2026.3.15 TFHC – The Church, Rewards, Punishment | 1 Corinthians 3:5-20

March 15, 2026, Message by P. Kevin Clancey Transcribed by Beluga AI. I’m always struck by that song, Build My Life. In the middle of that song is a great prayer—just four requests that song makes that I just think, man, just make those part of your daily prayer. “Open up my eyes in wonder.” What a great prayer. Lord, open up my eyes in wonder, man. Never lose the wonder. I love little kids because they have wonder, right? You know, the first time you take them to Disneyland, like… And, you know, we can become so cynical and jaded. You know, I heard this comedian, he said, “You know what we ought to do when we watch the Olympics?” He says, you know, “These incredible athletes, but they’re all so incredible that we kind of forget about it, right?” He says, “Put like a normal person in that race and let them run with the athletes. You know, just put one of us in that race, you know, or put one of us on ice and let us skate with those skaters.” You know, I’ll do that—I’ll watch a football game and some receiver, some, you know, guy who runs a 4.3, 40-yard dash… I could run a 4.3, 40-yard dash if that was 4.3 days, you know? It’s like, what’s so hard about that, right? And so, he, you know, blazes by this wide receiver. The quarterback throws this, you know—which would be for us, way too hard a pass to catch. You know, it’s going so many miles an hour, spiraling, and it hits his hands, and he drops it. I’m going, “What the… They pay you to catch those balls. What are you doing?” It’s like, yeah, right. You know, I’d be like ducking and like, “Somebody’s going to hit me.” But we lose the wonder. So I love that. Never lose the wonder. And then the second part is, “show me who you are.” Right? “Open up my eyes in wonder; show me who you are.” If you want to never lose the wonder, ask God to show you who He is. You know, Moses—”Show me your glory.” It’ll kill you. You know, John, who walked with Jesus, laid his head on Jesus’s chest. And yet Jesus now in the book of Revelation, is approaching John in all His glory, and John, like, just falls at His feet like a dead man. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, (Revelation 1:17, CSB) Lord, show me who you are. And then third supplication of that little song: “Fill me with your love.” Fill me with your Spirit. Fill me with the Spirit of Jesus. And then mission: “Lead me in that love to those around me.” Isn’t that a great little prayer in that song? Those four supplications, those four requests. That just always struck me in that song. And there’s a man who will be celebrated in two days who did that. And his name, he’s called Patrick of Ireland, who, by the way, was not Irish. But in two days, we’re going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. My last name is Clancy, so you better believe I’m already bringing out the green. All right? I’m already wearing the green. If you’re not Irish, you can just be, you can be honorary Irish on that day. Because my Irish father, though he was as much French as he was Irish, though he never admitted it. He always said, “Kevin, there’s only two kinds of people in the world, the Irish and them that want to be.” But anyway, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and we think it’s a day for, you know, marching, you know, just celebrating Irish ethnicity. And that is not the point of it all. St. Patrick was English. He wasn’t Irish. And then we also, you know, celebrate—it’s like it’s a holiday of drinking beer and drunkenness and dyeing rivers green. And, you know, and wearing silly green clothes and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But actually, St. Patrick was a marvelous man. It wasn’t about drinking. I grew up in that culture. I grew up with a lot of beer drinking, Karen. You know, they weren’t Wisconsin. They were Minnesotan, but they would challenge those Wisconsin. And, you know, Irish Catholic background, a lot of drinking in that heritage. You know, one of my great, great, great grandfathers, one of my relatives came. You know, he immigrated from Ireland to America. And every day he would go into a bar, and he’d order three beers after work. Just order three beers. And he’d get them all at the same time. And the bartender finally said, “Why don’t you just let me pour you one at a time, so they don’t lose their head and their freshness?” He goes, “Oh, no.” He says, “You don’t understand.” He says, “You know, when I left the home country, my father and brother, I left them behind. They stayed there. And I told him every day I’d have a beer with them. And so, this one’s for me, this one’s for me brother, and this one’s for me father.” And the bartender said, “Well, that’s a lovely tradition. That’s a lovely tradition.” So, he’d come in and get his three beers and then go home from work. And one day he came in, he ordered two beers. And then every day, he started just ordering two beers. The bartender got to thinking, says, “Oh, my gosh, his father died or his brother. This is so sad.” You know? “What happened?” So one day, the bartender goes, “Oh, I’m sorry.” He goes, “What is that, man? What are you sorry about?” He says, “Well, did your father die or your brother die? you’re only getting two beers now. Which one of them is gone?” He goes, “Oh, no, no, no. They’re fine.” He says, “Well, what went on?” He says, “Well, me wife, she took me down to the Baptist church, and they told me I couldn’t drink anymore. But it doesn’t affect me father and brother, none.” So that’s how I grew up. But that’s not what St. Patrick is about. St. Patrick is actually an incredible story in church history. You know, I’ve heard people pray, can a nation be changed in a generation? Well, in one case, it was—not only a nation, but actually… If you want to read a wonderful book, it’s by a scholar by the name of Thomas Cahill. And its intention is not necessarily to propagate Christianity, though the book does. He’s very pro what Patrick did and very pro the Christian movement. But he just tells the story of—the title of the book is How the Irish Saved Civilization. And what happened was, he tells the story of St. Patrick going to Ireland and converting the nation in about a generation and raised up these radical disciples of Jesus, these monks and nuns. And these monks began about the business of copying all ancient literature. They copied all the literature, all the literature of the western world. They were copyists, you know. And of course, they copied the Bible, and they copied, you know, all the holy writings of the church. But not only that, you know, the Greeks and the Romans and everything. And it wasn’t long after that that the Roman Empire was sacked. A lot of Western civilization would have been lost to us if it weren’t for the Irish monks who copied all that down. Then after the Roman Empire fell