How to Build a Fireproof Ministry - 1 Corinthians 3:10-17

Now turn with me to 1 Corinthians 3 10. Now you can also pray that I do as well with the 2nd sermon.

1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 10 through 17.

1 Corinthians 3:10–17

I want to talk about that was a word of encouragement for us to lift our spirits. This is a word of warning as a church body.

That we make sure that we're building what I call a fireproof ministry or a fireproof church.

I know we was thinking about putting a sprinkler system into this building was going to be.

Oh man, it was expensive. So we decided not to do it.

But it's one thing to make sure that this building doesn't catch on fire or this building can survive a fire.

But we know that this building is not our church.

You're the church.

So how do we build a fireproof ministry that stands the day of judgment?

You know, there's going to be a great day of fire at the end. And what's going to survive of Grace Bible Church on that day?

You know what's going to be around on that day? That should be a pressing question.

So let's read verses 10 through 17.

According to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation.

I don't know if anyone builds on it, 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 the foundation, on this foundation, which with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire.

And the fire will teach each one's work of what sort it is.

If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.

If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss.

But he himself will be saved so as through fire.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?

If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.

For the temple of God is holy. Which temple you are.

So we see in verse 10 that the Apostle Paul is reminding the Corinthians, because they're evaluating Paul and Paulus' ministry, and they were evaluating their ministries based upon a false metric.

They were more worried about external fleshly things, oratory skills, and Greek philosophy, and all this kind of fluff which Paul identifies as hay, wheat, and stubble.

This stuff is going to be burnt up.

And so he's reminding the Corinthians what really is a solid church.

You know, as you evaluate churches, what makes a good church, what makes a bad church?

And there are some churches full of hay, wheat, and stubble.

Some churches have gold and silver and precious stones.

And what makes a church valuable, or I say valuable, enduring, is the churches that are built out of the right materials that are fireproof.

So how to build a fireproof ministry? We see several things here.

We're to be careful, if we're going to build a fireproof ministry, we must be careful to build our church or our personal ministries on Christ.

We see that in verses 10 and 11.

Paul says I'm a wise master builder, and I've laid the foundation and another builds on it.

What is the foundation that Paul has laid?

He says I come preaching the gospel.

Christ. Christ is that foundation.

Now, what is the purpose of a foundation?

So if you're going to look at an infrastructure, it's like, hey, is this a good infrastructure?

It's not about looking at the paint schemes on the sheetrock.

It's like, what is underneath the foundation? Is the foundation secure?

Well, what's the foundation for?

The foundation is to establish a structure to hold up the infrastructure, to bear the weight of the building.

But more than that, and I think we often miss this part about the foundation, is to give us the parameters of the building.

No one builds a foundation over here and then builds the house somewhere else off the foundation.

What happens if you have a sturdy foundation, but you turn and build your house on the sand or somewhere not on that foundation?

The structure is going to fall apart. It's going to fall down. It's not going to last.

And often churches fail because they're building on everything other than Jesus Christ.

They're not building on Christ.

They're building on other things, usually gimmicks and games, things of that nature.

But we learn in Ephesians 2 20 that the apostles laid down the foundation with Christ Jesus, the cornerstone of that foundation.

And what is that foundation?

I believe the foundation is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's the central theme of the Word of God.

But it's all that the apostles have given us.

It's the whole canon of Scriptures.

And we have to realize that Jesus didn't write any of the Bible, but He gave us the Bible through inspiring His men, and He sent His Holy Spirit to instruct the apostles to write down that which He instructed them.

In other words, the foundation of the church is the Word of God.

It's the only thing that's going to hold up a ministry.

And it's the Word of God, and I could even narrow it down to the sufficiency of Scriptures.

The problem with many churches is they claim, and I don't want this to be true of Grace Bible Church, we claim, "Hey, I believe the Bible is the Word of God." That's stated, but it's not sufficient to build a church on.

It's a struggle of trying to go, "I need something in addition to the Word of God." Maybe for the Corinthians it was Greek philosophy.

We need extra-biblical philosophical wisdom to incorporate,"Oh, we need to make our messages more appealing to the smart people of the world, so we need to use philosophical language in order to attract people." Well, that was what the Corinthians were concerned with, and they were losing the sufficiency of Scriptures and not building on Christ Jesus, the foundation, but they were building on another foundation.

And we must be careful.

