Now let's open our Bibles to
the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I preached
on the first part of this chapter last week concerning the issue
of verse 13, every man's work made manifest. And this chapter
is talking about the ministry of true gospel preachers. I emphasize
as you look into this passage that this is not talking about
the contrast between true preachers and false preachers. There are
other passages that deal with that, such as the whole book
of Galatians, for example. But this is talking about the
ministry of true gospel preachers, preaching Christ, preaching the
truth of God's free and sovereign grace. In Christ Jesus, being
under shepherds of Jesus Christ, the good shepherd. Christ, the
good shepherd who gave his life for the sheep. The chief shepherd,
the great shepherd, that great shepherd of the sheep. And for
the purposes of his glory, the Lord God has placed his true
church and his true ministers in this world. To be a witness
of His glory, the witness of His truth, the pillar and ground
of truth, Paul called it in 2 Timothy, or 1 Timothy rather. The church
of the living God. What does the word church mean?
It means called out ones, those who are called by the Holy Spirit
under the preaching of the gospel out of the world. So that we
have a different relationship with the world. We're in the
world, but we're not of the world, the scripture says. The church,
also known in the Bible as the elect of God. People don't like
to hear that, but it's true. That's what the Bible teaches.
The elect of God, elect according to the foreknowledge, the foreordination
of God. The church, the redeemed of the
Lord, redeemed by the blood of Christ, redeemed how I love to
proclaim it. redeemed by the blood of the
lamb. The church, those who have been justified before God, means
they're not guilty. Their sins have been charged
to their substitute, their surety, the Lord Jesus Christ. He took
our guilt, he took our debt, and he drank damnation dry. He
paid the debt in full. Jesus paid it all, scripture
says. By one offering, I love this,
Hebrews 10 14 I think, by one offering he hath perfected, that
means he hath completed, finished. By one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Those whom God set apart, Christ
perfected. And we're righteous in him, that's
what it is to be justified. We have his righteousness imputed
to us. And the church, how do you know who's a member of the
church? It's not just those who walk
an aisle and get baptized. Now believers are to be baptized,
that's our confession of faith. But we know who are the true
members of Christ's church because the Holy Spirit comes, brings
them under the preaching of the gospel, gives them life, they're
born again, you must be born again, and they come to faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. They walk according to that rule
that we spoke of in the 10 o'clock hour. God forbid that I should
glory, that I should boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And they're called the building of God. The title of
the message this morning is taken from here in 1 Corinthians chapter
three, in verse 16, where he says, know you not that you are
the temple of God? You're the temple of God. Now
we'll talk about that in just a moment a little bit more, but
it's God's building. Christ told his disciples, upon
this rock, I will build my church. That rock there is not Peter,
that rock was Christ. The confession that Peter made
by the revelation from God was a confession of Christ as the
foundation of the church. I heard a message years ago that
I really love that Christ is the foundation of the church,
Christ is the head of the church and Christ is the heart of the
church. And I love that. And he said
the gates of hell will not prevail against it, didn't he? So this
is the church. Now there are local bodies of
believers all over this world where the gospel is preached.
I believe they're in the minority, but that's the way it is, you
know. In the last days, that's the
way it's going to be. where true gospel preachers stand before
congregations like we're doing this morning, and they preach
the truth without apology, without embarrassment. I tell people
on the television program all the time, I said, I know people
don't like this, but that's what the Bible says. And that's why
you've got to leave it there. And so they preach the truth.
And in congregations, The Bible tells us as Christ began, you
remember when he began to preach the parables. The first parable
that he really started with in what we call the kingdom parables
is the parable of the sower and the seed. You go out and you
sow seed. The preacher, that's the gospel.
And there are different kinds of hearers under that. Some come
close. There's the wayside hearer who
doesn't even listen. He just hears it and then walks
away from it. And there's the stony ground here who receives
it. If you look in Matthew 13, for
example, it says he received it anon, A-N-O-N. That's a King
James Version way of saying now. He received it immediately. He
grabbed hold of it immediately, but it didn't take root. He wasn't
born again by the Spirit. And when persecution came over
the Word, he left it. And then you have the thorny
ground here who received it. and then in time proved that
there was no root there either because of the cares of this
world and the love of riches, he left the gospel. And then
there's the good ground here. The good ground is the born-again
person, the heart prepared by the Spirit of God to receive
the Word. Here in 1 Corinthians 13 is the
mission of the church. To preach the gospel of his free
grace in Christ to a lost generation, Christ said, go in all the world
and preach the gospel. God has a people whom he chose
before the foundation of the world. The Bible says their names
were written in the Lamb's book of life before the world began.
