We
have come together this morning at the beginning of a new year to
worship. New Years is a time to look forward, a time to hope and dream, a time
to reset the things you need to reset, but also a time to build on what God has
begun in the past year. The glass is always at least half full at this time of
the year, even if it’s a cold glass. This morning we’re reflecting on King
David and his desire to build a beautiful house for God. He has just brought
the ark of the covenant, the ark built in the wilderness to hold the Ten
Commandments, back to Jerusalem. The ark had two angels on the cover of the ark
with wings that arched over the top and met over the ark, creating a symbolic
place where God would meet his people while they journeyed to the Promised
Land. When Israel wandered through the wilderness, the ark was housed in the
tabernacle, a beautifully constructed tent that God himself designed.
David’s
firmly established himself as king over Israel and just finished
building a palace for himself, but he’s now filled with a desire to build a
place for the ark of the covenant that’s worthy of God. This is what kings did;
once they were settled into power and taken care of themselves and their
closest allies, they shifted their attention to honouring their god or gods by
building spectacular temples. David’s no different, he wants to honour God by
building a beautiful temple for the ark. The prophet Nathan gives David his
blessing, “Whatever you have in mind, do it, for God is
with you.”
We
often have good intentions to do something great for God; we do the
planning, find the resources, and get going on our plans only to find out that
things don’t always work out the way we planned. Sometimes the biggest step we
leave out is to actually spend time talking to and with God about our plans to
see if that’s where God is actually leading us. David’s planning a great thing
for God, but he doesn’t ask God what his plans are. So, God goes to the prophet
Nathan and tells him, “Go and tell my servant David,
‘This is what the Lord says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell
in. I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt
to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling
place to another. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say
to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, “Why have you
not built me a house of cedar?”’
Imagine
the disappointment David must have felt! God’s done so much for him, as we hear
God tell Nathan, taking David from tending sheep to making him king over God’s
people. Why not allow David to build a house for God? We don’t really get an
answer to that question here, instead God turns the focus off of David building
him a house to God creating a home for his people and building David’s house, “Now I will provide a place for my people Israel and will
plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be
disturbed…. I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you: when
your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your
offspring to succeed you… he is the one who will build a house for you.”
God’s
priorities are often different from ours, as the writer of Chronicles reminds us.
God’s all about his people, which is why he gave his people a whole way of
living at Mount Sinai in the Ten Commandments and various other laws that are
given to shape them into a distinct people among the nations that reveal who God
is. God chose David to create a place where Israel could find peace and build
homes of their own; God focuses on his people over his own physical place. As we mentioned New Year’s Eve, as we look back
through the pages of Scripture, we discover a God who is worthy of praise, a
God whose greatness is more than we could ever imagine, we see a God always at
work for his people; a God of mercy and grace.
Later
on in chapter 28, we discover why God chose David’s son to build the
temple instead of himself, David shares with his officials “Listen to me, my fellow Israelites, my
people. I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of
the covenant of the Lord, for the footstool of our God, and I made plans to
build it. But God said to me, ‘You are not to build a house for my Name,
because you are a warrior and have shed blood.’” There’s symbolism here that points to who God is, a God of peace.
Jesus himself receives the title in Isaiah of Prince of Peace. God is a God who
is working towards shalom, who is about building and creating, even while Jesus
battles Satan and his forces that are aligned against the kingdom of heaven,
Jesus fights in order to create peace and shalom for creation. God chooses a
king of peace to build his home as a sign of the kind of God he is. So, David
begins gathering the material needed to build the temple; he figures that even
though he can’t build it, he can still do his part by making sure that
everything’s ready for the next king to build the temple.
It
makes me think of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3,
“What, after all, is Apollos? And what is
Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned
to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been
making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is
anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one
who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their
own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s
building.” Now Paul’s criticizing the church in Corinth for
quarrelling over who they were following, but his whole focus is on building
the church with Jesus as the foundation. Just like David gets the big picture
and works towards preparing for the temple, doing his part so his son can do
his part of building the temple, Paul focuses on building the body of Jesus,
the church, recognizing that we all play our roles in building the church and
God brings it all together. Paul goes deeper in verse 16, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that
God’s Spirit lives in you?”
As we look back through the pages of
Scripture,
we discover a God who is worthy of praise, a God whose greatness is more than
we could ever imagine. We see a God working for his people, a God of mercy and
grace. As we look ahead to 2022, God’s
going to continue to be at work in and through Bethel. Seeds have been planted,
some of them years and years ago by former pastors and leaders in Bethel, some
more recently, and now it’s about watering and nourishing those seeds, even
while we stay open to other seeds that the Holy Spirit may be planting in
Bethel for future growth.
Part of our journey this year is going to be
recognizing what the seeds are and how do
we go about watering and nourishing them; some of them are things like
mentoring and small groups, both of which are being prioritized as the pastoral
elders will be contacting those who have expressed interest in small groups and
forming at least two new groups. We’ve joined a cohort with a number of other
churches in our classis that will be focusing on and learning more about mentoring
and how it helps churches grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus, each
other, and into the community.
As we move through, and hopefully out of this pandemic in 2022, one of the main focuses from council is the
importance on fellowship and relationship building ministries in Bethel. And
yet, even as we work on these things, we keep turning back to God, asking for
the Holy Spirit to guide us. We will place a high focus on prayer for Bethel
and for our community to determine the what and how of what Jesus is doing in
building Bethel as a blessing to our city and the people in our neighbours and
lives, inviting them to join us as we follow Jesus and shape our lives and
hearts. Jesus builds the church through our faithfulness and obedience, so as
we journey into the new year, may we commit ourselves to Jesus and who Jesus is
calling us to become in 2022.
No comments:
Post a Comment