A second creation
"HE SENDS OUT HIS COMMAND TO THE EARTH... HE DECLARES HIS WORD TO JACOB..." PSALM 147:15, 19
God gives his word to two specific parties in this psalm, to the earth (15-18) and to his people (19-20). Nature and grace mirror each other in many ways, and the parallel here is unmistakable and striking: they are both under the power of his word.
The word of God is a creative force. He creates what he speaks in the very act of speaking it. No sooner are the words uttered but the realities snap into existence. How did God create the earth? By speaking. "He spoke, and it came to be." (Ps 33:9). How does he create his people? By speaking. "You have been born again...through the living and abiding word of God." (1 Pet 1:23).
God's people are a second creation. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." (2 Cor 5:17). Redeemed souls become worlds of God's creative power and genius, pulled into his gracious orbit, and put on display before men and angels and devils.
His creative word to us is the gospel: "this word is the good news that was preached to you" (1 Pet 1:25). The good news of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners is the power of God to make shattered souls into new creatures, and to craft believers by and by into the image of his beloved Son. Place yourself and your family under its creative forces often.
THROUGH THE GOSPEL GOD IS GETTING US READY FOR THE DAY WHEN HE MAKES ALL THINGS NEW.
The Famous One
"SO HIS FAME SPREAD...AND GREAT CROWDS FOLLOWED HIM" MATTHEW 4:24, 25
Jesus was quickly gathering a reputation for himself. Reports were spreading far and wide, and what people heard caused them to seek him out for themselves. The people were streaming to him.
He was known to them as a preacher and healer, and they did what anyone in their right mind would do: they went to him to hear and to be healed. The great crowds put into action the reports they heard about this Jesus.
I wonder if the fame of Christ has spread to us? Certainly if we are believers it has, for what is it that we believe but the reports about Jesus? But might we not stand to hear more of the great fame of Jesus Christ? Have we not only just begun to know him?
A steady diet of the wonderful love and works of Christ will stir your heart and compel you to seek the famous One anew. What drives prayer like the knowledge of God's mercy and our desperate need of him? What encourages going to Jesus like knowing that he loves to welcome those who need him?
Read Scripture, listen to sermons, fellowship with seasoned saints, work through solid books,. By all means keep the news of Christ's fame sounding in the ears of your heart, and you'll find yourself not only going to him, but bringing others with you.
Answered prayer
"I SOUGHT THE LORD, AND HE ANSWERED ME" PSALM 34:4
It's a very simple fact beloved: the LORD answers the prayers of his people. He will answer every one.
What forgotten prayers of yours are yet hanging about God's throne, awaiting an answer? What have you asked for? Whatever prayers you have offered, you will have your answers in due time.
If you've prayed according to God's will, your answer is Yes and you only need wait for it. Have you prayed for the advance of the gospel? For more faith and love and joy and patience and boldness for yourself and your fellow believers? To know Christ more? You will have your answer from on high and that answer will be in the affirmative.
Have prayers for lost loved ones shot from your heart like arrows to God's throne? You will have an answer, and why not a Yes? Would God get glory from their salvation, rather than their destruction, in which he takes no pleasure? Pray that way! Pray at all times and make all sorts of requests known to God—big prayers, small prayers, all prayers. Send them until they gather round his throne of grace in thick clusters, fruit awaiting the shouts of a joyful harvest.
Real healing
"BUT FOR YOU WHO FEAR MY NAME, THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL RISE WITH HEALING IN ITS WINGS." MALACHI 4:2
Righteousness brings healing, just as unrighteousness brings death and destruction.
The imagery here represents the coming promised One, the Lord Jesus Christ, who brought in everlasting righteousness and undid the destruction our unrighteousness brought with it. He is our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5-6).
The LORD warned Adam, “In the day that you [sin] you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17). Sin brings death. It is most evident then that righteousness brings life. In fact Paul says this very plainly: “Just as sin reigned in death, grace also [reigns] through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:21).
