Principles for Godly Living
Tom Shrader wraps up his expository series through 1 Corinthians by working through chapter 16, covering Paul's travel plans, his instructions regarding Timothy and Apollos, and his closing exhortations. From verses 13 and 14, Shrader draws five principles for godly living—be alert, stand firm in the faith, act with maturity, be strong, and let everything be done in love—applying each to the practical challenges of Christian life in a distracting and doctrinally confused culture. He closes by emphasizing servant-hearted ministry as the mark of a maturing believer, urging the congregation to serve not out of duty alone but out of love for God that naturally overflows toward others.
“Love compliments and balances everything. It keeps our firmness from becoming hardness, and our strength from becoming domineering, and our right doctrine from becoming obstinate dogmatism.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2002 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 52 min
Themes: godly living, service, love, faith, spiritual alertness, maturity, planning, perseverance, new believer, feeling spiritually distracted, struggling with doubt, young adult, mentor, navigating doctrinal confusion, church member, seeking purpose
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:58, 1 Corinthians 16:1-18, Romans 15, 1 Timothy 4:12, 1 Peter 5:8, 2 Peter 2:1, Ephesians 4, 2 Thessalonians 2:15, Matthew 28:19, Matthew 11, Proverbs 7:13, Song of Solomon 4:11, Philippians 4:13
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, expository preaching, ecclesiology, spiritual maturity, biblical authority, servant leadership, eschatology
Full Transcript
Planning with Open Hands
If you would, please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 16. Today we are going to finish this book. I didn't look, but I may check this afternoon — I don't know when we started this study. Sometimes people make a note in their Bible at the beginning of a book. It was certainly some time ago that we began, but we complete it today.
I go back to verse 58 of chapter 15. Paul writes: "Therefore." Whenever we see that word, *therefore*, we understand it is a connection to what he has been talking about before. He has been talking about Jesus Christ dying for our sin, Christ rising from the dead, and that we would rise as well. He is speaking to the church at Corinth — remember, it is a very confused and troubled church. It has pagan ideas in it and is really struggling, but it is a church, it is believers. He says, "Therefore, I want you to be steadfast and unmovable and abounding in the work of the Lord, and know your work is not in vain." He says, you hang in there, because that gospel is true.
Now he begins to share some plans. Verses 1 through 4 of chapter 16 we spent three weeks on. Then verse 5: "But I shall come to you after I go through Macedonia, for I am going through Macedonia, and perhaps I shall stay with you, or even spend the winter, that you may send me on my way wherever I may go." Paul is sharing with them his plans.
Let me give you something that might be so obvious that you miss it: Paul had a plan. Sometimes we become so familiar with the sovereignty of God that we say, "Well, God is going to do whatever God is going to do, so I don't even need to plan." But Paul had a plan. Paul was very clear, very strategic. In fact, if you look at the book of Romans, at the end of that book in the 15th chapter, as Paul is saying goodbye, he says, "After I come to you, I want to go to Spain." Spain at that time was starting to flourish and become a place of influence. Seneca, the philosopher and statesman, was from Spain, and Paul understood that prominence. He says, "I want to get over there." Paul was continually planning.
But he understood something: those plans needed to have a degree of flexibility to them. See verse 7: "For I do not wish to see you now just in passing, for I hope to remain with you for some time." In other words, I am not just going to stop and say hello as I pass through. I want to spend some time with you — "if the Lord permits." That is how we plan. We plan diligently.
Writing Plans in Pencil
If you are a Christian, you should plan. We have been talking about finances — you should have a financial plan, you should have your house in order. There is nothing wrong with that. But here is the way we have said it: we write our plans in pencil, and we understand that God has the eraser. We write our plans, we are diligent about them, we prepare, and properly so. There are certain people in my life I love dearly who will say, "I'll see you tomorrow, God willing." They understand: that is the plan, and in all likelihood we will meet tomorrow, but God may have a different plan.
Paul talks about his plan and then says, "I shall remain in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door of effective service is open for me, but there are many adversaries." So here is what he says: I have a plan, God may have a different plan, I am thinking one thing and God may have something else — but I have an opportunity here. I assume it is a wide door because God wants me to serve here, but I do not know for certain.
I had been a Christian a year or two when we started going to Grace Community Church. Twenty years ago, if you were at Grace Community Church, you could not be there and not know the names David and Mary Lamb. It was impossible not to know them, and the more you got to know them, the more you fell in love with them. One of the great treats I used to give myself on occasion was to stop and visit them after they retired over at Westchester. I would love to go in there and listen to them tell their magnificent stories.
