First Corinthians 4:1-5

Okay, so today we're going to pick up where we were taught left off last week and As kind of a we're starting in chapter 4 but 3 runs into it Corinthian believers were walking as men and Consequently they were making much of man's ways of doing thing in man's world and And they were accustomed to that world, and they were involved in schools of opinion, philosophical schools, and they had aligned themselves under certain philosophers and said, well, I'm of Aristotle, I'm of Plato, and that kind of thing. And they were trying to bring that same mindset into the church by saying, well, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, and that kind of thing. And so they were, Paul was warning them in the last chapter about glorifying in men. And to do so would put them in a position of belonging to those whom they gloried in. They would become, they would belong to them.

And Christians, we don't belong to any man. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ only. And the Corinthians were putting themselves under certain teachers as they would in the world, belonging to gifted teachers. So Paul says, no, they all belong to you. He ends up with the last few verses.

The world with all its power belongs to you. Life with all its changes belong to you. Death with its terrors belong to you. I remember when I first read this, I thought, well, how does death belong to us? And here's how it does. It's the doorway home. So it does belong to us. Even as all that can happen in the present or the future are set under the Christian because he belongs to Christ and Christ is God's and God is over everything. We are Christ, which puts us in a position to be above the fray.

So to correct these worldly ideas and wrong practice, Paul sets before us the truth to as to the servants of Christ in relation to Christ and to the world. So when we come to chapter 4, and we're going to cover the first five verses, and the first verse today is, let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mystery of God. The version I said, let a man account of us as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries.

Paul, Apollos, Peter, all of these men were, number one, they were servants of Christ. And even though these Corinthians wanted to put them up on a pedestal and sort of recognize them as gifted brothers, he reminds them that so far being the centers of gathering for God's people, the gifted men were actually servants.

That was their job. And reminding them of the Lord's own words. In Matthew 20, 26, the Lord Jesus says, whoever will be great among you shall be your servant. And whomsoever will be the first among you, let him be your bondman. So you have to understand that in the body of Christ, the way the structure is, those that are servants and stewards, which are the leaders, they're really servants. They really are stewards. And so then he goes on and he says, taking the place of servants, they were not servants of parties, but they were servants of Christ. And this is an important distinction.

They served the Lord Jesus Christ. The word minister or servant is a passage that implies they were appointed to serve. Christ called them for service. And Paul and his fellow laborers were servants by appointment. So they got the job by being appointed by Christ. So it's important for the one who appoints is the one who is admired and to whom the servant will have to answer.

So believers should view teachers as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mystery rather than party leaders. And he kind of uses a different word here for the word servant. Usually the word is diakonoai, which is the normal word that you use for servants, but here it's hyper, if I can say it, and it has to do with, the image is this.

In ships in those days, inside they had the rowers, and they had three tiers of them, and the guys in the bottom tier This is the word that applied to them. And they all had to row in unison. You know, one guy wasn't turned around rowing that way and the rest of them this way. They all had to row in unison and they all had to serve the guy that was called on cadence. See that? And that's the word he uses, his servants. So it doesn't put them in a position of authority at all. They are the ones at the bottom of the boat. rowing to someone else's call.

Now, the next thing he talks about is a steward, and a steward is a steward of the mysteries of God. A steward is a household manager, and the best example in the Old Testament is Joseph. Joseph was a slave, And he was bought by Potiphar, and he became not only a slave, but he was the steward of the household. He was a slave, yes, but he ran all of Potiphar's affairs. He took care of his checkbook, took care of his appointments, took care of his family, made sure the groceries were there. He did everything.

And that's what this stewardship is like. It's a relationship that we as believers should understand of the people that teach us. A steward devotes his time, his talents, his energy to executing his master's interests only. Who's his master? The Lord Jesus. This word stresses that both apostles' humble position as belonging to Christ and their trusted yet accountable position under God. A steward was a servant to his master entrusted with the administration of his business all the time. So I think Roger and I know that to be true. Our job is to pay attention to what the Lord is doing in leading us and teaching us what we should do, but we serve Him. Now, I want you to notice another interesting thing here.

