First Corinthians 3:10-15 Foundation on Jesus
1 Corinthians 3:10-15 · Roger Henderson · Jul 5, 2020
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 15
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261919277407

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, so I like a gentleman called Chester McCauley, and this is his outline. So we've been going through, and we're kind of down to this section here, which we're going to talk about. There were divisions in the church in Corinth, and last week Mike covered verses 5, chapter 3, verses 5 through 9, that the servant only serves in the hand of God, basically. The servant isn't one that goes off on his own and says, hey, I have a great idea. Let's try this, let's try that. No, the servant is under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

So the part I want to focus on today is the rewards here. We kind of get into reward sections and the evaluation of rewards. So we're going to look at the the foundation of the church at Corinth. We're going to look at a lot of interesting picture words. Then next week, we're going to look at the superstructure of the church. So let's just kind of get into it here. So last week, Mike looked at verses 5 through 9. And I'll just read those again. What then is Apollos? And what is Paul?

Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the increase. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each one will receive a reward according to his own labor." So I kind of highlighted in blue here, hopefully it comes across on the internet too, that the key idea here we're going to see, the idea that Believers, the Apostle Paul and Apollos, anyone who knows the Lord Jesus and is preaching His word, or is serving in any capacity, they're called servants. But God is the one, in any ministry, He is the one that provides the growth.

And that comes across in verses 6 and 7. And it actually says, kind of a stark statement, That they're nothing and so you have to kind of take that in context from verse 5. We know there's servants So that's it. That's a good thing, right? There's servant. They know the Savior there's servants, but they're nothing I think in the sense that they can cause They can't cause anyone to be saved.

I Remember Bonnie would we had a dear friend in Longmont. I And she was trying to write her a letter. She wrote her a letter. She wasn't trying to. She was writing the letter. And she was just agonizing over every sentence. She wasn't sure she was a believer. She agonized over every sentence. And did I say the right words? And I said, you know, at some point you have to say, Lord, I tried my best. I put down what I believe is correct to your word.

And he has to take it from there. So God causes people to be saved. He causes people to grow. And that's kind of the one of the underlying themes of this passage. OK, so let's go on. So there's several metaphors in this passage, several word pictures, if you want to call them that. So the sower or the planter is one of those. And the two words are planted and watered or planting and watering. So we see those two words show up in five through eight. We just read that.

And the seed, typically as we know from the parable of the sower, is the Word of God. And we also see that the watering is also another idea of the Word of God. It's the teaching of the Word of God. And even though the servant is planting and watering, as we saw from those verses, it's God who causes the growth and the understanding of His Word. And then verse 9 we're going to see, which I didn't have, I didn't read verse 9 yet. And that's from last week as well. It's a transition verse.

It's going to transition from the picture, from an agricultural scene, if you will, the sowing and the watering, to a building format. You're going to have a foundation, and you're going to have a structure, or some call it the superstructure. We're going to see it move into that domain. Okay, so let's look at the domain of the builder. So a couple words, building and foundation are used.

They refer to the teaching, I believe, the teaching of God's Word. And so how do we, and this is a very, we have a great song in Sunday School, and you know, I could try to sing it, but I probably wouldn't, I'm already shaking your head, I probably should not try to sing it. If we had, you know, if I had our singers come up here. But here's the verse, and you guys probably know it, you probably memorized it, or you know it conceptually and what it's talking about.

It's, you know, the wise man built his house upon the rock and so on. So this is the passage. I think it teaches us some really neat things about the foundation and the building. So it starts off in Matthew 7, verse 24. Therefore, he who hears the words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.

So what struck me, you know, you read through these verses, sometimes you haven't read them in years and you know the song, Boy, I said, wow, this is really cool. These words are mine and act on them. So God is interested in us interacting with him. When his word is given out, God in his wisdom wants man to respond to that. That is the natural flow of what happens. God's word goes out as we read it, we interact with it, and we act on it.

You can spend a whole sermon on that, just about. But anyway, so that's really cool. And it says, going on to verse 25, And the rain fell, and the floods came down, and the wind blew, and slammed against the house. Yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. And so he goes on to the second kind of comparison here.

