Stop Acting Like a Baby - 1 Corinthians 3:1-8

Stop acting like a baby. You ever heard those that phrase said to you? Every day. Maybe you've said it to someone else on occasion. This idea that we're talking to someone who isn't a baby anymore, but they're behaving like a baby. They're acting in ways that don't line up with who they are. You've probably said it to your kids at some point. You probably had it said to you if you were like me at some point. If you're like me. I've had many times, not many. I've had occasions in life. When I have been so very sick. At death's door almost, struggling with my sickness. And I reach out to my wife for a little compassion. And what I get is, hey, quit acting like a baby. 99.2 is not a fever. And like, she doesn't understand. She doesn't understand how bad it is. Stop acting like a baby. There's a famous reel that's going around, at least in our house. I know how many people know it. It's of this mom who has this little baby girl in front of us. She's probably 2 years old and she's trying to teach her something. And when she says, now, you need to say you understand. And the Lord goes, I'm just a baby. And then I said, but you need to say you understand, but I'm just a baby. And in our house, that's our line when we just want to do what we want to do, and we don't want to kind of be responsible. I'm just a baby. It's a motivating phrase, and when we tell someone, stop acting like a baby. We're wanting them to grow up and understand who they are. Paul uses this phrase, not in these exact same words, to the Corinthians. We've been working through the book of one Corinthians, and in chapter 3, we're going to see that he tells the Corinthians, you're infants in Christ, you shouldn't be anymore. You need to grow up. You see, there's a place to be an infant. And there's a place as parents when we have a newborn child and as a child grows up, we're like, we don't want them not to be a baby. But then at some point we're realizing, oh, you're not a baby anymore. And then at some point we're just saying, stop being a baby. And Paul is at that point with the Corinthians. And maybe some of us in here are the same point that we need to hear what Paul says. The main idea from the message today is very simple. Stop acting like a baby and grow up in Christ. Now, a little background before we turn to 1st Corinthians 3. Paul was in Corinth for about 18 months originally. He was on a missionary journey. He landed in the city of Corinth. He stayed there 18 months. People came to be followers of Christ out of their pagan background. They accepted Christ. He stayed there 18 months, and then he moved on. It's about 3 years later that he's writing this letter that we're reading back to the church at Corinth. And during that time, we'll see a man named Apolis that showed up, other things that happened, but the church has a lot of issues going on. One of the issues. Is there these divisions that have been created among different people who had brought the message to the Corinthians? So some were saying, I follow Paul, and others, I follow a man named Apollos, and others, I follow Cephas, who is Peter, who is one of the disciples. Then there's these divisions that have been created, and they were so bad that some in the church had sent word to Paul. Hey, the church is messed up. We're divided on all these different things over following these people. And there's strife and division. And so Paul writes back to the Corinthians to address that concern. Throughout the letter, he's addressing issues in this church. One of the things that he's writing about, when we read 1st Corinthians, we're getting one side of like a phone conversation you've ever been there, right, where you're in the room and someone's talking and you're like, I wonder what's going on. Why are they saying the things they're saying? When we read 1st Corinthians? We're asking, what was going on in Corinth that has Paul writing what he's writing? And it's obvious from these 1st 2 chapters, that the Corinthians, at some level, at least some of them have said, Paul, you came to us and you had this really simple message, and we're kind of done with you. You're not as advanced as you need to be. You're not as deep as you need to be. We're gonna do some other things. And Paul's writing to them in the last several weeks, he's shown, he said, I brought a really simple message to you about Jesus Christ, who died on a cross, who rose again, who saves us so that we can be in right relationship with God. I made a very simple message. He owns that. He says, absolutely. Because I wanted you to trust in Jesus and not in some fancy presentation of the gospel. He said last week when we were looking in chapter 2, verse 6. He said, yet among the mature, we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age, or the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. Said, yeah, there are deeper teachings that we can give. a wisdom from God that we can give that Paul is giving when it's appropriate. He says, but it wasn't at the time. And then he addresses