Throw More Parties

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. It's great to have you here, and I still would rather be in Florida this time of the year than... I heard Detroit Lakes this morning, Minnesota. Woo! It's not quite as bad as Bemidji, right? Is Bemidji north, or is it right there? East, okay, because I had a friend who was a pastor in Bemidji, and I heard like 20 below zero all the time there. Yeah, wow. So, we're good. We're good here. Hey, it's great having you here. We are in our third week in this series called Unexpected, which is kind of an exploration of the book of 1 Corinthians. We're not actually going to get through the entire book before we enter a new series at the beginning of Lent. Now, that's something some of you may not... It's the 40 days before Resurrection Sunday or Easter, and we're going to go through a new series at that point in time, probably through the Gospel of Matthew called Follow Me, because Jesus said basically, pick up your cross and follow me, and that's a great way to celebrate that. But during this season, we're in 1 Corinthians, and we're in Chapter 3 this morning. People like to think that they really can predict what's going to happen next. I don't think too many of us are good at that. Here are a couple of predictions, just kind of sort of they're dark but humorous as well, about what people thought were going to happen in the 1940s. For instance, the Secretary of the Navy in 1941 on December 4th said this, No matter what happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping. Ouch. Ouch. Two days later, right? All right. Herman Goering, though, on the other side, said this in 1942, The Americans are good about making fancy cars and refrigerators, but that doesn't mean they're good at making aircraft. They are bluffing. They are excellent at bluffing. Well, I think he learned. And then someone else, Admiral Willem Leahy in 1943 said about the Manhattan Project, The atom bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. Yeah. So here we go. People think because they've got some knowledge, they have a lot of knowledge, and therefore I know what's going to happen next, and they don't. A little more humorous, Emmeline Snively said to Marilyn Monroe in 1944, You better get secretarial work or get married. We just don't realize the potential that people have. We don't realize the potential we have. We don't realize what will happen next. If you look at your life just like I've looked at mine, I didn't realize I was going to be here. There was nothing in my plan that ever said I was going to be here in southwest Florida, at a university, in a congregation, 30 years ago. I didn't even think I was going to get married. There was a point in time in my life that I thought, I gave up on that. That boat has sailed. Turning 30, I was at LSU, campus pastor there, single, with no prospects, thinking, Okay, Lord, what's it going to look like? It's amazing what God does. I bet you can say the same thing in your life in so many ways, where you are at. If we think we can't even figure out our own lives that well, how much less do we understand how God is at work in this world at times. In fact, he says, His ways are so much higher than our ways. Our thoughts are not like His thoughts. Let me see that. In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul also quotes, kind of paraphrases Isaiah, and he says, What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him. I hope that brings you some comfort and some joy. And a little, maybe anticipation, a little, Hmm, what's going on? God, what do you got planned for us next? It's amazing. I don't care what stage of life you're in, whether you're in college, whether you're in high school, grade school, whether you're three years old at this point in time, or whether you are, quote, in your golden years, whatever you want to say, or like my gray years. God has something more in store for you than you can even imagine, because we know the ultimate plan that he has for you, for me and for us together. So we're going to be looking at how what God has in store for us together from 1 Corinthians, chapter three, and we're going to be reading in verses five through 17 right now this morning. So if you could turn there or look at your notes or look at the screen. What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. I planted Apollos water, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one. And each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a master, a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it. Let each...