This week I read an article about the First Presbyterian Church of Newark, Ohio that caught my attention. In part it read:
While he served as pastor at Central College Presbyterian Church on Sunbury Road in Westerville, the Rev. Dr. Richard Ellsworth remembers seeing fishermen going by early on Sunday mornings, on their way to Hoover Dam. Ellsworth decided to go fishing for fishermen. He started a Sunday drive-in service to accommodate people in casual dress and with busy schedules.
"It gave me the idea that they could stop by before they went fishing," Ellsworth said. "It didn't really get a lot of fishermen, but it has become the most popular of three services at the church."
He is not necessarily fishing for fishermen, but for anyone who wants a casual service, has a busy schedule and who might want to bring their pets. He also is hoping to attract motorcycle riders. "I am hoping some motorcyclists will stop by before their Sunday ride," he said.
While I certainly applaud Pastor Ellsworth for his efforts to reach out to people who might not otherwise attend church, I’m deeply troubled by the impact our culture is having on the process of becoming mature disciples of Jesus. I guess it’s not all that surprising that in a culture that is characterized by 30 second commercials, microwave meals and drive-thrus for everything from fast food restaurants to your local pharmacy, we now have churches where you don’t even have to get out of your car or talk to another person.
In his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson accurately summarizes the issue that we face:
It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest…There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness. [p.16]
This morning, as we continue our journey through the Psalms, we’ll begin a 15 week journey through a particularly important and relevant section of the Psalms known as the Psalms of Ascent.
As we discussed a few weeks ago, the Psalms have been collected into one large book that contains five smaller books within it. But even within those books we find some smaller collections of Psalms that have a common theme and which were used for a specific purpose. For instance, Psalms 146-150 are known as the “Hallelujah Psalms” because they begin with the word “hallelujah”, which is translated “Praise the Lord” in most of our English translations”. They were likely used in the Temple worship.
Another such grouping is the Psalms of Ascent – Psalms 120-134. The title of these Psalms likely comes from the fact that they were sung as the Hebrew pilgrims would travel to Jerusalem from the surrounding areas three times a year to celebrate the Passover Feast in the spring, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) in early summer and the Feast of Tabernacles in the fall. Since topographically, Jerusalem is the highest city in Palestine the people were literally ascending as they journeyed there.
But as we’ll see as we study these fifteen Psalms, they also picture metaphorically our life of discipleship in which we continue to advance from one level to the next of spiritual maturity. So in that sense these Psalms were written for the edification of all of God’s people in every part of the world in all times. As a result, if we’ll allow them to be our teacher for these next 15 weeks, they can be an important tool in our life long process of becoming mature disciples of Jesus.
Let’s begin this morning by reading Psalm 120 out loud together:
In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
Deliver me, O LORD,
from lying lips,
from a deceitful tongue.
What shall be given to you,
and what more shall be done to you,
you deceitful tongue?
A warrior's sharp arrows,
with glowing coals of the broom tree!
Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech,"
that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace,
but when I speak, they are for war!
Psalm 120:1-7 (ESV)
For the Hebrews, their journeys to worship God in Jerusalem had a lot in common with the vacations that we take. They left their homes for a period of time and travelled to another place – although their journeys were obviously a lot more difficult than ours since they primarily travelled by walking. But once they were done, the expectation is that they would return back to the home where they had started. As we see in Luke 2, this was the practice of Jesus and His family when he was a boy.
Unfortunately, that is also a pretty good picture of the lives of many who call themselves Christians. They go about their daily lives however they wish during the week, then they travel to a building on Sunday morning where they claim to submit their lives to God for an hour or two, only to return back to the same life that they live the other 166 hours each week.
But this Psalm is really the antidote to that kind of life. Here we see that the Psalmist is fed up with that life. He’s in distress. He’s tired of coming to Jerusalem three times a year for a mountaintop experience with God, only to return home to the lies and deceit and lack of peace that surround him on a daily basis.
Although at first, it’s hard to see why this would be the first song that the Hebrews would sing on their way up to Jerusalem, after some further reflection, there is indeed a logical reason why this song comes first. It lays out for us the first step on our journey.
The first step in my journey to becoming a mature disciple of Jesus is to…
• change my citizenship
The Psalmist is clearly fed up with his daily life, living in the midst of the ungodly. First, he says that he sojourns in Meshech. The word “sojourn” indicates that is only his temporary home. Meshech was one of the sons of Japheth whose descendents settled in Asia Minor to the north of Jerusalem. He also claims to dwell among the tents of Kedar. Although the word “dwell” indicates a more permanent home, the people of Kedar were a nomadic tribe, which is confirmed by the fact that they lived in tents. They were descendents of the second son of Ishmael and these Arab tribes lived in the area south of Jerusalem.
