Sunday, Singing, and Living Differently

Christians are to be different. Do any of us really think otherwise? Our lives are to be marked by morals, beliefs, ceremonies, and patterns that are simply not the same as the rest of the world. Christianity has never been a thing to simply add on to a normal and worldly life. Christianity brings a transformative salvation that changes us from our hearts outward.

We are going to be different in many ways. This has been true from Old to New Testament. And one of the clearest differences for the people of God was found in the Sabbath command. Unlike the nations around Israel, the people of God were to take Saturday off work. While neighboring nations pressed on, Israel would rest and honor the Lord. Israel would rest and lovingly allow her servants to rest. Israel would rest, and would depict the coming rest from man-centered attempts to earn our way to God that is fulfilled in the salvation completed for us in Christ.

I’m not a Sabbatarian. I do not believe that the Christian is required to fulfill a particular type of Sabbath regulation. Yet, I do understand that the Lord’s Day, that Sunday, is a day that is special in the Christian world. Our Sundays should make us look different from the world. This is not so much because we are required to follow a particular rule (though forsaking assembly is a sin), but because we love our Lord and center our lives around his glory.

Why the Sabbath talk? Interestingly, it hit me from the superscription of Psalm 92. Take a look at that and the first couple verses.

Psalm 92:1
A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath.
1 It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
3 to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.

This Psalm declares itself to be a psalm, a teaching and worshipful song or prayer, that is particularly appropriate for use on the Sabbath. And so we have to imagine the Hebrew family, on a Friday night or Saturday morning, after family work has shut down for the day, singing this psalm and learning from it what to do. No more work and no more worldly worries are allowed at this point. It is time to focus on the Lord. It is time to rest. It is time to sing.

Singing the praise of God is good. Remembering how the Lord has cared for his own and how he does justice in all things is important. Singing of the future promises of God matters. Singing of the perfections of God is right. Singing of the goodness of God is obvious. These are things that the Hebrews were to do on the Sabbath.

In the Christian world, the New Testament culture, these are good words for us too. There ought to be in our week a day that is different. There ought to be a time that is sacred. There ought to be an embrace of songs of truth and glory. There ought to be time set aside for us to stop chasing after money and fearing for provision. Instead, there ought to be a time when we gather together with the people of God, hear the word of God, participate in acts of worship like Lord’s Supper, and, yes, sing.

What does doing things like this do? When we take that time away to gather, pray, fellowship, worship, learn, and sing, when we stop everything and make worship a priority, we demonstrate a pattern in our lives that is focused on God and his glory. Yes, we pattern a life of six days at work and one day off just as God did in creation. Even more, we pattern a trust in the Lord that he will take care of us even if we do not force ourselves into the office for 7 days without rest. When we gather to sing, we look weird to the world. Nobody else other than the religious stop life to get together and have a sing-along every week. There is something different about who we are and what we do. There is something that ought to make our neighbors think our life choices are weird. When people get out of bed on their day off, dress their kids, and then take their families to a place where an hour or two are spent in contemplation of an ancient text, they look odd. When they stand side-by-side with people of different skin colors, different personalities, different economic levels, different ages, and somehow still all sing the same songs of the God who made us and whose Son rescued us by dying for our sins, we are doing something utterly radical.

Psalm 92 reminds us that it is good to stop life and sing of the glory of God. It reminds us that, when we stop life and worship, we can recall the faithfulness of God. It reminds us that we live for more than what the rest of the world lives for from Monday to Saturday. It reminds us that stopping life and praising God is good and a proper mark of the lives of all who truly know the Lord.

July 3, 2018July 3, 2018

They Need Scripture, Not Miraculous Evidence

When we have friends, neighbors, or family members we want to see saved, we may find ourselves wishing for a supernatural occurrence to help them to believe. I’m not here talking about the work of the sovereign God on a heart to draw someone to Christ. Rather, I am thinking about something that is considered amazing, miraculous, and somehow a proof of the truth of the gospel. We want our family members to see a healing, to have a dramatic impression of the presence of God, or be miraculously preserved from a car accident. Then we think that they will let that evidence lead them to faith.

