ARE YOU YET CARNAL? 

I CORINTHIANS 3:1-3 

          The city of Corinth was one of the major urban centers of the ancient Mediterranean and one of the most culturally diverse cities.  Its location, on a major trade route, made it a prosperous business community.   However, the fact that Corinth was such a business center contributed not only to its prosperity but also to its many foreign religions and its sexual looseness.  Paul in writing to the Church at Corinth shows his concern for the local church.  If any one thinks that his local church has more than its fair share of problems, he or she needs only to look at the Corinthian Church to put his problems in perspective.  The Corinthian church was a very gifted church, but it was also a troubled church.

          In the passage that we read, Paul addresses this church calling its participators carnal.  When we generally think of carnal or fleshly Christians we tend to think immoral and sexual behaviors.  When we think about fleshly sins we tend to think about fornication, adultery and lustful perversions.  But here Paul calls these Christians carnal not because of their sexual practices but because verse 3 says that there was envying, strife and division among them.  He says they were carnal and walk as men.  By saying that they walk as men, Paul is saying that their behavior is being driven by the sinful nature on man, not by the Spirit of God, the new nature abiding within them.  All the envying, strife and division among them led Paul to call them carnal.  Even after the message on last week on the importance of unity, I am moved this morning to ask, “Are You Yet Carnal.”

          Paul says that they are carnal because there is envying, strife and division among them.  The order of reading is the correct order because envy leads to strife and strife to division.  Now we know that division means separating or breaking up into groups.  Strife according to Webster is the act of fighting or quarreling, contention or competition.  When asked what envy is most people will say jealousy.  Though the two are closely related, there is a difference.  We are jealous over what we already have, but we are envious over another man’s possessions.  Jealousy fears losing what one already possesses while envy is hurt or angered by what another has.  Paul says these Christians are envying one another.  Envy is a painful or resentful awareness of another’s advantages joined with the desire to possess the same advantage.  The advantage may concern material goods, social status, spiritual gifting, and even granted authority.  One Bible dictionary says that envy is ‘(1) That discontented feeling that arises in the selfish heart in view of the superiority of another, nearly tantamount to jealousy (Psalm 37:1; Psalm 73:3; Proverbs 24:1, 19; Phil. 1:15; etc.). (2) That malignant passion that sees in another qualities that it covets, often resulting in hate for their possessor (Matthew 27:18; Romans 1:29; etc.).

Envying is ill will, malice, spite (James 3:14, NASB, “jealousy”). It is accompanied by every “evil thing” (James 3:16). It always desires and often strives to degrade others, not so much because it aspires after elevation as because it delights in obscuring those who are more deserving. It is one of the most odious and detestable of vices.

GENESIS 26:12 -16

          Here this outsider comes into their country, farms on the land and has a hundredfold increase.  Maybe the Philistines were farming and getting some increase but they were not getting a hundred fold.  The Bible said they envied Isaac.  Jealously would have caused them to forbid him water from their wells if he needed it.  But envy moved them to sabotage Isaac’s well and drive him out of the country.  Jealousy will cause you to pout when you cannot have your way, but envy will cause you to lash out at others who are perceived as standing in your way.  Here they envied the blessing and possession of Isaac, but one can also envy position and authority. 

NUMBERS 12:1-15

          Though this started out with Aaron and Miriam supposedly upset because Moses married an Ethiopian woman, the real source of their envy is seen in verse 2.  Miriam and Aaron were upset because their little brother Moses was getting all the attention.  So their question is what makes him so important?  He is not the only one that God speaks through.  God speaks through us also.   Moses’ choice of wife only gave Miriam the opportunity to criticize Moses. 

          You see envy and jealousy normally try to hide behind some pure motive.  No one wants to be seen as envious or jealous, so we will often look for something else to criticize in an attempt to bring the other person down without our own impure motive showing. 

          Before criticizing someone else, we need to pause long enough to discover our own motives. What is often labeled “constructive criticism” may be actually destructive jealousy or envy.  You see some feel that the easiest way to raise their own status is to bring someone else down.  We should always question our own motives before we offer criticism.  We should ask ourselves, “does the critical finger I am about to point need to be pointed first towards me”?

          Notice that there is no mention of a response from Moses.  But God responded.  He did not deny that he had used Aaron and Miriam, but he also pointed out that He had a special relationship with Moses, one that Miriam and Aaron should have respected.  A relationship that should have made them fearful to speak against Moses.   For her error God gave Miriam leprosy.   But Moses, true to his character prayed that God would heal his sister.  He did not gloat in her misfortune but rather prayed for her.

