Aaron McKee - The Relenting and Unrelenting God - Class 4 - Living The Tension (1 Cor. 3)

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   We’ll now turn it over to brother Aaron for his fourth class. The overall topic for the weekend is the relenting and unrelenting God. This class is entitled Living the Tension. Brother Aaron. Well, good morning brothers and sisters, good morning. Well, yesterday we talked about a number of things as we dwelled on this character of God revealed to Moses and Sinai. We talked about the seemingly paradoxical qualities of our God, how he reveals himself throughout Scripture. We talked about the importance of how we perceive these qualities of God.

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   And in our second and third classes, we alternately explored the God of grace, how his grace moves with mankind, what that tells us about what grace means to God. And then we’ve of course dwelt on the God of justice.

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   In the year Uzziah dies, Isaiah received a vision of God and what he saw terrified him. Because in the words of Isaiah 6, we’re in seeing the Lord of hosts, this image of God enthroned in power over the earth, in the seat of glory, lifting him up over the seraphim. These beasts which convey the host of God is angels and Saints who’ve executed His power in authority and majesty over the earth, and who in united voice proclaim this cry Holy.

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   Holy is the Lord of hosts. The earth is full of his glory, and the voice that spoke these things shook the foundations of the earth. Well, in seeing these things, brothers, sisters, Elijah cried out as we all would. Woe is me, I am lost. For what man can stand in the presence of God, of of unclean lips, who dwells with unclean people, and stand before his character?

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   But in the silence that follows that statement, a hand comes forward pulling a coal from an altar of sacrifice, and it touches his lips. And that same voice declares these words. Your guilt is taken away. You’re sin atoned. And how does Isaiah respond? It’s in verse 8. Bron Sisters, He says, here I am, take me, send me to Israel to show your character in an imagery of a man, Bron Sisters, who perceives the character of God, his righteous justice and his boundless grace, and it moves him to action. Well, we are drawn to the fundamental understanding that is underlined everything considered this weekend and that’s simply that knowing Godburn sisters, knowing these qualities of character revealed in this vision that our pattern throughout Scripture that is always a call to action in our lives.

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   This morning, brothers and sisters, we will consider that calling. Consider what it means to to live in the tension of this character, to to be those who who strive for his grace and live by his truth. This morning we’ll consider the difficulties in that calling

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   that many throughout our scriptures failed in this struggle, failed in the balance of grace and truth. You know, they, they could show truth, but at cost of grace or live by grace but but have little value of truth. We’ll consider that some, some of them attained a harmony, a shadow of God’s character and will reflect what that looks like, how it manifests, what lessons we can apply to our ecclesia, our personal lives. But ultimately we will bring our thoughts to the conclusion in a simple, sobering, fundamental reflection from the sisters. And that’s that, while many have tried. All fall short of the glory of God, all struggle in imperfections of the fleshbrun sisters. Yet yet, despite these things, by the grace of God, He will give us a standard that can transform us to what we cannot be ourselves to receive His glory and walk in His character as Moses once desired on the summits of Sinai. But we’ll start our thoughts running sisters with a simple reflection and that’s that.

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   All throughout Scripture. Oh, that would be great. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Just so everybody can see it then. All throughout Scripture our God has this repeated desire, doesn’t He? We We see this time and again in the record of His Word. We we see it in the account of Zechariah 7 verse 9.

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   What does it say? Thus says the Lord of hosts to Israel execute justice and compassion everyone to his brother. We we see it in Proverbs 3, verse three to four. Let not love and truth forsake you. We see it in Proverbs 31, verse 9. Open your mouth, judge righteously with compassion. We see it perhaps most notably by the sisters, the words of Micah 6, verse 8.

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    What does it say? What does the Lord require but that you do justice and love mercy and so walk before God? If one thing is abundantly clear by the sisters, it’s that all throughout Scripture, our God who has lived in the tension of these traits, in everything we’ve considered this weekend, all throughout Scripture, He expects us to do the same.

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    To show the fullness of his character and how we treat those around us and how we live our lives and how we speak about his truth in this world. And Brun sisters, while we might know that, while while we might comprehensively, you know, Theo theologically, intellectually understand that it is something else entirely to live it, we are at all times people who want to forgive yet be fair. We at all times want to speak truth but but not hurt others. We’d all times want to uphold principles but still love people in their failures.

