WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Now turn with me to 1 Corinthians 3 10. Now you can also pray that I do as well with the 2nd sermon. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:17.000 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 10 through 17. 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:29.000 I want to talk about that was a word of encouragement for us to lift our spirits. This is a word of warning as a church body. 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:38.000 That we make sure that we're building what I call a fireproof ministry or a fireproof church. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:45.000 I know we was thinking about putting a sprinkler system into this building was going to be. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.000 Oh man, it was expensive. So we decided not to do it. 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:59.000 But it's one thing to make sure that this building doesn't catch on fire or this building can survive a fire. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.000 But we know that this building is not our church. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:06.000 You're the church. 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:14.000 So how do we build a fireproof ministry that stands the day of judgment? 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:24.000 You know, there's going to be a great day of fire at the end. And what's going to survive of Grace Bible Church on that day? 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:31.000 You know what's going to be around on that day? That should be a pressing question. 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:34.000 So let's read verses 10 through 17. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:41.000 According to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:46.000 I don't know if anyone builds on it, but let each one take heed how he builds on it. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:51.000 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:02:03.000 Now, if anyone builds on the foundation, on this foundation, which with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire. 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:07.000 And the fire will teach each one's work of what sort it is. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.000 If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:16.000 If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.000 But he himself will be saved so as through fire. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.000 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.000 If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:33.000 For the temple of God is holy. Which temple you are. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:47.000 So we see in verse 10 that the Apostle Paul is reminding the Corinthians, because they're evaluating Paul and Paulus' ministry, and they were evaluating their ministries based upon a false metric. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:58.000 They were more worried about external fleshly things, oratory skills, and Greek philosophy, and all this kind of fluff which Paul identifies as hay, wheat, and stubble. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.000 This stuff is going to be burnt up. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:07.000 And so he's reminding the Corinthians what really is a solid church. 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:12.000 You know, as you evaluate churches, what makes a good church, what makes a bad church? 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.000 And there are some churches full of hay, wheat, and stubble. 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:20.000 Some churches have gold and silver and precious stones. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:39.000 And what makes a church valuable, or I say valuable, enduring, is the churches that are built out of the right materials that are fireproof. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:44.000 So how to build a fireproof ministry? We see several things here. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:54.000 We're to be careful, if we're going to build a fireproof ministry, we must be careful to build our church or our personal ministries on Christ. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:56.000 We see that in verses 10 and 11. 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:07.000 Paul says I'm a wise master builder, and I've laid the foundation and another builds on it. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:10.000 What is the foundation that Paul has laid? 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.000 He says I come preaching the gospel. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.000 Christ. Christ is that foundation. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:20.000 Now, what is the purpose of a foundation? 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:24.000 So if you're going to look at an infrastructure, it's like, hey, is this a good infrastructure? 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:29.000 It's not about looking at the paint schemes on the sheetrock. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:32.000 It's like, what is underneath the foundation? Is the foundation secure? 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.000 Well, what's the foundation for? 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:47.000 The foundation is to establish a structure to hold up the infrastructure, to bear the weight of the building. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:55.000 But more than that, and I think we often miss this part about the foundation, is to give us the parameters of the building. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:04.000 No one builds a foundation over here and then builds the house somewhere else off the foundation. 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:11.000 What happens if you have a sturdy foundation, but you turn and build your house on the sand or somewhere not on that foundation? 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:15.000 The structure is going to fall apart. It's going to fall down. It's not going to last. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:21.000 And often churches fail because they're building on everything other than Jesus Christ. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:24.000 They're not building on Christ. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:31.000 They're building on other things, usually gimmicks and games, things of that nature. 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:41.000 But we learn in Ephesians 2 20 that the apostles laid down the foundation with Christ Jesus, the cornerstone of that foundation. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:43.000 And what is that foundation? 00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:47.000 I believe the foundation is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.000 That's the central theme of the Word of God. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.000 But it's all that the apostles have given us. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:55.000 It's the whole canon of Scriptures. 