Temple Syndrome and Kingdom Faith

Last Wednesday morning, we looked out the window and we saw trees bending down to the ground, branches flying down the way like jet planes, and the rain coming down like it must have come in Noah's day. In a matter of minutes, solid, well-built structures were ripped apart and flattened. This storm was again, like many others, a poor taste of storms which are still to come, that we know in our bones are still to come.

Storms in the economy, in the weather, storms of war, or of rapid change. And as we think, and at times we do, of what's coming and what we're moving toward, there is in all of us a yearning for stability and an inner security that we know that we don't have. From Matthew chapter 24, first eight verses, Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple.

But he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when will this be and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age? And Jesus answered them, take heed that no one leads you astray, for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ, and will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that you are not alarmed, for this must take place.

But the end is not yet, for nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All this is but the beginning of suffering. The disciples point to the temple as the ultimate instability, permanence.

And Jesus warns of a coming storm, which is going to leave that temple in rubble, and urges the disciples to get their eyes off the temple and every other thing which appears to them to be a symbol of stability, and get their eyes and their faith utterly and totally exclusively on him. We're so much like those disciples, even the most stable of us have beneath the surface of our lives an instability which did not suddenly disappear when we entered the kingdom of God. There is in us a desire to reach out and take hold of something solid that will make our lives more stable and secure.

We know the Lord promised that if we listen to his word, and do his word, we're like the man who built his house upon the rock. But we are still inclined to keep looking for a visible rock, a tangible rock, something we can grab hold of and say, this is the anchor of my life. We wonder how the Israelites kept slipping back again and again into idolatry after they had seen such marvelous signs and wonders in the wilderness.

But signs and wonders, they come and go. An idol is always there, and there's a certain comfort in being able to look at your idol and maybe sometimes touch it a little bit. And for this reason, because of this longing in us for that kind of solid thing we can grab hold of, this tangible, there develops beneath the surface of our faith in Jesus many, many times a faith in something in addition to Jesus, which in fact looks to us more solid and more reliable than Jesus himself.

We don't like to admit this to ourselves, but it's there so much of the time. After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart, and he was transfigured before them. And his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light.

And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is well that we are here. If you wish, I will make here three booths, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.

Six days before, Peter had it. He understood. He got it clear.

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, he confessed to Jesus. He understood that the exclusive anchor of his life had to be Jesus alone. But now in less than a week, Peter's looking into Jesus' face, shining as the sun, his garments white as the light.

It's not enough. Now he wants to put Moses and Elijah on the up there with Jesus to buckle him up, buttress him somehow. And also, in addition to that, he wants to build three booths out of wood, branches, something you can touch, something you can look at, so that when the vision ends, he'll still have the booths.

He'll be able to see them, he'll be able to touch them, and he'll even be able to say, look at what I built for the Lord. Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, you see all these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

Now there's something very comforting and something reassuring about being able to look at that temple. Those solid, beautiful, magnificent buildings. Symbol of security.

Surely as long as we have the temple, we know we have God. See those buildings? It's not going to be left there. One stone upon another that won't be thrown down.

And Jesus spends the rest of the 24th chapter of Matthew trying to get his disciples to turn their eyes away from the temple and every other false security, false Christs, false prophets, and all the rest, and fix them on him. Because if they're going to survive the storm which is about to break over them, they will have to be rooted and grounded in Jesus only. Not Jesus plus the temple or Jesus plus something else that seems to be solid.

As we approach and we are approaching the storm that's going to devastate much of what we think of as solid in our lives and in our culture, it's imperative that we distinguish between the temple syndrome and kingdom faith. The temple syndrome is our tendency to look away from Jesus and fix our eyes on some temple. Now our temple may be our particular fellowship or our favorite Christian brother or sister or the writings of C.S. Lewis or Watchman Nee or Oswald Chambers.

We consider ourselves committed disciples but our commitment is continuously compromised by these secret glances to our temple. Sometimes we even like to go up to our temple and fondle it a little bit. It makes us feel safer.

