If you'll take your Bibles now
and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. While you're turning there, I
want to express a word of thanksgiving from the folks over in Wichita
Falls for sharing your pastor with them. They appreciate it,
and they want you to know that. And I want to make a request
to you for them that you remember them in prayer. They have no
one. We meet here three times a week
on a regular basis, and you have someone here to preach to you
and to watch for your soul. They're over there alone. alone,
and just a handful. And half of them, their mates
despise the gospel, want nothing to do with it, and it causes
them great pain and separation just to be able to go and meet. Every time they do, one of the
ladies there just gets, you know, she has to hear it then for days
after she's done it. Over and over, been that way
now for a long time. And I thought this is a message
I brought to them, but I'm taking this message a little different
direction to you. The message I preached to them
was a revelation of fire. And I was talking about this
thing of faith being tested and tried of God. But this morning
I want to talk to you about the great house of faith. The great
house of faith. Now let's read here in 1 Corinthians
chapter 3 beginning with verse 5. Now there was a controversy
at Corinth over who was saved under whose ministry and so on,
and you can read about it in these first four or five verses
here in chapter three. But beginning with verse five
is where Paul begins to talk to them a little bit about this
problem. And he said, who then is Paul? And who is Apollos? But ministers by whom ye believed,
even as the Lord gave to every man. I have planted, polished
water, but God gave the increase. So then, neither is he that planteth
anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase. Now, he that planteth and he
that watereth are one. They're not opposed to one another.
They're not against one another. They're not enemies. There's
no separation here. There's no division here. The
only division, he said, is the one that you're putting here.
They're one. Paulus and Paul were one in what
they preached, what they believed, and what they rejoiced in. But
there was a problem with the people. Now listen to what he
tells them. That one and every man shall
receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are
labors together with God. Ye are God's husbandry, God's
garden. Ye are God's building. According to the grace of God
which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I've laid the
foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take
heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man
lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if
any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones,
wood, hay, stove, 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. If any man's work abide which
he hath built thereon, he shall receive a reward." What's his
reward? Huh? What's his reward? What's that talking about? The
reward is the salvation of God's grace which He's given him. He's
rewarded with that. He's rewarded with that. Just
the same as in another place, you've heard that scripture quoted
so often, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. That's
talking about giving. Talking about offerings. They
ain't talking about how... And all Paul's telling them is
if you give to the the spiritual things and you support those
things and make it possible for those things to be here, then
you're going to reap the reward of it. You're going to reap because
these are the means of God. Now, if you don't give it to
them, you give something else, you reap the reward of that.
You want to fill your house full of easy chairs and swimming pools
and luxury cars and all this other kind of nonsense, if that's
where you want to put Put the most part of your life and your
efforts, if you want, then you're going to reap benefits of that.
You're going to lay there in your easy chair and swim in your
pool until you die. Then you're going to go out and
meet God. And then you're going to wish that you hadn't done
all that with the swimming pools and the easy chair and that you'd
given some time to this. You see the difference? I ain't
saying that you work out salvation in the sense that you're rewarded
with it for your works. He's telling you here something
about this building of this house. Something about the building
of this house. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereon,
he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned,
he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so
as by fire. Now there's three distinct works
talked about in these in these verses. And three distinct workers. First, there is God. Paul said,
I'm nothing and Apollos is nothing. This thing is about God. If God's
not in this, what's Paul? If God's not in this, I don't
care if he is an orator. He'll stand up there and rattle
about stuff that has no bearing on anything. Lots of our prime
time prophets in our day are orators. They're great orators.
They're fun to listen to. But they don't say anything.
They don't have a message. They're just orators. And that's
what Paul's telling these folks here. They're putting too much
emphasis on preachers. Preachers are important. And
I'm going to show you that. But preachers apart from God
are nothing. And that's what he's saying.
