Psalm 43

Yesterday I preached from Psalm 43. In that sermon, I talked about the need for us to read this Psalm consistently, to preach it to ourselves with repetition. Take a minute to read it. There are some great phrases here. Think on the ones that jump out at you.

By reading this over and over and thinking deeply about the phrasing, you are pressing the very character of God into your soul. This is the gift of the Psalms, cherish them, pray them.

Psalm 43::
 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
        against an ungodly people,
    from the deceitful and unjust man
        deliver me!
    For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
        why have you rejected me?
    Why do I go about mourning
        because of the oppression of the enemy?
    Send out your light and your truth;
        let them lead me;
    let them bring me to your holy hill
        and to your dwelling!
    Then I will go to the altar of God,
        to God my exceeding joy,
    and I will praise you with the lyre,
        O God, my God.
    Why are you cast down, O my soul,
        and why are you in turmoil within me?
    Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
        my salvation and my God.

Psalm 34:15-22

Psalm 34:15-22

B.

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.  The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.  When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.  The lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.  Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.  He keeps all his bones; not one of them are broken.  Affliction will slay that wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.  The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.”

There are many evils in the world.  So much that it is impossible for a man to live his life without the afflictions that come from the conflict, selfishness, instability, and mischief of his own doing and that of others.  We are threatened to be tricked, cheated, oppressed, and misused everywhere we turn.  Affliction produces sorrow, and everywhere I go, I see men suffering from the sorrow that afflicts them from merely being a participant in this fallen state of affairs.  Every man, whether believer or not, has untold sorrow from the years of suffering that he has endured in this life.  The difference in Jesus Christ is that the righteous have the attention of the Lord in heaven, and His ear is always poised to hear their cries, waiting in anticipation to drench them in an abundance of love, mercy, and deliverance.  The face of the Lord, though, is against those who do evil, and they stand to be cut off by the one who has the power to cut them off—to be salted with fire.

            Now, the mistake I usually make—the manner in which I am most easily deceived—is concerning what differentiates a righteous man from a wicked man.  (Even in the interpretation and application of the word of God we must be diligently sober-minded and accountable to others.  For it is when the truth threatens evil by comforting the righteous that the righteous are most threatened by evil to be deceived in their endeavors to rightly divide the truth.)  The bible says that the ‘redeemed’ of the Lord, His servants, are those who take refuge in Him specifically because they are unrighteous, and God has said that all those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.   Therefore, the righteous are not the strong and the wise but are the ones who look to God for their wisdom and strength.  Righteous men are only characterized by righteous deeds if they have made a habit of crying out to the Lord for their help in the midst of all the wickedness and affliction that causes them sorrow.  It is only the broken-hearted that God draws near to because it is only the broken-hearted who draw near to God.  God only saves the crushed in spirit because it is the crushed in spirit who have no faith in themselves.

            The wicked man, though, refuses God’s help, whether from stubbornness of pride or ignorance of evil, dismissing God’s authority to dictate what is good and His power to save from what is evil.  Either way, if affliction does not break him, it will consume him in the end.  Affliction serves as evidence that the existence of good is only the appearance of good, and where evil exists, no good can exist at all.  In other words, our heart desires what is good, but that desire is frustrated by the evil that exists because the good that has been abandoned.  To be righteous is only to acknowledge this reality and turn to God for help and salvation from a wicked world that will soon be cut off because it is full of evil.  Wicked men are the ones who pretend that the good they find is the only good that exists because it is what they think they want.  However, when they find it is fruitless to defeat evil or stand up to their sorrow, to continue to cling to such shadows prove that they do not love goodness at all, but darkness, because their deeds are evil. 

            The righteous who are ‘being’ saved are not saved from the presence of affliction, only that they will not be consumed by it, just as we are not saved from the presence of sin, but only its power to destroy us.  In all cases for the righteous, sorrow leads us to the Righteous Comforter—The Spirit of the Living God—who identifies us in our hearts, prevailing over our sorrow, to be alive in Christ.  Our joy is our hope, not our righteousness.  Do not mistake righteousness for being infallible.  For, anyone who believes this will not be led to sorrow but overtaken by despair, thinking that God has abandoned him.  We must believe that all our unrighteousness leads us to a righteous God, and we must be led to Him if we are to overcome, so that in our learned hatred for what is evil, we may be a source of refuge and light to those who still live with deep sorrow.