Paul appoints in these verses, he uses Apollos. Apollos was not an apostle. but he was a servant and he was called of the Lord Jesus Christ to serve. He was a really important man for the gospel. He learned the gospel by hearing it from John, John the Baptist. And then he runs into Aquila and Priscilla and they teach him the next part of the gospel, which is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So he's learning as he's going, but he knows that he's a servant even when he's under the understanding of John's gospel. He's a servant. He's a steward of what he knew as the mysteries of God.

So what are these mysteries? We could say they are not the unholy mysteries connected with the heathen world or by the Corinthians, which the Corinthians were surrounded by. They were the precious truths of God. They're kept secret in the Old Testament. You know, a mystery, when we see this word mystery, all it means is that it hasn't been revealed. God didn't choose to reveal it at that time. And it's revealed to the apostles and the stewards and received by believers. So there's a chain in which it comes to us.

The servants of Christ were the servants of the one whom the world had rejected. The stewards of the mysteries of God, they were stewards of things that the world as such could not possibly comprehend. Consequently, Neither the ministers of Christ nor the stewards of God's mysteries could possibly be popular in the world.

And I've been reading Ironside's book on 1 Corinthians, and he makes some really interesting points about what these mysteries are. We all know them because we've been involved with them, but there's the mystery of the gospel. It's not a mystery to us, but it's a mystery to someone who doesn't know it and comes into it.

And he says, well, what is that? It is the grand wondrous truth that the mind of man would never have ferreted out if God had not revealed it. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. What a mystery. And how cool it is to learn that mystery. He also, he who believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. What a mystery that was.

You compare that statement with the old Mosaic system and the Ten Commandments, boy they are really different, really different. Then we noted the mystery of godliness or piety, the great mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus, God and man here on earth in one person.

That's beyond human intelligence. We're studying that on Tuesday at noon. Incarnate Christ. How do you get your arms around the God-man? We read that no man knows his son but the father. It's utterly impossible for a man to understand union and humanity. And yet this mystery is as plain to him who believes. It gets real clear for those who believe.

So these mysteries, I would say that that's what we do here. We teach these mysteries. That's really our job. is to teach these mysteries and we call them positional truth. What's true? What's the word of God say who we are? So the mysteries of God refer to the truths of the Christian faith as an official servant and stewards of God's mysteries. It was their duty to the household of God to furnish all the gospel truths in due season, especially that truth which most distinctly characterizes the New Testament. If you, not that I'm going to recommend you do this, but if you spend any time looking at what's taught today in Christianity, it's mostly Old Testament and Gospels.

So what happens? If that's all you know, then you don't have 80-90% of the mystery. You don't know what's really going on. You're trying to live based on somebody else's mystery, not your own. So it's needful to prove here that the mysteries never mean something like sacraments. You know what sacraments are. I come out of a denomination where sacraments were a big deal. These rituals that you had to go through to get some sort of additional grace that you didn't have before you entered into the sacrament. It didn't change your standing at all.

God's mysteries mean the secret things which are now revealed, in contrast with, say, what Israel was doing. I'll tell you a couple of Old Testament, one Old Testament quote and one in Acts. In Deuteronomy 29, 29, Moses says the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us. Talking about the Jews. and to our sons forever, that they may observe all the words of the law." Would that apply to you and me? If you substitute the word grace, it might, but not the word law.

In Acts 1.7, it says, He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or the epochs which the Father has fixed. with his own authority. These are not things unintelligible.

They're things easily learned by us. But the truths received, reserved by God in the Old Testament times now displayed in Christ on high and made known by the Spirit in the New Testament. The one book in the New Testament that really opens up what a lot of going, what was going on in the Old Testament is the book of Hebrews. It lays out what the real spiritual meaning of all of these Old Testament rituals were. Verse two, moreover, it is required in stewards that one be found faithful, wow, or trustworthy. So what Paul is doing here, he's showing the characteristics required in a steward. It doesn't matter if he's clever. It doesn't matter if he's eloquent. It doesn't matter if he's popular. What matters is, is he faithful? Is he faithful?

