The New Temple

Sermon Summary:

This powerful message invites us to reconsider everything we thought we knew about where God dwells. Drawing from 1 Peter 2:4-10, we discover a revolutionary truth: we are no longer searching for God in buildings made of stone, but we ourselves have become the temple of the living God. This isn’t just poetic language – it’s a fundamental shift in how God relates to His people. The passage traces a fascinating journey through salvation history, from the tabernacle in the wilderness to Solomon’s magnificent temple, through the rebuilding after exile, and ultimately to Jesus himself who declared that something greater than the temple had arrived. The imagery of living stones built upon Christ as the cornerstone challenges us to see ourselves as part of a spiritual house, a holy priesthood offering sacrifices of worship, evangelism, and discipleship. What makes this particularly profound is understanding that we’re no longer tied to a single location or building – wherever we go, we carry God’s presence with us. We are now a chosen people, a royal priesthood, called out of darkness into His wonderful light. This transforms how we view our everyday lives, our communities, and our mission in the world. The whole earth has become holy land because God’s people are scattered across it, reflecting His glory to a broken world that desperately needs to know there is a God who sees them.

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Sermon Points:

Key Takeaways:

• We are living in the era between Pentecost and the consummation of the ages, positioned on this side of the resurrection with the Word, Spirit, and people of God
• The second temple, rebuilt after the Babylonian exile and expanded by Herod, was the center of Jewish worship during Jesus’ earthly ministry but was destroyed in AD 70
• Jesus declared himself greater than the temple and spoke of his body as the true temple that would be raised in three days
• Worship is no longer confined to a physical location but occurs “in spirit and in truth” wherever God’s people gather
• The church collectively functions as God’s temple, with individual believers serving as living stones built upon Christ the cornerstone
• Christians are now a royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices: evangelism (declaring God’s praises), worship (sacrifices of praise), and discipleship (living sacrifices)
• The stone the builders rejected (Jesus) has become the chief cornerstone upon which everything else is built
• The entire earth is now holy land as God’s glory spreads through his people to the ends of the earth

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Scripture References:

• 1 Peter 2:4-10 (primary text)
• John 1:14
• Matthew 12:6
• Mark 13:1-2
• John 2 (cleansing the temple)
• John 4 (conversation with the Samaritan woman)
• Acts 17:24
• 2 Corinthians 6:16
• 1 Corinthians 3:16-17
• Ephesians 2:19-22
• Psalm 118 (background)
• Isaiah 28 (background)
• Exodus 19
• Hebrews 13 (sacrifices of praise)
• Romans 12 (living sacrifices)

Stories:

• The historical account of the second temple being built by Zerubbabel after the Babylonian exile, with the notable absence of the Ark of the Covenant and no mention of God’s glory descending
• King Herod the Great’s expansion of the temple into a 35-acre complex with the Fortress Antonia, which stood during Jesus’ lifetime
• Jesus and his disciples walking through grain fields on the Sabbath, confronted by Pharisees about working on the Sabbath, to which Jesus responded by declaring something greater than the temple was present
• The disciples marveling at the massive stones and magnificent buildings of the temple, with Jesus prophesying its complete destruction
• The destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70 by Titus, when the stones exploded from heat and not one stone was left on another
• Jesus cleansing the temple early in his ministry and declaring “destroy this temple and I’ll rebuild it in three days,” speaking of his body
• Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well about worship, correcting her theology about worship being confined to Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem
• The metaphor of builders choosing a cornerstone for a foundation, with the rejected stone becoming the most important stone—applied to Jesus

Sermon Transcript:

Aaron and Brock, thank you. It sounds kind of trite, but we mean it. Very powerful today. Thank you so much. Well, we’ve been drawn in the presence of the Lord today, and I’m so.

I’m so glad I came to church. How about you? I could say that every week, but I sure say it today. Well. Well, if you’ve been with us at all, you know that we are focused as a church on what it means to flourish, to flourish together, to be transformed on the Jesus way.

And this is Eastertide. It’s the season after Easter, and we are learning more about what it means to be shaped by the Spirit. And I would invite you, if you haven’t done it already, to go to fbca.org Biblereadings and you can register for our daily Bible readings and the devotionals that are just so rich. I would encourage you to do it, because our goal is make disciples. And remember what we mean by that is a person being formed by Jesus as they follow him and accomplishing his mission.

That’s a disciple to us. Last Sunday, I got a little bit of teasing from several church members who said, I put the longest slide in history on the screen for y’. All. So just so you don’t forget it, I’m gonna put it up there again, Salvation history, just to remind y’ all of where we are. And let me just make it really simple for you.

