Transcript

Well turn with me to 1 Corinthians 3 as we continue our study, verse by verse, through this marvelous New Testament book. 1 Corinthians 3, and let’s look at verses 16 and 17, a message tonight that I’ve entitled “The Truth about the Temple.” The Truth about the Temple. Or you could subtitle it, Where on Earth Does God Live? 1 Corinthians 3:16-17: “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.”

First of all, let’s notice a definition, or the definition of the temple. The definition of the temple, look at verse 16. He begins by a sort of a rhetorical question there, a question that needs no answer when he says, “do you not know.” Paul’s emphasis, and by the way, he uses that phrase at least nine times in the book of 1 Corinthians. He says, “don’t you know.” In other words, he’s saying, you should understand this by now. You should have this nailed down by now, this should be elementary to people who have known the Lord as long as you’ve known him. Don’t you know. So there’s a rebuke in that question. “Do you not know.”

Then he says, “do you not know that you are a temple of God.” Now its very important that we understand the word used here for temple. Now in the Greek language there were two words that would refer to the temple. The first word, hyron, hyron was the word for the, the, the overall temple. It included the outer court and the Gentile court and the court of the women and the porches, and then the holy place and the most holy place, the whole thing was called the hyron. The temple. But then there was that inner part naois. Naois is a, a, a, is, is the part of it that, or vayois, rather, vayois was the part of the temple that emphasized the innermost part. As a matter of fact, in your Bible there, if your Bible uses the word temple in verses 16 and 17, the best translation is not temple but sanctuary.

Sanctuary. Because we’re not talking about the temple proper, but the innermost part of the temple. The sanctuary part of the temple. Uh, that word, uh, uh vayois means to inhabit. It means that sacred part to the Jews it was the holy place and the holy of holies. In classical Greek literature, this word for temple that we have in 1 Corinthians 3 was a word that was used to denote the place where the image of God dwelt. All of it would be called the temple, but then the naois was the innermost part where the image of God was. Now to the Jew its where the priest would minister.

But then he says, “do you not know that you are a temple of the holy spirit.” So in essence he’s saying, you the individual believers, or you the church collectively, you are the sanctuary. You are where God dwells. It, its not in the Old Testament temple, in the, in the holy of holies. Now during the Old Testament dispensation, God would fill the holy of holies with his shinkinah glory, and the priest could only go in there once a year, on the great day of atonement, any other time that he would be killed immediately. But he says, now you Christians, you are the naois, you are the holy place, you are the sanctuary. Not a building, you are.

Now also we can see other passages that strongly emphasized this, like 2 Corinthians 6:16. Turn there with me. 2 Corinthians 6:16: “Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols, for we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.” Again, the innermost sanctuary, is, is emphasized here. The place where God dwells, and he says he dwells in Christians.

Also if you would, look over rather to Ephesians 2:21. Ephesians 2:21. Speaking to the church there, well, let’s back up to verse 20, “having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple, in the Lord.” Now in these passages, we see that a collective body, a collective local church is called the temple. The naois, the sanctuary, the place where God lives. He lives in us. And anywhere where we meet is the sanctuary. We may meet out under a tree some day or, or down on the river bank some day, or over by a house some day, or wherever that is the sanctuary of God, because we are the sanctuary of God.

But also the sanctuary, it is emphasized when it talks about individual Christians, not just the collective local church. But individual Christians. As a matter of fact, John 2:19-21 gives us this emphasis. John 2:19-21: “Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple, sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews therefore said, it took 46 years to build this temple. And will you raise it up in three days. But he was speaking of the temple or sanctuary of his body.” Jesus is saying, hey, God is in me. Isn’t that true, didn’t God put on human flesh and dwell among us and now in the person of the holy spirit, God is in us. We are now the sanctuaries of God.

As a matter of fact, turn back to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple, actually the sanctuary, more than just a collective, the whole temple, but the innermost part. Your body is the sanctuary of the holy spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price, therefore, glorify God in your body.” Now its Roman Catholicism that at least in this Christian era, that began to attack holiness to things or places. Our Roman Catholic friends, they would say, now, now this is a holy altar, or these are holy images, or, or this is holy bread. And they would refer to holy things as places, and not people. But that’s not God’s emphasis at all.

