The Dwelling Place of God
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1 Corinthians 3
1 Corinthians 3
Good morning, Lynnville Baptist!
I want to tell you what an honor and privilege it is for me to get this opportunity to worship our Lord together with you.
I have never been a church name or my 4 walls kind of guy. My perspective is that you and I are apart of the same body, the body of Christ. You and I can and should be unified in the advancement of the Kingdom of God together. Because it is NOT about growing a name or building. Its about growing the body of Christ so that more souls can be admitted into eternal rest with our heavenly Father.
So that, at the end, you and I can say that we did not let silly things keep us from walking arm and arm to win souls for Christ!
And Lynnville Baptist, you have already proven to be a worthy companion, or co-laborer, with us at CCR. For that, I thank you, I commend you, and encourage you!
You have no idea what it means to our church to have you work shoulder to shoulder with us.
Thank you!
This morning, it is a great honor to be able to be used by the Spirit of God through His giftings to bring to you a teaching from 1 Corinthians 3. Before we begin, let’s pray.
1 Corinthians 3, let’s read the whole passage then break it down section by section.
1. Paul addresses division in the church (vs. 1-4)
1. Paul addresses division in the church (vs. 1-4)
Paul is addressing a situation in the church in Corinth about division in the church. I fact most of this letter is addressing multiple division in the church.
However, the most prominent division that Paul addresses in the first three chapters is that the church is divided into two groups, those who follow Paul and those who follow Apollos.
Paul is directly confronting those who cause division and jealousy and strife in the church for following a specific person and they were fighting over it!
Paul, pretty blatantly in Paul fashion, calls those who cause division is the church based on “who” they were following, spiritually immature. He said that they were not ready for solid food but milk.
Now, I want to be perfectly clear, I’m not here to speak on or comment on current events in the local church, I’m just going to let the Word of God speak for itself.
Those who’s devotion is to a man are fleshly and humanistic. It is spiritual immaturity to argue about the person that we are following.
However, I will encourage you, church, for those who stood up for Biblical truth, Biblical instructions and Biblical morality over following the name of a man.
Church is NOT a popularity contest. It is not a political office for man to gather supporters. Church is NOT a place for man to glorify HIS name but to glorify the name that is above every name!
It’s good to follow and love your Pastor! Its good to get behind the direction he receives for the church from the Lord! It’s a good thing! As a Pastor, I like that! haha! I encourage that!
However, when that becomes the thing that caused division and strife in the church,
Paul is saying that is not what church is supposed to be.
However, he goes into describing what the church is supposed to be built on and made of. He uses two analogies to describe it.
2. Paul describes the church as a plant (vs. 5-9)
2. Paul describes the church as a plant (vs. 5-9)
In these verses, Paul uses a plant to describe the church body.
He says that there are roles and tasks that men and women are assigned in the church for the common good.
He says that some are called to plant the church. Paul planted the church in Corinth on his second missionary journey. A few years back, I recieved a similar call to plant a church at Richland HS. Many years ago, someone was called by the Lord to plant Lynnville First Baptist Church.
Paul says some, like Apollos, are called to water, to nourish, to feed and tend to. I believe that Pastor Adam was called to Lynnville Baptist to water, feed, nourish and tend to this church body.
But we are not to get caught up in the man! Leaders we are not meant to get caught up in forcing or manufacturing growth.
Because only God can give growth to the church! Only God can grow the body of Christ!
Man can not produce Godly growth apart from God! It is about Him, Jesus Christ the head of the Church. Its not about Paul, or Apollos, or Adam or Brian. Its about God! We must place our trust and faith in the right place! And its not in the person standing behind this pulpit on Sundays!
Now, according to this passage, those who labor will be paid his wages. But that’s between him and Lord.
However, moment that we elevate this man or that man over the Lord or our devotion to the Lord, our trust is in the wrong person. Our focus is misdirected.
Now, make no mistake, we see it all over America, mankind can produce a numerical, unhealthy growth.
But that is not the kind of growth that Paul is talking about here or in all of his other writings. Jesus taught a type of growth that is spiritually maturity and growth. Jesus taught that spiritual growth proceeds numerical growth in the parable of the sower.
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable about the Word of God being sown on a few different types of soils. One is plucked up by the enemy immediately. One starts to take root but has too rocky or hard heart to let it take root and is burned up by the heat of the sun.
Another grows up with a bunch of weeds and distractions draining its life and resources.
See none of those plants reproduce or produce any new seeds or plants.
However, the good soil, the spiritually mature person digs deep roots in the Word of God, weeds their lives of distractions and things that drain its life, Jesus describes the fruit and seeds that they produce as a hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold.
Healthy numerical growth grows out of healthy spiritual growth.
And all healthy growth is produced by the Lord, not man.
So, the plant analogy teaches us even more that it is not about the man or the leader, true spiritual growth is solely produced by the Lord. We must ensure that we check WHO our faith and hope truly is in.
The second analogy that Paul uses to describe the church is
3. Paul describes the church as a building or temple. (vs. 9-17)
3. Paul describes the church as a building or temple. (vs. 9-17)
So, in the first analogy, Paul warns against building a church on a man or his name. Basically, one thing NOT to do.
In the second analogy, Paul’s focus is more on what TO do. What to build this building of the church on and with.
Vs 10-11, Paul says that his mission was to lay a firm foundation for the church in Corinth. To start them off of the right foot. To establish a footer that the rest of the house is to be set upon.
