Christians are called to be servants of Christ, not to boast in human leaders. The sermon uses three illustrations: the field and laborers, the temple and builders, and the steward. These highlight that while individuals have specific roles and responsibilities, ultimate growth and success come from God alone, emphasizing dependence on Him. The message also stresses individual accountability in building up the church, warning against destruction or the use of inferior materials, and concludes that true wisdom lies in recognizing God's sovereignty and serving Him faithfully as stewards of His mysteries.
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of God, your master, proclaim, and punisheth for his wonderful name. The name of all the glory that Jesus can show. His kingdom is glorious and rules over all. In number fifty-four. is the Thank you.
our mighty name to them, and where it is mine, is measured with that we have. And with your great vision, with joy of joy, Thank you.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for angels you pray. Lord, God, God, God, your faithful, and your dear Father. let him in his hand, for the glory and the crown of his heaven died.
Now just one thing before I pray, there is something in chapter that I've never seen anywhere else in my life, something which I've admired considerably, and that is that through you to the service you've got of him most amazing one by one. They have admired this sort of military position. Now I wonder if he could have had this bit of military position in the opposite direction. I wonder if we could all come exactly forward each forward, not more, just forward, so that you'd be in transparently the same order.
You'd still be behind the same people as you're behind at the moment. The back row will still be the back row. So you need to feel that you're giving up anything at all, except that it will be, instead of my having to shun over, fall over the back seat, We'll all be together, we must more friendly, and I'm sure we'll add the responsibility to the meeting. So if, before I pray, you can all rise and come and just keep falling in forward with a schedule of precision, I'm sure that may help you in that. Or as I'll be right, I don't think I'll ever have people doing so willingly to fall in my life. O God, our Father, we do thank thee that at the end of the day we can turn aside from our ordinary work and from domestic responsibilities and we can seek thy faith together.
We thank thee that as we come to thee we may lift up our hearts with simplicity and address thee as our Father. For we are all the children of God, thy faith in Jesus Christ. That thou art our Father and our God, And we are thine by sacred times, thy sons and daughters, bought with blood. How we bless thee for that wonderful grace of thine by which we have been constituted the children of God. We thank thee for what this means to us for the security and peace that it brings. We thank thee that when we bow before thee and address thee as our Father, there comes to us ever afresh the assurance that thou hast made provision for thy children, that thou art the loving guardian of thine own, and that thou bring us eventually sacred to thy presence.
And so we bless thee that our relationship to thee this night is that of children to our heavenly Father. But we bless thee, O God, that in this hymn of praise that we have been singing to thee, we have been able to refer to ourselves as ye servants of Christ. We are amazed, O Lord, at the tremendous privilege that thou hast afforded to us to be not only children of God but servants of Christ. That we should be granted this great honor of engaging in service for thee. For we remember that thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, did not disdain to be called the servant of the Lord.
We thank thee that he took upon him the former of a servant. He was thy servant, thy bondslave. Yet, O Lord, we thank thee that his grace was such that he was prepared not only to be servant to thee, but servant to men. Remember his word when he said, I am among you, as one with service. grant, O Lord, then, that we may regard him as highest privilege to follow the path that he has drawn, and not only to serve thee, but to serve our friends, not only to serve thee as the living and the true God, but to serve the saints in the church, and to serve our unconverted friends and neighbours, as we bring them the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So we ask that as we turn to thy holy word to consider tonight what it has to say to us concerning our role as servants of Christ, that we ask that we may deserve more clearly the nature of the service to which thou hast called us, and those standards that we should put into operation in our lives as servants of thine, and then grant to us such determination to serve thee. but that we may not rest until we know where and how we should serve thee and accomplish thy will. Gratting for the result, therefore, of our meditation together this evening may be that we shall be the better equipped for this task, and that thy church, and particularly that local church with which we are connected, may be prosperous by the diligence of our contribution.
