Sacred Temples
Practical Church (1 Corinthians) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Announcements
Good morning. Welcome to Southern Hills Baptist Church. Thank you for joining us today.
If you are a first-time guest with us, you will find a Connection Card in the pew rack in front of you. We would appreciate it if you would fill that out and place it in the offering plate. That gives us a record of your visit and allows us the opportunity of reaching out to you this week to answer any questions that you might have.
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This week is the annual “Sanctity of Life Sunday,” so let us open this morning with a word of prayer.
-PRAY FOR EVERY LIFE-
See bulletin for Calendar Updates
If you are a guest with us, know that this is our weekly Family Worship service. Our children will remain with us for the entire service. We do have a nursery available for children under 4 just down the hall if you would like to use it.
Please stand as I read our Call to Worship.
Call To Worship
For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,
“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”
Opening Hymn
Scripture & Prayer: Dennis Gallagher
Song #1
Missions Minute: CEF Dale Lynam
Offering & Prayer
Song #2 (O The Blood)
Lord’s Supper
Please be seated.
(beat)
The blood of the Lamb is our victory. For it is God’s love that is expressed by the sacrifice of the Lamb. Jesus stepped down from the heavens and humbled Himself to be born in the form of mankind. He brought His light to the world, teaching us how to live and showing us what it looks like to be the perfect image of God. But He taught us more than how to live; He taught us how to suffer and to sacrifice. And all of this was driven by His love for His human imagers.
This love was evident in the beginning, when God spoke all things into being and brought order to the world by the hands of Jesus.
Last week, we finished the gospel of Mark. So, we’re going to continue our reading about the life of Jesus by opening to the book of John:
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. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ”) For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
At this time, I am going to have our ushers come forward. If you are a follower of Jesus, in that you have accepted Him as Savior, bowed to Him as King, and been baptized in obedience to His commandment, we invite you to participate with us. In just a moment, we will pass the plates. Please take a piece of bread and a cup and hold it until we take together.
Pass
Instruction from Jesus: Read Luke 22:14-20
And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
Prayer of Blessing on bread and cup
Song #3
Pastoral Prayer
World -
Country-
State-
City-
SHBC-
Introduction
If you have your bible with you this morning, please turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 3. Our focus today will be on verses 16 and 17. I know what you are thinking: how can we do a whole sermon on 2 verses? Well, you will be surprised. We have a lot to unpack here and I promise to get you home in time for supper.
(Beat)
For the last few months we have been working our way the beginning of this letter to the church at Corinth. As a reminder, Paul has been away from the church for 3 years or so and this is probably the second letter that he has written to them. There have been several concerns that have instigated this letter, of which we have touched on in the introduction.
We now come to the last bits of introduction as he gets into the heart of the letter. He is frustrated with these church members, and especially their leaders, who have shown themselves to be spiritually immature and leading the people away from Christ rather than to Him.
They have become more worldly and divided since the last time that Paul has spoken to them and he now writes to correct them and attempt to rectify the issue—to hold them accountable to the expectation of holiness that comes with bearing the name of Jesus.
Over the last two weeks, we reviewed Pauls use of metaphor as he presented the church as both a field and a building. In these metaphors, God is seen as the genesis of growth in the hearts of believers, Jesus as the firm foundation of the church, and the church members as the workers who both plant and water in the field and assemble the building on the firm foundation.
In the field metaphor, the workers are simply called to obey their master in doing the work that has been assigned to them. But in the building metaphor, Paul takes it a step further, calling the workers to be thoughtful and intentional as to how they build the church. None should be careless, but each should look to use only the best material that will last through the storms and the fire to come.
We left off with Paul’s warning that the buildings will be tested on judgment day—that each of Jesus’ local churches will be refined by fire. And when that time comes, the leaders of the local churches will know if the work that they did was worthy of the King or not. Some will have done good and intentional work, crafting a beautiful cathedral that will last into the age of the new kingdom. And others will watch their pile of sticks burn as the ashes from their work are swept away with the firestorm of hellfire and judgment.
Paul warned these leaders that if they are not thoughtful and intentional, that they will be fortunate to be only singed and standing on the empty foundation of Christ.
This week, Paul will continue with his metaphor, taking it another step further. He is going to remind us of the building that we spoke of last week, but now he will call it God’s temple.