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:10.000 And we have to realize that Jesus didn't write any of the Bible, but He gave us the Bible through inspiring His men, and He sent His Holy Spirit to instruct the apostles to write down that which He instructed them. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:16.000 In other words, the foundation of the church is the Word of God. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:21.000 It's the only thing that's going to hold up a ministry. 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:27.000 And it's the Word of God, and I could even narrow it down to the sufficiency of Scriptures. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:44.000 The problem with many churches is they claim, and I don't want this to be true of Grace Bible Church, we claim, "Hey, I believe the Bible is the Word of God." That's stated, but it's not sufficient to build a church on. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:53.000 It's a struggle of trying to go, "I need something in addition to the Word of God." Maybe for the Corinthians it was Greek philosophy. 00:06:53.000 --> 00:07:23.000 We need extra-biblical philosophical wisdom to incorporate,"Oh, we need to make our messages more appealing to the smart people of the world, so we need to use philosophical language in order to attract people." Well, that was what the Corinthians were concerned with, and they were losing the sufficiency of Scriptures and not building on Christ Jesus, the foundation, but they were building on another foundation. 00:07:23.000 --> 00:07:26.000 And we must be careful. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:35.000 If we're going to build a church, may we be known for preaching the Word, teaching the Word, believing the Word, applying the Word. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:40.000 May the Word of God be what this church is built upon. 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:47.000 Secondly, if we're going to build a foul-proofed ministry, we need to be careful that we're building for eternity. 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:50.000 We see this in verses 12 through 13. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:08:11.000 "Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, and straw, each one's work will become clear for the day we'll declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the firewall will test each one's work of what sort it is." You see, Apostle Paul is talking about different types of material. 00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:14.000 It's one thing to have the foundation laid. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:16.000 Paul's done that once for all. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:18.000 We don't need a new foundation. 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:20.000 We need to stick on that. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:23.000 But now, how are we going to build upon that? 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:25.000 What kind of materials are we going to utilize? 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:37.000 So it's one thing for us to say, "Hey, we believe that Jesus is the gospel of Jesus, is God, and the gospel is the heart of our belief system." But what else are we going to build on top of that? 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:44.000 You see, you have gold, silver, and precious stone, which represent materials that are enduring. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:09:02.000 Calvin, John Calvin says, "These are the materials that are to be built upon the foundation of Christ, the materials that wander fire." But what do you do with hay, you know, stubble, hay, wood, straw? 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:06.000 It's combustible materials. 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:13.000 But there's another distinction between precious stones and silver and gold and hay, wood, and stubble. 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:17.000 It's one's expensive, and the other one's inexpensive. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:19.000 Think about that. 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:26.000 The temptation for any ministry is to build fast and build large. 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:34.000 And if you're going to build a fast and large ministry, then you need cheap materials to build fast. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:39.000 You know, they can pump out mobile homes in assembly line. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:42.000 I mean, they're just coming out in weeks. 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:43.000 They got it down. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:48.000 Just cheap materials, easy to install, easy to... 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.000 You know, they're mobile. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.000 You can have one up within weeks at your house or on your land. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:56.000 Right? Cheap materials. 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:02.000 But do you expect a mobile home to last for 200 years? 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.000 No, no one expects it to last 200 years. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:11.000 Did you know that the Cathedral of Cologne started and started... 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:18.000 The construction started in 1274 and didn't end to 1825? 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:25.000 Now, if you fact check me on that, it might be 18-something else, but it was a long time. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:27.000 It was a long time. 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:31.000 You know, we're looking at hundreds of years. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:37.000 You're looking at one generation starting the Cathedral, knowing that they weren't going to finish it. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:41.000 They were giving their whole life to building something that they couldn't finish. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000 They knew they wouldn't finish. 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:49.000 And they built cathedrals out of solid material. 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:52.000 Well, there's a difference. 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:58.000 The temptation for a church is to build with cheap materials. 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:03.000 Go and read any modern-day church growth book. 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:13.000 I took a church growth class in college, and it was amazing the marketing techniques that they attempted to employ. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:18.000 If you're going to build a business, you can build a business quick and fast through marketing techniques. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:26.000 Well, the churches apply the marketing techniques to the church, and they can build a lot of people quickly. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:28.000 It happens. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:33.000 Robert Schuller built... 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:40.000 They said at the time, in the '80s and '90s, the largest ministry in the world. 