Are Christians Lazy?

I was walking along the lake this morning, praying. (Trust me, 6:30 AM in February qualifies as “the cool of the day!”) As we walked, he brought back to my mind a hope, a dream really, regarding ministry that He and I had talked about decades ago. I realized that I’ve seen nothing come of it.

I need to explain something before I go too much further here. I’m a direct communicator. God knows this and seems to not be offended by it. He sometimes speaks directly with me; it works for us.

So I’m reflecting on this ministry dream, and it crosses my mind that it hasn’t come to pass; in fact, I’ve known several folks with similar dream, and theirs hasn’t come about yet either. Hmmm. Oh look, it’s beginning to snow.

And the voice of the Holy Spirit whispers in the back of my thoughts: “That’s because my people are lazy.”

Whoa. Suddenly He had my attention, and he unfolded a series of thoughts in my mind, like a slideshow; no, more like an MTV video clip: fast, active, and full of energy. I feel the need to share some of those thoughts.

In many ways, the work of the Western Church has been functionally indistinguishable from the work of the secular world in which we live. Not completely, of course, but in some critical ways. We’ve often governed our congregations by political process (show me one place in the Word where the people voted; there is one, but it’s not our model). We’ve accomplished what we considered the work of the Kingdom, but we’ve been directed by our own goals and we reached them by our own strength.

There’s been a growing movement in the church that has rejected the concept of using the arm of the flesh to accomplish the work of the Spirit, and encouraged a more Spirit-led model of ministry. For example, we don’t often see Jesus setting goals and forming committees; rather, we hear Him talk about doing and speaking only “what He sees the Father doing,” and we see the supernatural results that He had, and we want to be like Him!

Then we read the story of Mary and Martha, and we hear Jesus rebuke Martha and affirm Mary, and we think, “Well, I should sit at His feet, not run around working hard, or He’ll rebuke me too.”

Unfortunately, what worked for Him turns into religion and passivity in us. We become religious because we forsake our vision for the marketplace for “more spiritual” vision. We become passive when we look at Jesus’ statements as if He sits around waiting for God to give Him direction.

A verse that has driven us is poorly translated Isaiah 40:31: But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. We see “wait” and we think about sitting in the lobby of the doctor’s office reading antiquated news-magazines, and that’s made us lazy. The Hebrew word actually means “to wait or to look for with eager expectation,” and is the root word for the making rope: becoming intertwined. When Jesus “waited”, He did it early in the morning or late at night: He worked hard to wait, to intertwine Himself with Father. Maybe that’s the reason that we don’t accomplish as much as He: we don’t work as hard at waiting.

I’ve encountered an attitude that appears to be uncomfortably commonplace among believers, particularly among believers who believe in and like to associate with the power of God. We wouldn’t put it this way, but it’s accurate: we kind of wait for God to hand us our dreams on a silver platter.

There’s a reason that Bill Gates or Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are as successful as they are, despite the fact that they don’t (as far as anyone knows) spend much time waiting on God: they work hard.

We as believers should work as hard as unbelievers work, though certainly we don’t worship market dominance, wealth, or power as they do. Jesus didn’t rebuke Martha for working; He rebuked Martha for dismissing Mary’s choice as insignificant, or for working without having spent time sitting at His feet first. He never said, “Be more like Mary,” perhaps because if we all did nothing more than sit at Jesus’ feet, nothing would get done. I rather suspect that the goal is to be like both Martha and Mary. As Mike Bickle says, “Lovers make better workers.”

I hear people complain that if they take the time to be with God, time to be with their family, time for church, then the won’t have time to do the work of the kingdom. First, I suspect that’s more of an excuse than a reality, at least in the lives of some who have made that complaint to me. And second, I’ve become willing to suggest that we seriously cut back on the number of services we attend in order to spend more time with God, with family, and in the work of the kingdom.

