1 Corinthians 03 Round Two: Make Jesus Your Hero

Celebrity culture sneaks into churches more easily than we think. We admire gifted speakers, tight bands, and impressive programs, then wonder why unity feels fragile. Walking through 1 Corinthians 3, we confront the core issue: when we rally around personalities, we quietly move the cornerstone. Paul pulls us back to the foundation that never cracks—Jesus Christ—and shows how planting, watering, and growth only make sense when God is at the center.

We unpack Paul’s vivid images: a field where servants play their part while God gives the increase, and a building where the only true foundation is Christ. From there, the challenge gets personal. What are we building with—gold, silver, and jewels of obedience and love, or wood, hay, and straw shaped by envy and ego? Paul isn’t threatening salvation for those who trust Christ; he’s elevating faithfulness. The refining fire tests the quality of our work, not the fact of our belonging. What lasts becomes reward, and what burns away becomes a lesson in misplaced ambition.

We also explore what it means to be God’s temple—together. Unity is not a bonus feature; it’s sacred architecture. Worldly cleverness can’t sustain a holy people, but humble wisdom shaped by Scripture can. So we ask two questions that bring clarity to noise: What did you do with Jesus? What did you do with what He gave you? Leaders matter, but only as signposts. Excellence matters, but never more than obedience. If you’re ready to trade personality-driven faith for a Christ-centered life that endures the fire, this conversation will guide your next faithful step.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Episode Focus
• 1:10 Community Updates And Call To Action
• 1:36 The Problem: Rallying Around Leaders
• 3:00 Reading 1 Corinthians 3: Immaturity And Division
• 5:05 Planting, Watering, And God’s Growth
• 6:20 Christ The Only Foundation
• 8:00 Works Tested By Fire And Rewards
• 10:05 You Are God’s Temple
• 11:20 Don’t Boast In Human Leaders
• 12:30 Two Questions God Will Ask

