“You Are God’s...Building”

A sermon based upon 1 Corinthians 3: 1-16

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

Sunday August, 9th, 2020 (Growing In Grace)

Bill Self, a retired Baptist pastor, tells about taking his two grandsons to their swimming lessons.   He thought this would be the routine trip, but he was wrong. The pool was enclosed in a rather large building, and the sounds of all those excited children of different ages and abilities were deafening.

He also noticed something else unusual.  All the noise was coming from the shallow end of the pool.  The only sound coming from the deep end was the sound of experienced swimmers swimming with discipline and confidence. There was no yelling, no crying, no complaining, no evidence of fear or frustration.  They were following the instructions of their leader.

Then, Dr. Self gave his church a lesson he observed in that Swimming Hall.   He said, “After a lifetime of (church) ministry, I have concluded that all the noise comes from the shallow end of the pool, from those who haven't learned to swim with confidence or are not secure enough to venture into the deep water.”*

This was certainly true in Corinth, Paul’s most notorious church.   The book of Corinthians is filled with a church making a lot of noise.   It’s coming from the ‘shallow end of the pool’.  Paul’s own description is that most in the church were  still living like infants when they should have already been on solid food, growing up to become God’s mature people doing God’s work in the world.  But instead of growing up and going deeper in their faith, they were still a bunch of babies splashing around, making all kinds of unpleasant noise in the shallow water of a childish faith..

YOU ARE STILL IN THE FLESH... (v. 3).

Pastors see this a lot; in both people in and in churches.   In a recent copy of a Christian Magazine (Christian Century, Jan 2020), a British Pastor named Sam Wells, tells of getting a very nasty letter from one of his members.   That woman scolded him over and over because he wasn’t like their last pastor.  “Shame on you, she says.  Don’t sleep easy in your bed tonight.  Roll up your sleeves and do some of the dirty work around here.”   She thought she was so smart, but she didn’t have a clue.  She was splashing a bunch of water in his face, but it wasn’t doing anyone any good.

Interestingly, that letter came to Pastor Wells on the very same day he got a call from another church member.  He had gotten to know this person very well, because he had only recently performed the funeral for his vivacious daughter who tragically died too young.  The call was to ask his pastor to go by and see his brother, who was really struggling with his niece’s death.  “You have been there for me,” He said.  “I wondered if you could go by sometime and talk to my brother.”   

It was then, that the pastor recalled the sermon he had preached at the young girl’s funeral.  It was based on a line from the Song of Solomon, chapter 8, verse 6: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death, passion fierce as the grace.”  He preached this is as pointing to the Christian faith...saying that no matter what happens to us in life or death, we too, are a seal upon God’s heart.  The way we know that, he said, is because Jesus love for us was ‘as strong as death’.  Jesus did the ‘dirty work’ we can never do.  Jesus ‘rolled up his sleeves’ and revealed the marks of love on his hands and side that are in God’s heart.

What that shallow swimming, milk-drinking, fleshly, jealous woman could not understand is that doing the work of ‘love’ is the hard ‘dirty work’ of God’s church.  It’s not just the job of a certain pastor, working in the cookie-cutter image of another.  No, it’s all of us participating in how we work, how we talk, and in how we express ourselves, doing the deeper work of love, understanding, and having compassion with and for others.  But of course, you don’t understand this when you are living a shallow, fleshly, self-focused life.  You have to get out there into the deep to understand.  You have to mature.  You have to move beyond living only for yourself to live for God. 

When Paul talks about people ‘still of the flesh’ (3) and still being ‘fed with milk’ and ‘not ready for solid food’ he’s talking about not growing or going deeper in faith to live in tune with God’s indwelling Spirit.  We see this a lot in some churches these days, don’t we?   Churches and Christians who are content to hold on to their ‘bottles’ and pacifiers, living in shallow places.   Sometimes this comes from empty places in their own lives, living with old wounds that still need healing.  Often that person can’t move forward, get stuck and can’t  get on with life, because they haven’t dealt with the pain, the loss, or hurt in their past.  They may get this ‘flesh-focused’, ‘infantile’ spirit very honestly.  It’s may not be all their fault, but because they are afraid and unable to face life and take responsibility, they become ‘dishonest’ with themselves and with others.  They often hide in passive-aggressive behaviors, acting very compassionate, but at the same time sneaking around, and then unexpectedly lashing out and attacking.  And it’s all because of the pain and hurt they don’t want to bear alone.  They want to take somebody down with them so they become hateful, vindictive, and some, like the lady in England become ‘clergy killers’.

