April 24--When the News Is This Good, I Just Can't Keep it to Myself

The good news in these passages piles up so high, I'm giddy.  See what you think:  Judges 3, Luke 22:1-38, Psalm 92, Proverbs 14:1-2.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

Judges 3

Luke 22:1-38

Psalm 92, Prayer, Proverbs 14:1-2

SPEAKER_00 0:00

April twenty four When the news is this good, I just can't keep it to myself. I won't be reading the scripture references. For those, please check the written post. Fog is lying low at the bottom of the driveway. Everywhere I look the tree trunks are dark, their leaves wet with springing green. Levy creeps across the porch, then darts after a squirrel. Two birds fly in and land on the gutter that's gurgling where their hatchlings are nesting. This spring scene is squeezing me for all it's worth. Everything in it is fresh with life, with hope, with survival. I love getting to witness the natural world like this. I love how God lets me see it all right outside my window. I love the coziness I feel, the sense of being tucked in, the gift of I know what touches you and here it is. And all of this is served up on just an ordinary rainy day. God, who is like him? He destroys strongholds and banishes demons and yet he brings rain when I ask him and wriggly worm breakfasts for bird babies. His range of power over all things good and evil while caring for even the smallest and weakest is astonishing. The good news continues, and when it's as mind blowing as this, I just can't keep it to myself. The Old Testament chapter is Judges three. He's brought them all the way from Egypt, fed them and cared for them in the desert, given them a promised land full of good things, and in only one generation after Joshua, they intermarry with their pagan neighbors and worship their idols. And still God keeps sending saviors who rescue them. His mercy for his wayward people always surprises me. Will they ever get it? And will God ever give up on them? Because the news is dire. God's people have done evil and deserted him, serving the gods of the peoples around them, doing exactly what God has warned them not to do through Moses and Joshua. The text says, quote, they actually worship them, end quote, sounding as astonished as I'm feeling as I read it. Specifically, they worship the god Baal and the goddess Astart, and quote, God's anger was hot against them, end quote. So he let their enemies rob and plunder them, stripping them of their treasures, quote. He sold them cheap to enemies on all sides, end quote. God was still with them, but not as he had been. Now he was with them to be against them, just as he'd sworn, if they didn't keep their side of the covenant they made with him. But then the text says, and I know what's coming. God saved them. He raised up judges who defeated their oppressors, even though afterwards his people still prostituted themselves with idolatry and refused to obey him, even though God was right there, quote, moved to compassion when he heard their groaning, end quote. And he saved them over and over and over again. They also broke their promise to worship God only, so he kept his promise not to drive out any more of the locals. He let them suffer the consequences of living their own way and not the way God had commanded them through Moses. As a result, he left the rest of the Canaanite people where they were in the promised land in order to train a new Israelite generation in God's kind of warfare, the kind their parents waged. The older generation didn't learn to fight as other armies who relied on chariots. They learned to believe what God said and trust him to fight for them. But this younger generation had no intention of trusting God or fighting. They did just the opposite. They settled down and quote, made themselves at home among the Canaanites, end quote. So God brought in the bad guys to shake things up, and when life got unbearable with the kings who subjugated them, the people cried out to God, and you raised up saviors called judges. It was a pattern that repeated again and again. God's people forgot him and worshiped the idols of their neighbors, and God let their enemies defeat them. Then they cried out to him, and God saved them again. Will they ever learn? Will God ever give up on them? It's easy for me to tiss tisk poor choices like these more than three thousand years later. Hey, don't you get it about how good God is and how good you've got it? It's easy for me to feel superior, as if God himself just doesn't get it. Hey, God, don't you see how stubborn and stupid they are? But the truth of God's unending mercy lands squarely as I consider our children who keep stumbling. Yes, they need more mercy. It creeps in closer as I consider how I keep stumbling. Yes, I need more mercy. Thank God that he forgives stubborn, stupid sinners like us. Thank God that he's long