Dimensions of Waiting on The LORD!

As we continue to focus on "waiting on the LORD," the ‘trigger’ for us as pastors was the question, ‘What is God’s leading for us as a church?’  Is there something more for us?  We are convinced that He has something for us.  We are pursuing the LORD with greater focus and desire.  So, that has led us to meeting weekly as pastors for prayer walks and extended times of prayer together as well as our Leadership Board also committing to an early morning 6:15am prayer gathering as well.

What does waiting on the LORD mean?

The word wait is also translated ‘hope’.  It is not a ‘hope so,’ but a confident, believing hope.  It is listening, It is seeking direction, It is an exchange,..

The most famous passage that is used on speaking about this is Isaiah 40:21-31 where Isaiah is

Brought In For Questioning and he enters the Throne Room 

It was where God called him  To Lift Up His Eyes

No one compares to our LORD

The Great Exchange….the great REST

From a place of lack to a place of power

From a place of weariness, tiredness to a place of new strength and new flight!

Do you not know? Have you not heard?  The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, And vigorous young men stumble badly, Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.  Isaiah 40:28-31

That is where we began last week from sunrise to sunset and  here is just a sampling of what we heard when we were wrapping up that evening

·         Sensing a call of learning to sacrifice and what it means to run to people who are suffering

·         The challenge for mature believers is to not fall into the same old, same old as we mature in the faith, a real need to long for the deeper things of God, fresh insight, how transforming is the holiness of God and the call to plumb the depths of God.

·         More than ever, the realization that God wants our hearts.

·         From the prayer walk downtown – there is a real battle going on down there for the hearts and lives of people

·         One person shared that they need to learn to slow down and soak in the beauty of the LORD

·         Sensing the importance that we must be ‘thick’ in the Spirit that people would see Jesus in us.

·         Trusting God for Grace to be a place of healing from sickness, brokenness, pain and hurt.

·         From the sunrise prayer, sensing the birth of a new day at Grace

This morning I want to focus on inward disciplines and where they lead us in a time of questioning, a time of seeking and when searching for direction.  These disciplines are not only beneficial for a church, they are beneficial for a nation and they are beneficial for you in your own journey of faith.

We will look at confession and obedience, meditation and study, fasting and seeking direction as well as listening and prayer.

Confession and Obedience

Deuteronomy 28:v1,12  In context, God is setting out a clear imperative to His people that there is incredible blessing if they walk in obedience to His commands.  In v12, we read that God will open up the heavens.  There is a place of greater blessing for the people of God when they obey their Father and conversely disobedience will make life extremely hard for them.

2 Chronicles 7:14,15  At the dedication of the temple (signified the presence of God among them)

14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

Malachi 3:10 – speaking of the financial (natural) blessing of the LORD when we do not withhold our tithe. 

10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

You see this truth of greater blessing and open heaven in Jesus’ life in John 1:51 and with John himself in Revelation 4:1

1 John 1:9

Ephesian 6:1

These disciplines lead us to a greater blessing and purpose.

God honors and blesses a heart that is fully His…wholeheated devotion.

It was while being in these exact passages that God led Faytene Kryskow, to a greater discovery in her own life.  Faytene is a great advocate for prayer in our nation and also with ministry to our nation’s leaders.  She wrote about a time where God spoke to her about the sin and compromise in her life and yet she knew God was already using her in many ways.  However, God clearly revealed to her that she wouldn’t fully move into the destiny that He wanted for her. 

She writes, “some people are motivated away from pain while others are motivated toward reward,  because as soon as the Lord showed me clearly what the ‘sin’ in my life was costing – my destiny- it was finished.  “God, if You need to slow me down in order to build a foundation for me to stand on in later years, do it!”

Meditation and Study

Joshua 1:8,9

Romans 12:2

2 Timothy 1:7  not given you a spirit of fear…power, love and self discipline

The first part of meditation and study is the art of repetition because we are so prone to forget His truth in the middle of the battle – repeat, go over again and again and commit it to memory

Memorization

Concentration – it is the ability to be in that place of focus, free from distractions and outside influences.

