Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tech Problems
I will post the third message in the series, "Going Toward God" (from Psalm 84) as soon as I can, but have encountered some technical problems with Blogspot. It's not accepting pastes from Word, and I sure don't have the time to retype it! Hopefully that will corrected soon.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Journey Toward God
This is the second message in the series, which I shared this past Sunday.
Series: Going toward God—Psalm 84
Part Two: The Journey toward God
Psalm 84:5-8
You never stay the same. I talk to people all the time. I ask them, “What’s happening?” And over 50% of the time I get the answer, “Not much. Things are about the same.”
And when I hear that, there’s a part of me that says, “More is happening than you’re aware of.”
It is the nature of living things to change. So if you’re alive, you’re changing. You’re either becoming more of what God wants you to be, or less of what God wants you to be. You are not staying the same.
If you think that you’re relationship with God is OK and that it hasn’t changed much in the last month, or year, or decade, then I have bad news for you. If you think it hasn’t changed, it’s probably gotten worse.
It reminds me of that story often told about an old dirt road, where someone put up a makeshift sign: “Chose your rut carefully. You’ll be in it the next 38 miles.”
You were designed to have a deep and significant and growing relationship with God. You were designed to keep growing in that relationship. If that’s not happening, then you’re not living by your design. It’s like trying to use a blender as a pencil sharpener. It just doesn’t work.
Psalm 84 is a Psalm about our design. It’s a “pilgrimage” Psalm. In vs. 5, the writer says, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their heart on pilgrimage.” This is a Psalm for people who determined to get close to God.
One way you got close to God in the era of the Old Testament was by going up to Jerusalem, to the Temple.
Psalm 84:1-4 speaks of this intense desire to go and worship God at the Temple:
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Selah
The Psalm is divided into three sections, each one ending with the word “Selah” a musical notation marking the sections of the Psalm. The first part, vs. 1-4 is about that desire to seek God. We looked at that last week, and we considered some of the enemies of desire for God:
• Noise: all the distractions that can get our eyes off God
• Comfort: because we attempt little for God’s sake, we have no passion; when we are so comfortable, we fall asleep
• Ingratitude: we forget all His blessings, and so lose a passion to know and serve Him
• Sin: anytime we declare a cease-fire with sin in our lives, we put ourselves in a place where God can’t and won’t use us, and our passion drains away
Any of these can cool off our desire for God. We have to watch out for them, and resist them.
Next, in vs. 5-8, we see what the real journey toward God is like. That’s our focus today. Then next week, we’ll look at the lifestyle of a real worshipper as we examine vs. 9-12. That’s the destination of the Psalm, and it’s the real desire of God for us all, to become through and through, from-the-heart worshippers.
How do we get there? Well, now, let’s look at the central section of Psalm 84, the part about the journey itself, vs. 5-8:
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
8 Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty;
listen to me, O God of Jacob.
Selah
OK, I want to suggest six things about the journey toward God based on these verses.
1. The journey has a goal: the presence of God (v. 1, 5, 8)
Here’s something you hear a lot: “I’m not religious, but I am spiritual.” My reply is, “I’m not religious, but I am relational.” Real spirituality is about a personal relationship with God.
The goal is not fuzzy; the goal is not a feeling; the goal is not a generality; the goal is a Person, God Himself. This Psalm is about someone determined to get closer to God. In vs. 1, he has the vision: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty!” That’s renewed in vs. 5: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you…”
This is not someone who wants to become “more religious” (whatever that means). This is someone who wants to know more of what it means to experience God’s own strength in their lives. They pursue God in prayer, as in vs. 8: “Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob.” They know that the goal is a Person: the God of Jacob.
This is not someone who wants to join a church, or join a class or take some lessons; this is someone who wants to get close to God. Now, joining a church, or getting some instruction is good, but it’s not the same; it may be a means to help achieve that end, but it’s not the same. The goal is being close to God Almighty, the Creator and the Redeemer, the one who gave His Son over to death so that we can have life.
2. The journey isn’t my journey; it’s our journey (v. 5-7)
Now this one is a little bit of a surprise, so let’s take some time to get it. First, look at vs. 5-7, and take note that this isn’t an individual’s quest; it’s a group journey:
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
The Biblical vision of spiritual growth always involves the individual, but it’s never limited to individuals. Groups of people seeking God grow together. This is a concept that Americans have a hard time with. Individualism is a great thing for a country, but it produces some blind spots for a believer.
Look, this is not hard to prove. Think for a second. I’m guessing that 80% of us would say that the times of greatest spiritual growth in our lives occurred in the context of a group of believers. In a class or a youth group or a home Bible study—I’m guessing a lot of us can relate to that.
And some of you here right now are thinking, “I can’t relate to that. I’ve never had that kind of experience.” And a bunch of you are still wondering why you’ve never had that accelerated experience of spiritual growth. Here’s why: you thought you could go on this pilgrimage all by yourself. You can’t.
That’s why you’ll always hear me beating the “get into a group” drum. Get into a Sunday morning class or get into a growth group. Because that’s the way pilgrimage works: not lone hermits going up to the temple, but families and whole villages making the trip. The journey to get close to God isn’t my journey; it’s our journey, and I need you and you need me to make it to where God wants us to be.
3. The journey must go through the dry, difficult valley (v. 6a)
…they pass through the Valley of Baca…
OK, here’s true confessions time. This verse is the hardest verse in the Psalm to translate, so you’ll find a lot of variations in different translations.
Here’s what we have. “Baca” means “weeping”; “baca” is also the word for balsam tree. Balsam trees like really dry, arid places.
Another thing: we have no knowledge of a place called the Valley of Baca. The writer seems to be using it as a symbol. It’s the valley of weeping, the valley of dry places, the valley of hardship.
It’s kind of like Psalm 23 where David writes about “the valley of the shadow of death.” Well, that’s a symbol too.
Let me try to bottom line this for you where it matters: if you really intend to go on a journey toward God, it means that you’d better plan on going through some tough places. You’d better plan on a harsh desert. You’d better plan on going through places that will give you pain.
Is that because God will bring you pain? No, it’s because there’s a lot that’s bent and messed up in you and me, and when we say, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you wherever you say, and I will be the person you want me to be,” then God will take us through tough places to work that out in our lives.
Even Jesus had to spend 40 days in the desert fasting to get to the place where He could begin His ministry. The journey toward God, when it’s genuine, will always take us through some hardship.
Last spring I read the book Born to Battle by the late Australian missionary R. Arthur Mathews. It’s a spiritual gem. He was a missionary in China at the time of the communist takeover. He writes that when the communists were first coming into their area—near the border with Tibet—he and his wife and the other missionaries were constantly praying for deliverance. But the communists kept coming and the situation went from bad to worse.
At this point, God brought to their attention the story of Jesus asleep in the boat while the disciples battled the storm. They woke Him: “Don’t you care that we’re perishing?” Well, of course He cared; the fact that He was sleeping was no proof that He didn’t care. Gradually their prayers changed. He writes,
We found our strength, not in dreams of escape, but in complete surrender to whatever God wanted to do with us. We realized that God’s claims are absolute and that we must accept them without bargaining…we almost wanted to pray for greater troubles because of the greater joy they brought in God’s assurances.
They were going through the Valley of Baca. If you’ve set your mind on pilgrimage toward God, you have to go through the Valley of Baca. God has some things to teach you in the Valley of Baca, things you can’t learn anywhere else.
