Psalm 95:5

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We’re continuing to talk about the Venite, that Psalm 95 song that’s often sung in the mornings, that perfect morning hymn as we get ready to go about our work day. I want to read the next verse in Psalm 95. This is verse five.

The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 95:5)

This is again emphasizing the work of the Father’s hands. As we prepare for our work going about our day, we look at our God’s hands that formed the earth. When we think of how God created Adam, we think of the sculptor who’s so intimately and delicately forming the clay to build a human being in his own image, in order to accomplish the work that he has for him, and to receive the blessings that he wants to bestow upon him. But God is not just a sculptor, he’s a landscape painter. He built the whole earth. All the dry ground was formed by him. You can picture him lifting it up out of the sea. Of course he accomplished all of this by his word. So the hands are a metaphor here, but his hands hold the earth. Form it, shape it. When you see a beautiful landscape that was designed by the painter, God, and not just the dry land, but the sea also is his.

There’s an old school of thought about the sea and the land. The land is stable. The land is where you can rest secure. You know you’re safe when you’re on dry land. The sea, however, is chaotic, especially if you’ve ever been caught in a wave in the ocean and totally subsumed by it. There’s a moment while you’re tumbling through the water where you don’t know which way is up. Direction makes no sense. Space makes no sense. Time makes no sense. The sea is chaos. That’s a picture that we have in Genesis two that when God created the world, it was formless and void, and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters and then created a perfect, beautiful order out of it. So we can start to think of the sea as something evil. But it’s not. It also belongs to God. It is the good thing out of which he has brought his creation.

Think of a painter using the pools of paint and splattering them around, mixing them around. It looks like a mess, but what a good thing that is to create beauty out of and the sea that our God owns. He commands as well. And we can see when Jesus was on the boat with his disciples numerous times how he calmed the stormy seas, it obeyed him. The disciples asked, who is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? This is none other than God. God owns the sea. He owns the sea of troubles that come against you, also. He owns your entire environment so that when you feel lost and alone, so that you don’t know which direction is up or where you’re headed, God has this in control. He formed the dry land, and the sea also is his, and you are his. And he has redeemed you through the waters of baptism and adopted you as his child to give you peace and life everlasting.

Psalm 95:1-4

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There’s a song that we often sing in our church services, especially in the Office of Matins, and you find it there under its Latin name, The Venite. And that’s the first word in the Latin version of Psalm 95. And I want you to consider Psalm 95, or the Venite, as the perfect morning hymn. The perfect way to start your day. I want to read the first few verses here, but then I want to focus, especially on this picture of the hands of our God. And we’ll talk about that over a couple more devotions here. But the first few verses of Psalm 95,

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.For the Lord is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.

Psalm 95, verses one through four. Now picture the hands and the picture the start of your day. You’re getting ready to use those hands. The day has been prepared for you to go and take your hands and do the work that God has prepared for you. Whether you’re working outside the home, inside the home, at your studies, work is objectified in the hands.

Think of the work that Adam had to do in the Garden of Eden, digging those hands in the dirt in order to plant and cause things to grow. All that work went out into a more difficult sphere after the fall into sin, and now that work is filled with pain and trouble and sorrow. But we’re to be reminded as we go to our work, which is going to be a day filled with our own sins and sins committed against us too, that we shouldn’t look just at our hands, but at the hands that are holding us and all things. Look at these hands. The hands of God hold the deep places of the earth and the heights of the hills. Not only does this emphasize the power of our great creator, but he’s the one who formed us out of the dust of the earth and who holds us still. And in a prophet, it also says that he has engraved us on the palms of his hands.

Where you see the hands of God most vividly are in those hands that are pierced by the nails on the cross. In Jesus hands your name was engraved. He holds the deep place of your sin, your death, your suffering. He holds that in his hands to bring you up onto the mighty hills of salvation, the hill on which he was crucified, the hill from which he ascended into heaven. The hill on which God comes to meet you with His Word and Sacraments, and ultimately will bring you again to be caught up with your Lord in the air. To be embraced by those hands once again. The hands of God hold you.