Comprehension – it is the knowledge of the truth that sets us free John 8:32.  We have all had the experience of reading something over and over and then all of a sudden we get it.  We have that aha moment.  To meditate on truth means we allow time to let it sink in.  Often that means writing it out and journaling the insights that God gives you.

SPECS …sin to be forsaken, promise to be claimed, example to follow, command to obey, stumbling block to avoid.

Highlight – use pencil crayons…red for Jesus, orange for commands, blue –prophecy, green for growth, yellow for inspiration

Journal

Sharon and I have wrote truths from His Word, wrote them down on sheets, stuck them in the night table to remind ourselves

Reflection – do we realize the significance of what we are reading?

Meditation can often involve spiritual exercises which allow us to really dwell on truth.  I’ll never forget using clay… His fingerprints all over me.

These disciplines lead us to greater COURAGE. 

We take courage because we rest in His promises for us

Fasting and Direction

Nehemiah 1:3,4

Luke 5:34,35

Acts 13:2,3

Fasting is a concept that is foreign to a lot of Christians, it is seen as unnecessary and a form of legalism, that which God is not pleased with. Fasting brings spiritual awareness and if we are serious about seeking God’s leading in our lives, in our ministry, in our every move, we would fast more.

Matthew 6:17,18 – don’t make it obvious to everyone

Isaiah 58:5-7 – attitude of fasting

The Purpose of Fasting

•          To chasten the soul.  Psalm 69:10

•          To humble the soul   Psalm 35:13

•          To seek the Lord       2 Chronicles 20:3,4

•          For spiritual warfare  Matthew 17:21

One obvious value of fasting lies in the fact that its discipline helps us keep the body in its place.  It is a practical acknowledgment of the supremacy of the spiritual.  But in addition to this, fasting has direct benefits in relation to prayer as well.  Many who practice from right motives and in order to give themselves more unreservedly to prayer testify that the mind becomes unusually clear and vigorous.  There are a noticeable spiritual quickening and increased power of concentration on the things of the Spirit.  J. Oswald Sanders

These disciplines lead us to greater CLARITY 

It has been in times of fasting that I can truly say that God has given me a more clear sense of His leading in my life.  I will fast especially prior to any major decisions that I have to make.  I have also fasted

I have done different fasts.  The most obvious fast is not eating, but there was a time for LENT  (the 40 days leading to Easter)  where I made the decision to not watch hockey and that included part of the playoffs.  Why?  For me in my life I had felt that it had become too much of a consuming focus.

Prayer and Listening 

Hebrews 12:2

John 10:4,16

John 15:7

These disciplines lead us to greater COMMUNICATION

Be still

Fix your eyes

Ask the question…God what is it that you want me to know today

Journal –the impressions that God is placing on your heart.

Richard Foster writes in his book on prayer about a time when he was down on the Oregon Coast and he came to a cliff overlooking the beach.  It was there that he was admiring the forest of hemlock, spruce and cedar.  He was admiring one giant cedar and then 3 steps to the right, he saw another extremely large but obviously rotting out cedar.  There were some sprouts of green but it was only a matter of time before the tree died because it center was exposed. 

As he was observing the rotting tree, he sensed the word of the Lord saying, “This is my Church’ and as he heard it, tears came to his eyes…the church was decaying.  Then for some unknown reason, he turned and looked back at Haystack Rock in the distance.  The tide had come in and it was completely surrounded by water, the waves breaking against it.  The message from God was, ‘but this is what my Church is going to be!’

Waiting on the LORD is asking God to change the atmosphere and praying into that!  The reality is that there is a shift when a group of people are filled with the power and the presence of God.  It leads other towards God thoughts and God type decisions

As we began with confession and obedience, the picture of God’s blessing was RAIN.  They were an agrarian culture and the livelihood of the nation was dependent on the right weather.  The Hebrew word for rain is matar which means ‘heavy rain’ as well.   We are talking about a BIG ‘outpouring’ of the awareness and presence of the LORD!

It is the very presence of God that leads people to the knowledge of God.  We are asking God to fling wide OPEN the revelation and saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in this place and that can’t be done by human effort!  May we continue to wait on the LORD and let it rain!

Mark 11:22-25

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered.23 “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Hurry Up and Wait!

Why NOW? 

