Babies, Fields, And Buildings Series

Corinthians Series (Part Five)

Text: 1 Corinthians 3:9-17

OPEN WITH PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING

Well good morning to you. It’s good to see you all here with us this morning.

It is good to gather with the Church on the Lord’s Day right!

We are in 1st Corinthians chapter 3 this morning, and we’re looking at the last two of three metaphors that Paul uses to describe the church. If you remember from last Sunday, we saw how the Apostle Paul had to kind of use some harsh language in order to shock these Corinthian believers in order to get them to stop focusing on themselves, and start focusing on what matters – namely Jesus. He basically told these believers in Corinth that they were acting like infants, and that they still had to be fed milk. And let me give you one more quick point about that before we get to our text today.

Infants – babies – they have to be fed right? They have to be given milk. And then as they grow, you can start giving them solid food. But adults… adults are different. Adults don’t have to be fed. We have to eat, but we feed ourselves right?

So Paul calls them out. But then he kind of softens his tone, and says to them, that they are also God’s field. And we started to look at that as well. How he and Apollos were basically just farm hands. They were the guys who planted and watered. And that brings us to our passage today.

We’re in 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, so let’s take our Bibles we’ll look at that together.

(READ TEXT)

So Paul and Apollos are working for the Lord. And there’s a couple of ways we can look at that. First we can look at it and see that Paul and Apollos are fellow workers together, working FOR God… and the second way is that Paul, and Apollos are fellow workers, working WITH God, as He is working in the hearts of His people. It’s not an either – or situation. We are called to work as unto the Lord; in other words, working with the mindset and attitude that we are working FOR God, while at the same time, we are working in accordance to the grace and strength He gives us to do the work. Working WITH God.

And “YOU” are God’s field. Now that word, “YOU” there is plural. So Paul is addressing the whole gathering of believers. He is just as much talking to you and I as he was to these believers in Corinth. In Oklahoma we’d say, “You-all are God’s field.”

Now I don’t know about you, but as I was reading through this, and studying this, and preparing the message for today… I read that and my mind immediately went to the parable of the sower. You can find that in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8, and we’ll just turn to Luke’s Gospel, because we know Luke traveled with Paul quite a bit… and take a look at it. Luke 8:11-15 (READ).

So the seed that’s getting planted is the Word… Remember Paul planted and Apollos watered… what did they plant and water? The Word – The Gospel. The Word of God.

And there are some, and they hear it, and the devil comes and snatches it away so that they may not be saved. So that’s before salvation ever happens… right. Matthew explains it a little more in detail, he says that they hear it and don’t understand it… and we talked about that a couple of Sundays back, when we explained that the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, and how 1 Corinthians 2:14 says that, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is NOT ABLE to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” So this is that person right? They’re not saved, but they hear the Gospel, they don’t understand it but they’ve heard it – they’ve heard the truth – but they don’t know it to be true… and the devil comes and snatches it away. How does the devil do that? Lies… “Did God say?” “Is that actually what God says?” “Saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone? Oh no, no, no… you’ve got do this and this, and this as well…” There’s a million different false gospels out there, and million different ways the devil will get a person to become confused and question the truth of God’s Word. That’s what he does. He is your enemy. Period!

Verse 13, these hear it, they receive it with joy, but they have no root in themselves and they believe for a while… now that word believe there in Luke 8:13 means to be mentally persuaded. It’s not talking about saving faith. So this is someone who hears God’s Word, mentally agrees with it, but there’s been no real transformation, or conversion. They’ve mentally assented… Sometimes you’ll hear people say they have head knowledge, but not heart knowledge. This is why James says, “Even demons believe, and they tremble.” They have knowledge of the truth, but not saving knowledge. These are those kinds of folks who are going to stand before the Lord on that great Day and say, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we cast out demons in Your Name, and do all these wonderful works in Your Name.” And Jesus is going to say to them, “Depart from Me, for I NEVER knew you.” And you see what happens to them here… right?