That's the number one thing. Anybody who serves the Lord should understand that when we go to the beam of judgment, faithfulness is going to be the thing. That's what he's going to talk to us about. Later, near the end of his life, Paul writes to Timothy and he says, the things which you have heard from me, The same commit to faithful men. Now, every one of us has a spiritual gift. Every one of us has a, I want to say, opportunity to serve the Lord within the body of Christ. Our job is to be faithful to that, whatever it is.

A minister, a steward is to be found faithful. It's really important. We, like the Corinthian saints, may at times value servants by their knowledge or their gifts, but their spiritual value on God's side is measured only by their faithfulness. So the requirements from Chester Macaulay, the requirements of a servant is that they, stewards, be found faithful. Faithfulness carries the idea of correctness.

The steward must pay attention to what the Word of God says. We were talking about that in Sunday school this morning. It doesn't matter how you feel about the gospel. What matters is, what does it say? And a steward's job is to reveal what it says. It also carries the idea of persistence. You never quit.

Roger and I laugh about this all the time. Next week, Roger is finally finished with work. We're both the same age. And we talk about, we laugh about this all the time because we say, well, gee, we don't get to go play golf, get to travel. We're stewards and we know what our job is. And you know what? It's really exciting job. Every one of you has a stewardship in some manner. regarding the body of Christ and persistence. No quitting.

You don't get to take the last two weeks off and then you go home. The third is that it carries the idea of selflessness. A servant concerns himself with his duty to another in his own interests or secondary. Now, having said all of that, we must recognize, I think, that I can't wake up one morning and say, OK, I'm going to put these three issues on my refrigerator and this is how I'm going to live.

You can't do that. That's why a servant and all of you have to be called to what you do. And you have to be equipped by the Spirit of God to do what God has called us to do so that we are correct in what we do, that we are persistent and we're selfless. It's the life of the Lord Jesus through us. You can't decide, oh, I'm going to be this.

The problem with deciding yourself is that one way or another, self is going to sneak in there and grab some credit. And that spoils the whole thing. So the Lord's own teaching when he spoke of the faithful and the wise servant in Luke 12, 42, he said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his master will make ruler over his house to give them portion of food in due season? So what happens?

The apostle reasons from the figure of the steward with faithfulness was especially required. Here on earth, he adds, it is required in the case of stewards that one should be found faithful. The most important quality in a steward is that he manages faithfully his master's affairs so the desires of the Lord are materialized. And I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 quotes for that if you want to see me afterwards. It's everywhere in the New Testament about how service, we're studying Romans chapter 14 in Sunday school. This all applies to Romans 14, to accept the weaker brother. He must be faithful to the master's trust. For Paul, this meant remaining faithful to the gospel as he had received it and preached it in 1 Corinthians 15.

God's requirements is not eloquence. It's not wisdom. It's not initiative. It's not even success. It's faithfulness. Next verse, now it gets kind of interesting. Because Paul says here, but with me or to me, it's a really small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I don't even judge myself. Boy, I got to this verse and I thought, now wait a minute.

What's he talking about here? He's just gone through this thing about how servants have this incredible position and they respond to Christ only. So why would he go on the other side and say, well, it's a really small thing and I should be judged by you. So can I or Roger stand up here and say it's a really small thing if you judge us? No, that's not what he's talking about.

The faithfulness is in relation to one who is appointed. And so the apostle says it's a small manner that I would be examined by you. Well, what's the examination about? What would you examine me about? My job as a called servant or steward of the Lord. I and Roger and others that serve, who are we accountable to? Are we accountable to you? We're not. We're accountable to the Lord.

And it changes the equation, because what you find in contemporary Christianity, the dynamic has turned around. And in most churches, the guy who stands up here is accountable to them, the people in the audience. So you either have a denomination that decides who the leaders are going to be, or you have a church that's going to have a vote on who the leaders are going to be. Or you have a discussion about, okay, these three guys over here are going to be elders for the next three years. But you get to decide, or some board gets to decide. We don't get to decide. You know who decides about that?

