1 Corinthians 3 (Part 1)

1 Corinthians chapter 3. I'm going to read the first 9 verses follow along with me.

Stop there. Pray with me.

Holy Spirit, open our hearts to understand the meaning of this passage. Speak to us words of truth and insight. We pray Jesus precious name, amen. When we ended our study last week in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, you'll remember that I asked the question whether it was possible for a born again Christian to be fleshly. And you'll remember that I actually used one of the verses from this chapter to prove the fact that the answer is yes, it is possible for a born again Christian to act in a carnal way. And you can see here that Paul clearly referred to the believers in Corinth as fleshly. Again, your bible, Bible may say, carnal, and that basically means of the flesh, and therefore immature. But I want to bring a little more clarity to that statement today, just in case there might have been some misunderstanding related to it. The reason Paul called them fleshly, right here in this chapter, is not because they were wholly given over to the gratification of the flesh in the sense that they were entirely dominated by their flesh or their sinful nature. He called them fleshly because they were starting to form these popularity groups. Some people around Apollo, some people around Peter, some people even around Paul himself and that is why Paul said you're acting in a carnal way or in a fleshly sort of a way. Paul was not suggesting that the Corinthian believers were nothing but fleshly. Here's why I make that point. If someone is nothing but fleshly, I have serious doubts about their salvation. I have serious doubts about whether or not they are truly born again. Why? Because we expect to see some fruit in people's lives when they come to Jesus. We expect it. It's the same as when you have an apple tree in your backyard or front yard or whatever, you expect to find apples on that tree if it's an apple tree. And we expect to see fruit in a person's life. Remember people, last week we made the point that when somebody comes to Christ, we go through a spiritual transformation. You remember how we dealt with this last week? We talked about how there is a transformation that takes place, whereby our human spirit is literally joined with the Spirit of God, they become one. We quoted a passage from 1 Corinthians 6 that underscored this. I won't go back to that again, but we become regenerated, we become transformed, we're joined with Christ in a very intimate sort of a way. And that's a long way of saying, describing the born again experience.

--- By the way, born again is not a political term used by people referring to evangelical Christians. It's a biblical term and it speaks of the rebirth that takes place when somebody comes to Christ. And it does not leave a person unchanged, so that's my point in all this. When Paul was saying they are fleshly, he's referring to the fact that they're acting in a fleshly manner related to these popularity groups they've been forming. He's not saying, you guys do nothing but exhibit the life of the flesh. Again, if he were saying that, Paul would be bringing them the Gospel all over again, because I think he would wonder if they were ever saved. Here's the point I want to make. If you have a family member or a friend who at one time in their life, prayed the sinner's prayer at church, home, Bible camp, wherever. And they come back and they tell you, well, I prayed the sinner's prayer, but that person has never to your knowledge ever exhibited anything of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, or the fruit of that new life, or shown any evidence of spiritual understanding, then please, for the sake of that individual, do not stop praying for them to be saved. Listen, the recitation of a sinner's prayer is not a magical formula that automatically causes the born again life to take place. I believe there are many individuals who have recited that prayer, who have later comforted themselves with the idea that they are saved, but in their lives, in their hearts, they are not born again, because they truly did not mean it when they expressed it. And so, what makes the difference? Well, for you and I on the outside, all we got to go on is to look at the fruit of that person's life and to understand something. When you come to Jesus, you don't walk away unchanged. You just don't. You don't say, Jesus, I accept you as my Savior and then go back and live the old life without any changes, without any modification, without something that has been altered in your life. You just can't. Paul calls the Christians here in Corinth, fleshly and for that matter, we all flesh out on occasion. We, sometimes we refer to it that way. Somebody got mad at me, and it got in my face, and I really fleshed out. Basically what that means is I gave in to my flesh and I said or did something that was unbecoming a Christian, or completely part of just what it is to be in the flesh. But you know what guys, there's a huge difference, please understand this. There is a huge difference between fleshing out occasionally and living in the flesh all the time, in an unbroken, unrepentant manner. That's a completely different thing, okay? ---

