Built to Last, Built on the Word

Buildings That Endure Are Built on the Word

We’re in a little mini-series called Buildings That Endure. Last week we talked about building something that can actually stand the test of time. This week I want to get simple with it.

Carnal vs. Spiritual

Open to 1 Corinthians 3. Paul starts by telling the church in Corinth he couldn’t speak to them as spiritual people. He had to talk to them as carnal, as babes in Christ. Carnal just means your decisions are still being run by what’s in the natural. You’re looking at life with natural eyes, and when you do that, you’re limited. He says he fed them milk, not solid food, because they still weren’t ready. And the proof was right there in the room: envy, strife, and divisions. “I’m of Paul.” “I’m of Apollos.” Streams. Camps. Teams. Paul says, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

Planting, Watering, and the Increase

There’s a bigger picture. Who is Paul? Who is Apollos? Ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything. God is the one who brings the increase. We’re fellow workers. You are God’s field. You are God’s building.

Take Heed How You Build

Then he says the line I don’t want us to rush past. According to the grace given to him as a wise master builder, he laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. It’s not only about what you build. It’s how you build. If I’m building a church and I forsake my family to do it, that is not how the Lord would have me build. If I forsake my marriage for the sake of the thing I’m building, that is not how I’m to build. Same with a business. Same with a ministry. You’re always building your own walk with the Lord, and you don’t get to compromise in the places that actually hold the house up. Guard your heart. Out of it flow the issues of life.

The Foundation Is Already Laid

No other foundation can anyone lay than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on that foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the day will declare it. Fire will test the work. If what you built endures, there’s a reward. If it burns, you suffer loss, but you yourself are saved, as through fire. Then he reminds them who they are while they build. Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? You’re not judged personally. You’re covered in the blood of Christ. But the work gets tested. How you built gets tested. We want to build something that stands.The foundation is already laid. Nobody is laying a new one. Jesus is the cornerstone, the living stone. You build on Him.

Tear Down Before You Build

Last week we touched Jeremiah’s call. Part of building is being willing to tear some things down. Colossians 2:8 says beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men. Anyone. Grandma. Grandpa. A preacher you’ve trusted for years. The context there is your fullness in Christ. You are complete in Him. Traditions get added. Philosophies get stacked on. Jesus ran into this constantly. The Pharisees added hand-washing rules God never gave. Anytime you add to the Word or take away from it, you’ve stepped into tradition, and Jesus said the traditions of men make the Word of God of no effect. I don’t want the Word to land in my heart and bear nothing. I want a heart that can actually receive it, so what I build stands.

Built on the Word

I know that sounds almost too simple. Why even say it? Because a lot of churches are not built on the Word. A lot of marriages aren’t. A lot of families aren’t. A lot of jobs and businesses aren’t. Every part of our life is meant to be built on the Word. The Word is the eternal seed that does not perish. You can take it into every area, because God is the one who ultimately wants to build it. Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain. I’ve watched it since I started walking with the Lord in 2009. People burn with zeal. They get excited about the Word. Then they fade. The foundation is Christ. If that Word isn’t actually under the house, the house doesn’t hold.

His Word Above His Name

Psalm 138:2 says He has magnified His Word above all His name. That’s a big statement. Think of Word as covenant. When God cut covenant with Abraham, with David, with Israel, He kept saying, in effect, I will not break My word. He already knew they would wander. He is rich in mercy. And when Scripture says God is rich in something, that is extravagant. Isaiah 55, “My ways are higher than your ways, My thoughts than your thoughts,” is not a verse about God secretly making people sick and us not understanding. That’s a tradition that needs to come down. The context is mercy. His kindness is higher than you can imagine. His mercy runs past what you would ever extend. In this new covenant, the Father has made the agreement with Jesus. He will not break covenant with His Son. You get to live in the scandalous grace of a covenant He didn’t even make with you. If He had made it with you, you’d have broken it. Praise God. When you build your life on this Word, you’re building on a covenant made with Jesus. It stands. It has no end.

Nothing Built Apart from Him

John 1:1–3. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. You could say it this way: nothing was built apart from Him. The ground you walk on. The trees you pass. The Word has been at work the whole time. God is not out making new trees and new animals every morning. They reproduce after their kind. The Word is working. If you ever doubt that, walk outside.

A Stone to Build On

The Word was my saving grace. When I came out of where I was, God put 2 Corinthians 5:17 in front of me. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. That verse was a stone I could actually build on. If I didn’t have it, I would have gone back. If the Word was true and I was a new creation, then living like the old man was just living a lie. I didn’t want to live a lie. That Word kept me aimed. It kept me co-laboring with God by His mercy.

