A Rhetorical Question

We start worship this morning with:

Psalm 121:1-2

A SONG OF ASCENTS.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

From where does my help come?

My help comes from the LORD,

who made heaven and earth.

Psalms of Ascent were sung by pilgrims to Jerusalem as they would approach the city from one of the three valleys that surround and divide Mount Zion and Mount Moriah.

Mount Zion, the upper city, and Mount Moriah, the location of the temple, must have been impressive.  But the Psalm does not admire their strength or the beauty of their pools.

Instead it asks a rhetorical question.  “Where does my help come?”.

The answer is neither.  Our help comes from the LORD!

For outside the city lay another hill — Golgotha.

That Day

 To begin our worship today, we have been given:

Isaiah 12:2

“Behold, God is my salvation;

I will trust, and will not be afraid;

for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song,

and he has become my salvation.”

This year I am studying the book of Job.  Job lived before the revelation of the Gospel.  His struggle is best heard in:

Job 9:33 (NIV)

If only there were someone to mediate between us,

    someone to bring us together,

But our verse today is not about the advent of the Gospel.  Nor is it about the time when we came to personal faith in that Gospel. Rather it is about a specific day, called “that day”:

Isaiah 12:1

The LORD Is My Strength and My Song

You will say in that day:

“I will give thanks to you, O LORD,

for though you were angry with me,

your anger turned away,

that you might comfort me.

It is about the day of wrath, on which the wicked are destroyed and the remnant is preserved (Read Isaiah 11 to enjoy the experience).

But to start our worship today, understand this — that we too are wicked, deserving of that same wrath. But on that day the wrath will be turned away.

No Hand

 In preparation for worship, this week we are once again asked to meditate on:

Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Last time we concentrated on how sharp the tool was and its ability to separate what is inseparable (See “The Right Tool”).  But in calling it a tool, an unfortunate emphasis was given to us as the one wielding the sword.

We did not emphasize sufficiently that it is living (zaō) and it is doing the piercing (diikneomai).  This tool does not require a hand.  It requires only an ear and those willing to scatter the seed of a well spoken word.

A long time ago, I had the privilege of meeting and speaking with Joe Coughlin the founder of Christian Service Brigade.  That afternoon we read together:

Ezekiel 33:6-7

But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.

“So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me.

Speak the word with clarity and love.  Then let the Word do its work. 

Blessed

This week we are asked to meditate on a pivotal passage: 

Matthew 25:31-34

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

We have all been through these moments. Will I be chosen?  Did I do well enough?  Am I prepared?  Year end reviews.  Layoffs.  The Varsity team. College acceptance. Marriage proposal. Final exams.

But wait.  There is something different about this selection. Look again, what makes the sheep different from the goat?

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father”

It is not about what I have earned or contributed. It is about God’s blessing. When did this occur?

“prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

This choice was made in eternity past. 

“inherit the kingdom”

The choice was made in eternity past that our Lord Jesus Christ would die for me!

In fact, all the Beatitudes are written in this past tense.

Matthew 5:7

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Does this mean I don’t have to do anything?  No!  It just means that what you do, is because of what God did.

Worship takes work

In preparation for worship this morning, we are asked to meditate on:

Matthew 7:7-8
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

First, lets step into the time frame.  Keys were not commonplace.  Doors were attended.  When you knocked, someone would let you in.

Now, what are we looking for?  The verse is sandwiched between two other passages:

Matthew 7:6

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

and

Matthew 7:9-11

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

So what one is requesting, seeking, or entering into is "holy".  But please notice that being holy is not a requirement placed on those who ask or receive.  We are, in fact, called "evil".

Instead, the requirement is action.  

"I am not getting much out of our church/the sermon/my Bible" is said by someone who is passive.  

James famously said "Faith without works is dead".  He heard it here first.

Verklempt

At we approach worship today we are asked to reflect on:

1 Samuel 2:9

“He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,

    but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness,

    for not by might shall a man prevail."

This verse divides the world between "his faithful ones" and the "wicked".  There is nothing in-between.  One is "guarded" and the other is "cut off" in darkness:

• The word for "cut off" (damam) is the sound one makes when too shocked to speak intelligently ("Verklempt" might be a good modern Yidish equivalent).  
• The word for "guard" (shamar) is first used in scripture for the job that God assigned to man.  That to keep the garden.

Imagine please the mighty man that suddenly finds that the might, on which he depended, was suddenly overpowered and insufficient.  This could be a robber coming from a dark corner, the doctor speaking the dreaded diagnosis, or unseen virus claiming a loved one.

It is hard for a mighty man to accept what a farmer knows.  That your success is dependent on God.  And, yes, if you were wondering, we are the seed!  

Enjoy being planted.

The Kindness of the Hangman

This week we are asked to meditate on:

Psalm 96:9-10

Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth! Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.”

This verse is a command to us that we are to worship. But the Psalmist is specific as to where it should occur. It should occur among the nations (“heathen” in the KJV). 

This morning as we gather to worship we only do half this task. Yes we will stand before the Lord draped in the holiness of Christ. Wonderful songs will praise Him. But, no one else will hear. 

• As we worship the Lord during these unsettled times our message to the world should be that God is in charge. Nothing that is occurring is outside His control. 

• During these times of racial unrest our message to the world should be that God will judge with equity. 

Speak this message to your unsaved friends. Don’t have any?  Make some. 

