Cracks In The Foundation?

Introduction

Turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians the third chapter. First Corinthians, the third chapter, we’ll be looking at that text in just a moment. We do have many who are visiting with us today, and we thank you for joining us as we come together to worship our great God. To remember the sacrifice of our Lord, to remember why we’re here. To remember that he is deserving of all of our praise, of all of our affection. And what a wondrous obligation, if you want to put it that way, it is to serve him. To have hope because of his grace, to now be able to love him and to love each other and to do his will. We’ve come together not only to praise his name, we’ve also come together to worship him and to look to his word.

And that’s what we aim to do this morning. I’m going to go back to something that I presented some time ago. It may have been as much as a month or maybe even two months ago, that we looked at the matter in 1 Corinthians the third chapter about Jesus being our foundation. In fact, if you’re there in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul has been making the point of how he and Apollos have both been doing the work of God. They’ve both been presenting the gospel and teaching the truth. And so the matter that the Corinthians were dividing among themselves, some saying we are of Apollos, and some saying we are of Paul, Paul is saying, Apollos and I are doing the same work. I planted, yes, and Apollos watered, and God has given the increase.

And so he says of the Corinthians, you are God’s field, you are God’s building. And it’s with that in mind that he says in verse 10 of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. According to the grace of God which was given to me like a wise master builder, I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And we were making the point whenever we talked about this that Jesus is the only foundation of the church. He is the foundation. Paul will also say over in Ephesians chapter 2 and in verse 20, that the temple, that is us, God’s people, we are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone.

Now, is Paul contradicting himself when he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 that Jesus is the only foundation? But then he says in Ephesians chapter 2 that, well, the foundation is not only Christ, but it’s also the apostles and prophets. He’s not contradicting himself. What Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 is, as I have been teaching and proclaiming the gospel to you, and Apollos has been doing the same, that is the foundation of Jesus. And when he says in Ephesians chapter 2 that we are built on the foundation of the prophets and the apostles, and Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone, well, of course, as those apostles and prophets who Jesus had promised the Holy Spirit would come to. In pastors like John 14, 26, John 15, 26, and John 16, 13, where Jesus promised his disciples that the Spirit would not only remind them of all that Jesus had already said, but would guide them into all truth.

And so the apostles and prophets were not giving their own word or their own knowledge, but they were giving the word of God as delivered by the Holy Spirit. And so the foundation is one and the same. The foundation is Christ Jesus. And Paul will go on to say here in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 that you must be careful how you build on that foundation. If the foundation is of Jesus, then what is going on the foundation needs to fit the foundation. And so he talks about those who would build with gold, silver, and precious stones. You see, that is fitting to the foundation. By contrast, he talks about those who would build with wood, hay, and straw. If you have a foundation, this precious Christ who’s the foundation, then wood, hay, and straw don’t really fit in a temple, do they?

No gold, silver, and precious stones fit in a temple. And it seems that Paul was contrasting his giving the word of God and men like Apollos giving the word of God, as opposed to those who longed for wisdom. That certainly was a temptation in the Corinthian culture, as there were many philosophers and many who herald themselves of having great wisdom of the age. And so even in the church, it is very oftentimes the case that people want to bring in the wisdom of the world. Well, that wisdom may not itself be destructive, but it’s not the gospel. It’s not what is truly precious. And then, of course, Paul will go on in verses 16 and 17 and warn about those who would even destroy the temple and what would happen to them.

The whole point in this, though, was our recognition that Christ is the foundation. Jesus is the foundation. It is that gospel message of hope that is our foundation, that Jesus is the Christ. He lived, he died for us, even as we’ve remembered and observed here just a little while ago. And now there is hope for us. But not only that, the gospel accounts in with Jesus not being crucified, but Jesus having been raised from the dead and ascending to sit at the right hand of God. You see, to preach Christ and Him crucified for Paul was not simply to talk about the crucifixion or even the resurrection, but to also lay a foundation of Jesus as now our Lord and our master. He is the foundation.

And so as a congregation of believers here, all we have tried to do is base our faith, base our principles and our practices on foundational matters. Why do we preach that, yes, you are saved by grace through faith? There is no doubt about that. It is gospel, it is Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. But a part of that faith is submitting our will to God’s will. And so when God says, believe and be baptized, we would pronounce that, yes, you should be baptized to have your sins forgiven. That is God’s plan, that is God’s gospel. It’s not contradicting faith. It’s just going back to foundational teachings. You may wonder, why don’t you have instruments of music? And we would simply reply that as far as the New Testament worship, what we saw the churches doing in the New Testament, they saying, we know from Ephesians 5, 19, Colossians 3, 16.

