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The message you're about to hear was preached at Liberty Baptist
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message from God's Word will be a blessing to you.
Would you please turn to 1st Corinthians chapter #3 this
evening? First Corinthians chapter #3 as
we continue our series Living for God in an Ungodly World.
And tonight we're going to look at the issue of the minister.
Now, if I was to ask you, what does the minister do, you
probably would come up with all kinds of different answers.
You'd say, well, you know, he makes phone calls and he makes
visits and he sends texts and emails.
Especially, you know, if you don't show up to church, he
finds a way to find you, right? You might answer that way.
He you'd say he prepares sermons.
And certainly sermon preparation is a big task of what I do
during any typical week. You might say that I
administrate the church. That's what a minister does,
that a minister administrates the needs of the church, and
it's amazing to me, even in a church membership that would be
smaller than some other churches, there's still so much
to do in any given week. Working with church members,
finding new church members, going soul, winning on an
outreach, all these things. These are the things that a
minister does. Yes, you could answer that about
my life, and all of those things would be correct.
But although those are good answers, I want to answer the
question in a different way. When you ask what does a
minister do? I could answer the question this
way with another question. Don't you love it when people
answer a question with a question?
But I'm going to answer your question with a question, what
does a minister do? And my answer could be, well,
what do you do? Because believe it or not, while
I am a minister, I am a pastor, that you are as much a minister
of the grace of God as I am. Oh yes, there's a calling of
pastor it upon my life that there's no doubt upon that.
I mean, I hold the office of a pastor.
I hold the keys of the pastor. That's there's no doubt about
that. But that doesn't mean that I
have exclusive right to the use of the term minister.
God has called you to be a minister.
And so if we ask the question, what does the minister do, I
could say, well, what do you do? Because really it comes down to
this. We are the ministers who are
supposed to be doing the ministry.
Now, we know the church at Corinth is a mess.
We've been talking about that, and we talked about carnal
Christianity last week. Well, Paul is going to kind of
turn this conversation a little bit to go back to something that
was mentioned back in chapter #1 of the friction between the
different groups. I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I
am of Cephas, or Peter, I'm of Christ.
And he's going to use that conversation to basically say
this, shouldn't we all be working together for the cause
of the ministry? That it's not this group and
that group and these people and those people that we all are
working for one master and we are all working together for one
ministry. So we're in First Corinthians
chapter #3 we're going to begin in verse #4 and it says this.
For while one saith, I am of Paul and another I am of
Apollos. Are ye not carnal?
That we read that last week, didn't we, this carnal issue of
Christianity? And it says in verse 5, who then
is Paul and who is Apollos? But ministers by whom he
believed even as the Lord gave to every man.
I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase, so
that neither is he that planted anything, neither he that
watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one.
And every man shall receive his own reward according to his own
labor. For we are laborers together
with God your God husbandry your God's building according to the
grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder.
I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon.
But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon, and we'll
stop right there for our reading here this evening.
Now, the word minister is interesting because it's both a
noun and a verb. The word minister is both a noun
and a verb. A person can be a minister,
which makes it a noun. But the action that defines them
is a verb because remember, a verb is typically an action
word. There's other types of verbs as
well. You don't want me to get into
that tonight. I taught English for a while.
I love getting into that. You don't want that.
But just know that typically a verb is action and that yes, a
minister is a person, a noun. But minister also is something
you can do. It's an action, It's a verb.
According to the 1828 dictionary, it could mean this
as a verb to attend and serve to perform service in any office.
So really that idea to minister is someone who attends and
serves. And that's not just the minister
meaning the one behind the pulpit.
Are you called to serve? I hope we could answer yes.
Have God called you to be able to labor in his vineyard?
Yes. The answer is for all of us that
know Jesus Christ as his Savior. Well, then the answer to this is
yes. And you are a minister.
And then yes, I am a minister as well.
And so from our text, there's a lot of work that's going on.
There's a lot of things that are taking place.
And so I want us to look at this in a few different ways.
And so if you're following along in the back of your prayer
bulletin, you can write this for #1 number one is just, well,
work. You know what ministry is.
Get ready for this is work. If you want to minister and not
work, then you don't really understand what ministry is all
about. And this idea of being a
minister, again, I didn't just pull this out of thin air.
Of course, we see service all throughout this text.
