The Way of My Temple | "The Way" Week 11

- So good to see all of you today, honor that you're joining us today. For those of you watching online, I wanna greet the Edmond campus and great vine. Those of you in great vine watching or participating no matter where you're at or maybe you're watching this back on the archives. We are honored that you're with us. We've been, for the first time guests, we've been in a sermon season called The Way and we are talking about how yes, we believe in Jesus, but what does it look like to live for Jesus in a practical everyday way? And so since August the second, we started this on August the second. And for those of you that were here that day, if you remember I gave our church a challenge, I said my challenge to you is to be in the house every single week. And if you can't be in the house, then participate online, go back and watch the sermons that you miss. And the commitment I made and I said that I believe the same thing for me as I do for all of us is that by the end of this sermon season that we're in, all of us will be different in some way, shape, or form. And I pray that it's been a blessing. Feedback's been overwhelmingly good. People are getting good feedback for it. But after today's message,

you guys might hope that I start a new season soon. Today's by far the most difficult one to preach for me. It's one that I've agonized over. I've probably prayed over this message more than the messages I've prayed in the past. This one was not gonna be one on my radar. It wasn't on the list of one of the practices of the way. And about probably a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, Michelle, my wife Michelle, her and I did this daily devotional together, just a you version, daily devotional, not that big of a deal. And it impacted me so much, and I'm gonna read a particular verse that is part of this devotional that I thought, I have to preach this. I have to preach this message because of what it did in my heart. So I don't know that I've ever, this thing that I wanna talk about, I don't know that I've ever genuinely asked the Lord what He wants me to do with it. This thing, this thing we're gonna talk about to that, I just thought to myself, I have never asked the Lord what you want me to do with this thing. And before we go any further, I just gotta give a disclaimer, all right? Here comes my first, I'm gonna give you a couple disclaimers. I like to give disclaimers

'cause then if I preach the message, you don't like it. I'm like, I warned you ahead of time, I gave you a disclaimer, you can't be mad at me. My disclaimer is that I'm not here to tell you what the Holy Spirit should say to you, okay? In this message. Or even what it means for you. That's not my job, that's for the Holy Spirit, okay? My job is to show you something in the word of God and preach the word of God. And it's the Holy Spirit's job and only His job to bring correction and guidance and conviction. The Bible says the Holy Spirit will convict, the Holy Spirit will guide, the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. It doesn't say John will, okay? So I'm gonna preach the word, do my best to do so. I'm here to show you that this particular text that we're gonna talk about today, it exists, okay? It exists. And I believe and I think you'll agree after you read it, not that you'll like it, but I think you'll agree that it is a practice of the way. All right, are you ready? You're like, I don't know, am I ready? Okay, let's go to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter six. It's not that big of a deal, we're just reading the Bible, y'all, calm down, everybody take a deep breath.

All right, 1 Corinthians chapter six. I'm gonna pause for just a second for the page turners. I love when people bring paper, Bible's the church, I think it's amazing, I love it. I like the right circle and highlight you can write in your Bible. Okay, 1 Corinthians chapter six, verse 19. Here we go. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God. You did not belong to yourself for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. All right, one more go over to Romans, just a couple of page turns to your left, not very many, Romans 12. Romans 12, verse one says this, it says, and so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you, I'm begging you, I'm pleading with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. this next sentence is what led me to this message. This is truly the way to worship him. This what is? Giving my body. That's truly the way to worship him. Apparently, Jesus cares what I do with my body. So today we're going to talk about the sermon title is The Way of My Temple. The Way of My Temple. Before we get into the meat of the text, I just want to paint a picture of the world we live in, all right? Think about how much the world around our bodies have changed. Since the day that our bodies were created, our bodies haven't really changed all that much from the way that God originally designed our bodies to

