Who the Team Captain Chooses

I remember how much I hated when the team captains took turns choosing who would be on their team.  The P.E. teacher would have the team captains stand in two different places as they took turns choosing who would be on their team.  It was always the same.  The biggest, fastest, and strongest were chosen first.  Personal friends and the popular kids were also chosen first.  After the desirables were chosen came the leftovers, which included the awkward misfits and those who were not physically coordinated.

This is a pattern that is not limited to kids on the field.  In the adult world, those who are most able, devoted, and popular are usually chosen first.   In contrast, the Bible tells us that this is not how God operates.

After the defeat of Pharaoh, the crossing of the sea, and the trip in the wilderness, the people got tired of the leadership of those whom God had chosen, namely Moses and Aaron.  

“Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men. And they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron” (Num 16:1-3).

They then accused Moses and Aaron of taking them away from Egypt (seemingly forgetting that they were abused slaves there) and of appointing themselves as prince over the people.    Humble Moses’ first response to their rebellion was to fall flat on his face.  Moses was acutely aware of the presence of Yahweh and knew the danger they were in due to their rebellion.

God’s response was to open the ground up to swallow up the rebels along with all they had.  God then reaffirmed his choice of Aaron as high priest by having his staff miraculously grow ripe almonds overnight.  As a reminder to future generations, God instructed them to put Aaron’s rod in the Tabernacle.  

What a contrast between the rebels who were “chosen” by the people and Moses and Aaron, who were chosen by God.  The text says that the people’s choice were “well-known men.”  I can imagine that they were popular, dynamic, perhaps good-looking, and had all of the desirable human characteristics.  The single biggest problem is that they were not God’s choice.

God does not choose on the basis of skill, ability, age, looks, or any of thing things we would place as of first importance.  God chose the younger brother Jacob instead of Esau.  God chose young Joseph to save his brothers in Egypt.  God chose the aged Moses to lead his people.  God chose the young shepherd boy, David to be King over all his older brothers.  God chose Jeremiah who was a youth and did not know how to speak well.  God chose Israel, the least of the nations, because of the oath he swore to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Dt 7:6-8).  

God often chooses the least of these.  God did not choose a prominent family in Jerusalem to be the parents of the Messiah, but chose Joseph and Mary in far away Nazareth.  Jesus did not choose students from the most the rich or prominent students from the leading rabbinical schools.  Instead, he chose twelve ordinary men to be his envoys.  This is what the church continued to look like.  Paul points this out in 1 Corinthians:

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:26-29).

The church’s values reflects this.  All people are valued equally in the church:

“The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.  If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor 12:21-26).

The team captains of the world often value people for their utility.  Not so with our Lord Jesus, the ultimate team captain.  We are all valued because of God’s promise he made to our spiritual ancestor, Abraham (Gal 3:6-9).  God promised to bless all nations through Abraham’s descendant (Gen 22:18), which is Christ (Gal 3:16).   God does not choose us based on our ability, utility, popularity, or any other “ility.”  God values us because he chose to value us in Christ.

This does not make sense to outsiders.  In fact, this was a source of scathing criticism by outsiders.  Roman leaders and philosophers used to mock the church, claiming that they are eager to accept women, slaves, and children, which were people that had no social status in the ancient world.  They didn’t understand that a person’s worth in the eyes of God had nothing to do with status or ability.  What mattered was not a person’s ability, but the ability of our God.  This is why this group of nobodies laid down their lives not in some glorious battle, but daily through serving the sick, dying, hungry, and outcasts.  Some were baffled how these nobodies, who often ministered to other nobodies, could have a message that captivated and converted kings and servants alike.  

The Most Important Thing: A Powerful Example in Luke/Acts

“Identify the most important thing and start with this.”  I remember the presenter saying something like this in a time management seminar.  It is easy to get caught up in things that feel urgent but are not really that important.  Whether it is living healthily, studying regularly, or prayer, it is not unusual for the most important things to feel the least urgent.  In Luke and Acts, prayer is a major theme.  Prayer is not just tacked on as an obligatory act but is central to Christian living and service.  It is the most important thing.

Jesus begins his ministry not with just baptism, but with baptism and prayer.  The text says that while Jesus was praying, the Spirit came down on him and a voice came from Heaven declaring Jesus as God’s beloved son (Lk 5:16).  It is interesting that the one other time God declared Jesus as his son was while Jesus was praying on the Mount of Transfiguration (Lk 8:28).