When we get to the fifth chapter of 1 Corinthians, we're going to find that Paul is going to have some very, very strong things to say about some of the members in the Corinthian church who were living in an unbroken manner related to the flesh. And Paul is going to challenge that church to respond to those people, and specifically an individual. And so the last thing I wanted you to do is to think that when Paul… Cause like I said, I ended my message last Sunday with the idea with the question, is it possible to be a Christian and still be in the flesh? And we said, yeah, that's very possible, but not constantly. Okay. I didn't want to leave you with the impression a person can be living in an unbroken manner related to the flesh and still be just hunky dory in their life with Christ. There's nothing hunky dory about it. It's dangerous and I would seriously wonder whether the person had been saved. As we read again the few verses of this chapter, we see why Paul referred to these people again as fleshly He says in verse 1. I “could not address you as spiritual people,…” In fact, I had to address you rather as carnal people. I had to address you as fleshly people. He basically called them babies and that wasn't a derogatory term. He was simply saying, you're like infants. You're like people who haven't grown up in your faith, and that's the way I had to talk to you. That's the way I had to address you, and while I was there, you had to get milk and not solid food. And in fact, that's still the situation that you're in. And then, he tells them why he considers them carnal Christians in this particular case. He goes on in verse 3, he says, if “…there is jealousy and strife among you,” that is proof positive that you're still carnal in that particular respect. In the area of interpersonal relationships, there is strife. There's argumentation, there's division among you, and therefore you guys are immature. You're choosing sides around people, so their carnality centered around those particular issues. And the party mentality. And when I say party mentality, I'm not talking about, party! I'm talking about like political parties or social parties in the sense that people divide into groups, that party mentality. That's very, very, common in the world in which we live, in speaking of politics. We have the Democratic party, we have the Republican party, there's the Independent party. I suppose there's even the Communist party, although we don't hear much about it here in the United States much these days, but then there's a few other fringe parties. But those are groups that people cling to because they have a central platform, and they often, well come election time, they have a central figure who rises to the surface and says, I'm the spokesman for this party, elect me, and so on and so on. And that's just what we expect in the world. But that mentality, that structure, Paul is saying, is out of place in the kingdom of God. He's saying, you know what? And this is, I think this is what Paul would be saying to you and I, if you were standing right here today, he'd say, fine, when you go to the polls and when you think about who you're going to vote for this year, great. Think about the different parties that are up for election, but don't bring that party junk into here. It has no place in here. The kingdom of God has no place for a party mentality or an idea of we versus they. You versus us, our group, their group, over here, that group. We look down our nose at those people because they believe that, and whatever the case might be, that has no place in the kingdom of God. That's why Paul says in verse 4, if you look with me in your Bible, he says, “For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?” Isn’t that interesting language? That word that is translated, “merely human,” notice those words there, is actually Greek, one Greek word. It's the word, Anthropos, where we get our word, Anthropology, which is the study of mankind, humankind. What Paul is literally saying is, when you divide into groups and you had these little popularity contests, these little clicks, aren't you just being like men? And you might hear that and go, what do you expect us to be like? I mean, aren't we men? Aren't we human beings? Don't you expect us to be, I mean, do you really expect us to be something else? And that is the real question, isn't it? What are we now that we've come to Jesus? What are we? Paul says, when you act this way, like the world, you're acting like just humans. What else do you expect us to be? Ah, now we're starting to get somewhere. What are we? What are we now that we've come to Christ? Last week, Paul used the title, you'll remember, the Natural Man and the Spiritual Man, remember. And the Natural Man was the man who is basically motivated and guided by the soul, the emotions and the intellect, that's the Natural Man. Everything has a natural explanation. And then you have the Spiritual Man, he talked about. Who is, he used to describe a believer and so forth. But maybe those terms aren't enough to help us understand what a person we should be now that we've come to Christ, now that we've been transformed by His Spirit, and now that our lives have been changed, let's investigate another term for what we now are, since we've come to Christ. You're no longer merely human, so what are you? Let me put this up on the screen for you from John chapter 1. It says,