and Christendom, in its first stage, collapsed in Europe, it was actually the Irish monks who went back into northern Europe and then moved south. They re-evangelized Europe and evangelized lots of Europe that hadn’t been evangelized up till that point. And it happened because an island, a small island, was thoroughly and deeply converted to Christianity in about one and a half generations, an incredible story. It started with this young man named Patrick, who was not Irish; he was an Englishman. But he lived on the coast, the western coast of England. Often, if you lived in a small village on the western coast of England, you were a target. You were prey to Irish pirates. Irish pirates would come over the sea, and they’d do what pirates did. They would raid a village. They would kill the men and take or rape the women, and they would take the children often and turn and make them slaves. Well, that happened in Patrick’s village. His father and mother escaped, but he did not. He was captured and taken back to Ireland, where he became a slave. As a young boy, when he was captured, he was not devout. He was kind of a young teenager. And even back then, young teenagers liked to carouse with their friends. And, you know, that was kind of his reputation. You know, his parents were Christian, and he kind of, you know, “All right, whatever.” But that was what he was when he was enslaved. And he went to Ireland, and his job as a slave was to be a shepherd. Up in the hills, he was often alone and taking care of the sheep. During those times, Patrick became very close to God. In his desperation, he drew close to God and became a young man of prayer and devotion. One night, he had a dream. And in the dream, God showed him the way of escape from his slavery in a lot of detail—what path to take, what road to take, where the forks in the road would be, and which way to go. He showed him the boats that would ferry him across certain rivers. Then He showed him the very ship that would take him back to England, and the captain who would allow him to board that ship and go back to England with him. And so, Patrick packed up his goods, slipped away during the night, and escaped his slavery, followed the dream, and sure enough made it back to England on that ship. Well, he completely had committed his life to Christ. And so, he became a priest, and then he was a very good priest. And so, he became a bishop. And he was reaching the age of retirement back then, which was probably about in his early or mid-40s. That was the retirement age. So that would have been 20 years ago for me. I don’t know what I would have done this last 20 years. I don’t know if I retire now, what I’d do. So, you can’t get rid of me yet. So anyway, he retired, or he was going to retire, and then he had another dream right before his retirement. And in that dream, he saw an Irish pirate, the kind that had kidnapped him. And like Paul’s call to Macedonia, like Paul’s vision when he went to Macedonia, Patrick had a vision in this dream. And the Irish pirate said, “Come back to us, holy boy, and teach us the ways of God.” And so, because the first dream had led him to so much success, he followed the second dream. He rounded up a band of monks and nuns who were willing to be missionaries with him, and he returned to Ireland. Ireland at that time was completely pagan. It was, if you know anything about the Druids, very much nature worship, very much similar kind of forerunners of what we would call New Age mysticism. They were very spiritual people, a very superstitious people, and just enslaved by these spirits who they worshiped and sought to find meaning from. He did something different than typical Roman evangelism. He didn’t just go in and present the gospel. What they did was these monks and nuns would go into a village, and they would live among the people and work among the people—what we would call today incarnational evangelism. They kind of would earn the right to be heard by being good neighbors. And then they would pray for people, and signs and wonders and miracles would happen. And they said, “Wow, these people are in touch with spirits.” And, you know, the druids, like Moses before Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s magicians, their miracles were more impressive than the druids’ miracles, than the druid signs and wonders. And so, people began to convert. Then other villages would ask them to come. And, you know, it’s like if you watch these old movies, Ireland wasn’t like this unified nation. There was a little kingdom here and a little kingdom here and a tyrant and a ruler over here. You know, very much clannish, but these other kings, you know… and if you converted the king back then, the whole village, you’d say, “All right, we’re all Christians now. All right, king said that we’re all Christians now.” And they began to convert Ireland. And then they would raise up other missionaries from among those villages. But then he encountered spiritual warfare. He encountered devastating loss. The little group of priests and nuns he had brought back, they were living in an encampment, ready to go into their next village. And Patrick was out doing some business out, you know, I don’t know what he was doing, but he was gone that day, and he came back, and that little encampment had been invaded by Irish raiders. They’d killed some and taken off the rest. And Patrick loved these men and women that he’d been working with. He never saw them again. Never knew what happened to them. They just kidnapped them and took them to be slaves somewhere or whatever they did. And Patrick was devastated. He went out and he prayed and he said, “God, I quit. It’s too painful. It’s too hard. I quit. I’m retiring.” And God spoke to Patrick and He said, “No, you aren’t.” He said, “Pick yourself up. Go back and form another band and complete the work that I’ve assigned you to do.” God is gentle. God is caring. God is love. And sometimes His love is manifest in tough love. And Patrick did it. And, you know, we talk about, can a nation be changed in a generation? Probably took about a generation and a half after he died. There was more work. You know, Ireland wasn’t thoroughly converted, but it is said, you know, the legend is, oh, you know, chased the snakes out of Ireland or did this, you know. No, no… We don’t know, you know, that history that far back can be a little obscure. But we do know this: Ireland was almost completely pagan in the late 300s, and by the early 500s, it was almost unanimously Christian. In less than a hundred years, actually, it was in the mid-400s, a nation had been thoroughly converted to Christ and was, for about the next century, the strongest missionary movement that Europe knew during the next hundred years. Not only missionary, but scholarly, like I said—preserved the ancient writings of Western civilization. And