Praise The Name Of The Lord

In Psalm 8, David offers a poem of praise to God. The words overflow in amazement for the glorious Lord of the universe. The glory of God is illustrated in four different ways in this psalm and, over the next few weeks, we will consider each one in turn, Lord willing. Let’s look at the first one.

The glory of God is revealed in His majestic name. David makes this point in the first verse as well as in the last. Here is what he says: “O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!...O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1,9) These verses, as we will see, serve as bookends for a psalm which showcases the sovereign work of God in the world. But what God does is ultimately rooted in Who He is, i.e. in His name.

The first “LORD” in each verse is the personal or covenantal name of God - who God is to His own people. It is translated in older bibles as “Jehovah” and more modernly stated as “Yahweh.” The second “Lord” is “adonai.” This name could be described as positional. It means master, ruler, or owner. David affirms that God is the One Who calls the shots.

Names are important. But God’s name is not like your name or my name. God’s name is “...majestic…in all the earth.” The God named in this psalm has displayed His “...splendor above the heavens!” Perhaps you have made a name for yourself in the world. Maybe your name is well-known and loved. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that. But your name or my name can’t compare with the majestic name of God. As children of God, we have a great Father with a great name. “Some boast in chariots and some in horses, but we will boast in the name of the LORD, our God” (Psalm 20:7). Praise the name of the Lord!

God loves you!

Mike

God Can Tell Time

A recent Facebook meme featured a picture of a man sleeping on a sofa and included the following words: “Jesus slept during a storm. Daniel slept in the lion’s den. Peter slept in prison. Elijah slept while running from his executioners. No matter what the circumstances, you should take a nap. The Bible says so.” We can smile at this satirical attempt at biblical interpretation because it is patently absurd. But, sadly, this same kind of reasoning is presented by many today as serious bible study. Random verses, yanked out of their original context and grouped together to form an unwarranted conclusion. Or one verse is used in a way the original author never intended.

Let me give you an example. “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8). This verse is often used as a “get out of jail free” card when encountering other difficult verses where God says something is “near” or will happen “soon.” In other words, you can’t trust God’s words of timing because He may or may not mean it.

But that’s not Peter’s point. Critics were mocking Christians for saying that God’s judgment was “ready” and “near” (2 Peter 3:3-4), just as Peter said in his first letter (1 Peter 4:5-7). If Peter was using the quote from Psalm 90 in v.8 like many modern interpreters, he would be telling the critics something along the lines of: “Now I know I said the judgment was near, but don’t take that literally. It could be thousands of years because God doesn’t tell time like we do.” But that isn’t what he does. In fact, in the very next verse, he tells them that “the Lord is NOT slow about His promise…” (2 Peter 3.9).

God isn’t restricted by time but He certainly knows how to tell it. He communicates timing to us in ways we understand. And we shouldn’t misuse verses to teach otherwise.

God loves you!

Mike

There Is No Place Like Home

Sabrina A. Matoff wrote a short piece entitled “Where You Call Home.” Here are her words: “In the end, it doesn't matter where you were born, but where you called home. Not how big your home was, but the strength of its foundation. Not where you studied books, but how much light guided your way. It doesn't matter what grades led you to college, but how college led you to experience life. Not whether you gained riches in currency, but emotional wealth in your relationships. Not how many people knew your name, but how many individuals knew your heart. Not whether you achieved fame in the public spotlight, but cherished value in your daily routine. In the end, is doesn't matter what goals were attained, but how many dreams you envisioned. Not what mountains blocked your roads, but what peaks opened your senses. In the end, it doesn't matter where you may wander as long as you know your way home…”

“Like a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man who wanders from his home” (Proverbs 27:8). The prodigal son in the story told by Jesus in Luke 15 couldn’t wait to leave home. The story itself doesn’t go into the reasons why, but we could imagine a few. Maybe he got tired of being told what to do. Perhaps he wanted to see the world beyond the horizon for himself. It could be that his older brother was getting on his nerves. Who knows? Whatever the reasons, he packed his bag and left. Who needs home, anyway?

But it didn’t take too long for reality to smack him right in the face. The home he was so anxious to leave began to look better to him. He began to long for the things he abandoned. And, thankfully, he had a father who was more than willing to welcome him home with open arms (Luke 15:20-24). How thankful we can be for a Father Who also welcomes wanderers home! Truly, there is no place like home!

God loves you!

Mike

Who Cares?

“Did you hear about the company that makes blank bumper stickers? They're for people who don't want to get involved.”* This humorous quote highlights a very real mental and emotional struggle that affects many: apathy. “Apathy, also referred to as indifference, is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, and/or concern about something. It is a state of indifference, and/or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical, virtual, or physical life and the world.” (wikipedia.org).

In a world where we have 24\7 access to all of the world’s problems, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with a sense of “what’s the use anyway?” When one reaches the point where it seems that nothing will make a difference, the temptation is to give up trying. Even children of God, who have every reason to be hopeful, aren’t immune to bouts of apathy. Perhaps that's why we are so often encouraged not to be apathetic. Here are some examples: “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary” (Galatians 6:9). “But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good” (2 Thessalonians 3:13). When apathy leads to inaction, the results can be serious. “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). The church in Laodicea was singled out for a stinging rebuke by the Risen Lord for this very issue: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).

