In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul says a divided church is an immature church. But what does a mature church look like? How does God build a mature church? Join us as we discover these truths together.
In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul says a divided church is an immature church. But what does a mature church look like? How does God build a mature church? Join us as we discover these truths together.
Hey man, good morning West Town. My name is Morgan Lusk. I'm the assistant pastor here and would love to get a chance to meet you, if I've not met you before. I also want to let you in on a little secret. You know you're currently in a worship service, but what you may not know, you're also currently in a session meeting. Session meeting is a meeting of our elders, and we're in a session meeting right now because we're going to be installing and ordaining one new elder and three new deacons at the end of this service, and that has to be done in a session meeting. So welcome to this session meeting and please stick around. After communion is when we'll do the ordination and installation. It's really exciting what a privilege we have to get to do that and for those men, and so we'll get to sharing that together later in the service.
Speaker 1:But for now we are going to be looking at 1 Corinthians 3, and our topic today is mature churches. What does a mature church look like? And I also want to pay careful attention to this text, to how I believe all members, all Christians in a church have a role to play, a vital role to play in building the church. Before we looked at that. We're going to be looking at just a little bit about spiritual immaturity and what that might look like. Let's look at just verses 1 through 4 of 1 Corinthians 3 to start off. Paul writes but I, brothers, could not address you as a spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it, and even now you are not yet ready, 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? For when one says I follow Paul and another I follow Apollos, are you not merely being human? So we've kind of talked ad nauseam in this book so far about divisions in the church and how some people in Corinth really were excited about Paul and some were excited about Apollos. In fact, they were so excited about these human leaders that they were dividing the church over who was following who.
Speaker 1:And what Paul is saying here is that divisiveness reveals a level of spiritual immaturity of that church. He says you know, I would expect this kind of thing from spiritual immature Christians, and so that must be what you are. If you were mature, we would not have this divisiveness over non-essentials. So he says I had to talk to you like babies. You know how we talk differently to our toddlers, you know? Do you want something to eat? You know? Do you want? Do you need to go to the bathroom? That's kind of how he had to talk to this church. So that brings up the topic.
Speaker 1:Then, if that's what a spiritually immature church is, or if that's what a spiritually immature church is I think I just combined immature and church into immature, which is anyway what should we expect from a mature church? Let's look at verses five through nine. He says what, then, is Apollo's, what is Paul's servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each? I planted, apollo's watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, god's building.
Speaker 1:What he's saying here is that mature churches depend on the power of God, not on human strategy or skill. He says don't put your hope in human leaders, don't put your hope in Paul or Apollo's in West town in 2024. Don't put your hope in me. Don't put your hope in CJ or Dr Clark or whoever the next senior pastor of this church might be, or any elder or any deacon. Who are those guys? Those are servants. Those are messengers of God's word. We are ambassadors of the good news of Christ. We're just vessels through which God displays his power. We don't have any real power.
Speaker 1:So Paul explains this by asking us to consider farming and how farming works. So a farmer goes out and he plants a seed and he waters that seed when the plants start to grow. He's pulling weeds In our day and age. He's spraying it with insecticides and he's putting up fences to keep the pests out. So all kinds of work that a farmer has to do. Farmers work really long hours and really hard, but despite all that work they cannot make a seed grow. One most vital of things. They can't do it. Only God has the power to do that. So if that's the truth, then why would we put our hope in a farmer? The farmer, if he believes in God, he's putting his hope in God to grow his crops. So should we?
Speaker 1:We were at a privilege to go to a lightning game a couple of weeks ago, and it was one of these games where I mean, they were just on fire. There were six goals, which in hockey that's a lot, and that's like 56 points in football or something right. And so it was just so exciting to watch those guys. Those guys are so talented, they're doing all this stuff and they're skating on ice I cannot even fathom this and so it's just so fun to watch. You know what else is fun to watch are the Zambonis, right? I mean, particularly if you have a certain type of personality, it's so nice to see the ice get smoothed. You know, you see those smooth lines, you know, and that's what the Zamboni does. If you don't know what a Zamboni is, it was invented by Frank Zamboni, it was. It's an ice resurfacer, so they make the ice smooth. Anyway, I bring that up because a Zamboni doesn't win you a hockey game, right? Stephen Stamkos and Braden Point and Cooch and the Big Cat, those are the guys that win you hockey games. But imagine if you went to a Lightning game and you were like I'm here for the Zambonis, that's, you got a Zamboni shirt on, right.