[TITLE SLIDE]
Again, our focus will be on chapter 3, verses 16 and 17 today. But before we get into our passage for this morning, I want to go back and have us re-read the whole section to capture Paul’s over-arching emphasis as he moves between metaphors. Look back with me to verse 10:
[MAIN PASSAGE SLIDE x3]
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (/) Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. (/) If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Paul tells the church that they are God’s temple. This idea of God’s church as His temple has many implications, which is why we will spend all of our time this morning on two verses.
Taken out of context, I could use this as a proof text to say all kinds of things. We could have discussions around murder and suicide and abuse and dehumanization, and those could be good and productive discussions based off of the pattern that we see Paul lay out here. But, that is not—at all—Paul’s concern or his meaning in this passage.
His use of “You” in this passage is plural. He is speaking collectively to the church and specifically to the church leaders.
This is why it is important for us to always understand the context of scripture before we can properly understand and apply it. The context of these surrounding verses and the cohesive flow of Paul’s argument here help us understand that Paul is speaking of the church collectively as the temple of God.
So, that will be our focus this morning. We are going to look at the temple throughout the meta-story of the Bible and then see how Paul connects it here as a metaphor for the people of God. So, first, I want us to look at the idea of the temple as sacred space.
[POINT 1 SLIDE]
Temple as Sacred Space
But before I can do that, I first need to discuss this idea of sacred space and help you understand what it is and why it is important.
Simply stated, sacred space is a location specifically set aside for the purpose of the natural to encounter the supernatural. That is, that there are regular, normal, and mundane spaces all around us within creation. This space is called profane space because it is warped by sin from what God intended it to be. But there are also sacred spaces that are set apart from the profane for the purpose of human encounters with the divine. Here, the natural intersects with the supernatural.
Sacred spaces do not exist on their own within our natural created world. Sacred spaces must be made. Rather, I should say that sacred spaces must be dedicated and initiated by either humans or divine beings. They are places designed for intentional contact between humans and spiritual beings.
These spaces may be initiated by either party, but they are the locales of contact. And because of their contact between the physical and spiritual realms, they exist within the liminal space that brings two worlds together. For those of you familiar with theoretical physics, think of a wormhole.
But I want you to consider all of the different ways that humans try to contact the supernatural world. Careless teenagers may form a circle around a Ouija board, not knowing that they are creating a sacred space and inviting contact from any available spirit. A witch may draw a pentacle on the grown and intentionally place candles to purposefully create a sacred space for communion with spirits. A Yogi may design a sacred space for the worship of and communion with a spiritual being presenting themselves as a god.
And in the Bible, we see this same idea. In Genesis 28, Jacob—later called Israel—was traveling to Haran, when he stopped for the night and He dreamed of angels ascending and descending from heaven. He believed this location to be a sacred space for the God of Abraham and His heavenly armies. And so he named it Beth-El, or the House of God, and dedicated it to Yahweh God.
In the OT, we see several patterns of sacred space being created. In obedience to God, Moses instructs the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness. It was initiated by God, but dedicated to Him by man. And so, God’s sacred space is set apart for the interaction between God and His human imagers.
But we also see sacred spaces being set up in foreign temples and with the witch at Endor. Again, sacred spaces are not limited to followers of Yahweh. They can be misused to commune with the enemies of God in seeking out all kinds of information from the spiritual world.
But there are two things that set the sacred spaces of Yahweh apart from those dedicated to other spiritual beings. The first thing is God Himself. God is perfectly holy—perfectly set apart from everything. He is wholly other. By nature, then, His sacred spaces are the most holy places on earth.
The second thing is the obedience of man. God’s human imagers are commanded by the Almighty Creator God to set apart and dedicate these sacred spaces for them to communicate with their Maker. A perfectly holy God demands that His people and His sacred spaces be perfectly holy.
Let us look now to the tabernacle, which prefigured the temple of God, for an example. Outside of the walls of the tabernacle were camped the people of God. They lived in profane space. But inside the walls of the tabernacle structure, there were gradations between profane and sacred space. The courtyard was there for any community members to step into. But beyond the courtyard was the Holy Place within tabernacle, and deep within the tabernacle was the Most Holy Place.
As a profane human imager—tainted by sin—one could only approach Yahweh if their profanity had been covered. We call this covering atonement. Without sin being covered, or atoned, humans in their sin would perish when approaching the holy God. Think of what happened to the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, who died by bringing unauthorized fire into the Most Holy Place. By law and by necessity, only the High Priest could enter the Most Holy Place—and only once a year—after he had been atoned for His sins and the communities sins.
