Praise the Lord - Psalm 66

         

Today we slow down and take a moment to concentrate on God’s faithfulness; a faithfulness that remains constant even in our times of faithlessness. Psalm 66 is a hymn of praise, calling us to “Shout for joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious.” All the earth is called to shout for joy to God, not just his people. We can sometimes fall into thinking that we’re the center of all God’s attention. Pastor Stan Mast reminds us, “it is helpful to be reminded that God’s reign extends far beyond Israel. Yes, God has acted for Israel in marvelous ways, but ultimately he will use them to bless the whole world. In anticipation of that worldwide salvation, Psalm 66 calls the whole world to praise God now.”

Psalm 66 is not simply an invitation to praise God, it commands us to “shout for joy, to sing the glory of his name, to make his praise glorious.” This is the Lord’s expectation of us, to not take him and his gifts for granted, but respond with hearts filled with joy and gratitude at who he is and his commitment to us. The psalmist reminds us that God’s active in the life of his people, “How awesome are your deeds,” so that even God’s enemies can see how powerful he is. Telling the stories of God is important for our faith. The Jewish people often talk about themselves as People of the Story, referring to the long history of God’s presence with them.

He remembers the Exodus and how God saved them out of slavery and led them through the sea on dry ground. The psalmist seems to be a later king and reminds the people to praise God for refining them like silver when other nations defeated them and took them into slavery. He describes these times in terms of purifying them through fire and water, but always God brings them back to a place of abundance. He looks back at those difficult times and thanks God for them because they’ve shaped the people into who they are; a people whose relationship with God is rooted in thankfulness and trust.

The psalms are clear that life is filled with times of abundance, but with also times of struggle. Yet we live in trust that in those times, God acts to restore his people, to lift them up again to experience his presence and blessings. Difficult times bring us to a place when we turn back to God, and remember God’s faithfulness to us. This gives us the courage to come to him and rededicate ourselves to being his people. God hears our cries, our prayers, and he acts.

Pastor Mast calls us to remember that God acts not only for Israel, God cares for the entire world, “God heard the cries of his people and answered their prayers by becoming one of us, a human, a Son of Adam, and an Israelite, the Son of David. The Incarnation, the Atonement, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for us individually, for the people of God as a whole, and for the nations of the world—those are the awesome deeds of God that call the whole world to “make his praise glorious.”

It's good to take time as a church family to remember God’s blessings to us, as we share our stories of how God has been with us, restored us, forgiven us, and provided for us. As we hear the stories of God’s blessings and presence, our memories are stirred and we remember even more times when God was with us, walked with us, and acted for us. For those of us going through harder times right now, hearing how God is working in and through our church family, gives us the courage, strength, and reassurance we need to come to God with our own prayers with hope and confidence, knowing that he’s with us. Faith shared in community grows stronger and builds the community, yet our faith is also personal. The stories of God’s amazing deeds in Israel’s history help us recognize God working in our lives, and our stories help others see God at work in their lives, giving them hope.

In verse 13, the psalmist moves from talking to all the earth and about God’s people, to making this psalm personal, using “I” and “me” language. All this praise and worship of God, all this remembering of what God has done in the past now becomes personal to him.  “I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you—vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.” We learn the psalmist had been in trouble and turned to the Lord. We don’t know what the trouble was that made the psalmist turn to the Lord, but it was big enough that he made vows to God to show that he’s deeply serious about his need, a deep cry for help.

This isn’t an attempt to manipulate God into answering his prayer. The psalmist knows that God can’t be manipulated to do our will. Vows in Scripture show that the person’s need is serious, a way of saying, “if this is your will to answer this prayer, I’ll respond with gratitude to your will, but if it’s not your will, I’ll still trust in you.” Vows showed that the person making the vow is serious about their request, caring enough to promise God something in return when he answers. But the response comes out of gratitude.

The psalmist understands this as we see in Verse 18, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” The psalmist is reassured that his prayer was honouring God and was according to God’s will. We hear him give thanks, “Come and hear, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried to out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue…. God has surely listened and has heard my prayer.” When we read through the Old Testament stories of God and Israel, one thing stands out: praise and prayer go hand in hand with each other. They flow out of remembering and telling the stories of how God cares about his people, hears their cries and acts on his people’s behalf. Thanksgiving is a way of life; how we engage with God and the world, rather than a feeling.

