What if Christ has given the church all the gifts necessary for the accomplishment of the in breaking of heaven on earth and to gain maturing even attaining to the fullness of Christ? The Apostle Paul certainly thought that is the case in Ephesians 4 when he said as much that when he said, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

What is key for us to know is that this is a general letter written to an entire church, not a group of leaders or “clergy” which means that Paul is describing everyone not just leaders. This has become what is known as APEST (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers), the five-fold ministry, or as missiologist Alan Hirsch has coined it, 5Q. The five-fold intelligence that Christ has given to the church. The truth is that we need all 5 giftings in the church in order to gain maturity and no one person (aside from Jesus) has every displayed perfectly all 5 gifts.

I would love for everyone to take the assessment linked below to see what it reveals when it comes to your gifting. I have been taking courses on how to interpret, process, and utilize toward maturity each of these gifting and I believe it is an incredible tool to gain awareness and language for growth, maturity, and participation in the vision. It does cost $10, which isn’t much, but if this is a barrier please let me know. I would love to start being able to use 5Q language as we lean further into maturing toward launching communities on mission.

I would make sure you have about 20min to take the assessment, free of distraction, and what is really important is that you answer honestly, not how you think or would like to answer but how you would naturally. I am really exciting to see the kind of gifting mix that we have among this group! Once you take it, if you can send me the PDF it produces that would be great!) Let’s continue to lean into great awareness and gifting together!

– Pastor Jared

In the word of Richard Foster from his influential book Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, “to pray is to change.” This early community of disciples was not just a radically kind and generous community. It wasn’t just a community that stunned the culture with its compassion and inclusion. It wasn’t just the latest place to be or fulfillment of a need for social activity. It was a life-transformative community. The lives of people were not stagnate and were nearly unrecognizable from what they were. Because to be devoted to prayer is to be devoted to change. It is this truth that seems to be the underlying difficulty of prayer. To truly pray is to invite transformation. This means that prayer is not a vending machine to go to when we need something or when our lives get too difficult for us to handle on our own. Prayer is a primary formative practice where God meets us and reveals to us the change that he desires to do in our lives.

“If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives. The closer we get to the heartbeat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Jesus.” The disciples in Acts knew this, to pray is to change — that is why they devoted themselves to it. What they learned of Jesus, what they experienced among the fellowship and the unity in the simplicity of the breaking of bread… if this is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, if this is what the gathered ones of Jesus, the church, was going to be like then of course I am going to devote myself to prayer because I want that change — I want that transformation. Is there any part of you that is appealed by that? Open yourself up, listen, and seek Jesus. You will find your life transformed.

1. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your prayer life? Why do you rank it there? What do you feel is lacking?
2. What barriers to do you think you have between you and a healthy prayer life? What do you think you can do to remove them?
3. How adverse are you to change in your life right now? Are there things in your life that you are afraid God will ask you to change? If so, why are you afraid of that?
4. What are two practical ways that you can begin being more devoted to prayer?

What’s Next?

• Join in at Sunday Prayer at 9:30a as we pray together and model what it can look like to allow scripture to help us to prayer and then pray for what God has put on our hearts.
• If you have not done Pray21 yet, pick a copy from the welcome desk or find the resource on our website.
• Make a list of reasons that you cannot spend time in prayer. Then come up with 1-2 solutions to those reasons.

The Breaking of Bread. Of all the things that the early disciples devoted themselves to, the breaking of bread together may have been the simplest of them but just as formative as any of them. In the breaking of bread we can capture two different images that has one shared central truth. The first image is that those early disciples devoted themselves to eating meals together, forming a bond and community while doing something that everyone needed to do: eat. It didn’t need to be a fancy meal, in fact, it could have comprised of just some bread and wine. There was significance on display in these simple meals. Around the table you would find the rich and the poor, the social elite and the social servants and yet they all broke bread from the same loaf together in, especially in that day, a powerful act of unity.

Another image that comes to mind is that of the Last Supper, the Lord’s Supper, or Communion that Jesus established with his disciples before his death and resurrection. Jesus asks his disciples to “do this in remembrance of me.” In this Jesus is asking his disciples to remember him even in the simplest of meals, that Jesus does not need complexity or great expense in order to be remembered but a simple meal, simple, elements, simply around the table.

There is a shared core truth to both of these images: it makes it easy for Jesus to be remembered as the center of our lives. Eating is in the regular rhythm of our lives, which means Jesus can be too. Every-time that we “break bread” no matter how simple, is not too common for the remembrance of Jesus and who he is. We can also live in the example of Jesus and use the table and breaking bread as a place of unity and sharing Jesus with others. The table can be a powerful place, because all were welcomed when Jesus was at the table. Devotion to the breaking of bread is not just about the Lord’s Supper or eating together it is about the powerful truth that Jesus can be known in our most simplest movement’s and it is in those simple moments that we can remember Jesus as the center of our lives.

