Moment to Moment (Bible blog)
For God is my witness, how deeply I miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:8)
Father, do I have the same affection for your people that Jesus has? Would you be able to say of me, “Bruce feels the exact same way for my people as my Son does.”
Father, give me your heart. Give me the heart of your Son toward your people.
Do not bring any detestable thing into your house, or you will be set apart for destruction like it.
You are to abhor and detest it utterly because it is set apart for destruction. (Deuteronomy 7:26)
Those words really resonated with me this morning.
How often do I bring detestable things into my home?
For me, the thing I need to be most careful about “bringing in” is what I watch on the internet. Or what kinds of things I read. Or what podcasts I listen to.
God brought to mind a podcast I was listening to just yesterday. It was mostly fine, but there was about a five-minute stretch of coarse joking.
I wasn’t entertained at all, but for some reason, I didn’t shut it off either. Probably because it never occurred to me how much God detested it.
I think next time, I’ll either have to skip forward or shut it off altogether. Because anything God detests, I need to too. These are things are set apart for destruction.
We are a holy people, belonging to the Lord. God has chosen us to be his special possession. (6)
So with grateful hearts, let us live that way, and not “bring into our homes” anything God detests.
Samuel replied, “Don’t be afraid. Even though you have committed all this evil, don’t turn away from following the Lord. Instead, worship the Lord with all your heart.
Don’t turn away to follow worthless things that can’t profit or rescue you; they are worthless.
The Lord will not abandon his people, because of his great name and because he has determined to make you his own people.” (1 Samuel 12:20-22)
Sometimes, we look at all our sins and failures as Christians, and get discouraged. We wonder how God could still accept us.
But we should take heart from Samuel’s words. Even though we sin, even though we fail, don’t turn away from following the Lord. Instead continue to worship the Lord with all our hearts.
Why?
Because the Lord will not abandon his people. Not because we are so wonderful, but because he is. And he is determined to make us his own people.
More, just as Samuel prayed for the people and continued to teach them the good and right way, so does Jesus, and so does the Holy Spirit. (Romans 8:26-27, 34; John 14:26, 16:13; 1 John 1:27)
So again. Don’t give up. Instead remember Samuel’s words:
Above all, fear the Lord and worship him faithfully with all your heart; consider the great things he has done for you. (1 Samuel 12:24)
In the Old Testament, God called the Jews to be his special people, and Jerusalem was called the city of God.
But Psalm 87 looks to a future Jerusalem, a heavenly one. (Hebrews 12:22-23)
What had to be amazing to the Jews who read this psalm was that it points to a time when even the Jews’ greatest enemies would be counted among God’s people.
People from Rahab, (i.e. Egypt), Babylon, and Philistia, would become God’s people.
People from Tyre and Cush (i.e. Ethiopia) would also be counted among God’s people.
God will say of them, “They are not outsiders. These people were actually born in my city. They are full-fledged citizens.” (Psalm 87:5-6)
John writes about this in Revelation.
After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.
They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
Salvation belongs to our God,
who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb! (Revelation 7:9-10)
So remember who you are.
Who are you?
You are his.
It doesn’t matter if you’re Japanese, American, Australian, Chinese, Korean, or whatever you may be. You were born again into the kingdom of God when you put your trust in Jesus.
Paul puts it this way,
(When you were ‘outsiders’), you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ…
He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household… (Ephesians 2:12-13, 17-19)
So let us always remember who we are and rejoice with all of God’s people, singing,
My whole source of joy is in you. (Psalm 87:7)
Yesterday, we talked about who we are in Christ. Peter expands on that even more in this chapter.
He says in verses 9-10,
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession…
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
As Christians, we are to reflect on these things. Reflect on the grace and mercy God has given you, but also on who has he called you to be: his people and his priests.
And as his people and priests, remember why God in his grace and mercy chose us:
…so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (9b)
We are not meant to keep our salvation to ourselves. We aren’t meant to simply say, “I’m so glad I’m a child of God.”
We live now in a world darkened by sin and all the pain that comes from it. The people around us need hope.
So as God’s people, as God’s priests, let us proclaim God’s praises to those around us that they too may come out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.
Last Sunday, I preached a message by the same title as this article. I was preaching from Mark 4, where Jesus commanded the crowds, “Listen!”
Here we see God saying the same thing to the Israelites.
But here’s what I found interesting.
God said,
For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me…to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. (Jeremiah 13:11a, NIV)
In the same way, we are called to be God’s people for his renown, praise, and honor.
But what was the problem with the Jews?
But they have not listened. (11b)
He explains further earlier in verse 10.
These wicked people, who refuse, to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after false gods to serve and worship them, will be like this (ruined) belt–completely useless.
How about us? When people see us, do they praise and honor God? Do they themselves want to turn to God and become his people too?
