Confirming God’s Word for Big Projects and New Visions

Transcribed from the sermon preached July 22, 2012 

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-16, Ephesians 2:11-22

We may look for confirmation of God’s word to us in six ways.
Intuitive insight – a dream or a vision of a word drawn from the mysterious God.
Then we think reasonably about it.
We consider the practical steps to accomplish it.
We get counsel from trusted people and check in with the community we share faith with.
We check it with tradition and scripture.
We ask if it is moral and right.

1)    Intuitive insight is a thought, a feeling or desire. It is not likely anxious, not pressed. Beware of impulsive big moves. If you meet someone and decide in a week that you should get married – God is in favor of marriage – but she also wants them to last. Impulsive beginnings often lead to impulsive endings.
2)    Reason – Does it make sense?
You may feel you are in a dead end job or have problems with your coworkers. You may get a sense God is telling you to quit and move on to something better. So you get excited and decide on faith you should quit and move on to something better. Maybe, if, for instance, your job is immoral, God is asking you to quit tomorrow.
But if you have kids and rent and food to buy, you may have some planning and preparation to do.
If you want to move a culture’s focal point from a tent to a temple, you might have to spend some time gaining trust and establishing peace. In line with reason as a confirmation of answers to prayer we
3. God helps us consider the practical steps. Before David gets busy to build a temple he must first establish peace, gain trust and gather materials – which means raising taxes.
God may choose to perform a miracle and feed five thousand, but he does it through checking around and spreading the word for picnic baskets. More often God’s answers are even more practical.

Do we want bread? Do we have land? Have we planted seeds, watered and weeded. Yes, then it is time to harvest and then bake. We often pray hoping God will take us out of hard work. God may want to change our attitude but will not likely change the need to work hard.

We want a better job. Do we have skills for a better job? No, then maybe God is calling us to go to school.
Or maybe life is tough, and all things considered, your job is not that bad. Maybe God will help you find meaning and satisfaction from someplace other than the job you get paid for.

Intuitive insight is often the first way we hear a possible answer to prayer. Then God gives us a mind to reason – does this exciting idea make sense for me in this community right now? What are the practical steps I would need to take to make this great idea a reality? Sometimes the answers to our prayers are right in front of our face.
Do we want to be healthy? Eat right and exercise.
Will I ever finish my thesis? Stop procrastinating and work. Sometimes continued prayer itself can be a way of procrastinating what God has already set before us to do.
4.The next ingredient in discerning how God is speaking to us is to get confirmation from trusted people.
Key – you don’t just want yes-men. Remember Nathan is the one who confronts David with the truth about Bathsheba.
They can brainstorm together. Nathan gets excited too – a temple sounds like a great idea. Then Nathan goes and prays on it. And God probably helps Nathan out with the reasonableness and the insight of fears and concerns of other leaders and people. It may be outdated and old fashioned, or not classy to worship God in a tent, but people are going to need to be warmed up to the change. If you are in relationship, if you are a shepherd, you have to bring people along to the idea.

David may have had key alliances with those priests who had an investment in tent worship. And he needed their support to establish peace first.

We often present faith as something that gives us clear, radical answers – and that compromise shows weakness of faith, but compromise can show proper humility before God, and a willingness to do things on God’s timetable rather than ours. So before doing anything rash, we check in with wise people we trust.
5. And then we check in with God’s word in scripture, with tradition. Now we know it is in the nature of getting old to get less flexible, to take comfort in knowing what and how things are going to happen. We tend to get bureaucratic and stubborn.
But tradition and scripture have been around for a reason – they have stood the test of time, and those who neglect the respect and study of history are doomed to repeat it.
Now this is not to say we should not suggest or make change, or that God doesn’t want any changes. God will approve David’s change, but not yet. God will establish a nation of people first. Then the temple will be built.
6. Of course, part of checking in with scripture and tradition includes asking the question – is it moral? Is it the right thing to do? Is this more a way to love God and your neighbor as yourself? And we know that God’s answers for one time and place are not necessarily God’s answers for all time and place.
So God liberates the Israelites from slavery and then goes around with them in a tent. Then the nation Israel is established and a temple is built. But are we the ones to establish boundaries for God, the creator of heaven and earth, the father and mother of all people? Even when we have finally a temple or church, we need humility to remember it is a symbol which points so something much greater than just the structures we build.
The establishment of Israel is not just about Israel, for the Israelites are a conduit for God to the world and all people, indeed all creation.
If God is a God of love, peace and justice, then God is a God of love, peace and justice for one and all, not just for me and my people, and being the citizen of God’s kingdom means working for the good of one and all.
So Christ the son of God and Israel makes still another change. First God is in a tent, then in a temple in the established nation of Israel; then God is back on the move – in the hearts and in the community – regardless of place or nation.
So the word and presence of God are not stuck to one place. The holiness of God is not found only in a temple or church or with one people, but with all those who hear God’s call for discipline, hard work, wise community, and sacrificial love for the peace, justice, health and prosperity of the world.
So on confirming God’s answer to our prayer for a big project or new vision we look for:
Intuitive insight – a dream or a vision of a word drawn from the mysterious God.
Then we think reasonably about it.
We consider the practical steps to accomplish it.
We get counsel from trusted people and check in with the community we share faith with.
We check it with tradition and scripture.
We ask if it is moral and right.