"Where God Dwells"

sermon by Pastor David Layman

April 24, 2005

Acts 7:44-8:1, I Peter 2:4-9

Where does God dwell? Stephen, a young Deacon in the early church in Jerusalem, told the temple authorities that God is not contained in the Jerusalem temple. In fact, God does not require a building, for Heaven is God's throne, and the earth His footstool! Then Stephen said that

God dwells in Jesus, the Righteous One, and the temple leaders had killed Him some 5 years earlier. When Stephen claimed to gaze into heaven and see the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God's right hand, that sounded like blasphemy to the leaders' ears! They thought that no one could see God, and knew Stephen was proclaiming Jesus to be God!

If we were raised to believe that Jesus is God's Son, we may find it puzzling that the concept was so offensive to religious leaders that they put Jesus and later Stephen to death, for professing this truth.

The Jews of Jesus' day were longing for a messiah to drive the Romans and foreign influences from their land. But they didn't expect this messiah to be God. Just as the religious leI'll share this morning comes from his study of the first century AD. One of the reasons there is so much skepticism today is that we think we can understand the scriptures accurately without understanding the world of2,000 years ago. We can't!

In Stephen's message, he went back over Israel's history, recalling the tabernacle, or tent, which symbolized God's presence with Moses and the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, all the way to the time when Solomon constructed a temple. King Herod began to build the third temple in about 20 Be. It was a magnificent structure, and still not fully completed at the time of Jesus' ministry almost 50 years later.But the religious leaders ofIsrael felt that God's presence was enshrined in this magnificent physical structure, and, by the way, they were the gate keepers to God's presence in the temple. That made them VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE, at least in their own eyes!

Jesus of Nazareth, some 75 miles north of the temple, begins his ministry. He is teaching, and healing, and even forgiving sins, and he's doing this not under the authority ofthe temple leadership, but beyond it. Keep in mind that it was in the temple that sacrifices were offered for the forgiveness of sins. For Jesus to be forgiving sins 75 miles away from the temple in Jerusalem was roughly equivalent to me issueing driver's licenses ITom my home, bypassing the state government in Indianapolis! It was like an individual issuing passports, and not the United States government. Governments tend to take a dim view of such activities, and the powers that be in Jerusalem took a dim view of Jesus! Instead ofthe religious leadership in Jerusalem saying "Isn't Jesus helpful? 75 miles away, he's easing our burden by forgiving sins." Instead, their response was "He's cutting into our business! And who does he think he is, anyway?" They got their answer when they arrested him. When asked by the high priest "Are you the messiah?" Jesus not only said "I am." That was bad enough. But what he said following that was worse in their eyes. Jesus said "You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand ofthe Power, and "coming with the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:61-62). This was a reference to the prophet Daniel, and was regarded as blasphemous by the high priest, for Jesus was claiming to be God! The common expectation was for the messiah not to be God, but a human political and military leader. And just before this, Jesus was accused of saying he would destroy the temple, and build another in three days.

We may think of the temple as just another house of worship. N. T. Wright notes the temple was a significant symbol in Jesus' day, comparable to the American flag in ours. People can get into heated debate when it comes to the flag. The flag is not simply an attractive piece of cloth in the colors of red, white and blue. It is a symbol of the United States. Before a basketball game at Richmond High School, thousands of people stand, take off their hats, say the pledge of allegiance, and the Star Spangled Banner, a song about our flag, is played. If someone decided they wanted to burn an American flag, they'd better not do so down at the American Legion, or the VFW, because there would be blood shed if that should happen! The Jerusalem temple was one ofthe most important symbols in Jesus' day. When Jesus said "Tear this temple down, and in three days, I will rebuild it", it was as if he was burning an American flag before patriotic citizens. And Jesus' symbolic "cleansing of the temple" by driving out the money changers was like someone shutting down a mall the first day after Thanksgiving, preventing stores from selling their goods at the busiest time of the year!

By these actions, and much more, Jesus was proclaiming himself to be Divine, God's Son. Skeptics who theorize that Jesus made no claim to be divine, that Jesus' divinity was dreamed up by the early church perhaps 40 or 50 years after Jesus, are wrong! The temple in Jesus' day was the heart and symbol ofIsrael's national and political life. When the terrorists of 9/11 decided to attack America, they chose to go after national symbols: the World Trade Center, symbolizing America's financial leadership, and Washington DC, the Pentagon, capitol or White House. Jesus didn't try to destroy the temple itself. He knew that the Romans would destroy this national symbol, and this came to pass in 70 AD.

Jesus' message was not "The institutional temple needs reforming". Instead, Jesus was saying "God doesn't dwell in the structure ofthe temple. God has become flesh in my life, and I will fulfill God's purposes." God is not confined to houses made by hand. God became flesh in Jesus, and Jesus told his followers that when "two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them." What does our message say to us today?

One of the dangers we need to beware of is the human tendency to want to confine God to a geographic location or setting. Stephen had to remind the devout people in his day that before there was a temple, there was a tent or tabernacle in the wilderness, symbolizing God's portable presence with the people. That's a good message for us to remember. We've got wooden wheels supporting our sanctuary ceiling. The prophet Ezekiel saw wheels in a vision, symbolizing that even though the first temple had been destroyed, and Hebrew people had been drug off into captivity, God had "wheels", and God's glory was not confined to one location. God could be with them, wherever! This truth is symbolized by a portable communion kit, and shut in communion. A coffee table in our home or a tray stand in a hospital or nursing home can become a communion table, for God can be present with us anywhere. Heaven is God's throne, and the earth is God's footstool. God can be present with us anywhere; we must not seek to confine God to a building, to one location.

This is a challenge to me as well as others. Familiar objects, places and people mean a lot to me. When I read the New Testament, I see that this can be dangerous. For the religious leaders became too enamored with a building, their own traditions, their own authority. When God came to them in the flesh, in Jesus, they couldn't recognize God because they were so tuned in to their old ways. It's a challenge to us not to be like them! Jesus is the center of our faith, not a building, as beautiful as this sanctuary is! .

And it's a challenge to us today to recognize that Jesus is Divine, He is God's Son, just as the scriptures proclaim Him to be. The temple leaders in Jesus and Stephen's day reveals to us that religious leaders can become full of themselves, and can be wrong! Besides spiritual arrogance, there's such a thing as intellectual arrogance. Adam and Eve were tempted to believe that God's rules didn't make sense, and that if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would be wise, like God, able to make their own rules. I spent 8 years in higher education, and came to see that there is not only religious arrogance, there can be academic arrogance as well. Those who maintain that Jesus didn't really claim to be God, that they know far better than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John what Jesus really said and meant, are numerous in our day and time.

I want to close by reading I Peter 2:4-9:

"Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and 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. For it stands in scripture:

'See, I am laying in Zion a stone,

a cornerstone chosen and precious;

and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.'

To you then who believe, he is precious, but for those who do not believe,

'The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the comer.'

and

"A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall."

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

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