But look again at verse 5. It says, who then is Paul and
who is Apollo's? But what ministers by whom he
believed, even as the Lord gave to every man.
And basically saying this, who do you think I am?
Who do you think Apollo is? Do you think we're someone
that's so great and so mighty in and of ourselves?
No, no, we are simply servants of the living God.
If I could put it this way, the only one who's a big deal is
him. The rest of us are just serving
he who is a big deal. No, no, we are nothing.
We are ministers, we are servants and that is what God
has called us to do. And it says in the following
verses 3 different times, it uses the term planting and
watering. Verse 6, I have planted Apollos
watered. Verse 7 Neither is he that
planteth anything, neither is he that watereth.
Verse 8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one, three
different times planting and watering, planting and watering,
planting and watering. And I'm not a farmer, but I know
this planting is work and watering is work.
Now we know this on a small scale.
Some of you have gardens that you tend in this time of year.
And this is this is the growing season right now, isn't it?
If you've got any type of garden that you want to take care of.
But if you want to plant and you want to have some sort of
harvest, even in a small garden like you might have around your
house, it takes a lot of work, doesn't it?
Because even before you plant, you got to prep the soil, right?
You got to make sure that you take all the rocks out because
for some reason you took the rocks out last season and the
rocks bred between last season and this season.
And there's more rocks that are there because it's, you know,
New England's best crop rocks. And so you got to take those out
and then you got to get the weeds out that we're starting to
grow all the way in February. And I wish that was a joke, but
the first weeds pop out here in the parking lot in February.
They're ready to grow, but you got to play, get everything
ready and then you got to plant. And the way we plant today in
our society compared to maybe in those days, Bible days where
they would broadcast the seed, basically just take the seed and
they throw it everywhere. We're a little bit more careful
in the way that we place the seed and it was work for them to
broadcast it and throw it out. It's work for us to be able to
diligently place it into the ground.
However you do it, it's going to take work.
You're going to get dirty. You're going to be on your
knees. It's not going to be fun.
It's going to be hot outside. Listen, if you can plant and not
work, then you're probably not plant.
But then once you plant, it would be great if it's done, but
it's not. Well, what do you got to do?
You got to water and water and water.
And you can pray that the Lord brings the water, which is
certainly the way that we would prefer it, isn't it?
But at the same time, there are stretches like we're going
through right now where there's not a lot of water.
Three or four months ago, there was more water than we knew what
to do with. Now there's no water insight in
those clouds. And So what do you got to do?
You keep watering and watering, watering and watering and
watering. So it's short term work and it's
long term work. All of it is still work with
some plant, some water, but then it says this God gives the
increase. So when we look at this issue of
work, planting and watering, it's something that's done in
the short term, it's something that's done in the long term,
and then the season's done and it's never done again, right?
No, you go through the seasons, you come back the next same time
next year, and what happens? You do it over again.
The farmer is going to go through the same cycle over and
over and over again. Get this until he dies.
That's what he's going to do because he's a farmer.
This is what he is supposed to do.
Do you know for us that when it comes the issue of ministry,
when it comes the issue of being a minister, it is work.
You know, sometimes we get the idea that when we join a church
or we're part of a church, that we just get to sit and we get to
soak and we get to take in everything and listen.
You should be able to take in the blessings of the Lord when
you come to church, to be up to listen to the music, to hear the
preaching, to be encouraged by the fellowship.
That's a wonderful thing. But I would also submit to you
that you are called to pour into that very same institution of
which you are receiving from as well.
So what does that mean? Work.
Because if everybody receives and nobody works, then nobody's
going to be able to receive anything.
Everybody's got to do some work. Well, you know, I'd like to be
at a church where I don't really have to work.
Well, that's not called church. In fact, even social clubs,
there are requirements of things that you have to do it to show
up to certain events or you have to do certain things just so
that you can be part of the club.
You know, God has called us to be more.
He's called us to be planters. He's called us to be waterers as
Christian. God has called us to minister to
the needs of others. Literally it's part of your DNA
when you became a new creature that God has called you and He's
equipped you to meet the needs of others, called you to work.
DL Moody wrote the following words next to Isaiah chapter 6
verse 8 in his Bible and you might be familiar with that
passage. Remember who will go for us?
The Lord says, and Isaiah says, here am I send me.
