Sermon: The Heavenly Blueprint (Christmas Eve Homily 2024)

The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

The Heavenly Blueprint
Tuesday, December 24th, 2024
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA

Ezekiel 43:1–12
Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east: And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory. And it was according to the appearance of the vision which I saw, even according to the vision that I saw when I came to destroy the city: and the visions were like the vision that I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell upon my face. And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house. And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me. And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places. In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger. Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever. Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern. And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them. This is the law of the house; Upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.

Prayer

O Father, we thank you for the Holy Scriptures, and how you give faith through them to those who hear with a humble heart. Give us such meekness to receive the implanted Word, that we might bear fruit for You. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

When a wise man sets out to build a great house, what does he do before he digs the foundation? What does he do before he calls in excavators, the concrete trucks, before he hires the various tradesmen to put in electrical, plumbing, framing and so on?

• Before a wise man builds a great house, he makes a plan. He gets blueprints. Perhaps he hires a surveyor, an architect, an engineer, certain specialists to help him draw up those blueprints, but he does this all so that when he starts to build, he knows exactly what he is building, he knows what materials he needs, he knows what the finished product should look like. Before a wise man builds anything, he first gets the pattern, the form, the vision, the blueprints, in his mind and on paper, so that he can measure and judge the finished product by that mental image.

The All Wise Builder

God is the wisest of all builders, and for those who have eyes to see, the infinite wisdom and goodness of God is evident in all creation.

• It says in Psalm 19, “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork.”
• Likewise, the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20, “For the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.”
• God created the world to show forth His infinite goodness and glory. But He specially created you, a rational intellectual spiritual creature, in His image and likeness, so that you might know Him and love Him, even as He knows and loves you.
  • God says in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
  • And Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
• So there is a divine pattern and blueprint that God has for humanity. And the way He communicates those blueprints to us is through the Holy Scriptures, and within the Scriptures he gives certain laws, certain commandments, certain examples, and even the descriptions of various buildings, physical structures, furniture, materials, dimensions, all to teach us what our lives should look like.
• We just heard in our reading from the Prophet Ezekiel, God says we are to measure ourselves by that divine pattern and see if we measure up. He says in Ezekiel 43:10-11, “Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern. And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house.”
  • Every individual person is a kind of house. Every family, every nation, every group of people who dwells together are in God’s eyes a kind of house. And so when God gives us heavenly blueprints, He intends for us to study those blueprints, those patterns, and then to judge ourselves and conform ourselves to that divinely given pattern.
  • So how do you measure up to what God has revealed? How does your family measure up? How does your church measure up? How does your city, your state, your nation measure up to what God has revealed in His Word?
  • God says through Ezekiel, “show them the form of the house, that they be ashamed of all they have done.”
  • The Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
• We are not the first, nor the last people to fall very short of God’s good design for humanity.
• What was the first structure that God commanded to be built? It was a big boat we call Noah’s Ark. And why did God command that such an enormous three decker ark be built?
  • We heard earlier from Genesis 6:5, it was because, “the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
  • In Noah’s day, the world had so perverted God’s blueprint for humanity, they had fallen so short of the glory that God intended for them, that from justice God cleansed the old world with a flood, but not before commissioning Noah to build the Ark as a testimony of the judgment to come and then preserving him and his household within that floating three-floor cosmos.
    • It says in Hebrews 11:7, “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”
• Later on in human history, God showed to Moses upon the mountain top, and through him to the people of Israel, the architectural form of the tabernacle and its furnishings. And this portable tent was given by God to show Israel in the wilderness how they could approach Him who is Most Perfect and Holy, and not die.
  • So in order to enter the outer court and offer a sacrifice you had to be clean. And then only a priest could burn that sacrifice on the altar. And then only through sacrifice could a priest enter the holy place, and only the high priest once a year could enter that most holy place and come before the throne of God.
  • And so the moral lesson of all these rituals and washings and sacrifices was to make Israel measure themselves by that heavenly pattern. To show them what must take place if they want God’s presence within them, if they want God’s house to be their house.
  • What is needed? Cleanness from every impurity and holiness in every part of our being.
• Four-hundred and eighty years after that tabernacle was built, God commissioned a more glorious form of His house to be constructed. And this new form of God’s House was to show Israel that God intends to take us from one degree of glory to another.
• The tabernacle was portable and wandered about, covered in the skins of animals. But the Temple was stationary, built of gold, silver, and precious stones, a sign of God’s desire to dwell permanently with His people, and to give them a permanent and royal inheritance as their King.
  • And so David made the preparations, under Solomon that temple was completed. But almost as soon as that more glorious house was built, the people fell away from the Lord.
  • And because of that falling away from God’s pattern, that falling short of God’s glorious design, eventually God’s glory packed up and left that house desolate. And this is what the Prophet Ezekiel sees in the days of Babylon. Babylon destroys the temple like a flood. They are God’s instrument to punish his rebellious house. But God carries the righteous, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and others through that fiery judgment. And after that temple is burned to the ground, God shows to Ezekiel in a vision a new form, a new pattern, a new house that is so glorious and holy, that no human hands could ever build it.
  • Even when humanity falls so short of God’s glory, God promises and reveals to the righteous, a structure more glorious than before.
  • In the words of the Apostle Paul, “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more,” and the sins of men, however evil, shall not stop the infinite and all wise builder from constructing a glorious kingdom, even out of the evil intentions of men.
    • For as Joseph says to his brothers in Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”
    • This is God’s building plan, and that plan shall not be thwarted.
• So what then is the blueprint? What is the ultimate form, design, and patter for humanity? What structure is the permanent resting place for God?
  • It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Of whom it says in Colossians, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). And “It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell” (Col. 1:19).
  • And in John 1, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth…And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
• The man Christ Jesus, the eternal Word from the Father, is the house not made with hands. He is the one who says of his body, “destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” He is the Ark into which we enter by faith. He is the altar upon which we die and rise again. He is the brightness of the Father’s glory, the express image of his person, and he upholds all things by the word of his power. John calls him the logos, the Word, the eternal form and pattern of the divine intellect who was born in human flesh.
• This is Who we have come to worship tonight. This is Who we celebrate at Christmas and on every other day: The infinite and all wise builder has come down, and by faith in Him all can be made new.
• So I close with exhortation from St. Paul in Hebrews 3:1-6, “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider [measure] the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence [the faith] and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.”
• May you hold fast to this rejoicing in Christ, and Christ shall rejoice to dwell in you forever.
• In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.