Well, good morning everyone.
There we go. It's great to see you guys. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 this morning, looking at verses 1 through 9. And for those of you who I haven't met yet, my name is Alec and I have the joy of overseeing our community groups and our Sunday teams here at Cross of Grace. I told the first service this morning that I was extra excited waking up today because it was in the 50s outside.
That's right, colder weather is finally ahead. And what's even better than colder weather is we are here together worshiping the Lord, hearing from his word this morning. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, starting in verse 1. This is God's word.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human?
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field. God's building.
Father, help us to hear you rightly this morning. We ask that your Spirit brings encouragement where encouragement is needed, that your Spirit brings conviction where conviction is needed, because Lord, when you do these things, we experience your grace.
Father, let your word accomplish in our hearts this morning what only you can accomplish. And all of God's people said, amen.
Well, as a kid, there was a phrase that my dad told me repeatedly growing up. Maybe you're sitting there and you can think back to a phrase or two about— from your parents about things they constantly hammered into you. But the thing my dad would always say was this: birds of a feather Flock together.
Let me see, just by a show of hands, who's heard that? Birds of a feather flock together. Wow, okay, I thought I was special and that my childhood was just so morphed by this amazing phrase.
I guess not. But this phrase, the meaning of it is who you follow in life will shape the person that you become. The reverse is also true. Whoever you lead in life, those following you will carry something from you with them.
Everyone leads, everyone follows.
Whether your leadership is in the home, at work, in our community, in the workplace, we are all leaders and we are all followers in some way. And as we'll see in our text, the Christians in Corinth were not following Jesus, but rather the standards of their culture, and they were bringing that into the church, and this was causing big problems. We're gonna look at the first of a few dominoes throughout the book of 1 Corinthians today, and what Paul is trying to help them see is how the gospel, how a gospel culture shapes everything. The first thing we're gonna look at is our church leaders. But my question for you is this: who do you follow?
Who leads your life? The answer to this question, these questions, will shape you tremendously. There are going to be 3 things Paul wants us to see rightly today when it comes to leading and following as Christ followers, as Christians. Those three things are seeing ourselves rightly, first. Second is seeing our church leaders rightly.
And third, seeing our source of growth rightly as well.
First point, seeing ourselves rightly. Before talking about church leaders, Paul wants the church to first look at themselves. So what he does is he gives them an assessment of how they are really doing. And what Paul does is he gives them a dose of reality and reveals to them what's really going on.
Picture the scene with me for a moment. The church hears, "We have a letter from Paul arriving. We miss Paul. I wonder what Paul has for us today." All right, they gather in their home church, excited to hear, and the leader stands up stands up with the scroll from Paul and reads, verse 1, "But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ." I could picture the room getting pretty quiet after that. Imagine walking up to church today and having Jared greeting you saying, "Tom, my spiritually immature friend, how are you doing?" Or, "Hey Bob, you infant in Christ." It'd be a bit odd and not the greeting you were expecting from Paul.
But Paul was telling them, you guys are living as carnal Christians. You look more like the world around you than people who embody, who have the Holy Spirit in them. On the outside, they were characterized by their flesh, not by the Spirit. They looked more like citizens of the world than citizens of heaven.
6 · Alec explains why Paul confronts them so bluntly: without an honest self-assessment, no change can occur
So why does Paul give it to them straight?
For Paul, Christians living according to the flesh is not an option. This is not okay according to Paul, and in order for change to happen, Paul has to help them see honestly who they are. They need an accurate starting point to build off of. And if we aren't confronted with how we really are and agree to that assessment, we're just gonna continue living our lives in the wrong direction, not seeing any need for change. And as we'll see in a minute, the way they understood church leadership and themselves was very much like the Corinthian culture around them and not at all the way God sees things.
7 · Alec illustrates the necessity of honest assessment through American Idol contestants who are shocked by harsh feedback
Amanda and I love watching American Idol. Do we have any American Idol fans in here? Not really, it's kind of an older show, right? But what Amanda and I like to do is watch the highlights of the less gifted and talented individuals, if you can catch my drift. What's fascinating to me is that after their subpar deliverances, after singing so poorly, singing poorly, they are always so shocked at the judge's comments.
They're in disbelief. "I've been singing my whole life. My mom and dad said I'm good at singing. Everyone in church says I'm good at singing." See, these contestants think that everything's great, that they're going to get that golden ticket to Hollywood, and that they're going to become famous. But unless someone tells them that they need to stop singing and get some vocal lessons, they're going to continue singing thinking that they're actually good.
