Allegiance to God

Transcript

GR 1304
10-03-05
Allegiance to God
1 Corinthians 3:4-9
Gil Rugh


We are going to be in 1 Corinthians 3 in your Bibles, Paul's letter to the Corinthians and the third chapter.  The letter to the Corinthians was written by the Apostle Paul to the church that he had been used by God to establish and as we have seen by Paul's opening comments, it is a great church, it is a church greatly blessed by God.  It is a church that God has gifted in many and various ways so that Paul could say, you come behind in no gift, so that they could accomplish and carry out the ministry that God had entrusted to them, eagerly anticipating the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The church at Corinth, like every true church, was comprised of those who had been redeemed by God's grace through faith in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.  The church belongs to God because He purchased it for Himself.  The Apostle Paul spoke to the leaders from the church at Ephesus in Acts 20:28, and told them to be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of God of which you have been made overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.  The church of God has been purchased by God with His own blood.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We just sang “that thou my God shouldst die for me.”  That the Son of God Himself died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin, and it was His death that made possible our forgiveness and thus enabled God to build the church of Jesus Christ.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 12 in your Bibles.  Every person must come to understand their sin and their sinful condition and that the penalty for their sin is death, and that Jesus Christ, God's Son, is the only way of salvation.  As Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me”.  On the basis of that understanding, turns from their sin and places their faith in Christ alone as their Savior, they are cleansed from their sin, they are forgiven by God and declared righteous.  At that same moment in time the Spirit of God, who identifies them with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, Himself comes and takes up residence in that life.

Look in 1 Corinthians 12:13, for “by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”  Now he's not talking about water baptism here.  For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.  It's a work of the Spirit in identifying us with Jesus Christ, so that when you place your faith in Jesus Christ as the One who loved you and died for you, the Spirit of God identifies you with Christ.  He views you as having died with Christ when He died, been buried with Christ when He was buried, and raised up to new life now, the new life you have in Christ.  Paul develops the details of that in Romans 6.  You'll note in verse 13, you are baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free.  There is only one way of salvation.  This is one of the offenses of Christianity, its narrowness.  I quoted to you John 14:6 when Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”  That is exclusive, that there is only one way.  There is no other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved.  So it's through faith in His Son--Jew, Gentile, slave, free, no matter who you are, no matter what you are, the only way you can be saved is through faith in Jesus Christ.  Also, at the end of verse 13, “and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”  That Holy Spirit now comes and takes up residence in our lives, He dwells within us to empower us and to enable us to live lives that are pleasing to Him, to be the power that we might serve the living God, have His purposes accomplished in our lives.  This great truth of the work of Christ on the cross has been the subject of most of chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians, and all of chapter 2.  Paul is drawing the attention of the Corinthians back to the basic issue, and the issue is the work of Christ on the cross.  Understand that that is what the church is all about, that is the focus of the church, that is the message of the church.  

As you are aware, the sad commentary in all of this is that the church of Corinth, great church that it is, the mighty work of God that has been accomplished in their lives is not being lived out the way that it should.  The church at Corinth is a church wracked by division and conflict and quarrels.  It is a church that is stunted in its growth, and so the Apostle Paul is writing to make some corrections.

In chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians, in the opening verses, the Apostle Paul said in verse 1, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men.”  Now at the end of chapter 2 he had drawn a contrast between all the people on earth.  There are those who are spiritual, because they have the Holy Spirit of God in their lives, and there are those who do not have the Spirit of God in their lives, so they are natural men, they are just human beings who live in their own power, doing their own thing, because the Spirit of God is not at work in their lives.  So when he says I could not speak to you as spiritual men, that is a blow to the Corinthians.  I couldn't speak to you as to people who are living under the power and control of the Holy Spirit, I couldn't speak to you as people who are being taught by the Spirit of God.  Does Paul think they're not saved?  No, he thinks they are saved. He's pretty confident of the reality of the work of God in their lives as we have seen already in this letter.  But he says, I had to speak to you as men of flesh, the King James has carnal.  That word comes from the Latin word for flesh, carnal.  So we talk about carnal Christians, fleshly Christians, infants in Christ, those who, even though they are believers in Christ, even though they have the Spirit of God, they are allowing the flesh, they are doing things that are like people who don't have the Spirit of God do.  They are not functioning like God's people should function.  And we noted, carnal Christianity and carnal Christians, that's not a state in which people reside, having made a profession of faith in Christ at some point in their life.  Now they've just been living like unbelievers for an extended period of time.  Well, they're just carnal Christians.  No, they would be the natural man of chapter 2.

