Dwell: The Tent and The Temple
Dwell: WEek 2 : The Tent and The Temple
Week 2 of DWELL explores how God chose to be near His people through the tent in the wilderness and the temple in the Promised Land. Now, through the Holy Spirit, we are His dwelling place. Whether life feels chaotic or steady, God is present and pursuing us. Our role? Create space to meet with Him daily.
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Let me ask this question. How many of you all actually like to camp? Okay. All right. All right. All right. I’m seeing you a little bit now. Let’s make it more real. I don’t mean glamp. Right. How many of y’all actually like to tent camp? Okay. You are the crazy ones. Okay. Like seriously, like what is wrong with you? You know what I mean? And the reason I say that is ‘cause tent camping is hard. Like I get so frustrated when I go tent camping to the point I don’t go anymore. Right. The last time I went tent camping, I said, “I’m going solo.” I put up a hammock and a tarp over my hammock. I said, “That’s it. I don’t want to be around people. I don’t want to deal with it.” Because tent camping is hard. Here’s what happens. Every time I would try to tent camp, we’d have the family there. You’re shoving, you know, suitcases and backpacks and all that all over. It’s a mess. I don’t do well with clutter. And then I lay down on the first night and inevitably every time I tent camp, it rains. It’s like God going, “I know this is going to get you,” right? And every time it rains. And I know some of you are like, “Well, no big deal. You just have the right tent and you set it up the right way and you don’t get rained on.” Well, I guess I don’t know how to set up a tent and my 1999 off Amazon doesn’t work, right? Because I get wet. So I’ve said I’m out on tent camping, right?
Whether it’s tent camping, whether it’s glamping, whatever it might be, here’s what I also know, though. There’s always a home base on the campsite. It’s the fire pit. It’s the picnic table. It’s the sun shade. Like depending on what time of year it could, it might be different, but there’s that home base where everybody goes to hang out, where you talk, where you laugh, where maybe you cry, you tell stories. It’s the rally point for the troops. It’s home. It’s the center of it all. And guys, that is true of camping. That’s honestly true when you go to the beach as well. When you go to the beach, you make a home base. And that might be the blanket. That might be the sun shade. You have a place where everybody can come and rally and hang out.
And I think about it also when I think about The Chronicles of Narnia, when I think about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Anybody seen the movie or read the book? Okay. Well, if you’ve seen the movie or read the book, you know that as it starts, Lucy goes through a wardrobe. She finds herself in this winter kind of wonderland. And as she takes a few steps, she immediately finds a lamppost. And at the lamppost, she also comes in contact with one of the creatures. And as she’s talking to him, he says, “Well, as long as you can find the lamppost, you can always find your way home.” Right? Like the lamppost—we have one up on stage—the lamppost is kind of the center. It’s where you know that you can get home. Guys, I want you to hold those two thoughts, the two thoughts of having home and the tent, because it really helps us understand today’s message.
See, today we’re talking about dwelling. If you were here last week, we said to dwell means to live with, to live at, like to live with someone or to fixate on someone or something. And we talked about this idea that God wants to live with you. God wants to be with you and God is fixated on you, that he’s focused on you. And in the same way, we should want to be with God and fixate on him, that he wants to dwell with us and has proven it and has shown us and therefore we should want to dwell with him. We talked about it last week by looking at the book of Genesis, and from the very beginning you were created to dwell.
Today I want to kind of look at an abstract thing that we see in the Old Testament. It’s the dwelling place of God. We could call it a tent or you could call it the temple. That if we were to look at the history of the Israelites, there was a time in their history where they had a tent where God would dwell. There was another time in their history where they had a temple where God would dwell. All right. Now I got to explain the tent and the temple. All right? Which means if I can just be honest, I need five minutes of head space. Okay? Like a lot of times I love to preach to the heart. I love to preach to the hands—like what do we want to do now? But I can’t get to the heart, I can’t get to the hands unless you give me five minutes of like head space for a history lesson. And I know some of you are like, “Dude, it’s finals week. I got no head space to offer.” Okay? Trust me on this. Just try to understand the tent and the temple.
