Gold, Silver, Precious Stones, or Wood, Hay, Straw
Tom Shrader expounds 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, explaining that Christ is the only foundation for the church and the individual life, and that every believer builds on that foundation with either lasting or perishable materials. The quality of a Christian's work—shaped by motive, conduct, and faithful use of gifts—will be tested and rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ. Shrader closes by calling the congregation to ponder heaven seriously, arguing that a genuine vision of eternal reward should transform how believers live, serve, and relate to one another today.
“Your sin is paid for. You've been forgiven. Christ died for that. What's judged is what you do with your life as a believer.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 Corinthians
Recorded: 2001 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 51 min
Themes: eternal rewards, faithfulness, service, heaven, motives, judgment, spiritual growth, unity, struggling with purpose, navigating conflict, new believer, young adult, feeling unworthy, church member, volunteer, striving for faithfulness
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:1, 1 Corinthians 3:3, 1 Corinthians 3:6-8, 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, 1 Corinthians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 2, Matthew 5:16, John 5:24, Revelation 22:12, 1 Peter 2:11
Theological Themes: bema seat, judgment seat of christ, sanctification, ecclesiology, works and faith, spiritual maturity, soteriology, biblical stewardship
Full Transcript
Introduction: Babes in Christ
Paul is lovingly but firmly rebuking this church. In chapter 3, verse 1, he calls them brethren and babes in Christ. The idea there is that they are Christians, but they are not developing. They are not maturing. There is something lacking in their life.
The evidence of that, look at verse 3, is that there is jealousy and strife among them. Jealousy is that inward condition that manifests itself in strife. If you are a person who has strife around you — you are constantly at odds with your boss, at odds with your teacher, at odds with your classmates, nobody likes you, nobody cares about you, everybody is out to get you — in all likelihood, the problem is you. There is something in your life you need to take an inventory of.
In the case of this church, what they were saying is, "I am following Paul," and another said, "I am following Apollos." Here is what Paul writes in verse 6: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused growth." That is the way the body works. One brings this gift and this talent and this part, and another brings another gift and another talent, but God is the one who puts all of this together.
Verse 7: "So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but it is God." The value is in God. He causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one — they are united together, this is a team effort — and each will receive his reward according to his labor, verse 8.
Works as the Result of Salvation
We understand at this church that we are saved by grace through faith. We do not come to the cross thinking we did anything or brought anything to salvation. We are not saved by works. We are not saved by anything that we did or could do. We are saved by what Christ did.
We sometimes teach salvation by grace through faith so clearly that works seem to go away completely. The Bible is very clear that works are an important part of a Christian's life. They are not, however, the reason that we go to heaven or the source of our salvation. The works are a result of God's working in our life.
Because we are saved, there is an outward manifestation that is clear to the world. Jesus says it this way in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verse 16: "Let your light shine in such a way that men will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Apparently, there is supposed to be something very distinctive about the way we work and the way that we live.
When you walk on campus tomorrow — at Mesquite or Dobson or Gilbert, Anderson, Rhodes, ASU — there ought to be something distinctive and different about you. Not odd, but distinctive. When you walk into Intel tomorrow, there ought to be something distinctive about you. He said it plainly: I ought to be able to see your good works right there, and through them glorify your Father who is in heaven.
It is important for us to understand that as Christians, good works are an important part of our life — not the source of our salvation, but the result of our salvation. The Holy Spirit is in your life causing you, putting in you a desire and a burden to please God and to obey Him. Even the work itself is a result of God's work in your life.
God's Fellow Workers
So here is what Paul said: I planted, Apollos watered, God caused the growth. Now verse 9: "We are God's fellow workers, and you are God's field, you are God's building." Paul is using "we" there to speak of the ministers in the church at Corinth, and "you are God's field" he is speaking to that church.
