The LORD to David, “Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.” (2 Samuel 7:16)

We continue our series on Biblical Visions. This week we look at God’s vision for David’s kingdom.

As recorded at St. Luke’s

Biblical Vision 3: Kingdom (2 Samuel 7:1-17)

Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?

One of the big questions Christians often ask is, “Why doesn’t God always answer my prayers?” Often, we see amazing answers to prayers, even on occasion miraculous healings. At other times, it feels like God is deaf to our appeals.

The truth is that God does always hear our prayers. Sometimes he says, ‘Yes’ to them, but often he says, ‘No’ or ‘Not yet.’

Why is that? Because we often pray for what we think would be the best thing to happen. We ask God to honour our plans for the future, but too often our plans are not in line with his plan!

We think life would be much better if only:

• I had more money
• I was healthier
• I could find the perfect husband or wife
• I could get a job

Sometimes those things are true, but sometimes God has other plans!

Years ago, I was in a small Bible Study group, with someone who was really worried he was going to lose his job, because he worked for a London borough and some cut backs were looming. He was really anxious about this and we would often pray in the group that he would keep his job. But God said, ‘No!’ to that prayer. And when the cut backs came he was made redundant.

But, God’s plans are better than our plans. Once he was finally made redundant this man was a lot happier. He even started running a group at the church for other unemployed people and became a real blessing to many others.

We think we know the best plans and we pray that God would fulfil them, but God knows better

What does God say to my plans?

We’re in the midst of the Year of Discernment. Yesterday, some of us from both St. Luke’s and St. George’s PCC met together to discuss some possible plans for the next few years. We had a good  natured and positive meeting, sharing some big ideas and being honest about hopes and fears. No consensus was reached and more work needs to be done, before we can share plans, but it was a good step forward.

Our main prayer, though is that the plan we come up with is God’s plan not ours. Because after all, God knows better than us.

David’s Plan

In our passage for today, the third in our series on Biblical Vision, we focus on King David. He is one of the most important Bible characters and this is a crucial passage, to help us understand the story of the whole Bible.

As the story begins, David is established as king over Israel. All the enemies that had been a big threat to Israel for centuries have been defeated and the land seems secure. David has also established Jerusalem as the new capital city and is now living in a smart new palace.

But the ark of the covenant, the symbol of God’s presence with Israel is still in a tent. So, David comes up with a plan. He calls in Nathan, the prophet and says to him, “It can’t be right! I am living in a house, but God is still symbolically in a tent. We need to build a house for God.” Nathan was a wise prophet and thought it sounded like a great idea and told David, so.

But, God had other ideas. He came to Nathan that night, with a clear answer to David’s plan to build him a house. The answer, was , ‘No!’

But why?

God says, ‘No’

• It’s God’s plan not man’s – vs. 4-7

In verses 4-7, God’s answer seems to be:

This is not something I have asked for or suggested to anyone. So why suggest it now?

Perhaps you have experienced other people, say something to you like, “What you really need is such and such…” and you think, “No, I am quite happy without that thank you!” Maybe you have even been a bit annoyed at such people trying to tell you how to live your life.

That seems to be what God is saying to David. You think my ark needs a house to live in? Why? I told Moses to build a tent, not a temple and I’ve moved with the people. That’s worked fine for hundreds of years, why do I need a temple built from wood? Are you trying to tell God what to do, David?

Jesus teaches us not to tell God what we think should happen. He teaches us to pray, “Your will be done!”

• It’s about what God does for us, not what we do for God – vs. 8-11a

Then, God goes on to remind David of his and Israel’s story.

JFK famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

People sometimes treat God in the same way. They come to church eager to volunteer and prove to the church and God that they can do stuff. But that is to seek our value and worth in our work, skills and gifts.

That is kind of what David is doing. He wants to do something for God, to build him a house. Especially now he is securely established as a king.

But in verses 8-9, God reminds David, that he owes his position as king, completely to God. God raised him from being a lowly shepherd, to become the leader of his special people, fulfilling a key purpose in the

fulfilment of God’s plans and promises to Abraham to make his family into a great nation so they can bless all nations.

