Christ Methodist Church Memphis
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Christ Methodist Church Memphis
Unlocking the “How to” Guide for Building the Church | Rev. Paul Lawler
The Prodigal Church Pt. 7
What are you really building? This message explores how believers become co-builders with Christ, learning how grace, unity, and Spirit-filled living form the only structure that can truly stand.
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In Unlocking the “How to” Guide for Building the Church, Pastor Paul Lawler unpacks 1 Corinthians 3:10–23 to show how the church is not just a gathering place, but a growing people. The message calls believers to be more than attendees—to be builders. Key applications include:
- Build on God’s Grace: Your gifts are from Him, and they’re for His glory.
- Build on the Foundation of Christ Alone: Not personalities, not popularity—only Jesus.
- Build with Materials That Last: Your work will be tested. Invest in eternal things.
- Build in Unity: The “you” in “you are God’s temple” is plural—we build together.
- Be Filled with the Spirit: The true evidence of Spirit-filled living is fearlessness, love, power, and self-control.
The call is clear: Don’t just go to church. Be the Church. Build with intention, build on Christ, and build in step with the Spirit.
[0:19] Jesus, open the eyes of our heart.
[0:22] Open the eyes of our understanding. We recognize it's possible for our eyes not to be open. For you said, seeing they don't see, hearing they don't hear. And so we recognize there's a deeper seeing than just what we see in the natural. So open the eyes of our heart. Open the eyes of our understanding so that we might see you, behold you, and be transformed by you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
[0:56] So if you have a Bible with you, 1 Corinthians 3, we'll start reading in verse 10. And so I want to invite you to hear God's word, 1 Corinthians 3, 10 and following. Paul writes, according to the grace of God given to me. Like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care of how he builds upon 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 gold, silver, precious stones.
[1:27] Wood, hay or straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone is built on the foundation survives, he or she will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he'll suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you're God's temple? God's temple dwells in you. If anyone or God's spirit dwells in you, if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise for the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. So let no one boast in men for all things are yours, whether of Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death of this present or the future. All are yours, and you are Christ, and Christ is God's.
[2:40] So Church Paul the Apostle is now at a place where he is challenging the Corinthian church on this front. Are you going to live in the power of the flesh, or are you going to live in the power of the Spirit?
[2:52] And what's happened is that the church at Corinth has settled. They've settled for living in the flesh. They're not designed for that. I would lovingly remind you, as we lay groundwork for where we journey today, that the church is not a building, it's a people. We all understand that. The church is not, biblically, the church is not an institution. Now she has structure, but the church is people. I remember a woman years ago saying to me, Pastor Paul, because the church right now is not taking care of the homeless, this week I bought a homeless man a meal and provided shelter for him. And I'm like, Ma'am, you're saying the church is not caring for the homeless, and what you just said is that the church just took care of the homeless.
[3:45] Or I think about sitting at a dinner meeting not terribly long ago when there is a non-profit ministry leader sitting to my right and one of his largest donors sitting to my left right across the table and the non-profit ministry leader complaining that the church didn't support his ministry. And I'm looking at him going, sir, said it politely, much more politely than I'm being right now. And I said, sir, the man sitting next to you is one of your largest donors, a part of the body of Christ. And you are saying the church doesn't support your ministry. What's happened to us in so much of Western culture, even when we define the church, we think church institution and not biblically church as the body.
[4:34] Church as the ecclesia, the called out ones, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're instructed in Scripture that the church is to be built upon the person of Christ, not people, and people are to be built on the person of Christ. In other words, as we delve into this, we're aware that Paul is about to instruct us, as I've read the text, in being intentional about how the church is built. What is built is important. How the church is built is important. And so in these emerging moments, we're going to talk about the topic of unlocking the how-to guide for building
[5:14] the church of Jesus Christ. Let's go ahead and dive in. Here's where we begin based upon the text. First of all, we're instructed in the words of Paul, build the church on God's grace. Not on the flesh, not on human wisdom, but on the grace of God working in people. Now notice what he says in the opening verse right here. Paul writes, according to the grace God has given me like a master builder.
[5:42] What he's affirming is that the church of Jesus Christ, that we depend solely on the operation of the grace of God, operating in the lives of believers to empower the church. It's not empowered by the flesh. It's empowered by the grace of God. We depend completely on the grace of God who is working mightily among us. So let me give you a fresh definition of the word grace. Now, first of all, I've defined it before with you accurately as the empowerment of God, and that is an accurate definition of grace. But I also like the definition that my dear brother Al Henson uses, that the grace of God is all of God for all my need. All of God for all my need, because the grace of God is available to us in our weakness, and it's in our weakness that God demonstrates his strength. And Paul is modeling this as he teaches, because Paul knows that as he's serving the church, that it was not his talent, his ingenuity, his intellect, his wisdom, or his know-how that was birthing the church, nor was it maturing the church. Now, granted, Paul knew that these qualities that God in his sovereignty had placed in his life, when they're yielded to God properly, that God could create changed heart and.