So, to answer the question that I posed in the title of this posting, yes, I think Christians (including myself) are lazy, and we’re lazy because we have been poorly instructed. When we learn who we are in Christ, when we learn that it is our work to reign with Him, when we figure out that “waiting” has more to do with warfare than it does with killing time, then I think we’ll find our dreams come to pass, our promises fulfilled, and His kingdom come.

The Third Place of Worship

Some time ago, I wrote a posting about The Two Tabernacles, and how they’re a metaphor for the people of God today. Please allow a brief quote, because I need to use that metaphor as a launch point.

We live in a day where there are large and prestigious and prosperous gathering places on the hilltops, in the public places. They’re in the media and in the eyes of the nation, and the people go there by the thousands to perform the rituals and offer the sacrifices and be trained by the religious authorities of the nation. They have the professional musicians, the professional speakers, the professional media technicians. The ceremonies are moving and the messages are relevant and uplifting. Thousands come to a faith in Christ through these tabernacles.

They lack only one thing. The presence of God is not in them.

These churches carefully following plans laid down by godly men and women, whether that’s the vision of the founders, the vision of the pastor or the directions of the board of directors. They’re doing their best to be what they think a church ought to be. They’re following the law as they know it.

But David’s tabernacle is not about following the Law. In fact, it was completely outside the Law. The Law required the Ark of the Covenant to stay in the Tabernacle of Moses. David was working outside of the law, outside of the rules that God had established for worship, outside of the Tabernacle.

But it is David’s Tabernacle, not Moses’, that God likes best and that He promises to restore.

Heaven is committed to this kind of worship, and this is the pattern of worship that makes God happy: people coming directly to God, coming freely and joyfully, without the pomp and circumstance of the Tabernacle of Meeting, without the religious trappings of the grand ceremony and tradition.

My point was not that the big churches are evil, rather they are in fact following the Command of God, though sometimes it’s hard to worship God with abandon in those places: worshipping in small gatherings makes it easier to be passionate and reckless in our worship. But where we worship is not the issue: how we worship is the issue: we must do whatever it takes, go wherever we need to, in order to worship God passionately, as He deserves to be worshipped! Our worship – yours and mine – is the issue, not whether it’s in a big building or a back bedroom, and this is the call on the church today: worship vigorously.

The Third Place of Worship

David worshiped at Shiloh, and he worshiped with the ark of God in the back bedroom. But there’s a third place where David worshiped, and God has for a few years begun calling His people to worship here as well.

I need to start with some background.

In Psalm 5, David declares, “But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy; In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple.” In Psalm 18, he says, “In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, And my cry came before Him, even to His ears.”

And Psalm 27 has one of my favorite quotes of David: “One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple.”

So David didn’t just worship in the Tabernacle of Meeting at Shiloh and the pup tent in his back bedroom (which history calls the Tabernacle of David), but he also worshiped in the temple. And if Psalm 27 is any indication, he worshiped passionately there, too.

This is something that has confused Bible scholars for years. David worshiped at the temple, but the temple wasn’t built until after his death, after his son Solomon became king. The temple did not exist in David’s day, but he worshipped there anyway. David knew of the promise of the temple.

The best I can tell – apart from science fiction-type guesses – is that somehow David experienced the fulfillment of a promise that had not yet fulfilled on earth. Somehow David managed to visit the place of the promise, even though – in the natural – the promise hadn’t been fulfilled yet.

David visited the promised temple of his God by faith; either he moved himself into the place where that future promise will have been fulfilled (how do you handle verb tenses for something like this?) or brought the promise into his present reality, again by faith.

I’m not suggesting that David was physically transported through time, or that some years later, some worshiper in the temple would bump into the time traveler from the past (though that sounds like an interesting movie plot). Worship is a spiritual activity: this whole process happened in the spirit. David visited the promised temple of God in his spirit.

Now as for me, I have no aspiration to worship in a building that was built from stone and gold, that was torn down two or three millennia ago. However, I certainly do get to worship by faith like David did, but the place where I worship by faith is not the same as the place that he did. By faith, David worshiped in the temple that God had promised to David: no, he wouldn’t build it, but his son would build the it. That was God’s promise to David. In David’s day, the temple existed only as a promise, but David worshiped there by faith.