Why a day of prayer for Grace?

In the Hebrew Calendar, the new year begins with the feast of trumpets which actually takes place on  September 17^th which leads into the day of atonement 9 days later.

Rejoicing in The Torah -   October 9^th

The Feast of Dedication - Hanukkah  - December 9^th

The #9 interestingly has biblical significance especially this year!

·         9 fruit of the Spirit

·         9 gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12

·         There are 9 words used for judgement from the root word of righteous judgement. 

A day of prayer is a calling to a place of scrutiny before our God. 

1 Peter 4:17  judgement begins with the family of God

Psalm 39:6   We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth for someone else to spend.

Can our time-crammed lives handle one more thing?  What were you thinking Jack to call people to pray at the beginning of September!

Time is one thing that we cannot buy and yet we hear the sayings, “time is money, but as one author rightly put it, “time is life”  My heart’s desire for us is to literally ‘seize the day’ and make the most of every opportunity as we are told in Ephesians 5:15,16.  The busyness of life can leave us wanting more and I want to call us back to the source of life, the invitation from the Giver of life to

·         Settle into His purposes for you, your family, for Grace.

This week has been a blur for many of us as we raced against the clock for the books, the binders and the scientific calculators and the back to school pics!  So, who has time for God in a world addicted to speed?

I remember towards the end of one summer my brother sharing with me, “just think Jack, in a few more days, this will just be memories…”

The answer is not more time, but enough time…enough time to breathe deep, to sing for joy, to rest and reflect without feeling guilty, without feeling so hard pressed by everything that stares you in the face from yesterday’s demands.

God is I AM, He is eternally present and He is in the moment and He is calling us to worship HIM, calling us to give thanks, to break bread and create memories of a thankful heart.

Mark Buchanan shares in the rest of God

 Being in a hurry.  Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.  I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry.  But a thousand broken and missed things, ten of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing… Through all the haste I thought I was making up time.  It turns out I was throwing it away.

I have said it before and I will say it again, ‘we don’t work in order to rest’  We are called to work from a place of rest.  The first thing Adam had to do after being created was rest!

I want to call out of you what God has created you to be.    Our longing for Grace is to minister from a place of deep seated rest. 

 We rest in the confidence of God, we rest in the Word of God, we rest in the promises of God and that is the place from where we must begin.  Our service for Christ must be an outflow of our relationship with Him!

A prayer of rest by Richard Foster

Blessed Savior, I am not good at resting in the hollow of your hand.  Nothing in my experience has taught me this resting.  I have been taught how to take charge.  I have been taught how to be in control.  But how to rest?  No, I have no models, no paradigms for resting.
    That is not exactly right.  Jesus, when you walked among the Jerusalem crowds and in the Judean hills, you pioneered this way of living.  You were always alert and alive.  You lived utterly responsive to the will of the Father.  Manifold demands were placed upon you, and still you worked in unhurried peace and power.  
    Help me to walk in your steps.  Teach me to see only what you see, to say only what you say, to do only what you do.  Help me, Lord, to work resting and to pray resting.
    I ask this in your good and strong name. Amen.

Why High Power Soccer Camp for 15 years?!

Highlights of High Power Soccer Camp 12@Grace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boziz4EC5WQ

Matthew 18:1-5

About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”2 Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. 3 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.5 “And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.

Sharon and I were sitting down this weekend realizing that we have been involved in leading and participating in High Power Soccer Camp for 15 years between B.C. and Ontario and loving the joy and laughter that it brings and then there is Soccer Sunday, an opportunity for parents to see what we’ve been up to all week as well.  One of the things that has absolutely grown on us and the kids is “spontaneous melodramas” where we get the children and coaches to act out the stories of the Bible.  If you have heard these stories before as children growing up, it might have been on flannel graph! However, this is live and unexpected action.  We want people to hear these stories again with the awe and wonder of a child!  These are not fairy tales, these stories were actual events of ordinary people who had extraordinary faith in God to believe that Jesus can forgive sins, that He can rescue, that He wants us to know the Father’s love. It is my prayer that a Soccer Sunday will override our complacency and the attitude of "been there, done that," even though we may have. It is a part of us that we should never lose. It enables us to maintain our humbleness and enthusiasm.

