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Think for a moment about the people who have shaped your faith. Maybe it was a pastor whose sermons opened the scriptures for you in a way you had never experienced before. Maybe it was a mentor who walked alongside of you through a dark season. Maybe it was a teacher, a book, a podcast, or a small group leader. Now these people matter, their work is real, and Apostle Paul never says otherwise. But here's the question chapter three is pressing on us. Has the servant become the source? The church at Corinth was fractured along exactly those lines. Some said I follow Paul, others said I follow Apollos. They had taken a gifted faithfully teachers and turned them into tribal identities. Their spiritual lives had become organized around human figures rather than around Christ. Paul names the diagnosis bluntly. Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly, mere infants in Christ. I give you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you're still not ready. So notice how Paul points to as the evidence of their immaturity, not heresy, not moral failure, just this jealousy and quarrelling, the ordinary friction of people competing for status, comparing themselves to others, rallying behind their preferred voices. So for Apostle Paul, the friction is a spiritual symptom. It tells him the gospel has not yet gone deep enough. And then he does something surprising. Rather than defending his own reputation or even Apollos, he deflates both of them. What after all is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe. And as the Lord has assigned to each his task. Servants, instruments, tools in a larger hand. He then offers one of the most memorable images in all of his letters versus six and seven. 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. John Calvin, commenting on this passage, observed that God could not have designed a world where crops spring from the ground without any human labor at all, but he chose to work through farmers, through the planting and watering of ordinary human hands, while keeping the power of growth entirely in his own. Now the farmer is real, the farmer's work matters, but the farmer is not the life. And the distinction is important and it changes everything. Think about what it means for you and your own spiritual life. You may have a pastor you deeply trust, and that's good, and that's a gift. And you may have a spiritual director or a mentor or counselor or coach or a theologian whose work has shaped you profoundly and that's good too. Receive them as gifts from God. But here is the question worth carrying into this week. Are you trusting the servant or the source? Are you trusting the servant or the scriptures? When the sermon is good, is something in you reaching through it toward God or just stopping at the preacher? When a book opens a truth to you, do you come away more dependent on Christ or more dependent on the author? When a coaching conversation bears fruit in your life, does the fruit draw you toward deeper rootedness in God or toward more sessions? The servant plants and the servant waters, but it's only God who gives the growth. And this is not just a warning, it is a relief. It means that you do not have to find the right teacher to unlock your spiritual life. It means that when a trusted mentor disappoints you or a beloved pastor leaves or a cherished resource is no longer available, the source of your growth is still fully present in your life, still fully at work, still entirely capable of making things grow. And Paul and Apollos are one, he says in verse eight, they are not rivals, they are co workers in God's field. The church belongs to no teacher, it belongs to God. So here is the one question to carry with you today, and that is, is there someone or something you have been depending on for spiritual life that only God can give? You should name it. Not so much to dismiss it, but to hold it rightly. Receive the servant as a servant, and trust the source as the source. Plant faithfully, water humbly, and let God do what only God can do. Well that's it for today, and thanks once again for joining us. I have a fuller uh Bible study of course first Corinthians chapter three on the home page that I manage. It's uh jubileecoach.com, one word jubileecoach.com. And if you go to the today's live blog section, um I have a more thorough uh Bible study uh printed for you. I don't have the audio portion, I'm trying to keep the audio portion uh brief and to the point. So, once again, thanks a lot for joining us, and uh to all who love the Lord with an undying love, may God's grace and peace be with you today and forevermore. Godspeed.