Rightly Receiving a Multiple Teaching Ministry

Introduction: The Danger of Perverting God's Gifts

0:02 I'm sure that this weekend will long be remembered in the minds and hearts of God's people here in this place. It has been to us a very significant weekend. This past Friday we gathered for the installation of our co-pastor, our dear brother, beloved in Christ, Mr. Blaze.

0:22 And in the light of the very significant nature of this weekend, I'm breaking into the regular course of expositions and effusions to bring a word which I trust will be a word in season to us as God's people. And I'm bringing this word because, as I intimated on Friday evening, we must never underestimate the ability of men to turn God's greatest gifts into the most terrible curses. And this truth is illustrated even within the framework of the visible church of Jesus Christ. The church at Corinth is a tragic example.

1:01 Though a vivid one, of how the people of God can take the most precious gifts of God and turn them into curses. For instance, they had the gift of Christian liberty, and what did they do? They turned it into license and into indifference to their weaker brothers. They had the gift of tongues and other forms of utterance, and what did they do?

1:24 They turned them into charismatic orgies which did not edify the people of God. And then they took...

1:32 The great gift of God's forbearance. Here's a man living in an incestuous relationship, and God was forbearing. He didn't strike him dead as he struck Ananias and Sabira dead. And what did they do with the gift of God's forbearance?

1:45 They turned it into an occasion for carelessness and pride.

1:51 These are just a few examples. From one church alone, and now as we reflect upon our own assembly, we see that God has been pleased graciously to bless us with a...

2:04 Diversity of teaching elders. And he has brought our brother amongst us to labor in the word. Well, he did the same thing, you see, at the church at Corinth. They had been blessed with the ministry of the apostle who was their founding father.

2:19 He blessed them with the ministry of Apollos, and in a secondary sense with the ministry of Peter. And what did they do with this tremendous blessing of a diversified ministry? They turned it into a curse. And so the church was filled with...

2:34 Three spirits and with divisions and with envying. They took the great gift of God, which was intended for their edification, and they turned it around and made of it a curse. Now, as Paul treats that particular problem with the perversion of that particular gift, he gives us some tremendous principles which need now, if never before, to enter the bloodstream of this congregation. Paul had to deal with this subject, of how the church is to receive the blessing of a diversified ministry in a remedial way.

3:12 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.

3:36 I was corrected some time ago for using the word preventative. I checked in the dictionary, and they are synonyms both correct. So you may use preventive or preventative medicine. In other words, it's one thing to be sick and go to the doctor, and much to the chagrin of certain healing arts, to have him give you a puncture or a jab, as our British friends say, of penicillin, or an injection of penicillin.

4:02 That's wonderful. To have an antibiotic that will keep...

4:05 kill the bad germs that are working in our system, but there's something better than that. That's to be inoculated against that particular infection. And what I wish to do this morning is to give you an inoculation. Rather, I trust that God, by His truth, will inoculate us so that we will not do what the Corinthian church did, turn this great gift of God into a curse to ourselves and a hindrance to the cause of Christ.

The Problem at Corinth: Divisions Over Ministers

4:36 How, then, are we as a congregation, Trinity Baptist Church of Essex-Fells, to receive the gift of a multiple and diversified ministry?

4:48 Well, we're going to get an answer to that question by turning to 1 Corinthians and considering the teaching of the Apostle Paul as he speaks to remedy a situation in which people did not know how to receive the gift of a multiple and diversified ministry. And I have but two channels down which to direct your thoughts this morning, two pegs on which to hang the truth, and they are these. First of all, the problem at Corinth stated, and we shall look at it briefly, and then secondly, the problem attacked by the Apostle. First of all, then, the problem stated.

5:28 Chapter 1, verse 10 and following. Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be able to receive the gift of God, that you may be able to receive the gift of God, that you may be able to receive the gift of God, and that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been signified unto me concerning you, my brethren, by them that are of the household of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I mean that each one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I, and I of Christ.

6:09 Now it's obvious what the problem was. God had blessed the church at Corinth with a diversified and multiple ministry. Paul had been the founding father. Apollos had been used to teach them.

6:25 Apparently, at least in an indirect way, Peter had had some influence amongst those out of a Jewish background, and then those who said, I am of Christ, were some who perhaps had even seen Christ in the church. In the days of his flesh.

