BUILT TO GLORIFY GOD
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Intro: The chapel is a really neat building. It is pretty well known as a popular place for wedding proposals. Actually the first time I ever came in here was for a wedding over 10 years ago.(Is there anyone here who proposed here or outside here?) (Or get married here.) People love to take pictures here and some have weddings here. It has been the center of many articles and is well known around here. It has won some architectural awards.
Intro:
The chapel is a really neat building. It is pretty well known as a popular place for wedding proposals. Actually the first time I ever came in here was for a wedding over 10 years ago.(Is there anyone here who proposed here or outside here?) (Or get married here.) People love to take pictures here and some have weddings here. It has been the center of many articles and is well known around here. It has won some architectural awards.
What I did not know was the history of it. Until, preparing for this devo, I decided to look up the history to see if there was anything interesting about it. And of course there was. I am probably the only one that did not know this.
Constructed in 1879, the Old Main dormitory was the first building built on Mississippi State’s campus. Through the turn of the century, it would be added upon to become the largest dormitory in the United States, capable of housing over 1,000 residents. When a fire reduced the dorm to cinders and claimed the life of a student in 1959, then-president Ben Hilbun decided the last remaining bricks of the Old Main were to be used to construct a chapel. And so here we are in something beautiful that was built from the ruins of another.
The immediate spiritual lesson that I thought from that is that GOD CAN TAKE OUR BROKEN, RUINED LIVES OF SIN AND MISTAKES AND TRAGEDIES AND CLEAN US UP AND TURN US INTO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL.
WHEN WE ALLOW GOD TO WORK IN OUR HEARTS AND LIVES AS WE TRUST HIM, HE CAN CAUSE EVEN THE MOST DIFFICULT PARTS OF OUR LIVES TO BE A PART OF OUR STORY THAT GLORIFIES HIM.
GOD REDEEMS AND RESTORES US AND MAKES US A LIGHT THAT POINTS TO JUST HOW AWESOME HE IS.
JOSEPH’S LIFE FOR EXAMPLE SEEMED TO BE A DISASTER AT MANY TIMES. He goes from freedom to slavery, then from a position of honor to a prisoner, but then God brings Him from the prison to a palace. (Not for his own glory but because of God’s purpose.)
He recognizes that God took all the tragedy in his life and turned it into something for good. In he says to his brothers who sold him into slavery...
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
Now Joseph’s life, which was at times in ruins, millions have read and it is an incredible picture of God making something ugly into something beautiful.
SAUL IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THIS: God took one of the early churches most vicious enemies and saved him and turned Him into one of the greatest missionaries the world has known. He said of His own story that it was to show God’s great grace.
though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
God is good at turning destruction and difficulty into symbols of hope and beauty.
GOD IS OR CAN DO THAT WITH OUR LIVES RIGHT NOW! FOR SOME OF US HE HAS DONE SO MUCH ALREADY AND OUR LIVES ARE AN EXAMPLE OF GOD’S POWER.
FOR OTHER YOU MAY FEEL LIKE YOU ARE IN THE RUINED STATE AND YOU NEED TO HAVE FAITH AND KEEP BEING FAITHFUL AS YOU SIT IN THE RUINS AND ASHES OF THE DIFFICULTY YOU ARE FACING.
GOD CAN TAKE WHAT YOU ARE SUFFERING AND TURN IT INTO SOMETHING THAT WILL (1) BRING HIM GLORY AND (2) HELP OTHERS.
In Joseph’s story God’s awesome providence and sovereignty are magnified but also Israel and his family were saved from famine. Also million have gain hope and strength from his story.
For Paul’s story many have seen just what God designed for them to see; that if God can forgive Saul He can forgive me and if God can work through Paul he can work through me.
For us God can turn our suffering into opportunities to glorify God (because of what He has brought us through) and comfort others.
who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
DO NOT MISS THE OPPORTUNITY TO BRING GLORY TO GOD BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU WERE CREATED FOR! THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE BEING BUILT FOR! NOT JUST BEAUTY BUT BRINGING GLORY TO GOD!
THAT WAS JESUS’ PURPOSE AND AS HIS FOLLOWERS IT IS OURS!
THERE WAS SOMETHING IN OUR READINGS NOT LONG AGO THAT MAGNIFIES THIS POINT IN A INCREDIBLE WAY. (While we are sitting in an ornate building worshipping God…)
HAVE YOU EVER WONDER WHY SOLOMON MADE THE TEMPLE SO EXTRAVAGANT?
This was true of the whole temple but it was even more so with the most Holy place.
2 chron
The house that I am to build will be great, for our God is greater than all gods. But who is able to build him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for him, except as a place to make offerings before him?
The temple was not built to be extravagant just to be extravagant or to show off the King’s wealth and prestige.
THE TEMPLE WAS BUILD WITH SUCH GREAT EXTRAVAGANCE BECAUSE GOD IS SUCH A GREAT AND INCREDIBLE GOD.
Even as incredible as the temple was with all the gold and finery that was put into Solomon realize that it could never do God’s greatness justice as verse 6 reflects.
But even though the temple could not contain God, His glory came into the temple in an incredible way.
And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
This would have been an incredible thing to see.
BUT AS INCREDIBLE AS THIS WAS I WANT YOU TO CONSIDER HOW MUCH MORE AMAZING AND POWER WHAT GOD HAS DONE UNDER HIS NEW COVENANT!
WHILE SOLOMON’S TEMPLE WOULD HAVE BEEN AN INCREDIBLE THING TO SEE AND REFLECT GOD’S GLORY THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH MORE THE TEMPLE TODAY.
NOW WE ARE THE TEMPLE: THIS IS TRUE FROM TWO ANGLES: ()
WE AS THE CHURCH ARE GOD’S HOLY TEMPLE AS .
In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
So we together as the body of Christ together grow into an incredible temple that reflects the glory of God. Not through physical worldly extravagance but through what we do together to worship, proclaim and serve God and other in love.
This greater glorification happens as we allow ourselves to be a temple of God, a sanctuary for His Spirit.
OUR BODIES ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
This truth is one of the most incredible things that we need to have faith in. As we believe the Spirit indwells in us we can trust Him to guide and comfort and help us to be who God intended for us to be and to glorify God in greater ways the original temple ever could.
Every single day, everywhere we go, in every conversation we have, in the way that we live, talk, act, work, parent, love our spouse, care for the needy and everything else we glorify God as His temple!
Unlike the temple of Solomon we are not confined to one place. We glorify God everywhere we go and in everything we do. Through that people can come to see Christ and perhaps be moved to make a commitment to Him.
As we bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit the world around us is seeing something so much greater than a physical structure of stone and wood (like this place).
commands us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Then Galatians
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
They are seeing the Spirit of God present in someone’s life and an living breathing example of God’s love and presence that is also available to them.
ARE YOU GLORIFYING THE GREATNESS OF GOD AS HIS TEMPLE?
Do you glorify God as His temple? Do you see that as your purpose? Solomon and Jesus understood the temple would be a place where people from all nations could connect with God.
Does your life and example help people to see God and possibly connect with HIM?
Let’s end with a prayer to be filled with Holy Spirit and help walking in and keeping in step with the Holy Spirit.