Basic Construction
1 Corinthians 3:1-17
Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI
November 2, 2008
Series: The Church in Crisis
I don’t want to mention any names here this morning – partly because I don’t know many of them. But there are a few names I know, so I will speak in generalities. I know this math teacher who has been having some trouble with her students. It seems her students don’t understand the basics yet are expected to grasp the higher math concepts found in Algebra. This obviously presents a problem.
This teacher, God bless her, is very conscientious about her work and wants to see her students thrive, so she spends time trying to remediate – to help lay a basic foundation of mathematic knowledge and ability while teaching them the advanced theories of Algebra. But here’s the rub – because someone else didn’t do their job, a parent who paid no heed to their child’s education, a teacher who advanced a student to either get him off her roles or to keep the student with his social group or a systemic failure that insists all students be rocket scientists, instead of recognizing and developing curriculum for those who are not mathematically inclined, this teacher’s job is now more complicated, more difficult.
Have you ever tried to lay foundation after a building is already built? Have you ever heard of such a thing? No. Why, because the foundation is necessary for the building to stand strong. Otherwise the wind and the rain, the snow and the ice begin to erode the earth beneath the building. And as the ground shifts beneath it, the building gets weaker and more prone to a catastrophic failure. A foundation provides stability.
We all know this, but something else about a foundation that may not be immediately apparent, is that it also dictates how the building is going to be built – where we put wings and doorways and load-bearing walls. The foundation shapes both the form and the function of the building. If we try to build outside the foundation or put too much building on a foundation, either we will put up a building that is in constant need of repair or one that will collapse under its own weight.
Laying the right foundation is important – no more than that, it is essential. Which is why the Apostle Paul spent the first part of his letter to the Corinthians reminding them what is foundational to the Christian faith – what is essential. We’ve been working our way through 1 Corinthians over the past two weeks and in some ways we have found Paul’s needle stuck on the centrality of the Gospel. The first week we talked about the Gospel itself – how it seems foolish compared to the wisdom of the world. When face to face with the physical evidence presented to us by the science community the temptation is to accommodate the Gospel to the scientific view. When presented with the doctrines of tolerance and relative truth and situational ethics coming out of the institutions of higher learning the temptation is to acquiesce, to hedge the Gospel in order to appear more tolerant and not so close-minded. When faced with the thinking of the world, we feel like we have to dress up the Gospel to make it more attractive.
But Paul argued that we don’t have to spruce up the Gospel; we don’t need to adorn it with flashing lights, bells and whistles. We simply need to put it out there in plain and simple language – it is the power of God unto salvation.
And last week we talked about why the Gospel seems so foolish to those who reject it – how what can seem so reasonable to us can be so unreasonable to the unbelieving. After we have embraced the Gospel we forget that we didn’t comprehend it because we are incredibly brilliant and its mysteries couldn’t hide from our piercing intellects. We forget that we were once as dumb as those who just shake their heads and walk away, muttering about fairytales and how we should know better. So what’s the difference?
The Holy Spirit. Salvation, redemption, understanding the Gospel message – its all an inside job! Unless the Holy Spirit regenerates the heart and quickens our understanding, the Gospel will never make sense. We must have the Holy Spirit working in us for us to understand the work that Jesus has done for us.
So essentially Paul is telling us in these first two chapters, embrace the foolishness of the Gospel! Grab hold of it, revel in it, invest yourself in it because it is the way of salvation. Don’t let any slick-talking, promise-making huckster lead you away from the very simple story of the Gospel; Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. That is where our hope lies, it is where life is found and it is the only message that can lead to the salvation of another.
So why do you think Paul is so intent on sounding like a broken record here? Why would he hammer so hard on the importance of the Gospel? In our text for this morning Paul provides the answer in two different analogies – the first one rooted in agriculture, the second grounded in construction.
Now, let’s imagine that I am just now starting the sermon and I look out at you and say, “Look, you bunch of babies you really need to grow up. You should be a lot further along in your faith journey, but here you are still struggling with just the basics. You guys are squabbling over things that really don’t matter – who cares what color the carpet is?! Who cares if you’re democrat or republican? Aren’t we supposed to be beyond that? Shouldn’t our unity depend on something greater?”
That, in essence, is how Paul addresses the Corinthians in our text for this morning. You know what’s really cool about what he says here, I mean other than the fact he calls them “babies”? Look at vv. 3-4. “You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?”
Paul voices an expectation there that I think can slip right by us – a standard that we should be taking to heart. He calls the Corinthians “mere men,” which by implication means we’re to be more than merely human.
More than merely human? Yes, more than merely human. But how? How can we be more than merely human? Paul’s point is this – if we find ourselves trying to bring the world’s ambitions, the world’s hungers, the world’s desires into the church, maybe we need to look at our relationship with Jesus. If our way of thinking, if our way of responding, if our way of acting still looks like the rest of the world – in other words, if we are not changing to become more like Jesus Christ – maybe we should think about spending a little more time with him. If we judge success and failure by the same broken standards the world uses – standards clouded by prejudices, fears, and cravings for love and power – maybe we need to do a gut check and see if Jesus really is our Lord or if we have been playing at faith the way children play house.
