Words Which Build Up

Introduction

Our granddaughter is so cute when she babbles. She has so much to say, none of which we can understand, but she babbles away just the same. One of these days those babbles are going to begin to make sense and she will learn to talk. When that happens her parents will be very excited. Although I don’t know why! When a child learns to talk, they learn to say “no” and “why.” When they get older they come home from school with words that you certainly didn’t teach them. Later they learn to talk back and it just gets worse and worse with lying and gossip and slander and so on. The ability to talk is a great blessing to be sure, but it is great trouble as well.

What I am going to tell you today is something you all know. But if you are anything like me, you need a reminder that the words which come out of our mouth should reflect that we are followers of Jesus. In fact James 3:2 says, “If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.” That tells us that this is an important topic which we need to talk about from time to time.

Sins Of The Tongue

The Power Of A Word

When I was 15 years old, my dad bought a boat and motor which I really enjoyed. One of my favorite things was when we were about to load the boat on the trailer, my dad would back the trailer into the water and I would bring the boat up to the trailer so we could load it. While he was backing up, I would go for one more spin and, since I was alone, I would go as fast as I could and take as sharp corners as I could. It was a heavy boat, but with one hand I just had to put a little bit of pressure on the steering wheel and the rudder on the motor would turn and I could do the sharp corners I enjoyed so much. It was amazing to me that the little rudder on the motor could so effectively turn the boat.

Those of you who enjoy horses know that these large animals which one needs to have a lot of respect for can, nevertheless, be controlled by reins and a bit in their mouths. You can turn the animal and get it to stop and go all with a little pressure on the reins.

A bit in a horses mouth is a small thing, but can control a large animal. A rudder in the back of a boat is small compared to the rest of the boat, but can control the direction of the boat. In James 3:3-5 we read that the tongue also is a small, part of our body, but has tremendous power. It is one of the smaller muscles in the body and occupies a very small place in our body, but has great power for good or evil.

When we talk about the power of words, we are not talking about the magical power of incantations, but rather the fact that words have great power to encourage when they are words of blessing; great power to influence when they reveal a path and great power to destroy when they are evil. We have been seeing a lot of election coverage in the last few months and every politician knows that the words that are spoken can make the difference between being elected or rejected.

The Sins Of Our Words

I would like to invite us to think a little bit about how destructive words can be if they are evil words. There are a number of different ways in which we sin with our words.

Unwholesome Talk

The Bible uses a number of different words which all relate to the concept of unwholesome talk. Proverbs 4:24 says,  “Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.” In Colossians 3:5-8 we read,  “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature … Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these…(and included in the list is) filthy language from your lips.” Ephesians 4:29 puts it this way, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths…” What kinds of talking would be included in this category of words?

The most serious “unwholesome” talk is taking the name of God in vain. There is even a commandment about that. The Jews take it so seriously that they do not even speak God’s name. Can you imagine speaking in a negative way about the one you love or about a very important person in their presence? When we make light of God’s name, we destroy our witness. By saying his name in a negative way we show by our words that we don’t really love the one we claim to love.

It saddens me that the media thinks nothing of permitting taking the name of the Lord in vain, but will block out language which is merely crude. I make a distinction between these two, yet crude language also is destructive because by its use something beautiful is destroyed. We would never think of eating food that has started to rot because the beauty of good food has been spoiled, but we don’t have as much of a problem letting rotten words come out of our mouth.

There are other ways in which language can be unwholesome and we always need to ask ourselves, whether the words we use will embarrass others, destroy beauty, destroy relationships or reputations. When it does, that would be language which is unwholesome.

Lying & Deception

We all know that lying is wrong. The Bible has a lot to say about the evil of words that are not true. In Colossians 3:9,10 we read, “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” In a similar way, Ephesians 4:25 also says, “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”

These two verses help us understand why lying is destructive and therefore wrong.

First of all, it is an indication that we are still living according to the practices of the old self. Satan is a liar, that is his native language and when we lie, we are speaking the language of Satan and not the language of God, who is the truth and always speaks truth.

The verse in Ephesians gives a powerful reason why we ought to speak truth and that is because “we are members of one body.” One of the symptoms of leprosy is that it deadens the nerve endings in the hands and feet. As a result, people with leprosy can lose the use of their hands or feet due to repeated injury resulting from lack of sensation. When they cut their hand or gash their foot, there is no pain and so often they neglect to care for the wound. Their body lies to them about the pain which they are experiencing and in that way they destroy their own body. In a similar way, when we lie to each other, we deny what is really happening in the body and we destroy the body. Are there times when it is OK or even good to lie to someone? Do we help people when we lie to shield them from hurt? These are sometimes hard questions to answer, but if we are members of one body and care about each other completely and trust each other because we belong to each other, then we need to go with what God says – that the truth will set you free.

Gossip & Slander

One of the most hurtful ways in which the Bible warns about the sins of speech is in regard to gossip and slander. These two are simply different degrees of the same thing. Gossip is saying something about someone else which may well be true, but is hurtful to that person. Slander is saying something which may or may not be true, but is spoken specifically with the intent to hurt. There are so many verses which warn us about the evil of gossip, especially in the book of Proverbs. Each of these verses teaches us about a different aspect of the evil of it.

Proverbs 11:13 says, “A gossip betrays a confidence…” which tells us that the evil of gossip is that trust is broken. In Proverbs 16:28 we read, “…a gossip separates close friends” which teaches that it is evil because it destroys relationships. Proverbs 18:8 tells us the perverse and powerful way in which gossip operates when it says, “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts.” This tells us that we don’t forget what is said and it remains with us.

Source Of The Problem

What A Mess!

