love something in my house.
There's an object in my house that is really dear to me.
My wife made it when right after our kids,
our first child, Milana, was born,
she took a piece of wood and decorated it, painted it,
and then measured it.
Can you see that there?
And she measured what it would be off of the floor
to give us this ruler.
And basically what we do with it each year
is we measure our kids' height.
Anybody ever do this at your house?
I've been in houses where they did it on a door post
or something like that.
And she thought, man, if we ever change houses,
we want to keep that.
So she just made her own.
I saw it probably on Pinterest or something,
but made her own.
And I'm up there at the top.
I'm six foot three, so we measured that part too.
But I love watching.
And one of the cool things is doing it with the different kids,
and you've probably done this with a door post.
You can compare what different kids were at different ages.
So on their birthday, we mark their height at that birthday
if we remember to do it.
And that's kind of a neat thing.
We get to measure what goes on with our kids as they grow.
You've all done that too, I'm sure.
We love watching our kids grow inch by inch.
It's a fun thing to see.
Everybody's done that.
Every parent has celebrated at some level.
And also, your heart kind of is hurting a little bit
whenever you see your kids get to the next stage, right?
And when they start growing, you're like, man,
my time is growing smaller and smaller
to have them in the home.
And sometimes we celebrate that too.
But we celebrate when they outgrow their clothes,
when they graduate from baby food to solid food,
from crawling to walking.
It's just an amazing thing.
But imagine if you're 10-year-old,
imagine if you're 15-year-old, imagine if you're 17-year-old
was still crawling or still only drinking milk
or still wearing onesies.
Don't imagine that too much, right?
Something would be wrong.
Who agrees with me?
Something would be wrong.
In fact, you probably won't make it that long
if you're just living on milk.
You see in our physical lives, we expect growth.
And we measure growth.
Even like today's Veterans Day, we
could probably take some times with all our veterans
and say, OK, what rank were you at?
Did you start out at the rank you ended up at?
You start out at boot camp as a private.
Am I right?
Is private where you start?
Some people maybe start differently because of how
they were brought in.
But the point is we have an expectation of growth,
an expectation of going from one place to another.
In our physical lives, we expect growth.
Yet Paul tells the Corinthians and us
that many Christians are perfectly content to not
grow, to stay spiritual babies.
And so today my message, and I've already talked to Molly.
Molly is in charge of our nursery.
And I thought she might be a little bit worried
about the name of my sermon today.
The name of my sermon is Get Out of the Nursery.
Get out of the nursery.
Now, if you can volunteer and go help in the nursery,
we would love for that to happen.
Go talk to Molly.
She would love to have you volunteer in there.
In fact, I think there are some people that would grow
and get out of the nursery spiritually
so that they can go volunteer and be in the nursery physically.
So that's a whole other thing.
But my point is this, that God wants us to grow.
God wants us to grow physically, but he also
wants to grow spiritually.
While our physical growth and physical maturity
can be seen by these markers of growth,
Paul has been giving the Church of Corinth
some indication as to where their maturity was
when he wrote them in this first letter at Corinthians.
And as far as Paul was concerned,
these believers were still in the nursery spiritually speaking.
His argument to them was that they were not spiritually wise.
They weren't spiritually thinking in the wisdom of God.
And in fact, he started this kind of admonition of them
back in chapter one.
If you have your Bibles, go back a couple of chapters.
And to chapter one, verse 10, where he says,
I beseech you, now I beseech you, brethren,
by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that you all speak the same thing
and that there be no divisions among you,
that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind
and in the same judgment for it to have been declared unto me
of you, my brethren, by them which are the house of Chloe,
that there be contentions among you.
Now this I say that every one of you say it.
I am of Paul and I of Apollos and I of Cephas and I of Christ.
And then he asks this really important question.
Is Christ divided?
And we answered that and you get to answer with me.
Is Christ divided?
No, he's not.
Was Paul crucified for you?
No.
Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Of course not.
So he's calling them out for the contention,
the division that was there between them.
