The Foundation and Building of the Church
Parkdale Grace Fellowship
Sunday AM, April 20, 2008
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
The Foundation and Building of the Church
In this chapter three analogies are used to describe the church: The first analogy, which we looked at last week, compares the church to a field in which the seed of God’s word is sown. Some ministries like farmers sow the seed, others come along later and water the growing crop but in it all it is God alone who brings life and who causes growth and fruitfulness.
Today we will look at the second analogy which compares the church to a building under construction. And in our next study we will look at the third analogy in which the church is compared to a sacred temple in which God lives.
Vs. 9b
“You are God’s field, you are God’s building.” Here the repeated phrase is, “You are God’s.” The church belongs to God. He paid a very high price to purchase the church. It cost Him the life of His only begotten Son. God delights in His church. He is jealous for His church like a groom is jealous for his bride.
Today’s passage compares the church to a building. One of the characteristics of a building is that all its parts are dependant upon each other in order to hold together and function. Like the imagery of the body in chapter 12, “the roof cannot say to the walls, ‘I have no need of you.” (cf. 12:21), and “the door cannot say, because I am not a wall, I do not belong to the building.” (cf. 12:15-16) (Thiselton, p.65)
The church is compared to a building that is under construction – it is a work in progress. The church is built up by each contributing ministry. We all have a part to play. And God, as the owner of this building, has a blueprint; He has a master plan which clearly lays out the way His church is to be built. Many of you work in the construction industry; many others have gone through the process of having a home built for you, so many of you can relate to this analogy. God is very particular about how the church is to be built. He is very particular about the quality of materials which are to be used; He is very specific about how everything is to be arranged and where each piece is to go and how every part should function and work. No part of the construction is left up to personal taste or preference of the foreman or the laborers (the servants) working on the construction. The work is to be done exactly God’s way without compromise.
Too often we are guilty of trying to build the ministry according to our personal preferences or according to how another group is doing it rather than looking to the Lord and His Word to see how He wants it done. Can you imagine the chaos and trouble that would result if every tradesman working on the construction of a house ignored the plans and did their work the way they wanted it?
Going back to the question that was raised in vs. 5, “What is Paul, and what is Apollos, but servants . . .” and vs.7 adds to that saying neither the minister who plants is anything nor the one who waters, but God alone is significant.” What then is the pastor? What is the worship leader? What is the board member? We are all servants and apart from God we are nothing and can do nothing. And perhaps most importantly we are reminded that the church does not belong to us. It is not ours to do with as we please. It is not our tastes and preferences that we are to satisfy. It is not the interests and the likes of the unsaved seeker that determine how it is built. It is God’s church.
Using the analogy of the building to describe the church – the people of God: If the church is God’s property are we respectful of that which is His as we would be of someone else’s home. We don’t go into another’s home and say “I don’t like this furniture” and “we need to change the wall color”, and “couldn’t you find some better music to play?” And yet when it comes to the ministry of the church we all tend to want to build it and organize it and run it according to our own preferences. We decide what kind of people we want to be part of it; perhaps we like the way they did it at a church we visited on our vacation; we want to make sure the service never goes past 12:00 noon; there is a new best seller at the Christian bookstore that is making a huge impact on other churches so we decide to follow its instructions for our ministry. But let us be careful with our ideas. This passage is full of warnings about how we build the church; warnings about how we minister or serve in the church.
“Let each one take heed how he builds . . .”
Vs.10
Paul was the missionary whom God used to start the church in Corinth and Paul makes it clear that it was according to God’s grace that he started the church. “According to the grace of God,” means that it was the work of God, the gift of God, the strength of God, the wisdom of God, the plan of God and the enabling of God which was given to Paul by which he was able to start the church. Paul insists on drawing attention to the insignificance of himself in the equation and the all important supremacy of God. We must be the same. The ministry should never be used to draw attention to ourselves. Either it is all about Christ or it is a waste.