If you’ll look at this huge statement, go to the very last comma, mission call. That’s where we are right now. We’re in between the final mission call and the consummation of the ages. So just so you know, that’s where you are, and what a great time to be alive. Think about what’s all already happened.

We live on this side of the Resurrection. We live on this side of Pentecost. We live on this side of 2000 years of church history. We’ve got the Word of God, we’ve got the Spirit of God, we’ve got the people of God and opportunity in front of us. I would just tell you it is a great time to be alive as a Christian.

And I’m grateful that we’re living in this era. And so in this era, we need to know who we are. And so that’s why I want us to look at this text this morning out of First Peter. And I want us to gather around this thought today. The New Temple.

And the New Temple is described in the New Testament. And I want us to look at this particular text today. It is from Simon Peter, he’s written this letter to Gentile Christians who live in what you and I today would call Turkey in Asia Minor, and they’re scattered across that part of the world. And Peter writes this letter to them. And you come to Chapter two, verse four.

And let’s listen to these words from the Apostle Peter as you come to him. The living stone, rejected by humans, but chosen by God and precious to Him. You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says, see, I lay in Zion a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Now, to you who believe this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.

They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people. These are Gentiles. So he says, once you were not a people, but now you’re the people of God.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. What a powerful insight from Simon Peter. So let’s talk about what it was like in the first century. First when Peter was alive and when Jesus carried out his ministry. It was the era that we as Bible students refer to as the era of the Second Temple.

Well, what’s the Second Temple? The Second Temple was built by the Jews who returned from the Babylonian exile. And that project was overseen by Zerubbabel. And the dedication of that new temple is recorded in Ezra 6. So what’s interesting is that’s about 400 years before Jesus, when that temple was built, dedicated.

There’s a glaring omission that the scripture just does not mention. It’s somewhat fascinating to scholars, but when the tabernacle was dedicated, the glory of God descended. When Solomon’s temple was dedicated, the glory of God descended. But when this temple was rebuilt in 400 years or so before Jesus, there was no Ark of the Covenant. It had been lost.

And I can’t remember if Indiana Jones found. I don’t remember who was looking for it. Somebody’s been looking for it. But regardless, then it’s interesting that when the new temple was dedicated, there’s no mentioning of the glory of God descending. It’s somewhat of a fascinating thing in history.

Well, for about 300 years or so, Gentiles lorded their power over the Jews in that part of the world. And some of them threatened to completely destroy the temple. And so it had been desecrated a couple times. There’s a lot of history that you can study in that inter testamental period. But in 39 BC, King Herod took over the temple.

Herod the Great, who was king when Jesus was born and he wanted to rescue the temple. The Jews didn’t quite trust him to do that, but they finally did. And he refurbished the temple and then he added to it and he built this 35 acre complex. I’ll show you a photo of a model of it. Some of you have been to Jerusalem, so you don’t see this today in Jerusalem because it’s no longer standing.

All that’s left is one exterior wall known as the Western wall. But if you look to the far right, top right of this slide I’m showing you, you’ll see this fortress. That’s the fortress, Antonia. Herod built that and named it for his benefactor, Mark Anthony. Y’ all remember Mark Antony.

He fell in love with Elizabeth Taylor. It’s a long story. They made a movie about it. Anyway, so. But he built that fortress to protect the temple, was a garrison guard that was positioned there.

And that’s where they kept the high priest vestments and they would be given to the Jews on high and holy days. And so that’s the temple that was standing when Jesus was alive. So speaking of Jesus, let’s talk about that. What about Jesus in the temple? Well, John gives us our theology about that in his prologue in John 1.

And if, if you’re not paying attention, you would miss it. But John is writing this late first century, that building that you just saw has already been destroyed. The Romans have already torn it down, so it no longer exists. It’s in John’s memory, but it’s no longer there. And so when John writes his gospel, that’s already happened.

And so here’s a word from John that we need to pay attention to if we want to think about the new temple. John 1:14 says, the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. In Greek, that word, you know, John wrote in Greek, that word is the word for tabernacle. He tabernacled among us and then notice what John says. And we have seen his glory.

In other words, the glory of God has now descended in the person of Jesus. It’s what John says, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, and he’s full of grace and truth. Now, Jesus is going to have an interesting relationship with the Temple and with Temple theology because by that time, the Jews had all kinds of oral law, all kinds of teachings about what you could do, what you couldn’t do, when you could boil an egg, when you couldn’t boil an egg, when you could gather the eggs. I mean, it was incredibly burdensome to the people. And so one day, Jesus with his disciples, they were walking along the way.

