“Beginning At the End”



Beginning at the End(1 Kings 8:54-61)A sermon preached by Pastor Kevin Livingston at Clairlea Park Presbyterian ChurchSeptember 8, 201954?Now when Solomon finished offering all this prayer and this plea to the?Lord, he arose from facing the altar of the?Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven;?55?he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice:56?“Blessed be the?Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke through his servant Moses.?57?The?Lord?our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors; may he not leave us or abandon us,?58?but incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our ancestors.?59?Let these words of mine, with which I pleaded before the?Lord, be near to the?Lord?our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires;?60?so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the?Lord?is God; there is no other.?61?Therefore devote yourselves completely to the?Lord?our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments, as at this day.”As I was saying to the children a moment ago, it’s the season of new beginnings. New school years for our children, and a new teaching year for me at Tyndale Seminary. New beginnings for our family as our daughter and her husband welcome the birth of their son Eli, our first grandchild. It’s a new year at Clairlea Park Church – did you know that this week is the 68th anniversary of the founding of this congregation? As it says on our website, precisely 68 years ago tomorrow, on September 9th, 1951, the congregation of Clairlea Park had its beginnings in the corridors of Regent Heights Public School with 93 people in attendance.Well, tonight I’m involved in another new beginning. I’m preaching up in Newmarket at the induction of Rev. Rob Royal to be the new minister at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newmarket. And there’s something peculiar about a service of induction when a new minister begins his work in a church, just as there was for me when I begin my ministry here at our church with a service of induction just a year ago. The very beginning of new pastor’s ministry starts at the very end of the service. I said the benediction, the very final element of the service. And tonight it will be the same. That’s all he’ll do – pronounce God’s blessings on the people just before the worship is over.It’s the only active part a new minister has to do as they begin their ministry in a congregation, at the end of a long day, and at the end of the hour of worship. We begin at the end, so to speak. And in a very similar way, that’s what we see happening in our Scripture reading for today when King Solomon blesses the people. It’s highlighting what it means to begin at the end – and that’s what I want to do today. I want to begin at the end --- but not in the sense of opening a book and reading the last page, like an impatient reader who thumbs through to the last pages of an Agatha Christie murder mystery to find out who committed the crime. Webster’s dictionary defines the word “end” as “the goal… the purpose… the motive” that explains who or what something exists for. The wording of the first question in the old Westminster Catechism uses the word “end” this way when it asks the question “What is the chief END of man?” What is our primary purpose here on earth? What really makes us tick? What is it that gives meaning to our lives, that makes us feel really alive? And the catechism answers the question: “To glorify God and enjoy God forever.” This morning as we begin a new season of ministry here at Clairlea Park Presbyterian Church, I want us to begin at the end … I want us to wrestle with the question of what our primary purpose is as a congregation. What is the chief end… the purpose… of our lives as Christians? The very heart of the good news we have to share is Jesus Christ our living Saviour and Lord, but what are the ways Jesus provides us with a purpose and motive and goal for life?I direct you to look back to 1 Kings, Chapter 8, to our Bible reading for this morning. King Solomon and the people of Israel had just finished building the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem, where God could be worshipped. The description of the service of dedication takes up the whole of chapter 8. And after a long ceremony, complete with speeches and music and pageantry and prayers -- Solomon stand up at the very end and gives a blessing -- a benediction -- to the people of Israel. “Now when Solomon finished offering all this prayer and this plea to the?Lord, he arose from facing the altar of the?Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched toward heaven;?55?he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice…”Now please understand that this morning, I make no claim to being anything like King Solomon -- I’m certainly not as wealthy as he was, I’m not nearly as wise as he was, and I only have one wife!! But the blessing Solomon gave to the people of Israel that day summarizes much of my own vision for the future of our church together here in Clairlea Park Church. I believe the blessing and benediction which Solomon gave among his people so long ago contains a vision of who and what God desires our church to be. In our text, I find five traits – five characteristics –of what it means to be God’s people.First, in verse 56, we see a man who is filled with praise towards God, because the Lord had kept his promises to the people of Israel. The Lord had promised to liberate the Hebrews from their cruel experience of slavery in Egypt, and he did. The Lord had promised to meet them up close and personal on Mount Sinai so