1 Cor No.5 Solidarity

But have worldly mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk not solid food for you were not yet ready for it Indeed you are still not ready You are still worldly for sin. There is jealousies and quarreling among you.

Are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says I follow Paul and another I follow Apollos. Are you not mere men? What after all is Apollos and what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe has the Lord has assigned each his task. I planted a seed Apollos watered it but God made it grow So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose and each will be rewarded according to his own labor For we are God's fellow workers You are God's field God's building Here ends the reading I'd be glad if you'd have your Bibles open at 1 Corinthians in chapter 3 And Let me read to you some words not from that chapter but from the book of Genesis But they do have some Connection I think with what confronts us in our passage from Paul's letter to the Corinthians So Abraham said to Lot Let's not have any quarreling between you and me or between your herdsmen and mine For we are brothers It is not the whole land before you Let's part company If you go to the left, I'll go to the right If you go to the right I'll go to the left I never read that particular passage of Scripture without feeling somewhat sorrowful Here were two men from the same stock in as much as they were close relatives one the nephew the other the uncle and They determined that because they couldn't agree Because Lot couldn't get on with uncle Abraham then the only recourse was for them to separate Oh, it seems to me to be a terrible thing That you have to come sometimes to that particular conclusion That you can't lift to one with one another So you have to divide Once heard a preacher refer to that to do him justice.

He used the illustration with a degree of reluctance But he suggested that that Unhappily has to be the lot of certain Christian folk They can't all get along in one church atmosphere. So the best thing to do is to agree to differ and To go their own ways. Well, that seems to me a very unfortunate conclusion To which one has to arrive if there is no other alternative Now here is another passage of Scripture still in the book of Genesis, which is equally perhaps distressing I Refer to Joseph and what happened to him? Then they his brothers got Joseph's robe Slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood They took the ornamented robe back to their father and said we found this examine it to see whether it is your son's robe He recognized it and said it is my son's robe Some ferocious animal has devoured him Joseph has surely been torn to pieces and his father Jacob Was smitten with grief again a tragic passage of Scripture found in the opening chapters of the first book of the Bible Speaking of a family that doesn't get on united.

They should be physically and indeed spiritually But alas that wasn't the case. There was quarreling there was jealousy and Joseph's coat Symbol perhaps of the jealousy that the brothers recognized is torn and blooded and returned to a heartbroken Jacob I Feel that I was Right the other day one Sunday morning in suggesting to you from the Lord That it is time in the evangelical community in the 20th century For Joseph's coat to be repaired For the fragments to be invisibly mended For the objective of Christ's high priestly prayer to be realized That they might be one father as you are in me that they may be one in us Well, you say what on earth has that got to do with 1 Corinthians and chapter 3 Well, my friend it's got everything to do with this particular epistle Because one of the heart cries of the Apostle Paul as I tried to show you when dealing with the first chapter Is in the form of an appeal which he unblushingly makes in the name of Jesus the 10th verse. I Appeal to you brothers in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ That all of you agree with one another So that there may be no divisions.

No tears No scissors among you and that you may be perfectly united Absolutely repaired at one in mind and thought The Abraham lot Solution carried no weight with Paul and the disease that hit Jacob's household Was not one that Paul would have injecting the churches that he under God had been able to found Now you say having touched on this before why return you to it Well as many of you know, and some I'm glad are pleased about It is my practice here to let scripture dictate to us what we study Sunday morning by Sunday morning And as you make your way through an epistle, that means that it's the Holy Spirit Definitely who directs and guides? And so when I bring you to chapter 3 I find Paul repeating what he said in chapter 1 and as I believe that Paul was more than just an intelligent man He was as well an inspired man what he repeats in the name of the Holy Spirit. I have to repeat and else the whole genius of Complimentary Bible exposition Following in sequence just falls apart So in these nine verses of 1 Corinthians 3 he's back on the same tack and if you've argument it's not with me It's with him. In fact, it's not with him.