If we are to be healed, body and soul, we must have righteousness. We don’t. But the God of grace and mercy loved us and sent his Son to provide us with the righteousness he requires from us. The result is that, if we trust in Christ, his spotless perfection is imputed to us, is considered ours, and we get treated accordingly, because it is ours in Christ.
So the healing starts now, and will be finished when the sun of eternal day rises on a new creation. Death is being undone. All who trust in Christ are even now new creatures within, and will be brought to completed newness, body and soul, in glory when we will stand (and run and jump and, who knows, even fly) in resurrected bodies on a resurrected planet in a resurrected universe, "in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13). In other words, we will be "swallowed up by life" (2 Corinthians 5:4).
JESUS IS TRULY THE GREAT PHYSICIAN WHO HEALS SINNERS.
Make the pulpit great again
"[THE GOSPEL] IS THE POWER OF GOD FOR SALVATION" ROMANS 1:16
This is a plea to preachers.
Your sermon matters. It matters more than you know, and more than anyone in your congregation is going to tell you. It is your chief task. Without it all your successes will be compromised.
Is God worth excellent preaching? What does a superheated soul poured out before sinners in holy exertion say about the living God? It says he's real. It says he means business with sinners today and calls them now. It says he loves his children with an everlasting love and will never ever forsake them.
Your people need the old fashioned gospel, and they need it every week. Do you give it to them? Or do you obscure it with the latest theological trend? Do you take away its gravitas by diminishing God's absolute standard of holiness expressed in his law? Do you place emphasis on what Christ did or what Christians must do? Both must be there but there's a priority here.
Are you afraid that preaching the free gospel will create antinomians? It will only expose them for what they already are. Do you fear it will make lazy Christians? Some will be tempted that way, but this I tell you: you don't have a chance of forming a single joyfully obedient believer without it.
So agonize over your sermon. You need the Lord not only to crack open the meaning of the text, but to help you organize the material and craft helpful illustrations for the people. Don't speak for the text, let the text speak for itself through you. Be succinct. Fast moving and hard hitting is the way to preach the gospel to this generation. What the world needs most is a fresh demonstration of God's power from the pulpit. So point the gospel in the right direction and get out of the way.
YOUR WORK IS NOT FINISHED UNTIL YOU PREACH THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT.
Thoughts of a 32 year old
THE GRASS WITHERS, THE FLOWER FADES, BUT THE WORD OF OUR GOD WILL STAND FOREVER. ISAIAH 40:8
Today is the last day of my 32nd year. They say I'm in the flower of life, the very prime of it. Well I don't feel old, but I feel older. I'd like to take this opportunity to exhort you in the Lord, especially those of you who are young.
Serve God with the strength of your youth, my friend. Get right with God. Repent and trust in Jesus. Devour Scripture. Cry out to God for more of his power on your life. Study classic books. Serve your local church. Tell people about Jesus. Enjoy health and happiness and friends and family, the spouse of your youth and your little ones. Work hard and laugh harder. Acquaint yourself with Christ with everything you've got while you've got it! For there's
ONLY ONE LIFE, TWILL SOON BE PAST,
ONLY WHAT’S DONE FOR CHRIST WILL LAST.
Mercy secured
IN YOUR FAITHFULNESS ANSWER ME, IN YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS! ENTER NOT INTO JUDGMENT WITH YOUR SERVANT, FOR NO ONE LIVING IS RIGHTEOUS BEFORE YOU. PSALM 143:1-2
David called on God's righteousness to show him mercy. What a strange righteousness this is! In the very next verse David admits that he's not righteous, that he is in fact liable to God's righteous judgment. In other words, David doesn't deserve God's mercy at all. He deserves God's righteous condemnation.
You would think a sinner like David, conscious of his own unrighteousness, would stay as far away from God's righteousness as he could. But David knew better. He knew that because he had no righteousness of his own, God's own righteousness was his only hope. Only God can satisfy his own demands in the place of sinners, in other words justify us—the very thing he has done though his Son.
