Well, what does a guy say on the first Sunday in January of a brand new year? And I mean, for me, the first year here as senior pastor, I don't know. I'm just so full of expectation for what God is going to do with us as a body. I'm so grateful that Christ has promised to build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against what he is doing. You know, we need to be strong. We need to be courageous. We need to stand up and to be counted for the things of the kingdom of God. Amen. Amen, because it only happens when we respond. It only happens when we pray, it only happens when we witness. It only happens when we show up, amen, and sometimes that's the first and biggest step that a lot of us need to take is, will I show up? I'm glad you showed up today, but it takes more than just showing up and sitting in a chair. How many of you know that God has called us to build with him, and I think that's one of the big things that God is doing, just in prayer and seeking the Lord for this year, I just it comes back to me again and again that God is wanting to strengthen our foundation. He's wanting to strengthen us as individuals, believers, families. He's wanting to strengthen us as a body, amen, but not just to be strong and to stand and to be static, but he's doing that so that then we can really start stepping in to the service of the Lord. I believe that this year we equipping and a releasing of servants in this house. How many of you want to serve the Lord, and I thank those who already serve. But how many of you are ready to grow? How many of you believe that there's more we're called to? Amen, there's more that God is wanting us to do individually and as a body, and it's going to take some effort. It's going to take soul searching. It's going to take seeking the Lord. It starts on the inside, but it doesn't end there. It works out through us. And as we're even talking about exciting things going down to El Salvador, seeing new churches open, you know, it's a blessing. We are called to reach the world. And the world starts right out your front door. It starts in your workplace. It starts wherever you're at the people that surround you, but it's wherever else. God opens the doors and calls us to go Amen. Am I the only one excited today? You're still working off the turkey. It's going to be good to get to that week of prayer and fasting, amen. And it's true. Don't let it sneak up on you unaware. Begin to prepare. Begin to seek God. We don't like to mandate to you how you must fast, but begin to prepare yourself and do something. Fasting is about setting aside things. Yes, literally, food. For a lot of us, if you're a healthy adult, you probably should skip some meals. That's fasting. But there are other ways to fast as well, and God will honor that if you fill that space, that time seeking him. Well, let's get to the Word of God. I just couldn't get away from First Corinthians, chapter 10, and that's what I really want to share with you today, and I think it's a starting point as we look at strengthening and building the foundation that we need to move forward in the kingdom of God and in our own lives. And it's a verse, the one I'll start with, that really calls us to question, am I standing on a solid foundation or not? So first Corinthians chapter 10, I'll just jump to verse 12, and there's so much packed in here, we're just going to have to hit a couple of points. But first Corinthians chapter 10, verse 12 says, Therefore, let anyone who. Thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. Let everyone who thinks he's standing on solid ground take some time to evaluate. Is this really solid, or have I just been going through some easy times, but when times get rough, when things begin to shake, when things start to move a little bit quicker. Is there actually anything solid under my feet or not? You know, some of you have heard this little story analogy from me in the past, but I always think of this when I think of foundations. I grew up in a old farmhouse in southern Ontario, and the original part of that house was built in the 1870s zero insulation. Thank God it's not Saskatchewan winters, right, you know, and then at some point along the line, somebody decided to add on to the house, because, you know, more rooms build a modern kitchen, modern, you know, modern by whatever that day standard was. It wasn't very modern by the time we got there. But the old part of the house that was built in the 1800s was on a solid stone foundation. It went down deep. And that part of the house, it was old, but it was solid. The next part of the house, not so much. Any of you ever gone house hunting, and you start to look at things and be like, Lord, I don't think I want to find out what's behind that door, that wall, that wallpaper, etc, right? There's there's warning signs, hopefully, hopefully your realtor's honest with you, but that part of the house just had a shallow cement Foundation. And I love this. One day we were digging around the house. I forget why something was obviously going wrong or whatever, and we're like, what? There's this board laying against the foundation, you know, just kind of propped up against the cement wall, you know, cement this side, cement that size. Like, what's that doing there? We pulled the board out. There's no foundation there. There is a hole this wide in the foundation of the house that somebody just threw a board in there. So, you know, critters can make their burrow underneath our house in the kitchen. Alrighty, when did that happen? And then another thing, you know, we discovered living in the house for any length of time is if you happen to spill something