hope

June 19, 2014

Waiting on the Lord

 

Thoughts About What We’re Reading…

Here is where we are in our reading: after living a “Robin Hood” existence for years, David is finally made king over all of Israel.

Anointed to be the future king in 1 Samuel 16, David has waited on the Lord through years of difficulty and danger in the wilderness, hiding out for years from King Saul, who sought to kill him.

When given opportunities to rid the kingdom of the rejected king Saul—who refuses to step down—David resists temptation and waits on the Lord.

When asked by his men why he does not just kill King Saul, David responds in 1 Samuel 24:6, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD’s anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD’s anointed.”

Blood is spilt on David’s way to the throne but not by David. Even when Saul dies in battle, David takes no pleasure in his death and deals harshly with the opportunistic Amalekite who seeks to benefit from it, when falsely claiming to have killed Saul.

Through his moving eulogy, in 2 Samuel 1:17-27, David laments the deaths of Saul and his close friend – Jonathan and honors their memory. He laments and honors the man who spent years trying to kill him.

When Joab, David’s kin and head of his army, murders the power-hungry Abner, the former captain of Saul’s army, David reprimands Joab and forces Joab and all the people to put on sackcloth and mourn the death of Abner.

David has his flaws as we all do, we will read more of his exploits in the coming weeks, but David’s world and mind were infused with the reality of God and his faith in God’s existence, purpose and faithfulness.

David waited on the Lord. As we read through the many Psalms written by David during this time in his life, we get a glimpse into the heart and mind of David.  He longed for the promises to be fulfilled, for God to take action, yet he waited for God to do it His way, in His timing.

David suffered much at the hand of Saul—hardship, dishonor, and slander—but he refused to return evil for evil. David chose rather to bless and not curse and even to eulogize Saul in his death.

In the end, ever true to His purposes and promises, the Lord established David as king over Israel, and exalted His kingdom for the sake of His people Israel.

I am reminded that as Christians, we will experience times of suffering and tribulation but our hope at the far side of suffering is even grander than David’s.

Indeed, our blessed hope is the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for his own possession – His church.

And so we wait expectantly and in great joy for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As David waited, we too wait on the Lord, trusting in His promises.  For David the Psalmist, and for us the community of believers, God is our refuge, our strength, and our Redeemer.

Until next time… keep reading!

Jim

Excerpts taken directly from the Gospel Transformation Bible.

February 24, 2014

The Great Deluge

Genesis 7-8

“­­­How serious do I take sin?” As I reflected on this passage, I couldn’t escape the seriousness and the severity with which God deals with sin in this story. He created a good world…perfect harmony, perfect peace, naked and unashamed, heaven on earth, paradise. And then that world is devastated…it is crushed by man’s rebellion. And sin infects all of creation.

We might ask “Why must all creation suffer for our sin?” Because we were supposed to be the caretakers. We were responsible. And our sin tainted everything. And when we were cursed, so was our dominion. So why the flood? Violence filled the earth instead of the image. Loss of the sons of God. And sin has consequences…serious consequences. End of the world kind of consequences. So much so that God chooses to destroy the good world He had created and start over.

But God remembered Noah. What a powerful statement! In the midst of horrific judgment, mercy still prevails and the search for the Seed will continue. God is not done with His creation. Even when it seemed that all hope might have been lost.

Noah saw first hand not only the devastating effects of sin on his society, he also saw the severity of God’s judgment on that sin. And that glimpse of the consequences of sin against the backdrop of God’s mercy prompted worship.

But what about you? How seriously do you take your sin? Are you aware of its consequences? I believe that it’s only when we see the severity of our sin that we begin to understand God’s amazing grace, and only then can we fully worship. A low view of sin = a low view of grace and vice versa. But my sin and your sin is serious. Its deadly and it necessitated the death of God’s Son…Jesus…the Head-crushing Seed of the Woman. Sin required a death…and not just any death. In order for the guilty to be rescued, to be redeemed, the innocent would have to die in their stead. And so the Perfect One, willingly did just that, He laid down His life so that we could be rescued. He fully took care of the sin problem so that we could have a different kind of life, and so that we could fully represent God’s image as He intended.

My prayer for us this week is that we would take our sin seriously…and that we would take God’s grace seriously…and that that would cause us to worship.

Until next time…stay salty.

This post is based on our Genesis series. Listen online at:http://www.centralchristian.org, or follow us on twitter: @ccclancaster

January 27, 2014

The Wages of Sin…Is Death

Genesis 3.

“Why do bad things happen to good people…in other words, How did we get into this mess?” God created a perfect world. All that God had made was good, including the man and his wife. It’s paradise…heaven on earth. What happened? It’s difficult to describe the catastrophic results of our first parents’ single act of rebellion. Welcome to life as we know it. Every instance of violence, every natural disaster, every awful thing that has happened since is a direct result.

What was the sin of the garden? It was rebellion. It was pride in its purest form. The Image-bearers were not satisfied with merely bearing the Image…they wanted to be the image. Instead of trusting their loving Creator who had so “fearfully and wonderfully” made them, who had entrusted them with imaging Him to His creation, who had made them king and queen on planet earth, they rejected Him and spurned His love. They sought to oust Him and take His place. They wanted a shot at the title.

As readers of the story, we want to shout, “No! Don’t do it! You don’t know what you are doing!” But lest we too quickly fault our first parents, we see that same act of rebellion repeated legion in our own lives. If man and woman in a perfect environment fail to follow God on their own, what hope would the Israelites have being surrounded by peoples who only sought their ruin. What hope do we have? Our only hope is God. Only He can give us the desire and the follow-through to follow Him. I love that the LORD God (Yahweh Elohim) shows up.

That’s why I love Genesis 3.15…what we couldn’t do for ourselves, God will do, when He sends His Son as the Head-Crushing Seed of the Woman. Whose dying words, will be, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do!” It’s the key to the entire Bible, the proto-evangelium, the first gospel, the beginning for the search for Messiah. The OT chronicles the search for the Seed and Israel’s failure in following God. The NT tells of us coming and the implications thereof for those who would follow God.

But what about you? Do you find yourself asking like Job, why is this happening to me? Why do bad things happen to good people, and why do good things happen to bad people? Our expectation from the garden is suffering. Those of us who have trusted in Jesus…the seed of the woman…are at war with the seed of the serpent. Guess what side the culture is on? Adam gave up not only his innocence in the fall, but also his right to rule. He gave that to the serpent…“the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”  So those who follow God suffer both the effects of a fallen world, and the attacks of the enemy who is hell-bent on destroying us. But hope is possible because the Head-Crushing Seed of the Woman has come and has defeated the Adversary. And now we wait with all of creation for the time when He will come back to set all things right…for the new heavens and the new earth.

My prayer for us this week is that we would recognize the amazing love of God who didn’t give up on us even in our rebellion, but who has pursued us and did what we could not do, provide the way back to Himself through Jesus, the Head-Crushing Seed of the Woman.

Until next time…stay salty.

This post is based on our Genesis series. Listen online at:http://www.centralchristian.org, or follow us on twitter: @ccclancaster