In the late 1800's
John Wesley & George Whitefield were leaders of a Methodist revival
that swept across America. But both of them started to have different
theological viewpoints about predestination & free will. Eventually
their differences caused them to split.
Wesley began preaching sermons that attacked Whitefield's doctrine of
election. In response, Whitefield wrote a letter to Wesley condemning
him for doing so. Wesley tore the letter into pieces in front of a large
crowd at one of his meetings. It seemed as though the 2 men would end
up as bitter enemies. Both the opposite was true. Even though the people
who followed these men tried to fuel the fire of hatred, both men wouldn't
let them do it.
Despite their theological differences, they remained loyal friends.
In fact, one man, who knew about their theological differences, asked
Whitefield if he thought he would see John Wesley in heaven. Whitefield
replied: "I fear not. He will be so near the throne and we at such a
distance that we shall hardly get a sight of him."
Whitefield made a conscious decision not to let his followers cause
him to have ill thoughts against his dear friend John Wesley. This is
what Paul is talking about in the first part of v. 6.
What Paul wants us to know is that he and Apollos weren't the cause
of the divisions in the church. There wasn't any power struggle going
on between him & Apollos over who should be the leader of this church.
They weren't going around behind each other's back saying, "Follow me,
and stay away from him!" The people were the ones who decided to follow
one instead of the other.
Paul and Apollos were the first two leaders God gave this church. When
Paul first started this church, he was their hero. The people were committed
to living out the principles that he taught them. But after Paul left,
Apollos came as their first full-time pastor. He explained in greater
details the foundational truths that Paul shared with them. Then God
moved him on to different geographical areas as well
It wasn't long after Apollos left that the people started picking their
favorite preacher. Some of the members loved how Paul analyzed an issue.
Or how he was able to stop the heretics in their tracks with his brilliant
logic. Others loved Apollos' style of preaching because of his ability
to paint beautiful word pictures to tell a story. Some preferred Paul
because he quoted from the Old Testament all through his sermons. And
some preferred Apollos because he quoted from the poets and philosophers
of the day. Of the 2, Apollos' messages were relevant, while Paul's
was more doctrinal. And on and on it went.
At the time Paul wrote this letter both his & Apollos' hearts were breaking
as they heard that the congregation was now divided over non-biblical
matters-v. 6(b).
The Holy Spirit's aim in having Paul this is to teach us to stay within
the confines of the Bible. The words, "what is written," are often used
in the New Testament to introduce quotes from the Old Testament. So
what Paul is saying is "Do not go beyond anything that is written in
the Bible." This truth can be applied to all areas of our lives. We
are to make sure all our beliefs and all our behaviors line up with
the Word of God.
Can you imagine what this church would be like if we treated each other
like the Bible teaches us? There are 30 positive commands of how we
are treat one another in the New Testament. If we kept these commands,
we would never gossip about each other. Instead, we would go out of
our ways to love & help each other.
The issue Paul is specifically talking about is our tendency to worship
our spiritual leaders above that which is written. The Bible clearly
teaches that a spiritual leader is to be respected, honored, and obeyed.
In the book of Hebrews we read, "Obey your leaders and submit to their
authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.
Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would
be of no advantage to you."
On the other hand, the Scriptures also teach that you should not treat
your spiritual leader as a little god. In fact, if you look at the great
spiritual leaders of the Bible, you see that none of them allowed others
to elevate them beyond that what is written. A good example of this
was John the Baptist. Jesus said that "Among those born of women, there
is no one greater than John." Yet this is what John said about himself:
"A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. He must
increase, but I must decrease."
Fortunately I don't have to worry about any of you unduly elevating
me, because I'm pretty ordinary in my gifts and abilities. But this
is a real danger for those Christian leaders who have unique gifts of
communication and who ooze charisma out of their pores. Some people's
whole day is ruined if they don't hear Charles Stanley every morning.
I thank God for Charles' ministry. He deserves our respect for his clear
application of God's Word to the wounds of life. But let's not go beyond
Scripture in assigning to him or to anyone else a place that only Christ
should fill. Those people wouldn't even want us to. My pastor, Chuck
Smith, doesn't want the people to look to him more than they do to Jesus
Christ. Even though God has used him to lead countless of thousands
to a saving relationship with Jesus. And even though God has used the
almost 1,000 Calvary Chapels that are throughout the world to lead 10's
of thousands of people to Jesus, Pastor Chuck still gives all the credit
to God.
It is a dangerous practice to elevate a man to a higher spiritual level
than what the Bible prescribes. For it gives him the ability to cause
people to follow after his teachings, even if they go against the Bible.
This is the mark of every cult. Every single cult has a leader that
went beyond what the Bible has to say.
