Title: A Good Example of a Bad Example
Text: 1 Corinthians 3:1-17
Truth: We are to resist the influence of the world in the church.
Aim: to identify and correct worldly behavior in the church.
Life ?: What’s the evidence of the world in the church?
INTRODUCTION
In 1989 the unthinkable happened. After seventy years of communism and forty years of the Cold War, the Iron Curtain fell and the brutal, sadistic power of the U.S.S.R. began to disintegrate. Russia for seven decades had been repressed, murdered, and brutalized by the godless tyranny of Communism. Finally, the ancient cry of freedom from the human heart was beginning to be heard from Siberia to St. Petersburg.
But the Russians had one major disadvantage. After seventy years of enforced state sanctioned atheism, the moral compass of the nation was seriously damaged. They did not have God and His Word as a moral reference point to make wise choices. When that’s the case, people often choose poorly.
This is what Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author and Nobel Prize winner, told the graduating class of 1978 at Harvard. He was blunt and to the point when he described to the students and the ultra liberal professors America’s filthy lifestyle and the danger we faced as a nation with our fascination with pleasure. He said that our civic leaders had lost their courage. Solzenhenitsyn, over 30 years ago, said the time would come when we would be more concerned with the civil rights of terrorists than with our own national security. When you read his speech it’s as if you are hearing a prophet speak to America. Some of those students booed him as he left the stage.
He said he could not recommend Western civilization to his beloved Russia. He called America to remember Russia’s history, and to commit to memory what happens to a nation when it forgets God. The solution he offered to the West was for it to return to God and once more reclaim its spiritual vitality. He offered a good example of a bad example when a nation or church or family forgets God.
The church at Corinth is a good example of a bad example for our church. The world has influenced this church instead of the church influencing the world.
Corinth is strategically located at a narrowing of the land between two seas in Greece. Many ships would dock at Corinth and have their ship rolled over the ten miles of land rather than try to navigate the treacherous seas around southern Greece. The Romans destroyed the city in 146 B.C., but it was so strategic and prosperous a location that Julius Caesar had it rebuilt 100 years later.
The city was a major banking center and was known for its educational institutions. The Isthmian Games, second only to the Olympic Games, were held every two years. It attracted people from all over that part of the world. It was famous for its pagan temples and sexual immorality.
A young, growing metropolis like Corinth was not concerned with your family pedigree. The city hadn’t been around long enough to establish the Rockefellers and the Kennedys. They didn’t care where you got your education. They were obsessed with appearance and beauty. All they wanted to know was could you produce? Could you get results? They didn’t care if you had a Ph.D. or came from the poor side of the tracks. This made for a very competitive society. Converted Corinthians brought this spirit of competition into the church. Instead of reflecting the unity of Christ, they reflected the divisiveness of the world.
This is our struggle, too. We are immersed in the world’s mindset. It clings to us like cigarette smoke. It’s natural to transfer that worldliness into the church. We are to resist the influence of the world in the church. Instead, we are called to influence the world for Christ.
What’s the evidence of the world in the church?
I. FACTIONS—WORLDLY ATTITUDES AND ACTIONS (1 COR. 3:1-4)
Paul deals with problems in the church, and there are many. The first problem is they divided up into camps around various preachers. This revealed they were following the wisdom of the world and not the wisdom found in the message of Jesus Christ. Paul had just talked about godly-minded people at the end of chapter two. The Corinthian believers thought they were spiritual people, but they were not. Their attitudes and actions were more like non-Christians. He wants them to stop thinking and behaving that way.
By calling them “brothers” Paul admits they are Christians. They truly have the Holy Spirit living within them, but they think and live like people who do not have the Holy Spirit. This would have jarred them awake.
“What did Paul call us?” someone may have asked. “Well, Paul says he knows we are Christians, but he says we are acting like a bunch of pimps, prostitutes, and pornographers! He says we act more like people who don’t know God than people who are indwelt by God.”
He softens his criticism just slightly when he calls them “infants in Christ.” Everybody expects a baby to be concerned only with himself. But it is disgusting to see a child of ten years or a young man of twenty acting in such childish, selfish ways.
They had the right diet—milk. They understood the fundamental truths of the gospel. God loves them. Sin separates them from God. They deserve judgment and hell. Jesus died for them on the cross and rose from the dead as proof that He saved them. They are required to repent and believe. But that’s as far as they got in their understanding.
They didn’t deepen and broaden their understanding of the cross. They didn’t see how the cross defines love for a Christian. They never saw the depth to which the cross calls us to a lifestyle of self-denial. The believers failed to see that the cross reveals that God accepts and loves all men. They should have known this. They’d had plenty of time and opportunity.
Two characteristics of childish immaturity are jealousy and strife. Let a young mother pick up another baby and her little baby will want her to put that baby down and hold her. Countless number of times in a day a parent will have to intervene between their children in conflict. Paul wants them to stop acting like children. Stop living self-centered, grasping lifestyles that are characteristic of worldly people.
Ernest Gordon was serving as a captain in the British army during the Second World War when he was captured by the Japanese, marched with other prisoners into the Southeast Asian jungles, and forced to construct a railroad bridge over the river Kwai. The conditions of the prison camp would eventually claim the lives of 80,000 men.
