Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
You, The Temple
What if we told you that God's presence isn't confined to a building, but resides within you? This episode unpacks this profound truth, starting with a heartfelt Bible confession, as we explore the spiritual transition from the Old Testament's physical temple to the New Testament's inner temple. Reflecting on Jesus' sacrifice and the tearing of the temple veil, we draw inspiration from Haggai 2:9, understanding our divine identity and unique role in carrying God's glory.
We'll do a little Bible confession before we get started. You can lift up. I'm going to follow in my daddy's footsteps. This is my Bible. Everybody say it with me. This is my Bible. I am what it says, I am, I have what it says. I have, I can do what it says I can do. Tonight, I will be taught the Word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive. I'll never be the same, in Jesus name.
Speaker 1:All right, hug two people. Hug two people. Then you can sit down. Y'all hug more. Some of y'all hug more than two. That's allowed. That's allowed, all right. Well, tonight I just want to encourage y'all.
Speaker 1:This is not really deep but it's powerful. And you know, the Holy Spirit told us to teach what we take for granted. And so tonight I'm going to talk about my title of my message you the Temple, you the Temple. And you know the Apostle Paul. We're going to go to the New Testament today because we're not dwelling in the Old Testament, because in the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:But let me just start out by saying you know, in the Old Testament God met with man in a temple made with hands, and sometimes he walked with. You know, he walked with Adam in the cool of the day he walked with Enoch, and then Enoch just left, went straight to heaven, he bypassed. Enoch just left, went straight to heaven, he bypassed. But mostly God met with mankind in a beautiful either, in a tabernacle, when the children of Israel were in the wilderness, and then later, when they settled in the promised land, they were able to build a beautiful, glorious temple, the Temple of Solomon, and they had all kinds of rich materials, the very best of the best cedar that they brought in. Hiram, king of Tyre, helped them collect all the best cedar. And then they collected gold from Ophir. They collected from all around the known world at that time. They collected the very best materials and they built the most beautiful place they could. And then they built an ark of the covenant where God's presence literally dwelled and they put the finest fabric to veil that special place where it was the Holy of Holies, where that was the only place on earth that the presence of God could dwell. And then there was only one person that could go in there once a year. It was a high priest and it was so that presence of God was walled off from man.
Speaker 1:But many of you know this that when Jesus, our precious Lord, jesus Christ, came to live in the form of mankind and then he gave his body on the cross and he cried out it is finished. And what happened to that beautiful veil in the temple? It was torn. Three gospels record that it was torn in two, and two of those gospels, matthew and Mark, say that it was torn from top to bottom. And what does that symbolize? What does that mean? That means that God left the temple and now, because of what Jesus did, that he can live. Think of it. He can live in you and he can live in me.
Speaker 1:And so we're carriers of the presence of God everywhere we go. We are carriers of that glory that used to be walled off. But now and then he made us worthy to carry that. Because I don't know about you, but I'm not. I don't deserve that. Nobody deserves to be able to carry that. Because if we accidentally once ever told one little white lie or had one little motive in our heart that was wrong, then, oh, now we're not clean and we're not worthy to carry it. But Jesus's blood covered all that, wiped all that away, and he continually makes us worthy to carry the glory of God. I mean, that's what we really believe and it's really pretty amazing and we don't think about it enough.
Speaker 1:But in Haggai, chapter two and you can turn there with me so actually this Temple of Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians and then. So they had to rebuild the temple. And when they were rebuilding the temple, it wasn't the second temple that they built in the promised land. It was not as awesome as the first temple. They didn't have all the finest materials anymore, they didn't have the kingdom of Solomon with all of its wealth and all that, and they had to settle for some things that were a little bit worse. But God told them something different In Haggai, chapter 2, verse 9, he said the glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts, and in this place I will give peace. He said don't worry about it, the silver is mine, the gold is mine and you're going to build. Even though the plans of this little temple don't look as exciting as the first one, it's going to be better. So if you take that and you interpret that whole concept into the New Testament now we're not in the Old Testament anymore.