Now, something really good happens in the valley—now let’s read all of vs. 6:
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
That leads to fourth observation…
4. Perseverance in the journey turns the same hard place into a place of blessing (v. 6b)
The dry place, the desert place, becomes the place of springs, the place blessed with the autumn rains. Go through Baca with faith and God turns into a place of blessing.
Some of you here today are dragging your soul through a spiritual Death Valley and you’ve wondered where God is. Here’s the truth: under ever rock in that valley, there’s water. There is spiritual nourishment and hope and peace of mind right there, you just have to trust God.
God’s on your side. Maybe you know the story of Elisha and his servant. It’s in 2 Kings 6. Whenever the Syrians were planning to attack Israel, God would tell Elisha what they were up to, and then he’d warn the king and the Syrians would be defeated. The Syrians eventually figured out that Elisha was the secret weapon, so they sent an army just to capture him. The servant looked out one morning to see them surrounded by a battalion of crack Syrian soldiers. He ran to tell the old prophet, who said, “Don’t worry; we have more on our side than they do.” The servant counted 1-2 and looked out the window and said, “I don’t think so!” Then Elisha prayed, “Lord, open up his eyes so he can see.” Then he saw that they were surrounded by an angelic army of soldiers and horses and fire.
Hang in there in faith, and God will show you the army too. Trust Him and your dry place will start to bubble up with springs. He can turn your desert into a meadow. If you set your face toward seeking God and do not flinch, God will send you all the blessings you can handle.
5. As we continue on the God-ward journey, we become stronger and stronger (v. 7a)
They go from strength to strength…
Whenever the Bible uses the formula, “from X to X” it means “with ever increasing X.” In Romans, Paul talks about “from faith to faith” and in 2 Corinthians he speaks of “from glory to glory.” In both places the context demands that we understand this as meaning “with more and more faith, with more and more glory.” So also here: the pilgrims go with more and more strength. Holding on, persevering, going through Baca, makes them stronger and stronger.
Increasing faith! Check out 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4:
3We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
Their faith was “growing more and more.” How did this happen? Because they also know what it was like to go through the Valley of Baca. Look at vs. 4:
4Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
I’ll say it again: want a strong faith? You will not grow it on your couch. You will grow it on the battlefield, in the valley and in the arena, striving for the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The Russians have a proverb: hard carrots make for strong teeth.
6. We then, as individuals, appear before God (v. 7b)
Imagine you’re in that ancient caravan, going up to Jerusalem. You’ve traveled for days, singing your songs of Zion when in the distance the city comes into view. Your heart leaps with joy, and then again when you come into the gate. Through the streets you go until you go up the hill called Moriah where the temple sits.
Vs. 7 says,
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
You’ve “arrived.” You kept the faith in Baca and saw what God can do. Your spiritual muscles are toned now. You’re not perfect—far from it. But you have endured.
And now you, as an individual are there, “till each appears before God in Zion.” You know God and you know that God knows you. He is high and holy, but He is also close and loving.
In John 15:15, Jesus says something amazing:
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
To really get this, to grasp this; this is the goal of the journey. In Old Testament terms, it is to “stand before God in Zion.” In New Testament terms, it’s to know God as friend. It is when, as Psalm 37:4 says, we “delight yourself in the Lord.” We come before God strong and joyful and in a place where God can use us in ways we never imagined.
Dave and Lynn Philips started Children’s Hunger Fund in 1992. It was the culmination of a lot of soul-searching and God seeking. It meant the end of their guaranteed income life—it meant stepping into a life of faith with no safety net.
Just six weeks after getting started—when CHF was operating out of their garage, Dave got a desperate phone call from a hospital in Honduras. He still doesn’t know how they got his number (this was BG: Before Google!) On the other end was a doctor telling Dave that he needed a certain drug to save seven kids’ lives—seven Honduran kids with cancer. Dave wrote down the name of the drug and told the guy in Honduras that he had no idea how he’d get the drug. So he said, let’s pray.
The prayer went something like this:
Lord, we love you and we’re doing our best to obey you. And we know that you love these kids. I don’t know what to do, so you’re going to have to show me. Thank you Jesus, amen.
As he hung up the phone, before he could even let go of the receiver, the phone rang again. It was a drug company in New Jersey asking Dave if he could use 48,000 vials of that exact drug! Not only that, they offered to airlift it anywhere in the world.
God has things he wants to do through your life. Will it be this dramatic? Maybe not. Maybe yes. But you’ll never know, unless you take the journey toward God.
Series: Going toward God—Psalm 84
Part Two: The Journey toward God
Psalm 84:5-8
You never stay the same. I talk to people all the time. I ask them, “What’s happening?” And over 50% of the time I get the answer, “Not much. Things are about the same.”
And when I hear that, there’s a part of me that says, “More is happening than you’re aware of.”
It is the nature of living things to change. So if you’re alive, you’re changing. You’re either becoming more of what God wants you to be, or less of what God wants you to be. You are not staying the same.
If you think that you’re relationship with God is OK and that it hasn’t changed much in the last month, or year, or decade, then I have bad news for you. If you think it hasn’t changed, it’s probably gotten worse.
It reminds me of that story often told about an old dirt road, where someone put up a makeshift sign: “Chose your rut carefully. You’ll be in it the next 38 miles.”
You were designed to have a deep and significant and growing relationship with God. You were designed to keep growing in that relationship. If that’s not happening, then you’re not living by your design. It’s like trying to use a blender as a pencil sharpener. It just doesn’t work.
Psalm 84 is a Psalm about our design. It’s a “pilgrimage” Psalm. In vs. 5, the writer says, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their heart on pilgrimage.” This is a Psalm for people who determined to get close to God.
One way you got close to God in the era of the Old Testament was by going up to Jerusalem, to the Temple.
Psalm 84:1-4 speaks of this intense desire to go and worship God at the Temple:
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Selah
The Psalm is divided into three sections, each one ending with the word “Selah” a musical notation marking the sections of the Psalm. The first part, vs. 1-4 is about that desire to seek God. We looked at that last week, and we considered some of the enemies of desire for God:
• Noise: all the distractions that can get our eyes off God
• Comfort: because we attempt little for God’s sake, we have no passion; when we are so comfortable, we fall asleep
• Ingratitude: we forget all His blessings, and so lose a passion to know and serve Him
• Sin: anytime we declare a cease-fire with sin in our lives, we put ourselves in a place where God can’t and won’t use us, and our passion drains away
Any of these can cool off our desire for God. We have to watch out for them, and resist them.
Next, in vs. 5-8, we see what the real journey toward God is like. That’s our focus today. Then next week, we’ll look at the lifestyle of a real worshipper as we examine vs. 9-12. That’s the destination of the Psalm, and it’s the real desire of God for us all, to become through and through, from-the-heart worshippers.
How do we get there? Well, now, let’s look at the central section of Psalm 84, the part about the journey itself, vs. 5-8:
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
8 Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty;
listen to me, O God of Jacob.
Selah
OK, I want to suggest six things about the journey toward God based on these verses.
1. The journey has a goal: the presence of God (v. 1, 5, 8)
Here’s something you hear a lot: “I’m not religious, but I am spiritual.” My reply is, “I’m not religious, but I am relational.” Real spirituality is about a personal relationship with God.
