Godly Gardeners and God-Given Growth
Having been here in Arizona for a very long time now, when I go back to the Midwest, I’m fascinated by things growing SO fast where there is no caliche and the ground is black, and easy to shovel, and rich with nutrients. I guess I kind of forget how much farmland there is back there and how many people have backyard gardens and flowerbeds. Gardens get planted and go berserk in just weeks. And soon enough as those few summer months progress, there are abundant fruits and vegetables!
People work hard to make that happen. I don’t know much about farming, really, but I know that farmers are hard workers. And I know it takes effort to get the home garden soil prepped and plant the seeds and water regularly and pull the weeds out.
The woman who has planted the seeds and done all the right things and the farmer who has put in all that work getting things into the ground don’t actually make the plants grow, do they? No, it’s all the science-y things that go on under the soil and inside the plant. That’s what makes it grow. Well, that’s not really the whole picture, is it? Who created the way things grow? He’s the One behind the science of it all! It’s God who makes the things grow, right?
The green-thumbed gardener who takes home the praise and the prize for the most beautiful flowers or greatest vegetables might take all the credit, but the truth is, none of that grows if God doesn’t make it happen.
Things are very much the same when it comes to the garden of God’s Church. The Apostle Paul uses the picture of planting and watering and working and growing to help us understand our role as Godly Gardeners and remind us that God Gives the Growth in his Church.
Godly Gardeners
Since I don’t know if there are raging debates over who the greatest farmer of all time is, let’s try this: who is the G.O.A.T. the Greatest of all time?
• Michael Jordan or LeBron James?
• It’s World Cup time, so is it Messi, Ronaldo, Pele, or Diego Maradona?
• Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart?
• Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods?
• What about Kassulke or Koehler?
Ok, one of those sounds even more ridiculous than the Jordan/LeBron debate, doesn’t it?! (because that’s obviously Jordan).
The church in the city of Corinth had this pastor popularity thing going on where some said “I belong to Paul,” others, “I belong to Apollos,” and others, “I belong to Cephas [Peter] (1 Corinthians 1:12-13).” It had started to sound like sports or music fans arguing over who is the greatest. The church had become divided as people followed their favorite pastors.
So, Paul writes to ask them, "What then is Apollos? And what is Paul?" As quickly as he asks the question, he answers it: They are ministers through whom you believed, and each served as the Lord gave him his role. The word minister means servant. Servants carry out someone else’s work, right? Some of the people in the church had put Paul up on a pedestal; others put Apollos on another one. Paul tells them that the pedestal was not the proper place for their preachers. Servants…that’s what they were. That’s all. Ministers (Servants) through whom they believed, and each served as the Lord gave him his role.
Paul didn’t dismiss the work he and Apollos did, but he did keep it in perspective. They worked and something happened people came to faith. It might be something like if Pastor Kassulke said that he merely teaches the Sunday morning Bible study, but God does the faith-work in people. I might say that I enjoy working with the college students, but it’s God who works on their hearts. We can acknowledge that we have certain gifts and roles and responsibilities. That’s all servant stuff.
The ministers, or servants, are not the heroes; God is the hero. The Corinthian crowd may have had a little trouble with that. They were Greeks. They loved the impressive orators and philosophers—kind of like celebrity professors and motivational speakers. They ate that stuff up. So, when Apollos got off the boat in Corinth and the people at church got to know him, it was clear that guy knew his Scriptures and boy, could he speak! Get that man a pedestal!
And, of course, Paul was Paul. It didn’t matter that he was not an eloquent speaker like Apollos (1 Corinthians 2:1-5). He started the church there and served as their pastor for a year and a half. A scholar and the greatest missionary ever as your first pastor? Pretty great. Get that man a pedestal!
You can imagine people comparing them, right?
He’s so dynamic!
He’s such a careful scholar. He has so much experience. He preaches a little to long for me. I did love Paul, but I kind of like the new guy. The new guy is fine, but remember how great Paul was?
Are we hearing ourselves a little bit right now? What a mistake it is to become attached to personalities. We can appreciate unique gifts and experience and responsibilities, but the person isn’t the important thing, is he? Here’s where it becomes a problem when our attention and confidence quietly shift from God's Word...to God's messenger.
You may not even realize when it’s happening. Here’s how it goes when you’ve got a couple pastors: We talk about the sermons and it starts to sound like we’re rating restaurants: "I liked today's.” “It was okay.” “I didn't get much out of that one.” “I definitely like his better.” We can understand that preachers have certain styles and different gifts for speaking and we can like some of those things but if we think about those things too much, we’re shifting focus from the Word to the messenger.
If instead of listening more attentively or trying to appreciate the different gifts we just check out a little bit when the one we don’t favor is preaching, we’re shifting focus from the Word to the messenger.
