That human leaders are merely servants of God, with God alone being the source of spiritual growth and the true foundation of the church. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 3, the message contrasts the Corinthian church's focus on human leaders like Paul and Apollos with the reality that they are simply ministers through whom believers came to faith, and that God gives the increase. The core lesson is that all believers are God's fellow workers, field, and building, with Jesus Christ as the sole foundation, and that each person must build carefully upon it. The application encourages believers to remember that even in weakness and fear, they are called to open their mouths and witness to the gospel, potentially laying a foundation for others.
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I would like you to turn this evening to First Corinthians chapter three. First Corinthians chapter three, we will break into the chapter in verse five. First Corinthians chapter three and verse five. We're in First Corinthians chapter three, and I now read verse five. Who then is Paul and who is Apollos? but ministers through whom you believed as the Lord gave to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building. According to the grace of God, which was given to me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
These words were written by Paul the Apostle, possibly from the city of Philippi to the church that he had founded in the city of Corinth. This portion, chapter three, is one of the best studies of a local church in all of the New Testament. The church in Corinth was not an old church. nor was it a small church. Some of us today are familiar with very small congregations. Perhaps the congregation that you attend in the north is not as large as it used to be. It may be small.
It may be a local church with a long history. Corinth was a new church, and it was a large church, but it was a church, spiritually speaking, in shambles. There was disorder in the house of God. And news has come to Paul about the problems in the local church, and he is deeply concerned because he was the pioneer missionary who went to that city and brought the good news of salvation. There were some in the church who put all of their effort and all of their concentration on the individuals who were recognized leaders.
I belong to Paul. I'm following Apollos. I have more confidence in Cephas, Peter, who's down in Jerusalem. And so the church was looking to its human leaders and the real leader of the church. The one who had made the church seems for a moment to be forgotten as men squabble among themselves about who is the greatest of the leaders. That's why where we began our reading tonight in verse five, Paul asks the question, who then is Paul and who is Apollos? Now, in other languages like Spanish, and I think in some of your modern English translations, they do not use the word who, but what.
What then is Paul and what is Apollos? because the emphasis does not really fall on the individual, but rather on his function within the local church, his ministry. What is Paul then? And what is Apollos? Well, Paul, he goes on and adds his thoughts. He gives his answer in verse six, I planted Apollos watered. That would be an amplification of the thought in verse five. They are ministers. They are servants through whom you Corinthians received the message and believed in the Lord Jesus.
You can see what Paul is doing already. He's trying to make it very clear that the greatest of the leaders are only servants. Servants is really a better word than minister because in our English language we have elevated the word minister to a title. of great esteem and respect. But Paul's referring to servants who are serving in the community and they are servants of God. What then is Paul and what is Apollos? Well, they're servants. They're servants. One has the ministry of cleansing. That was Paul's primary task when he went there. Others like Apollos came later and they watered what Paul had done.
But then Paul points to the real source of blessing in the church. It is God who gives the increase. So then, verse seven, neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. I'm not sure what your ministry is tonight. I know in my own world of the Dominican Republic, I have many choice Dominican friends. who this very night are planting and they are watering. And they do so because they know that this is a state. Hence another water.
On the history of this. Approximately seventy years ago, they began to plant Others joined them later and they began to water the original work, but it was God through seventy years who has given the increase so that today in the Dominican Republic there are approximately two hundred assemblies around that little country. The evidence, not so much about those who planted or those who watered, they're just the servants. It is God who gives the increase. Now Paul is forming the background because he feels the need to give his personal testimony.
He wants to tell them what his part was in the beginning of the church in the city of Corinth. And just before he starts, he adds in verse eight, Now he who plants and he who waters are one, that is their servants, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. In the original language, and most of us are not familiar with Greek, but in the original language, in this verse, verse nine, there are three phrases. The first word in each phrase is gone. And in the Greek language, you write that way to put the emphasis.
So gone is the emphasis in the three phrases. It doesn't sound quite right in English, but you could read it like this. God's fellow workers are we. God's field are you. And God's building are you. That would be a literal translation. Paul is pointing away from the servants, and he's pointing straight at God. And those who are working together are fellow workers in the service of God. In the previous verses, he's talked about those service in a sort of an agriculture setting, planting and watering and increase and harvest.