Acts 7:48 says he does not dwell in houses made by human hands. The sanctuary is us. The people of God. Now, so when you talk about the sanctuary of God, one of three things according to clear New Testament teaching could be talked about. Number one, the church universal. You can say and there are some passages that view the church all real believers make up the sanctuary of God. That’s where God lives, he lives in all of us. Or it could be just the local church, when it meets together they are the sanctuary of God. Not the building, the people. Or it could referring to individual believers.

And that’s why I have teased with some of you about the fact that we’ll not call the new building out there a sanctuary, because its not. God doesn’t dwell there, its brick and mortar and sheetrock and pews and carpet. Its not a sanctuary, we are the sanctuary. The church is the sanctuary. And you could say, well, its a sanctuary in that its set apart from the world. Well, no, its really not. Because when you come in you’ll bring the world with you. I mean, there’s nothing holy about the bricks we’ll use on that building, there’s nothing holy about the sheetrock or the lighting. I was going to say the chandeliers, but we’re not going to have any over there. No stained glass.

As a matter of fact, when Spurgeon built the Metropolitan Tabernacle he insisted that it not have a steeple, and it not have any stained glass. He wouldn’t let them call it anything but the meeting house. He said, we need to get away from this worldly, unbiblical ecumenical emphasis that there’s some place where God is and that place is holy. I submit to you there is a place where God is and that place is holy and that place is you. That’s the emphasis of the text. You may say, well, but we set that building apart for service and worship to God. I think God would tell us to stop being so concerned about bricks and mortar and sheetrock and carpet and pews, and concern ourselves with setting apart our hearts and our mind and our hands and our feet and our eyes and our ears. For service and worship to God, because we’re the sanctuary. Not the building.

You can have all the elaborate services, and you can have all the commissionings you want of that building, but if we do not walk into that building as pure, surrendered, spirit filled sanctuaries of God, no true service and worship will ever happen in that building. Matter of fact, if we can get them to shut down PJs on Saturday night and all the beer drinkers walk out, we can walk right in behind them, filled with the holy spirit of God and be the sanctuary of God right there better than if we go into this building with all the pews and all the carpet and all the stuff that looks like a church and have it half filled with back sliders and carnal people. Better in the tin building up there that was a honky tonk, then in this brick building that’s called a church. Because we’re the sanctuary, not a building. That’s the difference in the way we view things and the Old Testament dispensation viewed things.

Now, so when we say the temple, and vaois, the word sanctuary, the innermost part, the holy place, where God dwells, that’s believers. And now we also need to talk about the image of God, where’s the image of God? Do we need to go back and get into the holy place or the holy of holies and find out where the image of God is, no. The image of God is when the Christian walks in righteousness and holiness before the world, then the image of God is seen. Folks, God, God wants to show up and show out through us. Through us. Listen my friend, the real testimony of God’s not what happens in this building, but the true holiness that exhibited out there Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. As the sanctuaries go out to let God flow through them, to all the people around them.

There’s a major push today and some of our dear charismatic friends are caught right in the middle of it, that if we can cause a huge hoopla, stirring sensationalized thing in the building that will draw people to God. But the key would be, what about the folks, after they leave the building, is there distinctive and unique holiness to them. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That’s the truth, because the sanctuary is not just when we get together, the sanctuary is all of us wherever we are. Well, that’s the definition of the sanctuary, or the temple.

Secondly notice Paul says something here about the defense of the temple or the sanctuary. The defense. Now I’ll submit to you, I read everyone from John Calvin to John MacArthur and nobody’s totally sure what this part of the passage means, and I am not totally sure, but it is a sobering exhortation for all of us. Let me read both verses again. He says, “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, listen, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are.” You are a holy one that God lives in. Now he’s been referring earlier in this letter to the Corinthian believers who perhaps ignorantly were hurting the church, the temple of God.