Jesus tells us to bring everything to him in prayer, there’s nothing too small to bring to him. I know I’ve probably told this story before, but one Sunday morning in Second CRC of Allendale, a small girl came up to me to ask me to pray for her lost cat. It's a small thing to many of us, but it was big for her, so I prayed for her lost cat in the congregational prayer. The cat never did come back, but she was thankful that we prayed for it, it gave her some peace that day. This girl understands what the psalmist is getting at when he says, “Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!” Just knowing that God listens, that he hears our prayers and doesn’t reject them, gives us the permission to truly bring everything to him in prayer, leading us into a spirit of thanksgiving and trust, even if the answers are not what we desire. We know God cares for us as a Father and will never withhold his love from us. As we gather as families and friends for Thanksgiving, take time to give thanks to God for who he is and for Jesus.

Our Rescuer - Psalm 91

                           

Psalm 91 is a favourite of many people; it’s a psalm of confidence in the Lord and his ability to rescue us from whatever’s going on in our lives. What fascinates me about this psalm is how Satan uses it against Jesus when tempting Jesus in the wilderness to do God’s plan his way instead of God’s more difficult and painful way. However, Satan twists the verses slightly, missing the meaning completely, reminding us to be careful about reading the Bible in context.

This psalm was likely written by a priest or Levite in the temple to provide reassurance to the people of God. The psalm is written in 2 parts of 8 verses each where the second 8 verses echo the first 8 verses, amplifying the themes in the psalm. The psalmist begins with the confident declaration, “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most-High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” This is amplified in verses 9 and 10, “If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most-High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.” A few weeks ago, we reflected on Psalm 8, a “Wow!” psalm showing us the magnificence of God, Psalm 91 is another of those “Wow!” psalms, as we get a glimpse of who God is, what kind of God he is.

The psalmist shows us who God is and how he relates to his people. God’s a safe place, a safe person you can go to in order to find protection or rest. In Hebrew the word for shelter holds the sense of hiding place or covering, a place where you can go when you’re seeking somewhere your enemies cannot find you. The psalmist uses the image of a bird, likely a dove, as a place of safety and protection. Doves, both the males and females, take turns sitting on the nest to hatch the eggs and when the eggs hatch, both will take turns finding food and feeding the chicks, with one of the parents always staying behind to watch over the chicks. Since the chicks have no feathers, the parents take turns covering them with their feathers. The doves’ faithfulness in protecting and providing for their young is the image the psalmist gives us here of God’s faithfulness and protection, our shield and rampart.

These are images of belonging which gets picked up in verses 9 and 10 where the Most-High, El Elyon, the sovereign God of power, is our refuge. This is magnified by the Psalmist’s use of the name Shaddai for God in verse 1, the Almighty, a God of authority. In using these two names of God so closely together, the psalmist is reminding us that we don’t need to fear what life holds. God is sovereign, in control of all things, creator of all things, almighty, more powerful than anything life can hold, whether enemies, disease, or brokenness. The call is to trust, yet such a powerful God can seem too powerful to approach, so the psalmist also reminds us of another name of God. In verse 9 we find the name Yahweh, the Lord, the personal name of God, given to Moses at the burning bush; the eternal God. Yahweh is our refuge, reminding us of the personal relationship between the Lord and his people; we’re part of his household, part of the family. A reminder that the Thanksgiving week devotional leads us through several names of God, giving thanks for who God is.

Your tent is an image of safety and belonging; the personal nature of God’s relationship with us as part of his family. The psalmist identifies 4 terrors the Lord will keep us safe from, “the fowler’s snare, deadly pestilence, the terror of the night, and the arrow that flies by day.” The fowler’s snare are those unseen or unnoticed traps in life that can catch us by surprise. Many of our sins often fall into this area. We don’t start off deciding to deliberately sin or disobey God, and yet suddenly the realization strikes us that we’re caught in sin again. A few years back, we had a small men’s group that would get together every couple of weeks to support and encourage each other as husbands, and fathers. At one meeting the topic of smart phones came up. One man shared, “I start off looking for tools or sports scores, and then suddenly I realize I’ve started searching for sexual images and other inappropriate sites. That wasn’t my intention, but I end up there anyway.” These snares are so easy to get trapped in. Our snares may be different, but we all have snares that we tend to fall into.

There’s pestilence like locusts or insects that can devastate crops or livelihood, there are plagues and disease, things we still see today around the world, in spite of all the advances in medicine. There are the arrows that fly by day from enemies; there’s the terror of the night, all the fears and worries that seem to get bigger and heavier as we lay in our beds at night, taking us down paths where the world and life is dark, hope is faint, and fear is strong. These can paralyze some of us in the dark of night. Yet the psalmist begins with, “Surely he will save you…. You will not fear…,” and yet we do often fear.