If we're going to build a church, may we be known for preaching the Word, teaching the Word, believing the Word, applying the Word.

May the Word of God be what this church is built upon.

Secondly, if we're going to build a foul-proofed ministry, we need to be careful that we're building for eternity.

We see this in verses 12 through 13.

"Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, and straw, each one's work will become clear for the day we'll declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the firewall will test each one's work of what sort it is." You see, Apostle Paul is talking about different types of material.

It's one thing to have the foundation laid.

Paul's done that once for all.

We don't need a new foundation.

We need to stick on that.

But now, how are we going to build upon that?

What kind of materials are we going to utilize?

So it's one thing for us to say, "Hey, we believe that Jesus is the gospel of Jesus, is God, and the gospel is the heart of our belief system." But what else are we going to build on top of that?

You see, you have gold, silver, and precious stone, which represent materials that are enduring.

Calvin, John Calvin says, "These are the materials that are to be built upon the foundation of Christ, the materials that wander fire." But what do you do with hay, you know, stubble, hay, wood, straw?

It's combustible materials.

But there's another distinction between precious stones and silver and gold and hay, wood, and stubble.

It's one's expensive, and the other one's inexpensive.

Think about that.

The temptation for any ministry is to build fast and build large.

And if you're going to build a fast and large ministry, then you need cheap materials to build fast.

You know, they can pump out mobile homes in assembly line.

I mean, they're just coming out in weeks.

They got it down.

Just cheap materials, easy to install, easy to...

You know, they're mobile.

You can have one up within weeks at your house or on your land.

Right? Cheap materials.

But do you expect a mobile home to last for 200 years?

No, no one expects it to last 200 years.

Did you know that the Cathedral of Cologne started and started...

The construction started in 1274 and didn't end to 1825?

Now, if you fact check me on that, it might be 18-something else, but it was a long time.

It was a long time.

You know, we're looking at hundreds of years.

You're looking at one generation starting the Cathedral, knowing that they weren't going to finish it.

They were giving their whole life to building something that they couldn't finish.

They knew they wouldn't finish.

And they built cathedrals out of solid material.

Well, there's a difference.

The temptation for a church is to build with cheap materials.

Go and read any modern-day church growth book.

I took a church growth class in college, and it was amazing the marketing techniques that they attempted to employ.

If you're going to build a business, you can build a business quick and fast through marketing techniques.

Well, the churches apply the marketing techniques to the church, and they can build a lot of people quickly.

It happens.

Robert Schuller built...

They said at the time, in the '80s and '90s, the largest ministry in the world.

They had more viewers watching his worship service than any other ministry at that time in the world.

Robert Schuller, and what he did to build the Crystal Cathedral, he went and moved to California, strategically found the right location, and did surveys of where to plant a church based upon growth potential.

And then he went and surveyed everybody in the community, what they were looking for in the church.

And he found the common things that the consumer wanted.

He says, "Now, let's provide what is wanted by the consumer." And he did that, and the church grew quickly, fast, immediately.

And basically, before he built the Crystal Cathedral, he had...

Really, he started it through a drive-through service.

I don't know if you remember that.

He had an old timey drive-through, and he would project his sermons, and people would come and drive in and get the sermon and leave.

The church growth methods today have changed than what they wore when I was young.

When I was young, the sure way of building a fast church is having activities for the children, activity centers.

You had to have a basketball court. It was just standard. Every church had to have one.

Now, I would like for us to have one for the sake of the kids. I actually would.

But if we had one just for the sake of growing, there's something wrong about that.

And the goal... You see, churches know this. I mean, they've done statistics on this.

If you want to grow the church, who do you appeal to?

You don't appeal to the older generation. They're almost gone.

You can't build a church off people who die.

I mean...

That's what they say.

Don't... OK.

Well, how do you get the middle generation? You want the middle generation, the 40, 50 year old...

You don't really have money until you're 50 or 60, to be honest, from my experience.

When you're 20, you don't have anything to give. So you really don't need them.

It's the 30, 40, 50, 60 year olds, right?

But how do they determine what church they go to?

Will they go where their kids want to go?

I mean, that's where they go.

I want my kids or my grandkids to enjoy church.

I want them to be excited about church.

I want unbelieving kids that don't like God to be excited about going to church.

Well, how do you get unbelieving kids that don't love God to be excited about going to church?

Well, entertain them.

You know, give them hay, wheat and stubble. Give them what they want.

