If you would, turn in your Bibles
with me to 1 Corinthians 3. 1 Corinthians 3. I want to read
just a portion of this from verse 11, if you'll look to verse 11
to start with. Where the Apostle Paul, speaking
of the ministry of the gospel in the context of the church,
God's chosen people, redeemed by the blood of Christ, justified
in Him, and called out of the world by the Holy Spirit. That's
what the church is. And it's by means of the gospel,
wherein Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, is set forth in the preaching
of that message, in the glory of His person, who is Jesus Christ,
he's God manifest in the flesh, God man, the word made flesh,
and in the power of his finished work of redemption on the cross,
wherein he sealed the eternal salvation and glory of every
sinner whom he represented on that cross for whom he died.
all whom the Father gave him before the foundation of the
world. His blood, his righteousness, his person, that's the foundation
of our faith. Right there, he is. And Paul
writes here in verse 11, he says, for other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now what he's
saying is there's no other foundation that will hold up the true church
of God. If you go to a place where another
foundation is preached, man's works, man's will, man's choice,
whatever, man's goodness, that's not the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But in the true church, other
foundation can no man lay. He's the rock of, I often say
it this way, he's the rock, the foundation of the church. He's
the chief cornerstone by which all things are measured. He's
the heart and life of the church, and he's the head of the church.
And we're members of his body. And so he says in verse 12, he
says, now if any man build upon this foundation, now understand
that term, this foundation, gold, silver, and precious stones,
wood, hay, and stubble, Every man's work shall be made manifest
for the day shall declare, what day? I believe it's talking about
the day of judgment. Because it shall be revealed
by fire. The judgment of God, that's what
that is. And the fire shall try or test
every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide,
continues, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a
reward. Now notice reward is singular,
not plural. And let me just say this right
off the bat. Every time you see the word rewards
plural in the Bible, it's a negative. Every time, it's a negative. It's never a positive. There's
never anything positive associated with the word rewards plural. And of course, the reward
he's talking about here is not what we earn, it's the reward
of grace that Christ earned. But anyway, he says in verse
50, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss,
but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. The same judgment
that burns up the wood, hay, and stubble is the salvation
of the preacher of the gospels, what he's talking about. These
are difficult verses and there's different views of this, but
let me give you some background here on certain points. Number
one that we need to have sealed in our minds is this, salvation
is of the Lord 100%. Don't ever think that salvation
at any time, at any stage, to any degree, depends on the preacher
or upon the hearer. Doesn't depend on you. And if
it did, you know what would happen? It would fail. If it depended
on me, it would fail. Why? Because we're sinners. We're
weak. We are. We're pitiful, we're
a pitiful lot. I know people don't want to hear
that and that doesn't, you know, that's not the power of positive
thinking and all that. I'm not talking about your self-esteem,
you young people in school and all that. That's not what I'm
talking about. I'm talking about when it comes to salvation and a right
relationship with God. Salvation is not by works. If it were, there'd be no salvation. Not our works. Salvation is not
by our decision. If it were, we'd all be lost
because by nature we won't decide right. Salvation's of the Lord. Christ is the builder of the
church. That's what Paul's talking about here. It's his building.
He said that you're God's building. If you're a church, The individual
salvation, the salvation of an individual is the work of God. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, Ephesians 2, 10. The salvation
of the whole body of Christ, everyone who is saved, all believers,
Christ is the builder, the foundation, the heart, the life, the head,
the chief cornerstone. He's gonna have the preeminence,
we read there in Colossians 1. And this foundation, again, it
lies in the glory of his person. It doesn't lie in who we are.