be created. But the world around our bodies has diabolically changed. A hundred years ago, if you wanted to eat something, you had to grow it. Now you can just open a wrapper, or if you're like me, pull up an app and I don't even have to leave my room. I'll have it delivered to my doorstep. That's, come on somebody, that's good. That's good stuff. Back then, if you wanted to go somewhere, for the most part, you walked. You walked. You engaged your body. When the sun went down, there wasn't a glowing screen, six inches from your face, convincing your brain that it was still daytime. Like all of these things that are just coming after us. And we're gonna get into a few things today, but just go straight to the juggler. It wasn't that long ago that if you were looking for pornography, you had to go looking for it. Now, it comes looking for you. You carry it in your pocket. It's in commercials. It's in television shows. It's on social media and it's everywhere. If you, if you want, if you get a midnight craving for some cheesecake, oh, come on, that's my jam right there. At 10 30 at night, 20 years ago, you're like, oh, maybe tomorrow. Today, it's DoorDash, baby. Let's get this thing to my doorstep right now. I don't have to wait till tomorrow. Uh-huh, that's right. Our our bodies haven't really changed all that much, but the world around us has changed. And we live in a, we live, we now live in a world that's literally engineered to satisfy every craving, every desire, and not only to satisfy it, but to make it as more accessible and quickly accessible than ever before. Whether it's food or comfort or entertainment or sexual gratification or convenience or stimulation, I genuinely believe, let's just all give ourselves a little bit of grace because I genuinely believe that we live in a time in history where it is harder than ever in the history of the world to steward our temples. It just is. Um, let's talk about food. I mean food, some of the cheapest, look, come on, isn't it ironic that the cheapest, the easiest, the most convenient, and it tastes the best. Let's just be honest, is the worst for us. And if you've ever had a, a, you know, like, yeah, we should probably eat better and then you go to grocery store and you try to eat better. I don't know if these chickens are like, petted nicely or, why are they so expensive? I don't get it. Why, why are, why are eggs that

look like they came from another creature three dollars? But if I want cage free, range free, whatever free, organic free, they're four hundred and seventy eight dollars. If I want regular beef versus organic beef or grass-fed beef or regular chicken versus organic chicken, I'm like, did they name these chickens? Is that why they're so expensive? I don't understand why even, even movement, you know, we've spent generations inventing new ways to keep our bodies from having to move. From elevators to escalators. I like to escalators that walk for me at the airport. I don't have to walk anymore. I just stay on there and it walks for me. That's pretty cool. Drive-throughs. We don't even have to get out of the car anymore. I can just drive through the restaurant. We don't go to the grocery store anymore. The grocery store comes to me. It's so crazy now that if, if, if I I don't stand up for a while, my watch. Like, it's been a minute. You probably ought to stand. Something should probably happen. Even in the category of rest, you know, like we have the best mattresses in the history of mankind. I mean, the sleep number bed, are you kidding me? That's on my bucket list. Come on, I can adjust the number of my bed, and I can have cool on my side and the show can have the heater on her side. Like, we have the nicest mattresses that have ever been made, but we are the most exhausted nation-- we are the most exhausted generation in history. The irony of that, we're exhausted and stressed. I mean, come on, it's the most stressful time in history. My body can be sitting perfectly steel while my nervous system is running in marathon because of stress.

And, you know, sexual temptation isn't new. Sexual temptation's been around since the beginning of mankind, but access to it is new. Access to it is so different. And it's just there. It's lurking in the appetite for it is ancient. It's been there since the beginning of time. But the access to it is unprecedented. It's unprecedented. All the while, this is what's crazy. All the while, we have never lived in the history of mankind more so today that we live in a generation that's obsessed with appearances. And while we're trying to steward our bodies, we're simultaneously being told to hate them. And that if my body's not perfect, like the people that have been photoshopped on Instagram and TV, then I'm not doing good enough. All the while, the stress and the lack of movement and the food that we eat is just-- it's like this crazy thing that we're fighting against. So when I say this is difficult, y'all, I mean it. Like this is one of the most difficult times in history to steward the body. And that's why I think the enemy's up to something. That's why I think the enemy is having a heyday in this day and age. So I'm not up here pretending this is easy, y'all. This is one of the most difficult sermons I've ever preached.