The tent, the proper name would be the tabernacle. But it’s just a tent. It’s a place that in modern language we’d say a sanctuary, right? It was the dwelling place of God, that God went to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt and he and he gave them some commandments. He was on Mount Sinai with Moses and he gave Moses the Ten Commandments, but then he gave him a bunch of other commandments as well. And one of those other commandments was, “I need you to build me a tent. I need you to build a sanctuary, and it’s going to look like a tent, and it’s going to have walls. It’s like curtains for walls. It’s going to have things inside that represent me. My presence is going to be there, and I need you to set it up and while we’re at camp, it’s there, but when I move, you need to pack it up, carry it to the next place, and set it up again. We’re going to be camping for a while,” is basically what God told them. We see it. It’s Exodus chapter 25, and I know a lot of times especially of recent I’ve been saying go here in your Bible and I do still encourage you that, go there in your Bible. Today will be different than past weeks. We’re going to hit a bunch of different scriptures. All right? So we will put them up on the wall. But Exodus 25, this is where God gives the command. This is what he says in verse 8. He says, “Then have them make a sanctuary for me and I will dwell amongst them. Have them make a sanctuary. Have them make a tent.” And then he said this also, that when I leave—and the way they knew he would leave is because God would lead them with a cloud by day and a fire by night—he said, “When my cloud leaves, that means pack up and follow me.”
So, what the Israelites did for 40 years is they just moved around the wilderness. Now, it wasn’t like they moved every day. They would set up camp. They would be there for a while and then God would say, “Okay, pack up your stuff and follow me.” And then he’d show them a new place and say, “All right, now set up camp here.” For 40 years, they did that. But then when they went in the promised land, that was still part of it for a while, that they were moving around the promised land, conquering different lands until they finally were able to set up the tabernacle in Jerusalem.
So that’s the tent, but then there’s also the temple. See, after about 500 years of this—God dwelling in a tent—David became a king. And when David was a king, he said, “God, I want to build you a temple.” Like, “You’ve been residing in this tent. We’ve been coming to this tent to worship you. We’ve been coming and offering sacrifices. God, I think it’s time that we build you a proper place.” God never asked for it, but God did give permission. He didn’t give it to David. He said, “David, you’ve got too much blood on your hands. I’ll allow your son Solomon to build me a temple when it’s time.” So, until it was time, David collected things for a temple. David would ask the people, the Israelites, for gold and for silver and for wood and for resources so that they could build a temple. And then eventually David died. Solomon became king and Solomon went about the building of the temple. And when he got it totally built, it was just a beautiful facility, just incredible, that when he got it done, they consecrated it. They prayed over it. And as they were praying, Solomon said this. This is 1 Kings chapter 8. He said, “When the priests withdrew from the holy place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord.” Then Solomon said, “The Lord has said he would dwell in a dark cloud. I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.” That they built the temple, God’s cloud came, filled it like crazy, and Solomon was like, “Wow, God, you said you would do it, and it’s been done, and now you’ll dwell here,” and now they could come to the temple to worship God. That God dwelt there. He was with them. And while he was with them, they could go and meet with him and focus on him and fixate on him.
Here’s what I want you to know: that when we look at the tent and the temple, there are some things it can teach us. Like for many of us, we go, “Okay, Josh, like that’s like 3,000 years ago. That’s 2,000 years ago now when Jesus was here. Like what does the tent and the temple, what can it actually teach us today?” And I actually think there’s a lot of things. I’m going to focus on three—three things that we see about this dwelling place of God. The dwelling place where people would go to meet him. The dwelling place where people could focus on him. The dwelling place where people could find God. What did it take for that dwelling place to happen? What does it actually teach us?
All right. So, if you’re a notetaker, here you go. If you have your app, you can do this. Here it is. First one: if we want to create a dwelling place for God and for people to go and meet with God, well then it’s going to require people to actually serve. Makes sense that if you want to dwell with God, if you want to have a dwelling place for people to meet with God, then people have to step up and serve. Go back to the tent for a second. Think about this. Some of you who said you like to tent camp, you know how much work it is. You got to do the preparations. You got to get your stuff. You’ve got to go to a land. You got to clear a land. You got to make sure it’s level. You’ve got to set up your tent. You got to do it right because if you don’t do it right, it won’t last. The rain will come, the wind will come, something will happen. If you do it right, then all things are good. For those of you who like to tent camp, chances are you do it right. I do it wrong, thus I don’t like it. But what I’m trying to get at is this: people had to actually serve. The Israelites, they were told by God, “I want you to build me a tabernacle, a sanctuary, a tent.” So they had to do the work to build it. And then he said, “This is how you set it up.” So then they had to set it up. And then he said, “Now it’s time for us to go set up camp someplace else.” And when they went to set up camp someplace else, understand all of the Israelites were camping. It wasn’t like they just had a tent in the tabernacle. Everybody had to go and take care of their personal stuff and pack it up, and at the same time go pack up the tabernacle of God, the tent of God. Pack it up. Pack it up right because if you didn’t pack it up right, then bad things would happen. Then they would have to carry it to wherever God was leading them. And then when God said, “Okay, now we go,” guess what they had to do? Set camp back up.
