God's Temple

This can be found on page 1146 in the Pew Bibles. 1 Corinthians 3 beginning to read at verse 16. Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is sacred and you are that temple. Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written, he captures the wise in the craftiness and again. The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. So then, no more boasting about men. All things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cifas or the world or life or death or the present or the future. All are yours and you are of Christ and Christ is of God. This is the Word of the Lord. Second reading is taken from the first book of Peter, beginning at the first verse of chapter 2. It can be found on page 1218 in the Pew Bibles. One piece of chapter 2 beginning to read at the first verse. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. Now that you have tasted all that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by men that chosen by God and precious to him, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in scripture it says, see, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Now to you who believe this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they are destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you are a people, but now you are the people of God, once you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul. Let's set good lives among the pagans, that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day who visits us. This is the word of the Lord. For all Paul brings us the word, I will remind people that if they have got small children that are causing at least them a little bit of embarrassment, there is a relay. With your word, will indeed guide us in every way, help us to live by your word in Jesus' name. Amen. I wonder whether you have ever seen two children fighting over something which both have been given that is exactly the same. It is actually not as uncommon as sight as you might think, particularly if you have children of your own. Most children are not a parcel. The parcels are exactly the same. They contain the same gift and within minutes one is fighting with the other. Why? Well they probably know, but adults have the clue. They sit there and wonder what on earth is going on, and particularly if the person who is just given the presence is there, they sit there cringing with embarrassment. In one Corinthians, Paul has kept calling the Corinthians back to remembering that they have received everything by grace, everything is a gift. They have all received the same gift, the gift of salvation, the gift of Christ Jesus who came to give us forgiveness. In other words, when they squabble among themselves, they need to remember that what they have by way of gifts, abilities, even their actual salvation itself all came as a gift from God. It is a doubt for them to be lining up against each other as it is for children to be fighting over the same present. Paul begged them to remember Christ. Remember how it started, remember how it goes on all in Christ, and then you remember Paul addressed the leaders. Their responsibilities we saw last week was a formidable one. Their building should be building on the apostolic foundation of Christ Jesus, all that they do must be aimed at serving Christ, and preaching Him and building people up in the knowledge of the service and the love of God and of Christ. How dare they argue among themselves, how dare they argue about the message, or about their greatness for surely God gave the message, and God gave them whatever gifts they made out. Well at the end of this challenging third chapter, Paul returns to addressing all of them together as the church, and first he says they are God's temple, God's temple. Then he gives a dire warning to anyone who might destroy the temple, and finally he reminds the Corinthian of God's perspective on things. So verses 16 and 17, don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple, and the God's spirit lives in you. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple. Together you see they are the temple of God. Paul is not thinking of the building in Corinth, they probably didn't have a building, they probably met in people's houses, or maybe because they were growing in numbers they would meet outside somewhere in the fields or in woods nearby or whatever. In no sense is God's specially present simply because this building is called a church, but the sacred building, the Paul talks of here, sacred the one set apart to God is the people themselves. The Holy Spirit, he says, lives among the people. Yes of course individual Christians have the spirit of Christ in them. But Paul is not here talking to individuals, he does that on many occasions, but here he's concerned with the church that's gathered together in Corinth. He's talking to the leaders and the people gathered together, and what he does is to recall the Old Testament. There you remember God was specially present in the tabernacle, in the wilderness, and later on he was specially present in the temple. We start to exit as chapter 29 for a moment, so this is 29 verses 42 and 43. Talking of the tabernacle, this is what we read from God. For the generations to come this burnt offering is to be made regularly at the entrance to the tent of meeting before the Lord. There says God I will meet with you and speak to you. There also I will meet with the Israelites and the place will be consecrated by my glory. God's going to meet in a special way with them in the tabernacle, or later on in 2 Chronicles chapter 7. In 2 Chronicles chapter 7 verses 1 and 2 when Solomon had finished building the temple we read, when Solomon finished prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering in the sacrifices and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord fills it. God was specially present in his tabernacle and in the temple, but specifically in the sanctuary of the tabernacle or the sanctuary of the temple. And that's the word that Paul uses here in 1 Corinthians 3. Very significant. The word in Greek is the word describing the sanctuary of the temple. He says, you are the sanctuary. We are God's sanctuary. In the New Testament God is specially present by his Holy Spirit, wherever his people congregate. That doesn't mean he's not present