“Delight in the Lord” (Psalm 37:1-11)

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, February 24, 2019

            I am in my bedroom and it’s close to my daughter’s bed time.  She walks in and lays on my bed.  I ask if she has brushed her teeth.  She giggles.  I put my index finger right at her collar bone, one of her tickle spots.  She scrunches her neck down so I can’t get my finger in there.  And she laughs.  Then, I softly poke her belly, another tickle spot.  Giggling, she tenses her body up.  I ask, “Do you want me to stop?”  If she says, “Yes,” then I stop.  I want her to feel like if she tells a guy to stop doing something, then he will.  I want her to expect to be respected.  And on this occasion, she does tell me to stop.  But, very quickly she says, “No, go ahead.”  And I tickle her neck.  Earnestly she says, “Tickle me.”  And I tickle her belly.  And we laugh and laugh.  What is better than going to bed laughing?

            In this nightly routine,  I am delighting in my daughter and she is delighting in time spent with me.  In the first stanza of Psalm 37:4 the psalmist says, “Take delight in the Lord.”  The Psalm opens commanding us not to fret, not to worry about the success evil people seem to have. Though the wicked prosper now, verse 9 says they will be cut off from God.  The blessing comes to those who wait for the Lord.

            After the opening “do not fret, do not be envious,” beginning in verse 3, a series of positive commands are given.  Opposite the “do nots,” these are verbs telling us what to do, how to live.  “Trust in the Lord.”  “Take delight in the Lord.”  “Commit your way to the Lord.”  “Be still before the Lord.” These positive commands set our daily approach to life, both our actions and our attitudes.  For me “delight” in the Lord is a wonderful entry point into the deeper call of God in this Psalm.  When my daughter and I are deep into the tickle belly laughing, it is easy and natural for her to trust me.  She’s more willing later to be still while I read the Bible to her and read other books to her.  And she falls to sleep feeling safe, surrounded by a family who loves her. 

            If delighting in my child involves tickling my daughter, or a throwing a football around with my younger son, or going to an movie with my older son, what does delighting in the Lord look like?  What does it look like when a Christian experiences  unrestrained pleasure in his relationship with God? 

Here are a few experiences I have had.  First, a sunrise.  Imagine a cool morning that slowly becomes a sunny, warm day.  At dawn, the dark of the night, gives ways to shadows, early gray light, and then after that, the muted colors of early morning that burst into glorious golds, greens, and blues when the sun triumphantly comes over the horizon and gleams through the treetops.  If I am outside walking on a morning like that, I see God in the awakening colors.  I hear God in the sweet chatter of birdsong.  I feel God in the cool, crisp air on my arms and face.  In that moment, I am delighting in God. 

Another, very different example comes when I am stressing out because I am in the middle of trying to overcome difficulties.  At first, I don’t heed the initial command in this Psalm.  The very first words are “Do not fret.”  But I do.  Instead of praying, I talk and worry and fret.  Now, how in the world does this lead up to delighting in the Lord?  What happens is, I will find a Bible passage that helps me see God.  It hits me, and I want to read it over and over.  I want to read it to other people.  I pray it.  I pray the words of the scripture as my prayer and I pray the meaning of the scripture into my life.  For example, recently, as I have dealt with challenges, Colossians 3 has become my lifeline.  “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. ... Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” (3:12, 15).  I meet God in His word, and the pressures life has imposed melt away. I delight in my Father who is there for me, always making me new.

I mentioned the way God speaks to me through nature in the early morning, the thrill of meeting God in the pages of the Bible; to that I could add the bliss of receiving grace while resting, or the peace that comes when I listen, over and over, to certain songs by David Crowder or Mandisa.  In these and in countless of other ways, I am assured of my relationship with God.  The relationship becomes tangible and I know what it means to say, “I delight in God, God the Father, my Savior the Son, and the ever present Holy Spirit.”

Then Psalm 37:3, “trust in the Lord,” makes sense.  Of course I trust in God.  God has already shown Himself to me and shown me my own self cast in His light.  I see myself more clearly when I see myself in relation to God.  I trust God.

