The Danger of Building on the Wrong Foundation
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Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
- We have been looking at the book of 1 Cor. And if you remember the main theme we have been looking at is the “Deconstruction of the Church”.
- Remember that the City of Corinth was a very busy and important city in the Roman Empire. There was a lot of business due to the trade route and the boats that would come to one of the 2 ports they had. There was a lot of people that travelled through the city because of the trade, because of the temples that were in the City and because of the Isthmian games that took place there every other year.
- All of these different people entering the City had a positive influence on the City financially, it made it a prosperous City, but along with the influence of money came the influences of the different philosophies, beliefs and practices that people had.
- All of these different philosophies and practices made up the City. The City was a City that was open to different ways of thinking, different ways of living , including a moral laxity, people basically doing whatever they wanted to do, including sexual immorality and freedom in religious ideas.
- Now this was not something that would be necessarily strange in this Roman culture where Paul was living, but what made Paul have concerns about the church in Corinth was the fact that the church had allowed itself to be influenced by the culture around them.
- The church began to adopt the ways of thinking and the way of behaving of the culture, which was leading to the Deconstruction of the church. Spiritual stones were being thorn down little by little with every acceptance of the worldly philosophies and practices.
Transition
- This is the reason Paul wrote this letter to the Church. He was bringing correction to what was going on in the church. And Paul’s hope was to stop the deconstruction of the church if you will , by bringing the corrections and Godly wisdom and realigning their focus back on the Lord Jesus.
- And one of the things we have tried to do in our studies is to point out some of these same principals in our lives and to tie in what Paul was saying to people and how it relates to our days.
- Because the same warnings Paul would bring are applicable to our lives today. So we have broken out our studies showing the warnings Paul gave and have tied it into our lives, showing that if we fail to obey Paul’s warnings….. we will allow the deconstruction of the church to take place within our lives, the deconstruction of our own faith.
- Here is what we have looked at already.
1. The Danger of not being unified will bring the Deconstruction of the Church
2. The Danger of believing that the cross is foolishness will bring the Deconstruction of the Church
3. The Danger of adopting the Spirit of the culture will bring the Deconstruction of the Church
And today we will look at the ….
“The Danger of building on the wrong foundation will bring the Deconstruction of the Church.”
Transition
- Last time we met we looked at Paul speaking about the Danger of Adopting the Spirit of the culture in Chp.2. Paul went on to tell us of the two basic groups we have.
- natural man- who is the person who does not know God. We saw that they cannot know the things of God because they have not had their eyes and minds open by the Holy Spirit to the things of God. They are spiritually dead to these things.
- Spiritual man- these are those who have had their minds and eyes open to the things of God, this is speaking about believers, who see truth, who understand the truth of God, who know God.
- But then Paul brings in a 3rd group in the beginning of Chp. 3.
- Carnal man- the carnal man is the one who has become a believer, who has had his mind and eyes opened to the truth, who knows God…… YET…… begins to adopt the spirit of the culture. He brings in the thoughts, practices and habits of the world , the non-believer into his life. He is a man who is living a double life.
- These are baby Christians who have stopped growing spiritually Paul would say. And so with this thought of “Growing Spiritually” we continue to look at chp. 3 .
Read- 3:1-4
part of the problem that Paul saw as a result of these carnal Christians was that they were divided. They were picking sides if you will with leaders. This leads Paul to his next train of thought.
I. The Vessels that God Uses (v. 5-8)
A. God gives to each person people who will influence them / help to believe, to grow and mature(v.5)
Paul asks a question .... Who is Paul, Who is Apollos?
Paul started the church in Corinth over his 18 month stay in the City.. But then after those 18 months, Paul would leave the area and go to Ephesus and Apollos would remain in Corinth ( Acts 19). We see in the book of Acts that Apollos was a gifted leader who was a great communicator. He would spend time pouring into the church in Corinth.
so Paul is asking who is Paul that you are siding with or who is Apollos that the other people are siding with? And he gives us the answer to his questions.
they are both “ministers” through whom you believed. That word minister is a “servant”.
What Paul is saying is that both he and Apollos were equal. They were both servants to God given to the people for a certain season, in order to produce growth in them. One was not greater than the other , but they were both tools in the hands of the master.
B. God gives the increase (v. 6-8)
Paul illustrates his point by using a farming illustration that they would be familiar with.
Paul was the one who came to Corinth and preached the gospel and people gave their lives over to Jesus. God used Paul to come to Corinth and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit and the word of God, the church was started.
He was the one who came and planted the seed if you will. In farming , the beginning steps to produce a crop is to break out the hard soil and to sow seeds. That is the beginning work.
The next step would be to water the seeds that were sown. The watering would produce crops out of the seed. And after months of watering and caring for the crops, the crops would produce a harvest.
