Hanging Out with God's People

Intro

2 Corinthians 6:16–18 ESV

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

Background on the text

The book of 2 Corinthians was the 2nd letter from Paul to the Church at Corinth. They were having a bunch of issues all over the place. But specifically, they were having issues with the fact that they weren’t acting like they were a church family. They were all wearing the church t-shirt only when it was easy and they weren’t acting like they were a set apart group of people who love God.

This being the case, at this part of the letter, Paul is addressing the fact that they were all giving into idolatry. Meaning that they were worshiping things that were not God. Paul used this part of the letter to remind the church that they are different, and are too act differently.

Paul was reminding them that they were the people of God and that they were apart of the family of God and because of those 2 facts they should be acting differently than they were.

This passage starts with

2 Corinthians 6:16 ESV

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Paul is actually quoting from the OT here. The Original passage can be found in the book of Leviticus all the way in the beginning of the bible.

The original text was written to a group of people, the Jews, God’s Chosen, at the end of a long list of rules and laws that God had asked them to follow. At the end of the list, God says “If you live the way I have called you too, then…” Insert this passage here.

So, I know this is getting a little bit of inception here but stay with me.

The passage we are reading starts “What agreement has the temple of God with Idols” - Why would anything that is of God want anything to do with an idol?

Then he says this:

“For we are the temple fo the living God”

We are the Church!

Guys, this passage is clear, we are the temple of the Living God. Back before Jesus died, God would only meet with humans in the temple. But when Jesus died, the veil in the temple was torn. We now can meet with God no matter where we are. This group of people in this building, and over there where your parents are meeting, are the church. Anyone who believes in Jesus is the church, and anyone who is apart of Point Harbor is apart of THIS local church.

Because we are the church, we have access to God and his promises!

So, if we are the church what then should do?

We should be different!

English Standard Version (Chapter 6)

Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,

Jesus calls us to be different from the world. People should be able to interact with us and after just a few moments be able to tell that we are Christians. We should act different (like Jesus) we should love different, we should talk different.

We shouldn’t be wierdos, I’m not saying that God would want us to all live in a strange commune, but people should be able to tell.

When this text was originally written, God had asked the Jewish nation to not touch or eat unclean things. He also gave a list of things that were unclean so they had information to be able to work from...

Today, that list isn’t really applicable anymore, for a lot of reasons (that’s a whole sermon by itself) but there are still things that are unclean that we can touch.

I want to help us all understand unclean.

This is my hand (Shows my hand)

This is hand sanitiser (Uses hand sanitiser)

This is a honey bun (Holds up and unwraps honeybun)

Would you all say this is safe for me to eat with my bare hand?

“YES”

Cool - Takes bite

Now… Rubs hand all over the bottom of my shoe.

How bout now?

“NO”

Because my hand is now unclean!

The same thing applies to our life, we would never eat a shoe bun. Because it’s filthy! But a lot of us are okay with listening to and watching things that are unclean. We are okay with doing things that are unclean.

We all mess up, we all make mistakes and one of the reasons that Jesus died on the cross was to provide forgiveness and grace for our failures, but Jesus want’s his church to live a life set apart from unclean things.

BE DIFFERENT!

When we accept Jesus, we become clean. Jesus’ death on the cross covers our sin and makes us clean. When we do this,

we become set apart and then the most amazing thing happens.

We Become FAMILY!

English Standard Version (Chapter 6)

18  and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

When there is a father and a brother and a sister, what do you have?

A FAMILY.

God promises to be our Father when we accept Jesus as our Saviour and he promises that we will be his sons and daughters!

The reason that I started with this passage was to show you today’s main idea.

The Church is the Family of God

Paul in this letter to the Corinthians told them that as believers they are sons and daughters of God. We as believers are no different!

Over the next 4 weeks we are going to be discussing how a church family should act!

We are going to be discussing how we should Pray together, Give together and to each-other and finally, today we are going to be discussing how we should spend time together!

Let’s flip over to the book of acts for the rest of our time together this morning!

Acts 2:42–44 (CSB)

Acts 2:42–44 CSB

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common.

First off, the book of acts is awesome. It’s the story of the early church. Right when Jesus went back to heaven after being raised to life, the early church formed and just went gangbusters over the whole region telling people about Jesus, and Jesus dod some crazy cool things.

This passage we just read takes place right after Peter, a disciple of Jesus preaches a big sermon telling people about Jesus and how they can come to know him.

Right after this sermon, you can see that the early church responds to this sermon by coming together and forming a community. This is an example that we, as point harbor students can live by.

Let’s go through this passage and see what we can imitate from the early church.

The passage says that they did 3 things specifically

#1 They were devoted to teaching

We should be devoted to LEARNING.

When the early church was formed the people of God went OUT OF THEIR WAY to learn as much as they could about Jesus, who he is and what he wanted for them. They were so excited that their life was made new that they couldn’t get enough information about God!

When I first met liz, we were in high school. I still remember what she was wearing. I was absolutely head over heals for her. I wanted to learn about her as much as I could. If I wasn’t talking to her, or about her, or learning about her I felt empty.

THThat’s how these people were with Jesus. When I first met liz, and Jesus for that matter. I wanted nothing to do with anything other than Jesus/Liz.

What Jesus did for you and me at the cross was remarkable. We went from having to follow a law, that didn’t redeem to being able to trust Jesus for forgiveness of sin.

The devotion was not due to obligation, but because of excitement. Let’s get excited about what Jesus is doing!

We get excited about, what we know about...

I don’t want to spend a ton of time here, but I do want to mention it. It can be difficult to feel excited about Jesus all the time. It’s a normal part of life. It’s not a good part of life but it is normal.

I think one of the things that inhibits us from getting excited about Jesus is the fact that we aren’t totally aware of who he is. One of the best ways to learn about who Jesus is, is to read about him.

If you’re in here today and you’re not sure if you know him, and you’d like to do some research, or you’d like to know where to start in the bible so that you can learn.

We have these books. The Life Book

Please take one. They are a great way to be introduced to Jesus.

The Disciples devoted themselves to Teaching as well as Fellowship...

#2 They Spent Time Together

When the early church was formed, the members of the church spent literally all the time that they could with each other. They would have meals together, they would pray together and they would generally just hang out.

That’s why we have church services. That’s why we have impact nights, that’s why we do events. That’s why we do camp...

Thats why we are going to eat a massive thanksgiving dinner together.