Saved But Then Burned

When I was eleven years old I had my first experience with a burn victim; my brother, who is seven years older than me.  The year was 1986.  It was a Saturday in the middle of winter.  My mother was at work, leaving my older brother, Walter, and me home alone.  I awoke that morning to the realization that the house was bitterly cold.  I immediately called my mom at work and she instructed me to check the pilot light in our gas furnace.

For anyone not familiar with this type of heating system, obviously it runs on natural gas.  However, the gas cannot ignite on its own to produce heat.  It requires a smaller pilot flame, also called a pilot light, which is designed to burn continuously, to act as an ignition source.  Because of this design, if the pilot light goes out it renders the furnace inoperable until the pilot is relit.  Thus by checking the pilot light I was able to confirm that our furnace was not working.

My mother told me to relight the pilot in order to start the furnace.  This involved removing a cover plate, lighting a match, and reaching inside the machine to ignite the small amount of gas flowing out of the pilot tube.  It is not unlike starting a gas grill which lacks an electric ignition switch.  Relighting the pilot on a gas furnace is a fairly routine procedure.  But I was young and fearful of reaching my hand inside this monstrous beast of a machine in the corner of our kitchen.  So mom told me to wake my brother up so that he could get the furnace started.

Grumbling and complaining, probably still groggy from sleep, yet complying with the request, Walter came into the kitchen with a box of matches.  He lit one and reached into the furnace.  What neither of us realized was that more gas had pumped into the enclosed space than expected.  I don’t know if this was due to a mechanical defect or simply because the flame had been out longer than we thought, thus failing to burn off the excess gas and allowing it to accumulate.  Plus, Walter’s nose was stopped up from a cold and I was too young to know any better.  Either way, when he reached into the furnace the surplus gas ignited and flashed back onto his arm, chest, and face.

I don’t remember many more details of the next several days.  But two things will always stay with me.  One is a hazy memory of Walter standing in the middle of our kitchen, hopping from one foot to another and yelling “It burns, it burns!”  The other is at the hospital.  In order to clean the affected areas, the medical personnel had Walter sit down in a tub of sterilized water.  It would have been only mildly heated to a normally comfortable temperature.  But Walter has told me that on the affected areas it felt like the water was boiling.  So my memory is of him screaming as he was lowered into the tub.

I say all of that to make a point.  And this is deep truth right here.  Immeasurable wisdom is about to drop.  Are you ready for it?  Here it is.  Fire…is hot.  Also, burns…hurt.  As I remove my tongue from my cheek, consider why I would spend so much effort to convince you of something that any first grader could tell you.  The danger of fire and burns is a reality that most of us probably learned before we could even talk.  Perhaps we placed a hand on a hot stove.  Maybe our leg inadvertently brushed up against a running motorcycle engine.  No matter the circumstances, our body immediately communicates to our brain that there is a problem, and this is a lesson we don’t easily forget.  Our sense of touch and nervous system cooperate together to make us instinctively sensitive to the danger of too much heat.

But what we must understand is that when it comes to spiritual matters we have a terrible handicap.  We begin our spiritual lives, just as we began our physical lives, as newborns.  Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 of his need to be born again.  Paul, in this very letter we will be dealing with today, characterizes new Christians as infants only capable of processing milk rather than solid food.  We all, without exception, began this way.  But the problem is that we often either don’t realize it or take it seriously enough.  We tend to think of ourselves as our own masters, fully sufficient and not in need of the assistance normally associated with children.  This tendency is only exacerbated if we came to Christ as an adult.  The weight of years, the burden of worldly responsibilities, and the natural process of maturing all combine to build in us an assumption of our own ability to care for ourselves and our lack of need to depend on others.

To make matters worse, we are physically born with a complete insensitivity to sin.  In Psalm 51 David said of his own conception “I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.”  It’s not that we don’t learn the difference between right and wrong as children.  Most or all of us had parents that worked to instill these concepts within us.  But those principles are typically built upon a foundation of cultural acceptability and the rule of law in our country of birth.  The issue with sin is not the violation of man’s laws, but rather the contradiction of God’s holy character.  And it is this that we are by nature incapable of appreciating or even acknowledging.  Paul, in his letter to the church at Rome, states it very bluntly in chapter 8 and verse 7: For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.

