Unless the Lord Build the House - Paul Zehr

Greetings this morning. It's good to be here, see my friends,

people i've known, people I've appreciated over the years. Don't

see quite as much as them as what I did.

But I'm really really glad to be here, because I

almost wasn't. This morning. We had kind of a different experience.

Left the house about four o'clock, very dark, and we

were headed out of the interstate out of Pendleton. There

probably thirty forty miles west of Pendleton, not much traffic,

you can just go, probably moving along at seventy five

plus and suddenly I realized there was something on the road.

There was no flashing lights, no warning lights, nothing, but

there's a semi truck. And I'm still not sure what

all happened the semi truck had, I guess it lost

its load basically, and the load is scattered clear across

the road. And there wasn't a chance I had to

miss this thing, and so I tried to pick the

area that I thought might be the best way to

pass through, and largely successful except for my driver's mirror.

I wiped out my driver's mirror, just totally smashed it.

But I later on when I could see more in daylight,

I got out and looked. I don't see that anything

else is hurt, but I lost my driver's mirror. Anyway,

it could have been so different. I don't know what

the load was. There was stuff sticking up in the air,

and I think that's what clipped my mirror. But anyway,

those things happened, and I feel that God spared this.

I've traveled that road obviously, many many times, but I

never had an experience quite like that. But I am here,

and I'm glad, glad I can be here this morning.

Special service, a service of well, what do we say,

history or a service of remembrance, of thinking about the past.

And I thought about that we think about the past?

Is the past importance? Does it mean much to us?

And there's different scriptures we could we could go to,

but I thought of what what Moses said back of

the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter nine, verse seven, where we

have this phrase as he was addressing the children, is

what he said, remember and forget not. And so he

placed we know he was placed in a premium there

there was something very important that he wanted to convey

to the people, that they should remember and forget not.

And maybe we could ask the question is this a

are we gonna eulogize? Are we here this morning to

eulogize the past? Now, the idea of eulogies or giving

eulogies has always been something that I've kind of been

negative about. I didn't I was never very impressed with eulogies,

and I think there's a reason for that, because oftentimes

they're very insincere, and they're not honest, and they say

things that, if you know the situation better, really aren't

very correct. But really, the word eulogize simply means to

speak well of or to remember, give recognition to the

things of the past, And if that can be done

in an honest way, then I believe it's a blessing.

So in that sense, this morning, I believe it's good,

it's right to eulogize if we use it in the

right way, first giving recognition to God and then recognition

to those of the past that have been faithful in

the work they had to do. In the text this morning,

I guess that's been said already. We find in the Psalm,

and interestingly enough, that is a psalm of Solomon. Uh,

you know, we think of Solomon. I was writing the

Book of Solomon, or the Book of or a Song

of Solomon, or the Book of Proverbs. But occasionally there's

his words we find in the in the Psalm, and

this is credit to Solomon and the verses. Except the

Lord build a house, a labor in vain that build it.

Except the Lord keep the city. The watchman waketh but

in vain. And there's some deep meaning in that. It's

just not many words, but it means a lot. And

so today we think about what had happened, what it

took place as the beginning of the church. Originally Tangentmann

a Nite church, later became this congregation, the Halsey Minnite Church.

I believe there's little value in in in really in

uh in talking about them, or even eulogizing that situation,

if if there aren't lessons learned, if there aren't inspiration,

spiritual inspiration. We received the birth of a church. I'm

sure as we think about that, it was a it

was a work of faith, it was a time. I'm

sure there were times when there was faith tested, when

when maybe perhaps the people that were there alive then

were the charter members, maybe maybe they questioned this, maybe

they wondered if God is really in this and you know,

if we if we're acquainted with building, and I think

a lot of you are a building, a building. There's

a lot of that going on today. But as we

think of it in the spiritual sense, it's simply just

telling us the light of eternity. If if the Lord

is not directing that work, it is vain, and vain

means simply a vanity of a very little value, without value, unsuccessful, worthless,

a failure, and that's a danger as we reflect on

this work of building the church. Considering this subject, we

understand we're not talking about a building. There was build

of wood and cement and stones and nails. We're not

talking about that kind of building. But there are some similarities.

