Well, good morning, guys. I want to invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. If you're new here, my name is Ricky. I'm one of the pastors here at the church, and it was a privilege to be off for a couple of weeks. And like many of you that had a fall break, my time was interrupted in some ways by news of the Middle East and what's going on in Israel and Gaza.
And so I just wanted to offer a few quick thoughts on how we as Christians can think about moments when the news intrudes on our lives and we are left wondering, man, what is this going to mean? What's going to happen next? And here's, here's what I want to offer that I think we can go to when the news intrudes on our lives. First, when these moments happen, I think they're a reminder that our world is far more broken than we think it is. This, I think, in America, we have this sort of kind of bubble around us that insulates us from a lot of what the rest of the world experiences in terms of sickness and conflict and danger and war.
And these moments remind us, okay, man, the world is far more broken. There's a lot more loss and grief and hurt than we think there is. And second, life is just less secure than we often think it is. Our lives, no day that we live should ever be taken for granted. We never know what's around the next corner and life is inherently insecure.
And if you want to live a perennially unhappy life, make it your goal to be safe from every danger out there. It's never going to happen.
And that would mean, third, that the gospel and the gospel task is more urgent than we often think it is. Look, John Piper has this great phrase where he says, listen, Christians are to care about all suffering, all human suffering, especially eternal suffering. Meaning that we don't want to ignore the basic needs in the world around us, but neither do we want to ignore the need that is underneath all needs, which is every human being's need to be reconciled to their Creator and to be given a future and an eternal home.
Hope. That is more urgent than we often remember it is. Therefore, discernment is more needed than we think it is. And what I mean by discernment, I just mean— I don't just mean, like, okay, be careful of what news you consume, although you should be— do that, you should do that, you should be wise in what news you consume. But what I mean is that the world often goes from the news headlines and then after shaping their worldview with the news headlines, go to the Scriptures and say, "Hey, does the Bible say anything about that?" Was this predicted anywhere? That's typically what sells newspapers or whatever passes for a newspaper in this digital environment. I don't know. Do people sell newspapers anymore? I don't know. Instead, Christians are meant to go from the Bible back to news headlines, meaning that this is what gives us discernment. This is what shapes the way we think about the world. And so when we see news headlines, they should drive us back into soaking in the scriptures even more.
6 · The pastor asserts the final theological point about news events: they should reassure us of the church's security because it is built on God's sovereignty, which no worldly power can shake
And last, It should reassure us that the local church and the kingdom of God are more secure than we think they are. Jesus promised, "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." The kingdom of God will not be shaken by the next war, by the next headline, by the next difficulty, by the next dictator, by the next attack. It is secure. Because it's built on the sovereignty and power of God himself.
7 · The pastor transitions from the preliminary pastoral aside about news events back to the main sermon on 1 Corinthians 3, signaling a shift from current events to biblical exposition
And so, uh, just some thoughts on how to process those moments when the news intrudes on our lives. And I think we'll throw those up on the website this week. But now, with that in mind, let's renew our eyes and ears by looking at the scriptures together in 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
8 · The pastor frames the main sermon by acknowledging that the text may initially seem disconnected from the earlier discussion of news and world events, but promises that it will prove more relevant than expected—setting up anticipation for the connection
We're going to be continuing and kind of, in a sense, ending a particular section of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. And I think at first it may not seem relevant to what's going on around us, but I think you'll find there's far more relevance than you would think. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, beginning in verse 9, this is God's Word.
9 · The pastor reads the entire sermon text aloud (1 Corinthians 3:9-23), presenting Paul's teaching on the church as God's building, the necessity of building on Christ as the only foundation, the coming day of testing by fire, and the church as God's precious temple
"For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. 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. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold or silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 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. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness." And again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours. And you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. This is God's Word.
10 · The pastor prays for the congregation to receive spiritual illumination and discernment as they engage with God's Word
Father, pray that you give us ears to hear and eyes to see. Lord, may we grow in our discernment for all of life as we soak in your Word. In Jesus' name, amen.
11 · The pastor begins an extended illustration from his early marriage, using the experience of moving frequently to set up the metaphor that will illuminate the sermon's main teaching about building carefully
Well, when Jenna and I were first married, I think we moved something like 5 times in 2 years. I don't know if I counted that right, babe, but it's like 5 times in 2 years, something like that. And we lose track. But you learn a few things moving 5 times in 2 years. You learn who your real friends are because probably the 3rd time in a year that you're asking your friends to help you move, some of your friends don't show up or suddenly have other obligations. And you find out who the true, the few, the proud friends are. Who's hanging off a third-story balcony trying to back a couch out of your apartment. That's your real friends, right?
12 · The pastor continues the moving illustration, emphasizing the key lesson that the quality of packing is not immediately apparent—it's only revealed when you open the boxes—and that you must prioritize what is precious because you cannot perfectly pack everything
And you also learn, I also learned the hard way, how to pack and how not to pack boxes. And you learn something important. You learn that how well the move goes isn't immediately apparent. At first, your goal is just to get everything in boxes and get the stuff, the boxes to the cars and get from the cars to the next place and get from that place into your apartment or whatever. And you think, okay, job done, the boxes are in the apartment. No, no, no, no, no. Because what we learned on the second or third move is I, memorably, I packed a bunch of mugs together in a box. And when I opened the box, All of the mugs no longer had handles on them because I did not pack them correctly. So I had a bunch of mugs with no handles that greeted me at our next apartment. And you realize, okay, the time— and here's also what you realize, you can't perfectly pack everything. So the things that are more precious, you take more time to pack more carefully, right? So if this is like a family heirloom or something, You're gonna spend a lot of time on it. If it's something that you kind of secretly hope breaks in the move and you don't have to, you can buy a new one, you kind of just throw it in there.