How bad can it get? Come to church on Sundays when the preacher you like is preaching and maybe or maybe not on the other Sundays. Clearly, the focus has then shifted from the Word to the messenger.
And now the church has become about personal preference instead of God speaking to us through his Word. Can I confess to you that pastors are not immune to this?! We can think that we’re something special even more special than the other pastor or pastors. Sinful pride. Focus on the person and not the Word that we preach. There’s enough sin to go around on this.
There are some related problems. We take on too much responsibility. Parents say, “If only I could explain the Bible better to my child…” Teachers think, “If I were more dynamic...” Any of us might think, “I can’t explain God and the Bible and faith well enough to other people.” Are you hearing the subtle shift from focusing on the power of God’s Word to our abilities?
We may be missing the fact that Godly Gardeners are the ones who simply go about the work of planting the Word parents, friends, teachers, pastors…all of us. We’re just the workers in God’s Garden. We don’t actually make the Word take root and grow. There should be humility as we serve and thankfulness for those around us who share God’s Word. Godly Gardeners. That’s all.
The power to change hearts and lives never belonged to Paul. It never belonged to Apollos. It doesn’t belong to us either. But God uses us all. So, we plant the Word. We water where the Word was planted. That’s all.
God-Given Growth
Some of you have been to installations of pastors. You’ve seen the other pastors, one by one, welcome the new guy, lay their hand on his head, and share an encouraging verse from God’s Word with them with a very brief word about why they chose that verse. These are the words I share with the new pastors every time: I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but it is God who causes the growth.
Every pastor and every one of us should think of themselves as Godly Gardeners, but in all humility, understand that when the person we share Jesus with comes to faith…or repents…or changes a sinful lifestyle…or is encouraged…it is God that worked that in them, not us. We just planted. Or watered.
If we don’t get this, then Paul’s words are offensive to us: "So then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything…” That might be a little jarring! “I’m nothing?!” “My pastor is nothing?!”
Paul says this not because pastors are worthless and not because we and our witnessing or teaching is worthless. His point is that none of us possesses the power to create faith. There’s only one way that happens. The Holy Spirit does it when the Word is planted. Then there is God-Given Growth!
Think of it like this the gospel of forgiveness in the blood of Jesus and salvation by faith in him is not just information that we share, it is the power of God! So, when the little one is on your lap and you’re reading the Children’s Bible Story book, God is growing a faith there. When you tell a devastated friend that Jesus paid for that sin, God is growing a faith there. When a pastor shares the things God says in his Word, God is growing the faith of many there.
It’s not us getting just the right words. It’s not us being persuasive. It’s not us having all the answers. It’s not us having just the right personality. We can’t convince an unbelieving heart to beat with faith! We can’t argue a person into believing! We can’t manufacture faith in anyone! Faith is a miracle! It grows when God causes it to! The effectiveness of God's Word does not depend on us.
You know how in school kids will do that project where they plant little seeds in a paper cup? Maybe you did that once upon a time. And maybe you felt this or witnessed it in a child: the seed is planted and two hours later, they have to check to see if it grew! And they look one more time before going home…and first thing the next morning!
So, there are some things to teach, aren’t there? Patience and trust. Plant it. Water it. Wait for it. That’s all you can do. There’s only one person who can make it grow and it’s not you. Only the Creator who made those kinds of plants and the process to cause growth is going to make that sprout and grow.
You see that it’s the same in God’s spiritual garden, right? Godly Gardeners like us just do what we can do. Plant and water. Patience and trust. Only God can make the plant of faith grow in our child or our friend or our spouse or the person we just met. Just like the process of growth in a plant begins beneath the surface, God works beneath the surface in a person’s heart, where we can’t see.
Maybe it seemed abrupt when Paul left the garden and started talking about a building, but it was kind of a smooth transition to a different picture about the same thing. In construction, there must be a good foundation. In the house of God, Jesus Christ is that foundation. There is no other one. Amazing missionary Paul was not the foundation. Eloquent Apollos was not the foundation. Martin Luther was not the foundation. Neither of your pastors is the foundation. You aren’t either. Only Jesus. His life, his cross, his empty tomb, his throne in heaven. It is all Jesus. You can’t improve on that, just like you can’t make the Word grow in a person’s heart.
He is where we go when we see that we’ve messed this up in some way, this planting and watering and taking the credit for growth or minimizing the power of the Word all by itself. We go to the One who is the foundation of our faith. He forgives. And he gets our heads and our hearts in the right place so that we go about our work of planting and watering, serving him, speaking for him, without worrying that everything depends on us. Because it doesn't. Be patient and trust that God does his miraculous work on hearts where we can’t see. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.