There are promises for us today. Ours aren’t about a temple of stone and cedar and brass and gold. Our promises are about … well, we have some promises in common and some promises that are different.

Together, we share promises about the presence of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth (“Thy kingdom come”: think about what that means for a while…). We share promises for an outpouring of His spirit on our generation unlike any the world has yet seen: a billion souls in a generation.

We also have individual promises. One of His promises to my family is a house that’s large enough to have home groups in. He’s made other promises to me about my place in His work: He’s told me things about who I will be and what I will be doing. The significant point is that whether I have seen the fulfillment of them or not, I can worship Him – I can approach Him – from the middle of my fulfilled promise. I can worship Him from the large-enough-for-a-home-group living room of my new house, even though I own no such house today.

Sometimes, it seems like God is forgetful. Sometimes, He makes a promise to us, and then He forgets that it’s just a promise: it hasn’t happened yet. He does things like call Abraham a “father of many nations” when he’s still childless. He speaks about things which do not exist as though they did exist.

Since God is not forgetful (even if it seems like it), then it must be something else: the promise must actually exist once He’s spoken about it; it just doesn’t exist here, where I am. But God, being omnipresent, isn’t limited to just “here, where I am.” And in another place where He is, the promise exists. In that place, His promises already exist, done, finished, completed. In that place, Abe was already the father of many nations, even though he had no children on Earth yet. In that place, the temple already existed, even though it would not be built here until after David’s death. In that place, a billion people worship Jesus who do not yet know Him here.

If my thinking goes no further than what I can see and experience in my flesh, I’ll never inhabit those promises until they’ve been fulfilled in the physical realm. If I limit myself to what I see and feel, those billion souls don’t exist, and my promises are but empty words. But if I look with His eyes, then I can see the fulfillment now. If I experience them with my faith, then I can walk among those believers and begin to understand their hurts and know their needs, so that when I encounter the men and women of that promised outpouring, we’ll already have things ready for them.

You see, by faith, I worship in a different temple. I worship in the temple in Heaven. I worship in the presence of God. Ephesians says I’m already seated in heaven, I’m already seated in Christ, I’m already in that place, in His presence. And that’s real, that’s true, even though it looks to me like I’m sitting on a wooden chair typing on a laptop computer. I only experience the hard chair and the computer if I’m only experiencing physically. If I look with my spirit, with my faith, I can see the angels crowded around crying, “Worthy is the Lamb!”

This is really hard to communicate; we don’t have a language to describe our very real experience of a not-yet-fulfilled promise. But my lack of language does not indicate a lack of reality, a lack of priority to that experience.

It is given to us to worship from the place of our promises, by the God who calls things that are not as though they already were. There are many and significant implications, but first, we must stand in that place of our promises. I propose we start there with worship. Then we can think about other things.

Gathered Together in My Name

In Matthew 18, Jesus said, “where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

Let’s think about this for a minute, please. If you and I and a handful of others are gathered in a church on a Sunday morning, or a home group on a Thursday night, then we’d expect the presence of God with us, on the basis of this verse, wouldn’t we? We’re gathered together in His name, after all.

But if I walk to the far side of the room, or step outside the front door, is His presence still with us? How about if I walk across the street? Or down the block? What kind of distance does “together” encompass? If I fly to Djibouti and you remain at home praying for me, is His presence somehow removed because we’re not “together”?

My point is that it doesn’t make sense for us to interpret “together” as primarily a function of physical location. I can see two hindrances to a physical interpretation: a) if we’re defining “together” as “within physical proximity,” then there comes a point when nothing has changed except physical distance, and now God’s presence is no longer with us, and this isn’t particularly consistent with scripture, and b) this passage is talking about a spiritual principle (unity), but “distance” and “location” are physical descriptors, not spiritual ones: feet and inches don’t have significance in the realm of the spirit.

