Psalm 16: Not Shaken, Again.

Just a quick note because this theme of "not being shaken" showed again in my morning reading:

I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. - Psalm 16:8

Interesting topography in this Psalm. God is set "before" David's eyes (attention), which places God at David's "right hand" It is also interesting that God is the one at David's right hand (which means that we are at God's left).

How deeply my soul yearns for stability. May we find it only in God.

"And who is the Rock except our God." - Psalm 18:31b

Psalm 15:5: Earthquake Country

One of the scariest experiences I had with an earthquate was not in California, where tremors were a fact of life. No, it was when I woke in the darkness and my 18th floor hotel was swaying back and forth and creaking; the quiet tinkle as glasses in the bathroom shuffled against each other; and I wondered whether the upper floors above me would collapse.

These buildings are designed to sway. They are made of durable materials. Earthquakes are a way of life anywhere along the Pacific rim. So building codes and materials and engineering design all focus on the inevitable. You only have to look at the heart-wrenching results of being unprepared in such places as eastern Turkey or Haiti, to see what can happen.

Life is full of earthquakes. The question is not if, but when, how often and how strong.  Some are tremors: heart-ache, struggling relationship, accidents, job loss, illness. Some are ground-breakers: Death, divorce, natural disaster, accident. All of them are unsettling. All of them threaten to throw us down.

Psalm 15:5 offers these encouraging words: "He who does these things will never be shaken." What things? What sort of bomb shelter is the author talking about? In the context of this Psalm, the answer is given right up front, in verse 1: "LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?" God is our refuge. He is our sanctuary. He is our bomb shelter, in time of need. The verses in between fill us in on the type of person who dwells close to God: someone who lives with integrity and compassion.

This may seem like standard, bread-and-butter Christian practical living. But five chapters ago, there was another person who said: "Nothing will shake me; I'll always be happy and never have trouble." (Ps. 10:6) In Psalm 10, the person who says this is shown as arrogant and about to fall.  But in Psalm 15, this person is commended? What is the difference?

1. Trying to Become A King or Submit To The King? The Psalm 10 man views himself at the top of the heap. He thinks he cannot be shaken because he controls the weak and disdains his enemies. The Psalm 15 man knows there is a king of the hill (Zion) and the by being where He is, he will not be shaken.
2. Are Words Used To Destroy or Are Words Used To Build Up . The Psalm 10 man uses words to beat down and control. "His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats." (Ps. 10:7) The Psalm 15 man "speaks the truth from his heart" and "keeps his oath, even when it hurts." (vs. 4) Someone once told me that the world can be divided into two types of people: those who believe words mean something and those who don't.
3. Are Other People Potential Victims or Are Other People Neighbors. The Psalm 10 man divides the world into sheep and wolves. You plunder the sheep and fight off the other wolves. His goal in life is to stay at the head of the wolf pack. The Psalm 15 divides the world into neighbors and those who take advantage of neighbors. He will not climb over his neighbor nor fail to help him in need.

There comes an earthquake to each of us. God will use it to rattle our cages; break down defences, realign priorities and clear out our cluttered hearts and replace it all with the kingdom of God.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire." - Hebrews 12:28

Dear God, only your kingdom cannot be shaken. Your kingdom come, your will be done, in my life, is it is in heaven. Amen.

Psalm 14:1-3: Not A Pretty Picture

When NASA sends us pictures of earth from the space shuttle Atlantis, we see an blue marble with swirls of white clouds, an amazingly beautiful picture. The oil spill has recently caught the attention of space-mounted camerias, such as these, where the swirls of oil slick and the fires show as a cream colored stain. But when God looks at the world, his filter is slightly different. Here is my paraphrase of Psalm 14:1-3:

"Can it be that anyone actually really believes that 'There is no God'? Decaying inside, rotten outside-could anything good come from such zombies? You think it strange, but God looks down from his vantage point, looking for any sign of life. But what He sees is that everyone has detoured. They have all chosen the path of inner decay and outward rot."

My natural tendency is towards decay--towards zombification. I have no power--indeed, no desire--in myself to alter this course. And I sit in a city of millions who share my unwillingness to seek God. We all stand in need of rescue--revivification--resusitation. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 2:17)

Practical atheism is living like God doesn't exist. It is the preference for the life of the zombie. Take hold of the new life God gives and come alive.

