May it please God to bless us
together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let us turn to the
first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians and the third chapter
and we'll read verses 10 to 13. The first epistle of Paul to
the Corinthians and chapter 3 and reading verses 10 to 13. According to the grace of God
which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the
foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take
heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man
build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, stubble, every man's work shall 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. I'm sure we are very aware that
every natural building needs a foundation. Doesn't really
matter what the soil is like, every building needs a foundation. And that foundation needs to
be an adequate foundation and a good foundation, because without
that, then the building is likely to collapse when storms come
upon it. Well, in a spiritual way, we
also need to know that our spiritual building is upon a good foundation. And we have before us here, in
these words, a very clear position directed to us about the right
and the good foundation. And we read, for other foundation
can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So how essential it is for us
this morning to realise that all of our religion, all of our
faith, must be founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And what a mercy therefore, if
that is so, and that we therefore are blessed with this wonderful
favour of this spiritual building. You see, if we are founded upon
this good foundation of this spiritual building, it would
mean really that the Lord has graciously blessed us with that
faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. without faith it
is impossible to please God. And it's therefore needful that
we have a right and blessed understanding of these great truths. When the
Apostle wrote to the church at Rome, he spelled out some of
this in the chapters in Rome, but perhaps just Romans, but
just perhaps in the the 10th chapter, I'm just reading the
10th verse in the 10th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans,
this is what it says, for with a heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with a mouth confession is made unto salvation. So there's a very clear picture
here that God tells us that we have to believe in the truth
of the Word of God from our heart and not from our mind. Now I know of course that we
do have to believe with our mind and then that belief then comes
forth from our heart. We do go through the mind to
our heart. But it is a wonderful blessing
to have this so that we do then believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and it needs to be with our heart, and indeed not with our head. And it's very easy to just believe
with our head. And we may remember that in the
Acts of the Apostles, there was that occasion of a man called
Simon. He's often referred to Simon
the sorcerer because he was a sorceress, how he made his money in magic,
and therefore that's why he was called Simon the Sorcerer and
in his life there was that occasion when Philip went down and preached
Christ in Samaria and as the people heard this preaching and
seeing the miracles they believed on the truth and were healed
And there was this man, Simon, who was also there, because these
people were baptized, as they heard the truth. And when they
believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom
of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both
men and women. And then we're told that Simon
also believed. And when he was baptized, he
continued with Philip, wondering, beholding the miracles and signs
which were done. Now, the truth is that this man,
Simon, who we're told believed, the reality was he only believed
in his mind. He didn't actually believe in
the spirit, he didn't believe in his heart. And we read on
in this eighth chapter And we're told, when the apostles, which
were at Jerusalem, heard that Samari had received the word
of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they came
down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost.
For as yet he was fallen upon none of them, only they were
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus. Then
laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon, saw that through
laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he
offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever
I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost. And Peter said, Thy
money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that with the
gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither
part nor lot in this matter, for And this is the great statement,
for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore
of this thy wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of
thy heart may be forgiven thee. So how important it is for us
today to realize this great need there is to believe in our heart,
and not just have a natural belief in our mind. Many people quite
glibly say, well, of course I believe in Jesus. The reality is they
don't really believe in Jesus because they don't really believe
from their heart. And so these things are very
important to us to recognize the need we have of truly believing
in our heart. And this really is the favour
of God, and it's described like this. Every man's work shall
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. And so we need to have this good
foundation, and that foundation is, of course, the Lord Jesus
Christ. What a mercy it is. The Apostle,
again, when he wrote to Timothy, he tells us the truth of this
and how wonderful it is in the second epistle to Timothy and
the second chapter, the 19th verse, this is what he tells
us. Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having
