First Corinthians 4 8 and I want
to speak to you On this subject Tonight not many
fathers Not many fathers Well, let's look at verse a Paul
says to this Corinthian church now you are full now you're rich
you have reigned as kings without us and And I would to God you
did reign, that we also might reign with you. Now, you know
that Paul is dealing with a specific situation. This Corinthian church
was, well, we'll look at it in the language that Paul uses.
He speaks of them. He had just asked the question
in verse seven, why do you glory? Why are you glorying in yourself,
in the flesh, in the difference that you think you've made? Who
made you to differ? And he speaks of them being puffed
up in verse six, that no one of you be puffed up for one against
another. Stop that. There's no basis,
there's no grounds upon which a believer can be puffed up,
especially against his brethren or against the Lord. And in verse
18, Look at verse 18 in chapter four.
Now some are puffed up as though I would not come to you, as though
you're gonna get away with it. He uses the term again in verse
19. I will come to you shortly if
the Lord will and will know not the speech of them which are
puffed up, but the power. You're doing a lot of talking,
let's see. what you've got to say for yourself face to face. And in chapter five, verse two,
chapter eight, verse one, over and over he confronts them with
this thing of being puffed up. And then verse eight, now you're
full, you're rich, you've reigned as kings without us, but not
really. I would to God that you really
did. You're doing this in your mind, in your own heart, He rebukes
this church the same way that our Lord rebuked the church at
Laodicea. In Revelation 3.16, so then because
thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee
out of my mouth. What for, Lord? Because you say
I'm rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and
knowest not. Thou art wretched and miserable
and poor and blind and naked So Paul is using sarcasm here. He's he's Saying you're rich. You're full. You don't need us. You don't need the Apostles or
God's preachers But then he says I would to God That you did reign
and Paul is sincere about that. He's he's using sarcasm here
But he's sincere about that. We know that from all of his
writings. When he says, I would to God that you did reign. I would to God you were rich
in the right things, in faith. rich in love and in the unity
of the brethren, like it ought to be, I would to God. If that
were so, Paul says, I would reign with you. I'd rejoice with you.
I'd delight with you and be triumphant and blessed with you. It would
raise me up if you were truly what you think you are. And God has made it so. We see
here that God has made it so that a church, a true pastor,
and the church, as it goes with them, so it goes with him. And
that's just the truth. I know that from experience of
speaking with other pastors. In my own experience, our Lord
is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and he said,
I'll give you pastors like that. like me, after my own heart,
according to my own heart. And he does. And we see that
in this passage. That's one of the key things
I pray that we'll learn by God's grace from this. Verse nine,
for I think that God has 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. Paul would have rejoiced, as
he said, to see this church truly prosper and excel in faith and
love and unity and service because that's usually not the way it
is. You remember 2 Corinthians 11.23
where Paul gives an account of the things that he Suffered as
a minister of Christ. He says in verse 23 if you want
to turn there, let's look at it 2nd Corinthians 11 And this this helps us in another
small way here Understand Paul's language in our text because
he's gonna talk about how much he and other apostles and disciples
went through. But look at the way he says that
here in 2 Corinthians 11, 23. He said, are they ministers of
Christ? He's comparing himself to others. But then he says, I speak as
a fool. This was a unique and special situation where Paul
was defending himself. and his behavior and commending
himself to these people. But he knows what he's doing
here. He's not bragging. He's very
careful to say, I speak as a fool, I am more. He doesn't just say
that without saying, I know how that sounds. And I speak as a
fool would for now in order to get this point across. I am more,
I'm more of a minister than they are. That's not bragging and
he deliberately addresses that. I speak as a fool. In labors
more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent,
in deaths oft, This is why Paul said in our
text, as it were appointed unto death, it's as though God has
appointed us to die for the cause of Christ in preaching the gospel,
because it faces us everywhere we go. Verse 24, of the Jews,
five times received I 40 stripes save one, thrice was I beaten
with rods. Once was I stoned. I believe
he actually did die when he was stoned. It says that they left
him for dead. They thought he was dead, but
he was raised up. Thrice I suffered shipwreck.
