House
“Model House”
I. Introduction
We are a part of God’s House. In fact, we are God’s house. He is establishing His home in us! Person by person He places us together and constructs for Himself a dwelling place. However, He is not obligated to live in something He hasn’t built! So we must be built according to His plan and design. So we have been talking about House Rules. Authority is the rule of the house. He exerts His authority through His Word, Our conscience, and through delegated authority. We have talked about that in order to live productively in this House we must learn House Manners. We must live with regard and respect. We must learn to resolve relationships and restore those who fail to live by the manners.
Today, I want us to look at the idea of a model home. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like going to look at new homes. However, just walking into an empty space doesn’t really do it for me. I like walking through model homes because they paint a picture of the potential that is in the House.
I guess builders have figured out that supplying a furnished home also helps us in the buying process too. The builder’s desire is to turn your visitation into a habitation.
All across the country this morning God will visit churches. Those bodies will experience moments of divine interruptions, perhaps a sign, wonder, or miracle will break the monotony of a normal church service. That visitation will be talked about for years to come, but never repeated. It will be wished for, watched for, longed for and memorialized, but a one time or every so often occurrence!
However, I believe that we should build for something different! I am not satisfied with a visitation every other week or every other month or every other year. Just survive and wait patiently for another move some day. Sorry, I am not willing to set around and talk about the good old days of a visitation while trying to get the atmosphere just right in hopes that it will spark another such move! No, I think that a better scenario and a better model is that we do what is necessary to move from a structure that hopes for a visitation into a model house that brings about a habitation! I have heard people say you can’t create a move of God. I understand and agree that we can’t manipulate or flesh God into moving. But, I beg to disagree in that we can create a move of God by building a model house. A house that we construct and arrange according to His plan because He is obligated to live in what He builds! And I want God to dwell here! I want the lack of a miracle to be the out of the ordinary. I want the lack of a genuine encounter with Him to be so weird that we sit and shake our heads and wonder what went wrong. I want it to be normal (not in an “it is no longer special” way) to see Him and to sense Him! I want word to get out that God has taken up residence in our midst.
So today I want us to look at a model home that I think teaches some things about how to turn a visitation into a habitation.
TEXT: 2 Kings 4:8-17
8 One day Elisha went to Shunem. And a well-to-do woman was there, who urged him to stay for a meal. So whenever he came by, he stopped there to eat. 9 She said to her husband, "I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God. 10 Let’s make a small room on the roof and put in it a bed and a table, a chair and a lamp for him. Then he can stay there whenever he comes to us."
11 One day when Elisha came, he went up to his room and lay down there. 12 He said to his servant Gehazi, "Call the Shunammite." So he called her, and she stood before him. 13 Elisha said to him, "Tell her, ’You have gone to all this trouble for us. Now what can be done for you? Can we speak on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army?’ "She replied, "I have a home among my own people."
14 "What can be done for her?" Elisha asked. Gehazi said, "Well, she has no son and her husband is old."
15 Then Elisha said, "Call her." So he called her, and she stood in the doorway. 16 "About this time next year," Elisha said, "you will hold a son in your arms." "No, my lord," she objected. "Don’t mislead your servant, O man of God!"
17 But the woman became pregnant, and the next year about that same time she gave birth to a son, just as Elisha had told her.
II. Building a Model House
1. Recognize that there is no room in your present structure.
This lady recognized that in the present structure and layout of their house that there was no room for a habitation. They could handle visitations, but they were unable to cause a habitation! The only solution was to expand their present structure!
In order for us to establish a model home some of you are going to have to think outside the existing structure. You are going to have to get past church as you have always known it!
The truth is that some of us have no room for habitation – you can’t move, operate, think outside the confines of a particular style of song, number of songs or set format. No room outside 3 songs, offering, a special, 3 songs, a sermon and go home.
Some of you have no room in your present level of thinking, your present level of worship, no room in present level of prayer, work, or giving. No room for expansion. To get more you have to do more.
In this very same chapter Elisha tells a woman to bring him something to eat. She replies she has no oil. Elisha responds that she should borrow some vessels because she won’t have enough room to handle outpouring. That is a picture of many of us. We have no room in our present structure to handle the outpouring. We are asking, praying, begging for a move, but we have no more room. We must make room. Take it to the next level. Take it up to the next notch. Because the oil will quit flowing when capacity of expansion has been filled. We get the level of revival/habitation we have room for. Too many of us are already at capacity. We are as full as we will ever be until we make room outside our present structure and present level.
2. Expansion requires firm foundation.
This family was able to build up because they had a firm foundation. Without a firm and secure foundation the expansion would have not only been impossible, but dangerous! Many of us don’t have a habitation because we don’t have the foundation capable of handling the weight of habitation. If God would really show up we would be unable to handle it!
The Hebrew word for glory is “Chabod” and it translates as “weightiness.” That is why some of us only get a visitation and no habitation. We have no foundation. We are described when Jesus said you can’t pour new wine into old wineskins. The pressure, the weight, the combustion will cause the old wineskins to explode. Some of us get a visitation and then explode and then go back to the way we were – there was no foundation. No discipline, no study habits, no fasting, no prayer – why Passion4Word is so crucial to us in the future.