Now I believe his emphasis is more on those who premeditatedly and deliberately are purposing to hurt the temple of God. Those people, Paul says, God will deal with severely. Because when you damage a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you damage his faith, you damage his doctrinal position, you damage him by luring him or tempting him into gross sins, and its like whatever it may be, or you damage the church collectively, when you do damage there, you are not just tampering with any building, you’re tampering with the holy temple of God. His dwelling place. I believe Matthew 18 gives us an emphasis about how the Lord feels about this, Matthew 18:6-10: “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to stumble, it is better for him that a heavy millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks, for it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to those, that man through whom the stumbling block comes. And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, then to have two hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you, it is better for you to enter life with one eye then having two eyes to be cast into the fiery hell. See to it that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven, continually behold the face of the Father who is in heaven.”

Now the Greek scholars tell us when it says here, those who destroy the temple of God, God will destroy them, that that’s talking about eternal destruction, I simply do not know. I believe that the emphasis of the text is against false teachers. But false teacher comes in and the premise or the foundational principle behind all false teaching is to displace the people’s faith off of Christ and onto some man. Regardless of what they’re teaching and what they are saying, if you get down to the root system that they are about, you’ll find that they are just taking people’s confidence and faith off of Jesus and wanting to place that confidence and faith onto some man, because some man has seen a vision, or some man has some insight and nobody else has, so he comes in and says, let me give you the insight God gave me, I have a revelation nobody else has. And what ultimately happens is the people start cheering and clamoring and looking to this unique man and not to the man. Jesus Christ. We’ll never know how many people God has brought down to destruction because they used their influence to tamper with and destroy the holy temple of God, the church.

The church. I believe we have another example of that in Acts 5. With Ananias and Sapphira. The church is in a good crisis, they are giving, there are so many people that are getting saved that they do not have provision for all of the people, and the people were there for the feast of Pentecost, they were there from all over the known world and so many of them are saved and they need to follow up these new believers and discipline them and ground them in the faith. But there’s not enough houses or enough food to go around, so the early Christians, there from Jerusalem, begin selling everything they had and taking the money and just putting it in one treasury. One treasury. And then the apostles would distribute out of the treasury as there was need for all of those thousands who were getting saved. And Ananias and Sapphira saw this as an opportunity for the flesh.

They came in and brought their money and lied about it, and said, oh, oh we sold everything, this is all we have, because we are so godly, we’re so holy. Nothing more nauseating than the person who thinks they are holy and they are trying to be. And boy we’re so spiritual, and boy, we’ve done all of this for God, and they were lying, they had kept back some of it for themselves. Ananias came in first with that testimony and then his wife Sapphira came in second with that testimony, and the Bible says that God killed them both on the spot. And the young men took them out and buried them. What was that. That was false teaching through their example and influence of what? They wanted people to get their minds off of Jesus and onto how great they were. God says if any man destroy the temple of God, I will destroy him. God’s keenly and seriously and severely involved in protecting the sanctuary where he dwells. Sanctuary is us. Be careful about your influence in the church.

Number three, not only the definition of the temple, or the sanctuary and the defense of the temple and the sanctuary, but thirdly the design for the temple. The design, there is a design or a pattern that God has for the temple. And I will not submit to you that this is an exhaustive pattern, but I think it is an important pattern. I’m talking about the individual sanctuaries now, you and I. Look at verse 17 of our text again, 1 Corinthians 3. He says: “for the temple of God is holy and that is what you are.” The temple of God is holy and that is what you are. Now there are three things I want you to see here, under God’s pattern for his sanctuary, his temple, which was what we are.

First of all, he wants us to be separated unto the Lord. Separated from the world unto him. As a matter of fact, look at 1 Corinthians 6:12: “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable, all things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” Now, whatever else Paul means by saying all things are lawful, I believe this is his emphasis. He’s saying, there’s nothing I can do, there’s no law I can break, or no part of the law I can break or violate or transgress, that will cause me to lose my justification before God, that’s settled. Jesus Christ hung on the cross, and took the judgement blow for all of my law breaking nature, habits, and potential, that’s done for. I mean, there’s no law I can break to bring them to the condemnation of God, Jesus has taken my condemnation. I believe that’s what he means by all things are lawful. Nothing’s going to cause me to lose my right standing before God.

