John 14:2-3 Part 1 - Jesus And The New Temple

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you if God Wanted the

Bible to be an inch deep. He would have made it into a kiddie pool

But because God has made the Bible this Mariana Trench of in beautiful Data, he wants us to explore it

Now today we're gonna explore at a at a level That's a little deeper than normal.

We're gonna look at a theme that runs all throughout the Bible and It's this theme of the temple

God's presence with his people and we're gonna view that from Genesis to Revelation Then we're gonna look in zone or zoom into John 14

We're gonna see what God is doing with all of these things Now temple is something that is a theme that runs throughout the entire

Bible It begins much earlier than the Solomonic Temple, which was built in 957

BC It's much earlier even than the Mosaic tabernacle

Which is in the 1500s after Israel is rescued from their slavery in Egypt in there. They make this tent of meeting

It's way before that In fact the temple theme the temple narrative the temple

Reality what's going on in the temple is on the very first page of the

Bible all the way back to Genesis now today For a moment.

We're gonna look at 11 reasons why that's so and Then we'll get to the text that we have for this morning

Eden is the first temple where God and man communed together with one another. That's the first thing is a temple

I'm defining it this way is a sacred space where God makes people sacred in order to offer him sacred worship

That happens in Eden God carves out a sacred space called

Eden It is a garden land in the midst of a world filled with deserts and God places his man and woman in the garden

He makes them significant and sacred by breathing life into them. That word in Hebrew is the same word for spirit and Then he commands them to worship him that's a temple

Adam himself is the first high priest. You're like I didn't read that in Genesis 1 Well, we have to read a little bit under the surface

What does a high priest do? Well a high priest serves God a high priest

Helps other people come in to worship the two words actually that are used for Adam in the

Hebrew above and shop Mar Are the words that are used for Aaron the high priest later when it says that Adam is to?

Cultivate the garden and to keep the garden Those are the same words for the priest who are to cultivate the temple and to keep it for the glory of God the high

Priesthood what this is teaching us was not invented at the time of Aaron. It was actually patterned off of Adam So it goes all the way back to the very beginning

Number three if you're not convinced we've got eight more the tree of life in the

Garden of Eden is The prototype for the temple lampstand that sits in the holy place in Jerusalem Adam served in the presence of this great tree.

It was a tree of nourishment in the ancient world a Tree, especially like this was a symbol of life and vitality and nourishment

Well inside the holy place in the Jerusalem temple was this lampstand called a menorah

It had a central trunk and it had seven branches. It's a tree seven branches where light is

Going to be present in the temple and also the bread of the presence is right there in front of it. So nourishment

You've got a tree right there in the temple that's pointing back to the

Garden of Eden Jewish scholars are unanimous on this that that menorah is a symbol of the tree of life because why

The priests are supposed to remember that as they serve in the temple They're doing the work of reconciliation bringing people back into the garden presence with God before sin corrupted things

Number four The temple is decorated like a garden now We know what a garden is it's it's fruits and plants and flowers and nuts and trees and all of these things

Well inside the temple in Jerusalem, there were wood carvings of apricots There were wood carvings of different fruits and nuts and berries and as you walk into the temple to look like a golden garden

So the temple is decorated like Eden To symbolize that it is patterned off of the original creation.

It's not a novel creation Number five the temple is filled with gold and jewels if you read the text in Genesis, there's four rivers

We'll talk about them in a moment that flow out of the Garden of Eden. One of them is the Pyshon not Python kids

Don't get scared it's the Pyshon and That river flows into a valley of gold and gemstones the temple itself is covered with gold and Gemstones, it's

I don't think it's a coincidence That it is patterned off of Eden in such a deliberate way

An interesting one number six is the Garden of Eden could only be entered through an

East Entrance the the entrance to the Garden of Eden was on the east of the garden and it's the exact same way for the temple

The temple had one entrance and it was a temple. It was an entrance that faced east So that if you were going to go into the temple you had to turn and walk west into that eastern gate

Now in the Old Testament there is some symbolic References to east and west that I think are important Every time the people of God in the

Bible walk east They're walking into curse or subjugation or slavery

You think of Adam who was kicked out of the garden he was kicked out of the garden He was cast out through the eastern gate to walk east in his sin

Cain was exiled to the east after he murdered Abel the people of Babel Traveled east before they built the

Tower of Babel Judah was exiled to the east whenever God put them through the exile

There's a little theme there that as you're walking away from God you're walking east Which is also true that when you turn around and walk back the other way and you're walking west

