God’s true presence is not found inside of special buildings, but rather, within the community of his people as they gather together to worship, learn and serve.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: http://www.lifetogetherchurches.com/media/sermons/2Samuel/2sam09.mp3

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 9

Last time we examined the covenant the Lord established with David: to make one of his descendants the Messiah, the forever-King and savior of God’s people. We also considered God’s over the top grace offered to David and to us, and the security knowing that when we want to do God’s will, even if, by mistake, we try to do the wrong thing, the Lord will make sure to keep us from pursuing it. I think there is yet one more lesson to glean from this passage.

David set up various full-time ministries for the tent of meeting, and then he wanted to build the Lord a permanent temple in Jerusalem. The prophet Nathan agreed with David, and they were ready to start the project when the Lord spoke to Nathan, and told them to wait.

It wasn’t that David’s heart was in the wrong place, or Nathan’s instincts. They just didn’t fully understand the Lord (no one ever does, of course). The Lord wanted to show David and Nathan a few things. The first thing the Lord wanted to make sure they knew is this: He doesn’t need a house. He says this:

5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD has declared: Are you the one to build a house for me to live in? 6 I have never lived in a house, from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until this very day. I have always moved from one place to another with a tent and a Tabernacle as my dwelling. 7 Yet no matter where I have gone with the Israelites, I have never once complained to Israel’s tribal leaders, the shepherds of my people Israel. I have never asked them, “Why haven’t you built me a beautiful cedar house?”’ (2 Samuel 7:5-7, NLT)

During the historical period in which David lived, most people believed that gods were attached to specific places and people-groups. This is important in understanding the Old Testament. The Philistines had a primary god named “Dagon.” They built a temple for him, and made an idol of him. The Canaanite peoples who lived nearby also believed in Dagon—but not as their god. He was the god of the Philistines, and no one needed to worry about him—unless you went into Philistine territory. If you did that, then you needed to respect Dagon, because that was where he lived. The Ammonites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan river, and to the south, worshipped a god named Moloch. For their part, the Philistines theoretically believed that Moloch was a deity, but they didn’t worship him because his territory was some distance from where they lived. There were various other gods in the region as well, including the one known as Baal. It is likely that all of the non-Israeli people around the area had some level of belief in Yahweh, the God of Israel. But they thought of him like every other ‘god.’ To them, he must be just the god of the Israelites, and only really powerful in Israelite territory.

The Israelites were continually tempted to believe in the Lord in the same way: as their personal god, one among many, generally most powerful only in their own territory. But the Lord had been continually trying to get them to see the truth: that there is only one real God, the Lord Himself, and that he is God over every people and place. That was one reason the Lord had never, before this, asked his people to build a temple for him. I think God was trying to stop the Israelites from getting the idea that he really was just like all the gods of the people who lived around and near the Israelites. They might tend to get stuck on that idea if there was a permanent temple in which he “lived.” The idea that the Lord traveled with Israel wherever they went was entirely new and unique in the ancient world. No one had ever heard of a God who went with his people, wandering anywhere he chose, even into the territory of other gods. No one had ever really conceived of the idea that there was only one true God. So, a temple might tempt the Israelites to think of God as only a local, Israelite deity.

By the way, the Canaanites worshipped a god they called “Baal.” In the ancient Canaanite legends, Baal demanded a bigger and better temple. So the Lord’s response also shows David how different he is from the supposed “god” of the people who lived nearby.

Now, eventually, of course, Solomon, David’s son, did build a temple to the Lord. Why would God do that? Did he change his mind? One way in which it was very different from the temples of the gods of the surrounding people is that there was no statue (idol) of God anywhere. But I think the main issue was this: During Solomon’s reign there was much more peace with surrounding cultures, because the Israelites had conquered them. Because they lived at peace, the Israelites started befriending their non-Israelite neighbors, and going with them to worship sites on top of high hills, where the heathen people worshipped their false gods. Therefore, one purpose of the temple in Solomon’s time was to bring the Israelites together to worship the Lord alone. Even though, as we know, a person can worship the Lord anywhere, the Israelites were being drawn to worship false gods when they went to other places. The temple, when Solomon finally built it, was intended to make sure they would worship the Lord only, and do so together as one people. Even so, in the end, that didn’t really work out. Solomon himself recognized the limits of a temple. After it was built, he prayed:

18 “But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built! (2Chr 6:18, ESV)

So God wants us to understand that he lives everywhere. He doesn’t need a dwelling place on earth. I get a little crazy when I hear Christians calling their church buildings “the house of God.” No church building, not even the most magnificent cathedral, is a place where God “lives.” If you want to see “the house of God,” look around at your fellow believers, and look in the mirror.

19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NLT)

We believers are individually temples of the Holy Spirit, but most especially, believers who live and worship together are the place where the Holy Spirit “lives.” The Lord lives “in his body,” and his body is made up of the people of the church (not the building).

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:27, ESV)

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. (Ephesians 4:11-16, NLT)

God “lives” in each of us individually, and also in a special way with all of us together. None of this has anything to do with physical buildings. So this was one reason God didn’t want David to build a temple.

This might sound a bit startling, but stay with me: a building accomplishes nothing spiritual.

A building is completely unnecessary to real church, and often has a negative impact on making disciples. History bears out what I am saying here. It was precisely at that point in time – during the time of Solomon and his temple – when the people of Israel began to go astray again and worship other things. The temple did not help in the least, and an argument might be made that it hurt. Solomon’s temple was destroyed four hundred years later, and about a century after that, another was made. Four hundred years after that, king Herod built a  third temple to please the Jewish people who were his subjects. It was even more magnificent than Solomon’s temple. Even with these amazing temples, the Jews utterly failed to walk with God. Let me make it very clear – the magnificent temple of the Jews did not help them when it came to actually receiving God’s salvation in Jesus Christ.

Jesus himself found the most receptive hearts far away from the temple – in the outlying areas of Palestine, not in Jerusalem. The temple, as God gave it to the people, was intended to help people recognize the Messiah when he came to earth. But most people missed the point entirely, and instead made the temple itself into a kind of idol.

Some people make church buildings into an idol as well. The closest thing in the New Testament that we have to modern church buildings is the synagogue. Jesus apparently was regular in going to the synagogues. But most of his real ministry and disciple-making took place outside of weekly worship services.

After the time of Jesus, the church worshipped in private homes, in small groups, for almost three hundred years. Even now, that period stands as one of the most effective disciple-making eras in history. After Christianity finally became legal in the Roman empire, Christians began creating buildings for their church meetings. The emergence of this trend of constructing dedicated physical church buildings coincides with the beginning of a long decline in Christianity. In fact, it wasn’t long after this that Europe entered what we call “the dark ages.” We can’t blame all of the problems of the dark ages on church buildings, but it was a period where Christianity was focused on buildings and institutions, and did very little real disciple-making that truly transformed lives.