1. Have you ever had a meal with someone that you remember as being significant in your life?
2. What might it look like in your life to “break bread” regularly with fellow followers of Jesus?
3. What do you think was added to the community of those early disciples as they devoted themselves to this?
4. The next time you break bread with someone, how could you being Jesus to the table with you?
5. What does it look like for you to remember Jesus every time you break bread?

What’s Next?

• As you break bread with family and/or friends think through how you migh bring Jesus to the table or remember him in that time?
• Not sure where to start? Join us at Common Table as a way to practice this devotion. 
• Work to find Jesus in the simplicity of life even in the act of eating a meal.

Fellowship. In Christian circles this may evoke memories of potlucks, all church holiday gatherings, or ice cream socials. While these kinds of social events are an important part of the life of a local church, is this the kind of fellowship that those early disciples were devoted to?

As great as organized fellowship is, the kind of personal bond or “koinōnia” (in greek) that the writer, Luke, is describing that is happening among this community of believers would be closer to a bond of deep friendship. The language that Luke is using to describe this bond of community would have been familiar among the Greco-Roman world through the writings of Plato and Aristotle, some of the great greek philosophers. In short, they believed that the ideal society or the virtuous person was not possible without a friendship that always considered the benefit of the friend over your own and benefiting your friend should never be done out of the motivation of the self-interest of recognition or reciprocity. Although it seems that Luke is describing this new community of believers as attaining this idealistic network of friendship, even still what is described here elevates above even the most idyllic philosophical bonds of friendship. As forward thinking as Plato and Aristotle might have been they still understood that this kind of ideal “friendship” is only possible within the particular social class the individuals find themselves in.

The fellowship that was being created among this spirit-filled and Jesus centered community of believers transcended the binds of the cultural strata. Land owners and beggars developed selfless bonds of friendship not factoring in what each other can bring into the relationship.It was a community where those who had land they could sell (which was their inheritance and directly tied to their social status) would sell it so that their friends in the fellowship would have their needs met. Why would they do this though? Why be so devoted to this kind of, in some people’s eyes, costly fellowship?
 
Because that is what Jesus did. They were devoted to the Apostle’s teaching, meaning, the life and ministry of Jesus. Jesus modeled the example of this when he said that he does not see his disciples as servants but at friends. (John 15:12-15) Jesus himself broke the social strata by humbling himself and elevating his disciples into a bond of friendship that is created in a love for one another that would lay down their lives for each other. The kind of fellowship that these early disciples were exhibiting was simply living in the way that Jesus lived, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Did they have organized gatherings? Of course, but what is more true is that they devoted themselves to the fellowship. It wasn’t simply to gathering but to people, they devoted themselves to one another and devoted themselves in such a way that not only people were attracted to but created a transformational community.

1. What do you think a community, like one those early disciples had, would look like in our age and culture?
2. What are some first steps individuals can make to contribute to the formation of such a community?
3. What do you think a church would need to do in order to foster this kind of community?

What’s Next?

• Begin praying for those in the fellowship (your church) and ask the Holy Spirit to form your heart to love them.
• Commit to gathering with people in your church community. It is hard to build a bond if we do not spend time together.
• Show an act of generosity and friendship to someone in your church community.

Devotion. It is a word that is commonly used in Christian circles to signify a set aside time to read scripture, pray, and spend time with God. However, it also seems that at times that is all it has been reduced to, that our “devotions” are reserved for a set period of time in the morning or in the evenings. When we read that the early church “devoted” themselves it was not for a concentrated time-frame but a practice of their entire being. Everything that they did, their loyalty, enthusiasm, time, discussion, was wrapped up in the Apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and to prayer. As a result of this devotion, they saw God do wonders and powerful things among them. At times I wonder what wonders and powerful things we would witness if we had the same devotion. What are the things that our level of devotion are just not ready for what Jesus is waiting to do among us?

So just like those early disciples we have to start somewhere to increase our devotion. A good place for us to start is the first thing listed in Acts 2:42, “They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ Teaching.” It is interesting to note that it does not say, “to the scriptures.” After-all, these early disciples would have been Jews and already been very familiar with the scriptures that they had but there was something new that was sparking this transformative community. It was this new “Apostles’ Teaching,” namely, the teachings on the person, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This new found devotion was to the person of Jesus and everything that revealed and taught when we was on earth. This is an important distinction for us to catch onto. Yes, we find Jesus in the scriptures that we have now and the early church did not have what we have but if we miss the part of the devotion to the person, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus then we miss the center-point of the devotion. Jesus is the lens through which we should approach scripture. If we miss this, we run the risk of mis-construing or even weaponizing scripture. We could do more harm than good. As we seek to increase our devotion like those early disciples, may we also follow their example and centering there devotion on the person of Jesus. Devoting ourselves to understand, learn, discuss, and act on the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is when we center ourselves around Jesus that we can truly expect to step into the wonder and power that those early disciples experienced.

1. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of devotion? Why do you think that comes to mind?
2. Rate where your devotion to Jesus is on scale of 1-10. Why did you rank it where you did? Are you satisfied with it?  If not, why do you want your devotion to increase?
3. Why do you think it is important see scripture through the lens of Jesus and not the other way around? Have you ever been the recipient of scripture being weaponized? How do  you think seeing through the lens of Jesus would have changed that?
4. What are 1-3 new things that you would like to know about Jesus or being devoted to the way of Jesus? How do you think you can go about discovering those things?

What’s Next?

• Begin reading the gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John. They overlap but are also unique so that we can get a full picture of who Jesus is.
• Get involved in a gather! Make Sunday Prayer or Worship a priority, join in on Common Table, or simply ask us questions! We are here to help people follow Jesus!

Since the last of the Old Testament prophets there has been hundreds of years of “silence.” In our current Bibles the gospel account of Matthew “breaks the silence,” so to speak, with a genealogy that leads all the way up to Jesus, the Messiah. What at first glance seems like a simple list of names with obscure names in it then, once you dive deeper, reveals not only a path to a Messiah that only God could have patch-worked together but a family tree that fulfills outlook of the gospel of Jesus. Running through the genealogy we have people who are messy and broken, and people that did not necessarily live saintly lives. In looking at it you also have non-Jews, known as Gentiles, in the family tree of Jesus. We can also notice that there are significant women mentioned, such as Ruth and Rahab, which would have been out of the ordinary for a genealogy.
So what does this family tree tell us? That the savior of the world can come from a history and family full of brokenness and sin. God can work not just in spite of it all but to forgive what may seem like the worst of sins and mend what seems beyond repair. God is not worried about being placed into a family line of brokenness. What this also reveals is that the Messiah is not just for the Jewish people. The savior of the world did not come into the world through a purely Jewish family but one that weaved through the Gentiles as well. The savior is for everyone. Jesus came into the world because of the strength, courage, and care of women just as much as men. Jesus redeems and gives hope to a family line that does not follow the “perfect” norms.
A good news truth from the family line of Jesus is this: in a world that is full of generational brokenness, sin, trauma, and messiness, Jesus can still redeem, save, restore, and give life because that is the kind of family Jesus comes from. We do not need to resign ourselves to be objects at the end of our generational production line; what is available to us is the possibility of becoming new creations because that is what Jesus does.

Ezra-Nehemiah is historically understood as being written by one person and constitutes a cohesive narrative. The eventual outcomes of this narrative portray this idea: these narratives are what it looks like when gifted leaders take the promises of God into their own hands. Though God was with the people of Israel, we have the leaders of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah that were sent, with the blessing and resources of the Persian king, to go back to Jerusalem and work to rebuild its people and city. Though the Lord did protect them and show up at times, things did not happen as they thought they might because they thought they were helping to make happen the prophetic promises of the restoration of Israel. They took, ultimately, in their hands what they thought would need to be done in order to restore Israel, rather than truly looking at the promises that God made and how Israel was going to look different, and what really needed to happen for Israel to be restored. The rebuilding of the temple did not lead to the restoration of Israel. The re-reading and teaching of the Torah and legalism didn’t restore Israel. The rebuilding of the walls of the city did not lead to the restoration of Israel. None of those things mattered to the restoration of Israel unless the people of Israel allowed their hearts to be made new. Israel needed a new heart. Nothing on the outside mattered if that didn’t happen.
I wonder how we can see ourselves in this story? We can know and read of the promises of God and wish to see them come to fruition… but we are not always the most patient, and we have ideas of our own on how it is going to happen. It could be well intentioned but there is a particular way that God wishes to restore us and fulfill the promises that He has made to us. God wishes to make us into a new creation through the power of the Holy Spirit by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. What we witness through the narrative of Ezra-Nehemiah is what happens when people take the promises of God into their own hands… a burning of hope that ends in an anti-climax of, “remember me Lord, ‘I’ tried my best.”

Providence, comfort, and hope are the words that come to mind from the narrative of Esther. Providence in that there are too many things that fall into place at just the right time. God, in his sovereignty, is working providentially so that his people are not destroyed through an evil scheme. Comfort in that God responds to the bravery and courage of Esther and Mordecai in seeking to save their people, God’s people, from destruction. God did not abandon them, he blessed their words and movement for the sake of his people. Hope in that we can trust God that he will not abandon us, he is with us and is willing to use his providence for our good and safety. Imagine how life would feel without knowing or being confident that God will be with you when things get tense, sticky, or dangerous.
Providence, comfort, and hope are not just reserved for these epic narratives in scripture, but also for us, here and now, and on which we can rest and rely. Even when we don’t see it, God is working on our behalf; think of the Jews that were about to be destroyed and they may have not even known it. Yet, God was working on their behalf through Esther and Mordecai. When we allow ourselves to trust in the sovereignty and providence of God it leads us to a comfort that cannot be explained and a hope that draws us forward in the possibility of an abundant life. Just like the Jewish people in Esther, God does not desire to uncaringly abandon us in the trappings and condition of the world but works to release us from those trappings and calls us to be agents of hope that, in spite of the condition of the world, proclaim abundant life is possible.