These Corinthians, as we have noted, have abundant evidence of the work of the Spirit of God in their lives.  As we go through this letter we see the Spirit of God working in and through them in many ways, but there are things that don't belong in that church.  And so Paul is bringing correction.  One problem is, they can't take in the spiritual truth that they should be taking in, they're infants.  Verse 2, I gave you milk, not solid food. You weren't able to receive it, even now you are not able.  You're just not growing and developing like you should as God's people, you're stuck on the basics.  And he just went back and reiterated the central place of the cross in the plan of God, the work of Christ as the focal point for our salvation, and now our growth as God's people.  Work on the basics. That ought to permeate everything, but we have to move on.  You know some Christians take the view, there is just a lot of this Bible...you know, whatever, it's all right with me.  Now that's to be an infant, that's to be fleshly, not taking in the truth of God and developing like we should.

And then on top of that they had quarrels, jealousies, conflicts in the church.  Verse 3, “For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly?”  So you can't take in the truth of God and the solid meat God has revealed like you should.  You're bickering and quarreling among yourselves.  These are all evidences that you are not allowing the Spirit to do His unique and powerful work in the ministry of that church. Particular concern of the Apostle Paul is the division around personality leaders.  He's using Apollos and himself as prime examples.

So in verse 4, “when one says, ‘I am of Paul’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos’, are you not mere men?”  Aren't you functioning like those who don't have the Spirit of God?  Isn't that the way the world does?  They have their heroes, they have their leaders, they have those people that they credit.  You know these are the people, the movers, the shakers, the people who get things done.  You read a business magazine and they're always honoring this business leader, I mean he's a person who has built that business, he has brought in the extra income, he's expanded it.  He's the man, what would they do without him?  And on it goes.  But that's not the way it is in the church, but the church in Corinth had lost its perspective.  And they were focusing attention on leaders like Paul, like Apollos.  And that's an evidence you are just functioning like mere men.

So what Paul is going to do now, picking up with verse 5, verses 5-9 he's going to show the role that the leaders have, men like Paul and Apollos, leaders that were present in the church at Corinth.  What role do they have?  And then in verses 10-15, and we won't get there, he's going to talk about the responsibility of these leaders in their ministry.  So verses 5-15 will give a balance, with verses 16-17 giving a strong warning that there may indeed be unbelievers who have infiltrated among the leadership in this church.  And they will be destroyed for their destructive work.

Verse 5 picks up where the rhetorical question of verse 4 left off.  Verse 4, “when one says ‘I am of Paul’ and another ‘I am of Apollos’, are you not mere men?” The very fact that you are dividing around your favorite.  Now remember, there is no doctrinal issue, Paul has no doctrinal differences with Apollos, nor Apollos with Paul.  We're not talking about patching over doctrinal differences for the sake of unity or in the name of love.  The doctrine of these leaders is the same.  The problem is, the followers, the people in the church have made each one of these men their own idol, their own leader that they've attached to in an unbiblical way.  So verse 5 says, what then is Apollos, what is Paul?  Let's put things straight.  Just what is Apollos, what is Paul that you are so caught up with these men, servants through whom you believed, servants through whom you believed.  That's all they are, servants.  Now Apollos and Paul were great men.  We're more familiar with Paul than Apollos, but both were great men, mightily used in ministry in New Testament times.  And interestingly, both men had been mightily used in the church at Corinth.  So it was easy for the Corinthians to lose perspective and see them as more than they were.  They are just servants.