One of the great stories we often forget is that India, where they ended up, was not where they wanted to go. Their plan was to go to China. China was where they wanted to go. They were prepared for China, they were in China — they were on the last boat out of China right as the communists took over. They were perplexed, because they had prepared and prayed and thought, "God wants us in China." And now it was closed. But they knew one thing: God had a plan. David and Mary Lamb tracked it down, and it was India. That is where God took them, and that is where God used them. They had a dream, but God had a different plan. And what did they say? "Fine, God. What I want is Your plan."
Listen — you are like me. You would rather be in the middle of wherever it is, as long as it is in the middle of God's plan, than be exactly where you would like to be but outside of God's plan. You do not want to be there. And so away they went to India.
William Carey, the father of modern missions, was a cobbler's assistant in England. He would work at his bench with a map of the world spread out in front of him, and he would cry over that map and pray over that map. He had a passion for India, and God gave him India. Paul says, "My plan is to stay in Ephesus. This door is wide open. I assume it is an opportunity. I don't really know. I am going to spend some time here."
Interestingly enough, Paul spends about three years in Ephesus — three years in Ephesus, somewhere between a year and a half and two years in Corinth, just a few weeks in Thessalonica. But in all of those places, what he was concerned about was not just evangelism, but
Discipleship and the Great Commission
He understood the Great Commission. Matthew chapter 28, verse 19: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." So often when we read the Great Commission, we stop right there. That is not the end of it. "Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."
Paul said he had work to do. There was a door open, and his intent was to go through that door and take advantage of it. He also said there were many adversaries. G. Campbell Morgan writes this: "If you have no opposition in the place where you serve, you are serving in the wrong place." The idea is that you will always have opposition.
Now some people abuse this. They meet opposition and immediately conclude that because there is opposition, they must be right where God wants them to be. That is not necessarily true. It could be that a person is out of God's will, that what they are doing is wrong, and it is clear to everyone around them — and so there is opposition. But Paul is not talking about that kind of opposition. Paul is talking about adversaries — Satan in particular, his demons, and this world.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul writes: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not despairing, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed." Paul is saying this is simply part of the deal. There is an opportunity, there are adversaries, and you face an adversary individually as well. Satan is out to destroy you. Demons are out to destroy you. They are out to destroy us as a church. Anywhere God is doing His work, opposition will come.
Timothy and the Treatment of Those in Ministry
Paul then speaks about two people who are familiar to us: Timothy and Apollos. He says, "Now if Timothy comes, see that he is with you without cause to be afraid, for he is doing the Lord's work as I also am. Let no one therefore despise him, but send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me, for I expect him with the brethren." Paul is sending Timothy to the church. We know that Timothy was a young man and was frequently despised for his youth — which is why Paul writes to him in 1 Timothy 4, verse 12: "Let no man despise your youth."
As this passage is studied, what seems apparent — and this may not be exactly right — is that Paul may be responding either to Timothy's tendency toward timidity, or to the harshness of the church itself. Read it that way and you see Paul saying, "I do not want you to put fear in this man." The implication is that this was something they were inclined to do. It is an amazing thing that a congregation can frighten the very shepherd sent to serve them.
Paul's counsel here is excellent advice for how we deal with one another, and especially for how we treat those in ministry. Think about the people who are volunteering right now to care for, watch over, and teach your children and students. How do you treat them? Paul seems to be saying: put them at ease, reassure them, be kind. That is not to say they are perfect, and it does not mean there are never issues to raise. But when issues are raised, they should be raised with an attitude of love, forgiveness, kindness, and gentleness. Watch out for Timothy. Take care of Timothy. Send him on his way better for the time he spent with you. Do not despise his youth.
Youth and Age in Culture and the Church
This touches on something important about the culture and character of that day. In the twentieth century, we glorify youth and hold it up as the greatest season of life. But in most other cultures in the world today — and certainly in the ancient world — it was old age that was revered and respected. People rightly understood that older people have had an experience of life that the young have not yet had, and so it was the elderly who were listened to and honored.
Jonathan Clark's brother was in town a couple of weeks ago. He pastors in South Africa, and there was a conversation about the many cultural differences between there and here. He spoke about children, and noted that people here are very possessive of their kids — defending them, watching over them closely. He said it is very different in the part of Africa where he serves, where raising children is more of a shared, communal responsibility. He mentioned that when a baby or young person dies in Africa, the parents mourn, but not excessively beyond that. Yet when an elderly person dies, the entire village grieves deeply, because they understand what a profound loss it is.
