A man was out playing golf with his friend one day and he told him he was looking for a new caddy. And his friend said, “I know a great guy. He’s ninety years old but he’s got eyes like a hawk.” And his friend said, “He sounds great, tell him I’ll be playing next week.” The next week came and he met the older caddy and he started to play. On the first tee the golfer hit a perfect drive. He stood there for a few seconds admiring his shot and then he turned to the caddy and said, “Did you see where that went?” The caddy said, “I sure did, it was a beautiful shot.” O.K. said the golfer, “Where is it?” And the caddy said, “I don’t remember.”
Spiritual leaders I Corinthians 3:1-6
“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? 5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”
Now, remember that Paul is writing to these Corinthians because he’s heard some disastrous reports from several people about the quality of fellowship at their church.
It would be like Pastor Snel going away for a couple of weeks and calling Pastor Andy to see how things are at the church and Pastor Andy says, “Oh, things are great. The deacons met last night and four of them resigned, the missions committee voted to support some missionary that no one’s ever heard of and the women’s group are picketing in the parking lot but other than that every things seems to be going alright.”
And that’s the way it was in Corinth. These people were a mess and they didn’t even know it. They were so proud of their spiritual heritage and yet; they were fighting over everything. They thought they were so spiritual but Paul’s assessment was; they were wise in the ways of the world but they weren’t spiritually wise at all. And the reason he can say this is; their supposed wisdom had resulted in nothing but dissension and division.
And in chapter three Paul doesn’t dance around the issues but tells them flat out, “You’re not spiritual, you’re carnal.” And then, he goes on to explain why he made such a severe assessment.
So, we’ll look at this passage through three points. First, we’ll see the Corinthians carnality and then second, we’ll see, the evidence of their carnality and then third, we’ll see Paul’s challenge to these carnal believers.
I And we’ll begin with their carnality.
So, let’s go back and look at the very first verse I read because first words are always important. And here Paul says, “I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.”
He pinpoints their problem when he says, “Are ye not carnal?” And we find this word carnal four times in four verses. The word “carnal” is translated from the Greek and it literally means “fleshly.” And the flesh refers to our selfish, fallen, sinful nature.
And Christians can be sealed with the Holy Spirit of God and still live in the flesh or live carnally. Alan Redpath wrote, "The carnal Christian is a child of God, he’s born again and on his way to heaven, but he’s traveling third class." J Vernon McGee said: “Some will be in heaven but they may smell like they were bought at a fire sale!”
A So, what does it mean to be carnal? The word carnal actually means “meat” like we say “chili con carne” which means chili with meat. Well, meat is the flesh and these people who thought they were so spiritual were people who were living in the flesh rather than the spirit.
In first John we’re told we have three enemies and they are: the world, the flesh and the devil. The world or worldliness is often portrayed by believers as social drinking and dancing but listen; it’s much more than having bad habits. It’s a way of thinking. It’s looking to the world around us and copying their values and standards rather than looking to the word of God.
After all, the world evaluates people by their clothing, their social position, their income or the amount of money they have or even their education; but all these things are external and they evaluate people by their head rather than their heart. It’s what have you achieved and not who are you?
I remember when I decided to leave Main Street Baptist in Sackville and the Fellowship sent my profile to several churches in Ontario and a few in British Columbia and there was all kinds of interest because I have a Master’s degree. But listen, it doesn’t matter what kind of degree you have; if you don’t study or your life is filled with sin.
Then again, I’ve gone places and met people and after they’ve found out my name they asked me what I did and what they really wanted to know is, where do you fit in socially.
When people ask what I do now I tell them, “I get up in the morning, eat breakfast and have a shower, get dressed and walk my dog. Then, I run errands and do what needs to be done around the house and then have supper. After that, I go shopping, study or watch TV. That’s what I do.”
So, the world’s perspective is to evaluate us by our job, our education or even by our bank account.
Then there’s the flesh – and the flesh is not our skin but it’s our human or Adamic nature and since we were all born in sin, we’re all basically selfish. I’ve heard people say, “Well, I’m not as selfish as some people” and they may not be; but if they lived long enough their selfishness would develop.
Imagine what people were like in the book of Genesis before God stopped allowing man to live for so long. I mean, some of them lived for almost a thousand years. And those who walked with God would have gotten better and better but the unsaved would always be looking for ways to express their sinful nature.
Just think about our own world today. When we were younger, if anyone had a baby out of wedlock, they’d move away because they were embarrassed but now people are deciding not to marry and are having children to raise by themselves. And no one ever spoke about homosexuality because it was considered too perverted and then in the fifties homosexuality was classified as a mental problem but now it’s been declared normal and they have all the same rights as everyone else.
