No More Preacher Worship: Real Men Pursue Unity (#1)

[Please note the following transcript is automatically typed and may contain errors.]

Tim Conway, introduction: We’ve got Pat here from Poteet, and a lot of you don’t know him. I just wanted you brothers to get a feel for the relationship here. Craig, John.,  and I go back to the days of sitting under Pat’s leadership at Community Baptist Church.

Brethren, I’ll tell you what happened. God saved me, and I didn’t know anything. I came out of nominal Catholicism and went on a journey—first through a Pentecostal church, and then, of all things, Craig and I ended up in a small church in Michigan. It was just me, him, his family, and the pastor’s family. That was it. Occasionally, we had a visitor, but it was a tiny church called Pilgrim’s Heritage Baptist Church, north of Kalamazoo.

Craig and I would often sit in his living room on Friday nights, reading the Book of Acts. I remember hearing Paul Washer say that when he got saved, he wanted to tear Acts out of his Bible. When I heard him say that, I thought, Yes, that’s exactly how I felt! Craig would be up in his chair, I’d be on the floor, and we’d have Acts open, reading about George Whitefield and the revivals of his time. We’d look at each other and ask, Where is this? We understood why Paul Washer felt like Acts was a mockery—it made us long for that kind of Christianity.

Looking around southwest Michigan, I began to pray, Lord, I have a burning desire for missions. Please take me to a church that has the truth and is involved in missions. Craig and I both worked for a company called Inner Cal, and we got the Alamodome project. Through a series of events, I met John S. and spent the day with him. I remember the first time he took me to the church. Pat was in his office, and I met him for the first time in 1992.

That day, John told me his story—how just two years earlier, he had packed up his family and moved here. He had visited Pat on his way to Mexico, heard the church singing Scripture songs, and was drawn to Pat’s vision for the church. So, for a whole day, I wasn’t hearing from Pat—I was hearing John talk about Pat, about the church’s work in Mexico and India. When I got on that airplane, my heart was on fire. I thought, Lord, this is the kind of church I’ve been praying for—but it’s 1,200 miles away! How would I ever get here?

Just a few months later, John S. offered me a job. I came down, and for about eight months, I kept telling Craig, Craig, people are getting saved here. Eventually, Craig picked up his family and came, too. Pat, led by the Lord, took in these two novices—Craig and me. We were just showing up at the church, and suddenly, there was a building in Floresville, Texas. What are we going to do with it? Another elder in the church went rogue and left, and Pat was left with a decision: Do we continue on with the men we have, or do we shut the whole thing down?

They opened the door for Craig and me to be involved in church planting in Floresville. After a season, Pat asked me to go over to Stockdale, where I ended up largely alone—just me and the Lord. There was another family, the Scarboros, and that’s where I first saw God using me in a church-planting endeavor.

I was telling Pat the other day—it was amazing to me that, though I was saved through John MacArthur’s ministry, God didn’t take me to California. He brought me under Pat, a church planter with a heart for missions. And I’ll be honest—when I first came here, Pat probably remembers this—I wanted to be the 1689 Reformed Baptist poster child. Pat resisted that. I wanted to sing from the Trinity Hymnal and do things a certain way. But once we started Grace and I had to wrestle through things biblically, I kept coming to conclusions that Pat had already reached.

Over the years, I’ve tried to tell Pat, but I don’t know if he realizes it—he has been one of the three most significant men in my life in terms of shaping me. I saw something of prayer in him. I saw something in his faith. I saw something in the singing. When we planted a church, my prayer was, Lord, please give us a spirit of prayer and supplication like we had there. Give us the spirit of singing.

Pat has talked about how his own faith was shaped by men like George Müller and Hudson Taylor, and I wanted to learn from them as well. The example I saw in Pat has played a significant role in the faith God has given me over the years.

I just wanted you brothers to get a feel for the relationship here.

Pat Horner, sermon: 

The focus will be on denying oneself. Tomorrow and Saturday morning, we’ll be looking at verse 13: “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” The Old English here—”quit you like men”—means exactly what Paul is saying: stand up and be a man. Act like a man.

