SLIDE: HOME

 

Planning on the HOME sermon series for months now.

 

I believe God knew we would need this series now.

 

The Home series will look at the theme of HOME in the Bible

 

 

There is a purpose for the HOME sermon series:

 

TV SLIDE: During the instability, the uncertainty, the stress and the concern of the CVD-19 crisis you will find through a biblical approach to HOME your soul is nurtured and your faith is strengthened so that you can live life well!

 

Sheltering in place. Apartments, dorm rooms, houses

 

Many of us… myself included have not spent this much time at HOME in years!!!

 

Fran and I have loved it… having our three adult children home!

My 2 Daughters  undergrad at UVA and son at Princeton Seminary …

 

my son Peter preaching next Sunday on HOME… nervous as to what he will say… I will have the pulpit again in the future and will have the final rebuttal!!

 

Our first look at the theme of HOME in the Bible

 

A HOME FOR GOD!

 

It is called “The Temple”

 

If you go to Jerusalem – you see the temple mount – where the temple stood.

 

SLIDE: PIC of temple mount

 

Mount Moriah the mountain where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Isaac and God intervened by providing a ram in Isaac’s place.

 

This is the area that Kind David purchased from a neighboring tribe and in the end his son King Solomon builds the temple in 990BC.

 

The temple was beautiful and the first 5 books of the Bible give clear instructions on what would happen in God’s temple and who could enter for worship.

 

courtyards to the temple and rooms inside the actual temple.

 

At the center of the temple was a room called the Holy of Holies. Only one priest once a year, selected by casting lots was allowed into this sacred space and this was for the purpose of making “atonement” for the sins of Israel from the previous year.

 

In the Holy Of Holies

 

Primary piece of furniture = Ark of the covenant

 

a gold box that contained 3 items.  The stones on which the law was given to Moses, Aaron’s staff that budded and a small jar of manna.

 

The Ark of The Covenant is placed in the temple 

2 Chronicles 5:13-14 The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: “He is good; his love endures forever.” Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

 

The lid  “the Mercy seat” – the lid on the Arc of the Cov

 

It was made out of gold with two cherubim fashioned to the lid. Here is where on the day of atonement, priest would place the blood of the lamb to atone for the sins of Israel once a year.

 

Above the mercy seat, on the ark of the covenant is where the presence of God would dwell,

 

Inside the central room –  the Holy of Holies  ARK of COV

 

 

God has a HOME! = the temple

 

The temple is where God takes up residence here on earth and dwells with the Israelite people!

 

It is the place where heaven and earth intersects.

 

 

Home in Genesis!

 

Genesis 2:1-2  Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. ² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

 

God makes the world … rabbis say… he rests… he sits on his throne!

 

6 days of creation – on the 7^th day God takes up residence in his new GOOD creation.

 

the Garden of Eden is at the center of creation

 

the creation story is to be read of a temple in which God dwells!

 

Genesis 1:1-4  The Beginning

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

 

There is light!

 

3^rd day vegetation –

 

Genesis 1:14-19 ¹⁶ God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

 

Temples to SUN GODs

 

In our creation story – LIGHT appears before the sun!

 

If the days of creation are the building of a temple.

And this is a clear way to read the biblical story!

 

God now has built his creation as a temple…

 

What do you place in a temple?

 

Think of the great Roman temples? –

 

SLIDE: PIC The TEMPLE from Roman times.

 

The image of the God…. How was mankind created?

 

GOD makes a temple for himself and places humankind as created in his own image to rule and to reign over this new creation with God.

 

The Virus of sin!! Enters in…

 

The next temple we see is the one we have mentioned!

 

HOME for God = TEMPLE.

 

SLIDE: Jesus and the temple …

 

SLIDE: Matthew 24  The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times

24 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ² “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

AD 70 Vespasian … the temple is destroyed…

All sacrifices stopped!

SLIDE: Matthew 27:50-52  As Jesus died…

 

⁵⁰ And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. ⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split ⁵² and the tombs broke open.

The Holy Of Holies was opened to ALL!

Everyone is now welcomed in…

Why Because in Jesus – our sins are atoned for!

He is the sacrifice for our sins…

 

The Apostle Paul –

 

1 Cor. 3:16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?

 

SLIDE:  Our bodies are the temples

1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

Peter and living stones.

 

SLIDE:  The Ark of The Covenant is placed in the temple 

2 Chronicles 5:13-14 The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang: “He is good; his love endures forever.” Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.

 

SLIDE: God rests on the seventh day

Genesis 2:1-3  Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

 

SLIDE:  The Beginning

 

Genesis 1:1-4  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.

 

 

SLIDE:  God Creates the sun 

Genesis 1:16-19  God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.  God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth,  to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

 

 

SLIDE: The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times

Matthew 24:1-2  Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.  “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

 

SLIDE: As Jesus dies on the cross 

 Matthew 27:50-51   And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split…

SLIDE:  FEET TO YOUR FAITH

 

John 14:15-17 Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

 

SLIDE: A Temple of the Spirit

1 Peter 2:4-5  As you come to him (Jesus), the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—  you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house (a)

 

FOOTNOTE (a):  Or into a temple of the Spirit

 

 

 

SLIDE:  Our bodies are temples

1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?

SLIDE: Christ lives in me

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

SLIDE: Ephesians 2:19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.