Christ only. Christ only. And boy, that's the way it should be. Because if He is the one who calls, and He is the one who makes a servant, then this exactness and persistence and selflessness is part of who they are. It isn't about their and their own ministry. So it's interesting. He doesn't say here that their judgment of him doesn't matter at all. He just says it's not of great importance. You can judge, but it's not of great importance. They have not a person over them in the church, but are subject only to the Lord.

That's kind of scary if you're in that position. Because the Lord is, we talk about someone who's exact about things. The Lord is very precise. The abandonment of this truth, the assertion of the assembly instead of the Christian authority over ministry brought in denominations, the one I came from. It brought in the whole idea of pope and cardinals and archbishops and all that kind of stuff. And those are deadly ingredients. And they mingle both of the world and the church together. I can remember as a young man in grade school, in the town that I grew up in, there was a new Catholic bishop who came to town.

And it was really a cold day. And we all had to go out there. dutifully and standing in the snow and asleep while this man was introduced to us as our new bishop. He didn't know anybody, and we didn't know him. We didn't know what he was about. And I remember thinking, okay, I guess this is what we do. And ten years later, there was another guy who came to town, and we all went out in the cold weather, and he was introduced. The problem is that that man's office was put in place by man. Now, what's interesting in my study was that I researched through people I really admire. You know who really gets on this issue?

The Brethren. The Brethren have more to say about this one issue than any other place I read because they don't have bishops and cardinals and popes and priests or any of that. They recognize that within their body of believers, God appoints, the Lord Jesus appoints those who are going to be the stewards. And so they meet based on that premise. And I've never been in a brethren community, but I often thought, well, how do they decide who pays the bills? Pretty practical question, I guess. But what's interesting is, it's really interesting to observe the apostles' choice of expressions here.

The truth is that believer never come into judgment. You know that none of you will ever come into judgment? You believe that? You know that's true? When you go to be the beam of judgment, you're not judged about your sins. That place is a place of rewards. You're not judged about your failures. You're there to be rewarded. That's why you're there. So life and judgment are incompatible. You can't have life and judgment at the same time.

We've already been judged, and guess what? We all were found guilty. And we're all put into Christ, and Christ died, and we died too. The law carried out its purpose in us and we were resurrected to newness of life in which there is no guilt. No guilt at all. So Christ and life in him will surely be judged.

He is lost and it will be met. The person who's lost, he's going to get judged. But we already have been. You know what? And none of us were found worthy. But we believed and because we did believe, God took care of the whole process of making us righteous before him. Continuing on in this, I do this all the time, I lose my place.

Man is wholly incompetent for such an inquiry. Were he even an apostle, it would be an usurpation of his functions in the Lord. It is the highest importance that this immediate sense of responsibility to Christ be maintained always and everywhere. Whether it be a question of Paul or Apollos, it's the same principle. The church has no such authority or duty. Isn't that interesting? That we as a body don't have the authority to choose. One other thing I want to say about this.

Lots of people over the last year and a half have come up to me and to Roger intermittently inquired as to where are we progressing with the new pastor? Where are we progressing with the new pastor? I'd give you the Lord's cell phone number, but I don't have it.

He's the one who decides. Now that doesn't mean to say that there aren't things happening, because there are things happening. There have been at least one person who has inquired to us who may be someone the Lord would lead to us. But we don't know yet. And so what we're trying to do is to pay attention to what the Lord's doing.

And when He raises a man up, we will know Him and He will be the man, or two or three. So if that's the way the Lord's going to do it, then it fits perfectly with these verses right here, that we have to wait until God appoints the next person. to be the steward of what we do. So, in the steward's service, in all of its details, as well as in principle, they are accounted alone, accountable alone to Christ. So, if I'm accountable to Christ only, then you don't have the right to pick who I am. Do you understand what I mean?