I’ve spoken about my cat, who is still a kitten in some ways, because she was abandoned by her mother and didn’t have a normal ‘kittenhood’.  We rescued her, but she’s still in recovery.  She’s stuck in some very infantile, kitten ways.  When the dog is walking, the cat will hide, then suddenly spring out and jump on the back of the dog.  The cat’s behavior keeps the dog walking on pins and needles, wondering when it will get attacked next.   It will keep on happening until the dog ‘puts her foot down’, shows her teeth and snaps back with true authority.  

Because church’s are rescue stations, if a church doesn’t have strong, mature leadership, a can be held captive to people’s pain,  living in constant, crippling fear and dread’ of the weakest, loudest, most infantile member, who ‘attacks’, ‘yells’ and ‘splashes’ against others who don’t agree with them.  This must have been part of what was happening in Corinth, because the church was broken into factions, with each one screaming they were best, struggling to move forward.

Negativity is one way to to spot an infantile faith,  but not the only way.  As Paul says in this text, this didn’t start out as ‘jealousy and quarreling’ but was simple ‘human inclinations’ (4).  This arguing over ‘preachers’ had a lot more to do with what was entertaining and fun, rather what was edifying.  People in Corinth said Apollos was the best preacher.  To the infantile mind it’s all about who can tickle the ears, not what the truth is.  We see this a lot in today’s world.  If you want to succeed in growing a church you have to get out of the spiritual growth business and get into show business.   And in some of these very ‘noisy’ churches, you can find increasing attendance, but you don’t find discipleship increasing, Sunday School growing, Small groups based on spiritual growth or godliness growing.   You might find a lot of attenders, but less and less of these people are able to swim in the deep or maintain a steady diet of solid, healthy food.    

Also, if you look closely, there’s also not a lot of Christlikeness and commitment in these places either  Many of them don’t even look much like church’s anymore.  And I’m not simple talking about architecture or ascetics, but I’m talking about community and connection.  It’s easy to draw a crowd to these buildings, but the crowd most often looks just like them.   Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus have taught churches how to draw a crowd.  But it's still very tough to build a Christian, family-oriented, multi-generational, community cross-sectional congregation, and even harder to build a person into a Christian.  One pastor, with tongue and cheek, put it this way: "Our people are deeply committed in every area except three: they way they live, the way they think and the what they value in life.  Other than that, they are deeply committed to the Jesus."

Jack Hayford, a California pastor, recently said in an article, "They come for the show, but they refuse to grow."   As Bill Self concluded, “People breeze in and out of our churches as though they are going through a fast food restaurant, or are at a salad bar, selecting the items they want, taking nothing that is unpleasant or challenging and, at best, paying only the minimum.  They think they are getting a good deal, and they might be feeding their flesh, but they are starving to death for the kind of food that will feed their souls.”

ONLY GOD GIVES THE GROWTH   (v. 7)

Throughout my ministry, I seen all kinds of ideas on how to grow a church.   Early in my ministry the charismatic approach was a hot item.  Churches all around were trying to grow by feeling, expressing the Spirit in emotional ways. But it spilt up a lot of congregations too, breaking up well established relationships.

Later on, fundamentalism took over the Southern Baptist Convention.  The way to grow was to be ultra conservative focus on the childlike literal reading of Scripture.  Conservative churches grew larger and faster than traditional, socially liberal or even  moderate churches.  The way to grow was to lose your head.

In more recent years, the trend has been toward building mega churches with contemporary music and non-traditional approaches.  This has led to a decline in both traditional fundamental, liberal or moderate churches and whole denominations.  These ‘contemporary’  churches focus on reaching and ministering to young people and worshipping in buildings that don’t look like traditional churches.  They reject most any thing that looks like traditional, establish, or historic Christianity.