The tabernacle, and later the temple, had to remain as holy sacred space. Look back with me at verses 16 & 17:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Paul calls the church God’s holy temple. That means that it is set apart and dedicated to him. His temple is His sacred space, both in the OT sense of the physical location of the temple as well as the NT sense of the people of God as the temple. They are both set apart as sacred spaces for communion with the Most High God.
For this reason, local churches inhabit sacred spaces because they are the place where the natural interacts with the Creator God of the supernatural. When we come together as the church, we commune with God through the atonement of Jesus Christ and by His Spirit. As we do, we join the heavenly chorus in worshipping God every time we come together. During our Family Worship and Prayer Times and Small Groups, we join in doing what our heavenly counterparts are always at work doing: giving glory to God as His family.
For 2000 years, the patterns of developing sacred spaces for the church to interact with God have been seen, both in their action and in their intentional design of their meeting places. Pews, pulpits, baptismals, and the Lord’s Supper table all communicate the purpose of the church as God’s sacred space.
But beyond just being intentional in building up structures for our churches to meet in, the church has been given a sacred task of expanding God’s sacred space from the locations of our local church meetings to cover the whole of creation. It is our sacred task to dedicate our homes, neighborhoods, communities, cities, states, countries, and the world all as sacred space.
And if we look back at Genesis, we will see that this was always the goal. This pattern of expanding God’s sacred space goes all the way back to Eden. There, on the sixth day, God created mankind and placed them in His Mountain Garden. They were invited to live in God’s throne-room as His human imagers—as part of His family. Eden was set apart from the rest of creation. God has initiated and dedicated this place for Himself to dwell with His human creation. Therefore, Eden was a liminal place between the supernatural and the natural: it was sacred space.
And God gave Adam and Eve a mission:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
They were called to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. That is—they were to expand sacred space over the whole earth and bring it fully under God’s dominion. As God’s human imagers, this was their prescribed duty. And that duty continues for the church today.
But because Yahweh’s sacred space is specific to His interaction with His human imagers, it means that He is always present within His sacred space.
[POINT 2 SLIDE]
Temple as Presence
Sacred space is not exclusive to Yahweh God. But His presence on earth is exclusive to His sacred places…
Let me repeat that. [REPEAT]
This pattern of God dwelling with His human imagers was set from the very beginning. In Eden, God walked and talked with humankind. Adam lived within the walls of God’s edenic throne room in His palace garden. There, he found that he lived amongst God’s blessing and protection.
But Adam and Eve failed to obey God. They pushed away His blessing and protection, instead chasing their own desires. God had provided all that they would ever need, but they reached out and took that which God had not provided for them. Essentially, they believed that they could provide for themselves better than God could provide for them. And because of their sinful pride, they were removed from the blessing and protection of the garden and out of the presence of God.
You see, that is often what God’s judgment is. It is the removal of His presence, which comes with His blessing and His hand of protection. Ultimately, He gives His sinful human imagers what they want. He has carefully and wonderfully crafted them and shared with them His image and His ability to be creative and have free will. But, for those who use their free will to choose something other than God, He gives them exactly what they want.
And this is what we see happen with our first parents. They desired to provide for themselves, so God gave them what they wanted. He removed them from His presence. But as soon as they found themselves outside of Eden, they knew that they had made a horrible mistake. They had incurred the judgment of being away from God’s presence and they didn’t like it. They now faced a reality that was less than ideal.
As we work our way through Adam’s generations in the book of Genesis, we see this pattern continue to play out. There are those—like Abel—who seek after God and desire to be in His presence, enjoying His blessing and protection. And there are those—like Cain—who seek to rule for themselves, providing for themselves through painful toil and building up their own walls of protection.
God knew that His human imagers would never be able to be perfect. He knew that they would never be able to work their way back into the garden. He would have to provide a way to absolve them of their sin-tainted nature if He still wanted a human family.
And so, He put His plan into motion to redeem them fully back to the garden, but He still wanted to shape their hearts and help them image Him well in the interim. He still wanted to dwell with His people. And He wasn’t willing to wait until the end of history to do that. So He gave Moses instructions to build a place for Him—to build His tabernacle. There He would dwell on earth in the midst of His people.