This cultural difference presents a challenge we see in the church at large today. You can pick up any newspaper advertisement for a church, or drive past a church sign, and read something like: 8 o'clock traditional service, 9:30 contemporary service, 11 o'clock youth service. These divisions usually come down to music. What happens is that older people come at 8, middle-aged people at 9:30, and younger people at 11 — and that, in many ways, defeats the whole idea of the body.
When older people come to East Valley Bible Church and say they love everything about the church but do not care for the music, and ask whether more hymns will be added, the answer is that it is not planned. And when younger people say the music is not energetic enough and ask whether that will change, the answer is also no. There is a reason for holding that line, and it comes back to the conviction that the body of the church is meant to be held together — not separated by age and preference.
The Body Needs Every Generation
A lady comes to the 8 o'clock service and sits right there in the second row. She is 88 or 89 years old — at that point you kind of quit counting. It is interesting how that works. When you are 10, you are always saying you are 10 and a half. But older people never say exactly how old they are. They always say, "I'll be 88." They like the idea that they are getting older. It is a reversal.
I watch her during worship, because some of these songs are hard to sing. The newer songs have an interesting kind of beat, and I am still learning them myself. But I watch her and she just praises and praises and praises. It is a great reminder to me — we need her in that service.
But we also need the students. I personally love coming on Saturday night because the junior high and high school students are there, and they just fire me up. One of the most encouraging things in the world is watching those students come in, sit right over here, and the minute I say "open your Bibles," their Bibles flip open and out come the notebooks.
My mom and dad used to say to me, when I put on Meet the Beatles in 1964 — "I Want to Hold Your Hand" — "Get this trash off." Yet they will come on Saturday night to music that is much louder than anything I played, and when I ask why, they say, "Tom, we love to see the young people with those Bibles on Saturday night." The body needs that. That is why you do not segregate them.
If you are older, you play a role in this body. Do not despise youth. Send them on their way in peace. Take care of them. People should be better off for having experienced you and spent time with you. That is what he is saying.
Apollos and the Abuse of Power
Verse 12: "But concerning Apollos, our brother, I encouraged him greatly to come to you with the brethren. It was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has the opportunity."
Remember, early on we said this church at Corinth was fractured. Some said, "I am of Apollos." Some said, "I am of Paul." Some said, "I am of Peter." Some said, "I am of Christ." It may be that Apollos saw that split and said he did not want to be a faction in that anymore. We do not know why he did not want to go — but what is of interest to me is not trying to figure that out. What is of interest to me is that Paul did not try to pull rank on him and say, "I am an apostle — get over there."
We abuse power so often, and it can happen so easily. It is interesting to me how many people hold what I think is unfortunately a marginal view of church leadership. Elders are appointed, and you are to submit to them and serve them. Yet it is amazing how many people come in just as though they are walking into a fast food restaurant to complain about an incorrectly cooked order.
But the other side is equally dangerous — authoritative leadership that says, "It is my way or the highway. How dare you lay your hand on God's anointed." We make mistakes too. Paul is saying, listen, God must be leading Apollos' life in a different direction, so he will come when he is able.
Five Principles for Godly Living
Verses 13 and 14: "Be on the alert. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. Be strong. Let all you do be done in love."
It strikes me that we could do a full week, or certainly a men's conference, built around this theme. If you are looking for teaching ideas, an adult elective, or a study for a small group, this is a great theme. I would even suggest a title: Principles for Godly Living. There are five of them right here.
Be on the Alert
The first principle is this: be on the alert. It means to watch, to be vigilant. Figuratively, the idea is to be alive. The word is used 22 times in the New Testament, and it speaks of being spiritually awake and alert. This church at Corinth had become a little drowsy. They were allowing pagan ideas to enter. Be alert.
Be alert, first of all, to sin. You have an adversary who is trying to destroy you. Peter writes in 1 Peter 5:8: "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him." You have an adversary — the devil, his demons, the flesh. Do not fall into sin.
As you well know, when you see somebody who has a giant moral failure, so often it did not happen all at once. It is a gradual familiarity and comfort with sin. Sin is all around us. We are seeing what I would call an epidemic proportion of sin — men primarily on the Internet, with pornography, and all sorts of other sin. It starts as a little sin, and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Avoid that.
Also watch out for false teachers. Peter writes in 2 Peter 2:1: "There also will be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies." They are among you. They come in and they teach false doctrine. I do not want to make this more than it really is — although I am not sure I even could — but there is this dominant idea being taught that
Open-Mindedness and Truth
The view we have been exploring over these past several weeks is a minority view in the evangelical Christian community — not because it is not true, but because we have simply moved away from it. We live at a time when everyone is concerned about finding their own needs, making their own choices, and doing their own thing, with little concern for God. God has become something of an afterthought. But who He really is demands our attention. Stand firm in the faith.