Job 42: Job's Daughters

Job is one of those books (like Revelation and Ecclesiastes) which puzzles me. Having just finished reading it again, I still shake my head at its amazing premise (Satan accusing God of bribery!), the Supreme Court-worthy test case of undeserved suffering and the audacity of the author to answer neither the former nor the latter after nearly 40 chapters of unremitting dialog.

And what about that happy ending?

"The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. And he also had seven sons and three daughters." - Job 42:12

So God doubles his livestock (see Job 1:2). His family gathers around him to console him and gives him "a piece of silver and a gold ring" (Job 42:11). He gets an extra 70 years of life. Oh, and he gets seven more sons to replace the seven killed in chapter 1 and three more daughters to replace the three killed in chapter 1. Children are not interchangeable.

So what really happened? I believe the biggest reward for Job was not the change in his circumstances, but the change in his attitude. In chapter 1, we see:

His sons used to take turns holding feasts in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would send and have them purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Job's regular custom. - Job 1:3

If I was to summarize his relationship with his children in the beginning of the book in one word, it would be Distance. The author of Job emphasizes the distance in his relationship with his children: They hold feasts in their homes, but not in his. He has to send to have them purified. He doesn't know what is happening with his children ("Perhaps my children"). His primary goal towards his children does not seem to be extravagantly loving towards them and involved with their lives, but to act as sort of a remote-control life-insurance policy.

Then Job meets God, who grants a two chapter behind-the-scenes look into really what it takes to be God as it details his intimate relationship with his creation. Contrast Job's previous response with his attitude post-interview:

And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years.

In some ways, you have to have the Old Testament in your blood to appreciate the turnaround here. Job has gone from distance to devoted. First, the names of his daughters are listed. You'd have to search high and low to find any place where the daughters are listed (and not the sons!) in the Bible. Second, he gave his new daughters extravagant names, naming them after doves, a sweet spice and a type of beauty treatment. Third, he granted them an inheritance. In the ancient world, sons had inheritances but not daughters. Fourth, he saw his children.

How had meeting God changed Job? He treasured what God gave. He loved.

How has meeting God changed you? Sometimes Christians seem to become extravagantly grumpy rather than extravagantly loving. But the world was not rescued through a grump, but through a giver.

Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. - Titus 2:13

Job 40:3-5: Listening Is An Opinion

Yesterday, a friend and I were sitting down at our local hangout when another gentleman (a "Michael Bolton" look-alike) overheard our discussion and joined in on the topic of coffee while he waited for his drink to be readied. Sipping his specially concocted brew from a cup, he held forth on hangover remedies, herbal medicines and the evils of the FDA. Sitting down in the next chair, he continued on to sustainable living, solar energy and  monopolies and the sad state of the education system. After an hour, we said good bye. I have a lot of sympathy for him, because he is me on another day.

These past several days I have been reading through the book of Job as he and his "comforters" have attempted to reason out the cause for all of his suffering. Job cannot understand. But if he was to bring is case, as in a court of law, to whom would he bring it? God. Job recognizes this problem early on when he says: "If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both...Then I would speak up without fear of him but as it now stands with me, I cannot." - Job 9:33, 35

In our Men's Group a few weeks ago, we talked about all of the different aspects of fellowship, the sharing of our lives together before God. We looked at many of the "one another" passages which describe how we interact. Then we were asked to rate ourselves, where we do well and where we struggle. My confession, before our group, was in the command to "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Eph. 5:21) I always have an opinion. And, it seems, I always have to speak it. I struggle to submit and leave my opinion unsaid. Speaking is part of my idolatry of self.

Listening is an opinion. Listening is an opinion that shows my respect for a person. Listening is part of my submitting.

Job finally gets what he wants. The Lord "answered Job" and gives a few case examples (Job 38-39) of why Job might want to reconsider bringing charges. Now it is Job's turn.

"Then Job answered the Lord: I am unworthy-how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer-twice, but I will say no more." - Job 40:3-5

Listening is about respect. Does God want to hear our opinion? Surely. That is part of what prayer is about. But at other times, our prayers and proclamations are an attempt to bring God into court to stand charges. At the heart, it comes back to that key question-God asking, "Do you trust me?" Listening is an opinion.

I wrote in my journal earlier this week: My only prayer is to speak in order to build up, with gentleness. But I have been reminded of that old proverb: Don't speak unless you can improve upon silence.