Like we went through the process of trying to find a pastor when we searched out Vernon. When he came and talked to us, we said, he's the guy. Everybody seemed to know. I remember we were back there and we were talking about, well, what should we do now? He's been here. He taught. We've all got to know him. And we're going back and forth. You know, it's like five guys in a room and none of them can make up their mind. And Lauther says, what are you waiting for? Why don't you invite him? Oh, that sounds good. Let's do it.

So, I mean, the Lord's at work in the middle of that, and we didn't even recognize it, but he was the guy. And the 52 other people that sent in resumes, they weren't the guy. Well, that's the way it's going to be the next time. The Lord has somebody who he's getting ready to be the next steward here. So the Lord and not the church has the right and the authority and has the possession and exercise to which constitutes a servant. As I look around though, there are guys here that could be candidates, but most of you are pretty old and you're not going to make it. A servant is called to honor, to love and honor the body so that the local church is bound to respect their direct allegiance to Christ and not to interpose himself between them and Christ.

One of the things that I became keenly aware of as I grew a little bit in Christ as a young believer, I was having lunch with a guy one day and he said, well, let me demonstrate it this way. He put the salt and pepper shaker together. He said, and that's a symbol of the salt is Christ, we're the pepper. You know what religion does, and he starts taking pieces of paper and shoving them down between the salt and pepper shaker.

And everyone he shoved there, the distance got wider. So religion subverts intimacy with Christ. The rules subvert intimacy with Christ. Miles Stanford used to say, we have one job, and you know what the job is? Point people to Christ. There He is. That's the one you want to go for. Not me, Him. And you don't have to go through me to get to Him. Right here, in His Word, there He is.

The servants, no doubt, are saints. As such, their conduct, if apparently wrong, come under discipline. And if there's really evil, there's censure. All of the problems of sins within the body of Christ, if the steward is involved or the servant is involved in that, then the principles change, and they're to be judged based on that. And we'll see some of that as we go into Corinthians. It doesn't put them above anybody. If you're the guy rowing the boat in the bottom, you're not above anybody you're serving. No person or office enjoys or should enjoy immunity.

The doctrine of teachers, if false, would expose them to the church's judgment, and more severely than in the case of others, because their position perhaps even to dismiss them. If Roger and I got up here and started teaching, well, we've come up with a couple of laws that we need to be obeying, and we put them up on the board and said, Or we're going to have an inquisition to those of you who are not obeying our two laws. Then you would have the right to intervene with us because we're teaching falsehood. A clearly improper use of a gift of teaching or anything else for selfish purposes.

Let's say I pulled into a parking lot one day and I had clergy on the back of my car. That would be a hint. Still, in their service as such, apart from such evil, Christ's ministers are directly and exclusively accountable to Christ himself. They have not a person over them in the church, but are subject only to the Lord. And that's a scary place to be. It really is. But a wonderful place to be too.

The abandonment of this truth, the assertion of the assembly instead of the Christ's authority over ministry brought in by, like I said before, Catholicism or some other place, makes for an evil that comes in. It's clearly impossible the use of their gifts for selfishness, I said that already. So Christ's ministers are directly responsible to Christ now. Verse 4, Paul says, for I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted, but the one who examines me is the Lord. So Macaulay did a great thing here.

He said, who are the three people that are unqualified to evaluate? The first one, he says, is fellow believers, are not qualified to evaluate. This does not mean they are arrogant or irresponsible. It means human judgment is just that, human judgment. The next group are unbelievers, are not qualified to evaluate. This is expressed in the reference to any human court.

And Paul himself is not qualified to evaluate himself. I'm not qualified to evaluate myself and neither is Roger and neither are any of the other men that teach. We're not qualified to evaluate ourselves. His conscience is clear as far as he knows. Our judgment of ourselves is still human judgment. who is qualified to evaluate, the Lord Jesus only.

And you know what's interesting? When I was putting these verses together, I'm thinking to myself, is he really that active in a church? Does he really take the time to let us know about these things? I think he does. I definitely think he does. He approves or disapproves folks who are involved in the ministry, and we know that they are, and they're fine.