Somebody says, boy, if we could just get that particular honored
individual into our church, that would really, no. No, that's
why he said over in 1 Corinthians 1, not many mighty, not many
noble. The success of the church does
not depend on who I am or who you are or our standing in the
community or how much money we have or what kind of clothes
we wear or anything like that. If it does, you know what you've
got? You've got a false church. It doesn't even depend upon the
numbers. I mean, I'd love to see this building full. I'd love
to see us planning on building a new building somewhere because
we can't hold them all. But either way, that's not the success of
the church. It's his, it's the power and
success of Christ's finished work. In and by him, we're chosen,
adopted, justified, sanctified, preserved, and ultimately glorified. And none of these blessings of
salvation are conditioned on our works, our choices, our determinations. It's all of grace, all of Christ. Now what does that do? Well,
it leaves us with no room to brag. except as Paul said, I
glory, I brag, I boast in the cross. I have no righteousness,
but Christ's righteousness imputed to me. And from his righteousness,
I stand justified before God, and from his righteousness, I
have life from the dead. So that's number one, salvations
of the Lord. Number two, the Lord God in his
divine purpose and plan and works, uses means to save his people
so as to glorify him and not us. Look at verse 12 and 13. He says,
if any man build upon this foundation. Now he's talking about men building. Talking about preachers of the
gospel here. He'd already said that, look
at verse, right here in verse seven, or verse six rather. He says, I planted. Now what
does Paul mean he planted? He was the first one that God
brought into the city of Corinth to preach the gospel, and he
planted the seed of the gospel. Paul did that. Now he says, Apollos
watered. Apollos was a preacher of the
gospel who followed Paul. And he took what Paul had preached
and he watered it with the preaching of the word. But look here at
the last line of verse six. But God gave the increase. Where's the power? Where's the
success? Where's the salvation? God gave
the increase, not Paul, not Apollos. He goes on, he says in verse
nine, we are laborers together, we worked. I mean, I'm up here
preaching, you're out there listening. But where's the power in the
word that I preach? Where's the power in the word
that you hear? It's not in me, it's not in my
eloquence or my entertaining or anything like, it's in God. If you hear it unto salvation,
if this gospel is made the power of God unto salvation, it's God
that gave the increase. So here's preachers of the gospel,
preaching the gospel, and he says it this way. He says, we're
laying the foundation. We're watering that foundation,
the planting of it. And he says, if any man, verse
12, build upon this, we're building. Verse 13, he says, every man's
work shall be made manifest. What work? Preaching the gospel.
That's what he's talking about. Look at the context. Now this work of preaching is
not in order that I might attain or maintain salvation, or you.
It is being used of God to build upon this foundation. That is
the preaching of the glory and the work, the merits of the Lord
Jesus Christ. But God for His glory. Now here's
the thing, you say, well, why would God do it this way? Well,
it's for His glory. He's been pleased. to use pitiful,
weak, sinful instruments to accomplish his great work of saving his
people and calling them out of the world and into the fold. It says over in chapter one here,
in verse 21, It says, for after that in the
wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Why
does God do it this way? It pleased him to do it. And
it's for his glory. Paul wrote about that. He said,
we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We're sinful human beings,
pitiful human beings. And why is that so? So that your
faith may stand in the glory of God and not in the glory of
men. That's what it's all about. And
notice again back over here in 1 Corinthians 3, he says, In
verse 12, if any man build upon this foundation, what's the foundation
of the gospel? Christ, crucified, risen from
the dead, his blood, his righteousness imputed, the grace of God that
brings salvation and not only saves us but keeps us and brings
us to glory. And I want you to notice another
thing here in this God using means, and that's this. Every preacher that Paul had
mentioned up to this point was a true preacher of the gospel.
There were no false preachers dealt with here. Now later on,
Paul deals with false preachers. Over here in chapter one, he
mentioned himself, he mentioned Apollos, he mentioned Cephas,
who is Peter, and all of that. These are men
who preached the gospel. They didn't preach a false gospel.
In fact, if they preached a false gospel, they would not be building
upon this foundation. Do you understand that? Anybody
who preaches a false gospel does not build upon the foundation
that Paul's talking about. So whoever he's talking about
here preaching, they're true preachers of the gospel. Paul
wrote in Galatians 1 and verse 8, he said, though we or an angel
from heaven preach any of the gospel unto you, then that which
we preach unto you, let him be accursed. Paul wasn't accursed. Peter wasn't accursed. Apollos
wasn't accursed. They preached the true gospel.