Make them excited about coming, right?

And so churches do this. It's intentional. It's strategic. It's a marketing scheme.

And you get to see, they figure this out. If you get the kids to come, you build the church around the youth ministry, you get the kids to come.

Parents will follow.

Eventually the parents will follow. Well, in the 80s, it was all about gyms and record.

Even they have centers where you had video games and all that where you bring the kids in.

But you know what's happened? What happened in the 2000s and even up to today, the whole church became a youth ministry.

You had the youth service with the contemporary worship and that's where the kids are going.

Eventually that just slipped into the main service.

And so then you have services that are built upon entertainment.

Literally, it's just entertainment. And it's not congregational worship.

It's just a performance. And then you don't have, I mean, you're talking about me preaching long.

That's not the way to build a church, to be honest.

You don't build churches with long, boring sermons.

So this is how churches build and they build fast and quickly.

But is this a church that's going to stand the test of time?

Let's ask the serious question.

You see, we can't judge a ministry or a church by temporal measuring sticks.

Look at verse 13, "Each one's work will become clear." I mean, right now, you can't judge a church by its size.

We tend to do that. Like, well, that's a big church. It must be a good church.

That must be a bad church. They must be doing something wrong.

Big churches must be doing something right.

You say, well, Paul says, "Hold your judgment.

Wait till the day of judgment to figure that out.

Each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and fire will test each one's work what sort it is." The quality of our work will eventually be exposed by God.

You see, this could be fires.

Some people interpret this text as the fires of life.

You have a big church come, then all of a sudden COVID hits.

That's a trial, and the church shrinks, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, people never come back to church.

Okay, well, that trial of COVID showed that the church really wasn't that substantial.

It looked big, but actually in the heart of it wasn't all that big.

So all this seemingly grove tend to actually be fluff.

And that could be what this text is talking about, the trials of life.

But I tend to think this is talking about the great day of judgment.

And the reason I believe that is because it talks about the reward of the ministers who do well, and those who will suffer loss.

When do they suffer loss? They'll be saved themselves, eternally, even though they suffer loss.

So it seems like this is pointing to the great day of judgment.

And I think we really don't know how well a church is doing until we face Jesus, the day of judgment.

Trust me, I don't think GBC is all silver and gold.

I mean, I'd like to know where the wood and hay so we can fortify that and rethink through these things.

But I'm not here trying to make GBC this great church and let us judge other churches.

No, don't do that. I'm not trying to get us to look down on our nose on other churches.

I just want us to be a fireproof church.

I want us to be a solid church.

And I want us to think not just what's convenient for the moment, or how do we get people in, or peace people.

How do we actually build for eternity?

How would you like to give your whole life to building a church or whatever minister you have to learn on the day of judgment you wasted all your time and your labor?

All the fruit you thought you built turns into be nothing.

You know what happened to Robert Schuyler and the Crystal Cathedral?

It went bankrupt.

2010.

It shut down.

The Catholic Church bought it.

They changed the name to Christ Cathedral.

All that effort.

Is now a Catholic Church.

Where are the people?

I'm not saying there's not potentially some Christians in there that made it through.

I'm not saying that.

But that's not the chapter church we need to build.

Thirdly, we need to be careful to not seek to please men, but please God.

Look at verse 14 through 15.

"If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.

But if anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so through fire." So it's not those who build fast that are rewarded, but those who build carefully.

In the end, it's not the approval of man that we need.

We were looking to build something on that day. The Lord Jesus says, "Well done." My good and faithful servant.

Fourth, if all this is true, we need to be careful to build with care.

We see this in 16 and 17.

Now, one thing we need to realize about the church, it's not the physical building.

We know this building's going to be torn down one day. It's not going to last for eternity.

But we need to realize, according to verse 16, 17, is that the true temple, the true church, is you.

You're the dwelling place, the residence of God, God's people.

And Paul understood this. He understood the true ministry wasn't brand building.

It wasn't popularity contest. It wasn't about numbers, a numbers game.

It wasn't anything like that. It was about people.

And he understood that his labor was into people, and his heart's desire was that the people are with them in heaven.

You know what Paul viewed his reward was? The people he ministered to.

And of course, that's the only in 219, for what is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming?

Is it not you?

You know, I think about this.

You know, the day that I'm going to be judged, and all the elders here, and all the ministers here, and deacons, and even you, because this is your ministry too.

