Wilderness Wanderings

Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness. (Psalm 115:1)

One of the problems with idolatry is that it pulls our attention, desires, and ambitions away from the One they are supposed to be pointed at: God, and points them at the idol, or ourselves instead.

If our devices, these creations of our own hands—along with the images and words they bring us—if they have become idols in our lives—demanding our attention, claiming our desires, and fueling our ambitions through ever increasing amounts of screen time—then we need to hear these words of the Psalm again.

"Not to us, Lord. Not to us. But to your name be the glory!" It is in your presence we wish to dwell, not our own.

There are elements of our current technological idolatries that are quite ancient, in that we form our idols, and then they form us.

Adam and Eve believed the serpent's lie, that they could become like God if only they would reach for the fruit of disobedience. The builders of the Tower of Babel also reached for the heavens, the place of God, to make it their own. Likewise, in our pursuits of technology, we continue to reach for things that perhaps are not ours to grasp.

We reach for omnipresence, that ability to be "all/everywhere-present." Through the eyes and ears of our technological idols, we can be present anywhere and everywhere in the world at once. Time and space no longer limit us. Digitally, we are free of them.

We reach for omniscience, that ability to be "all knowing." Through those same means of digital omnipresence, we drink in the news of markets, politics, opinions and happenings. We gobble up the images of intimate pornographic content as well. We want to see, hear, and know everything. And digitally, we are promised that we can. Just keep scrolling. Our hunger and thirst for more information becomes insatiable—for what eye has it's fill of seeing? And what ear it's fill of hearing?

We reach for omnipotence, that ability to be "all powerful." With the tap of a finger from the comfort of home, the world answers our call: groceries are delivered to our door, meetings are conducted, our desires are satisfied. Not only that, but we are able to shape the powers of government and bring corporations to their knees through our activist tweets and posts. We are inferior to no one. The power is quite literally in the palm of our hands.

And yet, these devices that we have created in our image (with eyes, ears, voice, etc.) to make us all present, all knowing, and all powerful—that is, to make us like God—have in fact, far from setting us free unto divinity, have enslaved us. The serpent's lie has again turned out to be just that: a lie.

We form our idols and our technology, and then they form us.

Becoming digitally present everywhere, we have actually become uprooted, disconnected, and lonely from the present embodied time and place in which we dwell. Becoming digitally full of knowing, we have actually only become scatterbrained, anxious, and distrustful before the crushing complexity of our world's problems. Becoming digitally powerful, we have, through very real elements of addiction, actually become powerless to put down the device: enslaved again to a technology that is not bringing us life, freedom, or divinity.

These works of our hands are manifestations of our reach to become like God without God. And yet without God, all we find is death.

And so the Psalmist calls us back: "Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness."

God also promises that we will become like him. But not without him. Glory comes to his name when we become like him by humbly receiving him and his Spirit-filled work in our lives. His love and faithfulness in Jesus set us free to live fully, peacefully, and meaningfully as we do.

Jesus lovingly reminds us that the only place we really desire to be, is the place where he is. What we really hunger and thirst for is an ever deeper knowledge of him, which is where all wisdom and knowledge begin. The power we really desire to have, is his power at work in us that brings his kingdom in, through, and around us.

So again, I invite you to join in praying this prayer of the Psalmist with me today and every day you confront the lure of idolatry, technology, or any other sort of enslaving addiction. Confront it with these words:

"Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory."

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple (Psalm 27:4)

"Ham, henek met." Nothing is wrong with your hearing or eyesight. The words are spelt correctly, but my pronunciation is likely wrong. But those three words capture for me the essence of Psalm 27. "Ham, henek met." Let me explain.

One day, while Stuart Sacks was serving as a Christian Missionary in Paraguay, a Maka Indian named Rafael came to sit on his porch. Stuart went out to see what he wanted. Rafael responded, "Ham, henek met." Again, Stuart asked what he could do for him, but the answer was the same. Stuart understood what he was saying, "I don't want anything; I have just come near," but not the significance. After a while, Rafael left without further conversation.

Later, Stuart shared the incident with a local veteran missionary, who explained that it was Rafael's way of honouring him. "He really didn't want anything; he just wanted to sit on your porch. He found satisfaction and pleasure just being near you." "Ham, henek met."

This is David's desire in Psalm 27. It is not that he wanted to give up being shepherd or king and become a monk. David knew that no one was allowed inside the holy of holies in the temple. That was the place God dwelt among his people and no one but the high priest was allowed in there, and him, only once a year after significant purifying preparation.

