1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; 3 for you are still carnal. For where there is envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? 4 For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.

If I ask most people who a carnal Christian is, they will most likely point to someone who is not too faithful; who is doing this or that; who looks this way or that way. But very few people will characterize the one who is carnal as the one who is an isolationist, the one who is divisive, and the one who plays by his own rules. That is exactly what Apostle Paul is saying here in this passage that we read. A carnal Christian is the one that plays by his own rules. The carnal Christian is the one who is motivated by jealousy and divisiveness, who’s power hungry, isolated and who will never grow in the deep things of God. 

As with any passage of the Scripture, it is very important for us to understand the context of what Paul is writing here. Now, if you recall the messages that we spoke previously in 1 Corinthians 2, Paul has just concluded speaking about two kinds of people. There are two kinds of people. He says there is a natural man and there is a spiritual man. And for the natural man, all the things that we speak sound like foolishness to him. The natural man is not able to comprehend the things that are being taught. He’s comparing the wisdom of man with the wisdom of God. He goes on to say in chapter two that the wisdom of God is proclaimed through the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ. Whereas in the world, the natural man sees the cross of Jesus Christ as a point of failure, as a point of foolishness. But that same cross brings the message of salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord. It is through the power of the preaching of the cross that a person is changed; that a person’s eternal destiny is changed through the sharing of the gospel. 

That is why Paul is making an emphasis on preaching the Word. In our church too we make an emphasis on preaching of the word because preaching of the word pleases God. It is the means by which God is pleased to share the gospel. It is the means by which God has chosen to share his message with the people, which is the preaching of the cross of Jesus Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 2: 13 -16, if you turn your Bibles, he says, “These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”

The church in Corinth naturally assumed that they were spiritual people because they had amazing teachers. They had preachers that could move the crowds expound on the word. But yet they failed to understand and recognize the wisdom of God. In fact, they were more worried about the wisdom of man and the philosophies that man could bring which seemed much more attractive to the church in Corinth. Paul is addressing this because he’s forced to as there were now factions in the church. There were people that were associating themselves to a particular preacher. Some people were saying, “I’m of Paul.” Some people were saying, “I’m of Apollos.” “I’m of Cephas.” And some people were saying, “I belong to nobody. I belong to Jesus Christ. And I’m not going to talk with anybody.” 

Paul calls them as carnal Christians. Whenever there are divisions made in the church, it is made because of carnal Christians. When people judge based upon the personality and method of a preacher, they are bringing carnality into the church. A carnal Christian is the one who is jealous, divisive, power hungry, and isolated from other Christians. We expect babies to be babies, but not adults. We expect adults to be adults. Let’s just say a group of your adult friends have invited you for dinner. We all go for dinner, you sit at the table after a little chit chat, suddenly everybody takes out their bottles and they’re all sucking from the bottle. How weird would that be right? 

Now in the same way, Christians in churches, as Paul is saying, have been immature, they have been like babies because of the divisions that they were making in the church. And the word he uses is the word ‘carnal’. The word ‘carnal’ or the word ‘worldly’ which is translated in the NIV Bible says ‘worldly’ or ‘fleshly’. It all means the same thing. It is basically acting out in your fleshly ways – the deeds of the flesh, which the Book of Galatians talks about. Acting in your fleshly instincts and not having a spiritual mind or not having the mind of Christ are characteristics of carnality. As Paul is saying here, that every believer must assure that he is growing and maturing in faith and not being a carnal Christian. 

So the carnal mind stifles spiritual growth. Because they have been carnal, they have continued to be babies and they have not grown in their spiritual walk or maturity. We have a similar passage in Hebrews 5:11 onwards, where the writer is talking about Jesus Christ in the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 5: 11, “of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

So we see a very similar passage where the writer is addressing the crowd here. He’s saying that “Hey, listen, by now you should have been teachers. You have been a Christian for so many years, you should have been a mature Christian who is able to teach other people and disciple other people. But you yourself need milk, because you are not able to digest solid food.” How can we tell a person is a carnal Christian? How can we tell a person is not growing spiritually? Well, you got to look at their diet. You got to look at what they are feeding on. 