6:41 But now, whatever the particular circumstances were, it is obvious that the head of the church who gave gifts to Paul, gave gifts to Apollos, gifts to Cephas, and then the same head of the church who had directed these men to whom the gifts had been given to minister at Corinth, had done this with a view to the blessing of the people of God at Corinth.

7:07 But instead of receiving that with blessing, what did they do? Well, they allowed it to rupture their internal unity. Verse 10, he says, there are divisions among you. He repeats this in chapter 3, and verse 3, there is among you jealousy, strife.

7:26 Then there was arrested growth, of which we heard in the previous hour. Chapter 3, verse 1, they were still babes because they abused the gift of a diversified ministry. There was arrested growth. Chapter 4, verses, 1 and following, there was a sinful judging of men.

7:43 Rather than sitting beneath these men as God's servants, they began to stand above them and judge them. And Paul says, it's a very little thing if I be judged of you or of other men. Then they began to be proud in what they received from these various men. They said, oh, Paul must be better because I got more from Paul.

8:01 Some of them, oh, no, Peter must be better because I get more from Peter. He says, you're so foolish. He said, what have you that you didn't receive? If it's come, it's come.

8:10 His gracious gift. And then they were glorying in men. Chapter 3, verse 21, and without being exhausted at all, just taking a few of these things at random, we see that at Corinth, the failure of this church rightly to receive this God-given variety of ministers and diversity of ministrations was the mother of many crippling sins and the thief of many blessings which otherwise would have been theirs. That's the problem.

8:40 That's the problem as Paul states it in 1 Corinthians. And by way of application, need I underscore to you the tremendous parallel? God in His grace purposes to bless us in eternity by giving to us this multiplicity and variety of ministering servants. It is for our good that He has brought our brother amongst us, the head of the church who has endowed him with gifts and graces, and has directed his way by that which Pastor Oliot called Friday night a strange set of providential circumstances.

9:19 Why has the Lord done this? Because his heart is full of blessing for us and his heart is full of purposes of grace for others who will be reached through us and through the blessing of a multiple ministry. Thank God that as far as I know, what we consider today is not needed, is needed as remedial medicine. But are we so foolish as to think that a church founded by Paul and could degenerate into this that we are not susceptible to the same sins into which they fell?

9:57 And so it's our longing that the present climate may continue and that we be inoculated against the problem delineated here. A problem simply stated, they abuse the gift of a multiplicity of a multiple ministry and turned it into a curse. So much for the problem stated now. How does Paul attack the problem?

Paul's Attack: The Supremacy of Attachment to Christ

10:18 And as usual, whenever the apostle attacks a problem in a church, he does so with a clear head and with a burning heart. He approaches it in a beautiful fusion of common sense, theological persuasion and perception, and powerful argument. And all of those things are woven together and as he weaves them together, I see at least three dominant strands of thought and I want to lay them out before you this morning.

10:51 He deals with this problem and in so doing instructs us how to prevent the problem by underscoring, first of all, the supremacy of their attachment to Christ, secondly, the carnality of their detachment from one another, and thirdly, he underscores the theology of the ministry and of the church. If we as a church are to hold this blessing as a blessing and to see the Spirit of God use it to our edification and to the spread of the gospel, we, like the Corinthians, must understand those three things. The supremacy of our attachment to Christ, the carnality of any detachment one from another, and the theology, of the ministry and of the church. Now let's think our way through those three lines of thought with these passages before us. First of all, the supremacy of their attachment to Christ. These Corinthians have become idolatrously attached to certain men who were Christ's gifts to the church.

12:02 Hence, if Paul's to wrench them loose from the division that came from that idolatrous attachment, he must underscore the supremacy of their attachment to Christ. And once we get hold of this principle that we are supremely attached to Christ, the head of the church, and only in a very secondary manner attached to his gifts to the church, only then will we be kept from this like sin.

12:35 Now how does he underscore this doctrine of the supremacy of their attachment to Christ? Well, he does so by asking them three very simple questions. that the youngest of you children could answer. Look at the questions in verse 13.

12:48 Having stated the problem in verses 10 to 12, he now attacks the problem underscoring the supremacy of their attachment to Christ with three questions. Question number one, is Christ divided? Let me ask the youngest of the children here today, how many true Christs are there? Sitting at the right hand of God the Father, how many Christians of Christ are there?