It's with the Holy Spirit and He's pleading yet again for that unity for which Christ died to be evident amongst the Christian community at Corinth Now when you dip into those nine verses you will find that conveniently they split into two Because in the opening few verses 1 to 4 to be exact Paul deals with the congregation He refers to them as brothers an endearing term because he's got a rebuke to make and he'll often use an affectionate Acknowledgement of his readership before he moves in and really disciplines them The first four verses he's talking to the hearers he's talking to ordinary members of the Christian community at Corinth and In the latter five verses first five to nine. He's speaking about the preachers he's speaking if you like about the pastors and he is going to bring a comparison between the attitude of the latter and the Attitude of the former he's going to show us That the solidarity That is exhibited by the pastors that have been at Corinth Has not alas been reproduced by the people Well, then I give you that just to whet your appetite stay the course and I think you'll find something here that is of great Value not only to us as a fellowship here in the tabernacle, but perhaps has greater application to the evangelical world at large The Apostle is talking in the opening verses about the ordinary Christian who has committed his life to the Savior as a result of gospel hearing and the first observation the Apostle has to make versus one and into the second is this a Reasonable statement about the past He offers a reasonable evaluation about the past experience of these Christian folk brothers he says When first I came to you, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly Mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk not solid food For you were not yet ready for it.

No, I say that's a reasonable statement about the past After all when Paul first arrived at Corinth, these people were totally un-christianized They knew nothing about Jesus Christ apart maybe from one or two rumors that they picked up in the marketplaces So at the spiritual level they were babies Now We've had a number of additions to our church family here babies who've been born over over recent weeks and months one who Managed to arrive during the last two or three days Now, what will Jenny Hughes do with her little baby a few days old? this lunchtime That little girl is not going to have a t-bone steak At least it would be an incredible child that the Hughes have produced if it does have meat During the next few months let alone days It's gonna have milk why because milk Is necessary for babies? babies love milk they can't take solid food and when you're an infant in Christ If anyone throws Calvin systematic theology at you the best thing is to duck Because it has got very little relevance You can't understand it you have to start as Paul or rather the anonymous writer of the Hebrew letter says you have to start with the ABC of the faith so at Broadwater school at the primary school at which my wife teaches They start with the basics of education They don't take them into physics straightaway or into Latin They've got to start with the ordinary writing reading Arithmetic and so forth similarly these these Christians at Corinth when when first they came to Christ Paul feeds them With milk not solid food for then they couldn't take it and he doesn't criticize them and neither would anyone criticize you If this is the beginning of your faith your first weeks your first months But if you stay with the Apostle you will discover that not only does he make a reasonable statement about the past He makes a surprising comment about the present the second verse on the latter part Indeed he says You are still not ready There's the rub you see Years have gone by Then they could only have milk. That was all right. That was perfectly understandable But the months the years they've been swallowed up into history and says the Apostle Paul even now you're not ready So when the little baby born during the last few days moves into adulthood When she's 13 14 15 16 years of age is she's still on milk She's still on soft foods Her parents have got a problem They'd be very very worried They'd already have been to the hospital and sought the help of the specialists and what-have-you So the Apostle Paul pastor of this church is worried about these Christians.

Why? Because they're still immature. I you say they've got spiritual gifts But spiritual gifts in which they didn't come behind not in one which says the Apostle in the first chapter Spiritual gifts themselves are not necessarily the sole evidence of maturity They were still not ready for the deep solid truths of the faith The Apostle is worried about it. You're still worldly he says Before in the second chapter, he'd been talking about wisdom.