Listen. It speaks volumes.

Prayers of Blessings

When we went to Turkey, one of our goals was to pray over entire cities where there were few, if any, known local believers. What to pray for? The advance of the gospel, certainly, and a breakthrough in receptivity to the gospel. What else?

As part of our training, we were asked to study a useful little book, Blessings: Ways to Pray In Hope, which described 7 ways to pray blessings for a person, a people or a place. Sometimes we would pray as teams walked up and down the streets of the small cities in the province of Cappadocia. Other times we would pray God's blessing from the top of a hill, overlooking the houses and businesses of thousands of residents. "Prayers of blessings are usually expressions of God's intended goodness prayed by ordinary people who pray in the power of having their hearts aligned with God's heart. Blessings bestow a future. Prayers of blessings are always prayers of hope."

1. Peace. Pray that the Lord of peace extends that over a city, over the leaders, over individual lives and that those who work towards peace would be encouraged. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." - Matthew 5:9
2. Increase. Pray that God will bring prosperity, body and soul and abundance without grief. "The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it." - Proverbs 10:22
3. Family Fullness. Pray for flourishing families and integrity of the generations to follow.
4. Abundant Life. "God's gretest desire is that people be alive with his kind of life" Jesus said he came "that they may have life, and have it abundantly." - John 10:10
5. Provision. Pray that God may provide and protect in every way.
6. Transformation. Pray that God's design for a person or city or a nation be revealed, making all things new.
7. Presence. The best blessing may be to recognize him with welcome as he comes, finishing all he has promised. Pray for the personal presence of God, and that the earth is filled with his glory.

When we stopped stop before a business, or a mosque, or a home, or a garden, we could see some of the people, imagined their lives and prayed blessings over them. Prayers like we would pray for our friends. Not just prayers of rescue, but prayers of blessing.

 

Blessings: Ways to Pray in Hope, WayMakers, http://www.waymakers.org/

God Speak: Change My Life

God Speak: Change My Life

 

This is the transcript of a talk I gave as part of a 4 part "How To Study Your Bible" seminar given at our church. It was designed to follow "Rick Warren's Bible Study Methods".

Part 1: Introduction

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

There are four ideas I want you to walk away with tonight, and I’m going to tell you up front so that no one thinks I have a hidden agenda:

1. The most important thing on Earth for me is to find God and do what He wants.
2. The best place to find out about God and what He wants is in the Bible.
3. God changes my life through the Bible.
4. God changes the world through my life and your life.

 

1. The most important thing on Earth for me is to find God and do what He wants.

 

I grew up mostly in a Baptist church and we looked forward to the day when we would be in heaven and there would be no more divisions. Some Lutherans would be there, represented by Martin Luther. Methodists would be there, represented by John Wesley. Some Catholics would be there (though this idea was a little more controversial), represented by the pope. And we Baptists would be there, represented by….Jesus. [1]

 

Sometimes people want to know, if there are so many religions and denominations, how can they know which one is the right one? But they miss the underlying truth of their question: there are so many religions because (a) we are spiritual beings, (b) the desire for the divine was built into our spiritual DNA and (c) we are spiritually lost.

 

I am so tired of people whining that God doesn’t meet their expectations, how they couldn’t believe in a God like this or that. We want to fashion a religion where our faults are virtues and our pet peeves are sins; where God conforms to the opinion page or Oprah’s guest. I don’t think God sits around fretting because he is not living up to our high standards.

 

Instead, it is our job to find God and do what he wants. The Bible says:

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. – Hebrews 11:6

 Did you catch that? God rewards you when you plunge after him; when you are sold out in pursuit of God. An apathetic, gee-I-guess-looking-for-God-would-be-a-good-thing search for God will result in finding a God who is apathetic about rewarding you. The Bible says: 

Come close to God and he will come close to you. – James 4:8a (NLT) 

If you honestly seek God, you will find God. But once you have found God, what will you do with Him? Wilbur Reese once wrote:

"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of Him to make me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb not a new birth. I want about a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I'd like to buy $3 worth of God, please." [2]

God is not content with a paper sack. He is not just the adrenaline rush of a mountain-top experience to be forgotten when you decide to go bungee jumping. Finding God is not enough, you must find out what he wants, because a true encounter with God is life-changing.  