I also, as verse 5 commands, commit my way to God.  What other way is there?  When I commit my way, my life has direction.  I do not just fumble along  from weekend to weekend and paycheck to paycheck.  My life has meaning.  I am God’s possession.  I exist to bring God glory and help others find salvation in Jesus.  But it’s not because I am pastor.  These commands - trust, delight, and commit - are extended to everyone who opens Psalm 37 and reads it as holy scripture.  These are commands and maybe our sense of individual autonomy causes us to recoil at such a directive.  But these commands serve to invite us to walk in relationship with the God who loves us.  

The fourth command, in verse 7, sets our story.  If “delight in the Lord” is where I enter this story, then verse 7, “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” declares the world in which we live.  We live at God’s initiative, bound for the Kingdom Jesus announced.  We live for God’s pleasure.  Because we have delighted in God, we are ready to be still and wait on the Lord.

In the world, as it is today, we have to grasp and strive.  Go out aggressively and get a job.  Work hard to be first.  Put others behind you in class rankings, in a race, in securing the promotion, in gaining the position in line at the store, or the parking space at the hot restaurant. Competition has its place and even in faith there are times when we need to assertively take initiative in our living out faith.  But the command “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” reminds us to be balanced in our thinking.  The good things we have, the very best things in life, are gifts from God. 

We don’t grab gifts.  We gratefully receive them.  The Kingdom of God is inherited, not taken by force.  An inheritance is something we receive as a result of another’s extreme generosity.  Psalm 37:11 says, “The meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”  Does that passage at all sound familiar?

Jesus alluded to this Psalm when he gave the sermon on the mount.  In the opening of that sermon, that passage from the early verses of Matthew 5 we call “The Beatitudes,” Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”  He doesn’t mean blessed are the weak.  He says meek, with an ‘M.’  We are all weak in different ways.  And we are all in the same way in that none of us can stop sinning by our own will power.  We need the Holy Spirit.  But, as a spiritual practice and as a step of obedience, we can choose to be meek.  And we must.  We can choose to wait patiently upon the Lord, and when the Lord gives blessing, gratefully receive and enjoy it.

Six times the promise in Psalm 37 is that those who wait on the Lord inherit Land.  For Jewish people in the centuries before Christ, this was a literal promise of the land of Israel.  For Christians living in the centuries after the crucifixion and resurrection, the promise of inheritance is fulfilled in Christ.  We receive Christ. 

Receiving Christ, we become members of the family of God, adopted as sons and daughters of God.  The promise of Land comes to ultimate fulfillment at the final resurrection, when we all join Christ, raised from death, raise in bodies that cannot be hurt or die.  Then, we live in eternal fellowship and love with God and with one another. 

We begin living into our inheritance, our relationship with Jesus as sons and daughters of God right now.  It starts when we confess our sins and receive forgiveness and receive Jesus into our hearts and minds as our Savior and Lord.  As I stated at the outset, a beautiful way to take this step to relationship is by delighting in the Lord.  I cited how I do that - early morning nature, praying Bible passages, certain songs, tickling my daughter.  How do you delight in the Lord? 

If you didn’t know such a thing was possible, let that be your quest this week and in upcoming months.  Walking with God can be a relationship that’s real for you.  Fix Psalm 37:4 as your prayer.  Let that verse shape you and as you dive into the beautiful pleasures of delighting in God, you’ll find trusting in him easier, committing your ways to him natural, and being still before him pleasing in its own way.  Your relationship with God will soar to new heights.  You’ll find being a Christian to be more than a box checked off on the religion section of the census.  Being a Christian will becomes the greatest joy in life.  This week, discover ways you can delight in the Lord.

AMEN

The Holiness of God

Sunday, November 9, 2014

          Not to get ahead of ourselves, but Christmas is in sight.  The core story is the birth Jesus, the Messiah, and Jesus is God in human flesh.  We celebrate how close we can be to God.  In Jesus, God can be touched.  We believe His Holy Spirit resides with us, among us, and in us.  We don’t touch the Holy Spirit the way we touch a table or a podium.  But a central belief in our faith and life in Christ is that in the Spirit, Jesus is real, present, active, and felt.  We feel the Spirit in a way that we feel nothing else.  In Advent we celebrate the coming of Christ, anticipate the second coming of Christ, and rejoice in the closeness of God. 