So we seek thy message upon us, and upon all the members of this assembly. We think of those who are unable to come out because of the damned cold evening. We pray for elderly friends and for those who are not well. We also commit to thee those who have a care of little children that are unable to come. We ask thy blessing upon each other, draw near to them, O Lord, and pour out upon them from thy grantees' grace the blessing that they need most. So we commit us now into thy gracious care for this art together, and ask thee that thou art mercifully enriched us, as we turn to the treasure of the Holy Scripture, granting us enlightenment by thy Spirit, and help to do thy growth.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now let us sing another hymn of our service for our Lord Jesus, in number three hundred and eighty three hundred. For the work, to the work, we are servants of God. Let us follow the path that our master has tried.
Free A-free. The world will not be as the world has grown. when you have come to a place where you live then you'll do it a place for the rest of you do The blood
will die when the blood will fade away. The blood will die. The glory of God, the glory Thank you.
True, my children, let's wait like the Lord, for the kingdom of heaven and heaven on your own. And from the name of the Holy One, when God made you speak, made the love where you go, Let us go.
Let us go. Let us go. Thank you. that the evil is dead, and the hope of death, and the plan to bring, and the glory so well, so well, so dear.
The passage of Scripture that we have for consideration this evening is one scripture to the chapter three, verse one. what then is Apollos?
What is Paul? Servants for whom you believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered. But God gave the growth. So neither he who planted nor he who waters is anything, but don't let God who gives the growth. He who plants that he who waters are equal. and each shall receive his wages according to his labor. For we are fellow workers for God. You are God's field, God's building. According to the commission of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I made a foundation, and another man is building upon it.
Let each man take care how he builds upon it, for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, stubble, each man's work will become manifest, for the day will be ruined, because it will be revealed with fire. The fire will catch what sort of works each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. for God's temple is holy, and that temple you are. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise every day, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God, for it is written he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise of futile, So let no one boast of men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ, and Christ is God.
This is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required as stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself. But I am not there by acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness, and will disclose the purposes of the heart, then every man will receive his commendation from God.
I have applied all this to myself and the policy of your benefit, brethren, that you may learn by us to live according to Scripture, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What have you that you did not receive? then you received it. Why do you boast as if it were not a gift? Let me God make his word to us all. The situation which has given rise to these chapters of their teaching is still before the mind of the Apostle Paul. You will remember that they had made of Paul and of Apollos and the seeker leaders of rival groups.
In the opening chapter, Paul said that his holy consecrate the spirit of the cross. Instead, it was a manifestation of the spirit of the world. And that such was the complete opposite, utterly alien, to the wisdom of God, to the mind of Christ, as taught in the second chapter. Now, having shown the wrongness of their attitude, he feels it incumbent upon him to state the truth positively, to put before them the true role of the servant of Christ. Now he uses three illustrations in order to do this. Illustration number one, the field and the labourer.
Illustration number two, the temple and the building. Illustration number three, the steward in the business. Each illustration looks at the matter from a different standpoint and provides very little in connection with this matter of Christian service. But first perhaps we should note the features that each of them have in common. the main stress throughout is that they are all servants of Christ. He is the Lord and Master. He said in verse nine, it's God's building. It's God's building. In verse sixteen, it's God's temple. In verse one of chapter three, they are the mysteries of God.
He's the Lord, he's the Master. He's the one who appoints for his service. He says in verse five, they were given jobs as the Lord assigned to each. Paul gives an illustration in verse ten of himself. He says, According to the commission of God, give it to me. He is the one who appointed his service and according, but they are responsible for him. For he is the one who will pay the wages. He is the one who at the end of the day will test every man's work of what sort it is. He is the one, says Paul in the third illustration, who judges me. But having said that, descriptive of the features that are common to each of the illustrations, showing that we are all servants of Christ, that there is one master, that he places us with his service, and that we are accountable to him, then we approach the three different illustrations and see what each has to say to us.
The first presents us, I believe, with this letter. The letter of complete dependence on God. Complete dependence on God. first by, if Paul starts, what then is Apollos? What is Paul? Now the observant reader might say, you can't see the revised standard version, not correcting their ungrammatical construction. Surely this was their opportunity of saying, who then is Paul? Who is Apollos? You don't say, what then is Apollos? What is Paul? But rightfully in his commentary says, the user expresses great disdain. John Scott, a contemporary theologian, puts it this way, what on earth do you think we are?