Back up to Acts 18.  In the first 17 verses, the Apostle Paul, the record of his ministry at Corinth, and he established the church at Corinth.  So naturally he had a great impact here, he is the spiritual father to many in the church at Corinth.  He'll refer to this when we get to the end of chapter 4 of I Corinthians.  In verse 5 we are told that early on in his ministry at Corinth Paul worked to support himself while he ministered the Word.  Then some of his fellow workers brought him offerings from other places and so at the end of verse 5, Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.  Many are being saved under Paul's ministry, there is opposition, Paul is afraid.  We know that because the Spirit of God appeared to him in verse 9 and said, “do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent.”  The end of verse 10, for I have many people in this city.  Keep that in mind.  Here you see the sovereign work of God in the city of Corinth.  The Apostle Paul is afraid, he doesn't know what the future holds.  God tells him, don't be afraid, I have many people I am going to bring to Myself through your preaching in this city.  So no doubt about the ministry of the Apostle Paul in the city of Corinth, and its impact.

Then you come down to verse 24, after Paul had left Corinth, we read about a Jew names Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man. He comes to Ephesus, he was mighty in the scriptures.  This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in Spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John.  So here is a powerful scriptural teacher.  He is well versed in the Old Testament, he's been instructed concerning John's ministry, John the Baptist.  He knows about John's calling the nation to repentance in anticipation of the Messiah.  But he's not been brought up to date on what has happened since.  So Priscilla and Aquilla take Apollos aside, and at the end of verse 26, “explained to him the way of God more accurately.  And when he wanted to go across to Achaia...” Now Achaia is the southern province of Greece where the city of Corinth is located.  When he goes to Achaia, he goes to Corinth.  The brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.  And when he arrived, now note this, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.  Note the first statement in Acts 19:1, “it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth...” Now we're going to pick up Paul's ministry again.  But you note where Apollos is—Corinth.  He greatly helped those who had believed through grace, he refutes the opposition in public, demonstrates that Jesus is the Christ.

So when you come back to 1 Corinthians 3 you can understand, here are two men who have had a great impact on the lives of the people that now make up the church at Corinth.  And different people would have been impacted a little differently by each of these men.  We all know what it's like, there are certain teachers and people that we're just more attracted to, that the Lord seems to use in a greater way in our lives.  There are other people less so, but are used in other people's lives.  The problems is, you have the Paul and Apollos faction in the church.  Oh, Paul, when he came and preached the Gospel, I was saved under his ministry, the Lord changed my life, I'll never be the same.  And I am committed to the Apostle Paul.  Oh, Apollos came, and I grew in grace and I learned things from the Word I had never learned.  And he had a way of getting the point across from the scripture that I had never heard before.  And I can't imagine where I'd be without Apollos' ministry.  Well, to a certain extent, that's fine.  We are to appreciate those that the Lord uses in our lives, as we've talked about.  We are to have a love for them.  However, our allegiance is to one person—Jesus Christ.  And that's where the church at Corinth failed.  So now they divided into factions over who their favorite leader was, who their favorite teacher had been and was.

So let's put it in perspective, Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 3:5.  Who is Apollos?  Who is Paul?  Servants.  We get the English word deacon from this word.  This is one who serves a master, they are simply servants through whom you believed.  As mightily as these men had been used, as powerful as Paul's ministry was, as eloquent as Apollos was in communicating God's grace, you know what?  Servants, servants.  That's what we have to put in perspective.  They are but servants.  How foolish that people would say, I am now a follower of the servant.  You go to one of the overseas countries where they have royalty and the butler or the maid comes and does something for you.  And you say, for the rest of my life, I'm a follower of the butler.  What do you mean?  I mean, now you're going to divide the country over, well, I'm loyal to the butler.  Well, I'm loyal to the maid.  Wait a minute, they're servants, servants.  That's all.  But before Paul's done, you know what he's going to say?  They're nothing, they're nothing in the overall picture of the work that's being done.