          Before we get there, I invite you to pause with me and ponder the distance of God.  “Otherness” is a better way of saying it.  However much we know of God in our life of faith, I believe there is far more we have not seen or experienced.  Not only is God bigger than us, God is bigger than we can comprehend. 

          In our journey through the fall season and through Ezekiel, the importance of holiness becomes obvious.  Ezekiel 34-37 and 40-48 discuss God’s gathering of God’s people, the return from exile, the command to rebuild the temple, and the declaration that life for all people begins in Jerusalem among the Jews and flows out from there.  It is this way because God has said so and reality proceeds as it does according to God’s intentions. 

We find these strange chapters, Ezekiel 38 & 39 stuck in the middle of this story of reclamation and restoration.  The prophet tells of a Northern threat – Gog.  Who is Gog?  Commentators offer numerous opinions, all based on speculation.  No doubt this speculation comes from the minds of experts who have dedicated their lives to Old Testament study.  Still, their conclusions about Gog are incomplete. 

God leads Gog to Israel (38:2), only to be defeated by Israel and obliterated (38:3ff).  Why?  God’s answer is straightforward and if you went through Ezekiel and highlighted this phrase, every page would have bright yellow streaks.  God does what God does with Gog so that everyone will know, as God says, “That I am the Lord.”  God to Israel, God to the nations, God to us: This is happening so that you will know that I am the Lord.

I must insert here that Ezekiel does not say every event in history happened at God’s initiative.  Some ancients thought that.  Jesus dispels such superstition (Luke 13:1-5).  The holocaust did not happen so we would know God is the Lord.  The Rwandan genocide was not Heaven’s declaration of God’s divinity and sovereignty.  Sometimes the worst, most unthinkable tragedies come about and the only real answer we can offer is sin has run amok and wrought suffering on the world.  However, in no way does sin undermine the authority, majesty or purpose of God. 

Our text for this morning, Ezekiel 39, adds to our consideration of the holiness and grandeur of God.  Previously God allowed Babylon to take Israel into exile as a punishment, a reminder to God’s own people that God is the Lord and they must live by God’s commands.  Now, nearing the end of the prophet’s story, God restores Israel.  Just as the exile demonstrated God’s Lordship to Israel, the return to the land, the rebuilding of the temple, and the restoration of life under the Law of Moses testifies to God’s sovereignty before the entire world.  God declares through Israel, He has “displayed [His] holiness in the sight of many nations.  Then [all] shall know that [God] is the Lord” (39:27-28).  It all happens at God’s initiative, according to God’s design.

Can this God be known?  To say God is holy is to say we aren’t.  Our sin, our potential to sin – this separates us from God in a way we cannot overcome.  God can step from where God is to where we are, but the power to cross the gap from holy to profane, from holy to banal and mundane, is a power only God has.  We can seek God.  Our search only ends in success when God, seeing us earnestly reach to Him, decides to allow Himself to be found.  Holiness means we cannot reach God.  It also means we are overcome by God’s holy light unless God holds back and only reveals as much as we can take.  Some writers say when God took on human flesh in Jesus it was God “condescending” coming to us so God would be approachable.  But that only works if God decides to do it.

Even knowing all we know about Jesus, the otherness, the unreachable reality in God continues to be.  Many here have been in church for a long time and have called themselves Christians for decades.  Is there a temptation to be so comfortable with the nearness of Jesus and the familiarity of the gospel, we lose sight of the terrifying holiness of God?  Singing “What a friend we have in Jesus,” is it possible to be too comfortable?  Does Jesus become a buddy?  Do we forget the God we meet in Jesus appeared to Job in whirlwind and reduced him to repentance for sins he did not even know he committed? 

Job said, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.  … Now my eyes see you.  Therefore I despise myself in dust and ashes” (Job 42:3b, 6).  Theologians have for decades debated about what he was really saying there because as readers of Job know, he suffered unjustly.  Maybe it is as simple as this.  When a human sees God, it is too much. 

I came across a testimony from a young artist, Christian Platt.  You can look him up if you want to know more about him.  As I share his thoughts, contemplate your own God thoughts, especially your questions and doubts.