I want adults to listen with humility as well as to how we can enter the kingdom of heaven.  It was so much fun to see my neighbour Suka and his wife, who are Sikh background, jumping with us and singing songs about Jesus as they checked out our camp this week.  It was also great to have 13 children sponsored from a neighbourhood group in the city who camp and the openness of Muslim parents to allow their children to participate in a Christian camp.  As I talked with parents it reminded me of the power of invitation.  The kids absolutely loved the camp and didn’t want it to end.  When I asked if they would come back next year, I got a resounding yes!  As I spoke with parents, two families said they would attend Soccer Sunday, but in the end did not come.  It was disappointing; however, the encouraging news is that seeds were planted and God is working in hearts.

Childlike faith is also entering into the place of confident and believing faith.  It is the belief that when we call out to him he hears us and He also speaks to us though creation, through His Word and through His still small voice that speaks to our hearts.

It was just over a month ago that we were only at 16 campers and it was my son Rylan who woke up one morning and told me that God told him we were going to have 60 campers.  So, when we had 78 campers, I asked him what was that all about….he told me God can always do more!!  Gotta love it!

Martin Luther said the faith that results in being declared righteous before a holy God is like the hand of the beggar reaching out to receive a gift. Before God, we're all beggars. The Lord Jesus offers us the gift of eternal life. We must receive his offer by the faith of an empty hand that offers nothing in exchange.

Jesus turned everything upside down. Those who appeared to be the least likely candidates entered God's kingdom before those who thought they would be first in line.

How do you explain tax collectors understanding the truth before religious leaders.

"I think Jesus meant we have to come to him like a child," says Amanda, 11. "We don't have to say special words. We need to be like a child and not talk fancy.

I read this and really liked it…

Fancy words, religious rituals and clerical garb may impress people, but they don't influence God. He sees the heart. God knows we can deceive ourselves into believing we're good enough to make the grade for heaven by our good works. Jesus is trying to send us a wake-up call when he said simple, childlike faith is needed to enter his kingdom.

Jesus came to Earth to tell us about a loving Father and a kingdom in which righteousness and justice prevail.  He came to offer us a permanent solution for sin through His death on the cross.  He secured our forgiveness and as a child in humility we are called to accept it, believe it and receive it for ourselves.

God give me faith to see through the eyes of a child that nothing is too hard for you.

Living Through Anger and Disappointment

It hasn't been a good week for our triathletes as we were confronted with the cries of Paula Findlay,  a medal contender going into the triathlon for Canada only to finish last in the event and then Simon Whitfield crashing out today.  We are all proud of them, but you can feel the disappointment knowing how hard they prepared and what it took to get them there. 

Now, it is one thing to be angry or upset with yourself; but how do you respond when someone is angry with God?

What creates a crisis of faith?

How do you respond to a crisis of faith?

There are times when you should say nothing, when you should simply be a listening ear.  It is an easy thing to say, but a lot harder to do.  It is hard to hear someone who is visibly upset and angry and if their anger is directed towards God, we want to defend Him naturally.

We want to say something positive and encouraging; however, there are times when we should stay with the feeling that is being expressed and simply be quiet and listen.

Like God did when Heman the Ezrahite poured out his anguish to the Lord in Psalm 88.

Psalm 88 is a maskil = It means understanding.  The verb form is to look at, to scrutinize, to look well into anything.  In the noun form, it means understanding arising from deep consideration

The writer clearly identifies what kind of a prayer this psalm is: It is a cry. More accurately, it is a wail, a sob expressing a pain so deep and a despair so wide that it consumes him day and night

As a cry of lament it is unique among the 150 psalms in the Bible “because of its gloom and unrelieved misery”.  Unlike other psalms of lament (i.e. 22 and 31), there is no resolution, no turning point.  There is no trusting or praising God. That makes it hard to read and even harder to appreciate.

This kind of wailing cry, however, has always had a place in Israel as a legitimate expression of overwhelming pain, of deep, long-term suffering for which there is no quick fix. That’s why the Old City of Jerusalem has a wailing wall.