There's a theme of redemption in the Bible. That's the number seven In order to enter the Garden of Eden, you would have to walk

West westerly. Is that a word? It's the same for the temple

It's the same for the tabernacle if you were a high priest who were serving sort of in that Adamic role you would have to turn and walk west to enter into the temple

And when you entered into the temple you would see the fruit and the gold and the tree and you would see this garden set up and it would be

Symbolically like you were walking back to the Garden of Eden Representing your people who have sinned and been cast out of the presence of God Abraham When he goes to Canaan, he travels west

To the land the garden land, which is also a pattern of Eden When the exiles returned home they returned

West Again, this is symbolic for we're leaving exile leaving sin leaving shame and traveling back into the presence of God God is so Providential over the details of the temple construction that he had it represent

Eden in Every way because think about it when we take communion we take bread and wine

Those are tactile reminders of the gospel God did that for the Old Testament people as well He gave them tactile reminders of Eden the hope that for which he created the world

This one I think is even more important That as Adam and Eve were walking away from God to the east

God gave them a Prohibition from entering back into the garden and to enforce that prohibition

He installed two massive cherubim with flaming sword so that they could not enter back into the garden

Now if you were a priest, this is what you would experience a couple thousand years later in Jerusalem You would enter the garden temple

Traveling west just like Eden You would have entered a golden room filled with plants and vegetation just like a garden and You would have entered into the

Holy of Holies once per year and on that big curtain Because there was a curtain that separated you from the

Holy of Holies on that curtain was woven to cherubim with flaming swords

Because you're walking back Symbolically into the garden when you get inside the

Holy of Holies There's two massive cherubim with their arms spread out wide Symbolizing that under the threat of death you were in here

On top of the mercy seat. There were two cherubim I don't know exactly what they look like Indiana Jones has like this

You know this little representation Two cherubim on top of the mercy seat

There's three sets of two cherubim to remind you that you are not only walking by God's grace past the angels of death

But you remain in the Holy of Holies by God's grace and All of this is typifying what

Jesus is going to one day do in bringing us back into the garden with God Those aren't coincidences number nine

Under the threat of death were you in the Holy of Holies? In the same way that you could not touch the

Ark of the Covenant in heaven. You can ask Gaza how that worked out Under the threat of death you could not touch the mercy seat one the same way

You were supposed to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil under the threat of death Now this number ten makes even more sense because what is the knowledge of good and evil the knowledge of good and evil is wisdom

So here you have this tree that is dangerous for humans you're not supposed to grab from it But it's also a tree that will give knowledge and wisdom

It's a place that if you eat from it You will surely die in the temple the place where if you touch it

You will surely die is the Ark of the Covenant and inside of the Ark of the Covenant is the law of God The thing that gives us wisdom

So you've got the tree of the knowledge of good and evil compared to the Ten Commandments that are inside of the mercy seat

Another Non -coincidence the last one I would say is That Eden Was on a mountain

And maybe you've never heard that before That Eden was on a mountain But I ask you to consider it this way if there's four rivers that are flowing out of Eden Rivers don't flow uphill

Rivers flow downhill So you have four rivers that are flowing from Eden?

I don't know if this is true or not, but maybe from all four cardinal directions so that Eden was the geographical high point in that region

Now that's fascinating because in the Bible high places are always places where worship occurs

High places are where temples were placed pagan temples idolatrous temples But also the temple of the

Living God Jerusalem was the high point in the entire region no matter what direction that you walk to Jerusalem you had to go up to get to Jerusalem and on top the highest point in the city of Jerusalem on Mount Moriah Was where the temple was placed?

It's a lot like Eden. Is it not? Ezekiel even says that from that temple streams of living water will flow kind of like the

Garden of Eden all of this is Symbolic of the fact that humans have fallen out of relationship with God this glorious Garden paradise where God made us to dwell with him to love him this

Sacred space where God makes us sacred and we give him sacred worship. All of that is lost, but not entirely

All throughout the Bible God is giving glimpses images pictures types shadows of the journey back home if We were cast out of the garden

God could have left us Isolated from him forever, but he doesn't He gives us pictures of what it's gonna be like to travel back pictures like a tabernacle pictures like a temple

Pictures like a high priest. I didn't listen this one. This is bonus material. This is number 12

The high priest clothing reminds us of the Garden of Eden the first layer of it says that it clothes his nakedness

Wasn't it Adam who had to have his nakedness covered The high priest is serving in a way that's supposed to remind us of what the true high priest

Christ is going to come and do Which is bring us back into fellowship with God and this reality of temple

God creating a sacred space for people who've been made sacred in his presence to do sacred duties and Worshiping him is all throughout the

Bible. It's from Genesis to Revelation It's in Eden and it's also in New Jerusalem if we believe as Christians that well, thank

God that we don't have to deal with a temple you've missed it because the temple is all throughout the

Bible as Christians temple is really important concept for you and I which we will see in just a moment

If you will well, actually I've got a few more verses before we get there Let's look at now

Not only that temple runs throughout the scriptures, but God meets with his people intentionally at a temple

This is the design from God all along Exodus 25 8 It says let them construct a sanctuary for me that I may dwell among them.

