Paul writes to church saying, brethren, I, brethren, could not speak to you as the spiritual men, but as the men of flesh, as the babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you are not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly, for since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, I am a Paul, and another, I am a Paulist, are you not mere men? Not then is a Paulist and what is Paul's servants through whom you believe, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted a Paulist watered, but God was causing the grow. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the grow. Now, he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor, for we are God's fellow workers and you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God which was given to me as a master builder, I laid a foundation and another is building upon it, but let each man be careful how he builds upon it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which was laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident, for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. Oh my God, bless this reading and hearing of his holy word, truly to grasp withers in the flower fades, but not the word of God, no the word of God stands forever. Hey man, be seated, please. Michael Bryson wanted to do the first mother's day for his wife just right. So his wife Miriam worked in as a nurse, she had a shift on mother's day, so it took some planning and some effort, he got their son, put their son in the baby, got them all situated in the baby, car seat and got flowers and got them in so they wouldn't get messed up and got balloons and he got candy and transported the whole mother's day party to the hospital where she was laboring and where she was working, I should say, and there, you know, it came in and it surprised her and they had a party and there was tears and it was, you know, saw all the other nurses out and out over the baby and they out and out over the husband who was so thoughtful and so kind, blah, blah, blah, and anyone bailed, so then the little party ends, she's got to go back to work and now the whole process gets shifted into reverse, she's got to get everything back where it's, you know, and so back out to the car, he takes the baby, you know, the car seat, back out with the baby entity, sits that on the roof of the car and he gets the flowers in and he gets the balloons, you know, all healing balloons all and he gets the candy and gets everything situated and he pulls out of the parking lot hospital. I noticed there's a lot of contenders drivers out. Everywhere he goes, people are honking at him and blowing it until their lights on and off and everything else he can't figure it out. He pulls up on the freeway, he's going 55 miles an hour, when he hears this down he will never forget a scraping on the roof of his car and looking out the back, looking through the rear view mirror, he sees his baby in the car seat, slide off the roof of his car onto the trunk and go careening down the interstate. Now the baby's fine, so we can proceed with the rest of the sermon, take you at ease. Some very alert and very careful driver coupled with, of course, the Providence and kindness of God allows this child to careen off the car, land upright in the car seat and just to bargain down the interstate where it ends up totally safe in fact without a scratch and probably a sleep and oblivious to the whole episode. Can you imagine though seeing that unfold in your rear view mirror? Well Paul could, that's what he experienced, he birthed the church in corn, he got them all set up, he got them headed in the right direction, they were a healthy, young baby but then he left and now he's hearing reports that they are curing out of control. The darkness and the hostility to Christianity of the culture in which they were plucked from is slowly reclaiming them, they're slowly melding right back into the culture from which they came. And so Paul writes this myth of 1 Corinthians chapter 3, these words of correction and instruction, he uses frequent metaphors here, he says, you are your babies, he calls them, he says you are God's field, you are God's building, you are God's temple, he says you belong to God. Now here's one deal, do you ever have to, did Dad ever say if you're going to live in this house and you're going to live by my, and this house you're going to live by my rules? Well guess what? When we get plucked out of culture and we find ourselves at home in the house of God then that father who runs that house is going to take those waifs that he adopts and bring them into conformity to his rules. So we study together, what are the rules of the house, you got to serve an outline, the first rule in the father's house might be this, you're not allowed to act like a baby, no act like a baby in God's house. The Corinthians have reproached Paul, they're critical of Paul, you know why? The reason is, his teaching is not deep enough. They are spiritual, they are mature, they, you know, when he came and he gave them Jesus and sort of all that stuff about the cross and everything else, good, good, good. But now they want to go on because they, they're Greeks and great believers in philosophy and high thinking and teaching and academics and it's time to move on to the mature stuff. And so they're very critical of Paul, of course, in his absence as he's away from them. So Paul begins his letter by saying what, we have to redefine maturity because of all things, you're anything but mature. What does he tell them? I can't even give you meat yet. They think we're spiritual, we're ready for the really intricate stuff, Paul says I can't even give you meat, I'm still going to give you milk because you're nothing but babies. You see they would have said maturity, all our knowledge and our education and our theology perhaps and our philosophy and