Let’s Maintain a Jesus-Pleasing Relationship!

3rd Sunday after Pentecost, 6/18/23 1 Corinthians 4:1-7 Let’s Maintain a Jesus-Pleasing Relationship! I. I’m accountable to Christ. II. You’re recipients of God’s grace. What does Jesus think? I guess I should be a little more pointed. What does Jesus think about what you’re thinking and about what you’re feeling? Well, that, I suppose, depends. So, let me get even more pointed than that. What does Jesus think about what you’re thinking and feeling regarding your relationship with someone else? Let that sink in for a moment. What does Jesus think about what you’re thinking and feeling regarding your relationship with someone else? Well, the vast majority of people in this world don’t care. They don’t have a relationship with Jesus in the first place so that couldn’t care less what he thinks about anything. And then there are those people who know they should be concerned about what Jesus thinks, but they struggle. They’re members of his kingdom by faith in him and they know that Jesus has a claim even on what they think and feel, but they struggle. Their sinful natures too often get the upper hand. They justify feeling prideful, or boastful, or superior, or condescending, or vengeful. After all, it only comes naturally to sinful people—children of God, but sinful people, like you and me. That had happened among the Christians in the city of Corinth. Perhaps they had been unbelievers for decades but had recently become children of God by faith in Jesus. Their old, sinful habits stubbornly lingered. They struggled. They enjoyed being in the limelight. They liked feeling superior. They even justified immorality, because that’s how they used to live. And their old way of thinking threatened to blow up their relationship with the Apostle Paul. In his compassion for the Corinthians, God had sent Paul as his messenger to them. Paul had served them well for quite a long time and then continued on his missionary journey. And things went from good to bad to worse. And that was true even about their relationship with Paul. The last thing Satan wants is for God’s ministers and God’s people in a congregation to get along, to love and appreciate one another. So, let’s recognize that threat to our relationship this morning. Paul’s words to us today help us do just that—to maintain a Jesus-pleasing relationship. May the Holy Spirit strengthen our Christian bond as we study these words before us today. Part I. If you are or were employed, you are probably familiar with an organizational chart. Every good business has one. It clearly defines where you are in the chain of that business, to whom you are responsible and who is responsible to you. It’s intended to keep people in their proper lanes and to make them constantly aware of what their place is. I realize that a church is a business in a manner of speaking, but I’ve never seen an organizational chart used in a church. I suppose they exist; I just haven’t seen one. Have you? If we had one here at Resurrection Ev. Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, what would that organizational chart look like? Where would you be on that chart and where would I be? Where would the church council be? Would the voters assembly be at the top or not? The Apostle Paul doesn’t mention an organizational chart in these words to the Corinthians, but he could have. Listen to what he writes, “This, then, is how you should regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.” Paul states two positions he holds. One is a servant or minister of Christ. Wasn’t that obvious? Not so fast. You need to know what Paul had written about in chapter three to understand why he stated these words in chapter four. The Corinthians had decided to divide themselves into factions; in a way, into political parties. Each party stated their leader: Paul, Apollos, or Peter. And just like political parties today, each of them asserted that they were right, superior, and more knowledgeable than the others. Paul refused to play that game. He let them know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t dependent on any of their support to continue his relationship with them. He was a servant or minister of Christ. On his organization chart, there was a direct line from Jesus down to Paul, and then to the Corinthians. That was the chain of responsibility. Paul also stated that he was entrusted with the mysteries of God. A more literal translation is that he was a steward or manager of the mysteries of God. What does he mean? Paul was referring to the gospel—the good news of Jesus as the world’s only Savior. That truth is a mystery to every human being by nature. But God used people like Paul to reveal that mystery to others through the preaching of God’s word. Paul really wasn’t concerned where he lined up on the Corinthians’ list of favorite preachers. Instead, he was concerned about one thing: to share with them the gospel of Jesus, and Paul had done that faithfully. He later states he will let his Lord make that judgment and not anyone else. These petty divisions and the false teachers who promoted them among the Corinthians had already done a great deal of damage to Paul’s relationship with the Corinthians. In fact, it was in danger of blowing up. There were some in Corinth who wished Paul would stay away from them, far away. But Paul wasn’t ready to write them off. Instead, he pleaded with them to maintain a Jesus-pleasing relationship with him. By the grace and power of God, we have that Jesus-pleasing relationship. Let’s keep it that way. That will happen when we both keep in mind that I’m accountable to Christ. What’s your opinion of me? Don’t answer that out loud. I’m sure there are times (I hope many times) when you’re very appreciative of my ministry among you and for you. But let’s be honest; there are times when that’s not the case. I can be difficult to live with at times; just ask my wife. There are times when I’m obtuse or clueless, impatient or lazy. I get it. It’s not always easy to think the best of me. And I’m sure this is no secret: I’m tempted at times not to think the best of you. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. That’s exactly what was happening between the Corinthians and Paul. So, what should we do about it? The same thing we should do with every other sinful aspect of our personal or congregational lives: take it to the cross of Jesus. Confess it. And then be confident of your forgiveness and mine in Christ. When that’s our approach to our relationship with each other, Jesus always wins, and Satan always loses. As your pastor, I’m responsible to Christ. I’ll try to keep that in mind every day of my ministry. As God’s people, please remind me of it. In doing so, let’s maintain a Jesus-pleasing relationship! Part II. Do you know the difference between dementia and amnesia? While dementia can lead to the loss of all memory, amnesia usually only prevents you from knowing who you are. If you suffer from amnesia, the rest of the world makes sense to you, but you can’t make sense of yourself. I hope that never happens to you or anyone you love, but it does happen to us in a spiritual way. And when I say “us,” I mean all of us. We tend to forget who we are and where we came from. The Corinthians suffered from spiritual amnesia. They forgot their past—the fact that they came into this world as sinful people under the wrath of God. They conveniently forgot that only the Lord Jesus had changed them into Christians by the power of his word. Instead, they focused on themselves and how great they were. They boasted about their gifts, their influence on others, who their leaders were, how open-minded they were about expressions of human sexuality. Paul gives them a heaping dose of spiritual truth with these pointed questions, “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” Did you catch Paul’s point? He’s telling them, “Look, none of you can take any credit for being a Christian. None of you manufactured your own faith. None of you earned your forgiveness or salvation. You received it as a gift. You received it from God, not because he owed it to you, but solely by his mercy and grace. You are who you are solely because of what God has done for you. So, all boasting about yourself or anyone else is entirely out of place.” In short, Paul reminded the Corinthians that they were recipients of God’s grace. And that’s a key truth to keep in mind as we maintain our Jesus-please relationship. You’re recipients of God’s grace and so am I. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I state that we live in a divisive world. And it seems to get worse every day. What will be the next issue to polarize us? We don’t even want to think about it. And that’s good, because your God wants you to think about something else. He wants you to think about what unites us. It’s his grace. In his grace God has made all of us what we were not by nature—his own children. He brought us to faith in Jesus. He made us into a holy nation—a nation of saints in his eyes. He rejoices over us. He has destined all of us for eternal life with him. And it’s all because of what Jesus did and not because of what we did or still can do. You received God’s grace and so have I. And when we keep that truth in front of us, we’ll maintain a Jesus-pleasing relationship. Because that means what’s true about me is also true about you. We’re all in this together. Let’s keep it that way with God’s power and blessing. Let’s maintain our Jesus-pleasing relationship! Amen.