that’s how the Irish saved civilization. So, this St. Patrick’s Day, if you’re going to have a beer, at least have it, you know, you know, just yay, yay for the Irish who saved civilization. Now, whatever your ethnicity is, I’m sure you got some good stories about that, too. So, you know, pick your day, share your stories. There have been saints and heroes in every culture, but St. Patrick really is one of the most remarkable characters in Christian history. He really is, and he deserves better than kind of the way we honor that day today, just as kind of a proud festival, and excuse to drink, of Irish ethnicity. That’s not what the day is about, not at least historically. It is about one of the strongest revivals in the early Christian church that God has used throughout history to help shape the world. So that wasn’t even a part of the Scripture I’m going to read. Oh, Romans 8:28 is true of St. Patrick. He was enslaved, and God used that for good. He suffered great loss. God wouldn’t let him quit, and He used that for great good. Romans 8:28. “For God causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose.” 28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, CSB) Doesn’t say here that all things are good. Some things will be very hard, but they are not—the cross of Jesus was very hard, but the resurrection was bigger. The resurrection… all of hell tried to put Him in the tomb and He got up. So whatever life hits you, know God is bigger. God is bigger. And you’re never too young. And here’s one for us, a few of us anyway—you’re never too old. You’re never too old. You know what’s not in the Bible? Retirement. It’s not in the Bible. What’s that? All right, Isaiah, point killer. Yeah. Abraham doesn’t get to retire. Moses doesn’t get to retire. Paul doesn’t get to retire. You can retire from your job, that’s fine, but you can’t retire from serving Jesus. All right, trump that, young man. Yeah, trump that. Gosh, you raised a kid who knew his Bible. Good on you. Good on you, Karen. Good on you, Brian. All right, speaking of the Bible, let’s get to it, shall we? We’re going through 1 Corinthians. We’re in chapter 3, verses 5 through the rest of the chapter. 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants through whom you believed, and each has the role the Lord has given. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s coworkers. You are God’s field, God’s building. 10 According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved —but only as through fire. 16 Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are. 18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool so that he can become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, since it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness ;20 and again, The Lord knows that the reasonings of the wise are futile. 21 So let no one boast in human leaders, for everything is yours — 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come —everything is yours, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. (1 Corinthians 3:5-23, CSB) May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable, Lord, in your sight, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB) So Paul uses three analogies here. The church as a field, the church as a building, and the church and us individually as a temple. And he’s still dealing with the very same problem that we dealt with. Remember, never just read Scripture in isolation. Know the context, and if you remember the context… The Bible wasn’t written with Paul saying, “Oh, this is chapter three, verse so and so.” He just wrote a letter. By the way, we say the Bible is inspired; we don’t say the numbering system is inspired. The numbering system is very helpful. It helps us locate things, it helps us remember things, but it can also teach us to read the Bible in those kinds of—the Proverbs were kind of written that way… But the rest of the Bible is not really written that way. It’s a story or it’s a letter. So, in this letter, in what we call chapter one, Paul lays out the problem. He says, “You know, you here in Corinth, I spent 18 months with you laying the foundation, which is Jesus Christ. And now I hear there are divisions. I hear there are denominations. There’s the Paulites and the Peterists, the Apollonians.” He says, “No, it’s not about Paul, it’s not about Peter, it’s not about Apollos. We are all one. We are all telling you the same story. We’re all pointing to the same Jesus.” And one of the scandals of the church is that, you know, we have so many schisms. And I, you know, I just tell people, how many churches are there in Poulsbo? And there’s only one good answer to that: one. How many clubhouses? I don’t know, 30, 40 or so. I don’t know, not sure. We’re a clubhouse. The church is made up of all those—best I can tell in the New Testament—is made up of all those who repent, believe, are filled with the Holy Spirit. Repent, believe, baptized, and filled with the Holy Spirit. Those are the people who make up the church. And you know, one of the things the Catholics argued during the Reformation is, if you make every man, you know, interpret the Scripture for themselves, you’re gonna have 50,000 denominations. They were right. And so, they throw that at the Protestants. And what I throw back at them is, well, if your leaders weren’t so lousy, we’d all still be one church. If they weren’t so corrupt and wicked… So it’s on you, not the Protestants. Martin Luther had no choice as far as I’m concerned. But we’re a less than perfect body. But God’s making us a perfect bride, and we need to strive for unity. We need to strive for unity. Not lowest common denominator unity. We don’t sell out to be united, but we do need to come to a good understanding of what are first things and what are second things and third things. You know what I’m saying? And I love what John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists—and he never wanted to be the founder of the Methodists. He died an Anglican. But he used to say of Christians who differed with him, “Yeah, but if your heart is as my heart, give me your right hand of fellowship.” And so we can differ on, you know, secondary ideas around eschatology or some other things, but is your heart as my heart? Are you about Jesus? And in all three of these pictures, that’s the point he’s trying to make. And C.S. Lewis does a great job of this in Mere Christianity, says, “Look it, I’m not arguing for a denomination, I’m arguing for Christianity.” And he said, “It’s interesting to me that the people who are most committed to mere Christianity, who are most committed to the core beliefs, are actually closer to one another than they are to people of their same denomination.” And I’ve experienced that. When I was a part—I was a part of the Catholic Church, I was part of another mainline Protestant church. And