Thank you, Juanita.
I almost expect to see the organ smoke a little bit after a number like that.
Maybe your fingers are.
Would you take your Bible, please, and turn to the book of 1 Corinthians with me.
The structure we today dedicate to the glory of God is not the most important one here.
There is another building surpassing brick, mortar, and steel in its significance.
And I am, of course, referring to the living temple of God.
It's a funny thing about church buildings.
There's almost a superstition about them.
I think I related to you some time ago how I felt as a child entering a church building
in our little town in Kansas.
It was an old building.
The doors squeaked, heavy, massive wooden things on squeaky hinges.
And as one would enter, this rather musty old smell would hit you in the face.
And yet, despite those negatives, I can remember entering that place and having this feeling
as though I was in the presence of God and almost running through the sanctuary to get
to the basement or whatever other room I wanted to go to because I felt like that God was
there.
People often think of a church building in terms of that's where God lives.
And yet, of course, we recognize that that is not the case.
But the terms we use often reflect that, don't they?
For example, we speak of this room often as being the sanctuary.
We talk about the altar of the church.
And yet, actually, this room is not a sanctuary, nor is there an altar here.
This probably reflects our awareness of the Old Testament period when in fact God did
dwell in a sanctuary when in fact there was a material physical altar which was a part
of the worship.
God did live in that period of time in a material structure, first one made out of skins and
cloth, later one made of wood, gold, silver, and bronze.
But in this present age, God does not headquarter Himself in such a material building.
He does, however, manifest Himself and live in a different kind of building.
God dwells in a temple.
This passage in 1 Corinthians 3 explains to us the kind of temple that God lives in today.
Beginning in verse 9, the apostle says, we are God's fellow workers, you are God's
field.
And then he changes metaphors and says, you are God's building.
Then he begins to elaborate on that.
He says, according to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder,
I laid a foundation and another is building upon it.
But let each man be careful how he builds upon it.
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, straw, each man's work will become evident.
For the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire.
And the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.
If any man's work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work is burned up, he shall suffer loss.
But he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire.
Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.
For the temple of God is holy and that is what you are.
God dwells in a temple and there are four facts in the text that we've just read that
I want to study regarding that.
The first one is this, that God's temple has structure to it.
Not a material structure, but a real structure nonetheless.
It was difficult for people of that day to imagine anything else, and it still is difficult
for us today to think in terms of a temple apart from a physical building.
The pagans of Corinth were surrounded by temples.
A temple to Apollos still stands in its ruins in the city of Corinth.
It had been there 600 years already when Paul wrote this epistle.
There was a temple to Venus or Aphrodite, as well as temples and altars to various pagan
deities that they worshiped.
Paul seems to build upon the imagery that was familiar to them.
They were used to the concept of a temple.
Paul wants them to understand that the true God also dwells in a building, a temple, but
not the kind that they're used to.
This building, however, does have a foundation.
That foundation, he says, is Jesus Christ.
Not church traditions, not apostolic traditions even, but he says the foundation is Jesus
Christ, and it's the only foundation that one can lay.
When the apostle says this, he is saying that the foundation of God's temple, the building
that is being constructed, is the living person of Jesus Christ, the one whom he had preached
to them as crucified, the one that he desired to know above all else among them, Jesus Christ,
and him crucified and raised again from the dead.
The basis of this temple, this living temple, says Paul, is a person.
As a foundation of a building is its resting place, and as it provides solid support for
the rest of the structure.
So Christ is the resting place of our faith and is the solid support of it.
The Lord Jesus Himself said that He would build upon this foundation.
I'm reminded of His words to Peter as well as to the other disciples in Matthew chapter
16.
He asked them, who do people say that I am?
And they responded honestly.
Some say you're John the Baptist, and others say you're Elijah, and some say Jeremiah or
another of the prophets.
And He said, well, who do you say that I am?
Peter responded with these words, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus was pleased with that, and He responded to Peter's statement by saying, blessed are
you Simon Bar-Jonah, son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you,
but my Father who is in heaven.
In other words, He says, you are right, Peter, and it is my Father in heaven who has caused
you to understand who I am.
And then He said, I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build
my church.
Of course, from that statement there are those who say that Peter is the foundation, the
rock of the church.
But of course, Jesus is simply making a play on words here as the Greek text is clear.
He says, you are Petros, using a masculine form of the word.
You are a rock, Petros.
Upon this Petros, using a feminine form, not the same Greek word, I will build my church.
You say, what's the significance of that?
The significance is that Jesus was not saying, Peter, upon you as a person I am building
my church, but He was saying, upon what you have said, upon that truth that has been taught
to you by the Father, I will now build that church.
And what is that truth?
That Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God.
You see, that ties together exactly with what the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 3.
He says, for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
He is the foundation of His church.
Because the foundation of a building gives stability and cohesion to it.
