Reminders of Forever
Reflections • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 23:28
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· 199 viewsForever is a long time. Sometimes we might have a hard time imagining what eternity will be like. But what if the eternity of God is not meant to focus our attention on the future? What if the eternity of God has more to do with how we live right now?
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We are passing the halfway point in our reading of Psalm 119. I have pointed out that there are 22 sections in this Psalm that each contain eight verses. Last week we looked at the eleventh section out of 22 with verses 81-88. Today we pick up with verse 89 starting into the twelfth section out of 22. This turns the corner. Now we enter into the last half of Psalm 119. And this is also the fourth Sunday of Lent, which means we pass the halfway mark in our forty-day journey towards Easter. We are passing halfway in our path through the Word of God in Psalm 119, and we are passing halfway in our marking of time through this path of Lent.
Today’s passage from Psalm 119 is absolutely perfect for bringing our focus squarely on those two things: our path through the marking of God’s Word, and our path through the marking of time.
89 Your word, Lord, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
you established the earth, and it endures.
91 Your laws endure to this day,
for all things serve you.
92 If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
93 I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have preserved my life.
94 Save me, for I am yours;
I have sought out your precepts.
95 The wicked are waiting to destroy me,
but I will ponder your statutes.
96 To all perfection I see a limit,
but your commands are boundless.
The idea of time travel often makes for a good story plot. The British television series Dr. Who features a time traveling machine called the TARDIS which is built to look just like a British police box—kind of an oversized phone booth. The show has been so popular in England that the BBC network has trademarked the TARDIS for its own, even though it fashioned after old-style police boxes which already existed.
Going back to my own teenage years, who can forget the time machine that doctor Emmitt Brown built into a DeLorean automobile using the flux capacitor, which Marty McFly used to travel back to November 1955 to meet his parents when they were teenagers. All this chronicled in the movie, Back to the Future.
My personal favorite is the WayBack Machine invented by a genius dog named Mr. Peabody, who took his companion Sherman on a series of adventures back in time in order to teach twisted history lessons in the old cartoon series The Bullwinkle and Rocky Show.
All of these stories are science fiction tales. But they are all based on a possibility that Albert Einstein insisted may actually exist, which he sets forth in his famous theory of relativity. Since I am not a physicist, I do not understand and cannot explain anything about how Einstein’s theory of relativity works. But let’s just say this, at times we are intrigued with the possibility and notion of time travel.
And maybe this is so because every one of us has moments in our past we wish we could go back and do over again. All of us have moments in our history we wish we could re-write to lead to a different outcome. Who among us hasn’t said or done something we regret? It’s this feeling and this idea that I want us to hold onto as we look into this section of Psalm 119 today.
In verses 89-96 of Psalm 119, the poet turns his attention to a little bit of time travel. He puts his focus on an expanse of time that enfolds past, present, and future. We have seen over the past weeks how Psalm 119 frames the Word of God in many ways. His Word gives us hope; his Word gives us comfort. And today we consider how the Word of God gives us a glimpse into time. I have tried to set this up for you to see by breaking these verses apart in your outline with certain words or phrases highlighted.
God’s Word and the Future
God’s Word and the Future
Look at all the ways verses 89-91 point forward to eternity. The Word of the Lord is eternal, it stands firm, it continues on, it is established, it endures. Six times in these three verses the poet writes about the Word of God in expressions that point us forward in time. This is future language. The Psalmist declares this in a poem written over 2000 years ago during the time of the kings of Israel. He declares already way back then that God’s Word is eternal and will never be diminished. He affirms this by making poetic comparisons that—for his day—would underscore the certainty of God’s enduring Word. He compares the eternity of God’s Word to the eternity of the heavens. He says it is established upon the earth. The certainty of God’s Word is woven into the very fabric of all creation.
If the one who wrote this Psalm could see that truth, how much more is it evident to us? For us who live thousands of years later after this psalm was written, we see all the more how the Word of God has stood the test of time. Scripture has been preserved and translated into countless languages across the globe. Through century after century, scribes and monks dedicated themselves to hand-writing copies of the Bible.
Between 1947 and 1952, archeologists in the Qumran region of Palestine recovered hundreds of manuscript fragments inside of stone jars hidden in caves. These documents—known as the Dead Sea Scrolls—are the oldest and most complete set of ancient biblical manuscripts that have ever been discovered. And as it turns out, these ancient documents confirm that the centuries-upon-centuries of hundreds-upon-hundreds of hand-written Bibles have remained remarkably accurate and similar to what we believe to be the original text of scripture. The Word of God has remained with amazing persistence and fortitude. God has certainly established his Word forever. I believe we see that more plainly and more evidently now than ever before.
The writer of this psalm declares it. The Word of God will be forever. There is no doubt in my mind that this is true. It provides for us an assurance that the promises of God and the grace of God revealed in his Word are also forever. When we say that the Word of the Lord is eternal, we don’t only mean that the Bible will never go away. What we are saying is that the message of scripture is also eternally true and unshakable.