This is a common word that the Apostle Paul uses, not only for himself, but others who work with him in the ministry.  Good reminder, right down to today.  Human nature has not changed, and when we function in the church, failing to allow the Spirit to be in control, you know what we do?  We divide around personalities, we become loyal to the one that we especially love or appreciate.  And the result is the same ongoing division.  Not over doctrine, not over biblical truth, but over personalities.

Look in 1 Corinthians 4:1, Paul will get into this further when we move down this far.  But just note his emphasis, let a man regard us in this manner.  How should you think of us, Paul says, me, Apollos?  As servants of Christ.  That's it.  Servants of Christ.  Don't get too caught up with the servants.  He is God's servant, he's doing the work that has been given to him.

Now verse 5 says, what is Paul?  What is Apollos?  Servants through whom you believed.  These were simply servants that God had assigned the responsibility of taking the message of Christ and His work on the cross to the city of Corinth.  When Paul did that, when Apollos did that, people were saved by believing the message of the cross.  For the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.  So understand, Corinthians, we are simply servants, meaning we came on behalf of our master to do what He assigned us to do, and you believed the message He gave to us, and you were saved.  Even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.  Now you are aware in your English Bible often the English translators insert words to smooth it out in English.  It's sometimes just awkward to do a word-for-word translation, so we have the word opportunity here in italics.  That means it's not in the original text, the original text is a little bit too abrupt for us.  Even as the Lord gave to each one.  Gave what?  What are we talking about?  Well some would say, the Lord gave faith.  You believed and the Lord gave that faith.  I think there would be a biblical case to be made for that, but that's not what Paul is talking about here.  He's talking about the fact that he and Apollos came as servants, doing what the Lord had assigned them to do.  The Lord gave them this responsibility.  Each of these men was doing what God had gifted them to do, assigned them to do, and empowered them to do.

Look down in verse 10, “according to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid the foundation.”  Saying the same thing.  The grace of God that was given to me was God assigning me a certain responsibility, gifting me in a certain way, giving me a certain task.  So in verse 5 he's reminding them, the Lord gave to his servants, Paul and Apollos, responsibility.  We simply did what the Lord assigned us to do.  Don't be giving us credit, we're just servants.  Like the master of a house, you ring the doorbell and the butler comes.  We went to a home one time when I was young, they had a butler, they had a maid.  It was interesting.  And the butler answered the door and told us that Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so will receive you in the library.  Why didn't they just come and receive us at the door?  Here's where we are.  So he took us to the library.  That's what a butler does. That's what had been assigned to him.  I'm sure when he went to work at this house they told him, when the doorbell rings, you answer it.  Then you take these people to the library and see they are seated.  That was his job.  That's all Paul is. We're servants. I'm the butler.  I'm simply doing what God assigned me to do.  The Lord gave that assignment to me; gave that assignment to Apollos.

Look over in 1 Corinthians 9.  Paul didn't see his ministry as optional.  1Corinthians 9:16, “for if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.  For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward, but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.”  He'll talk about in chapter 4 verse 1, we just read the first part of the verse, that above all it is required in a steward that a man be found faithful.  We are servants, servants have a stewardship, stewards must be faithful.  That is woe to me if I don't preach the Gospel.  That's the responsibility given to me, whether I want to or not.  That is my role.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 3.  All right, the carrying out, then, of this responsibility assigned to him, assigned to Apollos.  Verse 6, “I planted, Apollos watered.”  Now they all have the same task overall, as we'll see.  The picture is going to be of a field, and when you're working in a field, whether you're planting the seed, whether you're watering the seed, whether you're harvesting the crops, you're all working toward the same end—bringing in the harvest, the fruit.  But within that work in the field there are different tasks.  The seed has to be planted, it has to be watered, it has to be harvested.  The goal is, when all is said and done, to have proof, to bring in the crop.  So Paul and Apollos are in the same work, the work that God has assigned to them, but they have different responsibilities in it.  I planted.  Remember, Paul went to Corinth, he was the first one to bring the Gospel to the city.  Apollos watered, he came and helped them grow in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  So I planted, Apollos watered.  Well, wow, what a ministry.  But if I go out and throw seed all over and nothing ever happens, what have I done?  Nothing.  If someone goes out and waters and waters and waters and waters and waters and nothing ever grows, what has been accomplished?  Nothing.  So Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.  Now somewhere along the line the Corinthians got confused, because they were giving Paul and Apollos credit for the results.  In that sense, Paul and Apollos did nothing, because God was causing the growth.  The production of the crop, its growth, its development, all the work of God.

