God's Temple or Yours?

One of my jobs at Northlake is to put the sermon slides together. This week our Senior Pastor asked me to help him find an image of the temple that King Solomon built for God. There's a ton of images out there of what it may have looked liked, but nothing we can scheme up could convey the magnificence of the temple. After all, it was to be the house of Yahweh. For a little perspective, check this out;

What set the temple of Solomon apart from other wonders was its incredible expense...All the gold in Solomon's temple would make up a cube six meters on a side. This is about one-thirtieth of all the gold ever mined up to the present.

Construction of the temple included 100,000 talents of gold and 1 million talents of silver, worth respectively $77 billion and $10 billion today. Including the cost of cedar wood and other construction materials, the wealth of Solomon's temple was about one hundred billion dollars. There is no building in today's world of comparable value. 

Can you imagine going to worship in a building that had 87 billion dollars worth of gold and silver in it's construction? A building that was worth 100 billion? It had to be nice, though; after all, this building was to be the house of God.

"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body." (2 Cor. 6:19-20)

Wow. 

Remember, the moment that Jesus died on the cross the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. This tearing was incredibly significant. It meant (and means) that God no longer would reside in the temple made by human hands; but from that point forward He now resides in you. For those who have believed in Jesus and received by faith the gift of eternal life, He, God, lives in you. You are the temple. And you are worth more than 100 billion dollars.

There are many applications to this but the main points I want to make are these two;

1. Do we honor God with our bodies? Do we put the same passion into our temples that Solomon put into his temple? God is in you (and me)...what kind of "temple" have we prepared for Him?
2. Do you understand and comprehend the grace and love that God has shown you? His love is so vast that He has chosen to live in you. He has bought you with a steep price; the price of His Son.

The call for us is to glorify God in our bodies. How do we do that? Ah, that is for you and Him to work out...but let our "glorifying of Him in our bodies" follow the same spirit that went into Solomon's temple. He spared no expense to build the very best the world had ever seen.

soli deo gloria;

To God Alone be the Glory