Speaker 1:God doesn't live in that temple anymore. Who does he live in you? And actually in the New Testament he lives in three kinds of you. He lives in you individually. He lives here in the local church with our body together. He comes, he lives right here with us when we are united. And then he lives in the universal church all over the world, with people, every people, tribe and tongue and nation, all across the world, anybody who is named with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the universal church at large and he lives in that temple. And it's not made with hands, it's made, it's built. It's builder and maker is God. And so we're going to talk about the three kinds of you tonight the you, the temple, and then how we can edify, how we can edify that temple and how we can edify ourselves, how we can edify the local church, how we can edify the whole kingdom of God over the earth, because that's what we're about. Amen, we're supposed to edify. And so, anyway, in Haggai 2, it said that somehow the glory of this greater temple is going to be better than the first one.
Speaker 1:And so when we look at the temple as the church at large, you can read about the church in the book of Acts the early church. That was the first temple. That was like Solomon's temple with the book of Acts, and they were built, man, they were refined in the fire. They were overlaid with pure gold In their hearts. They were pure because there was such persecution in that day. You had the Romans breathing down their necks. You had people being crucified for confessing Jesus. You had people being drug into the arena, into the Roman Colosseum to be martyred for their faith. You had a people who absolutely did not care about trying to fit into the culture around them at all. And today it is so foreign to us. I mean I just think no one in the early church wanted to go to the gladiator arena to watch the show and watch the gladiators kill each other or whatever and cheer for the one. That that was the culture of the day and they did not care about that. Today I wonder if so many Christians would like find that entertaining. You know, and we might want to pretend.
Speaker 1:Well, we have to. You know we have to evangelize the world. We have, but that doesn't mean we have to be anything like the world, come out from among them and be separate. There is something different about us, and there is. We should look different, we should dress different. I mean, I'm not proposing that we go all the way Pentecostal or anything, but you know there's a difference with the people of God, but there's a glow about our face. So, anyway, the glory of God doesn't live in a temple made with hands, it lives in you and it lives in me in all of these different ways.
Speaker 1:And so the book of Acts was the latter house, the former house, and so now we are the latter. If the glory of the latter house, today's church, is going to be greater than the people in the book of Acts who had, I mean, just think of the things that they did. Think of Philip the evangelist, who went into Samaria and preached Christ unto them, and think of the miracles and signs and wonders that he did. And he wasn't even a big name guy, he was just an usher in the church and God anointed him and people got saved. And think of the apostle Paul, who had started out as a Christian killer and then he got gloriously saved and then he became a father to all the people. You know. So many churches wrote 14 books of the New Testament, so that was a lot of glory. Look around, we're gonna see glory in the latter house. It's gonna be bigger than the former house.
Speaker 1:I don't know how that can happen, but God has a plan. He is a good farmer and he's going to use you yes, you, me, what he put us here right now, in this time. He could have put those people and we see them as so much more spiritual than us. He could have put them here and he could have put us back there, but he put you, he valued you, he put you in the last days, right now. And so there is something we can do to stir up our faith, to carry that weight, carry that glory, and it's an easy burden because the Holy Spirit is doing the work, amen. So first, ok, let's just take it one by one.
Speaker 1:Let's go to 1 Corinthians 6. Y'all know this scripture. It has a lot of different ways we can apply it. And 1 Corinthians 6, right after Romans I know I like to use this scripture a lot in 2020. It says in verse 19,. Or do you not know that your body everybody say my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own. You are not your own, this body that you have is not your own, for you were bought at a price. Tell me what that price was. I bet y'all know it. Yes, the blood of Jesus. He bought you. He bought you out of the slavery, out of the bondage of sin, and he bought you, and so we now get to be bondservants of his. Therefore, it says glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's, so we. It says glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's, so we're supposed to glorify God in our body. So there are so many ways we can apply that, but I just want you to, for a minute here, think about your health.
