The Role of God's Servants
1 Corinthians 3:5-15 · Randy Peterman · Feb 28, 2016
1 Corinthians, No. 09
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926529171167

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So let's take a look this morning at 1 Corinthians 3 verses 5 through 15. I'll go ahead and read those verses out loud. It's going to continue on from where Roger left off. By the way, Roger, I heard that you left off with a cliffhanger ending last week.

So people were waiting for this one. Well, you were here most of the time. Yeah. You always stepped out. I usually step out to get water when I have to do worship because my throat gets dry and then I can't sing. So apologies for any disruption that brings. That's going to go on the internet for a recording. That's going to be awesome. People need to know that. So we're starting in verse 5. What then is Apollos, and what is Paul?

Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers, your God's field, God's building.

According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation and another is building on it but each man must be careful how he builds on it for no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid which is Jesus Christ now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw each man's work will become evident for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved. Yet so is through fire."

So this definitely starts off going one direction and then feels like maybe Paul veered off into scary land. We're going to get to talk about fire, so that's always good. But as I have been meditating on this passage and preparing for this morning. One of the things that keeps coming back is my own personal recollection as a young believer reading this and thinking, that sounds scary. There's fire and I burned myself before. Fire was bad. I had that figured out.

But then as a teenager going into my twenties my dad discipled me and we went over this passage and we actually looked at it in context and we looked at what Paul was writing and instead of finding fear here I actually found encouragement. So hopefully this morning you'll find the same. And it will be a valuable resource in your spiritual toolbox, so to speak, when you come alongside other believers and you're interacting with other believers through the Word. So let's start at the beginning. It's always a good place to start. We'll start back in verse 5.

He says, What then is Apollos, and what is Paul? The book of Acts tells us in 18 and 19, the end of 18 and beginning of 19, we see that Paul and Apollos were in about the same area at about the same time. But Paul hit Corinth first, and then Apollos came second. And so we have the church in Corinth being influenced by these these two preachers of the gospel that came through and of course as we know from last week there was a little bit of contention about who was more awesome who was the A-list celebrity gospel preacher and who was the B-list gospel preacher right? I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos that's what matters right? But Paul says, what then is Apollos and what is Paul? The Greek there for what is either what or who. It can be translated basically either way. But the purpose is to specify the value or purpose in this case. And Paul answers this question, servants. What are they? Oh, boy, who are they? Are they celebrities? Are they awesome? No, no, they're servants. So if you're going to align yourself...

Well, Paul's an apostle, and Paul, as far as we know, is not technically an apostle by biblical definition, but he's a preacher of the gospel, right? And what we find here is that if you're going to get all excited about who it is you're following, like I'm sure none of you are watching the news and keeping track of the political spectrum. You're all more sanctified than that. The thing you'll notice is that everybody gets behind whoever they think is the winning horse. Okay, we'll use that terrible analogy. What happens if instead of we want to get behind the winning horse, you discover their work oxen.

That's what Paul's saying. Hey, they're servants. Oh, I'm behind this guy. I'm behind this guy. And Paul says, but we're just servants. Oh, well, it's kind of hard to get all excited and be arrogant and think, oh, I've got more clout, like we've discussed before the Corinthians had, when the end result is servitude. Tom? It reminds me a lot about when the pagans were trying to offer sacrifices to Paul and, I think, Barnabas. The idea that you would worship a man is obviously an unbiblical thing, but here we have Paul having to remind the Corinthians this basic principle.

We're just servants. In Matthew chapter 12, Christ is called the chosen servant. So even the Messiah, even the one whom we follow, the Son of God, the one in whom our salvation is placed, comes down as a servant. If anyone had the right to be declaring, I'm the Son of God and you should worship me and I'm awesome, it would be the Son of God who is worthy of our worship and who is awesome. But he comes and he says, I'm a servant. And then when the disciples come and they want to be great, What does he say in Matthew 20 and 23? But he says, you gotta be a servant. So Paul gets it, Apollos got it, but the Corinthians seem to have missed the purpose of why these messengers came in.

If you've ever looked at statistics for who believes what in the country, you'll say, OK, this percentage are Christians. And it's always like this giant bucket. We don't know what they believe. They just said, I'm a Christian. And they said, OK, that must be true. And these percent are atheists, and these are Muslims, and these are Hindu, and whatever else. The issue is not who's winning, right? The issue is, are people in a relationship with God. It's not the percentages.

