This message was preached at Word Of Grace Church on July 11th 2021 by Abhishek B via zoom. For the audio please click here. To listen to the worship please click here.
The Foundation and Pillars to build
our lives on.
The concept and act of building is very common in the
Bible, it is a repeated theme. Jesus used it in the famous parable of wise vs
foolish builder in Mat 7: 24-27. Paul refers to it in 1 Cor 3-9-15, (admittedly
it is referring to the work of an apostle, but the principle remains intact) as
we are God’s building. Peter writes about it in 1 Pet 2:5 “you also like living
stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” There are other
such references in the Bible about the idea of being built or to build.
I have purposely chosen not use ‘Christian lives’ in
the title because for those who are of Christ, we only have one life, we
don't live 2 lives one in the world and one in Church.
Now, like a lot of Biblical Christian concepts, this
concept is also a ‘Collaborative’ one, what I mean is that the act of building
and being built up is one where we are co-workers with God, we cannot do it
alone, without him. The onus is not singularly on us neither is it only on God,
we are not passive in this action. We do our part with the Power and Help of
the Holy Spirit.
Let's look at the foundation and the abiding pillars on
which we can build our lives.
The Foundation: Christ Jesus
Pillars:
1. Faith
2. Hope
3. Love
Each of these is a topic in itself, and each can be
series of teaching, however for today I am going to talk about these only in
the context of being built up and building up our lives.
Foundation
No building can be built without a foundation. It is
the very thing on which a building stands. A strong foundation means a strong
building, a weak foundation means a weak building. It is the starting point of
the whole act of building something up, and for our lives that foundation is none
other than our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.
Isaiah 28: 16 – “So this is what the Sovereign Lord
says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on
it will never be stricken with panic””
1 Cor 3: 11 – For no one can lay any foundation other
than the one already laid, which is is Jesus
Christ.
Jesus Christ- his person and his works are the
foundation on which we build, he is the sure foundation, one whom we can trust,
one who cannot be shaken, one who is forever. Because of Him coming to earth,
because of Him taking our punishment and dying in our place and because of His
resurrection we have surety.
Without Jesus, there is nothing to build. All that one
may do in life, all good works, all charity, all achievements, all would be of
no value if not done on the foundation of Jesus. Like Jesus said in the
parable, the foolish man builds on sand, when the rain comes down and floods
rise up the house would be destroyed, it is not going to stand trail.
But the
foundation of Jesus is sure. Imagine trying to build on something which is
shaky, it would be a nightmare- never knowing when the whole thing collapses.
Whereas on the foundation of Jesus, we have surety that whatever we build will
last, such a joy to know that God eternal is the one who guarantees our success
in building.
I cannot let this time pass without pleading and
encouraging those amongst us who have not yet made Jesus their foundation, to
take this opportunity and make Jesus the sure foundation of your lives, and the
good news is you have pre-qualified for this, Jesus’ work on the cross has paid
the price for you already!
For those of us who already have Jesus as the
foundation, I rejoice with you! What a Joy! I want us to be encouraged by
reminding us that the foundation of Jesus is sure, secure, never shaken,
eternal.
Pillars
As I mentioned earlier, Faith, Hope and Love are huge
topics and each has a lot of depth, I cannot possibly cover that and they
deserve study in their own right, but today we will look at these as being the
essential pillars of our lives.
All 3 are interconnected and it is amazing how many
times they appear together in the Bible, sometimes in the same verse, sometimes
in the same thought spread across 2 or 3 verses, sometimes 2 out of 3 are
together.
1 Cor 13:13
Rom 5:1-5
Gal 5: 5-6
Col 1:4-5
Heb 10: 22-24
Col 1:23
1 Thes 1:3
1 Thes 5:8
1 Tim 1:14
1 Tim 6: 11
In all of these verses we find Faith, Hope and Love.
This trio of terms was a favourite summary of Christian teaching in the early
church.
1 Thessalonians 1:3 says “We remember before our God
and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love and
your endurance
inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” And this gives us the
perfect guideline for how we build on these 3 pillars of Faith, Hope and
Love. Interestingly this verse can also be taken as the summary of my
message today, that we would produce work by Faith, labour by love and have
endurance by hope.
Faith
In the simplest terms Faith means belief or
conviction. And in the context of 1 Cor 13:13 it means the belief and
conviction about God and His Power to answer prayers-“move mountains” so to
speak.
Hebrews 11 almost gives a definition for faith, as
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Heb 11: 6 says that it is impossible to please God
without faith. Now this faith which we need to be able to live a life pleasing
to God with, is it only limited to ‘believing’? Would that be sufficient? No.
As James very clearly states and then proceeds to
demonstrate by the examples he uses in his letter- Faith without action is
dead!
It needs to produce work (1 The
1:3), we need to walk the walk of faith. True faith would produce an act. James
2: 21- 26 states how Abraham’s faith led him to do what he did (ready to
sacrifice Isaac) and how Rahab’s faith led her to save the spies. Hebrews 11 in most Bibles has a heading of ‘Faith
in action’, it gives an account of great characters of the OT doing great deeds
by faith. By faith Abraham obeyed and left his old country, by faith Joseph
gave instructions for the burial of his bones- something which happened years
later! Etc.
We see that Faith produces the action. In our lives
let us remember that faith enables us to believe and receive all God has for us
as Christians. By faith, we can walk in the fullness of the gifts and power of
the Spirit of God.