Everyone who hears the word of mine and does not act upon it on them. So this is the person that for whatever reason doesn't act upon hearing the word of God and too often we see this in many cases we'll share something from God's word many times the gospel and people you know if you look at carefully at scripture men are blind it takes the Holy Spirit to illumine their minds. If you go along with it, it says it did not act upon them It's like a foolish man who built his house in the sand and the rain fell and the floods came down Came and the winds blew and slammed against the house and it fell and great was its fall so what one of the key things to take away from today's message is the foundation of your faith in salvation and the foundation of your growth is critical and not to get We're going to see here, there's a warning not to get off track. Maybe you start in a good foundation, you're truly saved, and you're founded on a wonderful foundation, but somehow when you start building, things go awry.

I want to build on whatever. You know, today's world is, you know, let's have a flashy, I want to have a flashy building program, so to speak. I'm kind of making allusions here to stuff. You know, I'm going to have all kinds of fancy artifices. And God wants us to build on the truth of His Word. Okay, so let's go on.

So here's verse 9. This is my transition verse, or Paul's transition verse. Verse 9 says, For we are God's fellow workers, and you are God's field and God's building. So what's interesting, look carefully before I get into the details here, at this verse, it says we, that's going to be Paul, and his fellow companions, which we'll see, and it says you, You are, you are a field, and then by context you are a building. So we're going to look at, it switches between Paul talking about himself and talking about someone else. Okay. For, agar, indeed, we are God's fellow workers. Now Paul and the other teachers we saw earlier in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, it was Apollos and Cephas were his other workers there.

And it had this cool, cool Greek word in the original, amiv. is the verb that means continuous, the state in which something continuously exists. It's a present tense. So he's saying that these fellow workers are continually existing as God's fellow workers. They're fellowship with Him and they're carrying out what He would have them do. And fellow workers is this word to work with.

And this is one of Mike's points from last week, that It sounds like, well, you know, God, you do some stuff, I'll do some stuff, and then we'll have a meeting later on and see if I did it right. Well, no, that's not the way it is. God, if we read in Ephesians, he's planned our good works in advance. And our part is to trust in those good works and carry out those good works. We don't invent the good works. He preordains those good works.

OK, so seven and eight is going to describe more of this process. We just read seven and eight. So we're going to this is kind of loop back again here. So then neither is the one who plants know the one who waters anything. But God causes the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one. So there's a oneness that Mike talked about last week. I'm not going to talk much about that today.

So another beautiful picture in scripture is the vine and the branches. So from that picture we see that we are the branches. We are the conduit of God's word. And what always strikes me about the, you have a picture of the, the, the, the vine and it's, uh, and the branches, the branch just, it's a conduit. It just connects the fruit and the, and the what's providing the nutrients. So, um, I believe you could say all the nutrition of God's word comes from God, not the planter or the water.

He's, he's supplying the nutrition. He's providing the life. Okay. So that's the first part. For you are God's fellow workers. So who are God's field and God's building? Actually, it falls out pretty nicely here. So I believe he's talking about in context of what we're reading. This is the church at Corinth.

Or it could be Holly Hills. Or any local body of believers. It could be Holly Hills. It could be any. But here in context is Corinth. So you are God's field. So the first picture is that the local assembly, you're a field. The church at Corinth, and again we have our favorite word here, ME, we continually exist as God's field, a body of believers, a body of Christ, a local body of Christ, continuously exist as His field.

And actually it's an interesting picture. It's a land under cultivation. The picture isn't he put the crop out and that's it and he's done. We grew one crop and that's it. It's continuously under cultivation. He's continuously cultivating and that's what you want in a body of believers. You want a growing body. You want a body that's being cultivated continuously. So that's one word picture where a field or a land under cultivation.

And the second picture is You are God's building. So now we switch from the cultivated field to a building. And the building is a picture of the local church. So that actually, we're caught up from last week. So we've gone back, we looked a little bit at last week. So we're now going to look at God's building. We're going to concentrate on God's building, especially on the foundation. Okay.

So today's verses, there are two of them. Verse 10 says according to the grace of God which is given to me like a wise master builder I laid a foundation and another is building on it But each man must be careful how he builds For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid which is Jesus Christ So and I know you guys probably already Nobody probably has a problem with this verse. I mean, you know you say yes Jesus. He's a foundation.

I believe that amen and But there's some really neat things to see from this. So, this verse, if you look at it, you know, if you're into looking at the words, I heard, I think it was Chester McCauley, he has a tape ministry, and you listen to some of his tapes, he said, believers, and he was quoting someone else, believers should be students of the word in the sense that they're interested in every word of God. I remember talking to my son one day, and I was studying my older son, Mark, I was, doing something for Bible study, and I was looking at the original language, looking at word by word.