This past week Robyn and I ate out and befriended a man who sat near us. His name is Dexter Ford, a former writer for the New York Times.  As the conversation turned toward Christ, he declared himself not religious and for a reason he directed me to the Book of Judges and to the story of Jephthah!  He could not understand why God would require Jephthah to sacrifice his own daughter. Not prepared to speak on Jephthah, I offered to look into it and get back to him.

He continued the conversation, by offering his book, “The Generosity of the Hangman”.  His optometrist was a survivor of the Holocaust and Dexter wrote down this first person account of the atrocities of Kristallnacht, the ghetto of Łódź,  Auschwitz, and Buchenwald. I am almost finished reading the book.

Dexter and I are now friends on Facebook. I have been able to explain that Jephthah made a completely unnecessary vow with God to ensure his own victory. It was a foolish mistake and unlike a victor’s history, which erases mistakes, the Bible includes them and as such it is to be believed. 

God is in charge and will judge with equity.

The Right Tool

In preparation for worship, this week we are asked to meditate on:

Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The writer of Hebrews is describing a tool.  It is a very sharp tool that is capable of dividing things that normally cannot be separated.  

• Our soul and our spirit

They are so tied together that we stumble to describe them separately.   The soul (psychē) is our essence separate and distinct from the body.  Our spirit (pneuma) is what brings life to that body.  It is the source.

• Our joint and our marrow 

They are part of the same bone.  Notice please that the writer did not say that it was able to do the simple thing of separating bone from bone at the joint.  This sword is able to separate the life giving marrow that is inside the bone from what is on the surface.

• Our thoughts and our intentions

Our thoughts are the results of our intentions.  Like the other two pairs, intentions (ennoia) is the source.

Ok, so we have a sharp tool.  What do we do with it?  Let's go back a few verses to understand its purpose.

Hebrews 4:1

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

Hebrews 4:6

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 

Hebrews 4:11 

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

What is this disobedience (apeitheia)?  It is deep.  It is obstinate opposition to God's will. It is the root of sin.  

Fortunately for us, we have the right tool.

United heart

This week we are asked to meditate on:

Psalm 86:11–12

Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.

Often we are told to strengthen or purify our heart.  But here, and only here, we are told to unite it and that doing so we might fear God.  But we not asked to unite it with something, we are asked to bring it together as one (yachad).

My office is a matrixed world.  I have people working for me from 5 different managers, and they from multiple organizations.  There would be chaos of cross purposes if there was not an agreed upon goal.  This week I will be producing reports of individual velocity of the work these individuals have accomplished that are part of that goal.  Those reports will be used by their managers in their mid-year review.  We are united.

Is your heart united?  In this harried world, is your heart united?  How is this done?  The Psalmist cries out "Teach me your way, O Lord".  He longs to walk in God's truth.

Notice please that the walk is not a destination, but a path.  He does not cry out to locate an elusive and hidden secret truth.  He asks to be taught how to walk in the path of truth ('emeth).  The word describes it as "peace and stability".

Notice also that it is not "isolation and tranquility".  It is "peace and stability".  We do not walk alone.  As socially distant we are currently to be, we are called to bring peace and stability to every conversation -- every time.  But how?  It is so easy to get off the path.

Witness this week.  I got a call from one my folks at work.  He asked the dreaded question "Why?".  Out of dozens of people I had excluded one person, a teammate of his, from a required assignment.  It was simply not fair.  This innate need for justice makes the following verse of the clearest maps of this path:

Micah 6:8 

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Yet I will rejoice

This week we are asked to meditate on:

Habakkuk 2:14

For the earth will be filled

    with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord

    as the waters cover the sea.

So two parallels are being constructed: one between the earth and the sea and one between the glory of the Lord and the water.  Be careful not to confuse the two.  The focus is not that the water fails to cover the entire earth, but rather that the water so completely and so deeply covers the sea.

Also be careful to recognize the time.  The focus was not the present but rather the future.  This prophet was in the midst of the terror that was the Babylonians.  This verse is in the midst of four woes that condemned their actions.  He was not speaking from the lofty mountain of success but from the deepest valley of turmoil.  The time at which he prophesied was full of uncertainty.

Despite that Habakkuk spoke with absolute certainty about what was to come.  That the glory of man is temporary, that the voices of the idols are silent, and that salvation would come from the Lord.

And it is that salvation that will bring glory to the Lord.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

    nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

    and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

    and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

    he makes my feet like the deer's;

    he makes me tread on my high places.

In the deepest valleys there are even deeper rivers that flow to even deeper seas, none of which are sufficient to hold the glory of our Lord.

Love that is not blind

Today we are asked to meditate on:

1 Peter 1:8

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,

Having three daughters and a wife I have seen more than my fair share of romantic comedies. A common theme is that love blinds one to the actions of the other and as it fades the habits and quirks surface. 

Our verse today is quite different. We don’t get to see the object of our love and that sightless love rather than being blind is filled with joy that, though inexpressible, is “glorified”.  This verb is the word from which we get “doxology” and is past tense. Some translations add the word “full” to express the completeness. 

The object of the verb, however, is not God. Our joy is itself glorified. That is to say it has, like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, been glorified.  It has been transported from this earthly realm to its celestial home.  It has become what we will experience in eternity. 

Rest assured that this joy will not fade when our faith is replaced by sight.