I asked Felix a minute ago if I could borrow his watch. He said, you can have her, but I don't know what you need it for. He said, I've got a calendar. We'll have a meeting with the personnel committee right after service tonight. It's been an exciting day in our church. All of us are aware of the fact in recent Sundays that God seems to be doing something very special. I saw one little girl running across the parking lot to come to Sunday school this morning. And she ran, cleaned out of one of her shoes. She was just that excited to get here. And that's excited, being excited about getting to the house of God. Well over 1 ,500 right here. That means a good 2 ,000 in all of our Sunday schools and missions and Bible studies and everything. And God is certainly blessing. And I'm just, I'm learning so much myself. Well, we need always to be open to the truth of God. I have, I have learned a good deal about the body and the gifts of the body as I've studied. I've learned this week that, I learned today that I do not have the gifts of preaching 20 minutes. I've just about given up on that. I have, I have even learned the last couple of few months about the gifts of the body by my recreation. I play racquetball at the YMCA regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Shortly after Doug Day joined our staff, we were playing. And Doug is an athlete and he was beating me to death day after day, week after week. And one day I said to him, well son, I'll tell you one thing. You might stay on this staff that way, but you'll never get a raise playing that way. And you know, I beat him in every other game we ever played. Now that boy's smart. I mean, there's the gift of knowledge if I've ever seen it. And a few days ago I was playing Harry Pylan, who's a good athlete. And he was beating me to death at about 21 -zip, 21 -6, 21 -2 like he usually does. And all of, I was real down and discouraged. And all of a sudden one day I, I beat him for some unknown reason, three games in a row. I rather think that's the gift of mercy. But I appreciate so much the staff and their exercising their gifts toward this pastor who needs them. Well, we didn't get out at 12 today, did we? We'll get out by 12 tonight and I promise to make up for that. I'm really sorry. This wonderful Gerald Ray, you know, Well, they asked me to print it in the bulletin this week earlier what I would preach on tonight. And being that we're having a youth emphasis, I just said, call it Arise, O Youth of God. That'll cover anything. And I didn't really have my message ready until about Friday. Well, it's a few minutes ago to say the truth. And when I decided to preach on your body, the temple of the Spirit of God, and the Lord gave me that message and I got it all together and I came in here and discovered that that is precisely everything you had been singing on tonight. The Lord works on both ends, doesn't he? I thank God for minutes of music that lets the Lord Jesus' Spirit speak to and through him. This is the only church in the world where the music is so good that the preacher calls the song leader about every Friday before he gets his sermon up and says, what are you singing on this week? And I try to make my message fit his music. And we've done that again tonight. And I want you to open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. And for very few moments, I want to speak to you about your body, the temple of the Spirit of God. I welcome our young people. I honor them. I express appreciation on behalf of all of us to our host family. And I say a double -fold God bless you to you wonderful instructors. I tell you, I sat in my study with them for an hour Thursday night. And it is, it is inspiring to an old preacher's heart to see such young, dynamic preachers as these coming along on the scene. They are a fantastic breed, this generation, of 20 and 21 and 22 -year -old young men of God, a la David and Doug and this kind of young man. And aren't we thankful to God for them? What a thrill it is to know that the next generation is going to be well cared for. and God bless you young men, thank you for coming and giving us of your time this weekend. Now I want us to turn to Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, please, and in chapter 3 we'll read verse number 16 and 17. 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16 and 17. Now we ought to know where 1 Corinthians is by now, hadn't we? 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 19 and 20. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 16. What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God. And now over to 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 16. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 16. And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean things, and I will receive you. The apostle Paul was probably the most brilliant and committed man that ever lived since the day of Jesus Christ himself. As far as I can tell, he possessed all of the gifts. He was a brilliant man, schooled in the finest schools of theology and rabbinical teaching. He was committed. He gave his life to the gospel. And is, of course, the chief apostle. As such, he was naturally a master communicator. He knew how to plug in to people's brains, where they were, and relate to them with an identity in communication that was unparalleled. Save in the life of our Lord himself, he taught in brilliant parables, always couched in terms familiar with his ears. Such did the apostle Paul. It is interesting to me to note that in three