God’s New Temple

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I’ve already been preaching to myself this morning, which is not a fun place to be, but I’ve had to remind myself of some of the things that I normally tell you all, especially as we’ve talked about worship and talked about how church is supposed to go, because I knew that today was going to be a little bit different day. our music minister is on vacation. Our main sound engineer is on vacation together.

They’re married, so it’s fine. Our piano player is on vacation. Our drummer is not here.

I knew there were going to be several people out, and I’m so thankful that we have people that are willing to step in and spread themselves a little thinner, and we cover things, and it works out. But I knew today was going to be a little bit difficult, but I was prepared for that. And then I came in this morning, and the storms from last night did something to some kind of electrical switch of stuff that’s beyond my pay grade, anyway, that shut down a lot of our computerized stuff that we use as part of our service where we weren’t going to be able to stream.

We were trying to come up with a plan B for that. We were having trouble getting words on the screen or anything on the screen. And I couldn’t even print my notes this morning.

I was having to scribble them out by hand to try to make Jack a copy so that he could. . .

Anyway, and I was stressing out about this a lot, but I always tell you that church is not a production. We’re here together to worship. It’s not a show.

It’s not it’s not a show. And as I met with the deacons this morning for prayer, as we do every Sunday morning, I could sense the Holy Spirit telling me it was time to practice what I preach. Just, it doesn’t matter if all the electrical things have gone crazy.

And thankfully they got fixed, but they got fixed after the Lord gave me an attitude adjustment, right? That’s how things normally work. But practice what you preach.

You’re here to worship, so worship. Don’t let the, Don’t let all the stuff that’s going on, don’t let the schedule stuff, the electrical stuff, don’t let all of that keep you from worshiping. If that’s what you came to do.

And I was reminded of the time when I was pastoring out in the country outside Seminole and right before the service, the electricity went out. Everybody said, what are we going to do? I guess we’re going to sing in the dark.

Sunday morning, we opened the curtains that let just enough light into the auditorium that we could kind of see our hymn books and I could kind of see my Bible and we had church in the dark. if we came to worship we came to worship we don’t have to have don’t get me wrong the the nice building it’s nice having all of the the technology that helps us having everything go smoothly is nice but we don’t have to have those things to worship God and I think the Lord was probably trying to teach me that because that that touches what the message is about this morning as we’ve been studying through first Corinthians we’ve seen where Paul is dealing with issues that were going on in the Corinth. We get to chapter 3 and he’s dealing with the idea of building up the church.

That’s what we looked at last week, the need to build one another up, to build the church, not in the sense of the building, but the people. And then we come to the middle of that chapter, of chapter 3, and he addresses the idea of a temple. And the Corinthians, I can’t even remember how many temples, I was reading this week how many pagan temples would have been in the city of Corinth, and I lost count because they had so many temples to so many gods, and these temples would have been nicely furnished.

They would have been beautiful buildings. You would have walked in, and the smells and the sounds would have transported you to a different place where if you’re there to worship that deity, you felt this sense of connection, and there would be priests there who were well-trained, and they were skilled, they were experts at leading in the worship of those deities. And you would walk into that temple, and if you were somebody who worshiped that pagan god, just your surroundings would make you feel a sense of connection to that god.

And so these people in Corinth who had come to faith in Jesus Christ and walked away from those pagan gods would have gone from that experience in the temple to suddenly they’re meeting in somebody’s house. And they’ve got maybe a couple of pages, if that, of the Hebrew Scriptures, and somebody’s explaining to them how we understand Jesus out of the Old Testament. And maybe somebody had a copy of a letter from an apostle, and you would sing, and you would recount creeds that reminded you of the basic truths of the gospel.

And it would have been quite a different experience from what they had seen in the pagan temples. And without all the smoke and the mirrors and the fog and the lights that were there in the pagan temples, it might have, at least to our human senses, it might have felt like a little bit of a letdown. And Paul addresses that to the church at Corinth, that they didn’t need those temples because God had a new temple.

And that’s what we’re going to look at this morning in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. If you would turn there with me, if you haven’t already, 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Once you find it, if you stand with me as we read, it’s going to be a really long passage, so bear with me as we read together this morning, these two verses.

I was going to try to go to the end of the chapter, but I realized that these two verses are important enough on their own that we’re going to spend the day on those. If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find 1 Corinthians, it’ll be on the screen for you. 1 Corinthians 3.

