God’s Fellow Workers

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July 18, 2021 | Steve Cortez on 1 Corinthians 3:10-23

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.
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Good afternoon, everyone, to this smoky day here in Edmonton. As you read our scripture, we're back in the
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New Testament. Shane mentioned earlier that we took a break last week to look at Nehemiah in the
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Old Testament. But we're back into our study of 1 Corinthians, picking up from chapter 3, verse 10 to 23 today.
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Shane preached on verses 1 to 9, and we are picking up right following right after that.
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As we keep looking at the book of 1 Corinthians, it feels like we're getting a sense of momentum as we study this book.
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And as we continue to study it and to read it, you'll come to understand that there's a couple of running themes that keep reoccurring as Paul has instructed this church in Corinth.
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And we're going to see those again, but in a different light this time around. Again, as Paul's writing, like any good teacher, he knows his students.
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He knows their strengths, their weaknesses. He knows their misgivings.
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He understands their condition. And as we'll see, again, there are lessons that apply to the church in Corinth back when
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Paul sent this letter. But also it has a real -world application to us even today. So before ...
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there's a lot for us to get into, so we'll get into it before we do that. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord guide us.
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We who are your servants and workmanship can do nothing outside your saving grace.
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We who labor, labor in vain unless it is the Lord who builds the house.
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Father, we ask that you would redeem this time together and that you would give us strength, wisdom, and humility to accept the correction from you and the grace to pour out your praises as our hearts are transformed and our lives are changed according to your word.
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Make us laborers worthy of the gospel. We love you, Lord. And know that it is you who worked through us and worked through us to work about all your glorious graces that you will do on this earth.
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Lord, we ask again, Lord, that you would prepare our hearts and that you would prepare the soil of our minds,
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Lord. That we would become laborers who are fervorous and zealous for you, Lord. That we would do the good works that are laid before us with a mind to honor
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Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. So in his precious name we do ask these things, we ask in his name.
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Amen. So we've continued to look at 1
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Corinthians. We see that Paul is addressing many concerns, like Shane said earlier. The book of 1
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Corinthians is divided into a couple of different subsections. The first four chapters are dealt with, Paul is dealing with divisions in the church.
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He's dealing with issues of carnal sin, and he's attempting to make corrections in the church that he planted in Corinth, as we read in chapter 16 of the book of Acts.
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So we're starting to understand that Paul is lovingly rebuking this church in Corinth.
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He holds very jealously this church, but like any good teacher, he doesn't just offer correction.
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What he does as well is that he builds up. As we've seen in the last couple chapters, chapters 2, specifically all of the first two chapters, we've seen that Paul has taken aim at the highest minds in the land.
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Paul has taken aim at the highest halls of academia. He's taken aim at philosophers of the day.
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Remember that this time in Corinth, this is a culture that was obsessed with knowledge.
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They were asceticists, and they were looking at philosophers. They loved orators, and they loved the ability to stand within the halls and to debate ideas and lofty ideas.
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And Paul has taken aim at that in the first two chapters. And it's important for us to know that because he's taken the wisdom of man, and he's brought it low in light of the wisdom of God.
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And he's doing something similar in that in chapter 3, but his perspective changes just a little bit.
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Because what he's done is he's taken—well, he took aim at the lofty philosophers and orators of the day.
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Instead now, he's changed his perspective somewhat, and he's looking at the laborers. So instead of the high minds of academia and universities and all of academics, he's looking now at the foundation where concrete is laid, and the foundation is laid of the building.
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Because we'll see that language emerge again and again in these 13, 14 verses that we're going to look at.
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We're going to see this language of laborers that Paul continues to lean upon. And of course, the reason for this is pretty simple, actually.
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Because as Paul addresses this church, again, as a good teacher, he's trying to build up. But what he understands as well of the
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Corinthians and of people in general is that men and women are laborers.
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We labor on to things. We labor for things. And this is a letter addressed to the church in Corinth.
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He says so in chapter 3, verse 1. He says, But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
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Infants in Christ. These are people who are still brothers and sisters, very young, very carnal. But he's still addressing them as believers.
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But they are, those who labor there, labor for the wrong reasons. And they labor incorrectly.
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And the condition that Paul is attempting to fix here and that the lesson, the problem that we're going to tackle today based on the text is this, is that man cannot labor for God unless it is
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God who builds him up. So man cannot labor for God unless it is
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God who builds him up. He commissions him as a worker and builds him up in the work that he desires him to be.
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That man, unless the Lord does that, he's unable to labor for the
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Lord. So that is what Paul is going to be looking at here in these next about 13, 14 verses that we're going to look at.
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So for those taking notes, actually, so we'll just get right into it. We're looking at, again, verses 10 to 23.
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But actually, I'm going to take a step back and we're going to look at verse 9 as well. Because verse 9 actually helps us give context to what
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Paul is talking about in these following verses. And actually, if you're taking notes, you can label this one as the first point,
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Christ the foundation. We've sung many a song this morning or this afternoon about Christ being the firm foundation.
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And Paul starts to rightfully so right where at the base of the building. He's talking right about the foundation where concrete would be laid.
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So again, we're going to look at, so for this, we're going to look at verses about 9, 10, 11. And Paul says this,
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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,
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I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care of how he builds upon it.
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For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So first observations while looking at this text, there might seem like there's somewhat of a paradox or somewhat of a contradiction.
