33, "As I also try to please everyone in all that I do, for I'm not seeking my own good, but the good of many, that they may be saved." You see, you want to be a faithful servant of Christ and a faithful steward of the gospel, then you'll use your life and your ministries and your calling not for self, but for the good of others. Now that changes how you're going to hear critiques and concerns, because when we are, most of the time when we're a critique and we're wounded by it, at least I speak for myself, it's because my own reputation or glory took a hit. But we're not in this for our own glory. We're not in this for our own reputation. We're not in this to promote self. We're in here to promote Christ and to serve His people. Now, if you're criticized because you're not doing that well, then you need to be criticized. You need to examine yourself and say, "How can I do better?" But if you're just being criticized because you're not excelling in a particular gifts or you're not necessarily meeting up to the standard of other saints, then that's not something you should take all that seriously. You see, a faith steward is one who serves people. Now, I like how Jesus says,"The Sabbath is made for man." It's not like God made the Sabbath. He goes, "Now I need the Sabbath to be honored. Let me make man so they can honor the Sabbath." No, God made man. He says, "Oh, they need a day of rest. Let me make the Sabbath for man." So some ministers have the idea, "I've got all these gifts, therefore I need sheep. I need disciples and disciples are made for teachers." No, disciples and sheep are not made for ministers. Ministers are made for disciples.

Ministers are made for the sheep. It's a huge difference. It's a fundamental difference.

We're here to lay our lives down, to serve the sheep. We're not here for the sheep to serve us.

This is not about our own promotion. This is about our decrease in order to promote and encourage others. You see, it is the charlatans and false teachers that, according to 2 Peter 2, that exploit the saints. Or as 2 Corinthians 2.17, they peddle the Word of God for their own prophet.

Or as Acts 20, 31 says, they draw away disciples for their own self. They rise up because they want disciples so that they can feel important and feel like they are smart or they need to exalt themselves. But there are very few ministers who are truly faithful. Even in the first century, listen to the words of Paul when he sent his friend Timothy to the Philippians.

"I'm going to send to you Timothy," he says, "for I have no one else like him who genuinely cares about your welfare. All the others," this must be all many of the other teachers. "All the others care only for themselves and not for the matters of what matters to Jesus Christ." Think about that. Think about this. Here's young Timothy. Paul says, "This man," this Timothy, he and all you seminary students listen, "this young man Timothy, he's not in it for himself.

This is not about him. This is not him getting a big church. It's not him about building the platform. This is not him trying to get a following. Timothy, genuinely, from his heart, cares about you." Paul's like, "I don't have many like that.

I don't have very many people like that. I'm going to send you my best. I'm going to send you Timothy." You see, this is a faithful servant. This is what we're called to be. Now, let me give you a little exhortation. You come to church, and many of us, we all fall into this. I'm not criticizing. I put myself here. Come to church and we're like, "What can I get from church? How can I be fed? Who's going to talk to me? Who did not talk to me? I feel isolated." Or you might feel like this.

There's clicks in the church. These people talk to one another. No one talked to me.

You get started to feel sorry for yourself in that way.

Next week, come to church. Let me help you. Next week, if you feel isolated, you feel like you're alone, you feel like no one's ministering to you, and you feel like you're being judged by everybody.

Next week, come and say, "Now, I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to worry about how do I serve someone else in the church today? How do I encourage someone today? How do I show myself to be friendly? I don't need to think about friendship as something that I can get out of people. I want to be a friend. I want to be a servant. I want to care. I want to pray for someone. I want to minister to someone today. Let me be forgotten. Let me become low. Let me not even worry about myself. Let me serve someone today." That'll change your heart. That'll change your perspective.

That'll change the way you come and approach church. It'll change the way you feel about one another.

This was Timothy. You see, a faithful servant is one who's not seeking to do it for high service or man pleasing. We can see that in Ephesians 6, 6. Many people doing it because you're kind of like the Pharisees. They make long prayers so that people can think they're righteous and that they're holy and that they're a man of God and that they're educated. No, don't do it for man service or man pleaser. Truly don't do it for that reason. Do it because God's watching, and He's not impressed with your education. He's not impressed with your gifting.

We'll see that in the end. He's the one that gave you everything you have.

Right? So He's not impressed with that. You know what He is impressed with is humility, a contract heart, not with the strength of your legs, not with your bank account, not with any of these things that man and the world glories in.

So take your ministry seriously. When you are criticized, one of the first things we need to do is to evaluate why are we being criticized. Does it have to do with our service or stewardship to what we have been given or does it have to do with not measuring up to some man-made standard?

