How To CHURCH // The Living Temple

Welcome to the Movement Church Podcast. We want you to know that God is

for you and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from one

of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your faith

is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as you

engage the word of God. Stay tuned. That's the message for ways to

get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in. We're

in this series called how to Church, and this is a series where we

are reclaiming the high ground of what that word means. We are reclaiming what

it means to actually do church, to be church to church, and so

that's what we're talking about today. Who here remembers the first time you heard

the term social distancing? Do you remember the first time that you heard that

term? Anybody remember it? I remember, you know, we were hearing

about this COVID thing, and then I was working at a church in Texas

and we got shut down. We turned everything off and didn't have church and

we're trying to figure it out, and then we were hearing about this social

distance. Everybody needs to stay six feet apart. Now I remember the first

time I heard that term. I just remember feeling the tension of it,

and how that is the total opposite of what the Kingdom of God is supposed

to be about. That we are not supposed to be socially distant from one

another, We're supposed to be socially connected. I remember the first time I

heard that term. And then of course we all sort of innovated, all

of us on different ways. We all sort of innovated and came up with

new ideas for how to make this thing work. Necessity is the mother of

invention. I remember the first time I went to Starbucks during COVID. Do

you remember that if you went through the drive through, they would hand you

your cup inside of a mug. And I would think to myself, right,

but who put the cup in the mug the first time? Right?

Like? What is this serving? People came up with these COVID vending machines

in Switzerland where you could get a mask or you know, hand sanitizer.

I love this. This is in France. These people came up with these

pool noodle hats and if you wanted to eat in their cafe, you had

to put on these pool noodle hats. That were six feet long, and

so that way, if you ever hit anybody else with your hat, you'd

be good. We came up with all kinds of creative things to do during

COVID. This is a restaurant in Maryland, says diners in Maryland are bouncing

back into eating out a minus the coronavirus pandemic, with a little help from

inflatable inner tubes on wheels. So these people had to get inside of these

tubes if they wanted to eat at this restaurant. They look happy about it.

To me, about a dozen or so are called bumper table. So

there you go. That was in Maryland. I saw this on the news.

This guy came up with a new annoy and that you can't eat while

wearing a face mask. That might soon change. Israeli inventors have created a

mask with a remote control mouth that lets diners eat without taking it off.

They say the device could make a visit to a restaurant less risky. With

a squeeze of aliever not in front of the mass opens if the company plans

to manufacture the mass within months. I really don't know that I could explain

this in words for the podcast listeners but it's gross, and so we came

up with all new creative ways to do things. We were already kind of

on the track of being done with shopping malls. We're already kind of walking

towards that thanks to Bishop Jeff Bezos. He had taught us that we should

order things and have them sent to us instead of going to the mall.

I remember during COVID, I went to the Nike store and we had to

stand six feet apart on the outside. Anybody remember going into a store and

they only let a few people in, And you know, I was thinking

to myself, I don't know if these Nike duck lows are worth this,

you know, And then I saw him and I said it was worth it.

But you know, COVID forced us to learn how to get the world

to come to us. That's what happened in that season. We learned that

what we should be doing is having the world come to us. And that

deeply affected church. Because a quarantine affected us. It affected the way we

think about church, church attendance, church membership, church involvement, all of

it became sort of circumspect. All of it became this thing where we had

to make sense of now, wait a minute, how important is church to

me? All of us on some level or another asked that question, and

we were already teetering on a very dangerous cliff in regards to church life.

In nineteen sixty one, John F. Kennedy said this, he said,

ask not what your country can do for you, Ask what you can do

for your country. But the attitude of the church pre COVID it was already

devolving into this, ask not what you can offer your church, ask what

your church can offer you. Very often in our feast with the Fikes,

when we meet with people, we asked the question, what is it that

you were looking for? What is it that you were shopping for? Maybe

you're here today and this is your first time and there's something that you're looking

for, something that you're shopping for. What is it? I hope it's

not that, But that's where we were. That's where the church was teetering

on the verge of a church that was more of a business model for growth

and success and a message model for the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are

these absolute business model rules that you can use to build and grow a crowd.