Speaker 1:That's what Paul's trying to say here, for us to put our hope in human leaders in the church is the same thing as putting your hope in Zambonis when you a hockey game. It doesn't work. The Zamboni has no power other than to sort of pave the way for the players to win, and that's what a human leader in a church does. I'm just here to be a vessel through which God is going to display his power, hopefully, hopefully, and that's all I'm here to do. I am not here to be any kind of powerful person or to have me be the point of anything. And no pastor, no elder, no youth director, no worship leader, no Bible study leader, none of them are there to do that. None of them are there to change a person's heart because guess what? We can't, we have no power to change a human heart, and only God has that kind of power.
Speaker 1:You know, speaking of a senior pastor, I do hope, and I think we all hope, that we'll have a new senior pastor sometime soon and maybe he will captivate us with his preaching, maybe he will wow us with his ideas and his experience. But I just want to say that, whoever this man is, if he is not a humble servant of God who wants to be a vessel through which God will display his power, his ministry here will be fruitless. It'll amount next to nothing because it'll be all about him and not about God. On the flip side, I think if you look at the past couple of years, we've not had a senior pastor in two and a half years. We had Dwight, who was an awesome interim pastor, but he wasn't a senior pastor.
Speaker 1:And what's happened here? Well, the church has grown steadily, a little bit in numbers, but the church has grown by leaps and bounds in maturity. This church is not the same church it was three years ago, especially when it comes to Christian maturity, and that is not a testament to any human being. That's a testament to what God has done here, and God has in some ways shown us that he doesn't need human leaders to grow a church. I think if we take that away from the last three years, then we'll have learned the right lesson.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to downplay the importance of a senior pastor. All I'm trying to say is that, whether it's a senior pastor or a youth small group leader or anybody else in between, we are here to depend on the power of God. That's what the church depends on. It depends on the power of God to change a human heart and it depends on the power of God to build a church. You know, we Americans we love to use our business practices and try to translate them over to a church. So we do a lot of strategic planning in churches. We set goals, we have mission statements, we have vision casting events. But even with all that, we must remember that it is God that provides the power for growth in a church.
Speaker 1:I was on a mission trip once on the south side of Chicago and we were at a church and listening to a sermon and the pastor was talking about this very thing, about strategic planning. He said we had a strategic planning session with our leadership and we were thinking about all these different new ideas for vision and mission and we were putting ideas on the board and when I saw a good idea, he's like I would circle it with a big bubble. You know, he said maybe a week later or so he felt really convicted about that session because he said I realized we didn't really pray a whole lot about what God wanted us to do. We didn't really consider what God's goals might be for our church. And he said and I think I heard God say to me I don't care about y'all bubbles, and I was like that's a really important lesson that God does not care what our goals are. If they're not his goals, if they're not what he wants the church to be doing, let us look to him first. I mean, there's nothing wrong with strategic planning. It's a great tool that we can use. But let's strategically plan to figure out what God wants us to do and then do that.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm trying to say here, because the truth is Psalm 127.1,. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. So we must depend on the power of God, and if we do that, we have everything we need to build a church. And so what we'll see next is that mature churches are built by equipped members doing ministry. Mature churches are built by equipped members doing ministry. Verses 10 through 17,.
Speaker 1:Paul writes, according to the grace of God given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw. Each one's work will become manifest For the day. We'll disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that everyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Speaker 1:Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, god will destroy him, for God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Just up front. I wanna address this idea of us being God's temple, of the Holy Spirit. That's gonna come up later in 1 Corinthians. We'll have probably a whole sermon on that.
