Tabernacle

Grace is all around you, surrounding your senses like Dolby 7.1.  Everywhere you turn, another good and perfect gift from the Father awaits!  Those with ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts that are ready to receive will grow in grace, but many do not recognize the Giver.  Anybody can take God’s gifts, but only those who receive God Himself get transformed by grace to become like Him.

A long time ago, a tense battle was fought over the Bible.  Does the Church have the same (if not greater) authority as Scripture, or does Scripture have ultimate authority over all things?  We stand with our fathers and mothers who believed that Scripture alone is the inerrant and infallible standard for faith and life.  Where else can we go to hear the words of eternal life?  Where else can we go to be transformed?

Vince Lombardi used to begin every football season by gathering his top-ranked team to share some fundamentals with them.  He would hold up a football in front of them and declare, “This is a football.”  Pretty basic stuff!  It is good to be reminded of the basics.  As churches around the world observe the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation this fall, we will be revisiting our theological roots to underscore one very basic principle: the Gospel changes everything.  Has it changed you?

Last week, we lamented: “How long, O Lord?”  Lament comes from a confusing place in our hearts.  God says He is our Defender and Shield, so why does He allow pain and sorrow into our lives?  After the tears have dried on our cheeks, we have a decision to make.  Will we trust Him?  Will we keep following the One who leads us along steep paths and dark valleys?

One of the hardest things about being a Christian is trying to reconcile God’s goodness and power with the reality of pain and suffering.  “How long, O Lord?”  “God, where are you?”  “Why have you forsaken me?”  These hard prayers are more common than we would like to admit because suffering is more common than we expect.  God’s answer?  Jesus.  He suffered with us and for us and prayed the same prayers we do.  God’s answer may not always be what we want, but it is what we need.

Where do you go to learn how to live well?  Where do you go for wisdom? Assuming you want to live well, do you go to God or do you go to someone else?  To someplace else?  To something else?  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  All other resources are either borrowing from Him, rebelling against Him, or pointing back to Him.  At the end of the day, all wisdom is found at the nail-pierced feet of Jesus.

Today our Summer Psalms series brings us to a psalm of confession.  We generally don’t like confession.  It means we have to admit we were wrong.  It means we have to repent—to turn—from the sin we are confessing.  It means we have to be honest about our failure and make a real change.  But it also means we can be free from pretending.  We can rejoice that forgiveness is available.  Through repentance, God welcomes us.  Without repentance, we remain outside, choosing our pride and hardness of heart over the love and grace that are found in Jesus.

Most of us, thankfully, have never faced the kind of violence that many people in the world and throughout the ages have experienced firsthand.  Unless we are careful, we can slip into believing that the world is a nice place full of nice people and that we are among the nicest.  But the world is actually a mix of virtue and violence, and so are we.  Until we choose to see this, we will remain blind to people’s pain, to our need, and to God’s violent remedy on a cross.

Most of us, thankfully, have never faced the kind of violence that many people in the world and throughout the ages have experienced firsthand.  Unless we are careful, we can slip into believing that the world is a nice place full of nice people and that we are among the nicest.  But the world is actually a mix of virtue and violence, and so are we.  Until we choose to see this, we will remain blind to people’s pain, to our need, and to God’s violent remedy on a cross.

Spiritual amnesia is not pretty.  When saints forget their Savior, we turn our backs on His gifts of joy and love and peace, trading them in for impatience, entitlement, and fear.  Psalm 136 reminds us of the blessings we have from God, our Creator, Deliverer, and Defender, whose steadfast love endures forever!