Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] All right, let's open our bibles together. The Book of first Corinthians, chapter three.
[00:00:24] We're going through our study through the book of first corinthians. And one of the things I love about going through a book of the Bible from beginning to end is that we get to study it in context. And every sermon is connected to the other sermons. Nothing stands alone. Nothing is random. It is all connected. I'm excited about this sermon tonight. Billy Graham was quoted as saying that early in his ministry, someone told him if he wanted to have an effective ministry, he could not touch three things.
[00:00:58] They said, number one, you cannot touch the gold, meaning that you could not allow money to ruin your ministry. They also said, number two, you cannot touch the girls. I think the meaning of that is just completely obvious, stressing that a lack of integrity through unfaithfulness to your wife would disqualify you from ministry. And most importantly, they told him, you cannot touch the glory.
[00:01:25] You cannot touch God's glory. God's glory is a major theme throughout scripture, and we're going to be talking about that tonight. The Bible tells us in the old testament that God will not share his glory with another.
[00:01:41] God's glory is his honor, his splendor, his majesty, his dignity, his praise, credit, and he will not share that with anyone. Isaiah 48, verse eleven says, for my own sake, for my own sake I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.
[00:02:07] So our God is absolutely perfect in all that he does. He is the righteous judge of all the earth. Everything that our God does is perfection.
[00:02:21] Everything that God does is exactly as it should be. It is perfectly just.
[00:02:29] It is always just. And God will only ever do what is perfectly right. Our God is righteous. He is holy. He is the only one who deserves the glory. And to share his glory or his praise or his credit with another creature would be unjust.
[00:02:52] God will not allow humans to take credit for what he does directly or by creating false gods. He will not allow that because it's immoral for someone to take credit for what God does. It's immoral on a humanity skill. None of us likes it at work when someone takes credit for what we do. And God himself, being perfect, being absolutely righteous and judged, will not allow someone, and just will not allow someone to take credit for something that he has done. Satan is the first one that we know of who tried this.
[00:03:29] His attempt to steal God's glory brought his damnation. It brought the condemnation of one third of all the angels. And it ushered all human sin and suffering into existence.
[00:03:43] The Bible tells us that God is the blessed and only ruler, the king of kings, the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light. To him be honor and might forever.
[00:03:55] The Lord is worthy to receive honor and glory and praise.
[00:04:01] His glory is such that even the mightiest angels in heaven cannot fully look upon him in all of his splendor and glory.
[00:04:11] There is no boasting in his presence as we studied a few weeks back in one corinthians 128 29. And I bring this up tonight because Paul is letting the church know that their division springs from demonic desire to still God's glory. Now, how many of you in here, you don't have to put your hands up. I just want you to think how many of you have been a part of a church split, a church division, a church fight, a church argument.
[00:04:41] I can think of probably hundreds I've been a part of over the years and heard of and dealt with. I never thought in the middle of that that this was trying to steal God's glory or, or this was a demonic attack. But I want to tell you something tonight, as Paul is going to show us in this text, division in the church is demonic. It's what Satan wants for this church.
[00:05:09] When the church gives into division, which is an effort by the enemy to steal God's glory, the church is behaving like Satan and in the way that Satan wants us to behave. The letter of one corinthians is written to address division in the church. That's the context of what we're talking about. And Paul is directly addressing this for the first four chapters.
[00:05:37] And division comes from the most sinister place possible.
[00:05:45] And if anyone thinks I'm being a little dramatic, I challenge you to hang with me through this text. It is not a simple disagreement between rival factions in the church. What we're reading about and what's happening in our churches around the world today when division comes into our midst is a direct assault from Satan.
[00:06:07] So with that in mind, let's look at one corinthians, chapter three. Starting in verse five. Paul is continuing his idea of why we should be unified in the church and why we should fight against divisions. I want to remind you that he is dealing with division over people's favorite leaders, people's favorite teachers, Paul, Apollos, Peter, maybe other leaders in the church. They were fighting about that and they were fighting about human wisdom versus godly wisdom, and that was what their culture fought over. They had their favorite philosophers. Their philosophers were their celebrities. They were their superstars, and they valued human wisdom above all else. So there was division in this church because of division, because of. There was division because of their leaders and because of the way that the leaders taught. Some preferred one style over another. So they were exalting people, and they were exalting human wisdom at the expense of unity and giving God glory. So first Corinthians, three, five. 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.
