Psalm 103—Psalm 145 The Lord is Compassionate and Gracious

 

What a beautiful moment we’ve just experienced together in the baptisms of Leigh and Irelyn. Sacraments are holy acts where God reaches down to us, acts which call for a response from us. Travis and Mary, Bowen and Rebekah, you’ve chosen Scripture that calls us to respond; to respond with praise to God for his faithfulness expressed in the baptism of your beautiful daughters. Both of these psalms are hymns of praise and trust in the Lord, hymns that remind us of who God is, and who we are, his people, his children.

Psalm 103 praises God for his great love, and is part of a group of psalms from 101 to 110 that tell the story of God’s relationship with his people from creation until these psalms were written, how God saved his people and provides for them. They talk about God’s mighty acts in saving his people, how God is a God of justice and unfailing love, and how he responds to his people’s cries. Psalm 103 and 108 pair together in this group to celebrate and praise God for his great love.

I appreciate Bowen and Rebekah that you pointed out how the Lord’s faithfulness and compassion is limitless and goes on beyond our lifetime, “from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.” Our Lord is committed to us beyond our own lifetime, he’s committed to us down through the generations, calling us to respond to him with obedience and faithfulness and to teach our children and children’s children to be obedient and faithful to God. We’re reminded that the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love; so great is his love that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. What a great thing to teach our children!

This is a very personal psalm, “Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name,” David is writing this psalm to himself, reminding himself of the importance of praising the Lord. It’s easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day things of life that we can forget. It can be hard to remember to praise the Lord when the kids have been fussing all day, when work is hard, when you’re tired or not feeling well. Through it all, even when we sometimes forget to praise the Lord, he remembers we’re dust, that the worry and stress of life, even our mortality can sometimes weigh on us and then we remember again that Jesus understands, that he has walked the way of life as we do, and his compassion flows out to us to give us strength and hope again.

You mentioned how you see these verses 8-11 showing how God relates to us as the ultimate parent, the one both of you can look to as you seek to parent your children. We see a compassionate Father, one who doesn’t get angry quickly, who pours his love into his children, giving them a strong sense of belonging and importance. We know that he’s on our side filled with grace and forgiveness, while also calling us to respond with obedience and faithfulness back. Great parenting advice and skills here!

Travis and Mary, you chose Psalm 145, one of the early psalms of ascent that pilgrims to the Temple would sing as they walked the road up to Jerusalem, keeping their eyes focused upwards to see the house of the Lord. This is a psalm of praise, a hymn of celebration calling us to praise the name of God the King. Like Psalm 103, this psalm is an acrostic poem where each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Acrostic psalms poetically describe their topic from a to z. In Psalm 145, King David leads the Israelites and all of creation in words of praise and thanksgiving to God as king over all creation. The heart of the psalm is found in verses 10-18, verses that describe God’s sovereignty over creation and God’s care for that creation. As you mentioned, one of the things that drew you to this psalm was that God is above all and eternal, king of an everlasting kingdom. There’s no fear that Jesus’ kingdom will ever fall, we can live with courage and grace knowing that Jesus is in control, and will remain in control of all creation, including our lives.

You pointed to verses 3-5, “Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—and I will meditate on your wonderful works.” What stood out for you was how we’re called to tell our children what God has done, from creation to saving his people. We’re called to talk to our children about who God is, of God’s majesty, how we’re called to show our children how God shapes us as we meditate on his wonderful works, also allowing the Holy Spirit to shape who you are as parents and as children of God. Teaching the stories of God, and allowing them to guide you and shape you as parents will fill your children with confidence and assurance as they listen and watch your faith in action. The psalm begins by reminding us that our God is King, a majestic king who has done great things for his people to show the nations around Israel who he is.

Both of these psalms talk about God being compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and rich in love. This is the type of king God is, a king focused on his people, on providing for them, protecting them, and providing opportunities for them to flourish and become who he has created them to be. This is why we come together each Sunday to worship and praise God, this is why we share the stories of God with our children so they learn to praise God as a natural part of their lives and grow up wanting to share Jesus with their friends. Sharing our faith, talking about Jesus, begins early on in our children’s lives.