Psalm 42:1,11

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I’d like to read the last verse of Psalm 42. This is verse 11.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God. (Psalm 42:11)

When we hear from God’s Word, what God would have us believe and do, we know where we’re headed. Jesus died on the cross for all of our imperfections. We know the goal. He has planned eternal life for us and the joy of that eternal life. We have depictions of that, descriptions of how God wipes away every tear from our eyes when we get to heaven. What a joyful thing that we’ll get to look forward to. The end of this Psalm is an effort at comforting ourselves that will one day come. The soul speaks to itself. I speak to myself and say, I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Especially we’re looking at that praise in eternity with all the saints and angels in heavenly glory and bliss. And in fact, that verse is repeated. It comes earlier in the Psalm as well, almost right around the middle, so we can see how important that is and how necessary it really is for us to remind ourselves of that, because we know where we’re going. We know what’s promised, and we also know it’s not here. We don’t have it. We’re waiting. We’re struggling. We’re in pain so often that it obscures that heavenly glory. It’s hard to see.

I’ve had people say to me, especially when they’re grieving the death of a loved one, we have the comfort that they, because of their faith in Jesus, they are in heaven now in glory and bliss, and so we can be happy for them. And yet it’s also comes up yeah, pastor, I know that, but I’m sad now. I’m struggling now. So where’s the comfort for life? Not just death. There is comfort for life.

This psalm begins with the problem. The first verse is

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God. (Psalm 42:1)

We’re thirsty for God. We’re thirsty for what he can provide. Think of that as parched lips and how all you can think about is water. Just getting rid of that pain, that ache of the parched mouth. We want God to come and comfort us in this. And that’s exactly what he does through His word, not just, oh, just wait, look ahead. This is going to come for you. But no, he is with us right now. We want God, that’s why we want to be in heaven, because we’ll be with God in perfection. And he is with you now. He’s with you in his word. He’s right beside you. He’s behind you. He’s beneath you, holding you up. He is within you. The Holy Spirit uses you as his temple.

We’re looking forward to our Sabbath rest right on the last day. When we come in glory with all the saints and angels, we get to worship God forever and enjoy that Sabbath rest. Well God established the Sabbath also for himself. He wants his Sabbath rest, and he takes that Sabbath rest in his temple. He takes that Sabbath rest in you. God comes into your heart to rest. And where he rests, he brings his joy. He brings his peace that passes all understanding. It’s not necessarily something that will feel every moment of every day. And that’s why we need this word. We need this comfort of the Holy Spirit. We can’t comfort ourselves. It only comes by the Holy Spirit through the word. God does comfort us in life and death. The advice isn’t, oh, just hold on. No, the advice is more here’s God. He comes to you in His Word. He’s with you as you weep and as you wail and as you wait and as you hope. And he strengthens that hope, and he strengthens you in that comfort.

Proverbs 3:3-6

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The text I’d like to meditate on at this time is from Proverbs chapter three, verses three through six.

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:3-6)

After God has taught us what he would have us believe, and do we see what’s required of us. Jesus said in his sermon on the Mount, (Matthew 5:48) you must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. And if we see that what’s required of us is perfection, that can quite frequently lead us to despair. Why even try? And perhaps even disappointment that well, I thought this was supposed to be easy, but there’s a great deal of difficulty that I have to accomplish.

We need then, to be perfected in holiness. And so this passage contains one of the most famous Bible passages, and one that’s well worth memorizing in verse five of Proverbs chapter three.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)

And that’s a motto that we can come back to day after day, because this perfection that God requires of us is not possible for us to accomplish. We can’t do it. We won’t ever get even close. And so we come to the passage here that starts: Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. That could be a command. Remain steadfast in your love. Remain in your faithfulness. Show that perfection before God. But really, what it’s saying is, let not God’s steadfast love and God’s faithfulness forsake you. Bind them around your neck. The perfection that God demands of us, he gives to us. He gave that ultimately in Jesus who died on the cross, for all of our imperfections, we call them sins, trespasses, transgressions, iniquities. All different words for the same thing. Failure to live up to the perfection that God requires. Jesus paid the punishment for that. He died with that, so that our sin, our iniquity, our imperfection is gone. It died. And as a result, Jesus also then gives us his perfect record. He was not sinful in any regard. He never committed a single trespass. And that record is counted as ours because of God’s promise. And that’s what this summarizes. God’s steadfast love and faithfulness is his love for you and his faithfulness to his promise to you that he would give you life in His Son, that he would give you His Son’s perfection and holiness.