The prisoners were made to work for hours in scorching temperatures, chopping their way through tangled jungles. Those who paused out of exhaustion were beaten to death by the guards. Treated like animals, the men themselves became like beasts trying to survive. Theft and betrayal were as rampant as hunger and disease among them. Life was met with indifference, deceit, and hatred--by captive and captor alike.
Yet, Gordon lived to tell of hope and transformation in the valley of the river Kwai. In his widely acclaimed book, he gives a firsthand account of the story behind the "death railroad" and the spiritual resurrection of the camp. "Death was still with us," writes Gordon. "But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. We were seeing for ourselves the sharp contrast between the forces that made for life and those that made for death. Selfishness, hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, self-indulgence, laziness and pride were all anti-life. Love, heroism, self-sacrifice, sympathy, mercy, integrity and creative faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life, turning mere existence into living in its truest sense. These were the gifts of God to men. True, there was hatred. But there was also love. There was death. But there was also life. God had not left us. He was with us, calling us to live the divine life in fellowship."(1) In the valley of the shadow of death, Christ had risen.
God somehow changed those men so that they found themselves unable to respond to others without similar unexplainable acts of grace. In fact, so complete was the transformation of the men, so real the presence of Christ among them, that they were able to reach out even to their captors with the love that had taken hold of them.
While still in the hands of their enemies, a train carrying Gordon and several others came alongside another boxcar at a stop in Burma. The entire car was filled with gravely wounded Japanese soldiers. They were left alone, without medical attention or company, as if abandoned refuse of war. "They were in a shocking state," Gordon recalls. "The wounded looked at us forlornly as they sat with their heads resting against the carriages waiting fatalistically for death....These were our enemy."
Without a word, many of the officers unbuckled their packs, took out part of their rations and a few rags, and with their canteens went over to the Japanese train. The guards tried to prevent them, but they pressed through, kneeling by the side of the injured men with food and water, cleaning their wounds. Eighteen months earlier the same men of the river Kwai prison camp would have celebrated the humiliation and destruction of anyone on the side of their violent captors. Yet Gordon explains, "We had experienced a moment of grace, there in the bloodstained railway cars. God had broken through the barriers of our prejudice and had given us the will to obey his command, 'Thou shalt love.'"
Ernest Gordon left his three years of brutal imprisonment with an unexpected turn in his own story. Among the suffering and enemies, God had spoken. Now it was Gordon who could not remain silent. He returned to Scotland to attend seminary, eventually becoming the dean of the chapel of Princeton University where he remained until his death in 2002. In the trenches of despair and hatred, the inexplicable love of Christ called enemies--and humankind--to hope and forgiveness. (Jill Carattini)
All of us bring emotional baggage and weak wills to our relationship with Christ. For some we bring to our Christian life anger with a hair trigger or prejudice or the inability to trust others. This harms our relationship with God and others. Sometimes those things will fall off easily. Others we battle all our life, but God wants us to stop thinking and living like people of the world and start acting like people filled with the Holy Spirit.
If your life is filled with conflict and division and broken relationships, maybe you are more influenced by the world’s way of living than God’s way. If you are a child of God, Paul says, “Stop following the world’s way. Grow up. Start thinking and acting like someone filled with the Holy Spirit.” An evidence of the world in the church is factionalism.
What’s the evidence of the world in the church?
II. FOLLOWING WRONG ALLEGIANCE (1 COR. 3:5-15)
We are to resist the influence of the world in the church. One evidence of the world in the church is reflected in whom people give their allegiance, who they are following. Their loyalty and obligation were to be to Christ alone.
Read v. 5-9.
He doesn’t even give Apollos and himself the significance of personhood but the disdain of objects by using “what” instead of “who” (v. 5). What are Apollos and Paul? They are not masters that the Corinthians owe allegiance but just slaves.
Paul uses an agricultural illustration. Servants work the fields. One plants the seed. The other waters the seed. That’s their role. They are expected to do it to the best of their ability. But it is God who produces the result. Then who is the most important? The One producing the growth. The One who owns the field.
This is why the workers are rewarded according to their labor not their result. You have a Jeremiah that was a complete failure according to worldly standards of results. He failed to turn his people away from national destruction. His generation hated him. But God honors him as one of the greatest of his laborers. On the other hand, Jonah was privileged to be the preacher for one of the greatest revivals in all of the Old Testament. But he is an example of a poor laborer for God.
Paul’s point is these various preachers were servants on the farm. The owner is God. Who gives their devotion to a servant instead of the owner? Their allegiance belongs to God.
The next picture is architecture. The foundation is a life committed to Jesus Christ. All of us are building some kind of structure on that foundation. Some invest their life in temporal things. They work but they don’t do it for the glory of Christ, they do it for a paycheck. They have a family, but they don’t seek to raise that family to be a testimony for the grace and glory of Jesus Christ. They have a family for primarily selfish reasons. One day everyone of us will have our works and motives tested. What was done for Christ will last like gold and be rewarded. What was done for selfish reasons will be destroyed and there will be no reward. The foundation will remain but that is all.