Those are souls. And so Paul and Apollos understood these are souls and their goal was the presentation of the gospel as servants. Not so they could go out and strut their stuff and be the best speakers and the most influential men in all of Rome. That wasn't their goal.

Then Paul continues on and he talks to them, "...through whom you believed." They were servants through whom you believed. They introduced the two parties in the transaction. They introduced the lost to the God of the universe. They were just agents. They only had agency. They were not there to build up themselves and to promote Paul or Apollos. They were just agents for introduction. Then Paul continues on, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. So there's something very interesting about this, as the Lord gave opportunity, that I think is kind of an interesting element here.

Did Paul care if he got there before or after Apollos? No. What would happen if Apollos got there first? What would Paul have done? He would have watered. He would have flipped it around. So we're going to get into the watering analogy in just a second here, but the principle is that Paul would have just come in and said, Oh, sweet, the gospel has been preached. You believed.

I get to love you right here where you are and I get to come alongside and I get to teach you and edify you and pour into you and then probably knowing the Corinthians he would have also needed to correct him but the principle is still there that he didn't care the sequence of his arrival or Apollo's. The Lord chose this sequence in his sovereignty but it didn't matter to Paul.

Paul wasn't trying to go be a frontier guy who had explored and be the explorer who went to a place that no one else had ever been before. What happens when it's a race for territory is very different when it's a commission from the Holy Spirit moving something and then you don't care who got there first.

The land grab on the earth is pretty much done, right? There's not new places to explore, new territory to get. But when you go into history class, there was an important period of time when everybody wanted to be first and claim it for my country, claim it for my people. And then you discover there's natives there anyways, or indigenous folks. But yeah, so.

So Paul didn't care the order that was there. It just so happened that God sent them in the order that they arrived. And the Lord was the one that was responsible for that. In verse 6, he says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So he says, okay, this is the order. The order is, I got there first, I planted. What did he plant? The gospel. And then Apollos came and watered, and he shared the things that are true of you in Christ because of the gospel. But who did the growing? God did. Neither of those two got to take credit for it.

So this is a really important principle, and Paul repeats himself, so I'm going to just point out that repetition. in seven, where he says at the very end of seven, but God who causes the growth. So he repeats that. We're going to cover it once for the sake of time this morning. He repeats that statement. But why does it matter so much that God causes the growth?

What do we learn about the Holy Spirit maybe in one of the past lessons? Only he can take the things of Jesus to the believer. Okay, so I'm restating that but I agree Tom. Only the Holy Spirit can take God's inner thoughts and inner being and inner truth and know right where we are and build the appropriate truths into our lives.

How many of you remember maybe being a babe in Christ and having somebody come by and start using a lot of theological words that you didn't understand? For me that was really disconcerting. I remember at one point in time deciding that theology must be stupid because it was confusing. I couldn't justify confusion in the church, so I said theology is stupid. I didn't realize how ignorant a statement that was.

When we have this principle of spiritual growth, The Lord is the one that orchestrates that, and the Holy Spirit is actively involved. How many of you are familiar with the term spiritual formation? This is a term that's being bandied about in a lot of churches today. We talked about it briefly upstairs in the polemics class. So if you want to learn more about it, you can go on the internet and check the Holy Hill site and listen.

I think my dad taught that lesson. No, I know he taught that lesson. The problem with spiritual formation is it's a formula that we will take another believer through and that formula is the thing that will make you a mature believer. That's awfully convenient. I can't think of a more convenient thing than to say, okay, you're a babe, we have the steroid shot, and now you're a teenager. Just like that. Here, we just had to take you through this program.

But the reality is that God has actually put in place an alternative method for our growth that He is overseeing. He knows where you are. And what do we grow in? Do we grow in theological vocabulary? We might, incidentally. We grow in grace. What does Peter write? That we grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ?

I remember one Sunday morning, Mike was leading the service. He wasn't teaching the main message, but he was leading the service. And he read, I think it was out of Hungry Heart, that's usually where he quotes from if it's not the scripture. But he read this quote that was about spiritual growth, and that is that spiritual growth happens when we recognize and understand what is true of us already in Christ.

And I don't remember what my dad taught on in the main service. But I remember that was so important for my understanding that I just churned on that for the rest of the service. I don't remember anything else about the service. I don't tend to remember that much about all the services given enough time. But that one thing just changed my whole perspective. Because I had been longing for spiritual growth and I had been looking for it everywhere else. I went to seminary. I can use the five dollar words but that didn't help. What helped? What changed?