But there's something even deeper here, and here David shows us what a massive grasp he had on the gospel. Once you are justified in Christ, God's righteousness then calls out, not for the judgment you deserve, but for the mercy you don't, which Christ earned for you. If there's any doubt, I will call an Apostle to the witness stand: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9).
When sinners trust in Jesus, it's a matter of God's strict justice that he forgive them and cleanse them and count them righteous and keep them in his mercy forever. God's righteousness, the very thing that secured our condemnation, now secures his eternal faithfulness to us. In a manner of speaking, in the gospel his righteousness becomes his faithfulness to us. If you trust in Jesus, it would be unrighteous for God to deny his mercy to you. In other words, perish the thought!
BELIEVER, PLEAD GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS TO SHOW YOU MERCY TODAY. YOU DON'T DESERVE IT, BUT JESUS DOES.
The day of small things
"WHOEVER HAS DESPISED THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS SHALL REJOICE" ZECHARIAH 4:10
The "small things" here were the laying of the foundation of God's house after the exile, which was not comparable to the first temple but was to be completed spiritually by Christ with shouts of great glory. God promised that the day would come when all who thought very little of this puny foundation would rejoice in the glory it had become.
He who despises the day of small things never stood with Elijah's servant and saw the cloud no bigger than a man's hand coming up from the sea. That same cloud became the rainstorm that put an end to the years of drought (1 Kings 18:41-45).
Don't despise the day of small things! Is a foundation being laid by God in your life, or is it not? If it is, don't despise it! God founded the entire structure of our redemption upon a very small word spoken to Adam and Eve and the serpent in the Garden. It seemed perhaps a small word of prophecy, but we have since learned not to despise such prophecy. That very word, that gospel, has since grown into a global spiritual structure called the church.
You may see the Lord's work in your life by small increments only—do not despise such a work. Your trust in Christ may be small as a mustard seed. The fruit of the Spirit may be barely visible in your heart at times. Your local church appears contemptible. Your Bible reading seems small and your prayers little. Your family worship is weak and without momentum. Your evangelism is quiet and awkward. Your resolve itself may be puny, but if you have it do not despise it. God put it there, and God is able to transform it all as he makes you more and more into a living stone in his glorious house.
BELIEVER, TRUST GOD TO DO HIS SLOW BUT SURE WORK OF SANCTIFICATION IN YOUR LIFE, BUILT ON THE FOUNDATION OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED FOR YOU.
A cheerful heart
"I WILL SING OF STEADFAST LOVE AND JUSTICE; TO YOU, O LORD, I WILL MAKE MUSIC." PSALM 101:1
David is here the lord of his own house (v 2). He has in mind not only his kingship, but the quietness of his own home and how he carries himself there. And he begins with singing.
Let a man cheerfully go about his business, with a song in his heart. "Glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous" (Psalm 118:15). May the Christian heart and the Christian home be seasoned with songs of the Lamb's triumph.
A Christian's life is a song sung unto God. May he grant you to see your life this way, beloved. In the quiet (or hectic!) affairs of today, offer to God a cheerful heart as you go about your business. It will be music to his ears and peace to your soul.
Telling our troubles to God
"I TELL MY TROUBLE BEFORE HIM." PSALM 142:2
David was a spiritual man. He enjoyed great intimacy with God. He didn't need to be driven off into a cave (as he was here) before he told God what was bothering him. But maybe this Psalm was written to help those of us who nearly do.
Christian, have you forgotten that the Lord wants to hear your troubles? Yes, yours. He desires for you to open up to him. When you don't, you act as if he didn't really care about you. And as the old theologian John Owen said, "The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him is not to believe that he loves you."
If we really believed God's love for sinners in Christ, we would run into his arms and sob on his strong shoulders and tell him how we feel more often. Instead, we go to other people first; or worse, we take to social media! No, tell your troubles to your Father who loves you and he will see to all of them.