A Firm Foundation Has Been Laid

1Co 3:11  For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 

Transcript

I want to share this morning on foundations. Anyone who's done any building, you know that the most important, well, the beginning point and the most important point is the foundation that you put down, and the care you take with that foundation. Because you know that everything will rest upon, ultimately will rest upon that foundation.

Depends, I suppose, on what kind of a building you're going to construct, and how many stories, how many levels it will be. Some of us are familiar with just one story, some have two, some have three, or more. But all of these things have to be taken into consideration in the preparation of the foundation.

It has to be level, it has to be composed of certain materials, it has to have certain dimensions to it. So the idea of the foundation is it has to be capable of carrying everything that will ultimately be built on it, that will rest on it. Everything is going to rest on that.

The first floor will rest on that. Second floor will rest on the first floor, which will rest on the foundation. The third floor will rest on the second floor, resting on the first floor.

So everything will rest upon that which is under it. So one of the things that they used to say in any kind of construction, if you hang around carpenters, they'll talk about level. Make sure it's level.

Level. And the other word that goes with that is plum, right? Level and plum.

So it has to be level, and it has to be plum. Now let's say that it's not plum, and it's not level. And as you go up on successive floors, and it's not level, and it's not plum, then what's going to happen is it's going to get, it's going to have the leaning tower of pizza or something like this.

But the idea is that then everything will not rest as it should on the foundation and the footings that were poured. It will be off this way or off that way. You know that I'm not really addressing those comments with regards to a physical building, but I'm addressing these thoughts with regards to a spiritual building.

And I'm wanting to say this morning that everything that we do... You know that even our thoughts... Think with me for a moment about our thoughts.

So for our thoughts, there has to be a foundation. There has to be a foundation upon which our thoughts will rest. Then as we build according to those thoughts and develop, we have to be sure that as we do, that it's correct, that everything is level and everything is plumb in our thinking.

It has to be correct. And if it's not, then it's going to teeter one way or teeter the other way, and then eventually it will then no longer rest on the original foundation. So this can happen with our thinking.

This can happen in a business. This can happen in anything in life. It's like that.

Name me one thing that this principle does not address itself to. One of the places that this is true and is manifesting is in the church, the visible church of the Lord Jesus Christ that is built upon the foundation. And he himself, of course, is the cornerstone, the foundation.

And over the years, there have arisen thoughts and interpretations and understandings and approaches that are not consistent with that original foundation. And so in the sense, it's not level and it's not plumb. And after a passage of generations and a period of time, what happens is the church itself enters into what's called a great falling away from the faith that was once delivered unto the saints.

And this is referred to in Scripture as an apostasy. And we have entered into such a period of time. And so this morning I will share with you on this idea of a foundation, reading several passages of Scripture that have to do with foundation.

And my intention is that in successful weeks, I'm not sure exactly, maybe three or four, I'll talk a little bit about specific areas that I believe were in which there has been a departure from the foundation. And what those things look like. Why they happened in the first place.

And I'll name names, not people, but specifically talk about specific things in which I believe we have moved away and need to return so that we are then resting firmly on the original foundation. The other thought I'll begin with this morning is this area of teaching. What it really means in terms of the revelation of Scripture in the New Testament, the New Covenant about teaching.

Teaching means to make a sound mind. That's the idea of teaching. Teaching doesn't mean from a scriptural standpoint, teaching doesn't mean just to furnish information, just to provide information.

So this is one of the ways again where we have moved away collectively from this original foundation, is the whole idea of what teaching is, how it is done, and what we think of teaching, scriptural teaching. Because the purpose of biblical teaching is to make and instill within all of us who listen to sound, solid Bible teaching, is to make a sound mind, soundness of mind, which means that we are of good understanding. And that's the whole purpose of teaching in terms of the New Covenant.

And also, I want to share with you the first verse of a hymn that was written. Now, I'm not exactly certain when this hymn was written, sometime in the 1700s. Not even certain as to the original author of this hymn, but there's about six verses.

And the hymn is How Firm a Foundation. How firm a foundation. Let me read verse 1 of this hymn.

How firm, this is lovely, how firm or solid a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to you he hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled? I may come back and read or sing.

I may come back and read some more of these verses as we go through this morning. But the idea again is a firm a foundation for our faith to rest on. Now, we still have this idea, again, this idea of what is faith, and this idea that has emerged over the years of what faith is, in my view, has departed from being level and plum on the original idea of faith.

Faith means confidence. Faith does not mean wishing or hoping for something that doesn't make sense. Faith is not believing or trying to believe something that makes no logical or reasonable sense.