I experienced, you know, when I was a Catholic, I had more in common with, you know, a Bible-believing Pentecostal than I did with a lot of the people in the Catholic Church who were just kind of nominal Catholics. And then when I was a Methodist, I had more in common with Bible-believing Baptists than I did with the progressive liberal, “we don’t believe nothing but that there might be a God” Methodist. And even today, is your heart as my heart? Is Jesus what it’s about? Not Jesus and this agenda, not Jesus and that agenda, but Jesus. Is he what it’s about? And that’s what Paul says. He says, “Look, Apollos and I were like workers in a field. Yeah, somebody’s got to plant the seed, and somebody’s got to water the seed, and somebody’s got to put the trees in rows, and somebody’s got to prune them. There’s a lot that the farmers do. There’s a lot that we do as co-workers. But you know what we can’t do? We can’t do the miracle of making this little seed grow into this huge tree and fill it with rich, nourishing, vibrant fruit. Who puts the juice in those things? It’s God. God does the amazing stuff.” Who converts people? God. Who heals people? God. Who raises people from the dead? God. Who casts out demons? God. Who transforms Ireland and civilizations? God. Who brings revival? God. Now guess what? He won’t do it without us. We got to open our mouths. We got to go to our neighbors. We got to say our prayers. We participate. We’re co-workers. But dear ones, He really does all the heavy lifting. None of us died for the sins of the world. None of us rose from the grave in our own power. On the other hand, none of us would have believed had not somebody that He sent proclaimed to us the truth of the gospel. And oftentimes Christ comes to us through what? Through a Stevin, through a Karen. You know, He meets us in the faces of our brothers and sisters. He meets us in the faces of the poor. When we serve the poor. He meets us and here’s what He says. There’s this idea kind of floating around that says, well, you know, you just accept Christ and you all go to heaven; you all get the same reward. No, you don’t. There are rewards in heaven. Each one will be rewarded. Are we saved by our works? Are we saved by our obedience to the law? No, we’re saved by our faith in Christ. But that faith in Christ was meant to produce good works in us. And Jesus is very clear. He says, “Not a cup of cold water given in my name will lose its reward.” I used that illustration this morning in Bremerton. I talked about, you know, we got all the homeless around. I say whenever I see a homeless person out there—we got all these water bottles in the church—I always give him a water bottle. You know, I always give him a water bottle. Hey, Jesus, cup of cold water in your name. Eternity, right? Eternity, right? Put another piece of furniture in my mansion in heaven. Eternity. Eternity. And some gal… we had an Isaiah there, too, for crying out loud. She says, “Hey, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” 3 But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, (Matthew 6:3, CSB) Said, “Fine, here. Here’s a cup of cold water. Here you go. Here you go.” But I do, man. And sure enough, this homeless guy walked in this morning. And he walks out, and I see he’s carrying three waters. So, all right, there you go, Jesus. Good on the Firehouse Church. And there’s another homeless girl walked in and says, “Do you have any water?” Today’s the day, sister. This is your lucky day. I preached on this. I better deliver. So, I gave her two waters. “Here, take your two waters. God bless you.” But it matters. Each one is rewarded according to his labor. Each one of these pictures, he talks about rewards. The next two, he also talks about judgments and punishments. The church as a building. Paul uses another analogy. He says, “One waters, one plants.” Now uses another. He says, “I’m the master builder, and here’s my part in this building project.” He says, “I’m an apostle. And as an apostle, I go from city to city. And what do I do? I lay the foundation. And here is the foundation I lay. It is Jesus Christ. And when that foundation is in place, and I have taught others there—a Timothy, an Apollos, some elders—I move on. “And what they do is they then build upon that foundation. And what they use to build upon that foundation will be tested and will be judged. Do they cut corners? Do they then become hirelings instead of shepherds? Are they doing it for the money they receive, the praise they receive, and the notoriety that they receive? Have they become Christian Pharisees looking for the praise of men? Or are they shepherds? Are they continually laying down their lives for the sheep and building the foundation with gold? And not cutting corners?” Listen, I am, in my political leanings, all for less government. I just am. It’s like it’s got too much. But I also realized this: our founders didn’t want a lot of government, but they also said this: Unless you have a moral and religious people, you cannot have less government, because people cannot govern themselves if they are wicked. And so, if we think government is overbearing, maybe, maybe it’s on us. You know, I would say—to continue the conversation earlier—I’d say the school system makes a terrible father. They’re not a good father. Why have they stepped in and tried to be a father? Well, you say, well, it’s the government takeover. It’s also because there’s a crying need because there aren’t fathers. Somebody’s got to feed these kids free breakfast in the morning, or they go hungry. And if they go hungry, they can’t learn. Somebody’s got to have after-school programs, or they’re just going to run around on the streets because their mothers can’t come pick them up because they have no man providing for the household. I once heard a very liberal state representative who grew up fatherless, and she said, “I am so supportive of all these government programs, and I want all these government programs. Why? Because they kept me alive.” And I thought, “Well, I do not like these government programs. I think they enable people because people end up relying on them. I think they actually exacerbate the problem.” But I also took her point. It’s like, well, then do something about it. Do something about it. That’s why I pray for revival and renewal. Because one of the reasons that it will transform society is if you want less government, then call upon God to shape our land in such a way that we need less government. Having said all that, building with right materials, right? How many nuclear accidents have the aircraft carriers and subs had for how many years have they been using nuclear power? 