them to explain why he did what he did. Look with me, and one Corinthians chapter 3, verses one and 2, where he speaks of baby Christians. He says, 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 are not yet ready for it. This is Paul writing about when he was with them some 3 years previous. And he said, I came to you, and I wanted to address you. I could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. So he's saying they're in Christ. We have to keep this in our mind. Paul's not writing to a group of people that he would think were unbelievers. He's saying, you have said yes to Jesus. But when I came to you, I fed you milk, not solid food, because you weren't ready for it yet, you were just a baby. And you were needing to grow up. And he uses some language here that can be confusing for us, I think, in the 21st century. He said, I wanted to address you as spiritual people. But you are still people of the flesh. And these 2 things could be confusing for us, especially the spiritual people side. In 21st century America, when we think of someone as being spiritual. If you were to take out a piece of paper, say, what would a spiritual person look like? What would they do? How would they behave? What we would probably have if we just went out and did a survey in Kansas City, spiritual people would be kind of introspective, They're in tune with themselves. They're aware of what's going on. They may have some sort of connection with a higher power. So they would say, well, there's some other power out there that I'm connected with. Maybe they go to a mosque or a temple or a church. So they're tied up in religion in some way. So Buddhist Hindu, Muslim Christian. Maybe they're just into meditation. So they're in touch with themselves. That would be the spiritual person, in our culture. That's when we hear that word, that's what we tend to think about. That's what I think about. When Paul uses the idea of as spiritual people, In the 1st century, almost everyone would have fallen to the category of connected to some sort of god or gods. They were all spiritual in the sense we think of it in our 21st century secular idea. They would have all been going to temples, offering sacrifices to various gods. When he says as spiritual people, this is a word in the letter to the Corinthians, that Paul means people who are motivated, driven by the Holy Spirit. So it's not just someone who's in touch with themselves. or participates in some sort of religion. It's someone who has the Holy Spirit inside of them, and it's the spirit that is driving them. So he says they're spiritual people, and there's people of the flesh. The flesh is Paul's term, of humans trying on their own to justify themselves, to find their own happiness. In that quest, we create all sorts of gods, false gods. that we then look to, to fulfill us. Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, when they saw the forbidden fruit that God said, don't eat that, they said, you know what? We know what's best. That looks good. I think I'll have that. That's the flesh. That's us being motivated by our own thoughts that we can solve our problems, that we're the center of everything, and that we know best. And so Paul says, there's 2 types of people that he categorizes. People who are spiritual, that's driven by the spirit, motivated by the spirit, energized by the spirit, and people of the flesh, that are being driven, motivated, and energized by their fallenness, by their own seeking to justify themselves. In a sense, it would be like in a car, if you pulled up the hood, you may find in a Tesla, an electric engine. or a diesel engine in another car, or a gas engine in another car, the thing that drives the car is what Paul means here. I wanted to address you as spiritual people. People driven by the Spirit, motivated by the Spirit, but as people of the flesh, not as that, but as because you are infants in Christ, I couldn't do that yet. They were in Christ. These are believers. And as infants in Christ, They're growing up and learning to follow him. Think back, if you're a recently new believer, you feel this more, you're like, man, my life in Christ in my life before Christ, I feel the difference. pretty easily. I really feel the change. If you've been a Christian a long time, you may look back and go, I don't notice the change as much. I can't remember what life was like before I was a believer, especially if you came to Christ when you were really young. You know, like I've just always kind of grown up this way. Paul's reaching out to these believers. And he was saying, when you 1st when I 1st came to you, my message was simple. Because you were baby Christians. You hadn't grown up yet. And I gave you milk and not solid food. We're going to see, though, much like the writer to the Hebrew says in chapter 5 verses 11 and 12, that by this time, some 3 years later, 4 years later, they should have grown up. He says it this way. About this, we have much to say, and it is hard to explain. Since you have become dull of hearing, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child, but