23Jul/100

Don’t Beat the Wheat – A Reflection on Isaiah 28

This post was originally written in the summer of 2003, just as our network of house churches was taking off and experiencing great growth and exciting momentum. I removed it from the reprinted study notes for consistency in format. So, I post it here that it may live on in cyberspace. Enjoy!

Isaiah 28.

I ask for your indulgence as I break into the first person voice and speak from my heart.

On my first read through of chapter 28 I was struck by the indictment against the leaders (both religious and political) of Judah. As I studied the passage further I became even more intrigued.

First, let’s step through the basic outline of the passage.

Isaiah 28:1-6 Ephraim (representing the Northern Kingdom of Israel) was a beautiful wreath, now it will be destroyed.

Isaiah 28:7-10 The leaders are drunkards who will not listen to Isaiah’s instruction.

Isaiah 28:11-15 Since you won’t listen to Isaiah, you will hear God’s instruction through the foreign tongue of your oppressor.

Isaiah 28:16-19 God will use this coming judgement to clear up your faulty thinking

Isaiah 28:20-22 Your way of thinking isn’t good enough and God has to bring this destruction to correct it.

Isaiah 28:23-29 A parable from farming. A farmer does what he needs to do in the proper time to bring about the harvest. Sometimes it requires threshing and beating in its appropriate application.

There are two things that jumped out at me from this chapter. The first is what grabbed me on the intitial run through. The second one was confusing to me at first, but then jumped to life after studying it.

The burden of leadership

First, I was struck, in vv. 7-8, by the fact that the priests and prophets staggered from beer and mocked the message of Isaiah. I’m sure this grabbed me because I play the role of the priest and prophet in our community. Throughout our reading of the Proverbs and now Isaiah I have been continually reminded of the responsibility placed on those in leadership. In our current culture there is a saying, “speed of the leader, speed of the team.”

As our community grows there will be an increasing need to raise up new leaders to pastor the new house church communities. These leaders will be called upon to shepherd and disciple other people.

Each one of you is a leader in someone’s life. Whether it be your children, your coworkers, or a friend, you have influence in that person or those people’s lives. It doesn’t matter if it is 1 person or 100,000 people, the responsibility of leadership is the same. Our decisions and our behaviors will influence other people’s decisions and behaviors.

The reason the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were corrupt was because the king, the prophets, and the priests allowed themselves to be enticed by the popular thought processes and value systems of the world around them. Instead of being the bright light on the hill to bring the hope and truth of God to the world around them, the people of God capitulated to the military strategies and pagan value system of their neighbors. The priests and prophets were profiting from their position. The wealthy were getting wealthier while the poor were suffering. The social and religious elite were getting drunk and reveling in their privileged positions while the needs of the people were being ignored.

Isaiah was bold enough to speak up against such injustice. He took the harsh, yet gracious, truth to the people and boldly proclaimed the Word of God to them. Sometimes I wonder which prophet I am. Am I Isaiah, or am I the drunkard.

I know that’s heavy stuff. My prayer is that God would never let me become comfortable with what we are doing, but would always give us the courage to speak truth in love to each other. Please pray for our leaders and for those emerging leaders who will be taking on the next house communities. May we “guard our hearts” and lead people deeper into the heart of God.

Don’t Beat the Wheat!

The second thing is found in vv. 23-29. Much like Jesus preached using common farming parables and analogies, so here Isaiah, a wonderful preacher, uses the analogy of a farmer to explain what God is doing. The teachers who were mocking Isaiah’s message could not understand how Isaiah could believe that God would destroy Jerusalem when it was His holy city. Isaiah said that God was treating Israel the same way a farmer treats his field. In order to get the proper harvest, sometimes it is necessary to cut into the soil, turn it over, and cultivate it. This is a very violent act. The violence continues as he says that the wheat must be threshed and the spices must be crushed in order to harvest the good fruit. In other words, there is a time and a place for everything, and the only way God was going to be able to salvage anything out of His people was to take them to the threshing floor!!