This project that was undertaken seventy five years ago was

not did not have to require the approval of Lynn County,

of the Lynn County Building Department down there in the

in the city hall and all that. You didn't that

was not the kind of building that this was. You

didn't have to get the approval, you didn't have to

go and get their approval. And building you know today,

as it's gone through the years, has begun quite difficult.

There's a bureaucracy you got to deal with. There's a

lot of planning that needs to be submitted and paper work,

and you know, there's there's certain requirements and you've got

to meet all those requirements. And uh, there's a zoning,

there's there's you know, things like utilities and property lines.

All those things are part of the building project, and

you got to get it right. If you don't get

it right, they send you back until you do get

it right. And you cannot begin until all the paperwork

has done correctly. And then as they progress, as a

building begins and there's progress made in there, you have

officials that come out from time to time to check

and see how how the codes, how everything is being met. Uh.

But this vision, back to this vision, we think about vision.

The Bible says with that, uh, where there is no vision,

that the people perish. And I thought about that. There

is a verse in Hebrews four, chapter two where it

talks about the efforts that the people are building. The

efforts that people are putting forth did not profit them.

There was something wrong, there was something out of whack,

we say, and they were building with inferior material, and

what they were doing was they had a vision, but

it was not mixed with faith. And so I believe

that's that's something we can reflect back on, that there

was faith in that work. You know, we talk about

a vision, the visions. The Bible says again that there's

where there is no vision, the people perish, and and

I do believe that there was at that time. I

was not born then. I was born two years later

after the church began, and so I have very very

limited memories up until maybe the later fifties, mid to

later fifties. I begin to remember some things. But if

you think about it, anything that is accomplished, anything that

is worthwhile, begins with a vision. It begins, That's what

has its beginnings. And so I do believe that there's

people there that were present then participated in that that

did have a vision. What was their vision, Well, I

believe they just to make it short, I believe they

had eternal values. They were looking at things that made

a difference eternally, and that's why they undertook this work.

