Hey everybody,
Just a reminder that we won’t be gathering together this coming Sunday. And though we won’t be coming together, we can still be the church, worshiping Him by collectively taking the time to listen to and obey Him.
Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!
Do we live in such a way that reflects that the Lord’s opinion of us is all that matters? Will it be enough to here those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share your master’s happiness”? Or do we want more than that? Do we also need the approval of others as well? Or will we play only to the audience of One?
Personally, I’ve found the the most accurate test for this, to see if we play only to the audience of One, is when we’re falsely accused. I’ve been going to church long enough to know that in difficult times, I’m supposed to pray. And most often I do. I’ll usually switch between praying the abject “why is this happening to me?” prayer and the “protect me, save me” prayer.
But my action rarely stops there. I don’t just take it up to God in prayer. I take it up to other people too. I want God and a bunch of someone elses to understand. And so, I try to get other people on my side. I scramble around, trying to get anybody to listen to my side of the story. Often I’ll paint a picture where my accusers look like the bad guys with the hope that I’d look like the good guy.
Now, contrast that with what David did in our reading last week when he was also falsely accused in 1 Samuel 24:1-9. David falls from favor because Saul sees him as a threat to his throne. In response, Saul chases after David with several thousand men. All the while, Saul’s told that David is “bent on harming” him. An outright lie. David then has the opportunity to kill Saul in a cave. But he only cuts a piece of Saul’s robe and spares Saul’s life.
If we simply look at the story in 1 Samuel we’d know the facts, the events in history that occurred but we wouldn’t know what David was thinking, what he was feeling at the time. And that’s where the Psalms come in. It’s believed that David wrote songs, Psalms during this time. I’ll highlight a couple.
In Psalm 140, up to the first three Selahs from verse 1 to 8, it sounds familiar to us. They’re “protect me, save me” prayers. But starting from verse 9, the tone shifts significantly. Suddenly, David wields prayer less like a shield and more like a sword. He goes on the offensive in his prayer. And while this doesn’t sound all that great character-wise, let me put this in perspective. When I go on the offensive, I try to right the wrongs done to me myself. I go around trying to set the record straight. I make the rounds bad mouthing my accusers. When David goes on the offensive, he goes to the Lord to right the wrongs on his behalf. It’s not that time healed all wounds for David. It’s not that David came to the place where we didn’t care if Saul got his in the end. It’s that David trusted that the Lord would act as the judge and dole out the consequences for the wrong done.
And that goes into the other Psalm, Psalm 56. We see a lot of the same themes that we saw in Psalm 140, but what we see even more clearly in Psalm 56 is that theme of trusting in the Lord. In this particular Psalm we see that the opinion that the Lord has of David is sufficient for him. David lives for the audience of only One. While word spreads that David is guilty of treason, seeking after the king’s life, David doesn’t feel the compulsion to go around the country on a campaign setting the record straight. “In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” David only has eyes for the Lord. David came to the place where all that mattered was what the Lord thought of him and he carried that with him for the rest of his life.
Is what He thinks of you all that matters? Because it’s true, He is more than enough. As David later wrote, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” and “Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”
Building off of last week’s sermon where we asked, “Who’s going to be the head of the church”, this week we looked into how we could rediscover Christ as the head of the church. And for direction there, we take our cues from our Protestant Roots.
Last week, I mentioned the Protestant Reformation, the time when the Protestant Church emerged. I also mentioned how the people of the Protestant Reformation believed that all people could access and understand Scripture and in the process have a direct relationship with God. We still believe this, but we often have a hard time putting it into practice. With our unique mediator-less situation at Baylight, we have the opportunity to honestly pursue a direct relationship with the Lord.
Our basic challenge is this: We must connect directly to Christ through the Scriptures. And to accomplish this, we’re asking you to join us in reading the Bible in two years.
In tandem with this challenge, we’re laying out five tools which may be helpful for your journey through the Bible.
1. A Bible reading plan. Starting Feb. 8, 2010, we’ll start a chronological reading of the Bible. That is, the ord.er you read the Bible will be dictated by the likely chronological sequence of events (ex. Job will be read before Gen 12 because it is believed that Job lived before Abram). You can find a google doc of the first 6 months of the reading plan here.
2. The internet. Starting Feb. 8, 2010, the daily reading will be posted on the Baylight Church website. There you can then leave your thoughts, observations, and questions in the comment box. You can also have the daily reading sent directly to your email inbox by leaving a comment here, contacting Kenneth, or physically signing up during a Sunday gathering.
3. Sermons. Sermons will follow the reading plan, capping the previous week’s reading. The hope is that they’ll serve as a celebration of the last week’s reading and as an encouragement for the next week’s reading as well.
4. Accelerated one year accountability groups. These groups will gather once a month and be for those people who want read at a faster clip and want an added accountability component as well.
5. Deep-dive study group. These groups will gather once a month and be for those people who want to stay on the two year plan but also want to take some time to look in-depth into a small portion of Scripture using exegetical tools (i.e. original languages, historical context, history of interpretation, sentence structure analysis, etc.).
I look forward to journeying with you in rediscovering Christ as the head.
P.S. One thing I didn’t mention this morning is that this is by no means a Baylight restricted thing. If you know someone who may be interested in joining us in this journey, let them know what we’re doing. All of the gatherings and resources are and will be open. Thanks T for the suggestion.
Earlier this month, Alinn@’s parents asked me this question when they found out about the Kims’ departure for Globe: Who’s going to be the head of the church?
When they asked me the question, the Lord reminded me of Ephesians 4:15. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
And though we would all agree that Christ is the head of the church, we have the hardest time putting it into practice. This isn’t a problem that’s unique to the present day. This has been true of God’s people for a few millenia.
When the nation of Israel took hold of the land of Canaan, God was king over them. But later, the people of Israel demanded a king and in so doing, rejected God as their king and having direct rule over their lives. 1 Samuel 8:6-7.
6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.
Later, Joel wrote about a “Day of the Lord”, a day in the future when God’s Kingdom would be made manifest on Earth and the Lord would once again rule over His people. Joel 2:28.
And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
Pentecost, as recorded in the book of Acts was the fulfillment of this prophecy in Joel. The Lord’s Spirit was poured out on all people, not just the king or a priest. And the early church believed this, though they also had a hard time putting it into practice. It didn’t take long before the church established the office of the pope to clarify and unify doctrine, and unify and lead the church. He wasn’t a king, but the pope still served as a mediator between God and His people.
The Protestant Reformation revolted against the establishment of this mediator and believed that all people could access and understand Scripture and in the process access God. But again, the Protestant church had a hard time putting this into practice. We erected our own seminaries to produce doctrinally correct graduates to teach and lead the rest of the church how to properly handle a relationship with the Lord. We call our mediators pastors.
And now, with the Kims’ departure, we’re mediator-less… but we’re not headless. Our head, Jesus Christ remains the same. And so, we now have an incredible opportunity to recapture the Lord’s design for us, His people. We have an incredible opportunity to see that we do not need a mediator to stand between us and the Lord. The Spirit’s been poured out to all people. We can have a direct relationship with Him. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity to open ourselves up to the possibility that we can connect directly to Christ and thus, have Him as our head.
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