with us as individuals, he is. But he was with the Israelites and the wilderness as individuals. He was with David as an individual and Solomon as an individual, but he was specially present, where God's people gather together. And that is true today. You do not know he asked them that you are the sanctuary of God in Corinth. That's quite a question. The way he phrases it is clear that they weren't behaving as if they knew that. Perhaps they simply forgotten. Or perhaps they hadn't got their theology right. They didn't realize the truth of this. What Paul is saying is tremendously significant. You see, one of the promises that God has given his people all the way down through the ages is the Immanuel promise. Immanuel means God with us. God with us in manual in the tabernacle. God with us in the temple in the sanctuary. God with us here now. Amazing thought, isn't it? Immanuel. God with us in the Old Testament. God wasn't openly present in the temple, but they knew where to find him specially. God isn't only present with us as individuals who know not the Lord, but we know where to find him specially. Don't we? Do we see coming together on a Sunday morning as special in that way? If you wanted to know where God was in Corinth, then you looked to the people of God and specially to the time when they came together. To worship. God was with the individual Christians. Yes, but the greatest witness of all to the presence of God and the deepest experience for Christians of the presence of God is to be found when his people come together. For God dwells among his people, and that calls first and vital point here as he sums up all that he's been saying through those first two and a half chapters. Think of what it means for us today. Today, like the Greeks, there's very little different between us actually. Like the Corinthians in their Greek culture, we live in an age of individualism. We like to make up our own minds. We think we know best as individuals. We don't want others telling us what to do or to think we specially emphasize individual salvation. And of course we should talk about how each of us needs individually to come to the Lord. But this individualism goes too far in our society as it did for the Corinthians. We carry it through into our Christianity. We think for ourselves, we like our own ideas, but Paul says that as his church, we are the sanctuary of God. He's specially known when we gather together to worship. We must live together. We need each other. We must pray and learn and study and be built up together in the faith. Why? Because God lives among us. It is the presence of God, the Holy Spirit that should be marking us off as a different society from the society out there. It is his presence that marks us off as the people of God in Hartford, the presence of the Holy Spirit. Paul makes the point twice in these verses 16 and 17. You and the emphasis is interesting. You yourselves are God's temple. And then again, you are that temple. The coming of Christian means becoming a member of a different society. It's a society that should stand out from the one around us. It's a society that reflects different priorities, different attitudes. The Corinthians with all their pride and individualism and swuggling and quarreling were following the wisdom of the world, how Paul has been emphasizing that over the last couple of chapters. They were behaving like the old society, the pagan society that surrounded them. Is that how we are at St John's here in Hartford? Are we such individuals that we have forgotten that it's together as a community, that we are the temple of the living God? It's quite a thought, isn't it? Well, secondly Paul goes on and he gives a dire warning to anyone who might try and destroy that temple. He's not thinking about spiders. One expects outsiders to try and destroy the temple or undermine it in whatever way they can. Paul has a lot to say about them as does Jesus. But Paul is now concerned about those within the church. That's what he's been talking about. You remember, some saying they belong to Paul, some saying they belong to Seaphat, some saying they belong to Christ, even their so super spiritual. They were factional. God's temple, His society, His churches, sacred says Paul, it's set apart to God. If anyone should set about destroying God's church, God will destroy them. It's terribly abrupt. Surely the Corinthian factions didn't really think they were destroying the church, did they? But they were. The church was being torn apart, you see, by people turning this way on that in an effort to show they were better than some other Christians. Or that they had a better leader. Or that their group was more spiritual. Or that the ideas of others were wrong. Whether they realized what they were doing or not Paul says destruction awaits such people. Their wisdom was a worldly wisdom and just as the wisdom of the world leads to destruction. So these people who tear down the church, even if they seem to be Christians, even if they are within the community, will be destroyed just like the outsiders who try to destroy the church of Christ. Sometimes sadly, church divisions may be necessary. Sometimes as people look at Scripture, they see a church so caught up in the wisdom of the world that rarely it's no longer a Christian church at all. And separation may be the only way forward. Even then, it should only be after much prayer, much thought, much searching of scriptures and much discussion with those who are being left. But it may be necessary if the Bible has been disregarded and true religion is no longer being practiced. But that's not Paul's concern here. Paul's concern here is that for no reason other than human arrogance and pride, for no reason other than that one group thought they knew better than another, or the more spiritual than another, these Christians, this temple of God in Corinth, was being just torn apart. People involved in such divisive groups, such walking out on others, should stand in fear of God's judgment. And there is no way one can tone down the impact of that verse. It's such a start warning to us as the temple of God in half that it needs no illustration. How we must look to ourselves and our consciences before God, less we divide the body of Christ, less we split the temple of God. How much it should force us