And again I'm sure there was some uncertainty and some discouragement,

but there is also price, and they had to pay

that price. Again, we think of the verse Proverbs twenty

nine eighteen. Again, a probably Solomon, a wise man. He said,

where there's no vision, the people perish. And again, anything

that's worthwhile has its beginning in the vision. I doubt,

I doubt whether there are people there that that participated

in that that were we say the charter members are

the ones that were involved. That they had a vision

of the seventy fifth anniversary that probably was not on

their mind, But I do believe they had some eternal

visions to some degree. Everybody has a vision. Everybody has

an idea of what they want to see in the

future of whatever it is. There's some things it's not

just any vision that will benefit you. Some have visions

of fame and fortune or things like that. But we're

talking about a spiritual vision. And I trust this morning

that you all have a spiritual vision. And it is

a vision this morning that gives birth to two things

happening that give birth to uh direct a vision, direct,

a a change, a change of course, a destiny. It's

a vision that does that, and it also has a

very important role in the lives of your descendants. And

so that's the kind of congregation I believe there was

a forward thinking about that. As I looked back at

my life as a quite a young child, of those

early years growing up, I believe it's that vision that

that I sort of absorbed and recognized it in a

limited way, that that gave some direction to my life,

laid laid some some foundation. And I was I was

a typical boy. I mean, I I am not saying

I was a very deep thinker, but as I think back,

I believe I absorbed some of that. I knew right

from wrong. I was. I was a product of the

public school system. I never did go to the Lake

Creek School. I went to the Tangent School, and I

went to the Albody School. Finally, my last two years

I went up to the Trail Elliott Prairie. There a

Hubbard but and so that you know, there's things there

that affected me. The grade school, at the Tangent School,

it was more of a country school environment. I can't

say that there was a lot of evil there. But

when I went into the into Albandy in the high school,

junior high school, I was exposed to things. I remember

there was sort of a shock to me the things

that were being said and done, and so I believe

that that vision of different ones gave some direct to

my life. I think of what Paul said in one

Corinthians fifteen, verse ten, by the grace of God, I

am what I am, and his grace was bestowed upon me

was not in vain. And so that that vision was

these brethren and their companions had back then, I believe

that had a direct impact on myself. You know, meaningful

things do not just happen generally not. There must be

first be a vision. What was a vision back then

of these people that participated in this church. I believe

they saw things that troubled them. They saw things that

that caused concern. They there's probably a lot of soul

searching that type of thing going on in their hearts

as they viewed the future. You know, the it's been said,

there's sort of a a saying, let's see, I got

something mixed up here. Here we go. There's sort of

a adage, I guess you'd call it. Some have called

it the cycle of civilization. There's different term and ology

that's used. But but this this cycle or this this

thing I'm going to talk about it. It's a natural

process of any organization, whether it be a government, whether

it be church like we're talking about, whether it be UH. Civilization.

There's a tendency to follow this what I'm going to say,

and it's called, well, it's often called sometimes called a

cycle of civilization. But that goes with men, monuments, men,

movements and monuments. Maybe some of you have that probably

have UH. Sometimes there's a few different words that are used.

But I'm going to look at that from this perspective

of this cycle as we think about our past. That

was a movement. There were men involved in his equal

twenty two verse thirty. God speaking, he said, I sought

for a man among them that should make up the

hedge and stand in the gap before me for the

land that I should not destroy it. But I found none.

And that's kind of a that's a that's a sad

verse that says things that were sad about that. And

the fact that God was looking for somebody to stand

in the gap, and the gap would be would be

a broken down area, a place where the wall of

defense was broken down, and it would enable enemies to

come through. And God was concerned about that, and God

wanted people to somebody to come and stand in that gap.

But the problem was there was none. He couldn't find any.

What a sad commentary, But the point I'm making it

here with men. God uses men. And when I say men,

I Jenna, I mean it in men and women, you know,

with your companions and wives. I believe there is women

there that had a vision for the future. God uses

men and women with flaws. God doesn't just choose perfect people.

Of course, they need to be people that have a

spiritual concern, but he uses people that don't always get

it right. He uses people that make make mistakes. He

uses them. He uses some that are unwise at times.

But hearing the Ezekiel, he was looking for someone, not

necessarily a perfect person or persons, but he's looking for

a people. He was looking for people that would step

in and stand in the gap, and he couldn't find any.

And I'm thankful this morning that seventy five years ago

there was probably a similar situation and God was able

to find some. There were some that rose to the occasion,

and it was not I'm sure it was not easy.

And I think of the men and the women that

I grew up, and they were the adults in the

church as a child, and I would say, there's certain

things that happened, you know, the things that somebody had said.

I remember this saying growing up that there's never a

dull moment at Tangent, and there was just kind of

a I suppose any church could say that, but it

seemed like Tangent and somebody was a little unique. There

was just some different people and somehow they were able

to come together and make this work with their casualties.

Of course, there were casualties. There were people that left,

people that were no longer identified with a church. Never

a dull moment of Tangent. I remember that being said.

I think of the ministry again, the ministry that I

grew up with, and you know, for some reason, I

cannot remember. I have no mental picture, no mental remembrance

of Henry Wolfer. And I don't know why, because i'd

have been eight years old when he when he finally left.

I don't know why I don't remember him. But it's

just a blank. So I do not remember Henry Wolfer.

He was the first bishop. I do remember the other ministry,

Melvin Trock, Merle Stitzman, Victor Krupp. Those are the three

that I have the most most memory of it, as

well as Henry Reader that was there earlier. And I

also remember Wilbert Kropp. He actually stepped in and served

as bishop here for a few years as a non

resident bishop. And one thing I remember about Wilbert when

he would come to our church, it just struck me

as a child that he was friendly. He was friendly

to the children, and that I remembered that that meant

something to me. I'm not saying the others were not,

and the fact they were. I don't remember negative things

about the others that way. Another thing that's interesting now,

maybe if i'd think long enough, I could think of something,

but just quickly thinking about it, I don't remember any sermons.

