Sermon Tone Analysis

Last week I began the service by asking a couple of questions.

I will begin this morning by asking these same questions.

What is the church?

What is the relationship between the church and church leaders?

I ask these questions because in chapter three Paul focuses his attention squarely on the church leaders and their relationship to the church body.

Last Sunday we partially answered these questions.

The Church is God’s possession and he makes it grow so we must wholly cast ourselves upon him for spiritual and numerical growth and church leaders are servants, not masters.

By the time we are done with chapter three, four truths will stand out.

First, church leaders are mere servants.

Second, it is God’s church.

He built it, He sustains it, He is passionate about it and will protect it from evil.

Third, because God is passionate about his church, he holds its leaders accountable for how they build it.

Fourth, church leaders should be passionate about God’s church as God is passionate about His church.

This morning we will continue to answer these two questions by exploring 1 Corinthians 3:10-15.

In our passage for this morning (vv.10-15)

Paul shifts analogies from agriculture~/farming to architecture or a construction site.

However, while Paul has switched analogies, both analogies are similar.

In both the agricultural and architectural analogies, God is the supreme force, the supreme power behind it all.

In vv.

5-9 it is God who owns the farm, who employs the farmhands, who gives the increase, it is God who makes the crops to grow.

IN vv.

10-15 God is the supreme architect who owns the building, who judges the quality of the work of each builder.

He is the supreme architect, owner, and inspector of the church.

Therefore, the general point of this architectural analogy, especially the first part of it, is exactly the same as that of the agricultural analogy.

We will understand it better if we remember what a slow process building a great edifice was before the days of power equipment.

Cathedrals in Europe often took four or five centuries to complete, sometimes longer.

In Paul’s day, a temple, a much more modest edifice than a medieval cathedral, sometimes took decades.

So one builder may lay the foundation; others would complete various phases of the building project and then would move on, retire, or die, while still others would take their places.

The lesson is clear from this passage.

Paul laid the foundation, and others have built on his work.

It is the project as a whole that is important, and, implicitly, it is foolish to focus all praise on just one of the builders who has contributed to the project.

The builders themselves, after all, have a shared common vision, a common purpose.

With all the similarities between these two analogies there is one sharp difference. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 serves as a warning.

God will hold the builders accountable.

One cannot just build on the church willy-nilly and get away with it.

God sees it and will judge accordingly.

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 also serves as an encouragement.

IF you build wisely, you will be properly rewarded.

“Paul shifts the image to that of a building in which God now becomes the one who lets out a contract for a construction project and serves as the building inspector.

God inspects to see that it was built correctly, according to specifications, and without fraud and will disburse due rewards and fines.

IN this image, Paul shifts roles from a farmhand to the head contractor.

This second example allows him to introduce another consideration about leaders.

The competence of each servant in carrying out the tasks may vary, and God will reward and punish the difference in quality.

That appraisal waits God’s final judgment since God alone can properly assess the work.

The ultimate evaluations of leaders belong to God, not to those they lead” (Garland, 114).

Now before we totally engage in the text and mine truths out of it for us.

I need to mention right at the outset one thing this passage does not teach.

As was true of 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 and 3:1-4, this passage has been the victim of not a few drive-by misinterpretations.

Context determines the meaning and we must derive our application and truth out of the text and its context.

Otherwise we could make it say whatever we want to make it say.

But we are not here this morning to hear what we think it says, we are here to hear God speak to us and he will not do that if we mishandle his text.

There has been a tendency to take this passage and make it apply individually to believers and exhort us as individual believers to make sure we build our lives in concordance with our foundation Jesus Christ.

This is true as far as it goes, but this passage is not speaking to singular, individual believers.

That is not its focus.

It does not say, “you Christian build your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ.”

The passage says the church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ so the emphasis is on corporate, shared, group, community church life.

The passage takes aim at the church as a whole and all believers within that specific church.

It is not unlike Ephesians 2:19-22 that says, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple to the Lord.

And in him you are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit.”

So whatever application we are going to take away from this it needs to be in the parameters of the church, not your own individual life.

That is a significant distinction.

We need to get out of this American way of thinking that is so individually oriented.

Church life is communal.

Everyone builds on the church’s foundation, some more than others, but everyone in the church of Christ builds on the foundation, Jesus Christ, and all are just as important.

We depend upon each other and need each other to be fully engaged with all of our talents, resources and strengths to build and to do so wisely.

So this passage takes aim directly at spiritual leaders such as myself and the deacons and those who are actively teaching.

But it also takes aim indirectly at all of us because we are all, like it or not, realize it or not, engaged in Kingdom work.

To each of us it is a warning and an encouragement.

It is a warning because all of you with all of your works will be exposed and tested in relation to how you built the church.

It is an encouragement because if we build wisely, we will be rewarded.

So let us unpack these verses and stop here and there to make points of application.

*I am what I am by the grace of God (v.10)*

In verses 10-11 Paul gives two truths about his life.

First, he acknowledges he is what he is by the grace of God.

Second, he says because of the grace of God I am an expert builder.

One has to admire Paul’s constant acknowledging that he is what he is only because of God’s grace.

This refers to his salvation.

Why was Paul saved from his sins?

Why was Paul delivered from the wrath of God to perfect peace in the Lord?

Was it because he gave a lot of time to the church?

Was it because he gave a lot of money to the church?

Was it because he was so zealous in his pursuit of God? Was it because he was just so good looking or because he was just so great a speaker or because he was just so smart that God just absolutely needed him?

The Scripture answers these questions with a resounding, “NO.”

Paul was saved from the wrath of God because of the grace of God.

Paul did not deserve his blessed salvation.

He was a persecutor of the church!

He went out of his way to make life hard, difficult, and miserable for believers in Jesus.

Yet God in his immeasurable, wondrous grace chose to make him a recipient of Divine Favor, to redeem him from his guilt before God and to cleanse him from all sinfulness.

What a wondrous thing!

I hope and pray you do not take this for granted.

You and I are so undeserving of such wondrous grace!

I hope a day does not go by where you do not thank God for his grace in your life, that he has made you a new creation in Christ!

If you have not done so yet today, do it right now! Perhaps this morning you do not know what this wondrous grace is.

You have not experienced its life changing power.

You can.

You can experience God’s grace in your life and salvation from your wretched, stony, sinful heart if you but cast yourself at Jesus feet and ask for his forgiveness and cling to his righteousness.

If you but confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that he and he alone is your Savior from your sins.

Then you will know such grace.

I beseech you, I urge you, I implore you to do so right now where you sit if you have not done so.