Tag Hope

Is God Asleep? – Songs of Ascent #5

Todd R 2 Comments

Does it often seem like God is asleep at the wheel?  Like He is not relevant to the real problems we face in the world?  Today we continue on the Songs of Ascent, a liturgy used in ancient Israel to prepare for worship at the annual festivals in Jerusalem.  While not part of the Ascent, Psalm 119 precedes it, praising the law of God in the longest chapter of the Bible, and the Ascent begins in Psalm 120 with God’s people living in a world that remains broken even with a perfect law.  In the last post of this series, I wrote that Psalm 121 “asks us to take our eyes off of the world around us and look upward for our hope.”  Verses 1 and 2 say:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
            From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
            who made heaven and earth.

As these pilgrims looked to the hills, what did they want to find?  Did they expect to find a better group of people?  No, they brought their community with them on the long journey, along with all their baggage.  Did they travel in search of a better law?  No, they had the law God had given them.  Did they travel to Jerusalem to give penance for not keeping the law?  No, they came to find real help for real problems that exist within themselves and in their communities. This help could only come from the LORD.

Then verses 3 and 4 say:

He will not let your foot be moved;
            he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
            will neither slumber nor sleep.

Why does the Psalmist need to say this?  Because even God’s people can doubt that He is interested and cares about tangible problems.  When we focus on our circumstances, on the people around us, or even on God’s holy law, we can miss the power of God.  It can seem like God is asleep.  Like He is not relevant.  The Old Testament prophet Elijah mocked the powerlessness of the Canaanite storm god Baal in 1 Kings 18:27 – “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”  We don’t say this out loud, but sometimes we wonder where our own God is.  If we don’t take the time to intentionally look for Him, it’s easy to think He is asleep.

In these Psalms, God calls us to worship in a central place as a reminder that no matter what the world looks like, He is awake and at work in the midst of very real problems.  In ancient Israel, sacrifices were offered at the temple as a sign of Jesus’ future sacrifice, which provided reconciliation with a God who requires justice, which is our deepest need.  After making the perfect sacrifice, Jesus rose again to give us power to love our neighbor, meeting their needs.

Pilgrims didn’t go to Jerusalem to pay God a visit, then leave him behind when they went home.  They went because God provided a way to remind them that He was always with them in the places they came from, but if they don’t take the time to be reminded, they remain discouraged in their circumstances.  Likewise, on our Sabbath day of rest, we remind ourselves that He is never sleeping, but has been working for the salvation of His people since the very beginning of creation.  His people are the very people we congregate with.  People who are not saved by Psalm 119 and find themselves participating in a Psalm 120 world.  People whose circumstances tell them God is asleep, and who need help with their Monday to Saturday problems.

Here we come to perhaps the most difficult point. Elijah’s mocking is also echoed in criticism of the church today, both from those inside the church and outside.  Where is God in the midst of real problems?  What does God offer above laws and rituals that cannot perfect us?  The pilgrims also could have criticized the other pilgrims.  Those arriving in Jerusalem certainly had among them people who thought the law was the answer.  There were also those who went to practice their religious rituals, check the box, then get on with their lives as they saw fit.  Sometimes the church looks little different than the circumstances we find ourselves in where we live, but that’s nothing new.

The LORD calls us to Him and gave these Psalms to let us know that He is not asleep, no matter what it may look like to us.  The world will more clearly see God as their help when His people lift their eyes up to the hills, go to Him in public worship, and bring back His help to their communities.  This is how they will know He is not asleep.

Therefore, the liturgy of the Psalms of Ascent points us beyond all laws, doctrines, traditions, and institutions, to the help that comes to us from the sacrifice of Jesus, foreshadowed at the temple in Jerusalem:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
            From where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD,
            who made heaven and earth.

Work, Labor, and Steadfastness

Todd R 3 Comments

Many are familiar with the Biblical triad of faith, hope and love from 1 Corinthians 13:13, which says: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  In this verse, Paul is calling these 3 characteristics the most important, with love above the other 2.

