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.
1. Paul in this letter is saddened by the fact
for all his work among them for a year and a half some of them were still acting
like children. He wanted to address them
as people of the spirit. Instead he must
address them as not even children but mere infants.
2. An
infant can only handle milk and needs constant care and attention. The world revolves around them and without
care and protection they can perish.
Worldly people are vain, selfish, envious, and ambitious for the wrong
things. It is about pride, pleasure, and
possession. This is what some of
Corinthian were exhibiting.
2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not
yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
1. Paul
says when he was among them, he gave them the milk of the word. Simple truths in simple ways. Jesus did the same when he spoke in parables
which is simple truth contained in a story or example. Paul shared his testimony and kept it simple.
2. What
sadden Paul was they were still not ready.
This the reason for this letter.
It is hard to get the world out of people. That is why we must be patient, loving,
caring and graceful in our discipling of people. Jesus took three years with his disciples.
3. It
is a combination of personal responsibility and continuous care. It takes years for a child to growth up so why
would you expect any less from fellow believers. Maturity comes eventually
4. We
grow by the word, prayer, church attendance and personal witnessing. Peter tells us in 2 Pet 3:18 to grow in the
grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord supplies the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher
to help us with the rest. The goal is
become mature.
3 You are still worldly. For since there is
jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like
mere humans?
1. Paul
then reveals the negative things they are showing to show that they are still
worldly. Being worldly means to be
selfish, envious, and ambitious for the wrong things.
2. Paul
says the two things that should they were acting like babies, world and like
everyone else is that they were jealous and quarreling among themselves. There was no unity. No tolerance, compassion, or patience. They were fighting over their favorite
preachers. What is even sadder is that
is what we are doing right now.
3. We
have denominations, church splits, traditional churches, liturgical churches,
evangelicals, fundamentalists, charismatics, Pentecostals, Trinitarians, Jesus
only, once saved always saved, King James only vs other translations and the
list goes on and on. This is worldly,
baby like behaviour.
4. We
wrap it up in spiritual boundaries and contexts. We are just like the Corinthians or the
Pharisees who said to Jesus if these prophets were alive today, we would not do
to them what our ancestors did. Yet they
put Jesus to death and persecuted the prophets.
5. A
religious spirit is a religious spirit you can dress it up, disguise it as
truth but it is still a religious spirit.
The Corinthian problem has not gone away. James says pure religion is
taking care of the vulnerable and keeping oneself from being polluted or
stained by the world.
6. So,
our question today is how can we avoid it? Paul stated in the second chapter of this
book. He said, I chose to preach and
live Christ crucified. Paul reset his
life. To keep it simple. He kept to the word and prayer. The mindset of Christ is to do the will of
the Father. Where do you find that in
the pages of the Bible and how is that implemented through prayer. It is not that complex. It is time to major on the majors and stop
campaigning on the minors.
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