It’s a simple principle we see here: that there would not be a dwelling place of God. There would not be a place where people could go and meet with God unless there were people willing to serve. And the same holds true today. All of us sitting and listening right now, we are all able to do this because somebody served before you. Somebody did some work so that you could be a part of this. The worship team did some work so that we could connect with God in song. The coffee team did some work to prepare some coffee, because Lord knows if y’all don’t get your coffee, we get issues going on. We get angry Christians. And I’m no different. Mine’s just Diet Coke. So I’m in the same boat, right? Somebody served me by making sure there was Diet Coke in my fridge, right? Like, it’s like we get it. Somebody had to help you park cars, right? Half of you are sitting in a black chair. Some of you are in a gray—that means you get here early. Those of you in a black chair, it means you’re either serving the people, letting them get here early and sit up front, or you’re late. One of the two, right? But somebody had to put those black chairs out. Somebody served you in the moment because they said, “We want you to have a place where you can sit and connect with God.” Somebody helped park cars. Somebody’s serving in kids ministry because some of you have little ones and if your little ones were in here with you, you’d be going crazy because they might be going crazy. You see what I’m getting at?
Think about our South Strand campus right now. Think about our Sun Outdoors campus. For Sun Outdoors, somebody got there and turned on a projector and got onto the internet. Somebody set up a banner. Somebody put out some coloring pages. Somebody served so that you could sit at church. At South Strand, they show up with two trailers at 7:00 a.m. They unload the trailers. They put a church together inside of a high school. They’re doing church right now. When church ends at 11:15, they’ll pack up those two trailers. They’ll take them to a lot. They’ll park them. And then next Sunday, do it all over again. Do you get what I’m saying? You are able to connect with God. You are able to be with God. You are able to focus on God because somebody came to serve God, which means they came to serve you. And if we don’t pass that on to somebody else, how selfish is that?
See what I’m getting at? The tent teaches us to serve. The tent and the temple teach us to give. Like without the giving that the Israelites gave, without the finances they gave, without the cloth that they gave, without the time that they gave, then people couldn’t connect with God. Like literally, when God told Moses, “I need you to build this,” that meant they needed to get the supplies because when he said build it, he said, “And I want you to cover this in gold, and I want you to cover that in gold, and I want you to make this in purple linen.” People had to give sacrificially. We see that in this, that the giving of sacrificial giving of funds and people, when Moses said, “All right, I want us to build a dwelling place for God but it means you’re going to have to give up this kind of stuff,” the people started giving. They started giving in such obedience that they had more than he could use, than they could use. So Moses literally told the people, “All right, we got enough. Stop giving.” Moses is the first preacher and maybe the only preacher ever that looked at his congregation and said, “Stop giving.” Right?
Well, why did he do it? Because everybody was being obedient. And he might be the only preacher that told everybody to stop giving because maybe he’s the only preacher who was ever with a group that everybody was being obedient. And I know that hits a little closer to home, right? But it’s just reality. Are we being obedient in our giving where we say, “God, I just want to honor you this way”? David in the same way. David, when he was building the temple, went to the Israelites and said, “I need you to give of these resources so we can build this thing for God,” and the people started giving and it says that they gave with great joy. That’s what giving looks like—that I give with great joy.
I was actually talking with a guy a couple weeks ago and we were talking about giving and he just said that, “Man, I’ve looked at what I’ve been able to give to the Lord over the last two years for these Gospel Patron projects,” and he said, “I’m just, I’m overjoyed by it.” And you could see he was saying it as he was proud of his giving, which is a good thing. He wasn’t being prideful in his giving. He was proud of his giving. He’s like, “Man, I felt like I was supposed to give this to the Lord and I thought that’s the largest thing I’ve ever given to the Lord,” and then he said this. He said, “I did that and what’s crazy is God has already replenished it, so I’m ready to do it again.” That’s the way God works in his giving. God’s math doesn’t always work.
