Matthew-035

 

Today, we will look at Matthew 12:30b, “He who does not gather with me, scatters.” What is the Lord Jesus saying in these words? It’s very easy to say, “Oh yes! My heart is open to God,” but what is the evidence of that openness? The evidence must be seen not just in talking, or in professing some kind of faith, but in the fact that we are active for God. The Lord Jesus said, “Whoever does not gather with me scatters.” To put it in another way, he is saying, “He that is not working with me is working against me.” There is no neutral ground.

 

What is “gather” and “scatter”?

To gather or to scatter is work, it is activity, and the Lord Jesus is saying, “I’m not just going to look at what you profess with your mouth that you believe this and that. The evidence is going to come in your life, whether you work with me or against me.” It’s important to understand this because today, you will generally hear a teaching that you are saved simply by believing, it requires no action on your part. You make a profession of faith with your lips, and lo and behold, you are saved! That is the end of the matter.

What does the Lord Jesus say? He is our Savior sent by God, let him answer the question. He said, “Whoever does not gather with me is the one who scatters.” This statement refers to any person, whoever it may be. Now it is plain that scattering is the opposite of gathering. So if you are not gathering with him, working with him, you are scattering. The Lord Jesus looks at a person’s life, and not at what he says. Do you believe in him by gathering? We have to look at what “gather” means in a moment.

First, let us get down to understanding what “gather” and “scatter” means in its original expressions. The words in the Greek “to gather” or “to scatter” can refer to gathering or scattering sheep. For exam­ple, the word “scatter” is used in John 10:12 where the wolf gets into the flock and scatters the sheep. You are either a shepherd or a wolf. That is the choice. There is no middle ground between these two. But the words in the Greek can also be used of harvesting, and I think the Lord Jesus intentionally widens the scope. He is saying, “Whoever does not gather the harvest with me, scatters or destroys the harvest.” Either way, the meaning is the same, whether it has to do with the pictures of gathering in or scattering the sheep of God; whether gathering in or scattering the harvest. All these refer to bringing people into salvation, or driving them away from salvation.

These words can apply in fact, to any range of people. “Whoever” does not specify who, but any person. If you profess to be a Christian, and you are not gathering in God’s people, if you live a kind of life that is a disgrace to the gospel, what do you do? You drive people away from God. The Jewish rabbinic scholars have a saying that the unforgivable sin is the sin of profaning or disgracing the name of God, because that will drive people away from God, and so drive them away from salvation. That kind of sin means that you don’t just sin hurting yourself, you sin causing someone else to fall. If you, as a Christian, bear the name of God, and then you behave in a disgraceful way, you are going to drive people away from God, you scatter. You are doing the work of a wolf, not a shepherd. We are all to be under-shepherds of Christ, he is the chief shepherd, and we work together with him helping people turn to God.

 

A true Christian must gather with Christ, not scatter

We, as Christians, or even preachers, may be very superficial. We say, “All you have to do to be saved is to just believe.” The Lord Jesus is much deeper than that, he is not that superficial. He says this: “Whoever does not gather with me, scatters.” If you are going to be a Christian who wants to see God’s salvation, then understand these words carefully. They mean that everything you do day by day, is either going to contribute to bringing God’s people together, or it is going to have an effect of driving them further away. Consider what kind of damage an unkind word or a thoughtless action may do to a brother or sister. It may drive that person away. It scatters the brother or sister. It doesn’t bring them in.

Conversely, doesn’t every work of love, every action of kindness that comes from faith draw someone closer to God? Think of it, if you go out to visit people for example, maybe you don’t preach to them, but you just show them the love of Christ through your visiting, you are helping to bring in the sheep, you are gathering with Christ. Or say for example, you sing in the Witness in Song Team, you are also drawing others to God through that witness, no matter how small. Or you lead a Bible Study, or you chair a meeting, or in your everyday life, how you live in your college, serve in your office, whatever you do, you can help to turn people to God. That is so important to understand.

The apostle Paul teaches the same thing in 1 Corinthians 3:10-17, a passage which is so little understood today. This passage is, in many ways, simply an exposition of the Lord Jesus’ teaching here. It really brings out his teaching.

When I speak about the confusion of understanding God’s Word, I would like to ask you to join with me in prayer in the days to come, that God will raise up in his churches, expositors of God’s Word, Bible teachers who can open God’s Word to you. The churches today, are in a desperate condition that we read about in Amos 8:11-12, that there will come a time of famine in the world, not of food but of God’s Word. Everywhere I have preached, including from one coast of Canada to the other, I have seen the same desperate hunger for God’s Word. And too few people seem to be able to meet that hunger.

