1 Corinthians [Season One]- 1 Cor. 3vv1-21- Ian Graham: A Three Point Sermon

We trace Paul’s claim in 1 Corinthians 3 that God chooses to dwell in a people, not just impressive structures, and we face the warning that breaking unity is a serious attack on God’s temple. We return to the gospel as the only foundation, then ask what it looks like to build faithfully with God while trusting him for growth and outcomes. 
• God’s presence as something shared between us, not sequestered in a special place 
• The warning against destroying God’s temple by jealousy, quarreling, and factionalism 
• The gospel of Jesus as saving and sustaining wisdom, always and only 
• What “the flesh” means as our default mode apart from God’s Spirit 
• Church as a garden to be tended, not a machine to be managed 
• Building on the foundation of Christ with work that endures the fire 
• Grace and effort through Dallas Willard’s line about earning versus effort 
• The wisdom of the cross as the end of boasting in people 
• “All things are yours” as comfort for life, death, present stress, and future uncertainty 
Say yes to him today. 

Transcript

Ruins, Temples, And God’s Presence

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Still the ruins, but you still see the shell of what was there. And so here is Paul telling these people, you are God's temple. And they just walk past some very impressive buildings. In our own context, we have similar impressive structures. The largest Hindu temple in the world outside of India is located about 20 minutes from here in Robinsville. Nassau Hall is just down the street, about three football fields away. And Paul is saying to us that even as you walk past these very obvious and very impressive, imposing structures, that the stuff of our lives collectively together is where God has desired to dwell. And the scriptures are about this. There are so many moments in the scriptures where people decide that they're going to put God where they would like to have him. David says, I'm going to build you a temple, and then God says, No, no, no, you've got too much blood on your hands. Your son will do it. And Solomon goes through all of this elaborate work to build a temple for God. Now, God never asked for a temple. But because he's a gracious father, he comes and he dwells amidst the people. But throughout the scriptures, the story that God is trying to tell us and invite us into is that God is stopping at nothing to be God in our midst. He doesn't want to be sequestered, off to the side, or put in some special place. What he's trying to do is establish his presence in the nearness of our hearts. And one of the most radical ways that he does this is by dwelling amidst, amongst, between us. When we're here, we are an expression of the dwelling place of God. That is a stunning reality. And this is what Paul is trying to say here. Now, there's a profound warning that is encased within this astounding truth. If you destroy God's temple, if you break the bonds that tie us together, John will use this language of blaspheming the Spirit, and there is judgment for you. And what I want to do today is just look at what are some of the things that we can do as a people to ensure that we are the kind of people that are welcoming God's presence. Not just in our individual lives. Paul will later say to individuals, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And that is a no less astounding truth. But for us today, as we consider our collective lives together, how do we welcome God's presence in such a way? How do we cultivate the ground that it would be right for God to be present here among us? There's a couple things that Paul gives us here in the whole of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. If you like to follow along in your Bible, we'll be just working from 1 Corinthians 3 the whole time. So I love that people bring paper Bibles as it's a gift. But we also, we have the words minus on the screen, so if the medium is the message, we will see which one is better. Not every teaching has the structure of a three-part. I'm going to tell you three points, then I'm going to tell you what I told you. This one does. Okay? So, very simple. I don't know if it's just summer and we're feeling a little bit slacky. Again, I don't know if I was too up too late watching the mix. But very simple structure today. So, first, point one.

A Warning About Breaking Unity

SPEAKER_00 3:26

The gospel, always and only. Paul says in verse one, and so brothers and sisters, I could speak to you as spiritual people, but rather, I could not speak to you, excuse me. I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as fleshly, as infants in Christ, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, for you are still fleshly. For as long as there is jealousy and