A night and a day I have been in the deep, in journeyings often,
in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine
own countrymen. in perils by the heathen, in
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils
in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness,
in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often,
in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are
without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the
churches. That's what he's gonna deal with
in our text, the care. That word is anxiety, the anxiety,
the burden of all the churches. He's saying we're made a spectacle,
an object of theater to be made sport of to this world. Nobody takes us seriously, we're
ridiculed as our savior was. And then verse 10, he says, we're
fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are
weak, but you are strong. You are honorable, but we are
despised. We're fools for Christ's sake.
It's called the foolishness of preaching because this world
considers us fools. Do that means that is ridiculed
by the world and seems like Such a feeble family look look
at the men that God calls and look at us, you know There's
a weakness about it. There's a There's so much flesh
that the Lord uses right so We understand what he's saying there
And yet by that means He gets all the glory and the saving
of sinners But the purpose and result of the preaching is though
we are fools for Christ's sake, the purpose and the result of
the preaching is that those who hear and believe, and he called
these his brethren, he's given them as a whole, as a church,
the benefit of the doubt, if you will, about being true believers. And he says, the result of us
being fools is that you know the Lord. You're wise in Christ. The preacher's weak, he's perceived
that way, and he is indeed without strength. Isn't that what he
does? Not very many people, of course,
this is true in natural things too, but it's uniquely true with
preachers. Anybody that does any job can't
do it without the Lord. You have no strength without
him. You don't have breath without him. But a preacher, What we
do is impossible. It's impossible. Who is sufficient for these things?
Nobody. Nobody is, and yet it pleased
God by that means to save them that believe. While the preacher
is despised for preaching the Lord Jesus Christ, the result
of having Christ preached to you is that you're honorable. The preacher's without strength,
but the result of what he does is that believers are strengthened
by that. And so there's a contrast here
that he's pointing out. But all of these things, instead
of making this church grateful and humble and giving them a
heart of devotion and service to the Lord and love for Christ
and one another, it was puffing them up. They were puffed up
by their knowledge, by their wisdom in the gospel. They were
doctrinally very sound, as we'll see as we go through these two
letters to the church at Corinth. And very gifted, they were a
very gifted church. in the gifts of the spirit. But they were being puffed up
about it. It was the reason Paul is rebuking
them here. Look at verse 11. Even unto this
present hour, we both hunger and thirst and are naked and
are buffeted. And this is literal. He said,
there's time we don't have anything to eat. You can imagine what
Paul, went through. Don't have clothes to wear, decent
clothes even. Don't have a certain dwelling
place, what a horrible thing. To not have a place to call your
home. And labor, working with our own
hands. Being reviled, we bless. Being
persecuted, we suffer it, we endure it. Being defamed, we
entreat. We are made as the filth of the
world and are the offscouting of all things unto this day. So what Paul is saying here is
there's a disconnect here. You're puffed up, you're proud,
and you're prospering, and you're saying we're rich, everything's
great, and yet He's introducing them to the reality of what it
is to be a servant of Jesus Christ. And there's a reason it wasn't
that way in the Corinthian church, and that's what he's dealing
with. And that's what we're talking about. Look at it. We read of
Paul's experiences a while ago. Why is Paul telling them all
these things? Look at verse 14. This is where we're going to
start getting in on this here. Well, all along, but you'll see
what I mean. I write not these things to shame
you, but because I love you. You see that? As my beloved sons,
I warn you. I warn you. He's not wanting
them to feel bad for him, to feel sorry for him. to feel bad
about themselves being so pampered compared to him. That's not his
purpose. Not that they should be ashamed
of prospering while he is suffering, but because he loved them, he's
warning them that something's not right. This ain't right. To be puffed up is not the spiritual, godly, Christ-honoring
result of hearing and believing the gospel we preach. That's
not how it happens. So he's warning them about this,
and it'll be very clear what the warnings are. It has been
already all through this book of 1 Corinthians so far, warning them about being puffed
up. warning them about glorying in the flesh, warning them that
they're acting like lost people. That's lost people. You go into
a so-called church, I was in it for a lot of years when I
was younger. I was in false religion. And you talk about a bunch of
proud people, proud. The gospel doesn't result in
that. The gospel doesn't cause that. They're proud of their statistics.
They're proud of their service. I used to be this, they give
their testimonies, and I used to, boy, when the Lord found
me, you know, boy, I used to be a real winner. But now, you know, the Lord has
blessed me this and that, just like the Pharisee. I'm not like
other men. Thank God I'm not like other
men. That's the testimony of religion, of all false religion. And he's warning them about that.
