Sermons & Studies

TEXT: I Corinthians 4:1-5

INTRODUCTION
Happy New Year!
On this first Sunday of the year 2005
God has given each of us a new year present.
The Lord be willing,
Each of us has 363 days before us.
God has given us these days for a purpose,
That is to do His work. 

Many of us has been doing so faithfully,
Serving the church as a volunteer
For the past 20, 30, 40 years.
Many of us have committed ourselves
To serve on the church board,
Shouldering some of the heaviest responsibilities of this church.
On this first day of the rest of our remainder years,
Let us meditate on I Corinthians 4:1-5
For our mutual encouragement. 


READ TEXT

From this teaching of the Bible,
We are to ponder on 2 important questions:
1.	Who are we?
2.	What will we get?

1. WHO ARE WE?
1.1	 We are the Servants of Christ.
The New Testament commonly uses 2 words
to describe the leaders of the church.
One word is diakonos
Which means server at the table
A title which the Bible adopted for deacons,
Emphasing the servant role of the lay-leaders of the church.
The other word is huperetes
Which is translated minister in NIV.
Huperetes literally means “under-rowers”
This is the word used to describe
The slaves who row the huge Roman ships.
They are almost invisible,
for they always stay at the bottom galley of the ship,
Their movements are very predictable
For they all obey the drum signal of the captain of the ship,
Yet they are also extremely important, 
For the efficiency and effectiveness of the ship
depends largely on their cooperation.
The Bible is in fact telling us,
We are not the captain of the ship,
We are all “under-rowers” under the order of the captain. 

Jesus Christ our Lord is our captain,
Revelation 1:5
“who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,
And has made us to be a kingdom and priests
to serve his God and Father.”
We must obey what Christ teaches us to do,
Because only Christ is able to bring us to the right destination. 

Being “under-rowers” of Jesus Christ
Also means that we have to serve
in cooperation with other “under-rowers”.
If an oarsman has chosen to row his oar
At a different pace from his fellows,
His labor will become useless.
Instead of being a help,
He will be in the way of others and become a stumbling block.
He may row and row to his best effort,
But all his efforts will be futile because
He has chosen to row at a different beat
than his fellow “under-rowers.” 

This reminds me of a spectacular view of our church
on Christmas Eve.
When Laurie-lay Jayne began to sing “O Holy Night”
at the close of the service,
All the electric lights in this church were turned off.
Each person in the pew passed the light
to light his neighbor’s candle,
The church was soon filled with a beautiful glow.
But if a person on that night had chosen to refuse
to pass his light to his neighbor,
Or had chosen not to light his candle,
Then there will be a dark corner in this church.
This in fact, reminds me of the church
in the French village of Doubs…

ILLUSTRATION

1.2	We are the Stewards of Christ
A steward is a servant
Who manages everything for his master,
But who himself owns nothing.
Galatians 6:10 tells us,
The church is the “household of faith.”
Matthew 13:52 further tells us,
Christ’s stewards are to share God’s wealth with the family.
“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust
Must prove faithful.” 

The responsibility of the steward
is to be faithful to his master.
A steward may not please members of the household,
He may not even please some of the other servants;
But if he pleases Christ his master,
He is a faithful steward.
God does not require us to be successful
He only requires to be faithful. 

There are two immensely different prophets in the Old Testament:
One was most successful,
The other was most faithful.
There was a prophet who caused people to get saved
Everywhere he went.
The entire crew of the ship he traveled got saved;
The entire population of Nineveh,
Estimated at 2 million at the time, get saved as well.
You know who he is?  Jonah!
If Jonah were born today,
Books would have been written about him,
He would have been asked to lead conferences
Which would then be televised through satellites
all over the world. 
But was he faithful by being obedient?
God has to twist his arm in order to make him obedient. 

In contrast,
There was another prophet
Who preached for 30 years without seeing a single conversion.
That was Jeremiah the weeping prophet.
But in God’s economy,
When Jesus Christ came,
No one ever mistook him for Jonah. 
In Matthew 16:14,
They thought he was Jeremiah.
Even more wonderful, 
God will assess us by the motives of our hearts
On the day God will bring to light what is hidden in darkness.