It's not hard to grow a crowd. We were already much more concerned

with our seating capacity than with our sending capacity. This is what the culture

of the church was before COVID, and then COVID hit and we all experienced

the difference between a church on mission and a church gone missing. All of

us, on some level, wrestled with this. I wasn't here in Monument

Colorado, so I don't know where you were during this season, what you

were going through, what you were looking for, what you were experiencing.

But churches across the world were doing their best to bring church to your home,

weren't they. We innovated. We came up with ways to film our

services, and we came up with ways to live stream. We came up

with ways to connect with people through the chat. My favorite preachers during that

whole season, because he didn't have anybody in the room to say amen to

the good things that he was saying, he would say put it in the

chat, say amen in the chat, and people would type amen, Amen,

Amen. I would like for you all today to say amen to the

things that you agree with. Okay, can we do that today? There

we go perfect, good, You're already on your way. But all of

those innovations were built on a new felt expectation that COVID taught us to expect

the world to be delivered to our front door. And I'm going to argue

today that that sentiment, that mindset, that expectation is exactly what church is

supposed to be all about. It's exactly what church is supposed to be about.

In fact, it's exactly what churching is supposed to be about. The

verb churching. We're going to talk about it. I told you that as

we got through this series that we're going to deal with it kind of in

three sections. What We're called, what We're called, two, and what

We're called to Do. We're still in the what We're called section. This

is week three. For week one, we talked about how we are the

family of God. We are the Family of God. In week two.

John Wilson did a wonderful job last week preaching about salt and light. We

are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. And this

week we're going to talk about this term. It's really powerful, really meaningful

term that God has used to describe us, the living temple of God.

We are the living Temple of God. That's a pretty significant phrase, A

pretty important phrase. I'm going to unpack it today what it means and why

it means so much. We're going to be looking at First Corinthians three and

First Corinthians six. Now, First Corinthians three, Paul is writing a letter

to the church at corinth and he's not very pleased with him. He's pretty

disappointed them actually because of their carnality, their humanity, because they are peaking

sides between this guy Apollos, who is another teacher of the Word and Paul,

and he's trying to communicate to them, you guys are being super superhuman,

really fleshy. And so as you read this, I want you to

think about this phrase. A pat on the back is just a few vertebrae

removed from a kick in the pants. Okay, but they're both encouragement.

Paul is going to be encouraging the Corinthians this morning as we read this,

and hopefully he'll encourage you too. So if you got a Bible, opening

it up, First Corinthians three, we're going to be looking at chapter three.

Verse one says this, but I brothers could not address you as spiritual

people just right off the bat. I wish I could address you as spiritual

people, but you're not, but as people love the flesh, as infants

in Christ, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you

were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,

for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife

among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human

way? For when one says I follow Paul, and another says I follow

Apollos, are you not being merely human? Paul goes on in the next

several verses five through fifteen to really spell out why this is a ridiculous notion

that any of us would prefer a human being over God himself. Paul's making

the point, You're supposed to be listening to the thoughts and the words and

the message in the Gospel of Jesus, not of Paul, not of Apollos,

not of Richie Fike. You're supposed to be paying attention to Jesus.

And you ought to say amen. And he says this in verse sixteen.

This is the first time this is ever mentioned in this way. It's beautiful,

He says, Do you not know that you and that you is plural.

Okay, this is us. 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.

Tell the person next to you you are the temple. Tell him right

now, you are the temple. I tell the other person you didn't want

to talk to you. Tell them your temples looking mighty good. Tell him

right now, your temples looking mighty good. Trying to help you if you're

single. Get some dates around here. Okay, So what I want to

do today is I want to talk through the history of this term temple.

I want to talk through the significance of it and the journey that God has

taken to be able to say to us that you are the temple. So

let's talk about the first temple, the very first temple that was built.

Of course, you might know that Solomon is the one that built the temple,

but did you know that he wasn't the first one that wanted to build

a temple. The very first sermon I ever preached in this congregation, the

very very first sermon I ever preached was in First Samuel, and it was

about this very moment. It's a moment where David decided he wanted to build

a house for God. And I had a really really cute phrase that we've

been using ever since, and it says, this God is not a monument,

He's a movement and we get to be a part of it. All

of that came from this passage. So look at this. This is tewod

Samuel seven. It says, now when the king lived in his house David

and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies. The king

said to Nathan the prophet, see now I dwell in a house of cedar,

but the Ark of God dwells in a tent. David felt like that

was but beneath God. It was below God. He felt like God needed

something more than this tent. So Nathan, hearing this idea and thinking that

sounds great, he says to the King, go do all that is in

your heart, for the Lord is with you. But that same night the

word of the Lord came to Nathan. God's got something to say about this

idea, he says, go and tell my servant David. Thus says the

Lord would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived

in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt

to this day. But I have been moving about in a tent for my

dwelling in all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel.

