(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Back to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, 1 Corinthians chapter 4. Look at verse number 5 there, 1 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5. Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God. The title of the sermon this morning is praise of God. I was struggling to find a title, but I like this one, praise of God. Now, I must admit to you, as I was reading through this chapter, I was kind of struggling to understand it. And then I realized, not that I was really struggling to understand it completely, it's just that I had separated it from everything else that we had previously read. And there were certain things that I was reading, I was going, how does that make sense? But then I just remembered, hold on, the context, the context of what we're studying. And that's what's good about going chapter by chapter is because it does help, you know, sometimes you take a chapter all by itself, you take a couple of verses by itself. It might sound like it's saying something, but when you take it with the whole picture in mind, it really does help reflect on that. So I'm hoping that maybe if you, there were certain things that you were struggling to understand here, I'm hoping that this morning's sermon will help you understand this chapter a little better. But let's look at verse number one, it says, Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. So Paul calls himself a steward or a minister, we looked at minister last Thursday being a servant, but now he also calls himself a steward of the mysteries of God. So Paul says we are stewards of the mystery of God, we are stewards of God. What does it mean to be a steward? It's someone that's employed to look after someone's affairs or property. Someone that's employed to look after someone's affairs and properties. And did you know you are a steward of God? God has employed you through Jesus Christ, purchased you with the blood of Christ to be his employee, to be his servant, to be his steward. God has left us work on this earth so that we would accomplish those things. And look at verse number two, Moreover, it is required in stewards that he may be found faithful, that we ought to be faithful stewards. Whether you accept it or not, you are a steward of God. Now it's up to you whether you're going to be a faithful steward of God or a unfaithful steward of God. And when I thought about this, I immediately thought of Luke chapter 12, so I'll get you to turn there. Keep your finger in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, Luke chapter 12, because here we get the story of the faithful steward. You guys might be familiar with this passage or this parable about the faithful steward. It's found in Luke chapter 12, Luke chapter 12 verse 35. I thought it went well together with this chapter here. So Luke chapter 12 verse 35, let's have a look at that. Luke chapter 12 verse 35, the Bible reads, Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning. So Jesus is saying, hey, have your loins girded about. You know, have your pants on, have your belt on. Be prepared, in other words, and your lights burning. So even in the darkness, even in the darkness of this world, God expects us to have our lights burning. Being prepared, being clothed, having the light before us as we serve him as a steward. And then verse 36, And ye yourselves, like unto men that wait for the Lord, when he will return from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. So as a steward, we ought to be watching for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to be doing his work with the mindset that the Lord will return. And he says that we will open up to him immediately. Okay, it's something that we're ready for, we're expecting him to arrive. Verse 37, Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching. Verily I say unto you that he shall gird himself and make them to sit down to meet, and will come forth and serve them. Now this is an interesting thing here, is that it's talking about when Christ comes back, obviously to rapture his believers, he says that Christ himself will gird himself, make us to sit down to meet, make ourselves to sit down and eat, and he will come forth and serve us. You know, and you might be thinking about that hymn, you know that hymn, what's it called, A brethren we have met to worship? You know, we sang that a few times in this church, and the last words of that hymn says, you know, I'll just sing it, it says, Then he'll call us home to heaven, at his table we'll sit down, Christ will gird himself and serve us with sweet manner all around. Remember those words? And when we sing that hymn, it might sound a little like you might scratch your head, what's that about? Is that right? Aren't we the ones that are serving Christ? Yeah, but you know what, if we're faithful stewards of his work, we do the work, we serve him in this life, when we get to heaven, Jesus Christ himself here will gird himself, let us sit down to enjoy ourselves, and he will serve us. What an amazing honour that would be, right? And I feel kind of ashamed even saying that, but it's in the word of God, I kind of feel ashamed, I kind of feel like, what's his name, Peter, when Christ came to wash his feet, and Peter was like, no, you're not going to wash my feet, you know, or when he comes to John the Baptist to be baptised, and John the Baptist is like, no, I ought to be baptised by you, because you feel ashamed to let the God of the universe serve you, and yet Christ is saying to us, hey, if you're the faithful steward waiting for me to come, when I come back and rapture you, I will serve you myself. And I think that's a great honour, that's a great honour to think about, and we shouldn't be ashamed of it, because that's the humility of our Lord, the humility of our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't worry, he's going to come back and rule with a right of eye, and he's going to come back as that Lion of Judah, and take control over affairs of the earth, and there'll be plenty of time to serve him, but there's just this one honour that he wants to do toward us, should we serve him faithfully. Look at verse 38 in Luke 12. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know that if the good men of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also, for the Son of Man cometh at an hour, when ye think not. Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all? And this is where the faithful steward bit comes in, in verse 42. And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward? How can we be faithful and wise stewards? He says, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season. Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Of our truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath. So if the Lord sees us now in this earth, serving him, being a faithful steward with the things that the Lord has given us, he's given us the ministry of reconciliation, preaching the gospel, going to church, learning the Bible, praying to him, serving the brethren, right? Keeping his commandments, raising our children in the nurturing and admonition of the Lord. We're doing all these things, at the same time keeping our minds that the Lord is coming back, because that's what's going to motivate you. It's going to motivate you when you know the Lord's coming back, that you're going to serve him faithfully, because you want to make sure that when he comes back, that you are a spiritual Christian, that you have been faithful to him, that you have been serving to him, because the Lord knows. The Lord knows if you've been slacking off. That should motivate you, knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come back, and he himself will serve me. How much more should I serve him? And then to the faithful steward, he's going to make him a ruler over all that he hath, right? Talking about the millennium and the new heavens and the new earth. The Lord's going to exalt us as rulers with him upon the earth, which is a great blessing, but you'll only get that if you're a faithful steward. If you slack off, you're not going to have the same level of authority and the same level of honor that Christ will give to other men who gave themselves wholly to his work. So please be eagerly waiting the return of Christ and serve him with that mindset. Now if you can go back to 1 Corinthians 4, 1 Corinthians 4 verse 3. Now this is one of the verses that I was kind of struggling to understand until I read it over and over and over again. Verse number 3. But with me, it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment, yea, I judge not mine own self. So if you take this verse by itself, it sounds like that we shouldn't judge anybody, right? And that's what people accuse us of. They say, well, we make judgment calls, we take the word of God and we look at the world with the lens of the word of God and people say, well, judge not. The Bible says, judge not, right? And then you might look at this verse and you go, well, isn't that what it's saying? It's like, you know, we shouldn't be judging. Well, hold on, how do we reconcile these things? How do we reconcile these things? I say to you, turn to John chapter 7, John chapter 7, let's get a full understanding of this, because should we be judging? Yes, we should be judging, but are there times that we shouldn't be judging? Yes. And that's the thing about the Bible, that's about rightly dividing the word of truth. Study to show thyself approved, the Bible says. Rightly dividing the word of truth. The reason for that is because there are many times there are words or concepts that have two sides to it. Let's take wine. Wine in the Bible sometimes is talking about non-alcoholic beverage and then sometimes it's talking about the alcoholic beverage that can intoxicate you, right? Think about the word salvation, the word salvation. Sometimes it's about the salvation of your soul, but sometimes it's about salvation in this life. Or saving yourself from certain troubles or things like that. And so when we look at the word judge, sometimes it is in a negative context as we've just read, but many times it's in a positive context. We need to understand what is the right kind of judgment. So if you're back in John chapter 7, John chapter 7 verse 19, the Bible says here, and this is Jesus speaking. I'll just give you a quick context to this. Jesus at this point in his ministry was afraid that the Jews would kill him before his time. Before his time. He knew that he was going to die, but they were planning to kill him before his time. And so Jesus turned up to this feast unannounced and quietly, because otherwise if people knew, they would have tried to take him and kill him. And then verse number 19, Jesus gets this feast with all these Jews. Some of them believe on Christ, some of them do not. But verse 19, Jesus says, Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me? So Jesus is saying, look, you're trying to kill me because you think I've broken the law of Moses, but you yourselves do not keep the law of Moses. Why are you going in and trying to kill me? Had they answered in verse 20, the people answered and said, Thou hast the devil. Who goeth about to kill thee? He says, who's going about trying to kill you? But what we find out later on, we won't read it in the chapter, but we find out that there are men in that feast that are trying to kill Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ obviously knows the truth, but they're just mocking him. You're of the devil. Who's trying to kill you? Come on. Verse 21, Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers, and ye on the Sabbath day circumcise a man. Now what was the Sabbath day for? It was a day of rest. It was a day where you were not to work, but rest. It pictured ultimately salvation, which is resting on Jesus Christ. But Jesus is saying to them, Moses gave you the command to circumcise, and you circumcise on the seventh day. Say, well, why is that? It's because the man child, if a baby was born and he was a boy, would need to be commanded by Abraham to Abraham. They would be circumcised on the eighth day. So obviously you can't control what day you give birth, and many times a baby's eighth day would fall on the Sabbath day. So in order to keep the command, they would circumcise on the eighth day. Yet they did not see that as a work. And yet Jesus, in verse 23, says this, If a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken, are ye angry at me because I have made a man every whit hole on the Sabbath day? So Jesus says, look, you're trying to kill me. You're angry at me for me healing a man on the Sabbath day. There was a man that was, let's say, lame or blind or whatever. Christ comes, heals him on the Sabbath day, and they're trying to kill him. They're trying to find some fault in Jesus Christ to