Charles Hodge reminds us that we should not consider every point of doctrine an open question. We live in a time that values diversity and open-mindedness. Yet open-mindedness is not a great virtue in every instance.
Consider a flight to Houston. The characteristic no one is looking for in a pilot is open-mindedness. You want a narrow pilot — one whose firm conviction is to take off, follow procedure, and put the wheels down before landing. No one wants a pilot who says, "We always land with the wheels down; let's try it differently." Nor does anyone want an elementary school teacher who, when asking what two plus two equals, responds to a child's various family answers by saying, "We're open-minded." Open-mindedness is no virtue in the face of truth.
At a recent graduation, a staff member stood up to close the ceremony and announced she wanted to read a prayer. It turned out to be a prayer to the earth. It went something like this: "Earth, teach us like the ant that we have our limits. Like the tree, to be sure." This went on for several minutes. Our entire row looked at one another in disbelief. That is open-mindedness taken to its conclusion.
If something is absolutely true, the mind ought not remain open to it in the sense of entertaining alternatives. It should embrace that truth and close itself to what contradicts it. Paul makes this point in Ephesians 4, where he writes that we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine and the trickery of men, the craftiness and deceitful scheming. We are to stand firm. Paul also wrote to the church in Thessalonica in 2 Thessalonians 2:15: "Stand firm and hold to the traditions which I taught you."
Act Like Men
Consider the phrase "act like men." We noted that an entire conference could be built around this idea. At its core, it means maturity. On a Mother's Day, the direct word to men would be this: stand up and lead in the home. Part of the reason our culture is in the chaos it is in is because men have done such a poor job at home — failing to be the husbands, leaders, and fathers they ought to be.
Perhaps you are a victim of that failure. Perhaps you have had a husband who walked out or a father who simply left, and that is genuinely painful. But that does not give anyone a license to be a jerk, nor a license to paint oneself as a victim forever. What it does mean is that God is going to have to bring His grace and blessing to you, and you are going to have to submit to Him all the more. Gentlemen, lead.
In a Christian bookstore, while minding his own business, a woman approached and asked, "Are you Tom Schrader?" After confirming it, she asked point-blank, "Do you know what's wrong with men today?" Glancing down and noticing her wedding ring, there was a fairly good guess, but the honest answer given was, "No, I really don't." She said, "They're wimps." And she was right.
We live — though it seems to be improving — in a confused time. When men are trying to be whatever they think will please a woman, and when the cultural signals are contradictory, everyone ends up out of whack. The command to "act like men" means to be mature and strong. It carries the idea of spiritual strength.
Paul says, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." He does not mean that he can leap tall buildings. He means he has learned the secret of life — contentment. He can face any circumstance through Christ who strengthens him. And all of it is to be done in love.
Love as the Balancing Principle
John MacArthur writes these sentences, and they are worth receiving carefully: "Love complements and balances everything. It is beautiful and a softening principle. It keeps our firmness from becoming hardness, and our strength from becoming domineering. It keeps our maturity gentle and considerate. It keeps our right doctrine from becoming obstinate dogmatism, and our right living from becoming smug self-righteousness."
So if these principles were to become a series, here they are — the principles for godly living: be alert, be firm, be mature, be strong, be loving.
In verse 15, Paul says, "I urge you, brethren," and then he adds a parenthetical insert.
The Mark of a Mature Christian
"I urge you, brethren, you know the household of Stephanas. They were the first fruits there in Greece." He was probably the first believer in Greece, likely from Athens, where Paul went first. "They have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints." The word *devoted* means set in order, and some translations actually use the word *addicted*. That family — the whole household — had an addiction. Not to television, not to chocolate, not to drugs, not to alcohol, not to sex. They were addicted to serving one another and serving the body.
That is a perfect picture of a mature Christian. When someone says of another person, "He's a strong Christian," the question worth asking is: what does he do? Why is he considered a strong Christian? Almost never does the answer come back, "You should see that man serve." Yet that should be the natural flow of a maturing Christian.
The whole problem with someone who says they are a Christian but drifts from thing to thing, or whose constant posture is "serve me, serve me, serve me" — whose complaints are that their needs aren't met or they aren't growing — is revealed in a pattern we see regularly. In nearly every getting-plugged-in class, if there are fifty people in the room, twenty of them will say they have been church hopping. When asked what they are looking for, the answer is never, "A place where I can really jump in and serve — a place where they need help and I can be there." It is always something else: the location is too far, the music doesn't fit, the pastor has been talking about giving, or Calvinism, or whatever it might be.