What does this word mean? What is this word? What's the tense? All this stuff. And I said, Mark, does this interest you? Are you interested in that? He says, well, I don't know, Dad. I don't know if I'm interested in that or not. And he's a believer. That's not a fault, but it's just, you know, God, He has so much to convey, word by word, sentence by sentence, verb by verb, noun by noun, every part is important. And so, A wise man will be wise in the sense of looking at God's Word in detail. To that end, if you spend the time looking at this verse, the main subject, verb, and direct object is, I laid a foundation.

And I'm not a great grammarian. In fact, I barely passed English all the way through school. I mean, I struggled. But basically, so with that in mind, the rest of them all modify, I lay the foundation, Paul lay the foundation. So I kind of went through, so we're going to cover it kind of in an order that kind of focuses on, I lay the foundation.

So the first part, the modifier of I lay the foundation is, is like a wise master builder. Like or as, wise comes from the word Sophia, for knowledge, believer or wisdom. Believers endow with spiritual and practical wisdom. Master builder is an interesting word. It's a word that we have, we would say architect in English. It's used figuratively for the laying of a foundation of the local church.

And I like this verse, you know, how, how would we say Paul was wise? What would give us a clue that Paul was a wise master builder? And I think we already have studied this verse a couple of months ago. In second in chapter 2 so chapter 2 of 1st Corinthians says and when I came to you brethren speaking about coming to Corinth I Did not come to you with superiority of speech proclaiming to you the testimony of God For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified so Paul's focus was not on a any kind of techniques or anything that Outside of the fact that he wanted to focus on our Savior he want and hit that he was crucified and rose again on the third day The verse doesn't say that but it Paul's message was that the gospel Christ died for our sins He was buried and he rose in the third day. That was Paul's message and he that wasn't a message that he cooked up himself if you read carefully later on when we said in chapter 15 and That was a revelation he got from the Lord Jesus Christ. So anyway, I'm kind of diverging a little bit, but he was a wise master builder because his focus was solely upon Christ and him crucified. Now, now to my core part of the verse, I lay the foundation, a little picture of foundation. Oh, I have a foundation story, foundation story.

Have you guys ever had water in your basement? Probably, maybe all of you have had water in your basement. Well, my foundation story is, they didn't so much not build the foundation properly, they didn't grade it right. So one side, water could seep in and fill up all the window wells, and when that happened, Vonnie would come screaming, Roger, the basement's filling up with water! So the window wells would fill up, the water would seep through, they're not airtight. And so we get water in the basement. So eventually, we didn't build a new foundation. We had the one side of the house regraded so the water wouldn't flow downhill.

So that's my foundation story. There's many foundations, many bad foundation stories. I'm sure people, I think the Lockwoods have suffered through that. Many stories to tell about a bad foundation. I think Holly Hills even has a story about that. I was listening to an old tape and about the It rained and the basement buckled. I don't know. I had to talk with Wayne about that. He's not here this morning. Anyway, that's my foundation story.

Alright, so Paul said, I laid, and it's the idea to put to place, laying a foundation, metaphorically, of Christ in relation to his body. And it's a fact. and I laid the foundation talking about the this is a foundation built upon the Word of God on our Savior, a living Savior. So I laid a foundation. Everything else is modifying this. So the key part that's modifying this, I think, is this phrase, according to the grace according to the grace of God which was given to me. So Paul says, I laid a foundation according to the grace which was given to me.

And according is one of the, this is where a little research, a little blood sweat and tears if it takes that and it's not you know anyway you can do it if you if you want to. Ketah is according to a norm or standard and it's by this by context of this verse the standard is the grace of God so Paul laid the foundation at Corinth according to to the standard to the grace of God and boy that really kind of I said wow that's really amazing and so if you're a Holly Hillite This next, so I can actually have somebody recite it. So we have a favorite, our favorite definition of grace and it's from Chester McCauley. It is grace is the unlimited unmerited blessings from God based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross.

But I think here that this is, and that's, you know, that's God's, that's a big picture, if you will. But in this situation, Paul had a special aspect of that grace with this body at Corinth. And we're going to see that. And actually, the tense here is better represented as having been given, spoken of God or Christ as the author or source of what has been received. It's passive.

It was according to grace. Paul wasn't the author of the grace. We aren't the author of grace. God is the author of grace. Okay, a few verses, I thought it might be appropriate to look at some few verses about the grace of God being given. In Ephesians, it says, 3.8, it says, To me, the least of all saints, the grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ. So we see for this case, God gave grace for a specific task, right? As with Paul, and it was preaching his word.