I’ve wrestled for years with a Christian faith that focuses on personal salvation, on many levels, some of which I’m still excavating. First, the emphasis on individual salvation always seemed ironically selfish for a faith that seemed otherwise to be about putting yourself second to others. I also struggled with the idea that Christianity is about getting a certain set of beliefs right, articulating them before a group of peers through a statement of faith and then you were official. Is it really so rote? So didactic? So…human?

All my life, I’ve heard stories of people who felt utterly transformed by their faith proclamation, or at the moment of baptism, in the throngs of prayer or during some particularly stirring worship service. They spoke of these feelings for which I longed. I wanted the mountaintop experience, after which I would never be the same. I wanted to be turned inside-out by God, illuminated by the Holy Spirit with a fire that never subsided. I wanted to feel what all these other Christians claimed to be feeling.

I’ve been to literally thousands of worship services in my life. I’ve been back and forth through the Bible, taken communion more than a thousand times, was baptized, sang the songs, said the prayers, and yes, I’ve had moments when I felt as if God was so close I could nearly reach out and touch whatever it was that I sensed. But that inevitably faded, usually sooner rather than later.

What I was left with was a longing, a tugging, a hunger for something I could never quite name

No matter how much I pray, worship, serve, write or struggle, the longing is still there.

It was like trying to capture a cloud in my hand, only to open it again and find nothing was there. Was this a cruel game? A bad joke? Was I just doing it wrong?

[He refers to an author who calls this longing for transcendence a “gap.”  He continues. 

What if the “Gap” itself is God? What if it’s already right there, within each of us, pulling at us, regardless of where we spend our Sunday mornings, how we pray, or even if we pray?

I have considered this drive, the persistent hunger, the insatiable longing, as a tragic flaw of my own human condition, a failure of my lifelong pursuit of a stronger faith. But now, I’m coming to believe that the only real peace to be found is in accepting that, ironically, there is no peace. The hunger is its own gift, and not a sign of lack or deficit in the least. It is the still, small voice that stirs persistently, opening our eyes to something new, something more.[i]

I read the Beatitudes, Matthew chapters 5, 6 & 7, and I cannot say with this seeker that there is no peace.  Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness; they will be filled.  Blessed are the peacemakers.  They will be called children of God” (5:6, 9).  Jesus assures that God satisfies, but the artist Christian Platt is not yet satisfied though he is happy with the longing God has placed in him.  He accepts that God is so Holy Other that the best he can have is his search.

Another perspective on this comes from a Jewish man, Les Berman, a radiologist in South Africa.  This doctor grew up in the Hebrew Scriptures amazed by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses and Joshua.  He wanted to know God with the same intimacy enjoyed by these patriarchs of the faith.  But no matter how he searched, the God of Abraham was distant.  He tried to double his efforts in religious practice and study of the word, but God was as far from him as ever.  He was frustrated.

Then he surprised himself.  He went to a Baptist church and heard a Christian, not even a Jewish Christian, teach on Ezekiel 38-39.  He was stunned that he could meet God in the teaching of his scripture from a gentile.  He heard the Gospel and found what he had longed for in Jesus.  I often say Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises we read in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.  For this Jewish doctor, this was literally the case.[ii] 

The bohemian urban artist found purpose in seeking the unreachable reality of God, knowing his quest will always be just out of reach.  The faithful Jewish doctor could not understand the holiness of God until he saw God in Jesus.  The exiled community experienced God’s wrath and God’s salvation.  In Ezekiel, God tells his people, “I will give [a] new heart and put a new spirit within them.  I will remove the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”  Paul reiterates this truth in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

In your life, where does faith in God make complete sense?  Where or in what way is it utterly clear that God’s holiness is something you cannot comprehend, attain, and even contemplate?  When God’s awesomeness – and this is truly the correct usage of “awesomeness” – overwhelm you?  I one more story.

Many years ago, I knew a man whose life was a mess.  His wife’s mental disorder left his home in shambles.  He made enough money that he would probably be called working poor.  He could pay the mortgage and had food, but he could not buy new clothes.  He always looked like he had borrowed what he wearing from a homeless guy.  He had some kind of skin condition so shaving was painful.  But he couldn’t grow a full beard.  He worked third shift, 11PM-7AM.  He was always tired.  The guy’s life was a struggle.

