Glory in the Lord, as discussed in 1 Corinthians 3, centers on the problem of man-centeredness within the Corinthian church, which manifested as divisions and immaturity. The Apostle Paul diagnoses this carnality not as a lack of the Spirit, but as a failure to be led and controlled by it, leading to a spiritual infancy where believers are only able to digest 'milk' rather than 'meat.' The sermon emphasizes that God is the ultimate source of spiritual growth and that true service and leadership are found in recognizing God's sovereignty and focusing on character over gifts. The core lesson is that believers must mature in their faith, moving beyond envy and strife to a God-centered perspective, understanding that they are God's field and building, not their own.
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this morning we're turning in our Bibles the first Corinthians chapter three and we're going to begin our reading at verse one certainly nice to have the hope family back with us we remember their fellow shipping with us for a period of time when he worked for Senator Dole's wife he was a member of the Coast Guard and I always thought the Coast Guard was part of the Navy but it's not. It's part of the Department of Transportation, and he worked for Mrs. Dole. Nevertheless, he's now retired, and they're going to be going with African Inland Mission and be houseparents in a school in East Africa, and he's going to be ministering tonight, so keep that in mind.
And while I'm going to Bermuda next Lord's Day, I'll be ministering there, and for... two weeks following. I'd just like to say that next Lord's Day, our brother Richard Barlow will be ministering the Word of God here. The following Lord's Day, the fifth of October, our brother DeWitt Jones will be here. And the following Lord's Day, the twelfth of October, our brother David Morris will be ministering the Word of God morning and evening. And those of you who are senior citizens, I won't be with you the next month, but David Morris was coming on the Monday to eat lunch with you and to bring a word there.
And I'm sorry I'm going to miss that because I always enjoy in a special way the ministry of Brother David. Now from the Word of God, First Corinthians three, verse one. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual. but as ever carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it. Neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? For while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal?
Who then is Paul? A better translation would be, what then is Paul? What then is Paul? And what is Paulus? But ministers by whom you believe, even as the Lord gave to every man, I have planted, a polished watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth a one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For ye are laborers together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed, how he buildeth, thereupon. Let the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let us pray. Let us pray. Our Father, we're conscious of the fact that we may plant and we may water. But unless you give the increase, all our efforts are in vain.
So we ask you, gracious God, to minister to us in this hour in a special way for the Lord Jesus' sake. Amen. The first four chapters of First Corinthians form both the introduction and the foundation for the epistle. And we're taking our text for these four chapters from chapter one and verse thirty-one. As it is written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. And I believe that this is a very good text for these first four chapters. And I like another translation that puts it, he that boast, blame boast in the Lord.
One of the major problems in the church at Corinth was a pervasive man-centeredness rather than a God-centeredness. in all their thinking and living. Now, one of the results of this was their false view of leadership in the church that they held. Now, we were made aware of that already back in chapter one and verse twelve, where Paul writes, and he says, Now, this I say, that every one of you saith, I am a Paul, and I have a Paulus, and I have people, and I have Christ. This, friends, is a false view of leadership.
Now, we've been made aware of this, and the symptoms of man-centeredness in their thinking had attached themselves to men. They said, I'm of Paul. I'm of Apollos. I'm of Cephas. And then there are those who I believe were the worst of the group. They said, I'm of Christ. I think that's very serious. I think that was very serious. And maybe one of these mornings, I'll take up what I think was a rallying point in each of these. It takes some meditation to come to it, but I believe it can be done to see what their rallying point was among those who said, I'm of Paul, and I'm of Apollos, and I'm of Cephas, and I'm of Christ.
And if you were to give some special time to meditation on this passage, it will show how being man-centered can rob you of your joy and it can cause you to miss what God has for you in relation to the body of Christ. Now, this is a real issue here in chapter three. And in dealing with it, the apostle sets before us some great principles in relation to Christian service. and Christian leadership for the whole of our theme of being engaged in the service of God. And if you're saved, beloved, the one great desire and thirst of your life should be, how can I serve God?
How am I going to live this Christian life? And since that should be the desire of your life, the one consuming desire, And I must confess, beloved, that many times we don't see this one consuming desire among those who profess to name the name of the Lord. But the bottom line to life is eternity. And my relationship to the Lord then is determined by how I live now. A number of weeks ago I have ministered on the subject of the judgment seat of Christ and we used the forty ninth chapter of Genesis as our text Jacob's speech his judging of his sons and his future prophecy concerning them and I had one underlying sentence for it all and as it was then so it will be with us our performance in the family determine our position in the kingdom.
