You may remember
from your childhood the finger play, "Here is the church, and here is
the steeple, Open the doors, and see all the people." I want you to
know that that's bad theology. But it is the theology most Christians
have adopted. Which is why growing up we had our church clothes that
we were only allowed to wear on Sundays or to weddings or funerals.
Because of this bad theology we have what are called submarine Christians.
These are the ones who believe that has long as they go to church on
Sunday, then they are okay. And the rest of the week they live like
the heathens do. So if Paul were alive today, he would tell us not to
believe that cute little rhythm. Instead he would say that we you open
the doors then you will see the church. We have to remember that it
was through Paul that God taught us about the concept of the church.
Jesus spent most of his time talking about the kingdom of God. In fact,
he only mentioned the church once. But when Jesus said, "I will build
My church; and the gates of Hell shall not overpower it" (Matthew
16:18), he wasn't talking about a building. I mean, I love our building.
We have spent a lot of money making it conducive for worship. But this
building will never walk into the hospital to visit you when you're
sick. This building will never go out to feed the hungry or preach the
good news of Jesus Christ. The concept of the church, that Jesus introduced
to us, and that was fully explained by Paul, is not the building, but
it is the people who meet inside of the building. So hopefully this
morning's lesson will help us all to remember that collectively, and
individually, you & I form the Temple of God, the true church of Jesus
Christ, not this building.
Look first at v. 16. In the Greek v. 16 starts off with a negative introduction.
Anytime that occurs the author is expecting a positive reply of "yes."
So what he's doing here is giving them a mild rebuke for forgetting
something he has already taught them.
It's like what we do when our kids misbehave. We tell them, "I didn't
raise you to act like that." My parents were moral people who taught
me right from wrong. They didn't teach me that it was okay to get drunk,
or to do drugs, or that it was okay to be a thief. And when I did those
things I know it had to hurt them because they taught me better. In
the same way, Paul is saying, "It is tearing my heart out to hear how
y'all are living. Because I taught you better. I didn't teach you to
keep on acting like a bunch of heathens. I taught you that you were
to live holy, exemplary lives." And the way he did this was to teach
them that they were not just the church, like he did at the introduction
of this letter, but he instead uses an even more powerful word: the
temple of God-v. 16.
When Paul asked them if they didn't know that they were the temple of
God, he is not doing so to introduce to them a new subject. It is interesting
to note that there is no definite article in the Greek before the word
temple. Whenever that occurs it is the Spirit's way of showing us that
he is talking about something that is unique. Let me ask you, of all
the buildings in the world of Paul's day, of all the temples in the
world, what was the most special one? The answer is the Temple built
by Solomon that Herod had rebuilt. Paul could have used a couple of
Greek words for temple to describe who they were. One of the Greek words
referred to the Temple in general. The other word referred to the special
area inside of the Temple called the Holy of Holies. This is the place
where in those days everyone thought that God's presence dwelt exclusively.
Since this letter was written 15 yrs before the Temple was destroyed,
the people would have understood the imagery that Paul is using here.
The "you" here is plural. So they would have realized that Paul was
reminding them that when they, some of the sorriest Christians in the
world, people like you & me, come together to worship God, the Spirit
transforms that meeting so it becomes the most sacred place in all the
world.
The picture that Paul is painting would be wonderful for those Corinthians.
They had heard about the glorious temple in Jerusalem. They were surrounded
by pagan houses of worship that were ornate and gorgeous. And I'm sure
that the Jews & the pagans in Corinth made fun of the building they
meet in. Their building, in contrast to the Jew's Temple and the pagan's
houses of worship, was probably very unimpressive. But Paul says to
them, "Don't let that bother you. Because whenever y'all come together
as a church family, y'all are just as beautiful, just as special to
God, as any house of worship, even the Temple in Jerusalem." Again,
we have to keep in mind he's not talking about a building.
Perhaps you have stood in magnificent church buildings and have been
awestruck with the majesty of it. Wally & I went to a church in Charlotte
that was so ornate that when I first saw it, I thought it was a castle
in some amusement park.
The building was so spectacular that I hard time listening to the messages
because I was so wrapped up looking at the architecture. But the truth
of the matter is that there is nothing inherently more special about
that building, then there is about our little building that looks like
it ought to be used as a warehouse.
What makes us so special is not our building, but it's the fact that
God's Spirit is here-v. 16. We like to call this room the sanctuary.
