Temple 1 WED

1 Kings 6:11-13

Hello everybody, I am so grateful to be back with you

I hope that you had a good break

I particularly hope that you spent some time with God during all of your time off. I hope that you read your bible, that you spent itme in prayer, and you reflected on what God did this past year and what He can do this year.

Tonight, we are going to continue in our journey through the Bible

now I want to strongly encourage you guys to get plugged into Sunday school

As I was thinking and praying through what to talk about tonight, I started a whole message that talked about things in the biblical story that I think are super important for you to understand, so that you can take all of the stories that we talk about and sew them together in to one story

But I realized about halfway through that I can’t cover all of that on Wednesday night. So we are going to work through that in sunday school. We now do sunday school at 9:15, and you will participate in a lesson that is going exactly along with what we talk about on Wedensday. You really are missing out on a lot if you don’t go, and I promise that you will grow so much in your knowledge of God’s Word if you commit to going this year.

Tonight, I want to look at a scripture that can help us understand how we can know and have relationship with God

we all want to know God, and sometimes that feels like a hard thing to do

people think maybe there is a God and maybe there isn’t. If there is, maybe you can know who He is and maybe you can’t.

people think of God as being way far away in heaven, and we think about Him being distant from us, His people

But that is not the way that it is meant to be

in the garden of Eden, God walked with mankind and they walked with Him

God spoke to Abram and several of his sons. God spoke to Moses face to face as a friend

But those are all very specific examples, and most people, even the people of Israel, didn’t experience that

But God had a plan for how He could live among His people

See the problem is sin

God is holy and He hates sin. If God would have just come down and walked with the people of Israel as He did in the garden, they would all die because the glory of God in conflict with their sin

So God revealed Himself in limited ways, and God made ways for people to approach Him clean from their sin

God wants to meet with His people, but the people have to do certain things in order to be able to do that

follow the law that God gave, live the lives that God made them to live, and follow Him, then God can be with His people

Here in 1 kings we are going to see God speak to David’s son Solomon about the temple that Solomon was building

Solomon was building a temple for the spirit of God to dwell in. He was building a temple for the priests to meet with God on behalf of the nation of Israel. He was building a temple so that the average person who couldn’t see the glory of God directly could see the glory of the temple and understand God’s glory through it

This is what God said to Solomon

1 Kings 6:11–13 “Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.””

Ultimately what everybody was after, and what we should be after, is to have God dwell with His people

when you dwell with somebody, you live with them. You know them, you live life with them.

I dwell with my family, I even live life with some of the people that I work with. I know them and they know me. I do not dwell with Lebron, I may know things about him, but I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me

A lot of people know about God, but they don’t know Him. They live life, but they don’t live life with God

God says to Solomon that if he will follow the law of God, then God will dwell with the people

This happens, and the spirit of God fills the temple like a cloud, and great things happen and the people sing the praises of God, and God blesses Solomon.

the story is not so straight forward with the kings who come after Solomon, but that is a story for another day.

There is another time that we see the word dwell used in scripture

John 1:1–14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Before Jesus, God’s presence had been a cloud, fire, or something like that.

but with Jesus, God walked as a man. Literally dwelling among the people. The one who made the earth now walked it.

Jesus was not a prophet, he was not a good teacher, Jesus was and is God.

So it is a huge deal that Jesus came and lived on earth. The people who heard him teach were not hearing from a prophet, they were hearing from God.

Jesus lived a sinless life, teaching people to follow the true ways of God. Teaching people to live the life He made them to live.

Then the world did what it does, and it hated God. It hated Jesus. The people saw that Jesus was threatening their kingdom with His, so they crucified Him. Jesus, God in flesh, was murdered on a cross.

But here is the good news

Jesus didn’t just die. Jesus died to pay for the sins of the world. In the temple, the people sacrificed goats and cows to pay for their sins. But the blood of Jesus paid for the sins of the world once and for all.

So God came down and dwelt among us, taking care of that part of our relationship. Then the blood of Jesus gave us to opportunity to be clean so that we can come to Him.

because remember, even if God came down and walked with the people, if they aren’t clean they can’t be with God.

So God takes care of both sides of the coin.

Then Jesus rises from the dead, proving His power. Jesus rises and shows that not even death can defeat Him.

Then the followers of Jesus experienced something. In the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit comes from heaven and lives in the hearts of those who have been made clean by the blood of Jesus.

the same spirit that came and filled the temple came and lives in the hearts of the followers of Jesus.

this is why 1 Corinthians 3:16 says “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

the temple that Solomon built has been replaced by the Holy Spirit living in the hearts of Christians.

when you are forgiven of your sin through the blood of Christ, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in you. Then He starts guiding you through life, transforming you from the inside out.

God wants to dwell with us. God wants relationship with us. He makes the path for us. He offers to change us and guide us through the Holy Spirit. But we have to accept it.

Notice the first part of 1 Kings 6:11–13 “Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, “Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father. And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.””

We must choose to follow the Lord. The offer is on the table for our sins to be forgiven, our lives changed, and our relationship with God to be restored. But we have to be willing to be changed. We have to be willing to follow God. We must be willing to go where God takes us.

the covenant that God makes with us in salvation is not forced. In a contract both people have to sign it. God has already signed His side, but we have to sign it too.

I see 2 groups of people in this room tonight that I want to address.

there are those of you who are not saved. You have not had your sins forgiven, and you have not ever made the decision to follow Jesus and have Him be the Lord of your life. Maybe you made a decision to not go to hell, but you must make a decision to follow Jesus. Solomon was not offered the dwelling of God without following God.

If you are in this room and you want to be saved, you WANT to be CHANGED, I want you to pray and ask God to forgive you of your sin through the blood of Jesus. Tell Him that you have messed up your life, and you want to follow Him wherever He leads you. Ask Him to be your savior from your sin, and the Lord of your life. You can’t have Jesus as your savior without Him also being your Lord.

There are those of you who are already saved. Do not think that you must get saved again if you have fallen short in life since you got saved.

The people of Israel fell short time after time, and God never gave up on them. He would let their sin have consequences, but He never gave up on them. In the same way, if you have truly been saved; meaning you understood that you were making Jesus your Lord and your Savior and you decided to follow Him, then God has not given up on you.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God says about the temple: “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

There are some of you who have been saved, but you have gotten distracted, you have let sin back into your life. You need to turn from your sin and turn back to the life that God made you to live. Just like God said that He would hear from the people and forgive them and restore them to the land of promise, God is ready to forgive you and bring you back to the life that He made you to live.

Tonight if you want to be saved, come talk to me or Jared or your small group leader.

Tonight if you want to turn back to God, talk to somebody. These moments can be brief, and they have more staying power when we talk to somebody about it.

I call each of you to follow God this year. You have heard the good news about the forgiveness of sin, you have heard time and time again about the salvation that God offers you. You have to option of spending eternity separated from God in hell, or dwelling intimately with God in heaven. You must respond to it though. It is time to seek the Lord in 2026, and trust that the life that He will bring you to is worth it.

What does God promise Solomon if he follows His statutes and commandments?

In what ways did God reveal Himself to people in the Old Testament, according to the sermon?

In what ways can we actively seek to live out a life that God has made us to live?

Why is it significant that Jesus dwelt among us, according to the sermon?

What does it mean to make Jesus both Savior and Lord of your life?

How can you apply the concept of being God's temple in your daily life?

What practical steps can you take to turn back to God if you feel you’ve gotten distracted?

How can sharing your struggles with a small group leader or friend help in your spiritual journey?

What does responding to God’s call to live a changed life look like for you this year?