Re-Imagining The Church: As A Lighthouse

one of my favorite hymns is a very very old-fashioned one we sang it here once right after we first started but that's over three years ago now and I think it's probably time to revisit the hymn the hymn is called let the Lower Lights be burning whenever she saw that on the uh the newsletter and if you don't get the newsletter just send an email to info at rsaf harbor.com and we'll send you the the newsletter it's just a once a week thing uh Sharon Fields up in Indiana one of our dear members sent me a long story I almost read it Sharon but I hadn't had a chance to get in touch with you to see if that was all right so I didn't but a long story about an older woman who kind of took her in and helped her learn church and helped her learn how to be a part of church and how she had used that hymn to teach them how to sing and sing in Harmony and that she and and some other girls were trained by this woman and then they were able to get up on a Sunday and sing their song with their that that grandmotherly like figure beaming from the front Pew hymns bring back memories and ideas and just like songs do people have their song and sometimes you hear a song and it takes you back to a certain place in your life I always kid and say that somebody asked Cammy what song did she think of every time she thought of meeting me and she said If I Had a Hammer not true not true but still fun to think about you know um let's talk about lighthouses and let's talk about the Lower Lights and what that means this actually hymn was written by Philip Bliss who wrote a lot of songs he was a professional full-time songwriter for uh The Moody Institute and for Charles Moody himself and all of that big hymn and and evangelism explosion that took place uh out of Chicago there was a ship that was coming uh from the Great Lakes Great Lakes are very Rocky and and people don't realize that the Great Lakes are also weather makers uh some of Americans and especially Canadians cuz he was Canadian Gordon Lightfoot sng The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald it is the the Great Lakes is littered with shipwrecks because of sudden weather and also because of rocks so many Rocks Under the surface and Philip Bliss was talking to Dwight Moody I said Charles a while ago Dwight Moody about a ship in Cleveland that was trying to get into Cleveland during a storm and the captain was looking for the Lower Lights because they could could not see the upper lights because of the storm the uh the radio operator was saying we don't know why but we cannot see the Lower Lights what do you do what can we do and he said we've got to get into Harbor we will die in a storm well unfortunately trying to get in without the Lower Lights they hit the rocks and 200 people perished Dwight Moody asked Philip Bliss to write a hymn referencing that incident so when we sing that song later today you're singing a song that comes from a true story of Lower Lights in many places in the world where we're sitting right now we're sitting in Brentwood Tennessee which is in Middle Tennessee we are a long way from water they have lakes but we don't need lighthouses on lakes not the size that they've got here but if you live by the Sea if you live on an island nation like the United Kingdom or or Greenland or any of those life houses are very important now lighthouses are not there to shine a light to show you the way forward lighthouses are there for a couple of reasons the Highlight which is everybody thinks of the higher light the one at the top that has a certain pulse to it a certain little staccato pulse and all of the nautical charts will tell you this pulse means we are off this rock this pulse tells us we are off this area but it also will it's just a little warning you this is where you are be careful the problem is in many times in many places the weather comes down low and the fog rolls in in Western Europe in particular in the Northern Ireland uh uh northern islands like Scotland and the herdes and such this low fog rolls in and it's it's an amazing thing to watch it really is uh it gives some people the Shivers but I've always enjoyed it it's normally known by a Norse word called har ha a a r when it come it looks like it's coming across the ground and when it hits you're socked in and the higher light is not going to help you well God is a higher light we know that John chapter 1 leaps into the whole idea between light and darkness and this great battle between the two God's light we're told in Romans 1 everybody can see it that everyone can know about God by the things that he created that we can look at creation and we know there is a God and we're even told in the Psalms that it is a fool that says there is no God because of what we can see God is also our light to show us our way he's also our light to show us position which remember is the main purpose of the high light on a on a lighthouse that question that he asked early on where are you to Adam and Eve he knew where they were geographically but they didn't know where they were spiritually they needed that where are you now what has happened to you you're separate from God where are you God lets us know where we are by that light but what happens to people who don't know God or whose light has been dimmed or shut out by the weather in their life and it could be tragedy it could be divorce it could be death it could be illness it could be whatever you want to lay on the table it could be wars and rumors of wars whatever it is they feel trapped and they do not see the higher light well people in coastal areas were used to being alerted to go out to the beach and