Engaging and Encouraging You
Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord!
2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart,
3 who also do no wrong but walk in his ways!
4 You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. . . . (ESV)
Psalms 119
Dear family,
I trust that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and that there really was some thanksgiving, stuffing your heart! The sad fact is that we do not seem to be grateful or thankful by our nature. Every parent in the world loses count of the number of times that they have to ask the child to render thanks. It seems to be a trained attitude of mind! It would seem that there are many contrary manifestations of attitudes and inclinations that come very naturally and that oppose the nurture of gratitude. We seem easily discontented and dissatisfied, hard to please, unsubmissive, distrusting, picky, spoiled, opinionated, mean-spirited and hard-hearted, critical and judgmental, independent and self-made; proud with a sense of injured merit, a sense of rights; we seem more easily aware of what we do not have than what we do have. As Dostoyoevsky put it: “If he is not stupid he is monstrously ungrateful. In fact, I believe the best definition of man is ‘the ungrateful biped.’” In our home, every day as we leave and enter, we have to walk by a framed quotation that has hung on our wall for well over two decades, words from one of my very favorite poets, George Herbert. “Thou hast given so much to us. Give one thing more – a grateful heart.” That might be a good daily prayer for you, too!
You could argue that the opening volley of sin in the Garden of Eden, the root of the dynamics of the Fall, was simply ingratitude. God’s goodness is questioned amidst a feast of provision because there is nothing better to think about than what was not allowed. Paul seems to grasp this in Roms. 1 when he describes the root of evil and wickedness as the failure to “give thanks to Him.” (Roms. 1:21) It would seem then that thanksgiving is a significant spiritual power.
On Sunday we agreed that thanksgiving for so many things is big in the psalms, only because the praise of God the giver, happens to be huge. We noticed that thanksgiving is expressed in good times and bad, and the personal commitment of the psalmist to be thankful, becomes his exhortation to all to be thankful, which morphs yet again into the commanding language of Psalm 118 and Psalm 136: “Give thanks to the Lord!” Thanksgiving is not an elective, not an option, not a suggestion.
For the purposes of this letter let me give you the gist of what the Psalms present about thanksgiving and relay it in NT terms, in 5 short, no-nonsense points.
1. “Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything…God created everything to be
received with thanksgiving” (Ephs. 1:20; 1 Tim. 4:2)
2. “Giving thanks in all circumstances…” (1 Thess. 5:18)
3. “thanksgivings be made for everyone…” (1 Tim. 2:1)
4. “whatever…in word or deed….giving thanks to God” (Cols. 3:17)
5. “continually offer to God the fruit of lips giving thanks…” (Hebr. 13:15)
Let me summarize the message on thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is:
• for everything
• for everyone
• in every circumstance
• in every word and deed
• at every moment
That sounds comprehensive and compelling! Any questions? So why are we so thankless? How are you doing? So what things, what people, what circumstances, what words and deeds, what opportunities are outside this call to this obedience? These may just add up to a lot of thanklessness, a lot of ingratitude, a lot of discontent, a lot of complaint, a lot of gossip, a lot of covetousness.
We did look at some other important relationships between thanksgiving and creation, calling, remembrance, prayer, and also healthy community. Did you realize that the health of a church community like ours is impacted, affected, by the thanksgiving quotient of its members? If everyone in the church was exactly like you in the thanksgiving stakes, would we be an encouraged and encouraging church? Let’s get thankfulness-for-one-another etched deep I our hearts and our prayers and our affirming and blessing conversations!
Thankfully yours,
Stuart
http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)
Dear Church,
Stuart continued his Psalms Pseries on Sunday, this week focusing on the penitentiary Psalms (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143). Because sin abounds, it is not unusual that these have been among the most recited Psalms in the Church through history. Stuart highlighted the vital role of confession in the Christian life, but broadened the category to include more than we would generally think of when we hear the word “confession.” Maybe some of our minds (depending on our background) think of a booth with a priest in it, but Stuart highlighted how confession happens in a community of believers as we confess to one another. We are not called to air our dirty laundry in public, or to confess our deepest sins to the person we just met, but there remains a vital place for confessing our sins, one to another. James 5:16 indicates that by this process we will “be healed.”
But the category of “confession” includes more than the confession of sins. The word “confess” literally means “to say the same thing”, in this case, “to say the same thing as God”. So when we confess our sins, we are agreeing with what God says about the nature of our sin, its offense against him and its detrimental effects on us. But there is another way we can “say the same thing” as God, namely, in worship. The Psalmists, though they are clear about the necessity of confessing our sin to God, are equally clear about the necessity of confessing our faith, which means quite the opposite of apologizing for it! In confessing our faith, we “say the same thing” about God that He says about himself, that He is holy, worthy, lovely, almighty, compassionate, just, and on and on (I pray you can add to this list yourself!).
