November 6, 2025 –  Temples, Monuments, and Churches— Acts #19
Acts 6:12 – 7:1

We continue with the story of Stephen.  He was chosen to be one of seven to oversee the distribution of resources in the growing church.  He was obedient to this and more.  The Holy Spirit began to do miracles through him.  Then some rose up against him and made accusations to the court of priests.  That’s where we pick up the story in Acts.

Acts 6:12-7:1   And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him and seized him and brought him before the council, and they set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.” And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
And the high priest said, “Are these things so?”

Stephen then gives them a long lesson.  52 verses.  I won’t print it all here, but you should read it now, Acts 7:2-53.  Stephen recounts Israel’s history, but he focuses on two main themes. The first one is that God has, throughout history, raised up deliverers for the people, but they have been rejected. And just as they rejected the prophets, they rejected Jesus.   And the second one that I would like to look at primarily here is that God gave them the tabernacle and the temple as places where they may dwell with him, but they made the mistake of thinking that God actually dwelt in the temple.  They put too much emphasis on the temple and its liturgy.   By the time of Jesus, the temple had essentially lost its true function and was more of a monument than a Temple. An excellent piece of architecture —a grand building —but not a place for God.

While we were in Egypt a month ago, we saw temple after temple.  But no one worships at any of these temples any longer.  They no longer function as temples, but just monuments to long-lost Pharaohs.  And Stephen, in his speech to the Chief Priests, will tell them that they have lost the purpose of their Jerusalem temple.  It was a place to meet God in worship, but they have used it to make money and gain power for themselves.  And they revere the temple more than they revere the God they should worship there.  Their temple has become an idol.

And the question we need to ask ourselves this morning, as we consider this passage of scripture, is: do we make the same mistake?  Have we placed too much emphasis on our individual church, on this church, or on a particular denomination, or church service itself, and forgotten that it is all about God, that the church is not the style of worship we use or the church rules we follow or the denomination we belong to, or the building we worship in?  Are we in danger of making the same mistake as these religious leaders in Acts 7?  

Just over 20 years ago, our church in Alabama was having its sanctuary remodeled.  Overnight, some cleaning rags spontaneously combusted, and the sanctuary was destroyed by fire.  It was a difficult time.  Many mourned the loss of that building, as they had very fond memories of their time there.  Babies had been dedicated there, children baptized there, couples married there, and some saints’ funerals held there.  There were mothers of young girls who dreamed of their daughters being married in that sanctuary.  But it was beyond repair. 

I remember standing outside looking at the charred building and saying to the pastor, “It’s only a building.”  That may have sounded a little callous then, because it really wasn’t just any old building, like a warehouse or a store.  But it really was just a building.  There were some holy moments in that place, but it was the moments that were holy, not the place.  It’s just a building.

But sadly, there are many stories of churches that have had bitter controversies over building decisions, whether to build a new building or remodel.   At least one church split over the color of the carpet in the new sanctuary.  Half wanted blue, half wanted red. The argument became so heated that people stopped speaking to each other. Some even left.  Months later, when the church finally installed the new carpet, they had lost far more than members—they had lost their witness. 

Now perhaps one group was right.  Maybe there were experts on interior decorating and on church decor who could state as a fact that one color was better for that circumstance.  But that doesn’t matter.  Choosing to be right is not more important than choosing to be in relationship.  A church splitting over carpet color may sound ridiculous… until we realize that we all have our “carpet issues.”

As a Christian Counselor, my wife often faces this same situation in marriage counseling. Usually, the most significant conflict in marriage is over things that don’t really matter, like carpet color.  She frequently asks couples who can’t seem to agree on a particular situation this:  “Would you rather be right, or would you rather be in a good relationship with your spouse?”  This is not only an essential principle for marriage, but a fundamental part of our understanding of God.  God is always right.  He is never wrong.  But he is willing to love us despite our wrongs and to seek a relationship with us.  He is willing to suffer himself to atone for the wrongs we have done, so that he can have that relationship.  And he wants us to show that same mercy and grace to others.  

