Thinking Outside Our Community

“Likewise when foreigners, who are not of your people Israel, come from a distant land because of your great name, and your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm, when they come and pray toward this house, may you hear from heaven your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigners ask of you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built." (2 Chronicles 6:32-33, NRSV)

Thinking outside the box! Does this surprise any of us. That Solomon, the great wise Solomon, prayed for foreigners of Israel to know God. We often think that evangelism or spreading the Good News of God is only a New Testament (particularly, Paul thing). No, not really at all. God has his sights on everybody since before the creation of the world. The reason that Israel is God’s chosen people is not because they did anything special or deserve to be chosen, but because God chose them to bless everybody. That is the essence of the covenant with Abraham: To bless the world. So here it is again, after Solomon has completed the temple, he turns and prays to God. He asks for God’s mercy when the people turn and sin; he even states that he knows that they will (6:36, there is no one who does not sin). Then Solomon even asks when foreigners turn and repent and come to you, be merciful to them and give them what they want.

That is thinking outside of you community. We have the greatest news, that God came down to earth to reside with us. He is not contained with a temple, but He walked among us and still is present with us. We are called not to keep them information that news to ourselves or within our own community be we are called to bless the world with that news. As Isaiah puts it we are to cry out to the world that Jesus is Lord!

“When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, and then they pray toward this place, confess your name, and turn from their sin, because you punish them, may you hear in heaven, forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk; and send down rain upon your land, which you have given to your people as an inheritance." (2 Chronicles 6:26-27, NRSV)

Even Solomon puts in his prayer asking God if the people confess his name. That is the whole ball game right there: confessing God’s name. Confessing that Jesus alone is Lord and Solomon opens it up just as God did from the very beginning to people outside the chosen community.

“because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9, NRSV)
How eager how we to share that Good News? If Solomon, who was the wisest person, who God was with (1:1), had it in his heart to share the good news with foreigners, with strangers, why do we struggle with this? If we are to be viable (what a lame word that is), if we are to be life-giving, life-sustaining, we are to tell (verbal) about Jesus. Why do we hesitate with such wisdom? Let us starting thinking outside our community, outside our church. In doing that we become the people, the church that God has created us to be.

One last comment this morning: Look at Solomon’s question below.

“But will God indeed reside with mortals on earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built!" (2 Chronicles 6:18, NRSV)

God’s plan is even better than that Solomon! God decided not just to reside with mortals in the temple on this earth. God doesn’t to be one of us, to walk with us, to know our world through our eyes. We have a God that not only resides, but walks with us.