As preached by Timothy O'Day.
1) View leaders as co-working servants (5-9).
2) View ministry as corporately building up the body of Christ (10-15).
3) View the church as precious to God (16-17).
Leadership, Ministry, and the Church
1 Corinthians 3:5-17
March 2, 2025
Seeing rightly changes what you do and what you want to do.
On September 30th, 1999, there was a nuclear accident in Tokaimura, Japan at a uranium processing plant. In the accident, 3 workers accidentally mixed too much uranium into a precipitation tank causing an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. As a result of the accident, two of the workers died within 7 months and the 3rd lived on with medical complications.
After an investigation into the accident, it was determined that the men did not have a proper view of the danger of their job, growing confident in their ability and foregoing regular safety procedures. Instead of using the assigned buckets for the uranium, they used bigger buckets to get the job done faster. Instead of wearing safety gear, they wore street clothes in order to get the job done faster. Not only this, but the plant itself encouraged these men to take these shortcuts, prioritizing speed over safety.
In interviews with the men before their deaths, they revealed that they weren't even aware that such a dose of radiation could even happen as they performed their tasks.
The plant was shut down and laws in Japan where changed to protect against such a misguided view nuclear power going forward.
Seeing the situation correctly after the fact changed what the country did and what they wanted to do. Not seeing clearly is a danger to one and to many.
The Corinthians Inaccurate Views
To a more serious degree, the Corinthian church isn’t seeing accurately. There are factions forming within the church driven by selfish ambition. People are gravitating around certain church leaders as a form of self-exaltation because, as each leaders is pitted against another, if you associate with the “right” one, then your stock will rise with him.
They are doing this because they have adopted a worldly understanding of wisdom and power, losing sight of the wisdom and power of the cross. In the cross, God has revealed true wisdom and power and this is the wisdom and power that the Corinthian church are called to imitate.
This leads to Paul’s rebuke in 3:1-4, in which he tells the Corinthians they are not living like people who are spiritually mature. They are following human thinking about greatness. They have forgotten what Jesus told his disciples when they argued about greatness, taking them aside and saying,
“You know that those who are considered rulers over the gentiles Lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. For whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The Corinthians have taken their eyes off the cross and Jesus. When you stare at the cross you realize that greatness, wisdom, and power are not measured by what you are able to get from others but by what you give to others.
This is why Paul continues his argument in 3:5-17 by reorienting the Corinthians understanding of leadership, ministry, and the church as a whole. We need this reorientation as well because our thinking about leadership, ministry, and the church is so easily influenced by worldly wisdom.
So how should we view leaders, ministry, and the church?
First, view leaders as co-working servants (3:5-9).
The standard of the world is to collect power in order to be served, but Jesus shows us true power and wisdom is the opposite and, as his apostle, Paul pushes forward what Jesus teaches and displays. He writes in verses 5-9 that he and Apollos—and any other church leader—are not competitors; they are coworkers who aim to serve the Lord by serving the church.
In asking the question in verse 5, “what then is Apollos? What is Paul?” Paul wants to make clear the way leaders should view themselves and how the whole church should view leadership—namely, as servants. What kind of servants? Field hands with the church being the field in which they work, not the audience or the panel they try to impress.
Just look with me to see how Paul makes this point. In verse 5 Paul points out that leaders in the church are servants, then in the second half of verse 5 and on into 6, Paul declares that each servant has a specific role to play, saying that they are servants
“Through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.”
Even though God’s servants have a specific role to play, God is the one that assigns the roles and he is the one who is ultimately at work through each. Paul planted the church in Corinth. Later on, Apollos taught in Corinth. Paul didn’t send Apollos, God did. This shows us that Paul and Apollos aren’t in charge, God is. God is the one who orchestrates it all so his church grows and gets what it needs. Look at verse 7,
“So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”
God gives the growth because God is the one who 1) calls men into leadership, 2) provides them with the seed and water to do the work, 3) and provides the field in which they are to labor. God is behind all of it. The hired field hand cannot boast that he is indispensable to the work, but he can and should be grateful that he is part of it. It is God’s work, he simply gives others the joy—the gift of grace Paul calls it elsewhere—to be part of the work that he is doing.