say, look, you've worked on the Sabbath day, and they've tried to kill him. And he says, look, you circumcise. How much greater, how much better is it to heal a man whole on the Sabbath day and you're trying to kill me for it? Jesus is trying to show them their hypocrisy. Jesus is trying to show them their hypocrisy. But let this be a lesson to you. They're judging Christ. They're judging Christ. And let this be a lesson to you. As a believer, as a church, just for myself, as a pastor, no matter what you do, no matter how great your works are for the Lord, no matter how much souls you see saved, no matter how much we praise the Lord Jesus Christ in this church, there's always going to be people that are going to criticize us. It doesn't matter how much great work we're doing, people just like what they did to Jesus Christ are going to try to find some problem, just anything that they can accuse you of and make judgment of you falsely. Criticize you. And that's just something you've got to accept. You're not going to make everybody happy in your Christian life. The only person you need to worry about making happy and please is the Lord Jesus Christ. And if men get pleased because of that, great. But if they criticize you, so what? And that's what we're going to find that Paul was that way when we look at 1 Corinthians 4. Don't turn there just yet. But look at verse 24, John 7, 24. Jesus ended with this. Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. So do not judge, judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. So is Jesus saying that we ought to judge? Yes, he's saying we ought to judge, but we ought to judge righteously. We ought to use righteousness to make judgment cause. That's what we've got the Bible for is so we know what's right and wrong, we know what pleases the Lord, and we can make judgments, we can make decisions as believers because we have the Word of God as our authority. But if you take away the Word of God and you just use your personal wisdom, your personal opinions to make judgment cause, that is judging foolishly. That is being critical where you probably have no authority about that, right? I mean, how foolish is it for these people to be criticizing and judging Christ for breaking the law of Moses when the Lord Jesus Christ is doing the work of God? Be careful yourselves not to be criticizing other Christians who are doing great works for God, but yet you find this one little problem they have and then you criticize them for that. How foolish will you look when Christ comes to reward them, to give them their rewards and your whole time on the earth you've been criticized in their ministry? No one's perfect. Jesus Christ was perfect and yet they still found fault with him, right? So don't be like these Jews, okay? Make sure when you judge, you judge with righteous judgment, you use the Word of God as your final authority. So number one, just very quickly, we are commanded to make judgment as the people of God. We are commanded to judge as long as you're judging righteously. And number two, you know, the Jews in John 7 that we just read were not judging Christ righteously, right? They were judging Him with their own opinion, just trying to find fault in His work, and it's foolish and it's hypocrisy. So with that in mind, go back to 1 Corinthians 4 verse 3. There's right judgment and there's wrong judgment. That's what I want to point out to you, okay, using this chapter here in John 7. But back to 1 Corinthians 4 verse 3, what does Paul say? He says this, But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you. So he's saying, there are people in the church in Corinth that were criticizing Paul, okay? They were not judging him righteously. And he says to them, it's a small thing to him. It doesn't bother him, right? It's kind of like, what's that saying? You know, take it with a grain of salt, right? You hear something, you don't know if it's true, and to prevent yourself from getting angry and frustrated, you say take it with a grain of salt. It's just a small little thing. There might be a little truth to it, maybe, but it's not worth worrying about. It's not worth bothering about, especially if you know that you're serving the Lord. Especially if you know, like Paul said, that he's been a faithful steward to the things of God, right? He says those judgments, the criticism that comes to me, yeah, you know, I think it's a small thing. It doesn't bother me if I know that I'm serving the Lord. And then he says this, all of man's judgment. So people outside of the church, obviously criticizing him, and people outside of the church will criticize you. Well, you go to church every week. Well, you give your finances to the church. Well, you knock doors and you preach. You know, they will criticize you, right? But hey, it's a small thing to us. It should just be water off a duck's back to us. That's what Paul is saying, okay? To him, he doesn't really count it as anything great or valuable. And then he says, yay, I judge not mine own self. He goes, even I, when I think, you know, is this the right way of doing things, he says, no, you know what, I'm not going to take my opinion over it. I'm just going to do what the Lord's asked me to do. I'm just going to serve him, be the faithful steward, be the minister of his word. Doesn't matter my own personal opinion if I think this is right or wrong. I'm just going to do what the Lord says and I know it's right. I know it's righteous judgment righteous judgment. If I do things according to God's plan, I walk according to the light that the Lord has given me and I'm not going to take the criticism and get upset about it when I know that I'm serving the Lord. Verse number 4, 1 Corinthians 4, verse 4. Then he says this, for I know nothing by myself. Obviously, without God, without the word of God, he says I know nothing by myself. Yet am I not hereby justified, he that judgeth me is the Lord. So that shows you that Paul's mindset was to please the Lord. His mindset was to serve the Lord. He knew, because we read about it in the previous chapter, about the judgment seat of Christ and the rewards to come. He knew that I'm just serving the Lord. I'm looking forward to those new rewards that I have on high and I'm just going to make sure I walk in those paths. I'm just going to make sure I do what the Lord has asked me to do and only the Lord can judge me. And again, you know, people take this passage, the world, and