16 says, 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.

You may be seated. Now, when I first read this, I had it confused with another place in 1 Corinthians, where Paul says, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And that’s certainly true.

You, as an individual believer, if you belong to Jesus Christ, if you’re somebody who has trusted in Him for your salvation, then the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. you by yourself are the temple of the Holy Spirit. But here, he’s not saying your body.

He’s addressing this to the church. He’s speaking to the plural you, to the group. He said, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And both of those things are important because we see throughout Scripture that now under the New Testament, the Holy Spirit lives within us, and He’s also among us, and He’s always there if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ. He never leaves you. That’s important because it doesn’t seem like the Holy Spirit worked the same way under the Old Testament. It seems like the Holy Spirit may have been among God’s people, among Israel from time to time.

It seems like from time to time the Holy Spirit may have operated within a person. But it seems like in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit kind of came and went. And I haven’t fully nailed down how all of that works.

But we’re given the assurances in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit is there. He’s the earnest. He’s the seal. He’s the down payment. He stays with us.

And the Scripture teaches that if you belong to Jesus Christ, then you individually are the Holy Spirit. But here he’s talking to the church and says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So he’s not just within you, he’s among us.

And both of those things are important. So he uses this imagery of the temple to explain this to the church at Corinth who, for some probably felt like it was a little bit of a letdown to come from all the beauty and all the pomp and pageantry of the pagan worship, and then you come into this simple gathering of believers who are there to study God’s Word and praise Him and encourage one another. They didn’t always have all of the programming around it.

And he uses this imagery of the temple because it’s something that they would have connected with. It’s something they would have understood that a temple is a place where God is worshiped. It’s a place where His glory is shown and his presence is felt.

Certain buildings just inspire awe in people. The first time I ever got close to one of those big electric generating windmills out on the Kiefer’s property, you don’t realize how big those are until you walk right up next to them and you stare straight up and that’ll make you dizzy real quick. It’s just awe-inspiring how big this structure was.

Certain buildings do that because of what they represent. I took the kids, some of you saw the pictures online, but I back in May to an archaeological site in southeast Oklahoma called Dokesville. It’s where our ancestors ended the Choctaw removal when they were forced marched from Mississippi to Oklahoma.

All that’s left are the stone ruins of a few buildings. I mean, it’s nothing inspiring to look at, but because of what they stood for, because of that connection, I almost feel like I’m on holy ground. I don’t mean that in a biblical sense, but I feel like there’s some awe and some reverence to those foundations that are still there.

And you might walk into the U. S. Capitol and feel that way because of the history that’s gone on there.

You may walk into a home that belonged to your great-grandparents and feel that way. Sometimes the structure will induce awe in you, and those temples in the ancient world were designed to inspire people to feel awe. They were designed to make somebody feel close to those false gods.

And the bigger the temple, the more well-furnished, the more expensive, the fancier, we might say, then the better it showed the glory of their God. We sometimes even look at the Old Testament and say, why did God have such exact dimensions that He gave them for the temple and the tabernacle? Why did God care about the blend of the oil that they used?

Why did about what kind of wood they used in the dimensions and how high everything had to be in the pattern of the tapestry. It’s because it was all designed. It was all designed to reflect His glory.

They did that with the pagan temples as well, so that you would end up feeling a presence, whether it was there or not. And looking at that and how the temples were supposed to inspire awe in people and supposed to make them feel connected to God and draw them into His presence and His glory, both for the true God at the temple in Jerusalem and for the false gods at Corinth, he says to the church that probably felt inadequate in comparison, you are the temple of God. And Central, we can look around at other churches and maybe feel inadequate in comparison sometimes, but you are the temple of God.

Whether we have all the resources, whether we have all the programs, whether we have all the stuff that any other church or any other religion for that matter might have, Never forget you are the temple of God. That doesn’t mean that another Bible-believing church down the street is not the temple of God also. But you don’t lose anything of being the temple of God because of what they have.

Whatever you have or don’t have, you are the temple of God. And it’s important that we understand that. And understand that, again, when we say church, I pointed this out last week, when we say church, we are not talking about the building.