Psalm 44

Psalm 44

B.

“…All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant.  Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way…”

It has always been a source of great consternation for me to consider the relationship between the nature of man to be responsible to God and the sovereignty of God being responsible for man.  Scripture speaks in terms of righteousness and wickedness, which specifically addresses the moral quality of our lives, and yet, it speaks its entire message in terms of God’s complete sovereignty and man’s complete depravity.  If man were able to choose good of his own accord, then his nature would not be completely corrupt, having the ability to identify good and to choose it.  We would have no need for a savior but only an instructor.  If, however, man is completely corrupt, as the Scriptures instruct, then he cannot do any good.  The good he is, therefore, capable of is not something that he can be responsible for.  I confess that when I struggle with my salvation, it is this that I struggle with:  How can man be held responsible for sin but not for righteousness?  In other words, when I sin, it is my responsibility, and yet, when I do well, it is God’s responsibility.  This seems to me, in my weakest moments, a disproportionate relationship.  For, if it is God’s providential hand to produce righteousness through me, is it not his hand that holds me as I sin?  The struggle for me is not with wanting to be held responsible for my righteousness.  I truly enjoy being a servant of higher authority and one I can call, “Majesty”.  I understand that I am an unworthy servant, and that doing good is only what is my duty.  What I want to know is, ‘Where is God’s sovereignty when I am sinning?’

            Take the story of Cain and Able, for instance.  Cain and Able both offer sacrifices of their own labors to the Lord.  Yet, while Able’s sacrifice is accepted, Cain’s is not.  Scripture offers no explanation for the difference in God’s response to either.  What it does describe, however, is Cain’s reaction to God’s rejection.  It says, ‘He was very angry and his face fell.’  His resentment, envy, and jealousy culminated in murder, and because of his reaction to these circumstances, we reason backward thinking that Cain’s heart was evil, and therefore, could not have offered an honoring sacrifice to God.  I do not buy this explanation for one reason: Apart from God’s acceptance first, how can any of us be anything but a murderer?  Scripture says (1 John 3:12) that Able’s deeds were righteous and his brother’s wicked, but would that not first have to do with God’s acceptance?  For, apart from God’s acceptance, who can stand?  Apart from God’s intervention with our sinful hearts, who can be righteous?  How could Able be accounted righteous without God’s first accepting him, and, in light of God’s rejection, how could Cain be anything but evil?  By definition of the terms Scripture gives us, this story seems as if it were a set of predetermined outcomes, and therefore, meaningless to us who will be held responsible for our lives.  In a world where God is primary and comes before all things, would that not make all things a reaction to what would initially be a course of events set into motion through God’s action—including our moral apptitude?  How can any action be considered righteous or wicked if it is always contingent upon God’s first accepting or rejecting us?

            This is a truth that we see expressed throughout all of Scripture:  Able was accepted and Cain rejected (Genesis 4); Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Malachi 1:2, 3); God shows mercy to Judah, but has no mercy upon Israel (Hosea 1:6, 7).  In each of these cases, of which there are more, sin is the universal constant and is present, expressing itself in wickedness, in either party.  Yet, God chooses to show favor to one and not the other, and because of God’s favor, their deeds become righteous apart from the wickedness that they share with the world.  I confess that there are times when this principle affects my soul in ways that I must repent. But, then, we have Psalm 44. 

For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me.  But you have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us.  In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever.