Or another application: what would happen if you and I met at Safeway? Does that qualify as “gathered together”? Do we still qualify as “in His name”? Is His presence still with us in something approximating the way it is on Thursday night at home group?

Here’s where I’m going: I think that “gathered together in My name” should perhaps be defined as a state of covenant relationship existing between us. After all, His presence among us doesn’t begin when the meeting starts any more than it somehow vanishes when the pastor says, “Amen.” God is present in our relationship when our relationship is built on a covenant commitment to each other, and when our relationship includes Him at its center.

If you and I are in a covenant relationship, then certainly we will meet together sometimes. We might meet at the same church, the same home group. We might meet at Starbucks (I have a friend who calls it “St. Arbucks”) or we might meet over the phone. There are some people with whom my “meeting” primarily happens via email. But our relationship won’t continue without us connecting in one way or another, and with some regularity.

OK, if all that’s true – if being “together” speaks of relationship more than location – then God’s presence is in our midst, even when “our midst” is on opposite sides of the city, or the world. If that’s the case, then the necessity of our Sunday Mornings together is reduced: if God is really with us when we are united in heart, then you and I “going to church” will happen whenever or wherever we are “being the church.”

There are some very significant implications from this:

· I can be refreshed, strengthened and equipped by God anywhere, anytime.

· I don’t need to invite people to church in order to introduce them to Jesus.

· I can pray for the sick, or share communion, or instruct people in the Word in the mall or in the church building with equal effectiveness.

· I can count on the guidance and instruction of the Holy Spirit pretty much anywhere I go.

· Wherever I am, Jesus is. Wherever I am, the Church is.

So does any of this suggest that gathering on Sunday mornings (or Thursday nights) is irrelevant or unnecessary? May it never Be! The Book encourages to gather together “all the more” as time goes by: My responsibility to be the Church is increased, not decreased, by this.

So it’s valuable, it’s important and even necessary that we gather together as believers. But the time and place are maybe not so important. And wherever I am, whenever it is, I am a representative of Jesus, of the Kingdom, of His presence: whomever I am meeting with, I need to represent Jesus. As St. Francis once said, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

Looking at the problem will not solve the problem.

Not that long ago, the transmission on our car went out. It was probably my fault: I drove it to Portland and back when it was short on transmission fluid, and when I got back, it was bumping and shifting funny. Sometimes it wouldn’t shift gears, and sometimes it would shift unexpectedly. Sometimes it would drop out of gear into neutral: that was particularly exciting when I was on the freeway in cruise control!

For days, probably weeks, I thought about that problem. I drove the car and listened to the transmission noises. I talked with knowledgeable friends about my stupid transmission. I examined our finances (or rather the lack thereof) and how they would (or would not) apply to transmission costs. I studied transmission problems on the internet, and got involved in some chat groups that helped diagnose the problem. I whined. I worried. I probably cursed. I hated that transmission. It kept me from sleeping for days.

But for reasons that I still don’t understand, the transmission never improved as I examined it and its problems. It kept dropping out of gear on the freeway. It kept shifting funny. The problem never went away, no matter how hard I examined it, no matter how much I worried about it!

Talking about car problems makes this behavior look kind of obvious, but we do the same thing in our personal lives. You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) at how many people think that talking about their husband’s problems will fix him. You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t) at how many church members act as if talking about the pastor’s problems will make them go away. When we ask for prayer, we do it in great detail, making sure that the folks we’re talking to understand every detail and feel every pain, to the point that we often forget to pray for the problem ourselves. (Sometimes such a detailed prayer request functions as gossip in a thin disguise; that's another issue altogether, which I am not addressing today.)

Looking at the problem will not solve the problem. I don’t care what the problem is, or how desperately I want it solved. Some of us – and I think this is worse in the church – seem to think that thinking about our problem, or talking about it, or worrying about it, will somehow solve the problem.