And if you had a farm, you were supposed to leave the edges of your farm, your produce, so that visitors could at least pluck a little grain along the way while they were walking. They didn’t have welfare in those days. They didn’t have Medicare and Medicaid and any kind of social programs. So the people just took care of that themselves. Does that make sense?

So you weren’t stealing. You couldn’t. Now, you couldn’t go inside and plow the field and, you know, harvest and thresh the wheat. You couldn’t do that. But you could just along the way, if you could reach it.

It’s kind of like the way I play golf. If you can find your golf ball in the woods, you can pull it out without a stroke. I mean, that’s just kind of how. That’s one of the ways we do it. But anyway, the disciples are walking along with us on the Sabbath, and they’re hungry and they just pluck a little grain.

And the Pharisees are watching and they say, aha, see, you’re not from God because you can’t work on the Sabbath. We have a rule about that. You can’t gather the grain the Sabbath. And Jesus says, well, what about David? When David asked to eat the consecrated bread and the priest gave it to him.

And Jesus said, what about the priests that have to work every Sabbath? Put the bread out, there’s no condemnation for them. And then Jesus says this in Matthew 12, verse 6, as I tell you something, that something greater than the Temple is right here. You’re talking about a theology of temple. So at the end of the life of Jesus, his earthly life, the disciples were in Jerusalem with him.

And the Jerusalem was focused on the building I just showed you. And here’s what happened. Mark 13. Jesus was leaving the temple. One of his disciples said, look, teacher, what massive stones.

Well, we just saw a model of it. What magnificent buildings. Jesus said, you see all these buildings? He replied, not one stone here will be left on another. Every one will be thrown down now, y’.

All. They could not imagine that. Those stones were massive. Who. Who’s going to come and tear this down?

That’s absolutely impossible. They just couldn’t imagine a future without the Temple. But guess what? AD 70, Vespasian son Titus surrounded Jerusalem and destroyed it. Set all the wood on fire.

That limestone got so hot, the water began to boil. That liquid inside that limestone, those rocks just began to explode. The gold all melted. It was completely destroyed. These folks would have had a hard time that was ever going to happen, but it did.

But you know Jesus, that wasn’t the first time he had been there. Jesus had been in the temple several times before that. In Mark 13, as a matter of fact, at the very beginning of his ministry in John 2, Jesus was in Jerusalem and he cleansed the temple. One of the first things he did when he lost his ministry, and here’s what he told them. He said, destroy this temple and I’ll rebuild in three days.

And they’re looking at him like, it’s taken about 80 years to build this temple. And what do you mean you’re going to rebuild in three days? Jesus was pointing them to a greater temple, Right? Because Jesus understood incarnation theology. Are y’ all still with me?

So guess where we are today. We’re in a new era. We’re not in the Second Temple era. We’re in a new era which calls for a new temple. Because the ministry of Jesus has launched something brand new.

And so think about it. God delivered Israel from Egypt. He gave them the tabernacle. He was present with them in the Exodus. They settled the Promised land.

They built the temple in Jerusalem for Solomon. Solomon built it. Then they resettled Jerusalem. Ezra and Nehemiah rebuilt a new temple. And now the Incarnation has come, and there is a new temple for this era.

How do I know that? Well, I want you to listen to some of the teachings of the New Testament. I’m going to do it really quickly. In John 4, Jesus is having a conversation with a woman in Samaria. Y’ all Remember that story, Dr. Bob, you mentioned the Samaritans.

Well, here’s a Not this isn’t just a Samaritan. This is a woman. A Samaritan woman of suspicious behavior and lifestyle, right? And Jesus is speaking to her. And here’s what she says.

She says, our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, mount Gerizim. But you Jews claim the place where he must worship is in Jerusalem. Then Jesus corrects her theology. He said, woman, I love that about Jesus, woman, he wasn’t being disrespectful, okay? When I call Cindy, that.

That never works out good, y’. All. It just. It just never works out good. That’s not what this means.

This is a term of respect, okay? So it’s very different. So don’t freak out. He says, believe me, a time is coming when you’ll worship the Father. Neither on this mountain, not on Gerizim, in Samaria, or in Jerusalem.

And then he said this. You Samaritans are just wrong theologically. You just need to know that you worship what you don’t know. We worship what we do know because salvation is from the Jews. But listen to what Jesus says.

He says a time is coming and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, they are the kind of worshipers that the Father seeks, because God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. Now, that is a radical theological statement from Jesus in the first century, because these people believed you had to go to a building because that’s where God lived. So if you want to really meet God, you go to that building, to the temple. But after the resurrection of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, the great theologian of the church and missionary, said this in Acts 17. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth, and he doesn’t live in temples built by human hands.

