Faithfulness: Dwell
God’s Faithfulness Exceeds our Grasp
1 Kings 8:1,6,10-11, 22-30, 41-43
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. August 22nd, 2021
When I was younger, about middle school age, I started having a problem with praying “thy will be done.” I don’t know how many of us might have had the same problem. For me, I had anxiety issues that were not insignificant. I had developed rituals each morning to keep my mind focused and to endure the inevitable anxiety attack. I taught myself to exert a certain amount of willpower and control over my surroundings in order to manage these attacks, and endure them when they arrived. So I had this overwhelming sense that my wellbeing depended on being in control of my life.
How can I stay in control and at the same time pray “thy will be done?”
I never doubted God’s goodness, or God’s faithfulness. But I did imagine God as a divine drill sergeant at times who, in trying to bring me to where I need to be, is willing to drag me through trials. And in my need to control my life and my mind I wasn’t quite sure I could say “thy will be done.”
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but not because God wishes to shatter us. It is a fearful thing because God wishes to shatter our illusions, and sometimes we hold our illusions dear. My illusion was the illusion I had any control at all. As if I were withholding from God the exercise of his will. Like God sits in the heavenly throne going “I want to do this, but I’m waiting for Tim to say the magic words.” God’s will is done with or without our prayers, and thanks be to God! The question is whether we are on board or we try to row against the current.
Over time I came to realize that God is not the divine drill sergeant, and God does not delight in trial. But the only way to find our way through the trials that come is hope in the faithfulness of God.
God’s faithfulness is both extravagant, and exceeds our grasp. God makes extravagant promises. He promises Israel a King. He promises peace, and prosperity. He promises David that his throne would endure for all generations. He promises Solomon wisdom. And promises to make the Temple a place for his name. But so often we fail. The people ask for a King, rejecting the Lord as King. Saul in his paranoia and pride gives up on God. David commits adultery and murder. Solomon, the great builder of the Temple and one of the wisest men who ever lived would be tempted toward the worship of false Gods. God made promises to all these people, extravagant promises, and yet they turned away in their own ways and frustrated the fulfillment of those promises.
As the old hymn goes, “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love” What is so wonderful about God’s faithfulness is not, first, that God makes extravagant promises. But that God is faithful to those promises even when we are unfaithful. Even when we err and even when we sin God still works to fulfill the promises he has made. And, oftentimes, he comes to fulfill those promises in still more extravagant ways.
In our Old Testament reading this morning Solomon is dedicating the Temple to the Lord. He marvels at God’s extravagant faithfulness up until that point. “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all their heart, the covenant that you kept for your servant my father David as you declared to him; you promised with your mouth and have this day fulfilled with your hand.” But then he prays something that may have made your ears tingle when you first heard it. He says, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!”
Solomon marvels at God’s extravagant faithfulness in setting aside the Temple as the place for the dwelling of his name. That at this Temple all may come in prayer. All may receive forgiveness. All may receive blessing. And God’s presence may be assured. The Temple was a wonderful grace for the people of Israel, and indeed the whole world. But people came to take the Temple almost for granted. Or, perhaps a better way of putting it, they thought the Temple meant that they had God in some way under control. Offer up the right amount of bullocks and calves and your sins could be forgiven. God’s mercy was seen as utterly dependable. As if God did not truly desire that they love justice, mercy, and walk with their God. So God’s glory would leave the Temple, and it would be destroyed. The Ark lost for all time.
But that’s not why your ears likely tingled. He prays “But will God indeed dwell on the earth?” God had promised David an eternal throne. He promised that there would always be someone to reign in his house. And God fulfilled that promise despite the sins of the house of David, despite the sins of Israel. God fulfilled that promise by, indeed, dwelling on the earth. What the universe could not contain was contained in a manger. And God dwelt not in a Temple but in a person, as a person. Jesus Christ.
God remained extravagantly faithful to the promises he made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon. He remained extravagantly faithful even in the midst of our unfaithfulness. And his faithfulness always exceeded our grasp, was always more than we could have asked or imagine. For indeed, God was not satisfied to simply give us a Temple, but God would make us a Temple by pouring his Holy Spirit into our hearts. God was not satisfied to dwell in a house, but he dwells among us. And he draws us all nearer to himself, as we await the fulfillment of all his promises. Probably in a way we still could not fathom.