Every Worker Has a Role

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[0:00] this is our final fifth Sunday of a sermon series called the vineyard and I was this kind of grew out of some of my reading and studies and sabbatical so this is kind of a little bit of what I had been working on and was was moved by as I read just a quick recap we know from the beginning the very first one we talked about the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden and how God's plan for this this meaningful work of paradise in the garden where they tended to the earth was lost because of sin and how Abraham was given the covenant by God and with God to bring, kind of restore all this somehow and to bring a blessing to all the nations. Then we read in Isaiah chapter 5 that he had a vineyard that he was expecting great produce from but that he would take the protection away from it. and now we have an update on all the various fruits and things okay because somehow somewhere somebody heard that i wanted a big pumpkin and one mysteriously appeared over here so i'm going to do the pine cones first so last week i said i had a giant pine cone but no little pine cone that i could found fine so here's marilyn dropped off a little little pine cone it's like i'll put it next to my ear it's smaller than my ear and then this is the giant one that i found

[1:24] at a park nearby. So you can imagine that God says I was expecting these pine cones but I got these pine cones. And then here's the pumpkin that I grew and it's tiny. It's so small. It's just ridiculous. But then, I don't know. They left their names and I'll find it. But somebody brought this pumpkin which is all stem. Is this kind of, I don't get it. So either this is a pumpkin that could have even been five times this big and it just decided not to be or I I don't know, but that's some stem. So this is a big old pumpkin, it's bigger than my head. So God, you know, God was expecting this or bigger and he got, you know, this little one. So that was Isaiah, oops, they're talking to the microphones so people here at home can hear me. That was Isaiah five. And so that's kind of sets the tone. And then Jesus takes that parable one step further and you just heard it. Now we've heard it from Matthew, Mark and Luke, all the synop, what we call the synoptic gospels, Adele read it for us. you know Jesus said this really is a parable about me it's a parable about how Israel is choosing the wrong path and I'm going to take the father is going to take the vineyard away from those who reject the son and give it to those who accept the son and thus will also give him

[2:40] the produce that he requires as the landlord and then last week we looked at what followed directly on from that which was the prediction of the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem and that there were two paths that neither of which worked that Jesus was really sort of speaking out against. One was collaboration with corrupt power which would have been the priestly class or seeking to use power and violence to replace the corrupt power and Jesus says neither of these will work. Both of these are a form of idolatry. Both of these are a form of not giving the landlord Lord the produce that he deserves and so that the temple will be destroyed and and as a place and it gets actually the temple is replaced by Jesus himself and the only way through these two paths is this middle road of staying true to Jesus at the center of the vineyard staying connected to him and being prepared that all sorts of things may fall down around you all sorts of things that you hold on to that you thought were stable but nonetheless if you hold on to Jesus he'll bring bring you through this difficult time and you will be connected with him and you'll be working in the vineyard. And so we choose the middle way. We stay connected to Jesus and the vineyard has

[3:54] been given to us so that so long as we produce the fruit that the landlord requires. And always in the background there is also that warning, which I think we need to take seriously, but also find confidence that God loves us and cares for us. But that there's this warning that if we don't produce what the what the landlord requires should we then also should we give the vineyard to somebody else who will do it and that's an interesting question we should always be thinking about now for today the final the final installment part five we're going to look at the apostle paul as he writes to the his first letter to the church in corinth and he's going to tell us what it looks like for us to work in the vineyard and and how to divide up the labor so the background of our text first corinthians is a letter to a very dysfunctional church it's a church with all sorts of problems immorality selfishness emotional and spiritual immaturity like these are like these are adults acting like babies like just the way they're acting is crazy crazy. One feature of their immature behavior was factions, groups in the church that were sort of arrayed against each other. And the factions were organized around who they thought was a better

[5:14] leader or evangelist. Some thought Paul was a better leader. Others thought a different apostle or disciple named Apollos was the better one. So some were in the Paul camp, camp. Some were in the Apollos camp. And there's this dysfunction in a lot of organizations where they're always dividing up. They're always dividing up and unity is hard to find. It's us versus them. That's kind of this childishness that Paul is seeing there. And so he's correcting, he's sending part of the letters to correct this failure. But whenever Paul corrects a failure, it's very very interesting in Corinthians. He does it in a way that teaches what good behavior looks like. He does it in a way that he doesn't just say that's bad. He says, this is what's good. And when they're making mistakes about theology, he doesn't just say your theology is wrong. He teaches us more about what good theology looks like. And so actually, in a weird way, we owe this dysfunctional church in Corinth all sorts of thanks because that became the occasion for Paul to teach us all sorts of things that we needed to know. And in the same way, there were many heretics in the history of the church. And as bad as they were, we should be thankful to them because they forced