The flesh like the world always wants to assert itself and as long as we live in these bodies we’ll have to resist the desire to follow the world and live in the flesh by submitting our wills to God.
The third enemy is the devil, Satan, who is the adversary of our souls. He has two goals and they are to keep the unsaved from getting saved and then to keep the saved from telling anybody they need to be saved. Listen, God gave us the great commission four times. It’s in all four gospels and this is the one thing He commands us to do and it’s the one thing Satan wants to keep any of us from doing.
Satan is both real and active and yet, I think most of what he gets credit for can probably be attributed to the world or to our flesh. Our pastor has been going through Matthew 24 and 25 and last week he went to the book of Revelation and pointed out how Satan is going to be bound for a thousand years and then when he’s let loose he’s going to assemble a world of unsaved rebels for a war against God. And this tells us that all the people who join him will be born to the believers in the millennium kingdom but they’ll rebel against God while Satan is bound for the thousand years.
But here, in verse 1 Paul tells the Corinthians that the problem was their flesh and he says, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, (or fleshly) even as unto babes in Christ.” And what he’s saying is, you people aren’t following the leading of the Spirit of God but you’re just doing your own thing and you’re living like spiritual babies who have no sense of spiritual truth. In other words, you’re trying to live the spiritual lives in your flesh.
Galatians 5:19-21 describes the works of the flesh; where Paul says, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21 envying’s, murders, drunkenness, revelling’s, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
According to 1 John those who habitually and continually practice sin reveal they’re not saved and yet there are believers who give into the flesh and risk losing their testimony and yet, that doesn’t mean they’ve lost their salvation.
So a Christian is not supposed to be characterized by sin because we’ve been forgiven and cleansed but we are still able to sin, and our sin can be just as sinful as the sin of an unbeliever because sin is sin.
So, Paul believes these Corinthians were definitely saved but they weren’t living like they were and their church was displaying a poor testimony.
There are two kinds of spirituality and they are positional and practical. Now, these are theological terms but bear with me. Positionally, God sees everyone who is saved as being perfect or spiritual. Did you know that when God looks in this room and sees people who are saved, He is no longer conscious of any sin we’ve ever committed.
Let me show you what I mean from the Old Testament.
First, we have Lot who was Abraham’s nephew and you remember when there was a shortage of land when God blessed both Abraham and Lot and Lot had to move his flock and family and he decided to move to Sodom where he became like the mayor or a member of the town council. I don’t think Sodom got bad but was probably awful when he got there but he and his family decided to stay.
And then when God sent angels to evaluate Sodom’s sin the men of Sodom demanded that Lot allow them in his house to sexually attack the angels but Lot offered all these perverts his own daughters; which certainly wouldn’t have made him the father of the year. And then when the angels warned him to gather up his family and leave; Lot was not only hesitant and had to be forced to leave but when his wife looked back she became a pillar of salt.
And then Lot and his two daughters went to live in the mountains where the scripture says his daughters got him drunk, so both could get pregnant by him.
Now, when you hear all this, what do you think of Lot? I mean, he’s not the kind of man we’d hold up as a good example, right.
But, when we come to the New Testament in 2 Peter 2: 6-8 it says, “And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; 7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: 8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.”
You see, as far as Peter was concerned Lot was in heaven and the only thing he could see was his righteousness because that’s how God saw him.
Second, we could look at David and his sin with Bathsheba which he followed up by killing her husband and yet, how does God refer to David? As a man after God’s own heart and listen, one of the titles of Jesus’ is the Son of David.
And then third, there’s the example of Jonah who ran away from God rather than going where he was sent; and then after he conducts the greatest evangelistic campaign in the history of the world; where over 600,000 people were saved; the book closes with Jonah sulking because God saved all these people who he hated.
But, when Jesus refers to Jonah in Matthew 12:38-41 it says, “Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. 39 But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah: 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here.”
Jesus made no reference to Jonah’s failure to serve or his bad attitude after but He remembers all the people who were converted under his ministry.
So, when you think of the sins you’ve committed in the past; remember that if God has forgiven them He has forgotten them.
So, when we we’re saved all of our sins were washed away and God sees us as justified which means ‘just as if I never sinned.’ Justification is God's act of removing the guilt and penalty of sin while at the same time declaring a sinner righteous through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice.
There was a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car. He cabled the Rolls-Royce people back in England and asked, “I’m having trouble with my car; what do you suggest I do?” Well, the Rolls-Royce people flew a mechanic over! The mechanic repaired the car and flew back to England and left the man to continue his holiday.