And just as it was for the sons of Jacob, so it will be for us. So this portion of the word of God, beloved, should really speak to our heart in a very real way. Now Paul was a good doctor. He was a doctor of the soul. As Hugh Campbell Morgan puts it, He said, I believe that Paul got a lot of help from Luke. And Luke, Dr. Luke, got a lot of help from Paul. And I like that. Because the first thing that Paul does in First Corinthians three, he diagnoses the disease. There's a disease in the church at Corinth. And the disease is simple.
It is man-centeredness rather than God-centeredness. And Paul diagnoses the disease. Now notice, he begins by calling them brethren. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. The root problem that destroyed their thinking and marred their service was that they were carnal rather than spiritual. Now, if you read various translations, you will find that various translations translate these words just a little differently.
The NIV translates it spiritual and worldly. Then there are those who translate it spiritual and unspiritual. Then there are those who translate it spiritual and men of the flesh. The American standard translates it this way. So does Raphael in his Dutch translation. But what Paul is doing here and his real concern was to contrast two kinds of people. Now notice, he does not call them natural men. That's very important.
He does not call them natural men, as he does in verse fourteen of chapter two. In verse fourteen of chapter two he says, But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. You see, he doesn't call them natural men. A natural man is a man who does not have the Spirit. But Paul can't call them spiritual men either. He can't say that they're spiritual. For they are not led of the Spirit, and they are not controlled by the Spirit, even though they possess the Spirit because they are brethren.
Brethren, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. And I believe that the best translation is the word carnal. Neither spiritual... nor natural. Now he is not denying here that these men possess the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, he can't call them spiritual either because they're not led nor controlled by the Spirit. What's wrong? They were living like men of the world. I'd like to ask you today, are you living as a spiritual person or are you living as a man of the world?
It's very, very important. We're going to come to this in a more detailed way in a moment. How are you living? There is a tract written, and it has been widely spread through this area, and has a lot of good things in it. It is called the carnal Christian. There is a lot in that tract that I agree with. a lot in that tract. For this tract has a desire. He has a desire to wake up certain people who think that they can continually live just like the world, and because they made a profession one day, everything is all right.
And he writes that tract, and he points out that there is no such thing as a carnal Christian. Now friends, I believe that to a large extent the man who wrote that fact is right because if you are living like a world and if the ordinary person can look at you and not know that you're saved, they wouldn't know that you belong to Christ. You have every reason to doubt whether you've been born of God. I remember a young widow when I was around eighteen years of age. I worked in her apartment as an electrician.
And I witnessed to her concerning faith in Christ. And when I did, she said to me, oh, I'm a Christian, but I'm a carnal Christian. And because of this passage in the Word of God, I didn't know what to say to her. I didn't know how to handle it. But I'll tell you, I got down to business immediately. And I came to the conclusion that she was not a Christian at all. She was only a Christian in name, but she did not possess the life of Jesus Christ. You cannot live carnally very long if you're a genuine child of God.
You can't do it. And if you can go through life and just live like the world, and God never brings you up short. You're not a child of God. You're just kidding yourself. The Word of God says to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. The reason I say that is because the Word of God declares that the one who loves us loves us that much, that he chastens us and his children. For whosoever the Lord loveth he chastens us. and he scourges every son whom he receives.
And if we can live without ever being spanked by God, then we're not gods. We don't belong to him to use the term that he's used in the epistle to the Hebrews. We are bastards and not sons. So if you happen to be here this morning and you're taking refuge in some profession you may, maybe ten or twenty years ago, and you're just gliding through life living like a world nobody knows whether you're really saved or not don't call yourself a carnal christian examine yourself and see whether you're really controlled by the spirit of god whether you really possess the holy spirit now they i like that track called the carnal christian the only thing he doesn't make provisions for First Corinthians chapter three.
And I believe that it's possible for a Christian to be carnal. But now let me explain that in a hurry. Paul writes to these people and he calls them brethren. He does not call them a natural man. And I want to explain now why I say it is possible for a believer to be carnal. Coronality is not an absolute state in which a believer exists, but a behavior pattern that he is currently choosing. And friends, coronality is not a permanent state, it's a temporary one.