A glorious truth of Scripture is that God has set us free from this terrible condition of animosity toward Him.  He has caused us to be born again to a living hope, given newness of spiritual life, and promised an eternal inheritance that will never fade away or become corrupted.  However, God in His wisdom has designed our Christian lives such that although we have been given the power to have victory over our sin we still exist in bodies of sin and death.  These bodies, or our flesh as Scripture calls it, are our ever present enemies.  The sinful tendencies in our members wage continual war against the righteous desires in our mind.  And so, quite often we fail to recognize the danger of spiritual fires and the requisite burns that come from exposure to them.

In addition, time has a way of dulling our spiritual senses.  The days turn to weeks which turn to months and then years of our walk with the Lord.  And our tendency is to become complacent.  We become accustomed to our personal flirtation with temptation and sin.  And when we are confronted with the dangers inherent in our evil we often do not see the warning signs until it is too late and we have been singed.  We are like people with a Congenital Insensitivity to Pain.  This is a rare condition in which the patient is incapable of feeling pain.  Therefore, if they are not extremely careful they may find themselves in mortal danger from injury their body did not warn them of ahead of time.  Only in our case, it is a Congenital Insensitivity to spiritual Pain.

Into this state of affairs steps our arch enemy, Satan.  He is exceedingly skilled at convincing us there is nothing wrong with our Christian testimony, no danger to our souls around the corner, no spiritual pain being experienced, and no damage being done to our relationship with Christ.  I am quite sure that our enemy, the great deceiver and slanderer, is delighted with the state of affairs in America today where so many profess the name of Christ and believe themselves to be born again when their pattern of life indicates exactly the opposite and is in complete violation of Scripture such as 1 John 2:6, which says: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

This is exactly the situation Paul is confronting in our text today.  He was writing to the church at Corinth.  If ever there was a case of a classic problem child, the Corinthian church was it.  This was a church that Paul had personally founded.  Acts chapter 18 tells us that he first met Aquila and Priscilla, two of his lifelong friends and ministry partners, here.  He spent a year and a half personally mentoring and building up the Corinthian church.  Silas and Timothy both ministered alongside him during this time.  Paul visited the believers in Corinth at least two more times, because he references a third visit in 2 Corinthians 13:1.  In addition to all of this, the church at Corinth benefited from the teaching and ministering of another great 1^st century Christian hero; Apollos.  He spent time in Corinth after Paul had left and apparently did much to strengthen the church.  As if that was not enough, this church had two letters personally written to them from Paul, with another two referenced in the New Testament that are lost to history. 

To put it mildly, this group of Christians had an all-star cast of leaders working with them for the first several years of their existence.  Imagine if you had John Macarthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper, David Platt, Tim Keller, and Matt Chandler all contributing personally and directly to the formation and growth of your church, sometimes as a group and sometimes individually.  You may not recognize some or all of those names.  But in the modern reformed Christian community they are some of the best and brightest minds the Lord has gifted us with.  In every way, shape, and form the church at Corinth had the best of the best of Christian doctrine and instruction.

Yet almost from the beginning, Paul experienced difficulty in Corinth.  It began with a legal assault from the unbelieving Jews in the city during his first stay.  They accused him of violating the Law of God with his teaching.  Of course the Romans had no interest in Jewish squabbles over their laws, so the case was thrown out and Paul was allowed to leave.  Yet it seems that soon after departing the city he must have begun to hear bad reports about the church he had founded.  He addresses these disturbing reports in this first letter he wrote to them.  And it is a real laundry list of problems, the likes of which most of us have probably never experienced in a church.

In chapter one Paul speaks of intra-church factionalism.  Apparently some of the people wanted to follow Paul.  Others wanted to emulate Apollos.  Still others preferred Peter’s style.  And yet a fourth group insisted on Christ alone.  Paul is scathing in his rebuke of this type of behavior.  He makes it clear that it is utterly ridiculous, because it is Christ alone we follow.  In chapter five the Apostle speaks of an incestuous relationship between a man and his father’s wife.  And if you can believe it the church was tolerating this sexual immorality!  Chapter six tells of believers actually taking each other to secular courts over disputes.  In chapter nine Paul has to defend his own Apostolic authority from the seditious insubordination of this church.  These people couldn’t even get the Lord’s supper right.  In chapter eleven Paul has to tell them, like little children, to be considerate of others and not to glut themselves on food and drink while others go without.  Apparently the Corinthians were even disorderly and chaotic in their worship.  Because in chapter fourteen Paul lays out for them the correct form of an orderly worship that glorifies God properly.

