Grow Up! - Measuring Your Spiritual Maturity
Measure #1: Are You a Uniter, or a Divider
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 – September 1, 2013
Being a follower of Christ should help us get along with others. One young lady testified to that fact when she said, “I had an uncle that I disliked so much I said I wouldn’t even attend his funeral. But now that I’m a Christian, I’d be happy to attend his funeral.”
Seriously, it sends a terrible message to the world around us when people who claim to be followers of the Prince of Peace are divided against one another.
In Bethlehem, on the very spot where they believe the baby Jesus was born, there is a 1,500 year old church -- the Church of the Nativity. And the church is cared for by monks from the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Armenian Church. The monks have divided up the care of the church between the three groups.
Christmas is a busy time in that church as people flock to see and worship at the place where Jesus was born - the child who came with angels proclaiming “peace on earth.” But after Christmas in 2011, a big fight broke out in the church. The three different sets of monks were cleaning up the church when they got in a brawl -- yelling at each other, hitting each other with brooms and fists. The riot police were calling in, and two of the policemen were injured in the fight. Evidently one of the groups cleaned a spot in the church that one of the other groups said was their area to clean.
Personally, when someone starts cleaning something that I’m supposed to clean, I’m happy to back off and let them do their thing. But it is a reminder that, as followers of Christ, we can become divided over the most ridiculous things, and make ourselves a joke in the eyes of the world around us.
A research project was done a few years back to examine the difference between churches that were thriving and growing, and churches that were stagnant or dying. And the #1 factor, the most powerful determiner of growth vs. decline was this one thing: conflict. No other factor will kill a church faster than a spirit of divisiveness.
So today I want you to understand why division is so tremendously destructive to a church family and to your personal witness and spiritual life…
• If you want to have any impact on your world,
• if you want to lead others toward Christ instead of away from Him,
• if you want to be closer to Christ yourself…
…you need to grow out of the immaturity of being a divider, and into the spiritually mature role of being a uniter.
The church in Corinth was a church that was filled with spiritual immaturity, and we don’t even get out of chapter 1 before Paul is having to deal with it. Paul says that there is “division” in the church. He uses the Greek word “schism,” which literally means “a rip or a tear.” The church is being ripped apart by this conflict. But what is that conflict?
He describes it in verse 12: “One of you says, ‘I follow Paul,’ another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ another ‘I follow Cephas,’ still another ‘I follow Christ.’” Now what was that all about?
Some followed Paul. Paul was the founder of the church, their first teacher. They might have often said, “Don’t you remember back when Paul did this or that…? He was there when the baby was born. He was there when Grandma died.” These were people who probably placed a lot of value on loyalty and tradition and relationships.
Some followed Apollos. Apollos was the eloquent preacher. He knew how to capture and thrill an audience. He made worship exciting and dynamic and powerful. He could weave a sermon that left his audience spellbound. Apollos didn’t have the theological depth of Paul - Paul had to mentor him - but Apollos definitely knew how to put on an exciting show. So he appealed to the church members who loved excitement.
Some followed Peter. Peter, unlike Paul or Apollos, had been there with Jesus. He was one of the original follower of Jesus, and was the leader of the Jerusalem church - the mother church. Peter was the guy with the great résumé, the impressive credentials. People who liked authority, who liked namedropping, who were impressed by someone’s credentials… those folks were drawn to Peter.
And we are like that today, aren’t we?
• Some want that beloved former pastor who married and buried and who knows us.
• Some want the famous TV preacher or evangelist, the mesmerizing speaker.
• Some want the guy with the résumé - the experienced foreign missionary, the seminary president.
And these are all wonderful things… until they tear us apart.
And then there were those who said, “I follow Christ.” Now, at first glance, these might have been the people who had it right. But it’s also possible that they were trying to outdo the other groups, to appear more spiritual than the rest. “We follow Jesus! Try to top that!” So there may have been some pride involved.
But Paul gets back to a basic principle: “Is Christ divided?” It was Jesus who suffered and died, Jesus who brought forgiveness, Jesus who rose from the grave, and Jesus who is the reigning Savior and Lord. And we are called to be followers of Jesus… no one else, just Jesus.
And that’s something we desperately need to keep in mind when any issue or decision threatens to pull our church in different directions, to tear us apart as a family. The principle is that, no matter what the issue before us, Jesus has a single opinion, a single direction. Jesus is not divided. Jesus is not confused and unable to make up His mind. So if all of us are hearing from our Lord, then we will all be in agreement. Because Christ is not divided. And if we are divided, somebody is not getting their opinion or direction from Christ. It’s just that simple.
So there are three specifics I want you to see in this passage today.
