Sunday, September 18, 2016

Worshiping the King of Kings, Psalm 96

I first read The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien, when I was recovering from hepatitis in 1978. I was in Kathmandu, Nepal, at the time, and a Christian believer there gave us access to his library. As I was rummaging through the shelves, looking for something to read, a friend who was with me picked up the series and said, “you’ve got to read this.” Since then I’ve read it over and over again, a total of more than ten times, and each time I read it I feel like I’m taking a vacation in Middle Earth. I've recently been listening to it in audio form while I'm driving to work.

With the movie versions produced by Peter Jackson, Tolkien’s fantasies have become popular with a whole new generation. People see the movies and then they want more, so they go out and buy the books. But then, I sometimes hear questions about the value of stories like this. Is fantasy really a worthwhile thing? Shouldn’t we be concentrating on the real world, rather than escaping into a world of fantasy? Several years ago I read an article by a Christian journalist who commented, “yes, this is a very good story, but reality is actually much more interesting and exciting.” She was saying, in effect, “I suppose this sort of thing is OK, but it’s much better to be engaged in real life.”

The question is, is it true that works like this are irrelevant to “real life?” Is it true that we’re better off without these kinds of imaginative stories, that these kinds of things are OK – at least we’re not sinning by entering into them – but that it’s far better to give our time to “the real world?” What I’ve noticed is that these stories help me see things I would have missed otherwise. Living a full Christian life involves using our imaginations: projecting ourselves into the biblical stories, wondering what it would have been like to have been there, and also imagining ourselves in the future kingdom when we will live in God’s presence and see Him face to face. God hasn’t only given us minds to extract principles from Scripture; He’s given us imaginations, and He calls us to use them. Works of fantasy, like The Lord of the Rings, train us in using our imaginations. They help us to see things that we wouldn’t see otherwise. One year, as I was reading The Return of the King (the final volume in The Lord of the Rings trilogy), when I came to the section after the ring has been destroyed and the dark lord is overthrown, it was like being given a glimpse into the joy and freedom we will know when God’s kingdom arrives in its fullness. Imaginative works like this can help us see more clearly, they can give us a glimpse into that “new heaven and new earth” that God is preparing for us.

They can also help us think more clearly about this present world. There’s more to reality than what we see on the surface. That’s the problem with those who smile condescendingly and say, “well, you know, that’s not how it is in the real world; it’s fine to be young and idealistic, but someday you’ll be just as jaded and cynical as I am; you’ll learn that all this Christian stuff doesn’t work in the real world.” They’ve seen something of the truth; they’ve seen that in a world where people are selfish and dishonest you’re more likely to be successful if you compete on their terms. If you take advantage of others, you’re less likely to have others taking advantage of you. That’s true, at present. But it’s not the whole truth. The truth is that this is an abnormal state of affairs, and it’s not always going to continue this way. We need help in seeing beyond what appears on the surface.

Eugene Peterson, writing about the story of David and Goliath, says this: “There’s something just beneath the surface of everything, something invisible but just as real, maybe even more real, than what we’re seeing and hearing and touching.... The only person fully in touch with reality that day was David. The only fully human person in the Valley of Elah that day was David. Reality is made up mostly of what we can’t see. Humanness is mostly a matter of what never gets reported in the newspapers. Only a prayer-saturated imagination accounts for what made holy history that day in the Valley of Elah – the striking immersion in God-reality, the robust exhibition of David-humanity” (Leap Over a Wall, pp. 38, 44-45). “Reality is made up mostly of what we can’t see.” Works of fantasy can help us see this reality more clearly. Psalm 96 does the same thing. It gives us a larger picture of the truth: despite all the evil and mundaneness of life in this world, the Lord is king, and He calls all people everywhere to worship Him. But rather than describing and explaining, this psalm declares the truth and invites us to begin participating in this larger reality as worshipers of the one true God.

The first thing that’s here is the call to worship the Lord: “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.” This call is given, not only to the people of Israel, but to “all the earth.” During this period, God’s purposes were focused on the nation of Israel. But His purpose in choosing Israel was to bring salvation to the whole world. God’s promise to Abraham was: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). God is not a tribal deity, like the gods of the surrounding nations. He is the Creator of all, and His purpose is to make worshipers of all the nations. So Psalm 96, even at this stage of Israel’s history, calls all people of the earth to worship God.