That's what he's saying. What on earth do you think we are? What then is Paul? What is Apollos? And he asks the question scornfully. He says, what's Paul? He's not the Lord. The field's not his. He's not the oak. He's not the boss. Paul is not an infraye. Paul is a servant. Apollos is a servant. Peter's a servant. We're all servants. And yet it seems that he adds just the right word of caution that they might jump to the other extreme. And he says, yes, and of all we are servants, but we are servants through whom you believed. Don't go to the other extreme and despise us. Don't refuse the respect that you'll be accorded to those who have been privileged to lead you to an homage you, Christ, through whom you believed.
But the point of the debt of finding is that we are only servants. that each servant must be found doing the job that has been assigned to him by God. Now what was the job that Paul had been given in God's youth? I grant him, he says. What job had Apollo had been given? Apollo had watered. So Paul had been given the privilege of evangelizing, of planting the good seed of the Word of God in the hearts of men, and he went from place to place, Mr. sprung up into eternal life. This was his condition. He said to me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.
We read in chapter one. I, Paul, graduated. I did that job that was given me of God. Now, what does it mean about Apollos? Apollos waters. Now, I had your honour to read this question when I was about eighteen years of age, and the setting of assembly in which this verse was quoted every Monday night of the prayer meeting. I would have said that it merely meant that Apollos had to turn up on the Monday evening after Paul had preached the gospel on Sunday night and engaged in prayer. For it was regularly said, Lord, the gospel was preached last night, and now we are here to water it with our friends. But I assure you that Apollos did far more than goes to the prayer meeting on which Ebonarch, if that would be, to water the seed that Paul had planted previously.
I believe that what Apollos was doing was going round after Paul with the watering can of the Word of God. to water these plants that fall on the prairie. He had sown the seed and they had sprung up. And in some places like Corinth, where the soil was pretty hard, and not very fertile, they grew up into those spindly-looking plants that you can see where gardens are not well fertilized. You can see them, these drooping plants. Well, Apollos went round, and he revised them with a watering can of the Word of God, and these wilting souls sprang erect again under Apollos' death handling of the Word of God.
That was the job that he had been given. But therefore, I may plant it, and Apollos may do his job of watering, but if there is to be any spiritual result for good, It must be the activity of God. It is attributable only to heaven. We are completely dependent on God with spiritual blessing. It is this that he wants to underscore in this context. He alone gives the increase. He says, in this matter, it may be a Paul, it may be an Apollos, they are equally impotent in this thing. The tips of the verse is interesting. I frankly, with the job that was done was properly done.
Apollo's watered him, it was a job that he'd done, and it was finished as the tenth of the birth. But God gave the increase, and the tenth of the birth means that he went on and he's going on continuously, giving the increase. This is the way that God works. There's a hymn in the hymn book that we use at home, and it goes like this. All we can do is nothing worse unless God places the need. vainly we hope for the harvest tide till God gives life to the seed all we can do is nothing worth unless and there's God with us the deed vainly we hope for the harvest tide till God gives life to the seed and that's what he's saying here verse six I planted a porous word but God gave the growth the next verse but only all the gloriousness, the vital thing he and he alone is capable of doing.
Now this fact denies all glory to men, so neither he who fast, nor he who waters is anything. It is God who gives the increase, all that are dependent upon him. But in those days, false girls and women have inference from this. He who fast and he who waters are equal. viewed through this standpoint, he says, every servant of God in the church of Jesus Christ is equal. Now, obviously, we haven't all got the same gifts. We haven't all the same talents. Neither is every servant of diligence as every other servant. And each man shall receive his wages according to his efforts at fault.
There is inequality in some realms, but when it comes to this fundamental consideration, of the blessing of God, of life and growth attending our labors, then no man may draw in one against the other. All are leveled out, all are completely dependent upon God. Now we should recognize this, that nobody of his grace has been called to be fellow workers with him and with each other. And we must acknowledge that we are entirely reliant upon him if our work is to be of any value whatsoever. This will preserve us from vanity, and this will preserve us from depression.