Church leaders Serve God By Serving the Church
This is why Paul concludes in verses 8-9 that church leadership isn’t a competition but cooperation in God’s one work of forming a people for his own possession. He writes in verse 8 that he who plants and the who waters are one, meaning that God is behind their work and leaders labor toward the end of obeying the Lord who called them. They do not look to the church for a reward, but serve in order to hear from the Lord one day, “Well done my good and faithful servant.” That is the wage that is promised in verse 8.
So, Paul concludes in verse 9 that Paul and Apollos—and all other church leaders, regardless of gifting and role—are fellow workers together under God. They are coworkers, not competitors.
The Implications of Viewing Leaders as Servants
What follows from viewing leaders as servants rather than independent lords? Here are a few.
First, leaders—and all those who aspire to leadership—see leadership as a service to perform, not a status to hold. God calls men into leadership not so that they can get more, but so they can be positioned to give more.
But this requires that leaders keep their eyes on the Lord first and the church second.
God, not the church, is your audience. God is the one who gives wages to his workers based on their labor, not the church. Worldly wisdom calls you to find your pleasure in the title you hold, the appreciation people give you, and the number of people who listen to you. That’s a dead end. Don’t let the praise of man direct how you labor. Look to God and take what role he assigns and labor with gusto toward the task he gives.
In order to do this, you need to rejoice less in what you do and more in Christ. When Jesus sent out the seventy two in order to proclaim the Kingdom of God, they returned to him and said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” They were awestruck at the ability and the joy of the task given to them. How does Jesus respond? He rejoices with them, but then he says,
“Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
Serving in leadership is a joy because it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, but never lose sight of the fact that our greatest joy is not serving as leaders; is the the fact that even though we earned hell by our sin, God has graciously saved us through Jesus Christ.
When knowing God and having God in Jesus Christ is our greatest joy, then serving as leaders enters into the right perspective. Leadership turns into a way to love God instead of a way to get praise from men. And when this happens, other leaders become coworkers instead of competitors. Planters and waterers need each other or their labor will produce nothing. When you see someone who is gifted in a way that you are not, choose to praise God for his provision instead of choosing to wallow in envy and anger. Such a response shows you that the church, not God, is your audience and gaining fame, not laboring in the field, is your goal.
Third, as a church, see leaders as necessary and replaceable. This will protect us from idolizing leaders and ignoring them, which are two deadly traps for us to avoid. Since God is the one who supplies for the need of each church, we can trust him to supply the leadership we need in the church. Every leader is replaceable. We are field workers and God can raise another up on to complete the task. Knowing this, we are free from idolizing leaders. At the same time, leaders are necessary. God provides them because the church needs them. God uses his servants for a purpose, to bless and lead the church. Remembering this helps leads us to encouragement leaders and thank God for them.
But Paul doesn’t just focus on how we need to view leaders, he also wants us to reorient how we view ministry by leaders and others as a whole. That’s what he turns to next.
Second, view ministry as corporately building up the body of Christ (3:10-15).
Paul switches metaphors in verse 9, saying that the church is God’s field and also God’s building. In verse 10, Paul refers to the grace given to him to be a skilled master builder, meaning that God called him to be an apostle and to preach the gospel and plant churches among the gentiles. So he laid the foundation of the church by preaching Christ, who is the foundation of the church universal and every local manifestation of the church universal. As he says in verse 11, no church can have a foundation other than Jesus Christ—that is to say, confessing and trusting Jesus Christ is the foundation of the every local church. Being corporately united to Jesus is what makes a church a church.
As he says in the second half of verse 10, every leader who comes after Paul builds on the foundation he set. While this primarily applies to leaders, it actually speaks to all of us as well. For, as we read in Ephesians 4:11-12, God gave leaders to the church in order to equip all the saints in the church for ministry, “for building up the body of Christ.”
