A few weeks back while we were still going through the book of Haggai, I was trying to look ahead, like I usually do, about what the Lord might want us to go to next. And I felt at that time, and he can start or stop it as he is pleased to, that we would begin, and we did actually last Sunday, a series on Jesus Christ being all in all. And so that's what we're going to do the next several Sundays until the Lord says, okay, that's enough, go somewhere else. But anyway, so take your Bibles, turn to 1 Corinthians 3. And I want to thank everybody for your expressions of love and prayers and your encouragement for Jolynn and me. And we are trusting God. We are seeking to practice what Jesus said when he said, Take no thought for tomorrow, for each day has enough trouble of its own. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. That's the same context where he says, don't be worrying or fretful because you can't change the color of one hair on your head. Or make yourself one inch taller, or I don't know, somebody might want to be one inch shorter. But anyway, there's things that we, in our own strength, would love to change, but we can't. And Jesus's words are very helpful in regard to that. Now I've got a cough drop now, I've got waters up here, and so just bear with me because I am dealing with a sinus infection on top of everything else. And so the cough has been a constant struggle lately. So if I have to stop and do it, you'll understand that's just the way it is. All right, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, I'm going to begin reading in verse 10 and just read verses 10 and 11 as we get started today. 1 Corinthians 3 verses 10 and 11. Paul says according to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Amen. That's the word of the Lord. He that has ear to hear, let him hear. Let's pray. Father, help us now to indeed hear, receive truth, and apply truth to ourselves. Thank you for the sure foundation that you have given in the person of your son and help us to realize that to try to build any part of our lives on anything else but him will ultimately be worthless. Pray also Lord if there's someone that that's totally foreign to to hear this morning that you must build your life on Christ, that you'll reveal that to them. Make them know their absolute need of you, Father. We thank you again for loving us and giving your Son for us. Speak now for your servants here. In Jesus' name, Amen. In the physical realm, we're all familiar with foundations for houses, for buildings. One thing that is obvious, but we need to state it here as we begin to look at the importance of building your life on Jesus, and that's this. First of all, foundations are absolutely necessary for building, right? If you try to build a building with no foundation, it won't work out well. Second thing is, and this is very important for us to understand, a foundation can exist without a building on top of it. But a building cannot exist without a foundation under it. So Christ the foundation doesn't change. He is there. And it just depends on whether we take the Bible's counsel and build our lives upon Him. So I want to talk just a few minutes this morning to begin with at what sort of foundation is Jesus Christ? Obviously it's spiritual, right? Not physical. What sort of foundation is Jesus Christ? And I'll take us over to Isaiah chapter 28 to begin with. Isaiah 28. And the 16th verse. Prophet Isaiah says, Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation, and he that believeth shall not make haste. Now, when God talks about laying a foundation in Zion, we have to understand the ultimate meaning of that in the fulfillment of time. And Zion refers to the church, the people of God. And so he says, for my people, they must be built on something. And I have laid a foundation on which they can be built. precious, tried or tested, and sure or trustworthy. And all of those are true of our Lord Jesus Christ, aren't they? A laid foundation. Psalm 89. I love this verse, I love this entire psalm because of how it exalts the Messiah, Jesus. Psalm 89 verse 18 says, For the Lord is our defense, and the Holy One of Israel is our King. Then thou, the psalmist is referring to God, spakest in vision to thy Holy One and said, I have laid help upon one that is mighty. I've exalted one chosen out of the people. So, God is saying, I've laid this foundation and the foundation is placed upon the shoulders of one that is mighty. When we see and remember and recall and read about again Christ bearing His own cross to Calvary, we have to see through that not just the actual physical, y'all bear with me, not only the actual physical weight that He carried, but the spiritual burden that He carried. Our sins were laid on Him, Isaiah says in chapter 53, and they were laid on one who is mighty. He is well able to bear the load. He can carry our sins and lift them up and pay for them, and He did. So, He is a laid foundation. laid on one that is mighty. But secondly, Jesus is also a low foundation. Now any foundation of a building is the first thing that goes on the ground. But what we remember about this is when Jesus came to fulfill His role and calling as our foundation, He came lowly. He came lowly. Philippians chapter 2, Paul goes into detail about that when he says that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. So Jesus was willing to be made low. It was absolutely necessary that he be low. so the foundation of the church could be built on him. A low foundation. And that took great humbling and humiliation. The King of Glory, the Son of God, in perfect union with the Father and the Spirit, worshipped by the angels, comes and takes upon Him the form of a servant, a slave. and is made in the likeness of men. That humbling is something that Jesus obviously had never experienced before. And once He did it, He committed forever to be in that body, though it's now glorified and in heaven, He committed to be in that body that showed His humbling, right? That's why the Bible talks so much about how we should be humble, because Christ was. Now there's a couple of things about that that I want to bring out. First of all, His humiliation. Was He born in a palace? No. Was He attended by the rich and the wealthy from the time he came out of the womb? Was he honored by all the people? Quite the opposite. He came to be humiliated. And we see that in the Gospels over and over again when the people see him do great miracles and hear him teach. and speak as no man ever spoke, and they say, what's going on here? Isn't this just the carpenter's son? That's all he is. We know his siblings. He's grown up around us. So his humiliation was to be counted of no reputation. He wasn't. And because of that, there were many, many critical and blasphemous things said about him by the people. Secondly, he was also a low foundation in his subjection to the law of God. Now, that's the interesting part because Jesus is the author of the law. And so he himself on earth had to give the example of being totally subject to that law that he made that was his. When God made the law he did not have to say, now I'm going to submit myself to it. But the son did. The perfect law of God. I talked about it last week when he said to the Pharisees and others, which of you convinces me of sin? And they were silent. So, his