God's desire is to dwell among sinful people by grace Exodus 29 42 through 43.

It shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at The doorway of the tent of meeting before the

Lord where I will meet with you and speak with you there and I will meet there with the sons of Israel and it shall be consecrated for my glory

Think about the grace that God shows over and over and over.

These are golden calf making people We can't judge them.

We have a golden calf on Wall Street Google it's right there and yet God in his grace and in his mercy is welcoming them in over and over and Over again pursuing them with his presence

The great blessing of the Bible is God sharing his presence with undeserving people. That's what we see over and over again

Leviticus 26 11 through 12 moreover. I will make my dwelling among you

One of the most unbelievable statements in the Bible. I will make my dwelling among you And my soul will not reject you and I will walk among you

The Temple reality points back to Eden does it not where do we see God walking and talking with his people in?

Eden here. God is promising in Leviticus. I will walk and I will talk with you at the temple

Again, the temple is not a new reality when we get to it in Leviticus or when we get to it in the book of Kings It is an old reality

That goes all the way back to the very beginning God even calls his temple his home Which I think is makes it even more personal the temple is not just a religious building as Christians the church even this is applicable to us.

It's not just a religious building The temple is God's house.

It's his home Look at what God says about the very first temple in first Kings 827, but God but will

God indeed dwell on earth? Behold heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain you how much less this house

Which I have built Solomon does it say this building that I have built this great mega church that I have built this this great

Edifice that I have built he says your house All throughout the scriptures this idea that God is dwelling with us is that he's left he's let his guard down He's taken his coat off.

He's put his hat on the hat -rack. He's kicked off his shoes even and he's dwelling with us an intimacy

This is really important because when we go to the church and when they went to the temple

They weren't going to meet with a stiff aloof Angry God who demanded that they come and worship.

I will make my presence known to you Kind of like the Wizard of Oz a little short man in the booth.

It's not like that When you hear these phrases, you should hear the grace and the tenderness of God.

I'll make my dwelling among you I'll build my house in your neighborhood That's what

God is saying. Psalm 23 6 David got this Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in The house of the

Lord forever, that's how David would have been we laugh but David would have burst through that door, too

To David it was not just a religious building. It was God's home Isaiah 56 7 these

I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer and Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house

Shall be called a house of prayer for all people my personal gathering place the place where I let down all my

Guard and and I make myself known. It'll be known as a house of prayer This in fact is the point of John 14 2 through 3, but I don't want us to skip ahead too fast

One of my favorite verses on this section is Ezekiel 43 7 I love this verse listen to what it says

And he said to me God said to me son of man This is the place of my throne in the place of the soles of my feet

God kicks his shoes off. He doesn't say this is the place where you see the underside of my sandals

The temple is the place where I take my shoes off and I stay a while and I rest a while and I fellowship with my people

I Will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever And That's true

Because of what Christ has done now for us There's a difference even between a house and a home too that we need to wrestle with We have this phrase

Home is where the heart is. We have that phrase because we're made in the image of God The house that you live in right now may not be the house that you live in for the rest of your life

Your address may not always be the same The building is not as important as the presence that inhabits it, right

My house burns down today my house burned down but not my home My home is with the relationships that I've built with the family members that I've built and it can go anywhere

I talked about the army last week. We slept in a lot of places that don't look really housey But I never felt like I was homeless

God's home His abode His dwelling is with his people by grace and grace alone.

The prophet Haggai talks about this He says go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it

And then I may be glorified says the Lord again From the very beginning of creation until the end in New Jerusalem God is making his dwelling known to people

He is making a sacred place for people to perform sacred duties to love and serve their

God But The temple also is not a stagnant reality because in the

Old Testament the temple was limited The Old Testament doesn't present a completed temple.