You see, the Corinthians were living carnally, but I'll tell you this, God dealt with them. And when you get to chapter eleven, You'll notice there were some who had died prematurely. Here God was thanking this church for there were many who were weak. There were men who were sickly. And there are those who had died. Oh, and we usually relegate that to they weren't living properly when they were coming to the Lord's Supper. Well, that's true. But why weren't they living properly? It's because of this man's centeredness and the divisions that existed in that church that are outlined here in the introduction to the epistle.
You see, God's greatest desire in his church, in leadership, God is more interested in your character than in your gifts. God is more interested in what you are than in what you do. For what you do is determined by what you are. I'm stressing this strongly, beloved, because it's a conviction that I have in my soul, and it can be borne out by Holy Scripture. Our Lord says, Blessed are the pureest heart.
That's what a man is. They shall see God. That's what happens. It's what we are that is important. When Paul wrote to the Philippians, he said, We are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, and we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and we have no confidence in the flesh. What we are determines what we do. Oh, beloved, let me ask you, are you hiding behind a false profession? Are you hiding behind a profession that just has been like a small pot inoculation? just enough of the real thing to make it or to inoculate you against the real thing just enough to make you feel satisfied that everything is all right and you just go through life week after week week after week but never real reality in your soul of fellowshiping with God I challenge you this morning because I'm going to give an account one day at the judgment seat of Christ.
How did you handle First Corinthians chapter three? Did you tell everybody they were all right? Or did you challenge them to self-examination in the presence of a holy God? You see, carnality is not a permanent thing. And if you wish it were, that God would make no demands on your life, examine yourself as to whether you've been born of God. Because the God of the Bible is the Lord, and we claim his lordship in order to be saved that he makes demands.
If you have yourself into that set of thinking that you can just glide through life and God will not make any demands upon you, oh, you're saved. You have that profession. You have it written down in your Bible. Examine yourself, my friend. Because a person who is truly saved, whomesoever the Lord loves us, be patient. And don't try to separate chapter eleven of first Corinthians from chapter three. They go together. They go together.
And I believe that little tract that my friend wrote. If he had only mentioned that, that it is possible for a believer to be carnal. But it's a temporary state that he's not a permanent condition. Now here in the church at Corinth, carnality is evidence, not in some moral sphere, but in the simple fact that they were refusing to grow up. May I ask you a question? Are you refusing as a child of God to grow up? You know there are some who do. You see, Paul's great burden.
here in Corinth, was the effect their coronality would have upon the whole of the work of God in Corinth. Notice verse one, And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it. Neither yet now are ye able. Paul had to say to these people, I have to give you milk to drink. You can't take solid food. You're not able to receive it. You see, their carnality, friends, was manifested in their babyhood existence. It was undeveloped. It was immature.
Now, Paul had already said in chapter two and verse six, how be it we speak wisdom among them that are mature. Paul said, I can preach the wisdom of God to them that are mature. Nod of these Corinthians, he says, you're immature, you're babies. I can't give you anything but milk. You can't stand meat, the meat of the word. You see, their condition was that of a rest of development. This always means a failure to function according to intention. Paul has recognized their carnality in their persistent spiritual instances.
Now Paul's concern was not that they were spiritual babies, revealing the normal feeding habits of babies. That wasn't Paul's concern. You see, all the attributes of babies are attractive and appropriate in babyhood. All their attributes, maybe except one, when they wake you up at four in the morning for feeding, that isn't too attractive. But in babyhood, all the things about a baby are nice. Beloved, what Paul's concern was this, when these attributes persist into later life.
These attributes, which are true in babyhood, and this feeding pattern, which is appropriate to babyhood, would not become an attraction now. It's a tragedy. And Christian, friend, if you're saved, for a year or two and you're still on milk. Shame on you. Shame on you. You should be able to take the solid food of the Word of God. Their appetite was for milk and not for solid food. Now there are two times in your life, friends, when milk is very important. When you're a baby or when you're ill.
all how we need milk when we're ill or when we're a baby. But one of the clearest marks that something is wrong with a man or a woman spiritually is when their appetite is only for spiritual milk. When that persists over a period of years, the Apostle says, you are still the same your appetite has not grown in change. When I was a freshman in high school, that was ninth grade in those days, there's a girl in the senior class. She's a pretty girl. Her name was Nellie Wolf.
