Only God Gives the Growth
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
We like thinking that we are something important; the likes of which the world has never seen. We begin to believe that our skills, our talent, and our ability are so worthy that we are the ones making things succeed and grow. Friend, you are only a seed sower, a gardener. You plant or you water what has been planted. You never bring the growth. Jesus does. You are not the important one. Jesus is. This is a very dangerous thing to forget.
Why do we forget this?
We long for the accolades. We want credit that bigger numbers and incredible stats were caused by our great vision and idea. We want important credentials, a name that is noticed, the requested autograph. We even want this in ministry, in God’s house. Do you find yourself taking credit for the fruit or blessing in your expanding Sunday school class, your two or three church services, your baptism numbers, your new members? Who has brought the growth? You or Christ? The struggle of power and pride rages in our hearts. We may never say it out loud but we each long to be the only king on the throne. We lie to ourselves; we claim to be wise and we boast in things as if we had anything to do with them. But it just is not so.
Only the Holy Spirit can help us see ourselves with accuracy.
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
Paul also tells us that we must be co-workers in God’s service.
Co-workers, co-laborers.
This means we must work alongside our brothers in unity with one purpose. Not our own purpose, or our own agenda. There is no room for that in the kingdom of God. We must have one heart and one mind for the purpose of Christ and His gospel. Neither worker will get the glory or the credit for the growth. There will be a reward, however. A reward is given to the worker who has built his work on the foundation of Christ. The fire will come to test what sort of work has been done. Time will tell how you have labored and if it has borne kingdom fruit.
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward.
This seems too heavy, too much to weight to bear. That is because we cannot do this on our own. This is an impossible task without the grace and mercy of Jesus. What a loving Savior we have that teaches us how to plant, how to water, how to serve in unity and love with our brothers. He rescues us from our power-hungry, greedy selves and transforms us into His servants, co-laborers through whom He can bring real growth. And He never fails in this.