Romans 12:1. I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. It’s by His mercies that you can even offer your life. You can’t really build until you’ve become a living sacrifice.

For something to live, something has to die. You’ve been baptized into His death, buried with Him, raised in newness of life. That’s a building project. In the Spirit the work is already complete.

That’s why He can call you the temple. Why would you build with hay and stubble on another foundation? The foundation of Christ is already on the inside of you. You had no life apart from Him.

Not Cramming for a Test

And hear this: we are not cramming for a test. The Word is not information you stuff in so you can pass something later. Treat it that way and you will fall short of what God has for you, because that isn’t relationship. It isn’t enjoyment. It isn’t Him.

Cling to the Word

Feelings and circumstances will contradict the Word. Daily. Psalm 27:11–14. False witnesses rise up. A false witness is somebody testifying with another word. Don’t be discouraged when that happens. If a false word is coming at you, it’s often because a true word is being established in you. The enemy doesn’t waste much time on a heart where the Word isn’t working. Believing is not some spiritual climb in your mind. Believing is clinging.

If I put you on a skateboard, tied a rope to the truck, and started driving through the neighborhood, you would hold that rope like your life depended on it. The faster it goes, the harder you cling. That’s what it means to believe the Word.

The church has watered it down. Preach it to the point that people cling to it for their life. God wants to bring the Word to heal, rescue, deliver, and set free. If you don’t believe it, don’t expect the person in front of you to believe it either.

The House on the Rock

Matthew 7:24–27. Whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Rain, floods, wind. The house stands, because it was founded on the rock. The rock is Jesus. The one who hears and does not do them builds on sand, and great is the fall. The enemy will huff and puff. Don’t build with hay. Build so that when he tries to blow the house down, it doesn’t come down. He ought to regret every time he touches you. Every attack should send you deeper into the Word, not backward.

Like a Tree Planted

Psalm 1. Happy is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scornful. Those people will be around. When you start believing the Word, somebody will scoff. Counsel is a heart issue, not just behavior.

The happy man delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. If you’ve ever fallen in love, you didn’t have to force yourself to think about that person. A revelation happened.

David would rather spend one day in His courts than a thousand elsewhere, because he had seen the beauty. Psalm 1 is not an accident at the front of the book. Delight in this Word, then read the next 149 psalms.He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth fruit in its season. The tree isn’t straining. It’s resting and receiving. I was deep in a cave once, and a creek ran through it. Roots had pushed all the way down through the rock to reach that water. What should have been a miserable crawl over stone felt like crawling on pillows, because the roots had made a way to the water. That’s us. We let our roots go down into the love of God. The Word will tell you a thousand times that God loves you. Your feelings may argue. The Word is truer than your feelings. Whose leaf does not wither, and whatever he does prospers. Marriage on the rock. Walk with God on the rock. Business on the rock. Ministry on the rock. We do not have a withering ministry. We have a ministry that bears fruit in its season. The ungodly are not so. They’re like chaff. Wind comes. Ephesians 4 tells us not to be tossed by every wind of doctrine. The Lord knows the way of the righteous.

Search for the Treasure

Treat the Word like treasure. The Lord gave me Jesus on every page. I’m not hunting the next big idea, though ideas have their place. I’m looking for Jesus, because in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Find Jesus and you find the wisdom you actually need. And I put my own name on the page too. If I am the treasure in the field He sold everything to buy, I ought to find myself in this book.

Get a Word Before the Trouble

Your homework this week is Psalm 119. It’s long. About twenty minutes if you listen to it. It sits in the middle of the Bible and it will not stop talking about the Word. Precepts, statutes, law, the words of His mouth. Everywhere it’s talking about the Word, highlight it.

Whatever God is calling you into, you need a word. Do not wait until trouble is knocking to go find it. Find it now.

I fell twenty-five feet rock climbing and shattered my heel. I already had a word deposited in me. A lot of times the Lord brings the Word in the early morning or in the night, when the noise is off and what’s in the heart can surface. He gave me this: He brings all things back together in Him. My heel was in pieces. In two weeks He had brought it back together, because I had a word. What does your life look like built on the Word? Your relationship with God? Your marriage, your family, your job, your business, your ministry? Believe God for a word for everything He is building.

We Are a Word People

This is also our philosophy as we step toward the community. Not because a message is impressive. Because the Word is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, and it divides soul from spirit. It brings life. It brings transformation. When people are around us, I want them to know what we’re about. We are a Word people. We don’t drift from the Word. We preach the strength of the Word, which is Jesus Christ.

A note on how this was written: this post was drafted from the Sunday message with help from AI, then read back against the teaching so it stays in my voice and doesn’t add what I didn’t say. The Scriptures and the stories are from the message.

Courtney Olson