He wrote this in his Bible. DL Moody did.
He says I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything, but I can do something.
What I can do I ought to do, and what I ought to do, by the grace
of God I will do. A minister works like the farmer
towards planting and watering, but there's something either of
them cannot do, and that's this. They can't give an increase.
The farmer can plant and water all he wants, but he has to
trust the process that there will be an increased.
By the way, who put that process into place?
God the minister plants and waters, but can he produce quote
UN quote salvations? Can he produce Christians that
are right with God? No, doesn't matter how good the
programs are that we do what we can, but then we leave it to the
Lord. You say, well pastor, are are
you discouraged about Saturday? You know, we had all of those
people, probably somewhere around 160 people on the
property without counting us here and all the people we fed
and all the things that Are you discouraged about what happened?
And my answer is I would be discouraged if the increase was
up to me. Here's what it was up to us.
Did we plant? Did we water our third year
holding the back to school bash? And in my hands here, I have the
cards of all the people who are interested in someone talking to
them about the Lord or about church, about children's
ministries, wanting prayer. 25 cards, 76 people.
You know what this represents? Planting and watering.
Was it work? Oh, yeah, it was work when there
was a line 12 people long for snow cones.
Marsha's going to have to go to therapy after all that she had
to deal with with that on Saturday alone.
Was it work when you're at the grill and you feel like your
eyebrows are about to singe off and you're going hamburger after
hamburger and hot dog after hot dog?
Is it work when those kids are in a bounce house and they're
more bouncing off of each other than bouncing on the moonwalk?
It's work. But you know what?
We can't control what happened on Sunday.
We can't control what happens next Sunday.
We can't control how many get saved.
Here's what I do know. We control that.
You and I as ministers do everything that we can to plant
and plant and plant and to water and water and water.
And we do all that we can and we leave it to the Lord and say,
Lord, we've done everything that we can do and now we beg you for
the increase. It's work, it's difficult, it's
tiring. Some of you went home and you
took a nap before your normal Saturday afternoon nap.
Then you woke up and then took your Saturday afternoon nap
after that. Whose work?
But it was blessed work, wasn't it?
Imagine that farmer after all those months planting and
watering, and he looks out at a harvest and he feels a
satisfaction. Not in the satisfaction that he
provided the harvest. He knows who provided the
harvest, but that the Lord used him in his grand process to be
able that little patch of land to produce something that God
would deem us worthy to use us. Who are you, who am I?
He'd still use us to do work in His vineyard.
And what an awesome responsibility that is.
What an what an amazing joy that is that God would deem us worthy
to be His Workman in His vineyard.
Find that people do get discouraged when they get their
fulfillment from the results. Well, the results aren't what we
want. We should be running 100 right
now. Why don't we have 200 people in
our church? Have you looked at this
building? We couldn't have 200 people in
this church. I think last Saturday proved
that pretty well. You know what?
I try to find my fulfillment in that plant the way I should.
Did I water the way I should? Because that's something I am in
control in. I can control how much a plant,
I can control how much a water, but then we give the results to
God. First Corinthians 1031.
We'll look at this later. Whether you eat or drink or
whatsoever you do all for the glory of God and listen, we
can't control what happens to the seed just as much as that.
Sower and Matthew chapter 13 when he was broadcasting the
seed and he was spreading it out.
What happened? Some fell on the ground that was
the wayside. That's like the sidewalk.
Nothing's growing on that. Some fell on the ground that was
shallow. Some fell on the ground that was
thorny, and some fell on good ground.
And that sewer wasn't going. Put that one in and put that one
in. Put that one in about 3 an hour.
I'll find the perfect little spot.
No, he says. I'm going to do as much as I can
and I'll throw it out there and I'm going to give it to the
Lord. You know, sometimes we're
looking for that perfect person to talk to you about the Lord or
the perfect opportunity to talk to someone about the Lord.
I imagine the Lord in heaven doing something like this and
saying just talk to anyone. You're waiting to talk to that
perfect person in the perfect opportunity.
Just talk to someone. Sow the seed, do some work.
That's the work of a minister. The task of the minister is to
do what he can do and then get out of the way and allow God to
do what only he can do. What do we do?
We got to work. That's what God's called us to
do. But it's not just that we have
to work. I also see this from our text
that number 2, we've got to work together.