Paul established the church as a wise master builder. The term wise builder connects what he is saying here with what he taught in chapter 1 and 2 about God’s wisdom which is greater that the world’s wisdom. It was through God’s wisdom that Paul, like a master builder, established the church. Now Paul is not talking about a literal church building with four walls and a roof. He is using the analogy of a building to describe the congregation of believers who serve together. The church at Corinth did not have a church building but they met together in homes. God didn’t use Paul to finish the church but to start it and he describes this start in verse 10 as laying the foundation. Now that Paul was gone there were others who were continuing the work he had begun. There was Apollos who had come after Paul, and there were elders serving in the church along with prophets and teachers. Each one, through their ministry, was building upon the foundation God has used Paul to lay.
The same is true of our church here. Many years ago someone laid a foundation in your life and now we all through our various ministries are building upon that foundation. Group leaders, Sunday school teachers and nursery workers, worship leaders, secretary, elders, musicians, board members, greeters, and so on are all building upon the foundation through our various ministries. Like a building the church must be built up. Building up or edifying the body is a major theme of 1 Corinthians and the church is built up as we each allow God to exercise His gifts through us in service to one another. Each of us who are contributing through the ministry God has given us must notice the last words of verse 10:
“But let each one take heed how he builds on it.” That means be careful how you minister. What is your contribution? Is it of God? Is it strengthening the building or is it weakening it? First area of care needs to be given to the foundation you are building on. The foundation of all we do needs to be Jesus Christ and Him crucified as Paul said in chapter 2 verse2. What does this mean? In order for the foundation of all the church’s ministry to be Jesus Christ all ministry must be done on the basis of Romans 11:36. “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory forever.”
“Of God”, means that all we do has its origin in the mind of God, not doing our own thing or mimicking the business world or the entertainment world or anything of the world, but led by the Spirit of God and confirmed by the Word of God. And “through God” means it must be all done in the Power of God, not in our own strength. And “to God”, means it must be to the glory of God, not to the glory of any man or any strategy. It is for His pleasure, to satisfy His desire. In order for Christ to be the foundation of all ministry all of our ministry must be done in the Spirit and not of the flesh. As Paul said in Colossians 1:29 “To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.”
Vs. 11
The church is not the church unless the foundation is Jesus Christ. Many try to build the church on good works, morality or legalism, or they try to build on signs and wonders or on entertaining music, drama, and story tellers or worldly wisdom, strategy and good marketing techniques. But that is not God’s church; it is man’s own church. (See 1 Cor.1:22-24; 2:1-5) We can build our own church on some other foundation and many ministries are, but it will eventually crumble and fall.
We’ve all seen ministries that were a popular roaring success . . . but only for a short time. Now a few years later there is very little left of them. Often in their wake is a trail of wounded hurting people who have been damaged by ministries that were more flesh than Spirit and that were built on a foundation of sand not on Jesus Christ. When Peter declared to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” Jesus responded with this declaration “. . . On this rock [or upon this foundation] I will build My church, and the gates or Hades shall not prevail against it.”
Vs. 11 again says, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Sometimes churches are genuinely established on the foundation of Jesus Christ but then someone comes along and says, “That is too narrow and too restrictive. People will never be attracted to such a narrow focus as Jesus only. We need to expand; we need to put in some additions we need to be more appealing to the world.” And they begin adding extensions to the church, wings on the building which have no foundation on Christ. They may draw a crowd but they will never stand the test of fire.
Vs. 12-13
As I mentioned last week the gold, silver and precious stones refer to the work of God. In the Bible gold was a symbol of God’s presence, His divine character and His glory and it symbolized heaven. The interior of the temple was made entirely of pure gold. Silver in the Bible symbolized redemption. It was the currency paid to redeem the children of Israel in Lev.27; Ex.30, 30 pieces of silver was the redemption price paid to Judas. Silver also symbolized God’s voice (as in the silver trumpets (Num.10:1-10) and Ps.12:6 “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace. . .”
The precious stones are also associated with heaven and spiritual things. (Rev. 21:19-20; Ex.28:17-21) Gold, silver and precious stones are all substances of great value and of enduring quality. On the other hand wood, hay and straw symbolize that which is carnal, temporary, cheap and easily destroyed.