on the dinner table, there was only one way the milk would run, because that whole room was going that way. And my dad got out a level one day and a board and like, it was like a two inch drop over a room that is not a good thing, you know, like one of those wonky houses you go to, you know, where everything's a little topsy turvy. And we went under the crawl space of that part of the house, and we see this big timber log that holds up the floor of the house. And it's on the old solid foundation on this end, but it got so far, and there's the cement new foundation, and the beam didn't make it. So instead of going back to the forest and getting a longer log, I just can picture these guys, like man who cut this thing, you know, a foot short, or two feet short. It's like, forget it. They literally just found a big rock, put it next to the foundation, put the log on there, and built on top of that. I wonder why the floor sunk down two inches, you know, after how many decades of use. So how many of you think it's important to evaluate the foundation of your house, right? Because, thank God, there's not a lot of earthquakes in Canada, but I do not think that part of the house would be in very good shape if it ever had to experience a foundation or, sorry, an earthquake. So we need to take care that we don't just presume to be standing strong Amen just because your bills are getting paid and because you're walking in health at the moment, just because you know you have relative peace in your life, you should not assume that everything you're standing on is solid, because it only takes a shift in the workplace, in the economy. I mean, it only takes, you know, a little bit of personality issues at home, your marriage, your kids, whatever, before you start to find out I have nothing to stand on. I've just been riding through a good season. And, you know, I thank God for our church, and I thank God for where we're at, but I don't want to assume that everyone's foundation in this place is strong enough and solid enough to carry us into what God is calling us to. Amen, Jesus said, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail what we take into our own hands to build by our own will and design and well, selfishness. It might look like it's part of, you know, what God's got going on in our life, but we need to be very careful. We need to go back to the solid foundation so we look at this here, and there's so much packed into this chapter. It finds itself in the middle of what the Apostle Paul's talking about. I love First Corinthians, because they are so messed up. But you know what it's great about that is it helps us to, well, number one, be like, it's not just us, Lord, it's not just my life. It's not just my church. You know this has been going on since the apostles were here, but you know it they wouldn't have told us all of these things if there weren't the problems. Aren't you glad that the early church had problems too? It would have just been like, and Jesus ascended into heaven and it was all good. It would be like, well, that's great, but what do I do with well, I shouldn't point at you, all right. I'm talking to myself. But you know, the Corinthian church, they were struggling to abandon, really, their old Foundation, the culture that they've been brought up in, which was a very pagan, very messed up. Actually, of all the places, when you study all the places Paul went and all the places he wrote to Corinth, probably reflects our type of culture more closely than any other place, not perfectly. Obviously, we don't have a temple to Zeus down the street or this or that. I say that there are pagan temples in our city, but, but you know what? I mean, it was different, but it was a people that they were all about wealth. They were all about success. They were all about trying to one up, one another, get the best life, all of that sort of stuff. And here he's dealing with the issue specifically of meat, that sacrifice to idols. You and I probably haven't had to think about that too much, have we? Have you ever sat down in somebody's house and looked worryingly at the food like, was this a pagan sacrifice? Unless you've done submission some places, right? Probably not, right. It's just, oh, food. It comes from a Styrofoam thing at the supermarket. You know that's sort of the butcher shop or whatever, but Paul is speaking to them because they're wrestling. They think they're standing strong. They think they are strong people, but they're really not, because the strength that they have isn't producing anything really worthwhile. Maybe we should just skip down a little bit further to verse 23 where Paul gets into some of the dynamics of this. He's really we understand, talking about a principle, or even quoting back to the Corinthians, the sort of you know, logic that they use, the logic that the Corinthians were using is, well, we're free in Christ, our sins have been forgiven, right? That means that everything now is okay. That's kind of true, isn't it? I saw some squinting, some looking like what my neighbor's saying here. Well, I mean, yes, our sins have been forgiven, and yes, God has translated us. He's ripped us out of the the kingdom of darkness, brought us into the kingdom of light. It says here, and my Bible puts it in quotation marks, which I find helpful. It says in verse 23 All things are lawful. Other translations say all things are permissible. I can do kind of whatever I want because of the grace. Of God. But how many of you know that little three letter word's a really big word in a lot of instances here, but And if are probably some of the most important little words in your Bible, it's