Adoniram Judson was a missionary to Burma (today it is Myanmar). His faithful wife Ann had followed her husband from prison to prison as he was arrested for sharing the Gospel. She had died from spotted fever and cerebral meningitis the year before (April 24, 1827). Her death had affected her husband in a deep way. When learning about his wife, he became a hermit in the jungle and stared at her grace. He struggled believing in God: “God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in Him, but I find Him not.” Yet in 1828, missionary Adoniram Judson came into contact with the Karen people. The Karen people were a race of wild people living in a remote and almost inaccessible jungle. Judson had longed to win just one person from Karen to Christ. He had his opportunity when a Christian sold a Karen slave named Ko Tha Byu one day in a bazaar. The Christian brought Ko, the Karen slave, to Judson. Ko had taken part of approximately thirty murders. He was a hardened criminal with a vicious nature. Patiently, prayerfully, Judson taught Ko. In time, Ko yielded to the transforming power of Christ. He soon became a flaming evangelist among His people. A century later, the Christian Karens have more than 800 churches, splendid high school, hundreds of village schools, and more than 150,000 people who confess Christ.
Today’s Scripture
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building” (1 Corinthians 3:5-9).
Today’s Big Idea: A pastor is a man who is sent by God to save people from hell to make them Christ-exalting, spiritual aliens in this world.
In a series of three paragraphs, Paul uses images from both agriculture (this week) and architecture (next week) to show us the nature of church and its leadership. The church is Corinth was designed to show people way to avoid hell and to make them Christ-exalting, spiritual aliens in Corinth. Instead, it was filled with strife. Paul aims to recalibrate the church he started. He writes the letter to Corinth, this upstart city no more than a century old, where he makes the following argument. In chapter one, he tells us that the cross is God’s wisdom and it precludes all boasting. Especially boasting in men. In chapter two, Paul tells us that since this wisdom is available to those who have the Spirit, the Corinthian believers should have known it. Instead, they are carrying on from the point of view of the “flesh,” as those who have missed the meaning of the cross (1 Corinthians 3:3).
Their strife and quarreling represents their old way of living – living as mere humans. At issue isn’t just their fighting. The issue is much bigger than this. At issue is their radically misguided perception of what the church is and what church leadership is. There are two dangers you and I must avoid when evaluating pastors/preachers: 1) We must guard against those who make too much of the “names” of big-time leaders (verse five); 2) We must guard against those who wish to make too little of the pastor/preacher (verse six).
1. Don’t Exaggerate the Work of the Pastors
Big names often draw us to some event or conference. Certainly big names within preaching, draw people to certain church. From the days of the New Testament until now, people like to hang on the coattails of rising stars. It’s as if we can somehow link ourselves to them and borrow their prestige. This was happening in Corinth. Look at the question posed verse four: “For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not being merely human” (1 Corinthians 3:4)? They were boasting in their individual teachers as if they could “belong” to them in some way. We are given several reasons why we shouldn’t exaggerate the work of church leaders by lining up behind one at the expense of another.
1.1 They are Servants of Jesus Christ
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each” (1 Corinthians 3:5).
The word for “servants” is the word deacon. It’s used to describe a waiter. Yet, Paul uses agriculture as a metaphor to argue his point. He uses the metaphor of a farm. Church leaders are God’s servants and they serve to advance the Gospel – see the word “believed” in verse five? They didn’t come to believe in Paul or Apollos. They believed through Paul and Apollos. They believed in Christ. When you get a letter from your lover, you shouldn't fall in love with the mailman. God is the great one to be prized not Paul and Apollos.
If you could picture pastoral ministry, you would picture a cross. Pastors not only point people to the cross, they do their work in the form of the cross. The cross is not only the goal of a pastor’s ministry, the cross is the means of how they do ministry. Remember the story in the Gospels where James and John fight over who gets to sit next to Jesus in heaven? Remember their actions were like first-graders about who is going to be the line-leader?
And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. 42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:41-45)
It’s embarrassing how much James and John valued themselves.
Jesus Himself stands in stark contrast to these two men.