One has to wonder how this church was even still in existence.  They seem to have had extreme difficulty divorcing themselves from the pagan culture they lived in.  Corinth in the first century was a hotbed of immorality and licentiousness.  The city was famous for its temple to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love.  Her priestesses were essentially cult prostitutes.  At a certain time, each day they would go down into the city to offer their services to whoever wished to “worship” the goddess.  Corinth was also a city of great trade because it sat in a prominent position on the Isthmus of Corinth, a narrow strip of land which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the rest of the mainland of Greece.  In order to avoid traveling for 250 miles out of their way to circumnavigate the Greek mainland, ship captains would often have their vessels hauled over land on the isthmus.  Because of this the city of Corinth was usually filled with travelers itching to engage in commerce.  As you know, commerce leads to money and money often leads to an unrighteousness obsession with worldly wealth and power.

So in many ways it appears that the believers in Corinth were unwilling or unable to walk away from the world they lived in.  In the metaphor of the salt of the earth that Jesus gave in Matthew chapter 5, the Corinthians had lost both their preservative qualities as well as their ability to enhance taste.  Perhaps we come to this book with a sense of superiority.  Maybe we look at the list of terribly heinous acts this church was involved in and think to ourselves that we are better off than them because we have never had some or all of those things occur in our church.

If those types of thoughts threaten to intrude into your mind, I caution you to be wary.  Because we live in a country where nominal Christianity, or Christianity in name only, is institutionalized.  We live in a day when syncretism, or the fusion of all religions into one, is at a height not seen since the glory days of the Roman Empire.  We live in a Christian culture that seems to be incapable of divorcing itself from the opulent secular culture around it that is completely predicated upon self-gratification.  And as already stated, we live in bodies of sin and death and we face a supernatural enemy of extreme cunning and intelligence that would be all too happy to see us assume an air of haughtiness and self-righteousness just like the Pharisee in Luke chapter 18 who sanctimoniously thanked God that he was better than other men.

So as we finally come to 1^st Corinthians chapter 3, verses 10 to 15, let us not enter into our contemplation with the mistaken belief that just because this is a portion of a letter written almost 2,000 years ago to a group of people far removed from us both culturally and chronologically, that it has diminished value to our lives right now.  What Paul is going to present to us here is a message first of warning, then potentially of rebuke.  It is a warning against complacency and apathy.  And it is a stinging rebuke if those qualities are found to exist within us.  And it is just as applicable to us today as it was to the Corinthians in the 1^st century. 

Let us read the passage: 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 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, wood, hay, 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 has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

What we have here is one of the examples of the classic New Testament metaphor of building construction which represents the church.  Both Paul (Ephesians 2:19-20: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone) and Peter (1 Peter 2:6: For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”) capitalize on this stirring imagery that was first seen in the Isaiah 28:16 passage that Peter quotes directly.

And so here in 1 Corinthians Paul draws upon this familiar imagery.  But he goes into a level of depth with the illustration that we don’t see in the other Scriptures I mentioned.  First he describes himself as the builder who laid the foundation of the building that is the church.  The word in Greek is “architekton”.  You can hear the similarity with our modern English architect.  But the Greek word goes a bit deeper than our modern equivalent because it doesn’t just refer to the designer of a building.  It means literally the one responsible for both the planning of a construction project as well as the implementation of said project.  The superstructure will stand or fall based on the quality of the “architekton’s” work.  So Paul is describing himself as both the designer and the builder of the church at Corinth.