Now he's going to change. The last part of verse nine, he refers to God's people as the building. And from then on, down through the chapter, and we'll follow it during the evening sessions this week, Paul is talking about the local church. as a building it is the temple of God he talks about the building materials he talks about God dwelling among his people the church is God's dwelling place now how did this church come into existence now you have the testimony from Paul in verse ten according to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation.
Now that second phrase, if you take it out of context, may sound somewhat arrogant. Here's a boastful man who says, I, as the master builder, I laid the foundation of the church in Corinth. But it's not an arrogant phrase because the verse begins with this very important thought. according to the grace of God which was given to me I think Paul is saying someone else could have done this work but in the sovereign grace of God I was the servant who was chosen and he was the master builder because he was the first one and he went there into a pagan city and he preached the good news of salvation and people were saved and a church was founded.
Now come with me tonight, I'd like to take you, if you've got a good imagination, on the long journey that took Paul to the city of Corinth. You may remember that he was in Asia. He'd already spent time in Ephesus and in other cities in Asia. A great work had been done in Asia, so great that Luke, when he writes about it, refers to the fact that all those in Asia heard the word of the Lord. That is, the gospel became a common message all throughout that great part known as the province of Asia in the Roman Empire, more or less the equivalent of modern Turkey today.
Paul moved from Ephesus and other points northward, and he came to the city of Troas. And he was there, serving the Lord, when one night he received a vision there was a man in Macedonia and he was calling out to Paul and he was asking for help now I personally believe that for some time Paul had wanted to go into Macedonia but he had been frustrated now comes this very clear call this man pleading Please come and help us. And right away, Paul and his companions, I presume Lucas included, they make their decision and they're going to sail for Macedonia.
If you're not sure where Macedonia is, today it's the northern part of Greece, the southern part of Yugoslavia, and part of Albania. That was all known as Macedonia, two thousand years ago, and that word is still a common word for that area of the world, Macedonia. Paul and his companions went by ship. They made one stop, and then they arrived at the port in Macedonia called Neapolis. And from there they went inland to the city of Philippi. Philippi was the most important city in that region. It was not the capital of that area, but it was the most important city.
And the Bible says it was the colony. Now we are to understand by that phrase it was a Roman colony. Great wars took place in the times of the Roman Empire around the city of Philippi. And eventually it became a place where military men retired. And in that city there were many Roman citizens. It was a Roman colony. Paul and his companions arrived And apparently the Jewish colony was very small. There was no synagogue. But they made inquiries and found out that down by the river, just outside of the city, on Saturday morning, there were a group of Jews who met to pray, most of them women.
And so Paul and his companions went there. In those days you went out the main Roman road, there was an archway on the road, and just beyond that archway was the river, and down by the river were the people meeting for prayer, and Paul joined them, and he began to talk about the Lord Jesus. Lydia was there, she was a prominent businesswoman, and she was converted and baptized, and she invited Paul and his companions into her home. so now you have blessing and there's a base for operations in the city of philippine but you remember the story there was a slave girl possessed of an evil spirit who followed paul she was a fortune teller who brought a great deal of money into her owners and she followed paul and gave testimony that he served the high god and that he was bringing the good news of salvation and finally paul was deeply disturbed he rebuked the girl The evil spirit left her.
And you remember the story. The owners were upset. They took Paul to the magistrates. They were beaten. Then they were put in the jail, into the inner jail, and their feet are in the stalks. Their back is like an open wound. And this time of blessing suddenly comes to an end. But then there was a great earthquake. And when it was all over, the authorities wanted the jailer to tell them to go away, that Paul would not go away. He insisted that the magistrates come right into the jail, for they were Roman citizens and had been badly treated, unjustly treated.
When the authorities learned that they were Roman citizens, they were deeply upset. And they pled with them to please leave the city and to go away. Now this is the beginning of a pattern. Remember, Paul is there because of a divine call that came in a very special way to take the message of salvation and shared in a part of the world where it was not known. And they went, and there was blessing, and then there was great persecution, and then they were sent away. Well, they went on to Thessalonica. Now, Thessalonica was a very important city also with a good Jewish synagogue.