Did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded

to shepherd my people Israel, saying why have you not built me a house

of cedar? What God is saying is I will not be confined by a

house of caedar. I'm on the move, and it's by design. God

was saying to David, Hey man, I hear your heart. I understand

the notion. I get the sentiment. But I didn't ask for a house.

I didn't ask to be kept. I didn't ask to be contained.

I'm on the move. And so that's where we get all of our language.

It's where we understand the concept of the Movement Church. God is moving,

He's not sitting still. He's not a monument of what was. He

was, He is and he is to come. And so that's why we

are the Movement Church. I love that about our name, that and also

Mary mackenzie. She's the real reason. Because Mary came up to me when

we were thinking about a name and she said, hey, you remember that

first sermon you preached and I was like yeah. She said, you said

that God's not a monument, He's a movement. Yeah, how about movement

church? And I just like start crying. I was like, that's crazy.

That's a great idea. So anyway, at some point, when we

have a building that's ours, I have made a commitment to Mary that we

will have a life size statue of Mary McKenzie somewhere in the building. Okay,

which is really it's pretty teeny if you really think about it. She's

anyway. So here here's what happens next. David realizes he can't build a

house for God, and so God God says to him, I hear your

heart. I appreciate your heart. I have something I want to say to

you. He says this. Thus says the Lord of Hosts. I took

you. I did that. I took you from the pasture, from following

the sheep. Remember when nobody knew you, David, Remember when you were

just kind of a shepherd boy, you were anonymous. I took you from

that place that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I've been

with you wherever you went, and I've cut off all your enemies from before

you. And i will make for you a great name, like the name

of the great ones of the earth, and i will give you rest from

all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will

make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with

your father's I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from

your body, and I will establish his kingdom. Now what's interesting about that.

We think, as we understand kind of David's response to this, that

he understood this prophecy as God speaking about his son Solomon. But when we

read this now with the full context of the Bible, we understand that what

God was talking about in this moment was Jesus, I'm going to make you

a house, and I'm going to build up an offspring who shall come from

your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He's talking about Jesus Christ.

David didn't understand that, but it's pretty powerful to think about. David

wanted to build a place where God's presence would reside a temple. That's what

he wanted to build for God. But God wanted his presence to be unencumbered

by physical location a movement. So David's nearing the end of his life and

he's got to figure out how he's going to get this dream to come true.

David never saw the temple. He asked his son to build it for

him. Verse six of Chronicles twenty two says this. Then he called for

Solomon, his son, and charged him to build a house for the Lord,

the God of Israel. David just can't let it go. He said

to Solomon, my son, I had it in my heart to build a

house to the name of the Lord, my God. But the word of

the Lord came to me, saying, you have shed much blood and have

waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because

you have shed so much blood before me on the earth. Behold, a

son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest.

I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall

be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days.

He shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son

and I will be his father, and I will establish his royal throne in

Israel forever. He says, Now, my son, the Lord be with

you, so that you may succeed in building the house of the Lord,

your God, as he has spoken concerning you. So Solomon builds a temple.

Obviously I don't have a real picture of the temple, but if you

ever look on the internet for sort of, you know, recreation of the

Temple, you might find something like this. It took about seven years.

One German theologian believes that in today's economy it would have cost somewhere around thirty

million dollars to build this building. All of the explicit details of the temple

can be found in first chronicles, the kind of materials, the dimensions of

each room, the functionality of each space. God was very specific in the

way in the direction that the building would face. And there were three important

components to the temple. Let's talk about them. The first one was the

porch. The porch is the first component of the temple. So if you

think about as layers walking into the Holy of Holies, you start at the

porch, a place where entry was either denied or granted Solomon's Porch continued by

the way to be a physical location even into the Book of Acts. There's

moments where the disciples are hanging around at Solomon's Porch. But it was a

place where people could enter into the sanctuary, which is the middle part a

sanctuary. Now listen to these descriptions. It measured forty cubits in length,

twenty cubits in width, thirty cubits in height, and it contained a candelabrum,

a table, and a gold covered altar used for offerings. Loaves of

showbread were left as an offering to God. And at the far end of

the sanctuary there was a wooden door guarded by two cherubim, leading into the

Holy of Holies. The walls were lined with cedar carved figures of cherubim,

Palm trees and open flowers were overlaid with gold. The floor was of fur

overlaid with gold. The doors of the Holy of Holies were of olive wood.