The necessary quality for judgment and evaluation is the knowledge of all of the facts. Therefore, the Lord is the only one who's qualified. What did it matter to him about God's estimation of service. Paul did not give much time and attention to introspection. Though he wanted to live with a good conscience before God, everybody does. But rather he concentrated on doing the job that God had put before him to the best ability since he was accountable. Back in chapter 3, verse 13, he says, each man's work will become evident, for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. As far as Paul knew, he was serving the Lord faithfully.

However, he realized that his conscience might not be as sensitive as it should be. Only his master had the insight as well as the authority to judge him. And I think if you're ever in that position where you're a teacher, you have to trust the Lord to be the one who judges how well you're doing.

He's revealing. He gets you involved. He gets you to be faithful. And then you want to know. Every one of us want to know, well, how's it going so far? He'll let you know. He'll let you know. Therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts, and then each man's praise will come to him from God." So, obligation to proper judgment. First of all, it's got to be the proper time. When is the time? When is the time? I think the time is the beam of judgment. I think it's when the Lord comes. That's what he says in the verse, the proper time when the Lord comes.

There must be a proper judge. Well, the Lord Jesus is the only one that can judge. And the reason he's the only one that can judge is because he's the only one that understands and knows what the hidden things of darkness are and disclose the motive of men's hearts. Motive is a really important thing.

If I read in verse 2 that as a steward I'm to be faithful to the mysteries and I'm not being faithful, I may not even know it. I have to depend on the Lord to judge. faithful, where I have inserted my own ego into the thing, where I have done that. I have to trust him to do that, and I think he will.

The next one is that you must have proper knowledge, which I probably just explained. And the last one is there must be the proper application of of bringing to light. So you don't judge anything before it's time. There has to be the proper judge who has the proper knowledge who will bring things to light and expose the motives.

Well, what's he going to do? How's he going to do this? Number one, he's going to make us aware. He's going to show us in his word where this is the correct thing. This may be the thing you were thinking or Helmer Lloyd used to say this all the time, and I really identified. He would be up here teaching, and he'd be on the way home, and he'd be secretly doing this. Boy, I really did a good job today. And about halfway home, the Lord would go, how's it going there, big guy? You did a pretty good job, didn't you? And he would be just devastated.

Any of you who are teachers know exactly what I'm talking about because you've done the same thing and the Lord has corrected you that same way. Where He has said to you, they learn because of me, not you. You're the conduit. Anybody who's ever taught knows that principle and the Lord is very faithful to teachers to let them know about that and I'm so thankful for that.

So, to sum up now, the Apostle in this epistle very definitely judges and condemns many things that these Corinthian believers were both saying and doing, and the next chapters will show that. And other scriptures clearly show that in the manner of fellowship, conduct, doctrine, the gifted servants in common with all saints are amendable to the discipline of the assembly, that the assembly is responsible to judge Such matters. If you're off the rails, they're responsible. But the things that matter, the mysteries of God are the things you're accountable to God, ministers accountable to God.

Unfortunately, have we not to admit that these exhortations have been entirely set aside in the great man-made systems of Christendom, where the servant instead of being appointed by Christ or appointed by men and chosen by a congregation. The result has been that the mysteries of God have been almost wholly neglected and the majority of servants have been more careful to retain popularity with men rather than maintain faithfulness to Christ.

I read that paragraph and I thought, boy, you know, that puts a in one sentence sort of puts what the problem is. The right stewards aren't in place to teach the mysteries because we didn't let God appoint them. And we appointed them. And so what happens?

The men become more interested in their own popularity than they do to be faithful ministers of Christ. One of the great things about this body of believers here is that people really are interested in the mysteries. We're interested in the truth. We're interested in knowing what God has to say about things and this position we enjoy and everything that goes with being positioned in Christ in the heavenlies.

So as I close, let's pray. Dear Father, how we thank you. It's important for us to know who we are, where we are, and what blessings we have in our position in the Lord Jesus. And we so thank you, the fact that you've done that. And that you have put in place gifted servants in all aspects of our body of believers. And we're so thankful for that. And we ask that you would continue to do that. And we pray in your Son's precious name. Amen. Okay.