Monthly Archives: August 2010

Psalm 48:1-3

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised

in the city of our God.

His holy mountain,2 beautiful in elevation,

is the joy of all the earth,

Mount Zion, in the far north,

the city of the great King.

3 Within its citadels God

has shown himself a sure defense.

Within the citadels of the great city God has made Himself known. The church of Jesus Christ, the people of God, is the dwelling place of God. He inhabits His people. He lives where they are. The church is the current city of God. There is a city being built that will be the future abode of the righteous, but it is valid to call the church the city of God today. In the city of God, in the church, God is to be praised. This takes us right to Romans 12:1-2:

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The people of God are to be different from those who are not the people of God. That different life, lived for God, is worship. Christians are to be a worshippers in all they do. To get involved in the behaviour and thinking of those outside the city is to betray our God. It may indicate that we are not citizens of the city at all. God is to be greatly praised in the behaviour of His people. Our worship together, when that happens, is to be from our hearts, genuine, heart felt, true.

We can do this because God has revealed Himself to us. He has done all that is required for us to praise Him. We will praise Him when we get a grip on the Gospel of grace. The picture in the Psalm is one of God providing protection for His people in the city. He is their defense (verse 3). When the kings of the earth came to conquer they fled because of the power and defenses they encountered. They knew better than to try to mess with that city (verses 4-8). The thing that drove them off was the obvious truth that this city could not be taken.

How far has the church drifted from such a perception in the eyes of the world? Will those who seek to influence the world with their philosophies and behaviour not bother with believers in Jesus Christ because of their obvious praise of God?

James tells us to resist the devil and he will flee from us. What would make him flee? The sight of God being praised and citadels built by God. Can the tempter and those he uses say about us: “It is no use trying to make them dessert their God. God is in them and we cannot win.” The usual response to this is for someone to say, “But we all sin. We all fall.” True, but we never excuse it and we do not use our sin as the default position.

And we also do not focus on ourselves. The kings of the earth do not flee from the city because of its inhabitants, but because of its defenses. God is our defense. Jesus dwells within us. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit. It is God at work in us and for us that will make the enemy flee. Of course he can destroy us. But He cannot destroy the One who has called us and saved us and who lives within as our sure defense.

Christianity is not “I think I can , I think I can.” It is “I know He will, I know He will.” And this is what enables us to live in holiness.

Then why do we fall? Because we dessert the God who lives within. We do not revel in the Gospel. We do not tap into the power that is there for us. We try to do everything alone and not with others believers. And that makes God look pretty weak and needing help Himself. Our testimony is about the God we serve.

We need to remember that the One who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. And we need to prove it by relying on Him daily for the strength and protection that He gives to all those who are His.

Luke 6:12-16

12 Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, 16 and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Jesus is about to finalize His choice of twelve Apostles. And before He does He spends the whole night in prayer. Why? Did He need to find out who to choose? Was it a matter of not knowing who to decide between Peter and some other man that came close to making the mark but Peter outscored him? Was it to find out God’s will? Was Jesus confused regarding what to do, who to choose? None of these things are possible. Jesus wasn’t confused about who to get to help Him and who the founders of the church would be and who His betrayer would be.

He is praying for them. He is, I think, praying that they will learn and grow and understand what He will teach them over the next couple of years. He is praying that they be filled with the Spirit, faithful, godly, holy men of God who will be saved by grace and preach that grace and start a work that will blossom into the fulfilment of all that Jesus cam to accomplish. He is praying for God to be glorified through them. He prays all night and what He prayed is not told to us and the little bit of speculation about what He did pray is not meant to go into places where God has forbidden entrance.

But hear Jesus on other occasions regarding prayer. In the Lord’s Prayer it is the name, the kingdom and the will of God that is prayed for; that his name be hallowed, His kingdom come and His will accomplished. In the garden the night He was betrayed He prayed that God’s will be done. He prayed that Peter’s faith not fail. He commanded that prayer be made for our needs to be met, that sin not gain the upper hand in our lives and that we be forgiving people.