William Barclay writes: *"In the early church, willingness and spontaneous service was the beginning of official office. A man became a leader of the church, not so much by any man-made appointment as because his life and his work marked him out as one whom all must respect. All those who share the work and toil of the gospel command respect, not because they have been appointed by a man to an office, but because they are doing the work of Christ."*
Serve. Don't wait for the title. There are people on this campus with a name badge that says "Greeter." That does not mean that because you lack a badge with that word on it, you don't greet. The direction here is to move away from those kinds of titles toward something simpler: Servant Staff. We are here to serve, and you ought to be part of that.
Service, Submission, and the Spirit-Filled Life
The whole point of service is the honor and glory of God. It is not to pay Him back. It is not to impress each other. It is because He redeemed you out of your sinfulness, and as part of service to Him, you begin to serve others, and as you do, you glorify Him within the whole body.
Paul continues in verse 16: "I urge you, brethren, that you also be in subjection to such men and to everyone who helps in work and labors." When people are asked whether someone is Spirit-filled, the conversation tends to turn to speaking in tongues, healing, and the sign gifts. But to be Spirit-filled simply means to live a life marked by submission. Wives submit to their husbands. Children submit to their parents. Believers submit to the government. As one author writes, every believer is to be submissive in the ways God has ordained — submissive to the institutions God has placed around them and to those individuals He has set in authority.
Companionship, Refreshment, and Mutual Recognition
"I rejoice," Paul says in verse 17, "over the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achikos, because they have supplied what was lacking on your part. They have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men." Look at the companionship here. Paul says these men came to see him, and simply seeing them was a source of great joy. They refreshed him. That word translated *refreshed* is the same word Jesus used in Matthew 11: "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden. I will give you rest" — refreshment.
To acknowledge such men means to recognize them for what they truly are. This is not a formal award or ceremony; it is genuine recognition of those who do the work.
The Church in the Home and the Greeting of Brothers and Sisters
"The churches of Asia greet you, and Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord with the church that is in their house." In the early church, believers typically met in homes. Some would argue that this becomes the model for the church. The better understanding is that meeting in homes was simply what they had, because it was all they had. As opportunity allowed, it appears they assembled in larger and larger gatherings. But the homes of believers were used for a wide variety of ministry — eating together, teaching, preaching, evangelism, worship, and witnessing — just as our homes can be used for those same purposes today.
Paul mentions Aquila and Priscilla specifically. This is the couple who took Paul in when he first came to Corinth. He lived with them for perhaps a year and a half, and then they began to travel with him. Now, as Paul writes back to the Corinthians, he notes that they are right there with him, sending their greetings along with the entire church.
The Holy Kiss and the Closing Benediction
"Greet one another with a holy kiss." When Scripture speaks of a kiss between a man and a woman in a romantic sense, it appears only twice — in Proverbs 7:13 and in the Song of Solomon, chapter 4, verse 11. The idea here is something different: affection between men with men and women with women. It is a hug, an embrace — a genuine, spontaneous expression of brotherly or sisterly love. In today's context it might be a handshake, but more naturally a hug.
Paul then closes in his own hand. He has dictated this letter and someone else has written it, but Paul signs it personally. "If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. Maranatha." One author writes that in this context, *Maranatha* — an Aramaic term meaning "our Lord, come" — carries its full weight as both a warning and a hope: the Lord is returning, and that reality shapes everything about how we are to live and serve in the meantime.
Paul's Closing Appeal
Paul's appeal calls for the Lord to come and take away those that are accursed — the false Christians who are always such a great threat to the true church. The idea is: God, come and remove them. Anyone that does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. God, you take care of them.
Grace and Love: The Heart of the Gospel
Paul closes by using two words that are really at the heart of the gospel and at the heart of those of us who love the Lord: grace and love — unmerited favor and God's magnificent love. If you are here today and you love the Lord Jesus Christ, it is important for you to understand that you love Him because He first loved you. The love you have today is the love He placed in your heart.
Closing Prayer
Father, help us embrace these principles for godly living. Let us be alert, firm, mature, and strong. Let us be loving — the men and women, the students, and the children that You have called us to be. God, that is an act of Your grace in our life.
God, help us love You, understanding that that love is generated by You first for us. God, we worship You, we praise You, we serve You. Let us be a church where people serve not out of some sense of duty alone, although there is duty, or responsibility alone, because it is responsibility, but out of love — a love for You that overflows into love for one another. God, we ask You to do that work in our life. We offer it to You in Jesus' name, amen.