We invite those of you who enjoy our sermons to join our church community for worship whenever you are in Galena on a Sunday morning. We would be happy to see you.

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Building a upon Legacy

1 Chronicles 22:1-5; 1 Chronicles 28:6-10; 1 Chronicles 29:10-19

October 19, 2025

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In June of 1989, I became the student pastor of the Presbyterian Church in the little village of Hazleton, Iowa. Our family had moved there from Urbandale, which was part of the greater Des Moines metropolitan area whose population back then was about a half million people. So moving from that booming area to a tiny town of 600 people was a major adjustment. 

 

But that adjustment was far less worrisome than dealing with the fact that I was now in charge of a congregation of roughly 80 people even though I had only preached a single sermon in my entire life. I sincerely believed then and now that God had called me to go to there, but the belief didn’t make the challenge any less daunting. 

 

The church office was located in a converted bedroom in the manse. Taped to the telephone in that office, someone had placed a small piece of paper which featured a typed quote from Proverbs 29:18, written in the old King James translation. It said, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” 

 

You couldn’t help but see that quote any time you sat at that desk. And, to be honest, those words were a little intimidating. After all, even though I had served as an elder and a deacon in the church I grew up in — not to mention being a preacher’s kid — what did I know about casting a vision for the people of God? 

 

After all, I began serving as a student pastor three months before I officially started seminary. For that matter, even later when I was attending seminary I can’t remember a single class that taught us how to cast a vision or even how to search for the will of God. 

 

But I was eventually able to figure out how to do that based simply on my various experiences as a congregational member and as a church volunteer. Isn’t it really just a matter of testing your plans and ideas against the standards of the Bible? Of course, the New Testament often shows Jesus breaking with what the Pharisees thought of as biblical standards, but he showed that the standards he ignored were really cultural traditions, not standards from God. 

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Isaiah (43:19) wrote, “I am about to do a new thing […] do you not perceive it?” So the other necessary step in seeking the will of God is by praying. Ask God if your plans truly align with God’s will or should they be modified or even scrapped altogether? Then, once you have asked that question, listen — truly listen for God’s reply. 

 

One of the most common failings of many Christians is that we tend to spend our prayers talking and rarely listening. In fact, we use much of that time asking God for favors as if God were a celestial vending machine. But prayer has always been intended to be a two-way conversation between two parties in a loving relationship. 

 

Our Old Testament lessons show that King David understood that concept. You can see that in his explanation that he would not be allowed to build the Temple. He was clearly disappointed, but he was willing to accept God’s judgment that the honor of construction would be granted to his son, Solomon and not to him. 

 

That doesn’t mean David gave up his dream entirely. If his son would be the one to build the Temple he had been dreaming of, then David would do his best to help by gathering as many of the needed construction materials as possible. More than that, he would help by encouraging Solomon to build with the proper attitude. 

 

Think for moment what that Temple must have meant to David. When we first meet him, he’s just a young shepherd boy. When the prophet Samuel comes to David’s father Jesse’s house and asks to meet all of Jesse’s sons, Jesse considers David to be so insignificant that he doesn’t bother to introduce David to Samuel. That didn’t happen until Samuel insisted on meeting all of Jesse’s sons. 

 

At that point, David’s defining characteristics were a passionate devotion to God, a gift for writing psalms and an utter lack of fear of anything or anyone due to his absolute trust in God. Those charac-teristics led him to defeat a giant enemy soldier named Goliath who terrified everyone else. 

 

He would ultimately become a highly-skilled military leader whose heroic accomplishments led the Israelite women to sing that King Saul had killed thousands, but David killed tens of thousands. That song made Saul jealous, causing him to try to kill David. 

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Even so, David refused to fight back since he believed that God had made Saul king. David eventually became king of all Israel and conquered all their enemies, going from one success to the next, until he got bored with it all. 

 

That’s when he happened to see his neighbor’s wife bathing on the rooftop next door. That caused him to commit adultery and murder and possibly even rape. The circumstances around those events split David’s life in two. 

 

After sleeping with Bathsheba, David’s sins would lead his family from one heartache-inducing tragic situation to another. His lust proved to be the key event in his life — one that would permanently change his life’s trajectory. 

 

And yet, when he was confronted with the truth of his actions, he confessed and repented immediately. And he was forgiven, although none of the consequences of his actions were magically waved away.  