Praising God is the beginning of our response to who he is. As Psalm 103 tells us to “Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” These are beautiful promises to fill us with strength, courage and hope as we journey through life, important promises to teach out children. We see the Lord’s great love for us especially in Jesus, who in his death on the cross, removed our sin from us, offering healing in times of despair, saving us from the power and hold of death over our lives. We know that our physical death leads to eternal life with God, so the fear has been taken away. I know this is where the Harriet and her family are finding strength in today.

Nancy deClaissé-Walford reflects on Psalm 145, “The message for the church today is simple and yet complex. In the midst of turmoil and uncertainty in the world, praising God as sovereign is the solution. But what does that mean? We can speak the words, but how do we put them into action? God is indeed sovereign but we must be the hands and feet of God in God’s world — what some scholars call “a communitization” of kingship.”

King David goes on in Psalm 103, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.” We teach our children God’s ways, what Jesus taught and who he calls us to be as his followers. We are the hands and feet that Jesus uses to work for righteousness and justice for all the oppressed, we teach our children through our actions as well as our words. The Holy Spirit enters our hearts and shapes us in Jesus’ compassion and grace, opening our eyes, ears, and hearts to the needs, the results of injustice, inequality and need within our communities.

This week I met with the director of the Central Alberta Pregnancy Center who shared how their volunteers are such a blessing as they walk alongside single mothers who often don’t have any other place to go, here in Lacombe there’s Big Brothers and Big Sisters who are always seeking people to become mentors to children in our community who can use the encourage and blessing of someone willing to care about and bless them. There’s Youth Unlimited, the Food Bank, and others who are serving the most vulnerable and would be blessed by having others join them in their mission of working towards righteousness and justice.

Together, as parents and as a church, we teach our children that faith is a living thing, shown through our acts of compassion and service as we serve and worship Jesus in our lives.

 

 

Psalm 51; Mark 2:1-12 Forgiveness—Healing Power

 

This morning we are looking at forgiveness. We are focusing on the forgiveness we receive through Jesus, after Easter we will reflect on our call to forgive. The Apostles’ Creed says, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the forgiveness of sin.” in the forgiveness of sin. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us, “I believe that God, because of Christ’s satisfaction, will no longer remember any of my sins or my sinful nature which I need to struggle against all my life. Rather, by grace God grants me the righteousness of Christ to free me forever from judgment.” At the heart of the Christian faith is the belief that God forgives us for our sins because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross where he took on himself all the sin and brokenness of the world so that we can receive forgiveness and healing. In and through Jesus we receive grace and freedom. Forgiveness is serious stuff, without forgiveness, there is no reconciliation, no healing in relationships, especially with God.

This is so central to our relationship with God our Father that it can never be overstated. David gets that in Psalm 51. David sinned badly, taking Bathsheba, who is not his wife, and then protecting himself from her husband Uriah and the consequences of his actions by arranging for Uriah to die on the battlefield by abandoning him. It’s important that we have names to David’s confession in Psalm 51 because it reminds us that sin is always personal, always hurts someone, even if the only person we hurt is ourselves. But ultimately sin hurts God by betraying God as we put our desires and wants ahead of who God has created us to be, who Jesus calls us to be.

David cries out for mercy, basing his plea on God’s unfailing love, on God’s ‘hesed.’ Hesed is a Hebrew word meaning love based on a prior relationship, covenantal loyalty, unfailing kindness. David’s counting on a God who doesn’t give up on his people, a God who is willing to take unfathomable amounts of abuse and still stay in relationship with us. David admits that any punishment God decides to give is justified. He goes on to plea for God to cleanse his heart, to create in him a clean heart and renew a steadfast, a strong solid committed to God spirit within him. He knows that on his own without God’s help, he can’t stay true to God. David knows what the Catechism teaches us, that it’s by grace that God grants us the righteousness of Jesus to free us forever from judgment.

Jesus is the only one able to achieve our forgiveness from God since he is both God and human. Q&A 14 teaches us, “That the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God took to himself, through the working of the Holy Spirit, from the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary, a truly human nature so that he might become David’s true descendant, like his brothers in every way except for sin.” As God, Jesus is able to take all our sin on himself and as fully human, he’s able to take our place. It takes a descendant of David to bring the cleansing that David so desires.

