God’s plan from the beginning has been to dwell with His people. From the Old Testament sanctuary where His presence rested, through David’s longing to gaze upon His beauty, to the promise of Emmanuel, God with us, He has continually drawn nearer. In Christ, believers now become the living temple of His Spirit, both individually and collectively as the Church. One day this purpose will be completed in glory, when He will dwell with His people forever, wiping away every tear and making all things new.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] We’ll follow through this morning four steps in which God accomplishes his overall plan for humanity from beginning to end. And I will need your help, Cameron, if you put those verses up in order, the major ones, one to four. We’re beginning to look here at how God has revealed step by step, not always everything at once, but through the Old Testament and then on into the New, God revealing that he’s been developing a theme and a purpose which will be accomplished in the end, and our final verse will be from the book of Revelation, part of the passage that we’ve already read. Now, here we have in the Old Testament, and the word to notice that God shows to the people what is his plan at that point, is the word sanctuary. I don’t know what you understand sanctuary.

[00:01:02] Sometimes I think of a bird sanctuary where you’re not allowed to shoot them, or a sanctuary where there’s safety for people or for maybe some entire population. But the word sanctuary has in it in the Old Testament a deeper meaning as well, and that is the person or the people or the thing for which the sanctuary is, in this instance, is God. It’s a special arrangement of a place where he comes and is known. And let them make me, says God, a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. And the purpose of this, of course, is that last statement, that God is interested in bringing himself to be with us. And all through the scriptures, one form or another, God is through the prophet speaking to the people. And in the New Testament, speaking to us through the gospel, that the purpose of his communication

[00:02:07] is to get through to us, that he wants to come and dwell with us. And that’s what, in the Old Testament, the sanctuary was before they actually had the proper temple. They also had a more makeshift arrangement where there was a special contraption that was carried through with the Jewish people, and it was called, you know, called the Ark of the Covenant. And although the elements that were in the Ark of the Covenant would not be of much physical value, if you just looked at what they were made of, the sanctuary actually was something done in order to give a place for God to come and dwell amongst his people. A very fascinating detail of the Old Testament journey of the children of Israel, especially as they’re heading towards the Promised Land, is that the way God gave orders for that Ark

[00:03:07] of the Covenant to be in this makeshift mechanism of carrying it along, to be kept always in the centre of the people. And when the tribes were all in their positions and it came time, God gave orders for them to move on, that they would have an order in which they all stood up. The order was one which maintained all their positions, but most importantly, it maintained the fact that as they journeyed, they had God in their middle. God represented by a sanctuary, the Ark of the Covenant being the centrepiece in it. and that was God’s way of demonstrating his long term purposes that he wants to be with us and a part of us. He wants to be central in all that we are as individuals and as a people and with the children of Israel in the Old Testament the Ark of the Covenant carried in such a way

[00:04:06] as to represent his presence with his people and when somehow something went wrong and they lost the presence of the Ark of the Covenant everything went wrong and they lost battles and they needed to have God brought back as it were by his representative sanctuary the Ark of the Covenant to themselves to be with them and that was teaching us of his overall purpose that is about the business of having us learn how to live with him or have him live with us and this unity and centrality of his presence amongst us is what is his purpose We move further forward to the next verse, and it is one in Psalms, and this is something that gives you an even deeper window in on that purpose of God. One thing, this is David speaking, one thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after.

[00:05:05] This is David speaking, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord. So where there was in the Old Testament a sanctuary, David discovers some deep desire in him to be where God is. We have a touch of that in terms of the New Testament that I’m moving toward. Just wait for it and see what the sanctuary is. But here we have a moment of the Old Testament where David gives his motives and his heartfelt desire that I may dwell in the house of the Lord. all the days of my life. Why? To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in his temple. Eventually the makeshift arrangements turned into the temple which was in Jerusalem. But God was arranging for there to be a sense of being able to find access to him. And interestingly, David speaks about the motivation that he’s feeling.

[00:06:07] He wants to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. Our humanity, of course, has always been tripping over and failing to fully put into operation the purposes of God. And so it happens that people will have beautiful sanctuaries because of the wood and the emblems and the statutes. That’s not so much how David saw it. It wasn’t that there was such a wonderful architecture. God did use some of them to be able to create a wonderful temple and the Spirit came on people and some of the folk who were filled with the Spirit in the Old Testament so that they would have God’s help in the actual designs and effective of the building of the temple. But nonetheless, the thing that is capturing David in this early stage particularly is he wishes to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.

