The Gospel of John chapter 2, beginning at verse 13, and today it goes all the way through verse 22. Last Sunday, Jeff focused on the first part, and specifically, Jesus' actions when he said, take these things away, do not make my Father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered it was written, zeal for your house will consume me. And so he talked about Jesus being consumed with zeal for the proper worship of God. Today we consider That's basically two sections. Chapters one is the beginning with the prologue, and the prologue is very important. Everything that's written after verse 18 of John 1 relates back to that prologue. Hopefully they will see that. And then the first part of John's gospel he develops. a testimony to Christ being, to Jesus being the Messiah, to Jesus being the promised one, the Messiah, the Christ of God. And he develops it by focusing on seven miracles that Christ performs. The first one that we considered a couple of weeks ago was the turning of water into wine at the wedding feast in Canaan. of Galilee at which point Jesus not only performs a miracle but he engages in a teaching either by his actions or by the words that he says. So those are signs connected to miracles that point to Jesus as being the Messiah. Now today's passage of scripture also takes up a sign but It is a miracle that will be that has not yet occurred when He spoke it. Now we know that this miracle has occurred so this sign has been fulfilled and that's the whole basis of our belief in Jesus as the Christ. It's the whole basis of our salvation and that is Jesus' resurrection from the dead. So let's look at the passage. today, John chapter 2 beginning at verse 18. So we have the action where Jesus comes into the temple. He sees that God's temple in the court of the Gentiles is not serving the purpose for which God ordained it. How can the Gentiles who are God-fearers come there and worship when all around them is this commercialism, the selling of the animals, exchanging of money, the noise, the bedlam. These were things that were necessary, but they should have been done outside of the temple courts, not within the temple itself. And so Jesus takes a rather violent action. He goes into the temple courts on this day. Now, Jesus has been to the temple courts many times. He has seen this throughout his thirty years. But on this particular day, he's greatly agitated in his spirit. Remember this is after he's been baptized, after he's been entered into his messianic robe. And so on this particular day, he in holy wrath, consumed with zeal for God, weaves a whip, basically a cord of things animals out, turn over the tables, spill the money, and command the people to leave. Now ordinarily, the temple guards would be there to get a hold of any disturbance such as this and take the person. Now on this particular day, they do not do so. They all stand back astonished. Astonished at this action of this man. Well you see he's the Messiah. He's acting here as the Messiah and in his acting of it people can see his zeal and they can see the whole reaction of his body and face. They know that he is acting under great authority and great constraint of the Holy Spirit of God. So they hold back. After things calmed down, the Jews, that is the leaders of the temple, come to him and say, what sign do you show us for doing these things? Notice, they're looking for a sign for the authority that he exercised in the cleansing of the temple. What sign? And God is very condescending and He has given signs. And Jesus gives them a sign, but it's a veiled sign. That means He speaks the sign in an ignamic way, a way that's puzzling, that's not open immediately to understanding. It takes pondering the thought and in fact it will take the unfolding of His life ending in His suffering and for it to be seen for what it is. So the Jews said then, what sign do you show us for doing these things? And Jesus answered, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it's taken 46 years to build this temple. In fact, they're still building it even as they speak. The temple was not completed until I believe it was 63 AD, only seven years before it will be destroyed by the Romans. So this is a long, long-term building project, not because of inefficiency, but because of the greatness of it, how vast and expansive and beautiful and ornate it was. Destroy this temple, Jesus says, in three days I'll raise it up. The Jews then said, it's taken us 46 years to build this temple. and you will raise it up in three days?" Notice, this is a dialogue. Jesus gives them the sign, destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up. Their response was, look, it's been taking us four to six years to get the building at this stage. What do you mean? We'll tear it down in three days and you will build it up? Notice that Jesus doesn't say that he will tear it down. He says, Destroy this temple. Who's he speaking to? Well, he's speaking to these Jewish leaders. Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. Now, this is an enigmatic statement. That's the end of the conversation. but John is writing, but he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead his disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. Now this tells us that the disciples were as much confused about Jesus's statement as the Jewish leaders were. But they put it on the shelf because they already believed in it. They couldn't understand exactly what he was saying, but they just accepted that what he was saying in some way had to be true. You know, that's the way sometimes we have to approach things. It's like eating a fish, you know. There's a lot of fish meat we want to eat. There's some bones in there. We don't usually swallow the bones, what we do is we take them out and put them aside. And you know, maybe one day we'll know what to do with the bones. They just put it aside. Later though, after Jesus' crucifixion and after his resurrection from the dead, they understood. And the result was that they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken to them. So this was a sign that was to be fulfilled in the future. Now, post-resurrection, the sign has been fulfilled. For Christ was crucified. He was buried. He was raised from the dead on the third day. And 40 days later, he ascended into heaven. So the sign has come to pass. The sign is that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Christ of God. He is the Son of Promise. Now Jesus says this word, destroy this temple and I will raise it up in three days. But his disciples knows at some point that he's referring to his body as the temple. So, let's think that when Jesus is speaking, maybe he said, indicated something by his hand, destroyed this temple in three days, I will raise it up. We weren't there to see, we don't know. But Jesus is giving some indication, but they couldn't understand it at this point. Though later, after it's happened, They can put it all together. You know, sometimes understanding the scriptures is a puzzle. And there are pieces that are easy to fit together, and then there are sometimes pieces that are harder to fit together. But the more we build our knowledge, the more the pieces fit into place, and we understand the revelation of God. For us to understand what Jesus means by himself being the Temple, we have to understand what the Temple was in the Old Covenant. So, let's consider the Temple today. First of all, we have to understand what a Temple is. So we have to always look at definitions. So the Temple is a central feature of the Bible. It holds a prominent place in the Old Testament and it holds a prominent place in the New Testament, although there are some variations. So a temple is, first of all, is a place that's dedicated to God or to your conception of God. It is God's dwelling. It's God's dwelling with his people that makes them the people of God. That's a biblical definition of a biblical temple. Now, you can have a temple, and we have temples in other religions, just say Hinduism, they have temples. But those temples are also considered to be residences by means of idols of their God. that there's some kind of presence of their God that they're worshiping, that particular God associated with that particular place and that particular idol with its priest. But we don't have those kind of temples because we do not worship God by means of idols. Because God is not a creature, God is the transcendent creator who created But who is it? Aware of time, he created time, but he is above his creation. Now, the temple or the tabernacle came into existence after God delivered the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage. In other words, the tabernacle or temple gets ordained by God at the giving of the law. So it is part of the old covenant. the tabernacle, was under God's ordination. In fact, this is what he says in Exodus 25 and verse 8. Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst. So sanctuary is a holy place where God's presence is found. He says in Exodus 29, 45, I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. So let's consider what role did the Tabernacle of the Temple play in the Old Covenant? And then we can see how Jesus is the Temple of God. First of all, the Tabernacle of the Temple is a Now, the God of biblical revelation is omnipotent, all-powerful, omnipresent, able to be present in some sense throughout his creation, and omniscient. He has all knowledge, he has all power, and he has all presence. But this omnipresent God also has ordained to manifest himself in particular place in concentration of a presence of his presence in a manifest way. He did that in Israel. He began it when the people were at the Red Sea, we say, before they crossed over the sea. The cloud of God came and separated the Hebrew people from the Egyptians. This cloud will remain with them throughout their journey. It is a presence of God and it protects them. So as we read in the scripture passage that Ty read, the cloud would move when the people were to move. And they would have moved only when the cloud moved. Now, they're in the desert for 40 years. So after the rebellion, after the first two years, they go back into the desert. They are there for the next 38 years. Well, how are you protected in the desert? From the heat of day, you're protected by the cloud. So the cold of the night is from the heat. of the fiery pillar. This is God's presence. And he fed them with his manna. But God was present in this cloud. But God at the foot of the mountain said, I want you to make me a tabernacle. I'll make me a sanctuary. That is, make me a tent of dwelling. Now the tabernacle is being used because he's living just like the people in a tent. In a temporary structure where the people lived. God took a temporary structure and he filled it with his presence. This makes it a temple. This makes it a sanctuary. The tabernacle was a temple, a sanctuary, because it was the manifest presence of God's residence among his people. And that's what made them the people of God. Secondly, the tabernacle was a place of revelation. Notice in the scripture that we read earlier that God spoke to Moses at the door of the tent of his presence. So where did Moses get the