But if Paul says that my body is the temple, he didn't say it's like a temple. He didn't say it like a simile. You guys know I love a good simile, man. When I see a simile in the Bible, that's like attack. I love to preach similes. It's like a lion, like a dove. Paul didn't say it's like a temple. He literally says your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So if that's true, then how did God expect the temple to be treated? So maybe what we're going to do for the remainder of the time, he's referring to a temple in the Old Testament covenant. And so we have to go back and look at elements and attributes of the temple and how it was treated to get a picture of what Paul is trying to describe to us. And I'm going to give my second and final disclaimer before we start. Here's my disclaimer. I am not here to give you advice. I'm not. I'm going to give very few examples. I'm not going to get into details about day-to-day living. I'm not here to give you guidance. I'm not here to give you shame or condemnation or conviction. I only have one job. My only job is to show you what the Bible says, about this particular text. And then I'm going to leave all of us, myself included,

to just dance with the Holy Spirit for a couple of weeks on what this looks like in our life. So let's go back to the Old Testament. That's all we're going to do. We're going to go back into the Old Testament and look at elements and attributes of the temple and how it was cared for. So number one, before we get into a lot of detail about the temple, we have to understand, number one, that the temple was intentionally designed. It was very intentional. So David, we're going to talk about this in First Chronicles. First Chronicles 28, David is giving instructions to his son Solomon, King Solomon, to build the temple. David was going to build the temple. God said, no, you've been a man of war. I don't want you to build the temple. I'm going to have your son build the temple. And so he gives him explicit instructions. David doesn't come to his son and say, hey, man, just build God's house. It's cool. Just whatever you're thinking, just go for it. I'm sure it'll be great. David gives him instructions on the entrance and the tent of meeting and the building and the storehouses and the inner rooms and the upper rooms. The place of Atonement. He gives him instructions on the courtyard and the divisions of the priests, the Levites, the treasuries.

He even tells him the weight of gold and silver to use to make the instruments. Everything, down to the most minute detail, the thing was designed down to every detail. And then in 1st Chronicles chapter 28 verse 19, watch what David says to Solomon. He says, every part of this plan. So, we can see that the Lord was intentional, that the Lord did not design this thing by accident, okay? What does that mean for us? Well, let's go over to Psalm, Psalm 139, verse 13. It starts talking about us. It says, "For you were created in my inmost being. "You knit me together in my mother's womb. "I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made." So, before we talk about what we should do with our temple, we have to first establish what our temple is. Our temple is something that God made. God intricately designed. In the same way he built the Old Testament temple, that's the way he built us. I mean, have you ever stopped and even tried to wrap your brain around? The smartest doctors and scientists in the world are still baffled at the human body and the brain. The brain alone is hard to fathom, you know? And every cell in your body and everything about your body that makes up everything and that everything flows together and works together, it's the same way, it's like God is saying,

"Hey, the Old Testament temple and your temple." It was built on purpose, for a purpose. And so we have to start there, to understand that we were designed and created in the image of God, and so it's something, our bodies are something that we receive from God. And then we offer them back to God, as Romans 12 says, as a living sacrifice. Our body is not our own. Romans 12 says, "We have been bought with a price." And I don't mean to get controversial at all, but if God says, "Your body is not your own, "you've been bought with a price," then what do we do with my body, my choice? Okay, that went over like a lead balloon. Let's keep going here. All right, let's get into the details of the Old Testament temple, all right, number two. Number two, the temple had to be tended, guarded, and purified, okay, tended, guarded, purified. In other words, the temple didn't take care of itself. God had the temple built, and then an army of priests tended the temple, they guarded the temple, and they purified the temple. It was something that was sacred, yes, but it was also something that required attention. So let's cover these three real quick as subpoints under point number two, okay? So the first subpoint is the temple must be tended to. You see this all through the Old Testament.

You see it in Leviticus, you see it in Exodus, you see it in 2nd Kings where the lamps are to be kept burning, the fire on the altar must be kept burning, they give them instructions on how to take care of the utensils, how to purify them, how to take care of them, how to tend to it, how to make repairs when repairs need to be done on the temple. So what it's saying to us is sacred doesn't mean maintenance free. And just because God created our bodies, we live in this fallen world ever since Adam and Eve and sin entered the world. We live in a fallen world. Therefore, maintenance is required. And for those of us, myself included, that are over the age of 40, can I get a good amen? Maintenance required. So we can neglect our bodies for a little while. And I love the parts of the Bible where like the temple is supernatural. And it's like the glory fell and the fire from heaven came down and consumed the offering. And the Bible says the cloud descended and just consumed the presence of God and consumed the temple. But somebody still had to get up the next morning and tend to that place and scrape the ashes off the altar and take them outside and clean up the bloody mess from the sacrifices that happened the day before.