Every member of the body is actively involved in the building up of the body. In a sense, everyone in the church is now a subcontractor in the building up of the church. The analogy of a building speaks to the corporate nature of the church, which Paul will go on to stress even more in 1 Corinthians 12. Since Christ is the foundation and the church is God’s temple, as we read in verse 16, Paul’s call at the end of verse 10 makes sense:
“Let each one take care how he builds upon it,” meaning Christ, the foundation.
Building Up the Body of Christ
Let’s draw out Paul’s imagery in order to understand what he is saying. In construction projects, subcontractors are brought in to do certain tasks—each being assigned according to his ability. In this work, a subcontractor can take his job seriously and do good work, or he can cut corners and do shoddy work. A subcontractor can spare no expense and use good materials, or he can hold back and use poor materials hoping that it will be good enough.
But at the end of their labor, their work will be evaluated. The more serious and precious the work site, the more scrutiny will be placed on their work. Each will be held responsible for what he has done.
The question for all of us, then, is not, “Are you building up the church?” The question is, “With what are you building up the church?” As we read in verse 12, you can build with things that last and are costly like gold, silver, and precious stones, or you can build with things that will decay and burn like wood, hay, and straw. On the day of judgment, how you built and invested in the church will be made manifest. What does this mean?
Building Up the Church is Building Up the People of the Church
We get help from 1 corinthians 9:1, in which Paul calls the Corinthians his “workmanship in the Lord.” Likewise, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20, “for what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.” What Paul means here is that when Jesus returns, he will point to the churches he has invested himself in as his joy. Seeing his brothers and sisters, those for whom he has labored to present to Jesus Christ, standing firm throughout their lives and then before Jesus Christ on the final day is what he will rejoice in.
Put simply, the way we build is by investing in each other. That’s what ministry is—building in line with the foundation of Christ and according to the plan of Christ, not as we please and not to serve ourselves. To do this, we build in accord with the gospel and in light of the reality of the gospel.
Building with Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones
When you confess your sins to a brother or sister, you declaring “Sin is terrible and we should all turn from it; forgiveness is real and I want to walk in it.”
When you share the gospel, you build up the church by finding lost sheep and bringing them into the fold of God.
When you give financially, you build up the body by providing what others lack, believing that meeting material and financial needs to further the gospel and care for others is better than building up your own material possessions.
When you give up your time to serve others, you build up the body by showing your brothers and sisters that they matter, being the hands, feet, and mouth of Christ.
When your brother or sister comes to you and confessing sin and asks you to forgive him, you build up the body by granting forgiveness and showing the reality of Christ’s work.
Building with what will last means that we are helping each other live in light of the gospel and become more like Christ.
The Temple Displays the God
When we do this as a church, we are declaring to the world who our God is. In the ancient world, a temple was a display of the glory of the temple’s god. As we walk in Christlikeness with each other, we are building up each other and are being used as a tool of sanctification in each others lives. As this happens, the glory of God is displayed to a watching world. When the world looks at our church and sees us sacrificing for one another, preferring one another, forgiving one another, bearing with one another, working for the spiritual advancement of each other, we are declaring to the world, “this is what our God is like.”
The power of this declaration is in its corporate nature. We display the Spirit of Christ by living like Christ corporately.
The Joy of A Job Well Done
One day, how you have invested in the church will be revealed. You are either investing with materials that fit the sacred and vital task of the church to display the glory of God or you are investing with the left overs of your life, saving your best efforts for other things. On the day of judgment, the quality of your labor will be displayed by Jesus Christ for all to see. As verses 14-15 state, if your labor withstands the examination of God, then you will have reward. I think that this reward is primarily being able to look around before Jesus Christ and see that your labor made a difference in the lives of believers around you.