In the passage that we read, are they able to digest solid food? Or are they still on milk? Now milk is very important. When a baby’s born, that’s the only source of food the baby has. Now milk is used in the Scriptures by apostle Peter. 1 Peter 2:2  “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word.” Apostle Peter says that it’s important that we start off with milk, but slowly you must grow in your appetite for the Word of God. A lot of times people who become Christians continue to be adult babies in their spiritual walk. They are not able to understand the spiritual things. Paul says that one of the reason why they are continuing to be carnal is because they are not spirit filled. They are not filled with the Word of God as well because if they are spirit filled, they yield themselves to the Spirit of God rather than to their fleshly desires. They would have grown and they would have become mature. 

Hebrews 6:1-3 says, “1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgement. 3 And this we will do if God permits.”

We see that a spiritually mature person is the one that has grown beyond these elementary principles of Christ. Now, what are the elementary principles of Christ? He says “Laying again, the foundation of repentance from dead works.” Every Christian ought to know what it means to repent. What it means to repent from your sins and what it means to repent from your dead works. Every Christian ought to know that if you still need somebody to teach you about repentance, you’re still being a baby. So the basic fundamental things a Christian ought to know is repentance and having faith towards God.  How do I confess my sins? How do I get back before God? How do I exercise my faith? These are the most fundamental things that every Christian should know. 

Hebrews 6:2, “Of the doctrine of baptisms.” Every Christian should know about baptism. In fact, baptism should be the very first response when a person believes upon Jesus Christ. After you say, “I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe that He is the true God. I believe that He died for me on the cross. I believe that He was buried for three days, and he rose up from death on the third day, and I believe that He’s going to come back again to this world to judge and to reward those who believe upon him.” If you say this, the very first thing that you must do after that is to be baptized. That is the beginning and the initiation of your discipleship. 

So, it is very important that you know the basic, fundamental things about being a Christian. He goes on to talk about laying of hands, that is again putting your hands on a person. It is used for many different things. It is basically a service. When you lay hands on a person, you’re praying for that person, you are interceding on behalf of that person, or you are commissioning that person for ministry. So laying of hands out of service, for the resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment, all must be very clearly known by the Christians. Now, here’s my question. Do you know all these doctrines that the Bible talks about? If I ask you, where in the Bible do you find these doctrines? Are you able to share them, if you are not, you are continuing to be a baby. My friend, it’s time for you to grow up. It’s time for you to mature, it’s time for you to stop drinking, sucking on that bottle and getting up and eating solid food.  

A believer’s maturity is not simply based upon their own lifestyle, but it’s also based on how much they are filled with the Word of God. How much of the deep things do you desire from the Lord? How much of the diet do you enjoy from the Word of God? A lot of times as we see, most of the Christians, they are very happy to know just the simple, basic things. They are simply satisfied by reading one verse from a psalm that gives them comfort, happiness and some kind of an assurance. “Today is going to be a good day for me.” Most of the time people think that’s what Christianity is all about. No my friends, Christian life or being a believer is getting to be closer to your Lord, day by day. It is a relationship and usually having a relationship means you are drawing closer and closer, right? That is the kind of relationship that you need to have with Jesus Christ. You need to draw closer to Him where you’re getting to know him more and more and getting to understand His word more and more. 

Paul is saying here that the church in Corinth were being like babies and fighting over preachers – Apollos, Paul and Peter. They’re like children, they fight. You’ve seen children who fight? They’re always bickering among themselves. They’re always comparing, saying, “I am great.” “I can do this.”  “My father can fight better than your father.” “My father makes more money than your father” “I come from a bigger house than you.” 

They’re always comparing and bickering among themselves. They are always jealous. And that is something that Christians must not participate in if you do not want to live a carnal life. Somebody who does exactly that is called a carnal Christian. This carnal Christian is not somebody who’s outside the church. This person is inside the church and he is jealous and he is causing divisions in the church. Paul says that in the church these things should not happen. And he’s kind of talking to the church in Corinth very strongly here. He’s telling them, “Hey, listen I wasn’t actually able to share a lot of things with you because you were babies, and you would not be able to accept it. I had a lot of things that I wanted to share.” 

Paul lived in Corinth for 18 months. He shared in the church there for 18 months along with Aquila and Priscilla. He was working with his own hands as a tentmaker. And he was there sharing the gospel, teaching with them for 18 months. Paul said, “Even after speaking with you, sharing with you for so many months, you were still like babies because you are not able to understand the deep things; because you are behaving after your flesh like mere men.” He then goes on to talk about something so amazing from verse six onwards. I will read from verse five. 