Lest we think Paul is boasting in himself here, we must concede that the context clearly portrays him in a different light.  He writes “according to the grace of God given to me”.  In chapter 2, verses 1-4 he describes his initial encounter with the Corinthians as being devoid of “lofty speech or wisdom”.  Rather Paul operated with demonstrations of the Holy Spirit and the power of God.  Just a few verses prior to our passage, in 5-7, he clarifies that both he and Apollos are nothing.  In chapter 15, verse 8 the Apostle is even more vivid and graphic.  He describes himself as one untimely born.  The Greek word literally means an abortion or a premature birth.  Paul’s humility, in emulation of Christ’s own, is of such an authentic nature that he considers himself a Christian who doesn’t even deserve to be alive in Christ.  He places all of the responsibility for whatever power, whatever ministry, whatever gospel, whatever wisdom, whatever skills are within him solely at the feet of God, without whom Paul knows he would be nothing.

What is particularly astonishing about this is the fact that of all people we might expect Paul to have his fair share of pride in his accomplishments.  Author of almost 25% of the New Testament.  Founder of at least 14 churches.  Mentor of innumerable disciples, both famous and unknown.  Frequent partaker in the sufferings of Christ.  Defender of Christianity before magistrates, governors, pro-consuls, kings, and even emperors.  Worker of wonders, signs, and miracles.  Who but Jesus Himself has left a legacy as storied as Paul the Apostle.  Yet he considered himself as nothing.  He considered himself an illegitimate child.  This is a level of penitence that most of us, we must admit, have never come close to.  Paul’s example here is why I exhort each one now, including myself, to cast away any semblance of pride as we consider his words.  Let us lay aside all assumptions of self-righteousness.  Let us cast our eyes inward with humility and honesty and question whether his words here to the Corinthians convict us of our own sin today.

It is exceedingly fitting and proper that we do this.  Because contextually, Paul is speaking specifically to the Corinthians about the actual church he founded in their city in Acts 18.  But timelessly, his point is directly applicable to every authentic Christian church today in 2017.  How is this so?  And why should we pay attention or be careful as to how we build the church upon the foundation of people’s efforts that have come before us? 

Taking my church, Daniels Bible Church as an example, our pastor for 40 years was a man by the name of Don Pfleger.  He worked tirelessly for decades to pour the wisdom and knowledge of Christ into people.  In doing so he left us a rich legacy of authentic biblical Christianity.  Is it because of men like Pastor Pfleger that we find correlation with what Paul is communicating to the Corinthians?  Is he our “Paul”, so to speak?  Well, it is true that the work he accomplished has left us a solid foundation to build upon.  And that is a good motivation to be sure, but it is insufficient for this text. 

You see, Paul is, in a broader sense, speaking to every Christian who has ever or will ever live.  He is not limiting his exhortation to only the Corinthian church.  He is expanding and broadening this commission to we here in 21^st century America.  In other words, Paul’s building of a foundation for the church at Corinth is literally and specifically relevant to Daniels Bible Church and every other church.  Our mandate to continue to build this church is not merely predicated upon the ministry of Don Pfleger or men like him, or even upon the history of this church from 1888 onwards.  No, our mission proceeds in an unbroken chain all the way down through the ages from the 1^st century and the Apostles themselves. 

I get this from verse 11.  Jesus Christ is the foundation of the universal Christian church.  He is whom the Apostles built their ministry upon throughout the 1^st century Mediterranean world.  Those churches they planted and disciples they mentored begat a new spiritual generation which begat another one after that.  And so on all the way down to the present day.  Thus the foundation of every church today is the same as the foundation of the church in Corinth.  Is what we do here of supreme importance?  You had better believe it is.

Not only that, but consider that simply by having 1^st and 2^nd Corinthians in our Bibles we are in a sense partners with our first century brothers and sisters with no dilution by the passage of time.  Because we have such unprecedented access to the Apostolic writings of Scripture, our foundation is literally one step removed from the original foundation.  Although 20 centuries separate us from the Corinthians, it might as well be only a single generation, due to the preservation of the teaching that was delivered directly to them by Paul.

That is why Paul stresses the need to carefully consider, or pay attention, to the work that we do to build up the body of Christ; because every single authentic Christian church is quite literally Christ’s own, regardless of where it falls in history.  And that is why we have an obligation to take our responsibilities, our fellowship, our worship, our services, our paperwork, our cleaning, our ministries with the utmost seriousness. 

Perhaps a few examples may help...

