Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What's Your Mission? | The Writings | 1 Chronicles 22-27

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

If you had a mission statement, what would it be? In other words, what were you made for? What role do you play in your church, family, or friend group? In today's episode, Keith looks at 1 Chronicles 22-27 to discuss the balance of God's sovereignty and human responsibility. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Chronicles 22-27

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. One thing that churches, businesses, nonprofits all have in common is that most of them, at least, have mission statements. Now I know that hearing about mission statements can cause us to roll our eyes. Like, here we go again. But I think mission statements are really important because it's easy to lose focus, to get distracted, to emphasize the wrong things or to get our priorities mixed up.

Stephen Covey, who wrote the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Now, he's written several others, but that's one that I really liked. He wrote this, The Main Thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Now, that doesn't happen by accident. It's harder than you would expect to keep the main thing the main thing. Several years ago, London was besieged with complaints about its mass transit system. It seems that city buses were driving right past bus stops, even though there were customers standing out there waiting in line to be picked up.

called upon to explain their actions the London Transit authorities released the following statement, which has become infamous with public relations departments everywhere. The statement read, It is impossible for us to maintain our schedules if we are always having to stop and pick up passengers. Did you get that? We've got a schedule to keep people, and we can't keep our schedule if we're having to stop at every corner and pick up people. What are you talking about? Isn't that the purpose of a bus company shouldn't

that be priority number one? I'm a pastor of a church, and one thing that I have to keep in mind is it's possible for our church to be really busy, to have a lot of great programs. But if there are more people coming on Sunday morning, if there are more people involved in our programs, but we're not helping people learn to follow Jesus, then we're like a bus company that stopped picking up passengers. We've forgotten what we're all about. See, a bus company, The company's mission is not being on time. It's transporting passengers. And a church's mission isn't about filling auditoriums or hosting big events. Our mission is to help more people, more kids, more middle school students, more high school students, more college students, more men, more women,

more young, more old, more married, more singles, more people of every race believe that Jesus is more to follow him in their life. Well, all that talk about mission statements sets us up for what we're going to read in First Chronicles. And we're going to try to cover a lot of ground today, chapters 22 to 27. If you've read these chapters, my guess is that you'll think most of them could have been left out of the Bible. When you think about it, the Bible is not a very long book. I mean, not compared to, say, encyclopedias or something like that.

So if the Bible is God's word to us, why does it contain so many instructions about how to build the temple, ranging from what materials to use to who should serve in it? Who should be the musician, gatekeepers, and more. And that's what a lot of the chapters in First Chronicles 22 to 27 are about. It seems like several of these chapters are just lists of names and positions they held in relation to the temple. Now, when we ask that question, why are these chapters in the Bible? Why is this such a big deal? It shows that we've forgotten the main thing.

Or it shows that the main thing has ceased to be the main thing. Let me show you. Go all the way back to when Israel is enslaved in Egypt, Moses confronts Pharaoh. And what does he say? He says, let my people go. And then what? So that they may worship me. Why should Pharaoh let the people go so that God's people can worship him? What's the main thing? Well, the main thing is the worship. That's what we're created to do. Israel was created to worship God, and so are we. So that's why the Bible sees long. passages about the temple to be so important, the temple isn't a distraction. It's the main thing because it's where the people worship God. Now, before the author gives us these long lists of names

and positions, he records talks that King David had with his son Solomon about building the temple. In the first talk, David tells Solomon that he wanted to build the temple, but that job was given to him instead. We pick it up in First Chronicles 22, verse 6. Then he, that's David, called for his son, and charged him to build a house for the Lord, the God of Israel. David said to Solomon, my son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the name of the Lord, my God. But this word of the Lord came to me. He said, you have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house from my name because you have shed so much blood on the earth and my sight. But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest

from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. He is the one who will build the house for my name. He will be my son and I will be his father and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever. Okay, so from that talk that David had with Solomon, we learned that David won't build the temple, but instead that will, that responsibility will fall to his son Solomon. And then he has a second talk. David says, now my son, the Lord be with you. And may you have success and build the house of the Lord your God as he said you would. May the Lord give you discretion and understanding when he puts you in command over Israel so that you may keep the law of the Lord your God. Then you will have success if you

are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the Lord gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged. So this talk isn't focused on the building of the temple, but instead on the people's heart. God is always more concerned with what's happening in our heart than he is in the kind of building we meet in. He's more concerned about Solomon's heart than in his construction skills. You can have a great temple and have hearts that are far from God. Verse 14. David says, I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the Lord. A hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be weighed and wood and stone. And you may add to them. You have many workers, stone cutters, masons, and carpenters,

as well as those skilled in every kind of work, in gold and silver and bronze and iron, craftsmen beyond number. Now begin the work, and the Lord be with you. So right after David prays for God to give Solomon wisdom and encourages him to not be afraid or discouraged, he tells him all the supplies that he's left for him. There's no contradiction in David's mind between saying, look, Solomon, God will build this temple,

and I've left you lots of supplies and skilled craftsmen. There's no contradiction between God's sovereign, and human responsibility. Nehemiah prays and posts a guard. David prays and leave supplies and workers for his son Solomon. The next few chapters then are the names of individuals and the position they are assigned to. Some are to lead worship, some teach, some play music, some sing, some collect and distribute funds, some oversee operations and ensure that the church's ministries run effectively. And churches sometimes, they kind of denigrate the more material dimensions of the church's ministry. And they elevate the spiritual. Like they might discount or not think that highly

of the person who cleans the floors or sets up the tables or carries up the food. But instead, they honor the person who teaches or who prays. But the book of Chronicles doesn't fall into that trap. The Book of Chronicles says all of it is important. All of it can be done to worship God. And seeing all these people serving in the temple, it's maybe a challenge for you and me. Where are we serving in our local church? Are we using our gifts and abilities to build up the body? If you don't know where to serve, most churches could use help in their children's ministry. Most churches could use help setting up and tearing down.

Most churches could use some kind of help somewhere, and you might be the right person to meet a need. I know this. All of us have a role to play. None of us gets to sit on the sideline. First Chronicles 22 to 27 tells us that we all have a role. role to play. We all are needed in the body of Christ. There's something that God has called us to do inside our local church. You don't want to be the person who sits on the sideline and watches other people do his work. God loves his church. He died for his church. He builds his church.

And he's called you to be a part of it in some way. Whatever skills you have, whatever abilities, whatever previous experience, whatever you do in your job, whatever education you have, somehow God has enabled you and equipped you to be an important part of his church. Can I close with a quick story? My grandmother, she used to drive me around when I was young. We'd go all over the country together. And one of the things that we saw back then is a lot of hitchhikers. You don't see hitchhikers out on the highway too much anymore. And the hitchhiker would stick out his thumb and hope that you would give him a ride to wherever he was going. Now, the hitchhiker hoped what you would do is buy the car put gas in it, pay the insurance, do all the maintenance required for a car.

They were looking for a ride, and they were hoping you would take all the responsibility. Sometimes I'm afraid that we treat church the same way. We show up and want to benefit from the ministries. We want to be hitchhikers, but we don't want to do the work involved in maintaining the church. I think that every Christian has a role to play in both giving financially and serving inside the church. Let's don't be hitchhikers. Amen.