So Jesus Christ holds together this living temple in which God dwells in this age and
provides its stability and its security for its destiny.
Now, that is true regarding the church, but it's true as well regarding the individual.
That is a legitimate application of what He is saying here.
Jesus is saying as well that for you and for me as an individual, there is no other foundation
than Jesus Christ.
Yes, we can build our lives and do a fairly decent job in human terms of doing that, but
if we have no foundation, our lives are in danger.
In concluding the great sermon on the mountain, Jesus told about a man, a man who built a
house upon a rock.
And He said, when the storm came and the rains descended and the flood arose, the house stood
firm that was built on the rock.
And Jesus said, that is the man who hears what I say and acts upon them.
But He says, the man who hears what I say but does not act upon them is like a man who
builds a house, perhaps an equal house to the former man, maybe even superior.
But his house is upon the sand and when the rains come down and as the winds blow and
the floods arise and the storm beats against it, that house will collapse and great will
be its fall.
It is not enough, my friend, to know about Jesus Christ.
It is not enough to attend an evangelical church where you hear His words, but each
of us must come to that place where we are acting upon what Jesus said, where we have
trusted Him as Savior and are living with Him as the Lord of our lives.
And when we do that, then we build our house upon the rock.
Jesus Christ is the cornerstone, the rock, the foundation of the church.
And upon that foundation are built living stones that is saved people, people saved
by His grace.
You and I who have trusted Him, we have been united to that foundation that is added to
it to provide a superstructure.
These together then form the temple or the dwelling of God in the world today.
Jesus Christ being the foundation, you and I who are saved being built upon Him as living
stones in this temple.
God does not live in a building or some room.
God does not dwell in a cathedral.
That is not His residence.
But God today resides in the body personally of each believer and in us corporately as
a church, as a local church, which is the context of 1 Corinthians 3.
God's temple has structure today, but that temple is not made of brick and mortar.
It is made of people, people who have been saved and cleansed by the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
You see secondly that God's temple has workmen.
The context here indicates that those workmen were the apostles and the leaders of that
day.
Paul says, we have laid the foundation.
He says, I laid it as a wise master builder.
The Greek word there is architect.
The word then did not mean what it does today.
It refers in its original context here to one who is a skilled contractor, not the designer.
The designer is the Lord Jesus Christ.
But the apostle says, I am a skilled contractor who has laid the foundation of the local church
there in Corinth.
And he says, now others are building as workmen on top of the foundation that I have laid.
And so the application of this is primarily to church leadership.
That is primarily who is in view in 1 Corinthians 3 in these words of instruction.
But I think it's not stretching it too far to say that all of us are in view as well.
The apostle himself seems to broaden it as the context of the passage goes on.
He is suggesting that all of us in truth are workmen in this building of God, this temple
in which he lives in this age.
And he stresses that the important thing is how we build, how we build.
Notice that, verse 10.
And again the apostle draws upon familiar imagery to the Corinthians.
He says that it's possible for us to build in such a way that we use lasting worthy materials.
Or contrary wise, we can use passing and worthless materials.
What does Paul mean by these things?
Obviously the lasting things are the gold, silver, precious stones.
That by the way does not refer to diamonds and rubies and precious stones of that sort.
But it probably refers to marble or to granite.
And then obviously the wood, hay, and stubble are those things that are worthless and passing
in value.
Paul is saying that it's possible for us to build with worthy materials, that is with
methods and motives that are worthy of God.
Or it's possible for us to use methods and motives that are not worthy of him.
When our methods honor God and the motives of our hearts are pleasing to him, then we
build in a way that is worthy of the Lord.
We build in a way that uses materials as he suggests like gold, silver, and marble.
That would immediately strike a note with the Corinthians because that's what their
temples were made of.
That's why the temple to Apollos still stands today because it was made out of granite.
None of the gold or silver of course is still around.
But they were used to seeing the temples to their gods made out of lasting, valuable materials.
So Paul says, look, you are a living temple but it's possible for you in a way to build
with lasting, worthy, valuable materials.
And those materials are right doctrine and right motives.
Build with the truth of the word of God and with hearts that are free from hypocrisy and
pretense.
And he says, in doing that you will build worthily.
But he suggests as well that we can build out of hearts that have impure motives and
with methods that do not honor God and with perhaps even doctrines that are false.
Motives can be for the love of money.
Motives for work can be for fame or for power or some kind of personal gratification.
A preacher can have those motives.
So can a Sunday school teacher or an elder or a choir member or anybody in the church.
Indeed, all of us struggle throughout our lives to make sure that our motives are what
they ought to be.
We try to preserve them intact for the glory of God.
But if we slip, then we begin to build in a way that does not please God.
It is like building out of these materials that are mentioned.
And once again he strikes a familiar chord because this is how their houses were built.
