He walked across the dusty stony ground, kicked a rock and bent and drew in the dirt. He looked around at the desolate land scape and down at the city below and wondered if his dream would ever be a reality. Would it really happen, someday would the people of God worship on this ground? Would songs of praise fill the air? Would the word of God be read aloud? Would prayers be uttered and heard?
He had a dream, a dream of a building called a house of God, a dream of a building where his people could worship. A dream of a permanent home for their services. And now as he stood on the empty lot he wondered just how long it would be until the doodling he made in the dirt would actually become a building.
It was later, the dream had taken on a substance and as he stood and watched the men and women exercise their talents and gifts his dream was becoming a reality in front of his very eyes. There were those who had doubted and those who had scoffed but now they could see what before only he could see and the doubters had been silenced. So much had been done, but so much more still had to be finished. He hadn’t realized that the transition from dream to reality would take so much time, sacrifice and so much talent. There were times that he knew that whatever it cost it was worth it, while other times he wondered if it would be worth what it cost.
His days were consumed with building and during the night he tossed and turned with a thousand questions racing through his head. His life revolved around the construction and he began to bore his friends with his obsessive talking of the progress. He stepped through the rubble of construction and listened to the saws and hammers and his minded drifted back to how much simpler this had been as simply a dream.
It was later, much later it seemed like a thousand years later but it couldn’t have been that long and he stood and looked at what had once been a dream. He could hardly take it all in, the size, the splendour of it. Just like he had dreamed, it had come true and was now a reality, he wished his father could be with him to see this accomplishment.
No more would his people worship without a permanent spiritual home, no more would they feel like nomads. God had given him a vision for what could be done and had given him the strength to do it and it was finished. As a matter of fact we are told in 2 Chronicles 7:11 So Solomon finished building the Temple of the Lord, as well as the royal palace. He completed everything he had planned to do.
The story of the building of Solomon’s temple is told in the book of 2 Chronicles which is the 14th book of the bible. Jewish tradition holds that the book was written by the Prophet Ezra and although there is no evidence to prove this there is no evidence to disprove it either. The book was written around 450 BC and the two books of 1 & 2 Chronicles were originally one book, the book of Chronicles. And although much of the information in these books was already provided in 2 Samuel and 2 Kings it is here for a different purpose. Chronicles was written after the Kingdom had been torn apart and the Jews were living in captivity and so the Author was assuring them that God was still in control and still had a plan for the people of Israel. When you begin to read 2 Chronicles it seems a little dry, the history of a people that you feel you have no connection with that happened a long time ago. However one author wrote this “2 Chronicles is to history what the space shuttle is to a hang glider. The “extras” you’ll find featured in its pages offer a higher vantage point”
This morning we are going to look at some thoughts on temple building. Now we are Twenty Five Hundred years apart and several hundred million dollars different in cost. After all Solomon’s temple made Bob Schuler’s crystal cathedral look like a shack. And yet even with all the differences between the temple of Solomon and the building we are proposing for Bedford Community church there must be some common ground. A common thread or two which weaves it’s way through the twin tapestry of God’s house.
1 Chronicles 22:7 “I wanted to build a Temple to honour the name of the Lord my God,” David told him.
1) They both began with a dream David started off with a dream, he could see the temple in his minds eye. He wanted to build a building to be called God’s house. It probably started off innocently enough, a word, or a thought, maybe it wasn’t even David’s original idea or thought, maybe somebody said something in conversation that stuck in David’s mind.
And there the thought began to germinate and grow until it became a passion with David to build a house fitting to be called God’s house. And so David began to plan and think and doodle . Maybe he used to sit at Mcmalachi’s and doodle on the paper place mats well he drank coffee. Maybe he called in an architect and draftsman and began looking at drawings. We don’t know everything that David did but we do know that this became an all consuming vision of what could be done. Because we are told that he called in the head prophet in 2 Samuel 7:2 David summoned Nathan the prophet. “Look!” David said. “Here I am living in this beautiful cedar palace, but the Ark of God is out in a tent!”
And that thought gripped him that he was living in a better home then he worshipped in. Isn’t that a reality here today, most if not all of us live a better home then we worship God in. And he began to dream and imagine and envision. He began to build temples in the air because he had learnt the secret that if you don’t build castles in the sky you won’t build anything on the ground. And he found a site that looked promising and he paced out the plot of dirt and dreamt and envisioned what would go where.
Our building started with a dream, almost from day one we’ve talked and dreamed about what it would be like to have a place of our own. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping track but in the last 9 years I’ve mentioned having our own building approximately 5, 753, 248 times. But who’s counting? Sometimes it’s been on a front burner and sometimes it’s been on a backburner but the dream has always been there.