The Lamb slain. God sent his son into the world
to redeem them from their sins, to establish the only righteousness
whereby God could be just to justify them. And that's the
righteousness of God that's preached in the gospel, not the righteousness
of man. The righteousness of man will
do you no good because it's non-existent. We don't have one. Scripture
says that, doesn't it? And God sends his Holy Spirit
into the world to give them spiritual life and call them out of the
world to himself through the preaching of the gospel. And
here's an amazing thing. He uses men. whom he's called and gifted to
do that, but they're still men. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels. And these men are placed where
God puts them as under shepherds to faithfully care for and guide
and edify true believers, the church. And to do this, what
must we do? We have to study, we have to
teach, we have to rightly divide the word of God, we have to pray.
give attention in prayer and spiritual worship for gospel
believers. He sends some into areas where
the gospel has never been preached. That's what Paul means. Look
at verse six of 1 Corinthians 3. Paul said, I have planted.
Now what he's describing there is like a missionary, an evangelist
who goes into an area where the gospel has never been preached
and first preaches it. Paul was the first one to preach
the gospel here in Corinth. So he sends some as pioneer missionaries,
evangelists, and they plant. That's a work now. He calls it
their labors, their work. We labor in the gospel. We're
not working for our salvation. We're not working for our blessings. We're not even working for our
rewards. I'm not a mercenary up here.
I'm not serving God for what I can get out of him. But we do work as the result
and the product and the fruit of His grace to glorify Him. You see, the motive of the obedience
of a believer is not legalism. trying to earn our way out of
God's wrath, and it's not mercenary works, trying to earn our rewards. It's grace and love and gratitude. Paul said, the love of Christ
constrains me. That's why I do what I do. I'm
not trying to earn his love. It's his unconditional love.
I don't earn his love. I don't deserve it, and I haven't
earned it. I say that all the time about salvation and all
of its blessings. I've been preaching this gospel
for over 30 years. I still have not come to a point
in my life where I can look at you and say, I finally earned
it and I finally deserve it. I don't. It's grace, all grace,
from beginning to culmination. And so, but he uses men to preach
the gospel, some to plant in areas where there has never been
any gospel, lays the foundation, that's what Paul says. He uses
two analogies here, the analogy of a farmer planting seed and
the analogy of a builder laying a foundation. So when Paul came
into Corinth, the gospel had never been preached, he planted
the seed. He preached the gospel and he
laid the foundation. But here's the key, look, he
says in verse 6, I planted a polis, there was another preacher who
came after Paul, and he built upon that foundation, he watered
that seed by preaching the gospel, but God gave the increase. There
you go. That's why I read that Psalm
127, except the Lord build the house, build it in vain. Now
there are preachers in this world who have enough charm and enough
personality and enough charisma, they can build big buildings
and get a lot of people in. I thank God I don't have any
of those except the charm and personality. No, I'm serious. Anyway, but
God doesn't build the house based upon the preacher's charm, personality,
or charisma. He builds it as he will. He gives
the increase. He brings His people in. And
it's not by the wisdom of men. That's why Paul wrote over in
1 Corinthians chapter 1 that God has chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. The weak things of the
world to confound things which are mighty. The base things of
the world and things which are despised. You see, the wisdom
of men goes totally opposite of the wisdom of God. The wisdom
of men, when you compare it to the wisdom of God, the wisdom
of men is foolishness. And so that's why you have programs,
plans, you know, how are we gonna do this? How are we gonna get
people in? Methodologies and all of that. And what happens
is the gospel, if it was ever there to begin with, gets thrown
out the window because you don't want to offend them. You've got to keep them in. Well,
that's not how God builds his church. God gives the increase. And there's two things that we
must never forget, and that's just number one, I just said,
God gives the increase, and number two, there's no other foundation
but Jesus Christ. Look down at verse 11. For other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ. Now, you build upon any other foundation, it's not God's
building. But as it is the case, while
in this world there's still much sin and many problems that'll
plague the church on earth, in the church there'll be both true
believers and false professors, we know that. And also in the
church, even though those men whom God has called to preach
can sometimes get sidetracked onto other issues, maybe other
methods. Don't deny the gospel, but which
do not edify or build up the church." Whoever he's talking
about, look down here in verse 11 again. He says, 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, and remember the precious stones there does
not refer to like emeralds and rubies and diamonds. The precious
stones refers to that kind of stone that was carved out for
a building, like a marble stone. And what he's referring to there
is something that is precious. And then he says, he says, wood,
hay, and stubble. And as I told you last week,
there are two, what I call gospel ways of interpreting that. There's
two interpreters. You know, a lot of people, when
they go into interpreting the script, what does that mean?
