Survive The Fire

INTRODUCTION

Good morning and welcome again to First Christian Church. I am so glad you are with us today as we gather to worship our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We are continuing in our study in the book of 1 Corinthians this morning, and I would invite you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 3, starting in verse number 5.

Around 8:30 pm on the night of October 8th, 1871, a lantern inside a barn is knocked over. To us today, this may not sound like much. But it had been a very dry summer that led to the beginning of a dry fall. The city of Chicago was predominantly built with wood. Most of the roads and sidewalks were made out of wood.

These conditions, plus a strong wind, created a perfect storm for the Great Chicago fire. The wind coupled with warm air in the area actually created fire whirls, essentially tornados carrying embers and debris, across town. By the time the fire burned itself out it had consumed an area 4 miles long and ¾ of a mile wide. It caused $222 million in damage, roughly $5 billion in 2025 money, and took at least 121 lives, but they admit that count is not accurate.

This fire did something, though: it changed how Chicago built buildings. There was a drive to build with fire-resistant materials like stone, brick, and steel. This even led to the creation of skyscrapers.

What does the Great Fire in Chicago matter to 1 Corinthians? Today, Paul will talk about the refining fires that our work will pass through. Fire consumes combustible things, leaving ash and soot in its wake. Things that are not combustible are refined or stand strong. We will see how this ties in with the work we do as believers.

Would you join me this morning in prayer?

PRAY

Now that we are well-versed in the Great Fire, let’s turn our attention to the third chapter of 1 Corinthians. We will start in verse 5:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

1 Co 3:5–9.

The meat of this letter from Paul was combatting the division rising in the church at Corinth, and Paul is continuing this thought that we looked at over the last couple weeks. The church was dividing into groups around who they liked as leaders, and this division was not healthy.

To further push this through, Paul is reminding the church here, ‘what is Apollos’ and ‘what is Paul?’. These questions are still useful today. What is Shane? What are you? What did Paul say? Servants. We are servants to the Lord. I am nothing more than a servant of God. You are a servant of God. We are carrying out the orders of the one who saved us. As servants, we serve.

We serve by caring for our neighbors. By serving here at church, there are countless places you could plug in to help here. We serve by showing the love of Jesus to the world around us. We serve by doing the commands of Jesus, and the biggest command we all have is to take the Gospel to the world.

Paul explains that gospel work by comparing it to farming. He plants, Apollos waters, but God gives the growth. The one who plants, and the one who waters are nothing, only God gives the growth. This should be reassuring to us. I am not responsible for the growth. I am not responsible for what the Holy Spirit does in the heart of people, but I am to plant the seed or water it.

I have shared before about my gardening woes. I can do demo really well, I can cut things down and pull stuff out of the garden. I tend to struggle to get nice new plants to grow and thrive. It is just what God has done in my life. It is also a great reminder to me of how God works. When I plant in the garden, I can work the soil, I can plant the seeds, and I can water the flower beds. What I can’t do is force the flower to grow. Once I put that seed in the ground, it is out of my control.

In our spiritual work, I can share the gospel, talk about Jesus, share what God has done in my life, show love to a neighbor, or help someone in need, but I cannot make them believe. I can spread the seeds of the Gospel, or I can water the seed that someone else has spread, but only God will provide the growth. We can feel the pressure come off of us to make people believe, but that does not remove the responsibility we have as servants to continue the mission.

It is also important to see here that while one may plant and one may water, we are all on the same team. We may have a different role today; we may present the gospel to someone at the store, and they give their life to Jesus, or we may just invite someone to come to church. Our roles may look different from day to day, but we are all on the same team. We are the field that seed was planted in, and we are the proof that God still gives growth. We are the building God has worked on to show the world what He can do.

But a building is only as strong as its foundation. Look back at verse 10:

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

1 Corinthians 3:10–15.

Paul says that he has laid a foundation. He built the foundation of this church. Remember, Paul founded this church. He was the church planter and first pastor of the church at Corinth. He was laying the foundation of the church, there from day 1, and able to speak to the church in a way that no other apostle would have been able to. But what kind of foundation did Paul lay down? Verse 11 tells us that the only foundation that the church can be built on, and the only foundation we should build our life on, is Jesus Christ.

For all of us, the foundation has to be Jesus Christ and the message of the Gospel. No other foundation will stand to the test of this life. We build our foundation on Christ, and Psalm 127 even tells us to let God be the one that builds:

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

Psalm 127:1.