Last week we saw how part of God’s plan was to rescue them from slavery in Egypt, to enter into a special relationship with them and to bring them into the promised land. God had done all of that hundreds of years before David, but they were still not a great nation, because they were unable to defend themselves from the peoples around who would plunder, invade and oppress them. Now, however, with David as king, the nation was securely planted in the land and at rest from all their enemies. Now they truly could be a great nation.

The point of what God is saying is: it’s not about what Israel or David could do for God, but what God had done for Israel!

So, when David says, God I think I should do this for you. I should build you a house! God, says, “No!” That’s not the way it works David, I do things for you, you don’t need to do things for me.

God says, ‘Not yet’

But God’s answer to David’s plan is not really a ‘No!’ It is a ‘Not yet!’ A house will be built for God in Jerusalem, but not until God has done something more for David.

• God builds David’s house first

The key word in this whole passage is the word, ‘House’. It occurs eight times in our verses and fourteen in chapter 7 as a whole.

But the passage plays on the word ‘house.’ Sometimes it refers to David’s house and some Bibles translate it as ‘Palace.’

At other times it refers to a ‘house for God’ and you could translate as ‘temple.’

But in verses 11 and 16, it refers to David’s family or dynasty. A kingdom is ruled over by a king, and his successors, all being well come from his family or house.

David offers to build God a house, but God says, “Not until I have established your house.”

And God did that. David’s family remained on the throne in Jerusalem for around four hundred years until the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem.

But, even when they no longer had a king, because Israel had become part of big empires, the Jews remembered God’s promise and plan to have one of David’s descendants on the throne. When the New Testament talks about a hoped-for Christ or Messiah, it is referring to this promise to David. The Jews believed God would fulfil this plan and so they prayed for a Messiah.

And God sent Jesus, a son of David, who would be established eternally as king. He wasn’t the kind of king they expected. He was a better king. He would rule not on a throne in Jerusalem, but at the right hand of God. Not until he died, but from when he was resurrected.

Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of God’s plan to establish David’s house.

• David’s son will build God’s house

So, God promises that he will first, establish David’s house. But then when that has happened, God will allow David’s son to build a house for God.

And that is what happened. Solomon, David’s son became king and built a house or a temple for God in Jerusalem, that would stand for 400 years, until the Babylonians came, and would be rebuilt twice after that and stand in Jerusalem until its destruction in AD 70.

David’s plan would come about. Not by his timing, but by God’s timing.

But again, this is another promise, that Jesus as David’s greater Son fulfils in an unexpected way.

Jesus also comes as the Son of David, to build God’s house. It is not a house of dead stones, but living stones. It is not contained in one place, but is dispersed across the world. Jesus said to Peter,

“And I tell you that you are Peter, {Peter means rock.} and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades {Or hell} will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:18)

Peter as the first to realise that Jesus was the Christ, becomes the starting point for the new temple, the building.  Peter will later describe the dispersed church as a temple built with living stones with Christ as the cornerstone.

But notice again, that it is not Peter who does the building, but Christ, the Son of David, the Son of God who builds the church.

What about our plans?

So, what has this to say about our plans and our year of discernment?

• God’s grace not human plans

Firstly, we need to focus on God’s grace and not human plans. Successful churches can fall into a trap of celebrating their great achievements and forget that what we are meant to be about is celebrating God’s achievements despite us!

When we focus on God’s grace as primary, we can sit more loosely to our plans. Our faith, our hope is not on the success of any plan we may dream up, it is on what God has done already for us in Christ. We can be confident and at peace.

• Establish people before buildings

Secondly, we need to note that God was more interested in establishing David’s family, his house, before wanting to build a special house for himself.

We also need to note that the New Testament focuses on building a house made up of living stones, that is people not bricks.

Here in Ramsgate, we have big buildings and they can take a lot of effort and time. But, our focus needs to be on establishing a family of Christians in a strong community of faith. If we forget about the people and focus on buildings, then we have lost track of God’s vision. It is more important to maintain a strong family of Christians than to keep the church buildings open.

• Buildings for God’s name

But, thirdly, buildings do have a place in God’s plans. In the passage, God talks about David’s son, building a house for his name. Many of our church buildings have foundation stones, that say simply, ‘to the glory of God.’

The fact that previous generations built such magnificent buildings for the worship of God in Ramsgate is their ongoing witness to God’s glory and their desire to provide a place for future generations of Christians to gather.