Jesus both personally modeled and died in order to show us what true greatness was.
This is a reminder to all of us to serve with humility.
Jesus came to serve humanity by dying as a ransom (Mark 10:45).
His death rescues sinners from their captivity in sin.
Since we cannot free ourselves from the bondage to sin, His death is necessary.
The point of pastors is serving.
The picture of serving is the cross.
And the cross transforms.
After Christ’s resurrection, James was the first of the apostles to be martyred.
John writes about Christ’s service and love toward us:
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (1 John 3:16)
It is remarkable to see the fundamental change in both of these men after Christ had died as a ransom for them.
The second reason we shouldn’t exaggerate the work of church leaders…
1.2 The Servants Are Owned by God.
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.” (1 Corinthians 3:5-9)
God’s bigness and majesty and control and sovereignty are all over these verses.
The Corinthians are the field – “You are God's field…” (1 Corinthians 3:9b)
The workers in the field are people like Paul and Apollos and they belong to God.
“For we are God's fellow workers.” (1 Corinthians 3:9a)
God owns the field and God owns the workers.
HE assigns the workers their duties (see verse five).
Paul is not the rock star because he started the church.
And don’t make Apollos out to be the Jonas Brothers because he is a better speaker than Paul.
Both have their duties assigned to them by God.
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.”
1 Corinthians 3:5
It’s the Boss who assigns to each farmhand (church leader) their role.
Ministers come and go, but God’s own work continues.
And HE alone makes the seed grow.
The unique, sovereign, life-giving authority and power of God puts him so far above us
that our subordinate roles should not impress you.
In fact…
Apollos and I amount to nothing compared to God.
1.3 The Servants are Teammates.
“He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.”
1 Corinthians 3:8
There is a division of labor.
The two men are on equal footing in their work at the farm.
Both men want to see the crop grow.
To rank pastors according to their jobs is foolish because it is the Lord who “assigned to each” (1 Corinthians 3:5).
Pastors have not reach their status by ambition or natural gift, but by the specific assignment of the Lord.
To follow one church leader as opposed to another is ridiculous because they are on the same team.
“For we are God's fellow workers.” (1 Corinthians 3:9a)
Their aim is one – the harvest.
Their aim is to:
A PASTOR IS A MAN WHO IS SENT BY GOD TO SAVE PEOPLE FROM HELL TO MAKE THEM CHRIST-EXALTING, SPIRITUAL ALIENS IN THIS WORLD.
They have one purpose but different gifts.
When you focus on the differences between church leaders, you’re demonizing what God has given you for your common good.
When you follow one leader at the expense of another godly leader, you are rejecting the common good God has given you.
2. Don’t Understate the Work of Pastors (verse 8).
Ministry is not a throw away job.
To switch metaphors from the farm to the sea, God uses the church leader as a rudder to guide His church.
“He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.” (1 Corinthians 3:8)
Pastor/preachers do not deserve your allegiance.
They do deserve your gratitude.
Preachers should not preach for an Entertainment Weekly style of ministry.
Yet, just because ministry is devoid of people allegiance doesn’t make ministry a throwaway position.
You are to fawn over them in a game of one-upmanship.
This kind of allegiance makes too much of one person.
Yet, mark this.
There is a distinction between Paul and Apollos and the Corinthian believers.
“ For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.” (1 Corinthians 3:9)
It is essential to make this distinction, as each church leader would ultimately be paid the highest compliment – their reward in Jesus Christ.
While it’s possible to make too much of church leaders, verse six (6) tells us that God has ordered the church to make pastor’s work indispensable.
For you to understand this, you need to know something about Corinth.
Several months ago when I introduced the letter of 1 Corinthians to you, I talked about the Isthmian games.
Second only to the Olympic games, the Isthmian games were very popular for Corinth.
One of the competitive games was rhetoric where contestants competed for applause.
There primary method of building a reputation was through their method of speaking.
We might call them rhetoric conventions.
They were even called in to entertain guests between courses at banquets.
Paul was no professional lecturer.
