FBC Daily Devotional – January 31, 2022

Well, a good Monday morning to you. Here we are at the last day of January, the first month of this year gone by already. What a crazy, crazy month it's been, at least in our experience, in our home, our church, family and so forth.

Various levels of sickness and weather and all the rest of that kind of stuff. Well, so here's hoping and praying that February works out to be a much more commodious to everybody being able to gather for church and everything else.

So, speaking of church, I hope you were able to meet with God's people yesterday on the Lord's Day, and it was a good day, and that your heart was blessed and challenged, encouraged by God's Word, and just enjoyed the day, even if God's Word convicted you some.

You know, that in itself is something to be thankful for. If you walk away from a service, hearing God's Word, and feel a sense of conviction, that's grace. That's grace. So, anyway. Well, today, speaking of church, we're reading in First Chronicles 24 through 26, and the application to church is like this.

Have you ever been in a church, visited a church, or been a part of one where it almost seemed that the attitude toward structure and organization was at least belittled, if not despised? I've been in a few places like that.

Thankfully, not too many, but I've been in a few places like that. I remember one experience where I went to a church. It was before I came to Sterling. So, this would have been 20 years ago, and the church was considering me for the pastorate, and I didn't know really anything about it.

I just knew they wanted me to come and preach. I mean, I had their materials and so forth. But when I got to the church, I found out this was a church that really didn't care too much for good structure and organization.

You could see it even in the building. It was like the whole building was haphazardly thrown together. You know, there was a main part of the building, but then there were different add-ons to that building, and nothing seemed to fit.

It just didn't seem to fit. And then you get inside and get in the auditorium, and I had one of the guys showing me around and explaining how this was done, and that was done, and it was all very, very haphazard and slipshod.

Then, when we came to the service itself, on Sunday morning, you know, things didn't start on time, and everything was just kind of, you know, very lackadaisical. We did a couple songs, and then the song leader said, All right, anybody wants to come and sing in the choir, come on down.

Come on up. You know, we'll sing. And I'm like, wow, really? Okay, and so different people from the congregation, you know, they got up, and they came up to the choir loft, and so then the guy says, Okay, let's turn in our song books to number such-and-such.

He's speaking to this makeshift choir, and this is what we're gonna sing today. I was like, I couldn't believe it. It was incredible. And then it was time for the offering. It was a similar kind of a situation, you know.

Okay, let's have some ushers. Would you do it? And he speaks to another, would you do it? You know, no structure, no organization at all. Well, some churches are like that, but what you read in these three chapters in 1 Chronicles really works against that whole notion, and the idea that everything should just be spontaneous.

David came up with a scheme of organizing the priests and the Levites in their service and in their ministry. He structured things so that these priests would serve at this time, these Levites would serve at this time, and so forth.

And you see that in chapter 24 and following. The first six verses especially focuses on the priests and the scribes and what they were to do and when they were to do it and so forth. But then you notice in chapter 25 of 1 Chronicles that his organization structure also included those who were involved in the musical aspects of the worship.

It says, David and the captains of the army separated some of the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and of Jeduthon, who should prophesy or proclaim God's Word with harps, stringed instruments, and symbols. And the number of skilled men in their service performing this was such-and-such.

And then he goes through the list of speaking of those who were the sons of Asaph and so on and so forth. Very, very detailed, structured approach that different individuals would serve at different times and so forth in the musical ministry.

And then in chapter 26, it's like he provides some organization and structure for the, well, today we would call them the ushers and greeters in the in the temple or in the Lord's work today in the church.

The gatekeepers, and it says concerning the division of the gatekeepers, and it talks about these different tribal groups or family groups, the Korahites, the Meshalamim, the son of Korah, the sons of Asaph, and so forth.

These were individuals who are responsible for keeping the gate, manning the doors. So, like in our day, it would be the people who open the door for people as they come in, or they greet people, they offer them a bulletin, and so on and so forth.

But the point is that this staff was organized and there was some structure given to it as well. Now, another thing to note that comes out here in this passage is that the notion of just picking somebody that's a warm body, who's willing to do something, you know, there should be more thought put into it than that.

And here's where I'm getting that. In verses 6 through 8 of chapter 26, you see this repeated thing. It says, to Shammai, his sons were born who governed their father's houses. They governed their father's houses because they were men of ability.

Verse 7, the sons of Shammai were Othni, Raphael, Obed, and Elzebed, whose brothers Elihu and Semachiah were able men. And then in verse 8, all these were the sons of Obed-Edom, they and their sons and their brethren, able men with strength for the work.

The point is that when there's a job to do, look for those who are most able and suited for that job, even, even in the ministry of the church, in the Lord's work. And I would say especially in the Lord's work, why should the work of the Lord be done in a haphazard, slipshod way by people who, you know, don't really have a, don't really have a skill for a particular thing.

And it's like the, the, the, the song leader is saying, okay, anybody in the, anybody in the auditorium want to come and sing up in the choir? You know, it didn't matter whether they had any ability to sing or not.

They could go do it. No. No, I so appreciate, I served several years ago as an assistant pastor in a church. This is, I mean, this is back in the mid 80s and had a choir, the church had a choir and you know, I was interested in, I was an assistant pastor, but I was interested in singing in the choir and I went to the music director of the church and I said, you know, what do I have to do to sing in the choir?

He says, okay, let's go in the auditorium. So we went in the auditorium and he sat down at the piano and he said, I'm going to play a note and you sing it. And he just went through, he started with, you know, below middle C and to see how low I could sing.

And then he proceeded up the scale as high as I could go comfortably to see how high I could sing and to hear whether or not I could sing on key. And, you know, to get a sense of my vocal range, so he knew where to put me in the choir.

Should I sing bass? Should I sing tenor? You know, where should I sing? Am I a baritone? You know, what's... I appreciated that because it communicated that there's a sense of, there's a sense of structure and order and those in charge of different aspects of the ministry were concerned about putting able people in those roles in the ministry.

So just a little insight into, you know, really, how should we do church? How should our ministries be organized and structured? I know in our own ministry, there's a long way, I mean, there are many, many things we could do better.

But, you know, one thing I try to do as this pastor is to provide some structure and some organization Again, I got a long way to go, but at least I'm making the attempt there because I sense that's pleasing to God, our God, who is a God of order.

All right, let's pray. Father, we do thank you for these insights, even in the Old Testament, for how best to conduct the work of the ministry. Help us to be faithful. Help our ministries to reflect well on the God of order whom we serve.

And this we pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Well, I hope you have a good rest of your Monday, ending the month of January, and look forward to February. Good day. God bless.