Our sermon this week was titled “The Church & Me: Called Out & God-Grown.” The Scripture text was taken from 1 Corinthians 3:6. The Bible uses the imagery of plants in frequently in both the Old and New Testaments. For instance, Jesus likens the good works we do with a tree bearing fruit (Mt 7:15-20); He compares His message with seed that is sown in soil (Mk 4:3-8); He compares the Kingdom with a tiny mustard seed which grows into a large tree (Mk 4:30-32). There are too many uses of plant imagery to list in this short news letter, these are just a few examples.
The Apostle Paul picks up on this plant imagery in 1 Corinthians 3. When the young congregation at the First Christian Church of Corinth got to fighting amongst themselves over who their favorite preacher was, Paul told them “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but it is God who is making it grow” (1 Cor 3:6). Paul said this to draw these Christians' attention back away from the messengers and to the message itself. While this could make for a good sermon in and of itself, I would like to suggest that we can learn an important lesson about our Christian lives from Paul's use of plant imagery here in 1 Corinthians.
You see, as Christians and members of the church, we are called out and God-grown. There are three things we can learn from being called out and God-grown. First, it is God who makes us grow. Second, we need to seek out gardeners to help us grow. Third, we need to be gardeners ourselves.
First, it is God who makes us grow. A good gardener will do everything she or he can to give a plant the right conditions it needs to flourish. That gardener will make sure the soil is just right, that there is just enough sunlight, water, and nutrients that the plant needs to grow. But once the gardener has planted the seed and given it all the right conditions it needs to grow, the gardener cannot actually make the seed grow. Our Christian lives are like that. Preachers, teachers and mentors can help us to make the conditions of our heart's soil just right so that we are in a position to grow, but those people cannot actually make us grow. It is God who makes us grow. God fills us with His Holy Spirit by whom He guides us and molds us into the image of Christ. Apart from the grace of God's Spirit, we are incapable of making ourselves grow.
This is both humbling and encouraging. It is humbling because it reminds us that no matter how much work we put into the soil of our hearts, our work and effort does not make us grow. This is an important lesson because living a life of discipleship takes a lot of effort on our part and there is nothing our Enemy likes more than turning our efforts in discipleship into exercises in pridefulness. But being God-grown is also encouraging because we have the promise that God will use and bless all of our efforts to grow closer to Him and He will makes us grow!
A second thing we learn here is that the church is called out and God-grown and we need to seek out gardeners. In our Corinthians passage, Paul doesn't say that he and Apollos were of no consequence in the lives of the Corinthian church. Rather, Paul points to the way that he and Apollos were playing their Christ appointed roles (3:5). In our Christian lives, we need to remember that God does use others to help make the conditions of our hearts right so that He can make us grow. We need to seek out men and women whom God will use to tend the soil of our heart. A good gardener will use the plow of prayer to turn over the darkness in our heart and expose it to the light of Christ. A good gardener will use the spade of Scripture to cut out the weeds of sin that steal our sunlight and nutrients and keep us from growing.
One final lesson we need to learn is that the church is called out and God-grown and God wants us to be gardeners as well. In addition to giving us gardeners who will help tend our hearts, God also gives us tools to tend the soil of our hearts. We can bask in the sunlight of Scripture. We can water our hearts with prayer. We can plant ourselves in the garden of community God calls the Church. We can put up a fence of repentance around our hearts to keep the rabbits of anger and hatred from eating our produce, the birds and beetles of bitterness from stealing our berries, and the moles of hurry and haste from tearing up our roots before we have a chance to be grown by God.
My prayer for you this week is that as you put on your work boots and gardening gloves to tend the soil of your heart, that God will bless you with competent gardeners and that He will cause you to grow and grow and grow. Amen.
Mary the Law Breaker
12 years ago