I don't remember a word that was said. I probably

if I had really strained my brain, so to speak,

I could think of a few things. But I don't

remember much of the sermons in those earlier years. But

still there was there was an influence, an influence of caring,

an influence of stability. In nineteen sixty three, at the

age of ten years old, I was present at the

first witness and ordination, and that was when a brother

Victor was ordained bishop, and it's kind of there at

the old Tangent Church. I remember it was crowded. A

lot of people came for that. Of course it was

a small church, didn't take two men to fill it up.

But I along with some other young boys were seated

like right here, and the brother and there were being

the lot. Well, actually it was over here, as I remember,

to my laughter, they were seated right there. I probably

had the best view of the whole church. I could

see everything, and even at that young age, the carefulness

and the process it impressed me. And I remember watching

as brother Victor the lot fell on him, and I

remember how he put his hands over his face and

kind of leaned forward. That impressed me. That impressed me.

God uses men, not perfect men necessarily, but men that

had a faith mixed or a vision that was mixed

with faith. We can say our lives are divided. I think.

You know, when you get older, you refleck more. I

realize that. But I tend to think of the past

and the present and the future. You think of that

the past, we'll hear about the future, we'll hear about

the vision of the future and the next message. So

by definition, mine is more dealing with the past. But

as we think of the past, one thing about it.

We cannot change the past. The past. It's kind of

like the law, the Means and the Persians. It cannot

be changed. Now there's people some times we hear the

term they want to rewrite history, they want to make

change history, and we know that they might be able

to deceive some people. But in the end, the truth

is the truth. And so we have the past, and

we reflect on that, we learn from that. I thought

of trying to think of the illustration of the past,

and there's no illustration follows through exactly. But I think

of an ocean line or a big ship on the ocean,

and you have that engine down there, that powerful engine

whether whatever it's whatever, it's fueled with turbans, and that

drives a ship ahead. And you have the steering mechanism.

You have the captain that's maybe with his charge, he's

determining which port we're going for, we're headed for this place.

And then down in the back underneath where nobody sees it,

you have a rudder. And I think there's a comparison there.

If we raise children trying to have church without that rudder,

you know finally that rudder is the past. But yet

it doesn't have power. It can't propel the ship, but

it can influence the direction. It can move the direction

of the ship and guide it home. And maybe we

can we can think of the past as somewhat as

a rudder in our life. And I would say, don't

don't disdain the rudder, don't disdain the past. Building a

church life or building church is a is a big undertaking.

It's a very important undertaking. The building we talked about

here in SAWM one twenty seven was not an earthly building.

It wasn't a building made of sticks and cement and

screws and cheat rock and all that stuff. It was

a spiritual building. And that's what that means. It's a

it's a serious work. It's not a work for those

that are not committed. It's not a work for those

that you know, just don't take it too seriously. Just

want to stay at a little bit of a distance.

NEAI Chapter four talks about the building of the wall

and it says that people had a mind to work.

I believe those brothers seventy five years ago, that they

had a mind to work, that they wanted to do

things that they were together on it. They took it seriously,

and there's far too much casualness, I think. And in

some places, you know, if things don't fit, it doesn't

fit with my value system or what I'd like to say,

Well I'll find another church. No commitment, and that, whether

you like it or not, that has an effect on

your children. It definitely has effect on your children. You know,

a building, when we build a building, it generally usually

out lives the builder. And there's many buildings around here

that the one that built them are not no longer living.

There's another generation that that utilizes that. Church scripture says

no man liveth uno himself, and no man dieth them himself.

But what I'm what I'm getting out here is the

the effects of a person. Will say a parent, parents

that their attitude towards the church, the way they respond

to the church, what they do with their church, those

those attitudes will be magnified in the life of their children.

If they if they make a deviation and start in

another direction, it's almost guaranteed by the time their children

come along, they'll go further than what the parents did.

