“A Church with a Parent’s Heart”
(1 Corinthians 4:14-21)
Series: Chaos & Correction
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
Take your Bibles and join me in 1 Corinthians, chapter 4 (page ; YouVersion).
If you’re visiting with us we have been making our way, verse-by-verse, through 1 Corinthians in a series entitled, “Chaos & Correction.” There was chaos in the church at Corinth and the answer to the chaos is the correction of this letter. The word of God always brings correction to the chaos in our lives.
Since we have been in chapter 4 we have learned a few things about ministers in particular and ministers in general. Paul says that ministers are slaves of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. So while a church is warranted in thinking of their pastor as a slave or a servant, the church is not warranted in thinking of themselves as the master. The minister’s master is Jesus Christ. And all Christians are ministers in a general sense, taking care how we judge others, knowing that only God is all-knowing and all-seeing.
Then, last time, in the passage preached by Rich last week, Paul adds a bit of color and irony in addressing the prideful way the Corinthian Christians thought of themselves. The Corinthians had the same problem then we have today. They were a prideful bunch given frequently to a tendency to boast. The Corinthians seemed to think themselves wise, strong, and distinguished. And Paul says we poor apostles by comparison, why we are so foolish, weak, and dishonored. We are “fools for Christ’s sake,” nothing more than “the filth of the world, the offscouring (or refuse) of all things.” Paul sounds a pretty harsh tone in the previous passage.
So perhaps Paul pauses here a moment and turns to his secretary—who was very likely Sosthenes as we learned from our opening message—perhaps Paul pauses here and turns to his secretary and asks him to read over what he had just dictated. Paul hears Sosthenes read back to him his words and Paul says, “Boy, that sounds pretty strong don’t you think? Am I coming across too harshly?” and Sosthenes replies, “oh, I think you’re okay, Paul. I suggest you leave it as is.” And perhaps Paul then takes a slow, measured breath and continues addressing the Corinthian church, but now in a gentler manner, sounding the tone of a loving parent in verse 14: “I do not write these things to shame you,” he says, “but as my beloved children I warn you.” See how he turns from this harsh way of speaking to a much softer tone of voice?
So I wanted to point out the contrast as Paul turns from the harsh style we read about last week to a much softer style here in verses 14 to the end. It’s a bit like the old “Good cop, bad cop” scenario, you know? Two cops are taking turns interrogating an offender and one takes the softer, good-guy approach and the other takes the harsher, bad-guy approach. So having taken the harsher approach, Paul now takes a softer approach, addressing the Corinthians as a loving parent addresses his or her own children. Listen for that as we hear the Word of God this morning.
Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
14 I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you.
15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.
16 Therefore I urge you, imitate me.
17 For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.
18 Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.
19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.
20 For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.
21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?
Pray.
Introduction:
I want to speak to you this morning on this topic, “A Church with a Parent’s Heart,” a church with a parent’s heart.
In verse 15, Paul speaks of his having “begotten (the Corinthians) through the gospel.” What does that mean? That’s a word we don’t use a whole lot today, “Begotten.” Strictly speaking it means to be the parent of a child. Paul birthed the church. He had begotten them spiritually, he led them to faith in Christ. God did the saving, of course, but the Corinthians had heard the gospel from Paul. He had witnessed to them. He evangelized them. He shared the Good News and God worked through Paul and re-birthed those who believed. So Paul is their spiritual father and they are his spiritual children. That’s how he refers to them in verse 14, “as my beloved children.” If you’ve led someone to faith in Christ you are that person’s spiritual parent.
So immediately we are faced with the question of whether we are regularly birthing people into the church through the power of the gospel. How many Christians have you “begotten through the gospel?” Have you ever “begotten” anyone “through the gospel?”
John MacArthur has said, speaking of his father who was also a pastor, that his dad often said, “The church ought to be a maternity ward where there is constantly heard the cry of newborn babes in Christ.” People being born regularly into the kingdom of God through the work of Christians sharing the good news of the gospel.
I have shared with our staff and deacons recently about a desire I have to be more intentional in providing the church family regular training in sharing the gospel. A good many of you would like to be more intentional yourselves, would like to see yourselves “begetting” more people through the gospel, and so I look forward to our getting together sometime after the first of the year. Totally optional, no guilt, no pressure, just voluntary training for those who are interested. Details to come.