Our buildings say something about God’s name to the world around, and by their presence bring glory to God.

We live with a conundrum. How can we respect the witness of these old buildings and the vision of those who built them, without losing that priority focus on the people of God or allowing the maintenance of the buildings to distract from the growth of the church? Have the buildings had their time in God’s plan? Or are they still a crucial part of the future vision? Let’s pray for God’s guidance!

God said to Israel: “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.” (Exodus 6:7)

We continue our series on Biblical Visions. This week we look at God’s plan to rescue Israel from slavery in Egypt.

As recorded at St. Luke’s

Heist Movies:

Do you enjoy watching heist movies? The most famous heist movies are the Italian Job, the original 1969 version starring Michael Caine and Oceans 11, not the original, but  the remake from 2001 starring George Clooney.

They all tend to follow a similar plot. A master criminal gathers a team of thieves, each with their own expertise. Then he lays out his master plan of how they are going to carry out a daring robbery of a bank or vault of some kind, then the robbery takes place and the aftermath is portrayed.

In each film, there is a key scene in which the plan for the heist is explained by the master criminal. This is the scene you need to pay attention to – otherwise the rest of the movie does not make sense, although it may be still fun to watch.

You could argue that in the Bible, the book of Exodus is a heist movie. God is stealing the people of Israel from Pharaoh! Not that God is a master criminal, rather he is rescuing his people who have in a sense been stolen and ill-treated by the Egyptians, so that they can truly be his people. This is a liberation not a theft.

Nonetheless, the book does follow a pattern a bit like a heist movie. God recruits his team, Moses and his brother Aaron, to take part in the plan and in the passage we have just had read to us he lays out his rescue plan.

Biblical Vision Part 2

As we reflect in our Year of Discernment on what God may be calling us to over the coming years we are looking at some of the passages in the Bible where God lays out his vision for his people. As we reflect on these different visions through the story of God’s dealings with his people we are looking for clues and guidance on what that might mean for our vision coming out of the year of discernment.

So, what is the rescue plan God lays out in Exodus 6?

Before he gets to the plan, God begins by explaining why he is carrying out his plan. He emphasises that he is the God who made the promises to Abraham and his son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob. This plan is a continuation of the plan he presented to Abraham. God has already made Abraham into a numerous nation, but now he sees them oppressed as slaves in Egypt, he realises that he needs to come through on the rest of the plan to bring them into the promised land. Then in verses 6-8, he gives three phases to the plan.

The Heist

Phase 1 is the heist, his plan to liberate them from their slavery in Egypt: Look at verse 6:

I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians

I will free you from being slaves to them

I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgement

They do not have to do anything. God will rescue them, and he does in powerful ways – read Exodus 7-14 to see the amazing story of what God does.

The Prize

You would expect phase 3 to come next, but actually it  is described in the last two statements of what God will do, which you can read in verse 8.

I will bring you into the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob

I will  give it to you as a possession.

He will fulfil his promise, and his plan presented to Abraham. They will have a land of their own. You can read the book of Joshua to see how they came into the land.

The Identity

But we’ve skipped phase 2? That comes in between phase 1 and 3 in verse 7, we have the middle two statements of what God will do:

I will take you as my own people

I will be your God

Notice the sense of mutual belonging: you will belong to me, I will belong to you. This is a commitment to a special relationship. And when people enter into a relationship like this they change their identity. 

These verses show that Exodus is not so much a heist movie as a romance. It is almost as if God is saying to Israel,

“I will take you as my wife

I will be your husband.”

God is not so much the master criminal, as the knight in shining armour rescuing the damsel in distress from her wicked captor, when they end up married in a happy ever after.

Now, marriage means a change of identity. Traditionally, in our culture, the woman changes her surname to that of her husband’s.

And as they come into this new relationship, the Israelites were to have a change of identity. They would no longer be slaves to Pharaoh, but God’s chosen people. Exodus 19, puts it even more clearly:

“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:6-7)

This is the stress of Exodus. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob used to know God as El Shadai, which we translate God Almighty. But now God takes on a new identity, a kind of rebrand. For Moses and from now on he is to be called, Yahweh, which we translate the LORD, with capital letters. Notice how important this is here. Four times, God says, ‘I am the LORD.’

