Eternal Temple

1 Kings 5:1–5 NIV

When Hiram king of Tyre heard that Solomon had been anointed king to succeed his father David, he sent his envoys to Solomon, because he had always been on friendly terms with David. Solomon sent back this message to Hiram: “You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster. I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David, when he said, ‘Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.’

1 Kings 8:1–13 NIV

Then King Solomon summoned into his presence at Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. All the Israelites came together to King Solomon at the time of the festival in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month. When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the priests took up the ark, and they brought up the ark of the Lord and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The priests and Levites carried them up, and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted. The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and overshadowed the ark and its carrying poles. These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. There was nothing in the ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple. Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.”

I want to start this morning with a few questions...

Would you rather eat a Thanksgiving meal, or be promised a Thanksgiving meal?

Hands from those who would rather eat now...

Would you rather hit a game-winning home-run, or imagine hitting a game winning home-run?

Hands from those who would rather actually hit the home run.

Would you rather save for your dream home, or would you rather live in your dream home?

Imagining something and having something…they just aren’t the same.

Sometimes faith is like that, too.

The Bible promises eternity and heaven, but we’re a right now sort of people.

I just don’t want to wait.

Trusting in the things in front of us is perhaps a bit easier that trusting in a promise.

I think that’s part of the reason we love our church buildings.

In a small way, buildings capture a vision of the future and bring those visions into right now.

In today’s lesson we see King Solomon build a tangible, right now thing…a Temple!

A Real Temple

1 Kings 5:3–5 NIV

“You know that because of the wars waged against my father David from all sides, he could not build a temple for the Name of the Lord his God until the Lord put his enemies under his feet. But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster. I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God, as the Lord told my father David, when he said, ‘Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.’

Two things we see today...

God has no problem with temples or churches

God is the one, after all, who commissioned Solomon to build the temple

Secondly, it was beautiful...

Stone blocks…floored and wainscoted with cedar and cypress, pure gold in the inner sanctum, 15 foot tall gold cherubim

Right there in the inner sanctum sat the Ark of the Covenant…

The Holy of Holies!

Now, personally, my tastes are more Spanish Revival or Gothic Revival...

Give me stained glass or give me death!

We get the point, though.

The Israelites built something beautiful and they loved that temple...

It gave them a clear, visible reminder of God’s blessings, and it gave identity...

Unfortunately we will never get to see Solomon’s Temple

It was destroyed by the Babylonians about 500 years after it was built.

It was replaced by a Second Temple!

That one was destroyed around AD70.

Beautiful as those temples were, they weren’t eternal.

Eternal Temples

I’m going to throw a phrase out there and I want you to finish the last word for me...

“The church isn’t a building, it’s a........PEOPLE!”

Today the church worldwide celebrates All Saints Day in memory of those who have passed.

We not only remember what they meant to us, we look forward to the day we are reunited with them in the presence of our eternal temple.

We read about an eternal temple that will never be destroyed in Revelation 21:

Revelation 21 (NIV)

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

It’s almost too good to imagine

No promises, no Bibles…Not even faith....You don’t need faith when the promise is fulfilled.

Our temple will be, and is, the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world…Jesus Christ

Until then...

Trust and Heart

Proverbs 3:5 NIV

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

There are two words in that passage that I sometimes struggle with

Trust and heart

I tend to trust what I know, see, and experience

Heart…

Anyone else here struggle with heart language?

Can I just tell you I tend a bit more toward head than heart?

Anyone here familiar with the hymn, In The Garden?

You ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart...

There was a time when I didn’t like that hymn.

My response to it was, “I know he lives because the Word of God tells me He lives and the historical evidence is overwhelming!

I still believe that, and I’ve had some pretty smart folks try to convince me otherwise.

Even so, the older I get the more I think there might be something to this heart stuff.

The head can get you so far, but the heart is deep knowledge.

KNOWING With The Heart

I KNOW He lives because there is something so unshakably embedded in my HEART that I’d be a fool to deny it.

Sometimes people think that wanting something to be true in itself makes the thing fanciful.

I want to be 6’4” and have a 97 mile an hour fastball.

Wanting it to be true isn’t going to change anything.

What about the things that matter most, though?

I want to believe that there’s more to life than this life.

I want to believe I can have peace with my Creator!

I want to believe that the love of Jesus reflects the love of God.

If Jesus loved sinners, there’s hope for me.

I want to spend eternity with God in a sinless eternity.

I’ve had quite enough of wars, poverty, broken families...

I want to believe that my father, grandparents, friends and family are waiting.

Friends, those desires have to mean something.

Desire for eternity for us, and for the people we love, is as universally true as the ground we walk on.

If you’re here today and you still aren’t sure, would you try something.

Read through the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John asking nothing more than this...

Do I want this to be true?

I believe the desire was put in place by God.

Story

A little boy asked his father one day, how do we know God is real if we can’t see Him?

The father thought for a moment and asked, “Son, do you believe I love you?”

Yes

Well, I never loved like that until you were born. That sort of love has to come from somewhere.

The good news, is that we know where it comes from.

It come from a Savior who showed humanity love, died, and rose on the third day.

Here’s what you can know in that, you not only have an eternal God waiting for you.

You also have an eternal family that loves you.

Eternal Temple…Eternal Family

Ephesians 3:14–15 NIV

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

God ordains family, not just now, but for eternity.

There’s something about the whole family of God, and families that make life worthwhile.

The wonderful news, is that we’re surrounded by the family we know, and the family we don’t know...

Hebrews 12:1–2 NIV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Look around this church building and you’ll see reminders of that great cloud of witnesses

You’ll see it in stained glass

In beams and lighting fixtures

In the organ and piano

As long as all those things occur...There will be some version of All Saints Day

As long as people long for a Heavenly Father...

As long as we grieve at funerals...

As long as we celebrate births...

As long as Sunday School teachers bless children...

As long as people love this church because they’ve loved people within this church...

The good news is that our faith in Jesus is as sure as Solomon’s Temple.

For, as the creed says, on the third day he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father.

Our eternal temple, Jesus Christ, is even more sure than the building in which we worship today.

Amen