[00:07:42] 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's go to the Lord in prayer this morning, this evening.
[00:09:06] Father, I thank you so much for your word. Lord, I pray that you would allow this seed to be planted in our hearts. Help us to understand it with our minds. May our spirit submit to you through your word. I pray that you would give us clarity. Lord, I pray that you would help us to apply this to our lives, help us to understand you better and love you more because of our time here tonight. And we ask all these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:09:35] I actually preached at Boylston Baptist Church over towards Brevard this morning. And in my notes, I actually put morning and evening when I preach. So it's hard to keep up with when I'm preaching, especially when I'm preaching twice a day. But I preached this morning, and my voice is almost gone. So please pray for me.
[00:09:57] And all the preachers around the country that preach every Sunday morning, Sunday night are making fun of me right now. But that's okay.
[00:10:05] So as we look at this passage of scripture, I want us to think about the Lord and his servants. The theme that I see coming throughout this passage is that there are two groups of people that he is addressing, the Lord and his servants. I want you to notice a couple things about the Lord. The first thing is the supremacy of the Lord. As he starts off this passage, he goes back to the thing that they were fighting about. They're fighting about who their favorite speaker is, who their favorite elder or pastor.
[00:10:38] And it's causing such division in the church that Paul is having to address it. And he says in verse five, what then is Apollos? And what is Paul?
[00:10:48] What are you fighting about?
[00:10:51] Who's Apollos? Who is Paul? He says, he tells them clearly who they are. He says, servants.
[00:10:58] So they're servants.
[00:11:00] They're not the ones that deserve the honor. They're not the ones that deserve the credit. They're not the ones that we need to be focusing on. Any church that's focused on its pastor is going to fall. Even if the pastor is solid, it's going to lead the church in a bad direction. No man can handle what only God deserves. A pastor cannot become the main focus of a church. That doesn't mean we can't appreciate someone's preaching. It doesn't mean we can't appreciate people's style. But when it gets to causing division in the body of Christ, we're focusing on it too much. And the supremacy belongs to the Lord. In his church, he says, what is Apolitis? What is Paul? Servants.
[00:11:44] Servants in that culture did not have some exalted, glorified position.
[00:11:51] They were the lowest of the low. Calling someone a servant would have been a slur. And Paul is calling himself a slave, a servante.
[00:12:03] He says, they're servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. So Paul and Apollos and the other ones that they were arguing about, they were simply servants who were taking orders from God.
[00:12:20] They were doing someone else's bidding. They were on mission, on task. And they were never supposed to be the highlight of the church. They're simply a mouthpiece.
[00:12:35] John the Baptist actually said, I'm simply a voice in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord. They were asking him if he was the messiah, and he corrected them quickly and said, no, I'm simply a voice, a road sign pointing to the coming Messiah. I'm one who is preparing the way. And that's what Paul and Apollos were doing. They were simply servants taking orders.
[00:13:01] And I want you to imagine tonight, an ambassador sent by a king or a president to go on a mission, who, when he shows up at his destination, pretends to be the king or the president.
[00:13:17] I mean, in ancient times, they probably could have gotten away with that.
[00:13:22] If they had some people around them that would have supported that, this would have been possible, and it probably would have felt great in the moment to feel like you were the king.
[00:13:36] But when word gets back to the real king, that would not have gone well for the ambassador or for the servant that was stealing his glory.
[00:13:49] People who exalt preachers and teachers above measure are guilty of stealing God's glory and giving it to another. Anytime the focus, anytime the spotlight is on man rather than God, there's a problem.
[00:14:05] God has gifted some people incredibly. People have the ability and the talent to inspire, to convict, to speak into people's lives and motivate change. God has given men and women incredible giftings, and I pray that many of us are used in God's service, but we've always got to give the glory to God. I heard someone talking, writing about a conversation they had with Corey ten. Boom. And she said when she first started traveling and telling her story, she traveled globally, sharing the story of being in a camp in, I believe it was in Poland.
