Jesus Built the House of God – “I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18)

Jesus built the house of God. David wanted to build God a house, but God said He would build David a house, or dynasty, that would never end (2 Samuel 7:1-17). We know Solomon built a physical house, or temple, for God. But Jesus built the greater spiritual house, or temple, known as the church. The beauty is we are part of the house Christ built. Why should this encourage us? It has to do with durability! Jesus wanted us to be confident that His house wouldn’t be destroyed by even the strongest spiritual forces: "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). That’s sturdy isn’t it? If you’re in Christ, you’re part of this house that can’t even be knocked down by hell itself. https://youtu.be/jArCX8TI-zI Jesus built the house of God. Solomon built a physical house, or temple, but Jesus built the greater spiritual house, or temple: the church. Table of ContentsSermon Lessons for The Greater House Jesus BuiltFamily Worship Guide for Jesus Built the House of GodSermon Notes for Jesus Built the House of GodLesson 1: clear teaching about Christ produces obedience.Lesson 2: Jesus built the true and greater house of God.Lesson 3: we are part of the house Christ built.Lesson 4: nothing can destroy what Christ builds. Sermon Lessons for The Greater House Jesus Built Lesson 1: __________ ________________ about Christ produces obedience (John 14:15). Lesson 2: __________ __________ the true and greater house of God (2 Samuel 7:13, John 2:18-22, Acts 2:33, Zechariah 6:12). Lesson 3: ____ ______ ________ of the house Christ built (Ephesians 2:19-22, 1 Timothy 3:15, 2 Corinthians 6:16, 1 Peter 2:4, Hebrews 3:1-3). Lesson 4: Nothing ______ ______________ what Christ builds (Matthew 16:18, Philippians 1:6). Family Worship Guide for Jesus Built the House of God Day 1: Read John 14:15-31 and discuss: what are indicatives in Scripture? What are imperatives in Scripture? Discuss a few of each. How can indicatives produce obedience indirectly? What does the law produce because of our sinful flesh? Day 2: Read 2 Samuel 7:13, John 2:18-22, Acts 2:33, Zechariah 6:12 and discuss: what was the relationship between the physical temple and Jesus’s physical body? Why would Jesus try to get the Jews to look past the temple to His body? When and how did Jesus build the spiritual house of God? (Hint: look in Acts 2 for the “when”). Day 3: Read Ephesians 2:19-22, 1 Timothy 3:15, 2 Corinthians 6:16, 1 Peter 2:4, Hebrews 3:1-3 and discuss: why does Jesus receive more glory than Moses? What encouragement can we receive from being part of the spiritual house of God? What does this reveal to you about your salvation? Sermon Notes for Jesus Built the House of God The title of this morning’s sermon is, “Jesus Built a Greater House.” Go ahead and open your Bibles to 2 Samuel 7. We were in a series called, “Pursuing Wisdom.” We spent quite a bit of time talking about Solomon. Matthew 12:42 The queen of the South…came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, SOMETHING GREATER THAN SOLOMON IS HERE. Solomon is a type and shadow of Jesus. Now I would like to spend the next few weeks talking about why Jesus is greater than Solomon. Let me share something interesting with you that happened when Pastor Nathan and I were at the Shepherds Conference at John MacArthur’s church. During one of the sessions a speaker talked about indicatives versus imperatives. You might remember me explaining these before: Indicatives are truths or statements. They indicate something. Imperatives are commands. They tell us to do something. The speaker said some things that stuck with me: First, he said it is much easier to preach on the imperatives versus indicatives. Second, our preaching should have a healthy, balanced diet of both. Third, if we’re preaching too much on the imperatives, we should try to do more preaching on the indicatives. When Pastor Nathan and I left the session we started talking about whether we think we preach too much on the imperatives versus the indicatives. If I err, I probably err on the side of preaching imperatives more than indicatives. The next few weeks about Jesus being greater than Solomon are going to focus more on the indicatives. This means the sermons will not have as much application directly. But even when sermons are filled with indicatives, or statements, they can still have application, maybe not directly, but indirectly. How will this happen? They sermons will help grow our love and affection for Christ, which will motivate us to obey Him. And this brings us to lesson one… Lesson 1: clear teaching about Christ produces obedience. I would