Let's turn today to 1 Corinthians
chapter 3. 1 Corinthians chapter 3. I love to hear those pages being
turned. Good to bring the scripture,
bring the Bible. As I read the Word of God, you
look on it at the same time. And I, brethren, could not speak
unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto
babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and
not with meat. For hitherto you were not able
to bear it, neither yet now are you able. For you are yet carnal,
for whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions,
are you not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith,
I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is
Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, even as the Lord
gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered,
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, and every man shall receive his own reward
according to his own labor, for we are laborers together with
God. You are God's husbandry, you
are God's building. 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. Well, let every man
take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man
build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest. For the
day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire.
And the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which
he hath built thereupon, 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. Know you not that you are the
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any
man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the
temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. 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. 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, and Christ
is God's. In coming to my text this morning,
I want to remind us of several things. First of all, Corinth
We know it was a city of Greece. It was located on an isthmus,
and the apostle Paul had been used of God to bring the gospel
to that city. Incidentally, you've been watching
the Olympics. You know the Olympics first began
in Greece, and there was on the isthmus, the isthmus games. And I looked at a list of the
games that they competed in and I didn't find breakdancing. I saw there was boxing and there
was track and several other things, but nothing like we have today
in the Olympics. But Corinth was a wealthy city. It was located, as I said, on
an isthmus. And they would unload a ship
on one side of the isthmus and pass it through Corinth to the
other side, kind of like a canal, only there was no canal. But
it helped in shipping. And so many things, merchandise,
came through Corinth It was a very wealthy city. It was a very religious
city. And when Paul was there, God
spoke to him. It seemed as if Paul maybe had
some fear, some timidation in preaching the gospel there because
the Lord spoke to him in a vision saying, be not afraid, be not
afraid, but speak. and hold not thy peace, for I
am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee, for
I have much people in this city. What's interesting about that
is, though they had not yet been called, they had not been saved
by the grace of God, experienced salvation, yet God declared that
he had much people in that city. Many of God's elect were there,
and God raised up a very large church. But after Paul left,
divisions developed in the church as we see in these verses that
I read. And the divisions were around
different preachers, different ministers. Some said they were
of Paul, some of Apollos, some of Cephas, and some just said,
well, we are of Christ. This revealed to Paul their lack
of spiritual growth, causing him to refer to them as babes
in Christ. You notice that in verse one.
And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but
as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. And then if
you notice the last two verses of the chapter where the apostle
said, Therefore let no man glory in men, for all things are yours. Not only are all pastors, ministers,
preachers Are they given to the church for the benefit of the
church? But everything, Paul says, is
yours. You've become an heir, a joint
heir with Christ, and everything is his, so then everything is
yours. The world, life, death, things
present, things to come, all are yours because you are Christ
and Christ is God's. Now, I want to speak to us primarily
this morning from verses 10 through 15. In these verses, the apostle
speaks of ministers as builders, as builders. In the word of God,
ministers are referred to under a number of different occupations. I was reading this past week
in the book of Ezekiel. And God told Ezekiel, I've set
thee as a watchman. A minister is a watchman. Now,
in that context of Ezekiel, we know that the cities, they had
walls around them, and they would set watchmen upon the walls. And if they saw an enemy coming,
then they were to inform the city, to set an alarm that there's
an army coming, an enemy coming. You know, as a pastor, it's a
responsibility to warn you. When I see you growing lax in
your attendance, I've got to warn you. I don't like to do
this. I never have. But I know it's
a responsibility that God has given me, and I want to be faithful. But I want to warn those of you
today who have become lax in attending the worship services. You do it to your own hurt, to
your own detriment. We live in a world that is anti-God. And as a believer, as a child
of God, we all have three major enemies. We have the flesh that
we carry with us always. And we have the world and, of
course, Satan who goes about as a lion seeking whom he may
devour. You say, well, he could never
touch me. He could never devour me. I would just remind you of
Peter, of Peter, how he got tricked up by Satan, didn't he? And ended
up denying his Lord three times. Yes, we have real enemies. And
I must warn us of those enemies. I must warn myself. And I must
warn you. And ministers are also most often
spoken of as pastors, as shepherds. And as a shepherd, our responsibility
is to feed the flock, to feed the people of God. You're God's
children. How many times I think about
the verse in the Psalms, that reminds me that I'm pastoring
and preaching to God's sheep, to God's people. They're not
mine. You're not mine. You're his. And he must give me the food.
