Blog Archives
A Glorious Land! A Lenten Mid-week Sermon from Psalm 85:9
A Glorious Land!
Psalm 85:9
† In Jesus Name †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ help you look forward to the glorious day of Christ’s return!
- What No Eye has seen… but is revealed!
I can read our theme verse for lent a thousand times more, and it will still leave me in awe of what God has promised us.
Hopefully, you will always rejoice when the expectation is laid out before you. You think about what God has waiting for you – because you love Him – because He loves you.
More incredible than the most awe-inspiring, beautiful thing you have ever seen. More amazing than anything you’ve ever heard, more mindblowing than anything you’ve ever imagined…
That’s what is waiting for us… when God brings all His people together on the day of Jesus Christ.
That is what Lent and repentance prepare us for as well. We realize what we need to leave behind… because of what is waiting.
- The picture of that day
Listen again to the description
Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, so our land will be filled with his glory. 10 Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed! 11 Truth springs up from the earth, and righteousness smiles down from heaven. 12 Yes, the LORD pours down his blessings. Our land will yield its bountiful harvest. Psalm 85:9-12 (NLT2)
Once or twice I have mentioned that what God saves us for is more important than what he saves us from. The psalmist starts to help us picture it…
God’s love and truth meet…. This means hatred and falsehood no longer exist…
Righteousness and peace kiss – meaning injustice and every kind of fighting – from family disputes to workplace arguments to gang battles and war – will be long forgotten…
Oh! How I long for that day!!!
These interactions are incredible, as we see God pouring down His blessings – and a harvest is huge – not of plants but of souls!
What an incredible picture of God creating something for those He calls His people!
It will be a glorious day when God’s love overwhelms everything – and we see reality the way God does!
- It isn’t heaven on earth
The challenge here, of course, is that while this promise is ours, the cross of Christ making it guaranteed for those who trust and depend on God, we really don’t see it yet. We see the brokenness that leads the psalmist to cry out,
4 Now restore us again, O God of our salvation. Put aside your anger against us once more. 5 Will you be angry with us always? Will you prolong your wrath to all generations? 6 Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you? 7 Show us your unfailing love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation. Psalm 85:4-7 (NLT2)
Can you hear the despair in that cry? Can you hear a heart – much like our own – that is tired of the world, that is tired of the brokenness caused by sin… that needs healing, that needs to be revived?
That needs the hope that is only found in the cross of Christ – where injustice and conflict are dealt with, as God pours out His wrath on Jesus… so that we can live for eternity with Him.
I’ve said before that repentance is a change of mind – that God works in us. We know about where we are – and where we’ve been… tonight I Hope you see where we are heading… to a glorious land where God has prepared a place for you and me…
AMEN!!
When All Seems Meaningless….
6 And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, two of the spies, tore their clothes in sorrow 7 and said to the people, “The land we explored is an excellent land. 8 If the LORD is pleased with us, he will take us there and give us that rich and fertile land. 9 Do not rebel against the LORD and don’t be afraid of the people who live there. We will conquer them easily. The LORD is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don’t be afraid.” 10 The whole community was threatening to stone them to death, but suddenly the people saw the dazzling light of the LORD’S presence appear over the Tent. Numbers 14:6-10 (TEV)
“To begin is for everyone, to persevere is for saints. May your perseverance not be a blind consequence of the first impulse, the effect of inertia; may it be a reflective perseverance.” (1)
It was once said that “life is suffering”. Another wise man, wrote that all is vanity, it is all meaningless. While both were significantly wiser than I, I know the feeling after a week among church leaders in my denomination. It may only be my thinking, but we spent several million dollars on a convention that did nothing, but remanded more things to study, and ignored the issues we all wanted to work through. Even if we would have come to the table with extremely divergent ideas.
Add to that 12 hours days, some people I dearly care for going through tremendous trauma, some really meaningless and almost incomprehensible theology reading for a class I am taking and a long flight and time change, and as I sit to write my blog and then my sermon,
It is far too easy to be like Israel, approaching the promise land and wondering – why go on? Why keep pushing through this “stuff” (insert any term relating to digestive system end product) and fighting the system? Why not just go back to places like Eqypt, as the Israelites wanted to, where at least the pain and suffering where known and you could brace yourself for them? Why push through to a land of promise that we will have to fight to enter? Even as we realize the threat isn’t external, but internal?
Why go on?
As I read the account this morning from scripture, I am reminded why I preach, and the message that I will share tomorrow, and indeed the entire service is gear to a fact that is far too often overlooked.
The LORD is with us and has defeated the gods who protected them; so don’t be afraid.”
All our false gods, all our struggles, all the sin that would so easily ensnare us has already been defeated. God has won the battle, He has overcome. His promises are to that extent, if we can remember to hear them.
THe people there, ready to take out their angst on others, ready to through it in and abandon their mission, give up on the course God sent for them needed to remember this simple thing – “The Lord is with us!” That changes everything.
The look to the place where God put His name, where He promised He would be for them… and He was there. His promises, His presence, His glory shown as He was where He promised He would be, in the midst of His people. As He has been, ever since.
That is why gathering together, as the Body of Christ is so critical. We need our Calebs, our Joshuas, those who lead us to remind us of this… to drag our eyes to look to Him, not to the past where we were comfortable, but even to embrace the journey and battle we have until we reach the “promised land”, that place where we will finally see Him face to face, the place were others will find themselves because Jesus was there for them, even as we are there for them. The strength to persevere is indeed there for saints… because He is with us, and He is our perseverance.
The Children of Israel Crossing the Jordan (illustration by Gustave Doré) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Go with God this day… and know that He is the reason you have hope!
(1) Escriva, Josemaria (2010-11-02). The Way (Kindle Locations 2286-2288). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Related articles
- What’s in you? (justifiedandsinner.com)