13:15 One, two, three, four? And if I were to ask you to answer, and I would, except I doubt the tape would pick it up and people would wonder what the silence was, all of you children could answer me, there is but one Christ. That's the question Paul asked the Corinthians. And since they were babes, he asked them very simple baby-like questions that they could answer.

13:36 Nothing profound. Is Christ divided? You Corinthians, listen to me. Is Christ divided?

13:41 What Christ? Well, the Christ to whom they had been attached in their effectual calling. Look at verse 9. God is faithful by whom you were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

13:53 How many of you were called unto the fellowship of His Son? All of you who are true saints. And being called unto the fellowship of Christ, this Christ has sent Paul to you, He has sent Cephas, He has sent Apollos for what purpose?

14:08 To divide His body? Why, of course not. It was the mighty power of the Father operating through the Spirit in their effectual calling which attached them to Christ and nothing that God ever sends will have as its intended tendency to separate them from Christ. And so the indivisibility of Christ, the head of the church, should constantly be reflected in the indivisibility of all the members of the body.

14:42 And as we contemplate this great blessing of God in diversified ministry, at any point where we would be tempted to say, I am of, and I am of, ask yourself the question, is Christ divided? Then he asks the second question, was Paul crucified for you? And the youngest of the children here could answer that question. Who died on the cross to redeem sinners?

15:08 The Lord Jesus Christ did. And so he asked the Corinthians, he says, wait a minute, who purchased you to claim you as His possession? Did Paul? Why are you going around saying I'm Paul's?

15:19 He didn't die to redeem you. He didn't pay the price necessary for your release from the bondage to sin and to Satan and to the world. No, no. It was the Lord Jesus who gave Himself for us a ransom.

15:34 And he asked that question to underscore the supremacy of their attachment to Christ. I am the purchased possession of Christ. If I am, and you're a Christian, so you are. And by that purchase, we have been made His possession.

15:51 Was Paul crucified for you? And the moment you begin to find yourself idolatrously attached to Pastor Blaze, Pastor Martin, or Pastor anybody, you ask yourself, was he crucified for me? Did he die to redeem me? And then the third question he asks is, were you baptized into the name of Paul?

16:12 Look at it. Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? Among other things, in Christianity, in baptism, we are brought into the ranks of the one in whose name we are baptized. 1 Corinthians 10.1 Israel was baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. That is, they were incorporated under the headship and leadership of Moses as God's appointed leader of Israel. When in the name of the sacred triune God we are plunged beneath the baptismal waters of the Holy Spirit, and emerged from those waters, we have been now formally and sacramentally, and I use that term in an evangelical sense, we have been brought under the name of Christ and his government and his law. Now, they all had received Christian baptism, and they did not receive it in the name of the apostles,

17:14 in the name of their pastors, in the name of their evangelists. Hence, the supreme object of their attachment is the one in whose name they were baptized. Now, do you see by those three simple questions the answers to which are very obvious, he is underscoring the supremacy of their attachment to Christ. Christ is incapable of division, is the dominant note on the one hand, and religious leaders are not the centers of unity on the other hand.

17:43 May I repeat that? Christ is incapable of division, and if we are a body, then division is unthinkable, and religious leaders are not the centers of true spiritual unity. Christ himself and Christ alone is the center of unity. So if we are all attached to an undivided Christ, we will not allow any breach by a party spirit which is to be found when we cling to his gifts in an idolatrous manner, thus rending us one from another.

18:21 There are people here who I believe would give their right eyes for me and for Pastor Blaise,

18:32 but none of you were joined to a divided Christ in your effectual call. None of you were purchased by us, nor shall you ever be. None of you were baptized into our names. Hence, there must be no division amongst us.

18:47 Now, how will that division manifest itself? Well, when the preaching schedules worked out, some of you say, well, frankly, I just love the way Pastor Blaise throws himself into his preaching and he doesn't come with quite the same structure as Pastor Martin. I feel there's a bit more freedom there and I just like his style of preaching more, so I'll make a little more effort to be out to all the services when I know he's preaching such and such a time. And others may say, well, Pastor Blaise is all right in his preaching, but you know, he just works up a little bit too much sweat for me and just a little bit too loud and once in a while gets carried away and he uses some of those footnotes in funny British and West Indian terms and so you begin to conveniently vacate yourself from services where he's preaching.

19:31 Listen, my friends, that's saying I am of Paul and I am of Apollos. If the head of the church did not know that we as a body need the diversified ministry of this teaching elder and that teaching elder, he never would have placed us here.