If the storms had taken this building out and we suddenly had to scramble to find someplace else to meet, and we were meeting in a school cafeteria, we would still be the temple of God. That time when I was moving here and some of the men were helping, so we just had church out on my front lawn, you were still the temple of God. And the reason we are the temple of God is because the Holy Spirit lives in us and lives among us.

And so God desires to strengthen the church, means He desires to grow it. He desires to grow the people that are part of the church. And we see as he’s talking here about the church being the temple, about this body being the temple, it all tells us that God cares very deeply about guarding his church and about growing his church.

And we see pointed out in this passage as he’s talking about what this means that we’re the temple, there’s a few ways that he shows this. In verse 16 it says that the Spirit of God dwells in you. God cares so much for his church that he provides for it.

He provides everything that we need to do what He’s called us to do and be what He’s called us to be. It doesn’t mean that He’ll always provide everything we want, but everything He gives us to do and everything He calls us to be, He’s going to provide what’s necessary for us to do those things. Folks, the Spirit of God dwells in you.

The Spirit of God dwells among us. God has provided everything that we need. He’s given us the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit teaches us.

The Holy Spirit guides us. The Holy Spirit disciplines us when we need it. He points out where we’re wrong.

The Holy Spirit equips us. If we belong to Jesus Christ and we have the Holy Spirit, we have everything that we need to function the way God has called us to. So for the Corinthians, in their pagan days, they would have gone to a temple to engage with their gods.

If they wanted a connection with Zeus or Apollos or Diana, if they wanted a connection with any of them, they would have gone to the temple. They would have gone through a priest. They would have made some kind of connection, some kind of offering there, and then they could deal with their God. But folks, we are the temple of God.

We don’t have to go to a building to connect with God. We don’t have to go through a priest or a mediator. God is right there within us.

Now, when I say we don’t have to go to a building, don’t take that as teaching that the church is unimportant because that’s the opposite of the point that he’s making here. See, we don’t come to church because this is the only place we connect with God. We come to church because we need each other, because we encourage one another, we strengthen one another.

Where one member suffers, we’re supposed to suffer together. Where one member rejoices, we’re supposed to rejoice together. That’s biblical. We’re supposed to do this together because we are better together.

And I know that a number of politicians have co-opted that slogan, but the church got there first. We are better together. We are stronger together. And we don’t have to rely on the physical building.

We don’t have to rely on some person to bring us close to God. We are as connected with God as we can be every moment because the Holy Spirit dwells within us. He’s present when we study.

He’s present when we teach. He’s present when we worship. He’s present when we pray.

He’s present when we go outside and try to do ministry. He’s present when we go out and try to evangelize. He’s present through all it.

And if we’ll follow His leadership, all the stuff we try to do will be much better off instead OF trying to do it on our own. But whether the church at Corinth had a fancy temple or not, God had provided everything that they needed. So he provides for his church, he protects his church.

Look at verse 17, it says, if any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. This is a warning. This is a serious warning.

God protects his church, and this is a warning against those who would seek to damage it, anybody that would try to harm the church. This is in contrast to what we looked at last week that talked about building the church, and sometimes people were building and they weren’t building as well as they ought to have been. But he says there are people out there that are going to try to harm the church, that are going to try to undermine it.

And he’s warning them that that’s not going to work out well for them. This Greek word here that is translated as destroy, it has a whole spectrum of meanings. It can mean destroy.

It can mean ruin. It can mean corrupt. It can mean defile.

It can mean harm. It means all sorts of words, and none of them are good. Last Sunday night, I talked to you about those of you who were here.

When there’s a detail in Scripture that can be interpreted, I mean, you can make a solid case one of two ways how it can be interpreted, and you really don’t know for sure which it is, what do you do? And my answer to you was look at what the two interpretations would have in common. Look at what the application is in either case, and where those overlap, you’re probably safe to go that direction.

And so I don’t know for sure if he’s saying defiles the church or if he’s saying destroys the church or harms the church. But what all of these have in common, what all of these have in common is the fact that he said, if you do this to the church, I will do this to you. And so the application we can take, whatever that word means, is that God is protecting his church in the sense that when somebody comes against his church, God is going to repay that and he’s going to avenge that.

That’s not a threat. That’s not a threat from the church to the outside world. That’s a warning from God to us to keep in mind how we deal with his church.

I’ve seen people. I’ve seen people who should have taken this to heart. I experienced over 10 years ago a woman who ripped a church apart through gossip, and it was ugly, and it led to a large number of people leaving.

