God: Our Light & Temple

made with Proclaim

Lee Corpier

Salem UMC - Springtown, PA

Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago • Presented 2 years ago • 30:10

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The Beginning of Eternity

We talked about Christ, the Spotless Lamb, who alone is worthy to Shepherd God’s people at the End of this world.

And the only one who can begin the Apocalypse.

We talked about Heaven and Earth made new, interconnected through Christ.

We talked about the city of God, New Jerusalem, those who follow/dwell in Christ.

There are no stars to shine their light on the New Earth.

Without Light, how will they observe the passage of time?

How will there be movement or life?

Darkness only brings entropy and death.

There is no Temple, a place for their worship.

Without a Temple, how will people know where they are free to worship?

How will they know where to find God?

How will they know what to do?

This New Heaven, New Earth & New City contains no impurity, shame, or deceit.

We may ourselves without a place to worship.

We may have relocated and are not familiar with the place.

We may have had our place of worship closed, either temporarily or permanently.

We may have had our place of worship destroyed.

Maybe we are far removed from any house of worship.

We may wonder where we can find God, where can we worship, and how will we learn the ways of God’s people?

Where can I go to seek the perfect love of God?

Here, God Almighty is the Light, and Christ, the Lamb is the Lamp.

God illuminates (brings truth into the open) all things through his Spirit.

The glory of God, the brilliance of God’s perfection in all things.

Before Christ returns, God’s glory is seen dimly through his people. (1 Cor. 13:12)

Christ is the Lamp through which the glory of God is shone with perfection, directly.

The Temple gates are never closed to God’s people; there is always access to God through Jesus Christ.

This is why the glorified kings of the earth bring their splendor for the glory and honor of God, the Temple, because they see God’s worthiness of perfect love.

Also, God is envisioned as a Temple, the place of worship for God’s people.

The earthly representation of the Tabernacle and Temple gave visceral reality to the continual presence of God.

In the End, there will be no need for such earthly representations of God’s presence.

The presence of God is the exactly the place where God’s people come together to love and worship God in loving obedience.

The City and Temple gates are open wide to all those who follow the Light of Christ.

Paul had followed the light of Christ to Philippi, but when he got there, there was no place of worship.

There Lydia, a Greek worshipper of God, heard Paul’s message, and her whole household was baptized.

With great hospitality she opened her household for the care of Christ’s disciples.

God invites all who renounce darkness into eternal life.

Jesus had to leave his disciples, preparing them for the day he returns.

All of Christ’s disciples have to contend with sin and death in this world.

It is how they respond toward others, while still in the midst of those experiences, that shows whose disciples they really are.

Whether they would die in the shadows or follow the light toward the perfect love of God into eternal life.

It is because of the love that Christ’s disciples show the world, that the world will know the perfect, enlightening love of the Father to follow into eternity.