[7:05] Transform lives and build his church through men and women who are yielding to the grace of God operating in their lives. But he's acknowledging that these skills indeed are a gift from God, and Paul makes it clear that nobody deserves credit for being a master builder other than Jesus himself. This way, the glory belongs to God, not to Paul. And Paul's only choice that he's illustrating for us is that in order for us to be faithful to the gifts and graces that he's put in our own lives is to understand that it's the grace of God that's doing the building.
[7:43] So Paul starts very subtly that just in that first verse, build the church on God's grace. And that's not the power of the flesh. That is the power of God's spirit among us.
[7:56] Secondly, build the church with the one foundation of Christ. Look with me at these verses 10 through 11. According to the grace given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. Now notice this phrase, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. The church has one foundation, the person of Jesus Christ. The first requirement for a church to be a church is for the solid foundation of Jesus Christ to be established. Now, when I was a kid, not unlike many of you, my brother and I would build forts and tree houses and cabins in the woods. Now, they never would have passed a building code. In fact, storms came, and oftentimes there were areas in the woods near our home where water would rush and those forts and little cabins that we built would be washed away.
[9:04] But if you've ever witnessed the foundation of a skyscraper coming out of the ground, you're aware that there is a deep foundation. You're aware that there are tons and tons of concrete and rebar that are utilized to reinforce a solid foundation. Well, it's analogies like this where we get the reasons Jesus would say things like the church is built upon the foundation of a solid rock. You may remember Jesus looking at Peter and he said, upon this rock, I will build my church. Now here's something part of the body of Christ misses. Jesus was not saying the church was built on Peter.
[9:47] You just read the text yourself and just have the heart and mind of a Berean to search the scriptures for yourselves to see if what your pastor is saying is true. Because the rock he's referring to is Peter's affirmation that he makes. Because Jesus says, who do men say that I am? Now, Peter, who do you say that I am? And Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, upon this rock, Christ, the confession of Christ, the son of the living God, I will build my church. And this eternal truth is the foundation of the church. It's the solid ground on which we all stand. It's where we put our faith. It's what we rest upon. And it's for this reason that Peter, who made that confession, would later use terminology that's like a rock when he said in 1 Peter 2.5, we become, you and I, living stones. And we are being built into a spiritual house. Now think about that for a moment.
[10:52] A stone is an inanimate object. I know that's like, write that down. All right, I get it, okay? But if you'll think about it, I know this. Before I came to know Jesus.
[11:03] My heart was cold as a stone when it came to spiritual things, when it came to God, cold as a stone, unanimated, lifeless. But when I was born of the spirit, When I came to know Jesus Christ, when I put faith in him, my cold stone heart to God came alive. God animated my heart. God animated your heart, your spirit, when you put your faith in the person of Jesus Christ. This is why the psalmist says things like this, unless the Lord builds the house, unless God does it through the force and the love of his grace operating in your life, drawing to you, drawing him to you, drawing you to him. Unless the Lord builds the house, its laborers are doing so in vain. And so here's a question. If Jesus is a solid foundation of the church, how do we respond to this? May I make a suggestion?
[12:03] Three words that we say from the heart. Here it is. Jesus is Lord. Can we do that together? I'm going to count to three and let's just say together the words as a confession. Jesus is Lord. One, two, three.
[12:18] Jesus is Lord. That's the foundation of the church. Jesus is the only foundation that establishes this confession that establishes the church. When being like Christ becomes the foundation of everything in our lives, then it's no longer my way or her way or his way, whatever. It's God's way operating in us. And the reason that's important is because the foundation will be tested. And that's where Paul takes us in the text, because he takes us to this place in the emerging verses. If you have your Bible open, verses 12 through 15, he goes on to explain that whatever you build the church on, it must be a strong foundation that's able to withstand the test of fire.
[13:08] Like, you remember the story of the three pigs, right? Like the first two pigs in the fairy tale, the Corinthian church has settled for flimsy stuff to build the church on, and it's the flesh. That's what Paul is exposing and he is urging them to build and he's urging us to build with materials that will last. Listen to his words here. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hey, straw, stop right there. Why does he use those terms?
[13:41] Because all of those terms are valuable commodities. In an agricultural-based community, which was true in biblical times.
