Saturday, November 17, 2007

Honoring the Sexual Line: Nov. 18, 2007

David_M 10 Ken Shigematsu

Title: Honoring the Sexual Line

Text: 2 Samuel 11

Big Idea: We can find ourselves on the sexual “edge” if we feel above the rules, self-pity, alone, bored, or in need of validation. We can get off the “edge” through friendship and expressing our sexuality in health ways.

Many of us have likely observed a couple who are happily married with a couple of children. The husband feels that their life together is good, but he feels “stuck” in an existence which is dominated by paying down the mortgage, saving for retirement and putting away what he can for his kids education. He ends up meeting a woman at work who makes him feel young again and energized… and one thing leads to another and he has an affair.

A woman finds herself in a fairly good marriage has a few children, but there’s a part of her that feels trapped. She got married right out of undergrad and had kids right away and she feels like she missed out on a lot of the “fun” of life. With some her friends, she starts doing girls night out at the casino just for fun… but a half 10 months later she finds herself anteing up the money that her family needs for grocery money on a poker table.

People can make decisions without being fully aware of where those decisions will lead them--of how much those choices will hurt themselves and their loved ones, and turn the ship of their life toward a different course.

In many cases, a person wishes they could rewind the DVD of their lives and not have entered into a liaison with that person (as attractive as he or she may be). He or she wishes they had not starting to gamble or experiment with cocaine.

People who make these kinds of choices are usually not marginal losers. Many of these people are successful. They are, by all indicators, what we would call “good people.” And yet they end up violating their code, dishonouring God, hurting their loved ones, and doing damage to their own soul. How does it happen?

By looking at the famous story of David and his affair with Bathsheba, we are going to explore a part of this question this morning.

If you have your Bibles, please turn to 2 Samuel 11: 1, and we are going to read to verse 5. This experience for David is considered to be the major turning point in his life. This is his “before and after” episode.
David and Bathsheba
1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, "She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite." 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, "I am pregnant."
At the time of this story David is about 50 years old. He has had a distinguished record as king of Israel for some 20 years. He is known as a man with a heart after God, as a passionate worshipper of God, as formidable warrior, as an outstanding leader of his people. David has these dazzling qualities, yet he has a catastrophic fall. What were the factors that made him vulnerable?

David, as we just noted, was a very successful as a leader. In the chapters preceding this story we see he’s led his armies in great military victories. He was a hero. David is very successful and when a person is very successful it’s not uncommon for that person to feel like they are “above the rules”. They can develop a sense of entitlement and feel that, even if they “break the rules,” they won’t face the consequences because they are, after all, above the rules as the “favored” son or daughter.

David was successful, and he was also in a position of very prominent leadership. Part of the “package” of significant leadership includes suffering. Leadership is a kind of contact sport where you are going to get hit, where you’re going to bleed… There is a certain level of pain that every leader absorbs. Because of this, a leader can begin to experience self-pity and feel that they deserve some kind of special “treat”… It may have been that though David was very blessed in his leadership, there was a part of him that also felt sorry for himself because all the burdens he had to carry as the king of Israel and felt he was entitled to some special treat.

David was also isolated and bored. The text tells us…
1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army… But David remained in Jerusalem…
It was springtime in Israel, and in David’s day Israel and her neighbors didn’t have the kind of standing professional armies we have today. Their armies were composed of farmers, merchants, regular folks. Every able-bodied man went off to war. Because the winter was just too wet, and muddy to mobilize your army efficiently, spring was the time when people, in David’s day, went to war. It was spring and David should have been with his troops heading off to battle, but instead David is at home and in bed. With all the men gone, David is isolated from his colleagues doesn’t have much to do and he’s bored, he’s restless, and he can’t sleep… He gets out of bed and walks around the roof of his palace. He is ripe for temptation.