this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his, and let every one
that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." So that's
a mercy to realise the Lord knows those who indeed do believe on
his name and are therefore amongst those who are blessed indeed. He goes on to tell us, which
really forms part of this account in this chapter in Corinthians,
but in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and
silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour
and some to dishonour. That means some who are called
by the grace of God, some who are privileged to know the Lord
Jesus Christ as the foundation on which they are building, and
some who do not. So it's a very searching thought
that all of us here today are either building upon the Lord
Jesus Christ as our foundation, or we are building on that which
is just false, it is not true, it is not right. And the Apostle
goes on to say, If a man therefore purge himself from these, he
shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meek for the
Master's use, and prepared unto every good work. The tendency is for us to shy
away from any statement that reflects work. And the truth
is that the view often held in this world is something that
we, of course, cannot do. We cannot, of course, call ourselves
by grace. We know that. But nonetheless,
there is work to do. The Church of God are blessed
with this ability to work, work those things out for the honour
and glory of God and to not therefore ignore them and to turn away
from them. The Apostle James tells us about
the blessing of faith and also the blessing of works. We need to recognise the importance
of combining these and understand truth he tells us in the second
chapter of James and the 14th verse he says what does it profit
my brethren though a man say he hath faith and have not works
can faith save him the brother or sister be naked and destitute
of daily food and one of you stand to them depart in peace
be warmed and filled notwithstanding ye give them not those things
which are needful to the body, what doth it profit? And we see
there the natural working out of our faith to help those who
have need in a natural way. And it is beholden upon the Church
of God to do this, to not be selfish and to be self-centred,
but to be concerned about our neighbours and those that we
come in contact with. Even so, faith, if it hath not
works, is dead being alone. Yea, man may say, Thou hast faith,
and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy
works, and I will show thee my faith by thy works. Thou believest
that there is one God, Thou doest well. The devils also believe
and tremble. That's a very searching statement,
isn't it? Because we can easily think,
well, I believe. Well, do we believe in a right
way? And is there the outworking of our faith in our life? And not just to say what I believe
and sit down and assume everything is smooth. Willt thou know, O
vain man, that faith without works is dead? And then he comes
and gives us the wonderful example of Abraham. Was not Abraham our
father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son
upon the altar? You see, this was a great test
of Abraham's faith. And the Lord does bring into
our lives tests of our faith. And if you consider Abraham,
he'd been wonderfully blessed with that son, Isaac, in his
old age. And then God told him to go and
to offer up his son, Isaac. That was a great test, wasn't
it? Because in Isaac was all that he believed really. His
religion, his faith was bound up in Isaac. And now God was
saying to him, Abraham, go and offer up Isaac. Well, what does
James tell us? See is thou how faith wrought
with his works, and by works was faith made perfect, and the
scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God,
and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called
the friend of God. You see then how that by works
a man is justified and not by faith only. So there is an outworking
of our faith and it is to be observed and it is to be seen
in our lives. It's not a question then of just
saying well I believe and carrying on in our life. There will be
an evidence of it and the outworking of it and it's good therefore
if God gives us that grace to pursue that position and to be
concerned that this building that God enables us to build
on himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, will be erected and it will be
observed. It's not something which is not
to be seen, it is something which is observed and it is observed
for this reason, for the honour and glory of our Saviour. We can almost come down to these
words, Christ in you, the hope of glory. What a blessed truth
that is. But there is the outworking of
it, there is the evidence of it in the life of his people. We need to be very conscious
of this. The Prophet Isaiah tells us on a couple of occasions,
ye are my witnesses. We are in this world to live
our life. And we are in this world today
for such a time as this. And we should be very conscious
that we've come to this place where this virus, this COVID
virus is again becoming rampant and increasing. You know, it's
wonderful opportunities for us to speak about God and to tell
people that we come in contact with that this, we believe, is
the work of God. And it's not something which
has just happened. It is the work of God. And therefore
to warn people that they should acknowledge that it is so and
not ignore it and not think, well, it's just happened. the
Lord does provide situations and opportunities that we can
testify of our faith by our works. And our works is really speaking
of the truth of God and speaking perhaps as the Word of God touches
our hearts. I remember reading from the assistant
pastor at the Met Tab, Ibrahim, who wrote a book, rather unfortunate
title, Why Does God Love Muslims? But anyway, that is the title.
