The Lord helps me this evening
as we want to look at this passage together that's been laid on
my mind to speak to you regarding this. This is quite a solemn
subject really and that is of the we have a building we have
this foundation that the Lord Jesus Christ is and him crucified
is the foundation of the hope of God's people. And yet, you
see, we can have that foundation and then we can build loads of
things on that, which are ultimately going to be burned up. And this
is the great importance here of those who preach the word,
but also those who are involved. And in a sense, those who do
the Sunday school, those who do the Bible study, those who
are involved in at the market stall, in all these different
aspects we have different ministries and each of us or many of us
are involved in that. And how are we building? How
are we doing those things? You see in verse 9 it says, For
we are labourers together with God, ye are God's husbandry,
ye are God's building. And you see, he says in verse
11, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,
which is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the foundation
of our faith. Jesus Christ and him crucified
is foundational to our faith, our hope, our belief that we
will be safe in glory. And yet you see there's an outworking
of that in our lives. And that's what we have in verse
12. Now if any man build upon this
foundation and then the six different things in verse 12, six different
materials, the first three are not combustible and the second
three are. The gold, the silver, the precious
stones, And you see the foundation is Christ and him crucified.
And we need, if we're going to build that building, we need
to have the superstructure, as it were, in in union with the
foundation, a suitable superstructure to fit the foundation, which
is a glorious foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ. But then you
see there is these other things, the wood, the hay and the stubble,
much cheaper items really, but they're all combustible. And
we read then this solemn word in verse 13, every man's work
shall be made manifest. So as we speak to one another
and as we teach in the Sunday school, as those that minister
the gospel here, those that do the Bible study, as we are involved
in speaking of the things of God, are we seeking to be consistent
with that foundation and building on that foundation? You see we
have here these first three commodities gold silver precious stones Gold
is often linked. You see a very precious commodity
gold, isn't it? Often linked to faith you see
if you look in the Peter's epistle 1 Peter 1 verse 7 that the trial
of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes
So though it be tried with fire, it might be found under praise
and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. So that gold,
that faith. You see, we have the Lord Jesus
Christ and his great foundation that he laid down his life, a
ransom for many. But you see, as Christians, we
are to have faith in these things. We are to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we need our faith strengthening
as we come to God's house and we read in his word and we meditate
in his word this is what we want to build up our faith that we
may be strong in faith giving glory to God this gold this gold
you see in one of the things of course with gold is the way
you refine gold is to put it into the fire And though it's
mixed with all other substances, often the other substances will
be burned away and you're left just with the pure gold and all
the impediments, all the other things, the ore can be taken
away. So gold is very precious and
how the faith of God's people and how we need to have it in
practice is not just to say, well, we have this foundation.
but we need to be involved in it, we need to have that living
faith. And Silver often think of as that hope. We need to hope
thou in God for I shall yet praise him. We need that foundation
but we need to hope in that foundation and that hope to enable us to
continue and to endure seeing him who is invisible. And that
faith and that hope then, so important indeed in 1 Corinthians
13 we have these things brought together at the end of 1 Corinthians
13. We read then these words, now
abide if faith, hope, charity or charity or love. These three,
but the greatest of these is charity. So we could perhaps
think of those precious stones as those precious promises that
love of God to his people, those tokens of his favour. We don't,
as it were, have them every day. They're very precious times,
aren't they? When he comes and smiles upon us and reveals himself
to us. But they're very precious. But
we don't daily live by them. We walk by faith and not by sight.
We walk with hope. Hope thou in God. that every man's work should
be made manifest, you see. Now if any man build upon these
foundations, the gold, the silver, the precious stones, but you
see then there's the wood, the hay and the stubble. We have
these great foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ being our hope
of salvation and yet we can then start mixing our own works with
it. We can start glorying in ourselves. We can be pleased
with our own self-righteousness. We can, as it were, get carried
away with all these things. and not focusing on Him who is
invisible, not actually glorying in Him with that faith, that
hope and that love. Well, we can build this wood,
the hay and the stubble, and it's perhaps quicker, you can
build something quicker with those things. It's a lot quicker
to build something with wood than it is with gold. It's much
bigger. You can make something much more impressive much quicker
in terms of size. But you see, We read in verse
13, every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall
declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. So there
is going to be a trial. And you think of our works, our
church here at Redhill and the ministries that we're involved
with. In a sense, there is going to be a time it's going to be
tried with fire. And is it, is there reality in
it? Is our aim in in spreading the
gospel is our aim in teaching the Sunday school, in doing the
Bible studies, in preaching the word here. Is it that gold, that
silver, that precious stones? Or is it so much wood and hay
and stubble? Impressive in the outside perhaps,
but ultimately it doesn't glorify God. And how much our meetings
want to glorify God. We are to live for the glory
of God, every man's work should be made manifest. Last night
I had a vivid dream of going to a chapel that I knew, and
as I got there I realised that everything had been burned with
fire. Everything, it dawned on me as
I looked around more and more, everything burned with fire.