That's not faith. But yet, that's the way it's understood. And it continues to be presented that way.

When you can't understand something, you just accept it by faith. You just accept it by faith if you can't understand it. With all due respect, that's not what it is.

See how it is? It's gone away from the original foundation. Faith is a word.

It has a meaning. And the meaning is confidence. And the idea of the hymn writer is wonderful because he says, or she says, I'm not certain who wrote it.

A firm, solid foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid. There's a solid foundation that is laid for your faith to rest on. And that means for your confidence to rest on.

You can be confident because the foundation is there and it's solid. And so you can put your confidence in it. So let me ask you this.

How many of you have walked up to the third floor of a home recently or a building recently, and you've said to yourself, oh, I wonder if I should be up here. I wonder if this floor can carry my weight. I wonder if it's safe for me to be up here on the third floor.

You just walk up. You just walk up third floor, fourth floor, whatever it is. You just walk up, you're perfectly fine.

Some people have bedrooms up on the third or fourth floors, and they rest and go to sleep, and they're not worried a bit about... They have confidence that all of these factors have been satisfied, that the foundation has been laid properly, and that all the floors have been erected, and they rest with confidence on that original foundation. You don't even think about it, but let me say this.

You're taking it by faith. That doesn't mean you're taking it hoping that it's going to carry you. It means you take it with confidence that it's going to carry you.

This is the idea, and we have moved away from that. Just as an example, there are so many areas in which we collectively, I believe, have moved away and are moving away from the original foundation for our faith. And this is resulting in an apostasy, which is a falling away.

So I'll read a few verses of Scripture now, beginning in 2 Chronicles, Chapter 8. Thus was accomplished all the work of Solomon from the day of the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid until it was finished. And so the house of the Lord was completed, but it began with the foundation.

And our topic this morning is a firm foundation has been laid. Psalm 89. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. But especially this first part, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. In other words, the government of God the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ over which he is king, righteousness and justice are the foundation.

In other words, it rests on righteousness and on justice.

Isaiah 28. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion a stone, a tested stone. In other words, there's not any old stone that I've laid here.

There's not just any stone. This is a tested stone. Tested.

This is a precious cornerstone. It's of sure foundation. Cannot fail.

Will never fail. And whoever believes will not be in haste. And this word will not be in haste means whoever believes in it will not be impatient for its fulfillment or will not be disturbed or filled with anxiety because it's not happening right now.

This is prophetic with regards to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and His coming from the Prophet Isaiah. Jesus specifically said that this passage applied to himself as the chief cornerstone. Then in Luke chapter 6, the words of Jesus himself.

And he's talking here about a person who hears his words. There's two cases. One is a person who hears and doesn't do it, just doesn't do it.

And the other is a person who hears and actually does follow through on what he hears, applies what he hears. And so the man who hears and follows what he hears, Jesus said he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. See, the importance of the foundation is on the rock.

And there has been a firm foundation that has been established upon which our faith and confidence in the things of the Lord rest. Unfortunately, we have moved away as we've continued to build on that original foundation. We have moved and things have not always been level and not always have been plumb.

And so we've moved ourselves away from resting properly on that original foundation. Back to what Jesus said. So the man, he dug and laid the foundation on the rock.

And when a flood arose, and the stream broke against that house, could not shake it because it had been well built. See, everything, this is the thing, everything is tested. Everything is tested.

And one of the reasons why so many things now are falling apart, even in terms of personal lives, corporate lives. We have all of this stuff going on about ministers who have considered for years to be faithful and genuine. And now we hear all of these things happening.

But the problem is that the foundation, the lives have not been built level and plumb on the biblical scriptural foundation. Then Jesus continued and said, But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. And when the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.

I'll not provide all the examples. Just let that rest and think of all the different examples. Think of yourself.

How well established are we? How well are we resting on the foundation of the faith of our fathers? What about our thinking?

How about the way in which we understand things? Is it rest squarely, and is it resting with levelness, and is it plum on the original foundation of truth? It's so easy for to get off that.

All that we need to do is listen to the wrong people. All we need to do is be reading the wrong kind of books and listening to the wrong kinds of tapes. We can be influenced so easily in our thinking and understanding of things.

And very soon we find ourselves accepting that which is at variance. It's at variance with the original foundation.

And this is happening, and I'm not speaking about hypotheticals. This is a foundational message really this morning for what is likely to come in the next few weeks, where we'll zero in on some specific areas of practice, understanding, doctrine, teaching, that is, I believe very clearly, not being built and established on the original foundation. And this is the reason why we have the apostasy.

