Scripture: Psalm 5:8-9,25:4-5; Isaiah 45:18-19; Luke 20:20-21
For the past 2,000 years, the true teachings of Jesus have, for many, been a thorn in their understanding of faith. The Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ time saw him as a threat to their orthodoxy, and they did everything they possibly could to discredit the truth that he was bringing to Israel.
In the early years of the Church, the cultural elite of the world saw Christian
faith as OK for the poor and ignorant, but not for those who could reason through
their own intelligence. They missed the fact
that the message Jesus had brought was for all, and not just the oppressed of
this world.
Through the Middle Ages, the Church endorsed and encouraged 8 Crusades,
including one that consisted solely of children, with the sole purpose of
destroying Islam and taking back the Holy Land, to make it Christian once
again. So much for “love your neighbor
as yourself”!
And throughout the centuries, there have always been those who felt that they had the right, and responsibility, to remake Jesus into their own image. They forgot that Jesus, as the 2nd Person of the Trinity, is just as Unchanging as the other two Persons. And even people of today still find Jesus’ Truth to be troubling, and many are committed to setting it “right”.
And this brings us to the “problem” for today – the last one in our series – what is the Truth of God that has been laid down for the lives of humanity, and why do people still object to it.
Read Psalm 5:8-9, 25:4-5
King David is credited with writing these two psalms, and in the first 2 verses, David, as the servant of God, reveals himself in a powerful way. He tells us that our only chance of standing before our Lord in peace is through his gift of righteousness. But the truth that he offers doesn’t end there. He also acknowledges that salvation has nothing to do with what we can accomplish. Even though the people of earth may tell us otherwise, that we have to earn our place in the kingdom, David says that “their mouth can not be trusted”, and that their ways will never bring us God’s blessings.
And he isn’t gentile about the warning, either. Their tongue is deceitful and their throat can only bring forth death and destruction. The truth is that salvation is God’s gift, and he blesses those whom he determines should receive his gift. And his decision isn’t based on what we can do to become deserving – it is all about what he has done, and whether we believe in him and follow his way or not.
Scripture is full of references to the relationship between a Master and
his servant, in which one is in charge, and the other does what the first one
says! Even Jesus saw himself as a servant
to the will of God. (Acts 3:13) He said that he was helpless unless the Father granted him the
authority and the words to share with us. (John5:19)
And if we are to be his people, should we be any different?
The second two verses, which are from Psalm 25, show us the servant heart, the repentant heart of David, that led the prophet Samuel to tell King Saul that his reign would come to an end very soon, because God had found another who, unlike Saul, would serve him, one who would obey him. (1 Samuel 13:13-14) And David exhibits a submissive character that even though he was a king, and had all the authority that the world instills on that position, he still put his Lord’s truth, and his Lord’s desires for his “servant heart”, first and foremost in his life.
Read Isaiah 45:18-19
The prophet begins by laying out the reason for God’s authority – it’s his creation, his plan, and that it was all put in place so he could provide a place for us to live – with him! We don’t always understand the significance of this – after all, the world operates in a totally different manner. We may come up with an idea, and create a plan or procedure or product from it, but that doesn’t mean that we have the ultimate responsibility and authority to execute and administer it. We all have a boss, or a committee, or something else that we have to report to. Even the president of a corporation answers to a Board of Directors!
But God has no boss, no one, including us, who has a higher authority or greater wisdom than he does.
He word is final and true, and even though we may not have a sense of his presence, he has never hidden himself or his ways from us. We may not always feel that he is with us - guiding us, teaching us, challenging us to follow him more closely – but he is. The problem that everyone has, though, is that we don’t always listen very well, and when we don’t, our own wills seem to take over and encroach on the ways of God.
All our life, we’ve heard “Be Strong!”, “Take Charge”, “Don’t let others step all over you!”, “You’re Number One!”, and after a while, we start to believe that it’s all “true”, that this is how we are to live our life! The problem is that our ways, our strength, our authority is never, ever, perfect, and when we find ourselves sinking into one quagmire after another, we start to wonder what is going wrong. And instead of accepting responsibility for our failures, we put the blame on others, including the Lord. After all, we are Strong, we are supposed to be in Charge, we are Number One and “they” aren’t listening to us!
We forget that we have heard the Lord say “I speak the Truth!”, “I decide what is Right and wrong”, “I am where your Strength comes from”, “I have created the best Plan and know exactly what it is all about”, and we don’t like it – it crimps our style, to say the least, and it just doesn’t fit with what we had always known.
So we ignore the Lord’s word for our lives, and strike out on our own.
Read Luke 20:20-21
So it appears that simply mouthing the truth about Jesus isn’t enough – we need to believe it, and live it, and love it, and let the word of God work within us and through us – not to our prestige and honor, but to our Lord and Savior’s! The Pharisees were constantly opposing Jesus, and it wasn’t in a polite and civil way. Their sole mission was to restore their own authority over how to live out the commands of scripture, and if Jesus wouldn’t come around to their way of thinking, then they would have to take matters into their own hands.
Sound familiar? The world has always been full of this kind of attitude, and it won’t end until the Day of Christ’s return. Notice that those men who came to Jesus that day had just one goal in mind – to trap Jesus into saying something that would get him in trouble with either the people or the Romans. It didn’t matter which – either way, it would work to these “teachers” benefit.
But since Jesus’ crucifixion, and then with his ascension, he was no longer around to be a target for the world’s animosity. But fortunately, the Word of God and the Teaching of Jesus is still here. UN-fortunately, the world has yet to learn that lesson. They continue to think that by putting their agenda out there, over and over again, that those who are willing and eager to follow the way, the fullness of the way of Jesus, that as time goes on, more and more of the people will give up on the Lord, and begin accepting their style of faith.
The truth of Jesus is a stumbling block for the world (1 Corinthians 1:22-24), and for the past 3 months, we have been considering many of those “problematic” obstacles to our faith, and how they have impacted our lives in a negative way. But the problem hasn’t been with the word of God – it is, and always has been, perfect! The problem is that we don’t seek out the truth of God nearly enough, and when we do discover his truth, we seldom trust it in a way that it deserves.
The truth of Jesus really isn’t much of a problem for the world – if they can’t explain it away, they simply change it. It is little more than an inconvenience to them, but the real problem for the world is that some still cling to all that God would have us learn and live, and they continue to object to the lies and ways of earth.
So the next time they try to sow doubt and dissension in your life, remember these words from our Lord:
John 1:17 - “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
John 14:6 - “Jesus answered “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
These words, and the words we find in the gospels, may be inconvenient for the world, but they are God’s hope and promise for all who believe. And the Lord’s truth will always be the means to overcome every single problem that the world puts in our way.
Will you believe and trust in him and his word - today?