Jerusalem has fallen. The sin of the people of Israel and their continual refusal to follow the commands of God, despite continual grace, has resulted in their capture and exile in Babylon. God, through the prophet Jeremiah, was combating the preaching of false prophets that were giving a false hope to the people of Israel. The prophet takes on powerful representatives of the royal-temple establishment who are “absolutely sure” that the embattled systems of the city will remain intact despite Babylon’s onslaught. Jeremiah rejects their optimism, arguing that authentic hope must bear the scars of disaster and embrace the harsh realities of the shattered world (Jer 27–29).
The hard lesson and call for the people of Israel was that they needed to come to terms with the reality of the brokenness they created. They were not to rage against their exile reality nor were they to sit idly until God swooped in to rescue them, rather, they were to learn to live, work, navigate and even thrive in the midst of their brokenness. While they were given a future to hope for as God would work out His ultimate plan for them to renew them as a people, what is equally important is that they relearn to trust God in the midst of their shattered world. They had become too complacent and unfaithful in the comfort of the covenant realities and needed this relearning process as a people.
What can we learn through this narrative that we witness between God and his people? Ultimately, that complacency corrupts the covenant that we have with God. Truthfully, the process that the Israelites are going through in this narrative is not dis-similar to what we may go through as disciples or a church if we get to the point of complacency. At times we need to relearn what it means for us to live, work, navigate, and thrive in the brokenness and shattered reality of our world. In spite of this, there is a hope that we hold on to and offer to the world. When the people of God champion this hope, the world will see Jesus embodied. The writer of Hebrews is correct, without holiness no one will see the Lord.

The people of God are in exile. In exile it is easy to feel as if God has abandoned you and that was the temptation that the Jewish people were wrestling with. Sure they messed up and they had the words of a prophet to guide them but doubt begins to creep in and you begin to question, “is God really there at all?” The activity and the call of God does not end or go silent in the realities of exile. There is a way in which God called his people to live while they were in exile and it was not one of resistance or capitulation but a third way, one that sought the good of their place of exile. This is what is exhibited in the story of Daniel: they participated in the workings of Babylon, even working directly for the King; but yet when allegiance to God was challenged, they maintained their loyalty to their Lord.
Exile gives a unique opportunity to the people of God in that even though they are “out of their element” they can exhibit the love and faithfulness of God to those around them. Instead of the Israelites being situated in their own kingdom, with the temptations of comfort and complacency masquerading as the “people of the most high God,” they find themselves faced with being resident aliens, called to either be faithful to God and show holiness or to simply meld into the culture surrounding them.
This call is at the heart of what Jesus intended for the life of the disciple. We are citizens of another kingdom, Jesus’s kingdom, but yet we are called to live, work, and navigate the world around us as resident representatives of His kingdom. It may feel like a stretch to fully say that we, as Christians in America, are in exile… we have not been ripped from our homeland, but we should sense a longing of the true place that we belong, yet are called to good of where we are now. Just as the Israelites were called, we are called to live in this “way of exile” as we represent king Jesus through faithfulness to Him and loving the way he instructs us to love.

The book of Isaiah is all about God’s message to Israel both before and after their time of exile. God’s original plan for the people of Israel was that they would be a “light to the nations,” and spread God’s blessing to all the world. However, leading up to the exile, we can see the many ways in which the people of Israel continued on a downward spiral of disobedience and failure (see 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings). However, rather than simply giving up on the people of Israel, God seeks to save them (and the rest of the world) from their own brokenness through another way, a “new thing.” Through this new “Suffering Servant” (who we understand to be embodied in Jesus Christ), Israel will be redeemed from their brokenness by a different kind of king: a King who leads by serving, taking on the suffering of his people in order to restore their right relationship with God. With this new kind of King comes a new kind of Kingdom, where the people of the world will eventually be able to participate in relationship with God the way it was intended to be.
Isaiah 53 gives us a moving picture of the way Jesus suffered and died, but it is not meant to stop there. Out of our thankfulness for God’s free gift of this restored relationship, we are invited to follow the way of discipleship, imitating the way Jesus lived his life in selflessness and sacrifice for others, and allowing God to work through us to spread love and blessing to all those around us.

Context: Amos lived during the reign of Jeroboam II. At this time in history, Israel and Judah experienced political stability and, as a result, financial prosperity. However, it was also a time of great corruption and idolatry for the Hebrew people. The prophet Amos hailed from Judah but was sent by God to preach to the nation of Israel. His message called for the people to return to pure covenant living, as well as to enact justice over the land.

