Be Still

Psalm 37: 7 says, "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…" If I had a nickel for all the times my wife and I had to tell one of our kids to "sit still" I would be…and you fill in the blank. Our son, Nicholas, was particularly squirmy. Of course there is nothing unusual about a child struggling to sit still in church or in school. The wiggles are a normal part of growing up as we learn to wait patiently.

 This principle applies to our spiritual lives too. In this Psalm David is restless as he thinks about the prosperity of the wicked. It's hard to be patient and wait for the Lord especially when the wicked seem to be living in such ease. In Psalm 46:19 the Lord says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Spiritually speaking, we get the wiggles when we don't see God doing what he has promised to do or what we think he should do. I fear our fast-paced world of same-day Amazon drone delivery is conditioning us to be more impatience in ways that bleed into our relationships with God.

 This recent pandemic has been a great challenge for most of us because God is saying "Be still." But, it's important to remember that the psalmist doesn't stop with "be still." The psalmist says, "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him." The virus has brought the entire world to a standstill, but God is calling us to be still before Him. What does that mean? Well, it's being "still" for a higher reason, to see yourself again before the Lord. It's being still to remember again that you are his and he is yours. It's a "still" that helps you reframe your life by the truth that God has created you and called you to "delight yourself" in Him and "commit your way" to Him (vv. 4-5). Dear Ones, Jesus invites us in a more profound way to "be still" in his finished work for us at the cross, in the power of his resurrection, and before his throne. To the restless soul Jesus says, "Come to me all you who are weary." To the noisy conscience Jesus says, "It is Finished." To the fearful heart Jesus says, "All authority has been given to me." Oh that we would learn to be still in the grip of such marvelous grace!!!

How to Pray for Perspective

How many of us have the desire to pray like David in Psalm 39: "O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!" (Psalm 39:4). Why would we want to pray like this? The answer is, for perspective. We need to know that our lives are but a "few handbreadths." What's a handbreadth? Well, it’s a crude measurement using the width of your palm. That's between 3-4 inches for most of us. The point is, It's not big! Your lifespan even if you live to be 80, as David says, "is nothing before God," and "a mere breath" (v. 5). He goes on to say our lives are like "shadows" on the ground. Shadows don’t last because the earth never stops spinning. How can this perspective serve us well? Well, for one, David says, it will save us from the turmoil that comes when we try to heap up wealth, not knowing who will get it all when we die (v. 6). It's very easy to get locked into a money making mode of life and forget just how short life is and how impossible it is to take any of it with you. Before you know it your short stress-filled life is over and your family is arguing about what you've left them or not! On the other hand, Dear Ones, if we maintain the perspective not only that life is fleeting, but that life is lived before the face of God then He becomes the object of our hope (v. 7), the one we sin against and the one who can deliver us from our sins (v. 8), and the one who is preparing us for eternity by "consuming like a moth what is dear to us" (v. 11). Be thankful that God loves you enough to consume those things in your life that would cause you to lose perspective. Like David, we are mere sojourners passing through this life with God on our way to a better and lasting home. Jesus came into this world not merely to model the sojourner’s life for us and show us what a life lived before the face of God should look like, but to secure our resurrection and eternal life through his death on the cross. God did not create the first man Adam for a short, shadowy, life of amassing possessions on this earth, but for at eternal Kingdom! From the beginning God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11). And at the cross Jesus secured our eternity, conquering sin and death.

God Digs Ears

"In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offerings and sin offering you have not required." Psalm 40:6

 In reading over Psalm 40 this morning, I couldn't help but be taken by this verse. What does the Psalmist mean when he says, "In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear?" Sacrifices and offerings were the focal point of worship in Old Testament times. If you doubt that, you should read the book of Leviticus. God had made animal sacrifices the focal point of Old Testament worship to teach the people that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Lev. 17:11). Every Old Testament animal sacrifice was a shadow of Jesus' death on the cross, the final and ultimate sacrifice for sins.

So why is David saying to God, "In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted," when it is God who required them? There is another passage of Scripture that sheds some light on this, its Psalm 51. There, David says, "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Ps. 51:16-17). What David means is that as important as animal sacrifices were, there is something that God delighted in more. God delights then and now in our broken spirit and contrite heart. He wanted that more than he wanted David to go through the motions of making another animal sacrifice. He wanted David's repentance and new obedience. Dear Ones, God delights more in your heart-felt repentance than he does all your sacrifices and service in life. Without our daily repentance the cross of Christ remains far off and all our religious experiences are mechanical. Never forget that.

 Now what comes next, is a little gem I think. David says, "but you have given me an open ear." A more literal translation says, "ears you have dug for me." Notice two things. First, it is God who digs ears for David. That's grace. We cannot dig ears for ourselves. Second, we need to have ears dug for us. Why? Because sin deafens us so that nothing that God says gets in. We need God to dig ears for us so that we can hear the gospel promises, repent, and follow him in new obedience.

 Stay with me because there's more! The author of Hebrews puts this verse in the mouth of Jesus saying, "Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure" (Heb. 10:5-6). Why has the part about "ears you have dug for me" been replaced by "a body have you prepared for me?" The author of Hebrews is quoting Psalm 40:6 from the very first translation of the Bible called the Septuagint, a Greek translation. It's hard to say how these translators went from 'digging an ear' to 'preparing a body', but the idea that God makes body parts is in both. So, dear ones, if Old Testament sacrifices and offerings were sufficient to appease the wrath of God and forgive sins, God would not have prepared a body for Christ to come into the world and die for us. As God to dig new ears so that you can repent and believe the gospel all over again today.