This is a message that is needed among Christians today. If there is going to be a generation that carries the gospel forward, we need men—men who act like men. You’re going to hear that phrase a lot tonight and throughout this message: men like men. In our country and others, we have biological men who do not act like men, and that ought not to be so among Christians.

This verse is set within the context of 1 Corinthians 16:8–18. While I didn’t start at verse 8, I want you to read those verses. But especially, I want you to take verse 13—read it, meditate on it, memorize it, and let it become a part of you before we leave here on Saturday afternoon. Paul’s exhortation at the close of this letter is clear: You need to be men like men.

So what does it mean to be a man like men? That’s the question we will answer in the next four messages. But before we do, it’s important to understand the context. Paul introduces this section by speaking about Apollos:

“As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren: but his will was not at all to come at this time…” (1 Corinthians 16:12).

Then suddenly—boom!—Paul says, “Quit you like men.” What’s the connection? Nothing in Scripture is random. God has ordered every word and passage with purpose. So why didn’t Apollos want to come? And how does that relate to Paul’s command to be men?

The Bible doesn’t give us a direct answer. It simply states that Apollos didn’t want to come. But we can look into 1 Corinthians itself for clues. Apollos knew that some in the church had caused great division by comparing him with Paul. Some held Apollos in higher regard than Paul, and this led to strife and conflict. As Paul closes this letter, he makes it clear that Apollos was not willing to come at this time.

Why?

I believe the answer is found within the book itself. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1:10:

“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?”

Do you see the division this caused in the church? Paul is appalled at their attitude. He is taken aback by their strife and conflict. The focus here is not on Peter or Christ in this passage but on Paul and Apollos—because that’s where the real division in Corinth lay.

Paul learned of the sinful carnality and division in Corinth from those in the household of Chloe (1 Corinthians 1:11). Chloe is only mentioned once in Scripture, and nothing else is known about her. But here’s what we do know: It was a woman who informed Paul about the sinful state of the church.

Where were the men?

Why didn’t the men stand up and confront the division? Why weren’t they courageous enough to say, This is wrong; we need to correct it? Why was it a woman—Chloe—who saw the danger and had enough concern for the church to send word to Paul? Why were the men not spiritual enough to stand against the sin creeping into their church?

This was a church that Paul says “came behind in no gift”—it was abundantly blessed (1 Corinthians 1:7). Yet by chapter 3, he tells them, “I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal…” (1 Corinthians 3:2–3).

What happened? How did a spiritually blessed church decline into spiritual infancy?

Because the men failed to be men.

They did not see the spiritual decline. They did not concern themselves with the church’s testimony. And every church has a public testimony. Doctrinal errors, unbiblical practices, and conflicts don’t just stay within the four walls of the church—they affect the witness of the church to the outside world.

First Corinthians is filled with Paul addressing one problem after another—sin after sin, conflict after conflict. And the book closes with this command: Be men. Yet it opens with the sad reality that a woman had to step up and send a message to Paul because the men had failed to lead.

They were not being men like men.

And because of their failure, the church had fallen into division, carnality, and strife. They had fallen into the dangerous habit of comparing one preacher with another. And Paul rebukes them for it.

There are several pastors and preachers here tonight. Some have been on the mission field, others are pastoring churches. Do not compare one with another. Do not exalt one preacher above another. That is carnality. That is sinful.

Every Christian is different because God has made us different. Every man here is different. Each of us has been given different abilities, different gifts, and different graces. And yet, each of us is useful in the hand of God.

To compare ourselves with one another is nothing but fleshly, worldly thinking. That was the sin of Corinth. They forgot—or failed to understand—that every believer is saved the same way: by the grace of God alone. Not by works. Not by effort. Not by merit. Not because one man was better than another.

If we are saved, it is by grace alone.

“Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.”

That is the testimony of every Christian.

Paul reminds them in 1 Corinthians 15:10: “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”

If Apollos had written this letter, he would have said the same thing. If Peter had written it, he would have said the same thing. If John or Matthew or any of the other apostles had written it, they would have said the same thing:

“By the grace of God, I am what I am.”

