Servants, Not Owners (1 Corinthians 3:5-11)

July 12, 2026 Pastor David Ruddat

7th Sunday after Pentecost

First Lesson: Isaiah 55:6-11

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 65B

Second Lesson/Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 3:5-11

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

WHAT MAKES CHRISTIANS DIFFERENT? Christians are Planted by the Word

SERVANTS, NOT OWNERS

Passionate about proclaiming Christ’s forgiveness to all people, Living Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church comes together as a Christian family to equip and care for all—from young to old—with the Gospel of Jesus.

CHILDREN’S DEVOTION

Those of you who read can tell me what this says. It says “Easy.” Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a button that whenever you pushed it things would become easy? Wouldn’t that be nice? When your mom or dad says “Go pick up your clothes in your room,” you could just push the button and it’s easy.

Wouldn’t that be nice? Or “Go put your toys away.” Wouldn’t it be nice to

have an “Easy” button? You just click it and all of a sudden the toys are put away.

There are a lot of things in life that are hard. You just can’t have an “Easy” button that is going to make things easy. Sometimes you just have to do them. There are things that are hard.

For some people, memorizing Bible passages might be hard. It’s really hard for them to keep that memory work. Does anybody here have trouble with memory work, memorizing

Bible passages? You all have it down really well. Maybe it’s hard to live according to God’s Word and all your friends are saying “Oh my God!” all the time and you’re thinking “You know what? I’m only going to use God’s name to pray to Him or give thanks or talk about what He has done for me. I’m not going to use it like an exclamation point.

So either way, sometimes things are not easy. When you live as a Christian, things aren’t always easy. You can’t just push a button and say “Oh, I can memorize that Bible passage” or “Oh; I can live like Jesus wants me to live.” Life isn’t easy, but you have a God who is with you every step of the way when you do hard things.

When it’s hard to memorize Bible passages, you have a God who is with you who wants you to memorize those, and who loves you so much. When it’s hard for you to live like God wants you to live, you have a God who loves you so much that He is with you as you try to do those hard things. He gives you the strength, through His Word.

We have a God who is wonderful and gives us strength to do hard things through His Words. Let’s pray:

Lord Jesus, sometimes there are things that are hard in life. Give me the strength through your Word to do hard things. We pray this in your name. Amen.

SERMON

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Direct us now, O gracious Lord, to hear aright your Holy Word.

Assist your minister to preach, and let the Holy Spirit teach.

Let eternal life be found by all who hear the Gospel sound. Amen.

Twenty-two years ago was my Call Day, and I got an envelope like this. Inside it was a VCR tape and some other documents. It was my first Call document. It had my Call. It had a video tape of the pastor talking about the three congregations I was assigned to serve in Eastern Montana. But what is memorial about this Call packet was not that it had a VCR tape but the way in which he gave it to me.

My district president was a little old school you could say. His heart was in the right place. I grew to understand and respect him. But that Call Day was the first time I met him. On my Call Day we were called forward

and he would give us our Call packet up there in the front of the room. So there were three of us who were assigned and our families were all there. There was an audience. So he comes and he gives me this Call packet and says “Dave Ruddat.” I grab the Call packet and he did not let go. So we’re sitting there and we’re doing this tug of war thing and I’m looking at him like “What are you doing?” He says “It’s not your Call. It’s the Lord’s Call.” I was still looking at him like “What are you doing? What are you saying? Of course it’s the Lord’s Call. The Lord has called me in the pastoral ministry. This is an honor. It’s a privilege. It’s a blessing. I know it’s His.”

But those were wise words he said because so oftentimes in my ministry, when things go well, I start saying it’s my Call, my church, and I forget that I am a servant of the Lord, not the owner of this particular harvest field.

You would think that if we were to say this is not your church, it is the Lord’s church; you would all say “Yes, that’s exactly right. It’s the Lord’s church. It’s not my church.” But how often don’t we have pride when we start talking about our church or our school; my church, my school, I did this. Or so often don’t we look at church and school as something that is there for us. “My church is here to bury me and to marry me. I don’t need to be here any other time. It’s my church. It will always be there for me.” Pride is such a dangerous thing that can creep its way in even to pastors when it comes to the work that we’re working in, in God’s harvest field.

When Paul is writing to the Corinthians, that’s exactly the problem the Corinthians had. They were looking at the harvest field and what it means to be a Christian and they started playing favorites, like “This guy is my guy. This Apollos guy, he is my pastor. He is better than all the other pastors.” Or “Paul, he’s my pastor.” Or “Peter, he’s really my pastor.” These are all my things. These are all for me. Instead of, as Paul writes, they are just servants of the Lord. He is the one that makes everything grow. In fact, He is the one who gives it to His Church. He assigns each one to each place.