I would share with you too, that by God’s grace, my determination is to make everyone training in the full-time Training Program skilled in the exposition of God’s Word. That is the emphasis in their training. My job is not to give them preaching material that they can find for themselves, I don’t even tell them what this or that Scripture passage has to say, I am concerned that they study and find the answer for themselves in the Word of God. That is why they have a very heavy program of learning to expound the Scriptures. They have to learn to expound difficult passages. They have to find out why they cannot understand it, struggle with it; make mistakes but learn through them on how to open up God’s Word, how to understand it, first for themselves, and then for others.

Today, the churches have virtually no expositors, and pastors don’t know how to expound the Bible. They just repeat the things that they have been taught in seminary or Bible college. If you ask them about a passage, they cannot tell you what it means, because they have never been trained to expound God’s Word. What a disastrous situation this is!

Many of you know that I am physically weak, and weak enough that I don’t particularly care to train anyone. I didn’t bring anyone in for training, but God moved these people to come. And I know that God has given me this one task above all things, that they may become skilled to expound God’s Word. My task is not to tell them what does First Corinthians say, what does Romans say, what does this or that passage says, I give them the key to expound God’s Word, then they can find out what it says for themselves. They don’t have to hear me telling them what it says. However, on Sundays, my task is to do the exposition and open God’s Word to you, because I cannot spend the time to train you to expound God’s Word. Do join me in praying that God will raise up men who can break the Bread of life and feed the hungry multitudes in these days.

It is not a lot better to try to understand this difficult passage, 1Corinthians 3:10-17 by turning to a commentary. I am sure many of you have read commentaries, and found that by the time you finish reading them, you are just as confused at the end as you were at the beginning. It has not helped you very much because even these good people are not skilled in exposition, which is ironic to say. I hope by God’s grace, to open up this passage to you.

Another reason why I want to share this teaching of Paul with you, is because there is a dangerous misuse of it. When we don’t under­stand the Word of God correctly, we may find ourselves twisting the Word of God unintentionally, and we do that to our own destruction, as the apostle Peter warns. Twisting the Word of God is very danger­ous, and to misuse it is to end up in destruction. Always remember those words of the apostle Peter in 2 Peter 3:15-16:

 

“Gather”, “scatter” parallels “build”, “destroy”

Now let us read 1 Corinthians 3:10-17.

I think you can see immediately how important this passage is. It tells us that we are God’s temple, God’s Holy Spirit lives in us. I think the connection to our passage in Matthew 12:30 should be plain to you. We saw already that we either gather with Christ or we scatter. We saw that it can refer to a harvest, and 1 Corinthians 3:9 says, “for we are God’s fellow workers, you are God’s field, you are God’s building.” You are God’s field, and God’s workers are working in that field to gather the harvest. But if you have an unfaithful or a bad worker, he may scatter the harvest rather than gather it.

Paul says, “Or to change the picture, we can speak about building or destroying instead of speaking about gathering and scattering.” So from 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, he speaks about building, and in verse 17, he speaks about “if anyone destroys God’s temple,” which is the same as “if anyone scatters,” then “God will destroy him,” because God’s temple is holy, and he bought it pricelessly with the blood of his Son. So we do either one of two things: we either build or destroy.

Then Paul says “the Day” in verse 13, that is, the Day of Judgment, and “the Day of Judgment” is also the Lord Jesus’ concern in Matthew 12:36. Then in verses 16-17, Paul says we are the temple of God’s Holy Spirit; the Spirit of God lives in us. The Lord Jesus said, “He who does not gather with me scatters,” and then speaks about blasphemy against the Spirit, and the danger of grieving or quenching the Spirit in Matthew 12:31, after he talks about gathering with himself or scattering in verse 30. Therefore, we can see the clear links between 1 Corinthians 3:10-17 and Matthew 12:30-31, and why this is Paul’s exposition of the Lord Jesus’ teaching.

 

If our works are burned up, will we still be saved?

Let us consider 1 Corinthians 3:10-17. What does this passage say to us? I said that this passage has been dangerously misused and twisted by some people. How has it been twisted? I think you must be accustomed to hearing this kind of misuse of teaching: Even though you have no works, or if your works are so bad that they are only fit to be burned up, so long as you have faith, you will be saved anyway.

Is this what the Bible is teaching? Before you start twisting the Word of God, or allowing someone else to mislead you, I’m just going to open up the passage and leave you to decide. You will notice that I will give you so many references sometimes, because I am con­cerned that you don’t take what I say. It’s no better to believe what I say than to believe what anyone else says. I want you to see what the Word of God says, and my task is simply to show you what Scripture says, not to tell you what my opinions are.

Don’t listen if anyone is going to comfort you to say, “You are such a bad Christian that you have no fruit at all, but it doesn’t matter.” Or “Your fruit is really so foul that it is only fit to be burned, but that’s all right.” You wouldn’t burn good food, would you? You will only burn what is useless, like “a field that brings forth thorns and thistles is only fit to be burned” (cf. Heb. 6:6-8). If you are the one who brings forth thorns and thistles, you will be burned. Don’t you see that it matters very much?