Let us be careful, therefore, in judging another man's servant.

Let us not compare ourselves with each other. 2 Corinthians 10, 12, warns against doing that. Don't set a polis against Paul. A polis is this and Paul's not that.

You know, one elder does this, another elder doesn't do that. We start setting up one another against one another. This is using man-made standards to evaluate one another, and it's not wise. Let us not judge others on wisdom issues. Let us not, as a church, we have a church, many of us homeschool. Let us not judge those who don't homeschool.

Let us not judge each other on wisdom issues of conscience and liberty issues.

Right? I mean, it's easy for us to make, not a biblical command, but some secondary wisdom issue.

I'm not saying they're not wisdom, and we have to apply wisdom to ourselves, but we've got to be careful in not critiquing others based on our own personal convictions.

So what is the first response to criticism?

Take your own calling, your own ministry seriously. Okay, second response.

Take God seriously. We see this in verses three through five.

You can see Paul is doing like a three-fold evaluation of criticism.

Look at verse three, "But with me is a very small thing that it should be judged by you or by any human court." Now, he did not say, "It's nothing to be judged by you." He says, "It's a small thing in comparison to something else." So don't read this to say being critique or being judged, you should just not worry about it at all. You should take criticism seriously. Even if it's unfair criticism, you should use it as an opportunity to evaluate your life.

It's the wise man who hears criticism and learns from it.

Proverbs 9, 9, "Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser still." Proverbs 15, 15, "A fool despises his father's correction, but he that regards reproof gains prudence." Be careful of being so self-defensive. And so, no, you can't criticize me, but you can't learn. You can't learn from others. And it's hard. It's hard to be criticized by our enemies.

But maybe our enemies have something to instruct us on. Maybe even the unfair criticism is still something we need to evaluate and consider because you have to understand because we're not perfect, none of us are perfect. Even unfair and harsh criticism may have a seed of truth within it.

Maybe we do need to hear that. Maybe God has appointed that person to say something to you so that you would take heed. See, when we hear criticism, it's an opportunity for us to examine our blind spots. Obviously, Paul realized he may have blind spots. He says, "I don't have anything against myself. My conscience is clean, but it doesn't mean I'm acquitted. It doesn't mean that I'm guiltless. There could be some true areas that you could see in my life that I can't see." And we all have blind spots. We all have areas of weaknesses and areas that we could use others to come alongside of us and help us in to see clearly. So we need to take criticism serious. But here may give you a quick application on how to criticize others or how not to criticize, especially on social media. In fact, I would say try to avoid. My heart would be thrilled if social media was deleted altogether. Here's some wisdom on how to criticize others. Is your critique, correction, motivated out of love for God and love for the one you're critiquing?

Before you say anything, can you say, "I love that person," especially on social media? Because often you see what you see on social media is like people are loving throwing out harsh things, and they mock and laugh and joke about it. This is so ungodly.

This is not doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I've been on the receiving end of a lot of critiques, and I don't think these people care about me at all. It's hard. Is your critique, when you critique someone, is it constructive?

I've learned something about being critique. Sometimes when humans critique us or criticize us, it leaves you in a pool of your own tears like a pothole. You're stuck in the pothole with your own tears, and you have nowhere to go but set there in the fetal position. It just tears you down, and it brings you down, and it destroys you, and there's no hope. It leaves you hopeless. It leaves you down and out and like, "Whoa, whoa is me?" Here's the difference with God's criticism.

Or God's correction. Let's put it that way. When God puts His finger on you as a brother or sister, you're doing this. You should think differently about this. When He puts His finger on you, and you know God is correcting you for something you're doing wrong, it's immediately healing.

It's immediately filled with hope. The Bible says there's healing in the purple or in the bruises with true correction. It doesn't leave you down in the fetal position. It lifts you up. It's like,"I need to know this. I want to be better. I want to have the weaknesses of my life chiseled off of me, and I want to be holy, and your correction is helping me be what I want to be." Thank God for a brother who will correct us. Thank God for someone who will speak into our lives positively and constructively. But there's no place for us to enjoy it.

There's no place for us to take pleasure in speaking bad about others or slandering others or gossiping about others. This is not godly at all. All it does is hurts and destroys and tears down. It's not of the Lord. So take criticism seriously, but listen, take your conscience more serious. That's what we see next. He says, "It's a very small thing to be criticized by others, but with me is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.