Read v. 10-15.
The point again is our allegiance needs to be to Christ. Scripture does instruct us to respect and follow the leadership of our local church. We are to be supportive and cooperate with their leadership. But our allegiance, our devotion is to Christ alone.
John Ortberg (Faith & Doubt, p. 169-170) says the word trapeze describes the bar between the ropes of a trapeze artist in the circus. It’s a Greek word, meaning table. It’s used in the New Testament when Jesus gathers his friends around the table for what we now call the Communion table. There he tells them that he can’t continue to hang on to this life but must let go so they may receive eternal life. Then He climbed up on a cross and let go of life for that very purpose.
I never thought about it like that but I guess that is what Jesus asks us to do throughout our Christian life. Will we let go of our other loyalties and reach for Him? He comes to Abraham and asks if he will let go of everything familiar to him—home, family, culture, wealth—and go wherever God tells him to go. Would your allegiance to Christ do that?
A rich young ruler comes to Jesus one day. The Bible says Jesus loved this man. Jesus asked him to turn lose of the trapeze and swing over to his side. The man’s trapeze he was hanging on to was his money. Get this: Jesus asked the man to divest himself of all his extensive wealth and become poor and follow Jesus. Would your allegiance to Christ be willing to be made poorer?
Jesus spoke to a woman caught in an adulterous affair. He said, “Go sin no more.” Would you be willing to break off a relationship that you know dishonors God? For some that is as scary as a swing from one trapeze to the other.
What are we to let go of? Anything that tries to take the place of our allegiance to Jesus Christ.
Let go of your power; be a servant.
Let go of your addiction. Admit it. Get help.
Let go of that habit.
Let go of that grudge.
Let go of that thin skin or that unforgiving spirit or that rebellious nature that refuses to let anyone else tell you what to do.
Our devotion to Christ is not an accessory. It is not a part of our life as we go about our life. Our devotion to Christ is our life. Christ is making us different people in the way we think and live. These are the Christians who are seeking to remove the influence of the world from their lives and follow the wisdom of God. Like Christ they become more gracious, patient, kind, and devoted to doing good. These people heal factions because they are reconcilers like Christ. This is how a church drives out the influence of the world from their fellowship.
What’s the evidence of the world in the church? Factionalism and allegiance to someone other than Christ.
This is followed with a forewarning.
III. FOREWARN—THE WORLDLY DESTROYED (1 COR. 3:16-17)
Read v. 16-17.
In this context the temple does not refer to our body. He will do that later in 1 Corinthians 6:19. Here the temple refers to the church, God’s people. The word “temple” is the specific word that refers to the Holy of Holies, the most inner room in the temple. This is the place where God’s presence dwelt.
Wherever God’s people are, God is there. Since the Christian community is the dwelling place of God it is not to be dishonored. God is dishonored when his people are divided by jealousies and rivalries. God is dishonored when they give allegiance to a man that belongs to God alone. God is dishonored when his church is harmed by false teaching or immoral behavior. This destroys the unique identity of God’s people as the holy people of God indwelt by the Spirit of God. God will destroy the person that destroys his church.
I thought about various churches I have known. There was my grandmother’s church in southeastern Oklahoma. They sang enthusiastically with a country twang. There was the African church with a dirt floor and wooden benches they returned to the pastor’s home after every service. I’ve attended some of the largest churches in America and preached to less than ten in a gymnasium in Canada. No other group of people even remotely can be compared to the church. The church is that group of people where God dwells. Be very careful what you do to the church.
The threat is actually an invitation to the church at Corinth. Paul is inviting this church to live up to its calling as the people of where God dwells.
CONCLUSION
Ravi Zacharias tells this story:
Some years ago, I was visiting the town of Bedford in England. The reason most tourists go to Bedford is because it was the home of the famed 17th Century writer John Bunyan who penned his immortal Pilgrim’s Progress. In fact, in the heart of Bedford is a gigantic statue of Bunyan. Some prankster has painted giant footsteps from the statue to the public restrooms, as if to say Bunyan still lives. Well, that aside, his book still lives in the hearts of millions. It allegorically tells the story of how Pilgrim struggled and wandered through life’s pitfalls, until he found the marvelous message of the Gospel. Every culture could relate to it. We visited the museum that housed a translation of every language into which Pilgrim’s Progress has been translated. You need to know, that outside of the Bible, that book is in more languages than any other. After we visited the museum, I commented to the woman at the front hall who sells the tickets to the museum, “Isn’t it amazing that an ordinary mender of pots and pans wrote a book of such profound impact around the world.” She paused and said, “I suppose so. I haven’t read it.” I just about fainted. How amazing that one can be so close to a treasure and go for the wrapping instead.
I wonder if we are not like that woman. We are surrounded by churches. The teaching of the Bible fills the radio and TV waves. The printed page has never been so accessible. Look how close we are to the life-transforming truth of the gospel, and yet it seems to be so far away from its actually being expressed through our lives. Paul was telling this church that the message of the cross is powerful enough to change their church and their community. Instead, they were being changed by the world. How about you? Which has the greatest influence on your life, the world or the gospel?
