The Scum of the World
November 3, 2024
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
1 Corinthians 3:18-4:13
3:18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours,22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
4:1 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
6 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
In just a moment I’ll pray for our time in this passage, but I want to go back to last week for a minute and our outreach conference. We had several opportunities to learn, opportunities to serve, and opportunities to celebrate. I want to say out loud that I’m so thankful it happened. Sitting in the pews in both services, I saw—as you did—the color up front and on the stage and found myself praising God. That our church would make progress in celebrating the truth that “red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in his sight” and that heaven will be a place of different languages and different nations—seeing all that—was for me seeing answers to prayers that were prayed over a decade ago, and maybe longer by others. I was thankful.
This morning we come back to series in 1 Corinthians about how the crucified Christ shepherds a fractured flock. We’ll take four sermons to preach the next two chapters, and then we’ll take a break for Advent. We’re picking back up with the truth that if you have Jesus, you have the one who is truly gold, and having him frees you from chasing the glittery but fleeting praise of others. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
I took the title of the sermon, “The Scum of the World,” from a phrase in the last verse of our passage, v. 13. I would guess that on the Sunday morning before the elections, some would want me to equate Kamala Harris with that phrase. There are others of you who would want me to do that with Donald Trump. There are others who want me to do that with both. And there are others here who may or may not think one or both of the candidates are lousy, but you didn’t really want to hear either of their names in church because you hear about them everywhere else.
Well, those in the last category will probably be the most happy because that’s all you’ll hear about them from me. I bring it up to ponder for a moment the kind of anger and disdain that many people feel toward those they consider political opponents. It’s interesting that if we had done an exit poll right after church on a Sunday morning in early November, not here but in the ancient city of Corinth, and you had asked church members who was the scum of the world, it’s interesting that many people would have said the apostle Paul. It’s probably surprising to consider the disdain some have for Harris and Trump, some had for Paul.
Sure, of course, many people liked him; perhaps some even loved him and thought too highly of him. Paul first preached the gospel to them, doing evangelism among them, then eventually leading several prominent members of their community to faith in Christ, and then even baptized a few of them, men such as Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanas (people mentioned in chapters 1 and 16).
But others in Corinth viewed Paul as the guy who left them and moved on to other ministry and now just writes letters. And even when he was with them, his speech was not impressive, not like Apollos anyway. Oh boy, Apollos—that guy can speak.
Then think what would happen if we expanded the exit poll from the church doors to the marketplace. “Oh, you want to know about Paul?” they would say in the marketplace. “Yeah, we know him. Some of you Christians think he’s a big deal, but he’s poorly clothed, he seems like he’s not eating enough, and he’s got to work for a living doing manual labor, and, on top of that, he’s got to help you guys in your dysfunctional church. We’re not impressed,” they would say.
That’s putting it more mildly than Paul put it. Again, looking at the last verse, some people thought he was “the scum of the world, the refuse of all things” (4:13).
Now, if you were Paul, how would you go forward with that kind of mixed reception—both loved and hated? Would the hate crush you? Would the praise elevate you? And who was right? Who is the true you based on their feedback? And if you’re Paul, as you consider even for those who do like you, what if you could sense that even in their appreciation and in their esteem, something was off, that they liked you too much, like they were getting something from attaching themselves to you?
Do you know the reference “a hall of mirrors”? It’s to be surrounded by misshaped mirrors. In one mirror, you’re fat, and in the other, you’re skinny. In another, your head is fat and your body is skinny. How do you know how you really look? It’s confusing.
In our modern context, we’d say, “Close your eyes. Just look inside and believe that you are enough, that you have what it takes, and forget what other people think of you.” That might get you somewhere, but is there enough fuel inside you to keep you going when life is hard, when other people think you are the scum of the world, and you even think that of yourself? The Christians in Corinth, as do you and I, need something more accurate, more clarifying, more stable and pure than mere human judgment.
Amid that hall of mirrors, Paul found hope in the promise of the return of Christ. Many of us think of Christ’s return in exclusively negative and fearful terms. When Christ returns, that will be scary. That will be bad.
But that’s not what Paul thought. For the Christian, the return of Christ and the reality of God’s final judgment clarifies things. It blows away all the debris. It drowns out all the noise. Or we might say, it straightens out the mirrors.
I want you to see this in the passage first; I want us to see what Paul believed about the return of Christ. Then we’ll talk about how it changes our view of ourselves and others.
1. The Primacy of Final Judgment
When we read the passage a moment ago, we began not in chapter 4 but in the last verses of chapter 3 so that we could see the flow of Paul’s argument. Look again at v. 18. I’ll read a few verses at a time, pointing things out along the way.
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
Later Paul will say something that appears to be negative toward judgment. But here I point out that Paul is asking that we have a kind of judgment, a kind of introspection, as we consider our own life and wisdom and whether our wisdom aligns with God’s.
19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men.
Paul is talking about the praise of men and how flimsy it is. He contrasts the futile, fleeting wisdom of men with the glory that a believer has in Jesus. We’ll continue with the end of v. 21. Paul had described what doesn’t last, and now he describes what will last forever.