In fact, I don't even judge myself." You see, he says in verse 4, "For I'm not aware of anything against myself." What's more important as you're facing criticism or dealing with criticism or rejection, it's important to you to evaluate yourself honestly before the Lord and do what David did in the Psalms, "Search me, O Lord, know my ways, look into my conscience, search." And if you have anything against you, repent of it. The Lord will forgive you immediately, but have a clean conscience. That's more important than the evaluation of others, the rejection of others. What's important is that your conscience doesn't reject you.

I've learned the importance of a clean conscience for my father.

My father would take us in family worship and he would often pray this prayer very regularly.

I'd hear him pray, "Dear Lord, search my mind, search my conscience, my thoughts. And Lord, if there's anything in there, I pray that before I go to bed tonight that it is clean, that my heart is clean before you and before others." He went to bed with a clean conscience, a clear conscience. One time I was on a drive with my father and we were preaching together early on. Probably 20 years ago, we were headed to San Antonio to a conference and I was preaching with my dad. I was so excited and my dad started telling me, "I don't see my dad was my age now and I was in my 20s and I think I identify with him now better." But my dad had experienced a lot of criticism through his ministry. He went through a real bad, harsh church plant, had some of his closest friends turn on him. He knew what it was to be rejected and to be criticized. He was talking, he was having a moment where he was just being honest with me about it. He says, "Jeff, I have made many failures and make stakes along the way as a pastor, but I can honestly say right now my heart is clean before God." When you're criticized, that's what you need to come to.

You can't sleep at night if your conscience is guilty, condemning you. Clean your conscience.

You might not be able to eliminate everybody's bad feelings about you. In fact, you can't.

There are going to be people that don't like you. What can you do about people that don't like you?

It's like, "I want everybody to love me. I want everybody to like me." Well, you can't fix that, but you can make sure your conscience is clean before the living God. You can rest at night if your conscience is clean. But there's something even more important than your clean conscience.

That's the judgment of God. Paul says, "Even though I don't have anything against my conscience," listen, that doesn't mean I'm acquitted. It doesn't mean I'm guiltless. It doesn't mean that I'm innocent because we could have blind spots. We could have areas in our lives that I'm walking around with a clean conscience, but I could still be guilty of sin on some areas of my life. I just don't know about it. I don't see it. Who of us can see all of our sins? We just can't.

So our clean conscience doesn't mean that all of our motives are right. All of our actions are right. We're still not able to judge ourselves properly. This is because only God is our judge.

Now, listen, we need to be careful here. Sometimes when someone charges us with evil and our conscience is clean and we search the Scriptures, we need to realize, wives, your husband is not your ultimate judge.

Children, your parents are not your ultimate judge.

Who is our judge? God. God. The Scriptures.

Not our husbands, not our parents, not our pastors, not our friends, not a confession of faith, but the Scriptures, the Word of God, and ultimately the day of the Lord.

We see that in verse 3 and on to verse 4. In fact, I don't even judge myself, for I'm not aware of anything against myself, but I'm not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. We can't judge ourselves properly. This is why it says in verse 5,"Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time before the Lord comes." We see later on we don't even know our own motives. Our motives are often mixed. I could tell you that I don't even have to wait till the day of judgment to tell you that I don't know if I can preach one sermon, one sermon with 100% pure motives for the glory of God and for the good of the saints.

Is there something in me that wants to be approved by you guys? I don't know. I don't know. I don't want that to be. But do I know the true intents of my heart? No, the Lord knows I don't. How could I know? It's like we're being critiqued. Mainly, they just have a clean conscience, and we're just going to have to wait. Wait on the Lord. Do not pronounce judgment before the time. That is, be careful about judging others too quickly, too sternly, and be careful about even judging yourself.

Wait on the Lord. We see that, "Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time before the Lord calms." We see this in David. Remember when David was expelled from Jerusalem because he has a run for his life? His son is taken over, and as he's leaving his heads down, and they're basically, it's like a funeral procession out of Jerusalem, and he comes across one of the descendants of Saul, Simei. Simei begins kicking up dust and throwing rocks at him and cursing him, and say, "You're a man of blood. You're a man of blood." Of course, David was a man of blood.

Part of why he was being expelled is because of the sins of David. David wasn't a perfect man.

Here you have this man harshly enjoying. He's taking delight, not positive criticism, not constructive criticism. This is pure joy of criticizing, rejecting David.

David had a man with him. He says, "Listen, I have a sword. Let me go cut that dead dog's head off." David says, "No. God has appointed him to curse me." Remember that. You may be unfairly criticized, maybe even by a child or son or daughter who will no longer speak to you, and they're wrong. They're wrong. They're falsely judging you or judging you overly harsh. They should be forgiving, but they're not. Remember, it's the Lord who for some reason higher than our own purposes has appointed this.