19:47 And when he's placed us both here, he is saying, you need the ministry of both men. Now, you see, you don't need to say it by going around saying, I'm a Pastor Martin, I'm a Pastor Blaise. You just begin to vacate yourself. No, no.

20:02 You don't come here because I'm preaching. If you do, shame on you.

20:09 You don't come because that man's preaching. If you do, shame on you. You come because you believe the head of the church has supplied his church with the gifts to edify and he will never disappoint your heart as you come to be edified by your great head to whom you were joined in your effectual course in whose name you were baptized, the one who died for you as a child of God. Oh, dear Christians, let us remember the supremacy of our attachment to Christ and we will never fall into the sin of the Corinthians.

20:45 Don't ever refer to this assembly as Pastor So-and-So's Church. Oh, when I hear that terminology, it goes all over me. It's the church of Jesus Christ that meets in this place. Under the direction of His appointed under shepherds.

21:01 But it's His church and our attachment is supremely to Him. Now, does this mean it's wrong to prefer the counsel of one pastor as opposed to another in given areas of problems and need? Of course not. Some of you have tacky marital problems.

21:19 You need not feel reluctant or feel sinful if you feel a little more at ease coming to me than to a man who's not yet married. That's only natural. Some of you who are younger and you're able to identify with Pastor Blaze a bit easier because he's closer to your age. Does this mean there's something sinful if you seek his counsel and not mine?

21:40 Not at all. God does not negate common sense and natural, innocent human tendencies when He saves us. Grace doesn't dehumanize us. Some people think so, but I refuse to buy that theology.

21:55 It brings back our true humanity. That we might be true men and women. And so I'm not at all inferring that there will be no preferential elements here with certain facets. Not at all.

Paul's Attack: The Carnality of Detachment from One Another

22:09 What I am saying is at any point where our attachment to any man begins to rend us from one another, we have forgotten the supremacy of our attachment to Jesus Christ. Now in the second place, Paul gave them to understand that when they abused this great man, this great blessing of a diversified ministry, they were guilty of gross carnality. And so he underscores for them the carnality of their detachment from one another. Now the word carnal, chapter 3, verse 1, And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal.

22:48 As you know, he drops the subject of their division for a bit after those three questions and he takes off on the gospel when he says he didn't baptize any save a couple and, he says this was consistent with his commission, so we're picking up his thread of thought again at chapter 3. I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. And what particular manifestation of carnality is he talking about? Verse 4, For when one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not men?

23:19 He says, in this area you're walking and acting as men devoid of the Spirit. To be carnal means to be under the influence of the flesh or corrupt nature. Same family of words as is found in Romans 8. Now listen carefully.

23:35 Though carnality does not dominate the life pattern of any true Christian, Romans 8, 7 to 9, you read it, they that are in the flesh cannot please God, ye are not in the flesh, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. The minding of the flesh is death. Carnality does not dominate the life pattern of any true Christian. It is the child of God.

24:01 But it does have its specific manifestations and outcroppings in all Christians to one degree or to another. Now if you're here this morning and your life is dominated by fleshiness, carnality, either in its gross and obvious forms or in its more refined forms, if your life is dominated by what you can see, what you can touch, what you can feel, what you can take into your body, what you can enjoy with your five senses, if your life is dominated by nothing more than what you brought into it, you're lost, you're under condemnation and the yawning mouth of hell waits to receive you unless you repent and receive a new nature from the living God. For they that are in the flesh cannot please God. The Christian is no longer a carnal man in the sense that carnality dominates. He's a spiritual man.

25:03 He's been born of the spirit. He's been given a new heart, a new principle of life. But there is the residue, the remains of corruption and the outcroppings of carnality. And so the Apostle Paul attacks the problem by showing them that when they divide over their particular ministerial favorites, they are expressing corrupt, fleshy nature.

25:31 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.

25:47 Phrase your foreman or Ali. In politics, you'll get guys ready to guard one another's juggler's vein over the matter of their political persuasions. That's why Paul says in verse 4, when one says, I'm of Paul, another, I'm of Apollos, are you not men? He said, you're acting like men of the world.

26:06 They allow their attachment to other men to produce these terrible sins of the flesh. Anger and division and envy and wrath.

26:16 So let me say by way of application, this fleshy tendency is a wily thing and a very subtle thing. Perhaps some of them there said, well, we detect in Paul more of the fragrance of Christ, so we must be attached to Paul. Doesn't that just drip with spirituality? Perhaps some of them are really bragging that they were so spiritual that they detected more of Christ in Paul's preaching.

