Four Biblical Essentials for Building a Spirit-Filled Church
What are you really building? This message explores how believers become co-builders with Christ, learning how grace, unity, and Spirit-filled living form the only structure that can truly stand.
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10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled[a] master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
16 Do you not know that you[b] are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.
18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
The How-To Guide for Building the Church of Jesus Christ
“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
The Apostle Paul challenges the Corinthian church on this front: Are you going to live in the power of the flesh, or are you going to live in the power of the Spirit? The church at Corinth has settled—they’ve settled for living in the flesh. They’re not designed for that.
The church is not a building—it’s a people. Biblically, the church is not an institution. Now, she has structure, but the church is people. The church is the ekklesia, the called-out ones, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Scripture instructs us that the church is to be built upon the person of Christ, not people, and people are to be built on the person of Christ. The Apostle Paul is about to instruct us in being intentional about how the church is built because what’s built and how the church is built are important.
1) Build the Church on God’s Grace
The Apostle Paul wrote, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder…” What he’s affirming is that the church of Jesus Christ depends solely on the operation of the grace of God, operating in the lives of believers, to empower the church. It’s not empowered by the flesh—it’s empowered by the grace of God. We depend completely on the grace of God, who works mightily among us.
Grace is accurately defined as the empowerment of God, but I also like the definition that Al Henson uses:
“The grace of God is all of God for all my need.”
All of God for all my need, because the grace of God is available to us in our weakness, and it’s in our weakness that God demonstrates his strength.
The Apostle Paul models this as he teaches because he knew that as he served the church, it wasn’t his talent, ingenuity, intellect, wisdom, or know-how that was birthing or maturing it. The Apostle Paul understood that the qualities God had sovereignly placed in him were powerful when surrendered to God. Through this surrender, God could change hearts, transform lives, and build His church through others who also lived by His grace.
But he acknowledges that these skills are indeed a gift from God, and the Apostle Paul makes it clear that no one deserves credit for being a master builder other than Jesus Himself. This way, the glory belongs to God, not to Paul. His example reminds us that being faithful to the gifts and graces in our lives begins with understanding that it is God’s grace doing the building.
Build the church on God’s grace—that’s not the power of the flesh. That is the power of God’s spirit among us.
2) Build the Church with the One Foundation of Christ
“For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:11
The church has one foundation: the person of Jesus Christ. The first requirement for a church to be a church is for the solid foundation of Jesus Christ to be established.
If you’ve ever witnessed the foundation of a skyscraper coming out of the ground, it is deep. Tons of concrete and rebar are utilized to reinforce a solid foundation. Analogies like this explain why Jesus said the church is built upon the foundation of a solid rock (Matthew 16:18).
“Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. ‘He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:13-18
Jesus wasn’t saying the church was built on Peter. The rock he’s referring to is Peter’s affirmation that he makes. This eternal truth is the foundation of the church. It’s the solid ground on which we all stand. It’s where we put our faith. It’s what we rest upon. This is why Peter, who made that confession, would later use terminology that’s like a rock when he said in 1 Peter 2:5, “We become living stones, and we are being built into a spiritual house.”
Consider that: A stone is an inanimate object. Before I came to know Jesus, my heart was as cold as a stone when it came to spiritual things. But my cold, stone heart came alive when I came to know Jesus Christ and put my faith in Him. God animated my heart, and He’ll animate your spirit when you put your faith in the person of Jesus Christ.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, unless God does it through the force and the love of his grace operating in your life, drawing you to him, unless the Lord builds the house, its laborers are doing so in vain.” Psalm 127:1
If Jesus is the solid foundation of the church, then how do we respond to this? Three words that we say from the heart: Jesus is Lord. That’s the church’s foundation. Jesus is the only foundation that establishes this confession that establishes the church. When being like Christ becomes the foundation of everything in our lives, then it’s no longer my way or her way or his way—it’s God’s way operating in us.