And I told you in the 10 o'clock hour, I'm getting ready on our
television program, I'm getting ready to do a series on interpreting
the scripture. There are rules of interpretation,
folks. It's not just, well, you go off
on a corner and read it, and whatever it means to you is okay. That's not the way of interpretation.
There are rules, biblical rules. And I'm gonna show people those
on our TV program. I ain't preaching here, I don't
know. But anyway, it's something important. You need to know this.
But what does that mean? Well, sometimes people come up
with interpretations that deny the gospel. Deny the truth of God's grace.
And I can tell you one thing for sure. If you come up with
an interpretation of that that denies the gospel, that's not
what it means. Because nothing in this book
from Genesis to Revelation will deny the truth of salvation by
the sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus. And if you think
it does, you're thinking wrong. I know because I've been there.
So no interpretation will deny the rest of the scripture. No
scriptures of any private interpretation. You can't interpret it by itself.
How many people, I mean, they've taken scriptures out of context
and built whole denominations on it. And don't even know what
it means. That's one of the rules, context.
I used to joke about that, but I'm really not joking. Somebody
said, well, what's the rule of interpretation? Number one's
context, number two's context, number three's context. But there
are other rules. But there are two interpretations
of this that don't deny the gospel. One interpretation is talking
about a gospel preacher, and we say this is a true gospel
preacher because of what is said in verse 15. Look at verse 15.
Well, let's just read on through. Verse 13, he's talking about
those who build with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and
stubble. Every man's work shall be made manifest. That's what
I preached on last week, what he's talking about. For the day
shall declare it. Some say that's the day of judgment.
Others say it's the day of trial, or when the day that the word
of God tries it, the word of God being a fire. Because it
shall be revealed by fire. And the fire shall try every
man's work of what sort it is, what kind it is. If any man's
work abide which he hath built upon, he shall receive a reward.
Now that's not earned rewards, plural. The reward, I showed
you what that reward was when I talked about Paul saying, woe
unto me if I preach not the gospel. And he said, I'm not doing this
to receive a reward. What is my reward? The reward
is seeing the glory of God in salvation. That's the reward.
It's not what I earn by preaching up here. There's a fellow up
in Ohio who told one of the members of the church up there that I
used to pastor in Ashland. He said, the only reason I preach
is because I want more rewards in heaven. And I said, well,
he's not a preacher of grace and he's a mercenary. That's
what he is. He's a hireling. That's not why I preach. The
reward is God's glory in salvation by his grace. What does it do
for you when you see somebody come in who believes the gospel,
or somebody come to believe the gospel? Every believer in here,
that's a, boy, what a reward. And that's not because we earned
it. It's the reward of grace. But look at verse 15. He says,
if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he
himself shall be saved. So he's talking about a true
gospel preacher here. There's no place in the Bible
where it talks about false preachers being saved. Now they may later
come to salvation. Paul the Apostle, for example,
he was a false preacher for almost up to, some say 40 years old,
but then Christ met him on the Damascus road and brought him
down into the dust. But here he says, he himself
shall be saved, yet so is by fire, by trial. Now there's two
interpretation one is a gospel preacher who gets sidetracked
onto non-issues that don't deny the gospel but don't build the
church and that work will be burned up and he'll suffer loss
and it'll come through fiery trials and that's possible the
other is that it's talking about people sitting under the true
gospel some of them follow Christ, others follow a man. Now that's what I believe is
talking about, because remember what he's talking, look back
up at verse four. He says, for while one saith
I'm of Paul, another I'm of Apollos, are you not carnal? Now Paul
was a true preacher of the gospel, wasn't he? So was Apollos. Remember over in chapter one
he said, Cephas, that's Peter, In other words, here's what's
happening. Here's these preachers of the gospel that are pointing
sinners to Christ, but inevitably it happens. There are some people
who instead of following the Christ that they preach, they
follow the man. Are you a man follower or are
you a Christ follower? And I mentioned last week how
I always like to go to John the Baptist School for Preachers.
Listen to his ministry. Behold the Lamb of God, which
beareth away the sins of the world. I'm not the Christ. I can't save you. I can baptize
you, but I can't baptize you with fire. I can't give you life. I can't change your heart. And then he said, I'm not even
fit to untie his shoes. I'm just a voice crying in the
wilderness. Then he said, I must what? Decrease,
Christ must increase. And how many times have I told
you, I love that passage in John 3 where it says, they heard John
the Baptist speak and they followed Christ. Now that's the desire
of Paul, Apollos, Peter, that's the desire of every gospel preacher.