So when we come to the heaven that God has promised to us, we won’t come as stained and filthy people, but we’ll be clothed in the white robes that John saw in his revelation, (Revelation 7:9) the people clothed in white robes, because their robes are washed in the blood of the lamb. That’s how we get our perfection. It’s given to us by Christ through His Word. Each time that word comes to us, declaring our sins forgiven and strengthening us with the Holy Spirit, it comes with his purposes so that we have the perfection of Jesus in us right now.

Even though we see in our daily lives how often we are imperfect, how often we fail, we have that perfection from Jesus, given to us, and we’ll see it in eternity, that perfection in the most glorious way. But all because we’re looking at not ourselves, but God. We don’t trust in our own wisdom, our own understanding, but we lean on God. We trust in the Lord with all our heart because he gives us everything.

Exodus 14:13-14

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I’d like to give just a little bit of context to the passage I’m going to read in a moment. This comes right after the nation of Israel left Egypt. They were rescued essentially from being slaves in Egypt, and they had come now out of Egypt and had camped by the shores of the Red Sea. But while they were there, the armies of Pharaoh came because Pharaoh had changed his mind, decided he wanted them back. So they were charging forward. So Israel found themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place. Or the devil and the deep blue sea, if you will. Nowhere to go. Their doom is imminent. And after complaining to Moses, this is what Moses said to them in Exodus chapter 14, verses 13 and 14.

And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” (Exodus 14:13-14)

When God has taught us what he would have us believe and do. We know where we’re going, we know what his plans are. We know what his desires are for our lives. Yet there are trials that come up. There are difficulties that face us. We need to be strengthened in faith. I think of this phrase “you have only to be silent.” Sometimes you can say that as a parent. I’ve said that as a parent to my children. We’re going to get where we’re going! You just be quiet, right? Just stop complaining! But there’s more to it than that. There’s also a loving assurance that Moses is trying to apply here to the people of Israel, not only just shut up and stop worrying about it, but after their prayer to God has come. Now watch, wait, pray and wait.

This is how God comes to us through His Word and through His sacraments. The people of God have consistently seen the difficulties that will come. Think of the three men in the fiery furnace Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They faced imminent destruction, and yet they told Nebuchadnezzar, the king, we will not obey you. God will rescue us. He is able to take us out of this fire. But even if he doesn’t, we’re not going to bow down to the idols that you have put in front of us. They remained silent after that simple confession of their faith. After praying to their God, they went silently into their what looked like doom.

Ultimately, we see the fulfillment of this finally in Jesus. Isaiah describes him as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Of course, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus had prayed and wept and said, Father, if you are willing, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. Finally, when he was in the trial, he remained silent.

Our words are not as powerful or as great as God’s words. We pray to God because he has spoken to us, and after our prayers we wait. We hear him. We can continue to pray to him as long as we need, as long as we like. But he strengthens our faith when we are silent, and he comes to us with His Word, and we finally do see what he would have us believe and do is trust in His Son, who has paid everything for us and wins that eternal life for us.

For Israel, this deliverance came through this miraculous journey of a travel through the waters in the Red Sea as they parted, something that had never been seen before. Walking in water but walking on dry ground. And so our deliverance may come in something that seems impossible, for example death. Through it we will come to life. And on the last day, when Jesus comes again to judge the whole world, he’ll bring us to that eternal life that he has won for us.

God strengthens our faith through the word, and that is his will for us. We have only to be silent.

John 17:14-15, 20

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The life of a Christian is not always an easy one. Jesus doesn’t sugarcoat the matter when he describes what their life is going to be as disciples after he leaves them, he talks about how they’ll have to bear their crosses, how the world will hate them. He talks about how they’ll cast them out of the synagogues and even murder them and how people will be turning against them. Even their close friends will turn against them. It’s not sugarcoated. It’s a very dark and difficult time that Christians will face. After describing what their life is going to be like, though, and preparing them for how difficult all of this is. Jesus goes and he prays to his father. In John chapter 17, verse 14, Jesus prays to God, and he says,

I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. (John 17:14-15)

And he goes on and he says,

I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. (John 17:14-15)

So Jesus prays for his disciples, knowing how difficult it will be for them. He doesn’t just prepare them, but He prays to the Father. These words are recorded for us that we see that he was concerned for his disciples. He wanted to take care of them. He wanted them to be comforted. He wanted them to be provided for by His Heavenly Father. He knew what difficulties they could, they would face. He knew how many of those apostles would die for the faith that they were proclaiming for the truth about him, that they were proclaiming. He could look ahead and see that. And he was preparing them for that. But he was also praying for them.

