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There are some know-it-alls who want to tell pastoral leaders how they should have done things differently. Much like the “armchair quarterbacks” that seem to know all the right calls a team should make, even though they have virtually no experience.
Pastor, pay very little attention to those armchair quarterbacks that would speak into your life!
To put the quote that Jim shared from When Sheep Bite into context, here is the full passage—
Jesus is our perfect example of a Shepherd Leader. His example was to lay it all on the line, regardless of how the sheep were behaving or misbehaving: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). By contrast, Jesus warns us that those who are not willing to put their lives on the line for the sheep are worse than armchair pastors—Jesus calls them mere hired hands: “The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep” (John 10:12-13).
If I am called to be a shepherd leader, attacks will come from both sheep and wolves. It’s what I do in those hard times that shows whether I am truly called or merely acting as an armchair shepherd.
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We’ve made it to the top step after a long climb. We’ve arrived! But arrived for what? Not for taking it easy, but for serving.
Jesus was at the top, and consider what He did with that position:
He laid aside His prerogatives as God to serve us—Philippians 2:6-8
He demonstrated this by becoming a servant of the servants—John 13:3-5
He said, “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as One who serves.” (Luke 22:27)
We strive for the top not to be served, but to serve. This is why the final Song of Ascent addresses those at the top as “servants of the Lord” (Psalm 134:1).
The first duty of the servants is to praise (2x in vv. 1, 2). The KJV actually renders this word “bless,” which I believe is a good way for us to think about this. The word means:
praise God with a reverential mind and
celebrate God on bended knee
In other words, both our heart and our body need to be in a posture of a praising servant. In the Septuagint, the word used for praise / bless is eulogeo, which means to say good words. In putting the two parts of the definition together, it mean we aren’t grumbling about our service (like “I have to do this”), but we are thankfully and worshipfully serving (as in “I get to do this!”).
These servants are called to “minister…in the house of the Lord [and] in the sanctuary” (134:1-2), just as the priests in the tabernacle (1 Chronicles 9:33; Leviticus 6:13; 24:2, 4).
This blessing and serving is itself a blessing which unlocks even more blessing. The final words of the final Song of Ascent is a prayer request (notice the word “may” in v. 3).
The word bless in this final is the same word translated praise in vv. 1-2, except here the form of the verb means “to be shown divine favor”!
We don’t get blessed by God because we have blessed God, but we bless God because He has already blessed us. I don’t command His blessing, but I bless Him in recognition of the blessing that continually flows from Him to me.
To word minister as in v. 1 means to:
endure all hardships
continue until the task is done
cause or help others to stand too
God loves to bless people who love to bless people!
As long as we’re here, keep blessing and serving others as your act of worship to God. Say good words to people about God and say good words to God about people. Lift up your hands, fall on your knees, sing out loud, or worship quietly in your heart. But keep on serving like Jesus. All of this blesses God.
Your final and eternal reward in the Heavenly Zion is coming and it is beyond compare—
It will be good for those servants whose Master finds them watching when He comes. Truly I tell you, He will dress Himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose Master finds them ready, even if He comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. (Luke 12:37-38)
In blessing others, we are blessing the God who has already blessed us and who longs to bless us for all of eternity!
If you’ve missed any of the messages looking at the fifteen Songs of Ascent, you can find them all here.
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God wants us to progress to the next level in our Christian walk, but we need to know what we’re ready for that. Just as a teacher in school prepares us for a test, administers the test, and then gives us the result of the test in order to promote us to the next level, so does our loving Heavenly Father.
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The religious leaders who should have known God’s Word the best were the ones who wanted Jeremiah killed for speaking God’s Word boldly.
The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. Yet when Jeremiah finished speaking everything that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You must die!” … Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people, saying, “A death sentence for this man! For he has prophesied against this city, just as you have heard with your own ears!” (Jeremiah 26:7-8, 11)
They did this to Jesus. The religious leaders shouted louder and louder, “Crucify Him!”
They will do this to me. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12). And He said, “Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On My account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles” (Matthew 10:17-18).
Holy Spirit, help me to speak only what You tell me to speak and do only what You tell me to do (Matthew 10:19-20). Help me to respond quickly to any wrong thinking, speaking, or action that You point out so that I may just as quickly repent of that. I want my life to point others to Jesus, even as I face persecution.
