Where Does God Dwell ?
Where Does God Dwell ?
2 Samuel 7:1-14a; Ephesians 2:11-22
My Prayer For Illumination: O God of our life, dwell in the heart that Your Word may be proclaimed with the gift of joy You have given us so that we may be Your living Word, too, in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Each week, Chapel for our Academy kids begins in the breezeway with all saying together, “I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of the Lord.” You know who the newest is to the group because sooner or later that child asks the question. Last week he waited until everyone was going out of the sanctuary, and then came up to me pulling on my skirt asking “So where’s He at?
Puzzled, I looked down and said, “Who?”
“God….you said this is the house of the Lord! This may be his house but He’s not here. So where does God live?”
What would you say? It is the unspoken question that we all wonder ourselves at different times in our lives —- Where does God dwell?
When I was young, I thought simply that God was up in heaven as we’re down here. It is biblical like the Psalmist who prays, “To You I lift up my eyes, O You enthroned in the heavens (Psalm 123.1). But on my very first plane ride, going high above the clouds, I was like that first grader who asked, “So where’s He at?”
At first in the Bible when God speaks, nothing is mentioned of where God speaks from other than in a vision or in a dream. But when Jacob had his famous dream of the ladder with the angels of God ascending and descending from heaven and the Lord standing beside him, Jacob awoke saying, “Surely God is in this place—and I did not know it. How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:16,17). Jacob took the stone that had been under his head and set it up as a pillar naming the place Beth-el, literally the House of God. It is the first of many places in the Bible marked as the House of God. To this day, if you see a pillar of rocks by a stream or on a trail, you know someone has sensed the presence of God in that place and has marked it like Jacob.
But God doesn’t seem to stay in any one place. Just look at the next book in the Bible, Exodus. God guides the children of Israel with a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day for 40 years in the wilderness. God chooses to live among them telling Moses, “ …have them make me a sanctuary so that I may dwell with them (Exodus 25:8). Like the people, God’s house is a tent….called “the tabernacle” which loosely descended from the word used at Beth-el for the House of God. It could easily be taken down and set backup as the people made their way to the Promised Land. It was called also “the tent of meeting” where Moses and the elders could gather to meet in the presence of God.
Kept in the tabernacle was the ark of the covenant. It was another important symbol of God’s presence. It was a gold chest on two long poles so that men could carry it when God’s people were on the move. Inside were the two stone tablets of the covenant….the 10 commandments. On top of the ark were two cherubims guarding what was called the mercy seat, the throne of the divine presence of God. It was the ark that crossed over the Jordan River first into the Promised Land. It was the ark that was marched around the enemy walls of Jericho for them to come tumbling down. And it was the ark that led the way into battle for a sure victory of the Children of Israel that is until they were defeated, and the ark of the covenant was captured by the Philistines. It was quite a crisis of faith for the children of Israel had thought they were invincible with God on their side. Nothing could ever go wrong as long as they had God dwelling with them!
But this God Almighty would not be boxed in by the people nor restrained in what God could or would do. It was some 20 years later that King David brings the ark finally back to the center of the people and God to their faith. At last, David is settled in a cedar house fit for a king. But he now wants to build a house for God to dwell, too—a temple for the Ark of the Covenant. After telling the King what a great idea, the court prophet Nathan goes to bed only to have God tell him otherwise in his dreams.
It sounds like a rebuke. God tells Nathan who does the king think he is to build God a house! God hasn’t had a house since He brought the people of Israel out of Egypt and has been on the move ever since.
“Did I ever say I wanted a house?” says God. Where God dwells is NOT our doing. It is God’s doing that David the shepherd boy became a king of God’s people. It is God’s doing that David has had victories over his enemies. And it is God’s doing that the house of David would become the house of the Lord forever. But far more than King David could ever imagine! Far more than the people of God could ever imagine for God to dwell! David’s son, King Solomon could not imagine and ended up building a grand temple for God to dwell. But the temple did not last despite being built three times in the history of God’s people. And when it was destroyed, the ark of the covenant disappeared too.
But remember how the Christmas story goes: In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be taxed…all went to their own towns to be registered and Joseph also went …to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David (Luke 2:1-4). And the child that would be born is Emmanuel, God-with-us. In this child, God chose to dwell with us. No other faith has such a claim as the God we know in Jesus Christ….a God who dwells with us. The house of David has become the house of the Lord.
So where would you say that God dwells today? Apostle Paul tells us that when we put aside that which divides us and come together in the name of Jesus Christ….there God dwells.
He writes, So you also are members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In Him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God (Ephesians 2:19ff).
Where does God dwell? Not somewhere up there but here among us. Not far away but up close and personal with us. Not boxed in but as dynamic and moving as the journey of life itself.
The Bible is all about this God who has made us to be with God and God with us. We see God’s everlasting intent for us that we were created to be in every aspect a dwelling place of God….as a reality on earth centered in Jesus Christ…Immanuel. It is God’s vision for us now and to come:
Now the dwelling of God is with human beings and He will live with them. They will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God (Revelation 21:3).
So where, would you say, God dwells?
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