But why the rebrand? Verse 7 probably helps us understand:

“Then you will know that I am the LORD your God,

who brought you out from the yoke of Egypt.”

The old branding, El Shaddai, associated him with the promises made to Abraham, but the new branding emphasises that he is the one who rescues them from slavery in Egypt. He is the same God, but now he is to be seen not just as the God who promises, but the God who cares and who rescues. They owe him, their freedom, their hope, their existence as a nation.

And as they come to understand God more fully, so they come to understand what it means to live as his people. In Exodus 20, when God introduces the Ten Commandments, the foundational statements of the Law, he begins by saying:

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, the land of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2)

Their motivation for following God’s law, is who God is. And so, they become a people shaped by their relationship with this God. That is what will truly make them into the great nation that God promised Abraham, that is what will help them be a blessing to the surrounding nations who will see the better life that comes from living in God’s ways.

As Moses says in Deuteronomy as part of his last words:

“See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” (Deuteronomy 4:5-8)

God’s Plan for us

All of this was God’s plan for Moses and his people at that stage of his mission.

But how does this fit with our understanding of what it is to be church today? How can it guide us as we seek to discern God’s will for our churches?

A New Rebranding – 1 Peter 1:3

God rebranded himself, so Israel had a deeper understanding of his nature at the Exodus. In the same way when Jesus comes to perform a kind of new Exodus, God undergoes another rebranding.

He is still El Shaddai or God Almighty, the God who made promises to Abraham, he is still Yahweh or ‘the LORD’ who rescued Israel from Egypt, but now God is also known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the focus of his action is not a rescue from slavery to a human institution, but slavery to sin and death.

So, for example at the start of his first letter, Peter describes God in this way:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! I his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.” (1 Peter 1:3)

Any church vision needs to embrace a desire to truly know the God, who reveals himself in Jesus. If we fail in that, we will fail as a church.

A Special Identity – 1 Peter 2:9

But alongside this is a special identity for us his people. In words based on those from Exodus 19, Peter describes both Jewish and non-Jewish Christians in this way:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 1:9)

Just as for the people of Israel, we are to see ourselves as those who belong to God having been rescued from darkness. Just like the people of Israel, we are not special because of what we have done, but because of what God has done for us. Our identity, our purpose, our vision needs to be rooted in the work of God in our lives, in that sense that God is dealing with us and working among us.

I wonder how good we are at looking out for that? One of the questions in the questionnaire asked about an important spiritual experience. Most of the answers focussed on the experience of life, church or a special service. Only a few mentioned God at work. Three answers stood out as encouraging in this way:

“I’ve learnt that Jesus loves me and wants me to be a part of his family even though my life hasn’t always been a good one.”

“[During] the sermon shortly after I attended … for the first time, I felt God was speaking to me.”

“My belief has grown as I see many miracles happening in this congregation.”

Perhaps part of our vision needs to be to become more aware and more happy to share what God is doing amongst us. Then we can declare more passionately his praises and be a more attractive and unique place for the world, a blessing to the nations.

A Blessing to the Nations – 1 Peter 2:11-12

Finally, just as in response to a new understanding of God’s identity as their rescuer, they were called to follow his ways, that the people of the world might be impressed, so we as Christians today are called to do the same.

A few verses later, Peter says,

“Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Peter 2:11-12)

As we live out our new identity as those rescued from sin and death, we will want to live lives that resist sin and so show the world the better life that God calls us to. We will want to do good, so that those around, will also want to join us in praising the God who inspires us.

In the questionnaire, when asked what changes God wants to see in the church in Ramsgate in the coming five years, the most popular responses were to do with engagement or service with the local community. That does seem to express something of the thrust of these verses. Indeed, we are doing that in increasing ways, with Play and Praise, Cafe4All, the St. George’s Community meal and having our church used for various concerts. We also look forward to the after school club for secondary school pupils starting soon.

Our vision for the coming years needs to embrace such initiatives, we want to be a blessing to the nations, to do good. But always with a hope that people will see our good deeds and not praise us, but come to praise the God who we belong to.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3)

Join us as we begin our series on Biblical Visions, looking at the vision God had for Abraham and his descendants.

As recorded at St. Luke’s

What kind of vision?