Paul says, but look at your church, you're filled with division, you're filled with ranker, you don't like each other, your, your faction, your fighting, you're anything but mature. You don't even get the, the very genesis of the gospel. You don't get the first elementary things about what it means to be a child of God. He not only tells them, he says repeatedly, are you not mere men? To honor a Paulist, to honor a Paul, you're just like other men. In other words, there's no difference between you and non-Christians. I don't, if the Spirit of God is dwelling in you, you don't, aren't distinguishable from pagans in the way that you behave. I'd say Paul fairly effectively, let's be here out of there. He says, you're fleshly, now in the church, if you grew up in the church when somebody said somebody was fleshly, we usually, our connotation is that person is what? Actually immoral, if they're fleshly. Paul says, because of your self-righteousness, your arrogance, your fighting, your division, those are sins of the flesh. Paul sets out the redefine. Materity, now I have to ask the question, would Paul saw in the church in Corinth still exist in the church today? Why, what is it about church people that they're so good, churches are so good at producing arrogance, self-righteous, you know, stuck up, angry, critical people? And we have got that down. How is that? Why does, what's going on, I talked to Paul from Tallahassee this week, started a college ministry like two years ago. It started because his middle school and high school ministry were going so well, the high school kids were graduating and going to college and said, why don't we have a college ministry? And so they started a college ministry and last year they had over a hundred people coming, pretty great accomplishment at Florida State University and, or any university. And this year they have over 200 kids coming, double inside. And he said, the problem with success is the very worst thing happened. He told me this week, he said, guess who's coming? Started with my youth group, kid. They went out and found their non-Christian friends, their non-Christian friends came. They started being converted to Christ, they brought other non-Christian's, but now that we've arrived, now that we're the talk of the campus, now that we're the largest Christian ministry at Florida State, guess who's coming? Christians, Christians have started to show up. He said, I've never had to deal with such criticism, such narrowness, such bickering. He said, before, we didn't have any of that, but now I've got kids walking in their first time in group, they want to tell us how our music is wrong, how our videos are wrong, how the message was wrong, what is it about church people? The world says, yes, why don't you go to church and what do they say? Who would want to be around those people? If I've got free time, I want to go be around narrow, critical, self-righteous people. Why would the world say that about us? Because they're right. Because they're right. Where does that come from? Well, it comes from a lot of places, but I think one way we could put our finger in is to say that in the church, we understand there's a holy and righteous God, and there it is. And we're also taught that we are sinners, really, big time bad, and we are. But if that's all we get in church, then we produce people who are insecure, who are filled with self-loathing, you see, because while that's true, that's not the whole gospel. The gospel is that while God is holy and just, and while we are rotten, and we can never live lives that will cause him to take notice or give us any sort of reward, Jesus, life, Jesus, death, Jesus' righteousness becomes a covering that allows us to experience the kindness and goodness and mercy of God. So rotten people have tasted of his goodness, but if you don't get that message in church, and all you get week after week is there's a holy righteous God and you are a mess. Then it produces a church going people who are radically insecure, people who think that they're quiet times, and controlling their tongue, what movies they watch, and all of this, somehow they might measure up, and somehow God might be kind enough to smile on them. Most church-going people are radically insecure, and you know, if you're filled with self-loathing, you know a great way to feel better about yourself, find someone who's worse. And so a technique to feel better about yourself is to be critical, and so people are constantly venting their own self-hatred in a critical spirit towards other people. It's amazing. Church folk will be critical about the way people drive, they'll be critical about the checkout person at the grocery store, they'll be critical about the butcher, they'll be critical about their children, they'll be critical, I mean it's a way of life, they'll be critical about the government, they'll be critical about the coaching that their favorite team gets this afternoon, they'll be critical about the officiating, they'll be critical about their children's teachers, it just pours out of them, a litany of self-righteous critical spirit, finding what's wrong with everyone else utterly oblivious to the fact that it's their own insecurity that they're masking. Paul says it's in the church in Corinth, he said, and yet they thought they were mature. They thought they were mature, you see the most critical people always think they're more mature than everyone else, because that's why they can see everyone else's stuff, you know. And in fact Paul says we have to redefine maturity, the person who sees everyone else's stuff and doesn't see their own isn't mature, they're filled with the flesh, they're fleshly. What is maturity? Galatians chapter 5 says, you know it's not circumcision or un-circumcision that matter, it's faith working itself out in love, that's what maturity looks like. Produces of people, not who are