Our confession of faith serves as the foundation for our confession of sin. It is by our confession of faith that we gain a proper perspective. It is only on account of God’s holiness that we realize our sin to be truly sin. Furthermore, with our confession of faith in view we realize that our sin is first against God, against his character and commands, before it is a sin against anyone else. But also fundamental to our confession of faith is our belief in God’s faithfulness, so that when we confess our sin we can be assured of his forgiveness. Without our confession of faith, we might end up feeling bad about something, but that doesn’t itself lead to repentance.
Jesus himself made a “good confession” (of faith, not sin!) before Pilate (1 Tim 6:12-13), and Paul used this as the model for Timothy, reminding him of the good confession he had made before a body of believers, encouraging Timothy to take hold of this confession more and more and to draw strength from it in his continuing ministry. Note from the example of Christ that we cannot expect our “good confession” to go unopposed.
Finally, confession of faith has two parts, on the one hand rooted in doctrine, and on the other hand expressed in doxology. To put is simply, we worship in truth. Have you made a good confession? Have you confessed the Lordship of Christ and the truth of his saving death and resurrection, of his offer of eternal life by faith in him? Is this something that leads you to a deeper and richer worship of God? And does all of this cause you to mourn your sin against this God, leading you to repentance?
May our confessions be true this week, whether they are about God or ourselves, and may our worship abound more and more to the God who is forever praised.
Rich blessings,
Ben
https://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)
Dearest family,
As always, thanks for your attention on Sunday. Was it my imagination or did fewer people take a bathroom break during the sermon? I noticed that the first person who had to get up and go, was not at the retreat so was ignorant of my contribution at the Revue show. (A song entitled ‘Bladder has broken’ to the tune of ‘Morning has broken’ as once sung by the great Cat Stevens.) I was worried that they were going to get strange looks that would leave them self-conscious and confused! I noticed that they all seemed to make it back into the sanctuary safely.
I hope you understood some of the reasons why Psalm 73 is indeed a mid-point for the collection. It is just a brilliant psalm in the way it is narrated and structured, and I apologize if my enthusiasm for it was inordinate – NOT! But what, of all we covered, should I re-iterate in this week’s pastoral letter. We saw how that first reference to “but as for me” (v2), loaded with self-consciousness and self-pity, expressed his dissonance and disconnection with things godly and with God himself. His opening statement about the goodness of God was creedal but it had ceased to be personal. The psalm charts the journey to the final use of “but as for me” (v28) where he is now separating himself what separated him from God, and declaring not his isolation but his intimacy with the Lord, and the recovery of personal God-consciousness. The psalm began with WHAT he wanted (basically “the goods”) but ended with WHO he wanted (the “goodness” of God himself).
We looked briefly at the two “hinge” words upon which his deliverance began to swing open. The first was “UNTIL”. His “slip and slide” gets traction with this word: until he went into the sanctuary. Maybe he just stumbles in gasping and grasping. Isn’t that how we often come? That he enters is more important than how. The sanctuary is the place of presence. This is the place of the altar where one is confronted with the cost of sin and the price of atonement. This is the place of prayer, of testimony, of worship, of collective memory, of instruction in righteousness, of evidence of God’s work in the lives of others who are there too. This is the place where God has to be the center and self has to be dethroned. This is not a leisure activity for spiritually minded folk. This is not a society of like-minded religionists. This is not a support group. This is the place of meeting. The psalmist’s drift is arrested here as is his spiraling obsessive thinking. His preoccupation with self is transformed into a turning to God himself. The image of God’s throne kind of trumps his protest speech that he is giving standing on his complaint’s folding-chair. Here is the place where he is confronted again with a sense of God’s presence. Here is where he can pause long enough to consider. The text says that here he “understood” something. This is about truth. He needed more than a vague fuzzy feeling. He needed more than a good vibe, some temple mood music, a little smidgeon of self-worth; more than an essence, more than a thought for the day, more than an emotional pick-me-up or a promise-box encouragement or a piece of fortune-cookie spirituality. He desperately needed a dose of God’s fibrous reality – a revelation of how things are on God’s terms, about how God perceives things, about what God values, about what God blesses. This is the fulcrum: the pivotal verse. Against worldly success is set divine sovereignty; against impurity is holiness; against the temporary is the weight of eternal reality; against the language of scoffing and mocking are the words of honoring worship. Simply put, he has a revelation of their end. I love the way Os Guinness puts it: “face to face with mystery, and especially the mystery of evil, the faith that understands why it has come to trust must trust where it has not come to understand. Faith does not know why in terms of the immediate, but it knows why it trusts God who knows why in terms of the ultimate.” (God in the Dark)
As brilliant in the traction process as the word “until” turned out to be, equally significant is another delivering, salvific word: YET! “Yet I am always with you.” (v23) It is almost humorous but we laugh because there is such relief. “I am a beast before you… yet I am before you!” Suddenly he is not conscious of what he is before God – he is only conscious of the God before whom he is! Despite all of this, despite all that has transpired, he is still in his presence. We have already heard about those who were despised and dismissed from God’s presence. Here, in the psalmist’s experience is the amazing grace of God. He had earlier been mad about all the things that God allowed to the wicked. But he has learned through this process that his sins are no different to theirs. Talking of what God allows! God has allowed him to stay in his presence. This passage has always been seen through the ages by the lovers of scripture as one of the great texts about grace, in all its many colors. This is what the Puritans called:
o Receiving grace: like Psalm 103, he had not been dealt with according to his sins. Good
things for bad people? Wasn’t that his problem? Was he not now the bad person
receiving good things? How the tables turned!