He'd been talking about the spiritual man He'd been spelling out the ideal Christian, but he says the distinction between that and what you are Infinite you're more like you were when first I came to you the moving towards the ideal the fully-fledged mature spiritual person Here I say is a surprising comment about the present a comment that becomes even perhaps more blunt in the 20th verse of the 14th chapter still in the same letter when Paul says brothers stop thinking like children In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults Well then Because he's a he's a good minister is Paul one of the best if not the best with the exception of our Lord Jesus He's going to do what any worried parent will do when seeing Abnormalities develop in the life of their offspring. He's going to analyze it. What's the matter with you says Paul and From the third verse to the fourth, there's a worrying analysis of their spiritual condition For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you Are you not worldly? Are you not acting like? mere men For when one says I follow Paul and another I follow Apollos.

Are you not mere men? Did you notice the emphasis there on mere men? By that he means the unbeliever. He means the carnal man the person who has perfect excuse For not behaving as a mature Christian But when the Christian in the church behaves like a carnal man outside the church Then there's something that is terribly terribly wrong Here is lots disease Abraham. I can't live with you.

I'll take the valley you have the hill We may be linked in one sense, but I can't stand I can't tolerate having my encampment in with yours and even for convenience sake Paul Will not be driven to that conclusion that Christians should take this way out Here if you like is the Jacob's Son's syndrome this Total inability to get on with Joseph this breaking this eventual Jealousy which causes them almost to have Joseph done to death they stop at that, but they tear his coat and present the coat to Jacob as though Joseph is no longer on the scene. Well says the Apostle Paul It's this it's this attitude that that indicates your your immaturity Here is party politics. If you please here is the cult of personality Doesn't matter who the personalities are doesn't matter about whose responsibility.

It is at their level if they share the cult figures At this point if they share any responsibility at all It's you that I'm referring to you folks who break up into groups Paul a palace Cephas Christ Is not this the way that mere men? Conduct themselves go to the Senate in Rome or to update it go to the British Houses of Parliament Go to the Trade Unions Congress go to the Conservative Party's Annual meeting go to the Labour Party's and what you discover men following men women following women and so forth Breaking into groups into factions So that when they try to sell to the British public that there are a solid unified structure We have to say to them who's joking who's kidding who? We know that you're broken. We know that you're fragmented We know that you have to work at the level of the least common denominator that goes for politics I'm not in any way censuring our politicians But you can't bring the ethic of politics into that of the church, this is what Paul is here denouncing there's no partisanship not ideally speaking and so he tells us in the 14th verse of the fourth chapter as He writes again of his rebuke to these Christians at Corinth I am NOT writing this to shame you but to warn you as my dear children Even though he goes on to state about their initial conversion experience, even though you have 10,000 guardians in Christ You do not have many fathers For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel What is the Apostle here doing? Well, I say he's analyzing the congregation. He's shown that they've got the lots disease He's shown that the same virus that infected the offspring of Jacob is here at Corinth And he doesn't like it That's why earlier on He says I beseech you in the name of Christ that there be no schism that you deal with whatever it is.

That's tearing you apart Well, then he deals with the congregation But let's move on because in this instance at any rate the ministers are innocent The pastors of the church have in no way contributed to the immaturity That is developed amongst the Christians in Corinth from the fifth verse. I argued right through to the ninth He makes comment directly and in passing regarding himself and Apollos Why does he make this particular comment? Well, you see he's going to show how the attitudes of those who have had oversight in Corinth differs From the disease if you like that's broken out amongst the members of the congregation Now, what do we discover about these two pastors that there have been at Corinth? One is Paul himself The other is Apollos you can check the history of that out for you for yourself if you like in the Acts of the Apostles Well, what is he to tell us about these men I repeat my question Well, both he and Apollos recognized first of all The function was more important than identity Function is more important than identity You say why do you say this? well look at the fifth verse and here I must come in for the translation of the NIV the AV gives us who after all is Apollos and who is Paul actually That is not a personal pronoun. It's it's neutral What after all is Apollos? What is Paul? Here not the men are being described but rather their ministry These two who have had influence amongst the congregation.