We've got to work together. This idea is found all
throughout verses 5 through 7, because in really, even before
that verse 4, Paul and Apollos, verse 5, Paul and Apollos verse
6 Apollos I being Paul verse 7. Neither is he that planteth
anything either is he that watereth anything but God that
giveth the increase. And really it all comes together
as a crescendo in verse #8 Now he that planteth and he that
watereth are what, 1 You see, this work that we do isn't just
done singularly. Now, I understand that you have
an opportunity to talk to people during the week and be able to
influence them, for the Lord to serve them, to help them.
But typically when you do that, where are you inviting them to?
You're inviting them to a church where we all are able to
minister to that person together.
Sure, you might invite them to church, but once they get in
here, there's going to be a lot of other people that are going
to help as well. This is a team effort.
As ministers, we must work together.
That's the old acronym for team Together.
Everyone achieves more. You say, well, that's kind of
hokey. You know, something like that.
Well, it is kind of hokey, but here's the thing.
It's true. The only reason people have
repeated it for who knows how long is because there's truth in
it. Together, everyone achieves
more. I remember Carl Boonstra, who
was the president of the Baptist Bible Fellowship International
for about 15 years or so. And he was instrumental in the
1980s, an independent Baptist movement, of being able to help
send missionaries all around the world.
And I had the opportunity to meet him a few years ago when he
was somewhere around 98 years old.
And I will tell you this, I would have put that 98 years
year old man against a lot of other people because he still
had the fire in his belly. He loved the Lord.
He was reading prayer letters. He knew more about what's going
on in our church from reading our prayer letters.
Sometimes I think that I knew what was going on at our church.
I mean, it was incredible. At 98 years old, he had a
magnifying glass next to his desk.
It looked like this. So when he put his face into it,
looked at one eyeball, it was like this.
But he was going to do whatever he could to be able to read his
Bible and to read about missions and do whatever he could.
But Carl Boonstra was instrumental in saying for many
years that when it came to the issue of missions, he said think
about what we can do together. Think about what we can do
together. He would go to different
churches, preach at missions conference.
He said think about what we could do together.
Meaning this, that when we sponsor A missionary, we support
a missionary. We got missionaries on that back
wall. Sure there's a sending church
that sends them, but they might have 20304050 churches.
That are all together supplying $50 here, $100 here to be able
to help to send those people on the field.
And then also it's not just about the finances, but also
those churches ought to be praying for those missionaries,
right? That's why we have a couple
times on Wednesday nights every month or we read you a
missionary prayer letter. Why?
Because not just about sending a check.
Sometimes that's the easy part. But the hard part is holding the
rope on this side of the world for those people in Papua New
Guinea, for those people that are in Russia or those people
that are in England, and to be able to say, hey, we're praying
for you, that when we're going to sleep, they're just getting
up to be able to start to minister on the other side of
the world. Why?
Because we're doing it together. You realize God has called us,
you know, Acts chapter one, verse 8 says that we are to go
into Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts
of the earth. We can't do that ourselves
unless in our own assembly, you and I can just send people and
say, all right, you are going to South America, you are going to
Europe, you are going, nobody wants Antarctica, all right.
But we're, we're divvying out the world just here at Liberty
Baptist Church. We can't do that.
But you know, we can do. We can partner with those who
are going and be able to help them.
Why? Because together everyone
achieves more. Think of what we can accomplish
together. Those aren't just sweet
platitudes. God created us this way.
You know, you may not like this because there's a lot of people
who say, well, you know, I just I'm a loner.
I do things by myself. Listen, you may think that and
there might be an element of that in your life, but God
called us to be able to be creatures who work together.
Now we don't like that because we think of the people who are
working together. We're the smartest of the group
that you know, we're working together with.
It's really quiet. So I think I think I I might
struck oil there. All right.
Now you understand, when we work together, what do we see?
That's the way God designed us. Eventually we're going to get to
1st Corinthians chapter 12, and when we get there, what do we
see? We're a body, and they're
different parts of the body, and they're all different.
We all have different strengths, but God uses us to work
together. You know what's thinking about
this? Just as an illustration, imagine
on Sunday morning that there's a young mother that walks the
aisle and that she at the end of the service comes to trust Jesus
Christ your Savior. I mean, everybody would rejoice
in that, wouldn't they? I mean, I hope you would all
right, some of you would just woke up, all right.