I’ll make it real personal for you, that if you know my wife, she’s been in public education all of her life and this year she made a job change and she’s doing something different. But with her difference, she had to take a pretty significant pay cut. And we talked about it and we’re like, “No, this is what you want to do and we’ll do it. We’ll be fine.” So she’s taken a pretty significant pay cut but we both decided, we said, “We won’t change our giving. We actually increased it in the midst of her taking a very significant pay cut.” We’ve given more to the Lord this year than we ever have in our life with less money than we’ve had in a long time. You see what I’m getting at? God’s math is different math. It’s just different math, but it works. And I say it with great joy.
And let’s just make sure we see this. We see this idea of giving and we see this idea of serving not just in the temple, not just at the tabernacle. We see it in the Christmas story. Think about the serving. Mary served, like she said, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be as you have said.” We look in the Christmas story of giving that Joseph said, “I’ll give you my life. I don’t understand how this is all going to work, but I’m willing to sacrifice.” The wise men gave. Obviously, God gave of his Son. So we don’t just see it in the temple. We don’t just see it in the tabernacle. We see it in the Christmas story.
But there’s something else we see in the Christmas story and in the temple and the tabernacle as well. And that’s this: we need to center our life around God. Like if you look at the tent, if you look at the temple, they served, they gave, but it was the center point of their nation. It was the center point of their lives. If you talk about the tent, they would set up the tent and they would literally set the tent of the Lord, the meeting place of the Lord, right in the middle of camp. And then it was—they say this because the Israelites were divided into 12 tribes—so three of them would camp north, three of them would camp west, three of them would camp south, and three of them would camp east. They surrounded the Lord’s tent with the people basically saying, “He is the center of our lives. We center everything around him.”
Or then you go to Jerusalem where they built a temple. They put the temple right on the highest point in Jerusalem, right at the center of it all, and built the city around the temple. Again, showing us that God needs to be the center of our lives. My question is this: Is he the center of your life? Is God the center of your life? Does your life revolve around God like it did the Israelites when it came to the tabernacle or the temple? Does your life revolve around God or do you make God and the world revolve around you?
See, I think too many times we get this backward where we’re supposed to revolve around God, where our life should revolve around God. Our family should revolve around God. Our finances, our career, everything we do should revolve around God. We get it backwards and we say, “God, I want you to revolve around me. This is what I want to do with my finances. So God, this is what I need you to do around me. God, this is what I want to do in my career. So this is what I need you to do with my career.” We make ourselves the center of the universe. And let me just say this: if you are the center of your universe, your universe will implode. God needs to be the center of it all. God needs to be the home base at the campsite. God needs to be the lamppost in the middle of the blizzard where you say, “I’m going to go to him.”
And we see that. We see it in the Israelites that they said God showed up and he showed up right in the middle, let’s admit it, of their mess. He showed up in the middle of their mess. You got to remember when all this is happening, they were a new nation just out of Egypt. They’re heading towards the promised land. They screw it up. They say, “God, we don’t trust you there,” and God makes them walk in the wilderness for 40 years. But he doesn’t make them do it alone. He doesn’t say, “You’ve screwed up. I’m done with you.” He goes, “No, I want to set up camp right in the middle of your mess. And I want to show you that if you put me in the middle, man, I can transform the world around you. And I’ll show you how to transform it. Just follow me.” So then when God moves, the people moved and kept him at the center. When God moves, “Then let me show you a new place.” They went there again. So even in the middle of your mess, if you want to know, “Man, how do I deal with this issue I got going on? How do I deal with this situation? How do I deal with this grief? How do I deal with this sin?” Just simply follow God and make sure that he is the center of it all.
That’s what we see because God says, “Man, I want to be the center of your life.” So much so—check this out—so much so that he sent Jesus to this earth to be in the center of our lives, to be born. And we think about that nativity scene, the center of it all. The star points, “This is it. Let everything now revolve around him.” He grows up. He goes to the cross. And the world notices. He rises from the dead. He tells his followers, “The Spirit is coming. I’m leaving, but my Spirit is coming. And my Spirit, my Spirit isn’t just going to be on you. My Spirit doesn’t want to just be with you. My Spirit is going to be in you.” And he gave us the gift of his presence. You know what that means? God with us. He’s dwelling in us. Which makes you, me, the temple. Makes us now the tent.
Scriptures point it out. 2 Corinthians says it this way, chapter 6 verse 16: “For we are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will dwell and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people.” Ephesians says this in chapter 2: “Together we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling place, a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” That God says, “Man, I don’t just want to be around. I just don’t want to be at a place you can come and visit. I want to be with you. I am fixated on you and I want to be with you and in you and about you.” It goes on, Ephesians 3: “I pray that out of his glorious riches that he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith. That Christ may dwell in your heart through faith.” That God wants to take up residency in you ‘cause he’s fixated on you.