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    And that speaks to you as an individual as it does me. It’s also characteristic of our cliches as we face problems. It’s characteristic of our our worldwide community. We, we grapple in this tension over so many issues, yet yet so often we fall short, don’t we? To to one side or the other.

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    You know, we, we strain to grab hold of truth, but grace slips through our fingers and all this leads us to a a very simple, very painful, harsh reality. Run, sisters. And that’s that. There is difficulty in discernment. The greatest test of discipleship is holding conviction and compassion together, to be firm in our truth yet tender in our mercies.

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    And if you feel that, Bron sisters, if you have struggled with this relentlessly in your life as I have, if you’ve seen it in your ecclesias, that is not unique to us, Bron sisters,

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    know that many throughout our Bibles struggled in the tension. You know, let’s think about them for a moment. Come with me to Job Chapter 4. In fact, the whole book of Job

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    if we reduce it to a single thing when we think about it, it’s really a record of people who struggle in their perceptions of God, aren’t they they’re trying to reconcile. You know, how does he work in our lives? What what is God expected man and what do we see verse 7. These are the words of a life as the the the supposed friend of Job. He says what innocent ever perish, Job, Those who plow iniquity reap the same.

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    Think about what he’s saying here. Run, sisters. He’s talking to a man who lost his children. He says your suffering proves your guilt. We think through the words of Job 11, the words of Zophar. Again, another supposed friend of Job. He says, Job, you think your doctrines are pure, but know that God takes less from you than you deserve. You deserve worse than all the terrible things that happened. What a terrible thing to say.

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    Run, sisters, this is a people who flatten God’s character. They could see a a God of truth, a God of merciless justice. They could defend him as a God of truth. But in so doing, they crushed Job with accusations rather than comfort, with judgement rather than mercy. And because of that, what does God say?

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    They did not speak right of me. They misperceived who I am, how my justice works as God. And we’ve perhaps seen that in our lives, Brun sisters. Perhaps we’ve been these people. I’ve been this this person. We’re in moments of correction. You know, I I deliver truth in ways that was overbearing, that lean to harshness, where where my delivery was was more rigid and and hurtful. And I justified it all behind the fact that, you know, it’s for their own their own good.

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    This can characterize whole Ecclesius Brun sisters where, you know, we we develop a a truth only emphasis where we can hammer law and doctrine. We’re very comfortable with that. But but we leave little space for hope and grace. And unfortunately, Job’s friends, they weren’t alone in that behavior. In fact, there are many in the records of Scripture who show the same. We see it in the history of Israel of people who are constantly living on this spectrum of God’s character, who who many times practice truth without grace, who stone Stephen in defense of their truth, who took the life of Christ justified with these words to Pilate. We have a law that lets us do it. They killed the Son of God with the law of God. The lesson in this behaviour is a simple one, Brun sisters. And that’s that when truth stands alone, it wounds rather than heals.

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    It’s a lesson that truth without grace will condemn rather than restores. The lesson of truth absent of grace, Brun sisters, are the words of 2nd Corinthians 3, verse 6. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. You see what Paul is not saying here is forget truth and just live by spirit or, or that you know truth is something soft and and malleable and you can mold it to whatever you want because because grace is more important.

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    What he’s saying is truth divorced from God’s character is dead. He’s saying how you exercise truth can never be divorced from how the Spirit of God expresses itself. The truth of God must always be practiced in the fruits of His Spirit, in Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness. That’s the expectation of God. When we show truth.

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    Run sisters, when? When we lose that, we become something hollow. When we lose that, we become James and John who could call down fire in defence of truth, but are rebuked of Christ for not representing it’s spirit. We become Moses in Numbers 20, who in defense of God, in anger struck the rock and is rebuked of doing it.

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    We we become the sword of Peter, striking out and defending truth, but by doing it in force deny it’s spirit. We become Ephesus who could uphold the soundest of doctrine in truth as an ecclesia, but in conviction they forgot the love that makes truth come alive in their examples is the lesson that even when truth is on our side.

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    Bron Sisters acting in wrath misrepresents God in their examples is the understanding it is never permissible to demonstrate the works of our flesh in defence of truth.