times, in the two letters that he wrote to the same church, that the apostle uses an expression which he says that the believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit of Jesus Christ indwells your body like a temple. I rather imagine that Paul, writing to this crazy, mixed -up, confused, worldly, backslidden apostasy called the Corinthian church, was saying in his heart that I've got to get across to them something that they can comprehend, something that they will understand, which is a marked reality in their lives. And so he chose something that was very, very real to them, in which they were extremely familiar, and said, your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. Now, if in fact, Paul was trying to relate to something that lay in the sphere of their comprehension when he said, your body is the temple of the Spirit of Christ, God lives in you Christians as a temple, and I think it is quite natural to assume that he must have been referring to a Greek temple, because they lived in a Greek culture and could relate to that kind of temple, not to a high -powered, ornate temple such as the Herodian Temple in Jerusalem, but something that they knew, that they passed every day, and with which they could identify and relate. I rather imagine that if Paul, we can assume, was writing to them about a Greek temple, that he was probably writing about a Corinthian temple, a temple that was in their city of Corinth, ten city of the world, that they knew and could understand. Now, if this was the case, and he was in fact talking about a Greek temple, yea, a Corinthian temple in their very city, then I think it is safe to assume that he must have been talking about the Corinthian temple, the temple to the god Apollo, the temple Apollo where the goddess, where the miniature god Apollo dwelled. 146 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the Roman army had come to track the city and level it and everything lay waste except the temple of Apollo. A hundred years later when Corinth was rebuilt, the temple was still there, a glistening, sterling landmark for all the world to know and understand. Then when Paul, still another hundred years in the future, would write his first and second letters to the church at Corinth, the temple now many hundreds of years old, having withstood all of the devastating tragedies of the Roman oppression and all of the experiences of its history. Now still there, there was no doubt in Paul's mind and in the Corinthians mind that here was something special, something unique, something historic in their landmark. Thus is it in the theology and experience of every believer that God would have us to understand that we likewise are the temple of God. I want you to imagine with me, if you will, for a moment that it's just a few minutes after noon on a beautiful Sunday morning. Now the early church had met as they were wont to do in those days in the home of a fellow Christian. And there after the service had been concluded, a service of testimonies and prayer requests, the singing of some of these early hymns, probably with only the accompaniment of scat flute and lyre. The worship service was about to conclude when someone stood to read a letter. And the grand crescendo of that experience of worship was now upon them, as with bated breath they prepared to listen to the word of God that was the very oracle of God come from the apostle of God, Paul himself. And perhaps with or without invitation, a closing comment, yea, save a simple benediction. The Spirit of God began to breathe as for the first time the little assembled congregation heard the message of God that was written specifically for them. Now they had received a similar letter about a year, maybe a year and a half ago. It was very much like it, except that it was a longer letter. The shorter letter, the second letter to the Corinthians was replete with Paul's insistency on integrity and doctrine and commitment and complete understanding that men and women who live in Sin City were not to be like Sin City, and something seemed to stand out in the mind. Perhaps there was a man there. Let's imagine that his name was Nicholas. After the services had concluded, there were the usual greetings, the farewells, the promise, to pray for one another, the reassembly, commitment on the next Lord's Day, and Paul started home. And as he began his homeward trek to meet his wife Lydia, who was ill that day, and perhaps had not been in the service as he walked toward his home, maybe two or three miles, something danced in his eye, and the glistening sunlight reflected off of a beautiful object, and he turned to see it had been there so many years, but somehow it had never quite made the impression on him that it did this particular bright Sunday summer afternoon. And Nicholas saw again the temple. Yes, that's what Paul was talking about. The beautiful temple of Apollo. The temple of Apollo. And Paul began to think, now what was Nicholas began to think, now what was it that Paul was trying to say to us in that letter? Oh, I remember your body is the temple of God. And he begins to look at the temple, and several things run through his mind. I would suggest to you that as he began to relate in his heart the message that God was trying to get across to him, that first of all, it occurred to him that the temple of Apollo was specified. It was a special, particular temple. That is to say that the resident thereof was unique, he was designated, and he had been long since specified. And the temple of Apollo