The tabernacle and later the temple stood for God's presence. David wanted the pleasure and protection of unbroken communion with God in His house. He wanted to sit on God's porch. "Ham, henek met."

What is our ambition in life today? Is it to get rich? Is it to make a name for ourselves? Is it even to do some wonderful thing for God? Even though some of these may be good things, the Christian church has long understood that the highest desire that can possess any human heart is a longing to see God; to be near him. "Ham, henek met!"

Jesus taught us that the day would come when we could experience that reality. It came with Him (John 4). God has no address on this earth. The universe is His and He is everywhere. We live in the presence of God all the time, even if we forget. And the thing is, we do forget.

The most challenging words in this psalm are the little three letter ones, "one," and "all." "One thing, only one, I have asked from the Lord," David says. "I am no double minded man. I don't want to love God and love the world too. If the Lord will grant this one request then he may deny me everything else and I will still be happy. I am single minded in my longing."

Rich Mullins left us this prayer: "Save us from those things that might distract us. Please take them away and purify our hearts. We don't want to lose the eternal for the things that are passing. What will we have when the world is gone, if it isn't for the love that goes on and on with our one thing? You're our one thing. The pure in heart shall see God" ("My One Thing").

Let it be enough that we are near God. May "Ham, henek met" be the desire of our hearts!

Why do the nations say, "Where is their God?"Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell.They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats.Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:2-8)

Today's devotion is an invitation to think spiritually about our daily lives.

Did you know that your smartphone includes, among over 70 some other elements, the elements on the Periodic Table known as Ag & Au (click this link to see the periodic table of smartphone elements)? In the tongue of us normal people, that would be the elements known as silver and gold.

These smartphones have mouths: we call them speakers. These devices have eyes. We call them cameras. They have ears which we call microphones. I don't think they have noses just yet, hands or feet either. But that doesn't mean they can't grasp the things we desire off of Amazon's shopping shelves or travel back home to turn off the smart lights we left on. How far we've come from the ancient idol makers whose poor statues were mute. Ours our interactive.

Are they really idols though, you might ask? They serve us! Not the other way around!

Maybe.

These devices made by our own human hands, or at least by the hands of our hands which we call assembly line robots, evoke some strange habits from us.

They call us to worship with their vibrations and dings. We obey dutifully, offering our unquestioning attention as a matter of reflex, despite the car driving or conversing with a real flesh-and-blood human that we might have otherwise been engaged in at the time.

We give of our offerings through the app store and in-game purchases. We offer not just our treasures though. We offer our time by the hours. Our talents. Even our trees (just take a peek at that periodic table again at the beginning).

In prayer, we find that we can ask Alexa and Siri nearly anything, and lo and behold—they deliver! No waiting around for answers or material blessings. They can make it happen!

And yet, we who make them are beginning to become like those idols of old. Losing our capacity to hold a conversation through speech with another person. Losing our capacity to see and hear the things occurring in the physical space and time our body is occupying in the present moment as we become immersed in the digital world and experience we're constantly nudged and notified into.

Do our devices serve us? Or do we serve them? Do we trust more in what the perceptions of our devices tell us than we trust in what God tells us of our reality?

Is that thing in our pockets a tool, or an idol?

"You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you… (Psalm 66:12, 13).

As promised last Thursday, I want to spend another day with these verses. Last time, I reflected on the creative tension between of our personal and corporate faith. Some of us swing more to one side than the other, but we need both in order to grow up into our faith.

Today, I want to reflect on another creative tension point in our Christian faith. It's the tension of living in the present. To put it differently, the tension of living between the past and the future. I'm not sure that helps much, but it does set up what's coming. Reformed people have often talked about the already/not yet reality of God's kingdom. That's part of the tension, too, this psalm speaks into.

There is an important truth about the Christian faith that we need to bring up here. It's this: The Bible is to be read as a whole. Even though it has 66 different books, it is one book. It took over a millennium to write. Those who wrote the later material often referred back to things already written. Thus, when we read Psalm 66, the composer wants us to hear echoes of Exodus 15. That is the song of Moses which was sung after God delivered Israel from Egypt.

It begins this way, "I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God, and I will exalt him" (Ex. 15:1-2).

But here is the thing, in Revelation 15 John hears the creatures of heaven singing Moses' song, "Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty" (15:3). It's a paraphrase, to be sure, but John says that this is the song of Moses and of the Lamb, connecting the deliverance of Israel from Egypt with the greater deliverance Jesus accomplished for us all.

