We have been burning fuel very rapidly. Coal, oil, natural gas .. we are consuming it. It is irreplaceable. Some scientists say that unless we change our ways, we are going to burden our children and our grandchildren with a very serious energy problem. The next generation will inherit a burden from this generation, and will be able to do nothing but struggle with that burden.
We have been paying out Social Security benefits very rapidly, and that’s going to get worse. The baby boomers are approaching retirement age, and when they get there, it’s going to be expensive to give them all what they expect. The experts say that it’s going to cost a lot of tax dollars to make Social Security truly secure. Those tax dollars will come from our children and our grandchildren, who will eventually have to worry about their retirements, and pass that burden on to our great-grandchildren and our great-great-grandchildren, and so on down the line. One generation burdens another with tasks too large even to imagine. But they have to be done. They have to be faced. It’s not, “Would you like to do this?”. It’s, “You will do this.” Huge, immense, inescapable burdens.
Solomon got word from his father David that the Temple which David had planned was not going to be built, but the task would be given to Solomon. Imagine Solomon’s fear and dread as he is told that not only will he have the entire responsibility of seeing that this immense house of worship is built in Jerusalem, but also that there is a plan which he must follow. He must not deviate from that plan; he must follow it, down to the last detail. The rooms have been drawn, the furnishings have been selected, the color scheme has been chosen, the financing has been organized. Everything has been planned. There’s just one tiny little thing, Solomon. Not a lick of work has been done. You have to build the Temple. It’s entirely up to you!
But I want you to notice that God’s plan is always a perfect plan. It has no holes in it, no flaws. God’s plan is a perfect plan. And a perfect plan includes the directions that must be followed. Unlike some of those things you got your kids for Christmas, and here it is more than a month later, and you still have not figured out the Japanese instructions, unlike that, God gives a perfect plan when He gives an immense task.
And here is the perfect plan: “David said to his son Solomon, ‘Be strong and of good courage, and act.’” Three things in God’s perfect plan, two of them gifts, one of them our response. Strength, courage, and action. When God gives us a vast task, He makes available the gifts of strength and courage. And then He asks action. He expects us to respond. “Be strong and of good courage, and act.”
Our God may not have told you and me to build a Temple in Jerusalem. But He has told us to build a community of faith in Takoma. Our God may not have commanded us to create a new and magnificent house of worship for the nation, but He has commissioned us to reach this community in this nation’s capital city. And that is an immense task. It is a task which those who have gone before us have not completed. For all that has been accomplished, vast amounts remain unfinished. For all the energy that has gone into witness and worship, teaching and building, service and strategies, there is more to do today than there was a year ago, more than there was ten years ago, more than eighty years ago when this church began. It is an immense task to redeem a lost and broken community! It is overwhelming! You will find more needs, more lostness, and more spiritual pain just in Takoma alone than we can possibly handle. The task of being church is tremendous. It is something we are going to pass on to a new generation, incomplete, and we are going to tell them, “You must do this. We have not done it, so you must do it.”
A huge task. But God’s plan is a perfect plan. It has no holes in it, no flaws. It is a perfect plan. And a perfect plan includes the directions that must be followed. God gives a perfect plan when He gives an immense task. The plan is strength, courage, and action. Two gifts of His Holy Spirit, and then our response. Strength, courage, and action.
I
First, the Holy Spirit will give strength. Strength. Strength is not numerical size, it’s not lots of people and lots of dollars and lots of programs. Strength is flexibility. Strength is sensitivity and awareness, strength is knowing who we are so that in the middle of any stormy wind that blows, we will not fall, but will support.
They are doing a renovation job on the Washington Monument. The first task has been to put up a huge scaffolding system. The scaffolding has to be strong enough to support workmen and their equipment hundreds of feet above the ground. Its strength lies in its flexibility. It has to stay in place, but it also has to yield to the winds as they come and go. It has to be anchored somewhere, but it does not have to be rigid. Strength is flexibility, not rigidity.
One of you who wrote me a note just this week and said that he was grateful that in this church he had been led away from a narrow, rigid, legalistic, fearful way of understanding the Christian faith. He thanked us for showing him that there is joy and freedom in our faith. That’s what we want. Strength, a flexible, human, compassion. If we are going to reach people for Christ, we have to know who we are, but we do not have to be rigid, unyielding, unbending. We can be flexible, we can be compassionate. And that the Holy Spirit can give us.