• Are you cruising Facebook in the middle of church while pretending to be using a Bible app?  Jesus taught us to cut off an offending hand or gouge out an offending eyeball.  The equivalent analogy would be to throw the phone in the trash, or at least leave it at home and bring a printed Bible to church.  Flee from the temptation, don’t flirt with it.  
• Are you skipping Sunday School or Wednesday because it just doesn’t fit into your schedule?  Re-arrange your schedule around church.  What is going to last into eternity; the mundane physical activities you pursue today or the spiritual seed you sew in ministry?  
• Do you think nothing of blowing off your responsibilities in children’s church for the sake of other interests?  Would you take the same casual attitude with your job or your biological family?  
• Do you obsess over the fact that the praise team just missed a beat on one of the songs, or a slide was slow to get onscreen, or the person in the pulpit just stumbled over his words as he reads?  I’m not talking about offering constructive criticism to help someone improve their ministry.  I’m referring to an unrighteously obsessive and critical spirit.  If that describes you then I have a question.  Are you guilty of straining out gnats and swallowing camels in the process (Matt. 23:23-24) by fixating upon minor details and missing what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach you each week?

In opposition to these examples and many others I could give, Paul teaches us to examine the work we are doing in the church.  And then he tells us why, beginning in verse 12.  He does this through metaphor.  It begins with a list of materials each of us might use to build with: gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw.  I think a question arises immediately. 

Namely, why the combination of these elements?  What has gold, silver, and gems to do with lumber, grass, and wheat?  Notice the sharp contrast between the two halves of the list.  The first three components seem to belong together.  The last three also have similarities.  But the two halves have very little in common with each other. 

Gold, silver, and gems are of course quite valuable.  They are precious to men.  And they are exceedingly rare.  Wars have been fought over them.  Thieves have plied their trade in pursuit of them.  And common people everywhere have lusted after them.  On the other hand, wood, hay, and straw are common, base, things.  What is more plentiful than trees to provide wood and grass to provide hay and straw?  Because of their abundance very little value is ascribed to them.

Beyond that, there is another manner in which these two groups are dissimilar; their durability, or more specifically, how they respond to high temperature.  Gold and silver are what is known as noble metals.  This is opposed to base metals such as copper, tin, or zinc.  Ore that is found in the earth many times has multiple metals lumped together.  Men use the process of metallurgy, specifically refining, to separate the noble from the base metals by exposing them to extreme temperatures which causes the base elements to oxidize, or react chemically, and separate from the noble elements, forming a slag or other compound.  The desired noble or precious metals, however, do not oxidize.  They remain chemically unaffected by the heat.  To be sure, they will melt given a high enough temperature.  But their chemical structure is impervious to the heat.

Gems, unlike noble metals, do react to heat.  However, the application of extreme temperatures to a precious stone merely continues the geological process that caused the creation of the stone in the first place.  As the gem is heated, various impurities within reform themselves, changing the color of the stone.  For example, a ruby is typically heated almost to its melting point, which allows the aluminum oxide in the stone to reform into a new crystal structure.  This allows the chromium in the stone to combine with different atoms, allowing for a better red hue.  And this is the point of significance for us today.  The heat treatment of a precious gem actually increases its value, rather than decreases it.  In fact, almost every stone sold in jewelry stores has been heat treated to some extent.

In sharp contrast, what happens to wood, hay, and straw when they are exposed to high temperatures?  Obviously, they ignite, burn, and are reduced until all that remains of the original material is ashes, which often are scattered and dissipate in the wind.

This is the point Paul is making with his metaphorical list of building materials.  Gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw represent time, effort, ministries, disciple-making, preaching, teaching, counseling, administration, building upkeep, musical worship, and so on.  In this context, some Christians will build on the foundation of Christ that was laid by the Apostles and nurtured by countless generations of believers before them with durable, valuable, and rare materials.  Other Christians will just throw down whatever common components they can lay their hands on, with very little effort or regard for the heritage that has been handed down to them.  And in verse 13 Paul reveals what will happen to the people responsible for these various levels of effort and consideration.

