We Are Labourers For God

I Corinthians 3:1-9

Topic: We are laborers together with God

The church is in Corinth was located in the southern part of Greece. The church in Corinth was founded by the Apostle Paul during his second missionary tour, where he had spent a year and an half teaching the word of God to the Christians in Corinth. According to I Corinthians 16:8, the Apostle Paul was in Ephesus when he had heard about the disturbing news about what was going on in the church in Corinth. The news was that there was a division, a split taking place in the church. There was a lot of jealousy, strife, and immorality that was taking place in the church. And it is sad, but true; in many of our churches today there are divisions, splits taking place in many of our churches, and there are lot of churches throughout the world where churches are being affected by jealousy, strife, and immorality by the membership.

You see, in the church at Corinth, instead of loving each other, the church in Corinth had people in there hating one another. According to I Corinthians, the Christians in the church in the Corinthian church was hating each other so much that they were taking each other to court and suing each other in court over some small matters that could have been solved among themselves in the church in love. Instead of living in holiness, there were some people in the Corinthian church that was living in gross immorality. According to I Corinthians 5, there was a young man in the Corinthian church that was having a love affair with his step-mother.

Also in the church in Corinth, instead of sanctifying the elements of God , the people were playing with the elements of God. According to I Corinthians 11, the people in the Corinthian church were using the Lord’s Supper as a time to have dinner and to get drunk, when it was suppose to be the time to observe and remember how our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ had suffered and died on the cross for our sins. You see, in the Lord Supper, the bread represent the body of Christ, and the wine represent the blood of Christ that was shed for the remission of our sins. That is why the Apostle Paul told them thata if they got hungry during the Lord’s supper, they were to eat at home because the Lord’s supper was not a play thing. People was getting sick and was actually dying for playing around with the Lord’s supper. That is why Paul told the church in Corinth that before you take of the Lord’s supper, you need to examine yourself and pray and ask God forgiveness of your sins.

Now in I Corinthians 3, the Apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Corinthians church that they became Christians, when he first came unto them, he could not speak to them as if they already knew the Lord, but as if they were carnal, babes in Christ. You see, the people who lived in Corinth were Greeks, and they were exposed to a lot of Greek mythology, idol worship, vain philosophy, and gross immorality. And with this in mind, when Paul first starting preaching and teaching in the city of Corinth, he came with this one simple message: Jesus Christ and Him crucified and the plan of salvation.

And after the people in Corinth had received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, the Apostle Paul spent time teaching the new Corinthians Christians the milk of the word. He taught them the milk of the word because they were newborn babes in Christ, and was not yet ready for the meat of the Word. Now the milk of the Word are the elementary principles o the Christian faith such as:

1 The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

2. The plan of Salvation

3. What is the bible

4. How to Pray and worship

5. How to receive forgiveness of sins

6. How to have faith and live for Christ

The Apostle Paul taught them (Corinthian Christians) the basic principles of the Christian faith so they can grow up in Christ and to be able to receive the meat of the word later.

But after hearing the news about what was going on in the church in Corinth, the Apostle Paul was greatly disappointed. He had discovered that the Christians in Corinth, whom he had spent a year and a half teaching the Word of God to so they may grow up in Christ, have not yet grown up in Christ and they are still babes in Christ because they were fussing and fighting each other in the church.

Now something is wrong when a child is being fed with mild and food, and have not yet shown any growth since they day of their birth. Usually when a child has not shown any physical or mental growth since their day of birth of birth, the doctors will diagnose the child physically and mentally handicapped.