Introducing Block Patterns

When I discovered Psalm 119 I did not have bipolar, I had my problems. I had my anxieties. I had my insecurities. I had my newly fitted pacemaker. I had my calling. I had my plans. I had my prayers. I had my testimony. I had my anxieties. I had my abilities. I had my boasts. I had my position as a college pastor at Kirby Woods Baptist Church. It was there that I spent the first seven years of my ministry life trying to be a good pastor. I took serious the call to preach the Bible and for the first 6 years of my ministry at KWBC I would spend 20 hours a week in my study praying for the students, reading commentaries and cross references and writing sermons that took an hour to deliver. It was in the solace of my study of Scripture that my mental health battles were first fought. I didn’t know that what I had mentally and emotionally would be clinically diagnosed as anxiety, depression, PTSD, GAD, OCD and Bipolar at different phases and stages of my life. What I had was the comforting and conforming consistency of God’s Word in my life. So when Tim Shelton preached a message from Ezra 7:10 the same week I was reading about David Livingstone memorizing Psalm 119 as an 11-year-old I remember vividly praying to God, “Lord, if you ever allow me to preach in chapel like Tim I will preach from Psalm 119:97-104. If you were to fast-forward 2 years that is precisely where I preached from from the same pulpit that Tim was standing behind that day.

The Call to Lead….I believe that this text shows us three qualities that every leader should demonstrate in their life.

1. The Call to Lead is a Call to Learn
2. The Call to Lead is a Call to Live
3. The Call to Lead is a Call to Long.

And ultimately, we will see that The Call to Lead is a Call to Love. While the author of Psalm 119 was definitely not a pastor, for no pastor existed within the Old Testament pages, we do know that he was a leader of God‘s people. The author of this psalm is believed to have been either Ezra, Daniel, or more than likely, King David. All three of these men demonstrated qualities of a Godly leader that should be desired of your next pastor.

Oh, how I love Your law, it is my meditation all the day. You through your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.

The Call to lead is a call to learn, and I want you to notice two things about learning that are essential. 1) It takes time. 2) It takes a teacher. It is my meditation all the day…wow. I don’t know if you realize what he is saying here, he is saying that God, your word is what I wake up to and your word is what I go to bed to. Lord, your Word is everything to me. Friends, if you and I are going to lead the people in our lives to follow the Lord then we must make time in God’s Word a priority in our life. Isaiah 50:4 finds the prophet declaring, Morning by morning the Lord awakens my ear to hear as the learned that I might have.a word to speak to those in a weary season.

Lord, I wake up to hear from you in Your word so that I can speak a word into their world, I don’t just read your word for me, I read it for anyone and everyone I see. I realize that something you speak to me might be the very comforting word that brings calm to their stormy season of life. I value your word for it helps the vulnerable. The weak and weary.

Friends, have you ever heard someone mock Christianity and say, “Christianity is a crutch for the weak…”. If you have heard this and gotten offended might I encourage you to take a different approach to such a statement next time. When they say it is a crutch let them know they are giving you far to much credit for your mobility in life, and Christianity isn’t a crutch for my weakness, it is a gurney upon which my life is being carried by Christ.

If it is true that God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, if it is true that His Word has the power to revive the soul, enlighten the eyes, make wise the simple, then we must spend time in His Word.

Secondly, it takes a teacher. See what the Psalmist says makes him wiser than his enemies….You, through Your commandments. Friends, if you are a child of God then the Spirit of God lives within you. And that means that the Holy Spirit of God needs to be your primary teacher in life. Friends, spend time listening to godly preachers. Spend time reading commentaries. But friends, don’t allow that to keep you from reading God’s Word directly. In fact, allow Psalm 119 to be your next devotional. If you are looking for a good devotional to read spend each morning reading 8 verses and asking God to give you a love and an appreciation for His Word the way He gave the Psalmist.

Next, the call to lead is a call to live. It is not just enough to learn the Word of God, we must also be diligent to obey the Word of God.