o Restraining grace: he describes how grace held him by the right hand, restraining his
fall, seeking to slow down his backsliding – this is the grip of grace! It was restraining
grace that empowered him to hold his tongue in v.15
o Restoring grace: not only into present relationship, but with the renewed invitation to
everlasting relationship.
It is also a great text about guidance. It is always hard to deal with any suffering if we do not believe God is guiding us. What the psalmist discovered and accepted was what Os Guinness again has put so well: “We do not trust God because he guides us; we trust God and then are guided, which means that we can trust God even when we do not seem to be guided. Faith may be in the dark about guidance, but it is never in the dark about God. What God is doing may be mystery, but who God is, is not. So faith can remain itself and retain its integrity by suspending judgment.”
Then comes the wonderful word “afterward”. Having seen the END of those who do not live their lives for God, he is granted an insight into the end of those who do: “and afterward take me into glory”. This is a huge encouragement about God’s commitment to keep that which I have committed to him. As Peter put it: “Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.” This sequence is so wonderful here – described by teachers and preachers through the centuries as: grasped…guided…glorified. But as good as all that is, it’s not over YET. Let the Lord speak those two words into the narrative of your present journey: until….yet.
As part of my preparation I read Augustine’s sermon on this psalm (not light reading for the faint hearted!) and I meant to quote him at the end of my message. I forgot, so herewith is the conclusion to his message on Psalm 73 that I thought you’d appreciate, and maybe identify with?!
"I was forgetting that I had talked so long. The psalm is finished now, and from the stench in the building I surmise that I have given you a rather long sermon. But I can never keep up with your eager demands..." (Saint Augustine: Exposition of the Psalms)
Pastorally (and sometimes forgetfully like Augustine!) yours,
Stuart
http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)
feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying. . . leading. (Isaiah 40:11)
Dearest family, On Sunday, the Psalm genre that we were engaging was ‘the lament’, which at first encounter, might not seem a good idea for an uplifting message! (I would argue on the contrary, but you have to work through the trough to recover the triumph.) I had mentioned in an earlier message that it is important to understand the different nuances of meaning between a lament and a complaint. Ann Voskamp, in her recent book, “One Thousand Nights”, is describing a bad situation in which, on the one hand, she wants to “mourn the mother’s lament of dependent faith that God will hear my voice”, but on the other hand, the emotions displaced by the situation are such that she realizes that it is going to take an effort to hold her tongue from “the Israelite complaint with its ungrateful discontent and bitter accusations.” She prays for grace to “get the David lament right.” What actually saves her is exactly what I was talking about on Sunday, which was the fact that the psalmist, in the middle of the rinse cycle of distress, “remembered”. Voskamp writes: “I remember. Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father’s heart.” Godly remembrance rescued her from sliding from an understandable lament into an inexcusable complaint.
As we looked briefly at Psalms 42 and 43, we noted the progression through the three stanzas (42:1-5; 42: 6-11; 43: 1-5) and that each stanza contained each of the following three responses:
GETTING IT ALL OUT
GETTING IT SORTED OUT
GETTING IT TOGETHER
As we journeyed through his lament, we saw that he used different pictures to express his pain and turmoil. First, he’s FAMISHED: he is spiritually dry and dehydrated. Second, he’s FLOODED: he is drowning and desperate. Third, he’s FRAMED: he is demeaned and derided and feels like he is being falsely accused and on trial. But fortunately, despite all of these “waves and breakers” that are sweeping over him, he is not FORGETFUL. He is rescued by what he remembered. Firstly, a past event; secondly, a present experience; thirdly, a prospective hope. Having begun his lament bemoaning his sense of separation and distance from the Temple, and saying he “used to go…to the house of God”, he concludes by saying “I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.” It was Augustine who noted that a redeemed memory makes a Christian a “Hallelujah from head to foot!” Another lamenter has testified, and the psalmists would concur with this, that the result of holy remembrance is that “my hosanna has passed through the purgatory of my doubt.” The experience of grief becomes an experience of the grace of God. Someone has said, “Grace makes a good heart-memory, even where there is no good head-memory.” (These Psalms could equally be part of the Remembrance genre of Psalms.)