He says that the quality of the work done will become obvious to everyone because fire will be applied to it so as to test the work.  I believe the metallurgical impact of fire upon Paul’s list of materials that I mentioned earlier is exactly what he had in mind.  He would have had no knowledge of germs at this point in history.  He would not have understood the cleansing power of heat as it relates to bacteria.  But the refining of metals and processing of gems as well as the building of fires with common combustible materials would have been very well known to him.  Paul was an educated man.  Metallurgical principles have been understood by humans since at least five thousand B.C.  In fact, such processes are even referenced directly in Scripture.  Genesis 4:22 tells us of: Tubal-Cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron.  So Paul would have known that fire purifies gold by causing the impure metals within it to fall away.  Peter, his associate, was well aware of this also.  In 1 Peter 1:7 he briefly references the process of gold refining as he compares and contrasts it with the faith of a Christian: so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 

Let me hold that point for just a moment in order to ask a pertinent question.  Namely, who brings this fire?  Is it Satan and the evil world systems he is in control of?  Will it be the Russians, or ISIS, or the terrible liberals who will assault the structure of the church?  Well, no.  It is God Himself who causes the fire that tests the quality of our work.  Still in verse 13, we read that “the day” will show the evidence of each man’s work.  What does this refer to? 

Some of your Bible translations render the word “day” in verse 13 with a capital letter.  The reason is that some scholars agree it is probably a reference to “The Day of the Lord”.  This is a Biblical event referenced in both the Old and New Testaments.  One example is Revelation 16:14: For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.  So what exactly is this great day of the Lord?  It is the period of time, perhaps a single earth day, perhaps longer, when God will pour out His wrath over sin upon the earth.  It is a time of terrible fear and danger for those who remain opposed to God.  And it is a time of triumph and celebration for those who are aligned with Him.

Even if what Paul had in mind is merely daytime, to be contrasted with nighttime, there is still a quantifiable element of God at work in this process.  The Bible refers to God as light (e.g. 1 John 1:5) and points out that evildoers hate the light because it exposes their deeds (John 3:20).  As light only comes from day rather than night the connection is clear.

The point for us is that the day referred to by Paul is unquestionably associated with God.  He will bring it about.  He will order its coming and going.  He will select the agenda that is to be fulfilled on the day, whether it is the great Day of the Lord or simply a common day.  So, following this line of reasoning, it seems clear that Paul is referencing the future reality that God will be the One to test our work. 

Continuing the metaphor, when the fire comes the gold and silver will stand impervious to the flames.  Even if sufficient heat is applied their core structure will remain intact and available for re-formation.  The gems will actually increase in value as they stand against the inferno.  But the wood, hay, and straw will be utterly consumed in the conflagration.

Drawing his word picture to a close in verses 14 and 15, Paul gives us the ultimate impact such a day of testing will have upon those tested.  The Christian whose work remains after its trial by fire will be rewarded.  But the one whose efforts are burned away like chaff will likewise be burned.  Yet, he will still be saved from ultimate destruction.  I find this to be the particularly interesting and sobering point of this passage.  Typically, when the Bible speaks of people being burned it is in the context of judgment, damnation, and the fires of hell. 

Turning once again to Revelation, this time 14:10, and in reference to those being punished by God for their rebellion against Him, we read: he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of His anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.  An example of the Old Testament flavor of this same concept, and once again referencing the “Day of the Lord”, can be found in Malachi 4:1: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.  The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”

So with that context in mind, what is astonishing to me about 1 Corinthians 3:15 is that Paul specifies that the people being burned will be saved.  He is very clear about this.  The word in Greek that Paul uses in this verse is the same one he wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:18: For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  Again in 1:21: For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.  Paul uses this word 28 times in his New Testament writing, and without exception, every single time, he uses the word in a spiritual context in the sense of being rescued from God’s wrath and granted eternal life.

This means that the people Paul is talking to in verse 15 are not unbelievers.  They are not the wolves among the sheep that he spoke of to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20.  They are not the antichrists who depart from the church in apostasy that John writes of in 1 John 2:18-19.  They are true believers.  They are authentic disciples of Christ.  They have been granted an imperishable and undefiled inheritance in heaven.  They will never taste death.  Yet, in spite of this glorious future, Paul says they will suffer loss and be burned.  

Why?  Because they wasted their Christian lives by building on the foundation of Christ that we have been given with common garbage instead of choice valuables.  They failed to recognize their spiritual helplessness and congenital insensitivity to spiritual pain that I discussed earlier.  Their extended time of walking with the Lord lulled them into a sense of complacency.  And they began to take their purpose in life, as a witness of Christ, for granted.