[00:14:50] She was in a camp where she was persecuted. Her father and her sister. I believe all of her family was murdered by the guards, by the Nazis. And as she began traveling and sharing her story of faith, she said that she really struggled with the fact that people began telling her thank you and weeping and hugging her neck and praising her. And she said she didn't know what to do with that. And so she said that God gave her this analogy when she went and shared a story, shared her story, and people would come up and tell her thank you. She said, I began receiving that, like I would receive a flower. And she said, throughout the day, I would gather those flowers. And she said, every day, at the end of the day, I would go home to my room, and I would bow down before the Lord, and I would lay those flowers at his feet.
[00:15:44] What a beautiful way to look at life. Every gift God has given us, every ability, every talent, every life we touch, we need to gather those things and lay them at the feet of the Lord. The Bible tells us, one day we'll cast our crowns at his feet. Why not start right now? Why not start early and say, lord, all the honor and the glory is going to you.
[00:16:09] So people who exalt other preachers or teachers above measure are guilty of stealing God's glory and giving it to another. Preachers and teachers who allow this to happen are guilty of stealing God's glory. And the Bible tells us that preachers and teachers are held to a higher level of accountability.
[00:16:29] Paul realized this, and that's why he's reacting so strongly to what they're doing. They're literally bringing him into their sin. They're implicating him, and he stands up and boldly fights against it. He rejects their misplaced worship.
[00:16:48] He knows that God is supreme and that all glory belongs to God. Why does he make such a big deal about what's happening in this church? Because of the supremacy of the Lord. God alone deserves the glory. Number two, I want you to notice the activity of the Lord. We see this in verse six.
[00:17:09] He says, 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. They're both servants, 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. So he's bringing us back not only the fact that God is supreme and God alone deserves the glory, but he wants us to look at the activity of the Lord. God is the one who did all this. He gets the glory because he's the creator, he is the designer, he's the engineer, not only of creation, not only of our bodies and our minds, but also of our salvation. Paul was a part of building the church. He's spreading the gospel, the good news, speaking of the redemption of God. And we're told in Ephesians two, we are God's workmanship.
[00:18:17] Jesus is the one that did the work in order to save us. So this activity that they were all part of, it's God's activity. It's God's work. He's the one that's doing the work. We just get to be a part of it. We are his servants, and he even elevates it a little more than servants. He says, we're his fellow workers. We're working with God to accomplish his will in order to glorify him. We were saved by grace, and our gifts and our abilities come from God. So all the glory and the honor goes back to God, because he's the one ultimately doing the work.
[00:19:01] We've all seen it when a manager or when an owner of a business or a CEO gets all the credit for what his business does. Why? Because those people work for him.
[00:19:15] And if something goes wrong, guess who gets blamed for it? The CEO, the owner, the manager.
[00:19:22] So God is the one that does the work.
[00:19:26] He allows us to be a part of it, and he gets all the glory. Reverend AJ Gordon, who was one of the founders of Gordon Conwell Divinity School, told of being outside one day walking, and he said he looked across a field at a house, and beside the house, he saw what looked like a man pumping one of those old school water pumps. And, you know, that's not something you see every day. And he thought, that's really cool. And the longer he watched this guy, he thought, man, he's really pumping. Like, this is impressive. What is he doing? Like, how is hedgest going that hard? And the longer he watched, he realized he kept pumping and pumping and pumping at a tremendous rate, tirelessly, and didn't slow down in the slightest. And he thought, something's off here. And so he began walking toward the house. And as he got closer, he realized it wasn't a man, but it was a wooden figure that had been cut out to look like a man and had been painted to look like a man. Have you ever seen those? I've actually seen it before. So the arms were hinged at the elbow, and the hand was wired to the pump handle, and the water was pumping out. But it wasn't because the man was pumping the water. It was an artesian well. What was happening is the water was actually making the man move. The water was animating the man.
