Ragged Old Peace

Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. Please take your Bibles and open them with me to Psalms, specifically Psalm 85.

We started our Advent series last week with a look at the hope that this season brings - and specifically the hope of Christ. That we have the proofs of God’s Word, creation and individuals that each, in their own way, reveal to us His faithfulness and that what He says will happen will come to pass. Ultimately we receive our hope through Christ’s first coming and we live in the hope that looks forward to His second coming.

This morning we will be looking at the peace that is promised and received through Christ. A song that I’ve been listening to some lately is the old song from Johnny Cash entitled “Ragged Old Flag”. The premise of the song is that a rather impertinent young man is visiting a small town and makes disparaging comments about the courthouse and the flag pole to an older gentleman who is from that town. The man kindly asks the youth to sit and chronicles for him the trials and travails that their flag has undergone. From the Revolutionary War, through World Wars 1 and 2, their flag had witnessed every major conflict that the nation had faced. It had been shot, torn and burned. He says “she’s getting threadbare and she’s wearing thin. But she’s in good shape for the shape she’s in. Cause she’s been through the fire before. And I believe she can take a whole lot more.”

Now some of you are wondering what a song about the American flag has to do with church, Christianity or the peace of Christ. Maybe I’ve even alienated a few of you by using this example. The point is this - sometimes we fail to recognize the peace of Christ as being operative in our lives because our current condition is anything but peaceful. Pride. Anger. Sadness. Sin interposes itself between us and Christ and we think that the peace we once felt is leaning a bit and lagging. That it is wearing thin and is ragged. But we’re going to look at a Psalm this morning that will remind us that this Christmas season - throughout the year and every moment - the peace of Christ is in good shape for the shape it’s in.

Whether you are one who is struggling with this today or not, look with me at Psalm 85 and allow the promise of this Psalm and more importantly the peace of Christ to be restored in your hearts today.

Psalm 85 CSB

For the choir director. A psalm of the sons of Korah. Lord, you showed favor to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave your people’s guilt; you covered all their sin. Selah You withdrew all your fury; you turned from your burning anger. Return to us, God of our salvation, and abandon your displeasure with us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger for all generations? Will you not revive us again so that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your faithful love, Lord, and give us your salvation. I will listen to what God will say; surely the Lord will declare peace to his people, his faithful ones, and not let them go back to foolish ways. His salvation is very near those who fear him, so that glory may dwell in our land. Faithful love and truth will join together; righteousness and peace will embrace. Truth will spring up from the earth, and righteousness will look down from heaven. Also, the Lord will provide what is good, and our land will yield its crops. Righteousness will go before him to prepare the way for his steps.

As we look through this Psalm, we will see the promise of God’s peace first by examining what God has done, then what God can do and at the end we’ll see the promise of what God will do.

What God Has Done

Pinpointing this Psalm in the history of Israel is tough to do. The relationship the Israelites had with God was so tumultuous that this could have been written at any time in their history.

It may be a post-exilic Psalm written to encourage those pilgrims who had returned to Israel following the 70 year captivity in Babylon.

When the Israelites returned the capitol city of Jerusalem was in shambles. The temple had been torn down, the walls were broken down. Even though the work began on the temple immediately, the work was stalled and the prophet Haggai and Zechariah had to encourage and spur the people on to complete the work.

Even after returning from such a time as the exile, the nation of Israel allowed human opposition in the form of local governors and internal strife between those who were left in Israel and those who returned from Babylon to stall and even stop their efforts. There was even angst over the fact that the temple being rebuilt paled in comparison to the temple built by Solomon.

They also returned to their old ways as Nehemiah had to deal with the returning exiles marriages to foreign women. Oh how short their memory was. This Psalmist could have taken up his pen to help remind and revitalize the hearts of the nation.

Lord you showed favor to your land, you restored the fortunes of Jacob.

This Psalmist, when he seeks to ease the hearts of the people, appeals to the past. To what the Lord has already done. This could be a look to ancient history - even back to the Exodus or the time of the Judges - as well as a look to the more recent history of the return from exile.

