Will You Be A Stone In The Temple

Will you be a stone in the temple?

8/18/02

Minister Cedric A. Portis

cedque8@cs.com

Ephesians 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

Ephesians 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;

Ephesians 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

Ephesians 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

In reading over this text of scripture a few things that leaped off of the page. First of all Paul is talking about saved folks, those who have submitted to Jesus as Lord of their life.

In addition to that he talks about Jesus being the chief corner stone. Now the cornerstone is the strongest and the truest stone in a building. It is laid first and all other stones placed in the building are placed with the cornerstone being the guide.

The other stones placed in the building may not be as perfect as the cornerstone, but to be placed in the building, the other stones must possess some of the characteristics of the cornerstone.

And for a stone to be ready to be placed in a wall of the building, the Master Stone Mason may have to take a tool and mold it, shape it, break pieces off of it, until it is ready to be placed into the wall. And sometimes there are stubborn stones, stones that will not conform and submit to the will of the Master Stone Mason and for that reason, will not be placed into the wall. I know you can follow the metaphor that is being painted for you this morning, so the question as well as the topic for this sermon; Will you be a stone in the temple?

Our theme for this Men’s and Women’s day is Building a better relationship with Christ and let me tell you that your relationship with Jesus will determine whether you will be a stone in the temple of the Lord, or will you put yourself in the pile of non-conforming rocks called hell.

And I say put yourself because the Master Stone Mason will give you every opportunity to be in the temple wall, but God allows you to choose your destination. But let our relationship with Jesus secure us in the Holy Temple of the Lord.

We sometimes in church we take for granted and assume everyone knows how to come into a relationship with Jesus. Let me warn you this morning that if you have not told someone about Jesus yourself, don’t

assume they know. So with that in mind we will look as some essentials that will develop, heal and or strengthen our relationship with Jesus.

First, there must be genuine confession. Has some one ever told you that they were sorry and you know it was not sincere, not genuine? Well, how do you think the Lord Jesus feels when He is constantly bombarded with unheartfelt confessions and empty promises of what we are going to do for Him if He gets us out of this situation that we have made for ourselves for the third or fourth time.

In a day of being overwhelmed with courtroom dramas, society is teaching us that if we can justify our guilt that some how that erases our guilt. We figure out why we are not guilty based on what someone else has done to us, or we blame our upbringing or we just flat out say I just could not help my self.

And somehow we convince ourselves that there are reasons beyond our control that cause us to sin. Sin is not airborne, I don’t come home from work and say to my wife, “I got some sin on me today” No church sin just sits there and looks at you, but it has no place in your life until you pick it up and put it into action.

Giving sin excuses is not honest confession.

John I 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

John I 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

I don’t know about you but if I try to start off a relationship with someone by calling them a liar, I don’t think that relationship will go far.

Our relationship with Jesus must be based on honesty not only with Him but with ourselves and our confessions should be as David confessed in Psalm 51 “For I acknowledge my transgressions, my sin is ever before the against the only have I sinned and done evil in thy sight.” Confession means that I understand that I was wrong and that what I did was sin.