What after all are they what have they been doing? Well, they have been ministering in whose name Not in their name They've been ministering in the name of Jesus Christ. What is Apollos? What is Paul only servants through whom? You came to believe In other words, the identity of these men is completely inconsequential the fact of the matter that stands out par excellence is that men were used as servants of the Living God to bring these Corinthians to faith in Christ, that's the important thing You can't blame Apollos. You can't blame Paul It's the immaturity of the people whose lives were initially influenced by their ministry Which now alas has come into prominence the men are away from them and they've split into groups of Apollos Paul and Our writer could have cited the other two Categories into which the church had broken as you remember from the from the first chapter.

No says the Apostle function is More important than more importance than identity. Have you learned that my friend? I think that one of the greatest dangers in the church today. It's been so for the whole of this Century as I have read the history of great men who have been preachers is for partisanship to come into congregations I'm of this great man.

I'm of the other great man I don't care whether they live 10 years ago or 30 years ago or whether they're contemporaries If you're glorying in a man Then you're glorying in the wrong thing for goodness sake let no one Identify themself with me personally For this idol has clay feet. I tell you These people I say they fail to distinguish between function and Identity What is more? Unfortunately, the Apostle Paul didn't make this distinction and rightly what is more These folks did not realize or rather the Apostle Paul realized the Apostle Paul realized this the cooperation excludes competition That's very important cooperation excludes competition Look, he tells us in the opening verses of this passage the fifth one The Lord has assigned each of us to his specific task then verse 6 and also verse 7 and verse 8 outlines the respective ministries on the one hand of Paul and on the other hand of the palace I Plant a palace waters. He planted I Watered and so it goes on this interchange of description as to the twin ministries of Paul and Apollos But the main point is this They both needed one another You imagine a gardener? He comes along.

Let's say you're fortunate and fortunate enough to employ one and he plants seed for you But the day comes some some months later. He's no longer in your employment What do you do? You take the can out yourself the watering can and you apply water to the seed or to the young plants both Ministries you see are vital if you're gonna have growth you must have the planter and you must have the one who waters so says The Apostle it's the same with the proclamation of the gospel Cooperation excludes competition. It's not Paul and the palace It's both of us together and indeed our identity doesn't matter.

What is the most important thing to recognize is our function? Now that's precisely what he's saying in the eighth verse. Is it not the man who plants and the man who waters? Have one purpose and each will be rewarded according to his own labor So a palace isn't supremo Neither is Paul Both their ministries and that of Cephas and indeed the gospel of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ They all intertwined they're all interlocked to produce the one thing and what is that? the glory of God Because the third thing the Apostle Paul recognizes is that sovereignty is basic to success The sovereignty of God is basic to success Let me go through what I've said already function is more important than more importance than identity cooperation excludes competition and Sovereignty these sovereignty of God is basic to the success of those who preach Again, go back to the sixth verse. I planted the seed of palace watered it, but God made it grow Go to the seventh verse, so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but only God who makes things grow You can't do anything without this God in fact those who do perform a service are really unimportant because the whole genius of spiritual success Starts with and finishes with God Have you got the point if you haven't Then the Apostle Paul perhaps would come and let me blame him rather than being blunt myself.

You must be dull of intelligence Because in the ninth verse he makes it so clear and it comes out even better in the in the original language But let me read it you in the English here for we are God's fellow workers You are God's field God's building in the original God comes first God's fellow workers are we God's field are we God's building are we it's all of God You see this whole business of salvation of growth of men and women coming to maturity in the Christian faith It all depends upon God Where is Paul now in his argument? Well, he's back to the last verse of the first chapter Therefore as it is written Let him who boasts Boast in the Lord You see what happens? when you start to exalt a man and Identify yourself with a man. Is that that man? Deliberately or as a result of your immaturity takes glory from God and it goes to him Not to the Lord Now I said to you earlier on perhaps you didn't follow the statement, but now it should be clear You can't blame Paul You can't blame a palace. They weren't responsible In fact a palace wasn't even there when the whole problem broke out If you check through the last chapter of this epistle, you'll discover that a palace Will will only return to Corinth with some degree of reluctance Says the Apostle I wanted him to come back and to talk to you, but he's reluctant to come at this moment Well, quite frankly no preacher wants to come to a congregation where all are at sixes and sevens and Particularly when he is innocently at the fulcrum of the the swing of the of the argument itself You can't blame Paul.