Like there was, there was tending to that had to happen. And like I said, we can neglect our bodies for a while. We can, we can run on too little sleep for a while and we can live under stress for a season and we can eat poorly and we can stop moving and we can ignore pain and live at an unsustainable pace for a season. But eventually, the body keeps score. I don't know if you know that or not, but we may not keep score but our bodies do. And we have a tendency, especially men, come on fellas, I don't go to the doctor, are you kidding me? Like, we just push through, man. Come on, we ignore warning signs. We just keep going. But listen, even Jesus slept. So we have to understand that our bodies are gonna be, they require some tending to, they require maintenance. So it forces us to just ask ourselves really practical questions every now and then, is what maintenance have I put off? Okay, is there some maintaining of my temple that I've put off? Do I need to rest more? Do I need to watch what I eat? Do I need to go see a doctor? Do I need to slow down? All those things. The second one is the temple must be guarded. It must be guarded.

Okay, so let me show you this. Just a couple of pages to your left. In 1 Chronicles 9, I don't know why I said nine, like I'm Irish or something. I don't know what that was about. Okay, 1 Chronicles 9, verse 26, watch this. It says, "The four chief gatekeepers, all Levites, were trusted officials, for they were responsible for the rooms and the treasuries at the house of God." Watch this. "They would spend the night around the house of God since it was their duty to guard it and to open the gates every morning." So their duty was to, at night, guard the gates to make sure nothing got in that was not supposed to get in. And in the mornings, open the gates so that what should get in does get in. And so now we flip to the New Testament and all of a sudden the veil has been torn. We have access into the presence of God. We don't go to temples anymore like they did in the Old Testament to make sacrifices. The toning blood of Jesus is enough to cover all of us. But let me tell you something. Paul says, "Your body is now your temple." And it says, "Now what we used to have to go to a temple for to go to the presence of God. Now the very presence of God lives in us." And so wouldn't it be fair enough to say

that I need to become a priest of my own temple? And now it is my duty to guard what gets in and what goes out. So what does that look like? Well, think about all of the areas in which things can get into your life. So it's our eyes. What are we allowing to be seen? What are we looking at? What are we watching? What shows are we watching? I'm not trying to be religious. I'm just trying to preach the word. What are we looking, what are we allowing to penetrate? What are we allowing to get into our ears? That can be even the people you choose to hang around. That can be the people you're hanging out with. You are literally opening the floodgates of your gates and saying let anybody and everybody that wants to come into this temple come and have your way. So we are now the chief priests of our own temple. So what am I allowing in the gates? And last but not least in that point is the temple must be purified. The temple must be purified. So in second chronicles, second chronicles chapter 29, let me go over to that real quick. Second chronicle chapter 21, 29, we're gonna talk about the temple must be purified.

In verse three it says, in the very first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah who was the king, reopened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them. He summoned the priests and the Levites to meet him at the courtyard east of the temple and he said to them, listen to me, you Levites, purify yourselves and purify the temple of the Lord. The God of your ancestors, now listen to this, remove all the defiled things from the sanctuary. So apparently, the stewarding of our temples isn't only about adding something to our temples. It's also about removing things from them. Removing things that have come that we've allowed over the years or over the circumstances or over seasons of our life, that we've allowed to come and to defile as the scriptures would describe it, our temples. This devotional that Michelle had to be doing, give me the name of it, it's a great one, if you wanna do it, it's on you version. It's called stewarding God's temple. It's not that difficult of a title. I wanna read a quote out of it, this quote is so good. Purity is the awareness that not everything has permission to touch your temple. Whether that be physically, emotionally or mentally, purity begins with discernment and it asks a very simple question.