solid food is for the mature, for those who have the powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. So Paul says, I fed you milk. Because you weren't ready yet for solid food. One of the men I used to teach with at Midwestern Seminary where I teach, they named the coffee shop after them at the seminary. One of the most brilliant men I've ever met was Dr. Alan Tomlinson. Just, I mean, he took the smart people at the seminary that I work with and made them not look so smart. And they would all admit this. He's that smart. He's just, like, he's on the next level smart. And he would just baffle all of us with his knowledge. And on Sundays, he went and taught 3rd graders at the church he attended. And what he did in a doctoral classroom at the seminary is one thing, and what he did with third graders is another thing. Because he understood where they were at in their teaching. Paul has similarly said, I came to you with a very simple message, because that's what you needed at the time. But he's saying, now we'll see that they need to grow up. In fact, look in verses 2 and 4. They need to stop acting like a baby. He says, and even now you are not yet ready. This is some 4 years later, that he's writing this letter. He says, even now, you're not ready for me to teach you these deeper things. It says for you are still of the flesh. He's not saying they're unsaved. He says you're still motivated and driven by this fallen nature that you have, that you've been set free from, but you can still kind of plug into. But he says, you don't have to anymore as a Christian, but you still are, you're still doing it, Corinthians. He says, even now I can't speak to you. in that way, for you are still of the flesh. For while there's 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 a policy. Are you not being merely human? He says, I would love to talk to you about more advanced things, but you don't have the basics down yet, and so I can't talk to you about these advanced things. And what he does is, he doesn't give them a trivia quiz. He doesn't give them an essay test that say, explain mentally the message that I'm giving you. He points to their actions, to their lifestyle, to how they're living. He says, how do I know you're not ready yet for this deeper wisdom that he says, I impart? It says the strife and jealousy among you. It says your actions betray that you haven't grown up to the point that you're ready for the teaching I'm going to give you. Paul's not concerned with Bible trivia. He's not concerned with saying, I know all the answers to the quiz that's being given. I know a lot of people. We've all been there ourselves. We go, I can answer the quiz. I know all the questions. I get 100 on the test, but our lifestyle doesn't reflect Christ. Simply getting 100 on the Bible quiz isn't what Paul's talking about. He says, I know you're not really ready. You're still being driven and motivated by the flesh. That he says you've been set free from as a believer. You don't have to follow it, but you're still doing it. How does he know that? He says there's division and strife. And then he paws out one of the things that having a fight over. If you stick around with us through all of 1st Corinthians, you're going to find that the Corinthians were taking each other to court. The Corinthians were mistreating each other at the Lord's supper. They had all sorts of things showing that they weren't leaning into the power of the Spirit in their life and growing up in Christ. And so he says, stop acting like a baby. How do I know you're acting like a baby? He says, for when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? So who's a polish? Let's pause for a second. If you were with us, when we talked through the book of Acts, you ran into Apollos, we talked about him a few times. So here's a timeline that we'll put on the screen that will show you the kind of years. And when Paul was doing things. So around 52, 50 to 52, Paul shows up in Corinth. He stays there 18 months, and that's when the church is formed. So he's sharing people, Christ with people, and the believers in Corinth accept Christ. So that's around 50 to 52. During that same time, a man named Apollos was in the city of Ephesus. It says that he was an eloquent man, deeply learned in the Old Testament. So we really knew the Old Testament. well. He had heard of John the Baptist baptism, and he was teaching. And 2 believers named Priscilla and Aqurilla, hear him and go, hey, Apollos, you're really good what you're doing. Here's some more information you haven't heard. They gave him the full story of Jesus, and his death on the cross and his resurrection. And then Apollos became a mighty teacher for Jesus, and he was kind of refuting the critics in the city. And so Apollos is this really eloquent speaker. And then he shows up in Corinth between 52 and 54. So Paul is left, Apollo shows up in Corinth, and is teaching there, helping the Corinthians grow. Paul then writes 1st Corinthians and AD 55. I think this is me kind of listening to