God's Temple

If you would please turn with me this morning to 1 Corinthians 3. We've been making our way through this New Testament letter in our Sunday evening services and we come today to chapter 3. We'll do our best to get through the entire chapter as we see what Paul has to say about how God grows his church.

How he builds a temple of souls who follow Christ and are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 3 verses 1 through 23. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. While there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos?

What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field. God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it.

Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest for the day will disappear. God will not disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him.

For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile.

So let no one boast in men, for all things are yours. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray. Holy Spirit, we've just read that you dwell in us, you dwell in your church, and if you dwell in us, then we are holy. Set apart by God to be followers of Christ, bearers of his name. As we think about the scripture before us today, give us eyes to see and ears to hear. May we not only understand what you say, but also believe and obey your word, that our souls might be nourished, our wills might be directed to do your will, our hearts weaned of their attachment to this world and united inseparably to our creator and redeemer. Would you bless the preaching and hearing of your word now, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

I pray in Jesus' name, amen. God's words are not our ways. He told them that God, in fact, intentionally uses things that the world considers foolish in order to ensure that God, rather than man, gets the glory and salvation. And so the church should not be preoccupied with something simply because the world says it's impressive or because the world says it's important. The church should address the centrality of Christ and him crucified. He pointed out that the gospel transcends human wisdom and reason in that it depends entirely on the work of the Holy Spirit in an individual if there is to be any real comprehension of the gospel. Well, Paul is not finished yet addressing this problem.

In fact, he's going to go on for two more chapters. As Saul said and done, Paul will have devoted about a fourth of this letter to dealing with this issue of misplaced confidence in worldly wisdom. It must be a big deal in Paul's mind, and so we do well this morning to sit up and listen to the warning, lest we go down that same path as these early Christians at Corinth. Now, I suppose we could sum up Paul's emphasis here in chapter 3 like this. Keep the main thing the main thing.

Don't let yourself become enamored with a dozen shiny alternatives. Keep what God says is central to spiritual growth always at the center. Because if we don't, we not only cut ourselves off from those things that will actually mature us in our faith, we also demean the God who has given us these means of spiritual growth. You see, ultimately, this misplaced confidence in worldly means is not a methodological problem in the church. It's a worship problem in the church.

It's a failure to make God and His glory our chief end. This past spring, Laura and I began prepping our little garden plot for a new crop of vegetables. And as I thought about last year's garden, I decided I would make some improvements to our system. We had been using sprinklers that were mounted up on these high poles, and it was inefficient. Half the water would just blow off of the garden. What little water did get to the garden would fall indiscriminately on the good plants and the weeds, and it just created a whole lot more hoeing that had to be done every week. So I decided to install a drip water system, according to my research, which is a fancy way of saying my Googling on the internet, would use very little water, and it would only water the specific places, the good plants. It would minimize the weeds. And so I bought all the components, and I set it all up, and it was beautiful, a symmetrical grid of water lines that was pressurized to just the right amount so that optimum watering could be achieved.

I even had a timer on the whole thing, so it was foolproof. Well, friends would come over to our house, we would go look at the garden, and I wanted them to see the ingenuity of this watering system. I was so proud of these beautiful pipes and hoses. You know, about a month later, when the plants had grown and sprawled and vegetables were beginning to ripen, you couldn't even see my beautiful sprinkler system. Friends would come over and walk around the garden, and all they seemed to notice were the beautiful vegetables.

They didn't even ask about my pipes and hoses. Well, it turns out the reason you grow a garden is to produce vegetables, not to show off a watering system. It's about the corn and tomatoes, not the sprinkler.

We chuckle, and we say, well, of course, it's not about the sprinkler. And yet when it comes to a far more significant garden, the garden of souls, which we call the church, how easy it is for us to exalt the means above the ends, methods above substance, preachers of the cross above the Christ of the cross. And this sort of misplaced priority is, Paul says, indicative of an immature, fleshly Christianity that needs to be reminded of several things. The immature Christian needs to be reminded of the source of the church's growth, of the foundation upon which that growth occurs, and of the sacred nature of the church. The source, the foundation, and the sacred nature of the church.

Those are the things that Paul pointed Corinth back to, and they're the things we need to be reminded of whenever we find ourselves enamored with the world's wisdom, with man's means and methods over and against God's. So first, Paul reminds us to remember the source of church growth. What makes God's garden grow? Some of the Corinthians were saying, well, Paul makes it grow. He took the time to come all the way up here to Corinth. He spent 18 months here nurturing us and pastoring us. He's the source of our growth.