What is allowed near what God has called sacred? What is allowed near your temple if God has deemed your temple sacred? There's something I didn't show you that I gotta go back and show you. It's in the opening text I read to you in 1 Corinthians 6. the Holy Spirit? That's how we started the sermon, right? That's how Paul is addressing this whole situation. That's what we're talking about in the context of temple. But you need to understand the context of that verse. Always be leery of people, even myself, if you ever see me pluck a scripture out of the Bible and just read you the scripture and then preach everything around that scripture without telling you the context of that verse, okay? It's really important that we look at the context of this verse. So when Paul says your body is not your own, it's the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is the context of that verse. Let's rewind a couple verses all the way to verse 15. Verse 15 says this, don't you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never. And don't you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her. For the scripture says the two are united as one. But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Now this is where I want to get to. Just, this is like a nuclear verse. Run from sexual sin. No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. So the context of Paul's verse about your body as the temple of the Holy Spirit is actually a verse about sexual purity. The ESV, that same verse in the ESV, I gotta read the ESV for you. It says this, it says flee from sexual sin. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but sexual immorality sins against your own body. I intentionally asked for the youth group to stay in here today. And I want to be really careful how I thread this, but teenagers are in the room, single people are in the room. No one preaches on this anymore. And I'm all for grace, y'all, like I love grace. Thank God for grace. I need all the grace I can get. But the Bible says that we're to present grace and truth. It's not all truth and no grace and it's not all grace and no truth. It's the balance of the two. And that's why I'm trying to thread this needle so carefully because I want to do it full of grace. But I'm not a good pastor if I don't present truth. And so the truth of the

scripture says, and then Paul uses kind of an exaggerated example, right? It's like, oh my gosh, he says, if a man is with a prostitute, now he's using this hyperbole, right? He's using like the most extreme circumstance. He says, but don't you understand that when you do that, you and that person are becoming one? Is that's how God designed marriage to be? God designed when we men would leave his father and mother and be united as one with their spouse. And one of the beautiful ways that God does this is beautiful. Sex is a beautiful thing, right? Right? Y'all ain't doing it right. If you don't know that answer, I mean, come on, somebody. I'm just saying. Okay. But when we do this outside the confounds and the blessing and the unity of marriage, he is saying you are defiling your temple, defiling your temple. Every other sin is outside the body. Only sexual sin is the one that defiles and affects your own body. So when we shack up outside of marriage, when we're having sex before marriage, when we're doing all of these things, we don't understand that this is not religion. This is not some, well, you're just being religious. No, this is like protecting the very presence of God that wants to reside in our temples. And we defile the very things that God's very presence wants to come and reside. So when we have boundaries, listen, if the Lord is, if Jesus is the Lord of your life, okay, if he's not, go do your thing, man. I got, I mean, it's not going to be good for you in the long run, but I got nothing to say to you. But if, if you claim, if you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, then your sexuality is not exempt from his lordship. It's not exempt. Some dude in here is with us, girl, he's like, dang it. I'm just saying, y'all, to honor God with purity, what you're saying is this temple matters, it's matters. Okay, why does it matter, John? Golly, I'm so mad I came to church today. What's the point? Why do I have to tend it? Why do I have to guard it? Why do I have to purify? I'll tell you why, it's point number three, is because the temple was built for the presence of God. The temple was built not for gold and not for architecture,

not to be impressive and how cute and awesome and amazing was. It was built so that the glory of the presence of God would descend and be among the people. Okay, let me go, I think I have a verse for this somewhere. First Kings eight, so the first Kings eight at the end, at the verse 10, it says this, "When the priests came out of the holy place, a thick cloud filled the temple of the Lord, the priests could not continue their service because of the cloud for the glorious presence of the Lord, filled the temple of the Lord." And if you read through the Old Testament temple, what you'll find is the presence of the Lord does not descend until the temple is in order. It will not come. And thank God for grace, thank God that the temple veil has been torn and we can enter into the very presence of God. And we no longer have to go to a priest and on Yom Kippur and have them go into the holy of holies. Thank God that none of that is true. But it does make me wonder that we always want, there's nobody on the planet that wouldn't love to have the presence of God in their life. But yet nobody wants to do the things of the temple and yet Paul is saying, "Hey, listen, your temple, your body, it's actually where the presence of God is." It's actually the very place that he will come. We're all chasing revival

