1 Corinthians 3:1-17 [NLTse]
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. ² I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. ³ You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? ⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
⁵ What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. ⁶ I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, Who makes things grow. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. ⁹ For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. ¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

Sermon

First Corinthians is an interesting book. Where Paul’s other letters are often filled with teaching and encouragement – building up the faith of the Christians to whom they were addressed – First Corinthians is all correction: From beginning to end Paul is tearing down their faith and their practices in order to rebuild something better. It’s unclear whether this reflects the quality of Paul’s original teaching (since he was the one who planted the church, and because he did so during a time when he was not well and recovering from a near-death beating), or if it reflects the quality of Apollos’ teaching. (Apollos was a gifted preacher and evangelist who came through Corinth shortly after Paul left, growing the church there, and teaching, for quite some time.) It may have had to do with Simon Peter’s influence (since Paul mentions him as having been involved in the Corinthian fellowship at some point). Of course, the troubles in what the Corinthian Christians had come to believe or not believe may also simply have had to do with the believers there themselves. God only knows. But there were lots of troubles. And Paul deals with the troubles one after the other after the other across First Corinthians.

We began reading First Corinthians in chapter 3 this past week, and read through chapter 9, if you’re reading through the New Testament with me this year. (The reading plan is in our Bulletins.) Paul begins chapter 3, as Rich has already read, reminding the Corinthian believers about his time among them, saying, “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly.” Paul goes on to criticize the divisions they’ve allowed within their fellowship: “I follow Paul;” “I follow Apollos;” “I follow Cephas,” (Cephas being the Aramaic word for “rock”, the new name the Lord Jesus had given Simon Peter.)

He then speaks against the different sexual sins he’s heard were going on among the believers, including they’re going to prostitutes and they’re not doing anything about a man in the fellowship who was sleeping with his step-mom. (As though letting the sins continue was showing how great God’s grace was!) Then He speaks against their suing each other in the public courts. (“An embarrassment to Christ!” he says.) He corrects their understanding of sex in marriage, and about whether or not to get married, and staying with or divorcing an unbelieving spouse… (All this about marriage and marrying is in chapter 7. Read it. It is straight-forward and good-as-gold advice for Christian couples today.) And he ends correcting their understandings of leadership in the church: How mature believers should help and serve and sacrifice for weaker believers, not lord themselves over those newer and more fragile in the faith.

I’ve skimmed through all of these conflicts and the details of First Corinthians so far to take us back to where we started at the very beginning of chapter 3: Paul’s comments to the Corinthian believers about they’re not being spiritual but they’re being worldly…

What does it mean to be a spiritual person? That phrase gets thrown around a lot today, “I’m spiritual,” people like to call themselves. But what does that really mean, at least as far as the way the Bible defines being “spiritual”? And on the other hand, what does it mean to be “worldly”?

As a whole, the Bible describes three different types of people: There are natural people, spiritual people, and worldly people. Here’s a fairly famous representation of a “natural person”. (All human beings are born “natural people”. In Psalm 51 King David sings about us all this way: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” So, sin isn’t just about the things we’ve said or done. Sin is a state of being, a state human beings are born into on account of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. And, again, here’s a representation of us in that natural state.) The throne represents what’s in control of our lives. And the “S” stands for “self”, so with a “natural person”, our self is in control of our lives. And the big and little dots are our interests, and they are going whichever this way and that according to our changing whims and desires. You can see that the cross is completely outside the life of the “natural person”. The “natural person” isn’t necessarily against Jesus or God or faith. The Lord and all He’s done just doesn’t have anything to do – not personally, anyway – with natural people.

For the “worldly person”, Jesus has become a part of their lives, but they are still in control. Their interests and desires are influenced by Jesus’ presence, by their faith in Him, but they are still under the control of “self”, and so there’s still a large degree of frustration, a lack of clarity, little sense of focus and purpose (at least having to do with Christ) in the “worldly person’s” life.
With the “spiritual person”, Jesus is on the throne. He is Lord of the “spiritual person’s” life. And so the “spiritual person’s” interests and desires are ordered by Jesus. They serve His Kingdom purposes and His purposes for the “spiritual” believer, and if they do not those interests and desires have been left behind.

Notice that the apostle Paul did not deny that the Corinthians were believers, Christians. He didn’t say that they didn’t have faith. But Paul said that they weren’t living by their faith. They weren’t living with Jesus as their Lord; they – themselves – were still in charge of their lives. And the result was their many, many troubles: Troubles in their own lives; and troubles in their fellowship together…

This seems so important for us to talk about today because of the influence of the Prosperity Gospel on the Church of Jesus Christ, and the dominance of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism among Christian teens.