Scott Hoezee writes, “The main message of Psalm 91 is not “Times are bad” but instead “Times are bad but for that very reason your confidence in God needs to be stronger than ever!”  The threats around us make people nervous, uncertain, afraid, and cynical.  Psalm 91 conveys a counter-message: the poet who composed these words wants to tell us that instead of letting the wider world determine how we feel, we need to let our ultimate confidence in God become the lens through which we view the wider world. God, not current events, is what shapes our viewpoints, informs our hopes, and brings us a confidence that avoids cynicism.” Psalm 91 gives us the confidence that when there are snares, pestilence, terrors, and plagues, even when we’ve gotten snared, we can come to Yahweh, our El Elyon and Shaddai and the safety of his arms. He greets us as our father, with a hug. When we make God our refuge and fortress, he accepts us, never abandons us.

This confidence comes through in verses 11 and 12, “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” He goes on, “You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.” Four powerful and frightening beasts you might encounter on the path or in the wilderness, echoing the 4 threats in the first half of the psalm. Confidently, the psalmist declares that we don’t need to fear because God sends angels to protect us. This verse has led many to believe that we have guardian angels watching over us. Our strongest confidence is knowing that Jesus is our rescuer and crunches the head of the serpent under his feet on the cross!

Yet we need to make sure that we don’t misinterpret Scripture. Satan uses these verses to tempt Jesus to throw himself off the top of the temple to prove to the people that he’s the Son of God, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” Wesleyan pastor Danny Quanstrom writes, “Satan omits the very important “in all your ways” when he tempts Jesus to throw himself down from the heights, thus turning a confession of trust in God to determine which ways are his ways into an attempt to force God’s hand in meeting our demands at the moment.” It’s important to not twist Scripture for our own agenda, this is why, in the Reformed tradition, we emphasize Scripture interpreting Scripture.

 We trust in God’s protection, “Because he loves me, I will rescue him, I will protect him… I will deliver and honour him.” We might not find healing, but he will give us ways forward, people to walk with us, give us strength, point us to Yahweh, to El Shaddai, to El Elyon who never abandons us, gives up on us.

Yahweh, ends with, “With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.” In the ancient Near East old people are held in honour. Old age is seen as a sign of divine favour for fearing the Lord and keeping his commands, helping us see why Jesus is identified with the ‘Ancient of Days’ in Daniel. Older men are expected to lead as elders; expected to have grown in wisdom through their life journey, learning confidence in the Lord in good and difficult times and sharing their faith and wisdom with younger generations.

Psalm 91 reminds us that our God is sovereign, almighty, and desires a personal relationship with us, “Wow!” It doesn’t promise us that there won’t be pain or struggle, but it promises that we can turn to God and he won’t turn us away, he’s there with us, giving us what we need to make it through, reminding us he’s always faithful to us.

Losing Our Foothold - Psalm 73

                                  

Psalm 73 begins the third book in psalms. This book includes prayers for help, tells us of a God who helps his people and brings down the wicked. Psalm 73 contains a question that still get asked today by followers of Jesus, “why do the wicked so often have things so good while God’s people suffer?” Asaph begins by confessing that God is good to his people, but it can be hard to see that goodness when evil’s all around, and to make it worse, the wicked have it good while the psalmist struggles. Shouldn’t God take better care of his people, is the unspoken question here.

Jeremiah has the same compliant, Jeremiah 12:1–2, “You are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.” This is a question that comes up regularly in the time I’ve been a pastor, that those who don’t really believe in God and do horrid things do great while those who are faithful to God struggle to get by. It makes it hard for Asaph to trust God.

Asaph’s complains that the arrogant prosper, they don’t struggle at all, they’re happy and healthy, have no problems, no human ills. They’re violent, filled with sin, there’s no limit to the evil their imaginations can come up with, and they even threaten to oppress those who don’t give them what they want. It’s not fair! What frustrates Asaph even more is that the people love them, they turn to these wicked people and drink their water. I hear an echo forward to Jesus’ offer of living water to the woman at the well and how it fills with life, unlike the water from the wicked that leads people to doubt, or even mock God, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?” The name Asaph uses for the Lord here is El Elyon, God Most High, check out the Thanksgiving week devotional to reflect on how this name points to God as being superior in every way, but the people mock God.