1 Corinthians 3. According to the grace of God given to me, the Apostle Paul, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation in someone else's building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds on it, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with an... Now, listen to the materials that are being used in the building. If anyone builds on the foundation, he's talking about the original foundation, which is Jesus Christ, he is the foundation.

So he said, if they build with gold... That sounds good. If they build with silver, if they build with precious stones, or if they build with wood, or if they build with hay, or if they build with straw.

He said, each one's work will become manifest. Somebody is going to be building on this original foundation in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with gold, silver, and precious stones. And those are valuable, valuable commodities.

But also somebody is going to be building on this foundation, original foundation. They're going to be building with wood. Somebody is going to be building with hay and somebody with straw.

Now, the issue that he's about to address is this. Each one's work will become manifest for the day. And the day here is a day of testing.

It's a day of testing, where everyone, each one's work will be tested and evaluated to see whether or not what was used to build on that original foundation will stand the test, will be compatible with the foundation. And he says the test will disclose it and reveal it because he said it will be revealed by fire. It will be tested as by fire.

And the fire will test what sort of work each one has done, what's going to happen to the wood when the fire tests it. It's going to burn. What's going to happen to the hay and straw?

It's going to be consumed. What's going to happen to the gold and silver and precious stones will withstand the test. So this is his idea that we have to be very careful now.

And he said that there's only one foundation. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He said he has been building on this foundation.

And he said we have to be very careful. So let me just offer this thought with you.

With regards to Jesus, Jesus, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is the central person in all of history. I want to say that the Old Testament in our Bibles, the Old Testament points to him and to his coming. There is no question about it.

The New Testament describes his coming, and the New Testament also points back to his coming, but it also describes in a present kind of tense his actual coming, what he said, what he did when he was here. So the Old Testament of the Bible points to his coming. The New Testament describes his coming, and actually points back to his coming.

It talks about future coming and so on. But it's all about Jesus, and the question I have is, is this information reliable? Is the Old Testament and the New Testament or the Bible, is it reliable?

It talks about Jesus. So there's only two questions then that can be given. One question is, no, it's not reliable.

It's not reliable. Well, if it's not reliable, then it can't be treated in any special, significant way. It's just another narrative if it's not reliable.

But the other is, yes, it is reliable. Of course, you know where I'm coming down. I'm saying it is reliable.

But I'm saying that even if there's only two answers, is it reliable or not? So if it is reliable, and all the evidence of any serious inquirer, a serious mind, one that is open to evidence, there is no doubt that they will arrive at the place of saying, yes, it is reliable. Without question, it is reliable.

Well, then if it is reliable, then this, this conclusion must be drawn. That Jesus himself, because the Bible is all about him, pointing to him and describing his coming in the New Testament. So if it is reliable, then there is no other question, there is no other answer, but that he is the king of kings.

So he is the king with a capital K, of kings with a small k. So he is the king of kings. And you know what I am going to say now?

That he is the Lord of Lords. In other words, there is, it is inescapable. He is unique.

He is, his authority transcends all other authority. He is a person unlike any other person. He is God revealed in human form.

And it means then that as a consequence of him being king of kings and Lord of Lords, it means that every tongue then must confess this. And every knee must bow to this.

Now, when Jesus at the conclusion of his earthly ministry, as he came to his disciples, he commissioned them, and this is found in the last part of Matthew's Gospel. We call it the Great Commission. And I'd like to refer to this with you this morning, the Great Commission as a, and this was going to all the world and to all the nations of the world.

And make disciples of all the peoples from all the nations, baptizing them, teaching them all the things that I have commanded you to teach them. So all of this was to make disciples, make followers, and is referred to as the Great Commission. But I want to say that this is like a great rescue mission.

And so he is sending his disciples into all parts of the world, and it is a rescue mission, and it is a rescue mission that is time-sensitive, in that there's only a certain amount of time that can be dedicated to this before the window of opportunity then closes, the door of opportunity closes. So when he sends them out into all the world, into all different cultures, he's sending them out to Asia, he's sending to North America, he's sending his disciples to all parts of the world with his gospel message to make disciples. And what they do is when they come to all these different people groups, they find that they come into contact with different cultures.

They come into contact with different beliefs, people with all kinds of different beliefs. They come into contact with all kinds of ideologies. They come into contact with all kinds of traditions that have been steeped in people's lives for generations upon generations.