For our psalmist, there is a deep fear of God forgetting him, of a divine memory lapse, and of God abandoning him. For Israel memory is not passive. When they asked God himself to remember, it was always with a view to God actually doing something, beyond a mental recall. When they remembered rightly, it was expected that righteous actions would follow. Some of the important outcomes of this are:
Perpetuation: To recall something is to be called to recover action of some kind: praise, holiness, trust, faith etc. This is why forgetfulness is so condemned in Scripture. It is not simply a loss of memory but a failure to live righteously and act holily. It is crucial to make a distinction between remembrance and reminiscence. The latter can lead to sentimentality, in fact to a false view of the past. Remembrance invokes reality and brings the real past into the real present. “Memory keeps the lines of communication open to the battlefields of the past” recovering what was won and what was learned.
Proclamation: To remember was for the purpose of reclaiming truth in order to proclaim it again. Where memory fails, testimony fails. There is great loss to both worship and witness.
Preservation: Remembrance is about the preservation of history, not just of historical facts. The study of history is about the meaning of those events. One generation was to remember God’s works and ways and wonders in order to inform the next of the redemptive meanings of God’s desires and deeds. It is also about the preservation of the remember-er, keeping the individual in a place of truth, especially when pain and pressure is dominating our view of reality. The great antidote to fear that destroys personhood is godly memory.
Not surprisingly, “Remember” is one of the key words in the psalms and we have noted that in our psalms, it is the hinge of the door that helps him to move from the depressed past to a hopeful future. We could do a series on just this theme but I’ll leave the extended study to you. Let me mention quickly a few examples of what remembrance does for the psalmists beginning with ours:
It provokes renewal: “These things I remember as I pour out my soul… My soul is downcast within me therefore I will remember you…” (Ps. 42:4,6)
It establishes a sure basis for intercession, for asking, as remembrance appeals to the precedents of God’s past actions. “Remember O Lord your great mercy and love for they are from old… Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good O Lord.” (Ps. 25: 6-7)
It fuels obedience: “The Lord’s love is…with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.” (Ps. 103:18) “I remember your ancient laws O Lord and I find comfort in them.” (Ps. 119: 52)
It convicts and chastens: “In the night I will remember your name O Lord and I will keep your law.” (Ps. 119:55) “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord…and bow to him.” (Ps. 22:27)
It ignites and sustains worship and witness: “Remember the wonders He has done, his miracles and the judgments he pronounced…Give thanks unto the Lord, call on his name…sing praise to him…tell of his wonderful acts…” (Ps. 105: 1-5)
There are so many more examples but what do they actually remember? The exodus, the commandments, the ways of the Lord, the works and wonders of old, the name of the Lord, the covenant. Their experience of God as well as the record of salvation history became the subject of remembrance. Do you need to confess and repent your forgetfulness? Do you understand how it cuts the supply line to your worship and witness, your devotion and intimacy with the Lord?
The repetitive refrain at the end of each stanza, presents how he got it together, relating his present pain to past examples of God’s faithful love, and future expectations of divine hope and help. I suggested that few psalms could be more applicable to the experience of Jesus than this one? Don’t forget that the Psalms (especially 22) were Jesus’ language on the cross. Jesus becomes the bearer of every lament. “Now my soul is in turmoil, and what am I to say?” (Jn. 12:27) In Gethsemane: he cries “my heart is ready to break with grief.” (Mt. 26:37) “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Mk. 14:34) Talk of abandonment? By sleeping friends… by Judas an intimate… then the ultimate abandonment by Father God “Why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27:46) Then add the scorn of the taunts of his enemies: “Let God rescue him now if he wants him” (Mt. 27:43) And remember the vinegar. (Ps. 69:21)
The truth of our gospel is that Jesus was indeed the fulfillment of the psalmist’s longings and ours especially in the context of lament. Water for a parched tongue? He is the fountain of living water. A temple for communion? His body is the temple and the church, his body, the community of believers in which we now find succor and sustenance in time of need. Light to direct and guide? He is the light of the world. Truth? I am the truth. The exodus and the covenant recalled by the psalmist are fulfilled in Jesus: a deliverance from our bondage and an experience of communion and intimacy, in the new covenant in his blood. So in Christ, the lament has indeed been answered. There is resurrection and ascension the other side of abandonment and despair. Suffering will continue in a fallen world but it will not have the last word. Death, thou too must die! (Donne) But we still have a prospective hope, when two “waters” that threatened the psalmist, tears and crashing waters, will cease (Rev. 21:1-4) The psalms prefigure this transformation of despair through Jesus.