But we would rejoice if someone got saved here on Sunday
morning, right? That would be great.
I mean, they can get they get saved Sunday night, Wednesday
night. But on Sunday morning we would
rejoice. And people say, look pastor, you
preach the message and God used you to be able to see that woman
get saved. And the answer would be, well
maybe yes to a point that God used some of my planting or
watering. But there was a lot of other
people involved in what took place because that young mother
had a child in the nursery. And there's 2 nursery workers
that would have planted and watered, but that nursery had to
be clean. There was a couple people that
came in that cleaned to make sure the nursery wasn't dirty,
that it was sanitary. There were some people that
planted and watered. Brother Anthony would have put
together the schedule so that people would have known when to
clean and when to be in the nursery.
That's planting and watering. He would have received from Miss
Cassandra, who was supposed to be in the nursery to put on the
schedule. So that would be planting and
watering. And that's just in that little
illustration. But imagine this.
She would have heard someone playing the piano and that would
have been Diane planting and watering.
She would have heard people who were singing to the Lord and
actually smiling and happy about it.
And there'd be planting and watering and there'd be people
fellowshipping with her and talking to her.
And there'd be someone out in the parking lot telling her
where to come in or where to park because we don't know where
to park anymore. And all these things are taking
place. And you say, but Pastor, you are
the one to know. We all planted and we all
watered, but God gave the increase.
By the way, when you're not here on Sunday morning, we miss that.
When you're not here on Sunday morning, you miss that.
You miss fruit that was supposed to be to your account.
You'll be at the judgment seat of Christ, spiritually barren
because you had something else going on on Sunday.
Hey, Pastor, you're talking tough.
No, no, I'm really just telling you what the Bible says.
It's called the Lord's Day and we want to do His work because
we're His ministers. No, no, I'm not trying to get
after anyone. I've got no one in mind other
than just say I feel sorry for those who will miss at the
judgment seat of Christ. No, we're getting there.
Same chapter. There's going to be some people
in the judgment seat of Christ that are going to miss what God
wanted to be able to give them so that they could give it back
to Him. They're going to miss that for
something that made no difference for eternity.
It's almost like, how would I put it, Like your future should
affect your present, that where we're going ought to affect what
we're doing right now. Yeah, I remember when I preached
Sunday morning. You're surprised?
I know. I was surprised there for a
second, too, to be honest with you.
But yes, our future ought to affect our present.
But we work together. None of us made her get saved in
that illustration, but everybody had a part.
God gives the increase and we do all that we can look at verse
number line for we are laborers together with God.
What are laborers? They are ministers.
They are servants. That's not a stretch.
When he's talking about we, we could point right back to verse
#5 when he's talking about Paul and Apollo's that we work
together for the cause of the ministry.
I've heard it said before that we're to work like it's all up
to us, but we pray like it's all up to the Lord because it is all
up to the Lord. You know, we work like it's all
up to us. We do everything we can to be
able to serve the Lord, but we pray like it's all up to Him
because it is all up to him. By the way, This is why men's
prayer is so important on Sunday morning.
It's so important because we come together to say, Lord,
we've done all that we can and we lay this all to you because
we know what's about to happen for the next 2 1/2 hours.
We are not in control of the increase, so we give it to you.
No, it's not just a time where guys just drink coffee and chat
for a while. It's the engine that makes
Sunday go. It's the engine of our week to
be able to gather together and say, I'm praying that this one
comes to church today. I'm praying that this one that I
talked to this week that I gave a track to, I pray that they
would come. There's someone that's
discouraged, a brother in Christ.
I texted him this week, I called him this week.
I'm praying that he's be here. No, no, no, not that we're
gossiping. And now that we're trying to to
puff up ourselves like we're the ones that have been doing all
the work. No, no, what we're saying is
there's some people we've been planting and watering with this
week, or that I planted and someone else watered and we're
begging God to give the increase because only he gives the
increase. And This is why praying every
day that God would give us opportunities to share the
gospel is so important. It is so easy to be busy in your
life, to not want to talk to anybody, to not want to deal
with anybody. And it is so easy to miss the
opportunities that you have to talk to people about the gospel.
You know, it's really easy to talk to people, easier than we
think. We were in a hurry this morning
and I had to leave with Peyton. I was getting her to a birthday
party and we had ordered some things for the birthday party
online. They weren't fulfilled in time.