[00:20:54] And this is exactly what God does to us. We can try to take credit, but everything we are, everything we have, everything we pass, we possess. Every mental capacity, every physical gifting, goes back to God. He's the one that gave it to us. He's the one that gave us a mouth to speak. He's the one that gave us a mind to think. He's the one that gave us his word to read and study and understand. His word and his work animates us and involves us. We don't get to take the credit, but we say all that not to minimize what we do, but to elevate what we do. Our work matters so much more connected to God than it does if it's just connected to me.
[00:21:41] Our work is important. Planting and watering are important steps. Paul minimizes what he does. Or it sounds like he's minimizing what he does, but he's literally preaching the gospel. He's literally sailing around the world, planting churches, getting thrown in prison, being beaten, being stoned for the glory of God. I don't think he's minimizing that. When he says, we're just servants, we plant and we water, God gives the growth. No, he's elevating what he does because it's attached to goddesse, because he could have been the master, and all the work that he could do for a lifetime couldn't count for 1 second of serving God.
[00:22:23] Our work matters, and at this point we're going to see a transition. Paul transitions from highlighting the Lord to discussing his servants.
[00:22:35] So we see the supremacy of the Lord. We see the activity of the Lord. Now I want us to look at our productivity for the Lord, our productivity for the Lord. When we understand God's supremacy and God's activity, we realize that these are higher motivations for our work than anything else. Working for God's glory to accomplish his sovereign will is greater than working for money. It's greater than working for fame or recognition or pleasure or power. People work for all of these things every single day. People go to work. People punch a clock. People run their businesses, people hire employees, fire employees work towards that bottom line, trying to be as productive as possible, as profitable as possible. And they work for things like money, fame, recognition, power and pleasure. But none of those things are as high of a motivation as working for God's glory. Our productivity is connected to God's glory. Look at verse ten. 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 on 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 has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burnt up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, though only, but only as though through fire.
[00:24:39] Do you not know that you are God's temple and God's spirit dwells in you?
[00:24:46] So the foundation is Jesus.
[00:24:50] True salvation only comes through Jesus. Only way we can be saved. The only name we can be saved through is the name of Jesus Christ. Only through his sacrificial death, his sinless life, his resurrection, can we be saved. The sinless life, sacrificial death, supernatural resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of our salvation. That's the only thing that can save a man. What God did for us. We can't be saved by our works. We can't be saved by our deeds. Only through Jesus work. He is the foundation of the church. But the life that we build on that foundation matters. And the church that we help build on that foundation matters. Our work with God and our work for God matters. I can't stress that enough. It's important that we're productive. Some people could read these verses and say, you know what? God's the one that does everything, so I don't have to do everything. There are systems of theology that push people in that direction. Well, God's the one that does it all. So I just don't have to worry about anything. I don't have to share the gospel, I don't have to love people. I don't have. Everybody that's going to be saved is going to be saved. That's not what Paul's talking about here. Paul's saying we need to work because God is the one that's doing the work through us. That's a higher motivation. And those who understand God's supremacy, God's activity, they should be more animated and work harder than anybody else.
[00:26:21] We are working in his field. It says, we are his field, his building, and ultimately all this is working towards his kingdom, his honor, his glory.
[00:26:33] And I love Paul's low key threat in this passage. He says that he like a skilled master builder. So Paul's not ashamed to acknowledge that God has gifted him and that he's doing what God called him to do. So he's acknowledging his gifting, he says, like a skill master builder. I laid a foundation and someone else is building on it because he planted the church and then he left and they set up other elders to run the church. He says, I laid the foundation of Jesus Christ. Someone else is building on it. He says, let each one take care how he builds on it.
[00:27:09] That might not even be a low key threat. That may just be in the original language. That may just be like, you better watch out because God sent me to do this work and you're messing up the work that God sent me to do, and I'm attached to that.
[00:27:22] And what Paul is addressing here is sound doctrine, truth, letting the leaders of the church know that what they're teaching matters, building on the foundation of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sound doctrine is important.
[00:27:41] It's the topic of the majority of the New Testament.