We seem to think that if we let the problem slide out of the center of our attention, somehow we’re being irresponsible, somehow we’re not doing our job, that if we worry enough, somehow we’re not responsible for the problem we’re worrying about.

Looking at the problem will not solve the problem; looking at the solution will solve the problem.

I can examine the problem seven ways from Sunday, and I won’t make it better. Until I stop looking at the problem and start looking at the solution, all I’m doing is losing sleep and generating excess stomach acid. Until I stop whining about my problem, all I’m doing is spreading my problem among my listeners; it’s like sneezing in their face: it does nothing good for me and it is likely to make them sick as well.

We live in a day and age when problems are all our culture wants to talk about. (Good thing we know how to separate ourselves from our culture, eh?) The news is full of problems. Gossip columns abound and are becoming more strident in their declarations of the woes of the rich and famous. Television is littered with commercials declaring our problems and why we need to spend our money on their products to solve a problem we didn’t have until they selflessly told us about it. It’s an all-out assault on our souls!

I’m convinced that Hebrews 12 is one of the more important weapons for the season we’re in.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. –Hebrews 12:2-3

There are two commands in here: Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, and consider Jesus. The anonymous author of Hebrews adds some detail: Jesus had problems of His own. In fact, it will be a whole lot more valuable – the writer encourages – for us to look at His problems and how he responded to them, than it is to look at ourselves.

Look again: in between the two commands to look at Jesus, it describes Him:

o He’s the author of my faith;

o He perfects (or fulfils, completes) my faith;

o He endured the cross by focusing on the joy set before Him;

o He has gone through the troubles and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

In other words, I can acknowledge the problem, but I do it from the perspective of the solution; I can look at the problem, but I must do it from His perspective!

If I stop to think about it this whole passage is all about me! He didn’t endure the cross because it seemed like a fun thing to do on a Friday afternoon in Palestine. He did it because there was stuff that kept me from Him (it’s called “sin”), and the cross was the only way to move it out of the way. He did it because he looked beyond the pain (the cross) to the joy set before Him. (Yes, Tinkerbelle, I am His happy thought!)

Now if the Incarnate Son of God needed to look past His troubles to the joy on the other side, what makes me think that I need to focus on my troubles? Am I somehow better or stronger or wiser than Him?

One last observation from the passage: the conjunction “so that” indicates cause and effect: do this “so that” that happens. Here, it’s “consider Him so that you won’t grow weary and lose heart.” If you’re weary, if you’re losing heart, this passage says it could well be because you’re not looking at Him. The solution is to change your perspective – to repent – and to look at Him instead of your own problems.

And that problem transmission? One day, I finally looked at the solution: I took the car to a transmission expert. He took a quick look at it, and said, “Oh sure, I know what that is! Come back in a two days.” He fixed it. And now my transmission is fine.

Looking at the problem will never solve the problem. Looking at the Solution is how to solve the problem.

My Sheep Hear My Voice

I’ve been thinking about one of those assumptions that I encounter pretty often when I talk with church folk. They all say it differently, but it’s essentially this: “I know God spoke to Christians in the Bible, but He doesn’t do that now, or at least not much, and certainly not to me!”

The problem is that I recognize that lie: it used to be mine. For now, let me just say, “Hogwash!”

I remember a day from some years ago when I believed that lie, but I didn’t like it. I had just finished reading some story or other in the Bible where God spoke to His people, and I was frustrated. “How come you speak to them, but you won’t speak to me?” I grumbled! Actually, I whined. And I whined for a while. Eventually, the whining wound down, and I heard this little voice in my mind, in my imagination, and the little voice said, “What’s that in your lap?”

“It’s the Bible, why!!?!” I grumped, not even noticing that I was having a conversation.

The little voice, ever so patiently, asked, “What’s it called?”

“God’s Word, why!!?!” I replied.

Oh. Wait. I get it. This is God’s word. He speaks to me this way. I’d always read and studied the Book, but I went after it with new vigor from that point: God says He’ll speak to me from the Bible! Heck yes, I want that!