The western wall is still a place not only to mourn the destruction of the Temple in the first century but also to grieve the disintegration of their national and personal dreams and hopes.  It was here that I stood and prayed three years ago while on a tour for the light of the glorious gospel to shine through all those crumpled up prayers that have been stuck in that wall.  May they know that Jesus, you are the Messiah!

Take a moment and consider what has been your crisis of faith?  Maybe you have had a few and possibly you are in one right now.

You may have been told that showing emotion or crying is a form of weakness.   You may have felt the need to apologize for shedding tears when emotional or hurt.  I grew up in a family with four older brothers and we seldom displayed raw emotion.  It wouldn’t be until four months after my father passed away, while on my honeymoon with Sharon that I finally sobbed with Sharon at my side feeling the true weight of my loss.

 Psalm 88 invites us to lament, and encourages us to express our pain “when your soul is full of trouble.”v3   In other words, permission granted to grieve.

 Dealing With Loss v3-9

Why was his soul so full of trouble that he cried day and night?  He grieved two losses.

·         Death v3-5

First, he was convinced that he was dying,  he spoke of “being near the grave’.

He could have been mortally wounded from battle, deathly sick or possibly dying of old age.

He speaks of being confined and unable to escape in v8 as well as having eyes that were dim with grief.  He is feeling the loss of his health.

If you have had a near death experience that has or been close to someone near death, you know how confining an experience like that can be.  It’s a hard place to be and even harder to visit especially for those to be reminded of their own mortality.

·         Lonliness v6-9

It had to just tear him apart inside knowing that his closest friends stayed away, unwilling to be with him in the time of his greatest need.  He felt like God had made him ‘repulsive’ to them.  He was grieving the loss of his friends.

These were his twin losses: health and friends. Certainly one of these is bad enough, but the writer is clearly dealing with both

Loss equals grief and it was grief that made his eyes dim (v.9).

The Stages of Grief  v6-18

We are aware of the stages of grief thanks to the famous book by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross “On Death and Dying.”

It is her insights that almost everyone now knows the stages of grief:

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance.

We can identify three of these stages here in Psalm 88

·         Anger  v6-9, aimed at God: “You have put me in the lowest pit” (v.6). “You have overwhelmed me with all your waves” (v.7). “You have taken from me my closest friends” (v.8). You, you, you! You put. You overwhelmed. You took. You can almost see his finger shaking angrily at the heavens; feel his body shaking with frustration at God?  If this was a message in our world, it would be all CAPS!

·         Bargaining.   Notice the desperate bargaining in verses 10-12: “Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the place of oblivion?” In other words: Come on, God. I’m ready to praise you, to declare your wonders. But I can’t do that when I’m dead. So let me live and I’ll show you what a life of worship looks like.

·         Depression.  Finally, notice the deep depression in verses 13-18, the final six verses. It is all consuming – in the morning (v.13), all day long (v.17), in the darkness (v.18). It is constant suffering - rejection (v.14), affliction (v.15), terror (v.15), an engulfing flood (v.17). It is obsessively focused on one question: “Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?” (v.14) Isn’t that the most essential human cry? The question “Why?”

When you read this psalm at home you expect it to do what other psalms of laments do …you are looking for a shift to a note of praise.  It has been called a place of redefinition or a perspective change.

However there are no  answers in Psalm 88; it doesn’t relent and its eighteen verses end with sadness:

 “The darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88:18).The writer of this psalm appeared to be light years away from the final stage: acceptance.

So, what do we do with such a consistent and depressing psalm?  What are the takeaways that we can take for our lives?

It reminds us that other people have been right where we are or right where our friend is.  They have gone through the dark night of their soul.

"What is so wonderful about the psalms is the kind of companionship they offer. There is a rainbow of human emotion in the psalms. The psalms help you realize that no matter what happens, other people have been through this. The psalms are an incredible benefit to the human soul."

James Schaap

For those  who are depressed or dealing with long term illness, for those who feel like they are dying on the inside, this psalm SPEAKS!   This psalm tells you it is OK to lament, to tell God exactly what you are feeling in this moment.  Sometimes it can just suck the life right out of you!

God can handle it.  He will walk with you through it.  Jesus has been there. 