David Koresh brainwashed his followers to the point that they were willing
to stay inside their compound as it burned to the ground. Jim Jones
duped his followers into drinking poison. Joseph Smith, the founder
of Mormonism, said he experienced a series of heavenly visitations,
beginning with God and then Jesus Christ, in which he was informed that
all existing churches were in error. And that he was to restore the
true church on earth. So an angel led him to discover some buried golden
plates that had been left there by an ancient prophet that contained
the true word of God. Smith translated the tablets into what he called
The Book of Mormon.
False teachers always want you to follow their teachings more than what
the Bible plainly teaches. Of course, the important implication of all
this is that we must know the Scriptures. You won't go beyond the Scriptures
if you know how far the Scriptures go. I'm not for a moment suggesting
everyone needs to learn Greek and Hebrew. But I am saying that you should
become a faithful student of the Bible.
The truth of the matter is that I know that some of you haven't opened
your Bible in quite some time. You've got it displayed where everybody
can see it. But it's become more of a decoration piece than the roadmap
for your life.
I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty. I know most of you purposely
don't read the Bible. It's just that you have such a busy schedule that
you don't believe you have a spare moment to spend time in God's Word.
But the truth of the matter is that you will never grow to spiritual
maturity, you will never discover all that God has for you, until you
develop a spiritual hunger & thirst that can only be satisfied by spending
daily time alone with God in his Word. It's amazing how much you can
learn about God just by reading a chapter or two a day.
Now I don't you to do this out of sense of legalism. I don't want you
to feel you have to read the Bible. I want you to come to the point
where you see that for your own spiritual well-being you need to be
in the Word of God.
I know that if you will stay in the Word, and never go beyond what is
written in it, then you will be free. Jesus said, "If you abide in My
word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free. And he that is free is free indeed."
A young man came to me for help because he was hooked on Internet porn.
He was spending 4-5 hours a day in front of his computer viewing different
pornographic sites. His addiction was destroying his family and his
career. I counseled him to start spending some time, every day in the
Bible. I encouraged him to read on a daily basis 5 Psalms, because they
are the psalmist's struggles with life, and 1 ch. of Proverbs, because
they are God's thoughts about how to live. The last time I talked with
him, he shared that he was now porn free.
The power that comes from spending time in the Bible is due to the fact
that this book is alive. It is alive because the Spirit has breathed
life into it. And because it is alive, the Holy Spirit speaks to us,
through the words on the pages, about the issues of life we are struggling
with. And since the Spirit is the only one who really knows what is
going on inside of us, he is able to use the words of the Bible to convict
us of our sins. Then, when we confess we've sinned, and turned away
from those sins, the Spirit uses the words of the Bible, like a surgeon's
scalpel, to cut to the root of the sin, and to remove it from our lives.
Not only will God's Word set you free, but it will give you the ability
to withstand the trials of life. Jesus also said, "Everyone who hears
these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who
built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and
the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because
it had its foundation on the rock."
Despite how much Bible, theology, even Greek I have studied, I am not
smart enough, or strong enough to make it on my own. Which is why I
have made it a practice of my life never to go a day without reading
some portion of the Bible. And I'm not talking about reading the Bible
to find a sermon. I'm talking about reading the Bible just so I can
hear God speak to me. Developing a lifestyle of daily Bible reading
is not easy. I remember hearing that if you read the Bible for 30 days
it will become a part of your routine. Nothing is ever that easy. For
what they don't tell you is that it will only become part of your routine
if you choose to do so.
Developing a lifestyle of daily Bible reading is like going on a diet.
All the best intentions will never cause you to do it. You just got
to start doing it. I've lost almost 80 lbs. in the last 5 months because
1 day I got up and decided it was time to change the way I ate. But
I didn't try to do it on my own. I said, "Lord, today I'm starting a
diet. And with your help I can do it. So please help my unbelief." And
this is something I have to do on a daily basis.
In the same way, when you get up tomorrow say, "Lord, today I'm going
to start spending time alone with you in your Word. And with your help
I can make this a daily practice in my life!" Then all you have to do
is submit your will to the will of the Spirit.
To come back to the overall point of our text, look at the end of verse
6. The Greek word "puffed up" literally means to blow up or to inflate.
It's derived from a Greek word that was used for a set of bellows. You
use bellows to cause the fire in a fireplace to flare back up. What
Paul is saying is that you are puffing yourself up with the hot-air
of pride when you take a stand for one teacher over against another.
For in doing so, you are attributing the spiritual skills of the men,
to the men themselves, and not to God.
A.W. Tozer was a guest preacher at a church, The church's pastor introduced
him as the greatest prophet of the twentieth century. When Tozer got
behind the pulpit, he bowed his head, and he said: "Lord, forgive that
brother for what he has just said, and forgive me for enjoying it so
much."