The Psalmist is clearly using poetic, figurative language here to picture the fact that, in their daily lives, those who desire a relationship with God still have to live those lives among the ungodly, who are characterized by two traits:
1) Their lies and deceit
2) Their hatred of peace
So in the midst of his distress, he calls out to the Lord and the Lord answers his prayer. It is interesting that even though the Psalmist claims that God has answered his prayer, the rest of the Psalm really doesn’t seem to bear that out since it consists mostly of the Psalmist’s lament. The only answer at all appears to be in verse 4 where we see the fate of the deceitful tongue.
So it seems that the answer to prayer is the journey itself. God was actually rescuing him from his nomadic life lived among the heathen by allowing him to make the journey to Jerusalem alongside others who shared his same dissatisfaction with the world. Together they would find a brief respite from the world around them, both during the journey and in their time in Jerusalem. And while he might have to physically return to his home after the feast was over, he had determined that he was no longer going to live as a citizen of that world.
If we are going to develop into mature disciples of Jesus, then we, too, must come to the place in our lives where we get fed up with being citizens of this world. Even though we will still continue to live here physically, we must develop a mindset in which we are no longer citizens of the United States or even, in the increasingly popular jargon of the day, citizens of the world. By the way, did you know that there is a website where you can go and download a form that you can sign to become a “citizen of the world”? Instead, we must follow the instruction that Paul gives us in his letter to the Philippian church and consider ourselves to be citizens of heaven:
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
Philippians 3:17-21 (ESV)
It almost sounds like Paul had Psalm 120 in mind when he wrote those words, doesn’t it? He makes it clear that, like the Psalmist, we must come to the place where we realize that we’ve been dwelling far too long among the lies and the lack of peace that characterize the world around us and then seek to live our lives as citizens of heaven, rather than citizens of this world.
But that is much easier said than done, isn’t it? Fortunately, this Psalm provides us with some great insight on how we transfer our citizenship from the world to heaven.
I transfer my citizenship from the world to heaven by:
• Saying “no” to the lies of the world
During our Monday morning Bible study, we discussed whether the lies and deceit in this Psalm were the lies directed at the Psalmist by the world around him or his own lies. The text is vague enough that either is possible. And we came to the conclusion, correctly in my opinion, that both are intended. As I thought about that some more this week, that makes even more sense.
We live in a world that constantly bombards us with lies. And because we face them constantly, it is so easy to buy into those lies ourselves and to live our lives based on them. Obviously the list of lies is nearly infinite, but here are three big lies that the world peddles that have significant implications for the process of becoming mature disciples of Jesus:
Three big lies of the world:
1) Man is basically good
Survey after survey shows that Americans overwhelmingly believe that man is “basically good.” I’ve seen polls that put the percentage of Americans who believe that as high as 83%.
And that philosophy has certainly found its way into many of the popular religions of our culture. In a 1980 article, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, actually wrote these words:
Years ago I discovered and proved that man is basically good. This means that the basic personality and the basic intentions of the individual, toward himself and others, are good.
When a person finds himself committing too many harmful acts against the dynamics, he becomes his own executioner. This gives us the proof that man is basically good. When he finds himself committing too many evils, then, causatively, unconsciously or unwittingly, man puts ethics in on himself by destroying himself; and he does himself in without assistance from anybody else.
The criminal who leaves clues behind is doing so in hopes that someone will come along to stop him from continuing to harm others. He is basically good and does not want to harm others; and in the absence of an ability to stop himself outright, he attempts to put ethics in on himself by getting thrown in prison where he will no longer be able to commit crimes.
As incredulous as those words may sound, that is the prevalent view of our culture. Most people believe the lie that man is basically good and that he only does bad things as a result of outside forces, like the culture or a person’s upbringing.
That lie logically leads to the next one…
2) Man can earn citizenship in heaven
This is a logical extension of the first lie. If man is basically good, then it follows that he is also able to earn favor with God through his own actions.
This lie is perpetuated by the example of our own citizenship process here in the United States. If someone wants to become a U.S. citizen there is a list of requirements that one can complete in order to earn his or her citizenship.
So it’s really no surprise that almost every religion in this world contains some list of tasks that someone can complete if they want to be right with God and be able to enter into His kingdom.
The third lie is the antithesis of the first two, but is just as damaging.
3) Because of what I’ve done, God can’t possibly love me
Our world is filled with people who live in despair because they believe that they have done something so terrible in their life that God could never love them. In a sense, this really flows out of the second lie because if man can do something to earn favor with God, then he is also capable of doing something that might cause God not to love him.