There is a second aspect to the harvesting analogy that I thought was amazing. The farmer knows how to treat the crops according to their kind. Wheat must be threshed, not beaten. If you beat wheat it would turn into flour prematurely and the powder would be mixed with the chaff. Cummin, on the other hand, has to be beaten in order to be separated from its plant.

My mind immediately attached this to our continual use of personalities in the process of making disciples. If you are interacting with another human, -- whether it be in marriage, friendship, work, church, or parenting -- this lesson is applicable. You must treat the person in the way that person must be treated. Some people are wheat, others are cummin. Some people’s personalities are such that they are very emotional and need to treated softly and conscientiously. Others are very logical and don’t respond unless you square off with them and speak pointed truth at their face. The emotionally centered person is like the wheat that must allow the wind to blow away the chaff. The logically centered person is like the cummin that must be beaten in order to be fruitful. If you beat the wheat, it is ruined. If you throw the cummin to the wind it will remain unchanged.

The next time you interact with someone, before you speak, ask yourself, “do I know what kind of personality this person has. Am I about to use the most appropriate method of communicating with them that will be received with openness and teachability. Or, am I about to engage in a painful and destructive interaction.”

Let’s strive, as a community, to take the time to get to know each other’s uniqueness and learn how to enhance each other’s strengths and polish each other’s rough edges.

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19Feb/102

Week 7 Day 5 – Honor

Numbers 20:1-13

Wow, this is a harsh passage! How could God come down so hard on Moses for a simple thing like hitting a rock? After all, Moses had just spent 40 years listening to these people do nothing but whine and complain. A lesser man would have snapped long before Moses did. How could God have denied Moses the pleasure of entering in the Promised Land that he had worked so hard to reach?

There are a few lessons in this passage:

1. Moses sin was not that of hitting the rock. His sin was in the fact that he did not honor God as holy in the sight of the people. God’s instructions to Moses were to speak to the rock and it would gush forth water. (note: This was probably a natural spring that was dried up at the time). Notice what Moses did.

First he said, "listen you rebels". He had finally slipped into the vengeful place where he began to hate the people. Up until this point it was Moses that was interceding on behalf of the people to stave off God’s wrath. Now Moses was burning with wrath against the people. He began to buy into the idea that this was really all about him.

Secondly, he said, "must we bring water out of this rock." Whoa! Who’s going to bring the water out of the rock? Moses started believing his own press. Moses was going to take the credit for the miracle that God was about to perform. In so doing, Moses had dishonored God by stealing His glory and making this a personal issue between Moses and the people.

As a leader, it was Moses’ job to stay transparent and allow the people to see the true picture of God through him. To "honor God as holy" is translated "sanctify," and "set apart" God in other translations. It is the verb form of the word kadosh which means to "be set apart". As soon as a leader does not point the glory to God and begins taking credit for God’s work, his ministry is over.

2. Sin is sin and consequences are consequences, no matter who you are. In this final act of judgment, God drove home the point to the people that, if Moses could suffer consequences because of sin, then sin must be serious business. It is a strong temptation for leaders of any level to begin believing that they are above the law; that the rules don’t apply to them. We must remember this: in the kingdom of God the gift of leadership is just another one of the many gifts. We are all members of the body of Christ and there is only one head, Jesus Christ. The human leader in the church is an important role, but it is not one that is elevated above any others. That is why Jesus told His disciples that if they wanted to be great in the kingdom of Heaven then they must become least. A leader is the chief servant. As soon as a leader in the church begins to buy into the aristocratic models of leadership upheld in the world’s systems, then they are done for. The Promised Land of walking in the Kingdom of Heaven in the fullness of truth and unity with God and His people will be out of reach.