It's God doing the growing, and He grows us in what is true of His Son. So, we have this principle here. Paul and Apollos don't get to brag, and they don't get to take credit for that growth. And we don't get to take credit for growth. That's really important that we somehow don't walk away from this also thinking that there is this this credit for us. Isn't that, Randy, why the formation, spiritual formation?

Because, again, it's another list of this is what you need to do. It goes right back to the law. In its own way, that's what it is. Do these things, you'll have spiritual growth. I would actually say it's not the law, it's actually carnality. Because it's one of those things where we're going to psychology our way into where you are rather than Holy Spirit. Right. Tom? You mentioned something related to a process that's forced on you. Yeah. And I think of a sausage making machine. Yeah. Yeah.

It doesn't prove a thing, does it? We get air bubbles, and it gets complicated. The Holy Spirit, I heard this quote when I was in seminary, and it was a very simple statement, but I thought it was really a valuable one, and that is that the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but the Holy Spirit is intimately involved, and He knows where we need to grow. So God has put together the organization in the church so and later on we'll take a look at Ephesians chapter 4 11-14 and we'll see the spiritual growth elements are there.

Jack? I've struggled with his verse for a whole weekend. Okay. Which one? The one you're talking about. Okay. I read that thing about Paul and Apollos and how they witness to these people. And I sometimes say, what about you, McBride? Are you doing your part here? Well, that sounds like law. And I read quite a bit about this. I have some hope for you. You've got to remember you're doing the work. And I think, no, that's not my work. Yeah.

So this is a really important truth that the Lord, I don't remember when I learned this, but when I did learn it, it was a great relief for me because I have burdened myself with that same 50 pound sack. And then I would find some other ones to collect on my back.

The Holy Spirit convicts us unto fellowship. The flesh guilts us into feeling insufficient. The Holy Spirit leads us to our sufficiency in Christ and into abiding. Now, if we're abiding, what's going to happen? What's the side effect of abiding? Based on Galatians 5. It's the very life of Christ being lived out in us.

It's that growth happening. But when we're in the flesh, and this week I had to stay off Facebook most of the week. I have a friend, in air quotes, on Facebook who lives in Texas, who keeps posting these pictures with so-called inspirational quotes on them, but all of them are the, are you a good enough Christian quotes. I love those. Those are the best for destroying people's walk.

We're going to get into that in a second. But this principle of abiding is a core foundational fundamental thing. The Holy Spirit convicts us to abide. and the flesh makes us feel guilty to try to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and say, I will be better next time.

Jack, the thing that I love about sanctification in Christ is that at 80, are you 80? Okay. I know that you're not 25 anymore. But the Lord is growing you right where you are. And that's an awesome thing. And that you're chewing on God's Word still. And He's growing you. God's bringing the growth in Jack. But you're still wrestling through the word and thinking about it.

What do I know? And that's precisely the point. If spiritual formation were true, you could have been done at 29. You could have just spent the rest of your life... I got it. But that's not how it works, right? So the growth happens. So the awesome thing in this is that we don't have to ask ourselves, are we good enough? Are we growing? Am I watering? Am I planting? We ask ourselves, am I abiding?

Am I beholding the Lord, using 2 Corinthians 3.18? Am I setting my mind on things above, from Colossians 3? Those are the questions we ask ourselves.

And the good thing is that it's a yes or no question, and the fix is instantaneous. Because if I am already doing so, I'm probably not even going to ask the question. And if I'm not, the answer is to immediately set my focus on things above, or to be abiding. And so that's a powerful truth, and it liberates us to actually be doing the abiding works, which are the life of Christ, instead of focusing on the volume.

We often think about our works in volume, and that's not the way that the scripture describes the value of the weaver. And we'll go into that in the next half of this, so I'll keep moving from here. So I wanted to take a quick side step here briefly into this idea of planting and watering. Planting is specifically to the unsaved, and we're going to be preaching the gospel and holding them accountable for sin.

That's not popular today. I don't love the idea of holding somebody accountable for sin, but nobody needs the gospel if they're not a sinner. So they need to understand that they're sinners. Our job isn't to be jerks. We're not juking for Jesus so that we can make people angry or upset. I have had multiple people in my life get really upset when I say that hell is real and that sin is real. I'm not going to compromise on that part of the message.

