Who’s in control?
David has come a long way from being a shepherd boy in Bethlehem and the youngest of 8 sons to being the king of Israel, who reunited the northern and southern Kingdoms, established the capital at Jerusalem, and moved the ark of the covenant into the city. He most likely had a great palace, and was one of, if not the greatest king in the history of Israel. And the scripture tells us that the Lord gave David rest from all his enemies. So he was at ease. One day he looked out of his palace onto the tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant, and he thought, “I need to build a temple for the Lord.” he got really excited about his plan, and probably thought he would be doing a great thing. Of course, he needs the “preacher’s” permission. So he called in the prophet Nathan and asked him what he thought of the temple idea. And Nathan immediately said, “I think it’s great”. He may have had the attitude, “anything you say David”… I mean who would argue with the king? We don’t know. At any rate, we soon learn that god has other plans. Have you ever had an idea and gotten real excited about something, and passed that excitement along, only to find out later that though it sounds great to you, it’s not quite what God has in mind? That’s what happened here. That night, when Nathan went to sleep, God spoke to Nathan, “Today you acted more like a politician than a prophet. You went along with the kings plan, but you did not take the time to ask me what I thought.” How often in our lives, and maybe even in our ministries, do we think we have it all worked out, or develop a sure fire plan for our lives or for our day or have a great solution to a problem at hand, and then realize we have not even consulted God about it, or asked and listened for what God wanted us to do? Someone once said that many Christians are functional atheists: that is, in spite of believing and worshipping God, they live their every day lives as if God doesn’t exist. There may be some truth to that in some ways. David learned a lesson about that. See once he got his attention, and in essence, let Nathan know that he has handled the situation as if God didn’t exist, God gave Nathan a different answer to give to David than what David or Nathan had in mind. So the next morning Nathan told David what God really thought about his idea. I imagine David was a tad surprised by the reply. After all, it was worthy cause, a great idea.
God said, “I’ve never lived in a house. I can’t be contained by any house you build. I am everywhere, and can be anywhere I want when I want to.” See, the ark was in a tent, the symbol of nomadic life. Nomads are always on the move, no one controls them, they go where they want when they want. So the question is: why did David want to build a temple? Was it out of love and dedication to God or was it that David felt that building a temple in Jerusalem and putting the ark of the covenant in the temple would mean, or make the statement that God is always in Jerusalem?
See, that is our great temptation. We want to control God. We try to squeeze god into our way of thinking, into our mold, if you will. It is as if some Christians put God in a little box…the box of what they know, how they would react, what they would expect, how they want things to go, or how they would expect something to be handled. Still others treat God as something they can pull out when they need Him and neatly tuck back away when they don’t. Sometimes we claim to have all the truth, that we can always predict and explain what God does and why. For centuries Christians have fought among themselves claiming that they have the whole truth. These people believe that others who think differently are wrong. John Wesley said that no one has all the truth. That is a big part of our heritage. (open heart, minds, doors). See, God is bigger than us all and than anything we can imagine. How do finite creatures wrap our minds around the infinite? We can’t1 With God there must always be some mystery, or we have fallen into the trap of trying to control God. Sometimes we, like David, are not even conscious of the fact that we are trying to control God. But you see, God is not like that. God cannot be dictated to by humanity or controlled by humanity. We need to remember that we are created in God’s imagine when we are tempted to try to make God into our image.
David wanted to build God a house, but God says, “I have other plans“. God reminds David that God is in control. God said to David, “I have taken you from being a shepherd boy to being king. You will not build me a house, but rather, I will build your house.” (dynasty). And God asserts this control, not to be controlling, but to be loving. He goes on to promise David that not only will he build his “house” or dynasty, but that his kingdom will be established forever. And he goes beyond that to say, “I will never take my steadfast love from you.” What a promise! God is declaring to David his unconditional love. God is not saying “I love you if”, but rather, “I will love you. Period.” See, no matter what we do, God will not stop loving us, God will never abandon us. That’s the thing we need to remember. That’s what God was trying to get across to David. We may think one way, but God thinks another. See, we may have great plans, for ourselves, for our church, for our family. But God has higher plans…better plans for us and our loved ones than we can even imagine (David could not see into the future, that his house would stand forever because the messiah would come from his house, but God could). We God needs from us is faith. He wants us to trust his plan, to trust him, not try to control God, but to submit our lives to His leadership, his Lordship, and let him have free reign in our lives. Let’s not try to put God in a box, defining by our standards what God can and cannot do. We need to realize that we don’t have it all figured out, but God does, and know that we can trust ourselves and our loved ones into his care. Even if things do not turn out quite the way we expect: remember God sees what we cannot see.
Throughout scripture (NT lesson). God compares people to sheep. And that is not a very flattering comparison in most respects, though it says a mouthful, on the other hand. Sheep are the most helpless creatures alive. They’re vulnerable to parasites and disease. They follow each other around almost blindly (sound familiar?), and are easily panicked by predators. They overeat, lie down, and can’t get up. They won’t come in out of the rain. Sheep might be extinct except for one thing, and that’s the positive part of being compared to sheep: they follow their shepherd. And that’s what we are called to do. There was a classified ad that read: Lost: one dog. Brown hair with mange. Leg broken. Blind in right eye. Left ear bitten off. Answers to the name Lucky.” Lucky?? Of course! That was a lucky dog because even with all those things wrong with him, somebody still wanted him and was doing everything they could to get him back. That’s how it is with us. Aren’t you and I lucky? No matter what we have done, or where we have been, no matter what has happened to us, no matter how we have gotten into trouble trying to usurp God’s authority, or how much we forget and try to control God, God loves us and does not give up on us, just as he promised David, “I will always love you.” And as the loving Father he is always working things out for our good, he always has the big picture in mind, and he invites us to trust him, to follow him, and to give him control of our lives. How will you and I respond to that invitation?