Now I'd say there are exceptions There are exceptions to that,

but that's what they are exceptions. It generally goes much

further than what the parents thought they would ever go.

I remember I remember an aunt, an aunt to mine,

and again I was very little. I don't know if

I was five or six, but I was sitting in

the car and she was talking to another lady from

her church. It was not our church, and evidently the

issue of cut hair was being discussed, and she had

very strong feelings about this, and she I remember her

saying if quite emphatically, if cut hair was wrong once,

it's wrong today. Later she had very very short hair,

maybe ten fifteen years later. Changed in their life, and

then that generation from that family, I don't think they

have much church affect affiliation at all. Now men are

responsible for movements. A movement is definitely the definition of

a movement is an organized effort to achieve a purpose

or a goal. And there's movements required men. Men start

movements and women. And in the nineteen fifties and sixties,

you know, there was a movement. There was, as across

the Mennonite churches, a growing awareness of some trends. I

guess we'd call it apostasy. And there was a growing

concern about this and maybe accommodation, a desire to frankly

accommodate the world turning away from scriptural practices. And we

call this movement, it's been called on conference movement. And again,

you know, I was young enough, I don't remember a

lot of it, but I do have memories of it.

I do remember the nineteen sixty two meeting at the

Shed School, the big building that's just out west of Shed.

It was sort of it wasn't the first one, but

it was right at the beginning where the people, men

from people from all over the country came to this meeting,

and I think the goal of that was to to

somewhat clarify and solidify the direction of the church to

take a stand. I also remember one other thing from

that meeting. I remember riding home with my mother and father,

and my father speaking to my mother said, the only

thing that keeps this bunch together is a distance that

keeps him apart. I know quite what to think about that,

but in later years, you know, he did have some

things that were true. It's probably some truth to that.

That's just a memory I had of it. But you know,

there's been many movements down through time. There's been a

political movements, civil rights movements, anti warrant, a lot of movements.

And these movements generally have a lifespan. They're born, there's

a reason they are born, They mature, and then they die. Now,

I want to be quick to say that as we

think of church life, he doesn't. That's not guarantee we

don't have to die, but I think we have to

take some pretty serious steps to keep from dying. There's

a couple of several stages in a typical movement. There's

the emergence stage. There's a problem, there's an injustice, there's

something going on where people are concerned, and so they

they challenge the the existing status quo, and the leaders

emerge and solutions are presented. The movement is strengthened. Mm hmm.

But then after a number of years, maybe there's progress made.

After number of years, there's sort of a They tend

to come together, they coll of s the aware, the

awareness has grown, the issues have been clearly defined, and

then there's kind of a coming together in the movement,

more of an inward looking. Policies are formulated and uh

and there's maybe the membership has expanded the avisual, the

original vision is somewhat lost. They're there, moves into the

bureaucratic stage and it becomes more formal. It can become

more hierarchical, and different roles and different responsibilities, and maybe

we'd even say, like in some places, the paid ministry,

many other things like that. Then comes the decline. It

begins to decline. The leaders that were there originally are gone,

or at least maybe they lost their original vision. There's

infighting that develops, power struggles develop, a lack of appreciations, divisions,

and that individual that original vision was was became lost

and the movement enters what we call a death spiral.

And again I want to just emphasize that does not

need to happen. That's not foreordained that it's going to happen.

But I'm just saying that is that is a tendency,

and for that not to happen, we have to consider that.

We have to look at ourselves. We have to we

have to take some action, examine ourselves. In fact, Jesus

said this will not happen. Jesus said it will not

happen to his church. I don't think he means an

individual group because it does happen. But he said the

church itself, the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.

But that doesn't guarantee us here or in any specific church,

that those things won't happen, because often they do. So

we think of that, will we maintain our identity? Will

we maintain the vision that our early fathers had? Then

we have the thing of monuments. I don't know what

you think of monuments. Monuments by definition are about the past.