Here we find, once again, that the people of Israel are more than happy to allow the blessings of God to flow into their lives but not flow through them for the sake of their neighbor. So we have the words of God flowing through the prophet Amos, and evidently, God is not amused with his people going through the motions. Rather, he is more concerned about the condition of the heart and life than the praise that comes from the lips of “worshipers.” In these passages God tells the people of Israel that, in fact, He hates their empty worship, and that true worship is a life and community that justice and righteousness flow out of. In fact the consistency and incessant nature of that justice and righteousness is to roll on like a river and be like a never-ending stream. So justice and righteousness are to be ever-flowing from the people of God, they should be a continual fruit of the lives of the community of believers.
What does this ever-flowing righteousness and justice really mean? Righteousness is ultimately the proper relationship with God, neighbor, and even enemy. Righteousness, as evidenced in Amos, also is a call communally to seek righteousness on behalf of those who do not have it. Of course, we know that righteousness is not the given; there is brokenness and sin in the world that distorts, twists, and dis-orders our relationships. This is where justice comes in. Justice is the process of properly re-ordering relationships so that righteousness, the proper and true relationship, can be achieved. Righteousness and justice are at work when the people of God live out the commandments of loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength; loving our neighbor as ourselves; and loving our enemies. Pursuing this kind of love in its fullness ultimately becomes the out pouring of righteousness and justice from the community of believers.

The story of Jonah is fascinating in its entirety, however the exchange that we read between Jonah and God in chapter 4 may be the most significant in revealing the character of God in the narrative. If we were to cut to the chase, from Jonah’s perspective, he is angry at God’s compassion, and he balks at the mercy of God. Jonah felt this way because he believed Nineveh didn’t deserve the mercy and compassion of God. It was the worst of cities with the worst of people so why should Jonah be inconvenienced to go to that awful city, with those horrible people, to warn them to repent before they receive the proper due punishment- when they were not even Israelites? Well, God made himself pretty clear with Jonah; He called Jonah to go to Nineveh because that is the true extent and depth of God’s compassion and mercy.
The story of Jonah, though it seems to be fanciful, is this epic story of the lengths God will go in order to reach those who are far from him. What this story also tells us is that he calls us to be his hands, feet, and voice to those who are far from God. Which means that God calls us to go to great lengths in order to share His good news to the lost. However, we may find ourselves to be like Jonah, running away from that call or even becoming angry or frustrated at God for his compassion and mercy on those who we don’t think deserve it. We may even have more compassion on say a plant, like Jonah, that provides us something and is then taken away than we do for our neighbors. God has an endless love for everyone, including those who are far from Him, whereas Jonah was more concerned about his personal comfort and nationalistic superiority than he was for the repentance of Nineveh. May we be willing to put aside our comfort and preferences and grab hold of the endless love God has for those far from him so that we may be instruments of redemption in their lives.

In this passage in 1 Kings we meet the prophet Elijah while he is fleeing from the wrath of the Israelites who want to kill him. For a prophet, fleeing from the people you have been called to whom to “truth tell” is tantamount to abject failure of your given mission. Elijah himself admits to this in the way that he asks the Lord to take his life. In this moment of despair, fear, and hopelessness an angel of the Lord provided for his needs: rest, food, and water. Elijah is then sent on a different quest, one to the holy mountain of God: Mount Sinai.
On Sinai, in a cave, God asks Elijah an odd question: “What are you doing here?” This question is posed even though it was an angel of God who sent him there, yet that doesn’t seem to be the purpose of the question. It was not so much the place, which does have extreme significance, that seemed to be the point of the question but rather the purpose or what Elijah needed. Elijah responds in a way that communicates that all is lost when it comes to his purpose, his calling, his mission that had been given to him.
God, knowing Elijah needed His presence, revealed himself to Elijah in order to re-affirm him and renew his call and send him out on mission. However, God does not show up in the spectacular. God does not show up in the earth shaking, mountain moving gale, or the consuming blaze but instead God shows up in but a whisper. It was not the supernatural phenomena that contained the empowering presence of God but it was contained in a still small voice. It was a whisper, being in the presence of God, that gave Elijah a new word, calling, and mission and renewed his energy and commitment to God. Where Elijah might have thought he needed the spectacular, God showed that He will show up just as powerfully in a still small voice.

Solomon has been regarded as one of the most intelligent and wise men to live in that period in history. The nation of Israel was at its highest point it would ever be at in its history. The Kingdom of Israel was a powerhouse of a nation that impacted the entire geographic area and this was all due to the wisdom, intelligence, and blessing that God had given Solomon. There was a major issue though: Solomon had an insatiable desire for power, wealth, and pleasure. This led Solomon to seek to satisfy this desires in women, other gods, and obtaining more wealth even at the cost of his own people. When we get to the end of Solomon’s reign, in his death, the kingdom that had been at its height divided in two and began the crumble into conquest and exile. An entire nation paid a deep price for their lack of faithfulness, trust, and sole reliance on the God who had blessed them so much.
What becomes apparent through the rise and fall of Solomon is that even though God may bless someone with incredible gifts, skills, and abilities, it does not mean all of the results of those gifts, skills, and abilities are God-honoring or altruistic. Where Solomon’s father, David, lacked in being able to build up the kingdom he had in having a heart after God’s own. Yes, King David still messed up in big ways, but when confronted, he repented and knew how it had grieved God. Solomon, even with his God-given wisdom and intellect, lacked the heart that his father had to keep him close and reliant on God. I wonder if Solomon popped into the minds of the disciples when Jesus was telling them the cost of discipleship to him and asked the question, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”(Matt 16:26) The life of Solomon should be a stark reminder for us that we can receive blessing after blessing because of the gifts God has graced us with, but if our heart is not fixed on Jesus then that blessing will only lead to discontentment, one that can only be satisfied by a heart shepherded by Jesus. The result of true discipleship is not success. The result of true discipleship is faithfully taking up our cross and following Jesus where he leads.