26:42 They said, we just can't have full unfettered fellowship with you people because you just obviously don't know what real spiritual ministry is. And that sounds spiritual and Paul says, look, it's carnal. It stinks in the nostrils of God. Maybe you have the Petrine crowd saying, well, we discern more directness in Peter.

27:05 You know, Paul is the diplomat. And we believe he's become a little bit of a man. But, oh, Peter, who really understands the Old Testament, who really gives honor to all that has been carried over of type and symbol. And they perhaps justified their divisions by feeling that they had a little more insight.

27:23 And then maybe there are others who, because Apollos was eloquent, said, ah, but for sheer spiritual unction, no one like Apollos. Ah, some of you deadheads, you're carried away with the logic of Paul. And some of you wild emotional people, you're carried away with the fire of Peter. But we intelligent people, the eloquence and the articulation of Apollos, that's a true ministry.

27:47 And then the real spiritual ones said, huh, a plague on all your house. We have God and the Holy Spirit. We don't need human teachers. We're of Christ.

27:56 Ever hear them?

27:59 Ever hear them? They say, the rest of you people, you're just all wet. You're just, you're infants. You feel you need human teachers.

28:08 We have Christ. That's all we need. That crowd's with us to this day. They could never be of Paul or Apollos.

28:16 They never recognize the gift of God in human teachers. They despise the gift of God in human teachers. And they say, all we need is Christ and the Holy Spirit. But what Paul lets them all see, the Christ party down to the Pauline party, is that whenever attachment to or despising of God's gifts in spiritual ministers rends the body of Christ, it is an outpouring of sheer unadulterated carnality.

28:46 And so when you're tempted to draw aside and begin to cut yourself off from any other segment of this body of Christ because of a so-called spiritual sensitivity to the greater unction of one man's ministry another, may the words of the Apostle ring in your ears, ye are carnal in spite of all your spiritual talk. Ye are carnal. Ye are carnal. Having then shown the supremacy of their attachment to Christ to correct the problem, having underscored the carnality of their detachment from one another, the Apostle spends the bulk of his time saying, you know what the problem of you Corinthians is?

Paul's Attack: The Theology of the Christian Ministry

29:29 You don't understand the theology of the Christian ministry and of the Church. Now, this is where the Apostle's approach to problems is so different from the pragmatism of our day. You see, what can be more pragmatic or more gutsy, more, more earthy than a problem of division. How do you solve it?

29:48 Well, you've got to go in there and stop people from clawing and scratching at one another and put them down in a corner and scold. You know what Paul does? He comes in with a carload of theology and dumps it on them. And he says, if you get your theology of the Christian ministry straight and your theology of the Church straight, you wouldn't be acting the way you're acting.

30:04 He corrects the most earthy, practical problems with the most rocky, stiff theology.

30:12 And people who say, oh, I've got a practical mind. I don't have a mind for theology. My friend, what you're saying is I don't have a mind to know how to live.

30:22 I don't have a mind to know how to please God and how to conduct myself to His praise. Now, notice then how the Apostle comes at the problem with the theology, first of all, of the Christian ministry. He says to them, in essence, if only you people would know and understand what ministers are, you wouldn't do what you're doing with your ministers. Now, what are some of the elements of the theology of the Christian ministry by which he corrects the problem?

30:48 First of all, he says this, they are mere instruments in God's hands used according to His good pleasure. Chapter 3, verses 5 to 7. What then is Apollos? Here you people are saying, I'm of the Apollos crowd.

31:04 He's really the articulate preacher. I'm of the Paul crowd. He's the real Christ-centered preacher. I'm of the Peter crowd.

31:11 He's the direct preacher. He says, who then is Apollos? And what is Paul? He says, you don't even know who you're talking about.

31:20 You say, I'm of the Paul. You don't even know who they are.

31:24 And he tells them this. Notice. They are ministers through whom ye believed and each as the Lord gave to him. I planted Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

31:42 So then, neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. You see what his emphasis is? He says to the Corinthians, all you Corinthians, understand the true theology of the Christian ministry. Ministers are mere instruments in God's hands, used according to God's good pleasure.