In John 17 He prayed that God would glorify Him and grant eternal life to His chosen ones and that believers glorify Him and that we be united. I do not think that it is too much to conclude from the various examples we have of Jesus prayer life and teaching about prayer that He prayed similar things here before He chose the twelve.

But the most striking thing about this all night prayer vigil is that Jesus partook of it at all. Who less needed to pray all night than the Lord Jesus Christ? And yet, who prayed more? The point is a simple one and it has been made countless thousands of times but here it is anyway: if the sinless, eternal, equal with God, Son of God saw fit to spend great swaths of time in prayer how much more should we?

It is nothing less than shameful how little we see the need for prayer. And it is even more so when we see what it is that keeps us from praying. The schedule, the things that need to get done, forgetfulness, interruptions … .

This is particularly true of those who have committed themselves to serving Jesus Christ as church leaders, missionaries, para-church leaders etc. We are so busy doing a work for God that we find little time for spending time with God. This reflects a horrible misplacement of values. Going at a work for God without having prayed sufficiently is a message that we give, loud and clear, that the most important things about our work is us and the work we do. We do not need to pray more, we need to do something, is how we seem to think. Like the church secretary who comes into the pastor’s office to find him praying and says “O good, you’re not busy”.

God can make rocks do the work that He calls us to do. The crucial element in our service to God is not us. It is Him and what He will accomplish through the little nothings that we are. We are saved and kept by free, sovereign, predestinating love. That should send us to our knees to pray that God’s name be hallowed, His will be done and His kingdom come to earth. It should make us seek Him to keep the evil one from sifting us like wheat. It should make us to pray that God be glorified in all we do; that He increase and we decrease. It should make us to pray, from time to time, all night, when we are embarking on significant works where those qualities will be most tempted to leave us and we get full of ourselves. We couldn’t have a better example that this is what we should do.

First, there was this video published on You Tube about anti-gay preaching on a Toronto street.

Then there was the reaction by many people at what they thought was happening.

Then there was this report by the Toronto Star and this by the National Post.

It’s more a study in human psychology than a debate about the Gospel. But if the two newspaper reports can be trusted and if the people they interviewed were being truthful, it seems that the charge of “homophobia” was hugely overblown and simply untrue. Whether this is the best way to evangelize in our post modern world is another matter. It might be. It might not. The whole thing gets bogged down in who has the right to do what they want to do. And that is not where the debate should end up.

One question that comes up is if this is a legitimate way to evangelize why aren’t more Christians doing it? If it is not what God wants us to do, why were they at it? Do I not do this simply because it would make me uncomfortable? I have to confess that it is not my style and I would not promote it for our church.  My mother’s words come screaming in my head “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”. If we criticize this church for doing what they are doing can we give alternative approaches that we are doing that are better? The “just leave me alone and let me go to church if I want to” is not the advice we should follow. But how should we seek to reach our communities with the Gospel? Was this church’s manner less than Christian? Is mine?

Lots of thoughts to mull over.

Psalm 30:8-10

To you, O Lord, I cried,

and to the Lord I made supplication:

9 “What profit is there in my death,

if I go down to the Pit?

Will the dust praise you?

Will it tell of your faithfulness?

10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!

O Lord, be my helper!”

This is part of Psalm 30, a Psalm that David wrote for the eventual dedication of the temple that he had hoped he could build but which the Lord had reserved for Solomon to do. David envisions these words being sung as part of the worship that will be offered when the temple is dedicated. And who knows? Perhaps they were.

This hymn makes a request of God that he preserve the life of the one singing it. But it is the reason for preserving it that grabs our attention. If God lets the singer die then there will be one less voice to sing the praises of God to a world that needs to hear of Him. God does not need us. If He should, in His wisdom, take me from life today He would not lose souls that He had intended to save because of my witness. But God has made us to be for the praise of His glory. If we die today then there will be fewer voices to do that for which we were made. Right?

If you die today will there be one less voice singing the praises of God tonight on planet earth? If you were in a near death situation would you be able to pray for your life to be preserved because your absence would mean there would be people who would not hear of the wonders of the God we serve? Can you say with David “What profit is there in my death?” What a glorious testimony! Lord, let me live, for you know that the world will not be a better place without me.

