Sermon Tone Analysis

1. Modern Temple

A. Introduction*open in prayer*Good morning!

I hope you're all doing well today!

I decided that I wanted this morning to start off with a joke.

Shortly after deciding that, I realized how few jokes I actually know, which makes me think that jokes probably aren't my thing.

This morning we'll be starting in Ephesians two, verses nineteen through twenty-two, .

B. Ephesians Context (Slide title, include author, date, location, recipients, basic purpose) Ephesians was written by Paul during an incarceration in Rome about sixty to sixty-one AD (60-61 AD).

The letter is a general explanation and encouragement in the faith to the church of Ephesus.

It was perhaps also a circuit letter, distributed to multiple churches in Asia Minor.

The first three chapters of this letter are purely informational, not a single command.

These chapters are explaining the transition that gentile believers have gone through; from darkness and sin to the light and the abundant blessings they have in Christ.

The last three chapters are more instructive, telling how to live as recipients of these blessings.

Here in chapter two Paul has been explaining the wonderful new access the gentiles have been given in Christ.

C. "We the Temple" (slide title, include Ephesians text) *Read *

​19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

We gentiles, who were previously separate from God's people and unable to share in all the blessings the Jews enjoyed, we are now equal members of God's household.

We went from foreigners to family members.

This household, was built on the foundation of God's Word, as delivered through His prophets and apostles, with Christ as the cornerstone.Some of you are probably familiar with what a cornerstone is, some of you may not be.

In ancient architecture, the cornerstone was the most essential piece of any building.

It served multiple purposes in construction.

1.

The cornerstone was a point of reference to orient and square the entire building.

A well-positioned and perfectly square cornerstone would produce a well-oriented and perfectly square building.

2. They were also a vital load-bearing part of the foundation, a solid cornerstone was necessary for a strong and stable building.

Then referring to Christ as the cornerstone has powerful meaning.

Christ is the most important block in the God's universal church, and in any church.

The squareness, the stability, and the orientation of the whole building depend on Him.

The apostles and prophets are also vital, because they were messengers who carried God's word to us, but their contribution is useless without Christ.In plain words, if you deny the authority of God's inspired word, the Bible, you effectively destroy any hope of having a sound foundation.

But even if a church accepts the Bible as God's perfect Word, the soundness of the whole structure depends on Christ.

It's exactly the same with individuals.

If any person wants to build a relationship with God, they must break ground by believing in Him first, then they must select a perfect cornerstone, the essential building block of the relationship.

That person must accept that Jesus was the Son of God, came to earth as a man, died an unjust death to pay for their sins, and rose from the Grave on the third day, proving himself to be the Son of God and showing how death has been defeated.

Then they have the essential block.

The other blocks of the foundations are very important, but the most vital is Christ.

As with the individual, so with the church.

A sound church is based on the cornerstone of Christ, and the authority of Scripture as God's inspired Word is the rest of the foundation.

In Christ we are being joined together and growing into a holy temple in the Lord.

The term "being joined together" is one word in Greek, it means to be putting parts together to form a whole structure.

Like laying bricks, or connecting Lego pieces.

Now the form of this word tells us that it's a passive process, it's something that is being done to us.

It's also a present process, something that is happening right now.

The best that I can make of this, is that in Christ we are being divinely placed and joined together.

As mentions, the bond we have is the Spirit of God.

“…the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

We are unified in Christ, but only by the Holy Spirit can we actually live in close unity with one another.

And as we are joined together by the Spirit this way, we grow as a holy temple.

The growth is totally dependent on the blocks being joined together.

If the parts aren't fitted together, there will be no growth.

The reason we are called a "holy temple" is because in the Lord we become a place of worship.

Temples in general were built to serve and to honor a deity.

The pagans had holy places, but we are a holy people.

We as individuals are the raw material which God's holy temple is made from.

So as we are joined together we grow and become a living monument to God’s glory.

Verse twenty-two is a complimentary parallel to verse twenty-one.

It says the same thing, but also adds different details.

In the Lord we are also being built up as a unified body into a dwelling place for God, in the form of His Spirit.

So in the Lord we are being set and fastened in place together, the materials which are being made into a dwelling for God's Spirit.Individually we are indwelt by His Spirit, but collectively we are also a dwelling.

It is the same Spirit in all of us, so it is like we are the cells in a human body, each is separate, but each contains the same DNA.

Collectively these cells with the same DNA form a single being.

"Dwelling place" points to God's personal presence on earth.

Before Christ came, the Jewish temple was the only earthly dwelling place for God.

But now, as the body of Christ, God's presence is found wherever there are believers.

It has always been God’s will to dwell among mankind, from the time that He walked in the garden with Adam and Eve.

He expressed the same thing when the Israelites were being given the law.

, God says to the Israelites “I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.

And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people” All they had to do was obey Him.The temple at Jerusalem was small, God simply doesn’t fit into a building made with human hands.

As Solomon said “But who is able to build Him a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain Him?”

But on the cornerstone of Christ and the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, God is constructing a holy temple, a dwelling place, using us as the building blocks.

This living structure covers nearly the entire globe, and can expand with every person who turns to Christ.

This is what we are, this is what God is doing.

2. Old Temple

Introduction We're going to jump to the Old Testament now, moving back around five hundred and eighty years from the book of Ephesians, to the book of Haggai.

We'll only be in the first eleven verses, so if you're following along, turn to Haggai one, one (1:1).

A. Context (Slide: verse 1, Author, date, setting, building time-line) The year is five-twenty BC (520 BC), and the author is the prophet Haggai.

Haggai is addressing the group of Israelites who returned to Judah from the Babylonian exile.

These people returned about five-thirty-eight BC, following a decree from Cyrus the Persian king who overthrew Babylonia.

Cyrus decreed that any Jew who wished to return to Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, would be supported in the venture.

About fifty thousand decided to return under the leadership of Zerubbabel.The work on the temple began in five-thirty-six BC, but stopped shortly after the foundation was laid.

The work stopped because the surrounding people had been opposing the work of the Jews, discouraging and intimidating them until they finally secured a royal decree from the Persian king Artaxerxes for the work to end.

The people were then forced to cease work on the temple.At this point it had been sixteen years since the work on the temple was halted, and God had a message for the people.*read

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​English Standard Version Chapter 11 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest: 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.” 3 Then the word of the LORD came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? 5 Now, therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways.

6 You have sown much, and harvested little.

You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill.

You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm.

And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.

7 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways.

8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.

9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little.

And when you brought it home, I blew it away.

Why? declares the LORD of hosts.

Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.

10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.

11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”

We’re going to start on verses seven and eight.

B. What is Your Task? (Slide: ) *read *

​English Standard Version Chapter 17 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways.

8 Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.

God, using the title “LORD of hosts”, commands the people to Consider their ways.

Eventually we’ll take a more in-depth look at what His title means, and why he says “consider your ways”, but right now I want to focus on the rest of this section.

So after telling them to consider their ways, the LORD goes on to give them a clear action plan, He tells them to go to the place where there is wood, bring it back to Jerusalem, and build the house.