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Published August 21, 2024

Introduction to Mentorship

About two years ago, our church board began talking about the need to train up the next generation of leaders in our church to one day, hopefully, be able to replace all of us! As individuals on the board, we recognized that we’re not going to be around forever, and we wanted to make sure that there were trained, capable leaders who could slowly start taking responsibility now so that, sometime down the road, they could lead and shepherd this church without us.

And so those conversations gave birth to a test program that we started last fall called the Emerging Leaders Team. And what we did, was we identified a handful of young adults who had displayed some good leadership qualities in their lives and we invited them to take take part in this program where we would train them to be effective leaders in their homes, in their church, or in any other realm of life where God may lead them. 

But one of the cool things we did with them, is we had them form a shadow board – kinda like our church board, but without the weight of all the responsibilities. On this shadow board, they could discuss all the same real-life issues facing our current church board – and they could learn to make those decisions without any real risk of making a poor decision.

And so they held board meetings just like our church board does – and they used the same agenda and discussed all the same issues – and I think it was a great learning experience for them! However, we also gave them the freedom to bring up any other issues that they would like to discuss. We thought perhaps they would have concerns or see issues that our current board might not be aware of…. Well, they did!

And this is why I’m sharing all this with you today. One of the issues that they wanted to look at was the issue of mentorship. They identified that there were many people in our church (themselves being part of that group) who were really interested in having some older, wiser people in their lives who would be willing to share some of their wisdom and life experiences.  They wanted a mentor who could share some Godly wisdom and advice – or at the very least, could encourage them and give them some practical support as someone who has “been there/done that” as they face the difficult issues of life.

And of course, this isn’t just a good idea – this is a Biblical idea! Actually, it’s many Biblical ideas! Biblical mentoring touches on many Biblical commands: things like encouragement, discipleship, fellowship, accountability, prayer, studying God’s Word, maturing together in the Lord. A mentoring relationship provides such a great framework for so many of these life-building activities that God commands us to do together!

So when the ELT shadow board identified this need for mentoring in our church, I was very happy to encourage them to put together a game-plan for how this might happen. And they did just that. They put together a committee to look at what mentoring might look like in our church and how people might become either a mentor or a mentee. They looked at what kind of training mentors might need and how to get people involved in the process. Overall, they did a really fantastic job and they presented this all to our church board. Well, our church board looked over everything they did and were totally excited to make this happen. In fact, everyone of our elders are planning to play a key role in the mentor-training process… But I’ll tell you more about that later! 

Right now, I just want to tell you about the next few weeks. For the next few weeks, our Sunday morning messages will be revolving around some of the Biblical principles of mentoring. My message today will be a bit of an introduction and I’ll hope to define what exactly mentoring is and how that ties in with our call to make disciples!

And then our next two messages will be brought by a couple of different young guys who were on the Emerging Leaders Team and the mentorship committee who helped think through all these principles and processes. They’re going to share a bit of their own experiences with mentoring – along with some further Biblical foundations for mentoring.

And then after all that, we’re going to invite everyone of you to get involved in some way in a mentoring relationship! And of course, we’re going to explain all the details for all of this as we go along.

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Published April 29, 2024

Who’s Building Who’s House?

You might recall that 1 & 2 Samuel were originally written as one book – and it was divided only because one scroll simply wasn’t enough to hold the whole story – and so they wrote it out on 2 scrolls (1 & 2 Samuel). We started working through 1 Samuel back in January of 2020 – we took a pause through 2022/2023 and then have been working through the book of 2 Samuel since the beginning of this year. But today we we have arrived at central passage of the whole book. That’s not to say that we’re halfway through, (we’re just about 3/4 of the way through the entire book – and roughly 1/3 of the way through 2 Samuel specifically) but today’s passage in 2 Samuel chapter 7 is like the climax of the whole story! This is one of the main reasons why the stories of Samuel & Saul & David have all been recorded for us and preserved as Scripture! This is the theological centrepiece of the whole book.

This chapter contains what theologians call the “Davidic Covenant” – which is an incredible promise that God made to David – but it also includes some amazing promises for us! It’s one of the foundational covenants of the Old Testament that help us understand who Jesus is and what He came to do.

I read this week that there are about 40 difference references throughout the Bible that all point back to this chapter – so this is certainly a chapter worth studying!

