Seventh Sunday a Epiphany, 2011 Immanuel Chapel, I Cor. 3:10-23
I Corinthians 3:10b-11, Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid.
My name is Paul. On behalf of Temple Tours I welcome you to God’s Temple. I was the managing architect of this project. Sometimes people call me St. Paul. Actually, I’m simply a person whom God called to preach Christ crucified. Through Christ you are as much of a saint as I am. Before we start the tour, you should be aware that this tour will be unlike any temple tour you may have ever taken. God’s Temple is not like any other house of God.
Our first stop will be to consider the detailed drawings that the architectural company of Father, Son and Holy Spirit developed for God’s Temple. The outline of the drawings forms a cross. The lines of the cross are drawn with grace and peace. Grace is God showing favor to people who don’t deserve God’s favor. Grace is God showering forgiveness upon people who don’t deserve forgiveness. With grace comes peace. Peace is well-being, oneness, reconciliation and salvation with God through Jesus Christ. Christ not only made peace but in him peace is found.
The Chief Architect gave me the great privilege of laying the foundation for God’s Temple. God designed the temple according to his own wisdom. I laid the foundation according to God’s vision. The foundation is not concrete or stone, but the Stone that all other temple builders rejected. God’s material was Christ crucified. God chose what was weak and considered foolish to build what is substantial and long lasting. He chose, His Son, Jesus Christ who died on a cross as a criminal and as one who blasphemed God’s name.
You heard in the Old Testament lesson, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” In The Gospel lesson Jesus says, “You…must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” As you sometimes say, “good luck with that.” We are marred by the imperfection of sin. Sin means that we don’t dare get anywhere near God lest we be annihilated. It would be like throwing a sheet of paper into a roaring fire. Remember those three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who were foolish enough to worship God even though the king had forbidden it? They were bound and thrown into a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than usual. Yet, when the king and his people looked in what did they see? They saw four men walking around in the furnace without as much as a hair of their beards singed. You were bound in sin and headed for the fire of God’s judgment. God sent Christ into the world to rescue you.
Christ crucified is the only foundation upon which to build God’s Temple. In fact a temple of God, not resting on the foundation of Christ crucified is not God’s Temple. Furthermore, anyone building on the foundation of Christ must take care how he builds. Christ crucified is the standard. In the day when Christ returns God will judge whether what is built measures up. Whether the work endures depends not on the test of time, but on the test at the end of time. If anyone builds God’s Temple on the foundation of Christ crucified with anything other than the message of Jesus Christ, he builds with flimsy material. Success in worldly terms is not the measure. Making things exciting for people is not the measure. If a temple is built around someone’s personality, it is a shaky temple. If a certain style of worship, whether traditional or contemporary is the building material it is a building of uncertain material. If survival is the goal, it will end up short of God’s standard for His Temple. The builder will be saved, but he will see what he thought was God’s Temple perishing. He built on the basis of what he thought wise and not the powerful message of salvation through Jesus Christ. This is what I wrote to the Christians in Corinth, Greece, ”to the church of God…made holy by Christ Jesus and called to be holy, with all who anywhere call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These words were not read to a congregation of 10,000 meeting in a grand worship center. God’s Temple was a small group of people crowded into believers’ homes. God’s Temple in Corinth was not much to look at, “Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” Built on the foundation of Christ crucified, God’s Holy Spirit called them to faith and made them wise unto salvation. God had given them the power to be God’s children and live forever. God’s Spirit had united them as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, the king on the cross and victor over death.
As we continue our tour of God’s Temple, I want you, Immanuel Lutheran Chapel to take a look at yourself. You are God’s Temple. God’s Spirit dwells in you. I’m not talking about you as individuals; I’m talking of you as Immanuel Lutheran Chapel, God’s Temple in whom God’s Spirit dwells. Your baptism did not simply make you one with Christ, but one with one another in Christ. God’s Temple is not merely me and Jesus, but all who gather here at 11100 Old Halls Ferry Road. God’s Temple is more than you who meet at this location. God’s Temple is you plus “all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” Martin Luther in his explanation to the third article writes, “even as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.” The Holy Spirit is not only operating among us as individuals, leading us to believe and follow Jesus, but he works among us together as brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s the Holy Spirit who has bonded us together with God’s Son, Jesus Christ and our heavenly Father. It’s the Holy Spirit who has bonded us together as God’s Temple, present anywhere the goodness and the good news of Christ crucified is preached.
Therefore, woe to anyone who destroys this temple. You, Immanuel Chapel, are God’s Temple in whom God’s Spirit dwells. Once again, I’m not speaking of this building but you as God’s Temple built upon the foundation of Christ crucified. To destroy the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit is to sabotage faith and trust in Christ’s promises and thus drive out the Holy Spirit.
“But this temple is holy and you are that temple.” You are built of the wisdom and power of God. The Holy Spirit dwells in God’s Temple giving us the grace to understand God’s grace in Christ. The Holy Spirit works among us leading us to see and belief that in the piece of bread and the bit of wine we receive at the communion railing is the very body and blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit works among us, in spite of our sins and the undermining work of Satan, to enable us to see in one another God’s Temple built upon the foundation of Christ. Only Christ Jesus will keep us guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can count on God who has called us into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ. He is faithful.
Immanuel Lutheran Chapel, God’s Temple, you don’t lack anything, because God has given you every spiritual gift while we carry out his ministry, even as we wait for the day of the Lord to come. You are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.
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