As we go back to James 3, we see what a mess is created by the inappropriate use of words. The destructive power of words are described as a spark setting a forest on fire. On two occasions in my life I have been around when a fire got out of control. When a forest is very dry, all it takes is a spark from an exhaust or one match to start a fire which destroys everything in its path. On another occasion, I was very close to a forest fire. We were in a boat and the fire was blazing on shore. I saw flames jump from tree-top to tree-top. I have seen how quickly it can move and destroy. I have also been in situations where we were trying to put out a forest fire and found out that it is very difficult to do. Our words, poorly used, are just like that. They quickly get out of hand, they quickly destroy and the effects of them are hard to reverse.

In James 3:7-8, the writer goes on to describe how every animal on earth can be tamed, but the tongue cannot be tamed. Every one of us knows that this is so. We commit ourselves to using good words, but the words of gossip and slander and backbiting come out anyway.

James 3:9-12 seem to be the words of a frustrated James who almost throws up his hands at the incongruous nature of our words. On the one hand we are in church praising God and out of our mouth come the most beautiful words which declare truth and bring glory to God. And yet how often, before we leave this building, have we used those same mouths to gossip or hurt someone or lie with our words.

This is a serious problem because Matthew 12:36 warns us when it says, “…men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” That sounds like a serious problem to me! We live with the destructive power, the untamed evil and the contradictory nature of the words we use. For those very words we will be judged by God! Where does this problem come from and how can we overcome this great evil?

Where Does It Come From?

One of the lines in James 3:6 says that the tongue is “set on fire by hell itself.” Does this mean that we can blame Satan for our uncontrollable and evil speech? The evil certainly comes from Satan, but we are nevertheless responsible for what we say. We cannot blame Satan when we don’t control our words well. Herb Kopp quoting Ropes says, “the very fires of hell itself ignite the paper-dry fuel of the tongue and everything explodes into flame.” That tells us that our tongue is ready fuel for the evil which comes from it. Satan takes the opportunity to light that fuel, but the problem remains ours and the responsibility remains ours.

Luke 6:45 points to the real source of the problem. It is not simply our tongue and it is not Satan. The problem arises in the evil of our heart. We read, “…the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” The problem is a heart that is corrupt. It is in our heart that jealousy, hatred, anger and insecurity exist. It is these evils in our heart which make it so difficult to stop speaking with evil words.

Strategy For Victory

Winning Ways

Since that is true, if we want to overcome the evil and sin which so easily comes out of our mouth, we do not need to have our mouth washed out with soap. We do, however, need to have our hearts changed.

For the last number of years we have had a problem with animals wanting to live under our deck. Several times I have trapped and removed or killed these animals, but because we live by the river, sooner or later another animal comes along. This summer I worked at removing the habitat where they want to dig under the deck. I put sidewalk slabs on end against the deck and it has worked. They aren’t digging under the slabs. If we work at speech improvement by trying to do better, we will never win. We need to remove the habitat where the evil words reside, that is, we need a changed heart because the problem is in our heart.

I found a very useful list, on a website, of ways in which we can begin heart change. The site had no clearly stated author, but here is what it said:

How to Have Victory Over Sins of the Tongue

1. Grow daily in conformity with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The beginning point is a relationship with Jesus. We cannot change our hearts by ourselves, rather, we need God to make that change in us. That is why we need to have a relationship with Jesus to start with. Once we have begun a relationship with Jesus, we need to continue in that relationship, for it is only by the power of Jesus that we will change.

2. Ask God the Father for provision and protection in this area.

When we are in a relationship with Jesus, we have access to the greatest power of the universe. God the Father is available to help us grow. We can go to Him every day and ask Him to change our heart, to protect us from harmful words and to help us avoid evil speech. Herb Kopp writes about three kinds of sin – sins which happen in the course of life, sins which we find hard to get rid of and sins which arise out of rebellion. What a blessing to be able to recognize that we may sin and we may have trouble with certain sins, but that God promises to change our hearts when we ask Him.

3. Confess this sin each time you are convicted of it.

The primary way for us to develop good habits of speaking is to confess sin quickly after we have spoken inappropriately. When we gossip or hurt someone, our conscience will begin to bother us. When that happens, we must be careful not to learn to live with a guilty conscience. The more we ignore our conscience, the more hardened it becomes and the less we will be able to use it to be a teaching tool. When it bothers us, the best response is to immediately confess our sin to God. Herb Kopp says, “we do well to acknowledge our failures and sins and confess that we are sinners.” But confession to God can serve as a cover-up if we do not also go and confess to those we have hurt.

4. Learn to recognize all of the verbal sins -- some are obvious, some are subtle.

The message I am now preaching is important because we need to be reminded and we need to develop our skills at recognizing when we are sinning with our speech. We can get so used to gossiping that we don’t even recognize when we are doing it. Sometimes gossip is covered up as concern yet it is easy to slip from concern to gossip. If we pray and ask God to help us see when we are crossing the line and when our speech is edging into an area of sin, God will answer that prayer and help us grow in our understanding and in our sensitivity.

6. Keep silent.

It is amazing how many times just being quiet could save us a lot of grief. James 1:19 encourages, “^ My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak^.” It is amazing how often silence is such a good strategy. George Eliot wrote, “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”

Words That Bless

Do you know how to get air out of a glass? Fill it with water. The water replaces the air and we now know that there is no more air in this glass. Probably one of the best ways in which we can have victory over the evil of our words is to choose to replace them with good words.

Building Others Up

Ephesians 4:29 says, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” This is one example of replacement theology. If it is in our heart to bless others and we make it a daily habit of doing so with our words, we will be speaking what is good and there will be no place for words that destroy.

Worship

In Ephesians 5:19, 20, we are encouraged to “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” If the words of worship and sharing what God has done and thanking Him for it are readily on our tongues, we will also find that there is no room for the rotten words.

Conclusion

Proverbs 6:16-19 begins, “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him…” Included in the list of things that God particularly hates are two which relate to sins of speech. If we were to make a list of things which God particularly hates, would we get it right? Would slander and gossip and unwholesome talk and lying be included on the list? According to this verse they are, so rather than dismiss them because we don’t want to deal with them, or give up because they are so difficult to overcome let us keep on letting God change this part of us.