And so I had to, I had to go into the store instead of
driving up and picking it up. I had to cancel it and go into
the store to pick up the items that were there.
And I was in a hurry. And so I immediately went to the
self checkout lines. And the store was obviously
open, but they were all closed. And they had one young lady just
standing there. And, you know, I was in such a
hurry. I thought, well, I just want to
scan this and get out of here. And I'm in line, you know, and
and there's someone in front of me.
And the other person finally goes through and the lady says,
you know, did you find everything OK?
I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I found OK.
Like, let's speed this up, all right.
And, and there's Peyton, there's my daughter, my friend's having
a birthday today. Oh, how about that?
And the two of them were talking and they're like, can we hurry
this up? But you know, what's amazing is
that I'm just, she's not really saying much.
I'm not saying much, but a conversation starts.
And all of a sudden this woman became the most talkative person
in the world. And I would have, you'd asked me
30 seconds before I thought, this woman doesn't want to talk
and I don't want to talk. What I'm saying is this, there's
more opportunities out there than we realize to be able to
engage with people. And maybe if we prayed about it
in the beginning of each day that the Lord would be able to
help us identify who those people were as we went because
we'd be soul conscious throughout the day, We'd be
conscious of those souls who need Christ.
You say, well, listen, what am I going to win someone to Christ
right there in the in the middle of Shaws?
Well, I mean, they probably appreciate it, but no, the
answer is no, it's very unlikely.
You know what you could do? Plant of water.
It could be that you hand them a track and someone had talked to
them a few weeks ago about the Lord and they can't get it out
of their mind and all of a sudden a random stranger comes
up to them and invites them to church.
What may seem like a coincidence to us is the Lord orchestrating
as the master of the harvest, as the master of the harvest moving
around. Pray there for what?
The Lord of the harvest, they'd send forth laborers into his
harvest. What do we do?
We got to do that together. We work that together.
So we're to work. We're to work together.
But also look at this number three.
We're to work together wisely. We're to work together in
wisdom. That's in verse #10 there's
several layers of truth here in verse #10 that I want to just go
through briefly according to the grace of God, which is given
unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the
foundation and another bill that they're on.
But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereon.
If we take everything together, this verse says Paul is saying
God has given me the grace to be able to build.
Why could Paul do what he did? He says God's given me the grace
to do so, but that grace allowed him to build wisely.
Wise master builder. Now, do you think that's because
he thought very highly of himself?
I don't think so. I think it was because he knew
the measure of grace that God had given him.
He said the measure of grace that God has given me has
allowed me to be a wise master builder.
And you know what's amazing about this?
As as he continues this conversation of Paul and
Apollo's and Paul and of Apollo's, he says in verse #10 I
have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon.
So he's basically saying this, I know that even though God has
given me a grace to be a wise master builder, I also know this
there's going to be other people that are going to be part of
this process as well. And So what I cannot be is
someone who is jealous. What I cannot be as someone who
is territorial, what I cannot be as someone who is a Lone Ranger.
No, no, what I have to be is I have to be someone who realizes
I may just set the foundation, but I got to set the foundation
by the grace of God. Someone else might come along
and actually do more of the work, but I still had a part in
him. You know, one of the things that
can be so frustrating for a pastor is to be able to preach
and to preach and to preach somewhere around, you know, 130
a 140 messages a year, something like that.
And you feel like you cover the Bible from cover to cover and
you feel like you cover everything.
And you talk about all these topics and then some hotshot
from out of town comes in for three or four days and he
preaches. And all of a sudden people say,
I've never heard of that before. I never.
Heard anyone? Say it like that before.
And that makes me want to say I've been saying it like that
for 140 sermons this year. Pride, Arrogance on my part.
In case you're curious who I'm talking about, listen, sometimes
we need a different voice. Sometimes we need someone else.
Or it could be that they were prepared to hear because I had
laid a foundation, but someone else had built their own.
Wouldn't it just be better for me to say, praise the Lord that
someone got it? Praise the.
Lord, that someone got saved. Praise the Lord that God used me
as a small part, however small or large that is.