Moses followed the pattern given to Him by God on Mt. Sinai. The tabernacle, and later—the temple, were a microcosm of God’s heavenly throne room. They were adorned with royal colors and images of the garden with trees and pomegranates and cherubim.
When Moses had finished the construction of the tabernacle, God came down and dwelt with His people for the first time since Eden. Look with me at Exodus chapter 40:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x3]
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (/) Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. (/) For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.
God’s presence came and dwelt amongst His people once more. Why? Was it because the people needed the presence of God? No. I believe that there are two reasons that God wanted His presence on earth.
First, I think that God’s physical presence on earth was a call to His people for holiness—a call back to God’s original design for humanity. His presence was a constant reminder that they should image Him well.
And second, it’s because even though they had rejected Him, God still desired to dwell with His human imagers. He didn’t need them, but He wanted a human family.
And so God gave them a covenant—His solemn promise—that if they would seek after Him and allow Him to provide for them and protect them, that He would continue to dwell with them.
You see—there is an intimate connection between God’s presence and His blessing and protection. The promised land was only going to be the land of provision because God’s presence would be there. He would bless them. He would protect them. And there—in Jerusalem—Solomon would build the permanent tabernacle: the temple.
And God’s presence filled the temple just as He had the tabernacle. And there—in the land of Israel—Yahweh God dwelt with His people.
But, ultimately, His people refused to keep their end of the covenant. They pushed away His hand of blessing and protection, following in the footsteps of their father Adam in providing for themselves. They disregarded the warnings of judgment in the covenant and the warnings from the mouths of God’s prophets that He sent to call them back to holiness. They heard and refused.
And so, finally, judgment came to God’s human family once more. God removed His presence from the temple and, with it, His hand of blessing and protection.
For over 500 years, God’s presence was absent from His human imagers. He had given them exactly what they wanted: the opportunity to provide for themselves apart from His presence. Things on earth were not going well…
But finally, His presence returned in the form of a child. Jesus not only carried the presence of God, but was—in fact—God Himself in the flesh. In John 1:14, John says that “the Word became flesh and [tabernacled] among us.” Just like the temple, God’s presence was dwelling with His human imagers.
God offered His people a chance to walk and talk with Him once more. And once again, as was their pattern, they rejected Him. The enemies of God stirred up the people and they rose to eliminate God’s presence from them. They sought to put Jesus to death.
And before He died, Jesus told those loyal to Him that it was good that He was going away, for when He did, He would send the Holy Spirit to comfort them. Back to our passage with Paul:
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
He says that God’s temple is holy—that is, it is His sacred space that has been set apart specifically for Him. And then Paul reminds them that they—the church at Corinth—are that temple. That, collectively, they are the new temple of God; the place where God dwells on earth. They are the sacred space where God’s presence lives.
Paul explains this to the church at Ephesus:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE x2]
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (/) In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
Yes, there is a sense in which we are each, individually a temple of God—in that the Holy Spirit dwells, or tabernacles, within us. But Paul says that the local church is THE TEMPLE of God. It is the church that represents God’s presence on earth, just as Jesus and the temple and the tabernacle did before them.
Essentially, Paul says to the Corinthians that they must fully understand the serious role that God has given to them in reflecting His image to the rest of humanity. They are called to be holy as the dwelling place of God on earth and they are further called to expand the church—the walls of God’s sacred space—to cover the whole earth.
And then, Paul offers them a harsh warning.
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
He says that anyone who “destroys God’s temple, God will destroy Him.” We have established that the temple that Paul is speaking of is the local church. This is the third kind of church leader that Paul is referring to here.
The first was the one who builds with gold and silver and precious stones. He seeks to be thoughtful and intentional as He builds the church. His work will last when the kingdom comes in its fullness.
The second was the one who builds with wood and hay and straw. He is building the church by slapping together reclaimed wood and branches and popsicle sticks and securing it with twine and chewing gum. His work will be burned up when the kingdom comes, though he may himself stand on Christ in the new creation.
But the third is the one who doesn’t build at all. Instead, he watches as others build and then intentional tries to dismantle the building and bring it to ruin. This man will not make it to the new kingdom. He will be burned up in the fire. God will bring him to ruin just as he tried to do the God’s church.
I think that Paul is being plain here. There are some thoughtless and careless leaders in the church at Corinth. But, Paul is also saying that there are some within the walls of their local church that are actively trying to destroy it—that the church has allowed wolves within their gates who masquerade themselves as shepherds and are purposely leading the flock into danger.