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. – Romans 12:2a (NLT) 

Take off after the truth and see where it takes you. Because the most important thing on Earth for you to do is find God and do what he wants. The second point is:

 

2. The best place to find out about God and what He wants is in the Bible.

 

How can we find out about God? God is not seen. God is not heard. God is not tasted or touched or smelled. The Bible says that “God is Spirit” (John 4:24a) but the last time I looked, “spirit” wasn’t one of the 5 senses. The songwriter Chris Rice tries to find God and said, “Sometimes finding you is like trying to smell the color 9. 9s not a color. And even if it were you can’t smell a color, no. That’s my point exactly. ” [3]

 

In order for us to find God and do what he wants, God must reveal himself. He must translate. He must interpret because otherwise everything he wants to show us is invisible and everything he wants to say is unintelligible.

 

How God longs to speak to us-to communicate with us—in a way we can understand. Try to explain purple to a blind man; Beethoven to a deaf woman; the scent of strawberries to someone with a cold. And he has tried every trick in the book: visions, miracles, disasters, donkeys, handwriting on the wall and even his Son Jesus. 

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son… (Hebrews 1:1-2a)

There are a lot of letters and books and histories and proverbs that didn’t make it into the Bible. God took his “greatest hits” and had them write it down in the Bible. Why there are so many different types of books and styles in the Bible? Because he was trying to find some angle, some style, some turn of phrase, some way past your defenses so that you would open up and let him come in and change your life. 

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. – Romans 15:4

The most important thing for me on Earth is to find God and do what He wants. The best place to find out about God and what He wants is in the Bible.

 

3. God changes my life through the Bible.

When I was 10 years old, I was an expert on the Guinness Book of World Records. Sonya Thomas, aka the “Black Widow” downed 36 dozen oysters in 10 minutes. The world’s largest pizza was 122 feet in diameter. The tallest man in recent history was Robert Wadlow at 8 feet, 11 inches and he ate over 8000 calories a day. I spent hours poring over the latest edition. I was proud of my specialized knowledge. People used to tell me how smart I was.

 

The Bible can be like that for us. We can listen to the best preachers, quote the most verses, tell the worst Bible jokes (the shortest man in the Bible was Bildad the Shuhite, Job 2:11), but if it never changes our life, alters our habits or makes us more like Jesus, it is wasted.

 

We can say that we believe something, but until what we believe changes what we do, it is just hot air. John Ortberg mentions three kinds of beliefs:

1. Public beliefs are convictions I want other people to think I believe, even though I really may not believe them. Steven Colbert calls truthiness the degree to which something sounds true, even though it may not be true, allowing people with his or her sincerity. (Herod)
2. Private beliefs are convictions that I sincerely think I believe, but it turns out they may be fickle. (Peter)
3. Core beliefs are revealed by our daily actions, but what we actually do. At our core, we have a set of values—a set of assumptions-we cal l that your worldview. These assumptions control what you will pay attention to, what you will ignore and how you organize your mental world.  

God wants to change your life. The words of the Bible are God Himself speaking. He is not speaking just to hear himself talk. He doesn’t just write the Bible to see his name on the front cover “Holy Bible by God” He put His best down because he wants to change your life.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

1. Everything in the Bible is God’s
2. Everything in the Bible is useful. It teaches us, giving us the goods on the right way to live. It rebukes us. It tells us straight up when we’re doing something wrong. It corrects us, helping to get back on God’s track. It trains us, building in us the habits so we can shine for God in any circumstance.
3. The Bible sets you up for success. You are thoroughly equipped. You may not know what life is going to throw your way, but you can be ready when you listen to what God says.

First, the most important thing on Earth for you is to find God and do what He wants. Second, the best place to find out about God and what he wants is the Bible. God changes my life through the Bible and

 

4. God changes the world through my life.

You are just the start of something special that God is doing right where you live. God is able to do so much more than I can know or imagine, and I have a pretty active imagination. And God’s strategy is you and me, together with all of the followers of Jesus, working together. The collective passion and energy of so many changed lives in a room like this one should shatter the status quo. We are the start of the quiet revolution; where the power of God and the people of God change politics and families and marriages and broken lives forever.

 

When I started tonight, I pointed out how difficult it was to find God and to see him. The Bible says:

No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us. – John 1:18

When Jesus came, it was God speaking to us. Nothing was kept back. But Jesus is gone. Where is the love and compassion of God? Look at what happens, in John’s other book.