Even though great crowds of people were coming to hear him and be healed, Jesus would go to a lonely place to pray (Lk 5:16).  Conventional wisdom dictates that staying busy doing the work should take priority.  However the wisdom of our Lord demonstrates that prayer takes priority.  A ministry that is weak in prayer will likely be a ministry that is weak in power.  It will be prone to aimlessness, discouragement, and fear.  But Jesus prioritizes prayer so that he spent the entire night in prayer before choosing twelve apostles (Lk 6:12f).  I sometimes wonder what being in prayer all night would be like.  What happens when you run out of things to say?  Should you try to spend all your time talking, or should you spend some of the time in meditative silence, listening for the leading of the Spirit?  Jesus didn’t always pray alone.  When his arrest and crucifixion loomed ahead of him, he took three of his closest disciples to the Mount of Olives to pray.  He prayed so hard that sweat began to drip off his body like big drops of blood! (Lk 22:39f).  Jesus’s habit of prayer prompted his disciples to ask him to teach them to pray as well (Lk 11:1ff).

In the book of Acts, we see that the early church, following the example of Jesus the Lord, also made prayer a priority.  Several times the text says they were “devoted” to prayer (Acts 1:14; 2:42; 6:4).  Sometimes they weaved the words of scripture into their prayers (Acts 3:24-26).  With discernment, they didn’t pray for comfort or ease, but for boldness to carry on the mission of Christ in the face of persecution (Acts 3:27-31).  As Jesus prayed before appointing people to ministry, the church in Acts did the same (Acts 6:6; 13:2; 14:23).  These and many other examples of prayer in the book of Acts demonstrates that the early church in the first century was a praying church who followed the example of Jesus who was a praying Lord and savior.  If their Lord Jesus needed to have a practice of prayer, then why would his followers not need to have a practice of prayer as well?

I am convinced that discernment, wisdom, spiritual strength, and godly ministry could hardly be possible without the discipline of prayer.  We usually attribute the qualities of the church in Acts to their faith.  However, this faith could not have been sustained without the regular practice of prayer.  At times, they seemed to have set aside a time to meet for no other purpose than for prayer.  It appears that they at times spent hours in prayer (Acts 12:5,12).  

The church today has meeting times set apart for Bible study, eating, worship, fellowship, planning meetings and other such things.  What would it look like for the church today to set aside a meeting time just for the purpose of prayer?  Perhaps, before any energy goes into planning or activity, energy ought to be put into praying together.  This is a collective demonstration of humility, dependence and openness to where the Spirit of God may be leading us.  Here is a question I am meditating on and invite you to also meditate on:  What would it take to be a more prayerful church?

!!! --- DANGER --- !!!

The daily Bible reading brought back memories of technical training when I was in the Air Force.  I still remember the uneasy feeling the first time we opened the lid to power supply for one of the radar amplifiers for the planes.  It was not unusual to see a warning label with something like, “Warning, High Voltage, contact may cause injury or death.”  However, this piece of equipment had a different kind of label.  In very big and bold red letters it said, “Danger!  20,000 Volts.  Contact will cause death.”  Even though we were normally very careful to observe all safety protocols, it was on our mind in a special way that day.  The fear and respect we had for electricity prevented us from having a lax attitude toward it.  Several of our technical instructors had already put a healthy fear of electricity in us with the truth stories of those who ignored safety rules and died because of it.  We were very careful to comply with all limitations, instructions, and safety rules.  This included things like not wearing metal jewelry or even metal framed glasses.

I imagine that what Israel faced was similar when they were in the presence of God at Mount Sinai or at the Tabernacle with his presence burning in a pillar of smoking fire over the sanctuary.  What they had come near to was not a high voltage, but high holiness in the presence of God.  Leviticus 16 gave specific and detailed instructions on how Israel was to approach the presence of God in his most holy place in the sanctuary.  

“The LORD spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the LORD and died, 2 and the LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. 3 But in this way Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: …” (Lev 16:1-3).

What follows are very detailed instructions on the protocol for entering into the Holy place.  There were very specific kinds of offerings for specific purposes that had to be made in preparation to enter.  It was only to be on the designated day once a year.  Even though Aaron’s two sons were priests, they were previously struck down by fire because they did not honor God by following the detailed instruction he had given on approaching him in his Holy Place (Lev 10:1-11).  The holiness of God that filled the Holy Place was much more than 20,000 volts.  It wasn’t metal jewelry that was the issue for Aaron’s sons who had been struck down, but the “strange/unauthorized fire” that they offered which the Lord had not commanded.

Due to our sin and impurity, it is a dangerous thing to approach divine holiness.  But God wanted his people to come near to him.  He wanted to come down from his holy mountain to live in a tabernacle in the midst of his people.  He wanted them to worship and love him with all their heart, soul, and mind.  Because sin and impurity made it a precarious thing, God provided a holiness protocol by which the priest could purify himself and the people to be near God as his people.

This should help us Christians to appreciate the privilege of being near to God with thankful humility.  Since God is too holy and we were too impure, Jesus came as our High Priest and gave himself as an offering to purify us and make us holy.  Unlike Israel, which was limited to only the High Priest being able to enter the Holy Place once a year, Jesus paved a way for ALL of us to enter into the presence of God through him (Heb 6:19ff).  This is why the final picture of hope we are giving in the Bible is seeing God face-to-face (Rev 22:4), which was not possible before Jesus performed his atoning work on the cross and at the empty tomb.