Since then, I’ve found a few things there that have taught me that this concept of “God doesn’t speak to me” is a lie. Here are a few of my favorites:

· John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” Jesus says that if I’m His sheep, then I hear His voice. If I don’t recognize His voice, then that’s just a matter of training, but He says that I do hear it, and He has a reputation for being truthful.

· 1Corinthians 14:31 “For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.” The context is Paul teaching on how to administrate the prophetic in a church service, but in the midst of that, he drops this little bomb: all of you can prophesy! Nobody is on the list of “can’t prophesy.” Cool.

· Luke 11:11 “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” This is one of those few times where Jesus shows us a prayer that He will always answer: when we ask for a relationship with the Holy Spirit, the answer is always “Yes!” If I ask Him to speak to me, then the answer is always “Yes!” It may not be right now, and it may not be what I expected, but the answer is already given: “Yes!”

Since then, I’ve come to realize that God’s number one goal is relationship. He wants so passionately to relate with us that He’s actually very eager to speak. I’ve heard some believers whine about “I can’t shut Him up!” but they say it with a smile.

That’s our destiny in Christ: to hear His voice, to talk with Him, and to speak for Him to others. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Jesus and Money

I’ve been thinking about money; I’m trying to think about it from Jesus’ perspective, not so much what he said as what He did. His teachings are of course good, but we’ve buried them under so many layers of doctrinal lessons that it’s hard to see Jesus through the teachings.

Looking at money through the eyes of Jesus actions is quite interesting, and while there’s not a lot of data, what data there is is very eye-opening. The ways that Jesus dealt with the finances of His own ministry teach me about His values for money.

Professionally, I deal with a lot of ministries just starting up. They have vision for what they want to accomplish, and the hindrance is money, so they think about money a fair bit, and when they think about it, they talk about it. I know a number of churches that have two sermons every service: the first one is always on what is essentially “Why you should give us money.”

First off, let me say that Jesus taught on money a whole lot. It was one of His favorite subjects (along with the Kingdom of God, and the end times; He really liked controversial subjects!), so it’s appropriate for us to teach on money often; if Jesus thought it was needful in that day, it’s probably no less needful today. I don’t, however, hear Him preaching about “give to Me” even once, though there were people who did give to Him and His ministry regularly.

I see that Jesus’ ministry did have a money box, though whether that the plan of Jesus or of Judas is unclear. Either Jesus approved of the idea or He tolerated it.

However, when He had a need, such as for an unexpected tax bill, He didn’t go to the money box; He told Peter to get the tax money from a fish. So either the money box was insufficient to supply “a piece of money” (which has interesting implications) or Jesus didn’t want to depend on His savings account (which has more interesting implications). It certainly implies that Jesus didn’t have much money.

That is not to imply that poverty was part of His lifestyle or ministry. Clearly that is not the case. On one occasion He hosted a banquet for “about five thousand men, besides women and children;” think of a restaurant bill of thirty thousand dollars. He was so completely not overwhelmed by the unexpected banquet that He did the same thing a few days later. Extravagant provision was a part of Jesus’ lifestyle.

There’s another example of extravagant expense that makes me scratch my head. While Jesus is having dinner with Simon the Leper (an interesting event on its own merit), Mary brings a jar of perfume worth “a year’s wages,” breaks the jar open, and smears it all over Him, getting it, no doubt, all over herself in the process, particularly since she apparently also wiped it onto His feet with her hair. I don’t know how much that cost, but “a year’s wages” sounds like a lot to me. Judas’s complaints were overruled as Jesus condoned the extravagant and apparently non-productive use of a very large amount of money.

So here’s what I see in all of this:

· Jesus lived extravagantly.

· Jesus appeared to not have money much of the time.

· Jesus counted on miraculous provision, and taught His boys to count on miracles.

Now my challenge is this: How shall I live in relationship to money.

