It’s Saturday, and my internal alarm told me to get up at the usual time, so I hope you will take the time to add my sharing to your own for our mutual blessing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
As I continue to explore Psalm 25 with the theme of God’s friendship attaching to our fearing of him, I notice these puzzle pieces coming together in one scene of the picture after another. On one side we have “the steadfast love” and the “mercies” of Yahweh expressing his faithfulness to those who fear him. On the other side we have the “hope in Yahweh” and the “waiting for Yahweh” expressed by those who fear him.
The reason this is so significant is that, if God’s friendship towards us was based on our keeping of the Law, HE WOULD HAVE NO FRIENDS!!!!
So, if any of us are willing to acknowledge what the Psalm-writer expressed,
If you, O Yahweh, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.[1]
we can actually gain encouragement from this side of fearing God. We know what he could do to us if he kept a record of our sins, and yet we also know what it feels like to be forgiven. No wonder we fear this Father who could wipe us out in an instant and yet delights to win us over into his friendship instead!
Look at how the Psalm-writer continues after marveling at the forgiveness God offers his friends:
I wait for Yahweh, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.[2]
The point is that, because Yahweh-God is so forgiving and good, our souls wait in hope for him.
What hits me is our propensity to fill in time with worldly things while “waiting” for God to do something when God is doing things that require us to wait in hope. It’s like Jesus’ words to the disciples just before his ascension to heaven:
“And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”[3]
Luke expresses it again in Acts:
And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”[4]
What did the disciples do while they “stayed” in the city “waiting” to be “clothed with power from on high”?
Luke writes, “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.”[5] The people were not waiting in their own homes, but waiting “together”. They were not all separated in individualistic introspection, but were together “with one accord”. They were not keeping themselves busy with worldly things while waiting for something spiritual to happen. Rather, they were “devoting themselves to prayer” while they were together.
Luke continues, “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.”[6] It was because they stayed and waited in the hope of what Jesus promised that “they were all together in one place” when it was time for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
After the Psalm-writer expressed his wonder-filled worship that Yahweh-God forgives sin, and after he expressed his own testimony of waiting in hope for Yahweh as the watchmen wait in hope for the morning, he expresses this exhortation to the people of God:
O Israel, hope in Yahweh!
For with Yahweh there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.[7]
Do you see that? We put our hope in Yahweh because his “steadfast love” endures forever towards those who fear him, no exceptions. We put our hope in Yahweh because, in him there is “plentiful redemption,” super-abounding grace that is greater than the greatest abounding of our sin.[8]
Where do we put our hope when we know that our fearing of Yahweh is constantly tainted with our sin?
We wait in hope for Yahweh who “WILL redeem” his people and “from ALL” our “iniquities.”
Doesn’t that make so much sense of why those who fear Yahweh know both of these things, that,
If you, O Yahweh, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
And,
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.[9]
And so, we welcome with delighted wonder this gift of grace,
The friendship of Yahweh is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.[10]
Let’s let our hearts enjoy this today, that
we who have received Jesus Christ are those who fear him, sinful though we may
be, and we fear him all the more for how forgiving and good he is towards his
beloved children. What a secure place to be!
© 2020 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English
Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition:
2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News
Publishers.)
No comments:
Post a Comment