As I sit to prepare for my August sermon on worship from Deuteronomy chapter 12-13 and as Grace church navigates our way through the book of Deuteronomy this summer. I read today's verses and see so many connected themes, disagreements, and even heated debates in today's reading of ACTS. It really comes down to how important is God to you? How much to you really believe His word? We sing songs of praise, we shout out our laundry lists of wants and desires, but do we really want to have a close relationship to God? In today's reading of 2 Kings while doing a temple renovation they find the "book of the covenant" (Hebrew word. Sefer ha-Berit), name derived from Exodus 24:7 ("And he took the book of the covenant, and read it aloud to the people. The King reads the book and gets scared, inquires of a prophet and then realizes he needs to change some decor around the temple such as everything pertaining to the worship of other god's that they have allowed into and mixed with the worship of our God.
Then Acts 21 Paul shares a history lesson, then a lesson about ancestry.comand his heritage as a Roman citizen then a town hall meeting with the Jewish leaders only to watch them fight among themselves about the word of God that they had manipulated to fit/align into their lifestyle, and what they thought it said.
Finally Psalm 1 since it is the first Psalm of the book of Psalms which contains two positions in life. First; happiness, fruitfulness, blessedness. Then second; unhappiness, cursedness, and judgement.
Psalm 1 is a wisdom Psalm, there are lament Psalms, praise Psalms, and enthronement Psalms. This Psalm is the first doorway into the Psalms though short it speaks of the most basic truths, and propositions from God's word.
So what about us? Like we found out from Scott's sermon on Sunday like the drastic change from the foundational core of the origins of Harvard University to its current position of being anti Christian did not happen over night. It slowly crept in and has now taken over.
1. What idols do we and have we built or have in our lives that we try to intermingle with our understand of God's word so we can have our cake and eat it to?
2.Do we line up with God's plan or try to have Him line up with ours?
3. Take an inventory of your spiritual life verses your worldly one it is much different?
4. When you speak of Jesus, what Jesus are you talking about? Jesus Christ, God almighty in the flesh who is sovereign over everything, or our self invented Jesus that lines up with and is ok with taking a backseat in our lives?
Let's not be a people who take about God to others and ignore Him in our own lives.
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