1.3	We are the Keepers for God
The Bible said that we are entrusted with the secret things of God.
What are the secret things for God?
Ephesians 3:3-6 tells us,
“This mystery is that through the gospel
The gentiles are heirs together with Israel,
Members together of one body,
And sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”
Colossians 1:26-27 further explains:
“God has chosen to make known…
The glorious riches of this mystery,
Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
In other words,
God has entrusted us with the Gospel of salvation
And all the Biblical promises He will validate through Christ.
As leaders of the church,
As helpers and care-givers of our people,
Let us be diligent in studying the word of God,
Let us know by heart God’s promises in the Bible. 

When you stand at the deathbed of a dying person,
When you are facing the tears of a grieving family,
All the human words of comfort you can imagine
will be of little value,
Only the word of God
is able to offer real hope and comfort.

2. WHAT WILL WE GET?
2.1 We Will Get Judgment.
The Bible tells us that there will always be 3 types of judgment.
The modern synonym of judgment is evaluation.
There will always be man’s evaluation, self-evaluation,
and God’s evaluation.
Whether we like it or not,
There will always be people around
Who will take it upon themselves to pass judgment
on all we do for God.
Romans 12:18 encourages us to be at peace with others,
 “If it is possible,
Peace with everybody.”
But we must do so without compromising
God’s truth or standard.
Romans 12:21 further encourages us
to live up to the standard of God’s people
even in the face of people who deliberately harm us:
“Do not be overcome by evil,
But overcome evil with good.”
We should be sensitive to man’s judgment,
But man’s judgment is never
the golden rule to measure our success. 

As servants of Christ,
We are never called to enter the popularity contest.
Poor is the man who equates popularity with success in ministry.
Such a person is grossly self-deceived. 

As servants of Christ,
There will be times when we must make unpopular decisions
Or take a politically incorrect stance
Because we must obey Christ
instead of just appeasing man. 

Self-evaluation, again, is necessary for improvement,
But self-evaluation is never
the golden standard by which we judge ourselves either.
We are too easily driven by our un-met needs
And think better of ourselves than we really are. 

The puritan preacher John Bunyan,
The author of “Pilgrim’s Progress” had this experience…

ILLUSTRATION

The only judgment that matters,
The Bible tells us, is at the bema seat of Christ,
Where all works will be tried by God
As precious metals are tested by the refiner’s fire.
There, “Christ will bring to light what is hidden in darkness
And will expose the motives of men’s hearts.
At that time each will receive his praise from God.”
Isn’t that wonderful? 

God will judge us not just by the results,
But he will judge us according to the purity of our motivation. 

II Corinthians 8:12 assured us:
“If the willingness is there,
The gift is acceptable according to what one has,
Not according to what he does not have.”

2.2 We Will Get Our Reward
In that day,
“Each will receive his praise from God.”
But this reward comes at the price of
tremendous self-sacrificing. 

In Matthew 25:14
Jesus Christ taught the Parable of the Talents.
The faithful servant who
“went at once and put his Master’s money to work”
Took the more difficult road
Than the servant who just buried his talent in the ground:
The faithful servant had to work harder
in managing his investments.
Before the existence of FDIC,
the faithful servant had to take a tremendous risk.
The faithful servant had to shoulder
greater responsibility for his Master.
But on the day when the Master came
To settle the account with his servants,
It was the faithful servant who had chosen to work harder,
Who had chosen to take risk
and to shoulder responsibility
That will be rewarded. 

He will hear the Master’s praise:
“Well done, good and faithful servant!
You have been faithful with a few things,
I will put you in charge of many things.
Come and share your master’s happiness!”  

CONCLUDING ILLUSTRATION
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York
Is the largest cathedral in the world.
It is also the building that took the longest time in construction
in the 20th century.
This is because every stone mason work
was individually finished by hand
Without using the mass production techniques
of our industrialized society.
In fact this building is still under construction,
It is yet to be finished.
One day a tourist to the cathedral noticed
A stone cutter working on a really tall scaffolding
Above a flying buttress on the roof of the cathedral.
The tourist waited patiently for the stone cutter to take a break
And to climb down the scaffolding.
Out of curiosity the tourist asked the stone cutter,
What are you doing up there on the roof top?
“I am carving some roses on one of the flying buttresses.
I have been doing this for the past 17 years.”
The stone cutter answered.
The tourist became even more bewildered.
“These buttresses are so high above the ground,
Who in the world are going to admire your craftsmanship?”
“But God is able to see them” came the stone cutter’s reply.
Dear brothers and sister in Christ,
God is able to see what you do for Him,
Let us serve Him together.