13 · The pastor explicitly connects the moving metaphor to life itself, drawing the parallel that life consists of frantically packing boxes (attending to various responsibilities and activities) without unlimited time, forcing us to prioritize where we give our attention
And that is somewhat of a metaphor for life. Life is like that. Life is lots of activity, lots of work. You rush around going to work, paying the bills, dating, marrying, going to a small group, going on vacation, going to church, voting, you know, buying a new TV. Dishwasher that you didn't expect to buy that year, all this stuff. It's like you're packing boxes faster and faster and faster and you don't have unlimited time. And so you're trying to give attention to where you think attention is most needed. And eventually in the hubbub and rush of life, you're just packing all these boxes, all these sections of your life.
14 · The pastor applies the moving metaphor to the biblical text itself, arguing that 1 Corinthians 3:9-23 functions as a pause in the rush of life—a moment to stop and examine how well we've been building before it's too late to make corrections
And this passage is somewhat of a pause. It's saying, wait, stop, stop furiously packing. And let's open up a few of these and see how well you've done. Because you realize, I think at a certain point, or maybe move 3 or 4, you realize, okay, I probably should, once the boxes are kind of packed up and in the truck, I should probably peek at a few of these and see if they're holding together okay. Maybe you can catch this box isn't packed well. I'm gonna kind of throw some more stuff in here so not all of the mugs break. That is this passage. Paul is saying, hold up, stop furiously going through life and pause and consider how you are living.
15 · The pastor identifies the controlling idea of the passage—'Let each one take care how he builds' from verse 10—and frames the entire text as a warning sign over the ongoing construction of our lives, families, and church
Now, if you've ever seen one of those big caution signs over a construction area that says, "Caution, construction in progress," that is what hangs over this passage. Caution, friend, your life is in danger. Is under construction. Your family is under construction. Your church is under construction. Therefore, be very careful how you build. That phrase in verse 10 really is the summary statement of the passage. Let each one take care how he builds.
16 · The pastor begins expounding verse 10, initially allowing the congregation to read the text in a limited way—thinking Paul refers only to himself and other leaders as builders—before he will correct that misreading
Now Paul provides several reasons we should be careful how we're building, and the first one is this. Be careful how you build because you are building something. You are. Now, look at verse 10. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, Paul says, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it. Now you think, okay, sure, that makes sense. Paul is, you know, a church architect. He's building things in the church. And now we have some other leaders in Corinth and now they're building things.
17 · The pastor corrects the limited reading by showing that Paul's command 'let each one take care how he builds' is addressed to every Christian in the congregation, not just leaders—therefore every hearer is a builder and must take responsibility for how they build
But I'm a normal Christian. You might think. "I'm just along for the ride. Paul was building, this person's building, I'm just here. I'm just taking up a seat. I'm just here to learn and glean." But Paul all of a sudden turns from the leaders of the church to everyone in the pews of the church or the seats of the church and says, "Let each one take care how he builds." Meaning, what Paul's assumption is, is that this letter, which would be read in front of the whole Corinthian church, Every hearer of these words is supposed to take heed and to consider carefully how they are building. Meaning that's you. This is for you. Not just for leaders, not just for others, but for you today. The Lord would call you, be careful how you build.
18 · The pastor uses contemporary church culture (website pictures, clergy vs
Now, that's important because often in the church we think, okay, here are the builders. And here are the attenders. You know, maybe in the old medieval church, it was easier to tell these distinctions because the builders were all the people wearing fancy robes and the attenders were all the people not wearing fancy robes. It was a pretty clear clergy-lady distinction. But now today, I don't know what the modern equivalent would be. Maybe the modern equivalent would be, okay, if you've got a picture on a church website somewhere or church ministry page, you're a builder. And then if you don't, if it's like your only picture on the church website is the back of your head for a, you know, Sunday picture. If you've ever looked at one of the pictures, you're like, that's the back of my head, right? That's— am I going bald? That's the way I found out many, many years ago. You think, okay, I'm not one of those people with my picture on the webpage. I'm the back of the head kind of person. I'm not a builder. I just, I just go here. I just attend here. And Paul wants you to know, no, you are a builder.
19 · The pastor provides historical context about Corinth as a city under constant reconstruction, then shows how Paul uses this familiar reality to drive home the metaphor—the Corinthians should see themselves in the literal builders they encounter daily
Now, construction would have been very common in the city of Corinth because the city was actually burned to the ground about 200 years before this and was progressively rebuilt over time by the Roman Empire into a Roman colony in the Roman style. And so Building would be very common. And so Paul wants these people in Corinth to go out and look at those constructing buildings in the city of Corinth and say, that's you. You are one of these builders. I'm one of them. He's one of them. So are you. You're one of them. So are you building? What are you building is the question. What are you building with your life?