The Prosperity Gospel basically teaches that God sent Jesus to die on the cross for us so that we can all be healthy, wealthy, and wise. Prosperity rarely talks about the cross, Christ calling us to take up our cross and follow Him, Christian service, or the reality of persecution for the faith. God the Son was sacrificed so that you and I could have a big house, fancy cars, glittering wardrobes, and live a long illness-free life lean and muscled or curvy and slender. Pastor Joel Osteen has become the best-known preacher of the prosperity gospel here in America.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a little more subtle. MTD believes that a god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. (Sounds good so far.) This god wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. (That’s a little soft. Not quite the “Be prepared to die and follow Me,” that Jesus called us to, but I guess that summarizes the Golden Rule – “Do to others what you would have done to you,” okay…) The central goal of life, according to MTD, is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. (Here’s where things start boldly going bad.) God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life, MTD says, except when god is needed to resolve one’s problems. (So, this god is near when I need him, but he doesn’t bother me otherwise.) And, according to MTD, all “good” people go to Heaven when they die. (Yuck!)

I hope you see how insidious both of these teachings can be. They both have some truth in them: God has created all there is; God does want good things for us; God does want us to love Him and others; God does want us to know joy and be at peace; God does want to help us with our problems; and, we have been promised Heaven when we die. But can you see that with the Prosperity Gospel and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism the believer is on the throne? They both, and other New Age thinking like them, make our faith all about us: God wants me to be rich and healthy; God wants me to be happy and feel good about myself; God will take care of all my problems; and I will get to go to Heaven when I die.

However, with true Christianity, when a person is living by the Holy Spirit of God – truly “spiritual people” – have Christ at the center of their lives and Christ in control of their lives. And Christ sacrificed Himself and went to the cross, and He calls us to follow Him – to be ready to die, if we must – following where He leads.

If I get sick, it’s not that God doesn’t love me. It’s because God needs me to be about His work in the doctor’s office or hospital. If I’m out of work, perhaps He needs me in the unemployment office or to have me available to Him during that time I’m more free. Of course, if I’m sick or out of work our Father may also be trying to get our attention and speak to us about whether or not we’re making good choices and taking good care of ourselves; He may be trying to show us that we haven’t been very good employees – that we’ve become lazy, or not doing our work excellently, or something else.

But do you see the difference? “Spiritual people” are centered around Christ, not around themselves. Jesus is in control. “Spiritual people” seek to look at their lives through the lens of Christ, asking Him to tell them about their circumstances; asking Him to direct their steps next. In this life I may not be healthy or wealthy, but that’s okay, because He is with us. As a matter of fact, we remember that Jesus had a lot of warnings for those who were wealthy, and so we know that that’s not always a good thing for those of us who’ve chosen to follow Him.

You see how close it all is, and yet how far? Do you see the difference it makes having Jesus at the center, Jesus in control, versus having ourselves?
So, I ask you: Are you in control of your life? Or is Jesus? Are you at the center? Are you on the throne? Or is He?

What does this look like, practically speaking, to let Jesus be in control, and to let Him stay in control?

Here’s an exercise for us all to do. Go home today and get out your calendar and to-do list for the coming week. Look at your appointments and commitments and ask Jesus what He wants for you among them. You know why you have those appointments and commitments on your calendar. But why has He allowed them there? Ask Him what He wants you to be about for Him in these activities and events. Write what the Holy Spirit reveals to you down on your calendar.

Do the same with your to-do list: How does Jesus want you to get these things done? Are there any tasks or to-dos that He wants you to remove from the list as a waste of time? Unimportant? Too focused on “you” and on “the world”? What kind of attitude is He calling you to as you tackle these tasks? If the tasks involve working with others, does He have anything He wants you to know about these folks, or that He’s highlighting to you about your time with them?
Second, (back to your calendar) ask Him what is not on your calendar that He wants there? Is there anyone you might visit or call for His sake, or anything you should schedule or take care of that’s not already planned for, because He’s thought about it while you’d forgotten? Now, the same with your to-do list…

Do this for a week. See what it’s like to have Jesus in control; Jesus in the center…

There was a lady in the church who needed help. Her sister could help her, but it was a sister whom she hadn’t spoken with for years and whom she’d had much conflict with the last time she had spoken. I encouraged her to call her sister anyway, but before she did, to pray and ask God to go ahead of her and help her connect with her sister. The woman did. Then she made the phone call. Her sister answered the phone and was immediately so happy to hear from her and offered her all the help she needed…

I find that when I’m on the throne I’m doing stuff for me and getting what I want done. When Jesus is on the throne I’m much more focused on others, doing things that serve, bless, and show my gratitude for those around me.
?
Are you doing your own thing or are you doing Jesus’ things? Are you on the throne or is Jesus? Are you in control or is He?