A building dedicated to worship sometimes has practical value. However, a lot of church buildings are used for only a few hours each week – which doesn’t seem very practical after all. If the bible and history teach us anything about worship-buildings, it is that they often lead believers to live with the wrong focus, and sometimes to entirely miss the point.

I want to be honest here. I think one of the reasons New Joy Fellowship (our church here in Lebanon, TN) has not grown much numerically is because we have not built a church building. I think a lot of folks would be up for that – to build something we could look at and see and touch and say “We did that. That’s ours.” I deeply wish that people would be that committed to building a life that belongs entirely to Jesus and to living for his purposes. I think a lot of people who might otherwise come back to our worship after visiting just don’t feel like it is really “church” without a church building. I want to be blunt: when we have a building, we can divert our attention to religious activity that keeps God at arm’s length. But when there is no building, we are confronted with what it is really about: walking with God, walking in fellowship with each other, and working in God’s kingdom. If you have a building you can “have church” without those things. But if you don’t have a building, and you don’t have those things, you don’t have a church. It’s easier to have a building – you can pretend to be a church without really engaging with Jesus.

I’m not saying it is wrong for churches to build their own buildings to worship in. But I am saying it is unnecessary, and often it slows down spiritual growth and disciple-making.

Let’s see what Jesus said about worshipping in a particular building:

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24)

Jesus essentially says here that worship is not about a place. It is about turning to God in spirit and truth. In fact, that is the kind of worship God is seeking, not people who just want to go to a certain place. God said to David, look, the place of worship for the past four-hundred years has been that moldy tent, wherever it happens to be parked. Why do you suddenly think that isn’t good enough?

So, what does all this do for your relationship with God today? First, I want to encourage you to hold on to the understanding that a real church is a community of people who trust Jesus and walk in fellowship with God, and in fellowship with one another, and allow God to use their lives for his kingdom purposes. It has nothing to do with where, when or in what building they worship.

There are people who take things too far the other way. They claim it is not important to have dedicated times of worship with other believers. They think “Hey, my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. I don’t need to be part of a worshipping community.” But that picture is not Biblical either. Such a thing would not even have occurred to the apostles, or any Christians throughout history, until quite recently. Historically, all cultures were very communal, and the idea of an individual who doesn’t need a community was entirely unknown in Biblical times, and even for centuries afterwards. So, to be clear, though Christians don’t need a church building, they do need a church—that is, a community of people with whom they regularly worship and serve.

David and Nathan were both godly men who thought at first that a building for God was important. So don’t feel bad if you have thought that in the past. But understand, God told Nathan and David, “No, it isn’t important. I don’t want a building right now.”

The focus that God wanted was on his work to bring salvation into the world. He wanted his people to receive the Messiah and put their trust in him. That is the focus he wants for us also.  Jesus said:

19 Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.” (Matt 18:19-20, HCSB)

The word “where” means “whatever place you happen to be in.” The full presence of God, and full authority of heaven is found among God’s people gathered together, not in a building somewhere.

Now, I want to speak directly to New Joy Fellowship and to the people of Life Together Churches for a few moments. It’s easy to say “come help us build a building.” People understand that. It’s a helpful thing to motivate people. It is a simple vision to grasp and it is less threatening than real discipleship.

But I want to challenge you to present new people with a vision to “come help us build disciples.” Think about it this way. Not a single church building that now exists will be there in the New Creation. Not. One. But every single disciple that we make will be there with us. Let’s not waste time and money building what is after all, a fake church. I mean it. A building is not a church, no matter how many crosses and altars you slap on it. Let’s put our time into real church. We can present the vision clearly and simply. We want to make disciples. We do that by walking with God, walking with others and working in the kingdom. Let’s build a real house of God in that way!

The text today highlights David’s sincere yet misguided intentions to build a permanent place of worship for God, and how God’s corrective guidance reveals His gracious heart. Through David’s story, we learn about the immense freedom and comfort in trusting God’s leadership, the boundless nature of His grace, and the ultimate promise of a Messiah who will save all people and reign forever. It invites us to reflect upon our own relationship with God and embrace the abundant grace He offers, even in the face of life’s uncertainties and challenges

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: http://www.lifetogetherchurches.com/media/sermons/2Samuel/2sam08.mp3

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part

We’ve been considering what we learned about God’s holiness and worship from the time that the ark of the covenant was brought to Jerusalem. 2 Samuel describes the event with one chapter, chapter six. However, 1 Chronicles takes two long chapters to recount the same thing (1 Chronicles 15 & 16). Mainly what we learn from 1 Chronicles is that David set up various ministries for the priests and Levites: not just the priests who offer sacrifices, but also professional worship musicians and song-writers, full time door-keepers, administrators and so on. There were probably more than 100 full time ministers taking care of the ark and of the tabernacle.

But after all, when it was all said and done, the place for all this amazing ministry was just a very old tent. The tent was put together in the days of Moses, more than four-hundred years before. Israel has a dry climate, but I have to imagine that sometime during four-hundred years, there had been mold. I’m sure there were rips and scuffs, and it is a good guess that there were a lot of patches by this point in time.

David talked to Nathan about it. He said, “Look, here I am in a palace – and God lives in a tent.” The implication, not spoken explicitly, is that it is time to build a permanent place of worship. Nathan the prophet said, “Go and do all that is on your heart, for the LORD is with you.”

But right afterwards, the Lord spoke to Nathan, and said, “No, I have a different plan.”

The first thing that struck me when I read this was the safety  and freedom there is in living in daily relationship with God. God doesn’t allow our misguided good intentions to go unchecked. Both Nathan and David had their hearts in the right place. They were sincere. Both of them, however, were sincerely wrong. Even so, because they were keeping in step with the Lord, they were able to hear it when the Lord corrected them. And the Lord did correct them. He didn’t say, “Well, shucks, they got it wrong again. Oh well.” No, when they didn’t get it right away, he spoke to them again. So we can trust God’s leadership. Picture someone walking with a friend who is blind and using a cane. They come to the corner of a street where there is traffic. The friend says quietly, “stop here.” The blind person doesn’t hear it, and keeps walking. Of course the guide is going to repeat himself, more loudly, and maybe even grab onto his blind friend, to prevent him from being hurt. Do we expect any less from God?

Now, one important thing here is that Nathan and David really did want to do whatever God wanted in this situation. They weren’t insisting on their own way. So when they made the wrong choice, they were able to hear the Lord when he spoke to them about it.

Unfortunately, sometimes we are like a blind person who says to our guide, “I don’t trust you, so I won’t go where you are taking me.” We ignore Him when he says “turn here,” or “stop there.” Then, sad to say, often we blame God for the bad things that result from our unwillingness to listen to him. But when Nathan and David were open, the Lord kept them moving in the right direction, and they were able to hear it.