Let us return to 1 Corinthians 3:10-17. To say, “No matter what kind of fruit I bring forth, I will be saved anyway” is a contradiction of Scripture, and it is also a misuse of this passage. Is this passage con­cerned with an individual’s life and salvation? Not at all! Look at this passage, and you will see that the whole passage is only concerned with the church of God.

 

Paul’s concern is the church, not personal salvation

First of all, in 1 Corinthians 3:9, Paul says, “you are God’s field,” and in verse 16, “you are God’s temple”; the “you” in the plural is referring to the church. The whole passage is concerned with the building up of the church, and nothing to do with an individual’s salvation. Paul preached the gospel to the Corinthian Church, and he refreshes their memory saying, “I was the one who laid the foun­dation for this church, establishing it here in Corinth. But Apollos, another servant of God came, and he built on this foundation which I established.”

Or to change the picture, he used the agricultural picture earlier in verse 6, “I planted, Apollos watered.” Paul plants the seed, he lays the foundation, and someone else, Apollos waters to help it grow, he builds on that foundation. In verse 8 he says that it doesn’t mean that he’s better than Apollos. Whoever plants and whoever waters are equal. We are all doing different aspects of God’s work.”

Paul planted, others watered; Paul laid the foundation, others built on that foundation. So he is speaking about the building of the Corinthian Church, and the same principle applies to the building of any church.

Secondly, we notice that there is this word, “foundation” in verse 10. When we compare this with Ephesians 2:20, we see that the same word is used in connection with the church. He is saying that Jesus is the foundation of the church, and the apostles and prophets are a secondary foundation built on this foundation. Again, he is speaking about the building of the church as a parallel passage in Ephesians 2:20 shows. He is not talking about individual lives.

Thirdly, verse 16, speaks about the “temple of God,” so we can see again, it has to do with the church. The word “temple” is singular but “you” is plural, because Paul is saying, “You together constitute one temple of God.” Not only here in 1 Corinthians 3:16 but also in 1 Corinthians 6:19 and 1 Peter 2:5, the temple of God is a picture of the church.

Fourthly, in the following verse, 1 Corinthians 3:17 he says, “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him.” He is not speaking of anyone destroying himself because if you have already destroyed yourself, you don’t need God to destroy you anymore. But if anyone damages the church of God, God will destroy him. The whole passage is simply concerned with the building of the church, so we must not reduce it to an individualistic meaning.

Notice again the parallel with Matthew 12:30, “whoever gathers with me,” is talking about the gathering of God’s people, the church. “Whoever scatters” has to do with a scattering of God’s people – God’s sheep, God’s harvest. Whichever picture you like to use, has to do with the church as well. So Paul is saying exactly the same thing as the Lord Jesus; he is expounding the Lord’s teaching.

 

“Work” is: Building up God’s church

Once we have seen that this relates to the church of God, we must ask the question: What is the work? If the church is Paul’s concern, then the work of course, has to do with the work of building up the church. That is very plain.

“Build up God’s church” is a favorite expression of Paul’s because he is always concerned with building up God’s church. The Greek word, oikodomeō, so typical of Paul, translated in English as “edify” or “edification” and so forth, simply means to build up. It occurs 24 times altogether in the apostle Paul’s letters, 9 times in its verb form, and 15 times in its noun form, oikodomē, and each time, it has to do with building up the church.

For example, in the Greek, the word “building” (oikodomē) that you see in “You are God’s building” in 1 Corinthians 3:9, is the same word in its basic form as the word translated in English “to edify.” Again in Ephesians 2:21, Christ “in whom the whole building is joined together,” is the same word as “building” in 1 Corinthians 3:9. (The ESV, RSV have translated the word “building” as “structure.”) Paul is saying the church has its unity and structure in Christ. Furthermore, the word is translated as “to build up the church,” “edify” in 1 Corinthians 14:4, 5, 12; Ephesians 4:12, 16, and many other references.

So in all these verses, we see Paul is always concerned with building up God’s church. The work in question is building the church. If you look at Paul’s letters, you will see his love for the church, and his primary concern is to build God’s church.

 

Who builds God’s church?

Once we establish this point, we move to the next and ask the question: Who builds God’s church? Here we have assumed by the saying: “If my work is burned up, I will be saved,” that this is talking about us. Perhaps it is, but let’s not rush into the answer with these assumptions. Who builds God’s church? What does the Bible say? Of course, in the first line of service, it is God’s servants. Let us look at what 1 Corinthians 3:9 says again: “We are God’s fellow workers, you are God’s building.” Who is the “we”? Who is the “you”? “We” is the apostle Paul, Apollos, that great servant of God, and also Cephas, the apostle Peter who is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 3:22. And “you” are the disciples in the Corinthian Church, God’s building.