Look at verse 7, “so then...” Now note this, “neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything.”  That's a pretty pointed statement.  It doesn't matter who plants, it doesn't matter who waters, they are nothing. The only one who matters is the God who is causing the growth.  And that would be true, right?  If your young child is out throwing grass seed on the concrete sidewalk in the front of your house and says, I'm helping you, Dad.  You say, what you are doing, it doesn't do anything.  And your other child is out there watering it, well that really helps.  It's not doing anything.  That's all there is in our labors, apart from the work of God.  It's God who causes the growth.  So you ought to mark in your Bible, the end of verse 6 says, “God was causing the growth.”  The end of verse 7 says, “God who causes the growth.”  One writer put it this way, the point is that success does not depend on those who preach, but on God.  Paul argues that every worker is equally insignificant before God.  Paul and Apollos have essential tasks to perform, because they're servants and God has assigned them certain tasks.  But they have no independent importance. They are simply instruments that God is using.  And without God's work nothing but nothing but nothing would ever be accomplished.  And they are simply assigned tasks that God in grace will use to accomplish the purposes that He determined will happen.

Now as we're going to see in a moment, the field in view here is the church at Corinth.  We basically say, nothing has ever happened spiritually in the church at Corinth, nothing is happening today, and nothing will happen in the future, but what God causes to happen.  No growth, no development, no salvation, no maturing apart from God's work.  Yes, but think of the people He uses.  There is a role they play, but you understand the role they play, it's as servants doing an assigned task.  Anything that happens out of that is a result of the work of God.  You realize when that butler answered the door and ushered us into the library, he hadn't done anything.  He hadn't built the house, he hadn't made the money, he hadn't provided the chairs.  Nothing.  He was just the servant, and the master of the house used him to get us from the door to the library.  That's all.  The master had done it all, if you will, of that house.  He had made all the provision.  All that was happening was his doing.  Now I realize when I am saying this that what I'm saying is I am nothing.  That is somewhat humbling, but it's reality, right?  A few weeks ago, a little longer maybe, one of you gave me a statement, I wrote it down and I was reminded of it in light of this portion.  I am a nobody who is telling everybody that there is somebody who can save anybody.  I thought that was clever.  I am a nobody who is telling everybody that there is somebody who can save anybody.  That pretty well puts it together.  I need to start out where I am, I am nobody.  As Paul will later remind the Corinthians, I am what I am by the grace of God.  I mean, that's it.
          
All right, verse 8, “now he who plants and he who waters are one.”  He who plants and he who waters, and this analogy that he is drawing, Paul planted and Apollos watered.  The one who plants, the one who waters are one.  They are all about the same task.  We are not rivals.  The one planting the seed in the field is not a rival of the one who is responsible for watering the seed, they are working together to one end—the production of a harvest.  That's all.  So you do you get this idea that Paul and Apollos.....  they aren't at one another, but the church has aligned itself around these men.  And the church ought to have a proper perspective.  These aren't opposing workers, they are workers assigned by the living God to different tasks, but they are all doing the same “job.”  They have different jobs but they are doing the same job.  And the overall task in the field is what?  Growth and harvest.  Within that there are different responsibilities, some plant, some water, some harvest.  But we are all one in that work.  The goal is one, the production of a crop.