But such a belief is not in accord with the very words of Jesus. Our Savior did not say that the lost need a dramatic experience of evidence. Nor did he say that they need a really good argument. Jesus said that the lost, if they are to be saved, need Scripture.

In Luke 16, Jesus gives us the story of the lost rich man and the beggar, Lazarus. The rich man is in hell and Lazarus in paradise. The rich man has a conversation with Abraham, and that conversation represents the teaching point. First the rich man asked for relief from his torment, but that was not possible or proper. Then the rich man asked for Abraham to send Lazarus to be a miraculous witness to his brothers so they could avoid hell.

Luke 16:2931 – 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’ ”

Note what is said here. The rich man wants something miraculous, something dramatic, something that feels like irrefutable evidence. Abraham says they have Scripture. The rich man does not think Scripture is enough. Who would ever expect that just continuing to quote the Bible, continuing to preach verse after verse, would somehow have an impact.

But what does Jesus tell us through the mouth of Abraham in this account? If they will not hear the word of God in Scripture, nothing will make them believe. They will not believe, even if a person rises from the dead. Of course, Jesus knows a thing or two about people rising from the dead in front of the lost.

Christians, may we see that the word of God taught by the Son of God here tells us that what the lost need is not a sign. The lost do not need to talk with the dead. The Lost do not need an irrefutable argument. After all, you and I have all seen people ignore irrefutable arguments. What the lost need is the clear presentation of the word of God. Because, if they will not believe the word of god, they would not believe if they saw a dead person resurrected before their eyes. That is what Jesus said, and it is still true today.

No, this does not make me anti-apologetics. What it makes me is one who recognizes what apologetics can and cannot do. Apologetics might make someone stop yelling at you long enough to listen to you. Apologetics might make a person think you less of an idiot than they originally thought you to be. Apologetics might gain you a hearing in a person’s mind. But, friends, at the end of the day, the only thing that will bring a person to salvation is the word of God spoken and the power of God sovereignly bringing a dead heart to life.

July 2, 2018July 3, 2018

A Better Response Than Demanding to Know Why

Our reflex, when things go hard, is to act as though we must know why God chose to let things happen the way that he did. Some folks will pretend that they know, assuming that they can figure out the ways and plans of the Lord. Others just howl in frustration as they demand answers from God that they do not receive. And, of course, if this all continues, some will walk away from their claimed faith because they are unsatisfied with how God does things and then refuses to explain himself.

Job experienced this, of course. He hurt, demanded answers, and had the Lord respond. But God’s response to Job did not ever answer his question. Instead, God showed Job that God is infinitely above him, and thus Job cannot rightly begin to question God.

In Ecclesiastes, Solomon questions and questions why the world works the way that it does. He gets to a place where he feels like life is meaningless. Bad people get good things. Bad things happen to good people. And it takes until chapter 12 for him to remember that fearing God is what makes life meaningful.

And in my read through the Bible, Jesus shows us that he is the same God who will not be forced to explain himself to people who cannot possibly understand his ways. Watch as a group asks Jesus about a tragedy, Jesus brings up another tragedy, and then we get what we are to learn.

Luke 13:1-5 – 1 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Why did these bad things happen? All Jesus gives is that the people who suffered a great hardship did not suffer it because they were worse sinners than others. But then, in both cases that Jesus spoke of, the Savior told us one simple piece of advice. Instead of thinking we can figure out why God does the things he does, instead of thinking we can demand he answer us, we should repent. We are sinner. We deserve far worse judgment than any of us have ever received. We should rejoice in the mercy of God in the fact that we are still breathing, repent of sin, and find mercy and lasting grace in him.

How different would things be for us, Christians, if we stopped demanding answers and instead fell on grace? How different, how much more godly would we be, if we simply refused to think that we have the right to judge whether or not God’s actions are OK. The Lord always does rightly, whether we understand it or not. And the pains of this life are reminders that we need the mercy of God if we are to survive in the now and in eternity.