God’s Word and the Past
God’s Word and the Past
Let’s move on to take a look at the next section. Verses 92-94 provide a contrast. We move from time looking forward into eternity to time looking backward into the past. In these four verses the author recounts all the ways that the Word of God has been his foundation in times gone by no matter what other circumstances may have come along.
Throughout his past, he says, the Word of God has been his delight; he will never forget it; he has sought it out; and he ponders—or discerningly remembers—it. If the three verses of 89-91 are future language, then the four verses of 92-94 are past language. He turns his attention to a wider scope. God’s Word is not only eternal in the sense that it will endure and remain forever in the future, it is also eternal in the sense that its truth has always been there in all the yesterdays that have gone before.
Here’s what the poet is getting at; the promises of God—the covenant of God—has always been inseparably joined together with every single day of his life since before he was born. The story of his own past, the narrative of his life, is one in which the Word of God is prominent in every chapter he has ever lived. In every season of his own existence, he acknowledges that God has revealed himself to be the one true constant among all else in this world.
God’s Word and the Present
God’s Word and the Present
Let’s bring this pondering about the eternity of God together into something that makes a difference right now. True enough, the promises of God’s Word will eternally endure in the future. And true enough, the promises of God’s Word have always existed in the past. God and his Word are truly eternal. But all of that leaves us today with a very important question that must be answered. What good does God’s eternity do us right now? We can talk all day about our past. And we can speculate all day on possibilities for our future. But what all of us really need is a solid place in which the eternity of God and his Word make a difference here in the present—right now.
Look at the last verse for today, verse 96. To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless. The idea of perfection may throw us off a bit here. The Hebrew word which comes into your English Bible as perfection does not mean something that is without flaw. Typically, that is what we think of perfect as meaning. Something is perfect when it has no flaws at all. But the Hebrew word behind this does not refer to things that are flawless. Rather, this is a reference to things that are complete. This is a completeness that carries the sense of being whole. I would suggest a better English word here to better capture the meaning of this verse. Perfection here has the understanding of accomplishment; things that are completed and made whole.
So then, what the psalmist is concluding here is that in all of his life’s accomplishments which have been brought to completion, there is still something that is limited. In all that he ever does on his own as an accomplishment in this life in this world, there is still always something lacking. In other words, apart from God everything else in our lives will always come up short of completed wholeness. Catch this; he sees himself living in a present which only carries meaning because of God. Because God brings a meaning to our lives through his Word which are boundless—that is, not limited, not incomplete.
What does your now look like?
That’s the question. How do you see yourself right now in the present? I have been calling this series through Psalm 119 Reflections because Psalm 119 gives us a sort of mirror with God’s Word in which to see a reflection of ourselves. Today’s section of that psalm takes the idea of eternity and pinpoints us within that eternity to our present. What does your now look like?
There are two ways of answering that question. The first way brings us back to our occasional ponderings about time travel. The first way looking at yourself right now is a way that—for whatever reason—always picks up and takes along baggage from the past. This is a way of seeing yourself in which you are always defining yourself in terms of what you have done, where you have been, experiences that have lingered. This is a way of seeing your reflection in the present and it always seems tied together with your past.
I see my reflection in God’s holy Word, and I see then just how unholy I am. I carry the weight of my sins with me. All the mistakes I have ever made, all the regrets that hang on in the back of my mind, all the baggage I keep hauling around with me in my own soul, all of that shows up in how I see myself right now. I have a present that is chained to my past.
Or maybe we do our very best to spin it more positively. I come to church most weeks, I give an offering, I attend a Bible study, I say my prayers, I do my devotions, I try to be a good moral person, and help others. Sure, there are some dark spots in my past, there might be a few skeletons in the closet, but not as bad as others. We all try to do that. We all look into the mirror of God’s Word and want to do everything we can to put our best foot forward. I want to sweep under the rug anything that shows my dirt, and I want to pull into the light anything that I think gives me credit. Whatever. It still doesn’t matter because it is still trying to live in the present in a way that is actually chained to the past.
If you look at your present and see yourself now in a way that just cannot shake off your past, then let the Word of God show you a better way.
Often when we think about eternity with God, we automatically tend to frame that as a future someday event that is still out there and we have not arrived yet. We think of salvation in Jesus as something that is only defined by an afterlife. But we have trouble seeing salvation as a future which lands itself into our present right here and right now.
Yet this is exactly with the psalmist is declaring. His present is not stuck chained to any past baggage. His present is woven together into a promise of God that carries for all eternity. His present is not one which looks back with doubt and regret; his present is one which looks forward with assurance and confidence.
What does your now look like?
Of all the past we have in our stories, and of all the baggage there might be to hang onto, there is only one past event in all of human history that still stands and matters today, and that’s the cross of Jesus. The only thing in the past which carries any weight to affect who we are when we stand before the throne of God is the cross of Jesus. That’s it. Nothing else in our past matters before God except that.
Paul says in
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
And in
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Do you see your reflection now? Do you see who you are now? Do you see how the person you are is taken by God and joined to an eternity held secure by Jesus? We are not held captive by anything in our past. We are not afraid of anything unknown in our future. Because Jesus has changed my future, my present is forever freed from my past.