Speaker 1:James touched on it. What would it be if? I mean, you might be satisfied with your current level, but what if you had amazing energy? Every day you woke up, you were rested, you were ready to attack this day, you felt revitalized, energized and ready. You felt like you did when you were 25. I mean, what if you had that level of vitality and energy? And I believe we can have it. Ooh, yes, lord, hallelujah, I feel a witness. All right, I was not going to be the girl who talks about this, because I don't hear a lot of preachers covering this because it sounds preachy and nosy and meddlesome and judgy, and I don't want any of y'all to ever feel judged when you come in here. We pray for your health needs and we do not judge. We love you. I'm judging myself, though.
Speaker 1:I had some health problem and I will just use me as an example. I had some health problems that did not necessarily show a lot on the outside, but I can tell you the osteoporosis ran in my family. My grandmother was bent over at 65, couldn't run the sweeper she called it the sweeper and oh, it just hurts. She couldn't walk up the stairs or anything like that. She had a compression fracture, her spine. That's where your spine just pretty much caves in because your bones are so brittle and weak and they just kind of compress and you get shorter, and so she had a lot of pain. You know what? God completely healed her of that. God completely healed her of that.
Speaker 1:And then y'all know that my mom has dealt with osteoporosis as well, and so from both sides of my family, I mean, there was a curse, there was a plan of the enemy, and so at 40, I was diagnosed with osteopenia and then it even. It even got worse than that and then I did actually get diagnosed with osteoporosis a couple years after that and I was too young to have that and I'm not having that all right, and so, um, and I know there were some things, but you know what? The energy that we all have in our, just in our body there's a spiritual implication of this, but the energy that we have in our body comes basically from the food we eat and how that food is then metabolized, digested, processed, sent to the cells in our body to throw our little mitochondria in. Every cell can go boom, pow, pow, pow, and it can, you know, it can make stuff happen in our bodies and give us energy, and so so we truly I mean in that way the food that we eat has a lot of. It can give us life or it can take us down, and there are toxins in so much of the food that we are having our food supply. So I have in my I'm a church lady, but then I also kind of geek out on nutrition I like to think about that stuff and try to fix little problems.
Speaker 1:Because I do not like prescription drugs. I see that those are for the most part killing people. Honestly, I think most of them do more harm than good. And one of my favorite people on the earth is Ms Ruth Secting. It's Calvin's mom. How old is she? She's 98, 95. Okay, see, she's got a long life. But recently I know she might be on a med or two right now, but up until a year or two ago she had never taken prescription drugs at all in her 90s and just has the joy of the Lord. Just you know and and and praise and is faithful to pray. And you know Tylenol and Advil. That's not always the answer to your pain. I believe that does. I do think there are side effects with your immune system. But I'm not here to preach about all the don't do's because I can. You know I can do that. I'm not a nutritionist, I'm not good at that but what I am saying is we ought to take care of what goes in our body and you are the steward If it is the temple of God, what is going in there. And so it's fun.
Speaker 1:My daughter, thea, is a biology major and she has a very charismatic, exciting biology professor right now that all the students really love and look up to. So she called me excitedly the other day and said Mom, mom, and I was in the grocery store. She said, mom, dr Ranahan, ranahan said that it's okay, that what is it? Aspartame, aspartame, mom, it's not that bad, it's okay. It's okay, I'm going to Aspartame, aspartame, mom, it's not that bad, it's okay, it's okay. I'm going to go have a Diet Coke right now Because I'm always like no, no, fake sweeteners, no, you can have Stevia, that's it, or whatever. Anyway, and I'm not sure I agreed on that yet, but she said but what he did say is that basically, the whole enemy of our entire health is sugar, and I did not want to hear this Y'all.