As we return to the story of Israel, we pick up with David’s son, Solomon, who succeeds him as King of Israel. Now that Israel had become settled in the land God had promised them, King Solomon brought his father’s dream to fruition by building a physical temple, as a substitute for the more mobile tabernacle of their wilderness wanderings.
The completion of the Temple should have been the onset of Israel’s golden age, with King David passing on the mantle to Solomon and the “last piece” of Israel’s settlement in the land being completed. The same way as with the Tabernacle, the Temple was meant to be a place where God dwelled, and where the people could meet with God. But in Solomon’s prayer, it seems like he already knows how sin will invade the lives of the people of Israel, by the way he says “when”- “When anyone wrongs their neighbor…” “When Israel sins against you…” and so on. Because of this, in each of these prayers, Solomon pleads with the Lord to “listen” to their cries and forgive them, and remember the covenant that holds them together.
While Solomon’s reign started out well, it eventually initiated a downward spiral that led to the destruction of Israel, and consequently, the Temple and priesthood became corrupted as well. However, despite all of this, God was not tied down to the physical Temple or the city of Jerusalem- God heard His people while they were in exile and eventually sent Jesus to be the Temple in its truest form: the place where Heaven meets Earth.
Today, we don’t have a physical Temple at the center of our lives, but we do know that God hears us when we pray, no matter where we are. We also know that through the Holy Spirit, the Church is meant to represent the Body of Christ, which Jesus Himself referred to as a Temple to God. In fact, we are called once again into this Temple to partner with God’s Spirit as representatives and places where Heaven and Earth meet, and that is such good news, for us as well as those around us!

This week is going to be one of the few times this year that we are going to journey into the Psalms. The Psalms are songs and prayers written either by King David of one of the priestly psalmists. In Hebrew tradition they act as the “prayerbook of God’s people” and are continually returned to in order to teach us how to pray and speak words of prayer that we may find difficult to utter ourselves.
Psalm 23 is arguably the most popular of these song-prayers, and there really is no questioning why. These are words that pastor our hearts with the shepherding image of God. It is a reminder of God’s provision, a kind of rest only he can provide, comfort through disconcerting paths, and strength in trials. These words could have been penned in the face of something daunting, in the midst of a trial needing a reminder of who God is, or even in reflection of God’s presence, and they could be heard and applied in the same situations. The truths in Psalm 23 serve as a reminder that the God who is spoken about here is perfectly reflected in the Good Shepherd, Jesus, with whom we are invited to have a personal relationship and communion with through prayer. In praying the words of Psalm 23, may we be reminded of the Good Shepherd who desires to pastor our hearts in the various situations of life and calls us near to guide, comfort, and restore us.

In the time of the Judges, it was God who held the claim of King and Lord over the people of Israel, and when they needed in person aid, he would raise up a Judge in order to lead them out of the situation they got themselves in. Being true to form, the Israelites wanted what the other kingdoms around them had: a human king. So God stepped back and gave them what they wanted and they selected King Saul, who was a “mans man” and carried a kingly stature. All the while, God is working behind the scenes, in his wisdom, setting up another king of his choosing that would confound conventional wisdom. Sending his prophet Samuel to anoint a lowly shepherd boy who was youngest brother of the family, God continues to operate in the truth that His ways are higher than our ways. Not only did he choose someone that no one else would ever think of, he also gave the courage and strength to this shepherd boy to do what the King Saul or any of his mightiest warriors couldn’t accomplish.
We can find this story to be so true in our lives as well can’t we? We look at what everyone else arounds us has and what seems to be causing happiness and a thriving life and decide that is what we need as well. So we seek to make that happen and we might even achieve it but we come to find that what we need and what we want are different things. The good news is that we have a God that is content to work in the background, working in His grace preparing for us what we truly need. What God has asked of us has always been this: trust him. Trust that he has our best in mind and will provide for what we need even if it doesn’t look the way we thought it would. We never know when God could be working out a “King David” moment in our lives… we just need to trust him.

