Build According to the Pattern
“…Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.”
-Exodus 25:8-9
“…see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.”
-Exodus 25:40
“…You shall raise up the tabernacle according to its pattern which you were shown on the mountain.”
-Exodus 26:30
An event occurred in my early ministry days that became seed for an eventual harvest from which I continue to eat today. It was a simple, small thing at the time, yet wonderful to me and perhaps even due to its simplicity profoundly impacting on my life.
The incident happened during a time of crisis. I had been hired by a denominational church in Jacksonville, Florida, to be their associate pastor in charge of children and teen ministry. You can imagine my chagrin when I discovered upon arrival in Florida that the senior pastor had resigned without saying anything to me and I was expected to take over his duties indefinitely while the people searched for a new pastor. At twenty-two I became their “Preacher Boy”, as I was often referred to when being introduced.
There are few words in the English language that would be adequate to express my year and two months in that church, although the word “hell” comes to mind. (There are others that are adequate—but not appropriate!) Before my first month had ended, I had learned that the church was divided into two rival factions, and I had turned down a thousand dollar bribe from the head of one of them. (A man who would regularly “flip the bird” to his son-in-law from the platform as he was receiving the tithe and offering—I am not joking.)
One of my duties on Sundays was to pick up children in the church van for Sunday School and morning service. While carrying out this duty one particular Sunday, two little black children asked if they could come to church as well, and, of course, I answered affirmatively. The next week they brought with them many undisciplined friends. The kids had probably never been to church before and did not feel the need to behave in a subdued fashion while they were there that morning. They sat in the front next to my fiancée, Lisa Faulkner (now Lisa Ainsworth; I have no doubt that she loves me—if she were ever going to bolt and run, that would have been the day!), and for the first time in my life I prayed with my eyes open while I tried to stare the children down during my “Pastoral Prayer”.
Eventually, I dismissed them to children’s church and explained the situation to the congregation. No one said anything to me directly, but I could sense that the board meeting scheduled for that evening was going to be interesting. While contemplating my situation that afternoon, a strange scenario crossed my mind:
I saw one man in the church speak to me and ask me a question concerning my authority to pick up the children. Even as I pictured the question, I mentally formulated a response to him.
In the meeting that night, all was progressing normally until the topic of new business came up. The man that I had seen in my vision stated that he had a question for me and with great anger and hatred pointed his finger at me and demanded to know who gave me the authority to pick up the children. His question was word –for-word what I had seen and heard that afternoon, and of course I was prepared with an answer.
With a huff and a puff the man quit the church, as did the would-be briber; and I was left with an astounding challenge to my doctrinal understanding.
God had spoken to me, and warned me about an event in the future!
I wish I could say that I immediately made major changes in my life and began to seek to hear Holy Spirit regularly. It took, however, another three years before I began to let go of those “theological hang-ups” that I had trusted in and embraced the reality of a supernatural walk with Yahweh by the Spirit in the now.
Eventually, however, the aforementioned seed germinated into a major shift in my life, my understanding, and ministry philosophy.
If Yahweh has spoken in the past, and if indeed He was willing to speak to me once, does it not hold true that He would like to speak more at present as well as in the future?
You people of The Rock, of course, know that He does; as a matter of fact, He very zealously wants to speak to His church today.
Consider the above scripture concerning Moses. It was obviously important to Yahweh that He communicated to Moses the necessity of building the tabernacle, the place of His manifested presence with the Israelites, according to a pattern. Furthermore, this pattern was revealed to Moses by Yahweh Himself.
Today our lives and our churches are meant to be the places of Yahweh’s manifestation; we are to be His glory. He has made this possible by His Son’s life, death, and resurrection, and the subsequent impartation to the church of Holy Spirit. Could He be saying to each believer, and to the Pastor of each church, “Be careful to build according to My pattern?” Could this pattern be as unique as each individual himself? Could the pattern be as unique as each church’s situation? Yes! Yet all too often we settle on an attempt to try something that has worked somewhere before, or we listen for the latest plan or program hoping someone has found the key to our problems!
Someone does have the key, His name is Yahweh, and He wants to communicate that key to us by His Spirit.
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