The Call of God (Hebrews 11), Part 13

The Trustworthy Nature of ‘Vox Dei’.

“By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict” (Hebrews 11:23).

Taking refuge in Egypt had backfired. The famine in Canaan c.1500 B.C. was nothing compared to the cruel bondage the Hebrew people now experienced in Egypt. For four generations Pharaoh’s taskmasters had drowned out any sound of God’s call in the Israelites’ ears. The oppression had become unbearable. Then pharaoh published his decree: ‘All male Hebrew infants must be aborted—must perish in the river Nile.’

Perhaps it was the shocking nature of the edict that awoke the pregnant Jochebed and her husband Amram to the distant memory of God’s call upon their forefather and people, Israel. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring,” the LORD had promised. “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you…” God had pledged.

So when their baby was born, Jochebed and Amram saw much more than a nameless, forbidden infant slated by the Egyptians for drowning. They saw a child of promise—one of the offspring of Israel, through whom God had vowed to bless all people. Defying Pharaoh’s command by hiding the baby was the natural response for two who valued God’s call over all others’.

We don’t know if any other Hebrew parents were also listening to God in the midst of their suffering. We don’t know if they, too, clung steadfastly to God’s promises or whether they had let the memory of His call slip quietly into obscurity through carelessness, bitterness or disbelief. Those who choose to follow God’s quiet leading often walk a lonely path.

We do know how prone we are to become deaf to God’s call when things don’t go as we had hoped or planned or felt God ought to allow. We know the argument: ‘It goes against reason to listen to a God who allows suffering to come into people’s lives.’ But there is a truer argument—one that Jochebed and Amram chose to believe and act upon, one that argues ‘God’s Word is faithful, even when everything seems to point against it and Him.’

Acting on this premise positioned Jochebed and Amram to make a creative decision. They hid their baby in the one place no soldier could ever look: the bathing pool of Pharaoh’s daughter. Washing led to finding, and—for the soft-hearted princess—finding led to adopting, naming and raising the baby Moses in the very household of the infanticidal Pharaoh. The word of Egypt’s most powerful leader was indeed no match for the call and purpose of God.

“ ‘Vox temporis’ (the voice of the times),” quotes Os Guinness of Thomas Oden, “is no more trustworthy than ‘vox populi’ (the voice of the people) when set against ‘vox dei’ (the voice of God).” Trustworthy, life-giving, loving and faithful is the call of God on every life, on yours and mine as it was on Moses’. The Scriptures are full of that call. The determining question is, will we be deaf and blind to it, following the edicts of the status quo, or will we step out in faith that God’s Word and call give life?

God’s Word over and over again reiterates the refrain that our lives are not ordinary; we are called by God to live extraordinary lives, lives led by God.

“Nothing will change your life,” observes author Tim Keller, “like hearing the voice of God through the Scripture(s).” Hear vox dei and live.

(Photo Credit: Retrieved from https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/the-mysterious-case-of-moses-parents/)

 

The Call of God (Hebrews 11), Part 11

To Hear is to Worship.

Jacob had been a schemer. As a young man he had blatantly deceived his own father in order to obtain the proverbial ‘blessing’, a divine endorsement he expected would ensure his health, wealth and tribal superiority. He had maneuvered a plan to purchase the girl of his dreams only to discover he had been out-schemed by his new father-in-law, Laban. An unexpected switch found him married to the weak-eyed sister of his intended bride. Jacob had schemed with regard to the wages he earned from the equally wily Laban, and then secretly escaped with Laban’s daughters, idols, and flocks in tow to make a break from the uncomfortable relational ties. He schemed for decades to save his own hide at the expense of family, friends, and the entourage who relied upon him. Jacob’s conniving nature seemed bent on achieving his name’s meaning. He was a ‘supplanter” and ‘heel-grasper’ to the nth degree.

But God would not abandon Jacob to his own miserable misanthropic ways. He would not stand by and watch Jacob dehumanize himself, lost in the downward spiral of his foolish pursuits. God would speak into Jacob’s life in a way that was completely unexpected and counterintuitive. God would call Jacob and rename him. No more was he to supplant those he envied. Never again was he to descend to relationship-destroying deception. Jacob must replace his identity as a manipulative, cunning heel-grasper with a new identity. No longer must he try to grab the world by the tail. Henceforward he must grasp only God. Now he would be called Israel (“he wrestles with God”).

We don’t need to imagine what this new identity did for Jacob/Israel. We’re told. Genesis 35 tells us that following this mid-life christening, Israel immediately put a halt to his travels and worshiped God. And not only then, but also from then on, worship would become the modus operandi, the defining practice, of the renamed patriarch. Some time later, after exacting a promise from his son that upon his death his bones would be transported back to Canaan—the land promised by God in connection with the Covenant—Israel again is recorded as commemorating the moment with reverential worship of God. So when in Hebrews 11 the author summarizes Israel’s life, it comes as no surprise to hear that, “By faith Jacob (sic), when he was dying…worshiped…” Hearing God’s call transformed Jacob’s identity, gave him a new lease on life, a new hope after death, and a new faith in the identity-giver.