We have labelled this year, the year of discernment. As we enter the last third of the year, having spent time, praying, discussing and collecting thoughts and ideas, it is now time to actually discern, to decide what God’s vision is for our churches in the coming years.

But what does a vision look like? It will involve a rational, description and plan of what we want to achieve in the next five years, but hopefully we will be able to come up with a simple vision statement that will encapsulate what we think God wants to be doing with us in the rest of the decade.

To get a flavour of this, I wonder if you can guess which companies had these as their vision statements:

1. “Communications empowering people to accomplish more.” – Zoom
2. “A global force of learning through play.” – Lego
3. “We see a world where everybody is an athlete—united in the joy of movement.” – Nike
4. “To create a better everyday life for the many people.” – Ikea
5. “To make the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it.” – Apple
6. “To provide access to the world’s information in one click.” – Google
7.  “To make people happy.” – Disney

Now, you could be cynical and say, that really the main vision of all these companies is really to make as much money as possible for their shareholders.

But the vision statements do seek to show the good that each company is seeking to create for others. They are not about making money, they are about making a difference. And they are ambitious statements, showing they want to have a large positive impact, they perhaps in Biblical language show how they want to bless the world and most of us have been blessed by their work.

When we come to the Bible, vision statements are not on the whole provided by human beings, but by God. After all the Bible tells the story of God’s initiative to bring blessing to the world. It is his vision for transformation that drives the story of the Bible forward and that drives us as his people today.

So, as we come to consider what God’s vision for us in Ramsgate over the next five years might be, it is worth reflecting on some of the vision statements given in the Bible. Today, we start with perhaps the most important one, God’s calling of Abraham, and it is all about blessing.

Immense Blessing – For Abraham, Eph. 1:3, Psalm 1

In the verses we read, Abraham is called to a new life, a way from all that is familiar, his country, his people and family to take part in God’s mission. This is a key moment in the Bible story, the beginning of God’s dealings with Abraham and his descendants that will continue through the rest of the book. Indeed, arguably, the rest of the Bible is about how the promises in these few verses are fulfilled bit by bit.

When you read the verses, that is not surprising. The vision that Abraham is called into, is positive and ambitious. He will be blessed, he will become a great nation and have a great name and through him the whole world will be blessed. It is a vision worthy of a twenty-first century AD multi-national company, given to a twenty-first century BC solitary individual, by the God who created the universe.

But what is meant by the word, ‘Bless?’ Our world today seems increasingly focusses on our inner feelings and emotions. We want to feel and be happy, to be mentally healthy and resilient. Perhaps when you are looking for a spiritual blessing, you are hoping to feel better as a result.

But, I think the idea of blessing is richer and more real than that. To be blessed is to be successful, to be and do the kind of things God has made us to be and do. To flourish and be fruitful.

The first thing God does to humans after creating them is to bless them:

“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”” (Gen. 1:28)

This blessing is to do with growth of family and an ability to have power to rule over the world in order to be able to bless it ourselves. It is not an inner feeling but external success, something solid and real.

Later in the first Psalm, we are reminded that blessing comes to those who take God’s word seriously:

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” (Psalm 1:1-3)

Again there is a sense of solidity – a tree planted, of flourishing, a tree planted by streams of water, whose leaf does not whither and of fruitfulness, yielding its fruit. This is substantial, real and wonderful.

When it comes to the New Testament, Jesus begins his first section of teaching in Matthew with the beatitudes, telling us that the people who have God’s attitudes are the ones who will be blessed. But the same sermon teaches us to look for blessing or success not in earthly wealth, but in heavenly rewards, that although less visible are no less real. Indeed, Jesus stresses that earthly riches are not real blessing, because they can be stolen or rot away. It is riches in heaven that is the true treasure and Paul says in Ephesians, that for those in Christ, we have truly been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm!

God had a very specific blessing for Abraham, it was unique to him. But, God from beginning to end wants to show immense blessing to all people, who will come and follow him.

• So should expect the vision that God has for us to be about blessing? A blessing for us that involves, a flourishing and fruitfulness as churches.

If that is the case, why over recent times has there been so much decline? Perhaps we should not be presumptuous about God’s blessing. After all, Psalm 1, says it is those who take God’s word seriously to live by that are blessed. Does that truly describe us?