It led to strife in the church that continued for a long time. It led to pain and hurt feelings. It was destructive.

And she knew it was wrong and was called out for it and refused to stop. And then you start seeing personal problems arise, family problems and financial problems. And well, why am I suffering through all of this? Well, look at the mess you made in God’s church.

He’s not going to honor that. And you sought to tear the church apart. It’s a reminder to us.

By the way, if you’re visiting with us, I’m not preaching this because of any problem I know about. So please don’t feel like I’m up here with the paddle going after people. I’m not.

I’m preaching straight through 1 Corinthians. That’s where all this is. And the best time to preach about things like this is when they’re not an issue, right?

So this is just a warning to us. And this is a warning to me, too, just like last week was. Talking about building on the right foundation, but building with gold and silver versus building with wood, hay and stubble.

It’s a reminder to me to check my motives and a reminder to all of us to check our motives in our ministry and what we’re building up if we’re doing it for God’s glory or ours. This is a reminder to me to make sure I have the church’s best interest at heart, that I really am doing things to build up the church and not tear it down. And it’s a reminder to all of us along those same lines.

But when God says this, if any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. When he says this, it reminds me of a man who not too long ago, he’s not from our church, but he told me, yeah, my daughter started dating and I told the boy, whatever you do to her, I do to you. And I thought, well, that could be awkward.

You’re going to take him out for a fancy dinner? Anyway, that’s sort of the same principle here, that how we treat God’s church, God will remember it, how we treat the body, God will remember it, and it will impact our relationship with God as well. And for the people at Corinth in particular, this was a reminder because if we go back to the last couple chapters we’ve looked at, what was going on at the church in Corinth?

There was worldliness, there was open sin that he’s going to call out by name as we go into future chapters, open sin, open heresy being taught, and factions, people dividing and fighting each other over personal loyalties and personal preferences and personal agendas that had nothing to do with advancing the gospel. And that destroys a church. That absolutely destroys a church when we decide we’d rather fight each other than fight Satan.

And so he’s warning these people here, some that we’re even being loyal to him and saying, well, we follow Paul, we follow Apollos, we follow Peter. If you’re going to keep doing that and you want to harm the church, just keep in mind, God’s going to repay what happens to his church because he protects his church. And as much as that’s kind of a sour note, he leaves things a little more hopeful because right after that in verse 17, we see that he plans for his church.

He says, the temple of God is holy and that is what you are. God has a design for his church. God has a plan for us.

And God’s design for us is to be holy. If we’re going to be the temple of God, we have to be holy. Now, in a sense, we’re already holy, if you belong to Jesus Christ, from a legal standpoint, He’s looked at all the charges against you.

He’s looked at all the sin. And it’s under the blood. It’s forgiven.

It’s paid for. He chooses, the Bible says, to remember your sins no more. It’s not because He’s forgetful.

He chooses not to remember them, meaning He chooses not to hold them against you. The Bible says He’s taken your sins and put them as far away from you as east is from the west. You can spin the globe all you want and never get all the way east or west. He said, they are infinitely far away from you. So God looked at us, and not because of our goodness, he looked at us, but in Jesus Christ declared us holy.

He said, you belong to me, you’re mine, you are holy. But then there’s the behavioral side of that, where he spends the rest of our lives training us to live that out. And his goal for us is that we become more like Jesus.

He says, we were predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, meaning God’s plan from eternity past. The plan of salvation all along has been for those who would trust Christ to become more like Christ. God’s plan is not just to save us from the filth, but leave us in the filth. God’s plan is to save us and to cleanse us and to make us more like Jesus Christ. And that’s part of the role of the church is we get to do that together. It’s easier to do that together.

We’re more encouraged to do that when we do it together. I don’t know about you, but when I’ve been sick or been on vacation or something and haven’t been with you in a while, my attitude is just not as good. I am not as much the Christian I ought to be.

Now, don’t think that means I’m living a double life. It’s just human nature. Iron sharpens iron.

God has designed us to encourage and spur one another on, and you probably have experienced that as well. The longer we go without being together, the more challenging our walk gets, the more challenging it gets to stay on that walk. But God has this design that we would grow in holiness together.

Some of you may be sitting out there saying, I’m not there yet. Everybody else has got it together. Nobody in this room has it together.