3. God will accomplish His purposes with or without us. For every Moses there is a Joshua who is in the wings to fill in the gaps. It is a danger to believe that one individual is indispensable to the accomplishment of God’s mission in any given circumstance. Many times we can take on too much responsibility for the health and stability of whatever ministry we are leading, whether it be our family, our relational evangelism in our workplace, our church, etc. Yes, God expects faithfulness and diligence in whatever assignment He has given us, but when we take on the load of believing that we are absolutely necessary to the success of the ministry, then we have slipped into dangerous territory. God wants us to experience the joy of serving Him well, but He will not allow us to take the glory and the credit for the work that He is doing. You can be replaced, don’t forget that.

The last two days of devotionals have been pretty heavy handed, that is true. Don’t be discouraged, though. The truth about these heavy devotionals is that, when they are fully realized in your heart, they will bring the most ultimate sense of peace and fulfillment possible. Here’s why...God is in control, not you. God loves you and wants you to experience the fullness of knowing Him. When we get out of His way and admit that we aren’t smart enough or strong enough to "do" what He wants us to do, but that if we yield ourselves to His strength and "be" available to Him, then we will experience unthinkable joy in serving our King.

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Tagged as: leadership, Numbers, The Bible in A Year 2 Comments

18Feb/100

Week 7 Day 4 – Mutiny!

Numbers 16:1-17:13

Following God in obedience is a difficult task. Here is a harsh truth that would serve us all well to remember: when you step out in faith and follow what you feel God is asking you to do, you will almost always be misunderstood by the crowd around you. Jesus told us that in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. He said, "Blessed are you when men 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."

So, how should we react when we are misunderstood, falsely accused, and abused? Our natural tendency is to slip into the "fight or flight" instinct and protect ourselves. Depending on the circumstances and our personality we may either retaliate with a "holier-than-thou" explanation about how WE are actually obeying God while THEY are apathetic sideliners. Or we may shut down and remove ourselves emotionally from the relationship in order to protect ourselves from the pain. We may become bitter and resentful towards those people. Or, we may even begin to resent God for allowing this persecution when we have sacrificed so much to do what He asked us to do.

So how should we react? We can learn a great lesson from how Moses and Aaron reacted...

1. They fell on their faces. To fall on one’s face, in those days, was to place oneself in a position of humble submission to another. Here Moses and Aaron were the God anointed spiritual and political leaders of the people who were being accused by the "peasantry." In human standards Moses and Aaron had every right to flex their leadership muscles (which had been given to them by God, remember) and push this rabble back into their places. But they didn’t. Instead, they humbled themselves before the people and acknowledged that God alone was the leader and that they were merely vessels. In a sense, they were acknowledging to their accusers that there may be some truth in the accusation and that they were willing to entertain the idea.

2. They left the battle up to God. Moses and Aaron knew this simple truth: if something is ordained by God, then it is going to happen. If it is not of God, then it won’t. Here is the trap that many leaders fall into. We start off by following along with God’s direction. In the beginning we see that it is God at work and that we are just vessels. Eventually, though, we can start to take the credit for the things that God is doing, as if it was our cleverness and strategizing that made this thing work. Then, we begin to attach our identity to the successfulness of the ministry that we are leading and become dependent upon its success to feel good about ourselves. At that point, if our leadership is challenged, or we are misunderstood, or accused of wrong-doing, we feel personally attacked and our own sense of self-worth and identity is at stake. With those lenses on it becomes very easy to start fighting back against our assailants.

Moses and Aaron believed that God had appointed them to be the leaders. If this accusation was true, and God was now ready to remove them from leadership, then there was nothing they could do about it. If this accusation was false, then God would make it clear to everyone who He wanted to be the leaders and who he didn’t.

3. If we leave it up to Him to fight the battles, then He will make truth clear in the end. In the end of this story the rabble-rousers were swallowed up by the Earth. That is not generally how God does it any more when we are falsely accused. However, if we step out of the way and let our accusers run their course, they will eventually be swallowed up by their own selfish and sinful motives and desires and be exposed for who they really are.

So, the next time you are misunderstood or falsely accused, take a deep breath and ...