Chains of gold marked the dividing line for the entryway to the Holy of

Holies. Every wrapper's favorite room in the world is this room. There's so

much gold in this room. It's an incredible I mean, DJ Khaled would

love to summer in this spot. You know, change of gold marked the

dividing line for the entryway to the Holy of Holies. And I think this

word sanctuary, this word sanctuary is a meaningful word. What do you think

of when you hear the word sanctuary? What thoughts, what emotions, what

ideas come to mind? A place of refuge, a place of protection,

a consecrated place designed for worship. I think, at its core when you

think of sanctuary, like if you were looking for a sanctuary from a war

or from trouble, you'd be just thinking, I just want a safe place,

right, a safe place And if you really want to extend that definition,

a safe place where worship happens. That's what a sanctuary is supposed to

be. Church is supposed to be a safe place for people. Church is

supposed to be a safe place for people of all beliefs, people of all

struggles, of all questions, of all tensions. Church is supposed to be

a place where you can come and engage with God. And you ought to

say, amen, churching should be about making safe spaces for people to encounter

God. You know that word sanctuary, It's not really popular anymore. I

have a lot of friends that are building churches and church planning friends, and

they don't use the word sanctuary. They use worship center or theater or chapel.

Those are kind of the popular words. We don't use sanctuary. I

wonder if it's because I don't know about you, But when I think of

the word sanctuary, I think of the Methodist church that I would go to

once a year, where you know, there was like this old lady who

was pointing at people and you know, yelling at people. No running in

the sanctuary, no hats in the sanctuary, no coffee in the sanctuary,

no kids in the sanctuary, no fun in the sanctuary, no sinners in

the sanctuary. I think that this is what has become of some of the

sanctuaries in the world, that sinners aren't welcome in the sanctuary, and so

we have to pretend like we've got it all figured out in order to fit.

What a shame this is our sanctuary, this space here, this room,

what is called on Monday through Friday a common area, common space,

common area. So we have turned something common into something sacred. I think

that's pretty awesome. I think that's something only God could do, and this

place should be, must be, will be a safe place for all people

to come and ask their questions, to come and seek out God. A

place where people can come and experience the true and live in God. And

hopefully they'll experience Him by the way that you interact with them. Can I

hear anymen this morning? So the sanctuary was a safe place to engage with

God, a sacred space designed for worship. And it was a barrier because

there was one more spot, one more elevated place to get to the Holy

of Holies. There was an elevated entry to get into the Holy of Holies.

It was floored and wainscotted with cedar of Lebanon, and its walls and

floor were overlaid with gold, amounting to six hundred talents or roughly twenty metric

tons. It was the most holy place on earth. It contained two cherubim

of olive wood, each ten cubits high and each having outspread wings of ten

cubit spans, so that since they stood side by side, the wings touched

the wall on either side and met in the center of the room. It

was set apart. It was distinct, It was sacred. There were no

windows, and it was considered the dwelling place of the name of God.

There was a singular purpose for this place. The Holy of Holy was prepared

to receive and house the Ark of the Covenant, and when the temple was

dedicated, the ark, which contained the original tablets of the Ten Commandments,

it was placed beneath the chairub them. This was history, This was the

history of God's faithfulness. This was the very presence of the living God.

It's somewhat folk lore, but it's also accurate that once a year, one

man, for roughly fifteen minutes, would walk into the Holy of Holies.