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A recent movie set box office records. Many Hollywood commentators are surmising that it is because the unlikely duo in the movie does something so noble at the end of the movie. Throughout the movie one of the main characters takes to calling himself “Jesus.” At the end of this movie, this character and his friend take the full brunt of the evil on them in the hopes of saving the universe.
Of course, this storyline isn’t new to Hollywood or even in ancient literature. This epic quest is longed for in the human heart, looking for a hero to selflessly sacrifice himself to save everyone else around them.
The only problem is that these heroes aren’t sure if their sacrifice is actually going to work.
This, of course, isn’t the case with Jesus. Angels announce before His incarnation that He will save His people. Jesus Himself says, “I will lay down My life for My friends and I will take it up again.” And in the very last book of the Bible we read that before Time even began, Jesus was already seen as the sacrificial Lamb slain for the deliverance of His people.
This story doesn’t start in Bethlehem, but when John 1:1 says, “In the beginning,” the language there is really saying, “From before there was a beginning, Jesus our Hero already knew the outcome of His selfless sacrifice.”
We see hints and foreshadowing of this Most Epic Story all throughout history and throughout Scripture. Like in Psalm 132—the longest of the Songs of Ascent (at 18 verses, the next longest song is only half its length).
The key verse (v. 10) is in the middle: it connects David and Jesus. The words “Anointed One” is one word in Hebrew: Masiah which is Messiah. In the New Testament,the word Christ also means Anointed One.
What do we learn in the first half of this song. It opens with the words, “O LORD, remember David…” (v. 1).
Because this psalmist mentions the same incident that we discussed in Psalm 131, this is another reason why I think David had the incident of moving the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem in mind when he wrote the previous song (see Psalm 132:2-5; 2 Samuel 6:17). The people continued to rejoices as David made arrangements and provided building materials for his son Solomon to build the temple (vv. 6-9).
Look at how verse 10 connects David to Jesus the Messiah. In verse 2, David swore an oath to the Lord, but he was physically unable to fulfill his promise. In verse 11 (also see 2 Samuel 7:11-16), “The Lord swore an oath to David.”
God was able to fulfill His promise, which we see in the life, death, resurrection, andascension of Jesus, and then in the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter declares this in his sermon—connecting the work of Jesus to the prophesy of King David (Acts 2:22-36).
We can sum up the first half of Psalm 132 with the words “Remember David.” And we can sum up the second half of this song of ascent with the words “Remember Jesus.”
Remember Jesus [the] Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David (2 Timothy 2:8).
I like this verse from the Amplified Bible: Constantly keep in mind Jesus Christ (the Messiah) as risen from the dead, as the prophesied King descended from David, according to the good news (the Gospel) that I preach.
David swears an oath (v. 2) but has no power to fulfill it. God swears an oath (v. 11-12) and fulfills it (Luke 1:33; Revelation 11:15).
David longs for blessings for the priests and saints (v. 10) but has no power to make it happen. God says, “I will” bless the priests and saints (vv. 13-18; 1 Peter 2:5-9; Revelation 1:6).
All of our longings for a Hero—for salvation, for purpose, for meaning—are fulfilled in Jesus. All of God’s promises for these things are fulfilled in Jesus. All of our life should be lived in this joyful assurance (Hebrews 10:35-39; Revelation 3:11)!
Not only should we not stumble in the homestretch, but we should live in such joyful assurance of God’s promises that we soar across the finish line!
If you cannot remember anything else, remember David and remember Jesus.
Leaders may have to talk about people on their team, but how do we do this without crossing the line into gossip? Greg and I discussed this on a recent episode of our leadership podcast.
I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” —G.K. Chesterton
“Christianity does not consist in telling the truth, or walking in a conscientious way, or adhering to principles; Christianity is something other than all that, it is adhering in absolute surrender to a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ.” —Oswald Chambers, in Baffled To Fight Better
“Critics may nitpick the Scriptures upon which we base our beliefs, but each year, the Lord will increasingly demonstrate that His Word contains no errors, exaggerations, or omissions. … We won’t feel ashamed of our hope. It will unfold just as the Lord has promised. We will be nourished, guided, blessed, and comforted. Our Lord will return, and then our days of sorrow will be over. How we will exult in the Lord, who first gave us a vibrant hope and then fulfilled that which we hoped for!” —Charles Spurgeon
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Light is sown like seed for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. (Psalm 97:11)
Jesus used the parable of a farmer sowing seed as a picture of the seed God wants to sow in our hearts. The psalmist says that God’s seeds are light—driving out the shadows of darkness, and producing an abundant harvest of gladness in our hearts.