Most churches expect you to treat this room as though it were a sacred
place: No running, no eating, and no loud talking. But Paul would say
that there is nothing sacred about this room. The only thing that is
sacred in this room is the presence of God's Spirit who is in you and
me. When we gather in this room for the purpose of corporate worship,
God's Spirit is with and among us in a special way.
I think we've lost sight of the fact that God is in our midst. After
Jacob had the dream of the ladder going to heaven, he said: "Surely
the Lord is in the place, and I did not know it. How awesome is this
place! This is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of
heaven." (Gen. 28:16-17) When Moses encountered God at the burning bush
God said to Moses: "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from
your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
(Exodus
3:5)
I've been saved for almost 21 yrs., and do you realize that not once
have I ever stayed home on Sunday because I didn't want to go to the
worship service? Even when Carol & I go on vacations, on Sunday morning
you will find us in a worship service. The reason why I have been so
faithful in my attendance is not because I'm trying to earn brownie
points with God. It is because this is where God is. I lived 27 hard
years with Satan. And all he ever gave me was heartaches & disappointments.
But God has always been good to me. He has given me peace, joy, happiness,
and a sense of purpose that I never had before. So why would I not want
to go where he is? Now granted he is always with me. You don't have
to be in a corporate worship service to experience the presence of God.
But there is a unique manifestation of God's presence that only occurs
when we gather with other believers. And that occurs any time God's
people come together. Whether it's a Sunday morning worship service,
or a home fellowship meeting, or even when you bump into each other
in Wal Mart and share what God is doing in your life. Jesus said: "For
where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in
their midst." (Matthew
18:20)
I wonder if you felt God's supernatural presence when you entered into
the doors that lead into this room? As you left home did it dawn on
you that you they were going to the gates of heaven? As you sang during
worship, did you feel led to take off your shoes because you were standing
on holy ground? Are you right now aware of the fact that God is in this
place?
Look now at verse 17. Paul begins verse 17 with a conditional clause.
Let me give you a quick English grammar lesson: A conditional clause
is if you do the first part, then you'll experience the second part.
In the Greek there are 3 different conditional clauses that give the
meaning of the text 3 different meanings. Paul uses what is called the
first class condition which means that you know that something is true.
It's like a mother saying to her son "Your sister told me you hit her,
and even though you say you didn't, and I can't prove you did, I know
you hit her because I can see the bruise that is on her arm. I want
you to know that when your daddy get home, he is going to take you to
the woodshed, where he's going to apply the board of correction to the
seat of your learning. And hopefully, after his long talk with you,
you will think twice about hitting anyone."
Paul uses the first class condition because he knows that somebody in
the church of Corinth was trying to destroy it. And he wants that person
to know that if he/she doesn't soon stop, then God is going to destroy
them! Now that is strong language. It depicts a side of God we try to
pretend is not there.
The word translated "destroy" literally means to defile. Paul likes
to use the Old Testament to find analogies to explain what is saying.
So he is probably thinking about the great concern that God had about
the purity of the Holy of Holies. You see this in the initial chapters
of the book of Leviticus. God is so holy he will not allow anything
that is defiled to enter into his presence. Which is way all the sacrifices
had to be perfect. And even the high priest had to purify himself before
he entered into the Holy of Holies.
I don't believe that Paul is talking about loss of personal salvation
here, but he is talking about the losing God's hand of protection. And
when God removes His hand of protection from us, this allows Satan,
who sole mission in life is "to kill, steal, and destroy," to do whatever
he wants to do to us.
When God allows Satan to attack us he may let Satan destroy your finances,
or destroy your mental, emotional, or physical health, or he may even
let Satan take your physical life. Please don't misunderstand what I'm
saying. I'm not saying that if lose your job, or if you are sick, or
if you are struggling with depression that it is because God is punishing
you for something you did. Some of those happen to us because we live
in a fallen world where the rain falls on the just and the unjust.
Neither am I saying that every little time you sin God is going to zap
you. But I do want to warn you that if you are continually, blatantly,
living in sin, and you are unwilling to confess & repent of that sin,
and that sin might destroy the purity or the unity of God's church,
you'd better watch out because one of these days God is going to punish
you.
We don't want to believe that God will punish people, especially allow
them to die, for unholy living, because it goes against our desire to
view him as a loving, heavenly father. But we've also got to see that
our loving father is also so holy that he doesn't want any impure attitudes/behaviors
to creep into his churches that might destroy his character. When we
do something that hurts his reputation, he gets mad. So mad that God
will punish us, even by allowing us to die.