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Because Paul says, according to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation.
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And someone else is building upon it. So it might seem somewhat like a boast. And actually, I'm reading from the
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ESV. But if you look at the, there's an annotation, because I prefer this when it says, like a skilled master builder.
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Instead, I prefer what the annotation says, or wise master builder. Paul, again, is making a boast.
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And it might seem that he's boasting in the flesh. But actually, Paul is doing something pretty spectacular here.
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And I'm going to have you turn to Philippians 3, verses 4 to 6. To give us, again, some of the context that Paul is talking about here.
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So in Philippians 3, verses 4 to 6, he says this,
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Though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone thinks that he has reason for confidence in the flesh,
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I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a
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Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
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So I'm going to pause right there for just a second. But we've come to read those words often.
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You may have heard those words read. And you've come across them. And you've understood where Paul is coming from here. But put it again into just more direct writing.
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Paul is saying that he was a straight -A student. He's a straight -A student.
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This was a man who labored. And actually, that means that if you guys are familiar with the
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Old Testament, there are something to the tune of about 613 laws and commandments in the
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Torah alone. This is a man who was zealous. Paul was very zealous for the law.
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And according to what we have here, he was really disciplined. He was really good at it. Paul was really disciplined at being able to keep this.
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And actually, that was something that he would have held highly in regard.
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And the Lord blessed him with an aptitude to be able to do this. This is not easy.
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If anyone who's looked in the Old Testament and gone through Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Exodus, you see these laws and commandments.
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You see they're very hard to uphold. There's a lot to do. And actually, the Pharisees would have prided themselves on being able to maintain the law and being very zealous for the law.
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They were very zealous people. If you guys remember in the Gospels, they chided Jesus Christ throughout his entire ministry because they attempted to catch him in the law.
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And so they had to have known the law. They would have had to practice. And they were very zealous for it. And Paul, again, he's a straight -A student.
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He was not one to falter. So Paul, when he says this, he's not boasting. So we look at 1 Corinthians again.
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He's not boasting in his fleshly attitude. Because look what it says in verse 7 of chapter 3 of Philippians.
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He says this, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
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He sees all that he had beforehand, and he counted it all as loss. It was to him as nothing.
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When counted with the riches and wisdom and righteousness of Christ, he counted all those things.
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It would be as though he would be a straight -A student, forsaking all his studies and going into another field because he knew that he enjoyed, and he longed for something that he was doing better in that field versus the one that he was blessed with.
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So Paul, having all this intelligence and all this wisdom that the Lord had given him, counted it all for his loss for the sake of Christ.
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Turning back to 1 Corinthians for a moment, and we look back at 1
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Corinthians. We look that it says, According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder,
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I laid a foundation. So upon looking at this just a little bit closer, we see that although it might seem like a boast, what
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Paul is actually saying is that it was by grace that he was given all these things. He was given wisdom.
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He was given the intelligence. He was given the zeal to understand what was taking place. He was given the hands to build and plant the church to which he is now writing.
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It was grace that allowed him to do these things. And notice, actually, as we look at this, what
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Paul is saying is actually directly after this is what applies to us. Looking back at verse 10, it says,
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I laid a foundation. As a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it.
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That is actually the part that concerns us more specifically, because Paul, and this should encourage us,
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Paul did not count his labor or any labor that came before him higher or below anything else.
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Actually, he counted it quite equal because he says, I, like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation.
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So the foundation is what goes first when you're building a building. And he understands that it's not the architect that builds the building.
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The architect designs, but he does not pour concrete. He does not pour, they wouldn't have used concrete back then, but the stones and the foundation that they were laying, these things,
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Paul isn't responsible for these things. He laid out a plan that the Lord had given him, and there are fellow workers and fellow laborers that have come in after him, and will come after those laborers, and their work is the one that is being built upon the foundation.
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And look, again, real closely, we have to understand that, and this isn't even the foundation of Paul. This is the foundation of Jesus Christ.
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Looking at 11, he says, For no man can lay a foundation other that which is laid, which is
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Jesus Christ. Again, all of this that has come before him, this is a work of Christ. It is a work of grace.
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He's been given these things, and he's been allowed to enter into the labor. Remember verse 9, he's a fellow worker.
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We are God's fellow workers. This is a letter, again, written to the people in Corinth, believers, fellow workers in the
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Lord, building up the holy temple, which is us. And Paul will get into that ever more so, but we have to start with that point in mind.
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This is very good news for us. We have to understand that. Very early on in my Christian walk, while I had faith that the
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Lord could use me, I often, in my carnal thinking, and again, this would have fallen right in line with what the church in Corinth would have been dealing with,
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I said, well, the Lord can use me. No doubt I have faith that he will use me, but if I was smarter, he'd use me better.
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Or if I had a soundbite or I had a platform, he could really use me there.
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Right here, he'll use me. But those people, he's really going after. He's really doing something with those guys. But what we get from this text is exactly the line of thinking
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I would have fallen into. It would have been carnal thinking, what we've been looking at the last couple of chapters. Again, looking at what the fleshly eyes see and what the fleshly ears would hear, as opposed to what the godly work that God is doing within us.
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I would have fallen right along the lines of appreciating the accent of those who are speaking, as opposed to the message that they were saying.