So Paul writes of his having “begotten (the Corinthians) through the gospel and he writes in these verses, verses 14-21, of things he takes seriously as he relates to them with a parent’s heart. All well and good so long as we’re just reading about Paul and Corinth, right? But we’re not just reading about Paul and Corinth. God’s Word speaks to us today. There is an application here that extends beyond the church in Corinth, reaching into the future to the church in Kentucky. We’re never to study Scripture in the abstract as though the Scriptures have nothing to say to us in our world today. They have much to say to us.
We’ve already made application regarding this matter of “begetting” spiritual children, leading persons to faith in Jesus Christ. And everything else here in verses 14-21 applies, as well. If we ask the question, “How are church members to have the heart of a parent?” this passage provides the answer.
A church with a parent’s heart is a church whose members are known for three main things in relation to one another: warning, discipling, and correcting. Each member takes seriously these three things: warning, discipling, and correcting. Let’s take them one at a time as we make our way verse-by-verse through this passage. Warning, discipling, and correcting. First:
We Must Warn One Another [14-15]
Verse 14, Paul says, “I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you.” I warn you. Christians who love one another warn one another.
Again, the “these things” of verse 14 refer to Paul’s harsh tone in writing the previous verses. He was strong in his rebuke of the Corinthians’ pride and haughtiness. He’s like, “Look, I don’t want to shame you so that you lose face, you know, I’m just speaking frankly because I love you and I want to warn you because your pride and boasting is destructive.”
Christians who love one another warn one another. If I love you I’ll warn you. If you love me you’ll warn me. Sometimes people become a little skittish, afraid to warn others when they hear them talk or see them act in unhealthy ways. They protest, “Who am I to judge? I think it best if I just stay out of the way.”
How many of you have children or grandchildren, can I see your hand? I raise mine with you, I have grown children (not grandchildren!). If your little one runs into the kitchen while you are cooking and you’ve got the stove top hotter than blazes and your little one is rushing up to the counter, hands waiving in the air reaching toward the stovetop, what are you going to do? Think, “Who am I to speak? I think it best if I just stay out of the way.” Of course not! You love that little one and so you get right in that little one’s business, don’t you? You warn them, “Don’t touch the hot stove, it’s dangerous!” That’s what loving parents do.
Remember what Paul said back in verse 3 is, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court.” He did not say it is no thing that he should be judged. He listened to the judgment of others and it is wise for us to listen to the judgments of others. The one whose judgment matters most of course, as Paul says later, is the judgment of the Lord. But Christians are supposed to judge. Matthew 7 is often quoted out of context, “Jesus says don’t judge!” Well, read Matthew 7 more carefully, read all the verses of Matthew 7 very carefully and you will conclude that Christians must judge each other and that the whole point of doing so is to help out another brother and sister. Just remember that when you are judging the faults of others, you have your own faults, too. Everyone has a bit of wood in his or her eyes.
Christians who love one another warn one another.
Verse 15, “For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.”
Verse 15 is Paul’s way of illustrating his love for the Corinthian Christians. He says, “You might have ten thousand instructors in Christ.”—Hey, are you following along?! Got your Bible open?! Just checking. We teach one-verse-at-a-time here, verse-by-verse. The Bible is the sermon. Okay, where were we? Oh yes, so verse 15 is Paul’s way of illustrating his love for the Corinthian Christians.
He says, “You might have ten thousand instructors.” The words, “ten thousand” translates the Greek word muri÷ouß, from which derives our English, “myriad.” And the idea is, “a number too high to count,” a countless number. Verse 15, “For though you might have ten thousand—a myriad—of instructors,”
The word “instructors” is literally, paidagwgouß, from which comes the English “pedagogues,” These were Greek slaves who were in charge of seeing that their masters’ children got to school safely and back home again safely. Actually, the Greek slave was responsible for the child nearly all the time. He carried a rod and was tasked with the special duty of protecting and keeping the child out of trouble. If you’ve seen the Broadway musical, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” then you’ll remember Pseudolus was the Greek slave, guide, or pedagogue, responsible for the young character named Hero.
But it was just a job, you see. The pedagogue did not have to love the child, he just had to watch over him. He was responsible for him the way a laborer is responsible for operating a machine in a warehouse belonging to his supervisor. It’s a job, there’s not really any love for the machine just as there was not necessarily any love of the pedagogue for the child of his master.
These “ten thousand instructors” Paul writes about in verse 15 were probably the self-centered, self-righteous leaders of the factions or divisions, or cliques, Paul had been rebuking since chapter 1. There were countless numbers of thee prideful, self-centered, and self-appointed persons in the congregation.