So the first thing I must do if I want to transfer my citizenship to heaven is to say “no” to these and other lies that have the potential to derail the process of becoming a mature disciple of Jesus. That is certainly the point that the Psalmist had come to in his life. But it’s not just enough to say “no” to the lies, I also have to do approach things positively and that means…
• Saying “yes” to the truth of God
The lies of the world eventually take their toll on all of us. For the Psalmist, they had brought him to a place of distress. And when he came to that point, he had a choice to make. He could either try to deal with that distress by replacing the lies he had faced with even more lies, or he could make a u-turn and confront those lies head on by seeking out the truth that could only be found in God.
When he did finally cry out to God in his distress, God was true to His nature and answered that prayer. The Psalmist experienced what Jesus promised later during His earthly ministry - the truth of God brought freedom from the lies of the world:
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32 (ESV)
Once again, we can’t even begin to touch the surface of God’s truth in the time we have this morning, so let’s focus on just three truths that address the three lies we looked at the last few minutes.
Three truths that confront the three big lies of the world:
1) Man is NOT basically good
First of all, let me just say that this truth ought to be evident to all of us, even without the Bible. How many of you who are parents had to teach your children how to sin? I’m sure that there aren’t too many people in the town of Aurora, Colorado that believe man is basically good, either. But since we want to base truth on what we find in the Bible rather than just on what we can observe, let’s confirm this truth with Scripture. It wouldn’t be too difficult to fill the rest of our time doing that, but for time’s sake, we’ll just look at one Old Testament and one New Testament passage:
The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man,
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one.
Psalm 14:2-3 (ESV)
…For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:22-23 (ESV)
This truth logically leads to the second:
2) Man can NOT earn citizenship in heaven
Since man is not basically good, then he has nothing to offer God as a means of earning citizenship in God’s kingdom. Although many would claim that this is somehow a new idea in the New Testament that was not present in the Old Testament times, once again we have confirmation of this truth in both Testaments:
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Isaiah 64:6 (ESV)
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV)
And this truth leads directly to the third:
3) No matter what I’ve done, God still loves me
Since I can do nothing to earn God’s favor, there is also nothing I can do that will cause God to love me less. One passage is adequate to confirm this truth:
For one will scarcely die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die - but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
Romans 5:7-10 (ESV)
Jesus died on the cross for you and for me even knowing all of our sin – past and present. There is nothing He could possibly do that would demonstrate His love for us any clearer than that.
This concept of saying “no” to the lies of the world and saying “yes” to the truth of God is the key first step in the process of developing into mature disciples of Jesus.
• The Biblical word for that process is “repentance”
This morning during the “Connections” time we’ll have a chance to examine the nature of repentance in some more detail. But for now, let me just make a couple of brief points.
1) Repentance is NOT merely an emotion
Repentance is not merely feeling sorry for ones’ sin, as important as that may be.
2) Repentance IS a decision
The underlying Greek word for repentance that is used in the New Testament is a compound word that literally means “to change one’s mind”. In terms of what we’ve studied today, it is a decision to change one’s mind from living according to the lies of the world to living according to the truth that is found only in God. In effect, repentance is the decision to give up following my own path that is strewn with the lies of the world and to follow Jesus, who is the Truth. And until I make that decision, it is just not possible to go any further toward the goal of becoming a mature disciple.
But before any of us are too quick to make that decision without first considering all the costs, let me close with…
A caution:
• Choosing the way of repentance is often painful
Several times in its history, Israel chose to say “no” to the lies of their culture and “yes” to the truth of God.
In the time of Abraham they left the wisdom, strength and riches of Mesopotamia to go to an unknown land that God promised to them. And later, they left the wisdom, strength and riches of Egypt in order to be true to God. And in each case, they did not miraculously return to the perfection of Eden. Instead, they suffered just like the rest of the world – sometimes even worse. But the good news is that they were now on a journey toward God and His truth.
We see the same thing in the early church. Men and women who made a decision to say “no” to the lies of the world and “yes” to the truth of God faced tremendous persecution and difficulty. But once again, the good news is that they were on the journey that would lead them to become mature disciples of Jesus.
We began this morning with an example of the kind of instant spirituality that is being increasingly offered to us, even within the church. But such an idea is another one of those lies of the world that many well meaning Christ followers have been sucked into. The truth is that the journey to mature discipleship is a long, often difficult journey that requires persistence, patience, and most of all deep faith in the promise that God has given to those who choose to embark on that journey by saying “no” to the lies of the world and “yes” to the truth of God:
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1:6 (ESV)