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:49.000 They had more viewers watching his worship service than any other ministry at that time in the world. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:05.000 Robert Schuller, and what he did to build the Crystal Cathedral, he went and moved to California, strategically found the right location, and did surveys of where to plant a church based upon growth potential. 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:10.000 And then he went and surveyed everybody in the community, what they were looking for in the church. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.000 And he found the common things that the consumer wanted. 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:24.000 He says, "Now, let's provide what is wanted by the consumer." And he did that, and the church grew quickly, fast, immediately. 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:28.000 And basically, before he built the Crystal Cathedral, he had... 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:32.000 Really, he started it through a drive-through service. 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.000 I don't know if you remember that. 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:42.000 He had an old timey drive-through, and he would project his sermons, and people would come and drive in and get the sermon and leave. 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:51.000 The church growth methods today have changed than what they wore when I was young. 00:12:51.000 --> 00:13:00.000 When I was young, the sure way of building a fast church is having activities for the children, activity centers. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:07.000 You had to have a basketball court. It was just standard. Every church had to have one. 00:13:07.000 --> 00:13:11.000 Now, I would like for us to have one for the sake of the kids. I actually would. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:15.000 But if we had one just for the sake of growing, there's something wrong about that. 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:23.000 And the goal... You see, churches know this. I mean, they've done statistics on this. 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:25.000 If you want to grow the church, who do you appeal to? 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.000 You don't appeal to the older generation. They're almost gone. 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:33.000 You can't build a church off people who die. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.000 I mean... 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.000 That's what they say. 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:41.000 Don't... OK. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:48.000 Well, how do you get the middle generation? You want the middle generation, the 40, 50 year old... 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:52.000 You don't really have money until you're 50 or 60, to be honest, from my experience. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:57.000 When you're 20, you don't have anything to give. So you really don't need them. 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.000 It's the 30, 40, 50, 60 year olds, right? 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:05.000 But how do they determine what church they go to? 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Will they go where their kids want to go? 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.000 I mean, that's where they go. 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:16.000 I want my kids or my grandkids to enjoy church. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:19.000 I want them to be excited about church. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:24.000 I want unbelieving kids that don't like God to be excited about going to church. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:29.000 Well, how do you get unbelieving kids that don't love God to be excited about going to church? 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:33.000 Well, entertain them. 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:40.000 You know, give them hay, wheat and stubble. Give them what they want. 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.000 Make them excited about coming, right? 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:48.000 And so churches do this. It's intentional. It's strategic. It's a marketing scheme. 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:56.000 And you get to see, they figure this out. If you get the kids to come, you build the church around the youth ministry, you get the kids to come. 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:58.000 Parents will follow. 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:03.000 Eventually the parents will follow. Well, in the 80s, it was all about gyms and record. 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:08.000 Even they have centers where you had video games and all that where you bring the kids in. 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:16.000 But you know what's happened? What happened in the 2000s and even up to today, the whole church became a youth ministry. 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:21.000 You had the youth service with the contemporary worship and that's where the kids are going. 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:24.000 Eventually that just slipped into the main service. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:28.000 And so then you have services that are built upon entertainment. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:33.000 Literally, it's just entertainment. And it's not congregational worship. 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:39.000 It's just a performance. And then you don't have, I mean, you're talking about me preaching long. 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:42.000 That's not the way to build a church, to be honest. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:47.000 You don't build churches with long, boring sermons. 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:56.000 So this is how churches build and they build fast and quickly. 00:15:56.000 --> 00:16:00.000 But is this a church that's going to stand the test of time? 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:02.000 Let's ask the serious question. 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:08.000 You see, we can't judge a ministry or a church by temporal measuring sticks. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:15.000 Look at verse 13, "Each one's work will become clear." I mean, right now, you can't judge a church by its size. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:18.000 We tend to do that. Like, well, that's a big church. It must be a good church. 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:21.000 That must be a bad church. They must be doing something wrong. 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.000 Big churches must be doing something right. 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:27.000 You say, well, Paul says, "Hold your judgment. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:31.000 Wait till the day of judgment to figure that out. 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:47.000 Each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and fire will test each one's work what sort it is." The quality of our work will eventually be exposed by God. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:50.000 You see, this could be fires. 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:54.000 Some people interpret this text as the fires of life. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:58.000 You have a big church come, then all of a sudden COVID hits. 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:04.000 That's a trial, and the church shrinks, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, people never come back to church. 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:09.000 Okay, well, that trial of COVID showed that the church really wasn't that substantial. 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:12.000 It looked big, but actually in the heart of it wasn't all that big. 00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:16.000 So all this seemingly grove tend to actually be fluff. 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:21.000 And that could be what this text is talking about, the trials of life. 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:25.000 But I tend to think this is talking about the great day of judgment. 00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:37.000 And the reason I believe that is because it talks about the reward of the ministers who do well, and those who will suffer loss. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:42.000 When do they suffer loss? They'll be saved themselves, eternally, even though they suffer loss. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:45.000 So it seems like this is pointing to the great day of judgment. 00:17:46.000 --> 00:17:52.000 And I think we really don't know how well a church is doing until we face Jesus, the day of judgment. 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:56.000 Trust me, I don't think GBC is all silver and gold. 00:17:56.000 --> 00:18:03.000 I mean, I'd like to know where the wood and hay so we can fortify that and rethink through these things. 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:07.000 But I'm not here trying to make GBC this great church and let us judge other churches. 00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:11.000 No, don't do that. I'm not trying to get us to look down on our nose on other churches. 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.000 I just want us to be a fireproof church. 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:16.000 I want us to be a solid church. 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:23.000 And I want us to think not just what's convenient for the moment, or how do we get people in, or peace people. 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:28.000 How do we actually build for eternity? 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:39.000 How would you like to give your whole life to building a church or whatever minister you have to learn on the day of judgment you wasted all your time and your labor? 00:18:41.000 --> 00:18:44.000 All the fruit you thought you built turns into be nothing. 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:53.000 You know what happened to Robert Schuyler and the Crystal Cathedral? 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:55.000 It went bankrupt. 00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:58.000 2010. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:01.000 It shut down. 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:04.000 The Catholic Church bought it. 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:07.000 They changed the name to Christ Cathedral. 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:10.000 All that effort. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.000 Is now a Catholic Church. 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:15.000 Where are the people? 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:21.000 I'm not saying there's not potentially some Christians in there that made it through. 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:23.000 I'm not saying that. 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:26.000 But that's not the chapter church we need to build. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:34.000 Thirdly, we need to be careful to not seek to please men, but please God. 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:36.000 Look at verse 14 through 15. 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:41.000 "If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:55.000 But if anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so through fire." So it's not those who build fast that are rewarded, but those who build carefully. 00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:13.000 In the end, it's not the approval of man that we need. 00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:33.000 We were looking to build something on that day. The Lord Jesus says, "Well done." My good and faithful servant. 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:41.000 Fourth, if all this is true, we need to be careful to build with care. 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:44.000 We see this in 16 and 17. 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:52.000 Now, one thing we need to realize about the church, it's not the physical building. 00:20:53.000 --> 00:21:02.000 We know this building's going to be torn down one day. It's not going to last for eternity. 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:13.000 But we need to realize, according to verse 16, 17, is that the true temple, the true church, is you. 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:22.000 You're the dwelling place, the residence of God, God's people. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:30.000 And Paul understood this. He understood the true ministry wasn't brand building. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:39.000 It wasn't popularity contest. It wasn't about numbers, a numbers game. 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.000 It wasn't anything like that. It was about people. 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:55.000 And he understood that his labor was into people, and his heart's desire was that the people are with them in heaven. 00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:02.000 You know what Paul viewed his reward was? The people he ministered to. 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:10.000 And of course, that's the only in 219, for what is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:12.000 Is it not you? 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:15.000 You know, I think about this. 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:25.000 You know, the day that I'm going to be judged, and all the elders here, and all the ministers here, and deacons, and even you, because this is your ministry too. 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:27.000 We're all ministering to one another here. 00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:31.000 What do we want on the day of judgment? 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:43.000 Is it just, "Hey, I want a mansion on the hilltop. I want a gold medal." No, we don't want a gold medal. I don't need that. I don't need a big dwelling place. 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:50.000 You know, really what God's people want is for the people they invested in to be there with them. 00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:59.000 To have eternity with the people that you've preached to, and served, and ministered. 