We see this truth in a couple of places in the Bible. When "Uzzah reached
out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled, the
Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore
God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God." (2
Sam. 6:6-7) God had warned his people not to touch the Ark of the
Covenant, lest they die. But Uzzah didn't heed his warning.
God also killed Ananias & Sapphira for lying about how much they made
from the selling of their land. Peter told both of them that they "Lied
to the Holy Spirit." (Acts
5:3 & 9) And when both of them heard those words, they "Fell down
and died." (Acts 5:5 & 10) Could you imagine God killing some of you
this morning for what you put in the offering box? Or could you imagine
God killing some of you for the half-hearted way you sang to him this
morning? Or could you imagine God killing some of you for falling asleep
while he is speaking to you through me?
What's the application? Simply this: when the world examines God, they
do it by looking at God's temple, the Church. When the world sees a
corrupt church divided by personal preferences, gossiping, and stabbing
one another in the back, it then draws it's own erroneous conclusions
about the very character of God.
A conclusion that is based solely on what it sees in you and me. You
see, Satan can never destroy God's character, but he can damage His
reputation through you and me. When you and I allow ourselves to become
complacent and routine in our Christianity, or when we allow the enemy
to use us as his tools for dividing and splitting the church, we are
destroying/defiling the church.
But the good news of the appeal that Paul is making, is that we don't
have to continue to allow destructive attitudes & behaviors to destroy
our fellowship. God's motive in having Paul write this is to remind
us of who we are in Christ. Instead of living like heathens, God wants
us to live out our true identity as: "A chosen people, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that we might declare the
praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
So let us, as aliens and strangers in the world, abstain from sinful
desires, which war against our souls. And let us live such good lives
among the pagans, that though they accuse us of doing wrong, they may
see our good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us." (1
Peter 2:9 & 11-12)
In the concluding verses of this chapter Paul focuses on one of the
issues that were destroying the purity of the church: Wanting to use
the wisdom of this world instead of the wisdom of God. We see this going
on in today's church as well. We don't want to be branded as bigots,
or narrow-minded, or old-fashioned, so many Christians have bought into
the lie that abortion is a legitimate form of birth control, or that
homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle, or that living together or
having pre-marital sex is an acceptable way of seeing if you are compatible
with your partner.
Paul wants us to know that whenever we try to appear to be wise to men,
by using the standards of the world, instead of God's standards, all
we do is appear to be idiots to God- v. 18-20.
By contrasting the world's wisdom to God's wisdom, Paul is telling us
to avoid using the wisdom of the world, and instead, stick with the
wisdom found in God's Word. I believe that what Paul is asking us to
do is one of the hardest things to do. For instance, the wisest person
in the world, Solomon, told us: "He who holds his tongue is wise." (Prov.
10:19)
Do you realize how hard that is to do? We have within us this need to
express our opinions. We aren't happy unless we can say what's on our
mind. We love to criticize the faults we see in others. It's our very
nature to have to win on any issue. We can't stand to be opposed or
contradicted. And when we are, we respond with condescension.
The reason it is so hard not to want to appear to be wise to the people
in our world is because of the sin we struggle the most with: Pride.
Satan has used our need to appear wise to destroy many people. Not only
was it pride that got him kicked out of heaven, it was pride that caused
sin to be introduced into the world. Satan offered Eve 2 truths & a
lie: "The day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will
be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen.
3:5) Her eyes were opened; she did know good and evil. But she never
became as wise as God.
In these verses Paul makes a strong point for not using worldly wisdom
instead of God's wisdom. The Greek word for useless/vein means a puff
of air that soon dissipates. The point God wants us to see is that the
wisdom of this world won't endure the test of time.
Let me give you an example of how the body of Christ has been influenced
and deceived by foolish and dangerous worldly wisdom. I recently read
a column by a sociology professor at a major university who has been
studying family systems. She has written a book that addresses the debate
over what is more important in child rearing: quality time or quantity
of time.
Back in the 1960's sociologists told us that none of us can give kids
the quantity of time they need, so what we've got to do is focus on
quality. The rationale behind this was that since you can't give you
children the quantity they need, go for quality. Unfortunately, the
church bought into that lie.
What does the eternal wisdom of the Scriptures tell us about child-rearing?
Proverbs
22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when
he is old he will not depart from it." That really means that each child
must be treated as a unique individual who requires shaping and molding
and attention and investment.