[6:30] the church to clarify what good doctrine actually is. That's the fascinating thing about heresy and the heretics that taught it is that they sharpened the church in some very important ways. So Paul Paul corrects this failure and he's going to give us some hints about how we can organize our work in the vineyard. So let's listen. This is 1 Corinthians 3 verses 1 through 9. This is what Paul writes. He writes, and so brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food for you were not ready for solid food even now you are still not ready for you are still of the flesh for as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you are you not of the flesh and behaving according to human inclinations for when one says I belong to Paul and another says I belong to Apollos are you not merely human what then is Apollos what is Paul servants through whom you came to believe as the Lord assigned to each I planted Apollos watered but God gave the growth so neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but only god who gives the growth the one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose and each will receive wages according to the labor of each for we are god's

[8:18] servants working together you are god's field god's building let's pray heavenly father thank thank you for your word. We ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen. Wow. Well, let's take a look at our reading. I want you to sort of pull out, if you have the bulletin there or in the Bible, pull out 1 Corinthians chapter 3. We see in this reading that Paul is correcting a tendency in the church towards factions, all right? Now, you could, you know, churches have had factions about the color of the carpet in the sanctuary, like a church split. You'd hope that the church would split about something theological like, you know, baptism, like churches have split over that. That at least has a little bit of like, you could maybe get behind that. But the color of the carpet, come on. It's just a sign that people like to kind of make groups and fight, right? So in this case, there were two groups, probably more, but he heard that some thought he was super great and Apollos wasn't that great. There was another group that thought Apollos was super great and Paul not so great. And it must have gotten to the level where they weren't talking to each other or they were fighting openly about who it was that they thought was a better apostle. And Paul says, you know what?

[9:40] Some of you came to faith through me. Great. Some of you came to faith through Apollos. Great. But But that doesn't make us more, shouldn't make us more prominent in your life than God himself. And Paul says, you know, you're really just being human in this, when you're making these factions. And that's not, you know, like, normally that's a compliment in our culture. You're such a great human. But when Paul says it, that's not a compliment. What he's saying is you're operating out of your flesh. The flesh, as Paul talks about it, is often, and not just Paul, but other parts of the New Testament, when they talk about the flesh, it means that seat of sinful nature and inclination away from God and towards evil. So he says, you're being human. You're operating in the flesh out of a sinful nature. You're kind of acting like fifth graders. We have a fifth grader. Seems like there's a lot of drama amongst the fifth graders right now. But also there's eighth graders, aren't there? And there's 11th graders. Do you know some 11th graders? A little bit of drama there, right? Yeah. Yeah, or some adults that we know, little bit of drama there, okay. So don't do that, he says. You don't need to make all these groups.

[10:51] You don't need that. There is a difference between Paul and Apollos, for sure. They're different people. They had different emphases. They came at different times. They have different roles. They do different things. And here we have an agricultural metaphor about planting, watering, growth, and harvest. and it could be about a field or a garden, but today I think we should imagine that it's about a vineyard, right? Because we're talking about the vineyards. Look at verse six. This is our most important verse for today. It's really the only thing that we're going to look at in this in detail. It says this, I planted, so that's Paul, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. This is the important thing to note, right? This is all we really need. We could look at it this way in his ministry paul planted the seed of the gospel he preached about jesus but then he had other churches to attend to so they may not have even been in corinth at the exact same time right these people would come and go apollos and we believe paul apollos was a faithful disciple who preached the gospel as he understood it apollos came to the church and he taught and so there is this maybe this tiny seed that Paul planted and and it received the water of

[12:09] more teaching from Apollos more care so they had different jobs right but each was indispensable but also each was completely dispensable when you compare to what God does he says each of us together we're both not we're both nothing really we're nothing but God is everything but yet he had a role to play. He planted a seed and that was the gospel he preached. And it's like, think of words that go into your heart. They do plant seeds. They go into your brain. They create thoughts. So he planted the seeds and some people are like, wow, I've never heard this before. A seed is planted. And then he left. And then months later, years later, Apollos came and he preached more. And they're like, ah, this is like water falling on that first seed. I'm learning more. It's growing. something's growing inside of me right and so it was god over and above all of this that made the miracle of faith grow and so god god is doing a lot of this if paul or apollos didn't do it this is an important to remember if paul didn't do this or apollos didn't do it god would have called somebody else to do these two these two jobs god can give the vineyard to somebody who will do the work of the vineyard, right? That's a very clear sort of idea. So Paul's important, but he's not

