Sermon: “God’s House”
October 25th, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
Scripture passage: 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Luke 1:30-33 First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Last week we focused on the story of Hannah, and how her bold and radical prayer to God resulted in desperately needed new leadership – both spiritual and political – through her son Samuel and his role as God’s messenger in the transition to having a king rule over God’s people in Israel. Of course, in hindsight we see that connection between Hannah’s prayer and God’s people being led by a king, a king described as a man after God’s own heart. Yet in reality, it took time – time for the baby Samuel to grow up, time to learn to listen for God’s voice and God’s guidance, time for the nation to endure the failed leadership of the first king, King Saul. And then finally to arrive at the place where an unlikely shepherd boy named David, with extraordinary faith and love for God, has learned lessons of leadership, survived struggles, overcome opposition within and without, has been anointed king and started his reign. We pick up the story today, with King David in 2 Samuel 7:1-16 (read the passage).
David responds to this amazing promise from God with a beautiful prayer that fills the rest of the chapter. It ends as he says, “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, God of Israel, I have been bold enough to pray this prayer to you because you have revealed your plans, saying, ‘I will build a house for you—a dynasty of kings!’ 28 For you are God, O Sovereign Lord. Your words are truth, and you have promised these good things to your servant. 29 And now, bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you have spoken, and when you grant a blessing, O Sovereign Lord, it is an eternal blessing!”
God’s promise and David’s prayer are all about building a house. The word ‘house’ is used 15 times! David is concerned that while he lives in a beautiful cedar house, God is still living in a tent. So David has proposed that he will build God a great house, too. But God has a different kind of house in mind. Which then begs the question, where does God live anyway? In houses? In churches, houses of worship? In nature? Off in outer space? Where does God live?
The nephew of a pastor I know went to the doctor’s office for a check-up. The doctor took out her stethoscope to listen to the boy’s chest. After the doctor listened for a moment, the boy piped up and said, “Do you hear Jesus?” The doctor gave the child an odd look and with a bit of a chuckle said, “No.” So the boy explained, “Well, Jesus lives in my heart, you know, so I thought maybe you would hear him.”
David’s vision of where God lived seemed to be even more concrete than that little boy. David imagined God’s presence centered in a building, a temple, and while God did concede that eventually a physical house could and would be built, God’s main concern was to build a house of people, of house of leaders who would embody God’s leadership. So God makes that promise to David, to the king after God’s own heart. The promise is called an everlasting covenant (2 Sam.23:5) – forever promise. Which means it extends even today! Standing on the promises of God, we sing! So let’s think about how God has been true to that promise, how God is being true to that promise now, and how God will continue to be true to that promise into the future – for this is arguably the most important promise God makes! This is the promises that in hindsight we can see leads directly to Jesus, though it will take time for preparations.
God has been true to His promise
To expand David’s vision for God’s house, God begins by reminding David of what God has already done to lay the foundation, actions that established God’s credibility to make a forever promise. God reminded him that it was God who had chosen David, brought David from the dirty, smelly job of leading sheep to the job of leading a nation. “I have been with you wherever you have gone,” God said. It was God who had protected David from enemies and used all of David’s life experiences to make him a shepherd-king. David was simply the start of something much bigger, and while he played a significant role, it was God’s building project, not David’s.
The first step in demonstrating that this was bigger than one person or one building, was that it wasn’t going to be David who actually got to build the house of worship – it would be one of his descendants. That was true; it happened. David’s son, Solomon, built the temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, in Jerusalem. And the house of leadership was passed on from David’s son to grandson, then great-grandson, and so on. But as God had known and hinted at, not all those kings were leaders after God’s heart. They did not always lead in God’s ways; they got off track at times. Even David was not perfect and made some bad choices. Yet God’s love and commitment to the promise did not waver. God worked with them, as a parent with a child, to correct, to keep building the forever house.
Eventually, the nation got divided, and at one point it fell apart completely, defeated by other nations. It looked to them like the promise was dead. But like David, their vision of God’s house was too small. So during their time of discouragement, God sent prophets, messengers, to share with them the bigger vision of the promise. Their human kings, those descendants of David, may have failed, the prophets said, but there was another descendant of David, another king, coming – a King of kings. That king would not fail, for that king would be God’s own Son, God’s Messiah. This vision for a True King, a True Shepherd-Leader, kept them going in dark and uncertain times, in the gap between the promise and the fulfillment. And God did fulfill the promise! We heard it in the verse that opened our worship this morning, the announcement to a young woman: “You will have a son and you are to call him Jesus. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will reign forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Lk.1:30-33)
Once again, God’s vision for the house God was building was so much bigger than anyone ever imagined! Jesus established a house, a kingdom, a people, that went beyond the nation of Israel, beyond the family of Abraham and of David, the Jewish people. All those people who had been outside that house, through Jesus were invited to come in and be a part of a house that extended beyond time and space. God was true to his promise.
God is being true to His promise
Yet this is not just a promise in the past, it is a forever promise, which means that God is still being true to the promise today. However, in times like this that seem dark and uncertain because of the pandemic, and because of international tensions, and because of a new kind of civil strife in this nation – a war of words, divided along party lines, lines that run through communities and families and even churches, we may begin to wonder, to get discouraged, to lose sight of God’s building plan.
Like David, our vision of God’s house may have become focused on a physical structure, our house of worship, the church. But look at us now! As a result of the pandemic we have been pushed out of that house, and God has given us a bigger and zoomier house. We still have the church, but God’s house has been brought right into each of our homes in a new way, and it has extended beyond what we could have imagined to allow in others.
So I wonder about the house of our nation, have we also allowed our vision to become small and short-sighted? Billions and billions of dollars are being poured into this election, more than ever before, as perhaps a sign that we’re increasingly anxious that our fate, our future rests entirely in the hands of the next president. We fear for the soul of our nation, looking for that perfect leader to be the right match for us, to save us our national house.
I heard a helpful analogy this week – that choosing a president is not so much like choosing a spouse for marriage, but more like choosing a bus in a city transit system. Our permanent partner is Jesus. He is our True leader and King. Presidents, and other world leaders or community leaders, are simply buses to take us the next step toward a destination. Along the way we to transfer from one bus to the next, working our way home. So I invite you to pause in the tension of this final week before the election and consider the destination you are looking toward, that house, that goal of God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. Consider what we know God has promised us about that Kingdom house – a place of peace, a place of equity and justice, a place where every person is valued and cared for and safe, where everyone has a unique place and each one loved. Then consider who will get us closer to that destination. Hear God saying to us, just as to King David: “I will be the one to build the house. I have been true the my promise and provided a Savior, a Leader, a King, who continues to be the One in charge, and who is even now building my House.”
God will continue to be true to His promise
When Jesus was preparing to leave his disciples, preparing to take up the heavenly kingship through his death and resurrection, he said to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Don’t be worried or distressed. You trust in God; trust also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms and I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare that house, won’t I also come back and take you to be with me?” (Jn.14:1-3)
Jesus, our King, is even now building a bigger house than we can imagine. He is building a house of people, fitting into it each one who acknowledges Him and who wants to be a part of His house. Because this house is bigger and more wonderful than we can imagine, it takes time – time for God to work, for babies to grow, for lessons to be learned and for hearts to change. We may not always see the work happening, but the house is rising, and one day we will be home! Till then we take one step at a time, following Jesus, our Shepherd King.
Closing Song: “Savior, Like a Shepherd”
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