That’s our only answer. Our only reply is we’re going back to those foundational teachings. Did it come from Christ and his apostles? What I want to do today is look at some of the cracks that may be in the foundation in our thinking as we have progressed. That if Jesus is the foundation, as Paul says, and likewise the apostles and prophets, and so we put on par with the words of Jesus, the words of his apostles and his prophets, because they were delivering the word of God. If that’s the foundation, could it be that within our world and our society today that there are cracks developing in that foundation? And I want to look at three mindsets, three approaches to authority, if you will, or three approaches to our faith and our practice that may reveal some cracks in the foundation.

1. The Concept of Postmodernism

The first is the concept of postmodernism. Now, most of us don’t deal in philosophy or in trends and thinking. So let me just step back here and define what we mean by this. It was long accepted that truth can be known. A modernist approach simply says that you can know what is true through your power of observation and by your reasoning abilities. As you observe things, you think about them, you reason about them, and you can ascertain what truth is. That is a modernist approach. A postmodern approach is, well, there are actually the possibilities of many truths, and depending on the context in which you live, uh, you may come about to a different conclusion. And so it’s this pluralistic approach to there are many truths and many avenues to reaching those various truths.

I’ll give you an example. The popular Christian apologist and lecturer by the name of Josh McDowell. Many of you have probably read some of his works. More than a carpenter is one that gets into the basis, the historical basis of Jesus being the Christ. You may have read some of his other works. He has lectured on college campuses for many, many years. And he has related that in his early years, when he would go and he would lecture on a college campus, and he would lecture about the ways that we can know that Jesus is the Christ or that the Bible is the Word of God. And that those things were opened up for questions at the end of his lecture. And the typical question would be, how do you know that is true?

That is a question that is asking for what are the things that you have looked at that allowed you to come to this reasoning that you have reached this conclusion. It is a modernist question. That’s not the questions he gets anymore. He says, now the questions that he receives are, are you saying that Muslims and Buddhists and on down the line are wrong? Don’t you think that’s arrogant? That is a postmodernist question. That’s not a question of how do you know that what you’re saying is true or why do you believe it’s true? How can you say, rather, that other people are wrong? Postmodernism. We’re seeing that in religion too. Now, it used to be, and I’m not saying that we ought to go back to having debates because I understand that oftentimes when people have debated, not only just in formal debates, but in practical everyday settings, you know, oftentimes disagreements can come to name calling and just, you know, lashing out at other people.

But it used to be that if I believe something and you believe something, and we both believe they were true, then we would talk about them. And I could lay out for you here are my reasonings and the scriptures that I would use for this point, and you would do the same, and we would try to reach to a conclusion, or at least if there were others who are present, they would reach their conclusion based on the evidence presented. We don’t debate anymore. Now, even in religious circles, different groups that differ with each other on doctrine. We’re now just different traditions of the same faith. You see, you have your tradition over there, and I’ve got my tradition over here, but we’re all of the same faith, and we’re all the same church.

That’s that’s a postmodernist approach to that. I’m going to recommend, I don’t often do this. I want to recommend a book. And I’m not getting any money for this. But I’m going to recommend a book. You can download it for 99 cents on Kindle. Go to Amazon, 99 cents. It is cheap. And it’s well done. You may remember back in the spring, we had Brother Sewell Hall with us for a series of meetings. Gardner Hall is his son. He’s recently written a book called Conviction versus Mercy. And what the book is about is this struggle, this tension within God’s people today of a postmodernist approach, contrary to a modernist approach. I want you to understand. He’s not strictly coming down on the side of the modernists.

He’s not saying just conviction, conviction, conviction. He is saying that. Yes, there is truth. We can understand what truth is. We can all practice truth. But we can also be merciful to each other. We can approach truth and approach disagreements with mercy as well. It’s a very balanced approach to the topic. I’d recommend it heartily. Let’s talk about Paul for a second. Paul did not have a postmodernist approach to the Word of God. Going back to 1 Corinthians, look at chapter 1 and verse 10. Chapter 1 and verse 10. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you may be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Now, in particular, this is talking about their divisive behavior. But think about what that divisive behavior was about. There were groups in the Corinthian congregation, some claiming, I am of Paul, some claiming I am of Apollos, some claiming I am of Cephas, others claiming that they were of Jesus, which we would certainly want to say that. But the point seems to be that there were these differing doctrines and practices within the church, and so each one was saying, Well, I am following this teacher, and that’s why I do and what I practice. What does Paul say? You need to be in agreement here. You need to all be of the same mind and of the same judgment. You need to be in agreement. And in fact, what he does through the rest of the book is correct false doctrines and false practices.