But it all transformed on Sundays when he stepped across the threshold and entered the community of the worshiping body of Christ.  When he came into church on Sunday, he stormed in.  It was as if his clothing was on fire, and the only source of water was inside the church building.  Get out of the way because he was there to worship. 

In that gathering he sang his lungs out, praising God with everything that was in him.  He sang off key; he sang tunes different than the song we were actually singing.  And he sang much louder than anyone.  There were times I cringed.  But I never said, “Hey, could you turn it down.”  I never said it because I realized this man saw something.  Every Sunday, he saw the holiness of God.  Now, I thank God for that off-key hymn singing because as I look back I realize it was a witness.  Every worship service for him was resurrection.  It was the highlight of the week, but more than that it was a statement that because of God, the difficulties of his own life would pass, but his life would be eternal.  His unbound joy pointed to God’s holiness. 

The exiled community’s final note was a homecoming God instituted because God’s holiness demanded it.  God is a God of salvation.  The name ‘Yeshua,’ Jesus, means ‘salvation.’  It is in God’s nature to raise us to life, to make us new, and to keep us in His embrace forever.  God said, “I will never again hide my face” (Ezekiel 39:29).  With Job, we know the face of God is to be feared, but not because it is awful.  We fear because God is holy and we are not.  With Jesus, we are made holy so when God promises to never again hide his face, it is the best news we can have. 

No matter who you are, you are invited into the embrace of the Holy God.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christianpiatt/2012/11/longing-for-the-unreachable-god/

[ii] http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/havurah/v01-n03/drberman

More and More of God (Exodus 33:12-23)

A spark … something deep within my heart. It’s God. The Holy Spirit of God has spoken. I know God is real and loves me. Because of what Jesus has done on the cross, the penalty for my sins has been paid. The Holy Spirit is at work in me. I am forgiven. I am born again; a new creation.

I tell my church-going friend who introduces me to her pastor. We all agree that my experience with God is real. I have been saved from by Jesus. Do I want to be baptized by immersion and thus publically announce my faith and become a member of the church? Yes, I do.

The day arrives. I come to church. My story of coming to Jesus is read to the congregation. I am baptized. The people applaud my second birth, the work of Christ in my life. I sing the worship songs as one who knows Jesus, a son of God. I am a new believer!

Now what? This is the first day of your new life. Now what?

When we come to faith in Jesus, we are rescued from slavery to sin.

Israel was a new community – called out of bitter slavery in Egypt. Israel was completely under Pharaoh’s heel. Powerless. God overwhelmed Pharaoh and freed his people.

We are baptized. As new believers we become members of the community of faith, the church.

Israel also came out of water, the Red Sea, which led to death for their Egyptian pursuers, but life for them. God saved Israel and then God commissioned Israel as his people and gave them the law to show who He is, what sin is, and who they were to be as the people of God, the worshipers of Jehovah.

They’re saved. They have the law. They need to know what we need to know. Then what?

Israel was to be a separate people, different from all other peoples around them. They were not to worship nature gods, fertility goes, or weather gods. They were to let go of all superstitions and look to the only true God and live in holiness. God put a special calling on His people.

It was too much. They fell into crisis, a disaster of their own making. God clearly distinguished himself from the idols and man-made gods of the ancient near east, but as soon as Israel found themselves of waiting on God, they couldn’t sustain their faith. They created the golden calf and in this sin of idolatry, they found out some things.

They found out God sees them even when they didn’t see Him. And they found out that God takes sin with deadly seriousness. If they would rebel, God would respond with holy anger. What is the nation to do? How can they follow such a terrifying God?

Moses became Israel’s mediator who talked to God on behalf of the people. They were paralyzed by the crisis of their sin and God’s wrathful response. Moses stepped in and showed what is next for the people of God. Moses talked to God, and God listened. The more Moses realized that this mighty God would pay attention to a human, a small, flawed man, the more Moses talked. And the relationship deepened.