1 Chronicles 22:8 “But the Lord said to me, ‘You have killed many men in the great battles you have fought. And since you have shed so much blood before me, you will not be the one to build a Temple to honor my name.”
2) They Both Involved a Wait.
What a blow that must have been to David, I’m sure that he felt like saying, "hey God, correct me if I’m wrong but you were the one who wanted me to shed the blood and fight the wars, am I right?"
All the work, all the dreams right down the drain. I mean if God hadn’t wanted David to build then where did the vision come from in the first place?
There have been a few times over the past nine years that a particular piece of property has become available and we thought that perhaps the time was right, but it never seemed to happen. Now I don’t think that our group has been a particularly violent people, not the type of people that God would tell us "And since you have shed so much blood before me, you will not be the one to build a Temple to honor my name.” I mean does that make any of you think of BCC? And yet we too were put on hold and told to wait on the Lord. And just as we find it difficult to comprehend God’s motives for David, sometimes we question why Bedford Community Church is still in the Lion’s Den?
The answer of course is that God is God, and we need to trust in the fact that he knows what he is doing. Maybe we needed more land, or more support or more finances, or maybe it just wasn’t the right time or the right place. God didn’t tell David that the temple wouldn’t be built, he just didn’t want David to build it. And David accepted that. And when everything was said and done it may have been Solomon’s temple but it was David’s dream. He was the one who first saw what could be done and he encouraged Solomon and prodded him along and supported him.
God didn’t tell us that Bedford Community Church wouldn’t have a new building he just put it on hold for a while.
Sometimes God tells us to wait. And when those times happen we would be wise to heed the words of the prophet Isaiah who wrote in Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
2 Chronicles 2:4 I am about to build a Temple to honour the name of the Lord my God. . .
3) They Both Belonged to God
Why was the temple built? I mean did they build it to glorify David or Solomon? More then eighty pyramids stretch for four hundred miles along the west bank of the Nile in mute tribute to the kings of Egypt. Was that the reason behind the temple, to glorify David or his son, after all it is often referred to as "Solomon’s temple" was it to glorify Israel which was in it’s peak at this time? No, it was built to glorify God. Solomon said "I am about to build a Temple to honour the name of the Lord my God”
We have to always keep in mind that we are not just working on a building. We are not just constructing a hall or a meeting place. This won’t just be a place with a warm office for Denn. We have to realize that we are not just in the process of providing a permanent worship centre for Bedford Community Church, this will be a house of God. And that is going to be a tough adjustment for some folks because we have never had a "church". We’ve met at the Lions Den, and at the Empire Theatre and again here at the Lions Den. We’ve worshipped from time to time at Fish Hatchery Park, the Board Room at Sunnyside Mall and the Lawn Bowling Centre. And they have all been real blessings but they haven’t been a church. You don’t mop up spilt beer in a church and we’ve done that on occasion, you don’t open the doors of the house of God to get rid of the stale cigarette smoke and we’ve had to do that.
And our new building will be dedicated for holy use, and we need to remember that when we come to worship on Sunday mornings and when we teach our children how to act in "church" after all we have a generation of kid’s in this congregation who have never worshipped in a church building on a regular basis. We did not step out to build a monument to Denn, we haven’t set out to glorify BCC, and we haven’t done this so people will say what a great bunch of people the Wesleyans are. The reason we have stepped out in faith to have a building of our own, a place to worship our God, is that he may use us, and use this building to work through and to make an impact on our community.
The reason we have sacrificed for the capital campaign and the reason we will give our time and energy and our talents and our money is to see people come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and saviour and if the sacrifice means that one more person will be in the kingdom of God then it has been worth it. But let’s make sure from the very beginning that we know that this building is not Denn’s and it’s not yours and it’s not the church’s it is God’s and it is for his purposes.
1 Chronicles 22:5 David said, “My son Solomon is still young and inexperienced, and the Temple of the Lord must be a magnificent structure, famous and glorious throughout the world. So I will begin making preparations for it now.” So David collected vast amounts of building materials before his death. 4) They Both Required Planning
Even though it wasn’t going to be David who built the temple it was David who laid the ground work. It was David who dreamed the dreams and David who made all the preparation for the work that needed to be done. Solomon got the credit but David made the things that Solomon did possible.
There have been times when I looked at property and buildings and commercial sites and churches and met with the building committee and talked to leaders in the church that I felt like we were spinning our wheels. But then God would remind me that time spent planning is never wasted time. I’m sure that you have sometimes wondered what the building committee does or has done, sometimes I wonder that myself. Now if you asked the spouses of the building committee they could tell you, we sit around and drink coffee and talk.
