Welcome, God's House, to This House
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[Opening Prayer]
This building is not God’s house; you are. - This building is no more a house of God than your house. Both should be equally dedicated to his service.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
I promise I’m not here to ruin a perfectly good celebration. But in order to celebrate rightly, we must think rightly. In order to dedicate ourselves rightly to his service, we must understand rightly.
How do we keep our meeting location in its proper place? How do we rightly understand this facility that God has graciously provided us, and that we aim to steward well for his glory? What’s the relationship of a gathering of local believers to the mission of the Christ’s Church?
Here’s what I aim to explain biblically in this brief topical message:
1. A quick overview of the change that has taken place regarding God’s temple with the advent of a new covenant in Christ.
2. What that means for the Church, and how we ought to use this facility.
So what about the OT temple? There are significant portions of Scripture devoted to its construction, and others to its unfortunate destruction. What’s the overall story there, though?
Before man sinned, God walked with Adam and Eve. They were allowed to enjoy his very presence. But once they sinned against God, they could no longer be in his holy presence.
Skip over quite a bit, over Noah and over God’s promises to Abraham. After more than 400 years of slavery in Egypt, God brought the children of Israel (Abraham’s descendants) out to lead them to the land He had promised their forefathers.
Under the leadership of Moses, God had them construct a tabernacle [Tabernacle Image] (an elaborate tent), which could be moved as they moved. It’s purpose was to serve as a place for God to dwell with his people...
Exodus 25:8
And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.
It was a constant reminder of his presence with them and His leadership over them. And in their worship, there was an ever-present distinction between them and the holiness of their God.
Fast forward again several hundred years. Since God had brought his people through to the land of promise and given them this location of a city on a hill (Jerusalem), King David really wanted to build an impressive house worthy of the God of Israel. God did allow David to collect the materials for such a place of worship, but it was his son Solomon whom God chose to construct a permanent structure. - This picture [Solomon’s temple] gives you an idea of the change from the tabernacle to the temple in Jerusalem, built under the reign of King Solomon.
But as Israel subsequently disobeyed God repeatedly and to an alarming degree, God allowed them to be defeated by their enemies. The Northern 10 Tribes fell to Assyria, and some years later, when the dominant power was Babylon, Judah (& Benjamin) was overtaken as well. When Zedekiah tried to lead a revolt, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem’s walls and the Temple in 586 BC.
Some 70 years later, when Persia conquered Babylon and became the dominant empire, King Cyrus the Great began allowing Jews to return to their homeland under Zerubbabel, even granting permission for them to rebuild the temple. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel, the temple was rebuilt (which we tend to call the Second Temple). Ezra and then Nehemiah returned to the land in two later waves, the first leading a spiritual revival and the second rebuilding the city walls.
The temple system, however, quickly fell into corruption and self-serving religion. Even in that state, many years later, a King Herod, who aimed to make a name for himself with his great feats of architecture, decided to rebuild the temple to its glory of the days of Solomon. Long after the Old Testament writings had ended, and nearing 400 years of silence from God, Herod the Great began rebuilding the temple [Herod’s Temple].
(Easton Bible Dictionary) “The main part of the building was completed in ten years, but the erection of the outer courts and the embellishment of the whole were carried on during the entire period of our Lord’s life on earth (John 2:16, 19–21), and the temple was completed only A.D. 65. But it was not long permitted to exist. Within forty years after our Lord’s crucifixion, his prediction of its overthrow was accomplished (Luke 19:41–44). The Roman legions took the city of Jerusalem by storm, and notwithstanding the strenuous efforts Titus made to preserve the temple, his soldiers set fire to it in several places, and it was utterly destroyed (A.D. 70), and was never rebuilt.”
The truth is, God had already enacted a better plan to dwell with man. When Israel seemed hopelessly unable to represent God to mankind, and failed to represent man before God, Jesus, the God-Man, entered earth in a lowly stable. John’s Gospel tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
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.
That word dwelt is literally “tented,” the verb form of the noun used to describe the tent (tabernacle) God instructed Moses to make (Ex 25:8-9). And Matthew explains that Jesus is fulfillment of prophecy from Isaiah 7:14, that the sign from the Lord will be a virgin giving birth to a son, who shall be called Immanuel, meaning “God with us.”