I like how the Amplified Bible renders this verse in Psalm 97—Light is sown for the uncompromisingly righteous and strewn along their pathway, and joy for the upright in heart—the irrepressible joy which comes from consciousness of His favor and protection.
Let’s live in a such a God-honoring way that His seeds of light bring forth an abundant harvest that gives Him all the glory and points others to Jesus the Savior.
Even the well-known hymn The Solid Rock has the line that says, “When all around my soul gives way.”
Isaiah 40:27-30 gives us a helpful example from the eagle of how we can handle life’s storms.
Eagles have huge wingspans and can travel up to 125 miles in a single flight. When they see storms coming, they lock their wings in place and stop flapping on their own. Instead, they sense the warm currents of air and rides those up and over the storm.
So Tom gave us these steps:
Disengage from our own efforts—don’t try to handle the storm on our own.
Perceive the warmth of God’s promises.
Trust the everlasting God (Isaiah 40:28). “Everlasting” means that God is infinite, vigorous, strong, faithful, and capable.
Ride up and over the storm in God. When God says we mount up on wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31), it means we are braided together with God.
Live in the renewed strength that only God can give us.
Jesus went through the most unimaginable life storm that any human has ever had to endure, and He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46). We need to trust our Heavenly Father just like Jesus did when we face storms!
John Piper was asked to weigh-in on the value of repetitive phrases in worship songs. He said, “The issue’s not repetition per se but whether there is enough substance, enough rich content of truth about God woven into the repetitions to justify them, to warrant them. That’s the issue. There’s a difference between repetitions that are called forth by the repeated crescendo of new, glorious truth, and repetitions that serve as a kind of mantra without sufficient truth that is simply used to sustain or intensify a mood. Moods in worship should be awakened and sustained primarily by truth, assisted by music—not primarily by music with a little truth thrown in to justify the singing.”
Pastor John Piper used Psalm 136 as an example in the post above. T.M. Moore also shared this thought about Psalm 136: “The term most frequently used to describe this everywhere-present-and-always-at-work love of God is translated as ‘lovingkindness’ or, in some versions, ‘steadfast love.’ Especially Psalm 136, with its antiphonal arrangement of verses, insists that the cosmos is upheld, sustained, and pervaded by the lovingkindness of God. … It would improve our learning to pray without ceasing if we simply took some time out during the day to thank the Lord for the many ways His steadfast love surrounds, sustains, and swarms us at every moment!”
“When people refer to a man as a man of the Book, meaning the Bible, he’s generally found to be a man of multitudinous books, which simply isolates the one Book to its proper grandeur. The man who reads only the Bible does not as a rule know it or human life.” —Oswald Chambers
Men’s Health magazine shared an interview with Jeremy Renner, who was nearly killed in a tragic accident. I love his attitude about making today better than yesterday. His words remind me of a poem my grandma used to use to motivate me to keep “besting” what I had already done.
Christopher Ash writes about reading the Psalms through the lens of Jesus. He concludes this way: “I remember seeing on the wall of a church the words of Psalm 20:4: ‘May [the Lord] grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans!’ How wonderful, you might think. The Bible promises me all that my heart desires. Until you read the psalm and realize that Psalm 20 is a prayer for the king in David’s line. Ultimately, it is a prayer that Jesus will have His heart’s desire granted and that His plans will be fulfilled. And they will! The Psalms are not all about me. If I think they are, I will end up disillusioned. But when I grasp that they are all about Christ, my heart lifts in joy that He is the blessed Man and I belong to Him.”
Jesus is our perfect example of a Shepherd Leader. His example was to lay it all on the line, regardless of how the sheep were behaving or misbehaving: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). By contrast, Jesus warns us that those who are not willing to put their lives on the line for the sheep are worse than armchair pastors—Jesus calls them mere hired hands: “The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep” (John 10:12-13). 
Craig T. Owens 