This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome, this is Day 2 together of our look through 1 Corinthians chapter 4.
We're going to focus on verses 3 to 6 today of this chapter. And as we look at
these verses, we're talking together this week about what makes great servants,
servants who last.

And yesterday we reminded ourselves, it's understanding the job description. I'm
a servant who's been entrusted, so I need to be faithful. And today we're going
to see in these verses that part of being a servant who lasts is reminding
ourselves of who the judge of ministry really is.

Is it God or is it men? Because if you let others become your judge of ministry,
you're destroyed as a minister. In fact, it's also true that if you begin to
become a judge of other people's ministry, you're also destroyed as a minister.

We're going to see that in these verses today. If you let others become your
judge in ministry, you're destroyed as a minister. And if you let yourself
become a judge of other people's ministry, you're destroyed as a minister.

The real question is who evaluates the ultimate impact of your ministry? And
Paul in these verses begins by pointing out three judges that will destroy your
effectiveness in ministry. Listen to what he says in verses 3 and 4.

I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court. Indeed, I do not
even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.

It is the Lord who judges me. Paul talks in these verses about the three judges
that will just take the wind out of your sails as a minister, as a servant of
Jesus every time. He talks about the church, he talks about human courts, and he
talks about himself.

First he says the church, by you he says to the Corinthians. The church in your
life is to be your encourager, your advisor, your enabler, your strengthener,
your fellowship. The church is all of these to us as followers of Jesus Christ.

It is your family, but it is never to be your judge. If you allow the church,
the people in the church, to become the ultimate judge of what you do in
ministry, you'll become so busy trying to please all of the people all of the
time, you won't have any time left over to do the ministry that God's asking you
to do. Or you'll be sapped of strength for the ministry he's asking you to do.

You might be doing the exact thing God wants you to do, but if you're doing it
to please the church as your judge rather than God as your leader, the father as
your leader, you'll find that your energy just is not there. Because when other
people are our judge, they don't always give us the affirmation that we would
wish for. They don't always give us the applause that we would wish for.

And so you find your energy going down and down and down. But when you recognize
that God is the leader, he's the ultimate judge, he constantly gives us the
encouragement through his word, through his spirit within us. The church is a
poor judge.

Human courts are a poor judge. The idea of human courts that Paul is talking
about here has to do with those outside of the church. What does the world think
of us?

What does the world think of the church? And I found many people who would never
let the church judge them. They're always thinking about what does the world
outside think of me?

Now I do agree that we need to be concerned about how we're sharing the good
news with the world so that they can see the truth. But that's not what's
happening with many. They don't want to be put down by the world.

They don't want to be ridiculed by the world. They want to look maybe even sort
of a little bit cool to the world. I'm a cool minister.

I'm one of those ministers that impresses those who are not yet believers in
Christ. The truth of the matter is you can become so busy and so intent on
impressing the world that the message is lost, that your message is lost. So
human courts are not a good judge.

The church is not a good judge. And Paul says, by the way, you yourself are not
a good judge of your own ministry. If you become the ultimate judge, how am I
doing?

I'm the evaluator. I tell myself, I've got all these charts, I've got all these
ways of evaluating how it's going. If I fall into that trap, I'll either end up
in one of two places, either in deep depression or excessive pride.

Because either the evaluation I've set up, either I'm going to be doing a lot
better than an evaluation or a lot worse. And it's usually a lot worse. And
because of that, I either end up in deep depression or excessive pride.

So instead of all of that, Paul says, it's the Lord who judges me. It's the Lord
who judges me. Now, what's he talking about here?

Judges me. When we talk about judgment here, we're talking about who is the
ultimate, the one who ultimately sees the worth of what you're doing. And it's
God.

It's only God. The word judge can be confusing to some of us. You have to make
decisions about things every day.

You have to look at something and say, that's a good thing, that's a bad thing,
that's a good way to go in ministry, that may not be the right way to go in
ministry. Those are decisions. That's different than judgment.

The word judgment that's being used here. It's not about the daily decisions you
have to make in ministry and the evaluations you have to make about what you're
going to do and not do. This word is about who is the one who ultimately is
going to say well done?

