Sanctuary – January 27, 2024 (31/365)

Let me preach to myself. And I cannot think of a better Psalm right now, than the one we found trusty and handy-dandy at the beginning of this year… which, if I’m honest, feels like so long ago: Psalm 20.

Trust in the Name of the LORD Our God

TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID.

May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble!

May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!

I give thanks to God, because He is good… and in His goodness, rather, as an expression or reflection of His goodness, He answers us in the day of trouble. By His name – That is, His honor, His character, and His authority – The God of Jacob protects us.

“So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments.

Then let us arise and go up to Bethel, so that I may make there an altar to the God who answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”

Genesis 35:2-3

It’s no surprise that of all the men of God that could have been mentioned, it was Jacob who was remembered in this Psalm. We see here in this passage that it was Jacob who testified by way of an altar – specifically to honor ‘the God who answers (him) in the day of (his distress)’. It is to say that the same God who answered Jacob in his day of distress, answers us and protects us in our day of trouble.

And it doesn’t stop there, apparently. For not only did Jacob testify of the God who answers, but he did not hesitate to mention that this same God ‘has been with (him) wherever (he has) gone’.

I think at this moment, this ministers to me. I may not necessarily see God literally answering me in this… these days of trouble I’m currently in. I don’t see any miraculous movements or changes or progression of any sort, even if I know things were actually accomplished (at least, for others, and according to others). And to top it all off, I feel like I brought all of this upon myself – whether it’s by way of the old mindsets I’ve struggled with for years and decades (hence the call for reprogramming and even reformatting as I mentioned in my last post), or just my being lazy this week, I feel like I have only myself to blame.

I pushed myself to believe in that one composition, whose bridge has us singing, ‘even when I don’t see it He’s working, even when I don’t feel it He’s working’… and I suppose that, as I go through the first verses of this here Psalm, I see exactly what He’s working on. It may not necessarily be the things I expect Him to do, but no matter what I see or feel, I am brought to remember that my God – OUR God, OUR Father – He protects us.. and as He was with Jacob, so He is with us.

No matter what, I am blessed, and we are blessed. Why? Christ has guaranteed that God protects us, and God is always with us.

May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion!

May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

So I went ahead and checked where the ESV would take me, regarding the phrase ‘from the sanctuary’ and I was pleasantly surprised to see it point me to 2 Chronicles 20:

Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said, “O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’ And now behold, the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom they avoided and did not destroy— behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.” 2 Chronicles 20:5-12

So much value from this set of verses! Really quick, I saw and underlined three things here:

1. Our good king Jehoshaphat brought God’s name to remembrance, by way of recognizing His authority (‘O LORD, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.’), and also His honor and character (‘Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?’)
2. Just as Jacob built an altar to honor God who answers him and is always with him, so Jehoshaphat states the testimony of the people of Israel generations later… by way of the sanctuary, where they would stand before Him and cry out to Him in their affliction. Also, did you notice? They say that when they stand before the sanctuary, they are confident that they stand before God, ‘for (His) name is in this house’.
3. They cry out to Him, publicly proclaiming that, in the face of overwhelming odds: ‘We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”; Jehoshaphat speaks for the people, knowing that He will hear and save.

Friends, we may not have temples of stone, and tabernacles where the Lord lives; we have something far better. By the grace of God, by the finished work of Christ, we ourselves have been made temples of the Holy Spirit… Wherever we are, we can worship the Name of the Lord, knowing that He has set His name upon us (As I keep going through the Bible in 1 year program, I’m pretty sure I’ll stumble upon deeper meanings to this).

And to be honest, I have the same words to cry out to the Lord right now, just as Jehoshaphat did:

Father, I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on you.

Father, the song says You’re working even when I don’t see or feel it, and I may not know what’s being done, but I am still thankful, because I can set my eyes upon you.

There’s another thing, really. We expect our Father to address our afflictions, the ones we’re aware of, and based on our own observations we come up with possible scenarios of how He will hear and save. But we ought to know, even as we wait on the Lord and on His responses… well, we ought to ALWAYS keep in mind that He would make these responses in the light of Christ’s finished work. What I’m saying is we can be confident that He would respond to us, no matter what we see or don’t see, knowing that He has ALREADY responded to us perfectly and eternally, by way of Christ’s birth, death, resurrection and ascension. The King of Kings made the Response of Responses by way of becoming sin, our affliction of afflictions. As such, He died total death for us to have eternal life, absolutely reconciled to Him.

As such, we could receive and proclaim the promises of the Word, as stated in where the ESV points us to, regarding ‘support from Zion’:

The LORD bless you from Zion!

May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life!

Psalms 128:5

I’m sorry, but I think I’ll stop here for now. There’s so much more to unpack here, obviously. God willing, we go through it and finish all of it tomorrow.

Until then, God bless you.

31083/365000

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