There's no one-size-fits-all approach to child-rearing. We are preparing
our children to be adults. And that means we have to spend a lot of
time paying attention to what is going on in our kids lives. And we
have to spend a lot of time doing nothing but being a part of their
lives. There just aren't any shortcuts to raising kids. It takes quantity,
not quality time.
That's God's wisdom. But the wisdom of the world 40 years ago tried
to tell us that we can take shortcuts and substitute quality for quantity
of time. And that was a lie. You cannot have quality without quantity.
Even though it sounds reasonable to give your kids quality over quantity,
it proved to be both foolish and dangerous.
It never "Turned the hearts of the fathers to their children, or the
hearts of the children to their fathers." All it did was to cause God
to "Strike our land with a curse." (Mal.
4:6) Which is why I believe we have such a high rate of juvenile
delinquency, why so many of our kids are on drugs & alcohol, and why
so many of our kids are having pre-marital sex.
Paul goes on to tells us not to be deceived into seeking the wisdom
of this world over the wisdom of God because there are so many possessions
that we'll never find in the world are ours as children of God- v. 21-22.
First of all, God gives the gift of preachers to teach you his word.
The Corinthians were chasing after Paul, Cephas, and Apollos like some
star-struck teenager hoping to get an autograph. God says don't because
then they'll start viewing you as their possessions.
You don't belong to the preacher, rather he belongs to you. Do you know
that I belong to you? God has given me to you as a gift. I'm here for
your benefit. So use, but don't abuse me, to your heart's desire.
Not only has God given you the gift of preachers to teach you God's
Word, he has also given you the world. The word Paul uses means the
physical universe. Our heavenly Father made the entire physical universe
for us. And we as Christians can appreciate the world in ways that non-believers
don't have a chance to.
As I told you last week, my favorite places in the world are places
that have beautiful mountains & lakes. Places where you see the crystal
blue skies without skyscrapers or pollution marring its beauty. I could
spend hours looking watching clouds floating by snow-capped mountains.
I love to sit outside by myself watching the sun go down, or just watching
the wind blow through the trees. I love the beauty of nature. And what
has struck me since I have become a Christian is that God made it all
for me. In his love for me, my heavenly Father created all this world
just for me. My response to God is a sense of awe, wonder, amazement,
and gratitude to him for all he has given me through this world.
Not only is the world yours, but so is life and death. Your life has
been given to you to glorify God, and even in the hard times and good
times you can glorify Him, because all things work together for your
good! Even if death comes, we can say along with Paul: "For me to live
is Christ, and to die is gain!"(Philippians
1:21)
This means you're not a victim to death. Rather, you're a victor through
death. This is great because the thought of dying scares most people.
But if you've been born again, death is now your slave. Death is merely
the means to usher you into the very presence of Jesus Christ.
Paul next says that the things present & the in the future belong to
you. I know the economy is terrible. I know that many of you are struggling
with health problems. I know that some of you are living in fear because
you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. I hope that you will
understand that since we belong to Jesus right now that he is never
going to let you down. He will be with you through you catastrophes
& victories.
It doesn't make any difference what Wall Street does. It doesn't make
any difference what the doctors tell you. Because, we, along with Paul
should be totally "Convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels
nor demons, neither the present, not the future, nor any powers, neither
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord."
(Romans
8:38-39)
The all inclusive language of these verses covers every facet of what
we will experience in this physical life. It includes the good things
and the bad, the pleasant and the painful, the joy and the sorrow, the
health and the sickness, the contentment and the disappointment. Paul
tells us in the closing verse of chap. 3 that there is coming the day,
the day when we are brought to the feet of Jesus, when we will never
have to face any of the things that now cause us to worry, for the rest
of eternity-v. 23.
I want to close with a powerful quotation from John Stott's book Essays
in Evangelical Ethics. I believe it captures the kind of vision that
God wants for us today. It is the vision of who God is, and how we ought
to live life: "The vision we need is the vision of God Himself; the
God of creation who made man male and female to bear His image and subdue
His world; the God of the covenant of grace who in spite of human rebellion
has been calling out a people for Himself; the God of compassion and
justice who hates oppression and loves the oppressed; the God of the
incarnation who made Himself weak, small, limited and vulnerable, and
entered our pain and alienation; the God who sent His only son into
the world to live, serve, suffer and die; the God who one day will make
all things new. There is no room for pessimism here, or for apathy either.
There is room only for worship, for expectant faith, and for practical
obedience in witness and service."
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