He could have chosen to be funded by patron – a wealthy man who pays for someone skilled in speaking.
When the patron’s speaker is popular enough to be asked to speak, the wealthy patron status is highly esteemed.
Paul choose to make tents or leather goods to make his living.
Pastors are to understand WHOSE they are.
“He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.” (1 Corinthians 3:8)
A godly man refuses to get his props from either wealthy patrons or the people in Corinth.
Apollos and Paul will be rewarded for their watering and planting in the fields one day.
Instead, he labors under Another who determines his pay.
Today, status and popularity are not gained through rhetoric but lights and music and dress and hair.
Preaching should not aim to please the audience because the audience would then shape the Gospel.
Someone has said that, “Coolness often arrives with tats and having your children live in three different cities.”
Instead, Paul’s style was simple in order that he drew no attention to himself.
Paul did not come to Corinth with a cocky air about him.
There was no swagger or vanity or ostentation about him as he arrived in Corinth.
If I could choose a symbolic sound that First Baptist Church would come to be known for, you know what it would be?
The swish of the pages of 700 Bibles turning simultaneously to the morning and evening texts.
Good preaching should be able to answer three questions:
(1) What was the point of the sermon?;
(2) Did you see the point in the text of Scripture that was read?;
(3) Did the application (what you were supposed to do) connected to the big point?
John Newton tells a story of visiting a young woman who died too soon from “a lingering consumption.”
She was plain.
She could read her Bible, but had read little else.
Newton supposes she never traveled more than twelve miles from home.
A few days before her death, Newton prayed with her and “thanked the Lord that he gave her now to see that she had not followed cunningly-devised fables.”
At this last remark the woman repeated Newton’s words and said, “No, not cunningly-devised fables; these are realities indeed.”
Then she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon her pastor and reminded him of his weighty vocation.
“Sir, you are highly favoured in being called to preach the gospel. I have often heard you with pleasure; but give me leave to tell you, that I now see all you have said, or can say, is comparatively but little. Nor, till you come into my situation, and have death and eternity in full view, will it be possible for you to conceive the vast weight and importance of the truths you declare. Oh! Sir, it is a serious thing to die; no words can express what is needful to support the soul in the solemnity of a dying hour.”
3. Do Concentrate on the Work of God (verse 7).
This world ignores God.
Oftentimes, it hates God.
But mostly it ignores him.
I feel a great burden to provide a vision of God that for almost all of you is being attacked by the secular air you breath during 100 hours of your life every week.
I feel the burden to cry out with warning against how much of the God-ignoring world we evangelicals absorb without even knowing it.
Paul doesn’t belittle his calling.
But we need to learn something here about how to speak of our worth and God's worth in relation to each other.
Today almost all the logic goes in one direction: since God stoops to use me, I am really somebody.
But in Paul's thinking the logic goes in the other direction.
Look at 1 Corinthians 1:28–29.
This is a good commentary on 3:7 and the idea that Paul and Apollos were nothing:
“God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:28-29)
In other words, the 20th century tendency is to say, “God chose to use me, so aren't I somebody.”
And Paul's tendency is to say, “God chose to use me, so isn't He somebody!”
Today’s Big Idea
A PASTOR IS A MAN WHO IS SENT BY GOD TO SAVE PEOPLE FROM HELL TO MAKE THEM CHRIST-EXALTING, SPIRITUAL ALIENS IN THIS WORLD.
I began today’s message with Adoniram Judson and I want to visit him again.
In 1831, Judson attended a great annual Buddhist festival in Rangoon.
He said he distributed 10,000 tracts and 6,000 people came to his home.
They said to him, “Sir, we hear that there is an eternal hell. We are afraid of it. Do go give us a writing that will tell us how to escape it.”
Others came and said, “Sir we have seen a writing that tells about an eternal God. Are you the man that gives away such writings? If so, give us on, for we want to know the truth before we die.”
Still others come from the interior of the country, where the name of Jesus Christ is little known.
They asked Judson “Are you Jesus Christ’s man? Give us a writing that tells about Jesus Christ.”
