Transcription of the Video: Living Stones

Jesus went to the Galilee and called his disciples [inaudible 00:01:13]. What would happen when their teaching, their message began to bear fruit and they made disciples, and those disciples had to go out into a Greek world?

Those early believers didn't come here just with a great new message. Nobody here thought, "I'm not going to Heaven." Every god promised it. What did they bring here that the Greeks, the Romans, those of a Hellenistic world would never have seen before?

Here. Just above us is the podium, the base of the temple of Athena. It's big and strong and powerful. The temple stood above it. It's pretty well gone now. And running out of one corner was a fountain. You have to use your imagination here. This probably had a head on it like a lion's head. And that water came running out of the lion's head like this. And it spilled down into a marble pool right here. So if you were walking in this hot sun, some distance, your water's warm, it wasn't too good to start with, you could stop here, put your hand in the water, take a drink. 

Where does this water come from here in Priene? Athena. What an amazing goddess who gives us water. In Priene, everything was religious. Even a drink of water. Let me ask you a question. Do you remember putting your hand in the waterfall this morning? How many of you at that moment thought about God? 

I did only because I knew what I was going to do with that. But do you understand? We take water as if it's just there. "Worship the Lord your God," says the Torah. "And he will supply you with food and water." 

This gave the believer an opportunity to stop here and to say to their granddaughter, "This isn't Athena. This comes from the God of Heaven." It made them countercultural. Because their message was very different than the message of the other cultures. Even a drink of water gave them a chance to declare who they followed. Come.

Well, fellow house church members, disciples, we've arrived at what must have been the pride of Priene. The fourth century B.C., the Greek people who lived here hired one of the great architects of the ancient world - a man named Pythius, known as the architect of one of the seven wonders of the world (the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus) - to build them a temple to their goddess, Athena. And this is what he came up with - a stunningly beautiful temple designed a lot like the Parthenon in Athens. It begins with a magnificent gate called a propylaeum, then covered with marble. It's gone today. But imagine it. You entered the gate and you came to a huge altar designed like a throne that you entered climbing the stairs. The marble carvings on it, which are gone and, in a museum, today, are considered some of the finest artwork ever found. 

And then, this temple. Look at it. A row of columns all the way around the outside made of that bluish-white marble. It's faded today, of course - discolored. But imagine then when they stood there white and strong and beautiful. And inside of that row of columns, the temple building itself starting out there with the pronaos where the priest was and where the worshipers could gather just between the altar and here. And then, in this area, the naos - we might say the holy of holies - where the goddess herself was placed. And on the podium here in front of you, the statue, more than 20 feet high - this dramatic, beautiful statue of Athena, maybe in shining marble, maybe in marble covered with gold leaf, we don't know for sure - facing east, of course, so that in the morning when the door was swung open, that gigantic door, even in the distance you could see this goddess in all her glory in the early morning sunlight.

I don't know if you can even comprehend what this thing looked like originally. You could have seen it miles out to sea. Huge, world famous, the temple of Athena in Priene. Around the outside were buildings. Like a colonnaded area on this side and back, and on this side, and those colonnades were all the things temples provided - food from the sacrifices (probably without charge), clothes possibly for people who were poor. I've even heard of daycare that temples provided. Medical care - in some cases free medical care - was provided by those temples for the community. So people loved their goddess. They believed in what she provided, and they created for her this unbelievable monument of her greatness. 

When this temple was built, many of the stones were cut for the exact place where they ended up. If you wander around here, you can find stones with numbers etched on them, because that stone was cut in the quarry for that place. So for example, it's possible that the stone right here - the second drum on this column was carved in the quarry for exactly that place. And that one for there and that one for there. And the frieze in front for there so that each stone had its place.

Now, imagine such a glorious monument to the greatness of Athena. Why would these people in Priene build such a huge temple to their goddess? The answer was this temple was a way to declare to the world how great she was. How would you know how great Athena was? Well, Athena provides water. Athena provides food. Athena provides medical care. Athena provides clothes. Look at the building she lives in. So the whole world knew how great the Athena of the Priene was. 

Now, imagine that we're members of a house church here in Priene. One of our children goes with a friend and comes up to this beautiful temple. And the friend takes the free food and watches a play put on, free, by the temple with actors in the theater. And the child comes back that evening and says to us as we sit around our simple meal in our house church, "I saw my friend's temple where Athena lives. I saw them swing open the door, and I saw her in all her glory. Where's ours? My friend wants to know where's the temple to our God? Where can we go to see how great he is?" What would you answer?