           

            It occurs to me that when there is an example of God’s providential choosing of one over another, it is these same people that are listed in Hebrews 11, which is the chapter Christians affectionately refer to as the ‘Hall of Faith’.  By faith Able offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous.  Scripture defines faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  If we believe in a God who is the source of virtue, and yet, who is invisible to us, then we must also believe that righteousness is out of our reach by consequence of it being apart from us in a way that is invisible to us.  The only way, then, our actions can have value, or be righteous, is if they are offered to God with the knowledge that righteousness is not inherent in our performance but in God’s acceptance, and if He does not accept us, then, no matter what we do, we are cursed as Cain was cursed.  Perhaps, it was not what Able ‘did’ that made him righteous and acceptable before God, but what he ‘did not’ do.  Perhaps the difference between Cain and Able was that when the offerings were made, Cain believed that he was performing a righteous deed and Able did not.  Able hoped that God ‘would’ accept his sacrifice, and Cain believed that God ‘should’. The first acted with pride, the second with humility. When Cain found that his deed did not bring the reward he thought it deserved, his pride turned to bitterness, and bitterness committed murder. This is what I believe Paul means when he says, ‘Whatever is not done from faith is sin.’

God created this world in His infinite goodness, and for that reason, we can be aware of goodness, but because of the sin that inhabits our bodies, our actions can retain no form of goodness.  Therefore, righteousness in this world is attained not by anything we are capable of doing, but only in the humble admission of what we are incapable of doing and what we need God to fulfill in us.  When our actions, what we are in control of—what we can see—is abandoned as futile, it is at this point that faith begins and our lives become something substantial by being united with what is unseen and beyond our control.  On these terms, it is just as possible for someone to perform a ‘good’ action, and yet, remain unrighteous as it is for someone to perform a ‘wicked’ action and remain substantially righteous.  For those who call God their Lord make Him Lord over their whole lives, and so, when it seems like He has rejected us and disgraced us, when we have become the derision and scorn of those around us, we can know that, since the days of old, it was never the hand or arm of men that saved, but God’s right hand, His arm, and the light of His face; and we will not be put to shame.

            Sin is a foe that rises against us, and Satan is the enabler of evil.  With the same ferocity that he will attempt to convince us that we have no need for God, he will also seek to convince us that God has no desire for us.  But this is not true.  God loved us enough to give us His Son, therefore, as Paul reasons for us, ‘How will He not also freely give us all things?’  We must not allow our good deeds to convince us that we are righteous just as we must not allow our sin to convince us that we are rejected.  When shame has covered our faces at the sound of the taunter and reviler, at the sight of the enemy and the avenger, we must not be false to God’s covenant, which is founded in Christ, and not us.  It is God who ordains salvation, and if He wishes to make us desperate and afflicted, whether it comes from within or without, so be it—His will be done.  For, how can it be an affliction to be desperate for a faithful God?  He knows the secrets of the heart, and if we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered, then it is for His sake we are killed just as it for His sake that we will rise again.  For, though the world be chaos, in Christ, we will not be shaken.  If the world collapse upon us, we must remember, He has overcome the world.

Psalm 84

Psalm 84

B.

There is a sense that, when I began to follow Jesus, I did not really understand where I was going, only what I was leaving behind.  Now that my past is a good distance behind me, I have less reason to consider where I came from and much more to consider where I am going.  For we cannot abandon old desires without claiming new ones, or else, having put our house in order, we leave it vulnerable to the enemy to come with a fresh and more ferocious presence.  As Christians, we live in two worlds: the natural and the supernatural—the physical and the spiritual.  The first is the picture of our prison, the second a picture of our freedom.  We are being led out of one and into the other.  We were created as physical beings inhabited with the breath of God, but we will soon be spiritual beings inhabiting a place that I would faint to describe.  Jesus Christ is ‘the door’ to this better country, but when we follow Him, we must remember that it is not to the fulfillment of our desires that he leads us.  It is the fulfillment of God’s desire that makes heaven the better country, because heaven is just a biblical euphemism to describe the place where God dwells.  And, where God dwells, His will prevails.  When the psalmist muses that ‘one day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere’ he is saying that to meet with God’s will is better than the opportunity to spend an eternity seeking my own ends, because our will—our desire—is only fulfilled if it is found to fulfill God’s desire.  Therefore, if we are to have any hope, any direction, any fulfillment of our desires, then we are to make the longing for the courts of God our first desire.  If we neglect to cultivate an appetite for the holiness of God, then there is no heaven available for us to enjoy, since, in marginalizing the intimacy that God desires with us, we have devalued the very defining quality of heaven.