revelation that he spoke to God? Well, we know that he got revelation when he went up on the mountain. He was there for 40 days and 40 nights. But we also know that for the daily instruction of the people, he spoke to Moses at the tent. When Moses had a problem, when Moses had a situation, when he had a question, whatever it was, he went to the tent. Or when God wanted to manifest a truth, a reality to Moses, he spoke to him at the tent and he then transmitted it to the people. A place of revelation. This continued to be true. Remember that the priest, when there was a question that the king had later on when the kingdom was established, they wanted to know if it was God's will for us to do this or that. They would go to the priest, and the priest would pray, they would seek the presence of God, and they would put their hands into their little pocket, and then pull out the stone called the Urim or Thumim, and that would indicate for them what God's will was. A place of revelation. Thirdly, the tabernacle and later the temple is a place of reconciliation. God established a whole system of sacrifices. This is found in the book of Leviticus in great detail. Leviticus is basically a worship manual for the instruction of the priest and the priest helpers for the tribe of Levi. and for the laws that God has to distinguish the people of the Hebrews from the other people. So you have such things in it as the ordination of the feast days of all the sacrifices and of the food laws as well as other laws that govern the life of the people. But the tabernacle of the temple is a place where the sacrifices for sin remain. The burnt offerings Day and night there were to be burnt offerings to God, 365 days a year. Continuously, every day. There was a sacrifice of animals in the morning and in the evening. The burnt offering, the whole animal was consumed. Then the people had to make other offerings, sin offerings, or transgressive offerings. And they had Thanksgiving offerings, they had fellowship offerings, this blood always flowing at the tabernacle and the temple. Why? Because the penalty of sin is death. Death was judged upon the people. But God would forestall, hold out, hold back from that deserved wrath by means of the sacrifices of the animals. But those animals, the Book of Hebrews tells us, can never take away the sin. They covered the sin. They allowed the Holy God to live among this people, waiting for the day when the fulfillment would come of the true sacrifice. We know who that true sacrifice is. John has already introduced this to us. calls out, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So Jesus is the sacrifice. He's also the temple. We'll get to how with that. Okay, but the tabernacle of the temple is a place of reconciliation by means of the sacrifice for blood as a penalty for sin. But remember that the tabernacle and the temple is also God's ordained place of worship. And the worship of the people of the Hebrews revolved around a yearly cycle of feast days. In three different sections of the year, the people would come to the tabernacle, they would come to the temple, all men in certain ages were commanded to come, and families could come, women could come, but the men were commanded to come. They had to do so at the beginning of the religious year, was at the Feast of Passover. They had to do so the next major feast at Pentecost, which would be in our June, about three months later. And the next, they had to come in the fall at the Feast of Tabernacles. Now there are other feasts that are associated, so that when they come, they might be there for three weeks. They might be there for a while, usually a whole week goes by in which there is worship given to God at the tabernacle or in the temple. So it's a place of reconciliation, but it's also a place of fellowship. Why did God command the people come to Him at the temple or the tabernacle? Well, He commanded them to do so because that's where He would fellowship with the people by means of the revelation of His Word by means of his manifest presence in the holy rituals, the liturgies that were done, the Psalms that were sung, the affirmations of faith that were made. All of this is how they had fellowship with God, and in having fellowship with God in common, they have fellowship with one another. And this is often expressed in their eating of fellowship meals. that was usually a sacrifice that was made either because of a thanksgiving or after the other sacrifices had been made. You might be making more than one sacrifice at a time. If you want to go into depth about that, help yourself to reading the book of Leviticus. And it will tell you in great detail, but you might want to get a Bible that has easy language to move you through it, okay? So what did we learn? The Tabernacle of the Temple is the place of God's residence. The Tabernacle of the Temple is the place of God's revelation. The Tabernacle is the place of God's reconciliation, the people's reconciliation with God and God's reconciliation with Him through means of the sacrifices. And the Tabernacle is the place of fellowship, of fellowship renewal, of covenant life renewal through the keeping of the festivals the keeping of the feast days, which rehearsed the redemptive actions of God in the life of the nation. Every feast was connected with some action of God taken to redeem the people and to make them his own. They called the history to mind. They rehearsed the history, which was the truth of God about who God is and who they were in relationship. summary statement is the tabernacle is a place where Yahweh chose to live among