And in that book, he speaks about how we should speak to Muslims. And it's very interesting. As
you may know, he was, of course, a Muslim, brought up in that
faith and brought up so well that he could recite the whole
of the Quran off by heart. So he was well versed in that
religion. And he tells us this, if we are to speak to Muslims,
how we should speak to them. And he says this, you should
tell them your testimony. You should tell them of what
Christ has done for you. And he said not to try and speak
how much better you are than they are, or to tell them why
your religion is so much better than theirs. but just to simply
testify of what God has done for you in your life. Now that might be very challenging,
but sometimes we do need challenges in our life. And let us not forget,
like we read in the book of Esther, she had a great challenge, didn't
she? When the Jews were all there to be annihilated, through Haman's
decree they were all to be killed and her uncle Mordecai had told
her that she got to go into King Ahasuerus and tell him about
it and she said well I don't think I can it's just too difficult
I haven't been called and if I go in to him then there's only
one result I should probably be put to death and he told her
well you come to the kingdom for such a time as this. We should recognise that in our
life, perhaps today, we've come to the kingdom. We've come to
this world. We've been born in this world
at this time, not by chance. The Lord has ordained that you
and I should be born, are born in this world at this time, that
we should live on this time when this virus has so plagued the
world, and we should not, therefore, keep silence." Well, here we
have then, this Word speaking to us this morning. Every man's
work shall be made manifest. It shall be evidenced. It shall
be seen. It will be manifest. That's what
the Bible tells us here. That's what God speaks to us. Every man's work shall be made
manifest, for the day shall declare it." Now this can be classified
in two ways, either the day in which we live, in relevance to
our situation, or it will be declared in any event when we
come to that great day of judgment. There will be that day and it
can be taken in both those considerations, 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." And again, this fire
can be classified really in two ways. As a natural fire, we know
when that day of judgment comes, the world will be burnt up. But
also, when the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to our hearts, it is really
as a burning word, a word of fire to our souls. a word that should stir us up. When the Lord speaks to our hearts
it is with divine power and it's a great blessing when we are
under that influence with the powerful word of the Saviour
and to be concerned that our building is indeed, we are building
with these elements As we read together here, gold and silver and precious
stones, they are three good elements and not with bad elements, wood,
hay and stubble. You see, it's very easy to build
on those simple things, wood, hay and stubble. Now this gold
and silver and precious stones, They are three things which will
stand, naturally, the test of the fire. What will happen? Well, they will only really be
purified. They are good things. What a
favour it is that God has given us good things. And again, we
just perhaps think of these good things as being faith and repentance. and the glorious sin-atoning
death of the Lord Jesus Christ, his resurrection, his ascension,
his intercession and his eternal glory. My friends, these are
good things, aren't they? And oh, may our spiritual building
therefore be formed with these wonderful considerations, that
you and I may truly to ponder them and to think about them
and to be blessed from them. As we think upon the gift of
faith, God gives us faith and if he gives us that faith surely
this is something which is to be built upon and is part of
our building. Without faith it is impossible
to please God. Faith must be part of our spiritual
building. And that part of that building
must be founded upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is that
which He gives to us. Faith to believe. Faith laughs
at impossibilities and says it shall be done. You see, the Lord
gives faith. And He gives glory. gives them
what a wonderful mercy for us today if we are the recipients
of faith because as we already mentioned if he truly gives us
faith living faith then we shall believe the great and glorious
truths of the gospel and this will form part of our spiritual
building and then that spiritual building blessed with this faith
it is that which is so needful Where does faith lead us? It
leads us to Christ Jesus as that wonderful foundation. And what
does it lead us to? It must lead us to His death. It must lead us to that sin-atoning
sacrifice. And you see, if we don't have
Christ as the foundation, there won't be any building. But if
we do have Christ as that foundation, then our meditation of Him shall be sweet. It will, because
there is our hope on Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other
ground is sinking sand. What a blessing then for us today,
if we come to this place and if we recognize The wonderful
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His sin-atoning death, is
the One that has died on Calvary's cross to take away our sins. And the effect of this will bring
us to that condition of repentance. We shall repent of our sins. The Holy Spirit will show to
us our guilt, our sins. Direct us to the word of God. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks
about it, doesn't he? The first words really when he
began his ministry was to repent and to believe the gospel. How needful it is then for us
to be blessed with the spirit of repentance before God. That means to be truly sorry
for our sins. Repentance is a work of the Spirit
of God. God gives us this wonderful favour
and what a blessing it is then if we find ourselves in prayer
before God, praying for repentance as the Holy Spirit reveals to
us what we are in the sight of a holy God. It is not what we
are to other people, and that may be bad enough, but it's what
we are in the sight of a holy God. And what a blessing when
that brings us then to this spirit of repentance. What a mercy,
what a favour. And then you see there's this
building, blessed then with faith, blessed then with repentance. You see there's the building
which is going up and there is the evidence of the spiritual
work of God in our hearts and to observe the blessed work of
this Spirit. So there is the evidence, there
is that repentance, there is that looking unto Jesus, there
is that wonderful gift of faith and all these things flow together
fitly framed together. It's wonderful, isn't it? In
our spiritual life, these things are together, they work together.