This is tremendously comforting to me. Sometimes, we get so caught up in wanting to do the right thing that we become almost paralyzed with fear, thinking we will make the wrong choice. We think, “If I mess this up, it will be disaster. I could destroy God’s plan for my life. I could destroy my chance at happiness.” Maybe we’re looking at a job or a career move. Maybe we’re buying a house, or choosing a college or deciding what we want to be when we grow up. Maybe we’re trying to decide if we should marry someone or not. Brothers and sisters in Jesus, we can have tremendous freedom, hope and joy in these choices. If we truly want God to do what he wants in and through our lives, then ask the Lord for guidance. If you aren’t sure which way he is leading, step forward boldly and make your best choice. If you are wrong, the Lord will correct you. We don’t have to be experts at hearing from God. But we have to be open to letting him do whatever he wants. If we maintain that openness, we’ll be able to hear it if we start down a path where he doesn’t want us to go.

The fact that we really can trust the Lord to guide us is wonderfully comforting. It is part of God’s grace. But wait, there’s more!

David, good-hearted man that he was, was thinking something like this: “God chose me, the youngest son of an unremarkable family, to be king over his people. He was with me, protected me, sustained me, and finally established me as king. After that, he helped me defeat the surrounding enemies, like the Philistines. Isn’t it about time I start paying back what I owe the Lord? Isn’t it time for me to do something for him?”

And God said: “No, my grace doesn’t work like that. Not only do you not pay me back, but I will pile on with the grace and blessing. You want to build me a house? How about this: I will build you a ‘house,’ a dynasty that will last forever, and it will be used to bring immeasurable blessing to the entire human race.”

The word used for “house” is the same all the way through. It is the Hebrew word pronounced “va’yit.” This is a pretty flexible word. It is used for David’s palace, for describing a dwelling and also for a family, a line of descendants and so on. I think the Lord deliberately inspired the writer to use the same word, in order to emphasize what he was doing. He was piling on the grace.

What God promises is that David will have a descendant who will rule forever. David’s descendant will preside over the kingdom of God. This is a prophecy. Now, I have said before that prophecy is kind of like viewing a mountain range from a long way away. It looks like all the mountains are next to each other in a line across the horizon. But when you actually get into the mountains, you often find a great gap between peaks that looked like they were right next to each other when viewed from a distance. In the same way, when you read a text like this one it looks like all parts of the prophecy are supposed to take place at the same time; yet we find that parts of prophecy were fulfilled a few years after, and others hundreds of years later. Here, the prophecy is not a complete revelation of every detail. But it shows that there will be a descendant of David who reigns forever. This descendant will be chastised and punished – just as Jesus was punished for our sins. God will do something eternal through this person. There are a few things here that may refer to Solomon, and some that may refer to other kings descended from David, but clearly, the prophecy is talking mainly about Jesus.

God didn’t just say that David was his favorite choice for king. He didn’t just give him victory over a giant. He didn’t just take care of him in those years of hardship and trouble. He didn’t just protect David during battle and make him victorious – often against overwhelming odds. He didn’t just actually make David king. He didn’t just deliver David from his enemies and give him a secure place to live and rule. He also promised (and delivered generations later) that David’s name and family line would be honored forever. He promised that the messiah would be descended from David. He is showering grace after grace upon David. You can’t out-give God.

David, understandably, was overwhelmed. He went and “sat before the Lord.” And then he prayed. David says something very important in verse nineteen that seems to be lost in translation in many English versions of the bible:

“Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And now, Sovereign LORD, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving your servant a lasting dynasty! Do you deal with everyone this way, O Sovereign LORD? (2 Samuel 7:18-19, NLT)

Though I like the NLT in general, I think they could have done a better job with the final phrase. A few other versions do something similar. But in Hebrew it says, literally: “and this is torah for all mankind.”

The Hebrew word “torah” has various related meanings, as many words do. It can mean custom or rule. But the most common meaning is “instruction from God.” It is often translated “law.” During the time of Jesus, torah was one of two terms that described God’s revelation in the Bible. When a Jew said “the torah (law) and the prophets” he meant “the word of God as revealed in the bible.” So, I think the best translation is probably the HCSB, which says: “And this is a revelation for mankind, Lord GOD.”

I think David is speaking prophetically. He is saying that this promise of the descendant who will come–a messiah who will reign forever–is God’s very word for humankind. It is a law and a promise for all humanity. In fact, this promise to David was remembered, and repeated, throughout the centuries that followed, and it was always understood as a promise for a messiah who would bring God’s blessing to all human beings.

In verse 21 David says this:

21 Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it.

This shows us that the promise is according to God’s own heart. Some translations have “will” but “heart” is more literal. This promise reveals the generous, gracious, loving, wise heart of God.

So let’s make this personal right now. Do you believe that this extreme graciousness is according to the heart of God? Even more personal – do you believe that this great grace is the way that God deals with you?

Let me remind you about David. He lied in a moment of pressure. He blew his top when he was insulted. He ignored what God said about marriage. He was not perfect. God was not gracious to David because David deserved it. David did not deserve it. God was gracious because that is the heart of God.

So set aside any thought of “well, I don’t deserve God to treat me that way.” Of course you don’t. Neither do I. Neither did David. Do you understand and believe that if you let him, God will deal with you in the same way he dealt with David?

I would guess that a lot of us don’t experience God in this way, and sometimes we believe that we cannot. There are reasons for this.

At times, I think we don’t experience the gracious heart of God in day to day life, because we insist that God must be gracious in the particular way we want him to. We want a better income, and so if he doesn’t do that, even though he is offering us tremendous joy through relationships with dear friends, we don’t really receive that grace. We want healing, and so we spurn the grace he offers us to grow and have joy even in pain. We want our spouse to change, and so we don’t want to receive the grace the Lord offers us through that person – just as he is. When we have an attitude of entitlement: “God must provide grace in exactly the way I want it”—it is difficult to really receive.

Please understand me. I don’t think it is wrong to ask God for healing, or for an income that meets your needs, or for a good marriage. Those are all good gifts that God often wants to give. The problem comes in when the only way we will see God as gracious is if he gives us specifically what we are asking for. If he doesn’t give us the particular gifts we want, we become hurt, and we fail to see how gracious he is to us in other ways. In this issue, it doesn’t help when we compare ourselves with others. Especially in these days of social media, I think we usually believe that other people are doing better than we are. When we practice thanking God for the many good things he has given us, it becomes easier to see how gracious he really is.