But he says, but not all things are profitable, he says, I’m a new man now with a new nature and my heart’s desire and the drive, in other words, the purpose and the pattern of my life now, is to honor and please my Lord and advance his kingdom. So I’m only going to do that which would be profitable to make me more like Jesus and influence others to know and become more like Jesus. Though nothing can send me into hell, my love, because of my new nature is to honor my Lord and be a good influence for him, so I’m only going to be involved in what’s profitable. In other words, there are a lot of things out there, that may not even be sinful in the sense that scripture doesn’t forget them, but they can become a stronghold and they can become a hindering bondage in your life, and prevent you from being profitable, prevent you from having the influence and the testimony you need to have for God’s kingdom. So even though something may be permissible, you have to ask the question, does this really help me influence others for Christ. That’s what Paul means. It may not be unlawful, but is it profitable. He said, I’ll not be mastered by anything, I’ll not let anything run me, I want to control everything in my life, so that I can be the best witness I can be for Jesus Christ.

Then he goes to verse 13: “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food. But God will do away with both of them. If the body’s not for immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord is for the body.” First of all he says, now think about this. In this age and in this dispensation, God’s given you food and that’s good. And God’s given you a stomach and that’s good. And food’s for the stomach and the stomach’s for food, but even those will be done away with when you get glorified and you become the new true you. When you are glorified and you put on the new body in heaven, you may eat and drink—I know some of you are holding on to that with all your hearts, souls, mind, strength and everything, so I don’t want to take that away from you. But you’ll not need food in the same way that you need it now, that will be done away with, it will be a higher level. Maybe every time you eat food you’ll glow a little brighter, I don’t know. But its different. And Paul’s point is, that’s a good thing, but even that is going to be done away with, that’s not the highest level yet.

And then he talks about the body, because the particular sin in Corinth was sexual immorality. As a matter of fact, a slang word for being immoral was to be Corinthian. They would just throw it around, be a Corinthian meant to be sexually impure, its just, everybody did it in Corinth. And he’s trying to draw them out of this, this wicked sinful habit, and he says, I want you to know something, your body is not for sexual immorality, quite the contrary, that’s the antithesis of what your body’s for, your body was made for God, he designed you to be his holy dwelling place. It is abominable to take your body and use it in sexual immorality when your body was meant to be the holy place of God in heaven. You can build all the shrines you want and put all the gold and silver on those shrines and put altars in it and use the finest materials known to man, flown in from all over the world, but I want to tell you, the dwelling sanctuary, the holy place of God is the people of God. He says, don’t dare let your body be used for something so defiled and base as sexual immorality.

Verse 14, now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up to his power. He said, as a matter of fact, God has such a high view of your body, he’s going to raise your body up and glorify it one day. Folks, there’s nothing wrong with the physical body, God made it. Now its been corrupted by sin, but the body as God made it is good. Verse 15: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ, shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot. May it never be.” Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her, for he says, the two will become one flesh. There is a binding unity in the sexual act that is mystical in nature, you and I cannot understand it, but God designed it to form such a bond so that it would help husbands and wives keep their closeness and their commitment one to another. he says, you are going to take the holy temple where the holy God has chosen to dwell and join in in such a corrupt and defiled way to a harlot. Totally the opposite of what your body’s for. Now the body is for sexuality, and that’s blessed within marriage, that he encourages that in 1 Corinthians, within the body of marriage, but not in immorality.

