15 November 2015
I. Introduction
-- turn in
Bibles to 1 Corinthians 3:1-15
1 Corinthians 3:1-15 (NIV)
1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as
worldly--mere infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet
ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and
quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
4 For 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.
6 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 labor.
9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field,
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. But each one should be
careful how he builds.
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one
already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver,
costly stones, wood, hay or straw,
13 his 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 man's work.
14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his
reward.
15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will
be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
-- there
once was an old sow with three little pigs, and because she did not have enough
to keep them and they were old enough to take care of themselves, she sent them
out into the world to seek their fortune.
-- The
first little pig went off and met a man with a bundle of straw -- he said to
him: 'Please, man, give me that straw to build a house.' -- Which the man did,
and the little pig built a house with it. -- before long, a wolf came by and knocked
at the door of the house made of straw, and said: 'Little pig, little pig, let
me come in.' -- To which the pig answered: 'No, no, not by the hair of my chiny
chin chin.' -- then the wolf said, 'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll
blow your house in.' -- So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew his house in,
and ate up the little pig.
-- The
second little pig met a man with a bundle of sticks and said: 'Please, man,
give me those sticks so I can build a house.' -- Which the man did -- and the
pig built his house. -- before long, that same wolf came by and knocked at the
door of the house made of sticks, and said: 'Little pig, little pig, let me
come in.' -- To which the pig answered: 'No, no, not by the hair of my chiny
chin chin.' -- then the wolf said, 'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll
blow your house in.' -- So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew his house in,
and ate up the little pig.
-- The
third little pig met a man with a load of bricks, and said: 'Please, man, give
me those bricks to build a house with.' -- the man gave him the bricks, and he
built his house with them. -- So the wolf came, as he did to the other little
pigs, and said: 'Little pig, little pig, let me come in.' -- 'No, no, not by
the hair of my chiny chin chin.' -- 'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll
blow your house in.' -- Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he
puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but he could not get the house down.”1
-- on
Friday, our world was rocked by a tragedy when the city of Paris was attacked
by ISIS, with over 120 innocent civilians losing their lives -- when things
like this happen, our initial reaction is shock and terror and denial -- and
even as we pray for the victims, we begin to ask how this could happen in our
world today and what we can do about it -- as Christians, our questions may
become even more pointed, “How could God allow this to happen?” and “How should
Christians respond to events like this?”
-- I shared
with you the story of the three little pigs as a segue into my thoughts on this
issue -- you see, this children’s tale is more than what it seems -- it can be
taken as an example or allegory of our Christian life here on earth -- and it
can serve as a reminder of who we are and how we should live our lives here on
this earth, especially in response to evil in all the forms it takes
II. Scripture Lesson (1 Corinthians 3:1-15)
-- let me
show you what I mean by using this story to illustrate the spiritual principles
Paul gives us in this passage from 1 Corinthians 3
-- look
back with me at verse 1
1 Corinthians 3:1-9 (NIV)
1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as
worldly--mere infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet
ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and
quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
4 For 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.
6 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 labor.
9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field,
God's building.
-- as the
story of the three little pigs opens, we read of a sow who is sending her young
pigs into the world to seek their fortune -- there’s a couple of things we need
to understand from this opening line that Paul speaks to in this passage
-- first,
we are expected to grow up and move on with our lives -- in the normal course
of a human’s life, people are born as babies -- they proceed as toddlers and
then children and pre-teens -- they become teenagers and start to come into
their own -- and then as they move into early adulthood, they leave home to
establish their own lives -- this is the normal pattern of biological maturity
-- the same
is true for us in a spiritual sense, too -- when we first come to Christ, we
are like little babies -- toddlers in the faith -- we know the basics of living
with Christ, but we don’t yet know how to live on our own in faith with the
power of the Holy Spirit leading us -- but the longer we walk with Christ, the
more we grow and the more mature we get, until we no longer are babes in Christ
but mature saints who live out their faith
-- Paul’s
complaint here at the start of this passage is that the Corinthians weren’t
growing up -- they were refusing to mature and were still infants in Christ --
still drinking milk instead of eating the solid food of the Word of God
-- his
point here is the same point we see in the story of the three little pigs -- we
have to grow up -- we can’t stay babies forever -- we have to get on with life
-- which
brings us to the next point -- if you’ll notice in the story of the three
little pigs, they were sent out into the world with a mission -- to seek their
fortune
-- one of
the reasons we have baby Christians in our churches today who are refusing to
grow up is because they haven’t understood their mission in life -- Christ gave
us a mission -- a purpose -- a reason to live
-- in
Matthew 28:18-20 He tells us to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching
them to obey everything that He commanded
-- those
are our marching orders -- that is our mission as Christians in this world today
-- and the fortune we are to seek is the Kingdom of God -- as Jesus said in
Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness”
-- this is
the starting point of maturity in the Christian life -- to grow up and to go
out and to seek our fortune and fulfill our calling in life -- the Corinthians
weren’t doing this -- they were refusing to be who God called them to be and
they continued to live on milk and the support of others rather than find their
own way through Christ
-- last
point on this section -- to where were the three little pigs sent? -- into the
world -- and what is the world? -- the world is the place where the human
kingdoms reign
-- as Paul
points out in this passage, the world is a place of division and strife -- of
jealousy and quarreling -- of people trying to exert power over others -- of
people trying to get their own way
-- why did
the Paris tragedy occur? -- because Paris is in the world -- because we live in
a fallen world, cursed through the fall of man in the garden of Eden -- because
Pandora’s box has been opened and evil has entered God’s paradise -- because we
have people in this world who want nothing more than to have power and to
control others -- because we have people in this world who are led by the spiritual
forces of darkness and evil in the heavenly realms
-- it is
this evil that is personified in the story of the three little pigs as the big,
bad wolf who comes along to destroy that which is good -- it is this evil that
causes the destruction and mayhem in our lives -- the big, bad wolf represents
the storms of this life and the trials and tribulations we face in this fallen
world
-- so what
is our response to the world? -- what is our purpose? -- to stand against the
evils of this world and to build up the kingdom of God -- as Paul says here, we
are God’s field -- we are God’s building -- He is building us up and growing
His Kingdom on earth so that others might be drawn to the salvation that comes
through Christ and seek safety and security through Him
-- look at
verse 10
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an
expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be
careful how he builds.