And in Ephesians, Paul says that the blessings are for those that are “in Christ.” Are we truly, ‘in Christ’? Is our commitment and loyalty to him at the heart of our lives or just a bit of an add on? Jesus himself promises that those who ‘remain in him’ will bear much fruit, but he also warns that dead branches will be pruned away.

We need to examine our hearts, rather than presume on God’s blessing.

Even for Abraham, God’s blessing involved letting go. He had to leave his home, his people and his family in order for God to bless him. Are there things God is calling us to let go of in order for him to better be able to bless us?

Even when our hearts are in the right place and we are obedient to God’s call, however, God’s blessing will not necessarily be immediate. At times it may seem impossible.

Impossible Blessing – Faith in the promise, Heb. 11:8-11

Genesis 12:1-3, contain God’s amazing promise to Abraham, but it is not a promise that is fulfilled immediately. It takes hundreds of years to come to pass.

The story of the Bible is the struggle between God’s promise for a greater future and the reality of present futility.

This is particularly clear for Abraham. God promises that he will become a great nation and makes it clear in subsequent verses that this will involve him having a large number of descendants, as many as the sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky. But for Abraham this seems impossible, he is very old and his wife is childless. You can’t have grandchildren if you don’t have children!

But despite the futility of his situation and the seeming lack of blessing, Abraham trusts in God’s promise of impossible blessing. Eventually, God does bless him and his barren wife, Sarah with just one son, Isaac. By the end of Genesis, Abraham’s descendants his great-grandchildren number 70 or so. It is not until hundreds of years have passed that his family has truly grown to the size of a nation – but by then they are slaves in Egypt, without their own land, the land that God promises them.

That futile situation sets up the next stage of God fulfilling his impossible promise – we’ll come to that next week.

The point is, though, that despite the seeming futility of his situation, Abraham believes God’s promise. He has faith in God’s future blessing:

” By faith Abraham, even though he was past age–and Sarah herself was barren–was enabled to become a father because he  considered him faithful who had made the promise.” (Heb. 11:11)

Abraham did not focus on what the futility of his situation suggested was impossible, but on the promise that God gave him.

• When it comes to God’s vision for our churches, if God calls us into a vision of what seems from a human perspective to be impossible, we must be willing to have faith like Abraham. To trust that the God who brought the universe out of nothing and a child from Sarah’s barren womb can also bring any blessing to us that he promises.

Let’s not be afraid of seemingly impossible visions – as long as they truly are visions from God.

International Blessing – For Outsiders

So, God’s vision for Abraham was for an immense blessing, even though it seemed to be an impossible blessing. But it was also a vision for a blessing beyond Abraham himself. God’s vision was that through Abraham, all nations would be blessed.

God blessed Abraham in order that Abraham could bless others.

This is shown in a number of ways in the story of Genesis, but perhaps most powerfully in the story of Joseph, one of Abraham’s great-grandchildren. Joseph was rejected by his own brothers, sold into slavery and proclaimed as dead to his father, Jacob. He was taken as a slave to Egypt, but through his God given ability to interpret dreams was able to interpret an especially troubling dream of Pharaoh, Egypt’s king. The result was that he was made Prime Minister of Egypt and was able to store up food ready for a terrible famine. As a result when the famine came, Egypt was fed as were many other nations and peoples. Joseph proved a blessing to many nations and was eventually reconciled to his family.

In a sense God’s promise to bless all nations was achieved through Joseph, but it was achieved most powerfully, through Abraham’s most important descendant, Jesus. He too was rejected by his brothers and actually killed. Yet, Jesus was raised up to God, not Pharaoh’s right hand and offers blessing to people from all nations that will come to him. We are part of the representatives of that 4,000 year old promise being fulfilled.

• All of this, however, reminds us that God’s vision is not just to bless his people, but for his people to be a blessing to the wider world. Whatever, vision we discern from God, will have this aspect to it. We will want not just to look to be flourishing churches, but churches that are bringing people to share in the blessings Jesus has won for us and blessing our town and its people in real and positive ways.

We are already doing this in a number of ways: Cafe4All, Play and Praise, the opening up of our buildings to the wider community, the community meal and community pastors. There are even plans for new ways, like the after school club at St. Luke’s. Do we see these activities as ways in which we are achieving God’s vision to bless all nations, given to Abraham 4,000 years ago?

