Text: 1 Corinthians 3:10-23
One of the most important questions,
if not the most important question, from Scripture that the Church
must answer and answer for is: “Do you not know that you are God’s
temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?” This is a defining
question for the Church second only to Paul's question to Jesus there
on the Road to Damascus: “Who are you,Lord?” “Do you not know
that you are God’s temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?”
If we are God’s temple, where he dwells on earth, then we are most
certainly not just voluntary gathering of religiously like-minded
people. We, the Church of Jesus Christ, are not a volunteer civic
organization different only in that we are founded on the
“principles” of Jesus. No. We, not the building, are the temple
of the Living God, the place on Earth where the image of the Triune
God of grace is to be unquestionably evident of earth. Every temple
in the ancient world except for the Jerusalem temple had an image or
idol of the god worshipped there prominently displayed. For us, the
loving communion that the Holy Spirit is fostering among us in our
fellowship is the image of our God - the loving communion of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Do you not know that you are God’s
temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?” is indeed a defining
question for the Church because if we don’t know we are God’s
temple, that he dwells in us, and we are his image then we will be
something other that what God would have us to be and people will not
be able to look at us and know who the One true God is.
Unfortunately, this is the case of so many churches today.
As we set about answering this
question there is a simple matter of English grammar that we must
keep in mind: the “you” here is plural rather than singular.
Being a Southerner, we have have a word for this concept, “y'all”.
So, we must think “us” together, “us” this church rather
than thinking individualistically such as “me” as a part of a
group as we normally tend to do. This may be difficult because we do
not live in a culture that thinks in terms of putting “we” before
“me”. We like to think of ourselves as “I am an autonomous,
rational, decision making animal” when in fact it is more true to
say that “I am the sum total of the effects that all my significant
relationships have had on me”. But in Paul’s day in the
Mediterranean world, that is the way they thought.
It’s like going down south and you
run into Joey Bob at the gas station and if he knows you he’ll ask,
“How y’all doing?” You or any other non-Southerner would
assume that he had asked you how you the individual is doing and you
would answer, “Oh, I’m fine” and precede to tell him either
what’s so good with you or what’s been ailing you here lately as
if what’s been ailing you is what makes your life so fine. But, if
you were to ask Joey Bob, “How are you doing?” with respect to
how he himself is doing, he would immediately start telling you about
how Mama and Daddy and Granny are all doing and how Mary Sue was
getting real good at shooting them squirrels. Joey Bob thinks “we”
before he thinks “me”. People who live outside of close-knit
communities like the up-the-hollow South tend not to get this for we
think “me” before we think “we”.
That being the case, most people today
when we hear Paul’s question hear it as if he is asking, “Do I
not know that I am God’s temple and that God”s Spirit dwells in
me?” A “y'all” question suddenly becomes “all about me”
and how “I” the individual believer go about tending to “my”
relationship with God. It is not wrong to say that we each are a
temple of God and that God dwells in us each. I hope you do know
that you are (you in the singular). But, being a Christian isn't
just about Jesus and me. Rather, we in the y'all sense are by the
Holy Spirit bound together in him. So, please understand that your
relationship with God is way bigger than a “Jesus and me” sort of
thing. It's about us and Jesus and our life
in him in the Holy Spirit sharing his relationship with the Father.
You see, later in Corinthians Paul
goes as far as to call the church the body of Christ; the living,
breathing, organic, dynamic body of Jesus Christ the resurrected Lord
and Saviour of all creation. So, since we are God's temple and we
are the body of Christ what we do together is to be profoundly all
about what he is doing now before the Father in the Spirit. Jesus
stands now before the Father in the Spirit doing certain things that
we by our being bonded to him in the Spirit participate in as well.
What a church does isn't about “What would Jesus do” or WWJD as
the paraphernalia goes but rather about “What is Jesus doing” or
WIJD?