set bonfires you see originally bonfires on beaches weren't for partying weren't for college kids and and for drinking and the like no they were set there to alert ships this is the shore and yes there were some bad people that would set fires to try to lure ships into a reef and then smuggle but we're not talking about the 1% here the people were called out bring your lanterns bring your lights stand on the shores there's a ship in trouble on at the sea I've never experienced that level of fog and Terror at Sea we lived in West Virginia another land bound area for 10 years and it was a wonderful experience but a few times on the mountain in which we lived you gained 1100 ft in the last three miles to our house it was switchbacks your ears would pop twice we would even send maps to people and say your ears will pop at this curve and and and they would go how did you know and they say well we're so high we can talk to Jesus a little easier than you and and it was it was you know Jesus comes back we'll get a five minutes heads up we we had several jokes but when the fog hit that was terrifying I have never been in fog like that and trying to get up that hill they would call it a mountain but I'm married to a lady from the Rocky Mountains so I have to call it a hill I have never in my life had to open the door and look down to try to find the center line and Drive by that at a crawl Pace hoping nobody else is coming the other way whenever those Knights would hit and there were only a few in the 10 years telephones would ring up and down the mountain turn on your outside lights everybody turn on your lights people are on the roads they can't see and when they did it made all the difference when you saw the lights you knew that's a yard not a road I should be over here and it was super helpful it it led people to light but the lights on the poles we couldn't see we needed the Lower Lights when we built our Safe Harbor Church it was a community not a building not a place and still that's way it's going to be I was asked by house groups as I came across they said will you ever get to the point where you want to build a building and I said no no we're building communities worldwide we're building faith and families we're building house churches we're how why would we build a building how could we compete with somebody that has a $50 million budget for a building how could we why would we in fact one Minister who asked me that I said coming to your office today I passed by the office off of five other ministers and you have to spend most of your time managing ministers don't you and he goes yeah that's I said I don't want to do that I just want to talk about Jesus and I want to spread that and he was jealous so I rubbed it in no I didn't he's a he's an excellent man a wonderful man but we want to build a community where we touch people with the love of God now that's what the word kindness means goodness is a completely different word let us say that there's a charity that is taking care of people in a um well let's just say in the tornado ravaged Midwest and I I sacrifice my wife and I we look at our finances we say this is going to be a real stretch this may put us in a bind but we're going to write a check for this amount and send it to this particular church or charitable organization that's good that's good and people should do good things but kindness is different kindness is different in its Arc you are being good to people of your kind which literally meant within your reach so now I'm being good to this person right here not to nameless people I've written a check to but I'm being kind to a person who is right in front of me my kind as English would also say your kind are your people the people around you I had one person say that they were in an area and they looked around and they said I realized these are not my people and I said yes they were if you were there they're your people when you walked in that shop or that mechanics area or whatever you now have new people and those are your kind will there be kindness well that's up to us we love and respect uh search and rescue team members firefighters police military others who put their lives on the line for the rest of us we see them Place themselves In Harm's Way sometimes knowing that they're going to be hurt or killed but they do it anyway and we're stunned by this and we honor them special license plates holidays privileges maybe even discounts but I think we look up to them because at some level we want to be them you never see a little kid say when I grow up I want to be somebody who watches firefighters or policemen or nurses or doctors no they want to be they want to be those people but then we grow up and we forget and we do other things churches are the same they start off well but they forget that they're they're called to be heroes they're called to be lower lights that reach the people the up that are not being reached by the upper light we forget now if you've ever owned a boat first of all my commiserations boats are wonderful fantastic things until you let them touch water and then they are a self-destroying hole in the water into which you pour money and if you have a boat and you love boats and you're willing to do that great but you already know every so often either you you got to pull that W the boat out of the water or you got to pay divers to go down and scrape the boat and if you live in some places that are warm and uh let's just say full of life like Florida or the Caribbean that's going to have to happen every few months scrape the boat why because after a while it's not a boat anymore it's just a big block of stuff you're trying to