Now back to Psalm 66. We don't know what was happening in the life of the Psalmist that inspired this song, but it wasn't good. At the end of the psalm we find these phrases, I cried out to him with my mouth. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and has "heard my prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!"

As he went through his own valley, the psalmist looked back to God's great acts of redemption. It encouraged him to call out to God to save his people again. The book of Revelation invites us to look forward as well. To believe that God has not yet finished his work of redemption. Jesus will be coming back to renew all things.

Living in the present is rarely easy. We often wonder why God doesn't just send Jesus back to make all things new. Psalm 66 helps us to live with confidence in the turmoil of today, that that day will come.

Like the Psalmist, we look back and see the great acts of God in the Old Testament. Like John, we look back and see the great act of redemption in Jesus Christ: his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension into heaven and the pouring out of his Spirit. But we are also invited to see this Lamb upon his throne.

We also look ahead to his return in power and glory.

It is difficult to keep hope alive. That's why we need a song like Psalm 66.

But that is also exactly what the Lord's Supper is about. It looks back to Christ's redemption on the cross. But it also looks forward, to the return of our Saviour and King. It helps us keep hope alive. If this is true, don't you wonder why we don't sit and eat it more often?

A special, extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Matthew 25:1-13 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

1. What are the two main reasons Jesus told parables about his kingdom.

A.

B.

2. Who is Jesus speaking to in telling this parable?

3. What does it mean to be wise? Give some examples of how you have acted wisely in the past week? If you can't, why is that? Make a plan to act wisely in the week ahead.

4. Read and reread Titus 2:11-13. How does the grace of God give us encouragement and hope for wise living?

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3)

Pastor Michael mentioned Ephesians 4-5 yesterday in his devotion on private and corporate faith, and so let's go there.

These first few verses from the fourth chapter of Ephesians followed my wife and I around over the first few years we knew each other. They were the theme verses of the international church conference we met at, we heard a surprising number of sermons on these verses during that time, and so these verses became our wedding text too. Whether in our personal lives, our relational lives, or in our church lives—these verses have much to say to how we live in all of life!

There is a strange paradox that arises in the heart of verse three where Paul urges us to "keep the unity of the Spirit." It's a paradox, because as Paul will go on to say, "there is… one Spirit." This singular Holy Spirit is already united in and with Himself as are the people of God in whose lives the Spirit is active—so this unity Paul urges us toward is already there. What's to keep? Yet, on the other end of the paradox we discover that the people who claim that one-and-the-same Spirit of Christ to be active in their lives and churches are often divided, living in dis-unity.

Unity with the whole church of Christ is a gift we have nothing to do but receive from the Spirit as He joins us to the One True God, and yet this unity with the whole church of Christ is also a goal we must strive to keep in all our Christian lives and living.

Paul wrote this challenging line from prison. A place of being set apart, divided from the rest of the church. But it is from this place that Paul makes his plea, urging us all to live worthily of the calling we have received. In these times of being scattered as a church family, we can perhaps catch the urgency in Paul's plea.

Far from striving to heights of success, which often includes puffing up our own pride and resume through competing and outshining others, the calling we have received includes a call to walk the humble, gentle, patient, loving path of Christ. This slow, lowly, and unspectacular path of Jesus is the means of living out our other calling to keep what we already have and remain what we already are: united to Christ and one another through the Spirit by the will of the Father.

To again echo Pastor Michael, this Christian calling is not to walk a solo journey. The calling is to walk together in unity with the rest of our brothers and sisters in Christ who make up God's family.

We've been adopted into this family by the grace of God, the work of Christ, and the power of the Spirit.

But as with any family: it takes some humility, love, and patience to remain united as a family. We don't always get along so well. We annoy each other, disagree with one another, hurt each other, and take from one another.

Those collected wounds and annoyances can drive wedges that eventually blow families apart in divorce and estrangement. But, they are also opportunities for the Spirit to quietly work a unifying redemption through us instead.

This is the work we are called and urged to join. We are continually called to reconcile with one another, confess to one another, and forgive one another. This is the slow, humble, loving work of keeping the unity of the Spirit-joined family in bonds of peace. It's not easy, but we do not do it alone. Unity is not just a goal, it is also one of the Spirit's surprising gifts.

May we seek and find just such a reconciled unity as we gather around the family dinner table, the Lord's Table, this Sunday.

"You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you… (Psalm 66:12, 13).

Authentic biblical faith exists in a creative tension that, I think, 2020 has highlighted. On the one hand, there is the corporate life of the church. On the other hand, there is the personal life of the individual.