Jesus, from his perspective, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who lived and died to make a way of salvation and transformation of lives of all the peoples. This message is so essential. But he's basically saying to his disciples that all of these cultures and belief systems and ideas, ideologies and traditions that you're going to encounter, you're going to encounter people who are in soul prisons.

Soul prisons. And they need deliverance. They need to be set free from these prisons.

And the prisons are like soul prisons. They will be imprisoned by their culture. They will be imprisoned by their beliefs, by their ideologies, and by their traditions.

And they need to be set free from those things.

And so it is a time-sensitive deliverance rescue mission. So then, there is a foundational idea that I want to share a little bit with you on. And this is just one kind of phrase that I want to give you.

There came a time in Jesus' earthly ministry, and he said, I must go away. I must go away. He's saying to them, I must go away.

I must go away. Now there's something here that is so important because this is foundational. This is part of the original foundation upon which we all should be constructing our lives.

And then he said, of course, when he said, I must go away, then of course the obvious reality is that first, he must come into the world, which he has. He's come into the world. We know under the circumstances in which he came.

He must live in this world for a period of time, about 33 years. After 33 years, he must live his life in this world in a perfect way. He must die, and his death will be substitutionary for the sins of the world.

He must rise again bodily from the dead, and he must appear in a resurrected body for a period of about 40 days, and he must give certain proofs, infallible proofs, that this has actually happened. He was literally dead, buried, resurrected physically, and he's appearing to people and talking to people and in a resurrected body, and there are infallible proofs for all of this. This is part of the foundation.

But he said, I must go away. Do you remember why he said he must go away? He said because...

That's right. He said, if I don't go away, then he can't come. If I do go away, I will send him unto you.

Now, this is the most important thing. This is the most important thing.

This is the most important part of this foundation. This foundation of our belief, the foundation of the Gospel, would be incomplete without this great truth. So Jesus said, I must go away, because if I go, I will send him to you.

This is the promise of the Father. The Old Testament scriptures, of course, will prophesy about the coming of the Holy Spirit in this way. This is a unique coming of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has always been in the world, if you like. He was with the disciples of Jesus when Jesus was yet alive. Yet there's something future that is significantly different and distinct.

And Jesus is saying, I'm going to send him to you in a certain kind of way. Now, what I want to emphasize this morning is that we need to understand this is not something that's optional. This is not something that's just for a few people to experience.

This is a great truth that is fundamental to what the Christian Church really is and to the success of the Great Commission, this rescue mission. We can go into all the world and say all these things and educate the understanding of people, but apart from this great endowment, we will not be successful. So the coming of the Holy Spirit that Jesus talked about and saying that he needed to go away, because if he didn't go away, the Holy Spirit would not come in this manner.

He would come and he would overwhelm all those disciples who would be sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to evangelize in the world. He would overwhelm them. And he would make it possible for them then to be successful through spiritual endowments and giftings.

He would enable them to do things that they themselves could not do, say things they couldn't say. There's a certain kind of ministry of the Spirit and manifestation of the power of the Spirit of God in and through them that accomplished various things. Made them successful in this task.

And I would say that we have largely, we have largely lost this as a fundamental, foundational message. As a result of that, there is a lack of ability to effectually complete the assignment that the Church has been given. There's a passage in 2 Corinthians that I need to read with you.

2 Corinthians chapter 10. Now, there's no question that all of the apostles, all of the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ received this. This is what the day of Pentecost was really all about, when the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost.

But the Apostle Paul now in this letter to the Church in Corinth, he said these words. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. He's talking about weapons now that are employed and used in spiritual ministry.

And he said we walk in the flesh. In other words, we walk in on just an ordinary body, flesh and blood body. But he said the warfare that we're engaged in is not a natural warfare.

It's a spiritual warfare. Now, if there ever was a time in which spiritual warfare in the proper sense was needed, it's right now, right now.

Because there are so many saying a lot of good things, even ourselves. I think from time to time, we say a lot of good things. But there's an element that is largely missing.

And it needs to be recovered because it is part of this original foundation. So he said, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. Now, before I read the rest of this, let me just say this, that because what I'll share with you in the next couple of weeks is that talk a little bit about cultures, various cultures in the world.

Cultures. You know, the way in which people live. Talk about the kind of things that they believe in those cultures.

Talk about the ideas and the ideologies that spring up from those cultures. Talk about traditions. I might mention, I won't go into this very deeply right now, but you know that according to the federally recognized, the United States of America, it's federally recognized that there are 567 unique cultures of Native Americans.