[13:51] Wood, hay, and straw, they're valuable today. If any farmers, I doubt there are, anybody with a farming background, you know that hauling hay in the summer, it's all valuable.
[14:03] And you recognize these commodities are valuable. But what Paul is illustrating is that those commodities represent the patterns of the world. And he's saying, you can't build this foundation of the church the way the world does things, that you build this foundation that's strong and sustainable with a different source, the source of the person of God, the source of the Holy Spirit. So let's read on. Each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it. Notice day is in capital letters. Why? Why? It's in capital letters because it's a reference to the day of the Lord. When we stand before Jesus and give an account of our life, everything will be tested by the refiner's fire. That which is fruitful and endures will pass the test. But that which was of the patterns of the world, those things that we may have valued that God didn't value, will not pass the test. That day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. Thank you, God. Thank you, God. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
[15:24] I am aware that in the New Testament, there is only one church that the Apostle Paul writes that he's not having to correct, that he's not having to admonish in a way where they've gotten off track. That's the church of Ephesians. The reason we need to lift that up is because the book of Ephesians illustrates that it's possible for a church to be healthy.
[15:47] It is possible for a church to move and live and have her being in spiritual power. But the Corinthian church is not living into that. And because they're not living into that, Paul says, you're living in the power of the flesh. You're not living in the power of the spirit. And that's why he is lovingly correcting them. He also says in verse 17, and we're going to circle back to this verse in a couple of moments because it has like three primary nuances. He says, if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. Now, note that in that phraseology, it is a promise of retribution against anyone who would destroy the church. Now, I want to submit to you that if we're not careful, that verse could also be misused.
[16:38] That verse could be used in vindictive ways, and any of you that have been around the block long enough in church world or read articles and blogs widely, we're aware that there are places where that has been abused. In other words, that people could use a verse like that as a weapon to aim at people who dare to disagree with them. So let's be mindful that in the Capital C Church, the Capital C Church beyond us knows all too well the pain and destruction that comes from that kind of approach. And so what I'm saying is we need a healthy way to hear this warning. And so I want to give that to you in a very brief sentence.
[17:21] This is opinion, but this is what I believe is a healthy way to hear that verse. Here it is.
[17:27] Hear the warning, but leave that to God.
[17:31] Hear the warning, but leave that to God. But we recognize that Paul is teaching the church to build the church with one
[17:39] foundation, the foundation of Jesus Christ himself. Thirdly, build the church through the development of unity. And church, this takes work. In fact, Paul even says in Ephesians to a healthy church, labor for unity, which means it takes work. Now look with me, verses 16 and 17, once again, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you.
[18:08] This is an important verse to lift up again because the grammar in verse 16 is not clear in the English. The U in this verse is plural, not singular. It does not refer to an individual. It refers to a whole community of believers. This is why we see many times in the Bible words addressed to the whole community. Things like, come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before God, our maker, as the psalmist writes.
[18:40] Me is we. And so we recognize there is great contentiousness that's been going on at Corinth, and we've been covering that. But none of the differences of opinion that they're experiencing as a church should matter as much as they're laboring for being one in Christ. We are one in the Spirit, as the song goes. And again, as I pointed out last week or two weeks ago, this is why the Apostle Paul lifts up the love chapter when we get to the 13th chapter of Corinthians, because there's some course correction of heart that needs to take place in the Corinthian church as they've been operating in the flesh. Hear this quote from Pete Scazzaro. He said, we must refuse to accept that people are growing in love for God in ways that do not translate into growing in love for people. That's a good quote, church family.
[19:38] I remember in our prior denomination, when we planted our first church, I'm riding with a denominational official in the car, and he said something that I thought was off, just really off. And he said, Paul, as you plant out here, this was in a suburban area of a city, as you plant out here, I feel confident that there are our kind of people out here, our kind of people.
[20:11] And I remember thinking, what does that mean? Is that like we try to find people who, oh, it'd be fun to do wine and cheese with them. I mean, is that what we're, I mean, is that how Jesus came? I mean, I think about the apostle Paul. Remember when he was Saul? He was a radical. He was someone who didn't fit the mold.
[20:36] Someone that you would look at and go, that's a scoundrel. He persecutes people. He orchestrates the death and persecution of Christians. I think about persons that I've seen come to know Jesus in the churches that I've had the honor of pastoring through the years, and many of them of the most unlikely background. I mean, watch prisoners come to know Jesus. I've watched people who've done some pretty evil things that God redeemed and redeemed their story. And I'm like, our kind of people, Jesus, help us. But the picture is that when a church is growing in love for Jesus, she also grows in love for people in the church, outside the church as well. So Paul says, you're the temple, the Spirit of God dwells in you, and God's building this church up, the Corinthian church, building you up in the person of Jesus. Now listen, I'm going to share something on this twice today in our time together. But one of the ways that we labor for unity in the body is by asking myself this question. I want to invite you to ask yourself, as I'm growing in Christ, am I growing less offendable? I've talked to you about this before, but it's really important.
