Yesterday, in my twice-weekly podcast (https://youtube.com/live/id2C-SwZyJM?feature=share), we discussed the time when Paul and Barnabas were mistaken for gods, and refused to accept worship. This might not seem like a section of Scripture with a practical application today, but if we’re honest, it is. There are some within ministries that think that if they don’t show up, or if they’re not there to lead, everything would fall apart. Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own importance, we miss out on one fact: every one of us has an expiration date. We’re all replaceable and expendable, and the only true lynchpin holding everything together is Jesus Christ. The Church existed long before we did, and will continue to go on after we’re gone. We need, then, perspective and humility.
Loved ones, this was also the case in many churches in the New Testament. Paul’s constantly reminding people they need to get along, and that they need to humble themselves before God. In the church at Corinth, Paul had to remind everyone that it wasn’t Paul, or Apollos, or Peter who died for them, it was Jesus Christ. If he so warned the church there in this way, I think he would say of us “you weren’t baptized into Brian, or (insert preacher, elder, or ministry team leader’s name here). You were baptized into Jesus Christ. I am a man, the same nature as you. I will falter, flounder, and fail. I will grow weary, and need rest. Some day, my body will wear out, and I will go on. But Jesus Christ is the same today as He is yesterday, as He will be forever more. He is not bound by flesh and death, and will never leave or forsake you. If you’ve been trusting in your own strength, repent, confess, and be humbled. Fix your eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Perfector of your faith.
1 Corinthians 2-3
2 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
3 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
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. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly 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 in men. 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.
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