“God-Honoring Stewardship” Part 2 (From Milk to Solid Food) 1 Corinthians 1-3
What would be your mindset if you lost everything? What would be your mindset if you were in the midst of others who also lost everything? What would be your mindset to relief that was offered from an outside source? In what spirit would you offer that same relief to the others?
Man’s greatest need is forgiveness Man’s greatest struggle is believing that he needs forgiveness
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
We are hopelessly flawed but wonderfully loved! 1 Corinthians 1:18-19
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Everything of value that we possess comes from God through Christ 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, Who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Only mature believers in Christ can receive spiritual wisdom 1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
1 Corinthians 3:1-4
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?
For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
Only mature believers in Christ can be good stewards of spiritual wisdom 1 Corinthians 3:5-9
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.