He was saying that they're still thinking like the world
and using the world's wisdom,
even though they were believers.
And then he begins to lay out this argument in the text,
that's what we've been going over the last few weeks,
that we don't need to think like the world,
we don't need to think in the flesh,
we don't need to think in ways that divide,
we need to be thinking spiritually wise.
We don't need to think like a natural man
who only deals in what can be seen, heard, felt,
tasted, the flesh, we need to operate in the spiritual,
we need to operate in faith.
He wants these Corinthians to grow up
and get out of their immature way of thinking.
And that's what the Holy Spirit wants for us as well.
Who agrees?
We need to grow up.
That's what God wants for us.
And so that's what he's talking about in chapter three.
And so here's how this can help us today.
We have to fight immaturity in ourselves.
And we need to fight immaturity among ourselves.
So we need to fight immaturity individually.
I need to grow up,
but I need to be a help to people around me
that we all grow up.
Yeah, it's not just on me,
it's not just on me to grow, just me.
You are helping me to grow.
Some of you are helping me more than others to grow, right?
And I'm helping you to grow and we do this together.
We fight immaturity in ourselves and among ourselves
by making three corrections that Paul kind of brings up here
as he argues about a mature way of thinking and living.
So here's the first way, the first correction.
Number one, recognize immature thinking about others.
If we're gonna mature, we need to see how we think
in an immature way.
Chapter three, verse one, he says this,
and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as spiritual.
Of course, he's just laid out an argument
that there's a spiritual way of thinking
and then there is a carnal way of thinking.
He said, I couldn't talk to you as a spiritual person,
but as unto carnal, even as unto, what's the next word?
Babes in Christ.
Paul has made the case that there's a way of thinking
that is limited just what can be sensed physically.
This would be the opposite of living by faith.
Paul says that he cannot speak to them
as if they were doing a good job
comprehending those things that are spiritually discerned.
He knows that they are believers in Christ.
These people are saved.
This is the church at Corinth.
He calls them in the third word in chapter three,
and I, what does he say?
Brethren, these are people who are in Christ.
They have the Holy Spirit's end dwelling,
yet they think more like unbelievers than like believers.
They think like people who have not grown spiritually,
they're immature.
Immature people must eat basic food,
and that's the illustration that Paul gives.
Look at verse two, I have fed you with milk
and not with meat.
For hitherto you were not able to bear it.
The idea of bearing it is almost like the idea
of digesting it, to process it,
to actually take it in and live it out.
That's what we do with food, right?
You ingest it.
Hopefully you ingest only what you need, not too much, right?
Cause that makes you fat, correct, fat.
You take in what you need and you use it
and you live it out.
He says the immature to hear is shown,
but they're not even able to take meat in,
they can only take milk in.
You're not able to bear it, neither now you're able.
The truth he gives them is basic,
because that's all they can handle.
You don't give a baby a T-bone,
because they can't digest it.
They have no teeth.
They have little ability to digest some things,
and this is where he says they're at spiritually.
Who agrees Paul's bold?
Paul's bold, he's like, you guys are a bunch of babies, right?
Now I'm just in chapter three,
because last week I was in chapter two, okay?
I'm not calling all of you babies.
But this is where they were spiritually.
They still think like unbelievers,
acting as if the natural is all there is,
or at least giving the, or that the natural is primary.
They are saved, but they haven't grown, they're immature.
And Paul has to deal with them in that way.
And the reason he says he knows they're immature,
as we're gonna see, is the division
that he talks about in the coming verses,
born out of how they saw leaders.
Now, when we think without faith,
when we think only about the temporary here and now,
we're carnal.
Let me give you an illustration.
If you think that all of our problems went away this week
because you're candidate one,
you're thinking carnally.
Are you with me?
Because our problems are not primarily political.
Our problems are spiritual.
Now, if we're spiritual, we should impact politics, amen?
And there's a lot of good things that happen.
But my point is this, we need to think more
than just the here and now.
We think by faith, amen?
You guys agree?
I feel like I just let you down.
We think spiritually.