However, there's hope. There's the other half of it. The problem is that they don't ever understand the hope of glory and the hope of what Christ is, because they're so distracted by the accountability for sin. But if Paul had come into Corinth, and remember this is a crazy, super carnal trading center, So he wouldn't have to look hard for sin. It wouldn't have been like, Oh, geez, I wonder where I'm going to find people who need the gospel. It would have been billboards everywhere.

Okay, they're here. They're right here. But the planting was for the unsaved. And then just like Roger covered the three men here, the watering for the carnal is different for the watering for the abiding. And so I wanted to call that out. just again to reiterate some of what Roger said. I want to have nice continuity in the lessons here. But watering for the carnal means to come alongside and restore.

Galatians 6.1 tells us, He who is spiritual, come alongside and restore the person who has been found in sin and remind them of who they are in Christ. Why do we need to remind them of who they are in Christ? It's true, but that's where they're going to grow. That's where they're going to stop they're going to start abiding and stop walking in the flesh and being carnal.

And then watering for the abiding person is we're going to discern their place in growth to feed or encourage giving them milk or meat depending on the stage of growth. At home, since Kelsey's living with us, I've got Gabriel, and he is two and a half weeks old. I love babies, so that's awesome. I feel really blessed that I get to see his little face daily. But Gabriel just needs milk right now.

It would be inappropriate to give him the wrong thing. Earlier when I asked, how many of you heard theological words, and you were like, no thanks, I don't understand it. And that was because if you're a babe in Christ, having somebody say, oh, well, let's talk about soteriology was a kick in the shins.

No thanks. Don't need it. I don't want to talk about soteriology. I want to like, that's so what, not soteriology. Well, soteriology is just a word to say, let's talk about salvation. Why don't you just say salvation? That's not the $5 word. That's a nickel word. I'm okay with that. And what's the Lord do in salvation? Well, now I care.

So finding out where they're at means I can offer milk, or I can offer meat, hopefully. Or sometimes, and this would be the case, when I go hang out with Mike Doyle, I don't ever feel like, hey Randy, you should probably offer some meat to your elder.

That's not something that happens. And you know, Roger, we should go to lunch sometime just so I can give you some meat. It'll be good. We'll have barbecue. But the reality is that sometimes it's just the fellowship. And the fellowship and the hanging out and spending that time together. Because we need that too, as it turns out. But this watering is a critical element, but it's a different role. What happens if you preach the gospel to the saved? Nothing. You're like, here's the gospel. Yeah, I know. You might confuse them, actually. Well, yeah, if you do a poor job. If you do a poor job, you're really in trouble.

So we have these principles of growth and planning and watering, and those are really key elements to Paul's coming alongside and coming in, or Apollos' coming alongside, but they can't take the credit. God gets all of the glory in those things. And really, that's a relief as a teacher. That's not in my notes, but just an observation.

If I'm in charge of your growth, First of all, that's a very silly thing for me to say. That's not biblically true. But if I was in charge of your growth, that would be quite a responsibility, wouldn't it? I may be given the responsibility, like in the carnal believer, where the Lord's like, hey, it's a coming alongside sort of a day.

You can see that somebody's there. But that's not growth, is it? Or that's not my growth. That's me coming alongside to remind somebody of who they are in Christ. Reminding them they should be abiding. I don't get credit for that. So the growth is always to God's credit.

But you know, Randy, that's what happens to people who don't understand this. They have this guilt all the time about people they care about or love or whatever because they're not growing. They don't, you know, And so it's all on him. They feel this burden all the time. And this guilt. Which is very sad. Instead of recognizing where the growth is really going to come from.

He's going to be doing that. It's cool. All three parts of the Godhead are involved with it. God the Father is involved with our growth. He's the one. God is the one causing the growth. The growth is happening. because we're growing and realizing what is true of us in Christ. And the Holy Spirit is initiating the whole thing on a granular level, on an organic internal level. He's internally part of who God is, and he's internally, because we're redeemed in Christ, internally part of us. So all three parts of the Godhead are involved, and that's a powerful, powerful thing. All right, we should keep going here. I'm not quite ready for that slide yet.

So God causes the growth and then Paul says each receives his reward according to his labor. Now the word reward there I want to be careful with here because in this analogy the way the reward would be used is actually could also be translated wage. So Paul is using the analogy of wage. The translators use the word reward because of the next section.

