Lessons

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

Sermon

The vast majority of people right now have no sense of God 

What is God up to? They say nothing. A few people are willing to admit, “I can’t find God. I don’t sense that God is here.”  

The very few people who say, I sense God. I have an awareness of him. They almost always say,  

“I sense him out there – in the woods, on the lake. I don’t feel him, I don’t sense him at church.”  

When I ask people, where did you see God show up this week? Nobody ever says it was in the church building, it was at worship. 

Complete loss of the sense of God’s presence. (immanence and transcendence.) Maybe mention a shell – the buffered soul Charles Taylor called it. It keeps any awareness of the divine  

So when people come to church, they don’t sense God  

  • Church building might feel like a home – safe and warm 

  • Maybe like a business – cold and functioning  

  • Or visiting a therapist  

They don’t come here as a place where we meet with God.  

Can we imagine any more what it might feel like to go to a place and have a sense that God is truly present?  

Pick anyone in the world that you would like to see.  

If you could see anyone who would you like to see?  

That is the kind of experience Jacob had in a certain place. He had a fabulous experience with God one time. Afterwards, he said, “Surely God is in this place” (Gen 28:16). He literally named the place “Bethel” - the house of God.  

Adventure/discover 

Place where God lives  

The second symbol of God’s people. Last week we took a look at the first tangible symbol of God’s people as we wait for his return. Land. God’s people develop land – a place – not only shows they are God’s people but he is at work as he brings life.  

Second symbol is God’s dwelling.  

Today we want to make that place.  

Development 

God always had a dwelling among his people. "[The temple] was the divine dwelling-place of the God of Israel which set them apart from other nations...It was the place where (the LORD – original YHWH) lived and ruled in the midst of Israel, and where through the sacrificial system which reached its climax in the great festivals, he lived in grace, forgiving them, restoring them, and enabling them to be cleansed of defilement and so to continue as his people.” (NT Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, pg 224-225)  

 

  • The garden of Eden “8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” Ge 3:8–9  

  • The tabernacle “42 “For the generations to come this burnt offering is to be made regularly at the entrance to the tent of meeting, before the Lord. There I will meet you and speak to you; 43 there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory. 44 “So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. 45 Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. 46 They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.” Ex 29:42–46. 

  • The temple “10 When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple. 12 Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; 13 I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.” (1 Ki 8:10–13) 

Brief overview there. Hopefully you see, God wants to be in a specific place for his people.  

Bible teaches 2 things about God’s presence 

  • God is present everywhere - omnipresence  

  • Present at certain times and places for his people to do good – gracious presence  

God wants to be at a specific place for his people to do good.  

  • 1990 New York City – hundreds of people professed faith in Jesus in a very short time  

  • 1994 Toronto Blessing 

  • 2010s Vancouver – hundreds of people baptized  

Let me give us a little illustration.  

Everyone needs oxygenation all the time. If you checked the oxygenation level  

There are certain times, if you’re going to be a runner or swimmer, or you’re sick, you’re going to have surgery, when you need a special dose of oxygen.  

That’s what this is. God shows up in a time and place and says, I’m going to increase the grace in your life.  

This is something that is so awesome about Christianity.  

  • Some religions say God is everywhere and might even say God is everything   

  • Others say God is in a certain place  

  • But Christianity says  

That is something you and I need.  

  • It’s good to go to work, to mow the lawn or trim the trees or maybe in winter plow the snow. You do it well. You get close to the edges. You do it quickly without mowing up the grass. You do it well because you believe God is with you and he is watching you. He matters.  

  • You go home and maybe its not that day or the next day but the next day and you fight with your spouse. You’re a little sick of your parents always being around so you’re pulling back. Not just healthy boundaries. You’re not loving them. You can’t help but think some days, I’ve done the same thing for 5 or 7 or 10 or 15 years, does it even matter anymore? Look at me, you think. I’m so many years old and this is all I’m doing. What you need is a God who meets you in a special place. Everything you’ve done wrong doesn’t count against you. Here you have value not because of what you do, but because I chose you.  

Desperately need  

  • Time and place to say you are absolutely forgiven 

  • On top of that, you are valued no matter what you do or who you are  

This is the good news.  

Yes God is everywhere, but there is also a place where he meets with you and me for our good.   

The God of heaven and earth lives here like nowhere else. 

 

Action  

This is absolutely what the Bible says for you and me, and its what you and I get to make happen.  

16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. (1 Co 3:16–17) 

Was a building, now he choses to live in us. It’s all of us, together.  

Think about it like a musical group. So many. You pick yours. (Maybe you like YoYo Ma and his cellos. Maybe its Manuel Lin Miranda and the rap from Hamilton. Maybe you like Brendon Urie from Panic at the Disco. Or maybe you want to go back to someone like Beethoven or Mozart.) 

  • Sure they are great performers. But you need them all.  

  • You need someone to direct or conduct  

  • You need music that you can all play together.  

You can be a great performer  

  • Bible as the our text, our music 

  • A whole group of performers 

  • Jesus Christ as our conductor  

This is God’s temple. We are.  

Other ways of thinking try to convince that you are God or that God doesn’t care and he isn’t coming.  

God says you and I are messed up and a wreck  

Jesus died to become the wind – the wind that fills you and me, that makes alive.  

  • His body “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” … 18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.” (Jn 2:16–22) 

  • A non-physical “57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’ ” 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree.” (Mk 14:57–5) 

 

In my time, I have been in some amazing churches. I’ve toured the Crystal Cathedral in Los Angeles, the Basilica of St Mary in Minneapolis, the ancient ChongwenMen church in Beijing, the Castle Church and the City Church in Wittenberg, and the massive Basilica of St Peter in Rome.  

None holds a candle to the building Jesus is making right in front of me.  

We are the people of God. We are the church. We are his temple. 

Nothing in this whole earth can stop us. Not even the devil himself.  

Build a great church. Build a great temple.  

Tell the world God is in this place.