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7The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. 4Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

5 For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, 6if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, 7then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors for ever and ever.

8 Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 9Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? 11Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.

1 Corinthians 3: 9 - 17

16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? reads vs. 16 of our New Testament reading. The commentaries tell us that Paul is asking the Corinthians a rhetorical question here, one to which they already know the answer – for effect. In modern parlance, something like, “For goodness sake, don’t you know who you are? You’re God’s temple, for crying out aloud, and God’s Spirit lives inside you!” And implied is the question, “So why on earth are you behaving as though this is not the case?”

We’ve all been challenged at times by the difference between what we claim to be and what we actually are. The words, “What you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear a word you’re saying” can cut deep.

When Paul tells us that we are God’s temple, he’s implying that if God really does live in us, then we’d evidence that fact in certain ways. If we really do have Christ as a foundation to the building of our lives, then we need to be careful how we build upon that foundation.

Is the quality of our build (gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw) capable of withstanding the fire that will test it?

The image of the temple representing the human being is an established one in Scripture. In John 2: 19 we read 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body.

The idea that when we are Christians God literally takes up his abode in us, is touched upon by St Paul in Colossians 1: 27, where he speaks of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” I once found this verse listed in an article called 76 Scripture References Most Christians Never Internalize.

I think one of the reasons we can so easily miss a foundational truth is because there is a misfit between the orientation of our culture (grasping, acquisitive, consumer-focussed, fast-paced and often superficial) and God’s ways which take time, focus and a critically important sense of who we are  - in other words, that our identity is one of Christ–follower. When we are conscious that we are first and foremost (before anything else) disciples of Jesus, that we stand before God 24 hours out of 24, we are far more inclined to have some of the central truths of our faith settle into us, and evidence themselves in what we say and do.

The reading from Jeremiah evidences a similar concern. Jeremiah is implying, “Don’t think that because the structure of the temple is there that, that will protect you. Your behaviour has driven me out.”

In verse 3 he writes, 3Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place.

Now Jeremiah is speaking to God’s people – the people of Israel, and Paul is speaking to God’s people, the church in Corinth. These are not words addressed to Gentile pagans; and when John the Baptist says to the Pharisees in Matthew 3: 8 8Bear fruit worthy of repentance, he’s saying the same thing. I want to see congruence in your life. He goes on to express in the next 2 verses, exactly the same concerns expressed by Jeremiah and Paul: 9Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 10Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

As is written in 1 Peter 4: 17 Judgement begins with the house of God

That reminds me of a bumper sticker on a muddy car which read, “Jesus is the answer.” Next to it was written with a finger, “What’s the question?” We all know the solution. Jesus is the solution.  We’re fairly happy with that. But do we accept the problem to which he is the solution, and do we accept our own culpability in that problem?

Some of the most searing sarcasm in Scripture is Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in Mark 2: 16 – 17  16When the scribes and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 17When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’

So where does that leave us? Where is the dove-tail joint, the nexus, the transition between the expectations of God on the one hand and our performance on the other? What enables us to be consistent in our housing within us the God whose intention it is to live within these temples of ours?

Well it’s quite simple really. Where there’s a will there’s a way. And in this instance the will is ours and it needs to give way to God. We need to be willing to accept some of the much vaunted but seldom internalised principles of our faith.

·        The first is that God’s love for us so much greater and far-reaching than we think it is.

·        The second is that we have an absolute knack for fooling ourselves when it comes to our sin, i.e. for acknowledging our need of God.

·        The third is that the blood of Christ really does get rid of our sin, that Jesus’ death on the cross is effective. As the Scripture says, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

·        The fourth is that God requires a response – a response of repentance and faith.

It is that which will create (and I use the word create advisedly for we cannot manufacture this on our own) a strong sense of the living Christ within us.

We can reach out to God with all the vigour we like, but without acknowledgement of our need it is of little use. We can acknowledge our sinfulness and beat our breasts with all the sincerity we can muster, but without a faith in the effectiveness of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross it will get us nowhere. In the former case we are deluded – applying the solution to the wrong problem doesn’t help. In the latter case we are simply miserable – ineptly applying the solution to the problem doesn’t help either. We need both repentance and faith.

John Henson, a Scottish minister whom I’ve quoted before, has just published a book called The Humility of God. In it he writes, “Before we see the crucifixion as something God in His humility did for us (leading us to faith is His atoning work, worship and adoration) we need to see it as something we did to Him (leading us to humble ourselves in broken-hearted repentance).”

It’s not that difficult – as long as we surrender our wills - and deliberately and definitely turn from our independence from God, and deliberately and definitely turn to the risen Christ. This same risen Christ says in Revelation 3: 20 to the lukewarm Church of Laodicea, 20Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. It’s Christ’s promise that he will enter into us.

When that happens we’ll be transformed by God himself: and have the ability to live congruently, to walk the talk, to be the kind of temples which really do house God’s Spirit. And there is no greater sense of joy, sense of purpose or sense of satisfaction than that.

God bless you all

AMEN.

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