His job when he walked into the Holy of Holies was to bring petitions for

all of the sinners and to ask God to forgive all of the sins that

all of the people had committed in the one year span. To me,

he might have needed more than fifteen minutes for that, but he walked into

the room. And there's folklore that the priest would wear a rope around his

ankle. Have you heard this. He would wear a rope around his ankle

when he walked into the Holy of Holies, and the idea was that he

would walk in as a sinful man, and this Holy God would strike him

dead. You don't belong here. That's one thought. The other thought was

that this man, this human being, would walk into the presence of God

and it would be so glorious, so astounding, so impressive, so amazing,

that he would never want to leave, And so they had to tug

him out of there because he wanted to stay right there in the presence of

God. That was the holy of holies. Solomon's Temple was amazing. It

was the crowning jewel of Israel. It was the sacred space. But even

with all of that glory, all of that intentionality, all of that beauty,

all of that divinity, the people were duplicitous. The people were half

hearted. The people were worshiping idols left and right, and so God sent

the Babylonians into Israel to decimate it, including the temple. This is a

painting by Francesco Hayez. It was painted in the eighteen hundreds. It's a

picture of the temple being gutted, a picture of the Temple, the holy

place of God, being desecrated, being torn apart. It's a picture of

a people without a temple, a people without a compass of people without a

purpose. Prophets like Ezekiel and Jeremiah would write out warnings. First, Hey,

listen, God is saying you are half hearted. God is saying you

are worshiping idols. God is saying you must stop. God is saying he

will send devastation. God is saying enough already. And then Jeremiah would write

a book called Lamentations, And it's all about that picture, It's all about

that moment. Says this in Lamentations. One Jerusalem sinned grievously. Therefore she

became filthy. All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her

nakedness. She herself groans and turns her face away. Her uncleanness was in

her skirts. She took no thought of her future. Therefore her fall is

terrible. She has no comforter Oh Lord, behold my affliction. For the

enemy has triumphed. The enemy has stretched out his hands over all her precious

things. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary, those whom you

forbade to enter your congregation. The book of Ezra is all about what it

took to rebuild the temple. And what's interesting, what's fascinating, is archaeologists

who have done incredible digging and looking through the ruins of Old School Jerusalem.

As they do their dig sites, what they notice is that in every dig

site that was pre exit, every dig site that was pre Babylonian devastation,

every dig site before that time, you will find little statues like these of

Baale of a Shira, of the fertility Gods. You will find in the

homes of people who were supposed to be worshiping Yahweh, worshiping God sending this

priest to go and petition for their sins, you would find in their homes

evidence of idolatry. But what's amazing is in every single dig site post exile,

every single archaeologist will tell you that there is no evidence of any idle

worship since that moment. So what that tells us is that God made it

clear that his people were not meant for idolatry, and God's people got the

message. They got the message that God is a jealous God. God is

a jealous God. The Psalm says this, for they provoked him to anger

with their high places. They moved him to jealousy with their idols. Let's

talk about this term jealousy for a minute, a jealous God. Have you

ever stopped to think about that phrase, that our God is a jealous God.

Now, all of us in this room are jealous of certain things,

right Like I'm jealous of Steve's incredible mustache, it's fantastic. I'm jealous of

Chuck's mediums. I mean I can't pull it off. You know, we're

jealous of all sorts of things. And that jealousy is rooted on a certain

level. Sorry, you got the picture of this medium and it can't get

it out. Sorry, look back up here, no mediums. But that

jealousy is rooted in insecurity. It's rooted in a sense of I'm not enough.

I'm jealous of what they have. I'm jealous of what they can do.

I'm jealous of their opportunity because we are sinful, jealous people. But

that's not the kind of jealousy that we're talking about. I'll take inspiration anywhere

I can get it. I was watching Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago

the week I wrote this sermon, and justin Timberlake was performing and he wrote

a song and put it out called Selfish. Have you heard this song?

I want you to listen to the chorus. Listen to this, Oh fuggish

us, I can't help it. I guess I'm selfish. Okay, that's

all you get, because I don't want you out of worshiping justin Timberlake.

But he says, if I get jealous, I can't help it. I

want every bit of you. I guess I'm selfish. Now, this is

almost terrific theology. Almost, it's almost. God is jealous for your heart.

He's not jealous of anybody else. He's jealous for your heart. He's

jealous for his people's heart. And it's not selfish, it's selfless because here's

what God knows. God knows that every single thing that you give your time,

your attention, your devotion, and your worship to that's not Him,

is gonna let you down. It's gonna fail you. Anything other than God

that you put your heart into is gonna fail you. And so God is

jealous. He wants every part of you. He can't help it. That's

who he is because he's the only thing that can help you. Amen.