they'll tattoo it on their arm or they'll do something. You know, only God can judge me, right? But the way they use it is they go in in the world and they sin like the world and they don't care about the things of God. They don't care about the Bible. They just live to please themselves amongst all manner of sin and then they say, well, only God can judge me. No, wrong context, right? Only God can judge me if you are serving the Lord, if you are in church, you're doing what he's asked from you, you're obeying his commands, you're serving the Lord, you're preaching the Gospel, then God can judge you. Yeah, don't worry about what everyone else says, okay? God will be your judge and God will reward you at the judgment seat of Christ. Verse number five. Therefore, he says to the church, therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels of the heart and then shall every man have praise of God. So he says, look, he's showing, look, when Christ comes back, yeah, he's going to reward us. That's when those things are going to be made manifest, the things that, yeah, maybe the things you criticize were right, but the Lord will manifest those things in darkness, but also he's going to reveal those things, manifest the counsels of the heart, right? So sometimes it's hard to be judgmental. I'm talking about without the word of God, right? When you take your own personal opinion and you make a judgment call, but that person may very well be serving the Lord, he may very well be following the commands that the Lord has laid in him, he might take a slightly different viewpoint to you, but the Lord will make sure that that person is judged accordingly and that's why he's saying don't judge before the time and especially when it comes to other Christians and other believers. He says then shall every man have praise of God and that's the title of the sermon, have praise of God. I mean that's something we ought to be looking for. We already read how he's going to come and serve us. He's going to let us sit down and he's going to serve us a great honour. God wants to praise us. That's amazing, right? God gives us those rewards that we've laid on the foundation of Christ and then he praises us. I mean that's unbelievable. I mean because we look at ourselves, we know we're wretched sinners. We know we'd rather serve our flesh and serve ourselves. We know that there are certain sins that we struggle with and we probably enjoy and yet when we're brought before God and before his judgment seat and he rewards us, he's going to praise us. God in the universe will praise us. What an honour and yet again how foolish would we be if we'd been criticised by our fellow brothers, our fellow Christians. You know this church, some people were criticised by Paul and yet we find that the Lord rewards him and praises him for the work that he's been doing and you know this whole time we've been putting them down. We've been discouraging them. Verse number 6, 1 Corinthians 4 verse 6. So some people, I've heard this preached, some people take this to mean where it says I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes. You know how leading up to this he's been talking about how people have been followers of Paul and followers of Apollos. Some people take this to mean that they weren't literally idolising Paul and Apollos but they were idolising other men. But Paul uses his name and Apollos' name as a substitute to show how foolish it is to follow men. I mean that's one way to look at it. I don't think that's the case at all because Paul talks in depth about how they've been following him. He even says he's thankful that he didn't even baptise any of them. You know things like that because they were praising men as to who baptised them, who got them saved and things like that and the factions they were creating. But I think that what this means is yes it is an example but it's not just that the men in this church were following just Paul and Apollos and Cephas it's that they probably had many, many men that they were following. I think in general this church was worshipping men and following men and what he says is I'm using myself and Apollos because that's the two main names that he uses throughout these chapters as the example of all these other men that they were following. But the main thing that I want you to take away from there is that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written. So this whole time Paul is saying look I know nothing of myself I'm just a minister, I haven't come to you with eloquent words but I've come in demonstration of God's power. This whole time Paul is just being humble, is just taking himself down a notch, taking down Apollos down a notch so they would learn not to think of men above that which is written. Not idolising men, not holding them on a pedestal higher than they ought to and as we saw that they were doing that, they were raising them to the level of Jesus Christ. But then he says this, that no one of you be puffed up one against another because not only were they idolising men but they were puffing themselves up. They thought they had the greater knowledge over another Christian and they were full of pride, this church was full of pride, puffing themselves up. Paul says hey look I'm a faithful steward of God, I don't puff myself up, I'm not prideful, you yourselves ought not to be that way. You don't even do the works that I am doing and we'll see later on that is true. You know you're not doing the works that I'm doing yet I'm not puffed up. Why are you puffed up? You need to take yourself down a notch as well. They were puffed up due to their allegiances toward men. And verse number 7, 1 Corinthians 4 verse 7. For who maketh thee to differ from another? So this verse basically Paul is just saying to them hey you need to put your focus back on God. Away from men and back on God because the answer to this question, look at this. For who maketh thee to differ from another? So who made you differ from one another? You're puffing yourselves up because you think you're great, but who's made you differ to that person? The answer is God. And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Who's given you all your gifts? Who's given you all your blessings? God. Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? So he's saying look, God's made you unique. God's given you your personality. God's given you your character. God's made you different from one another. God's given you your gifts and your talents and your rewards and your blessings and your gifts. He says it's all God that does it. So why are you acting as though you're the one who hasn't received it from God? Because again they were puffing themselves up. He's again pointing them to have their focus on the Lord, not glorying in man or self, but instead glorying in the Lord. Now verse number eight. Now this is another verse that I was kind of struggling to understand. Not just verse eight, but verse nine and ten to go with it. Until I realized Paul has been sarcastic. Maybe the right word is ironic. I'm not sure. I think sarcasm means you're trying to cause a little harm. You're digging in a little bit more. And irony is kind of like showing the opposite and showing how it's not true kind of thing. But let's look at it. First Corinthians chapter four verse eight. Actually before I read this, remember this church abates. This church is carnal. This church has divisions and strife and envians. But then it says this about the church. Now ye are full. Now ye are rich. That doesn't jive. That's why I was struggling with this chapter a little bit. That doesn't jive with what we've been reading. Is this church really full and rich? As far as rich toward God? No. He says ye have reigned as kings without us. So without us as your leaders, you've gone about and established your own way of doing church. Your own praise of man. You've reigned as kings. So he's being ironic here. They're not really full. They're not really rich. They're not really reigning with God in their church. They've got major problems, but themselves are thinking that. They're doing really well. The church is doing well. Maybe the finances are good. Maybe they feel like, hey we're a great church, we're a great example to Christianity. In their own minds they're full. In their own minds they're rich. In their own minds they're reigning as kings without the apostles. But then we see a change in Paul where he's kind of criticizing them, but then he says this. And I would to God that ye did reign. So he's saying you're not reigning, but I would. I would love it. It's my hope that you would reign and that we also might reign with you. So you've got to understand how he's being ironic, but then he says you think you're reigning, but I really wish you did reign. I really did wish you were reigning toward God. I really wish you were full and rich and that I was with you in that regard. You see how that irony is in there with Paul. And I thought this was a little hard to understand until I saw, you know, what I see here in Paul that he truly loves the church. He does want them to succeed. He does want them to be rich and full toward God, but they're not. They're not at that stage. Look at verse number 9. For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death, for we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men. So what he's saying here is that we're a spectacle to the world. You know, they serve the Lord. They're the faithful steward. They're the ministers of God. They're doing the planting and the watering and the reaping of God's work, and yet they're a spectacle to the world. You know, like they're the laughing stock of the world. You know, the world just laughs at them. The world mocks them. And he's just showing the example. When you serve the Lord, expect the persecution, expect being mocked, expect being ridiculed. You know, that's why it says we are made a spectacle unto the world. Then it says and to angels, which that bit I don't fully understand. If you guys have any thoughts on that, please let me know, unless this is referring to fallen angels and the fallen angels are making them a spectacle as well. And then it says and to men. So anyway, I appreciate your thoughts, men, if you have any ideas of what that and to angels might refer to. But verse number 10. We are fools, so he continues on here, you know, with a laughing stock, but then verse 10. We are fools for Christ's sake. But ye are wise in Christ. Are they wise? Are they really wise? The irony is back, you know. Is Paul truly a fool? No, he's wise in the Lord. He's serving the Lord mightily. He's going to get great rewards when the Lord returns. But he's using that irony again. He says we are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ. We are weak, but ye are strong. Ye are honorable, but we are despised. So again, remember, this church is none of these things. What Paul is demonstrating, and obviously you guys know this verse in 2 Timothy 3 verse 12. Ye and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. If you live godly in Christ Jesus, you will suffer persecution. The world will hate you, the world will ridicule you, the world will laugh at you. And that's what Paul was going through. And that's what here in Apollos and the other people that are serving with him are going through. And yet this church in Corinth, smooth sailing. Smooth sailing, right? They appear to be wise and doing very well, full and rich. Why? Why? Because they're not living godly. They're not suffering persecution. And let me tell you this. I know things are going well right now in this church, but there's going to come a time when we are persecuted. If we stand for the word of God, we stand and we preach boldly the truth, black and white, in season, out of season, doesn't matter. We preach hard the things that are found in this word, then we too as a church will be persecuted. If things are smooth sailing forever, then we're not living godly. It's just a matter of the facts. And that's what the problem with this church was. They had it great. They were doing quite well. But they weren't suffering any persecution. Paul is saying, hey, we are suffering. We're the ones that are weak. For Christ's sake, we are being persecuted. That's because we're living godly. You guys are not. Your baby's in Christ. You're fighting. You have divisions within yourselves. And yet you think you're so great. You think you're so puffed up. If you want to be in a church that's not going to suffer persecution, then I'm telling you now, this is not the church for you. There are plenty of churches around here, just like the Corinthian church, just full and rich and reigning. Why? Because they live godly? No. Why? Because they preach boldly the word of truth. It's watered-down preaching. It's feel-good preaching. It tickles your ears. You feel good probably when you leave, but spiritually