But do note that the foundation will be tested. The Apostle Paul goes on to explain that whatever you build the church on, it must be a strong foundation that can withstand the test of fire.
“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, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.” 1 Corinthians 3:12-13
The Apostle Paul uses those terms because they are valuable commodities in an agricultural-based community and represent the patterns of the world. He’s saying, “You can’t build this foundation of the church the way the world does things.” To build a foundation that’s strong and sustainable, it must be done with a different source, which is the source of the person of God and the Holy Spirit.
When we stand before Jesus and give an account of our life, everything will be tested by the refiner’s fire. That which is fruitful and endures will pass the test. But that which was of the patterns of the world, those things that we may have valued that God didn’t value, will not pass the test.
3) Build the Church Through the Development of Unity
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16
This takes work. The Apostle Paul even shares in Ephesians to a healthy church, “Labor for unity” (Ephesians 4:3), which means it takes work.
In 1 Corinthians 3:16, the “you” is plural, not singular; It doesn’t refer to an individual. It refers to a whole community of believers. Repeatedly in the Bible, we see words addressed to the entire community. Things like, “Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before God, our maker,” as the psalmist writes in Psalm 95:6.
There was great contentiousness in Corinth, but none of the different opinions they experienced as a church should matter as much as their labor for being one in Christ. We are one in the Spirit.
“We must refuse to accept that people are growing in love for God in ways that do not translate into growing in love for people.” Pete Scazzero, author and pastor.
Sometimes, in church planting or ministry, there’s a temptation to look for people who “fit our mold”—those who seem likable, familiar, or easy to relate to. But that’s not how Jesus came. And that’s not how the gospel works. The apostle Paul, once Saul, was a radical outsider—someone most would have written off as a threat, not a leader. Yet God chose him. Grace doesn’t seek the polished; it transforms the unlikely.
I think about people I’ve seen come to know Jesus in the churches I’ve had the honor of pastoring through the years, many of them of the most unlikely backgrounds. I’ve witnessed God redeem people who’ve done some terrible things. But the picture is that when a church grows in love for Jesus, it also grows in love for people in the church and outside the church.
One of the ways that we labor for unity in the body is by asking myself this question: As I’m growing in Christ, am I growing less offendable?
Jesus said that in the last days, the love of God (agape love) would grow cold in people’s hearts (Matthew 24:12), and many would become offended. In other words, there’s not enough agape to be a forgiving person. Ephesians 4:32 reminds us to forgive one another, as Christ has forgiven us.
A good question to ask ourselves is: When I’m offended, am I keeping score, or do I labor to clear the score? When I hear Jesus’ parables, some of them dealing with forgiveness, are they just head knowledge or heartfelt practice in my life?
You can become a believer in Jesus Christ in isolation, but it is impossible for you to mature as a believer in isolation. We mature as believers in community in conjunction with God’s Word and Spirit. Relationships with one another are the vehicle of God’s sandpaper that He uses to define and refine the rough edges of pride, unforgiveness, and isolation in our lives.
Relationships make it possible for the believer to move beyond isolation and into true discipleship, where one grows in relationship with Christ. The church, being a called-out group of people, gathers together in Jesus’ name. They love one another deeply because they’ve experienced God’s love deeply, and they labor for unity—not uniformity, but unity.
4) Build the Church by Being Filled with the Holy Spirit
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16
If you’re a believer, you have the Holy Spirit. However, the question isn’t, Do you have the Holy Spirit, but Does the Holy Spirit have you? That’s what’s happening at Corinth. They have the Holy Spirit, but they’re still in the flesh.
Let’s review some symptoms of the Spirit-filled life:
Fearlessness
After Timothy left the Apostle Paul’s mentorship and went on his own, he shrank back in fear. He shrank away from the gospel and God’s revelation. He became timid and intimidated by people older than he was. Even though he had God’s message in his heart, he began to feel less than instead of the child of God that he is.