The Gospel Always And Only

SPEAKER_00 3:54

quarreling among you, are you not fleshly and behaving according to human inclinations? For when one says I belong to Paul, and another I belong to Apollos, are you not all too human? Okay, a couple things that we need to unpack from what Paul is saying here. First of all, when Paul talks about the flesh, he talks about it in negative terms. But what he's not talking about is the stuff of our lives, our bodies. The stuff of this world, creation. In the beginning, God created the world. He said, Let there be light, let there be stuff in it. And then he said, with each succeeding day, it was good. When Jesus shows up, it says, That word that brought the world to life has now become flesh. Or in Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, moved into the neighborhood. God likes the stuff that he made. That includes you. Good news. So when Paul talks about the flesh, we have to do a little bit of cultural translation. What is he trying to say? And what he's saying here is that the flesh is not the stuff of hard and fast human life. Jesus likes that, dignifies it by his incarnation. The flesh is our default mode, our lizard brain, the stuff that we do apart from God's saving grace and sanctifying power through the power of his Holy Spirit. These are our defaults. And Jesus says, I love you just as you are, but I'm going to transform you into something you could not even begin to imagine. And so when we are living out of our flesh, we're living out of the broken cisterns of our own resources, our own wells, wells that will run dry. And Paul is saying here to us, there's something else available to us. We see there's this bubbling tension between Paul and the Corinthian church. This church thinks they deserve deep knowledge about God, and what they exhibit is not this marked expression of cultural and maturity, like maturity in Christ. What they exhibit is spiritual immaturity. And Paul says their immaturity is evidenced by, according to verse 3, jealousing and quarreling among you. In verse 4, Paul specifies that this jealousy and quarreling is all over different leaders that various factions in the church have claimed for their own purposes. For the Corinthian church, their enthusiasm for the message about the cross or their perceptions of its respectability and application have waned, and they're looking for additions that they can add onto the message about Jesus. They're like, yes, we're so glad. That message about the cross, God saved us. What else is there? And Paul is in no uncertain terms saying, there's nothing else. There is no other wisdom that you need for life and godliness. There is nothing else that God is seeking to add onto that message of salvation through Jesus Christ. They think they're pursuing greater maturity. But Paul says you're acting like babies. Like the word there in the Greek is nepos, like the where we get like nepo baby. They think that there's some other solid food that is being withheld from them. And that the simplicity of Paul's message and the way that he conveys it, Paul has gone to great lengths to say, I'm not an impressive speaker. It's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to tell you the plain truth about what Jesus has done. And they think that's all repetitive and mundane. But Paul's point about the message of the cross is that it is the saving wisdom of God, that we are liberated from our flesh, from our defaults, from our sin, and it is the sustaining wisdom of God. It is both the message that beckons us home without need of deep explanation. It doesn't need a superior intellect, and it's irrespective of a person's societal status in the world. So it is a very simple message that can be intuited by every single person that has been made in God's image, which is every single person. We don't need some intellectual gymnastics to be able to understand the gospel. And if anything, if people like me are putting up those kinds of barriers, then we should get a strongly worded email. Because the message of the gospel is simple. It's about what Jesus has done. It's about his life, his death, his resurrection. And it's our subsequent allegiance to that message, saying, Yes, God, I believe you, I trust you. Now help my unbelief. Help me to follow you. And at the same time, just as simple as this message of love is, it is the mysterious deep in which all treasures of wisdom and knowledge reside. We could never plumb the depths of the message of salvation in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Hans Erz von Balthazar, one of those Catholic theologians, it sounds like a count. He says, even in heaven, we will never stop living off of every word from the mouth of God. It's like that's so beautiful. And so simple. God loves you, He likes you, He came for you deep. You could stare at that for eternity and never find the bottom of it. But as the Corinthians have tried, they've gotten bogged down in petty factions. They're trying for maturity. In our own day, we've seen churches divide similarly over doctrine, over politics. Often these pursuits in the name of maturity and faithfulness end up revealing our own immaturity and our own faithlessness. And they reveal that we're trying to build our foundation on something other than Jesus and his work. As Paul later says in our passage for today, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid. The foundation is Jesus Christ. This is the foundation that God so loved the world that he would give his one and only Son. That we were not deserving or good in our own strength, but that while we were sinners, Christ Jesus died for us. That our faith is a pure gift by grace through faith. And that gift must be cherished, it must be relished in, stewarded, and ultimately shared. This is God's church growth strategy. It is the water from the well that will never run dry, the river that runs from the throne of God, the living water that nourishes us and flows out of us by the power and presence of the Spirit of God. The gospel of King Jesus always and only is enough to save us. It is enough to sustain us, to nourish us, to bring us into what God is transforming us into by his grace. Okay, second.

