It's a great blessing to be with you all this evening. Look to God's Word. Let's open in our Bibles to the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. All right, we'll be in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 this evening. First, let me ask you a question. Do you perhaps enjoy the Food Network or any shows that you've seen on the Food Network? Perhaps some of you do. There's been an interesting kind of rise in the past several years in a foodie culture in our in our country it seems and some of this I think has been because of shows like Iron Chef or Chopped if you've ever seen Chopped that's one that my wife and I enjoy watching together sometimes and It is it is funny to see this. It's it's probably not just because of the food network, but also perhaps because of the rise in more ingredients that are available to us. Quinoa, or quinoa as I first called it when it first showed up. But yes, all these different things. But it is interesting as this foodie culture has come about and we're more interested in food, part of this I think is just a human tendency. It's a tendency that we have because we like to compare things and critique things And that can be well and good, that can be harmless in many ways, even fun or productive if you want to find the best of the foods, good eats. But that tendency can also be, and us sinners can transform into something unkind, ungrateful, and ultimately unhelpful, especially when that tendency comes out within the local church. as far as how we interact with one another in the church. What Paul, in our passage this evening, is going to refer to as God's temple. We're going to see that Paul was dealing with an immature group of Christians, and they were busy with this spirit of criticism, lobbying criticisms, voicing their sophisticated opinions, they thought it was quite sophisticated, their preferences, lobbing these things out while completely missing opportunities to participate in things in the church that actually matter and that actually build up the church body. Paul was dealing with, we might say, a proliferation of critics in the church at Corinth and a lack or a dearth of workers or craftsmen within the Corinthian church. And as we think of church life today, this is still a temptation, isn't it? Still a temptation to be a critic rather than a craftsman in God's church. Well, let's turn to the reading of God's word in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I'm going to just read the whole chapter because it does in many ways hang together. Here now God's word. 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 me. 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. Lessons, the reading of God's word. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for an opportunity to again open your word and devote some time to the Lord, seeking to understand it, to submit to it, to meditate upon it. Lord, we pray that you would use our time to be beneficial Lord, to our souls, that we would draw near to you. And as we draw near to you in Christ, that we would be conformed to the image of Christ, that we would be made more mature, more like our Savior, more like the God-man. We pray in his name. Amen. Well, like I said, the Corinthians were just infants in Christ. They were immature Christians. when they should have been, by this point, far more mature than they actually were. This was a big problem. Now the infantile level of maturity at the Corinthian church was creating what we today might call a toxic church environment. It was characterized, as Paul says in our passage, by jealousy and strife. And again, in this chapter, Paul goes back to part of the reason for the strife. He talks about these competitions between leaders, or at least the way that people view the leaders. Now, this is something that Paul had already brought up in chapter one. If you look back at verse 12 of chapter one, you'll see this, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow In a very similar way, we get this in verse 4 of chapter 3, I follow Paul. And another, I follow Apollos. So there's a lot of strife here over this. We might imagine some of the conversations that were going on in the Corinthian church. You know, I really think that Paul, he's the best, because he's the founding pastor after all. And somebody says, nah, Paul's a fundamentalist. You know, his letters always make me feel guilty, and he's nowhere near as good an orator, a preacher, as Apollos. Paul, I think, is highlighting this kind of attitude of strife, of jealousy, of competition. He's highlighting this, and he's saying, look, you becoming connoisseurs of church leaders is not something you should boast about. You shouldn't think that that is a mark of discernment and wisdom and maturity. It's actually the opposite, the exact opposite. And so Paul confronts this behavior in our passage, and part of what he's doing is he's undercutting some of the theology, the false theology, that was behind some of this snobbish talk. and this competitive spirit. What I think he's doing here is he's saying, look, you Corinthians, in the way that you speak about church leaders, on one hand, you're making too much of church leaders. And on the other hand, you are demoting church leaders. You're not making enough of them. How so? Well, on the one hand, they're making too much of church leaders because