[13:28] indispensable. Somebody else could have done it, and there were other people that planted churches besides Paul, and we have those churches yet today. So he didn't plant every church that exists. So these factions are, they're completely unnecessary, and they show just how little the Corinthian church understands the gospel. The gospel is not about power, it's not about prestige or influence or one team being better than the other team. Jesus is not the center of this church in Corinth. That's the biggest problem, right? And they have a long way to go before the growth inside them needs to really get to the point where they can start having good fruit. Right now, as Paul says, they're acting very human. They're operating out of the flesh. They're operating out of their sinful nature. And this is a problem for the church. Paul loves this church, though. He's not giving up on it. He sends them another letter. We think he even sends them a third letter that we have lost. And that would be the find of the millennium if some archaeologists could find that letter. And we could find the third letter of the Corinthians, but it's gone. We don't know where it is. So Paul loves this church. There's a difference between yelling

[14:36] at somebody and leaving them in that spot. Paul yells at them, but he loves them. He says, I say say this through tears, that I have to confront you on all these things. And I want to come back to you. I want to love you. I want to take care of you. But I have to be clear about what's going wrong. You're operating out of the flesh. Jesus isn't at the center. You're creating factions amongst yourselves. And I'm not any better than Apollos. We just have different jobs.

[15:03] So this is a good place. And we're not going to spend too much more time on 1 Corinthians. But the idea there, I think, is how we now organize our work in our vineyards. I encourage us to think of our church, this building, as a small vineyard where we are planting seeds and seeds are growing and growth is happening and the harvest comes. And as I said, if we're not going to do it, if somehow we decide we just can't do it, then we should we should sell this building and all this land and give it to somebody who will do it. whether that's a missionary agency or a church planting organization or somebody else right and I don't think we're there I don't think we're there because I think we are planting and growing and harvesting but I think we need to be intentional about it the model that Paul gives us from his confrontation of the church in Corinth is he had one job in the vineyard planting Apollos had another job which was watering and tending and so I think that's a model that we we can extend to how we understand our work in our vineyard. Some of us have certain jobs and none are more important than the others. And we're going to get to that in just a minute, but I'm going to recap all the way up until now so that we can pull it all together in one big

[16:18] picture. It's exciting, okay? So again, God's original plan for the world was meaningful work in the garden, right? Tending and caring for the entire world. And I like that because the idea of of paradise for Adam and Eve, it involved work. And when you're young, you think work is boring and terrible and playing games all the time is great. But when you're older, do you realize that work is really satisfying? If you like your work, if you like your work. If you don't like your work, I encourage you to either find a way to love your work or find other work if it's possible. Because having a vocation and working with the gifts that God has given you is one of the greatest joys in life. and it is a way of touching paradise I think so the the original paradise was Adam and Eve working in the garden taking care of it naming all the animals that could have taken forever there's like a zillion animals right naming all the plants blessing the world because they were in the world all of that was lost right Adam and Eve sinned and over the years God made covenants with his people including Abraham and all his descendants and these covenants always always included this charge to bless the entire world and bring the entire world back to this

[17:33] place of paradisical work, meaningful work in the garden, blessing the world. And that was all lost to all of those covenants failed, not because of God, but because of people. So God made the new covenant in Jesus. And that was one that didn't depend on our faithfulness, but on his obedience. That's the important distinction, right? So the vineyard is still a place that God God wants us to do meaningful work to bless the world. And we think the vineyard has been given to us, and we believe that when Jesus says the vineyard will be given to somebody else, we think that's not going from the Jews to the Christians. We think that's going from those who will produce, who won't produce, to those who will produce, whether they're Jews or Christians or anyone else. Anyone who puts Christ at the center and works in the vineyard, the vineyard will be given to them. And again, we also ask ourselves if we are indeed producing fruit. And finally, here we are today. God has meaningful work for us. So I think you can touch paradise here as a part of this community because you can do meaningful work here, not just in your workplace, but meaningful work here in the vineyard, in the kingdom, right? And we know what that is.

[18:46] And so here's where I think it can break out for us. and I want you to think am I like this am I do I have gifts for this so some of us just like Paul said I I plant polished water God gives the growth right I want you to think some of us prepare the soil look at the back of your bulletin there's the six for the stages of of what it work looks like in the vineyard right and you start with preparing the soil that's from another parable too. You need good soil, right? The soil needs to be receptive to the seed. So what is preparing the soil? We make the church a healthy place to be, right? Just like Paul needed to prepare a lot of soil at Corinth. Actually, that was his job of this letter was to prepare the soil and say, you're so unhealthy, nothing's going to grow there right now. Even if we plant a seed there, it's going to have a hard time. We need to make the church a healthy place. We make the soil receptive to seeds. This means having good boundaries. It means caring for each other. It means supporting each other in hard times and developing our own internal community. This needs to be a family. This needs to be a place where you're safe. This needs to be a place where you can come with your burdens and