20 · The pastor introduces a recent study on why people leave church, systematically eliminating common explanations (politics, deconstruction, church hurt) to reveal the actual primary cause: mundane life changes expose what people have actually built their spiritual lives around
Now, we all go through periods of our life where what we are building gets revealed. Now recently, I read a study from this year looking at church trends and looking specifically at the question of why people stop going to church. Because I don't know if you've seen all these news headlines of like, people are going to church, less people are going to church, less than half of America goes to church now, we're becoming more secular, more progressive, more whatever. And you just think, oh man, oh well. And yet, this pastor led a team and he commissioned a study to look at the question, well, why do people stop going to church? And a lot of the normal reasons are represented. You know, maybe one of them is politics. People think, okay, politics are the main reason, the divisiveness about politics is the main reason people stop going to church. No. Some people do stop going to church because of that, but most people don't. Or you might think, okay, it's deconstruction. I've heard people who used to be Christians talk about how they're deconstructing, and they used to go to church and believe all this stuff, and they don't I don't believe any of it now. That's probably what's making people not go to church. No, that's not the majority of people either. Or maybe you think, maybe, well, it's people who have had bad experiences at church, who have been hurt by the church. They're why you stopped going to church. Well, some of those people are true, and we grieve those stories, but that's not primarily why people stop going to church. In fact, about two-thirds— those reasons make up about a third, but two-thirds of people who stop going to church stop going to church for a much more mundane reason. They just stopped going after a life change. Meaning they got married, and after they got married, they kind of fell off attendance. Or they moved, and when they moved to their new city, they didn't really find a church. Or they had kids and it got too busy, and infants were hard to carry to church, and the service times didn't work with their nap time, and so they stopped going. Or they retired and started playing more golf, or whatever the life change people go through, they just stop going to church.
21 · The pastor contrasts the current cultural moment with previous eras, arguing that the disappearance of social pressure to attend church (and the emergence of social pressure against it) makes life transitions a more revealing test of what we've built our spiritual lives on
And here's the difference, I think, between now and previous periods of America. There is now no social pressure to go to church. Right? Nobody at your workplace is like, "Hey, Brad, I haven't seen you at church lately." Right? That's unusual. In fact, there was an interesting study that about 50 years ago, if a politician did not attend church, they were viewed suspiciously. But now if a politician does attend church, in many quarters they are viewed suspiciously. So, there's no pressure. In fact, there's some incentive not to go to church in our current culture.
22 · The pastor applies the study's findings by pressing direct questions to the congregation about their own spiritual lives—forcing them to identify what they are actually protecting and prioritizing when life transitions come
And so, what happens? What happens is that at each one of these life stages, what you have built your life around and what you do build your life around gets revealed. What you build your spiritual life around gets revealed. What you build your— build your family around gets revealed. What you build your church life and church community around gets revealed. So here, ask the question, open the first box: What are you building in your spiritual life? When you go through a life change, what falls off and what remains? What do you hold on to? Is it Bible reading? Is it prayer? Is it fellowship? Is it discipleship? As you go through these ups and downs of life, what are you fighting for? What are you holding on to? What are you packing carefully? Making sure you don't lose.
23 · The pastor applies the building metaphor to family life, particularly parenting, correcting the false perception that family just happens to you by insisting that parents are actively building something even when they feel overwhelmed by the logistics of family life
Or in your family, look, you— if you're a parent, you are building something in your family. You are building a family. Often as a parent, you feel like family is something that happens to you. You just get hit with this tidal wave of like— I don't know about you, but with Jen and I, we were talking about this recently. If your kids attend any kind of school outside or co-op or whatever, you get inundated by messages about your kids' school. Like, hey, don't forget about this project. Okay, got that one. Well, also this. Okay, and this and this and this and this and this. And all of a sudden it's a full-time job just to keep— you're like, you become your children's secretary. You're just managing their appointments. And what happens is you begin to feel like, okay, family life is just something that happens to me. I just get hit with this tidal wave of school and sports and life and other things. And outgrowing their shoes again. How is that possible? And you just get hit. No, no, no. Paul wants you to— See, you know, you're building something. At every stage you're deciding what stays, what won't be lost, what fades away, what remains.
24 · The pastor applies the building metaphor to church life by contrasting two hypothetical people going through identical Sunday motions but building entirely different things—person A is building a consumer church through their passive, self-focused approach
And similarly, your church, your church life, you, when it comes to church life, you are building something here. You're building something where the Lord has called you to be part of a church. And you might think, well, that, that I don't build. I just show up. I'm just here. Well, contrast two different people, person A and person B. I'm not going to use any names because the last time I used names and I used the name of somebody who was here and they were like, "That was my name." So person A and person B. Person A, maybe let's say it this way, typical American Christian in many ways. They show up, check their kids in the kids ministry, fiddle with the phone app. They check in, kind of acknowledge the teacher. With a nod, walk into the auditorium, don't see anybody they know, kind of stand around, pull out their phone, worship starts, they don't sing a lot because none of their favorite songs are on this week. During the slow parts of the sermon, they get on their phone, not looking around. Service ends, they grab a donut for their kid, head to the parking lot, they see somebody they know, they kind of say hi, and they leave. And you think, well, that person's not really a builder. Are they? They're just an attender. What Paul says is you are building something, and what you're building is a consumer church.
