In our lifetime, Randy and I have been in a position of receiving guidance from pastors who cared for our lives.  As we grew in our faith we became the “helpers” as pastors and mentors of others.  So, we get it, Paul.  We see, feel, and remember those frustrating times when trying to help believers build their foundation of faith in Jesus.  We sighed heavily when believers, both old and young in age, pursued things of the world by keeping one foot in the world.  They demanded their own way—like a baby who wants his pacifier and wants it now!  To love and serve others alluded some of people for they would tell us that we were hired to serve them.  Ouch.

We apologize now to all the pastors/mentors/teachers who lovingly and patiently worked with us through our childish ways and foolish thinking.  As mature adults, we still haven’t arrived and still need work for God is not finished with us yet.  We currently have a pastor in this season of our lives who feeds our souls with God’s Truth pulled from the Wisdom of God in His Word.  We appreciate our pastor who not only knows the Word, he lives Jesus.  He is not perfect but he knows who is and follows Jesus as the One to trust.

Paul reminds all believers of Jesus to avoid demanding our own way while nursing our feelings that come and go like the wind and rain.  This life of Jesus living in us, His Holy Spirit guiding us, while God grows us is indeed a distinct privilege!  We must not muddy the waters with our foolish “know-it-all” thinking.  Allow God to grow us into all He created us to be…and then do.

1 Corinthians 3, The Message

^1-4 But for right now, friends, I’m completely frustrated by your unspiritual dealings with each other and with God. You’re acting like infants in relation to Christ, capable of nothing much more than nursing at the breast. Well, then, I’ll nurse you since you don’t seem capable of anything more. As long as you grab for what makes you feel good or makes you look important, are you really much different than a babe at the breast, content only when everything’s going your way? When one of you says, “I’m on Paul’s side,” and another says, “I’m for Apollos,” aren’t you being totally childish?

^5-9 Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us—servants who waited on you as you gradually learned to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It’s not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving. You happen to be God’s field in which we are working.

^9-15 Or, to put it another way, you are God’s house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.

^16-17 You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple.

^18-20 Don’t fool yourself. Don’t think that you can be wise merely by being relevant. Be God’s fool—that’s the path to true wisdom. What the world calls smart, God calls stupid. It’s written in Scripture,

He exposes the hype of the hipsters.
The Master sees through the smoke screens
    of the know-it-alls.

^21-23 I don’t want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift—Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it is yours, and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Be grateful for those whom God calls to pastor us while being one of us in the “herd” of sheep.  Thank God for Jesus who is at the center as Lord and Shepherd of the flock.  “The Lord is my Shepard, I lack nothing.” (Psalm 23:1)  “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.” –Jesus, John 10:27-28

Pastor Paul wrote to a church that was young and immature who were listening to their own voices. He corrected some misunderstandings in the Corinthian church and outlined how the people should act, live, and relate.  We will continue in this teaching in the next few chapters to the church. But for now…Paul teaches that mature Christian practices love and seeks to get along with others.

Children like to disagree and fuss. And children like to identify with heroes, whether sports heroes or Hollywood heroes. The “babes” in Corinth were fighting over which preacher was the greatest—Paul, Apollos, or Peter.  When in fact, it is Jesus who is at the Center, the Cornerstone that holds us together, as well as the Foundation whom God builds our lives upon.

God’s ministry “farm” is explained by Paul:

First, diversity of ministry. One laborer plows the soil, another sows the seed, a third waters the seed. As time passes, the plants grow, the fruit appears, and other laborers enjoy reaping the harvest. This emphasis on diversity will also show up when Paul compares the church to a body with many different parts.  (We’re coming to that soon!)

Second, unity of purpose. No matter what work a person is doing for the Lord, that person is still a part of the harvest. Paul, Apollos, and Peter were not competing with each other. Rather, each was doing his assigned task under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Even though the church has diversity of ministry, it should have unity of purpose and unity of spirit.

Third, humility of spirit. The human laborers do not produce the harvest—the Lord of the harvest does. God is the one who makes all things grow! The Corinthians were proud of their church, and various groups in the assembly were proud of their leaders. But this attitude of being puffed up was dividing the church, because God was not receiving the glory.  Jesus expressed the same idea as recorded in John 4:34–38. The sower and the reaper not only work together, but one day they shall rejoice together and receive their own rewards.

Finally, we must always evaluate our motivations.  The world depends on promotion, prestige, and the influence of money and important people. The church depends on prayer, the power of the Spirit, humility, sacrifice, and service.  We are His people, the sheep of His pasture, the church who are people coming together to tell the story of Jesus’s redemption while providing an environment where God can do His best work in and through us as we grow in His love.  Allowing God to do in us what He wants changes everything about us.  Our growth by God begins to yield His character traits, bearing the “fruits of His Holy Spirit listed in Galatians 5:

“…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”  Galatians 5:22-23

Lord,

I know you are not finished with me yet, for I have not arrived at perfection.  However, I’m not where I was.  You are patiently growing me to be all you created me to be in ways that give you glory, honor, and praise.  I am so grateful, so humbly grateful.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for saving, cleansing, restoring, refreshing, and renewing me daily.  You are at the center of my life.  Thank you for not giving up on me.

In Jesus Name, Amen