divided and not who are affectionate and not who are critical, but it produces of people who are selling kindness and graciousness to kind of things that would breed unity and togetherness, cooperation, that's maturity. My kids were a little bit smaller, we stepped back to our football games fairly regularly, and that would be kind of a magnet for the neighborhood kids who would come over. And one thing we discovered is kind of the ways of kids, you know. And very often as we were playing, kids would fall down injured, but guess what, they were never, they were never really injured, they were, they were lining like their, you know, like their hip was dislocated or something. And one thing we established in our yard was the game never stopped. So if you've got injured, we just play around you. And guess what happened every time? I mean two plays later, there was a macular, there was a, there were full recoveries. There was miraculous healings happened right in our backyard, kids who were on deaf door, suddenly popped up and they were playing against. Once they noticed that nobody was going to pay a great deal attention to their whining. Kids constantly would say, I'm not getting the ball enough, I'm going home. We just keep right on playing, you know. And after two or three times, we find that those kids would stop complaining and they would stop falling down injured and they just play. You know, I've been a pastor for 20 years and I got to tell you there's a lot of, I'm taking my Bible and I'm going home. You know, if I don't get the theology I want, and if that youth director doesn't pay attention to my kid like they're supposed to, and if that Christian school teacher doesn't treat my kid the way that they're supposed to, and if my mom's sick and I don't get visited in the right kind of attention that I'm supposed to, then I am taking my Bible and I am going home. That's not maturity. What is maturity? I saw it this week, and you know, in the Father's House maturity gets redefined. What does it look like? You know, the temptation to say, that person who knows the Bible upside up one side down the other, they're mature, and that's a good thing to know the Bible like that, but that doesn't mean that the person's mature. That person who's politically pure, that person who's theologically a droid, that person who's, they're the ones who are mature, that person who always has the right answer, they're the ones, no, no, no, the one who's living out the gospel, they give proof that they've understood that they are the recipient, the unmerited recipient of the kindness of God, and so that kindness extends out from them, that person is mature.
Very often church officers and church leaders and pastors are some of the most critical nasty people in the church. They're mature because they, they have a degree. They're mature because they, they can explain the doctrine. You know, those who love well, that's what maturity looks like in God's house. I saw it this week. I went with a man to visit his wife in a nursing home she has Alzheimer's. I saw him wheel her outside and for the sun so she get fresh air and sun on her face which he does every day. They get ice cream every day together. He brings his dog so that she can interact with the dog. He found, I used to read a devotional with her but that's gotten too much for her to handle so he found a little children's book of stories, Bible stories that she used to read to their children when they were little so he reads her Bible stories every day. He caresses her. They pray together. He prays the Lord's prayer because she remembers that. They sing hymns because she can still remember the words to the old hymns and when I drove away, I'm not telling you this. Just as I was about to leave, he looked up at me and he said, I always wondered why people visited people who have Alzheimer's. I always wondered why people go every single day to see somebody who doesn't even know who they are. And he said, now I know why because it's so much fun.
He didn't say it, now I know why because it's my duty. He didn't say because I promised 50 years ago till death do us part. He didn't say this woman was good to me so now I owe her back so I'm paying her back for all. He didn't say anything. He said now I know why they do it because it's just so much fun to love. That when I drove away I said that's what maturity looks like. God make me like that. Second in the father's house, temper tantrums we said first of all are not allowed in the father's house. Leaders are not made into stars. We have a hero worshiping culture. I want to be like Mike, you know, teen idol, the highest rated program of the summer. Let's let's stars. Oh, let's go and and exalt people and it finds its way right into the church. It found its way into the church and Corinth. It's nothing new. They did it two thousand years ago. Paul says why are you exalting us? We are just God's servants. We are just field hands. That's all we are. We are just people who do chores that God has assigned. I planted a palace watered but it got to give the increase. What does it say? Is it verse 7 or so? It says in chapter 3 so then the one who plants know the one who waters is anything. We are nothing. We are absolutely nothing. This is about God. It's not about your leaders. You see this church was factaining behind we're in the Apollos camp. We're in the camp of Seifas. We're in the camp of Paul and then there was some really pious people in the church who said we're in the camp of Jesus. You know, and they weren't anymore. They were the most self-righteous probably of them all. This is the divisive church. Paul says don't make stars out of your leaders. I love where he says what is a palace? What is a palace? What is a palace that you would make a big deal out of him? You know what he was? He was an eloquent speaker. Acts chapter 18 tells us an extremely gifted order