The goal is not fuzzy; the goal is not a feeling; the goal is not a generality; the goal is a Person, God Himself. This Psalm is about someone determined to get closer to God. In vs. 1, he has the vision: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty!” That’s renewed in vs. 5: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you…”
This is not someone who wants to become “more religious” (whatever that means). This is someone who wants to know more of what it means to experience God’s own strength in their lives. They pursue God in prayer, as in vs. 8: “Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob.” They know that the goal is a Person: the God of Jacob.
This is not someone who wants to join a church, or join a class or take some lessons; this is someone who wants to get close to God. Now, joining a church, or getting some instruction is good, but it’s not the same; it may be a means to help achieve that end, but it’s not the same. The goal is being close to God Almighty, the Creator and the Redeemer, the one who gave His Son over to death so that we can have life.
2. The journey isn’t my journey; it’s our journey (v. 5-7)
Now this one is a little bit of a surprise, so let’s take some time to get it. First, look at vs. 5-7, and take note that this isn’t an individual’s quest; it’s a group journey:
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
The Biblical vision of spiritual growth always involves the individual, but it’s never limited to individuals. Groups of people seeking God grow together. This is a concept that Americans have a hard time with. Individualism is a great thing for a country, but it produces some blind spots for a believer.
Look, this is not hard to prove. Think for a second. I’m guessing that 80% of us would say that the times of greatest spiritual growth in our lives occurred in the context of a group of believers. In a class or a youth group or a home Bible study—I’m guessing a lot of us can relate to that.
And some of you here right now are thinking, “I can’t relate to that. I’ve never had that kind of experience.” And a bunch of you are still wondering why you’ve never had that accelerated experience of spiritual growth. Here’s why: you thought you could go on this pilgrimage all by yourself. You can’t.
That’s why you’ll always hear me beating the “get into a group” drum. Get into a Sunday morning class or get into a growth group. Because that’s the way pilgrimage works: not lone hermits going up to the temple, but families and whole villages making the trip. The journey to get close to God isn’t my journey; it’s our journey, and I need you and you need me to make it to where God wants us to be.
3. The journey must go through the dry, difficult valley (v. 6a)
…they pass through the Valley of Baca…
OK, here’s true confessions time. This verse is the hardest verse in the Psalm to translate, so you’ll find a lot of variations in different translations.
Here’s what we have. “Baca” means “weeping”; “baca” is also the word for balsam tree. Balsam trees like really dry, arid places.
Another thing: we have no knowledge of a place called the Valley of Baca. The writer seems to be using it as a symbol. It’s the valley of weeping, the valley of dry places, the valley of hardship.
It’s kind of like Psalm 23 where David writes about “the valley of the shadow of death.” Well, that’s a symbol too.
Let me try to bottom line this for you where it matters: if you really intend to go on a journey toward God, it means that you’d better plan on going through some tough places. You’d better plan on a harsh desert. You’d better plan on going through places that will give you pain.
Is that because God will bring you pain? No, it’s because there’s a lot that’s bent and messed up in you and me, and when we say, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you wherever you say, and I will be the person you want me to be,” then God will take us through tough places to work that out in our lives.
Even Jesus had to spend 40 days in the desert fasting to get to the place where He could begin His ministry. The journey toward God, when it’s genuine, will always take us through some hardship.
Last spring I read the book Born to Battle by the late Australian missionary R. Arthur Mathews. It’s a spiritual gem. He was a missionary in China at the time of the communist takeover. He writes that when the communists were first coming into their area—near the border with Tibet—he and his wife and the other missionaries were constantly praying for deliverance. But the communists kept coming and the situation went from bad to worse.
At this point, God brought to their attention the story of Jesus asleep in the boat while the disciples battled the storm. They woke Him: “Don’t you care that we’re perishing?” Well, of course He cared; the fact that He was sleeping was no proof that He didn’t care. Gradually their prayers changed. He writes,
We found our strength, not in dreams of escape, but in complete surrender to whatever God wanted to do with us. We realized that God’s claims are absolute and that we must accept them without bargaining…we almost wanted to pray for greater troubles because of the greater joy they brought in God’s assurances.
They were going through the Valley of Baca. If you’ve set your mind on pilgrimage toward God, you have to go through the Valley of Baca. God has some things to teach you in the Valley of Baca, things you can’t learn anywhere else.
Now, something really good happens in the valley—now let’s read all of vs. 6:
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
That leads to fourth observation…
4. Perseverance in the journey turns the same hard place into a place of blessing (v. 6b)
The dry place, the desert place, becomes the place of springs, the place blessed with the autumn rains. Go through Baca with faith and God turns into a place of blessing.
Some of you here today are dragging your soul through a spiritual Death Valley and you’ve wondered where God is. Here’s the truth: under ever rock in that valley, there’s water. There is spiritual nourishment and hope and peace of mind right there, you just have to trust God.
God’s on your side. Maybe you know the story of Elisha and his servant. It’s in 2 Kings 6. Whenever the Syrians were planning to attack Israel, God would tell Elisha what they were up to, and then he’d warn the king and the Syrians would be defeated. The Syrians eventually figured out that Elisha was the secret weapon, so they sent an army just to capture him. The servant looked out one morning to see them surrounded by a battalion of crack Syrian soldiers. He ran to tell the old prophet, who said, “Don’t worry; we have more on our side than they do.” The servant counted 1-2 and looked out the window and said, “I don’t think so!” Then Elisha prayed, “Lord, open up his eyes so he can see.” Then he saw that they were surrounded by an angelic army of soldiers and horses and fire.
Hang in there in faith, and God will show you the army too. Trust Him and your dry place will start to bubble up with springs. He can turn your desert into a meadow. If you set your face toward seeking God and do not flinch, God will send you all the blessings you can handle.
5. As we continue on the God-ward journey, we become stronger and stronger (v. 7a)
They go from strength to strength…
Whenever the Bible uses the formula, “from X to X” it means “with ever increasing X.” In Romans, Paul talks about “from faith to faith” and in 2 Corinthians he speaks of “from glory to glory.” In both places the context demands that we understand this as meaning “with more and more faith, with more and more glory.” So also here: the pilgrims go with more and more strength. Holding on, persevering, going through Baca, makes them stronger and stronger.
Increasing faith! Check out 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4:
3We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
Their faith was “growing more and more.” How did this happen? Because they also know what it was like to go through the Valley of Baca. Look at vs. 4:
4Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
I’ll say it again: want a strong faith? You will not grow it on your couch. You will grow it on the battlefield, in the valley and in the arena, striving for the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The Russians have a proverb: hard carrots make for strong teeth.
6. We then, as individuals, appear before God (v. 7b)
Imagine you’re in that ancient caravan, going up to Jerusalem. You’ve traveled for days, singing your songs of Zion when in the distance the city comes into view. Your heart leaps with joy, and then again when you come into the gate. Through the streets you go until you go up the hill called Moriah where the temple sits.
Vs. 7 says,
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.
You’ve “arrived.” You kept the faith in Baca and saw what God can do. Your spiritual muscles are toned now. You’re not perfect—far from it. But you have endured.
And now you, as an individual are there, “till each appears before God in Zion.” You know God and you know that God knows you. He is high and holy, but He is also close and loving.
In John 15:15, Jesus says something amazing:
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
To really get this, to grasp this; this is the goal of the journey. In Old Testament terms, it is to “stand before God in Zion.” In New Testament terms, it’s to know God as friend. It is when, as Psalm 37:4 says, we “delight yourself in the Lord.” We come before God strong and joyful and in a place where God can use us in ways we never imagined.