We're all ministering to one another here.

What do we want on the day of judgment?

Is it just, "Hey, I want a mansion on the hilltop. I want a gold medal." No, we don't want a gold medal. I don't need that. I don't need a big dwelling place.

You know, really what God's people want is for the people they invested in to be there with them.

To have eternity with the people that you've preached to, and served, and ministered.

Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 3, 5, "For this reason when I come, I could no longer endure it. I sent to you to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain." He understood. It's like, "Hey, I endure if you endure. You're my labor, and I don't want to think that all my efforts and labor went up in smoke.

You need to make this thing. You need to endure. You need to be thriving.

I want to present you to Christ on that great day." Paul said in Philippians 2, 14, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in this world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." How would you like to go? I built this big church of unconverted people that go to hell.

I never preached the gospel. I never taught them the truth. There was never sanctification. There wasn't even on Christ the gospel. There was just entertainment.

In fact, all I did was help people think they were right with God when they weren't.

I gave them false assurance because that's what they wanted. I tickled the ears because that's what they wanted. And the preacher may be saved. "Hey, I might get to heaven, but all my labor went up in smoke." That would be awful.

That's not a fireproof ministry.

Paul says in Philippians, verse 1 of chapter 4, "Therefore my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm, thus in the Lord my beloved." You see, this is the true ministry.

And so we need to be careful if the ministry in the church is God's people. We need to be very careful because the church is the residence of God.

Look at verse 16, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" I mean, this is not...it's one thing to mistreat silver and gold.

Take your gold rings and just flop them off, throw them in a junk drawer, or forget them, lose them. It's like, "Ah, that's gold, whatever." You know, it's one thing to do that to gold and silver, which you shouldn't do.

It's a mismanagement of precious things. But what's more precious to God, silver or gold or human souls?

You see, you are God's dwelling place. And if that's the case, if this is where God is dwelling, not in this physical building, but among the assembly of the saints, the Spirit dwells in each of us, then how careful must we be in building this church?

You see, God is jealous. We need to be jealous...I mean, careful because God is jealous. Look at verse 17, "If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him." Remember what Jesus said about the little children, leading the little children astray?

It'd be better to have a millstone wrapped around your neck and thrown into the sea than to do harm to God's little children that belong to him.

Woe to the shepherds that are not feeding the sheep meat, solid food, that are tickling the ears, leading them to false assurance and not leading them to Christ.

We need to be careful. God is jealous over his temple, over his church. His church is holy. We need to be careful. Look, it says, "For the temple of God is holy." Now, I'm just saying this as we had a word of encouragement with the first message about God hears our prayers. He hears them.

And in this message, we see that this church, GBC, is precious to God. You're precious to God. You're holy to God.

Now, we need to build it in such a way that we all make it. That we all make it.

The ministry, the church, is nothing to play around with. It's not left to games and gimmicks and strategies. It's not for us to employ marketing tactics and entertain goats.

We do not have the liberty to try different methodologies and strategies. We can't be pragmatic or do whatever seems to work.

No, we must be careful to do God's business, God's way, if we want to build a ministry that endures the scrutiny and the judgment and the fires of God.

Let's pray. Dear God, we see here in your word such truth. Your word is truth to us, Lord. We live on it.

We can't live on hay, wheat and stubble. We don't need more entertainment in our lives. We don't need any more false hope.

We don't need our ears tickled, dear God. Our children don't need their ears tickled. We need the word of God.

We need you to speak to us, dear Lord. We need our faith anchored in true confidence. We need real confidence in the day that we live in.

Oh Lord, we thank you for your word. I don't know, personally, I don't know what I'd be without it. I would be a mess.

I'm too emotional person to survive without the steady rock of your word.

Lord, build this church, your church. Build us in truth. Lord, help us to be enduring.

Lord, my prayer for all the saints here is that we be presented holy and without blemish or spot before you on that great day.

Not that we'll be healthy and wealthy and rich and...

I'll pray for that, dear God. I pray for holiness among us.

I pray for the joy of the Lord, not the joy of this world that's fleeting, leaves us empty and discontent.

I pray for real joy, the abiding joy, that joy that comes from being in your presence.

Lord, shine your face upon us, your people. Smile upon us, dear God.

Lord, we know you have smiled and are smiling. You've sent us your Son, given us evidence that you love us, and given us assurance that we can come to you.

This we pray in your Son's name. Amen.

Amen