What Kind of Fruitfulness Are You Seeing? - 1 Corinthians 3
What Kind of Fruitfulness Are You Seeing
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:1-15
Series: Hearing from God
Preacher: Russell Smith
Date: June 14, 2026
Church: Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Fruit of Our Lives Reveals The Voice that (In)Forms
We are continuing our Hearing from God series as preparation for Sabbath month in July. In July we will take a retreat in place together, meet in one service, share Communion each week, and meditate through Proverbs as we bring God a decision, a life situation, a challenge, or a question where we seek wisdom. Last week, in 1 Corinthians 2, we considered the noisy world of competing voices and the astonishing promise that we have the mind of Christ. The voice to which we pay attention is the voice that gets our loyalty. This week Paul gives us another question: How do we know whether we are hearing the right voice? What kind of fruitfulness are you seeing in your life?
The fruit of our lives reveals what is forming us. Spiritual fruitfulness is one important diagnostic of whether we are hearing from God and taking steps of faith. So pause and ask: Where are you seeing growth? The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 gives us a concrete way to examine ourselves: love, joy, peace; patience, kindness, goodness; faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. I like to remember them in three groups of three. Are these things growing in your life? Are you bringing more love, more joy, more peace, more patience into the world?
Galatians also names the acts of the flesh. We are not going to take a deep dive into the whole list, but it provides another diagnostic: How are you actually behaving? When we practice the power of the pause, stopping the rushing freight train of our thoughts, we may see something we do not like. It may be jealousy and quarreling, a knee-jerk anger, a readiness to give up in despair, a craving for more, or an unhealthy ambition that uses other people as means to our own ends. Self-examination is not abstract. The fruit of our lives gives feedback about the voices we are actually listening to.
The question is not, 'Are you impressive?' It is, 'What kind of fruitfulness are you seeing?' Paul asks us to measure a life not by credentials, religious activity, knowledge, mighty deeds, or the ability to master an argument, but by the slow, concrete evidence of the Spirit's work. That is why the fruit of the Spirit gives us a better diagnostic than appearances. It helps us notice what is actually coming out of us in ordinary relationships and pressure-filled moments.
Grace That Gives Growth
Paul says, '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.' It is important to hear what he is not saying. He is not saying that people who display worldly behavior are not Christians, outside the family, or condemned. He is not preaching perfectionism. Grace comes first: we are received by the grace of Christ just as we are. But by the grace of Christ, we are not left just as we are. Christ grows us. The theologians call this “sanctification.”
Paul says he gave the Corinthians milk rather than solid food because they were not ready. Then he names the fruit he sees: jealousy and quarreling. Those are acts of the flesh. He is asking them to look at their actual lives. It is worthwhile for each of us to step back occasionally and ask, What is the actual fruit of my life? What is really going on? Where am I quick to anger, driven by overarching ambition, captured by pride, hungry for sensory experience, or weighed down by a dejection that simply gives up? The point is not shame. It is an honest diagnosis that can lead us again toward grace.
A course correction is a good thing. Learning to hear the Lord is not a matter of listening to whatever pleases us, following every impulse, and then calling it God's direction. The Lord is a person—the living, divine Lord—and we can grow in recognizing his voice. Religiosity is not the same as fruitfulness. Knowledge is not the same as fruitfulness. Powerful deeds are not the same as fruitfulness. The key question is whether the Spirit is growing fruit while the acts of the flesh are being pruned away.
When Factionalism Becomes the Fruit
Paul gets specific: 'When one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?' He is confronting factionalism, one of the most enduring temptations in Christian history. This is not the friendly teasing that Christians sometimes offer one another. I was raised United Methodist, and I will joke with Methodist friends that I am a Wesleyan evangelist to the Calvinists, trying to bring a little strange warming of the heart to the frozen chosen. That kind of friendly ribbing about differences is not what Paul means. He is talking about tearing down another person or carving out a position by taking someone else down.
Apollos was a Jew from Alexandria, a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. Acts says he had been instructed in the way of the Lord, spoke with great fervor, and taught about Jesus accurately. Priscilla and Aquila, Paul's friends in Ephesus, helped him grow further in the faith; then he went to Corinth and became a prominent teacher. The first-century church was a network of house churches rather than a single large gathering. It is easy to imagine this eloquent and intellectually gifted teacher moving among those communities and attracting zealous young students.
Here is my reading between the lines: young students often want to make a name for themselves, and one easy way to do it is by taking down another teacher. Some of Apollos's admirers may have taken potshots at Paul, who was absent. Some students formed by Paul may have dismissed Apollos as a golden-tongued hotshot, a flashy newcomer who could not possibly know the deeper truth. We see the pattern repeatedly: contemporary worship versus traditional worship, Calvinism versus Arminianism, disputes about spiritual gifts, and a thousand other occasions for Christians to become cranky, bitter, defensive, and quick to anger.
Paul's point, in effect, is this: If the fruit in your life is division, you are not hearing his voice correctly. If you are spending your energy sniping and harping at one another, you have missed what Paul and Apollos are trying to say. Pay attention to the fruit. It reveals whether you are receiving the teaching as it is meant to be received.