Speaker 1:I like I ate four Twizzlers today. I'm coming clean. I like sugar, I like, I like bread and I like sugar. I like to bake things. I like chocolate and I like cream cheese and I like sugar and I like to bake things. I like chocolate and I like cream cheese and I like gooey chocolate, warm, rich, I like that. And pecan brownies yes, I like that. Okay, but what I'm saying is so my whole life, I you know.
Speaker 1:But I found other ways to hide my sugar tooth, like I would in my younger days. I was a runner or whatever I would find ways. So it didn't really show on the outside, but I liked my sweets, but it was showing on the inside. If my bones were rotten on the inside, you know what I'm saying. It wasn't working and so, but mom ran a hand, said that sugar is the cause of all heart disease.
Speaker 1:And I've actually come to know that because your vessels, your blood vessels, are actually coated on the inside with some kind of molecule that has sugar in it. It has like that, and so when you eat sugar and it doesn't metabolize all the way, then it's actually kind of eating away at it, I guess, you know, in the inside of your lining, and then it has to patch, your body has to patch that little hole with some plaque in there. And now, you know, everything starts to go down and it might be fine, and while you're young it might be okay, but then it just starts to catch up with people and what we eat really matters and um, that's all I'm going to say about that. But, uh, you know you got to find your own balance. We had a party yesterday and it was fun and we all brought sugar. It was delightful and you know, if we had a big party at the church and said we're going to all have Ezekiel bread, y'all would not come. Brian might. He's good, brian would come. How many of y'all would still come? But but you know, and I don't drink, I don't, you know. So sugar has always been my thing, you know, and it might not be a sin, but it might be a weight, might be a weight, and so I had to do. God had me dealing with that this earlier this year and I had a three month very strict thing and I felt a lot better when I was on it and I might do that once a year or something where I do that. But y'all, you find your balance where you fight, like you treat your body as that temple where you honor God and you glorify God in your body.
Speaker 1:And actually this whole text is really talking about sexual sin, when that's a whole other level. In the Corinthian church they were in a culture that had false gods, worship false gods, and there was a sexual component to their worship. So it's disgusting and they had. That was all part of that culture. So they were trying to really like Paul was saying no, the culture tells you that you have an appetite for food and you have an appetite for sexual sin.
Speaker 1:Yes, god does not like that, and it's all the same. You know, it's all the same. If you want it, just go for it. It's just another appetite and it doesn't matter. And Paul was saying no. No, this entire passage is like no, because food doesn't have a spiritual component to it, it just goes in your body. The other thing does have a spiritual component to it and it joins your members with someone else's spirit and it's a spiritual experience. And he said don't do that, so don't join your body in that way. There's a covenant of marriage that he goes into that after that, and so there's a right and a wrong way for that. So that was the context.
Speaker 1:So edifying, your body is treating it like a temple. Uh, it's holy, it's set apart for the Lord, it's, it's um, it's uh, uh. We present our bodies Romans 12, one, uh. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable. So it's reasonable to just I mean, he bought you, he saved you, he, he gave you that body. It's fearfully and wonderfully made Psalm 139, and it's made in the image of God, and so it's awesome.
Speaker 1:You know, I was inspired by James when he preached a couple of weeks ago on male and female. He made them. Do y'all remember that? And how God has male attributes in his character that are strong, he's a father, he is powerful, and then you have. But God also is loving, he's merciful, he's kind, he's the multi-breasted one Hallelujah, and El Shaddai means multi-breasted one. He can feed everybody all at one time and never run out. So he is also maternal. And so.
