Living Stones

25-Jun-2023

Ephesians 2:20-22

¹⁹ Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

I have been spending some time looking at the re-built temple in the Old Testament; how the returning exiles from Babylon had to rebuild a derelict temple. I have reminded us of the New Testament imagery of the temple as depicting both Christian individuals (1 Corinthians 6:19 – your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit) and the church:

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

Back in the Old Testament, the temple was a sacred and holy place. People came from miles around to worship, to bring their sacrifices, to celebrate amazing festivals, and to seek God’s presence. Here in the New Testament we see that we as God’s temple are still just as sacred! 1 Cor 3:17 says that this temple is so sacred that if anyone destroys it, God will destroy that person.

My daily readings have this week taken me to 1 Kings 6 which tells us all about the building of the original temple, built by Solomon.

As I read the details of the building of this spectacular building, constructed to give glory to God and symbolise the place of his presence, one verse stood out to me. Let’s read a portion of that chapter and I bet you can’t guess which verse it is!

1 Kings 6

¹⁴ So Solomon built the temple and completed it. ¹⁵ He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, panelling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper. ¹⁶ He partitioned off twenty cubits at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. ¹⁷ The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits long. ¹⁸ The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.

¹⁹ He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the Lord there. ²⁰ The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. ²¹ Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. ²² So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

The verse that stood out to me was this:

¹⁸ The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.

I said you wouldn’t guess it!

The reason? First we see that the temple was made of ‘dressed stone’, meaning each stone was shaped and finished, rather than rough and raw from the quarry. This means it didn’t need to be covered up, plastered over or concealed with render as such. It was presentable as it was. If you go into some of our most ornate and beautiful ancient buildings today you will often see exposed stone. It’s a beautiful thing!

And then I remembered that although the Bible refers to Jesus as the cornerstone of our spiritual temple, we as Christians are also like ‘living stones.’

We have been dressed like stone when Christ pulled us out of the quarry, washed our sins away and made us holy in his sight. Now as far as he is concerned, we are saints! We may feel like we have rough edges and a lot of work to still do, but as far as God sees us, we are fit for use in his holy temple.

But this stone was completely covered by wood panelling. And that’s what caught my eye as I read it. For me the wood symbolised the cross of Jesus Christ. Instantly I saw not the wood panelling of the temple but the wood of the cross of Jesus.

As a church of individual living stones, brought together for his glory, do we want people to see us, or to see Jesus? Who is to get the attention?

The church is made up of living stones – us – but the one person we really want people to see is Jesus! Whatever we do as a church must always point to Jesus, not one of the stones.

The church is not a place for celebrity. The individual stones are not meant to vie for attention. We must become more aware of our weaknesses and boast in them so that Christ is more and more prevalent and accentuated in our lives. Remember, last time I spoke I said that ‘weak is the new strong’. Jesus is the capstone, the one who deserves all the attention.

Lord, may the stone of my life be covered by the cross of Jesus. Lord, let people see you in my actions and lifestyle than me.

Let’s look at this New Testament reference to living stones before coming back to Solomon’s temple.

1 Peter 2

⁴ As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— ⁵ 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.

If you are a Christian, it is Christ’s will that you are built into a spiritual house – that’s the church! It is here that you are qualified, anointed and commissioned as a priest of God most high! It might not feel like it, but that’s what God does with rough-hewn rocks! He turns them into a holy priesthood through the work of Jesus.

As the Old Testament priest offered sacrifices to God on behalf of the people, so we, through our great high priest Jesus are able to offer our own spiritual sacrifices to him. These come in the form of our worship and our lifestyle. Our four values as a church are a helpful guideline here to demonstrate the spiritual sacrifices we can offer as ‘living stones’ who are a ‘holy priesthood’ – a lifestyle of worship, rooted in the word, committed to the oneness of believers, doing the work he has prepared in advance for us to do.

Still in 1 Peter 2,

⁹ 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. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Just as a piece of rock once lived in the darkness of the earth but was hewn out and dragged to a place where it could be fashioned, we have been chosen, brought out into the light and are now deemed holy. Once we were not a people, but now we are the people of God.

We have a place in the building. You have your own unique shape, chosen by God to fit in to the overall structure of the building.

Too many of us so easily treat church like any other institution amongst all the others in our consumer culture. What can my church do for me? This is the wrong question. We must all ask, where do I fit in this building? If I am an unseen foundation stone, so be it. If I am noticed daily because of my position, let me do so humbly before God.

But the point that we have taken from the Old Testament is that in Solomon’s temple none of the stones were seen. They were covered by the wood.

And the observant amongst you might have notice something else in Solomon’s temple. It was not even the wood that was seen. Let me read verses 21-22 to you again.

²¹ Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. ²² So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.

The inside of the whole temple was completely covered in gold! How costly that must have been! What a sight! Any visitor to the temple for the first time must have been completely overwhelmed by the sight.

And at this point as I reflect on us as living stones in a spiritual temple I wonder how much of me anyone should really see. I’m not against preachers or any Christian becoming famous, as long as they continuously point people to Jesus. And my attitude in life has always aimed to be that of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus and declared,

John 3:30

He must become greater; I must become less.

As people encounter the church, my dream is that they first see gold, they recognise the true riches that are present in the church and are overwhelmed by its beauty. This can come through the Spirit-led work that we do, the love we share and the lifestyles we lead.

As they look deeper they will find Jesus and see the cross behind every good and shining work we do. It is an absolute honour and privilege to be a stone in such a building, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other stones, presenting the cross of Jesus in my life in such a way that people are attracted to the riches of his glory in our midst.

Here are some opportunities for us to do this:

Fellowship month in August – events and home group Sundays: put on an event, invite a friend, invite someone to your Sunday.

Picnics – invite a friend. Let them see some of the other stones in the building. May they see the gold of our fellowship and the cross that made it all happen.

Prayer for unity – let us not become a divided building with cracks down the walls. When disunity or division looks like it could happen amongst 2 or more of us, let’s resolve it quickly. If that doesn’t work, ask for help from a trusted Christian brother or sister. Continue to pray for a unified church not just at BCC but across our area.

Conclusion

What do you think people see when they look at the church? Stony-faced? Stone-cold? Or living stones whose lives are hidden in Christ and who shine like gold?

Let us stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our fellow living stones and pray that many more might be added.

Let your kingdom come!

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