We can only be a people for God’s renown, praise, and honor if we listen to him. If our hearts are soft to him.
So remember God’s words to the Jews. They are for us too.
Hear and pay attention, do not be arrogant, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God… (Jeremiah 13:15)
We’ve been going through the whole Bible from beginning to end over the past four years. And in this chapter, we see the culmination of all things, where all scripture is finally fulfilled.
We started in the garden of Eden where Adam and Eve walked with God before the fall.
But even after the fall and everything was cursed, God never gave up on us. Instead he chose Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be his people.
Then all of Israel became his people and he their God.
After Christ’s death and resurrection, that title of being God’s people was then extended to all who would put their faith in Christ.
And now comes the consummation of all these things. John sees a new heaven and a new earth. And there is no longer any sea.
I don’t know if that last is literal or not. The thing is, the sea has often been used in Revelation as a symbol for evil. The beast in chapter 13, for example rises from the sea.
And so perhaps, John is merely saying that all evil and all the chaos that comes from it is now completely gone.
Then John says,
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. (Revelation 21:2)
Again, I wonder at the literalness of this. Is it truly a city that John sees? Or is it all the people of God, whom Paul calls the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:25-32). Or is it both?
Whatever it means, the key point comes in the next verse.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” (Revelation 21:3)
At one time, God dwelt with Adam and Eve with the Garden of Eden. They were his people and he their God. Then they fell into sin.
When God promised to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt, the Israelites were told that he would be their God and they his people (Exodus 6:7) and the tabernacle was a sign of his dwelling among them. (Exodus 40:34-35)
When they moved into the promised land, the temple took the place of the tabernacle, but it too was a sign of God’s dwelling among them. (I Kings 8:10-12)
But again the people sinned and God’s Spirit departed the temple (Ezekiel 10:18). The temple was destroyed and rebuilt more than once after that before finally being destroyed for good in A.D. 70.
Now the people of God are his temple, and he dwells within us (1 Corinthians 6:19).
But on that day when all is fulfilled, we will forever be in the presence of God and we will see him face to face.
And God gives us these words of hope.
I am making everything new. (Revelation 21:5)
Then echoing Jesus’ words on the cross, he says,
It is done. (6a)
But whereas Jesus’ words were talking about how the payment for our sins was finally paid, now God’s plan of salvation is completely fulfilled and we’re all finally home.
And he who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End of all things, says,
To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (6-7)
We all go through times of hardship and suffering in our lives. And sometimes it seems interminable. Unbearable.
But it won’t last forever. God is control. He always has been and ever will be. He has already written the end of the story. And the end of the story ends with us being with him forever.
So set your eyes on him. Know that your trials will not last forever. He will bring you home. And on that day, John tells us,
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4)
One of the things that I learned way back in Sunday school was, “The church is not a building. It’s people.”
That’s true, but not quite complete. The church is a people whose hearts belong to God.
Unfortunately, Israel’s heart did not belong to God, despite being, “God’s people.”
They had turned their backs on him, worshiping idols, even going so far at times to put idols in God’s temple itself.
In the end, God had enough. He left the temple.
That’s what this passage is all about. From the time Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, God’s presence rested there (2 Chronicles 5:14).
This is not to say, of course, that it was really his house, for as Solomon said,
The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! (2 Chronicles 6:18).
But Solomon’s prayer was that God’s eyes and ears would be open to the place that had been built for His name (2 Chronicles 6:20-42).
The temple that Solomon had built was glorious. But now, because of Israel’s sin and unfaithfulness towards God, the temple’s true Glory, had departed.
We see Israel’s stubbornness of heart in the next chapter, where 25 of the leaders of Israel kept insisting that nothing bad was going to happen to the city.
God rebuked them, and as a sign, slew one of them right then and there.
At which point, Ezekiel cried out,
“Ah, Sovereign Lord! Will you completely destroy the remnant of Israel?” (Ezekiel 11:13)
To which God basically answered, “No I will not. I’m still with those who have been taken captive in Babylon.”
The ones remaining in Jerusalem had said of them,
They are far away from the Lord; this land was given to us as our possession. (Ezekiel 11:15)
It’s possible here that the people who had been taken captive were the ones who had heeded Jeremiah’s advice to surrender to the Babylonians (Jeremiah 27:17).
As a result, the people who had remained considered them as traitors, rejected by the Lord who had given Israel their land.
But it wasn’t those who had stubbornly stayed despite Jeremiah’s warning that were God’s people. It was those who had left. And God said of them,
Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.
Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’ (Ezekiel 11:16-17)
He then went on to say,
I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God. (19-20)
What is a true temple? It’s not a building. Who are truly God’s people?
It’s not people who simply go to church or have Christian parents.
God’s temple and God people are those within whom God dwells. They are those to whom God has given a soft heart, and a heart to follow him.
May we all have hearts like that.
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 