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Again, this should be of an encouragement to us, because the right foundation is
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Jesus Christ, and everyone is building their foundation upon it. I'm going to ask you guys to turn real quickly to 1
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Peter with me. 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 4 to 7.
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And notice that, again, Paul has talked about building the foundation, the temple. But Peter talks in chapter 2, as you turn there,
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Peter lays it right down what we're talking about when we're talking about the holy temple. Again, 1
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Peter chapter 2, verse 7, says this. And as you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious.
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Again, chosen and precious. These are people that Peter is talking about here. Verse 5, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
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For it stands in Scripture, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.
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So to the honor it is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
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Again, the foundation of this building, as we look at this first point, we need to understand that the foundation is
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Jesus Christ. We are that temple. This is the temple that the Lord is building. However, we as fellow workers are able to enter into it.
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So for application, what we really should be looking at in these first three verses, again, it should be of encouragement, and it is taken right directly from the text, is what it says in the end of verse 10.
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Let each one take care about how he builds upon it. Let us take care about how we build upon the foundation, which is in Christ Jesus.
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We have to learn that as we, as believers, labor for the kingdom, that we labor onto his temple, which is in Jesus Christ, the foundation.
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But we should be careful about how we go about doing that. But that should beg the question.
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The question that kind of comes up naturally is, okay, so if we are to take care about how we build the temple, how do we do that?
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That is the natural question that kind of comes out of the passage we're looking at right now. Well, how do we do that? And for that,
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Paul gets right into it in the next couple of verses. So, again, for those taking notes, this is where Paul gets into kind of the meat and potatoes.
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He set up the foundation, and he goes into his second point here. Again, for those taking notes, you can put something to the tune of the refining fires, because this is the big crux of the argument here.
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Picking up from verse 12. Well, we'll just read verses 12 to 15. He says this,
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Now, if anyone builds in the foundation, remember that is Jesus Christ, 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.
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If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burnt up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
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Here, Paul gets right into the crux of his argument. Again, we've shifted our focus from the halls of academia right to the labor force.
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We're dealing right with the fellow workers, the laborers of the Lord. And right off the bat, as one observing the text, we look at verse 12.
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We need to understand what we're looking at here. Foundations and buildings are built with materials.
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Look what Paul says here. He says gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw. These materials would have been common knowledge to the people in Corinth.
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They would have understood what the quality and the caliber of materials they're dealing with every single time, as Paul has relayed these.
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There's a sequencing. And for those, again, for those who are paying attention, you could almost draw a divider.
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You could start to draw a dividing line between one group where you have high -quality materials and the other group, low -quality materials.
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It's right there in the text. We can start to see the gold, silver, precious stones. You can almost put a dividing line right there.
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And then you look further. It says wood, hay, straw. Again, another group of materials.
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One high -quality, low -quality. And this is not to say that hay, straw, and wood don't have their uses. They were used commonplace.
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It was commonplace then. But people knew the quality of materials that they were dealing with. They would have known what one would have been used for in one context over the other, low -quality materials that are used in another.
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Turning to 1 Chronicles, 1
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Chronicles 29, verse 2, we get an image of what
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Paul is talking about. Because if you guys remember in this chapter, this is the building of the
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Lord's temple. This is when Solomon has been charged by the Lord to build the temple in Jerusalem.
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David could not do it because of all the blood that had been on David's hands.
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And therefore, the Lord instructed David's son Solomon to build the temple. But again, I want us to note here really just briefly what it is he's building with.
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Picking up in 1 Chronicles 29, verse 2, it says this.
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So, I have provided for the house of my God so far as I was able, the gold for the things of gold, the silver for the things of silver, and the bronze for the things of bronze, the iron for the things of iron, and the wood for the things of wood, besides great quantities of onyx stone for setting, antimony -colored stones, all sorts of precious stones, and marble.
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So again, we get this image. The Lord had commissioned Solomon to build his temple, but he did not commission just any regular building materials.
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He would not have used the hay and straw that you see here in 1 Corinthians for waterproofing. That was one main use that people would use hay and straw for.
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And he did not use that in the temple. Instead, it was built with stones and precious and gold, the things of gold, the things of silver for silver, and so on and so forth.
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So you get the sense that there is a dividing line being placed here when Paul is sending this letter out, that he's delineating high -quality and low -quality materials.
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So looking forward in verse 13, as we move on, take note here what
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Paul says. He says, 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.
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You see this imagery of fire taking place in many places in the Bible. For those who like, we used to have a running joke in a systematic study we used to run with our old church, that we had a fire theology going on, because every so often you'd see fire come up, and actually there's many instances.
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I only have a couple here, but Lord knows there are very many that you could point towards. You could look at Isaiah 48 .10.
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That's one good example. It says, Isaiah 48 .10 says,
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See, I have refined you, not as silver. I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. This is, again,
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Isaiah writing to Israel, but talking about them being refined through their suffering.
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Again, this is one instance. We look at Matthew 13 .11 -12.
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This is John the Baptist saying, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me, who is
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Jesus, is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with Holy Spirit and fire.
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His winnowing fork in his hand, he will clear the threshing floor, and will gather wheat into the barn, and the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.
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That's one more example. Let's look at, we read from Revelation today, so thank you
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Shane, but actually what I'm looking for in Revelation is Revelation chapter 1. Revelation chapter 1, verse 14 -15.
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And it says this of Jesus. It says, His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were burnished bronze, refined in a furnace.