1 Corinthians 3:5 “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” 

He then gives two illustrations about how the preachers ought to be in the church. What is the role of the pastor? What is the role of the teacher in the Bible? In the church, what are they supposed to be doing? The two kinds of illustrations he gives are of a farmer and the second one is of a builder. We’re going to look into the first one this morning. He says that they are the ones who minister in the church. The one who’s teaching and preaching in the church is like a farmer. 

He goes on to say in verse 9, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.” He says that you are a field in which God is doing work and we are just farmers in that field. There are three important lessons that we can learn from this passage. 

NUMBER ONE. He says that there are different kinds of ministries. In verse six he says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” We see that there is a diversity in the ministry in the church. One laborer plows the soil, another sows the seed and another waters the seed. And as time goes by the plants grow, the fruit appears and the laborers enjoy the harvest. Now this is what we see in the church. The church is made up of different parts, different roles with people in different capacities who serve in the church. There is this diversity but nobody is greater. The one who’s sowing or plowing or watering are all not greater than the one who is giving the fruit. 

NUMBER TWO. There is a unity in the work that is being done. He says in verse 6, “Now he who plants and he who waters are one.” They are doing one work. They are not competing with each other. There is no competition between those who are serving in the church. A lot of times people think that it is a competition. Now in our church, we are a smaller group, but in larger churches, sometimes people think that they need to compete with each other.  They want to outdo others. Somehow they think that if their ego and pride is displayed, they are serving the Lord. But they are the furthest ones from the truth. As Paul says, you are being a carnal Christian if you serve the Lord this way. There is unity in the purpose when each one does the work under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There may be many different ministries in the church but the purpose is one.

NUMBER THREE. We see there’s humility. It is not the human laborers that produce the harvest but the Lord of the harvest that gives the increase. It is God who gives increase. It is God who produces the fruit in the lives of the believer. It is the Holy Spirit that brings the fruit of the Spirit in the life of a person. This is just a great, great verse, because a lot of times leaders are puffed up. Pastors are puffed up thinking that somehow they have caused all this growth. They’ll show you statistics and numbers and all these things displayed in terms of the growth that they have caused. No, my friends, it is God who causes an increase in the church, it is God who adds people to the church. Now, I used to think that way. I used to think that I need to be somebody who is successful and I need to add numbers.  Absolutely not, it is God who gives increase. That takes away all the pressure off me. It takes the pressure and the burden off anybody else who’s standing in the church. It is not our word, but it is the burden of the Lord to give the increase. 

But Paul says something very important and he’s going to build on that afterwards. He says in verse 7, “So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.”

You see, success in ministry is measured by the labor. Success in ministry is measured by the faithfulness that a minister has to the call that God has given to him. Now, in the church, as we said, there are different ministries. You may think this is only talking about the preachers and the pastors in the church. No, each one of you is given a ministry; a portion in the church to supply the need within the church. You are given the opportunity to serve and wash the feet of the disciples; to serve one another; to minister to one another; to impart where the church lacks. You are given that opportunity. Now, the thing that God considers among the people whom he has called to ministry is faithfulness, to be faithful and to labor. The word for ‘labor’ there is to work until you faint. 

The way a person should do ministry is to work until they faint. It is to do the hard work of labor. As you know, tilling the ground is hard work. A farmer’s job is hard work. It has a lot of sweat with long days and nights of tilling the ground, and preparing it so it is conducive for growth without any hindrance. And he says that every man is going to receive a reward according to his own labor. The day is going to come when we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Paul is going to talk about that more in the following verses which we will see next week. There is going to be a day where we will all stand before the Lord and be held accountable for the things that God has given to us. 

My friend, what will you answer Him that day? When the Lord says, “Look, I’ve given you five talents. I’ve given these things to you so that you can trade and you can multiply it. What did you do?”  Are you going to say, “Here Lord, I multiplied them. Here are ten talents.” To which God will reply, “Well done thou good and faithful servant?”

 Or are you going to be like the other servant who had one talent? What did he do? He took it and nicely hid it, wanting nobody to know he had this talent. So many times in the church, people behave that way too. So how you use your talents before the Lord is very important, and you will receive a reward for your labor? 