Think about it this way. We are individually called to grow up, to mature in our faith. And as we grow, we are individually called to participate in God's great Kingdom building. However, we will experience no progress in either without being nourished within the body of Christ. This, I think, is the burden of Ephesians 4 & 5. I also believe that we need to envision this growth happening not just in the large gathering of the church, such as Sunday worship. It tends to happen more effectively in smaller groups of Christians who commit to helping each other grow.

We need to be personally committed to our own spiritual growth. But growth will not happen without the assistance of fellow Christians. This is a tension that we need to live with not resolve.

Whenever this tension is broken great damage is done. Sometimes the individual is absorbed into a community that has become cult like. The sense of self disappears. No spiritual decisions are made without the approval of the leadership.

On the other hand, a Christian sometimes becomes so detached from the community of faith that she wanders alone with a private faith. We see a great deal of this in our culture. People only connect with the church if it works for them. It is clearly a current danger for the Christian.

Christianity is intensely personal, but it is not individualistic. Each person finds his or her meaning within the overall plan of God for the cosmos, the planet, and all of history.

Each of us has been called by Christ and is part of God's purpose in creation and redemption. All Christians are part of the new Israel (Gal. 6:16) and members of Christ's kingdom. We are all called into His army to do battle against the powers of darkness and we are all participants in the greatest missionary movement that the world has ever known.

The meaning of the Christian life is not just my personal salvation or my own interior spirituality but is to be found in a cause, God's purpose to unite "all things in Christ," things in heaven and things on earth (Eph. 1:10). In both Ephesians and Colossians, Paul insists that the church is the first fruit of God's plan of cosmic reconciliation. That is why we, as individual Christians, need to be connected to a Christian fellowship, otherwise called a church; it is also why the disunity of the church is such a tragedy.

Psalm 66 witnesses to both the communal and the personal nature of faith. It begins with a great confession of God's "awesome deeds" in history. He called Israel and redeemed her from Egypt. Because of her sin, God broke her in judgment. But now, God has brought her to rich fulfilment (12).

Suddenly, with verse 13, the psalm becomes intensely personal. The psalmist vows his intention to worship and declares what God has done for his own soul. The psalmist sees his own relationship to God in the wider scope of all of His dealings with His people. This is authentic faith. We live in the present before God within the context of God's community.

In this psalm we rediscover God's purposes for us: not to make us comfortable, but useful for his redemptive plan. How does your personal life's vision match up with God's? How will you stay connected with God's community as fall moves into winter?

There is something else in these two verses that is worthy of reflection. But that will need to wait till my next devotion.

Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

This Sunday we'll be participating in the Lord's Supper, and so today is an opportunity to prepare for it.

Sacraments are deeply communal practices—not just the Lord's Supper, but baptism too. We are baptized into a community where vows are made about us and by us. In the Lord's Supper we express our unity as a community as we participate in Christ and partake of one loaf.

Why this communal nature of the sacraments? In short, God has created, called, and redeemed us to live in community. We are not isolated individuals. As God looked out at the good Creation, he noted that "it is not good for the man [or woman] to be alone." So community is part of the fabric of the grace that we have received from the beginning of creation and still today in Christ. These means of grace tell us the same thing tangibly so that all our five senses can meet this grace of being reconciled to the community of Christ, not just our heads.

Together as this community—this body of Christ—we can walk along rejoicing, comforting, and binding up one another's wounds. Together we can continue to learn and grow and be built up in our faith and in maturity. Together we live out our baptismal vows to nourish the faith, support, encourage, and pray for those baptized into the Christian community, and in turn, where those things are done for us. In this way, the community serves as a concrete expression and experience of God's own care and love for us, His people.

And yet, it's really hard to see and live that communal, body-of-Christ reality right now when a quarter of the congregation participates in the Lord's Supper at church all spread out and masked and the other three quarters participate on their own scattered about in homes across the area.

Yet, the Supper reminds us that despite the very practical, physical barriers that divide us from one another, we remain united in Christ. The Supper reminds us that Christ can and still does meet us where we are as we participate not just in some bread and juice, but quite tangibly in the body and life of Christ. Not only that, but the Supper nourishes our body and soul for the challenges of living faithfully according to who we are in Christ: a community.

We continue to be the hands and feet of Christ who minister to one another, even while scattered, even while separated. We do it through phone calls and cards, through meals and porch visits, through video chats and prayers. Maybe you've done it in other ways too or can imagine some new ones.

In any case, as we approach the table this Sunday, may our tangible participation in the one body of Christ nourish us for the challenges of being that body in Christ tangibly together in these times.