As you work your way through verses 10 through 17, you will see the phrases "each man," "one another," and "you." It is fair for us to say that yes, he is writing here to this church at Corinth, but he is going to take this imagery and expand it to speak to the life of all believers. If you are a minister — and that word means servant — if you are serving God, you are His fellow workers and this is your field.
Now there is a subtle change in imagery right there in verse 9. He had been talking about planting and watering — agriculture — but now he shifts to construction. He was talking about planting and watering, and now he is going to talk about building.
The Foundation and the Builder
Here is what he says in verse 10: "According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a master builder I laid the foundation, and another is building on it, but let each man be careful how he builds." Paul said he is building, but he is building because of God's grace — not just God's saving grace, but the giftedness that God has given him. Because of God's work in his life — again, not just saving him from his sin, but the giftedness, the talents, the extraordinary opportunity God gave him — Paul says, if he had a calling card, it would say "Master Builder." Wise master builder — wise not just in the spiritual sense, but in practical wisdom and skill.
Paul knew who he was, why he was here, and what his purpose was. He said, "I am here to lay a foundation." That pretty well describes his life. He spent three years at Ephesus, about a year and a half at Corinth, but perhaps only 45 days at Thessalonica, and that is more representative of how he lived. He would go from place to place to place, laying a foundation, and then another would come and build on it.
Now look at that last sentence: "But let each man" — go ahead and put your name in there — "but let
Building on the Right Foundation
Let each man be careful how he builds on it. Using this building imagery, Paul is saying that the church is a project under construction and always will be. We will always be adding to it, always changing it, always growing. Paul says a little further on that we are going to talk specifically about the foundation and then about the building.
Verse 11 becomes a key verse: "For no man can lay a foundation other than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." When we talk about the universal church, the local church, the church around the world, or East Valley Bible Church, the only true foundation that will support a structure God continues to add to and grow and develop is a foundation laid in Christ and Christ alone.
Ray Stedman on the Foundation
I want to read two or three things to you today. This is Ray Stedman. He said that Christ — His person, His life, His doctrine, His teaching, His resurrection, His ascension, His return — that is all part of the foundation. The teaching concerning Jesus was given to us by the apostles, but it focuses us on the person of the Lord. Every church that departs from the teaching about Christ and His work, His person, His resurrection, begins to slide away from the foundation and soon becomes teetering and wobbly. It becomes filled with many forms of weakness and failure, and finally collapses and crumbles into nothing. Every individual who is not built upon the foundation will find his life crumbling and failing ultimately. Our Lord is to remain always present as the foundation of the church and the foundation of our life.
Stedman goes on to say that the foundation basically consists of the scriptures. They are the foundation of the church. They were given to us by the apostles, and as such they continue to constitute the unshakable foundation. That is why every local church, every universal church, and all individuals who are not basing their life on the scriptures soon begin to waver and wobble. They become inconsistent and weak. Today we hear the words Jesus and Christ used in many ways that are not reflected in the scriptures, but the only foundation God ever recognizes is the apostolic Christ — the one given to us, the Jesus who is reflected in the scriptures.
Here is what Stedman is saying: the foundation of the church is Christ. It is not our ethic. It is not our tradition. It is not our history. The foundation of the church is Christ and Christ alone. In chapter 1, verse 18, Paul talks about the cross being foolishness. In chapter 2, he talks about his determination to preach Christ and to know Christ and Christ alone. That is the message. That is the foundation.
Same Word, Different Dictionary
Stedman's writing here is probably thirty years old, and yet he says that in his day the words Jesus and Christ were already being used in a distorted way. Consider this article from the Los Angeles Times dated February 24th, just a little over a week ago. The headline reads, "Church is Seeking to End Use of LDS." I quote:
> In a new move to identify their faith as Christians, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints will soon issue a formal statement dropping the terms LDS Church or LDS as shorthand names. While the full name of the church, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, will remain unchanged, leaders of the church will say that from now on the preferred shorthand or second reference should simply be "the church" or "the Church of Jesus Christ."
