Paul writes to the church at Corinth to help genuine believers solve their divisions. When you read today’s words from Paul to the church at Corinth, you need to prepare for the knife. Paul writes as one who is taking a scalpel in hand to perform surgery on the church he founded by the grace of God. This is one of those texts that offer tenderhearted hope and tough-minded warning in the very same truth. The hope is especially intended for the earnest struggler in the faith and the warning is especially intended for the careless drifter. And both are intended for the person on the outside looking in this morning, wondering what it might be like if you trusted in Christ and became a Christian.
Today’s Scripture
“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 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? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human” (1 Corinthians 3:1-4)?
Our aim this morning is to sniff out the barnacles of pride inside of each us. Today’s Big Idea: Pride causes division; humility draws the gaze of God.
Paul’s words in verses one through four mark a transition. He’s been talking about what is true wisdom in chapter two. There we discovered that true wisdom is the mind of Christ. Yet, the church often displays a false “intelligence” where you see quarrels. That is exactly what is happening in today’s text. This false intelligence worked to destroy the very church for which Christ died. Despite his transition, Paul is not entertaining about a new subject. Let me help you place some markers down in 1 Corinthians so you can see the contours of Paul’s argument.
Look at back 1 Corinthians 1:10-13 for the first maker: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul” (1 Corinthians 1:10-13)?
Here’s the arrogant hostility Paul references in verse four of today’s text. You can his connection of how he connects the dots between the division of the church and true wisdom if you take your eyes down just a little later in chapter three. Go to verse eighteen for our second marker: “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age… So let no one boast in men” (1 Corinthians 3:18a, 22a). So, here you see how true wisdom doesn’t play games over boasting in men. Godly wisdom fails to divide into which rival pastor to follow.
1. A Christian Is What a Christian Does
Here is Forrest Gump (Stupid is as Stupid Does) meets the Bible. This is the first time in his letter that he sharply criticizes the church. His criticism is simple: they are spiritual but they live as if they didn’t have the Spirit. The church in Corinth was enormously divided. There were divisions over which apostle was superior, sexual morality, lawsuits, marriage, eating meat, headcoverings for women, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts, the resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection of believers, and I’m probably missing some! Paul is speaking to people who are saints who act like sinners: “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1). Look and listen to Paul in verse three: “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” (1 Corinthians 3:3)?
Because of the gift of the Holy Spirit, Christians are graced with seeing and tasting and exulting in gifts that are beyond my ability to comprehend (1 Corinthians 2:9). For all the gifts the Spirit had given them at their conversion, these believers were acting as if they had never been converted. Their actions worked to deny the presence of the Holy Spirit. Every new believer receives the Holy Spirit at conversion: “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9). Yet, their claims to be Christ-like contradicted their actions. They desired status. They displayed jealousy and quarrelling. Their actions were self-centered.
One of my favorite presidents has been Teddy Roosevelt. This charismatic President, childhood asthmatic, and lover of the outdoors has been a favorite of mine since high school. Yet, his daughter may not agree with such a high opinion of her father: “When father goes to a wedding, he wants to be the bride; when he goes to a funeral, he wants to be the corpse.”
This kind of egotism and self-centeredness is a contradiction of Christianity itself. Selfishness and self-centeredness is a fundamental denial of the cross of Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit. A Self-Centered Christian is a Glass Hammer. Glass hammers are only good for are making a mess. And somebody has to clean it up. A self-centered follower of Christ is something akin to: the Dirty Pure… …or Free Slaves… …or Fighting Pacifists. In other words, self-centered Christians are a contradiction. A person cannot be centered on oneself continually and claim to follow Christ. Self-centered people are prideful people.
Pride shows up in different forms and to differing degrees in each of us. Pride infects all of us. One of the biggest problems about the disease of pride is that it has a blinding effect upon those who have it. They had claimed to arrive and were further them Paul himself in their spiritual growth (1 Corinthians 4:8-13). Notice the irony of their supposed wisdom and maturity in contrast to Jesus words: “At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children’” (Matthew 11:26). Here’s the irony of their claims: they bragged about their maturity (as if they had arrived in the pantheon of spiritual status) when in reality they were in “infants in Christ.” Yet, in order to grow from their infancy to adulthood, you must become humble as infants depending on their parents for everything. You are an infant in Christ because of your pride. This is why Paul tells them that he “could not address them as spiritual people” (1 Corinthians 3:1). And pride is a direct contradiction of Christianity. It’s as if you are saying you see black light. It’s the equivalent of shoveling smoke.