Isn’t the meaning very plain? What is difficult to understand about this passage? May God grant to us his Holy Spirit that we have expositors who are taught by the Spirit of God. In this picture, Paul is saying, “You are the church; we are the builders building God’s church. Or if you change the picture, you are God’s field and we are the workers working in the field.” One is sowing and the other is watering.

Clearly, if the work is destroyed, the workman still survives; if the building is burned down, the workman is still alive. Peter, Apollos, Paul will still be there. But who are we talking about when we speak about the “we”? These are committed workmen of God, dedicated to God’s service. These are the kind of people who are engaged in building up the church. If their work is destroyed, they will be saved, but that is no consolation to any dedicated worker of God. Paul fears that his work will be destroyed. It is no consolation to him if he survives, and the church he is building is destroyed.

However, it seems to be a consolation for Christians, who don’t live Christian lives and hope to be saved. I see all these Christians claiming consolation for themselves: “Even if my work is useless, I will be saved!” What work are you talking about? Do you engage in building up the church of God? This passage is concerned with God’s workers building up God’s church. Don’t misquote the passage! The key principle of expounding the Bible is to expound it in its context. You cannot take a verse out and make it mean whatever you like it to mean. You must look at the overall context. It is the most basic principle of exposition.

Those who are saved are God’s workers. But who are God’s workers? Are God’s workers only to be limited to people like Paul, t Peter, and Apollos? No! Today, there are pastors, evangelists who should be building up God’s church, who should be gathering God’s people and not scattering.

 

Every Christian should build up the church, but only the totally committed will

Is building the church only limited to full-time workers? No! That is why right at the beginning I said, each person must be engaged in building God’s church, and if you aren’t, you will be destroying it. Everything you do is going to have effect one way or the other. There is no neutral ground in between. This means to say, we can apply 1Corinthians 3 to Christians.

But what kind of Christians are engaged and concerned with the building up the church? The answer is clear: only totally committed Christians, only Christians who really love God and love his church. I see the majority of Christians does nothing for the church at all. They are not concerned with building up anyone else; they just come to get something for themselves. When you begin to have the concern for building up God’s church, you’ll begin to know what is to be a true Christian. A true Christian engages in building up God’s church. Even if his work is not of the highest standard, it will survive because he is committed. But are you able to say of yourself that you are concerned with the building up of God’s church, with building up someone else in God’s church? Or are you just concerned with yourself?’

Notice the Lord Jesus’ teaching says, “He who gathers with me,” not he gathers himself. Today, the whole teaching of the church is concerned about saving yourself. If you are not concerned about saving others, your chance of saving yourself is close to zero! The Lord Jesus’ teaching is: Love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Any Christian who only loves himself doesn’t even know what it is to be a Christian. You must love your neighbor, and be concerned for his salvation. Are you concerned to help to build him if he is a young Christian? Or are you always asking, “What about me? What do I get out of it?”

 

Those who build the church will become transformed

By the time you become a co-worker of the Lord Jesus, helping him to build God’s church, “working with me to gather,” as he said, you will have experienced transformation, you will have become a new creature in Christ, who has the mind of Christ. As Paul says to the Corinthians, “We have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2:16)

Do you have the mind of Christ? What is the mind of Christ? The mind of Christ is to lay down his life for others. Do you have that mind of Christ? If you have that mind of Christ, surely, on the Day of Judgment, you will have nothing to fear. But don’t you, as some kind of a wishy-washy Christian try to claim 1 Corinthians 3:15* for yourself, because all you will do is deceive yourself.

*[“If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”]

 

I repeat, this passage, 1 Corinthians 3:10-17 has to do with Christians, who are actively engaged as fellow workers of Christ in the building of God’s church. This is what every Christian should be doing, but we cannot preach it to the church today, because the churches today, are not like that. Christians in the churches today, are only concerned to save themselves. If you want to only save yourself, you won’t even get saved!

Yes, you must save yourself, that’s the first step. But you must go on from there to save others, to gather with Christ, to bring in the harvest, to bring in the sheep, whichever picture you like. And Paul is so concerned that he constantly teaches his churches: Your task is to build up one another, edify one another. Take for example, in Romans 14:19, he said, “build up one another.” He repeats in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “build one another up.”

Paul doesn’t just say build yourself up, he said build one another up. Certainly, you need to build yourself up, but more importantly, build the other person up in the church. In this way, the whole church is building each other up. It is not just left to one pastor to build the church, not just left to Paul to build the church, but each Christian is building the other up. Surely you can do that, there is always some Christian who is younger than you spiritually, who you can help. What are you doing if you are not helping that younger Christian? Or if you have just become a Christian, you can help to gather non-Christians into the kingdom. There is always work you can do. Even if that work may be limited at the beginning, there is always work in which you can serve God, if you are at all concerned to serve.