25 · The pastor completes the contrast by describing person B, who goes through the same Sunday motions but with intentional, others-focused actions that build the church of Jesus Christ rather than a consumer church—then presses the question directly to the congregation
What you're building is a type of church where no one says hi to one another, no one initiates fellowship, no one is encouraged, no one who serves is pushed forward and built up as they serve. A church of consumers looking for what they can consume. Or person B, very similar, goes through all the same motions. They show up, but as they check their kids into kids ministry, they specifically thank the workers, mentioning something their kid learned last week that they talked about. They sing their heart out, even though they don't like the song and they don't have a good voice. They jot down during the sermon a thought that they want to remember that week or something they want to send in a text to a friend that could encourage them. Them. After the service, they look for anyone around them who looks out of place, who's not saying hi or talking to anyone, and they say the 4 scariest words in a church building: "Hi, my name is..." And they hold out their hand and meet someone new. And as they leave, they notice somebody from their community group looking a little downcast and dejected, and they pause and stop. And even if they can't stop because their kids are crying, they make it a point to text or call that person and see how they're doing this week. Right? The two people go through all the same motions, right? They do all the same things, but one is building a consumer church and one is building the church of Jesus Christ. So the question for us is, what are you building?
26 · The pastor transitions to the second major reason for building carefully, citing verses 11 and 18 to establish that there is only one legitimate foundation (Christ) and that this foundation is incompatible with the world's wisdom
Be careful what you build. Second reason to be careful what you build is because there's only one right way to build. This is a high-stakes decision. Paul says in verse 11, "No one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." If you could drop down a little bit further into verse 18, Paul makes this contrast clear. "Let no one deceive himself. For if anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For," look at this contrast, "the wisdom of this world is folly with God.
27 · The pastor illustrates Paul's claim about singular foundation using the analogy of incompatible foundation types (post-and-beam vs
Paul is saying there is only one correct foundation. You cannot build on multiple foundations. If you go to some of the old homes in El Paso, they're built with post and beam foundations with a crawl space. If your home has a crawl space underneath it, it's a post and beam foundation. Or if your home has no crawl space and just a big concrete slab, that's a different type of foundation. You cannot mix those. You can't have, like, a half-post and beam, half-concrete, put the house on top. It's not going to go well. It's going to split right down the middle. That's what Paul is saying here. There is a profound incompatibility between building according to Christ and according to the world.
28 · The pastor introduces Luther's distinction between theology of glory and theology of the cross via Carl Trueman's explanation, establishing that the fundamental theological error is assuming continuity between God's ways and the world's ways rather than recognizing their opposition
Now, a great contrast here is the two incompatible theologies Martin Luther identified during the 16th century. So, Luther was a German Roman Catholic monk. Who saw a major problem in the church. And one of the problems he saw in the church was what he called the contrast between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross. Historian Karl Trueman summarizes what Luther said here. He says this: In simple terms, the theologian of glory assumed that there was basic continuity between the way the world is and the way God is. If strength is determined through raw power on earth, then God's strength must be the same, only extended to infinity. To such a theologian, the cross is simply foolishness, a piece of nonsense. But in the theology of the cross, God reveals Himself under His opposite. Or to express this another way, God achieves His intended purposes by doing the exact opposite of that which human beings might expect. What he's saying is this, a theology of glory, a Christian of glory, if you could say it that way, is someone who believes, listen, Christianity and the world, they're basically the same. It's just that God does all the things in the world better than the world does. He's a better version of what the world does. Where the Bible would say they are opposite, they are polar opposite.
29 · The pastor applies the theology of glory vs
Let me give you a few examples here. Think about blessing. It is possible to think about blessing as a Christian in the same context the world does, meaning blessing equals more money, blessing equals more notoriety, blessing equals more comfort. No. In Scripture, blessing equals more of the presence of God, more contentment with what you have, more wholeness in your soul, It's the person who loses their job but rejoices because in it they find the grace of God and the presence of God. Right? That is utterly different.
30 · The pastor applies the theology of the cross to greatness, contrasting worldly measures (fans, power, wealth) with kingdom measures (humility, godliness, service), then illustrates with specific examples from the congregation
Or think about the world thinks— how the world thinks about greatness. In the world's eyes, greatness is found in a number of fans, in how much power you have, how much wealth you have, how much influence you have. But for a theologian of the cross, for the church of Jesus Christ, greatness is found is humility and godliness and service. Just recently saw— so two quick examples here. The world will probably never know their names, they'll never appear on the front page of the New York Times, but often after everyone else has gone on Sundays, I see Ingrid Moreno here carefully, faithfully keeping the books of the church that she might serve all of us and allow all the ministries of the church to go. And she does that despite having suffered great loss personally. Or I see Cherry here very early or very late, or usually both, serving people behind the scenes. And you might think the world would look and say, "Well, they're just doing small jobs." But in the kingdom of God, that is greatness, brothers and sisters. Brothers and sisters. That is greatness.
31 · The pastor applies the theology of the cross to the concept of relevance, contrasting cultural currency with biblical faithfulness and using the concrete example of the oldest saint in a community group
The world thinks about relevance in terms of cultural savvy, whether they're in line with the thinking of the current movement, in line with the movement of the moment. But in the church of Jesus Christ, relevance is defined by most accurate according to the Word of God and eternal realities. Meaning that probably in your community group, the oldest saint in your group is the most relevant person in the room. Not the person who's like, "Ooh, look at those new Air Force Ones. Those are beautiful." No, it's a person who stopped caring about Air Force Ones long ago, but knows their Bible better than anyone.
32 · The pastor applies the theology of the cross to forgiveness (contrasting cancel culture with gospel reconciliation), then returns to Trueman to identify the cross itself as the supreme example of God working through opposites
One more. Forgiveness, right? The world has no category for forgiveness and reconciliation. The world only knows cancel culture, right? If somebody does something, you cut them out of your life. That's it. That's done. We're done. You're over. You're canceled. But in the church of Jesus Christ, forgiveness and reconciliation display the power of the gospel. And the church is a place where former enemies labor alongside one another for the kingdom of God. Right? That is the contrast, that it could not be more stark. Truman gives one last example. He says, "The supreme example of this is the cross itself. God triumphs over sin and evil by allowing sin and evil to triumph apparently over him. His real strength is demonstrated through apparent weakness." This was the way a theologian of the cross thought about God.
