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"Building the new temple together" Divine service from 2022 Community Edition 4
In the Old Testament, the temple was the dwelling place of God on earth. The people of Israel came to the temple to meet God there. They gathered in the temple to encounter God, to praise Him, and to bring their thanks to Him. When they were attacked by their enemies they came together in the temple and pleaded with God for help. They also came to ask God to forgive them. And in order to be forgiven they brought sacrifices. That was the Old Testament.
In the New Testament the church is the temple of God. The church is the assembly of believers who have been baptised and who follow Christ. We come together in the divine service, in the fellowship of the children of God, in order to meet God. And because we know that we meet God in the divine service, we praise His name together and express our gratitude. We do this in our prayers, through music, by bringing our offerings, and by showing kindness to our neighbour. This too is a way to express our gratitude to God: serving one another, being kind to one another. Jesus said: “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25: 40). So this is a great way to express our gratitude when we come together in the fellowship of God’s children and do something good for one another.
We also gather to ask for God’s help. Above all, we ask Him to deliver us from evil. We know that when we come here and ask God for help He will help us! We can come to our heavenly Father and tell Him all our concerns regarding our earthly lives. We trust Him, He is our Father, He knows what we need—and He will grant us what we need. And when we pray for each other, He will listen to us.
However, our most important prayer surely is: “Deliver us from the evil one. Lead us into Your kingdom, into freedom.” God will answer this prayer. He is already working on delivering us from the evil one.
We also ask God to forgive our sins. When we join in the Lord’s Prayer, we actually confess our sins and pray together that He will forgive our sins: “Forgive my sins, and forgive my brother and my sister their sins.” God also answers this prayer. And what is so nice about it is that we don’t even have to make any sacrifices to obtain forgiveness. We have Jesus Christ, who brought the sacrifice. He brought it once, and that is enough. His sacrifice is eternally valid for all human beings. So when we come together, we don’t have to bring any sacrifices to obtain forgiveness. When we come together we celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ; and we praise and thank the Lord for His sacrifice. This is what we do when we celebrate Holy Communion. We express our gratitude. The sacrifice has been brought by Jesus Christ. It is still valid. It will always be valid.
This is the meaning behind the statement that the church is the temple of the new covenant. We gather to express our gratitude and to praise God, to pray and to ask Him to help us and our neighbour, and to ask Him to forgive our sins. And we celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus Christ when we come together.