Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20001105.htm

1 CORINTHIANS: MINISTERING TO BELIEVERS WITH DEEP PAGAN BACKGROUNDS
Part VII: Being Blessed By Appreciating The CONTRAST Of Human And Spiritual Powers In Leaders
(1 Corinthians 3:17-4:21)
  1. Introduction
    1. Divisions can arise in a Church when believers start comparing the human abilities or lack thereof in various leaders, and then start choosing sides over their comparisons, cf. 1 Corinthians 1:11-13a.
    2. Paul met this challenge in Corinth by showing God's intentional use of the CONTRAST between a church leader's human and spiritual faculties as follows:
  2. Being Blessed By Appreciating The CONTRAST Of Human And Spiritual Powers In Leaders.
    1. The Corinthians were not to be impressed with human knowledge given with human intellect, 3:18-23.
    2. Rather, they were to view their leaders as humanly WEAK vessels that God used in grace, 4:1-13.
      1. Paul revealed that the only practical requirement in spiritual ministry that GOD had of a church leader was his faithfulness to fulfill his calling before God, 1 Corinthians 4:1-2.
      2. Thus, any judgment by human onlookers or even by the leader himself regarding his own ministry [obviously apart from his being faithful in obeying Scripture] are irrelevant: God alone would make adequate judgment on that, and He will do so at the Rapture, 1 Cor. 4:3-5; 3:13. All other human judgments on how well human church leaders serve God apart from Scripture are thus invalid!
      3. The evidence of the irrelevancy of such human judgment of leaders is made evident in experience:
        1. Human church leaders like Paul and Apollos were not humanly worth choosing sides over, 4:6.
        2. Paul described how this was so as follows: (a) God alone gives what abilities any church leader has, so glorying in human ability or chafing in its lack is useless and counter to God's intentions, 4:7-8. (b) God has usually tended to make human church leaders somewhat bland as spectacles before the onlooking congregation so His people would not be enchanted in them as humans, 4:9-13: (+) Paul noted that human church leaders are often made spectacles of human weakness before the world so that God will be the only Entity receiving glory in their efforts, 1 Corinthians 4:9-10. (+) Such men are often permitted to suffer things so that others will not be impressed with their human strength, 1 Corinthians 4:11-12a. (+) Such men are often allowed to experience disrespect from others so that God's people will not be influenced to worship their humanity, 1 Corinthians 4:12b-13.
    3. Yet, the Corinthians were to view their human church leaders as spiritually POWERFUL men, 4:14-21:
      1. God's human church leaders are men through whom many come to believe in Christ, 4:14-15.
      2. God's human church leaders are men whose examples of faith are to be followed, 4:16-17.
      3. God's human church leaders are men whom He uses as His instruments to discipline others, 4:18-21.
      4. Hence, believers are to appreciate so they can take advantage of the spiritual ministries of such men, for God desires to shepherd His people through the agency of their spiritual efforts unto His flock!
Lesson: We believers must see that the CONTRAST between a human church leader's HUMAN FRAILTY and SPIRITUAL POWER is to be TREASURED as God's vehicle of keeping us elevating our LORD and not the HUMAN LEADER. THAT keeps us properly equipped for making the MOST of the MINISTRIES of such men in keeping with God's oversight of every one of us!

Application: (1) We should not view a human church leader's power in terms of how well off he is financially, nor how well he is humanly liked, or how effective he is in his avoiding hardships or tragedies in his life, etc.. (2) Rather, we should view his power in terms of (a) how effective he is in discipling others unto righteous living, (b) in how workable and effective are their examples of living before God's people and (c) how clearly God has indicated His approval of their leadership by supernatural circumstances that expose God's defending, protecting or implementing their ministry efforts beyond any human capacity to that end.

Illustration: We note 1 Samuel 3:19-20 where God let none of the little boy, Samuel's prophetic words go unfulfilled so that the whole nation of Israel would know that he was called of God to be a prophet!