…to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, (and by the way to believe in his name instead of the word, name, just put title there. What is His title? Messiah, Savior, Son of God, One with the Father, right? If you believe in His, in all that He is,) he gave the right (, that passage says) to become (and this is the new thing that I want you to see) children of God, And I want to focus for just a bit on those words, children of God. First of all, notice we don't take that honor upon ourselves. We don't suddenly go around and say, I'm a child of God. That's one thing that people of the world believe. They say if they do believe in God, they'll say we're all God's children. We're not all God's children. Who is the child of God? Those who received Him those who believed in His name, right? Isn't that what the Bible says? But we like to… See before we met Jesus we like to go around saying well, we're all God's children We are not all God's children get that through your head. This is really important to see from a theological perspective. You became a child of God through the agency of the Holy Spirit when you accepted Jesus as your Savior. He gave the right “…to all (those) who… receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” You are now a child of God. All right. What exactly does that mean? A child of God? Have you ever thought about that? What does it mean when the Bible says, you are a child of God? Well, let's think about this for a minute. We're all, we've all been children in a physical sense. We've all been born of human parents, and usually to some degree, sometimes much to our chagrin, we resemble our parents in some way, shape, or form, some more than others.

--- In fact, I just, okay, little personal expose here. Here's a picture of me and my dad. Now, this was taken back in 2011. My dad's a good looking guy, isn't he? That's one thing I didn't get from him. But anyway, we took that with, that's my great niece, so I don't know if that's what you call her. It's my niece's daughter and my dad's great grandchild. Anyway, some people look at me and my dad and say, boy, you guys really look alike. My brother is very similar as well. And I've noticed I've got like my dad's hands. I look at my dad's hands next to mine and they're like identical. And some of our mannerisms and even the way I clear my throat, it's just like my dad. And you guys can relate to that, can't you? I mean, if you knew your parents anyway and stuff. We look like them the older we get, we can even scare ourselves looking in a mirror. You think you're seeing your parent and it's you, and that's all pretty crazy. But even things like temperament, I resemble my dad in some respects. Why? Cause he's my dad and I am his son. You with me? There's a family resemblance, a resemblance because children resemble their parents quite typically. Now, what does it mean to be a child of God? Well, basically it means the same thing. Not that you resemble God in a physical sense, because remember, God is Spirit but in all the ways that it's possible to reflect the person and the character of God in our lives, that is how we ought to be growing. And reflecting His character, His sense of right and wrong, the things that anger Him, the things that grieve Him, the things that delight Him, should be increasingly becoming the things that affect us in those same ways. Why? Because you resemble your parents. You resemble those from whom you've been born and you Christians have been born of God. (1 John 5:1) That's what the Bible says, doesn't it? You can see here that Paul has an expectation of these believers. He says, when you guys huddle around this party spirit of popularity and click, aren't you acting like just men? Right. That's exactly what you're acting like. What are you supposed to act like? God, that's who you are supposed to act like, because you see, now you've been born into His family and now you begin to take on His family traits. And the life that you exude in this life should be increasingly conveying the idea that God is my Father and now the family resemblance can be seen in a greater and greater way. Do you have a family resemblance of your Father God? That's what we're asking in this particular situation, and Paul is expecting it of these Christians in Corinth. I expect you to act like more than just human beings, Paul says. And that's what you're doing. See, that's the interesting thing about being a child of God too. I can choose to reflect the image of my new spiritual connection with my heavenly Father, or I can choose, and so can you, to just be merely human, right? At any given time, when somebody gets in my face and screams at me, veins bulging in their neck, I can respond. I can choose to respond in a very human way, which would be the reflection of my adamic nature, my man nature. Or I can choose to respond based out of the nature of my heavenly Father who says to me in His Word,

and

, and on he goes. ---

And you see, that's what we expect to see. That's what Paul expected to see out of these Christians in Corinth. He was saying to them, I expect more out of you. I expect more out of you than just being human. I expect to see glimmers of the divine. Not that you're ever going to be God. Don't get weirded out along those lines, okay. Hopefully we've settled that issue. You're never going to be God. Sorry. Get over it. But there is a reflection of God's divine nature that does begin to exude itself from our lives simply because we are reflecting the family familiarity and so forth. Paul talks about this process. Whereby we are made more into the image of Christ. He talks about it in his second letter to the Corinthians. Let me put this up on the screen from 2 Corinthians chapter 3. He says,