So, not only is Jesus the foundation, but God is the builder. Just as we trust that He is the one that provides the growth, He is the one that builds the house. We want to build with material that withstands those testing fires. Paul laid down the foundation, but others have come along to build on that foundation. We have to be aware that not everyone who wants to build on the foundation should be building on the foundation. Just as in the construction world, there are bad contractors and good contractors, we see the same when it comes to our spiritual life.

When we become believers in Jesus, we lay down a foundation on which the rest of our faith life will be built. A foundation that is built on Jesus is a strong, firm foundation. Even with a good foundation, you can build with inferior materials that will lead to the failure of the house. The foundations of many of the buildings that were destroyed in the fire in Chicago may have been strong, but the buildings could not stand up to fire.

Our faith building will have a strong foundation when it is built on Jesus. We have to make sure we are building with strong material. What does that mean? We have to make sure our learning lines us with scripture. Paul expands this idea in 2 Corinthians 11:

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough

2 Corinthians 11:3–4.

The temptation to leave behind the true gospel was strong for the church at Corinth. Paul gives them the advice in 1 Corinthians to watch out for what they build with, and here in 2 Corinthians, he disciplines them over their quick decisions to leave and follow false gospels.

How do we learn from the mistakes of the church at Corinth? We watch out for what we build with. How do we measure up good material against bad? We have to know what good material is. How do bank tellers learn to tell the difference between real and fake bills? They study and get so accustomed to what a real $20 bill is, that the counterfeit sticks out to them. How can we tell when something is bad? When something is an inferior material to build with? We are so used to what truth is that false teaching sticks out.

How do we get used to the truth of the Bible? We learn it. We study it. We read it. We come to church and get involved in a Sunday School class, CR, or Tuesday Morning Bible Study. We listen to Bible teachers, we consume the Word of God. We spend time daily in His word. As we do this, we are sharpening our minds and growing the mind of Christ in us. As we grow and get more and more acquainted with the truth, the false teaching is so much more noticeable.

This also speaks to the work we do here on earth. I want to make sure you hear me first: our works do not save us. The foundation is built on the sacrifice of Christ and the free gift of salvation we have received when we admit that we are sinners, believe that Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, and follow Jesus as our Lord and our Savior. After we are saved, though, there are works for us to do. This is an act of obedience toward Jesus. It is the planting and watering that Paul talked about. This is loving God with all we have and loving others as ourselves. Parents, this is us trying to lead our families and children to learn to love God. Planting and watering those seeds not only at church but in our homes.

Paul is telling us that these materials that have built our house of faith will be tested by a fire. This fire is not salvific, but an evaluation of the work we did with our talents given to us. What did we do with the time given to us here on earth? We must guard what we let build on our foundation, and we build on that foundation ourselves with what we do. The Christian life is not a call to come and sit in the same pew for 50 years and never go beyond it. The Christian life is a call to follow God where He leads and listen to what He calls us to. It is a reliance on God’s strength, not my own. It is learning from the wisdom of God, not trusting my own.

Those that survive will be rewarded. What is this reward? It could be more responsibility in the Millenial Kingdom, it could be crowns that we can cast to the feet of Christ. It could even be praise from God for the work we did.

This also carries extra weight for those who teach. When you are called to be a teacher, you are called to be able to rightly divide the Word of God. It can feel intimidating to do so. But it is also a test to those who say they want to teach. It takes work. It takes time to study. It takes time of prayer for God to be heard and not you. It takes the Holy Spirit to guide your mind as you study and teach. I personally believe that a lot of wood, hay, and stubble that will be burned will be from teachers that relied not on God, but themselves. People who didn’t teach the word of God, but taught opinion as truth. People who led the flock astray. Some may have even thought they were doing it in the name of the Lord, but their conviction was not from the Bible.

Don’t let this scare you from ever being used by God to teach something. But understand why I, and this church, take it seriously with what is taught. Why we care that lessons from the Nursery to Sunday School and preaching Sunday morning matter.

As we wrap up today, take time to consider what we are using to build on our foundation. Is it wood and hay? Are we building with material that will last?

Maybe today, though, you realize that you have not built your foundation on Jesus at all. You realize you have tried to build your foundation on everything else you have found in the world, and you realize that all of it is crumbling. Today, you can start a new foundation. You can build one on Jesus Christ.