This one servant of God, and his service appears to be wonderfully blessed as God, and he gathers many souls into the kingdom, as many of them through his opening up of the word of God, and we might envy him, and he might be in danger of becoming bad. An understanding of this passage will keep him from vanity, With the realization that if there is blessing attending His work, it springs only from God. And it will keep us from ending and keep us from depression if our service is not marked by such a degree of blessing. Admittedly, we should challenge our hearts if there be reasons in us why the blessing is not attending our end. But if we cannot find any conscience within that we have done something or a suffering, something that prevents depression.
And so Paul is pleading with them not to give an exaggerated deference to men. What is Paul? What is a policy for their servants? And they are completely dependent and we are completely dependent on God for his wedding. Another illustration number two, lesson number two, which is individual responsibility before God. Paul seems always to have been aware that having presented one side of truth, people would imagine that that was the whole truth. That they would take his teaching and twist it. And here it seems to me that they might have been in danger of drawing unwarranted deductions from what he has said.
They might go away and say, oh, well, if we are entirely incapable of doing anything that results in blessing. And why do anything at all? God surely is not dependent on us. Haven't you been saying that that God isn't dependent on us? Well, he says, don't push that to an extreme. You have an individual responsibility to God. All I can do is nothing worse, someone might say. But they stop short, unless God raises the need. And so here he emphasized his responsibility, a responsibility to God, and a responsibility to each other.
the illustrations here is of the buildings of the temple and ourselves as buildings. The line could stand as a heading of the paragraph, God's building. This building is identified in verse sixteen with God's temple, which in this connection is the local church. I repeat in the erection of this, each one has a contribution to make. Paul writes his own part in this. He says it was given to me by divine commission to be a wise master builder, a skilled master builder. And that was a skilled master builder. My particular contribution was to lay the foundation. To lay the foundation.
Now, how did Paul lay the foundation? It was through the preaching of Jesus Christ. And she says, other foundations can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. I've laid this fine deaf foundation by preaching Jesus Christ and his crucifix. the great truths that are set in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his passion. Where he says, no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. One imagines that he is warning people. He's done the task of laying the foundation. Does anyone else come along and try and lay some other kind of foundation?
A false foundation. All subsequent buildings, must be upon this original foundation, Jesus Christ, and him crucified. But there are further work to be done. After all, in this few times, the lay of foundation is here, and it's in building on it. Equally, of course, it is, few times are built where no foundation has been laid. Well, Paul had laid the foundation through the preaching of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now he says, each one has a responsibility to do his part and to build upon it. Note, if you will, his emphasis on individual responsibility. Verse ten, I laid a foundation and another man is building upon it.
Let each man, he says, let each man, again in verse thirteen, each man, and again in that same verse, each one's work will be tested. What each one has done. Verse fourteen, if the work which any man, verse fifteen, if any man works, verse seventeen, if anyone destroys, verse eighteen, with no one, if any one, and he is placing this continuous script upon individual cooperation, there are to be no passages to change the metaphor, there are to be no passages in the Church of Jesus Christ.
Every single man, every single woman has a contribution to make. None of us can sit back and say, it doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned, I've got nothing to do. Each man, each one, is the emphasis that he is constantly making. There is an interdependence in the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a responsibility incumbent upon each of us. Now, what must we do? The thing is this, we must engage in construction This is a serious responsibility. And Paul informs us that the work in which we are engaged will be tested in the day to come. It will be tested by fire.
The day would have been disclosed because it would be revealed with fire, and the fire would test what sort of work the church has done. Paul was referring, as he wrote his letters for the Church of College, to a well-known event in their previous history. A terrible conflagration has swept across the city of Corrie. This fire has destroyed all the mud and water of the houses of the poor. The only things that remained out of the fire that swept right through that city were the large houses of marble and other stone, granite maybe. These remained, all the rest burned up. From the houses of the poor, their rusty inhabitants, not having time to grasp any of their positions, but they rushed out as they stood.