Speaker 1:But that's just to say that if you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit is dwelling inside of you, and Paul gives a really stark warning to anybody that would come and destroy that temple, in other words, to sway someone away from the faith. He says if you're a wolf in the church, if you're a false teacher in the church, if you come and you are intentionally trying to sow seeds of deception and to destroy, then you need to be warned because you will not be saved if you continue on that path. Repent, turn from your false teaching, turn from your attempts to destroy, repent and come to Jesus. That's the big warning that he gives them. He also says in here that if you try to build with cheap materials, in other words, if your efforts in building up a church are, they're just not very fruitful, well, that'll be revealed in the end and you'll still be saved. At least you tried, at least you tried right. Maybe that's what he'll say to me at the end.
Speaker 1:But the real point of this passage is that he compares a mature church to a building. He says that all mature churches have the same foundation and that's Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the authority of the church because it's his church Matthew 16, 18. Jesus says and I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That small two letter personal pronoun carries great weight and meaning, because Jesus is saying this is my church, it is mine, all of it is mine. There is no church that's a church that isn't Jesus's church, and so, because it's his, he is our authority and we're called to do as a church what he tells us to do in his word.
Speaker 1:And I believe he gives us very simple, straightforward goals for every church. Whether you're in West Chaser, in West Africa, it's the same goals for every church. It's to worship God, it is to preach the gospel, it is to gather and then equip believers and it is to share the good news of Jesus with non-believers both in your community and around the world. That is the goal of every single church. Now that goal is gonna like. How we pursue those goals are gonna look different depending on context. It's not gonna be the same in West Chays as it is in West Africa. Just context is so different that the way this is done is going to look different. But every church has that same mission. So if a church does not have that mission, if a church says I'm gonna pursue something completely different, I don't care what Jesus says, then that is not a church. That's a human institution that is following human goals and depending on human power.
Speaker 1:So in Corinth, paul says I came and I laid this foundation, which is Jesus Christ, the only foundation that can be laid for a church. And then he says I left. All right, he left, he went somewhere else. So I think he went to Ephesus, next, started another church and Apollos came behind and he built the rest of the structure. He framed it out, he put the roof on. He you know if I guess they didn't really have drywall then, but they put drywall up and put plumbing in and all that.
Speaker 1:We don't know a lot about Apollos, right, we just know that he was a gifted leader and preacher. We know that because he had a following in Corinth, like people wanted to follow him over and above everybody else, to the point that they were kind of idolizing him. And Apollos, by the way, would have been absolutely mortified by this because he knew the point is Jesus, it's not, it's not Apollos. The only other thing we really know about Apollos is what he wasn't. He was not an apostle. He was not an apostle like Peter or Paul. He was just a dude, as far as we know. But look at what this dude did. He came and he built up this church.
Speaker 1:And I say that as a statement of importance, because many in the American church believe that the work of building the church is better left to the professionals. It's better left to the staff and the pastors, that church members, christians every day Christians are just here to come and be fed. And I wanna tell you that, according to the scriptures, there's nothing that can be further from that truth. Ephesians 4, 11 and 12 says and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers two to do what? To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. I've said this before but I wanna be clear that the word saint in the Bible is not talking about some elite holy person, it's talking about every Christian. The word means set apart ones. If you are set apart for Jesus Christ and you belong to him, you're a saint. So just want that to be clear. But what this means is that the role of hired workers in the church pastors, staff it is not our role to come and do all the ministry, it's our role to equip Christians to do the ministry in the church. So if you're teaching Kittstown, if you're greeting visitors at the door, if you're singing in the choir, if you're leading a youth small group, if you're pulling weeds at work day or if you're sharing your faith with skeptics, you're doing ministry that helps to build the church and that is your purpose. That's why we want to equip you. We wanna do things to equip you.
Speaker 1:The apologetic seminar that we mentioned earlier is about equipping. If you ever feel like you're in a conversation with somebody and they have a very different viewpoint of morality than you, man, wouldn't it be great to know how to talk to them about that in a confident way? That's exactly what that seminar is gonna be about. And it's free, so, and there's food and there's childcare. So, gotta, just come, just check it out. But the goal is to equip. So we are not just Consumers here. Yes, come and consume, come and be fed, come and get full, come and have fellowship. But we are more than that.