1. Those who stir up division are demonstrating their immaturity.
(Matthew 5:9; 1 Corinthians 3:1-3; Galatians 5:22-23 [peace])
Skip ahead and look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:1, 3…
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ… . For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
Paul points back to this division and says, “That’s all the proof you need to know that you are immature, not spiritually mature, …focused on worldly values, not godly values.
And it does still happen today. Immature Christians use their Sunday school class as a place to stir up division and conflict. Immature Christians grab others in the parking lot to criticize this committee or that leader, and to try to enlist others to take their side. There’s no conversation about “What does our Lord want us to do?”
But if we had that conversation, knowing that “Christ is not divided” (as Paul says), then we would not be divided either.
2. By “choosing up sides” among believers, we label the cross “worthless.”
In fact, the words Paul uses are even stronger than that. He says that when we create division, when we stir up conflict between believers, we are saying that the cross is not just worthless, but “stupid.” The Greek word is “moros,” from which we get our word “moron.”
And here’s what Paul means… Jesus’ mission on the cross was to bring reconciliation, not division. To bring God and people together, not tear them apart. So when we stir up division and conflict between believers, we are working against the cross. In Ephesians 2, Paul says that Jesus’ work on the cross tore down the wall that divides people, but when we stir up conflict we are rebuilding the wall that Jesus tore down. In Colossians 1, it says Jesus worked to bring all things together, and are we then going to tear them back apart?
If we’re going to un-do the work Jesus did on the cross with our immature and divisive behavior, we are saying that what Jesus did on the cross is just not that important. We are saying that what we want, what we think is more important than what Jesus came to do. So the message our behavior proclaims is that the cross is worthless, it’s foolish. By trying to divide people against one another, we are saying, “Tearing down that wall was stupid, and I’m going to rebuild it. Bringing people together in the cross was stupid, and I’m going to divide them again.”
And folks, when our world… our divided, broken, conflict-filled world… searches for healing and peace, and they look at God’s people and see us choosing up sides against one another, siding with one human leader over another, rather than all getting behind the call of Christ, our witness is destroyed.
Jesus endured rejection, torture, and a voluntary death to bring unity to a broken world… but I’m going to stir up conflict and division because my will, my comfort, my agenda is more important that the agenda of Christ. That is spiritual immaturity of the highest order.
No wonder conflict among believers is the #1 thing that kills churches. Because it proclaims that what Jesus did on the cross has had no effect on our lives.
3. By promoting unity, we are imitating (following) our Savior and His will.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
In Family Systems Counseling, we talk about people who function like transformers. Step up transformers take the electricity from the power station and step it up to 10,000 volts and send it across those transmission towers. Then the step down transformers take it from 10,000 volts down to the house voltage that runs your appliances. People can be like that. One person takes a little irritation and turns it into a huge, major problem and gets the whole church upset - like Chicken Little telling everyone the sky is falling. And others are like step-down transformers. They can take a serious issue and wrap it in peacefulness and grace and even a sense of humor that removes all the fear and helps us all solve the problem easily.
Which are you?
…do you step things up and make them divisive, or step things down and promote unity?
In Philippians 2, Paul calls us to respond to God’s work in our lives by being “one in love and spirit and purpose.” Then he points to Jesus as our example: “Have this attitude in you which was Christ Jesus, who set aside comfort and privilege and position to serve us to the point of dying on a cross.”
Folks…
• the health of our church,
• the effectiveness of our reach into this community,
• the clarity of your witness and testimony
…is dependent on whether you are a uniter or a divider.
This is one of the clearest signs of whether is spiritually mature, or whether they still desperately need to “grow up” in their relationship to Christ.
John Wesley, was the founder of Methodism. Someone asked him what set true Methodists apart from others. He said “It’s not any special action or custom or opinion. What sets a true Methodist apart is a belief in the Scriptures as God’s word, and a love for God will all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength.”
His questioner said, “But doesn’t that describe all Chrisians?”
And John Wesley said, “Of course!”
Wesley wanted the most distinctive feature of his life not to be something that divided him from other Christians, but the love for Christ that united him with other Christians. And shouldn’t we want others to know us, not as the person who argued for a certain approach to ministry, or a certain style of worship, or a certain Sunday schedule, or a certain kind of music, but as that person whose life was consumed by a love for Christ that make them a source of unity and peace within God’s family?
The spiritually mature follower of Christ is someone who unites people, not someone who divides people. Is that an area where you need to grow? In your family life, in your church life, in your community life, how can you do more to live in harmony with the Savior who came to tear down dividing walls, and bring unity and peace?
(Closing prayer)