The reality is when we take up our cross and follow Jesus, we do become more than merely human. We become part of the new humanity – a new race of humankind with spirits that are no longer dead, but have been raised to new life in Christ. We have something the average person doesn’t have – a living spirit in a restored relationship with the Creator. And more than that, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, sustaining us with life, enabling us to follow after Jesus Christ. We’re no longer bound to sin – no longer a slave to the sin nature. We have a new master now, Jesus Christ, and our lives are meant to be reflect his – to become like his. Do you get that, how big that really is?
And the way Paul is speaking about this to the Corinthians, this is not a by and by expectation – a pie in the sky sort of thing. With the phrase “mere men” Paul makes it clear that conforming to the image of Christ is a here and now activity. Will it be completed in this life? No, but it should be happening as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect a the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
I dwell here because the question that Paul asks the Corinthians is one we should be asking daily with every encounter we have with others. Do they see anything in us that shows that we are not merely human? The reality is we often use that as our excuse – when we allow our weakness to dominate our lives we console ourselves with “Well, I am only human.” When we lash out in anger, when we lie to save ourselves embarrassment, when hesitate because we fear a loss of status, when we deal with others dishonestly because it will bring us financial gain, when we use company time for personal gratification our excuse is always, “Well, we’re only human.” But asking the question, Paul says “We’re supposed to be more.” Are you merely human or are you a child of the King? Are you merely human or a co-heir with Christ? What would your friends, co-workers, neighbors and families say? Are you being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory? Do a gut check this week.
Let’s get back to the text – Paul has written some pretty inflammatory things to the Corinthians, as we noted earlier; not very endearing. But remember, Paul is a man under inspiration here and so even this has a purpose. It serves to point out the stupidity the Corinthians were displaying by pitting against each other based on human teacher.
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.
Come on! Paul is saying, “You guys are focusing on the wrong thing! It’s not the “farm-hand” that matters, but the farmer. Apollos and I are working for the same thing, can’t you see that?” Paul uses the image of a farm where he and Apollos labor as hired hands in the employ of God to give the Corinthians a big picture view of how God works through the church. This isn’t about personal gain or glory – Apollos and I are not in competition.
To drive the point home Paul then switches to a construction image – with the Corinthian Church being the building and he the wise master builder. The wise label is important here – remember, the Corinthians are enamored by all things touted as wisdom. And he displays that wisdom magnificently, “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
You know – and Mike can speak to this more intelligently than I can – if you go to build a house, the guy you contract to do it will most likely not be the guy who builds every part of it. He may be a great framer, but will subcontract the exterior, the drywall, the electrical and plumbing. That’s the image that Paul is drawing for us – he’s the primary contractor for the Corinthian church who knows what it takes to build a structure that will last. He knows that what he starts, others will finish, but in order for them to do their jobs he has to lay a solid foundation – one that won’t crack under the pressure of the elements or the weight of the house itself. He also knows that the foundation he lays will dictate both the form and the function of the building. For the church, there is only one foundation that can be laid – Jesus Christ. Any other foundation will ultimately lead to a catastrophic failure.
When this church was founded part of its express purpose was to minister to a particular ethnic group. And while I am confident that their intent in building the church was to glorify God, the history of Classis Lake Erie and some of its churches closing reveals that the foundation was not solid. We established churches under the assumption that West Michigan would continue to send people eastward looking for work instead of being a Great Commission church in East Michigan communities and reaching the lost for Christ. The result has been disaster in Roseville, Cincinnati. Toledo, Grand Ledge and a host of others that closed before I came to this classis. And presently, Cleveland West Park, Good Shepherd in Flushing and we here at Cascades Fellowship have futures that are an open question.
Look, this isn’t meant to scare anyone or shock anyone or anything like that. It’s not even meant as a judgment – the church was operating in what it deemed the wisest manner. I’m just gazing back across the history of this denomination in Eastern Michigan and it seems pretty clear – the wrong foundation was laid or at least the mortar was cut with some inferior materials. And we have the very difficult work of laying a new foundation – the right foundation. It is work that others before me recognized needed doing and started the work, accomplishing much. But there is still more to do.
You see, the question of being “merely human” not only goes for the individual, it also goes for the church as a whole. Are we acting as a merely human institution or as a redeemed community? Can people tell the difference? What can we do to show that we are a redeemed community?
Let me offer one way. We have started a prayer service on Mondays here at the church – join us. Preempt everything else to be here and when asked what you are doing, say it loud and proud, “I’m going to a prayer service at my church.” Better yet, you’ll notice a folded sheet in your bulletin. It’s a prayer request log. Take it door to door in your neighborhood and ask your neighbors if they have anything they would like us to pray for. Tell them we won’t mention any names and we won’t start hounding them – this isn’t a pressure sale, it’s a service for the community. We want to love them. Tell them that we’ll send them a card letting them know that we have prayed for them – that’s it. By this simple act we show them that we are a different kind of church, one with a cross-shaped foundation and our interest is in loving service – sort of like Jesus.
