Servants, Not Celebrities: Why God Doesn’t Care About Your Platform
Culture today is a personality driven market. Crowds chase preachers and influencers as if all the authority and power are in the messenger. The Word of God slices through the smoke of culture with this sobering truth: “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each” (1 Corinthians 3:5). Paul and Apollos were not the source of growth, but the tools. Paul planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the growth. It is still that way today. No matter how anointed a person is, only God can impart true spiritual life.
The sin in people’s hearts is not that they look to men for life and truth, but what they do when they do it. The issue is that they build on the wrong foundation, or build with the wrong materials. Paul is plain and clear about it: “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it” (1 Corinthians 3:10). There is only one foundation, Jesus Christ. Anything else is sand on the beach. Charisma? Emotion? Success? Worldly wisdom? Experience? If a person builds their life on any of these things, it may look good for a season, but it will not stand when the test comes.
Paul presses the point further, “Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it” (1 Corinthians 3:12–13). Fire is coming. This is not poetry or hyperbole, it’s prophetic reality. Every person will have their work tested. It’s not about their intentions or their giftings, it’s about the fruit of their life. Some will be found and rewarded. Others will experience loss, “though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:15). Salvation is a gift, but rewards are not given to just anyone. If a person’s work is burned up, they do not lose their salvation, but they lose eternal influence.
This is not about religious buildings. It’s about you. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). That is not a slogan, it’s a statement that changes everything. You do not belong to yourself. You are the temple of the living God. That means your life is holy ground. To defile the temple of God is to corrupt it, to twist it, to abuse it, to fill it with the filth of sin and pride. Scripture is blunt: “God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:17).
The question then is not if you’re building something, but what and why you’re building. Are you laying up spiritual gold and silver that will last, or are you piling up wood and hay that will go up in flames when the fire comes? Are you living for Christ to be exalted, or for men to notice you?
Paul concludes with this inescapable truth: “Let no one boast in men” (1 Corinthians 3:21). We belong to God, through Jesus Christ. “All are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:22–23). That is the order and the proper perspective. God is not impressed with our titles or numbers of followers. He will search for faithfulness, for truth, and for those who live for eternal fruit.
Do not waste your life building something that will not last. Jesus Christ is the only true foundation. Make sure your life is built on Him, and with the kind of work that will stand the test. The fire is coming. Every person’s work will be revealed. Make sure it matters.
Read / Listen
Ezra 4:24-6:22
1 Corinthians 3:5-23
Psalm 29:1-11
Proverbs 20:26-27
New Testament: 1 Corinthians 3:5-23
~ 1 Corinthians 3:11
Summary: Divisions in the Church
Overview: 1 Corinthians
All Things are Yours
1 Corinthians 3:18–23
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