Building With God Under God

SPEAKER_00 10:59

We are building with God, under God. So the gospel always and only. Second, building with God, under God. Paul writes, beginning in verse 5, what then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, being Paul, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and each will receive wages according to their own labor. For we are God's co-workers. Working together, you are God's field, God's building. Goes on in verse 10. According to the grace of God given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Let each builder choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid. That foundation is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, the work of each builder will become visible, for the day will disclose it. Because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If the work that someone has built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a wage. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. So there's a lot of things going on here. Paul is saying we are invited to be co-cultivators, co-builders with God. That's an amazing, astounding invitation. But there's also a sober reality to this, right? What we undertake to build will be shown for its worth on a day that is coming. Jesus is the foundation, and then we, like Paul, are called to build upon it. Now, Paul is speaking of his own calling as an apostle in describing what he's building here, but I don't think it's too far of a stretch to suppose that we too are being called to be co-laborers with God. Paul uses agricultural imagery before he moves to architectural imagery. Right? So we have the image of planting, sowing seeds, right? And then we have the image of building something out of wood, stone, precious metals, right? He says, look, it doesn't really matter what part of the planting process that you play. Paul plants Apollos waters here, because none of that alone can provide growth. When we're talking about farming or just planting your garden in your backyard, we're talking about a delicate cycle which requires wisdom and tending, yes. Any of you gardeners in here? Yes, yeah, good, good. Any farmers? We have we have a farm, we have one farmer back there in the back. But farming requires immense skill, right? Like stuff will grow, it just may not be the stuff you want to grow. Right? And the discernment as to, as a very novice person like myself, as to what is a weed and what is actually what I'm intending to grow still eludes me. But farming requires wisdom and tending. But it also requires things that no matter how wise or how attentive you are, you will never be able to account for. Because not a single one of us make the sunshine or the rainfall. And so we are participating in a delicate ecosystem, but it is not an ecosystem that we can author or manage. That's all God's work, and that's what Paul is saying here. He's also saying that a church is much more like a garden than something to be managed, than you know, an HR department or something. That's a good word for us. Our work, as Paul is pointing out here in reference to his own work, and we'll later draw in the image of the body in 1 Corinthians, which has its own powerful resonance, is simply to be faithful about doing our part. We account for the things we can account for, and we let God do the rest. He then moves to architectural language. We've been talking about temples. We are called to take the foundation of God's finished work in Christ Jesus and to take the precious gifts that God has given us, both spiritual and physical, and to work hard to do something with it. So the gospel, always and only. Jesus loves you. There's nothing you could do to ever deserve his love. He just loves you and he has done something for you to give that love to you. But now that you have it, you are called to do something with it. Dallas Willard says something I think is so profound and so concise. Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. You have nothing you need to earn. But now you've been entrusted with this great gift, and now the mandate is go and do something with it. Go into all the world. Paul references gold, silver, precious stones, wood, all materials that were used in constructing the physical temple of Solomon in 2 Chronicles. This reflection on Paul's part has echoes with the parable of the talents that Jesus tells in Matthew 25. There, Jesus tells the story of a wealthy property owner who entrusts the servants of his household with various sums of money while he's away. He never gives them really much in the way of instructions, but he just leaves. Two of the servants take whatever sum they have been given and go off and make more with what they have. They invest it, they trade, and when the master, the wealthy landowner comes back, they're like, hey, you got a little ROI waiting for you. But one servant, scared of losing that which he has, takes the talent and buries it in the ground. When the property owner returns, of course he commends those who have done something with that which he has entrusted them. And he condemns the one who buried it in the ground. And as a church, we have so many holy-sounding ways of burying our talent in the ground. Paul says there's a day coming, a day of judgment. When a testing fire of judgment will reveal the worth of everything that we've done with what God has given us. That is a sober and harrowing reality. Now, Paul is very pastoral. He says, listen, this is not about your salvation, this is about something else. For Paul, his work is being challenged as irrelevant and unimpressive. And he's holding to the foundation of Jesus' work. The very Corinthian church is saying, Paul, you're not very good at being an apostle. And you're not very impressive when you talk about Jesus. And Paul is dealing with his own sense of self here. Who is he in light of God's calling? And he's saying, I am being faithful to the call. I am being steadfast and holding to the foundation that is Jesus Christ. I've been in ministry for 19 years this summer. This passage both haunts me and comforts me. I wish I could stand in front of you and tell you that in my life in ministry, that every single person that I've had the honor of serving and encountering loves Jesus so much more. And has a better understanding of the Bible. I wish I could tell you that so many of the students that we served for 10 years at a church here locally, they're all following Jesus and serving him. That's not the case. Some are. And there's a lot of rejoicing in that, but some are some feel very far from God. I wish I could tell you that every initiative that we've started here at Ecclesia has been a resounding success. Big budgets, impressive returns, people coming to faith. I haven't seen everything, but I've seen enough to know that I can't get too low when I think about outcomes and situations that, in my estimation, haven't gone well. And I can't get too high when people are saying, thank you, yes, brilliant. Thank you, mom, for doing that so consistently. Love you. But more than that, I've had to return over and over again to the foundation. It's solid. Yes, we've got some rooms in the house that I've built that are half finished. We've got others that need to be torn down, but the foundation can hold anything that we can lay onto it. And for us, Ecclesia, faithfulness, steadfastness. Point three.