But here's the problem. You cannot be a wise minister,
the wise minister that God's called you to be if you're a
carnal Christian. No, no, this text that we're
looking at tonight is not divorced from the rest of the
chapter. Remember, Paul is coming to this
because he was talking about you were carnal.
You were carnal. I can't talk to you like you are
mature because you're carnal. I have to give you milk instead
of strong meat because you're carnal.
And then he goes into this as an example because it goes back to
chapter 1 as the very first prime number one illustration of
how carnal they were. So what we're talking about now
is not divorced from the rest of the Tets, the chapter, it all
goes together. But what he's saying this is,
is, is don't worry about how other people are building or if
they're building higher or bigger or better than you.
Listen, you just built, you just plant, you just water and let
God do what only God can do. Listen, you can't serve with a
crane neck and with an eye that's constantly looking at
what other people are doing because you can't see those that
God has put right in front of you.
The carnal Christian is not the servant that God has called him
to be. Why?
Carnal Christians are servants that are jealous.
They're servants that are petty. They're territorial about their
positions I've heard of. Churches where someone.
Has taught a Sunday school class in a certain room for 10/20/30
years and the pastor will be a new pastor with new vision.
Tries to move the Sunday school and then that Sunday school
teacher says, well I've taught this class for 30 years and all
of a sudden her favorite hymn is I shall not be, I shall not be
moved. Like a tree that's planted by
the. Waters, I shall not be moved and
listen, we serve at the pleasure of our Lord and Savior and
listen, I'm not saying that the pastor is the Lord and Savior.
I want to be very careful about there's only one Lord and
Savior, but the same time God has given the pastor a position
to be able to lead by God's. Grace through.
His leadership and boy, we have to be careful by the way, this.
Is why I'm very careful. Not to call this my pulpit.
This is not my pulpit. Well, it belongs to you.
It's got your name on it. Well, it said that I was the
pastor when this was built and when this was dedicated to the
church. But it's not my pulpit.
Why? Because it belongs to God.
This is not my church. You are not my people.
I I don't go to to preachers meetings, say, well, yeah, my
people back in Easton. Let me tell you about them.
You know you're God's people. By the way, I I don't have
enough to. Support all you people.
All right, So you, you are on your own, You know what I'm
saying? No.
You belong to him. This church belongs to him.
This pulpit belongs to him. By the way, that piano doesn't
belong to Diane, It belongs to him.
That coffee pot, the last 2-3 months, it may have seemed to
belong to me, but typically it seems to have belonged to
Brother Vince. Don't belong to him.
That sound booth, Well, you know, it's the sound.
People, they're the ones back there.
It doesn't belong to them. And listen, they could cut me
off right now. People at home don't know what's
going on, all right? This.
Is my seat. This is my parking spot.
This is where I do listen. Oh, that's so.
Carnal that we. Can't be like that.
Listen, we're just ministers. We're servants.
We plant and we water and then we water and we plant and we
work and we work together and we toil and we pray and we cry and
we rejoice. And in the end we beg God to
give the increase and we realize He is everything.
We are nothing. And like John said, I must
decrease. He must increase.
There is no other option. But the carnal Christian it's.
Always about. Mine.
My territory, my jealousy don't encroach on what I'm doing.
They want to be seen. They don't want to share the
spotlight. They want to steal the glory
that God that belongs to God and God alone.
And the irony is that those carnal servants typically don't
even have much of anything to be able to show off if they wanted
to, because that. Which they do is so.
Tainted by their own self will that.
There's really nothing there. That's glorifying to God.
It's a testimony to them and to their fleshliness.
And we're going to see later on in First Corinthians chapter 3
that the judgment seat of Christ, it's going to burn in
fire and it's going to be gone. Carnal Christians don't make
good servants. But here's what I do want to
say. To you, and we'll be done here
in just a moment. The irony of what Paul is
writing here is he is writing. To carnal Christians, he's
writing. To Corinth.
Who are quite carnal and quite worldly and quite fleshly.
And look again at. What he says in verse number. 9
for we now who's. The we here you.
Could argue that it's Paul and Apollo's, but I don't believe
it's just the two of them we. Our.
Laborers together with God. What is he saying?
Even you carnal Christians, you have been called to be
ministers. So what does that mean?
Well, I just need to minister carnally.
No, Get right with God. Because a carnal Christian.
Is the worst kind of billboard for Jesus Christ.
I'm not saying you have to be perfect.
