GOOD MORNING KOCHI ISEZAKI CHRIST CHURCH

This is how the show starts each week as the bus pulls up to the house of the family lucky enough to　have been chosen to receive an extreme makeover. Extreme Makeover Home Edition is a television series of the reality TV genre. Reality television if you do not know uses regular people and puts them into certain situation. This is the genre of Japan’s Ai Nori and beauty coliseum. It is generally a genre that I had not really enjoyed much but I really enjoy this one. Perhaps it is the D.I.Y.er in me perhaps it is the incredible stories told perhaps it is just the power tools used. Each week a family is chosen. The main reasons focus on disease, handicap, loss of a parent or both, or other tragic story. But the people should also be people who try to do what they can to take care of their neighbor. So each week a design team comes with a contractor and construction crew and a new house is designed and built on the existing plot after the old house is torn down. Now that doesn’t seem so special but the house is specifically designed for the needs and personality of the family as a whole as well as each member. Using the finest quality, state of the art, materials, appliances and equipment to bring the project together as well as hundreds of workers and volunteers. The most amazing part is that the old house is torn down a new house is rebuilt exterior, interior and landscaping in a total of just 7 days while the family is sent on vacation.

Yes that is what I said just one week, incredible Unbelievable. Okay but what kind of house could it be? Is it safe? When I have described the show to others these are the general reactions I got.

One of the greatest parts of the show is when the family is brought home and the new house is revealed. They are filled with such joy at the grace that has been given them. And as they see the individual care that has been given to make it not just a home but their home designed for them they often break down into tears of joy and thankfulness.

A house torn down and a beautiful new house raised in 7 days. Hard to believe but its true.

John 2:19

"Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."

You can imagine the scene of disbelief when they heard these words.

They could not understand

Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."

20  The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?"

21  But the temple he had spoken of was his body.

22  After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

But for we that can. To we lucky ones to whom the truth has been revealed. To whom the new temple, the house of God has been revealed we are full of joy and thankfulness

The new temple is Us we are the house of God.

Because the most High does not live in houses made by men. (Acts 7:48)

１Cor 6:19,20

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

20       you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

In　his crucifixion we　were crucified and in his resurrection we were raised

Romans

This is the most extreme of extreme makeovers. This is the Grace and Joy of Easter and resurrection Sunday.

It is a temple like no temple before it

It is a house like no house before it

It is the great House of God. Where he lives and where we live. It is the home of our God and it is the home of our hearts.

You’ve never seen a house built more solid

The roof never leaks

The walls never crack

The foundation never tremble

Because it is built of The Rock of Salvation

You’ve never seen a castle so splendid

The observatory will stretch you

The chapel will humble you

The study will direct you

The kitchen will nourish you

Hove you ever lived in a house like this a house that is always new and will never wear

Have you considered were you heart will reside. Most of us haven’t we put it in a little shack while we try to build castles for our physical selves. Well luckily God cares for your heart and soul a lot more than you do. In fact he made it His personal mission to ensure your heart has a proper place to live with Him

1 Timothy 1:14

the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

Acts 17: 28

'For in him we live and move and have our being.'

1 John 3:24

Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Moses  in Psalm 90:1,2 prayed

90:1  A prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Ephesians 2:19

19  Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household,

20  built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

21  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

22  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

God can be your dwelling place.

 God wants to be your dwelling place. He has no interest in being a weekend getaway or a Sunday bungalow or a summer cottage. Don't consider using God as a vacation cabin or an eventual retirement home. He wants you under his roof now and always. He wants to be your mailing address, your point of reference; he wants to be your home. Listen to the Promise of his Son,

"If my people love me they will obey my teaching. My father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them" (John 14:23).

 For many this is a new thought. We think of God as a deity to discuss, not a place to dwell. We think of God as a mysterious miracle worker, not a house to live in. We think of God as a creator to call on, not a home to reside in. But our Father wants to be much more. He wants to be the one in whom "we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28 NIV).

 When Jehovah led the children of Israel through the wilderness, he didn't just appear once a day and then abandon them. The pillar of fire was present all night; the cloud was present all day. Our God never leaves us. "I will be with you always," he promised (Matt. 28:20). Our faith takes a quantum leap when we understand the perpetual presence of the Father. Our Jehovah is the fire of our night and the cloud of our day. He never leaves us.

 Heaven knows no difference between Sunday morning and Wednesday afternoon. God longs to speak as clearly in the workplace as he does in the sanctuary. He longs to be worshiped when we sit at the dinner table and not just when we come to his communion table. You may go days without thinking of him, but there's never a moment when he's not thinking of you.

So we are the temple that was raised

We are the house of God the spirit of God lives in us

But we also live in the house of God in God Himself

But as today’s scripture shows we are actually the living stones than but up the house of God

1 Peter 2 4:9

As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him―

5  you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

6  For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

7  Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,"

8  and, "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for.

9  But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

How do these houses get built

Prayer, Putting the living word into your heart and praying

The Bible is the Blueprint

Prayer is the bricks

Gods hand and providence will do the rest

Knowing this, we understand Paul's rigorous goal: "We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).We can fathom why he urges us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17), "be constant in prayer" (Rom. 12:12), "pray in the Spirit at all times" (Eph. 6:18), "continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God" (Heb. 13:15), and "let heaven fill your thoughts" (Col 4:2 TLB).

Luke 19:46

"'My house will be a house of prayer'

Let us finish with

Matthew 7:24-29

24  "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

25  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

26  But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

27  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

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