When I was a missionary pastor in Europe, we got word that a revival broke out in Canada that was drawing large crowds and gaining much attention.  The movement was called ‘The Toronto Blessing’.  People were working themselves into ecstatic fits the as non traditional, spiritual music was being played and they would get up and dance, not just alone, but often together. This sparked revivals and the growth of Charismatic churches across European culture, in which people were reported to be ‘slain in the Spirit and spoking in tongues.  The movement was strongest in old cultures where the established cathedral like churches were already dying.  It shocked me when the leadership in our little house church actually entertained the idea that this might be an approach to be considered.  ‘I don’t dance’, I joke.  They didn’t laugh.             

When I realized how many methods, gimmicks and styles churches use to try to grow, I though about the fair, which came to my hometown every fall.  When you walked down the midway, you’d hear the pitch man say, "Step right up! Pay your money, knock out the balloons with the darts, and you'll win the wonderful prizes!" No one ever knocked them out or won the prize.  Another man would entice us to take the baseball and knock down the bottles. The next man would say, "Pay your money and come in to see the tallest person, the shortest person, the fattest person, see all the freaks, including the man with the reptile body."

It reminds me of what I found many American churches doing when I returned from Europe in 1996.  In Greensboro, where I landed, churches, including mine, had taken a ‘consumers’ approach to church.  If you wanted contemporary music with a praise team, not a choir, or you wanted to play golf all day, come early, without a tie or coat, or even in shorts in the summer.   The preacher would preach wearing jeans.  But if you wanted a more traditional approach, come at 11 wearing a tie, coat, singing hymns with a choir.  The preacher would put on his coat and tie.  Come, pick what you like.      I once visited an ‘a la carte’ church in California that had nine different worship styles going on at once.  A lot of churches are doing this ‘niche’, satellite approach today: “Come to our church. Our preacher doesn't wear a tie. Our preacher wears golf shirts and jogging shoes."
"Come to our church! We wear shorts and sandals."
"We're fundamental.". "We're liturgical." “We're liberal." "We're moderate."
"We're denominational.". “We're mainline.". “We're dispensational."
"We have video.". “We have snare drums and screens." "We're into political reform and are politically active”." “We have a religious superstar preaching today."

Everyone is proudly ‘hawking there wares’ like carnival barkers, pushing their style, their religious product, but when you get inside you find, just like the carnival, that no one knocks out the balloons or knocks down the bottles.  No one wins the prize. No lives are really changed. The church of the big idea, the church of the big action, and the church of the big show somehow leave us empty.  Something is missing. 

Paul tells us what too many churches have forgotten.  It’s not the style, the approach or the method that matters.  Paul says, ‘only God gives the growth’.  The real growth.  It’s not numbers, it’s maturity he means. 

Are many of today’s churches functioning as if there is no God?  I’ve heard of a few new types of churches that are actually secular, non-religious, and agnostic, if not atheistic.   There approach is to take God out of the picture all together and just have community and good works without a particular god who complicates things.  This is where the culture seems headed, so I’m not faulting the leadership or desire to grow and reach out in this churches, as much as they are trying to survive ‘‘as if there is no God’ because God is absent in the hearts of the growing majority of people. 

THAT FOUNDATION IS JESUS CHRIST  (v. 11)

What kind of future does a ‘church’ have when it’s being built on the wrong foundation?   This is the main issue Paul was addressing in this letter.  Churches that are built only on ideas or actions or style are doomed to die.  This is why Paul says,, "I gave you a good foundation,  Jesus Christ.  You build on Jesus Christ. Because if you build with gold and silver or straw, it will fade.  You must build on Jesus Christ."   Only a church built on Jesus will remain.

In Matthew 16, Jesus said, "On this rock (the confession of Peter) I will build my church." During his last week of ministry, he said to his disciples, "I am the vine. Ye are the branches." In other words, if you stay connected to me, you will grow and bear fruit. If you get severed from me, you won't grow and bear fruit.  If you want to live and grow, remain in me, Jesus said.  Only through Jesus does God give true growth and life. 