It presents a temple that was woefully limited It was a picture. It was a shadow

It was a type of what Christ was doing, but it was not the fulfillment On the very best day of the temple one day out of the year one man alone

Through great preparation and through terror Got to enter into the oppressively good

Presence of God his presence is so good that it overwhelms most people a lot of them died and they had to pull them out by a rope

That's a limited temple that only one person gets to experience it only once per year

Most everybody else was on the outside Looking in which tells us that God's home also in the

Old Testament had boundaries it had borders in A similar way like ours does today for instance

I'll talk to anybody on my front porch. I will Jehovah's Witnesses vacuum salesmen's

Democrats you want me to put a sign in there in my yard. I'll talk to him on my front porch But I'm not gonna invite them in my backyard

Let's be fair that's even wishful thinking I don't have a yard But if I did

See, we'll talk to people on the front porch. We want to invite them in their backyard backyards a little bit more intimate Is it not that's for your neighbors?

That's for your co -workers. That's for friends who are friends of friends, maybe even As you get further into your home you get deeper in the intimacy

There's people who you would invite to your backyard if you would never invite into your house Like I like my neighbor

Maybe I would invite my neighbor, but I'd have him in my backyard before I'd have in my living room As you enter the home, it's a little bit more intimate.

It's a little bit more exclusive. I Would say Maybe you have different sets of boundaries than I do

I don't like when my house is a mess in the upstairs and Someone goes upstairs to see our mess our unmade beds

Do you feel that way? It's because upstairs is a little bit more intimate than the downstairs you invite people over to your dinner table

And you have fellowship and fun, and then that's great, but there's only a select people they get to go upstairs at the bedrooms

There's only a few people that get to To see how it really is You know

The deeper you go into a home the more intimacy there is the more exclusivity there is and it's the same in God's temple

The people who were allowed on the front porch at a distance Was the people of Israel most of them were on the front porch or in the backyard they could they could see

God at a distance But they didn't get to go into the house They didn't get to go into his home

It was only a select group of people who were allowed to go into God's home, and that's the Levites and the priest

And on most of them only got to go into his living room There's only one and only once per year

That got to sleep and enjoy The blessings of the upstairs bedroom the

Holy of Holies where God takes his shoes off And he makes his presence known in its most beautiful and raw way

That's why the Old Testament temple was limited because not everybody got in and As we transition now to John 14 as we've seen that temple is there from the very beginning

God's desire is to dwell with his people from the beginning and yet sin and failure and Brokenness and all of these things keep us at a distance from God They keep us in the backyard with God or they keep us not even on the front porch

But kicked off the front porch and into the street with God We now need to look at what

Jesus is going to do to rectify the situation. He's not gonna throw away the concept of temple

He's gonna do something beautiful to bring us in so as we turn

To John 14 today verses 2 through 3. I want us to look at how Jesus is gonna make a brand new temple

He's not gonna reinvigorate the old when he's gonna make a new one a final one a perfect one a better one and In so doing he's going to bring us from the outside in So if you will turn with me

John 14 1 through 3 We're gonna read our passage this morning and then we're gonna explore these things together

John 14 Do not let your hearts be troubled Believe in God and believe also in me in my father's house

Are many dwelling places? If it were not so I would have told you for I go to prepare a place for you

And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself or where I am

There you may be also, let's pray where Jesus Your life

Your work all of it stands at the very center of human history

Everything created without sin without error in the garden Tarnished and broken by our sin in Genesis 3

Leaving humans without hope Without ability Broken beyond their

Their power to be able to fix and yet Lord at just the right time you came

You came to provide the remedy you came to provide your gospel to fix the parts of us that are broken and To bring us in Lord today.

Would you help us to be able to see the temple reality? Underneath the gospel.

It's a it's a it's a concept that we don't normally look at that the gospel Opens us up to the new and greater and better temple motif

It's not a reality that we look at often. It's not something that we consider very frequently, but Lord, would you help us to see it?

Would you help us to appreciate it? Would you help us to be thankful in it and Lord, would you help us to praise you because of it?

It's in Christ's name. We pray. Amen Now the first thing we have to discover is is

Jesus even talking about a temple because as I read verses 1 through 3, I don't see the word temple anywhere

I don't see the word tabernacle anywhere. So the question we have to ask ourself is Is he talking about the temple?

Now, I think he's talking about the temple. Yes, I think he's talking about more than the temple That's why this sermon had to be two sermons.

I said that last week in that funny how things multiply One text becomes three sermons before you know it.

It'll be the end of the year and we'll still be in John 14 verse 5 Bibles deep and good got a lot of amazing things inside of it

Today, I just wanted to look and see if temple is here and explore the ramifications and I would say yes

The word temple is not here. But yes, the concept is Jesus uses the word house.