Live in such a way that you can truthfully say this. And do not say it in the way that the godless can. Any number of people can say out of the pride of their own hearts that this world would be worse off if they weren’t here. But they cannot say that the reason would be because God is less praised in their absence. They can pat themselves on the back and claim they are something but their self evaluation is self focussed. The believer in Jesus Christ is the one who can say that the reason he is a valuable contributor to good in the world is the grace of God at work in him in all he does. In my work, my parenting, my marriage, my worship, God is praised.

What are your life goals? If they do not line up with the purposes that God has called you for then you cannot pray the prayer of David. Do whatever your hand finds to do with all your might for His glory because you know that’s what you have the ability to do it for. Live today like God has preserved your life for you to live it for Him. Because He has.

Psalm 34:18 – The Lord is near to the brokenhearted

The Lord is near the brokenhearted, but does He unbreak their hearts? This is not a question asked from doubt or anger or fear or heresy. It is asked from curiosity and the knowledge that there are a great number of broken hearted believers.

Does this verse mean that they have little faith? Does it mean that a walk with God takes all our inner pain away? It cannot mean that when a loved one dies we do not have a broken heart. Paul knew broken hearetedness. David knew it big time.

Many think the meaning of this verse, and others hope it means, that God takes away the brokenness of our hearts. Well, He takes away the meaninglessness of the broken heart. He takes away the hopelessness of loss when the heart gets broken. He takes away the isolation that comes through loss. But does He remove the broken heart? He didn’t remove Jesus’.

The person who maintains that their heart is not broken when a spouse, parent, sibling, child, friend dies, or when some other tragedy strikes, is not a well person and is probably putting on a front to make the presence of God something that it is not and was never meant to be.

If I do not have a broken heart over some of my suffering; if I do not have a broken heart over the estate of the lost, the living conditions of the poor, the abuse and cruelty and self righteousness and godlessness in the world then I am less than a real human being. Stoicism is for stoics, but it is no Christian aspiration.

The problem with many Christians is not too much emotion. It is misplaced passions. The passionate broken hearted rejoice even when they are broken hearted because they know that God can bring good out of it and He wasn’t sleeping when the thing occurred. They can rejoice because they are human and God has promised to end the sorrow someday, but not yet. If our hearts are never broken then we are living in denial of the fall and all its consequences. God is with the broken hearted, but He does not unbreak the heart. He wouldn’t be that heartless and unloving to His children.

We do not need to try to pretend that our hearts are not ever broken. We need to be in the world to live in the hope that God provides and seek to alleviate the broken hearts that abound all around us – because we know what it’s like to endure such hearts ourselves.

Jeremiah 27:1-6 – In the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord. 2 Thus the Lord said to me: Make yourself a yoke of straps and bars, and put them on your neck. 3 Send word to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the Ammonites, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon by the hand of the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to King Zedekiah of Judah. 4 Give them this charge for their masters: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: This is what you shall say to your masters: 5 It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the people and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever I please. 6 Now I have given all these lands into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him even the wild animals of the field to serve him. 7 All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.

God gives Jeremiah a message to deliver to the kingdoms of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. None of these kingdoms were Jewish. They were not part of the Abrahamic covenant. They were Gentile and some of them were the enemies of Israel. At one point all of them had been the enemies of Israel. The message that Jeremiah is to give to them is the same one that he has been giving to his own countrymen: Do not resist the Babylonian insurgence. It is from God and it will only go worse for you if you fight against them.

What was the response of these countries? We are not told. No doubt many would have laughed at Jeremiah. Perhaps he was threatened as he had been in Israel. Why should these countries who serve other gods listen to a prophet from a two bit nation that is in danger just like they were? Because God is the God of all the nations, regardless of their beliefs and regardless of their response to His messengers.

There is only one God and His expectations from those who do not acknowledge Him are the very same as the ones He has for those who do. This message to these nations is a precursor to the Gospel. There is a message from God of impending judgement. There is also a message of grace. If you hear Him and acknowledge Him and obey Him you will live. Do not listen to the messages from other so called gods. They cannot speak. The One true God who is is speaking and you should be grateful and you should listen.