Jesus then is God literally dwelling with us. He is God who came to tent among us. John later records Jesus describing his own body as a temple, claiming that it would be destroyed but rebuilt in three days (John 2:19-21). - “At Jesus’ crucifixion the curtain that shielded the inner room of the temple is torn. What was the significance of this event? The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice that accomplished what the temple in Jerusalem never could. Through Jesus’ sacrifice and victory, he made a way for God to not only dwell with his people, but for God to dwell in his people!” (Joe Slunaker)
Now we’re finally coming back around full circle to where we began. As New Testament Apostles and authors continue to use temple terminology in their teaching, they exchange reference to a literal building to a metaphor referring to God residing in His people.
Stephen, just before he was stoned, preached that “the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands” (Acts 7:49), and Paul proclaimed in the Areopagus at Athens:
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Then in more full explanation to Christ’s Church, Paul explains, as we saw in 1 Cor 3:16, (and again in chapter 6:19-20) that those who belong to Jesus by faith are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, and not just individually but especially corporately, are meant to represent the temple of God.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?
The you’s in this passage are plural, like y’all or you guys. The church, God’s people by faith in Jesus, are the temple—the place where God dwells on earth. Wherever we are, especially when gathered together, is a place for worship.
There are at least three important applications here: We can meet with and worship God anywhere. Secondly, there is an assumed teamwork and cooperation and unity that is to be a focal point of the Church as we aim to be the place of God’s dwelling, his presence on earth, and the means of representing him to the world. And finally, we are not tied down to any particular place built by human hands, but we are the mobile representatives of God’s presence, and can take him anywhere we are to the furthest reaches of the world.
So with that doctrinal understanding, and with those applications in mind, what do we do with a facility if God gives us one? I suggest to you that we ought to be thinking of this place as a training facility.
Welcome Home to Your Training Facility
Welcome Home to Your Training Facility
Training facility means an area that accommodates a process to bring a person to an agreed standard of proficiency through practice and/or instruction.
We gather to be equipped for ministry in order to be the church in all ways, at all times, in all places.
As Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians, God gives to His Church different types of gifted leaders…
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
If God gives us a facility, we aim to steward it well for the purpose of being trained for growth in holiness, trained to withstand opposition, and trained for ministry to one another.
We are also being trained to believe the Gospel better and to trust God more, in order that we may boldly and clearly proclaim him to others, appealing to them to submit to God, to repent of their sin and trust in Jesus to save them.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Just as Paul and his teammates, we train to be better ambassadors for Christ.
So what is this meeting place for? Training for righteousness. We want people who visit us here to experience a people who are genuinely at rest with God, having been given a peace that the turmoil of this world cannot touch. And we want them to know that do not simply rest here to regain perspective, but we also train here to grow, to stand firm, to minister, and to become better ambassadors for Christ.
Be God’s House
Be God’s House
So if this building burns down, what changes? Nothing, except that we have to adapt where we train.
Realistically, we need to meet somewhere in order that, as a community, we will continue to grow in the grace knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We will train our minds for action, to be on guard against the errors of those who do not obey the law of Christ. We will pray for and strengthen one another to stand firm in the face of persecution. We will hold one another accountable to the faith we profess: to the commitment of holiness to our perfect Father, and to our commitment to Christ’s mission. And we will be equipped to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone by word and deed.
Are you ready to double down once again on our faithfulness to God’s calling on His people? Ready to repent of laziness in any area to obey him more? Ready to think outside the box as a church family so that we can be always reforming?
So I don’t want us to have a dedication of this sanctuary except in the same sense that we devote everything that God provides, everything that we are and have, to his service.
“It’s all yours God. Do with it, and with us, as you please. Glorify yourself by using your people who call themselves Branson Bible Church to advance the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you, God, for graciously allowing us to do this project and mercifully seeing us through it. Thank you for the investments of your people to make it happen. I pray that we will be 100x more invested in being your true Church. Do this in us for the sake of your own great name, Almighty God. Amen.”
I’d like to ask the elders and deacons to come up at this time to thank God for the completion of this project and to pray for us to rededicate ourselves to his service.
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