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    But just as we have those who led with truth and admitted grace, so, so two brothers, sisters, do we see the reverse. Just as we have Ephesus who betray truth emitting loves, so we have Thyatira embracing love at expense of truth. And we see this same imbalance of grace, Brun sisters, all throughout our Bibles. We see it in the records of Jeremiah 7. Let’s take a look at that

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    because here Brun sisters, what does God say of Israel? They’re they’re struggling with a with a very specific issue. He he condemns them very purposefully. We see it starting in verse 5. He says you’ve forsaken justice and truth qualities of my character for verse 9, you steal, you murder, you commit adultery, you swear falsely, you make offerings to Bill. Then you come to my house and say we are delivered. In other words, from sisters.

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    This is a people struggling in the imbalance of grace. They presumed on his character of mercy that all day long that they trusted in his in his covenant and all the wonderful things that we talked about in our second class the the the the the hand of God’s grace that secures this quality of character into man. But they flaunted his word of truth. But what does God say Brown sisters verse 12 Remember what I do to Shiloh.

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    You see, God references Shiloh because in the story of Eli and his family is one of the most ruinous examples of what happens when grace forgets truth. In their story is a lesson of spiritual decay and divine rejection. In their story is a record of of priests who the Bible calls worthless men, men who abuse the offerings of God, men who in their role as intercessors harass people who practiced immorality, participate in corruption, presumed on the grace of God. They take his ark to battle and they lose it. In fact, the actions, they are so intensive, so abhorrent. That is often the case, Brun sisters, when there is an imbalance of people misrepresenting God. It LED Israel to abhor his worship in the land. And if you’re like me, Brun sisters, we read that behavior and we’re so easily appalled at that, too. You know, it’s these are terrible things these men did. We have to recognize, though, it wasn’t just the sons of Eli. It was Eli himself.

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    Eli were told who desired good for Israel. Eli were told who who knew his sons did wrong. Eli were told, rebuked his sons for what they did. He says, why do you do such things?

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    You’re doing enough to tell himself, You know, I, I, I tried, I, I said my piece, I, I stood for what’s right. What does God say to Eli? Brothers and sisters, you honored your sons more than me. And for that he lost everything. In this story we are presented with the consequence of where grace without truth leads. In Eli we see a cutting example that when grace forgets truth brains sisters.

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    Often it stems from our discomfort and confronting what’s wrong. We see this in Saul, who first Samuel 15 He he shows the supposed act of grace, doesn’t he? He spares the king Agag. But but when pressed why he does it, what does he say? How does he respond? He says it’s because I feared people and obeyed them. It’s false grace, Brun sisters.

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    It isn’t grace in in alignment with God’s character. It’s grace in alignment with fear. Like Eli. Appearance, family, harmony, community, perception, all these mattered more than obedience. In both examples. Is the lesson that grace when it’s without boundaries, Brun sisters, it isn’t grace. It is enablement that leads people to ruin.

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    In Eli’s the lesson that that good intentions, A collegial position, personal piety, while all good things brains, sisters, they are never substitutes for speaking truth. In Eli we see the cost of not speaking up. It is always greater than the cost of doing what’s right.

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    But in both extremes, while they manifest in in different ways and take different forms, they, they, they share a commonality. Bred and sisters, there’s a very common trait and that’s that when people seem to misapply the tension, it masquerades as godliness, doesn’t it? You know, we’ve perhaps seen this in a life of the truth. Bred and sisters, We’ve perhaps been this person again, I’ve been this person we’re an uncompromising defensive doctrine.

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    I rebuked harshly. I I treated roughly. I lack sensitivity and justified in the name of I’m representing God’s character of truth. So I’m allowed to talk that way. That’s the way that God sometimes presents himself. But really my motive was was comfort by the sisters.

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    It was pride. It was it was fear, and it wasn’t the person in front of me. Not not to. How am I speaking to them? Is is going to restore them in a spirit of grace. And it’s true in the reverse. We’re showing grace. I told myself I represent the boundless grace of God’s character. I thought myself merciful, but really I was avoiding responsibility, avoiding the hard conversations, allowing something in myself that I shouldn’t. Both cause harm.

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    Brun sisters. Both lead those around us to abhor the character of God as the sons of Eli did. Both hurt the vulnerable. Yet for all the difficulties,

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    there are those who show a balance, who show just a glimmer of what God has always desired of man that we show in our lives. We start to see it in Joseph, who, in a position to judge over his brothers, who has every right by reason of man to be retributive over restorative, chooses restoration. He acts in mercy, and it’s not cheap. Mercy, mercy, brothers, sisters, not forgiveness that overlook the wrong.