So verse 8, “now he who plants and he who waters are one, but...” note “each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.”  Even though we are one, even though it is all God's doing and He gets all the credit, there is reward for the laborers.  This is a key section that I want you to follow carefully.  They will be individually as servants accountable to God, as servants would be for the particular task assigned to them.  Paul will be responsible for his labors in planting, Apollos will be responsible for his labors in watering.  Each will have his own reward.  And you know there is an emphasis on each.  The first word in the last part of this statement is not the conjunction but, but that little word each, emphasizing the fact that each one individually here.  So even though all the workers are one in that they are part of one work in the field, each one of these workers will receive his own reward.  The word reward here is a word that would be used for pay for work that is done, wages for working.  That's the reward of the laborer, he gets paid.  So these servants are assigned responsibility by God in the church in Corinth, differing responsibilities.  They will be paid according to his own labor.  You'll note each, that word “each,” you could mark it.  And then “his own” appears twice—his own reward, his own labor.  Each, his own reward, his own labor.  There is a stress in this section of the personal accountability and responsibility of each individual worker.  And I want you to note something here.  Each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.  This is so crucial to us, it's so important for me in my responsibility.  It was important for Paul, important for Apollos, important for all of us to remember reward comes not for the results.  Each will be rewarded according to the amount of growth, each will be rewarded according to the greatness of the harvest, each will be rewarded according to the result.  That's not what it says, because remember, verse 6, “God was causing the growth.” The end of verse 7, “God causes the growth.”  Each is rewarded for his own labor.  This word translated labor, it's a favorite word of Paul, means to toil to exhaustion, to work yourself until you're weary.  One writer put it this way, Paul affirms that each laborer will receive a separate wage or reward for his or her backbreaking toil.  Laborers will be rewarded not according to their success, but according to their work.  You know when we begin to think like the world thinks, we begin to equate success with what?  Results.  So if my church has more people than someone else's church, I must be more successful.  But you know anyone who is here, hears the results of what?  God's work.  Anyone who is saved is saved how?  Through the work of God.  Anyone who is growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is growing how?  Through the work of the Spirit of God in their lives.  I will be held accountable for my labor, not the results of that labor.  I am a servant, I cannot make the growth happen.  And if I begin to try in the wrong way, I don't want you to misunderstand, other than doing what the Lord has assigned me to do, that's where we'll get into verses 10-15, those leaders who do not build the way God has intended them to build.

So that's why there may be someone faithfully laboring as God's servant, doing what God has assigned him to do, and they don't get the glory and the credit that someone else does.  They don't get numbers of people that come and encourage them, but they may end up with a greater reward, because they have labored faithfully and diligently in their service for the Lord.  I may be privileged to preach to larger numbers of people, then stand before the Lord and find out my reward is smaller because I have not been faithful.  I didn't labor as I should have as a servant.  God blessed and God did a work, but my labor was not the toil that it should have been, the diligence that it should have been.  Because God will reward on the basis of the labor, not the results, because He produces the results according to His will.  We get confused and then we think that the results depend on us, and we're going to cause the growth.  And now we begin to take over God's work for ourselves.  We'll deal with that as a serious matter when we get to the next section.

This word over in 1 Corinthians 15:10, the word for labor.  Paul talked about his ministry of the Gospel to the Corinthians, and in 1 Corinthians 15:10 he talks about the fact that he is the least of the apostles, he persecuted the church, he was called to be an apostle last of all the apostles.  But verse 10, “by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored.” There's our word, toiled to exhaustion even more than all of them.  “Yet not I, but the grace of God within me.”  You cannot separate the grace of God.  Paul says all that I am, all that I do is a result of God's grace in me.  But by the same token, I worked harder than the other apostles.  And all of us are impressed as we examine the life of the Apostle Paul.  He was a man who poured himself into the ministry, who poured himself into the life of a servant.  I mean there is a singleness of purpose.  I could not have kept up with the Apostle Paul, that devoted.  There are no sidetracks for him, don't find him talking about this or that or the other thing.  He's consumed, I labored more than they all.  And to encourage us, look at verse 58, “therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”  So we'll stand before the Lord and those faithful servants who labored and toiled and saw little or no results, but the reward of glory will be great.  Why?  They were faithful, they'll be rewarded for their toil, for faithful service as His servants.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 3:9, “for we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.”  Some would take we are God's fellow workers to mean that we work together with God, but that's not what the context is talking about.  In each of these three things—we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building.  In other words, the point he has been talking about, Apollos and I are fellow workers together in God's field.  We belong to God, the field belongs to God, the building belongs to God. The workers belong to God, the field belongs to God, the building belongs to God.  The building will be the analogy of verses 10-17.  So we are God's fellow workers.  Apollos and I are simply workers who belong to God, His servants.  Paul often refers to those who shared the ministry with him as fellow workers.