[00:07:03] That is why in more evangelical congregations which read the Bible more and don’t rely on just church history giving precedents and traditions. Those people who rely upon the scriptures, we call ourselves evangelicals because we believe in the inspiration of the scriptures and because we follow the central message of the scriptures which is the gospel. And we trust in this message but that message is to tell us about the Lord and that which makes sanctuary for us is God is present with us in another step forward which we’ll see in the New Testament. But here’s David who says, I long to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. And that’s putting things in right perspective and with correct motives. Let’s go further to the next one. And this is still in the Old Testament

[00:08:03] but it’s an Old Testament speaking about something coming which will be what the new shows. In our Bibles, the most pages are in the Old Testament but the thing that has all been aiming toward and prophesied in the Old Testament is that which is told in the New. And that New Testament is about God taking things another step forward. And this, in Isaiah, this very famous prophecy, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. And the sign is that he’s continuing his purpose. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Now, the word Immanuel means God with us. And so this next step further down the line than just having a sanctuary with the Ark of the Covenant and with the people going to worship the Old Testament religion as they had it,

[00:08:59] the step forward is going to be God bringing his presence not just to a physical temple but to a temple of a son, a baby born, Jesus. And in that moment of the incarnation of God’s eternal son, this one that I keep telling us, this one who has within his person all of the Godhead bodily, this one, the son of God, he’s the son of God because he’s the third person of the Trinity but now that he comes to earth, he comes with all that God is in him and he takes on humanity and he becomes the son of which heaven says this day, I have begotten you. He’s never been created but he did get begotten as a child that was born of Mary. She bore a son. And in that, was able to have his name called Emmanuel. Now, this, in the Bible, I often use lots of names and they actually have got more to do with the meaning of them

[00:10:02] than the fact that someone ran around saying, Emmanuel, Emmanuel, where are you? I want you to come to dinner. No, he was named Jesus in that sense. But by saying his name is Emmanuel because the meaning of Emmanuel is as a recitation of the very purpose being achieved in his being born and Emmanuel means God with us and this was an amazing step forward that people who didn’t know the prophecies would never have guessed that this God who wanted to be with them in the garden of Eden he came and walked with them but he’s going to come much more deeper they all of course lost that closeness in the first sin but nonetheless in the sin of the world God still has the purpose and his purpose is that he wants to be with us. He wants to be among us. He wants to be the centre of all that we are and have in being.

[00:10:58] And his name is called Emmanuel, which means God with us. And in the birth of Jesus, God came down to humanity to be with us even more than in the Adam and Eve in the garden. And in the garden, I think it’s Christ before he becomes a human, but the second person of the Trinity comes into the Garden of Eden and he walks with them. But now God is going to come as a son in which he’s in us. This God dwelling in us is put into effect in a way that nobody aside from those who knew the prophecies could ever understand that when Jesus was born, it was God in a human, how he was prosecuting his eternal purpose that the deity would come to be with us and in us, in Jesus, which is why the New Testament is full of what Christianity is, is coming to know Jesus.

[00:12:00] He is the salvation for us and he is the final purpose for us. It’s all wrapped up in Jesus. And to the extent you come to know him, you find what God’s eternal purpose has been through the entirety of Scriptures. What a fantastic passage. We have a verse in Corinthians, a few verses there. See which ones you pick. And in 1 Corinthians, it’s talking, and it’s talking about that what we now, who are in the New Testament era, we now who’ve come to Jesus as our salvation, we now who’ve been reconciled to God through Jesus and how he died on the cross for our sins and rose again to be in his person, our saviour, so the call to answer, to receive the salvation of God is just not just to nod your head and say, it’s nice that he died for me, but it is to come to him who did die for you

[00:12:58] and as you come to Christ, if any person be in Christ, joined to Christ, that one becomes a new creation. That’s what the Bible cries out to us. Do you not know that you are God’s temple? Instead of it just being an Old Testament sort of structure, instead of there needing to be the Ark of the Covenant, instead of the final building of the temple in Jerusalem, which was fantastic, by the way, but instead of all of that, it could be destroyed and God’s purpose is not lost. It was in AD 70, that beautiful temple, because God created something even better than the Jewish temple. He created what we are, the temple of God. God’s spirit dwells. That’s what a Christian is, someone into whose person the spirit of God has come to dwell. The gospel, as first proclaimed in its fullness in the New Testament context

[00:14:03] context by Peter in the day of Pentecost, is if you repent of your sins and you put your faith in Christ, you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, receive the gift of God’s spirit, who comes to dwell in you. And for this third step, or was it the second? I’ve lost count. Anyway, is this, of these steps, it is God effecting his eternal purpose of being with us and in us and amongst us. That’s our God and it’s his purpose to do it all the time. Actually, the 1 Corinthians verses are very interesting if you begin to get some of the others there. The 1 Corinthians talk is something that I’ve been reading the commentaries and some of those commentaries say it’s either each individual understanding that by becoming a Christian they have God in them and with them. And then other parts of the commentary say,

[00:15:00] but that’s not all the truth. It’s also the case that we as the church, who have varied gifts of the spirit coming to us when the spirit comes to dwell in us, we the church, we represent in our pluralcy what is now a living temple, a better temple. There’s no need for a great structure with lots of all nations, you know, those lovely little pictures and lots of things on it and things for people to bow their knees to. We don’t need a building. One of the difficulties Protestant churches make is that they see the practicality of the use of their building, but it can become a sanctuary. If you’ve had that in your head, that you walked into the sanctuary, you will correct but in a way that you may not understand yet and my message might get it home to you. The sanctuary is not this. It’s not all that. We’re at the back.