30, 40 years. Oh, so 50, 60 years. How many catastrophic accidents have we had? Zero. Yeah. Zero. That’s just not propaganda. I think that’s true. Zero. Now you had Chernobyl. Was Chernobyl a lesson for all of us about the danger of nuclear energy? No, it’s about the danger of cutting corners and being cheap in your work and your processes and not caring about human lives and the environment, which is exactly what happened and exactly why that facility failed so drastically and devastated a whole region that’s still experiencing that devastation. So having said that, I’m not an anarchist. I’m glad our government has building codes and construction codes for roads. Now. I think we’ve fallen off the other side of that horse, quite frankly. I think maybe we’ve gone too far. But on the other hand, I don’t want them to let greedy people cut corners with my kids’ safety and automobiles and buildings. Do you? When a big earthquake hits, you’re going to be glad. You might be glad that they, the government, said, “Hey, you know, from now on you can’t just put houses on top of foundations. You got to bolt them on those foundations.” You might walk away from that going, “Yeah, I’m glad they did that.” All I’m saying is—this is not a political commentary—but all I’m saying is fallen humans will cut corners. But Paul… see, if we’re a religious and moral people, we don’t need the government to tell us not to cut corners because the Bible tells us not to cut corners. And Paul says, when you’re raising your children to be Christian disciples, don’t cut corners. When you’re working in an environment where you’re surrounded by non-Christians, don’t cut corners. Don’t compromise your faith. Pay the price of being misunderstood. Now, I’m not saying be a mean Christian. We got our quota of those. We don’t need any more mean Christians. I’m just saying be a Christian. Be a Christian in your home, be a Christian in your workplace. Look, anybody can fake it for an hour and a half on Sunday night. And evidence points this out. Kids who walk away from the faith—now, if your kid has walked away from faith, I’m not accusing you because it’s not unanimous. You can be wonderful parents and your kids still got to make their own choice. And you can be horrible parents and your kids will make tons of right choices. However, having said that, statistically, you are placing incredible odds in your children’s favor of them remaining in the faith that you raised them in, in the faith of Christ—you are placing incredible odds in their favor, not by dragging them to church; that has a fairly minimal impact, but by living out an authentic example of what they and you heard on Sunday morning before them on Monday through Saturday. Now, you don’t have to be perfect. I’m not saying that. I’m not trying to put pressure on you. I’m just saying they’ve researched this. People have researched this. And it’s like, “Oh, my parents mean this.” My daughter was just talking about it. She was talking about—and again, if you’ve been divorced, I’m not picking on you here. But my daughter was talking about, you know, “We have this nice couple that our kids play sports with.” And my wife just said, “Oh, they, they must be Christian.” My daughter says, “Well, sadly, they’re not. He’s had no real exposure to the Christian faith. She grew up just like me, deeply involved in church. Youth group, loved it. And then she walked away from it all.” And we said, “What was it? College professors?” “No.” “Was it, you know, a boyfriend?” “No. Parents got a divorce and she’s like, ‘Well, wasn’t real for them.'” Well, it probably was, and there are probably other reasons. I’m not trying to be hard on those parents. I don’t know them; I’m not trying to judge them. But I’m just saying that that was impactful, right? They were saying, “Find the right person, pray for the right person, marry the right person, work out your conflicts.” They were teaching her all these things. You learn all these things. And then right there before, it’s like it didn’t work. It impacted her. Now is that an excuse for her? No, the truth of Christ should trump that. And she didn’t walk in that. Her rebellion is her own. All I’m saying is foundations, the materials you use to build with, will matter and they will be exposed. I am always saddened and it just happens so much. Probably it’s always been this way, but now you have so much media, so much social media. And it probably happens in small churches as much as big churches, but small churches just don’t have the notoriety. So, I’m not picking on big churches. Always bothered me when pastors of small churches pick on big churches. Always seemed like kind of petty to me, but nonetheless, ministries, large ministries, large churches are put up on these pedestals and then when they fall and there’s moral failure with the pastor and the board and people find corruption and cover ups and all this stuff. It just grieves me when I see that. But what’s that about? That’s about building with wood, hay, and straw. And inevitably, that gets exposed. The old holiness movement used to say, “Your sins will find you out. Your sins will find you out.” It will be tested. And look, the reward is if you build with good materials, you will receive a reward. But if you cut corners in your Christian walk and witness, it will be exposed, and you will lose that. Though in this case, he says, you will be saved—God will keep His covenant with you, but only as one coming through fire. Now listen, I’ve said many times, “Lord, I just want a seat at the table. I don’t care where I’m at table; I’ll be at the end of the table.” But on the other hand, what I’d really like to hear is, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I’d really like to hear that. And the closer I get, the older I get, you know, the more kind of eternity presses in on me. The more that meeting with Jesus is like, yeah, that’s going to happen. I used to, you know, acknowledge it was going to happen. Yeah, one day I’m going to go and meet Jesus. And that day—you know, when I’m 30—that day… Yeah, it’s out there. And now I go, you know, one day I’m going to go and meet with Jesus. And that day… You know? Like, I don’t know… 67? 30, I think, ah, maybe 40, 50 years. 