1 Kings 6:13, And I will dwell among the sons of Israel, and will not forsake My people Israel." 
	After our two week Easter message hiatus, we are back into our consideration of the great and awesome reality that God, The Lord God Almighty, The Creator of heaven and earth, The Altogether Wonderful One, the One, True Living Lord God, Jehovah, Yahweh would fulfill the tremendous promise made to humanity to come and dwell among us. Not only that, but He made the way for that to take place through the very giving of His Only Begotten Son that whosoever believes upon Him and calls upon His name for salvation, will be adopted into the very family of the Almighty! 
This is just something that so boggles the mind of any human being that God would so love such as we are to suffer death on the cross in our stead. That The Wonderful and Perfect One would put aside His divinity to take upon Himself human flesh with all the temptations and the pains, without any sin, and willingly suffer the severest of abuse from the very ones He came to save is without comprehension. In the course of that suffering, He was mutilated, crowned with thorns that tore away the skin of his scalp, nailed hand and foot to a cross, spat upon, ridiculed, tortured and tormented, then stabbed with a spear to show you and to show me how much this promise of becoming the redeemed people of Jehovah meant to the Godhead. 
In the power of His resurrection from the dead, the triumphant glory of God was seen in the beauty of His awesomely raising us, those who would believe upon Jesus, into the heavenlies to be seated together with Him. We will eternally proclaim His glory and His splendor as the Lord of lords and the King of kings. No power could ever again be raised against Him, because He vanquished it all in the Omnipotent display of the grandeur and the plan and the purpose of God in the reality of our wondrously evidenced union with The Creator, Our God.
We pick up this amazing truth with what the Prophet Isaiah has to relate in Isa 57:15. This is in terms of what is now the truth of what God has accomplished forever and forever more.
Isa 57:15, For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite. 
	This is the working outcome of the life that has now been given in Jesus, Our Christ, Our Lord, Our Savior, and Our Rabbi. There is a newness of being in the terms of who we are and how we live on this earth. We are revived in the spirit, communing heart to heart and spirit to Spirit with our very Lord. We walk with Him and we talk with Him and we count on Him to meet the every challenge of the day before us. All is seen with the viewpoint of what He would have us to do and say as our time on this earth is used to encourage and to help and to declare the comfort and the message of true hope in Jesus to those whom He would bring into our lives.
	The Prophet Ezekiel then joins into the growing and ecstatic reality of what it means to know that God has accomplished that which has ever been the divine will in Jesus the Messiah and the Lord. Please read along with me in Ezek 37:25-28, as we revel in the wondrous and astonishing plan and purpose of God that is shown forth in Jesus. He gathers together and establishes His people, the Church, into His eternal placement within the scope and sequence which shows forth His overwhelmingly incredible and magnificent will in operation.
	Ezek 37:25-28, And they shall live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons, and their sons' sons, forever; and David My servant shall be their prince forever. "And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever. "My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. "And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever."'"
	Jumping forward then into the New Testament, in John 4:21-24, we have the very reality of what was soon to be accomplished explained to the woman at the well. Jesus made known that which had been hidden for the ages past. There was coming, and now is, a time when humanity would not see God as some unapproachable deity placed amongst all the other various images of mankind into the heavens. Rather, through Jesus, the Only Begotten of the Heavenly Father, Heaven came down to earth and showed forth the glory of God to such as would receive and turn whole-heartedly unto Him. 
John 4:21-24, Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father. "You worship that which you do not know; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
	This is the declaration of the manifest working power of God to bring about such a living relationship between Creator and creation. The fact of the matter is that unless God does the work, it will never take place. He, Alone, is the One Who brings forth life in Christ Jesus, the awakening of our spirits. This enables us to so worship and abide with Him, spirit to Spirit in the truth of Who Jesus is and all that He has done!
The key for us to recognize and appreciate and humbly manifest is the truth that this is in place today! The Holy Spirit is so very active in our beings as He abides in us and makes known that which is fully honoring unto God moment by moment and day after day. It is not a matter of guesswork or educated logical reasoning through dissertational means. 
It is by the enlivening working power of the Word as the Holy Spirit brings forth the very wisdom of God every time it is necessary and required. He is our wisdom in the midst of the deepest searching times of trying to honor and obey God. In truth and reality, there is never a moment that passes in which we are not absolutely endowed with the very presence of God at work from within us to show forth that which would bring the greater honor and praise and adoration unto the throne of the Most High.