Israel went from conversion to crisis to conversation (Moses conversing with God on behalf of the nation). When the moment of salvation happened for Israel and they stood on the far side of the Red Sea. Newly saved, they were right where we are today. They sang songs extolling God’s virtue. They celebrated God’s victory and proclaimed their faith him. They committed themselves to God’s ways.

We clap our hands with joy at the baptisms and celebrate the work of God in the lives of these who have announced their faith. We sing our songs of faith with joy and great energy. We commit our lives to God’s ways. We not only celebrate with these who have been baptized. We who have been believers for a long time are also reminded of our joy and our commitment to the Lord and of the day we were baptized.

Israel moved from that salvation moment into terrible crisis, and then from crisis into something deeper, an actual relationship with God.

As we see our own faith story on this baptism and draw parallels with Israel’s call into relationship with God, not all connections are direct. Israel went from salvation to crisis to new relationship. Crisis is not always immediate after baptism, and we don’t predict it. Part of what makes crisis of faith a crisis is the unpredictability of it. It does come.

Jesus said it would. Trials come. Through our own mistakes, as happened with Israel in Exodus, or through something that happens to us, we all face dark days. I think one of the ways for new believers of for veteran disciples to be ready when trials, persecution, and crises of faith visits is to constantly work on growing in our relationship with God. And again we turn to the Israelite community and the relationship of God and Moses.

In Exodus 33, God said to Israel, “I will not go up among you.” (verse 2). The the Sovereign of the universe was so angry, so flustered with the sin of the people, He distanced himself.

I think God takes our sin as seriously as he did Israel’s. God does not like it when do the wrong thing whether we sin with our eyes, our words, our thoughts, or our bodies. He’s as holy today as He was 3000 years ago. God has always given grace – even in the Old Testament. God has always been wrathful – even in the New Testament. God forgives and God punishes.

God pulled back from Israel in Exodus 33. “I will not go up among you.” At the same time, God drew near to Moses. Verse 11 says, “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a friend.” Moses was unique in history and no one will ever be like Moses or be Spirit-filled as Moses was. Not me, not you, not the Pope, not anyone.

However, though we can’t know what Moses knew or be who Moses was, we are promised the Holy Spirit. The Spirit does not visit each person in the same way, but each who has put trust in Christ will receive the Spirit. The Spirit will come on us and fill us. This is a crucial part of the new life in Christ that’s come to these who were baptized today and to all who have been baptized. Our speaking with God may not be “face to face,” but because of the Spirit, we don’t need a mediator. We don’t need a Moses to speak to God for us while we wait at the foot of the mountain. You don’t need the preacher to speak to God on your behalf. We are invited into a relationship, a spiritual relationship with God.

In relationship with God, how did Moses proceed?

He said to God, “Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may find favor in your sight” (v.13). Moses asks for favor, and his credentials for asking is that he’s already found favor. He also asks to know God’s ways. Through the previous 10 chapters God has shown his ways. Was Moses getting a little loopy in that the thin mountain air? What was he asking?

He talked about favor with God. Next, he asked God to go with Israel. But, isn’t God already with them? As we read earlier, God did say, “I will not go up among you, or I would consume you the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” Instead God promised that an angel of God would go before the people. Apparently that was not enough for Moses. He knew what God said, but he wanted something different. He wanted God, not God’s angel.

And God gave in! “My presence will go with you,” said God (v.14). “I will do the very thing you have asked” (v.17). In this conversation, I am struck by the smallness of Moses and the magnitude of God. Moses has nothing to stand on, nowhere to go, no escape, no other option. It was him and God and he just kept digging, asking for more.

When God said, “I will do the very think you have asked,” Moses responded, “Show me your glory, I pray.” Moses had audibly heard God’s voice. Moses felt the mountain shake when God thundered. Moses had held the tablets that God inscribed. But he wanted more. He wanted to see God with his eyes.

This is where we want to be as baptized people, ones born-again, new creations, adopted sons and daughters of God, worshipers of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whether we made our commitment to Jesus in the past year or decades ago, this must continue and be a constant. Like Moses, we yearn for more and more of God. We want to see God’s face.