None of us are this side of. Heaven.
But I will say this, if you have habitual sin in your life that
you refuse to be able to confess, I will say this.
You can't minister for Jesus the way you think you can.
It's not my words. It's his words, don't be carnal,
but yet he's called us still to be ministers even while we're
carnal. What does that mean?
To continue to minister in our carnality?
No, get right with God. There's something really
interesting. Here in verse number, verse #10.
Actually, no. Back in verse #9 My.
Apologies for we are laborers together with God.
Ye are God's husbandry. Ye are God's building.
So. When it says.
Ye are God's. Husbandry, ye are God's
building. He's talking about the
Corinthians, but he also just said we are laborers together
with God. So he's saying.
This. He says you are the workers, but
you are also the work. You are the ministers, but you
also need to be ministered unto. Well, I just don't.
Know if I'll ever be the right kind of worker, pastor.
I don't know if I'll ever be the right kind of minister.
I, I, I've, I've done some things I shouldn't have done.
I've wasted a lot of time. I just don't think I have the
skills that are necessary. Could I encourage you that you
can still be a worker while God's doing a work on you, That
you can still be a minister while God is doing ministry in
your heart as well? Now, you can't rebel against
God. Listen, you rebel against him.
But I'm talking about you're just trying your best day by
day. By the grace of God, he'll work
with you. He'll help you.
When I was first saved, 16 years old, originally, my parents
didn't let me go to a Baptist Church.
And so it was about a couple of years till I actually got
baptized and was able to go to Westgate Baptist Church there in
Tampa. But I've told you before, I
wanted to do everything. I wanted to do everything and I
remember that if it was outreach and they had outreach on Tuesday
and on Saturday, I went on Tuesday and I went on Saturday
because on Saturday we did buses.
Tuesday nights we went and made visits.
I went to every activity that I could find.
I told you, it's not even a joke.
I went to one of the old people's activities once because
and they're like, oh, he's so cute, you know, all that.
And you know, I got free food. So that worked out really well.
I just want to do whatever I could.
And I was ministering, but you know what I realized now I look
back, is it as much as I thought as I was ministering, there was
a. Lot more being poured into.
Me than what I was giving out. I may have given out very
little, but they poured a whole lot into me.
You know, you may come on Saturday, say I don't really do
this kind of thing. I've never.
Done this before. Could I say something to you
without being bold or brash? And I hope you understand my
heart, Would you? Let me pour into you.
Some things that I've learned and some other.
People here who have. Learned some things over the
years and you know why I. Can't I don't say that.
Boldly or brashly, because whatever I have learned was
because someone years ago poured into me.
And by the way, in case you're still not sure, God's still
working on me today. And you know, the irony of what
I just said is also this is it could very well be that I go out
with someone on Saturday that is very inexperienced, but they end
up teaching me a few things about zeal that maybe I've lost
about. A love for.
Souls that maybe is diminished. What I'm saying is this, when
you minister, you should also be ministered unto.
When you work, there's work that's still being done to you.
We are God's laborers, but then also ye are God's husbandry.
Ye are God's building saying this.
You're the work and the worker. You're the minister and the
ministry. Listen, if you think I, I, I
can't do it. I just, there's not not much in
me making my answer is you're right.
You give it to the Lord. You allow other people to do a
work in you and believe it or not, someday you'll be able to
pour into other people just as you have been poured into.
And guess what? You can plant, you can water,
but God will give the increase and God will get glory.
But there is no planting, there is no watering, there is no
increase. And it's not.
Because God. Can't.
It's because God has put this very principle into place that
if we don't plant and we don't water, then God is under no
obligation to give us increase. I'll say this and I'll be done.
We've got that beautiful sign out there.
And I've said this for years. People don't come to Liberty
Baptist Church because of a sign.
And that's typically not, that's typically true.
Every once in a while there's an exception.
You know why normally people come?
Because we plant and we water with the people we meet and then
God gives the increase. So what do we do?
We get right, get to work, and go.
Minister, thank you for listening to the sermon from the
pulpit of Liberty Baptist Church.
If this message was a blessing to you, or if there's any way we
can serve you, please let us know by contacting us at
info@mylibertybaptist.org. Or you can visit us this Sunday
at 800 Washington St. in Easton, MA.
May the Lord bless you as you grow in His Word.