It could feel like a crushing blow when you think you're one way, but you actually aren't. But if you don't confront the reality, you can actually cause more damage to yourself and others because you're unwilling to see the change that needs to take place.
8 · Alec asserts that God's confrontational truth—delivered through Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and Christian community—is an expression of his love, not condemnation
The Christians in Corinth received a shocking assessment of themselves from Paul. It was meant to sting. And like Simon Cowell, but far more graciously, Paul needs to shock them.
He needs to get them to see the problem in order to prevent further division and strife in the church.
And there are times in our lives where we need a brother or sister to step in in and tell us when we're not living— when we are living contrary to God's word, don't we? And while it could be hard to stomach and tough to hear, we thank God for those people. And while Simon Cowell will give brutally honest feedback for ratings and to potentially prevent other people's ears from bleeding in the future, God interrupts our lives with his truth because he loves us.
Paul is honest with them.
He's honest with us when we read this. And he's telling them, the way you're living, you're people of the flesh. You're infants in Christ. But through the word, through the Holy Spirit that brings conviction and guides us into all truth, And through our friends, God speaks to us in those stinging moments of life, asking, "Do I have your attention? Are you ready to stop living that way so you can live my way?" If God did not love us, he would just allow us to continue living that way.
9 · Alec emphasizes God's patience and mercy toward wayward believers
And what we see throughout all of Scripture, and especially in our passage today, is that we have a God who is merciful, who is patient with His people, who tend to just go off the wayward end from time to time. But it is God's grace that He stops us in our fleshly habits in Christ. And if He's not the one we are following with our lives, we can't grow, we can't mature in Christ. And he invites us into a relationship with him so that we can go from being infants to being mature in Christ. Guys, when things are off in our lives, when it's often because our relationship with the Lord is dry, it's nonexistent.
So often we see our lives fall off the tracks when our vertical relationship with the Lord is off.
But his mercies are new every day. Every day is a new opportunity to follow God.
10 · Alec calls the congregation to self-examination, asking them to identify areas where the flesh dominates and where God may be seeking their attention
So if you were to assess your life right now, are there areas in your life that are currently being shaped by the flesh more than the spirit? Is there any areas of your life where God might be trying to get your attention? And although it's in those areas that are hardest to give up to God, those are the areas that become the doorway to a precious and sweet relationship with Jesus.
11 · Alec unpacks Paul's milk-and-solid-food metaphor
It seems as Paul is using their words against them when he talks about this idea of milk and solid food in verse 2. He says, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for solid food. You're not ready for it. And even now you're not ready for it. And perhaps the Christians in Corinth referred to Paul's teaching as milk.
Paul, we want some solid food. Give us more substance. But as any parent knows, you don't just, you can't give a baby solids until they're able to properly digest the milk.
What is this milk that Paul fed them with? It's the gospel. It's the message that he gave them when they first believed. It's the very message that gave them new life, that is meant to help them grow and mature in Christ. But this church in Corinth wanted to move on from the gospel.
They wanted some meat. Paul, what's with this liquid diet you got us on? "Look at that new carnivore diet, we want some of that." I know there's some of you here who are into the carnivore diet.
But the Corinthians were like us at times. We just want to move on from the gospel, right? But Paul recognizes that the way they were living showed they had not properly digested the gospel. They weren't ready for solid foods yet, and as we'll see in the next few verses, It's because there's fighting among them. It's confirming their actions, their behavior is confirming what's going on in their hearts.
And it proved to Paul they didn't have a grasp of the gospel. They didn't cherish it.
12 · Alec defines the solid food: an understanding of how the gospel shapes every area of life
Instead, there was division, strife, and jealousy in the church in Corinth. And so if the milk represented the gospel, the solid food represented an understanding of how every area of the Christian life is shaped and transformed by the gospel. They had not digested the cross.
They didn't savor how on the cross Jesus restored the relationship between God and sinners. They didn't cherish how those who confess Christ as their Lord and Savior are forgiven and have their sins fully paid for. They didn't understand how Jesus exchanged our unrighteousness and gave us his righteousness instead. They didn't see how the gospel redefined leadership in a completely new way. And Paul is saying, until you get that, we're going to stay there.
Because if you don't get this, we can't move on. It's not going to be helpful. We can't move on.