But our temple, whatever it is, is going to come down. And the more we invest our heart in that temple, the more devastated we're going to be when it does come down. Kingdom faith, on the other hand, is a faith which recognizes that there are only two things in the whole world that are solid.

First, Jesus' word. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. And second, the fruit which is born under the power of his word.

You did not choose me. I chose you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. Nothing else is solid.

Our bodies are not permanent. Our families are not permanent. Our fellowships are not permanent.

Our buildings are not permanent. Our nation is not permanent. No nation is permanent, including United States.

And our temple is going to go exactly the way, whatever our temple is, of the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus predicted it and in the year 70 A.D. it happened. And for almost 2,000 years now, the temple site is remaining empty.

It's the temple site. It has an Islamic mosque, but no temple. Almost 20 centuries like this.

Another way of putting it would be to say the only way we will experience any kind of inner security in this world is if we concentrate on doing two things, knowing Jesus and making him known. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Lo, I am with you always.

You didn't choose me. I chose you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. Come to him, to that living stone rejected by men, but in God's sight chosen and precious.

And like living stones, be yourselves built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture, behold, I am laying in Zion, a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious. He who believes in him will not be put to shame.

Do you therefore who believe he is precious, but for those who do not believe the very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner and a stone that will make men stumble and a rock that will make them fall for they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And in this passage, we see the same two things to know Jesus and to make him known.

Come to him, to that living stone, proclaim him. First, we are to come to him, the living stone, and allow ourselves to be built into a spiritual house, to turn away from whatever temple we may be sneaking our glances at and offer up everything to Jesus and allow the spirit of the living God to form us as living stones in the only temple which will last forever, his body, to be living members of his body, to be living stones in this eternal temple. Come to him, to that living stone, the primary pursuit of every single one of our lives has got to be to know Jesus.

And every other goal of our life has to be pushed to the side and this has to be given priority so that every day of our lives is a journey into a more direct and a more clean and a more genuine knowledge of Jesus himself, a relationship with him, so that we practice his presence, soak up his word, commune with him, walk with him, talk with him, worship him, adore him, serve him, offer up our very bodies as living sacrifices to the father in his name. The second thing, lasting thing which we can do and the only other thing we can do that's lasting is to now turn around and begin to proclaim Jesus to the world. You are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a chosen race, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

And who is it that called us out of darkness into his light but Jesus himself? So we proclaim him to the world. Every other thing we do in this world is going to just go back into the dust. Everything we build is going to come down again.

But the fruit which is born as we proclaim Jesus to the world will remain forever. And we proclaim him with our own mouth. You don't hire somebody else to do that for you.

You can't. God gave you a tongue. And just as surely as the spirit of God has anointed that tongue to offer praises to God, he has also anointed that same tongue to proclaim Jesus to the world.

Of course, the authority of our message will hinge on whether we're in any way endeavoring to practice what we preach, whether we are showing to the people near us and everybody else the mercy we're proclaiming to the world, whether the Holy Son of God manifests his holiness through us in a life that is moving toward that holiness and is already inflamed with that holiness. When the Spirit of the Lord began bringing us together into this fellowship, he certainly did not pick the most stable types. You know, we don't have to look around us.

That's lots of fun, but we can look into our own hearts and see that. But it is not God's desire, surely, that we should remain unstable or that we should erect some phony temple to give ourselves a feeling of stability. If we come to the living stone, chosen and precious by God, even if rejected by men, and allow ourselves literally to be built into that temple, which is God's doing and building, we will be stable.

We will be stable if daily we strive to know Jesus and to make him known. There is no other stability. This is the only stability there is in this world or will ever be until Jesus comes back.

Let's spend a bit of time praying together, shall we? And Father, we're just asking that your Spirit would move upon our hearts, especially those of us who are secretly very, very troubled about many, many things, whether we're Martha in the kitchen or whether we're standing at the foot of the mountain and watching it melt. And enable us, Lord God, by your grace and by your power this day, in the midst of all the things that distract us, to fix our eyes and our hearts once more on none other than the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.