For years the church's detractors have charged that the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints is not a Christian body because it claims to be the only true restored Church of Jesus Christ. That is not why it is not a Christian body. It is not a Christian body because it is not Christian. The very next sentence in the article says as much: it also has its own scripture, the Book of Mormon, in addition to the New Testament. Now we are getting to why it is not Christian. To counter such criticism the church has taken a series of steps to re-emphasize its Christian roots. Several years ago it began to discourage the use of the name Mormon. In 1995 it changed its logo — you can see it as you drive around — to place the words "Jesus Christ" in larger letters than the rest of the full name.
What Stedman saw thirty years ago is what you and I see all the time driving through Mesa and Gilbert: just because you put the words "Jesus Christ" on a building does not make it Christian. I had a long meeting — three hours or so — with a man who holds some position within the Mormon Church. When we were all done, after talking about all sorts of things, he said, "You know what is fascinating to me and very encouraging? We are saying exactly the same thing; we are just saying it a little differently." I said, "Let me tell you what is very discouraging to me. We are saying totally different things, and they only sound similar."
When the Mormons talk to you about Jesus, this is very important: same word, different dictionary. Their Jesus is different from your Jesus. Their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. Their Jesus is not the only Son of God who came to die on the cross and provide salvation for you alone. It is very important to understand that.
When the Church Adheres to the Foundation
What Stedman says positively is this: when the church adheres to this foundation, it begins to grow. We had yesterday — and this is just my personal opinion — a fabulous meeting at 8:30 in the morning about the outreach ministry to the poor and the hurting. Some of you have been waiting and asking, "Where do we go next? When do we start?"
Something Is Happening Here
The general training meeting will take place the first Saturday in April. It will be in the bulletin next week, and you will need to respond. Many of you — perhaps as many as a couple hundred — have been waiting for this. This is your time to join us and get in on the ground floor as we develop this ministry.
At the meeting yesterday, Kit Danley was there. Kit has been so helpful to us in allowing us to tap into her expertise. But in every conversation I have had with Kit — I would say the last six or so since she first came out here — she keeps coming back to saying there is something going on at East Valley Bible Church. She says it is different than any place she has been. Normally she is invited in by the missions coordinator, slid in the door, given a few minutes, and rushed out, and nothing really happens — just an obligation being fulfilled. But she says something different is going on here.
I fear that sometimes you and I are so close to it that we miss it. Let me be quick to add that it is not just in this one ministry. It is happening all over the place. What Kit did yesterday was ask the group, "What is going on at East Valley Bible Church?" — and then simply open it up and let people speak.
I will tell you, as one of the leadership team in this church, it was a magnificent moment for me. It was almost like a parent watching a child and finally saying, "The kid's got it." You sat in that room and heard a group of fifteen or sixteen people say exactly what you had hoped to hear.
Here is what they said: the Word is heard and believed here. The word they used was that there are converted people here — the estimate was that as many as forty percent of you are Christians. The Word is obeyed. Individuals are hungry for the Word. The Word is being taught, and it is convicting people of their materialism. And the idea they expressed was: come, learn, and serve.
The Foundation Makes All the Difference
I want you to see what that means. That is exactly what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:11. If Christ is the foundation of the church — for us, that means the Scripture as it has been given to us — then all of a sudden it transforms lives. Come, learn, and serve. And that serving is not just internal. It is not just intramural.
If you talk to the Young Life staff, they will tell you that eighty percent of their leaders in this area are coming out of this church. If you talk to the Crown Ministries staff, they will say this is the best and largest Crown Ministry church in the state. We hear this in area after area. There is something happening here.
What is the key? What book did you read? What is the pamphlet? What is the strategy? Here it is: you teach the Word, and then it happens. I wish it were harder than that, because I would love to write a book, record a tape series, bring people in, and make a lot of money. But that is it.