The rooms of the old city of Thessalonica are buried today under the modern city of Thessalonica, but they're still there, but you can't see them. They went into that city, and the first Sabbath day, Paul went to the synagogue. And right away he began with his message that this Jesus whom we preach is the Christ, the Messiah. Now, that doesn't mean very much to most of us here tonight. We've been born and brought up in the Christian faith. We've heard about Jesus as the Messiah. But if you've got a good imagination, pretend for a moment that you're a Jew and you belong to the synagogue in the city of Thessalonica and you've heard your parents and your great-grandparents and they talk to you about the Messiah.
Someday the Messiah will come. He was promised by God. And one Saturday you go along to the synagogue and an unknown man stands up and talks about a baby born in Bethlehem who grew up in Nazareth and was crucified outside of Jerusalem and he tells you this Jesus I'm talking about is the Messiah. I can see the gray-haired men looking at each other and murmuring in the synagogue. Could it possibly be that the Messiah has come? Why would they crucify him? There would be all types of conversations, not only in the synagogue, but all during that week.
And the next Sabbath, Paul is back with the same message again. The third time, you find that some of the Jewish people are convinced. Jesus is the Messiah. More outstanding, Luke says, a great multitude of the non-Jewish people. They heard the message and they believed. Because in most synagogues at the back, you always had a good number of those who were not Jews. They were weary of idolatry and they came to the place where they talked about one living and true God. And many of those non-Jewish people, Luke says, a great multitude believed. including some very prominent ladies.
But those of the Jews who did not believe went down into the marketplace. And they got some very bad men. And they caused a great commotion in the city. And they went back to the house of Jason looking for Paul. They couldn't find him. But there was a great uproar that day in the city. And that night, the new Christians, some had been converted for a question of days. maybe a few for two weeks at the most. They talk to Paul and they say, Paul, you've got to leave. You've got to leave tonight. And they sent him down to Berea. Now here's the second time. Blessing, more blessing than in Philippi.
Not the same type of persecution. There were no beatings. He wasn't put in jail. But possibly they would have killed him if they could have got their hands on him. And he sent away down to Berea. It's interesting that when you read the Bible and the story, you find out you get the impression as soon as he got there, he went to the synagogue and began again to preach the message about Jesus as the Messiah. And there's a beautiful phrase in Berea. In Berea, you read that they were more fair-minded than the people in Thessalonica. Why? Because they went to the Bible to make sure that what Paul said was true.
Now, they did not have Bibles in their homes as you have. That means that after the synagogue service, they came up around the great platform where the scrolls were laid out, and they went down to see if what Paul said was true, that the Messiah was to suffer and to die and to rise again. and as they read down the scriptures they found out this man is saying exactly what is written in the scriptures and they apparently came back day by day to the synagogue and got out the scrolls and they checked everything this man they were fair-minded they listened and they checked and they were convinced and many were converted also in the city of Berea, including among the non-Jewish people at the back, a good number, including men and women who were very prominent.
Notice again how it works. The Gospel goes forth. It reaches men and women of different social levels and of different cultural and religious backgrounds. And from all of those areas, people turn to the Lord. This is the third time there's been blessing. It's also the third time there's going to be persecution. Because in Thessalonica, his enemies find out why that man didn't go very far away. He's down in Berea. And he's doing the same thing. And they decide to come down and get him. But the news reaches Berea first. And again, the new Christians, just a few days in their Christian faith, they come to Paul and they say, Paul, you've got to leave tonight.
You cannot stay in Berea today. and they take him down to the sea. And with two or three companions, the companions took him on a long journey to the great city of Athens. Athens was the cultural capital of the world. It was probably the greatest and most important city in all that general area. And Paul comes into Athens and his companions having brought him there they leave him and they go back to Berea and Paul sends back with them the message now tell Timothy and Silas to come as soon as they can but Paul is alone in the great city of Athens like some of you I'm sure he went up the Acropolis he saw the Parthenon and the temples dedicated to the gods not the way you saw it when you went to Greece but when it was a very dynamic religious center, hundreds of priests, thousands of people worshiping.
And Paul walked among all this superstition and idolatry. When he would come down off of that hill, he would go right by the Areopagus. That's the big stone where the council used to meet in ancient times to deliberate about the affairs of the city of Athens. They'd long since moved away from the stone. They'd gone down into a potter's auditorium in the marketplace. And Paul would walk down into the marketplace all round through that city. There was a synagogue. He never saw so much superstition, so much idolatry. And he begins to preach.
