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I. THE FOUNDATION. In building, it is essential to begin with a good, solid foundation. If we have not that, we may take ever so much pains afterwards, but our labour will be all in vain. Now, there are many false foundations. Our selection of ground that will give way under the weight of what we put upon it is quite unlimited. But there is only one true foundation. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." All that teachers can do is to say, "There it is!" All that believers can do is to recognise it. It is God Himself who has laid it there for us. Wheresoever else than the love of God in Christ we repose our chief confidence and affection, it wilt sooner or later repent us and shame us, either happily in time while we may yet have recourse to Him, or miserably when it is too late. It is on this present world, on its pleasures, its riches, its honours most men try to rear the fabric of their happiness; but this world and all we can have in it will slip from under our feet like the sand. But let us remember that it will not avail us that a foundation has been laid, or that it has been already pointed out to us, if we do not make choice of it and use it.

II. THE SUPERSTRUCTURE, or what is built on the foundation. St. Paul knew that the foundation was most important, and that, save on the one sure foundation, no lasting building could be raised; but he knew also that the foundation was not the house, that the discovery of a good foundation does not dispense a man from the necessity of building his house. We must build. We must not only rest on Christ, and Christ alone, for salvation, but must also "work out our salvation with fear and trembling." We must build, and to build is to labour. If we cannot build even the smallest cottage without the exertion of putting each stone in its proper place, still less can we, without exertion, build up our lives into temples of God. To do so is the grandest of all works, and for that very reason it is one which needs the most thought and trouble. It demands a constant putting in of what is solid and true, and a constant casting out of what is hollow and false. He who would build up his own self, his own mind, and heart and soul gradually into a perfect manhood, must see to it that every day, every hour contributes somewhat towards that result. Some accession of knowledge, of self-control, of practice of good, and conquest of evil. Six kinds of material for building are mentioned in the text, but they may be reduced to two — good materials and bad: those which will stand the fire, and those which will not. Gold, silver, precious stones — the fire will not burn these; wood, hay, stubble — it will burn these. The various good materials may be of very different degrees of goodness. The various bad materials are not equally bad. A house, not so very uncomfortable for a while, may be constructed of wood, but not even a tolerable hut can be made out of hay and stubble. Yet all are bad; for even wood, if fire come near it, will be speedily reduced to ashes. All this is perfectly applicable to our own lives. We may build with different degrees of diligence, and what we do day by day may be most unlike in a thousand respects; but all we build must have its source either in love to God and holiness, or to self and sin, and will either be approven or condemned. The very best of worldly lives will be found then as miserably insufficient as a house of wood, however well built, however commodious, however imposing without, to resist the fury of the flames; and, on the contrary, no life which has been prompted by love to Christ and a sincere endeavour to do the will of God, however far it may have fallen below what it ought to have been, will be proved by the fire to have been other than enduring and precious. Let us live, then, as nobly and sublimely as we can; but, oh, at least let us live sincerely and righteously.

III. THE DAY which will try the building of each one of us. "Every man's work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." The apostle, I think, refers here in part to any time of peculiar trial, any day of testing. There is many a day of this sort, and they often make strange revelations. Either adversity or prosperity, for instance, may serve to test the work of our lives, and both often find far more wood, hay, and stubble therein than either we or others suspected. Every day of sore affliction is a day of fiery revelation. A man is living altogether for this world, wholly engrossed with his farm or merchandise, so as to have no thought beyond that; but God lays him on a bed of sickness, brings him to the very verge of eternity, reminds him of his sins and of the condemnation which awaiteth sin, and, oh, how clearly he then sees that he has been living like a fool and judging like a fool, that this world which he thought so real and so important is a shadow and a vanity, while that other world, which he never thought of, is alone substantial and eternal;, that he has been preferring wood, hay, and stubble to gold, silver, and precious stones. It is, however, mainly to a greater and more terrible day than any of these that Paul refers; it is mainly to that awful day on which there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, neither hid that shall not be known — that day into the light and heat of which no work, however subtle, or obscure, will not be brought, so that its true character may be made manifest — that day which, as we are told by a prophet, will burn like an oven, so that not one wicked life, not even one bad feeling, or one base act, will pass successfully through it. Since there is this day coming, it surely well becomes us to habituate ourselves, to bring our conduct, to bring our most secret feelings to the test of that law by which they will then be judged, and, through the grace God never denies to those who sincerely seek it, conform ourselves to that law now as far as we can, that it may have the less to condemn in us then.

(R. Flint, D. D.)

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KJV: For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

WEB: For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.