God's Job (1 Corinthians 3:18-4:5)

And we're gonna be in First Corinthians, starting in chapter 3, verse 18.

So I'll give you a second to go ahead and turn there.

This is one of those sermons where we're gonna actually cross over chapters, which always feels a little bit funny, like wait, like we're breaking the rules or something like that.

Um remember the verses in the chapters were not there the first, you know, when Paul wrote these, these were added later so that we can say turn two, chapter three, verses, you know, whatever they so the chapters and verses are not inspired, and by no way am I saying this is how it should have been broken up, you know, like this.

It's just when we're breaking up the sermons, we're trying to keep them within themes, and then also keep them within, you know, 35 to 45 minutes or so.

Uh so that's why we're gonna be crossing over from chapter three into chapter four here this morning.

So, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, starting in verse 18, would you please stand for the reading of God's word?

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

Let no one deceive himself.

If any one among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool, so that he can become wise.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness.

And again, the Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile.

So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come.

Everything is yours, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

A person should think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God.

In this regard, it is required that managers be found faithful.

It is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any human court.

In fact, I don't even judge myself, for I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I'm not justified by this.

It is the Lord who judges me.

So don't judge anything prematurely before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts, and then praise will come to each one from God.

Let's pray.

Thank you for this time that we can meet together, that we can worship you, that we can collectively fix our eyes upon you.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the specific passage that you have for us here this morning.

Lord, I pray that each one of us would approach this with open hearts, with an open mind, Lord, with eyes to see you, ears to hear you, and that you would do the exact work that you desire in each one of our hearts here this morning.

Lord, help us to approach you in all humility, to kneel down before your throne and say, Lord, what is it inside of me that you want to encourage this morning, that you want to convict me in this morning, that you want to teach me, and in what ways do you want me to grow as a follower of Jesus Christ?

Where we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So last week we covered the first 17 verses of chapter three.

And if you remember, if you were here with us last week, the main point was don't elevate God's servants.

And the other main point was don't judge God's servants.

Because all of God's servants are gonna stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

Both rewarding God's servants is gonna be happening there, and judging God's servants is gonna happen there, and that is only God's job.

You know, the judgment seat is already filled.

That's where God sits.

And he never asks us to sit next to him.

The theme today is gonna be much the same as what we we went over last week.

We're gonna be ending chapter three, and it's gonna be about um to look how to look at human leaders.

Or I should say how not to look at human leaders is chapter three.

But then as we jump into chapter four, it's going to be how we should look at human leaders.

So those are the two main points here this morning.

And my hope is that we walk away with today is the same attitude that we see Paul has as he's addressing the Corinthian church here.

That we would learn from Paul's attitude, what his attitude is toward church leaders, how to look at them and how not to look at them, and how he approaches it from that place of being a human leader within the church.

So let's jump in right here at verse 18.

He says, Let no one deceive himself.

If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise.

Now I want us all to turn back a page or two in our Bible to chapter one of 1 Corinthians.

We're going to be looking at verses 26 and 27, because Paul's already talked about this and now he's going to expand on it.

But chapter 1, verses 26 and 27.

He says, Brothers and sisters, consider your calling.

So he's saying, consider who you were before God called you.

Not many were wise from a human perspective, from a fleshly carnal perspective.

Not many powerful, not many of noble birth.

Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

You see, if God chose the Sauls of the world, we talked about King Saul a little bit.

You know, he was the strong, tall, good-looking guy.

You know, if God chose the highly intelligent people, the people that were extremely well-spoken, to be his servants and to be his disciples, the attributes of those people would get the credit.

Not God working through them.

When we look at who Jesus chose to be his disciples, he didn't choose a bunch of strong, intelligent, well-spoken, highly educated guys.

He chose a bunch of guys that people looked at and said, Really?

Those are the guys that you want to follow you around and you want to be known for?

Are those twelve guys?

You know, in Acts 4.13 is a prime example.

You don't have to turn that, I'll read it to you.

But in this chapter, Peter and John were brought before the Jewish leadership, and they spoke through the Holy Spirit with boldness, it says.

And then the Jewish leadership responds to them, and it says in Acts 4.13, when they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus.

