November 11, 2012
Dear friends in Christ.
If you’ve ever been camping, then you know that
tents come in all shapes and sizes. Some
are so small that all they are able to hold is one person in a sleeping bag,
while others are so large that they are designed with as many as four separate
rooms in them. Sometimes you might see a
couple camping in a simple dome tent, while other times, you might see a family
of eight ingeniously join a pair of smaller tents to make one large tent. But no matter what kind of tent a person
uses, one simple rule always applies:
the more people you have, the bigger your tent will need to be. The same rule also applies in God’s Kingdom,
for as more and more people come into it the larger it will need to be. In fact, as we study the lesson before us
this morning, this is the lesson that the Lord will be teaching us as we hear
him calling on us to enlarge the place of our tents.
Just listen to what the Lord is telling us in our
lesson today: “Enlarge the place of your
tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes. 3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. 4
“Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will
not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more
the reproach of your widowhood. 5 For your Maker is your husband— the LORD
Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the
God of all the earth." (Isaiah 54:2–5, NIV84)
Enlarge the place of your tent! Believe it or not, this is the very thing
that the LORD is calling on us to do today!
He is calling on us to enlarge the place of our tent, because, as he
tells us, we will spread out on all sides.
However, for us living out here in the Valley of the Jolly Green Giant,
this may seem like an almost silly idea!
After all, it is very clear that the exact opposite is true. We are not spreading out on every side! Rather, our congregation has been shrinking
for the last decade. As we look around
us, we can’t help but notice how few people there are sitting in our pews, and
how many churches there are in town. As
we talk to each other it is easy to come to the conclusion that those who want
to be part of a congregation already are, and those who don’t want anything to
do with church regularly keep themselves away. But, even though this may be the
case, the Lord is still telling us, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch
your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your
stakes. 3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left; " (Isaiah
54:2–3, NIV84)
Now, when Isaiah first spoke these words in Judea,
the Israelites were having a pretty tough time.
For even though the Lord had established his temple in Jerusalem, the
majority of the people had turned away from the Lord—leaving only a small group
of believers. On top of that, it
wouldn’t be long before the Babylonians came to destroy Jerusalem and take the rest
of the people off into captivity. It
wouldn’t be long until the Babylonians came and destroyed the temple which
Solomon himself had built, bringing a stop to the daily sacrifice for over 70
years. But even in the midst of this
coming trouble, the Lord speaks to his believers and tells them to enlarge the
place of their tent, because they would indeed spread out as more and more
believers were added to their numbers.
But even though the Lord never promised that this
influx would come right away, he promised that over time they would. He promised that over time they would grow
and he illustrated his promise with the picture of someone enlarging his
tent. For in those days, often times
wives would live in their own tents, apart from their husband. In this tent, children would also live, be
cared for, and be schooled. So, when a
wife was expecting another child, that tent would need to be increased in size
so that there would be plenty of room for the family as well as the new
child. This was how that small group of
believers would grow. It wouldn’t necessarily be quickly, but it would be slow
and steady until they reached such a great number that no one would be able to
count them.
The same is true for you and me today. Even though we are but a small group of
believers, the Lord is calling on us to enlarge the place of our tent, because
we will indeed spread out on all sides.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we need to hold an emergency council meeting
to decide how best to remodel our church and make it larger, but it does mean
that we need to prepare ourselves for the influx of believers who will be
brought into God’s Kingdom, by going out and looking for them!
Sadly, this is the very thing that we, as a
congregation have not been doing for a long, long time. For nearly as many years as I’ve been here we
have turned away from evangelism opportunities because we simply didn’t have
the money to fund them. If we’ve done
any evangelism at all, we have only been looking for the right type of
people. We have been looking only for
those who are well off so that they can help us pay our bills. We’ve been looking for the people who have it
together and are not carrying too much baggage, and if we are completely honest
with ourselves, we have to admit, that in many ways we are only looking for
white people. Let’s face it! Though we long to be a growing congregation,
the truth is the idea of bringing the gospel to the growing Hispanic and Latino
community in Le Sure terrifies us. It
terrifies us because suddenly we are crossing cultures, and for most of us
crossing cultural boundaries is completely outside our comfort zone.
