Episode #136. Today we’ll read 1 Corinthians chapter 3 together. Paul describes spiritual immaturity, our role as God’s servants, and the folly of human wisdom.
Transcript
Joy: You’re listening to the Lifting Her Voice podcast, Episode #136. Today we’ll read 1 Corinthians chapter 3 together: Paul describes spiritual immaturity; our role as God’s servants; and the folly of human wisdom.
Welcome to the Lifting Her Voice podcast. I’m your host, Joy Miller, and I invite you to grab your Bible and join me as we simply read God’s word together. Some things require discipline and sometimes that’s just not easy to muster by yourself, no matter how badly you want to do it or how much you know you should. It’s just easier to do it with a friend. So refill your coffee or tea, get comfortable in your favorite chair and follow along as I read aloud. I’m so glad you’re here!
Welcome
Connect-Grow-Serve-Go is an evaluation tool that my church body adopted several years ago. It helped us to do individual, small group, and church body spiritual checkups. Are we covering the basics of what a Bible-believing church should be achieving? Does the maturity level of our members touch on each one of these areas?
Connect urges us to worship, pray, fellowship, and relate to others in positive relationships at work, at home, and in other settings. Spiritual fitness results when you connect with God, with others, and with your church family.
Grow refers to learning and understanding more about God and His expectations of His people, which comes through Bible study. You grow by applying that knowledge to your everyday living.
Serve describes the work you do inside your church. Your church is full of ministry and service opportunities. You serve by using your spiritual gifts, skills, and passions to glorify God. All of us must work together for the church to function as God intended.
Go moves you outside the church and into the community and the world. Evangelism and missions are ways to go into your community and the world in the name of Jesus Christ. It might be uncomfortable at first, but you will experience firsthand the difference Christ can make through you.
At Lake Don Pedro Baptist Church, we have found these tenets to be basic and effective. So much so, we even updated our mission statement to include them.
1 Corinthians Chapter 3
The Problem of Immaturity
For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, because you are still worldly. For since there is envy and strife among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? For whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not acting like mere humans?
The Role of God’s Servants
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building.
According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved — but only as through fire.
Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.
The Folly of Human Wisdom
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness; and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile. So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours — whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come — everything is yours, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Closing Thoughts
What does it look like to be mature in Christ? What attributes and habits lead to spiritual maturity? Most of us intuitively know that merely showing up every Sunday does not a mature believer make. Paul said point-blank to the church at Corinth that he was still bottle-feeding them because they were hanging on to worldly things. In this chapter he mentions envy and strife. There will be more indicators as we move forward in 1 Corinthians – and the next letter for that matter – that the church body has a lot of potential but are too concerned with self to be totally sold out for Jesus.
And there is a definite inference that a mature congregation is made up of mature individual believers. So, what does that look like? James 1:22 admonishes us to be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. You’ve taken a wonderful first step just by following along with this podcast and committing to be in the Word every day. Now, the next step is to let it actually change us.
Please Others
And going to church? We have to do better than just thinking, “Okay, I got my ticket punched for that week.” God has divine appointments for us. Perhaps a good Sunday prayer while you’re getting ready to go would be to ask God to bring someone into your path at church who needs a word of encouragement. What did Paul say in Romans 15? Please others and not ourselves.
Service to others and God is another mark of spiritual maturity. Are you a part of a ministry at your local church? I know. Your comfort zone gets challenged. And of course, our first response is that we’re not spiritual enough, or the we don’t know how to teach or preach. Well, every church I know has carpet and I bet if someone doesn’t volunteer to push a vacuum cleaner or refill the paper towel dispenser, the busy church secretary or pastor ends up doing it. What a beautiful ministry that would be.
Finally, Matthew 28:19 tell us to Go. Can you imagine yourself serving on a short-term missionary trip in Africa? Yeah, no one really can until they’ve spent a year planning and finding themselves on their first 24-flight. But that kind of sacrifice – spending your own money, ministering to those who have never heard the name of Jesus – that’s serious Believer-business. But sometimes outreach looks like knocking on your neighbor’s door to invite them to Sunrise Service. That just might end up being one of those divine appointments. Let’s pray.
Prayer
Father, Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began.” You have ordained our days, Lord. Thank You. Thank You for these days that You have given us to manage. Help us to acknowledge that these days still belong to You. Our hearts are open and malleable before You right now, Lord. If there are improvements that we need to make that will take us into a deeper relationship with You, leading to spiritual maturity, reveal them to us now. Thank You that we can be sure of this, that You who started a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Thank you for joining me here today. I pray God will grow in you what has been planted and watered here. In this time of unprecedented struggle worldwide, we can look to God for guidance and comfort. Be sensitive to those in your circle of influence who need a word of encouragement and invite them to join us. If you like this show, it would be great if you give it a five-star review. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you right here tomorrow. Be well!
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible(r), Copyright (c) 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible(r) and CSB(r) are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
Show Notes
- Awesome Video of Solomon’s Temple
- These will help! Overview videos of all books of the Bible
Visit
Bible Study Resources
- CSB Study Bible – Hardcover or Kindle!
- The Bible Project’s Bible Basics – Free!
- Every Bible You Could Ever Want!
- The Bible Hub – Free!
- Bible Study Tools – Free!
- The Bible Project– Free!
Other Resources
- Want to use your tablet for Bible reading? Consider Kindle .
- I love Audible! Try it for free!
- Want it? FaithGear has it!
- Wear your faith! Christian Strong
- Bet Hannon Business Websites designed and maintains my website.
- Title of song used in the podcast is 3 Joys & the Truth, by Daniel O’Connor
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. That means if you purchase anything, I may get a small commission. This does not cost you anything and it helps offset the costs of the podcast. Thank you in advance.
View my Broadcast License.
Leave a Reply