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, (look at this) are being transformed into his (what? into his) likeness (right?) with ever- increasing glory, (that tells you that it's not immediate. You don't get saved and all of a sudden you're just like walking around with a halo, and just instantly resolved in your life. All the issues, and problems, and warts, and wrinkles, and rough edges. Wouldn't that be great? Of course you wouldn't survive the process of the transformation. It is a process. Paul says it's happening with ever increasing glory. And I want you to notice too what is behind it all:) which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. He's saying that those changes, those transformations in you and I, those are the work of the Spirit. It's not you. It's not you going, I'm going to be a Christian, going to grit my teeth and be a Christian. Right? That's not what he's talking about. You know where that'll wind you up. Yeah, you won't go there. Don't sit and grit your teeth and try to be a Christian. Don't try to act differently or be better in the power of your own strength. You'll discourage yourself so much you won't, you'll quit altogether. It's got to be a work of the Spirit. But it is a work. And it's a work that we expect to happen. We expect it. Okay. Now look with me again in verse 5 in your Bibles Paul goes on to say, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? (well, he answers it in the very next word, servants, we’re) Servants…” He uses different language to describe himself later on in other books, but he says, you know what, we're just servants through “whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.”

He said, I came along, I planted the seed, I brought it for the very first time. But he says, Apollos came after me, he watered it, and he helped it to grow. But listen, “God gave the growth.” “God gave the growth.” And then so he gives this interesting statement in verse 7. “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who (the One who) gives the growth.” Now Paul is addressing how dumb the party spirit is in Corinth because he says, you guys are gathering around people who are nothing. God is something, but you're getting all prideful and puffed up over people who are nothing. Some of you are saying, I'm of Apollos, Apollos is nothing. Some of you are saying I am of Paul or I'm of Peter. We're nothing he says. We're servants that's all. Don't gather around servants. Some of them plant some water. Some are even involved in the harvest process, like evangelists. But again I want to remind you that he says in verse 7, “neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything.” What is Paul saying here about leadership in the church? Is he saying that we should exalt leaders and rally around them like the Corinthians were doing? Well, obviously not. But here's the important question? In the past 2,000 years, because we've had a long time to really muck this up. In the past couple of thousand years, have we followed God’s Word on this subject or have we followed the world? Have we exalted leaders in the body of Christ or do we consider them just like any other servant? Well, I suppose it depends a little bit on the church you attend, but when you think of Christendom in all of its expressions, it seems pretty clear that we have repeated the error of the Corinthian Church over and over, and we have not only repeated the error, but we have added to it in many respects. What did Jesus say on this subject? Jesus had some things to say on this subject, too. You guys remember that time in the Gospels when James and John talked their mom into coming and asking Jesus if her boys could sit on His right and on His left when He came into His glory and into His kingdom? She comes to Him and she goes, I have a request and I want you to give me whatever I want. And he goes, what? And she says, my boys, Jimmy and Johnny, I want you to let them sit at Your right and on Your left when you come into Your kingdom. And Jesus said, well, you don't even know what you're asking, first of all, number 1. Number 2, those things are, those places are reserved for those for whom they were chosen.