He said in my father's house That phrase is not accidental

The phrase father's house only occurs a couple times in the New Testament. Jesus says three of them and they're always

Talking about the temple every single time Luke chapter 2 when

Jesus is a teenage boy And he's talking to the people who ought to have known what the temple actually is. He says this

Why is it that you were looking for me? He's talking to his mom and dad Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house?

Where is he at? He's at the temple He's saying that the temple is his father's house

John chapter 2 he uses this phrase again. Now. He's not a teenager anymore. Now. He's 30 years old

He's entering ministry John chapter 2 is the beginning of Jesus's ministry and the Pharisees again are questioning his authority questioning what

Jesus knows and this is what Jesus says to them in John chapter 2 Take these things away stop making my father's house a place of business

He's saying you're treating my father's house like it's just a building like it's just a place for commerce like it's just a Marketplace, but it's my father's home

Get your tables out of my dad's house He's time at the temple

The intimate dwelling of God when we take that understanding we combine it with Jesus says in John 14

My father's house has many rooms. I think it's undeniable that he's talking about the temple in John 14 at that time

The temple complex was a massive sprawling metropolis of buildings

King Solomon's temple was actually quite small. It was just a temple That's it by the time of Herod They call it the

Herodian temple. There was building upon building upon building. It was a massive sprawling

Complex, it looks like a lot of megachurches in, Texas This building is this this building is that this building is that there's the temple

Kind of subsumed among the temple complex when Jesus says my father's house has many rooms It could be that he's applying to the fact or or sort of implicating the fact that hey

This little temple right here is not big enough Doesn't have enough rooms for all the people that I'm gonna let in my father's house has many

You think that building is special you think that building significant you think it's big The one

I'm gonna build is better Now we do have to do some work here. I can't avoid this because I grew up in a

Christian culture We're gonna take a pause for a second. We're trying to talk about the mansions. I Had a bad day

Somebody would remind me. Don't worry. Just be faithful one day. You'll get your mansion. That's not what this passage says at all

The word mansion is not even here when you translate this word from the

Greek to the Latin, it's a word that looks like mansion and Unfortunately when the English translators brought it over into English They did what sometimes we do when we look at other languages and say how it looks like mansion

English It must mean mansion in the Latin. That's wrong. That's that's not how translation works

The word doesn't mean mansion The word actually is a verb that Jesus converts into a noun which would have made his sentence a little awkward

But it would have also made it striking it would have brought a lot of emphasis to what he was saying the word means

Stay to stay or I am staying It's a verb So when

Jesus turns it into a noun It would have been sort of like in my father's house.

There's many staying places in My father's house. There's lots of places to rest

In my father's house. There's many places for you to stay

Again, I think that this would have been in contradiction or in juxtaposition to the temple

Which was limited the temple Jesus is building is not has nothing to do with mansions when we get to heaven

It's not gonna look like Bel Air or Rodeo Rodeo Drive or whatever those places are It's gonna be we all have place to stay

All of us who are in Christ have a place to stay Now, how is

Jesus gonna do that? Or why would he even do this as? Jesus is saying these words.

He's in the city of Jerusalem with the towering Herodian temple hanging over top of him Why would he say that my father's house and I go to prepare a better place than that?

Why would he do that? The temple is functioning. It's working. It's doing what the temple has always done. Why would he need?

To promise a new temple again because the old temple wasn't working

The old temple was excluding people The old temple was the Pharisees broken house at this point where they were weaponizing

God's presence against the Gentiles Remember in John chapter 2 they filled the entire presence of the

Gentile court with animals and tables and they were saying be damned

Gentiles There's no place for you in the father's house, even though in Isaiah.

He said my house. It's a house of prayer at this point

The temple had become rotten If you read in Josephus Josephus is a

Jewish historian. He talks about the disgusting and despicable Practices that were happening in the

Herodian temple. It had become very corrupt It was no longer a place where people would come to know

God It was a place where a sign was hanging up in the court of the women that said if you're a Gentile and we find

You here we will kill you There was a sign in the temple that said that It was a temple that was used to buttress ethnocentricity and every other

Jewish Custom, but it wasn't a temple that was dedicated to the service of God At its best when

Solomon built it It was a type and it was a shadow of the true and better temple that was to come

It was never meant to be the final end all be all temple Jesus came to build a better temple

We're not just an elite class of people get to go in and only once per year and to the holiest of holies a place

Where all of his people get to go in a kingdom even a priest Have you ever thought about why the Bible calls us a kingdom of priests?