He must give me the food with which to feed you. The word of
God, I know, is the food, but he must lead me to the right
place and anoint the word It's not just the word alone, but
it is the word anointed of God, the Holy Spirit. When I stand
in this pulpit, I don't want to be here by myself. I don't
ever want to be here alone. The Lord Jesus Christ said, without
me, you can do nothing. And I know that, and I feel that. And I pray for God's help, and
I trust that you pray for me as well. But in this passage,
Paul is not speaking of ministers as watchmen or as shepherds,
but as builders. Notice in verse 10, he said,
according to the grace of God, which is given unto me as a wise
master builder. Now, I think I'm right in these levels, but in the trades, when
a man begins to learn a trade, he begins as an apprentice. And
then after a while, he becomes, I believe, a journeyman, and
then eventually a master, a master in whatever trade it is. Did
you see that Paul said, according to the grace of God, which is
given unto me as a wise master builder. Now that was true of
all the apostles. All the apostles, they were wise
master builders. Let me read you a verse. You
may want to turn over here to Ephesians, just a few pages over. Ephesians chapter two, where
Paul mentions this fact. Ephesians chapter two and verse
20. and are built, he's speaking
to the believers, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
You see, our faith is built upon the foundation of the apostles,
that is the word of God. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. We could have no faith if we
did not have the Word of God. And if a person has faith and
it's not based upon the Word of God, it's not true faith. Our faith is built upon the foundation
of the apostles. They are the ones that God chose
to write the Word of God, inspired to write the Word of God. And
if you turn back to our text now, I must point this out. that Paul speaks of himself,
wrote of himself as a master builder, but do you see he's
quick? He's quick to acknowledge by
the grace of God. Notice that. According to the
grace of God, which is given to me as a wise master builder
to be made a minister, a builder. To be made useful in the ministry
to anyone is only by the grace of God. God, that's my prayer,
that I would be useful to you as a minister. And I know that
will only be so by the grace of God. Now, there's three points to
my message. First of all, I want us to see
the importance of the foundation. We all recognize that. When you
build a building, you've got to get that foundation right.
I mean, it's too late once you've raised a superstructure on the
foundation. It's too late then to deal with
the foundation. The building or the laying of
the foundation is so important in the work of the ministry.
Paul says here, 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 thereon, for other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. We cannot stress too
much the importance of the foundation, that your faith be built upon
a good foundation. Turn back with me to Matthew
chapter 7 just a moment. One of the longest sermons of
our Lord that is recorded is the Sermon on the Mount, and
as a good pastor, good preacher, the greatest He illustrated his
message, and he comes down to the end. If you look in chapter
7 and verse 24, he said, Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them. It's not just hearing, right?
Not just hearing, but do it. He that heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man. which built his house upon a
rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the
wind blew, and beat upon the house, and it fell not, for it
was founded upon a rock. And everyone that heareth these
sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a
foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. The rain
descended, the floods came, the winds blew, and beat upon that
house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." Our Lord
illustrates the truth that it's not just hearing the Word of
God, but it is doing, believing. This is the will of God, that
you believe on Him whom God has sent, whom God has sealed. It's
not just hearing the Gospel, it's believing the Gospel. He
speaks of two men, and both men, I want you to notice, both men
built a house. And both men recognized that
there was going to be a day when they would need a house. But
one was a fool. Now, when the Bible calls a person
a fool, we're not talking about low IQ. Not at all. Who's a fool according to the
Word of God? A fool is one who says, no, God. A fool, according to the Word
of God, is a man who doesn't receive the Word of God, the
testimony of God, the message of God. And therefore, he doesn't
build upon the rock, upon Jesus Christ. How does a person build upon
the rock? That's important, isn't it? You
say, preacher, I know, I see in the word of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ is the foundation, he's the stone. But how do we
build upon the rock? Well, I just remind us of what
the Apostle Paul said when he met with the elders of Ephesus. for the last time. It's recorded
in Acts chapter 20. But he told them that his ministry
among them had been twofold. First of all, testifying repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's
the way a person builds upon this rock. Repentance toward
God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. They're like two
conjoined twins, two sides of the same coin, repentance and
faith. You cannot have one without the
other. And they are both gifts of God. Peter declares in the book of
Acts that Christ, God hath anointed Christ to be both a prince and
a savior for to give repentance unto Israel. Repentance is a
gift. Faith is a gift. Now, you must
repent and you must believe, but God gives you the repentance
and the faith. It's a gift. Now, what is repentance? Well, it's more than just turning
over a new leaf. Some people, they, uh, They just
decide for whatever reason, you know, I think I'm gonna start
going to church. And so they do. And I'm gonna stop cursing. And I'm gonna stop this. I'm
just going to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to be a better
person than I've ever been. That's good, but that's not repentance. That's not repentance. You say,
well, what is repentance? Repentance is acknowledging the
truth. It's a change of mind. It's acknowledging
the truth that God declares about me here in his book. What does
he say about me? He tells me that I have a heart
that is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. He
tells me there's none good, no not one. There's none righteous. And I changed my mind. I'm given
a granted repentance of change of mind about myself. And I come
to see that I'm nothing but a wretch. That's what I am. I'm a wretch.