So here’s the question today. Will you make God your home base? Will you let God take up residency in your tent, in your campground? Will you make him your home base? Will you make him your lampstand that you constantly go to, knowing, “Man, he’s the way home”? Revelation says it this way: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look, God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be
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DWELL — WEEK 2 BLOG
If Week 1 showed us that God created us for closeness, Week 2 reminds us that God refused to let distance have the final word. After Eden, the story could have ended. Humanity separated themselves from God, but God refused to separate Himself from us.
Instead, He chose to come closer.
God Dwells in the Wilderness
As Israel wandered through the wilderness, moving from place to place without a home, God instructed Moses to build a tabernacle—a tent that would become the physical symbol of His presence.
Not a palace.
Not a monument.
A tent.A God who once walked with humanity in a garden now pitched His tent among His people in their wandering. Exodus 25:8 says it plainly: “Have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.”
In the wilderness—where life felt unstable, uncertain, and uncomfortable—God came near.
He still does.
Your wilderness is not too wild for Him. Your instability is not too much for Him. God travels with His people.
God Dwells in Stability
Once the Israelites reached the Promised Land, the temporary tent gave way to something permanent: the Temple.
Where the tent communicated, “I’m with you in the journey,”
the temple declared, “I’m with you at home.”When the ark entered the temple, Scripture tells us that “the glory of the Lord filled the temple.” God’s presence was so real, so heavy, that priests couldn’t even stand.
This is the God who longs to dwell with His people—not just in the chaos, but also in the calm.
But Israel began worshiping the building more than the God inside it. God had to remind them through the prophets: His dwelling isn’t confined to wood, gold, or stone. His desire is always to be with His people.
And Now? We Are the Temple.
Through Christ, the dwelling place of God changed again—not into a tent or temple, but into us.
Through the Holy Spirit, God now dwells in His people, not just among them.
You are a mobile sanctuary.
A living tabernacle.
A carrier of God’s presence wherever you go.Whether you are wandering or steady, struggling or secure, God is not far. His presence is not seasonal. His nearness is not confined to buildings or moments.
Our Response: Create Spaces for God to Dwell
If God has gone to such lengths to be near us, how do we respond?
We build “home bases” of dwelling:
• A quiet place to meet with God
Your closet, deck, car, Carolina room—anywhere you consistently return.• The church community
A place to worship, learn, serve, and gather around the fire of God’s presence.• A surrendered life
Because God doesn’t just want proximity—He wants presence.Wherever you are this season—in a wilderness, in stability, or somewhere in between—God is already there, ready to dwell.
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Small Group Curriculum – DWELL
Week 2: The Tent
Main Scripture: Exodus 25:8–9; 1 Kings 8:27–30; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Revelation 21:3 (NLT)
Big Idea: The tent and the temple were created so we can dwell.1. Connect (Icebreaker)
Fun: Have you ever gone camping? Share your best (or worst) tent camping story.
Personal: Where do you feel most “at home” spiritually?
Transition: Just like a fire pit can be a home base when camping, God gave His people the Tabernacle and Temple as places to dwell with Him.
2. Discover (Scripture & Discussion)
Read Exodus 25:8–9; 1 Kings 8:27–30 (NLT).
Discussion Questions
Why did God want His people to build a tent and then a temple?
How did the Tabernacle and Temple serve as “home bases” for worship?
How does God’s presence bring both comfort and awe?
In what ways do we still need “home bases” today to dwell with God?
Dig Deeper Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:21–22.
How do these verses show that God now dwells in His people?
What does it mean for you personally that you are His temple?
3. Respond (Application & Prayer)
Personal Application
What is one “home base” you can return to this week to dwell with God (your prayer closet, church, quiet time spot, etc.)?
How can you remember that God’s Spirit makes you His temple?
Group Prayer Prompt
Thank God that He chooses to dwell among His people.
Ask for fresh awareness of His presence in daily life and in the church.
Challenge for the Week
Memory Verse: Revelation 21:3.
Next Step: Choose one intentional “home base” moment this week (prayer time, church, or quiet space) to pause and dwell in God’s presence.
⏱️ Designed for 45–60 minutes
Connect (10–15 min)
Discover (25–30 min)
Respond (10–15 min)
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CONWAY
AYNOR
SOUTH STRAND