But we all fight carpet color issues at some point.  Small things are blown out of proportion, causing division.  Every church has them.  Every denomination has them.  Every heart has them.  We all have the temptation to make something secondary into something sacred.  And this time, in Acts 6 and 7, the fight was over the temple itself.  And Stephen stood before the religious leaders of Israel and dared to challenge their obsession with one sacred thing: the Temple.

The charge against Stephen was simple. 

Acts 6:13-14   They set up false witnesses who said, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses delivered to us.

They produced false witnesses who said,  He wants to tear down our temple and the way we worship here.  He wants to demolish the center of our faith.  But Stephen’s response in Acts 7 would reveal that their love for the Temple had actually blinded them to the true center of their faith—not a building and the sacrifices offered there, but the presence of God.

When Stephen begins his 52-verse defense, he doesn’t start with the accusations against him. He begins with a history lesson.  He tells the story of Abraham, Joseph, and Moses—men who met God outside of any temple or holy site.  He wants to show them that God doesn’t have to have a Temple made with human hands to meet people.

Long before there was a temple, before there was a promised land, before there was a chosen people, God first appeared to Abraham not in this place but in a pagan land.  Stephen is saying, “You think God only works in Jerusalem? He met our father Abraham in Babylon!”

And where did God first meet Moses? In the wilderness.  God spoke to Moses from a burning bush—not in a temple, but on dusty ground on Mount Sinai.  Stephen quoted God’s words:  

Acts 7:33. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 

I have been on that mountain twice. I’ve hiked up and down that mountain, and there is no place with a sign that says this is holy ground.  That was Stephen’s point: Wherever God is present, it becomes sacred ground.  Let me tell you that on that sunrise at the top of Sinai, I found holy ground.  I had a sacred moment with God up there. Because it was never the ground that was holy, it was the presence of God that was holy.  It’s not about the location—it’s about His presence.   

Then Stephen speaks of how God moved with the children of Israel on their journey.  After God delivered them from Egypt, they returned to the same mountain where God had met Moses before.   And there God told Moses, “Make me a tabernacle that I may be worshipped in it.”  No, that is not what he said.  God said:

Exodus 25:8  “Let them make me a tabernacle, that I may dwell in their midst.   

That is what God wanted.  That is what he did in creation: he built a world and made a garden there so he could dwell with us.  And ever since Adam and Eve messed up God’s perfect plan to live with us, ever since Man brought sin and death into the world to drive a wedge between us and God, ever since that moment, God has been working to make a way to reunite himself with his creation.  So that is why they built the Tabernacle so that he could move with his people on their journey, and the tent was placed right in the middle of them. 

For all of the years in the wilderness and for hundreds of years after coming into the land, God met them in a tent—the Tabernacle—because His presence moved with His people. Only later, when Israel had settled in the land, did Solomon build the Temple, and even then, Stephen told them:

Acts 7:47-50 “But it was Solomon who built a house for him.  Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,
“‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?  Did not my hand make all these things?’”

Stephen reminds the Sanhedrin that even when Solomon built the Temple that God designed, it was not to be His house.  God made it clear then that He cannot be contained in any man-made structure.

And yet the Temple had become their idol.  The Temple was not a bad thing, nor was the Tabernacle.  They were both good.  God gave the plans for the Tabernacle to Moses and the plans for the Temple to David.  God gave these structures to be a symbol of His desire to dwell among His people.  But symbols can become substitutes.  

Remember the bronze serpent on the pole that Moses made?  The people were dying from poisonous snake bites, and God instructed Moses to make a bronze (or more likely, copper) serpent on a pole.  The people would look to it and be healed.  (Jesus mentions it in His discussion with Nicodemus in John 4.)  Did you know that this copper snake that Moses made was still around in Israel 1000 years after Moses made it?   2 Kings 18 tells us that when the good king Hezekiah was trying to destroy all the idols in Israel:

2 Kings 18:4   And he [Hezekiah] broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).

The people had taken something good that God designed for a good purpose and turned it into an idol.  And idols must be destroyed.  This is not a new idea.  God made all the animals and all the heavenly bodies, and many false religions have turned them into idols.  And now Stephen is telling these priests that they have taken the idea of the Temple as the place where God meets men and turned it into an idol.