Speaker 1:But God is not trans. No, what he is is he's eternal, and we are made in his image. And when we but but man alone cannot represent the image of God, woman alone cannot fully represent the image of God. But when they come together and they make a family, that family can carry the image of God. Now, because it has creative power to now, just like God, it can create new eternal life in the form of children and procreate. And now we've got a God like. We have the image of God in a family with a covenant. How awesome is that. And so, in that same way, we're the temple of God and we're reflecting his image and bringing him glory when we're in his covenant, and so we're not descended from apes. We're fearfully and wonderfully made in his image.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to teach what I take for granted really quick. The Bible is the word of God, it is true. There is no way that the theory of evolution can coexist with the Bible, and I know that for many years, because I studied science in university and I was taught these certain things, that these must be true. I did not know how to reconcile that. I know God's word is true, but I never was able to reconcile that. I know God's word is true, but I never was able to reconcile the things that I learned in school with the Bible, and I just didn't. It was just kind of hanging out there on a shelf.
Speaker 1:And I've recently come to understand that the theory of evolution has major gaps in it, and just as an overarching principle, you know, because if we believe that we're descended from apes, or if we believe that the world is an accident or it was created by a big bang, then it lacks the purpose of our creator, and so that's why I want to go here. We're his temple and we're created with a purpose, and it's awesome. And so when you think about the way your creator has made you. There is. No, there is nothing accidental about you. You know. Your appendix is not there by accident. So all you know, your tonsils, parts that people just willy nilly cut out, oh, we don't need that, that's an evolutionary. You know, that was for back then and we don't need. Modern man doesn't need a tonsil or an appendix. Well, you know what you might God put it there. Evolution is not, you know, should not affect our decision making today, and so anyway, we're not descended. There are major gaps.
Speaker 1:And when you think about when there's an explosion if we are created by a big bang, that things just you know you can say well, has an explosion ever created anything good? When something explodes, it's not pretty, it doesn't create order. There's a concept called entropy, that the world devolves into something bad. When there's disorder, it's always something bad comes out of it, never something good. If I have all the ingredients for life let's say I have all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies and I put them all out on my counter and I go to sleep at night, when I wake up in the morning, will there be chocolate chip cookies? If there is an explosion in my kitchen, will it make the chocolate chip cookies. How about if, over billions of years, every day, there was an explosion? Would it ever make chocolate chip cookies? Never, so it doesn't even make any sense.
Speaker 1:But there is definitely a concerted effort on the part of big science to devalue God, to sideline God, to make you doubt, and so never doubt him. His word is true and you're created with a purpose and your body is his temple and you can edify it just by presenting it to him every day. You can obviously pray in the Holy Ghost. That will edify your body and your whole spirit and your mind and, the most important thing, the other thing. So sugar is bad for you, but you know what else is bad? Stress. Stress is very bad. And so how can we eliminate stress? Praying, praying Always, with all kinds of prayer, giving thanks to God. Pray, philippians 4, think on these things. Everything's good, true, lovely, if there's any good report. I mean we can eliminate stress just by focusing our mind and presenting our body to him and knowing, hey, no, that's not allowed in my temple. That thought is not allowed in my temple.
Speaker 1:That weird song y'all I used to like to work out. There was one of my favorite trainers. She was so awesome, but she played like gangster rap in the morning at five in the morning, and so you know, we were out there doing burpees in the parking lot to gangster rap and I'm like praying in tongues the whole time. I'm like I cannot hear this and so, um, I would be praying in tongues, just try to like drown it out under my breath. You know, nobody had to hear me, right, carol? Nobody heard me. Nobody heard me, but um, um, but you know what like that does not get to come into my temple, and that you know you had your temple, what comes in, and so so don't let just anything in, don't let some prescription drugs, I mean food dyes, y'all. I could go on and on, but there are food dyes that actually cause depression and ADHD just because yellow number five, I mean. So we, we think we take it for granted. You know, just feed those kids in other Skittles, you know, somewhere, whatever, but they're jonesing, they're out. You know it's crazy. So there are just so many things we can do with our health that really do. It affects our mindset and affects our temple. All right, I'll shut up about that and I'm not judging y'all, y'all, you can judge me. I'll be held accountable. Claire, stop, put that twizzler down, all right, okay, so you are the temple, your body is a temple. Guess what? You the temple, the local church.