Paul is saying that he was there in the beginning to work the hard soil of their hearts and to plant the seed of the word of God in their lives. And he was only there 18 months. Apollos would be the next leader to come in and begin to water , or to keep pouring into the lives of these believers after Paul had started.
Apollos may have seen the fruit of the work but it did not make him more important than Paul, both of these men were crucial in the growth of the church in Corinth.
Transition
Paul is giving us an important lesson to ministry and an important lesson for our lives. Paul is telling us that God brings people into our lives at different seasons for a specific purpose.
a great example is our youth ministry. You transition from the children’s ministry to Jr high. You get new leaders who will pour into you for 2 or 3 years . Then you have to say goodbye to them when you move to High School.
then you get to meet the new leaders and you build relationships with them over the next 4 years. They pouring into you , teach you, correct you and encourage you.
then you graduate. After that you move on to the young adults and have a new leader that will have the opportunity to pour into you.
Just in your teens you could have 10-20 different leaders at this church alone that God will bring into your life. Some will make a camio for a split second and others will remain in your life for a long time.
but God brings people into your life for the purpose of producing spiritual growth in you, and these new relationship sometimes are needed in order to stir up that growth. Now it doesn’t mean that one person is more important than the other, it just means that God is looking to produce further growth in you.
the thing to remember is that God is the one at work in your lives, He is the one who is orchastrating the changes, He is the one who is working through the people as vessels. At the end of the day it is God who does all of the work.
Each person will receive a reward for doing what God has called him to do.
II. The Creation God is building in us (v. 9-17)
A. The process God is working (v.9)
Paul reitterates what he has just said, “we” , all of us are God’s fellow workers. God is the one doing the work to produce growth in each one of us and the means He uses is people.
now Paul tells us that we, believers are God’s field , God’s building. Both of these illustrations are meant to describe a desire to produce something , or to see something grow into something that is profitable.
Paul moves on from the agricultural illustration to describe us as God’s building.
Transition
Paul is speaking figuratively here and saying that we are God’s building. Well what does he mean?
Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Peter tells us that we are living stones that are being built up into a spiritual house. The moment you and i place our faith in the Lord Jesus as our Saviour , there is this work that God begins in us. He begins the process of building us up spiritually. There is a growth process that takes place. Peter is using this same illustration as paul used saying that we are these living stones that God is building…
What is God Building?
V.16 - Paul tells us what type of building we are.... “you are the temple of God”.
in the old testament the Temple of God was where the presence of God dwelt. The people could not have access to God other than through the sacrifices offered by the priests. But no one had real access to God. In the new testament we see that Jesus became our spotless lamb that took away the sins of the world.
Through His blood we now have full access to God. (Heb. 4:16)
In the book of John Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will be with us, and will be in us.
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
Jesus promises that God will make His home in us. Our bodies become the temple of God where He longs to live.
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
This is what God is longing to build in us spiritually. But this also has reference to the church collectively as a whole. Each individual believer is a member of the church of God. We are all individual stones that are built together , upon each other to make the place where God dwells. Not a specific building but the church or the people of God is where God dwells.
B. The Importance of a Good foundation (v. 10-11)
Paul understands his role in the lives of people. He knows that his influence is not about him but by the “grace” of God, he had the opportunity to pour into the lives of the people in Corinth.
Since Paul was the first one to come to Corinth and preach the Gospel , and to see these people come to faith, he tells us that he laid the foundation and another built on it.
Transition
i have involved in the electrical and construction industry at some level for over 20 years. i have worked and been a part of projects where there is nothing but dirt all the way until a build is erected.
and it doesn’t what type of building is going up, the first thing that has to be placed first , is a concrete foundation. This foundation is the first thing that has to be laid in order to build any part of the building.
The foundation has to be firm, strong, without any defects or weakpoints. The foundation has to be able to hold up the weight of the building in the midst of the weather over the years.
Paul is telling us that he was this master builder that laid a strong and firm foundation spiritually in their lives and others like Apollos built upon it.
Paul tells us what type of foundation he laid. He tells us that no other foundation can be laid other than Jesus Christ.
Transition
As we have looked at already in the past studies, Paul made it a point not to come with fancy speech or with philosophies of the world. He did not attempt to convice the people with eloquent speech.
but he made it a point to come and preach nothing but the message of the cross. The message that God loved the world that He gave His only Son to die on the cross for our sins, that through Him, we may live.
this is the very same firm foundation that as youth leaders we are trying to build in you. That you would know that Jesus is God, that Jesus is the only way to heaven, that the bible is the word of God. That there is only one God.
We want to help to lay a solid foundation that you would be able to build upon that.