13 · Alec references a previous sermon by Ricky to reinforce that the cross is not just the doorway into faith but the center of the entire Christian life
I love what Ricky said a few weeks ago about the cross and the Christian life. It's not just the doorway, like here's the cross, we pass it once, thank you, Lord, and continue on with our lives. We take that with us every single day. The cross is always at the forefront of our minds as Christians. We never leave it behind.
Until we get the gospel, we can't see the bigger picture of what God has for his leaders, for his church on earth. And until they understand, they won't see how the world's standard of leadership pales in comparison to God's standard. The Corinthians saw the gospel as that thing that they just get it once, okay, we're good, we're gonna move on to the solids.
14 · Alec portrays Paul as a patient parent who assesses spiritual health and provides what's needed repeatedly—the gospel
But like at the beginning of this letter, Paul is so patient. He's a parent who doesn't have his arms crossed, frustrated, angry, like, why don't you guys just get it? Why won't you grow up? No, as we read this over and over, what we see is Paul is like a patient parent who's caring, who is able to assess the health of his children, who's able to go back to what they need and provide it time and time again. It's like in the beginning of our letter to the 1 Corinthians, he goes back to the gospel.
He goes back to the milk. Guys, how poor of a parent would I be if I got upset at Bode, my 1-year-old who has 1 tooth, for not being able to eat an entire 20-ounce ribeye steak? I mean, you would just be like, really, Alec? That's a bit silly. I mean, best case, Bode would just gnaw on this steak and slobber all over the place.
But if I didn't meet him with where he's at, if I didn't help him with the milk, if I didn't help him with the mushy stuff before getting to the solids, he would never get the nutrients he needs to sustain his body and live. At best, he gets some flavor and juices, but that's it. Guys, when we feel distant in our relationship with the Lord, when our relationships are off with one another, when our lives are out of sync, We always go back to the gospel. We always go back to the milk. Without the gospel, we miss the nutrients that we need to sustain our spiritual lives.
15 · Alec testifies to God's kindness in revealing sin
Paul is revealing some truth that is hard to stomach. It's hard to hear. But he's not revealing this to bash them, but to help them, to build them back up, to encourage them in the faith. Why? Loves them.
Now maybe you're like me, but I am someone who tends to beat myself up over failure and sin. But the Lord in this season has just been revealing a new dimension of his kindness to me. For me, when the ugly things that are below the surface come out of the surface above it in ugly ways, I tend to spiral into negativity and self-condemnation. But what I am now learning from the Lord is that God reveals these things in our lives. He's revealing these things because he loves us.
He's trying to get our attention. See the work I still have to do in you.
16 · Alec celebrates the church's gospel culture of repentance
I love the gospel culture mark at our church, always expect repentance. Because when we repent, we are recognizing that what we're doing is wrong. What we're doing is sinning against the Lord, and we're acknowledging that what we've done is not right. But when we repent, we turn back to God and we experience the power of the gospel. We get fed with milk again.
When we repent, it's as if the Lord has given us a glass of milk, and that glass of milk is full. And do you know what's empty? The cup that was poured out for Christ so that our glass of milk, the gospel, we could savor it and drink it up every single day.
Going back to the gospel is not something we have to do, friends. It is something we get to do because of Jesus. The church in Corinth forgot about the good news of the gospel. And sometimes we do too. When we are more influenced by the flesh than the Spirit, the axis of our lives is tilted off and the vertical relationship between us and God is skewed and it affects every areas of our lives.
For the Corinthians, this was happening in their church and the first domino Paul addresses is their view of church leaders.
17 · Alec applies the milk-first principle to daily life by describing his practice of visual gospel reminders—wedding vows, a jar of blessings, making the bed
But in the busyness of everyday life, it's easy to forget to place the gospel at the center of our lives and instead look to other things that we think we need more are for our growth. Guys, there is no other starting point our hearts need more than the gospel. We need to daily remind ourselves of what our Savior has done for us. I am a very visual person.
It's the best way I learn. In our home, if you were ever in our house, Amanda and I put up what we call memorials all throughout the house. Right? These are memorials that once we see it, we are reminded of something else. So for example, we have our wedding vows in a frame that we just put up on our wall.