Nobody in this room is just like Jesus. We’re trying, and some days we do better than others. And hopefully over time, we’re growing to where this year we did better than last year.

But our competition, as I tell my kids all the time, our competition in this is not to be better than each other. Our competition in this is to be better than who I was yesterday. Our competition in this is by the power of the Holy Spirit to be more like Jesus Christ today than I was yesterday and to be more like Jesus Christ tomorrow than I am today.

But he’s given us everything that we need for that to be the case because we have the Holy Spirit. So just these two short verses show us that God cares deeply about the church and about it growing and about it being protected. And because God cares so deeply about it, we should care deeply about it.

Because God cares about it, we have a responsibility to guard the unity and the sanctity of His church. Now, yes, God is in charge and God protects and God provides and all of that, but God also gave them instructions. All throughout 1 Corinthians, it’s instructions about how we’re supposed to do this, because there’s a role for us to play.

God is in charge, but He expects us to do what we’re supposed to do. He didn’t give what He said here. And I usually tell you to look for the commands.

There aren’t any commands in verses 16 and 17. There aren’t any places where He explicitly says, you must do this. But we know that He’s not giving this just for their information, just so they can say, well, that was interesting.

We’re the temple. And all throughout these chapters are instructions that he gives. So the reason he’s telling them this is so that they can realize how they’re supposed to see the church, how they’re supposed to treat the church, how they’re supposed to be the church.

And the same is true for us. Realizing that the church, the body is the temple, and that we’re gathered together to grow together in holiness and experience the Lord’s provision and protection, to understand that it changes the way we think about the church. Hear me on this, we cannot think of the church as a place we go or an activity we do.

And far too often, that’s the way we think about it. It’s not a place we go. It’s not a thing we do.

It’s who we are. We’re part of each other. And if you say, well, I don’t feel that.

I don’t feel like I’m part of that. We would love for you to. And we’d love to help you get plugged in.

We’d love to help you build those connections. And if there’s anything we can do in that regard, let me know. But each of us has a role to play in this body.

Each of us has a role to play in this temple. Each of us has influence, whether you realize it or not. You have an influence on the direction of this church.

By the way you minister, by the way you serve, by the way you fellowship, by the way you encourage one another, by the way you encourage others. Because Paul, when he’s talking about building the church earlier in chapter 3, when he’s talking about not destroying the church now, he’s not just talking to the people who are in leadership. He’s talking to everybody.

So if you’re a believer, and especially if you’re a member, somebody who’s committed to this church, I would just ask you the same question that I ask myself based on this passage and that we need to ask ourselves from time to time. Will my actions and attitude build up the church or tear it down? Are they designed to build up or tear down?

See, if we have a desired outcome in mind, we make choices that are going to lend themselves to that. When my older two kids were fighting this week, I asked them, what kind of relationship do you want to have when you grow up? Do you want to hate each other or we have to go to separate Thanksgivings?

Many of you have raised kids. You know how this works. Is that how you want this to go?

Or they said, no, we want to be friends. Are the choices you’re making today leading in that direction or leading the other? And we could ask them the same thing.

You know, hey, you want to be a doctor? Are the things you’re doing in school leading in that direction or leading away from it? You want to build up the church.

Are my actions and attitude, are your actions and attitude leading that direction or leading away from it? See, our job is the Great Commission. We’ve been talking about that on Wednesdays.

We talked about it some here last Sunday morning. That means making and strengthening disciples, ultimately helping each other be more like Jesus. Are my attitudes and my actions or the way that I’m doing church and being church and seeing the church, are all of those things leading in that direction or are they harming?

And that’s something we, like I said, we’ve all got to ask ourselves. I’m not telling you evaluate each other. These are questions we’ve got to look inward at.

Just like last week, am I building with gold and silver or am I building with wood, hay and stubble? That’s a question only I can answer because so much of it deals with the motivations of my heart. And same for you, I can’t necessarily evaluate what you’re building with.

But we each have a responsibility to build up this body and not tear each other down. And again, I’ve said it already, but I just want to say again, for anybody who’s a guest with us here today, there’s none of that going on that I know of. I’m preaching it for one reason, because it’s in the book.

This is where I get all my material from. I’m not clever enough to come up with it on my own. It’s just there in the book.

We each have a responsibility to make sure we are influencing our church in the right direction.