Do I hide behind the disappointing fact that I have little capacity to invoke the miraculous, or do I embrace my failure and live with an inferior financial model? Or do I accept this as yet another challenge to begin to live a supernatural life?

Two Tabernacles

One of the most fascinating situations in the Bible is never described. It happens during the latter years of David’s reign, say from 2 Samuel chapter 7 and onward.

Years before, David had finished conquering all of his enemies, and his people had rested from war. David had finished building his palace, and all this happened before he discovered Bathsheba’s midnight rooftop bathing habits.

David himself is experiencing something of a personal revival, and he has just brought the ark of the Lord into the city (from Obed-Edom’s house in the suburbs).

This season of history fascinates me intensely, and I believe that it’s a metaphor for where the church is today.

The House of Worship

In that day, the Tabernacle of Moses (also known as the Tabernacle of Meeting) was installed on the hill of Shiloh a good day’s walk from Jerusalem. It encompassed a whole campus of highly ornate tents covering several acres. It was the only place where the entire nation would go to worship, and they went there by the thousands. The Levites and Priests taught the Law, the sacrifices were offered there: sin offerings, thanksgiving offerings and all the rest. Offerings and sacrifices were received from the people in the form of gold, silver and animal sacrifices.

The Tabernacle was a big spectacle: there were gold and silver and bronze and embroidery and bright colors everywhere.

Shiloh had become a noisy place. The crowds of people brought their own noises, and everywhere was the noise of the sheep and birds and oxen that were brought for sacrifice, interrupted by the businessmen selling more animals for sacrifice.

Over all that was the music. Ah, the music! Choirs, trumpets, harps.

The air was filled with fragrances. The animals brought their own odors of course, but the sacrifices and offerings filled the air with the smell of barbecue. And when they lit the incense, the smell of spices filled the air.

Services for thousands of people were led by priests decked out with linen and jewels and fancy robes and sometimes fancy hats. It seemed that the more important you were – and all the leaders were important – then the fancier your vestments were.

The entire nation was commanded by law to come together for a national party three times every year, and when it happened, the crowds swelled from the hundreds or the thousands to the hundreds of thousands. Every hotel room was booked solid for weeks, every restaurateur made a healthy profit when the festivals came to town.

Imagine an NFL football arena ten miles outside your hometown, and then imagine that it was a legal requirement that the entire nation attend regularly. Now imagine that your team is in the Superbowl in that arena three times a year, and that Disney and MTV co-sponsor the halftime show. The cheerleaders, the news media, the coaches and officials: what an amazing spectacle!

The people didn’t gather for worship at the Tabernacle of Meeting in rebellion or selfishness; their goal was not spectacle. They were in fact obeying the commands of the Lord, commands about when to worship, how to sacrifice and what to teach. The leaders were installed by the command of God, for all that the hands that anointed them were the hands of men. This worship service was established by God, and it was perpetuated at His command by His blessing. They were obeying the freshest revelation that they had. 

They only lacked one thing: God’s presence, the Ark of the Covenant, was no longer there. Other than that, they pretty much had everything going for them.

The Presence of God

The Ark itself had been moved into the city of Jerusalem, and it was now residing in a pup tent in David’s back bedroom. For the next several years, until Solomon took it back to the Tabernacle of Meeting in Shiloh, David and his household worshipped in that spare bedroom. David re-assigned some of the Levites from the Tabernacle of Meeting to his own back bedroom, to the new tabernacle there.

That little tent would soon be known as David’s Tabernacle, and nobody really knows exactly what it looked like. It might have been set up in a private garden rather than the back bedroom, and we’re only assuming that there was a pup tent over the ark, simply because “tabernacle” comes from “tent” in their language. Knowing how David delighted in honoring God, it was probably a very nice pup tent. And if David danced foolishly (and half naked) during the public journey of God’s presence to his back bedroom, then how must he have worshipped in that back bedroom? I’m guessing that “with abandon” applies.