Now I understand there is something more to the strategy than that alone, but do not miss this basic reality. You have people running major denominations tearing their hair out asking, "What is wrong? Why are we shrinking?" The answer is simple: you quit teaching the truth. You are ordaining homosexuals. You have made a mockery of the Word of God. You no longer deal with sin — and then you wonder why God no longer uses it.
The Response of a Transformed Life
This is what came from the people in that meeting. Here is what else they said: once I love God, I want what God wants — my heart is connected to His. My church life is my everyday life. They said their purpose is to help one another learn God's truths and live a biblically changed life. That is the entire mission statement of this church, and to sit in a room and hear fifteen people say, "We've got it" — that is something.
They said God continues to work, and we are His hands and His feet. He works incarnately. We are part of a body. We are not program-driven. We understand the call. We understand that when God calls us, we need to put structure around that call — but do you hear what is being said?
This is exactly what Ray Stedman describes. Because of who we are and what we do, I am asked all the time about what makes this church unique. The answer is simple. Whether you go to junior high and hear Jamie, or to high school and hear Tim, or to C2 and hear Walter, or you come to women's ministries or men's ministries or to this pulpit — what you are hearing is Christ and Christ crucified. That is the power. Apart from that, all we have are one another's opinions, thoughts, and cleverness, and that will not get us very far.
No other foundation. Teach the Word in a loving way, provide the structure around it, and God changes the heart. That is what the people finally expressed — that the response of the people is the response of a transformed life. And so now I want to do what God wants me to do.
In Christ, Nothing Is Lacking
Let me stay on this for a moment. When I have Christ and Christ alone, I have forgiveness for the past, strength for today, and hope for eternity. In Christ I find life. In the Scripture I am taught how to live. I find Christ there, and now I am ready. I am lacking nothing. The past is taken care of, the future is secured, and I am solid today.
I know some of you are here today hurting, barely hanging on, wondering how you are going to cope — but you are not hopeless. You do not need to be afraid.
The Hunger for Something More
I spoke to a man this week who travels around the country — around the world, really — speaking on economics. He had just returned from Orlando, where he addressed 7,000 IBM employees gathered from around the world. What they asked him to do was talk about what is happening in each continent, so he had a great deal of research to do beforehand. We were talking about it, and I asked him to tell me about Africa, about Europe. Then he turned it around: "What do you think is going on in the U.S.?" His answer was this: our prosperity has proven that things will not make us happy. There is an emptiness there.
Some of you know I have had the opportunity to speak to a couple of secular groups, with another one coming up next week — the Restaurant Owners of America. When I get into a room with those people, they are starving. No pun intended, but there is no off switch on this thing. It is just twenty-four hours a day. They started with one restaurant, then three, then a chain, and now they are saying there is something missing. I get the privilege of coming in and talking to them about contentment.
Twenty or thirty years ago, there did not seem to be much of an audience for that message. But now they are saying, "Talk to me — what do you mean?" I have this one moment where I tell them, "Listen, I am not a scientist, but can we just agree that evolution is foolish?" I do use the phrase that it is simply silly to think it was first goo, then the zoo, and now it is you. That is about as scientific as I get. I say, "This is just nonsense — we know this is wrong, don't we?" And they applaud.
Then I explain to them: you know why you will never be happy? Because you were not created to be happy with a person, a place, or a thing. "Created?" Yes. And then I take them to the Declaration of Independence and talk about a Creator. In a sense, I am saying to them what Paul said in Athens: what you worshiped in ignorance, I am now here to tell you about. And what this economist observed after speaking to people all day, every day, at events like this IBM gathering, is that there is such a thirst for spiritual things.
You get to walk into rooms like that and say, "You thirsty? Thirsty for forgiveness? Thirsty for strength? Thirsty for hope? You are going to find it in Christ alone."
Building on the Foundation
The emphasis in our passage now shifts away from Paul and turns directly to you. He says, "If any man" — and you can put your own name there if you like — if any person builds on this foundation using gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, we need to understand what follows. Each man's work will become evident. How? The day will show it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.
