Most would agree that it's been a long winter - this winter of the pandemic. BUT it's finally springtime!! It's seems like everyone has burst forth outside like the blooms on the trees. There just seems to be a new exhuberance with restaurants opening and people out and about after such a long darkness of being inside.
Life seems so pure in the springtime - washed clean. Romance and weddings are in the air. Maybe that why the song Your Love is Like the Springtime really spoke to me this Sunday at church. I invite you to paste this into your browser and listen to it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8wRprU4988
Some of the lyrics are (instead of a poem by me this time):
We will sing a new song, 'Cause death is dead and gone with the winter. We will sing a new song, Let "hallelujahs" flow like a river.
We're coming back to life Reaching toward the light.
You're the living water God, we thirst for You. The dry and barren Will bloom and grow
Come tend the soil of my soul And like a garden I will grow. And like a garden I will grow.
And yet...as I drove to early morning exercise later this week, revelling in the soft breeze with the windows open in the car, and the sun shining, I was reminded by the preacher Colin Smith on the radio that we are both saints and sinners. The resurrection has come! We are forgiven! BUT, I am reminded that sin is a problem to which there is no human solution.
He reminded us of Ps. 55 where the Psalmist laments the darkness, oppression, violence, strife, malice, abuse and wickedness that still abounds - even amidst the glimpses we get of heaven on earth - and that we are promised will come again. It is only in the glory of the new earth where there will be the beauty of the Gal. 5 fruits of the spirit in every season! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control will be blooming everywhere.
But not yet...There will never be a government that will bring real truth and justice to the world until King Jesus comes again. Even His churches here on earth will be tainted by self-righteousness perversity. We all have the blood lines of sin, absorbed by self in our very nature. It hasn't changed for 3,000 years since that that pslam was written - and will not come again until the new earth according to the bible.
This echoed the sermon this week, (listen to it on TheCrossingChurch. com under the title:Shouldn't I be true to my Own Myth?) that came directly after this song in which, listening to it, for a moment the world seemed right - I had a glimpse of the hope to which we are called.
But then...the sermon was a summary of a Ten Minute Bible Talk blog (which you can access at TheCrossingChurch.com under blogs. It was titled Why You Don't Want Friends to Read Glennon Doyle - on the second page of podcasts.) In the book, Untamed by Glennon Doyle, the current cultural standard seems to hold true to what this book purports : that we should live according to our own truth; that true freedom is living according to our own inner nature. It sounds right that we should break away from external influences and decide for ourselves what is truth in order to have a self-determining freedom. This seems to be the therapeutic self-talk of today.
Tim Keller comments on this as a recent approach to identity - not allowing anyone else to determine our truth or to make us feel guilty by their standards, so that anyone coming against that is an oppressor. (Listen also to Ten Minute Bible Talks on Critical Race Theory).
Paul actually comments in 1 Corinthians 4:3 on this modern subject well before it's inception: I care little if I am judged ...by any human court; indeed I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me...He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness amd will expose the motives of the heart."
Paul is pointing out that we have a flaw in our human GPS system, and following it will not always bring us to a flourishing life. He is telling us that being true to yourself, is saying that your best conscience is within you. It is not!! Paul is saying that his own conscience is not reliable! This is reiterated in Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it? The Lord will search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, to what their deeds deserve.
Do we not rationalize our own selfishness? We all at some point lie or cheat or slander, get filled with resentment, bitterness, envy. We have pride and arrogance that causes strife in relationships. Why? Because we naturally follow our inner desires amd THINK we're the good guys. (Just like the German people did in blindly following Mother Germany during the time of the Holocaust.) Don't think so? We were challenged to look at our own broken relationships left in our paths as evidence - we all have them.
In Confronting Christianity Rebecca McLauflin writes: "It has been said that no friendship would last a day if we could see each other's thoughts... If I let them see a transcript of my thoughts... my marriage would die. My children would be crushed. My friends would leave. My thoughts are not all bad; many are good and kind and true. But like a bag of flour infested by maggots, no part of me is pure."
True freedom comes only one way - what may be seen by some as a very intolerant statement in the bible: John 14:6 - I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. In John 8:31 - Jesus says: If you hold to my teaching then you will know if you are my disciple. The truth will set you free. Over and over He says: Truly, truly, I say to you... as He teaches us the real, one and only truth.
That's why Jesus as the Good Shepherd uses sheep to describe us - just like wandering sheep who won't stay in the safety of the flock, trapped in their own self-destructive desire to what they see as freedom.
These words in the sermon struck me: "If the loudest voice in our head is our own, it might be wise to pause before we speak." It's a reason to meditate on the scriptures rather than the news. Romans 1:18-32 tells us why there is such disorder in our lives and in our world: We exchanged truth for a LIE!
So, as we were challenged to decide: If you really believe that God created the universe, do you think that your own distorted desires named sin is what will make your life flourish? Gal. 5 tells us that the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh, so that you are NOT to do whatever you want...The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality (but isn't it ok to live together without being married?), impurity, debauchery (they all do it in Washington - it's the way they play the game), idolatry (only my party is going to change the world), hatred (well, if they're wrong...), discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, drunkennes, etc...!!!!
Do you really believe what Gal. 5:24 plainly says? Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Do you believe what it says further up in verse 13? You, my brothers and sisters were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge in the flesh.
So I say at the end of reflecting on this sermon and this best-selling book: As for me and my house, I will serve the Lord - well, at least to the best of my ability. Being one of those sheep, I trust I will be led back to the fold when those natural desires call me to seek freedom elsewhere. But as for me, it is not my own thoughts that I will try to follow the lead on but Galatians 5:16 - So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
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