And that truth alone eliminates all reason for comparison.

And since that is true, their practice of comparing one servant of the Lord with another—one member of a church against another, saying, “I speak in tongues,” or “You don’t speak in tongues,” or “I’m more spiritual than you”—produces nothing but division, strife, and conflict. Such comparisons always lead to deeper sin and further division in the church.

Paul uses the example of Apollos not coming—not because he is angry or unwilling, but because his lack of desire to come is a reminder that they are not acting like true Christian men. Being a Christian man means understanding that God has done for you what no one else could: not only saving you but also gifting and equipping you. Before the foundation of the world, God chose you, entrusted you to His Son to be your substitute—sending His Son to bear your sin at Calvary and pay its penalty. Jesus accomplished everything necessary for salvation, and then the Spirit of God was sent to draw you to Him so that all three persons of the Godhead work together in your life to bring you into a saving relationship with the Father through His Son.

This truth applies to every Christian. If you are here tonight as a Christian, it is solely because God made you one. If you are a minister serving, it is because God has called, equipped, and sent you. In First Corinthians, Paul explains that God-called men are simply instruments in His hand. He is sent to Corinth; another is sent to Babylon; Peter, John, and Matthew all serve as instruments—each placed exactly where God wants them. Because of this, Paul and Apollos cannot be compared. Each is simply an instrument in God’s hand.

Paul reinforces this idea in First Corinthians 3:4–7, where he rebukes the church for saying, “I’m a Paul,” and “I’m an Apollos.” He asks, “Are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos?” The Greek word behind “minister” here implies a servant—one who waits on tables. Paul does not set himself above Apollos with titles like apostle, teacher, or master; rather, both are merely servants. Paul was an apostle to the Gentiles and Apollos a gifted teacher, but ultimately both are servants through whom you believed, just as the Lord gave to each man what He planted. Apollos watered, and God gave the increase.

The lesson here is that our focus should not be on the ministers themselves, but on the One who saved you from sin. Whether it was Paul, Apollos, or any other servant of God, the fruitfulness of their ministry comes from God giving the increase. If there has been any fruit in my ministry, it is because God gave the increase—and the same is true of you and every other preacher or missionary. A Christian man is one who gives glory to God above all else, drawing attention not to himself but to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the source of our salvation.

In Corinth, instead of uniting around the message of salvation, the men were focused on comparing one to another, envying, and engaging in strife. Paul rebukes them, asking, “Are you not carnal?” Their lack of spiritual maturity is evident because they are focused on men instead of on God alone. As ministers, our duty is to rekindle that flame which God ignited in us when He called us to gospel ministry—a flame that desires Christ to be exalted above all.

Perhaps Apollos, in his decision not to come, was demonstrating what it means to be a true servant. A man like him does not exalt himself but lifts others up. He recognized that he was nothing more than an instrument in God’s hand and allowed Paul to minister to that church without creating further division. Both Paul and Apollos understood that their roles were not to draw attention to themselves but to point every believer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Tomorrow, we will revisit verse 13 and begin unfolding its meaning further. I encourage you to meditate on it, memorize it, and consider what Paul is saying as he closes out his letter after spending 16 chapters addressing the sins in that church. Remember, if you are not a Christian tonight, this message is not for you. You cannot be a Christian man like men until you are first saved by Jesus Christ. We can pray for you, talk with you, and share the truth of salvation, but only the Lord Jesus Christ can save a sinner.

If you have questions, do not leave without getting them answered. What you do with those answers is between you and God. I know there are people here tonight who are lost, and I have been praying for you since last week. A true Christian man begins with a personal relationship with Christ and grows from that foundation.

Father in heaven, have mercy upon us as we gather here. Use Your Word to guide us. We do not want to be content with the status quo of religion or what others may say. We want to open Your Word, read what You have said, and, with Your help, live it out. Do not leave us to ourselves; we are not gathered merely for fun, but for a purpose—to learn from Your Word and be transformed by it. We ask that You help us, be gracious, be merciful, and guide Your children here this weekend as we are sent out as different men in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen. Amen.