you're hungry, spiritually you're thirsty, spiritually you're weak, spiritually you're without Christ. But if you come to a church that preaches the word of God without compromise, it's going to come our way. At some point, it's going to come our way. Do you think the devil wants this church to exist? Do you think the devil wants the church in Caloundra to be preaching the word of God, be going out and knocking doors and getting people saved? He obviously doesn't want that. That means we're going to be a target. At some point in our life, we're going to be a target to the devil. We need to stand firm. We need to be like Paul and say, Hey, we suffer persecution, but we're serving the Lord. Only the Lord can judge us as long as we have the word of God as our final authority. He says, So even as he's writing this letter, and again this shows me the heart of Paul, shows me his love toward the church. He's without food. He's without water. He's without sufficient clothing. He's being beaten. They've got no way to stay. They've got no dwelling place. Yet in his heart, he realizes, I need to encourage the church in Corinth. We're going to send a letter and encourage them and get corrective action to fix that church in the problem they're in. He's struggling. He's got needs. Yet he sees the needs of others and puts them first. What a great man Paul was. I think we can learn a lot from Paul. He was pretty hard. He was pretty zealous. He was very passionate for the things of God. He had very little time for the things, for people that didn't have the same passion as he did, and we see that he gets into conflict and fights, but yet we see that he loves the church. We see that he loves the believers even still. So he and his companions were suffering, and yet they still see the need for this church and to encourage them and send them this letter. Verse number 12, So it says when we're hated by the world, we still bless them. We still do good to our enemies, is what he's saying. Being persecuted, we suffer it. When he's persecuted, the beatings that he's got, he says we suffer it. We allow it. We don't put up a fight. We just take it. We just take the beatings. We just take the persecution. That's where he is spiritually because he knows he stands strong with the Lord. That's why when he listens to criticism from other Christians, he doesn't faze him. He's copped so much more from the world for Christ's sake, but he does good to those that persecute him. He does good to those that hate him, and he allows. He doesn't fight back. He welcomes the persecution that comes his way, and I'll just read to you from Matthew 5, verse 11. Jesus said, Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, Jesus says. Rejoice when people persecute you, when they revile you, when they hate you. Jesus says rejoice, and that's what we see in Paul. He rejoices. He rejoices in the Lord. Rejoice and be exceeding glad. How hard is that? That is hard, right? When the world hates you, you get discouraged. You get down. You get down in the dumps. Rejoice. Rejoice. Be exceeding glad. For great, and we spoke about this before, for great is your reward in heaven. Great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. We're speaking about rewards last, on Thursday, right? The rewards in heaven, how we can get rewards, winning souls, even giving a cup of water, you know, to a fellow believer, but even just being persecuted, just being hated by the world, will earn you rewards in heaven. What a great promise. And that should encourage us to preach boldly the word of God. So what? So what if the word comes against us? So what if the media hears me preach against the homosexuals and they get upset and they put it on? Who cares? Great will be the reward. It's even better. The reward will be even greater. The more people that hate this church and hate me, the greater the rewards in heaven, right? Be exceeding glad. I know that's hard. I know. I'm probably going to be upset when that happens. And I need you guys to remind me, hey, Kevin, remember, remember what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5. So let me just say this. Don't be an obnoxious idiot as a Christian, like creating your own persecution. You think there's a reward in that? No. What did we see in Paul? He just took it. You know, he just did the things of God, the persecution came, and he was able to rejoice in that and got the rewards. But if you're just an idiot, you're just trying to, you know, just, you know, get people angry at you for, you know, and then you're like, oh, man, I'm being persecuted for the Lord. No, there's no reward in that, right? There's no reward in that. Maybe you get the praise of men in this world. You know, yeah, great thing. You know, it's awesome. But you're not going to get the rewards in heaven praising the Lord. Look at verse 13, 1 Corinthians 4 verse 13. He continues saying, being defamed, we entreat. So people are defaming us, you know, speaking falsely, dragging our names through the mud. He says we entreat. We, you know, we speak nicely to these people. We are made as the filth of the world and are the off scouring of all things unto this day. I didn't know what that word off scouring meant, but it means rejected by society. They're rejects to the world, rejects to society. That's what, you know, if you're a true believer, that's what you are going to be to the world. You know, don't waste your time trying to fit into the world. There's no point. You know, you're just working against your own rewards that you would get when you are persecuted for the things of God. Verse 14, I write not these things to shame you. And there's a proof to you that they're not full, they're not rich. Like, you know, Paul is being ironic in all these things because then he says I write these things, I write not these things to shame you. Okay, because he's being a bit sarcastic about it, right? But as my beloved sons, I warn you. Okay, so again, we see the lover of Paul. You know, he's saying these things not just to have a go at them, but he's warning them. He's warning them that, hey, you're not getting the rewards that you ought to be getting should you be really serving the Lord and putting him as your focus rather than these men that you've been doing for so long. Verse 15, for though ye have ten thousand instructions though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ. So, yep, these men have many, this church has many men