At other times, we don’t recognize the gracious heart of God because we have allowed lies about God into our lives, especially through difficult events. A child dies. A spouse leaves. And we interpret those events in such a way that we begin to distrust the heart of God. The first problem creeps in when we insist on understanding everything. Why did the child have to die? I’m not saying we can’t ever honestly struggle with our pain, but I do believe that sometimes the answers to those questions are simply bigger than we can understand. When we demand that everything must make sense in a way that we can understand, it is easy to start to believe that God isn’t the good Person that the Bible tells us he is. Don’t get me wrong. If you follow this blog, you know I am an intellectual, and I’m all for using your mind. But the human mind is finite. Trying to understand an infinite God is not logical. At times, faith calls us to trust even beyond our understanding. When we can’t understand, we are faced with a choice – will we trust that God’s heart is good and gracious towards us in ways we can’t comprehend, or will we demand that the universe function according to our own personal sense of justice and goodness? This text calls us to trust that the heart of God is good and full of gracious intentions for us.

Finally, we can trust God’s goodness because of the promise he made to David. It was the promise that God himself would come to earth, and take it upon himself to heal the distance between us and God. This promise to David was not for David alone. It was a word of God, for all humankind.

Therefore, when we doubt the goodness of God, we turn to the cross. There, we can see how much he loves us. He suffered unimaginably so that our suffering could be limited to this short life on earth. If you doubt he loves you, remember this: He died for you.

Take some time to contemplate the goodness of God today.

Worship is not necessarily an expression of spontaneous feelings, though that can be part of it. One of the things that liturgical churches get right is that we can make a plan for how to worship God, and follow through on it, regardless of how we feel. Worship is based upon the objective truth that God is God. He is Holy, whether we really get that or not. He is good, whether we feel that at the moment, or not. All of the good things in our lives have come about because of him, whether we recognize that or not. And so, we can decide to worship God, even when we “don’t feel like it.”

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: http://www.lifetogetherchurches.com/media/sermons/2Samuel/2sam07.mp3

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 7

Last time we considered the holiness of God. When we realize how holy God is, and how sinful we are, and how much Jesus has done for us, the appropriate response is worship and thanksgiving.

I want to return to God’s holiness before we talk more about worship. Last time we mostly considered how God’s holiness is a problem for sinful humans (which means: all humans). We talked about how God’s holiness destroys sin. But it’s an even bigger problem than that. Bear with me as we look at it another way.

Pause, and try to think of a time when you were filled with some deep, positive emotion. Maybe it was profound gratitude as you held your kids or grandkids on your lap. Perhaps it was an inward delight as you listened to some really good music. It could have been a time when you were the one playing the music, and everything came together, and you felt lifted above yourself. Another such moment might come when you are looking at beautiful scenery, or, perhaps, some stunning artwork. Possibly, you felt a kind of inward rush of admiration and awe when you read a great book, or saw an amazing movie. Maybe it was a recognition of how blessed you are to be loved by the important people in your life. It could also be that time you were at a sporting event, and together with the whole crowd, you were there for an amazing win, even though your team was the underdog. I could go on, but I hope you know what I’m talking about. There are moments in life when we experience joy, or hope, or longing, or some kind of sweet, deep emotion. Think about something like one of these things. Picture it, especially how you felt. Stop reading and just enter that wonderful memory for a little while.

OK, now what I want to say is this: That terrific moment, that amazing feeling you had, originated from the holy presence of God. James writes this:

16 Do not be deceived, my dear friends! 17 Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God, the Creator of the heavenly lights, who does not change or cause darkness by turning. 18 By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures. (James 1:16-18, GNT)

The apostle Paul, preaching to people in the town of Lystra about God, put it like this:

17 But he has always given evidence of his existence by the good things he does: he gives you rain from heaven and crops at the right times; he gives you food and fills your hearts with happiness.” (Acts 14:17, GNT)

Everything good, beautiful, praiseworthy, excellent, joyful, gratitude-inducing comes from the presence of God. In fact, it may be that everything that brings us true joy is a by-product of God’s holiness. That doesn’t mean that all of these things are automatically righteous. For instance, I can imagine that someone having an extra-marital affair might feel real joy in being loved by their lover. That doesn’t mean God has approved and blessed the adulterous relationship. It just means the joy of feeling loved is an echo of the fact that we were made for the love of God. But that echo doesn’t mean it’s righteous – it means that God has created us for relationship, and even in illicit relationships what we are really seeking is God himself. The euphoria of affairs wear off eventually, and they tend to be wildly self-destructive to the closest people in your life. My main argument is that joy always points toward God, but it doesn’t necessarily mean everything that gives you joy is blessed and approved by God.

God scatters these moments to all people, whether or not they have trusted Jesus. But they are always temporary, sometimes only momentary. And that hints at the problem: Without the intervention of Jesus, eventually we would be separated from all such joy, happiness, contentment, goodness, and so on, forever. It isn’t just that we will be separated from an uncomprehensible God who is “other” in his holiness. It is that, because of our inborn sin, we would be separated from everything we crave, everything we love and find joy in, everything we so deeply need.

In our text today, the Lord offers David and his people just a hint of that. This terrible and holy Ark, the instrument of the death of Uzzah, is also the instrument of tremendous blessing to Obed-edom, on whose land the Ark now stood. His whole family was blessed by good fortune. David was encouraged by this. He saw that God is not just holy, but is also loving and good. In fact, the love and goodness are part of the holiness. So David returned to the Ark with many people to joyfully bring it to Jerusalem, to be a blessing available to all of the people of Israel.

Verse 13 shows us that David, or the priests, or both, had searched the scriptures to see what they had done wrong the first time. They now knew it should be carried with poles through the rings that were secured to the four corners of the Ark. And that is what they did.

After the first six steps, the priests carrying it stopped, while the people sacrificed a bull. There is significance to the number six. In six days, God created the earth, and on the seventh, he rested. He set aside the seventh day as holy. Seven was considered the number representing God’s perfect work. So David and the priests set aside the seventh step as holy, and offered an approved sacrifice for worship. As they proceeded, David and the others with him were filled with joy and thankfulness to God.

5 David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with all kinds of fir wood instruments, lyres, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals. (2Sam 6:5, HCSB)

14David was dancing with all his might before the LORD wearing a linen ephod.15He and the whole house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts and the sound of the ram’s horn. (2 Samuel 6:14-15).

David, filled with the Holy Spirit, understood more than probably anyone else in his generation that God is wonderful and  good. And so he entered whole-heartedly into worship. There is a sense of extravagance and freedom here. There are all sorts of instruments. People are shouting, and dancing and blowing horns. God’s grace and joy are filling the people.

Now, I want to point out a few things about this. First, it shows us that we don’t have to be narrow in how we worship God. Some people sang. Others danced. We have six different instruments named, and it sounds like there may have been others used that weren’t specified. Worship, as described here, included free and open expressions of joy through music and dancing. The instruments listed here are a lot more like guitars, bass and drum than they are like a pipe organ. It looks like there was a lot of spontaneity also.