and if revival pops up at that church, I'll run over there, maybe it's over there. And I'll, maybe it's over there, maybe run over there. Maybe it's the presence of God is out there somewhere and I need to go find it. What if God's waiting on us to get our temples in order and then the very presence of God will come and rest on us in our temple? I'll take your, I'll take a golf clap today, y'all. Trust me, I'll take it. So if, if the presence of God is to be in this temple, it's not, it's not, it wasn't about the gold, it wasn't about the architecture, it wasn't the impressive look of it. I don't steward my body, 'cause you can swing the pen of them all the way to the other side and sculpt your body into this unbelievable specimen of a woman or a man. And then all of a sudden your body has become about being admirable. The truth is, is I don't steward my temple so people will admire it. I steward the temple because I want the presence of God to dwell in it. So your body was not given for the eyes of the world to see. It was given for the glory of God to reside. So I've already gone this far, and my loves will just go all the way, right? This is, this is for fellas too, y'all. Modesty is important.

Oh, we may have a smaller church next week. Modesty is not being religious. Modesty is not being old fashioned. Modesty means I know who this temple belongs to. And this temple is not for the eyes of men or for the eyes of women to behold. This temple is built to possess and to contain and to hold the very presence of God. (congregation applauding) And to do it in a way that helps my body last. Listen, we're all gonna die. I hate to break it to you. But the bigger your number gets, the more deteriorated your body gets. I mean, if you're 120 years old, I got bad news for you. It's coming real quick, you know? So it's not like we can stop it. But here's what I wanna do. I wanna steward my body in such a way that it will last. Like, I wanna hold my great grandbaby. That's what I wanna do. I wanna hold my great grandbaby and help raise my great great grandbabies if I can. So it's stewardship, it's stewardship. Okay, there's another chapter, all right, in the temple story. No, it won't be done. You're like, thank God.

Because the truth is the temple, the Old Testament temple, wasn't always tended to. And it wasn't always guarded. And they actually failed miserably. You can go back and read it. They failed attending it. They failed at guarding it. And they sure failed at purifying it over and over and over again. Because here's what happened in the Old Testament. Yeah, here's what happened in the Old Testament. And you go and read it later on time. Second Chronicles, chapter 36. The Babylonian Empire comes. The Bible says that the Lord actually allowed it to happen because they defiled the temple. Read into that as much as you want. The Lord, listen to me. I'm just telling you what the Word says. You decide for yourself, the Lord let the enemy come in and destroy the temple because they were not stewarding the temple the way it should have been stewarded. The good news is, so Nebuchadnezzar comes in, destroys the temple, that's bad news. Comes in, destroys the temple, tears it down, destroys it completely. And then all of a sudden on the scene, you can read about it in Haggai. You can read about it in Ezra. It's in a lot of the minor prophets. It's a rubble. This man name's a rubble.

I wrote about this extensively in my real leader book because I did it as a leadership component. It's a rubble in Joshua. God calls them to come back and rebuild the temple. And when I say rebuild, I mean, it was totally destroyed. The Bible says that whenever they came back to rebuild the temple, they had to rebuild the foundation first. So when they dismantled the temple, they destroyed it down. You think you've been hard on your temple? They destroyed this thing down to the, they tore the foundation out of it. And God said, oh, no, no, that doesn't stop. We can rebuild this thing. So as a rubble in Joshua come and they come back, they rebuild the temple. They couldn't undo what had happened. The temple had been destroyed. They couldn't undo that. But they could decide what they do next. And so they come in and they start rebuilding the temple. And I want to tell you something. If Paul says your body is the temple, do you know what's true? Your body can be rebuilt. Your temple can be restored. Did you know that God created your body in such a way that it actually rebuilds itself? If you don't believe me and you're crazy enough to do so, if you cut yourself right now, don't do that. Please don't do that. But if you pulled out a pocket knife and cut your finger a week from now, it would begin healing. It would begin healing almost immediately. God designed your body.

