March 19, 2023
(The most recent previous digital Spotlight materials can be found here.)
Icebreaker question:
What's a TV show you really liked as a child?
✞
What's a TV show you really liked as a child? ✞
Special Request
Please consider taking a photo (or several) of your small group at one of its midweek gatherings, so that we can give folks a glimpse into the program. Please send any such photos to Garrett. Thanks!
Please consider taking a photo (or several) of your small group at one of its midweek gatherings, so that we can give folks a glimpse into the program. Please send any such photos to Garrett. Thanks!
Small Groups are powerful. They can be very beneficial for people. They can also be very disruptive to people's spiritual journeys. As a group, look at (and, if you'd like, discuss) the following guidelines for Small Groups. In his role as pastor, Garrett urges groups to take all these matters seriously. If you don't want to follow any of these guidelines, please talk to Garrett about it; please don't let your dissent grow privately.
Begin your midweek Spotlight with the song By Faith, performed by Keith & Kristyn Getty.
Almost the entirety of this midweek Spotlight will be this next activity: Read through the full text of Dr. Mark Paustian's devotion "Our Dwelling Place" and then look at the questions afterward. (Take turns reading the separate paragraphs.)
True worship is all about Jesus. It has been this way for longer than you might think.
The Israelites called it the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, or sometimes just The Dwelling. It made quite an impression: that billowing linen fence set against the drab of the Old Testament desert and the desert dwellers. They are arranged around it on all sides, two million strong. God himself ordered this ancient otherworldly space. By its dimensions and designs he spoke in deepest metaphor.
The tabernacle was covered with plain animal hide, dull to the eye. The layer beneath was dyed red. Imagine. The deepest layer, farthest from sight, was fine linen decorated in blue, purple, and scarlet, embroidered with angels.
The beauty was deeper in. That is the key to this place.
Animals burned on the altar just outside near a golden basin filled with water. These furnishings said, "Do not imagine you can just waltz right up. Not without a cleansing. Not without blood." "But I will take care of you," said the golden table just inside, stacked high with the bread that lasts. "So, come." "Only don't try to see by your own lights," mimed the seven flames flickering on the golden lampstand.
Across that narrow chamber hung a vibrant curtain, and behind it hid a chamber more sacred still. The Most Holy Place. Within that perfect cube, under angels of gold, rested a chest. In it, chiseled in stone, was God's perfect will in ten jealous lines—the ten good reasons we do not belong there. The first already makes wretches of us all—"Love nothing in this world the way you love me." Only the high priest, with a gemstone on his chest for each tribe of Israel, ventured this far in. There behind the veil he took his life in his hands. A cord around his waist was for pulling him out in case something went wrong.
But thank God for God, the box had a safety lid. The atonement cover. The mercy seat. What would you find if you could go all the way in? Only a slab of pure gold spattered in blood.
The Word whispers, "Hush, you. For God has come to live among his own." The tabernacle still draws the wondering eye to itself. But do not miss the handles, the poles, and the carts. It was, after all, still a tent, just fabric stretched over a frame, breathing with the wind, built to move.
Hold that picture close and come with me to the minutely crafted prologue of John's gospel. The apostle followed the old Hebrew convention of setting his most majestic thought at the center of his preface, set up on a literary peak. Its meaning pours down on everything before and after. Here is the thought that consumed John: "The Word became flesh and lived among us." Literally, "he tented."
Of course. Old Testament worship, designed by the Spirit, was all about Jesus. The tabernacle was a finger pointing squarely at Messiah (to God come near) from a distance of 1,400 years. It was a "type of Christ" whereby the Old Testament would be relived in the New. A warm fabric of skin stretched over a human frame for the Son to move and breathe and travel light. The true expression of all that God is, the fullness of his being, walked our guilty wasteland and "breathed our poisoned air".
There is life in the fine details—the altar, the basin, the table, the flames, the incense, the curtain, the ark, and all that blood. Jesus, where are you not in this place!? As to your worth to my soul, there is all that gold. I enter boldly, mindful of your sacrifice, grateful for the water that washed me once for all time. You are the Bread from heaven. You are the Light of the world.
You are my priest. You entered trembling and alone, the gem of every human tribe burning in your chest. You are the atonement cover. Yours the holy Lamb-blood spattered about. Glory hid behind the curtain that was your body, meant for shredding from the moment you were knit in Mary's womb.
A tent is no protection against the elements that gather in such a world. Lord, how you were torn! I thought I wanted to be left alone—this my sin demanded—yet that ugly tear in the veil let me in to life, to community, to joy. To you. Jesus, your risen body is my Tent of Meeting, a word from you my dwelling place. Let my soul get quiet and small in the safety here inside. My prayers rise as incense.
Some will come and go seeing nothing that especially attracts them.
You, Jesus, are the beauty deeper in. Lord Christ, it is all about you now.
God's people—the true Israel within Israel—in their time of wilderness, were to glue their eyes to the pillar of cloud and fire to know when to pull up the holy tent stakes and move on. You wake up. You check the sky. You stoke the fire. You check the sky. You milk the goat. You get the idea. This was their life.
So is it yours too in the Spirit's school. You take up this particular day, with its particular shape, with eyes fixed on Jesus. He is the red-letter Word come to live among us. He is every heartfelt thing the Father has to say to his broken world.