My three main points on Sunday were all about GETTING it: whether it’s getting it out, or getting it sorted out or getting it together. I concluded by suggesting another point. It is also about YET-ING IT. What do I mean? All the way through these psalms, despite the tenuous circumstances, despite the appearance of disaster and the experience of pain, despite the testing of faith, he continues to say, “I shall YET praise him!” Yes there are “tears…heights… deep…noise…waterfalls… waves and billows…mourning…oppression…enemies…an ungodly nation…deceitful and unjust men…” but YET there is hope in God and YET there is help of my countenance and YET there is a Hallelujah in the midst of trouble that transforms it.
In the middle of distress, Psalms 42 and 43 become our Travelers Aid and provide a wonderful source of meditation, not to mention instruction, encouragement and solace. Why are you downcast O my soul? Hope in God, for you shall YET praise him, the help of your countenance and your God. We are invited to get it all out, to get it sorted out, to get it together…and through it all to YET it. Only because of the example of the psalmist? No. In his turmoil Jesus said, “YET not my will but yours be done.”
Praying with you that I “get it” and “yet it”,
Pastorally yours,
Stuart
feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying. . . leading. (Isaiah 40:11)
Dear family,
We finished the opening three psalms of ascent on Sunday having followed the pilgrimage from the fear and insecurities of Meshech and Kedar to the experience of safe and stable community within the gates of Jerusalem and the house of the Lord. I then went on to look briefly at Psalm 123, which I will comment on for the purposes of this pastoral letter. Next message I will cover Psalms 124-126.
PSALM 123
There are no complications here. The psalm presents a single, focused thought that you can sum up like this: if you get into difficulty look to God for deliverance. Let me sum up the psalm in three quick points.
RIGHT PERSPECTIVE: What is noteworthy here is that despite the clear presence of trouble and trial, he does not begin with any mention of it at all. “I lift up my eyes..” (v1) This is the same beginning as Ps. 121. Four times “eyes” are mentioned. It’s all about who you are looking to, not what you are looking at. The NT companion text would be Hebrs. 12:2-3 “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus…Consider Him…” As the reader, your job is to watch the psalmist’s eyes and where he looks, your eyes will surely follow: “to you, whose throne is in the heaven…” Given the troubles, where would his eyes normally and naturally look? DOWN! He has chosen not to look within, not to look around but to look UP! When Spurgeon talked about how these eyes were looking, he used an avalanche of adverbs: “reverentially, obediently, attentively, continuously, expectantly, singly, submissively, imploringly.” That just about sums it up! Many years later, during WWII, the then pastor of Metropolitan Tabernacle, Graham Scroggie, said this about the focus of the psalmist’s eyes: “If we look at our God through our enemies, we’ll have a little God; but if we look at our enemies through our God, they will be as grasshoppers!” So where and how are you looking? If you tell me what you are seeing, I’ll tell you how you are looking. This is all about the response of faith. Once the enemy has persuaded you that God is not available, or God is absent, or God wasn’t there for you, it will be very difficult for you not to look with the right perspective, and you will not have a right perception of your circumstances. The enemy’s lie is that God is frankly not there to be looked to. He has vacated his throne in heaven. Forget it. You are not, and cannot be on his radar, in his heart. We need a right perspective.
RIGHT POSTURE: The psalmist immediately tells us his posture, his position, before God. The eyes are now focused on the hand. This is all about spiritual eye-hand co-ordination. “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God” (v2) This is not about abject subservience. The point here is that it was the master’s hand that would, according to the way it moved, give a direction or an instruction. There is deliberate literary suspense here: as…as…well? So what….SO! It is deliberately trying to convey this experience of necessary waiting that is so demanding and unsettling, so inconvenient and stretching, so suspenseful, so uncertain while it is being played out. In this waiting, a relationship is established between our attention (our eyes) and God’s action (His hand) We’ve already seen in the first point that this psalm is a response of faith, so as long as the eyes are focused on the hand, then the look is faithful, expecting direction and response, not fearful, anticipating rejection or rebuttal. If the first point emphasized the faith, this point emphasizes the hope, the expectation of God. We need a right posture.