[00:27:48] So he gets to verse twelve, and he says, 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. So he uses this analogy of gold, silver, precious stones, wood. Hayden and I've heard this preached on many times in my life. I grew up hearing this preaching about the judgment seat of Christ, and I do believe that's what this is addressing. But anytime I study something, I don't want to just say what I've always heard. There's a danger in that. You do realize someone who's been in church as much as I have, as many camp meetings, as many revival meetings, literally almost every day of my life, my entire childhood, and probably since my childhood, I've been in church the majority of my life, thousands and thousands of messages.
[00:28:59] I could take a passage of scripture like this that I'm familiar with, read over it a couple times, stand up here, read a few verses, and just preach. I can do that. Most of you can probably do that. We've heard things over and over and over again, and that's good if what we've heard is good. But when I come to a passage of scripture like this, I want to know what he means by gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw.
[00:29:23] Now, there's two different ways of looking at this. The way I've always heard is that he's contrasting two types of structures.
[00:29:33] One structure is built with gold, silver and precious stones.
[00:29:37] The other is built with wood, hay and straw.
[00:29:41] Good works and evil works, works that will endure and works that will burn up. And I think that that view is legitimate, especially when we start looking at the judgment and the reward and what's going to burn up in the fire. But I think there's another way that we can look at this, and that is contrasting wisdom in building in the right way, because all of these elements are important. Think about this building we're in right now.
[00:30:12] Wood is really important in a building. Wood was really important in the temple of God. Straw is actually used to make bricks. That this church is built upon.
[00:30:28] So gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, all of these elements were used in a building project, but they're used in different ways, and they're used at different times in the proper place and at the proper phase of construction. So Paul could be addressing the fact that as we build on the foundation of Jesus Christ, we need to do it with wisdom. We need to do it in the right way.
[00:30:59] There are certain things you use for windows that you wouldn't use for a foundation. No one puts glass in a foundation. No one puts shingles in a foundation.
[00:31:09] No one hangs shingles on the wall instead of sheetrock. That's not how it works. Everything has its intended purpose. And when we're building the household of God, when we're building our lives, when we're joining together to build the Church of Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, we need to be wise in how we build. I think both of these are really good analogies. I think both of them apply.
[00:31:34] But our works are going to be judged at the judgment seat of Christ. There's no doubt about that. And I believe that's what Paul is addressing when he talks about the day.
[00:31:44] Our salvation, thankfully, is not dependent upon our works. I don't know of another passage in scripture that makes this more clear. When we stand before Christ, we're not going to be judged based on our works. Yes, works are connected with salvation.
[00:32:01] Good works follows salvation.
[00:32:06] If there are no works, you better question your salvation. But he does tell us that there are those who build in the wrong way. Their works are evil, their works are not good. And at the judgment, people who are truly saved will be saved so as by fire.
[00:32:27] But our salvation is not dependent on our works, but our rewards are dependent upon our works.
[00:32:34] That should inspire us. That should scare us just a little bit. We are called to work for God's glory, and there are rewards connected with that. And one day, when we stand before him at the judgment seat of Christ, what people thought about us won't matter one little bit. All that will matter was what we did for Jesus.
[00:33:01] He says that we are God's temple and God's spirit dwells in us. This is the reason for building with wisdom and building with excellence. Our productivity for the Lord matters. Number four, our accountability before the Lord. He says this in verse 17, and it's a warning we should take to heart. He says, if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple.
[00:33:34] I don't know how he could be any more clear than that. We are accountable in this life to the extent that he says that God can, and he even says he will destroy those who destroy God's temple. Now our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. But there seems to be a context connected with this that is connected with the corporate church, not just individuals. Because remember, the whole point of this conversation is division in the church. And he's saying, you are destroying God's temple, God's assembled temple, the church of Jesus Christ. Your division is threatening to destroy that, and God is going to destroy those who destroy God's temple. The context seems to be corporate rather than individual. But individual is also precedented in scripture. Ananias and Sapphira found out about that. They mocked the Holy Spirit and God struck them dead.
[00:34:37] But in this context, I believe he's talking about the corporate church.
[00:34:43] He's talking about our unity. Division destroys God's temple and God opposes those who oppose his people.
[00:34:51] It also tells us we're not only accountable in life, but we're accountable after death. At the judgment seat of Christ, our works will be judged. So let's look at our application for tonight.