It's the same word but I think the context would be more like the parables where the earnings are there. Either way, Let's not understand a reward in a monetary sense. We're not getting earthly rewards per se on this. This is about an eternal element.

Although other places Paul will talk about those who are teachers being compensated. The point of this is that the Lord is instantiating the opportunity and then the Lord is rewarding them for those things. which is really cool. We're going to talk about that more in just a second, so if that's a cliffhanger or you wish I had said more, I will, but just in a moment. Then he says, for we are God's fellow workers, and this is a really short phrase, but as I was thinking about this really short phrase, Paul is saying a lot of things that are consequential to this really short phrase. God is doing the work through he and Apollos. They have agency. So if the Corinthians are denying Paul or denying Apollos, which is really what that jockeying is about, right? Well, I deny Paul because I'm of Apollos or vice versa. It's not recognizing God's work through them. and that God is the source.

So that is the first thing that's there. The second thing is claiming a particular leader faction ignores God's provision so that God is the one that is providing the gospel and God is the one that is delivering these truths. They're God's fellow workers. That's not to put them up on a pedestal. That is just to simply say that they're agents. They're just simply where they're at, and God is the one that's providing the opportunity that's there. Their service was done on behalf of God, not the flesh. We didn't say we did it by our own strength, they did it by God's strength.

And then lastly, God as the chief laborer tells them where to go, so they cannot take credit for what field they work or what is harvested, even if they gain the reward from it. So there's a lot of truth packed in that little thing. We're God's fellow workers.

So as a worker, for the one who owns the field, you don't get to say which field you work in. Can you imagine if you went into a field and it wasn't ready to be harvested? What's the consequence? You're not going to get much of a harvest. You're like, well, we found this tiny little basket half full. Because it's not ready.

But God is the master. He's got a universe. He knows right where the harvest is. So he sends Paul and Apollos both in at the right time to do the watering or the planting so that their labor can earn its reward at the appropriate time. But they don't get to take credit for it.

God does. Alright, so 1 Corinthians 3, 9b-15, and 9 definitely is awkwardly divided if you go by the normal numbering system, so I decided to just split it and then I could feel okay about it. He says to them, because this is a transitional statement as he moves from one analogy to the next, he says, you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God, which was given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation and another is building on it."

And we'll stop there. How many of you have ever participated in the building of a house? Whether it was somebody's personal home, or for a job, or habitat for humanity, or one of those things. That was our renovation thing. I was helping them redo some cabins so they'd be nine months useful instead of three to six months useful. Oh, cool. Yeah, so as you're doing building, I have a short story. So my father-in-law, Claire, whom you have all met, I hope he goes to church here. If not, meet him. He's a tremendous guy. I love him dearly. Claire is an engineer.

And I don't know if you've met an engineer before, but they're particular about right angles or 45 degree angles or whatever else it is. And I am a software developer. And you know, computers are also particular, but computers fix that garbage for you. So you just, you're like, you put it in and it does the math and it does all the formulas and the outcome is always, you know, the result of the formula.

So as long as you've got the formula right, everything's okay but when you're physically manually building a house there can be imperfections and Claire built this gorgeous house in Washington State and I helped him with it a little bit and he had a wall that was right when you walked in the house you turn a corner and there's this big wall that overlooked the Columbian River and I helped him drywall it and I thought I did an okay job. But it turns out as an engineer, he had different opinions about the outcome of the work. So he told me later on, he had to redo it because there was a little warping here and there in the wall. But that's one of those things where when you start talking about building a house, I know I can tell you a lot about how not to do it because I did them the wrong way. The truth of the matter is that Paul goes on here and he says, like a master builder.

Now, today with modern materials and modern tools, it's not that big of a deal to square up a piece of wood. I mean, given the right tools, it's not overly difficult to do that. And it's not that difficult to cut stone and get precision now down to the thousandths of an inch, possibly more. We can do some pretty amazing things with modern tools.

But a master builder at this time, in the time of Paul, well now you're talking about manual labor and very limited tool sets, so that if you go down to finer and finer and finer precision, Now you're talking about very expensive things, because it's going to take a lot of man hours to do this. And you're talking about a depth of understanding that is years of experience.

So Paul, when he's using this analogy, he says like a master builder, he's not saying that in arrogance. Let's make sure that we're clear on that. There's no arrogance there. What he's talking about instead as a Master Builder is that he was assigned his role as a Master Builder by the Holy Spirit. So he was confident that he was equipped.