1. ask yourself, "Is there any truth in what these accusers are saying?" If yes, then thank them for exposing a blind spot in your life and repent of it.

2. If no, then turn the other cheek to them and allow God to defend you. You just stick to the agenda that God has given you and don’t let nay-sayers and rabble-rousers set your agenda for you.

3. Remember that this is God’s agenda and not yours. If at anytime God wants to give you new marching orders, then so be it. You are just along for the ride! All glory belongs to Him anyway.

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Tagged as: leadership, Numbers, The Bible in A Year No Comments

4Feb/100

Week 5 Day 4 – Bad Boys!

Leviticus 10:1-3

There are three thoughts for today.

1. God takes disobedience seriously. In our age of cheap-grace we often forget that the God who incinerated Aaron’s boys is the same God that we worship today. He has not become less holy or more tolerant of sin and disobedience. Fortunately, as Paul says in Romans 5:9, "God has poured out this all-consuming wrath onto His son Jesus in our place." Never lose sight of the enormity of God’s Grace and the severity of God’s holiness.

2. It’s God’s way or the Highway. What did the boys do wrong anyway? So they used the wrong fire, what’s the big deal? The New Bible Commentary has a good slant on this issue.

Unauthorised fire (1) is unexplained. The Hebrew (zara) means ‘strange’, ‘from outside’. Perhaps they took fire from outside the sanctuary instead of from the altar (cf. 16:12), as if to say, ‘Any fire will do’. Such fire would be unholy, unclean, ‘illicit’ (neb), and therefore, in the context of all that had gone on so meticulously up to this point, wantonly offensive. Their action with it was also usurping the role of the high priest, and therefore included presumption, or perhaps jealous impatience. Their behaviour was not just an accidental slip in a minor detail of ritual, but a cavalier disregard for the most serious meaning of the events they were part of. It is as if a Christian minister in the middle of celebrating the Holy Communion were to inject rites or objects associated with the occult.¹

We must remember that we don’t get to make up the rules. In our culture we have a sort of "Spirituality Smorgasbord" idea about approaching God. We walk up to the kaleidoscope of religions that sprinkle our cultural scene and choose a little of this and a little of that. "Oh, I really like the loving and kind God, I’ll take two of those. Ooh, I need to stay away from the wrath bar, I’m allergic. Ah, over here is tolerance, I’ll take three, please." Zap! Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. We don’t get to make God up, rather, our job is to figure out what God has revealed to us through scripture, what He expects from us, and then line up our lives with that. It’s HIS highway, not ours.

3. The leader’s job is to honor God. There is a profound and startling leadership lesson in this story. The priest’s job was to represent God to the people. He was the go-between. Notice what God’s indictment against the boys was all about. They did not honor God. The word translated "honor" is a rich Hebrew word, kabod, which means "to be heavy, be weighty, be grievous, be hard, be rich, be honourable, be glorious, be burdensome, be honoured."² When you are the representative of someone you carry an important responsibility to present an accurate picture of that person to others. When you represent the heavy weight of the glory of the Almighty God, you had better have your ducks in a row. God will not be mocked by flippancy or sloppy work on the part of the leaders of His church who feel that it is "no big deal" and want to just "let it slide". Being a minister of the gospel is a job that requires a sober mind. This doesn’t mean it has to be boring and like a funeral dirge. It does mean that the minister should think seriously before teaching people about God before he has done his homework. The minister needs to be sure that his cup is being filled with the authentic flame of God’s Spirit before he tries to light fires in other’s hearts.

Therein lays the real sin. The boys brought another fire. The original fire on the altar was started by God Himself, not by some guy in the back of the tabernacle with a bic lighter. Aaron’s boys thought they could fake it, and it would be OK. Not so. We, as ministers of the good news (all of us are ministers at some level, so you’re not off the hook) need to make sure that we are lighting our fires from the true flame of God’s Spirit, not from some humanly constructed spirituality that looks good, but has a faulty foundation.

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