This is one of the areas that the devil often attacks me. I need encouragement,
so please don't be stopping encouraging me when you get something out
of one of my sermons. But I'm also aware that there's a fine line between
needing encouragement and my need for encouragement! I've got to be
very careful that in my need for encouragement that I don't cause any
of you to get your eyes off of Jesus Christ and put them on me. Those
times I preach a sermon that blesses your heart, I want you to recognize
that the sermon was just one of God's good and perfect gifts to you.
It has nothing to do with me, or my theological education, or even my
public speaking ability. It's all because of God!
I know that God will not share his glory with anyone. And if I forget
this, or try to make you think more highly of me, I know that God can
take me down a few notches just as easily as he raised me up.
Paul addresses this issue in verse 7. Have you ever been around someone
who thinks they are more spiritual than everyone else? The whole time
you hang around them you feel as though they live in another spiritual
stratosphere than you are. Talking to them it seems as though they never
wrestle with the same problems you wrestle with.
And if you dare share your struggles with them, by the time they get
through rebuking you, you feel like a spiritual midget. For instance,
you share with them about how hard it is for you to share your faith
with non-believers. And they say, "I never have that problem. Why last
week I won 45 people to the Lord. What's wrong with you?"
The truth of the matter is that some of you are more spiritual than
others. Some of you have been living longer in the Lord. Some of you
have just grown quicker spiritually because you've spent more time in
the Bible.
But Paul wants us to know that we all come from the same lump of clay.
And that the one who molds this lump of clay is God. Paul drives this
point home by using 2 rhetorical questions in the last part of v. 7.
The truth of the matter is, those who are more spiritual are also the
most humble. Jesus said this to his disciples: "Whoever wants to become
great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first
must be your slave." Jesus could say this because he was the most spiritual
man who ever lived.
But he didn't go around bragging about how spiritual he was. He didn't
wear a gold medal around his neck for being the
1
spiritual person in the world. Instead, he modeled humbleness! We see
this especially when he washed his disciples' feet.
Jesus knew that everything he got, everything he was, was a gift from
his heavenly Father. There was a time when a man came to Jesus and said,
"Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus' response
was, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone."
We all know that Jesus was good. He never once sinned. Growing up he
never talked back to his parents. He never hit his younger brothers
& sisters. He never got into any kind of trouble. But he never took
the credit for this ability. Jesus' response was to make sure that the
man knew that only God can make people good.
Our problem is that we struggle with the sin of the pride of life. We're
proud as peacocks when we think of what all we've accomplished. Because
of this, it is real easy to develop the attitude of boasting about what
we've done. Instead of boasting about what we've done, we need to view
everything in our lives, including life itself, as a gift from God.
This becomes more of a reality as we get older.
The moment we turn 40 we start to think about getting old. Some of you
right now are beginning to wonder how much longer your body is going
to last. As our hair starts to thin or fall out, and as every muscle
in our body hurts when we try to do what we used to do as kids, we begin
to realize that we're not going to live forever.
For instance, I used to be able to stay up for days on end without it
bothering me too much. But now, if I volunteer as a chaperone for a
youth lock-in, it takes me a week to get over the sleep I lost.
Let's face it, there is nothing we can do to stop the aging process.
Nor is there anything we do to stop the never welcomed guest of death
from knocking on our door. When it comes time for the Lord to take us
home, we can kick & scream all we want, but it still is going to happen.
Now I long to leave this world to be with my Lord. But I'm not going
to do anything stupid to quicken my entrance into heaven either. That's
because I love the gift of life.
And that's how we have to treat life, as a gift from God. In fact, we
need to treat everything we have, whether it's our family, our jobs,
or our possessions, as gifts from God. If you will do so, you will experience
a peace that you have never felt before.
Paul viewed his entire life as a gift from God. And he practiced what
he preached. One day, as Paul was heading off to a prayer meeting, he
was used mightily by God in casting an evil spirit out of a girl. I'm
sure Paul was praising God as he stood on top of this spiritual high
mountain.
But Paul quickly entered into what most people would consider to be
the lowest of all spiritually low valleys. For this event caused Paul
to be cast into a prison cell later on that same day. And do we see
Paul cursing God for allowing him to be put in jail for doing good?
No!
Instead the Bible tells us that "About midnight Paul and Silas were
praying and singing hymns of praise to God." Paul was able to do this
because he knew that God takes care of everything that belongs to him.
Paul knew that "God causes all things to work together for good to those
who love God." It is my prayer that you all get to the place in your
life where you recognize this truth.
And finally, let me point out that the key that unlocks that promise
is to have a love relationship with God. And the only way you can love
God is through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God showed his love for
you by allowing Jesus to die on a cross to restore you relationship
with him that was broken by sin. So how can you say you love God, but
you reject his son?
Please understand that this is no other way to save yourself apart from
inviting Jesus into your life as lord. There is no religious ritual
you can perform to achieve your own forgiveness. But God has promised
to declare you "not guilty" and let you spend eternity with him if you
will just put trust in what Jesus did for you when he died on the Cross.
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