Dave and Lynn Philips started Children’s Hunger Fund in 1992. It was the culmination of a lot of soul-searching and God seeking. It meant the end of their guaranteed income life—it meant stepping into a life of faith with no safety net.
Just six weeks after getting started—when CHF was operating out of their garage, Dave got a desperate phone call from a hospital in Honduras. He still doesn’t know how they got his number (this was BG: Before Google!) On the other end was a doctor telling Dave that he needed a certain drug to save seven kids’ lives—seven Honduran kids with cancer. Dave wrote down the name of the drug and told the guy in Honduras that he had no idea how he’d get the drug. So he said, let’s pray.
The prayer went something like this:
Lord, we love you and we’re doing our best to obey you. And we know that you love these kids. I don’t know what to do, so you’re going to have to show me. Thank you Jesus, amen.
As he hung up the phone, before he could even let go of the receiver, the phone rang again. It was a drug company in New Jersey asking Dave if he could use 48,000 vials of that exact drug! Not only that, they offered to airlift it anywhere in the world.
God has things he wants to do through your life. Will it be this dramatic? Maybe not. Maybe yes. But you’ll never know, unless you take the journey toward God.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Desire to God Toward God
This was my message August 15. I had several requests for copies, so here we go. I will post parts 2 and 3 shortly.
Series: Going toward God—Psalm 84
Part One: The Desire to Go Toward God
(Psalm 84:1-4)
All your life, you’re either going toward God or you’re going away from God. It’s like the continental divide, where rain on one side flows to the Pacific, and on the other side to the Atlantic. It’s one direction or another, all the time.
You never just stay the same. If you coast, you crumble. If you rest, you rust. If you stay, you stumble.
So, I have to ask you—do you want to stand still? Tell me, how much of God do you want? Just a manageable portion, to come along side you as you do what you want to do, set your own priorities and run your own life? If that’s the case, then I have to tell you that Jesus does not like to be used. He will not be your sidekick or your good luck charm. He is Lord, and to treat Him as your assistant is not a role that He will fulfill.
No, either you are going toward God or you’re moving away from Him. Jesus said that you can’t serve God and Mammon. You can’t serve God with God as partner or second in command to anyone or anything else.
Do you have a deep in your bones longing to have God as first, truly first in your life? Seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, said Jesus. Do you have that fire in your soul for God? Or has the fire died down, down to a memory, down to a tiny fraction of what it once was and what you wish it could be.
How many of you remember a play called “Fiddler on the Roof”? There’s a song in it called “If I Were a Rich Man.” Tevye the milkman sings about how his life would be different if he were rich. He’d have a big house and full barns and he’d dress his wife in nice clothes and he’d be the sort of man that others would come to for advice. And near the end of the song, he sings about what he’d really like to do if he were rich:
If I were rich, I'd have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray.
And maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall.
And I'd discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day.
That would be the sweetest thing of all.
The sweetest thing of all would be to pray and be with God and go deep in His word. Tevye imagines that if he were rich, he’d finally have time to go toward God.
That’s the same longing that you find in Psalm 84. Last fall I was reading through the Psalms and came to Psalm 84 and I’ve had trouble leaving it ever since! There are a couple of reasons. One is that as you read it, you may well recognize several verses in it as the source for some of the worship songs we sing. So immediately you have a feeling of familiarity when you’re reading this Psalm. Another thing that got my attention is the fact that this is a “pilgrimage” Psalm. In vs. 5, the writer says, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their heart on pilgrimage.” This is a Psalm for people who determined to get close to God.
Now, the way that idea of getting close to God worked on in the era of the Old Testament was by literally going from wherever you live and getting on your donkey cart and going up through the hills to Jerusalem. There were several times a year that thousands would gather at the Temple, coming from all over the land to worship God at His temple. There was Passover and the Feast of the Firstfruits (called Pentecost in the New Testament) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) as well as some other times. Some villages would practically empty out as the people dropped everything to go up to Jerusalem.
As they went, they would sing. A number of Psalms began as the songs they would sing as they made their way to Jerusalem. One collection of these Psalm are Psalms 120-134, which are called the Songs of Ascents, because you had to go uphill pretty much from anywhere to get to Jerusalem. But not all the pilgrimage songs are there. This is one that’s not. It’s a Psalm about deeply desiring to move closer to God, to worship, and lifestyle of a real worshipper. That’s really the outline of the Psalm:
• A desire (v. 1-4)
• A journey (v. 5-8)
• A lifestyle (v. 9-12)
Each of these sections is marked by the Hebrew word “selah.” That’s probably a musical notation, telling you to stop for a musical interlude. It also means “Hey, stop and think about it!”
If you look at the title (which is very ancient and in Hebrew), you read this:
For the director of music. According to gittith. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.
The “sons of Korah” weren’t a bunch of boys whose daddy was named Korah; they were a kind of musical guild working for the temple. “Gittith” was probably a musical style. So these guys probably took one of the songs that people would sing on the way to Jerusalem and tidied it up and put it in the final form we have here in Psalm 84.
So I want to take three weeks and move through these three sections of Psalm 84. Moving toward God starts as a desire, becomes a journey and results in a lifestyle. Today is about the desire to move toward God, next week is about the journey and the week after about the lifestyle.
Let’s look at vs. 1-4, the “desire” section of Psalm 84.
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Selah
In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis comments on the opening of Psalm 84:
I have rather—though the expression may seem harsh for some—called this the “appetite for God” than “the love of God.” The “love of God” too easily suggests the word “spiritual” in all those negative or restrictive senses which it has unhappily acquired… [The appetite for God] has all the cheerful spontaneity of a natural, even physical desire.
To move toward God is to be awakened for this desire, this deep inner longing to know God and to be known by God and to touch God and to be touched by God. Jesus spoke of this in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 5:4—where He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for the will be filled.”
They advertise Gatorade as something “for that deep down body thirst.” There is something in the human spirit that can only be satisfied by God Himself—a deep down soul thirst.
For the Psalmist, the presence of God is a real place, the temple in Jerusalem. In Hebrew, the word for temple and palace is the same word: hekal. The idea of the temple for the Jews was that it was God’s earthly palace. The cover the Ark of the Covenant was considered God’s throne. Ah, to be close to God, to be at His palace, to be near His throne! That was the greatest privilege of all.
The Psalmist thinks of a bird who has made her nest in the eave of the temple, and he envies her. To be so near the altar, all the time. Nothing could be better.
Now, while there is this longing that can only be satisfied by God Himself, the truth is—the problem is—that we human being are experts at ignoring this hunger, or feeding it with the wrong stuff. We don’t always want God. Why is that and what can be done about it?
I want to give you four reasons why our desire for God can shut down and some strategies for dealing with that. There are many reasons, but I think that it can be boiled down to these four:
• Noise
• Comfort
• Ingratitude
• Sin
Noise
By noise, I mean the incessant demands that living places on us, so that we get deaf to really important things because of all the urgent things. I mean, we have cell phones and iPhone and iTunes and Xbox; we have wii and email and Twitter and blogs; we have friends, in-laws and out-laws; we have kids and spouses and we have to pick up milk on the way home. We have gridlock and Sig Alerts and Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olberman; we have Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin and the Drudge Report. Life is noisy. And all that noise can drown out the voice of God.
While it’s true that Jesus never had to respond to a text message, He knew what it was like to be surrounded with noise and activity. In Mark 1, He’s surrounded by people making immediate demands on His time. And He withdraws from the noise. Mark 1:35 says,
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.