If we are to understand all things in this context, our desires being filled when they meet with His presence, then we must not think that the fulfillment of our desires the object of our lives.  The job we work, the house we buy, the relationships we have, the ministries we involve ourselves in—these are all secondary objects and useful only if they facilitate the first and primary purpose of diving deeper into God’s presence—doting and depending on Him, worshiping Him, praising Him, searching His word and His spirit for the secrets of His existence.  If our desires do not fill this first desire, then all the wants in the world cannot replace the blessings of those who dwell in God’s house, ever singing God’s praise.  The idea that God created us with desire is true.  The extended thought that the expression of these desires is somehow connected with His will for us is false.  We cannot determine God’s will by evaluating our desires.  We evaluate our desires by seeking God’s will.  Any desire that is indulged, or presumed to be righteous or even harmless, without being scrutinized by the spirit in us, is a rogue desire, and it will never serve to bring us into the presence of God—into His courts.  But, when we seek God’s presence and will for the fulfillment of our desires, then the unexpected manner in which He fills them seems as natural as the swallow who finds a home for herself, where she may lay her young at the altars of the Lord of Hosts.

It is the most crucial aspect of our faith to search for and to wait for the will and blessing of God.  To presume that God’s will has already been accounted for in whatever we do is the most grievous error since it contradicts the fundamental motivation that God is trying to build into us through all that He has done in Jesus Christ, which is the longing for the Living God.  The most difficult moments in my life are in the search for the presence of God.  For it is something that we must search for, and yet, it is only found if God wills to give it.  It is the ultimate end of God’s purpose with us, and so, it is where we will meet with the most resistance.  But if we endure to get a glimpse of what it is like to be in the presence of God, we realize that all we long for here in this world—all that we desire—is gross and unsavory compared to the stores of God’s fullness.  We realize that we would rather be the lowest servant in God’s house than have the highest honors in this world, and when we destroy in our hearts the rough pathways of selfishness, He builds into us the highways to Zion.  We must relinquish the desires that we hold onto.  For when we make ourselves completely submissive to Him, the Lord bestows favor, honor, and withholds no good thing.

Mexico Mission Trip

Our trip is beginning to take shape. We will be keeping you posted on the details here and on our Facebook page.

We will have two teams on the ground in Mexico. We will be doing some construction and electrical work at church in Mexico. That team coordinated by Dave Kuntz. Secondly, there is a housing project located very near to that church. Sierra Parker will be coordinating a team that will be doing kids ministry with the children of that housing project.

It is likely that we will be able to connect with and serve in some way at the pregnancy center in Acuna and their residents.

Remember, passports are a must. If you plan on going start the process of getting your passport today. The cost will be approximately $150 including all food and transportation. We will leave 314 on July 11 and return July 17.

If you or someone you know is fluent in Spanish we need you.

Finally, I have spoken with border patrol agents, American authorities on the ground and my contacts in Acuna. There is little to no concern over safety. My contacts have been serving for more than 12 years and have never had an incident.

Thanks for reading.

Rik

Psalm 37:5-7

Psalm 37:3-5

B.

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.  Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.”

The essence of a man’s existence is his desires.  If a man were a river, then his desire would be the water itself.  But, just like a river is not defined only by the presence of water, a man is not defined only by the presence of desire.  A river is bound by its landscape to flow a certain direction, and it is always flowing into something greater than itself.  Sin is like damming the river of our desires, and what was meant to flow freely through creation, refreshing and beautiful, becomes a flood of destruction drowning the world with the force of our desires upon it.  David, who was not a stranger to the enticement of desire, addresses this fundamental human condition with a simple exhortation that centers itself around three words: trust, delight, commit.

