What God Has Joined Together – 1 Corinthians 11:12-26

1. What has God…

“What then is Apollos? What is Paul? 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 he 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.” (1 Corinthians 3:5-9)

“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.” (1 Corinthians 3:10)

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

1.A. People with…

1.B. People with…

2. What does a…

2.A. There’s no…

“Christians must give up anxiously comparing themselves with each other…It leads to jealousy and discouragement…They complain that they are not like so and so…They develop an inferiority complex and lose all the joy of salvation. The foot grumbles because it walks in the dust and carries the whole weight of the body…Others would like to be the eye which oversees or [especially] the mouth which speaks.” (Anthony C. Thiselton)

2.B. There’s no…

“The sun does not say that it is black. The tree does not say, “I bear no apples, pears or grapes.” That is not humility, but if you have gifts you should say, “These gifts are from God; I did not confer them upon myself. One should not be puffed up on their account. If someone else does not have the gifts I have, then he has others. If I exalt my gifts and despise another’s, that is pride.” (Martin Luther)

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members,[e] and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (Romans 12:3-5)