that they could worship him and receive God’s law, and he did. The Lord had promised to travel with the Hebrew people through the desert into the Promised Land, and he did. The Lord had promised that they would possess the land of Canaan, and they did. All that God had promised to Abraham many centuries before had come true. King Solomon, on this day of dedicating the new temple, understood that this day was a glorious testimony to the covenant faithfulness of the Lord for his people -- and so he is moved to proclaim to the gathered congregation in front of the Temple – look at verse 56 again: “Blessed be the?Lord, who has given rest to his people Israel according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke through his servant Moses.”My friends, that’s the first trait God’s wants to build into us, the first characteristic of what it means to be God people. The Lord wants us to be a people who are filled with praise -- a people who are can look back through our past and see God’s gracious, merciful hand at work. If you’ll pardon the rhyme -- we need to have an “attitude of gratitude.” As I look back over my life, I can recall the many mercies of our Lord -- can you?I remember the mercy of growing up in a loving, Christian home where Jesus was loved and his Word was honored. I remember the mercy of God’s guidance at crucial times in my life: in leading me to attend Seattle University and to the First Presbyterian Church of Seattle, where I first sensed a call to the ministry; in directing me to serve as a missionary in Mexico for a year and a half… where I just happened to meet a beautiful young lady from Lindsay, Ontario named Irene who changed my life forever.I remember the mercy of the birth of our three children, Sarah and David and John Wesley, who have brought joy into our home and helped me to get a glimpse of what it means when God says he is our Father and that he loves his children.I remember the mercy of enjoying fellowship with dear Christian friends from all over the world while we were students in Aberdeen, Scotland, and the grace of experiencing life together with Christians in different congregations – in New Westminster B.C., in Cambridge, Ontario, at Knox Church in downtown Toronto, across the street from U of T, and now new memories being created here at this dear congregation of Clairlea Park where Irene and I have been privileged to have been called a year ago this week! These are my memories, of course. Yours are no doubt somewhat different. Yet I daresay that each of us, with eyes of faith, are able to look back in our lives and see how the goodness and mercy of God have followed us all the days of our lives. I am reminded of the words of an old Scottish minister who commented as follows about Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd, aye, and more than that, he has two fine collie dogs, Goodness and Mercy. With the Lord in front of me and his Goodness and Mercy behind me, they will help even poor sinners like you and me to get safely home.”As the great English poet John Milton wrote (when we was only 15 years old!): “Let us with a gladsome mind, Praise the Lord for He is kind; For His mercies aye endure, ever faithful, every sure. That’s the first character trait God wants to build into us, to be people who are filled with praise and gratitude to God.A second mark of what it means to be God’s people is found in verse 57. “[May] the?Lord?our God be with us, as he was with our ancestors; may he not leave us or abandon us.” Here Solomon acknowledges that it’s not good enough just to recall what God has done for us in the past -- we need to experience the active presence of the Lord in our lives now -- today. I believe that God wants us to be a people who yearn for his presence -- like the desire a young lover has to see his beloved when she is far away from him. I still remember the ache I felt in making all those long-distance telephone calls from Pasadena, California to Guelph, Ontario – and the joy of seeing Irene face to face again as I bounded off the airplane in Toronto on a cold, crisp winter evening.God wants us to be like that -- anticipating his presence, longing to be with him. If there is one priority I have for Clairlea Park Church, it’s that we would experience a new sense of the presence of God in our worship together. When we lived in Great Britain, Irene and I found great blessing and encouragement worshipping in the ancient St. Aldates Church in Oxford, and during our sabbatical in 2016 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Cornerstone Church, a new, young congregation planted by the Free Church of Scotland. These services of public worship were not mere performances but a celebration; not “one man shows” but events where all of God’s people brought a sacrifice of praise into the Lord’s house. Both St. Aldates and Cornerstone in their own ways blended traditional worship practices, like singing great hymns of the faith and solid, expository preaching of the Bible, with more modern forms, like involving children and families in worship, the singing of contemporary choruses taken from Scripture, the use of guitars and flutes and violins and other musical instruments to praise God as well as the piano and organ. The worship in many other churches pales in comparison. Some church services I’ve witnessed seem to be contrived, overly emotional “productions” which call attention to the preacher instead of the Lord. And in all too many worship services I’ve attended, we have experienced a deadly formality, of people going through the motions but their heart isn’t in it; they’re not engaging God in a lively and living way. But I want to serve in a church where the weekly worship of God – with reverence and deep joy and sincere devotion -- is the central priority of the people. I want our worship to glorify and call attention to God; and to build up believers and encourage them in faith; and to help newcomers sense the very presence of God in this place.A third mark of what it means to be God’s people in found in verse 58: [May God] “incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our ancestors.”