shove through the water you've got to clean it up and our Safe Harbor is bound and determined to remember who we are and to keep it lean and keep it moving forward and not forget who we're supposed to be ever since the fall of Man In the Garden of Eden God has sent in rescue teams they were not born heroes or and we wouldn't have picked most of them honestly if you ever read the new test the Old Testament in particular would you have picked these people we would not have expected them but we got Noah world's worst Carpenter took him a hundred years to build a large box but and the world worst preacher after 100 Years of preaching the only people that got on were his family nobody would have hired Noah but God did what about melchisedek strange came out of nowhere the prophets the Kings the judges I remember when I was a little boy reading all the the stories and being told all the stories about the wonderful King David and then I read Chronicles and kings and I went oh boy boy I wouldn't have picked this guy and I wouldn't have trusted him to look after my dog but God picked him and he was a man after God's Own Heart which tells me something about me but it also tells me a lot more about God and finally in the fullness of time he sent his son for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but will have eternal life we didn't see Jesus coming either and what did Jesus do rescue missions the woman at the well thrown away by a long series of men but not by God zakus that's the other end of the spectrum she was looked upon as super sinful of no value he was looked upon super powerful you better watch out for him because he's got all the power zakus he needed rescue too how about Matthew Matthew himself was a tax collector and Jesus picked him to be part of a group that already had a couple zealots in it who are zealots I hear you cry oh that's simple zealots were people who were politically committed to killing people like Matthew and Jesus puts them all in one little group says get along sleep well I don't think Matthew slept well for a while I don't I don't think whenever James and John were over there going we'll take First Watch go go ahead 9 night I don't think it went well but Jesus rescued him he also rescued James and John and those in a violent Cult of the of the zealots he rescued Saul first known as Paul Saul of Tarsus now known to us as the Apostle Paul how about the Widow at the gates a very simple short story Luke 7:12 but in and out she had nothing she had lost her only son she was condemned to a life of poverty and igny but Jesus just immediately restored her son and her life what about the woman with the the bleeding issue in Mark chapter 5 Jesus is searching and rescue searching and rescue searching and rescue that's his life and he turns and looks at us and says follow me so we build buildings and tell everybody we've got to make you conform and say what we say believe what we say and do the rituals we do and maybe you'll get saved and I'm going what happened our ship of Faith got a lot of barnacles on it and nobody cleaned it nobody went back to what are we here for and of course Jesus's mission culminated with salvation offered to all but only after he had sacrificed himself I love Hebrews so much people ask about stranded Island what would you take and I always say I I would take the gospel El of John I would take the Psalms and I would take Hebrews Hebrews to remind me who Jesus Is Gospel of John because it's the most beautiful gospel to in my opinion and the Psalms because no matter what attitude I've got that day there's a psalm for it but Psalm uh Hebrews 7: 24- 27 but because Jesus lives forever he has a permanent priesthood therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them such a high priest truly meets our needs one who is Holy blameless pure set apart from Sinners exalted above the heavens yeah and then moving on just chapter 10: 10 one verse here and by that will his will we have been made pay attention to the tense of the phrase we have been made holy not you might be holy one day if you're good enough and conform to the rules and regulations of this particular denominate no we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all metaphysically Jesus ran into a building that was coming apart he ran into a building on fire he ran into a building where everybody else was running out of the ultimate hero and while we certainly honor him for his teachings and for his Pure Life what makes us bow down before Jesus is his selfless loving giving act for on the cross Jesus went from Rabbi to rescue her and that made all the difference a short story and again you cannot mention anything without people thinking there's a political background no this is pure history Muslims had started slave trades and and in fact they're still the main slave Traders on the planet but back in this particular time they were harassing anybody who merely wanted to cross the Atlantic to see their families or to make a new life they had uh also been swarming through the Mediterranean and as the book white gold lays out in very detailed historical um Precision they were running slave trades out of Northern Africa and it was disrupting shipping it was disrupting life the year was 1775 the president realized of the you know the early Americas or understood as soon as they became independent something had to be done but they didn't have anybody that could go over there and do it so the president wrote a letter to be read in bars and he walked the first reader walked into Ton's Tavern outside of Philadelphia and started the end of the slave trade that was plaguing the Americas by the way before then