32:04 Since then, their gifts are from God, their usefulness is from God, and both their gifts and usefulness from God according to His good pleasure. Your only attachment should be to the giver, and not to his gifts. How silly to glory in them. God says they are ciphers, they are zeros.

32:26 Apollos, nothing. Paul, nothing. God, everything.

32:33 My dear friends, this concept must dominate our thinking if we are rightly to receive a diversity of ministries. Suppose you in the days and months ahead receive something of spiritual blessing, perhaps the greatest of all blessings, you are brought out of darkness into marvelous light through the ministry of Pastor Blaise, or through the ministry of this servant of Christ. Suppose you are enabled to be edified and grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. What are you to do?

33:05 You are to recognize Pastor Blaise, Pastor Martin, are just what? Instruments in God's hands, used according to God's good pleasure. Why should God use one in the life of a certain one that He does not use in another? For even so, Lord, it seemed good in thy sight.

33:27 God's instruments used according to God's good pleasure. How stupid to become idolatrously attached to them. Second thing He gives them in the theology of the Christian ministry, He says that they are co-laborers in God's work seeking the same ends. And He uses a very powerful form of argument here.

33:48 Look, verses 8 and 9. Now he that planteth chapter 3 he that planteth and he that watereth are one.

33:58 They are one.

34:01 But each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. We are God's fellow workers. You are God's husbandry, God's garden, and God's building. See what he's telling them?

34:15 He's saying, you Corinthians, how stupid to rend yourself into parties when the very ones around whom you gather, they are one. One in what? One in doctrine. One in their attachment to Christ.

34:29 One in their desire for His glory. One in their laboring for the good of the church. What are they doing? They're both out to see the same harvest.

34:36 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.

34:48 The harvest. When the bulldozer comes in, and we trust that the bulldozer come in, there are not too many months on the corner of a plot of land in Roseland. When that bulldozer comes in and levels off some of that ground, and then the big concrete trucks come, and they pour the concrete, and then the masons come in and lay up the block walls, and then a few weeks later we have the carpenters come in and they put down the plate and begin to raise the superstructure and put up the laminated beams. What's the whole end in view?

35:19 A structure in which this assembly may meet to worship. One lays the foundation, another raises the superstructure, but all who labor in that building are one. Now that's the argument Paul is using. He's saying you Corinthians have forgotten the theology of the Christian ministry.

35:35 When God brings men together motivated by the same ends and longing for the same goals, one in doctrine, one in perspective, one in their prayers for the advancement of the kingdom, one in their affection for each other. For Paul speaks affectionately of Apollos in chapter 16 and verse 12. How foolish to split up over them because it's a contradiction of the very thing they're out to do. They're out to till one field.

36:04 They're out to build one building. And you want to break the heart of Paul and Apollos and Cephas? Let it be known that you are rallying into parties because of that. And I say before God with unfettered liberty and unbounded joy that God has made my brother and me one, one in doctrine.

36:32 I never hold my breath running what's going to come over the pulpit. I can sit back and revel in it, be smitten by it, pray for its advance and its blessing. One in perspective that we long that God would use each other in ways that we are not used, in lives that we are not used. That unfettered longing for the increase of gifts and graces in each other and the multiplication of usefulness in the great work of the harvest and in the great work of building God's temple.

37:06 And oh, if you want to break our hearts, let it be known that you've become part of the Blaze Party and part of the Martin Party. It's a contradiction of the very thing we're here to do.

37:20 How foolish, how tragic.

37:24 We are co-laborers seeking the same ends. Then, not only does he give them this aspect of the theology of the ministry, saying they're mere instruments used according to God's pleasure, they are co-laborers seeking the same ends, but thirdly, he says they are individual stewards in God's eyes accountable to him for their labors. Look at verse 8. He that planteth and he that watereth are one, but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.

37:52 And when will he receive that reward? Not now, when he has a little party around him growing and saying, we're the Paul party. No, no, he says the day shall come to declare every man's work of what sort it is. And verses 10 through 15 are an exposition of this principle.

38:09 They are individual stewards in God's eyes accountable to him for their labors. You see, if ministers were accountable to men, then the approbation and approval and judgment of men would be something we should seek. But we do not stand or fall before the eyes of men. You read chapters 4 verses 1 to 5.

38:30 Paul shows his indifference to the approbation or to the disapprobation of men.

38:39 The Lord Jesus made a very perceptive statement regarding this whole thing in John chapter 4. You remember he told his own, look, others have labored and you're entering into the fruit of their labors. How stupid for people to gather around Paul saying, well, look, he's the fruitful one. I'll gather around him.