While no-one is above temptation, there are times when we are more vulnerable to temptation than other times. As was the case with David, one of those times we’re on the “edge” is when for whatever reason (perhaps because we’re successful at something) we begin to feel that the “rules don’t apply to us.” Another time when we are especially vulnerable to temptation is when we feel self-pity. We feel that things haven’t gone for us in life the way they ought to have gone, so we think we deserve some special treat. A third time when we may find ourselves on the “edge” is when we are isolated and lonely, bored and restless….

Is there a time when you are especially prone to temptation, especially on the edge?

David is restless. He can’t sleep. He gets up walks around the roof of his palace, and from the roof he sees a woman bathing. And the woman is described as being very beautiful. David sends someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba … the wife of Uriah, the Hittite.” Uriah, the Hittite, is part of David’s circle of 30-40 soldiers and man outstanding integrity. He’s is a good friend of David’s (they have dinner and drink together). But, David sends one of his servants to get her. She comes to him and he slept with her. And she becomes pregnant because of this.

Scholars Robert Alter and Walter Brueggemann point out that this is the turning point in the life of David—marking the “before and after” period. I am not going to go into great detail as to what happens as a result of this (please read the following chapters for yourself), but David tries to cover up his sin, ends up murdering his friend Uriah so he can marry his wife. As a result, the seeds of destruction are sewn into his family (as we’ll see on a later Sunday). His eldest son, and therefore the heir apparent to the throne--who is surely influenced by the fact that his father has obviously not been able to bridle his lust--ends up raping his half sister Tamar. Things get really ugly for David and his family as a result of his affair. Affairs have a track record of ending disastrously.

Let me now talk about a person who is more of contemporary who had a very similar experience. This person was also happened to be in his 50s. He had a lot of power. He was a leader over many people. Like David, he had been very successful, but also suffered from the “burden” of leadership. As his close aides have noted, he is a person who by nature, is easily bored and restless. Who am I talking about? I am talking about Bill Clinton.

As Harvard professors of leadership Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky chronicle in their book Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading, Clinton enters the presidency with a great deal of excitement, but half way through his first term, the Republicans gain control of the Congress and Clinton’s power begins to ebb away. Toward the end of 1995, he tries a last-ditch, high-stakes political gamble to regain influence. He engages Republicans in a game of “chicken,” and ends up closing down the government. The government shuts down in November of 1995. The Clinton Administration staff, allies, and confidants, who serve to keep him disciplined, cannot come to work. So, after a year of experiencing an extreme low in his presidency, Clinton finds himself without the daily anchoring of colleagues in the Whitehouse. His primary confidant, his wife Hilary, happens to be out of town. To keep things functioning in the Whitehouse, they bring interns to work in the Oval Office. And in this environment, where Clinton has the burden of holding the government together without his staff and without the support of his wife, he becomes very vulnerable to the temptation.

Clinton is man who experienced great success in the past, so he may feel that he is above the rules. He has the burden of trying hold with government together without his staff. He’s alone and lonely and restless by nature. When a man (or woman) whether in leadership or not feel that the rules don’t apply to him, or feels like he’s suffering in some way, and alone (lacking intimacy), and he’s restless he’s is in a very, vulnerable situation… he is on the edge… Clinton ends making a choice to have an affair Monica Lewinsky, a choice that ends up hurting himself, his wife, daughter, all those close to him and Lewinsky herself.
Like David, Clinton was on the edge.

Let’s go back to the David story for a moment and try to imagine what things may have been like from Bathsheba’s perspective.

The text doesn’t describe what Bathsheba is thinking or feeling. We know that David’s passion causes him to move very quickly. We also know that, in this culture, if a man with David’s power summoned Bathsheba, he could simply through that summoning coerce her to sleep with him. But Robert Alter, the gifted, Hebrew, literary scholar, observes that, in verse 4, that while David does summon Bathsheba, there is enough ambiguity in the Hebrew grammatical structure to suggest that perhaps there was some element of active participation on Bathsheba’s part in response to David’s invitation. We don’t know what was going on in Bathsheba’s mind in this experience, she speak only three words in the story “I am pregnant.” So this is simply conjecture. We do know that Bathsheba must have been lonely with her husband away at battle. We do now that David was a respected, attractive man. So, perhaps (and this is simply conjecture on my part) Bathsheba felt conflicted, conflicted about being forced to break her marriage vows, violate her code, but perhaps she also felt flattered by the attention of a special man.

