1st Corinthians 3 - The Foundation

1st Corinthians 3:10-11 - ^"10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. ¹¹For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."

^"10By the grace God has given me" - Paul makes a very short, often overlooked statement about grace. One of the many definitions of grace, and the one that applies here, is this - mercy; clemency; pardon. God pardoned our sins through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and God gave us the gift of grace. He didn't have to, but He chose to because He wanted to.

Paul did everything by God's grace.

Think of grace like an eraser. When you make a mistake with a pencil, you can use the eraser to wipe away your mistake forever. Grace does the same thing with your sin. It erases it away forever.

"I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it." - The foundation Paul refers to here, is the fledgling foundation of the faith of the Christ-followers at the church in Corinth. Paul came in an expertly told the story of Jesus and laid the foundation for the church's faith, but now they have a new leader, a new pastor at their church and he is building on the foundation Paul laid down.

Your job may be to get someone in the doors of the church. By doing so, you are laying a foundation for their faith. It may be someone else's job to build on that foundation though.

Bill Hybels once said to think of measuring a person's faith on a line with zero being the point where they accept Christ and the negative numbers representing their journey toward that acceptance. The positive numbers that follow represents their growth after they accept Christ. Now, taking that into account, your job may be to take a person from a negative 8 to a negative 5, whereas someone else may take them from a negative 5 to the zero. It all depends on God.

You may lay the foundation, but it may be someone else's job to build on that foundation.

"But each one should be careful how he builds." - If you are not careful how you build, you may end up building a house without a strong foundation and we all know what can happen to that kind of house. If you don't know, read this parable that Jesus told.

^"11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ." - Everything is based on Christ. Everything revolves around Him. Nothing works without Him. If you don't build your foundation on Jesus, it will not last. It like sticking a towel bar on the wall with Elmer's glue. It won't stay up when you put any kind of weight on it.

Your foundation is the basis for your faith and that base has to be Jesus. Nothing else will work.