God's Unchanging Presence Amidst Life's Illusions

When we interact with Scripture, we have to think about who is talking, who they're talking to, what's going on in the world, read before and after and learn all of this context. And then as Christians, especially when we're reading the Old Testament, we have to look at it through the lens of Jesus's life, death and resurrection. And then the other thing we need to consider is who we are. Where are we coming to the script? How are we coming to that Scripture today? How we are raised, what we have learned and everything we have experienced changes how we read that Scripture. And that sometimes means that the Scripture we read today reads differently than that same Scripture tomorrow or five or ten years in the future. [00:24:17] (59 seconds)  #ContextShapesScripture

But a biblical prophet is really just somebody who told the truth. And one way to explain it is when you see somebody who's about to do something really stupid, like preach on Jeremiah, you might say something like, oh, that's probably not a good idea. But if you see somebody on a bicycle riding their bike and they're getting ready to go down a hill really fast and they don't have a helmet on, you might want to say, hey, you should put a helmet on because if you fall, you'll hit your head and you'll get hurt. And so if that person rides the bike down the hill and they fall and hit their head and become injured, it looks like you've told the future. But really, you just knew the consequences of the actions that that person was going to do. [00:26:04] (49 seconds)  #ProphecyIsTruth

Another thing you might have heard when you hear the word prophet is somebody who speaks truth to power. Have you heard that? Jonah, that's a more common thing. And those are people who are telling the powerful, the rulers, that what they are doing, the hard truths about what they are doing and how it's going to impact the community around them and reminding them of the consequences of their actions. Does that sound like fun? Do you guys know who Jonah is? Maybe there's a reason why he ran away and spent three days in a fish instead of doing the prophet thing God had asked him to do, because being a prophet is not easy. [00:26:53] (47 seconds)  #TruthToPower

But despite all of that terrible, the very first thing we hear in this scripture is God saying, Am I a God nearby and not far off? Who can hide in the secret places so that I cannot see them? Do I not fill heaven and earth? This is a reminder that when everything is going wrong, and even when you're listening to those wrong voices, God is right there. God fills heaven and earth. God is not a God who is far off, but is right here, even just no matter what. [00:29:17] (44 seconds)  #GodIsAlwaysNear

Humans have a history of taking what God says and twisting it, or listening to people who have twisted it. It's a big problem. Can anybody think of the first time that happened? I'll give you a hint. It's really early. When Adam, that's exactly right. The serpent twisted God's words and asked, Did God really say that? And so then they took what God said, twisted it, listened to it differently, and then they did something they weren't supposed to do. And then what happened was they hid behind some plants and bushes and trees and hoped that God wouldn't find them. They put something between God and themselves. And God asks, Where are you? Not because God didn't know where they were, because God has been with them the whole time. That's what sin is. It's the mistakes that we make that create us. We put our distance between God. Even if God isn't actually further away, we think that God is further away. [00:30:01] (84 seconds)  #TwistingGodsWords

Have you heard the phrase, money is the root of all evil? It's scriptural, except that's not what it says. First Timothy 6 10 says, for the love of money is a root of all evil. It's a little different than money is the root of all evil. [00:35:17] (22 seconds)  #HopeBeyondCircumstance

And in Jeremiah, that that first I quoted earlier, the plans I have for you not to prosper, or to not to harm you, but to prosper you for a hope and a future. And I think that's the name of the author. And I think that the truth is, you know, that's what we're trying to do. that's really God speaking to the Israelites who are living in exile. And it was a reminder that God had not abandoned them. Now, I love to take that verse for myself and think, yes, God has a plan for me in my life, and there is a hope and a future. But no matter what my circumstances are, that hope and that future is not here. That hope and that future is Jesus and the resurrection for me, just as it was for the Israelites. In 600 BC. [00:35:40] (44 seconds)  #ConfusedByVoices

If you eat a bunch of grass, you'll survive, but you won't be satisfied. Something will feel like it's missing. But you know that really good feeling after you eat some bread? That's a good feeling. I love bread. That is a satisfied feeling. So when we're encountering words and voices and we feel like something's missing, maybe it's because we're eating straw and not wheat. [00:37:16] (29 seconds)  #GraceInOurFailures

The other thing we can remember is that despite our best efforts to seek out the wheat instead of the straw, we are going to fail every day. But every time we mess up, because we will misinterpret scripture, we will make mistakes. We will eat the wrong food and listen to the wrong people. We'll have a tendency to be like Adam and Eve and all of the people who have come before us and try to hide ourselves from God because we've made mistakes. But God ultimately is with us. No matter how far away we try to make God be, God is right here with us. [00:37:45] (47 seconds)  #TrustInGodsPresence

``We can trust that if we are doing our best to love God and love our neighbor, that's enough. We don't need to be anxious about where God is or what barriers we are putting between God and us. Jesus has already taken care of those barriers. God hasn't gone anywhere. God isn't going anywhere. And any distance that you or I can put between God is really just an illusion, like how those mountains look further off some mornings. God is the same distance every single day, and God is right here. [00:38:32] (44 seconds)