You hear me preach, but I don't want you to follow me, I want
you to follow Christ. So here's how Paul concludes
this section. In verse 16, the first thing
he does, he reminds them of what they are. And here it is, verse
16. Know you not that you are the
temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you. This is true of the collective
body of all true believers. And here is what he is saying,
you don't belong to me. You belong to God. God chose
you, Christ redeemed you, and the Holy Spirit birthed you again
and called you. You belong to God. You are the
house of God. You are not the house of Bill
Parker. Up in Ashland, the church that I pastored, the man that
was there before me had been there 52 years. His name was
Henry Mahan. And everybody in town called
it Mahan's Church. Mahan's. Well, if there was any
true believers there, it wasn't Mahan's Church, it's Christ's
Church. We have a building. But this
building's not the church. The people of God are the church.
Look over at 1 Peter chapter two. Listen to this. And again, I
remind you of what Christ told Peter and the disciples, upon
this rock I'll build my church. and the gates of hell will not
prevail against." Look at verse one of 1 Peter chapter two. Wherefore,
laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies
and all evil speaking, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk
of the word that you may grow thereby, if so be you've tasted
that the Lord is gracious. If you have life, you're going
to have a desire, a hunger for the word of God. And he says,
to whom coming as unto a living stone, Disallowed indeed of men
but chosen of God and precious talking about Christ the foundation
stone there You also as lively or living stones are built up
a spiritual house and holy priesthood Remember when Mark was reading
there in Hebrews chapter 3 it started out wherefore holy brethren
and We've been separated unto Christ by His grace, through
His blood. And He says, "...to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore,
also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone." He said, that's Christ. Everything is founded
upon Him and to be measured by Him. "...elect, precious, and
he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded." That's the
house of God. You're the temple of God. I preached
through the book of Ezekiel last couple of years. And in the last
eight chapters of that book, you find Ezekiel being given
a vision by God of the future temple. And it's an amazing thing. And it's such a detailed prophecy,
if you read it, you kind of get lost in some of the details,
the measurements, the numbers, everything. But it's there for
a reason. Because what Ezekiel sees in
that symbolic temple is a picture of Jesus Christ and his church
in all of its completeness and perfection. And it's a beautiful
picture. Now you know anytime it talks
about the temple or the tabernacle, That's a picture of Christ and
his church. Back in the tabernacle, you know you had the Holy of
Holies, the very center. That tabernacle was all arranged
to surround that one central place where the Ark of the Covenant
was, the mercy seat, where only the high priest could go in one
time a year and sprinkle the blood of the Lamb for atonement.
That high priest is a picture of Christ, our great high priest.
The blood that was shed is a picture of Christ, the Lamb of God, who
was slain for his people. He goes into the holiest of all
as the representative, the substitute, the surety of his people, sprinkling
his blood on the mercy seat. Christ is
our mercy seat. Christ is our high priest. Christ
is our sacrifice. Christ is our mercy seat, our
altar. And all that was a grand picture
of the righteousness that Christ would establish on the cross
for the salvation and justification of his people. So that we can
say we have free access, Hebrews 10 talks about this. We can go
into the holiest of, we, sinners saved by grace, can go into the
holiest of all by the blood of Jesus Christ. We have free access
to God. Now all the other priests, remember
the high priest, he was from the tribe of Levi, but the high
priest, he was descended directly from the line of Aaron. The other
priests, the Levites, that's a picture of the church. We're
priests unto God. What does that mean, the priesthood
of the believer? Well, being the temple of God, having a high
priest over the house of God, we have free access to God. Through the blood of Jesus, based
on his righteousness, and we can come to God in prayer. We
can come to God in worship. We can praise God in singing. We can live our lives under God.
We can present our bodies, living sacrifices under God in obedience,
and it's all accepted with God. Not because we're perfect or
we do anything perfect, but because of the blood of Jesus Christ.
You're the temple of God. You belong to God. You don't
belong to any preacher. You don't belong to any denomination.
You belong in the body of believers to God, and you come where the
truth is preached, where the gospel of his free and sovereign
grace is preached. Look back at 1 Corinthians 3.
Look at verse 17. Here's the second. You're the
temple of God. You're not the temple of Paul.
You're not the temple of Peter. You're not the temple of Apollos.
You're the temple of God. All right, verse 17. The temple
of God is holy. Look, if any man defile the temple
of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy.