Notice the shift in focus from the physical restoration to the spiritual restoration of the nation

You forgave your people’s guilt; you covered all their sin

This author gets right to the heart of the issue as he reminds the people of God’s faithfulness in the past - not simply for physical but for the more important restoration of the spiritual relationship between God and His people. Peace cannot truly be experienced without this restoration. Physical restoration is meaningless without spiritual restoration.

This causes two tensions for both the people in Israel and for us today. We are often like the people of Israel - God brings us out of a time of struggle and we immediately return to our old ways. We anguish and lament the discipline of God when we are going through it but the minute it is lifted we return to the old familiar sins that led us into discipline to begin with.

By reminding the people, and us, that God has done this before we are also being reminded of the old sins that have brought us under God’s discipline before. Even though this discipline is helpful for us, the writer of Hebrews tells us

Hebrews 12:5–7 CSB

And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives. Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?

This should be a comfort to us as a sign that we are truly loved by God as we endure the discipline that He brings on His wayward children.

Hebrews 12:8–9 CSB

But if you are without discipline—which all receive—then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live?

But we don’t like the reminder that we have been sinful and wayward and so instead of this being a balm to us, it is often a source of sadness. But that is a perspective problem on our part - we don’t have the right perspective of our past.

Not only is our past a testament to our unfaithfulness, it is a testament to God’s faithfulness.

The reminder that He has done this before can be an encouragement to us because, just as that old man expresses pride in a flag that has seen hard times and is still flying, God has brought us through the fire before and He is capable of continuing to bring us and to carry us through until the end. Unlike that flag that one day may fall - God will never fail. He has set His faithful love on His people and He will carry them through.

One reason for that is that His fury has been withdrawn, His burning anger has been turned away from those who have placed their faith in Him. Even His discipline now, while at times it may seem as if it is a result of God’s anger, is a product of His love for us. It is His desire for our sanctification and His efforts to bring it about.

God has worked in you and He will continue to work in you. Having reminded the Israelites of what God has done, the writer now shifts his focus to what God can do.

What God Can Do

Return to us God of our salvation. We must recognize here that there can be no return to fellowship with God without repentance. If we are experiencing a distance from God in our lives - we should look to repent. God will not return to us unless we repent. This doesn’t mean that there is a loss of salvation - but how many believers never experience their full potential as Christians, never experience their full blessings as children of God because they live with one foot in the Kingdom and one foot in the world.

Some of you are probably recoiling saying that this isn’t possible - you can’t live with one foot in the Kingdom and one in the world. You can’t be saved unless you are fully planted with both feet in the Kingdom. What I am saying is that there are lots of Christians who try to maintain their pet sins while trying to have a relationship with God. Even those who think they are completely devoted to God still maintain sins that they have blinded themselves too.

We may remember what God has done for us in the past but not recognize that we need to repent afresh from sins that we are committing today. We will only experience the return of true fellowship with God when we live in a state of constant and consistent repentance. Our attitude toward repentance should be the same as this expression by Puritan George Swinnock

300 Quotations for Preachers from the Puritans (Hastening to Repent after Sin)

A sheep may fall into the ditch and defile himself, but he hastens out of it as soon as he can; but the swine chooses a dirty place, wallows all the day long in the mud and mire. A saint may fall into sin, but he hastens to recover himself by repentance. A sinner lives in it day and night.GEORGE SWINNOCK

Only then, when we live in a state of repentance, will God’s displeasure be abandoned and He will return to the sweet fellowship that we have had with Him in the past. The Psalmist implores those who lift these words with him - return to us, this is a corporate request for God to return to the nation. There are many issues that are plaguing the church today - we write about them. We talk about them. But do we pray about them? Do we pray for God to move and restore His church or do we merely complain and spout our own opinions? Are we as faithful in the prayer closet as we are on the social media or in our own conversations?

This Psalmist brings to light the only true restorative power - Will you not revive us again so that your people may rejoice in you? There is a progression here - first repentance in the church as we are awakened from our sin induced, comfort induced slumber and reawakened to the work that God has for us to do. Then we are revived, rejuvenated as we go about the business that God brought His church into existence for.

But first, on a personal level or on a corporate level, we must realize that we are outside of God’s will and that the reason we don’t have peace in our hearts is that our hearts are not with Christ as they should be. If we will return to God, He will return to us and make us vibrant again.