You know what we may think is important is not actually important. But being faithful to God receiving a “well done” from the Lord is much more important for the ministry that God has called us to. As a church and as ministers of the word of God, we have to care for the soil. It requires diligence and hard work to produce a harvest. A lazy preacher is like a slothful farmer. Proverbs 24: 30 – 34 says, “I went by the field of the lazy man, And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding;  31 And there it was, all overgrown with thorns;

 Its surface was covered with nettles; Its stone wall was broken down. 32 When I saw it, I considered it well; I looked on it and received instruction:” 

Solomon saw that the field of the slothful was overgrown with thorns and covered with nettles. The stone wall that was there was broken down because the slothful person was too lazy to protect it. He probably even removed the fence so he could easily go in and come out. And then he received some instruction in verse 33, “A little sleep, a little slumber,

A little folding of the hands to rest; 34 So shall your poverty come like a prowler, And your need like an armed man.”

What a sad thing it is. We hear that many preachers, many pastors, many people who are called to ministry and who can do a lot of things for the Lord behave this way. They are slothful. There is no slothfulness in the ministry that God has called, only faithfulness. God has called you to be a person that would give everything to be a person of labor in ministry. 

It is very important for Christians to be faithful in the things that God has called us for. Paul uses the word ‘servant’ many times in connection to the work that God has called him to. He says that a quality a servant must have is faithfulness. A ministry is by being faithful to what God has given to the person. So as we see in this passage, Paul is saying here, “I and Apollos and Peter are all laborers who are simply doing the work that God has called us to do. We are simply the people that are sharing in the farm that God is building. The farm belongs to the Lord and we are simply like farmers.”

So in closing this morning, verse nine says, “For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building.” We see that the most important thing for ministry in the church is that of cultivating the soil so that there can be growth in the church. Our growth is not determined by numbers, but it is determined by God. It is God who gives the increase; it is God who makes things larger; it is God who ultimately gets all the glory because of the growth and ministry in the church. That’s why Paul says that there should be no greater honor to be bestowed upon those who are doing the ministry in the church than that which is required. It is important that the church must give a double honor to those especially who are preaching and laboring in the Word. The scriptures do talk about that, but they should not think beyond what they are in Christ. Paul is going to speak about in the passage later on as well. 

So there are two important things that we heard. 

1. Being a carnal Christian is not simply about your lifestyle, your Bible reading habits or your church attendance. Rather a carnal Christian is someone who causes divisions in the church. It’s someone who’s jealous, divisive, power hungry and isolated. A carnal Christian is a baby, in the sense that they’ve been a Christian for many years but haven’t grown. Their carnality stifles them from growing spiritually.  If a baby remains a baby, it shows that there is something really wrong. The baby must grow and mature into an adult. In the same way you as a Christian should not continue to be a baby but must grow and mature because it is God’s desire in Ephesians 4. Paul says that the Lord has given gifts in the church for people to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers so that the whole body is edified and built up until they come to the unity of the fullness or maturity of Christ. Until you become like Christ, there should be labor in the church, which is why spiritual gifts are given. So God has given everything to you. But if you continue in your carnal behavior and continue to act based upon your flesh, then you are not going to grow. 
2. God has given ministers in the church to produce a good harvest. There are laborers working in the field of God but the laborers are not great. There is a diversity of ministries – to water, to plant, to till the soil. But it is ultimately God who gives the increase. And the most important thing is that if God has called you to labor in the church, you remain faithful and slothful. The opposite of faithfulness is slothfulness. Slothfulness starts out very small with a little folding of hands and little slumber. “Oh, it’s too painful, maybe I won’t do this work for the Lord.” That is where compromise comes in and you become a slothful person. Rather, you should be a faithful minister to the ministry that God has called, especially if you’re called to preach. 

If you’re called to sow and water, you better be very, very careful. Everybody who stands in this place and who preaches from the Word of God is going to be a person that should be held accountable, and should be considered as a faithful person in the church. There are different kinds of people that are building different things. Some build with wood, hay and stubble and some build with precious stones, gold and silver. Each one’s work is going to be judged one day and there is going to be a reward according to their own labor. We’ll also discuss the different kinds of rewards that are going to be there for the people working in the church and for those people who are faithful in the church.  

Thank you for staying and hearing the Word of God. May the Lord bless you.