And for these Jewish leaders, the Temple was a status symbol: proof of their national pride.  It was a security blanket: “As long as we have the Temple, God is with us.”  And it was a source of control: it gave the priests and leaders power over who could approach God.  They believed that questioning the Temple was questioning God Himself.   But in truth, their loyalty had shifted—from the Lord to the location.  This is not a new problem.  It was the same 600 years earlier in Jeremiah’s day.

Jeremiah 7:3-4  “Thus says Yehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’

They had made a mantra of their claims that because the temple was there, they could not be defeated.  The Babylonians can not take our city, for the Temple of God stands here.   But Jeremiah warned them that the Temple was no protection from the punishment for abandoning their obedience to God.  And so this prophecy came true on the ninth day of the month of Av, 586 BC, the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple.

And now Stephen tells them, as Jeremiah did their predecessors, that the Temple is not God, and they have left God no choice but to destroy the object of their idolatry. Idols must be destroyed.

So again, God called up a foreign oppressor nation to do that.  And in 70 AD, Roman troops breached the city’s walls and destroyed the temple.  And it happened on the same day of the year as before, on the ninth of the month of Av.  God is trying to teach this vital lesson.  Do not take something good I have given you and make it into an idol.

It is easy to read the story and see how these priests had been deceived into thinking they were doing a great job handling religion, when all the time they were like shepherds leading their sheep to destruction, to see how they had substituted their Temple and their religious practice for God.   But now let’s bring this forward 2,000 years.   

The problem Stephen exposed still exists—the temptation is still there, just in different clothes.  There is a temptation today to take something wonderful that God has given us and turn it into an idol.  And there is a temptation to see the local church as the new Temple.  It’s easy for a congregation to fall in love with itself.   There’s nothing wrong with loving your church!  But some churches, over time, like the Temple, turn inward on themselves.  They see themselves like these priests in Stephen’s day see the Temple, as the “House of God”.

J D Greear wrote a book in 2015 called “Gaining by Losing,” in which he described the modern-day church as a cruise ship.  Initially, there were ocean liners, built to ferry people across the Atlantic.  Now, don’t be fooled by the movie about the Titanic.  For all but a few people, these were not luxury trips at all but were filled with poor immigrants or refugees seeking a new life in America.  These were destination-based trips.  You tolerated the journey to reach the destination.  That is why they were called ocean liners. They were designed to get you from point A to point B on a regular route or line, like a bus or train.

With the advent of larger airplanes, the need for ocean liners as primary transportation diminished.  And then we saw the rise of cruise ships that did go places but, over time, really became destinations in themselves, with top entertainment, restaurants, water slides, ice rinks, etc.   They mostly went in circles, delivering you back where you started.

Before the 1960s, most churches were small and community-based. They had a sanctuary, a few offices, and classrooms. The church was destination-based; a means to get you to the throne of God.  Then churches began following the cruise ship model, Greear notes, offering more and more amenities to attract members to their particular brand.  We saw churches build sports complexes, coffee shops, and bookstores, and, of course, better-decorated sanctuaries with the latest stage sound, lighting, and special effects, and padded pews for the comfort of the members: more charismatic pastors, video backdrops. 

All of this catering to a membership that chooses which church to attend based on what that church can do for me or how it meets my perceived needs.  I have heard friends say, “Well, this church has better programs,” or “that pastor didn’t meet my needs,” or “that is not my favorite kind of music.” “I didn’t enjoy the worship service.”   It is all about me and what I need.  They go somewhere, but they don’t get you to the throne of God.

Therein is the problem.   The gathering of believers is not for the purpose of getting something but giving something — giving praise to God, giving a part of your income, and giving service to others to spread the gospel.  We are there to serve, not to be served.  To give, not to get.   

You should never make your decision about church attendance based on what you get out of it.

There is the danger that the destination is our enjoyment of the worship service. Not us meeting God at his throne.  Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?   You can lose the church’s very purpose by making it all about yourself.  Then you are no longer worshipping God, but you are worshipping an idol, either the church or yourself.