Because when we see our wedding vows, I'm not just reminded of my faithfulness to my wife, but I'm reminded of God's faithfulness to us, to me. We also have a jar that sits on our island and just all throughout the year we're writing about all the gifts, all the great things that the Lord is doing in our lives, from funny moments with the kids to just delight surprises that came out of nowhere, we try to jot them down and put them in this jar. At the end of the year, we have a glass of wine and we go through them all because that jar is a reminder God is the giver of all good things in our lives, even the simple things. I'm a neat freak, but I— and I love to make my bed. And when I make my bed, it's just a simple reminder that God delights in cleaning up my messes.
He's a God who loves to straighten out our messes. Just little things to help me remind myself of gospel truths.
These visual reminders in my home help me remember that when the gospel becomes on the fringes, outer fringes of my life, I need to put it right back in the middle. Before moving on to solid foods in verse 2, like my marriage, my parenting, my work, we need to make sure that we've digested the milk first, that we've savored the gospel, the very thing that empowers all those other solid food things.
18 · Alec gives concrete instruction for quiet time: before opening Scripture, rehearse the gospel—what Christ did, your specific sins, your testimony
As I was preparing this message, talking to a few friends this week, I thought this would be very practical in our lives and how this could be applied to our quiet time, our time reading God's Word. I think we often read the Bible wanting solid food, which is good, but when we don't get those big aha moments, we can feel disappointed, like, ah, I don't know if that did anything for me.
And yes, we should always open our Bibles with anticipation because this is one of the ways God speaks to us. But what if before we opened our Bibles this week, what if before you went into God's word, you took a moment and rehearsed the gospel to yourself? Just took a few minutes. What did Jesus do for me? Christ died for me.
Died for my sins. What are my sins? My anger, my pride, my selfishness. What if you took a moment and just thought back to your testimony, what the Lord's done in your life? How you were rebelling against him, wanted nothing to do with him, but by his grace he stopped you and invited you into a relationship with him.
What if before we opened our Bibles, we just took a little bit of time and did that? 'Cause when we do that, what we're doing is we're preparing our hearts not to come in with our own agenda into God's word, not to treat this as a checklist like I did it, but we are getting our hearts ready to be like, see my need for this? God, I need you.
I need you because I know what my life looks like apart from you.
19 · Alec steps into shepherding mode, urging the congregation not to respond to conviction with self-condemnation but with gratitude for God's kindness
God is revealing things in our lives, guys. When we take an honest assessment of where we're at and we put it up next to God's word, when we listen to the Spirit when it's bringing conviction, guys, let us not bash ourselves over the head and be like, look how short I've fallen, but let us look to Jesus and be like, God, thank you for your kindness. Thank you for revealing this to me because now I get to lean into you more. I get to depend on you. I get to trust you more in this area of my life.
It's God's grace to tell us that we aren't ready for solids at times in our lives, and it's God's grace that we have milk to go back to.
20 · Alec presses the congregation with direct questions about what adjustments they need to make in order to savor the gospel daily and properly digest it
So church, let me ask you this. What adjustments in your life do you need to make so that you can savor the gospel and remind yourself of it? What adjustments do you need to make so you could daily remind yourself of the gospel and properly digest it?
21 · Alec exposes the root of the Corinthians' division: they replaced the gospel with their church leaders, treating them as status symbols in the same way their culture treated philosophers and teachers
Paul unveils what's happening when the church doesn't savor the gospel and when the church doesn't put the gospel at the center of their lives.
Verse 3, for while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh? And behaving only in a human way? For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not being merely human? Without the gospel, as we said earlier, the vertical relationship is off, and it affects the horizontal relationships with everyone else. And the result, what was happening in this church, is exactly that.
They just kept fighting. This was a church that was divisive. There was jealousy, lots of strife, and their behavior confirmed in Paul's mind, okay, we gotta go back to the milk. We gotta go back to the milk. In the Corinthian culture, context might be helpful here for us to understand what exactly was going on under the surface.
But in this culture, you associated yourselves with things all the time. Your philosophers, your teachers, your job, your activities, hobbies. But here's the problem with this. The things that they associated with were used solely for their personal growth, personal benefit, and solely for their advancement with zero regard for anyone else. Whatever could increase their popularity, their social status, anything to elevate themselves above others, they did so, so they can have a leg up over everyone else.
And not only has the church in Corinth tried to move on from the gospel prematurely, they began to look for gospel replacements within the church walls. And they started to replace the gospel with their church leaders. So instead of associating with the gospel, allowing that to shape your life, they thought, oh, I'll just align with this guy. I follow Paul. I follow Apollos.