Where did the presence of God live in Priene? I know they were asked that question, because Paul once said, "The God who created the world and everything in it, the Lord of Heaven and earth does not live in temples made with hands." 

I hear someone asking him, "Where's your temple?" Let me show you the picture that God painted. Recite this verse with me. "Listen you who pursue righteousness and seek after God. Remember the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were hewn. Remember Abraham, your father and Sarah who gave birth to you. (Isaiah)

And then, this one from 1 Peter. "As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God, you also, as living stones are being built into a spiritual house."

And Corinthians, "Don't you know that you, yourselves, are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and God's spirit lives in you? If anyone harms God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple."

Do you know where God lived in Priene? In that community that met in a small house church much like the house synagogue we saw before. They became the temple of the Holy Spirit. The presence of God moved into Priene, not in a great big, glorious monstrous building. But into a small community of people who believed that the power, the love, the person of God lived within them and among them. What does that mean? Well, each one of you - and me - is a stone. We've been quarried out of God's great quarry, the quarry out of which Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebecca and David and Ruth and Peter and John came from. And God's been working on us with his great hammer - the hammer of his word - to shape us into the kind of stone he wants us to be.  

Every chip that comes off, painful though it is, is God's way of saying, "I want you to fit into my house." And I would suggest since the Temple in Jerusalem apparently also had stones cut, each for their place, that God is saying, "Every one of you - you in Priene 2000 years ago (almost), and you in the 21st century - every one of you is a stone and I have a place designed for you. You belong here. You belong here. 

So when Peter writes, "Each of you are living stones that God has shaped to put in a particular place," think of what that means. It means each one of us was pulled out of a quarry somewhere and God, with the great hammer of his word, Jeremiah says, "My word is a hammer that breaks the stones." God chips away. Do you know all those tough things that happen to you? I don't know why they always happen, but I can tell you one thing. They can become chips that shape you. 

And then, God says, "I've got a place for you. I've got a place for you. You become a foundation stone over here that no one sees. And you become one of these beautiful stones on the side of a column." Like this one right here. Everybody's going to see it right in the public eye. But it doesn't matter, because every stone has the same stone cutter, the same care, the same desire of God that you are shaped exactly to fit the place that he has designed for you. 

And God said, "No. I don't want to live in temples made with hands. I want to live in a new temple." He'd rather live in you than the most beautiful building in the world. Because you, in flesh, become the very word of God. We become the place in which God lives by the power of his Spirit. But do you know what else? That Spirit lives in every stone. Would you agree? But what if you took that stone out of the temple and took it away? Would that stone still have the Spirit? I'm not sure exactly how to answer that? But what I'd like to suggest is that God's Spirit lives in the temple that's created by all the stones. 

The Bible says, "You [plural] are the temple [singular]." It doesn't say, "You [plural] are the temples." Not that each one of you is a temple. In a sense you are, but that's not Paul's point. Paul is saying, "All together, you become the temple of the Holy Spirit. God lives in all of you all." You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You as a community. And as our world - Priene 1800 years ago, 21st century western world - comes into contact with us. They come into contact with the presence of the Living God, in his temple.

You see, being a disciple is about belonging to a community that becomes the place in which God lives by his Spirit. That community is not only to encourage me. That community is not only to keep me faithful to this text. That community is the place where discipleship is lived to save the world. The presence of God is among you. Now, that's why Jesus taught that only if we love one another and love our neighbor will that community communicate the love of God. The proof that God is in his people is that they love one another and their neighbor. And so what happens in the community when people don't get along? The presence of God is hidden. The power of the message is lost.

Look around you. The greatness of Athena is now scattered around a field, a dim memory. But what if the community God came to build, the temple here in Priene - not this - but that little community down in the house church. What if, to God, we look like this (divided, arguing, not getting along, not living together as brother and sister)? In spite of our disagreements, what does that say about who God is? You are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and God wants the world to know who he is by the way his disciples live in community. 

And that changed the whole world. Not just powerful teaching. Not just the words of the text as important as they were. But a community who lived the presence of God. 

May God's Spirit live in your world, because it's in you. Is that not amazing? In a Greek world that was all about me, what had the greatest impact was not wisdom, but it was a simple group of people who cared about others.