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well, hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And if I were to give this one a title, it would be Make Jesus Your Superhero. Make Jesus your superhero. I don't know if you have ever done this, but there has been a couple of times in my life when I was around somebody who was famous, and I had no idea. It was a, you know, just different things where it was like a country music person, and I'm not in country music. It was a comedian, and I had never heard of them before, even though I love comedy. And it's like after the fact, you're like, oh, wow, missed that opportunity, you know. And it's kind of like that's what's going on in the church of Corinth. It's like they're rallying around like these people when the most famous, quote unquote, famous person in the room is not getting the love that they're supposed to have. And we're gonna jump into that in just a moment. But before we do that, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It really does help us. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast. And then also rally with us at the Bible Breakdown Discussion on Facebook. Man, those guys are they're doing an amazing job over there. Make sure you let them know that when they're doing these different things, these devotions are awesome and they really mean a lot to us that that team is doing that. So thank you, team, for your wonderful job. If you have your Bibles, you want to open them up with me to 1 Corinthians 3. I don't know if you've ever done this before, but I have had an opportunity to talk to people about their church. And as a pastor, I try not to tell people that I'm a pastor at first because I just want to hear. Like I love the church, I love what God does all over the place. I love the different expressions of the church community and these different churches. And it's amazing how you can talk to two different people and get two different responses about churches. And then also, it's amazing how we we major on so many different things. Oh, this person, you know, they have a wonderful, or this church has a wonderful children's ministry, this church has a wonderful pastor, this church has wonderful music, and that's okay until we make that the only thing. Or if we make that the thing, but then not notice the more important thing. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, what we're gonna say in a moment is something that we all know, but we sometimes struggle with, and that is rallying around the wrong thing. Just like when I was saying at the beginning, how you know, many times there'll be, you know, or twice in my life, especially, there's been like a famous person like in the same room, and I had no idea. So I feel like I wasted my opportunity. Well, then it's also the same thing where we have a tendency to rally around the wrong things, and so we miss the opportunity for unity. And that's what's going on in the city of Corinth. As I was saying before, it's all these different people groups coming together and this thing that that's like the Las Vegas of the of the first century Rome. And Paul is really trying to figure out a way to take a divided church and find harmony in that division. And so it's like family therapy for an entire church. Like Paul's inviting them into his office and he's saying, Have a seat, let's talk it out. And they're rallying around the wrong things, and in doing so, they're not noticing what they should be rallying around, which is Jesus. So we're going to read this and see if we can make more sense out of it. First Corinthians chapter 3, verse 1. He says this, Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you, I couldn't talk to you as I would spiritual people. I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in Christ. I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren't ready for anything stronger. And you're still not really ready, for you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another, you quarrel with each other, and you don't prove you are controlled. Uh, don't doesn't that prove that you're controlled by your sinful nature? Aren't you living like people of this world? And when one of you says, I'm a follower of Paul, and another says, I follow Apollos, aren't you acting just like the people of the world? After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? Are we only God's servants through whom you believed the good news? Aren't we? I mean, yeah, aren't we? Let me try that one again. We are only God's servants through whom you believed the good news. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seeds in your hearts, Paulos watered it, but it was God that made it grow. It's not important who does the planting and who does the watering. What's important is that God makes the seeds grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together for the same purpose, for both will be warded for their hard work. For we are both God's workers, and you are God's field. You are God's building. Now pause. So what he's saying is that you're rallying around the wrong things. You're looking at me, you're looking at Apollos, which by the way, Apollos was just another preacher like Paul, and he's saying, You're you're you're rallying around these things when you don't notice the real one, you know, the one who's truly quote unquote famous. You know, you're you're missing that it's really all about God. And when you're majoring on all these other things, you're forgetting the most important person. I'm not special. Apollos isn't special. We just played a role. It was God that did all the amazing work. Focus on God. Verse 10. Because of God's grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now, others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one we have already laid, and that is Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials, such as gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person's work has any value. If the work survives, the builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss, and the builder will be saved, but like someone barely escapes through a wall of flames. Now pause. Now, because of this verse, that's where a lot of people get the theology that the only way you make it into heaven is by making Christ Jesus your Lord and following him. But then at some point, there's gonna be a moment where we'll be rewarded for our faithfulness. And that's what Paul is saying. He's he's using an allegory. He's he's saying that these people, he laid the foundation of Christ in their life. And then many other people can come, like Apollos and different ones, and can build on that foundation with teaching them godliness. But the way you're gonna know if it was true or not is one day when we all get to heaven, you know, for those who make Christ their Lord, there's gonna be a moment where all the things that we did are going to be measured of whether you were being faithful or not. Now it's got nothing to do with you getting to heaven, remember, but it's got to do with your rewards in heaven. And so what Paul is saying is it's almost like all those things are gonna be put into a fire, figuratively. And whatever is worthless, whatever was with bad motives and all this kind of stuff, it's all gonna burn up. But all the things that were done with the right motives and for the right reasons, it will come out as pure gold. And then those will be, you know, what you'll be rewarded with. I heard someone say it's almost like that goal will come out. And that that goal will be fashioned into a crown that then you can lay down as an act of worship at the feet of Jesus. And I think that's beautiful. And so I I agree with this. I have no idea exactly how this is gonna happen, but at some point we're gonna go to heaven. If you make Christ your Lord, and it's gonna be a moment where God's gonna say, first of all, what did you do with Jesus? You gotta answer that one right to get in heaven. And the second one is gonna be, what did you do with the opportunities I gave you? And that's the one that has to do with your rewards. So let's keep reading. Verse 16. Don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. So stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world's standards, you need to become fools to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. And as Scripture says, he traps the wise in the snare of his own cleverness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, and he knows that they are worthless. But don't boast about following a particular human leader, for everything belongs to you, whether Paul, Apollos, Peter, or the world, or life, or death, or this present age or the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. Christ is God. So we're going to end our time together and ask you this question Who are you following? And why do you follow them? Are you following a leader? That's okay. As long as you're following them as they follow Christ. Make sure, no matter who they are, if it's me or anybody else, that you always make sure that what they do aligns with God's word. Ultimately, God's word is your true leader. Now, that's not me teaching rebellion at all. You should definitely follow leaders in your life. God puts leaders in our life for a reason, but ultimately your leader is Christ. And that's what Paul is trying to tell them. One of the reasons why you guys are so divided is you're ultimately following the wrong person. Yes, I'm I was there. Thank you for following me for a season. Yes, Apollos was there. Thank you for following him. But all of that is to get to the main person, and that's Jesus. And then the other thing is God's going to ask us all two questions one day. One is going to be, what did you do with my son Jesus? What did you do with Jesus? And that one's got to be, I made him the Lord of my life. And the second one is, What did you do with what I gave you? Now the first one is how you get into heaven. The second one has to do with rewards in heaven. So we don't do works to to earn God's favor. We live from a position of favor and we do good works in order to honor God and honor his people. And so the question would be, if you had to answer the first question, what did you do with Jesus? What would you say? I hope everybody listening to this would say, I made Jesus the Lord of my life. If not, that needs to be your prayer today. And then second, what would you do if God said, What did you do with the opportunities I gave you? The right answer does not have to be I succeeded at everything. God's not looking for a hundred percent success rate. God's looking for the answer, I did the best I could with what I had. And if you are faithful, do the best you can with what you have, that's what was required. That's what happened in one of the stories when Jesus was telling about how one person received, you know, five talents of gold, one received three talents of gold, one received one. For those who are faithful, he said, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things, now be a ruler over many. God isn't interested in perfection, he's interested in faithfulness. Let's pray together today. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you that you're with us and you're for us. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that there's so many things we can glean from this chapter. For some of us, we need to get our eyes off of people and get our eyes more focused on you. For others, God, we need to just rejoice in the fact that we've been called into this ministry. For others, Lord, it is to reinvest ourselves and be faithful with the positions and the things you've given us. Lord, you're not asking us to be successful in the eyes of men. You're asking us to be faithful in your eyes. I pray that will encourage us today to never give up and to always let you lead us in everything. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, as we end today's family therapy session for the Church of Corinth, don't forget God's word says in 1 Corinthians 10, 31. So whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, do all for the glory of God. I love you. I'll see you for therapy session tomorrow for 1 Corinthians 4.