This is why Paul is saying you're not ready for solid foods. You're doing what the culture does. You're following the world's way of doing things, not God's way.
22 · Alec illustrates modern division with sports rivalries (Cowboys vs
But church, if we're honest, we don't have to look too far to think about examples in our day and age. To all my Cowboy fans, question for you.
What emotions do you feel when I say these two words? Philadelphia Eagles.
Funny, right? We laugh about that, but under the surface, if we're being honest, there's a little bit of division in there, a little bit of animosity towards those Eagle fans, right?
It seems innocent, but when these little things go unchecked and take priority in our hearts and become the thing that matters most to us, things can get messy. I remember when the Lord saved me at the age of 18 in high school, I began going to Greg Laurie's midweek Bible study every Thursday with some friends. And but not long after being saved, my personal preferences soon began to take the front wheel. Hmm, no Phil Wickham today, huh? Okay, I guess I'll still sing, just not going to enjoy it as much.
Oh, Greg Laurie's not preaching? He's just a guest speaker talking about missions? I guess I'll check out, not really pay attention. What I was doing in my heart was putting up walls and keeping in what I wanted and keeping out what I didn't want. I thought by associating myself, aligning myself, oh, I go to Greg Laurie's Bible study.
I worship with Phil Wickham. I thought I was actually spiritually mature. I go get who I associate myself with. I had no regard for what God was wanting or doing, only what I wanted. And I missed a lot of opportunities to see God's grace in other people's lives.
I didn't have a full understanding of the gospel.
23 · Alec applies the Corinthian pattern to contemporary church life—preferring certain preachers, worship styles, or theological celebrities
But we do this all the time. Maybe you're here today and you brought a friend. And you're like, ah, Alex preaching. Oh, that's not who I wanted my friend to hear.
Right? Maybe you show up, "Man, why can't we sing more K-LOVE songs? Those songs fire me up in the morning. Why can't we sing hymns straight from the Psalter?" Or we walk in with our t-shirts, "I'm Team Spurgeon. I'm Team Francis Chan.
I'm Team Matt Chandler." All good things. I love all those things. Don't get me wrong, but if they are not secondary to your relationship with Christ, it's easy for walls of division to go up, and it starts very subtly.
Us versus them, jealousy, pride, a little bit of gossip here, a little bit of slander there.
Sometimes remarks come out under our breath when we hear, "Oh, they do that? Hmm." When this happens, the church splits and factions off rather than being a united body in Christ. It's the little things, and when we don't see them through the lens of the cross of Christ, these little things can become big things. And when the gospel is not at the center, the little things become big things and the big things become little things in our lives. This is what's happening in this church.
They're boasting in their leaders as if they could belong to them in some way. I follow Paul, I follow Apollos. 18-year-old Alec, I follow Greg Laurie, I follow Phil Wickham. And our pride wants to creep in and say, look at our spiritual maturity, look at who I align with. But Paul says no, he says that is spiritual immaturity because you have removed God from the center, replaced it with your preferences, and now you just can't stop fighting with each other.
They are missing the point of what Christian ministry is all about.
24 · Alec expounds verses 5-6, establishing that the gospel redefines leadership as servant leadership
So Paul helps them see rightly their church leaders by giving them a new perspective in verse 5. Where he asked rhetorically, "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." The right perspective on church leaders is God's perspective on church leaders. Our church leaders are servants. That's it. They're servants. This is what the gospel does.
It tears down walls that go up. It tears down division and unifies. It helps us to see things right side up. Our church leaders are not to be praised and lifted up on some pedestal as if they were celebrity pastors.
When we have a high view of church leaders, there is a danger that we will have a low view of God. When we have a high view of our church leaders, there is a danger that we will have a low view of God. Well, God is the only one worthy of our adoration, of our praise. Compared to God, our leaders are like a candlelight next to the sun. They don't compare.
To the glory and majesty of God. Church leaders are to be viewed as servants. And what the gospel does is it totally redefines leadership by showing that true leadership is servant leadership. Jesus demonstrated this when he washed the disciples' feet in John 13. Jesus demonstrated this when he carried the cross that we were meant to carry.
And Jesus himself told us in Mark 10:45 that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
25 · Alec drives home the servant-leader principle with the mailman analogy: just as we don't praise the mailman for delivering mail, we shouldn't elevate church leaders for delivering God's message
When we have a high view of our church leaders, we are in danger of having a low view of God. I was talking to Braden about this helpful analogy. How silly would it be, go with me here, if every time the mail was brought to your door, how silly would it be if you just swung that door open, "Oh, mailman, thank you so much for delivering this on time. Thank you for driving so safely down the street.