the government just kept paying the Muslims money saying if we pay you money will you leave us alone that didn't help so something had to be happened had to happen and into Ton's Tavern walked a man opened a letter and said we are looking for a Few Good Men and that was a birthday of the United States Marine Corps years later they launched their attack on the barbery pilots their song even today from the shores of Mont Zuma to the shores of Tripoli Halls of Mont to the shores of Tripoli Northern Africa they launched their attack eight Marines eight Marines LED 200 mercenaries they had trained in the desert and captured the Fortress city of Dima and in a sign of respect for their toughness and tenacity a nearby Turkish Sultan gave them the mamalu sword which to this day Marines Stand Tall in their dress blues and carry that sword the Pirates backs were broken slaves were freed not by superheroes but by men who stood up and said here I am send me that's the same thing Isaiah said but not to break the backs of slavery as we saw in North Africa but rather slavery from sin from not being able to see the light of God they said I will be the light Isaiah said here am I whenever the call of Heaven went out who will we send who will go for us he said here I am send me this is fundamentally different from the bulk of most Humanity think about it most Church memb and I know I'm being slanderous here but I do believe I'm actually being correct more than slanderous most church members cry out here I am cater to me here I am comfort me here I am confirm me in my already held beliefs what would it be like if we volunteered to go wherever Jesus wanted us to go and be whatever he wanted us to be I God has always looked for volunteers but if he doesn't find them I let me warn you he is not adverse to tapping on shoulders I've made it very plain I don't feel like I volunteered to do any of the work I've done through my life I think you know most people have a really good ditch story I call it you know I woke up I was in a ditch I realized I had fallen so low I wanted to get out of my ditch I loved my ditch it was a great ditch God kept pulling me me out of the ditch God kept pushing me forward and I kept saying I'm the wrong man I'm not trained for this I have the wrong life I'm not the person you need and God just continued to ignore me he will do the same for you if you don't volunteer you might volunteer you and said come on let's go God is still watching us as we go to the work to the shops to events even as we walk around the neighborhood he's watching to see if we'll set out the lower lights what are the Lower Lights kindness Grace peace love joy look at the fruits of the spirit recently we had our our yard mulched because I don't mulch I can but my wife has something called standards so I don't mulch but we had it mulched and she's made plantings there and such and it and it looks really good and the neighbors like it but what we really need to be growing in our garden is love joy peace patience longsuffering you all of that the fruits of the spirits is found in in the New Testament and we we know them we just need to set out the Lower Lights so wherever we are whoever's in front of us we treat them with amazing respect and dignity and kindness even if they disagree with us even if they're disagreeable for Jesus did tell us to love every everybody and frankly some people make it harder than it's necessary to make it and sometimes it's us so we love them anyway there are creative ways of doing this and I could I could literally be here for the next several hours just brainstorming those but one of the ones that really hit me was one I'd never thought of before as a way to set out the Lower Lights I was speaking for the Texas state forensic STP um technicians their big conference and we had a meal and at the meal at my table sat a lady and another couple and this couple was had uh the they had met me at registration and had kind of shephered me through things and they said you need to know this lady and I looked over it's a very unassuming lady uh probably a few years older than me and I said what do I need to know about you and she just said nothing but then they told told me she's single and she has spent the last I don't know decades she goes to the the pound or the animal shelter whatever you want to call it and finds the oldest sickest dog and she takes it home and she loves on it and she makes sure its last weeks or months are filled with love and care when it dies she comes back now you might think what does that have to do with church kindness has to do with everything and her example humbled me at the table her example I bet is humbled a lot of folk but not shamed no not shamed humbled means wow I should be doing things like this now I can't do the dog thing because my way of life would be actually causing the the dog more problems because I'm not there but I can find ways to be kind to people that nobody else wants to be kind to I can find ways that get hate mail you don't return hate instead you say how can I love you better what's the best thing I can do for you the Bible says by doing this you can Heap coals of fire on people's heads that's not why we do it we do it to be more like Jesus dreaming with me what would it be like to hear the commission from the lips of Jesus go into all the world and teach them to do the things I've taught you to do then look at Jesus's life didn't look like building a church and demanding Conformity and stamping out little cookie cutter Christians what did Jesus do he searched and rescued those that the others would not talk to including the hyper religious arrogant ones sometimes we