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1 Corinthians 3:1–17 (ESV)
What is your experience with temples? Have you ever been in a Buddhist Temple? Hindu Temple? Have any of you been to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem?
I think the only “temple” that I’ve been in is right up the street, in the Temple of the Latter Day Saints after they remodeled it a few years ago.
Perhaps your only real exposure to any kind of temple is through the movies—perhaps Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, where wicked cultic practices and sacrifices took place to appease the gods.
But, as Christians, we don’t just think of the current Temple Mount in Jerusalem. We would think of Herod’s Temple during the days of Jesus and the Apostles, or of the building of Solomon’s Temple. We just spent a couple of months considering the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem during the era of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Many of you, like me, may be in Exodus in your Bible reading plan that you began in January. Though it’s not the permanent Temple and merely a portable tabernacle, it’s astounding to me the detail to which God goes to describe how it is to be constructed and how worship is to be ordered.
The Temple was where God met with his people. The Temple was where sacrifices were made, where the priests interceded, where atonement was offered. Only specially consecrated men could offer sacrifices or enter the holy place. Many (all the uncircumcised) were excluded from participating. A special incense burned continually, and you weren’t allowed to use this incense recipe for anything common.
This tabernacle and the subsequent temples were things of artistic beauty. God actually gave special gifts to those who were to build and decorate them.
All of these things were done so that God could dwell with his people.
Considering all of this, we should be amazed at what Paul tells us in our text today.
In the arc of the history of Salvation, this is an incredible development, and it is at the center of the significance of our passage today.
We are in a long sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians which were are calling, “Being God’s People.” Today, we’ll be developing the significance of the fact that as God’s Church we ARE God’s Temple, and his Spirit dwells in us.
We have a slightly longer text than usual—we’ll be going through two whole chapters, but I’ll work really hard to only preach one sermon today.
Our 3 points today are:
These two chapters cover a lot of ground about the church in the city of Corinth and its leaders. I want to begin today, however, by beginning with the big deal in the passage. Why is all of this so important?
In verse 16, Paul tells us what is so important.
We began in the introduction considering the significance of temples. For our argument right now, let’s leave aside all of the pagan temples. Simply consider how radical it would be in first century Judaism to declare that God no longer dwells in a temple made by hands. God’s presence is no longer mediated by a geographic location or a particular feast day on the calendar. God’s favor is no longer limited to a particular ethnic group.
After all of those statements, you may think that God’s presence is merely everywhere, and that there is no longer a useful concept of a temple at all. But, that’s not the argument that Paul makes. Instead, he points out that God no longer dwells in a building, but in a people. Though we’d like to think we are totally on board with this idea today, we can still easily run into our lingering stubborn view that God dwells in particular places. I, like some of you, grew up in a church that had a “sanctuary” and an “altar.” Of course, as kids, we were not allowed to run in the sanctuary—it was holy in some way. I’m not sure exactly what was meant by the “altar.” It’s where we had our “altar calls” — coming forward to respond to a sermon, or to pray. Perhaps it was an idea of coming forward to offer yourselves as a living sacrifice. I’m not arguing against a sense of decorum in public spaces, and it’s considerate for us not to have our kids being rambunctious in here, but we should be clear that this is not a holy room—it is not a special geography where God dwells.
The radical change with the inauguration of the church was that God no longer dwelt in a particular geography with a particular ethnic group through particular ceremonies on particular days of the year. His presence is now with his people through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Y’all are God’s temple. I do keep saying “y’all” not because I’m from South Georgia, but because it helps us get the plural “you” in the verse. I just can’t spit out “yous guys” very easily.
In 1 Cor 6:19, Paul makes a similar statement, but in the singular form.
In this section of Paul’s letter he is making an entirely different point about sexual purity.
In 3:16, though, “you” is plural and referring to the church.
Don’t jump to the conclusion, however, since the Temple is no longer a physical structure in a particular geographical location that it is unimportant. On the contrary, it is all the more important. God’s temple is God’s people. Paul gives this warning in vs. 17.
Consider the desecration of Solomon’s Temple when Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem and Israel was taken into captivity in 586 BC, or the desolating sacrilege of Antiochus Epiphanes in 167 BC.
How we treat the church, and how we treat other believers is therefore, spiritually significant. God is speaking an important warning to us through Paul. We are not to treat his Temple in a casual, careless way. And, if we actively “destroy” God’s temple, if we tear down the church, there is real judgment.