I don’t believe the parable that describes the man who built house on sand is just dealing with withstanding temptation. Many of our houses fall down when a move of God comes along because we haven’t established our foundation. We are blown about by every wind of doctrine.
Check your foundation! God won’t waste a habitation if He knows we can’t handle it!
3. A model home is a furnished home.
They didn’t just make a room and then the prophet move in. They furnish it first.
By the way, if you aren’t aware of this God has always been in the furniture business! Remember we are trying to build it His way so that He will move in. In the Old Testament not only did He give blueprints for the temple He gave very specific instructions about the furniture that would have to be placed in the temple!
Here is the deal it costs to furnish a home. Unless you are willing pay the price you had better be willing to settle for a visitation! I am not willing to settle for a visitation so that means I have to furnish the house with the right pieces of furniture so He will move in!
This couple realized that that they had to furnish the home so the prophet could move in.
What they placed in the room symbolically represents what we must have in place to create an environment conducive for habitation.
a. Bed –
Ps. 37:7 - Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Matthew 11:28-30 (Message)
Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly."
Represents a place of rest. We will rest on our laurels, our abilities, and our gift. But there will be no habitation until we learn to rest in Him. Until we become dissatisfied with busyness and activity, and learn to abide in Him. To rest on His approval rather than man’s. Where do you find your rest? He isn’t going to move in until we rest in Him!
b. Table –
The table represents a place of communion. A place to be fed. A place of fellowship. We want habitation, but don’t want take time to be fed, to commune, or to fellowship with Jesus. We are like Zacchaeus who wanted to see Jesus. We want to see Him, see His power work through us, and see His works. All the while, Jesus wanted to sup or commune with Zacchaeus. He does desire to use us, but first desires to commune with us. There can be no habitation if there is not time for communion and fellowship.
Can’t eat and run. Come and dine. Spend some time. Not just in this building, but in our daily life.
c. Chair –
This represents a place of total support. That is role of chair it is a place of support. A chair is good to me only if I have a total dependence on its ability to hold me up. In order for there to be habitation we must come to the place where we rely on Him to hold us up. Some of you are facing major decisions such as job choices. Major moves. Major choices. Some of you are facing major issues in relationships. It is time to quit quoting Proverbs 3:5 and actually begin to apply it and live it. Lean not unto thine own understanding.
We will have a habitation when we come to the place where we don’t expect our reputation, our contacts, our education, our intelligence, our abilities, our friends, our money, our music, our programs, our advertising, our preacher, or anything other than our God to sustain us and uphold us. A House that is built on total reliance on Him will be filled with His presence!
Micah 3:11 – Her leaders judge for a bribe,
her priests teach for a price,
and her prophets tell fortunes for money.
Yet they lean upon the LORD and say,
"Is not the LORD among us?
No disaster will come upon us."
Too many of us are like this. We do our own thing and then ask God to support it by showing up. We can do anything we want; live anyway we want and then expect Him to come through! No, we must rely on Him with our entire lives!
d. Lamp –
The lamp represents Word. Illumination. Can’t have permanent habitation without the light of the Word. I know you thought I would do all the digging for you. But without knowing His Word you can’t know Him. If you don’t read it yourself then you have to wait until someone comes along and brings it to you. But how long does an ember last once the fire is gone? (When was last time you read His word for yourself? – Concerned trying to build house with no light – the Word you hear on Sunday lights your day for Sunday – but rest of week is your obligation! Fresh light daily.)
Jeremiah realized that it is God’s Word that brought a permanent fire into his bones. David realized that it was God’s Word that produces protection from sin, because “I have hid thy Word in my heart that I might not sin against thee.” And that God’s Word brought direction, “Thy Word is lamp unto my feet.”
The only house that God will abide in is a house built from folks that have furnished their lives with His Word!
The reason so many of us never experience a habitation is because we haven’t furnished the room so that there can be a move in.
4. His House must come first!
When you take care of His house He takes care of yours! We tend to pay so much attention to our own house and fail to give any consideration to His. He is supposed to come first! Notice it was when the lady took care of the prophet’s accommodations that her house was filled! Is His house a priority in your life? Or is it just something you do or work on when nothing better comes along! Does His house even cross your mind except on Sundays? David learned this lesson! God gave Him instructions that he couldn’t build his own house until he first established an abode for God!
5. A model house is a full house!
Finally I want to point out the result of a furnished or model home! Life, offspring, legacy, lineage, dry place comes back to life, barrenness broken!
We can build a house that makes you comfortable and fulfills your need to have your Christians duty met! We can build a house that gets your praise fix met. But those kind of houses are empty houses!
If we would expand, secure our foundation, furnish the house, and put His house first then our house will be full. The dead areas of our lives will come alive again! Where we were barren, life will overtake us!
What areas of your life are dead? Build a model home and life will follow!
III. Close
So here is the question . . . Are you willing to pay the price to expand? Are you willing to pay the price to check the foundation, furnish the house? Are you willing to put His house first? If not, then we will have a visitation, but not a habitation!