When we think about what satisfies the flesh
at the cost of what satisfies the spirit, we're carnal.
When our appetites cause us to sin against God, we're carnal.
The word carnal has this idea of carnae or flesh, right?
It's the idea of the flesh.
We talked about this last week.
What's in the world, the lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eyes and the pride of life?
It's all about what can happen right here and right now.
And so, we're talking about the idea of the flesh.
We're talking about what can happen right here and right now.
And so, when we think about our sin nature,
when we're sinning against God, we're carnal.
When we're carnal, it's a sign of spiritual immaturity.
To grow, we must think and act in the spirit.
To do that, we need milk, then we need bread,
and then we need meat.
And all of it is found right here in the Word of God.
So he says, look at verse three.
For ye are yet carnal.
How do you know we're carnal, Paul?
How do you know we're just thinking in the flesh?
Well, here's what he says.
For whereas there is among you envying and strife
and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men?
What is it?
Of course, some of you might say, well, I'm a man,
I'm a woman, what do you mean walk as men?
Meaning, what he's saying is, are you walking only as people
who have only their natural senses going on,
who are not thinking in faith?
He says, there's envying and strife and divisions.
Verse four, for while one says I'm of Paul
and another I'm of Apollos, are ye not carnal,
living in the flesh?
What is he saying?
What he says is the expressions of their immaturity.
Enveying, what's envying?
Enveying is wanting what other people have.
Being upset over the success or progress of another person.
He says strife, strife is fighting and conflict
with each other, division.
Division is choosing sides against others
based on that envying and strife.
What Paul's saying is, you guys are all dividing up
over who you like the best.
Like, I like this guy, I like that guy.
You're fighting, you're mad when one's doing well
and you're not doing well, you're not doing well,
you're mad when you're doing well
and the other person's not doing well.
You're proud of that.
This is the way babies think.
This is the way toddlers think.
Has anybody ever served in the nursery
and seen kids fight?
Right?
You ever seen your kids fight?
Have you ever been to the place with your kids?
Now my kids are much better now.
But have you ever been to the place where you're like,
what are you fighting over?
Why are we fighting?
Just help, just give, just be careful with one another.
Paul refers back to that first part of where he started.
They were thinking like men.
They were thinking like men do who do not have
the revelation of Christ crucified.
And what's ironic is, they were thinking this way
about spiritual realities.
What they admired about Paul
and what they admired about Apollos and Peter
were that they had been helped by them spiritually.
Now they were fighting over which guy they liked
based on personality, based on experience,
based on popularity.
What they were fighting, I like that guy
rather than that guy.
Or this is the guy who baptized me.
So this is the guy who led me to Christ.
So he's the best.
Or they were dividing over popularity.
They get more notoriety based on which team they were on.
I'm better than you because I'm on this other guy's team.
And so here's what this means.
When we fight for our own popularity
at the expense of others, we're acting carnally.
When we envy others for what they have, that's immaturity.
When we divide on things that do not matter
because we're being selfish, this is a sign of immaturity.
It's the natural man.
It's what you see in the nursery
that nobody has to teach kids to do.
It's what you see in the middle school hallway
that today has floated over to social media and beyond.
Unfortunately, you see this sometimes in the office
or in the boardroom.
In some churches, you may even see it between the pews
and at the deacons meeting.
It's a sign of immaturity.
And what he's saying is we don't need to divide over that.
We need to see human leaders the way
that they're supposed to be seen.
We must live in the spirit and not in the flesh.
And he goes on to explain what that looks like.
So the first thing we have to correct is we have to not be
immature in our thinking of others.
We need to put others ahead of ourselves
and not to fight based on them.
Number two, we need to replace immature thinking
about leaders.
He says, the fighting, the division,
the arguing, the putting down others to put yourself up,
that's immature.
You gotta stop.
And doing it around leaders,
you gotta think differently about these leaders.
You gotta think differently about them.
Look at verse five.
Here's the question.
Who then is Paul?
Who's writing this?
Paul.
Who's writing this, by the way?
Paul.