Not everything, but were saved themselves. They were not themselves destroyed in the fire. Says Paul, what would it be like in that coming day? If you have built with gold, silver, precious stones, if you have used enduring materials, incombustible materials, then you will have something of permanent value in that day. If, however, your contribution has been of combustible materials, then in that day will be revealed that the work that you have done is not of permanent value. Two alternatives. Some is yours, in which case the builder is rewarded, the other consumed, in which case the builder's mother's boss, though he himself is unarmed, he has the chagrin and seen all his work through a lifetime may be destroyed as being worthless.
Now the point in this, I'm sure, is to challenge us for a present assessment, a present discernment, that we might ask God to indicate to us in the secret of our own heart the nature of the work, the nature of the contribution that we are making. Arresting what kind of material. What are we building into the local church with which we are connected? Is our work secured? Is our work is our work sporadic, are we a vast kind of person who is not to be depended upon? We watered down the truth, presented it in a warped and distorted fashion because of fear or because of tradition.
In that day the fire will reveal how great or how little, how valuable or how inconsequential our effort has been. There will be a resultant gain or a resultant loss. This is a serious matter, and we need to examine our own parts before God concerning it. In his temple, in his factory, in the local church, in God's buildings, we all are buildings. What kind of work are we doing? Is it of worth? No, it is not. We are engaged in a wreckage. But now it appears that Paul envisages something even more somber.
What he says if you are engaged not in construction, but in demolition, in destruction? What if your contribution is not merely worthless but harmful? Not merely of no consequence, but detrimental? What if you were found to be engaged not in erection, but in demolition? Now you think that it is This doesn't need a description, really, does it? You've got a wall in your garden and you think, I've had to pull that wall down and rebuild it. Well, all you need to do is get a close by in the bottom with a few good shirts and nothing toppled those.
But it takes quite a time to rebuild it. Those bricks or stones may lay, but may lie a long time before you get around to the careful job of building them up once again. It is desperately easy in the local church which is God's building, God's temple, to pull down what it has taken men and women of God a long time and with patient effort to build up. The seriousness of this possibility is seen in the emphasis that Paul makes sure that it's God's temple. It's not your church, he says. It's God's. It doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to heaven. It's the sanctuary of God, and it is constituted such by the presence of the Spirit of God. He therefore threatens them in this way. If any man destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. I do not propose having a death as to how this would be put into effect. But let it stand. Because we may not say how God would act in chastisement, in discipline, upon his child, do not never ignore the warning. You say, but how could one destroy God's temple?
Well, it could be through the introduction of heresy, through the teaching of error, though this seems to me to be rather remote. It is far more likely that it will be through the provoking of the scribe. through being guilty of pride, through indulging in gossip, through spreading of slander, a whispered word about a brother or sister, a harsh truth which spreads like wildfire and their usefulness for God is spoiled and folk become upset and the work is pulled down. It could be a harsh or a bitter spirit, an unloving attitude, It could be wrongdoing in one's private life.
Never let him think that we could put our church life and our private life into separate watertight compartments. When he came to the qualifications of an elder in the church, his private life was born in life. What kind of a man was he in his home? What kind of a husband in his wife? What kind of a father to his children? How did his stock stand amongst non-Christians with whom he worked? All these were considerations in the selection of an elder in the church. And those who disseminated wrong views privately, Paul said to Titus, whose thumbs must be closed, must be shut. You can't say, well, I didn't say it in the church, I only said it in my home.
It runs right through every part of life. And so it could be the way that I conduct my business. It could be through... my relationship with other people outside the church, but it affects the life of the ascending. It affects the church. Destruction. Devolution. We're not a lived to ourselves. We have a tremendous responsibility. And so Paul says here, God's temple is holy, and that temple you are God has a standard for his church, and that standard is that it should be in character, light of himself, that it should be as holy as he is holy.