I can see him on a street corner just standing there. a man all by himself, no friends, in the greatest city in that part of the world. And what is this message? There was a man called Jesus who was born into the world not long ago, and he died outside of Jerusalem, and this man I'm talking about is the Savior that God promised. And people are going back and forth, and Paul comes to the place where he talks about the resurrection. of the dead. Now Athens was known as a place where men spent their time, both the Athenians and the foreigners, listening to new novel thoughts and ideas.
And one day there are some philosophers going by when they see this man and they hear him and he's talking about the resurrection of the dead. And they stopped right there. There was a new idea they'd never heard about before. The dead can be raised. And they go over and speak to this man, and they say, why don't you come with us, and we'll take you down to the council. And you can tell the leaders of the city this new idea that you're preaching about. Of course, Paul was ready to go. A stranger in a city, and all of a sudden he's taken into the great chamber of the council. And he stands there.
I emphasize again alone, he begins the same message, talks about the Lord Jesus, why he died, and when he got to the point of the resurrection, they laughed at him. They mocked him. I would imagine some of them stood up and said, where did this man come from? Well, these way-out ideas about the dead coming back to life, and they scoffed at him. and probably walked out of the place. Others were a little bit more diplomatic, and they said, Well, sir, we'll listen to you on this subject on another occasion, and they went away also, and only a few believed.
One was a member of the council, Dionysius. Another was a very prominent woman, Damaris, and just a few more. It wasn't like Philippi or Thessalonica. And it certainly wasn't like Berea. Here in the great city, there's no persecution. Nobody threw a stone at Paul. Nobody threatened him with jail. Nobody beat him on the bank. They just laughed at him. And that makes me wonder why it was that Paul left Athens. I know why he left Philippi. The authorities told him to leave. I know why he left Thessalonica and Berea.
The new Christian said, you've got to go, Paul, or they'll kill you. But nobody threatened Paul in Athens. And yet Paul alone, he leaves that great city and he goes away. I think sometimes, I make the suggestion that it's harder to put up with indifference and mockery than it is with outright persecution. I remember in the Dominican Republic, in our civil war in nineteen sixty five it coincided with the beginning of the evangelism in depth year-long program we'd met for one week had a happy time of prayer and then the last night we had an all-night prayer meeting and during the night someone came into the service and said there's news from the capital city that something's wrong well there's always something wrong in our capital city And later on in the morning early about four o'clock, someone else came and said, there's really something wrong in the capital city.
There's a war. And that's when the revolution broke out in the city of Santo Domingo. Grace and I, with great difficulty, got back to the capital. Our children were there. Finally, Grace and many others were evacuated by the eighty-second airborne division from your country. some of us went back up into the interior again to la vega a few weeks later and we decided in spite of the civil war we'll go ahead with this program evangelism in depth and we began and it had a number of stages and the beginning of each stage coincided with an outbreak of violence with bombing with fighting we were prepared we would always spend time in prayer lord this is a new stage in the program We don't know what's going to happen, but we pray for your protection and care, and something always happened.
But it was a great year. Hundreds were converted. There was great spiritual blessing to the point that one Dominican historian writes about that year as the year of the two revolutions, the frustrated political revolution, and the dynamic spiritual revolution. But the last stage was a national campaign in the city of Santo Domingo. The evangelicals walked up the main street with their Bibles. People stood on the sidewalks and clapped as they went by. And we went up to a great stadium and had a service. And as we met there, we began that night by singing. And not long after we started, maybe not more than ten or fifteen minutes, all of a sudden, about fifty young men up in one of the, in the stands, they all stood up and they began to laugh at us.
and to mock us and jeer us and make mockery of the things of God. It was an absolute shock. We had anticipated fighting maybe a bomb. There was nothing like that. People mocked us. And some of those who had put up with the persecution and come through with flying colors, when they were mocked, the man who had the microphone in his hand, he lost his temper. And he said things over the microphone that no Christian should ever say. It's not easy to put up with mockery. And Paul left the city of Athens. Where did he go? To Corinth. Athens is the mother city.