            Trust is the singular condition of our faith that makes it what it is.  It is what differentiates between a Jesus Christ that rests upon our lips and a Jesus Christ who lives in our heart.  There are two words in the Hebrew language that are translated ‘trust’ which mean ‘refuge’.  The main difference between these two words is the presence of intention.  Where one of these words indicates an instinctual reaction to default to a certain place for protection, the other indicates a conscious and weighted decision to choose one place over another.  Both of these words are used to describe the trust we are to have in God, but David uses the latter in this case specifically because he is addressing the issue of managing our desires.  A desire is what we consciously choose to pursue apart from an alternative.  To trust in the Lord—to take refuge in Him—is to place the hope for the fulfillment of our desires in His control by forsaking what we would desire and choosing to employ God’s desires for us.  This is called ‘trust’ because God’s will contradicts man’s desires, and, where we can see the end of our fleshly desires here on earth, we cannot see the end of God’s desire for us.  We have no assurance of our fulfillment but the presence of God’s word.  To trust God is to follow Christ.  To follow Christ is to obey Him.  If there is no trust, then there is no faith.  This is why David associates trust with befriending faithfulness.  Trust is the primary function of faith, and as we are faithful to walk in the truth, He will cause us to dwell in the land.

            I was surprised to find that the word ‘delight’ was translated from a word that meant ‘soft and pliable’, but also, ‘effeminate’ or ‘luxurious’.  As I began to consider what this implies, I find that it makes perfect sense.  Effeminacy denotes a lack of vigorous qualities, or weakness.  It is the quality of vulnerability, the propensity to be dominated, or to be conformed to the will of another.  This confounds the very heart of man’s desires.  Men wish to establish themselves, and every desire a man has is an expression of this fundamental desire to impose his own will upon the world.  David speaks of the exact opposite being what we should desire.  To experience delight is to have one’s desires fully and specifically met.  To delight in the Lord is make Him the full end of our desires, and as His will dominates our will, as we make ourselves ‘soft and pliable’ in His hand, He conforms us to the specific nature of His delight, and we become something that is luxurious.  Our very existence becomes of extreme high quality, because God’s will accommodates our desires by nature of Him being the source of them.

            Finally, David exhorts us to commit.  This is where the river analogy becomes relevant again.  The word ‘commit’ is translated from a Hebrew word that means ‘to roll’.  ‘To roll’ implies a continuous motion in a consistent direction.  There is no break in forward motion, and by virtue of that motion, no deviation from the predetermined course—like a river that flows from the mountains to the sea.  To commit is to determine a course of action, not only for the present moment, but also for every unforeseen future moment, and having set the boundaries for that course, moving forward in this direction despite all circumstance and obstacle; for rich or for poor; in sickness or in health.  It is not only the decision to obey Jesus Christ, but it is the promise never to seek fulfillment anywhere or in anyone else.  It is the decision to say to Jesus Christ, “The goodness I will have is only what you will give.  Therefore, if you do not give it, then I will not have it.  For I am yours forever more.”  This is why we are called the ‘bride of Christ’.  We are His possession, and when we surrender to Him thus, He makes us His delight.  He will not spare his goodness, however.  For when He tells us to trust in Him, He promises us that He will act.

Mexico Mission Trip

You may have heard that North Church will be taking a mission trip this summer to Acuna Mexico. We can now announce that this trip is beginning to take shape.

Dates: July 10-17

These dates are tentative and  could change 1-2 days on either end. As it stands now, we hope to use July 10 and 17 as travel dates and 11-16 as work days.

Cost: TBD

At this point it is difficult to estimate the cost. The costs will encompass the following: Food (we will prepare all meals in the kitchen of the church where we will stay in Del Rio), gas, lodging (There is a small per person charge). We hope to keep the cost to a minimum. Part of the purpose of this trip is to allow for cost and time away to be kept at a minimum so that more people can take a foreign mission trip.

Work:

At this point our work will be two fold.

First, we will be doing some minor construction work. We will be building walls and running electric in the auditorium of a church in Acuna as well as enclosing an area that will service as foyer of sorts for the church.

Second, we will do some Bible club type activity near the church in Acuna.There is a large housing project next to the church with lots of children. We will do some work with the children of the neighborhood.

There will also be opportunities that will be impromptu to serve the people of the city. You will have opportunities to be with and love on the girls in the crisis pregnancy center.

Other:

It is important to note that you WILL NEED a passport in order to do this trip. If you have intentions to go and do not have a passport, please begin the process of securing your passport.

If you have any questions, email rik@northchurchstl.com or stay tuned to this blog or to announcements made on Sunday mornings or in the North Church Community Connection email.