Thanksgiving Psalms and Food

Psalm 147:9

He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry. (ESV)

Psalm 136:25

he who gives food to all flesh, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 111:5

He provides food for those who fear him.

Psalm 104:14-15

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man’s heart.

Psalm 104:27, talking about all of creation:

These all look to you to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

In fact, just go read Psalm 104 in its entirety. I’ll wait until you are finished.

Done?

Jesus is probably pulling from the ideas expressed in these (certainly not exhaustive) Psalms, and in turn from Deuteronomy when he says in Matthew 6:26

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

We are the same as the animals because, like them, we are completely dependent on God. But we are not like them, because we are in the image of God, and are more valuable.

So do not worry. Be thankful, for our Father’s mercy endures forever. Be filled with good things.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thrones of David and Living Stones

Jesus sits on the throne of David, as the King of kings. But we modern Christians forget that there is more than one throne.

David writes in Psalm 122:

Jerusalem— built as a city
that is bound firmly together,
to which the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
There thrones for judgment were set,
the thrones of the house of David. (Psalm 122:3-5)(ESV)

Who sits on these other thrones?

Who is the Greatest?

In the gospel of Luke, in the context of the last supper, the disciples begin arguing over who will be regarded as the greatest. Who is going to be chief viceroy in the Messiah’s new kingdom?

Jesus responds by talking about the rulers of the Gentiles, and how the disciples should not be like them. He concludes with:

And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Luke 22:29,30)

Matthew records a similar exchange in chapter 19, but including the word “twelve” before “thrones”, giving greater significance to the apostles. This flows into Revelation 21:14, where the apostles are seen as the foundations of the New Jerusalem, the capital city of the new heavens and new earth. Thrones.  Foundations. Living stones, with one cornerstone: Christ.

What’s remarkable is what Jesus does not say during these exchanges. He does not rebuke them saying that his kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. He does not roll his eyes and say “You are thinking too much like first century Jews. The kingdom is purely in the heavenly realm, and is about personal salvation. There aren’t really any rulers in the sense you are thinking about. Read more Plato.”

What does he say? He tells them to be better rulers than the Gentile rulers. To be the greatest ruler in the new kingdom, one would need to be a servant instead. Put another way, “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.”

But there are more living stones than just the apostles. (1 Pet. 2:5)

More than Just Twelve Thrones

This promise of authority in the new kingdom is not just for the Twelve. 1 Corinthians is packed full of similar language.

Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are your’s; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your’s; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s. (1 Cor. 3:21-23)

Paul rebukes the Corinthians for taking fellow believers to pagan courts. Why does he say this practice is wrong?

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? (1 Cor. 6:2-4)(ESV)

Since Christ has been resurrected and enthroned, things have changed, and the old order has been turned upside down. The church should be acting as if this is true, instead of pretending it isn’t. When the Corinthians brought a fellow brother before a pagan judge, they were pretending that Christ was still in the grave, and that he wasn’t really King of kings and Lord of lords. Because if they really believed that Christ is King, they would know that they should be able to handle such trivial matters themselves.

Why?

Because they will help judge the world, and with it, those very same pagan judges.

By going to pagan judges to settle church or “kingdom” matters, they were acting like the Israelites of old, reversing the conquest of the land. Or plundering the temple to pay off foreign kings.

Fellow Heirs

I have explained elsewhere that the promise of Abraham was really for the inheritance of the world, and that through Christ, as the new Israel, we are the recipients of the same promise. The twelve tribes of Israel have now been expanded to include all of the nations of the earth, and the promised land expanded to mean the entire world.

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5)

“And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Rom. 8:17)

“…we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Rom. 8:37)

You have a throne and crown waiting for you.  You are a fellow heir of the King of kings. You are part of his body.  What he possesses, you possess. You have a throne of David waiting for you.

And are you going to be timid? Are you going to act as if you are never going to wear your crown? Are you going to despise your inheritance?

Why We Put on the Armor

Psalm 91:4

He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler (ESV)

When I read this, I was reminded of Ephesians 6 and the whole armor of God. This Psalm might have been part of Paul’s inspiration for his phrasing, and reminds us that we should think a bit harder about the following passage. Its important to remember that the armor is indeed God’s.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. (Eph 6:13-18)(ESV)

The belt of truth is His Truth.

The breastplate of righteousness is His righteousness through Christ.