Therefore, we can see that 1 Corinthians 3:15, “If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” applies to God’s workers who build up his church. They may not be full-time Christian workers, pastors or evangelists, but they are Christians who are engaged in the work of building up God’s church even in their small way. Singing in the Witness in Song Team, witnessing to brothers and sisters who are young Christians, helping them along, visiting friends, reaching out to bring them to God, or visiting the sick and the elderly to encourage them, engaging in writing articles to spread the Word of God. Perhaps some of you can contribute to the newsletter of the church and so forth. Serve God and don’t just think: how can I get built up? Clearly, if you want to build others up, you also have to build yourself up, but the Bible is concerned with building others up. That is most important.

 

The “work”—the church that is built up—is tested by fire

What is the work that is tested by fire in verse 13? The word “work” here does not refer to work as an activity. The activity cannot be tested by fire, but the result of that activity can. Gold, silver, wood, straw are the materials with which you work or build on the foundation; they are not work. So what does the work that is tested by fire refer to? It is the church that is built up, the people that are built up, the result of the activity of building up. We don’t have to leave this to our opinions to try and work this out. The Word of God tells us very clearly. All we have to do is to be taught by the Spirit of God and study the Word of God. That is very essential.

 

What do the building materials represent?

Once we are clear about this, we have to ask the next question, what do the materials used to build on the foundation represent? 1 Corinthians 3:12 says, “If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,” six things are mentioned. Three things can stand the fire: the gold, the silver and precious stones; three things cannot: the wood, the hay, the stubble or straw. Six materials are used, but what is being referred to by these materials?

 

1. Straw

Let me begin at the end and work backwards in this passage. First, what is this last material, straw? What does the farmer do at harvest time? The wheat is on the ear at the top of the stalk, and the farmer takes it off. What is left below is the stalk, the long stem of the wheat. That is this straw mentioned here. Sometimes, a lot of straw or wheat stalk can be bound together to form building material to thatch roofs. Although a thatched roof can neither stand fire nor a lot of rain, it can give temporary shelter. In Matthew 11:7 you find exactly the same Greek word translated as “reed.” The Lord Jesus says, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? Did you go out to see a reed being shaken in the wind?” The Lord Jesus is saying that John the Baptist was not straw at all; he was closer to gold and silver.

Also in Matthew 12:20, the same word in the Greek is used, and translated as “a bruised reed.” “A bruised reed he shall not break, smoking flax he shall not quench.” What is a bruised reed? The reed is a picture of a sinner, a man of weakness. John the Baptist was nothing like that. The Lord Jesus is saying, “I have not come to break in judgment a person crushed by sin, I came to save sinners.” That is the beauty of this picture.

 

2. Hay

The next material is “hay.” The Greek word for “grass” is the same Greek word for “hay,” because hay is actually cut, dry grass. You cannot build with grass, but you can when it is cut and becomes dry grass or hay. And it is translated as “grass” in 1 Peter 1:24 – “All flesh is as grass and the glory of man as the flower of the field.” We are told that grass means flesh, so “grass” or “hay” refers again to the picture of human beings in their natural, unregenerate state, or the natural man.

We have to constantly refer to the Greek when we expound the Bible, because without checking the word in Greek, you just don’t know that you are dealing with the same word. If you read the English or the Chinese, the translation may translate the same Greek word with five different words, so you wouldn’t know that you are looking at the same word. Only if you are trained in the Greek will you know that “hay” and “grass” are the same word in Greek.

 

3. Wood

The next one is “wood.” “Wood” again, is a picture of human beings generally in the Bible. Take for example, in Luke 23:31, the same Greek word is translated as “tree”: “For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” The Greek word for “tree” or “wood” is the same. When a tree is cut down, it is used as wood. A green wood or green tree is the picture of a righteous man in the Bible; and a dry wood in the Bible is a picture of a sinful man. So wood is again a picture of mankind, and it’s used most frequently in Ezekiel.

Now what do you build the temple with? You don’t build the temple with work, you build the temple with materials. In the Bible, these three types of materials, straw, hay and wood are pictures of human beings in their natural, unregenerate state. Get this point very clearly in your mind.

 

4. Gold, silver and precious stones

What about gold, silver and precious stones? These refer again, to three types of people according to the quality. The remarkable thing is that when these words are used in the Bible, they always refer to godly people.

One reference about precious stones is in 1 Peter 2:5. The apostle Peter said to the Christians, “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house,” which means, “You are like precious living stones, because you have God’s life in you, and are being built up into a temple of God.” Isn’t that exactly what Paul is saying in 1Corinthians 3:9? That is so wonderful! So again, stone is a picture of people, but this time, it refers to a picture of Christians.