You see, even these men that had just sent Jesus to his death, these Jewish leaders, could recognize that these men would be nothing without Jesus.

Yet the disciples were confounding these highly intelligent, highly educated men with what the Holy Spirit was speaking through them.

So back to chapter 3, verse 18.

And I want to read verse 18 one more time, keeping all of that in mind.

Let no one deceive himself.

If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise.

If following Jesus makes you a fool in the world's eyes, then become a fool in the world's eyes, so that you can become wise in God's eyes.

If the people you know, or maybe even the people that you don't know, think that you are a fool for being a Christian, that's actually to be expected.

And that's okay.

Just keep giving them the gospel of Christ in Him crucified so that the power of God can work on them.

And that hopefully one day their eyes will be opened as our eyes have been opened to spiritual things through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit living in and through us so that even though we remain foolish in the world's eyes, that we can be counted wise in the Lord's eyes.

If we're following Scripture, I guarantee you the world is gonna think that we're fools.

If we're clinging to and trusting to God's word, we're going to be called fools.

We're gonna be called intolerant, we're gonna be called archaic, we're gonna be called misogynistic because scripture teaches that God's given gender and he's given different roles within those genders.

And people who think that they are wise in this age, just as Paul says in 18, will think we're fools because we're not changing God's word to match our current cultural beliefs.

You know, when it comes to God's word, if it's new, it's not true.

And if it's true, it's not new.

It's thousands of years old, and God has not changed it to match how our current culture feels.

And it's okay if the world thinks that we're fools.

God says, become a fool in the world's eyes, so that you can become wise in my eyes.

Look at verse 19 with me.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness.

And again, the Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile.

The smartest person in the world with the greatest thoughts is foolishness to God.

I just picture God seeing the wisdom of the world while it contradicts Scripture.

And God just looking at it and saying, I invented all that you're talking about.

I spoke all of this into existence.

I know how it all works, I know how it all functions, and I know how it all functions the best.

And if you'll just listen to my instruction, you'll be so much better off.

And you'll be so much happier if you work within my instruction and within my design.

You know, for some reason, just in the past couple weeks, I've come across this phrase multiple times of that uh that marriage is just a social construct.

Have you guys been hearing that a lot recently?

I seem to be coming across that a lot.

Marriage was created and ordained and implemented by God.

And if you're sitting here today and you're married and you're both followers of Christ, and if you're trying to operate in your marriage outside of God's biblical design and purpose, it's like trying to push a rope up a hill.

Ropes weren't designed to be pushed, they were designed to be pulled.

God has a design and a plan for marriage, and it's in Scripture.

He gives us everything that we need in Scripture.

And if you want a marriage that will last, if you want a marriage that's actually enjoyable, you better follow the instruction manual that God has given, that He has left for us, and stop following the world's advice.

You know, we we hear so much marriage advice that contradicts Scripture.

I hear it all the time, you know, the world's advice.

If marriage is 50-50, no, in God's economy it's 100% and it's a hundred percent of giving yourself to the other person.

Or, you know, if you're not fulfilled by your spouse, then it's time to find somebody that will fulfill you.

It's like, no, no, no.

That's not where our fulfillment comes from.

You'll never be fulfilled by a spouse.

That can only come from God.

Or you'll hear things like, well, if you've grown apart, that's natural.

That just means it's time to move on.

No, all of that is foolishness to God, but that's the wisdom of the world trying to speak into something that God designed.

And that's just one example of the world's wisdom being foolishness to God.

If it contradicts scripture, it's absolute foolishness.

And then in verses 19 and 20, Paul summarizes Job 5.13, and then he also summarizes Psalm 94.11.

And I want to read to you what Psalm 94.11 says.

It says, The Lord knows the thoughts of mankind, they are futile.

It doesn't say he understands their thoughts or he understands what they say.

He knows their thoughts.

He knows everything that we're thinking.

And what does he say?

They're futile.

That means our thoughts, apart from the Holy Spirit living inside of us, are devoid of force, truth, success, or result.

This is the definition of futile.

They are useless and of no purpose.

That's how God sees our thoughts apart from Him.