II
We not only need strength, we also need courage. “David said to his son Solomon, ‘Be strong and of good courage .. ‘“ We need in our spiritual leadership men and women who are dedicated to doing the right thing, no matter what is easy or popular. We need in our spiritual lives the Spirit’s gift courage, so that we will not ask, “What have we always done?” or “What do the people want?”, but we will ask, “What is God’s will?” Courage to rise above the popular thing and to do God’s thing.
Up on Capitol Hill, we are seeing a thoroughly partisan drama. We had hoped that the members of the United States Senate would carefully and thoroughly consider the evidence on this impeachment matter and would then vote their consciences. But it is becoming abundantly clear that nearly all of them are voting along party lines. Scarcely a Democrat has voted against the President’s interests, scarcely a Republican has voted for them. Sheer partisanship has taken over. Where is courage? Where is principle? Where is the statesmanship that rises above party politics and does the right thing, not the party line thing? Where is courage?
I tell you, the days cry out for courage in the work of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The days cry out for moral courage, when the headlines scream about not only presidents, but also pastors and church leaders on trial for sexual misconduct. The days cry out for honest courage, when Christian leaders, churchmen, have engaged in outright. Spiritual courage, when churches have caved in to political correctness. The Bible says, “If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?” The church cannot be what it needs to be without the gift of courage. Strength and courage. Says the hymn-writer, “Let courage rise with danger, and strength to strength oppose.”
III
And finally, action. We must receive strength and courage from the Holy Spirit, but then we must act. We cannot be armchair Christians; we must act. Let us find no excuses, let us fall back on no loopholes. We must act.
This afternoon, I will sit down and watch the Super Bowl. I will call in some plays. I will yell at the screen about how the Falcons ought to fly, how the Broncos ought to bounce. Great plays, no doubt. But do not ask me to suit up and get in the game. Hey, a fellow could get hurt out there!
Some of us, I am sorry to say, talk a big game with our churchmanship, but never play in it. We are very ready to announce what the church ought to be doing, but, well, you understand, I have this problem, I don’t agree with that, it’s not for me. Oh, no, no, no, not for me, you understand.
But David said to Solomon, with this gigantic task in front of him, “Be strong and of good courage, and act.” Act. Just do it.
Men and women of Takoma Park Baptist Church, deacons and deacons-to-be, I am convinced that the fundamental issue for us is whether we will act. We have no end of plans. We have dreams and hopes, concepts galore. We have file cabinets filled to overflowing with good ideas. The shelves of the office groan with copies of wonderful plans. But still we sit and say, “Some day.” Still we stand back and suggest, “Too expensive, too much work, too busy.” We do not act.
My deepest conviction is that this is a year in which we have an unprecedented opportunity to act for Christ and for His Kingdom. We have more resources than ever before, we have a talented staff, we have a clear vision, we have important community connections, we have you, gifted people. And we have access to the Spirit of God. There is no reason why we cannot act to do all that God has sent us to do, large though the task may be. There is no reason why we cannot act.
I call on you, our spiritual leaders, our deacons, if you see that new ministries are needed, act to create them. If you agree that a new worship service would reach new people, act to begin that opportunity. If you perceive that small group discipleship courses help us to become effective, then act to offer more of them. If you know that expanding this property is not only good stewardship, but is also a means of reaching more people, then support that work. Act, seize the moment, live in the presence of the Spirit of God, and just do it.
Strength, courage, and action, God’s perfect plan. Without these you can do nothing. Apart from His Spirit you can do nothing. But in Him and with Him, you can do all things.
And there is a promise, at the end of our text. The promise is this: “The officers and all the people will be wholly at your command.” At your command. We will respect deacons who draw on God’s strength and courage, and then act. We will respect and follow deacons who, though they know they have inherited an impossible task, will follow God’s perfect plan. And together we will in this place build a Kingdom expression that will be the marvel of this city; we will be wholly at your command, if you will employ God’s perfect plan: strength, courage, and action.