There's nothing good about me. And my case is hopeless. It's hopeless. If God were to
let me live here a thousand more years, I wouldn't be any better
after a thousand years than I am today. I may make many, many
resolutions and turn over new leaves, but in the end, I'm still
the same person that I ever was. I'm a person who has a heart
that is wicked, that's evil. And out of the heart, our Lord
said, come these evil thoughts and lies and adulteries and all
those different things. Repentance is accepting the truth,
acknowledging the truth of what God says about me here in his
word. And I would say this too, it's
realizing that we've sinned against God. You know, a good example
of repentance is the prodigal son. You know, when he was in that
hog pen, he came to himself, the scripture says. What did
he say? He said, I'll arise and go to
my father. And I will say, father, I've
sinned against thee and I've sinned against heaven. Make me
as one of your hired, sir. I'm no more worthy to be called
one of your sons. Repentance is acknowledging what
God in his word declares about us. What is faith? Faith is leaning. It's putting
all your weight upon Christ. Just like a man under the law,
the law of Moses, when he would bring an animal to sacrifice,
To the priest, to the tabernacle, he would put both of his hands
on the head of that animal and lean heavy, put all of his weight
on that animal. Faith is putting all your hope,
all your trust in Christ alone for salvation. That's what faith
is. To realize that Christ is a sufficient
savior, and his work is finished. I don't add anything to his work. Salvation is by something that's
done completely outside of me, by his work, by his person and
his work. Well, my second point is the
importance. We all recognize the importance
of the foundation, don't we? I mean, we must be built upon
Christ. The second thing is the importance
of the building materials in verse 12. Now, if any man build
upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and
stubble. Now, ministers are to build upon
this foundation. And Paul tells us we are to build
with gold, silver, and precious stones. What does he mean by
that? Gold, silver, and precious stone. Well, we know that he means sound
doctrine. We know that. To Titus, the apostle Paul wrote
that a minister must hold fast the faithful word as he has been
taught that he may be able by sound doctrine to exhort and
convince. So we know that gold, silver,
and precious stones refers to sound doctrine, to the Word of
God. It's not sad stories and things like that that ministers
are to build with, but we are to build with the Word of God. Now he divides these into gold,
silver, and precious stones, and I thought about the tabernacle,
and this is the way I want us to look at it. The gold and the
silver and the precious stones and the tabernacle of old, built
with gold. Now, you know, the first thing
we think about that tabernacle, there was furniture in it, and
it was made of two materials, the Ark of the Covenant, the
table of showbread, the golden altar, all of it,
they were made with two materials, wood, which was incorruptible. And that pictures to us the sinlessness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, His humanity. But then it was all
overlaid with gold, which pictures His deity. Build with gold. Deity. Talk about God. Speak about God. Tell the people,
Paul says, build upon this foundation of Christ the truth about God. The God that we believe in, the
God that we proclaim, He's the almighty God. He's not some wannabe
God. He's a God who doeth His will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
And none can stay His hand or question Him and say, what are
you doing? Build upon this foundation gold. People, the truth about God,
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is God Almighty. And we know that he has a number
of characteristics, they call them attributes. And when we
think about them, they all show his perfection. The fact that
he is omniscient, he knows all things. Build on that, build
with that. That's a good material to build
with. That God knows everything about
you, everything about me, and everything about everyone else.