It reminds us often that we just need to be heard or the people in our lives just need us to listen.  Stop trying to fix it and just BE in that place, that moment, that life.  The Spirit will tell you when and what to say if anything at all.

What do sad, grieving people not need? They don’t need explanations for what we think is wrong in their lives. They don’t need solutions for what we perceive to be their problems. They don’t need condescending advice based on what worked for us in a very different situation. They don’t need impatience with their slow progress or even backsliding. And they don’t need relentless optimism, which only makes their despair feel worse.

It is the honesty to say, “How are you REALLY doing?” and being ready for whatever may come.

We also need to remember that while the writer is extremely depressed by life, disappointed by people and even despairing of God, his faith is shown in the realization that this psalm is a CRY.  He is still a person of prayer.  Heman and God are still talking and that brings hope.

The psalm also begs us to hope.  It may appear to be a tragic play that fails to deliver a happy ending, but it desperately pursues it.  As one writer wrote, ‘it pushes us to search for what is missing’.  We can’t stay here.  There must be a new beginning.

It is the same truth that Paul reminded us in 1 Thessalonians 4:13,14 that we do not grieve like the rest of men who have no hope…NO, our hope is in the belief that Jesus died and rose again.

We shouldn’t skip a psalm like this even though it is tough reading.  It is a real authentic expression of our broken world and it does have the power to drive us into the loving arms of our Abba Father.

The Parallels

For Jesus, it was Psalm 22:1,2 from where he quoted from during  his darkest moment  close to the end of His earthly life when he felt the excruciating absence of the presence of God as he cried out,  ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

For the Israelites, their first crisis of faith following the Exodus came in swift fashion.

Exodus 14:10-12  states that they were terrified.  They were in despair and felt trapped between the Rea Sea and the onslaught of the coming Egyptian army. 

The complaints are rattled off:

·         Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that we will not rot out and die.

·         You should have just left us alone, we were better serving the Egyptians

However it is that moment when there is nowhere else to turn that we experience the God of salvation.

Anne Graham Lotz writes:

"We may intellectually grasp the truth that God's power is adequate but we can never know that by experience if we stay in our comfort zone.  If all you ever attempt is what you know you can do yourself, if all your needs seem to be met through someone or something other than God, if you never have any difficulties that are greater than you can bear - how will you know the awesome greatness and personal availability of His infinite power?  It's when the Red Sea is before you, the mountains are on one side of you, the desert is on the other side, and you feel the Egyptian army closing in from behind that you experience His power to open up an escape route.  Power to do the supernatural, the unthinkable, the impossible."  

God shows up, they are called to stand firm

V14 The LORD will fight for you, you need only to be still.

It is a promise that they would have to wait for with patient endurance with the tenacity expressed in Hebrews 6:11We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Waiting is not sitting around hoping my circumstances will change.  It is not an escape from reality, it doesn’t leave us idle, it will put us in gear!  It will force us to make changes.

The Takeaway

There is a place OF LIVING HOPE where Psalm 88 ends and Psalm 89 begins. I t is a new chapter and that is why another Ezrahite, Ethan, begins with v1 singing of the LORD’s great love forever.  It is the same place where the Israelites despair turns to deliverance.  It is that place where a lament gives birth to a new song.

We were at The Cry last week with a van load that came with us from Grace and it was while we were there during a time of personal repentance that God moved powerfully.  One lady began to weep and it brought many of us to our knees as we repented not only for ourselves, but for our nation.  I really don't know how long it lasted, but it was awhile and then the heaviness lifted and it was time to "rise up" and we sang songs of victory to our Lord, let it rain, and for the moving of the Spirit to birth a new awakening in our land!

Never give up in praying to God.  He can handle it.  He can take your most desperate and dark prayers better than anyone.

Pray with a clean mind and with faith. When praying, always rejoice in hope that the thing you are praying for be answered, patient in time of tribulation and never stop praying to God.

There can be significant crisis of faith that we are called to walk through and it in this moments that we truly understand the incredible battle that we are in.

A living hope will change how you see ourselves, it reminds us that we are aliens and strangers.  1 Peter 2:11  We aren’t living for and chasing after this world. 

It will change what we value.  Matthew 6:21; For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

It affects what we do with our lives.  1 John 3:1-3  It purifies us

The Benefits.