Asaph finds himself jealous of the wicked. He wonders, why work so hard to keep his heart pure and himself innocent by living how God calls him to live in the Torah, the books of Moses where God lays out his expectations for his people. Asaph wonders why he should work so hard at living this way when he doesn’t seem to get anything out of it. This kind of faith is a business-like transaction: Asaph gives God his loyalty and worship, but then expects the Lord to bless him with a lovely wife, respectful and gifted children, success, and good health; otherwise, why bother? This is prosperity gospel thinking. Asaph only sees, “All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments. If I had spoken out like that, I would surely have betrayed your children.”

Envy, jealousy, and frustration leads Asaph to a place in his heart where he confesses, “my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.” He’s not the only one this happens to; these feelings often fill us too and can lead us away from trusting God. Asaph finally decides to go to God’s place, his sanctuary to try to figure all this heart stuff, to address this envy and bitterness inside him, “When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.” Asaph begins to find some peace and understanding when he enters God’s house. It’s here that he’s reminded of who God is, of God’s long relationship of faithfulness to his people, the stories of how he has delivered his people time after time. But the stories of God’s deliverance of his people from their enemies also reminds Asaph of why God had to save his people so often, because of who they had become, just like the wicked around them, instead of being God’s people. Because Israel keeps choosing to be more like the nations, God allows the nations at certain times to conquer and oppress Israel so Israel can experience exactly what being like the nations is really like. God allows this oppression to happen in order to draw his people back to him again, to remind them of who he is and who they are: his people called to be his image to the nations instead of being like the nations. God reminds them that they are his chosen people and he’ll always be faithful to the covenants he’s made with them, even when they’ve failed to be faithful in return.

Asaph gets to a place where he understands why God holds off and allows the wicked to commit themselves to their ways and choices, “Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you despise them as fantasies.” God allows us to collect for ourselves as much as we can, but in the end, it’s nothing more than a fantasy and meaningless. Our worth doesn’t come from how much we have or have accomplished, it comes from who we are as a child of God and how we use what we’ve gathered. You can hoard it for yourself and selfishly only bless yourself, or you can recognize it as a gift from God to be used to bless others and build community. Jesus touches on this in his parable about the wealthy man who keeps building bigger barns to hold his wealth, but then suddenly dies in the night. What he gathered for himself ultimately doesn’t save him, he dies just like the beggar in the ditch or laneway.

Asaph knows the Lord and himself well enough to admit that “when my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.” He recognizes that bitterness and envy hurt our relationship with God; it impacts our generosity, compassion, and humility, causing our hearts to wither, creating doubt and anger towards God. We’re not nearly as spiritually strong as we think we are. We’re natural born sinners, we want what we want, no matter what God says. Our hearts are naturally drawn to sin rather than our creator. We’re not strong enough on our own, we need God, we need his Spirit, we need the forgiveness found in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and we need to be honest with ourselves. We often find ourselves surprised by our sin, instead we should realize that this is who we are. When you listen to writers like Paul, we’re regularly reminded that God made us weak so that we can learn humility, and just how much we need him.

We’re also set free from our sin and our envy by God’s grace. We’re also reminded regularly how much he loves us, and how Jesus is with us always to always lean on him. As Barbara Duguid reminds us in her book Extravagant Grace, “In the Bible, the strongest people are those who know their own weakness while the weakest people are those who are most impressed by their own strength.” Asaph comes to the realization, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” He finds the peace that wipes away the envy and questions that had created so much struggle in his heart towards God.

Asaph realizes that his flesh and heart may fail, but God’s his strength. The Jewish writer, Chaim Bentorah gives us some insight into this verse. “The word “flesh” here is the word “she’ar” in the Hebrew which means flesh, but flesh in the sense of a near kinsman, or one you trust as someone of your own flesh, a close advisor… So, when Asaph says that “his flesh failed” he is likely saying that even those closest to him… have failed to explain why the unrighteous should prosper and the righteous do not. When even our closest friends or relatives can not advise us, we then look to our own hearts and let our hearts decide.  But Asaph is saying that even his own heart will fail, he can’t trust his own heart for a correct understanding or discernment.  So, who or what can he trust? Asaph says that God is his “strength.”  The word in Hebrew for “strength” here is “sur” which is the word for “rock.”  This is wisdom, that we turn to God for a solid foundation for our lives rather than the things of this world which come and go as God wills.

The reality is that it can be hard to understand why God allows some people, even those who are arrogant and even wicked succeed so much while we struggle. Sometimes we need to ask God for eyes to see his presence and his blessings he has given us, to ask the Holy Spirit for a spirit of trust, gratitude, and contentment, even as we ask God for our daily bread, as Jesus taught us to pray. This will give us a firm foothold through life as we build our lives on God our rock.