Self-centered, prideful Christ followers are genuinely bogus. Paul is not questioning whether they have the Holy Spirit. All of this is because of this first point: a Christian is what a Christian does. Let me break this statement down.
Following Christ happens for anyone and everyone because of grace. You’ll see grace referred to in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that you did not receive” (1 Corinthians 4:7b)? And the answer for followers of Christ is nothing. Everything we possess as believers is because of the grace of God. Conversion is because God pursuing rebels who want nothing to do with God or Jesus Christ. I say rebels intentionally. Before you came to faith in Christ, your desires and your drives were all sinful. And when the Holy Spirit came, you resisted His grace as a homeowner resists an intruder. At our birth, our first love becomes our slave – we love sin and we love ourselves. We cannot break free. We are in the grip of a strong evil that we revel in. We enjoy it. We can and do not want to break free. When the Holy Spirit comes, He must conquer your soul.
The Holy Spirit has no peaceful and quiet place to land when He first enters into you. You don’t want the Holy Spirit in your life because you are hostile to God (Romans 8:6). Much like the Battle of Iwo Jima, when the Holy Spirit conquers the sinful person – it’s fierce fighting for your soul. The island of Iwo Jima was essential as the US would launch raids on Japan from these bases. Iwo Jima was the American battle, late in World War 2, where some 26,000 Americans were either wounded or killed in order for us to control this small island. The Spirit can set foot on no ground but which He must fight for. Yet, the price was paid.
Christ becomes our Redeemer – He releases slaves of sin because He paid the price on the cross. Christ-followers are graces with divine rescue. This is grace. So to say that “a Christian is what a Christian does” is not to infer we are self-made people. We are anything but self-made people. Instead, we are people who have experience divine grace that we have not and do not deserve. This is essential. Christ-followers are people who experience divine grace that we do not deserve. And when we experience this grace, it will transform us. Followers of Christ are spring-loaded to love Him.
This is Paul’s underlying assumption in verses one through four. His assumption is that a Christian cannot deny the transforming power of God’s grace. The Christian cannot consistently deny God’s grace over a lifetime. Why? Because Christ-followers are internally wired to obey Christ. The follower of Christ has an inner power, the Holy Spirit, and He generates humility. He annihilates pride.
Think of an artificial Christmas tree in comparison to a living tree, say an Florida Orange Tree. You have to place decorations on an artificial Christmas tree. Without someone placing ornaments on it, the artificial Christmas tree is bland and lifeless. The orange tree is living and it will produce fruit. The fruit is internally generated. The artificial tree has to be decorated from the outside.
Christ followers are spring-loaded, internally calibrated to live humbly and continually ward of pride and arrogance. When you line yourself up behind one teacher or leader in a spirit of arrogance and superiority, you are denying the fundamental power of Christian – humble grace.
A Quick Summary: Humility draws the gaze of God. Humility is an advertisement of the Holy Spirit at work in a person’s life. Pride and strife are contradictions of the Spirit’s work. It’s like Chevrolet executives driving Fords. Believers can take confidence that God’s Spirit is inside them and He will produce humility. The Spirit will produce godliness.
2. There are No Two Classes of Christians: Holiness isn’t Optional
“I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready…” (1 Corinthians 3:2).
Self-Centeredness is Self-Destruction. Their self-centeredness has caused quarrelling. Their quarrelling has caused confusion over the nature of church leadership (1 Corinthians 3:5-15). Their confusion and quarrelling has even caused these saints to lose their grip on the nature of the church itself (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Paul had lived in Corinth for eighteen months where he had expected these young Christian to more transformed (Acts 18:11).
Now we read his letter to them several years after he left, and their squabbling was inexcusable. Paul has been contrasting Christians (those with the Spirit) and non-Christians (those without the Spirit) in the first two (2) chapters (1 Corinthians 2:14-15). He advances his argument not by comparing Christians to non-Christians but by comparing Christians who are controlled by the Spirit and those who are not. His central idea regarding this distinction is that the Holy Spirit indwells Christians and non-Christians are not.