The Wisdom Of The Cross

SPEAKER_00 19:46

In all things, the wisdom of the cross. Paul writes, Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness 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 about people, 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's, and Christ is God's. Paul has this way in 1 Corinthians of summarizing long sections with these beautiful, concise statements. We see this here at the end of chapter 3, which has really been this extended meditation, 1 Corinthians 1 through 3, of the wisdom of the cross and how it unites us by the power of the Spirit. In verses 21 through 23, I'm going to read that for you again. So let no one boast about people. 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's, and Christ is God's. The specifics of the Corinthian church dictate that Paul returns to this point about the various factions that have formed around certain leaders. Throughout the section, it is the very act of boasting in human constructs, be they cults of personality like they are in Corinth, earthly wisdom and strength, that Paul has been condemning. Our human wisdom will not save us because, and I hate to tell us all this, we are not wise. Let no one boast in human strength or achievement or wisdom. But there is a strength, a wisdom, and achievement that we can boast in freely. The finished work of Jesus. For all things are yours. Now, what does it mean that all things are yours? Paul spells that out further. He says, the world, life, death, the present, our future are all yours. Well, how could he say that? Well, he spells that out too. Because you, God's temple, are Christ. And Christ is the revelation of God the Father in full. What does God look like? He looks like Jesus. Paul says, you belong to Christ, and he has declared his lordship through his life, his death, and his resurrection over everything that you will ever encounter in this life and beyond. The image is one of overcoming. Jesus has taken the world, life, death, the present, the future, and the past onto his very shoulders, and he has carried it. And he's presented it to the Father. He has made it all to serve the beauty of his holiness and the goodness of his reign. To say it is yours is to say that nothing, not life or death, not height, not death, will ever be able to assail the core of who you are in Christ Jesus. The foundation is sure and it is secure. The world with its bad news, doom and gloom, challenges, failures, illusions, you belong to Christ and it's all yours. Life with all its beautiful goodness, moments of fleeting joy, exhilaration, beauty, kindness, you belong to Christ. All of it is yours. Death, with all of its seeming finality, fear of loneliness and suffering and loss, you belong to Christ. It's all yours. The present with all of its uncertainty, financial strain, relational strife, you belong to Christ. It's all yours. The future with all of its unknowns and judgment, you belong to Christ. It is all yours. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. God loves you. He has given you himself. So that we might be the temple of God, inviting him to dwell in our midst. And he will never leave you or forsake you. He will never leave you to your own devices. You belong to Jesus. Say yes to

All Things Are Yours In Christ

SPEAKER_00 24:20

him today. We pray, come, Holy Spirit. God, we ask that you would make these stunning promises that take root in the soil of our hearts and our lives. God, we know that these promises, Lord, fly in the face of many of the realities that we currently are stressed about, anxious about, undone about. And God, I wonder if for all of us here today, if we would just bring you that which troubles us, God, that which is making our heart heavy, our mind anxious, God. Those places in the body where we keep our stress and anxiety, Lord, those places painful or heavy or heart beating in our chest, Lord. God, if we could just entrust ourselves to you anew. To see your victory by yielding, God, even in the face of death, into the hands of the Father, committing your spirit. And so, Lord, help us here in this place as an act of faithfulness to entrust ourselves to you again. To hear the soaring overture of these promises, Lord, that everything we could ever face is ours, is under our feet, not because we are wise or strong or able to conquer them in our own strength, God, because you have nailed them to a cross. And on the third day, Lord, you've stepped out of the grave, declaring the faithfulness of God that overcomes our sin and our death. God, would we also hear the call that is subtly given in this passage? The call to join with you, to build something, God, to have kingdom ambition. That we wouldn't worry ourselves about the foundation. It is sure and secure. But we would get busy with the gifts that you've placed in our lives, God, saying, Lord, here I am, send me. Lord, we ask that the Holy Spirit would meet us where we are. Comfort those who need comfort, God. Convict those who need conviction. Challenge us, Lord, to be your disciples and to follow you. Would you have your way in this room? We pray in the beautiful name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We pray these words. Amen.

Prayer, Worship, And Receiving Ministry

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Ekosia, as we shift our posture here in this room, we're going to invite you to stand as we reflect, as we allow the Holy Spirit to minister to us. And again, we believe that Jesus is alive. We believe that he's here in this room, that we are the temple of the living God. It's a stunning claim, but we hold to it because Jesus has promised us where we are gathered, he would be there amongst us. And so allow the Lord to minister to you. If there's something that just seems central or even eclipsing in your life or in your mind's eye, something that you've been wrestling with, just allow the Lord to meet you there. He is gracious. And he's been to every place you could ever go. He meets us in the depths of our sin, of our guilt, of our uncertainty. And it may not solve everything in this moment, but I assure you that he is there. Allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you. This worship team is going to lead us in a song of response. In just a moment, we'll come to the table. Our prayer team, Gene, do we have some folks? Thank you, sir. We'll be kind of in and around the room, especially in the corners. They will be there to meet with you if at any point of the next few moments, either while we're responding here or coming to the table. If you'd like to receive prayer, those folks will be there to meet with you and to pray with you and be honored to do so. Let's worship the Lord together.