1 Corinthians 3:1-17 | Episode #981

July 14, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

1 Corinthians 3:1-17

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope.

Applying God's word to your daily life.

As we finish Faithful Finance, we want to produce our winter Bible study done at Lake Community Church on First Corinthians.

It'll be a fairly long Bible study.

We will break it up into different parts,

and so you will get a really good, really fast study through the book of First Corinthians before we move on to the book of Joshua,

chapter three.

He is going to say something,

something to them that should hurt their feelings,

okay?

Because they think themselves wise, they think themselves rich, they think. They think themselves powerful.

And he is. And by the way, they think themselves really, really good at the. At the gifts of the Spirit, too. And we're going to get into that.

But.

But they. They have the foolishness of the world in their hearts and they live by the flesh. And that's what he says.

And I brethren, notice he's saying he's not talking about lost people.

He calls them brethren could not speak to you as a spiritual people,

but as to carnal,

as to babes in Christ,

what he's saying is, I couldn't speak to you about spiritual things because you were fleshly.

You were heavily in your flesh.

He said, I felt you, I fled you with. I fed you with milk and not with solid food,

for until now you were not able to receive it.

And even now you are still not able.

And I would say that is true of the American church as much as it's true of the Corinthian church.

They do not understand spiritual things because they. They operate in the flesh.

For when one says, I'm of Paul and another I'm of Paulus,

are you not carnal?

What are they saying? They're dependent on fleshly beings.

They're dependent on human beings. And so when I say to you, don't get into a spiritual argument with somebody and say, well, Pastor Chad says,

because you already lost the argument.

You've said, I'm spiritually immature. And I don't get it.

Who then is Paul and who is Apollos?

Notice but ministers through who you believe,

as the Lord gave to each one. What he's saying is, I'm just a minister of the Gospel.

I'm just a servant of Christ,

and God used me to relate to you spiritual truths. But those spiritual truths were discerned by the Holy Spirit.

I'm just the vessel,

and he's explaining that to them.

And by the way, for those of you who are trying to figure out whether you ought to do Spiritual things operate in spiritual matters. Begin to serve God.

You don't have to be perfect.

You're just a vessel.

And you're going to be a more complete vessel when you start functioning as you are made to function.

You're going to be a more complete vessel when you start doing the things that God has called you to do.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

What he means, I served. Apollo served,

but God did the work.

So then neither he who plants is anything,

nor he who waters,

but God who gives the increase.

That is a truth that is delivering it is freeing for those who want to serve God.

When I see God move through me, it is not me who does the moving. It is God who does the moving.

So I don't have to bear the burden of being God, because I'm not God.

But I do get the reward of being faithful.

Not of doing the work,

not of being completed, not of. Not of the. Of the results. I'm not in charge of that when I go to serve God. When you go to serve God, you are not in charge of the results.

You're in charge of the faithfulness. That's all you're in charge of.

God gives the increase.

Now, he who plants and he who waters are one.

Meaning if you're going to do the work, you got to be doing the work as one, right?

You can't do it as separate.

These are not separate things.

And each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

He's going to receive his reward by what you do,

he says, for we are God's fellow workers,

and you are the fate. You are God's field,

you are God's building.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?

Therefore honor God with your body. That's what he's saying. You're. You are the dwelling place of the Spirit of God.

According to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another has built on it.

What he's saying is I've operated under the wisdom of God, and he has built a firm foundation. And then Apollos came along and built on top of it.

But let each one take heed how he builds on it.

Meaning, y' all,

I. I built a. A great foundation. Apollos built upon that really well. And y' all are coming in and y' all are messing it all up.

Take heed what you build after they built.

For no other foundation can be,

can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.

He is the firm foundation.

If we're building, we got to build on him.

I preached Christ and him crucified to you.

I preached the resurrected Christ to you. That's what I preach. That is the foundation.

Each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it.

Now, that has dual meaning.

First of all,

each person's work will. Will have clarity to it.

If you seek the Holy Spirit,

he will make it clear to you also in the day of judgment. It will have clarity.

