On 16 February 2020 Tim and Amanda led worship.
1 Corinthians 3 1-9
Tim reflected on the film Big where the lead character Josh is great at the invention of toys but no good at the relationship stuff as he’s not adult enough to understand.
The Corinthians seem to have been stuck in the past. At the beginning of this very long letter Paul touched on the old leaders of the various factions of the church. Paul has been criticising the outside world but then he starts talking about them in v13 of Chapter 2. They probably thought they were included. But now Paul’s is taking about them and me.. they’re using the world’s ways of scoring points . They don’t realise how the Gospel of the Cross has brought about a new creation. They’re acting like little children and it’s now Paul telling them that it is time to grow up. This should resonate with us. Churches can distracted by the past hurts, past leaders or simply doing things the way we have already done things.
We need to be shaped by the wisdom of the cross. Paul in verse 6 puts it into perspective…. But god… Paul’s favourite phrase.God was giving the growth. Without god all this is fruitless. Everything we do needs to be defined by this idea. God will be at work in everything we do. What an encouragement. But if we’re doing things to be better than the church down the road we will fail. We don’t have to be the superchurch or the best religious deal on the high street. We simply need to be a cross shaped church! Our calling is to plant the seeds, not to guess where god goes with them. We plant gods seeds of compassion and mercy.
We are God’s co-workers. Planting seeds, watering with compassion and love and then leaving the growth and the glory to God. We are in God’s field, God’s building along with all the other churches in the area. None of this belongs to us, to a particular denomination. The church is called to see that God is the one bringing the growth. This challenge but also encouragement! Tim said that the preaching doesn’t depend on him. Filling Station might be challenging and we might struggle to see the difference we make . Yet we get thanks like on Friday when someone put their order in but then also wrote a note if thanks at the bottom. Let God grow and nurture the seeds we plant.