Now last week, John ended our
lesson in verse 9 of 1 Corinthians 3. We are laborers together with
God. You're God's husbandry. You're
God's building. And you're God's building. Somebody's
building you. That's what he says in verse
10. 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. Now, we know God is the builder
of his church. He's the architect. He planned
it. He builds it. God laid the foundation. God takes his people, makes us
living stones and puts us in our places in his building and
builds up his house. Look back at Psalm 127. God's
a builder of his church. Psalm 127. Verse 1, except the Lord build
the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord
keep the city, the watchman waketh, but in vain. The Lord's got to
be the builder of his house, or it won't be built. But now
you know that the Lord uses means. God sends preachers to preach
the gospel, to call out the sheep, and to build the church. And
that's done through the preaching of the gospel. And Paul calls
himself a wise master builder. Now there's apprentice builders
and there's wise master builders. The Lord gives different abilities
and different levels of understanding and abilities. And God made Paul,
by his grace, a wise master builder. The only reason the apostle Paul
had any usefulness whatsoever is God's grace to him. He said,
I am what I am by the grace of God. God made him a wise master
builder. And certainly he's a master builder
compared to false teachers that we see, obviously. But Paul was
even a wise master builder compared to other true preachers, other
of God's servants. He's gifted. He was an apostle
taught by the Lord himself. And that's that will always be
true that different servants, true servants of the Lord, different
servants have different abilities. You know, some, like I said,
are apprentices, some are master builders. But they're all building
the same building, not in competition with one another. They're working
together, building the same building, building up the people of God,
building us up. They're not building monuments
to themselves. They're building us up, the people of God. They're
building us up in faith in Christ. They build us up in the righteousness
of Christ. They build us up in the grace
of Christ. And they do that by preaching Christ, by preaching
him. He's the foundation. Paul said,
I laid the foundation. I look over in Isaiah 28, and
Paul says, I have laid the foundation. That foundation is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Isaiah 28, verse 16, Therefore
thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation,
a stone, a tribestone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth shall not make
haste." Now, God laid the foundation, didn't he? But he uses preachers
to do it. He used, in this case, Paul,
who preached Christ. And the Holy Spirit revealed
that to the hearts of these Corinthian believers that Paul's writing
to them. He revealed to them Christ, who is the foundation.
And since Paul's the first person that they heard preach the gospel,
in that sense, Paul laid the foundation. by preaching Christ
and Him crucified, because that foundation has to be Christ.
And that foundation was laid. Now, Paul says no other preachers
are going to come along and they're going to preach. Now, they need
to be careful how they build on what I've laid, how they build
on what I've taught you. You know, a good solid building,
we know it's essential that it have a good foundation or else
the whole building is going to crumble. But in order for that
building to really be a good, strong building, not only does
the foundation have to be strong and well built and be the right
foundation, the walls have to be right. They have to be built
with the right materials in the right way, according to code,
not according to the state code. It's the code you find in God's
word. This is the code that the walls and the roof and the whole
structure must be built on. And we build, we teach line upon
line, precept upon precept. There's no fast way to do it.
It's built line upon line, slowly over the years. That's how it's
built up, and it's built from the Word. One of the writers
that I read this week said, you can't mix gold and dirt. If the foundation is gold, you
can't build dirt on it. It's got to be more gold, or
else the building will be no good. So be careful how you build
thereon. 4, he says in verse 11, Other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ. Christ is the foundation. There
can be no other foundation than the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
foundation of every believer of the whole church. Look at
our Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians 2 verse 19, Christ
is the foundation. He says in verse 19, Now, therefore,
you're no more strangers and foreigners. but fellow citizens
with the saints, and you're of, you're part of the household
of God, and you're built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets. You're built on the message,
not on those twelve apostles and the different prophets. You're
built on their message, which is Jesus Christ himself being
the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building, fitly framed
together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye
also are built together for the habitation of God through the
Spirit." That building is built on the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is the foundation. In everything, the whole building
rests on the foundation and is supported by the foundation.
And our foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ and all those fundamental
truths that we know about Him. His eternality. Before Abraham
was, I am. He's the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. He's the God-man. He's the Son
of God and the Son of David. He was born of a virgin, so he
didn't partake of Adam's sinful nature, his sinful seed. He lived
a life of perfect obedience. We're justified in his blood
that he shed as a sacrifice for the sins of his people. We're
clothed in his righteousness. We know that before God we have
no sin because Christ put our sin away. by suffering and dying
for us, and who was raised again the third day for our justification.