suffering and unwilling for anybody to miss out. Thank God that he's not worried about looking foolish for rescuing us with our longstanding histories of on again, off again faith that he is God and He's got what it takes. Because the truth is we do need him, and while we're bumbling around in life figuring out that truth, God keeps showing up for each of us too. The goodness of God for sinners is beyond me to understand. I'm so very grateful that this is who God is and this is how he treats us, not as we deserve, but according to his covenant promise to be God for us. God will never break his love covenant, no matter how often we break ours to him, because what he does doesn't depend on what we do. What he does depends on who he is, and he can never be less than who he is, faithful, forgiving, loving, and long suffering. Of course he lets us suffer the consequences we bring upon ourselves, which is part of his love that won't settle for less. God's anger over sin is fueled by his love that wants us to have every single good thing that he's got planned for us. How can a holy God who's angry with sin also be this loving and forgiving to sinners? Because of the Son He sent to open the way between us, Jesus died to free us from the clutches of sin and death so that we can draw near to God any old time we please. And when the news is this good, I just can't keep it to myself. The New Testament passage is Luke twenty two thirty eight. Jesus celebrates the Passover with his disciples. Among other predictions he makes, Jesus gives Peter a heads up that for all his bragging about being ready to die for Jesus, he'll deny him three times, and when he does, Jesus tells him to turn back and strengthen the others. Peter stands out because he boasts so shamelessly and then messes up so completely, but even so Jesus doesn't reject him. In fact, before it even happens, he calls Peter back into service for him. Despite Peter's sure and certain failure, Jesus has already forgiven and recommissioned him as if his mess up is simply a bump in the road, not a blowout that breaks down the whole kingdom coming. Which has me wondering, maybe it's precisely because Peter will fail that he'll be of use to Jesus. The best encouragement I've ever had was from someone who blew it, found grace, and had an astonishing turnaround tale to tell. Of course, Jesus doesn't need our failure in order to get his work done, but it certainly doesn't thwart him. What happens after Peter's betrayal and Jesus returns to heaven is that when Peter preaches, thousands of people believe in Jesus. Only God can turn a failure of a friend into a fisher of men like this. What Jesus can do with your story is beyond your imagining. Bring it to him and see what happens. When the news is this good, I just can't keep it to myself. From Psalm ninety two. The psalmist says it's a beautiful thing to give thanks, to sing of God's love at sunrise for his faithful presence throughout the night, for his powerful saving acts and profound ponderings of us. Fools won't notice what God does, how he mows down the wicked and scatters them to the winds, but they won't miss how he raises up good folks like this psalmist. What has God done for him? He's made him strong as a charging bison and honored him before his critics, leaving them agog and gaping. What's more, those who are planted in praise in God's house are like palm trees who stay fresh and green, even when they're old and wrinkly. These are his witnesses for the saving he's done for them. They stay rooted in his presence, glorifying the high and holy rock mountain who is God, the one they stand on. Nowhere here does the psalmist agonize over his mistakes and failures. His focus throughout is on God and what he does and not on himself. Praisers aren't without issues, but they choose to focus on the God who saves them, making much of him as they entrust their lives to him. What's more they get to celebrate because they hand off their troubles to him, believing that God is doing everything they need. Who needs Botox and facelifts? Living God's way has benefits. When you're planted in praising in His presence, you're fresh and green to your last breath. You have help with all your struggles. You get relief you can feel so deep you party in praise rather than ruminate in self-pity. Sign me up. When the news is this good, I just can't keep it to myself. Prayer. God, the patient Father that you are, the kind friend that Jesus is, the joyful, praiseful life that you share with me, it's just too much to take in. Thank you for all that you are and all that you give. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 14, 1 to 2. Wisdom builds a home, foolishness tears it down. Living honestly honors God. Living deceitfully despises Him. Passages in Judges, Luke, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve, Debartalaban, Roebuck.