Who is the one ultimately who's going to put the stamp of approval on that? And
Paul is saying here is, if God's asked you to do it, and you know in your heart
that He's asked you to do it, even if the church is saying, why are you doing
that? Even if the world outside is ridiculing you for doing that, and even if
you yourself wonder why you're doing that, keep doing it, because ultimately He
is the judge.

So instead of the church or human courts or you yourself being the judge, it is
the Lord who judges me. And in that Paul says in verse 5, here's how, here's how
you think about God as the judge. Listen to this verse, "Therefore judge nothing
before the appointed time.

Wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and
will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his
praise from God.

" In this verse Paul reminds us that judgment, ultimate judgment, is the matter
of the right time and the right person. The right time and the right person. The
right time is God's appointed time.

Judge nothing before the appointed time. The right time, by the way, is not yet.
The right time is not now.

The appointed time is wait till the Lord comes. The truth of the matter is the
ultimate worth of what you're doing in your ministry. It may be applauded right
now, it might be ignored right now, but that has nothing to do with the judgment
of your ministry.

The ultimate judgment is not yet. It cannot be judged yet what the ultimate
value of your ministry is because it cannot be seen yet what the ultimate value
of your ministry is. What looks impressive to us might be built on sand.

It might be something that doesn't last 10 years, one year, and doesn't really
make any impact on this world. And what goes entirely unnoticed by us might be
the most significant ministry of our day. We don't know.

We're just servants doing what he's asked us to do. The right time is God's
appointed time and that time is not yet. That's when we meet him in eternity.

That's when the Lord comes. And the right person is God. God is the judge and
I'm not.

The right time is not now, it's then. The right person is not me, it's God. So
Paul says wait therefore for judgment.

Wait for God's judgment of a ministry because at that time he's going to bring
it to light. At that time he's going to expose the motives. Now as I read those
verses a moment ago, for some of us that scares you to death that God's going to
bring to light my motives.

That's not why Paul wrote this here. He wrote this to help us to recognize that
there are many good motives that you have that nobody knows. That you did that
out of a good heart and maybe even that motive was misunderstood but God knows
it.

Paul did not write these verses to scare us. He's going to bring it to light as
if God's going to bring to light all those terrible things that you did. The
truth is he's bringing it to light not to shame us but to honor his work in us.

There are things that you do for his name's sake that no one sees and one day
those are going to be brought to light. How do I know that? That this isn't to
shame us but to honor his work in us?

Because the next phrase after that is each will receive, at that time each will
receive his praise from God. When God judges us as believers at the end of time
he's not going to blame us. There are many scriptures that say we will stand
blameless in his sight.

We talked about that last week in 1 Corinthians 3. He's not going to blame us.
He's going to honor us for his work in us.

Now that honor is going to go straight back to him so it's going to be no pride.
We will receive our praise from God and that praise will go straight to God.
When you begin to recognize that, that begins to protect you in ministry and
serving God against the danger of pride.

There's a lot of danger of pride in ministry. You're doing great things, things
that make a difference in this world, things that make a difference for
eternity. And so Paul says in verse 6, "Now, brothers, I have applied these
things to myself and Apollos for your benefit so that you may learn from us the
meaning of the saying, 'Do not go beyond what is written.

Then you will not take pride in one man over against another. '" When we
recognize that God is the ultimate judge and not one man, one woman, this
person, that person, then all of a sudden the whole issue of pride can be set
down. We realize we're all standing together before him, serving him.

This issue of judgment is a big one in ministry. So let me remind you once again
of what we said at the beginning. If you let others become the judge of your
ministry, you're destroyed as a minister.

And if you let yourself become the judge of others' ministry, you're destroyed
as a minister. He's the judge. We wait for his time, for his ultimate judgment,
and together we're servants waiting for that day.

Pray with me. Our Father, you are the judge. And there's something in us that
resists looking forward to that day when you will give us praise for what we've
done, because we see all the faults in our lives.

We see all the things we haven't done. But Lord, there is going to come a day
when you will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant. " There is going to
come a day when each will receive his praise from God for things that no one
else saw, for motives that no one else knew.

And so Lord, help us, even when the world doesn't understand, even when the
human courts and the church and even we ourselves struggle, help us to remember
that it's for your sake. It's for the sake of the one who gave his life for us.
It's for your sake.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Tomorrow we're going to talk together about the
power of a changed attitude in ministry.