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    What does he say? He says you sold me to his brothers. He confronts their wrong in words of truth. But how does he say it? God sent me to preserve you. His grace and truth aimed for their restoration. We see it in Hosea, who did not ignore the sins of his wife. He says you’ve loved another man, turn from your adultery. He confronts her with that truth, but redeems her at cost to himself.

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    He buys her back to restore her. We see it in Stephen, who spoke truth, but always in attempt to restore, forgiving them to his last breath. We see it in Moses, the Lawgiver, who diligently enforced the laws of God. Brown sisters. But what does he say in his final sentiments of Deuteronomy? Underneath these things are the everlasting arms of God. The prophets live this tension we’re Speaking of who spoke boldly concerning sin, but wept for those they rebuked. We see it in Ezekiel who groaned with broken heart, it says before the eyes of Israel.

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    We see it in Samuel who grieved till his death for the loss of Saul. We see it in the tears of Jeremiah. 9 verse one. Oh my head were waters, he says, and my eyes fountains, that I would weep night and day for this people. We see it in Nathan, who comes to David and he confronts him with words and truth, but by grace does it in a manner that would touch his heart, that leads him to restoration, not not to provoke anger and shame or to generate a guilt inside of him that would destroy himself.

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    We see it in Abigail, brothers and sisters, who in coming before David, she corrects his wrongs. But how does she do it? In tears she falls before him

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    with no superiority, no pretence, no no, no ego. In grace she shows her truth. And in their examples are some powerful lessons. The first is that while they spoke truth boldly and courageously and brothers sisters, in a world where truth is hard to speak, it’s important we know this because it means that there are times that that we will risk offending people that must never be the intent of our actions. We must never conflate the the call to speak truth is this license to be malicious or or rough with one another. Many faithful have suffered

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    because of those who practice the truth. That is callous and cold, a thing to be dropped in, you know, If others don’t listen, well, too bad. I guess they didn’t care for God as I do.

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    Guess they weren’t special in the eyes of God to be called as I was. Many in the regular scripture strained for the opposite, strained for ways to speak truth that would restore man’s heart. We think that we see that in the lesson of this still small voice of Elijah. Again, it wasn’t the whirlwind and the fire that calls the heart of man. It’s the character of God that turns hearts. That’s the lesson of the the Spirit that descends on Christ brain sisters, as he’s baptized.

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    How does it descend on him? As a dove? That’s how Christ approached man. That’s the lesson of Paul on Mars Hill. That’s the lesson of Paul the Thessalonians, who it says wean them on the gospel as a mother nursing her child. That’s the lesson of Priscilla and Aquila, who corrected Apollo’s. But how do they do it?

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    By gently taking him aside to explain him the ways of God. We have a responsibility to one another, brothers and sisters, to speak the truth boldly but never cruelly to be as Paul who would write in Romans 9 verse one I I say the truth in Christ,

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    but I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, and I wish myself a cursed and place of those I speak it to. To live the words of Galatians 6 verse 12. If anyone is caught in transgression, you are to re spiritually restore him in gentleness.

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    We can note these things are not a balance. Brothers and sisters, you know, sometimes when we talk about these qualities as we have this weekend, we, we, we, we tend to see them as this thing we have to split 5050 as if 2 scales have to have to come up. Even that can’t be farther from truth, from sisters. Well, both equally parts of God.

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    One by nature envelops the other. Mercy by nature forgives the debt justice owes. For that reason James rightly observed in James 2. Mercy triumphs judgement for that reason. Brun, sisters. When this character is weighed in Exodus 34, it is mercy to the thousandths and justice to the third and fourth. God limits the reach of His judgement and multiplies the reach of mercy.

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    The same is required of us to be firm in our convictions, but in always dedicate ourselves to the preservation of others rather than destruction to forgive. 70 * 7 in the example of our Lord. But above all, we can note that like God living this tension, it is never one-size-fits-all. In every case, from Abigail to Stephen to the lives of prophets and so many others, it manifests differently and takes many forms.

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    One sisters mirroring this character is adapting to the person in front of us as God does to us, is going to that brother in error and weighing the response that will confront them not just in rebuke, but to restore them to God.

