WORKING WITHIN AND BECAUSE OF GUARANTEED STATUS

WORKING WITHIN AND BECAUSE OF GUARANTEED STATUS

Sunday, November 17, 2019

   Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth [ESV chapter 3]… we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. 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. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you. …

   To the church at Philippi [chapter 2] So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. …

  In the 2 passages above it is obvious Paul is addressing believers and their assurance. With that established what do we see he is telling them then and us today?

  Once we trust Jesus, becoming born again John 1:12 family, we are not to laze awaiting deliverance from this life via death or the rapture. We are to be like Jesus, sans selfish ambition, working at serving our Heavenly Father and all others all our days in authentic Romans 12:1-3 worship pleasing to Him.

  Due to the deplorable condition of the Corinthian church Paul emphasizes exactly who and what Jesus is and precisely who believers are and what they are to do and not do; truth as appropriate now as was then and ever will be.

  Let us not run frantically willy nilly according to the 1John 2:16 standards of this world, for we have the “mind of Christ” (1Cor.2:16; Phil.2:5; 1Pet.4:1).

EBB4

For the diggers: “reward” is 36 times in KJV NT. Check it the Greek usage in contexts.