And you can imagine, he was wondering, “How much is this going to cost me?” So when he got back to England, he wrote Rolls-Royce a letter and asked how much he owed them. He received a letter from the office that read: “Dear Sir: There is no record anywhere in our files that anything ever went wrong with a Rolls-Royce.” That is justification! God treats us like we never sinned in the first place.
So, positionally, we’re viewed by God as though we’re perfect because Jesus has not only paid for; but has also taken all our sin away, but practically we’re going to continue to have problems as long as we live in this flesh. But, our goal is to bring our practice in line with our position in Christ.
And so, rather than being spiritually mature; Paul said these Corinthians were like new believers who needed the most basic instructions. They had plenty of head knowledge but very little in their hearts.
New believers need to be instructed about Bible study. I remember leading a young guy to the Lord in Guelph and I wrote out a few references of verses for him to memorize. When I saw him the next week I asked how he made out and he said, “I couldn’t find the verses.” The problem was, he never held a Bible before and didn’t know the Bible was broken down into chapters and verses.
You see, we live in a post-Christian culture which is another way of saying all the Christian influences have been taken away. I remember when I was in grade school how they used to read the Bible every morning and there was no discussion about whether or not you’d be there because if you weren’t; you were considered absent.
So, new believers need to be taught to read the Bible and then second, they need to be taught the privilege and necessity of prayer. We need to understand that the God who loves us also wants to fellowship with us.
Every morning when I get up I make myself some coffee, a piece of toast and two pieces of cheese and while I’m putting all this together I give my dog a half a slice of bread and then I put the other half by my plate. And when I sit down my dog sits there and stares at me until I finish eating and then I give her the other half of the bread. She never begs or makes a sound she just stares and no matter who tries to call her, she doesn’t move because she knows I’m going to feed her.
It’s too bad we can’t have the same attitude about prayer and learn to wait on God until He provides the things we need or even ask for.
A.W. Tozer wrote: “Every man is as close to God as he wants to be; he is as holy and as full of the Spirit as he wills to be…”
So, we need to be in the word, we need to pray and then third, we need to love one another; because Jesus said love is our highest priority. Listen, this is how the unsaved know we’re saved, if we have love one for the other. And knowing how desperate these believers needed to love one another, Paul gave them an entire chapter on love which we’ll see when we get to 1 Corinthians 13.
So, he calls them babes in Christ and notice that he doesn’t question their salvation, just their maturity. And yet, we wonder why they hadn’t grown. They had the best of teachers, they were obviously capable of understanding the word and they had all the spiritual gifts.
I think, they had refused to give up their worldly ways and fleshly desires and they became what James called, “forgetful hearers.” They were like people who sit in church week after week and never hear a word that’s said and they can’t hear because of sin in their life or because they didn’t go to there to listen in the first place.
I worked with a man who had pastored on Cape Breton Island and he told me about a woman who faithfully attended every Sunday. He went to visit her and asked her how she was enjoying the series he was doing and she said, “Oh, I never listen to a word you say. You see my mother is buried right outside the church and every Sunday morning I feel like I’m spending time with her.” So, not everyone is paying attention.
I remember someone asking me if I knew whether people were paying attention or not and I said, “Of course, you see, when people are thinking about something other than the message, they stare at you but they never blink.”
II And this brings us to the evidence of their carnality
And their problem according to verse 2 was; they wanted milk and not meat. And the problem we have is we aren’t sure what milk and meat stand for. I think it’s, if the message felt good, it was probably milk but if it made them feel convicted of sin or motivated to serve, then it was meat.
The analogy of meat and milk occurs several times in the New Testament. In 1 Peter 2:2 it says, "Like newborn babes, crave pure spiritual milk so that by it you may grow up in your salvation." And he’s encouraging believers to "grow up," implying that they needed to move away from milk. In Hebrews 5:13,14 the writer says that solid food is of greater value than milk and this indicates that solid food leads to spiritual maturity.
For years I wrestled with how to study the whole of scripture and I tried ‘daily reading guides’ and systems where you read so much of the Old Testament and then so much from the New and then I found myself just reading through the entire Bible all the way and then reading the New Testament three times before going back to the book of Genesis again. And by doing this, I go through the entire Bible and then the New Testament three times every year. And this works for me but everyone has to find a way to get into the scripture on a daily basis.