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Again, these are just a couple spots where we see fire, but the Lord uses fire to refine and to judge, and we see that multiple times.
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You see that in the Psalms. You see that in the Old Testament. You see that everywhere in the Bible. There is a real connecting theme about the
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Lord's use of fire, and its effect on materials. Again, and just to hit the nail on the head here, and this is an imagery that people would have been familiar with.
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Remember, this is kind of a mercantile culture. This is a culture that is used to working with their hands.
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Look at 1 Corinthians. Look just a couple verses back in chapter 1, verse 26.
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He says this of the church in Corinth. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.
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Not many of you were powerful. Not many of you were of noble birth. So he's talking again to humble people.
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This is a humble people that would have been used to working with their hands. They would have been shopkeepers. They would have dealt with materials.
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They would have been builders, laborers. So they're fully aware of the imagery that Paul is using here when it comes to fire.
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So I have maybe a couple questions for maybe the kids because I like to throw in science whenever I have an opportunity.
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Who here, just like show of hands, who here has worked, if you guys, the adults too can throw their hands up if you'd like, but who here has worked with hay, straw, and wood?
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You guys ever seen that? You guys farm kids? Yeah. I know Lisa because she's busy.
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So anyone who's been, who has a farm, or has a grandfather, or grandparents who have farms, have seen hay and straw, right?
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It gets everywhere, and it's dry, and it's kind of coarse, right? What about, do you guys ever, do you have any carpenters here?
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Anybody who's worked with wood? Anybody build birdhouses? Any little ones? Bad ones.
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Yeah, okay. Yeah, you've built a couple in your day. So again, you know, again, these materials are, you know, they're good.
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They have their uses, right? We see them, and they're used often. Now again, maybe this one's for the kids. Can anyone name some of the, some precious stones they've come in contact with?
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Maybe your parents are wearing them. Coins? Yeah, maybe. There's one. Yeah. Yeah, oh, they, wow.
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You have a geologist over here. You usually see it on this finger.
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Well, I'm not. Mom lost all of her diamonds in a ring, so we don't have that answer here.
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Okay, well, I was hoping the kids would say diamonds at some point. But yes, diamonds, not to put Shane on the spot here, but yes, diamonds.
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Actually, diamonds are actually a really, really peculiar rock. They're actually, they're very dense.
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People know the value of diamond. Diamonds are pretty, pretty popular in the culture. Is anyone familiar about how diamonds are formed in the ground?
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Maybe the kids. Maybe I'll get the kids to, maybe I'll ask on you, Matt, later. But does anyone, is anyone familiar how diamonds are formed?
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Yes, pressure. Pressure, and because it's lower in the earth, it's something else. When you turn up the heat, that's right.
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Over the course of many, many, many, many years, diamonds are formed in the earth's crust by immense amount of pressure and heat.
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Actually, this is, it's a process that takes a long time. And it's interesting because when you start to look at how diamonds are formed and you're seeing how these brilliant, these brilliant rocks that emerge from the ground and you compare them with the, with things like, you would see here, hay, straw, wood.
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Did you guys know, I don't know if you guys knew this, they are built of the same atoms? Do you guys know they're made of the same atoms?
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The same thing that makes wood, hay, straw is the same at the atomic level, at the smallest level, the same thing that makes a diamond.
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You apply pressure and specifically heat to carbon in underneath, in the earth's crust, you get diamonds.
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But if you would apply that same heat specifically to wood and hay and straw, what happens to it?
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Yeah, that's right, it catches fire. It's consumed, right? You get a pile of charcoal. What was once this one building made of wood is now just a pile of ashes.
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It's consumed. And it's very interesting. Again, they're made of the same things. Carbon, if you guys are curious, again, they're made of the same thing at the atomic level.
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That's what we call it. They're made of the same units. But amazing that you can take diamond and be formed of the same thing, but then you have a low -quality grade material that is consumed by fire that does not consume the diamond.
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And I want to still apply that because that is the argument that Paul is really getting at here.
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When he says in verse 13, 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.
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This is a promise that we can hold fast to. The day, if you guys are reading your
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Bibles with a little bit of astuteness, you'd see that is a capital D. This is a moment in time that we are all waiting for.
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It's a time of testing that is incoming, that this will happen, that the day will disclose it.
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We looked at Revelation 1, verses 14 and 15. Jesus Christ comes to us again with eyes of fire, eyes of fires that reveal the truth, and will not just reveal the truth of the works, but will either refine the works that we've laid before him, or will consume what it is we're doing, or what we've brought to him.
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Look at verse 15. If anyone's work is burnt up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
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This is a safety net, and this gives us encouragement. I don't want us to linger too much here, because this is a safety net, to be sure.
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We can take comfort in this, but this is not a safety net, brothers and sisters, that we want to use if we have any opportunity to use something else.
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In other words, we want to give the Lord our first fruits. The first fruits of our labor, we want to give those to him.
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We want to make sure that the exceptional materials of our lives, the gold, the silver, the precious stones, the quartz, the diamonds, all of these things are given to him.
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And that the hay, the straw, the bale, all these things are left secondary to those things that ought not matter.
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We want to give the Lord our first fruits. Again, these are the same materials that the
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Lord used to build this holy temple. So how much more can we draw on that imagery for us to bring that before the
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Lord and offer him our very first fruits, the one who will refine our works or either consume them? The day will disclose it.
