Look Familiar?

Advertising is an intriguing thing to me. The ability to use a controlled environment (I’ve seriously never seen a Whopper look as good in real life as on TV), a glamourous spokesperson (if it works for all those Revlon girls and it got Peyton Manning to the Super Bowl it has to be the right thing for you), and precise language (Fill in the blank with the company of these slogans: “Drivers Wanted” __________; “More bars in more places” __________; “Finger lickin’ good” __________). Advertising also has this strange effect on me. I can be walking through Wal-mart, see something I have no need for and have a strange sensation that I need it just because of what it looks like or what it says. Who knew that pen and pencil packaging had the power of Jedi mind tricks? (“You will buy me…” *Uniball waves hand*).

Advertising, too, is everywhere. Everywhere you look – or hear – advertising is around. Well, almost everywhere. One of the most popular places that I think advertising could be, where it isn’t yet, to have a huge effect, is not on billboards and signs but on sidewalks and walkways. Reason: because most of us, almost all of us, walk with our heads down and not with heads lifted up.

This past Sunday I preached through Psalm 110 and saw that Jesus is King and as King He conquers the Church with love and His enemies with wrath. Verses 5-7 describe the latter, a picture of Jesus mopping up, so to speak, His enemies that have been scattered and have fled from His Gospel and His rule going forward (seen in v. 2). The last verse of Psalm 110, “He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore He will lift up His head” is great imagery of Jesus barely taking time to refresh Himself as He pursues His fleeing foes. More than that though, verse 7 has great parallelism, and probably it’s roots, tied to the story of Gideon in Judges 6, 7, and 8. In Judges 7 Gideon is called by God to deliver Israel from the oppression of the Midianites. The story goes that Gideon set out with an army of 32,000 but God told Gideon that was too many. God explained, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” Simply God wanted Israel to know for certain that it wasn’t their own power, might, and size that delivered them – instead it was the power, might, size, goodness, mercy, grace, love, justice, and promise of God who would deliver them. (A fantastic parallel to the Cross as well)! The story continues, Gideon sends 22,000 home and maintains a force of 10,000. God again says, “Too many” and this time offers one of the strangest tests in the bible. God tells Gideon to take his army down to the water. He then tells Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink” The story explains, then, that 300 men “lapped, putting their hands to their mouths…but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink the water.” Strange? Certainly a peculiar way to discern a special forces unit. But I think that there is something to it, especially when we see the parallel in Psalm 110.7 – to kneel down to drink the water you have to put your face in it – eyes down; but lapping the water out of your hands enables you to keep your head up – to be alert, ready, aware. In this oddball story of Gideon’s army we see God help Gideon select a people that were alert, ready, and aware – and he sent home the people, who with heads down, were consumed with a present need and not a kingdom possibility. (By the way, the first 22,000 sent home were “fearful and trembling,” too afraid to stand up and battle their oppressors).

When we couple the story of our conquering King Jesus, who is conquering His Church with Divine Love and conquering His enemies with Divine Wrath, and the story of Gideon’s 300 who are not consumed with a present need but aware of kingdom possibilities, we learn something very important for ourselves.

Jesus is The King, conquering the kingdom of the world with the Kingdom of God. This has been Jesus’ mission from the beginning – His first words, “The Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.” “Believe” Jesus is saying, that through His death, burial, and resurrection He has reversed the curse – that the Kingdom of God is really, and truly, here. But Jesus, except for three years when He went around announcing the arrival of the Kingdom through miracles and healing and ultimately in His death and resurrection (and finally in His return), did not leave all the work of proclaiming the arrival of the Kingdom to Himself – He charged the Church to proclaim the arrival of the Kingdom – to trumpet the Good News through word and deed.

What do we learn when we couple the story of Jesus as The King who conquers in Psalm 110 with the story of Gideon’s 300 who lapped like dogs?

The King, who will “drink from the brook by the way…lifting up His head” is desirous of those in His Church who, too, will keep their heads up – alert, ready, aware – not consumed by their present need but available for Kingdom possibilities.

In your life, how much time do you spend with the “blinders” on? Going about your business and missing so many opportunities to bless a brother or sister at church, missing opportunities to bless people through your day. Stop. Lift up your head – open your ears – pay attention – be ready. They’re right in front of you in the check out line. They’re just over at that table in the coffee shop. They live right next door to you.

Lift up your head to see and to hear all the Kingdom possibilities before you. And see that your King, who has already conquered, is busy all around your life making known the arrival of His Kingdom. How will you participate?

Looking at Psalm 140 this past Sunday we saw, again, that there are no perfect people – none are all-righteous. To say it like the Bible does in Romans, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks after God.” (This same theme is also found in Psalms 14, 53, 5, 10, and 36).