If we go back to the more contemporary parable of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, we do know that Monica Lewinsky felt that her self-worth would be enhanced or confirmed by being with someone who was “special.” Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky, in their book, Leadership on the Line, point out that if Monica Lewinsky had run into Bill Clinton at the grocery store and he wasn’t the President of the United States, but just had some ordinary job, she probably would have regarded Clinton as another slightly, over-weight, middle-aged man with grey hair looking for burgers to grill. But because he was President, because he was someone “special” being with him she felt would make her feel special.

A man (and a woman too) can be tempted, on the “edge” because he feels like he’s the above the rules, self-pity (he’s suffering in someway), isolated and lonely (there’s a lack of intimacy in his life), or bored (there is not enough adventure). These factors can make a man vulnerable to crossing a sexually boundary that will hurt him and the woman that he crosses it with.

And, a woman, who is lonely or who needs validation can be very vulnerable when she is with a man that she regards as being special. Maybe he has some special role in her life as a boss, a mentor, a teacher, a spiritual guide. Maybe she regards him as special and attractive (ironically) because he seems to be such a faithful husband to his wife and great father to his kids. And then, when he, in turn, pays attention to her, she feels special, validated, affirmed, more fully human. She feels, at a conscious or subconscious level, that if she is just with this man, she is going to become more whole. But, if she engages cross sexual boundary with that man, as Monica Lewinsky discovered, and so many others have discovered, she will not experience healing, but alienation from herself, and an even greater sense of loneliness after the affair is over.

Sin offers fraudulent promise. Sins promises to fill us, but ends up leaving us more empty than before (use paper cup with hole). There may be some initial excitement and pleasure and kick, but after the initial excitement, pleasure and diminishes, sin leaves a person more lonely, more hurt, more disconnected from themselves and God than they were before.

So, how can we guard our boundary…

So that we honor God, honor the design of own soul, our loved ones and even the potential partner who may want the affair, but will end up hurt by it?

In both the David and Clinton’s situations, we see that they fell at a time when their friends and their confidants were not with them. When we are isolated, we are vulnerable. When we don’t have strong friends to speak into our life, we are vulnerable.

The messenger who responded to David’s inquiry about Bathsheba, told David she is Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, the Hittite, but because that relationship, didn’t have enough weight in David’s life, David was not able to heed that warning.

As I have shared before, when I was a younger single person before entering into so-called “Christian ministry” I was on a trip, and ended up meeting a woman who worked as a model doing some semi-nude Calvin Kleinesque ads. We ended up really connecting and one night she showed up at my hotel lobby at around midnight, wanting to show me some photographs of her. I remembered just talking to her on the phone from my room and she wanted to come up to my room. I had a bad feeling about it, but also remember being in this state of confusion. You know how in Las Vegas they pump extra oxygen into the casinos so you feel more awake at 2:00 a.m. and you feel like you can keep playing poker. I felt the oxygen was being pumped of my hotel room as I feeling confused… I was on the edge. By God’s grace and the help of good hotel staff, she didn’t make it up to my room.

Afterwards, when I got home, a friend of mine said, “If you ever in such a situation again, call me.” All of us can experience times when the air gets thin for us and we lose our sense of judgment and our sense of perspective, times when we’re on the edge. One of the best ways to regain it is to have a friend who can speak the truth to us with enough force that we hear it. I have those kind of friends. I need those friends. Without those friends, I would not be a pastor--I’d would crashed and burned long ago.

What helped turn David’s life around after the affair and get back on track with God? It was his friend, Nathan. Nathan was a pastor of David’s but also his friend. As we see in the next chapter, Nathan does a great service for David in speaking the truth boldly to him and moving him toward repentance.

In this series, we have talked quite a bit about friendship. David Bentall was here, speaking about friendship earlier this year. He talked about covenant friends, if you weren’t here download it from our website. It would be hard to over estimate the power of a friend in our spiritual journey.

Be a friend. Get a friendship who will help you stay in Christ stay on God’s code for you.

Also connect with your sexuality in ways that are healthy. Connect deeply with your partner if you are married, or if you are in a dating relationship that honours God. If that is not part of your life, or even if it is, connect with your sexuality in other ways by experiencing healthy intimacy with God, friends, family (if they are around), beauty in nature, sports, in art or music (if that is something that resonates with you) through the exercise of your creative gifts, by serving, by bringing life to others… The more you can experience “eros”, your sexual creative, life-giving energy in healthy ways that are part of God’s design, the less vulnerable you will be to the kinds of temptations that will hurt your relationship with yourself, with God, the people in your life.

“If our soul is satisfied in healthy ways—the less likely we are to fall.” A dissatisfied soul makes sin look awfully attractive

In closing, if you are living in sexual purity… cherish that gift… whether you’ve always been pure, or whether have committed to sexual purity since you’ve committed your life to Christ.

If you are on the edge, get help. You may not be in a full-blown affair, but if you are married and find yourself exposing more of your heart and mind to a colleague at work or someone you are not married more than to your own spouse (or vice verse) you’re on the edge. If you find you’re have lunches with someone that you’re telling your spouse about (and you’re not don’t undercover for the RCMP or the FBI) you’re on the edge. If sharing openly intimate details about your martial problems with some else or some one is with you—you’re on the edge. Get help either from a strong trusted friend who shares your code or professional counselor who “code” you trust.

If you’re in an affair: break it off. Yes, despite the pain, break it off. There not that many things I can say are categorically God’s for you. I can say it’s categorically God’s will for you to break off an affair.

And then, finally, if you have had an affair, or if you have sinned in some other way, I want you to know that God is a God of sovereign grace, and he can take our sins and mistakes and weave them as part of his larger and beautiful plan for our lives.

Look at David--he committed adultery, theft, murder, hypocrisy of the worst kind. Here we are 3000 later… learning from a man—who in balance—God calls a man after his own heart.

There’s great pain and collateral damage that comes out of this situation, but God also redeems: it is one of Bathsheba’s sons (her first son dies, but another son), Solomon who ends up being David’s successor. He becomes king, chosen by God to be king and builder of the temple… and the writer of the book of Proverbs in the Bible.

So, good does come out of this story that is marked by a lot of pain and tragedy.

My professor Haddon Robinson used to say that God causes roses to grow out of manure piles. God can bring beautiful things out of the mess and the crap of our lives. So know that there is hope.

Pray…



Next week, Darrell Johnson will be speaking from Psalm 51, a Psalm of repentance, forgiveness and hope…

Benediction…

No unto him to who able to keep

May the God of peace…

(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Grace in a Desolate Place (November 11. 2007)

David_M9 November 11, 2007
Ken Shigematsu

Title: Grace in a Desolate Place

Text: 2 Samuel 9

Big Idea: When we have a life-giving relationship with God, we will love, as God loves.

When I was in New England last month, one night I had dinner with a man named Chuck, a Christian business leader. He’s associated with an Ivy League university. One of the things that Chuck has done for the Ukraine in their post-communist years is to mobilize professors of business from North America to teach (on volunteer basis) business and entrepreneurship courses there. Chuck says that in his years recruiting professors he’s found that it’s easier to get Christian professors of business to teach in the Ukraine for free than to recruit business professor with no faith commitment. Chuck says Christian professors generally speaking welcome the opportunity to teach for free in a developing place like the Ukraine seeing it as a kind of “mission/service opportunity” even though they’re teaching business at a public university not Christianity.

Roy Hattersley, a columnist for the UK Guardian and former Deputy Leader for the British Labor Party, and an outspoken atheist, was on site as a journalist after the Hurricane Katrina. He came to the conclusion after watching the Salvation Army lead several other faith-based organizations in the relief effort after Hurricane Katrina, Christians "are the people most likely to take the risks and make the sacrifices involved in helping others." He also noted as an atheist himself the conspicuous absence of representatives from atheists' associations in the relief effort.

One of the advantages of being truly connected to Jesus Christ has—is we are directly connected to the greatest reservoir of love in the universe—the love of God and as result you will have more capacity, than we would otherwise, to love.

The primary sign according to the Scriptures that a person is connected to God is not the capacity to do supernatural miracles, heal people, or the courage to take a bullet for God as martyr for Christ, but the greatest sign that we are really connected to God is our capacity to love.

Jesus said by this all people will know you are my followers: love one another.

David, in the Scriptures, is known as a man with the hand of God upon him. He is famous for his dramatic victory in battle against Goliath. He is also well-known as being a great warrior-poet of Israel. But perhaps, more than any other incident in David’s life, his encounter with a man named Mephibosheth is proof-positive that God’s hand was upon David. How so?

Let me set up the context.

For many years, David has been running as a fugitive, fleeing for his life from King Saul, who is trying to kill him. One day King Saul dies in battle, while fighting against Israel’s arch enemy, the Philistines and David is anointed king… first over the southern sate Judah at age 30, and then over all of Israel at age 37.

In the ancient world, when a person was made king, it was the customary and strategically savvy for the king to kill off any member of a previous dynasty’s family because that person might make a claim for the throne. If you were a descendant of a previous king, you were instantly a target—you were either a dead man walking or like Osama Ben Laden you went into hiding.

When David becomes king, one of the first things he does is to locate surviving members of King Saul’s household. Why? To kill them off?

Let’s see… if you have your Bibles please turn to 2 Samuel 9
1 David asked, "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?"
2 Now there was a servant of Saul's household named Ziba. They summoned him to appear before David, and the king said to him, "Are you Ziba?" "At your service," he replied.
3 The king asked, "Is there no one still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show God's kindness?" Ziba answered the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet."
Why does David want to show kindness to Saul’s family instead of kill them off? David was best friends with King Saul’s son Jonathan. Jonathan intuited that God was with David in a special way and that David rather than he was God’s sovereign choice as the next King of Israel. Jonathan was not jealous or threatened by this. In fact, he loved David and entered into a covenant friendship with David. Jonathan as part of his covenant friendship asks David to never stop being kind to his family, even when the Lord cuts off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth. Years later, David, as king, remembers the promise he made to Jonathan and asked: Is there anyone in Saul’s household that I can show kindness to for Jonathan’s sake?
Ziba a servant in Saul’s household answered the King David, "There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet."
Radio Pastor Chuck Swindoll says: If you read between the lines, you sense Ziba counseling David to think twice before he does anything for Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth had not been able to walk from the time he was 5 years old. When Mephibosheth was 5 years old, news came to Saul’s palace that King Saul and his son Jonathan had just been killed by the Philistines on Mount Gilboa in the Battle of Jezreel. Panic struck. The Philistines were ruthless. With Saul and his son dead, the royal household and everyone in it was slated for destruction. There would be no mercy to anyone connected to the names of Saul and Jonathan. To make matters worse, David’s band of soldiers was at large and without Saul, whom David honoured as God’s king, and without Jonathan, his covenant friend--there was nothing preventing David from coming in and cleaning house, and killing anyone left behind in the old regime.
Not knowing what to expect, all the servants in the palace ran for their lives. Five-year-old Mephibosheth’s nurse grabbed him on the run and then tripped and fell. Both of the boy’s ankles were broken (2 Samuel 4:4). He was carried with a group of escaping servants east across the Jordan Valley to safety, but Mephibosheth was never again able to walk.
Mephishosheth was the only living heir of the once great household of Saul, but no one knew it, because his life would have been in danger if that information were revealed. He grew up with his royal identity suppressed, with all the privileges of royalty denied to him.
In 2 Samuel 9: 4
4 "Where is he?" the king asked. Ziba answered, "He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar."
The word “Lo” in Hebrew means “no”; the word “Debar” means “pasture.” Mephibosheth was living in the land of no pasture…he was in some desert… in some desolate, barren place. Mephibosheth was likely hiding for his life, afraid that the new king would kill him. Mephibosheth’s name means “seething dishonor.” Not only had Mephibosheth been crippled physically, but as his family lost power he had also been crippled emotionally. In fact, when he sees David, he cannot even look him in the eye and calls himself “a dead dog.” (In this Hebrew culture, “dog” was not considered a term of endearment, but used in reference to a human being would have been considered a terrible insult.)
When David called for Mephibosheth, terror struck him. Mephibosheth would have known that David as the new king would be searching out the land top to bottom for any signs of Saul’s descendants. Like a skydiver whose parachute does not open, Mephibosheth was saying: It’s over, adios, sayonara, good-bye.
In vs. 6
6 When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, "Mephibosheth!" "At your service," he replied.
7 "Don't be afraid," David said to him, "for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table."
8 Mephibosheth bowed down and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?"
Mephibosheth would never have imagined in his wildest dreams that he was being invited by David to be loved. WhenDavid says: You will always eat at my table, in the culture this would have indicated that David was inviting Mephibosheth to be a friend, in fact more than a friend—a family member.

Chuck Swindoll says: Imagine Mephibosheth, coming into the dinner with bright and witty Joab, talented, stunningly-handsome Absalom, his beautiful sister Tamar with her movie star good looks, and then here comes Mephibosheth clump, clump, clump.

In vs. 1 and 3 David asks is there anyone in Saul’s household to whom I can show God’s kindness?

The Hebrew word that David uses here to describe God’s kindness the word “hesed.” The word Hesed is used three times in vss. 1, 3, 7.

Eugene Peterson et al have out that the Hebrew word “chesed,” narrowly described as “love,” is a large word. No single word in our language is adequate to translate it, so we revert to the use of adjectives to bring out the distinctive quality and broad reach of this love: steadfast love, loyal love, covenant love. What we’re after is an understanding that retains the affection and desire and intimacy that commonly go with love, as we sometimes experience it as parents and children, “lovers” and friends, but now amalgamated with the stability, dependability, unswerving commitment and steady reliability that we so commonly find wanting in ourselves and others.

“Chesed” is often used in the biblical revelation to designate God’s love. But, we, as humans, who have been created in the image of God, are also capable of loving this way, even though we never seem to get very good at it. “Chesed” is love without regard to shifting circumstances, hormones, emotional states, and personal convenience. This is the kind of love with which ‘God so loved the world….’

David asks, in vss 1 and 3 "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness (hesed) for Jonathan's sake?"
In. Vs. 7
David says, "Don't be afraid," David said to him, "for I will surely show you kindness (hesed) for the sake of your father Jonathan…
And when we are connected to the living God, the God of hesed love… God’s loyal and constant love… we are able to love like God… because his love flows through us…
Just over a year ago, as we know, a troubled milkman named Charles Roberts barricaded himself inside the West Nickel Mine Amish School. He murders five young girls and wounds six others. Roberts committed suicide when police arrived on the scene. It is a dark day for the Amish community of West Nickel Mines, but it is also a dark day for Marie Roberts—the wife of the gunman—and her two young children.
But on the following Saturday, Marie experienced something truly countercultural while attending her husband's funeral. That day, she and her children watched as Amish families—about half of the 75 mourners present—came and stood alongside them in the midst of their own blinding grief. Despite the crime the man had perpetrated, the Amish came to mourn Charles Carl Roberts—a husband and daddy.
Why because that Amish community were connected to Hesed love of God… so they can love like God loves. Like David they can love the family of the man who tried to destroy them because God’s hesed loves inside them.
Not all acts of God’s hesed love are so dramatic.
Steve a manager at a large software company in the Pacific Northwest resolved to visit each of his employees, all six of whom he had not seen face to face in over six months even though they worked in the same building and on the same floor. Steve wanted to tell each of them how much he appreciated them, and name one thing they did especially well.
After the visit from Steve, one of his software engineers, Lenny, presented him with an Xbox gaming console. Steve was taken aback, as he knew Lenny had taken pay cuts over the last year. But he was more surprised to learn that the money had come from the sale of a nine-millimeter pistol—a pistol Lenny had bought months earlier with the intention of killing himself. Lenny told him of his mother's death the previous year, and of his ensuing loneliness and depression:
I started a routine every night after work: eating a bowl of Ramen, listening to Nirvana, and getting the gun out. It took almost a month to get the courage to put the bullets in the gun. It took another couple of months to get used to the feeling of the barrel of the gun on the top of my teeth. For the last few weeks, I was putting ever so slight pressure on the trigger, and I was getting so close, Steve—so close.

Last week, you freaked me out. You came into my cubicle, put your arm around me, and told me you appreciated me because I turn in all my projects early, and that helps you sleep at night. You also said that I have a great sense of humor over e-mail and that you are glad I came into your life.

That night I went home, ate Ramen, and listened to Nirvana—and when I got the gun out, it scared me silly for the first time. All I could think about was what you said—that you were glad I came into your life.

The next day I went back to the pawnshop and sold the gun. I remembered that you had said you wanted the Xbox more than anything, but with a new baby at home could not afford it. So, for my life, you get this game. Thanks, boss.

When we are connected to God’s hesed love we will learn to love as God loves… it may not be super dramatic, it may be small and simple… a word of encouragement, listening to someone, taking a meal to someone…

If you are connected to God you can love you have greater capacity to love because God’s Hesed is in. Hesed is in you to give…

If you don’t feel an overwhelming flood of God’s love flowing through you… I want close with two points of application: start small acts of love… thank people, when you’re raking your leaves—perhaps, rack some of your neighbors, take someone to coffee who’s going through a hard time…

Habits strengthen our neural network. Hebbian theory describes how “brains cells that fire together, wire together.” If you do something enough, it will strengthen the neural networks, so you have greater capacity… If you keep hitting a tennis ball, as your neural networks are strengthened…you’ll greater a capacity to hit the ball… Jesus says you must forgive seventy times seven, signifying our call for complete forgiveness, and in the opinion of some Biblical scholars calling us to “sow and reap” the habit of forgiveness to strengthen our forgiveness neuron…

Keep hitting tennis of love and by sowing in this way… you’ll be strengthening your God given capacity to love…

2nd recall often what Christ has done for you:

Today is Remembrance Day. In the movie, Saving Private Ryan, in one of the opening scenes an elderly veteran and his family are visiting a memorial cemetery in France, an immaculate green rows of white crosses. The veteran stops, falls to his knees, and weeps. He remembers how soldiers laid down their lives on the mission to find and rescue him…
Ryan is looking at the cross with Captain John Miller’s name on, the captain who lead the rescue mission for Ryan who died in the process. His family comes to comfort him, he weeps, and he turns to his wife and he turns to his family, and he says: Tell me that I have had a good life. Tell me that I am a good man. He wants to know that he was worth the loss of the others who died for him. He wants his life to be lived out of gratitude for the sacrifice that others made in order for him to live.

And when we live our lives recognizing that Jesus Christ has sacrificed his life for us; when we had nothing to offer him, when were his enemies so that we could live; when we realize that Christ lives inside us, we can become people like David show God’s hesed to the Mephibosheths in our lives… like David we God’s grace even in a desolate place…

Pray…

A person we need to love?

Ask filled with the love of God.


(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Built to Last: Nov.4, 2007

DAVID M 8 Sunday, November 4, 2007

Built to Last

Text: 2 Samuel: 7

Big Idea: We want to build a house, but only God can build a lasting “house” through us.

Stephen Covey has written a sequel to his best-selling book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People called the 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.

In The 8th Habit, Covey acknowledges the ongoing need to be effective in our world, but also argues that we human being are called to more just “effectiveness”, we called to greatness. We are to find our unique voice and make difference in the world.

Management consultant Peter Block says, “Each of has a vision for greatness, even if it has never been put into words.”

Each of us long to make a mark in the world, but we sometimes wonder if what we do will last…

In mid-1990’s I was at the Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C where Mother Teresa was speaking. Before Mother Teresa came up to speak, the then U.S. President Bill Clinton came to the podium and he said, “We live in a city (referring to D.C.) where we all spend so much time obsessed with what people think of us and how we will look in the morning paper. Five years people won’t remember what we did…. Five hundred years from now everything we see in this hotel room will be dust…

I remember in Bill Clinton’s words that even he, as one of the most influential people in the world at least at that time, had a yearning to make a lasting difference, but was also aware that the things we do may be very temporary…

Each of us has a yearning to make a difference. The paradox, however, as we’ll see implied in our text today is our work is initiated only by us, it will not last…

David in the scriptures had a strong desire to do something significant--something for God.

David realized that he was living in a beautiful place, a palace of cedar, and he wanted to build God a house. He talked it over with his pastor Nathan. Nathan encouraged him to go for it.

In 2 Samuel Chapter 7, verse 3, Nathan replied to the king:

3 Nathan replied to the king, "Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the LORD is with you."

But that night God spoke to Nathan and said David is not the one to build my house. So awkwardly and sheepishly, Nathan had to go back to David, the king and withdraw the building permit. God says “no” to David, but exactly what does God say to David.

In verse 7-9, 11, 16
7 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?" '
8 "Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth…
11 "'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you…
16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.' "
God says, “You want to build me a house—no, you are not the one to do that, but I will build a house for you.”
What does God mean when he says I will build a house? What God mean when he says I will your house will be established forever?
God makes the astounding promise to David that he will have a descendent who will sit on the throne forever…
But in 586 BC Jerusalem falls to Babylon and thereafter there is no descendant of David on the physical throne of Israel, but the descendant that God was referring to would come years later. He would be the latter son of David, also called the Son of Man, the Son of God, Jesus Christ…and that Son, Jesus Christ was crucified, buried, raised on the third day. He has been exalted at the right hand of God and he is, and shall reign, forever and ever...
David wanted to build a house for God, but God said I will build a house for you that will last forever…
The irony is that if we want to build a house--even if we want to build a house “for God” that house will not last. In Psalm 127 we read that “unless the Lord builds the house”—and house here can mean physical house, but likely is referring to a family, community, or some spiritual work… that house will not last. Its builders labor in vain.
So, part of God’s call for us is to allow God to build our house…
Most of us have probably heard the expression, “Don’t just sit there! Do something!” But, in the economy of God, sometimes God says, “Don’t just do something. Sit there. Be still before me. Be still and know that I am God. Part of our call is to simply discern where God is working and join him.
Trust that I will do something in and through you.” Or, as Father Thomas Green puts it, “Don’t swim. Float. Let the current of God take you where it will. Trust, obey and see where God leads.”
As I shared before, when I first came to 10th as a shaky, inexperienced young pastor, I was sitting in my car just outside the church with my mentor Leighton Ford. I asked him to give me some counsel. He said, “Remember that God is an artist and he will not lead you copy anyone else. Seek God for a unique vision for this place.
Part is to invite to be the artist the paints our life…
There is a person in our community, Toni Dolfo-Smith (spouse of our senior associate pastor, Mardi, and leader of a powerful ministry called Living Waters) who I have asked to come and share part of his story. As you hear his story, may God show us how he can write our story.
TONI DOLFO-SMITH (testimony 18 minutes)
CLOSING….
How do we become people who trust God enough to write our story?
It’s by having the deep conviction that God is for us.
How do we get that conviction?
By looking to one who sits on David’s thrown forever.
When see how God held back nothing, but gave us his greatest treasure in Christ, we can trust God enough to entrust all of our lives to him and ask Him his story through our story.
Lead in to communion:
On the night Jesus was betrayed see how God held back nothing, but gave us his greatest treasure in Christ, we can trust God enough to entrust all of our lives to him and ask Him his story through our story…

(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)