Paul's conversation. What I think had happened is this. Paul showed up in Corinth, and he had a very simple message. Because he said the Corinthians needed a simple message that Jesus died for them rose again, that's what he told them. Apollo shows up, and he is a deeper message. Maybe his delivery style is a little more polished. His voice is a little nicer. All of those things that we tend to use to judge people's content. And now the Corinthians, not because of anything Paul or Apollos has done, because we see that Paul stays in contact with Apollo, so they're not fighting with each other at all. But the Corinthians have now divided. Some are saying, well, I follow Paul, and some are saying, I follow Apollos. And they're not doing it just like, well, I like Paul's style more. It's their division is so severe that people in the church wrote to Paul to say, the church is falling apart over these people, picking teams, and picking their favorite between you and Apollos and Cephas. And things are going from bad to worse. And Paul says, I know you're not ready for deeper truth, because you're not doing the basics thing that I told you. We can't do calculus if we can't do simple arithmetic, right? We can't do advanced things if we're not doing the basic things. And again, simple head knowledge is not the goal of the Christian life to go, I can win the Bible trivia game. It's life transformation to look more and more like Christ. He says, stop acting like a baby. And they're acting like a baby here because the picking sides, I follow Paul, I follow Apollos. And then in verses 5 to 9, Paul basically says, stop acting like a baby and grow up. And he explains how they should think of him and Apollo says. What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Here's who they are. He says, they are 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. He who plants, and 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. Here's what he says in effect. He says, you're dividing out over Paul and Apolish. You're picking sides and fighting over this. He says, who are these 2 men? They're just men that God hired and said, hey, I got a job for you, Paul. I need you to go plant. Apollo, I got a job for you. I need you to go water. But God's the one giving the growth, and both of them are working for God. Paulina says, the 2 of us are one. We're not on 2 different teams. We're not trying to build our own platforms. We are both Paul and Apollos both were pointing to Jesus. But the church was dividing out over one or the other, and then having fights over which one was the right one. And Paul says, you've totally missed the point. You're acting like babies who don't understand where growth comes from, where our power comes from, where our allegiance should be. It should be on Jesus. Not on Paul or Apollos. But Paul says, your behavior is showing what's going on, how you are dividing. I mean, modern day, think of it this way. If you're a Chiefs fan, we like our football around here. You probably would go, you know what? Some of you like Patrick Mahomes more. Some of you may like Travis Kelsey more. You picked your favorite, but imagine if like the Chiefs fandom was actually split over which one was right and they were fighting over it. And they weren't getting along at all. You go, that's just weird, because you're a fan of the team. And everyone on the team is just a part of the team, and it's a team that matters. We know this is true, right? Because if we could get a new quarterback for the Chiefs who won the Super Bowl every year, you would replace the current quarterback immediately. Immediately. We would. We'd go, hey, I like you when you were here, but you're for the team, not the individual. Paul's saying the same thing. we're on team Jesus. Everyone else is just working for him, but if you're dividing over people who work, it would be like saying, hey, I really like the people who put the grass seed on the field. at Arrowhead Stadium. And so I said, no, no, no, no. It's the guys watering the grass seed that are the most important. And now we don't even hang out anymore because we're fighting over who planted and who watered. That's what Paul says, he says, they're nothing. Does anyone know the name? of the heads groundskeeper? at Arrowhead? Anyone? Does anyone know who puts the seed out? Does anyone have a t shirt with that person's face on it? No. He said, I planted Apollos watered. God was the one who was giving the growth. And he says, God's gonna take care. He said, God will take care of paying wages to his workers. Don't you worry about it, Corinthians. It's not your job. God will take care of what he's doing with me and what he's doing with Apolis. The 2 of us are on the same team, and that's Team Jesus, and the fact that you're not looking to Jesus, but looking to Paul and Apollos shows that you haven't grown up, and Paul is calling them to grow up. And through them, For us today, he's calling us to grow up. We don't have the same problem. they had. At least not as a church, where there were people who had been here and