What's Paul? And what's Apollos? Who's the
planter and who's the waterer? What are they without God? It's
God that giveth the increase. So here's the first thing. There's
God. All of the work is done for Him
and according to His direction, His approval and His power, predestinating
all the means, arranging all the providence. Without His presence
and power, all work is for nothing and to no good end. It's to no
good end. And Paul's confidence in the
Philippians was that he which begun a good work in you. Well,
wait a minute now. I thought Paul ministered to
them. He did. I thought Paul preached to them. He did. Well,
I thought Paul taught them. He did. He did. But he didn't
have anything to do with this. And he said, here's my confidence,
that he that hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto
the day of Jesus Christ. Now, the second work and worker
is the minister of Christ. Without God, he's nothing. Without
God, his work is of no consequence. He's like a tool hanging in the
shed. I went out the other day to get a rake, and I looked down
through there just to take inventory. I forget what's back there. Maybe
I ought to use them more often. But I looked back there, and
there was rakes and shovels mattocks and hoes and all kinds of things
hanging up back there. But hanging there, they ain't
doing anybody, they're not, what good are they? Without the hand
to take them and put them into use and make them official, they
just hang on the wall. That's all preachers are apart
from the power of God. He's the minister of Christ and
without God, he's nothing. Without God, his work is of no
consequence. He's just like a tool hanging
on the wall. And then thirdly, he talks about man and man's
works. Now, brethren, we're talking
about believers here. We're not talking about unbelievers, because they're
all saved. Even those who had hay, wood,
and stubble, and now they're going to be saved, but so as
by fire. So we're talking about believers
here. And as the minister is nothing apart from God, neither
is the man. What's he going to do? What's
he going to do apart from God? I'll tell you what he's going
to do. He's going to do exactly what the God of this world tells him
to do. Feeds him. That's how he's going to act.
That's what he's going to do. As the work of the minister is
not effectual without God, neither is the work of the man. God that
worketh in you. That's what Paul said. Work out
your own salvation in fear and triumph. For it's God that worketh
in you. Well, wait a minute, he told
them to work. Yeah, he did. And then he told them how it's
going to be performed. Because it's God that worketh
in you. Let every man do this. All right.
Here's the second thing. In the first two chapters of
1 Corinthians, Paul establishes two things. First, that preachers
and preaching is the way in which God is pleased to create faith
in the hearts of men. God through the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe. This is God's way. It's plainly
taught throughout the New Testament. The preaching of the cross is
to them that are perishing foolishness, but unto us which are being saved,
it's the power and wisdom of God. Before Paul comes to chapter
3 to talk to them about preachers and talk to them about faith,
he tells them that the preachers are the means of God. They're
not wrong on that account. But they're just hanging too
much glory on them. Because preachers apart from
God can accomplish nothing. But neither can you. Neither
can you. And I'm telling you this on the
authority of this book, that nothing effectual will ever come
to pass in your hearts and in the hearts of your children,
and in the hearts of your children's children, nor of your neighbors
and friends, unless God is pleased in His providence to draw them
into a place and arrange such a time for them to come and be
confronted with God's minister. Nothing effectual is going to
come to pass. Preaching is the means of the
new birth. Of His own will, James said,
begat He us with the word of truth. God's own will. Look across here in 1 Corinthians
chapter 4. Look right across the page there.
Let me show you something. Here's this same man. Now he
just told them, he said, who is Paul and who is Apollos? We're
nothing. Nothing apart from God. But now
if God be with me, then we got another situation. If this is
God's means and God attends the ministry, Then there's some consequences.
Now watch this here. 1 Corinthians 4, verse 15. For though you have 10,000 instructors
in Christ, yet have you not many fathers? For in Christ Jesus,
now watch this, I have begotten you through the gospel. Wow,
what a statement. What a statement. Gospel preaching
is the means of the new birth. How shall you hear without a
preacher? Gospel preaching is the source of all spiritual growth. All spiritual growth. Romans
chapter 16, verse 25. Now, to him that is of power
to establish you. Who is he talking about? God.