What about gold and silver? Gold and silver again, refer to people. For example, Paul uses this expression in 2 Timothy 2:20 where he speaks of Christians as vessels of gold or silver, instruments of gold or silver. He goes on to say in verse 21, “If you purify yourselves from what is ignoble, you will be a vessel of honor, a vessel of gold or silver.”

However, if you don’t purify yourself, you will be a vessel of dishonor. And do you know what Jews do with vessels of dishonor? A vessel that is unclean or polluted is smashed and thrown out. This is apparently also a fact that is not understood today. For the Jews, moral cleanliness is very important. A vessel that is morally unclean will be destroyed. That is why Paul immediately says to Timothy, “Flee youthful lust” in verse 22. He is concerned that Timothy does not become impure but remains a pure vessel, a vessel of honor, of gold or silver.

In fact, this same picture is used in the Old Testament for example, Psalm 66:10 says that the righteous is compared to silver that is being tried in the fire by God. Or in Malachi 3:3, God’s people are being tried in the fire like gold and silver are refined by fire. And this brings us right back to 1 Corinthians 3:13, which says that every man and his work will be tried with fire.

 

What materials do we use to build our church?

To conclude this point on the materials, we see that the six kinds of materials always refer to people. What do we build the church with? Always remember, in the Bible, the word “church” means people; it never refers to a building. When I build the church of God, it is the people coming into it that I am building. I don’t build the church with wood, bricks and stones. In fact, the Early Church did not have church buildings until the Second and Third Centuries. So we lead people into the church and build them up when we are building the church of God; we are gathering his flock, to use the Lord’s words in Matthew 12:30.

What kind of people do you want to build the church with? The spiritual quality of the people who are in the church is what matters. What am I doing if I build the church of God with simply natural men, unregenerate people, who call themselves “Christians”? I would be building the church with wood, hay, straw, and these are pictures of natural men, unregenerate people. The Western church today, is full of unregenerate people, who call themselves “Christians.” They have never been born again, and have no idea what it is to be a disciple of Christ. The church today is being built with wood, hay and straw, isn’t it? But by the grace of God, I intend to build with precious stones, gold and silver.

What makes Christians as gold, silver and precious stones? What is precious in God’s eyes? It is our faith that is precious! We read in 1 Peter 1:7, “your faith is more precious even than gold.” A person who is filled with faith has that which is precious as gold. The unregenerate man has no faith. He may call himself a “Christian,” and go to church every Sunday, but he has no faith. This kind of person is simply wood, hay and straw. I don’t want to build a church like this.

There are many churches which are simply community centers. What they have is a social gathering where everyone comes to meet their friends. It is not Christianity. These people go to church, and immediately after the service, they rush out to eat “dim sum” because someone else may beat you to the restaurant table, so that you won’t have a seat and have to wait standing. Why did they go to church in the first place, when they are in such a hurry to eat “dim sum”? What did they go to church for? To see their friends, and if they did not go, their church friends would say, “Where have you been? What happened to you? Are you not well?” You have to prove that you are well, your business is prospering, you haven’t gone bankrupt yet, and so you must show your face in church.

I have no objection to social centers. It’s very good to have social centers, but the church is not meant to be one. If we do that, we build a church that is carnal, that is spiritually dead, like the Laodicea Church, “You have a name for being alive but you are dead” (Rev. 3:1). That is what has happened to many churches; they are wood, hay and straw. If you are spiritually dead, you are just a carnal man.

 

Being spiritual is: By faith be like Christ, who is most precious to you

This is what Paul is concerned about for the Corinthians, and that is why right at the beginning, in 1 Corinthians 3:1, he says to them, “But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men but as men of the flesh.” He is warning the Corinthians saying, “You might just be wood, hay and straw, and I will end up building the church of God with people of the likes of you. I’m determined not to build with that. I want quality in the church. I’m aiming to build spiritual men in the church, but what are you?”

Paul speaks the truth to them directly and bluntly: “You are fleshly people, natural, unregenerate men.” He tells them exactly what he thinks of them. He says, “I can’t address you as spiritual when you are men of the flesh. I grant you that you may be some sort of “Christian,” but you are right now at the baby stage and you’d best grow up in Christ, otherwise you’re not ever going to make it!” (cf. 1 Cor. 3:1).

Then he changes the picture. He says, “I’m building the church of God, and I have no intention of building with wood, hay and straw. I want you all to become gold, silver and precious stones. And how are you going to change from wood, hay and straw to gold, silver and precious stones? Through faith! There is only one thing that is precious to Paul and that is Christ, as he says in Philippians 3:8, “I have lost everything in this world and I count it as rubbish because Christ is most precious to me.” That means to say, the more we become like Christ through faith, the more we are becoming like gold, silver and precious stones.

