Sermon Tone Analysis

Go-Kart Success

When I was 14 I built a coaster car.

No engine: essentially just four wheels and a chair.

You could steer the front axle with your feet.

It was awesome.

But I had to install breaks because we lived on a pretty steep hill.

The design I came up with was a lever that sat right in the middle: really just a piece of 2x4 pivoting on a single screw so when I pulled back on the lever, the other side of the wood dragged against the ground and slowed me down.

I learned an important engineering lesson: It isn’t stupid if it works.

We flew down that hill on that thing, faster and faster, and that break worked faithfully to slow us down every time.

It isn’t stupid if it works.

As we talk about Vision, God’s Will and God’s Way… how do we know when we have the right one?

How do we measure success… and how do we find the road to success?

Worship Success

Recap: Micah the visionary worship leader, Jonathan the priest in the line of Moses.

Enter: the tribe of Dan.

Background: the tribe of Dan on the coast of Israel.

God had promised to them some of the best land in all Israel… but they hadn’t been able to take hold of it yet.

And they were impatient.

They didn’t like God’s timeline… or they weren’t up to God’s challenge and command to conquer the land they had been given.

First the Amorites, then the Philistines were too much for the poor tribe of Dan.

One way or another, they were casting their eyes around for a new “more preferable future”.

How did they “recognize him”?

No clue.

Maybe he had traveled to the region of Dan and made an impression before settling with Micah?

Good instinct!

They seek wise counsel!

This is good.

But recall for a moment who they are asking.

Jonathan of the line of Moses… but a “priest” ordained by who? Micah.

And he is operating in a shrine filled with idols and counterfeit imitations of temple items.

In other words, not a real priest but a charlatan.

It is this priest who then says:

The text doesn’t say: this guy is bogus and wouldn’t know Yahweh’s will if it bit him.

My own interpretation (again, the text doesn’t say) is that he just tells them what they want to hear.

This is not a man who earnestly and honestly seeks God will… or he wouldn’t do ANY of the things we see him do.

And he is probably using the counterfeit teraphim or ephod to extract an oracle… in imitation of that commanded by God to be worn and used by the real high priest.

But armed with that “wise counsel” the scouts go on.

They find a sweet new place to live filled with people that can’t defend themselves.

Great!

They rush home to share the good news.

Up North by the springs that feed into the Jordan River.

This is a beautiful area with rich soil and waterfalls.

Note how they add to the “Word from God” they heard from Jonathan the fake priest.

Everyone is speaking all sorts of things in the name of God here.

And so they march:

But the scouts remember the sweet setup that Micah had… and they want it for their own:

This guy is a real gem.

No loyalty whatsoever to Micah who ordained him and made him “like a father” to him.

His heart is glad… because being a priest to a tribe is more important than being a priest to on man.

It is all ambition here.

Micah is upset!

“We robbed you fair and square.

Deal with it!”

They people of Dan won and setup in their new city.

Jonathan one and he and his descendants were priests for CENTURIES.

You can hear them declare their success.

Things worked out great!

And the visionary worship services that Micah made, they too lasted for hundreds of years… until David relocates the ark to Jerusalem (after recapturing from the Philistines).

But even longer than that, perhaps.

But… hold on a second… how do you define success?

It isn’t stupid if it works… or it seemed like a good idea at the time

The coaster cart was an absolute success… until it wasn’t.

We got more and more comfortable, going faster and faster down our paved 30% grade street.

Swooping across the road.

Worst part was carrying the car back up the hill… but it was worth it!

And then, going faster then ever, I pulled up on the brake.

And this poor little 2x4 pivoting on a single screw just dissolved in my hands.

Useless.

Now I am barreling down the street with no brakes whatsoever.

I try to put my feet down but I am using those to steer this thing.

Now I am going faster and faster, and I am only going to accelerate more so I do the only thing I can do… I steer to the side into the curb and the neighbors yard and… I died.

That’s what happened.

Cautionary tale.

The car was destroyed and I am here today only by the grace of God.

Instead “it isn’t stupid if it works” I learned “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

It isn’t like there aren’t great options for breaks and positive examples all around me.

I had a bike.

I had a physicist father with a knowledge of construction who might have had some insight into my “brake” design.

But I took my small success to mean that my plan was a good one, that my car was a good one, and that my future was secure.

But all that small success did was set me up for a larger failure.

500 years later

Note the reference to “until the captivity (or exile) of the land”.

This idolatrous cult center at Dan, together with a similar shrine at Bethel serve as the icons of northern Israelite spirituality and religious worship after Jereboam takes control over the northern ten tribes.

This is when we get the split “Israel” and “Judah.”

The seeds of idolatry here in the new city of Dan in the 12th century BC see their prophetic fulfillment in Northern Israel being conquered by Assyria in the 8th century BC.

The nation is destroyed and the people are scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire, never to return or regain their spiritual and national heritage.

A plan outside of God’s plan is doomed to fail.

No matter how much it looks like “success” in the short term.

I bet it felt like success to Jonathan.

And to the tribe of Dan.

For a long time it felt like success.

But that small success only set them up for larger failure.

God had established his commands clearly, they had no excuse.

God sent MANY prophets to decry and warn that what they were doing in the “high places” and in Dan and Bethel in particular was wrong and doomed to failure.

But they liked their vision of the future, the more preferable future they made for themselves.

And in the end, they are wiped from history.

Today, the remnant of Israel is who?

The Jews.... ie the tribe of Judah.

Where are the Danites?

The Benjamites?