38:56 He says, wait a minute. No, no, only God knows who has bestowed the true labor that has produced the fruit. For notice it says, that every man will receive a reward according not to his apparent fruitfulness, but according to his labor.

39:13 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.

39:31 Maybe in the first six months of his ministry, God will save you through the preaching of our brother, Blaise. Thank God if he does it. Thank God if he'd do it in the first day of his preaching.

39:45 But now how stupid for that person to say, well, I'm a pastor. Blaise, Pastor Martin never could move me before, Pastor. Oh, no, wait a minute. Who alone knows the labor that produced the fruit?

39:57 You see how stupid it is? You see it? That's the principle. Every man will receive his own reward according to his own labor and only God can read the labors of his servants.

40:10 There's that mother that's labored in prayer, that father who's labored in prayer for that child. And all we do is stand and preach some morning and God brings that child home to himself. Who's really bestowed the labor?

40:24 How foolish then to gather into parties because of apparent fruitfulness. No, no. We are co-laborers seeking the same ends and we are individual stewards accountable supremely to God. And then the fourth thing he gives them in the theology of the Christian ministry, is found in verses 21 to 23 of chapter 3.

40:47 Wherefore let no one glory 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 ye are Christ's and Christ is God's. He says to the Corinthians, oh listen,

41:05 you're robbing yourself. You say, I'm of Paul. I'm of Apollos. Only Paul can be an instrument of blessing to me.

41:12 Only Cephas, only Apollos, he says, oh you Corinthians you have too narrow a vision. All of God's ministers brought in your midst are gifts from God to be received by all of God's people.

41:26 Ministry exists for the sake of the church and all of the ministries are for all the people of God.

41:35 We don't have the mentality of the cheerleaders that used to yell when I was playing football in high school and you had some fellow who was particularly adept at running over tacklers or running around them. And the cheerleaders would shout, Johnny, Johnny, he's our man. If he can't do it, nobody can. That mentality is not present in the church of Christ.

41:57 No, no. We have no man upon whom our hopes rest.

42:03 Our hopes rest upon him who is the head of the church. Upon the one who has graciously brought this particular church into being. Who has sustained it by grace that flows out of himself and through the ministries which he has appointed. 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 accomplishment of his purposes.

42:36 And if I didn't believe that, I'd be a nervous wreck. But whatever my problems are, one of them is not nervousness.

42:46 This doesn't rest on these shoulders. They're too narrow.

42:50 Help rest upon one who is mighty. Even our blessed Lord himself. So what a privilege is ours. All things are yours.

43:02 And the minute you begin to say, well, only Pastor Martin is mine. You're robbing yourself. Only Pastor Blaise is mine. No, no.

43:08 All things are yours. Cephas, Paul, Apollos. All are ours. And then, very briefly, what does he give them about the theology of the church to correct the problem?

Paul's Attack: The Theology of the Church

43:22 Well, just this, fundamental principle.

43:26 Paul says the church is God's builder. Look at verse 9.

43:31 We are God's fellow working. You are God's husbandry or garden. You are God's building. He says in verse 16, Know ye not that you're a temple of God?

43:42 You're God's building, God's field, God's temple. He says, get that theology straight. God has brought the building into being. God has worked the field or there'd be nothing.

43:56 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.

44:26 If ever, a field becomes something of a garden of Eden in terms of the fruits of grace, it's because God's been at work to change the imagery if ever we see erected out of the rubble in the ruin of Adamic humanity a structure fit for God to dwell in it. God's building, God's temple, God's been at work. Though He uses men, they're not the founders and sustainers of the church. Though He uses them, they don't produce the fruit.

45:01 The church is a living, supernatural organism.

45:07 Now, of course, it has some very natural and necessary organization. It has some very human elements. You're here this morning with your flesh and bones and blood and clothes and hair or absence of it. You're here with all of those commodities and we're here with electric lights and we're here with other mechanical means and you people downstairs are here with this advanced technology of television.

45:34 Yes, there are many human elements to explain what's here this morning, but my friend, if we're a true church, there are many things that cannot be explained by human terms or in the light of human principles. It's because God, by His Spirit, has put forth a divine energy and has quarried us out of that great mass of lost humanity and has made us a part of it. 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.

46:13 And this is a note desperately needed in our pragmatic, success-orientated American situation.