It's the city without foundation. It's the city that's looking for something new and it's always looking and it never finds. And Corinth is the daughter city. And the children born of those who have no foundation. Well, you can imagine the outcome. There was no city in the world as perverse as the city of Corinth. And when Paul arrived in the city of Corinth, he walked into a city and he heard the roar of a community gone mad with sex. They even took the name Corinth and they turned it into a verb to describe the perversion of that city.
I've walked the streets of Corinth alone on a bright, sunny day. I've heard in my mind the murmur of that city of commerce, of sailors, of movement, of vice, and corruption. But it was just a murmur in the back of my mind. Paul walked right into that city. He saw things he did not want to see. He heard things he did not want to hear. But he went into the city. And I've always had in my mind the idea of Paul as a great, almost superhuman person, a great man, a real hero. But here in chapter two of first Corinthians and verse three, Paul tells us what he was like when he went into the city of Corinth.
I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling, trembling. Now I can identify with that, and you can identify with that. I don't know where you live. I don't know what your circumstances are. I know that some of us live in places and work in certain areas, and sometimes we feel exactly the same way. We are filled with weakness and fear and much trembling. I haven't spoken about that in connection with the penitentiary, but I felt that way when I went into the penitentiary. Paul felt that way when he went into Corinth.
I'm sure his thought is, if they laughed at me, in essence, who will listen to me in the city of Corinth? He went into the synagogue, there were problems there. Finally he went into the house of justice next door. And then when he was there, Silas and Timothy came, and they brought good use. The work in Thessalonica and Berea is strong and it's going on for God. When Paul heard that, he was strengthened in the inner man and in the power of the Spirit he preached with great courage. And the result was many people were converted in the city of Corinth.
And that's how he laid the foundation. Let me give you two imaginary conversions. I give them to you because Paul tells us in chapter two, not many nobles were converted in the city of Corinth. And then in chapter six, he talks about fornicators and adulterers and homosexuals and extortioners. And he says, and such were some of you. So I can see Paul preaching in a street corner or in the home of justice, and he's talking about the justice of God. And that when this life is over, we will stand before God and give an account of our life in this world.
And there's a corrupt businessman standing there listening to him, an extortioner. And as he hears of the justice of God, his heart is touched and in repentance he commits himself to the Lord Jesus. I have no difficulty imagining that happening in the city of Corinth. And I have less difficulty imagining the prostitutes, both female and male, listening to Paul speaking on the holiness of God. And they are sick with the corruption of corn. And they hear this message, and they turn to the Lord Jesus, and they were converted.
The church was made up of what some of us might call the dregs of society. who heard the good news of salvation and corn, and as they listened and committed their lives to Jesus Christ, in the grace of God, Paul laid the foundation. I want to talk about the foundation tomorrow night. But as we close now, wherever you serve God, if there are times when you feel weakness and fear and even trembling, Remember, you're in good company. Paul felt like that. There is one possible difference between Paul and ourselves.
Some of us, when we feel like that, we close our mouths and we keep quiet. This unconverted person in our family or the neighbor or where I work and so on, they'll never listen to me. Paul felt that way, but he opened his mouth. and he witnessed to the Lord Jesus. And as he talked, the Spirit of God was present, and people turned to the Lord. Not one or two, but a great number. He laid the foundation for a church. You might, in your witness, lay a foundation for a life, for a marriage, for a home.
What God expects of his servants, who are only servants, is that we open our mouth and we witness to the truth of the gospel. Please take your hymn book as we close tonight, and we'll sing just a verse or two of hymn number, five hundred and ninety-six. Go labor on, spend and be spent. Thy joy to do the Father's will. It is the way the master went, should not the servant tread it still. As we sing verse two, think of Paul, go labor on, tis not, for not thy earthly loss is heavenly gain.
Men, heed thee, love thee, praise thee not. The master praises what are meant. Five hundred and ninety-six, we'll begin with verse two. Go labor on his naught or not, Thy earthly law is heavenly day, May he be of thee, The brazen swaths are men.
Go labor on, while it is day, The world's dark night is hastening on, Speak me thy word, let's walk away, It is not the last one. The souls are gone.
Verse five, Toy, Lord, may not keep watch and pray. Divide the airing soul to win. Go forth into the world. Toy, long in this I toil, rejoice, For joy and bread, for excellent home, So shall thou hear the bride's And now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, to God, alone wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever and ever.