Joseph K. Horn writes in the conclusion of one of his messages on the tongue, “And lest I be accused of unnecessary talk, I’ll now shut up, but not before leaving you with this thought: Talk isn’t cheap; it can cost you your very soul.”

Jesus Is Lord

I Corinthians 8:6

Introduction

When our children were in minor hockey, I remember on more than one occasion that one of the young hockey players scored a goal in the wrong net. What likely happened was confusion because of all the voices. In his own head was the voice, “we are here to score goals and I have a break away. My coach said I should skate hard and put the puck in the net.” On the bench, the coach is now yelling for all he is worth to try to stop the player from continuing and actually scoring for the other team, but the poor kid can’t hear the coach because parents from both teams are also yelling, very loud, but conflicting messages.

It kind of reminds me of the saying, “too many cooks spoil the broth.” When we are listening to too many voices, things don’t usually turn out well.

Do you ever feel like that in your life? One voice loudly tells you to enjoy life, another is saying work hard so you can get ahead, another is asking you to serve. The voice of your history pulls you in one direction. The voice of parents and friends in another and your own desires in another. Wouldn’t it be much easier if there was one voice directing our life? Wouldn’t it make much more sense to follow a single master, and not just any master, but the right one?

I Corinthians 8:6 says, “…there is but one God, the Father from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” This verse invites us to live with Jesus as Lord, gives us reason for doing so, direction in doing so and power to do so.

There Is But One Lord

In the ancient world, people believed that there were many gods. In his book “The Forgotten Ways,” Alan Hirsch writes about the experience of a pagan person going to the river to get a bucket of water. He describes how that person would have had to pass through the field and in so doing stop to offer a gift to the god of the field. As he came to the forest at the edge of the river, he would have had to stop by the large tree in which a particularly nasty and dangerous god was believed to live. Then before he drew water, he would have to apologize and make amends for disturbing the god of the water. People have always believed in a multitude of gods. Hirsch writes, “…The names of the gods had changed from Canaanite ones…to Greco-Roman ones…and from there to romantic love, consumerism and self-help religion in our day…”

When God introduced himself to Israel, he introduced himself in a way that was completely different. The primary confession of Israel, found in Deuteronomy 6:4 was a radical departure from what they had believed in the past and what those around them believed. Moses declared the confession of God’s people when he said, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

With this confession life changed for Israel. They did not have to appease every god along the way. Instead, they had to give singular and complete allegiance to this One God who was God indeed. He alone was the creator of all of the universe. Hirsch says, “no longer could there be different gods for the different spheres of life…Rather, Yahweh is the One God who rules over every aspect of life and the world.”

When Jesus came to this earth, He identified Himself as that one God who had now come into the world to let people get to know the God they were worshipping. The people of that day, particularly in Gentile areas like the city of Corinth, continued to live in a context in which people believed in many gods. It was with just such a problem that Paul was dealing in I Corinthians 8 where Christians were struggling with whether or not they should eat meat sacrificed to idols. The argument in this chapter is that although there are people who believe in many different gods, yet for Christians, we know that there is only one God and that God is the Lord of everything. The Lordship of Father and Son are described in this passage when it says, “there is but one God, the Father… and …one Lord, Jesus Christ.

That Lordship is further described when it says that God is the one “from whom all things came.” God is the source of our life. We did not evolve from nothing, as much of the world wants to tell us. We did not pull ourselves up by our boot straps. God has put us on this earth. God has taken the initiative to make us His people. God sent Jesus. God has forgiven our sins. God has given us eternal life. God has put His Spirit within us. God has given us the church. God has created us with the abilities, talents, DNA and history that we have. Everything we are and everything we have comes from God.

Jesus is the one “through whom all things came.” Jesus was involved in the beginning of creation and it is by Him that all things were created. Jesus is the one who sacrificed His life so that our sins could be forgiven. Jesus is the one through whom we have been given eternal life. Jesus is the one who by His Spirit indwells all those who call upon His name.

To believe that there is one Lord means that we accept the universal sovereignty of God, that we accept that God is the source of all created things, that we accept Jesus as the one who has given us life. To believe that there is one Lord means that we acknowledge that God is over all and Jesus is the one in whom all things hold together.

Today it is believers who make this confession, but one day, Philippians 2:9 reminds us, “every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

This is what it means to say that Jesus is Lord in a theological sense, but what does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord on Monday morning when we go to work and Tuesday evening when we watch TV and Saturday afternoon when we get together with family and Sunday morning when we go to church?

For Whom We Live

This verse helps us understand when it says, “there is but one God… for whom we live.” If Jesus is Lord, there is a singular focus in our life – we live for God.

A Cruciform Life

Galatians 6:14 speaks about living for God when it says, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

When we were in Rome, we visited St. Peter’s Basilica. This huge church is built in the shape of a cross. The main meeting area runs east – west with the front facing east. In the church, there are also wings of the building which go north – south. If you would look at an architectural drawing, you would notice that the building itself is in the shape of a cross, which is called a cruciform plan. This is, of course, deliberately planned and not just convenient. It is a way of saying, this church is centered on the death of Jesus Christ.

To say that Jesus is Lord is to recognize that this fundamental shift has taken place in our world. If we accept that Jesus is Lord, we have done a radical about face. It is no longer the things of the world which are most dear to us. The death of Jesus and the fact that Jesus was willing to leave heaven in order to redeem us means that we are now engaged in a radically new way of thinking and living. We no longer identify first with the world, but first with Jesus.

An Obedient Life

Declaring that Jesus is Lord also means that we live a life of obedience. Jesus challenged those who were following Him with the words in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Our life can never be only about what we think, but our life must be about what we think and the direction we take in life and the passion which consumes us and the obedience which marks our life.

Paul repeatedly calls for obedience from those who would declare Jesus as Lord. In Romans 13:12-14 we read, “let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

In I Thessalonians 4:1-8 we read further, “Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.”