David’s first wife, Michal, did not approve. She told David that he made a fool of himself. David’s response is one of the best verses in 2 Samuel:

21 David replied to Michal, “I was dancing before the LORD who chose me over your father and his whole family to appoint me ruler over the LORD’s people Israel. I will celebrate before the LORD, 22 and I will humble myself even more and humiliate myself. (2Sam 6:21-22, HCSB)

David understood that the only opinion about worship that matters is God’s opinion. He worshipped the way he did for the Lord, not for anyone else. He was willing to go even further, and look even more foolish for the Lord. David understood the awesome power of God’s holiness, and how gracious God is to come close to us anyway. Not only that, but David also understood that part of God’s holiness is his sheer goodness. In David’s mind, nothing at all could compare with the wonder, goodness, glory and holiness of God. He refused to hold back anything from the Lord.

I think we need to be encouraged by this to give honor and worship to God, even if it means looking silly to the people around us. If you are worried about how you look, you will not be able to fully worship God. When I’m not playing guitar, sometimes I raise my hands. I do this sometimes even when I’m not “feeling the vibe.” I do it because God is worthy to raise my hands to – he deserves that kind of honor, and, in fact, much more. I do it to remind myself to quit thinking what others around me might be thinking, and wonder instead what God thinks. Worship should not be governed by what we think is socially expected, but rather by how we can truly honor God.

The second point is this: Worship should not be governed by what we think is socially expected, but rather by how we can truly honor God. Yes, I know I just said that, but this time, turn it around the other way. I’ve been in worship services where the social expectation is that you raise your hands and dance and jump up and down. I think that is terrific if those things are the way you express honor to God. But sometimes, I want to honor God by kneeling quietly, or bowing my head and standing still, or just singing with all my heart. I should not allow social expectations to force me to raise my hands or dance, any more than I should allow them to stop me from doing those things.

Now, please don’t use that as an excuse to stand with your hands in your pocket, refusing to give God the honor he deserves. I’m just saying, don’t let what others think you should do, or what others are doing (or not doing) be your guide for how you worship. Freely and fully express yourself to God in keeping with the person he made you to be. Sometimes the Holy Spirit may nudge you to go out on a limb and be more expressive, even if what he wants you to do feels a bit uncomfortable or unnatural. You might, in fact, look foolish if you worship that way. David shows us the way. If your choice is between looking like a fool to other human beings, or looking like a fool to the Lord, it’s obvious that we should choose the first.

Sometimes the Spirit may nudge you and remind you not to put on a show for others, but to focus on Him alone. Listen to that too.

I do want to make sure we understand worship. You can worship through singing, but worship incorporates more than just singing. As we receive the Lord’s Supper in faith, we are worshipping. When we thank God for a meal, or for a good gift of any kind, we are worshipping. The heart of worship is thanking God for all of his good gifts, and, above all, thanking God for who he is, which is sometimes called “giving glory to God.” Those thanks, and that “giving glory” can be offered in a variety of ways: singing, praying, saying liturgy, reading scripture out loud, having a time of silence.

One way to worship is to enjoy God’s gifts while consciously acknowledging the fact that they come from him. For example, I used to worship while I was skiing in the Cascade Mountains. I recognized that the mountains, and my ability to enjoy them that moment while skiing, were gifts from God. My heart was lifted up to God while I skied.

The Bible also teaches us that worship is most unique and precious when it is done alongside other believers. Something special happens when believers worship together that is more meaningful and powerful than worshipping alone. Being with other believers helps to keep us humble–because we need each other to worship God in the way that delights him most. While there are examples of believers worshipping alone in the Bible, by far the most numerous examples of worship involve more than one person. People who suggest that the only worship that they “need” to do is being in nature by themselves misunderstand the nature of worship. As deeply introverted as I am, I cannot deny that God created us, and redeemed us, to worship him alongside others of his people.

Also, worship is not necessarily an expression of spontaneous feelings, though that can be part of it. One of the things that liturgical churches get right is that we can make a plan for how to worship God, and follow through on it, regardless of how we feel. Worship is based upon the objective truth that God is God. He is Holy, whether we really get that or not. He is good, whether we feel that at the moment, or not. All of the good things in our lives have come about because of him, whether we recognize that or not. And so, we can decide to worship God, even when we don’t “feel” like it.

Our God is holy. I think one reason David and his people worshipped so extravagantly, is because they had a very recent reminder of how holy God is, and how big the gap was between them; and yet they also had a reminder of how good and gracious he is to bridge that gap himself.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you about this today.

This text shows us just how vast is the distance between God and us. It shows how much we need Jesus and just how much God went through in order to bring us back to him.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: http://www.lifetogetherchurches.com/media/sermons/2Samuel/2sam06.mp3

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 2 Samuel Part 6

After David defeated the Philistines decisively and captured Jerusalem, he decided that he should bring the Ark of the Lord to Jerusalem, the new capital city of Israel. Remember, the Ark was a wooden box plated with gold, with carved angel’s wings over it. Inside the box were the stone tablets of the ten commandments, and possibly part the staff that Aaron, the High Priest, had used. At this point in time, the Ark would have been about four-hundred years old. If you remember, back even before Saul became the first king of Israel, the Israelites had taken the Ark into battle with them, trusting in the Ark to save them. The Lord was not pleased by this, because they were treating the Ark as if it were an idol, using it the way the pagan people around them used idols. So the Lord let them be defeated, since they were not actually trusting the Lord Himself. During the battle, the Philistines captured the Ark. After this the Lord showed his power to the Philistines, and wherever they put the Ark, trouble came upon them. Finally, they sent the Ark back to the Israelites. That story is told in 1 Samuel chapters 4-6, and we covered it in part 4 of the sermon series on 1 Samuel. The ark ended up at a place in Israel called Kiriath-jearim (also called Baalah of Judah).

Now, a few decades later, David and his elite warriors went to that place to bring the Ark back to Jerusalem. It was on the property of a man named Abinadab. His sons, Uzzah and Ahio walked beside the cart that held the Ark while David and his men celebrated along the way. And then this happened:

6 But when they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, the oxen stumbled, and Uzzah reached out his hand and steadied the Ark of God. 7 Then the LORD’s anger was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him dead because of this. So Uzzah died right there beside the Ark of God.
8 David was angry because the LORD’s anger had burst out against Uzzah. He named that place Perez-uzzah (which means “to burst out against Uzzah”), as it is still called today.
9 David was now afraid of the LORD, and he asked, “How can I ever bring the Ark of the LORD back into my care?” 10 So David decided not to move the Ark of the LORD into the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-edom of Gath. 11 The Ark of the LORD remained there in Obed-edom’s house for three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and his entire household. (2 Samuel 6:5-11, NLT)

Here we have the two major themes of this text. First is this: God is so Holy, so different and “other” that he is inapproachable. If it means death to touch the mere representation of God’s presence, who can endure his actual presence? This was shocking and horrifying to David. It even made him angry. I think we forget that the Holiness of God is shocking, terrifying and horrifying. It may even make us angry. Why does God behave so inexplicably?