Christ is everything we believe. It's not just a list of doctrines
we believe. Christ is everything we believe. And you take any part of Him
away, you take any part of the person and work of Christ away,
and you start to crumble the foundation. You take any part
of Christ away, and all of our hope goes with You take any part
of Christ away and all of our comfort goes with it. All of
our peace, all of our life is going to go away if you take
any part of Christ away. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground, I don't care
what you think of it, all other ground is sinking sand. He is
the foundation. And you need to be careful, Paul
says, how you build on that foundation. Just look at verse 12. There
are different ways you could build on this foundation. He
says, now if any men build upon this foundation, gold, silver,
precious stones, or wood, hay, and staple. Now Paul laid the
foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now other men come along preaching,
and they're building on that foundation. As they preach, they
build something on that foundation. And Paul calls all these Doctrines,
all these truths that concern Christ. He calls them gold, silver
and precious stones. Because they're so precious.
These truths of Christ are so precious to the believer because
they enrich us. They enrich us in Christ. They
are so valuable to the believer because they concern Christ.
And to you, therefore, that believe, He is precious and everything
about Him is precious. Gold, silver, precious stones.
And you see here that the walls, the structure that's built on
the foundation, is the same as the foundation. It's Christ. The walls are not different pieces
from the foundation. The foundation and the walls
are one. It's all Christ. There's just
one gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
foundation. He's the walls. He's the roof.
He's everything. Christ is all. So you could build gold, silver,
and precious stones. Or, Paul says, other men are
going to come along and build wood, hay, and stubble. They're
going to build houses like the Three Little Pigs houses. They're
just going to be blown over, you know. And these men aren't
false teachers. As we read through here, later
on, Paul calls them saved. They're not false teachers. But
they're still building wood, hay, and stubble. Well, what
is that? wood, hay and stuff. Well, they
could be true things. They could be true statements.
But it's not Christ alone. It could be they're building
through inconsistent preaching, you know, and you just kind of
got to glean through there and find something that you can feast
on, something you need. They could get off on political
things or church history things or, you know, making a show of
earthly wisdom. through, you know, their knowledge
of some deep hidden mystery of scripture or obscure biblical
facts or something. They're preaching things. They're
making true statements, but not preaching Christ. There's a great
big difference between preaching true things and preaching the
truth, because the truth is a person. Christ is the truth. There's
a big difference between preaching true things and saying true things
and preaching Christ. They can say true things, but
you don't get a blessing from it because it's not Christ. The preaching is not Christ.
And there's no value in those things. They're wood, hay, and
stubble. They will not be of any lasting help to you. They're
just temporary. But Christ is gold, silver, and
precious stones. It's durable. It's lasting. It's valuable in every generation
because He's Christ. He's eternal. And there's consequences
both to the preacher and to the people on how that preacher builds,
on what he builds on that foundation. Look at verse 13. 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. The fire is going to reveal
what sort of work, what sort of materials that man built on
that foundation. And that day, the day of fire
Paul's talking about, is not the day of judgment. He's talking
about the day of trial in this life. You don't have to wait
until the judgment to find out what he built. It's this life. Because trials are coming. Now
they just do. Trials come. And when those trials
come, we suffer loss, heartache, sickness, death, uncertainty.
These things are genuine trials. A fiery trial that's sent to
try our faith. When those trials come, what's
your shield? When those trials come, where
do you find your comfort? When those trials come and just
knock you back off your heel, where do you find your strength?
If the preacher's been building wood, hay and stubble, that fiery
trial is going to reduce that to just ashes very, very quickly. It's just kindling for the fire.
But if the pastor's been building gold and silver and precious
stones, That fiery trial is going to make the gold more beautiful.
It's going to make the gold more precious. It's going to make
those precious stones shine more beautifully because the dross
is burned off and all that's left is the gold. All that's
left is Christ. I'm sure I've told this story
before, but I read this story. I think it was a story Spurgeon
told about a pastor. He went to the bedside of one
of the members in his church. He was dying. He laid there dying,
and the pastor came and whispered in his ear, he said, Brother, is it well with you? And that
man looked up at his pastor, and he said, it's well with me
if you told me the truth. The day is going to reveal it.