As God, Jesus is able to forgive our sin. In the story in Mark, we see a group of friends bringing a paralyzed man to Jesus for healing. When they’re prevented from getting close to Jesus, they go to the roof of the house Jesus is in, and dig a hole through it, big enough to lower the paralyzed man in front of Jesus. Then Mark says something that surprises me each time, “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Matthew and Luke both say the same thing, that Jesus turns to the paralyzed man and forgives his sin when Jesus sees his friends’ faith! Jesus responds to their act of faith and offers a greater healing than they had ever anticipated, Jesus offers healing for the paralytic’s soul, healing in the relationship between God and the man, by granting the man forgiveness for his sins. As you read through the Gospels and the stories of Jesus’ life, you begin to see a pattern; Jesus is always on the lookout for strong faith in the people around him, and when he sees it, Jesus acknowledges it with encouragement, and in this situation, with healing.

Forgiveness is a big thing; it brings healing and hope for the person being forgiven. Forgiveness brings healing for the person doing the forgiving. The teachers of the law think to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” If our sins are truly against God alone, as David confesses, then the only one who can forgive sin is God; Jesus is claiming here to be God! The teachers of the law get that, but the people get it too. This is dangerous ground for Jesus to walk because the penalty for blasphemy is death. In the end, Jesus is convicted for blasphemy in Mark 14 for claiming to be God, “The high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” They all condemned him as worthy of death.”

Our forgiveness comes at the cost of Jesus’ life, but it also impacts Jesus’ relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is led to the cross, a death that shows he’s cursed by God, Deuteronomy says, “you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse.” Paul reminds us in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole." Listen to this a moment, Jesus is cursed by his Father because of our sin. Jesus is cursed for us so that we can be forgiven by God. Jesus knows this when he tells the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” knowing the cost that his forgiveness is costing him.

Dietrick Bonhoeffer talks about cheap grace. David doesn’t know about cheap grace; he knows just how messed up sin has made him and how he cannot make things right between him and God; that he has no chance of making things right on his own, he needs God to do the hard work of reconciliation and forgiveness. Bonhoeffer talks about how we feel it’s God’s job and responsibility to forgive us. So many of us, because our asking for forgiveness from God seldom goes much deeper than, “Father forgive me for I’m a sinner,” we leave our prayer and continue on doing everything just like we’ve been doing, confident that we’ve done our part and now Jesus needs to do his, which he already did on the cross. We don’t understand just how much our sin has cost Jesus and God, and so our hearts and lives never really change.

Jesus took all the sin of the world on himself, all the brokenness and wrong, all the hurt, and it was so heavy that God blocked the light of the sun in the middle of the day so that we wouldn’t witness the anguish of Jesus as he experiences his Father’s curse on our behalf. Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit have never been separated from each other. They’ve been together for eternity. Now think of the pain that you see in someone whose spouse has died after 40 or 50 years together, of the huge loss in their life. Think of how great the loss that God and the Holy Spirit is when our sin separates Jesus from them for the first time in eternity. It helps us understand what Jesus means on the cross when he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” just how hard it is for Jesus to take the punishment our sin, how hard it is for the Father to curse his only begotten son; all because of us, all for us.

This is not cheap grace, this is costly grace, as Dietrick Bonhoeffer calls it, and it’s precious. “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”

Are you content with cheap grace that accomplishes nothing except giving you permission to never change or be changed by the Holy Spirit, or is Jesus’ costly grace finally enough to move you to leave your old life and values behind and embrace Jesus as your only Lord and Saviour?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joshua 1:1-9 God’s in Control

 

On July 15, 1859, Blondin walked backward across a tightrope over Niagara Falls to Canada, while blindfolded, and returned pushing a wheelbarrow. After pushing a wheelbarrow across while blindfolded, Blondin asked if someone would get into the wheelbarrow. He had shown that he could do it; there was no doubt that he could do it. He asks for a volunteer to get in the wheelbarrow and take a ride across the Falls. He asked everyone, "Do you believe I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?" Of course, the crowd shouted, “Yes!” Then Blondin asked, "Who will get in the wheelbarrow?" Of course, nobody did. Would any of you have gotten into the wheelbarrow and let Blondin take you across Niagara Falls on the tightrope?

Have you ever had times where you were scared or anxious about something? How did you handle it, did you turn to someone to help you through it? In our Bible story this morning, Moses has died, but God has prepared Joshua to lead Israel. Joshua knows he has big sandals to fill. The Lord comes to Joshua and says, “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot… No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life."