“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings” (Helen Keller).

God loves you!

Mike

*https://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/a/apathy.htm 

That's Showbiz

I ran across this paragraph on Facebook recently and it resonated with me: “The Church was never called to compete with the world for attention. If we have to entertain people into the room, eventually we will have to entertain them to keep them there. Jesus did not call us to build crowds. He called us to make disciples. That means we preach the Word. We call people to repentance. We worship Jesus. We pray. We disciple. We love people deeply. And we trust the Holy Spirit to do what entertainment never can: transform hearts. The goal is not to make church more impressive. The goal is to make disciples who truly know Jesus, follow Jesus, and become more like Jesus.” (John Patrick Wright)

We live in a world where entertainment opportunities abound. Companies and causes have to become more and more entertaining to compete for our increasingly-limited attention spans and increasingly-depleted bank accounts. Even serious discussions over serious matters have to be presented in an entertaining way to get views and clicks on social media. As the title of Neil Postman’s 1985 book suggests, maybe we are “Amusing Ourselves To Death.”

Some churches have been infected with the entertainment virus . After all, if you have to compete with the NFL or YouTube or Netflix to put bodies in the seats on Sundays, you better put on a good show and have lots of options. But beware! As the paragraph above points out, your surge in attendance will quickly evaporate when another group puts on a better show and offers more options than you do. After all, “that showbiz” as they say.

Where did we ever get the idea that our assemblies need to be entertaining? It’s instructive to me that Jesus never seemed to get the memo that attracting crowds was the highest priority. Yes, Jesus taught and ministered to large crowds (John 6:2-5) but that wasn’t the endgame. He was seeking committed followers even if that caused the crowd to shrink appreciably (John 6:66-67). 

God loves you!

Mike 

When Words Get In The Way

“Cartha Deloach served as J. Edgar Hoover's assistant at the FBI from 1965 to 1970. He tells a humorous story sharing insight into Hoover's quirky personality, as well as exposing the power of misunderstanding and ambiguous communication:

“One day a memo on internal security that had been sent up to Hoover came back with a message in the familiar scrawl: "Watch the borders! H." Telephones began to ring all over the building, everyone asking the same question: "Is there anything going on in Mexico or Canada we should know about?" "Maybe we ought to call the Immigration and Naturalization Service." Somebody said, "Why don't you just ask Hoover what he knows that we don't know?" But no one wanted to show his ignorance. So we called Customs and they didn't know any more than we did.

“Several days later a supervisor was again reviewing the memo when the answer to the question jumped out and smacked him in the face. The memo had been typed with the narrowest possible margins. Hoover, always fastidious, had picked up his pen and in annoyance had scrawled, "Watch the borders!" (illustrationexchange.com)

Words can be tricky things. That is why they should be used with care. This story illustrates how even plain speech can be misunderstood when the speaker and the hearer do not have a shared reference point. Of course the good news about salvation in Christ is the most valuable message we have to share. Paul speaks of the gospel as “...treasure in earthen vessels…” (2 Corinthians 4:7). Perhaps that is why he never wanted how he used his words about the good news to get in the way. He desired “...to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void” (1 Corinthians 1:17). Paul desired his hearers to be converted to Christ by the power of God, not the power of his oratory skills (2 Corinthians 2:4-5). May the words we choose and the way we use them never obscure the cross of Christ.

God loves you!

Mike

The Supremacy Of Love

“In his book Chicken Soup for the Soul, Eric Butterworth tells of a college sociology class that was sent into the Baltimore slums to take case histories of 200 young boys. The students were required to write an evaluation of each boy’s projected future, and in virtually every case, they wrote, “He hasn’t got a chance.”

“Some twenty-five years later, another professor came across the earlier study and decided to do a follow-up study. With the exception of twenty boys who had died or moved, the study revealed that 176 of the remaining 180 boys had gone on to surprising success, with many becoming lawyers, doctors, and leading businessmen.

“When the men were asked for the reasons that contributed to their successes, they all pointed to one particular teacher who had influenced them. The teacher was still alive, so the professor went to visit her to ask how she had influenced boys seemingly destined for poverty and crime to become such success stories. “It’s really very simple,” she responded. “I loved those boys.”*

The life-changing power of love is truly amazing! It’s also something that the Bible has taught all along. Notice how Jesus emphasizes it. When someone asks Him about the greatest commandment, here is what he says: “And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets”” (Matthew 22:37-40). I suppose that’s why Paul would promote love as supreme over human and angelic speech, over prophecy and knowledge, and over sacrificial generosity (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). These things are all important in their own way but will fail. But love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). Even faith and hope, as vital as they are, yield to the supremacy of love -- “...the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). 

God loves you!

Mike

*Robert R. Kopp, Logans Ferry Presbyterian Church, New Kensington, PA