RIGHT PRAYER: The expectation is expressed in asking. “Have mercy on us O Lord, have mercy” (v3) Centuries before Jesus’ essential teaching on prayer which was all about asking according to our expectations of who God is as our Father, the psalmist here is discovering the same truth. . Here’s what one observer says about this point: “What the psalmist expects he asks for…And observe for what he asks. He asks for that which he has no right to demand, the grace of God…The psalmist does not present a complaint but a request.” This is so important. There are any number of psalms that are laments and complaints, and don’t get me wrong, these need to be authentically expressed, and God invites us to do so. God is not threatened by our whining and whinging (remember this is a wonderful British word: persistent and peevish complaint). But this psalm encourages us that we can intercept the extension of complaint, that inevitably leads to self-pity and to doubt and faithlessness, by being quick to turn our grief into an asking for grace; to turn our mess into an asking for mercy; to turn our inquest into a request. There is nothing in this prayer that talks about what he wants; it is simply a request for mercy (no less than three times) for however God would see fit to dispose his mercy toward him. This is trust in trial. It is not passive waiting it out, but an active waiting for…like those servants watching the hand of the master. This prayer is not wimpish. On the contrary, it is insistent, repetitive and persistent. I thought of a good bumper sticker slogan: when something is unfortunate, be importunate! Like that widow in Luke 18, the things that happen to us that are inopportune, are the very things that invite us to be importunate. You cannot miss the unabashed urgency here. This is how his feelings are expressed. Not in anger towards God, but in serious asking for relief and deliverance. Where are you directing your emotions in your trouble?
This is an “in extremis” situation. The word translated “much” in the NIV is understated. It is repeated for emphasis and is better understood as “filled-exceedingly” To put it bluntly, he was fed up, he had enough, more than he can take, reached the limit, couldn’t hack it any more, he’d had his fill. You get the idea. There’s not one of us who hasn’t said that or been there. The repeat of “endured” emphasizes that there is not much energy or resilience left for this contempt and ridicule. If this is a post-exilic psalm as most scholars think, then it really resonates with the kind of intense opposition that Ezra and Nehemiah endured in the restoration of Jerusalem.
It is the virulent enmity of this contempt that opposed Nehemiah in the form of Sanballat and Tobiah: “He ridiculed the Jews and said ‘What are these feeble Jews doing?...will they restore their wall?...will they offer sacrifices?...will they finish in a day?...can they bring burned stones back to life?’...” (Neh. 4:2) As you have all found out, the tactics of the enemy have not changed against the people of God who are committed to stand in the midst of trouble. He loves to apply his versions of psychological warfare and oppress the minds and thus the perspectives and the postures of God’s servants who are called to stand.
What are you feeble people doing? Is your weakness, or apparent lack of breakthrough being mocked, being preyed on?
Will they restore their wall? Is the possibility of change, of transformation, of revival, of recovery, of restoration being challenged?
Will they offer sacrifices? Is the power of your asking, the reality of forgiveness, the healing of wounds, the certainty of deliverance being questioned or even denied?
Will they finish in a day? Is there discouragement in the rate of progress, tempting you to question God’s involvement and timing?
Can they bring burned stones back to life? Is there doubt that the burned stones of past failure and destruction can be reused, redeemed, re-mortared. Can any good come out of this desolation that we see? What can be remade with the raw material that is our brokenness, our inadequate resources? The point about the burned stones is that the heat changes the composition of the bricks and thus weakens them. The lie of the enemy to those who are called to stand again is that the best is over. The best to hope for is a rearrangement of the burned bricks of past sin and failure. The ridiculing questions of the enemy continue to challenge the souls of men: can we succeed where we once failed? Can we love where we once lusted? Can we edify where we once tore down? Can we be reconciled where we were once divided? Can we be transparent where we once lived a lie? Can we stand where we once fell?
Like the psalmist, Nehemiah’s response was always prayer: “But we prayed to our God…Hear us O God for we are despised…” His response to intimidation was always intercession. Up till now the enemy’s posture was an arrogant, mocking standing in the face of the people of God. But the text says: “When all our enemies heard about this the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence.” (Neh. 6:15) We too need a right prayer.
Do you have a right perspective; do you have a right posture; do you have a right prayer? Check out Psalm 123 again!
Pastorally yours,
Stuart
feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying. . . leading. (Isaiah 40:11)
Dear Church,
Please forgive this late pastoral letter! It’s been a very full week. Stuart closed our “Commendables” summer series this past Sunday by speaking about the unnamed commendables in Scripture, especially in the Gospel accounts. In these unnamed ones—like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garments, or the wedding servant who obeyed Jesus’ direction to fill the many jugs with water—we find examples to emulate and even a sense of solidarity. After all, our names aren’t written in the Bible like Job or Moses. But “unnamed” though we may be in that sense, Stuart reminded us that upon entry into heaven we will each be given a new name (even a secret name) by our Father in heaven.