The fire here is not necessarily final judgment. The fire here is the testing. There is a foundation already laid in Christ — that foundation is settled. And now each one of us builds on that foundation using building materials. You are using one of two groups: either gold, silver, and precious stones, or wood, hay, and straw. The precious stones here probably do not refer to diamonds, emeralds, or rubies, but rather to granite or marble, carved out at great expense and great effort as builders constructed on these foundations in the ancient world.
Here is what Paul is saying: there is a test, and it is not necessarily about the market value of these commodities. The point is that gold, silver, and precious stones will pass the test — they will survive the fire, they are permanent, and their value is permanent. Wood, hay, and straw, on the other hand, pass away. Once the fire comes, they burn up.
Motives Matter
This becomes very personal, because we are talking about you and your life. You are building — that is inevitable. The question is: what are you using to build? Are your materials materials that will last? Paul is not talking about what you have. He is talking about how you use what you have. He is talking about having the right motives. Why you do what you do for Christ may be as important as what you do.
If you are standing up on the platform as part of a praise team, or over there in the high school band, you are up front. Maybe you just like being up front. Maybe the motives are entirely wrong — maybe you simply love to stand there and sing and you love the fact that everyone can see you, and that is the big deal. If that is the case, your motives are wrong. Wood, hay, straw. But if your motive is that God has given you a talent and you want to use it as a gift to draw attention to Him, to usher people into His presence, and to bring people to an understanding of who God is — that is gold, silver, precious stone.
I have to ask myself that same question. Why do I do what I do? Do I just like to stand up in front and talk and talk and talk? Why do you teach fourth grade? Is it merely your duty, something you are going to do even if it kills you? If that is your motive, let me help you out — it will kill you. You do it because God has forgiven you and God has called you, and for whatever reason, you landed in fourth grade. What is your conduct? What is your service? Are you using the gift He has given you?
The Reality of Rewards
In verse 14, Paul moves into an area we cannot dismiss — it appears throughout the New Testament with striking consistency. That is the idea of rewards. "If any man's work which he has built on remains, he will receive a reward." Verse 14 describes gold, silver, and precious stone. Verse 15 addresses wood, hay, and straw: "If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved."
Paul is not talking about salvation here. John chapter 5, verse 24 makes that clear: "Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me shall have eternal life and does not come into judgment but has
The Judgment Seat of Christ
This is not about salvation. This is about a reward. This is about that moment at the end of life when Christ comes again. If you are a Christian, your life will be judged by the Lord. Now, you might think that only non-believers are judged — but non-Christians are not judged. They are condemned. They go straight to hell. There is no judgment for a non-believer, there is only condemnation. But we — Christians — must appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
Christ sits in judgment and He will compensate us according to what we have done, whether it is good or bad. It is not a matter of whether something is evil or not evil. It is whether it is gold, silver, or precious stone — worthwhile and lasting — or whether it is bad: wood, hay, or straw. I have heard all my life that maybe when you get to heaven it is like a giant jumbotron and they play your whole life and you see all the sin. But God is not judging our sin. Your sin is paid for. You have been forgiven. Christ died for that. What is judged is what you do with your life as a believer.
If all God wanted to do was get you to heaven, He would have saved you and then taken you there. He left you here for a reason. He gave you something to do. And those good works are going to be judged and rewarded.
The Crowns of Heavenly Reward
A constant theme in this passage is the idea of a crown. Randy Alcorn identifies five crowns mentioned in connection with heavenly rewards. The crown of life seems to be associated with persecution. The incorruptible crown speaks to the victory we find in our life in Christ. The crown of glory is for faithfully representing Christ, particularly in a position of leadership. The crown of righteousness is connected to the idea of purifying ourselves with the expectation that Christ is coming again. The crown of rejoicing is for pouring ourselves into evangelism and discipleship.