Now when we looked at Psalm 140 however, this may not have seemed to be the case. Psalm 140 is a cry of David to be delivered from evil men – not a cry that he is an evil man. So, when we get to verse 13, “surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall dwell in your presence,” we might exclaim with David, “Thank you God that I am not like the people I see on the 10:00 news!” (Is news still on at 10:00? With my iPhone and iPad I get so much news that I don’t watch it on TV anymore). And do you know what, that’s the problem: “i”. It’s so much easier for me (i) to notice other people’s faults and wrongdoings than it is to examine my own (i). But more than that, it’s so much more self-justifying (i)! I can make myself (i) feel a lot better about my (i) problems, my (i) anxieties, my (i) sin, and my (i) life by finding fault, or placing blame on others and not myself (i).

This is why finding the Gospel in every scripture we preach is so important. While the Gospel is Good News it’s surely preceded by Bad News. The Bad news, as we’ve already discovered, is that no one is righteous – not even one. It’s not enough to say, “Eh, yeah well, no one is perfect.” We all know that, and we use it as part of our self-justification. We must face the fact that, first of all, we have been created. Secondly, that our rebellion isn’t just against each other – it’s chiefly against God. Thirdly, we will be held accountable for this rebellion. This is exactly how the Bad News is spelled out in Romans 1-3. It’s important to notice how Paul refers to God here – as creator. Point: You are not your own and you have rebelled from the one who, in love and in His image, made you. The answer then to verse 13 of Psalm 140 – who are the righteous that shall give thanks to your name, who are the upright who shall dwell in your presence? – one is righteous, yes, only one.

There is only one person who could sing this Sacred Song without being convicted. Jesus. In a sense Psalm 140 isn’t so much a Psalm of David as it is a Psalm of Jesus. Can you hear Jesus singing this Song to the Father. “Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men…” If we see Jesus rightly, as God in the flesh, then there is no more evil event in history than the Death, Burial, and Resurrection – and surely coupled with that, the betrayal, beating, and mocking of Jesus. Can you hear Jesus, then, singing this song maybe in the garden the night he was handed over, maybe while He was being tried, maybe while He stood nearby Pilate as the people shouted, “Crucify.”

Jesus the Messiah – Savior and King – is the only One who could sing this song, truly, because Jesus is the only perfectly righteous person who has fulfilled all righteousness.

The Good News is that while Jesus is the only One who is upright and able to dwell in the presence of God the Father, through His death on the cross Jesus offers Himself as a substitutionary sacrifice. In our place He dies paying the full penalty of our unrighteousness – in His place we stand being credited with all the righteousness He has earned. Jesus, through His death, secures salvation for the Church. It is only in Christ, then, that we can proclaim with David “You are my God!” And it is only in Christ, too, that we will dwell in the presence of God.

One thing, very practical, that we should take away from this is a lesson in how to live in community.  We live in a world where everything you can think of has been “relativized.” This isn’t as bad as that; blah blah blah. This is how we get the idea in our heads that “I’m not that bad.” I say something pretty frequently when I preach, “If you’re not that bad than your god can’t be that good.” But relativism puts something before this primary truth. Relativism says, “If that person is pretty bad than I must be pretty good.” Relativism is fundamentally broken because it removes the supreme thing (in this case a perfect, flawless, transcendent, Holy God). Relativism is broken because it removes the standard – the “what” that everything else ought to be examined against.

Forget relativism – we need reality. The reality is, God is the standard. If He created us we’re not our own, we’re His. If we’re His we must live and behave according to His standard. (By the way, His standard is not overbearing or burdensome – Love God, Love People). Practically, when God is the standard, we realize that all of us have issues. Instead of expecting perfection from each other which, when that perfection isn’t met, we may think thoughts that lower our value of others, may say careless words that damage others, or may do lousy things that ruin relationships. (Or, sometimes we don’t say or do, but keep the thinking bottled up inside us). This doesn’t give us license to be sluggards and cause trouble, nor does it serve as some kind of handicap and make us to have no expectations for people. Surely, also, where sin is involved it needs to be met with repentance and return, not dismissal. This all helps to make us to live in community (inside and outside the church) seeing Jesus and the Gospel as the only all-sufficient answer to our ever-insufficient lives. The heart of the Gospel is that God has been gracious to us – and, thus, we ought to be gracious to each other. When we remember that God is the standard, that we have all failed to meet that standard, and that Jesus alone has met that standard on our behalf we will all be much more humble people who are eager to let the small disappointments we have against other dissolve from our minds and the big disappointments, after conversations of clarity, repentance, and forgiveness, dissolve in the blood of Jesus.