Faith in Focus #8
A reflection from Connection Church and other spiritual events from the week
Faith in Focus is a weekly reflection on what God has been teaching me throughout the week regarding my faith. Whether it’s personal interactions, reading, or the Sunday sermon, God speaks through it all, and I hope this helps you focus on His mission.
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Sermon Reflection: Servants, Not Celebrities: Paul’s Final Word on Pride
Based on Jonathan Land’s sermon, Connection Church Sioux Falls, Dec 21, 2025.
As Advent draws to a close, Paul’s final word on pride confronts a church tempted by applause, status, and self-made authority, and invites us into the quiet freedom of belonging to Christ alone.
Jonathan Land opened the fourth Sunday of Advent with a statistic that landed like a punch to the chest. Since the 1970s, so-called megachurches, those averaging more than 2,000 people in weekly attendance, have grown astronomically in number. Over the same span of time, however, the percentage of Americans who identify as Christian has declined. Growth, it seems, has not necessarily meant depth. Visibility has not guaranteed faithfulness.
That tension sparked a necessary discomfort. When churches begin to measure success primarily by attendance, influence, or cultural relevance, the danger is subtle but severe: leaders can start serving crowds rather than Christ. The church, in that case, becomes a stage instead of a stewardship.
Paul’s fourth chapter in 1 Corinthians lands squarely in that uncomfortable space. Writing to a fractured, pride-soaked congregation, Paul closes his first extended exhortation with a reminder as bracing as it is liberating: God’s servants are accountable to God, not to human applause (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:1–5).
The World Behind the Text
Corinth was obsessed with status. Public honor, rhetorical skill, wealth, and social hierarchy shaped everyday life. Teachers gathered followers the way philosophers gathered disciples, and prestige traveled with proximity to power.
The Corinthian church absorbed these instincts almost instinctively. Believers began aligning themselves with particular leaders, Paul, Apollos, Cephas, not because of theological disagreement, but because of perceived superiority (1 Corinthians 1:12). Pride masqueraded as discernment. Boasting hid beneath the language of wisdom.
Paul responds by reframing leadership entirely. Apostles are not celebrities. Pastors are not performers. Elders are not brand managers. They are stewards, a word that implies ownership belongs elsewhere. A steward manages what is not his own and answers to the one who entrusted it.
This is why Paul refuses both praise and condemnation from the Corinthians. “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.” (1 Corinthians 4:3; ESV). That line is not arrogance; it is accountability properly placed.
Walking the Passage
Jonathan Land highlighted the surprising joy that comes when we are finally released from what he called the tyranny of human opinion.
If God alone is the final judge, then no crowd can crown you, and no critic can cancel you. That truth does not eliminate correction or discipline. Paul himself makes space for both. But it radically reorders whose voice carries ultimate weight.
In verses 14–15, Paul shifts from sharp rebuke to fatherly care. He warns the Corinthians not to shame them, but to remind them who they belong to. He distinguishes between countless guardians and a single spiritual father. The difference is relational responsibility.
Discipline, when rightly practiced, is not punishment, it is love with direction.
Jonathan pressed this point carefully. Correction is necessary, but it must mirror the heart of God. Leaders are called not merely to speak truth, but to take responsibility for the people they shepherd. Paul writes hard letters because he feels the weight of the churches he helped establish. Encouragement and rebuke are not opposites; they are companions.
This also clarifies the purpose of the church itself. The church does not exist to keep people happy for a week. It exists to point people to God, proclaim truth, and name error when repentance is required. Most of Paul’s letters exist precisely because he refused to confuse love with silence.
A Fair Counter-Reading
Some readers bristle at Paul’s language here, hearing authoritarianism rather than pastoral care. History gives us reasons to be cautious. Churches have misused spiritual authority, equating accountability to God with immunity from critique.
Paul, however, does not claim unchecked power. He submits himself to God’s judgment and invites scrutiny of faithfulness, not charisma. His authority is cruciform: shaped by suffering, service, and sacrifice (1 Corinthians 4:9–13).
