SPIRITUAL GROWTH – an outline of the text.
(Not necessarily the sermon.)
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INTRODUCTION: When you became a believer, God made
you a spiritual being. Though at first you were an infant,
you are now expected to grow in Christ.
I. YOU ARE NOT GROWING (3:1-2)
“Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual
but as worldly — mere infants in Christ. I gave
you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet
ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.”
II. YOU ARE STILL WORLDLY (3:3-4)
“You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy
and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are
you not acting like mere men? For when one says, ‘I
follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are
you not mere men?”
III. YOU NEED GOD’S POWER (3:5-7)
“What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only
servants, through whom you came to believe-as the
Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the
seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So
neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything,
but only God, who makes things grow.”
CONCLUSION: As a child of God, you have two natures:
wordly and spiritual. Starve the worldly and feed the
spiritual. Grow in the grace of God.
OUTLINES ON THIS TEXT (FOR MY PREACHER FRIENDS)