And now there follows a paragraph from verse eighteen to the end of the chapter that seems hardly to have a bearing on what he has been saying. But the more I consider this, the more it appears to be that here Paul is doing the sort of recapitulation. They've been boasting in men. Now he says, this is typical of this world and the wisdom of this world. Better to become a fool by worldly standards and become wise by divine words. If anyone thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. And then he makes two quotes from the Old Testament, one from Job and one from Psalms, to undivide this and then ask, so let no one boast of this.
he's been said, there's no ground in boasting, for we are dependent on God for His grace, just as we are answerable to Him for our work. A man might be of all, or of the Paulus, or of Cephas, but he's only one of that great company that God has insisted to do this work. The end that God has in mind is not that they should be great, but that He should be seen to be great. Then of the end, is the glorious end in you that the end of the chapter shows. And you are Christ and Christ is God. Think of it for a moment in a material sort of way.
Think of it as a pyramid. The apex of the pyramid is God himself. Everything is working out to God. To put it the right way up is to have God at the top. The apex is God, that God may be all in all, as he will say in chapter fifty. But how is this to be? All things are God's through Christ. And you are Christ and Christ is God's. This is the order in the divine program. When all things are subjected to him and his Christ, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him, who put all things under him, that God may be all and in all.
And you are God, Christ, and then we read, you are Christ. The church is subject to Christ. This is, again, the proper order. The head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God. But what builds up the church into Christ, and therefore into God? All are yours. You say, well, who? Paul, Paul, Stephen, the world, life, death, or the present or the future, or the yours. In other words, he says, this is God's great building program.
He is building up the church into Christ and Christ the God, like that great pyramid. And he uses a number of buildings to this end. Sometimes they are intangible things. Sometimes they are non-personal factors, such as the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future. They're illustrated. Death can be used by God to build up his church. Suddenly, a member of a local church is taken. That person may lead to the plight of life. A useful, an essential member we might have thought of at a local church.
And suddenly they are moved by death. And that whole church is in a new way cast upon God. He has used death to resent. Sometimes he uses life. Sometimes he uses the world and the pressures that the world exert. Opposition of the world. And it's all to the things that we might be built up into Christ. And Christ is God. And he says, there are other builders. Some of them are Paul and Apollos and Cephas. Don't say, I belong to Paul. Paul belongs to you. Don't say, I belong to Apollos. Apollos belongs to you. They are the masters. They are servants.
and they are contributing to this great end. And all are yours. We divide it, of course. All are yours. Paul, or Apollos, or Peter, or Luther, or Carabin, or Moog, or Muller, or Martin Lloyd Jones, or Campbell Morgan, or J.N.D. or B.W.N. or any other initials you care to think of. All are yours. Use them. They're servants of Christ, and they've been given to you for the upbuilding of the church. Don't let it be spying. Don't say, I wouldn't receive anything from him. He has something to contribute.
We all have something to contribute. We all are servants of Christ if we belong to him, and all belong to you to this great end. That is how I would understand that paragraph, which seems that this time beloved is and the steward. This is how one should regard it as servants of Christ and stewardess of the mysteries of God. Now, the analogy of a steward is that which Paul uses to remind them that they are directly responsible to that Lord. In a sense, he will say, in this, you are independent of men.
You could have had three different headings for our three illustrations. The first could have been dependence on God, the second interdependence was with another, and the third independent of men. For this is the lesson that he's putting over here, that the steward is to a degree independent of men because he has a direct relationship with God, and this is how you should regard us, he says. Now, what does a steward, and the illustration of a steward really involve? It involves three things. for money, for a business.
And then there is the steward, and it's his job, to handle that capital for the benefit of the owner. The owner, the capital, and the steward. And the steward is entrusting with a capital which he has to use for the benefit of the owner. Now in this illustration, God, of course, is the owner. God is the principal. What's the capital? The mysteries of God. the truth that we have been given by God. That's the capital with which we are entrusted. We ourselves are stewards. We have these mysteries of God, this truth of God, of which we are guardians, custodians, and yet we must communicate it to others.
The prime requirement of a steward is that he is trustworthy and that he is faithful. The great thing is that the relationship between the steward and the owner is a direct one. Nobody can interfere. Nobody can say to that, Stuart, what are you doing with your master's goods? How are you acting? How's your stewardship going? Only the owner can say that. Of course, these Corinthians have felt themselves qualified to express opinions on how Paul was getting on with his stewardship, and Apollos and Cephas and such like. But not so. The steward has a certain independence of the judgment of others. Now, this again is a frankly dangerous line of truth to put over, because they might, as we might, easily run to the opposite extreme and ignore the opinions of our brethren and sisters, and refuse to hearken to their advice.