I love to go to the Wilkes County to buy apples from my Mr. Weston.   His family harvests beautiful apples every year starting in late August through September into early October.   The Weston’s have apples only a few weeks every year but they have a lifetime of investing in cultivating the trees and pruning the branches. He has a year’s worth of work invested in helping the trees to reach their optimum maturity.  Apples do not come out of nowhere. They come from apple trees and it takes a lot of work to get apple trees to produce great apples.  You can’t ‘fake’ a good, nourishing apple.

You can’t fake true faith either.  And the fruit of the Christian faith does not come full-blown out of nowhere. It comes out of a branch that is connected to Jesus Christ. It comes out of a church that is built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.  I am not speaking against methods, against actions, or against ideas,  IF those methods, IF those actions, and IF those ideas flow out of a vital, current, connection to Jesus Christ.  But we live in a world in which some people don’t realize where apples’ come from, and so even think you can get apples without a tree.  

Some people also think you can have successful methods, ideas, actions and the excitement of life and church without having any kind of real connection to Christ or to the tree Jesus died upon.  As one theologian said, too many people today think you can have ‘God without wrath’, ‘people without sin, ‘a kingdom without judgment’, and a ‘Christ without a cross.’  But without the real Jesus, all we really do when we try to establish a niche for our church market is to cover empty hearts, shallow commitments, and a self-serving mindset.  

What we ought to do, however, is to start the right way to establish and grow a church.  Build on the true foundation by having a strong commitment to Jesus Christ.  What do you think would happen if we tried this?  For without the church's foundation being Jesus Christ, there is no substance, no power.  If the Spirit of Jesus is not there, no gimmick will make anything lasting happen.  It might fly for a while, but like that helicopter flying Kobe Byrant in the fog, a church in the fog will eventually hit a wall and crash too.

...GOD’S SPIRIT DWELLS IN YOU  (v. 16)

But there is an alternative.  The Scripture makes it clear that the church is supposed to be Christ's body on earth.  And the way to get Christ in the church body is by inviting Christ to rule our hearts.  If the church of Jesus wants to survive the spiritual fog of these challenging, changing, and difficult times, the church needs a passionate commitment to Jesus, not to wave political, ideological, or stylistic flags.

If we rediscover Jesus Christ, our worship will be revitalized. We'll not be concerned about style as much as we'll be excited about content.  We must rediscover the beauty, the majesty, and the power of a strong commitment to Jesus Christ. When that happens, we will not get bent out of shape about style. The central question will be, "Did we meet Jesus?" not “Did I like the sermon or the song”?  When we have Christ’s Spirit dwelling in us we will say like Peter and the disciples, “Lord, is it I, rather than “Lord, I want my opinion or style supported?”   

To say that Jesus Christ is the root and foundation, the cornerstone, the vine, calls the church to understand that we are Jesus people first of all.  We are members of his body, and if the church needs power and strength to make a difference, in a darkening world, it needs to rediscover Jesus.  When we rediscover Jesus, our mission will be sharpened. We will want to give a cold cup of water in Jesus name. When we rediscover Jesus Christ, we'll be liberated from so many other questions of process or style..

The Doonesbury cartoon is a serious comic that appears on the editorial pages of many  newspapers. In one cartoon, Mike, the central character, was looking for a church, so he interviewed the pastor of the Little Church at Walden.

He asked, "How did you get your church started?"

The pastor replied, "I took a survey in the community, and they all wanted aerobics, so we started an aerobics class. Then they said they all wanted basket weaving, so we started basket weaving. Then they wanted jogging, and we started jogging. And the next thing we knew, we had a church. It's getting so big now that we have a whole denomination."

In the last frame, Mike, who knows nothing about the Gospel, scratches his head and said, "So that's how religion is spread."

No, the gospel is spread because Jesus Christ changes lives. Anything else will die. It may have its day, but it will die.  

When we rediscover Jesus Christ, our belief will be strengthened and focused. When the church rediscovers Jesus Christ, the people might come for the show, but they will stay to grow. The only noise we will hear in a church will be people swimming from the shallow end to the deep end of the pool because they feel safe in deep water of God’s redeeming love. 

Amen.

*This sermon relies heavily on ideas from a sermon preached by Bill Self of Atlanta.  Any mistakes or weakness are my own.