Is the Lord among us?

March 27, 2011 Sermon in brief from Psalm 95 & Exodus 17:1-7

Psalm 95
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.

Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the desert...

If you hear the Lord’s voice—when the Lord gives you a nudge toward good—do not harden your heart. As you worship with songs of joy and praise—let your heart be soft and pliable in the Lord’s hands, full of gratitude and thanksgiving. As you ponder the works of our Creator and bow in reverence and obedience to the great King above all gods—let your heart be like clay in the potter’s hand—soft, easy to mold. Then, as those who receive our daily bread from the Lord and are led to green pastures, beside still waters... Listen!

Listen carefully and if you hear God’s voice—when the Lord speaks to you—do not harden your hearts. That is the warning God’s people of all ages receives from this scripture.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…

The heart in Scripture is a figurative expression meaning the very core of our being—the seat of affection, intellect, and will, our inner character. And the psalmist indicates that the core of our being can be hardened, that the strength of our character can become callous and cynical. And the psalmist pleads with God’s people not to let that happen.

Hold your place in Psalm 95 and flip to Ex 17:1. Speaking of the Israelites, it says:

They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink.”

Moses tries to help the people recently led out of Egyptian slavery to better understand what they are doing. Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?"

Moses knew it was the Lord who had led them out of Egypt
Moses knew it was the Lord who had opened the Red Sea
Moses knew it was the Lord who had defeated the Egyptian army that was chasing them. Moses knew it was the Lord who provided water and manna and quail.
So Moses said, ‘Don’t quarrel with me. But rather realize you are quarreling with the Lord.’ That’s a lesson we all need to learn.

Now, back to Psalm 95:7
After reminding the congregation of who God is the psalmist simply says: O that today you would listen to his voice! And now the psalmist begins to preach--and the Lord begins to speak directly to the worshippers.

…do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.

They had experienced God’s deliverance and provision and yet they doubted. Moses named this place to reflect the heart of God's people at this place. Even though the Lord provided water for them this became known as the place of quarreling and testing because the people quarreled and tested the Lord. Meribah means quarreling and Massah mean testing.

And even while worshippers are remembering all of God’s goodness the psalmist also wants us to remember what makes God angry! What made God angry there in the desert?

"They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways."

What makes God angry?
God’s people who forget God’s goodness and start to grumble,
God’s people whose hearts wander and do not regard God’s ways!
That is what stirs up God’s anger. That is when our hearts begin to harden and we begin to ask, like the Israelites: Is the Lord among us? Can we trust God?
Is God faithful? Is the Lord among us?

Sometimes I ask a similar question. When I look around me and see attitudes of bitterness and revenge and a lack of forgiveness in a Christian community I ask myself: Has the gospel lost its power?

Of course this is a rhetorical question because the answer is NO!
No, the gospel has not lost its power because God is still at work in this world. I believe that with all my heart. I see God’s work with my own eyes—in this congregation and in our town. I have seen the power of the gospel at work.
But I also have seen and continue to see hearts hardened—people refusing the good news of resurrection and forgiveness-people refusing to receive God's grace-people refusing to be instruments of God’s grace.

I’ve seen hearts refuse reconciliation.
I’ve seen bitterness take root and grow so that it matures and causes trouble and defiles many [as the scriptures say it will].

The Lord assumes that people who have tasted the goodness of God will respond from the core of their being with joy and thanksgiving—with a life that reflects the favor God has poured upon them. But, that was not the case in the desert at Meribah and Massah—and the same danger exists in the church, the ‘called out’ community of faith, because the author of Hebrews 12:15 writes:

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

If that bitterness was a danger in the first century it is also a danger in the church today. When our heart is hardened toward a brother or sister in Christ that means our heart is hardened toward the Lord—and that is where the bitter root can flourish and cause a lot of trouble.

Today, if you hear the Lord’s voice, do not harden your hearts…

Is the Lord among us? Of course! Has this congregation visited Massah, the place of testing, and Meribah, the place of quarreling, in times past? Yes, too many times!

Have we quarreled? Yes.
Have we tested the Lord? Of course we have.
Every congregation of God’s people throughout the ages has quarreled and tested the Lord’s patience. But the Lord has always held out a forgiving hand when hearts soften. We don’t want to pitch our tents at the desolation of Quarreling & Testing. There is a better way.

The opposite of quarreling is reconciliation.
The opposite of testing the Lord is obedience and reverence toward the Lord.

This is the point the psalmist is making. Our worship must become a purifying process so that our hearts are open to what the Lord is doing so that we are a reconciled congregation of God’s people, instruments of God’s mercy and grace.
Nothing good comes out of quarreling and we gain nothing by testing the Lord.

When we linger at the place of Quarreling and Testing we forget all that the Lord has done and we fail to see what the Lord is doing. That’s when we begin to wonder if the Lord is among us. That’s when our hearts begin to harden.

We have a new beginning before us. With my resignation this congregation has turned a page. Let each one of us commit to the Lord that we will NOT return to Massah & Meribah. We will NOT pitch our tents at Quarreling & Testing—but instead we will dedicate ourselves to hear the words of the Lord and put them into practice. We will pursue reconciliation. We will find ways to better understand one another. We will cooperate with one another and give each other the benefit of the doubt.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…
The challenge before us as a congregation is NOT to take the good news to the ends of the earth. The challenge before us is to let the message change our hearts so we live at peace with one another here at 300 South Main Street in El Dorado Springs.

Let the good news of resurrection empower us to have a spirit of cooperation and good-will—so that the words of our mouth under gird our spiritual leaders—under gird and not undermine. Let us as a congregation establish a new way of being the body of Christ. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…