You can't blame a palace You can only blame the immaturity of these Christians who twisted Paul and Apollos and And their names in particular and took them as being badges as of labels to to describe the the various factions Well, what have we here I say in those first verses You have got spelled out for us the immaturity of the congregation They're immature to start with that was understandable But unfortunately, they never grew to spiritual maturity and when Paul analyzes it He says it's because they're acting like mere men But when he goes into the second part of the chapter The second part of our passage he refers to himself and Apollos and you can't blame Paul nor Apollos for what alas Had happened at Corinth you see and this is important It wasn't a question of heresy That was breaking this church apart It was a question of personalities it was a question of immature action people wanting everything their way unable to bend Unable to blend in with one another There was jealousy. There was quarreling. It's Jacob's syndrome all over again or that of his sons Joseph we're jealous of you will tear you apart and Virtually they did that Until Joseph you remember right at the end of his experience Confronted with his brothers again in Egypt is used as a unifying factor And he sends them back to Jacob to report that he's still alive and Joseph Riley comments And as you go back home, don't quarrel amongst yourselves now I believe my friend I Would say this in the name of God That this is in the heart of the Lord for the church today Not to be splitting Not to be fragmenting not one group here in another group there sometimes tearing the innards of Christian testimony out one from the other in front of a hostile world which says is that our Christians behave if that so I not Want nothing of it you claim to be evangelical you claim to be born again, but look at you And they have every right to make that sort of observation every right if we act immaturely as Mere men if we adopt the solution of Abraham and Lot and I'm not in any way Criticizing that great man Abraham he had no other option, but if we're forced to that How terrible it is you on the mountain me on the plain sort of a tolerable union But don't bring me too near you because the sparks will fly No says the Apostle Paul.

This is ridiculous You can be spiritually gifted. You can speak with tongues of men and of angels You can have all the apparatus of the charismata And if you don't have a basic love for one another then the whole thing just is disintegrates You can have doctrinal understanding though these people were ignorant there But you can have all your doctrinal understanding and if basically you can't put it together at the level of fellowship then shut up And stop telling people what you're not born again Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb loving one another agape love spilling over From the Christian pulpit to the congregation to other congregations. This is what we tell the world We're the only hope the hope that is through Jesus Christ.

We've come to him. We found salvation We found solutions to this world's problems to that which divides men and women. We've got it and praise God Ideally speaking we have But you can't stop with idealism because we live in a practical world a pragmatic world Although all right, they say you've got it show it us and I say they have every reason to say that Show it us Show us the very unity that you claim to represent Well, how do we go about it? by getting back to basic essentials not trapped into the personality cult a little bit of tolerance here and there that same tolerance that the Christ Exhibited when he went to the synagogue at Nazareth for some 29 years Before he started preaching I often think of our blessed Redeemer there Can you imagine him in the synagogue at Nazareth? There's the rabbi expounding from the Old Testament There are these stuffy Jewish people and they know very little about God and yet our Lord Jesus He recognizes what is good in his local rabbi.

What is good amongst those people and he's there He's with them until the time comes when he's launched out in a preaching ministry Oh Let this mind be in you Which was also in Christ Jesus and let that mind of Christ govern all our relationships and unless it does Then I care not What your theological education may be I care not what your claims to spiritual gifts may be If it doesn't work in the area of relationships Then the gospel that you're promoting has very little to do with this gospel of the New Testament, which is basically a unifying gospel May God take this message and apply it to your heart and to mine