"God blesses those people who..." (Ps 1:1 CEV).

So, starts the book of Psalms, according to the Contemporary English Version. I like that because it reminds us where blessings come from. They don't just show up. Being blessed is a gift from God. This is the introduction to Israel's song book. So, its worth paying extra attention to.

Psalm 1 observes that wise people ensure they are influenced by the Word of God rather than by those who mock God. Its a wonderful psalm; encouraging; ending with the promise that God watches over the way of the righteous. When Christians read this psalm, they tend to agree with it, nod their heads and recommit themselves to reading the Bible.

Psalm 2 is a continuation of Psalm 1. But its tone is altogether different. It is a war psalm. The sinners of Psalm 1, the ones Christians ought not to be influenced by, are now warriors. They are pictured huddled together in their war room, devising plans to overthrow God.

Suddenly, the people we should not be inspired by are not naive, mild mannered unbelievers minding their own business. Rather, they are part of an international conspiracy against God. If we are followers of God, then they are out to get us. While we pray for God's kingdom to come, they pray for it to be demolished.

Even though this warfare is not always openly experienced, in the psalms this deep conflict between the things of God and the things of evil is never far from the surface. Meditating on the things of God is not just a nice thing to do, it is absolutely necessary.

Notice that the Bible doesn't ask how much we have read or how long. Mediating. That is what the Bible wants us to do with it. Rolling it over in your minds. Letting it influence our decisions, our thinking our reactions.

Its an essential tool for staying in the fight, for not getting conquered. In Ephesians 6 Paul writes, "We are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places" (6:12). So remember, people are not the problem, not the enemy.

Then he coaches us on getting into the armour that is necessary for to "stand". We don't want to get knocked over; we don't want to get knocked out of the fight. We need to stand.

Why does Paul tell us to stand firm, rather than fight? Paul is well versed in the Psalms. He knows Psalm 2 which declares unequivocally that God has won. This battle belongs to our Lord and He has won. When Christ rose from the grave, he nailed shut the devil's coffin.

One of Paul's main contentions to the Ephesians is that Christ has disarmed the power. He has conquered over them and is sitting over them (ruling over them) in the heavenlies.

The devil can still make a mess of this world; he can still ruin many a Christian life, but he cannot win. He is defeated, chained. And so, we need to stand. But we need to be dressed for the fight, for that, we need the Word. And Paul adds that we need to pray. Paul also knew Jesus, who had said, "Pray that you are not led into temptation" (Matt 26:41).

When we meditate on the Word and when we pray, we engage in spiritual warfare. When we do these things, we grab hold of the armour that enables us to stand. The devil is always at work. We should be too.

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:6-8)

Sometime last month, I mentioned how our youth group was looking at and hopefully practicing some Spiritual Disciplines this year as a way of remaining more tangibly grounded in our relationship with God and one another. The youth met again yesterday to talk about the next discipline in their list: the discipline of Generosity (click/tap here for more resources).

It's a pretty core action of our Christian lives. That's because it's a pretty core action of God Himself, even from the very beginning.

Think of it: God's act of Creation was no stingy endeavour. Waters were teaming, the earth was crawling, and "fill" and "increase" were the commands given. God not only gave life, but he also gave the means of reproducing life—seeds—so that life would continue for generations to come. It was a good creation—overflowing and abundant.

Now we live in a fallen creation though, a fact that's hard to escape during these pandemic days. Resources of health, money, time, and patience seem scarce, more so than they used to be. Even so, God's generosity has never ceased. So powerful was Jesus' act of generosity in offering his very self for us, that it began to undo to the curse of sin and death in this world.

Through Him, God's power has begun re-creating abundance where sin had made scarcity. Re-making lives, where sin had brought death. Restoring people like you and me where chaos and crisis leave ruins.

We are called to be like Him and join this work by giving generously as our God has—to focus our eyes, not on the limitations of our world or of our own stock of seeds, but on His rich abundance and hilarious generosity that is always more than our own.

In this way, we don't look to the limited seeds in our own hands for our security or well-being, we're called to focus instead on the one who supplies the seeds. God's storehouse is stocked. Against all the droughts, storms, and even pandemics of this fallen world: God always has more provision, more love, and more grace to give, even when we've run out.

It's a call to trust in God, and then, to sow generously. Giving of ourselves, our time and our treasures for the sake of the kingdom, living with open hands: receiving with thanks, giving with joy.

Paul encourages us, you reap what you sow—so why not sow generously?