God knows us and He knows our deeds. But therein lies a problem for us. Scripture is consistent in its depiction of humanity as fallen and condemnable. How, then, can we receive the designation, “commendable”? Scripture is clear: only on account of the commendability of Christ, the only perfectly commendable member of the human race. By faith and hope in him we are justified and the verdict of condemnation that looms over us is replaced by a verdict of commendation. We celebrated this as we took the bread and cup on Sunday, as we remembered that our salvation cost something, that the condemnation we deserve fell on Christ instead of us, so that we might receive the commendation of the righteous Christ. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Co. 5:21)
On this side of the cross there is no more condemnation for us, but there still remains a great need for conviction. Whereas condemnation results in exclusion and rejection, conviction leads to repentance and restored relationship. We are instructed in Scripture to maintain a clear conscience, to keep short accounts with the Lord, and when our heart condemns us, to return to the cross, confess our sin, and receive God’s grace anew.
Rich blessings,
Ben
feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying. . . leading. (Isaiah 40:11)
Dearest family,
First of all, thank you to those who communicated with me after the message on Sunday, and by email, the deep responses of heart to the Word. It is always encouraging when we find together that the same deep is calling out to deep, that the depth of the riches of God’s grace displace such deep responses in us. It is almost impossible for me to effectively convey in précis form what I shared on Sunday, but I will give you this. One of the intimate intimations of grace in Ruth’s story is when Boaz invites her into the inner circle, even though she is a foreigner, a stranger, a Moabitess no less, excluded from the assembly of the Lord’s people. Boaz says to her, “Come over here and eat. Have some bread and dip it onto the wine vinegar.” If that is not a foreshadowing of the one who is to come, full of grace and truth, who would take the bread and take the cup and say to us, “Come over here, sit and eat.” Would this passage have been in the back of George Herbert’s mind, my very favorite poet, when he wrote the following? Read and meditate.
LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'
'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.
Pastorally yours,
Stuart
In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
2 Deliver me, O Lord,
from lying lips,
from a deceitful tongue.
3 What shall be given to you,
and what more shall be done to you,
you deceitful tongue?
4 A warrior's sharp arrows,
with glowing coals of the broom tree!
5 Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech,
that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
6 Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
7 I am for peace,
but when I speak, they are for war!.(ESV)
Psalm 120
feeding . . . gathering . . . carrying. . . leading. (Isaiah 40:11)
Dear family,
I have been deeply moved by some responses received from Sunday, referencing very specific things that were ministered to by the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that David asked God to be present with him. Over the last two messages in the PSALM PSERIES, I have focused on Psalm 51, the fourth in a group of psalms that have been the historic reading of the church during the period of Lent (6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) that are described as “the penitential psalms”. These form a genre within a genre, the primary categorization being “laments”. Psalm 51 is arguably the most well-known and influential, and one of the most definitive presentations of repentance in scripture.
What began as David’s darkest moment of self-knowledge ends up becoming one of the most profound biblical examples of repentance that brings restoration. There are many liberal commentators who describe this psalm as lacking “homogenous construction.” Clearly, I suggested the exact opposite: that there is an extraordinary spiritual logic in the way David recounts his journey to recovered wholeness, in six distinctive identifiable steps, or movements, as he seeks a way forward to resolution. We worked our way through this process that gives us the crucial constituent elements of repentance: in a way the psalm is an anatomy of repentance and therefore of forgiveness also, which becomes a tutor to our own souls, and an example for our own practice of confession. It is our familiarity with it that perhaps robs it of its amazing spiritual power, but if we can get back in touch with its raw truth, then we will find that most presently recited liturgical confessions are pale by comparison.
We noted the following main points about the content of this confession. 1. An appeal to God. 2. An acknowledgement of his rebellion but also of God’s righteousness. 3. An awareness of the depth of his sin but also the depth of his salvation. 4. An agonizing and asking for forgiveness. 5. An aching for spiritual renewal. 6. An anticipation of being used again by God. Please get the CD or download if you want to revisit the teaching on each of these points. This story of David illustrates a complete process: Confrontation, Conviction, Contrition, Confession and Consecration.
And everyone lived happily ever after! Or did they? I said that it would leave a wrong impression if I’d chosen to finish there, though it is easier and more palatable, and less problematic to do so. It is important, having finished reading Psalm 51, to go back to the story (Read 2 Sam. 12: 10-20). True, David’s sentence of death for his sin was commuted by the grace of God but there were two consequences of the sin that need to be mentioned:
The baby died. David fasted and prayed but it was to no avail. There is that poignant picture of him getting off the ground where he had spent seven days and nights pleading with God, and going into the house of the Lord where it simply says he “worshiped” (2 Sam. 12:20). As challenging as this is, this is actually a word of hope and encouragement for any who are bearing the consequences of sin, or living with a seemingly unchangeable impasse, or irreconciliation post-sin, post-forgiveness. The power of the grace that forgave you and delivered you is the same saving grace that will keep you and minister to you and give you the grace to bear with an anointed face, the consequences that are not necessarily removed by virtue of that confession and repentance given, and that forgiveness received. These consequences cannot cast a shadow on what God has done, they cannot mute your worship, they cannot accuse you before God. Though they may remind you of the past from time to time, what God has forgiven is already in the sea of his forgetfulness.