like to share something about Katie and I that will hopefully help you see how the sermons provide application, indirectly. As most of you know, Katie and I go over the sermon twice per week: once on Thursday evening, then I make all the changes on Friday, and we go over it again on Saturday. Over the years of doing this together hundreds of times, as well from the times we have listened to messages together and then talked about them after, it has become obvious that Katie and I look for two completely different things: I like strong, crystal clear, teaching. When I listen to sermons, I hope when they conclude I learned more about the passage than I knew before. Katie, on the other hand, craves application. She wants to be strongly convicted and challenged. To give you an idea what has happened in the past when we finished listening to a sermon, if it was filled with clear teaching, but little application it could look like this: I might say, “Didn’t he do a fantastic job explaining those verses? I never thought of that before. I want to go preach this myself, so I can share some of this new knowledge I learned.” Katie will say something like, “BORING! How does this help me be a better wife or mother? I didn’t really care to know all that obscure information about the minor prophets.” If the sermon was filled with application, but doesn’t explain the verses well it could look like this: Katie might say, “Wasn’t that great? Didn’t you feel so challenged and beat up, ready to go out and live for Christ?” I will respond, “Not really. I feel like that guy sort of walked around on stage, didn’t really say much of anything, but because he spoke passionately it sounded good, but he didn’t really exposit the verses.” Even though Katie and I have a hard time agreeing on sermons, I think there is a good balance between these two extremes that can please both of us… As we hear clear teaching about Christ – filled with indicatives – we want to obey Him and live for Him – which allows them to act like imperatives. Only the unbeliever could learn about Christ and not be moved to serve him. Another way to say it is this… As our love for Christ grows, our desire to obey Him grows. Jesus Himself said… John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. So to teach about Christ, is to teach people to love Him, which is to teach people to obey Him. Let me illustrate this with the relationship between a husband and wife, because this is the relationship used in Scripture: In the Old Testament God is the husband and Israel is the bride In the New Testament Christ is the husband and the church is the bride And this is why we see throughout Scripture when people sinned against God, He compared it to unfaithfulness in the marriage relationship. Here are a few examples: Jeremiah 3:20 Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel, declares the Lord.’” Hosea 3:1 And The Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Imagine a man is walking down the street and an attractive, immodestly dressed woman walks by. Why would he rip his eyes away? Because of his love for his wife. In other words, his love for his wife causes him to obey. And I will give you an example from my own life… As most of you know, I was raised Catholic, which means I was raised in a works-based religion. It was all about what I was NOT supposed to do. You would think that because that was the focus of the religion it would cause me to be a very sinless and holy person. Instead, I engaged in the worst sin in my life when I was Catholic. Why is that? There are 3 reasons… The first and most obvious reason is I was unregenerate. I did not have the gospel at work in my life empowering me to overcome sin. The second reason, and this alone could be the focus of an entire sermon, largely related to Jake’s sermon last week… Commands, or the law, because of our sinful flesh, do the opposite of what we might expect. Instead of producing obedience, the law causes our flesh to want to disobey. We are told not to do something, but because we have sinful flesh, it makes us want to do it. It is only a heart that is changed through the gospel that becomes obedient. In other words, obedience is a byproduct of regeneration. The 3rd reason I didn’t care to obey is I had no love for Christ. I would say that I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins, but because I was in a works-based religion, it was still all about what I did. My righteousness came not from Christ, but from me. This is a recipe for pride and not loving Christ. Then in my early twenties I started attending a Christian church. Someone bought me a Bible, I learned about Christ, what He did for me,...