He is saying that there is a truth, and you need to be following it, and you need to be practicing it. I also think it’s significant that as he goes throughout the letter, he makes mention several times. I’ll just look at once for now, but over in the fourth chapter and verse 17, chapter 4 and verse 17, Paul is saying he is going to send Timothy to them, and for what reason? He says, Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, he will remind you of my ways, which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church. He says things similar to that in the seventh chapter in verse 17, the 14th chapter in verse 34, and the 16th chapter in verse 1.

Paul makes this point that wherever he goes, he preaches and he teaches the same thing. Now, the reason the map is up here is this. Paul is writing the Corinthian church, which is in Greece. He is in Ephesus, which is an Asiatic city. Two vastly different cultures. We understand, yes, the Greek culture has gone throughout the world by this time. They’re all in the Roman Empire, but they are two vastly different cultures. Corinth and Ephesus are not the same. Likewise, the cities that Paul had been through in Galatia, Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derby, different histories, different cultures. A postmodern argument would say, tailor the message so that it will fit with the culture which it is. Paul’s saying, here is the truth. And I am teaching this in every city that I go.

Whether that be in the cities of Galatia, Asiatic city like Ephesus or in Corinth. I am preaching and teaching the same thing. That kind of thinking won’t fit for Paul. You go also throughout the book, and as I mentioned, Paul goes about correcting all the various doctrinal and also practical applications that were that were wrong. In the first chapter, he talks about their divisiveness and he corrects that. In the fifth chapter, he talks about a moral issue in the church of how they were tolerating a fornicator among them, that they were tolerating one who even had his father’s wife. He says, No, don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole love? That can’t be. It doesn’t matter, even if that were acceptable in Corinthian culture, this cannot be true of God’s people.

In the sixth chapter, he talks about going to court against each other. You can’t do that. Later on in the sixth chapter, he talks about fornication. He talks about immorality, and he says, this is not supposed to be. It’s a sin against God. It’s a sin against God, the body that God gave you. In the seventh chapter, he applies those principles to marriage. In the eighth chapter, he applies those principles to whether or not a Christian could eat things that were offered to idols. In the 11th chapter, he applies it to the Lord’s Supper. In the 15th chapter, he talks about the message of the resurrection that he had proclaimed. And now he says, there are some among you who say that the dead do not rise.

What is Paul doing here? He’s saying there’s truth. And you knew the truth, and you departed from it in all these various ways. My job now is to bring you back to this message. Bring you back to the words of God.

Now I want you to understand that what we’re not, we’re not advocating a fundamentalist approach. What I mean by fundamentalist approach is this.

Since there is not electricity in the Bible, we will not have electricity. The Bible doesn’t work like that. I want you to go to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. Because there’s something interesting here that helps us to understand that even though we believe in truth, and we believe that truth is found in the words of Jesus and his apostles, that truth is really timeless. It is meant for every culture and every setting.

Not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband. But if she does leave, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And that the husband should not divorce his wife. To the married I give instruction, Paul says. Not my instruction, but the Lord’s instruction. And he goes on to say what that is. And I would say if you compare that with Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 or Matthew 19, you see why Paul’s saying, that’s right. That’s what Jesus said. Don’t divorce. If you do divorce, remain unmarried. We understand, yes, Jesus goes in a little bit further detail in Matthew 19, but the point is the same. What God joined together, let not man put us under. Now, verse 12.

To the rest I say, not the Lord. Oh, so Paul’s going off script here. That if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband and she consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. Now that’s the exact same instruction that Paul had given in chapter in verses 10 and 11. Watch the difference. Paul in verses 12 and 13 is dealing with a situation that our Lord never spoke to. See, our Lord’s words were in a Jewish context to all people who believed in God. Paul is saying, in the Corinthian context, there may be some of you who are married to those who do not believe.

So here’s how you apply the principles of what Jesus said to your situation. That’s why he says, I say not the Lord. He’s applying what Jesus said, but to a different circumstance that Jesus did not talk about. We do this all the time. When we talk about the internet, you know what? Internet’s not in the Bible. But there are Christian principles that govern how we conduct ourselves on Facebook, social media, whatever it may be. When we talk about entertainment choices and being wise about that. Well, again, they didn’t have movies. They didn’t have radio. But we apply those principles of the scripture to help us see what is the truth that I can live out today. It’s the same truth. It’s just applied in different circumstances.

2. The Idea of Progressive Revelation

You apply that to any number of things. That’s what we mean by saying Jesus is our foundation. That in every situation we go back and we say there is a truth there. Now, what is it? What did Jesus and his apostles say about that? And we look for those principles and apply them to the situation. The second one that I wanted to speak about briefly. The idea of progressive revelation. Now we know that there are churches, there are faiths that are based on progressive revelation. The basis of the Catholic Church, for instance, is the progressive revelation of all the popes through the ages.

