On Sunday, we heard Genesis 1. One thing that seems odd is the frequent refrain, “there was evening and there was morning, the _th day.” We think of days as beginning when we wake up, but Genesis presents each day as beginning when the sun goes down. There is something to learn from this, something more important than we realize: When you wake up each morning to begin your day, God’s work for the day has already begun.
According to Genesis, we sit down to dinner, read a book, and go to sleep as the day is beginning. We begin each day with rest—what a strange, countercultural thought!
And even stranger, when we examine creation, we realize that God’s work for each day begins while we are resting. When we wake, God is already at work. We discover that the dawn is breaking, birds are chirping, and plants are filling our air with oxygen. While we were sleeping, he was at work on all of us, restoring our bodies and strengthening us for the day ahead. So much happens while we sleep! Without our help, the sun rises, rains fall, and crops grow. While we are oblivious, unable to help in any way, snoring away in our beds, so much is happening! We awake and step into the work to which God has called us, but it is work that he has begun without us. We don’t begin any task; instead, we step into something he has already begun.
Psalm 127 both convicts me and encourages me. Verse 4 reads “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” The theme of the psalm is simple: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (v. 1). The psalm could be seen as a meditation on Genesis 1. God works first, while we rest, and then invites us into his work. Our work does not need to be anxious, because God is already working.
What if we began to see each thing to which God calls us as something that he has already begun for us, without our help? What if we believed that he is already present in all situations in our life, before we even get to them? What if we realized that he calls us to rest in him before we go to work for him?
The biblical depiction of work assumes that God is working first. We are like a little kid, invited by a parent to help in a task that is far too big for us! But because God is already there, we can jump in with joy, excited to be with him, eager to help.
Steven+
Song Spotlight
We don’t sing a lot of songs about the Holy Spirit. It’s not because the Holy Spirit doesn’t deserve praise. He’s God! Of course he does! In fact, that was one of the early arguments for the Holy Spirit’s divinity. As Gregory of Nazianzus essentially said, “We’re all worshiping him, and he definitely deserves it. He must be God.”
The main reason is that the Holy Spirit doesn’t draw attention to himself. Usually in the New Testament he is either pointing us to Jesus (John 16:15), reminding us what God has given (Rom. 8:16), or praying for us (Rom. 8:26-27). Like we said this Sunday, he actually joins us to Jesus, so we can receive his righteousness, holiness, and resurrection life. We can even say that the Holy Spirit, by joining us to Jesus, makes us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). We may not sing songs TO the Spirit as much as we do to Jesus, but we can legitimately say that there is no worship without the Spirit’s work.
Still, even though the Spirit is always pointing away from himself, it is also entirely appropriate for the Spirit to be worshiped, prayed to, and sung about. In fact, we need to sing about him. We need to be reminded of who he is, and we need solid, biblically orthodox language about the Spirit to settle into our hearts. There is a lot of confusion about who the Spirit is and what he does, so having this language in our hearts will help us to rightly discern his work and presence.
The song we introduced on Sunday (“God the Spirit”) is a good example of this. In verse 1 we see that he is the one who inspired the writing of the scriptures; he has been at work revealing God’s nature and character for millennia. In verse 2 he is the one who replaces our death with Jesus’ resurrection life, and who works in our hearts to make our character like Jesus’. In verse 3 he teaches and guides us as we wait for Christ’s return. The refrain that ties these verses together reminds us that the Spirit is way more than our conscience, or God’s invisible messenger who gives us nudges and hunches when we don’t know what to do. He is united with the Father and the Son; he is God, and he deserves our love and worship.
There is so much that we could say about the gift of the Spirit. God has chosen to dwell with and in us, and to join us to himself. That is both astounding and confusing, and the mystery only grows as we learn and understand more. Don’t let that discourage you, though. Let this language seek into your heart so you can learn to recognize him. He is with us and in us; he is present with us. Let’s give thanks for that and learn to recognize his leading together.
Listen here: "God the Spirit"
Justin+
Scripture Reflections
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
Eternal life is both beyond our imagination and taken for granted. We have overused the phrase, so we don’t think about it; it is nearly a cliché. Besides, who can really understand it? As a result, we don’t stop in our tracks when we hear it or read it. We superficially affirm it and move on.
The same could be said about knowing God. It is both a common phrase and a strange concept—how do you actually know someone you can’t see, someone who rarely speaks in words that can be heard with the ears? Thus, we superficially affirm it and move on.
But perhaps Jesus meant what he prayed in John 17! Perhaps he yearns for each of us to actually receive a life that is so vast, so thick, so real that the only way of describing it is “eternal,” “abundant,” or “infinite.” Perhaps he looks at each of us and thinks, “I want you to have the fullness of what I have with the Father and the Spirit—a life of love and security, of depth and substance, of richness and joy; a life with no boundaries and no limits, where neither death, futility, nor frustration ever encroaches.”
The only place where this life exists is in the life of the Trinity. The only way to receive it is to know the Father, Son, and Spirit. Not know in the sense of reciting the data, but know in the sense of heart-level intimacy and awestruck contemplation. Jesus’ prayer is that we would know God, and therefore have this life, but he usually only reveals himself to those willing to wait in prayer-filled faith, to listen to God in silence, and to read his word with expectancy.
Steven+