That nothing can be hidden from Him. And His omnipresence, that
He's everywhere present at the same time. There's no place in
His world, His universe, where God does not inhabit. Tell the truth about His power,
that He's all-powerful. There's nothing too hard for
Him. Nothing too hard for Him. Tell about His everlasting covenant,
the covenant that He made with Himself before the foundation
of the world, covenant in which the Lord Jesus Christ stood as
surety for those that the Father gave Him. This will put meat on your bones,
these truths about God. I'm talking about your spiritual
bones. This will put meat on your spiritual
bones. The more you hear and the more
you learn about God, how great He is, how mighty He is, how
loving He is, how good He is. how gracious He is. We can never,
ever exhaust the truth about the glory of God. Built with
gold, with gold. I was thinking about this. He's
such a God that in the book of Isaiah, in one chapter, He calls
Jacob, fear not thou worm Jacob. What's smaller than a worm? What's more needful or helpless
than a worm? What's more unworthy than a worm? He calls Jacob a worm. But then
in the next chapter, he says that he can, they that wait upon
the Lord shall mount up with wings like an eagle. Can you
picture that? Here we are pictured as a worm. But then in the next chapter,
our God is so great, he can take a worm and transform him into
a mighty eagle, an eagle. Oh, tell the people about God,
about who he is. One of my favorite attributes
about God is that he's immutable. He doesn't change. We change
with the wind, don't we? We get up in the morning, we
have this plan or that plan, and just a few minutes, we've already
changed our thoughts, our plans. Not God. He's never had to change
any of his plans, his counsel. Why? because they're made in
wisdom. There's never a need for him
to change. We learn things. He knows all
things. Build with gold. And then with
silver. What does silver represent to
us in the tabernacle? When Israel, the nation of Israel,
were delivered out of Egypt, you remember God passed over
Egypt and in the houses where the blood was applied, The firstborn
did not die. But in the houses where there
was no blood, the firstborn was taken. Well, when they came out
of Israel, God claimed all the firstborn as his. They're mine. I redeemed them with the blood
of the lamb. But instead of taking all the
firstborn of all the tribes of Israel, the 12 tribes, He said,
I'll take the tribe of Levi, but number, count, take a census. Tell me how many firstborns there
are in all of Israel and how many in the tribe of Levi? Men, I believe, above 20 years
of age. And there came up more firstborn
in Israel than in the tribe of Levi. So God said, they've got
to be redeemed. every one of them, and how were
they redeemed? With a shekel of the sanctuary,
five shekels of the sanctuary, and that was made of silver.
Silver is a picture to us, to me, of redemption. You know, there are three Greek
words that are translated redeemed or redeem in the New Testament,
and all of them have a little different shade of meaning. Galatians 3 and verse 13, we
read, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Now,
the meaning there of that word is to purchase. It's actually
to come into the slave market, to go into the slave market and
purchase a slave from the market. And that's what our Lord did.
He came into the into this world and redeemed us by his blood. And he redeemed us from slavery,
from servitude. We were bound by sin and Satan. And he redeemed us from the curse
of the law. And then in Titus 2, who gave
himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity.
Now there, that word means to give a receipt, a ransom. He ransomed us by his blood and
ransomed with the intent to loose, to give freedom. Redemption speaks
of deliverance, deliverance from the enslavement of sin. And not
only released from the slavery of sin, but released to freedom
to serve God. Every message that a minister
preaches, he's got to find some way to get to the cross. That's right. He's got to find
some way in that passage of scripture to get to the cross, to speak
about Christ and his blood, his redemption. That's what I try to do every
time. Build with gold, build with silver,
speak about redemption, how that all of those that Christ redeemed
are going to be saved. He redeemed them. He didn't make
it possible. He redeemed his people. And then
the precious stones. The precious stones, remember
on the high priest, he had that ephod that had 12 stones on it. The name of each tribe was on
one of those stones. And the high priest, he bore
the people of God on his heart. Tell the people about their high
priest and how much he loves them, how much he cares for the
people, his people. How He intercedes for His people.
How you are the apple of His eye. We sang that hymn, He loved me
before I knew Him, and all my love is due Him. Did you get
that in that old hymn, Victory in Jesus? He loved me before
I knew Him. Oh yes, He loved you from eternity. with an everlasting love. You've
been chosen, you're loved, you're kept by the grace of God. Comfort the people of God with
the truth about their surety. The last thing, the importance,
the importance of the foundation, the importance of the building
material, gold, silver, and precious stone, but the importance of
only building with the truth. Paul calls these other things
wood, hay, and stubble. And a man might build with them.
They're all combustible. A man might build something very
big with the wood, hay, and the stubble, but it's all going to
be consumed. Every man's work is going to
be tried by fire. My work, every preacher, that
is called of God, our work is going to be tried one day by
fire. And only that which is gold,
silver, and precious stones is going to come through. What is
the reward which every minister desires to hear, desires to receive? What is the reward? Well, I can
speak for myself. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. That's a reward. To hear my Lord,
I trust, one day say that to me. Well done, thou good and
faithful servant. It's required of a minister that
we be faithful. You know, some people, the men
in the ministry, they think, well, what's important is to
be successful, and they judge success by numbers, just like
the world. Taylor Swift, she can get a larger
crowd than any preacher, right? That's how the world thinks,
by numbers, that a person is successful,
no? In God's service, a person is
successful if he's faithful, faithful to the Word of God. I trust the Lord will make me
faithful. We're going to sing a hymn.