The priests in Acts 7 got a lot out of the Temple.  They got power, prestige, and money.  It was not about God; it was all about them.  The temple had become their cruise ship.  We, too, must be careful not to obsess over our own institutions, for if we do, we stop moving outward and start looking inward.

Temple-thinking says: “If people want God, they’ll come to us.”  The gospel says: “Go into all the world.”  Our focus must be broader than our little corner of the world.  We need to be kingdom-minded.  Just because we have the resources to make our sanctuaries bigger or better doesn’t mean we should.  We have to consider the needs of God’s kingdom.  It is not all about us.

The religious leaders thought they were guarding holiness, but in truth, they were rejecting the Holy One Himself.  Jesus stood right before them—and they didn’t recognize Him.  Stephen’s accusation still echoes:  “You’re worshiping the symbol of God’s presence, not God’s actual presence.”

Jesus came to make a radical change in the structure of the Temple in God’s world.  The days of a physical temple as a symbol of God’s dwelling among people are no longer needed. God was never contained in a building, he told Solomon that.  It was always God’s wish to dwell with us intimately in our hearts.  But the problem was sin.  So Jesus came to bring about the final defeat of sin, so that God could take up residence in our hearts.  And 50 days after Jesus defeated sin, the Holy Spirit came in power on Pentecost.  And from that day on, the Temple building in Jerusalem lost its purpose.  Oh, they had polluted and defiled it so severely that it was no longer serving the purpose God intended anyway.  So it is no more.

  Paul said this:  

1 Corinthians 3:16  Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

And Paul isn’t using the generic Greek word for ‘temple’ there.  He is using the Greek ‘naos’ for the Temple.  Naos is the word for the most holy place, the holy of holies, the very place where God’s spirit dwells.  When Jesus cleanses us of sin, we become together the holy of holies.  God has accomplished his goal of communion with us again.  We are the temple.

And Stephen got a glimpse of that.  They become so angry at Stephen that they take him outside the city and stone him to death.  And as the stones began to fly, Stephen looked up and said: 

Acts 7:56   Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

Think about that. They accused him of disrespecting the Temple—but Stephen saw the real Temple—the presence of God in heaven, with Jesus standing beside the Father.   What they were defending was a shadow.  What Stephen saw was the reality.   Through Christ, we have become God’s temple.  That means that God’s presence is not limited to one church building.   God’s Spirit is not confined to one denomination. God’s glory is not dependent on our brand.   The actual temple is wherever the people of God live, love, and carry His presence into the world.

I showed you monuments that the pharaohs in Egypt built 1000s of years ago.  Monuments to a past that is gone.  That is what man has always built – monuments.   We do that in our country also. 

And the Temple in Jerusalem had become a monument.  It was initially built to be a place where God met people.  Where worship was centered.  But over the years, it became just a monument.  A structure that commemorates a past event.  Not only did it no longer function as God intended, but it had become an idol.  And idols must be destroyed.

God doesn’t build buildings and monuments; God builds people.

So we must not put too much importance on buildings.   Don’t call this the house of God.  God doesn’t live here.  He can’t be contained.   Don’t call it the church house either.  We don’t live here; we just meet here to worship.  I don’t even like the phrase ‘house of worship’. One, because it is not a house, and 2, because worship is something we do all day, every day, everywhere. 

We should look at our buildings as mission outposts.   A mission outpost is a small, localized base, often focused on outreach, service, and fellowship. These outposts can serve as places for evangelism and discipleship, hubs for community support — like food and clothing —or spaces for believers to be recharged and connected to go back out into the world.  I believe the current military term is Forward Operating Base or FOB.  This is a staging area to send people out to do the mission.

As Greear noted, we as a local church should not function like a cruise ship.  We are not here to serve ourselves.   Greear said we should be more like aircraft carriers.  Aircraft Carriers equip planes to go off and complete missions.  The church is not the mission. It is a staging ground for the mission of carrying the light of the gospel to the places in the world where there is darkness.  We meet here to worship God and to get our mission assignment.  Every time we walk out those doors, we should know what our specific mission is for that week.  Do you know your mission?