Others said, no, Apollos makes it grow. He's such a better speaker than Paul. He just looks and sounds so much more pastoral than Paul does. He's the source.

Still others were saying, you're both wrong. It's Peter that makes the church grow. I mean, he's an apostle's apostle.

He's the big one. He's the rock on which the church is built. Jesus said so himself. But Paul answers those assertions in verse 5. What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each.

These men were merely means to an end. Paul says, I planted. Apollos watered. Paul was the seeder. Apollos was the sprinkler. But God gave the growth.

And there it is. God is the source of church growth. God is the ultimate and essential means of Christian maturity. Yes, he certainly uses secondary means like apostles and evangelists and preachers and teachers. But God is the source that makes all of those means effective. So verse 7 says, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything but God who gives the growth. Now we need to realize that Paul doesn't deny the importance of the secondary means. He acknowledges in Ephesians 4 and other places that apostles and preachers are gifts from the Lord. And they're important elements, but they're not the main thing.

So don't give your first loyalty to them. Keep the main thing the main thing. The work that Paul and Apollos did merely helped to establish the conditions for growth. God's work, however, was the source of growth.

It's interesting how the verb tenses in Greek make this even more clear. Planting and watering here are in a tense that indicate a one-time completed action, but the giving of growth that God does is in a tense that indicates something that starts in the past and continues into the future. In other words, ministers come and go, but God's work continues. Now there's a careful balance we need to maintain here. On the one hand, we don't want to demean or neglect the legitimate, although secondary means that God has established for spiritual growth.

We don't need to stop planting and watering. Scripture makes it clear that God is the one who raises up planters and waterers to tend his garden. So it's not as if apostles and preachers and ministers of the Word and elders and deacons and evangelists and mentors in the faith are unimportant, but that wasn't the imbalance that Paul was addressing at Corinth. The Corinthian church had become so enamored with the means that they were forgetting the source. One preacher said, The main defect at Corinth consisted in the boldness, assurance, and enthusiasm with which they believed not in God, but in their particular leaders and heroes. Now we don't have apostles coming through town today planting churches, but perhaps the modern-day equivalent might be seen in our loyalties maybe to certain Christian conferences or maybe to our favorite study Bible. I am of the Gospel Coalition.

Well, I am of Ligonier. I am of the ESV study Bible. Well, I am of the John MacArthur study Bible. We have our cubbyholes, our safe places that give us our particular sense of Christian identity, and none of those things are inherently bad, but they become harmful and unhelpful when we begin to view these secondary means as the primary impetus of growth in our Christian walk. This is harmful because it will begin to foster disunity in the church, and it fosters disunity when it begins to create misplaced loyalty to something other than God, which is really just a nice way of saying it creates idols of the heart. Brothers and sisters, personalities and resources are not the source of growth. God alone makes His garden grow, and so we need to remember the source. But secondly, Paul tells us to remember the foundation upon which this growth occurs.

In verses 10 and following, Paul switches metaphors. He begins comparing the church and its growth to the constructing of a building, a temple for God, and he says in verse 10, according to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else's building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The first step in any building endeavor is the laying of a foundation. In this case, the foundation of Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who was slain for sin, the redeemer who conquered sin and death and the devil and the world, our high priest who sits enthroned in heaven. He is the foundation upon which the church is built. And Paul says there is no other possible foundation than Christ. Many have tried to build a Christless church, haven't they? On the foundation of good works or humanism or some sort of extra biblical revelation, but none of those are the true church. The church of Jesus Christ has and must have Jesus Christ as its foundation, as its cornerstone. So the apostles laid this foundation in their teaching and ministry, but then others, like Apollos and Timothy and the early church fathers and countless pastors and bishops and Christians, including you and me, have come along and have built on that foundation which was laid by the apostles. But then Paul introduces the idea that these building efforts that have been going on for millennia now are of differing qualities.

They're not all equal. Some of them are like gold, silver, and precious stones. That's positive. Others are like wood, hay, and straw.

That's negative. In other words, some efforts to build the church are long-lasting and permanent, like gold. Others are temporary and easily destroyed, like straw.

So what do these differing building materials specifically point to? Paul doesn't tell us explicitly here, but I think the context gives us an idea of what he has in mind. The particular sin Paul is dealing with is Corinth's tendency to evaluate good preaching by the world's criteria. For them, preaching was good if it conformed to Greek standards of rhetorical excellence. Proclamation of the gospel was bad or poor if it failed to meet that standard. And so the litmus test for gospel faithfulness in Corinth was being determined by the taste of an unregenerate culture rather than by its conformity to the words of Christ and the redemptive work of Christ and the apostolic teaching on Christ. They were claiming to have this Christ-centered foundation, but the walls and the rafters they were putting up were not worthy of that foundation. So gold, silver, and precious stones refers, I think, to means and methods and proclamation that insist on keeping Christ at the center, while wood, hay, and straw are tactics and techniques that seek to circumvent or downplay the centrality of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, things that cater to worldly tastes and sensibilities, worldly values.