Verse 17: “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him.” Verse 18: “Flee fornication, or flee immorality. Every other man, sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man’s sin’s against his own body.” By sinning against his own body what he means is you defile and you degrade it you cast vile reproach on the Lord’s sanctuary. When you commit sexual immoralities. He says, flee immoralities. You know some sins can be conquered by fight, but this sin can only be conquered by flight. You don’t mess with it, you don’t toy with it, you don’t debate with it, you don’t expose yourself to it, you flee the appearance of it. Flee it. Stay away from it. As the writer of Proverbs, as he’s exhorting his young son about being sexual pure, he talks about the door of the harlot or the adulteress, and what does he says. He says, don’t go near the door. In other words, don’t knock on the door and taunt with her and be friends with her and debate about it, flee it, don’t go near the door. Stay away from it. You’ll find yourself defiling and degrading and casting vile reproach on God’s holy sanctuary, your body.

Verse 19. He continues: “or do you not know your body is a temple, sanctuary again, not just the temple in general, the innermost, a holy place, where God is, of the holy spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own. You have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body.” Now this was talking about sin, the sin of sexual immorality, but the principles are very strong here. When you go out into the world this week, you are the dwelling place of God, just as much as when the church is collectively sitting in here today. What would you allow to go on in your life this next week that you wouldn’t allow to go on in this church building tonight? We are the sanctuary of God. You are, I am the sanctuary of God. There needs to be a separation unto the Lord, but closely related to that one, number two, there needs to be a saturation by the Lord.

A saturation by the Lord. Look at Ephesians 5:18-19. And you may think that’s a trite way to word it, saturation by the Lord. But the way the text is worded in Ephesians 5:18 and 19, the word applies very, very well. Ephesians 5:18: “do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation. That’s a waste. But be filled with the spirit.” Then he says, speaking to one another in psalms and humans and spiritual songs and singing and making melody with your heart for the Lord. Now first of all he says, do not get drunk with wine, and you know the understanding again, wine was used in Bible days, but they would take it and dilute it down so that it has the lowest intoxicating level possible, so that you could drink it with your meals or as needful for refreshment and you would not become intoxicated. But then there were those who tried to sit long at the wine, or who would find strong drink—its a different Greek word then the word here for wine—and they would try to receive the intoxicating nature. Because they wanted that peace that it brought, or that joy that it brought, or that happiness that it brought. But you know what alcoholic beverages, they are satan’s counterfeit spirit. Its a counterfeit for the real thing, that’s what it is. Its a counterfeit spirit.

Have you ever noticed on the signs, out in front of the restaurant, “food, and spirits,” they are right. Its the counterfeit holy spirit. Its not the real spirit. In other words, you take a shot or two of this stuff and you’ll start feeling joy, you’ll start feeling peace, you’ll start feeling courage, you’ll start feeling better about yourself, God says its the counterfeit, don’t get that, get the real stuff that brings joy. That brings peace, that brings contentment, that brings courage, my holy spirit. Isn’t it amazing in the world, satan always has his counterfeit, then there is the real thing. There’s the real thing. And the phrase here, “be filled with the spirit,” the Greek scholars tell us, is imperative mood, which means its a command, which means you don’t have an option. You are to go out in this world and see to it, God commands you, be filled with the spirit.

And I’m not talking about some sort of once in a lifetime experience, where you have the evidence of speaking in other languages. That’s not what the text is talking about here, its talking about you seeing to it on a daily moment by moment basis, that no sin is between you and God and you are under the control of the holy spirit, whereby as you walk along you are aware of and listening to those initial promptings of the holy spirit in your life. You see, some of you remember the time when you walked along with God and you could sense those promptings, you sensed them. You obeyed them. And then you became calloused and you became hardened, and now you zoom right along, and if the holy spirit ever speaks you never know it, you are insensitive and you’re not being filled—literally you could translate it “keep on being filled with the spirit.” Don’t grow calloused, don’t grow hardened, yield to God, let the holy spirit have his way and his sway in your life.

