Father, thank you for today. Thank you for us all being together. Thank you for the relationships we have with each other and especially with you. Thank you for adopting us as your very own children. We praise you for that. Holy Spirit, we just thank you for being here, for being our teacher. And uh we just ask you to teach us this morning that we could all leave uh with uh whatever it is we need. And and Jesus, we just praise you. Uh we love you. We thank you for being our Savior and our Lord and our friend, and it's in your name we pray. Amen. So we're taking a little bit of time and we're uh looking at a letter that Paul wrote to a church in Corinth, pretty new church. The city was in some ways similar to Atlanta, it was kind of a new city. It had been destroyed and uh was rebuilt, and it was fast-paced, and it was a business hub, and and people moving in and and all that type of stuff. There was a combination of cultures in Corinth. Uh, it was mostly Greek, but they had a strong uh Roman influence and and a Jewish influence. And Paul had started this church a couple of years before he writes this letter. And uh, but then he had traveled on through throughout uh uh Europe and Asia Minor at the time, and the church had gotten a little off course. And so that's kind of what what Paul is writing about. And a lot of times on Sunday when we talk, it's it's really uh a personal thing. You know, where we're looking at uh at Jesus and we're looking at at uh God's word and we're seeing how it can apply to us personally. And this letter is a letter to to a new church like us, and so one of the things we want to do is uh is listen to God for us as a group together. And uh then there also will be things that we can apply at our own lives. Well, this church had gotten a little enamored, it's part of the Greek and Roman and a little bit Jewish culture, but they'd got enamored with the people, and they were impressed with different people that were leading and and how smart different people were and and just kind of wisdom and intelligence uh in general. And so Paul takes the first part of this letter and he kind of has a heart-to-heart with his friends in in Corinth, and he's trying to show them like what this church could be. And he uses two metaphors. And we looked at one uh last week, and the the first one was a farm. You know, and he said, I start, I started the church, okay? So I planted the church. Apollos came along and he watered the church, and the church is growing, and who gets the credit? And he's like, Who cares? Who cares? We're just people. You know, God, it's God's farm. God is what's making things grow. And then he immediately goes, and that's where we stopped last week. He immediately goes on to the very next metaphor. And so in 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 9, you'll see him finishing that one and starting the second. He says, For we are both God's workers, and you are God's field. And then immediately he says, You are God's building. And so it's going to be a farm and it's going to be a building. Those are the two examples he uses. Because of God's grace to me, I've 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 already have, Jesus Christ. And if God would say anything about us, his hands, and I'd love it to be our foundation is Jesus. You know, second would be that we're filled with and are and express and demonstrate God's love. But our foundation has to be Jesus. That's Paul's instruction to this new church in Corinth. You know, the foundation has to be Jesus. And a foundation can be anything. You know, our foundation could be the Bible. That's how I was raised. I grew up in a church where we talked about the Bible a lot. And when we got together, we generally talked about the Bible. We talked about what translation was the best translation and how to interpret the Bible and what rules are in the Bible. And and um I was gonna go on, but I'm not. But it became pretty self-righteous and legalistic. And I went to church with good people, I mean, three times a week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, my entire life. I mean, every week, my entire life growing up. And um and I didn't meet Jesus, the person, the son of God, until I was 32 years old. And I knew a lot about the Bible, but I never learned too much about Jesus. That he loved me and I could trust him and um and all those types of things. And so I love the Bible. I mean, I really do. The Bible is such a gift to us, it feeds us and teaches us and changes us. But Jesus said to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but the scriptures point to me. You know, and so the Bible, I hope you know how I mean this, isn't the foundation of this church. It has to be Jesus. The first intent of the Bible is to lead us into a relationship with God through Jesus. After that, his word teaches, convicts, encourages. But it's so important for the foundation to be Jesus. Jesus prayed for us, I mean, literally for us in this room, in John 17 in verse 20, he says, I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. So that's us. Um, I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you, and may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world would know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Now, Jesus says the number one way that the world is gonna know that Jesus is the Son of God is by our unity. You know, it's really counterintuitive because you know you'd think it would be something else, handing out tracts or some evangelism thing. He says it's by our unity. How well we get along together is how the world's gonna know that Jesus is his son. And what's happened, mostly, I guess, in Western Christianity, um, is that we've kind of divided or congregated around our strengths or our gifts. And so if the Bible's very important