belonged exclusively to the god Apollo. That no one else inhabited the temple. And that God was saying that your body, your life is like that. And since the first day you met Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Jesus came to indwell you, and you have been set apart. You have been specifically marked for the exclusive habitation of the Spirit of Jesus. No Greek god or goddess, you see, was ever asked to share their temple with another Greek god. It was that way in the temple there, it was that way in the temple at Parthenon. And the goddess Hini, it was that way in Sunyan, and the god that lived in the temple at Sunyan, the god of the troublesome ocean waters, the god Poseidon, the true of Archimedes and Vista and Seacrops and Diana and Hercules and Thessmus and Thadmus and a hundred Greek gods. The temples were characterized by the specified nature of the fact that only one god at any time was to ever live in them, and there were no exceptions. I wonder somehow if Nicholas didn't seem to say, oh, now I see, now I know what Paul was talking about when he said that that one beautiful temple is to be for one deity, and two deities never share the same temple. And he must have begun to remember the teachings of God that said, you are to glorify God, therefore, in your body. You cannot serve God and mammon. I imagine that as he looked at this noonday sun, as it courses where it crosses bow, there must have come a new commitment, Lord Jesus. Thank you. Now I understand the press. Now I know what it means for you and you alone to be the Lord of my life. For you and you alone to be crowned exclusively the King and the Lord on the throne room of my heart, and there is no room for alien affection, no room for another god, no room for anyone else in my brain, in my heart, in my blood cells, in my body, in my being, in my soul. Jesus Christ used to be the only deity that indwells my personality. It is specified that my body is the temple of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and he will not share second billing with any other person or spirit. Well, we can imagine that as he walked along, perhaps somehow the sun again, perhaps it was the shadow from which he had walked by a passing, passed by a tree and come into the sunshine again, and it had glistened in his eye, and he looked back and remembered. And as always, he began to feel, maybe God is trying to say something to me. We can imagine that Nicholas must have paused for a few moments and looked over his shoulder again, and there began to come to him a sense, yes, yes, yes, God does want something else to me to say. And he began to look at it. And in light of the letter of Paul, there arose the reality in his heart of a whole new concept that he had never, ever seen before. That was that the temple of Apollo was a simple temple. A simple structure. There was nothing ornate about it. There were no flowers at the window. There was no fancy Greek and Roman architecture as there were on the sides of other buildings. It was always a simple, pristine, white, oblong, plain, temple building with just a few columns. Because nothing, but nothing was to distract from the central reality of the power and presence of that deity by which it was alive. Nothing about the temple was designed to draw attention to itself. It was there for the purpose, not of what it was, but to exclusively magnify the deity that lived inside of it in that little marble set. So simple it was that no one ever became so enamored with the temple that they failed to understand the priority of the presence of the deity within. Ah, I can imagine like a lightning flash from heaven. Nicholas must have began to say, Now I understand. Maybe that too is what the apostle was talking about when he said, My life is hid with Christ in God. And I must decrease that he might increase that in all things he might have the preeminence. Our Christian world has gone through a period of time, out of which I'm glad to say I think we're moving. The people that dress in gaudy, loud clothing and sequins and loud, a vociferous expression and everything must be a show and an excitement and you have to be a Christian by writing Jesus Christ across your t -shirt down in Galveston and during the Jesus evolution they were selling Jesus t -shirts and Jesus snow cones and Jesus popsicles and we went through a time that everything that we were doing seemed to be calling attention to everything but the simplicity of the man that lived on the inside. Young people, when we are in school I am saying to you that there must be the simple purity of a life by its very calmness and quietness and holiness that does not attract to itself but that attracts only to the Shekinah presence of the one who lives inside the temple. All that we are, all that we are, that in all things he might have the preeminence. Oh, how glad he must have been when he remembered me that that too is what Paul was trying to say. Well, as he walked on perhaps just a few blocks from his home now, again he turned for one final glimpse and there he saw something that he'd never really noticed that closely before. Perhaps coming around the side of a mountain he had wound a little bit closer down that pathway up near the temple as a man could go and then back down the little valley across the side of the hill into his home. And coming more closely than he had seen before he paused for chance for just a moment and looking inside he began to see something that he had seen a thousand times. He had been by there hundreds and thousands of