his people and he did so in this special tent later in the temple in a particular compartment a small room a cube a perfect cube called the Holy of Holies it had within it the Ark of the Covenant so you notice that the worship of God is built on Covenant And here, the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark is a box, okay, that holds the terms or holds the Covenant. And the Covenant is given in symbolic form by means of the actual stones that Moses brought down from the mountain the second time that God had written with His own finger. Inscribed upon it are the Ten Words. We call those the Ten Commandments. commandment. That is the sign of the covenant. Exodus 31 tells us that. The Sabbath was a sign of the covenant given with the law. When there is a change of covenants, there is also a change of priesthood and there is a change of covenant signs. Remember that the Abrahamic covenant had a covenant sign of circumcision of the male. Old Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant has assigned the Sabbath, the seventh day of remembering God by not working, no work of any kind. There was not a command necessarily to have worship. You didn't have full worship then. You might have worship at your tent, at your home. It'd be primarily family centered. Or it could be community center if you had people within walking distance that could gather together. But you had commanded worship of the whole nation three times a year at all the feasts. So you had to travel to where the tabernacle was or to where the temple was. Now you had daily worship by means of the confession of faith, by meditation of psalms and things of this nature. So worship is an extremely important part. And God did ordain. primarily functions as the sign of the covenant. And because of this, God took it extremely serious. And the desecration of it, and the desecration of the worship of God, is what led to the exiles that occur. So, the tabernacle is this place. The temple is also this place. It's a place of prayer, a place of sacrifice, a place of praise, place of covenant participation through the feast days. This is the role of the tabernacle and of the temple. Well, the temple is no more. You see, when the temple was destroyed by Babylon and the people were taken to exile, they didn't have a place to worship like that. So their worship took a different form. That's when the synagogues came. And when the Sabbath became a time for gathering at the synagogue to worship God, this came about in the period of exile. And when they returned to the land, that was the pattern that occurred and that Jesus honored when he was here as the Messiah. There was no temple, there was no sacrifice in that period of time. When it came back and the temple was restored, the priesthood was restored, the sacrifices were restored, and God's presence came down again. Well, they did it when Solomon's temple was there. In fact, we're not told that the presence came the same way when Zerubbabel's temple was built. But they did restore the temple, and they restored the order of worship. That temple that was added to by King Herod is the temple that was destroyed in 70 AD. And in 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed, the sacrifices ended, the priesthood was ended. And since then, the Jews have had no gathering place where they could fulfill these commandments of the Old Covenant. and these instruments for worship is in. So where is the temple now? Because the temple is very important. It's where God is. It's where God is among his people. It's where the people are together. Where's the temple? What Jesus is the first thing to say, we're not going to get to all this today, we're going to just do with Jesus' statement, okay? Jesus said, in answer to the question Who gave you this authority? What sign do you show? He said, this is the sign. Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. Now they only had in mind the structure. And they weren't about to destroy it. They couldn't conceive of it being destroyed. But Jesus is saying, well, you destroyed it. I'll raise it up in three days. But he was speaking about the temple of his body. So what Jesus is doing, he's claiming to be in his body presence, the temple of the living God. So what does that tell us about Jesus? Well, it tells us that what's true of the residence of God up here, what's true of the temple, is true about Jesus, the body Christ. He is the temple of God. So, let's see if we can verify some of that from the Word of God. This is an extensive, extensive teaching. We are not going to cover all this today, but I want to point you two directions. You need to read Colossians and Ephesians, okay? And you need to read the book of Hebrews. The whole thing, beginning at the first word, going to the end. or maybe two, in which the meaning of the Old Covenant, as it's fulfilled in Jesus Christ and His people, is opened up and explained. So all of this is being based on Christ's life, person, and ministry, on what the epistles, especially of Paul's in Colossians and Ephesians, say about these realities. It's beyond that, but those words concentrated and in the book of Hebrews. So where is the temple now? And how is Jesus, the body of Jesus, the temple of God? Okay. So, again, let's consider the tabernacle of the temple is a humanity and divinity meet. Okay? where humanity and deity meet. You came to the Temple of the Tabernacle. God is present. You come and meet God there with your required sacrifices and you receive the benefits of that meeting. In Jesus we have God's residence among us And He is the place where we meet God. He