46:23 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.

46:36 Imagine it.

46:39 And you have others having their seminars on church growth and graphing all of this thing and putting it down just like businesses run in New York City, in which everything can be projected on the basis of sales planning and sales technique and promotion and all these other things.

47:01 Paul says, you people need to understand the church. No wonder we have hero worship when the church is conceived of in those terms because any man who can produce all of that by his ingenuity, he is a hero. He's somewhat of a business genius. And he deserves to have hero worship.

47:18 But if the church is what Paul says it is, God's building, God's field, God's temple, then if it grows and is blessed and flourishes, it's not because of this man or that man, no matter how much they may be used in the process. It's because God's been at work to till the field. God's been at work to build. God's been at work to beautify His temple with His own presence.

Conclusion: Inoculation Against Abuse and Call to Faith

47:46 And as long as we see the church in that perspective, all will be well. All right, then let me review and I'm done. How are we to be inoculated against the abuse of the blessing of Christ in giving a diversified and plurality of teaching elders? Well, we must first of all keep before our minds the supremacy of our attachment to Jesus Christ.

48:17 It is Christ who has redeemed us. It is Christ who is one. It is Christ into whose name we've been baptized. And it is a denial of our very baptism if we become a clique that is of Paul and of Apollos.

48:34 Remember the supremacy of your attachment to Him and look upon all of His gifts as His gracious designs for you. And then remember in the second place the carnality of any detachment from one another no matter how spiritual the reason may appear. Or no matter how spiritual your own remaining corruption may make it to appear. The minute you begin to draw away from me it's not because you don't like the shape of my nose or the way I stick my chin out or the wrinkles in my brow.

49:07 It's because you're carnal. And the minute I begin to draw away from you it's because I'm carnal. Face it as such. Don't gloss it over with hyper pseudo-spiritual terms.

49:20 Remember that separation from one another polarized around your servants the servants of Christ amongst you is carnality. And then review again and again the theology of the Christian ministry and of the church. What our ministers mere instruments used at God's good pleasure. Co-laborers laboring to the same ends.

49:46 Individuals accountable not to you but to God. And they are all God's gifts to you for your good. And then remember the theology of the church. It is His tilled field.

49:58 His building. His temple. It is not dependent upon any human instrumentality but dependent only upon its author and its sustainer. And dear ones I believe with all my heart concurring with the comments made by Pastor Elliot Friday night that God has designs in His own heart far beyond what transpires in this place.

50:24 The church is looking. The world is looking. In an age of skepticism and cynicism and double talk and double innuendos and where there's a total breakdown of proper horizontalism to relationships because we've lost and abandoned the fear of God. All that God would make in this place a multiplied ministry that will be a monument of His grace not only to His servants but to His people.

50:54 That it may be said of us ye became an ensample to all the churches. Is it too much to ask that God can do this? The grace poured out upon the infant church of the Thessalonians in the midst of a baptism of persecution was such that Paul could write and thank God for them and said that their conduct became exemplary to all the churches. May God be pleased to do it not for our sake but that the Lord Jesus the great architect of the church the living head of the church the infinite reservoir of grace to the church that He may be praised and His truth advanced in our generation.

51:35 Perhaps you're here this morning and you're not part of that temple. You see, you can't make yourself a part of God's church. Only He can. Oh, you can join the church.

51:48 It's sad to say you can go to almost anything called a Christian church and you can make yourself a part of its external structure. But only God puts stones in His building.

51:59 Has God made you a living stone in His temple? Is there anything about you that has no explanation but that Almighty God has put forth divine energy to change you and to incorporate you into His people? You see, a Christian is the person concerning whom there is no explanation. Something's happened and it's happened by the power of another.

52:24 Has that happened to you? Have you been brought to the end of yourself? Despair of knowing who you are and what God is and what life is all about until you've thrown yourself upon Jesus Christ who is the way the truth and the life the only way of approach unto God. May God grant if you haven't that even here this morning you might perhaps amidst much confusion and much sense of insufficiency and uncertainty say, Lord, one thing I know those people have something that's real that I don't have.

53:00 I've heard enough of the name of Jesus and the death of Jesus to know that my hope is not in myself or in some God vaguely described but in the God who is manifested in Jesus Christ. Oh, God, give me to know Him. Give me to know Him. Work in me that I might be one of those who are part of His living temple.

53:25 Let us pray.