to pray together for God's leading that we may all in all things move on as warning Christ as we were talking about earlier on. This is why we worship together on a Sunday, even twice if we can make it. Why I long to see that Wednesday meeting when we come together on the two weeks a month when we all come together I long to see it packed out. For together we meet and pray knowing that God is specially present when we come together to do it. It is more likely that 20 or 30 people in a church gather together praying for God's will. It is more likely that they will come to the understanding of God's will than that one of us individually doing our own prayers without consulting others. Why? Because God is specially present in our midst together as the temple of God's sacred in half foot. Well Paul wants us to know who we are with God's temple. Then we can see how serious it is that we end up causing divisions and finally Paul reminds the Corinthians of God's perspective on things. Look back for a moment at chapter 1 verse 23. Famous verse 1 to know by heart. Chapter 1 verse 23, we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. From a worldly point of view Christianity is falling but now Paul reverses that. He says let's make sure we look at everything from God's perspective. And as Paul looks at Scripture to see what God's perspective is he looks at Job chapter 5. He looks at Psalm 94 and he quotes them here because he's learned about God here from Scripture. In verse 19 he says for the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written he catches the wise in their craftiness. And verse 20, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise are futile. What is God's perspective on all this? God's perspective is the opposite from the world's perspective. Christianity isn't what is falling. It's the wisdom of this world that is foolishness. In Christ all things you see are changed all things are made new. Wisdom is falling, falling is wisdom, weakness is power, leaders are servants. God's people are nobodies the passage there's and yet they possess all things. The crafty are outcasted by God. The thoughts of the wise are futile. Everything just seems to be reversed entirely in this new society. It's almost like a topsy-turvy world. Is it any wonder that the world looking on from outside thinks that most Christians are nutters? I mean that's how it is isn't it? That's the real world in which we live. That's how they see us and so they should because everything that is one way up in their society is the other way up in ours. This is what should be seen in God's temple of Corinth where the Holy Spirit dwells and here in the temple of God in Hartford. Paul draws the whole of these first three chapters to a conclusion with a resounding challenge to us all to see things pleased from God's perspective. Verse 21. So no more boasting about men. No more saying of one leader is greater than another. No hiving off into corners for special sessions for this faction or the other. No more snide remarks. No more divisiveness behind the scenes. No more playing off one against another and dividing and tearing apart the body of Christ. Why not? He goes on. For all things whether Paul or Apolice or Cephas or the world or life or death or the presence of the future, all are yours. And you are a Christ and Christ is a God. Paul's piling is on here you see. He's getting almost carried away if you read the commentaries on this list they say, well where on earth did he get this idea about world life, death, presence or future. It's not been talking about it so far. He's absolutely carried away with it. The words are tumbling about. We hardly stop to think what these words mean. We don't need to really because the impact is formidable on us. Paul Apolice and Cephas are simply their servants. People gift it by God to serve the Church of God of Corinth. They're not to be fought over. And then on ego is the world life, death, presence and future are also yours. You see from God's perspective they have everything. From God's perspective as Christians here with the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have everything. We have, well, they in Corinth have their teachers and gifted leaders, but they also possess the world. For nothing at all lies outside the great sovereign Lord's jurisdiction. They possess the world. The world is Christ, therefore it belongs to His people. Death has no fear for them. They have life in Jesus. The present belongs to Jesus because He's conquered death on the cross as we were looking at a couple of weeks ago. And therefore we have the future. It's guaranteed by the Lord of glory. They have everything. If we really are Christ, then things like power struggles and boasting, attitudes that reflect more the wisdom of the world than a Christ are utterly irreconcilable with the temple of God. We have everything if we look back to God's grace and to the death and resurrection of Jesus. We belong to Christ Jesus and Christ belongs to God. That's what Paul's saying. It just can't get any better than this. God's Spirit lives in our lives. We, the church in half, have belonged to God Himself. And so Paul says, see things from God's perspective. And then you'll never get involved in anything that might destroy the temple of God. That might pull down God's church, whether in half foot or anywhere, how we must keep our eyes on Christ and on God. Or only then will we behave as we should. Will we build as we should in the faith? Only then in the light of God's perspective, will we see our gathering here together on a Sunday, our gathering of Wednesday nights as times when we can be specially conscious of God in our midst, specially conscious that we are the temple of God in half foot that's praise God for His goodness to us. Our Father, we thank You and praise You for Your goodness to us that You have called us together, together to be the temple, Your holy sacred temple. May Your glory be seen shining from us as Your people in this new society. In the same way as Your glory was seen hovering in the pillar of fire over the tabernacle. Lord, may we shine forth as Your people, the message of the gospel. Father, as we recognize that Your Holy Spirit dwells in our midst, may we never ever boast in anything. May we never ever divide the body of Christ. Amen.