Judging A Ministry (1 Cor. 4:1-5)

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The video has 3 seconds of silence at the beginning.

We live in an age where there is a mania for surveys and evaluations.

  1. Our first task is to be faithful to God.
    • 4:1-2; people ought to regard the apostles and teachers as servants of Christ and as stewards of the mysteries of Christ. See Rom.16:25-26.
    • we ought to be praying for success, but the first thing in God’s eyes is faithfulness to Him. Jonah preached with great success while his heart was far from God; Jeremiah battled on for over forty years without seeing thousands of people clamouring to listen to what he had to say.
    • Robert Murray M’Cheyne: ‘It is not great talents which God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.’ Not to be successful, entertaining or innovative. Faithfulness to God – not in the first place to the congregation, or the presbytery or to the Ministry and Mission Department.
  2. Human judgments are fallible.
    • There are two fallible courts of appeal:
      1. judgment by others – 4:3a. Paul is not insensitive to what others think – 1 Cor.8:13; 9:19; 10:33.
      2. our own conscience – 4:3b-4. Note Acts 20:26-27; 24:16; 1 John 3:20. Paul tells us to examine ourselves – 2 Cor.13:5; 1 Tim.4:2.
  3. We shall all answer to God alone.
    • 4:5. Of course we can judge to some extent – 5:12; 6:5. But our judgments are partial, premature and incomplete.
    • Hebrews 4:12-13.