If you've been an alcoholic for 20 years and you decide to stop drinking and your liver is destroyed, your body would begin to rejuvenate and restore what 20 years of destruction did. God built our bodies this way. And so now this analogy that Paul was using begins to come to full, full picture of the beauty of the restoration because God is a redeemer. We know this, right? The Bible says that God restores and he renews and he redeems and he rebuilds. And we give our lives to Jesus as the old has gone and the new has come. Everything about us has built to be rebuilt and restored. And in fact, you're getting this because the Lord showed me this between services and I didn't even share it at any of the other services, but you're getting a bonus here. In Haggai, Haggai chapter 2, verse 9. So the Lord is talking to Zerubbabel and he's trying to encourage him because he's like, look, have you ever read about the temple when it was first built? I mean, it was unbelievable. The Bible says that they built the first temple with gold nails. I researched this one time because it says how much each nail weighed. Each nail they used of gold in today's value was worth $30,000. And nail. So Zerubbabel, God's like rebuild it and he's like, how could I ever? I could never rebuild it to the glory that it once was. And so God encourages him and in Haggai chapter 2, he's giving him all these prophetic words. This is the Lord for somebody in this room. In Haggai 2.8, this is the Lord. After Haggai, after Zerubbabel is struggling, the Lord tells him the silver is mine. And the gold is mine. Please hear me. And the future glory of this temple. I can't see him crying. The future glory of this temple will be greater than the past glory of the old temple.

Let me tell you something. God can restore your temple. God can redeem. You might be thinking it's too far gone. I don't know what to do. I don't even know where to get started. God can redeem. God can restore. Your temple is repairable. And let me tell you something. I want to get sensitive. There might be younger kids in the room, so I want to be really careful with how I say this. God can redeem and restore your body from the past sexual encounters that you've had. Okay? If you have been abused. God can redeem that. He can restore that and He can rebuild your temple back to the way it was. Okay? So with the power of the Holy Spirit coming alongside you to help you overcome, in addition to tending it and guarding it and purifying it. If it was as easy as the Lord doing it, I would just set up, we would just form a line and I'd come down here and y'all just walk by and I'll lay hands on you. Now you, well, be Benny Hinn and pull my jacket off and just wave it over the whole crowd and just fix all of you, all at once. No more cheesecake in Jesus' name, you know, you'll never crave cheesecake ever again. I wish it were that easy. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, when I begin to see this, like when you look in the mirror, stop looking at your flaws and say, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And with just a little bit of tending to it and a little bit of guarding it and a little bit of purifying it, God can redeem and He can restore. So we're going to go a little long today. If you need to slip out, please do it very reverently and very carefully. I want to be respectful of your time, but we have to do something really important before we go. I thought it'd be cool to connect one other dot. So in John chapter 2, Jesus says, he's kind of having this debate with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and Jesus finally just has enough and he says in verse 19, he says, all right, I'll tell you what,

destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it back up. Now they're just like, heresy because they thought he was talking about the actual temple. He's like, that's impossible. If we tore down this temple, like you could rebuild it in three days. Jesus wasn't talking about that temple. He was talking about His temple and He was actually foreshadowing His own death. He's like, what's going to happen is you're going to destroy me. You're going to crucify me. But in three days, I'm going to rebuild. I'm going to resurrect the temple. I'm going to rebuild what you tried to destroy. And then that, yeah, that's, and then the Bible so, the Bible is just so gangster. I mean, it's amazing. And then that verse I read earlier in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 15, where Paul says, don't you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ. And then in a lot of other Paul's writings in Romans and others, he talks about the body of Christ. And we are the body of Christ that all of us equal come up together. And we all play a different role in a different part in the body of Christ. So there's this beautiful illustration about we are the body of Christ. And Romans, it says, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in your temple, in your body. So I thought it'd be cool if we ended the gathering today by just receiving the body and the blood of Jesus. All right, let's all stand to our feet. Your eye watch probably told you to stand anyways. So if you didn't get an element, if you didn't get one of these elements, if you'll raise your hand, we'll run somebody to you. All right, we got quite a few hands going up. Oh, wow, lots of hands. All right, we'll pause for just a second. We'll give you time to get your elements. So ushers bring a bunch. We got several that don't have these in their hand. What I want to do, I won't start till you get one. So I'm just going to talk while we're waiting on everybody. But everybody else, give me your attention. What I want to do is I want us to take obviously the bread and the cup. The bread we know is referred to as his body. The Bible says that his body was broken for us. And there's a passage in Isaiah that says that this same, it's this messianic prophecy of a coming Messiah. And it's actually giving us a picture of his crucifixion. And it says that by his stripes, we are healed. And so what I want to do before we take the bread is if there's anybody, there's one more young lady. There's a couple more over here, ushers, a couple over here on this side, almost along that back down on that side over there. A few over here to my left. I almost made a joke about Dak Prescott. Just throw it, but they'll never get there.