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:21.000 Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 3, 5, "For this reason when I come, I could no longer endure it. I sent to you to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain." He understood. It's like, "Hey, I endure if you endure. You're my labor, and I don't want to think that all my efforts and labor went up in smoke. 00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:27.000 You need to make this thing. You need to endure. You need to be thriving. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:24:03.000 I want to present you to Christ on that great day." Paul said in Philippians 2, 14, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in this world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." How would you like to go? I built this big church of unconverted people that go to hell. 00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:13.000 I never preached the gospel. I never taught them the truth. There was never sanctification. There wasn't even on Christ the gospel. There was just entertainment. 00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:18.000 In fact, all I did was help people think they were right with God when they weren't. 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:31.000 I gave them false assurance because that's what they wanted. I tickled the ears because that's what they wanted. And the preacher may be saved. "Hey, I might get to heaven, but all my labor went up in smoke." That would be awful. 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:34.000 That's not a fireproof ministry. 00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:51.000 Paul says in Philippians, verse 1 of chapter 4, "Therefore my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm, thus in the Lord my beloved." You see, this is the true ministry. 00:24:51.000 --> 00:25:01.000 And so we need to be careful if the ministry in the church is God's people. We need to be very careful because the church is the residence of God. 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:12.000 Look at verse 16, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" I mean, this is not...it's one thing to mistreat silver and gold. 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:27.000 Take your gold rings and just flop them off, throw them in a junk drawer, or forget them, lose them. It's like, "Ah, that's gold, whatever." You know, it's one thing to do that to gold and silver, which you shouldn't do. 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:38.000 It's a mismanagement of precious things. But what's more precious to God, silver or gold or human souls? 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:58.000 You see, you are God's dwelling place. And if that's the case, if this is where God is dwelling, not in this physical building, but among the assembly of the saints, the Spirit dwells in each of us, then how careful must we be in building this church? 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:13.000 You see, God is jealous. We need to be jealous...I mean, careful because God is jealous. Look at verse 17, "If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him." Remember what Jesus said about the little children, leading the little children astray? 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:23.000 It'd be better to have a millstone wrapped around your neck and thrown into the sea than to do harm to God's little children that belong to him. 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:42.000 Woe to the shepherds that are not feeding the sheep meat, solid food, that are tickling the ears, leading them to false assurance and not leading them to Christ. 00:26:43.000 --> 00:27:08.000 We need to be careful. God is jealous over his temple, over his church. His church is holy. We need to be careful. Look, it says, "For the temple of God is holy." Now, I'm just saying this as we had a word of encouragement with the first message about God hears our prayers. He hears them. 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:18.000 And in this message, we see that this church, GBC, is precious to God. You're precious to God. You're holy to God. 00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:27.000 Now, we need to build it in such a way that we all make it. That we all make it. 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:43.000 The ministry, the church, is nothing to play around with. It's not left to games and gimmicks and strategies. It's not for us to employ marketing tactics and entertain goats. 00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:54.000 We do not have the liberty to try different methodologies and strategies. We can't be pragmatic or do whatever seems to work. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:08.000 No, we must be careful to do God's business, God's way, if we want to build a ministry that endures the scrutiny and the judgment and the fires of God. 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:19.000 Let's pray. Dear God, we see here in your word such truth. Your word is truth to us, Lord. We live on it. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:30.000 We can't live on hay, wheat and stubble. We don't need more entertainment in our lives. We don't need any more false hope. 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:39.000 We don't need our ears tickled, dear God. Our children don't need their ears tickled. We need the word of God. 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:51.000 We need you to speak to us, dear Lord. We need our faith anchored in true confidence. We need real confidence in the day that we live in. 00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:01.000 Oh Lord, we thank you for your word. I don't know, personally, I don't know what I'd be without it. I would be a mess. 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:07.000 I'm too emotional person to survive without the steady rock of your word. 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:22.000 Lord, build this church, your church. Build us in truth. Lord, help us to be enduring. 00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:34.000 Lord, my prayer for all the saints here is that we be presented holy and without blemish or spot before you on that great day. 00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.000 Not that we'll be healthy and wealthy and rich and... 00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:45.000 I'll pray for that, dear God. I pray for holiness among us. 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:54.000 I pray for the joy of the Lord, not the joy of this world that's fleeting, leaves us empty and discontent. 00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:02.000 I pray for real joy, the abiding joy, that joy that comes from being in your presence. 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:11.000 Lord, shine your face upon us, your people. Smile upon us, dear God. 00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:22.000 Lord, we know you have smiled and are smiling. You've sent us your Son, given us evidence that you love us, and given us assurance that we can come to you. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:25.000 This we pray in your Son's name. Amen. 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:27.000 Amen