In another of Paul’s letters he joins this triad with another one.  1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 says, “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”  He’s saying that faith and works go together, that love and labor go together and that hope and steadfastness go together.  But how do they fit together and do the 3 relationships have anything in common?

When I think of these verses, I see faith, hope and love as the causes of the other 3 characteristics.  Faith motivates works.  Love motivates labor.  Hope motivates steadfastness.  Without the first thing in each pair, it’s hard to consistently have the second thing.  Let’s look at them in order.

The interaction between faith and work is a tricky one, but paraphrasing John Calvin, we are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.  In the New Testament book of James, he wrote “someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”[1]  Our Savior spent His life on this earth ministering to others, and if we believe in Him as who He actually is (our God), our faith in Him will naturally result in us ministering to others as He did.  Thus, faith motivates us to work as Jesus worked.  Otherwise, it is a dead faith.

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Paul also noted the Thessalonians’ “labor of love.”  The “love” here is more than an emotion or feeling.  It’s the love (agape in Greek) that is a self-sacrificing concern for others.  Any others.  G.K. Chesterton said, “the Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”  True love is hard, like labor.  Strong’s Greek dictionary describes the word translated “labor” as toil that wears us out or even causes us pain.  A labor of love is when we serve people so much in love that it wears us out.    Agape love motivates us to labor for others.

The last pair is the “steadfastness of hope.”  In my experience, hope is only useful when it is steadfast.  If we lose hope when things go wrong, we lose the ability to see beyond our current circumstances to our future in Christ.  Its only when we are able to keep our focus on Christ even in tough times that our hope is steadfast and shows its true value.  In the 2 letters he wrote to the Thessalonians, Paul referred to the second coming of Jesus at least 6 times, which would remind them that their hope is sure and won’t fail them.  Just like the Thessalonians, we need to be reminded again and again of where our hope lies in order to keep living for God.  Hope motivates steadfastness.

Today, if Paul were to write a letter to your church, would he note their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”?  I pray that for my church, including me, he could.  Pray the same for you and yours.

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

[1] James 2:18

Hope’s Anchor

Todd R 4 Comments

Sometimes we fall into a pattern of trying to rely on our own merit to please God.  We try our hardest to do everything we think He wants us to do in order to earn His love.  We live like the classic hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” was changed to “Great is My Faithfulness.”  We put our hope in our own efforts to earn our salvation.

Hebrews 10:23, which says “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” helps explain why we’d much rather have it be “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”  This verse reminds us that He is faithful and is worth putting our hope in.  In contrast we are often unfaithful and disappoint ourselves, falling short of the ideals we strive to achieve.  We can hold fast to our hope, because it’s based on His promises.

Earlier, Hebrews 6:19 says “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain” where “this” refers to the promises of God that were fulfilled by the life of Jesus and give us access to God’s presence.  Counting on our own faithfulness is like being on a ship that attaches its anchor to itself, and the captain wonders why the ship keeps drifting uncontrollably.  So, as the verse says, we must attach our anchor to something else (God’s promises), because an anchor is only as good as what it’s attached to.  Something solid is needed, and God’s promises in Jesus are a solid, unchanging thing we can cling to at all times.

If we relied on our own faithfulness for salvation, every time we disappoint God, we would have to worry about losing our salvation, our place in God’s family.  We would have no security, no way to avoid “wavering.”  Our faithlessness discourages us, but His faithfulness gives us hope and strength.

God is faithful and worthy of our trust.  As the hymn declares about Him:

“There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.”

We can “hold fast” to Him in all times and in all circumstances.  All of the Old Testament testifies to God’s faithfulness toward His people, and the New Testament testifies to the fulfillment of God’s promises in the life and work of Jesus.  Therefore, His faithfulness is backed up by centuries of history, and through His grace, He offers salvation to His people.  As Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God”. Even our faith is a gift from God, based on His faithfulness, not ours, and given in His grace.  When our faith wavers, His does not.