Are you not carnal? Are you not fleshly? Do you not
walk as unbelievers? The gospel rightly heard and
believed does not have that effect. And this is a necessary role
of preaching the gospel, warning. It's the nature of the gospel.
It's not that we depart from the preaching of Christ in order
to tell folks what all they're doing wrong. But the preaching
of Christ is itself a correcting as well as cause for rejoicing. Second Timothy 316, all scripture
is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine.
We're teaching, teaching us who God is and what we are before
him, our need of him, teaching us of Christ and who he is and
what he did for sinners. How that he is the successful
savior of sinners. It's profitable for reproof. It's profitable for correction,
and it's profitable for instruction in righteousness, that the man
of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
Now notice it says all scripture is given for those benefits,
not my opinions or my beating people over the head with the
law. The way that Paul rebukes them here is important. It's
not a legalistic scolding. Look at verse 15. For though
you have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet have you not many
fathers? For in Christ Jesus, I have begotten
you through the gospel. He rebukes them as a father. As he said in the previous verse,
my sons, my beloved sons, you don't have many fathers.
The word instructions, instructors, this is one of the times when
knowing, being blessed with the tools that we have to look up
the original language is helpful in this case. The word instructors
literally is the word pedagogue. And a pedagogue was a slave that
was hired, that people hired to correct their children. When
they were young children, these pedagogues were hired to follow
them everywhere and to discipline them, to correct them whenever
they needed it, when they did something wrong, to scold them.
and to keep them on track, you know, to keep them from, I'm
glad I didn't have one of those. That would have been a tough
job for somebody to do that for me when I was young. But Paul's
not suggesting literally that they had 10,000 pedagogues or
people correcting them. But what he is teaching us here
is that Religion. There's 10,000 pedagogues in
there, there's 10,000 instructors, but they're not teachers, they're
scolders. Religion delights when somebody
preaches against sin. What are you for, though? How
can I be saved? Because I guarantee you, turning
over a new leaf ain't gonna cut it, according to this book. They
preach against sin, you know, and that just stirs everybody
and they love that, even though they're committing all of it.
They love to be whipped with the law. That's expressed in
some religions, they actually whip themselves. That's human
nature coming out, isn't it? The Baptists are doing the same
thing. They're just doing it with words. They're doing it
with the law. It's the same thing. But what he's saying here is
this. I'm not warning you here like some harbinger of self-righteous
rebukes, like some pedagogue just correcting you. No, don't
you go there. Don't you do that. Be careful.
Stop. Don't do that. Don't you speak
like that. That's not me, Paul said. I'm
your father. Those kind of people are a damn
a dozen, especially in religion, in this religious world. but
you don't have many fathers. There are not many who love you
like I do, Paul said, and who really care for your soul. In Christ Jesus, he said, in Christ
Jesus, I've begotten you through the
gospel. You were born from above, but by God's design, I preached
the gospel that you believed, and I'm your father in the faith. How many times have we seen and
said, God will always send you his word, he'll always send you
his truth, he'll always send his soul-saving gospel by means
of somebody that loves you. Moses said, Lord, I would that
I were blotted out of your book. that you might have mercy on
these wretched people. God just does that. He said,
I'll give you pastors. Like I quoted a while ago, I'll
give you pastors according to my own heart. The rebuke, the message, the
warning, don't think more highly of yourselves than you ought
to. Boasting is excluded by the gospel. Why do you glory? Don't
glory in the flesh, mind your walk in this world now. You walk
now as lost people. Mind your walk. And all of us
need this exhortation. Listen to what, look with me
at Romans chapter 12, if you would please. Romans 12, one. Paul wrote this to the church
in Rome. It's very much like the language
of his letter to the Corinthian church. Romans 12.1, believers everywhere, all of
us need this exhortation and rebuke if necessary. Romans 12.1,
I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service and be not conformed
to this world. You walk as men, you walk as
lost people, he said to the Corinthians. Don't be conformed, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say through
the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to
think of himself more highly than he ought to think. That's
the way of this world. Proud, self-righteous, haughty
religion. Don't be conformed to this world. Don't think more highly of yourself
than you ought to think, but think soberly. If you're thinking
right, if you're thinking straight, you being high is not gonna be
part of that thinking process. You being lifted up and rich,
creased with goods, in need of nothing. That's not how you're
gonna think if you're thinking soberly. According as God has dealt to
every man, the measure of faith. Don't, whatever you do, don't
do what this world says do and follow your heart. Believe what
God says about you, about your need of him. how he saves sinners
in such a way that boasting is excluded, in such a way that
leads to love and unity with the brethren in the church, the
body of Christ, and love and devotion unto the Lord, humble
submission to his will. Now look at verse 16, Paul says,
wherefore I beseech you, be you followers of me. Be followers of me, now keepin'
in mind the context. As children, as children to their
father. Follow me. Imitate me, like children
do. They just do, don't they? Look at first, or let me read
that. Yeah, let me read this and then
we'll turn to Philippians chapter three if you wanna go ahead and
turn there, but listen to 1 Corinthians 11 one. Be ye followers of me,
even as I also am of Christ. You see, it's not about do what
I do, it's do what I do if I'm doing what Christ has me do. Lord, what would you have me
do? That was Paul's prayer. And as he did that, he's saying,
follow me. I'm your father in the gospel. As a child imitates his father,
that's what that word is, isn't it? The word follow. When it
speaks of following Christ, it's talking about being an imitator
of him, looking to him. Now, I praise you, brethren.