A few verses later, though, I want you to hear these words too. In verse 20, Jesus says,

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word (John 17:20)

Over this text now see Jesus eyes looking directly at you. He’s not just concerned about those difficulties that those apostles would face. He’s concerned for you. He has comfort and compassion for you, that he is offering you strength. He is praying to his father for you. He did that before he went into his death so that as he went into that, those hours of suffering and persecution that he himself was cast out. He himself was murdered for this truth. He had you on his mind and he had you on his heart. So that now when you go forward and you are joined to him and suffer the same things, in many cases, when you suffer being called a bigot for your beliefs, when you suffer being shunned by your family members, if you even suffer physically for this faith, however you suffer, Jesus not only knew about it, but he went and suffered the same things. He suffered hell for you so that he could himself bear you through so that at the end, beyond this cross comes the resurrection that he has promised for you.

He prays to God not only to deliver you out of this, but as we pray, deliver us from evil, he’s delivering you even now through the word he provides you in all of this difficulty until that final deliverance comes. When yes, you do die, but this death is a sleep. He delivers you from this evil world to give you the comfort of heaven. And then on the last day, he will deliver you from all your suffering and pain and rejoining your spirit to your body. He delivers you to that eternal joy of heaven. And Jesus prayed for that already. We pray for that now, and we know that He has promised he will come again just as assuredly as he did die for your sins and rose to give you life. He will come again to bring you to that blessed comfort that he has promised to give you.

1 Kings 19:4-7

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I’ll give you a little bit of context here. You might be familiar with the account in the Old Testament when Elijah had that big contest with the prophets of Baal up on Mount Carmel, where he versus the 400 prophets of Baal each were going to build an altar and put their sacrifice up on top, but they weren’t going to set fire to it. Instead, they’d pray to their gods, the prophets of Baal, to Baal and Elijah to the Lord, to see which God would send fire. And whichever God sent the fire well he would be the true God.

And you’re familiar with the story how Elijah even went so far as to douse his sacrifice with so much water that he was drenched in a trench around the altar, was filled with that water, and he prayed to God after the prophets of Baal had failed all day to get Baal to answer, Elijah prayed once to God, and fire consumed everything that he had built there. And the people of Israel praise the Lord. He is God, the Lord. He is God. What a resounding victory that they had at that time. And then after that, God sent rain onto the earth that he had withheld for three and a half years. And Elijah is just so full of emotion as a result of all of this, all that time. Now, finally, God is coming through and showing his truth and his proof to all these people.

But there was a holdout. Elijah was expecting perhaps this great reformation to happen, that all the hearts of Israel would turn back to the Lord. He’d seen an example of that up on Mount Carmel, but then he heard a message from Jezebel, the king’s wife, the Queen Jezebel, that he she was going to have Elijah killed. And now Elijah runs for his life and he flees out into the wilderness. And there we read this passage from First Kings chapter 19, verses four through seven.

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die and said, It is enough now Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers. Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat. Then he looked and there by his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and laid down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat because the journey is too great for you. (1 Kings 19:4-7)

Now that sadness that Elijah felt, that utter despair, people have examined this and seen that perhaps he was even feeling a clinical depression as a result of all of this because he was willing and ready to die. He wanted his life to be taken away from him. But I want to pay attention to some of the verbiage here, some of the words that he uses. He says “it is enough” there at the beginning when the angel comes and talks to Elijah and tells him to eat and to prepare for this journey, he says “it is too great for you.” And in Hebrew, the words for enough and too great are in fact the same word. So God’s Angel is here is confirming for Elijah and telling him, You’re right, it is too much for you. You can’t take it. You are not enough.