June 14, 2018June 14, 2018

A Miraculous Feeding and a Pointer to Jesus

In Luke 24, the risen Lord Jesus had a conversation with 2 disciples on a roadway. In that conversation, Jesus explained to the men how the whole of the Old Testament points toward him. Many Christians have said that it would have been so wonderful to have listened to that conversation. And I agree. I would love to have heard Jesus telling us how certain events in the Old Testament, even certain narratives, are actually hints about him and his glory.

I thought of this passage in my daily reading as I came across a short little story in the life of Elisha. In the early chapters of 2 Kings, we get to see how the Spirit of God is on Elisha just as the Spirit was on Elijah. And God repeatedly shows in chapter 4 his presence in the ministry of Elisha through the miraculous.

1 Kings 4:42-44 – 42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’ ” 44 So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

Here we have a miracle. There is a fairly large crowd, and an amount of food that is too small for them. There are loaves of bread, but not enough to satisfy the men. But Elisha orders the food to be passed out. And when it happens, there is enough for every man to eat and be satisfied. And there is some left over.

That miracle, in 2 Kings, shows that the Lord is with Elisha. It shows that the miraculous power of God is on him. And it is one of those hidden gems in the Old Testament where, once we have seen Jesus, we will realize that he is greater than all who went before him.

Of course we know that Jesus did a miracle like this one, but on a much grander scale. Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000 men, not counting women and children. He did so with only 5 loaves and 2 small fish. And in doing so, Jesus showed himself to be great. That miracle from Jesus showed that he has the Spirit of God, like Elijah and Elisha, but far more. Of course, it also shows that Jesus is the God who provides bread in the wilderness just like God provided the manna during the exodus.

Altogether, the beauty I see here is the reminder that the Bible is telling God’s story. The Bible is all about Jesus. Even the miracles of the prophets, even the ones we tend to forget, point us to the presence and power of God. These miracles remind us of the greater glory of Jesus.

June 7, 2018July 3, 2018

You Do Not Know Your Heart

Don’t you hate to think you know something, just be sure of it, and then turn to find yourself mistaken? Isn’t it frustrating to find out that you were dead wrong on what you assumed with conviction? Everybody hates this, at least I would assume we all do.

What is worse is when we think we know something about ourselves only to realize that we are not what we thought we were. Reality TV shows like American Idol have made a mint by laughing at people who think they can sing and who are utterly shocked and horrified when they are told that they cannot. The casino industry here in Vegas makes a fortune on people who think they are smart enough to beat the house, but they are not.

Even worse than all that, however, is the state of the person who believes that he or she has a solid understanding of his or her own heart. The truth is, we very often assume false things about ourselves. We assume that our intensions are good. WE assume that our motives are pure. We assume that our ways of doing things must please the Lord, because, after all, he must see things the way that we see them.

But consider a few words to us from the Lord.

1 Kings 8:39 – then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind),

God is the only one who has a true grasp of what is in your heart. You do not know your own heart, only God knows the hearts of men.

Jeremiah 17:9-10

9 The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

10 “I the Lord search the heart

and test the mind,

to give every man according to his ways,

according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Our heart is more deceitful than anything else we encounter. We are particularly blind to our own failing, our own shortcomings. We assume we know, and we just flat do not grasp the truth of our own motives and internal messiness.

It is possible, by the way, if you are given to self-pity, that you think you know your heart because you so often feel bad about who you are. But, even then, the one who pities himself or herself is quite often feeling sorrow based on false beliefs and unmet desires that have nothing to do with the Lord. The truth is, whether you are overconfident or self-pitying, you do not see your heart and motives as the Lord sees them. You lack the wisdom and holiness of God to assess yourself with the accuracy of the Lord who is perfect, who sees all, and who knows all.

What then do we do? We must come to the Lord in humility and ask him to help us to know the hearts we cannot know on our own. We must open the word of God and let it, like a mirror, show us who we are and how deeply we need the grace of the Lord. We must allow others in the local church to speak truth into our lives so that we begin to grasp the little chinks in our armor that we cannot see. We must have the help of the Lord, his word, and his people to work on shaping hearts that would trick us if we view them on our own.