Grace Christian Fellowship: Christian Teachings from 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 3 "Spiritual People"

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able. For you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not carnal? (I Corinthians 3:1-4)

The biggest celebrations in heaven are for spiritual births. Jesus said that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. Like us when Gracie was born, we were excited about everything that she did. "Look, she opened her eyes!", "Look, she wiggled her toes!" My son was probably thinking, "Big deal, I do that all the time." When someone is born again into a new life with Jesus Christ it is exciting. When we are able to lead someone to repent and believe in Jesus for salvation it is the most exciting thing we can do. We get a chance to see God turn a life around. I am so excited to teach the New Believer’s class in Japanese on Tuesday nights because that class is full of babies! "Look, she opened her eyes!" That is what is happening in that class, people are opening their eyes to the things of God for the very first time.

But Paul was writing to a group of Christians who had been saved for a few years. They were no longer newborns, and their lack of maturity was no longer cute. It is cute when my baby lies around the house and screams for attention. It is less cute when my son does it. It is not cute at all if I do it. As Christians we need to grow. Spiritual growth is a process through which you change the direction of your life. Until you put your faith in Jesus Christ changing your life is impossible to do. The reason why is because you are not really in control of your life anyway. You are controlled by the desires of your flesh, your appetites and your needs. When you are born again through Jesus Christ you are given a new heart, which can listen to and be led by the Spirit. Spiritual growth is learning to listen to the Spirit instead of the flesh. Paul told the Corinthians that they were carnal, "meaty" because they were still listening to their own appetites and desires and not to the Spirit. One of the tell-tale indications of their "meat" was the envy and strife and divisions that they had between each other. Anyone who knows the Spirit will tell you that He is a team player. The Spirit loves unity and cannot stand division. The Spirit works best when everyone is focussed on what we all share in common, Jesus Christ!
When we are listening to the Spirit and willing to be led by Him there is a lot more that we can learn. Paul calls this "solid food". Just like a baby must drink milk until it grows big enough to digest other foods, so too newborn Christians first need to get fat on what God has freely given to them. Newborn Christians should lie around the church and demand attention from God! They should get fed with God’s love and His grace often. They should learn to rest in the safety of Christ’s finished work on the cross. They should trust in their heavenly Father to answer their cries because they are His children by faith. But when these babies have gotten their fill of this wonderful milk from heaven, they will be ready for the next stage of their Christian walk. Paul calls this "solid food". There is a lot more in the Bible. God not only loves you and sent His Son Jesus to die for you, He also has a wonderful plan for your life, and it is time to get started on it.

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:5-11)

It is about the time that solid food gets introduced that the babies start screaming for their bottle. They spit out the peas and carrots and want more milk. In fact Paul says that they are not able to receive the solid food because they are carnal. The main issue here is who is master of your life. Jesus has bought you back from Satan with the price of the cross and has given you new life. You are no longer a slave to sin. You are free. But in order to grow to maturity you must let Jesus become the Lord of your life instead of yourself. The spiritual baby judges everything on the basis of their own happiness. They inspect the food and if it does not look good they stick out their tongues, wrinkle up their noses and turn their heads away. They are in control. You might not realize this but the time of your life when you were in the most control was when you were a baby. A baby wakes up when she wants to, sleeps when she wants to, eats, plays, poops, and cries when she wants to. It is as we get bigger that the world places more and more constraints upon us. Babies can demand anything they want and the rest of us come running.

Paul describes us as the workmanship of God. We are the field that God works to produce good fruit. We are the building that God is constructing for His glory. We are not the owners of the building, we are not the architect, we do not have a right to demand that God changes his plans. A mature Christian is one who cares most about pleasing the Lord. She knows that there are many things that we don’t understand and not everything that we think is good is what it seems. She knows that she can trust Jesus and is willing to let the Spirit lead her where she should go. She knows the depth of God’s love for her but realises that love doesn’t mean that she will always get her own way. If fact greater love often telling children "no", though they suffer bitter disappointment and tears.

God wants us to grow in the knowledge of His love, following the leading of the Holy Spirit. This means that we cannot stay babies for very long. If we do, there is something very wrong. However, I think there is one more problem that we have. I think that there is a danger of dressing up children in adult clothing and sending them out to do battle with the enemy. Our society is so enthralled with success that we are too eager to grow up too fast. If you are a newborn Christian it is ok to be a baby! If you are just starting out on solid food, that is just fine. Christian maturity is not a race! Like any building you have to start with the foundation and work your way up row by row. You cannot start at the top and work your way down! And yet this is what many ministries are trying to do. They go out searching for the deep things of God and end up in deep trouble. They march off like the little boy in Peter and the Wolf thinking to come back a hero, only to find that their pop-guns do not frighten the beast a bit. Paul says that his fellow workers are building on the foundation which he laid, and that we need to take heed how we build on that foundation because it is none other than Jesus Christ. The milk that you consume as a baby becomes the foundation for all the growth that will come later. Everything spiritual that you learn has to be built on top of that. It has to match the love of Jesus and what He did on the cross for you. If it does fit with the foundation then it is not true.

Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their own craftiness": And again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." Therefore 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 things present or things to come – all are yours. And you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:12-23)

I want you to think with me, what is the test of true Christian maturity? Is the work that you are doing going to last? Is what you are doing of eternal value? Here is an easy way to make that judgement for yourself. Imagine that tomorrow our sun that has been burning so bright for so long decides that it’s time is up. It hiccups a huge amount of solar radiation called a super-nova and dies. In the process everything on this planet is vaporized in the heat. What do you have left? If you don’t have Jesus then you really don’t have anything do you? In fact you are just as much gone as your stuff. If you have put your faith in Jesus then you will still be alive with Him in heaven. Now let’s build on that foundation. Have you made any investments? If you have only stored up riches here on earth then you will have lost a lot. But praise God, even though you have come out with nothing more than you went in with still you are saved. But if you have been listening to the Spirit and following what Jesus says then you will have much more waiting for you in your heavenly account. Every good work that you do so that people see it and give glory to God adds something to your account. Of course we learned that if they give glory to you then you have already got your reward. Every person that you shared Christ with is there to greet you. But what I think is even more interesting is that unlike the pyramid schemes here on earth, there really is an exponential growth in your investment when it comes to heaven. You see, every investment that you make in heaven is a human one. Nothing else survives the fire. So the best part about it is that every good work you do has the potential to do even more as that person’s life is changed around and they start to live for Christ too.

I once looked at an advertisement for a mutual fund that had a graph with a line heading skyward. It said, "This is what your money would look like now if you had invested with us $10,000 in 1985." Of course I did not have $10,000 in 1985. But I am very proud to say that even though I did not know anything about the stock market back then I did make some pretty good heavenly investments. You see I led a couple people to Christ back in high school. Now I don’t know what they are doing today but let’s just imagine that they are living normal Christian lives. In the last 15 years each of them have been adding to their heavenly account by their good deeds and through their witness to others. And some of those others are adding to their accounts as well. Not only that but I have been steadily making deposits ever since.

Our true foundation is Jesus Christ. Everything we are as Christians need to be built upon His love, His truth and His sacrifice. We need to spend time as babies learning all about the riches of His gift to us. We also need to grow into mature believers who are doing works that last in people lives and therefore through them will endure to heaven. In order to grow we must put our trust completely in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit. As long as we are simply looking for the best experience, the most comfortable church, or the most exciting program we are still picking and choosing with our selves in the center. But when Jesus Christ is at the center we will grow into the men and women of God that He designed us to be.

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