I’ll never forget the illustration that Dr. Adrian Rogers shared about the time that he went to a science fair and they had all kinds of little gadgets, little things over here and little things over there, and it was an outdoor science fair, and he said, I was just walking around amazed at all the trinkets and the intricate designs and the engineering feats of all of those machines. And he said, over in the far corner of the exhibit there was a man over there at a water pump and he was just pumping as hard as he could go and water was gushing out of the pump. And he said, I walked around for a little while longer and I looked back over there in the corner and that guy was still over there with his hand on that old fashioned pump, just pumping as hard as he could go, and that water was gushing out. Then a few moments longer, later, I was looking at some other exhibits, I looked back over there again, that guy is still there, his hand on that old fashioned pump, just going, and water gushing out, and he said, I’ve got to go talk to this guy.

Man, he’s something to pump that water that long. He said, you know what I found. I got over there and I found out he was a stick man with a hinge in his elbow and his arm was attached to one of those old timey pumps, and but that pump was on top of an old artisan well, that water gushed up by itself, he was just hanging on, and the water was pumping him. That’s what God’s talking about. Folks, you don’t work it up, strain at it, do all of this stuff to try to get it, you just get in the flow of it and it pumps you. Hang on to God, let him flow through you in power. People will see the difference in your life. Saturated with the Lord. Nothing in my life that hinders the influential flow and power of the holy spirit. People talk about I’m worn out, I’m burnt out, I’m dried out, I believe Leon Kilbreath is right, he said, I’ve never seen an overworked Baptist, just a lot of underpowered ones.

Amen walls. You out there struggling around in the power of your flesh, and you’re burnt out and you are crumbling and you whine and you complain and you moan, and say, I’m not going to do it next year, get in the power of the spirit. Let God’s power work through you. You won’t get burnt out and you won’t dry out. You’ll be flowing on him. These preachers talk about, well, I’d rather burn out then rust out. You don’t burn out when you are burning him. Amen. He’s infinite. You just flow right along with him. Flow right along with him. What the problem is, a lot of Baptists are trying to build the church. Get out of God’s work. Get out of God’s work, God will build his church, you get out of his way. You just be like the stick man, hanging onto the pump at the artisan well. God, you take off, and scare some of ya’ll to death to let God have his way. You’ve controlled it so long. You’ve seen what you can do. And God saying, will you get out of my way and trust me and let me flow the stream through you.

Well, for God’s sanctuary, he wants you separated from the world unto him. He wants you saturated with him. And thirdly he wants you seen by the world. Have you ever wondered why when God saved you he left you in this God forsaken, ungodly place? He made you his and then left you here. There’s a purpose for that. He wants people to see himself in you. That’s why you are still here. You are not still here to build that new home, even though it may be fine to build that new home, but that’s not why you are here. You’re not here to make that next 10,000 or that 100,000 or that five million, now it may be okay to do that, but that’s not why you are here. Jesus said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Jesus said, I’m the light of the world. And I want to tell you, Jesus still is the light of the world, as a matter of fact, he says, you’re the light of the world also. And he’s still seeking and saving that which was lost but now he’s doing it through his sanctuaries. Through us. He’s in us. We’re getting in on what he’s going to do. What he’s going to accomplish. He’s still doing that. You know when explorers would land upon some untraveled land and the hospitable natives of the land would come and greet them at the shore, sometimes they would have bracelets and necklaces of rough gold. Those explorers knew there must be grand stores of gold in the interior of the land, they wanted more of what they saw. That’s what God is purposing to do through his sanctuaries today. Now Jesus all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily, now we have all of God in us in the person of the holy spirit, but he don’t reveal all of himself, but he reveals aspects of who he is through us.

And the goal of that is so the world will see that and they will be drawn to want to know more of it. More of the true one who lives in us. And that they’re seeing in us. When people see something of our Master in us, then they will be drawn to find out more about him. Galatians 5:22 and 23 is the key. The fruit of the spirit, the manifestation that you are truly a holy or a spiritual person. What are those fruits? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Those are the—you see out there on Monday morning, are you listening. When you go to work one old boy comes in and he’s gripping and he’s negative, everybody’s evil to him, hates this work place, you come in as the sanctuary of God. And you don’t demean him. But he sees you are under the same circumstance, but in your life, he sees as a pattern: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, particularly in this case, self control of the tongue.