like, oh, conditions, oh, maybe there's a clarification that needs to be made here. Yes, Christ has forgiven us, so we don't need to be you know, all freaked out about every little thing. He says, All things are lawful, yes, but not all things are helpful. I better just read the other part. He says it again, All things are lawful, all things are permissible, but not all things build up. That really gets to the heart of so much of what can be wrong with our Christianity. Because a lot of our Christianity, I was actually reading this chapter last night to Ciel, and I just wanted to see her reaction, and I just started to explain this to her a little bit. She's like, are you preaching on this tomorrow? You should? I'm like, Thank you, sweetie. Because so much of Christianity focuses on a legal mentality that says, Can I do this? Is it permissible? Is it allowed? Am I still in the grace of God? Am I still a Christian? If I, you know, do this or not, because you know, if I do it and it's okay, well, then great, I'll just go about doing it. But Paul says there's more to Christian life than Am I sinning or not sinning? Amen, I'm sin is a big issue. We got in this things to get our sins forgiven. Amen, thank you Jesus for the blood that you shed so that our sins can be forgiven. But it doesn't end with just a okay. Now I got my sins forgiven, and I get to go on my merry way living however I want, as long as it's, you know, not stealing, lying, killing, you know, committing adultery, the big ones, this should completely change how we view our Christianity. It's not a question of, can I do this and not offend God. And not, you know, be completely cut off from the grace of God, but we should look at whatever we are allowing into our lives and say, Is it helpful, and is it building something? Because if you live a life that is all just about, okay? Is it okay? Is it a sin? Oh, well, yeah, I have permission to do this, and you're over here, you're building, you're building your own thing. You're starting to get off the foundation. Because he says, you know, it's not about, can you do it. It's more about should I it's not, can I get away with this? It's Should I do it. In other words, is this something that is partnering with the activity of God? Is this something that is adding on to that beautiful work of the Spirit that is building up the church, building up the kingdom of God, building up things that are eternal. How many of you know that we're supposed to be a people who live by faith and not by sight? We're supposed to be a people that have our eyes set onto eternal things and not temporary things? Yes, thank God He gives us temporary things like food and clothes and homes and cars to enjoy and to, you know, allow us to get on with life, but they aren't the essence of life. Your house is not something big enough to live your life. About a bigger, better house a car is not a big enough thing to live your life and center yourself around. You know, the eating, the best food, going on the best holidays, doing all of these things are not really the most important thing. The most important thing is, does my life count in eternity? Am I building on an eternal Foundation? And I mean earlier in this very same epistle, you guys know the passage, chapter three, Paul says, Be care. How you build, because a foundation has been laid. You're looking at me. We better just look at it. I wasn't planning on going there today, but it's built. It's the exact image that we're talking about in chapter three of First Corinthians. He says in verse nine, we are God's fellow workers. You wake up in the morning and think, I am a co laborer with God, and you're like before or after coffee, before or after my Bible reading, right? But this is how Paul understood himself, that he is CO laboring with God and the servants of God to accomplish eternal things. Verse nine, For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building, 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. Again, when times are easy, it's easy to not take so much care for how we build, for how we live, for what we do or don't do. We're just kind of like, well, I'm going about life and I'm not sinning after all. But Paul says that we are supposed to give deliberate attention to what our efforts, what our lives, what our activity is accomplishing. Let each one take care how he builds on it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus, Christ. Jesus, ultimately, he's the bedrock. He is the foundation. It all is on him. Colossians tell him, tells us that it was all made by Him and through Him. And for him, our entire life is from God, and it's for God in Him, we move and live and have our being. Your being doesn't come from entertainment. Your being, who you are, doesn't come from culture. Your essence of what life is about is not what they're advertising to you to get another dollar out of your pocket. You're the essence and the meaning and the purpose of our life comes from Christ and Christ alone Come on. He is the foundation that was laid. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones. I like those wood, hair, straw. It's getting a little sketchy. Each one's work will become manifest for the day. Will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and fire will test what sort of work each one has done. I think about that pretty often. I don't know about you, that one day everything that I have done is going to pass through judgment fire, a refining fire. The Bible says that we are supposed to serve the Lord with gratitude in our hearts, because we haven't inherited an internal kingdom. But our God, it says, is a consuming fire, and sometimes that's why we don't like to draw too close to God, because we know that if we drew closer to him, some of the stuff that we're really in love with is going to start to burn up. It's going to get consumed because there's going to be no more room for it. And I do want to say this, don't get me wrong, like there's time for rest, there's time to enjoy life, there's time for those things. But your life. Don't entertain yourself to death. Don't spend your life just numbing your boredom with stuff that doesn't matter. You only have so many hours in the day, you only have so many days in the week, you only have so many years on the planet, and you don't even know how long that's going to be, but you know that one day what you have said and done will be passed through judgment. How much of it do you want to see go up in a poof of smoke, and how much of it do you want to see that was laying upon? A solid foundation, and it remains. It's eternal. Your prayer life, come on. Your prayer life might look invisible, but it is eternal. It's gold and silver and precious stones, and that's the thing. We're so backwards, right? We live, you know? We think the kingdom of God is backwards. No, we're backwards. The things that are invisible now will be the important, shining, glowing, glorious things in the future, our prayer, life, our character. Oh, my, how many of us could believe God to grow in our character in 2026 I know I can, and my wife says, yes, and amen, right? These are things that actually matter. How you love people. Put things aside and begin to look at people. Begin to ask yourself questions, God, how can I serve somebody today? How can I love somebody today? How can I be a witness to somebody today? Because if we're so wrapped up in well, it's permissible. So I'm just going to go on living my little life over here, when there's people that God has put all around us, and he's saying, if you just looked up from your toys for a minute, you would realize that I could use you. I Could you do something through you now, just jump back to First Corinthians chapter 10 for a moment. And I know I don't want to keep you too long today. That's kind of a lie. I do want to one of the things I'm struggling with is confession time. Is God? How do we do this when I and not that it's all about me and what I say up here, but I just know that I need more word coming into me. I need more direction from God. I need more prayer time. It's like God Sunday morning. It's just not enough, which, by the way, is why you need to come out on Thursday night, which is, by the way, why you should go out to, you know, whatever ministry activities, if you're a young adult or your youth, or you're a lady or a man, and there's things going on. It's like, this is precious, these things, which might not look like much, there might be the only things that pass through the fire, the stuff that happens in those meetings, in those hours at that time, we need to value what God values. And again, I'm not saying that God doesn't value fun and family time, he does, but he values his word. He values prayer. He values worship. He values opportunities to rub shoulders and serve together. If Jesus came to earth and he said, I did not come to serve, to be served, but to serve, shouldn't that just scream to us, like, what am I doing? Where am I serving? It's the whole purpose of Jesus life. Come on, if you're not serving, like, I'm not saying that to try and rope you into get getting things done around the church, but serving is where your heart gets right. It gets aligned. Because what does Paul say? Here? Are all things lawful, sure, maybe, but not all things are helpful. Are all things lawful? Well, maybe, but not everything builds up. So we shouldn't just be stuck on the question of morality, is it right or wrong? We should be caught up in a kingdom question that says, What does this build? What does this accomplish? How am I investing into the future of my life, my children's life, my nation's life? We're believing God to reach the world. We don't reach the world by being absorbed in our own personal pursuits. We reach the world by serving, by serving God, by serving in the church, by serving our communities, by laying ourself down. Jesus made the example for us. Amen, he says in verse 24 right after that, let no one seek their own good but the good of his neighbor. So the questions, is it helpful? Is it building anything are right on top of does this help somebody else? Let no one. Seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. And then, of course, he returns to the question of meat in the market, and we'll leave that. But let's go here to wrap up today. In verse 31 it says so whatever you eat or drink, that was Paul's issue, right? You know, if this meat is contaminated or not, or whatever, whatever you do, whatever you do do, all to the glory of God. Come on. That's some marching orders for us, right there. And Paul says this at many times, at many places, in many ways, that all that you do, do it with thanksgiving. Do it as unto the Lord. Do it for the glory of God. Don't just ask, Can I do this or not? Ask, is it partnering with God? Is it helping someone else? Is it advancing the kingdom of God? Does it bring glory and honor to my maker, my Creator? Because, after all, He is my Lord. How many of you know Jesus is still Lord of lords and King of kings, and when you came to him. You didn't just come to him as a savior to have your sins removed. You came to him to bow your knee and say, Jesus is Lord. Jesus. You are my master. Jesus. My life now is in the pursuit of your glory and honor. God is not your Sky Genie, grandpa, whatever, Santa Claus that's just pouring out, you know, things so that you can get on your merry little way. He is king, and he has a kingdom, and he is longing for us to enter into that pursuit, we said it earlier or sang it earlier, right? Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and everything else will be added to you. Let's get this right. All that you do give all the glory to God. Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or to the Church of God. Is it lawful? Is it okay? Well, it's maybe okay, but is it helpful to somebody else, or will it cause offense and confusion? There are things in my life, that I find interesting, that I find entertaining, that I derive some sort of pleasure from, or could that I completely draw a line and say, you know, I have every moral right to do those things, but I know that if I entertain them and if I Practice them, and if I enjoy them or whatever, then I'm going to create confusion, division, strife in the body of Christ. Maybe some forms of entertainment, maybe some I don't know what it is for you, and I just say, You know what, I am a man of God, and I'm strong enough I could do that and be okay. But there are people around me looking at my life and saying, if he can do it, I can do it, and if he can do it, then it's okay. And maybe they don't, they don't have strength in that area, or it would be a temptation. You back up to what he says before. He's talking about temptations, and he says, God will not tempt anyone with anything without giving him an opportunity to escape it, right? But we need to flee it. So what am I saying? The freedom that Christ has prayed for for all of us isn't just so we can shout hallelujah and have freedom and go on our merry way and do whatever we want. We're free to serve others selflessly, because that's Christ. That's God Amen. Let's stand to our feet. Let's come Bailey. You want to come up? The question today is, are we building, are we standing on the right foundation, or are we filling our lives with all of these maybe permissible things? I can do this. I can do that. Nobody can tell me, the Bible doesn't you know condemned this or that? Well, yeah, but are you just filling your life with selfish pursuits, or are you doing something that is helpful? Are you doing something that will build something and I get it, we can't live our life. To please everyone. It kind of sounds like Paul's saying that here he's really not you won't be able to please everyone, but you should look and say, Is my life an example that someone else can follow? Hello. That's how Paul ends all of this. He says in 11, verse one, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. How many of us would be bold enough to say the same thing? Look at me. Walk like I walk, talk like I talk, do what I do. And we wonder sometimes why the church doesn't grow, doesn't multiply. We're not making disciples, because that's discipleship. Live a life that's helpful. It's building something that's blazing a path that others can follow. Live a life that is centered on him getting all the glory and the honor. Not maximum pleasure for us, although it's a joy to serve the Lord, but maximum glory for God, Father, in this place today, we just stand before you, and Holy Spirit, I ask you, and I know that you're already convicting hearts and minds as you convicted me as I was reading these passages, Lord that our lives were called to something deeper, something greater, something more glorious than we have yet entered into. So Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray for this wonderful church that you have raised up, that you have saved with your blood Jesus, that you have filled Holy Spirit with your presence, and I ask you, Lord, that You would put a new mind in us, the mind of Christ, the mind that says I didn't come to be served. I didn't come for my own pleasure, but I came to give my life to be a ransom. I came to seek and save the lost. I came to serve Lord God. Let our lives. Let this church be helpful. Let our lives build something. Lord God, come on today. In the name of Jesus, we declare growth. Lord in this place, start in us, start in us. Lord God, start in me. Start in me. Lord God, start in me. Maybe you're hearing this today, and you say, I've been far from God, I don't even I can hear what you're saying. And I know there's more to life than this, the way that I've been living the things I've been pursuing, I want to invite you today to surrender to Christ and let him be Lord of your life. So I invite you to pray this prayer with me today, say Father in the name of Jesus, I believe. That you died on the cross for my sins, but Lord, I know that you rose from the grave. I confess that you are Lord. I give you my life. Do with me as you will, Jesus, fill me with your Holy Spirit. I want to build with you, God, in the name of Jesus. Maybe that was a confirmation, something that's been stirring in your heart for a long time. Maybe that's the very, very first time that you've told him, I believe I confess You are my Lord, and if you say something just happened in me, make sure you reach out to somebody. Amen, there's nothing more important than Christ coming and dwelling in your heart. But we're going to linger in the all. For a few minutes here. If this message has stirred you today, we're praying for healing before. We're always open to praying for more healing. But I would just say, let's, let's come to this altar in an act of surrender, in an act of pursuit, and say, God, change my mind. Put the path straight in front of me. I want 2026, to count for eternity in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Let's seek the Lord together. Amen.