Here's another verse in Romans 12.3. For through the grace given to me, I say to you, say to everyone, that you not think more highly of yourselves than you ought, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has given to each a measure of faith. Then in 12.6, since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us should exercise them accordingly, if prophecy according to the proportion of his faith. Then lastly, and this is the one that is kind of amazing.

Many people say, well, I have a situation and God didn't come through on my situation. He didn't provide me with grace. Well, I don't really think that's possible for a believer. Because He promised. But it's interesting is that you may not see it eye to eye. And Paul didn't see it eye to eye. We're going to study this down the road a piece, in chapter, in book number two. But Paul had a disagreement with God.

He came to him three times and implored him to take away his thorn in the flesh. But eventually, he saw his grace was sufficient. So here in verse 9 it says, And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. A lot to be said about that, but I like that power is perfected in weakness. God's sufficient grace isn't what we always expect. Maybe it's enduring the trial. By faith, enduring the trial. And maybe it doesn't turn out the way you thought it should turn out. But God is faithful.

And Paul came to that conclusion. Your grace is sufficient. A few more things on the grace of God. God's grace in the founding of the church at Corinth, that's what Paul was given. In the larger picture, he had grace during his entire ministry. And this is kind of a repeat that tells us that he was given according to his grace laying the foundation.

And then lastly, I couldn't pass up this verse. This is great. For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men. And we were kind of talking about this in Sunday school. Salvation is available to all men. There's no man that cannot say, you didn't provide salvation for me. God is providing the death of the Savior. He died for the sins of the entire world. Salvation is available to all men.

Okay, there's a little detour on the grace of God. Okay, now his next point is, I laid the foundation. I was a wise master builder. I laid the foundation. It was according to the grace of God. And now he's going to say, you know, this isn't a solo task. He's going to say, another is building on it. In God's building program, there is not rivalry, but cooperation. That was part of the problem at Corinth. You know, they were saying, I'm of Paul, I'm of Paulus, I'm of Cephas. And they were different clubs, apparently, it sounds like. So it's not to be a rivalry, it's to be cooperation.

And what's cool here, another little, you peek in, look at the language a little bit. Another is this word alas, which means another of the same kind. i.e. the same kind as Paul. So this another builder, another building is a person like Paul that can receive the grace of God. The one building on the foundation has the same grace of God as Paul was given.

But now Paul is going to kind of, at the last part of this verse, he's going to issue a little warning. We'll see that next here. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. Each man or each one Must be careful. It's the idea of taking heed, considering. And here's a verse I think that helps. It's the same word. It's a derivative of bleppo.

Ephesians 5.15. Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise. So we're to be careful how we build. We're to be careful that we Our focus on the Savior, on what He's accomplished, on what Scripture says about Him, we build upon that as we have our building program, so to speak. And this is the rest of the verse. And He builds on it. And it's present tense, continuous action, continually building upon what the foundation has laid.

And then in Ephesians 2.20 It uses the same word, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.

And we see that expression, Christ Jesus being the cornerstone, quite a few places. So my view of this, some people say, well, it looks like I'm getting a different foundation here. I got the apostles on my foundation, the prophets. If you think carefully about it, the Apostles and Prophets, their foundation was Jesus Christ. So there's no disparity here. Their foundation was Jesus Christ. But we do learn an immense amount. Imagine what we learn from the Apostle Paul. We've got seven, seven? Thirteen, I'm sorry. I don't have my count right. How many books did Paul write? Thirteen?

I hope that's right. Anyway, a lot. Most of the New Testament. Anyway, critical, critical, critical to know the Apostles' teaching, especially Paul. Now, last verse here, verse 11. And this is a really cool verse. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

So, it's good to look at other translations. Sometimes you have to even go to the inner linear, which is a word for word translation from the Greek. And so this is the inner linear plus. And the plus is me fiddling with it a little bit. And I fiddled a little bit with a couple, at least one word, and I kind of changed the order a little bit to make it readable.

So from the interlinear it says, for no one is able to lay another foundation besides the one being laid, who is Jesus Christ. It just read a little bit better, and I can talk to it a little bit better, I think. So first of all, for no one is able to lay another foundation.