You are God's field, we are fellow workers.  Apollos, Paul, others like us, we are simply God's servants.  We're all on the same level, we're servants, we're fellow workers who belong to God.  You are God's field, you, the church at Corinth, you're God's field.  We are simply servants, workers, sent in to God's field to perform the task that He has assigned to us.  You are God's building.  You don't belong to me, you don't belong to Apollos, you don't belong to any other human being.  You belong to God.  And Paul says, I don't belong to you, you don't belong to me in that sense.  I am God's fellow worker, you are God's field.  Now just where did we get confused, how did we get off track.  Everything is God's, the workers, the church, the results, it's all God's.

Now how do we get caught up in people?  I stop having the Spirit direct my thinking and so all of a sudden I can't imagine life without this person, this leader.  Oh this leader has been so greatly used in my life, what would my life be without them?  What do you mean?  Again, I appreciate those who led me to Christ, I appreciate those who have helped me grow in Christ, but they were just servants.  It's not what would my life be without them.  Think about it.  What would your life be without them, what would your life be without God?  What would your life be without the Son of God?  What would your life be without the Spirit of God?  I'm thankful that there were faithful servants who were used and continue to be used in my life, and I love them and I appreciate them.  But I want to encourage them for their work, but my allegiance is not to them.  I am not their follower, I'm a servant of Jesus Christ.

Listen to the summary, let me walk you through what we've covered here.  1) The Lord gives certain servants to be instruments through whom we come to Christ.  We saw that in verse 5.  That's all.  Praise God for the servant that He sends, that shared the Gospel and brought me to Christ.  But they're a servant.  2) God's servants have different responsibility, it's God who produces the growth, verse 6.  One does this, one does that.  Don't divide over the servants.  God causes the growth.  Anything that happened in your life happened as a result of God's work.  That human instrument was just a servant used by God, accomplishing the work that only God could do.  3) It’s not the servants who are significant, but God who causes the growth, verse 7.  God causes the growth.  4) All God's servants work together to one end, verse 8.  He who plants and he who waters are one.  We are not at one another here, we are not divided.  We have one task here, developing the field that God has placed us in to work so that He might cause growth and produce a harvest.  5) Rewards will be given to servants according to their toil, not their success.  Rewards will be given to servants on the basis of their toil, not their success.  We must remember that.  6) The workers in the church all belong to God.  It's all His—the workers, the field, the results, it's all God's.  So where can there be division in this church around individuals?  There is only one person who is central to this church, is it not?  It's the living God.  Only one work that is central to this church, the work that He is doing through the work of His Son, Jesus Christ.  That's what we are about.  Praise God we are privileged to be His servants.

Let's pray together.  Thank You, Lord, for who You are.  Thank You for the reminder of who we are.  Thank You for the reminders to the church at Corinth.  Thank You for men like Paul and Apollos, thank You that Paul had a clear perspective on what his role was.  And, Lord, we're mindful that 2000 years after this letter was written under the direction of Your Spirit, we still struggle with the same kind of issues. Your church  still gets divided by quarrels and factions, around favorite leaders, special people, and we become fleshly.  We fail to manifest the greatness of Your work of grace in Your Son, Jesus Christ.  Keep our church focused on Him, the work that He has done, that You might receive all the praise and all the glory for all the growth that happens.  We pray in Christ's name, amen.