Paul has one mission, one goal: to conform every Christian to the image of Christ. He says in Colossians 1:28 that he intends “to present every man mature in Christ before God.” He doesn’t want to have a church full of spiritual babies. He says, “It’s fair enough that there has to be the baby stage, but don’t stay there. You must pass on from being wood, hay and straw into the image of Christ which is most precious.

Doesn’t the meaning of 1 Corinthians 3:10-17 become absolutely clear now? We are building God’s church with people, and the people are being built up to become mature in Christ. Peter says, “You are the living stones which constitute the temple of God” (cf. 1Pet. 2:5). We build with people, but the quality of the people is what is impor­tant. He doesn’t just say, “You are stones,” but “You are the living stones.” Why are you precious? Because you have God’s life in you. Oh! That is wonderful!

I also aim to build God’s church with gold and silver and precious stones. I don’t want a church full of wood, hay and straw. There are churches with hundreds of people in them, but I’m not going to be proud of a church that has hundreds of people if we only have wood, hay and straw. Gold, silver and precious stones are by definition far rarer, aren’t they? Would you build a huge wooden house? Is it more glorifying to God than a smaller temple of God that is full of gold, silver and precious stones? What do gold, silver and precious stones do? They reflect light, don’t they? They are always beautiful and shiny. Oh, to see a church that is beautiful for God, that reflects the light of God, that is glorifying to God! What’s the use of having a church full of wood, hay and straw? They don’t reflect glory to God.

 

False teaching is: God will not judge Christians

We press on to the next point. In 1 Corinthians 3:13 we see the word, “day.”

Each of us is engaged in building up the church of God, and what kind of work it is will be revealed on “that Day.” What is “the Day”? It is simply a well-known expression in the Bible for the Day of Judgment. That is why “the Day,” is printed with a capital letter “D.” There are innumerable references of “the Day” for example, Matthew 7:22, Romans 2:5, 1 Corinthians 1:8, 2 Corinthians 1:14. The word “fire” is a picture for judgment in the Bible, as in Matthew 3:12, 7:19; 1 Corinthians 3:13,15; Jude 7 and so on. So much of the teaching in the churches today has to be corrected. This situation has arisen because we don’t have expositors to open the Word of God.

There is a saying in the church today, that the Christians will not be judged by God, only the non-Christians will be. I don’t understand how we can make statements like this when the Bible stands before us. I just don’t understand it. A cardinal article of the evangelical church is: “We believe the Bible to be the Word of God,” and yet what is taught is a flat contradiction of God’s Word. Where does the Bible say that a Christian will not be judged? Certainly, we will be judged! This passage already tells us that, because judgment is according to works. Every Christian’s work will be judged by fire.

We have seen that these materials wood, hay, straw, gold, silver and precious stones refer to people, so when these materials are burned up, what is burned up? People will be burned up! These people who called themselves “Christians” in the churches will be burned up. Doesn’t your heart pain you? It pains me. That is why I preach with the passion that I preach. I don’t want to see anyone being burned up, least of all, those people who think themselves to be “Christians,” but are not. And on the Day of Judgment, the Lord Jesus will say to them, “I don’t know who you are, depart from me!” (Mt. 7:21). I don’t want to see that happen to anyone. Why do you want to remain as wood, hay and straw and be burned up at the Judgment? Christians will face the Judgment like everyone else!

 

The Christian worker must also go through the Judgment

What about the Christian worker? The Christian worker also has to go through the Judgment like everyone else, me, you, and also Paul. This is what Paul says in the plainest words. I don’t see how anyone can controvert those words which don’t even require explanation. In 2 Corinthians 5:10, Paul says,

There is a view which says Christians will not be judged; they will only receive reward at the Judgment. Don’t be fooled by this kind of un-Scriptural teaching! We are all going to be judged. Every Christian will be judged. Paul says: “We must all appear before the Judgment seat of Christ.” And in that very context, he is speaking to Christians, that each may not just be rewarded for good but also for evil, “according to what he has done in the body.”

He repeats exactly the same point in Romans 14:10, just as specifically:

In the light of these verses, I am utterly unable to understand how we get this kind of false teaching in the churches. Isn’t that plain enough? Does that require explanation? Or are we blind when we come to the Word of God? It’s a dreadful situation today, that we find teaching flatly contradicting the Word of God!

The meaning is plain enough: The materials that we work with to build the church are people. I don’t want to see anyone in this church being consumed by the fire of God’s Judgment. That is why I preach as I do, I plead with you as I do. I would to God that each one of you be gold and silver and precious stones. Don’t be destroyed in the Judgment of God!

 

Paul did not labor to save himself

When your work, the people in the church you built up are des­troyed, you’ll suffer for the great loss. It’s no consolation to Paul that he would be saved. After all, we did not labor to save ourselves, we labored to save others.

