FAMILY RECOGNITIONS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 24, 2020 under 2020 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Message; May 24, 2020 from 1 Corinthians 16:15-18
Theme: We should appreciate those who devote themselves to the well-being of their church family.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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They attended another church than ours. But they were very devoted to the church they attended. They served that church sacrificially, and they were used by God to bless it greatly. They are an exemplary family; and there’s a lot that we—in this church—can learn from them.
They were a part of the ancient church of Corinth. They are known to us simply as ‘the household of Stephanas’; and Paul held them up to the Christians in Corinth for special honor and recognition. In 1 Corinthians 16:15-18, he wrote;
I urge you, brethren—you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints—that you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us. I am glad about the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, for what was lacking on your part they supplied. For they refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men (1 Corinthians 16:15-18).
Paul highlighted the household of Stephanas because the members of it had “devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints”. And what Paul meant by that was that they gave themselves whole-heartedly to serving the needs of the local church to which they had become attached—the church in Corinth. To say that they devoted themselves to “the saints” meant that they devoted themselves to their particular portion of the larger Church of the redeemed. They gave themselves to the service of those whom Jesus had saved.
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Now; there are a lot of people today who might not think of that as a very worthy thing to do. Sadly, there are many today who think that the whole idea of a church isn’t important anymore or worthy of their time. But that wasn’t how the members of the household of Stephanas would have thought. For them, to devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints was to devote themselves to something that is dearer to the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ than anything else on earth.
Think with me for a moment of what we’re told in Ephesians 5 about our Lord’s passion for His church. We’re told there that the church is Jesus’ ‘Bride’. Paul wrote to urge husbands to love their own brides; and he said,
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Ephesians 5:25-30).
There is no other thing on earth for which it can be said that the Son of God “gave Himself” than the church. He laid down His life on the cross in order to redeem His people, and to call them to Himself, and to form them into a spiritual body for Himself forever. There is no other thing that He ‘sanctifies’—that is, sets apart as holy for Himself—as much as He does the church. There is no other thing other than the church that He gives such care to—washing it and cleansing it by His word. There is no other institution that He has committed Himself to perfect than the church—taking away every spot and wrinkle from it, and sharing His own glory with it, in order to present it to Himself beautiful and holy and without fault unto His pleasure and delight throughout eternity. There is no other thing on earth that Jesus so cherishes as to identify it as His own ‘body’ than the church.
Now; I’m not talking about a building with a steeple and windows and pews, because that’s just wood and brick and glass—destined to fall apart with time. Nor am I talking strictly about the group of people that meet inside that building; because there can be some people within that building who are not sincerely His people by faith. Rather, I’m talking about the whole assembly of those who Jesus has truly redeemed with His blood and has called out to Himself and who have believed on Him for salvation—not just people in one specific church building, but in many churches across the land; not just in one nation, but from out of all nations across the globe; not just in the present time, but in all the centuries past and future; and not just the ones living here on earth now, but also all of those redeemed saints who have died in Christ and are now glorified in His presence. They all constitute the church. And there is nothing on this earth that Jesus loves and cherishes more than that called-out assembly—His church—His glorious Bride—His own precious and beloved Body.
Do you realize that out of all the things that will ever have existed in the whole history of this present creation—out of all the things that God has made—there will only be one thing that the Bible says God will keep forever for His Son? He will not keep this present earth; for it will be destroyed and replaced by another. He will not keep the present heavens; for they too will be destroyed and replaced by something newer and better. He will keep no present earthly empire or government or kingdom. He loves the city of Jerusalem; but even that city is destined to be replaced by the Jerusalem that comes down from above. Dreadful as it is to say, He will not even keep all of the members of humanity who have resisted His call and have rejected His Son—whose names are not written in the Book of Life; because the Bible tells us that they will be cast into the Lake of Fire at the White Throne judgment. Death will be cast into that fire also, and so will Hell, and so will even the devil and all his fallen angels. None of those created things are things that God will keep to Himself. The only things—from out of His creation—that God will keep will be the holy angels who obey Him, and the church of His redeemed saints that trusted in Jesus. And the Bible tells us that those holy angles will forever praise God for the glory that He gives to the redeemed saints as the Bride of His Son.
And so; when you encounter a family like this—the household of Stephanas, of whom it is said that they ‘devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints’—then you’re encountering a family who’s priorities were set on that which Jesus Christ loves most of all.
And Paul tells us about them in this passage.
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Now; let’s set these words from Paul in their larger context.
As we have been finding over the past few weeks, 1 Corinthians 16 is a chapter of Paul’s letter that gives us a lot of details about everyday church concerns—simply ‘house-keeping’ matters such as schedules and financial giving and ministry plans. But they are all made extraordinary by what we find in verses 13-14.
