We will not be getting together at Mountain View Academy to worship God this Sunday. Instead, we’ll be getting together in our LTGs (small groups) to hang out, watch the Super Bowl, and eat food together. Invite friends and have a good time. If you’re not part of an LTG, use this as an opportunity to check one out. Check out the LTG page for details and more information about each of the LTGs that are currently running.
Our passage for this morning is a really familiar one: Luke 2:1-7, the birth of Jesus Christ. There are a few things about it that I think are easy to skip over because we’re so familiar with it.
The first is that this Jesus is Joseph and Mary’s first born child. For those of you who have kids, think about the time when you were having your first born. Recall the feelings. All that anticipation. All that excitement. And yet, at the same time, all that fear. All that anxiety. Joseph and Mary were likely an emotional mess.
The second is that the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, that trip that they took late in Mary’s third trimester was an 85 mile trip through some steep inclines. And if you’ve ever ridden an animal, you know that that’s still a physical exhausting mode of transportation. Think of the time when you were late in your third trimester. How far were you able to walk? Jospeh and Mary were physically exhausted. They were running on fumes.
And lastly, Bethlehem was Joseph’s “own city”, verse 3. Though it’s unclear whether Joseph’s parents were still alive, it’s almost certain that Joseph still had close relatives in Bethlehem. And considering Middle Eastern hospitality, it would’ve been inconceivable for Joseph and his new family to stay the night in some random barn as it’s portrayed in many of our Christmas pageants and plays.
Joseph and Mary likely stayed in one of his relatives’ home as did many of his other relatives, hence, why there wasn’t enough room for their entire family to sleep. With everybody coming back to their hometown to be registered for the census, there was likely a family reunion in the house where Joseph and Mary stayed. There’s music, dancing, massive amounts of food, laughter, and hugging. Jesus is getting passed around the room from family member to family member. And at the end of the day, after the party’s subsided well into the night, Joseph and Mary lay him down in a manger, a step below the living area but under the same roof.
There is very little that’s silent about this night. Very little is calm. And there’s little sleeping in heavenly peace.
If anything it’s a chaotic night. They’re emotionally and physically exhausted before they even get to Bethlehem. And when they do get there, they’re greeted by Joseph’s extended family who are excited to see the new addition to their family.
But Jesus is there with them. And for that reason, one of the lines from Silent Night rings true. It was a “holy night”. Being holy isn’t about being composed and calm, about having it all together with your sins properly managed. Being holy is about being with Jesus, abiding in Him.
I know that many of you are in a place right now where you feel like life is too chaotic to be connected to Jesus. Well, our relationship with Jesus is a two-way street. Jesus reaches out to us as well. Jesus loves you.
But will you notice? Will you notice Jesus loving you in the midst of the chaos of your life?
To notice, consider group life, being part of an LTG. When we live life alone, in seclusion it’s all too easy not to notice Jesus. Our spiritual vision gets near-sighted as we just live through the routines of our lives. But as we share about our lives, chaos and all, others in our LTGs can speak into them revealing Jesus at work in it. And as we pray together through the chaos of our lives, we can tangibly feel Jesus ministering to us through His body, the Church.
Discussion Questions:
31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
35 “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.
This Sunday, the 1st, we have off as we’re creating relational space in our weekends and learning as a community how to engage in meaningful relationships with non-church-going people when and where most of them naturally are available: the weekends!
Next Sunday, the 8th, we will all be on retreat in the Santa Cruz area, so there will be no Sunday gathering on that day either.
Things resume on the 15th at Mountain View Academy.
Hi baylight. This past Sunday I talked about a familiar topic that you have heard me mention often before: the power of simple obedience. It is something that the Lord has reinforced in my life over these last three years. I wanted to share with you the slides and quotes I used.
I talked about our global mission summit in the former city of Antioch, Turkey, where Acts 13 happened.
Acts 13:1-3 - 1In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.
And here was the purported place they were meeting in (Now called St. Peter’s Grotto) when they heard from God:
And here was the Roman port from which they immediately obeyed the voice of the Lord:
I shared how this was the pattern of spirituality espoused in community that led to mission (I also shared my friend Curtis’ story about the Lord sending out two women missionaries from the house church network in China while he was asleep at 4:30am). The pattern over time is this: Hearing God + a Heart that trust/loves/obeys God = the blueprint for a revolution in God’s Kingdom.