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We can be sure of that. And on that day, we don't want to be saved as one through fire. We want to give him our first fruits.
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So let that be our application for this point. Let's give the Lord our first fruits, and that goes in everything. That goes in our parenting, our marriages, husbands and wives, to our work, as we labor not unto man but unto the
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Lord. Attack your work with fervor and zealous nature. Our church ministries, we just started up our groups here with our men's and women's groups.
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But not just beyond that, we really get into those, really give the
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Lord the best of our efforts. Our evangelism, everything, truly anything that we can put our hands to the plow for, we ought to do with our best efforts and give the
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Lord our first fruits. Remember that this is the Lord's temple that we're talking about.
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Being familiar with the Word allows us to understand the blueprints and the planning and the direction for which the
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Lord intends to build. Therefore, having learned what the Word says, let us apply that.
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Let us give the first fruits of our labors, and let us give unto the Lord as one who is worthy of all the things that we give him.
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So that's our second point. Again, moving through this, again, for those taking notes,
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I sometimes try to get them in the bulletin, I wasn't able to get those for Shane earlier, but if you guys are taking notes, this third point is, you can title it,
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Confidence in the Structure. We're going to do something somewhat interesting here for this third point.
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I want us to look at verse 9, and then we're going to read verse 9, 16 and 17. We're just going to read them through, and actually, verse 9 is important because it gives context to the rest of the passage, and you'll see what
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I mean in just a minute when we read it. Starting again in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 9, it says,
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For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. Verse 16, it says,
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Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys
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God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
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Interesting, that. It would almost seem as though, as we read this,
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Paul takes a little bit of a pivot. Again, we've been talking about laborers, we've been talking about skilled master builders, fellow workers, and then in verse 16, 17, he takes almost a pivot.
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But at first glance, you might look at verses 16 and 17 and wonder, why does
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Paul take such a pivot? Why is there such a change in the text? I know I did when
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I was reading this at first, when I was preparing for this, but actually, it is so obvious to us, it is so on the nose that we dare not miss it.
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If you look at the book of Acts, if you look at chapter 1, verse 1 to 2, you guys don't have to turn and read it quickly, it says,
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In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the
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Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. I want us to think about that, keep that in mind.
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Jesus began to do and teach, and he gave commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles. So keep that thought in mind.
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I want us to look at John 14 .11.
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It says this, Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.
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And greater works than these he will do, because I am going to the Father. Looking back at our main text, we see that verse 16 and 17 are so on the button that, again, we dare not miss what he's saying here.
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The very question that Paul asks in verse 16, it says, Do you not know, so in other words, do you not believe that you are
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God's temple? Sometimes we will ask questions without actually needing an answer, or looking for an answer in return.
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These are rhetorical questions. And this is exactly what Paul is doing here. Because this rhetorical question practically begs, practically screams that the
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Christian would say, Of course I do. Of course I believe that I'm God's temple.
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Of course I believe that. Because the question that follows after that, that is answered in verse 17 is this,
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Then why are we not acting like it? Again, we're talking about the building. We're talking about God's building.
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We have to trust the structure, the structural integrity of this building. If we didn't have faith that this building, the one we're standing in right now, would hold us, we wouldn't be here.
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We have faith that this building, and buildings that we go into every single day, will hold the structural integrity. Then how much more should we have of God's holy temple, the one that he is protecting, and he's building, and he watches over, he's sovereign over these things.
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Verse 17 says, Again, this is his promise, his assurance. If anyone destroys
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God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
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We are set apart. This is one of those points that we dare not overcomplicate.
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The life is difficult, no doubt, brothers and sisters, but we cannot overcomplicate this.
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Actually, it is quite simple. It is so simple that we as people will tend to overcomplicate it, and that is problematic in itself.
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By overcomplicating, we diminish our confidence in the Lord. We diminish our joy, our confidence. And we rob ourselves of the joy of knowing that God is protecting his holy temple.
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We can have faith that he's watching over us. On Thursday, we went out for evangelism in the
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Bonny Doon area, and we prayed for protection, because the Lord, we know, is watching over us.
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We know that the Lord is watching over us. It doesn't mean it's not difficult. Anyone who has ever gone to do evangelism knows it is flesh -killing.
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It is one of the most flesh -killing things you can do. It is not easy. You don't go out there looking for praise.
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Quite the opposite. You will look and expect that people will look down upon you or that you will be scorned.
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But that's difficult, but it's not complicated. We dare not complicate this.
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This is the holy temple that the Lord is upholding, he's protecting, he is sovereign over, and we should act in that joy.
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So if we're going to, again, if we're going to apply this to our lives, if we're going to use this in application, it should be this, that we should labor in confidence.
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We should labor in that confidence. We should know that the Lord is sovereign, he's controlling all, he's protecting us.
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So we should labor in that, confidently. We shouldn't have fear that this building, the Lord will suddenly let collapse over us.
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We have to trust that the Lord's promises are true and good, and that he's provided these things. We should do that.
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Again, verses 16, 17 or so, on the button, we can't miss it. It's as simple as it looks.
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We need to understand that. Again, just for comfort and for clarity.
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The Lord says in Isaiah 52, 12, he says this, he says, For you shall not go out in haste.
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He's talking of Israel here, but it applies to us. For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go out in flight, for the
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Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. We are watched on every side, brothers and sisters.