The call is “sing to the Lord a new song.” All these nations, in turning to the true God to worship Him, will be singing a new song, a song they’ve never sung before. But it’s also a new song because they’re singing to the Lord, who makes “all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Paul says that in Christ we become new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17). Listen to this description of the worship before God’s throne in Revelation 5: “They sing to the Lord a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). The song we will sing in the new heaven and new earth will be a new song, a song to the Lord who makes all things new.

It’s interesting to notice how often the word new comes up in advertising. Advertisers are trying to get our attention, and one of the surest ways is to convince us that their product is new and improved. It’s better than what they were selling last month. It’s not the same old thing. They’re appealing to our longing for something better, our sense that things aren’t all they should be. The word new appeals to our sense of hope that things will be better in the future, that everything isn’t just going to continue as it is right now. We long for something new, something better. Advertisers are right about us; but the things they’re selling can’t possibly fill the void. Our longing for newness is a longing for the kingdom of God, a longing for that day when we will see Him face to face. God has made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in Him (St. Augustine). So the call, “sing to the Lord a new song,” is an invitation to enter into the reality that will fulfill the deepest longing of our hearts.

The second thing is an answer to the question, “why should we obey this call?” The psalmist is inviting us into a larger vision of reality, so he doesn’t just tell us what to do, he goes on to list reasons why we should worship the Lord: “For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens.” It’s right to mention the subjective benefits of worship, that worshiping God fulfills the deepest longings of our hearts. But that’s not enough in itself. We don’t worship God because of all the good things we’re going to get. We worship Him because He is worthy. We worship Him because He is God, the Creator of heaven and earth. He’s the one who created us; we long for meaning and fullness because He created us with an innate desire to know and worship Him.

Several years ago I was talking with a young man who was preparing for ministry. He told me he always assumes there’s something wrong with him if he doesn’t feel uplifted in worship. If he doesn’t feel exhilarated and moved, if he doesn’t have a great “worship experience,” he assumes that either he’s doing something wrong or the worship leaders aren’t doing their job. I’ve seen an increasing tendency in evangelical churches to do away with the reading of Scripture in corporate worship. Instead, the songs flow together, one into the other with increasing intensity to create an emotional response, to lead the congregation into a “worship experience.” In that kind of worship, we are at the center; we’re doing everything we can to achieve the feeling we want (and when we get that feeling we assume that God has blessed us). The importance of worship is not that it makes us feel good all the time. The importance of worship is that God is worthy, and since He is worthy we should do everything we can to keep Him at the center. We need to hear from Him through His Word, and sometimes hearing from Him will make us feel worse before it makes us feel better. When we hear from Him we’re humbled and led to repentance; often it turns our lives upside down. But the important thing is not how we feel; the important thing is that God is exalted and glorified in our midst, because He is “most worthy of praise.”

The third thing is that when we respond to this call to worship God, we participate in the life of the coming kingdom. It’s not only that we perceive deeper realities with our minds; we become fellow-worshipers with those who are worshiping before God’s throne: “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth.” The whole creation is bursting with joy in anticipation of what God is about to do. And what is He about to do that brings such joy? “He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.” The psalmist is not thinking of personal judgment here, but of the fact that God is going to set everything right. This world that so often leads people into cynicism and despair will not always be this way, because God the Judge is going to set things right.

When we come into God’s presence in worship, we enter, in a very real way, into that future kingdom. Thomas Howard grew up in a very prominent evangelical home; Elizabeth Elliot is his sister. But he tells of discovering that worship involves more than he had realized or been taught when he was young: “I had never heard the idea, taught in the Church for centuries, that in the act of Christian worship the scrim that hangs between earth and heaven is drawn back, and we in very truth join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven who forever laud and magnify the Divine Name” (Evangelical is Not Enough, p. 57). When we gather for worship we are joining together with the glorified Church in heaven. This is part of what the author of Hebrews is saying in chapter 12: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24). So the invitation at the beginning of this psalm is not only an invitation to a future inheritance; it’s an invitation to enter into a larger reality right now by worshiping the Lord of heaven and earth.