Him who is of power to establish you. Now listen. According to
my gospel. Read 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
the first four verses, and you'll see there again where he tells
them. He said, you'll be saved if you keep in memory what I
preached unto you, otherwise you've believed in vain. It's the source of all spiritual
growth. And then thirdly, the gospel
preaching is the focal point of all true worship. You can't
worship God without the gospel being preached. How are you going
to worship God? You go back all the way to the
beginning. When Abel came before God, he
came with a lamb, didn't he? That was the focal point. That
was the centerpiece of his worship. When Abraham took Isaac, his
son, and went up onto the mountain, Isaac was about a 15-year-old
boy, and he saw the fire and he saw the wood, but he knew
this, as a 15-year-old child, you can't worship God without
a lamb. He said, where's the lamb? Where's the lamb? Come on down to the tabernacle.
Here's the tabernacle. How'd they worship God? What
was the central theme of that? The slain lamb. The slain lamb. Come all the way down to the
New Testament. Christ coming down that path. What did John
the Baptist say about it? Behold the lamb. You can't worship
God apart from that. That's what the gospel says before
men is the dying lamb, the sacrificial lamb, the substitutionary sacrifice
of God. And I'll tell you this, where
preaching's been relegated to the scrap heap, there's no worship
of God. No worship of God. He said we
are the true circumcision who worship God in the Spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus. Well, how are you going to rejoice
in Him if you don't know who He is? If you don't hear him
proclaimed, if he's not stirred up in your heart, you see what
I'm saying? He's the center point. He's the
focal point of all true worship. Preachers then are, as Paul declares
himself in Apollos, 1 Corinthians 3, look down at verse 5, ministers
by whom ye believe. Ain't that what he says? And then look down here in verse
9. He said, we're laborers together with God. What a statement. I beg you as your pastor and
as one who watches for your souls, don't treat the preaching of
the gospel common. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't you treat it common. Don't
you put it up on the wall with everything else. There's a time
for your family and there's a time for outings, and a time to go
to the lake, and a time to picnic, and all those things, and there's
a time for worship. But I tell you, don't you set
worship up there on the same, on the same level as you set
all these, you set worship over here all by itself. And then
all these other things over here, you can put them all around the
worship. Situate them around that. Don't do it the other way
around. have time will permit miss morning
i won't show you three things here in our text concerning the
faith of god's lake and the first thing is that a foundation must
be like now my natural trade before god put me in the minister
ministry is was building that's what i did for a living i've
i've built houses i've built hundreds of houses i could tell
you i mean i'd be big houses little houses medium houses i've
built commercial structures I've worked on ten-story buildings
and things. I've worked on all sorts of buildings. But I can tell you this, what
we're talking about here this morning is the great house, the
great house of faith. This is the house that God's
going to come and abide in. This is the house that God's
going to come into, and you're going to worship Him as though
it was a temple. This is the great house. This
is what enables you to worship God and meet with God and for
God to come and abide with you. We're talking about the great
house of faith. And as a builder, I can tell
you this, when a great house is built, it begins with a great
hole. Now that's how it starts. You're
going to build a big house, a mansion for somebody. I built houses
that were valued upward of of a million and a half dollars.
They were these huge, big mansions. And I'm telling you this, when
we started that thing, it was a mess. We had to go in there
and take everything that grew on the surface had to be scraped
away. Had to be taken away. Well, what does he say about
man and his glory? He said, it's just all grass.
All places grass. You're not going to build on
grass. The grass has got to go. What's the glory of man? That's
the flower of the grass. It has to go too. Yeah, but it's
pretty. It's got to go. We're going to build this great
house of faith and this grass has to be taken away. It has
to go. It has to go. Man is totally depraved. Do you believe that? There's nothing in you that God
can use on this house. Nothing. It's useless. You've got no knowledge. You've
got no understanding. You've got no goodness. You've
got no righteousness. You don't have any. There's nothing
on you to build. What He creates in you is a hole,
a big empty hole. He has to empty you out. He has
to take all the glory of man and it has to be scraped aside. And then He has to take all of
the trees. Trees are lacking unto knowledge
in the Scripture. He has to lay the axe to the
root. The tree has to go. You've got no knowledge. You've
got no understanding. You don't know anything to build
on. There's nothing there. Nothing.