Now what's interesting here, we're going to find Not only is it critical to have Jesus Christ as your foundation, you cannot... it's actually an impossibility to have a... God is so concerned about the foundation, He says it's impossible to have a true foundation other than Jesus Christ. Which is, you know, you think, well, can't I fiddle a little bit? No, He says you can't. Not without peril. Now, people do, but He says, There's no other foundation except Jesus Christ.

We'll see that in a second. So actually here are just a quick little diagram here or subject, verb, direct object. No one, not even one, not even one, he says, to the exclusion of all else, no one or not even one is able or has the power, whether by virtue of his own ability or resources, to lay another foundation. To lay here is the idea, to place, to put. And we see it show up in the passages that we read about the two kinds of rocks, the one that's sand and the rock. Alos, our favorite word here again, another of the same kind.

It must, you cannot build, it has to be the same kind as Jesus Christ. besides the one being laid. This is interesting. You come across here, this is something that's going on. It's happening. Besides is this word, and this is really, really important, para in the Greek. And I actually didn't, you know, I had looked at this Greek word before and studied another, I didn't actually realize that there's kind of two aspects to this Greek word.

The first aspect of besides, he's saying, No one can lay a foundation besides, and besides can either be the idea of substituting something. I can't take, let's say I like X frame foundation. I'm making this up, but X frame foundation. He's saying you cannot substitute another foundation in place of Christ. But that's not all he says. You can't put one In addition, and we see the addition part is the part we see happen a lot. People want to have Christ plus something else. I want to have Christ plus works. I want to have Christ plus some person. It can't be a substitute foundation and it can't be addition to the foundation. So, he summarized it in another sentence here. He said, there is no substitute for the person of Christ. And there is no addition to the person of Christ.

Boy, that's just really key. Because people want to fiddle. They want to say, well, I think this is 2020, and we've got to do things, you know, it's got to be this, it's got to be that. No, it's got to be solely upon the person of Christ. Being laid, this is in the process, it's actually present tense, passive voice. In the process of being laid, God is performing the action. And then lastly, this last really cool part, who is Jesus Christ? And I like what Wyss did here. Wyss has his own translation, which we use a lot here. It's really New Testament only.

Which foundation is a person? Jesus Christ. I really like that. Which foundation is a person? Many people want to have a foundation on a church or a man. My foundation is pastor so-and-so or my foundation is this church or that church. No, the foundation is a person and that person is Jesus Christ. The only foundation, only the foundation of Jesus Christ can exist in God's building.

Note the foundation is a person and that's also important in our faith, right? We come to faith by knowing a person, not Not Christianity. You know, I get tired of people saying, well, I have my faith in Christianity. What does that mean? I mean, you have your faith in a person, and that person is Christ.

Now, this verse is really to the point. A beautiful verse. This is a Weiss translation. The be part of... In fact, actually, we've already covered this. Yeah, we have. Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, one chosen out, Cornerstone highly honored and precious the one who rests his faith on him shall positively not be disappointed This is a wonderful wonderful message and one just kind of the side what we tries to do he tries to bring out the verb tense and that positively not be to be Disappointed is bringing out the verb tense there. It's really cool Okay, so last chart final thought Around here. I keep talking to what we do at Holly Hills.

So if you're if you so actually there is Chafer systematic theology has this wonderful section called the riches of God's grace. I think it's on our website actually and Dr. Schaefer lists 33 riches that a believer possesses at the moment of salvation 33 riches that he has and this is actually what we've been talking about is number 15 on his list and So these are possessions that every believer has. He may not realize it, he may not believe it, but he has it. So this is the one on the rock Christ Jesus.

So Chafer says this, in consideration of divine grace as exercised on behalf of the lost, it is essential, as in other matters of similar import, to distinguish between the foundation and the superstructure. He wants to distinguish between the foundation and the superstructure. In the parable of the two houses, which we read earlier in Matthew 7, and there are other gospels that say it as well, one built on the rock and one built on the sand, Christ makes no reference to the superstructure, but rather emphasizes the importance of the foundation. He didn't talk about what you build on top of these foundations, he just said, build it on the rock. So his final comment here is, The smallest edifice on the rock will endure the tests which try the foundation only because the rock endures."

Boy, so critical. Not to say that we want to grow and come to know our Savior, to know Him personally, to know Him intimately. But if we don't have the foundation right, have that... We must have the foundation right. And if we have a small edifice or a big one, that's okay. And next week we're going to talk about building on the foundation. Okay, so let's close in prayer. We thank you, Father. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. We thank you for your love and care for us, Lord. In Christ's name, Amen.