1 Kings 8:27

With that, our passage is 1 Kings 8.27, where Solomon has just finished building the temple of the Lord.

Made of pure gold, choice stones, and imported wood, the newly constructed temple stood as the pinnacle of glory in the city of Jerusalem. Right after its construction, the glory of the Lord fills the temple, and Solomon pours out in speech, blessing the Lord and all the people of Israel that gathered at the temple that day. Solomon seems to be full of confidence. He looks upon the glory of his creation and almost begins to boast. He sees himself as the fulfillment of God's promise to David, that his son would sit on the throne of Israel and build a house for the Lord. Solomon's confidence is evident as he begins his prayer at the altar of the Lord. But verse 27, our passage tonight, stands as a turning point in the prayer. Interrupting this celebration of a great temple and interrupting the bold request to protect the throne is this humbling question.

God's word says this,

but will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I've built.

Solomon recognizes that God doesn't need a house built by human hands, that God cannot be contained by the limits of a physical temple. Yet, this doesn't mean that Solomon has wasted years building a house for the Lord. Solomon continues on in prayer, asking the Lord to set his eyes and heart on the temple on the basis of his covenant love.

God is uncontainable in all creation

These two things combine together to what I hope to be tonight's main idea. The uncontainable God commits to dwell with his people. The uncontainable God commits to dwell with his people. As we continue to study this passage, I want to break it up by looking at two absolute statements of God. First, God is uncontainable in all creation. Solomon's question here,

but will God indeed dwell on the earth

, seems almost unexpected as you follow the events and prayer that lead up to it.

This question is asked in arguably the most glorious building ever made by human hands. Huge stones cut to be 15 feet by 15 feet laid its foundation. Great beams and boards of cedar framed the inner court. Pillars of pure bronze wider than an oak tree towered over the entrance. Stands and instruments with intricate designs filled the inner courts and two mighty cherubim stood in the innermost part of the sanctuary. As if this wasn't glorious enough, the entire temple and everything in it was overlaid with pure gold.

If there was ever a house fit for a God, this was it. But Solomon's response conveys the opposite.

Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built.

Solomon humbly recognizes that the glory of his work cannot be fit for the Lord.

Everything making up this temple came from the Lord. The stones, the trees, and the metal that made up the temple were extracted from the earth. The instruments and the altar were made by God's design. The carving and statues of lilies, cherubim, and livestock were only imitations of God's creation.

If the Lord needed a dwelling place, he could create one for himself in an instant. God spoke the heavens into existence by the power of his word. He doesn't need Solomon's feeble hands to make it for him. And here, Solomon's response displays that he has this understanding of who God is. And he's brought to humility, a humility that is often lacking in our own lives.

We live as if our own work can impress God. Pride so quickly slips in and tells us the church could never survive without you and all the ways you serve. The budget could never be met without your generous giving. God's kingdom would never advance without your persuasion and boldness to evangelize. Do you impress God?

Is he reliant on the work of your hands? God could raise these things for himself out of nothing if he needed to. God is in no way limited by the work of our hands.

Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool

, says the Lord in Isaiah 66.

What is the house that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made and so all these things came to be.

Anything and everything that we could offer to God is only a result of his generosity towards us. Our salvation is the result of his mercy. Our sanctification, the result of his grace. Our gifts, the result of his spirit. Our very life and breath are the results of his sustaining power. our humility comes from a right understanding of the scope and magnitude of God's being and power.

And this humility is the backdrop of Solomon's question in verse 27. Right after constructing this dwelling place for the Lord, he rhetorically asks if the Lord would actually be contained in such a small temple. He answers himself simply with, no, not even heaven and the highest heaven could contain the Lord.

This word heaven here refers to the cosmos, the farthest and biggest expanse known to man. Today, what we call the known universe stretches almost six trillion miles in diameter. The heavens are limitless, and yet they still can't contain the God who created them. This is what we call God's omnipresence, a theological term used to describe God being ever-present, everywhere at all times. He has no limits and he's not confined to a single space or time.

Nations in the ancient Near East would have operated under what they would call regional gods. These were local deities who typically resided over a single nation or people group. God's omnipresence opposed all understanding of local deities in those days. Where these so-called gods resided in temples and were thought to only have power that extended to the reach of their people, the true God was nothing like them.

He wasn't contained in the temple, he wasn't contained in the land of Israel, and he wasn't contained even in the far reaches of his creation. If you think back to the Exodus, God humiliates the gods of Egypt and delivers his people out of a foreign land. God's presence and power extended to the land of Egypt just as much as God's presence and power extends everywhere.

Now, my worry for us tonight isn't that we don't understand that God is omnipresent. My worry is that we treat God like a regional God in the way that we live our lives. It's easy to affirm God's presence at church or in our times of devotion or prayer, but what about at work? What about in our family lives, in going out with our friends or behind the closed door of our bedroom? Every moment and everywhere, we live in the face of God's presence. God is not contained in a building or at a specific time of day.