Not “Just Saying”

Alan Hirsch describes another way of looking at what it means that Jesus is Lord. He writes, “Christian belief does not consist in merely saying ‘There is One God.’ The devil knows that. Christians respond to God by faith in his deeds, trust in his power, hope in his promise, and passionate abandonment of self to do his will.”

These four things are an excellent way of thinking about what it means to believe that Jesus is Lord.

If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will have faith in His deeds. We will be able to recognize that God is at work in our world. We will see all the ways in which God has been working His plan from the beginning. It will allow us to trust not only that David killed Goliath by the power of God, but that the power of God redeemed our ancestors from the grips of communism.

If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will have “trust in His power.” This means that we will live by the understanding that God not only revealed His plan to the prophets of the Old Testament, but continues to speak to His people today and still leads them to do His work in the power of His Spirit.

If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will have “hope in His promise.” We will be able to join the heroes of faith listed in the Hebrews 12 in recognizing that although we may not see the fulfillment of our desires or even the completion of God’s project, we will trust that God is at work and that God is building His church and that God will bring those whom He has chosen to eternal life.

If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will live by the “passionate abandonment of self to do His will.” We will give our hearts and minds to be transformed by His mighty power so that we will obey His will not because our church says we must, but because it is our heart’s desire to do so and we will be willing like so many in the past to give up the pleasures of this world, the comforts of life and the distractions of wealth to serve Him in the way in which He is calling us to serve.

All Of Life

Included in such a life is a wholeness of living that does not make a separation between the secular and the sacred. So often our lives manifest a disconnect between what we do on Sunday and what we do on Monday. What does it mean that Jesus is Lord when your customer doesn’t pay his bills? What does it mean that Jesus is Lord when your brother in Christ comes into conflict with you? What does it mean that Jesus is Lord when you are on the volleyball court?

We have often wondered at the great variety of laws which God gave to the people of Israel when he established His covenant with them in the Old Testament. He gave laws about food and clothing and worship and relationships all in one chapter. This confuses us because we have separated life into compartments. But if we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will understand that it is quite logical to think about what it means to follow God in every aspect of our life – worship and shopping and work and play. Alan Hirsch says, “…there is no such thing as sacred and secular in biblical worldview. It can conceive of no part of the world that does not come under the claim of Yahweh’s lordship.”

To claim Jesus as Lord means that it is God “for whom we live.”

Through Whom We Live

It is interesting that the text also speaks not only about God as the one “for whom we live,” but of Jesus as the one “through whom we live.” What does this add to our understanding that Jesus is Lord?

A Resurrection Life

There is a profound concept in II Corinthians 4:5 where we read, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord...” And then in verse 10 Paul goes on to say, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”

What symbol best displays who we are? In Regina, if you saw someone walking around the streets with a cut up watermelon on their head, that would not be strange at all. You would know immediately what that symbol meant – it would identify them as a Saskatchewan Rough Rider fan. What symbol defines who we are? Is it a throne, a crown, a hammer, a star or is it a cross? Unfortunately, for many people, a cross is simply a decoration. When we remember that it is a symbol of execution and that Jesus gave His life in this way, as Christians, we would have to say that a cross is the symbol that identifies who we are. When we say that, we are talking about more than just a decoration we wear and even more than that we are connected with Jesus. We are saying that all of who we are, our total being is connected intimately with the death of Jesus on the cross. To “carry around in our body the death of Jesus” means that the death of Jesus is the event which most clearly and powerfully defines who we are. It means that we are who we are not because of our good deeds and not because of our affiliation with this or any other church, but because of our utter dependence on Jesus. That is why the defining symbol for who we are is not a throne, because we are not on the throne. It is not a crown because we have not yet received a crown. It is not a hammer, which could symbolize our deeds. It is the cross. To carry around in our body the cross of Jesus Christ says that we are bought with a price. It means that we depend on the death of Jesus for our forgiveness. It means that we are willing to die for the one who died for us.

But, when we are willing to so closely identify our essential being with the death of Jesus, something powerful happens and that is that we find the life of Jesus revealed in our body. You cannot experience resurrection unless you die.

Another way of saying this is that as long as we are marked by the identity of our success or our allegiance to the church or our diligence in obedience, we will never discover the power of Jesus. It is when we are willing to die to our self and live our life in Jesus that we will discover the power of the life of Jesus in us. What is most impressive about Christians is not their own abilities and talents, but the power of Jesus in their lives. Roland Allen in the book, “The Compulsion of the Spirit” puts it this way “…What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire.”

A few years ago our car engine broke down. We were in BC, away from home at the time, so I had to inquire where I could take it to repair it and then I had to get it to the garage. I called a tow truck, but before it came I noticed that the garage we had been told to go to was just around the corner and down the street and it was all down hill. So I pushed the car and once it got rolling, it was quite easy to move it forward. However, it was very difficult to turn the steering wheel. Because it had power steering and the power steering does not operate if the engine is not on, I could barely get it around the corner. The next problem, because I was going down hill, was stopping it with brakes that also didn’t work well without the engine running.

It is not at all possible to attain eternal life apart from the death of Jesus and so the only way that we can get to heaven is by “carrying around in our bodies the death of Jesus.”

However, it is possible for people to turn their lives around by their own strength, but it is like trying to turn a car with power steering, without the engine on. When we “carry around in our bodies the death of Jesus” the power of Jesus’ resurrection becomes active in our life to enable us to experience the life of Jesus.