Well, then, it goes off. If the rest of the disciples, the other guys find out that James and John put their mom up to asking Jesus about this, and it says that they were indignant. They were like, what are you doing? What are you guys doing? I'm sure they were just mad they didn't think of it first. Because we know from the Gospel accounts that a regular point of conversation among these guys was, who was the greatest. And every once in a while, Jesus would turn around and ask them. I have this picture in my mind, in the film strip of my mind, where they're walking along a path, and Jesus is probably in the lead, and He's walking along, and these guys are hanging back, and they're arguing about who's the greatest. Who's the greatest? Well, I don't know, but I think that I… Who knows what they're saying? And Jesus would just stop and turn around and go, what are you guys talking about? They go, well, I don't know. But Jesus had some things to say to them about being great in the kingdom of God. Let me show you one. Matthew chapter 20,

But Jesus called them to him and said, (listen guys) “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, (right?) and their great ones (the ones who are over those rulers, they like to) exercise authority over them. (then this is the important part, He says,) It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Why am I showing you this passage from Matthew today? Well, it's because what Jesus described in this passage is the way leadership is supposed to look in the church. Guys, can I say that again? What we just read there? That's the way leadership is supposed to look in the church. That's the way it's supposed to look. Does it look that way? Does it look that way in the church? That's the question. Well, like I said, maybe in some rare instances, that's what it looks like. But in other instances, it does not at all.

Listen, leaders in the kingdom of God were never to be the people who go around asking people to kiss their ring, or address them with all kinds of flowery titles of honor and reverence. Listen, I'm not saying you shouldn't honor those in leadership. That's, I'm not saying that at all. Go ahead and honor. Do not exalt. There's a difference. We're supposed to, frankly, honor one another in Christ, but exalt? Never. That goes exactly contrary to what Jesus told us. It goes exactly contrary to what Paul is saying to the Corinthian church. You guys are exalting leaders forming party popularity groups that has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. That comes from the world. Don't be like the world. Don't be like just humans. Be a reflection of the God whom you serve. Right? I want to go back for just a moment here, and we'll end with this, but I want to go back and I'm going to look at the first couple of verses of this chapter, can I? because there's something else that I didn't mention that I want to go back and cover. It says in verse 1,

I want you to notice here that Paul refers to only feeding them with milk while he was with them. And it was due to their level of immaturity and so forth. In fact, he said, again, you're still not ready for solid food and for anybody who's ever raised babies this imagery is extremely clear. We know exactly what Paul's talking about. You obviously don't set a steak dinner in front of an infant because they don't have the means to eat it, and it isn't going to help them in any way. Instead, a baby is fed and nourished with milk, and then, later, we begin to slowly introduce solid food. But even in the case of a baby, when we start introducing solid food, it's mushy at first. We start with something, the consistency of applesauce or something like that. And of course, that's because they don't have teeth yet, those sorts of things are easier to swallow, they're not going to choke on it. And so we understand this imagery. It's pretty clear, what this is all about. Now, because of the fact that we've raised babies, our assumption here is that when Paul says, I fed you with milk, or all you guys really ever got around to consuming was milk, not solid food. we assume that the milk speaks of simple truths. Right? Simple truths. And that meat refers to deeper truths. And so the idea here is when you're little, we'll give you the simple little truths of the Gospel, and then when you're older, we'll start teaching you the deeper truths of the Bible and so forth. That's the assumption. And I would guess that most everybody in this room would probably agree with that assumption that, yeah, that's probably what it means. Let me just take you through a very quick test here this morning. Let's test that assumption. Shall we? Paul says here that he gave them milk, right? He says, when I was there, I fed you milk because you weren't ready for solid food. So what kind of things did he share with them while he was there? Well, wait a minute, we know. We don't have to wonder what Paul fed them while he was there, because if you look here on the screen, it's back in the last chapter. Paul tells us, he says, 1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV)

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. There you go. That's what he did. That's when he was there, that's what he talked to them about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now people, he says that was the milk. He says that was the milk. Here's what's interesting about that. I have a book at home written by the late John R.W. Stott called, The Cross of Christ. That's what the original cover looked like. They've come up with several covers since then. Picture of John Stott, he's with the Lord now. It's called, The Cross of Christ because it is called a study of the cross of Christ. Right?