David says, "Don't do that. God has appointed him to do this, and maybe God will see it and bless me for it. I'll wait." In other words, I'll wait on God and not take judgment in my own hands.

I will bless and pray for those who curse me and wait on the Lord to take vengeance.

I don't have to defend myself. Remember, this is one of the things we all need to learn, and it's hard to do. One of my mistakes, I'll just be honest with you, one of my mistakes when hearing one of my books I wrote, I got a bunch of negative press, and one of my mistakes was,"I had to defend myself." No, no, I've learned. Don't defend yourself. You don't have to defend yourself. If it's defending God's glory, yes, you've got to get in the battle. If you have to defend your own glory, stay out of it. Trust the Lord to defend you. Wait on the Lord to vindicate you.

Wait on the Lord. He will do it. Be patient. We see this in the life of Christ. He was rejected by his foes, rejected by his family, rejected by his friends, and when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. And when he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly, according to 1 Peter 2, 23. That's what we need to do. How do we handle criticism? Wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord. Don't seek revenge or justice. Don't worry about your own honor. You see, God will set the record straight in his due time. We see he will expose evil motives who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart, and then each one will receive his commendation from God.

It's about being faithful. You see, you have a man, we'll see here in a minute, that's full of gifts, but it's unfaithful, a man or a woman who has barely any gifts, who's faithful. And in the end, we're just going to have to wait. We're just going to have to wait on the Lord to go, "Now this one, this little whittle in her might did more than all the wealthy people with their riches. This servant did more with what he or she had than the greatest missionary that we think should be first in line in the kingdom of heaven." 2 Corinthians 10, 18, "For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one who the Lord commends." So don't take your calling seriously, take God seriously, and thirdly, we're going to make this very quick. Third response is don't take yourself seriously.

We see this in verse 6 through 7.

"We do not need to compare our gifts with each other." We see this in verse 6.

"I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers." We're not to be wise, it's not wise to evaluate someone's faithfulness or her own faithfulness based upon our giftings or our fruitfulness. He says, "I apply these things to us so 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." So when we begin to evaluate Apollos' gifts versus Apollos' gifts and go, "Okay, Apollos is the greater speaker," what does that do? Puffs up people. It builds up pride. It doesn't lead to the glory of God, it leads to the glory of human instruments.

And it's not the encouragement that we all need. Every saint needs encouragement, encourage one another. But we don't need puffed up, puffing up. We don't need comparing one saint with another saint because all that does, it doesn't unite us, it divides us, it separates us. And Paul says, "Is Christ divided?" It just leads to, it could have led to Paul thinking left of himself, it could lead to Paul thinking too highly of himself. We don't need to think we are something based upon our giftings.

We see that in verse 7. We all have different gifts. Romans 12, 6 says, "We have different gifts according to the grace given us. Therefore, we don't need to boast in our giftings as if something we ourselves produced." Look at verse 7. "For who sees anything different in you?

What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" In other words, let us not take ourselves all that seriously.

I've learned one thing about preaching, that the gift of preaching doesn't mean holiness.

Just because someone has the gift of speaking and preaching, or even can exedite a passage, that doesn't mean personal holiness.

That doesn't necessarily mean faithfulness.

I mean, here's the bottom line is that we all have different gifts, but don't boast in your gifts.

Don't boast in what you have. Some of you can complain that you don't have more gifts.

Well, don't complain that you don't have more gifts. It's not about the amount of gifting you have. It's about the amount of faithfulness you have to the gifting you've been given.

You see, we're called to be faithful stewards.

Romans 12, 3 says, "For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself with sober judgment according to the measure of faith that God has given you." You know, take what God has given you and use for His glory and for the service of others. In other words, let me reduce this sermon down to this, how to evaluate criticism with humility. Humility.

When you have a humble heart and it says, "I just want to be faithful to God, your conscience is clean. I want to be a good steward of what He's given me and be faithful," and you're not boasting in your gifts, therefore, when someone criticizes your gifts or lack of gifts, you're not all that distraught because it's not your gifts that you're worried about.

You don't have this high opinion of yourself. And then when you're low in your own estimation, when someone criticizes you, you don't have that far to fall. "Humble yourself before the Lord, and He will exalt you in due time." Just wait for the day of judgment. God will vindicate you.

He will one day say to you, even though the world may think that you're not that good of a Christian, the Lord will say to you one day, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." So how do we respond to criticism? Take your calling serious, take God serious, but don't take yourself that serious. Amen.