Paul seems to be contrasting these self-righteous “instructors” with himself as a loving spiritual parent. It’s as though he is saying, “Look, I really love you guys. These so-called pedagogues, who cherish themselves as your powerful tutors, or instructors, really don’t care for you. You may have countless instructors, but you have only one spiritual parent and I am he, ‘for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.’”
It’s interesting, Paul reminds his readers of his fatherhood (or motherhood) in all of his epistles with exception only to Romans. For example, hear some of these verses:
Galatians 4:19, My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you,
Philippians 2:22, But you know his (Timothy’s) proven character, that as a son with his father he served with me in the gospel.
1 Thessalonians 2:7, But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children.
1 Thessalonians 2:11, you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children,
Philemon 10, I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains,
Spiritual parents beget spiritual children, bring new children into the world. In other words, they share the Gospel and win people to Christ. Every one of us is called to this great privileged task. Every Christian should beget others, should bring others to Christ. Whom have you won to Christ lately? Whose spiritual father are you?
And again, the larger point Paul is making in verses 14 and 15 is, “As your spiritual parent, and quite unlike the so-called myriad of instructors you have, I love you enough to tell you the truth, the frank and honest truth. I love you enough to warn you when I see or hear of your acting in ways unbecoming of Christians. There is a judgment to come and I am warning you of the coming Day.” Christians who love one another, Christians who wish to have the heart of a parent, warn one another.
So each member takes seriously things: warning, then secondly discipling. Not only must we warn one another, number two:
We Must Disciple One Another [16-17]
Discipleship is a word that means to grow Christians, to take them from spiritual infancy to mature growth in the Lord over a period of time, just as a parent “raises” a child from infancy to adulthood. So biblical discipleship is not really a program in the church. Biblical discipleship is a lifestyle. Discipleship is something that is done one-on-one as well as corporately when mature Christians lead others by virtue of their godly examples. In verses 16 and 17 Paul teaches us about discipleship. He teaches we disciple others, first:
by being a good example (16)
Look at verse 16. Paul says, “Therefore I urge you, imitate me.”
The original Greek word is, mimhtai÷, from which we get our English, “mimic,” to mimic, to imitate. Paul says, “Mimic me, do what I do, imitate me as I live before you.”
A coach coaches his team by telling them, “Do what I do. Swing the bat this way. Throw the ball like that. Run as I run,” and so on.” And this is how we are to lead others. Do what I do. Follow my example.
Now that’s a question for us, isn’t it?! Can you say, “Follow my example?” Live as I live. Do what I do. Speak as I speak. In his letters Paul frequently encouraged his hearers to follow his own example.
Philippians 3:17, Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern.
Philippians 4:9, The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do
2 Thessalonians 3:7, For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you;
1 Timothy 4:12, Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
1 Peter 5:3, importance of minsters “being examples to the flock;”
We disciple others by being a good example before them. We live in such a way that we can say to them, “Imitate me.” Paul was not being egotistical here. He had been writing to them in the previous passages and chapters about abandoning their uppity self-righteous prideful haughty ways, and assume a more humble disposition, a lowliness that looks like Jesus Christ. As Paul will say later in chapter 11: “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).”
I believe it was writer and speaker Charles Lowery who told about a time shortly after he had obtained his PhD, that he began to think of himself as something of a scholar and started smoking a pipe. He didn’t really think much more about it until he happened to find his little boy one day, pick up his dad’s pipe and imitated what he had seen his dad do before, putting that pipe in his mouth and acting like he was smoking. Lowery said he stopped smoking the pipe after that.
Every one of us is an example to others. The question is always, “Which kind of example are you, a good example, or a bad example?” When you start to hear words come out of the mouths of your children, words that sound very similar to words you yourself have spoken, God reminds you and me that we are always examples before others.
Can you say to your children, “Imitate me?” We really can’t tell our children, “Do as I say and not as I do,” can we? Would you be happy if your spouse imitated your behavior? Do your fellow workers see before them a godly example in your life?
We disciple one another by being a good example and, also, by reminding them of godly behavior. That’s the second sub-point here:
by reminding others of godly behavior (17)
Verse 17, For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son [by the way, there it is again: Paul is Timothy’s spiritual father, spiritual parent, he had “begotten Timothy through the gospel (cf. 1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2)]” in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.
Paul would like to be there with the Corinthians himself but, as he writes later in chapter 16, he believes the Lord wants him to stay in Ephesus a little while longer (1 Corinthians 16:8-9). In the meantime, he is sending young Timothy to them to remind them of Paul’s “ways in Christ.” He’s talking about godly behavior. This is what Paul had taught “everywhere in every church,” it was, “Live this way. Do this. Imitate me. Follow my example.”