[21:55] Jesus said in the last days, the love of God, the agape love of God would grow cold in the hearts of people. Now, who is it who has agape love? Does the world? Thank you. I think he's talking to us. In the last days, many will become offended and the agape love of God will grow cold. In other words, there's not enough agape to be a forgiving person. Jesus said, forgive as God in Christ has forgiven you. And a good question to ask ourselves is that when I'm offended or attempted to be offended, am I keeping score or do I labor to clear the score? And when I hear the parables of Jesus, some of them which deal with forgiveness, are they just head knowledge or are they heartfelt practice in my life? And the reason that's so important is that yes, you can become a believer in Jesus Christ in isolation, but it is impossible for you to mature as a believer in isolation. We mature as believers in community in conjunction with God's word and the spirit of God. Relationships with one another are the vehicle of God's sandpaper that God uses to define and refine the rough edges in our lives of pride, unforgiveness, and isolation.
[23:22] Relationships make it possible for the believer to move beyond isolation and into the place of true discipleship where you're growing in relationship with Christ. So the church, being a called-out group of people, gathers together in Jesus' name. They love one another deeply because they've experienced the love of God deeply, and they labor for unity.
[23:47] Build the church through the development of unity, not uniformity, but unity. And then fourth, build the church by being filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, church, many of you know this is Pentecost Sunday. This is the day that we celebrate just as significant as Christmas and Easter. That may sound like over-the-top talk, but it's not true. It's very significant. The day is the day that the Holy Spirit was sent to empower the church. Let's revisit verses 16 again. Do you not know that you're God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you. Now, if you're a believer, you have the Holy Spirit.
[24:31] But that's not the question. The question is not, do you have the Holy Spirit? The question is, does the Holy Spirit have you? That's the question. And that's what's happening at Corinth, or it's a one way of wording what's happening at Corinth. They have the Holy Spirit, but they're in the flesh. And so let me give some symptoms of the Spirit-filled life. Here's the first one. Fearlessness.
[25:01] Fearlessness. Now, why do you say that, Pastor? I say that because you may remember young Timothy. He's out on his own. And what's happened as he's been under the Apostle Paul's mentorship, he's now on his own. And now that he's on his own, he's shrinking back in fear. He's shrinking back with the gospel and the revelation of God. And he feels timid. He's intimidated by people that are older than he is. He's intimidated. Even though he has God's message in his heart, he's allowed himself to begin moving in a spirit where he feels less than rather than the child of God that he is. And so I remind you of Paul's words to Timothy when he hears about Timothy's plight. He says, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear. Some of your Bibles say timidity, but of power, of love, and a sound mind. Now, here's the deal. Timothy was afraid of what people thought of him.
[26:01] Here's the thing. If you're a people pleaser and you're afraid of what people think, if you're obsessed with what people think of you, this is a spirit of fear. Now, fear grieves the Holy Spirit. And we're instructed in Ephesians 4.30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Now, you have the Holy Spirit, but you have grieved him. and the intimacy with the Spirit, the power of the Spirit has been dampened down because you've grieved His activity in your heart and life. What's the most important thing you can do at this point?
[26:43] Jesus says, out of love for you, return to your first love. Repent and turn back to Jesus. Confess it, turn back to Him. Lord, I forsake fear. I confess that's not of you. I repent. Fear, fearlessness. Second one is power. One of the primary pictures of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is power in conjunction with the word fire when it relates to the person of the Holy Spirit. Fire is one of the primary symbols of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. But fire is a symbol of God's light, illumination. When the Holy Spirit is active in your heart and life, he brings light. This is why John says you have an anointing that teaches you, that this Holy Spirit illuminates God's word, that as you engage with the word of God, God brings light to the word of God. This is one of the reasons Jesus says, true worshipers worship me in spirit and truth. Power of the Holy Spirit, revelation of the word of God.