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So let us labor confidently in the Lord. Let's labor there. As we're looking at our final point here, and this is our fourth point, and as we round out this afternoon's message, we're going to be looking at the last five verses here in chapter 3 of 1
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Corinthians. And again, for those taking notes, for those taking headers, I would label it this.
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All is yours. All is yours. Reading verses 18 to 20, it says,
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Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
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For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness.
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And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, and they are futile. For those astute learners, you might be looking at this, you might be thinking to yourself, well, didn't you say at the top of the message that Paul had taken aim at the wisdom of man, at the academia?
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Why is he doing this here again? Is this what he's saying? In essence, yes. Yes, in essence, yes.
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I mean, for those being observant, you're rewarded with an answer, yes. Paul is taking aim again at the wisdom of man.
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And this is not by accident. Again, if you remember in the earlier chapters of 1
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Corinthians, he has taken aim at the academia and philosophers, and he had brought them low in light of the wisdom of God.
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And actually, Paul isn't even trying to hide the ball here. He uses the exact same wordage that he did in the first two chapters of 1
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Corinthians. He uses the same Greek word, moria. I think that's the correct pronunciation.
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And it's the word, in the English word, moron, is actually transliterated from this word. This word itself is transliterated from the word moria.
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He's not hiding the ball. Paul is being very explicit in what he's saying here. And he's not trying to reinvent the wheel, trying to prove a new point.
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He's actually reintroducing this idea again, and this is the reason. For many of you know,
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I went to university for my psychology degree. And one thing you come to know, and you figure this out pretty much anywhere in university, but when you start to interact with information, particularly those in psychology, you'll come to learn, especially in psychology of learning, is that you learn by repetition.
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Repetition is a big deal. You need time for repetition. To learn something, you often have to interact with the material, the situation, multiple times.
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And you have to do it again and again and again and again and again and again until that becomes a learned behavior, becomes a learned response.
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Whatever situation you're dealing with is something that you've learned. It's no different when you're studying for kids, when you guys are studying your books and studying for a test.
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You'll read things over again and again and again. And then over time, things will change. Your material will change just a little bit.
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Or you'll learn something new, and you thought, oh, I know this. But then you'll come to know that you don't know it. And then you'll study it again and again and again and again.
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Repetition is something that is important. And in that sense, the Bible is no different. For those of us studying the
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Bible, for those of us students and disciples of the Word, we come to know that the Lord often repeats things, not for His sake, but for ours.
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Because we know all too well that we need the guidance. We need everything that the Lord provides us, including the repetition.
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We're often stubborn people. Actually, one of the sayings I remember most growing up as a child was,
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I only ever want to say this once to all the parents in the room. I don't know if you guys have said it. I know that I've caught myself saying that in my line of work.
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I've said it to my nephews and nieces. Lord willing, maybe to my kids in the future.
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And to the parents, wouldn't it be nice if you only ever had to say things once? Clean your room, and it was done on the first try.
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That would be pretty incredible. That would be incredible of us, too, actually, if I only ever had to tell myself something once.
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But the Lord knows this isn't the case. This is not the case. It's wishful thinking, actually, to say that I'm going to do this on the first try, and I'm going to get it perfect on the first try.
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Actually, the Lord knows us all too well. He knows our sinful nature, and He knows that because of our fallen nature, we're stubborn.
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We can be somewhat brutish, and we don't come to learn quickly. I remember, and many of you might be familiar with this as well, that we had a friend of ours who had purchased a lamb or a sheep, and he had taken it to his acreage.
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Anyone familiar with the story knows the fate of our friend. But we have a family friend of ours who had purchased a sheep, and actually they bought him quite young.
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And they said, well, we don't know what we're going to do with him yet. We're just going to have him. We intend to have purposes for him, but we're not sure yet, because what had happened was he was pretty charming.
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He was a pretty charming lamb, and actually they got used to him, and they kind of really developed a bond with him.
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And they said, you know, they were really conflicted. They were really conflicted about what they would do with him. They said, actually, you know, he's kind of like a pet now, because he's in our house, and he's doing things, and we like him a lot.
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So we're not sure what we're going to do with him. Again, he was very charming, very cute. But as he got older, the nature of the lamb, for anyone unfamiliar with farm animals, myself included, actually his personality started to come out, and some of his character actually started coming out, and he started to display kind of the traits or the properties of sheep.
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The Lord calls us sheep, and that is a term of endearment, but it is not always the most positive thing, because actually sheep are pretty stubborn.
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They're pretty bull -headed creatures, actually. And over time, actually, this poor lamb actually wasn't as cute anymore.
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He wasn't as cute, and actually the things that he was doing were actually kind of annoying and actually somewhat dangerous, because he had an attitude, he didn't want to learn, he was kind of bull -headed.
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For those of us who remember what shepherds used to use before, they used to use something called a crook.
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It's this long staff with a curve at the very end of it. You guys might remember what that looks like. Yeah, shepherds will still use that, even in some places where they rear sheep, because on one end, you have the crook that you use to gently pull by the neck.
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You kind of hook the sheep by its ears and neck, and you kind of yoke it this way. But for those who don't want to listen, the other end of the staff is something that's important too, because it gives them a little bit more of a firm touch.
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And then the sheep, okay, gets it. Okay, well, I've got to go back in line, because I'm going to get thwacked again if I don't. And unfortunately for us, that is much our character as well.