But God uses weak, pitiful men like me to preach the greatest
message that has ever been intervened in this sin-cursed world. The message of the gospel of
his grace in Christ Jesus. How God is just to justify the
ungodly. through a righteousness that
you and I had no part in producing. One that Christ alone in the
glory of his person and the power of his finished work accomplished
for us. All right, here's the third thing.
He mentions down here, he talks about wood, hay, and stubble,
and gold and precious, gold and silver and precious. What I'm
getting at, what is that? Well, he says, the days shall
declare it. He said here in verse 13, every
man's work shall be made manifest. Now he says the day shall declare.
I believe he's talking about the judgment day. Now there are
basically three views of this. One of them is totally wrong.
The other one could be what it's talking about, but I don't believe
it is. And then a third view that I'm gonna give you real
briefly. The first view, which is totally wrong, is this, that
the gold and the silver and the precious stones and the wood,
hay, and the stubble, some say that the gold and the silver
and the precious stones are the true doctrines of Christ, the
gospel. And they say that the wood and
the hay and stubble are false doctrines, false gospels that
deny Christ. That is not true here. First of all, as I said, he's
not talking about false preachers here. Everyone he's mentioned,
again, is a true preacher. I gotta emphasize that. If any
man build upon this foundation, whatever this is, it's a preacher
preaching upon the foundation of truth, which is in Christ. And also, whatever the wood,
hay, and stubble is, back down here in verse 15, Whatever this wood, hay, and
stubble is, whatever is associated with this man's work, it shall
be burned, he says. He shall suffer loss, but he
himself shall be saved. Yet so as by fire. Paul never,
no, there's no passage in the scripture that describes a false
preacher who preaches a false gospel as being saved. You won't
find it from Genesis to Revelation. If they're a false preacher,
and they abide in that false gospel, and they die in that
false lie, they're not saved. They'll be burned up, is what
he said. So understand that. He shall be saved, so as by fire. That's totally wrong. All right,
here's the second view of this. Some say this describes true
preachers who in their ministry stay focused upon the precious
gems of truth by which God's people are saved and grow. And
that would be the gold and the silver and the precious stone.
A true preacher focused in on the truth of the gospel, staying
with it. And then the other, the wood,
hay, and stubble would be a true preacher who gets sidetracked
onto useless issues that don't deny the gospel, but are not
precious spiritually and eternally. I've heard preachers preach this
and give the example of a true preacher of the gospel who gets
tied up in politics. Well, that'd be pretty easy to
do these days, wouldn't it? I mean, I could stand up here
and talk about this politician and that politician. And I may
be telling you the truth, but I'm gonna tell you what I'm telling
you is useless. It won't do you any good spiritually, eternally. And so that could be what it's
talking about, but I don't believe it is. I don't believe that's what it's
talking about. What I believe this is talking
about is this, the gold, silver, and the precious stones, you
know what that is? That's the true children of God,
saved by the grace of God under the preaching of the true gospel. That's what it is. Many times
in the scripture, God's people are referred as precious stones. We can think about 1 Peter 2.
Right here, over in the book of Malachi, let me read you this.
This is the last book of the Old Testament. Malachi 3. Listen to this in
verse 16 of Malachi 3. It says, then they that feared
the Lord, that's believers, spake often one to another, and the
Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was
written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought
upon his name, true believers. And they shall be mine, saith
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. That's who they are, they're
his jewels, they're his treasure. And I will spare them as a man
spareth his own son that serveth him. Zechariah, let me read you
this. Zechariah chapter nine and verse
16. It says, and the Lord their God
shall save them in that day as the flock of his people, for
they shall be as stones of a crown lifted up as an ensign upon his
land. The precious jewels of God, that's
his children, saved by the grace of God, who have no value or
worth in themselves, but only in Christ. What value and worth do we have
as far as God's concerned? Only that which we have by His
grace in Christ. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
chapter two, only because of those things that are freely
given to us. And we could go on and on with
that. Well, what is the wood, hay, and stubble? I believe it
refers to those who hear the true gospel from a true preacher
sent of God, a true minister of Christ, but who for their
own stubbornness and darkness and weakness, they don't trust
Christ, their following men. That's why I entitled this message,
Trusting Christ and Not Men. What's the problem that Paul
was dealing with? Look over in 1 Corinthians 1. Verse 11. He says, It hath been
declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house
of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. There's divisions
among you. Now this I say that every one
of you saith, I am of Paul, a true preacher of the gospel. I am
of Apollos, a true preacher of the gospel. And I of Cephas,
Peter, a true preacher of the gospel. Some say, well, I don't
follow anybody, I follow Christ. Well, that's where you should
be, but you should not discount the means, the preacher. I thank God for the man who first
preached the gospel to me. I thank God for him. But my friend,
he didn't save me. He didn't even save himself.