Any reading of this passage that justifies domineering leadership has missed Paul’s point entirely.
The Turn
Midway through the chapter, Paul exposes the engine driving Corinthian arrogance: boasting in what was never earned.
“What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).
Paul returned to this point from the previous week because it dismantles pride at the root. Gifts, talents, opportunities, even life itself, are received, not achieved. When we boast in them, we reveal not confidence but insecurity. We announce our fear that what we have might not be enough.
Spiritual maturity, Paul insists, comes from recognizing that God does not withhold from His children. He gives generously what they need. The tension, of course, is that what we need rarely aligns with what makes us feel best in the moment.
Jonathan framed this with clarity: God gives us what is best for us, not what flatters us.
Discipline, then, is not cruelty. It is kindness with a long horizon. As Scripture consistently testifies, God is too kind to leave His children in sin and shame. Correction is one of the tools a loving Father uses to redirect hearts toward life.
To make the point tangible, Jonathan offered a simple analogy. We are not the chefs; we are the waiters. We cannot boast in what we bring to the table, because everything we serve comes from the kitchen. The beauty of the meal reflects the skill of the one who prepared it.
Song of the week:
Our song of the week took longer to find than I would like to admit. The call to worship for sermon reflection below guided us to Deuteronomy 28 where the blessings of obedience to God are laid out. But after the promises of blessings, come the warnings of curses for disobedience. Fast forward to Galatians 3:13 and Paul states, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” This is echoed in Joy to the World with the lyrics: “He comes to make His blessings flow. Far as the curse is found.”
However, most modern takes on Joy to the World take this verse out, and it’s tragic. This verse reminds us of the curses that we deserve, but because of Jesus coming to us in the form of a baby at Christmas, living a perfect life, and dying a death He didn’t deserve, all those curses are now paid for in Him. So this Christmas, try and listen to a version with this verse in it so that you can be reminded of the weight of what we celebrate in the coming of the Messiah at Christmas!
Paul closes the chapter by addressing those who are loud but hollow: all talk, no walk. He frames the issue not as eloquence, but as power.
“For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:20; ESV).
This power is not dominance or spectacle. It is the transforming work of the Spirit, evident in humility, repentance, obedience, and love. Paul echoes this elsewhere when he warns Timothy about people who appear religious but “deny the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:2-5).
Jonathan pressed this uncomfortably close to home. If we speak confidently about God while quietly doubting the power of the Spirit to change us, we are not walking in the Spirit at all. We are performing spirituality without submitting to it.
The call, then, is refocus. Return to dependence. Exchange noise for nearness.
Carry It Into the Week
Paul ends his exhortation on pride the same way he began it: Christ alone.
Nothing but Christ is worthy of boasting. Nothing but Christ is sturdy enough to rely on. Nothing but Christ can free us from the shifting guises of worldly approval.
As Advent gives way to Christmas, this truth sharpens. The incarnation is not God endorsing human greatness; it is God entering human weakness. The Savior comes not to amplify our platforms, but to empty Himself for our redemption (cf. Philippians 2:5–11).
To celebrate Christmas faithfully, then, is to resist the instinct to center ourselves, even spiritually. It is to receive rather than achieve. To serve rather than shine.
Nothing but Christ, in all things.
Week in Reflection
As Christmas arrived this week, families and friends gathered to mark the season and reflect on the birth of Jesus, the event that gives the holiday its meaning. Amid the exchange of gifts and time spent around decorated trees, the celebration ultimately points back to that moment in Bethlehem and the reason people come together each year.
Connection Church held its annual Christmas Eve service, featuring congregational singing and the reading of the Christmas story. The service underscored the significance of worshiping in community, an experience that carries a depth and energy difficult to replicate through a screen or a radio broadcast in your solitude. For those who were unable to attend a Christmas Eve service this year, it is an experience worth planning for in the year ahead.
And remember, God loves you, and so do I.
