The Roman culture made thousands of hump-backed bridges. Wagons, carriages and people have crossed them for nearly 2 millennia. The bridge is designed to do its job and do it with efficiency. As in any designed object, when pressures mount and weight is increased, the bridge can reach a critical state when the bridge is no longer efficient to withstand the pressure and it will collapse. Modern 10 ton trucks would not be able to cross such a bridge because it was not designed to carry that kind of load.
The Christian life is the same. Christians are first human and as humans we are designed by a designer to be efficient in our design and no more. We are not designed to withstand fire for instance. Christians today are holding weight they are not designed to carry. It is at the minimal inefficient, but can also be permanently damaging with catastrophic consequences. Modern Christians and churches are building everything on the wrong foundation—themselves! They are trusting their relationships, skill, intellect, guardianship, pedigree, and feelings to masterfully hold together and withstand the ever mounting pressures of this life. If they have not yet, then one day they will surely crumble.
The Apostle Paul wrote to a broken church in 1 Corinthians 3.10— “According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.”
The foundation is essential. The passage says that the individual believer should build carefully and correctly upon this foundation that was laid by the Apostle Paul. Paul laying this foundation means it is not a work of his hands—he merely laid it. It is from someone or someplace else. Romans 15.20 gives us some clues as to this foundation— “Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation:”
This is laid – the gospel. The gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Meaning the foundation is Jesus. Specifically your salvation in Him. To confirm this The Apostle Paul told the Ephesian Pastor Timothy— “Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” (1 Timothy 6.19) Paul gives further evidence of this to the church Timothy Pastored in Ephesians 2.20— “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;”
So the foundation of doctrine: Apostles, and prophets, is also centered upon Jesus Christ (the chief cornerstone). This foundation is sure meaning it can withstand the pressures and forces of its design. As was told but Paul again to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2.19— “Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
Consider what Jesus said about building upon a sure foundation (himself) that can withstand the forces of its design in Luke 6.46-49: “46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? 47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: 48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. 49 But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.”
The design of man is weak, intentionally. We are easily hurt, confused, maimed, and killed. We are a fragile thing, by design. We cannot withstand much force against us. The design of the bridge we are studying is— Jesus Christ. What can He not withstand? What can He not carry? What load can not be placed upon Him that He could not hold? What pressures ever make Him quake?
If my salvation is in Him and He is in me, then what fool am I if I do not live and do based solely upon Him! He is my rock the Psalmist said and He is my foundation Paul said. If I live my life building on any other means then I will crumble. If I build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ— then I am safe from the pressures.