Gaining Life

What we will discover when we live in that way is that this is not loss but gain. We talked earlier about the world being crucified to us and that sounds like loss. We talked just now about carrying around in our body the death of Jesus and that sounds like loss. But Paul found out and we will find out when we are identified with Jesus in this way that we will experience gain and not loss. Paul says in Philippians 3:8, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”

When we live with Jesus as Lord, we will discover life indeed. We will discover a power to live the Christian life that we have not experienced before. It is possible to live a safe and comfortable Christian life, but is that really life? If our whole life is about protecting ourselves from the dangers in the world, we will never find the power of God to transform the world around us. If our Christian life is about being comfortable in this life and knowing that we are OK for the life to come, we will settle into a life that is easy, but will we ever find the power of Jesus active in our lives? If we are following Jesus because it is easy for us to follow Jesus because our whole family and all our relatives and friends are following Jesus and it is nice and comfortable, we will exist, but will we really live? Will we ever discover the power of Jesus entering into our lives and using us to make a difference in the world around us?

The life we will discover when Jesus is Lord may involve sacrifices like selling all and giving to the poor or stepping out of our comfort zone and serving at Union Gospel Mission or volunteering at Café 75 or Inner City Youth Alive. But when Jesus is Lord, we will also find that this is not loss, but gain. We will rejoice to really know the life of Jesus.

Tim Kimmel says, “Trying to distill God down to an elementary equation, a network of nonthreatening friends, predictable behavior patterns, or an ‘insiders’ language is all it takes to remove the one thing we need to keep our spiritual passion alive – God Himself.”

When I Corinthians 8:6 says that Jesus is Lord these are the things which are implied when it says that we live through Him.

Conclusion

The book Why Christian Kids Rebel by Tim Kimmel examines some of the reasons why kids who go to church regularly rebel against what they are taught. The rebellion he speaks of happens on both sides as represented by the parable of the Prodigal son – the rebellion of the younger son who left and squandered everything and the rebellion of the older son who remained at home, but had no true relationship with the Father. The main reason he gives is that kids sometimes see in their parents a faith that is not real. He talks about compulsory, cliché, comfortable, cocoon and compromised Christianity. In each case children see in their parents something that is less than the real thing and less than a faith life which truly manifests the presence and power of God. The solution he offers is to live with Jesus as Lord and that seems to me to be a powerful motivation to have Jesus as Lord in our lives.

In the book, The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsh writes about why churches at some times in history have grown so incredibly. One of the main reasons he gives is that these churches follow Jesus as Lord. The world around them sees in them the power of God to such a degree that they take notice. That seems to me to be a powerful motivation to have Jesus as Lord in our lives.

God is the Lord of all. He is the Lord of our lives. Because He is, we are called to live for Him and to live through Him. Jesus is Lord and one day all will confess that He is Lord. Jesus is Lord! Is Jesus Lord? Romans 10:9 says, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord you will be saved.”

God Is: Holy

Exodus 19:1-20:21; Isaiah 6:1-8

Introduction

From time to time I like to go to the coffee shop and visit with the people there. There have been some people whom I meet only at the coffee shop. When I see them there, they wear the same jacket and cap every time I see them. Therefore, that is the only way that I know them. Sometimes I have met these same people at other functions, like funerals, and I didn’t recognize them because they were not wearing their cap and they had a suit on instead of their same jacket. At times like that I am reminded that most people are not just one thing, they have many sides to them and relate in many different ways.

The same is true about God. In the last few messages, we have been encouraged that God is good and that God is faithful. The image of God as loving and “for us” is a wonderful image and entirely true, but that is not all we need to know about God.

Some of you have read the book, “The Shack.” I know that some of you did not like the book, but I thought it was a wonderful book which describes in an amazing way the joy and peace of an intimate, loving relationship with God. However, that book does not describe all there is to know about God. If that is all we know, we have not yet learned to know God in completeness. Psalm 99:9 presents another side of who God is when it says, “Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy.

I. Encountering Holy God

On several occasions in Scripture people encountered God in His holiness. Two of those passages are Exodus 19:1-20:21 and Isaiah 6. What do we learn about the holiness of God from these passages?

A. Israel At Sinai

In the third month after the people of Israel had left Egypt, Moses led them to the desert of Sinai. Moses went up the mountain and when he met with God, God indicated that he wanted to meet with the people of Israel and speak to them. Moses went back down the mountain and told the people and they agreed to this meeting. Moses returned up the mountain and spoke to God about the way in which this meeting would take place.

When you have guests over, there are always arrangements to make. You make arrangements about when they are going to come, you probably clean the house, and you put in place all the details necessary for the meeting. As you can imagine there were certainly details necessary when Israel was going to meet the God of the universe. It is in preparing for the details of the meeting that we begin to get an understanding of what it means that God is holy. We read in 19:10 that the people were to go home wash their clothes and live in a readiness to meet God. The restriction for them not to have sexual relations does not imply that this was an evil thing, but emphasizes the importance of a meeting with God. They were to be consecrated, which is a way of saying they were to be totally clean and focused and ready to meet God.

Another aspect of the meeting was that they could not touch the mountain, but had to be a safe distance from God. If anyone touched the mountain, he would be put to death. Therefore we read that Moses put a “fence” around the mountain and carefully instructed the people about this limitation.

So all the preparations were made to meet God and in those preparations the people got the idea that they were not just meeting a friend, but that there was something special and powerful and holy about the One they were going to meet.

When the meeting took place, there was another opportunity to see the holiness of God. We read about what happened on the day when they met God beginning in Exodus 19:16. There was thunder and lightening and a thick cloud covering the mountain. The people heard a loud trumpet blast. In verse 18 we read that “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.”

The encounter with God was filled with mystery and power and the people were in awe of Holy God. One commentator says, “The repeated enforcement of the command not to touch the mountain, and the special extension of it even to the priests, were intended to awaken in the people a consciousness of … the unapproachable holiness of Jehovah.” ( K&D)

B. Isaiah

Another occasion on which a human being had an encounter with God occurred in Isaiah 6:1-8 when Isaiah had His vision of God. In Isaiah’s vision, God was seated on a throne, “high and exalted.” God was not on the couch inviting Isaiah to sit beside Him, but was described as above and on a throne. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like that “the train of his robe filled the temple.”