Sometimes you have to push your way to a place of quiet. You have to have a grit, a determination that you’re going to spend time with God. You have to be like a running back shaking off a tackle. If you don’t, every buzzing, blinking noisy thing will call out to you without end. Don’t let noise drown out your passion for God.
Comfort
Comfort will do it too. Ever notice how easy it is to pray in a crisis? And how hard it is to pray when things are going fine?
One of the parables of Jesus is the parable of the sower. One of the soils the seed falls into the thorny soil, where “the worriers of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22)
You won’t have a desire for God if you’re too comfortable. It’s like what Jesus said about the rich man having a hard time entering the Kingdom.
Let me give you some advice here: if you want a real passion for God, attempt something hard for His sake. If you do, you will never lack for passion for God. I read about the South Korean missionaries who were taken captive by Taliban in 2007. The South Korean church is amazing, and they have an incredible missionary vision. These guys will go places that everyone else is afraid to go to.
So they went to Afghanistan—23 South Korean Christian missionaries in Afghanistan. The Taliban captured them and executed two of them.
So there are 21 missionaries left, and there they are praying and dedicating their lives for the gospel, saying, yes Lord, if our deaths will bring you glory, we are ready to die. They even had a little argument about who would get to die first!
The next morning, the Taliban guards woke them up early and marched them out in the hot July sun, lined them up and told them that the South Korean government had made a deal for their release.
Now, here’s the thing: most of these guys were from the same church in Seoul. They see each other all the time. And whenever they do, and they start talking about their time with the Taliban, they say, “Man, wasn’t that great! Don’t you wish you were still there?”
Listen, you don’t have to go to Afghanistan, but if you’re spiritually dry and your fire for God is low, can I suggest, stick out your neck for God. Take a risk. Share your faith. Teach the growth group. Go on that missions trip. Do something where you’re going to need God, and He’ll show up. Your heart for God will be energized. Your desire for God will kick in. Take a risk, and feel the heat of passion for the Kingdom of God.
Ingratitude
In the New Living Translation, Psalm 32:1 says, “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!”
You have so much to be thankful for. You are a child of God. Your sins are forgiven. You will spend eternity with Him. Jesus went to cross out of His love for you. He’s called you to be a part of His plan to change the world. He watches over you. He promises never abandon you.
Yet with all that, I encounter unhappy Christians all the time. Their passion for God couldn’t fill a teacup. They obsess on what they don’t have, on the money or the job or the opportunity that they don’t have.
Remember a movie called Men in Black? Aliens come to earth demanding “the galaxy on Orion’s belt.” That doesn’t make any sense—Orion’s belt is just an imaginary line in the sky between two stars. But then they discover that a dead alien’s cat is named Orion and that around his neck is a belt with a marble-sized galaxy inside. All the power of a whole galaxy hanging from the collar of a cat!
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
Every spiritual blessing? He didn’t leave any out? We have a galaxy of blessings just hanging around and we don’t recognize them. We obsess on what we think we don’t have.
How do we stir up that gratitude, and our passionate desire for God? We do that by His word. God’s word is full of God’s promises. God’s word reminds us of all the ways He’s shown His love for us. If you neglect that word, you forget His promises. If you forget his promises, you will become ungrateful.
The Word of God stirs up faith, life, hope and joy in a believer’s heart. In sales, they talk about ABC principle: “always be closing.” We need to be people who are devoted to the principle of ABO: “always be opening”—God’s word. Don’t dare go a day without it. If you do, you will slide toward ingratitude and toward losing your passion for God.
The last passion-killer is…
Sin
By this I mean that sin that we harbor, protect and deny, that sin will make us cool off toward God. It can be a secret lust, uncontrolled anger, back-biting, unforgiveness, envy, you name it. It’s the sin that you say is “just the way you are.” You’ve given up fighting against it. That’s the kind of sin that kills passion for God.
Christian counselor Ed Welch says that we need to have a “mean streak” when it comes to fighting sin. Hebrews 12:4 says, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” That’s real resistance!
Without that determination, that sense of engaging in hand to hand combat with sin, we are worn down and start to drift away for a full-force passion for God. Instead of moving toward Him, we move away. I wonder, are you moving toward God today or are you moving away? This week, did you come closer or go farther away?
Do you want more of God? Do you want to draw near? Is noise, comfort, ingratitude or plain old sin drawing you away? Do you want to renew your passion for Him?
I want to do two things as we close today. First, let’s hear again these for verses. They were the prayers of people nearly 3,000 years ago, but today, make them your prayer. Then let’s pray together about this passion-blockers that get in the way. And next week, we’ll go into detail on the journey, the pilgrimage toward God.
Let’s hear vs. 1-4 again as our own prayer:
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Lord God, who loves us and who is our tower of strength, may we be that kind of worshipper who seeks after you with such longing. Teach us to find the quiet place and get away from the noise; to trust you to do the hard thing instead of seeking comfort; to be grateful of your blessings instead of forgetful; and to struggle against sin instead of giving in. In Jesus we pray, Amen.
Series: Going toward God—Psalm 84
Part One: The Desire to Go Toward God
(Psalm 84:1-4)
All your life, you’re either going toward God or you’re going away from God. It’s like the continental divide, where rain on one side flows to the Pacific, and on the other side to the Atlantic. It’s one direction or another, all the time.
You never just stay the same. If you coast, you crumble. If you rest, you rust. If you stay, you stumble.
So, I have to ask you—do you want to stand still? Tell me, how much of God do you want? Just a manageable portion, to come along side you as you do what you want to do, set your own priorities and run your own life? If that’s the case, then I have to tell you that Jesus does not like to be used. He will not be your sidekick or your good luck charm. He is Lord, and to treat Him as your assistant is not a role that He will fulfill.
No, either you are going toward God or you’re moving away from Him. Jesus said that you can’t serve God and Mammon. You can’t serve God with God as partner or second in command to anyone or anything else.
Do you have a deep in your bones longing to have God as first, truly first in your life? Seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, said Jesus. Do you have that fire in your soul for God? Or has the fire died down, down to a memory, down to a tiny fraction of what it once was and what you wish it could be.
How many of you remember a play called “Fiddler on the Roof”? There’s a song in it called “If I Were a Rich Man.” Tevye the milkman sings about how his life would be different if he were rich. He’d have a big house and full barns and he’d dress his wife in nice clothes and he’d be the sort of man that others would come to for advice. And near the end of the song, he sings about what he’d really like to do if he were rich:
If I were rich, I'd have the time that I lack
To sit in the synagogue and pray.
And maybe have a seat by the Eastern wall.
And I'd discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day.
That would be the sweetest thing of all.
The sweetest thing of all would be to pray and be with God and go deep in His word. Tevye imagines that if he were rich, he’d finally have time to go toward God.
That’s the same longing that you find in Psalm 84. Last fall I was reading through the Psalms and came to Psalm 84 and I’ve had trouble leaving it ever since! There are a couple of reasons. One is that as you read it, you may well recognize several verses in it as the source for some of the worship songs we sing. So immediately you have a feeling of familiarity when you’re reading this Psalm. Another thing that got my attention is the fact that this is a “pilgrimage” Psalm. In vs. 5, the writer says, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their heart on pilgrimage.” This is a Psalm for people who determined to get close to God.