Which temple you are. We're members of God's family
and we're holy in Christ Jesus. We're set apart unto Christ Jesus. Set apart by God's grace, that's
what that word holy means. We're holy brethren, we're a
family. True believers are a family. We're the household of God. That's
what that means. The house of God doesn't mean
these four walls and the ceiling. It means the household, the family
of God. We're set apart by Him. We're
set apart for Him. We were set apart before the
foundation of the world in God's electing grace. That's what the
scripture teaches. We were set apart in Christ our
surety when he died on the cross for us. Paul speaks of that in
Romans chapter six of our union with Christ. When he died, I
died. How? He's my representative. He's my substitute. He's my surety. Remember the high priest had
the names of the 12 tribes of Israel on his breastplate and
on his ambulance? That's who he represented. He
went in for the people. Well, Christ went to the cross
for his people. He said he laid down his life
for who? The sheep. How do you know who
his sheep are? He said, my sheep hear my voice.
I know them. And they know me and they follow
me. And they'll never perish, he says. That's the sheep. Set apart by him in redemption,
by the blood. Set apart by the Holy Spirit
in the new birth, regeneration and conversion. Our faith and
allegiance is not to any man, it's to Christ. We love and support
and pray for the ministers of the gospel, but we believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ. We trust him. He says, if any
man defile, that word defile means to destroy the temple of
God, him shall God destroy. Now that's not the same as true
gospel preachers or true believers. Because God's not going to destroy
them. First, the temple of God cannot be destroyed. We know
that. We said that. Upon this rock I'll build my
church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. But secondly, Satan and men can
certainly try to destroy it, can't they? Turn over to Revelation
12. Here in Revelation 12 we have
a picture of Satan in the last days attacking the church. Now he's not going to succeed.
The victory is already assured. Isn't that right? Christ put
down all principalities and powers when he died on that cross. Remember
he said, now is the prince of this world cast out. But Satan
and his followers will still try to destroy God's people. He can't do it. But he'll still
try. That's his sinfulness, his rebellion. But look, it says in verse 9
of Revelation 12. Now listen to this. The great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and
Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. Now we know he doesn't...
Satan deceives the whole world. That's the unbelieving world.
He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out
with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has
come salvation. and strength and the kingdom
of our God and the power of his Christ for the accuser of the
brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day
and night. And listen to verse 11. Now, how are you gonna be
an instrument in fighting this battle? What are you gonna do?
You're gonna call in an exorcist? You're gonna get guns and knives
and hide up in a cave or something? No, they overcame him by the
blood of the lamb. and by the word of their testimony,
and they love not their lives unto death. How do you overcome
Satan? By the blood of the Lamb. Because
I'm washed in the blood of the Lamb, Satan's accusations, though
he throws them, shoots them like arrows, they don't stick. Why? Who shall charge anything
to God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. That's
why. There's therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ. Go back to 1 Corinthians 3 now.
These last verses, here he shows us the remedy for it all. Now
we belong to, we're the temple of God, not of man. And the temple
of God is holy, set apart, protected, Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Who can condemn us? Who can separate
us from the love of God in Christ? Nothing. All right, here's the
remedy right here. Look at verse 18. He says, 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.
For it is written, he taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise that they are vain. Here's what he's saying.
In the matter of this issue of the church and the ministry of
the gospel, how God saves sinners, the wisdom of man has to be totally,
totally ignored and abandoned. That's what he's saying. The
wisdom of man won't, now you can read all about that in 1
Corinthians 1, we won't go there, but you read 1 Corinthians 1,
that's what he's saying. The wisdom of man, listen, what
is the wisdom of man concerning salvation? It is always salvation
in some way at some stage to some degree by the works and
the will of man. Isn't that right? Throw it out. It'll do you no good. So abandon
the wisdom of man. It's foolishness. And then here's
the second thing, look at verse 21. Therefore let no man glory
in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present,
or things to come, all are yours, and you are Christ, you belong
to Christ, and Christ belongs to God, he is God's. Speaking
of his, the God man, his mediatorial work. God's wisdom alone must
be understood and embraced here. Don't glory in men. You remember
over in 1 Corinthians 1, he said, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. Remember what Paul said in Galatians
6.14, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Remember what he said in Philippians
3, 3, we are the circumcision, that's the circumcision of the
heart, the new birth. How do you know? We worship God
in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. That word rejoice there
is the same word glory here, means to boast. We boast in Christ
Jesus for all salvation and have no confidence in the flesh. That's
the remedy.