[27:54] The Spirit brings illumination, but also the Spirit of God brings purity because fire refines, fire empowers. And in God's refining fire, I would remind you that the Spirit is not just the Spirit, He is a Holy Spirit. You take on the nature of God Himself. You don't become God, but you take on the nature of God. I've used this illustration before. If there's a fire burning here and I take a sword, a large sword, and I stick it in the fire and I leave it there for five minutes, I pull the sword out, I hold it up. The sword is not the fire, but the sword has been heated and takes on the nature of the fire. When the fire of the Holy Spirit fills a believer, you take on the nature of the fire, the Holy Spirit. And so we're instructed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5, 19, do not put out the Spirit's fire. Now, if we stop right there, that's a problem. And the reason is Paul shares in the very next verse how it happens. Listen to this. do not put out the Spirit's fire, verse 19, verse 20, don't despise what God has revealed. That word despise literally means to look down on with disrespect, aversion, to regard as negligible, worthless, or distasteful.
[29:24] Sometimes there's a temptation when we're operating in the flesh and we're reading the Word of God or hearing the Word of God taught accurately, and there's a part of us that can be negligible with what God is saying. We can look down upon it in light of what God is saying. We can say, that's for somebody else. That's not for me. That's not for me right now. Not a good time. There's all kinds of probably a trillion excuses that human nature, our flesh, can come up with. So understand that there's a correlation with putting out the work of the fire of the Holy Spirit simply by resisting what God is revealing to you. And so power. And if that's where you're walking, sister or brother, may I lovingly, again, appeal to you based on the words of Jesus, return to your first love. Repent. Do the things you did at first, when it was all brand new and life-giving. And if you've never surrendered to him, he's drawing you this morning. He's speaking to you, wooing you to himself because he loves you. And the next one is love. Love.
[30:35] See, God has given us a spirit of love, not a spirit of fear. Perfect love, which is the person of Jesus, perfect love casts out fear. And in the book of Galatians, the first fruit of the Holy Spirit is love. And this kind of love goes against our human nature. This kind of love goes against the flesh. This was the problem, one of the problems at the church at Corinth. Jesus comes along and says things like this. love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.
[31:09] Pray for those who mistreat you. Loved ones, the flesh cannot demonstrate this kind of love.
[31:16] Only the Holy Spirit can love like that. And because you have the Holy Spirit, you can love like that. Because you have the Holy Spirit, you can forgive like that. You can forgive as Jesus has forgiven you. When you've been hurt, when you've been betrayed, when someone did you wrong, when someone gossiped about you behind your back, whatever the case may be, because you are a Spirit-filled Christian, you have the power to choose to forgive because you have agape love living inside of you. Now, here's a question. I was asked this this week. How do I know when I've truly forgiven someone? Well, here you go. Here it is.
[32:05] When I no longer tell other people what they did to me.
[32:10] When I stop pointing the finger. when I let them save face rather than rubbing their nose in it, when I protect other people from their darkest secret, I'm free. That's how you know. They walk in the room, it's no longer a trigger. You're free. And the truth, remember, you'll know the truth. The truth will set you free. Truth is a person. His name is Jesus. And he sent the power of the Holy Spirit. So you move not in the flesh, but in the power of the Spirit. And then the fourth one is self-control. Let me read to you first 2 Timothy 1.7 again with a different translation that's also accurate. For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power, of love, and self-control. In the original language in this passage, and also in the majority of the word usage in the Bible, self-control, references superiority over the flesh, primarily in three areas. Now, it covers other areas, but here are the three primary areas. Self-control as it relates to food, sex, and the use of the tongue. And if we're God's temple, then God's spirit dwells in you.
[33:35] And he's given you the power to live, not in the flesh, not in your old nature, but in your new nature. Listen to this quote from Henry Blackaby. If we function according to our ability alone, we get the glory. If we function according to the power of the spirit within us, God gets the glory. and that's the way this is designed to work for the glory of God.
[34:00] Now this morning, we're going to take Holy Communion together and I would remind you that the communion as we follow Jesus, he's commanded us to do this, do this in remembrance of me. This is a part of our being the body of Christ together to come and share in this holy meal. But remember this meal represents what God in Christ did at the cross for you. That is in taking your sin there so that you're reconciled to God, so that you have access to God and the full life that he offers you. Jesus said, I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. And the life that he's referring to is life in the empowerment of the person of the Holy Spirit. So after you take or take of the body and blood.
[34:48] May I encourage you, whether you want to go back and make an altar of your seat or kneel at these altars, to simply bow and thank God that in Christ, every sin is forgiven, that you've been adopted into his family and that you indeed, through the shed blood of Christ, you're a child of God. But also remember that Jesus said this, if you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? The problem at Corinth is that they had drifted out of operating in the power of the Spirit, and they were operating in the flesh.
[35:30] And I remind you, as I often do, God did not give us these stories or this word to entertain us, but to equip us for His glory.