In 2 Timothy 1:7, the Apostle Paul shared some words of encouragement when he heard about Timothy’s plight: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Timothy was afraid of what people thought of him. If you’re a people pleaser or what people think of you, then that’s a spirit of fear. Fear grieves the Holy Spirit, and we’re instructed in Ephesians 4:30, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.”
The most important thing we can do is repent and turn back to Jesus. Out of love, return to your first love. Confess it, turn back to Him. “Lord, I forsake fear. I confess that’s not of you. I repent.”
Power
One of the primary pictures of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is power in conjunction with the word “fire” when it relates to the person of the Holy Spirit. Fire is one of the primary symbols of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. It’s a symbol of God’s light and illumination. When the Holy Spirit is active in your heart, He brings light. In 1 John 2:27, John shares that we have an anointing that teaches us—the Holy Spirit illuminates God’s Word. This is one of the reasons Jesus said, “True worshipers worship me in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).
The Spirit of God also brings purity because fire refines. In God’s refining fire, you take on the nature of God Himself. You don’t become God, but you take on His nature.
If there’s a fire burning and I take a sword and stick it in the fire, when I pull it out, the sword isn’t the fire itself, but it has been heated and takes on the nature of the fire. When the fire of the Holy Spirit fills a believer, you take on the nature of the fire, the Holy Spirit.
We’re instructed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.” This happens when we “despise what God has revealed.” That word “despise” means to look down on with disrespect, aversion, to regard as negligible, worthless, or distasteful.
When we operate in the flesh, sometimes there’s a temptation, as we encounter God’s word, that can be negligible compared to what God is saying. We can look down upon and we can say, “That’s for somebody else. That’s not for me. That’s not for me right now.” That’s not the Spirit we’re called to.
Love
God has given us a spirit of love, not a spirit of fear. Perfect love, which is the person of Jesus, casts out fear. In the Book of Galatians, the first fruit of the Holy Spirit is love (Galatians 5:22). This kind of love goes against the flesh of our human nature. This was one of the problems at the church in Corinth.
JESUS: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:27-28
The flesh cannot demonstrate this kind of love. Only the Holy Spirit can love like that. Because you have the Holy Spirit, you can love and forgive like that. You can forgive as Jesus has forgiven you.
When you’ve been hurt or betrayed, as a Spirit-filled Christian, you have the power to choose to forgive because you have agape love living inside of you.
You may ask, “Well, how do I know when I’ve truly forgiven someone?” The answer is when you no longer tell others what that person did to you. When you stop pointing the finger and let them save face, other than rubbing their nose. When they walk into a room and it’s no longer a trigger for you. That’s when you’re free.
Self-Control
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power, of love, and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7
In the original language of this passage, self-control refers to superiority over the flesh, primarily in three areas: self-control as it relates to food, sex, and the use of the tongue. If we’re God’s temple, then God’s spirit dwells in us, and He’s given us the power to live not in the flesh, not in our old nature, but in our new nature.
“If we function according to our ability alone, we get the glory. If we function according to the power of the Spirit within us, God gets the glory.” Henry Blackaby, pastor
That’s the way this is designed to work for the glory of God.
Return to Your First Love
The problem at Corinth was that they had drifted out of operating in the power of the Spirit and into operating in the flesh. Jesus said, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” (Luke 11:13).
Jesus came that you might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). He’s referring to life in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. You’ve been adopted into God’s family through the shed blood of Christ; you’re a child of God.
TL;DR
The church isn’t just a gathering place, but a growing people. The message calls believers to be more than attendees—to be builders. Key applications include:
Build on God’s Grace: Your gifts are from Him, and they’re for His glory.
Build on the Foundation of Christ Alone: Not personalities, not popularity—only Jesus.
Build with Materials That Last: Your work will be tested. Invest in eternal things.
Build in Unity: The “you” in “you are God’s temple” is plural—we build together.
Be Filled with the Spirit: The true evidence of Spirit-filled living is fearlessness, love, power, and self-control.
The call is clear: Don’t just go to church. Be the Church. Build with intention, build on Christ, and build in step with the Spirit.