The amazing story of how God spoke words of truth and hope into Jacob’s life are relevant to us today. God doesn’t call merely one man. He is not limited to one historical setting or one unique people group. God calls all whose hearts are soft toward him. He calls us and we find ourselves being changed into worshipers. He calls us and our new identity is as His workmanship, His children, His friends, His beloved, His heirs, members of one body, sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus, overcomers, the faithful, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, peacemakers, sons of God, the persecuted, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the sanctified, the forgiven and the forgiving, seekers of God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, storers of heavenly treasures, loved by God and enabled in turn to love others. Read that again and worship Him.

His call to each of us is recorded throughout the pages of Scripture. His words are life and light, identity-giving and worship-producing. Today, God calls us to live by faith, but one day our faith will be made sight.

And in eternity, each of those who have faithfully listened to God’s call will be given a new name. They will be names upon which our identity in Christ will call us to higher and truer deeds of worship that bring ever-expanding glory to the One who gave everything for us. As a result, our worship of Jesus will be transformed into something far more thrilling, effective and productive than any of our feeble heel-grasping ventures came close to approaching on curse-bound earth. The new earth will be a place where our mother-tongue will be worship.

For now, we open our hearts to listen to God and to worship Him as we are able. That is enough for now. That is faith.

The Year of the Lord

We can thank Dionysius Exoguus for our New Year’s Eve celebrations this evening—or we can blame him for the noise that will interrupt our sleep come midnight. Dionysius was the sixth century character who created the codifying system for historical dates that is the basis for our current calendar. He did it by coining what has now become two very controversial letters: A. and D. They stand for Anno Domini, meaning ‘year of the Lord’ and they divide all of history into before and after the event that marked the human birth of a baby named Jesus of Nazareth.

Why is the phrase Anno Domini so controversial?

When Jesus had barely begun His ministry of traveling through the region of the Jordan Rift Valley—the land of Israel and its surrounding territory—He made a stop in His hometown of Nazareth. There He made a statement that divided His listeners into two camps: the few who would respect and follow Him, and the majority who would be infuriated by His bold effrontery and seek to destroy Him.

He had stopped in at the synagogue in Nazareth because it was the Sabbath day. He was a born and bred Jew and He had spent His boyhood and early adulthood in this synagogue on Sabbath days. But today would be different.

We’re told Jesus stood up, volunteering to read the day’s selection of Scripture, and was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus would have memorized that and many other scrolls as a boy. That was the norm for His culture. He knew the exact passage His heavenly Father intended Him to read that day, and He skimmed through the thousands of words until He found it:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,” He began to read, “because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Then He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. All would have been well if He had left it at that. The status quo would have been maintained. The people would have left the synagogue that day no different than before coming. Their lives would have hidden the same superficiality they had come to accept as the norm for life. “Prisoners” would have meant political prisoners—the Jews knew first-hand about that. The “poor”, the “blind” and the “oppressed” would only have described physical ailments. The “year of the Lord’s favour” would have been a hope for some future return to the glory days of Solomon’s wealthy empire.

But as Jesus sat down, the service did not continue its routine flow as usual. “The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him,” we’re told.

“Today,” Jesus explained, “this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

‘Yes!’ thought the people. ‘Perhaps this man will successfully throw off the fetters of the oppressing Roman Empire! Surely that would be an act descriptive of the year of the Lord’s favour!’

But Jesus could not leave well enough alone. He knew better. This people were—all people are—under an oppression much worse than political or physical in nature. We are in bondage to our own rebellion against our Creator, God. It would take nothing less than an act of God—the perfect life and sacrificial death of Jesus, God in the flesh—to bring freedom from this oppression. But Jesus knew many if not most people would reject His freedom-making work. The year of the Lord’s favour would be spurned. He bluntly told them so.

Anno Domini is offensive and controversial because we struggle against God’s rightful sovereignty over our lives. Yes, yours and mine. We want to live our lives our own way. We balk against being harnessed to a lord. Yet Jesus knew only through Him would freedom from the messes we make of our lives be available to us—at least, to the few who will accept the year of the Lord’s favour.

As we say farewell to 2015 and enter a New Year, it only takes a ‘yes’ to Jesus to begin and continue a journey into a year full of the Lord’s favour. The year is the Lord’s—we know deep down it’s not ours to grasp—and He offers His favour to those who submit their lives to Him. His invitation is open. His favour is for all who accept that Jesus fulfills the role of rescuer from our worst oppression. It is Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord.