Their common house in Corinth in that day had a wooden structure.
Its bricks were made out of hay that had been mixed together with mud and then dried.
That was the wall.
And the roofs were made out of straw that was thatched together to provide protection.
And so immediately they saw their own homes here, not the homes of their gods, but their
homes which quickly went up in smoke should there be a fire.
That's how passing the materials were.
Now any religious Corinthian, saved or unsaved, would want a temple for his God that was worthy.
Paul is saying to these saved Corinthians, as you build the temple of the living God,
which is people, build in such a way that you use worthy materials.
Do not allow your motives to become less than honest and sincere.
Do not use doctrines that are false.
And of course they had a real problem with that as Paul writes this first epistle.
He suggests use methods that honor God.
And in doing that, you will build a living temple that pleases the Lord.
The application is obvious to us today.
That's why those of us who are saved should have great concern regarding our service for
Jesus Christ.
Indeed, it is only by the grace of God that we can ever be sufficient for the kind of
exacting eternally important construction work that is ours.
In fact, Paul himself says in verse 10, according to the grace of God given to me, I'm a wise
master builder.
It's only by the grace of God, dear friend, that you can teach that Sunday school class
in a worthy way.
It's only by the grace of God that you can play that instrument or sing in the choir
or work in the nursery or usher in the church or work in the parking lot with a motive that's
right which pleases the Lord.
It is only by the grace of God that you can conduct your ministry in that small church
or out there in the office where you work or in the factory.
It is only by the grace of God that we can consistently, day in and day out, build with
those materials that please the Lord.
We are all workmen of God's temple.
God help us to be worthy workmen.
We come then to the third fact regarding this temple of God.
It is that it will be examined.
Paul suggests that there is a day which will manifest what we have truly built.
That day is the day of judgment.
He does not differentiate it here, but we know from other passages that it would seem
to be the day of the judgment seat of Christ which will occur shortly after the rapture
of the church when we are caught up into the Lord's presence.
The day, he says, we'll declare it.
We'll expose it.
We'll reveal it for what it is.
In other words, the contribution or the part of each person in building the Lord's temple
will be examined.
Paul says it will be revealed with fire.
Now there are those who see this as some kind of a purgatory.
And yet if you look at the passage here, it is clear that Paul is using fire in a symbolic
way in the whole paragraph.
The fire is symbolic of judgment or examination by the Lord, a revelation in his presence
of what is truly there.
You see, fire consumes and it purifies, and anything that is unworthy is taken away.
And through that process of examination, Paul says, the test will be revealed to show the
quality of each man's work.
That is, the true character of his labor will be made known.
Now remember, we're talking primarily here in terms of a local church.
I believe that there will be some way, a way that I do not know, in which a local church
will be gathered before the Lord in that day at the judgment seat of Christ.
In other words, I think that somehow God is going to reconstitute Grace Church Roseville
as we have built it on that day.
And that we as a church, as we are gathered together even during these days, will be gathered
there if we're truly saved people.
And that in some way what we have constructed is going to be represented.
It has little to do with the size of a church that we become, with the fame that we may
enjoy, with the financial worth or the reputation of what we do.
It has very little to do with any of those things.
What it does have to do with is the actual worthy work we have done.
The sort of our work is what God is looking for.
Of what sort it truly is.
It is possible for a church to have a marvelous reputation or a facility that is beautiful
and attracts even tourists to come and see it.
And for all of that, in some manner, as it were, to go up in smoke at the judgment seat
of Christ and to be nothing but ashes, as much as a Corinthian house would be left if
a fire got started in it.
Only ashes from the straw and the mud bricks and the wooden walls.
Bernard Magee reminds us that a haystack is far more visible to the eye than is a gold
coin, but which is more valuable.
There are some churches that are imposing, that are far famed in their so-called ministry,
who may enjoy even television.
And I'm not even knocking that.
But what I'm saying to you is that when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ, then
will be revealed the real quality of the work that's being done.
It has very little to do with any of the superficial things that we usually look at as success.
It has everything to do with what's going on in your life and in my life in our response
to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
God's temple will be examined.
And the result will be on that day that the temple will be left containing only that which
is eternal, precious, and worthy.
And as a result of that examination, the workman will receive reward or possibly suffer loss.
Remember, this is not a matter of salvation here because only Christians are at the judgment
that I'm describing to you.
He's talking about rewards.
The rewards seem to be appropriate recognition some way by the Lord for the faithful labor
that's been done.
The Bible calls these rewards crowns, which suggests that they involve not only some physical
token but perhaps even more the privilege of reigning with Jesus Christ in some aspect
of His kingdom on earth.
Perhaps His eternal kingdom is in view here as well.
But the rewards have to do with crowns.
Those are rewards that we earn by our faithfulness in what we do and the sort of our work.