That's what Paul said he hung to when he was there with them. He said I did not leave the subject of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Listen, this book is all about Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You want to know something else about that book? It's the deepest book I've ever read in my life. There were whole chapters in that book that I sat and just shook my head and just was like, I don't get this. It was truly one of the most incredible, it was also a fairly life changing book. I've read it several times. I even taught a class on it years and years ago. But here's the question I want to ask you as you look at this. How can the subject which Paul called milk be at the same time so meaty? Right? How can you take Jesus Christ and Him crucified, which Paul calls milk, I knew nothing else while I was with you except Christ and Him crucified, and also have it be the most theologically deep subject that you could possibly look into. How is that possible? Well, the imagery of milk and meat and coupled with some other passages on the milk of the Word, lead us to conclude that when we talk about the distinction between milk It isn't so much the difference of what is being eaten or what is being fed, but it's how the person is fed, consuming that thing. Let me explain what I mean by that. If you were to go over right now to our children's ministry and sit down in some of those rooms over there with the little kids, I mean the little kids. And you hear what's being shared with those children right now, you would find that what is being said to those children is the same stuff that Theologians have been chewing on for years and years. It's the same topic. It's the same. It's the same stuff. The difference is how it is consumed. It's milk to babies and it's meat to the mature. I think it was John Calvin who actually made a quote about this. He said, yeah, He was quoted as saying, “that which is milk to a baby is meat to the mature.” It's the same thing. But again, the point here of this whole thing is that there aren't two sets of doctrines that we give out; one for the immature and one for the mature. Do you know, I mean, honestly, that's what Mormonism does. They grab you with telling you things that are just all on the surface and then you get into it later on and things get made aware that are. That's when the craziness starts to come out to play. But in Christianity, we talk to the children about the same things that we, the deep theological subjects that we brood over in Christ and with great effort, it's the same stuff. There aren't two sets of doctrines. There, there aren't two, there's not a higher form of truth and a lower form of truth in the kingdom of God. It's just truth. And it's how you are able to assimilate that truth where you're at. You see, you are the one who determines whether you take it in as milk or meat. You're the one. See, here's the thing. Years ago when I was teaching God’s Word like I am now, I used to really stress over preparing a message on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday. And here's why. I knew that on any given Sunday, I was going to speak to people who were babies in Christ from the standpoint of just, they just came to the Lord. There were other people who were still immature in Christ because they hadn't grown. They may be been in the Lord for a few years, but they really were stunted in their growth. And then I knew that I had intermediate, growth Christians. And I knew that I was also speaking to people who had been in Christ and been growing in Christ longer than I'd even been alive, when I first started teaching. And I remember thinking to myself, Lord, how in the world can I put together a teaching that's going to minister to all those different levels of spiritual maturity? And the Lord just slammed me upside the head one time and just said, that's My responsibility. You just teach the Word of God and I will parcel it out according to where people are able to respond and so forth.

And any teacher of the Word who's been teaching for a while, will tell you that there is this amazing sort of a thing that happens when you get done teaching. People still to this day come up and talk to me after a message and tell me how it impacted their lives. Sometimes they email me or something like that. What's amazing to me is how varied those responses are to the things that I taught. And I can tell by what they say to me, and I hope I don't intimidate you from coming up and talking to me. But I can tell when they come up to talk to me where they're at in the Lord. I can tell whether they were sipping on milk or whether they were chewing on the meat, but it's the Holy Spirit that who enables that individual according to where they're at in Him to be able to do that. I'm just teaching the Word of God. Just like over in our children's ministry. They're just teaching the Word of God over there. It's the same Word of God we teach here. And yeah, they might be speaking to children from the standpoint of their intellectual immaturity but the truths are the same. When they talk about those Bible stories, it's the same truth. When they talk about the resurrection of Jesus, it's the same resurrection we're talking about in here. When they talk about the crucifixion, it's the same body and blood of Jesus. We don't add more to it when you get more mature in the Lord. We don't add things like, okay, now that you're mature, let me tell you what the real story is about the crucifixion, now you're ready for it. That's dumb! See, so the meat or the milk is really dependent on you. And God is, God knows you. He knows exactly what you can take and what you can assimilate. He's not going to give you more than you can eat. He's not going to let you choke. He'll give you, He'll help you to ingest. From the teaching of God's Word, the reading of your Bible, listening to teachings on the radio or whatever, He's going to help you to assimilate exactly what is right for you.