If you told me the truth, it's going to be alright. And we'll
find out in that day, is Christ enough? And the day of trial,
it will reveal your faith. Is Christ enough? And that day
of trial, you'll find out, is the preaching that you've heard,
is it enough? It is if that preaching is Christ. I hesitate to use this illustration,
but it's true. When my dad was dying up in Canada,
we were up there separated from y'all and up here, we're up there
all alone. And the Lord gave peace and comfort,
he brought the Word to mind. And I, on the phone, told Jana,
I said, you tell Henry what he's done matters. Because all that
preaching of the Word came, the Lord brought it to mind. It mattered. Why? Gold, silver, and precious
stones. The preaching of Christ. I promise
you, in this day of fire, it matters. It does. Now verse 14,
Paul says, now in that day of fire, if any man's work abide,
which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. Now
that fire of trial comes along, it burns up the wood hay and
stubble, but the gold, silver, and precious stones, they shine
brighter. And that pasture Paul says he's built, gold, silver,
and precious stones, he's going to receive a reward. Now you
know good and well he's not talking about he's going to receive a
reward in heaven or something. Some of the writers say that
reward could be the Lord saying, in eternity, well done, my good
and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of the Lord. I promise you that statement
alone is worth more than any mansion or any crown people talk
about down here. That statement alone is worth
more than that. It's more than any trophy you'll
ever get. But I tell you what I think the reward he's talking
about here really is. It's seeing people that you care
about, that you love, that you preach to, that you taught for
years, not be burned up when the trial comes. To see that
the Lord made that preaching effectual. And not only will
the pastor be thankful he received that reward, the people will
too, because it mattered. He helped me. He built us up
so that when the fire came, we had someone to cling to, not
something, someone. Now verse 15, but on the other
hand, if any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss,
but he himself should be saved, yet so by fire, yet so out of
the fire. That pastor that built wood,
hay, and stubble, that fiery trial is going to burn it up.
It's going to be gone. The flames just are going to
consume it. And he's going to see the labor, the time that
he spent in the ministry, it's going to be saved for what it
was. All the praise and recognition he had for men would be gone.
They found out his preaching really didn't help. You'll see
he was off track and there's going to be sorrow involved in
that loss. Yet, Paul says, his salvation is not lost. Aren't we thankful our salvation
is never dependent on us? Because if it was, all of us
would lose it. We'd lose it in a heartbeat.
Our salvation is eternally secure because of the foundation. The
foundation that God laid to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that foundation
is not going away. But the preacher who builds wood,
hay and stubble. Now, he's going to be like a
man who escaped out of a burning house. The house is burned to
the ground. Just all that's left is ashes.
And he's escaped with the clothes on his back and his life. And
everything else is a total loss. It's a sad state of affairs.
Because the picture Paul's painting here is someone who's sitting
on a foundation where the house used to be. And the house is
gone. There's no roof. There's no walls.
There's no pictures. There's no personal effects.
There's no shelter. There's no home left. Just ashes. He'd been burned out. And it's
sad. It's a sad, sad day. Now, verse
16, Paul says, Now know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? Now, if any man defile
the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of
God is holy, which temple you are. Now, every believer is the
temple of God. God, the Holy Spirit, dwells
in our hearts. That's as plain as the nose on your face. If
you can read words, you understand that. God dwells in His church,
in His people, just like He dwelt in the tabernacle in the wilderness.
That tabernacle, there's nothing special about that tabernacle.
Except in the Holy of Holies, between the cherubims, dwelt
the Shekinah glory of God. That's what made that building
special. That made that building set aside
for holy use because God's Spirit dwelt there. And the believer
is separated for holy use because God dwells in you. He dwells
in your heart by faith. And this is serious business
now. You're the temple of God. God's church is the temple of
God. God's not going to stand for
somebody vandalizing his house. You're not going to defile the
house of God now. And the preacher that defiles God's house by departing
from the simplicity of Christ, God's going to destroy that ministry
because he's not going to stand for someone defiling his house.
In verse 18, Paul says, Now 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." Now right here is
the root of the problem for those men who build wood, hay, and
stubble. They're too smart for their own good. That's exactly
what it is. They think that they can do this
on their own. They've got too much wisdom of
their own. But the more we recognize our ignorant nature, the more
wise we become. Because the more we recognize
we don't have any wisdom, the more we'll look to Christ who
is our wisdom. The more we recognize our own
weakness, the more we'll look to Christ who is our strength.