Speaker 1:Now Paul talks about that subject in 1 Corinthians 3. So turn back just a few pages. 1 Corinthians 3. I only got five minutes left because I've set a timer and I just use it all up. Verse 9. No, let's just 16.
Speaker 1:We'll cut to the chase. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you collectively? And if anyone defiles the temple of God, god will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy. Which temple you are? How do we know? He's talking about the local church there. Well, because if you rewind all the way to verse nine, he's talking about how Apollo was an apostle and so he planted and Paul watered, but God gave the increase. Doesn't matter who planted or who watered, but those apostles who built those churches were like wise master builders and they built on a foundation which is Jesus. Jesus is the foundation.
Speaker 1:Verse 12 says if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, so you got like wood, hay and straw, so you have materials that God's using to build the local church. Everybody say I'm gold, silver and precious stones. All right, you are, you are a treasure. And God is using he's building you together to make a church, to build a temple for his presence. And we're going to be tried by fire. It says that those apostles, their work, is going to be revealed because there's a trying that's coming on the local church. But it's going to test us and it's going to show. And it says if anyone's work, on which he is built on, endures, he will receive a reward. I believe that's our church, I believe that's our church. God's building our church and he'll receive a reward. That's our church, god's building our church and he'll receive a reward. And even if it burned, all burnt down, we wouldn't receive a reward, but we still have our salvation.
Speaker 1:It says in verse 15. So we know he's talking about the local church and we should never defile it. We should never defile it because God does not like that. Thunder, thunder, no, okay, all right, thunder, okay. Defile to ruin by corrupting or seducing. So God doesn't want us to corrupt or seduce each other to sin. He wants to use the relationships that we build together here in the church to love and edify.
Speaker 1:And how can we edify our local church? By flowing in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to go into 1 Corinthians 14, but all of those gifts of the Spirit edify the body of Christ, they edify the local church. So we can prophesy, we can have a message in tongues, we can move in the gifts of healings, the gifts of a word of knowledge, word of wisdom. We can move in the gifts, and that edifies especially prophecy.
Speaker 1:Prophecy does not have to be thus saith the Lord, it can just be speaking, an encouragement, like a rhema, encouragement to someone. That I consider to be prophecy. You do not have to say thus says the Lord, to move in 1 Corinthians 14 and to encourage someone with a rhema. If you're praying for someone and you receive a word for them, you don't have to tell them God told me this or God showed me. You don't have to be super spiritual, you can just tell them, look them in the eye and tell them that thing that was a rhema to you and if it witnesses with them, man, that will encourage them, that will edify them, that will build them up and then that will build a connection between you and them. That means like mortar, you know. And so we're going to edify each other.
Speaker 1:And so how do we edify the church? Ephesians 4. So if we turn to Ephesians 4, it talks about that God sent the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. For the edifying, everybody say edifying. For the edifying of the body of Christ, all right. For the equipping of the saints verse 12.
Speaker 1:For the work of the ministry, so everybody say I'm equipped. And for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, everybody say unity. My dad likes to say that Love plus unity equals miracles. So how do we get unity? By being equipped and edified by the fivefold ministry and that we have a knowledge of the knowledge of the son of God to a perfect man. In other words, not lacking anything complete to the measure of the stature of the fullness of God. To a perfect man. In other words, not lacking anything complete to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men.
Speaker 1:So you know when I said like when we eat, what we eat in our natural body affects what we, our output, our energy level. We eat in our natural body affects what we, our output, our energy level, what we feed on in the word of God at church affects our output of the church. It affects our ministry of the church. Will we receive, will we do the mandates that God called us to do? Well, it will. If we're meditating on the word, it will.