(Photo Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Great_Isaiah_Scroll_MS_A_(1QIsa)_-_Google_Art_Project-x4-y0.jpg)

DANIEL: PATTERN FOR PRAYER #7

 CONFESSION

In our modern culture of preservation of self-esteem, confession is a scarce commodity. We prefer to avoid blame. We redirect misdemeanors, reorganize misbehaviours and reconfigure misadventures, but we rarely confess. Confession requires we admit our shortcomings, some of which may seem to be irreparable. We hate to admit we have failed to maintain a moral standard so we avoid confession. Our consciences prefer evasion to confrontation. We fear admission of guilt would reinforce the discomfort of our inner turmoil. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard calls it ‘angst’, this apprehension and anxiety over moral failures. Daniel calls it shame.  Daniel has not been in the habit of avoiding difficult situations. From his youth Daniel has confronted difficult and dangerous situations with uncommon boldness, and now in his latter years his verve is not about to wane.

Daniel has studied the Scriptures available in his day. He’s especially interested in prophecy. He observes his contemporary, the prophet Jeremiah, has connected the ‘desolation’ of Jerusalem to the stubborn rebellion of the Jewish people. God warned his chosen people, but they ignored His advice, and now they were exiles in Babylon. But Daniel’s study has also unearthed a promise from those same Scriptures. He observes the banishment is prophesied to last seventy years. And he’s done the math. The seventy years are nearly done.

But instead of an attitude of entitlement, Daniel is struck by the weight of Israel’s sin. Instead of considering Israel in terms of ‘they’, he thinks in terms of ‘we’. He accepts responsibility for the corporate rebellion of his people.

His confession is staggering. He lifts the shroud of Israel’s guilt and drapes it across his own shoulders, bowing before God in repentance. This is a prayer worth noting. It’s found in Daniel chapter nine. Observing the number of times Daniel uses the personal pronouns “we” and “our” in verses 4-19 is revealing. This is the same Daniel who, as a youthful prisoner, resolved “not to defile himself” in a culture of compromise; whose awe and acknowledgement of God was the source of his wisdom; whose steadfastness in prayer earned him a death sentence. Now he prays, “We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws…O LORD, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you…Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth.”

This is not shallow kudos designed to manipulate a rigid deity. Daniel’s understanding of God’s morality has altered his view of his own self-righteousness. He is man; he is a member of the race Homo sapiens. He feels the weight of the sin of his people and knows confession is the only route to relief.

The Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation” (Isa. 30:15). Daniel not only believes it, he acts upon it. He prays. He confesses. He relies fully upon God’s mercy.

It’s a lot for us to think about. Confession is not easy, but it is necessary to be in right relationship with God. Let’s do it; let’s get on our knees and confess. It’s good for the soul.

 

PRAYING THE BEATITUDES, PART 4

PRAYING THE BEATITUDES, PART 4

Matthew 5:5

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

The spiritually poor inherit heavenly kingdoms. Mourners obtain comfort. The meek inherit the earth. God delights in doing the impossible, the unlikely, the unimaginable. He makes dead souls alive, sinners righteous, mortals immortal. So it’s really no surprise that today we see that those who choose meekness will be in for some amazing recompense. I’ll be treading lightly here, because I lack wisdom in these things; I’m intrigued, though, by the reward: inheriting the earth. How does this connect with meekness?

Let’s look at meekness for a moment. Firstly, the meek are those who choose to submit to the Father of their souls rather than the dominant culture of earth, instant gratification. As a result, the meek are rarely at the top of the list of those who rule this earth. Many of its goods rarely find their way into the pockets of the meek. Jesus clearly connects following Him with disinterest in this world’s treasures. The meek do not have the world by the tail. In fact Jesus implies that to gain the world is to forfeit one’s soul (Matt. 16:26). Secondly, the meek are those who choose humility. They focus on the greatness of God and the sanctity of God’s image in every person. They see their own worth not as self-made but made by and for God. To be meek means to reject every temptation to view self other than how God views us.  Jesus knows this is a challenging task for us, embracing this character trait of meekness. In his call to discipleship he invites us, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”. The apostle Paul describes a connection between the meekness of Jesus and his sovereign administration of earth: ”Christ Jesus…made himself nothing…humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place…that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil.2). Let’s not confuse meek with weak. It takes enormous strength of character to choose meekness over autarchism, submission to God over retention of self-rule.

Somehow in God’s mysterious plans for earth, God intends to delegate something of His earth-rule to His people, specifically the meek people. I’m not sure if it will be this version of the earth, or another one. This old earth has suffered badly since the fall from Eden, but Revelation 21 reveals a new earth will come. Perhaps this is when the meek will come into their inheritance. Perhaps He has something further in mind we have yet to discover. Regardless of the when and how and where, the axiom will hold. Its fulfillment is sure. The meek will inherit the earth.

Again Jesus brings prayer into the process of our transformation. He includes in His sample prayer of Matthew 6:13, “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one”. To exchange our pride for meekness we must earnestly desire to avoid pride. We must pray without ceasing for God’s protection from the temptation to revert to self-rule (the root of every temptation). How quickly we rise to defend our positions of power, our rights, at the slightest hint of offense. Only the prayer of humility will do.

2500 years ago God gave this advice to a young ruler of Israel. I believe its relevance still holds for us today. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (II Chron. 7:14).