The Church - God’s Gift 7/13/08

Sermon Series: The Church ________________
Sermon Title: The Church –God’s Gift
Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 3:5-11
“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos 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. 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.”

Introduction: Something here about a gift: A gift that is made precious not because of the corpulence of the gift but because of the personage of the giver.

Transition: Today we are going to continue our study of the book of 1 Corinthians. In the passage which we read today Paul is continuing to deal with the problem of disunity which exists in the church at Corinth. If you remember our study of the earlier parts of this letter we saw that one of the biggest sources of disunity was the incredible belief that some of the church members were holding up their conversion under a certain church leader like a badge of honor. Paul was quick to take as little responsibility as possible for the baptism of people in the church and insisted that conversion was not the only work to which the evangelists were called. Today we see that Paul is making it clear that one of the reasons this problem exists in the church is that they have a wrong view of the ownership of the church and thus the responsibility and authority for its growth.

I. God’s gift of growth
a. There are two kinds of growth that we can talk about when we look at the scripture in relation to the church. There is growth of the body and growth in the body.
b. Growth of the body is the amount of new believers who are coming to the gospel message in the church.
i. There is one thing that some church leaders’ do that seems to me is pretty precocious; they believe that they are responsible for the growth of the church. Any serious church leader has been inundated with books on church growth in the last few decades.
1. (Show the different books) – With most of these books there is an inherent problem, they assume that it ultimately our responsibility to grow the church. If we just have the right programs or the correct paradigm or fulfill the needs of the community appropriately then our church will suddenly burst at the seams with new growth. I think that is an unbiblical attitude to have. What we see in God’s word paints a very different picture. Scripture shows that God is responsible for the growth of the Church.
ii. Acts as corroboration. –
1. Acts 2:47, Acts 9:31, 11:21 (Antioch),
c. Growth in the body -
i. Acts 16:5 “so the churches were strengthened in faith and they increased in numbers daily.”
ii. Ephesians 4:15,16
1. “the building up of the body of Christ” here probably has both meanings attached to it. Both the physical mounting of numbers as the church expands and the spiritual muscle which is obtained as we grow and mature in Christ together.
d. The thing I am trying to communicate here is the need for us to realize is that both as a church and as individual Christians we are in God’s capable hands. Our job is to learn how to more and more give up control and learn to be sensitive to God’s leading. We know that God intends us to have a greater and greater influence in our community. We know that He intends for us to mature and become more and more Christ-like in our personal lives. As a church we have to spend a lot of time understanding God’s heart for us and as individual Christians we have to practice behaviors and attitudes which place us in a position of God’s blessing.
II. God’s gift of Leaders
a. Apostolic offices along with all of the early leaders of the church were gifts from God for the building up of His Church.
i. Ephesians 4:11-12
b. Paul here describes his and the other church leaders who had been at work in Corinth as servants.
i. Nature of 
1. The word that Paul uses to describe himself here is not the word which we normally think of when we see servant or slave. This is the same one that is used later as an office in the church – deacon. Originally the word was probably derived from a verb which meant to run as in someone who runs errands or missions for someone else. IN early Greek it came to have the meaning of someone who waits on tables – a waiter. In the NT it is variously translated as minister, deacon, and servant.
ii. Understanding our place as servants, chosen by God to perform a task which has been chosen by God has a couple of serious implications for the Christian leader.
1. We can’t willy nilly decide what our place in kingdom work is supposed to be. We simply have to discover our place. Each of us has been particularly designed to fulfill a God given role in the Church, so we need to find that role to which our gifts are uniquely talented.
2. This also means that we should not feel bad about saying no to ministries that do not fit within the framework of the work God has called us to do.
3. There is no superiority attached to the position of the leader in the kingdom. There is only room for one king, there are no spots open for prime minister or grand vizier. There is only King Jesus and he has complete and rightful ownership of the church.
c. A retired friend became interested in the construction of an addition to a shopping mall. Observing the activity regularly, he was especially impressed by the conscientious operator of a large piece of equipment. The day finally came when my friend had a chance to tell this man how much he’d enjoyed watching his scrupulous work. Looking astonished, the operator replied, “You’re not the supervisor?” Howard A. Stein in Reader’s Digest.
III. God’s gift to Leaders
a. Ownership of the workers
i. Paul describes the work of the church leader as someone who is in partnership with God.
ii. He takes the responsibility for wages. It is clear from later in the chapter that what Paul is discussing here is not the paycheck ministers receive but the eternal reward which is waiting for them depending upon their faithfulness to God.
iii. He is the one who determines the work
iv. The work of a Beethoven, and the work of a charwoman, become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly “as to the Lord.” This does not, of course, mean that it is for anyone a mere toss-up whether he should sweep rooms or compose symphonies. A mole must dig to the glory of God and a cock must crow. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.
b. Ownership of the Church
i. There are three overriding metaphor which the NT uses to describe the Church.
1. The Body –with Christ as the Head
2. The Building – with Christ as the foundation (cornerstone)
3. The Farm/Plant – with God as the owner or vine.
ii. The thing that all three of these have in common is that they are only possible through the effect which God is having over them.