We are not there yet, but will be...

 Read 1 Corinthians 4

Imagine walking into a worship service where the music is loud, voices of praise to God are louder, and hands are raised. Amens and hallelujahs abound.

People at this worship service are motivated to worship God. They are motivated.                   

We Cumberlands are just fine raising our hands or sitting on them.

We are balanced. By that, I mean that people are equally bored with the sermon and the hymn selections.

Sometimes, I wish we were as visibly excited about worshiping God as we are about our sports teams. Can’t we get motivated?

I like motivation. I like enthusiasm. I love getting pumped up about something.

But it is our commitment that gets us to the goal, our commitment to press on, and our commitment that gets us through the lows.

It is commitment that stays the course.

In the adult Sunday school class, we often ask when we were closest to God. The most common answer is in our lows, our trials, or our suffering.  That’s not my answer.

I feel closest to God when I am bringing glory to his name. When is that?

When I commit to take his yoke.

When I commit to learn from him.

When I commit to put his words into practice.

When I commit to this relationship: JESUS IS LORD.

Motivation is wonderful. Everyone should get a good Motofix now and then. One of the cool things about preaching is that you get to make up your own words. It’s in the dictionary.  Ok, it’s my dictionary on the computer, and it gives me the option to add to the dictionary.

Commitment gets you to the endzone.  I like my metaphors freshly out of season.

Commitment gets you to the finish line.

Commitment is essential to growth.

Let’s get to the letter. Paul was a writer. He wrote about half of the New Testament over just under 20 years.

I think that Paul got paid by the word. They were good words. His stuff is still on best-seller lists.

He was an apostle, a pharisee, a Hebrew, and a Roman citizen, but make no mistake: Paul had significant mastery of at least one language. He used it to communicate with believers far away.

Paul was excited to have planted this church. He saw many gifts in these people, but he also saw problems and difficulties of many sorts. There were lingering pagan practices, little communion among believers, and fellowship fell short.

There were things to work on, but Paul was in Ephesus.

Camps were being formed as to who followed whom.  These folks needed a visit or at least a good letter.  The letter would have to suffice for now.

You think Paul could have just uploaded a TED talk. I would have liked to have heard this TED talk. It might have contained a little hyperbole.

You Corinthians have finished the race in record time. You have received your Victor’s Crown and are reigning.

Wow! How I wish I had your insight and knowledge of God. If we, who are apostles, could only catch the idiom of what you are doing, we would have it made.

As it is, we still struggle. We often live at the poverty level. Sometimes we are well received, but we still get beaten and run out of town from time to time.

This is the race God has set us upon. Why?

So many may come to know the love of God through Christ Jesus. So some could be saved.

Paul challenged this body of believers to answer a simple question: Are you really there yet? Has everything been fulfilled already?

Are we on some sort of self-actualization high?

Are you really there, yet?

This is Paul’s style of saying the more you know, the more you need to know—the more you realize, we have miles to go.  There is a whole bunch beyond your immediate knowledge that applies when Jesus is your Lord.

The secular concept here is called the Dunning-Krueger Effect. It was first defined in this information age ad got a name at the turn of the last century, but I suspect a rose by any other name has always been with us.

How do you display confidence when you don’t know diddly? You act like you do know it all. You believe you have arrived at your destination and nothing is left to learn. Only after some epiphany can growth genuinely occur.

And that revelation often comes with a considerable humility price tag. Do you know what it’s like to know everything—or at least think that you do—only to discover you have miles and miles to go to comprehend mercy and grace?

When Paul noted that he and some who traveled with him were treated like the dregs of the earth, I don’t think he was complaining.

Remember back to Acts 9, God told Ananias that he would show Paul how much he would suffer for the name of the Lord. Paul knew the calling he had accepted.

Paul was not complaining. As we read more in this letter, we will see him explain that we all have our part in the body of Christ. We each have gifts, some the same, others not.

Paul flips what could have continued as division. You don’t have to choose between Paul and Apollos. The Lord gave both roles, tasks, gifts, and authority.

You need only follow Jesus. God alone will judge whether you used your gifts and talents well or capriciously. God alone will judge.

Paul noted that only God would judge him, not Romans, Greeks, or believers in Corinth.   

We should all do what God has called us and gifted us to do, but we must all realize that we are not there yet. We deceive ourselves when we think we are.

We may have arrived in some areas, or we are getting close.

Our beliefs may be solid, but on rare occasions, we may wrestle with doubt. Life can be tough, and times can be tougher than we thought we could handle. With God, we get through them, but we might struggle.

Perhaps we forgive easily, but is there a person or two that don’t make the forgiveness cut? In your mind, was their trespass unforgivable? Was it so much that you would mock God by disobeying him? He gave very stern warnings at the end of the Lord’s prayer.

Perhaps you are a prayer warrior. You pray without ceasing, but do your prayers spend nearly enough time on thanksgiving? Are we truly living a thankful life every day or just on occasion?

Do you listen? Can you wait patiently upon the Lord? Can we truly trust God?

Perhaps none of us are there yet.

Paul noted that he would instead work on this now via correspondence, hoping not to have to show up ready to chew out these new believers who were only slightly removed from paganism. He wanted it to be a joyful reunion when he returned to Corinth.

We will discuss this whole new creation business further, but for now, remember that you are still a work in progress. We don’t boast in ourselves that we have done so much.

We seek to humbly walk with our Lord, knowing with certainty that he will complete the work he began in us. We are not there yet but, on our way, and assured of our destination.

We will have ups and downs, highs and lows, but we must continually grow.

So, what does that look like?

·       Be encouraged but not satisfied.

·       Be confident but not complacent or boastful

·       Be self-correcting without feeling that it’s all on us.

·       Endure your trials and even suffering, knowing that God will use your circumstances for some sort of good.

Here’s one:  Walk humbly with your God who loves you more than you understand. Let’s keep going.

·       Be humble in your salvation.

·       Receive correction.

·       Do what God has called and equipped you to do.

·       Take his yoke.

·       Learn from him.

·       Put his words into practice

Those should sound familiar. Of course, there are other things to help us bring glory to God, but for now, let’s take our lesson from Paul’s letter and work on these things.

We do not do it because Paul will visit us if we don’t.

It is not because Paul will send us a letter. He already has. He sent this one to Corinth first.

We do it because we will all stand before God, and we want to hear "well done, good and faithful servant."

That’s not a conditional statement. We will all stand before God!

Let’s do our best to live humbly now, seek growth, and enjoy what God has in store for his faithful servants.

Let’s do our best to let the word of God judge the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

We know we are not there yet.  Today, I ask—it’s a big ask—to commit everything to the Lord.

Commit, learn, and grow, for we are not there yet, but we surely belong to him.

Commit.

Amen