God-Centered Teamwork

“He who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow-workers” (1 Corinthians 3:8-9).

Paul’s agricultural illustration of planting and watering makes it clear that the ministry works best in a team concept and that all credit for results must go to God. Paul (the one planting) and Apollos (the one watering) had done their God-appointed work faithfully and well, but they had to wait on the Lord for whatever was accomplished.

Paul mentions just two kinds of ministry in today’s passage: planting the seed of the gospel by evangelism and watering it by further teaching. However, the apostle’s point applies to every kind of ministry you might engage in. You might be tempted to think that your ministry is glamorous or significant and that everything revolves around your efforts. Or you could be envious of another believer who has a more public ministry than you. But all God’s work is important, and Paul is reminding us that whatever work He has called us to is the most important ministry we can have.

First Corinthians 3 also reminds us that all believers who minister are one in the Body of Christ. If you recognize and accept this fact, it is a sure guarantee that humility will be present as you serve God. Humility simply leaves no place for fleshly competitiveness or selfish jealousy toward other Christians.

God will be certain to recognize your individual, faithful work—“according to [your] own labor”—in His day of rewards. But Jesus also taught His disciples and us the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16) to keep our perspectives balanced regarding the corporate nature of ministry in God’s kingdom. None of us should look with pride at our own service and see ourselves as deserving more reward than someone who worked less time or in a less prominent position. It is not our ministry, any more than it was Paul’s or Apollos’s. It is God’s, and all the glory goes to Him, not us.

Pray that God would give you a greater sense of humble gratitude for whatever type of ministry opportunity you have.

Why could the disciples have been tempted to feel superior? What does the landowner’s behavior in the parable suggest about the character of God?

Matthew 20 New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995) Laborers in the Vineyard

1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3 And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place;
4 and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went.
5 Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing.
6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’
7 They *said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’
9 When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius.
10 When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
11 When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner,
12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’
13 But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius?
14 Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.
15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’
16 So the last shall be first, and the first last.”

So if the landowner represents the Lord.

The laborers, His followers.

A denarius, salvation.

The vineyard, His Kingdom.

The market place, the world.

The day, a lifetime.

“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”

Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation”—

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