A living hope gives us joy and peace  that you may abound in peace by the HS – Romans 15:13

A living hope protects us Psalm 33:18

It gives us strength, endurance and courage.  Psalm 31:24

It gives us confidence in the face of death.  1 Thessalonians 4:13

It gives us motivation in ministry to others  1 Tim. 4:10… fixed our hope on the living God, the Savior of all men.

Rise Up!

Soaking In The Psalms "Living With Expectant Hope"

The recent news this past week is our part of the world seems so meaningless.  We read about 12 people being shot to death at a movie theatre in Aurora, CO and 50 injured.  Earlier this week, it was closer to home in Scarborough, ON where 2 people were killed during a shooting at a block party and 23 injured.  There has been an increase of shooting violence of 32% in TO this year with 140 incidents to date.

Where is the hope?

It has been said that hope is a projection of the imagination; so is despair.  Despair all too readily embraces the ills it foresees; hope is an energy that arouses the mind to explore every possibility to combat them.  It is motivated to picture every possible issue, to try every door, to fit together the most difficult pieces of the puzzle and to see the fingerprints of God.

The word ‘hope’ has been given a bad rap over the years and has been put on the same level as wishful thinking as in it’s usage when someone says “I hope so”.  I’ll never forget my own kids jumping on Rylan after he prayed one time using the word hope.  However the true meaning of biblical hope is the certainty of expectation as it relates to being on a receiving system not an achieving one.

Biblical hope does the very same thing but in prayer.  It is a prayer that envisions that believes that when it seeks, it will find, that when it knocks, the door will be open, asks and it will be given.  Matthew 7:7,8. 

I’ll never forget my conversation with my cousin Ashraf shared about his muslim faith and what he said after all the five pillars to his faith,” I hope I will be accepted by Allah.”

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.  Proverbs 13:2

One of my great longings is to see people enter into the new and living hope of life with Jesus.

Psalm 32 has been connected by many commentators to Psalm 33 and this is seen in the connection of similar metaphors and word usage from references to God’s unfailing love to the imagery of horses.  The living hope for King David was that he could finally put his past behind him and walk in newness of life.

Biblical hope is believing, expectant and persistent!  It is strong, confident and secure.

LORD  - all capitals in the Hebrew is a reference to Yahweh, the personal, covenanting God, it is a picture of Jesus.

The path to a living and vibrant hope is established IN PRAISE and WORSHIP.

1       A living hope is established in our praises v 1-3

·         It is fitting and skillful

In the Authorised Version, verse three reads "Play skillfully with a loud noise"! It is important that we have some noisy times in our worship together. Just as quietness expresses our intimacy with God, so loudness releases our passion and wholehearted commitment.

Am I in that category, am I part of the upright?  The passage answers this question.

When we are cynical, critical and negative are souls are not right.  We are called to praise God with all of our skill and artistry.

I love how Eugene Peterson writes this passage in the Message

Good people, cheer God! Right-living people sound best when praising.

   Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs!

      Play his praise on a grand piano!

   Invent your own new song to him;

      give him a trumpet fanfare.

It has been a joy for me to watch Rylan continue to gain skill as he learns to play the guitar thanks to Sharon and James Sabatini.  The song he is learning to play is “Come, Now Is The Time To Worship”.

·         It is new song

A new song is used in Scripture in relation to God’s deliverance.  We see this in Psalm 96 as well in relation to salvation = deliverance

It is also speak to the realization that His mercies are new every morning.  Lamentations 3:22,23

It is new.  How do you keep your worship of the LORD fresh?

·         It is confident! Shout for joy!!

2.       A living hope is built up through the confession of His Word v 4-19

God’s Word presents His perspective on reality.  It is true, right and reliable.  How quickly we appeal to our own wisdom or experience.

·         The LORD of creation

The affirmations of God’s sovereignty stand in stark contrast to those who continually seek out “the God particle”  In the latest issue of Macleans, the cover page is all about the Higgs boson particle = which has been compared to the moon landing as the scientific achievement of a generation.