Because you're no longer on the outside You get to be in God's home

It doesn't mean that you need to wear funny clothes when you go to church it doesn't mean that you need to go out and sacrifice an animal in your backyard and If you do put it on the grill and I'll be there

Take mine rare or medium rare The point though is that every room is now open

When Pete when Jesus or when Paul says that there's no more any division no more dividing line.

The curtain has been torn He means that now we're in So the temple had to be

Brought down the old temple in order to make way for a new and better temple so an

Implication of this what Jesus is saying is if he's gonna build a new temple, the old temple has got to go and That is in fact an overlooked aspect of the

Gospels That a lot of people have booted into future Antichrist future eschatology passages

Most of these passages I'm going to read with you have to do with Israel in the first century Jesus taking away their temple because he's going to build a new one this whole dynamic begins in Matthew 21 read

Matthew 21 not and Through 24 read it not as though these things are in the future or these things apply to us they do by application, but read those passages with fresh eyes and You'll see that Jesus is taking away their temple because of their sin and their rebellion.

Let me give you a few examples There's three parables that Jesus tells in Matthew chapter 21. I'll give you one verse out of each of them

That's a lie, I'll give you four verses out of three of them Truly I say to you this is the first parable

The tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you Jesus talking to the

Pharisees and he's saying that they are going to stumble if not completely be out of the kingdom and the tax collectors and the

Pharisees the ones that they hate the ones they look down their nose at The ones that they walk around and they and they call them sinners

Pharisees invented the word sinners, by the way talking to tax collectors and fair and prostitutes They will get in before you

Jesus is indicting them parable number two It's called the parable the landowner verse 20 or verse 43 of Matthew 21

Therefore I say to you look at the intensity is ratcheting up here The kingdom of God will be taken from you and it will be given to a people who produce the fruit of it that is such a

Powerful indictment because Jesus came into a city in his triumphal entry and what did they lay down at his feet?

they laid down leaves and Then he went to the temple and he cleansed the temple because it had no fruit

And then the next morning he found a fig tree that was leaves only not bearing fruit he said that is what

Israel has become and he cursed it and Then he comes into town and he says this kingdom is going to be taken from you those are fighting words

The third the third parable is even more shocking and striking We've over spiritualized this parable.

That's the parable the wedding feast We've made this passage this parable about us. This parable would have been shocking to them when they read this heard this

Jesus is saying but the king was enraged and He sent his armies and destroyed those who murders those murderers and set fire to their city verse 13 then the king said to his servants bind him hand and foot and Throw him into the outer darkness in that place.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth Jesus saying that he called the

Jews and they were unworthy to come and Because of that he's gonna send his armies and he's gonna set fire to their city and they're gonna be thrown out where there's weeping

And gnashing of teeth that happened Forty years after Jesus rose from the dead that happened

God sent his armies the Roman Empire who marched upon the city of Jerusalem and they set the city on fire and the

Jews place Status and temple which they were using in an abusive way were taken from them.

It's one of the most Beautiful fulfillments of prophecy if we read it through the lens of way the way it was written it but again

It keeps getting more intense the more you read Matthew 23 34 through 38 after he says seven woes on the

Pharisees Where he pronounces seven aspects of condemnation where he says you have done this you have done this you have done this

This is what he says as a result of that Therefore behold I Am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes

These were the missionaries that are gonna come after Jesus rises from the dead. He's gonna send them to the Jews Some of them you will kill and crucify that happened

Some of them we will scourge in your synagogues that happened some of them you will persecute from city to city that happened

Notice what Jesus says so that upon you Jerusalem May fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth from the blood of righteous able to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barak I Whom you murdered between the temple and the altar truly

I say to you all these things will come upon this generation

Jerusalem Jerusalem in case we're wondering who he's talking to Who kills the prophets and who stones those who are sent to her how often

I've wanted to gather your children together the way that A hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling behold

Your house is being left to you Desolate he doesn't say

God's house at this point the language changes He says your house your temple

Your empty trophy to your dead religion will be left to you Desolate and in case we were wondering exactly what that means chapter 24 verse 1 through 2 tells us

Jesus came out of the temple and was going away and his disciples Pointed to all the magnificent buildings and he said to them.