How many years was Paul not out on his missionary journeys? How many years was he in training before all that took place? We have about 14 years or so, if my numbers are correct. And all throughout that time, the Holy Spirit was training Paul, and equipping him, and getting him ready, so that when he went out on his missionary journeys, he could be the wise master builder. So he knew he was equipped by the Spirit to deliver the message of the Gospel. He was led by the Spirit to deliver the Gospel, and confirmed through the Spirit that the foundation was indeed laid.

A wise master builder isn't going to just find any old spot, dig any old hole, and then throw any old rock in it and say, ta-da, I got the cornerstone. Is it right? Well, I hope so. I saw a master builder do it once. He dug a hole, he put the rock in. That's not how you do it.

And so Paul had been equipped by the Holy Spirit to do these things, but he knew that when he came in, he had clearly articulated the gospel. How many of you feel comfortable presenting the gospel? I don't say that to bring guilt, I just mean that literally. If you're not comfortable presenting the gospel, spend some time reading 1 Corinthians 15, 3 and 4, and memorize it, because that's the gospel. You know you're presenting the gospel because it's inspired by the Holy Spirit, written by Paul, and you can articulate it to someone else, and it's clear.

There's a delivery of what is already guaranteed to be true and precise. You can be a wise master builder too. Paul delivered those things with precision and the direction of the Holy Spirit as an abiding apostle, so that that foundation was sure, that foundation was real. A wise master builder is going to dig all the way down through the dirt into the rock, the bedrock that's there, so that the stone is sitting on the rock, and there's nothing in between them that will slide over time. So Paul knows exactly what needs to go on in preparation and delivery and execution, because he's doing it by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the direction of the Holy Spirit, and speaking the words that the Holy Spirit directed.

But Paul, when he's done, can be certain that the foundation hit bedrock. He knows there's believers in Corinth, so that Apollos watered. He knows Apollos watered because he laid the foundation. And then Paul says, another is building on it. Each man must be careful how he builds on it.

So now that someone else is building on the foundation, Paul is relying on the Holy Spirit to continue the work that he, the Holy Spirit, started through Paul. Paul left elders there, based on the pattern already prescribed in other parts of the scripture. Paul left elders. And he left them in charge of teaching. Apollos came in. And he was also a teacher, able to teach.

But then Paul is concerned now, for the believers there in Corinth, about who's building on it. They must be careful. Shepherds have a full responsibility to carefully study God's Word and carefully teach God's Word and carefully come alongside and do the shepherding. It is way, way beyond the scope of this class to do an entire series of lessons on eldership, but I would encourage each and every believer to spend some time studying eldership to understand what they're looking for.

Half of why we have some of these seeker-sensitive churches where everybody's 35 and younger is because those people have not been equipped and they don't know that they need to be looking for gray hair. So don't dye your hair, ladies. No, just kidding, that's not what I'm saying. Gray hair is reflective of maturity, probably, right? So if you go into a church and nobody has gray hair, there might be a lacking of maturity, and there might be no one who's able to disciple, no one who's able to shepherd. They're not equipped. They just haven't had enough life experience.

The older I get, the more experiences I have, and the more I think, okay, Lord, that was quite a trial. But I learned through it. It was quite a trial, and now I can come alongside someone else who's going through that exact same trial and say, I get that. I'm here with you. I'm praying with you through this. We had three miscarriages, and I can tell you right now that if somebody tells me they have a miscarriage, I can understand with them. I didn't pray for a miscarriage. But that was an important trial that the Lord put in my life that we would go through that, so that now when other believers are in that situation, we come alongside. Jessica and I both go, aww, can we love you? We get that.

But gray hair usually is an indicator, right? If you go to church and there's no gray hair, either they spent too much money on hair dye, or not enough time growing, right? Not enough trials. So, Paul says, each man must be careful how he builds on it.

I'm going to take a detour here. I know we're running out of time, but I think this is really what was being discussed before the class got started. As believers who are saved and given the perfect foundation of Christ, we're going to detour and we're going to ask this question, or we're going to make this statement, don't let just any old builder have at your foundation or building.

Okay? I don't tend to spend a lot of time talking about Billy Graham. I have some concerns about the organization, but my primary singular concern is this. They come in, they preach the gospel, let's say hundreds or thousands of people respond to the gospel, and then they say, okay, go find a good church.

