“The One Foundation”
1 Corinthians 3:11 “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
I. The Other Foundations
a. The foundation of fleshly descent
John 8:33 “They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?”
b. The foundation of a religious knowledge
Religious knowledge doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than walking into a garage makes you a car. The Bible describes the man who is
2 Timothy 3:7 “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
2 Corinthians 11:4 “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.”
Galatians 1:6 “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”
c. The foundation of external profession
The Bible describes the man who is 2 Timothy 3:5 “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
For fifteen years Jim Fixx, author of the 1978 bestseller, The Complete Book of Running, ran eighty miles a week. He appeared to be in tip-top shape. It didn't seem possible that a man his age could be in better condition. Yet at age fifty-two Fixx died of a massive heart attack while running alone on a Vermont road. His wife, Alice, later said she was certain that Fixx had no idea he suffered from a heart problem. Why? Because he refused to get regular checkups. After Jim Fixx's death, doctors speculated that his heart was so strong he may not have had the telltale chest pains or shortness of breath that usually signal arterial heart disease!
d. The foundation of self-righteousness
Romans 10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
“A businessman well known for his ruthlessness once announced to writer Mark Twain, "Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the 10 Commandments aloud at the top." "I have a better idea," replied Twain. "You could stay in Boston and keep them."
II. The Only Foundation
a. It’s design –
“…than that which is laid; by Jehovah the Father, both in his eternal counsels and covenant, when he set forth and appointed Christ to be the Saviour and Redeemer of his people; and in the fulness of time, when he sent him forth under the same characters; and by the Spirit of God, when he reveals Christ to them, and forms him in them; and by the ministers of the Gospel, who jointly agree to lay him ministerially, as the foundation for souls to build their hope upon: hence he is called the "foundation of the apostles and prophets", as here,
b. It’s distinction – “Jesus Christ”
Matthew 16:18 “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Jesus Christ is the foundation personally considered as God-man and Mediator, on which the church and every believer is built; “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;” 1 Timothy 2:5 “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” Hebrews 9:15
He is the foundation of the covenant of grace, and of eternal salvation;
He is the foundation of the faith and hope, peace, joy, and the comfort of all the saints;
He is the foundation of the building of God, that house not made with hands eternal in the heavens, that city which has foundations who’s builder and maker is God;
He is the foundation of the doctrine of incarnation; for He is “Emmanuel, God with us.”
He is the foundation of the doctrine of justification by his righteousness; “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:” Romans 5:1
He is the foundation of the doctrine of sanctification whereby “…we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18
He is the foundation of the doctrine of pardon by his blood;
He is the foundation of the doctrine of atonement by his sacrifice;
He is the foundation of all the doctrines respecting the person, offices, and grace of the Messiah, and is the only foundation of the Gospel.
The Church’s One Foundation by Samuel Stone
The church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ, her Lord
She is His new creation
By water and the word
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died
The Bohemian reformer John Hus was a man who believed the Scriptures to be the infallible and supreme authority in all matters. He died at the stake for that belief in Constance, Germany, on his forty-second birthday. As he refused a final plea to renounce his faith, Hus’s last words were, “What I taught with my lips, I seal with my blood.”
c. It’s durability –
Matthew 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18
d. It’s dependability
One of the finest women that Christianity has ever produced wrote this confession of faith just a few months before her passing, The Countess of Huntingdon writes “I do hereby declare,’ she said, ‘that all my present peace and my hope of future glory depend wholly, fully, and finally upon the merits of Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. I commit my soul into His arms unreservedly as a subject of His sole mercy to all eternity.”
God’s revelation in Jesus Christ is infallible. This is not arrogant or narrow-minded.
As C.S. Lewis wrote:
"If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them the most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic – there is only one right answer to a sum, and all the other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others."
John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