We live in a time when it is considered extremely rude and very arrogant to say that what one believes is better than what others believe. All religions have their truth and to say that there is only one and it is yours is to be guilty of the worst kind of chauvinism. And without getting into all the arguments about how to respond to that we say this: there is only one God and the account of Jeremiah receiving a message from him for the non believing countries around Israel is a testimony of His mercy and His grace. As believers we believe that the whole world is under the sovereign rulership of the One True God and that He mercifully holds out His hands with the free offer of the Gospel to all peoples.

God has given us the job of delivering the Gospel to others. Jeremiah was faithful to what God told him to do. We are not told this account just so that we will be amazed at Jeremiah or the nations or the opposition he faced. We are told this so that we will remember that we too have a calling and we are under just as much obligation to obey as Jeremiah was, even if it costs us our lives, as it cost Jeremiah’s his. We have a great message. This message does include news of judgement. But it is even more a message of grace and life and a living relationship with the only God there is. Let us deliver it to all whom God puts in our path who will give us audience.

Psalm 27:1-6

1The Lord is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

the Lord is the stronghold of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When evildoers assail me

to devour my flesh—

my adversaries and foes—

they shall stumble and fall.

3 Though an army encamp against me,

my heart shall not fear;

though war rise up against me,

yet I will be confident.

4 One thing I asked of the Lord,

that will I seek after:

to live in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to behold the beauty of the Lord,

and to inquire in his temple.

5For he will hide me in his shelter

in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

he will lift me high upon a rock.

6And now my head shall be lifted up

above my enemies all around me,

and I will offer in his tent

sacrifices with shouts of joy;

I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

It seems that David, in the circumstances that caused Psalm 27 to be written, has taken himself to pray and his prayer has been that if his life be lost, he would dwell with the Lord in His temple.

At the very least we can conclude this from that. No matter what the trouble, we are to keep an eternal perspective.

Believers in Jesus Christ are not fatalists. We do not go into dangerous situations with the belief that it does not matter what happens, or that we are not to try to stop evil things from happening. But we do go into them with the belief that no matter what does happen, we are safe. If we define safe as a long and prosperous life we will be very disappointed. But we believe that this life is not the end. We believe that the purpose of life is the glory of God and that He will be eternally glorified in the new heavens and new earth and until them He is glorified perfectly in heaven and faithfully on earth by His children.

God will realize His purposes in us. He created us, saved us, called us to our calling, for the praise of His glory. We need not fear what men can do to us. God is going to see to it that we give Him glory – in our living or in our dying; in our ease or in our hardships; in our health or in our sickness; in our wealth or in our poverty. Though a host should surround us,(and that could be poverty, sickness, enemies, mental affliction or other such things) we need not fear. We will either glorify Him in a victory of some kind or we will glorify Him in failure or death. In either case, we cannot lose.

It is easy to forget this. So we need to do what David does in this Psalm. He rehearses it to himself. Verse 1 he says that he will not fear even though a host of bad things happen to him as outlined in verses 2-4. Beginning in verse 5 David starts recalling to his memory what God has promised him. Note the tense of verse 5. It is all future. He will hide me. He will conceal me. He will lift me. These are things that have not happened yet, but since God has said them he knows they are true. Verse 6 is the result of believing the promise. Since God has promised then I shall be strong.

It is a beautiful thing to read. God has made very great and precious promises to all of His children. They will all be kept. What therefore shall we fear? And what shall our prayer be when the circumstances of life are so severe that death is certain? “Oh that I might dwell in the presence of my God.” This is what grace accomplishes in the faithful. This is what the world needs to see. This is a testimony of real faith in a real God who does much more for us than simply save us from trouble in this life.

Luke 4:42 – 44 At daybreak he departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowds were looking for him; and when they reached him, they wanted to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.” 44 So he continued proclaiming the message in the synagogues of Judea.

Look carefully at this piece of Scripture. The people wanted to prevent Jesus from leaving them. They did not care that Jesus could do for others what He had been doing for them. They had Him and they wanted to keep them.