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one
already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
-- the
first thing a building needs is a strong foundation -- and the only foundation
that can stand against the storms of life is a foundation built on the Rock --
Paul tells us here that our foundation is Christ Himself -- He is our support
-- He is our strength -- He is our bulwark against this world
-- when
Paul speaks of Christ as the foundation of our lives, he is referring to our
salvation -- it is a simple but strong message -- there is a contemporary
Christian song that says, "It all comes down to a man dying on a cross and
saving the world" -- and that's true -- that’s our foundation -- that’s
the starting place for our Christian life
-- It all
comes down to the fact that Jesus Christ came to earth to show us the way --
that He died on the cross as an atonement for our sins -- and that He was
raised on the third day to give us the promise of eternal life and of our
future bodily resurrection -- and the message of the Bible and the promise of
God is that if you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and accept Him as
your Lord and Savior, then you will receive eternal life
-- you can
have nothing -- you can build nothing -- unless you have the right foundation --
unless you build your life on Jesus Christ
-- verse 12
12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver,
costly stones, wood, hay or straw,
13 his 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 man's work.
14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his
reward.
15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will
be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
-- just as
we learned in the story of the three little pigs, we can build upon the
foundation with a variety of building materials -- in this story, one of the
pigs built on his foundation with straw -- the other with sticks -- and the
last with bricks
-- what
does this say to us? -- we can do the same -- as Paul points out in this
passage, we have the choice on how we are going to build our lives -- are we
going to build our lives with straw and sticks or are we going to build with
bricks?
-- to try
to build with straw and sticks is to live worldly like the Corinthians -- to
make a showing of faith rather than truly living out a life of faith -- to build
with straw and sticks means you live in the world and you imitate the world and
you only give lip-service to God
-- people
who build with straw and sticks are not fully engaged and growing -- they come
to church, but that’s all they do -- they give out of their excess, but even
then not much -- they don’t commit to helping others, because their time is
fully committed to the things of the world -- they pray, mostly on Sundays or
without fully engaging in their relationship with God -- they don’t feed on the
word of God, but rely on others to tell them what God’s word says -- and even
then, they listen but do not absorb nor apply what they hear
-- their
focus is on the temporal -- on the here-and-now and not on eternity -- their
works are wood and straw, and when the fire comes and the wolf blows, their
buildings collapse and they have nothing to show for their time here on earth
-- yet
those who build with bricks -- or, as Paul puts it here, gold and silver and
costly stones -- these are the ones who are building their lives on the
foundation of Christ with intention and purpose -- whose focus and commitment
are to God -- who live for eternity and not tomorrow -- who seek first the
Kingdom of God and trust that He will supply all their needs according to His
will
-- these
are the saints of the church -- the mature believers who have grown up and gone
into the world to fulfill the Great Commission of Christ -- who have a dynamic,
personal relationship with Jesus -- who know Him through pray -- who are fed
through His word -- who strive to live their lives daily in obedience to Him
rather than seeking the comforts this world has to offer
-- and when
the fires come and the storms of life rage and the wolf huffs and puffs, their
building stands strong and secure -- they do not give in because they have
built on the foundation with lasting material -- and they know that with God on
our side, man can do nothing against us -- the terrorists may win the day, but
they lose the eternity
III. CLOSING
-- so what
does this mean? -- What are we to do with our lives in the face of tragedies
such as that in Paris this weekend?
-- Daniel
Webster offered excellent advice, saying, "If we work on marble it will
perish. If we work on brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will
crumble to dust.
-- “But if
we work on men’s immortal minds, if we imbue them with high principles, with
just fear of God and love of their fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets
something which time cannot efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all
eternity.”
-- in the
aftermath of the events in Paris this weekend, the media asked the presidential
candidates what should be done -- their answers were predictable:
-- Bomb
them
-- Close
the borders
-- Engage
with our allies to attack ISIS on their front
-- Stop
immigration
-- make
Syria and the Middle East take care of the problem
-- none of
those will work -- as we read in 2 Corinthians 10:4, the weapons with which we
fight are not the weapons of the world -- the weapons of the world cannot
defeat evil -- the only thing that can defeat evil is the love of God expressed
through Jesus and His church
-- what do
we do in response to the attacks in Paris? -- we build our house with gold and
silver and costly stones on the foundation of Jesus Christ because this is the
only thing that can stand against the evil that is in this world today -- we
live out our faith in our homes and in the streets and in the marketplace -- we
live in obedience to Christ’s commands and we make disciples of others, leading
them to salvation through Christ
-- we
cannot defeat evil with the weapons of the world -- we can only defeat evil
through Christ
-- at this
point, the most important and efficacious thing we can do is to pray -- to pray
that the plans of evil men are thwarted -- to pray God’s protection on His
people -- and to pray that the hearts and minds of those engaged in worldly
battle would be changed through the agape love of Christ
-- our
mission is clear -- our purpose is set -- we are to go and grow and show God’s
love to this world -- that should be our response as Christians
-- let us
pray
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1 Modified from The Story of the Three Little Pigs [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/eft/eft15.htm]
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