Perhaps the most famous articulation of these verses is by the parachurch ministry Campus Crusade for Christ. They articulate three kinds of people:
1. Those who are not Christians and sit on the throne of their life as their own Lord;
2. Those who are Christians but continue to sit on the throne of their life as their own Lord (carnal Christians). The word carnal is used in the King James Version of the Bible where modern translations have the word “flesh” in verse two;
3. And those who are Christians but have Jesus sitting on the throne of their life as their Lord (spiritual Christians).
But is this what Paul meant? Is it truly possibly to be a Christian and have Jesus solely as your savior and not your Lord? If you simply pray a prayer to be saved but do not continue in an ongoing lifestyle marked by repentance of sin and faith in Jesus, were you ever really a Christian, or did you lose your salvation and stop being a Christian?
Let’s look closely at the Scriptures. First, notice that Paul calls them “brothers” in verse one. Look also at verse six: “even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you” (1 Corinthians 1:6). Earlier Paul said that they have been called by Jesus (1:26), and that they received spiritual gifts (1:5-14). Additionally, these people have not lost their salvation but have grown spiritually (1:7; 12:13), have the Holy Spirit (2:12-14), which is the mark of a true Christian (Romans 8:9; Galatians 3:2-3; Titus 3:5-7), and continue as members of their church (1 Corinthians 14), wrestling through theological and moral issues (1 Corinthians 8-10). Any person who is truly a follower of Christ can take confidence: “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). And look and listen to this: “I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready…” (1 Corinthians 3:2).
The reason why Paul cannot feed them meat and must give them milk is not because they have failed to progress from the kindergarten diet to the doctoral level diet. There is no distinction between the Gospel for the message of the cross is both milk and meat. The mature and the immature are offered the same meal. The problem with the immature is that they refuse to eat. They refuse to allow the Word to penetrate them.
What does Paul mean by “people of the flesh” in verse one? Or his own question in verse four: “are you not being merely human” (1 Corinthians 3:4)? Paul is frustrated with their stubborn refusal to quit squabbling. He expects them to repent. This is also a test for all of us: “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). Remember … “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:13).
3. There’s Danger Here
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” Matthew 7:21-23).
To be self-centered is sin. To determine if you are self-centered, you need to know your affections. Your affections are what drive you.
To determine what drives you, review what your mind dwells on. What is it that you daydream about when a preacher is preaching? What is it that you imagine yourself doing when your thoughts venture away from work or school? Again, to be self-centered in sin. There is racial prejudice in us. There is a drive with the applause of others inside of us- we fight against the need to seen as great. But then conversion happens. Paul describes this powerful change this way: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And when Christ enters into you, your heart becomes a battlefield. You experience a tireless dispute where the old nature interferes with the new nature. To be God-centered and in love with Christ is Christianity.
Yet, followers of Christ experience a tug of war between the self-centeredness of their past and their new desire to make Christ the center of their new world. The fight with sin is lifelong. It’s as if the believer must act as the warden of a prisoner who is only released at the believer’s death. Consequently, if you are going to follow Christ after your conversions, you must be continually reminded that Christianity is founded upon self-distrust. Self-confidence and self-satisfaction are the works of Satan. The only healthy Christian is the humble Christian. This is the soil where godliness grows.
Factions do reveal false Christians. How? They expose an unwillingness to submit to the apostles’ teaching is certainly one thing (1 Corinthians 11:16). But a lack of love is the biggie (1 Corinthians 13). Paul said love is greater than faith (1 Corinthians 13:13). And if we have truth and not love, we’re nothing (1 Corinthians 13:2). Nothing. If these Corinthians continue to slip, they’ll need to ask themselves the question Paul commands us to ask in 2 Corinthians 13:5: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you fail to meet the test” (2 Corinthians 13:5)!
What are some signs of spiritual health?
1. Do you stir up animosity among people?
2. Do you have a spirit of peace?
3. Do you display acts of kindness toward others?
4. Do you have an earnest desire for the salvation of others?
The Christian walk is much like riding a bicycle; we are either moving forward or falling off.
