Isaiah 44:24-46:13
The LORD is God and there is no other. That was the first of God’s 5 points yesterday and it is the oft-repeated chorus of today. But what difference does that statement actually make? How is life changed by this assertion? This bloke Cyrus shows us how. Cyrus arrived on the scene at the back end of 2 Chronicles after the Israelites had been hoiked off into Babylonian exile by the evil king Nebuchadnezzar. He found the Israelites dazed and confused. Their surroundings screamed to them that their God was either a nut-job or just a bit rubbish. They were asking questions of their identity and of their hope - what is the point of following a God who can’t protect you from the Babylonians? Then Cyrus showed up. He smashed up the Babylonians, set the Israelites free and said the LORD had appointed him to build a temple to the LORD in Jerusalem. But Cyrus was Persian. Cyrus wasn’t an Israelite. Cyrus didn’t belong to the children of Abraham. He was probably the most powerful person in the world. And God was using him as His shepherd. God was using Cyrus as the poster-boy of his sovereignty. It was like there was an advertising billboard bearing Cyrus, covered in bling, posing just enough to show his golden teeth and dragon tattoo, and underneath is the slogan “I am the LORD, and he is my bitch”. Cyrus, who had probably never heard of Moses and had probably never read the Torah was like a dog who heard the whistle of the LORD and had to come running. The most powerful ruler in the land could be tossed back and forth in the hand of the LORD like a piece of clay in the hands of the potter. The same is still true today. God’s got all this covered. It doesn’t matter what our surroundings are shouting, it doesn’t matter where the power seems to lie. We know it lies with God. We know that God is the boss. He is the LORD and there is no other.
Galatians 4:21-5:6
Is Jesus really good enough? Can he really sort out our issues? Can he really offer us hope for the future? Is his call really satisfying? Is his freedom really freeing? The Galatians seem to have been struggling with these questions. I think, if we are honest, many of us struggle with them too. We are tempted to ‘top up’ the call of Jesus with extra things to make us ‘happy’ or help us feel secure. We think that somehow this ‘church-stuff’ is nicely therapeutic when used in the right way but is not the answer to every question of the soul. But we are wrong. Jesus really is good enough. We need to look beyond the surface to see this. We need to look beyond the form of freedom to see what freedom really is. True freedom is not liberty to pursue every latest whim. True freedom is not the multiple choices of consumerism. True freedom is the freedom to be good, the freedom to walk the path of love without constantly falling off. True freedom is not about being able to make any decision we want any day - that is not freedom at all but a death sentence to our souls. That means we will always be restricted by the limitations of our imperfect minds. True freedom is the freedom to receive from God the most perfect, the most satisfying, the most exhilarating call - and to be able to follow it. We can now really follow Jesus’ example of love. We can, through the power of Jesus, bring compassion and hope to people around us. We can live up to the potential of humanity - and we can surpass it. We can live just and good lives. And when we mess this up and struggle with it in the now we can come back to that extraordinary and unique hope that is only found in Jesus - that a time is coming when we will do it perfectly, when the Spirit of righteousness will have conformed us exactly to Jesus’ likeness. That is one of the most amazing things I have ever heard. No wonder Paul encourages us to ‘stand firm’.
Psalm 108:6-13
With God we shall gain the victory
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