Yet, this is what mission work is all about! It is about going to those who do not know
the gospel and sharing it with them. it
is about taking the good news of Jesus Christ to each and every nation of
people that we find living right here in our own community. It’s about talking to your friends, your
neighbors and your relatives and simply inviting them to come to church with
you to hear the Word of God. It’s about
us as a congregation building a warm and friendly community where people feel
welcome to come in and grow in the Word of God together. It is about us putting the Lord first,
trusting his promise that as we seek to do this, as we seek to enlarge the
place of our tent, we will not suffer shame as we share his Word with those who
do not yet know him. As he promises in
our lesson today, “Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear
disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth
and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. 5 For your Maker is your
husband— the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your
Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth." (Isaiah 54:4–5, NIV84)
What incredible comfort the Lord is giving us
today! Even though we are a small group
of believers, he is assuring us that we will not suffer shame as we work to
enlarge the place of our tent. Now, I
don’t know about you, but to me these are some very comforting words, because
these words assure us that even though taking the gospel to another culture can
be terrifying, the Lord will be with us.
We will suffer no shame in sharing his Word, because we are doing his
Work. The Lord is assuring us that even
as we work to enlarge the place of this tent, if we should find that the faces
of the people around changing we will be blessed as his kingdom continues to
grow. He is assuring us that even if we
have to rethink the way we work as a congregation, or even rethink the way that
we support this congregation, as we seek to spread his Word, and enlarge the
place of his tent, he will bless us, just as he blessed his people Israel.
For when Isaiah first spoke these words to that
small group of believers, and they realized that it was now their mission to
enlarge the place of their tent, they might have been a little afraid. After all, they were only a small group of
believers, and now they were being asked to prepare for more. Perhaps they were simply afraid that if their
small group grew large once again, they would suffer the shame of watching
another majority of believers turn away from the Lord. This is why the Lord spoke to them through
the Prophet Isaiah and said: “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent
curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. 3
For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will
dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. 4 “Do not be afraid;
you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of
your widowhood. 5 For your Maker is your husband— the LORD Almighty is his
name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the
earth." (Isaiah 54:2–5, NIV84)
This is what the Lord is saying to you and me today
as well! He is telling us not to be
afraid because we will not suffer shame as we work to enlarge the Lord’s
Church. We will not suffer shame as we
go about doing the work for the Lord’s kingdom.
Even though we may be a small group of believers, even though we may
feel that there is not much that we are able to do in the Lord’s kingdom, there
are quite a few things that we can do to enlarge his Church. We can give to the Lord out of the bounty
with which he has blessed us. We can
give to the Lord so that the work of his kingdom might continue. We can give our gifts and offerings to the
Lord and support the spreading of the Gospel both here at home and all over the
world. We can give offerings to support
the work going on at Minnesota Valley Lutheran and Martin Luther College in New
Ulm. We can give our gifts and offerings
to the Synod to support the training of Pastors, Teachers, and Staff Ministers
so that other churches and schools might have workers to serve. We can give our gifts and offerings to help
support the work of our Childcare so that we might continue to nurture little
bodies and souls in the Word of God.
But money is not the only thing we can give to the
Lord, for we can also give to him of our time.
We can give our time to the Lord by praying that he would bless us with
many more men and women who desire to become pastors and teachers. You can give your time to the Lord by sitting
down each day and praying for the members of your mission board who send
missionaries out to foreign lands, by praying for your missionaries, and their
families, who are spreading the Gospel in places you cannot go. You can give your time to the Lord by simply
taking fifteen minutes out of your busy day and reading from his Word. You can give of your time by dusting off your
catechisms and reviewing the truths which you learned so many years ago. For by doing this, you will not only be
building up your own faith, but you will be preparing yourself for the time
when the Lord does give you first hand experience at sharing the Gospel with
someone who doesn’t know Jesus. These
are but a few of the ways we as a small group of believers can work to enlarge
the place of our tent. Only don’t stop
working, for there is no shame in doing the work of the Lord Church, however,
shame does come when we fail to do it.
Shame does come when we sit idly by waiting for the Lord to do the work
we refuse to do.
So now, as you live your lives in service to the
Lord, continue working to enlarge the place of your tent, because you know
there is no shame in doing the Lord’s work, and you will indeed spread out on
all sides. Though we may not see much or
any of the growth the Lord has promised in our small congregations, we can be
assured that by our efforts, we will be working to enlarge the kingdom of heaven. Amen.
Pastor
David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