This day in which you answer emails, write your lists, love your dear ones—maybe even go to church—is a tent pitched one day closer to home.
The Israelites called it the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, or sometimes just The Dwelling. It made quite an impression: that billowing linen fence set against the drab of the Old Testament desert and the desert dwellers. They are arranged around it on all sides, two million strong. God himself ordered this ancient otherworldly space. By its dimensions and designs he spoke in deepest metaphor.
The tabernacle was covered with plain animal hide, dull to the eye. The layer beneath was dyed red. Imagine. The deepest layer, farthest from sight, was fine linen decorated in blue, purple, and scarlet, embroidered with angels.
The beauty was deeper in. That is the key to this place.
Animals burned on the altar just outside near a golden basin filled with water. These furnishings said, "Do not imagine you can just waltz right up. Not without a cleansing. Not without blood." "But I will take care of you," said the golden table just inside, stacked high with the bread that lasts. "So, come." "Only don't try to see by your own lights," mimed the seven flames flickering on the golden lampstand.
Across that narrow chamber hung a vibrant curtain, and behind it hid a chamber more sacred still. The Most Holy Place. Within that perfect cube, under angels of gold, rested a chest. In it, chiseled in stone, was God's perfect will in ten jealous lines—the ten good reasons we do not belong there. The first already makes wretches of us all—"Love nothing in this world the way you love me." Only the high priest, with a gemstone on his chest for each tribe of Israel, ventured this far in. There behind the veil he took his life in his hands. A cord around his waist was for pulling him out in case something went wrong.
But thank God for God, the box had a safety lid. The atonement cover. The mercy seat. What would you find if you could go all the way in? Only a slab of pure gold spattered in blood.
The Word whispers, "Hush, you. For God has come to live among his own." The tabernacle still draws the wondering eye to itself. But do not miss the handles, the poles, and the carts. It was, after all, still a tent, just fabric stretched over a frame, breathing with the wind, built to move.
Hold that picture close and come with me to the minutely crafted prologue of John's gospel. The apostle followed the old Hebrew convention of setting his most majestic thought at the center of his preface, set up on a literary peak. Its meaning pours down on everything before and after. Here is the thought that consumed John: "The Word became flesh and lived among us." Literally, "he tented."
Of course. Old Testament worship, designed by the Spirit, was all about Jesus. The tabernacle was a finger pointing squarely at Messiah (to God come near) from a distance of 1,400 years. It was a "type of Christ" whereby the Old Testament would be relived in the New. A warm fabric of skin stretched over a human frame for the Son to move and breathe and travel light. The true expression of all that God is, the fullness of his being, walked our guilty wasteland and "breathed our poisoned air".
There is life in the fine details—the altar, the basin, the table, the flames, the incense, the curtain, the ark, and all that blood. Jesus, where are you not in this place!? As to your worth to my soul, there is all that gold. I enter boldly, mindful of your sacrifice, grateful for the water that washed me once for all time. You are the Bread from heaven. You are the Light of the world.
You are my priest. You entered trembling and alone, the gem of every human tribe burning in your chest. You are the atonement cover. Yours the holy Lamb-blood spattered about. Glory hid behind the curtain that was your body, meant for shredding from the moment you were knit in Mary's womb.
A tent is no protection against the elements that gather in such a world. Lord, how you were torn! I thought I wanted to be left alone—this my sin demanded—yet that ugly tear in the veil let me in to life, to community, to joy. To you. Jesus, your risen body is my Tent of Meeting, a word from you my dwelling place. Let my soul get quiet and small in the safety here inside. My prayers rise as incense.
Some will come and go seeing nothing that especially attracts them.
You, Jesus, are the beauty deeper in. Lord Christ, it is all about you now.
God's people—the true Israel within Israel—in their time of wilderness, were to glue their eyes to the pillar of cloud and fire to know when to pull up the holy tent stakes and move on. You wake up. You check the sky. You stoke the fire. You check the sky. You milk the goat. You get the idea. This was their life.
So is it yours too in the Spirit's school. You take up this particular day, with its particular shape, with eyes fixed on Jesus. He is the red-letter Word come to live among us. He is every heartfelt thing the Father has to say to his broken world.
This day in which you answer emails, write your lists, love your dear ones—maybe even go to church—is a tent pitched one day closer to home.
From the book Our Worth to Him: Devotions for Christian Worship
© 2021 Northwestern Publishing House. Used with permission.
© 2021 Northwestern Publishing House. Used with permission.
Discuss: What would you say is the main point of this writing? How does Dr. Paustian make that point?
Discuss: How do the Bible verses from Sunday relate to Dr. Paustian's writing?
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17)
Do you have anything you'd like to ask your small group to pray about with you? Or ongoing in the week?
Wrap up this midweek Spotlight with the song Christ Be Magnified by Cody Carnes.
Upcoming Events:
- Sundays
Youth Group 4-6pm
- April 6
Maundy Thursday Spotlight 6pm
- April 7
Good Friday Spotlight 6pm
- April 9
Easter Sunday Spotlight 10:30am
- April 24
Outreach Events Planning Meeting 6:00pm
- August 14-17 Vacation Bible School
- October 21 Fall Family Fun Night
God bless!