now they've gone on because neither Paul or Apollos were at Corinth at this time. And now they're fighting over that. We don't have that issue here, but we can learn something from this passage. Something we can take away to say, seeing what happened there, the spirit writes through Paul to give us this letter. How would you have us live today? What could we be aware of today, Paul, from this? Remember, the main idea of this message is stop acting like a baby and grow up in Christ. I think the 1st step to doing that is to recognize what are who motivates you. Like, in your life. What is it that motivates your actions? What's the engine that's driving you? Is it Christ? Is it the spirit dwelling in you that's driving you? that motivates your actions day by day? Or is it something else? And that something else can take a whole host of ways of manifesting itself. But at its core, that something else Paul would call the flesh? And the flesh kind of shows itself in a lot of different ways. But in its core, what it's saying is, I know what's best for me. I get to decide what's best for me, so I'm not picking up God's word and trying to say, God, show me what you want me to do. Help me to understand how you would have me live. We're just going, I know it's best. And I'll do that thing. Now that can manifest itself in living in ways that the world as a whole would go, that's a horrible way to live. You're doing things that are damaging. You're doing things at the world. Everyone would agree is bad, but it can also manifest itself in saying, I just want to have the best family I could have. I want to be a good citizen. I wanna have a great job. I wanna do the things that'll make me happy. Jesus said, seek 1st his kingdom. And then all the other things in life. He adds to that. So it's not that I go, I'm going to put my family first. That's the most important thing in the world. As soon as I do that. I'm missing what's the most important thing in the world, which is God. He says, seek him 1st and then family and all the other things that are good that we want. He works in that also, but as soon as we exclude God from those things, and we put something else in its place, we will find that we're chasing after our own justification, our own decision about what's best in life. God is what's best in life. What is motivating you. If you're here and you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, I want to commend to you Christ. The God who became human, who died on a cross to pay the debt for my sin, for your sin, so that we could be restored to him. We, as humans, were created for God. And he put us on this earth to do all the things we do as humans, but for him, with our focus on him. And when our focus isn't on him, life isn't what God intended. What is motivating you? And if you're hearing you're a follower of Christ, an easy way to check, how am I being motivated? At least from this passage, it's pretty simple. He just says, look at what you're doing in life. Not just what you're thinking, not just what you're feeling, but what are you doing? He tells the Corinthians, you're not ready for deeper things yet. Because you still have jealousy and strife. Paul says, when we walk by the Spirit, we produce certain action, certain behaviors, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. And he says, when we walk by the flesh, we create envy and jealousy and strife and wrath and immorality. We can look at our life. And just go, okay, what's, Which one is dominant in my life. Our actions don't save us. It's not that I look at my life and go, ooh, I'm living pretty good. I've saved myself. It's that I'm going, God, you're working in me to give the growth. You're growing in me, and I see that as it's manifested outwardly. And that's not just the next deep Bible study. It's obedience to the thing he has already said, which is our 2nd point. After you recognize who motivates you, then keep growing in Christ. Keep growing up in Christ. Long for solid food. Long. to say, I want to know more of who God is. The knowledge that we have of God that we get from scripture is critical as we grow up, but then we have to do that knowledge. It's not simply know what it is, but do the thing that he's calling us to do. What is he asking you to be obedient for today? What obedience do you need to learn now? Not that you need to learn, I should do it, but I need to learn how to do it. I need to get better at doing it. I have recently started. I used to run a lot. Well, I used to run a lot to overstatement of run. I used to go and run slowly. And so now, that's kind of boring for anyone who runs, anything over, like, a few 100 yards. You're like, I'm bored. So I'm doing CrossFit with Tyler. He's not in here right now. Tyler's really good at CrossFit. And so I told him, I said, look, I'm gonna come work out with you. But if you hurt me, I'm going to quit. And he'll tell me these moves that he wants me to do. And up here, I go, oh yeah, I have that figured out. But I have to go do it, and it hurts, it's painful. I'm not good at it, but I