And these men make a show of their wisdom. And any time a
man is going to make a show of his own wisdom, he must depart
from Christ. He has to. And they end up preaching
foolishness. Because anything, I don't care
what it is, anything other than the preaching of Christ and Him
crucified is foolishness. And these men, the mind that
they have in their stall is brilliant, no doubt. But they're going to
be taken in their own craftiness. It's like a trapper getting caught
in his own trap. It's just going to be revealed
as foolishness. And this not only is speaking
to preachers, it's speaking to all believers. Now we need to
be, have some wisdom here. We, it'd be good that we're wise
enough to know the difference between wood, hay and stubble
and gold, silver and precious stones. It'd be good if we're
wise enough to recognize the difference. And the only way
we can gain that wisdom is by consistently hearing the preaching
of Christ. We need to be careful. Not only,
the preacher needs to be careful of what he builds. But we need
to be careful what we allow to be built on that foundation.
Gold, silver, precious stones, or wood, hay, and stubble. We
need to be careful. Now, verse 21, Paul says, Therefore, let
no man glory in me, and 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 ye are Christ, and Christ
is God's. Now Paul goes right back to where
he started back in chapter 1. Let no man therefore glory in
men. Back in chapter 1, verse 12,
this is how he began his letter. This was a problem in Corinth.
He says, For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren,
of them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions
among you. Now this I say, that every one
of you saith, I am of Paul, and I am of Paulus, and I am of Cephas,
and I am of Christ. Is Christ divided? Or was Paul
crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name
of Paul? See, they had this problem putting too much stock in these
men. And we're warned, don't do that. Don't put too much stock
in a man. He'll crumble under the weight
of it. And he will, because even the best preachers and the best
of men are just men. They're still just clay pots.
And the gifts that our pastors have been given have been given
to them for our good, for the good of the elect. God gives
every believer gifts, not so people can brag on us, but for
the good of the church, for the good of our brethren. And Paul
says, all things are yours. It's not just preachers, but
all things, everything in the gospel, all of it is yours, freely
given to you, God. Everything in this world is yours. God keeps it for your sake. Impulses
all things. Everything that God has is yours. Nothing's held back. He's given
it all to you. All things. This world. You know why this world keeps
spinning? You know why this world keeps getting sunshine and rain
and food? For God's elect. So they'll be
fed. So this life will be sustained
until all God's elect have been called to Christ and given faith
in Him. This life is yours. Life in Christ is yours and the
fullness of that life is yours. Our eternal life is yours through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And our life on this earth is
preserved for us to serve the Lord and serve his people. This
life is yours. Death is yours. First of all,
the death of Christ is yours. He died for us. The Lord died
as our substitute to satisfy justice on our behalf, and we
enjoy all the benefits of that death. That death was for you.
It's ours. And the death of the believer
is yours. That death is a blessing. Because
in that moment, the curse is removed. Christ took the sting
of death away, so you have no need to fear it. That death is
a blessing to God's people because at that moment, We're delivered
from all the sorrows and trouble and sin of this world to depart
this world and be with Christ eternally. To depart this world
and be with Christ, which is far better. That death is yours. A gift from God. Things present
are yours. Everything in this present world
is yours. It's been provided for you to
supply you on this journey home. And that's all things. Whether
they're good, whether we see them as good or bad, whether
it's adversity or whether it's prosperity. God sends those things
for our good, our learning, and his glory. We know that all things,
all things are yours. All things work together for
good to them who love God, to them who are called according
to his purpose. All things, things present and
things to come. All future glory and happiness
in heaven is ours. in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
of Christ. All things are yours because
you are Christ. Because you belong to Him. Because
you're in Christ and Christ is in you. You're the old-timers,
shouldn't be the only ones, who talk about a vital union with
Christ. Because all these things are
yours because of that union with Christ. We have all these blessings
based on the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ based on our union
with Him. I don't remember where I read
this this week, but this is good. Everything good that Christ has
became ours because everything bad that we are became His. Substitution. Everything good
that Christ has and is became ours. All things are yours. Because
everything bad that we are, it came to us. Alright, well I hope
that would be a blessing.