Then he says, “what does that guy have that I don’t have. I want to know who he knows.” And he’s drawn to your God. That’s the way the sanctuary is seen. Now we have lively services in here, and we have exciting things, and that’s good, we’re all emotional creatures. My dear friend, you listen to me. When the holy spirit is ruling in a life, the grand factors, not the signs and wonders and miracles, God may or may not do that stuff. We know in different dispensations, he did more of that than at other dispensations. But I want to tell you, there will be a distinctive mark of true holiness in the daily lifestyle of that believer who is holy and filled with the spirit of God. That’s what the world longs to see. There was a Roman emperor who had a pantheon. In his pantheon he had one pedestal, and upon that pedestal he had Jesus Christ. And right beside that pedestal was another pedestal, and on that pedestal was Plato. And that’s the way some of us are tonight in this building. In the sanctuary you’ve enthroned more than one God. And you wonder why no one’s drawn to Jesus through your life.

The church today is too often made up of members who are not separated unto God, and they are not saturated with God, as individual’s sanctuaries. So individually their lives have no impact. And since individually their lives had no impact, they turned to all sort of fleshly foolish notions of how to draw people to the church. And that’s not our job, its God’s job to draw people. We’re to be real sanctuaries and let him do the drawing. Here’s some of the things that I think churches are doing because individually as sanctuaries they have no impact, so they are trying to manufacture something corporately to amuse people. First of all, they do surveys of the unregenerate community, asking them what they want in a church and then they try to do that. God help us. The Bible says the unregenerate are blind, they do not know what they need. They cannot see what they need. How dare us go to the unregenerate community, survey them about what we need as a church.

Its not our church. I’ve heard of visitor cards, where they ask the visitor this question: “How are we doing and how can we improve.” Well, I understand why we would do that. But I think that question should have more. It should say, are you born again, are you spirit filled, are you grounded in sound doctrine, if you are, then analyze how we’re doing and tell us how we can do it better. Are you with me church. We’re not out there running just some other self help group or some other benevolent society, this is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s given us the dictates and the mandates of how to establish it, set it up and how to run it. And if we do it right and with the right spirit, he’ll draw the right people to that. And even though there is good in this, I think much too often there is negative in this.

And that is when the church advertises all the time that this is the place for family. I don’t if it is or not. Is your family saved? Is your family spirit filled, does your family love Christ and love the word and love sound doctrine, if they don’t, its not a place for your family. Are you following me? We have people in this church that because they got saved and were baptized and starting honoring the scriptures, their families disowned them. Jesus said that would happen. So its not always a place for family. We’re not trying to design a thing that’s good for family, we’re trying to design a church that’s good for the Father. And he’ll draw men that he wants to that. This is a place of good times. Whatever it might be, I don’t know, what’s your idea of a good time. Honoring Jesus Christ then this is a place that you could call having a good time. But not just having a good time in the flesh.

All of this stuff, all of these fabrications and gimmicks and fads and notions and attempts of creating something within the walls because we’re really having no impact as individual sanctuaries out there through the week. We must avoid that, all of that is so, so, so, soulish. Human. Man inspired. You listen to me. Give me just a few people, who will be sanctuaries that are separated unto the Lord, no matter what the cost, who are saturated with the Lord, they purpose daily to walk, the pattern of their life is to walk filled with the spirit. You put them out there and be seen by the world, you’ll just keep having to build buildings to hold all the people who will be drawn to that. But if you’ve got to put on big old shenanigans to draw men because something fascinating is going on, but they are not really seeing much in your individual life, you don’t have nothing, you’ve drawn a crowd, but you haven’t build a church.

Let’s let Christ build his church. Let’s be true sanctuaries. The new building over there, I’m not sure what we’ll call it, if you like the name sanctuary, that’s fine with me, I’m teasing with some of you about it, that’s fine. I understand what you are saying. But its not the dwelling place of God. We are. We are. Spurgeon called his new building a meeting house, Adrian Rogers called their new 7,000 seat auditorium a sheep shed. I don’t know what to call ours. But I will not call it a sanctuary. Because that’s what you are, and what I am. Let’s stand together.