Speaker 1:If we're meditating on a bunch of junk food and sugar, it will. If we're meditating on a bunch of junk food and sugar, which is God is in control. You don't need to lift a finger to do any of the word. He's just in control, he's just you know, or remember that doctrine a while back that everybody's saved, everybody God's already given. You don't need to repent of your sin, everybody's saved. The blood of Jesus is so strong. Everybody's just naturally already saved. Remember that doctrine. It came, it came, carlton Pearson, it came.
Speaker 1:And so that to me that is junk food that will take somebody down, that will take a church and take the candlestick away from it and say Ichabod on the door, the glory has departed. We do not want that. We're not going to meditate on that. We're going to be watchmen on the wall. We're looking for the edifying, for the building up on what, on the foundation which is Christ Jesus, all right, and so then we grow. And then it says every joint supplies, we're knit together in every joint supplies. So every time I encourage somebody with a rhema, I have built a connection with them and me, and then y'all have connections between each other and then we're just all knit together in love. We're growing into a perfect man. That's how you edify the local church, and I'm going to close with this.
Speaker 1:Then there's the universal church. So Paul talks about that in Ephesians 2, 19. He says now, therefore, you're no longer strangers and foreigners, but your fellow citizens, with the saints, and members of the household of God. How awesome that somebody in the Philippines is a member of the same household of God as we people here in Texas. It's awesome, and we can still feel the same Holy Ghost when we worship the same God. So we are part of that same church and we've been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Again, christ Jesus is the foundation. Y'all hearing a theme here. So, no matter who I meet and I get to travel now to many different churches and not as many, but it's growing.
Speaker 1:But we were at a Presbyterian church this past week and you know what? We have the same foundation, it's Jesus. And I felt such a love, I felt such a unity as long as we talked about Jesus. There was a great, wonderful unity that came. If we talked about some other things, we could probably have discord, but we didn't talk about those things, we talked about Jesus. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:So how do we edify the universal church? By focusing on Jesus, and he's the cornerstone. And so in whom the whole building being fitted together again see the connections fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. Everybody say holy temple In whom you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. You collectively, all over the world, are collectively built together to usher in the second coming of Jesus. Honestly, we are bringing him in, we are building a throne for him all over this world. Every time we make a connection with another believer, we are putting mortar in that temple, we are overlaying it with gold. We are making a place for Jesus to come and dwell. And how do we edify the universal church at large?
Speaker 1:Evangelism, mark 16. Y'all need to get your eyes on it again. You probably know it. These signs shall follow those that believe In my name. They shall. Y'all aren't saying it loud enough, mark 16. Here I'll read it First. It says go ye into all the world and preach the gospel, aha, verse 15. Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved.
Speaker 1:If we are equipped, like we just said in the local church, for the work of the ministry and we are growing and we're equipped and we're empowered then this part will be easy. We're equipped to do this and I believe this church is going to be ascending church again. We have been in the past. We are going to this church will birth other churches. You watch, we're birthing one right now. We're going to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and then we'll have the signs that follow that Casting out demons speaking with other tongues, taking up serpents. Not that we do that here on purpose, just that we have supernatural protection, amen. And so if we lay hands on the sick, they'll recover. Amen. That's a sign. That's a sign. That's how we edify the universal church at large is by evangelizing the lost.
Speaker 1:Matthew 28, 18. Turn there, put your eyes on it, just before Mark. Hallelujah. I'm going to put my eyes on it and then we'll close. I want y'all to get home before the flood, whatever flood is coming.
Speaker 1:All right, jesus came, spoke to them verse 18. All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth, hallelujah. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Jesus said he'd never leave us or forsake us. He gave us a mission, but he's with us every step of the way to help us do it. And so each and every one of us, we're the evangelists, you are the evangelists. When we come together as a body, then we receive the encouragement, the equipping that we need to do to go out and do that work, and I believe there's a way we can model it, even together, and do those things together. But you are the temple and you're building and edifying the temple at large, in yourself, in your church and in this world. Amen, amen. Well, I hope you received tonight. I hope you were encouraged.