🦁 Lent 3-2

Readings: Psalm 19; Exodus 19:9b-15; Acts 7:30-40. 

Reflection

Good morning. This is Tim Tribble, broadcasting from Sacramento, California. Today's readings come to us from Psalm 19 XS chapter 19, verses nine, B to 15 and the Book of Acts, Chapter seven, verses 30 to 40. So we're revisiting Psalm 19 again today. And again, this is a log word is perfect. This is a celebration of the law of war, a celebration of the perfection of God, and how if we follow God's edicts and do what God asks, that we will have the salvation and we will be blameless and innocent of great transgressions. At Exodus 19, we have a continuation from yesterday's reading. So we ended in 19 A In the first half of the verse day, we started 19 nine, verse nine, B the second year. So the Lord says, Behold, I'm coming, you in a thick cloud. People may hear why I speak with you and also believe you forever. And Moses did. So my mother's told the word Lord, Lord said to Moses, Go to the people and consecrate them. So they had this been Lord and finally come in three days. On the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the side of all people. But they needed to be consecrated. They need to be clean, that they had to go down. And also there was a limit set up. So we had a border wall. So Lord says, you cannot touch that. You take care of. They cannot go up on the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hands shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot, whether the beast or man, they shall not live. So no matter what, any living, any living mean man or animal that would touch Mt. Sinai would be stoned or shot and not shot with an arrow, then they have guns back then, and when the trumpet sounds along blast, they shall come up to the mountain. They will come out from where they were camping and go to the mountain. And Moses went down. He said, Hey, be ready for the day, third day, and do not go near a woman. 

So this is God again. Like said yesterday, he's going to come down to reveal themselves so people know that he's real Israelites. We get restless and we've already been, you know, we don't have anything to drink with to provide water. They're just not trusting God's. Okay, Well, you know, we're having some difficulty here, so I'm going to come down and I'm going to show myself. But you have to stay a certain distance away because we as human beings cannot be in the presence of God without consequences. And the reading from the Book of Acts that we're going back, this is a retelling of the story of when Moses was selected to lead the Israelites out of the bondage that they had been in in Egypt. So now 40 years have passed. The angel appeared to Moses and the Met on Mount Sinai and the flame and the fire and the bush. This is the fiery Bush stories. This is the retelling. God has seen the affliction. People in Egypt, they've heard their groaning, and now he's coming down to deliver them. And now God's going to send Moses to Egypt and Moses women. Moses, Moses, this is Moses whom they reject is the Moses. They wait a minute, they don't want me. How do you make me a ruler and a judge? This man, God said, How does this work? Well, God picks who he wants. And just because we reject someone does not mean that who God isn't going to use for us. It also means that we have been rejected. That does not mean that God cannot use us. 

So again, they go through and it goes back to saying, well, the reason Aaron is Moses is he's got this thing about speaking. So we bring Aaron in and Aaron's going to be Moses assistant and mouthpiece and do the talking and but they again refused. The Israelites didn't listen. Was this is this is the human condition. 

Grass is always greener on the other side. Right? All that stuff, all these sayings, things we've learned over the years have been told we're never we never see you satisfied. We never seem to be content. We are not patient. These are all things that hurt us in life because we just we don't get it. And we don't understand that God has a plan. We don't because we don't see the plan and we got our own ideas and what we want and how we want to do things. And God continually reminds us again, like you said earlier, even though we may have been rejected, does not mean that we do not have God's message. We don't have to be perfect to deliver God's message. The only one who's ever perfect on this earth was Jesus. We rejected him. 

And this is something that we struggle with. I struggle with the worst. Yeah, that's one of the covenants of the church, one of the two big ones, you know, baptism and marriage, right. And other things that have gone on in my life that I'm not real proud of. And I didn't really live up, but that's okay. God forgives me and God can still use me. And we need to be careful very, very careful when we start looking down on someone else because, well, they're not a good well, or they did this or all, you know, all the things that we say. But here we have an opportunity that be accepting. Listen, always listen for the words of God, the leading, because we do not know. God sends messages and varied different ways of it.