The living creatures which accompanied God were also amazing, but the focus is not on them. Even they communicate that there is something very special and unusual going on here. They have six wings and decorum requires that they cover their faces and their feet with those wings.

Just as the vision of God, which all of Israel had at Sinai, included a vision of power and veiled glory; in this vision we also read that “…the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” (Isaiah 6:4)

The pinnacle of the communication of the holiness of God came when the Seraphs cried out to each other, not once, not twice, but three times, “holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.”

C. God Is Holy

What do these encounters mean? What do they tell us about God? What does it mean that God is Holy?

1. Separated

One of the ways of understanding holiness is by its definition which, speaks of the wholly otherness, the separation of God from everything else. God is not common. In each encounter with God the presence of God was veiled in cloud and smoke to emphasize that God is wholly other and cannot be fully known.

John Piper writes, “What then is his holiness? Listen to three texts. 1 Samuel 2:2, "There is none holy like the Lord, there is none besides thee." Isaiah 40:25, "To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One." Hosea 11:9, "I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst." In the end God is holy in that he is God and not man. He is incomparable. His holiness is his utterly unique divine essence.” Piper

I also like what A.W. Tozer says: “God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable.”

2. Absence Of Evil

One of the ways in which this is true is that God is absolutely and completely separated from all that is evil. We see this particularly in the encounter of Israel at Sinai, who when they met with God had to be consecrated.

One fall I helped a farmer burn his flax straw. It was a dry day and we went along and lit the piles of straw which had been gathered together with a harrow. Those of you who have ever seen flax straw burn know that it was a job that did not last very long. As soon as the fire started, it quickly consumed all of the straw. Evil of any kind in the presence of God is like flax straw in the presence of fire. Because God is holy, it simply does not exist in His presence.

Because of this, numerous passages in the Bible tell us that there will not be any evil in heaven. Matthew 13:41 says, “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Revelation 21:27 says, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful…”

This is a good thing because God’s holiness not only demands that evil be destroyed because of the very nature of who God is but because of that trait, we know that evil, which destroys God’s creation must be destroyed so it will not continue to do its destructive work.

3. Majestic Glory

In each of the stories we get a little view of the majestic glory of God. In each story the curtain of heaven is pulled back a little bit and we get just a glimpse of something that is simply beyond anything we have ever seen.

One of the pictures included in the vision which Isaiah had is the image of the “train of his robe filling the temple.” I like what John Piper says about that. “You have seen pictures of brides whose dresses are gathered around them covering the steps and the platform. What would the meaning be if the train filled the aisles and covered the seats and the choir loft, woven all of one piece? That God's robe fills the entire heavenly temple means that he is a God of incomparable splendor.”

The encounters with God at Mount Sinai and also of Isaiah describe this majestic glory of God. He is high, exalted, glorious, wonderful. His presence is awe inspiring. We so glibly use the word “awesome,” but these pictures give us a look at what is really awesome.

4. Awesome Power

A while ago, Amos told me that when he went with his boys to Brainerd, MN to watch the NHRA drag races the power of those cars is so great that you can physically feel it when they take off. Being in the presence of such power and feeling it has an effect on you. In each of these stories of the presence of God we also read about the thunder, lightening and shaking of the earth. The holiness of God is also revealed in the awesome power of God’s presence.

God is loving and He is faithful and He is interested in us and does want to know us as friends and does take the initiative to meet with us and invite us into His presence. But when we come into the presence of God, we also need to remember the other aspect of who God is, that He is holy. He is separated from all that is in complete perfection and beauty. He has nothing to do with evil and it cannot even be in His presence. He is majestic in His being and all power is present with Him. In all these ways we get a glimpse of something that is utterly beyond us and which we can barely understand from our perspective on earth. We begin to understand that God is Holy.

II. Responding To Holy God

How do we respond to Holy God? Both of these stories give us an idea of what such encounters mean and how we live in them.

A. Obedience Arising From Reverence

I have heard some teachers describe their strategy for classroom discipline by advising that a teacher should never smile until Christmas. By the strategy of putting on a stern face, they hope to scare the students into listening to them so that they will all have a good classroom experience. Is that what God is doing in these encounters?

In some ways it is. When Israel met God at Sinai, they had this powerful encounter with God and when God spoke to them, He gave them the ten commandments, in Exodus 20:1-17, expecting that they would obey them. The people trembled as they listened and afterwards spoke to Moses in great fear. They said in Exodus 20:19, “do not have God speak to us or we will die.” The effect worked and Moses told them in Exodus 20:20, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” God wanted them to be afraid so that they would not sin.

But it was more than just a strategy to make them obey Him. God really is like this. God really is holy and majestic and powerful. God wasn’t just trying to put “the fear of God” into them. God is to be feared because He is holy and sin really can’t exist in His presence.

But it wasn’t just that God was trying to show them His fearful side so that they would be scared of Him. God knows that if we sin, we are engaged in a process of destruction. When we as parents put the fear of traffic into our children so that they won’t run into the street, we do it for their own good so that they won’t hurt themselves. That is what God was doing. God knows that when we sin, we will hurt ourselves and He doesn’t want us to do that.

But even that is not the whole of the purpose of why God showed Israel His holiness. God is not interested in showing His holiness and power simply so that His power is displayed. God’s holiness is a part of God’s intent to establish a relationship with His people. The whole encounter begins with God pointing out to Moses and Israel, in Exodus 19:4, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.” Therefore, we see that God took the initiative to establish a relationship with His people. As Christians we know that not only has God taken the initiative to establish a relationship with Himself, but He has also made a way for that relationship. When it was impossible for us to obey Him, God sent Jesus to die on the cross for us. God has revealed His holiness to us so that we know the God with whom we have to do. God has made His holiness known so that we know the immense grace which He has extended in order to establish a relationship. God has demonstrated His Holiness so that we know the holy God who has made Himself known to us and so that we know how to relate to Him.