I share exactly the same feeling with Paul. To me, it’s no consolation if my work is burned up, but I will still be saved. I have given up my life for the building of the church, and my whole life was wasted! If I build with wood, hay and straw, and my work is destroyed, I will weep on that Day. I have nothing to rejoice about. If I have given my life, my profession, my future to build God’s church, I don’t intend to build with wood, hay and straw. It’s no consolation that I myself will be saved, because if all I want to save is myself, I would not be doing what I am doing now.

Paul would not be consoled either. Paul says, “Why have we endured all these things? I have been beaten, mocked, starved, shipwrecked, lashed on the back.” In the end, he laid down his life for Christ as well. What did he do all this for? To build God’s church. If the church he built is burned up in the end, do you think Paul is consoled? Do you think that is a joy to him? The only person this scenario could bring joy to is an unregenerate man. No one who loves God’s church would have joy at all if he alone got saved. What is the joy?

Paul is very concerned about this and he doesn’t say it only in this passage. He says again and again, that his great fear is lest he should have labored in vain. In Galatians 2:2 he says, “lest I should have run in vain.” In other words, he is saying, “Do you think I have lost everything to run this race, that I should end up with nothing?”

He says this again in Philippians 2:16, where he tells the Philippians,

Paul wants the Philippian Christians to hold on to life, because if they were lost, he says, “I would have run for nothing, I would have worked for nothing. I would have suffered for nothing. I would have thrown away my life and career for nothing.”

At the end, Paul was beheaded for Christ by the Roman sword. Do you think he wanted to do all that for nothing? Consider carefully what he said: “I may be saved after having built up the church. If I build with gold and silver, I have a reward. But if what I built is burned up, I have run for nothing.”

He says the same thing in 1 Thessalonians 3:5. He constantly shows how close this concern is to his heart: lest his work should be destroyed. He said to the Corinthian Church, then to the Philippian Church, and now to the Thessalonian Church, all churches which he had helped to build:

Paul says to the Thessalonians, “If Satan tempted you, and your faith collapsed, and you turned away from God, then I would have labored in vain. All my efforts have gone down the drain.” Do you see how this theme recurs constantly in Paul? He is very concerned that his work should not be in vain. And my concern is the same for my work.

 

Summary

What have we learned from this discussion? In Matthew 12:30, the Lord Jesus is speaking to every Christian: “He who does not gather with me scatters.” We either gather with Christ on the battlefield or we scatter. What do we gather? We gather the church, God’s people.

When we turned to 1 Corinthians 3:10-17, we saw that it also has to do with the building of the church, just as Matthew 12:30 has to do with the gathering of the church, the gathering of God’s people.

The main theme in this passage is the concern with God’s workers. Two names keep coming through the whole chapter, “Paul and Apollos.” In verse 22, there is a reference to Peter (Cephas) as well, who seems to have come by Corinth at some time, and helped to build that church. So we find that this whole concern is with God’s workers engaged in building up the church. Every one of us is engaged, and must be engaged in building God’s church, if we are true Christians. That is why Paul widens the scope, opening his con­cern to any Christian by saying, “if anyone,” although he is speaking to the Corinthian Christians here.

We saw that in building the church, we are building up people; and if we build people, we must make sure that they grow in grace. Don’t be content that someone makes a decision for Christ. The churches sit back and are content with that. I’m horrified with this. We must go on from there to build them up into the fullness of maturity in Christ, until they show forth his glory, beauty and power, until they become like gold, silver and precious stones, to be pleasing to God.

In the Day of Judgment, our work will be tested. If we are dedicated, committed Christians, who have worked to build up God’s church in one way or another, and if our work survives—that is, the people that we have brought to Christ and built up in Christ stand the test and are saved—we will receive a reward. If they don’t stand the test, they will be destroyed, and we will suffer. This word “stand the test” is a very key phrase in Paul’s teaching as well. To stand the test or not to stand the test, to qualify or not to qualify, is very much a concern of Paul’s.

Christians must have this understanding that, we are called not just to believe in Christ but to work with him, to gather God’s sheep and build God’s church. And Paul wants to tell us that in order to be acceptable to God, the spiritual quality of our service is what matters. Let us take this to heart.

I would like to ask you the question again: What kind of Christian are you? What kind of material are you? Are you still wood, hay or straw? Or are you by God’s grace and through faith, becoming gold, silver and precious stones? And are you working to build others up in the faith? Are you building God’s church? You are an element in God’s church, but you are also called to build others into the church of God.

The concern of 1 Corinthians 3 is: What material do you build into the church of God, not what material you are. Even so, we must also ask ourselves, “What kind of material am I?”. This is the test of whether we are a true Christian, whether we are working together with Christ to gather God’s people, to build God’s church. Or else we would be scattering.