For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
The meaning here is something like, Whatever you truly need, whatever good is taught by Paul or Apollos or Peter (called Cephas), whatever you truly need in this life, whatever you need now or in the future, and whatever you need to make it through this life into death and on to the next forever life, you have it in Jesus because Jesus has you. You can hear the future orientation of our faith, which makes comments about Christ’s return a natural transition in chapter 4. I’ll read vv. 1–4 later. Look now at v. 5.
5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
You see the lines about the return of Christ. I’ll read v. 5 again, this time inserting the associations we often have Christ’s return, which should make the actual meaning pop.
5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment…
Judgement is bad and scary, right?
before the time…
Okay, what time is that? When will scary judgment actually be pronounced?
before the Lord comes,…
Oh, no. That sounds bad. So we ask, What will the Lord Jesus do when he comes?
who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness…
Yikes. If the Lord brings to light the things hidden in darkness, that will be scary and awful. What else will he do?
and will disclose the purposes of the heart….
Oh no, he’ll disclose the purposes of the heart? Woof. I don’t want my heart disclosed. Do you? I doubt it. This is bad, really bad. Now, how does it end?
Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
Note it says commendation, not condemnation. Very different meanings. Commendation means praise. That’s why the word for commendation is translated by most other versions as praise. When Jesus returns, each person will receive his praise from God.
Does this positive ending to that verse surprise you? If we think the whole verse is negative, we’re actually reading it differently than Paul intended.
For the believer in God, for the one who has had all his sins forgiven, for the one who has been loved and cared for by God, for the one who has been put in the strong hand of Christ such that no one can snatch him out, for the one who, as Paul says, has everything he could need in the good news of Jesus, for that one the return of Christ is not a bad thing. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. The return of Christ is when all the secret, hidden acts of devotion to the Lord will be disclosed. It’s when God will hold up the godly motivations of his children and say, “See, world, when I love someone, my love changes them from the inside. And the hidden affections they had in their hearts toward me, the secret acts of devotion, I, the Lord, see and they are beautiful.”
I’ll give you an illustration, a very sad one. For years, I’ve wanted to join the choir we sometimes have at Easter and Christmas. It looks so fun. I wanted to join the Swahili choir last week too. When I tell you this next detail, you can make the sad “Ahhhh” sound. Ben Bechtel would never let me join the choir. He said I wasn’t good enough. And you know what, Pastor David has done the same thing. (Yes, you can say, “ahhhh.”).
What if I told you, every morning I wake up at 5am and sing by myself the worship songs and the choir songs to the Lord, just worshiping karaoke style all by myself, or just me and Jesus. Now, I actually don’t do that. I guess it would be cool if I did. But I’m just trying to illustrate my point. There is something comforting in knowing judgment that isn’t based on mere talent and performance. I don’t have to be like all those beautiful singers in our church choir, the Lord can love my terrible voice because he knows I’m singing to him. Now, I’m being silly about this, but you see how this would actually translate well into a context where the choir or the preachers or the deacons or whatever group were actually a bunch of arrogant people who thought too highly of themselves. Into this context, the hope of Christ’s return is good news.
Let’s go back to Corinth for a moment. This focus Paul has on receiving praise from God at Christ’s return tells us something about the issues they had in their church, and I suspect we can have as well. The issue in Corinth was not that people thought too low of themselves. They thought too highly of themselves. They were receiving praise that was not really praise, not lasting praise anyway. We see evidence of them seeing themselves too highly at many places in the passage. I’ll give two examples. Look at v. 7 and then 8. Paul asks some rhetorical questions in v. 7. I’ll read two of them.
What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
The questions imply that they had forgotten that everything they had was from God. If you look down in v. 8, it’s clear that they were assuming they were already hot stuff and had all the praise they needed. Notice the thick sarcasm Paul uses.
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you!
Those in the Corinthian church boasted about all the stuff they’d done and all the spiritual gifts they had. They were more interested in doing things so that they could put them on their college resume than they were interested in doing them for the right reasons. They were more interested in being seen as a good preacher than being a good preacher, more interested in being seen as the best singer in the choir than worshiping God in their hearts. Even their love of theology was not about knowing Christ; it was a game to compete with others and see who could have the most baptisms or have the biggest Bible studies or the most praise. They came to church worried about who had the best families or the best careers. Their following of Paul or Apollos wasn’t about what was good about each of their teachings. And their Christianity wasn’t about Christ, not really; their Christianity was about shiny, glittery things. Things that people praise that don’t last and don’t shine on into eternity. They were living in light of human mirrors and human judgments, not the day of judgement.
I’ll put it like this. You know when a teacher grades a test on a curve? That means even if the best score is not very good, the teacher will raise the grades of all the students so that it looks like everyone did better. Of course, every high schooler is like, “Listen, guys, if we all just agree to do really bad and not study, then they the teacher will have to give us a good grade.” This is sort of like what they were doing in Corinth. And we can do it here. It’s like when we say, “Let’s all come to church and pretend that the most important thing is that we look like we have it together. And we’ll all praise each other on things that don’t matter and tell each other that we have it together, and if we do that enough, maybe it will be true.”