And thank you for gently smashing my package on my front door." I mean, that's a little silly, right? We don't praise the mailman.
I just want to say, if you are in the United States Postal Service, we love you and thank you for everything you guys do. I'm super grateful for you. But our church leaders are like ordinary mailmen. They have a job to do, and their job is to serve the Lord by serving the church. They're not people we attach ourselves to and follow.
They are simply instruments that God is using to bring others to himself.
We want to just show people Jesus. Not ourselves. If anything, we are just trying to hold a mirror so we can reflect you to the Lord. We're not here to perform, put up a production. We're here to help you see and experience the Lord.
That's it.
26 · Alec quotes John Piper's waiter analogy: church leaders are not saviors or sources but waiters who deliver God's word
I love how John Piper compares church leaders to waiters at restaurants. He says this, Paul and Apollos are not saviors, They are not the gospel, they are not the Holy Spirit, they are not the source of power, they are not God. They are table waiters. And the faith that happens when the food of God's word is served happens through them like a canal, not from them like a spring.
So don't think of them as originators, they don't originate. They deliver. They serve.
27 · Alec unpacks Paul's farm metaphor: church leaders are laborers working God's field (the church)
So to further help paint the bigger picture of how Paul is trying to expand their perspective rightly is he uses this metaphor of a farm. Church leaders are servants, as we've discussed.
They're laborers who work the grounds of the landlord, God. The grounds are the Lord's church. They have, all the servants have different roles assigned by their boss, Jesus, such as planting, and watering, but ultimately the servants, the church leaders, the field, the church, it all belongs to God. All belongs to Jesus. Yes, their roles are important.
It's important what John does. It's important what Todd does, what Ricky does. And we need one another to work together as one. Without the seed, there is nothing to water. Without watering, the seed will remain a seed.
It will not grow. So church leaders complement one another and work as one for the Lord.
They are simply servants doing God's work.
28 · Alec challenges the congregation with a direct question: when you see your church leaders, do you see them or the God who works through them?
So let me ask you this: when you see your church leaders Do you see them with their gifts, their talents, their abilities, or do you see the God who is working through them, who gave them their gifts, their talents, and their abilities?
29 · Alec expounds the sermon's climax: God alone gives the growth
While our leaders have giftings given to them by God to serve the church, Paul drives home the final and most important point. Point, how the growth happens. Listen to what's being emphasized here in verse 6, our final point, seeing the source of growth rightly. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. Did you notice how many times God is referenced in these 4 verses? Paul is helping them to see the right one that they are to follow, the one who leads us, the only one who can lead us in any spiritual growth and maturity, God. The source of spiritual growth in our lives, in our church, in our ministries, in our small groups, in our families is God.
Verse 6, God gave the growth. Verse 7, only God gives the growth. Verse 9, God's fellow workers, God's field, God's building, God, God, God. Everything is meant to point to God.
It's not about our church leaders.
Paul is telling them, it's not about me. It's not about Apollos. It's about him. It's about God. He even says in verse 7, those who water and those who plant aren't anything.
Please, that's— hear me rightly. This is not a license to go around to your pastors or the community group leaders and say, you aren't anything. Please don't do that. 'Cause Paul will also say in other letters, respect and honor your leaders.
But Paul is reorienting their framework the right side up so that it is no longer shaped by the culture's standard, but that they can rightly see how God has shaped his church, how God has designed his church, how God is the one we really follow.
Leaders just have the privilege and the responsibility to say, "Not us, him."
30 · Alec asserts God's absolute sovereignty over growth
Besides, without soil for the seed to go in, without the sun to shine brightly and warmly, without the molecules that form water, without God, it doesn't matter how hard the workers work, because if God doesn't promote the growth, growth ain't happening. It doesn't matter how detailed of a plan we have for wanting to plant a church. If God doesn't bring the laborers, if God doesn't plant the church, we're not going anywhere. It's gotta be God. And what I love is that it's not on us.
There's no pressure on us. All we do is we just faithfully say, Lord, I wanna serve you. How do you want me to serve? That God will take care of the rest. He'll grow us.
God is responsible for any and all growth. We trust and depend on God to provide the growth, and in the meantime, we just serve faithfully.