 

In spite of his terrible sins, deep down David never lost his passion-ate love for God. I believe that his desire to build the Temple was his way of trying to do something to make it up to God. 

 

Because of that, even when he was denied the right to build the Temple, he still wanted to do something to help. So he set about gathering the construction materials, including a generous amount of which he paid for himself. 

 

Then, when he had collected a certain quantity of materials, he called for all the leading officials of the nation to come together so he could publicly present the Temple plans to Solomon as well as receiving pledges of additional materials from those officials. 

 

In that assembly, David described such a compelling vision of the future Temple that the people in that assembled group were extremely generous in their donations to the project. And the author of 1 Chronicles is very careful to stress that each of those donations was given freely. That point is so important to the author that he or she uses the words “freely” or “willingly” to describe their gifts four different times in just five verses. In other words, their generosity was not compelled by the king. 

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Wasn’t the same thing true of the first generation of the members of this church? The first several years that our founding pastor, Aratus Kent, was in Galena, were hard ones. It was definitely difficult to attract members for a congregation, something that didn’t currently exist in that booming frontier town. 

 

And that remained the case until a major economic downturn swept over the country, leading vast numbers of people to think more deeply about what they wanted from life. That, in turn, caused the rolls of churches to swell all across the nation. 

 

Here in Galena, 187 years ago, the congregation became big enough that it began to dream of building the church building we still use today. Obviously, they wanted a functional center for worship and ministry, but they weren’t content to stop there. They also wanted to create a structure of beauty and grace that would inspire those who saw it to lift their thoughts to God. 

 

To do that, they refused to cut corners. Instead, they paid extra to have classical Greek columns installed in the front of the sanctuary. They chose a blend of woods for the pews specially selected for both their durability and reduced cost, but then they paid to have a painter come in and create a false wood grain on the pews, although much of that work is no longer visible. 

 

Next, they erected a steeple complete with a bell to call worshippers to the service. But they didn’t want just a plain steeple. Instead, they wanted to make that steeple so spectacular that to this day it often serves as the central landmark for our town in tourist information.

 

In essence, the founders of our congregation wanted to create a monument to God in Galena and they wanted to create a legacy that they could hand off to the succeeding generations of believers in this place — a legacy that would live long beyond their own lifetimes. And I believe that by anyone’s standards, we’d have to say that they succeeded spectacularly. 

 

That brings it to us. What is our vision? How will we express our passion for Jesus in our time? It seems to me that with my future retirement lurking somewhere in the not-too-distant future, it’s a good time to think about these things. 

 

I love all of you and my fondest prayer is that my time here will have served like David’s time of gathering materials for the Temple. That is, together we will have prepared for the tremendous growth that will come after my departure. I’ve been here a long time and the danger of that is that some of you may allow your fond memories of what we’ve done together interfere with your hopes and plans for the future. 

 

As Christopher Ian Chenoweth says, “We cannot move ahead with great effectiveness, if we’re locked into the past. To truly believe in God, we have to realize that we are not locked to the limitations of yesterday. We have the ability and the power to go forward. […] It has nothing to do with your past. It has everything to do with your future and your commitment, right now in courage and faith.” 

 

And in terms of finding God’s will for the future, Chenoweth adds, “Here’s a way to see if [something is] God’s will. If it’s bad, it’s not God’s will. If it’s wonderful, if it blesses you, if it excites you at the core of your being, if it brings love into your life, if it brings health, if the spiritual thoughts renew you and bring you peace of mind, if it brings your family together again, that is God’s will. It is God’s will that we accept Divine help and goodness AND help each other on our path. […] As you reach the high spiritual heights, you must reach down to help others that are struggling.” 

 

God has created this world in such a way that the more we offer our goods and ourselves to others, the more we will grow in our faith and the more we will experience the real joy that God has placed at the heart of creation. Therefore, if we truly want to build up the church, the best way to do so — beyond our personal commitments to worship and Bible studies — is through our regular and disciplined sharing of our time, talents and income. 

 

That’s how we create a practical legacy for the future. But that’s also how we create an example that can inspire future generations to give of themselves as well. When you work for the Kingdom of God, the more you offer, the more you grow and the more others grow as well. It is really something of a unrecognized miracle. That is the vision for you to seek out. Amen. 

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by Jim McCrea