Sermon Tone Analysis
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*Building the Church*
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
In Washington, D. C., a business closed down.
A sign hung on the front door for passersby to read: “Going Out of Business.
Didn’t Know What Our Business Was.”
Man to D. L. Moody, “Mind your business!”
Moody, “Sir, this is my business.”
I want to talk to you about our business as believers, our business as servants of Christ.
Our business is to build the church of Jesus Christ.
That’s our business.
Read with me in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15.
[Read text.]
/ /
In this passage, Paul provided a word of warning and encouragement to those responsible for building the church.
Did you know that God’s call on your life is to build His kingdom by building the local church?
Whereever you serve and whatever you do, your purpose in ministry, ultimately, is to strengthen and build the local church.
That’s how God’s kingdom grows, through churches.
Today, as God-called ministers—we share a responsibility for faithfully and fruitfully building the church.
So, how are we to build the church?
This text suggests three requirements.
First,
* *
*1.
You must build on the foundation of Christ.*
* *
In verse ten, Paul compared himself to a “wise master builder.”
He had established the church in Corinth.
He had laid the groundwork of the gospel there.
He wrote, “I laid the foundation.”
And who was that foundation?
Very clearly, the foundation was Jesus Christ.
Paul came to Corinth and found it a wasteland of sin.
Paul came to Corinth with a saving and transforming message.
That message was Jesus Christ and him crucified—nothing more and nothing less.
He wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2,
/And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified./
Verse 11 of our text says that the foundation for the Corinthian church and for every church is Jesus Christ.
To build a church, you must build on the foundation of Christ.
In a town in Tuscany, Italy, some folks decided that they needed a new bell tower for their church.
The church was big and beautiful, and it needed a tower to match.
So they hired a good architect, and he designed a magnificent tower.
“We’ll build it of solid marble,” the architect announced to the building committee.
“We’ll build it 179 feet high, so people can see it everywhere in the city.
We’ll build the walls 13 feet thick at the bottom so that it will stand forever.”
The building committee congratulated their architect.
They couldn’t wait for construction to begin.
Their bell tower would be the envy of every church in the country.
The workmen began to build the tower, cutting the stone with expert skill and putting each piece in place, all according to the architect’s specifications.
Everything was going smoothly, when someone on the building committee stopped by to look at the progress of the tower.
It was going up.
But it wasn’t going up straight.
The architect had made a mistake.
The foundation wasn’t deep enough and the ground underneath wasn’t firm enough.
So the bell tower in Pisa, Italy began to lean.
Today we even call it the /Leaning/ Tower of Pisa.
Each year it leans a little more.
Eventually, the tower will crumble to the ground.
Engineers have suggested only one viable means of saving the tower: taking it apart and putting it back together on a new foundation.
The Leaning Tower of Pisa has a foundation problem.
But a man who tries to build a church on a foundation other than Jesus Christ has an even bigger problem.
The Bible says in verse 11, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
In other words, no one can build a church on anything other than Jesus Christ.
Jesus and Jesus alone is the foundation for the church.
An organization that calls itself a church, and yet is built on something or someone other than Jesus is not indeed a church.
Without the foundation of Jesus, you may have a sermon tasting club, but not a church.
Without the foundation of Jesus, you may have a gospel music appreciation society, but not a church.
The only foundation for the church is Jesus Christ.
The story is told of a tiny English chapel whose stone walls were covered by ivy.
Over an arch was inscribed the words: WE PREACH CHRIST CRUCIFIED.
For many years a generation of godly men did exactly that: they preached Christ crucified.
But times changed.
The ivy grew and pretty soon covered the last word.
The inscription now read: WE PREACH CHRIST.
Other men came and they did preach Christ: Christ the example, Christ the humanitarian, Christ the ideal teacher.
As the years passed, the ivy continued to grow until finally the inscription read: WE PREACH.
The generation that came along then did just that: they preached economics, social gospel, book reviews, just about anything.
I don’t know if that story is true.
But I know this true: We will be tempted to build a church on something other than Jesus Christ.
It’s easier to build a church on something else.
It’s safer to build a church on something else.
It’s less offensive to build a church on something other than Jesus Christ crucified.
But build a church on Jesus plus something else or Jesus instead of something else, and you won’t have a church.
The Bible is clear that only Jesus is the foundation for the church.
Preach Christ and him crucified.
To build a church, you must build on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
There’s a second requirement for building a church:
*You must build with the material of eternity.*
After Paul reminded the church that he had laid the foundation of Jesus Christ, he gave a word of warning at the end of verse ten: “But let each one take heed how he builds on it.”
Take heed, Paul says.
That means be careful.
Watch out.
Don’t build on the foundation of Jesus with just anything.
Don’t try to build a church with just anything.
In verse twelve, Paul talks about how you could try to build a church: with “gold, silver, precious stones” or with “wood, hay, or straw.”
That’s the division: permanent things like gold, silver, and precious stones, or temporary things like wood, hay, and straw.
You can build with the material of shacks and huts.
Or you can build with the material of palaces and temples.
You can build with worthless material, or you can build with priceless material.
You can build with trash, or you can build with treasure.
You can build with stuff you can find in your backyard, or you can build with stuff you have to work for and dig for.
To build a church to the glory of God, you must build with the material of eternity.
You say, “That’s all good and well.
It’s obvious that gold, silver, and precious stones are preferable to wood, hay, and straw in this analogy that Paul is making.
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