Are We Ready? – Sermon 16 February, 2014
Are We Ready?
I Corinthians 3:1-9
I am sure some of us are watching the Sochi Winter Olympics. What amazing athletes we see, like the ice skaters, snow boarders, skiers, hockey players, and the figure skaters. These athletes are part of a team, who have to work together, be it competing individually for their country or together in team sports.
How many of us like to work as a part of a team?
How many of us like to work on a project by ourselves?
Sometimes we want to work in a team and sometimes work alone and usually we don’t care one way or another.
In today’s scripture lesson, Paul is trying to instruct the Corinthians to become a team that works effectively. His desire is to see a team in the church who work and do their best for building the kingdom of God. He had acknowledged on many occasions that they were gifted people. It is easy to conclude from his words that in fact they had many gifts but they needed to learn how to best use their gifts and abilities for the good of all.
Some were saying: “I follow Apollos’ teaching” and others would say: “I follow Paul.” This resulted in divisions among them. They really weren’t using their gifts to get the best results. Some thought they were more important than the others, and though their works were more important than the works of the others. As a result of this, Paul could not address them as spiritual but as worldly. For him they were still infants in Christ. In other words they were not ready yet to perform as expected. They were lacking something in the faith. Their faith was not at work. They were not ready to play their role. To put things in perspective, Paul used an excellent illustration from agriculture to help them understand how teamwork operates. He said: “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe — as the Lord assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow”. The one who plants and the one who waters are not important; but only God who makes things grow.
Paul is simply demonstrating a model of teamwork, which will give a very positive result. It is expected from the church to act and give results that brings honour to God. It is important to accomplish God’s purpose being God’s fellow co-workers as the acting body, the building and the plantation.
It is important to understand how important teamwork is in accomplishing God’s purposes today. So the simple question would be “Are we part of the team as God would like us to be?”
To be the team we need to have:
1. The willingness to be part of the team
Some prefer not to be a part of the team saying that they are not good enough to be a team player. They might enjoy working on a project from start to finish on their own. But we should accept that many things in the work of God are just too big for a person to do alone. Others stay away from teamwork because of a bad experience in the past. Paul’s examples of people in the Corinthian church could be similar to what we may have experienced. We may have similar thoughts, which results in keeping us from working as a team. In a ball game, the team members should be ready and willing to pass the ball when the opportunity rises and a team mate could score for the team. Too often we prefer to work on our own to avoid differing opinions or want to force our ideas regardless of whether the majority has another opinion in the matter.
2. The concept that teamwork is needed
We should acknowledge that though individual resources are good, they are not enough to build up the Kingdom of God. Jesus being the Lord, who had all the capability and the power to act, chose a team to work together and endeavour to expand the Kingdom of God. We see in the Scriptures that whenever the disciples were acting as a team they were achieving results and helping to expand the kingdom. Cooperative efforts result in achievements far greater than what any individual could do alone. According to Paul, this cooperation would be toward achieving mutual goals. Later in this chapter he refers to teamwork in building a structure. He says, “I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it”. As the acting body of Christ we have to look for ways we can help each other and build each other instead of putting hurdles on the way forward.
The church needs to stick together as a team to get results. Sometimes the church has a hard time making its members work together and progressing towards the final goal. Sometimes God has a difficult time helping us with teamwork because we have a hard time “sticking together” as a team.
3. The will to be useful members of the team
Having the will to be part of the team and sticking together is not enough. We need to perform as a member of the team and play our special role. God has given us a variety of gifts, which we can put into practice and become useful members of the body. There is a saying: “To be youthful be useful”. We should keep running the engine to register progress and good results. As members of the team we have to play our roles well. We can do this by putting aside our own desires, praise and seeking the good of others and the purpose of God. We should seek the approval of God in all we do. Paul told them that they are all servants of God. It is God who makes things grow. It is clear that Paul was good at planting new churches. Apollos was good at watering and nurturing the people in the scriptures. But if God didn’t make it grow, it wouldn’t have reached to anything. We will be rewarded according to our own labour. We should examine ourselves and see if we are working faithfully as a part of God’s team. Our work is a supportive effort but individually we will receive our own reward.
To be and stay a useful member we should keep our eyes on the overall plan and the goals we like to achieve and our own individual targets.
In the work of God it is natural that some make a greater commitment than others. But we’ve got to look at the bigger picture. When we do our work faithfully as a part of His team, we will one day hear Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
1. Remember we need to be willing to be part of the team
2. Teamwork is needed, which multiplies our individual efforts
3. We can become a useful member on God’s team
We should realize that it is God who brings about the results and who is to get the glory and not us.
We should realise that in the words of Peter: “We have to be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood”. The church is called to act on behalf of God. To do this we need to be ready to take up our cross and follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We are the field and the building of God and we need to do all that is expected from us for His glory.
Are we ready?
Krikor Youmshajekian