He said, be followers of me as I am of Christ. I praise you,
brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the ordinances
as I delivered them to you, but I would have you know. This is just a few, did y'all
already turn to Philippians? If you didn't, go ahead and turn
to 1 Corinthians 11. I want you to see something there
because it pertains directly to our text. The spirit in which
Paul says, be ye followers of me. First Corinthians 11, one,
let's start over. Be ye followers of me, even as
I also am of Christ. That's the point. Now, I praise
you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the
ordinances as I delivered them unto you, but I would have you
know that the head of every man is Christ. This is important.
I want you to know this. I want you to understand this.
Christ is the head of every man in the church, every woman in
the church. The head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ
is God. God has an order. Even in the Trinity, even in
the Godhead, in the persons of the Godhead, there's an order.
And of course, again, the word follow is imitator. Be you an
imitator of me as I imitate Christ. Now look with me please at Philippians
3. I think this also helps with our text. Philippians 3.13. Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those
things which are behind, and reaching forth into those things
which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus." What about you? Are you
in on that? I'm pressing toward Christ. And
all of God's blessing and glory is in Him. I'm pressing toward
Him. He's the prize. So follow me. Let us therefore,
as many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything you
be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. God's
not gonna let you, if you're his, he's not gonna let you go
on in that, and he's gonna make you aware of it. Bow to his will
in it. Nevertheless, whereto we have
already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind
the same thing. Brethren, be followers together
of me, and mark them which walk, so as you have us for an example. For many walk, of whom I have
told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are
the enemies of the cross of Christ." There were some folks that Paul
wished were not the enemies of the cross of Christ, but they
were. It broke his heart. whose end is destruction, whose
God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who
mind earthly things. You do walk, are you not carnal? And walk as men. So all these churches, to one
degree or another, needed these same exhortations, had the same
fleshly pride within them and self-righteousness. For our conduct
is in heaven from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ." I wanted to read the rest of this, because look,
you walking, you following me, you imitating me and me imitating
Christ, none of that's gonna save us. Here's what is. Circumcision doesn't avail anything.
What does? A new creature, a new creation.
I was thinking about that verse. It was in something we were looking
at this past week. Neither does circumcision avail
anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. What you do and don't do has
nothing to do with it. What does have something to do
with it is something only God can do. Make you all over again. Create you in righteousness and
true holiness in Christ. That's what avails, what he does.
And that's what he's saying here. Follow, imitate, walk. Important,
vital, but that's not what saves us. Look, we shall change our
vow. That's what we need. We need
to be changed. Until we're changed, may God
make us imitators of the Savior. Give us grace, Lord, to love
something like you do, and to work something like you did,
and to believe as we ought, to increase our faith. But here's our ultimate hope, who shall change our vile body
that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according
to the working whereby he is able. Work, but understand that it's
his working that is our hope, our salvation. To subdue all things unto himself. Well, that's a beautiful, beautiful
passage of scripture. Now, this is God's way. I want
to talk about this more. You don't have many fathers.
This is God's way. I want to think about this and
I want you to too. I want to take heed. to this in the way that the Lord
blesses us and teaches us. There are not many people in
this world, you think about it, how many fathers do you have? I don't have many. Paul was right
about me. I don't have many. And this is not just talking
about who you believe the gospel under. I know that's the primary
application. but how many fathers do you have?