God gives Joshua his orders to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land and then gives this powerful promise to Joshua, "As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you." This is powerful because Joshua now knows that God will be with him through thick and thin. Have you ever been afraid about doing something, maybe thinking that it’s too hard or too scary to do? A friend of mine Pat was afraid of rock climbing. We would sometimes go camping at Sleeping Giant Park in Thunder Bay and they had some great cliffs for climbing. We would head out there, but Pat was too afraid to climb the cliffs. Finally, one weekend, another friend came along with us and he actually taught people how to climb cliffs. He had all the right equipment to do it safely, so he helped Pat put all the equipment on correctly and then climbed right beside Pat all the way to the top of the cliff. Because he knew what he was doing and he stayed close to Pat, Pat was able to do something that he was too afraid to do before that.

This is a word for you cadets and all of us, God’s with us and he’s always with us. Jesus promised us when he returned to heaven, "I will be with you always to the end of the age," and this helps us "be strong and courageous." Jesus sent his Holy Spirit to live in us, to guide us to Jesus and give us courage. It hasn’t always been easy the past two years. Sometimes you’ve had to do school from home, there were times you couldn’t see or be with your friends, there were times it felt afraid all the time. You’ve had to wear masks and some of you became afraid because you or someone in your family might get really sick if they caught the virus. But we remember that God’s with us and he’s in control. When you’re afraid, you can talk to him and he’ll always listen to you. This is why you are working on your prayer badge right now.

There were lots of people in the Bible who were in hard times, but kept on going because they knew God was there with them. David fought a giant with only a slingshot, he trusted that God was with him and in control. Daniel was thrown into a lions’ den, but he trusted that God was in control and with him, and God sent an angel to keep the lions from eating Daniel. Jesus came from heaven to be with us; Jesus fought against Satan in the wilderness by using Scripture to defeat him, and then Jesus died on the cross and defeated Satan by washing all our sin away with his death.

God knows it's going to be hard at times for Joshua and reminder him, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful." Strength and courage come from knowing what God expects of us, from knowing God's Word. The more you fill yourself with the words of Scripture, the more strength and courage you will have because you are filling your mind and heart and soul with God instead of yourself. God wants everyone to know him and follow him.

The better you know God, the less afraid you will be and the more courage you will have. God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous 3 times. God knows we need to hear these words of hope, challenge and reassurance many times before they stick in our heads and hearts. God encourages Joshua; he builds Joshua up and encourages him. Paul tells us to do the same thing in 1 Thessalonians 5, "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." When we encourage each other, the Holy Spirit gives us courage, reminding us that Jesus is in control and has power and authority over everything. One of my cadet counsellors, Gerry Van Ginkel would encourage us ono canoe trips in Northern Ontario. When the wind would get strong and we would get afraid of tipping our canoes, he would come up and paddle alongside us, giving us encouragement and helping us too not be afraid anymore. I remember him telling us that God is with us and watching over us. That always helped us to be brave.

Jesus calls us to trust in him. Jesus knows it can be hard at times for us. He even tells us that people will pick on us for following him, that we have to carry our own crosses. Jesus tells us that we need to follow and obey him, even if it’s hard, even if we want something to do something different than what Jesus tells us to do. We do things like loving our enemies, forgiving people who hurt us, or not being angry with each other and calling them fools. We’re called to love God first and then other people. It also means we need to be ready to serve them when they need help because we trust that God is in control, he’s with us, and he put us here to serve them and tell them about Jesus.

God has given your counsellors the Holy Spirit. God is with them so that they can be there for you when you need their help and guidance. Counsellors, lead through example and your own walk and relationship with Jesus. Lead with grace and love, with compassion and understanding, but also with courage as you teach the cadets to be faithful to Jesus in a world that doesn’t always love Jesus. Lead out of trust in Jesus' presence and the Spirit's guidance, lead from your knees through much prayer and reading of Scripture.

Lead the cadets into a deep obedience and dependency on God through your obedience and dependency on God. The cadets will follow how you live before they follow what you actually say. Lead out of humility, remembering that we’re all sinners and it is only because of God's grace and forgiveness in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross that allows us to be children of God. Lead the cadets to live lives of gracious service in order to create places of peace and hope, health and grace pointing to God. May Jesus give you courage and bravery, know that God is in control and with all of us always!