To those who invested well, the Lord will say to you and to all, “Do you remember when you prayed for your sister in Christ as she struggled? I used that prayer to build her up in faith.” To another he will say, “Do you know how you opened your home and your heart to strangers so you could share the gospel with them? Look over there, you didn’t know it until know, but they are here because you declared the gospel to them.” To another he will say, “Do you remember how you listened for hours and hours to the heartache of your friends, shed tears with them, and encouraged them to keep their eyes on heaven? I used those conversations so those people would understand my love for them.”
Jesus will count every labor we give toward his people as if it was done to him. And we will have the joy of looking around and seeing how God used us in the lives of his people for all eternity.
Saved Through Fire
But others will stand in heaven, seeing that their pitiful investment didn’t last. They wasted their time, energy, and influence for selfish gain. Such people will suffer the loss of knowing that they wasted what they had, but they will still be saved—yet they will smell of smoke because they invested their time and energy in things that won’t make it to the next world.
Perhaps this seems shocking to you, but if it does it is only because you are not viewing the church as you should, which leads us to our last point.
Third, view the church as precious to God (3:16-17).
Paul’s stark warning in verse 15 gives way to an even deeper warning in verses 16-17. He begins verse 16 with a question that doubles as an accusation,
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
This accusatory question is leveled by Paul because the Corinthians are acting like the church is an area to settle their personal disputes and a stage to satisfy their own personal ambitions. So they are mistreating one another and forming factions in order to exalt themselves over each other.
This completely misses the point of what God is calling them to do. They are in danger of not just building with straw and things that will not last. They are veering toward actually destroying God’s church. So he ratchets up the warning in verse 17,
“If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
There is a massive difference between shoddy work and destructive work. Since the church is the temple of the Holy Spirit—meaning that the church corporately is the place in which God manifests his special presence in this world—he will hold accountable anyone who works to destroy his church.
You can destroy the church by teaching falsehood, working to divide the church by endlessly promoting yourself and excluding others (to name just a few ways). If you do that, then God will destroy you. By working to divide and destroy what God has unified by his Spirit, you show yourself to be one who does not have the Spirit, that is, you show yourself to be one who claims to be a believer, but really is not.
This promise to destroy one who aims to destroy God’s church is a dire warning and it shows just how precious the church is to God.
Take the Warning Seriously
You would be a fool to not take God’s warning seriously. The church is precious to him, which means that each member is precious. Instead of viewing the people in the church as a means of personal gratification or as expendable, we should see the church—and each member in it—as precious to God and worthy of our service and investment. For Jesus will count how we treat each other as our treatment of him.
So leaders, lead the people of God knowing that each one is precious. Church, let’s invest in one another knowing that each member is necessary and each member is precious to God.
Do You See Jesus Rightly?
Before you can see leadership, ministry, or the church rightly, you have to see Jesus. In chapters 1 and 2, leading up to our passage, Paul has hammered again and again that in order to see these things correctly, you must first see the reality of the cross.
The only reason serving yourself, working for your own pleasure, and using people as a means for your own ends will ever seem foolish is if you first see them as sinful. You need to first reckon with the fact that you, just like the rest of humanity, are a sinners and deserve hell. Your pursuit of sin will not end well. It will end in the righteous judgement of God. But even though you deserve sin, God offers mercy to you in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the trinity, who for us and for our salvation took on flesh, lived a life of perfect obedience—the life we were supposed to live—and dead bearing the wrath of God for sin—the death each one of us deserves to die. But when he went to the cross, he went as the substitute for all who would trust in him alone for salvation. In his resurrection, he displays for all to see that if you trust him, he has completely exhausted the penalty for sin. Now the choice is before you, you can trust in him and be forgiven, entering into the precious community of his church, or you can continue to walk in sin and face his wrath.
Why would you choose to die in your sins? Turn to him today, even right now, confessing your sins and trusting his provision. Then come and tell us, this church, that you have trusted in Jesus and we will baptize you, making a corporate declaration that you belong to Jesus.
Comments