Building on the foundation of Jesus Christ, believers are called to construct their spiritual lives with valuable materials like gold and silver, rather than perishable ones like wood and hay. The sermon emphasizes that true spiritual work is not about eloquent speech or human wisdom, but about conveying God's message through His revealed wisdom found in creation, sacred history, and supremely in Jesus Christ. It illustrates this by contrasting the superficiality of worldly oratory with the profound impact of God's truth, and by highlighting how embracing God's character, as seen in the parable of the prodigal son, leads to building with enduring value. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a focus on the content and divine origin of our message and actions, ensuring they align with God's will and character for lasting spiritual impact.
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Most of us here this evening have not been involved in pioneer work. We have read about pioneer missionaries. Maybe some of us knew those who actually founded the churches to which we belong today, but we ourselves have not been pioneer missionaries. We have not laid a foundation, as Paul did in Corinth. We can't call ourselves a master builder. in that sense but perhaps you have touched some personal lives the subject in first corinthians chapter three is the local church but i think there is an application to personal lives let me share a story with you tonight it's very personal and i'm almost somewhat embarrassed to share it with you but when i was a young man in vancouver many years ago Before I went to the Dominican Republic, I worked in a business, and there was another employee who was also born in Canada, but in his case, he was born of parents from Italy.
I was born of parents from Scotland. Our background was very different, including the religious background. He came from a Roman Catholic background. I came from the general Protestant background. I remember once I took him to spend the weekend with my grandparents. They also came from Scotland from Fife. And after my friend who was born of Italian parents had been in the home about five minutes, he leaned over and he said to me, Jim, what language do your grandparents speak? Well, I told them they were speaking English, but with that special accent that comes from Fife, We got to know each other very well at work.
I've invited him to my home. He fell in love with one of the employees who was a girl from Finland. Her background, well, they were atheists. And I remember that one day when they were at our home, both the young man and his girlfriend, we said to him, you know, we go to church. Would you like to come with us? And they said, we would like to come. So they came on a number of occasions. And one night, The young lady stayed behind, and she made a commitment to the Lord Jesus. When I went to work on Monday morning, my friend was there waiting for me at the door, and before I got into my desk, he said, I want to talk to you.
We went downstairs into a quiet corner, and he said, I want to know what happened last night to my girlfriend Eva. Well, I said, I wasn't there, but I understand. that she received the Lord Jesus. That's her personal Savior. He said, I'd like to know more about that. And we sat and we talked for a little while, and then he made a very simple commitment to the Lord Jesus in the basement on a Monday morning after that Sunday night service. Well, I never thought great deal about it. I was so happy. I knew him well. I loved him. And now he was a Christian.
And shortly after I left for the Dominican Republic, I heard about them. They got married. I knew they had a family. We saw them from time to time. They belonged to the assembly in which I grew up. They were very active. And about maybe ten years ago or less, we received a Christmas card. And the Christmas card came from this family. The family name is Dorosio. And when I opened the card... It was filled with signatures, and there was a letter. And the letter was written by the children and the grandchildren of my friend, of whom I'm talking tonight.
And they said that they were all together for Christmas, and they'd asked their father how he had come to hear about the gospel and to receive the Lord Jesus. And he told them briefly the story I've shared with you this evening. And so they said, we want to send you this card to let you know that the blessing you brought our Father into has spread to his children and to his grandchildren. So when you touch a life and you speak to somebody, you have no idea what the ripple effect will be and just how many people, if you have in your home one of the missionary handbooks, look up spain and you'll find the name paul de rosio he's a son of the man that i'm talking about tonight many years ago simply shared with them the news of salvation and the foundation was put in his life and then in his marriage and then in his family and the blessings are spread near and far but we're going to talk tonight about the local church We
are not master builders. We are those who build upon the foundation. So let's take our Bible and turn to First Corinthians chapter three. First Corinthians chapter three. We're going to read again verse ten. Verse ten of First Corinthians chapter three. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. Now here's the phrase, but let each one take heed how he builds on it.
For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ now. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is." Now Paul has heard the news. Others have come on the scene since he left Corinth.
They've come into the church. They may have been converts in court or they may have come from other places. And these are the people who are going on with the work. They're building on the foundation that Paul and Apollos had laid in previous months. But they are not building well. There's chaos in the church. And there's confusion. So Paul has given us his personal testimony. We talked about it last night, how he laid the foundation and what the foundation was. Now he turns, and it's a warning. And he says to each one, now you be very careful how you build on that foundation.
