Build the Foundation
Desire Earnestly... • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewIn our earnest desire for the spiritual gifts, we must first learn to focus on what is most important... the Giver.
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Desire Earnestly...
Desire Earnestly...
1 Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
Give brief description of the series started last Sunday night, the need for the power of the Spirit in the US today, and as the solution for deconstructionism.
Before we dive into the gifts and how they operate as described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, there are some preliminary thoughts that Paul covers in the first 11 chapters before he ever gets to the working of the spiritual gifts.
We must first lay a foundation on which the gifts of the Spirit can operate.
Title: Build the Foundation
Build the Foundation
Build the Foundation
Paul says it this way:
10 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 man must be careful how he builds on it.
See Paul is a radically saved first century church planter. He has a wild salvation story, and goes from fighting against the church to being one of the most influential advocates for Jesus in history.
Paul was a well trained pharisee, who was proud to serve God as a Jew, then he encountered Jesus in a very real, undeniable way.
After experiencing such an encounter, Paul finally winds up planting churches across the known world at the time.
He would even build tents as his day job so he could plant churches and not be a burden to them.
So when Paul writes this letter, it was to a church in Corinth that he had planted and a man named Apollos had taken a leadership role over that church when Paul went to plant other churches.
Paul mentions this in verse 6: 1 Cor. 3:6
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.
So when he talks about the foundation he laid, he is talking about the foundation he built when he planted the church. The core doctrines, the values that he engrained in them while he was with them…
Paul would establish the foundation of the basics of the Christian faith in a church, then let them build from there.
Which is why he says, “But each man must be careful how he builds on it” in verse 10.
In other words, he is saying, “I’ve taught you the basic tenants of the Christian faith, but you must be careful in building the framework of how you do life together on that foundation.”
We will talk more about what is built on the foundation in a later part of this series, but right now we need to backtrack to ensure our own foundation before we can build on it.
I think one of the foremost grievances I see in the church of the west today is a weak foundation. We need to fortify our foundation.
I think we as a part of the body have the responsibility to go back and make sure the foundation of our Christianity is firm before we can ever get to any kind of debate about expression.
It’s no wonder we have people so confused about the message of the church, the foundation has been neglected.
This is one of the points going into our new identity as The Shed that must be firmly established… Why do we exist? What are we here for? What is our purpose?
Those things must be established based on the foundation that Paul speaks of in this passage.
What is our foundation?
What is our foundation?
What happens if we don’t first answer this question, is we get a brand of religion that carries the name Christianity, but lacks the central tenants of the faith.
Everyone in this country thinks they know what Christianity is about, but if you ask 10 different people in 10 different contexts, you will get 15 different answers.
It’s no wonder we have scandals in the church and cults forming and conspiracies running rampant, we’ve lost the foundation!
In our earnest desire for spiritual gifts, on this journey to see God working in our lives in a supernatural way, if we don’t first establish the foundation of Christianity, the expressions thereof are all invalid.
Jesus faced a similar issue with many of his disciples in John 6. They wanted the expression, but missed the point.
25 When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?”
26 Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
The day before these passages, Jesus had fed a crowd of thousands with five loaves and a two fish.
Now he tells them, you’re not looking for me because you identify with who I am, you ‘re looking for me because you got a free meal.
In other words, they weren’t concerned about who Jesus was in an eternal sense, but what He could provide right then.
This is my critique of those who think they can manipulate God, either by their giving or by a specifically worded prayer.
God is sovereign. He is not subject to your words, neither is He bound by any rule or regulation. God is who He is, He does what only He can do, and the goal of Christianity is not to receive something from Him, it is to have relationship WITH Him.
This even applies to life eternal. Our goal is not just to live forever either here or in heaven.
A PLACE CALLED HEAVEN IS NOT THE GOAL OF CHRISTIANITY.
Relationship with the master, fellowship with the Lord of Glory, conversation with the Ancient of Days.... This is the goal of Christianity…
We are given this ministry of reconciliation, that we may be reconciled to God.
The loss of the garden was not the real tragedy of our failure in Eden. The real tragedy is the fact that we see in Gen. 3:8 that God would walk with them in the Garden, but because of the fall, they felt the need to hide themselves from God.
Ever since that time, God has been arranging our redemption so that we may once again walk with Him.
It’s not about living forever, it’s about living with Him. The only reason forever is attractive is because we get to spend it with Him.
Jesus tells them:
28 Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?”
29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
This is the work of God.... They were focused on the task. They wanted to jump straight to the mission. Let’s get to work! But Jesus says, the real work is to believe in Him!
Everything else flows from that. Everything else in the Christian walk is a byproduct of believing in Jesus.
Everything we do is done because of our love for Him.
Paul reiterates this point back in our text in 1 Corinthians:
1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
I determined to know nothing but Christ crucified.
Nothing else helped build the foundation. Nothing else is so central to our faith that it rivals this....
We believe in Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
We should be able to give an account of our central belief at the drop of a hat.
As Christians, Not only should we be able to give an account of Jesus, but we should be able to relay our own testimony of how we encountered Him.
Give a testimony/gospel snippet
I ask the question this morning, Do you know Him?
Not do you know about Him, but do you know HIM.
There’s no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.
There’s no other way into heaven.
We have no other foundation.
On Him is this church built.
On HIM are our lives built.
He is our foundation.
He is the stone that the builders rejected, but now has become the chief cornerstone.
He is the rock of my salvation.
He is my firm foundation.
It’s all about Jesus, it’s always been about Jesus, it will never stop being about Jesus.
If we don’t get this first step right, nothing else matters.
We can’t have salvation without servitude. There is no Christianity without commitment.
To quote Kathrine Koolman,
This gift of salvation is free to all, but it will cost you everything.
There is no part time Christianity. There is no half way justification.
The reason we believe in baptism by immersion is because it represents a full death and resurrection.
We were buried with Him in baptism and raised a new creation in Christ.
Jesus told Niccodemus, you must be born again…
This is the foundation on which we stand: Jesus Christ came as God in the flesh, died and was resurrected, and now sits at the right hand of the Father interceding for us, that we might have relationship with the Father!
Don’t you see, God cared so much about you that He gave all He had to be with you again.
This is our foundation.
So I ask you, do you know Him?
I mean really know him....
Altar Call
Build the Foundation
Build the Foundation