The significant point was that the Ark – and therefore God’s presence – was no longer hidden behind layers of ceremony and religious bureaucracy. Suddenly, for the first time since the Burning Bush, God was immediately accessible to His people.

Based on how much the Bible describes David, I imagine that the king spent a fair bit of his time in that back bedroom worshipping. Because the head of the household was a worshipper, some of his household learned to worship: I can see the head butler and the assistant cook waiting until David was through, so they could get into that bedroom to get their turn on their faces or dancing in the presence of God.

The remarkable thing was that Heaven knew of David’s Tabernacle. I suspect the place was as popular in Heaven as it was on earth: finally, there was a place where God and man could come together, finally there was a man who was passionate about God’s presence. Generations later, when David’s Tabernacle was broken and abandoned, God promised to restore it. God doesn’t often promise to restore the things that man makes.

Tabernacles and the Twenty First Century

In Acts 15, Peter reminds the people of God’s promise in Amos to restore the tabernacle, David’s tabernacle.

We live in a day like the day that David built his tabernacle. The Bible describes our day as “the last days” (heck, everything since Acts 2 seems to be part of “the last days”) which is the time for David’s Tabernacle to be restored. And we’re seeing that happen.

Heaven is committed to this kind of worship, and this is the pattern of worship that makes God happy: people coming directly to God, coming freely and joyfully, without the pomp and circumstance of the Tabernacle of Meeting, without the religious trappings of the grand ceremony and tradition.

We live in a day where there are large and prestigious and prosperous gathering places on the hilltops, in the public places. They’re in the media and in the eyes of the nation, and the people go there by the thousands to perform the rituals and offer the sacrifices and be trained by the religious authorities of the nation. They have the professional musicians, the professional speakers, the professional media technicians. The ceremonies are moving and the messages are relevant and uplifting. Thousands come to a faith in Christ through these tabernacles. They are obeying the freshest revelation they have. 

They lack only one thing. The presence of God is not in them.

I am not opposed to mega churches, or to Sunday-morning gatherings in general; I repeat: I’m part of one, and I like it. These are not “ungodly abominations;” they are not sacrilegious and they are not (by and large) the work of the flesh, that is, they are not monuments to self or pleasure or our own righteousness. But they’re not following the presence of God (I remind you: there are exceptions to everything I write in this blog!).

These churches carefully following plans laid down by godly men and women, whether that’s the vision of the founders, the vision of the pastor or the directions of the board of directors. They’re doing their best to be what they think a church ought to be. They’re following the law as they know it.

But David’s tabernacle is not about following the Law. In fact, it was completely outside the Law. The Law required the Ark of the Covenant to stay in the Tabernacle of Moses. David was working outside of the law, outside of the rules that God had established for worship, outside of the Tabernacle.

But it is David’s Tabernacle, not Moses’, that God likes best and that He promises to restore.

Tabernacles and Me

The big deal is that this demonstrates God’s heart! God, it appears, prefers passion to legalism, intimate worship to religious conformity.

This isn’t about location. I’m not lobbying for Believers to escape from their churches and limit their worship of God in their back bedroom. Location means pretty much nothing in this context.

What I’m saying is that going to church is not the thing that God respects. I’m lobbying for Believers to worship God passionately, intimately. I don’t really care if you and I worship God in the big gathering or the little one, as long as we passionately worship. The goal is getting crazy for God’s presence. The goal is worshipping with abandon, holding nothing back. The goal is letting nothing and nobody get in the way of our worship, whether circumstances, other worshippers or church leaders.

The reality, however, is that that we often can’t worship that way in our Sunday morning gatherings. When we’re there, we often (and often appropriately) need to conform to cultural standards of the place. If we were to dance in church like David danced, many church congregations would freak out. Everyone else in the building would focus on us, not on God, and that’s not as it should be.

But we must worship. We must worship in abandon. We must be passionate. We must find a time and a place we can be foolish with. We must find a people we can worship among, who won’t be distracted by our passion, because they’re lost in their own.

We must worship passionately.