He has to remove it all. He has to take it all out of
the way. I've got no hope when somebody comes in here and sits
down and listens to me for the first time of that man leaving
here with some kind of an understanding. The only hope I have is God will
create in his heart an interest and bring him back. If he brings
him back and he keeps coming back, God might teach him something.
But if he swells all up and leaves, God'll just leave the tree growing
there. He ain't gonna build his house. He don't scrape away the
grass. He'll just leave the old grass
there. He likes to lay in it, bask in the sun, look at his
glory anyway. what man does. Man is totally
depraved. His spiritual condition is described
as being dead. Dead. His will is biased to sin. You will not, that's what our
Lord said, you will not come unto me that you might have life.
His ways are not the ways of God. Destruction and misery are
in his ways. There is no fear of God before
his eyes and the fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom.
He walks, Paul said, in the vanity of his mind. His principles are
all of this world. He walks assuming God to be as
these false prophets and deceived men have told him that God is. Peter preached to the Jews and
he said that Jesus of Nazareth, whom you crucified, was said
it not of you builders. That's what they were. They were
preachers. They were builders. They are going to come in here
like Paul, the wise master builder, and they were going to come in
here and lay the foundation and contribute something to the spiritual
growth, and they were going to provide all the materials here
for these men to do this work. And he said, the first thing
you did is take the foundation stone, and you looked it all
over, you examined it, you looked at it, you listened to it, you
heard it, and so did I. You said it not, you builders,
he said, have said it not, the stone which God has made head
of the corner. This was God's rock upon which
he's going to build his church. And you looked at it and throwed
it aside. Throwed it aside. He's the head of the corner.
Neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other
name given among men whereby we must be saved. All hopes and
self-righteousness have to be excavated. Man at his best state
is altogether vanity. All of his righteousnesses are
as the pus-covered rags of a leper, unclean, like clothes of a dead
man. They dig him up. He's been out
here in the ground buried for years, and they go out there
and dig him up. You gonna put them clothes on and say, that's
my righteousness? And that's what he says about
ours. They're like filthy rags, unclean. All of his hopes, all
of his good works must be scraped away because that too is vanity. Salvation is of faith by grace. Are you saved through faith?
And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. God called, as Paul said, Here's
what he told young Timothy. He said, God has called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the
world began. Man's free will got to be hauled
off to the landfill. Throw it on the truck, it's got
to go too. Don't set it over there to be replanted. Just throw
it on the truck. It's got to go. Man's free will. He don't have a free will. It's
not of him that willeth. If he had one, still, it's not
of him. Just get that through your head.
Well, I've got a free will. So what? It ain't of you that
willeth. That's clear, isn't it? Then
why do we still argue about man's will? It don't matter if it's
free or not. He ain't going to will. His will got nothing to
do with it until God moves on him in power and he makes him
willing. Makes him willing. Oh, God comes to his elect in
the power of his spirit and he makes the preaching of the gospel
effectual. This is how Paul determined the
election of the Thessalonians. He said, when the word came unto
you, it came in power and demonstration of the Spirit. It wrought obedience
in the heart. You become followers of Christ
and of us. Humility manifest in their heart,
made them examples in the faith, gave them a zeal to promote his
gospel, turned them to God from their idols, and gave them a
patient hope. in an earnest expectation, and
they waited for the return of Christ. That's what the gospel
does when God accompanies the gospel. Having removed all of these things,
and He leaves in you this giant hole. You know exactly what I'm
talking about. Leaves there a hole. And we just keep looking, and
the only thing that comes back is an echo. There's nothing in
there. It's just a big, black, dark
hole. Darkness upon the face of the
deep. There's nothing in there. And
having removed all of this junk, He lays in us the great stone
upon which His church is built. Christ in the glory of His eternal
person and His deity. He's God. He's not a God. He's not some God. He's God.