JOB 19:1-5

          Job asked his friends "How long will you torment me and crush me with words? Ten times now you have accused me and shamelessly attacked me.  If it is true that I have gone astray, would not I know of my error? Why do you exalt yourselves above me and use my humiliation against me?”  It is easy to point out someone else’s faults or sins. Job’s friends accused him of sin to make him feel guilty, not to encourage or correct him. If we feel we must admonish someone, we should be sure we are confronting that person because we love him, not because we are annoyed, inconvenienced, or seeking to blame him. 

          I am not saying that we don’t sometimes need to be rebuked, but I am saying that there is a proper way to do it and before you set out to rebuke someone you should make sure your motives are pure.  Even if your motives are good and right, if you start out by accusing someone you will rarely get the response you desire.  Sometimes rebuke is necessary, but it must be used with caution.  And remember the purpose of any rebuke, confrontation, or discipline is to help people not to hurt them.

          Envy will cause one to be blind to one’s own sin and focus on someone else’s.  In other words it will let you pick at the twig in your brother’s eye and fail to see the tree in your own eye.

LUKE 9:49-50

          The disciples were jealous. Nine of them together were unable to drive out a single evil spirit (Luke 9:40), but when they saw a man who was not one of their group driving out demons, they told him to stop. Our pride is hurt when someone else succeeds where we have failed, but Jesus says there is no room for such jealousy in the spiritual warfare of his kingdom.  In their jealousy they tried to stop the work of God.  We must be careful not to speak to quickly about what we do not understand.  Check with God before you speak lest you find yourself a hindrance in the building of God’s kingdom. 

ACTS 13:42-45

          The Jews begged Paul and Barnabas to stay but when they noticed that all the people were going to hear them preach and not to the synagogue they got jealous.  Sometimes when we see others succeeding where we haven’t, or receiving the affirmation and attention we crave, it is hard to rejoice with them. Jealousy is our natural reaction. But it is tragic when our own jealous feelings make us try to stop God’s work.  A similar occurrence is seen in Acts 17:5 When Jew because of envy attacked the house of Jason because of the preaching of Paul and Silas.  The spirit of envy is deceitful and very dangerous.  He will move masses of people to act by operating through one person or just a few people.  Acts 7: 9 says that it was envy that led Joseph’s brothers to sale him into slavery.  Pilate in Matthew 27:18 said that it was envy that caused the Jews to deliver Jesus up to be crucified. 

GALATIANS 5:19-26

          I want to make sure that we are clear about the definition of some of these works of the flesh.

       a.  hatred – bitter dislike, ill-will against anyone, tendency to hold grudges against or be angry at someone.

       b.  variance – Dissension, discord, quarreling, debating and disputes

       c.  emulations – jealousies; striving to excel at the expense of another;  seeking to surpass and outdo others; uncurbed rivalry spirit in religion, business, society and other fields of endeavor

       d.  strife – strife about words, strenuous endeavors to equal or pay back wrongs done to you

       e.  seditions – factions, divisions, stirring up strife

       f.  envy – pain, ill-will, and jealousy at the good fortune or blessing of another

       g.  drunkenness – living intoxicated; a slave to drink; drinking bouts

Note that verse 21 says that those who do these along with the other works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God.  Thus verse 24 - 26 encourages us to put to death these works of the flesh.  We are also told not to provoke one another and not to envy one another. 

JAMES 3:14-16

      Envy and strife breed nothing but confusion.  These are all evil works.  Attempts of the enemy to kill the productivity of the church as a whole and to keep Christians preoccupied with foolishness.  I don’t know any other way to say this than to say it is time for some people to grow up.  

ROMANS 13:11-14

      It is time to wake up and stop the bickering and arguing.  No one here is perfect and since you are not perfect stop expecting perfection from everyone else.  Learn to love one another in spite of our imperfection.  It is time to put away the complaining, the bickering and arguing.  Stop focusing on you and what you like or dislike, what you want and don’t get.  Take your focus off of yourself and others and put it on Jesus.  Spend your time asking Jesus to change you and in his doing that you may find that others are not as bad as you think.  Paul told the Corinthian Christian that they were still carnal.  I ask this church today “Are you still carnal?”  Carnal in your thinking, carnal in your actions, carnal in your behavior towards one another.  Envy leads to strife and strife to division and these all flow from carnal Christians acting as if they are still driven by the flesh, walking as if they are still worldly.  Are You Yet Carnal?