Presence and Worship – Our Body is the Temple

We’ve been looking at 4 keys to help make 2017 the best year yet

Those keys are, in no particular order:

Worship

Word

Presence

Prayer and Fasting

I think all of us would agree that these 4 things are most definitely keys to a successful Christian life

We have looked at each of these 4 keys and started to explore them, but have by no means done an exhaustive study on any of them

What I want to do today is combine 2 of them, Worship and Presence, while at the same time clarifying a statement that you often hear in Christian circles

You ever notice that life is full of cliché statements?

Statements like:

Never look a gift horse in the mouth

Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in the morning, sailors take warning

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Hindsight is 20/20

Some of these clichés in life are true, some of them are not

Some of them have lost their meaning over the years

Christianity is full of these clichés

Often they are given as quick answers to otherwise complex situations

Many times when this happens the cliché causes more damage than good

In fact, I’ve often thought about doing a sermon series on these potentially damaging Christian Cliché’s, and maybe someday I will

But today I just want to take a look at one of them as it relates to our current series of having the best year yet

Which cliché do I want to look at?

“Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”

If you’ve hung around church circles for a while this is a phrase that we often hear

Typically it’s used when someone wants spiritual justification for judging someone else

Examples: smoking, tattoos

            Double Standard

Is this an accurate cliché, and if so what does it mean?

Let me start out by saying that it is definitely accurate

4 different times in the New Testament we see references to the fact that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit – Twice in 1 Corinthians, once in 2 Corinthians, and once in Ephesians

Let’s take a brief look at each of these passages to see what they are saying

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷  If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

There is an important translation note to make here to understand this passage

In the English language the word “you” can be either singular or plural

When I use the word “you” I can be talking about you as an individual or you as a group

In many languages, including Greek – which is the language the New Testament was written in – there is one word used for “you singular” and another for “you plural”

In this passage the word “you” is plural – meaning the Corinthian Christians together as a group are God’s temple

When put in context what this passage is talking about is that if a false teacher comes in and through teaching false doctrine destroys the local church, then God will destroy that false teacher

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰  you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

The “you” used here is singular, referring to the person themselves

When put in context this verse is speaking about sexual immorality, specifically sex with prostitutes

Paul is saying that we should honor God with our bodies and not participate in sexual immorality

2 Corinthians 6:16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

The “you” used here is plural

When we put this in context it is speaking of believers and unbelievers being “unequally yoked”

This could be referring to marriage or any kind of binding legal agreement such as a business partnership

Ephesians 2:19-22 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, ²⁰  built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

The “you” used here is plural

When put into context here Paul is discussing the fact that Gentiles – people that are not Jewish – are to be included in the Church

That together, all of us, regardless of our nationality and former lives, are being built together to form God’s temple

So yes, the statement “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” is most definitely biblical, but what exactly does it mean?

As we can see it doesn’t really have much to do with bad habits that affect our health, tattoos, piercings, or anything like that

Although I do believe that we should take care of our bodies, we shouldn’t use the phrase “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” as justification to judge someone else

So what does it mean that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

We need to remember that even though the Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God that is was also written to a specific group of people at a specific time

Many times to understand what is being said we need to understand the culture of the day

Take any given culture in any time period and there are things that are understood plainly by them that may not be understood by another culture or another time period

Example: Video stores

We understand what they are, but kids in elementary school today do not

“You mean you used to have to drive to Netflix?”

So, to understand the meaning of the statement “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” there is one specific word that we need to define first

The word is Temple

I think all of us have a basic understanding of what a temple is I want to take a look at how believers in the first century would have understood Paul’s reference to it

According to Unger’s Bible Dictionary temple is defined as:

A building set apart for the worship of a deity

At the time that Paul referenced our bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit we need to remember that the Jewish temple was still standing in Jerusalem

This was the third temple – really a remodel of the second temple, also called Herod’s temple, and it stood until 70AD when it was destroyed by the Romans

In the Jewish culture everything revolved around the temple

The temple was the focal point of their faith, as well as their identity as a nation

The temple was where sacrifices were made

And most importantly, the temple was where the presence of God dwelt

This concept of God dwelling inside a temple was not unique to Judaism

Virtually every other god in the ancient world had a temple – most of them had multiple temples

If you wanted to seek the favor of your god, you would go to the temple because that was where your god lived

First century Jews were no different

When Solomon built the first temple he placed the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the physical presence of God on the earth, into the holy of holies

The holy of holies was the most sacred part of the temple – so sacred that only one person, the high priest, could enter it – and then only once a year

If anyone walked up to any first century Jew and asked them where the presence of God was, they would point to the temple

In fact, they would probably do so with a look that expressed “you’re not too bright are you?”

It was a cultural fact that gods lived in temples – everyone knew that

So, here comes Paul writing to Christians and telling them “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”

In other words – your body is set apart for the worship of God

You were designed for worship!

Not only that, but your body, both collectively and individually, is where the presence of God dwells

This would have blown the minds of first century believers!

Gods live in temples, not in people

But Paul says 4 different times that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit

God lives within us individually, as well as collectively!

We carry God with us wherever we go!

Even though this would have blown the minds of Paul’s audience, it was not a new concept

In John chapter 2, right after Jesus cleared the temple courts of the merchants and money changers, He makes this statement:

John 2:19-22 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." ²⁰  The Jews 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.

Jesus referred to His own body as the temple of the Holy Spirit

This is significant because Jesus modeled for us what our lives should look like

He told us that we would do the same things He did, and that we would do even greater things

You hear me say this a lot, and you will hear me continue to say it

Every miracle that Jesus did was done through the power of the Holy Spirit that was living inside of Him

Yes, Jesus is fully God, but when He came to earth He willingly laid aside His deity and lived His life as fully human

All of His miracles were not done as God, they were done as a man functioning in the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of Him

Those of you that have been around Harvest Family Fellowship for a while might be saying “yeah, yeah pastor, we get it”

But I don’t think you do

If we truly understood that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit – that we were designed for worship and that we carry the fullness of the power of God within us – then I think we would live our lives a little differently

I think our faith would be bigger

I think are testimonies would be greater

I think our influence on those around us would surge!

We carry God with us wherever we go!

Wherever we are should be a better place simply because we are there!

Think about this – when Paul wrote “your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit” it was both singular, speaking of us as individuals, and plural, speaking of us as a group

So if a place should be better simply because one of us brings the Spirit of God with us, imagine how much better it would be if several of us showed up!

I don’t have to go anywhere to experience the presence of God, the presence of God lives in me!

With that being said, there are places that, for a season, seem to have a special outpouring of the presence of God

Two places that I have experienced are Toronto & Bethel

I used to wonder why they were different

Why the presence of God was so obvious there and not here

Then I heard a message from Bill Johnson about hosting the presence of God

Bill gave a great analogy that explained it well

He used the passage of Scripture where at Jesus’ baptism the Holy Spirit descended like a dove

It wasn’t a dove, it says the Spirit descended “like a dove”

But let’s say that a dove flew in here this morning and landed on your shoulder

If you wanted that dove to remain on your shoulder what would you have to do?

Every move you made, everything that you did, would have to be with the dive in mind

The reason why there are special places like Bethel church is because everything they do, every move they make, is with the presence of God in mind!

How different would our lives be if the same was true for us?

How different would this church be if this were our focus?

Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit

We are designed to worship God

We are designed to be a place where the fullness of His Spirit lives

My prayer is that we will finally understand that

When we do, I am convinced that we will experience the presence of God in ways that we could not even imagine!