God is Holy! How do we relate to a holy God?

We relate to a holy God with gratitude that He has forgiven our sins. Until we understand His holiness, we do not really know how great His forgiveness and grace are.

We relate to a Holy God with reverence and it prompts us to live in obedience because we know the God with whom we relate. Until we understand the holiness of God, we do not really have the motivation to live in obedience. Psalm 24:3 asks, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?” I Peter 1:15, 16 gives the answer, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

The New Bible Dictionary says, “God’s holiness does not make him unapproachable (Is. 57:15). On the contrary, he is a seeking God, whose holiness is expressed in his saving activity (Is. 40–55). At the same time, any approach to God can only be made under the provisions which God has himself established.”

B. Willingness Arising From Forgiveness

Isaiah’s encounter with God also involved a response. When Isaiah saw God in all His splendor and majesty and holiness, his immediate response was “Woe is me.” He didn’t wonder about it or stop to think if he was properly dressed for the occasion. There was an immediate and deep horror at his own unholiness. He put himself and his people side by side with God and immediately knew that he was ruined. There was no chance for Him in the presence of Holy God. This response, was the same as that of Israel at Sinai and an appropriate response.

But once again we see the grace of God in dealing with sin. We read in Isaiah 6:6 that one of the Seraphs took a live coal from the altar and touched the lips of Isaiah. Why lips? Why not heart or mind? This text is about Isaiah speaking a message from God to the people and there was no way that the lips of Isaiah were clean enough to speak God’s message unless God cleansed them. And cleanse them he did. The assurance was “your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

But the story does not end there. After this Isaiah overheard a conversation in heaven asking, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

Having seen the holiness of God and having been cleansed by God, Isaiah was prepared to respond and did respond immediately, “Here am I. Send me!”

Responding to God’s holiness means that we are willing to serve Him because we have seen His holiness and have experienced the grace of forgiveness from His hand.

Conclusion

It is wonderful to experience the grace of God and the Bible gives us great evidence of the compassion and loving kindness of God. These are great things, but until we experience the holiness of God, we do not really have a full appreciation of how great these things are.

God is holy!

Therefore we are called to worship Him properly with reverence and awe.

God is holy!

Therefore we are called to fall before Him in our sinfulness and seek Him for the forgiveness which He has freely offered.

God is holy!

Therefore we must obey Him and in recognizing His holiness, we are empowered and moved to obey Him.

God is holy!

Therefore, having encountered His holiness and having experienced His forgiveness, we are moved to serve Him and respond to the call He has on our life.

God Is: Good

Psalm 65

Introduction

What is the most common answer to the question, “How are you?” Most people will say, “Good.” When they answer this way, I sometimes remind them of what Jesus said that “there is no one good but God.” Of course I know that this is not what they are saying, that they are saying “I am doing well,” but we do say “I am good.” If we think of this saying, “I am good,” we know that we are not good but we trust in the words of Jesus that God is good. Or do we? “Is God good?”

What if He is not? This week I have had more than one experience in which people would have every reason to question whether God is good. Does God want to help us or hurt us or is He indifferent? If we do not know that He is good, we never know for sure whether He is on our side or against us. If God is not good, then we are utterly vulnerable and God is not worthy of our praise or even our trust. If God is good, then we can put our trust in Him no matter what happens.

This morning, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, I want to remind you that God is good! In order to focus our thoughts, let us look at Psalm 65. In this Psalm, there are several things, which relate well to all that is happening here today, which show us the goodness of God. We have rejoiced in a baptism, we are going to remember our salvation as we partake of communion and we are acknowledging God’s provision as we celebrate thanksgiving. Psalm 65 helps us see the goodness of God in all of these things.

I will share a few thoughts which come out of this passage, but also leave some time in the middle of the message for you to share your thanksgiving because of God’s goodness.

Giving The Blessing Of Relationship

We have just heard the testimonies and observed the baptism of Sherisse and Kelli. As we have celebrated this event, we have seen the goodness of God. Psalm 65:1-4 helps us see three different ways in which God’s gift of salvation reveals the goodness of God. God wants to know us and invites us to conversation, God forgives our sins so that we can draw near to Him and God chooses us to be near to Him.

God Hears Prayer

I remember a number of years ago that if communication was breaking down, people used to say, “talk to the hand.” It was a way of saying, “I am not listening to you.” Is that good?

Psalm 65:2 reminds us that one of the ways we see the goodness of God is that he hears prayer. We read, “O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come.”

The promise that God hears prayer is repeated often in the Bible. I particularly like the imagery in Revelation which speaks of prayer as incense rising before God and declares the promise that God hears all prayer. Revelation 5:8 says, “…the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. In Revelation 8:4 we read, “The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.”

When it says that God is the one “to whom all men will come” it reminds us that the way to God is always open. God is always ready to hear the prayer of the person who is willing to repent. God is always open to hearing the prayer of those who come to Him. When we become His followers, one of the blessings of that relationship is the promise of communication. God is good because He is one who does not close off communication, but opens it up. Charles Spurgeon says, “God not only has heard, but is now hearing prayer.” Therefore we know that God Is Good!

God Forgives Sin

As we have baptized these two young ladies, we have been reminded of another way in which God is good. Psalm 65:3 says, “When we were overwhelmed by sins, you atoned for our transgressions.”

There is a level at which sin seems to be a pleasure. The Bible even speaks of “the pleasure of sin.” ( Hebrews 11:25) But that is only for a season. There are so many ways in which sin is no pleasure at all. When the text says that “we were overwhelmed by sins” this is something that makes a lot of sense and something that we can identify with. For one thing, sins overwhelm us because they are so subtle and there are so many so that the Psalmist says in Psalm 19:12, “Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.” Sin is also a burden because we find it so hard to overcome. Ultimately, we are overwhelmed by sin because it always leads to death. It may lead to death in the short term by destroying us and the relationships we have or in the long term by physical and spiritual death.