In those two verses, Paul gave the Corinthian believers a five-fold exhortation that taught them how to bring a sincere reverence toward God in everything that they did. Paul wrote; “Watch”; which meant that they were to keep constantly on the alert to what was going on around them—and what God was doing about it all—so that they could give themselves to prayer and effective action. Then, they were to “stand fast in the faith”; which meant that they were to remain strong and stable and unmovable from their commitment to the doctrines of the gospel that are given to us in the Bible. They were to “be brave”; which meant that they were to courageously speak the message of the gospel and courageously live in obedience to Jesus even in a culture that threatens them for it. They were also to “be strong”; which meant that they were to bear up joyfully and endure patiently during times of trial and persecution. And finally, “they were told, “Let all that you do be done with love”; which meant that they were to be continually guided—in word and deed—by the kind of self-sacrificial agape love toward each other that Jesus exhibited toward us by dying for us on the cross.
As we look closely at this remarkable family—the household of Stephanas—we can see that they were faithful to conform to those five exhortations in the ways that they had served the church in Corinth. Look at the things that Paul told us about them.
First; we see something of their faith in Jesus. In verse 15, Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said, “you know the household of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia …” ‘Firstfruits’ is a figure of speech that is drawn from the agricultural world. It speaks of the first and the best of the harvest—that which is symbolic of more yet to come. And that’s what this household was. They were the first to believe in the region of Achaia. They were the ‘firstfruits’ of the called-out redeemed people of Jesus in that land who would be symbolic of more to come.
Achaia was, in ancient Roman times, the name that was given to the whole region of Greece. And it was sometimes used as a name for the most notable city in ancient Greece, and that was Athens. It seems that this man Stephanas was a man from Corinth who happened to be in Athens at the time when Paul preached there. We’re told in Acts 17 that Paul preached and taught there; and the philosophically minded people of Athens enjoyed listening to him and debating with him. Not very many from Athens, though, seemed to have put their faith in Jesus. But some did. We’re told in Acts 17:34;
However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them (Acts 17:34).
Stephanas might have been among those “others”. It’s quite a notable thing to have been among the very first people to have believed on the Lord Jesus in the ancient Greek world.
And it must be that Stephanas was a remarkable man who bore a great influence upon his whole household. We first meet up with them in 1 Corinthians 1. Paul had been writing to deal with the problem of how the Corinthians were boasting over who they had been baptized by. “I was baptized by this great teacher”, they’d say; or “I was baptized by that great apostle”. It was causing a lot of division in the church family; and Paul wrote, “I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name” (1 Corinthians 1:14-15). And then—almost as if he had nearly forgotten—he added, “Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other” (v. 16). It may be that Paul baptized this family in Greece, and they later moved to Corinth. But however it happened, this meant that the faith of this family—the household of Stephanas—was strong and established enough that Paul could point to them as among the few that he had baptized. The Corinthians, apparently, knew about that faith very well.
Stop and think about our church. Can you identify a few families, or a few couples, or a few individuals in it whose faith in Jesus is noteworthy?—who have known and walked with Jesus for a long time, and who bring the influence of that faith to bear on others within it?
Another thing that stood out about the household of Stephanas was that they were true servants of God’s people. We talked earlier about how anyone who serves the church of Jesus Christ is serving that which is nearer and dearer to the Lord Jesus than anything else on earth. And the household of Stephanas was very devoted to that ministry. He said, “they have devoted themselves to the ministry of the saints”. They weren’t necessarily missionaries. They may not have been evangelists. Instead, they seemed to have simply given themselves to the cause of ministering to the needs of the redeemed people in God’s church—right in their church community.
In fact, they were very committed to that cause. The old King James Version had an interesting way of putting it. It says that they were “addicted” to the ministry of the saints. That may not be the best translation of the word to use today, because it has a negative connotation to some. But it does at least convey the idea of having set themselves earnestly to the cause of edifying and ministering to the church family in Corinth. They loved to serve their church.
You know; the church on earth is far from perfect. It has lots of faults. The church in Corinth certainly did. And yet, here we find a group of ordinary Christians who were so grateful for their salvation, and so committed to that which Jesus loves and died for, that they were devoted in the extreme to the service of their church family—to meet its needs—to heal its faults—to support its ministry—to use their spiritual gifts to make it better. I think here of what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:10-11;
As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:10-11).
Do you know some people within the church who are like that?—people who are thoroughly devoted—we may dare even say ‘addicted’—to the ministry of the saints, and who diligently use their gifts to bless their brothers and sisters in Christ?
Another thing that stands out about the household of Stephanas was that—in this ministry—they were very hard workers. They didn’t give their best efforts elsewhere and then just hand the leftovers to the ministry of the church. Instead, they gave of their very best efforts the cause of meeting the needs of the saints. Paul and his ministry team wrote of them as the type “who works and labors with us”.
The way Paul put this in the original language is very interesting. He said first that they were such who “worked with”; but he didn’t specify with whom it was that they worked. It would seem that it was with Paul and his missionary team; but it may mean that they worked in a much broader way with all who were sent by the Lord to minister the gospel. If that was the case, then they had a very wide and open readiness to serve the church by being co-laborers with the work of Christ in whatever way they could. They had a ‘co-worker’ mentality. They worked with whoever was advancing the kingdom of Jesus and building up His church. And second, Paul said that they “labored”; which wasn’t a word that simply meant that they put forth a moderate, casual effort. Rather it meant that they put forth an extreme effort and worked and labored to the point of exhaustion in their service to the church family.