And she dated a fellow by the name of Rager, Warren Rager. And I hadn't seen them for years. Of course, She graduated a long time before I came through. One day I went to a sale, an auction sale, and who did I run into, but Nellie, Nellie Ravens. She was pushing a baby coach, and we started to talk. Mark is good to see her after all those years, but then I made a mistake.
I looked into the baby carriage. She had two children there. One was about sixteen years of age and one about fourteen or fifteen. Still babies. And that said, I can tell you something that's just as sad. Leading Christians who claim to be saved for a long period of time and are still babies. They haven't grown up spiritually. I fed you in milk.
He says enough in me. By the way, one of those children died just a little while after that. And I sat down and wrote them a long letter. And all my friends, how sad these things are. when it happens spiritually. We need to have a period now of self-examination. Let's not be afraid of this. Let's examine ourselves this morning. Are you concerned about spiritual leadership? The service of God? The cause of the gospel? The work of God in our churches and in our land?
If you are, then remember the primary issue In Christian leadership is my own spiritual growth in godliness and the knowledge of God. Don't talk about leadership if you're not spending time with the word of God. If you're not spending time in communion with the Lord. Don't talk about leadership if you're not getting down the business in your own private life before God. You're just kidding yourself. In self-examination, may I ask you a question?
How is your appetite? What are you hungry for in the Word of God? What are you hungry for? I'm always amazed when I look over Bible conference schedules and the subjects that are taken up. I've heard enough messages on conference pulpits in the last year. to never make a mistake in raising children. There have been more messages on the family. I often think of my dear dad, he didn't have all these books on the family and all these messages to hear, but yet he managed.
And the reason he managed is because he had his priorities right concerning personal fellowship with our God, with the Lord. I also will listen to how much time is devoted to prophecy, the times of the end. All how people get interested in what's going to be the next thing, how many horns have been broken off the beast or something like this. And I like Bible prophecy, beloved. But God is interested, beloved, in the spiritual character of his people.
not how well you're able to define the various little details in the area of eschatology. What about your character? How's your appetite? Is your great desire that God may feed your soul increasingly with a strong need of his word? Is that what you want? You see, the reason this subject of growth and maturity are so important is precisely the cause of the nature of this very principle, as Paul lays down. God is more concerned with the character of the worker than he is with a giftedness of his servants.
Now, what are the marks of carnality that manifested themselves here in Corinth? First of all, is jealousy. Jealousy here could be rendered en v. And that marks of personal pride... if one did not agree with them. Envy. Envy can manifest itself in personal pride. Then he speaks of strife. Strife is a strong word. A strong word. It means positive, quarreling, and wrangling. That's strife. Envying and strife. Now these people should have been functioning in the fellowship of Jesus Christ, but instead...
They were quarreling among themselves, and they were forming themselves in the little group. Who would agree with me in this? Instead of getting on with the business of fellowship with God, these other things consumed them. Beloved, arguments that deflect the mind from the centrality of Christ and His cross, they are fleshly, they are carnal, and they hinder development. In the first four verses, Paul, as a good doctor, he diagnoses the disease. Now, beginning in verse five, he prescribes the remedy.
He says, what then is Paul and what is Apollos? Now, you say, Paul, you're not a good, you're not too well informed in grammar. You use the neuter. When you should be using the masculine. It should be who is Paul? That's what the King James translators thought too. But in the original it is what is Paul? And what is Apollos? Well when you read further reread in verse seven, so then neither is he that planned of anything. Well Paul is nothing. That's what he is. He's nothing. What is Apollos? what are they they are simply ministers serving the Lord that's what he says in verse five but ministers in other words they are the deacon I the deacons that's what the word came to mean those who serve tables we're just those who run errands he says for someone else we are just men under authority and we're just going where we have have been sent and then he says In verse six, I have planted, but Apollos watered.
God gave the increase. Paul planted, but he is nothing. Apollos watered, but he is nothing. God gave the increase. He is everything, is what Paul is saying. And beloved, that's the remedy for the disease. To recognize that God is everything. The Pope says, I planted. Now planting is very important work, but the life-giving principle, beloved, is not in the person who plants. The life-giving principle isn't in the person that plants. You see, the secret of growth is in the seed itself, and the Word tells us we have been born again, not a corruptible seed, but an incorruptible by the Word of God.