say, okay, I'm going to keep doing it. And he's like, he's giving me milk. He says, but over time you have to get better at it, right? In my mind, I could see what he's doing. He's like doing these pull-ups, he's going crazy, and I'm like, oh, I could do that in my mind. But then I have to go do it. But as long as I'm doing step by step what he's asking, it's like, okay, I'm moving in the right direction. Keep growing. But as we grow, know that it's not us kind of motivating ourselves to do it, that growth comes from, it's the spirit working in you. He says, when you step into the pathways God's given us to grow in him, the spirit grows us. And we become more and more like him. as we train ourselves to be like him. Paul, writing to his protégé, Timothy, and 1st Timothy said it this way. He said, have nothing to do with the reverent silly myths, rather train yourselves for godliness. For while bodily training is of some value. Godliness is a value in every way. as it holds promise for the present life, and also for the life to come. So Paul compares physical exercise. He says, do that, Timothy, it's good, but you really need to train yourself for godliness. And he says, put yourself in the pathways of the training that leads to us living more like Christ. Keep growing up. And as we keep growing up, I think Paul would tell us out of this passage, the last thing is, keep your eyes on Jesus. that the reason we want to be transformed is not so people look at us and think, what a great person, you are, but that they look at Jesus, that we are being transformed daily into the image of Christ, as we walk by the Spirit, to reflect him more and more. We are here today because of Jesus. And it's very easy in our culture and in our time, because that's just the way the 21st century is, that we can quickly market even preachers, even teachers go, who's my favorite teacher? And the marketing machine creates that, and you just go on social media. And you see it, they may not even want to be doing it, but the church then says, well, I'm of this person. I'm of that person. We end up fighting over just servants. Servants who have been called to serve Christ, and we end up fighting over these men and women that we pick as our favorites. Not seeing them as just part of the team. that points to Jesus, and then our attention gets onto that person instead of Jesus. We always want to have our eyes on Jesus. not just a celebrity church culture or even our church itself. I love Northland Church. If God would be willing, I want to stay here till I'm done. This is where I want to be. But at the same time, we don't want to invite people to Northland Church. Hear what I mean by that. When you're out this week, your goal isn't to invite people here to this church. is to invite people to Jesus. And then say, hey, I got a church where a bunch of people who are focused on Jesus, hang out, love for you to come be a part of that. But if we're just kind of marketing Northland Church, we got our eyes on the wrong thing, you can love your church and you should love your church, but we're only here because of Jesus. We're only here to worship Jesus. And it may be for some of you, maybe myself, that we don't end up here the rest of our life. And we end up at another church. that's focused on Jesus. This isn't the only church that does that. Thank goodness we're not. We want churches focused on Jesus, all over Kansas City, all over the United States, all over the world. In fact, we're going to plant a new one in March. We want some of you to go to that one and land down there to expand the gospel so people in another part of our city can find Jesus. can be pointed to Jesus, can be focused on Jesus, not simply the church they go to, as good as that is, or not simply a celebrity pastor that they like, but can have our focus on Jesus. That's how we continue to grow up in him so that we're motivated by his spirit that dwells within us. So Paul's word for us today is easy. Stop acting like a baby. and grow up in Christ. Will you pray with me? Father, we Come to you in this time of worship and thank you that we can even gather here to worship you. You are so holy and powerful. We have no right to stand in your presence, and yet your son gives us access and allows us to stand on the sacred ground in your presence because of him. And Father, I pray for myself. And for all of us here that we would grow up in you. Father, in those times when we all act like a baby. When we do things that aren't pleasing to you, that you would show us that, that you would correct us as a loving Father, and draw our attention in our eyes back to your son, and our worship is for him. Father, we thank you for what you've placed around us and this body of believers. But may our eyes always be focused on you. Help us as your followers to seek your kingdom. And then thank you, that you add all these other things to us as bonus. Father, that we are here today for you, and because of you, and we long to see you when your son returns. And it's in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.