Do you not see all these things truly? I say to you not one stone will be left upon another which will not be torn down For Matthew 21 to Matthew 24,

Jesus is exposing the idolatry of Judah And he's saying that this temple that was supposed to be a type and a shadow of Christ Because it has been so thoroughly corrupted will be torn down and it was

And it was but that's only half of the story

Often when we read the scriptures, we read that God is going to bring judgment upon his enemies But we also need to read that God is going to bring salvation to his people

At this point Judah like Israel beforehand had become an enemy of God and God punished her

But he did not leave us without a temple This is one of the great errors in the

Evangelical Church where we have read our 21st century Americanism back into the text

I'm a Christian. I don't worry about temples and sacrifices and all that stuff Isn't Jesus your sacrifice

Isn't Jesus your true high priest who mediates between you and God if you don't have a temple you don't have

God's presence because God has determined in his in his Wisdom and in his knowledge that he will share his presence through temple

If you're a Christian and you don't have a temple then you don't have

Christ He doesn't leave us without a temple he makes a new one he creates and crafts a better one

We know this because of passages like John 2 17 through 19

Zeal for your house will consume me Jesus says and the Jews said him What sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things and Jesus said destroy this temple?

And I will raise it again in three days He is not saying destroy this complex of Herodian architecture

He's saying destroy the temple of my body That's the better temple that's coming

It's not a building. It's a body We learned that in John chapter 2 that he's not going to rebuild an old edifice

And this is very important because we don't enter into the presence of God just by coming into a building

We enter into the presence of God by coming through a body And that body is Christ the

New Testament says that you are in him Which means that you're in the temple.

This is exactly What happened Jesus says you kill this temple? I'll raise it again on the third day.

That's what happened At the end of his life John 14 is the very last hours of his life

Judas leaves to betray him a Few hours later Jesus and the disciples go to the garden

That's not a coincidence. Is it? temples and gardens always go together and Then after the garden they arrest him and they beat him and they

They scoff at him and they lay false charges upon him and then they Blindfold him and and smack him and beat him and they they pull him in front of Herod who mocks him they pull him in from a pilot who didn't have the courage of the backbone to save him and then after 40 lashes

And after scourging humiliation Bones and muscles exposed they marched the temple of the

Lord up to the top of the hill where it truly belonged And they crucified him But on the third day

This is not a temple. They could be torn down with wrecking balls or bombs or Romans on the third day the true temple rose again from the dead and He created for us the only way that we could ever know and be and appreciate

God Look at what Hebrews 9 chapters 1 or verse 1 through 12 says Now even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and earthly sanctuary

For there was a tabernacle that was prepared the outer one in Which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread.

This is called the holy place behind the second veil There was a tabernacle which is called the holy of holies

Having a golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden jar holding the manna and Aaron's rod which budded and The tables of the covenant and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat

But of these things we cannot now speak in detail. I Love that because I'm always like that.

We can't talk about this too much today The author of Hebrews knows there's a lot going on here

So thank you for your grace and hearing all the context before we get to the point Now when these things have been so prepared the priest are continually entering into the outer tabernacle the holy place

Performing the divine worship But into the second that's the holy of holies only the high priest enters once a year not without taking blood

Which he offers for himself and for the sins of his people That were committed in ignorance

The Holy Spirit is signifying this to us that the way into the holy place

Had not yet been disclosed while the outer temple was still standing

Which is a symbol for this present time According accordingly both gifts and sacrifice are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in their conscience

Since they relate only to food and to drink into various washings regulations for the body imposed until a time of Reformation but when

Christ appeared as A high priest of the good things to come he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle

Not made with hands that is to say not of this creation and not through the blood of goats and calves

But through his own blood he entered into the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption

If you can't get excited about this there's something wrong with us right you're like what's he talking about Christ entered into the temple of Heaven and he cleansed us of our sin.

He purchased us with his own blood. He Abolished the old building.

He tore it down. So there would be no more confusion and He said the only way that you can enter into the presence of God is through me

Hebrews 10 goes even a little bit further Says therefore brothers since we have confidence to enter the holy place

By the blood of Jesus by the new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil

That is his flesh what the author Hebrews is saying is that Christ has inaugurated a new temple for us through his own body

So that now we don't go to Jerusalem to meet with God now We don't go in through the holy place as an

Aaronic temple Now we go through Jesus Christ on Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, even

Sunday. We go to God through Christ Because he opened up a new and a living way and We don't have confidence dear brothers and sisters based on our standing any longer

Based on how good our offering is or how if we have a blemish lamb or whatever We are confidence now is based upon what

Christ has done Our salvation is not based on our best.

It's based on his best and Christ at just the right time

Sacrificed himself as a true high priest is the true sacrifice with the true blood of the Covenant to make us clean and make us whole to bring us in This is why?

the New Testament tells us in 1st Corinthians 6 19 and 20

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? The New Testament is not just saying flowery language here in The Holy of Holies is where God's Spirit powerfully dwelt now in the

New Covenant his Holy Spirit powerfully dwells in you The old temples gone the new temples here, where's the temple?