33 · The pastor synthesizes the theology of glory vs
So, the reason we must build carefully, brothers and sisters, is there are not two— the two paths in the world around us, the theology of glory and the theology of the cross, are incompatible. You have to pick one or the other. You will be a fool in one or the other. And I think so many Christians today want to figure out, is there a way that I can pick something that doesn't make me look foolish? And the reality is this: you will be a fool. You cannot avoid it. Either you will be a fool in the world or a fool in the kingdom of God. So, pick carefully. Pick carefully. Choose carefully because, third, looks are deceiving.
34 · The pastor reads verses 12-13, introducing the metaphor of building materials (durable vs
Verse 11— or verse 12, rather: "Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw." "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."
35 · The pastor illustrates the principle that appearances can be deceiving with a story about friends whose beautiful dream home proved to be structurally defective when the first monsoon revealed leaks in every room
Now, I'm going to illustrate this by talking about a number of years ago, we had some new folks to the church that quickly became our friends that were excited to build what was in many ways their dream home. So they built it way out on the far east side, out in the desert, and it was this new beautiful row of homes, all looked so sparkling, and they put a bunch of the things that they'd wanted for a long time in this home, and they watched it being built, and they did all the normal things. They took pictures of it as it was being built, and they saw the finishings. They had beautiful finishings in many ways, and they couldn't be happier to live in what was in many ways their dream home. And everything was fine until the first monsoon. Now, I don't know if you know this, but El Paso doesn't have rain like the rest of, you know, other— the rest of the world. It has aggressive rain. Like when other places like Seattle or Portland or whatever, the rain is misty and, you know, it's like, "Oh, this is refreshing. I love—" you know. El Paso's rain is aggressive. In the desert when it rains, it's like, "Watch out! It's raining!" It's like just buckets of boosh, boosh, boosh. Hit against your roof, and that's why we've got ditches everywhere, because otherwise the city would wash away every time it rained. And that first monsoon, they were telling us that they didn't have one leak, or two leaks, or three leaks, or four leaks, or five leaks. Every room in their house had a leak. Every window was leaking. And all of a sudden, they're like scrambling to protect their TV and their electronics and their kids' precious toys, and they're— And here's what happened. It revealed that looks can be deceiving. Things can look beautiful from the outside, but when the test comes, it can utterly fail.
36 · The pastor connects the leaking house illustration back to Paul's fire metaphor, explaining that fire is an even more aggressive test than rain and that it reveals the true nature of building materials by destroying what is flammable and refining what is durable
And Paul, Paul is talking about a similar test, not with rain, but his metaphor is a lot more aggressive even than that. It's fire. Fire tests everything, doesn't it? Fire reveals impurities in metals, doesn't it? Fire, you find out real quickly what kind of building materials you're working with when you stick them in fire. And he lists some that are easily flammable: hay, straw, boom, poof. Or gold, which is refined in the ancient world by fire.
37 · The pastor identifies the fire-test as the final Day of Judgment when all humanity stands before God, explaining the theological significance of the capitalized 'Day' in verse 13
Now, what is that test? It's the Day. Look at verse 13. It says, "The Day will disclose it." That Day, that word "Day" is capitalized for a reason. It's not a day, it's the Day. The day that you stand before God himself. The day that the judgment seat is thrust forward over all humanity and everyone who has ever lived is arrayed before it. That's the day.
38 · The pastor expounds the binary outcome of the Day—either watching your life's work burn up or seeing it last forever—then presses the hypothetical question directly to the congregation to force self-examination
And on that day, one of two things will happen. Either you will see so much of what you've given your life to burn up and evaporate, or you will see what lasts forever. Now look, This is where the text pushes us, okay? If you found yourself before the judgment seat this very afternoon, what in your life would be burned and what would survive?
39 · The pastor illustrates the worthlessness of worldly achievements on the Day of Judgment with the absurd hypothetical of trying to impress God with a truck, resume, or bank account—things that cannot survive the fire
Look, nobody— and again, I'm not picking on anybody that just bought a truck, but let me use it as an example, right? Say yesterday you buy a beautiful I don't know, Ford F-250 extended cab, right? You're just— this is the truck you've dreamed about. It is beautiful. It is glorious. You drive it home, but you— and yet today the Lord calls you home. You will not on the judgment seat when the Lord says, well, what do you have to say for yourself, Christian? You don't say, well, Lord, let me show you my beautiful F-250. "Now this baby I've been working on for a long time," right? Now listen, I'm not making fun of anybody who bought a new car, right? I'm not, I'm not trying. But what I am trying to do is contrast so much of what the world holds out as the thing to strive after is not on that day gonna be worth a whole lot. No one on the last day is gonna say, "Lord, look at my resume. Have you ever seen a better one?" "Lord, look at my bank account. Have you ever seen a more orderly, thoughtful series of investments as mine?" No. You can't take it with you.