We who are building on foundations put down by others, this is a word of warning to us that we too follow in the right way and build in a way that will be for God's glory and for the blessing of those who surround us today. Two thoughts tonight. I think we can take Paul, first of all, as an example, because he tells us something about the way he did the work. And I think as we look at Paul and realize just how he worked, not so much what he did, but the way he did it, we might find some lessons for ourselves.
For instance, in chapter two and in verse one, Paul writes, And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech. Now you may wonder about that phrase, just what it means. If you come to the Dominican Republic, and if you had a good knowledge of Spanish, and I took you to a rural area, you would understand that many of our Dominicans, they dropped the S, especially at the end of the word, where it should be.
And then sometimes they put the S where it ought not to be. I think it comes from way back in our history, listening to the people from Spain, the Spaniards. They talk with a heavier S sound than we do. And of course, they were the educated people. So when our Dominicans listened to them and they heard the prominence of the S sound, they realized that sometimes they didn't put in enough S's so they would put the S where it doesn't go. and then sometimes they would easily drop it where it ought to be. And in the Spanish language, of course, that can totally change the meaning of a word or a phrase.
And some people in the Dominican Republic have come to a phrase like this, and they have said, it doesn't matter how you talk, your grammar can be banned, Your words can't be properly pronounced. That's perfectly... Look at Paul. He says he didn't go to court with excellence of speech. Now that's a misunderstanding of this verse. Paul went to Jerusalem. He studied in the best university under what most think was the most outstanding professor of his generation. And Paul excelled above all of his peers. He was the outstanding student. I'm sure his knowledge of Hebrew and his knowledge of Greek and his knowledge of the Aramaic were flawless.
He knew these languages back and forth. We know about him primarily through the Greek language. He has written so many epistles in the New Testament. They were dictated, but they were his words and his thoughts, and the secretary wrote them down. And there's no doubt that out of Paul just flowed the words, so much so that some of his sentences seem to go on and on and on. And sometimes he stops without finishing. He breaks in with another thought. He had such a great mind, great vocabulary. And if sometimes he couldn't find the right word, he created a new word.
There are one or two examples of that in the New Testament. So here's a man who knew how to talk and who knew how to write and he knew his grammar. So that is not the meaning of this phrase. But he does say, when I came to Corinth, I did not come with excellence of speech. Now in the world of two thousand years ago, especially in Athens, which is not far away from Corinth, where you have the schools of the philosophers There were many who were known for the way they spoke, orators. It wasn't so much what they said.
It was their style, the gestures, and then special choice words in their vocabulary. And these men could dominate an audience, and the people would stand and listen. They didn't really hear so much what they said. It was the way they said it. I have seen that in the politicians of Latin America. When we had our frustrated revolution, our civil war in Santo Domingo, I went down into the colonial city, which was in the hands of the rebels. I was allowed in because I was a Canadian, not an American, and they let me in.
And I went down to what we call the altar of the fatherland. There's a great arch that belongs to the wall that went around the colonial city way back in the times of Columbus. And up on the top of this gate was the leader of the rebel movement. And he was talking to about a thousand people gathered in that great plaza, most of them very young. And I listened to him. The usual political cliches All of the words we've heard so many times, but it was the way he said it. And he had his military uniform on, and the gestures, the use of the hands, and the people applauded.
I'm sure if I talk to them afterwards, give me a summary of what he said. They might have had a difficult time, but they were impressed by the way he said it. Now, the world of two thousand years ago was filled with people like that. One of them is named in the Bible. When Paul went down to Jerusalem, before going to Rome, as you remember, he went into the temple, and some people accused him of taking a non-Jewish person into the temple, and there was a riot. They would have killed him. But right beside the temple is the Tower of Antonia. And from up there, the Roman soldiers could see what was going on.
And they ran down, and they took hold of Paul, and they saved his life. They took him back up into the fort. Then there was a conspiracy hatch to kill Paul in jail. And they brought him the news. And Paul shared the news with the officers of the jail. and they decided we'll send them down to Caesarea, right down on the Mediterranean coast. So at night, with a great number of soldiers and horses, they took them out of Jerusalem, and on the way down, then some of the soldiers returned, and a smaller group took them right down to Caesarea. He'd only been there a few days, only twelve days.