Now Paul is speaking this to a Church who was influenced by the culture around it. A culture that thought very highly of human philosophies, that had low moral standards.
Paul is trying to get them to understand the foundation laid for them, Jesus being the main thing and the center which holds all things together. building a spiritual house one stone at a time upon the right foundation will produce a spiritual building that God is pleased with.
but the opposite is true, a house that is built on a wrong foundation will leave a house that is weak, that is subject to falling during hardships, that will not last a long time but will fall apart.
jesus gave a parable about this.
“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Jesus makes it clear, the person who hears and obeys His words is the one who is building on a solid foundation, on the rock, himself. But the fool, is the one who chooses not to listen and builds his house on the sand and when the storms come, the house falls.
Transition
There is an importance on building the right foundation. Whatever foundation you chose to build on will determine the level of strength the house will have and the longevity it will have.
Paul and Jesus both told us that the right and proper foundation to build on is the Rock..... Jesus himself.
Question
What is the wrong foundation?
The wrong foundation is the philosophies of the world. The thoughts that there are many ways to heaven. The thoughts that God is not real, the thought that the bible is not the word of God. The thought that Jesus is not God and is not the only way to be saved. The thought that you are good enough to earn your way into heaven.
the thought that God is pleased with me just because my parents are Christians.
these are just some of the things that people have bought into and they are building their entire lives upon
not only are we to be aware of what type of foundation we are building on but we must be aware of what type of house we are building. The type of foundation we build on will often influence the type of house we will build.
C. How we build on that foundation (v. 12-15)
Paul continuing with this thought tells us that we are to consider what type of material we choose to build a house and he gives us different types of material.
gold, silver & precious stones speaks of good material. The thought is in reference to the Temple of God that was built with these items. All of these things are material that will last and will endure the fire.
the fire speaks of the testing or the judgement believers will see when we die, where we will not be judged on for heaven or hell, but we will be judged on what we did and the motives of what we did.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences.
wood, hay and straw - speaks of worthless things that will not last. The fire will consume them.
Paul is telling us to build things that will have eternal weight, that will last into eternity, to build on the things of God.
What are these things?
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
in this passage in Acts we are told, that the church grew and multiplied because they did these things. They made it a point to continue in the word of God, they made it a point to be in prayer, they made it a point to have fellowship and they made it a point to have intimacy with Jesus in communion. Because they did these things, they grew individually and grew as a church.
i had two great conversations yesterday with the Pastor of Calvary Vista and with our Pastor Lance. And i was picking their brains about what caused the growth in the people they were pouring into years ago, and what they saw in those that did not grow and even fell away. And they both had the same experiences.
Both described a version of Acts 2:42, what we just read. It was the cultivating a desire in the people to get into God’s word, cultivating disciplines within the people to pray, to cultivate intimacy with God that created long term growth.
and both described the same thing. That each person had to want to cultivate those things. Both experienced people who maybe had a knowledge of God but did not have a personal intimate relationship with Him,
some were all in at every event, every service, took notes, asked questions, and some didn’t want to be there, they had no interest or passion for God. And both 30 years + serving God saw the same thing...... those that were all in and pursued God are the ones who built on a solid foundation and who built with the right material and they grew and are still growing.
yet those who were not all in were the ones who built on a wrong foundation, they believed the lies of the world, they followed the crowd, they spent their lives building with things that will not last, that are temporal , careers, popularity, fame, body images, relationships, passions and sins. etc.
Question
Which one of these two would you want to be?
Why wouldn’t you want to be the one that grows spiritually in the Lord?
now the things that we will consume ourselves with building will have a direct influence on what type building we will be.
D. What type of building we will be (v. 16-7)
We have already discussed that we are the temple of God where God dwells. That word temple in the greek is speaking of the holy of holies where God’s very presence was.
At the end of verse 17 it tells us that the temple of God is Holy, or set apart, or different. When you look at these two things in light of us, Paul is saying that we are to be holy and set apart, we are to be different . God is holy and therefore we should be holy.
but we also see that there is the ability to defile ourselves, which speaks of bringing things into our lives that are not holy. Things that will not please God. Things that we watch, things that we listen to can all be things that will defile us, will dirty us.
understand how this works. Because all of you that are here have sat long enough in our studies where we are laying a foundation in your life on Christ. But you will make the choice of who or how you will build that spiritual house.
if you remove yourself from building with the things of God, remove the daily reading of the word of God, remove daily praying, remove being around other believers , remove being intimate with Jesus...... you will ultimately involve yourself with things that will defile you. it’s only a matter of time.
if you find yourself struggling with sins today that are defiling you..... take self inventory, because you have probably removed one or all of these safe guards from your lives.
III. Avoid Worldly Wisdom (v.18-23)