Slavery Rescue Grace

Yesterday, I went to church.

EXHAUSTED.

I mean, truly exhausted, desperately hoping I wouldn't fall asleep.

Saturday night, I stayed overnight at a sleepover for forty-seven 7-12 year old girls.

I didn't sleep.

Any time I could have imagined even getting close, yet another girl would come up to me, having awakened from a bad dream or with anxiety. Or there would be someone trying to jump on a trampoline or someone else telling on the other girls who were being too loud.

Once parents had taken back their children and the gym had been tidied, I ducked home for a shower, made a starbucks run, and headed off to church.

I liked this church even more than I'd remembered.

We studied Psalm 22 yesterday. I love that Pastor Andy quoted someone else who said that all psalms are Messianic in light of systematic theology. And I love that I've been reading Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Psalm 22 is what Jesus quotes on the cross when he cried out, God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 

He cries in desperation, completely abandoned, and then verse 3 says, Yet you are holy

Always remembering God's character.

Always.

Jesus knows what it is to be forsaken, and continue to trust in our Father. And that's the thing: Pastor Andy put it like this, "Jesus didn't come to make you a good person. He came to make you a son or daughter"

I sat in church, and I realized how familiar I was with the first verse or two of this psalm, and how unfamiliar I was with the rest.

Like verse 21, Save me...you have rescued me.

The already/not yet paradox. Present in the psalms, present in the life of the Christian. Already saved, currently being sanctified.

Or verse 24, For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him 

And verse 26, The afflicted (can also be translated as meek) shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever! 

Matthew 5. Blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit is to understand who God is and who you are and know there's a difference.

The psalm ends, He has done it 

The same way Jesus' life ends, It is finished.

And we see the promise,

And he said, "Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you. Exodus 34:10 

Pulled out of slavery to see his glory. To sing his praise.

To be his child.

The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place. Deuteronomy 1:30-31

These things were on my mind yesterday.

We sang I Shall Not Be Moved,

"Just like a tree planted by the waters, I shall not be moved"

And it just reminded me to drink fully from the presence of the Lord, to be satisfied with his richness.

I had come to be filled, and I was.

Then this morning, I started reading Steve Turner's book Amazing Grace. It's the story of John Newton, and the famous song he penned. It's his story of grace, but it's also the story of how grace has amazed millions since then.

A former slave trader, who was once enslaved himself in Africa, kept two verses near him after his conversion to Christianity, posted on his wall like this,

Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, Isaiah 43:3

BUT

Thou shalt remember that thou wast a bond-man in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee. Deuteronomy 40:15

God had always been with him, and it was God alone who rescued and redeemed him. It was this that allowed him to pen the words,

"Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!"

He was poor in spirit. He knew who he was and who God is and he saw the difference.

Sherman Whitfield, a man who came to Jesus while hearing a church sing this song said,

"When they got to the wretch part, I said, 'He's in the wretch-saving business? I said, 'I qualify. I qualify'"

John Newton writes his own understanding of depravity, "I believe our hearts are all alike, destitute of every good, and prone to every evil. Like money from the same mint, they bears the same impression of total depravity. But grace makes a difference, and grace deserves praise"

Amazing grace