they're making them out to be superheroes. Celebrities, these figureheads. And so the focus was becoming all about these leaders within the church. He lists Paul, Peter, Apollos, though very likely there were local folks who were there in Corinth that are not named, but that everybody would have known about. These leaders, the people were looking up to them, and so there was a form of clericalism that was beginning to develop, making too much of church leaders, making them out to be these superheroes and celebrities. We might say that they were making the church leaders out to be these, essentially these like CEOs or entrepreneurs or politicians. And that actually gets to the other side, which is that they're making too little of the church leaders by thinking of them in secular terms. And here's what I mean, not that they were saying that they were non-religious. Today we use secular in that way. I mean secular in the older sense of that word. Secular in the older sense means of the moment, of this age, that which is temporary, that which is passing away. And so if you're viewing church leaders as a CEO or an entrepreneur or a politician, you're thinking of them in these kinds of categories of a secular job, a job that is essentially about this very moment. And I think for Paul, that is to make too much or too little of church leaders. It is to demote them in some ways. Not that we don't care about this moment. Not at all that we don't care about, for instance, loving our neighbor. Caring about whether our neighbor has food to eat. We care about the here and the now. Don't misunderstand me. But there is something unique about pastors, elders, deacons. There's something unique about church officers that they're neglecting here. So let's look at what Paul, I think, is saying in return. Paul, in our text, confronts these falsehoods by reminding the church of two important truths. The first one is this, that leaders in the church are servants. They're servants, all right? So they're not to be exalted in this way, made superheroes and celebrities. He says that we are servants, verse five. And so he compares the work of Paul and Apollos with the work of who? The common farmer, who does his work not knowing how nature will respond in bringing forth the growth of the harvest. The farmer relies on the weather, relies on ultimately the Lord, is providentially in control of the growth. So too, Paul sowed the seeds of evangelistic proclamation. Apollos spent time watering, taking that learning to a higher level. But in both cases, they must rely on God alone. They must rely on the transformative grace of God. He brings the growth, not their strength or their wisdom or methodology or oratory skill. It is God who brings the growth. In other words, church leaders are to be faithful servants, but they cannot transform hearts and should not seek self-exaltation and secular glory by using worldly methods. to make them look wise and powerful according to the world. Now secondly, Paul says this. He says that the work of church leaders is a high and a holy and a uniquely durable work. This is a work that should last into eternity. This is why I say that church leadership roles, these These officers, their work is not essentially secular, that there is something unique to the call of church leadership. So Paul appeals to more imagery, and this time he appeals to the imagery of a skilled builder or craftsman. Leaders in the church must follow the blueprint provided by God, just as the Israelites did with the old covenant temple. This means that the quality of the work of church leaders matters, right? So pastors can't say, you know, don't judge me, you know, it doesn't matter what my work is as long as it's done in sincerity. No, no, no. The work matters, not just of church leaders, but of everybody in the church who's doing ministry. work matters, the quality matters. In fact, the work of ministers of the gospel is so important that ultimately, Paul says, God will judge it on the last day and will burn up in the fires of judgment and purification all that fails to meet his standards, which I don't know about you, but I think that's a really sobering word. Certainly if you're a church leader, that's a sobering word. These fires will remove all of the so-called converts to Christ who are really attracted to the preacher and not to Christ, which is a sobering word for the Corinthians. To the program and not to the kingdom mission, to the social club, but not to the building up of the church or the temple. And so the way that church leaders minister must emphasize Christ and the kingdom mission of making mature disciples of Jesus Christ in a way that will ultimately give way to eternity, to the new heavens and to the new earth. Now, at the end of 1 Corinthians 3, I do think that Paul brings it back to the original point about this issue of immaturity in the Corinthian church, and the issue of strife and jealousy within the church. And so I want to begin to move into the last section of this sermon by helping us to hopefully meditate a little bit on this topic as well. And I'm going to have us do that by considering a question. The question is this, are you, friend, primarily a critic in the church or a craftsman? Are you a critic or a craftsman in God's church? Now to help us think about this, I'm going to give you some different brands of critic