Ray Stedman suggests, interestingly enough, that the reward itself is the crown of rejoicing — that the reward is the depth of our joy when we see the Lord. He uses the illustration of a team celebrating a Super Bowl victory and the joy you see on their faces. But even as you watch, you notice that some players are more joyous than others. The player who passed for 400 yards seems to be rejoicing a little more than the backup quarterback. These rewards are given to us, it seems, to motivate us in a proper and healthy way. That is what they are there for. God writes about them over and over again for a reason. He must want you to understand them.
The Temple of God
"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" The Holy Spirit lives in you. God lives in Christians through the Holy Spirit. "If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him." That is a warning to those who would destroy you, but it is also a source of encouragement to those of us who are Christians that He will persevere in our lives.
The Promise of Reward in Revelation
I want to return to something we must close with. These are almost the last words Jesus speaks to us in the New Testament. Revelation 22:12: "Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done." The idea of reward appears again — and it is pressing on me in a good way as I think about heaven.
What Heaven Should Do to Us
I want to read two quotes and then we will close. The first is over 350 years old. Richard Baxter, in his book *The Saints' Everlasting Rest*, asks a question that is simply obvious: "If there be so certain and glorious a rest for saints, why is there no more industrious seeking after it? One would think if a man but once were to hear of such unspeakable glory to be obtained, and believe what he heard to be true, he should be transported with vehemence of his desire after it. He should almost forget to eat and drink and should care for nothing else and speak and inquire of nothing else but how to get this treasure. Yet people who hear it daily and profess to believe it as a fundamental article of their faith do as little mind it, or little labor for it, as if they had never heard such a thing and do not believe one word of it."
Is that not true? If I have genuinely heard of heaven — of how unspeakable the joy is, what a magnificent place it is, how it is the very presence of the Lord — should it not almost overshadow and motivate everything else? Fast-forwarding nearly 350 years, Max Lucado writes this: "Happiness on earth cultivates a hunger for heaven. By gracing us with deep dissatisfaction, God holds our attention. The only tragedy then is to be satisfied."
You Were Not Made for Earth
We must not settle prematurely for earth, to be content in a strange land. We are not happy here because we are not at home here. We are not happy here because we are not supposed to be happy here. We are like foreigners and strangers in this world — 1 Peter 2:11. You will never be completely happy on earth simply because you were not made for earth. You will find moments of joy, you will catch glimpses of light, you will know moments — even days — of peace, but they simply do not compare with the happiness that lies ahead.
The Challenge to Ponder Heaven
Over this next week, I want to ask you to do something. We have asked you to go and do a lot of different things, but this is far harder than anything we have ever asked you to do. We are going to ask you to think. We are going to ask you — and here are those great words — to ponder. Think about heaven. Think about the fact that the creator God of the universe has prepared a place for you.
You are building now, building a reward. You do not know what it is, but it is a reward. Shouldn't that change the way you live? Shouldn't that change what you do, what you see, how you think? All of a sudden, people become more than just tools to be manipulated to get what you want, or irritants that God seems to throw in your way that you have to figure out how to get around. It changes everything.
A Word to the Students
The lesson we learn from baptism today is that whether you are 86, 46, or 16, God is still working in your life. I want to speak especially to the students — I have developed a great affection for you junior high and high schoolers. If you can get this now, you have a whole life ahead of you, and it only gets better.
The world is going to come at you and try to rob that. It is going to try to take it away. It is going to say, "No, this will really make you happy." But if you can get this now, and you can live today in the shadow of heaven — somehow grasping it, understanding it, letting it be real — your life will be transformed. I promise you, God will use you to turn the world right side up.
A Prayer for All of Us
And it is not just the students. God will do the same thing through you — at Intel or Motorola, in your home, in your neighborhood. God, please let us ponder. Let us think about heaven and not miss it. Let it transform the way we live. We pray to You in Jesus' name, amen.