The God of Blessing

God created a world and blessed it! He called Abraham and blessed him! More than that his vision was for Abraham to be a blessing.

The question we face as individuals daily and as churches going forward is, how does God want us to be a blessing to his world today? When we can answer that with confidence we will have our vision statement!

This week’s theme is the secret of wisdom as we focus on Solomon, Israel’s wisest king.

The Queen of Sheba’s Visit

Solomon is celebrated in the Old Testament as the wisest of men.  The first few chapters of 1 Kings are very complimentary.  We’ve thought about his prayer for wisdom rather than wealth (chapter 2), and last week we had planned initially to look at one particular instance where he resolved a dispute between two women who both claimed to be the mother of a baby (chapter 3).  And here in chapter 10, with the visit of the Queen of Sheba, we see a woman completely overwhelmed by Solomon’s wisdom and success.  What follows in chapter 4 is a summary that goes like this:  God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore.  He spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs numbered a 1,005.  From all nations people came to listen to him, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom  (1 Kings 4:30-34).

So this week we are jumping from 1 Kings 2 to 1 Kings 10, and this is where we will be finishing this short series.  What we’ve missed out is the memorable story of the baby, the building of the temple plus a grand palace, and then in chapter 11 the reference to Solomon’s 700 wives.  In those days, many such marriages were arranged as a way of ensuring peace with surrounding countries.  But over time these arrangements turned Solomon’s heart away from the Lord.

After his death it also becomes clear that he was something of a tyrant, imposing forced labour on his own people to build the Temple, and later the Canaanites who had been allowed to stay in the land, but also a heavy burden on Hebrew families from the northern tribes, and so after his death there is an acrimonious split between those 10 northern tribes (known as Israel) and the two southern ones, Judah and Benjamin (thereafter known as Judah).  So, it begs the question: Just how wise was Solomon?  Clearly he was a shrewd politician.  Quite possibly, like some of our prolific modern writers, he used researchers to come up with proverbs and poems for which he then took the credit!

The two books of Kings were written a long time after his death.  In fact, the timeline from the death of King David to the exile in Babylon covers a period of 400 years.  Now if I was going back 400 years and writing a book about the English Civil War between King Charles 1 and the English Parliament, I would need to do a lot of research.  I used to think it was a straight battle between cavaliers (royalists) and roundheads (parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell), but apparently Cromwell was dealing with issues in his own ranks.  Some of his people, known as ‘Levellers’, wanted even more democracy than he did.  Oliver Cromwell’s statue stands proudly outside Parliament to this day, but he ambushed and shot four of the leading Levellers in order to crush the movement and secure his own agenda.  In fact, it was not until almost 250 years later, in1891, that minutes of a debate that took place in Putney were discovered inside a book in one of the Oxford University libraries, revealing the strength of sentiment among those Levellers.  In them you find the words of one of the generals of Cromwell’s New Model Army, Thomas Rainsborough:  I think that the poorest man in England has a life to live, as the greatest man. I think that the poorest man is not bound to a government that he has not had a voice to put himself under.  What I’m trying to say is that much in our past is either unrecorded, suppressed or lost.  Getting to the truth is not easy, and the past throws up a complex and often contested story.  Historians have a difficult job.

So here’s a writer who is sifting through the various sources, recognising that there were those who thought Solomon was wonderful, and yet others who clearly didn’t.  And rather than take sides, he cleverly allows both voices to be heard and in the process he allows you to draw your own conclusions.  But he’s not neutral, and there’s a phrase in chapter 10 which you could be excused for not noticing, which we must revisit.

The Queen of Sheba’s visit is a celebrated moment in Solomon’s reign.  It’s clearly one of many state visits by the kings and queens of the region, but it’s singled out for special attention.  There are those who have turned it into a romance (e.g. the 1959 Hollywood film ‘Solomon and Sheba’).  So there’s a story that the queen returns to Sheba (somewhere around Ethiopia).  She is pregnant with Solomon’s son, and that son returns to visit his illustrious father 20 years later, only to find that Israel is not what his mother described.  It has become decadent, and no longer worthy to be called the people of the supreme God.  So he steals the Ark of the Covenant from the temple and takes it back.  To this day Ethiopia claims to have the Ark, but they say it’s hidden away.  It’s not the only theory about the Ark (2 Chronicles 35 contradicts the Ethiopian claim, and you might prefer the Steven Spielberg version!), but it’s certainly interesting that the Ark of the Covenant is only mentioned once after Solomon’s reign.