The kind of person God uses is one who will say “yes” to God — no matter what. It is this kind of person that God strongly supports according to …
2 Chronicles 16:9a – “For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.
I shared quotes from Bob Roberts, Pastor of Northwood Church in Texas, to help show the process:
And I shared about my life as an example and encouragement to any who doubt this truth. I believe I am living proof that when you obey what you hear God saying, supernatural and transformational things happen.
I see God making people in baylight into this kind of community on this kind of mission with this kind of spirituality of loving and costly obedience. And if we choose to cooperate with what God is already doing in the world, then the sky is the limit. My wish for baylight is that you would also come to know Jesus in this way that goes beyond right beliefs to a living, dynamic relationship.
I closed with Karen Watson’s Last Letter; Karen died in Iraq at the age of 38 and knew God in this way as well. And from heaven above, her testimony also speaks of the grandeur of loving obedience to God.
Dear Pastor,
You should only be opening this letter in the event of my death. When God calls there are no regrets. I tried to share my heart with you as much as possible, my heart for the nations. I wasn’t called to a place; I was called to Him. To obey was my objective, to suffer was expected, His glory my reward, His glory my reward…
The missionary heart:
Cares more than some think is wise.
Risks more than some think is safe.
Dreams more than some think is practical
Expects more than some think is possible
I was called not to comfort or to success but to obedience… There is no Joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving Him. I love you and my church family.
In His care,
Salaam, Karen
This morning, I talked from Matthew 13:44, the parable of the treasure, on how I’ve been growing on becoming more Kingdom-centered with my finances. Through the process so far, I’ve been growing in my desire to be more generous or to use Abrahamic terminology, I’ve been growing in my desire to bless the nations with my money. Along the way, I’ve been finding that the rate at which I’m saving may well be impeding me from following through on that desire.
I also promised to put up some helps online:
If you already know how you spend your money and you want to see how your spending stacks up against the average American and the average Bay Area resident, you can go here. To input your own information, you’ll want to go to the tab with the title “Satake Budget 2010 Pending” and put your monthly spending in the January column. Of course, because I’m using Google Docs, the cool comparative graph won’t show. But the percentages will get calculated. For easier visibility, after you’ve put in your monthly spending in “Satake Budget 2010 Pending”, you can look at the tabs with the word “Simple” in parenthesis.
For a definition of the terms in the spreadsheet, you can look at the “Notes” tab in the spreadsheet and use that in conjunction with this page on the Department of Labor’s webpage.
If you’d like the same spreadsheet but with the comparative graph, let me know and I can send it to you via email. I can also send you a copy of my family’s real budget with information dating back from 2006 by email as well (it’s probably not a good idea for me to post that on a blog). Let me know if you’d like this.
Though I was really nervous talking about this through the means of a sermon (monologue), I’m really more than happy to have a conversation (dialogue) about this to hear what you’ve been thinking about with regards to money. Feel free to leave a comment on the blog, send me an email, or talk to me.
Since we don’t talk about it all that much, I’m guessing that not everyone knows that we have a church office. In the earlier days of Baylight, the church office was used by staff as a place to do work and as a gathering place for ministry like LTG leaders’ meetings, prayer meetings, and intern training meetings. These days, Baylight uses the office space vary sparingly as you might assume based on the lack of publicity it gets now.
Two years ago, I got together with some Baylight folks to meet with Maria Marroquin from the Day Worker Center of Mountain View to ask her what she perceived to be the real needs of the local day worker community. Among many things, she mentioned the need for a computer lab where computer skills could be taught. For the better part of the last year, Sinclair, Kenneth, Jason, my brother, and I worked on transforming half of our office space into a computer lab. And in May of this year, the first computer class was piloted.
Three months later, in August, we received a notice from our landlord saying that we had to vacate the premises by the end of the month because they were planning on tearing down the office complex. At this point, the COT had to decide whether we were going to stop renting an office space or look for a new facility.
After some prayer, we decided to look for a new office space with the intent that we would offer to share the space with other Kingdom-minded organizations who have a heart to collaborate and see the Lord do transformative work in the Sunnyvale-Mountain View area. Basically, we wanted to be Kingdom-centered (rather than church-centered) about the use of our office.
All this to say, we are now moved in to a new office. The address is:
883 N. Shoreline #B100, Mountain View, CA 94043
And so far, we have begun to share the space with three non-profit organizations and one Latino house church network.
If you know of other organizations that might be interested in sharing this collaborative space or if you’d like to know more about this project, feel free to talk to me, email me, or leave a comment below.
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