67? I don’t got 40, 40, 50 years. It’s like I haven’t done a, you know, a rigorous job of taking care of my health. I’m all right, but, you know, I’m overweight. Yeah. You know, never seen a smiling jogger, so, you know, I don’t do that. Golly, that day, that day’s coming. That’s a train you can’t get off. That’s going to be a great day. But on that day, you got no more chance for those rewards that you got by building right in this world. And it’ll be fine. If you’re at the end of the table, it’ll be fine. And you won’t even be envious of those who are sitting closer to Jesus. You’ll rejoice. It’ll be good. There won’t be envy. There won’t be this big regret. But, you know, the man’s a fool who lives for temporal immediate dopamine rush and satisfaction when eternity is lying before him. Who would invest, make an investment in the stock market if the broker said, “Hey, this is going to go up like crazy in the next week, but you’re not going to be able to take it out for five years. It’s going to crash. Oh, but it’s going to be so fun when you see it go up.” “Here’s all my money.” Like, no. But what if the broker said, you know, “Here, you’re going to invest this. It’s not going to seem like much in the beginning, but it’s going to grow exponentially over the years to a treasure that your mind at this point can’t even fathom.” And you had reason to trust that broker, by the way, because you got reason to trust Jesus. Brian, where would you put your investment? I’ve heard you’re wise about these things. You are no fool, my man. You are no fool. Isaiah, Karen, count your blessings, man. You hooked your wagon, you hooked your wagon to a good man. All right, dear ones, the final analogy. The church as a temple. The temple in the Old Testament, the tabernacle in the temple—the whole reason was this is the place God dwells. And now the New Testament, the New Covenant, which is better than the old covenant—now the temple in which God dwells is in my heart because Jesus fulfills the covenant, the old covenant. Now God’s desire has always been throughout the Bible, “I want to be with my people. I want to dwell among my people.” Now He dwells among us and He dwells in us. And so, you are an incredible treasure. We look at you now and go, “Hey, there’s good old so and so.” If you saw good old so and so in their exalted state, C.S. Lewis says you’d be tempted to worship them. And if you saw an image bearer of God who threw that away on worthless living and faces judgment, you would see an eternal horror like that of which only meets you now in nightmares. But here’s what he says—I love this—in “The Weight of Glory.” There are no ordinary people. Your neighbor is the most incredible thing in the universe that you will ever encounter. And he says if you destroy God’s temple, one of those image bearers who the Spirit of God is living in, if you destroy His church by divisiveness and backbiting and gossip and, you know, grumbling and all those things, greed… He says, if you destroy God’s temple, you will be destroyed. But if you honor God’s temple, God dwells in you and your body and your life will glorify God. Don’t destroy the temple of God. Don’t gossip about people in church. Believe the best and build one another up. I pray at this stage of my life, I pray… It was so funny. I think I told you this last week. But I’m an old man, so I repeat my stories. And you’re kind of old people too, so you forget my story. So, it’s all good. So, I told this story. You know, I went back to Kansas City and Grace Covenant Conference, and I got this church, my second church home. Apostle Pam Brown pastors that church. Dear sister. And these are a bunch of African American, mostly African American, Pentecostals. These ladies and men, they pray at the church, and a bunch of these ladies come to the conference. They really love me, and I love them, and I’ve preached there a few times. These are just great ladies, man. And nothing against you guys, you Northern Europeans, but they are not—man, when you say, “I’m bringing a fire,” they go, “We want the fire, Pastor. We want the fire. Put your hands on me. Pray for me.” They’re falling and dropping, and “Hallelujah!” I made a vow. I kind of just—I didn’t ask God about this. I said, “You know, I’m not gonna do that. They always expect me to, you know, get slain in the Spirit and all that. I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to preach the Word.” And I’m in church, and God’s like, “Who told you that that’s what I want to do?” “Well, God, I don’t want to. You know, I feel like it’s just, you know, kind of the expected thing.” And He says, “Come on, son. Let’s get the ball rolling.” I go, “Okay.” I turn to this lady behind me: “You want to start this?” “Start what?” Put my hand on her, “In the Name of Jesus.” Bam. She drops. I look at her on the ground and said, “That.” And they’re lined up. “I want Jesus.” All right. We’re praying for them and all that. This is great. So, anyway, these ladies pray for me. I have a great time when I’m there. They pray for me. So, we’re at the lunch last day, and they’re like, “How can we pray for you, Pastor?” I said, “At this time in my life, I’m praying for five characteristics.” And they’re so encouraging. I said, “I’m praying for kindness. I want to be kind. I want to be a kind old man, you know, I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be, ‘Get off of my lawn!’ You know, I don’t want to be that guy. ‘I hate traffic!’ I want my grandkids to grow up with a kind grandpa, not a grumpy grandpa. So I’m praying to be kind.” And they’re so great. They say, “Oh, we’ll pray for that. But you got that. You got that.” Well, thank you. I said, “I want to be an encourager. I want to be encouraging to people.” “Oh, Pastor, we’ll pray for that. You got that, though. You got that.” “I want to pray for wisdom. I want to be wise.” “We’ll pray for that. But you, you’re a wise man. You’re a good preacher. You’re a wise man.” “Thank you. But I want to be wiser. Also, I want to pray for humility.” “Oh, we’ll pray for you.” Right then, I got a dose of humility. It’s like, there was no, like, “Oh, you got that. You got that.” It’s like, “Oh, yeah, we’ll pray for that. Pray for that.” It’s like right there, that humbled me. It’s like, I recognize that. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, we’ll pray for that. Yeah, we’ll pray for that.” And the fifth one is courage. I want to have courage. Because the older you get, the more courage it takes to live. That’s just the truth of it. I want to have courage. So those are the five qualities I pray for. So, if you ever think about praying for me, just take out your hand. That’s five of them. You know, if you can’t remember, send me a text or an email. I’ll tell you, all right? None of you are going to forget humility, though. You’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, that boy needs humility. Help him, Jesus. Help him.” Pray I can get humility without getting terribly humbled, though. You know, that’s the hard part. Like, humility is great. The process is rough. Like, patience is great. The process is rough. All right, but here’s the sternest warning, right? There’s no warning for the field. There is a warning for the building, that your building will be destroyed. But here, if you destroy God’s temple, God will destroy you. Wow. That may mean the judgment of physical death. If you’re a church killer, a disruptor of the people of God, there may be a time God says, “Well, I gave him time to repent,” you know? But I’m not a Calvinist here, folks. I’m not a Calvinist. I think he’s saying when you continually and habitually, driven by your own ego, sin against the people of God, you can