This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

This is day four together of our look through 1st Corinthians chapter 3. We've
been talking about what do you do when Christians don't act Christian, maybe
even including yourself. And we've talked about three specific principles.

Number one, recognize that we can choose to act like babies in our faith and
then make a different choice to trust in the Spirit. Number two, recognize that
we must choose to build the church. As long as I'm out there all on my own, I'm
going to act not like Jesus.

It takes all of us working together. And number three, we looked at yesterday,
we have to look to our eternal reward. There's a fourth key in my life, in your
life, when I'm looking at other people and they're not really living up to all
that I thought might happen in Jesus for their lives or I'm looking at myself
and I'm not living up to all that I expected of myself in Jesus.

What's the fourth thing that I do? Number four, you find your security in him.
You find your security in him.

As long as you're trying to find your security in yourself, of course it's going
to be up and down depending on the tiredness of the day or how well you did
yesterday or who you served three weeks ago and how that went. You find your
security not in those things, you find your security in him. Yesterday we talked
about the fact that we're going to suffer loss of some things in this world that
we built on that aren't going to last.

And one of those things that does not last is finding security in myself. You
see, Paul and the Holy Spirit wanted to make sure that we did not misunderstand
as we talked about suffering loss and what that meant. Wants to make sure the
Holy Spirit that we don't misunderstand and think that that means the loss of
our salvation or our relationship with God.

So just to make that crystal clear, the Spirit inspires these next words, verse
15. If it is burned up, those things we talked about that won't last yesterday,
if it is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as
one escaping through the flames.

God's Spirit just makes it as clear as a bell. Your salvation is not dependent
on your works, either before you were saved or after you were saved. Your
salvation is not dependent on your works to get saved.

And don't make the mistake of thinking that now that I am saved, somehow it
becomes dependent on my works. I've got to act in certain ways to keep myself
saved. You didn't get yourself saved by your good works and you cannot keep
yourself saved by your good works.

Your salvation is not dependent on your works. Now your rewards are dependent on
your works of faith, hope, and love. Not your selfish works, but your works of
faith, hope, and love.

If they are works of the flesh, they will burn up. But if they are works of the
Spirit, they will last forever. But the reward that we get should never, Paul
says in these verses, be confused with the salvation that God has gifted to us.

To make absolutely sure that we don't get confused about how deeply God has
invested in us because we're his children, Paul writes these next verses,
inspired again by the Spirit, verses 16 to 17. Don't you know that you
yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone
destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is sacred and you
are that temple.

You've got to get the picture here. Paul has just been very honest with a group
of believers and he's telling them because they're acting like infants in
Christ, a lot of the ways that you're building into your life, it's going to get
burned up. And as we walk through the rest of the book of 1 Corinthians, we're
going to see some of the things they're building.

They're a messed up group of believers. There's no doubt about it. But as he
talks to them about the fact that they're going to lose rewards because of that,
he's also extremely clear about the fact that once you come to know Jesus, you
are his, you're his child.

He has marked you and he will protect you. And even though you may receive
rewards as a believer, you will receive rewards as you trust him. Your security
is not in your rewards.

Because your security in Christ to be in the rewards that you might get or not
get, that just makes the rewards another type of work. So to make that clear,
Paul paints this picture. He's going to come back to it several times in 1
Corinthians.

He says you are God's temple. And then he makes the point, and God protects his
temple. You're God's temple and God protects his temple.

Now he writes to them as those who know this. They knew the Old Testament, what
had happened in history of the Jewish people. They knew what was happening in
the temple in their day.

So he says don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and God's Spirit
lives in you. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. The temple
used to be a building.

First it was a tent, a tabernacle, and then it became a building in Jerusalem.
And that temple is a sacred place, a place of God's presence. That temple was
protected by God.

And those who destroyed that temple, those who came against that temple, they
were judged. They were destroyed themselves. So Paul says you saw this all
through the Old Testament, how God protected that place of his presence.

And now that place of his presence, God's Spirit has come to live in your life
as a believer. And so now in essence you are the temple. And so anyone who would
destroy you will be judged.

So the idea that somehow as a believer in Christ, God the Father is going to
destroy is going to cause me to be separate from him for all eternity because of
something, some way that I live, some work that I didn't do. Paul is showing how
ridiculous that idea is. The big point is this.

The only one who could destroy the temple of God you, of God's Spirit, is God
himself. And God is not out to destroy his temple. He is committed to protecting
his temple.

And when you realize that, you just breathe a huge sigh of relief. Because you
realize I find my security in him. And this scares some people.

They think if I find my security in him, that's going to be an invitation to
sin. I found that the exact opposite is true. When I find my security in him,
it's an invitation to serve.

It's an invitation to be all that he's caused me to be and made me to be.
Because then I'm connected to him, the one who loves me. You see, I serve him.

You serve him, not out of fear of what he might do to me if I don't serve him. I
serve him. You serve him out of praise for what he's already done for me in
Jesus Christ, how he's given himself for me in Jesus, what he's done for me in
Jesus.

We live and we serve and we love out of a place of security and a relationship
with Jesus. Those who are insecure in their relationship with Jesus begin to
look to external things to find security. And it might be some religious habit.

I know a lot of people who think if I don't go to church every week or if I
don't do these certain things with prayer beads or with baptism or with some
candles or with whatever, if I don't do these certain things in certain times,
then God won't love me and I don't feel saved. We learn to look to externals if
I don't feel secure in him because we're trying to find the security in
ourselves. Or we look to the externals of what I do.

I just serve him more and more. I get involved in more and more ministries. I'm
at the church more and more often.

I'm the person that's there every time the door is open, not because God's
leading me to do that, but because I'm afraid of what might happen to me if I'm
not there every time the door is open. I'm finding my security in myself, in my
works and not in him. It's a terrible place to live as a believer and you do not
have to live there.

In fact, the end of that place for many is actually walking away from their
faith in Christ, feeling like I can't serve him any longer, I can't handle the
guilt, I can't handle the stress, and so they walk away from serving him. But
the problem isn't Jesus. The problem is the way that you were thinking about
Jesus.

You were thinking that he's condemning you and so you had to serve him when the
truth is he's loving you and out of that love you're invited to serve him. You
can't do anything else but serve him out of that love. So change your heart,
change your mind, begin to see that you are secure.

You are secure in him. We live and we serve and we love out of that place of
security in our relationship with Jesus. Let's talk to him for a few minutes
right now.

Jesus, thank you for what you did on the cross to secure our salvation. Thank
you for what you did in your resurrection to secure our life and thank you that
as we trust in you, you give us salvation, eternal life as a gift. And thank you
that in that gift, we are secure in you.

We are in Christ and Christ is in God, we are secure in you Jesus. There is no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, we are secure in you Jesus. We
are God's temple, God's building and no one can destroy that sacred place.

You are working to protect that place, we are secure in you Jesus. So I pray for
myself, I pray for every one of us that in that place of security, out of that
place of security, would grow a new strength of service in our lives, a new
strength of worship in our lives, a new strength of love for you and others. And
Jesus, we ask this in your name, thanking you for your love for us, amen.

Join us tomorrow, our last day in 1 Corinthians 3. We're going to talk about a
fifth thing that you can do to keep living in faith, even when it might seem
that all around you are living for themselves.