that they're listening to, many preachers, many things that they're learning, great truths from many men. He says, yet have ye not many fathers. Because what's a father to a son? A father is someone that cares for the son. A father is someone that loves their son. You know, the father is someone that wants their best for their children, wants to raise them and nurture them. So, yeah, it's a great thing to have many preachers that you're learning great truths from, but yet there's not many that actually love you and care for you and want you to grow. Paul says, hey, I'm that way toward you. I am a father toward you, for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. So, again, many of these Corinthians were saved through the preaching of Paul. And he's saying, look, I actually love you. I actually really care about you. I want you to grow. I want you to get out of this baby stage. I want you to get out of this carnal stage. And then why does it say that? Because in verse 16 it says, wherefore I beseech you, pay attention, be ye followers of me. Be ye followers of me. And this whole time, well, hold on, Kevin, it wasn't a big problem, the fact that they were following men, that they were following Paul and they were following Apollos. Yeah, but they weren't following men. They were worshipping men. They had raised them to the level of Jesus Christ. They didn't place men at the right level next to God. And Paul says, look, I love you. I actually really care about you. You ought to be following me. Why? Because he wants a following, because he wants this great... No. If you say, follow me, what are you saying? I will lead you. I will instruct you. I will counsel you. I will do what I can. I will invest my time into you to help you become a greater Christian. To have followers means you must take up leadership. What's the point of just having followers if you're not a good leader? If you're going to be a pastor, you're going to be someone that wants to take a leadership position in church, you've got to try to develop those leadership skills. That's why it's so important for a pastor to have a faithful wife and faithful children, because that demonstrates you have leadership in the home. If you're at work and you've got a leadership position at work, take advantage of that opportunity as well, to learn leadership skills, because one day, who knows, the Lord may want you to be a pastor, may want you to start a church, and the skills you've developed in life, you can take that to the church. The mistakes you've made in your family and in the workplace or whatever, you can learn from those mistakes and make sure you don't do those mistakes in the church. That's why I'm always very wary about pastors that are extremely young, they've just been married, just had a couple of kids, and now they're pastor in a church, leading a church, is because they haven't yet developed those leadership skills yet. I'm not saying they're going to be bad leaders, but potentially they're going to make a lot more mistakes in the church than they would have not made, should they have learned that at home or elsewhere in life. But Paul is saying, look, I want to be a leader to you, follow me because I'm going to look after you, I'm going to nurture you, I'm going to feed you the word of God. And then he sends Timotheus, he sends Timotheus their way so they would learn and be reminded of the things. We see that in verse 17. It says, For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved Son and faithful in the Lord. So he sends a faithful servant who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways, which be in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church. So keep that in mind. Yes, Paul is saying follow me, let me be a good example, and let me be a leader to you, but he says in Christ, in Christ. The only way you know if I'm worthy to be followed is if you know the Bible, if you know what Christ is like, and you say yeah, you know what, Kevin does have a bit of Christ in him, right? We can see that in him, that would make him a good leader. But if you don't know your Bibles, and I say yeah, be followers of me, and I can lead you astray, I can lead the blind, leading the blind. Before you follow any man, you ought to know first of all, is that person in Christ? And secondly, is he following Christ himself? Because if I follow him, ultimately yes, I am following Christ. But if they're off, if they're totally heretical, you won't know unless you know the Bible. You won't know unless you know Jesus Christ yourself, and that's why it's so important for you to know and read your Bible. I encourage you to read the chapters before I preach on them so you know whether the things I'm saying are true, or whether it's all false and heresy, and that's going to help you identify the false prophet from men of God. But then what I like is what he says here, is that as I teach everywhere in every church, be cautious if you learn things in a church that you've never heard anywhere else. Every church ought to have every word of God available to them. Everything you hear preached ought to have been heard elsewhere, or have been preached in the past elsewhere. If I just come up with new doctrines, hey, that's when you need to be careful of me. That's what the false prophets do. They come with the new doctrines, fancy things that you've never heard before, and you think, wow, this guy's really been spoken to by God. Look at all these great truths. I need to follow this man because he's got all this great mystery, all this knowledge that I've never heard before. Wow, I'm going to invest my time in this man. No, that's when you know you've got a false prophet, when the things that you hear are things that you've never read in the Bible, things that you've never heard in any church, things that have never been taught in history. That's what I like about this. That's what I like about this, is that it doesn't matter what church you're in, the Word of God ought to be preached to every church. Verse 18. Now, some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. So he's saying, look, there are puffed up people in your church. There are prideful people in your church not wanting or not expecting me to come to this church. And we'll see soon that these people were resisting correction. They wanted to keep the church the way it was. They didn't want to take the Word of God, they didn't want to take these epistles and