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We're kind of stubborn, and we're brood -headed, and how often do we find that we don't learn as often or as quickly as we should?
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Unfortunately for our friend, his name was Stu. He wasn't long for this world, very long. But praise the
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Lord that he doesn't treat us as we deserve, because truly, we deserve much worse.
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So we need to think about that. Again, when we look at verses 18, 19, and 20, we need to understand that, yes,
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Paul has said this before in other parts previous in this letter. But again, we need to take heed that he's not saying it again just so that we would come to understand, okay, well, okay, this is something he said before.
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I can kind of glaze over this. But really come to understand that this is said for our good. Although Paul has said this earlier, he's recapitulating.
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He's continuing to restate his fact, because this is important to us. We forget we are often prone to wander like sheep, like it says in Isaiah 53.
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We are prone to wander. And we need to look upon these verses, even though we've seen them expounded in other places, and understand that this applies to us.
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And we need to know that this talks about our human fallen sinful character and God's loving grace that he repeats things again and again.
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Again, he's using the crook here. This is not something he wants. He doesn't want to have to use the straight end of the shepherd's staff.
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He wants to use the crook here and to guide us gently. I want us to focus on verses 21 and 22 and 23 as we round out this point, because these are the promises that the
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Lord has in store for us. And I want to leave us with some of the greatest encouragement that we can find right here. It says this.
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So picking up in verse 21, it says, 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.
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And you are Christ and Christ is God. I want to give us a second here to really meditate on this.
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And if you have to pick your job off the floor, because what he said here is profound. And I want us to really think about this.
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This is this is really important stuff. And we need to realize this, that these are some pretty, pretty encouraging promises that the
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Lord has given us. Theologian Charles Hodge puts it better than I do. And he says this. Whether Paul, the planter who first brought the message of the gospel, he is yours.
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All his teaching is yours. Apollos came after and others. He is yours.
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He belongs to you. And all his teachings and Cephas, whatever there was a value in him and his work, he is yours.
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He goes on and says all the cosmos, all the wisdom of the cosmos. If you are high bound by the material in your thinking, even if you're high bound and you are fools, yet that whole world belongs to you.
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Paul doesn't end there. He doesn't end with the labor of brothers that have come before us.
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He goes on further and he says, or the world or life or death or the present or the future.
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Life is now ours for those who are in Christ and are washed free of sin.
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Life is ours. Death. Death. The final hurdle.
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We just talked about death. How can a Christian sing gleefully about death? How can we do this? Philippians.
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Turning quickly to Philippians. Again, there is no piece of scripture that has characterized my life more than more than Philippians chapter two.
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Sorry, Philippians chapter one, my mistake. Philippians chapter one, verse 23, it says this,
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I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and to be with Christ for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
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Verse 24 says, or sorry, verse 21, it says, for me to live is gain or to live as Christ and to die is gain.
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If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which I cannot tell.
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This characterizes our Christian walk, brothers and sisters. How can a
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Christian sing gleefully about the pangs of death? The world, the world reels at the thought of death.
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We are confronted with that very notion every single day and the world shudders at it. And how can the Christian look at it and say, praise the
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Lord for death. How do we do this? Death is the final hurdle.
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It no longer cripples the Christian with fear, but rather we await that faithful day when we will walk through that sweet door and we will be with Jesus Christ in full majesty.
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Death is no longer an obstacle. It is something we will await for as the Christian.
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We await that day with weight, with bated breath. The present or the future time is of no consequence.
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We ought to labor every single day, but the Lord has written, has redeemed every single moment of our lives.
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Now that we are in Christ made perfect yet being sanctified, we can, we can take that promise and take that and we can, we can rest and we can run with that.
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All are yours and your Christ and Christ is God's. Praise the Lord. That is, that is some of the best encouragement
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I can leave you with here today. Colossians 3, 3 says, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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All these things are ours, brothers and sisters. Application for this. Again, very simple. We don't, we need not complicate this.
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The application is this. Take joy in God's wisdom. Let's take joy in that. Encountering something like this, we should take joy.
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This is amazing, incredible stuff. And this is the stuff that, that we can, we can take and we can run with zeal, brothers and sisters.
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We can run. And this, this, this is life changing. So let us take joy in God's wisdom.
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Enjoy the process that the Lord is undertaking to build up these living stones. It was St. Clair Ferguson that said that stones, when you're, when you refine stones, physical stones for, for the first and only time, they remain stones and they remain the way they are.
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But living stones, they take, they complain and they will, and it hurts sometimes to be refined.
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But we are living stones and the Lord is the artisan and he is building us up into a holy, righteous temple. And for that, we should take joy in the wisdom of our
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God. It is a gift. That is what
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I wanted. As we round out here, I want to really end us with some encouragement here because the, this is, this is difficult.
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Again, this is, these are difficult messages to hear in one sense, because this is, again, this is Paul being used by the
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Lord to instruct and correct and rebuke this church in Corinth. And as we look upon, kind of as we round out chapter four in the coming weeks, we're going to see that the argument is going to change somewhat.
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But these are, these can be difficult messages to hear, no doubt, because they often, they often look to the sinful nature of man and look at the correcting nature of our
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God, that we need to, we need to heed correction. Oftentimes, we're not, we're often wrong and we need to be humble about that.