31 · Alec contrasts worldly leadership (spotlight on self) with kingdom leadership (spotlight on God)
They were so used to living in a culture in Corinth where the leaders of that day just put all the spotlights on themselves. But in God's kingdom, his workers point the spotlight to the Lord. We readjust them to God. When people are aiming them wrongly, like Paul is doing to this church, we readjust them, point them back to God, point them back to the milk.
One day, guys, we're going to all give an account for our faithful work to the Lord. He's gonna recognize and reward us. But everything we do, it's not just for a reward, it's for the glory of God. As John the Baptist says, help me out here, "He must increase, but I must decrease." It could seem like God has a kind of a lower view of leadership compared to the world, right? All his workers are the same, they're all servants.
They all work in the same field. They all have the same boss, God. But then again, when we look at our text, God has a very high view of church leadership, way higher than the world's view of leadership because God works through their work to accomplish what he sets out to do.
32 · Alec recaps the sermon's argument in summary form, tracing the movement from self-assessment to leader-assessment to God as the source of growth
So look where Paul took us in these 9 verses. He started with ourselves. Is the gospel at the center of our lives? If not, we have milk that we can go back to. We have a starting point.
Are you allowing— yeah, sorry. The gospel is what shapes us and helps us see our leaders rightly, but we can't see our leaders rightly if we're not seeing ourselves honestly and rightly. But in God's kingdom, church leaders are servants. They're not celebrities, they're not A-listers, they're servants who work for the Lord. So we don't boast in our leaders, we boast in Christ.
33 · Alec applies the sermon to the church's immediate need for leaders in community groups, deacons, kids ministry, and teaching
We all have work to do around us because God is constantly working around us. We never stop hiring as a church. I'm so grateful to see us grow from 9 community groups to 18 community groups, but guys, Our community groups are constantly growing. We need more leaders. But we trust that if God's going to continue making our community groups super full, he's going to continue providing leaders.
We need more deacons. We need more kids ministry staff. We need more teachers. We always need help because God is always working around us. But we rely totally on the Lord.
We depend on him to bring those leaders and to give that growth.
34 · Alec concludes by restating the sermon's central themes: we are all leaders and followers shaped by who we follow
I'm going to invite the band to come on up as we wrap this up, but church, we are all leaders and we are all followers. Your leadership is shaped by who you follow. Are you following God and allowing him to shape your life? Do you see your need to follow him?
Are you going back to the milk time and time again, savoring the good news of the gospel before trying to tackle any of the solid food in your life.
The people that you lead will glean something from you. Is it the aroma of the gospel? That can only happen if your leadership is shaped by following Jesus. Might I encourage you this week, what we talked about earlier, As you spend time in God's word, rehearse the gospel. Remind yourself of the gospel.
Remind yourself of your need for God's word. And then see how the Lord's going to lead you.
But it's good news that everything belongs to God. It's not our field. It's not our community groups. It's not our ministries. It's all God's.
But he has placed you where you are at because he has work that he wants to accomplish through you. And I just want to say, if you are someone who you just have not been willing to say, all right, Lord, use me, I want to encourage you to do that. Do that. You're missing out. God is the one we follow.
He leads. When we follow him and allow him to lead our lives, We will grow as Christ followers. What a great reminder, God gives the growth.
35 · Alec closes with verses 21-23 from the end of 1 Corinthians 3, which Paul uses to forbid boasting in men and affirm that all things—including leaders—belong to the church because the church belongs to Christ, and Christ belongs to God
I just want to end by how Paul concludes this chapter in chapter 3. He says, he says in verse 21, so let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or Barnabas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours. Listen to this encouragement from Paul the pastor: And you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
36 · Alec closes with a pastoral prayer asking God to stir desire for wholehearted following, to help the church savor the gospel, to thank God for the leaders he's given, and to shape the congregation to look more like Jesus
Church, let's pray. Father, we, we ask that you would stir in us a desire to to follow you with our whole hearts. Lord, would you help us this week savor and cherish the gospel?
Lord, as a church, we thank you for the leaders that you've given us. We thank you for our pastors. We thank you for our deacons, our community group leaders, our Sunday team leads. Lord, all those that you've assigned to serve your church. Lord, for all of our leaders, would our heart's posture be one that is constantly pointing others to you?
Lord, it's not about us, but you. There's no one like you, Lord. With you as our leader, continue to shape our lives and help us look less like us and more like Jesus. And all of God's people said, amen.