improve their church. They didn't want to be a church that took correction. But I want us to be a church that takes correction. If we do something wrong, if we preach something wrong, hey, let's take correction. If we're wrong, let's not be so puffed up and prideful and let us be humble enough to put ourselves under the subjection of the Word of God. If I preach something total heresy or something major, please come to me and show me from the Word of God where I'm wrong. And if you can prove to me from the Word of God that I'm wrong, hey, I'll correct it. I'll correct it. I promise you that. I don't want to be puffed up the way the people in this church was. Verse 19. But I will come to you shortly if the Lord will and will know not the speech of them that are puffed up but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. So how does he describe himself compared to those that are puffed up in the church? He says those that are puffed up in the church are puffed up in word. What does that mean? He says I come in power. I come in the power of God. I come in the power of serving Christ, seeing souls saved. What these guys were in this church that were puffed up, resisting for Paul to come to the church and fix things up, is they were just talkers. All they did was talk. All they had was the word. They were maybe very eloquent men, people thought that they had great knowledge and great wisdom. They had great words. Remember Paul says I don't have those eloquent words. He says I just come in the power of God. I just come in the commands of God serving the Lord. But these people, they're all talk. They're all talk. Don't be a Christian that's all talk and no power. And I know in this stage of the internet and Facebook and stuff, we talk about the keyboard world. They're all talk. They see something wrong with a church, they see something wrong with a Christian, and now I've got to go to the internet and fix it up. I've got to type it up. What's that meme that you like? There's something broken on the internet. Yeah, there's something broken on the internet. I've got to fix it. The wife's calling the man to bed. I can't come to bed. He's like I've got to fix it. There's something wrong on the internet. That's the keyboard warrior. They're all just talk. The internet tries to fix it. The internet tries to fix it. The internet trolls just talk. They can never find a church. They can never be part of anything because they see wrong in everything. But all they do is talk. They never serve the Lord. They never try to be a blessing to any church. They never try to go soul winning. They probably know a lot of the Bible, but they don't demonstrate the power of God. They don't demonstrate what Paul says. Hey, I'm not great with speech, but I come, I serve the Lord, I get the persecution because of Christ's sake. We see many people saved. Many people in this church, in the Corinthian church, were saved because of Paul's ministry. He came in the power of God. Don't listen to these people that are puffed up. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power, he says. But look at verse 21. What will ye? So what do you prefer, he's saying. What do you prefer? Shall I come unto you with a rod? And what's a rod? That's a rod of correction. When I come to your church, do you want me to arrive with a rod of correction? Do you want me to take action and like kick people out of the church and fix it up and embarrass you in front of everybody? Or, he says, or in love? Or do you want me to come in love and in the spirit of meekness? Do you want me to come to a church that I know I'm proud of, that I can serve in, you know, we can fellowship together, have good times together in the Lord, or are you gonna be the church when I arrive that I need to take out that rod and smack you around? That's what Paul is saying. Which one do you want me to come? You know, you're gonna listen to the puffed up guys that doesn't want to take the correction, you're gonna keep that way going, or you're gonna fix these things up in the church. And that was the purpose of 1 Corinthians, that it would be a letter to inspire the church to get out of their rut, to get out of their sins, to get out of their strife, fix things up, so when Paul arrived, and there's no real proof that Paul ever arrived, like in history or in the Bible, but you know, what does that mean for us? That means that we ought to be a church, obviously we don't have Paul the Apostle here, but we talk about the Lord's coming, you know, what kind of church do we want to be when the Lord comes back? Do we want the Lord to come back and you know, this church needs the rod? Is that what we want? Or do we want the Lord to be able to come back and love this church in His meekness and be able to fellowship with us, or do we want to be the church that needs the correction, you know? I never want to be at that point where the Lord's like, man, that church in Caloundra, I really need to fix it up, you know, I better come sooner than later, you know, before they get into more heresy. But you know, in conclusion, in conclusion to all of this, let's make sure that our church is made up of faithful stewards. You're a steward whether you like it or not. You know, you're saved, the Lord has left you work to do. You can either do it faithfully in Him or not. Number two, let's not be a church of foolish criticism. Let's judge righteous judgment. Let's make sure that we take the word of God and judge according to His word. Number three, let's make sure we don't put men on a pedestal. We don't lift them higher than they ought to. You know, yeah, great men, you know? Many, thousands of instructors in Christ are valuable to us, the resources there, but don't lift them up to where they are, Jesus Christ in your heart. Let's be a church that stands strong in persecution, right? If we preach the word of God boldly, the persecution will come. Let's stand strong, let's stand together, let's stand behind the pastor, let's stand behind the leaders in the church, let's stand together as families, as a united group, as long as we are definitely preaching the word of God. And let's be a church that demonstrates the power of God. Let's not just be, you know, big mouth critical speakers without the power of God. Let's show people the power of God as we go out and do great works for Him and not just be a church that talks ourselves up, criticising everybody else that's out there. Okay, let's pray.