The building grows. There's a wonderful evidence
of it. What a mercy it is. And how important
it is. And that it is that which indeed
is gold, silver and precious stones. These things are real. These things are precious. And
then to realise, yes, we worship a risen Saviour. A risen Saviour. A conquering Saviour. One who is raised from the dead. Yes, He died upon Calvary's cross. He had to die. He had to pay
the punishment due to you and me. He had to give His life as
that satisfactory Sacrifice to take away sin was the great and
glorious plan of Almighty God to redeem our souls. What a mercy
then to understand these great blessings and therefore there
is this building. We do want to be built up in
our spiritual life. We don't want to stagnate. There is a growth in grace and
in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. There is, therefore, this spiritual
blessing, and there will be the outworking of it for the honour
and glory of God. We should be concerned, therefore,
that we do have a testimony. We do have something to say in
our spiritual life. We don't want to go on year after
year and have nothing to testify, do we? Where is the union? Where is
the communion? Where is the knowledge of the
Saviour? It's a wonderful picture, isn't
it? Of Mary, Mary and Martha. Mary came, what did she do? She
sat at Jesus' feet. What to do? To hear His words. To hear His words. That's what
she wanted to do. To hear His words. Mary has chosen that good part,
said the Lord. Well today, are we concerned
to hear the words of the Saviour. And so, this is indeed the gold
and silver and precious stones of the Kingdom. And there is
this spiritual growth then of our spiritual building. You see,
as we live on this earth, this building will grow. And it will
grow until that time When the building is complete, the Lord
takes us to glory. We ought to ask ourselves today
the question with regard to our spiritual building. Where is
it? Where are we in our spiritual
building? Are we rejoicing in what Christ
has done, in his wonderful work? Are we glorifying God? He's given us this faith to believe,
glorifying God. He's given us repentance over
our sins, glorifying God because He's given us that desire to
be blessed with union with the Saviour, to hear His voice and
to acknowledge His goodness and favour toward us, to glory in
His resurrection. and his ascension and today for
his intercession as our wonderful High Priest. You see, all these
things, my friends, feed the soul and there will be a spiritual
growth. You don't want to stagnate. You
want the evidence of it. And therefore there is this building. And so here we have this wonderful
truth of it. Every man's work shall be made
manifest, it will be evident. 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. So there will be this work, let's
be quite clear about this, and our work will be tested. It will be tested in this way,
Is it God glorifying or is it self-glorifying? If it is God
glorifying, it will stand. If it is self-glorifying, it
will be burnt up. And what a mercy it is if it
is burnt up and we can thank God for it. It's a mercy therefore
to have that and it is burnt up. We might say, well what is
that? Well I'll tell you what some of the things are. need
to be burnt up. Self-righteousness. And the other
side is Christ-righteousness. The thing which needs to be burnt
up is self-righteousness. We like to think well of ourselves,
don't we? Self-righteousness needs to be burnt up and taken
away. Vain thoughts You know, the psalmist
says in 119th Psalm, I hate vain thoughts. You may say, what is
that? Well, it's if you just sit down
and you're kind of building castles in the air, fairy tales. They
never come to pass. Vain thoughts. Do we hate vain
thoughts? David did. It's a blessing if
you and I do. And it's burnt up. to pray that
it will be burnt up and be taken away. Yes, vain thoughts, false
things, false statements. So easy to fall into that kind
of situation. Well, it would be a favour for
us today if our concern is that our religion is a good one and
we are encouraged in the Word of God to examine ourselves. You don't have to be examined
by someone else. You can sit down and you can
examine yourself before God as to whether this is true in our
lives, whether there is this blessing that is manifest and
whether it's been revealed by fire and the fire you know is
very powerful and it burns up everything which is false and