And of course, one brief sermon won’t explore all the depths and insights to be found in this chapter, but we can certainly find a few good nuggets this morning – and perhaps you can do some mining on your own this week! 

Now just to give you an idea of where we are in this story – We are still in the very early years of David’s rule as king over Israel. He has recently conquered the fortress of Jerusalem and has made it his capital city. He has build a palace for himself within it’s walls and he has also brought into the city the Ark of the Covenant (which is the symbol of God’s own presence dwelling among His people).

At this point, there’s not much for war going on right now. The Philistines have certainly been a thorn in David’s side in the past, (and the will be again just in the next chapter) but at the moment, things are pretty quiet.

So with all that in mind, we read in 2 Samuel chapter 7 – starting at verse 1:

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Published April 22, 2024

The Fear of the Lord

Two weeks ago we were looking at 2 Samuel chapter 6 and we only got about half-way through the story, so today I want to finish up that chapter. Now if you missed part 1, let me give you a quick recap of the story thus far.

At this point in the book of 2 Samuel, David is the newly appoint King over all Israel. He has just conquered the fortress of Jerusalem and has made it his capital city – and as part of that process, he also wants to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem as well.

Now the Ark of the Covenant (Or the Ark of God as it is called in 2 Samuel) symbolized God’s presence among His people. It was basically a gold-plated wooden chest that normally resided within the Tabernacle in the inner room called the Holy of Holies – but for the last several years, the Ark had been at the home of a man named Abinadab. It had been taken there after the Philistines captured the Ark and then, shortly thereafter, returned it back to the Isrealites.

And so now, after several years of basically being forgotten about, David determined to bring the Ark of God back to Jerusalem. However, David neglected to carefully follow the instructions of the Lord – as given to Moses way back when the ark and the whole Tabernacle were first put together.

You see, because the Ark of the Covenant represented the very presence of God – it was to be treated with the utmost respect and reverence. It was never to be touched by anyone other than the priests – and when being transported, it had to be carried by the Kohathite family from the tribe of Levi – and it was only to be be carried on it’s built-in carrying poles.

However, when David attempted to move the Ark to Jerusalem – the Ark was placed on a cart pulled by some oxen and guided by Abinadab’s sons (who were not part of the Kohathite family from the tribe of Levi, but were from the tribe of Judah). And then, as they were moving the Ark, one of the oxen stumbled, and one of Abinadab’s sons – Uzzah – instinctively reached out his hand to steady the Ark, and God immediately struck him dead!

What was intended to be a great day of celebration for Israel as they brought the Ark to Jerusalem – had turned into a very sobering reminder of the awesome power and holiness of God – something that the Israelites had seemed to have forgotten. And that’s about where we left off last time – with Uzzah lying dead beside the Ark – and everyone in the processional not really sure what to do next.

So we’re going to look at the rest of the story today. We pick up the story now in 2 Samuel chapter 6 – starting today at verse 8.

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Published April 9, 2024

In the Presence of a Holy God

Today we will be looking at 2 Samuel chapter 6. At this point in our journey through the book of Samuel, David has recently been crowned king over all Israel. Originally, he had ruled over just one tribe of Israel – the tribe of Judah – and he did that for about 7 years, but now the other 11 tribes of Israel have also accepted him as King – so David is now King over the entire unified kingdom of Israel.

As one of his first acts as King, David set out to conquer the Jebusite fortress of Jerusalem – one of the last unconquered strongholds within the borders of the Promised Land. And as we read last time, David successfully conquered this fortress and made it his new capital city. He renamed the city – The City of David – and build a palace for himself within it’s walls. And now, as David moves into his new home in the capital, he also desires for the Lord to make His home there as well!

You see, over the last 40 years, it seems that the Israelites had kinda neglected their relationship with God! Specially, the Ark of the Covenant (which was to represent the very presence of God) had been more or less forgotten about – and wasn’t even kept in the same place as the tabernacle! And we’ll talk more about that in a bit – but today we’re going to see how David determines to fix all that! He knows how important it is to have God at the centre of all life – and so he wants to bring the Ark of the Covenant back into the center-focus and attention of all the people of Israel.

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Published March 18, 2024

The Lord Establishes David

Our last message from 2 Samuel ended with David finally becoming king over all of Israel! He began to rule over just one tribe of Israel – the tribe of Judah – when he was 30 years old – and he waited another seven and a half years before he was finally invited to be king over all of Israel.