always think of the ones that church of hurt you know these people that think they know everything are hurting too and maybe they're harder to love but that's her job I think our Safe Harbor is uniquely set to live out this commission but it's going to require each of us to create Community just by love just by the way we treat each other not door to door evangelism remember door too evangelism people don't do that anymore or they shouldn't it used to be somebody knocked on the door everybody ran to see who it was we don't do that anymore we have doorbells to tell us who's there and act like we're not home we do the same with our phones I can remember my my dad used to make us go put the papers through the doors or talk to people about our church having a meeting and I I can remember one time we were on our own my dad and I and he said you take that street I'll take this street and uh talk to people if they're not there put the papers through the door well cuz you in Scotland and and Britain they have a mail slot you you push through the door so I didn't knock on doors you know I i' kind of rub them a little you know don't think they're home I remember one time I was actually bent down shoving the papers through the door when the lady opened the door and I froze she said can I help you I said hi if you just shut the door um now my dad's passed now so I can tell that story but my point is I don't know how many people we actually reach that way but we might have reached a lot back in the day where that was more acceptable I think now we reach them with love and service we're the first to greet we're the last to turn away it could be prayer teams it could be men and women's classes it could be sharing our videos with the other people it can be as we have made this copyright free so there are churches out there that were dying couldn't afford Ministries and now they use our videos and we're happy for it we haven't asked for a penny and we won't house churches clusters let's somehow let's move away from self centered Christianity and truly blossom into the mission oriented church that follows our selfless giving loving steps of Jesus the Messiah and our savior so we stand here today looking at our Messiah he's looking at us and he's asking for volunteers he'll keep his higher light burning for he is light but we're called demand the Lower Lights this will not be easy it will require laying aside our fears and here's a big one renouncing our comfort and risking ourselves on something larger far more important than our lives I want to tell a story and then we'll sing assured him and be done on a dangerous Sea Coast where shipwrecks often occurred there was once a crude little life-saving station a Hut really there was only one boat and with no thought for themselves a few tireless volunteers spent day and night searching for the lost some of those who were saved and various others in the community thought this was a wonderful thing and they wanted to become associated with that little station and so they gave their time and they gave her their money and they gave her their effort for the support of this really important work new boats were bought new C crews were trained the little life sa Saving Station grew some of the members of the life saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped they felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge for people rescued from the sea they placed the emergency CS with beds and they they said no let's get better Furniture let's enlarge the building and now the life-saving station had gone from Hut to really a nice Gathering Place a popular Gathering Place for its members and they they decorated it beautifully because it had become somewhat of a club he maybe a status symbol fewer members were actually interested in actually getting out in the boats in the sea they were um they they hired Lifeboat Crews to do that for them now the life-saving motif still prevailed in the clubs songs decorations there's even kind of a lurgical Lifeboat room in the room where the club's initiations were held and about this time another large ship wrecked off the coast and a hired Cruise brought in boatloads of all kinds of people cold wet half drowned people they were dirty and sick the beautiful new Clubhouse was in chaos so the proper property committee decided we need to build a shower unit outside the the the club where victims of shipwrecks can be cleaned up before they come inside at the next meeting there was a split among the club membership most of the members wanted to stop the life-saving activities because they were unpleasant and they're a hindrance to the normal social life of the life-saving club some members insisted on still life saving as a core part of their work they pointed out they're still called a life saving station but they were voted down and they were told if you want to do that kind of thing there's Long Beach down there you can go down and do your own so they did as the years went by the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old one it evolved into a club yet another life-saving station had to be founded history continued to repeat itself and if you visit that Sea Coast today you'll find a number of exclusive clubs all along the shore shipwrecks are still frequent in those Waters but most of the people drown I think the lesson is obvious we must be who God called us to be and at the cost of our own Comfort we have to be the Lower Lights

Channel: Our Safe Harbor Church

Views: 104

Keywords: Patrick Mead, Our Safe Harbor Church, Christianity

Id: SR5uN-3-B2A

Length: 35min 17sec (2117 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2024