Though Paul says “God’s temple is holy” we should not assume he means that God’s church is perfect. We have plenty of evidence in our chapters this morning that the church at Corinth had significant issues. We’ll look at two.
We have seen evidence of the immaturity of some of the Corinthian believers in each of our sermons so far, and Paul references back to some of the issues he mentioned in Chapter 1—“I follow Paul…I follow Apollos” etc.
We do need to see how Paul frames this for us. Daniel mentioned last week that Paul has two categories of people, not three. In Chapter 2, Paul was contrasting the “natural person” and the “spiritual person.” In this comparison, the natural person does not have the Holy Spirit and the spiritual person does.
Now in Chapter three, Paul is going to make a slightly different comparison.
Look back to the first 4 verses in Chapter 3.
1 Corinthians 3:1–4 (ESV)
Who exactly is this group of people? Which category do they fit in? Are they believers or not? Some theologians of our day have tried to make this into a third group called “carnal Christians.” This is a group that profess to be Christians, but whose life gives NO evidence of genuine faith. I actually don’t think that this description fits the Corinthians. They did have significant ethical problems, but it appears that these immature believers were still vitally connected to the body life of the church, participating in worship services, expressing spiritual gifts (though perhaps out of order), and abusing the Lord’s table. Certainly, they were not connecting all of the implications of their confession of Jesus as Lord with their ethical behaviors, but it would be unfair to say they were truly unbelievers.
Paul says he could not address them as spiritual people because they were infants in Christ. They are in Christ, though.
Specifically, Paul addresses their factionalism—their obsession with claiming specific spiritual leaders.
Paul points out another area of clear deficiency in Chapter 4. This may be one of the most sarcasm-filled paragraphs in the New Testament.
Some of the Corinthians seemed to act as if they had already arrived spiritually. Look at 4:8
1 Corinthians 4:8–10 (ESV)
This is an amazing combination of spiritual immaturity and spiritual pride. Unfortunately, in my own experience, I find that those two flaws often go together.
Before we move on to our next point, let’s summarize the big deal.
Truth 1: God’s church IS God’s temple. God dwells in his church through the Holy Spirit. This is a gift from God.
Truth 2: God’s church is still flawed, sometimes significantly. This does not negate truth #1.
Therefore, Paul gives us further instruction for how to treat his church.
Next, we’re going to see how the church needs to be careful in how it relates to its leaders.
One of the particular immaturities in the Corinthian church was how they related to their leaders.
We have mentioned the fact that the Corinthians gravitated toward certain kinds of leaders, and defined their factions by the leader they followed. Paul sees this as an immature way to behave as a Christian.
1 Corinthians 3:4–5 (ESV)
This is certainly a real temptation for Christians today, with social media and our celebrity culture. We have superstar pastors, and super popular authors. We have worship leaders and conference speakers. We have megachurch pastors and YouTube creators. Christian leaders today can promote their brand, not just across town, but across the world.
This is not ALL bad. We live in a time of incredible availability of Christian resources and content. And, not all of this content is equally helpful or biblical. However, Paul is warning us not to take our identity from a single teacher or school of thought. Not only do we have an incredible glut of access to the teachers, we also have a crazy amount of access to criticism of those same teachers.
Perhaps one of the most popular version of this in our day would be being a Calvinist. Sometimes, I might say that I’m a Calvinist merely as shorthand to explain some of my theology with an economy of language. Other times, though, I might say it to position myself in an argument to be perceived as superior to another person.
Consider vv. 21-23
1 Corinthians 3:21–23 (ESV)
We don’t have to so tightly associate with one teacher or preacher to the exclusion of the others. “All things are yours.” It’s humble to realize that you’ve not only been blessed by leaders that have some kind of name recognition. Even those leaders that are “nobodies” by the world’s standard have left their marks on us and our faith.
Here at Cornerstone, we embrace having a plurality of elders for many good, Biblical reasons. One of them is to avoid basing our identity too closely with one flawed leader. Instead, we learn from several flawed leaders. One application of our passage should be to guard against the attitudes, and certainly speaking out loud, “I am of Daniel; I am of Jim; I am of Mike; I am of Phil; or I am of John.”