to us, and I'm talking in relativity, so obviously the Bible's important to all of us, um, but but if if that's a huge focus of ours, then I might want to go to a Bible church where that's the focus. You know, if I have uh uh a gift of faith, you know, and I really believe God for everything, for signs, wonders, miracles, healing, then I might want to go to a faith-focused church. You know, if I speak in tongues, I might want to go to a speaking in tongues um church. And when we do that, and there's great churches of all those varieties, but when we do that, we tend to get unbalanced. Because most of the people in that group are gonna have the same strengths, you know, and the same gifts and the same focus. Um, Bible foundation churches can become uh legalistic, and not all of them are. I mean, there's great churches with that focus, you know. And honestly, I love going to a church like that. And I love hearing someone go like straight teach straight through the Bible, you know, just verse for verse. Um I love that. But you can get unbalanced. Faith foundation church, um, actually, I like those. I mean, um I like going to a faith service every now and then and just get a boost of of what's going on there. But faith foundation churches can become dangerous. I mean, literally. See, I was at this healing service, and this woman in front of me falls backwards, hits her head on the floor, knocks herself out. The woman next to her says, Hallelujah, praise Jesus, and puts this a cloth over her legs. And um, and so the uh so I and a couple other people noticed she had knocked herself out. And we helped her and she eventually came to and everything was uh was good. But that's a good that's a good tip. If you go to a faith service, you don't want to go unconscious. It's like um it's like you don't want to have a heart attack when you're playing charades. You know, you're you're wanting an ambulance, everybody's trying to figure out what movie you are, you know. It's the same sort of thing. Um you know, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's so important, and so important to us. And Paul, we're not gonna get there today, but Paul's gonna go on with the same metaphor about the build about a building and about being a residence for the Holy Spirit. You know, so the Holy Spirit's important. But if the Holy Spirit's the foundation, you know, it can it can get a little weird. Um and that happened in Corinth. And Paul literally, further on in this letter, he's gonna say, you know, you need to ratchet the weirdness back a little bit. You're freaking out the visitors. Um and that's a paraphrase, but that is exactly what he's gonna say. Um and I think Paul, who was inspired, also knew that weirdness would eventually lead to tambourines. And um that's always a bad combination. Now, I'm I'm really not making fun of these types of churches. I'm actually teasing us. Because we have Bible-focused people, we have faith-focused people, we have Holy Spirit-focused people. Thank God, here. You know, and Jesus' plan is for us all to be together in one place. That's his best plan, you know, is for us all to be together in one place. You know, and the way we can do that is if we have him as our foundation. We have people here care deeply about the Bible. And so um occasionally I'll get an email, you know, and it's someone that that's pointing out how I explained a verse wrong or said something that wasn't clear. And, you know, I appreciate that because I mean we want to be about truth, and I want everything to be clear. And and it may be that we talk about it and we don't even end up agreeing, but they don't get mad and and leave, you know, or often they're right, you know, and so it it helps me, and and it, and it's uh it's an important thing. And and we need you because we want God's truth. Faith people, we have um we all have faith. You know, again, we're talking relativities and focus and gifts. We all have faith, but some people have an actual gift of faith, and they share that with all of us. And so that's basically what our prayer team does. We think of sharing our faith as telling someone about Jesus, which is um which is true, but our prayer team literally shares their faith. And so if you need anything from God and you just can't believe, you can't believe that he would do it for you, you can't believe he would do it at all, they got your back. They'll believe for you. They'll share their faith with you. They'll grab your their your hand and pray for you, pray with you. You know, I probably don't talk about this enough, or maybe maybe so, but we've had more miracles in the last few years here. You know, it's just that's not a focus. But we've had but I mean, God answers our prayers so dramatically. We've had job miracles, relationship miracles, childbirth miracles, adoption miracles, health miracles. I mean, just this morning off the top of my head, um I could think of people who have been miraculously healed of ovarian cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer, Lugarrick's disease. Um you remember Nate's that's uh uh you remember Nate Snow's God story in September. You know, and we've a lot of us have been praying for Nate ever since uh that accident. But but that morning we all prayed together for Nate, and and you may have heard, but just recently he started speaking, which is a miracle. Um so so God can do anything. God does everything. And we need people with great faith, you know, to uh to help us believe um with them. Um we need everyone and all the differences in how God wired us with gifts of the Holy Spirit. Um God's given us all of them. We've he's given dreams to people here that have helped and encouraged uh us so much. We have people who speak in tongues like breathing air here. And they might not do it in here just out of really out of