We look forward to joining all the saints in the new heaven and new earth, singing together a new song before the throne of God. And Jesus will be at the very center of that new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). And in the meantime, we are invited even now to join in this new song. “Sing to God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing! Sing to God – worship God! Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea, Take the news of his glory to the lost, News of his wonders to one and all! For God is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs. His terrible beauty makes the gods look cheap. Pagan gods are mere tatters and rags. God made the heavens – Royal splendor radiates from him, a powerful beauty sets him apart.... An extravaganza before God as he comes, As he comes to set everything right on earth, Set everything right, treat everyone fair” (The Message). “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God.” Since this is true, and since we’ve been given such a gracious invitation, let’s make it the priority of our lives to “sing to the Lord a new song.”

Sunday, September 11, 2016

The Almighty Liberator, Psalm 114

Shiloh Lutheran Church
State College, PA
September 11, 2016

One of the subjects Christians are most likely to argue about is the question of eternal security. Are believers secure for eternity, or is it possible to be a genuine believer and then fall away and be lost? Churches divide over this question and others related to it. People who disagree break fellowship with one another and accuse each other of not taking the Bible seriously. And both sides are certain of their position, because there are passages in Scripture that can be used to support both views.

I’m not going to address this issue directly this morning. What I’m most concerned about is that so many have been given a false sense of security by some of the teaching they’ve heard. They’re not following Jesus Christ; they have no interest in knowing God or living in obedience to Him; they may not attend church at all, or maybe they attend sporadically; their way of life is no different from that of unbelievers, and they're content with that. But they have a strong assurance that they’re going straight to heaven when they die, because at some point in the past they “accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior,” or they believe inn justification by faith alone, or something of that sort. This really has nothing to do with the doctrine of eternal security; it has to do with the nature of saving faith. The question of whether or not believers are safe for eternity is irrelevant to people in this condition, because they’re probably not Christian believers at all. They’re most likely nominal Christians, people who have a partial faith but who haven’t turned to Jesus Christ in genuine, lasting repentance. There's no evidence of faith in their lives. They’re the kind of people Jesus was addressing when He said: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

How does this relate to Psalm 114? Psalm 114 presents us with a God who changes everything He touches: “Yahweh accepts nothing as it is, but always changes everything. Nothing is secure when the God of liberation begins to make his move” (Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, p. 142). God transforms everything, and everyone, that comes before Him. Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said this: “Belief in Jesus is seeing him as the gateway to an endless journey into God’s love.... Looking at Jesus seriously changes things; if we do not want to be changed, it is better not to look too hard or too long” (Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light, pp. 5 & 13). Coming to Jesus changes us; if there’s no change at all, there's something wrong. To be liberated by God, to experience salvation in His name, is to begin a lifelong process of transformation into His image.

This psalm is looking back on two major events in God’s deliverance of Israel: the Exodus from Egypt, and the beginning of the Conquest of Canaan, the land of Promise. In both events, God intervened in a miraculous way: “The sea looked and fled; Jordan turned back.” The psalmist puts both events together, even though they were separated by forty years or so, because they are both part of God’s work of deliverance: He was not only delivering them from slavery in Egypt; He was delivering them to freedom in the land of Canaan.

Notice, first, how Israel was affected by these events: “Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion.” The psalmist is using parallelism here; he’s not making a distinction between Judah and Israel. He’s using two different names to describe the nation, so both parts of the verse apply to the same people. The second statement parallels, and develops, the first one. He’s saying that two things happened as a result of God’s intervention: 1) they became the dwelling place of God; and 2) they became people under His sovereign rule. These two ideas come across clearly in The Message: “Judah became holy land for him, Israel the place of holy rule.” As a result of His miraculous act of deliverance, they became people among whom God chose to live, and they were called to live in obedience to Him.

There’s more happening here than a simple act of deliverance from slavery. God is restoring something that is broken. Because of the Fall, because of sin, the world is not the way it was intended to be. God created us to live in His presence, and He created us to live under His sovereign rule. The Fall has ruined that. Because of sin we’re cut off from God, living in a world that’s too small to satisfy the deepest desires of our hearts. And we’re in slavery to things and desires that were intended to be used in obedience to God, not to be substitutes for Him. In the Exodus we see God at work to bring restoration, setting aside a people among whom He will live, and who will begin to order their lives in obedience to Him.