40 · The pastor applies the warning dimension of the passage, clarifying that salvation is by grace alone but warning that Christians can still suffer devastating loss on the Day when everything they invested in burns up as worthless
What on that day will be burned up? There's a warning here. Now, notice Paul is careful here. He doesn't say the way that you build results in salvation. As he's been very clear, salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But he warns Christians, he warns, "You may be saved as through fire," meaning that everything else that you gave your life to will be burned up and be worth nothing in the end. You don't want that. You do not want that, on that day to realize everything you gave your blood, sweat, and tears to is gone. Is gone.
41 · The pastor balances the warning with the extraordinary hope of verse 14—that faithful work built on Christ will survive the fire, receive reward, and become more glorious in eternity, especially things that seemed unimpressive in this life
Or there is also a beautiful hope held out that if you give yourself to the right things, it says in verse 14, "If the work that anyone has built on the foundation," the foundation meaning Christ, "survives, he will receive a reward." Wait, that is extraordinary too. Salvation is all by grace, but us in cooperating with the Lord and pursuing the things of the Lord and building on Christ, we can build things that survive into eternity, that only become more beautiful and glorious in eternity. That, man, that is what we should all strive for, that the things that seemed unimpressive in this life are writ large in the annals of eternity.
42 · The pastor transitions from individual application to corporate church application by introducing D
Now, that applies personally, but it also applies to the church. D.A. Carson says on this point, he says, it is possible to, quote, build the church with such shoddy materials that at the last day you have nothing to show for your labor.
43 · The pastor quotes D
People may come, feel helped, join in corporate worship, serve on committees, teach Sunday school classes, bring their friends, enjoy fellowship, raise funds, participate in counseling sessions and self-help groups, but still not really know the Lord. If the church is being built with large portions of charm, personality, easy oratory, positive thinking, managerial skills, powerful emotional experiences, and people smarts, but without the repeated, passionate, Spirit-anointed proclamation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we may be winning more adherents than converts. Now, not for a moment am I suggesting that, say, managerial skills are unnecessary or that basic people skills are merely optional. But he says this, "But the fundamental, non-negotiable, that without which the church is no longer the church, is the gospel." God's, quote, folly, Jesus Christ and him crucified.
44 · The pastor condenses Carson's extended warning into a single memorable binary: a church built on fans vs
Now look, my summary of Carson here would be just this. It would be, you can build a church on fans or you can build a church on followers of Jesus Christ, but you can't build it on both.
45 · The pastor illustrates how a Christless church can look nearly identical to a genuine church by pointing to the phenomenon of secular churches that replicate all the forms of church without the gospel content
And the problem is that the two churches may look similar in the motions they go through. Have you seen this, that people who no longer go to church still miss some of the stuff of church? And so in some places, there are now secular, quote unquote, churches that do almost all the same things a church does. They get together, they sing some songs, Kumbaya or whatever. They have somebody get up and give an inspirational talk for the week. They stay afterwards and have coffee and donuts and fellowship. And all of it Christless, all of it without the Bible.
46 · The pastor applies the secular church illustration directly to his own congregation, warning that they too could go through all the same motions without Christ and have it all burn up on the Day—therefore they must build carefully
And here's the reality, you can do all of this stuff. You can have chairs and seats and you can do everything we're doing. Right now without Christ, and Paul's warning is it will be burned up and mean nothing in eternity. So, build carefully.
47 · The pastor balances the warning with the contrasting hope that what appears small and humble in the church now will be glorified and beautified in eternity
And yet the hope is this, that the small, humble stuff of the church that seems so unassuming to the world will be beautified in eternity.
48 · The pastor illustrates the hope of small acts being magnified in eternity with the story of Dan, a bivocational elder battling cancer whose faithful, joyful presence in church despite severe suffering preaches a louder sermon than any pulpit ministry
I experienced this recently when I was visiting one of our sister churches in Colorado. There's a brother named Dan there who serves as a bivocational, non-paid elder in the church there. And Dan, well, the world may never know Dan's name. He's been in a severe battle with cancer the last few years, and this year in particular the battle has gone poorly and his health has begun to fail. And, well, what will happen next is only in the hands of the Lord, but it was a surprise then when I was with our sister church to see him there on Sunday. Surprised, shocked to see him. I knew from talking to his other pastor, Mark, how much pain he was in day to day and how much of a struggle it was just to get out and do things. Yet he was there on Sunday and he was full of joy. And he sang as much as he could, and he greeted every saint. And as I talked to him, I tried to ask him about him, and he quickly turned the conversation back to me and was asking about me and you guys at the church and how things were going. And I walked away thinking, the world will never know this man's name, but on that last day, every moment of every Sunday he has spent will be precious and beautiful in God's sight. Because there are people, I'm sure— I actually talked to somebody in the church who said, "Listen, the reason Dan— I love seeing Dan at church is I walk in with my problems, with my difficulties, with my health issues, and then I see Dan singing and it puts it all into perspective." Dan, I think, probably preaches a louder sermon even when he's not preaching than anyone else preaches in that church.
49 · The pastor shifts into direct pastoral comfort, addressing those who are faithfully building on Christ but feel overlooked, assuring them that the Lord knows their name and that their work will be publicly celebrated on the Day
Brother and sister, I want you to be encouraged. If you're giving yourself to the right things, this passage should be all kinds of encouraging. That even though the world may never know your name, that you may not have notoriety, that you may not have 50,000 followers on Instagram or whatever social media thing is current, the Lord knows your name. And on that day we'll all see and applaud. —those private moments that you have built on what lasts.