He's doing it through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Who then is Paul?
And who is Apollos?
But ministers by whom you believed,
even as the Lord gave to every man.
I have planted Apollos watered,
but God gave the increase.
For maturity to happen in the life of the Corinthian church,
there had to be a new way of thinking about these leaders.
Paul had already pointed to the wisdom of God.
What is the wisdom of God?
Two words.
You guys are on it.
Christ crucified, that's the wisdom of God.
The wisdom of men is carnal, it's fleshly.
It's looking at human leaders and thinking,
anything good that comes out spiritually for me,
anything good that happens to me,
happens because of those men,
because men are the ones who help me spiritually.
That's what they were thinking.
That's what it had gotten to.
So therefore, I like my guy more than I like your guy,
and because I like my guy, and you like your guy,
I'm gonna fight with you,
and I'm gonna keep doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
Well, what I wanna be doing.
And what Paul says is that is the wisdom of the world
about people who helped you spiritually.
That's not good, it had crept into the church.
Paul had already pointed out that that wisdom of God
that prioritizes man's humility and God's glory,
and Christ's ministry was what they oughta been thinking.
Once they realized that this is the right way
to think about the power of the gospel,
then there will be a mature thinking about leaders.
Godly leaders are only godly because of Jesus Christ.
Godly leaders are only effective because of Jesus Christ.
Effective leaders are only effective
because of the goodness, and here it is,
the grace of God, the unmerited favor of God.
Yes, Paul and Apollos had been obedient to minister
as God led, but that ministry was only made possible
by the Lord.
Paul uses the illustration of how God
how we get fruit.
For a seed to grow, it has to be planted, right?
For a seed to grow, it has to be watered.
Both of these realities are about stewarding the conditions
that are needed for the seed to grow,
but the actual growth comes because of the design of the seed.
That didn't blow your minds.
Farmers put a seed in the ground.
Farmers steward the conditions of the crops,
but you don't see farmers go out, Matthew Bain,
and go, all right, grow!
Grow!
I gotta do my grow dance.
Do farmers make it grow?
No, they grow because God designed seeds to grow.
And what do farmers do?
They put the right seed in the right soil,
and then they pray for rain, right?
If there's no rain coming, they do their part to water,
but who makes the seed to grow?
God, now you say, well, I can give you a process
as to why that is, I can tell you the science.
At the end of the day, God designed that process,
and He makes it to grow.
The actual growth big comes because here's the thing.
If you take a rock and you go plant a rock in the ground,
good soil, and you water that rock,
you make sure that rock gets lots of sun,
what's gonna happen?
Nothing!
Because rocks don't plant, they don't plant.
They don't create fruit.
God didn't plan for rocks to grow, He designed seeds to grow,
and it's the same with the wisdom of God,
the proclamation of the word of God.
Godly leaders recognize the potential in the word of God
to transform others, but they themselves
don't create the spiritual growth
anymore than the farmer makes the corn to grow.
No farmer ever made anything grow.
All they can do is steward the conditions for growth.
The seed grows because it's designed to grow
in the right conditions.
It's important that we steward these conditions
for spiritual growth and life and maturity.
Here's what I know.
I don't know how it happens.
I know that it happens, and I'm by faith
work to see it happen, but the word of God
that gets into people's hearts is what grows them spiritually.
The word of God received by people
is what God uses through the Holy Spirit
to bring about a work of regeneration
and to grow them spiritually.
Has that happened to you?
Has the word of God grown you?
He has.
We should proclaim Christ crucified,
which could be referred to as planting.
We should be faithful to preach and teach
the principles of God's word to our friends
and to our family, to our kids.
But at the end of it all, if there's growth,
it's because of God.
He sent his son to die for us.
He poured out his wrath for our sin on Jesus.
He sent the Spirit to regenerate the heart
of those who believe.
He gives spiritual gifts to people to use
for gospel proclamation by his enabling.
In other words, he gives the increase.
It isn't us.
How exciting is it to be a part of what he's doing though?
How amazing is it that he gets to use us?