When the leaders up in Jerusalem, beginning with the high priest Ananias, decided, we're going to go down there, and we're going to get him, we'll talk down there to Felix the governor. We'll present our case, and I'm sure he'll give us this man back again, and then we will destroy him. But I imagine that before they left, they realized our case is weak. We really don't have a strong case. So they decided to get an orator. Tertullius is his name. and he went down with them. When they came into the presence of the governor, Felix, here was the spokesman.
I can see him in my mind. He would stand there finely dressed, and his head would be up, and he would have that particular gesture, his style, his chosen words, and he gave the case of the high priest against Paul. It's interesting that in the Acts, you'll find the story in chapter twenty-four, Apparently he made no impression whatsoever on the governor. I imagine the governor had heard hundreds of orators giving their speeches down through the years. This was one more, and he was worried of the whole thing. And when he was finished, he looked over at Paul, and he nodded his head, and he said, Now you speak.
And Paul got up and defended himself. And finally the man said, I'm going to leave this case and we'll decide it later on. And Ananias and his men went back to Jerusalem. They had failed. Now two days went by. And Felix with his wife, Drusilla, called Paul and he came in. They wanted to hear more about the way, more about the Christian faith. So Paul came in and he began to talk to them. No gestures, no special style. no great special words. He talked to them. He talked to them about the justice of God.
He talked to them about the need of self-control. And finally, he talked to them about the coming judgment of God. And the Bible says that Felix was startled or shocked. That's the word. If you know Spanish, se espanto. He was absolutely startled, not by the way Paul spoke, but by what Paul said, the content of the message. You say, maybe you're emphasizing the point too much tonight, but I'm not sure here in North America. We have not got over yet in Latin America the shock of the scandals.
in the United States and Canada in recent years with those who have used television for the Christian ministry. They have come with all the trappings of the world, the modern world, with all the gestures and all the styles, and all that world came crumbling down in disaster and shame for the Christian community. Paul says, I did not come like that. I did not come with excellence of speech. I came and I talked to you, and I preached this message about the Lord Jesus and why he died, and how he was raised from the dead, and you listened, and you understood, and you believed.
But he also adds, nor with wisdom, He did not come with human wisdom. Now I've mentioned Athens, all the schools of philosophy, that came over into Corinth and all through Greece, Delphi, and many other places were filled with priests and philosophers. This was all which came up out of man's mind and heart. And that's why in Athens you had so many diverse views. so many different opinions. One man thought this way, another man thought that way, and things haven't changed one little bit.
I've just finished reading a book called God and the New Physics. I thought this would be an interesting book, and I noticed that right at the beginning the author said, in his view, science was a better road to God than religion. I wondered what he meant by that because Of course, many of us who know church history, we bow our heads in shame when we think about history, even Christian history. But I wondered just what he meant, but the book is called God and the New Physics. So I thought maybe this is a scientist who in the study of the universe has found God and is going to give us a testimony about the transcendent eternal God.
And I read right through to the last page. And this is what the book ended up with. God is confined to the universe and is the power that sets things in order. That's a very mechanical and shallow view of God. This isn't the God of love and tenderness. This isn't the God who so loved the world that he gave. This isn't the father that sent his son to be the savior of the world. This is a God that has sprung up out of the mind of a scientist.
God is a power that has ordered things in the universe. Paul says, I didn't come with human wisdom. I came with the wisdom of God. Now, how does this wisdom come to us? Well, the psalmist tells us, the heavens declare the glory of God. That comes from way back in ancient history. They would go out as we can do in the Dominican Republic still on the night when there's no electric energy and our country is black. And we look up at the sky and the heavens declare the glory of God. Or you come to the New Testament and Paul tells us that the invisible attributes of God His eternal power in Godhead can be clearly seen by those things that are created.
So God has revealed himself. He did so, first of all, in the creation. Then he did it in sacred history. The Bible is not a book of history about all the peoples of the world. It's a special, sacred history, which begins with Adam and comes down to Abraham, is centered in Israel, and comes right up to the birth of the Messiah. That's the sacred, special history. And in that history, in great acts like the Exodus, God reveals himself to us. But the most beautiful, the fullest revelation of God is seen in the Lord Jesus.
And John said, no man has seen God at any time the only begotten of the Father, and some ancient manuscripts add, who is God, he has declared him. That's why Paul, outside of Damascus, when he met the Lord Jesus, in this great radiant light that threw him to the ground, that afterwards he could write about the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. All that the transcendent God is shone out in the face in the person of the Lord Jesus.