One of the things that makes the Bible unique is that it contains things like David’s response. The story isn’t only that God killed Uzzah. Part of the story is also that this event made David angry and upset. That is a comfort to me, because it kind of makes me upset, also. It shows us that it isn’t wrong for this sort of thing to get our attention, and it isn’t wrong even for it to bother us.

I don’t want us to gloss over this too quickly. Many people read these types of things in the Bible and think they are the first ones ever to be shocked by this sort of thing, or to question God about it. But here is David, shocked and angry at God in the very moment that this happened. It is shocking. If we are not shocked by this, we don’t really get the message. God’s holiness is shocking, terrifying, unfathomable. It should leave us saying, “Well then how could we ever be close to God? How could anyone ever please him?”

So, don’t feel bad if, like David, these kinds of things in the Bible upset you. That’s normal. But don’t stop with simply being upset by it. Pursue it. Ask the Lord to help you understand such things. Let’s pursue it together right now.

One thing we ought to know right away is that David, his men, and the priests were not transporting the Ark the way God had commanded through Moses. Moses was very clear about how the ark was to be moved from place to place:

12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. 13 You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. 14 And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them. 15 The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. (Exodus 25:12-15, NLT)

However, David and his men put the ark in a cart. If the Ark had been carried by the poles—as God commanded—no one would have had to worry about it slipping off a cart and falling to the ground. So, in the first place, they were ignoring God’s command, which is never a wise thing to do. We won’t cover the latter part of the chapter until next time, but we see that this error was corrected when they moved the Ark again later. Verse 13 shows us that this second move was accomplished with human beings carrying the Ark by the poles, not riding in an ox-cart. In any case, it does seem that this incident would have been avoided if they had taken God’s commands seriously. When God commanded the Ark be moved this way, it was to protect people from accidentally touching it. We often don’t realize, or perhaps we just forget, that God’s commands are there to protect us.

One of the things that might bother us is that Uzzah himself was only trying to protect the Ark. He didn’t want it to fall on the ground. How can that be such a terrible thing? However, by doing this, there were two assumptions that Uzzah was making. First, he assumed that God himself was incapable of protecting the Ark. He thought it was up to him to protect God’s glory. This reveals a lack of faith. Remember the recent history: The enemies of Israel had captured the Ark, but God used it to show them his glory, and then also he made sure that the Ark was returned to Israel. In spite of that, Uzzah assumed that in this instance, God would not take care of his glory, or the Ark. In other words, he didn’t have real faith in God.

The second assumption Uzzah made is that it would be better for the Ark to touch him than to touch the ground. He thought he himself was more holy and sanctified than the very earth that was created by God. In other words he didn’t really believe in his own sinfulness, nor in God’s complete holiness.

Now, even with that explained, I still think this passage is troubling. I suspect the reason it bothers us so much is because it is about the Holiness of God, and that is not something we truly understand, or even think about much.

Sometimes I think because of the grace given in Jesus, we forget why that grace is so important and so unbelievable. We forget the huge gulf that separated human beings from God. Without Jesus, if we were simply to wrongly touch a representation of a holy God, we could be killed, like Uzzah. There was an irreconcilable gap between us and God. But since Jesus intervened, we no longer live in that situation, and we often forget how serious the problem would be without him.

One question that I hear quite often is, “Doesn’t God just accept us as we are?” Actually, no. If he could do that, there would have been no need for Jesus to sacrifice himself. Well then, can’t God do anything? Why couldn’t he have made it so that he could just accept us?

God can do anything, but the one thing he will not do is change his own nature. God is the most wonderful, glorious, amazing, loving being in all of existence. To change his nature would be to change the very nature of reality, and it would be an unbelievably terrible thing for all creation if God changed his nature. If God changed his nature, there would be no hope that human beings would ever be better than they have been. Hatred, jealousy, strife, murder, rape, torture, selfishness and so on would become eternal, with no hope of any change, ever. So, because of our sinful flesh, God instead chose to sacrifice himself in order to change our nature.

At times, we might be tempted to think, “Are we really so bad? I mean I can be a bit selfish sometimes, but am I really so awful that my very nature had to be changed?” But we often forget that the problem is deeper than our behavior. Individual sins are about what we do, and some people are pretty good at minimizing those—at least the ones that others can see. But Jesus made it clear that sin is not only about behavior, it is also about what is in our hearts. So, he said, for example, that the Law of Moses tells us not to murder. But if we have murder in our hearts, even if we don’t act on it, we are guilty.

21 “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Never murder. Whoever murders will answer for it in court.’ 22 But I can guarantee that whoever is angry with another believer will answer for it in court. Whoever calls another believer an insulting name will answer for it in the highest court. Whoever calls another believer a fool will answer for it in hellfire. (Matthew 5:21-22, GW)

You see, sin is a disease that is passed on genetically to every human being. In some people, that disease has obvious and radical effects. In others, we don’t see much of it on the outside. But every single person carries the disease. The thing that made Hitler such a monster is inside all of us. Most of us don’t let it get so out of control, but it’s there:

20 And then Jesus added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. 21 For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.” (Mark 7:20-23, NLT)

Because sin is inside of every human, we would be destroyed by the presence of God. God has to change us before he can welcome us into his presence. Through Jesus, it is the power of God that does the changing, not our own work and effort. Without that work, God’s holiness would destroy us, just like it did to Uzzah.

There is nothing I can think of that really illustrates the holiness of God adequately. But let me take a few tries at it. I’ve mentioned in other sermons about the chemical reaction that occurs when pure sodium is put into water. Sodium is a soft metal, a chemical element. It literally explodes when it comes into contact with water. When you are done reading this sermon, do an internet search for pure sodium and water, and watch a few videos; they are highly entertaining. I found one in which the reaction blows up a toilet. The point is because of the laws of physics and chemistry, sodium cannot exist in its pure form in water. If you bring the two substances together, the sodium explodes. The intrinsic properties of each substance prevents them from being together.

In the same way, sin cannot continue to exist in the presence of God’s holiness. You might say that it, too, explodes. This is because of the intrinsic nature of sin, and of God’s holiness. You might say that if a sinful person touched even a representation of the one true holy God (as Uzzah did) that person would die instantly. That’s what happened in our passage today.

Here’s another illustration. Though we don’t do it any longer, for a number of years we raised goats, pigs, and chickens on our little farm. Except for when we had to bottle feed baby animals, we did not generally allow these animals in the house with us. Think about it for a minute. Why don’t we allow pigs in the kitchen? Why don’t we allow goats to stand on our table and eat with us? Why do we care if they defecate on the table while we eat?