The things that were prophesied by Nathan came true. (2 Sam. 16:22) From this point on, whatever it was that David had opened up through his sin, his family became the great burden of his soul: the rebellion of his son Absalom, the rape of a daughter. And someone can think that David got away with it?
What is so profound and overwhelming is what we read in 2 Samuel 12: 24-25. Bathsheba gets pregnant again, has a son and they name him Solomon. The text says, “The Lord loved him, and sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.” What do you think David’s first thought or feeling was when he was told after this birth that there was a message from Nathan. Did that bring back all the bad memories of the last message from the prophet after the last birth? Could there be a more poignant message of the grace and love of God, of an affirmation of a restoration and a new beginning. And this would be the son who would be able to complete what David most longed to do, build a dwelling place for the Lord. Wow! Mercy triumphs over judgment. As Moody used to put it, where sin was loud, grace and forgiveness shouted even louder!
Many commentators argue that the last section of this psalm was added after the exile when the collection was put together, because it doesn’t seem to fit. I don’t hold this to be so. The sin of David the King had uncovered the city and the kingdom, in the way that the sin of a husband can uncover his wife, or the sin of a mother can uncover her children, or the sin of a leader can uncover those he leads. Sin breaches the walls of our relationships. Sin undoes the mortar of the bricks of covenant and leaves gaps for bad things to come in, and colonize. Our repentance, gives us every ground, like David’s, to ask for the walls that have been breached to be rebuilt and restored, and for a return of a united sacrificial response to God as a marriage, as a family, as a team, as a friendship, as a city, as a nation. It is always the forgiving intervention of God in our lives that makes us intercessors and interveners on behalf of others.
The nature of all of this, of David’s healing and deliverance is the more extraordinary, given the way it points to Jesus and the consummation of his work to make us those who have a new heart. It is the cross, that David did not know, though more than once he prophetically foresaw it, that convinces us of both the depth of our sin and the depth of our salvation. John Stott has written "If we interpret sin as a lapse instead of a rebellion, and God as indulgent instead of indignant, then naturally the cross appears superfluous." Our understanding of the cross is absolutely related to the depth of our sin. As the old hymn puts it, "O tell me what it meaneth, Help me to take it in, What it meant to thee the holy one, To take away my sin." The cross is the place where there is an equal demonstration of God's justice and his love. The judgment against sin that his holiness demanded is operative with his love that pardons the unjust offender. The depth of sin is seen in the depth of suffering, the depth of separation and alienation from God, the depth of violence. The presentation of the cross as a "propitiation" (Roms.3:24-25; I Jhn.2:1-2;4:10) once again draws attention to the depth of wrath against such depth of sin, that had to be appeased. For those of us who live this side of the cross, the sense of the depth of our sin is affirmed when we realize the nature of the power of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. The depth of sin is great but the reach of God's grace and mercy and delivering power is greater. Where sin abounded, grace abounded more. In the NT, when the depth of sin is exposed with the tragic corruption of a life without Christ, we are immediately shown, not just more of who we were or who we are, but who Christ intends us to become. The NT emphasis is on Christ not sin. Where the realities of the first Adam are mentioned, the glories of the second Adam are exegeted and exalted. Paul refers to, or alludes to many OT scriptures pertaining to the origin and nature of the depths of our sin, but his emphasis is always the difference that the crucified, risen, ascended, glorified Christ makes. Where Adam is mentioned, Paul's Christology soars. As one commentator has put it, the image of the dusty one pales in the light of the image of the heavenly one. The NT emphasis does not skirt the depth of our sin, but acknowledging it, goes on to extol the deliverance from sin that has been wrought through the finished work of Christ.
When we deal with the truth of the depth of our sin, we are confronted not only with the gruesome thing that our sin did to Christ, but with the glorious thing that Christ's salvation did for us.
When we were far away…we were brought near (Ephs. 2:17) We were unrighteous…we have become the righteousness of God (2 Cors. 5:21) We were unholy…we are now God’s holy and beloved (Cols. 3:12) We were broken…we are complete with the fullness of Christ (Cols. 2:10) We were once darkness…now we are light in the Lord (Ephs. 5:8) We were once guilty…now we are blameless in his sight without blemish and free from accusation (Cols. 1;22) We were once no people…now we are the people of God (1 Pet. 2:9-12) We had once not received mercy…now we have received mercy (1 Pet. 2-10) We were once dead in our sins… now we have been made alive with Christ (Ephs2:1-5).
In the words of another old hymn:
There's a way back to God
From the dark paths of sin
There's a door that is open
And all may go in
At Calvary's cross is where you begin
When you come as a sinner to Jesus.
Pastorally yours,
Stuart