But just like God told Paul in the New Testament, my Grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. Elijah was ready for God to come out and bring about this perfect plan that he had in his own head to bring everything back to perfect renewal. But God had his own plan that He was working on. God was working in the background shortly after this, Elijah in that great journey that was too great for him, he made his way to Mount Horeb, a different mountain now from Mount Carmel, and there he encountered God again. There was a great wind that shattered the rocks. God wasn’t in the wind. There was a great fire that burned all around. God wasn’t in the fire. There was a great earthquake. God wasn’t in the earthquake, but God was in, as you might be familiar with the term, the still small voice. That’s where God came to comfort Elijah when it was too much for him. God didn’t come in this great glorious presence, but he came and showed that his plan was still working, even in the face of what looked like a complete and utter defeat.

And ultimately, we see how God worked that same exact plan when he sent his son Jesus, and how many expected a great and glorious fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation here. But instead he came in this humble and humiliating death of his son. But by that very thing, we can trust what was too much for us. What was too much, our own sin, what we could not handle, Jesus took. Jesus won the victory for us. He won that salvation for us. And so now, even now, in whatever difficulties you are facing, God’s plan is still working in that still small voice. He is still keeping his promises in his word. He still provides you his forgiveness in Jesus, his glorious life that is hidden now, but is assuredly yours. And you can rest on his promise. Amen.

Habakkuk 2:20, Psalm 46:6, Psalm 122:1

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Towards the end of the Old Testament, there’s a little book by the Prophet Habakkuk. I’m going to read chapter two, verse 20,

But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him. (Habakkuk 2:20)

If you’ve ever been in a courtroom, you might have experienced this phenomenon before the court is in session. You hear kind of a susurrous of sound as people are having all sorts of conversations. The lawyer’s speaking with their clients, family members and friends, speaking to one another. People are talking all throughout. Even the jury members might be speaking to one another. But then all of that comes to a halt at a certain moment when the door opens and the judge is ushered in, the bailiff might say, All rise. And you hear that sound like a rushing wave of water as people stand up. And then there’s silence as everyone waits to hear what the judge is going to say. Usually the next words out of the judge’s mouth are ‘you may be seated.’ And then he calls the court to order.

We hear something similar about this from the Prophet Habakkuk, who tells us that God is in court holding session. He is in his holy temple and all the earth keep silence before and we wait to hear what God is going to say. In Psalm 46, we hear that

He [the Lord] utters his voice, the earth melts. (Psalm 46:6)

How powerful is the Word of God which created the world? And that word of God, which is described by Saint John, it’s also the Son of God, Jesus, how powerful that is. And how strong God’s Word is to create miracles and how strong that word is to create faith in your heart as well. And we might wish how nice wouldn’t it be to just hear that powerful word of God? To know for certain. Here’s God’s word. Putting a period on everything we know. We can hear it and we are certain.

But the thing is, when we hear this, this word of God coming in this context, as well as a judge, we wonder what his judgment might be and when he utters that voice and the earth melts. Might I not be one of those that melts along with it because of my sin? Because of what I have done against God’s law? He has to condemn me for that. So when this court is in session, I might stand in terror before this awful judge.

But we hear in Psalm 122, the psalmist prays and says,

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” (Psalm 122:1)

Why might we rejoice to go into the house of the Lord? If you look at the altar in your church, many altars are constructed this way that they are shaped and look rather like a throne on which a king or perhaps a judge might sit and hold session and announce his judgments. And we can think of ourselves that way when we come into God’s house, into the church, we are standing and sitting before that judge on his throne. But then you look at what we often have on those altars in our churches. There’s a cross or perhaps a crucifix where you see Jesus dying on the cross to pay for exactly those sins.

So when the judge comes in session before he can take a seat, he has to see that your sins are already paid for. The crime has already been punished. So when he takes that seat, the only word that he’s going to announce to you. Take heart. Your sins are forgiven. That’s certainly why we can rejoice to go into the house of the Lord. And when we go and when we keep silence to hear what God is going to say to us, we can be assured, because of His promise, He’s going to announce us forgiven and innocent and righteous, for Jesus sake.