He was the living word. And the Bible we hold in our hands is the written word. that summarizes the witness of creation of sacred history and above all of the Lord Jesus, and it is written out so we can read it and understand it. This is the wisdom of God. So if we would like to build on foundations laid by others and do so in a way that our work can be described as gold, gold, and silver and precious stones, not wood, hay, and stubble. Then we must remember we do not follow the pattern of the world.
It's not so much how we say it. It is what we say. And secondly, we do not draw from the wisdom of the world. We go to the book, the Bible, the wisdom of God. That's the message that we convey to others. In closing tonight, two further thoughts about this matter of gold, silver, and precious stones, because all of us would like to know, I would like to be sure, that the work that I'm doing is a work that in God's sight will be like gold and silver and precious stones, not like the wood and the hay and the stubble.
And you feel that way, too. Let me give you two illustrations which might help us understand what it means. Because if you are building on the foundation and your work is going to be a work known as gold, silver, and precious stones, it must be in harmony with the character of God. If it is not, then it's wood, hay, and stubble. You may say to me, I don't really understand that. Well, let me give you two illustrations. First of all, the matter of tradition. Now, before I talk about traditions, please remember that Paul speaks about good traditions.
So we begin recognizing there are good traditions. But Paul also speaks about vain traditions. And we err, if we don't pay attention, to his comments about vain traditions. There may be other traditions that lie between those two extremes. But let me take you back to Jerusalem. Right after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Probably not more than a year has gone by. And there's persecution against the church in Jerusalem. The result is that the Christians have to flee and they scatter.
There's one group. And this group goes from town to town. Now, we don't know the names of the people who made up this group, but we know where they came from. Some came from Cyprus, that island in the Mediterranean. Others came from Cyrene on the northern coast of Africa. But they'd been in Jerusalem. Maybe for Pentecost. They'd been converted. They stayed there. They belong now to the new Christian church, but they had to run for their lives because of persecution. So they went from town to town, and they preached only to the Jews.
You see, they were Jews. They were scattered Jews from as far away as Africa and Cyprus, but they'd come home to Jerusalem. They heard about the real true Messiah. They accepted him as Savior, but they were still Jews. And so when they were scattered abroad, they went from town to town and they gathered the Jews together and they told them about Jesus, the Messiah. They moved farther afield into Syria and they were getting near Damascus when I believe someone must have come and told them, Did you hear the latest? Peter went into the home of an Italian.
I can see them standing there. Say that again. Peter went into the home of an Italian military man. They would shake their heads because no Jew would do that. Not even the Christian Jews at that time. Well, he would tell these friends, no, he had a vision from God, and so did the Italian. And Peter got up, and he went down, and he took some friends, and he went right into his house. And in the house, he began to tell them the good news of salvation, and the Spirit of God came down, and there was great blessing. Well, you can imagine the reaction amongst these men from Cyrene and Cyprus talking about this.
Have we made a mistake somewhere? And then maybe they would begin to remember. Maybe they'd heard what John wrote about later, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Or maybe they remembered the Great Commission that Jesus had go into all the world and preached to every creature. So there must have been a consultation, and they decided, when we get to Antioch, we'll preach to everybody, Jews and Gentiles. In doing that, they broke the traditions, and they went into that city, and they opened their hearts to everyone, and their mouth was used to proclaim the gospel to everybody.
And then you have that beautiful phrase, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and there was great blessing. That was surely a ministry of gold and silver and precious stones. What they did before only to the Jews, I wouldn't dare categorize as wood, hay, and stubble, because I am not the judge. But I know that was not complete obedience to the will of God. And when they understood and they moved their activities into harmony with God, there was tremendous blessing in Antioch.
As a matter of fact, Antioch became the great missionary church of the New Testament. Barnabas went up and sought. He was so happy, he remembered Paul. And he went off to Tarsus and got Saul, Paul, and brought him back and they spent time there. And then the church commended them to the grace of God to go out and evangelize the whole world around the Mediterranean. That all happened because traditions that were out of harmony with the will of God were broken. And they stepped into traditions and practices that were in harmony with God.
The other thought has to do with attitudes. Let me take you tonight to Palestine, maybe to some small village somewhere, and the Lord Jesus is there and he's going to tell some stories. We don't have many storytellers today, but you know, maybe some of you who are older remember when there was no television. and there was no radio. There was always a place for a person who could tell a story. In the world in which Jesus lived, stories were very important. Books were almost non-existent. So people told stories, and Jesus picked up that habit, and he taught the things of God in stories.