who didn't know that much about Jesus. So when he was traveling around preaching he had about a third of the information. So his preaching was wrong and guess who had to pull him aside and set him straight. Somebody named Priscilla. So whenever a palace went to preacher meetings all the other preachers were like whisper behind his back. He got caught by a girl. He got caught by a girl. You know, I mean Paul said who's a palace? You're making a big deal out of this guy? And then he says and what is Paul? You're going to make a big deal out of me? You know what I am? I'm a serial killer. I'm a Jewish serial killer. Do you know that? Do you know that that's what the Apostle Paul was? He went around murdering Christians before he was radically congruent. You're going to make a big deal out of me. Listen, in the Church of Jesus Christ there's one star only. I plan a palace waters but it's God who causes the growth. The rest of us are just pipe. We're just conduit. It's the gospel that flows through us. It's the message of salvation that flows through us that has power and worth and value. What does that tell us? It tells us one that every gift in the Church ought to be valued shouldn't it? Every gift in the Church ought to be valued. What did I ask earlier in the service? What's more important planning or watering? It can't have you know what either one is worthless without the other. So what's more important? The senior pastor of a church or the nursery worker or the one who cuts the grass or the one who visits in the nursing home? Now we all know the spiritual Bible answer is to say they're all the same but we act like the senior pastor is more important. And Paul would say the church in Corinth. It is not so. It is an interdependent. We are all fellow workers. You know what verse 9 actually says? We are God's synagogue. There's a synergism in which God takes the gifts of the whole group and he creates something that's powerful together as a whole. There's a synergistic effect to the work of the Holy Spirit in creating his church. I got a question and now you can't answer this if you were in one of the other services because you've been unfairly prepared. Who here knows who Mike so old is? Raise your hand if you know who he is. He is the most important player you could argue on the Tampa Baybuck in years. What position does he play? Anybody know? Ron? He's the long snapper. Mike so old. He's not Derek Brooks. He's not T. Sean Johnson. He's not Warren Sap. He never gets interviewed after the game but on every field goal, on every punt, he has the center of the ball. And I want to say some of he doesn't do his job right. There's a real good chance they don't win. Nobody's ever heard of him. Nobody will ever congratulate him. But he is as vital to the success of that team as anyone else. So it is in the church. So it is in the church. We make way too much in our culture out of the senior pastor. And we ought to repent of our idolatry. Pastors sometimes make too much out of themselves, don't they? God has a way of keeping us in place, showing us our stupidity. I remember being in St. Petersburg with my wife one time. We were trying to find this restaurant. I was getting so frustrated. We've been about five restaurants that were all closed. I had this little tourist guide. I was looking, it's all where this place was. I'd already been to about three places that my wife said, you know, the ambiance just isn't right. And so I'm so hungry. And so I finally there was this matriety at this hotel. And he was very elegant. He was out at the door. And it wasn't where we wanted to eat, but but I had my tourist guide. And I was trying to find this restaurant. And so I walked up to him and I said, could you tell me where this restaurant a pro post is? And he looked at me with the distinct dripping. And he was very frankly, he was very effeminate. And he looked at me and he said, excuse me, that would be apropos. A pro post, you know, showed my grammatical ignorance. Virtually every day God has a way of putting you in your place. You know, we make way too much out of senior pastors. What policy, what are they? It's our own idolatry that we want to believe in them instead of in Jesus. Do you know that? I got to ask you if I committed a really big sin. And you know what the statistical probability of that is? Pretty high. Like 100%. Today. But let's say a really, really, really big one. Okay. If I did one of those, how many of you would be disillusioned? I don't mean sad. Everybody ought to be sad. I ought to be sad. You ought to be sad. If I if I violate my vows and my ordination, we all ought to be sad. But would you be disillusioned? Would you leave the church? There's one star in the church of Jesus Christ. There's only one Savior. There's only one Redeemer. Paul says, I plant a palace water, but it's God who gives the increase. Third in the Father's house. There's no babies. There's no stars in the Father's house. The construction has to be up the code. Construction must be up the code. Paul says of the Corinthians. The foundation is crucial to any structure. We all know that, right? Jesus told the story about two men of build a house, one built it on the rock and one built it on the sand. When the big storm blows, they can build with the same materials. But if the foundation, if one is flawed and the other is strong, what was that strong foundation? Jesus said, the man who builds his house on the rock is the one who has heard my word and gives heed to it. Okay. So we know that building the foundation is crucial. And so Paul says to the Corinthians, when I was there and we started the church, we built the foundation on who? What's the foundation? Jesus Christ and him crucified, Christ alone, Christ the work, Christ the person. This is the foundation upon which everything else is built. It's not only the foundation of the church, it ought to be the