That is why the Apostle Paul, in 2 Cor 6:16-18, is so insistent that we need to abstain from anything that would bring forth other than the will of God being accomplished in our every interaction with those of this realm. We must be on constant guard to trust and to obey as God shows that we are not to become entangled again with the ways and the desires and the ensnarement of this present age. We are to keep watch on our hearts and our minds in terms of being focused on that which is always honoring to God in the midst of the day to day walk that we tread on this earth.
2 Cor 6:16-18, Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. "Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate," says the Lord. "And do not touch what is unclean; And I will welcome you. "And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty. 
	This does not mean that we forsake those of this realm that are in such great need. When we see that tohu which is entrapping and suffocating a helpless and hopeless person, or family, or community, we do step forth with the complete measure of obedience unto God. We serve to bring into those lives the hope of the Living Lord Jesus Christ. 
Be very clear on this, we do not join into their tohu. Rather we allow the light and the shalom of Christ to shine forth to calm the storms that are assaulting them, quenching the fires that are scorching them, soothing the sores that are covering them, and comforting the anguish that engulfs them. We bring Jesus into the midst of the fray and allow Him to use us in the every manner which would calm the storm and bring life to the lifeless and healing to the sick and hope to the despairing.
	Again, hear the Apostle as he so encouraged his protégé Timothy and us in 2 Tim 1:7-14. This is the way in which our lives are those obedient and ever ready and willing vessels through whom Jesus has that free and immediate access to those who are drowning in the swirling whirlpools of tohu.
	2 Tim 1:7-14, For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. 
	What an utterly astounding, incredible, and miraculous relationship is ours now in Jesus Christ! It is something that we are to guard with the every fabric of our being, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might! We need to be committed and dedicated to the manifested reality that has become the essence of our walk together with Jehovah. Body, soul, and spirit, unto Him and through utmost obedience and instant response allowing Him to use us to be the expression of His shalom into the lives of those so lost in sin and trespass.  
	Then, the Writer to the Hebrews, in Heb 8:8-12, brings forth the reality of what has now been so fully established in the resurrection power of Jesus for all of eternity! We are made to be partakers of the new covenant of the promise of God which is so far superior to the first. God has chosen not just to dwell among us, His people, making us the members of His very family, but He has made His very essential essence to be our indwelling reality. He lives in us, not just with us. We learn His ways and His will because He has made His abode within these hearts and minds and souls that are fully unto Him.
	Heb 8:8-12, "Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, When I will effect a new covenant With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers On the day when I took them by the hand To lead them out of the land of Egypt; For they did not continue in My covenant, And I did not care for them, says the Lord. "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them upon their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people. "And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, And everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' For all shall know Me, From the least to the greatest of them. "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more." 
	The Apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 2:1-10, concisely relates the full measure of that which has come to pass through the beloved creation of the temple of God now in Jesus Christ. There has been a complete change in the manner in which God has chosen to relate to those who now belong to Him. We are being built together into that new creation, the living temple of the most High God through the work and the love and the mercy and the Omniscience, the Omnipotence, and the Omnipresence of The Lord God Most High, the Creator of all that is! 
As we read this passage together, let it pour into our minds the manner in which His indwelling presence is to be presented as the testimony and the witness of the Church on earth. Our individual character and development as the people, the family of God in Jesus Christ, is to more and more perfectly show forth the very essential essence of His Character, lived so flawlessly and selflessly on this earth unto all who are in such need of His salvation.
	1 Peter 2:1-10, Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: "Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed." This precious value, then, is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, "The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone," and, "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 
	We close this morning with the pronouncement that will echo throughout the ages of eternity. It is contained in Rev 21:3-5, if you would please turn to it and rejoice in the goodness and the awesome splendor of what The Lord is bringing forth. He is so manifestly and completely establishing that which fulfills the promise of being Our God - the Heavenly Father, the living and glorified Son, and the indwelling and comforting Holy Spirit. 
	Rev 21:3-5, And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." So be it!
	And I will dwell among the sons of Israel, and will not forsake My people Israel." Amen.
	This morning’s benediction is Ps 141:2. May my prayer be counted as incense before Thee; The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering. Amen.