In the grand scheme of things, it was not long ago that the Israelites were given the Shema to remember: The Lord is our God only. Here we are, after the conquest of Joshua, and the people of Israel are following the gods and cultures that Joshua didn’t conquer. These circumstances were a test of continued faithfulness, which the Israelites have failed spectacularly. At this point in the story of Israel, it does not seem that God could even buy their faithfulness, though he was not trying to do so. God has delivered the promised land to his people, a land of incredible fruitfulness that was overly abundant, and he did so in an overwhelming campaign that would rival history’s greatest conquerors. Even with all of that, the Israelites still would not remain faithful to God, even though God continued to remain faithful. Over and over God sent judges, nine in total, to continually rescue his people from the hands of their enemies. This continues to shows the theme that God will follow through with his promises even when we don’t.
This episode of the people of Israel is reminiscent of our current consumerist culture. “If I am given the things that I want then I will be a better Christian or be more investing in my faith.” Even if we are given what we want in that moment it is never enough. Someone else will always have something enticing that we don’t have, and we are discontent with what has been provided so then the faithfulness is delayed. Even worse, we blame our lack of “provision” of God not being faithful to us (which the Israelites did continually)! We grumble, accuse, and blame God as an excuse for our lack of faithfulness. Here is what we can learn about the period of the judges: God is faithful to deliver, but if we are going to do what the Israelites did then we need to be prepared to be given what we desire, to be given over to whatever we desire and long for even if that draws us further from God. The period of the judges would not have happened in the way they did if the people of Israel had simply been content with the provision and protection of God. It is when our eyes and hearts wander in envy and desire that we test the faithfulness and salvific character of God.

The Israelites crossing the Jordan River communicates a major truth: God always keeps his promises. It took quite awhile for this promise to come to fruition, in fact, none of the adults that initially received the promise saw it fulfilled. This then tells us of another truth about the promises of God: God works on a larger scale and timeline than we do. God is infinitely patient in working out his promises and his timeline is often different than ours. So this leads us to another truth: our participation in the promises of God is largely reliant on our trust and faith in God and his promises. The people of Israel did not trust God to follow through with his promise to being them fully into the promise land even though it seemed impossible. These promises and the faith and trust they require is the bedrock of the covenant relationship that we have with God and are the only way that the covenant can continue properly.
In this passage we see, in a way, the re-covenanting of God with the people of Israel by leading them through the waters of the Jordan just as he had decades prior with the Red Sea. A new people, a people of covenant, trust and faith were going to emerge on the other side of the waters of the Jordan as they set foot in the promised land. In the same way God continues to call his people, the church, have faith and trust in his promises even if it seems insurmountable. To the world our faith and trust may seem blind, foolish, and incomprehensible but the Lord has shown time and time again through our history that he follows through.

These verses contain one of the most influential passages for the Jewish faith, the Shema. The command and warning from Moses to the people of Israel before they enter into the promise land is the equivalent of the New Testament’s “Lord’s Prayer.” The Shema would be prayed multiple times through the day intentionally and then would also be a breath prayer throughout the day.
“Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your might.”
These verses were commanded to be with the people of Israel at every moment of the day and be inscribed on their lives. The continuous reminder that the Lord our God should be our only God. Isn’t that still so needed today? As we are incessantly assaulted on all sides to follow, conform, and give ourselves to culture, platforms, policies, politics, individuals, movements, and ideologies, we are commanded to defend our heart, mind, soul, and strength with an equally incessant reminder that the Lord is our God alone.
God was about ready to give the people of Israel more than they could ask or imagine, they just needed to do one base thing: remember God. Listen to God, love him, obey him, and remember who God is…the one who brought them out of Egypt. It is as if God is saying, “Stay close to me, love me, and I will give you a life you could have never imagined. Don’t let the world dupe you away from me.” Remember:
“Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your might.”

The beginning of the wilderness era is an interesting story because it shows a unique side of God as well as shows the part we, as followers of God, can have in our relationship with him, especially in regard to our future. What we read in Numbers 14 is when the Lord had brought the people of Israel to the Promised Land after rescuing them from Egypt. So, they sent twelve spies into the land, and all but two came back and said that the inhabitants were giants, their cities were fortified, and that there was no way that they could have victory. But two of them, Caleb and Joshua, were confident in the promise of God, saying that since the Lord is with them, they would have victory.
It was at the report of the ten other spies that be people of Israel started to grumble, complain, and begin to devise a plan to go back to Egypt! Because of this we get this incredible conversation between Moses and God discussing the contempt of the people and what should happen to them. We witness Moses truly being a priestly intercessor for the people, advocating for mercy and forgiveness. What the people ultimately receive is what they had been grumbling about and what they had said God has led them there to do: die in the desert. This is a theme that we will often see in how God responds to the incessant desires of his people: he will give them what they want, even if it is not always what is best for them, but this also shows that God will not coerce us into doing what He is asking. Additionally, God is continually concerned about the formation of His people. Would it really produce a grateful and humble people if they grumbled and complained about being saved out of slavery and then received a prosperous land and yet could not even be trusted to follow God? This long work that God has been doing to form His people in ancient times was also so that the people would form to the place they needed to be to accept Him when Jesus came in the flesh. God seems more than comfortable to lead us in the wilderness if it means that we are formed in the way we need. God also will give us what we want even if it isn’t the best route for us because he doesn’t have a desire to manipulate or coerce. God is not a God of dictatorship but one of relationship. He is not a God of conformation but one of transformation. God is concerned and seeks to be involved in our formation… even if it involves a wilderness.