No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. – 1 John 4:12

We are the hands and feet of Jesus, continuing on his life-changing work in our neighborhood. He is the light of the world and we are the light of the world.

 

Conclusion

Just before giving a lavish party at his estate, a tycoon had his swimming pool filled with poisonous snakes. He called the guests together and announced, "To anyone brave enough to swim across this pool, I will give the choice of a thousand acres of my oil fields, 10,000 head of cattle, or my daughter's hand in marriage." No sooner were his words spoken than a young man plunged in, swam across the pool and climbed out--unscathed but breathless.

 

"Congratulations!" the tycoon greeted him. "Do you want my oil fields?"

"No!" gasped the guest.

"The 10,000 head of cattle?"

"No!" the young man shouted.

"Well, how about my daughter's--" "No!"

"You must want something," said the puzzled host.

"I just want to know the name of the guy who pushed me in!"

 

You have to want to hear God’s voice for yourself; otherwise the Bible is no reward. I can’t force you to make it a priority and I can’t give you any more promises than God has. But I can tell you, from my own experience, that the most important thing on Earth for me is to find God and do what He wants. The best place to find out about God and what he wants is the Bible. God changes my life through the Bible and God changes the world through my life.

 

Training

These next weeks, we will be studying seven different ways that you can use to dig into the Bible. I am going to introduce one, one of my favorites and one that you can use again and again. It is called the “Devotional Method” and it really focuses on how to read the Bible and focus on using what you learn in real life.

 

The Bible was designed for real life. It is not an abstract theological treatise designed to explain a system of epistemology. It is a manual for living. If you just read the Bible it is just information. And “Information without application is abortion.” [4]

 

I’m going to give you four steps for digging in, then we will walk through two actual examples and then I’ll give you a little homework.

 

Step 1: Pray. Pray for insight on how to apply the passage. God is speaking. We are listening. So we (a) ask God to show us what he wants us to do and (b) tell God that we are ready to obey and share the application with other people.

 

Step 2: Meditate. Find a way to fill your mind with the passage. When we read verses, it doesn’t always catch, so we need to concentrate on it in different ways. Here are four suggestions:

 

1. Visualize. Try to picture the situation being described in your mind. Or try to visualize the images in the words. “They will soar on wings like eagles, they will walk and not grow faint.”

 

2. Emphasize. Read through a verse several times, each time emphasizing a different word. “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

 

3. Paraphrase. Rewrite the verses in your own words. I have a whole journal where I rewrote the Psalms in my own way. Taking it out of the formal language helped me grasp the feelings. “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.” “God why are you leaving me all alone. Why don’t you pay attention to my pain even though I keep yelling at you about it all day long.”

 

4. Personalize. Put your name in the place of the pronouns in a verse.

 

5. Ask Questions. 

1. Sin to confess? Promise to claim? Attitude to change? Command to obey? Example to follow?
2. Prayer to pray? Error to avoid? Truth to believe? Something to praise God for?

Step 3: Apply. Write out an application. I can’t emphasize this enough. Write down what you have learned and what you are going to do about it. If you can’t write it down, it probably means that you haven’t thought it through clearly enough.

1. It should be personal. Use I, me, my, mine. No use writing applications for other people.
2. It should be practical. Put down a definite course of action.
3. It should be possible.
4. It should be provable. Can you check up on what you have done.

Sometimes you will come across a verse that doesn’t apply to you right now. What do you do? It is about death and how to overcome grief and sorrow? Write them down anyway, because you may have to use it in the future.

 

Step 4. Memorize. Pick a key verse and memorize it. Many times God will work on one area of your life for weeks or months. It takes time to change the old habits. It takes time to build in new habits. The verse can be a reminder on what to do. Some of you claim you can’t memorize Bible verses. But you can quote me the box scores for the Kings game or what your spouse said, word-for-word, before you went to bed six years ago. You remember what is important to you. Give God’s word priority in your life.

 

[1] Faith and Doubt, John Ortberg, Zondervan (2008), p. 28
[2] As cited on http://www.theseeker.org/. Accessed December 28, 2008.
[3] Smell The Color 9, Chris Rice, Smell The Color 9, © Clumsy Fly Music
[4] Howard Hendricks, cited in “Rick Warren’s Bible Study Methods”, p. 34