This was utterly unstable and caused divisions. If we lose sight of the return of Christ, if we lose sight of receiving praise primarily from God, then we’ll exhaust ourselves in getting the praise and commendation of other people. Paul is saying that the return of Christ clarifies what is most important in life. It blows away all the debris. It drowns out all the noise. Or we might say, it straightens out the mirrors. The return of Christ becomes utterly practical for Paul. He wants that for us too. This is the last point.
2. All Human Judgments
The return of Christ allows us to know how we should relate to all human judgments. Again, this is so practical for Paul. I’ll read those verses I skipped over before. After saying to the believer, “For all things are yours, whether . . . the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s,” Paul then speaks of how this final evaluation relates to Paul now. Look at vv. 1–5.
1 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.
Let me explain what he’s saying using a line I heard from someone else. The good news that God loves Paul is at a volume of 10. And the feedback from others is at a volume of 2. It’s not that what other people think doesn’t matter to Paul. It does. He says in v. 3 that it is a small thing that he should be judged by you or any human court. It matters to him, but the volume is at a 2, not 10. The soundtrack to his life as a Christian is not constantly playing at full blast the feedback from others. In fact, he’s not even going to listen at full blast to his own evaluation of himself.
Some of you need to bring this close. You’re constantly overwhelmed by what others think of you. Others of us are overwhelmed by what we think of ourselves, often times bad, negative things. Other times, too arrogant of thoughts. Paul says he’s listening, but only to a point. He’s looking in the mirrors around him, but he knows those mirrors are often distorted. What matters most is the mirror of God’s Word and what God will say at the end of time.
Sometimes people take this “only God can judge me” to the extent that we shouldn’t ever listen to others. It’s almost like the judgment of God is a license to do whatever we want. That’s not what Paul is saying at all. Look at vv. 1–2 again.
1 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
Paul uses two words to describe ministry. Paul sees himself as a servant, which is clarifying, right? If you think you’re the CEO of Christ, that would come with different expectations. But Paul keys on the word servant. But he also speaks of us as stewards. We don’t use that word much. But in the finance world, if you’ve entrusted retirement money to someone to help you invest that money, that’s a steward. They don’t own the money. But they have a responsibility to manage it faithfully, right? In fancy money language, it’s called fiduciary responsibility. You’d like the people watching your money to be fruitful and make you more money. But you really want them to be faithful, to be trustworthy. There is judgment or discernment involved here. It is because only God can judge us that we care about doing the right thing. This is consistent with 1 Corinthians 3:10, where Paul warns people about how they build, and that we should be paying careful attention. Or later in chapter 5, Paul is going to get really upset with the church because they are not making good judgments about purity.
But, again, if what matters most is the evaluation of Christ at the end of time, that might give you the kind of stamina you need to do hidden, secret ministry unto the Lord.
And if we view God in the proper place and people in their proper place, think how that will free us from treating other people as stepping stones. Many of those in Corinth who said they loved Paul, didn’t really love him. They loved what Paul might be able to give them. And those who loved Apollos didn’t really love him, who he actually was. They loved what being connected to a good speaker like Apollos might give them.
Having the proper view of the return of Christ and the final judgment causes you to not treat those in your life as steppingstones to get what you want, as competitors with us for some favor or grace that there is only just enough of, and if someone else gets it, then you won’t have it. Remember Paul’s lines: “For all things are yours” (3:21b).
I’ll end there. The last lines in the passage speak of being regarded as the scum of the earth for following Christ. That may feel over the top. During the political season, as I watched the commercials, so many thoughts came to mind, and I’m sure they do for you too. I thought about one of our church members who works as a counselor for a pregnancy center in the city, helping women make what feels like a hard choice and encouraging those mothers with the help they can receive before and after a child is born. And I thought about the way that hidden, unassuming work is so important and simultaneously reviled. Where will the kind of strength come from to maintain love in that context? I think it comes from the hope of the return of Christ. And if we keep our hope there, perhaps God will help keep us as those like Paul describes in this passage.
I’ll just read the last verses again, and then I’ll pray and invite the worship team to come up. And I’ll give some instructions about communion.
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
As Jesus makes us it to this type of people, he’ll be making us into the people like him, the one who was sentenced to death, was persecuted, and was reviled but blessed us with his cross.
Let’s pray. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
Sermon Discussion Questions
When are you tempted to view others too highly? Too lowly? Why? When are you tempted to view yourself too highly? Too lowly? Why?
What problems would this cause in a Christian community if many in that community were doing this? How would that affect the witness to Christ in the surrounding world?
What are your associations with the return of Christ—a good thing or a bad thing? A scary thing? Why could all of this be true at once? And what makes the return of Christ become a good thing for us?
Paul describes his ministry in vv. 10–13. How would this be difficult?
Many of us feel like we’re trusting in Christ for our salvation, but then an event or circumstance can shake that hope we thought we had. In other words, trusting in Christ for our identity can sometimes feel like trying to hold a wet bar of soap. What have you found helpful in these moments of doubt?
How does the description of Paul’s ministry to them have symmetry with the ministry of Jesus to us in the gospel?