This is understandable. He healed and preached with authority. He made the Scriptures make sense. He ate with them. There is nothing about His teaching or behaviour that is faulty. And now He is about to leave? No!!

But they had to be told that what He was and who He was, was for all people, not just for them. Note Jesus’ reasoning. It boils down to God’s will. “For I was sent for this purpose”. God’s will. Jesus knew why He was here and nothing was going to disturb that, not the love of others, not popularity, not ease of ministry. He was heading for the cross from the very beginning, even before He even made that His destination (See 9:52). And He had other people to minister to before that took place.

We have Jesus. It is a wonder to be able to say that. He came for us. He lived for us. He died for us. He is preparing a place for us … The benefits are many and varied. And it is understandable to want to keep Him to ourselves. And many Christians do.

But Jesus came to save the world and He has told us that we are a part of that. To keep Jesus to ourselves is rank disobedience. It is the child who screams “That’s mine and you can’t have it!!”. If Jesus is as wonderful as we say He is, and He is, then we should want others to have the benefits. It is one of the signs that we really do have Him.

Psalm 21

1O LORD, in your strength the king rejoices,

and in your salvation how greatly he exults!

2You have given him his heart’s desire

and have not withheld the request of his lips.

Selah

3For you meet him with rich blessings;

you set a crown of fine gold upon his head.

4He asked life of you; you gave it to him,

length of days forever and ever.

5His glory is great through your salvation;

splendor and majesty you bestow on him.

6For you make him most blessed forever;

you make him glad with the joy of your presence.

7For the king trusts in the LORD,

and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be moved.

8Your hand will find out all your enemies;

your right hand will find out those who hate you.

9You will make them as a blazing oven

when you appear.

The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath,

and fire will consume them.

10You will destroy their descendants from the earth,

and their offspring from among the children of man.

11Though they plan evil against you,

though they devise mischief, they will not succeed.

12For you will put them to flight;

you will aim at their faces with your bows.

13Be exalted, O LORD, in your strength!

We will sing and praise your power.

David, the King, has asked for victory and God has granted it. And David is not slow to thank God for doing so. Going into battle, David knew that the outcome was not a matter of arms or strategy or the number of chariots and horses (see Psalm 20:7f). Now that the victory has been won David is not reluctant to thank the God He asked help from. It is a great lesson. How many people are more than willing, yes, even desperate to call upon God when they are in some calamity, but as soon as the trouble is over, forget that they were ever so desperate as to call upon Him in the first place?

Think of the 9/11 tragedy. For weeks after, churches and other places of worship were full of petitioners seeking God to help and thanking God for sparing them. Yes, there were calls about why a loving God would do such a thing but there was also a great resurgence in religion. People were afraid, desperate, lost.

As time went on, however, the interest in God seemed to die away. Churches did not stay full and things went back to normal. Even though the horses and chariots of the greatest power on earth had failed, the conclusion seemed to be that all that was needed was a different type of horse and a better equipped chariot.

Answered prayers are an act of great grace upon a helpless and undeserving people. Our prayers are answered not because we are holy, or better behaved or more ethical. Our prayers are answered because we come to the eternal God who is, through His Son, on the basis of His death and resurrection for us and His eternal intercession for us as eternal High Priest who is our great Mediator. His righteousness has been credited to us and we are heard not because of our holiness, but because of His. There can be no greater love than this.

But when we are in trouble and call out to God we need to remember that we are able to be heard because of Jesus. To forget God after the crisis is past is to say that we no longer need Him.

God is not a crisis intervention plan. Without Him we can do nothing and we have His help because of His love. Those who do not know Him are not heard except for the general benevolence of God. They can easily forget because they have no inner resource to enable them to remember. They have nowhere to go except back to their chariots and horses.

Part of the church’s work is to convince them of the fruitlessness of such a task. To keep going back to that which cannot satisfy is a most pathetic thing. We have better and we should tell them of it.

And they should be able to tell without much convincing that we indeed do trust something better than what the world can give. And we, like David should be filled with praise to our great God who is worthy of all the praise for His is all the power.