It starts with this – we are other than these animals. They are fundamentally different than us. I think most people would be willing to agree that pigs are not humans, and that goats do not behave according to human standards. Even though goats often stand and poop into their own food trough, and that is quite natural for them, there is something in us that rebels against having a farm animal defecate on the table where we eat. We simply do not tolerate it. It revolts us. This revulsion is deep and instinctive, showing us that the differences between us and our animals are also deep and persistent. We love our animals but we can still be revolted by their behavior. We love them, but we refuse to let their behavior into our home. We must place limits on how and when those animals can be with us.

We do allow some animals in our home – dogs and cats. But part of why we allow this is because we train them to behave according to our standards. Even so, most people still don’t allow dogs or cats to eat food off the table, and certainly they aren’t allowed to defecate on it.

When our dog Mario went out and rolled in manure – as dogs like to do naturally at times – we insisted upon cleaning him up before we let him back in the house. Imagine that instead, after rolling in manure, he decided to try and clean himself up, still having no more than a dog’s understanding of the world. Dogs lick themselves a little bit, but they can’t reach most of their backs, or any of their heads, and they don’t clean themselves even as much as cats do. Mario might lick his own tail a little bit, and then think his efforts should make him acceptable to us, but there’s no way he could actually clean himself well enough to meet our standards. We had to do the work of making him clean. And we were willing to do that work, to make him clean, because we loved him and wanted him to be with us. But he couldn’t be with us while he was covered in manure. Our human nature would not tolerate it. It was unacceptable.

Why can’t we just accept the animals as they are, and allow the goats to defecate in our food, and the dog to come into the house covered in manure? Sometimes it is hard to explain why we can’t allow such things, but we can’t. We are too different.  It is simply not in our nature to accept such things, while it is in the nature of the animals to do such things.

So, because we are born sinful in nature, it is natural for us to behave in ways that God simply cannot accept. Remember, though, it’s not just about what we do. Sin is inside us, even when we behave properly. God’s nature is even more different from ours than a pig’s nature is different from a human’s. Our sin is far worse to God than manure on a dog is to us. The idea of an animal pooping in our food is only a poor reflection of how revolting our sin is.

Our attempts to clean ourselves up are as pathetic as our dog Mario’s attempts. On our own, we don’t even really understand what it is to be cleansed. We need God to do the work of cleaning us up. And he is willing to do that work, because he loves us and wants us to be with him.

Once in a while, our dog would manage to sneak into the house covered in manure. On those occasions  my reaction was swift and shocking. I moved quickly and loudly to keep him from transferring manure to our carpet, or to us. He couldn’t have understood me if I had tried to explain it to him reasonably, so I had to get his attention in a way that might have seemed shocking and horrifying to him.

So it is with God. His response to Uzzah is shocking and horrifying. David became afraid, and even angry, when he saw it, and said, “how can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” Meaning, “how could I ever be close to a God who is like this?”

But what the Lord did for us in Jesus is to give us a new nature. This is one of the reasons I think it is so important to realize that when we are in Jesus, (that is, when we have received him through faith) we are no longer fundamentally sinful. God cannot fellowship with fundamentally sinful beings. He has cleaned us up, changed us in ways we could not change ourselves.

Even though that was still in the future during the time of David, the Lord found ways to communicate that was his plan. And he included even those who lived before the time of Jesus in that plan:

For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. (Romans 3:25-26)

So, if God has taken care of the problem, why is this text in 2 Samuel still here for us, who have trusted in Jesus to do these things for us? Why do we need this part of the Bible?

Imagine a friend comes over to your house, and while you are doing something else, he notices a bill open on your table. He decides to pay it for you. If that was a thirty-dollar phone bill, you’d be grateful, but not wildly so. It would be really sweet of him to pay that bill, and you’d thank him, and it would be a fairly restrained thankfulness. But imagine instead, he paid your mortgage. Not your monthly payment, but the whole mortgage—all $200,000 that you still owe on your house. That would be an entirely different kind of situation, with an entirely different level of thankfulness. Texts like this one in 1 Samuel Six show us just how much God has done for us, of how overwhelmingly thankful we ought to be.

I think we can view this text with three thoughts: First, we often need to be reminded of God’s precious holiness. God has not changed. He is still as holy now as he was then. When we understand his greatness, his “other-ness” it should lead us to be in awe of him. Scripture says in several places that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (e.g. Proverbs 9:10 & 15:33; Psalm 111:10). We need to relearn that God is awesome, powerful, and that without Jesus we are incapable of interacting with him on our own terms.

Second, we need to remember how truly horrible and unacceptable our sin is. If you imagine how  revolting it would be to eat food in which pigs have defecated, you are only beginning to think of how horrible our sins are to a holy God. Our sins keep us from fellowship with God. Imagine your dog covered in manure, standing on your  table, pooping in your food. Would you hug that dog before getting him off the table and cleaning him up? Our sin is worse than that for God’s holy nature.

Third, we need to remember how amazing God’s grace is. He came as a human so that he could take our sin upon himself. He sacrificed himself to make us into new people who can now fellowship with God. He didn’t just pay a phone bill, he paid off our entire debt. And then on top of that, ensured that we will never owe anything again, and on top of that, he has piled blessing after blessing. When we know the size of our debt, the huge gap that was between us and God, we can begin to be appropriately thankful.

Thanks to Jesus, we can have God’s presence in our lives. He has done the work to clean us. He has changed our nature so that we are not destroyed by God’s holiness if we get close to him.

21 Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21, GNT)

Let’s thank him and praise him right now! Next time we will consider what all this means for worship.

Isaiah promises that the glorious presence of the Lord is coming soon. The Lord will bring that glorious presence to your heart, if you will allow him. Isaiah shows us, in part, what this wonderful promise means, and how we can prepare for it.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: http://www.lifetogetherchurches.com/media/sermons/Advent/2024advent4.mp3

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Advent Week 4

Before we dive into the scripture for this time, I want you to read it devotionally. What I mean is, when you read it in a moment, don’t read on to my sermon. Don’t worry about the historical and cultural context just yet. Instead, simply read it as God’s words, spoken to you right now, for this moment. Ask God to speak to you, and then read. Picture God himself saying these words to you. Receive them as his message to you right now. Go ahead and do that, and then sit with that for a while before you read on.

​1 “Comfort, comfort My people,”
says your God.
2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and announce to her
that her time of forced labor is over,
her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the LORD’S hand
double for all her sins.”
3 A voice of one crying out:
Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness;
make a straight highway for our God in the desert.
4 Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled;
the uneven ground will become smooth
and the rough places, a plain.
5 And the glory of the LORD will appear,
and all humanity together will see it,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Isaiah 40:1-5

In a bible passage that is often read near Christmas time, the prophet Isaiah made a prophecy about something momentous that was going to happen. Some of his prophecy has already come true.