He's not interested in our own intelligence apart from him, because our own intelligence is futile before the Lord.

But God wants to use us that once fought with futility to confound the wise of the world, just like we saw with the disciples in Acts.

So that the wise look at us and say, you know, I knew them before they followed Jesus.

And this has to be a miracle.

There's no way that this person is acting on their own.

They must have been with Jesus.

Look at verse 21 with me.

So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours.

He's saying, don't constrict yourself to one human leader.

Don't constrict yourself to exalting a servant.

You have Christ, you have direct access to the Father, you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.

And you want to identify with a man?

He's telling them you have everything.

Everything is yours in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit.

You don't need me.

You don't need Apollos.

You don't need Cephas or any other servant.

But the thing is, as humans, we have this desire to elevate, whether it's ourselves or somebody else.

We have this desire to elevate humans.

You know, I was trying to think of the most famous person on the planet, you know, the most recognized person maybe around the world.

And I was thinking it's probably Michael Jordan.

You know, if it's not Michael Jordan, you know, he's up there as probably the most recognizable person in the world.

So, say Michael Jordan comes into our church this morning and he sits right next to you.

Would you treat him like any other person that walked in those doors and sat down next to you?

You know, as soon as you walked out those doors, would you start calling people and texting and like, hey, Michael Jordan was at church this morning?

And he sat next to me and I shook his hand and I got a selfie.

I'm gonna text you this picture of me and Michael Jordan, you know.

Do you think that we would have more people introduce themselves to him than if another stranger walked through those doors?

Why?

Think about why?

Why would that get us all riled up and excited and wanting to report it to all of our friends?

Because we like to elevate and honor people.

And oftentimes we like to do it for all the wrong reasons.

You know, Jordan is famous for being able to put this round leather ball through an iron hoop that's twice the size of the ball.

You know, when you break it down, that's that's really what it is.

But we, you know, we see people like that, yeah, but he's famous.

We've elevated him.

And that's what the world likes to do naturally.

That's what we like to do naturally.

And unfortunately, we allow that to creep into the church.

And Paul is saying, uh-uh.

Let no one boast in human spiritual leaders.

Don't do this within your church, and don't do this within the greater church of Corinth.

You know, we can be thankful for good leaders, we can appreciate good leaders.

Paul even talks in a couple different spots about honoring good leaders, but never about exalting, never about elevating, never about identifying with those same leaders.

And in verse 22, Paul's going to list everything that is ours, which is so much more than any single human leader.

Verse 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come, everything is yours.

And you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

All of God's human servants are yours.

Paul's yours, Apollos is yours, Cephas is yours, they're all yours.

You don't have to choose one.

Then he goes on and he says, the world is yours.

You know, at first read it's kind of, well, what on earth does that mean?

In John 16, 33, Jesus says, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.

You will have suffering in this world.

Be courageous.

I have conquered the world.

And if Jesus has conquered the world and we belong to Christ, guess what?

We get to share in that.

The world is ours.

Then Paul goes on in verse 22 saying that life and death are also ours as well.

Jesus conquered death by raising from the grave so that we may have life and we may have it abundantly.

We're no longer a slave to death.

Death is now our servant.

Death is now the avenue in which we get to enter into eternal glory with God.

We're not a slave to it.

It is now our servant.

Paul even said in Philippians, to live is Christ and to die is gained.

We can't lose.

They're both conquered by Jesus and they're both ours now.

And then he says, We belong to Jesus, and Jesus belongs to God.

So if you have everything, why would we identify with one lowly servant when we have intimate access to God, to the God that spoke all of this into existence?

So Paul has told us in chapter three how not to think of him, and Apollos and Cephas.

And in chapter four, he'll tell us how to think of them.

So look at chapter 4, verse 1.

A person should think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and managers of the mysteries of God.

You know, we've talked a lot about servants in the last couple weeks, haven't we?

But in chapter 3, Paul was using a word for servant that we get the word deacon from.

We have a slide for this.

So that first word servant that we see in chapter 3, it means one who executes the command of another, especially a master, a servant, attendant, minister.

Hopefully it'll pop up there.

But that's that's the servant that we've been talking about so far so far.

But in chapter four, Paul uses a different word for servant.