respect and and love and and understanding how Jesus is designing this church um here. But we need we need all those gifts. We need we need everything that Jesus has for us. But we can be wired different, and we can have different types of gifts and even different focuses, if you will, and get along so well for one reason. All of those things are important, but they're not the foundation. Jesus is the foundation of this church, the foundation of our lives, and so we we all rally and agree on that. You know, we fall in love with Him, we love each other, and it's pretty easy to actually appreciate how differently God wired us and the different gifts and strengths that we all have, and it makes us strong together. And so as so as a relatively young church ourselves, we can take to heart Paul's heart-to-heart with this new church. He says, the only foundation can be Jesus. We can't get away from that. Our foundation has to be Jesus. And it's true here when we're together, and it's true in our lives individually. In Hebrews 1, it says, going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his son. By his son, God created the world in the beginning, and we'll all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God and is stamped with God's nature. He holds everything together by what he says, powerful words. See, Jesus isn't just the foundation of a healthy church, he is the foundation of everything. Of everything. If we want to know what God the Father is like, Jesus is the perfect mirror, the perfect reflection of God. If we want to know God's plan to adopt us, it's Jesus. If we want to know if God loves us, look at Jesus. If we want to see what true love looks like, look at Jesus. Is God kind, compassionate? Is he really forgiving? Jesus. What's my purpose in life? Well, ask Jesus. He'll tell you. He created you uniquely, but to love God and to love people. How do I love other people? Watch Jesus. What do I want to be when I grow up? I want to be like Jesus. He is the foundation, he is the center of everything. And so if at his hands we're going to be all God wants us to be, and in our own lives, if our lives are going to be what God wants them to be, our foundation has to be Jesus. And it's true in every aspect of our lives, it's true in our relationships. You know, Paul talks to husbands in Ephesians 5 and 28. He says, Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church. A love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. He his words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor since they're already one in marriage. So the foundation of our marriage is Jesus. And we talked the last couple weeks about how we can read God's word. And then we can take a few minutes, we can ask the Holy Spirit to show us how to apply it in our lives. God did that for me, I don't know, maybe ten years ago with this verse. So I'd read it, and his direction was to rewrite it. Just rewrite it on paper. But everywhere it said husband, write Steve, and everywhere it said wives, write Susan. And so it was this Steve, go all out in your love for Susan. Exactly as Christ did for the church. A love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how you ought to love Susan. You're really doing yourself a favor since you're already one in marriage. You see, so I got direct instruction from God to make Jesus the foundation of my relationship with Susan. And our marriage hasn't really been an easy one. We've been married 28 years. The first 27 are the hardest. Actually, the first 10 were really hard, honestly. The second ten were hard as well. She definitely agrees. Now, this is the best news for all of us who are married. You know, it it can get better. It can get better. Even if you have a great marriage, it's going to get better. But especially for those of you this morning who are struggling in your relationship, because they are hard. Relationships are um difficult. I mean, you have great hope. Don't give up. You have great hope. Jesus can do what you don't even know how to start doing. He can break down walls, he can heal hurts, he can help us to completely forgive and forget and move forward, even if we can't imagine being able to forgive and forget and move forward. I can say with a hundred percent certainty that as we make the foundation of our relationships, Jesus, our relationships are gonna get better and better and better. So, you know, only way I know to do that is just is ask him. Ask him to help us to be more like him with our spouse. Ask him to help us make him the center of our relationship. It's true in careers. You know, if we haven't made Jesus the focus, the foundation of our career, we're missing such great joy and such huge opportunity to see him work in our lives. In Colossians 3, it says, work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Jesus is the foundation of our careers. You know, I used to think God didn't care that much about my work. He's obviously got bigger things, you know, on his plate. But the truth is, he cares about you. He loves you. He cares about everything you do, he cares about everything you think about, he cares about the stuff you're worried about. And if you're spending as much time as we spend at work in our careers, I mean, he cares. And he can help. And he wants to be the foundation of your career. Um, you know, every day we have an opportunity to make Jesus our focus at work. We'll have an opportunity to ask him to help us answer a problem. We'll have the opportunity to ask him to give us patience with a coworker or customer to give us um wisdom. We can ask him for a favor with a boss or with a prospect. You know, we'll have opportunities to be honest and have integrity and trust him to make it work out for our good. And we also have opportunities to talk about Jesus in a Real normal way and help