By faith let us
proclaim God’s word without reservation and by faith let us dedicate ourselves
to the work of the Lord. In doing so, brick by brick, we will be building our
lives on the foundation of our Lord.
I want to encourage all of us today, if we think of
this as a burden or a demand, we have wavered away from truth, because the good
news is that God has called us to do the good works prepared for us in advance
and for that he supplies us with abundant grace. At times we may feel like we
just don't have the required faith, the truth is He has given us each a measure
of faith and like the disciples prayed in Luke 17:5 we too can pray “Increase our faith”. Growth is a Godly
principle, and if with whatever measure of faith we have, we do produce, God
will surely make it grow.
Hope
Hope means confident expectation based on solid
certainty. Biblical Hope is quite different to the way we use
the word hope in our day to day lives. We use hope more in the wishful sense or
being optimistic sense. In the word of God there is certainty, the Hope we have
as Christians is not a wish, which may or may not come true, our hope is
certain and our hope is eternal.
It is a little complicated sometimes to explain the
difference between Hope and Faith, both seem very similar, and they are, they
are interconnected but there is a difference.
I have always understood the difference in the context
of time, faith has to do with past and present, while hope is always about the
future. We don’t hope that Jesus died on the cross for us, we believe, we have
faith that He did. Derek Prince says there is another difference, Faith has
to do with the heart and Hope to do with the mind, based on 1 Thes 5:8
‘breastplate of Faith and Love and Helmet of Hope of Salvation.’
For our building, the pillar of Hope is needed for
endurance. Hope is based on Faith, but Hope is for the things not seen yet. Our
Hope is surely the blessed moment when we see our Saviour face to face, our
hope is the eternity we have with Him, our hope is the manifest glory of God,
our Hope is that in Christ Jesus we have eternal life and that He gives meaning
and purpose to our lives and our work
here.
1 Pet 1: 3 says we have been
begotten to a lively hope of incorruptible inheritance and exceeding great and
eternal weight of glory.
Hope gives us endurance. Marathon
runners have endurance which is not easily matched, they run and run and run,
never losing sight of why they are running- you may think it is to win, but
surprisingly for many marathoners the goal is not winning but finishing.
Similarly in our lives, Hope is having our sights fixed on what’s at the finish
line. Our Eternal reward. Gal 6:9 says Let us not become weary in doing good,
for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Hope, a confident expectation of incorruptible
inheritance in Christ- hows that for motivation. Let us
then continue with doing good, however and in whatever ways we can exhibit
God’s goodness to people, let us continue doing that, in giving to the poor, in
serving, in holding on to the values of God over the values of the world, let
us continue and have endurance.
Rom 15: 13 says May the God of Hope fill you with all
joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Joy and Peace are integral to Hope, and as with other
things we are not left alone to have endurance, it is by the Power of His Holy
Spirit that we overflow with hope. Be encouraged, be full of Joy and Peace of
God as we continue to do the good works prepared for us in advance with Hope.
Love
We now come to the most critical of all pillars- Love.
The greatest of these 3 as Paul puts it. In the context of the trio of Faith
Hope and Love, it is Agape love, which is self-giving, freely given, expecting
nothing in return which seeks the highest good of the other person no matter
what. As with hope, love in common language is used very differently, we use
love for a variety of things and we mean a variety of things when we say love.
But biblical love is giving love, which will last and remain even in eternity.
Love produces a labour which is not selfish,
which is not expecting something in return, it will value the person more than
the prestige. James severely reprimands the church for showing favouritism and
for discrimination because it was against the ‘Royal Law’ (James 2:8) which is Love your neighbour as
yourself.
Again in practical terms, is love something which we
manufacture in our hearts and communicate by words? Are we capable of producing
agape love in our hearts? I am not sure, because the bible talks about it
requiring laying ones life. Honestly it is not natural, cause natural is being
selfish. However, Rom 5:5 says God’s love has been poured out into our hears
through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, and that is a reason to
rejoice, because that gives us the ability to Love the way God Loves- agape
love.
When we are full and are overflowing with God’s love,
and His Spirit, that love will inevitably touch others.
1 Cor 13 lists the characteristics of this love, and
they are useful in us evaluating our love actions. If what we are doing is
rooted in selfishness, envy, so that we can boast about it etc. Love is the
pillar which will make sure that the building is being built the way God wants
it. Because like it is mentioned in the chapter one can have the faith to move
mountains, and one may have all the endurance to go through hardships, but if
one doesn't have love, it is nothing. The labour and work of love is God-kind,
we truly represent Him when we love. The most quoted verse in the world “For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...” shows us God’s
character, that He is Love in deed.
We are recipients of God’s love, we are subjects of
His Love, we love because He first loved us. Let us revel in His love, rejoice
of this amazing privilege and be encouraged to labour in Love, so that the
world may know we are Christians.
In conclusion, I want to remind each one of us, that
we are Loved by Him, that His Spirit within us gives us the power to stand firm
in faith, and produce work of Faith , to labour in Love and to have endurance
in Hope, in so doing to build a lasting building on the strong foundation of
Jesus Christ.
Closing prayer.
Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again), Spirit-filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that has people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. Word of Grace is a part of a wider international family of Churches called RegionsBeyond.To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.
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