Now, the way that idea of getting close to God worked on in the era of the Old Testament was by literally going from wherever you live and getting on your donkey cart and going up through the hills to Jerusalem. There were several times a year that thousands would gather at the Temple, coming from all over the land to worship God at His temple. There was Passover and the Feast of the Firstfruits (called Pentecost in the New Testament) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) as well as some other times. Some villages would practically empty out as the people dropped everything to go up to Jerusalem.
As they went, they would sing. A number of Psalms began as the songs they would sing as they made their way to Jerusalem. One collection of these Psalm are Psalms 120-134, which are called the Songs of Ascents, because you had to go uphill pretty much from anywhere to get to Jerusalem. But not all the pilgrimage songs are there. This is one that’s not. It’s a Psalm about deeply desiring to move closer to God, to worship, and lifestyle of a real worshipper. That’s really the outline of the Psalm:
• A desire (v. 1-4)
• A journey (v. 5-8)
• A lifestyle (v. 9-12)
Each of these sections is marked by the Hebrew word “selah.” That’s probably a musical notation, telling you to stop for a musical interlude. It also means “Hey, stop and think about it!”
If you look at the title (which is very ancient and in Hebrew), you read this:
For the director of music. According to gittith. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.
The “sons of Korah” weren’t a bunch of boys whose daddy was named Korah; they were a kind of musical guild working for the temple. “Gittith” was probably a musical style. So these guys probably took one of the songs that people would sing on the way to Jerusalem and tidied it up and put it in the final form we have here in Psalm 84.
So I want to take three weeks and move through these three sections of Psalm 84. Moving toward God starts as a desire, becomes a journey and results in a lifestyle. Today is about the desire to move toward God, next week is about the journey and the week after about the lifestyle.
Let’s look at vs. 1-4, the “desire” section of Psalm 84.
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Selah
In his book Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis comments on the opening of Psalm 84:
I have rather—though the expression may seem harsh for some—called this the “appetite for God” than “the love of God.” The “love of God” too easily suggests the word “spiritual” in all those negative or restrictive senses which it has unhappily acquired… [The appetite for God] has all the cheerful spontaneity of a natural, even physical desire.
To move toward God is to be awakened for this desire, this deep inner longing to know God and to be known by God and to touch God and to be touched by God. Jesus spoke of this in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 5:4—where He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for the will be filled.”
They advertise Gatorade as something “for that deep down body thirst.” There is something in the human spirit that can only be satisfied by God Himself—a deep down soul thirst.
For the Psalmist, the presence of God is a real place, the temple in Jerusalem. In Hebrew, the word for temple and palace is the same word: hekal. The idea of the temple for the Jews was that it was God’s earthly palace. The cover the Ark of the Covenant was considered God’s throne. Ah, to be close to God, to be at His palace, to be near His throne! That was the greatest privilege of all.
The Psalmist thinks of a bird who has made her nest in the eave of the temple, and he envies her. To be so near the altar, all the time. Nothing could be better.
Now, while there is this longing that can only be satisfied by God Himself, the truth is—the problem is—that we human being are experts at ignoring this hunger, or feeding it with the wrong stuff. We don’t always want God. Why is that and what can be done about it?
I want to give you four reasons why our desire for God can shut down and some strategies for dealing with that. There are many reasons, but I think that it can be boiled down to these four:
• Noise
• Comfort
• Ingratitude
• Sin
Noise
By noise, I mean the incessant demands that living places on us, so that we get deaf to really important things because of all the urgent things. I mean, we have cell phones and iPhone and iTunes and Xbox; we have wii and email and Twitter and blogs; we have friends, in-laws and out-laws; we have kids and spouses and we have to pick up milk on the way home. We have gridlock and Sig Alerts and Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olberman; we have Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin and the Drudge Report. Life is noisy. And all that noise can drown out the voice of God.
While it’s true that Jesus never had to respond to a text message, He knew what it was like to be surrounded with noise and activity. In Mark 1, He’s surrounded by people making immediate demands on His time. And He withdraws from the noise. Mark 1:35 says,
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed.
Sometimes you have to push your way to a place of quiet. You have to have a grit, a determination that you’re going to spend time with God. You have to be like a running back shaking off a tackle. If you don’t, every buzzing, blinking noisy thing will call out to you without end. Don’t let noise drown out your passion for God.
Comfort
Comfort will do it too. Ever notice how easy it is to pray in a crisis? And how hard it is to pray when things are going fine?
One of the parables of Jesus is the parable of the sower. One of the soils the seed falls into the thorny soil, where “the worriers of this life, and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22)
You won’t have a desire for God if you’re too comfortable. It’s like what Jesus said about the rich man having a hard time entering the Kingdom.
Let me give you some advice here: if you want a real passion for God, attempt something hard for His sake. If you do, you will never lack for passion for God. I read about the South Korean missionaries who were taken captive by Taliban in 2007. The South Korean church is amazing, and they have an incredible missionary vision. These guys will go places that everyone else is afraid to go to.
So they went to Afghanistan—23 South Korean Christian missionaries in Afghanistan. The Taliban captured them and executed two of them.
So there are 21 missionaries left, and there they are praying and dedicating their lives for the gospel, saying, yes Lord, if our deaths will bring you glory, we are ready to die. They even had a little argument about who would get to die first!
The next morning, the Taliban guards woke them up early and marched them out in the hot July sun, lined them up and told them that the South Korean government had made a deal for their release.
Now, here’s the thing: most of these guys were from the same church in Seoul. They see each other all the time. And whenever they do, and they start talking about their time with the Taliban, they say, “Man, wasn’t that great! Don’t you wish you were still there?”
Listen, you don’t have to go to Afghanistan, but if you’re spiritually dry and your fire for God is low, can I suggest, stick out your neck for God. Take a risk. Share your faith. Teach the growth group. Go on that missions trip. Do something where you’re going to need God, and He’ll show up. Your heart for God will be energized. Your desire for God will kick in. Take a risk, and feel the heat of passion for the Kingdom of God.
Ingratitude
In the New Living Translation, Psalm 32:1 says, “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!”
You have so much to be thankful for. You are a child of God. Your sins are forgiven. You will spend eternity with Him. Jesus went to cross out of His love for you. He’s called you to be a part of His plan to change the world. He watches over you. He promises never abandon you.
Yet with all that, I encounter unhappy Christians all the time. Their passion for God couldn’t fill a teacup. They obsess on what they don’t have, on the money or the job or the opportunity that they don’t have.
Remember a movie called Men in Black? Aliens come to earth demanding “the galaxy on Orion’s belt.” That doesn’t make any sense—Orion’s belt is just an imaginary line in the sky between two stars. But then they discover that a dead alien’s cat is named Orion and that around his neck is a belt with a marble-sized galaxy inside. All the power of a whole galaxy hanging from the collar of a cat!
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”
Every spiritual blessing? He didn’t leave any out? We have a galaxy of blessings just hanging around and we don’t recognize them. We obsess on what we think we don’t have.
How do we stir up that gratitude, and our passionate desire for God? We do that by His word. God’s word is full of God’s promises. God’s word reminds us of all the ways He’s shown His love for us. If you neglect that word, you forget His promises. If you forget his promises, you will become ungrateful.
The Word of God stirs up faith, life, hope and joy in a believer’s heart. In sales, they talk about ABC principle: “always be closing.” We need to be people who are devoted to the principle of ABO: “always be opening”—God’s word. Don’t dare go a day without it. If you do, you will slide toward ingratitude and toward losing your passion for God.