Speaker 1:If we're members of a church, think about it like this what would the church look like if it was a business? It is not a business, it is not meant to be run like a business, but we can use some business models to help us a little bit. But think about this, look at this slide and think who you, who you would think, fills each one of these categories. I'll give you a minute to think about that and then I'll give you the right answers. So, not according. Not according to me, according to the scriptures, who would be the owner? Who would be the employers, the employees and the customers? I think we probably all agree that the owner is God, right, I mean, it's, it's Jesus's church. It's really hard to argue with that in scripture. But the employers, from a biblical point of view, are the, the elders, the deacons, the staff, the leadership of the church. They're the ones keeping us on mission, equipping members to do ministry. And then who are the employees? It's the members.
Speaker 1:This is maybe the one where most people disagree, because, again, a lot of people think church members are just come to be customers and consumers. But no, you are here for a purpose, to do a job, to do ministry. And then the, the customers, are Also members, because you're also here to come and be fed. But then non-believers in the community and guess as well. And this just hopefully, is a helpful idea of what the structure of a church really also look like according to scripture.
Speaker 1:Because God has us here to worship, to fellowship, to grow, yes, but also to do ministry, not just to watch ministry happen. It's not why we're here, and maybe you hear that and you think that is not why I'm here. You're right, I'm here to. My life is crazy. Monday through Saturday it is chaos, and I'm here for a break. I'm here to come and just rest and maybe, maybe that's what you need for a season. Maybe your life is Just so crazy that you need to come and just kind of be fed. That's great. But eventually that season, lord willing, is going to end and when it does, if you're a believer in Christ, your call is to step up and serve in the church.
Speaker 1:God is not inviting us just to consume but to build, and what we build Really can be anything we want in the church, as long as we're building on the foundation that is Jesus Christ and as long as we are building in a way that fits the mission that Jesus Christ has given us in the scriptures. So you can come, like the Apologics seminar that was. That was Winston Dubose came and said, hey, I want to do this Apologics seminar, how do we do this? And I said let me equip you and he's off and running. Okay, but there's also things that you can do where, where you can come and just join in to stuff that's already being built. Right, I mean, someone asked me recently how do we know if, if, ministries at West Town need help and I said well, if there is a ministry at West Town, you can assume it needs volunteer help, because we all need more volunteers. And this is why, like, for instance, there's a youth ministry partner lunch today after Second service and what they want to do is is give vision, cast vision for, for serving in the youth ministry, for being a volunteer in the youth ministry. Why not go check it out? As I say that they're probably like we don't have enough food, but I'm sure we can. God will multiply it, it'll be okay. Go check it out, see how, see how God might call you to serve in the youth ministry. There are needs everywhere, but maybe you're reluctant.
Speaker 1:I had a friend, really good friend of mine. We were on the men's retreat last weekend which, by the way, men, go ahead and put it in your Google calendar February 7th and 8th 2025 is the next ministry treat. But we were talking and he said you know, he was going to West Town for a while and he was always reluctant to serve. He was always reluctant to get involved. And you know if at some point he just said yes. He said yes one time to one thing and he said I've served ever since. I've loved it. It's brought me joy. I've never looked back. He serves a ton Now and he said all it takes is saying yes once. What could you say yes to? One thing, what could you say yes to? And maybe you're wondering well, what's in it for me? What are the benefits? That's appropriate because there are a lot of benefits. We've talked about some, but really there are eternal benefits to serving.
Speaker 1:Remember, paul gives this warning we talked about Within. The warning is a reward, he says, if you build with precious metals gold, silver or if you build with cheap materials wood, stray, haul, wood, straw, hay been talking a lot today. It's showing how you built is going to be revealed when Christ returns on Judgment Day. Everyone's gonna see. If we built with precious metals, that means that we have built with eternity in mind. We've built for the glory of God.