There is the sense of independence that when we have served God to the best of our ability, we should be free from that condition of might that is elated when others praise us, and completely disheartened and despairing when they criticize. But I repeat, there must not be an ignoring of the commendation of others, that would be impolite. Nor must there be an ignoring of the criticism of others. That were to be bigoted. So we must preserve from running from one extreme to the other. But in the end, says, boy, it's a very small thing if I be judged by men. I am troubled only to the Lord.
I'm not even in a sense easy. I'm not at all sure when I ask myself if there's anything against myself and my conscience says, no, I'm not at all sure that I can accept that verdict, that I am thereby acquitted. So he says, I do not even judge myself. So in all probability, we are the best judges on earth of our service. We can the best assess the level of our service. And even so, there are times when we've been satisfied, when we ought not to have been. And times when we have been depressed when there was no real need, It's the Lord who judges me, he says. He has the ability.
Because on that day of judgment, he says, he will bring to life the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. How foolish we are to judge other people's service. For we just don't know. We don't understand the problems with which they are confronted. We rush to a judgment. If only we know that they woken up every morning with a shocking secret, or that they have certain trouble as well that we knew nothing at all about, or that business was proving difficult. We might have assessed it altogether differently, but he has the ability. He will bring to light the things hidden in darkness, and he will disclose the motives which we ourselves cannot weigh.
He has the ability, and it is his prerogative. all who judgments, therefore do not pronounce judgments, and stewards of God, we shall cultivate them a certain sense of independence. Let me rest your mind to run with a demonstration. I'm told that one Monday morning in the city of London, a station master at one of the great terminal stations, said to the ticket collector, I have a shrewd suspicion that a number of computers coming up to London to visit are coming through without tickets. So I want you this morning to ask all the people on the rush hour trains to show their season tickets as well as giving up their other tickets.
Well, if you've been in London, the rush hours, on a Monday morning, you will see a train come into a station like Cherry Cross that will suddenly disgorge its cargo of humanity and they will rush all of them for the barrier at the end of the platform. this Monday morning the ticket collector was there saying all tickets please season tickets please and there they were fishing in his pocket in that pocket all the rest and trying to find where they put their season tickets and it meant a submissive holder and one of the regular commuters who knew the ticket collector said to him that not very popular this morning Joe Lloyd no he says not with a crowd so as long as I'm popular with him up there that's all that matters and he pointed to the office of the station master high over the barrier where he was working.
Now, don't push it to an extreme, but take the illustration. There will be times when we are unpopular with men, but if we can say, as long as I'm popular with him up there, and I say it very frequently, that's really what matters. That's the point of the illustration. That there is a certain independence of men that there is a direct relationship with God on the part of a steward as a servant of Christ. Finally, Paul concludes by justifying his personal references. I have applied all this to myself and Apollos in more than a bit of reference. He says to them, I think makes reference to myself and to Apollos, but you don't think terribly well in abstract terms, so I have to present it to you in concrete, the concrete illustration.
that you may learn by us to live according to Scripture. If I were asked to give you a text out of Corinthians that I regard as being of paramount importance for us today, it will be this. Live according to Scripture. Live according to Scripture. He has been quoted it over and over again in the Old Testament Scripture. He's been quoted it to support all his points And now what he has written has become itself, Scripture. And the word comes to us by the Spirit today. Live according to Scripture. And so may we, in our way, as servants of Christ, taking these three illustrations of the litmus that they convey, live according to Scripture.
It then will be to the glory of God and to the prosperity of his work. Another thing that's supposed in here, number four hundred, but nine three. Go labour on, spend, and be swelled. Thy joy to do the Father's will. It is the way the master will, should not of stone tread itself. Four nine three. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. oh oh Oh
Thank you. on God's will destroy, but God will die, and He will do.