Now, sometimes wood, hay, and straw are obvious, aren't they? Years ago, I was at a church where one pastor promised that if attendance reached a certain number, he would shave his head in the church parking lot. Well, guess what?

Attendance reached the magic number, and the pastor shaved his head. Folks, come Judgment Day. That gimmick and a thousand others like it will usher exactly zero people into heaven.

Why? Because the church is not built on gimmicks and games. It's built through the proclamation of Christ crucified for sinners.

It's not that gimmicks and games are necessarily sinful. They're just silly, and they aren't worthy additions to this foundation, this pure foundation of gold, which is Jesus Christ slain for sin. Sometimes, however, wood, hay, and straw are less obvious, and that's when these Christless efforts at building the church are their most dangerous, when we fail to perceive the absence of Christ. I think maybe an example of this in our current cultural moment is seen in how the world has redefined the concept of justice as a social construct rather than as an objective attribute of God, and how the church, at least in some circles, has eagerly accommodated every facet of its message and ministry to this new concept of justice. I think this is an example of trying to build the church with wood, hay, and straw, because it involves taking our cue from the world and what the world demands rather than taking our cue from what will most honor Jesus Christ. You know, we will cater to whatever we love, and if we love attaboys from the world, like Corinth did, then we will blindly fall for every philosophical fad, every trendy wind that blows through our culture, rather than being immovably fixed upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And so perhaps we need to periodically ask ourselves some diagnostic questions to help us notice when we're yielding to these subtle shifts away from the foundation. Perhaps we should ask ourselves things like what criteria makes the world sit up and take notice, and am I allured by that criteria? Why do I like the preachers that I like? When I declare someone to be a good Bible teacher or declare that something is a good Christian resource, by what standard of measurement am I making these claims? Am I fascinated with novel doctrines and methodologies that have only sprung up in my lifetime and lack a time-tested history of acceptance in the church?

Why do I find these innovative ideas appealing? Do I find spiritual nourishment in things that have no connection to Scripture or to the church? And conversely, do I find in myself a lack of delight in the ordinary means of grace that God offers me, His Word, prayer, the sacraments? You see, a maturing Christian is one who values the things he ought to value. In other words, he loves the means and methods that most clearly point himself and others to Christ. The immature, fleshly Christian is the one who is charmed by those things that draw a crowd, that make a splash, that carry clout, but he forgets that those things are temporary and passing, empty distractions.

He's treasuring the sprinkler, not the garden. He's building on a foundation of pure gold but with disposable materials. At the root of it, he's loving the praise of men rather than loving Jesus Christ.

One commentator said, we must reckon as nothing all the applauses of the world because like empty bubbles that glitter for the moment, their emptiness will in a very little while be exposed by heaven's judgment. We need to remember the foundation upon which the church is built. We need to build on that foundation in a manner that is worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thirdly, Paul calls us to remember the sacredness of the church, the sacredness of the church. Paul has been addressing the builders of the church in verses 10 through 15, which has primary application, I think, to ministers, although in some sense every Christian is to be contributing their gifts and their labor to the building up of the church. But now in verses 16 and 17, Paul begins addressing the building itself.

He starts talking to the walls. He says in verse 16, do you not know that you are God's temple? And that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Paul addresses the building not as a passive participant, but as an entity that bears some measure of responsibility. The temple ought to know that it is holy, set apart for a special purpose, bearing a unique status before God. And if a part of the temple fails to realize this and acts in a manner that is out of accord with its sanctified status, God will destroy it rather than let it destroy his temple. And so Paul uses the threat of judgment day as motivation for professing Christians to act like the holy people they are.

God loves his church. And when we do things that harm his church, he will harm us. What sorts of things might we do that bring destruction to the church? Well, the very things Paul has just been talking about.

Things like forgetting the source of growth and instead transferring our loyalty to secondary means and methods. Or things like forgetting the foundation and trying to build God's church according to the world's criteria. When we do such things, we're treating the temple of God as an unholy thing. We're viewing what God says is sacred as something that is common and God will not stand for it.

Why? Because he wants a holy people set apart for his good pleasure. And so we are called to remember the sacredness of the church in order for that realization to spur us on to build wisely and not foolishly. Someone said that Paul is calling us to live and labor in anticipation of the verdict of the last day.

We are to remember the sacredness of God's temple and build accordingly. Before we look at two final exhortations that Paul gives in light of these three reminders, let me point out an interesting observation about verses five through 17. The Trinitarian nature of God is very clearly seen in these verses.

Notice that it's God, the Father, the Son, the Son, the Son, and the Son. The Trinitarian nature of God is very clearly seen in these verses. Notice that it's God, the Father, in verses five through nine who gives the growth. It's God, the Son, in verses 10 through 15 who is the foundation of that growth and it is God, the Holy Spirit, in verses 16 and 17 who indwells the church and makes her holy.

Folks, if anything, this raises the stakes of Paul's admonition, doesn't it? You see, by loving worldly trends and secular sensibilities into their ministry model, the Corinthian Christians were not being savvy church growth experts. They were pitting themselves against the very purposes of the triune God.

I'll say it again. Their problem was not one of merely bad methodology. Their problem was one of misdirected worship. They loved success and acclaim from the world more than they loved the approval of God.

And so Paul concludes with two exhortations. First he says, don't fool yourself. Don't fool yourself. Verse 18, let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. Stop telling yourself that your preoccupation with the world's way of doing things is just winsomeness.

It's not. It's foolishness. God has your number to expose what you're doing. Verse 19, for it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. If you are out of step with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, you're just plain out of step. So be honest with yourself about why you're really doing what you're doing.

Don't fool yourself. Secondly, Paul says, don't miss the real treasure. You're so concerned with making a good showing before the world that you've forgotten the treasure that's already yours in Christ. Verse 21, so let no one boast or glory in men, for all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. You who are consumed, Paul says, with winning the world through the world's means but neglect the very source and foundation of growth because it doesn't sell very well, you're like a millionaire who keeps bragging about how much money he saved at the dollar store.

You've got a Rolls-Royce in the garage, but you keep using the tricycle. Paul points us back to the real treasure, the real power in our witness, and he reminds us of all the things that are ours already in Christ. He says, this is yours, and this is yours, and that is yours. These things that we tend to put on pedestals and turn into idols are actually tools given to us by God for our spiritual good. These sorts of things compete for our attention, our thoughts, they shape our values, but Paul reverses this perceived relationship, insisting that rather than viewing ourselves as slaves to these things, I am of this or I am of that, these things are actually ours, not we are theirs, but they are ours. You know, we don't have to reject our favorite Bible teacher in order to avoid the cult of personality.

We have to simply acknowledge their proper place. Valid Christian teachers and ministries are part of a whole range of resources that God has given to his church to build and strengthen it. The church is not the property of the apostles or its ministers, rather the apostles and ministers are servants of the church. Pastors and teachers are not ends in themselves, they are simply means to an end. They are agents of growth and health for the good of the church. But then notice Paul flips the statement around for his final point, and you, church, are Christ's. These things we elevate to ungodly heights are mere tools for the purpose of pointing all Christians to Christ. He is the only one who should be on the pedestal.

He alone is worthy of that degree of preeminence and loyalty. Brothers and sisters, every one of us are a part of this construction project. It's been going on since the inception of the covenant of grace. We are builders in this grand and glorious kingdom, and we will continue to build until the return of Christ. Some of us are elders and deacons, charged with the task of building the covenant community that we call Grace Church. Some of us are fathers and mothers, charged with building families that operate in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Some of us are singles, charged with serving the Lord of the harvest with undistracted devotion. Some of us are young people, charged with growing in our own knowledge of God's creation and discovering our role as laborers and stewards in that creation. Wherever God has placed you on this sacred construction site, in this holy garden of souls, remember the source, remember the foundation, remember the sacred character of what it is you're building and build accordingly. And for goodness sake, don't get preoccupied with the sprinkler and the hoe. Don't miss the garden for the tools. Use the tools. Wield them well, but wield them in God's way.

Don't be tempted by the world's expert advice on how you ought to build. Remember that you are Christ's. He is the one we answer to. He is the one we serve. He is the one we worship.

Let's pray. Lord, we don't want your assessment of us to be that we are immature, fleshly Christians. Who have wasted our lives building our families and churches with inferior materials that won't last. Help us to serve you in a manner that's worthy of Christ. May his redemptive work on our behalf be so captivating to our minds and hearts that we are inoculated against jealousy and strife and misplaced loyalties. Lord, help us to keep the main thing the main thing. And we acknowledge this morning that the main thing is Jesus Christ and him crucified. Lord, may that simple and yet profound message never, never lose its power and influence over us. We pray in the name of Jesus, our foundation, our cornerstone. Amen.