He uses the word servant again, but this is the definition for that word: an under-rower.

A subordinate rower.

So think of those old ships, you know, with the oars sticking out of the belly of the ship out towards the water, and the people underneath.

Maybe you've seen some old movies where you've seen like those old warships where people are underneath doing all the rower, the rowing.

That's the word that Paul is using here.

They don't, the under rowers don't own the ship.

They don't set the course for the ship, they don't even steer the ship.

They just join in the work.

So they co-work.

That's the word that we saw last week, in the moving forward of the ship.

They are a critical part of the ship moving forward, but they just do what they're told.

That's what the under rowers are there for.

And I mention this because what Paul is doing here in verse 1 of chapter 4 is he's setting up a balance between these two words that he's using, between servant and manager.

And we'll see he uses these two words for a reason.

So let's look at the word manager now.

Now, the word manager, here's the definition: the manager of a household or of household affairs, especially a steward, manager, superintendent, to whom the head of the house or proprietor has entrusted the management of his affairs.

Some of you may be holding a translation that actually uses the word steward instead of manager.

And Jesus uses this exact same word in the parable that he gives in Luke 16, 1, referring to a steward taking care of a master's household.

So this is a definitely a different word than under rower.

This is a word that he's using to bring some balance to his apostleship as he's telling the Corinthian church how he and Cephas and Apollo should be treated.

So, yes, Paul, Apollo, Cephas, they're all servants, they're all underrowers, they're all deacons in this sense.

But they have been given an authority from Jesus to be stewards also.

You know, in Bible times, and the way the Corinthians would understand this would be someone that would take care of a household, the management of all of the other servants, so kind of the head servant, they would take care of the care and the acquisition and the preparation of the food in the household, and they would take care of the management of all the finances within the household as well.

So they were someone that never owned any of it, but they managed all of it for their master that owned all of it himself.

And it would be expected that the master to a steward would inspect the steward's work and perform an internal audit of their records from time to time to make sure that the steward was acting faithfully with all that was entrusted to them.

That's what the whole parable is about, if you want to go back and read Luke 16, where we see Jesus actually using this word.

So these stewards weren't the master, they were a servant, yet they had the authority over all of the other servants in the household under the supervision of the master.

Everybody following?

I know it's getting a little bit technical, but I really want us to understand what the original audience would be getting from this as Paul wrote it to them.

So Paul's basically saying, so Corinthians, I'm simply an underrower, but I have been given authority to guide you in the mysteries of God.

I've been given authority to plant the church that is now the Corinthian church.

I've been given the authority to teach you in person and to guide you with things like the letters that I'm writing to you and the letters that I'm writing to all the other churches as well.

So do you see why Paul says servant and manager?

Why he says under rower and steward?

To try and bring this balance of exactly how they should be looking at him as an apostle.

Look at verse 2.

In this regard, it is required that managers be found faithful.

God's looking for faithful stewards.

Where God tells them what to do and they do it.

If the master tells the steward to invest one million dollars in gold and he does it, awesome.

But if the master tells them to invest one million dollars in gold and the steward invests two million in cryptocurrency, sorry, is that too soon?

Is the steward gonna have a job for very much longer if he does that?

No.

God performs his own internal audits of his stewards.

And if they are not found faithful, they will have that authority withdrawn.

They may still act like stewards, but they will have that authority withdrawn from God.

Look at verse 3 with me.

It is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any other human court.

In fact, I don't even judge myself.

Now, if you remember back when we introduced the book of 1 Corinthians, we talked about how some of the church has some issues with Paul and we're second guessing his apostleship.

He's saying here, I don't care how you look at me or judge me or elevate me, how you try to audit my apostleship, so to speak.

He's saying that's God's job.

In fact, he says, I don't even judge myself.

Paul doesn't trust the Corinthians to judge him, and Paul doesn't trust himself to even judge himself.

He doesn't trust himself to judge his own actions and his own motives.

Probably because we're all really bad at being judges.

And especially for ourselves.

We're either usually too lenient and elevate ourselves, or the opposite.

We're really good at being our own worst critic and tearing ourselves down and beating ourselves up.