We say the church needs a revival and I would wholeheartedly agree. But a revival isn’t the unchurched getting saved and growing the number of people in the seats. True revivals in history have never happened this way. The word revival itself is a clue to us as to how this takes place. Revive is to wake up something that has either gone dormant or has died entirely. It means to make alive again or resurrect. James Montgomery Boyce writes it this way “We think of revivals as being a movement of God in the world so that unchurched unbelievers come to Christ. But revivals do not start in the world. They start in the church, since it is the church that needs to live again.”

The writer of this Psalm would agree as note his phrasing here again - Will you not revive us again so that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your faithful love, Lord, and give us your salvation.” Notice here that the source of this Psalmist’s appeal is the faithful love of God. We can be confident in His love for us and that He who has began a good work in us will see it to completion - even if He has to wake us up a few times to do it.

Now we come to an interesting part of the Psalm. Many of us, having been woken up and revived again are anxious to get to work. What can we do. How can we serve. What new methodology or program can we institute that worked at the church down the street or at a church in another city or state and will surely work here. How can we get active.

Look what the Psalmist writes here - how perceptive he is. I will listen to what God will say, surely the Lord will declare peace to His people, His faithful ones, and not let them go back to foolish ways. Oh how often we run off on our own designs and fail to listen to God’s direction - or even wait for it. How much peace we forfeit thinking that this time I’ve got it all figured out and I wont make the same mistakes again. There are two things we can learn from this short section - the first is to wait on God’s timing and direction.

We need an infusion of patience in the church - and I say this for myself as much as for anyone else - and a period of waiting on God to see what His direction is. Yes - we have the advantage of having the completed cannon and we know all the commands but often where we go wrong is in exactly how to carry them out. We try to institute man’s wisdom instead of relying on God’s direction. We should instead be patient to wait on God and He will move when He is ready.

Second is that when we rely on the Lord, living in a life of constant and consistent repentance He will actually keep us from sin. Now I’m not saying that we can achieve some sort of sinless perfection this side of Heaven - we can’t. But as you grow closer to Christ you will find sins that were prevalent and even, dare I say, acceptable in our younger days as a Christian will either fade away or become outright distasteful to us as we mature. When we are close to Christ, He keeps us from our foolish ways.

And this is all for the purpose of directing glory on the Father - His salvation is very near those who fear Him, so that glory may dwell in our land. The glory that the Psalmist is speaking of here is the visible shekinah glory of God - the physical manifestation of His presence with His people.

Ezekiel wrote of the departure of God’s glory from the temple - and this Psalmist, probably writing after the exile is looking toward the return of God’s glory amongst His people. And he has the faith that God will do it.

What God Will Do

John 1:14 CSB

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

There is no place in all of history that faithful love and truth were more joined together than in the person of Jesus Christ. Never did God’s righteousness and justice meet with peace and embrace than in the person of Jesus Christ.

Through the person of Jesus Christ God’s glory returned to the temple and not just to the temple but became available to all men. On the night that Christ was born the glory of God shone around the shepherds

Luke 2:9 CSB

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

Through Christ true peace came into the world and became available to each of us - the peace that our forgiveness has been purchased and that God has forgiven our sins and covered our guilt. At Christmas the angels sang

Luke 2:13–14 CSB

Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!

We merely need to embrace the peace which He has provided for each of us through His Son. There can be no true peace without repentance and faith in Christ. This peace that we seek has been through the fire before and is still available to us today. The pre-reformer John Huss said this

300 Quotations for Preachers from the Medieval Church (The Lord Gives Peace to His Own)

The Lord is just and merciful, and He gives peace to His own in this world and after death.JOHN HUSS

He has purchased our peace through the death of His Son. And this peace is not simply for us to have peace with Him but also so that we might have peace with ourselves, with our family, with our friends, with our church and even with our world.

300 Quotations and Prayers for Christmas (“May God Give You Peace with Yourselves”)

May God give you peace with yourselves. May He give you goodwill toward all your friends, your enemies, and your neighbors. And may He give you grace to give glory to God in the highest.CHARLES SPURGEON