[00:35:03] Number one, how do we apply this to our lives? Understanding the supremacy of the Lord affects our worship.
[00:35:14] Common worship unites us. Understanding the supremacy of the Lord affects our worship, and common worship unites us. When we're fighting about the style of worship, the style of music, the style of the preacher, all these different things, the style of our clothing, whether or not we should have a coffee shop, all these things that we can argue about in the american church and the church in the west is fighting about those things are secondary. And it brings division in the church and we brag about our division. We call it separation.
[00:35:48] We're told to be separate from the world, not separate from the church. Now, there are churches that are worldly and we need to separate from those things. But we fight over the silliest things in the church of Jesus Christ, even to the point of where we brag about it and it doesn't glorify God. Understanding the supremacy of the Lord and how silly and minor everything else is in comparison to him should unite our worship. And common worship unites us around the things that really, really matter. Every issue in the church is a worship issue. Everything comes back to our worship. If we're focused on the supremacy of the Lord, it keeps us from division. I went to a little church this morning and I say a little church is a very small church in size and had a very elderly congregation. There were one family with five or six kids there. There were some kids, but it was majority older people and their music was different than ours. They didn't have guitars, they didn't have drums, they weren't singing modern songs. They were singing out of a hymn book.
[00:37:08] And man, as I stood there and sang and worshiped with them, my heart was blessed. As soon as the piano started playing, this incredibly friendly older gentleman was sitting right behind me on the pew. And as soon as the first chord was struck on the piano, he leaned up and he put his hand on the pew. He goes, man, I love that. I get so excited when that first music starts playing. And I mean, this guy had to be in his mid to upper eighties and he was just so excited because an old hymn was playing. I know some people nowadays that mock and make fun of old hymns and make fun of piano music and make fun of choirs. God's not within 100 miles of that. We can't mock ways that other people worship. We have freedom to worship and we have freedom to sing newer songs. We're commanded to sing new songs in scripture. I think we're also commanded to have memorials and honor older songs that have been proven true. The theology of the old songs. That's why we try to sing both here. But I was standing in that church this morning much more old fashioned than hope church and my heart was blessed. And I was worshiping Jesus and I was listening to the choir and I was just thanking God for how he's moving in this other church.
[00:38:24] I'm ashamed to say I have known some people that would go to places like that and would video it and make fun of it.
[00:38:34] That scares me.
[00:38:36] And it's not just that there are old time churches that only sing hymns, that watch videos of our church and they make fun of us. It goes both ways and we have no business doing that. Understanding the supremacy of the Lord affects our worship and common worship unites us. I believe that's what Paul is getting at in this scripture. Number two, understanding the activity of the Lord affects our humility. Common service unites us when you serve together with someone. I remember my first missions trip I went on and every missions trip after that, there's a bond created by working together that nothing else can explain.
[00:39:17] That's why we need to be working together. That's why everyone here needs to be serving on a team. We need to be worshiping together. That's why Saturday I'm gonna give a shameless plug right here. We all need to be together at Pastor Earl's house, serving and loving on him and trimming hedges and painting decks and working together as the body of Christ, because common service unites us. Understanding the activity of the Lord makes us humble. Because it's not my work, it's his work. I'm serving him.
[00:39:47] Number three. Understanding our productivity for the Lord affects our devotion, and common affection unites us. When we understand that our work matters and it matters for his glory, it should affect our devotion to him. We should serve him in a way that reflects our love for him and common love. Common affection unites us. When you love the same thing, it brings a unity.
[00:40:21] Something strange happens on Saturdays in the south in the fall.
[00:40:26] People that are Republicans and Democrats, people that are liberals and conservatives, people that own guns and people that would never own guns, people with pink hair and people with short, shaved flat tops, military haircuts, people of every stripe unite together at football stadiums and they cheer for the same team. They love that team and they love one another. They high five each other, they hug each other, they act like complete idiots. And yes, I've been right in the middle of them. I've been to football games. And some of us do it on our couches, and we cheer for those teams. And we're so happy when the guy sitting beside us may be someone that in another area of life, we might get in a fight with him or something, but he's got the right colors on the we love one another and we're on the same team. It's something uniting about your devotion and your affection. When you love something, you love those who love that thing. And that's what the church is built on, the common denominator. The defining mark of the church is our love for one another. This world knows that we're disciples of Jesus Christ because we love one another. And when there's division in the church, they don't know if we're disciples of Jesus Christ.
