THE ASSEMBLY LINE!

THE ASSEMBLY LINE!

1 Cor 3:6-9

6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.

7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.

9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

Daddy worked on an assembly line for the Ford Motor Company. In point of fact he worked in a plant that made only the transmissions for the Ford cars. Each year there was an excitement as the company shut down for what Daddy called “change over.” It was a time when all the plants and all the lines retooled for the new models.

While Daddy eagerly awaited the newest body styles it was the “stamping plant” that cranked out the sleek bodies, the skins, of the cars. Each year he worked on an essential part of the car that was not very pretty. He worked on the transmissions! In fact Daddy never did “build” a single transmission! He was an inspector! He knew what a good transmission was supposed to be and he inspected each one stubbornly. If it did not match the “specs” or the designed specifications of the engineers he would reject that particular transmission. He would “send it back” either to be remade or scrapped. He could, literally, shut down the entire operation.

Although Daddy was personally involved in only one small, un-glamorous, part of the process, he was proud of the Fords he helped to build. As a new model rolled off the line with its shining chrome and new paint Daddy knew that deep inside that car was one of his transmissions.

Paul tried to silence the partisan bickering in Corinth by trying to explain the process of spiritual growth. One would plow but may not see anything of the farming except his own plowing. If he expected fruit from plowing alone he would surely be disappointed. Another would plant the whole day long but at the end of the day there was no fruit. Yet another would water and tend the irrigation but still there would be no fruit.

Now picture them sitting around a table at the close of the day boasting that their part of the process was the most important. The plowman would rightly say that there could be no fruit unless he tilled the soil. The sewer would proudly and rightly declare that only weeds would grow in the newly tilled soil unless he deposited the seeds. The one watering would smile and say that the seed could produce no fruit without his labor. The BOSS would then sit down, pour himself a cup of coffee, and say: “Boys, you all did a fine job! It looks like we are going to have a bumper crop this year!” Each worker turns to the other and smiles because they were part of something really big!

As you go about your duties today do not think of them as small or unimportant in the building of God’s kingdom. One plows, one plants and another waters but it is God that gives the increase.

Dear Lord, I thank you that I am privileged to play a small but important part in your program of winning the lost world. AMEN