When we come to that realization and repent, the goodness of God is demonstrated in His forgiveness. The word used here is “atonement.” This reminds us of the tremendous gift of God given in Jesus by which He died in our place. As a result, we are set free from both the power and the consequences of sin.

Every time we hear a testimony of God changing lives or observe a baptism and every time we observe the Lord’s supper we are reminded that God is good!

God Chooses

The third blessing we find in this passage is that we are chosen by God. Psalm 65:4 says, “Blessed is the man you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple.”

Not only do we have the privilege of coming to God in prayer, not only does God forgive our sins, but when we are Christians, we know that God has chosen us to come near to Him in relationship.

God’s goodness is seen in that before we even knew Him, He had already chosen us. Ephesians 1:4 says, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world…” The choosing of God is also seen in that God draws to Himself all those who are being saved. John 6:44 says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

God chooses us so that He can call us His children. Ephesians 1:4-6 says, “…In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

When God chooses us, He brings us near so that we can have a relationship with Him and experience the blessings which come from that relationship. Living the Christian life means living in that relationship. It means that we are not just on God’s list, but friends with him. Some of you are on Facebook. You have a list of people who are identified as being your friends. But if they are just on your list and you never really have anything to do with them, never communicate with them, never send them a message or talk to them, can you really call that a relationship? Living the Christian life means that we continue to live near to God and grow in intimacy with Him. Sherisse and Kelli, as you have declared that God is your friend by baptism, our challenge to you is to continue to live in that relationship.

God’s salvation reminds us that God is good! Would anyone else like to share with us the blessing of living in a relationship with God?

Giving An Abundant Harvest

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. On this day we celebrate harvest and all the goodness of God which is expressed by the abundance of the good things which we receive from Him. Psalm 65:9-13 expresses thanksgiving for God’s goodness in this context. It is a Psalm of harvest thanksgiving in poetical language.

Intention

Sometimes when you go into a store to purchase something, the sales people will be very nice to you. Some are nice only because they want to sell you something. They don’t genuinely care about you, they only care about the sale they might make and you are right to question their intentions.

What are God’s intentions? In Psalm 65:9 it speaks about God providing “the people with grain, for so you have ordained it.” This speaks of God’s intentions. It is God's intention to bless. As we celebrate thanksgiving, recognizing the goodness of God, we celebrate first of all His good intentions towards us. So we see once again that God is good.

Abundance

In this Psalm we see another aspect of God’s goodness. God does not give His blessing with half measure, but with abundance. The cornucopia is often used at thanksgiving to illustrate God’s abundant provisions. It is a fitting symbol of God’s goodness towards us. The decorations we have here are a symbol of the abundance of God’s provision. In Psalm 65:9-13 we notice many words which the Psalmist uses to express abundance.

9 – abundantly

9 – filled

10 – drench

11 – bounty

11 – overflow with abundance.

12 – overflow

13 – covered

The abundance of His provisions show us that God is good!

Blessing

We also see, in this Psalm, a number of images which speak of His blessing.

It is a little hard for us to understand some of this Psalm in a year like we have had when there has been such a lot of rain, but if you have ever experienced drought or been in a place where there is little rain, you will understand the image in Psalm 65:10. Of course this was written to people in Israel who understood dryness. When we were there, even considering that it was spring, we saw the world to which this Psalm was written. From Jerusalem and into the south there is a significant amount of desert. We saw areas where crops were sown in dry river beds because these were the only places where there was a possibility that there would be moisture at some time of the year. In such a dry land, the soil gets hard and we all know what it is like to try to till or cultivate or hoe in soil that is hard because there has not been rain. If we can put that image in our minds, then we will understand the blessing spoken of in verse 10 which says, “You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers.” God is good because He provides the rain which is necessary to grow a crop.

Verse 11 may seem like a rather unusual image, but gives us another way of looking at God’s abundant provision. Whenever armies would come into the land, they would bring carts along which carried the engines of war and took away the spoil. Those carts were symbols of devastation. When there is war, as those in Sudan know, hardship and famine soon follow. Wherever armies and kings go they take away, and bring hardship. If that is the image in our mind, then the picture here is exactly the opposite. Unlike armies and the carts of kings that take away, God’s carts “overflow with abundance.” Wherever God goes, there abundance and blessing. abound. This idea comes from Spurgeon, who is quoted in the commentary by Tate saying, “when kings go through a land, they bring destruction, the most destructive thing for causing famine is war. Wherever it is, famine follows. But when God goes through the land, there is abundance.”

Another image which comes out of the land of Israel which helps us understand this Psalm is to recognize that desert areas are areas where things do not grow well. One of the things we discovered when we were in Israel, is that the cities are built on hills and crops are in the valleys. This is so for a number of reasons. On a hill, the people of a city would be able to see the coming of the enemies. The other reason is that the valley land is the arable land. In a dry land, moisture comes seldom and of course, water runs down so eventually it most often and most quickly ends up in the bottom of the valley. It is hard for us in this flat land to understand this, but you don’t have to go very far west in areas like Holland, Manitoba, to realize that on very wet years, the crop on the top of the hill is good, but most years, the top of the hill is dry and the valley has good crops. This is always so in Israel, where David was writing. So with that picture in mind, we read in Psalm 65:12, “The grasslands of the desert overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.”

All of these images help us see the goodness of God in supplying abundantly. The imagery is agricultural, but we should take it to refer to all the ways in which our lives are enriched by the many blessings which come from God.

Conclusion

Celebrating God’s goodness is an appropriate response. We celebrate in praise, as we see in Psalm 65:1. “Praise awaits you…” We celebrate with obedience as we also see in Psalm 65:1, “to you our vows will be fulfilled.” Celebration of the goodness of God fills this whole Psalm. Psalm 65:8 says, “you call forth songs of joy.” The conclusion of the Psalm also celebrates the goodness of God when it says, “they shout for joy and sing.”