A Careful Builder

10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

The portrayal of our life as a home building project that the Lord will inspect someday certainly causes us to relate in our culture today.

It’s hard to imagine that there’s ever been a time in history when people have known more about building and buying a home than today.

Within the last decade some of the most popular shows on TV are about building, renovating, and flipping houses, as well as locating the perfect home. Here are just a few examples.

• Flip or Flop

• Property Brothers

• Fixer Upper

• Love It or List It

The primary appeal of these programs is that every family needs a place to live. We love our homes. The largest investment most people make is their house. Home is where we spend most of our time and create lasting memories.

Scripture pictures our life as a home construction project that the Lord will inspect someday. The question for every believer is not whether we are constructing a building—all of us are doing that.

Rather, it is this:

What kind of material are we using?

Every believer is building for as long as he or she is living within the Christian life.

We are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Every believer in Christ is a builder constructing a house.

Someday the divine building inspector will come to evaluate how we’ve constructed our dwelling.

Our work will be tested with fire. Only that which remains will bring rewards to us.

As is true with any building, the foundation is what matters most in our lives.

It determines our destiny. The only foundation that can stand in the end is the solid rock of Jesus Christ (Matthew 7:24-25).

Matthew 7:24–25 NKJV

24 “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: 25 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.

The issue at the judgment seat won’t be our position before the Lord, but our performance for Him.

In October 2018, Hurricane Michael slammed the Florida Gulf Coast with brute force. One of the hardest hit areas was Mexico Beach. The photographs and video of the devastation in the hurricane’s wake were stunning. Buildings were flattened. Homes were scraped off their foundations. The area looked like a war zone. However, one house, known as the Sand Palace, was still standing surrounded by rubble.

I heard the owner of the house, Dr. Lebron Lackey, interviewed on Fox News about how his home was able to withstand the onslaught. He said the building codes required that structures be able to withstand winds ups to 125-150 mph. He built his house to withstand winds of 250 mph.

He said the reason his house stood is found 40 feet below the surface. The code called for pilings 30 feet deep, but he put his 40 feet down.

That applies to us as well. If we want to stand against the winds and storms of this life, it’s not going to be on account of what’s visible on the outside.

Our strength will come from what is hidden down under the surface in our foundation, Jesus Christ.

He undergirds, supports, and sustains all we do.

Our life must be built on Him so that we can stand strong.

As we construct our spiritual house on the foundation of Jesus Christ, we decide each day which materials we will use.

We can select from two basic categories:

wood, hay, and straw,

or gold, silver, and precious stones.

We all know that wood, hay, and straw are highly combustible, don’t last long, and are not sturdy—just ask the three little pigs.

These cheaper materials are easier to build with, take less time, and may be attractive, but they won’t stand the test of fire.

These materials represent all we do for our-self and for the Lord.

(Illustrate a Self centered culture)

When Jesus comes, those who have used these inferior materials will find their superstructure reduced to ashes.

Gold, silver, and precious stones, on the other hand, are valuable, enduring, high quality materials.

These represent all we do for the Lord and for His Glory.

They are smaller in size, more difficult to obtain, more valuable, and most importantly, able to survive the fire.

What are the gold, silver, and precious stones that we should use to build our lives?

Some examples of these materials are truth, love, integrity, purity, and sacrificial service.

To sum up these lasting building elements, we could say they are Christlike qualities in our lives.

“If Christ is the foundation of our lives, He should be the center of the work we build on the foundation.” John MacArthur

We build with our conduct, our service, and our motives.

Anything in our lives that reflects the character of Jesus will last and remain.

To know what kind of materials to use in our spiritual building project, we must consult the biblical blueprint.

Scripture lays out the plans for how to build a life that will stand the test of time and pass the final inspection.

If you follow the scriptures precepts, priorities, and purposes, your life-construction project will be successful.

You need to consult God’s Word regularly to know how to build a life with lasting results.

Addison Mizner found fame and fortune during the early part of the twentieth century as chief architect during south Florida’s property boom.

He used a very unorthodox, scattered method that often produced unexpected results. In one house, for example, he overlooked a rather significant detail: a staircase connecting the first and second stories.

After completing the work of constructing Baltimore’s Howard Hotel, the contractors installed boilers, when they started using the boilers fires began to start and they quickly discovered that Mizner had forgotten to build a chimney.

When William Gray Warden excitedly asked Mizner to get a copy of the blueprints for his future Palm Beach home, Mizner replied that they were unavailable. Warden asked why he didn’t have them, and Mizner famously replied, “Why, the house isn’t built yet! Construction first, blueprints afterward.”

That’s a terrible way to build a house, but an even worse way to build a life.

Yet that’s what we see happening all around us today. People are building their lives without consulting the divine blueprints.

They’re following their own desires, opinions, taste, and choices. It is all driven by self interest, selfish desires and self centerness.

It’s “construction first, blueprints afterward.”

We see the chaos that results from this kind of construction all around us in our culture.

Families are falling apart, and the moral and social fabric of our society is unraveling.

Are you following the divine blueprint for your life?

Are you building your house according to the biblical plan?

One of the strangest houses in America is known as the Winchester House in San Jose, California. It was built by Sarah Winchester, who inherited $20 million from her husband, who made his wealth producing the famous Winchester rifles. Her only daughter died a mere five weeks after birth, and out of grief, or possibly guilt, Sarah became obsessed with the occult.

She embarked on an epic building project after being told by a medium that as long as she continued to add on to her house, she would not die.

The original structure was an eight-room farmhouse. She hired sixteen carpenters and put them to work. For the next thirty-eight years, the craftsmen labored every day, twenty-four hours a day, to build a mansion. Observers were intrigued by the project.

Sarah’s instructions were were eerie. Each window was to have thirteen panes, each wall thirteen panels, each closet thirteen hooks, and each chandelier thirteen globes.

All through the house are mindless twists and turns. Corridors snake randomly, some leading nowhere. One door opens to a blank wall, another to a fifty-foot drop. One set of stairs leads to a ceiling that has no door. There are trap doors, secret passageways, and tunnels.

The completed estate sprawls over 6 acres and has 6 kitchens, 13 bathrooms, 40 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 52 skylights, 467 doors, 10,000 windows, and a bell tower.

The making of this mysterious mansion ended when Sarah died.

After her death, it took eight trucks working full-time for over a period of forty days to haul away all the leftover building materials and junk.

Like Sarah Winchester, each of us is building a house.

When we die, our project will be finished. When the Lord calls us home to heaven, our handiwork will be inspected. The question for each of us is this:

What kind of house are we building? Will it stand in the final day?

Are you building a house with stairways to nowhere, random skylights, pointless doors, unnecessary tunnels, and rooms with no purpose?

Or are you building a lasting, reward-able life on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ?

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