So they're gathered together. There'll be a number of men of my age with gray hair And they're sitting there and the Lord Jesus begins, there was a father. Well, I can identify with that because I'm a father. He had two sons. Well, I've had children too. And he tells the story about the younger son who comes to his father and he says, I want the portion of my inheritance right now. I can see the old men who are listening to the story shake their head. That is wrong. That ought not to happen. Why? If that young boy gets his inheritance ahead of time, that means that the old man's capital is diminished.
His economic resources will not be so strong. No, no, that's not right. That's wrong. The young boy ought not to ask for his inheritance. The Lord Jesus said, it must have been a good father. There's no conflict. There's no argument. The father divided his things, and he gave to the younger son his portion. Well, I can see the old men shaking their heads. That's a sad beginning to a story for that to happen. And then the Lord Jesus said, and the young man went away down to some city far off, and when he got down there, he wasted the whole thing. And I can see one man saying to another, that's what I would expect from a young man who has no experience.
He didn't know how to look after that money. He wasted the whole thing. So now you've got real indignation about this young man who's received his inheritance. He's made his father poor. And in a short time, he's wasted the whole thing. So there's real strong indignation against this son. Then the story turns to the boy in his misery. He's out in the fields, can't get proper employment. He has nothing to eat. And he looks at the food that the pigs are eating, and he's almost ready to eat it himself. He's in a very, very, I can hear one man say to another, it deserves him right.
He earned that by what he did. Then the Lord Jesus turns the story back to the farm where the father still lives. probably on a little house on a hill looking out over the valley down the road and the idea almost is of the father there on some late afternoon he's worked all day and he's come in and he's sitting on the porch maybe in a rocking chair resting and looking down the road he sees the figure of a man and right away he knows it's his son now at that point Everybody who's listening to the Lord Jesus knows how the story should end.
That man should stand up. That's my son. He should turn around and go back into his room, into his living room, and sit down in his big chair and wait until that boy comes up the stairs, knocks on the door, and comes in and kneels down before his father. and perhaps in a great confession, Father, I made an awful mistake. I'm very, very sorry. All I ask for is that you'll give me some job and something to eat. That's all I want. Then the Father would touch him on the head and say, I forgive you.
Now go and have a shower, and at six o'clock we'll have supper. That's how the story should have ended. But Jesus said, and I paraphrased, the old man gathers up his skirts and he runs down the road towards that lost son and when he gets there he puts his arms round about him he kisses him and he brings him home to a great banquet I almost think I can see the meeting break up in an uproar this ought not to happen you see the father will lose his dignity imagine what the neighbors will say when they see this old man running down the road towards this worthless son to bring him back again.
He would lose his position in society and his dignity. But Jesus did not change the story because that's exactly what God is like. And that brings us back to gold and silver and precious stones. That is, when was the last time that any of us here tonight ever ran literally or figuratively after someone who is lost and worthless and doesn't merit anything well that's what the Lord Jesus did when he told the story and I'm sure the men had a hard time understanding it but each Sunday morning you come to this place and you sit down And you remember Calvary.
And that's where God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. That's where God ran with all the passion of his love towards a lost, unworthy world. And in the person of his son, he gave his life that we might be brought back and reconciled again to himself. None of us here tonight can judge anyone else when it comes to the work that we are doing as we build on the foundation. But tomorrow night I want to talk to you about the one before whom we must stand and the evaluation that he will give of our work on that coming day.
To close our service, take your hymn book tonight and let's sing together hymn number sixty-five. Hymn number sixty-five is one of the great hymns of this hymn book. Hymn number sixty-five, majestic sweetness sits enthroned upon the Savior's brow, his head with radiant glory's crown, his lips with grace or flow. And please listen to verse three. He saw me plunged in deep distress and flew to my relief. For me he bore the shameful cross and carried all my grief.
Hymn number sixty-five, we will remain seated to sing the hymn. A chest and wings and wings and rose upon the Savior's crown. His head. His lips with grace are full.
His lips with grace are full. No mortal can with him compare upon the sun. of men. We must be the Lord of men who fail the heavenly train, who fail the heavenly train. Each body must live in distress, and who will I receive.
For me, Lord, the change of God, he's always free. To him I owe my life to him and all the joys I have. He takes me triumph over this and takes me from the grave, And faith betrothed the grave.
Since from his mouth the I receive, The truth of all divine, That honor of her who will part Lord, thank should all be mine. Lord, thank should all be mine. And now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, the honor and glory forever and ever. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.