BELIEVERS OR DECIEVERS
1 Corinthians 3:16-20 (NLT)
Intro: A dog food company’s latest product was not selling very well, so the president called a board meeting to discuss why.
The advertisement department said the ads were great and going full speed ahead. The research and development team said the product was designed to sell with the latest of technology.
The president of the company wanted to know why the dog food was not selling if everything was so great. One manager timidly stood up and said, “It’s those stupid dogs, Sir; they won’t touch the stuff.”
Consumers want their money’s worth of whatever it is they are buying. They don’t want to be bamboozled. You can have the greatest marketing campaign in history, but if the product itself is not good, it won’t sell. And that is not just limited to the things we might buy in a store.
That can be extended to almost everything in our lives; even the church.
. You can have slick ad campaigns to sell your church and all kinds of programs but if you are not genuine, eventually people will realize that what you are selling is not very good.
. People expect us to be genuine……….
. There is a story of a man in Nigeria that went around telling everyone he was in the military. He wasn’t really in the military, but when people heard him saying he was, they would give him many benefits only due a soldier.
He received discounts at different stores and many things were just outright given to him for his service in the military.
This went on for several years and then one day the military police came and arrested him. They charged him, not with impersonating a soldier, but with being AWOL from his duties. Why did they do this? Because they took what he said at face value and expected him to be who he said he was.
And that is what the world expects from us as a church, and from you as a Christian, to live up to our words.
. The dog food folks thought they could make dogs like the food through their marketing and promotions but the dogs saw right through that didn’t they?
The same is true for us as Christians and as a church.
. We need to be Believers, not Deceivers.
. Many today who claim Christianity show no discernable difference in their lives than those who are not Christian.
. So tell me; who are you? Are you a Christian who really tries to live for Christ, or are you a person who goes to church, claiming to be a Christian, but continuing to be the same person that you have always been.
.If you are a true Christian, a believer, then you are God’s temple. You are the dwelling place of the Almighty, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you.
. If not, then maybe you are a deceiver.
. Our scripture this morning talks about being believers. About being the Temple of God.
. We are back in 1 Corinthians this morning 3:16-20.
. Paul has been teaching the Corinthian Christians and us that there was only one true leader of the Church and that we should base our faith on what Jesus taught. He warned them about building their lives out of things that did not matter but rather on things that were precious. Paul was talking about our spiritual lives and how we live out our faith.
Then he tells them this:
. 16Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
17God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
18Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise.
19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”
20And again,” The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise;
he knows they are worthless.”
The first thing we see here is that there is a:
. Reality to God
. Look at verse 16 again:
. 16Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
. Paul writes that you need to understand, you need to realize something.
. That light bulb needs to go off over your head.
.In the movie Jurassic Park, there was a scene when this expert on dinosaurs came face to face with one of the dinosaurs for the first time. What did he do? He dropped to his knees in fear. See, there is a big difference between studying about something that does exist, and encountering it – living and breathing right in front of you.
. There is a big difference in the theoretical and the actual.
. Sadly, for many people, religion or faith is all theoretical. It is not a reality that is practiced in their lives.
. Paul tells us that the reality is that if you are a believer, a true believer then the reality is that God lives in you.
. “…Spirit of God lives in you” Paul writes.
. Together you make up the Temple of God. You believers are the dwelling place of God.
. God lives in each individual Christian in the person of the Holy Spirit. And God lives in His church as individual Christians come together to worship Him. In other words, God dwells both in you and in the church, which is made up of others just like you.
. He is not dwelling in you and in the church in some abstract concept or design; He is dwelling in you in reality, just as much as you are really sitting in that pew right now. God is in this place as I am speaking.
. In true believers, God is present when you are present.
. That doesn’t mean just Sunday morning.
.It means that when you get out of bed in the morning, God is with you.
. When you are driving to work or getting ready for school, God is with you.
. As you go through your day, God is with you.
. You are with God and He is with you all day.
. Before Christ, God would meet with his people in the Temple, now we are his Temple.
. The church is not this building that you are sitting in this morning. This is a place of worship but it is not the Church.
. The church is made up of believers who have the Spirit of God living in them and they live each day with the realization that they are the church. God dwells inside of them, not in the four walls that they worshipped in.
. That’s not to say that God is not here this morning but He is not confined to these walls. If you are a believer, you brought God with you this morning. He didn’t sit here and wait for you all week. You brought Him in with you.
. Christians, there is something you need to realize, You are the Temple of God and He dwells within you and when the world looks at you, they are supposed to be looking at God .
. Believers must come to the realization that God is more than theoretical, there is a reality that God lives within us.
Next we see that not only must we accept the reality of God but that there is also a:
. Reality of Truth
Look at verse 18&19 again:
. 18Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise.
19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”
. Paul writes that the world will tell you that God resides in Temples and churches. Not within individuals.
. You are deceiving yourself and those around you if you think that God can be put in a box and confined to a once a week activity.
. That’s what the world will tell you.
. They will tell you that your faith is man made and that there is no actual truth in it.
. They tell you that we all strive to find something to believe in and whatever we settle on is just as good as anything else.
. They scoff at the idea that God would use a criminal to save mankind.
. To them this is foolishness.
. You see, by the worlds standards, what we believe is foolish.
. The church has moved from the message of the cross to one of self fulfillment. Self realization and motivation.
. The church has evolved into a self centered what can you do for me rather than a body of believers who carry God with them wherever they go.
. Many church members believe these things and are being deceived by them.
. Paul writes that this is not enlightenment, this is deception by the standards of this world.
. If you are falling into this wave of inclusion where the world tells you that you don’t have a monopoly on truth, then you are being deceived.
. There is a reality of truth and it is found in God.
. The truth of God is this:
. Man, through his own actions has separated himself from God.
.John tells us that God, In his love for his creation did this.
16“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
17God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
. Jesus did not come to judge and condemn us, He came to save us.
. The world thinks this is foolishness.
. The truth of God is:
. That Jesus Christ died on a cross to pay the penalty for mans sin that separated them from God.
. That Jesus Christ was dead and buried in a tomb and on the third day after his death, He rose from that tomb.
.Showing us that there is life after this physical death and that if we believe in what He did for us and accepts his death for the payment of our sin then we to could experience a life after death with Him.
. He promised to send the Holy Spirit to indwell or live within us so that we could carry God with us everywhere we go.
. That is why Paul writes that we are the Temple of God and that He resides within us..
. These are all truths and if you think that you can follow the world and know the truth, then you are deceiving yourselves.
. In order to become truly wise about the truths of God, we must look foolish or like fools to those who don’t know Jesus.
. Folks don’t let the philosophy of the day that God is confined in religion deceive you. That God’s place in your life is on Sunday morning.
. Christian, know that the Spirit of God lives in you if you are a believer and that you take him with you wherever you go.
There is a reality to God and there is a reality of truth in who God is.
Invitation.
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources: The Holy Bible, NLT
Bruce Ball, “Worship & Honor” , sermon central