So when we think about his jealousy and we think about that picture, that

is a picture of God being jealous for his people, so much so that

he was willing to send devastation in order for them to look up to see

him for who he was. So that's why the temple got destroyed. They

spent forty six years rebuilding the temple. Forty six years. It became for

them the most important, the most sacred, the most valuable place on earth.

The temple not only represented the presence of God, but from that moment

on, it represented a return to the heart of God, genuine devotion.

They learned their lesson, but they were still duplicitous. There was still a

duplicity within them. And so along comes this guy, this thirty year old

guy from Nazareth, and he starts preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. He

starts talking about how God is his father. He starts talking to them about

their Pharisees and their Sadducees and their religious leaders, and he starts pointing out

the duplicity that he saw all around them. And there's a moment and the

New Testament in the Gospels where Jesus walks into the Temple of God with a

bull rope and he clears shop reeks havoc upon the Temple of God. There

were no more false idols in that place, but they had turned it into

a business. They'd turned God's temple, God's safe place, into a place

where people were trading upon the innocence of human beings for the sake of their

own wealth. And Jesus was not pleased. He says this in John two,

says the passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up

to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and

sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there and making a whip of

cords. He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen,

and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables,

and he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away.

Do not make my father's house a house of trade. His disciples were trying

to make sense of this, and they remembered that it was written zeal for

your house will consume me. So the Jews said to him, what sign

do you show us for doing these things? And Jesus answered them, destroy

this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews

then said, it's taken forty six years to build this place. I don't

know what you're talking about. What kind of manpower do you have? It's

taken forty six years to build this temple, and will you raise it in

three days? And I love this little parenthetical thought that John says. But

he was talking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised

from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they

believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. Okay, so I

want you to see this progression. First, we've got David wanting to build

a house for God. God won't allow it, and so David says,

Solomon, you're going to do it for me. The temple is brought to

ruins by the jealous hand of God. A new temple is built and misused

by God's people. And now Jesus is redefining the meaning of the word temple.

He's saying, let me tell you what a temple is. See,

first, the temple was a singular place where one man met with God.

And now the temple was one man who brought God everywhere he went. It's

powerful to think about that. You know the story. You know what happened

with Jesus. He riled everybody up. He made everybody mad at him.

All of the religious leaders of the day were threatened by the way that he

spoke, his authority, the way that he communicated every question that they asked

him to try to trap him, he wouldn't take de bait, and over

and over and over he confounded them with his incredible heavenly wisdom, and people

were flocking to him because they'd never heard truth like this. This temple was

alive and people were experiencing the living God. And so these religious leaders,

who were afraid of what Jesus had to offer, they crucified him. They

had one of his closest friends, Judas, betray him and just for thirty

pieces of silver, and he got taken before ponscious Pilot and he said,

who do you say I am? And Jesus never fought against it. He

just experienced crucifixion. The temple was closed, the temple was dead, but

just like Jesus had promised, the temple was resurrected. And this is where

it gets good. This is where it gets really good, because Jesus was

about to change the definition of temple one more time. The Temple of God

grew larger, it expanded, it mobilized. The days of a central location

for a singular visitor were over, and God was on the move again,

just like he'd always aimed to be. There's a moment right before Jesus goes

up in a heaven where he says, one last thing, Guys, all

authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. So since I

have authority, let me tell you what I want you to do. Go

and make disciples of all nations, baptism them in the name of the Father

and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey

everything I have commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very

end of the age. So what Jesus is saying is that the Temple of

God is now commissioned to move. It's commissioned to expand. The Temple of

God was put into the hands of ordinary people. God took religion, he

took ministry out of the hands of the professionals, and he put it into

our hands. He said, this is now your job. And that's so

beautiful because that's what allows Paul to say to us what he said earlier,

that kick in the pants. Do you not know that you are the temple.