I can't help it. I'm sorry. There's a couple more way back over there on my far right that need okay there's one still one young lady way over here that needs one right there we're not going to miss one person i don't care how long it takes all right so i'm going to pray pray over our bodies and then we're going to do the blood before i do that i just want to take a second real quick that paul is very explicit he says before you eat of this bread and drink of this cup we should each examine ourselves it's what paul's instructions are in the book Corinthians so about your heads of closure eyes just real quick before we eat of this bread and drink of this cup all we need to first do is make sure that everyone's in right relationship with Jesus okay so if you're here and you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus this will be the easiest decision you've ever made in your life living for Jesus will be one of the most difficult things you've ever done in your life it's not easy to live for Jesus we deny ourselves we pick up our cross we turn the other cheek we give away money it's crazy the thanks god wants us to do but giving our lives to Jesus is very simple because he paid the price in full he paid your debt so if you're here today and you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus just shoot your hand up and say that's me I'm not going to drag you down here and embarrass you I'm going to pray for you right where you're standing is there anybody here who said that's me I need to give my life to Jesus this morning yeah several hands over here there's a hand there hand over here hand down here who else anybody else say that's me oh don't be shy yeah right there awesome yep I'll see you bro who else yep all the way in the back awesome another hand back there fantastic yep I'll see that one right there praise god

oh right there get put your hands down make sure don't miss anybody who else anybody else yep right there awesome see that hand okay I'm moving fast because I'm trying to be honoring your time pray this prayer with me say father god thank you for sending Jesus to die for me I confess my sins to you I am in need of a savior I believe you are you died on a cross for me and you were raised to do life for my victory and today I'm brand new you are rebuilding this temple my life is yours in Jesus name amen amen praise god for that we'll give you some instructions in just a minute you're going to get your bread bubble says that his body was broken for us and we do this in remembrance of him so we're doing that in this act we're remembering him but what I want to do first is before I pray I believe by faith every time I take communion I believe that the Bible is true by his stripes I am healed if I if my body has parts of Christ's body then when I'm in union with Christ I step out in faith and I just believe that God can heal me so if you're here today and you have any sort of sexual pain sexual hurt in your past that you want redeemed and restored back to new if you have anything in your physical body that is hindering you and stopping you from doing what God's called you to do if you have any mental thing that's keeping you any emotional thing I want you to raise your hand like if you need to heal in any way shape or form okay from about from a ingrown toenail to cancer in your body raise your hand oh like I got some more hands yeah my toe has been hurting yeah okay father we are simply doing what your scripture says to do in the same way that your body was broken God we break this bread in our hand and we we in just a moment we will take it into ourselves what we are believing is that this is your body that's making us whole you were broken so that we could be made completely whole and we receive your healing today in Jesus name go ahead and take the bread

all right go ahead and open your cup bubble says that Jesus says this is the new covenant of my blood do this in remembrance of me this is the part where we get to be washed wide a snow because of his crimson blood without having to do anything other than confessing our sins and admitting that we're sinners we become wide a snow so father in just a moment we will receive your blood into our temple as a sacrifice We receive wholeness today into our temple. In Jesus name, go ahead and take that. Father, we love you. We thank you for everything that you have done in our life. God, give us the strength and the power and the willpower to tend our temples, to guard our temples, and to purify our temples. And we believe by faith that you will rebuild what the enemy has came and destroyed. So thank you for that in Jesus name. We're so grateful that you joined us today. At Victory, we pray big prayers to a big God, and we expect big results. If you would like to receive prayer, you can submit a prayer request by visiting victory.church/pray. If this message or any of our messages have impacted your life and you would like to partner with us through giving, you can do so at victory.church/give. Thank you again for joining us. At Victory Church, we live life to the full. [MUSIC PLAYING]