Loss on the other hand seems to be the forfeiture of these very same things.
Perhaps there's going to be some way in which God will represent to us what we might have
had.
I don't know.
But it does say that there will be the possibility of suffering loss, the loss of perhaps what
one had thought to have accomplished in his life, the loss of commendation by the Lord,
the loss of opportunity to serve Him, certainly the embarrassment and the shame as a result
of the real exposure of what our lives have produced for Him.
God's temple will be examined.
You and I will be examined on that day.
You say, well, that seems to be a little scary, a little frightening.
It was to the Apostle Paul, for in 2 Corinthians 5, 10, and 11, he describes the judgment seat
of Christ and he moves right ahead to say, knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we
persuade men.
If any of us can think of the judgment seat of Christ and not have an element of fear
within him, he's a fool, because the judgment seat of Christ will be a terrifying experience
in one sense.
Now there will be the joy of being able to lay at the feet of Jesus what has been brought
from our lives and is worthy of His worship.
But my friend, the experience of that fire, as it were, that examination is not one in
which our humanity delights.
There is a fourth fact that we see regarding the living temple of God, and that is that
it's holy.
God's temple is holy, verses 16 and 17.
And I say that the local church is the context of what he's talking about here.
He is saying that the local church as a body of people is a temple of God.
He says, do you not know that, that all of you comprise the temple of God?
The Spirit of God dwells in you, and that's what makes it holy.
When he says it's holy, he's saying that it's set apart for divine use, for a sacred
destiny, and then he warns us in verse 17, because of the nature of this temple of God,
if any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.
Same verb used both times.
The word means corrupt, to defile, to pollute, to ruin, to spoil.
It does not mean to annihilate.
But the apostle says here that there is some way it's possible for us to tragically destroy
or to pollute or to ruin the temple of God, the local church.
And he says that the man who does that, God, will himself ruin or defile or spoil.
Now, there are commentators who say that this must refer to an unsaved person.
I have a difficult time accepting that in the context here.
I believe the apostle is warning even some of the Corinthians of the possibility of their
destroying that temple of God in Corinth through the kind of lives they were leading, lives
that were carnal and disobedient to the word.
He is warning them, I believe, saved but disobedient carnal Christians of the danger of spoiling
God's work.
He says the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.
There are warnings throughout the Bible regarding this.
We're going to look in a couple of weeks at a husband and wife in Acts 5 who learned
the meaning of what Paul is saying here.
But my mind reflects this morning back to the Old Testament to one of the great kings
of Israel, of Judah, King Uzziah, a man who did a great deal for Israel politically, militarily,
economically, a man during whose reign Isaiah lived in part because you remember that he
saw his great vision of God in the year that King Uzziah died.
But sometime before he died, Uzziah made a terrible mistake.
He forgot what is said in these verses that God's temple is holy.
Now he, of course, was dealing with a physical temple, Solomon's temple that had been constructed.
But at that day Uzziah in a moment of haste and unbelief entered into the presence of
God in the temple and began to offer incense there though he was not a priest.
He forgot the holiness of God in that moment of rashness in his life and for that God struck
him with leprosy.
And until the day that he died, he suffered horribly from that disfiguring, debilitating
disease.
So we talked about the man who put his hand on the ark of God when the oxen stumbled.
Remember that?
And when he touched the ark, God struck him and he died immediately.
You and I need to remember, we need to allow to soak into our hearts, into every corner
of it this truth that God's temple in this age, the local church, is a holy thing.
And rather than allowing ourselves even in carelessness to be a destroyer of it, to be
faithful workmen.
Well I want to conclude this morning by saying that as we dedicate this physical structure,
what we really do as we said in the dedication statement is to dedicate ourselves as workmen
in building the living temple, for that's the real building that's going on inside
these walls.
The foundation has been laid which is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the living
Son of God.
And now we build upon that foundation.
Let each man take heed how he builds thereupon.
Let us ask God to give us understanding of what we are doing with our lives so that we
might see now how to build more wisely, to be wise master builders so that on that day,
the day when our church is gathered in his presence and examined by his holiness, the
Lord Jesus Christ, it will pass the test of fire and that there will be something there
left to the honor and glory of him who has loved us and saved us.
Let's pray together.
Lord it is so easy for us to live for ourselves and to deceive ourselves into thinking somehow
that what we are doing is for you.
Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked.
Deliver us from those kinds of deceit which lead us to ruin.
And I pray today that you will enable us by the discerning work of your Holy Spirit to
see our lives as you see them.
I pray that we can look back upon the last months and years of our lives and have some
kind of an accurate picture of whether we've lived wisely or not.
And whether what we have done would pass your judgment or not.
And if there need to be corrections, steps of obedience, repentance, then bring us to
that point quickly lest we continue fooling ourselves and waste life's brief day.
In Jesus' name, Amen.