Now the seed needs to be put into the soil. And Paul says, I plant it. And what a privilege it is to plant seed, the seed of the Word of God. And God expects us to do it. For he says, go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And he says about Apollos. Apollos waters. The life principle that is going to express itself in the harvest is not in the man who plants. And it is not in the man who waters. They are just Diakonov ministers carrying and running errands for God.
It is God, he says, who gives the increase. Now, beloved, there are a lot of things we can do as the children of God. We can plant and we can water. We can invite people to meetings. We can press upon them the claims of the gospel. We can sing. We can pray. There are a lot of things that we can do, but there's one thing that only God can do, and only God can give life. Do you believe that? Do you really believe that only God can give life? I'll tell you something. If you do, it'll change your prayer life.
If we as a church, a local assembly of believers, believe that only God can give life. As our text says, it is God who gives the increase. Our prayer meeting will sound different. I'm serious about this. And so is God. Our prayer meeting will sound different. If our children are going to be saved, God has to do it. If men who are living... like the world in envy and strife and claim to be the Lord.
Is there ever going to be cured? God has to do it. If we're ever going to be shaken up from a false profession and learn the reality that I'm really not saved at all, God's going to have to do it. Do I really believe that? It'll change our whole attitude towards prayer. Oh, God, you have to do it. You have to do it. I can't. It is utterly impossible. Now, what Paul does here, he summarizes. And he does it in a way, and I want you to grasp it.
He says, in verse nine, concerning himself and concerning us, he says, for we are laborers together with God. That's our work. God has called us into the fellowship of his son. He has given us the privilege of planting, sowing the seed. He has given us the privilege of watering. But after he says, we are laborers together with God, he turns and he says this, ye are God's field, ye are God's husbandry, you're God's farm, ye are God's building. In other words, you Christian men and women at Corinth, You babes whose development has been arrested. Learn one thing.
You are God's farm. You are God's building. The emphasis, beloved, is on that word, God. God is the owner of the land, and God is a possessor of the building. The church is his work, beloved. The church is his possession. Oh, don't we make a big fuss over men? We're so man-centered instead of being God-centered. You see, suppose Paul were preaching downtown this morning. The Apostle Paul is preaching in Burlington.
Paul would be loved to be there. I know I would. I'd love to listen to that man as he preached. But what does Paul say about himself? He says, I'm nothing. I'm nothing. Don't get your eyes on me. God is everything. God is everything. I'd like to say a few things in closing very quickly. Number one, how is your spiritual appetite? Do you desire the strong meat of the Word of God? Suppose we brought a lesson this morning on the doctrine of predestination.
How would you feel? It would stretch your mind a little bit. It would give you a little of the meat of the word. How would you feel? Are you able to take strong meat? I'm not planning to preach on predestination, by the way. I'm asking a question. How's your appetite? Number two, how's your attitude toward others? How's your attitude toward others? Is there envy and strife in your heart? See, envy is on the inside. Jealousy manifests itself on the outside. Envy.
Strife. That is what leads to factions and divisions. How's your appetite? Number two, how's your attitude toward others? Number three, God is more interested in your character than in your gift. We're living in a day when gifts are paraded. God is more interested in the character. Number four, E.M. Bounds in his great book, Power Through Prayer, He said this. And I want you to listen. The church is looking for better methods.
God is looking for better men. The church is looking for greater and better machinery. But God is looking for better men. The Holy Spirit does not anoint machinery. The Holy Spirit anoint men. Number five, and that is the close. Who owns you? Our text says, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. Owned by God.
Is he your owner? Did you give him his due right? Carnality, friends, is a subtle thing. And the subtlest thing about it is, incarnate. Nobody thought they were carnal. They thought they were spiritual. Why else would they form a little group? They thought they were spiritual. See, the person who thinks a carnal, I'm afraid, is not saved at all. See, the carnal person thinks they're spiritual.
That's how they were incarnate. May God speak to our hearts. He is with us. How's your appetite? How's your attitude? Let's pray. Our Father, as we bow in thy holy presence, how often the church has suffered because we are man-centered. rather than God-centered. How often the gospel has been rejected and neglected because we're too occupied with other things, the things that have to do with ourselves rather than with the work of God.
Ask you, O God of our salvation, reveal thyself to us.