Rev. Ron Tyler, who heads the Bridgeport Rescue Mission, preached Sunday’s sermon at the Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church in North Stamford, Connecticut. His theme was surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit to make the body of Christ, the Christian church, into a congregation of purity, power, and praise.
Our model is Jesus’s actions when he visited the temple, corrupted by worldly commerce.
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’ “
The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.
But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
“Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
"Yes," replied Jesus, “have you never read,” ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?”
And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night. (Matthew 21:12-17)
We must work to throw out of our lives all corrupting aspects that lead us to worship worldly things.
What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. (2 Corinthians 6:16)
Our ideal is to let the Holy Spirit shine in our lives for the glory of God.
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16)
We don’t get there simply by following a set of rules or rituals. But rituals are useful reminders to cleanse ourselves of sinful urges.
Among them are receiving communion in the Lord’s Supper, ablution and baptism (ceremonial washing away of sins), and anointing as a symbolic act of prayerful healing. These rituals are effective only to the extent that we take their import to heart and resolve to remake our lives with the aid of the Holy Spirit.
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a bronze basin, with its bronze stand, for washing. Place it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it. Aaron and his sons are to wash their hands and feet with water from it. Whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting, they shall wash with water so that they will not die. Also, when they approach the altar to minister by presenting an offering made to the LORD by fire, they shall wash their hands and feet so that they will not die. This is to be a lasting ordinance for Aaron and his descendants for the generations to come. (Exodus 30:17-21)
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant cane, 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin of olive oil. Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. Then use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table and all its articles, the lampstand and its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand. You shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy. (Exodus 30:22-29)
Attending Sunday church services can become a mechanical ritual. Our aim must be to make it real and meaningful by surrendering our lives to the Holy Spirit and following God’s guidance in our daily lives.
If we do so, God will use us in ways we never can know, as testimonial examples that may lead others to Christ.
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