1 Cor 3
Be Careful How You Build

We’ve only ever owned two houses; one on Glendale back in the 80s and our current home on Colbourne. We’ve been really blessed since neither of our houses have ever had any major problems. Around the time that we bought our first house on Glendale, friends of ours bought a house out in Vinelandthat turned out to be a real “money pit.” No sooner would they fix one thing than something else would break. In the end they had to give up.

How you build something is important. It determines whether it stands or falls.

There are no masters in the church, only servants

Paul is writing to the Christians in Corinth and, in the first part of his letter, he’s addressing a bunch of issues that you might gather together under the heading of “true wisdom and true leadership.” It seems that the Corinthians were very taken with fine sounding words and impressive leaders; so much so that they were beginning to look down on Paul who had started the church there. You might expect Paul to defend himself as a speaker and leader, or talk about them as being “his” church, but that is precisely what he doesn’t do.

…when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men? ⁵ What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul?  Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. (1 Cor 3.3-5)

Two years ago, when I was preparing for my ordination, I did a study on some of the words used to describe people who are involved in ministry or leadership in the church. The most common words in the New Testament for ministry and minister are related to the Greek word diakonos, where we get our word “deacon,” and it’s translated here as “servant.”

Think about that for a moment. What does a servant do? They serve. And then they leave, or they’re ignored.

[In societies that put a lot of importance in status the simple act of going through a door can become a very complicated process. It’s very important that people go through the door in the order of their status. We used to joke in Pakistan that the slowest thing on four legs was two Afghans trying to go through a door. “you first” “no you first, you are the host” “no, you first, you are my guest” and so on. And once you were in the room there was a definite hierarchy about where you sat. The most important person sat in the corner furthest away from the door. The least important sat right by the door. When someone else came in you would all stand to greet them, unless they were clearly of lower status. For instance sons stood when their fathers entered the room, but fathers didn’t stand when their sons entered the room.

Nobody stood for servants. Nobody paid any attention to servants. Servants always went through the door last.]

And yet, this is how Paul describes himself and Apollos; as servants, as the people on the lowest rung of the ladder, people who do what they’re told, or as Paul puts it as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

So here’s the first thing this passage teaches us, that there is no place in the church for valuing one person more highly than another, even if they have a leadership position.. There are no masters in the church, only servants. When I insist that people just call me Robin, rather than Pastor Robin, or Reverend or (sometimes) Father, it isn’t a gimmick. It’s because of passages like this; that tell us that the whole status and honour thing has no place in the church.

It’s God who grows the church

Then Paul gives us two wonderful images of the church and how things should work.

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. ⁸ The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour.

In this picture the church is a plant and Paul and Apollos are farmers who plant and water.

[I don’t have much of a garden at home. A few rose bushes and some other things whose names I’m not sure of. But this much I’m sure of. I can’t make anything grow. I can’t make a rose bush grow. I can’t make hostas grow. I can help them grow, or I can hinder them, but I can’t make them grow. They carry within them the ability to grow all by themselves. God put it there, in their DNA. We have some flowers that seed themselves, so every year we have more morning glory or more columbine.

We also have rocks in our garden. But it doesn’t matter how much we water them, they’re not going to grow. They have no life in it.]

It’s the same with the church. God supplies the seed, the message of the gospel. People like Paul take that seed and plant it by telling the story of Jesus and his death and resurrection. That story has power in itself to change people’s lives, as they realise that God loves them and sent his son to die for them. That’s how the church comes into existence. That’s how this church came into existence, and it’s how it continues to live from generation to generation.

The church is planted by preaching the gospel. It grows by being watered by good teaching and fellowship. That’s what Apollos did in Corinth. That’s what successive pastors and leaders have done, here at Wentworth, each as they have been gifted by God. But none of us are really that important. It’s the seed of the gospel that’s the main thing. Some churches have photos of all the previous pastors out in the foyer. They can be pretty intimidating. But Paul says neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. It’s God who makes the church grow, not us.

And it’s important that we realise that this passage is about the church, not about individuals. How can we be sure of that? The next verse makes it clear. ⁹ For we (Paul and Apollos) are God’s fellow workers; you (plural, the Corinthian believers) are God’s field (singular), God’s building (singular). I am not God’s field, or God’s building, neither are you, as an individual. It’s together that we are God’s field, or God’s building.

But we still need to be careful how we build

Into the church

And that’s the other picture of the church that we have here; the church as God’s building. ¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. So now Paul has switched from being a farmer planting seed to a builder laying a foundation, but it’s the same story he’s telling, the story of how the church at Corinth was founded and grew. He came and preached the gospel to get things started (he laid the foundations) then Apollos came along after him and did the Bible teaching (he built on top of Paul’s foundation.)

[Our house is over 100 years old. If you go down in the basement you’ll see that the foundation is what they call “field stone;” great hunks of stone that look like they’ve been dug out of the escarpment. Those foundations have been there more than a century and they’re not going anywhere in a hurry.]