That can be a temptation for us at Living Savior. We can start looking at our Called

Workers, we can start looking at our ministry, and look at it in terms of what it does for me. Or looking at the pastors and say “Oh, this pastor is probably going to bring in more money than the other pastor.” Or “This pastor is going to fill seats and church on Sunday more than the other one.” Or “Because we have a full school now and full staff now, everything…” “Look at what we were able to do here” and how easy it is for us to have pride and think we’re the owners and not the servants—to think of our church in terms of what it does for “me” rather than “Here, I serve His Church.”

Is that a jarring thing for you to think about? Look at yourself in the mirror and say “Here, at Living Savior, in this building or in the building over there or in the building 26-miles away, I serve His Church.” That might reveal our own pride. It might reveal our own sinfulness. But it also is a reminder to us of a God who loves you so much. Why is it that we have two pastors? Why is it that we have a full staff at the school? It’s because, as Paul says, the Lord has assigned to each his task. The Lord has given us these wonderful servants, who are serving us. It is the Lord who makes anything grow. His Word works because the Lord is behind it, so that removes our pride because the Lord is the one who is among us, serving His Church, making His work worth it.

It might be enough for us just to say that. The Lord works. Though we scatter the seed, only God makes it grow, as Paul writes. And it would be a tempting thing just to stop right there and say “Yes, the Lord causes everything to grow.” But Paul says some words in here that need our attention. Words like “work” and “labor.”

For we are co-workers in God’s service… I lay the foundation as a wise builder and I have to build it with care and the reward will be for each one’s own labor, like the idea that the end result, the reason why we are doing these things is something that we won’t really experience until we get to heaven; a heaven that is ours because of Christ. But there in heaven, we will see all of those people that we planted the seed of God’s Word. As a pastor for 22 years, there are a lot of people that I lost track of along the way. What a wonderful reward that will be when I get to heaven and I get to see “Oh! Here they are!” because of the Word that has been planted or the Word that has been watered by someone else.

Labor. Work. Yes, I know that if I were to say something like farmers don’t do any work. They just put a seed in the ground and they don’t do anything else. You would say “That’s ludicrous, pastor! There is a lot of work involved in farming!” The same thing is true when it comes to God’s Word. Yes, the power comes from God and only God makes it grow. That doesn’t mean that we don’t work.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had an easy button? “I have to share Jesus with someone else?” Just push that button and it would be easier. “I have to have this hard conversation about things that really matter, about salvation and sin and forgiveness!” Wouldn’t it be nice to have an easy button for that? “Why doesn’t Jesus just do everything? He is God after all. Why do we even bother with pastors and teachers and staff ministers? Why doesn’t Jesus just come and appear and share His Words” or “When it’s time for me to have a hard conversation, why doesn’t He just appear and speak those words? Why can’t he just be at my beck and call, like an easy button? I just push it and here He comes. Why does Jesus make it so hard?

The truth that is in our text for today says Jesus IS here. He IS doing His work. He does it through your work, through your actions. Yes, it’s hard, and we want it to be easy. We always want things to be easy. So when it comes to doing things like Devotions with our kids or sharing Jesus with our friend or our co-worker, or praying with our spouse or just doing anything spiritual that’s awkward, it’s easy for us to say “I’m just going to wait for the easy button, for it to do something easy. I’m waiting for it to be easy instead of doing the hard thing.”

God never promises things are going to be easy, but He does promise to be with us. He does promise to bless our labor and our work. And when He does bless it, we know it’s because He is behind it.

So dear friends, don’t shy away from doing difficult things, by doing spiritual things because they’re not easy for you. But go right at it. Plant the seed. Water the seed. Share God’s Word knowing that your God is behind you, that your God has given you the strength to do it. Our foundation is Christ, as Paul says. He says: …no one can lay any

foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. You hear that and you think that sounds like it’s something in the past, like Jesus’ laid the foundation and that is something that has happened in the past and we’re going to move on from that. We’re going to move on to something new and different. But he uses a present tense to talk about the foundation being laid, and that jars us because when you build something, things happen in a timeline. There are things that happen first and things that happen secondly. But Paul reminds us that in everything we do, the foundation is always Jesus Christ. As we build on that foundation, as we share His Words, as we serve together in His Church, the foundation is always Jesus Christ and He is always here for you in His Word.

So what makes Christians different? Don’t all Christian churches hold onto that and don’t they all talk about Jesus Christ? But I think you can see if you’re talking with your friends and neighbors about your churches, you can see a lot of this “My church,” “My pastor,” “My program,” verses Jesus Christ, my service, my work. Jesus always gets the credit, and I’m always working. It may not always be easy. I’m always serving. Whether I am serving as a young person, serving as an old person, I’m always serving Him in His Church, and He is always with me. Amen.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7) Amen.