[00:16:05] The sanctuary is the people who know Jesus sitting here and collectively we are God’s temple and this passage in Corinthians, if you look up the explanations of it, which is what I do during the week a lot, I love what I do because of the teaching the scriptures bring that the temple that’s replaced the Jerusalem temple, the temple by which God has advanced his purpose of being with us is us, plural. It’s us as the church. I don’t mean the building and nor do I mean the organisation and nor do I mean just the way we all do it. As a Baptist church, we have our distinctives, but what’s important is that the Spirit of God has made us corporately his temple. Do you get this? Do you understand this? That you’re a part of God’s temple not only personally, but you’re a part of God’s temple corporately. And it’s amazing.

[00:17:17] Do you not know that you are, you plural, are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? That’s almost something if you really get the depth of it, you’ll never be the same again. In terms of how you’ll love the church, I mean plural church, the church that we are as a temple, plurally, as well as not competing, it’s also true that we each individually are the temple of the Holy Ghost. that’s what becoming a Christian made you. Well, that’s only the third step. Let’s go on to the fourth step. And it’s one that many Christians haven’t really been able to digest because it’s in that book of Revelation which has got lots of mysterious methods of saying things that you’re not sure how to interpret. I think we’re meant to try and to hold our interpretations gently because sometimes all your assumptions

[00:18:28] you bring to it changes where you came out. But here it says, and we’re going to read verse 3 for a start but we’ll be able to go a bit further. What are we doing here? And I heard a loud voice behind the throne. Revelation 3, I think the first verse was 21. Yeah, it’s Revelation 3, 21. We actually had in the computer from a previous sermon the one that you’ve got up. 21, 3. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. This is where the future’s heading. He will dwell with them and they will be his people in a way not even previously attained in the end of the purposes of God. They will be his people. Their dwelling place of God will be with man, with humans. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God.

[00:19:45] And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. We’re going to move to an expression of God’s eternal purpose in glory. When we’re there with Jesus, the normal sea will be not to be just trying to get close to him but living in his presence. You don’t quite know how to understand all the details of Revelation. At one stage it says there’ll be no more sea. I take it that there’ll be no more roaring oceans. I don’t think it means there’ll be no more water because they talk about the river of life or whatever. I think there is water and there might be some sense of ocean. so whether they’ll still be fishing, I don’t know. But there will be a beautiful perfection.

[00:20:42] And whereas Jesus, well, the pre-incarnate Jesus, I believe, walked in the Garden of Eden, in eternity he’s going to live with us. There’s a big difference from someone doing a visit than someone with whom you live eternally. He’s going to wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be things that you have in your personality because of incidents that have occurred that he is going to wipe away every tear. And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Don’t dwell in the past. I can see an angel tapping someone on the shoulder in heaven and saying, wake up and see where you are. Realise who is with us. We have no more to have to look to the future for an explanation or for a blessing or for somehow some resolution.

[00:21:52] He who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. God’s going to make everything new. In the former arrangements, in the former angers, the former misquiets. Also he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega. By the way, those words Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet. And what it’s saying here is that he’s not just a start and the finishing of it all, but Alpha and Omega. When you put those two together, you’re saying the lot. I am the Alpha and Omega and everything in between. The beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage and I will be his God and he will be my son.

[00:22:50] We are going to a fantastic future in glory. David got a hint of it in the old system and he was known for longing for the glory that he felt in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant and of God’s presence in the Old Testament manner of it. But in glory, all of us are going to be absolutely blown out of our minds. I don’t know whether that’s the right thing to say or not, but we’re going to be aware that we live with God. It’s been his purpose all the time. How close are you to God? We have the option in these days to work at being close to him. Don’t just let it all sit there on the shelf for the future. But work at coming close to God. He’s got a purpose for you and him. You and him are an item in his plan for eternity. Do you understand that? You’re going to be living with him and he with you.

[00:24:01] And that’s also corporately so that we who are the church need to learn how to be doing that too. That’s a part of the purpose that Corinthians, I won’t show you all the verses, but he wants us to recognise, the writer of the New Testament and the Corinthians in particular, he wants us to recognise that we’ve got a corporate happening of being the indwelling of God. And there’s something about the church and being a part of the church, I thank God for my family who brought me up knowing God before I knew him. It’s a funny thing to say, but I knew the presence of God in the church as a little boy. I assumed I was a Christian. It was a shock to me in the crusade when God showed me, no, I had to come to Christ as saviour. But I knew the presence of God from the smallest child in the church.

[00:25:04] And when you’re brought up in the church, you love that sense of the presence of God. And we’re going to becoming the eternal scenario. And like David, we’re going to rejoice at being in the presence of his glory. That’s what makes church wonderful. And in eternity, it’s going to be to the nth degree. What a fantastic future we have. Let’s pray. Father, I thank you for the scriptures. They have an overall message as well as particular short ones that we can dig out. But Lord, they have this purpose that you’ve been working at all through the time. Oh, may it come. Maranatha, Lord, come. This purpose is fantastic. And help us on the journey through to be like David who rejoiced to share that degree of the presence of the glory of God in the form, this earlier form we’re in now. We thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen.