DAVID WAS GLAD....AM I?
2 Samuel 6:14-16
I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. These are David's words.
Are they my words?
Are they your words?
Are we glad, joyous, thrilled to be in God's house.
Do we feel like we are at home?
Do we feel that God's house is a place to lay aside the cares of the world?
A place in which to be comfortable and safe.
We should. This is our father's house. This is where we come to visit with our spiritual family. This is where our brothers and sisters are, our spiritual siblings.
David rejoiced to be able to meet with God and his people. David worshipped God when man was still under the law. A time of rules, regulations, severity, and judgment. A time of sacrifice. A time in which many of us might have difficulty functioning. Many Israelites had difficulties. David didn't see the Law as a hard taskmaster. He didn't see the rules, regulations, or judgmental attitudes as a constraint. He saw the Love of God operating.
He saw God's protection over and love for the people.
He saw God's mercy, compassion, kindness, caring.
David understood the importance of meeting with God and God's people. David knew the benefit that came from visiting with God, in God's house; free from the artificially important cares of life. Free to be himself, a child of God. A child coming to visit in Daddy's house.
David had no problem showing his love for God and the things of God. Sometimes he went to what some people (his wife being among them) considered extremes. In 2 Samuel 6:14-16 we are told that David was so happy to have the Ark of the Covenant back in Israel that he danced in front of the procession bringing it as back into the land. This was bad enough, but to add to it, he danced so hard, and with such abandon that he danced right out of his clothes. His wife was not pleased. She scolded David for being unseemly in front of the people. How could he, the king of Israel, do this? I want us to think of this. Here was a great king, running a country that was starting to burst onto the political scene as a nation to be respected and feared. A man who had gone from being a shepherd to being the king of God's people. David stood in the shoes of Moses and the other great leaders of God's people.
The responsibility he carried was awesome.
His cares were many.
His persona important.
David danced before the Ark and was glad to have a chance to go to God's house with fellow believers.
David knew what was important,
his wife did not.
David was concerned about worshipping God.
David's wife was concerned about appearance.
I wonder what our reaction would be?
What is our reaction now if we see people dancing or jumping with joy
because of the Word of God?
We can say that things were different then. God worked differently. But were things really different? Did God work differently? Hebrews 13:8 states "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever." Malachi 3:6 states "I, the Lord God, do not change." and Paul states in 2 Corinthians 4:18 "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." David was glad because he saw what was eternal. Do we?
Do we approach our worship experience as a joy,
as a privilege,
as something special.
We, in America, have a problem that was similar to the Hebrews during the time of Christ. Often we are born into church. Whichever church that might be. The Judaic-Christian heritage and Protestant ethic has been a strong force in our country. Our constitution is based on Judaic-Christian principles. Church attendance and laws based on Judaic-Christian principles are a tradition in America.
If there is no God:
There is no need for anyone to curtail any action.
There is no judge.
There is no final responsibility.
There truly is no love.
Yes, we were a nation founded on Christian principles, but are we still a nation of Christian principles? Have we allowed ourselves to become so comfortable in our land of plenty that we forget that God has given us that plenty. Has our tradition of attending church blinded us to the fact that we are the church. Have we forgotten that the true church is us, the believers.
Have we forgotten the joy of worshipping the living God?
The purest joy there is!
Have our traditions made the pure joy of truly worshipping God somehow suspect and socially unacceptable?
This is the house we have built for us to meet with God and each other. It is a beautiful house. A house we can be comfortable in and proud of. But, this house we have built to God is a shambles in His eyes compared to the beauty of the soul of a believer. We must realize each individual in this church is much more important than the building.
What is it about a body of believers that makes it special?
Is it because we always agree about doctrine?
Not that I've noticed.
Is it because we are all great singers?
Not likely.
Is it because we can all teach, or work on the building, or be liturgists, or show up at events, or are always loving, or can exhort the brethren?
It is none of these.
We are special because we are saved by the Blood of Christ. We are the ones who have accepted that blood as the only sacrifice for our sins. Each of us are special because of the work Christ has done for us. Each of us fits into the temple in their own special place. Just as each beam and joist has its own special place in this building.
We! we!! are the building stones of this church. We, not these walls, pews, beautiful furnishings, all of the physical plant we see. We are why God comes to this building. This building has beauty to God because of us, and because we built this church to honor and please Him. We are what God cares about here. He cares about our relationship to Him and to each other. We give a lot of thought to our relationship with God, but how much attention do we give to our relationship with each other? The vertical relationship with God and horizontal relationships with each other are inextricably bound together, and the one is strengthened by the other.
Earlier I said we are brothers and sisters, spiritual siblings, family. We are family you know. God is our father, our Dad if you would. We are a family that has a reunion every week. We get to see each other for what we really are; and it isn't always a pleasant sight. It seldom is in our physical families either. We each have our faults, prejudices, preferences, and strengths. We each have our own way, the best way of course, of doing things.
We just cannot understand how someone else can do them differently. Sometimes things are said accidentally that offend. Sometimes they are said on purpose. We can be thin-skinned, finding offense where there is none. Some of us can be a little too strange for others. Some of us come from a totally different perspective than others. Just like in our physical family.
What are the major interactions of a church family? What spiritual principles do we see operating in a successful church family? I believe they are the same principles that operate in a successful physical family.
They are:
LOVE
PATIENCE
FORBEARANCE
COMPASSION
UNITY
LOVE
I put love first and last because it is the glue that holds everything together. How can we claim to have a loving relationship with God when we don't have one with our brothers and sisters. How can we say we love God, whom we haven't seen if we don't love our fellow man, who we do see? This makes absolutely no sense.
I am not saying that we will, or should, always agree.
I am saying that we are to love each other always, especially
when we don't agree.
I am not saying that we should condone every action in the name of love. Jesus certainly did not condone sin when he drove the money changers out of the temple, saved the woman from being stoned to death, or talked with the woman at the well. What He did do was love the people to repentance. He showed them their need to repent of their sins and then continued to shower them with love. Can we do less?
Church is similar to our experience when learning to do anything. We are all trying to be like Christ and please God. The Bible instructs us; the ministry, instructs us (when we let them); and our study teachers instruct us (when we let them). We accept this. But when someone unexpected, or a person we consider unacceptable, tries to help us, we back off and become offended.
How can that person help me?
Look at all of the problems they have!
Who are they to tell me I am wrong, acting badly, or need to repent?
Who are they indeed?
They might very well be God's method of speaking to us in love.
God's method of bringing us a little closer to Him.
God using our spiritual siblings to help us grow.
We need patience and forbearance with each other. We need to love each other and allow each other to make mistakes. We all will make mistakes. We need to be willing to take and give reproof and instruction in accordance with the Word of God. To do that we need to be in a right relationship with God and each other. We cannot do this if we harbor ill feelings. If we harbor offenses, real or imagined, if we refuse to deal with someone because of personal feelings. Our work for God is far above that sort of thing. We need to allow others, and ourselves to make mistakes and recover. To practice Christianity.
That leads us into compassion. Understanding where the other person is coming from. Being willing to love them, in spite of, or because of, circumstances. To be willing to accept a person where they are and allow them to grow at the rate and in the areas God dictates. To love the individual separate from their actions.
The world does not really understand this. The world says people have to earn love. Christ teaches us to love period. The mere fact someone is alive, a creation of God, is enough reason to love them. To do less is insufficient. This is how a loving family works. Forgiveness and compassion are evident. Love is not withheld because of disagreement.
But, also, the rules are not in question. All of the family knows the rules. All family members break some part of the rules from time to time. God has given us our boundaries. We constantly stray outside of them. God, because of His love for us and the blood of Christ, constantly forgives us. How can we do less for each other?
Last I come to unity. All of the things I have mentioned develop a sense of unity among a family. The love, patience, forbearance, and compassion build a bond that is extremely difficult to break. When a person leaves the family of believers they will be loved back much sooner than they will return because of condemnation.
A person will become a Christian and join a body of believers because of the love they see much quicker than because of the judgment they see. The love of Christ keeps a person, not hell fire and damnation. We need to recognize the wages of sin, but emphasize the blessings of love. Remembering the acts of love within the spiritual family keeps us together, just as they do in the physical family.
We, as a church, have a stronger bond than the physical family has. We have a blood bond, the blood of Jesus the Christ that cleanses us from our sins. There are also spiritual bonds. Bonds that last for an eternity. Bonds that transcend time and space. We also have a bond of love. The love of the Lord Jesus the Christ, for each of us, and the love we have for each other through Christ. These are bonds that tie us in a horizontal relationship with each other and a vertical relationship with God. We need to realize that if the bond is broken between any member(s) of the family, we have all lost. We have lost that prayer support, love support, fellowship support, growth support.
IN ESSENTIALS - UNITY.
IN NONESSENTIALS - LIBERTY
IN ALL THINGS - CHARITY
These are the words of Saint Augustine, they sound a lot like the Apostle Paul's.
If we remember this we can be the true building blocks of the church and can say with David. "I WAS GLAD WHEN THEY SAID, LET US GO TO THE HOUSE OF THE LORD!!!"
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