His presence, authority, and jurisdiction are limitless. So my question for you all is, how big is your God? Is he just big enough to fit in your pocket where you can take him out and relate to him how and when you want? or is your God the creator of the farthest reaches of creation, uncontainable even by the highest heaven and present in every place at every time?

God is ever faithful among his people

Now, the fact that God is omnipresent should be terrifying to us. There is no sin that he does not see. There's no place where we can go to hide from his presence or escape his judgment. But this terrifying reality is why we must understand the second of our absolute statements. God is ever faithful among his people. God is ever faithful among his people.

As Solomon meditates on the vastness of the Lord, his joyful praise turns into desperate pleas. He prays to the Lord,

have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord, my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant brings before you this day, that your eyes may be open day and night toward this house and listen in heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.

Solomon's understanding of the Lord's omnipresence actually forms what he asks of God in response.

Because God is not bound to a physical domain, because God has no limitations, he will always hear his people. No matter where they are or what kind of trouble they're in, God's hand will never be too short to save. Solomon continues on in his prayer, listing curse after curse that could come among the people of Israel. Disobedience, war, famine, exile to a far off nation. But no matter the failure, destruction or distance, Solomon asks that the Lord would hear from his dwelling place on heaven and forgive. Now, how does our Lord respond?

In chapter nine, verse three, the Lord says to Solomon,

I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you have made before me. I have consecrated this house that you have built by putting my name there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

Even though God is omnipresent, bigger than we could ever imagine, his eyes and heart will always be toward his people. And just as much as God heard his people when they cried out to him from the reaches of Babylon, God hears us when we cry out to him today. The bigger that we understand God to be, the bigger our confidence grows in his saving power. Even in great temptation, fear, and great shame that pushes us into hiding, there is nowhere too far for the Lord's mighty hand to reach, and nowhere where he is not present. This is the truth that Solomon's question begs us to understand.

If you are here tonight and terrified by God's omnipresence, if you don't trust in Christ and you're left with no place to hide your sin, this truth is the only hope that you have. Just as much as God is ever-present, He is ever-faithful and ever-powerful to save anyone who would turn away from their life of sin and to Him.

Now, college students, God's presence also far exceeds the boundaries of Charlottesville. In a few weeks, as you leave town for the summer and move away from your regular Christian community, friends, and accountability, it can quickly feel like you move away from God. But whether you're at home surrounded by non-believing family, in a new city for an internship, or across the globe in East Asia, you have the same access to the same God that you have here tonight. God's presence is not bound by our meeting place or time.

God dwells with us in covenant commitment

God is everywhere at all times. And more than this, God is gracious to relate to us in his omnipresence. The Lord sets or commits his love and attention toward us that he would actually dwell with us. not just in presence in the same way that the air we breathe surrounds us and is with us, but God dwells with us in covenant commitment. God's presence, and as much as it is ever vast and expansive, is also specific, intentionally directed toward his people. We see this earlier in chapter eight.

Moments after the Ark of the Covenant is brought into the most holy place, a cloud of smoke fills the Holy of Holies. Now, this isn't a new experience to the people of God. God once led his people through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. His glory filled Mount Sinai as he established his covenant with Moses. Smoke filled the tent of meeting as the construction of the tabernacle was finished. God, throughout redemptive history, made his dwelling place among his people.

But in all of this, there was a problem. The sinful people of Israel could not enter God's presence. Even though man was made to dwell with God in the garden, our sin and disobedience separated us from the presence of God. We made ourselves distant, but God continually drew near, directing his heart and eyes toward his people year after year until ultimately he drew near in Emmanuel, God with us.

In Christ, God made his dwelling place on earth in the true and perfect temple of Christ. The uncontainable God was contained in human flesh. The infinite creator became finite among his creation. He came not to remain with us on earth forever, but to actually restore us to who we were designed to be. In taking on flesh, Christ dwelled among us, living ultimately to suffer in our place so that sin would no longer keep us from the presence of God. In Christ, we have access to draw near to God. And because he died and rose, the omnipresent God now dwells in our hearts. We are the temple of God, not made by human hands, for the spirit of God dwells in us.

Though God is as vast and uncontainable as he has always been, he is now nearer than he has ever been. God heard the cry of his people and set his eyes and heart on the temple in Jerusalem. But in an even greater way, God directs his covenant love toward our hearts, where his spirit is the seal of all his promises to see us, hear us, and save us. So will God indeed dwell on the earth?

Well, he cannot be bound in all of creation, but he is faithful to dwell with us, hearing our cry, setting his eyes and heart toward us and forgiving us when we turn back to him until the day where we will ultimately dwell with him in the new earth for all eternity.

Let's pray. Father, we confess that we do not regard you as we ought, Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, yet we live as if we can hide from your presence and feel as though you are too distant to save us. In the midst of our sin, hear our plea from your dwelling place in heaven and forgive us when we turn to you. Lord, help us to enter your presence boldly by the blood of Christ and help us to trust that your eyes and heart are forever towards your people. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.