2 Samuel 5:4 says..

4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in all. 5 He had reigned over Judah from Hebron for seven years and six months, and from Jerusalem he reigned over all Israel and Judah for thirty-three years.

2 Samuel 5:4-5

Now you’ll noticed that when David ruled over just Judah – his capital city was the city of Hebron. This was certainly a significant city in Judah – actually I read in my devotions this week that this was where Abraham spent a lot of time. He built an altar there and when his wife Sarah died – she was buried in that area. This was also the city that Caleb (one of the 12 spies that gave a good report to Moses) – this was the city that was given to him as his inheritance from the Lord. Later it would become one of the cities of refuge and would belong to the descendants of the high priest. So Hebron had a long and important history for the Israelites.

However, when David began to rule over all Israel, he moved his capital city to Jerusalem. This was a city that up until this point had not really been a significant city for the Israelites. In fact, at this time, Jerusalem wasn’t even an Israelite city! It was a fortress within Israelite territory but it was controlled by the Jebusites – some of the original inhabitants of the land. 

However, today we’re going to see that conquering this fortress and making it his new capital city would be David’s first priority as the new king of Israel.

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Published March 4, 2024

Integrity & Promises

We are currently in the last part of chapter 3 as we study the book of 2 Samuel. And this week, as I was preparing for this message, I was just thinking about how long David had to wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled. Way back when David was just a young boy tending his father’s sheep – the prophet Samuel had anointed him as the King of Israel. But it would be a long, long road for David before that promise would finally come to fruition. David had to spend years serving as a commander in King Saul’s army, many more years fleeing as a fugitive from King Saul who was trying to kill him, and then even more years fighting in a civil war against the supporters of Saul after Saul’s death.

But in all that time – David never seemed to resist or resent God’s timeline. He never rushed to put himself in the position of King. He never tried to manipulate the circumstances in order to hurry God’s promise along! He just trusted that God would fulfill his promise in his own good time.

And I think that’s one of the character traits of David that I admire most! Even when he had clear and abundant opportunity to move himself closer to the throne of Israel (a position that was promised to Him by God!) – he never chose to sin against God by taking matters into his own hands. 

David even declared this when he spared Saul’s life back in 1 Samuel chapter 24 when Saul was hunting for him to kill him! David said to Saul…

9 Then he shouted to Saul, “Why do you listen to the people who say I am trying to harm you? 10 This very day you can see with your own eyes it isn’t true. For the Lord placed you at my mercy back there in the cave. Some of my men told me to kill you, but I spared you. For I said, ‘I will never harm the king—he is the Lord’s anointed one.’

1 Samuel 24:9-10

And this was a guiding principle for David – he would not lift his hand against King Saul. God had put Saul in power and David would wait patiently for God to remove him. And this also applied to Saul’s son, Ishbosheth as well. Actually, just a little further in this very chapter where David spared Saul’s life, we see that Saul asked David to show this same kindness to the rest of his family. Saul says to David in verse 19…

19 Who else would let his enemy get away when he had him in his power? May the Lord reward you well for the kindness you have shown me today. 20 And now I realize that you are surely going to be king, and that the kingdom of Israel will flourish under your rule. 21 Now swear to me by the Lord that when that happens you will not kill my family and destroy my line of descendants!”

22 So David promised this to Saul with an oath. 

1 Samuel 24:19-22a

So not only has David vowed never to harm the King – he has also vowed not to kill his descendants after him (as many kings would have done!) It was not uncommon back then for the new king to destroy the whole family and close friends of the old king – so they would never posse a threat to the kingdom. But David promised he would not do that. He would never lay a hand on Saul or his family – and he would just trust God with the outcome!

However, not everyone in David’s camp agreed with that policy! We’ve already mentioned in previous messages how there were several occasions when David’s men urged him kill Saul when he had the opportunity. 

And today we’re going to see, that even now with Saul dead, the people loyal to David – on more than one occasion – resorted to going behind David’s back to attack and destroy Saul’s family.

And actually, we already saw that happen last week – as David’s army commander Joab murdered Abner – who was Saul’s cousin and the commander of Israel’s armies. So we’re going to start today by looking at how David responses to that – and then we’ll look at yet another incident of David’s supporters harming the family of Saul – and how David responded to that. 

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