By the grace of God, we pressed through 2023 and entered a new year today. Yet, I wonder how last year went for you. Are you looking back in discouragement and disappointment? How much were you beset by troubles and hardships? Are you looking ahead with fear or worry?
Because each day has enough trouble on it’s own, I would not be surprised if your testimony of 2023 was of the sort where you felt as if you barely escaped, or that you didn’t necessarily anticipate 2024 being any different (from the troubles of yesterday).
Indeed, we all face troubles and hardship. Yesterday, I had the distinct privilege of preaching at my local church. I preached on Psalm 107 which, if we were to put in one sentence what this Psalm is all about – it is about the steadfast love of God.
It is a Psalm that recounts several different ‘storylines’ of God’s deliverance to a people. Some of these people are understood to be specifically the people of God (i.e. Israel) while others are, as the text says, “the children of man”. That is to say, our unbelieving neighbor. So, in this sense, it is an evangelistic Psalm. Meaning, God redeems the righteous and the wicked, and he does so as an extension of and manifestation of his steadfast love.
But in a very granular way, this Psalm isn’t a pie in the sky, kind of loose love that God pours on people indiscriminately as if to suggest he doesn’t require anything from anyone. Indeed, the stories that are recounted are stories that share a dynamic of distress, crying out, discipline and deliverance, climaxing to a proclamation (on the part of the redeemed) to bear testimony not merely of their redemption from trouble, hardship, pain or even the consequences of their sin. Rather, the testimony of the redeemed is undergirded by a fuller grasp of the steadfast love of God.
For the Christian – we find the penultimate manifestation of this steadfast love in the person of Christ who redeemed a people for himself not merely from hard circumstances, but from sin and death, and the eternal security of this redemption was secured when Jesus rose from the dead.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
[John 1:14 ESV]
2023 in a Sentence
2023 taught me much in my work as a counselor. In my work as a counselor, I heard storyline after storyline of the same kinds of distresses and hardships that Psalm 107 describes. I listened to the cries of many who are reeling in hard marriages; parents who struggle to parent as they wish they could; conflicts and wounds; depression and sadness; anger and bitterness, anxiousness and fears. All this brokenness in the world reminds me of a proverb.
The grave, The barren womb, The earth [that] is not satisfied with water–And the fire never says, “Enough!”
[Proverbs 30:16 NKJV]
Indeed, the troubles of the children of man that have plagued us since The Fall are very much like a grave – our troubles never say “enough”.
If I were to try to summarize into one sentence all the counsel I’ve sought to offer those in their distress in 2023, it might go like this – Whatever you do next, do so by faith.
Yet, it is always my hope that this concept is not understood as a pithy catchphrase. Most Christians know the “righteous shall live by faith,” (Cf. Gal. 3:11; Hab 2:4). Most Christian grasps this paramount truth well enough as it concerns their salvation.
“Yet, the grace that saves us is the grace that sustains us.“
Original Author Unknown
Walking by Faith in 2024
My ‘go to’ passage in 2023 was Exodus 14 which is a recounting of Israel’s trek across the Red Sea. Verses 12-15 portray a very striking interaction between Israel and Moses, and then God and Moses.
12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” 13 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” 15 The LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.
[Exodus 14:12-15 ESV]
The key takeaway I want to draw your attention to is verse 15. God asks Moses: “Why do you cry to me?”
What a seemingly odd question. Aren’t we to cry to God in our distress? Psalm 107 is all about people crying out to God in their distress. What is it about Moses that affords this question? Sometimes the tears we cry are not tears that are truly appealing to God as Savior inasmuch as tears that only want the suffering to stop.
If you ask me, it is quite possible to cry out to God for all the wrong reasons. In this, our tears are not tears wrought by faith.
Thus, what God tells Moses next is perhaps most instructive.
“Tell the people of Israel to go forward.”
This is instructive for us in our consideration of what we hope 2024 will look like for us. That is to say – you will need to walk forward trusting God in ways that you never thought was possible. You will be prompted to trust your heavenly Father right on the heals of times and circumstances that may mirror Israel’s seemingly perilous moment.
Whatever your 2024 looks like, I pray you do appeal to God in your distress.
Yet, the lesson for Moses and Israel, and a lesson for us is this:
The sensation of fear need not be diminished in order for you to walk forward by faith as you entrust yourself to your savior, jesus christ.
Christian, you can walk by faith and cry out him in tears of faith at the same time.
So again, whatever you do this year, do so by faith in Jesus Christ.
Application
- Do you need to be reconciled with someone?
- Do you need confess sin in your life?
- Do you need to spend less time at work and more time with your family?
- Do you need to adjust your parenting style but not sure how?
- Are you single but long for a spouse?
- Do you need to cry out to God?
- Are you grieving a loss of some kind?
Whatever do you in 2024, and however you do it, may you do so by faith in Jesus Christ.