The helmet of salvation is His salvation, turning away His wrath.

The sword of the Spirit is, of course, His Spirit making known His words.

The shield of faith is really His own faithfulness to His promise, as Psalm 91 hints. And lest any man should boast, our faith itself is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8,9).

And what are we really preparing for with this armor? For a battle, yes.  But we fight this battle on our knees.  We pray. We speak His words back to him, and for what we miss, the Spirit will add its own groanings too deep for words (Rom. 8:26). We have a sword, but in our clumsiness, we dare not wield it while standing.

Finishing out the Ephesians passage:

To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints…

We put on the armor of God not so we can be independent machines of war, marching to glory and spreading the kingdom in our wake. We put on the armor of God so we can be even more dependent on God. We gird ourselves for war so we can ask our God to go to war for us.

Pilgrims in the Promised Land…Just a Passing Through?

It is appropriate that Abraham, the father of our faith, should be listed in Hebrews 11 not just once, but twice. The writer gives more words only to Moses. The first time deals with Abraham’s call to leave his father’s house.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Heb 11:8-10)

Abraham was a sojourner.  A pilgrim. More than that, he was a sojourner in a land that God promised him, and since God promised him, he knew that, in a sense, it belonged to him already. God blessed him so much that the Hittites called him a mighty prince (Gen. 23:5), powerful rulers sought to make alliances with him and his offspring (Gen 21:22,23), and he defeats an alliance of five kings with only 318 men (Gen 14:15). Not bad for a sojourner.

Not bad, at least, when compared with the kind of sojourner we normally assume the New Testament writers are talking about, especially when referring to Christians. Peter tells us to “pass the time of your sojourning here” (1 Peter 1:17) and then again saying “I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11).

A whole tradition has grown from the idea of being a pilgrim or alien of the world, sharpened by Paul’s language of citizenship, and colored with Greek and gnostic philosophy in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries. It can be summed up nicely in the song “This World is Not My Home.”

This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.

In essence, our true home is in the heavenly realm, and someday, we will finally leave this wicked, corrupt world and be able to return home.  Our pilgrimage will be over. The rest of the world can literally go to Hell.

But is this the picture we get? Is this really what being a pilgrim in the world means?

Was Abraham, the first sojourner of faith and the context for the New Testament use of these terms, just a passing through the promised land?

To ask the question is to answer it. Abraham even performs a symbolic act of staking his claim in the land of Canaan.  He buys a field from one of the Hittites to bury Sarah, and then his own bones are laid to rest in the same tomb.  The conquest didn’t start with Joshua.  It started with Abraham after the death of his wife.

Abraham is a pilgrim in the promised land, which means he is called a pilgrim in his own land.  And he knows it.

How does this relate to the children of the promise today?

First, we must realize that just as Abraham buying a plot of land was a symbolic act of conquest, the later conquest of the promised land by the Israelites was also a symbolic act of something greater.

For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. (Rom. 4:13)

Abraham was not just promised Canaan.  He was promised that all of the nations through him would be blessed, and according to Paul, this means that he would inherit the world.

And we are inheritors of the same promise.

And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:29)

Christ himself says that the meek will inherit the earth. How much time have we spent explaining away the plain sense of this beatitude, when the plain sense fits so well with the promise of Abraham?

Christ has risen.  All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18). The new order has been established, God has named his king, and his king will rule at his right hand until all of his enemies bow in homage (Psalm 110:1). And what is the domain of the king?

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. (Psalm 2:8)

Through Christ, the promise of Abraham will come to fruition. We are pilgrims now in the promised land, heirs of the promise.  But that means we are the advance guard, building wells and establishing alters like Abraham our father, knowing that we wander in our inheritance. For he “hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:10). Creation itself longs for the final victory.

For the creation waits with eager longing forthe revealing of the sons of God. For the creationwas subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know thatthe whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Rom. 8:21-22, ESV)

As someone once said, the world is not God’s Vietnam.  He is not scrambling to bring the troops home from a theater of war that is crumbling, in some kind of strategic retreat.

Pilgrimages of the people of God don’t end with a whimper and a sigh.  They don’t end with a rescue.

They end in conquest. They end in victory.

“That God may be all in all.” Amen.

What about you? Have you viewed the call to be a sojourner in this world as a call to simply “hold down the fort?” Do you believe the promises that “the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world”(1 Jn. 4:14)?