It's sitting in your chair if you're a Christian Wherever you go wherever you walk wherever your foot strikes the earth the temple of the

Living God is there Because the Holy Spirit of God is living in you based off of what Christ Jesus has done

And it's not just about you individually either look at Ephesians 2 19 through 22 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens that you is plural if it were the

New American Southern translation It might be now that y 'all are no longer strangers and aliens but you are fellow citizens with the

Saints and Are of God's household having been built on the foundation of the

Apostles and the Prophets Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole new building is being fitted together is

Growing into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the

Spirit Jesus in John 14 is saying I go to prepare a better place for you because that one's not enough

It's too small. It's too insignificant. It's not good enough I'm going to prepare a place for you.

That will be every single Christian That's ever lived as a living stone built together as a end time temple for the glory of God where God will share his presence with us forever

So when we get to heaven and all the Saints are gathered around the throne of God, that's not a temple in this environment

That is the very essence of the temple a sacred people made sacred by a sacred God Worshiping him for all of eternity.

That is temple And it's all because of what Christ has done for you Through the

Holy Spirit. This is what God is working out in us now as we land the plane

Ton of information that we share today. Hopefully it all makes sense as we wrapped it all together I want to speak to you to your confidence for a second

The three aspects of a temple is that he's brought us into a sacred space Dear Christian if you're a

Christian Then you've been brought into a sacred space

That means that your body That your heart That your mind

That your will that your emotions are no longer offensive to God But he's cleansed you

You're not your sin anymore He's made you sacred He's made you holy

He's forgiven you of all your sins Everything that you have ever done that offended the holiness of God was nailed on the cross to Jesus Christ So that therefore you've been made new

It is so easy for us When we sin to feel shame to feel guilt to feel like failures and what

Christ has done is irrevocable When you look in the mirror you are not your sin you're not your failure you are not your mistakes

You're not your brokenness. You are not your worst day You're a Christ Jesus his day the day that he died and brought you into his kingdom through his perfect blood

That's who you are Yes, you still sin, but you are not your sin Yes, you still fall short, but you are not fallen if you're in Christ You're a temple of the

Living God made sacred through him the other thing that I would share with you

Is that you've been given sacred duties He doesn't eliminate the priesthood in the

New Testament He says you're a kingdom of priests. That means all of us have jobs All of us have duties all of us have things that we're supposed to do in light of what he's done for us

Now we don't do things in order to be saved We do things because he saved us

How are you gonna serve this living Christ who's done all this for you, how are you gonna be a priest or Priestess How are you gonna serve him?

Based off what he's done for you. He's given you a mission. He's given you gifts. He's given you fruit He's given you passions and talents and he's called you into his service

Because the temple is not finished being built yet Says every Christian is a living stone being built together into a end time temple.

The temple is not finished yet There's people who have not yet called upon the name of Christ who will call upon the name of Christ who will join you in the wall of the temple that Christ is building how might

God use you in his service and Then also

I want to share just one last thing Everywhere you go the presence of God goes with you

You're not insignificant you're not unimportant You might be a day old

Christian. You may not know how to pronounce some of the Old Testament books like Habakkuk Sorry, that was my

Hebrew accent coming out You may not know everything. No one does but the thing

I would tell you is It's not about you It's not about your performance it's not about your intellect it's about who

Christ is and who Christ has made you to be Live with your head high dear Christian Holy Spirit lives in you and you are a temple

Let's pray Lord from the beginning of the Bible to the very end the reality of templing is there the reality of you cutting out a space for your people to worship you in their sin and in their failure and A reality of your grace to bring us in Lord none of us deserved to be in your presence

None of us for all of eternity will deserve to be in the light of your presence and yet because of your kindness and Your grace and your mercy

You have brought us in That reality is true today for us who are in Christ, even if we don't feel it always

The Holy Spirit now dwells in us Lord help us to grow and our Understanding of what that means help us to grow in our appreciation for what that means

Lord help us to grow in and And just recognizing what that means father and Lord help us also to have hope for the future

When faith will become sight When we will stand around the throne of grace We'll hear those words good and faithful.

Welcome my good and faithful servant We will sing praises to you forever with unbound lips and unbound tongues finally getting it

Lord, I pray that this church would grow in its understanding of worship grow in its understanding of temple and Lord be grateful with all our hearts for what you've done for us in Christ It's in Jesus name.