And so that is all based on a future revelation after Jesus and his apostles. I’m not going to speak about that a whole lot because we’ve talked about that before. We know passages like Galatians 1 and verse 8, where Paul says that if I or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed. And so we understand that the Lord’s will was that through his apostles he would deliver all truth, John 16, 13. What we’re finding more and more today, though, is that more and more believers today believe that we all receive direct revelation from God. In fact, in a recent poll, 20 per 26% of all Americans say that they have been given a direct revelation from God.

In other words, God has said, do this, or is leading them in this way directly. Now, I’m not saying the Holy Spirit doesn’t operate in our lives. Please understand that. But how this is being used is my faith and my practices now are not based on what do the words of God say. My faith and my practices are determined on a daily basis by how has the Spirit led me. That’s the thought that I’m getting to.

Paul says to Timothy, remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. Be diligent to present yourself, approved to God as a workman, who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Now, over in chapter 3 and verse 16, or actually go back in verse 14, you, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them. And that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scriptures inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

So that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. Timothy was a prophet.

We know from other pastors, Timothy had the gift of prophecy. What does Paul say to them? Accurately handle the word of truth. Remind them of these things. Go back to what you have learned, those scriptures that you have known from your childhood. All scriptures given by inspiration. Preach the word. Paul doesn’t say to Timothy, now let the Spirit lead you into whatever revelation the Spirit wants to give you. Go back to the Word. 1 Corinthians 4 and 17, we already read that earlier when Paul says, I’m going to send Timothy. Timothy is going to remind you of all my ways in the gospel. There were prophets in Corinth. There was some misuse of prophetic gifts in Corinth. But there were people who had the gift of prophecy in the Corinth.

They had the Holy Spirit. Paul is saying, you’ve got to go to the Word. If the Spirit gave the Word, which we firmly believe, then the Spirit’s not going to contradict what he gave in the Word. It all goes right back to those foundations. And what I’m doing is my faith and my practices based on his word. As delivered through Jesus and his apostles. Finally.

3. We Want to Be Relevant

We want to be relevant. And I would say I want to be relevant. I want this church to be relevant. I want the people of God to be relevant.

Oftentimes relevancy will only come, though, at least in our minds and society’s mind, if it forsakes truth. I’m not going to go into great detail on this, but some of you have perhaps read the quotes from Pope Francis about a week ago. He says it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. He’s talking about issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. The dogmatic and moral teaching of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Let me first of all say, I agree with that some. That if the impression that the society in this world has gotten from Christians is the only thing that Christians believe in is no same-sex marriage and no abortion, then we’ve really missed the boat.

That if we’re not out front with a message of faith and of hope and God’s grace, and yes, God’s grace coming as we follow him, and yes, we do need to be true to the biblical principles and be true to all the teachings of God. But we’ve got to be out there with the mercy of God too. So if that’s all he’s saying, then okay, I’m in agreement. That’s not how those comments were taken, though. The comments were taken as in, okay, the Catholic Church will no longer proactively talk about these issues. Why? Because their numbers are declining. And they’re tired of getting hammered in the media, and they want people to think of them better. That’s at least the takeaway that many people have from those.

Do not think we’re not going to be tempted by that. We are going to be tempted greatly by that. That society’s thinking on whether it be same-sex marriage or abortion or just language, modesty, whatever. It doesn’t matter what the issue is. If society’s thinking on that changes, the temptation for believers is, okay, dampen down that message or kind of put it back in the closet so you don’t talk about it and so that you’re still relevant. What was relevant for Paul? 1 Corinthians 2 and in verse 2. 1 Corinthians 2 and verse 2. Pride determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. That’s relevant. And I would add that that was the basis for all of Paul’s future instruction in the book of 1 Corinthians.

When he addressed their misuse of the Lord’s Supper, it’s because of Jesus and him crucified. When he addressed their immoral behavior, it was because what was relevant to Paul was Jesus and him crucified. When he addressed doctrinal matters like the resurrection in chapter 15, it’s because in Paul’s mind, what’s relevant is Jesus and Him crucified. And it involves all those things, your practical application of your faith, your doctrine, your beliefs, all that. That’s what mattered to Paul. That’s what relevant timelessly, endlessly. And that’s why we come back to this. Our foundation has to be this. If all we’re after is relevancy, then there will be cracks in the foundation. That must come with love and mercy and grace. But we cannot forsake the foundation. And so we proclaim to you again a foundational message this morning.

Conclusion

Jesus is the Christ. He is the Son of the living God. He came and he died on the cross for your sins. He came and he died on the cross for my sins. And you can belong to him. You can be saved by believing in him, repenting of your wrongs, by being baptized to have your sins forgiven. Not because that’s what I say or what this church teaches, but because it’s what Jesus Himself said. And that’s relevant. So can we aid you some way this morning? Won’t you come as we stand and as we sing?