So Paul said, you think that that’s where we are today? That’s just not where we are today. We’re in a new era. Well, where is the new temple if it’s not on Mount Gerizim and it’s not in Jerusalem? There’s no temple today on Mount Gerizim in 2026.

There’s no temple in Jerusalem in 2026. So where is the new temple? Well, here’s what Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 6, verse 16. He says, for we are the temple of the living God.

How about that? For we are the temple of the living God. Y’ all need to say that out loud with me. For we are the temple of the living God. This is in the Bible.

This is what the Bible teaches us. God said, I will live with them and walk among them. I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people. Because, you see, we’re in a new era. The Spirit of God descended at Pentecost.

We’re Pentecostal people. We believe the gift of the Spirit was given to the church at Pentecost. And we, that rushing wind, the tongues of fire, the symbols of the glory of God. God’s people are now filled with the Spirit. So what does Paul say about that?

In First Corinthians 3, he says, don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple. We are the temple. Paul shares that also in Ephesians, chapter 2.

Consequently, he says, you’re no longer foreigners. You’re not strangers. He’s talking to the Gentiles. You’re fellow citizens with God’s people. You’re members of his household.

You’re built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone in him. The whole building, he says, is joined together and rises to become a holy temple. The Lord. And in him, you too, are being built together to become a dwelling which God lives by His Spirit. So where is the new temple?

It’s right here. It’s all over the whole earth. You no longer can pin it down to one spot because according to the teaching of the Scripture, the whole earth now is the holy Land. Because God’s glory is spread all over the earth. We’re supposed to take this gospel to.

To the ends of the earth. And when we go, we bring the temple with us. So let me just make this application. The church. The church is the new temple of God.

Peter describes it here in this text. It’s comprised of living stones now built upon the foundation of Jesus himself. He’s our chief cornerstone. And Peter says because of that, we now have to live holy lives, because we are now reflecting the presence of God’s spirit within us and among us. And he says, now declare his praises to a dark world, because people should recognize us.

Now, if you want to know the background of 1 Peter 2, 4, 10, you want to do a little homework? I would point you to Psalm 118 and Isaiah 28. Those texts are in Peter’s mind because Peter takes those texts. Jesus did the same thing. Paul did the same thing, and applies them to Jesus.

A builder is getting ready to prepare a building in those days. And one of the most influential decisions he had to make was how to build the foundation and choose a cornerstone. And so here’s what the Bible says. Peter says it, Paul says it. The very stone that the builders rejected, that many of the Jewish leaders looked at and said, this can’t be it.

God chose that stone. And not only did he choose that stone, Peter says he made it the cornerstone. He built everything else on it. In other words, you couldn’t have been more wrong about the stone. You just couldn’t have been.

Because this becomes the choice stone. It is Jesus himself. And now you and I are living stones being built on that foundation. Because we are the new temple. And we are now priests in that temple.

That’s where the metaphor shifts. We’re chosen people. We’re a royal priesthood. We’re a holy nation. We’re God’s special possession.

Think about that. These are Gentiles who hear this. And Peter takes a passage from Exodus 19 that originally applied to the Jews and puts it on top of these Gentile Christians. This is who you are now. Well, okay, if that’s true, then where is the sacrifice?

That’s what priests do. Priests offer up sacrifices in the Old Testament. Well, guess what? There are sacrifices. There are sacrifices of evangelism.

Look at what he Sundays. In verse nine, you declare the praises of Jesus, the one who’s delivered you. There are sacrifices of worship. Hebrews, chapter 13. The writer of Hebrews says we offer up sacrifices of praise.

In worship. There’s the sacrifice of discipleship. What does Romans 12 say? Offer up your bodies as living sacrifices. Again, Dr. Bob, you mentioned an oxymoron, a good Samaritan.

Well, how about this one? A living sacrifice. You talking about oxymoron? There is no such thing. By definition, a sacrifice dies.

And yet the writer of Hebrews or the writer of Romans, Paul says you’re actually living sacrifices. Because we’re the priests in this temple and we now have a job to do. Just like the Temple of old stood like a beacon on a hill in Jerusalem, we now are that light placed on a hill for the whole world. Wherever you find us, wherever you find the church, that’s who we are. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

God’s presence among the people. And we’re to reflect his light and his glory to. To a dark and broken world. Because we’ve been reminded this morning we have an entire world who needs to know there is a God who sees. Amen and amen.

Let’s pray together. Father, we thank you for the truth of your word, testimony of scripture. We thank you for good, sound theology, and we thank you for the teaching of your word. We want to obey you. We want to honor you.

And so, Lord, as we seek to live out our lives as this new temple for this new era, just pray you’ll find us faithful in it that we will do what you’ve called us to do. May we be those people for our world. In Jesus name, amen.