Titles of The Church (6)

Sermon by Pastor Sylvia Chan

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Today we look at another title of the Church.

^NAU 1 Peter 2:5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

A living stone is a stone that has life in it. We Christians are living stones, and we are being built up as a house, not a physical house, but a spiritual house.       

We Cannot Isolate from Other Christians and Live by Ourselves

First of all we can’t isolate from other Christians and live by ourselves. Only one stone can’t be built into a house, no matter how big and how wonderful that stone is. It needs stones and stones to build a house.

There is no room for individualism. Many Christians don’t want to relate to other Christians, they say that they don’t need to go to Church, they can worship God and meditate the Word of God at home. That is not Christianity. Maybe this way is alright with Buddhism, indeed many Buddhists meditate the word of Buddha in isolation; but that’s not Christianity. We Christians concern not only for our own salvation, even though salvation is important, but that’s not our only concern. We are baptized into one body; we, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house of God.

Titles of The Church (2)

Sermon by Pastor Sylvia Chan

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Today we continue to study the titles of the church, let’s turn to:

^NAU  2 Corinthians 6:16 ¹⁶ Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

^NAU  Ephesians 2:21 – 22 ²¹ in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, ²² in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

These two passages point out that:

• We Christians are the temple of God: “we are the temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:16)
• The temple of God is where God dwells: “I will dwell in them…” (2 Corinthians 6:16), “a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22)

The Temple Of God And The Presence Of God

I don’t want to go into the Old Testament sacrificial system regulations, we just focus in the temple of God.

The temple of God is where God dwells, when people come into the temple of God, they can sense the presence of God.

Today there is no physical temple of God anymore, the temple was destroyed in AD 70. We cannot examine whether people can sense the presence of God inside the physical temple of God.

I think for those of us who come from non-Christian families, we did enter into the pagan temples before. I can recall that when I entered into those pagan temples, even though I didn’t see anything supernatural, but I could sense some kind of presence there. When Pastor Bentley and I were serving God in Singapore, one time we went to Cameron Highlands in Malaysia; We joined a tour package to visit different tourist spots. One of those spots was a Chinese Taoist temple; We didn’t want to go in, so we waited outside while the others went in. I looked at the idols at the front gate and the front court, I sensed that it was the enemies’ territory; The enemies were looking at me while I was looking at those idols.

If people can sense the presence of the evil power in the temples of demons, then people should sense the presence of God in the temple of God.