This is an important point. So many
if not most churches do mission by trying to figure out something to
do that might attract bums in the pew who put bucks in the plate in
the hope that God blesses their efforts so that all their
institutional problems will be solved. Doing mission that way is
just so completely and utterly off the mark. Let me tell you
something. The New Testament Greek word for sin, hamartia,
is an archery term which means to miss the mark. It is to miss the
mark by doing the things of man rather than the things of God. Just
simply coming up with stuff to do that might attract people in the
hopes that God might bless it is indeed a sinful approach to mission.
It is sinful because it is congregationally self-centered and truly
not Christ-centered and really has nothing to do with what Jesus who
is our center is doing right now. Doing
what he is doing is where the real healing, transformational,
salvational component of new life in Christ kicks in. Alcoholics go
to AA meetings because God is unconditionally there and truly and
powerfully working to heal them and giving them a new life. AA does
nothing to try to preserve itself as an institution. That's the way
the church is supposed to be! And we'll get there if we just get
back to Jesus and what he's doing and in the full knowledge that he
is here get on with doing what he is doing.
So what is Jesus doing? In the book
of Hebrews Paul calls Jesus the great High Priest. Therefore, since
we are God's temple and the body of Christ what we do together is to
be profoundly all about worship. As the great High Priest Jesus
stands now before the Father in the Spirit doing acts of worship that
we by our being bonded to him in the Spirit participate in as well.
First, he stands before the Father in his resurrected human body in
union with the Father in the Holy Spirit ever interceding for us.
Jesus himself is always ever knowing our deepest troubles and flaws
and is always ever praying for us, pleading that the Father grants us
our needs for faith, for healing, for hope. At this moment and
always Jesus is praying for us each. That should be a very great
comfort. Therefore, as Jesus is always praying and we are in union
with him in the Holy Spirit we also should be striving to pray
without ceasing for one another and the needs of the world bearing
our souls up to him knowing that our prayers become his prayers and
his prayers become ours. Being in prayer is integral to what the
Bible calls being “in Christ.” Mission begins in prayer.
Second, Jesus is ever leading the
worship that the creation lifts up to the Father. Jesus ever stands
before the Father in union with him in the Holy Spirit adoring him
and offering himself to him in reverent obedience. It's like this. I
love my wife and I will do whatever she asks. So Jesus the Son loves
the Father and we participate in that. And, it is not simply a one
way street either. The Father in the Spirit pours his own adoration
for the Son by giving himself to the Son and doing what he asks. We
get that outpouring too. As we are in union with Jesus in the Holy
Spirit we share in the Son’s love of the Father and the Father’s
steadfast love for and faithfulness to the Son. The love of God, the
love of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit is in us and that
love is making us to be a new creation – humanity utterly
reconciled to God that is free to do his will here on earth as it is
done in heaven.
Thirdly, as the only one in all of
Creation worthy to be able to reveal and to do God’s will Jesus is
Lord and the Father has sent him in the power of the Holy Spirit to
put the creation to rights. So also Jesus sends us into the world in
the power of the Holy Spirit. Our first priority is the proclamation
of the Gospel that Jesus by his life, death, and resurrection has
reconciled not only us humans, but all of creation to God and saved
it from sin and death. In accord with this proclamation we live the
Gospel. We strive to put the world to rights. We work for peace.
We work for justice. We work for freedom for all forms of
oppression. And we do it all prayerfully and unconditionally,
expecting nothing in return. The love of God, the love of the Father
and the Son in the Holy Spirit can only be lived and expressed in a
community of people who do not withhold themselves from one another
but rather give themselves to and for one another. The love of God,
Jesus Christ, is our sure foundation nothing else. That is what we
strive together to grow in. Our prayer, our, worship, our
proclamation, our mission all flow from this love. This love of God
active in and through us is what the world sees in action in our
midst. A communion of love, of humble, sacrificial self-giving is
what the image of God in God’s temple looks like because the Triune
God of grace dwells in it. Friends, this is what y’all is. Amen.