times as a lad but somehow in light of the message of the apostle it had never quite touched him like that. There were the temple servants dusting, cleaning, scrubbing and he began to say in his heart, ah, that's it, the temple of God like the Greek temple to Apollo is a spotless temple. Now we have seen from our study thus far that there were two foundational gifted kinds of men to the church. Now we have seen from our study thus far that there were two foundational gifted kinds of men to the church, a prophet, the apostle, three continuing gifted ministries, pastors, teachers, evangelists, but there was a sixth, the word deacon, which was not a leader kind of office but a servant kind of office. The word deacon is a word that was borrowed from the Greek culture. It was borrowed from the pagan world. For a deacon, you see, was a man who lived inside a Greek temple and served the temple. And he spent all of his life dusting the temple, squeaking here, squeaking, squeaking, squeaking, dusting this, polishing the marble, cleaning up every step. For you see, it was unthinkable. It was unthinkable that a Greek temple dedicated to a Greek god within would have one tiny microscopic speck of dirt or soot inside of us to distract from the holiness of the god it lived in. Such was it that the Greek pagan deacon, they were working on the Lord's Day. They had no concept of the Lord's Day. It was a Sunday, and there they were, not caring a thing about the resurrected Christ, going about the one thing to which they had given their lives to do, the spotless, consistent purifying of the work of the temple. All that they did was seduce and clean and see to us that never the unthinkable, the lost insight of a spot inside a temple where dwelt a Greek god or goddess would exist. Paul says it like this. What? Shall I take the body, the temple of God, and join it to a harlot? Know ye not that to whom one is joined, the same are the same? Does it not follow that when you and I take the Spirit of God in our body, not only into an adulterous relationship and experience, but into an evil bookstore, into a filthy movie, that when we take dope and narcotics and drugs and alcohol and nicotine into our body, that when we let dirty thoughts and obscene talk and filthy language come out of our body, that we are making filthy the beautiful temple of the body in which the Spirit of Jesus Christ dwells. That's what he means. That's what Paul was saying. That my body in my junior high and my high school on my college campus would be kept spotless by constant confession and the repentance of sin. And incidentally, I am consistently impressed recurrently to believe that we don't have to ask God to forgive our sins as believers. All we have to do is to confess we did it and repent of it and cleansing is automatic upon confession. As sins are forgiven, we stay in relationship with it, but merely the acknowledgement that we are guilty. Now that's what the Apostle meant when he said, what Jesus meant when he said, if my words abide in you, and you abide in me, you shall ask what you will and it will not, and it will be done for you. What does that mean? That means that it is possible for the believer to stay in a constant space of unbroken fellowship. And we do it with spiritual breathing. It means that driving down the road, it means riding on a test in school, it means going out on a date, it means walking into church, it means stopping at the store, that at any time a thought, an idea of any kind of wrong passes my mind, immediately my heart shoots up a prayer to God, God, I get it, I'm sorry, I confess it to you, Lord, and claim cleansing by the blood and inhale the fullness of the Spirit. And we stay in a constant space of unbroken fellowship because the Spirit of God is in there. Oh, as you go from this place tonight, remember what it means for your body to be the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit of God, that Jesus lives in you. And think twice, yea, a thousand times before you act or do or look at or speak or touch or say anything in claim because we bring the Spirit of God into that kind of a dismal and dirty experience because He goes where we go, He lives in us. Well, as Lydia greeted him at the door, Nicholas perhaps walked and began to knock on the door, walking up the steps, to tell her the wonderful letter that had come from Paul, the good news he had learned that day. He looked over his shoulder one last time, and it dawns on him that there's one other thing that he's missed. That is a Greek temple is a spectacle. Simple, yes, in its construction, but that it is spectacularly placed always on the top of a mountain or always on the side or top of a hill. It was always the highest, most elevated thing in a Greek city. Why? That all the world may see not to call attention to the temple, but to call attention to the God that lives inside of the temple. Did not our Lord Jesus Himself say, You are the light of the world? A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Let your good works be seen before men that they may glorify. You know your Father which is in heaven. We're not to put our temples in a corner. We're not to hide our candles under a bushel. We are to be what we are simply and pure that the light of Jesus who lives in might be seen with us. But we are to move not of the world, but into the world to let our light shine in the strategy, in the strategic places of the world where men are that they might see the deity that lives inside of us. You know the Apostle Paul uses an expression