and some different kinds of craftsman, again, to help us consider this. The first one is, let's talk about critics. We'll start with the negative stuff and end with the happy stuff, all right? So the first one is this. The first kind of critic, and you know, I've been in ministry long enough now to have interacted with and also been tempted toward all of these, so I'll just say that, but the first one is what I'll call the spectator in the church, the spectator. The spectator is the churchgoer who comes on occasion to worship, might even show up at a congregational meeting, because I got to get my vote in, right? That's a little bit of a joke. But who doesn't see anyone from the church outside of those occasions. The spectator views the church as a traditional institution. that is useful. It's a service for me. It's an old traditional institution that provides a service for me of various kinds, but the spectator does not really in practice view the church as a few of these things, as an embassy of God's kingdom on earth. The spectator doesn't view the church that way. He might say he does, she might say that she does, but by being a spectator, no, this person does not. Why? Well, to view the church as an embassy of the kingdom on earth, the Great Commission mission must be a priority. And if you're only showing up on occasion and you're not spending time with the people of God, I would say the spectator's not all that engaged in the kingdom work, in the mission work. And so they don't view the church as what it is, an embassy of the kingdom of God on earth. Also, the spectator does not view the church as a household of faith. Again, a lack of fellowship, a lack of connection shows this, and a lack of service. The spectator tends not to volunteer. Why? Well, the household of faith means what? There's familial responsibilities. There's obligations that come along with being part of a family, and that's true of the family of faith. The spectator does not view the church as a temple of God, because the spectator doesn't take worship all that seriously, and therefore doesn't view the worship of God, the church of God as the meeting place between God and man in Christ. The second critic that I'll list off here is what I'm gonna call, just to bring it back around to the food network, the traveling foodie. So the traveling foodie. I think this is a major problem in the church today. The traveling foodie is a connoisseur of sermons and of churches The traveling foodie loves the new and the novel, but very quickly grows tired of consuming the same old kind of preaching, the same old songs, the same old ministries, because those things very quickly become, oh no, ordinary. The traveling foodie doesn't like words like that. And so the traveling foodie will move on to find a church that will satisfy his or her hunger for a truly five-star church. The next one is perhaps another very large problem in the church today, as I think it tends to be in the church throughout the ages. But the third one, the last one that I'll mention is this, is the demolition expert. The demolition expert. The demolition expert is the church member who simply must express his or her opinion on virtually every matter in the church. Now that might be hyperbole, but that's okay because the demolition expert is an expert in hyperbole, almost always speaks in such words. No detail is too small to receive an explosive critique from the demolition expert. Whether it be the facial expressions of the usher, greeter, a typo in the announcements, the length of a sermon or imperfections in the sermon, the way that a volunteer arranges the desserts at fellowship meals, the demolition expert is ready to detonate another unnecessary bomb in the church. rather than to focus on ways that he or she could join the work of building the church up. The demolition expert is sadly too busy tearing the church down. Strife, jealousy, criticisms. This is the demolition expert. Friends, we need to be able to think self-critically. If we're going to criticize anybody, we'll take the log out of our own eye. It needs to be ourselves first. Where are you, friend? Are you there? Are you the spectator? Are you the traveling foodie? Are you the demolition expert? Do you lean into these kinds of roles within the church? Now, I'm not saying I always have to say this. I'm not saying that No one should be criticized in church leadership, or no one should offer helpful comments, constructive criticism within the church. But even as I think of the demolition expert here, I suppose we could say this. There is no office of official church critic. There's no office of church critic, okay? And if you are taking that role on, you need to be reminded, that's not an office. That's not a official role that you should be taking on. And that perhaps, actually, this is what I find in the church at least, the people who are doing the ministries, usually they're the ones who know how to criticize it best. They have more insight than somebody outside lobbing grenades in. Well, this brings us to the craftsmen. We go to the positive side of things. Who are the craftsmen within the church? Well, of course, we know elsewhere that Paul speaks of the church as a body, and not everybody does the same things. Not everybody is the same body part, as Paul says. So who are the craftsmen? Well, let me give you a few