is the place where we establish fellowship with God. Reconciliation with God is in Jesus. And that's brought about primarily through the sacrifice of His body on the cross. By His resurrection of His body in the resurrection because he is raised in a body that is now immortal and incorruptible. He came in the incarnation in a body subject to death, subject to sickness and death and weakness. He offered up that pure and holy body in death He came that way so that he could die as our sacrifice. He's raised, however, in the body of his resurrection, the same body but now made immortal, incapable of destruction or death or sickness or weakness. It's in that body that our Christ, our mediator, went into heaven, ascended into heaven. And He is our Prophet who gives us the revelation of God. And He is our High Priest who intercedes for us, who offers up our worship to God in His own worship to the Father. And He is the King over God's Kingdom. Jesus fulfills in His person, in His work, all the offices given in the Old Covenant that established a people of God in the earth. So let's look at scripture. For the Bible says that Jesus is the temple of God. Jesus said it. He said destroy this temple and the disciples understood that after the resurrection. Jesus was talking about his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead his disciples remembered the words and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. It all made sense to him now. Everything fell into place. All the meaning of what God had done in the history of the Hebrews made sense. You see, what we're talking about here in the tabernacle and temple, in the sacrifices and priesthood, that's what we call a type. A type. That is a pattern. It is a foreshadowing. It's a pattern, an event or a person that establishes a pattern. It is a real thing with real meaning, but it points to something that is greater, even more real, that brings about is what Christ is and how Christ functions in our lives as the people of God. He, for instance, is the presence of God with us. Consider three verses of scripture. First, I want us to look at Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5 through 9. Hebrews chapter 10. verses five through nine. And when you look at that, it's a quotation from Psalm 40. So Jeff preached on this a few weeks ago. From Psalm 40, Hebrews 10. Okay? Consequently, notice it's with reference to the sacrifices and the ten of meeting. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said, what did Christ say when He came into the world? And who's He speaking to? The Scriptures say this is Christ speaking at His incarnation, at the descent. And this is what He says. Who's He saying it to? He's saying it to the Father. Sacrifice and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for Me. in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure." Then I said, behold, I've come to do the will of God as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. And it goes on in this Hebrews passage to say, by this will, the will of God that Christ, that the Word become flesh, and dwell among us, that this body would be offered up in sacrifice for the sins of his people, in verse 8, 10 it says, and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So who is this Jesus? Well in John chapter 1, remember everything relates back to the prologue. And the prologue begins with these words. Want me to say it in Greek? I'll mess it up. No, I can't. In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God, pros. It's a preposition. It carries two basic meanings, with or for, toward another person, meaning face to face. Okay? So the Word is face to face with the Father, with God, and the Word was God. Now, literally, in the Greek text, it says the Word was God. Word was God. But we know that the subject is God because it has an article in front of it. So, it says Theos. Therefore, that becomes So, the eternal word takes up value in the incarnation. He's born a full, real human being without losing any of his deity. God cannot cease to be God. That's a total impossibility. He's the unchangeable God. He cannot cease to be. So he becomes a full, real human without losing any of his deity. This is the great mystery of the person of Christ. It's the centerpiece of the Christian gospel. It's in this body, the incarnate God, that offers himself up for the sins of his people. Where does that come from? Well, let's look at Matthew, chapter 1, verse 21. When Mary comes back pregnant, after visiting with her cousin Elizabeth. He's ready to divorce her. I didn't do this. But as he thinks about his action to be taken, the angel of God comes to him in a vision. And what does it tell him? Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her, that holy thing which is conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit. And he goes on to explain the whole reason and purpose and who this child is in Matthew chapter 1 in verse 21. He says, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid, do not fear to take Mary as your wife. for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, or Yeshua, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us." is with humanity and the body, the human man, Christ Jesus, his human body, flesh and blood, that will be offered up as a sacrifice for our sins. So, let's review. Place of God's residence? The body of Jesus, right? God with us. That's what it says. God with us. And we'll read further about that in Colossians and we read it in our scripture lessons of the day. I'll refer you back to the scripture lessons that we read today for the supporting scripture for the teaching that's being given to you. In Colossians 1, 13 through 20, Colossians 2, 9 through 10. There are other passages as well. Okay? You should call His name Emmanuel, God with us, He will save His people from their sins. How does He do this? By His perfect blood offering on the cross of Calvary. And that's spelled out for us in Hebrews 9 and Hebrews 10. Just read those two chapters, read them together, and you will see this completely unfolded before you. This is all why Paul begins his letter to the Romans with these wonderful words. this summary truth. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. So in these ways, Jesus is the very Temple of God. Now, all this relates to us in many different ways, which I can't go into today. But remember that in the Ascension, Christ ascends in this body. Now made immortal. He is forever the incarnate God. It's Him that we will see in heaven. For the Father is invisible. But God's presence is manifest in Jesus. So when the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. A summary statement in Mark 16, 19. 1 Peter 1.21 Who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory, so that your faith and your hope are in God. How do we have the faith and hope in God? It is through Jesus Christ, the risen, ascended Lord. He is the proper and the only true object of saving faith. Others may seek God by means of idolatry and by other means, but there is only one place in which God is found, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only mediator between God and man. Romans 8 says, now the point in what we are saying is this, we have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. Hebrews 9.24 says, For Christ has entered not into a holy place made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, the very throne room of God, of the universe, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. This is why the only true worship that God accepts is the worship It is given to him in and through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus as the Temple of God and the veiled sign of His resurrection from the dead. Now there's great truths that are developed in Ephesians and Corinthians and Colossians about this and how it relates to us as believers. Because you know we're called the Temple of God. In fact, our opening passage in the scripture, which we will call the worship today, indicates that we share in this templehood and in this priesthood. It's found in the Peter passage. First Peter, we're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God's own possessions, that we may proclaim the excellences of Him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light where living stones are being built up as a spiritual house as a temple to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Well, how does this function? Well, I can't go into that in detail today. But it functions through our union with Christ when we believe in Him through the resident Holy Spirit who is In Christ he was filled with the Spirit and the fullness of his Spirit he has shared with us. The Spirit is the one who communicates the life of Christ to the believer. Christ is life. That's what the prologue of John again says. In him was or is life. Eternal life is in Jesus Christ. That's what is defined for us in John chapter 17, where Christ is offering up what we call the High Priestly Prayer. He makes this very significant statement. This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Because the true God and humanity meet. in the incarnate God, Jesus Christ, our Lord. To know Him is to have eternal life. To live with Him through faith is to enjoy the fellowship of the living God. We come together under His ordination, under His command, together, together, so that as priests we can offer to God the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to his name, and in so doing build one another up in our most holy faith. For where is the presence of Jesus in the world today? The presence of Jesus in the world today is by the Spirit, but specifically by the Spirit through the Word that's in his people and spoken by his people. We are a living temple in the process of being built. So that in the end, in the great temple that is spoken of in the book of Revelation, we will be offering forever acceptable worship through and in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Aren't you happy? Of what God's done for us in Christ? Who is major in Christ? It doesn't matter if you're a huge group or a small group. We are still what? Living stones built upon the living stone in this spiritual temple. to sing the hymn, Where High the Heavenly Temple Stands. Let me read some of it to you. Where High the Heavenly Temple Stands, the house of God not made with hands, a great high priest, our nature worthy, the guardian of mankind appears. He who our guarantor once stood and poured on earth his precious blood, pursues in heaven his mighty plan. Though now ascended up on high, he sees with us a brother's eye. He shares with us the human name, and knows the frailty of our friend. Our fellow sufferer yet retains a fellow feeling for our pains, and still remembers in the skies his tears, his agonies, and cries. He remembers all of his earthly life. In all that pains the human heart, the man of sorrows had a part. He sympathizes with our grief, and to the sufferer sends relief. With boldness, therefore, at His throne, let us make all our sorrows known, and ask the aid of heavenly power to help us in the evil hour. Not only for us, but for our brothers and our sisters in Christ as they struggle