Now some people strongly preach Christ, they are true to the scriptures but they are ministering in their own strength, in the energy of the flesh. That is building with wood hay and straw. It is not God’s will for us to be trying to do God’s work. The call to come to Jesus was not a help wanted add. God is not looking for people to do His work for Him. He is looking for yielded vessels who will let God do God’s own work through them. That is to build with gold, silver and precious stones.
Verse 13 warns us that there will come a time of testing for all of our work; one day each of our ministries will be tested and at that time it will become clear whether it was a spiritual work of God – gold, silver and precious stones, or whether it was a work of your own flesh – wood, hay and straw. I am not the one to test your ministry or anyone else’s ministry. That is God’s work. That time of testing is simply called “the Day”, which simply refers to the time of Christ’s return to judge the earth. Rom. 2:16 describes it as a time when God will expose and judge the secrets of men and nothing will be hidden. All arrogant and selfish motives behind ministry will be exposed. All deception, all hypocrisy and manipulation will be exposed. That which was done out of a self-righteous spirit will be burned up along with all that was done out of a reliance on my own strength and my own abilities.
In the analogy of the building, God’s judgement will be as if He sets the building on fire and all the fake marble and all the plastic gems and imitation gold and silver of our fleshly efforts will be melted and burned and only that which is a genuine work of God will remain. For some there will be nothing left of their life’s work but a pile of smoking ashes. For others their building will remain standing unharmed.
There is a very real sense in which many ministries which are only wood, hay and straw will be exposed and destroyed long before judgment day. The fiery tests of persecution will destroy many carnal ministries and the simple test of time will destroy many others. A true work of God withstands the onslaught of Satan and the storms of time. But that which is nothing more than wood and hay will often soon begin to rot, sag and fall apart long before the return of Christ. Especially if it goes through the fires of persecution.
There is a popular little saying which goes like this: “Only one life, It will soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.” That saying is true if understood in the right context. But it can also be misleading as it implies that anything we do for Christ is enduring gold, silver and precious stones. The truth of the matter is that apart from Christ Himself, all I have to offer is wood hay and straw. How then can I produce something out of wood hay and straw that will endure the fire of God? That is like trying to turn straw into gold. Therefore nothing that I do for God will ever be acceptable. All of my righteous deeds are like filthy rags in His pure sight. A much better variation of that popular little saying would be this: “Only one life, it will soon be past; Only what’s done through Christ will last.”
Vs. 14
Here we see the principle of grace. The only ministry which can stand before the blazing intensity of God’s glorious presence is that which comes from God and which is accomplished by His power. And yet we receive the reward for letting God work through us.
Vs. 15
The Bible makes it clear that there is coming a judgment in which many believers will suffer loss. It will be a disappointing, painful experience for many to see their work that they took such pride to be proven absolutely worthless as it goes up in flames. But even then in judgment the grace of God is poured out toward unworthy mankind. The Bible assures us inverse 15 that though all he did in life was of the flesh and worthless, though he has nothing left to offer God, “he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” No one’s salvation will be jeopardized by their bad ministry but they will experience the profound loss of realizing that they wasted their lives and contributed so little to the kingdom of god.
As 1 Cor.1:31 says, the only thing any of us will have to glory in is the Lord and what He had done. A builder who has spent a lifetime ministering in the energy of his own flesh trying to please God by his own good works or trying to serve God with the methods of the world, on judgement day will find the building he has constructed for God burning down around him. Yet by the grace of God he will be saved, he will be snatched out of that fire with nothing to show but what Christ has done in him.
There are some ministers who have done great harm to the church through their carnal ministries. Many lives have been severely damaged by many televangelists and by little unknown, sincere but misled Bible teachers alike. The Bible warns that God takes this very seriously. There will be consequences to carnal ministry done in the flesh. But still, if they are a child of God, even though every shred of any ministry they ever performed in their lives is burnt to a crisp, the Bible says they will be saved. Our good works cannot make us deserving of salvation and our bad words cannot rob us of the salvation none of us deserve. Every child of God is saved only by the grace of God.