Jesus Christ. There's a man sitting on the
throne of glory who is equal with the Father. He who thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation,
took upon him the form of the servant, and was made in the
likeness of sinful flesh." Oh, my soul. He lays in us that great
stone, and we see the glory of his eternal deity and Christ
in all of his offices and appartments. He's the priest. He's the one
who's worthy to go in before God, sanctified, take His own
blood into the presence of God, and offer it effectually on His
altar. Christ in all of His offices,
the one mediator between men and God, the advocate, the testator. Christ in all of His promises
and pictures and prophecies. Christ in His incarnation as
the God-man. God was made flesh and dwelt
among us. Christ in His representative
obedience. Christ in His sin-atoning, justifying
sacrifice. Christ in His resurrection. Christ
in His ascension into glory. Christ in His sitting upon the
throne and receiving the crown of glory. I've given Him a name
which is above every name. that His name every knee gonna
bow, every tongue gonna confess. He's Lord. Lord. Christ ruling and reigning as
our advocate, intercessor, and guarantor. He fills the great
hole with a great stone. And then He sets before us, He
sets before us all of the material. that goes into this great house
of faith. And you look out there, and this is what the preacher
does. He stands up here like I'm doing
to you this morning, and I'm trying to tell you, Christ is
the way. You want the grace of God, it's
in Christ. You want the salvation of God,
it's in Christ. All of these things that it takes
to compose this great house of faith are all together in Christ. But there's things out here that
are gold and silver and precious stone. These are the doctrines
of the grace of God. These are the doctrines of Christ.
Gold, silver and precious stone. These are the pure things. These
are the things which go into the temple. You look at the temple,
it wasn't built out of common stuff. You look inside that temple,
that temple is full of gold and silver and precious stones. It's
filled with glory on the inside. And he tells us that, but he
said there's also some hay, wood, and stubble. What's that? What is that hay, wood, and stubble? I'll tell you what it is. It's
just junk. It's endless genealogies. That's
hay. Endless genealogies. Man's philosophy. Oh, tradition. How about that? wood, hay, and stubble. That's
all it is. Ceremonies. We got to have a
ceremony. It's Wednesday on the third Monday
and we got to have this because we've always had it. That's just
hay, wood, and stubble. That's all that is. There's junk out there as well
as precious things. Philosophy, tradition, ceremonies,
abstaining from meats, Haywood and stubble. I don't
eat no pork. How about this? End time prophecies. Let's go back. I listened to
a message by Brother Mahan going over Wichita Falls and it was
on three things concerning the second coming of Christ. And
he just stopped right in the beginning and he said, now we're
not going to be looking at Daniel and Ezekiel's wheels and looking
at all these prophecies and talking about when and where and all
of these things and the tribulation and all of it. That's hay, wood,
and stubble. That's what that is. That's all
that it is. Be careful how you build the
house. Don't put this hay, wood, and stubble in it. You've got
gold and silver and precious gems of God to put in this house. This is God's house. This is
the great house of faith. David built that house. He didn't
short come on anything. He put exactly into that house
what needed to go into that house. Great things, precious things,
not hay, wood, and stubble. Why? Why? Because God's going to prove
the house. God's going to prove the house. I can tell you without hesitation
that what's used in the building of a house has everything to
do with how it weathers the storms of life and stands the test of
time. My wife and I had just finished
building, I guess, probably just a common house to everybody else,
but it was our dream house. We didn't have much money, we
just barely got it built, but we worked on that thing, and
I didn't cut any corners on this thing. Boy, if something required
six nails, I'd put ten. You know, it's my house. I was
careful how I put things in it. And shingles and all this stuff,
and we just barely got moved in. Something was going on, I
don't remember what it was, but we bought the kids some bicycles.