foundation of your life. Your life is not can't be tethered to your retirement, your annuity. Especially right now, you know what a foolish foundation that is, wouldn't you? Your foundation can't be tethered to your family, to your marriage, to your relationships. Your foundation, your life can't be tethered to hold it in place and hold it down and hold it secure to your education, your job, your gifts, your determination, your wherewithal. All of those will prove to be bankrupt in a day of testing, Christ and Christ alone. You know, when I was a kid, you know what they used to say, I think it was the scare of teenagers, little kids, they'd tell us, when life is over, you will appear before the judgment seat of God. And they will show a movie of your whole life and all humanity will watch it, along with God. And and everything you ever said and everything you ever did and everything you ever even thought of doing will all be on that screen. Now, I think that I'll only ask you, what do you think about the prospect of that? Would you look forward to that?
I'm going to tell you something, I look forward to that day with all my heart. It'll be the sweetest day of my life in yours because when we stand before the judgment seat of God, they will show the movie of the life of Ray Cortese and it will say the part of Ray Cortese played by Jesus of Nazareth. And we will sit there and we will watch the life of Jesus Christ on that screen. And when it's all over, the Father will look at me and He will say that is the most incredible life anyone has ever lived. Come into my glory, well done, good and faithful servant. And I will get full credit for the perfect life of Christ who plays the part of me. By the way, 2,000 years ago, they actually played my life. The title of that said the life of Jesus and what went up on the screen was the life of Ray Cortese. And all the judgment of God fell on Jesus for my life. Do you want to build your life on your record? Or do you want as a foundation of your life, Jesus? Well, Paul said, that's what we built. But here's the deal. Paul said, that's what we built in Corinth. But I left town and I have sublet the rest of the construction. And we should not tolerate shoddy building materials being used to build on that solid apostolic foundation. He said, you can build that building with gold, silver and precious stones or you can build it with wood hay and stubble because a great fire is coming and the wood hay and stubble are going to found to be perishable and flammable. But there are materials that will withstand that day of judgment. No one asked you this. What is the solid building material that the church is to be built with? Is the church of our day using shoddy construction techniques? And the answer in America is woefully yes. Yes, the church construction taking place would not pass inspection. Our lack of biblical knowledge, our biblical illiteracy leaves us completely vulnerable to the worst sort of teaching and instruction that will not stand the test of time. We've got pop psychology that people live their lives according to. We have people who listen to Dr. Phil on the Oprah show like he's an apostle. We've got people who in this church, I've had people tell me they make decisions according to astrological signs as if this was a measure by which you live your life. People have shown me the most fanciful books about the lost tribes of Israel and old gurus who have said absolute nonsense and shamans and wise men. And we've discovered this and building their lives wide open to there are folk in this church who practice yoga uncritically. I don't care about people who sit around and can torture their bodies, do whatever you want, but who embrace the eastern philosophies uncritically, uncritically, not understanding. We don't have a biblical theological grid by which to wisely screen out the garbage of culture so that we're slowly being enveloped. Do you know the Bible is very clear. Christians should only marry other Christians. And so for years there's something that's been called missionary dating. You know what that is? That's the person who says, okay, I'm not supposed to marry anybody but a Christian, but I can date non-Christians and I'll make them Christians. I'll convert them. That's missionary dating. I read this week that missionary dating has become missionary cohabitation. You can't marry the non-Christians so you live with them. And you don't marry them until they're converted. Somehow in the father's house, I just want to go to fly, but you see if we don't have any grid and we leave ourselves open to the whims of culture, to pop psychology, to pop theology, we've got, again, every sort of teaching, every sort of instruction that people receive in churches, there's a TV pastor of a church of thousands that the people that watch faithfully, that doesn't believe in the Trinity. The most orthodox of Christian doctrines, he believes there is no God. The father, there is no God. The son is just the spirit. God only has one person. If you want to know him, you know him by the spirit. That's not Christianity. It's never been considered Christianity. And yet he has a very wide following and folk I don't think even know the right questions to ask about that. You know, it's crazy the stuff. Look at the prayer of Jbez. I mean, people bought that book like hotcakes. Millions of copies. Some obsolete prayer in a dark corner of the Old Testament is the secret. If you'll say this prayer every day, then a life of incredible prosperity will break open for you. It's interesting. Jesus lived 30 years and there's no record that he ever prayed the prayer of Jbez. You know, isn't that something that he didn't ever discover that little gem of wisdom? You can sell almost anything to the church of Jesus Christ today. They will buy almost anything. And I would throw in the left behind book series with that too. They'll