Notice, next, these dramatic effects in nature: “The sea looked and fled; Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, the hills like lambs;” and, at the end of the Psalm: “who turns the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a spring of water.” God is demonstrating, on behalf of His people, His lordship over creation. But there’s more; God’s deliverance of His people is also a deliverance of the whole creation. This event in the Old Testament looks forward to what Paul is describing in Romans 8: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” (v. 19). God is at work, not only calling a people to Himself; He is at work preparing the way for a new heaven and a new earth, the holy city described near the end of the book of Revelation: “Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him” (22:3-4).

This God who brought deliverance to the people of Israel is the Lord of all creation. The psalmist is so confident and so taken by this realization that he goes into a taunt song in vv. 5&6: “Why is it, O sea, that you flee? O Jordan, that you turn back? O mountains, that you skip like rams? O hills, like lambs?” These things are all so much greater, more powerful, more stable and lasting than we are. And yet, look how they respond when God begins to intervene on behalf of His people. As one commentator says: “The remarkable story of this psalm is that this awesome Presence has identified himself with a people” (Craig Broyles, Psalms, p. 427). This God, before whom the greatest forces of nature are as nothing, who causes the sea to flee and the mountains to skip like rams, has called a people to Himself.

How do we respond to such a God? Verse 7 gives us the answer: “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.” We’ve been given free access into God’s presence, it’s true; but this is no place for flippancy. We need to remember who we’re approaching when we come before God. He’s the One before whom the earth trembles, before whom all the nations are only a drop in the bucket.

I spend a lot of time driving in my job, and a few months ago I started listening to audio books, which has been a great blessing. The first one I listened to was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. In this series of books, the Son of God appears as a great lion named Aslan. This is how the main characters respond when they first hear about him: “‘Ooh!’ said Susan, ‘I’d thought he was a man. Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.’ ‘That you will, dearie, and no mistake’ said Mrs. Beaver, ‘if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.’ ‘Then he isn’t safe?’ said Lucy. ‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver. ‘Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you” (pp. 75-76). Our God is not safe; but He’s good. We need to keep both of these things in mind when we enter His presence: “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.”

But someone might ask, “is this really relevant to us? After all, we’re living under the New Covenant.” Does our God, revealed perfectly in Jesus, still inspire trembling? The authors of the New Testament seem to think so. The risen Lord appeared to Saul of Tarsus, who was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians, and when He appeared Saul fell to the ground and cried out, “Who are you, Lord?” He was overwhelmed and temporarily blinded at the presence of Jesus. As a result, this persecutor of Christians became the apostle Paul. Jesus also appeared to John on the Island of Patmos; John was one of the twelve disciples and had been imprisoned at Patmos because of his faithful ministry. But listen to how he responded when the risen Lord appeared to him: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid” (Revelation 1:17). The risen Lord inspires trembling, even among those who are closest to Him. The author of Hebrews, who spends much of his letter contrasting the old and new covenants, reminds us: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (12:28-29).

Our God is good, but He’s not safe. He doesn’t submit to our petty desires and programs. He doesn’t cater to us. He comes to us as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. When we perceive Him as He is, the first effect is fear and trembling. We’re humbled in His presence. We see the truth about ourselves and we find that we are undone. Who are we to appear in the presence of the Living God? He humbles us, and He transforms us. If we’ve encountered Him truly, we’re not the same as we were. We don’t laugh at our sins; we don’t casually say, “oh well, at least I know I’m going to heaven, no matter what else happens.” Our sins grieve us, because He has brought about a change. We may not understand what’s happened; we may not be able to explain it, but we know that we are different.

God is not just seeking to rescue a number of individuals from eternal destruction. He’s at work restoring His creation. He’s preparing a new heaven and a new earth, and He’s preparing a people to be the bride of His Son. The Exodus is a true historical event, but it points beyond itself to the ministry of Jesus. In Christ, we experience an exodus, a deliverance, from this world of sin and death: “He rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). The events described in Psalm 114 point forward to the ministry of Jesus; they’re fulfilled in Him. In Him we have received “every blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3), we’ve been set free from this world of sin and death and made part of His eternal kingdom. The proper response to this is not flippancy and presumption; the proper response is wonder and praise. How can it be that God would do such things for us? “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord.” Fall before Him in worship, and as we worship Him with reverence and awe, we will be increasingly transformed into His image.

Our God is not safe: “Nothing is secure when the God of liberation begins to make his move.” But He is good. His purposes are wiser than ours. He wants to restore us, make us into the kind of people we were created to be. Our liberating God changes everything He touches: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).