In the same way, Paul had no doubts about the foundation at Corinth. It was solid as a rock. He had laid the foundation himself and he’s clear on what he put into it. ¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

There’s only one thing that can sustain a strong and healthy church. There’s only one thing that can sustain Wentworth and make us a strong and healthy congregation. We need to be built on the foundation of the good news of Jesus Christ. Anything else will not last. And we see that with a number of church denominations around us who seem to be working hard at destroying themselves. They deny basic teachings of scripture because they differ from what Canadian society finds acceptable. More to the point, they deny that there is anything unique about Jesus, and essentially say all ways lead to God. It’s like me going down in my basement with a jack-hammer and digging out those huge hunks of stone from the walls. Eventually my house is going to come tumbling down.

Paul wasn’t dealing with that issue in Corinth. He was confident of the foundation of the church. It was the superstructure he was worried about. So he has a warning for the people who have come to teach at Corinth since he and Apollos have moved on. He says, … each one should be careful how they build.  ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what they have built survives, they will receive their reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, they will suffer loss; they themselves will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

I need to pause here for a moment to dispel a myth about this passage.

In some sections of the church you will hear this passage taught this way. “When you make a decision for Jesus you are saved and going to heaven no matter what. It’s best that you continue to grow in your faith (build into your life with gold, silver, etc.) but if you don’t, if you choose to continue to do all the things you did before you made that decision (building with wood, hay, etc) that’s unfortunate, but don’t worry. You’re still going to heaven, you just don’t get any reward.”

That is not what this passage teaches; because it isn’t about individuals, it’s about churches and those who teach in them.

Remember that Paul is talking about the people who came after himself and Apollos; the people who are now teaching in the church in Corinth. And he says each one should be careful how they build. In other words they should be careful what they teach.

 ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.

If there are problems with the way a house has been built, eventually they will come to light. Somebody is going to come in and pull up the flooring in the basement and find the mould. That drainpipe that didn’t have the right slope on it is going to clog and spill foul smelling sewage into the house. The bad wiring is going to short. The substandard framing is going to give way and the wall’s going to come down.

It’s the same for churches. Those who lead them and especially those who teach in them will be held accountable for the work they’ve done. But it won’t be Mike Holmes coming to do a home inspection. It will be Jesus himself when he returns on the final day of history to set everything to rights and establish his eternal kingdom.

At that time ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what they have built survives, they will receive their reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, they will suffer loss; they themselves will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

This is scary reading if you’re a preacher. Becoming a leader or teacher in the church isn’t something to be taken lightly. What we do, how we build, will be tested with fire. Our personal relationship with God isn’t in question here. The question is, how well have we served those that God has given us to lead?

Into the lives of those around us

Now, many of you may be thinking, “Phew, I knew there was a good reason I didn’t want to become a pastor.” And it’s true that this passage is speaking specifically to those in leadership. But I believe there is a principle here that applies to all of us. And that is that we are all responsible for the impact that we have on the lives of those around us.

This is a passage about leadership, and John Maxwell, one of the leading experts on leadership development, has defined leadership as simply “influence.” Some of us exert more influence than others, and as a result are recognised as “leaders,” but all of us exert some influence on those around us.

If you’re a parent, you influence your children. If you’re a manager or supervisor, you influence those you manage or supervise. If you’re a teacher; in kindergarten, school, university, or Sunday School or Bible Study, you influence your students.

Those are all formal ways in which we influence people, but most of our influencing, most of our leadership, is informal. You influence your friends and family by the choices you make or don’t make. You influence your boss by the way you relate them. You influence any number of people every day as you interact with them… and the question is, “What are you building into their lives?”

Are you building with junk? Saying things that aren’t true (“you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny”), criticising everything that someone does, modelling destructive ways of living for those around you?

Or are you building with gold and silver, something that will last, be it ever so small; a word of encouragement, an act of kindness, a word of truth? Proverbs 25.11-12 says “The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewellery, And a wise friend’s timely reprimand is like a gold ring slipped on your finger.”

Because the stakes are high

What we build into people, and especially into the church, is really important, because the stakes are high. ¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

We’re not just building any old building. The church, the community of God, is a temple, the place where God’s Spirit lives. Again the “you” here is plural. Yes, we have the Spirit living within each of us, but that’s not what Paul is talking about here. He’s saying that we, as a community, are the place where God’s Spirit lives and, more to the point, where others can come to encounter God’s Spirit.

That’s why the stakes are so high. That’s why Paul says, ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

The church, the Body of Christ, is how God makes himself known in the world. If we damage or destroy the church in a place, God is left without a witness in that place.

This is serious stuff. We’re not just playing religious games here. Some people play hockey on Sunday mornings, we play religion. That’s not it. God has chosen to dwell in the midst of this community of faith, and every community of faith that is built on the foundation of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We need to take that seriously and work hard at being a community that reflects the kind of person that God is; just and compassionate, holy and accepting.

So, if you’re a teacher or leader of any sort in the church, from kindergarten to seminary, I want you to take some time today to ask yourself what you are building into the lives of those you teach.

And if you’re not in that category, I want you to take some time to reflect on your relationships with friends, family, neighbours, colleagues, co-workers, and ask yourself what you are building into those lives. If they’re Christians, are you helping them become more like Jesus? If they’re not yet believers, are you helping them see Jesus more clearly so he can draw them closer to himself?

And remember, you don’t have to do this yourselves. Paul said, I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. If you are faithful to plant the seed of the gospel and water the faith of your brothers and sisters, God will be faithful to make it grow.