Musicians set up equipment and instruments. Teachers set up rooms for teaching and taking care of our children. The coffee crew brews 100 cups of coffee and sets up a nice table for us. Signs, tables, books and bibles, classrooms, bulletins – it all gets done each and every Sunday. None of this would happen without people doing all the work each and every Sunday for the past 180+ Sundays!

What we’re doing every Sunday is not unique in American churches. It’s not unique in churches in other countries. It’s not unique back into history. In fact, the people of Israel packed up their Sanctuary/Meeting Place and carried it around with them for 40 years in the desert wilderness!

We can learn some very important things from them – things we can learn and live out – things that are important in God’s eyes.

Have you ever studied the difference between the Tabernacle the Israelites built in the desert and the Temple the Israelites built in the city of Jerusalem? Here’s the basic difference: God gave detailed instructions on how to build the Tabernacle – and how to set it up – and how to take it down – and how to carry it from place to place.

Exodus 26 shows God telling the people all about how it’s to be built – take time to look there and see what I mean. Exodus 40 shows God telling the people how and when to set it up. Check that out, too. In Numbers 4, we find God explaining exactly how the Tabernacle is to be taken down and transported. As you can see, there are huge details about making, setting up, taking down, and moving this temporary, transportable structure that was the place where God dwelled among His people!

Compare that to the scriptures about how God wanted the Temple built. The Tabernacle was a tent – temporary, moveable; the Temple was a huge edifice of stone and granite and gold and silver. But God’s Word contains no instructions about building the Temple.

Take, for example, the preparations for building Solomon’s Temple, and the actual building of it in 1 Kings chapters 4 through 7. Nowhere does it show God telling Solomon the details.

In fact, in 1 Kings 8:13 records Solomon’s boast: “I have indeed built a magnificent temple for You, a place for you to dwell forever.” But God never asked for a Temple.

Why?

Why did God give a lot of details on the Tabernacle and nothing on the Temple – not even a “thanks!”

I believe in my heart of hearts that God desired the flexibility and transportability of the Tabernacle. He knew with the Tabernacle, the people’s hearts would be focused on Him instead of on the edifice that was supposed to “contain” Him!

When Kind David – Solomon’s father – wanted to build the temple, this is what God said to him, in 2 Samuel 7:5-7:

“Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’”

Some people read about the Tabernacle and say, “Sure – they had to have a portable sanctuary to travel through the wilderness for 40 years. But upon careful reading, we see that God asked the people to build the Tabernacle before they began their wandering in the wilderness. The Tabernacle wasn’t an afterthought or a concession by God after He had banished them to wandering for 40 years until all of the dissenters had died out. The Tabernacle was part of God’s overall plan – it was where He chose to dwell – where He felt He could get close to His people. Tabernacle means “dwelling place.” It was where God chose to dwell among His people.

He didn’t have them build the Tabernacle because they were nomadic people – because they weren’t! Nomads are people who move seasonally or wander from place to place. The people of Israel were not nomads – they were a people in search of a permanent home in the Promised Land! They were a people in search of a secure and ongoing relationship with their Loving God. God used the Tabernacle as a place where He could get close to them and love them.

Each time the people moved, they each had a job to help pack up the camp. The priestly Levites took down the Tabernacle and got the thousands of pieces distributed among the Levite clans. Then the people would march until God told them to stop, and the priests would set up the Tabernacle again and start worshipping God!

I see huge parallels with the Quarry Ridge family.

• WE are in search of a Promised Land of sorts – our own church facility in which we can meet 24-7-365.

• We seem nomadic – moving in and out each week, when in reality, we’re not nomads – we’re searching and ministering along the way.

• We pack it up each week – and carry it off; then we pack it all back in the following week.

OUR problem is that we don’t have enough people helping deliver, set-up, tear-down, and cart-off everything to storage. Too many people feel like it’s too hard – or too boring – or they’ve just gotten tired of the work.

The Israelites did it perhaps once a month for 40 years or more!

Some may say – “It was the priests’ job to pack up and move the Tabernacle. 1 Peter 2:5 tells us: “. . . 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.” There’s the definitive word: we are priests. As priests, we serve God, we help people find God, and we help the people of God grow and celebrate their connection to Him! And, just like Aaron and his sons and all the descendants of Levi, we also do the set-up, tear-down and carting off. EACH of us!

We know that Tabernacle means “dwelling place” – and Revelation 21:3 says “Now the dwelling place is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people and He will be with them and be their God.” Where is the dwelling place of God – the Tabernacle of God? It’s with us!

Jesus tells us in John 14:15-20:

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. . . you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

The Spirit of Truth resides in us – the Dwelling Place of God is with men – in you and me!

• We are His moveable sanctuary! Your heart and mine!

• Wherever we go – wherever we are – we’re the Church!

• We’re royal priests – and we are His Tabernacle People!

Right now – and maybe for a few more years – Quarry Ridge lives in a borrowed home.

But instead of it being a hardship – we need to see it for what it really is: we’re reliving history and partaking in something God desired for the Israelites and He desires for us. . . He wants us flexible, moveable, moldable, winsome, and young – both in our physical facility and in our hearts!

Someday, we’ll have a building. . . but for now, we’re Tabernacle People in our weekly move-in and cart-out. . . and we’re Tabernacle People in our hearts: the dwelling place for the Holy Spirit!

When we know that, how can we look at the work as DRUDGERY?

God wanted it for the Israelites – so they would focus on HIM and not on the marble and mortar! God wants it for us for the time being – so we will focus on Him and not on the marble and mortar!

We’re Tabernacle People – moving in, packing up, moving out, and starting all over again week after week. When we invite and bring and include people, we invite and include them in our life on the move! This is our present reality – and it’s what God wants for us for the time being. . .

He never wants us to lose our sense of being Tabernacle People. . . because He wants to make His dwelling in us!

Folks – we’re always at a crossroads in a small, young church like Quarry Ridge. We can all help – or we can watch from the sidelines while others do all the work. We can choose to go deeper in Christ, or fall behind or feel like we’ve missed something. We can pray for God to lead us to the perfect place to call our own, or sit and gripe that we don’t already have that place to call our own. We can hope for a better place someday, or demand our own way, today.

What I hope is that you will embrace that you are a part of the Tabernacle People. . . flexible, moveable, hard-working – searching for God’s best for us, and living with His Holy Spirit in us.

Will you be part of the Tabernacle People?

Will you serve as a priest – setting up, tearing down, and carting off?

Will you serve there with joy?

Will you let His Spirit live and move in you?

Will you be God’s Dwelling Place?