We have all heard of the honey do list. Home projects a wife may have for her husband to catch up on- big projects, little projects, usually more than a husband has the energy to visualize or conceptualize doing them all. We all in our own way have the list of projects we want to get done in the month of December.
Earlier this week it was refreshing to finish up the Christmas decoration in the Atrium, something we just did not get to several weeks earlier when we decorated. It is, after all a shame to leave the Christmas ornaments in a box and not get to them. Whether it is decorating or looking for gifts for others, or sending Christmas cards, there is much potential for unfinished business in the month of December.
When we went caroling last weekend it was exciting to see neighbors face to face and share the joy of Christmas carols. But it also reminded me of other things on the ministry to do list, that street sign that would tell people driving on highway 40 that the church is around the corner, or the postcards I think it would be worthwhile to send as a mass mailing to our local zip code.
Perhaps you have your own to do list in your faith, what you would like to do for the church, or even scripture reading schedules you would like to put into practice.
If you feel like you have some significant things on your list that you are failing to get to, consider what King David had on his list: building the temple for God to dwell in.
King David, once settled on his throne had thoughts about doing something good for God. David had accomplished so much already in terms of conquests of enemies, building projects throughout Israel- even moving the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. But there was something missing.
As we heard in our reading from 2Samuel chapter 7: Now when the king lived in his house and the LORD had given him rest from all of his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.”
David had the desire to serve God, yet on account of sin he unfortunately prioritized over the years building something for himself and others rather than building for God.
David’s family would be racked by problems in the coming years as a result of his own sins of murder and adultery, incest among his children, rebellion from a son. David would die and be buried and his earthly accomplishments turning to dust.
David wanted to build the temple to hold the ark of the covenant, but he would not be the one to build it. This was not the Lord’s plan for him, but instead the plan for his son Solomon to build the temple.
As is the case with all of the best laid plans in life, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. When it comes to the “To do lists” we have for our life and our church’s ministry, we are encouraged to look to the Lord for support. But what is most important is not what we can do, but what he has done for us in the past and continues to do for us.
The house that God builds is what demands the most attention- especially in a busy month of December. It is always our gracious God who constructs what is perfect and lasting. God reminded David that it was he, the LORD who in the past had done everything for him and for all people.
The LORD delivered them from slavery in Egypt. The LORD shepherded them through the journey to the promised land. The LORD gave them rest from their enemies. The LORD had already provided a place for the ark in the portable tent that was the tabernacle.
God has built the same house for us. Like David we can look at our lives and see the same sinful insufficiency David saw in his life. Our priorities have been displaced by God’s priorities. Our family is marred by sin, as we break the LORD’s commandments. Like David, we will die and be buried, as everything we build will turn to dust.
But God has done everything we need. He has delivered us from sin and it’s slavery; we have come through baptism’s water out of Egypt. Like David, the LORD has built our house by shepherding us with his Word and Sacraments. He has conquered Satan and all that would threaten us his lambs. And most important of all he has built for us the ultimate temple- Jesus!
Jesus, the Word became flesh, who dwelt among us full of grace and truth, is the only one in whom the fullness of God can dwell.
Jesus fulfills all of the accomplishments that we cannot fulfill. He does it all for us. In verse 11 of our Old Testament reading we hear how God reverses things for David instead of laying out the plans for David constructing the temple, he promises to build David a house!
The house God promised was Jesus and the kingdom of God that he brings. “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
The reading continues, verses not in our bulletin selected reading: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up for your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
We see what this house looked like several generations later when the angel Gabriel spoke to Mary, a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph of the house of David. This house worthy of the name of the LORD was not found in the appearance of a famous dynasty of kings living in a palace of great wealth, but instead in the form of a young family just getting started in a small back woods town of little significance called Nazareth.
God’s ways are higher and greater than our ways. Instead of building a great temple, the house of David reached its ultimate power in the birth of a baby named Jesus. He would be the temple that all the glory of God is contained within.
In John chapter 2 Jesus even called himself the temple, predicting that he would take the ultimate destruction, your eternal damnation, on the cross and rise victorious as your eternal king. And Jesus spoke about how we continue in receiving the great promises of the house of David through Him, as we have been grafted into the line of David by faith.
John 14:2 “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”
Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be there as their God.
You now have David’s hope that “God builds the king’s house for you.” God builds the house when you hear his Word guiding you in His grace. You are commissioned to like David was told, “Do all that is in your heart, for the LORD is with you.”
The Tabernacle and the temple of the Old Testament did not endure. The cloth tent was never intended by God to be a permanent structure. The temple built by David’s Son Solomon was eventually destroyed after 400 years. It’s replacements were also destroyed not all that long after they were built. God wanted His people to have lasting hope, not in earthly things or in their own accomplishments , but in His eternal king , Jesus and in His eternal kingdom.
God’s ways are higher than our ways. We hear this often as we read through the scriptures, and it is reflected perhaps no clearer than in the promise to the house of David.
David’s reaction to all of this news of a house being built for him is recorded in verse 18 of chapter 7 “Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and said, “Who am I O LORD God and what is my house that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes O LORD God. In verse 26 we hear: “Your name will be magnified forever, saying, “The Lord of hosts is God over Israel, and the house of your servant David will be established before you.”
Does this sound similar to our gospel reading? Listen as Mary hears about the same promise made to the house of David through the angel Gabriel. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant, For behold from now on all generations will call me blessed.”
And we also are called blessed, as we receive the inheritance of our faith. We began focusing on those TO DO lists in our life. As we have considered how ‘Unless the LORD builds the house those who build it, labor in vain’, Our blessing is not in what we can accomplish, but in the House that The Lord builds for us, the kingdom He has prepared for us. Amen.