harden your heart to the point of walking away from your salvation, and you will be destroyed. Listen, we all sin some. Don’t habitually sin. What do I mean by that? If you’ve got a habitual sin, I understand addiction, I understand the struggles. My gosh, like, I don’t struggle with stuff? But man, don’t hide that. Don’t rationalize it. Don’t justify it. Bring it to God. Bring it to the people of God and repent. And God will—you’ll get better. God will help you. He can deal with that. What He can’t deal with is somebody who justifies, rationalizes, lies, and then goes about wounding God’s people. Listen, it is scary to me, how often as a pastor, I’ve sat in my office and have somebody, you know, in full adulthood come to me with their broken life, and we dive into the story. It is scary and just bad the number of times where that broken life, a big piece of that brokenness, is rooted as a child, when some adult touched them in an inappropriate and sexually aggressive way. And it is never without consequences. Man, people are just messed up because of that. Women, it is often a real fear of men. Men can’t be trusted. Men hurt. Men are dangerous. For young boys, it is often, “Well, I wasn’t feeling love and affection and this didn’t quite seem right, but it was kind of loving,” and actually can be drawn to it. But it’s, in both cases, it is a destroyer of lives. And quite frankly, I want to—my sister and brother-in-law, we were listening to one of the missionaries at Grace Covenant. They’re working down in Ecuador, trying to show Ecuador how to run orphanages. The Ecuadorian government is asking this Christian couple, because they ran a really decent and good orphanage, to show them how to run orphanages. The orphan system in Ecuador is horrible because the kids are often trafficked, sexually abused, and molested. You know, it’s a gateway to that. And they’re telling them how to, and they’re showing them how to build safeguards against that and make safe, wholesome, and nourishing orphanages for these orphans. It’s kind of a neat story. The government’s reaching out to the body of Christ and saying, “Help us here, help us. We’re doing a bad job at this.” But my sister’s like, “I just want to go down there—when I heard that story—go down there, hold each one of those kids in my arms, and love them.” And my brother-in-law, who’s the justice warrior of the two of them—my sister’s got mercy, he’s got justice, right?—my brother-in-law, I said, “Do you want to go down with her?” He goes, “No, unless I can shoot the perps. I want to shoot the perps.” But here’s the problem with shooting the perps, right? Each one of those perps, why are they perps? Why are they molesting children? Chances are huge that the reason they’re molesting children is because they were molested. And so that satanic evil just, you know, goes through the generations, and we can cut that off in the Name of Jesus. A great thing that God has given us the authority to do. But man, what does Jesus say about hurting one of the little ones, right? Better a millstone. There’s a man I know, older than me, he knows the Bible inside and out. Not a Christian, was raised in a very strict kind of fundamentalist, kind of angry church where, you know, if he misbehaved in church, his dad would take him out and, you know, give him a stern talking to or a stern beating. And all the adults in church were all like, “Don’t have fun. You can’t have fun here.” You know, just that kind of church environment where it’s all like… And he’s rejected the thing because of his childhood. And I just thought, man, the church’s I’m pastoring… I never want—man, I want this to be a place where kids feel loved, embraced, and, you know, and the pastor loves them and the people love them. My kids… It was so great. We take our kids on vacation, and they go, “Hey, are we gonna be back in time to go to youth group? We don’t miss youth group.” That was awesome. As parents, we were like… And we hired this youth pastor, Newbie. They loved Newbie. Newbie was nervous, man. He had always, like, “Oh, gosh.” You know, he always felt—he was a great youth pastor, but he always felt the pressure of it. He was always worried about what the parents were thinking. I said, “Newbie, you’re doing a great job.” I said, “You only got to please me and God, and I’m happy.” He says, “What about my wife?” I said, “That’s between you and her. But I’m your boss. You got to please me. So I’m happy.” But, you know, he came to me one time, when he first started he said, “I was at the Christian bookstore is just overwhelmed with the curriculum.” He says, “What curriculum do I use?” And here’s what I told him. I said, “I don’t care.” I said, “You’re the curriculum. You’re the curriculum. These kids are watching you. Yeah. Teach them something biblical. Teach them something true.” But to this day, my kids love Newbie. If I ask them what Bible study really impacted your life, they’re like, “I don’t know. But we love Newbie.” Because Newbie was an authentic Christian man, and he lived that before my kids. My kids would come home from youth group and say, “You know, Newbie told us we should start reading the Bible every day. We’re gonna go in our room and start reading. We’re doing Colossians. We’re going to our room and start reading Colossians.” And my wife and I are like, “How many years have we said, ‘Read your Bible?'” But, you know, it was like, “My parents told me…” But Newbie told them. “Newbie told us, read the Bible every day.” So we didn’t, we didn’t, like, bring it up. We didn’t like, “Well, we’ve been telling you to do that all the time.” We had wisdom. We’re like, “Hey, that’s a great idea. Man, I wish we had thought of that. Go read your Bible every day. That’s great.” You’re the curriculum. We’re the curriculum. And how we live amongst other people, believers and non-believers, is simply the most important manifestation of Christ in our lives, more than the words we say. The words we say have power or don’t have power based upon the witness we live. That’s why that prayer is so good from that song. Never let me lose the wonder. Show me who you are. Then fill me with your heart. Then when I’m filled with the heart of the Spirit and the heart of Jesus, lead me to those around me. That’s how you build with precious stones. The precious stones are in you. The water that comes out of you is pure and clean and refreshing because it’s the water of life that God fills you with. You can’t give away what you don’t have. And for that, you are greatly rewarded. Walk with Jesus. Walk by the Spirit. Develop a friendship with God. Have intimacy with Him. If you don’t know how, ask Him. Say, “God, I want to be your friend. You are my Lord. You are my master. I serve you as you are my King. You know, I’ll wash your feet, I’ll do whatever in your house, but I also want to be your friend.” Do you know He