The last passion-killer is…
Sin
By this I mean that sin that we harbor, protect and deny, that sin will make us cool off toward God. It can be a secret lust, uncontrolled anger, back-biting, unforgiveness, envy, you name it. It’s the sin that you say is “just the way you are.” You’ve given up fighting against it. That’s the kind of sin that kills passion for God.
Christian counselor Ed Welch says that we need to have a “mean streak” when it comes to fighting sin. Hebrews 12:4 says, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” That’s real resistance!
Without that determination, that sense of engaging in hand to hand combat with sin, we are worn down and start to drift away for a full-force passion for God. Instead of moving toward Him, we move away. I wonder, are you moving toward God today or are you moving away? This week, did you come closer or go farther away?
Do you want more of God? Do you want to draw near? Is noise, comfort, ingratitude or plain old sin drawing you away? Do you want to renew your passion for Him?
I want to do two things as we close today. First, let’s hear again these for verses. They were the prayers of people nearly 3,000 years ago, but today, make them your prayer. Then let’s pray together about this passion-blockers that get in the way. And next week, we’ll go into detail on the journey, the pilgrimage toward God.
Let’s hear vs. 1-4 again as our own prayer:
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
O LORD Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.
Lord God, who loves us and who is our tower of strength, may we be that kind of worshipper who seeks after you with such longing. Teach us to find the quiet place and get away from the noise; to trust you to do the hard thing instead of seeking comfort; to be grateful of your blessings instead of forgetful; and to struggle against sin instead of giving in. In Jesus we pray, Amen.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Alliance Defense Fund Email on Today's Prop 8 Ruling
This was received less than an hour ago:
As we explained in a recent email, a federal judge in San Francisco declared "unconstitutional" California's voter-approved constitutional amendment protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Just moments ago, the same judge denied a motion filed by the ProtectMarriage.com legal team to stay the August 4th decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. His decision will not go into effect until August 18th.
ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Jim Campbell:
"The Protectmarriage.com legal team will appeal immediately to the 9th Circuit to stay the trial court's decision. This case has just begun, and ADF and the rest of the legal team are confident that the right of Americans to protect marriage in their state constitutions will ultimately be upheld. It makes no sense to impose a radical change in marriage on the people of California before all appeals on their behalf are heard. If the trial court’s decision is eventually reversed, refusing to stay the decision will senselessly create legal uncertainty surrounding any same-sex unions entered while the appeal is pending."
ADF is committed to victory, but we need your support to continue to defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Please give as generously as you can today. The future of marriage and religious freedom is at stake!
DONATE - https://www.alliancedefensefund.org/sdonate/billing.aspx?referral=E0810T3A
To gain a clear understanding of this federal judge’s ruling, visit http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/243083/judge-walker-and-supposed-lack-evidence-marriage-s-procreative-purpose-ed-whelan to read an expert's analysis.
Thank you for standing with us to protect the sacred institution of marriage. Together, we can – and will – win!
As we explained in a recent email, a federal judge in San Francisco declared "unconstitutional" California's voter-approved constitutional amendment protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Just moments ago, the same judge denied a motion filed by the ProtectMarriage.com legal team to stay the August 4th decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. His decision will not go into effect until August 18th.
ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Jim Campbell:
"The Protectmarriage.com legal team will appeal immediately to the 9th Circuit to stay the trial court's decision. This case has just begun, and ADF and the rest of the legal team are confident that the right of Americans to protect marriage in their state constitutions will ultimately be upheld. It makes no sense to impose a radical change in marriage on the people of California before all appeals on their behalf are heard. If the trial court’s decision is eventually reversed, refusing to stay the decision will senselessly create legal uncertainty surrounding any same-sex unions entered while the appeal is pending."
ADF is committed to victory, but we need your support to continue to defend marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Please give as generously as you can today. The future of marriage and religious freedom is at stake!
DONATE - https://www.alliancedefensefund.org/sdonate/billing.aspx?referral=E0810T3A
To gain a clear understanding of this federal judge’s ruling, visit http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/243083/judge-walker-and-supposed-lack-evidence-marriage-s-procreative-purpose-ed-whelan to read an expert's analysis.
Thank you for standing with us to protect the sacred institution of marriage. Together, we can – and will – win!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
8 Reasons Some Churches Do Not Grow
This is from Perry Noble's blog from July 21, 2010
#1 – The Vision Is Not Clear - If people don’t know where a church is supposed to be going…then it will attempt to go everywhere and eventually wind up nowhere.
#2 – The Focus Is On Trying To Please Everyone – There is NO church on the planet that will make everyone happy every single week…and…according to the Scriptures that isn’t really supposed to be our obsession. Too many times we become so concerned with offending people that we actually offend Jesus.
#3 – Passionless Leadership – When a leader does what he/she does for a paycheck and not because its their passion…it’s over. I’ve said at this site before…I want difference makers not paycheck takers. AND…also…it is hard to be passionate about a place when a persons average stay at a church is two years or less.
#4 – Manufacturing Energy – If a program is dead in a church…then it needs a funeral and the people need to move on. Investing time, energy and money into something that is dead will not revive it. Celebrate the fact that “that” program had its day…and then move on. AND…quit trying to fire people up over events that you would not attend if you were not on staff.
#5 – Lack of Prayer – Many times we work so hard putting our ideas together than we actually think there is no need for the supernatural power of God to be involved. Prayer should not be the good luck charm that we stick at the beginning or the end of what we do…but rather it should be our constant desperation to see God do the undeniable among us. Intense desperation often brings undeniable revelation!
#6 – Unwillingness To Take Risks – When our focus becomes to play it safe rather than to do whatever it takes to reach people far from God…it’s over. NOWHERE in the Scriptures did God ever ask anyone to do anything that didn’t involved [risk]. We’ve GOT to be willing to embrace the uncertain if we want to see the unbelievable.
#7 – Disobedience To The Scriptures – Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, Acts 1:8, II Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 19:10…I could go on and on…but we MUST understand that Jesus didn’t come to earth, live here for 33 years years, give HIS life for us and then return back to heaven to intercede for us so that we could get in really little circles and talk about ourselves and condemn those who are not as good as us. We are called to REACH PEOPLE FOR GOD–PERIOD!
#8 – Selfish Attitudes – Matthew 20:28 says it all…and if we are going to be more like Jesus we’ve GOT to serve others rather than expecting the church to be our servant all of the time. When a person (or group of people) refuse to embrace that a call to follow Jesus is a call to serve…then we’ve lost sight of who He is and eventually we will make being a Christian all about Jesus following/serving us rather than us taking up our cross and following Him!
#1 – The Vision Is Not Clear - If people don’t know where a church is supposed to be going…then it will attempt to go everywhere and eventually wind up nowhere.
#2 – The Focus Is On Trying To Please Everyone – There is NO church on the planet that will make everyone happy every single week…and…according to the Scriptures that isn’t really supposed to be our obsession. Too many times we become so concerned with offending people that we actually offend Jesus.
#3 – Passionless Leadership – When a leader does what he/she does for a paycheck and not because its their passion…it’s over. I’ve said at this site before…I want difference makers not paycheck takers. AND…also…it is hard to be passionate about a place when a persons average stay at a church is two years or less.
#4 – Manufacturing Energy – If a program is dead in a church…then it needs a funeral and the people need to move on. Investing time, energy and money into something that is dead will not revive it. Celebrate the fact that “that” program had its day…and then move on. AND…quit trying to fire people up over events that you would not attend if you were not on staff.