God change someone's life. Maybe just invite them here to be with us. And God will give us the wisdom how to do it. Ted, it's just been such a big part of my life. And I just promise you, if you make Jesus the foundation of your work, you'll have so much joy. You'll hear him speak. You'll see him answer prayers. Today's Telgate Sunday. Falcons play the Colts. We need to win. We got to win this game. And it's a big opportunity because Manning's not, you know, he's injured and he's not playing, and the Colts are 0-6, but no game is easy in the NFL, and particularly not road games. So it's an important game. But the Colts haven't always been 0-6. In 2007, they won the Super Bowl. Tony Dungey was their coach. And so they win the Super Bowl, and Jim Nance presents Tony Dungey with the Super Bowl trophy. It's in front of 75,000 fans and 97 million television viewers. And Coach Dungey said, I'm proud to be the first African American coach to win this. But again, more than anything, Lovey Smith and I, who is the Bears coach, is the Bears coach, and I are not only African American, but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord's way. We're more proud of that. I'm reading from a newspaper article. It goes on The Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 on a soggy field in Miami, Florida Sunday. They did it for their coach, whom the players say deserved the win. And Dungey did it without yelling or cursing from the sidelines. A trait that his players have trained with and that opposing coach and close friend Lovey Smith picked up when he assisted Dungy on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers coaching staff. A day ahead of the game, Dungy headlined the annual Faith-Based Super Bowl breakfast, hosted by Athletes in Action. A record crowd of 2,500 people witnessed Dungey speak as the first ever Super Bowl coach to appear in person at the breakfast a day before the NFL marquee game. Dungey pushed the team's practices and meetings back to attend the breakfast. Dungey was up against his protege and fellow believer Smith for the big win on Sunday. Both he and Smith had already made history going into the Super Bowl as the first African American head coaches. Smith called the event a perfect stage for the coaches to confess their faith in Jesus Christ in a video shown at Saturday's breakfast. Both coaches appeared in a USA Today ad on Friday with a message that said, We're pro-football coaches, but we're also men of faith. A faith that defines who we are, it comforts us in tough times and produces hope in the midst of adversity. It is through our common faith in Jesus Christ that we have individually experienced God's love and forgiveness. See, we can make Jesus the foundation of any career. Foundation of any part of our life. Students, we got such great students here. In 1 Timothy, Paul says, Don't let anyone let think less of you because you're young. Be an example to all believers in what you say and the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. Man, you can make a big difference at school as Jesus is the foundation of everything that we do. And so whether it's here, Paul would say, whether it's here with us together, whether it's at home in our family relationships, if it's at work in our careers, if it's at school, you know, if our foundation is Jesus, it'll have a dramatic effect. You know, it is He's the only foundation. He's the center of everything. Paul said, for no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have, Jesus Christ. So we'll stop there. We'll ask the worship team to come up, and we'll sing one more song together. Um, you know, maybe there's a uh a part of your life. I used to kind of compartmentalize my life, you know. I had work and I had church and I had these friends and I had those friends, and and um maybe there's some part of your life, the Holy Spirit will show you, that you've compartmentalized, that Jesus could be a foundation. It could be so much more if uh if he became the foundation of everything. Let's uh let's stand, we'll get ready to uh to sing together. You know, the first part of Jesus being the foundation for all of us is just get connected with him. You know, it's to put our our trust in him, and you can trust him. I mean, you can trust him. You know, and we ask him in our own words, in our own way, just to be the foundation of our lives. You know, I need you. Help me, lead me. You know, I've screwed things up. Can you get me out of it? You know, whatever, whatever it is, you know, I want to change. I need your help. Whatever that is, we say it to him in our own words, in our own way. And the spirit inside of us comes alive, it connects with God's spirit. And then he starts changing us. And he uses the things we talked about. He uses people with faith, he uses his word, he uses his spirit. And mostly he does the heavy lifting, but he starts changing us from the inside out. And then our lives become, it's a process, but our lives become what he always intended them to be. You know, as our foundation becomes Jesus. So you can do that today if you if you haven't already. Let's uh let's finish with a prayer. Father, we thank you for for this morning. Uh Holy Spirit, I just ask that you would just speak to each of us again, I ask, and that we'd go away with something that we can apply, or maybe just something that that encourages us if that's what we need. And I ask a blessing on every single person here. You know, we're all at different places, we all have different things going on, and whether it whether it's health, whether it's finances, whether it's relationship, or whether it's just a desire to be closer to you. God, we just ask you to give all of us what we need. And we love you, and we thank you, and we trust you, and we thank you for each other too. In Jesus' name. Amen.