Therefore, thank God that our hope is in His faithfulness, not in ours.  Our faithfulness is far too uncertain, but through the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus we inherit Christ’s own merit in the eyes of God and couldn’t please Him anymore no matter what we do.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful”

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father”

Perfecting Faith Through Struggle

Todd R 1 Comment

King David wrote many Psalms during the difficult times in his life.  Psalm 18, written “on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul,”[1] is a song David wrote to praise God for His deliverance from difficulties in the past.  David describes the depths of the troubles he faced in verses 4 and 5:

“The cords of death encompassed me;
            the torrents of destruction assailed me;
the cords of Sheol entangled me;
            the snares of death confronted me.”

There were many moments where David faced enemies seeking to kill him, a situation we may never face.  But, like David we all face struggles and, while not literally life-threatening, some of them may feel like what David describes.  Our enemies may be external or internal, physical or spiritual, and Psalm 18 can be applied to them all.  David magnifies the powers that assailed him, which John Calvin wrote, “enhances and magnifies so much the more the glory of his deliverance. As David had been reduced to a condition so desperate that no hope of relief or deliverance from it was apparent, it is certain that he was delivered by the hand of God, and that it was not a thing effected by the power of man.”  David was truly in a desperate situation and sometimes we are too.

So, how can this Psalm help us in our struggles?  I’m going to focus on a only a few of the Psalm’s 50 verses, including verses 1 to 3:

“I love you, O LORD, my strength.
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
            my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
            my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised,
            and I am saved from my enemies.”

Note that these verses come before the ones quoted earlier because before coming to God with his problems, David contemplated who God is and what he has learned about Him from experience.  When we’re struggling, we should also take the time to contemplate the nature of our God so we can get the right perspective.

David uses some military metaphors to tell us about God.  David says God is a rock, a fortress, a shield, a horn, and a stronghold.  These tell us that God:

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  • is a rock, immovable by our enemies and our problems.
  • is a fortress and stronghold, a secure place to flee from our enemies, where they cannot get in.
  • is a shield that protects us from harm.  Our enemies weapons can’t pierce God’s protection.
  • is a horn, with all the power we need to defeat our enemies.  A horn was a symbol of might in the Bible.

God is all these things for us too!

In verse 7, David added that when God answered his call for help, “the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry.”  God’s power, His “horn”, is so powerful that even the earth fears it, but we need to learn to trust in it, and it alone.

There is no sure way to learn to trust a fortress or shield, other than to test them in battle.  C.S. Lewis wrote that “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”  When we’re fighting an external battle against an enemy or against painful circumstances.  When we’re fighting an internal battle against temptation, a bad habit, an addiction, or maybe an unattractive character trait, God can teach us about who He is through the pain of those battles, and we can learn to trust Him more.

Although we will not defeat all of our enemies while we live in this world, and we may be frustrated knowing God is powerful enough to win, but we still fail anyway, we know that:

“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
            his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
            great is your faithfulness.”[2]

He is faithfully by our side in every struggle, and eager to restore us when we fall, even if it’s every day.  But most importantly, we know that He is working in all things -even our fiercest battles – to perfect us and that He will not fail.  Even if we are unfaithful at times, He remains faithful always, and it’s His faithfulness that makes the difference.

If you’re fighting something today, remember that God is your rock, fortress, shield, horn, and stronghold, and you can trust Him.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”  – Philippians 1:6

[1] Psalm 18:0 (title)
[2] Lamentations 3:22-23

The Part of Us That Matters

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The Apostle Paul wrote an amazing contrast in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, which says:

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

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On the one hand, there are things that are transient, described as: outer, wasting away, light, momentary, affliction, and seen.

On the other hand, what is eternal is: inner, being renewed, weighty, glorious, beyond all comparison, and unseen.

These things are part of each of us, but what is eternal matters infinitely more than the other. Don’t confuse the two, or you may lose heart because Paul earlier assured us in verse 14 that “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.”  At that time, only what is eternal will remain.

Amen.