How many, somebody who knows the Lord and loves you like a son or a
daughter can do anything for you, who God actually uses to
warn and correct and instruct you in the right way, not as
a harbinger, not as somebody just harping on you all the time,
but as a father. Paul's not saying that you should
be suffering like I'm suffering. He wouldn't wanna see that. But
he is saying that if I follow the Lord Jesus and you follow
me following the Lord Jesus, all of us are gonna be the offscaring
in this world. That's just the way it is. So
be it. So be it. And not persecuted because we deserve
it. There are some who claim to speak for God and those who
claim to believe the gospel and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
who are persecuted, I guess you could call it that, because they bring it on themselves.
They're just, I started to say they're idiots. We're all idiots.
But we don't have to act like it so much, do we? Surely there's
hope that we don't have to act like complete idiots all the
time. Some people are just offensive.
That's not what Paul's talking about. We don't want to be persecuted
in that sense. We don't want to be ill thought
of because of our personality. No, God forbid. And look at the
way he says this. He said, we're cursed, but we
bless. We're not cursed because we curse. Though the world curses us, we
bless. Like the Lord said, I didn't
come down here to condemn you, but that you might be saved.
We were condemned already. And so we approach this world
that way. We're not to beat people over the head with the law. They're
already under the bondage of the law. They may not know it. The gospel is the gospel. It's good news. Being cursed,
we bless. Being defamed, we entreat. So we don't bring it on ourself.
Paul said, don't, that's not it. And what he's saying here
in all of this is come down, come down. If a man be overtaken in a fault,
when we give exhortation, what did he say to do? Consider yourself. If we need to correct somebody
because we love them, consider yourself because you're made
of the same stuff they are. Don't take the high horse and
talk down to people. Come down. Follow me, he's saying,
into the infamy, into the offense of the cross. If you're gonna
follow Paul, that's where you'd be, wouldn't it? That's what
he's saying. Look at us. May God take the stuffing out
of us. I like the way Henry used to say that. God knows how to
knock the stuffing out of you. We got too much stuffing, don't
we? Turn with me to 2 Timothy 3.
Let's read another scripture here in closing. Second Timothy 310. As I said, this is a passage
of scripture that deals with a specific issue that was going
on in the church at Corinth. And yet as we saw, the church
at Philippi, the church in Rome, Paul warned all of them with
the same warning. But look at 2 Timothy 310, thou
has fully known my doctrine. Now think about that. He's saying,
be ye followers of me. I mean, there's no way around
that. That's what he's saying. See me as an example. And here he says, you've fully
known my doctrine. You know what I preach. You've
known my manner of life, my purpose. You know, look, when people have
a false purpose, when they have ulterior motives, people can't
hide that. They think they're hiding that.
You can't hide that. You've known my purpose. You
know what I'm doing here and why. You've known my faith and
my long suffering and my love and patience, persecutions, afflictions. which came unto me at Antioch,
and at Iconium, and at Lystra, what persecutions I endured,
but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that
will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." There's
not a whole lot of room for maybe there, is there, in that language?
You see what he's saying to these? You're rich. You're saying we
have need of nothing. You're kings. I'm warning you. I'm warning
you. That's not the result of the
gospel. That's the flesh. That's the
pride and self-righteousness that's in every one of them and
us. And he's warning us against it. We don't suffer like Paul did.
We don't suffer persecution even, much less affliction for the
gospel. And I doubt very seriously if
we ever will. I don't think we ever will. But may God forbid that we glory. In anything we do, in anything
that we are, In anything that we say, God forbid that we should
glory saving the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom? Not by which, by whom? The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ
is a whom, not a piece of wood. By whom? We're crucified into
this world. And that's gonna be evident.
That's gonna be evident. You can't please this world and
the Lord. Can't do it. The Lord can make even your enemies
to be at peace with you, and that's my desire. I hope that's
true for all of us. But this world is crucified into
us. and we unto the world. And so be it. That we might glory in Him alone
and what He did for us. May the Lord cause us to heed
the warning and rejoice that if we are, if we do suffer any
persecution in this world If this world does consider us
the off scouring, that which is scraped off and thrown away. That's a privilege. That's a badge of honor, the
Lord's honor. Amen, let's pray.