9/11/24
Sometimes I find myself preaching to myself, and that happened this past Sunday. Something I said at the end of the sermon has stuck with me, and I’m still thinking about the implications. I finished the sermon by saying that what we do on Monday is just as important as what we do on Sunday.
It’s easy to try and separate our “religious” life from our “regular” life. For instance, when I wrote about the church, the ekklesia of God, a couple of weeks ago, I emphasized the meaning of the “church” as the assembly of the people, and not the building itself. We have a tendency to think that what happens at Christ Church is “God time” and everything else is “me time.”
The problem is that when we venerate (too much) a building over the people, we create a separation between the “religious” and the “regular” or the “secular” and the “sacred,” when in truth, there is no separation.
But we’ve somehow started thinking things like, “I go to worship” instead of “I live a life of worship,” or “I go to church” instead of realizing “I AM the church.” It really shakes up your perspective when, instead of “I’m waiting on a movement of God in this world,” you suddenly realize “Waitaminute! I AM a movement of God in this world!” Yikes!
And it’s really easy to think of the building as the church. We’re so used to saying that we’re going to church. Or we’re having a meeting at the church. Or you’ll hear pastors say something like, “Welcome to the house of the Lord,” or something similar on a Sunday morning.
But the truth is God doesn’t live in buildings of stone. God’s people are God’s temple. In our Bible reading this week, we see Paul writing about it in two different ways:
I Cor. 3:16, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (in this verse, the “you” is plural, talking about the congregation as God’s temple).
I Cor. 6:19, “ . . . do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (here, “you” is singular, talking about individuals as God’s temple).
We’re God’s temple as individual believers, and we’re God’s temple as a congregation. One of my favorite verses is I Peter 2:5, where Peter writes, “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” I especially love the way the old King James Version puts it: “ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house . . .” It’s as if Peter was thinking about you all! You’re not just stones, but you’re lively stones! And together, we form a temple for God.
But even in the Old Testament, the people didn’t expect God to live in the Jerusalem temple. When Solomon prayed his prayer of dedication for the temple, he acknowledged that fact: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” (I Kings 8:27). God didn't live in the temple, but that was the place on earth where humans encountered God.
The temple in Jerusalem was the place where heaven and earth overlapped.
But neither a stone temple nor a brick and mortar church is where heaven and earth overlap anymore. Heaven meets earth in YOU! Do you want to know where God actually lives? Look in the mirror. Do you want to see what the power of the Holy Spirit can do? Look at your hands.
Which means that if we want to see “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” then we have to start living like we’re the place where heaven and earth meet. As I’ve emphasized over the last months, God created us to be his representatives here on earth. It’s not so much a matter of us sitting around waiting on God to do something when it’s more like God is looking down at ME, waiting on ME to do something!
As scary as it may sound, we are the place where people encounter God. Again . . . Yikes!
We don’t have to go somewhere else to experience the presence of God, because God’s already living in us. Buildings are just that: Buildings. God doesn’t live in them. God lives in us.
Now don’t get me wrong — I am NOT knocking the need for a building. Church buildings are important because it’s in a building where you’ll find the church gathered, and since that’s where the church is gathered, God’s going to be there as well. The building is the launching pad for ministry. I’m thankful for the building we have now (but we need more space)!
But God doesn’t live in the building; God lives in the people.
You are the house of the Lord. You are the temple of God. You are the Church of God. You are Christ Church.
When we think that we only encounter God by going somewhere else, or we only are at church on Sunday morning, that we’re just punching the time clock on Sunday and getting our hour in, then we’re quite content and happy to keep serving God sequestered to an hour or so on Sunday morning so we’re free to live the rest of the week as we want.
In truth, what we do on Monday morning is just as important as what we do on Sunday morning … BECAUSE … we are the church … always … everywhere.
Blessings,
Pastor Terry
It’s easy to try and separate our “religious” life from our “regular” life. For instance, when I wrote about the church, the ekklesia of God, a couple of weeks ago, I emphasized the meaning of the “church” as the assembly of the people, and not the building itself. We have a tendency to think that what happens at Christ Church is “God time” and everything else is “me time.”
The problem is that when we venerate (too much) a building over the people, we create a separation between the “religious” and the “regular” or the “secular” and the “sacred,” when in truth, there is no separation.
But we’ve somehow started thinking things like, “I go to worship” instead of “I live a life of worship,” or “I go to church” instead of realizing “I AM the church.” It really shakes up your perspective when, instead of “I’m waiting on a movement of God in this world,” you suddenly realize “Waitaminute! I AM a movement of God in this world!” Yikes!
And it’s really easy to think of the building as the church. We’re so used to saying that we’re going to church. Or we’re having a meeting at the church. Or you’ll hear pastors say something like, “Welcome to the house of the Lord,” or something similar on a Sunday morning.
But the truth is God doesn’t live in buildings of stone. God’s people are God’s temple. In our Bible reading this week, we see Paul writing about it in two different ways:
I Cor. 3:16, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (in this verse, the “you” is plural, talking about the congregation as God’s temple).
I Cor. 6:19, “ . . . do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?” (here, “you” is singular, talking about individuals as God’s temple).
We’re God’s temple as individual believers, and we’re God’s temple as a congregation. One of my favorite verses is I Peter 2:5, where Peter writes, “like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” I especially love the way the old King James Version puts it: “ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house . . .” It’s as if Peter was thinking about you all! You’re not just stones, but you’re lively stones! And together, we form a temple for God.
But even in the Old Testament, the people didn’t expect God to live in the Jerusalem temple. When Solomon prayed his prayer of dedication for the temple, he acknowledged that fact: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” (I Kings 8:27). God didn't live in the temple, but that was the place on earth where humans encountered God.
The temple in Jerusalem was the place where heaven and earth overlapped.
But neither a stone temple nor a brick and mortar church is where heaven and earth overlap anymore. Heaven meets earth in YOU! Do you want to know where God actually lives? Look in the mirror. Do you want to see what the power of the Holy Spirit can do? Look at your hands.
Which means that if we want to see “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” then we have to start living like we’re the place where heaven and earth meet. As I’ve emphasized over the last months, God created us to be his representatives here on earth. It’s not so much a matter of us sitting around waiting on God to do something when it’s more like God is looking down at ME, waiting on ME to do something!
As scary as it may sound, we are the place where people encounter God. Again . . . Yikes!
We don’t have to go somewhere else to experience the presence of God, because God’s already living in us. Buildings are just that: Buildings. God doesn’t live in them. God lives in us.
Now don’t get me wrong — I am NOT knocking the need for a building. Church buildings are important because it’s in a building where you’ll find the church gathered, and since that’s where the church is gathered, God’s going to be there as well. The building is the launching pad for ministry. I’m thankful for the building we have now (but we need more space)!
But God doesn’t live in the building; God lives in the people.
You are the house of the Lord. You are the temple of God. You are the Church of God. You are Christ Church.
When we think that we only encounter God by going somewhere else, or we only are at church on Sunday morning, that we’re just punching the time clock on Sunday and getting our hour in, then we’re quite content and happy to keep serving God sequestered to an hour or so on Sunday morning so we’re free to live the rest of the week as we want.
In truth, what we do on Monday morning is just as important as what we do on Sunday morning … BECAUSE … we are the church … always … everywhere.
Blessings,
Pastor Terry