This is federally recognized in the United States of America. 567 specific nations. That's almost unbelievable.

But the more you look in to these various histories, then you begin to see that, oh my goodness, it's not just one nation, it's not just one culture, there are just hundreds of cultures. And there's different ways in which all of those people believed and perceived reality and the truth, their beliefs, their traditions. And now, in 2024, there is a re-emerging of these various cultures.

And that's happening in Canada, in a very significant way. So this would be, then, something that those whom Jesus sent out to proclaim the Gospel, they had to confront, come into contact with all of these different kinds of cultures. And the church is like that today, but the church largely, in many ways, just doesn't seem to be competent to deal with this reality.

And so the original cultures are re-emerging all around us in North America. There were reasons why missionaries were sent to these various cultures. But where are the missionaries who were sent?

Were they really equipped spiritually? Were they equipped spiritually? Let's come back to the Apostle Paul.

Again, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or natural, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, because it's casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. So what this really means is that those who were really equipped by the coming of the Holy Spirit in baptismal measure, and those who were given authority and power to be the kind of witnesses that Jesus sent them out to be, it means that they had spiritual authority to be able to communicate to these various cultures in a way that brought victory over the spiritual influences that had influenced those cultures for generations and generations and generations. See, because behind all of these native people groups, there are spiritual influences.

And those spiritual influences lead and result in different kinds of ideas. And I might mention a few of those ideas in following weeks. My point this morning is simply to say that the very kind of giftings, the kind of abilities that were given originally in the Gospel, according to the New Testament foundation, that we have not moved in that kind of authority.

And as a result of not moving in that kind of authority, we have been powerless to refute, to pull down the kind of strongholds that exist. These people that need to be rescued, and I suggested a few moments ago that this is a rescue mission, and that there are strongholds, and these strongholds manifest in cultures and beliefs and ideas and traditions, but you can't just come in and try to transplant a different culture on people. For example, you can't come in to North America and try to just transplant a European culture on the native peoples of North America.

You can't do that. That's not the provision of the Gospel to do that. The provision of the Gospel is, first of all, is spiritual authority and spiritual power, casting down strongholds and imaginations.

That's ideas and thoughts that are raised up. It's against the knowledge of God. But there is an authority and a power to, first of all, squelch the spiritual influences behind all of that and to bring all of that down, to reduce that of its power, so that human beings then are in a position, in a place of coming to see the truth as it really is, the truth in the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And this is the kind of foundation that has been established. And we have moved away from that foundation. I'm going to put the words up, because I have them here.

This was verse 1, the one I mentioned at the beginning. Affirm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to you he hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled.

Verse 2, Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed, for I am thy God, I will still give thee aid. I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, upheld by my gracious, omnipotent hand. Verse 3, When through the deep waters I call thee to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow, for I will be with thee thy trials to bless, and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

Verse 4, When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flames shall not hurt thee, I only design, thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

And verse 5, The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, nor never forsake. And the final verse, verse 6, In down to old age all my people shall prove my sovereign eternal unchangeable love.

And when hoary hairs, or gray hairs, shall their temples adorn, like lambs they shall still in my bosom be born. Affirm a foundation. And so in the weeks that follow, I'll come and flesh out a little bit of this in terms of some specific things and areas in which I believe we have moved away from this original foundation.

And we have moved away because it hasn't always been level and it hasn't always been plumb. And when that happens then, we leave the original foundation upon which we are intended to rest. Now, if this wasn't so important, I would not be approaching it.

It's a heavy topic to approach. It's not easy. It's not light.

But I see it happening all around me. I've been pondering as to why. I see people that I've grown up with in some respects, in some cases.

I've seen churches and assemblies in which even I was once a part of. And I have seen coming into them ways of thinking and doing things and understandings that are complete variance with what was at one time practiced and understood. And I'm asking, how did that happen?

Why is that happening? It's not just something that happened, it's something that continues to happen. And so as a result of those kinds of questions and that kind of searching within myself, I've come to see very clearly that it is because there has been a moving away from the original foundation.

So then I said, well, what is that original foundation? And this is what we're going to do. We're going to look at what is that original foundation and how have we moved away from it?

And how can we identify areas in which we have moved away from it? And if we move away from that original foundation, we move away from the power that allows the Gospel to go forth in great effectiveness. This is the Great Commission.

So when we say there's an apostasy, why is there an apostasy? It's because we have moved away from this foundation. So it all becomes very simple, actually, although it's a very deep and difficult topic to address.

But I'll leave you with this thought this morning on a firm foundation has been laid.