Gershonites Job

Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. It's where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee. Tea. Milk. Tea. We get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2024, Lord willing, we'll make it through the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, and... Genesis. Hebrews. You're silly. All right, let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Tea. Milk. Let's pray. Father we thank you so much for this day.
We rejoice in the blessing it is to get to read your word and we pray that you would teach us and help us this day in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, Numbers chapter 4 beginning at verse 21. Daniel why don't you read verse 21 and then Deborah you can read 22 through 26. And Nathan, you can read 27 and 28. It's like honey coming into my fingers. Oh yeah. Okay, Nathan.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, also take a census of the sons of Gershon by their father's house by their families from 30 years old and above even to 50 years old he shall number them all who enter to perform service to do the work in the tabernacle of meeting this is the service of the families of the Gershonites in serving and carrying. They shall carry the curtains of the tabernacle and the tabernacle of meeting with its covering, the covering of badger skins that is on it, the screen for the door of the tabernacle of meeting, the screen for the door of the gate of the court, the hangings of the court which are around the tabernacle and altar and their cords with all all the furnishings for their service and all that is made for these things so they shall share. Aaron and his sons shall assign all the service of the sons of Gershonites, all their tasks, and all their service, and you shall point to them all their tasks as their duty. This is the service of the families of the sons of Gershon in the tabernacle of men, and their duty shall be under the authority of Okay, so Levi has three sons, right? So Levi had three sons.
Kohath, number one. Gershon, number two, and Merari, number three. So the Kohathites were the ones who carried around all the most holy things. So, like all the furniture, right? The altar, and the ark, and the table, and the lampstand, all that type of stuff. I thought I would sleep. Well, so Levites are in three different groups. So you have the Levites, but this part of the Levites carries all the holy things.
Now, so that was the Kohathites, and they couldn't even look at the Ark, they couldn't look at the Table of Showbread, they couldn't look at the Altar of Incense. If they looked at any of those things, what do you think would happen? They could die, right? So now, so that's what the Kohathites would do. Now we're talking about another group of the Levites. And what group of Levites are we talking about now? The Gershonites. The Gershonites, right? Because their father was named? Gershon. Gershon. And what type of stuff are they in charge of carrying?
The, like, tents and skins. Yeah, the skins and the curtains, all the like, right, if you were to have a tent, right, you guys have gone camping with me before, you have the tent pegs and you have the tent, They have like the tent cover, and sometimes that's different for different types of tents. And then you have the inside tent, and sometimes there's even three layers of tent. Yeah, but right, so it would almost...
A little sleeping bag. That's right, so it's almost like, you know, Daniel would carry the tent itself, right, the fabric, and Nathan, in his bag, he would carry the tent poles, and Debra, in her bag, would carry the tent pegs. And Ellie would carry the sleeping bag. And dad would carry the snake. So this is God's tabernacle, but it's almost like God's massive tent. And so it takes a whole bunch of people to carry God's tabernacle.
Well, it's okay right the point is right Gershon carries all the fabric and all the all the skins Right. That's the sons of Gershon's job now Who's supposed to make sure they do this job? Well, I The priest? The priest, that's right. So Ithamar is one of Aaron's sons, and Ithamar is the manager, is the supervisor of the sons of Gershon.
Right? Do you want somebody ripping up the tabernacle curtains? Cutting holes through the badger skins? No, right? So you have a manager to make sure that these things are being taken care of well. You wanted to be the one in charge of the badger skins. Alright.
Well, what do you guys think is the best verse to underline that would summarize all this? What do you guys think? What's the best verse to summarize this? I think 27. 27? Okay. I think all the Levites and priests. All the Levites and priests? Okay. So I think I would underline verse 24. This is a service of the families of the Gershonites in serving and carrying. And then I would underline 25 too. They shall carry the curtains of the tabernacle and the tabernacle of meeting with its covering. And then all the other coverings, blah, blah, blah. And then you'd also underline 27. Nope, just 24 and 25. Alright, well what do you guys think?
How does this point us to anything today in our lives? What are we called to do? Serve God. We each have a purpose in the church. That's right, we have a purpose in the church, right? We serve Him. What are some ways that you serve God in the church today?
You have to wash the tables, take your plate off. Yeah, is that a small job? Yeah, but they can trust you with everything. Yeah, right. So you have a job, right? People need you to help wash down tables and clean things off. Good. What's a service that you do every week? I set up the audio and video. Yeah, you help set up the audio and video, right? Is that a big service to the Lord? Absolutely. What type of things can you help serve with at the church?
I pick the seat You pick the seat every week, that's right. You choose which pew you're going to sit in. And she, most times, always picks the seat that people are. Yeah, but it's okay. So Debra, normally what you do is you cut the bulletin inserts in half, don't you? And you help stuff them into the bulletins.
That's a service, and there's no small service. Everybody is important in the church. Everybody's got their part to play. Right, and so your service in the church, does God say, ah, that's not important, I don't care about that. They can trust you with bigger things. They can trust you with more power in the seat. Yeah, someday they may trust you with bigger things, that's right. But the point is, right, does the Lord take notice of these things? Yeah. And is He glorified as we serve Him? Yeah. That's right, so whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, even serving in the church, we can do it to the glory of God. Yes.
Um, there was like this story of a Bible man. A Bible man? And, um, and one, somebody picked somebody and they turned down the thing that I was reading. pretty and then when they put rope down another guy, they didn't put rope on the guy that tore down the city because then the guy that tore down the city, that put the rafters in the thing said, um, said, why do I not have a rope? And then the guy said, Because you put webs in the city. He didn't get any.
Yeah, that's right. Okay, so we each have a part to play in the church, right? Okay. All right, let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you so much that because you have adopted us into your family, you have called us to be priests, a nation of priests, a holy priesthood. Lord, we pray that you would please, as you have given us a place to play, whether it's an encourager or whether It's a worker or whether it's somebody carrying things or cleaning things Lord, we pray that we would do all to your glory Help us Lord to do it with a cheerful heart in Jesus's name. Amen Well, may God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and we'll see you next time. You guys wanna say bye? Bye!
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.