Not because we're great,
but because his word is so powerful.
That's an amazing thing.
So when it comes to leaders that minister to us,
we should be thankful for them.
We should honor their obedience and their impact.
Yeah, we should also not venerate them
beyond what any of them are.
Sinners saved by grace.
Billy Graham, sinner saved by grace.
Gene Milione, sinner saved by grace.
Ben Jennings, I'm not even remotely in the category
there's other two, but I'm telling you,
I'm just a sinner that's been saved.
Have you heard that song, my worth is not in what I own?
We sing it around here sometimes.
I love this phrase in that particular passage
and it relates to Christ crucified.
To wonders here that I confess,
my worth and my unworthiness,
my value fixed, my ransom paid at the cross.
You know what that's saying?
At the cross I realize that I have worth, why?
Because God sent his son to die for me.
But at the cross I also understand
that I could not save myself.
The all consuming work of Christ and his worth
is what I long to.
My value is fixed there, my ransom is paid there
at the cross.
When we get to heaven one day, no one will say
I'm here because of my own.
When we get to heaven one day, no one will say
I'm here because of Ben Jennings.
They'll say I've come by the way of the cross of Christ,
Jesus.
And so we gotta think differently about our leaders.
All of our leaders are just men.
And if they've made any impact on your life,
it's by the grace of God working through them to you.
Number three, last one, we reflect mature thinking about God.
We must fight immaturity in ourselves
and among ourselves are making three corrections.
One, recognizing immaturity, immature thinking about others,
replacing immature thinking about leaders
and reflecting mature thinking about God.
Look at what he says in verse six.
Repeating verse six again, I have a plan at Apollos water
but God gave the increased.
So then neither is he that planteth anything.
Neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.
Think about what he just said.
What Paul said is, I am nothing.
Apollos is nothing.
When it comes to this process of spiritual regenerate,
who gets the credit?
God gets the credit.
God gives the increase.
It doesn't mean Paul is not saying here
that it is not important for him to be obedient
and to plant and to water.
Is it important to plant and to water?
It is absolutely critical that we plant and we water.
But at the end of the day,
anything good that happens from it happens
because God gives the increase.
The supernatural power to transform lives
comes because God sent the sun, the sun died for our sins.
And when the gospel is received, the Holy Spirit
supernaturally regenerates and transformed.
He gives the increase.
God gets the credit then.
God gets the glory.
Praise the Lord that he allows us to be a part of that.
Paul continues in verse eight.
Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one.
And every man shall receive his own reward
according to his own labor.
Are you guys excited about that?
Hey, we're not fighting each other when we water and we plant.
We're working together when we water and plant.
And when you give it, when you water, when you plant,
who sees that?
God says, have you ever served and other people didn't notice?
When you serve, God always notices.
And in fact, when you serve, God knows what you did,
but he also knows why you did it.
He says, you're going to get your reward for your labor.
Verse nine, for we are laborers together with God,
you are God's husbandry.
You are God's building.
When we think rightly about God, then we think rightly about others.
He has given us mature thinking about leaders,
and that reinforces mature thinking about God.
Paul continues this planting illustration.
The one that plants and the one that waters are one.
What does that mean?
Both are essential parts of farming.
In the spiritual realm, it's less clear than it is in farming.
When you're planting the seed of the word of God,
and when are you doing that, and when are you watering?
These are not physical objects that we're talking about.
This is the word of God that we're stewarding.
When I preach, I may be breaking new ground with some,
and reminding people of what they've heard and know with others
at the very same time.
And here's what I've noticed in ministry.
Over the years, I've shared the gospel
with enough people who've received Christ,
and as I've gotten to hear more about their story,
and have found out about, what I find out about
is a VBS worker 20 years ago, or a Sunday school teacher,
or a praying grandma, or a praying aunt, right?
I found out about a friend on a football team
who invited somebody to church,
and when they crossed the line of faith and got saved,
I found out that I wasn't the only one
that ever shared the gospel with them.