Deuteronomy 6:1-12 Jesus’ Laws in Our Hearts

 

What a special Sunday! It’s a day to celebrate the gift of life in the baptism of Elanor and the reminder that our life is rooted in Jesus. This is why I appreciate this passage that Adam and Heather chose for Elanor’s baptism; it’s a passage that reminds us of the importance of deliberately and consistently talking about what we believe and why with our children. If we desire for our children to grow up loving God and knowing Jesus, it takes a deliberate investment in time and energy to work with the Holy Spirit to grow the seed of faith into a flourishing love of, and belief in God.

Israel is spending time at Mount Sinai after being freed from slavery in Egypt by God. Israel left Egypt as slaves, but as they passed through the Red Sea and then God covered Pharaoh and his army, who were chasing Israel in order to bring them back into slavery, Israel truly became a free people. In the 430 years that Jacob’s family lived in Egypt, they grew from about 70 people to 600,000 men plus women and children; they have become a nation in that time; a nation of people chosen by God to be a blessing to the nations, as he told Abraham. Now God takes the time here at Sinai to give them the Ten Commandments, as well as a number of other laws, ceremonies, and festivals to shape them into his people.

Moses emphasizes the importance of teaching their children these laws, “These are the commands, decrees, and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you.” These laws and commands are to be embraced by Israel to make God’s people different from the nations around them, a people who are going to reflect who God is to the world. God’s not just thinking about the people sitting at the foot of the mountain, God is thinking of their children, their grandchildren, and all the generations yet to come.

As God’s people, it’s important that they pass on and teach their children what God has commanded them by making it a regular part of their lives, “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” Everywhere they go, whatever they’re doing, the people are called to teach the children who God is and who God is calling them to be. It begins by the parents and adults to hold God’s law in their own hearts first. As we see over and over again in Scripture, it doesn’t take long to get drawn away from God towards other gods. Perhaps the most important task we have as a church family is to help our children know and love Jesus with all their hearts and lives.

The Hebrew word for ‘impress” means to repeat often, to go over again and again until it becomes a part of who you are and it becomes part of what you believe. As a sign of your commitment to God’s ways, the Israelites were called to place these words close to their minds so that it shapes their thoughts, and on their hands so that it shapes what they do. They are written on their doorframes of their houses to show their families follow God’s way. This shows the children that our faith is part of our daily life.

You need to have a love for God in your own hearts before you can pass that love on to your children, or to the children in our church family. Moses reminds Israel, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” The first part of this is called the Shema and it reminds us that we serve one God and that God is Yahweh, the I Am who met Moses in the burning bush, the one God who created everything else. There is no other God, only created things that we make gods. This is still an important reminder for us today, we may not make wooden or stone idols to worship anymore like the nations around Israel did, but we make all kinds of other things gods today: power, individual liberty, sex, money, and more can all take first place in our lives over Jesus. This is why Jesus takes the second part of what Moses says here, and makes this the central part of what the Law is all about; loving God with everything you are and have. When this is true for us as adults, it becomes true for our children as well.

The deeper our love for God, the more natural our conversations about God become, when your relationship with God becomes more based on love than obligation and fear, the more you want to know how to please God with how you live. This is why Jesus connects loving him with obeying him, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” It is because of Jesus’ love and commitment to us that led him to the cross to take our sin on himself so that we can be made right with God our Father.

As you read this passage, you hear God speaking in covenantal language, the language of commitment and promise, especially in verses 10 to 12, “When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” God has committed to bring his people into a land filled with blessings, however they need to remember their side of the relationship with God in order to fully live into the blessings.

Jesus has given us a way of living that we find in the Gospels. Just as God called Israel to impress his ways on the hearts of the children, we are to impress the commands of Jesus on our children’s hearts today, teaching them that he is the way, the truth, and the life and we’re called to shape our lives in obedience to his teaching. When we do so, we will experience his blessings. Adam and Heather, you have been entrusted with the beautiful gift of Elanor Jane, your call is to raise her to know Jesus, to impress on her Jesus’ commands, and guide her in living in obedience to Jesus. Bethel, we have committed to walking alongside Adam and Heather to help them to raise Elanor to follow Jesus. May we all be faithful in helping Elanor to learn to love Jesus with all her heart, soul, and strength and to follow him all her days.