Paul had done so well modeling before Timothy that he could just send Timothy to Corinth and it’s like Paul himself were there. Paul is like, “I raised him, but you’ll see he’s a chip off the old block. I have discipled him well. I’m sending Timothy, not to innovate, not to do new things, not to draw attention to himself, but to do what I do. To live before you as I had lived before you, to remind you of my ways in Christ.”
Here’s a question: “For whom are you modeling the Christian life?” Are you discipling others? Moms and dads, discipleship begins at home. Are you intentionally discipling your sons and daughters—grandparents, are you intentional discipling your grandchildren—modeling godly behavior before them so they would say, “Man, I want to grow up and be just like my dad, my mom, my grandparents.”
So we show that we have a parent’s heart for others by, warning, by discipling, and finally by correcting:
3) We Must Correct One Another [18-21]
In the last four verses Paul talks about the importance of correcting one another. Look at what he says, verse 18: “Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.”
Some among the Corinthian Christians started to act like Paul was never returning. It’s like when parents leave the house for awhile and the children act up while they’re away. Anybody have an older sibling as I did, a big sister or big brother who acted like the parent when the parent was away?! I’ll spare you the examples of my older sister’s pure delight in acting as the parent-in-charge when my folks were away, but one incident had to do with my being forced to eat waffles covered not in butter, but garlic butter. She really enjoyed watching me eat those things!
The self-important and prideful leaders among the Corinthians were acting as though Paul was not returning, verse 19:
19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.
So Paul is like, “I’ll be coming to you shortly. Bank on it!” It’s like when your mother told some of you, “Just you wait until your father comes home!”
And Paul says, “And when I come, I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.” The “word of those who are puffed up” is better translated, “the talk of those who are puffed up.” In other words, Paul is saying there are some prideful folks there at Corinth who are all talk. There’s no power in their words, they are all talk, they just talk and talk and it’s like empty wind. They were proud talkers.
It’s one thing to talk about the Christian life and quite another to live it. Power is not in words. Power is demonstrated in looking like Jesus, acting like Jesus, living like Jesus. Verse 20:
20 For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.
So Paul is bringing correction to the behavior of the Corinthians. A great number of them had become boastful, proud talkers. And Paul speaks to them with the heart of a parent. He tells them, “Look, the kingdom of God is not about your proud talking, but your living out the power of Christ within you.” Verse 21:
21 What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?
He’s like, “I’m coming back to you, and I’m coming with the rod of discipline in my hand!—like my grandmother used to do with a yard stick—I’m coming to you with a rod or in love and a spirit of gentleness, your choice, but I’m coming and we’re going to deal with some of this ungodly behavior going on there at the church. Wait till your father gets home!
I mentioned my older sister before, I may as well mention her again. There were times our behavior resulted in the discipline of my father. Like the times we were being rowdy in the back seat, goofing off hitting each other, you know. Sitting in the back seat of my dad’s car while he drove. A big, 70s model Ford Ltd. Full of cigarette smoke and blazing hot in the summer. Vinyl seats. Burn the skin right off your calves when you sat down. Goofing off, he’d be like, “Don’t make me pull this car over!” And he’d swing that arm around and try to hit whatever he could. Anyone else relate to this?! You smiled at your brother or sister as you successfully dodged that long arm and he made contact with your brother or sister instead of you.
Paul is like, “Look, you guys need to change your behavior. Don’t make me pull this car over!”
Now we’re going to look next time into an incredibly unbelievable thing that was going on in the church at Corinth, some of you will read ahead and you’ll read about what was going on there in chapter 5. For now, we understand the importance of correction, correction of the Word of God to bring help to the family of God.
Christians who love one another have the heart of a parent.
It’s not the means by which we are saved. None of us is perfect. No church is without problems. People say, “The church is full of problems.” Yes, it is and you are our latest! That’s why we’re all here.
People are messy and we all make mistakes. That’s why God came to us in the Person of Christ, to live the perfect life we ourselves could never live. He died for our sins and transgressions to make a way for us to be saved from the penalty of our sin. The Gospel is that when we believe in Christ and appropriate the work of His salvation, God saves us not on the basis of our performance, but on the basis of the infinitely perfect righteousness of Christ. He loves us and sees us and regards us as “in Christ.” Praise God for that! We’re talking about how we live as persons who have been forgiven.
Stand for prayer.
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