I have talked before about how biblical prophecy is multi-layered. It’s like looking at a mountain range on a clear day, from a distance. All of the mountains and ridges look like they are next to each other. However, as you get closer, it becomes obvious that some of the heights are closer to you, while others are actually many miles behind the first line of ridges and peaks. So a prophet speaks what the Lord has shown him. In biblical prophecy, particularly in the Old Testament, you often find prophecies that were fulfilled before Jesus right next to prophecies that Jesus himself fulfilled, and also next to prophecies about the end of the world. From a distance, they were all “sometime in the future.” But some have already come to pass, while others are still some way off. In addition, most biblical prophecy also contains some sort of message that was relevant even before the fulfillment of the prophetically predicted event.

With all that in mind, let’s consider Isaiah 40:1-5. Isaiah prophesied to the nation primarily during the reign of Hezekiah, King of Judah, from about 750 to 690 or so, BC. One of the many things he prophesied, was that the nation of Judah would be conquered by the Babylonians, and that many of the people would be taken away to Babylon as exiles. This was fulfilled in 587 BC, about 200 years after Isaiah’s time. Looking even further ahead, after his prophecies about the future exile, Isaiah goes on to prophesy about the return of the Jews from Babylon. This also happened, starting in the 520s BC. Isaiah 40 is basically the beginning of the section about that future return from future exile. And yet, at the same time, parts of this passage (and others in this section) are about the future coming of Jesus Christ to earth, which he did, as we know, roughly 2000 years ago, or, about 700 years after Isaiah prophesied. And finally, elements of these prophecies also refer to the time when Jesus Christ will return again, at the end of time.

Whew! If you wonder how one passage can contain all those elements, just don’t forget how those distant mountains look.

The essential message for those in the days of Isaiah, and later for those exiles who returned from Babylon, was this: God is bringing his glory back to his people. Even in the days of Isaiah, the nation of Israel had clearly become a second rate power. The magnificent days of David and Solomon were history. The one nation ruled by King David had long since been split into a Northern Kingdom (called “Israel”) and a southern Kingdom (called “Judah”). These two nations often fought each other. They were dominated by the powers around them – Syria, Assyria and Egypt (and later, Babylon). In fact, while Isaiah was still alive, the Northern Kingdom (Israel) was utterly destroyed by Assyria, and ceased to exist. The glory days were over. But Isaiah 40:5 says

“And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

Something that was lost is going to be restored. Now, “Glory” in the Bible, isn’t just about victory and success and triumph. In fact, the key element to Biblical “glory” is the presence of God. Maybe another way to say Isaiah 40:5 would be this:

“God’s presence will once more be manifest among you. He will be with you in such a way that it is obvious to all people. God has promised it.”

Along with this idea of the return of God’s presence is the theme of deliverance. When we look at the context of the passage, clearly God is returning, and when he returns, he will bring deliverance. Salvation would be another word for it.

It is significant that the voice calls in the desert, and the rest of the passage refers to making a way in the wilderness. When we consider the context of exile in Babylon, it may help to know that caravans and armies from Babylon to Israel always traveled north, around the desert, west toward the Mediterranean Sea, and then south into Israel. This is because directly to the east of Israel it was a barren, desert wilderness. There wasn’t enough water to allow someone to cross that desert directly, so everyone followed a big, looping arch to the northwest, then southwest, then south. There was water on that route, but of course it made the journey significantly longer in time and distance. And yet Isaiah said that God was coming straight across the desert. This picture would have been surprising to Isaiah’s first audience. But it shows us two things: First, that when the Lord comes, there will be no more delay. He is coming by the shortest, straightest route. Second, God is not constrained by things that are obstacles to human beings. The normal route isn’t necessary, because God isn’t bound by the caravans routes and traditional paths of men.

This passage from Isaiah is used in all four gospels. Each of the gospel writers tell us that “the voice crying in the wilderness” was a prophecy about John the Baptist, who was sent to prepare the way of the Lord. It is probably no coincidence that John did most of his preaching out in the desert, directly east of most of Israel. John’s ministry took things one step beyond a return from exile. Once again, as a fulfillment of this passage, John was declaring that the presence of God would be manifest among his people. Certainly that promise was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. God was present now in a way that went far beyond what the exiles could have imagined.

Each time, along with this promise of God’s manifest presence and his deliverance (in short, his glory), comes an admonition that we should “prepare the way.” I think this bears some looking at, and perhaps has some application for our own lives. One of the primary places where this passage can really be played out is in the human heart. God will come, someday, in the flesh once more and end this world. But he wants to come to you right now in your heart. And the best way for you to prepare for that “someday” is to let him in your heart today.

First, we need to be clear – we don’t “prepare” in order to get God to come be with us. He has already promised to come. His coming is not dependent on our preparation. He’s said, essentially, “I’m coming, whether you get ready or not – so get ready!” We can prepare by learning his word, by telling others about him, by discovering our gifts and using them for his Kingdom. But even more profound than that, this passage gives us a clue as to how to prepare. Isaiah says: “Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.”

What he is getting at is this: we need to give God access. The image here is to let God come straight at your heart. Take out the twists and curves we put in to deceive others, ourselves, and even God. Let him get straight to the heart of the matter. I think the way to do this is to be honest with ourselves and with God about who we really are. Sometimes we might not be completely ready to be honest with other people as well. I’m convinced, however that once we make the way straight for God, once we give him unlimited access, we will experience His grace and love to such a degree that eventually we’ll be able to “be straight” with certain other people as well. Giving God clear access to your heart and life is simply a matter of saying “yes” to him. Doing that is the best way I know to receive him now into your life, and also to be prepared for when he comes back to put an end to this world.

Look at what else this passage has to say. God is coming. Give him access. And, “every valley shall be raised up.” Do you have any “valleys” in your life? Are there “low spots” – places where you are lacking or empty? I guess that’s a stupid question – of course there are. God says this. “I’m coming, give me access. And those low and empty spots, those places of weakness and hurt will be filled in. My presence is coming, and it will fill in all of your failings and inadequacies.”

Now for the final thought, which is perhaps not quite as comfortable: “every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain…” Are there any places in your life that “need to be leveled?” Any sins that stick out? Bad habits, pride, ambitions that have nothing to do with God? Get ready, because God’s got a big bulldozer. This isn’t entirely a negative thought. No doctor that I have ever heard of can remove a tumor from his or her own body. Sometimes we badly need and even want someone to bulldoze all the junk out of our lives that we can’t quite seem to handle ourselves.

This idea of the valleys being filled and the hills being leveled is really a sort of promise. The passage tells us to “prepare” by making the way straight. But then, when it talks about the valleys and hills, it says “they shall be…” in other words, it is something God will do for us.

God has promised to bring his manifest presence to his people – that includes us! Let’s give him access, and watch in wonder as he makes us more and more shaped to receive and reflect His glory.