I found out that there were other people
who had shared the gospel and invited
and lived a godly life in front of them,
and that when they did that, and when I did that,
we got to work together to see people come to know Christ.
Just because someone's there when someone receives Christ,
as Savior does not mean that they were the only one
instrumental, humanly speaking,
of stewarding the conditions for that saving faith.
The planter, the laborer, and the harvester
are all doing the necessary work by the grace of God.
And yes, praise the Lord, there's reward for that labor.
I'm excited about people coming to know Christ.
I'm excited that there's gonna be people in heaven
that are there because they heard the gospel
that was preached.
But notice, we're not the only ones doing the laboring,
not just human beings.
Verse nine, here it is.
For we are all laborers together with God.
You're God's husbandry, you're God's building.
Anybody here have someone that you just have a heart for
that doesn't know Christ?
I hope you do.
If you don't have somebody like that in your heart,
you're probably immature, okay?
Grow up.
It's not about your life, it's about others, right?
And it's about the Lord being.
So who is on your heart that needs Christ?
I want you to know something.
No matter how much you think you care about that person.
And I hope you do.
Maybe it's a kid, maybe it's one of your kids
that doesn't know yet, yet know Christ.
Maybe it's someone to neighbor,
someone or friend that's been a friend for a long time.
If you have a heart for them and you love them
and you wanna see them be saved,
this is what I need you to know.
You need to know this.
God cares more about that person than you do.
God loves them.
He is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
And so, like the short, slow,
amateur basketball player walking up
with Michael Jordan to the playground.
You've got a great teammate.
In fact, he's the only one really doing the job.
You just get to be a part of what he's doing.
We are labors together with God.
We are God's husbandry, we are God's building.
We work with him, but salvation is his work.
Sanctification is his work.
We disciple, but ultimately,
he's the one that grows people.
We're his work, we're his vineyard.
We are what he is building.
So, you guys got your Bibles?
Grab them.
Look at chapter three,
verse one.
I'm gonna read this passage together
and I'm gonna ask you some questions.
Okay.
And I, brethren,
who made the people in Corinth brothers and sisters
with Paul, who did that?
Christ did that, who else?
God did that, right?
Okay.
Verse two, I have fed you with milk.
Who provided the milk?
God did.
I did not with meat.
When they get to meat, who provided the meat?
God did.
Verse three, for you are yet in the carnal,
for there's among you envying strife and division,
you're not carnal, walk as men.
For while one says, I am of Paul, who gave them Paul?
And another say, I'm of Apollos, who gave them Apollos?
Are you not carnal?
Who then is Paul?
And who is Apollos?
But ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord gave
to every man, who gave the salvation
that they proclaimed about?
God did, Jesus did.
I have a planet of Apollos water, but God,
who gave the increase?
God.
So then neither is he that planets anything,
neither he the water earth, but God who gives increased.
Now he that planets and he that water earth are one.
And every man shall receive his own reward
according to his own labor.
When we plant and water, who gives us reward?
What part of this is us?
What part of it's us?
The whole thing's about God.
When we make it about us, we're immature.
When we make it about God, we're growing in maturity.
Your life is not about you.
You are not the main character.
Who's the main character?
God is.
Yet not I, but Christ in me.
It's all about him.
So what does it look like to be mature
in my thinking about ministry?
It's all about God.
It's all because of God.
Anything that happens good happens because God allows it.
It's called his grace.
Right?
People have a responsibility to receive it.
God's given them a capacity to do that,
but it's all about God.
What about my marriage?
If my marriage is all about me and what I want,
it's immature.
Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church
and gave himself for it.
Wives submit to your husbands as unto the Lord.
It's not about you.
It's not about your spouse.
It's all about God.
What about your kids?
Fathers, bring your children up in the nurturing
and admonition of the Lord.
It's not even about your kids.
It's about God.
Mature people recognize that this whole thing
is about God and not about us.
So let me ask you a question.
What part of your life is all about you?
What I want to tell you is, get out of the nursery.
It's not all about you.
It's all about him.
Would you bow your head to close your eyes with me this morning?