Should we take the business of the local church seriously?  You had better believe we should.  Paul is issuing here a dire warning to us to be very careful with how we conduct ourselves and how we work at building up the church.  Church must be a priority for the Christian.  It must be of great importance for you.  God has specifically designed you with certain gifts and talents.  Perhaps they lie dormant because you have never opened yourself to growth.  Or maybe what you have to offer a local church sits dusty and unused on the spiritual shelf of your soul due to long disuse and disrepair.  Nevertheless, those qualities and talents are still there.  Something is missing from your local church when you fail to show up.  And something is equally missing when you do darken the churches doors but you are not there ready to minister, but rather to consume.

As I draw this to a close, there are three groups of people I want to address.  First, to the unbeliever.  My friend, I plead with you this very hour to recognize that this message of salvation, albeit via injury due to burning, is only for those who have placed their faith and trust in Christ.  They will be saved even if they suffer the effects of fire.  But for you, there is a far worse fate in store.  The earlier passage from Revelation 14 continues in verse 11: “And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”  You are, at this moment, standing upon the precipice of eternity.  You face the all-consuming wrath of the Creator of the universe, the One who shapes reality with His very thoughts.  And if you fail to turn away from your rebellion and turn to Him before you die you will face an eternity of torment the likes of which our finite minds cannot truly conceive.

Secondly, to the Christian sitting on their rear end and not pouring blood, sweat, and tears into the kingdom of God in a local church.  Perhaps you are foolish enough to think to yourself something like this.  Well, if this is the danger I have to look forward to if I put forth effort and then find out later that I didn’t do it right, then count me out.  After all, Paul is only warning people that have actually done some work, right?  Oh, foolish Christian.  First of all, if you can even seriously entertain such a notion then the Bible, not me, the unchanging word of God, calls into serious question your salvation in the first place. 

Just one chapter prior to our text for today, in 1^st Corinthians 2:14, Paul gives us a description of an unbeliever: The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.  If you are someone who claims to be a Christian, yet you are apathetic and disinterested in the work of the local church, and you can sit here reading this and not be convicted and spurred to repentance and freshly invigorated to redouble your efforts in ministry, then odds are you are not a Christian in the first place.

Not only that, but do you not realize that Paul in this passage is operating under the assumption that everyone is involved in the work.  He doesn’t bother to address what happens to those who are working because in Paul’s mind every Christian is a laborer and worker in the kingdom of God.  No matter their talents and giftedness, they have something to contribute to the church and Paul assumes they are doing it.

Finally, to the Christian working their hearts out in building up the church.  As I pointed out at the beginning of this message; fire hurts.  You will not enjoy it.  It is to be avoided at all costs.  Recognize your handicap when it comes to recognizing spiritual danger.  If you are not feeding yourself a steady diet of the word of God, if you are instead gorging on the programmed media and entertainment of a world system that hates and suppresses the truth of God, then you are guaranteed to be spectacularly oblivious to the danger that Paul is speaking of.

Furthermore, to those authentic Christians who right now are sober minded and afraid of committing the error of poor workmanship in the body of Christ.  Simply put, what do you do?  How do you ensure you are building properly with materials that will stand the test of God’s cleansing fire?  An exhaustive answer to that question is really beyond the scope of this message.  But I will offer a starting point for you.

As I sat and considered the impact of Paul’s words on my own life and efforts in building up the church, I noticed something three verses later, in 1 Corinthians 3:18-22: Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that 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 Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

I would suggest that the first thing we do is to guard against our own wisdom.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have shot my mouth off about something, convinced and assured of the rightness and justice of my statement, only to be convicted and driven to my knees later by the point that Paul makes here.  The wisdom of man, the pride of the creature, the arrogance of the sinner, is a surefire and guaranteed path to either outright destruction in hell or the burn ward of heaven.  Commit to yourself right now, as I am doing, that you refuse to be wise in your own eyes.  Set your will to fear God and turn away from evil.  Get on your knees, cling to the Holy Spirit, and beg for help in turning away from the corruption that contaminates these bodies of sin and death. 

And may God be praised and glorified by the work that we do using gold, silver, and precious gems.  To Him be glory and honor and power forevermore.