The reality of it is that the members of the building committee has poured countless hours of work into the preparation and planning that led us to this point and have poured unknown numbers of coffee and tea into themselves. While the actual concept for our building really only began to materialize in December you must realize that for the past nine years I have looked at church buildings and properties all over Bedford and Hammonds Plains in preparation for the day that we were ready to take this kind of step. And every since the board appointed the building committee they have poured their hearts and souls into this project.
In most cases it wasn’t even their choice to become involved probably the word that comes closest to their recruitment would be shanghaied. In all honesty though the building committee actually did do more then consume coffee. When it was first formed by the local board it met to determine whether or not we needed to have a permanent home, and then they had to decide where the best area would be? How much could we spend, should we build or rent or lease, were we looking for a church building or a commercial site?
And then we began looking at buildings, and property, we would find a site that looked promising, Patrick would look up the owner for us and we’d make a call, to at least one dead person and we talk to them about our dreams. Some calls resulted in yes but with too much money involved or a wrong time frame, some were maybes and some were nos.
Then we realized that dreaming was great but at some point we were going to need money which led us into our capital campaign and it was during that time that we came up with our concept for our new church home. A building with open beams and soaring ceilings in the entryway. Designed to be kid friendly so that we can not only use the building 7 days a week to meet one of the greatest perceived needs in our community, which is after school care. But more importantly so we can meet the greatest need in our community and that is to introduce people to Jesus.
The worship centre will be initially designed to seat 260 people with expansion to 400. We will use interlocking padded chairs and the facility has been designed to complement the vision we have of using music, drama and multimedia to reach pre-Christians with the timeless message of the gospel.
So with at least preliminary drawings in place we started casting the vision with the leadership of the church and all those who have one time or another even hinted at the fact that someday it would be nice to have a building of our own and from those people we received tentative commitment to give over the next three years more then $290,000.00 and that brings us to today. And along with that of course we had to find time to drink coffee.
1 Chronicles 29:3 And now because of my devotion to the Temple of my God, I am giving all of my own private treasures of gold and silver to help in the construction. This is in addition to the building materials I have already collected for his holy Temple.
5) They Both Entailed a Cost You probably remember this scripture from last week. It was the beginning of David’s speech when he tells all those gathered how much he was prepared to give to see the temple become a reality.
Houses of God have never come cheap, and the temple was no exception. The people of Israel had to make sacrifices to make the temple a reality. They had to make financial sacrifices and they had to make sacrifices of time and talents. I’m sure that 3000 years ago there must have been the same tension in homes over how much time was spent at the temple working bees.
Anything worth having is worth paying for. We know that we have asked for a financial commitment to the building fund from the church and have gotten pledges back from the majority of people. It will mean that in some instances we will have to pay and scrimp and sacrifice for the new building, and you will notice I said we, not me, not the local board and not the building committee but we, each one of us who makes up this part of the body of Christ which we call Bedford Community church. From the very beginning we have stressed the concept of equal sacrifice not equal giving. I mean what is a sacrifice for me may not be a sacrifice for you. I would like to think that everyone in this church man, woman and child have given up something so that we can be in the new building. But they probably haven’t. As in most areas of God’s work there are those who make a sacrifice and give and others who stand back and watch. You know what I’ve said before when it comes to giving some people will stop at nothing.
But you know the majority of people have made a sacrifice both of money and time and I want to thank you for that because you have made the dream a reality and when the day comes when we move in and you look around you can say this has happened because I was willing to sacrifice. But the building won’t make us any better or any worse of a church. It is the people that do that.
And so here we are, last week we had our all church banquet and if you missed that it was a wonderful time of looking at where we’ve been, where we are and where we are going and commitment cards were passed out to all the families present. If you weren’t there then you should have received a commitment card in the mail this week. If you are visiting with us this morning thank you for being here and bear with us a little bit this is family business. Is there anyone here who needs a commitment card and envelope? Explain card.
Sean’s going to sing a song he sang at the Advance Commitment Dinner, then I’m going to pray and then with a CD providing background music I invite you to come up and lay your commitment card in the back of our dump truck. Our total will be announced next Sunday, which is appropriately enough called Celebration Sunday. And on that day we will receive an offering which I believe will be the largest single offering that we have received to date in our church. We would like to see at least ten percent of our total commitment come in next week. Wouldn’t that be great, an offering well in excess of thirty thousand dollars?
ps OUR TOTAL COMMITMENTS WERE $358,710.00 AND OUR FIRST OFFERING WAS $78,000.00
Hope you enjoyed the message, PowerPoint is available at www.powerpoint4preaching.com or conact me at denn@bccnet.ca