Speaker 1:What if you are doing ministry at Westtown Church and through your ministry, whether directly or indirectly, someone comes to faith in Jesus Christ? That's gonna matter still in 50,000 years, in five billion years. That's still gonna matter. Most of the stuff that we do in this life will not matter in 50 years. Think about that. What are you doing in your life that has eternal ramifications. This is why I have been leading short-term mission trips for years and years and years. I've led dozens of short-term mission trips with students, with adults. This is why we're doing a mission trip to Jamaica, hopefully in July, and it's because it's life-changing. There are always people who come back from a mission trip and their life is different. They're following Christ in a much more intentional and closer way, or even maybe they've met Christ for the first time. And I would encourage you, if you wanna know what that is about, come to a meeting next Sunday. But again, the point is will your ministry matter in eternity? Will it have ramifications in eternity If you are sacrificing your time, talent and treasure for the kingdom of God, it is so worth it to make that sacrifice, knowing the eternal rewards that await us.
Speaker 1:It's also gonna seem foolish to the world. I mean people in the community, people at your workplace, people on your street. They're gonna think you're giving all of that to the church. You're giving up a Saturday or a Sunday. You're giving money to the church. What are you doing? You're a fool and that's okay. I think that's actually a good sign, because you know what mature churches are full of fools for Christ. I hope that all of us in here are labeled such.
Speaker 1:Paul says in verses 18 through 23, let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool. That he may become wise, for the wisdom of this world is folly with God, for it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness, and again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or the present or the future. All are yours and you are Christ, and Christ is God's. So he circles back around to this idea division in the church, and I think we got the idea, paul, division equals bad, unity equals good. Okay, we get it.
Speaker 1:But there is an insight here that is crucial for us to understand, and it's that if we are the type of people who are willing to divide the church, if we're divisive in nature and we don't really care, if we're putting our hope in human leaders and other non-essential type things and we're not aware of it or we don't really care about it, then we've probably forgotten, or maybe we've never even learned, that the kingdom of God is upside down. It is not like this world. It is not like this world in really any way. That's why we're praying in the Lord's prayer that, essentially, that we want heaven like this place, to be more like heaven, because that's what the kingdom of God is really like. So, in other words, though, wisdom for living in the kingdom of God is gonna be completely different than wisdom for living in the world. That means that if you are living by the world's wisdom, you're going to think that a person who lives in the kingdom of God is a fool. So, naturally, mature churches are full of fools for Christ.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you a short parable that Jesus told from Matthew 13, 44. So help us understand this better. The kingdom of heaven, he says, is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then, in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Think about what that guy did after he saw this treasure. He goes and he arranges to liquidate all of his assets and he goes to a bank or a lender or whoever. He said I wanna sell everything I have.
Speaker 1:Imagine what people must have said about him. What a fool. He sold his house, he sold his camel, he sold his crops, whatever. What a fool. Kind of like Field of Dreams, right Ray hears voices which is not weird at all and mows his corn and builds a baseball field for ghosts. What do they say about him? He's a fool.
Speaker 1:But the man in the parable. He knew something that no one else seemed to know, which is that there is infinitely more treasure in that field than I could ever amass in my life. And the point is that there is infinitely more purpose, meaning joy and reward, in serving God than there could ever be in doing things the way the world wants us to do them. Then there could ever be in just following my goals and my agenda for myself, infinitely more. I know that because look what Paul says in verse 21. He says if you belong to Jesus, you have all things. Jesus has the universe, jesus rules the universe, and one day, when Jesus returns, he's going to remake the universe. It's going to be more perfect than our finite minds can possibly comprehend, and that is our inheritance as Christians. You see, jesus doesn't just give us this new heavens and new earth to live in. He gives us a new heavens and new earth. It's ours because it's his. That's what he means when he says all things are yours.
Speaker 1:So if we know that's what's coming, if we know that's what our inheritance is, if that's what our reward is, why are we reluctant? Why are we reluctant? Why are we unwilling even to give a little bit of what we have right now, in this very short life, to give of our time, talent and treasures to build the church? We are very infatuated with the junk that the world has to offer and we are very underwhelmed, it seems, by the eternal treasures that await us. But as CS Lewis once said, and I'll just close with this quote aim at heaven and you get the whole earth thrown in. Aim at the earth and you get neither. Let's pray together.