[Note: This sermon expounds Matthew 12:30 and 1 Corinthians 3:10–17. Delivered 30 April 1978, Montreal.]
"He that does not gather with me scatters." This is the second half of Matthew 12:30, and it is what we consider today. The Lord Jesus is not merely asking about your profession — what you say you believe. He is looking at your life, your activity. To gather or to scatter is work. And he says that if you are not working with him, you are working against him. There is no neutral ground. The word "gather" in Greek can refer to sheep — gathering sheep into the fold, as in John 10:12 where the wolf scatters the sheep. You are either a shepherd or a wolf. The word can also be used of harvesting — gathering in the harvest, or scattering and destroying it. Either picture makes the same point: everything you do as a Christian will either draw people closer to God or drive them further away.
An unkind word to a brother or sister can scatter that person — it may drive them away. Every action of love draws someone closer to the Lord. The visitation team, going out to visit — through the expression of love, even without preaching, you are helping to bring in the sheep. The witness in song team, leading a Bible study, chairing a meeting, writing for the church newsletter — whatever form your service takes, the way you do it is either gathering or scattering. This is equally true in your everyday life: how you live in your college or workplace will have one or other of these effects. There is no middle ground.
The Apostle Paul expounds the Lord's teaching on this point in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 10 to 17. I turn to this passage now because it is desperately misunderstood today, and because its misuse is dangerous. But first, a word about the urgent need in the churches for people who can open God's Word. Everywhere I have preached — from one side of Canada to the other — I see the same desperate hunger for exposition of Scripture, and very few people who can meet it. Today's pastors largely do not know how to expound the Bible. They repeat what they have been taught from others; they cannot open a difficult passage and show you what it means. The training of those in our program centres on exactly this: learning to wrestle with a text until they can open it for themselves and for others. That is the one thing I am determined to give them.
Now to 1 Corinthians 3:10–17. Paul speaks of laying a foundation and others building upon it; of six materials — gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw — being tested by fire on the day of judgment; and of the temple of God not being destroyed. The passage is commonly misused to provide comfort for careless Christians: "Even if my works are burned up, I will be saved anyway — so I don't have to worry about what kind of Christian I am." Is that what the passage says? Let us look carefully. Notice first that verse 9 says: "You are God's field, God's building" — the "you" is plural, the church. The passage is not about individual salvation at all. It is about the building up of the church of God.
Paul planted the seed for the Corinthian church; Apollos watered it; Peter also came and contributed. These are God's fellow workers building up the church. The foundation is Jesus Christ; no other foundation can be laid. The building going up on that foundation is the church. And the question the passage is asking is: what quality of materials are you building it with? When we speak of building God's church, we are not speaking of bricks and mortar — the church is people. What you build the church with are people. And what kind of people constitute the church — what is their spiritual quality — is what matters.
The materials, then, refer to people. The reed in Matthew 11:7 and 12:20 is a picture of human beings — the bruised reed the Lord will not break is the picture of the sinner he came to save. First Peter 1:24 says directly: "All flesh is as grass." Wood and trees in Scripture are used consistently as a picture of human beings — in Ezekiel, and in Luke 23:31, where the green tree is the righteous and the dry wood is the sinful. So all three of the materials that cannot survive the fire — wood, hay, straw — are pictures of people in their natural, unregenerate state. And gold, silver, and precious stones — 1 Peter 2:5 calls Christians "living stones being built into a holy temple"; 2 Timothy 2:20 speaks of vessels of gold and silver; Psalm 66:10 and Malachi 3:3 describe God's people being tried like precious metals in the fire. Gold, silver, precious stones are pictures of people who have God's life in them — people of faith, people who are being conformed to the image of Christ.
# Gather with Christ, Build Up His Church — Matthew 12:30 / 1 Corinthians 3:10–17 (Part B) — Spiritual Quality in the Church; Judgment; Paul's Fear of Laboring in Vain
[Note: This is Part B of the sermon on Matthew 12:30 / 1 Corinthians 3:10–17, continuing directly from Part A. Delivered 30 April 1978, Montreal.]
The building materials in 1 Corinthians 3 refer to people — and now the meaning of the whole passage becomes clear. Paul is concerned with what quality of people constitute the church. Wood, hay, and straw are pictures of unregenerate men and women — people who call themselves Christians but have never been born again, who have no genuine faith, who do not know what it is to be a Christian let alone a disciple. The Western church today is largely built with these materials. I know of Chinese churches that function essentially as social centres — community gatherings where people come to meet their friends, and immediately after the service rush out for lunch. That is wood, hay, and straw. It reflects no glory to God. What do you build the church with? Paul's answer is: with gold, silver, and precious stones — with people who have God's life in them, whose faith is precious, who are being shaped into the image of Christ. Gold and silver have a reflective quality: they shine. That is what the church is meant to be — something beautiful, reflecting the light of God's glory.
Right at the beginning of chapter 3, Paul tells the Corinthians plainly: "I could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh." He is warning them that they are in danger of being wood, hay, and straw — carnal, spiritually undeveloped people. He doesn't soften it; he has no patience for diplomatic evasion when souls are at stake. He says, I planted this church, Apollos watered it, and now I am concerned about what you are becoming. My task is not merely to get people into the church, but to build them up into the fullness of maturity in Christ — to present every man mature in Christ, as he says elsewhere. You are God's temple, he says in verse 16–17 — you together, in the plural, one single temple — and that temple is holy, bought with the price of the blood of the Son of God. If anyone destroys that temple — damages the church — God will destroy him.
Christians will face judgment. This is stated plainly in this passage, and there is no honest way to avoid it. Second Corinthians 5:10: "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body." Paul says we — not they, but we Christians. And he does not say only good — he says "good or evil." Romans 14:10 says exactly the same: "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God." The teaching today that Christians will not be judged — that at the judgment they will only receive rewards, never loss — is a flat contradiction of the plainest statements of Scripture. I do not understand how we can hold this in one hand and claim to believe the Bible in the other.
When the materials are burned up at the judgment — and these materials refer to people — those people are the ones burned up. This is what Hebrews 6:8 says of the field that produces only thorns and thistles: it is near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. These are the people Paul does not want to build with. And for Paul personally, the fact that he himself would be saved if his work were burned up — that is no consolation whatsoever. He did not give up his career, his freedom, his safety, and ultimately his life in order to save himself. He gave it to build others into the image of Christ. If in the end the people he built his life around fall away, what has he gained? Nothing — and he weeps. Galatians 2:2 — "lest I should have run in vain." Philippians 2:16 — "lest I should have run or labored in vain." First Thessalonians 3:5 — he sent Timothy "for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain." This fear of laboring in vain runs through all of Paul's letters, because his whole life was invested in the people he was building.
Let me now bring this to its conclusion and apply it to every person here. The Lord Jesus says: every Christian is either gathering with him or scattering. There is no third option. Not just apostles, not just pastors — every Christian. Your task, day by day, is either contributing to the building up of God's church or it is working to damage it. The question is not whether you are doing something — you are always doing something, either gathering or scattering. The question is which. Are you concerned about building up the brother or sister who is younger in the faith than you? Are you visiting, witnessing, singing, serving, praying for God's people? Or are you one of those Christians who come only to receive — only asking what they can get from the Lord and from the church? If you are only for yourself, I tell you, you will not even save yourself. The Lord's teaching is: love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Any Christian who loves only himself has not yet begun to understand what a Christian is. Let us be quiet before God in prayer.