Rightly Receiving a Multiple Teaching Ministry

The point: Be inoculated by God's truth so that we will not turn the great gift of a multiple ministry into a curse.

Martin uses the analogy of remedial medicine (treating sickness with penicillin) versus preventative medicine (inoculation against infection) to explain his sermon's purpose: to inoculate the church against the Corinthian problem before it arises.

In other words, he had to give some corrective medicine. The gift had already been perverted, and he must treat this particular problem with particular elements of God's truth to correct it. I want to take Paul's medicine that was remedial medicine and turn it into preventive or preventative. Both words are correct.

3:12 - 3:36 Read in full sermon

The point: If your life is dominated by fleshiness and carnality, you are lost and under condemnation unless you repent and receive a new nature.

He illustrates how men in the world allow attachment to others to lead to strife and division in sports (e.g., Foreman vs. Ali) and politics, showing that the Corinthians' divisions were a worldly, carnal behavior.

You see, in the world, men will allow their attachment to other men to lead to strife, jealousy and bitterness. Take the realm of sports. You'll get guys ready to come to blows over who's the greatest.

25:31 - 25:46 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Thirdly, Paul provides a robust theology of the Christian ministry. Ministers are mere instruments in God's hands (1 Cor 3:5-7), co-laborers seeking the same ends (1 Cor 3:8-9)…

Martin uses the analogy of different workers (bulldozer, concrete trucks, masons, carpenters) contributing to building a physical church structure to illustrate how different ministers are co-laborers working towards the same end: the edification of the church.

Now someone is putting the seed in. Somebody else is watering. But when two people work the same field, some with seed, some with water, what are they out for? The same end, the harvest.

34:36 - 34:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not gather into parties based on apparent fruitfulness, as only God knows the true labor that produces fruit.

He tells a hypothetical story of a person converted through a new pastor after years of labor by another pastor, to illustrate that only God knows the true labor that produces fruit, not apparent fruitfulness.

So often this happens and I believe God will do it just to remind us that it's his work. There are people here over whom I have labored in prayer and in preaching and in admonition for 11 years. And as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing's happened.

39:13 - 39:29 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If Pastor Blaise and I should drop dead tomorrow, this work will go on because the head of the church is mindful of his people and will provide them with all that they need for their edification and for the accomplishmen…

Martin contrasts the 'Johnny, Johnny, he's our man' mentality of cheerleaders in sports with the church, emphasizing that the church's hope rests solely on Christ, not on any human minister.

Ministry exists for the sake of the church and all of the ministries are for all the people of God.

41:26 - 41:32 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He has made of dead sinners living stones and forged us together into a living temple in which He breathes His own life and power by the Holy Spirit. Oh, keep your theology of the church straight.

He uses the imagery of barren fields with nettles and thorns versus a garden of Eden with fruits of grace to illustrate that any spiritual fruit or growth in the church is solely due to God's work, not human effort.

Nothing but briars and nettles and if there are anything of the flowers of faith and repentance and love and joy and peace, it's because God's been at work in the field. Think of the times when the servants of God have worked barren fields overspread with nettles and thorns for 10 and 20 years and not one single flower of the fruit of the Spirit is to be found in the life of a man in that field.

43:56 - 44:25 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He has made of dead sinners living stones and forged us together into a living temple in which He breathes His own life and power by the Holy Spirit. Oh, keep your theology of the church straight.

Martin expresses dismay at religious groups setting prayer goals for conversions and baptisms, and church growth seminars that graph spiritual growth like businesses, illustrating a pragmatic, human-centered view of the church that he contrasts with Paul's theology.

I was sickened again yesterday reading in a religious periodical where a certain group has set its prayer goals for 1970, for so many conversions, so many baptisms, so many... Imagine it.

46:23 - 46:36 Read in full sermon