here, and we have so many problems with the Old English version of the Bible. Not that there are bad translations, but that there are not the fullest translations. And when the Apostle Paul here says glorify god in your body your body is a temple of the spirit of god if any man defile the temple him will god destroy the word destroy is better from the greek translated discard discard the apostle paul was praying one day and he said in his letter that i think was a prayer to god for himself but god would be pure and holy lest he after having preached to others himself be a castaway now the word castaway is the word counterfeit and it is basically akin to this same word here discard here's the idea we didn't have the great government standards of gold and silver in those days by which to test the validity of certain pieces of coin and so some men were gifted at being able to take a little piece of silver and touch it and make it ring on the side of a piece of wood or a table or a piece of stone and listen to it and tell if it was counterfeit or it was the real thing just because it had the right kind of ring to it and if it didn't have that right ring somehow it just didn't ring through there was something regardless of what it appeared to be on the outside that was not real on the inside it was worthless and good for nothing but to be cast away good for nothing but to be discarded on the trash heap of lies that's what paul was saying that regardless of what i appear to be on the outside that my body that's the temple of the spirit of god in which jesus reflects himself to the world not calling it to myself but to the deity that lives in my heart must always have the pristine purity of the holy ring about it left to be discarded as a worthless counterfeit good for nothing that's what he wants of a heart that's what he wants of a wow that's what you are to be as you go into school tomorrow morning the commitment the challenge the encouragement of the sterling weekend ringing in your soul to be walking breathing living moving mobile testimony four walls temples of clay in which a deity lives the spirit of jesus somebody asked me the other day how many members do you have in the church i said well about eight thousand i knew what was coming next so i said uh all of them active by the way and that's always the next question how many active all of them active from four from again when i was at it as a background let me tell you the story and finish dr ralph herring for many years was charge of the seminary extension work for the southern baptist convention but before that was pastor of the first baptist church for many years of winston -salem north uh carolina or south carolina and uh he told a story to southern baptist convention some years ago in which he said that he had a relative a maternal grandfather on his side he was a noted and gifted organ player uh maker and he always wanted to have the privilege of going there his grandfather was from australia and one day they had the privilege to visit in australia and went to the town hall in sydney to hear a concert on this 200 on this hundred and some year old organ one of the world's great organs that was built by his own grandfather he said you cannot imagine my excitement when i walked in and sat there and looked at that magnificent musical instrument built by my own kissing chin said this organ has eight thousand six hundred and seventy two pipes that's one organ isn't it lou quite an organ well i'd like your lou play i don't think that anybody could do it as well as he he said as he sat down and breathlessly waited to hear the wonderful music of this great sydney town hall organ he said somehow god seemed to get hold of him real hard and he began to say look at that gorgeous instrument but it's not making any noise it's not good for anything It's just a pipe. It's just wood and clay and steel. And God began to make him understand that regardless of the magnificence of the instrument, that it was really good for nothing. Powerless to charm and to bless without the breath and the bellows. I wonder what would happen. What sweet music could be made to the world if 8 ,000 of us, if 800 of us, would so let the Spirit of Jesus Christ fill us, indwell us, and sing and live through us, understanding that we are not our own, we are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in this physical body. And let our light shine before men. We could be a symphony of the sweet music of the Spirit of Jesus Christ to a sour, minor, key, decadent, sick. That's what he would have of you this week on the campus. He just wants your life. And he'll never really amount to a thing without the breath and the bellows. Move our heads as we close our eyes and pray. Oh, our Father, we just pray that Jesus, dear Spirit, may He possess us, that His cleansing blood might purify us, that His likeness might permeate us, and that His wonderful personality might cover us. grant that we might not be men and women and young people and teenagers who live of or for ourselves, but persons whose lives are hid with Christ in God. Nothing without the breath of God in our being. We have sinned against Thee. We have quenched Thee. We have grieved Thee. And we are sorry. And we would give ourselves a breath this night to be fill us music make music of our lives as a body and as a church joined to the head by the blood vitalized with lung -pumping light to the breath of life the Spirit of Christ the Holy Spirit we ask in the Matthew's name. Now heads are bowed as we sing our invitation.