Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget Your law. Plead my cause and redeem me. Give me life according to Your promise! Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek Your statutes. Great is Your mercy, O Lord. Give me life according to Your rules. Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from Your testimonies. I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep Your commands. Consider how I love Your precepts! Give me life according to Your steadfast love. The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous rules endures forever. (Verses 153-160)
Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2
She lived next door to us for the six weeks we were in Atlanta. Her long fingernails were painted red, her hair was dyed a bright blond, and her t-shirts were cut very low. She had a rather foul mouth and a bawdy sense of humor. Her two kids played with my two kids. And so it began. The conversations about Jesus. My neighbor didn't disgust me, though she certainly didn't keep God's laws. I loved her. Fed her kids lunch and took them to the park with mine. But God knew I didn't have much time. I'd known her only a couple of weeks before she asked Jesus into her heart. She was really hungry for Him. Like she'd been waiting all her adult life for someone to move in next door and tell her about God's love. At first, nothing much changed. Hair, nails, clothes, cursing. By God's grace, I didn't judge her, though. I knew God had changed me. I hadn't changed myself. So we prayed together every day despite the fact she didn't look like a Christian yet. One morning she came over for coffee wearing a different kind of t-shirt. No cleavage. And her fingernails were cut and painted a light pink. (Not that red fingernails are a sign of anything. I love red fingernails!) That was the first thing I noticed. "You changed your nail polish!" I said in surprise. "I couldn't look at them any more. The long red fingernails," she said, as she held her hands out for me to see. "And I don't feel right about my clothes any more, either. It's like something's changed inside of me."
I'm wondering this morning where my friend would be today if I'd written her off at first blush. Thought how disgusting her clothes and short shorts. Thinking I wouldn't defile my kids with hers because they weren't Christians. Thought to myself how I was better than she because, after all, I go to church. I could have. And I think the spirit of this psalm could be misrepresented to say we Christians should be thinking like that. What I've discovered is that most people know when they are doing wrong things. Pointing it out to them simply makes them defensive. It makes all of us defensive. So what is this disgust the psalmist feels? Is it toward the world without Christ or is it toward those who know Him and leave? Who trust in their own goodness to save them?
Mercy triumphs over judgment. James 2
She lived next door to us for the six weeks we were in Atlanta. Her long fingernails were painted red, her hair was dyed a bright blond, and her t-shirts were cut very low. She had a rather foul mouth and a bawdy sense of humor. Her two kids played with my two kids. And so it began. The conversations about Jesus. My neighbor didn't disgust me, though she certainly didn't keep God's laws. I loved her. Fed her kids lunch and took them to the park with mine. But God knew I didn't have much time. I'd known her only a couple of weeks before she asked Jesus into her heart. She was really hungry for Him. Like she'd been waiting all her adult life for someone to move in next door and tell her about God's love. At first, nothing much changed. Hair, nails, clothes, cursing. By God's grace, I didn't judge her, though. I knew God had changed me. I hadn't changed myself. So we prayed together every day despite the fact she didn't look like a Christian yet. One morning she came over for coffee wearing a different kind of t-shirt. No cleavage. And her fingernails were cut and painted a light pink. (Not that red fingernails are a sign of anything. I love red fingernails!) That was the first thing I noticed. "You changed your nail polish!" I said in surprise. "I couldn't look at them any more. The long red fingernails," she said, as she held her hands out for me to see. "And I don't feel right about my clothes any more, either. It's like something's changed inside of me."
I'm wondering this morning where my friend would be today if I'd written her off at first blush. Thought how disgusting her clothes and short shorts. Thinking I wouldn't defile my kids with hers because they weren't Christians. Thought to myself how I was better than she because, after all, I go to church. I could have. And I think the spirit of this psalm could be misrepresented to say we Christians should be thinking like that. What I've discovered is that most people know when they are doing wrong things. Pointing it out to them simply makes them defensive. It makes all of us defensive. So what is this disgust the psalmist feels? Is it toward the world without Christ or is it toward those who know Him and leave? Who trust in their own goodness to save them?
The woman at the well had been married five times and the man she was with wasn't her husband. The woman found in the very act of adultery knew she was guilty when the religious men picked up stones to throw at her. When Jesus cast the demons out of the crazed man in the country of the Gerasenes, the man knew he'd been delivered from something very evil. The lepers Jesus touched were so unclean they had to live separately from the rest of society. Touching them made the religious socially and physically soiled, too. Disgusting. All of them. The pure walked on the other side of the street. Pulled water from the well at a different time of day. Bloodied the dust around the temple with the residue of stonings that made everything all right again. Religion. Haughty and unforgiving. Purging sinners ever more deeply into sin. But Jesus touched them. How could He judge them when they didn't know? After all, Jesus came into the world to save it, not condemn it (John 3:16-17). So it was that Jesus told the story of the sinner and the saint. Two men went to church to pray. One was a despised tax collector whose profession made it easy for him to cheat people. Hated by everyone. Worse than the IRS. This man had big sin problems. The other man? A pillar of the church. A teacher in the local temple. A man spotless in reputation. He climbed the temple steps, elevated himself upon the great porch and stood praying aloud to God. "God, I thank you that I'm not disgusting like those who are unjust, extortioners, adulterers, or.." and the man looked down at the tax collector praying at the bottom of the steps..."even like this tax collector." As the man continued in prayer, he commended himself to God. "I fast twice a week when I only have to once a year. I give tithes of all that I get." Love me, God, because I'm so perfect.
The tax collector couldn't even look to heaven. So aware was he that he wasn't good enough for God. And hearing the loud prayer of the self-righteous man humbled him further. The godly man was right. He was a better person than the IRS agent. Deeply aware of his need for mercy, the man beat his chest and cried out in his desperation, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
It was the tax collector who went home justified, said Jesus. Why? Because he understood what the self-righteous church-goer didn't. It's God's mercy that saves us. God's not pleased when we stand before Him pointing out how great we are, and especially not when we compare our piety with someone else's sinfulness. If we don't know we are all saved by grace, we won't extend it to others
The only thing Jesus found to be disgusting was the judgment of the righteous toward the sinner. Because God's heart is to save...to seek and to save...that which is lost (Luke 19:10).
The tax collector couldn't even look to heaven. So aware was he that he wasn't good enough for God. And hearing the loud prayer of the self-righteous man humbled him further. The godly man was right. He was a better person than the IRS agent. Deeply aware of his need for mercy, the man beat his chest and cried out in his desperation, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
It was the tax collector who went home justified, said Jesus. Why? Because he understood what the self-righteous church-goer didn't. It's God's mercy that saves us. God's not pleased when we stand before Him pointing out how great we are, and especially not when we compare our piety with someone else's sinfulness. If we don't know we are all saved by grace, we won't extend it to others
The only thing Jesus found to be disgusting was the judgment of the righteous toward the sinner. Because God's heart is to save...to seek and to save...that which is lost (Luke 19:10).
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