50 · The pastor reads verses 16-17 and provides cultural context about pagan temples in Corinth to show how shocking Paul's claim would have been—that the church, not physical temples, is where God actually dwells, making the church precious beyond measure
All right, fourth and last reason we build carefully is because the building itself is so precious. Verse 16: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy and you are members of it." that temple. Now, this language Paul is using would have been shocking in many ways and provocative in the city of Corinth, a city famous for temples. And in many ways Corinth was like a polytheistic Disneyland. People were selling all kinds of little statues of their famous gods. People would come and make pilgrimages to Corinth to visit the gods, and here was the reality. The gods, they didn't live in that temple. The gods lived way up there on Mount Olympus out there somewhere. And maybe if you were lucky, they'd be in that day, in the office, and hear and receive your offering and give you a boon, give you a help. And Paul is saying, "No, no, no, no, no." And they were used to everything about that temple being precious. Oh, the people would keep it beautiful. There would be all these adornments over it. There'd be all this reverence and holiness. And Paul takes all of that and says, "Church, you are God's temple, and God himself doesn't dwell far off. He dwells right here in and among you." The very presence of the living God, living and active among his people. Therefore, he says, it is precious to him.
51 · The pastor expounds the severity of verse 17's warning by cross-referencing Acts 20:28 to establish why God would destroy anyone who destroys the church—because the church was purchased with Christ's own blood and is therefore infinitely precious to God
Now, notice the shocking phrase here: "If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him." Now, that's a pretty stark statement, right? I mean, you're like, "Man, well, I mean, maybe he'll, you know—" No, God will destroy him. Anyone destroys the temple, God destroys him. That's it. Why? Because it is so precious. In Acts 20, similarly, Paul is charging the Ephesian elders as he's leaving and probably will never return to Ephesus, and Paul charges them, "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God," listen, "which he obtained with his own blood." blood. Meaning this, in the church of Jesus Christ, every saint, every man, woman, and child who is a believer in Jesus is someone for which Christ shed his very blood for. And now as they gather, God dwells in and among them as a church. And therefore, it is precious to him.
52 · The pastor tells a self-deprecating story about receiving a precious first-edition Spurgeon book, then forgetting about it and nearly ruining it through neglect during the pandemic, to illustrate how we forget that precious things are precious when they become familiar
Now, often the problem is that we forget precious things are precious, don't we? Because they become mundane. Now, I have this little glass case, you may have noticed here, and this has a book in it. Now, before the pandemic, one of the brothers from church gave me this little book. Now, if you know me, you know one of my favorite preachers, probably my favorite preacher, is the preacher Charles Spurgeon from England. And so he had a pastor's college where he trained pastors, and he had a collection of advice to preachers called Lectures to My Students. And this is what I believe from all accounts is a genuine first edition printing of Spurgeon's Lectures to My Students. And you can tell because it's super old and fragile. And here's the problem. Before the pandemic, this brother gave it to me. And I was, I mean, I was like undone. I was like, oh my gosh, man, I can't imagine how difficult this was to get. You know, this probably is expensive, I don't know, or at least difficult to obtain. Like, this is a precious thing to me. And then the pandemic hit. And all of a sudden I'm like, ah, I don't know, I wasn't even at the office, in and out of the office. In the rush of everything going on in life, I forgot about the book 'cause it was sitting on my desk. And one day I just took the book and I put it in my closet thinking I need to get to that later. And then the pandemic kept going and kept going and kept going. And, you know, then we came back and all this stuff happened. And this year, I'm not exaggerating, this year, the beginning of the year, I was cleaning my closet out and I was like, what is this old book? And I opened it and all of a sudden remembered. Like, oh no. And it was just— it was on a dusty shelf in my closet among a bunch of old books and a Hell's Bells VHS set, if you remember that from the '90s, like a bunch of other weird, you know, Christian stuff. It was just there on the shelf and it was getting heated. There was no climate control, just getting heated up and cooled down, no protection. Just shuffled around, and I just thought, "Ah." And I'm carefully trying to examine whether it's broken. And that's why I got this little fancy glass case to protect this from myself, right? Because it is precious. And I'm telling you, if the church burned down, I would, you know, I would be sad that the carpet's gone, the chairs are gone, but my first question would be, "Did they find the cross?" The Spurgeon book. What is the condition of the Spurgeon book, right? That would be my first question. If it's on fire, I'm gonna leave you guys to fend for yourselves and hopefully our safety team will kick in and I'm running upstairs and I'm grabbing this, okay?
53 · The pastor applies the Spurgeon book illustration to the church, arguing that familiarity causes us to treat the church as mundane when in reality every believer around us is someone Christ died for and God Himself dwells among us
And I couldn't believe that what was actually precious, I treated like another common, old worthless book. But similarly, I think, in the church, because it becomes mundane, we forget to treat the church as precious. We have this precious thing that we just stick on the shelf of our life next to everything else, forgetting that every one of the people around you who is in Christ is someone for whom Jesus shed his blood. The Son of— the blood of the Son of God, the Creator and sustainer of all, the one who is preeminent, as Colossians says. He shed his blood for the person next to you. And the presence of God himself dwells in and among us. That is unlike anything else in life.
54 · The pastor grounds the church's preciousness in Jesus' promise from Matthew 16:18 that He will build the church and that hell cannot prevail against it because God's full sovereignty and power protect what He considers precious
And it is backed by the promise of Jesus, "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." Why? Because it is precious to him, and the full might of his sovereignty and power is arrayed behind the church of Jesus Christ.