You know who did? God did, through Christ. I'm not trusting that
preacher, I'm trusting Christ. And there's a division over here.
And that's what Paul says. Look at verse, back in 1 Corinthians
13, look at chapter three, verse 16, right after he talks about
the wood, hay, and stubble. He says, no you not, this is
verse 16, you're the temple of God. Paul didn't build this temple. Apollos or Cephas didn't build
it. God built it. That's the church. He says, and
that the spirit of God dwelleth in you. The spirit of life, the
spirit of faith, the spirit of repentance is not the preacher,
it's the spirit of God. Verse 17, if any man defiled
the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of
God is holy. Which temple you are. If anybody
came in here preaching a false gospel, Eventually God's gonna
destroy him. I don't know when or where, but
he says in verse 18, let no man deceive himself. If any man among
you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool
that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world
is foolishness with God. It's written, he taketh the wise
in their own craftiness. Verse 20, the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise that they are vain. Therefore, Look at
it in verse 21. Therefore, let no man glory in
men. That's the problem. For all things
are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the word of the
world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to
come are yours, and you are Christ. You belong to Christ. You don't
belong to that preacher. You belong to Christ. and Christ
belongs to the Father, belongs to God. That's what it's all
about. Here's the point. First of all,
there will not be any salvation or conversions of people under
the preaching of the false gospel. It won't happen. Why? Matthew 7 tells us. an evil tree
cannot produce good fruit. The evil tree there is Christ. I mean, the evil tree there is
a false Christ, preaching a false gospel. There'll be no conversion,
but a good tree, that's Christ, and the true gospel, cannot produce
evil fruit. Now that's not to say that under
the preaching of a true gospel, there will not be any unbelievers. There will be, but the gospel
didn't produce them. That's what we are by nature.
And under the preaching of the true gospel, there's going to
be both true conversions, true people of God, believers, but
there's gonna be false believers too. There's gonna be people
who walk away trusting men, whatever. And those who believe the gospel,
those whom God saves under the preaching of the true gospel,
they're the gold, silver, and the precious stones of the Lord,
of his making, whose value is in Christ. And those who continue
to trust in men rather than in Christ, that's the wood, hay,
and stubble, following men rather than Christ. Think about it. Somebody says, well, You're saying
there can be false conversions under the preaching of the true
gospel? Oh yeah, I'll give you an example. Stephen in Jerusalem
preached the true gospel and the vast majority, if not all
of them at that point in time, picked up stones to kill him.
Peter preached it before in Jerusalem and 3,000 people were saved. Well, what does that mean? Should
we applaud Peter and give him all the accolades? No. We follow
Christ. Now that's why I had Brother
David read that John chapter three passage. John the Baptist. Think about it. John the Baptist,
the last of the Old Testament prophets. John the Baptist, who
literally was prophesied in the Old Testament. John could stand
up there and say, let me tell you what the Bible says about
me, and go back in there, the Malachi, for example, and other
passages. That's me that it's talking about.