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. So when the first Temple, one man came

to God, one man once a year, fifteen minutes. Hope he doesn't

die, right, That was the first Temple. In the second Temple,

God incarnate came to Israel. He came to one central spot, one geographic

area. But in the New Temple, God's people are sent everywhere into the

world. And so if you want to know how to church, this is

it. Go into the world and be the salt, be the light,

be the temple, make disciples, baptize people in the name of the Father,

the Son, the Holy Spirit. I'm with you. See that felt

expectation that we've all developed. We all developed it during the pandemic, This

idea that we learned to expect that the world's supposed to come to us.

That was God's intention all along. He wanted for us the temple to go

to the world, to go out and to meet with people. All of

those crazy innovations that we just talked about, you know, all of those

things that we go, Okay, well, how do we keep living?

How do we innovate? Man? God is the great innovator. He made

his temple mobile again. Remember when he said I was on the move.

I was moving in that tent. I liked life like that. I wanted

to be on the move. You confined me. And now God has innovated.

He's changed the temple from a monument to a movement. And you ought

to say, amen, People no longer have to come to God. God

comes to them through us. We are the living temple of God. It's

amazing to think about that we are the living temple of God. But then

Paul does something interesting a few chapters later. He makes it singular. Because

it's cool to think that we this kind of horde of people, this plurality

of people, we are the temple of God. Paul makes it singular in

one Corinthians six. Listen to this. He says, 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. God's saying to us,

each of us, that we are the temple. I am the temple.

You are the Temple. Ryan. Come on up, we'll get started and

get ready to worship. I want us to take a moment while we do

this. I want us to think about our temple. I want you to

think about your porch. I want you to think about your sanctuary, and

I want you to think about your Holy of Holies. So let's talk about

your porch for a second. Who is standing on the porch of your life?

Who's knocking? Who's trying to get in? What influences? What people?

What habits? What's trying to get into your sanctuary? Who's knocking at

your door? Do you have a sign on your door that says no solicitors?

Do you have that? Do people know I'm for God, I'm standing

for God. We're going to be baptisms on Easter Sunday. You know what,

you know what baptisms are. They are a sign on your door that

says I'm under new management. Don't try to get in, stay away,

right, I'm declaring at my porch, the porch of my life, this

is who I am as for me and my house right, that's your porch.

What about your sanctuary? Is it time for you to take a bul

rope to your sanctuary? Is it time today for you to let Jesus do

that, for you to say, you know what, I'm corrupt, my

heart is divided, my soul is divided. I have emotions that cause me

to look to other sorts than God. Do you need to take a bull

rope to your sanctuary and clean it out so that your heart is a safe

place for the presence of God. Maybe you need to do that today.

Is it time to reclaim that space for the presence of God? And what

about your Holy of holies? The truest part of who you are, the

truest, deepest reality of who you are? Is it time for you today

to clear out the mess to say, you know what? I want the

truest part of me to be fully devoted to God, fully committed to God,

fully connected to God. Who's on the throne of your heart. Who's

the King, who's the Master, who's the Lord. God didn't ask us

to give sixty seven percent of ourselves to him. He didn't give sixty seven

percent of himself. He gave it all, and so he's asking us to

give all of ourselves to him. So I would implore you today we're going

to have a moment where we interact with God. We're going to take communion

together. Man, let today be a day where you clear out your sanctuary,

that you clear out the Holy of Holies, and that you say,

Lord, I want to give you everything. I want to give it all

today. Take intentional care of your temple, and then take that temple with

you everywhere you go. This morning, Presley, sweet Presley up here walked

up to me and she told me a story about a young man who had

a snowboarding accident and died a person in her school. And she was asking

me, I don't know how to talk to these people. I don't know

how to answer their questions. I don't know how to interact with them.

Take the temple with you, Presley, Take the presence of God with you

to school and just love people them with the love that God has loved you.

Bring that love, that compassionate grace that He's shown to you, bring

it to them and let them experience it. Man, you don't have to

have all the answers, but you do need to love people, and you

do need to go to them. God says, go into the world and

make disciples. He no longer is asking people to come to his temple.

He's tasking us the temple to go to them. That's how to church.

Amen. So what's God leading you to do next? And how can we

help? Would you send us an email to info at Movementchurch dot co and

tell us how we can pray for you and help you take the next step

in your spiritual journey. If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry,

text the amount you like to give to the number eight four three two one,

or look us up online at Movementchurch dot c. You can find the

Movement Church on all social media platforms, and we hope that you'll give us

a follow God bless you, and remember God is for you and so are we.