And they had to put them together. And so I left the kids. They
was old enough to be left alone. I left them there at the house.
And we just ran just a few miles away to pick up these bicycles
and come home. Well, there was a storm rolled up out of nowhere. Had 100 plus mile an hour straight
line winds. And she was in Walmart getting
the bicycles. And I was in the car out front.
And it was picking my car up. on the front wheels and rolling
me forward like that. And I couldn't get out of the
car because there was debris just blowing everywhere. You'd
get killed outside the car. So I just hunkered down in the
car and she was inside Walmart. As soon as this thing was over,
we run home. And I had visions of that house, the roof being
off and the kids being dead. We rolled up there and I wasn't
even missing a shingle. Lots of my neighbors had all
kind of damage, but my house stood. I know it stood by the
grace of God, but I'll tell you something. After it survived
that wind, I had confidence in that house. The wind blew it. It didn't hurt
it, John. It didn't come over. It stood right there where I
put it. Shingles didn't come off. It didn't leak. It didn't
do anything. It stayed right there. It weathered the storm. God is going to try His house.
He is going to build this house of faith. I know it is of God,
and you cannot build it apart from God, but God in you builds
this house. And He says, you are the builder.
He calls it, how many times here in this chapter does He call
this, every man's work. You see that? Verse 13, every
man's work shall be made manifest. Verse 14, if any man's work abides,
Verse 15, if any man's work shall be burned. Man's work, but it's
man's work because God works in him. But you be careful that
you do things with God, as fellow laborers with God, because that
haywood stubble is not of God, that's of you. Huh? That's of you. And here's what's
going to happen to it, God's going to burn it up. He's going
to burn it up. Now, he's not talking about judgment
here. He's not talking about in that
day of judgment, there'll be fire there. Men will be tried
according to their works. All of those things are true
way out yonder there in judgment, whenever that is. Could be tomorrow. Whenever that is. But that's
not what he's talking about here. He's talking about the fiery
trials. Same thing Peter talked about.
Fiery trials of your faith. like gold passed through the
fire. That's what you're going to do
with this great house of faith. He's going to pass it through
the fire, and all that's wood, hay, and stubble is going to
be destroyed. You'll be saved, but you're going
to be tormented. You're going to suffer, and you're
going to suffer needlessly because you used hay, wood, and stubble
instead of using these things that God set before you. That's
what happens. I know lots of believers who
suffer. They go through life and suffer this and suffer that
and they go through trials and fall apart and their hair falls
out and they get ulcers. Why? Because you used hay, wood,
and stubble. That's right. We use these precious
things of Christ as they're chosen of God, and predestinated of
God, and provided of God, and we take advantage of them, and
we use them, and we build our house. And God works in us. Paul, he was an overseer. He
watched over these people, but he was quick to tell them, this
thing's of God. It's of God in me that presents
it to you, and it's of God in you to fabricate the house. And how humbly, how humbly, oh,
I tell you, when I see the condescension of God in this thing, to call
it man's work. If any man's work shall abide,
why would they abide? Because God worked in him. God
worked in him. God helped us to see that this
thing of faith, you have to believe. God's not going to believe for
you. You're going to believe. But you'll never believe unless
God moves in you. then you will believe. You will
believe. And it'll be just as sure as
if you did it. But it'll be just as sure as
if God did it when it's all said and done. Our Father, teach us something
of these divine mysteries and the glory of God, this glorious
work of God that He does in us and through us and with us. both
in the preacher and in the hearer, in all the church. God, help
us to see it and rejoice in it. Have that great foundation. Oh,
what a foundation. What a strong rock is our Lord. Help us now with the things that
we say and do and how we live and all these other things. Help us to glorify your name.
Help us to show our thanksgiving and our appreciation. And help
us to show that in all reality it is the work of God and altogether
a work of grace. Bless the message now for Christ's
sake. Amen.