The desire for God leads people to passion-filled participation the worship service of the gathered church. The desire for God leads people to deep, full-involved worship in solitude, in the quiet prayer closet or the walk in the woods, a retreat into nature, or the quiet prayers lifted while one drives down the highway. The desire for God leads a disciple to commit to serve God on mission trips; in service projects; spontaneously in everyday life as opportunities arise. The desire for God drives a believer to scripture, to scour God’s words and drink God’s truth. We live out our faith the way we do out of desire for God. We might not always name it that way, but underneath our sense of calling, underneath those “mountain-top experiences” that happen on retreats, and underneath the passions in us we can’t quite understand except to know they drive us on – underneath all that we would define as compelling and as spiritual – underneath it all is in us a deep longing to know God.

My prayer for each one of us here is that we will in the highs and lows of life, pursue God and desire of God. In some seasons we thirst to know all we can about Jesus and to hear him speak in the depths of our hearts; these are seasons of learning. In another season we seek experiences with the Holy Spirit. We receive the power of the Spirit and the comfort of the Spirit; these are seasons of new insights and new experiences. In yet another season you are in awe-struck worship at the throne of the mighty Heavenly Father; these are seasons of wonder. Or, as we go through times of great pain, wounded, we fall into the tender arms of that same one we call Mighty; seasons of trust. There are seasons of growth, of endurance, and quiet seasons where it seems not much is happening but we remain faithful as God is always faithful. Following the example of Moses, one of the great pioneers and archetypes of faith in scripture, all of life is spent seeking more and more of God.

When seeking God becomes the essence of life, we are blessed beyond measure. We begin living the existence we will have in the afterlife, eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven. We begin understanding Heaven now as we pursue God with a worshiper’s loving heart.

As we seek more of God, we have to be ready to hear God say “no” sometimes.

Moses asked for so much. God kept saying yes. Then Moses asked to see God’s glory, and God said, “You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (v.20). It seems odd because we heard earlier that the Lord spokes to Moses face to face as one speaks with a friend. How can that be true if one dies upon seeing God’s face? I think the answer lies in who God is. God can come to us in a relationship of love and spiritual intimacy, but even in that closeness, we don’t see all of God. God is so great, to see all of God would consume us. We’d just be gone.

So we ask God for it all and then we joyously receive however much God decides to give us.

If, like Elijah, we get a quiet whisper, that is enough. If, like John of Patmos, we are given a spectacular vision, we receive it as John did. If like the disciples and Paul and James, we see the resurrected, glorified Jesus, we rejoice. And if, like Moses, we see God’s after glow, his retreating glory, then we shine. His light is reflected from our faces so that others look to us and see Him.

As we near the end of our time of worship and come to the conclusion of six weeks spent in the book of Exodus, we reflect on what it means to be called the people of God. That’s what Israel was. And that’s what we are – baptized people, people who put complete faith in Jesus Christ, and people who are because of Jesus sons and daughters of God. As the people of God, we are always to be seeking our Father, living for His glory.

AMEN

Truly Amazing (Job 38-42)

Our American 21^st century culture is individualistic to such a damaging extent that we lose sight of community. We forget that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and we think the country exists to serve us and not vice versa. We want a church that meets our needs instead of searching for a church that gives an opportunity for the individual to sacrificially serve God and serve people. We’re very comfortable with the notion of a personal relationship with Jesus. We like it personal and private. We expect God to be interested in us. Twenty-first century Americans expect everyone to be interested in them. Why should God be any different?

It really is an awesome thing that God would take interest in people or in an individual person. That’s exactly what happens in Job chapters 38-42. God speaks to Job. What statement does God make?

God asks, “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it” (38:13)? Obviously, the answer Job has to give is “um, no; no I have not commanded the morning since my days began.” God has.

God asks Job, “Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass” (38:25-27)? Job must answer, if he is truthful, “You have done that, God.”

Throughout the conversation, it repeatedly established that God is God, and Job is not. God is talking about awesome features of the creation, places inaccessible to man (e.g. “the storehouses of snow” – 38:22). Even the example of rain in the desert (v.25-27) shows God involved with the earth completely independent of man. God has interest in this planet God made. God does not need man’s advice or help. In all that is said in Job 38-42, God never mentions human beings as God discusses the creation.