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    It’s about going to the young person in our meeting who are in a state of wrong and seeing them as as especially vulnerable. So we don’t rub that in their face, but we sit with them in mercy and through grace and guide their hearts to truth. It’s reaching to the absent. Perceiving there are things.

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    In their lives that that we don’t know they suffer with so, so weighing carefully how we might reach them. It’s extending a hand to a friend.

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    Someone who’s strayed and. And having a hard conversation and it’s not comfortable, but we do it anyway, as Paul did to Peter, because you care for them and you love them. It’s receiving a blow from a brother or sister, as Paul did.

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    Yet still writing as he. Wrote to Corinth in love I write to you. And never shying from. Working through the issues and being present. In the face of. Wrongs.

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    But ultimately, brothers and. Sisters. We end in the reflection. That in every example mentioned. Despite our best intentions. We should fall short of these things, don’t we all have sinned and fallen short of the character of God. All fall short of the the glory in Isaiah’s vision and and the character that Moses could perceive on the summits of Sinai.

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    And you know, more often than not, run Sisters. Not only do we. Fail but, But if you’re like me, you fail like Jonah. Who can understand that God? Is is both these things. We know he is just and merciful that that he has grace and truth. He’s relenting and unrelenting. But we practice them on on my own terms. You know I I desire.

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    Justice and grace when I want them. Times I I want judgement. More than redemption. So I pretend it’s working with my mercy. So deceive myself to my to my own intentions understanding this. Draws us to a few. Closing thoughts the 1st. Are the words of. Jeremiah the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.

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    Living the tension, brothers and sisters. Requires. Honesty. Honesty to search. Our hearts. Honesty to ask ourselves. The hard questions, honesty to ask. Am I acting in self-interest or selflessness? Am I protecting? Myself from from discomfort or or am I reflecting the fullness of God? It’s having awareness to know if I am one who leans to grace. I scream for truth.

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    And if I am. Inclined to truth, I desperately search for His grace the second. Is there are limitations? In what we do, brothers and sisters.

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    Paul in First Corinthians he. He writes directly to this. He says, therefore do not pronounce judgement before the Lord. For he who comes will bring. To light what is hidden and disclose the purpose of the heart. What Paul isn’t saying they’re brothers and sisters is that you cannot judge.

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    Or that you cannot? Correct a wrong or or that you can’t call out injustice when you see it. In fact, how much of our Bible brothers and sisters advocates for us to do that? What he’s saying is there are limitations in that calling. So often our world. Pulls us beyond that. To where we shouldn’t.

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    Go to to apply labels to judge. A person’s motives. To to derive their character in the face of their wrongs. That is the role of Christ from the sisters who walks in our lampstands and judges the heart of man. Our role is confined in the words of Romans, that the judgement of God is according to truth, to enforce that judgement from His word. And brothers, sisters, let that be our standard. To judge as Christ.

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    Commanded not in appearance, but in righteous judgment, and always in the spirit of compassion. Always knowing, however innocent we might feel against somebody else. From sisters before God.

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    We are all guilty, but above all. In considering our shortcomings, marvelling as as Isaiah once did, of of how far we might be falling from the glory of our God will like Isaiah. We now rejoice. In an act of God’s grace. Rejoice in the giving. Of his son. Who lived this character? To perfection, rejoice. He gave us a way to transform us to what we cannot attain ourselves.

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    We will close Bruin sisters on an image of this process, the burning coal that Isaiah saw pulled from an altar of sacrifice. To take away the sins. Of man, and we see him in 2nd Corinthians 3, where once wrote Paul. All we with veiled. Face beheld the character of God from afar, like Moses and many.

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    Thereafter who all? Throughout, Scripture could only glimpse these qualities as a light that shone behind rock, but they they could strain to see it, but they failed in the tension. Helpless to attain it because. It manifested behind a law whose standards they could never reach. Well, in verse 18. We have our hope. Hope in the giving of his.

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    Son. Hope because he reflects. The glory of God’s character as a mirror to mankind. Hope. Because when one turns to Christ, we are not only a model of that image born sisters, we are transformed in it. From 1° of glory. To another for this, brothers and sisters, is the man we’re going to consider, and our eggs are to come, who lived this tension to perfection. A man who when we walk in.

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    His ways frees us from the failures of flesh. And refines us in. The completeness of God for this alone, says Paul. Comes from the Lord.