Again, do you know individuals, our couples, or even whole families like that within the church? Sometimes you do; but then again, sometimes you can’t. Such people as we find in the household of Stephanas often labor hard—but in such a way as to not draw attention to themselves. They often labor behind the scenes. But we couldn’t get along without them.
Now; in this passage, Paul draws out three individuals for special attention. It seems that they were parts of this household. First, we’re told of Stephanas; who seemed to be the head of this household. He brought a great influence upon the others for Christ. Then, we’re told of Fortunatus. He has a Roman name which basically means “Lucky” (although I think he probably would have preferred to be thought of as “Blessed”). And a third man is named Achaicus. His name identified him as someone from Greece. These men came from the church in Corinth to Paul and brought a list of questions that the Corinthians had for him in the form of a letter. Paul’s letter—the one we’ve been studying—was written in response to those questions; and these three men most likely brought the letter back to the Corinthians.
But notice carefully what Paul says about them in verse 17; “I am glad about the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, for what was lacking on your part they supplied.” In other words, these three men—Stephanas and possibly a portion of his noteworthy household—came to Paul as representatives of the church in Corinth. They ministered to the needs of the church before Paul; and they ministered to Paul on the behalf of the Corinthians; and they then brought back the blessings of Paul’s ministry to the church on his behalf. What trustworthy servants of Christ! We have this marvelous letter in our Bible today most likely because of them.
But more than that; there is a tender, relational side to their ministry. You need to know the unique way Paul said what he said about them. In the original language, Paul used an unusual way of putting it; saying that these three men supplied what was lacking to Paul on the part of the Corinthians. And the best way to understand Paul’s words was by knowing that he really wanted to be with the Corinthians themselves—to enjoy sweet fellowship with them; but since he could not, these three men supplied that fellowship of love on behalf of the Corinthians to him. They ‘supplied’ what was lacking on the part of the Corinthian church—materially, practically, and relationally.
And there’s one more thing to notice about what Paul had to say concerning Stephanas and these two other men—and perhaps, by implication, the whole household of Stephanas. It’s very much in keeping with what we had just observed about them. Paul wrote, “For they refreshed my spirit and yours.” Do you know servants of the church like that?—that they refresh others? They don’t just do work around the place. They enhance and beautify the spirit of fellowship; so that we all love one another more because of them. Things are better because they’re around.
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Now; I think it’s a delight to consider this family. They’re encouraging to read about. They’re inspiring. Reading about them makes me want to be more like them. I think that, in their devoted service to the church family, they truly embodied the spirit of what Paul said in verses 13-14; “Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.” They were living illustrations of that five-fold exhortation.
But Paul wasn’t writing this portion of his letter simply to mention this outstanding household to the Corinthian church, and encourage the saints with good thoughts about them. He meant for the church to do something about them.
Go back again and you’ll find that there are three things that Paul wanted the church to do with regard to them. And these three things teach us what we need to do about such people with which God has blessed our own church family.
First, we need to …
1. KNOW THEM .
Paul began in verse 15 by saying, “ I urge you, brethren …”; as if he was about to give a command. But then, he interrupts himself by saying, “you know the household of Stephanas …” What he then went on to urge the Corinthians to do depended upon the fact that they genuinely ‘knew’ the household of Stephanas. And of course, everything that we have just looked at from this passage shows us the characteristics of this household that the Corinthian believers would have known.
Even though it isn’t put to us in the form of a command, I take it that we are urged by this passage to make sure we know the people God has given to our church who are ‘household of Stephanas’ types of people. We should pay attention to them, and be aware of what God has provided for us in them.
Now; Paul began by saying, “I urge you, brethren …” And what Paul then urged his readers to do with respect to such people is to …
2. SUBMIT TO THEM.
In verse 16, Paul goes on to say “that you also submit to such, and to everyone who works and labors with us.” Paul is not saying that we seek some ‘family dynasty’ to rule over the church. Rather, he was saying that we should know the character and labors and devotion of such ‘household of Stephanas’ types—whoever they may be in the church; and yield ourselves to God’s provision to us through them.
Sometimes there are some hard people to get along within a church. And we may be tempted not to go in order to avoid them. But if we do that, then we also fail to be blessed by the people that God has given to the church in order to serve us and enrich us. We should avail ourselves of their ministry, and submit to what God gives us through what they do.
And it’s not enough to “know” them and to “submit” to them. Paul went on finally to urge his readers to …
3. ACKNOWLEDGE THEM.
Paul wrote about the refreshing ministry the members of the household of Stephanas had on him and on the Corinthian church; and then said in verse 17; “Therefore acknowledge such men.” We do so by thanking such ‘household of Stephanas’ types, appreciating what they do, praying for them, and even imitating their devotion.
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This wasn’t something that Paul said only to the Corinthian church. He also wrote to the Thessalonian church and said;
And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13).
This is a policy that is meant for all churches—including our own. May God help us to ‘know’, ‘submit to’ and ‘acknowledge’ the faithful women and men He gives to our church who are earnestly devoted to the ministry of the saints—those like the household of Stephanus.
EA
