1 Corinthians 3:16&17 "Temples of God"

1 Corinthians 3:16&17

Paul will use the idea of our bodies being the Temple of the Holy Spirit several ways. In this case he has been talking about how people build on the foundation he laid vs 10-15. Those who build well will receive a reward. This refers not only to the individual Christian but also leaders, teachers, and disciple makers.

In this little passage is both a warning and a blessing.

Wrapped in the discussion of spiritual build there are some things this passage is not about. Some use this passage to pronounce judgement on everything from suicide to over eating. Skinny people use it against fat people, fat people use it against skinny people. Nonsmokers and nondrinkers use it against those who smoke and drink. While some of this will be addressed later in this letter, it is not being addressed here.

The warning is to those who build, both individuals and leaders / teachers. If you build with quality materials you receive a reward, but if what you build with compromises the building then you will be judged.

Building with untreated wood

A power plant without rebar

If you build poorly and with poor materials, you compromise the temple of God.

4:6 don’t go beyond what is written.

False teachers beware for God will judge you as well for your compromised and destructive teaching, which destroys the Temple of God.

Matthew 18:6
⁶  “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

(stumble, sin,)

The second thing we can see in this passage an insight to how God feels about you, how God values each of us.

You are the temple of God, not a house or container but a temple!
you might ask “does God see what I see in the mirror?”
or “can’t God afford a better place than this to live?”

But God sees you as a Temple, His temple. God see the beautiful thing you can and will be. So valuable to Him that He gave His life for you and grants you a place with Him in His resurrection. So valuable that those who mislead you, those who attack you for your faith, ect. Will be judged as if they destroyed the very throne of God in heaven.

Matthew 10:29-31
²⁹  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Build carefully because you are loved by God. Build carefully because you are His Temple. Live boldly and fearlessly for God, because He watches over and protects you. You Are The Temple Of God! And He Lives In You!

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 “Golden Opportunity”

1 Corinthians 3:10-15 “Golden Opportunity”

Paul tells the Corinthians that a day is coming when all our work will be tested with fire. The wood and hay will of our lives will be consumed leaving only the quality work we have done.

The fire; shake shingle roofs.

Houses and tombstones.

We could at this point get into building inspection mode, proclaiming how pour our or someone else’s work has been. But this evaluation is best left to God. We cannot change what we have built in the past we can only build with better materials from now on.

Today let’s focus on our opportunities. We have opportunities today to build with materials that will last for eternity. Today we can build with Gold, Silver and Precious stones. No matter our age or abilities we can use the quality materials that God gives us to build with today.

What are these materials that will last into eternity? In 1 Corinthians 13:13 Paul tells us three things will remain, Faith, Hope, and Love.

Build with Faith. Faith that Gods’ way is the best way to live. Faith that things that are built in your life by God, will last. Build with faith with others, That God can and will do something good in their life. Invest in them with confidence.

Build with Hope. Hope in the great things God can and will do! Hope that is centered in Jesus who will not let us down. Hope in others that they can be transformed by the Holy Spirit.

Build with Love. Love for God who first loved you and love for others. Love for the lost whom God also loves.

Matthew 6:14 (NIV2011)
¹⁴  For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

So we build with the forgiveness of others and with grace.
Forgiveness: not giving them what they deserve.
Grace: giving them what they do not deserve.

Micah 6:8 (NIV2011)
⁸  He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Build by acting rightly toward others.
Build with mercy toward those who do not act rightly towards you.
Build with humbleness, knowing only God can provide these things for us.

Galatians 5:22-23
²²  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
²³  gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

 

John 14:1-3 (ESV)
¹  “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
²  In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
³  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

 

What kind of materials will you choose to send Jesus, to build with?

It is better to live in a well build cabin than a slipshod mansion.

So today and every day, let us look for opportunities to build with the kind of materials that will stand the test and last for eternity. Stop looking back with regrets and focus on your opportunities to build something that will last today.

1 Corinthians 3:1-9 Arrested Development

1 Corinthians 3:1-9  Arrested Development

I am sure you have people before who have gotten stuck in life. They have not matured enough to take care of themselves. They are stuck in elementary or high school. College students who keep switching majors, eight years and 5 majors and no degree, no job. It’s called arrested development. It can happen anywhere in life.

I was sitting by a stream watching the water flow when a leaf caught my eye. It circled endlessly in a circle, stuck in an eddy. The leaf will not continue downstream until the wind or some other force breaks the eddy’s spell. That is arrested development. Arrested development can happen physically, emotionally, even spiritually. This is the problem for the Corinthian church. They are still not ready for solid spiritual food. How does Paul know this? Their strife over who they follow. They argue over who has the best spiritual gifts and which one is truly spiritual, all the while the real work of God is left undone.

The rip current. I find myself struggling, more willing to try and fight my way to the beach. I am so sure of where we should go that I find myself fighting with people. God say Rick you have to do better. If I have been fighting with you please forgive me, I should and will work to do better. Perhaps you find yourself in the same place.

Arrested development can happen anywhere in our spiritual growth. It shows not only in strife but it shows in other ways. It can be seen in a boring prayer life, a lack of desire for God’s Word, a desire not to be in fellowship with others, or not finding a purpose in ministry using your spiritual gifts. These are all signs that we have gotten stuck in a spiritual eddy. The number one sign you are stuck is a lack of fruit, you stop being part of the harvest.

Whole churches can get caught in spiritual eddies like the Corinthian church did. There are whole churches that have failed to bring even one person to saving faith in Jesus, in years. They have a beautiful building, good music, prayer meetings, Bible studies about everything, even alter calls at every service, and still have yet to win a soul.

While at college I was sitting next to a table of students who were planning to go to the Wednesday night concert at a large local church. The church would close the doors and not open them until someone got saved. These students were trying to decide who’s turn it was to go forward at the alter call so the rest could go home.

You may have seen fields of corn where the farmer will take the combine and harvest the outside edge of the field to make shooting lanes for deer hunting. One farmer I know does this and then forgets to actually harvesting the field. We used to tease him about hauling the planter behind his combine.

Some churches settle on the edge of the field and leave the bulk of the field untouched. Like the farmer who is so busy deer hunting that he has forgotten to harvest his field.

What to do about this?

1.       Ask God to show you if you are spiritually stuck

2.       Periodically evaluate your growth as a Christian

3.       Accept responsibility for where you are at

4.       Make a plan on how to change, and implement it.

God wants and has so much more for us. There are whole fields to be harvested. There’s no greater feeling than being part of the harvesters. The Bible says “Work out your own salvation”, that means to make a plan and a commitment to growth in your spiritual life. Will you make that commitment to God today, to do better, to be better.

You would not understand 2 Corinthians 2:10-14

You would not understand

Why did John Muir climb to the top of a pine tree during a storm? Why do men and woman push themselves the limit to climb a mountain? Why did Henry Thoreau stand nose deep in Walden pond? If you have to ask why, you will not understand the answer.

The world looks at the church and ask; why would you think Jesus would die for you sins? Why would you live a life in submission to God? Why would you deny yourself earthly pleasures because of your faith? They ask the questions because they cannot understand the answer.

The Bible says that the things of God are foolishness to men. The wisdom of God looks like folly to men. The Gospel makes no sense at all, it is so foreign to their worldview and their experience in life.
Even in the church there are those who are not understanding spiritual things.

Paul says he has the mind of Christ; the things he is going to share with them are taught by the Holy Spirit. They are the ways of God.

This little passage has so much in it but for right now I want us to focus on verse 14 “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

This passage explains so many things for us, and instructs us in speaking to the unbelieving world.

Between God and man there are barriers. The primary barrier is sin but there are more barriers. There is the barrier of language. We don’t speak the same words.

Yes, No, Please, Thank you, Bathroom.

Another barrier is culture. Concepts, ideas, ways of thinking are so different.

Preconceived ideas, and prejudice.

Most of the people who say they do not believe in the Bible have never read one.

With these barriers in the way, how do we talk to the people around us about Jesus?

1.       Make a list of people.

2.       Pray for the Holy Spirit to allow them to understand.

3.       Pray for the Holy Spirit to show you the barriers between them and God.

4.       Pray that the Holy Spirit will help you to speak in ways they will understand.

5.       Learn the way they speak and think and use them to translate the Gospel.

We must do the work of reaching the lost,
We must remove as many barriers for them as we can.

more than we can imagine

1 Corinthians 2:1-9

I have a confession to make, I am prideful, because I think I know what will make this church grow.

I am vain because I think I can get this done.

I am arrogant because I am sure of my knowledge and experience.

But I am confronted by God, that my knowledge, hard work, experience, cannot force the church to Grow.

I get angry and blame people who do not support my ideas for the lack of growth in the church.

While cooperation would help, it will not by its self, bring success.

Only God can bring success and growth to our church.

Only God can heal the wounds you have inflicted on each other.

Only God can turn angry people into loving people.

Only God can fill each life in our church with grace and hope.

I cannot do these things. I is my pride, Vanity, and arrogance that thinks I can.

Jesus put it this way. John 15:5

The monkey in Kenya

You can get everything right but if you fail to have God behind it you will fail.

For some people Spiritual failure has become a way of life, even comfortable. Like welfare.

For some churches failure to thrive and grow….

But Paul gives us hope.

1 Corinthians 2:6-9 (ESV)
⁶  Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
⁷  But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
⁸  None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
⁹  But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—

 

While our knowledge, wisdom, strength cannot make our church Grow, God can.

God creates the universe with a word. God causes great floods to cover the land.

God who makes an axe head float, a donkey talk, the sun stand still, protects his people in the fiery furnace. God heals the lame, blind and leprous. God who walked on water, took your sins to the cross and then rose from the dead, He can do what you can’t.

So what is the key to the wondrous power of God?

John 15:16 ask.

A theology lesson.

Predestination and providence. God is in control, God determines what happens, God has chosen you before you were born.

There are two groups of things,

Things pre-determined.

Things yet to be determined.

God chooses that a person will come to faith and be saved, but how that happens is not.
How many years a person suffers without Jesus is affected by our willingness to reach them.

The way you live your life matters, to your family, the people you live around, our community and our church. Your prayers matter, for while somethings have been predestined by God others have yet to be determined.

While we are powerless to accomplish anything on our own, God can do all things and even more than we can dream of or understand.

Pray for God to do amazing things, believe God to do amazing things, and then you will see God do amazing things.