wants to be your friend. And be His friend, and then your life will bear fruit. Why live for this world? All things are ours. All things are ours. We’re already inheriting them. I’m already inheriting them. I want to one day enter fully into the kingdom. But I’m already walking in the kingdom, right? You’re already walking in the kingdom. You’re already experiencing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. He’s already answering your prayers. He already overflows your life. I will tell you one of the greatest ways to bear fruit and walk with Jesus is just living a life of thankfulness. Again, don’t slip into grumbling and complaining. My goodness. My wife always reminds me. I think she reminds me of this in direct reference to the fact that I’m married to her. But her point is, “You have it so good.” You know, she’s right. I do. I got a great wife. I got great kids. I got great friends. I am so thankful for y’all. I really am. I’m not one of those pastors that go, “Ew, the Firehouse Church in Poulsbo…” You know? Like, oh, those are wonderful. There are three wonderful families come to that church. Now, if I had my druthers, there would be 30 wonderful families who came to this church. But you three are pretty awesome. You three are pretty awesome. I just want a big family. But you’re great. Every time you walk in, I’m happy, you know? I really am. That’s not flattery. It’s the truth. I love you all. And I feel the same way in Bremerton. But I can slip into grumbling, you know? I get caught because I don’t like traffic. And I’m reminded daily whenever I start grumbling about traffic. What kind of people complain about traffic? Right? I’ve told you this before. People with cars. 12% of the world’s population gets to complain about traffic. The other 88% have to walk or ride bikes or motorcycles without helmets amidst third-world driving. Now, that’ll give you faith. I remember going to Costco, and I’m doing a no-carb thing. Oh, I’m going to eat meat. Gonna eat meat. Go to buy meat at Costco. Go get a little meat at Costco. No such thing as getting a little meat at Costco, right? They don’t sell little meat; they sell big meat. And when you’re there and you’re hungry, oh, that big meat looks good. You know, you go to the store, you can only get one New York steak. Go to Costco, you get a six pack. “Oh, boy. Steaks. Oh, ribs. Oh, bacon. Oh, meat. Meat. Good. Sausage. Good, Brian. Put it on grill. Eat it like a man. Good, Brian. Let’s eat meat. Burgers. Good.” Come home from Costco and realize I don’t have a freezer in the garage. I got this little freezer over my refrigerator. Tiny freezer, not a big freezer. Open it up. About three fourths full. I got all this meat. What did I do? I grumbled. “Oh, now I gotta clean out this freezer and organize everything and gosh—” And all of a sudden I hear the voice of the Lord. “Yeah, poor you, Kev. How much of the world do you think would be grumbling now because they had too much? Because they had to eat steak every day this week to make room in their freezer?” First world problems, right? First world problems. Gee, you’re going to have to grill up a steak tonight or you won’t have room for all your meat. Let me wipe the tears away from your eyes. Poor boy. Be thankful. Be thankful. Everything is yours. We’re like the older brother in the prodigal son story. “Why do you give him everything? I’ve been working for you all these years.” Yeah, you’ve been living in a great house with servants, eating well every night. And you get to inherit all this. What are you whining about? Because you got to go pull a few weeds once in a while? All this is yours. The kingdom is yours. You have entered the kingdom. And you will inherit the kingdom. And it’s bigger than you imagine. Eye has not seen or ear heard what the heart of man and woman can conceive, what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him. All this is yours. And so sing hallelujah. Clap your hands, give praise to God and thanks daily. Wake up every morning and say, “God, thank you. Thank you for a great salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ.” Yes, you have struggles. Welcome to Planet Earth. Look around this room. I know I can name the struggles and the heartbreak of—at least one or two of the struggles and heartbreak of every person in this room. And it grieves me that those are the heartbreaks in your life. But I can also say Christ is the victor, and He is bigger than whatever problems you are facing. And God causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him, have been called according to His purpose. 28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28, CSB) And dear ones, you cannot lose. If you do not quit, you cannot lose. All things are yours. And so be thankful. We’re gonna have this meal. It’s the thing Jesus told us to do. He said, “When you get together, do this. Eat bread, drink simple fruit of the vine, because my body and blood were poured out for you.” And it’s such a powerful picture of feeding on Christ. See all the other religions of the world—I’m almost finished, which means only 25 more minutes. You know, when preachers say, “Lastly,” you know what that means? They’re going to last, right? Preachers used to take out their watches and put them on the pulpit. And somebody said, “You know what it means when a preacher takes his watch off and puts it on the pulpit? Absolutely nothing.” But no, I am almost finished. And in fact, I am, because I forgot what I was going to say after I told those two jokes. Aren’t you lucky? So, dear ones, we’re going to take this meal. And it is such a powerful picture of feeding on Christ. On the night that He was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it, gave thanks to His Father. And He said, “This is My body which is given for you.” In the same way, after supper He took the cup, poured it out, gave thanks to His Father in heaven. He said, “This is My blood which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. The blood of the New Covenant.” 19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. (Luke 22:19-20, CSB) We are New Covenant people, which is so much better than the old that the Spirit of God actually lives in us. So, when you take this meal—the word Eucharist means “thank you.” Give thanks. When you take this meal, feed on Christ because you cannot give what you do not have. And if you want to give away Christ in your family, in your workplace, in the world, then feed on Christ. Feed on Christ tonight and please say, “Thank you.” Because He is so willing that He poured out His life to make us His eternal sons and daughters that we might dwell with Him forever. And He already dwells in us. So, thank you, Lord, for this great salvation. The post 2026.3.15 TFHC – The Church, Rewards, Punishment | 1 Corinthians 3:5-20 appeared first on The Firehouse Church in Bremerton, WA.