I've never seen a monument. I don't know. Could be something,

but I'm not thinking of a monument of somebody that's

going to live one hundred years from now or fifty

years from now or whatever. Monuments by definition belong to

the past. Now, monuments are not wrong. The Bible has

a number of number of examples of monuments. We have

the one there in First Samuel seven, verse twelve, that

says Samuel took a stone and set it between miss

Benshin and called it the name of it, Ebeneezier, saying

hitherto hath the Lord helped us? We could say that

this morning, hitherto hitherto up till now that's what it means,

hitherto means up until now, up until this point, but

it doesn't really address the future. In Joshua, For we

also have the example of the children of visual when

they were after they wondered in the wilderness for so long,

and after they experienced a lot of sin and murmuring

all those things, they came to the Jordan River and

they were going to cross the Jordan and the river finally,

and they were instructed to the priest. I guess it

was to take twelve stones and build a monument in

the bed or in the middle of the Jordan River.

And there was a very specific reason for that. They said,

when the day will come and your children will see

these stones, and they will ask, what's the deal with

these stones? Why are they there? And then you will

convey to them. You will tell them about what God

had done for them. And I think that's a very

crucial part of the reason. We don't build physical monuments.

We don't have out here in the parking lot somewhere

monuments of our past leaders. We don't do that. I

don't want to see that, really, But we can have

monuments in our heart. We can have monuments in our

life that means something to us. And we think and

remember that, and I believe that's very to our spiritual survival.

The world acknowledges the value of monuments. Nations, societies of

the world. They know that they have a flag that

means something, represents something. They teach history. They glorify the

victories of their armies in the past and probably smooth

over the defeats. But they do it because there's a

generation coming on, there's young people coming on, and they

want them to remember. They want them to appreciate what

has happened. And a nation that becomes weak, a nation

that does not recognize their past and doesn't try to

instill the values of that particular society and their children

becomes weak. They begin to decay. Enemies can easily take

over monuments. There's another kind of monument. Jesus talked about,

why did sepulchers Matthew twenty five, twenty nine and thirty

woe you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, because you build tombs

of prophets and guarnished receptors of the righteous, and say,

if we had been in the days of our fathers,

we would not have been partakers with them in the

blood of the prophets. Now, all sepulchers are monuments, in

my understanding, but all monuments are not seplichers. I think

we need to be careful that the way we view

the past, the way we relate to the past, they

can easily become sepulchers. We give honor to certain ones

or certain ideas, we give honor to that. You've heard that,

I've heard that. It's a very common thing, actually, But

in our own lives we're not keeping that. We were

not honoring that by doing it. Abraham, the Bible tells us,

was a friend of God. That's impressed me. The Book

of Hebrew talks about the life of Abraham somewhat, and

he talks about that Abraham, he was sojourneyed in the

land of Promise, and he dwelt in tabernacles, But he

was doing something else. He was looking for a city.

He had something in mind. He was looking for a

city which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

So my question, a question to you and myself, is

am I a friend of God? Can you say you're

a friend of God? Or you an acquaintance? Maybe you

met him once or twice in your life, you hadn't

you felt, But basically, you're going on with your life

and he's somebody way in the past. Is that what

friends do? He was looking for a city, he was

tending to business, he was living his life. But I

believe in his mind there was a city, a very

different kind of city, city with no wickedness, no violence.

Do we since this morning we're in a strange country there,

we're in a country that we really don't feel at

home with? Or are we pretty satisfied, pretty content to

be here? Are we really a friend of God? I trust?

This morning we think about the testimony of Abraham, how

he looked for a city. He was looking for something,

and if I'm correct, my grandfather died when I believe

eight or nine years old, and I believe the text

for that message was here in Hebrews. Worry about a

city which has foundations, whose builder maker is God. That's

one thing I always remember. So this morning I trust

that whatever your background is, wherever you are in your

Christian life, just simply are you a friend of God?

Friends talk, Friends open themselves to what the other one

has to say. Friends are glad to meet with each other.

Can you say that about your relationship with God may

the Lord that is blessing