subjection to the law. And then thirdly, his poverty. and persecution by pretty much everyone, including most of his own family. The Bible tells us that Jesus had no place to lay his head, right? He said it himself, foxes have holes, birds have nests, the son of man doesn't have anywhere to spend the night. He was dependent on others inviting him in every night of his adult life to have somewhere to sleep indoors. And again, he was a lowly carpenter's son. He had to have financial support and help from those who followed him and believed in him. Or he'd have had no sustenance whatsoever. And persecution. His mother and brothers gathered one time when he was teaching the people outside And they sent a messenger in and said, your mother and your brethren are outside wanting to talk to you. And he said, these are my mother and brethren. They sit at my feet. But it says that his brethren said he was out of his mind. Persecution. For one who faithfully kept the law of God. He was persecuted continually by those who thought they perfectly kept the law of God and they didn't. Right? How many times did they seek to kill Jesus prior to the cross? We read of several accounts in the Gospels where they wanted to do that. God in His sovereignty kept that from happening because the plan was set for Him to die on Calvary. But they wanted to. They wanted to. They accused him of all kinds of blasphemous and unfaithful handling of the law of God. He was persecuted. Lastly, he was a low foundation because of the shameful death that he experienced. We have to remember that crucifixion was such a shameful death that no Roman citizen could be put to death that way. No matter what kind of criminal they were, no matter how much law they have broken, even murder, they would still be put to death, but some other way, quicker, easier. less painful, particularly less shameful. Jesus was stripped down and nailed to that tree so that all who could pass by could gawk at Him. Can you imagine? And it seems to me from the gospel accounts that the images we have of Jesus and the two thieves on the cross has them way up high in the air. And all the people way down here. But it says in the accounts of His crucifixion that people spit on Him while He was hanging there. Cast their teeth at Him, it says. So, obviously, they could walk right up and look in his face as he hung there dying. Shameful. That's what led Paul to say in Philippians 2, he became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. That even is there for a good reason. He said, it's bad enough that Jesus would have been put to death, who did no wrong, committed no sin, but to be put to death that way was particularly shameful. So he was a laid foundation, a low foundation, and thirdly, a stone foundation, a stone. 1 Corinthians 10.4 Paul says that the Israelites in Egypt and their wanderings drank from the rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. A stone foundation. That's what's necessary for security, right? That's what's necessary for longevity. Something to last. that you build on. You don't want to build any kind of structure on a completely wooden foundation or any other material that can easily decay, rot, be disrupted by the things in the soil. You want a sure foundation. And that verse we read in Isaiah says that he was that. Tried stone. And what I've just talked about up to now is those were the ways he was tried. Tested. Standing before Pilate is probably the best example. He answered not a word to all the charges brought against him. As a sheep before its shearers, silent, so he opened not his mouth. Solid foundation that saw no need to defend himself from the charges against him. Jesus Christ is the only solid thing you can build your life on, folks. There is no other trustworthy, eternal, strong and solid foundation for you to build upon than the Son of God. And Jesus gave an illustration of that in Matthew 7 in the Sermon on the Mount, didn't he? A wise man built his house upon a rock and the floods came. and the winds blew and beat against that house, but it stood firm because it was built on the rock. Foolish man built his house on the sand, and those rains and winds came, and it fell, and Jesus said, great was the fall of it. It's a sad and frightening thing, dear ones, for us to think about, that there are many people out there who think they have built their life on a solid foundation, and whatever it may be, if it's not Jesus, there's no surety to it. There's no strength to it. It is not eternal. They trust in it, and probably the biggest mistake that's made is people trust in religion as their foundation rather than Jesus. You see, when we give man, and many religions do this, when we give man things he can do himself, to assure that he has a strong foundation and he's going to go to heaven, he's going to jump at that. Obviously. Because he can actually see and experience what he's doing that has been prescribed to him as the way he can know he's going to heaven. Do your best to do more good stuff than bad stuff, right? But there's no surety there. whatsoever. Because we have no goodness, therefore we have nothing to build on that's good. Christ alone is holy, good, and just. And when we build on Him, then our confidence doesn't have to be on anything we did, but on what He has done, right? What He has completed. The sacrifice He has made. The finished work He has done. We build on that, then we don't have to worry about have we done enough good stuff? Or have we done few enough bad things to still squeak by? Jesus is solid. He is the rock. and he's the only one who can assure you that the foundation you're on will carry you from this life into glory. That's the only place to trust. That's the only person to trust. That's the only truth to trust. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me. Peter said in Acts 4, neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So let me urge you today, don't count on anything else other than Jesus to save you and to be your strong, sure, eternal foundation. Because it's not about decisions you may have made in the past. It's not about how hard you may have tried to do more good things than bad. There is no checklist that God the Father hands you and says, if you can check off all these items, you're in good shape. No such thing. James comes along and says, And this is not even possible. But he says, he that keeps the whole law, yet offends in one point, is guilty of all. Our confidence, our trust, the building of our life has to be on one who had no sin, did no sin, could not sin. whose sacrifice was accepted fully by the Father, as we talked about last week, to satisfy His wrath and justice against sinners. Now obviously, we've got more to do with this text, and so we will, Lord willing, beginning next week. The things I want you to take away from today, though, are The Father laid Jesus as the foundation. That's enough right there. If we go to God and say, what means, what way, what process must I go through to know I'm built on a sure foundation? And God the Father says, there's only one. My son. There's only one. The question is easily answered. It goes against everything in our flesh that we want to trust in. But it alone is the truth. So make sure you are building on a foundation not of sand, but the rock. Jesus Christ. Let's bow our heads.