So Paul says, you know, I put my head down, I do what God called me to do as faithfully as I can do it, and I don't even judge myself.

I leave all of that completely up to God.

Look at verse 4 with me.

For I am not conscious of anything against myself.

So he has a clear conscience, but I'm not justified by this, by this clear conscience.

It is the Lord who judges me.

He's saying, even though I have a clear conscience, that doesn't mean that I'm right in everything that I'm doing.

I'm a sinner that tries to have a clear conscience, that tries to be as faithful as possible.

But in the end, all that matters is what God thinks of me.

Not what you think of me or any other human court or even what I think of myself.

It's all up to God, and that is all that matters.

Verse 5.

So don't judge anything prematurely before the Lord comes.

God has not placed us on the judgment seat of Christ.

He's not asked us to sit next to him either, as I said earlier.

And just like you wouldn't judge the outcome of the Olympic Games before the race is over, don't you dare judge another Christian before their race is over or before the Lord comes back.

Now, for clarity's sake, I kind of feel like we need to say this.

We need to understand that discipline and judgment are two different things.

And the Lord will use humans in church leadership to carry out discipline within a church.

And we're going to cover that extensively in chapter 5.

But just keep in mind, judgment here is talking about the judgment seat of Christ that we talked a lot about a couple weeks ago.

And there's no human involvement in that judgment seat.

He goes on in verse 5 regarding when the Lord comes and does judge.

He says, the Lord will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts.

You know, I think there's going to be those that seem like they have the best of intentions.

But in the end, we're going to find out that they didn't.

And then I think there's also going to be those where we're doubting their intentions now, and God's going to reveal that really they were doing it from a pure heart.

So we better not judge prematurely.

That's the intent of what Paul's writing here.

Because only God knows the intentions of the heart.

And then he earns, he uh ends verse 5 with, and then praise will come to each one from God.

God is just, God is perfect, and he is the only rightful judge.

And all of our works that were pure and survived the fire of judgment, we're going to be rewarded for those works.

And praise, Paul says, will come to each one from God.

Chew on that for a while.

Praise from God and don't think worship.

Think more like commendation is going to come from God.

Think, well done, good and faithful servant.

If you are in Christ, if you are following him and have believed in your heart and confessed with your mouth that he is Lord, you will hear those words from God.

Not based on our righteousness, but based on the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

We'll be rewarded for those things that we did from a pure heart for the right reasons.

And then we will get to hear well done, good and faithful servant.

In the end, those are the only words that matter.

From the only judge that can rightfully sit in that seat.

So what's our takeaway today from this passage?

I think first, don't sit in God's seat.

Right?

We need to let God be God.

And let's all realize that we are all just servants in the Lord's kingdom.

We're all just under rowers in that way.

We shouldn't be elevated, and we shouldn't be elevating others as well.

We shouldn't sit in the judgment seat, and we shouldn't allow others to sit in the judgment seat of our life as well.

You know, I said in the beginning, let's learn from Paul's example.

And what I have learned from Paul through this passage, Paul has a mindset to just keep pressing forward.

Because Paul didn't care what anybody thought.

He was faithful to do what he was called to do.

I see that Paul kept a clear conscience.

And I hope that we can all say what Paul said.

You know, I don't even know of anything against myself.

And the last thing, I see Paul leaving everything up to God.

He's got it.

God will do the praising, God will do the judging in the end.

And he doesn't need our help in that process.

Could you please pray with me?

And I pray that you would just give us this great perspective that the Apostle Paul had in all of this.

A right perspective of each other, a right perspective of human spiritual leaders.

Lord, help us to never elevate and help us to never judge from the seat that we're sitting in.

Because Lord, you are the only person that belongs in that seat.

And help us to understand that and not just allow that to be.

So show us how to love one another.

Show us how to encourage one another instead of tearing down, instead of unity, lack of unity.

Um, Lord, I pray that that people would know us for the love that we have for one another.

Not for the elevation or anything beyond that, Lord, but just for the pure, unadulterated love that we have for one another because the Holy Spirit is inside of us, is moving and working and showing us what to say and what to do and what decisions to make.

God, we love you so much.

Would you show us how to operate in this way?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.