Wilderness Wanderings

May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands (Psalm 149:6). This is a psalm of praise to God, bookended by the phrase, " Praise the Lord ." The opening half is delightful, a wondrous call to God's people to get up and bodily worship him. But in our verse, there is a dramatic shift that endures to the end of the psalm. What are we to make of this turn to violent...

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day ( Deuteronomy 5 :15). Many of us have heard the 10 Commandments often but have rarely paused to consider the impact these commands were meant to have on God's newly freed people. This command...

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings!  The text is Galatians 5:24-26.  Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it  here on YouTube .  Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC:  immanuelministries.ca Dive In What was the sermon exploring? How does b...

"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Deuteronomy 5:21). It is commonly understood that the fourth commandment, the one about resting on the Sabbath, is the glue that binds the ten together. It reaches back, gathering our relationship with G...

     Praise the Lord (Psalm 150:1). Once, I took a two-week class with the late Dallas Willard. He began with two instructions. Each of us was to sleep 10 hours a night and we were to find a lonely place and shout Psalms 145-150 to the Lord. He explained that fatigue was one of the greatest problems in the North American church today, especially among church leaders. Fatigue hinders our ability to...

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15) . In her book, Letters to a Diminished Church , Dorothy Sayers has a few paragraphs about work. She argues that our financial system has subordinated people to economics. Workers are merely part of the machine in which they can earn a paycheque sufficient for living and some leisure time. The...

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings!  The text is Galatians 5:16-23.  Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it  here on YouTube .  Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC:  immanuelministries.ca Dive In! How have you viewed the battle within? h...

When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?"—skimping on the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat (Amos 8:5-6). Amos' oracles regarding Israel are eerily descriptive of our own economy. He describes those...

My heart is filled with longing for your laws at all times…LORD, I call out to you with all my heart (Psalm 119:20, 145). One more reflection on Psalm 119. Via this Psalm we have explored what it might mean that David was ' a man after God's own heart ' (Acts 13:22). We have looked at four things that may have caused God to describe him this way: obedience, humility, integrity and worship. Today,...

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters…You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands (Isaiah 55:1, 12) . On Friday, we considered the opening verses of Isaiah 55. Today, we focus on verse 12. This is not merely a poetic flourish. It is the picture of what happens when God r...

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live" (Isaiah 55:1-3). God's inv...

"Your covenant laws are your gift to me forever. They fill my heart with joy" (Psalm 119:111). The past few Wednesday's, we have wondered what God meant when he called David, " a man after my own heart ." I say, 'wondered', because the Bible does not define this phrase. We are, of course, not talking about things we need for salvation. Rather, these are things God saw in David that delighted him....

Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart… (Psalm 15:1-2) . It's difficult to know where and when it started. Maybe it was the monastic movements in which people retreated to the wilderness to focus on personal holiness. Maybe it was the division between clergy and...

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings!  The text is Galatians 5:13-15.  Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it  here on YouTube .  Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC:  immanuelministries.ca Dive In! Before today's sermon, how would you des...

Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to...

I will praise you with an honest heart as I learn about how fair your decisions are (Psalm 119:7). A psalmist sang, "[God] chose David his servant and took him from the sheep pens; from tending the sheep he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel his inheritance. And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skilful hands he led them" (Psalm 78:70-72). We considered...

Then [Jesus] said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" ( Matthew 9:37-38). Years ago, on a flight to Los Angelos, I read a book called Margin. The author, Richard Swenson, M.D., argued that we fill our lives too full. He used the image of the old blue lined paper used for writing. I...

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings!  The text is Galatians 5:1-12.  Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it  here on YouTube .  Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC:  immanuelministries.ca Dive In  What things have you added to Christ? Thi...

[Israel] has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold—which they used for Baal," [says the Lord God Almighty ] (Hosea 2:8). Like last Friday's, this text ought to make us uncomfortable. At the very least, it should make us do some serious self-examination. A thing that Christians ought to do regularly under the guidan...

I trust in you with all my heart. Don't let me wander away from your commands (Psalm 119:10). "A man after my own heart", God said of David. Is your heart healthy? Do our hearts align with God's? A week ago, we explored one answer, David's desire to be obedient to God's law. On its surface, Psalm 119 is boring. It's repetitive. But I think we miss the point. Its goal is not content but enchantment...

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live (Isaiah 55:1-3). Many thing...

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings!  The text is Galatians 5:1, 13-14.  Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it  here on YouTube .  Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC:  immanuelministries.ca Dive In! What were the three things about free...

When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow (Isaiah 1:15-17). Do you know who made th...

     My heart is filled with longing for your laws at all times (Psalm 119:20). I remember a group exercise, probably some ice breaker, in which we were asked what we would like on our tombstone. How is that a good icebreaker? Probably, to get into a conversation about legacy. I didn't like it then and I still don't. A more interesting question to ask is "What do people say about me right now?" bu...

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). There is hymn that begins with: " The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple; the church is not a resting place; the church is a people." And the refrain: " I am the church! You are th...