1 Samuel 3:8-10

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In the Old Testament, we hear a story of a young boy who has an encounter with God from First Samuel, chapter three, we read beginning in verse eight,

And the Lord called Samuel again the third time. So he arose and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you did call me.”
Then Eli perceived that the Lord had called the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, ‘Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears.’ ” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
Now the Lord came and stood and called as at other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
And Samuel answered, “Speak, for Your servant hears.” (1 Samuel 3:8-10)

How do you know when God is talking to you? I hear this phrase used very frequently in people’s conversations when opportunities arise or even disasters strike. Oh, maybe that’s God telling me to take this new job or that maybe that’s God telling me to move somewhere else. Or maybe that’s God telling me to date such and such a person. How do you know when it’s God talking to you and not someone else? You know, we read our Bibles, we have our devotions fairly often and we study God’s word. And that’s excellent for us to read the Bible and hear God’s speaking to us directly here. That’s really how we know how God is speaking to us.

But also, when we go out into the world, there are other voices coming to us. And often the voice of the devil is right there tempting us, trying to get us to focus on other things. I think of an encounter that the disciple Philip had with an Ethiopian in Acts Chapter eight, and he met this man who is in his chariot reading the scroll of Isaiah. And Philip engaged him in that conversation over the scriptures, and the Ethiopian asked him, How can I understand this? I need someone to explain it to me. And Philip did so, but with a very specific aim in mind. His explanation was pointing directly at Jesus, pointing directly at the fulfillment of all of God’s promises and the forgiveness of all of His sins and the promise of eternal life.

And so you and I need that encouragement and that guidance as well. Like Eli for the boy Samuel, who didn’t know who was speaking to him or what the purpose might be. Eli could direct him how to encounter God, how to speak to God, and how to hear what God had to say. And God has blessed us with our fellow Christians as well, especially your pastor. Go and speak to your pastor after you’ve had your own devotion or even before, and you can pray together and you can have conversations about this and with other fellow Christians as well, have conversations about the Word of God. Because what God will do through your fellow Christians is direct you again to Jesus again and again.

John says in his first letter to test the spirits and to encounter those spirits and examine them to see whether they’re from God or not. Because those who tell you the truth about Jesus, those who direct you to look at Jesus are the true Word of God, are giving you the true message that God would have them speak to you and would have you hear.

So learn about that and go speak to others and learn about Jesus. That’s really this blessed message that you hear when you encounter Jesus with fellow Christians. You really do are gathered in the means of grace and receiving forgiveness of sins. And you have that life and you can be assured of that. There’s so much uncertainty. How do I know when it’s God speaking to me? How do I know what God wants for my life? Read his word and speak with your fellow Christians about that word and see Jesus who took your sin away. And His plan for you is eternal life. God loves you. Your fellow Christians love you. Your pastor loves you and wants you to have that very eternal life in Jesus name.

Revelation 21:3, Matthew 18:20

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Hello. Today we’re going to read a portion of the Revelation of Jesus to Saint John from chapter 21, verse three. He says,

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. (Revelation 21:3)

This the Word of the Lord. We as Christians, we like to talk about heaven a lot. I get the question a lot too. What’s heaven going to be like? And really the answer is we don’t know. We have pictures. Sure. Like you can think of the beautiful city that has an amethyst colored street or gates made out of pearls and the foundation made of jewels and gems. But those are all symbols. Symbolic language. Really. All we can say about heaven is it’s going to be beautiful. We’re going to be happy. And maybe more than all of that, we can say that God is going to be with us.

Now, when we think about our sin, that’s really what makes it impossible for us to really understand what heaven is going to be like. We’re broken, we’re not perfect. And that too, that sin, that reality of our own failings, can make that idea that God is going to be with us really kind of scary because how is God going to look at me when He sees me? How am I going to appear in his eyes?

But we also have a promise. Jesus says this in Matthew, chapter 18, verse 20,

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. (Matthew 18:20)

Where Jesus is among us, with us, He came down into our flesh. He came down into the dirt where we are with our sin corrupted flesh. He took that sin unto himself and died with it. So now where we gather around his word, around his sacraments, he is there with us, not in wrath, not to judge us over our sin, but to offer us a word of consolation and comfort, to offer us forgiveness in that word and those sacraments, because he took it all onto himself. And that right there where we gather with other Christians around the word and the sacraments is already a glimpse of what heaven is going to be like. Only in heaven it’s going to be far more glorious where God is with us, with a joyful, cheerful countenance, looking upon us in mercy and in grace and in love, because we are made perfect by him through that word and sacraments. And we enjoy that for eternity. That’s what heaven is going to be like.