And these words came, every man's work should be made manifest. You see, what a sad thing it
would be if all of the things that we're involved with are
only just for ourself, and for our own glory, and for our own
ends, and not for the glory of God. Every man's work should
be made manifest, for the day shall declare it. We may deceive
one another, we cannot deceive God. Every man's work should
be made manifest. For the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try
every man's work of what sort it is." When we teach the Sunday
School, are we really seeking to glorify God? To show forth
His praise as we preach the word? Is Christ and him crucified?
We want to build people up on that foundation. Paul says, I
have the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not
trust in ourselves. All that seeking to promote ourselves
and our own end and glory. You see these Corinthians were
glowing in different preachers and saying, these are the great
preachers and the others. Well, but Paul was saying, no. The centre of our faith is Jesus
Christ and him crucified, and stop glorying in men. All that
will be so much wood, hay and stubble that should be burnt
up. But have we the real kernel of the things of God, the truth
of God, that true faith, that true hope and that true love? The gold, the silver, the precious
stones, or is it all the wood, the hay and the stubble? For
if any man's work abide which he hath built thereon, he shall
receive a reward. Here's an encouragement. There
is going to be a reward. We are to be faithful servants.
Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of
thy Lord when you're studying and preparing for those lessons,
preparing to speak to your fellow workmen, perhaps, or people around
you, as you seek to be an ambassador for Christ. Are you seeking to
bring forth these things and to not promote your own self
and your own agenda and your own glory and your own household? No. We want to promote Him. Otherwise it's just a load of
wood and hay and stubble that shall be burnt up. If any man's
work abide that he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a
reward. Then it says if any man's work shall be burned, he shall
suffer loss. but he himself should be saved,
yet so is by fire." So it seems here that there were genuine
Christians that did actually have the foundation of Jesus
Christ and him crucified, but on top of that they built a whole
load of things which were self-glorifying, which were perhaps bringing glory
to themselves or their own ways and walking in pride spiritually. All of that you see was going
to get burned up, burned up and what a disappointment. All that
glorying in self, all seeking our own way and our own glory
and our own ends, but all that which is truly seeking that foundation
stone. the Lord Jesus Christ and his
church, the furtherance of the gospel, to show forth his praise,
as we come to preach, as we come to hear, as we come to prepare
the Bible studies and the Sunday school lessons, is the aim, is
the intention that God would be glorified in these things,
that faith would be built up, that the children may be able
to put their hope and faith and trust in the living God. Or is
it just a load of superstructure that is wood and hay and stubble
and ultimately won't do them real good? Well, it's a searching
thing, isn't it? Every man's work should be made
manifest. For the day shall declare. It
just seemed so solemn that that fire had burned up everything.
And yet the structure was there, but fire had gone through it
all. And it shook me. Every man's
work should be made manifest, for the day should declare it.
Yes, we can deceive others and we can think it's acceptable,
but do we have, is our superstructure that we're building, which we
are to be, there are to be, it's not, you see if you have a building,
a building isn't just a foundation, is it? You might say, what a
lovely building I live in. I live in the foundation. You
say, well, it's not a building. You can't live in the foundation.
The foundation is the base of the building. It's very, very
important for the building. But it's not the building itself,
is it? There's to be something built on the foundation. And
we are to have that faith in exercise, that hope, and that
love. We're to experience these things
of salvation. We're to grow in grace and in
the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We're to
experience these things. And then we, so it says, every
man's work should be made manifest, for the day shall declare it.
Well, may we be given grace then to be amongst those who are concerned
that we may be, as it were, building the gold, the silver, the precious
stones, bringing out those things which will really do people's
souls good, not just build them up in some airy, fairy, empty
rubbish, but something that will do them good, something that
will glorify their God, and something that will show forth his praise.
That's what we want to be doing. If we're a real church, if we're
a church that all our work is not just going to be burned up,
We need to have a ministry that glorifies God and we need to
seek for that ministry. We need to feed on that ministry
that glorifies God, that builds us up in our most holy faith,
that is centered on that foundation but builds on it an experimental
knowledge of it, of those things. If any man's work shall be burned,
he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so
as by fire. So it seems that there are those
that had built loads of things on top and yet they were saved,
but all of their busyness in their work, in their Christian
ministry perhaps, was just seen to be unedifying and burned up. Well, as we That's a strange
message for this prayer meeting, but I felt it laid upon me. May
we prize the gold, the silver, the precious stones, those true
things that edify, those things that glorify God, those things
that are a blessing to God's people. and the wood, the hay,
the stubble, that we might not be left building with those,
but that we may build, and that when that fire comes, that test,
that trial, that difficulty, you see, it will be the faith,
the hope, and the love that will survive. The other things will
be burnt up. You see, as we read in Peter,
that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than
the gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might
be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of
Jesus Christ. There's something glorious here.
Not the wood and the hay and the stubble that are going to
be burnt up. Something glorious. May we pray for it as a people
meeting here that have a ministry. We're involved in many different
ministries. May they be that gold, that silver
and that precious stones that in the ages to come When that
fire comes and goes through everything we do here in Hope Chapel, that
it might be seen that these things glorify God. These things show
forth his praise. These things are really valuable. May we covet earnestly then the
best gifts.