Good Morning,
Praise the Lord , for He is good and His love endures for ever. One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 34. In verse 9 and 10 we read, “Fear the Lord, you saints, for those who fear God lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” In the first sentence the Psalmist tells us about the fear the Lord, and then in the second sentence the Psalmist re-describes, or further develops what he means. The second line is not simply a repetition of the first, but rather extends it. And he says that fearing the Lord is about seeking after the Lord, “those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” It’s about seeking, pursuing, searching, following. It speaks of a path. The promise is that those who seek after God, those who look for God, will not lack any good thing.
The Psalm continues, “Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” This is an invitation to listen and learn the fear of the Lord. The invitation is offered to those who love life and who want to see many good days.
Fearing the Lord is not referring to some emotional state of mind. The Psalmist is too practical for that. Fearing the Lord is about telling the truth, turning away from evil, and seeking peace: “seek peace and pursue it.” Fearing the Lord is about walking the walk. It’s about following the path of peace. Fearing the Lord is something we do with our bodies, with our hands and our feet.
Ephesians 5:15 states,“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise people but as wise.” We are to live wisely, according to the will of the Lord, as it says in verse 17. The metaphor for unwise living is drunkenness. Verse 18: “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”
Do you know how they say people are more honest when their drunk? Maybe you have had a conversation with someone who had too much to drink and heard a little more then you expected. It may be true that you yourself have drunk too much and said some things, probably true things, that you wish you didn’t say. Mel Gibson got himself into big trouble when he said some things while he was drunk. Drunkenness tunes out everything else in the world and proclaims or reveals the self. It reveals an inward focus.
Life in the Spirit of God, a life that feasts at the table of wisdom and drinks Jesus’ wine — that life is also one of drunkenness, but it moves the self in the opposite direction. Instead of living in the glory of the self, making the world hazy so that we can focus on ourselves — instead of this drunken selfishness, we find that drinking of the Spirit’s wine opens our eyes to the world around us.
We are to be attentive to everything around us. In our Wednesday Study Group we are studying the series "Streams of Living Water", by Richard Foster. He speaks about paying loving attention to God and practicing wise living. As it says in Ephesians 5:16, it’s about “making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.” We must pay very careful attention to the times in which we live. We must be aware of life around us. Drinking from this wine is concerned with looking more carefully than we ever have before at the things around us. As one New Testament scholar put it, being filled with the Spirit is about “sober inebriation.”
The way we train our eyes, the way we develop careful vision, is to abide in Jesus and to enter into Jesus as Jesus enters into us. That is the message of the gospel: that we enter into Jesus as Jesus enters into us. As we follow in the ways of wisdom, the way of Jesus, we are led into the mysteries of God. The path of Jesus leads to God. The path Jesus shows us leads into the eternal life of God.
As we walk along this path we begin to see that the world around us is more wonderful than we ever could have imagined. We start to see that God created everything with wisdom. God’s good creation still bears those marks.
Living wisely ends with the exhortation to give thanks. As stated in Ephesians 5: 20, “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Giving thanks is how we learn the wisdom of God. Gratitude is our sober inebriation. It is how we get drunk on the Holy Spirit, the breath of God that enlivens all creation. We learn to see the mysteries of God as we learn how to be thankful for all that God has given us. The sober inebriation in the Spirit that we read about in Ephesians also calls us to “make the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”
Our thankfulness comes from looking into the wonders of God’s mysteries all around us. We are also to become a blessing to others, that they may also be thankful. Thankfulness is something we work at. We learn it by doing it and we share it by giving someone else a reason to be thankful for God’s good creation.
We are excited about the coming weekend. The Continentals will be with us. They are presenting Dreamer. The presentation will be at The First Presbyterian Church of Endicott, on the corner of Monroe and Grant. The concert will start at 7 p.m. Those of you live in the area, please join us. The ministry of the Continentals has been the part of our lives since 1979. Janice and Laureen have traveled with them. In fact, Laureen toured several times. Janice was a keyboard specialist for Dreamer in 1994.
This Saturday we will have our annual Thanksgiving Banquet starting at 5 p.m. We have been blessed with many wonderful cooks in our church family. We will be serving the full turkey dinner with the trimmings. We will also be taking meals to many shut-ins and those are recovering at home recent hospitalizations. Our friend, Pastor Brian, from The Elmira Christian Center, will be bringing the message for the gathering. Our Missionary friends Kevin and Lynnette Van Wagner will also be with us this weekend, sharing during our Sunday School hour. We serve an Awesome God.
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izsakLlfmtY
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