And then they're out of town. The problem is that how do you know as a babe where you're going to get a good meal. I can tell you my nephew Gabriel, it's a good thing when he was born his mom said, well I know where you're going to get a good meal. And his mom began nursing him. Because he doesn't know. He can't.

And so the greatest thing is that for babes in Christ it is really critical that if you are the one that presents the gospel to somebody and they respond to the gospel that you stay in connection with them and that you consider spending time studying God's Word with them and disabling them. And if they're far away, at least work with them to try to get into a good church where you actually can quantifiably see good teaching. Because otherwise the end result is possibly a lifetime of pain and suffering. And so be careful how you build on it. That's a call to the shepherds. But then the other question I think you're asking is, is there not also a responsibility for the believer to have discernment? Is that an accurate representation of what you were posing? If you would pose it a different way, go for it. Okay. Okay.

There is a responsibility to be like the Bereans, to be studying God's word and taking in. If I say something and you think, That doesn't match up with what Paul wrote here, or James says this, or Peter wrote this, or even that is totally a terrible quotation of Deuteronomy, or whatever it is that I've done. Double-check it. I'm not God. I hope to be abiding and teaching God's Word as I'm up here, but that doesn't mean that I won't have made a mistake.

So you should be double-checking Randy, and Roger, and Vern, and Mike, and Bob, and everybody else who's teaching. we have a responsibility to be discerning and to be stewards of what is taught. Because when we see this next part where the fire comes out, the fire is just burning away that which is junk. So what's left after the junk is gone? The gems, the rewards, the beautiful things that God did to build the structure.

Ephesians 2.10 tells us that God has good works planned for us to do, and then we find out elsewhere that we'll be rewarded when we do those good works. How cool is that? Hey, God wants... He's planned for you to do this cool thing. You're just abiding. You go do the cool thing, and then God rewards you for doing the thing that He did anyways.

I think that's a pretty awesome system, because I couldn't orchestrate that. I couldn't achieve that in my own strength. This abiding leads to these amazing eternal rewards and eternal results. So he says, if any man's work remains, and I'm rushing through here, I apologize, because we're almost out of time.

Brian's going to ring that second bell any moment now. If any man's work remains, he will receive a reward. Called it. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss. So that's a bummer. All the wood, hay, and stubble, that's going to go goodbye. But as it turns out, that's kind of a good thing.

Because for us as believers, are we worried about carrying any wood, hay, or stubble into eternity? No, we're not. What are we bringing into eternity after this fire of purification? Only the good stuff, only the rewards, only God's perfection and purity. Well, that doesn't sound like a scary, terrible thing to me. That's just a clarification of what is there so that we can glory at the Lord.

It is possible someone will be saved and not come in with stacks of jewels, so to speak. But as my dad put it, and I just thought this was a good way to put it, some people will get into heaven naked and smoking. They'll not have a lot of gems and jewels and rewards, but they're still saved. And Paul articulates that very clearly. He will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet is thrown through fire. He's saved. which drives some of the legalists crazy because they want to see somebody say, aha, we found a terrible sin, probably not saved. No, it's just wood, hay, and stubble. It's going to be burned away. And you know it's terrible? Do you know why there's wood, hay, and stubble there?

Because the teachers that they were around, and the mature believers they were around, did not do the job they were supposed to do. And I don't say that for guilt. I say that as just one of those things where in the church we have a responsibility to be abiding. Because if we're abiding, those things don't happen. So in conclusion, just because we should wrap up here, the divisions in the church over various things included this crazy notion over which leader was a better lineage.

But Paul focuses in on, instead of division, this unity. This work of the Holy Spirit to bring things together, to bring things to growth, and to bring things to a rewardable state. I know that when Paul wrote what we call 2 Corinthians, he wished it was a different letter. I wish this was a letter talking to you about how cool it was to hear about all the things that the Lord is doing in your lives. Instead, he's like, you guys are not abiding. Here's the spanking.

If they had heard this message and listened to it and considered it, and the teachers had taught the things that were a result of an abiding teacher, it would be a powerful thing. So the division is there, but Paul has presented a way for us to not have division in the church today, by not caring. Who's the teacher? It doesn't matter. Are they abiding? Are they teaching God's word? That's what matters.

Alright, let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would Just continue to draw the truths of your word here into the hearts and minds of each one of us as individuals. Thank you that you're growing us right where we are, right where we need to be growing. We do pray for your strength in the trials and that we would see the strengthening that is a result of the trials. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.