#5 – Lack of Prayer – Many times we work so hard putting our ideas together than we actually think there is no need for the supernatural power of God to be involved. Prayer should not be the good luck charm that we stick at the beginning or the end of what we do…but rather it should be our constant desperation to see God do the undeniable among us. Intense desperation often brings undeniable revelation!
#6 – Unwillingness To Take Risks – When our focus becomes to play it safe rather than to do whatever it takes to reach people far from God…it’s over. NOWHERE in the Scriptures did God ever ask anyone to do anything that didn’t involved [risk]. We’ve GOT to be willing to embrace the uncertain if we want to see the unbelievable.
#7 – Disobedience To The Scriptures – Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, Acts 1:8, II Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 19:10…I could go on and on…but we MUST understand that Jesus didn’t come to earth, live here for 33 years years, give HIS life for us and then return back to heaven to intercede for us so that we could get in really little circles and talk about ourselves and condemn those who are not as good as us. We are called to REACH PEOPLE FOR GOD–PERIOD!
#8 – Selfish Attitudes – Matthew 20:28 says it all…and if we are going to be more like Jesus we’ve GOT to serve others rather than expecting the church to be our servant all of the time. When a person (or group of people) refuse to embrace that a call to follow Jesus is a call to serve…then we’ve lost sight of who He is and eventually we will make being a Christian all about Jesus following/serving us rather than us taking up our cross and following Him!
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
This is only a step...
The judicial aristocracy--kings in black robes who rule over us--sneered at the people today and struck down Prop 8 in California. But this is only a step. I expect at least one other slap from the House of Lords (AKA the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) before someone who has more than a passing knowledge of the constitution gets to rule on it (that is 5/9ths of the US Supreme Court).
For more details, see here.
For more details, see here.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
The Four Pillars of Ministry
The Four Pillars of Ministry
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about balance in the ministry of the church. Maybe it’s because as I age, I see areas where I, or the churches I have served, were out of balance. I think I have found it—the four pillars of ministry. Like a great building, the four pillars must be equal at the four corners of the church. However, there is a logical progression, moving from the knowledge of God to human relationships and activities.
The First Pillar: Right Faith
Sound doctrine, based on Scripture, centered on Christ, certain and settled on all essential truths of the faith. The starting place is always God. He wants us to know Him rightly. Doctrine matters because doctrine is all about who God is, what He is like, what He does and what He commands us to do.
Are you well grounded in Scripture? Are you constant in your study of Scripture? Is your understanding of what we believe and why we believe it growing?
The Second Pillar: Right Devotion
Passionate worship and personal devotion to God expressed in corporate worship, attention to Scripture, daily prayer and commitment to continuous spiritual growth. God calls us to have more than right faith. He wants us to have a vital, passionate relationship with Him. Pharisees knew plenty of doctrine, and it was 90% correct, but Jesus said their hearts were far from God.
What’s you’re spiritual temperature? What’s your quiet time with God like? Are you able to worship with passion and abandon? Are you closer to God today than you were this time last year?
The Third Pillar: Right Relationships
Speaking the truth in love, compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient; generous in forgiveness, brimming over in love. We turn that same commitment to love God toward one another. Jesus said that our love for one another would be the evidence to the world that we are His disciples.
My friend Steve Robbins (www.robbinsnestministries.org) once did a survey at a church conference asking the question, “What’s holding your church back from its potential?” His discovery: BMWs! By that he meant “busy-ness, meanness and worldliness.” All these are relationship killers: when we’re too busy to develop and cultivate relationships, when we are downright mean and rude to one another, and when are allow the world to contaminate our hearts.
How high up are relationships in the body of Christ on your priorities? While all your efforts may not be reciprocated, are you making an effort to develop, deepen, and repair relationships?
The Fourth Pillar: Right Practices
The application of the best practices in administration, ministry and outreach throughout the ministry of the church. Most of us have heard the term “best practices” from our workplace. There are “best practices” when it comes to ministry as well: there’s a right way to evangelize, to connect people, to disciple people, to encourage stewardship, and so forth. But “right practices” come last. You can’t lead with best practices unless right faith, right devotion and right relationships are in place.
Are you striving to do what you do better than you’ve done it before? Are you striving to be a learner, a grower and goer than strives to do your “utmost for His highness”? Do you seek out opportunities to grow in service?
The church is made up of people. In 1 Peter 2:5, Peter says that we are “living stones…being built into a spiritual house.” (Paul says much the same thing in Ephesians 2:19-22).
How balanced are you as a stone in the house of God? Where do you need to grow and change? Which corner—faith, devotion, relationships and practices—needs to be shored up? Are you willing to work on it?
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about balance in the ministry of the church. Maybe it’s because as I age, I see areas where I, or the churches I have served, were out of balance. I think I have found it—the four pillars of ministry. Like a great building, the four pillars must be equal at the four corners of the church. However, there is a logical progression, moving from the knowledge of God to human relationships and activities.
The First Pillar: Right Faith
Sound doctrine, based on Scripture, centered on Christ, certain and settled on all essential truths of the faith. The starting place is always God. He wants us to know Him rightly. Doctrine matters because doctrine is all about who God is, what He is like, what He does and what He commands us to do.
Are you well grounded in Scripture? Are you constant in your study of Scripture? Is your understanding of what we believe and why we believe it growing?
The Second Pillar: Right Devotion
Passionate worship and personal devotion to God expressed in corporate worship, attention to Scripture, daily prayer and commitment to continuous spiritual growth. God calls us to have more than right faith. He wants us to have a vital, passionate relationship with Him. Pharisees knew plenty of doctrine, and it was 90% correct, but Jesus said their hearts were far from God.
What’s you’re spiritual temperature? What’s your quiet time with God like? Are you able to worship with passion and abandon? Are you closer to God today than you were this time last year?
The Third Pillar: Right Relationships
Speaking the truth in love, compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient; generous in forgiveness, brimming over in love. We turn that same commitment to love God toward one another. Jesus said that our love for one another would be the evidence to the world that we are His disciples.
My friend Steve Robbins (www.robbinsnestministries.org) once did a survey at a church conference asking the question, “What’s holding your church back from its potential?” His discovery: BMWs! By that he meant “busy-ness, meanness and worldliness.” All these are relationship killers: when we’re too busy to develop and cultivate relationships, when we are downright mean and rude to one another, and when are allow the world to contaminate our hearts.
How high up are relationships in the body of Christ on your priorities? While all your efforts may not be reciprocated, are you making an effort to develop, deepen, and repair relationships?
The Fourth Pillar: Right Practices
The application of the best practices in administration, ministry and outreach throughout the ministry of the church. Most of us have heard the term “best practices” from our workplace. There are “best practices” when it comes to ministry as well: there’s a right way to evangelize, to connect people, to disciple people, to encourage stewardship, and so forth. But “right practices” come last. You can’t lead with best practices unless right faith, right devotion and right relationships are in place.
Are you striving to do what you do better than you’ve done it before? Are you striving to be a learner, a grower and goer than strives to do your “utmost for His highness”? Do you seek out opportunities to grow in service?
The church is made up of people. In 1 Peter 2:5, Peter says that we are “living stones…being built into a spiritual house.” (Paul says much the same thing in Ephesians 2:19-22).
How balanced are you as a stone in the house of God? Where do you need to grow and change? Which corner—faith, devotion, relationships and practices—needs to be shored up? Are you willing to work on it?
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