Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Milford

Introduction
Our reading this morning comes as King Solomon has just completed the building of the Temple in Jerusalem…

1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43 [NLTse]
¹ Solomon then summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes—the leaders of the ancestral families of the Israelites.  They were to bring the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant to the Temple from its location in the City of David, also known as Zion…
⁶ Then the priests carried the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant into the inner sanctuary of the Temple—the Most Holy Place—and placed it beneath the wings of the cherubim…
¹⁰ When the priests came out of the Holy Place, a thick cloud filled the Temple of the Lord. ¹¹ The priests could not continue their service because of the cloud, for the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple of the Lord.
²² Then Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in front of the entire community of Israel. He lifted his hands toward Heaven, ²³ and he prayed,
“O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like You in all of Heaven above or on the earth below. You keep Your covenant and show unfailing love to all who walk before You in wholehearted devotion. ²⁴ You have kept Your promise to Your servant David, my father. You made that promise with Your Own mouth, and with Your Own hands You have fulfilled it today.
²⁵ “And now, O Lord, God of Israel, carry out the additional promise You made to Your servant David, my father. For You said to him, ‘If your descendants guard their behavior and faithfully follow Me as you have done, one of them will always sit on the throne of Israel.’ ²⁶ Now, O God of Israel, fulfill this promise to Your servant David, my father.
²⁷ “But will God really live on earth? Why, even the highest heavens cannot contain You. How much less this Temple I have built! ²⁸ Nevertheless, listen to my prayer and my plea, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that Your servant is making to You today. ²⁹ May You watch over this Temple night and day, this place where You have said, ‘My name will be there.’ May You always hear the prayers I make toward this place. ³⁰ May You hear the humble and earnest requests from me and Your people Israel when we pray toward this place. Yes, hear us from Heaven where You live, and when You hear, forgive.
⁴¹ “In the future, foreigners who do not belong to Your people Israel will hear of You. They will come from distant lands because of Your name, ⁴² for they will hear of Your great name and Your strong hand and Your powerful arm. And when they pray toward this Temple, ⁴³ then hear from Heaven where You live, and grant what they ask of You. In this way, all the people of the earth will come to know and fear You, just as Your Own people Israel do. They, too, will know that this Temple I have built honors Your name.

We are baptizing Ava Zellmer into Christ this morning. The Lord calls us to baptize our children when, during Peter’s very first Holy Spirit inspired sermon, he tells the crowds, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” (2:38-39) We baptize even infants because  Romans 4:11 illustrates baptism’s relationship to circumcision: That just as circumcision was a sign of faith and righteousness to be given to all the male children of Israel even though they didn’t yet have faith for themselves, likewise, baptism, too, is to be given to the children of Christians as a sign of faith and righteousness even though they don’t yet have faith for themselves.

In our reading from 1 Kings 8, Solomon, son of David, king of Israel, has just finished building the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and is dedicating it by way of prayers and sacrifices and bringing into it the Ark of the Covenant – the golden box that contained the Ten Commandments, a jar of manna, and Aaron’s walking stick that God had made to miraculously grow almond blossoms.

And King Solomon has called all of Israel together to be a part of this sacred dedication, representatives from every family attending on each family’s behalf. And as he prays King Solomon asks God to watch over His Temple night and day. He asks the Lord to hear and answer the humble and sincere requests prayed towards the Temple: Answering and forgiving, and teaching the people to follow His ways as He does so. Solomon prophesies that foreigners who do not belong to Israel will hear of the Lord, hearing of His great name and His strong hand and His powerful arm and that the Lord would hear and respond to their prayers, as well, so that the whole world would know and fear Him, just like His people, Israel.

And Jesus said, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19)
In Jesus Christ God Almighty has answered Solomon’s prayers concerning the Temple.
Jesus is the true and living Temple… We worship God in Jesus… In Jesus we have all that Solomon asked for…

Solomon asked the Lord to hear and answer the humble and sincere requests prayed towards the Temple: Answering and forgiving, and teaching the people to follow His ways as He does so. In Jesus Christ God does.

When the Lord Jesus raised Lazarus (who had been dead and in the grave for four days) back to life again, He prayed, saying to the Father, “Father, thank You for hearing Me. You always hear Me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe You sent Me.” (John 11:41-42) The Father always hears the prayers of the Son. Likewise, when we pray by faith, in Jesus’ name, according to the will of God, Abba hears our every prayer. In Christ, He hears. In Christ, He answers. In Christ, He forgives us and teaches us to follow His ways.

Solomon prophesied that foreigners would one day hear of the Lord, hearing of His great name and His strong hand  and His powerful arm and asked that the Lord would hear and respond to their prayers, as well, so that the whole world would know and fear Him.
And, in Jesus Christ, we know that that has come true and will come true.

Most of us were once foreigners to Israel. But in Christ now we have been made a part of Israel – grafted in like a branch to a tree, like a lamp to a power strip. Even so, more are coming. We regularly pray in this place for God to save this one or to bring that one to Himself: Our loved ones, our neighbors, or even others for whom He’s given us His heart. And, as we’ve said, in Christ their prayers, too, will always be heard and answered. Once in Christ, they, too, will be forgiven, and He will teach them to follow His ways.

Jesus Christ is the true and living Temple, the One in Whom the one, eternal, omniscient, all-powerful God lives. As Paul and others have written, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15); “for in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body” (2:9); “the Son radiates God’s Own glory and expresses the very character of God” (Hebrews 1:3).

And that’s what we are baptizing little Ava into today: She is being plugged into Christ; becoming the true and living Temple of God with us, in Christ. Bryan and Carla are committing her – as she grows and grows in love and faith – to join us in the priestly Temple service: Serving around the church; living her life for Christ; studying Him, growing in Him; and helping others to know and grow in Him.

That’s what we’ve all been baptized into. That’s Who we’ve all been baptized into: The Suffering Servant; the Lamb of God; the Prince of Peace; the One Who alone will take vengeance; the true and living Temple.

In v. 10, we read that after placing the Ark in the Holy of Holies a thick cloud filled the Temple; that the glorious power of the Lord filled the Temple. Likewise, as Ava grows, let us keep praying for her and for all the baptized  that she and all be filled with the Holy Spirit, the glorious power of the Lord…
​
Because Jesus is God’s true and living Temple, in Jesus we, too, can be filled with the glorious power of God. During the dedication of that first Temple in Solomon’s day, we read that, after the priests carried the Ark into the Most Holy Place that a dark cloud filled the Temple, and that it was filled with “the glorious power of the Lord”. In those days, because the Temple was a building made of wood and stone, the Temple being filled with God’s glorious power kept the priests from ministry until it moved on. But today, because Jesus is God’s Temple, God’s glorious power is what we need in order to be about our ministry!