There is an irony here: people who are passionate about Christian teaching can become especially vulnerable to this temptation. A gifted teacher can serve the church beautifully, and eager students can turn adherence to that teacher’s language and mental models into a badge of superiority. Paul will not allow that. Apollos and Paul are servants, and their teaching must lead people toward the God who gives growth rather than toward a faction that believes it owns the truth.
Be Somebody or Do Something
Paul takes himself and Apollos off center stage: 'What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe.' Paul planted; Apollos watered; but God has been making it grow. Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. Their purpose is not to create followers of themselves. Every worthy Christian teacher is trying to help people hear from God personally and grow in grace, so that they become able to teach and serve others. The question is not whether you are a follower of Paul or Apollos. The question is: Are you growing?
This is not about roles, titles, prominence, or accolades. It is about becoming an instrument of Christ. That brings to mind Colonel John Boyd, one of the greatest military strategists that you have never heard of. A Korean War pilot and Air Force instructor, he became known for the OODA loop: observe, orient, decide, act. He cared about what actually worked in the fog of battle, rather than mindlessly following received protocols. He was blunt and outspoken in his advocacy for what worked, even when that made him a maverick and kept him from rising above colonel.
Boyd's biographer, Robert Coram, describes a talk Boyd gave to junior officers: “Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road,” he said. “And you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” He raised his hand and pointed. “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises, and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club, and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” Then Boyd raised his other hand and pointed another direction. “Or you can go that way, and you can do something – something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments, and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference.” He paused and stared into the officer’s eyes and heart. “To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do. Which way will you go?”
To be somebody or to do something. Which way will you go?
Those questions have real resonance with Paul. It is not about being an impressive golden-tongued orator or collecting accolades. It is about doing what the Lord tells you to do, acting in faith, and being useful. This action does not save us; we are saved by grace. But grace frees us from being shaped by our position and other people's approval. Through grace, we let God grow us and through grace, we can help others grow. Neither the planter nor the waterer are what’s important. It is God who gives the growth.
Boyd's story also helps us see why this is not merely a warning against visible ambition. The desire to be somebody can hide in spiritual language: a wish to be known as the discerning person, the right kind of Christian, the defender of a favorite tradition, or the one with the most important position. Paul keeps moving the center away from the self. The Christian's dignity is real—we bear the image of God—but our significance is not secured by winning the contest for attention. It is secured in Christ, and that frees us to do the work set before us.
Building a Life That Will Last
Paul then makes a somewhat jarring shift from an agricultural metaphor to an architectural metaphor: 'You are God's field, God's building.' By the grace God gave him, Paul laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But no one can lay a foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. That gives us another way to ask the diagnostic question: Is your life becoming more Christlike? Is it being built on the teachings, grace, and example of Christ? Are you becoming the kind of person Jesus would be if he were given your life?
Paul presses the question further: Are you building with materials that will last? Gold, silver, and costly stones will endure testing in a way that wood, hay, and straw will not. What are the lasting materials? Return again to the fruit of the Spirit. Love will resound for eternity. Joyful gratitude for God's good gifts will resound and multiply. The peace of Christ, which passes understanding, will resound as we receive and extend it. Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are not decorative additions to a life; they are the materials that last.
When you come to your final day, no one will ask whether you made enough money, built an impressive enough resume, accumulated enough accolades, or assembled a sufficient retirement portfolio. You will ask whether you loved enough, were patient enough, and invested enough in people's lives. If we build our lives around acclaim, achievement, or possessions, they are wood, hay, and straw. Christ is the foundation. The question is what we are building upon that foundation.
Paul's image of fire is sober, but it is not meant to make grace disappear. He says that a person's work will be shown for what it is; some work survives, some is burned up, and yet the person is saved by grace. The image invites us to ask what we are investing in now. Are our habits, relationships, decisions, and ambitions being formed by the foundation who is Jesus Christ? Or are we trying to build a life out of materials that cannot bear up?
A Loving Invitation to Attend
So slow down. Examine yourself through the loving lens of Christ. What fruitfulness are you seeing in your life? Is your life becoming more Christlike? What materials are you building with? What voice are you listening to? These questions are not meant to make us feel guilty or to say “shame, shame.” The God who evaluates the fruit is the same God who gives the growth. The Lord who evaluates the building is the same Lord who is the foundation.
That is the note of grace. It is a matter of yielding to the Lord, cooperating with the Lord, being shaped by the Lord, and letting the voice of the Lord drown out the other voices. We can grow healthy and strong; we can grow into something beautiful that will resound for eternity. God is not asking you to become impressive. God is forming you into the likeness of Christ. Over time—slowly, steadily, and sometimes almost imperceptibly—God grows what is planted in good soil, and Christ builds what is founded on him.
A Moment to Reflect
Take a quiet moment to look at the fruit of your life through the loving lens of Christ. Where is God giving growth? What needs a course correction? Ask for the grace to become available to the voice of the Spirit and to take one small step of faith.
Reflection Questions
Where do you see the fruit of the Spirit growing in your life, and where do you need grace for further growth?
What pattern of jealousy, quarreling, ambition, anger, or despair might be revealing a voice that is not Christ’s?
What would it look like this week to do something faithful rather than to be somebody impressive?
What lasting material—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control—is Christ asking you to build with?
This sermon is part of the Digital Discipleship Resources of Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. We create resources to help people take their next step of faith with Jesus.
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