categories to think through this one as well. The first one is the ordained officer. That one's an obvious one. I bring it up first, really, just because this is a focus for Paul in chapter 3. And, of course, he's focusing on that primarily because that is connected to the tension there in Corinth. But this is the ruling elder, this is the pastor, this is the deacon, the ordained officer who has clear roles within the church to shepherd and to serve, to teach, and to lead by way of example. The ordained officer is to build the church up, to build the church from a place of Christ-like leadership. But we have to remember, this doesn't mean what? It doesn't mean that the ordained officers are the only workmen, the only craftsmen. Rather, they're at the front of the pack. They're leading the charge. That's true. But they're not the only ones doing the work. The people are to be following them and, as Paul says, mimicking, following after the way that they're doing things. and seeking to be like them as they are like Christ. The second category would be those in the church who are lay leaders. Lay leaders. This is a really important category, I think, within the church. These are men and women who organize and execute ministries within the church. In our church, we've got committee after committee because we're good Presbyterians, right? And there's committee members and committee chairs and VBS directors and Sunday school teachers and so on and so forth, or even going outside of the local church in some ways. You could think about other ways that you serve in hospitality serving in nursing homes, serving in ministries like Good News Club and things like this around the community, and so on and so forth. Lay leaders are incredibly important within the church. It's a massive blessing. And then third, and we shouldn't skip over this, there's what I'll call the unskilled laborer. I was in West Virginia on a mission trip with our church. It was the first year that I was able to go since I became the pastor four years ago. And we have a lot of people who are, I mean, they're electricians and construction kind of people. And so we went down there, and I was just unskilled labor. I'm just there to dig a hole. That's all I'm there to do. Well, all our guys are out doing all of these is one of the things with their skills, right? And in some ways, we have to think about that in the church as well, that you know what? We really need people to set up and tear down and be physically present when there's all the kids smacking each other with foam swords, right? We need this kind of thing. We need the unskilled laborer to be willing to generously give of their time, even if, no, they're not the one leading, or taking charge, or organizing, or on the committee, or what have you. But we need these unskilled laborers. And then the last category I'd throw in there too, and again, we don't want to overlook it, is the joyful participant. The joyful participant. Again, often overlooked, but so important, that we need people to participate in the ministries of the church. This is huge, to help in the up-building. The Lord uses you simply listening to a sermon and then actually going off and applying it. The Lord uses you showing up and, you know, kids, you showing up and being there at the camp or the youth group. We need this. We need adults to be there in Sunday school and to take part in the ministries of the church, and to do so not as somebody showing up to say, hmm, you know, fold the arms and say, I wonder if this will be good or not, and I'll be sure to tell him if it's not, right? No, no, no, not the critic, but the joyful participant, the joyful participant. I'm here to receive from the Lord through, right, through this ministry that's being put on, the joyful participant. So my challenge then to you all is to meditate on this a little bit yourselves. Where are you? Are you a critic in the church, a spectator, a traveling foodie, a demolition expert, or are you a craftsman seeking to build up the church, to build one another up within God's church for God's glory using his means all for the gospel mission Is that who you are in these various ways? Unskilled laborer, joyful participant, maybe you're an ordained officer, maybe you're a lay leader, but how could you grow in becoming a more effective, more joyful craftsman and shy away from put to death that critical spirit? Let's pray to this end. Our Heavenly Father, we do pray acknowledging that all of us have a temptation and to become a critic of various kinds. And Lord, to do so would be to fall into this Corinthian sin of having a church characterized by jealousy and strife, criticisms, arguing. Lord, we pray that you keep us from such sin, from such temptation. Lord, I pray for this church, Lord, even as they're seeking to bring in a man for gospel ministry, seeking to get him into the country. Lord, we do pray that you would work and bring him quickly. But even as that is the plan here, Lord, we pray that you would be protecting this church and filling it, filling it with craftsmen rather than critics. And Lord, we thank you that by God's grace, even if we do fall into that spirit of criticism, you are good to draw us out of it. Christ is able to lead us in repentance and in transformation. And we do pray for that, for those who have fallen into that sin. We pray in Christ's name, amen.