He could have said that, couldn't he? John the Baptist, who stood
firm for the truth of God. And we could go on and on about
the accolades of John the Baptist, couldn't we? Gave his life for
the gospel. What a bill of fare there. If
we're gonna have John the Baptist preach, boy, we can put the advertisement
out on him. Come hear John the Baptist. But
what did John himself say? Well, look back there at John
chapter three. Here's John baptizing. John had
men who followed him. And it says, when they came to
John, and they said, master, that fellow
whom you baptized in the Jordan, people are following him. And
who was that fellow John baptized in the Jordan? Christ, Jesus
of Nazareth. They said, people are following
him. He said, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptizes
and all men come to him. Not you, John, but to him. Verse
27, here's John's answer. A man can receive nothing except
it be given him from heaven. What's he saying there? He said,
I don't have anything except what God freely and fully gave
to me by his grace. Don't look to me, I'm just a
sinner saved by grace just like you. I'm no better than you. I know people think I ought to
be better because I'm standing behind this pulpit, but I got
news for you. I'm not any better than any of
you. I'm just a man whom God has given some gifts, but where
did I get them from? God didn't look down and say,
look at Bill Parker, boy, he's something, I'm gonna give him.
No, a man can receive nothing. This ministry of John, it was
given him from heaven, freely given, not earned, not deserved. In verse 28, he says, you yourselves
bear me witness that I said, I'm not the Christ. I'm not your
savior. I'm not. I'm sent before him, I'm like
a signpost. Verse 29, he that hath the bride
is the bridegroom. Christ is the bridegroom. The
friend of the bridegroom which standeth and hear him rejoice
greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. You're hearing my voice, but
if I'm not speaking under the authority of Christ, what good
would it do you? And John said, this is my joy,
therefore is fulfilled. I rejoice that men are following
Christ and not me. And look at verse 30, he says,
he must increase, I must decrease. My old pastor used to say this.
He said, preach Christ and then get out of the way. I like that. That's a good philosophy of ministry.
Point sinners to Christ and then get out of the way. Over the
years that I've been preaching the gospel, I've seen people
who've heard the true gospel, claim to believe the true gospel,
but when a man goes awry and leaves or does this, they follow
the man rather than following the word of God. Could they be the wood, hay,
and stubble? They might be. I know this. If you're hearing
the true gospel, if you believe it, you're a miracle of the power
of God's grace in Christ. If you don't hear it and you're
trusting me or any man or any somewhere else, that's the wood,
hay, and stubble. The day will declare it. It'll
come out Judgment Day, because you're either gonna stand before
God in Christ, trusting Him, washed in His blood and clothed
in His righteousness, or you're gonna stand before God on your
own. It doesn't matter what man you trust in, even yourself,
it'll be burned up. But it's not the fault of the
preacher of the gospel. He'll be saved with fire. The
same fire of judgment that'll burn up the wood, hay, and stubble
will be the salvation of every true preacher of Christ. Why? Because the fire of God's judgment
will declare us righteous in him who took our judgment, who
suffered the wrath of God. We stand before God in his righteousness
imputed. And what is the reward there?
Well, the reward is the joy, as John the Baptist said. The
reward that the true preacher of the gospel will receive in
the gold and the silver and the precious stones is the joy of
seeing sinners saved by the grace of God in Christ. That's the
reward. It's not what I earn or what
I deserve. It's not that I'll have a bigger
mansion than you in heaven or something like that. That's silly
stuff. I'll tell you what, think about it, you who truly believe
the gospel, when God brings a person in who believes this gospel,
what does it do for you? Boy, I'll tell you what, it brightens
up my life. It causes me to rejoice, not
in the message that I preached as far as how I delivered it
or anything like that, but in Christ. That's our joy fulfilled. The loss of reward is seeing
a poor, pitiful sinner. I remember a man who sat here
for 10 years, and before he left, he just let me know that he just
didn't get it. And I sorrowed over him. I sorrowed. He asked me, he said, you mean
to tell me if they're ignorant of this righteousness of Christ,
they're lost? I said, I've been telling you
that for 10 years. And I just, I sorrowed to see
him leave. That was a loss. My friend, think
about the joy of a sinner brought to repentance by God. Isn't that
something? All right.