sometimes it takes quite a long time you know you've probably
seen a fire a fire burning perhaps in a grate and sometimes there
may be some embers there and you may put some fuel on, some
wood or logs or something, and what happens? Well, perhaps it
smokes a bit. It smokes a bit. And then perhaps
it smokes a bit more. And then perhaps it smokes a
lot more. And then suddenly, it bursts
into flame. Flame comes out. Well, it may
be like that in our spiritual life. the smoke may be there,
just a little bit of smoke as the Spirit of God convicts us
and then there's a bit more smoke and then there's more smoke until
the time comes when the flame bursts out and everything's burnt
up what a mercy that is to know that God then is dealing with
us in love to our souls. What a mercy to have God dealing
with us. What a mercy to be indeed in
Christ Jesus. The first chapter in this epistle
of Paul to the Corinthians, which is a lovely chapter, it speaks
to us wonderfully about preaching the gospel, but right down at
the end The very last three verses, the Apostle says, he tells us
that no flesh should glory in his presence. And the Lord will
ensure that in our lives. We're not to have burnt up anything
that would glory, make ourselves glory. But of him are ye in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And that really
is the crowning truth, isn't it? If we are to glory in anything
that is good, it will be to glory in the Lord and to glory in His
work. And the effect will be that that
will be these wonderful elements of gold, silver and precious
stones, the precious elements that God has given to us and
there they are in our spiritual building and they are to be seen
and they are to be observed not for our honour and glory but
for God's honour and glory. It is a wonderful thing isn't
it to see that in other people as we know Our dear friend Sylvia
passed away last week or the week before. And of course, we
have the evidence of her life. She was with us for 20 odd years.
And we saw her, she came in and went out. And her life was one
taken up with the spiritual life of God in her soul. And she was
looking forward only to one thing, to be with Christ. which is far
better. Well thankfully the Lord gives
us sometimes these people that come into our lives and we can
observe that there in her life was this spiritual building and
what was shining forth? Shining forth was without any
doubt she was on the good foundation of Christ and what was shining
forth gold, silver and precious stones. And she loved to hear
about the Saviour. The things of time were really
of no consequence to her. It's a wonderful testimony. And
it's good therefore to have been privileged to witness the life
of people like that. We're thankful for the happy
those who have gone before and are now in glory. And so here
we have then, This statement before us this morning. Every
man's work shall be made manifest. It shall be observed. Let's not
forget that. You see, I don't have any time
for people who are secret Christians, who people pretend they're a
Christian when there's no evidence of it. It doesn't go along with
scripture. Scripture tells us here, Every
man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try,
test every man's work of what sort." That's a blessing, isn't
it? Because sometimes we are under the illusion that this
and that emanates from God, and sometimes it doesn't. And what
a good thing it is when the Lord comes and burns it up, and we
realize it was just of the flesh. And the proof of it is this,
if it had come to pass, would it have brought glory to God,
or would it have brought glory to ourselves? That's where the
test, and as we analyze it, to think, well, if the Lord had
allowed that to come to pass, I would have had it myself on
the back. But no, God will have the glory. What a good thing
it is. And here we are today, you and
me, in this world at this time. We're here for such a time as
this. May the Holy Spirit of God speak
to us and influence us so that we may be concerned to be found
living our life as unto the Lord and not unto ourselves. We are to take heed to these
things and to be concerned that the Lord gets all the honour
and all the glory and that we are unworthy sinners. But what
a blessing if God has called us by his grace. He's called us out of darkness
into the glorious light of the everlasting gospel, so that we
have reason and great cause to praise God, from whom all blessings
flow. Amen.