I remember when I was a new believer that I hated reading the book of Job because it just seemed like three old guys arguing about God who never came to a conclusion. But, after reading it several times I’ve come to appreciate their arguments and see how the whole book fits together. And what I’m saying is; I’ve gone from milk to meat in my appreciation of the word of God.
Then there’s also the element of motivation because the new believer is motivated toward obedience with milk, while the mature Christian with meat.
I think what Paul is saying here is a real putdown because he tells them he wanted to give them meat but they were so worldly he had to give them milk.
So, Paul speaks about three categories of men. There is the natural man who rejects the things of the Spirit; there is the spiritual man who knows and follows the things of God; but here we also see the carnal man who knows the things of God but he’s characterized by the flesh.
I think the real problem with these Corinthian believers was they were attracted to spiritual "junk food," because they were fascinated by all the worldly speakers but they could care less for the word of God itself. They were so full of junk food; they lost their appetite for good food.
There is a man by the name of Morgan Spurlock who decided to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner every day at McDonald’s for 30 days in a row and even though he was taking in about 5,000 calories a day, he said he felt hungry soon after eating.
Within two weeks, his doctors were alarmed by unhealthy blood test results and advised him to quit the experiment but he refused. He felt lousy, but, amazingly, he felt much better as soon as he ate more…His registered dietitian told him he was becoming addicted to the junk food.
By the third week, he began to experience heart palpitations, chest pain, and breathlessness. His doctor told him he was trashing his liver, that it was fatty like that of a long-term alcoholic. All three of his doctors begged him to stop the diet and return to a low-fat diet. Before his 30 days were up, Spurlock was a sick man…he gained a total of 24 pounds in 30 days, had high cholesterol, high blood glucose, and high blood pressure. His liver values indicated he had serious liver damage. His fat level had soared. He…was often moody and exhausted.
And I believe his situation describes the Corinthians because they seemed to be interested in everything but the word of God.
And then in verses 3 and 4 we see Paul’s challenge to the carnal crowd.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
And here he gives us three characteristics of carnality. The first is envy and envy comes from the Greek work Zelos with is the same word that the word jealous comes from. Envy is looking at someone else who is doing well and instead of being happy that God blessed them, the envious person not only wants what they have but wants more than they have.
And that leads to the second characteristic which is strife which is fighting or arguing about something and if you are envious of what someone has and you want it bad enough, it’ll lead to the attitude of striving or wanting more than they have. And then the third carnal characteristic is divisions and that’s the idea of unhealthy competition.
Some of them thought Paul was the greatest and some Apollos and some Cephas or Peter and instead of realizing they all belonged to Jesus, they were worshiping the men who introduced them to Him.
I remember being at a pastor’s conference in Chicago when a pastor got up and talked about John MacArthur’s latest book and indicated how shallow he thought MacArthur’s theology was; and then it came out a few months later that this very man who was condemning John MacArthur was committing adultery with a woman in his church.
So, Paul asks them, who is Paul or Apollos, we aren’t the ones who saved you, we only brought you to Jesus and then he says, “I planted and Apollos watered.” In other words, all of us have different jobs but God is the only one who deserves any credit.
In the foyer of our church we have pictures of previous pastors who have served here and someday and if we live long enough there will also be pictures of Pastor Snel, Pastor Richard and Pastor Andy because someday God will either move them on or take them home. They aren’t the church but are servants of the church.
So, Paul very subtly says, it’s time for the church to grow up; get your eyes off men and get them back on God.
A missionary might labour for years before he sees a single convert but someone with the gift of evangelism may see people saved every week. Just think, Jeremiah was faithful and dedicated but saw very little results while Jonah was petty and rebellious but as I said, he saw 600,000 converts. Listen, each of us will be rewarded according to our labour and not according to the notches on our belt.
So, let me finish with a simple question. How do you feel when God blesses someone you really don’t care for?
I remember when I went to Bible school, there was a guy who I thought was full of himself. After Bible school he went somewhere as a youth pastor and I hadn’t heard of him for years and then one day a friend of mine told he saw this guy at a golf tournament where on the seventh hole they were offering a big prize for anyone who got a hole in one.
The prize was a new car or $10,000 cash. So, when this guy came up to the hole, he yelled, “Everyone watch this, I’m going to get the hole-in-one and then I’ll take the cash rather than the car.” He wound up, took his shot and guess what happened; it went right into the hole.
It’s easier to weep with those who weep than it is to rejoice with those who rejoice but in the end, we’ve come to the conclusion, it was God who blessed him and who are we to question why.
And what Paul is telling these Corinthians what God is telling all of us, it’s time to get your eyes back on God where they belong and start acting mature.