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We need to understand that the Lord uses and says these things for our good. But I want us to know something here, and this is where I want us to pivot real quickly for just a second.
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Looking, I want us to look at verse or a chapter or first Corinthians chapter three, verse one. And I just want us to note this.
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But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
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Paul makes no apologies here. This is a letter for Christians, infants in Christ, albeit, but these are brothers and sisters.
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These are, this is a letter addressed to those in Christ. Looking at, again, just our points that we take away from here.
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We say, we need to take care of how we build upon the temple. We need to, we need to give the
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Lord our first fruits. We should be able to labor confidently because of what the
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Lord has said. And we can take joy in the wisdom of God that he's been giving, that he's given to us. Those are, those things are a gift.
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And all these things that we've talked about and looked at today, those things are the Christians and they belong to him.
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And we can take those and we can run with them. And we can be, we can take joy in those things. Those things are ours. However, for those who are not
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Christians, this does not apply to you. It breaks my heart to say, but those things that we have looked through today, all the encouragement we've gotten, the hope of Christ, that he's building us up, his protection, all these things, the joy and the wisdom, the knowledge of man, all of it is ours.
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However, if you are not in Christ, those things are not yours. They're not. This is a letter addressed to the
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Christian. As brothers and sisters, the smallest of babe to the oldest, oldest and wisest of us, older, big brothers and sisters.
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Those are for them. It's for us. But to those who are not Christians, this is not for you. And it breaks my heart to say this even more, but actually it's much worse.
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No, no, not, not also as well. These things are not yours, but also in effect, you're also abiding in the wrath of God.
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So to add insult to injury, not only do you not have access to these wonderful promises that the
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Lord has given us. In fact, actually you stand in a much worse position. It would be better if these things were not available to you at all.
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But in fact, it is a lot worse because you are abiding in the wrath of God, a
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God who cannot do anything outside his righteous and holy justice manner. And you're abiding in that.
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Those of us washed by the blood of Christ, repentant of our sin. We take this and we run and we're, and this is encouragement.
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This is food to our souls. But for those of you who are not in Christ, who are looking at this today and looking and however you come across this message, whether you're here or those hearing online, these things are not yours.
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These things are reserved for the Christian. So I would ask you humbly and I would plead for your souls. And I would actually, again,
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I would plead, repent, turn to Jesus Christ and be washed of sin and follow him.
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All this encouragement. This is, again, this is manna to our souls. Jesus Christ is the manna. We are fed and we are sustained by him.
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And if you are not in Christ, you abide in his wrath. And that is a fearful thing to be brothers or to those who are not brothers and sisters.
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Excuse me. We need to understand that we need every single one of us need to examine our hearts today.
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We need to understand that there is a price to pay for those who are not in Christ. Well, in Christ where there's encouragement, there's hope, there's joy, there's power for those outside of Christ's loving grace.
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There is none of that. There is only wrath, a righteous, holy justice that he will enact.
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And we need to be conscious of that. And I want us not to leave here with any semblance of where we are, where we stand in Christ, whether we stand outside the grace and we come to know that Jesus Christ is our savior.
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For those of us who are brothers and sisters, I want us to rejoice for those outside of it. If you have at all questions, this is the time to today.
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Today is the day of salvation. All men and women are labors.
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We all labor onto something or some kind of someone. No one understands the labor other than the
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Christians. No one better. No one understands that we labor for someone. We have been ransomed, sin and death. And then we have a new master master.
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We, we, we labor for with joy and comfort. But for those who are not in Christ, what promises of the world and what paths to success that the world offers are all vapid lies.
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They're all vanity. And we labor for nothing. For those who are outside of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, you will labor for nothing.
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Men have come and gone with goals of empire on honor, glory, many great men in history, only so that they would die like any other man and that their empires would come crawling and crumbling down to the floor.
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Again, I want us to examine our hearts this, this afternoon. Again, as we leave here, we, I want us to truly have an understanding of where we, as we stand in Christ, that we would labor for our
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King who, to whom we owe all precious stones and all, and all work because the day will reveal it.
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And as it says in revelations, what will a fire, the fiery eyes of our Lord see on that day?
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Will it be the, the precious gold and diamonds and all, all the precious works that we lay before him as ones who labor for him zealously, or will it be something else to be consumed on that day?
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Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, I ask humbly,
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Lord, that you would radically transform our lives. Lord, that the simple truth, Lord, that we would not overcomplicate it.
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It is so simple, Lord, that we ought not complicated. Life is difficult. Lord, it is only in Jesus Christ that we find all our hope and our joy and our peace.
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And Lord, let that be. If nothing else, Lord, if we walk away from here today, Lord, it is this. I want us to learn one thing, and it is that Jesus Christ is sovereign.
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He is Lord, and he lords over our life. Lord, I ask humbly,
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Lord, that we would give us hearts and transform our lives. Lord, that would labor onto you, Lord, as laborers, as fellow workers in Christ, as fellow stones in this living temple, that father, that we would radically transform the lives of those around us as well.
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Lord, as brothers and sisters, Lord, that we would take this encouragement and run with it, run with endurance, run this race, but to those that stand outside the saving grace of Jesus Christ, Lord, I ask that they would examine their hearts,
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Lord, that they would come to him in a saving faith. If it be your will, Lord, that you would save them. I ask this humbly,
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Lord, that you would save more people, make great the name of Christ among us, Lord. All of these things,