55 · The pastor applies the preciousness of the church to conflict situations, contrasting two responses—treating the church as disposable (gossip, slander, canceling people) vs
So, look, we build carefully because of how precious this is. Let me just give a couple examples here. Imagine that you are in the church and there is some ministry problem in your community group, in the ministry you serve. Serve in. And if the church is not precious, then you will, you know, fire off a grumpy comment, maybe gossip and slander to people around you, and be like, "Can you believe what they did?" And fight over the direction of the group or undercut the leader or, you know, or just leave and just cancel everybody in that group and never speak to them again. If the church is not precious, what is it? What's a big deal? But if the church is precious, then we love people enough to confront them if they're in sin. We love people enough not to gossip and slander. We love people enough to forgive and restore and cry and have long meetings. We do that because the church is precious.
56 · The pastor applies the preciousness of the church to the universal experience of leaving a church, contrasting destructive departures (tearing down, no encouragement, ghosting) with departures that honor the church's preciousness (encouragement, guarded speech, emotional investment)
Or similarly, here's a common example. When you leave a church— now, everybody in this room is going to leave this church one way or another, okay? Either you're going to get PCS'd somewhere else out, or you're going to get mad at me eventually, or someone else here eventually, or you're just going to die, okay? This church is not going to be in this configuration for all eternity. So everyone's leaving the church. But the way you leave the church shows whether you believe it is precious or not. If you leave the church and you tear it down on the way out, you offer no encouragement to the people who have served you, never contact people again, that reveals, I think, what you think about the church. Or if you must leave the church for some reason and you are careful to encourage and build up people as you go, and you are careful to guard your speech as you go, and you cry and hug people as you go, I think that shows the church is precious. As precious as it is.
57 · The pastor signals the transition to the conclusion by restating the sermon's controlling imperative and announcing the final illustration
So be careful how you build. All right, let me end with this.
58 · The pastor tells a childhood story about helping his grandfather with building projects and learning the lesson 'we're not done till we test it'—setting up the sermon's final application that we must test what we're building
Often I would work on building projects with my granddad growing up, and I was the tool kid. I did not get my granddad's genetic aptitude for, like, building and fixing anything. I can't do that, so don't call me. Somebody— I shared one of these stories and somebody assumed I was like, oh, you must, you must be good at plumbing because you told a plumbing story. No, the opposite is true. The opposite is true. So I could, though, hold the tools. I was capable enough as a kid to do that. And so I held the tools. I learned the names of the tools, handed the tools to him, put the tools back in the tool shed. And, and I was always anxious to be done with the building because usually at the end of helping my granddad with some project, I got a soda or some kind of sugar. And my mom didn't let me have sugar at home. And so the sugar soda was precious to me. It was very precious to me. And so I would be anxious to finish the job, to move on, to get to the good stuff, to get to the candy, get to the cookie, get to the sugar. And so I'd be like, "Are we done, Granddad?" He would be, you know, screwing in the last bit or tightening the valve. "Okay, it looks like we're done. Are we done?" And he was this, you know, Mississippi Southerner, and he would say, "Son," and he told me this multiple times, "Son," He would call me son or Scooter, which is my nickname for some reason. I don't understand why. Son, he would say, we're not done till we test it. Oh, oh, okay, yeah, that's true. We probably should test it. So like he would turn the water back on and see if there are any leaks, right? He would turn the electricity back on and see if it worked. He would always make sure we tested it before the sugar, right?
59 · The pastor applies the grandfather's lesson to the congregation's spiritual lives, calling this sermon moment an opportunity to test what they're building, then invites them to stand for prayer
And in a similar way, As we build, we're not done until we test it. And this is a moment, it's a moment the Lord's given us to test what we're doing. So I want to encourage you, I want to invite you to stand up and we're just going to go to the Lord in prayer and ask him to help us.
60 · The pastor prays for the congregation, asking God to test how they're building their lives, families, and church; interceding that the Day of Judgment would be joyful rather than sorrowful; and committing the church to build on Christ crucified as the shared foundation across all levels and generations
And so, Lord, in this closing moment, Father, we come before you and we ask you to help test us. Lord, test us and reveal and reveal how we're building our lives. Test us and reveal how we're building our families, how we're building the church around us. Lord, pray that you would help us. Lord, we want on that day, that last day, to be a happy day, a day in which so much of what we gave our attention to that was overlooked by the world is celebrated and rejoiced over for eternity. We want that day to to see those small seeds, like mustard seeds, grown large across eternity. Lord, we do not want that day to be a fearful day where we lose everything we've given our hope and our life and our blood, sweat, and tears to. So, Lord, help us today. Help us to test what we're building. Lord, if there's any area in our personal lives or in our family or marriage or even the way we relate to the church around us, the people around us, Lord, that needs to be adjusted, I pray that you'd help us adjust it. May we build well. May we build on the right foundation. Lord, may we be willing to be fools in the eyes of the world to be wise in the kingdom of heaven. And I pray, Lord, that we as a church would be a church doggedly committed to building on the foundation of Jesus Christ, and that that commitment and that conviction would be on every level of our church, from every Christian to every family to every group to every ministry to every Sunday. Lord, may our commitment to build on Christ and him crucified be the thing that is shared among all of us, that we on that last day when brothers and sisters and saints from this decade and the one before and the one before and the one after and the one after that, may all of us rejoice at what you've built at Cross of by God's grace, that would endure by God's grace into eternity. And may we, as we build, build faithfully, build carefully, build knowing that You build with us and have promised that the kingdom of God and the church of Jesus Christ will endure. We pray for these things in Jesus' name. Amen.