We know that God did not reject the idea of a temple for His Ark, he just did not think that David should be the one to build it (2 Samuel 7:5). The temple will be built but it will be David’s son Solomon who would build it.

Sometimes you just can’t do everything, some things should be left for others to build. It’s good to ask the question of yourself, can I let go of this particular part of church life or another, and if I do let go will I interfere with, or undermine the person doing the building?

What exactly was the temple all about? It incorporates all the ideas of the tabernacle, but takes it further, better, grander. The tabernacle was a moveable tent, but the temple would be a permanent place for God to dwell. The tabernacle and the temple symbolise the presence of God. God’s purpose was to dwell with His people and that His people should dwell with him.

Yet because humans sin the glory of the Lord was locked away inside the Holy of Holies. People were too sinful for the presence of God to be amongst them visibly and gloriously. His presence would be too terrifying and would kill anyone who came into contact with it.

The only way into the presence of God was for the high priest to enter on the people’s behalf.  He would go there once a year to offer sacrifices. So the people knew the presence of God by faith but it was not directly experienced. The Ark was (if you like) the throne for God.

In the New Testament the temple is pictured as the place of God’s dwelling, one of the descriptions of the place of God’s dwelling is the church. Paul writing to the church in Corinth said.

What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:16-18

And also to the church in Ephesus

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22

So, as the dwelling place of God, can I encourage us to have a high view of our church. Once there was a city, within its walls a temple, within those walls an Ark and within its walls the presence of God, but now we can enter freely into a new Jerusalem through the blood of Jesus. Not once a year, but anytime, not because of a priest as we are all priests. What a privilege!

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:18-24

The church is where Christ dwells amongst his people. I am not talking about that dusty building with weeds growing up the path as you approach it, but the people of God, chosen, adopted, holy, a mighty army. The one Jesus  gave himself for and rejoices over. The church that has endured through wars, persecution, famine and opposition. The glorious church that is the manifold wisdom of God, Christ’s body on earth, his beautiful bride, and we Gateway Church are that!

At the end, in God’s time, the old world will be abolished and there will be a new heaven and earth and a new Jerusalem.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 21:1-2

God has prepared a place for us to dwell perfectly.

Anthony Hoekema says this :

“The doctrine of the new earth, as taught in Scripture, is an important one. It is important, first, for the proper understanding of the life to come. One gets the impression from certain hymns that glorified believers will spend eternity in some ethereal heaven somewhere off in space, far away from earth. . . . But does such a conception do justice to biblical eschatology? Are we to spend eternity somewhere off in space, wearing white robes, plucking harps, singing songs, and flitting from cloud to cloud while doing so? On the contrary, the Bible assures us that God will create a new earth on which we shall live to God’s praise in glorified, resurrected bodies. On that new earth, therefore, we hope to spend eternity, enjoying its beauties, exploring its resources, and using its treasures to the glory of God. Since God will make the new earth his dwelling place, and since where God dwells there heaven is, we shall then continue to be in heaven while we are on the new earth. Heaven and earth will no longer be separated as they are now but will be one.

Does that not fuel your heart for worship and for the gospel?