We all face a temptation to judge those in leadership over us. It could be something as simple as personality, or something more significant like divergent teaching or leadership style preferences. Perhaps we don’t appreciate how he handled a particular situation or were offended by something he said.
1 Corinthians 4:5 (ESV)
Paul is not saying that leaders are above being criticized or corrected, but he is reminding us that our leaders (as well as all of us) are ultimately accountable to God, who actually knows all things, including the motives of their hearts. In one sense, this is terrifying, but Paul actually sees that as a comfort—“Then each one will receive his commendation from God.”
1 Corinthians 4:6–7 (ESV)
We are warned here not to be “puffed up” or proud toward others, as if we gained all of our spiritual maturity or wisdom by our own effort. There are no Christians who pulled themselves up by their own boot straps, either in salvation or sanctification. We were dead in our trespasses and sins until the Spirit of God gave us life, and we have received much from others who have gone before us.
Paul doesn’t even take credit for his own ministry.
1 Corinthians 3:10 (ESV)
1 Corinthians 4:16–17 (ESV)
There is a higher call to believers in a church than to merely learn from your preachers and teachers. This isn’t Golden Corral. Our elder don’t simply put out a full buffet so we can just pick the soft-serve ice cream and the chocolate covered strawberries for our meal. We are called to imitate our leaders.
In Chapter 11, Paul will qualify this.
1 Corinthians 11:1 (ESV) — Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
In Philippians, Paul elaborates even further.
Philippians 3:17 (ESV) — Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
Philippians 4:9 (ESV) — What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
The author of Hebrews has something to add as well.
Hebrews 13:7 (ESV) — Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
We are not talking about surface-level imitation like hair style, speech patterns, or using a Mac instead of a PC.
When you pay attention to the qualifications for elders, you realize that main qualifications are those of character—living out the ethics of the Christian life by faith.
It seems that the Corinthians were identifying too closely with their leaders in one way (I am of Paul), and yet still disregarding the high calling of their way of life.
One of the consequences of living in our “buffet” environment is that we feel quite justified in picking and choosing what kind of input we’d like from our teachers and leaders. We choose which TED talks to listen to. We subscribe to the podcasts that we like.
Paul does want us, however, to remember that correction and admonition has an appropriate place in our diet. The whole letter could be viewed in this way.
First, Paul speaks affectionately to them.
1 Corinthians 4:14 (ESV)
In other words, “I’m not trying to be mean to you. I care for you deeply. I want what’s best for you. I want you to know my fatherly concern.”
Then Paul leaves them with a question to consider.
1 Corinthians 4:21 (ESV)
He gives them a choice. Would they prefer the harsh rod of discipline, or the loving, gentle word of correction?
One of my favorite word pictures for me personally comes from Psalm 32.
Psalm 32:8–9 (ESV) — I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.
We’ve talked about a few ways the church should relate to its leaders. Now let’s turn to a few words for leaders.
Though most of this letter is directed at the church as a whole, there are some words and lessons directed at leaders in these two chapters. You may as, “what kind of leaders?” Is Paul talking to apostles, prophets, evangelists, or pastor-teachers? Paul actually doesn’t tell us directly, but is speaking in general terms, and highlighting a variety of kinds of leadership and influence in the church.
First, Paul gives us two different analogies for leadership work in the church.
I don’t know about your home, but we don’t do a great job of keeping plants alive in ours. Only the hardiest plants survive the McLeod home. We’ve also never been very successful gardeners, and I’m really grateful that my dinner table is not dependent on my own ability to make things grow.
True farmers, of course know that they cannot make things grow at all.
1 Corinthians 3:6–8 (ESV)
This is a good reminder to leaders and churches. We can do the work—in this case planting and watering—but we cannot change hearts, we cannot bring about faith or repentance, we cannot effect holiness. We can evangelize, teach, preach, counsel, admonish, shepherd, and protect, but we cannot cause growth.
Misaligning expectations here can be devastating for leaders and for churches. The church that thinks its leaders can cause growth will be disappointed; the leader who thinks he can cause growth will be disillusioned.
This reality must drive churches and leaders to our knees. God is the one who can give life to dead hearts, give sight to the blind, and effectively call us to holy living.
Paul changes his analogy in verse 9.
1 Corinthians 3:9–15 (ESV)
First, let’s get the wrong idea out of our heads. This is not talking about “carnal Christians” barely making it into heaven, and certainly nothing like the heretical idea of purgatory where believers have to be burned and cleansed before they may enter heaven.
The people in view here are Christian leaders in the church. The fire is not testing them with regard to their salvation, but their work in building the church.
What are we to think of the building materials? None of them seem great for building a structure. Consider them in two basic groups. Gold, silver, and precious stones will survive the fire (yes, it might melt, but gold will still be gold…). Wood, hay, and straw will be burned up.
Gold, silver, and precious stones also remind us of the building and decoration of the Temple. Y’all are God’s Temple.
As a leader, how are you building? Are you building with sound business strategies, slick marketing, honed oratory techniques, building your brand? These things are not necessarily bad in themselves, but they will be burned up in the end. Instead, are you relying on faithful evangelism, teaching and applying God’s word, dependent prayer, sacrificially giving yourself to those you serve? These will last.
And don’t forget, there is a reward.
It’s always a fair question to ask why someone desires to serve as a leader in Christ’s church. There is a certain kind of prestige and honor that comes with the calling, but there are also dangerous, deep pits of iniquity for those who seek that honor for its own sake.
1 Corinthians 4:1–5 (ESV)
Paul gives us two words here to define the task of spiritual leadership: servant and steward. Throw away the idea of CEO, president, boss, or king. This is the task of a servant. Don’t misunderstand, Paul is not intending to say that the pastor is the servant to the boss, the church. He is saying that the pastor or leader is a servant of God with the task of rendering service on behalf of God to his people, the church.
The steward handles the property of his Lord. It does not belong to the steward, but he must use his Master’s property and authority in such a way that the Master will one day say, “Well done!”
It is clarifying and orienting for the Christian leader to know who his master is. It is before God that we stand or fall.
Speaking personally for a minute… As a pastor, I am not at all immune to the sin of the fear of man, to living for the approval of others. It is a regular battle that I must fight by faith. Did I make this decision or say that thing so that I would somehow gain the respect of individuals in the church? This is a helpful way for you to pray for your leaders. Pray that we would fear God and not man.
Before we move on from Paul’s words here, let’s notice one more thing. Paul doesn’t say to the Corinthians, “You have no right to judge me…I’ll judge myself, thank you very much.” He does not discount their judgement and lean on his own judgment of himself. Instead, he lives before God, and entrusts himself to God’s judgment. But, he does not do this in a cowering way, but in a way that frees him up to serve them.
One final word to leaders. By Paul’s own experience he encourages them to expect suffering.
1 Corinthians 4:11–13 (ESV)
I don’t think we need read these words and expect this to be the experience of all Christian leaders in all historical contexts. That’s not the point. However, Paul is pointing out that it’s not all about prestige, honor, and an easy life.
Certainly, your pastors don’t feel like these descriptions describe our experience in this church. We are well cared for, held in honor, and treated very well.
It is important to remember, though, that even though our current social culture does somewhat hold religious leaders in high esteem, this is not the case for many Christian pastors around the world, and our own culture is moving at a rapid pace toward criminalizing, or at least marginalizing many Christian convictions. Christian leaders must be prepared to lead the way in suffering for the sake of God’s Kingdom.
We’ve taken a detailed look this morning at ways that the church should relate to her leaders, and ways that leaders should care for the church. Hopefully, these introductory chapters and sermons in 1 Corinthians have set the stage well for receiving what’s to come. Paul has encouraging, correcting, and sanctifying words to move us toward greater faith, obedience, love, worship, and confidence in the Gospel.
Remember where we began today? Y’all are God’s Temple. God’s Spirit dwells in you. We don’t have to travel to a temple across town or across the world to encounter God in a meaningful, life-transforming way. He is here. His Spirit dwells in us.
If you’re not a believer, please know that you don’t have to go to a special holy place to get right with God. You don’t have to perform rituals. You don’t have to atone for your own sins. You can go to him right here, right now by faith, trusting in his work of atonement on the cross, and turning from your sin. Then, you can experience the peace and presence of God in a completely new way.
Father, help us to love and treasure the church as you do. Help us to plant and water, build and decorate your temple with devotion, obedience, prayer, evangelism, and worship. We do desire that your church would grow—grow in influence, grow in beauty, grow in holiness, and spread to the ends of the world. Give us faith to see you at work, to encounter your presence.
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