And so to the visit.  The queen comes with a list of carefully crafted questions, and Solomon answers them all.  She is impressed by what she hears and sees, which probably doesn’t include the conscripted labour force from the northern tribes, and what the text of this chapter doesn’t give you either is any examples of the king’s wisdom.  What it says is  …  when she saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed  (10:4-5).  It seems that she was given a tailor-made tour of the best bits.

The text keeps referring to Solomon’s wisdom, but all the examples it gives are about his wealth, and you get the sense that Solomon is one of the world’s great businessmen.  Now you can find numerous books and websites with titles like ‘10 secrets of a successful business’.  We doff our caps to successful people all the time.  They usually rise early, work late and skimp on holidays.  Unlike us mortals, they see an opportunity and exploit it to the full.  We remind ourselves in church that God’s wisdom is different to human wisdom, but in practice we’re often only interested in those people who are successful and wealthy.

So here’s the phrase for you to notice.  This is the Queen of Sheba’s parting shot:  Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel.  Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king, to maintain justice and righteousness (9).  How ironical!  The king’s primary task was to look after his people.  That phrase ‘justice and righteousness’ is a classic phrase the prophets used to reprimand the nation’s leaders: You turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground  …  let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream  (Amos 6:7 & 24).

I wonder what happened when the queen said that.  Maybe Solomon shifted awkwardly.  She was probably saying more than she knew.  If you’d reminded her of her words later, she would probably have forgotten, but the writer has retained them in his final edit.  He lets the words linger in the midst of this celebration of opulence.  God’s kings were to be champions of righteousness and justice, generous to foreigners and good shepherds of their own people, but this king had fallen at the first hurdle.

It’s probably no surprise that the nation divided after Solomon’s death, for he had accumulated sumptuous amounts of wealth for the few whilst exploiting the many.  And Solomon’s glory did not impress Jesus as it impressed the Queen of Sheba: Consider the lilies of the field.  They do not labour or spin.  Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these  (Luke 12:27).

So what do you want from life?  You may not be a powerful leader like Solomon, but you may share his aspirations.  Perhaps we need a new breed of hero, people who are driven more by service than wealth.  Such people already exist, but they are the unsung heroes.

William Carey is one such hero from Baptist history.  Information filtering through about life in India had concerned him, so in the 1790s he went there, where he was confronted with babies being sacrificed in the Ganges River, in Bengal alone 600 widows being burned on their husbands’ funeral pyres every year, and the caste system which still exists to this day.  He worked hard.  It was 7 years before he saw his first convert, and through his 41 years there he only saw 700.  But he learnt umpteen languages, translating the whole Bible into 6 and the NT into 23.  He built a printing press, and when it burned down, he raised money in Britain to build another.  He harassed successive governments until the killing of children, the burning of widows, and the burial alive of lepers were made criminal offences.  He understood the meaning of righteousness and justice.

Almost 1000 years after Solomon, a group of men in search of wisdom came to Jerusalem.  They met the king who had recently renovated the temple, but quickly realised that he was not the source of the wisdom they sought.  So they travelled further until they came to an ordinary house in Bethlehem.  There they found a toddler, and they bowed in worship and presented their gifts.

About 30 years ago former Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, produced a lent series for the Scripture Union.  He entitled it “A king with a difference”.  The substance was this.  Kings have palaces, but this king had nowhere to lay his head.  Kings have territory, but his kingdom was not of this world.  Kings have armies, but when one of his follower attacked the high priest’s servant, this king said that those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and he told us to love our enemies.  Kings have servants, but this king came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and King Jesus offers the wisdom our planet needs.  So may you find what this queen never found.  The way of Jesus seems a very far cry from the chapter we’ve read, but it’s the power of God for everyone who believes.  In the words of the NT apostle: What seems to be God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and what seems to be God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1:25).  May we all invest in this superior wisdom!