[00:41:42] I sat down with a man this week again, a very elderly gentleman. He said, that church of yours, what is it?
[00:41:51] I said, it's a christian church. He goes, no, no, no. What denomination? Baptist, Presbyterian, whatever. Methodist, whatever. What is it? I said, baptist. He said, baptists are the biggest hypocrites in the world.
[00:42:03] He didn't miss a beat. I said, yeah, we sure can be sometimes. I said, and I'm sorry for those who act like that. I've acted like that before. I said, but you know what? There's a lot of people that love Jesus and serve Jesus. And we had a conversation, but boy, right out of the gate, the very first thing he said to me was, Baptists are the biggest hypocrites. I said, well, tell me about that. How did you find out about Baptists being hypocrites? Because I could tell you how I found out about that. I grew up in a baptist church. I've got a million stories about hypocrites, and half of them involve me being a hypocrite. And I asked him, I said, share your story with him. He shared a very sad story of how a church treated him, and he hasn't been back to church in years because of that, and it broke my heart.
[00:42:45] But I started building a relationship with that guy that we're going to have more conversations moving forward, and I've invited him to church, and I'm going to invite him to church again because, yeah, there may be some hypocrites in here, and there are, and I'm among them because no Christian is perfect. But we're not here to worship christians.
[00:43:06] I'm not here to worship you. You're not here to worship me. We're here to worship Jesus. And when our devotion and our affection is aimed at him, we can unite with other hypocrites.
[00:43:21] Got some friends who are Georgia bulldogs, and they go to the stadium, they get down between the hedges and they cheer on the bulldogs. And I've never heard one of them quit going to that stadium because there's hypocrites there.
[00:43:35] That stadium is full of hypocrites.
[00:43:37] Every restaurant we go to is full of hypocrites. But I ain't going to stop going to restaurants.
[00:43:44] I just move tables if I need to. I order it to go if I need to.
[00:43:50] It's the same thing for the church. Number four, understanding our accountability before the Lord affects our focus. Common responsibility unites us.
[00:44:02] We're responsible for the church in our generation. Yes, it's God's work, but he's working through us.
[00:44:11] And there's a lot of negative talk about the church. But I'll just be honest with you. I'm proud of the church. In our generation, I see a lot of good things. I see a resurgence of a lot of conservative biblical values, taking the Bible for what it says and trying to live that out, not perfectly. Nobody's living it out perfectly. But when we understand that we are accountable before the Lord, this affects our focus. It keeps us focused. And when we realize our common responsibility, it unites us together under the work that God has given us to do.
[00:44:47] So we started out talking about the fact that God will not share his glory with anybody else. And that's true.
[00:44:55] But I want to remind you of John, chapter 17, where we find Jesus high priestly prayer. And in Jesus high priestly prayer, he prays this prayer. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
[00:45:17] There's a couple things that we can note here. Number one, Jesus prays that the Father would give him glory.
[00:45:23] I don't know if you know this, but man is not allowed to pray a prayer like that.
[00:45:29] Jesus claims that a previous glory was his before the time of creation with God the Father.
[00:45:38] I can't say that. You can't say that. And Jesus also asserts that his glory was that of the father's glory.
[00:45:48] In other words, Jesus asked the Father to give his glory to another, namely Jesus himself.
[00:45:59] More than that, Jesus proclaims that he has already shared in that divine glory as the pre existent son of God, which is one of the strongest declarations of the deity of Jesus Christ in scripture. A mere man cannot pray this to the Father.
[00:46:19] Jesus was God in the flesh.
[00:46:23] And our very declaration that Jesus is Lord, which you find throughout the New Testament, is a proclamation. His deity, Jesus, is God in the flesh. He is Lord.
[00:46:38] We are his servants.
[00:46:41] And because of that, let's get busy for his glory.