As a series note, the pace of things are about ready to pick up because of the amount of ground we need to cover over the next 4 weeks. With that being said, let’s jump in!
At first glance this could seem like a random passage that is pulled out of Leviticus. Where the significance shines through is in understanding the context of what is happening around these passages. This impactful passage in Leviticus when God calls his people to be holy just as he is seems like an insurmountable task. However, this call to holiness communicates that the law, which is described in Leviticus, is for the purpose of God’s people being holy. That when God called a particular people out of the scattering of the tower of Babel and that people grew, migrated, and was ultimately saved from a life of slavery in Egypt, they were going to be a people set apart from the rest of the peoples of the earth. If we compared the laws that God lays out for his people we would see that, even though some may seem strange to us, they were also strange and different from the surrounding cultures. So that, even in how God’s people were governed, they would be apart from the rest. Another truth and interesting fact that comes out of researching the law is that many of the ritualistic eating, washing, burial, social practices can now be understood, with modern science, as ways to keep from getting ill, contracting disease, and isolating those who are diseased so that the sickness wouldn’t spread through the community. God was also creating a healthy people that would survive, grow, and continue to propagate creation rather than destruction. So the call to be holy as God is, simply means that if we follow his law then we will indeed be holy. God knew though that, in due time, something more than the law needed to be given to his people. He knew that he would have to give himself.
It is in Jesus that the law is fulfilled. The holiness that the law produces and strives to create a holy people has been completed and fulfilled in Jesus. What does this mean for us? That instead of following the law, we follow Jesus as he doesn’t just produce holiness but he is holiness. Jesus, as fully God and fully human, is perfectly holy which was the ultimate goal of the law. As the people of God, when we center ourselves around Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to be present and active in our lives, then we become a holy people.

The Tabernacle that God had Moses build communicates the character of God. First, the Tabernacle means that God wants to dwell with his people. God didn’t just want to lead his people at night with a pillar of fire or a pillar of cloud during the day but wanted to have a house, a dwelling place, in the midst of his people. He was the God that brought them out of Egypt and he didn’t just want to be a distant savior but he wanted to be a present and available savior. However, there is another character trait that the Tabernacle communicates, God is particular. There was a particular way the Tabernacle needed to be set up, there was a particular path and ritual that needed to be accomplished in order to fully access God.
As we consider the second passage for this week, from 1 Corinthians, God, through Jesus, has done away with the need for the physical tabernacle. Just as he has always shown, God wants to be with his people, he wants to dwell in and among his creation and he could not get more intimate than dwelling within us himself. He didn’t come to earth in Jesus to simply take in his handiwork of salvation at a distance, he desires to be closer than ever. However, God’s other character trait of particularity? Well, it is still a character trait of God. God desires to dwell within us as his temples but there is a particular way we are instructed to live in order to fully experience the power of God within us. There is a particular path to take through Jesus in order for us to become the temple of God. This particularity does not mean that God loves us less, wants to be with us less, or means we need to transform our lives before He dwells in our lives. What it does mean is that we must have humility, accepting the sacrifice of Jesus over our lives, and submit in obedience to the path and life that God desires for us, which is the ultimate good for our lives.

The plagues that precede and include the Passover were specifically pointed to show that the gods that the Egyptians trusted in had no power whatsoever. Four of these plagues were events in which the animals, supposedly guardians of the Egyptian population, turned into extremely troublesome or dangerous attackers (frogs, lice, wild beasts and locusts). Three of them subjected the ‘god-like’ animals to bouts of sickness (pestilence, boils) or devastation (hail) which, in the latter case, required human protection. Two of the plagues reduced Egyptian gods to a state of powerlessness in which they could not bestow their normal divine favors (Nile water turned into blood; darkness extinguishing Ra’s light). The last plague threatened and slew Egypt’s firstborn, man and beast. This would include Pharaoh himself, because it was usually the firstborn who inherited the throne and who, as noted above, was thought to be the child of Egypt’s foremost deity.
This last “plague” is where we find the Passover. In the middle of what would have seemed like chaos God is communicating an important truth to his people that have forgotten him. “I can save you” says God, “I have power over death, but what I do require is holiness and that you listen to what I say. If you do as I instruct you will be saved and can even be spared from death.” The whole process of eating the animal in obedience to the Passover regulations was an act of faith and obedience, involving faith in God’s gracious provision of the holiness that no human himself or herself can provide and obedience to a process that showed confidence in God’s true promises and requirements. This is an incredibly important theme and one that the people of God will be reminded of as their story continues and that we ultimately see lived out, once again, in the person of Jesus.