Anyone that knows anything about buildings, knows that the foundation of a building is absolutely essential to have right for the everything else to go well. If you don’t have the foundation right, every other part of the building will be off.
Paul says that the only foundation that the Church should be built upon is Jesus Christ!
Now, all you have to do is go back one chapter and see that Paul set himself to know nothing among them except Jesus christ and Him crucified. 1 Cor 2:2.
So, the proper foundation for all that we do as the church of Jesus Christ should be based off of knowing who Jesus is, what He did in His life, what He accomplished on the cross of Calvary and what He broke free in the spiritual realm with His Resurrection and who He is for us at the right hand of the Father.
If our foundation is based on anything else, everything else that we do will be off centered, faulty, crooked and eventually will crumble.
So, above anything else, a member of the body of Christ should have their lives based on the truths of Jesus Christ. Every aspect. John 17:3
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
It should be the main drivers for us to get out of bed in the morning, to walk through this life differently from the world, to share the best news we have ever recieved to those around us and living in anticipation of meeting Him in the sky one day.
At Connection Church, our mission statement is connecting people with Jesus for life because Jesus changes everything.
Everything that we do should be from a relationship with Him and to bring others into a relationship with Him for either the first time or to grow to a new depth.
Now, when that is the basis of all that you do as a member of the body and as a church body, then you should be careful with what works you build upon that foundation.
Vs. 12-15 tells us to be careful of the material that is used to build the rest of the house.
These works or material are the events, activities, outreaches, Bible studies, ect. These are the things that we do together as a church or as individuals.
He gives two different categories of of types of materials or works.
Gold, silver and precious stone, and wood, hay, and straw.
Now, he also warns that there is a Day of judgement by fire coming. A day that will disclose what sort of works each one has done. So, we analyze what kind of works are we doing!
Jesus taught about the same thing.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
There are treasures, works, building materials are eternal! They are protected against thieves, moths, rust, and judgement fire.
And there are treasures, works and building materials that can be destroyed, stolen and destroyed by fire.
Jesus gets more specific in the next chapter in Matthew 7:24-27
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
So, what are the treasures, works and building materials that we are to build our houses with? What will withstand, floods, fire, moths, rust and thieves?
What should we as a church do to build upon the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ?
He says it at the beginning of Matthew 7:24
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Anyone who hears the words and commands of Jesus and does them.
Those who study, read, comprehend the example and commands of Christ and then.... PUTS THEM INTO ACTION!
HE will be like the man who’s house is built upon the rock and will survive wind, floods, fire, and thieves!
This is what the church should use as the walls and roof of the church. Hearing God’s Word and obedience to His commands and instructions.
Our works, our outreach, our activities, our Bible studies, our Sunday morning services, everything that we do should be out of obedience to the fact the Jesus commanded us to do them! Anything outside of that is wood, straw and hay.
Every past of the building should be based on the life and words of Jesus. I guess that’s why its called the body of Christ!
Unfortunately, other denominations that I disagree with have taken two great names! The Church of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ because I love those names!
Can you see how the church’s foundation is Jesus, the walls are Jesus, the roofs is Jesus. Everything that we do and say and live out as the church as the body of Christ should be based off of and for Jesus Christ!
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Its all about Him, its all based on Him and its all for Him!
Anything else or anybody else will fail!
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.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
We get the absolute honor of being the temple of God, the dwelling place of God by His Spirit!
Do you desire THAT kind of church?!
Are we going to build a temple that is based on Him, immersed in Him, and praises and glorifies Him? A temple that will last the judgement fires, through the winds and floods?
I pray and desire that for Lynnville Baptist and for CCR! I pray that we have this kind of focus and direction as we plan Sunday mornings, future events and outreach. I pray that it is embedded in our teaching and instructions.
Lynnville Baptist, you are in an amazing season of not rebirth but renewal. You have Spirit-filled, Spirit-led leaders. You have a chance to ensure that you are renewing Lynnville Baptist on the proper foundation and with eternal building materials that rust, moth, winds, floods and fire can not destroy or that thieves can not steal!
My prayer for you as that you trust the leadership, guidance and direction of the head of the Church, Jesus Christ, because all of this is His.
Which leads us to the last section of this chapter.
Be cautious of trusting the wisdom of man.
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.
To reemphasize the point, it is not about man or man’s wisdom on how to build or grow a church. Do not trust the conventional wisdom or wisdom of this age, but trust in the wisdom of the Lord to be your guide and strength!
“For all things are yours”. I’m going to be honest, I was confused by the statement until I was brought to Ephesians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
and James 1:5
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
All wisdom, all knowledge, every spiritual blessing is available to you in Christ Jesus!
So, Philippians 4:6
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
But in everything by prayer and supplication make your request known to the Lord. Bring everything before Him and seek His wisdom not the wisdom of man, and He will give it to you church! He loves you! He desires you to be all that He set before you!
All things are possible for those who love Him and are called to His purpose.
Church, do you love Him, are you willing to lay down your life for Him, are you willing to die to yourself for Him?
Then you are called to His purpose and He will direct your path!
Do not doubt it! Do not question it! Our God is in control and He loves His Church!
My prayer for you and for CCR is that we would be churches that have a strong foundation on Christ and Him crucified, that we would build spiritual temples of the Lord that will withstand the judgement fires, and that we will set ourselves to seeing His Kingdom come, right here in Lynnville, as it is in heaven.
Amen, church.
Let’s pray.