It’s all about God.
As we have been leading up to our “Be Debt Free Sunday” on May 3, we have tried to emphasize that this is not as much about our buildings as it is about God. Even in all the temple preparations, King David tried to emphasize the same things, telling his son Solomon that the Lord would never fail him.
Being debt free is about God. We want the current and the next generation to worship the same Lord in the same way as the previous generation.
On the other hand, each generation can look different without compromise. Today we will be in 1 Chronicles, which was written to the post-exile audience of Jews after their return to Jerusalem. Remember in Ezra 3 when they rebuilt the temple? The old generation remembered Solomon’s temple and wept when they saw the new temple, yet the young generation cheered because this was all they knew! They now had their own temple to worship in. Although it might not have been as magnificent as Solomon’s temple, nowhere in the Scriptures does it indicate that it was wrong or bad just because it was different.
So this audience is reading about a temple from almost 500 years earlier! Of course there are differences, but the same God.
Today, it’s no different. Abraham trusted God by faith—looking forward to Jesus through the sacrifices and believing what God said. He was not saved by works or by circumcision but by faith in God. We look back through time and place our faith in Jesus alone. Just as Abraham was saved by faith completely separate from works, we are saved by faith in Christ. We serve the same God. We are saved the same way.
The temple of God is the house of God—His church—and we are His family, born again by the Spirit of God and adopted as full-fledged children of God, co-heirs with Christ of all that is His.
We have so, so much to be thankful for. It’s all about God.
-Pastor Ryan