buy almost anything. Whether it's a shoddy theology or not. Because they're unequipped. The house has not been well constructed with solid materials. I remember the guy told me he was taught you shouldn't drink beer. You know why? Because if you've got a beer in your hand, what if the rapture happens right then? There you would be standing before God. You'd have to put one hand behind your back. That'd be so uncomfortable. Kind of like keep the God so it couldn't see the beer. What is the solid foundation upon which the church is built? Bible study? The word of God. God has revealed himself. He's told us who he is. I'm going to get to know who he is. I'm going to learn his Bible. I'm going to pray. I am going to meet together with God's people in fellowship and in worship and in community, life groups, small groups. This isn't just a technique. God's people have been meeting like this together for thousands of years so that the church might be built up strong. Three little pigs, right? Even little kids know what I'm saying. What happens when you build a house out of straw? What happens when you build a house out of sticks? There's a wolf. There's a wolf. He will come and he will blow against that house. You guys know how hard life is. You guys know that illness and divorce and bankruptcy and losing your job and every kind of tragedy will blow into your life and if your house is built out of sticks, it won't stand. But there is a foundation to be anchored to in Jesus Christ in which we can build something solid. That's the way the Father designed it. Construction's got to be up to code. Last of all, I just say this in closing, is that in the Father's house, the family matters. You don't disregard your family in the Father's house. You know what I'm talking about? You try to teach your kids, right? Family matters. We're going to have family dinners in this house. We're going to have family vacations. We're going to do things together. You're not always going to be with your friends. You're not always going to go do what you want to do because family matters. And in the Father's house, family matters. In American culture, we are individualistic. But Jesus Christ loves the church. The church, corporate together, is his idea. What does it say in verse 17 or 16? Do you not know that you are a temple of God? You are a temple of God. And the Spirit of God dwells in you. When I was a little kid, they told us that's why you're not supposed to smoke because you are a temple of God. And if you smoke, then the Holy Spirit inside of you will be gagging. The Bible does not say that you are a temple of God. In this passage, it says that you, it's plural. It's not singular. That you is plural. You are a temple of God. I dwell in the midst of you, corporate. It's a corporate thing. Christianity is corporate. So contrary to our current people that believe that God is going to come back and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and Jesus is going to occupy the temple. And Paul would say, he already has. He rebuilt the temple with living stones. And he's occupying it, believe me. Church. Is church precious to you? We're so individualistic. I read this week about a young teenager being interviewed to be an usher at a movie theater. And they asked him, well, tell us what you would do if there was a fire. And the kids said, oh, don't worry, I'd get out. That wasn't exactly the idea. You know, it's not about you. It's about us. See, we're always about I. Christianity is always about us. It's about we. What does it say in verse 18? Anybody who harms my temple, I will do what God says. Did you read that? I mean, that is startling for its ferocity. I mean, I will destroy the one who harms my temple. And I got to tell you, as a pastor for 20 years, I am amazed at the ease with which people will attack the church. As if they could do it with impunity. Not a good idea. God loves his church. Do you? Say, I love, I love my family. I love, but do you love his church? Yeah, I love the worldwide church. No, no, do you love, do you love the church you're a part of? Do you love his church? It's easy to say, oh, I love his church, but do you love the people see it next to you? That's his church. The people who are sitting with you right now. That's his church. Do you love them? Does church matter to you? Would you die for his church? Well, you know, I got my business, I've got my family, I've got my life, I've got my recreation. Church is just one little slice of my life. No, no, no, no, that's not going to work that way. Do you love his church like he does? And do you know what he loves? He loves to see his children love each other. God loves that. That's the whole point of the passage. That's why Paul's writing his name, either disunity and corn, Paul says the father is not going to settle for that. He's not going to settle for people who harm his family. Feel of each other. One of the greatest blessings that my wife and I know at this station in our life, I don't think either of us anticipated it as our children are leaving home. Two of them gone now far away is the way that our children love each other. We remember times when they were growing up where there was no evidence of that. I think we would both say that they love each other more than they love us and we like that. That's fine. I think we are both so pleasantly pleased that the way that they communicate, the way that they talk to each other, sometimes it seems like almost every day. It's beautiful. I know just that much of how the father must feel when he sees widows gathering together to encourage each other, when he sees life groups meeting, when he sees the church gathering together, eating together, laughing together, doing wife together. He must look at it all. He must say, I love this. I love this. I want my kids to love me, but the best expression of loving me is when they love each other.