[19:58] people will care for you, all right. That's a good place. That's a good fertile soil, right. Now some of us prepare the soil. Some of us plant the word as a seed. some of us are planters that's teaching our children or if you're not here at the church teaching as a Sunday school teacher outside this church is living your life in such a way that other people in this wide world notice something about you and I hope somebody in this world has once told you you know you seem different you seem different there's something about you what do you have that's if that has happened to you you're most likely a seed planter You're a seed planting kind of person, right? They notice something different about you. These are just seeds. They're tiny seeds planted in the ground. I'm not even talking about people coming to faith yet. I'm just talking about little things that get picked up, little tiny seeds, but from which very large things can grow if they're tended well, right?

[21:01] Others water and tend, right? We take care of things. We develop deeper relationships with the people in whom the seed is planted. We nurture and disciple and mentor children in the church and outside of the church. Those people that have had a seed planted in them because of you, you can't ignore them. There's Pastor Steve walking by. Well, he seems well enough to walk. Praise God. Okay. I had to say that because that's almost like an answer to prayer right there. He's walking slowly though. Okay. Okay, well, he's well enough to be up and about. So anyways, have you planted a seed in somebody else's life outside this church?

[21:43] Watering intending it would be staying connected with those people, it's not a one-off thing. Stay in relationship with them, stay connected to them, do life together, go to meals together, have them over to your house. COVID is hopefully allowing us to do things like that now, right? And we are then, you're open to some kind of God conversations when they arise you don't force them necessarily right they arise naturally and we're present for those people in difficult times too you step in when they're hurting more you don't run away that's tending and watering that's helping other people and then some of us are blessed to be here for the harvest right to be there for the harvest we see when the plant is ready we invite people to the wedding feast that's another sort of parable we ask them to meet the Jesus that we know and And that takes some thoughts, some prayer, the guidance of the spirit where you've been walking with another person long enough or with a child here in the church where you say, is it now time for you to take that next step and come to faith in the Jesus that we know? Because he's the answer to a lot of these things that, you know, we have been talking about. So that would be the harvest.

[22:56] And then finally, we all together, we yield the harvest to God. we basically say of all of this this isn't ours I may have put some work in other people put other kinds of work in it's all belongs to God he's above and in and through and with all of this and it all belongs to him and we gather it up and like a giant basket and we take it up here to the altar and we put it here and we say this is yours we yield to the landlord the fruits of the the vineyard and the last step maybe this is a big maybe and it's not up to us the other parables about the faithful stewards the faithful servants God will say well now now that was good now let's give you a bigger vineyard and you go work in that one see what happens there but that might not happen that's not that's again that's not up to us that's up to the landlord and that's getting our place straight who we are where we belong in this so I want you to think this week and I want you to think in the month ahead and i think this can have something to do with when we plan together as a church and we have our semi-annual meeting in january i want you to at least be thinking this week um because we have to keep at this this this the sermon series will be over but i don't think

[24:08] the message is over jesus isn't done with us okay ask yourself am i a soil preparer right this could be hospitality work here at the church soul care work like the uh like the trustees trustees well actually the trustees take care of the building or the deacons people who take care of the inner life of the church am i a seed planter and and how can i serve as a seed planter am i a seed waterer right or a seed care caretaker do i pursue longer term and deeper relationships with seekers outside the church is that my person not everybody has that personality and that's okay Okay. Do I do that outside the church? Do I enter their lives with care when they are hurting? Am I a seed waterer, seed tenderer? Am I a seed harvester? Do I help people make that last step towards Jesus? Do I do that? Paul plants, Apollos waters, but God gives the growth. We remember that completely, that all of this happens because the Spirit guides us, gives us power to do it and God is in charge of all of it all we have to do is be faithful and available to God and to bring him our best work our best labor and the rest is in his hands he will take care of all those things but we're faithful workers in the vineyard and that's it so I hope this has been

[25:32] useful this is our sermon series this came out of my sabbatical work I hope you liked it I'm excited about I think we need to keep talking about this we're going to keep talking about this we make make goals in January for the new year. Let's think about how do we do this? How do we do this well as a body? Can we organize ourselves around this metaphor, around this image somewhat? Well, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for this patch of earth that you have given us. Thank you for the vineyard of this property, this vineyard of this body.

[26:08] Father, help us to be your faithful servants. Keep us connected to Jesus, whatever may come. Help us to do the work and yield the harvest to you. We ask it all in Jesus' name.