This person may succeed in bringing ruin to a local church, and his reward for it will be God’s judgment. God will remove this man from His holy presence for eternity. That is the definition of hell—eternally separated from God. The ruin that awaits this man are the fires of torment from knowing that he will never get to stand in God’s presence.
Church leaders have an awesome responsibility to lead God’s human family well. They will be held accountable for their actions, or inactions, in the mission of building the church and they will incur the consequences of their sin to the highest degree.
So, why is it that so many churches in the West are dying? It’s because we have not heeded Paul’s warning. There are many who are building recklessly, speaking words of loyalty to Christ, but refusing to put to death their pride. And still, there are others, who—like Adam—stand in God’s presence and actively disobey Him, refusing His blessing and protection for their own sinful desires.
The separation between poor building practices and destruction is not clear in this passage, so Paul has served a severe warning to all in the church. Once again, we are all called to be building Jesus’ church. What kind of builder will we be?
As members of His local churches, this should serve to remind us the importance of keeping God’s temple holy. It should help us understand the need for the discernment of fruit in each others’ lives and the call to hold each other accountable.
Only God rightly knows the heart of the builder, but if we discern a wolf and fail to utilize church discipline to remove him from our midst, we invite judgment on ourselves. We become those who build carelessly. Maybe we’ll make it to the new kingdom, but only after being burned.
I don’t know about you, but I want to build His church thoughtfully and carefully and I want to be a part of extending the walls of the church—His sacred space—to cover every square inch of creation.
And for those of you who want to join me in that endeavor, the temple means a little bit more.
[POINT 3 SLIDE]
Temple as Promise
For the temple is also a promise. As Paul will go on to explain to the Corinthians and the Ephesians, the indwelling Holy Spirit is a seal of the covenant that we have with God. His loyal imagers are given His Spirit to indwell them individually so that we can image Him well and be assured of our salvation.
So, also, is the Holy Spirit the seal of the local church. The presence of God by the Holy Spirit is what makes the local church His sacred space.
[PASSAGE SLIDE]
But His presence will only continue if we work at keeping His space sacred—at maintaining holiness. For His dwelling place on earth must be set apart; it must be other than the world.
So, why is it wrong for us to build churches that look like the world?
(Beat)
Because there is nothing holy about them.
God will not inhabit individuals or churches who reflect the world.
They are called to put the world to death in their lives so that they can rightly reflect Him—so that they can find their way pack to His original design for humanity and learn to image Him well.
Those churches who fail to do so will hear the call of Jesus to the Ephesians:
[SCRIPTURE SLIDE]
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
Jesus will remove the lampstand from those local churches who refuse to be holy. God will remove His Spirit, along with His blessing and protection, from those churches. And they will incur judgment—the natural consequences of their sin because of it. They have chosen something other than God and God has given them their desire. They will find only death apart from Jesus.
But for those faithful churches who work at building with materials that will last and fight to keep the body of Christ holy, to them the temple holds a promise for what is to come. The presence of the Holy Spirit seals them for their return to Eden. That, in the kingdom to come, God will restore all creation by His Son Jesus, and the walls of His church will cover the whole earth. Eden will have been extended in dominion over creation. And, there, we will rule and reign with Christ.
God’s human imagers will once again dwell fully in His presence to walk and talk with Him in the cool of the garden.
Application
This is our promise. But, as we wait for the kingdom to come in its fullness, we have work to do. We have a mission to keep this local church holy as God’s sacred space and to partner will other faithful churches to expand that sacred space over the whole earth.
This is the purpose of the church. This is the mission of our church:
[MISSION STATEMENT SLIDE]
“To seek holiness as we covenant together as a faithful local body of Christ and to engage in the Great Commission by making disciples in our homes, our communities, and around the world.”
[PREVIEW SLIDE]
Invitation
If you have not believed in Jesus and bowed to Him as King, you have never experienced the fullness of God’s presence. He is here now in the Holy Spirit. And He is calling you to come and follow Him. Don’t wait another day. Give Him your heart this morning and come and be a part of God’s family here with us.
And if you have already made that decision, but you don’t have a church family to belong to, I invite you to come and partner with us as we seek to build God’s church faithfully.
If you fit in either of those categories, I would love to speak with you after service.
CLOSE IN PRAYER
CLOSING HYMN
CONGREGATIONAL BLESSING