?Solomon is asking here that the people would be responsive and obedient to the Word of God. Notice, first of all, that it is God himself who changes us from the inside, turning our hearts towards him and causing us to respond and obey his Word. And yet Solomon, in verse 61, urges his people to turn their hearts to God, and obey the Word of God. Here’s a paradox of faith. God is at work in us, drawing us to himself, and yet we are urged to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. God is the one who causes our hearts to turn toward him, yet we are urged turn our hearts to him in faith and obedience. I’m not going to explain this paradox, except to say that the emphasis in our text is on obeying God’s Word.God speaks to us in the Scriptures not just to impart information, but to guide our path, to re-direct our lives, to change us continually to become more like Jesus. The Apostle James puts it bluntly: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (1:22). Rather than spending our time trying to resolve certain problematic Bible passages, we should pray “God, help me to receive your word completely, faithfully, obediently. Let me make it the lamp for my feet and a light for my path.” We must let the Scriptures address us, challenge us, and transform us. And we must allow the Bible to shape our lives. In order to keep the culture from squeezing us into its own mold, we must let God re-mold our minds and hearts from within. Which means that we as a congregation are called to take the Word of God, the Scriptures, as our authority for what we believe and do. And we are called to read and learn and digest and live God’s Word. The Scriptures are the sure guide for our faith and life and the Lord speaks to us through them.A final mark of God’s people is that we be a people of prayer. Look at verse 59. “Let these words of mine, with which I pleaded before the?Lord, be near to the?Lord?our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires…” In other words, Solomon has prayed all these words to God, and he wants his words to rise up to heaven on a daily, continual basis, according to each day’s needs. Here Solomon is reminding his hearers that prayer – an ongoing, living conversation with God - is an absolute necessity for the survival and health of God’s people.The story is told of a young boy who sat on a dock at the ocean. And beside him sat an old weather-beaten sailor. And all of a sudden the little boy asked the old sailor: “What is the wind?” There was a long pause while the two sat watching the breeze ruffle the water. “I don’t know,” answered the old sailor at last. I can’t tell you what the wind is. But I know how to hoist a sail.” Some people ask: “How does prayer work?” -- to which I, along with many other believers would reply, “I don’t know. I only know that it does! And I’ve experienced God in a deeper way and I ‘ve seen God respond, sometimes in remarkable ways!”The apostle Paul, wasting away in prison, was confident that God would deliver him. “God will deliver us”, he says in 2 Corinthians. “On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers.” Paul was confident that God would deliver him -- yet he asks for prayer. Almost all him letters have an appeal for prayer support. Young, inexperienced Christians were urged to pray constantly for the mighty apostle!! Incredible! And even Jesus our Lord asked his disciples for their prayers! Why! Again, I don’t know. But I do know that when we pray, God works.To that end, I want to call our church to a renewed commitment to spending time alone and together before the Lord in prayer. Our greatest work in this place will not be accomplished by your busy hands or my big mouth, but on our knees, as we bow before God together, imploring him to send showers of spiritual renewal upon us, in order that many would come to know and love and serve Christ Jesus our Lord. What was the end result of Solomon’s vision, as he blessed his people so long ago? He asked that God might make his people a people filled with praise -- loving God for his past mercies and faithfulness; a people who yearn to experience that active presence of God in their lives right now; a people who are responsive and obedient to God’s word in Scripture, and a people of prayer unceasingly. That’s the kind of people we are called to be. And when we are that kind of people, what will be the result? According to verse 60, our earnest hope is “that all the peoples of the earth may know that the?Lord?is God; there is no other.” As we walk with God, remembering his past mercies and experiencing his daily presence, as we humbly hear and respond to God’s Word and bow down to seek God’s face in prayer, the net result will be that many come to know that the Lord is God. Many will come, as did the apostle Paul long ago, to experience “the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord” (Phil 3.7-8).Dear friends, may that be true for us here at Clairlea Park, to the glory of God! Amen.A Prayer: Lord God, by the power of your Spirit,give us strength to live out the message we have heard today.Through Christ our Lord. Amen. ................
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