Leo Perdue of Brite Divinity School points out the fact that God ignores humanity in these chapters. Perdue writes, “In a striking repudiation of an anthropology in which humans are kings in God’s creation (see Psalm 8), Yahweh speaks of sustaining a world hostile to human life. The anthropological tradition grounded in the metaphor of humanity as king is shattered” (p.174, Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature). Nowhere in this address to Job does God repeat what is said in Genesis 1, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion” (1:26). Perdue feels that God’s speech in Job makes humanity look small and insignificant.

J. Gerald Janzen of Christian Theological Seminary looks at the same evidence. In Job 38-41, God speaks of creation, but never mentions mankind. However, Janzen’s conclusion (in the book Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Job) based on what is happening in the book of Job is different than Perdue’s. Janzen thinks the speech raises the importance of humans in God’s view because while humanity is not accounted for, the conversation is with a person. God doesn’t talk about men and women, but he talks to a man!

So which scholar gives a more helpful reading of Job 38-41? I think both contribute to our understanding of what God is saying. Perdue shows what we all know implicitly but sometimes need to be reminded of. God is God and we are not. God doesn’t exist to meet our needs. God is creator of a world that overwhelms us and it is an act of God’s grace that God would ever deign to speak to a person. Janzen points out that God does in fact extend that grace in the speech to Job! Job has longed for an audience with the divine and he gets it. He is not told why he suffers, but he hears from God, he lives, and in the end (Job 42), his blessings are restored.

Of the many conclusions I draw from the book of Job, one is this. We in 21^st century America may feel entitled to be self centered, however, we are small. In the grand scheme of the universe, we don’t matter. God does not have to speak to us. But, God wants to. Furthermore, in Jesus Christ, God became one of us in order to redeem us. That’s the extent of God’s love for us. Love isn’t an obvious motivating force in the book of Job, but when we read it in light of the cross, we realize that the God who doesn’t need us loves us and because of that we have significance. Humans count and humans matter because humans are invited to be in relationship with God. Job lived in that relationship and we are invited to as well. I find that truly amazing.

Rob Tennant

When Good Things Happen to Bad People

Do you know anyone who is really mean or exceedingly unethical, and also is rich and seemingly happy with life? It’s the age-old question re-worded. Why do good things happen to bad people? One of the wealthiest people in the world is Kim Jong-il, the dictator in North Korea. The people of that nation are cut-off from the rest of the world. They have experienced starvation. They have no religious freedoms. The media is run by the state. Why is their leader allowed to live a life of ease while such a high percentage of the citizenry wallows in poverty, often unable to even have enough food to eat?

Job asserts that good things happen to bad people all the time! He refers to them as “the wicked.” He who has lost everything (Job 1:13-19; 2:7-8) looks at the wicked and sees family wholeness and security in the home (Job 21:8-9, 11). The have success in farming (21:10). And in general, they rejoice because their lives are so good (21:12-13).

Job’s miserable experience has led him to believe that God is against him but is indifferent toward the wicked. And the wicked return the indifference. Job has the wicked ask, “What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?”

Job is not asking that question, but he says the wealthy wicked ask it because their lives are so blessed. What do they need God for? They have everything.

It would be a neat exercise to through these questions out to faithful believers today. What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him? Why do we need God? I say it would be a neat exercise because I am convinced that disciples who earnestly follow Jesus would be able to answer these questions in a variety of creative and thoughtful ways. And I think those answers would be edifying to other Christians.

Answers to these questions he never intended to be answered would not necessarily help Job or anyone who suffers understand the cause of their plight. But, hearing the testimony of the faithful as they pour out their reasons for worshipping God and following Jesus would remind the sufferer who sees the world only through pain-tinted lenses that suffering is not all there is. Joy exists too and we can ask God to lead us to joy and to give us joy.

The joy of God will never come as we imagine it. It is from God and Job’s friends are right. We cannot fathom the depths of God’s existence. But, we can trust. The joy of God does come. Even in bad times, we can trust that God is good. Even when the Kim Jon-ils of the world prosper while millions ache in poverty that was imposed upon them, we can believe that God has a plan. God has a plan that involves deep, intimate, unending relationship with those who turn to Him and eternal alienation from and damnation on those who disregard God, like dictators who live fat and happy while their people have nothing.