I quote the article by Kate Lunau and Katie Engelhart

The Higgs particle tells us something very basic and fundamental about why we’re here. It is evidence of the Higgs field, an invisible force field that stretches across the universe, encasing us like a Jell-O mould, and giving mass to elementary particles within it: the stuff that makes up stars, planets, trees, buildings, animals and all of us. Without mass, electrons, protons and neutrons wouldn’t stick together to make atoms; atoms wouldn’t make molecules; none of us would exist.

But check out the discovery that David presents for us:

Genesis 1:3 It brings us back to Genesis and John 1 – by the word of the Lord.  That is the picture of Jesus Christ. We also see “by the breath of his mouth” and in the Hebrew the word breath also means Spirit so what we have in front of us is a beautiful picture of the Trinity active in creation.

·         The LORD of the nations

Arrogance and pride are the downfall of nations

Righteousness, truth and justice exalts a nation

Let me share with you about our forefathers who founded this country.  Sir William Tilley originally proposed the name, “The Dominion of Canada” in 1867 as he read Psalm 72:8 prior to a parliamentary meeting.  It would be there that the government decided the name of the new country and it would be formalized through confederation.

This Saturday we are going to the CRY which is not an event or a concert, but a movement to pray for righteousness and justice to reign in our land.  The really neat unplanned things about this event is that it takes place on  0728…Psalm 72:8. 

Faytene shares

We were in awe when we discovered that July 28th is T'isha b'Av (the 9th of Av) on the Jewish calendar. This is a day that is marked on the Jewish calendar to fast, pray and seek God as a nation.

3     A living hope is experienced through His unfailing love v18-22

God’s love for us is not based on our perfection, merit, or accomplishments. He’s not counting how many times we pray each day, how much money we give to charity, or how much time we spend volunteering. Nor is He keeping score of how many people we’ve won to Christ, how many services we attended, or how well-behaved we’ve been under pressure.

We often don’t have trouble receiving His unfailing love when we feel worthy; however, if we have messed up, we feel unworthy to be in His presence and yet that is the first place He wants us to run.

Beth Moore wrote in Breaking Free,

“Oh, God, awake our souls to see—You are what we want, not just what we need. Yes, our life’s protection, but also our heart’s affection. Yes, our soul’s salvation, but also our heart’s exhilaration. Unfailing love. A love that will not let me go!” 

It’s a love that pull me out of the muck, out of the ditch and also puts a undeniable love for others within me.  He renovates my mind and my heart and changes my perspective from one of judgment of others to compassion for others.

A beautiful friend of mine, Ruth Bailey, passed away on Friday. She was 82 and we had a special connection at Southside.  She was a die-hard Leafs fan, but she was also deeply committed to seeing her family trust Jesus.  It ran deep especially for her husband, Bill, who was held in bitterness for so many years due to the drowning and death of two of their children when they were under 10.  When I visited, he would show me pictures and the tears would flow.  A few years ago, Bill took sick and I had the opportunity to pray for healing and faith with him and he prayed to trust Christ.  He still had his challenges and then when Ruth had her first stroke in May, the family came together.  As I sat by Ruth’s bedside she took hold of my hand with the one side of her body that was still able and prayed for me.  She spoke of how this is all worth it so the family who gathered with her could hear her express her faith.  She would have another stroke and pass away, but Ruth was a woman who knew God’s unfailing love!

The Takeaway!

·         Waiting in hope for the LORD

Who are the upright?

The upright are those who look to the Lord as their hope and shield.  It means that we trust in Him.

Hope is the godly use of the imagination to believe God that he can take every situation, every life, every dream, our nation and weave His glorious purposes through it.  It is that confident and expectant!

My hope is built on nothing less

            than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

            I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

            but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

Refrain:

            On Christ the solid rock I stand,

            all other ground is sinking sand;

            all other ground is sinking sand.

2.         When Darkness veils his lovely face,

            I rest on his unchanging grace.

            In every high and stormy gale,

            my anchor holds within the veil.

            (Refrain)

3.         His oath, his covenant, his blood

            supports me in the whelming flood.

            When all around my soul gives way,

            he then is all my hope and stay.

            (Refrain)

4.         When he shall come with trumpet sound,

            O may I then in him be found!

            Dressed in his righteousness alone,

            faultless to stand before the throne!