Each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test each one's work and of what sort it is.

All right, this is the beat judgment.

Okay?

Now you need to hear this because it's important understanding from scripture, and it helps us get it.

Okay?

So many Christians spend their time trying to make sure you're not going to hell.

And as a pastor, it's a very useful tool I mess with.

Chris McCrane is a lawyer, and he rents space in my office. And when he doesn't show up on Sunday morning, bring his kids,

he comes into the office and he says, well, I missed yesterday. And I said, I know you're going to hell.

Say that's not biblical.

It's not biblical.

That's not how that works.

If you're born again,

you're sealed with the Holy Spirit who sealed you?

All right, now I want you to hear me. We understood from the book of the Revelation as we studied it,

right? Who can break a seal?

Let's. Let's define it down.

The only one that can break a seal is a person who is greater or equal to the one who sealed you. Following me.

If I put a seal on a document in that age and at that time,

only a person who is equivalent to me or greater than me can open the seal.

A servant cannot open the seal.

Someone lesser than me, my son or daughter, cannot open the seal.

If you are sealed with the Holy Spirit,

then only the Holy Spirit,

someone who is equal to the Holy Spirit or someone who is greater than the Holy Spirit, can open the seal.

Well,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are co. Equal persons in the Godhead.

Only one of them has a name greater than everyone else, and that's Jesus.

Right?

Because he humbled himself and became a man and. And endured the cross, God gave him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and tongue confess that he is God to the glory of God.

Makes sense.

Jesus Says,

I will in no wise cast you out. Those who the Father gives me, no man takes away.

So if I'm sealed with the Holy Spirit by the will of the Father, then the only ones who can break that seal are the ones who is either the one who sealed it, the one who willed it, or the one who provided for it.

So you can't be. The seal can't be broken.

Now, when we get to heaven,

there is going to be a judgment of the.

Of the nations and the lost.

That judgment is based off of,

not sin.

It's not based off of sin.

First, John tells us that Jesus died for the sin of the whole world.

All of it,

Every bit of it.

So when you get to heaven, if you. If you were judged to go to hell, it's not based off of your sin, it's based off of who you know.

Because he says,

those who he doesn't know, he says, depart from me for I never knew you.

So those who go to hell is they go to hell based off of their lack of intimacy with God.

All right, Everybody else goes to the bema seat. Judgment. And that's the.

Well, for it is that time of year that's kind of like what we call what most Christians want to treat as the Santa Claus judgment.

Okay?

It's the grace judgment.

And this is how it works. He takes everything you've ever done and he puts it in a pile.

He lights it with the fire of the Holy Spirit. And everything that was of faith survives and everything that doesn't is gone.

Everything of faith gets rewarded.

Everything that's not a faith is burnt up. It's forgotten. It's no more the beat judgment.

Now he's going to talk in those terms as he's explaining this to them.

It says in verse 14, if anyone's worked well, let's do 13 again. Each one's work will become clear, for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire.

And the fire will test each one's work and of what sort it is.

If anyone's work, which is which he is built on it endures, he will receive a reward.

Meaning if you build on Christ,

you'll receive a reward.

If anyone's work is burned, you'll he will suffer loss,

but he himself will be saved.

Yet so as through fire.

Now, I always like to make this joke because I just think it's funny and it may not be all right,

but you know, when you get to heaven, Jesus gives you a name that's just between you and him.

You know,

kind of a special name.

This verse tends to indicate that some people will have names such as crispy critter, burnt toast, stuff like that.

Everything gets burned up, but they get in okay. You do not want that name, okay?

You want Jesus, step out and say crispy critter.

You don't want that. Okay?

You don't want everything you got burned up.

It's a way to laugh, but it is true.

You want your faith to be evident by your life.

Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?

If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.

For the temple of God is holy, which the temple you are now. When he says destroy him, does he mean spiritually destroy him?

No, he's talking about your body. He's going to destroy your body.

And let. Let me say this.

You don't need any help destroying it, okay?

We wear them out ourselves. Okay? You sure don't need to be doing stuff that's going to kill you as you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.