Episode 1524: Conceal Me

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,524 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Alyssa Cox: I'm Alyssa Cox, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasure to live out your calling. Having the ability to learn from failure and navigate change is key, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this.

[00:00:28] The Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Nader.

[00:00:37] Scott Maderer: Those who feel connected and to those who feel disconnected, those who feel like they're on the top of the world and those who feel like they're on the bottom, those who feel like no one cares and no one is there for them. We need to love them and let them know that you too are a child of God. And you are [00:01:00] loved.

[00:01:01] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself.

[00:01:20] Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:35] In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Psalm 27 and Luke chapter 13, verses 31 through 35. I share how belief and unbelief lead to humility, and I also talk about how the opposite of faith isn't doubt, but rather fear. Psalm 27 says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?

[00:01:57] The Lord is the stronghold of my life. [00:02:00] Of whom shall I be afraid? When evil doers assail me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and foes, they shall stumble and fall though an army and camp against me, my heart shall not fear the war rise up against me, yet I will be confident. One thing I ask of the Lord, this I seek.

[00:02:17] To live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. To behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of his tent. He will set me high on a rock. Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy.

[00:02:41] I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud. Be gracious to me and answer me. Come, my heart says. Seek his face. Your face, Lord, do I seek. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Do not cast me off. Do not forsake [00:03:00] me, O God of my salvation.

[00:03:02] If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

[00:03:22] Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Luke chapter 13 verses 31 through 35 says At that very hour, some Pharisees came up and said to him, Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you. And he said to them, Go and tell that fox for me. Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today, and tomorrow, and on the third day, I finish my work.

[00:03:47] Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day, I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and [00:04:00] stones those who are sent to it. How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.

[00:04:08] See, your house is left to you, and I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. This psalm, and the psalmist who wrote it, is definitely in a period of trouble, and they know trouble and pain. Many traditions have that the Psalms were written by David, and if that's true, David, of course, was threatened by enemies and by those who loved him alike.

[00:04:36] Those who loved him also despised him in turn, and yet he was filled up with God's presence, and then at times seemingly abrandoned by God because of his own pride, his own hubris, his own arrogance, and self conceit. David would have known what it was to fear, and he would have known what it [00:05:00] was to want to hide.

[00:05:01] But David's message was that whenever he found himself in trouble, he turned to repentance and humility and turned to the Lord. And he sought redemption from that the source that could calm his fears, God. He didn't lean back on his own strength. In fact, it was when he was leaning on his own strength that he failed.

[00:05:25] It was flexing his own muscles that brought him pain. So he turned to the Lord for comfort. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? I don't know about you, but when I hear that, whom shall I fear today, all days, most days, I actually have a list of who I should fear and what I should fear.

[00:05:48] There are plenty of things that we can be afraid of. And trust me, if you just turn on the news, somebody will tell you all of the things that you need to be afraid of some politician or some [00:06:00] newscaster or some newspaper or whatever it is. There's no. End to the people who want to tell you this is the list of the things that we need to be afraid of in the world.

[00:06:11] These are the things that are destroying the world as we know it. We are persecuted, put upon, and you should be afraid. That seems to be the way of the world. And that's really the point, isn't it? That is the way of the world. But we're called to live in and embrace the world, but not live the way of the world.

[00:06:35] We're called as Christians, as followers of Christ, to live differently. To live confidently. Have you ever noticed that scripturally, the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of belief is not unbelief. Doubt is often prevalent in the Bible. In fact, I wish more people would recognize that not [00:07:00] having this total assurance that you're right in all things shows up time and time again.

[00:07:07] Doubt coexist with faith. Remember the prayer of the desperate father, Lord, I believe help my unbelief. It's in Mark chapter 9. Jesus doesn't chastise that person who asks for help with his unbelief. Belief and unbelief often sit in our heart and in our mind side by side. In fact, I would argue that belief without unbelief When you have no measure of doubt, when you truly believe that you are right and everything you believe is true, it leads to a certain amount of arrogance.

[00:07:46] It leads to this feeling that I am not capable of error, I am not capable of making a mistake. It leads to pride, it leads to a false humility, to a [00:08:00] false following. A certain amount of doubt, a certain amount of fear, a certain amount of assurance that really, at the end of the day, we are an instrument of God, but it's all up to God.

[00:08:11] It's not our decision that we are capable of error. We are capable of making mistakes. When we recognize that, it begins to give us a certain amount of humility. Look at the story of Job. There's 37 chapters where he's convinced that he was right and someone else, in fact, God had messed up and needed to fix it.

[00:08:33] And it's not until he falls on his face when God does show up and says I didn't know what I was talking about. I spoke above myself of things I don't understand. And then God blessed him because he had doubt and uncertainty. He recognized that there was a God and it wasn't him. Now, the opposite of faith and belief is not doubt.

[00:08:58] The opposite of faith [00:09:00] and belief is fear. Throughout the Bible, it says the call is do not fear. Angels say it every time they show up. God proclaims it. Jesus lived it. Paul talks about it. John put it on a bumper sticker. Do not fear. And what casts out fear? Love. Perfect love casts out all fear and that is the love that comes from Christ.

[00:09:27] There's no room for fear when we're filled with love. You don't get rid of fear with wisdom or intelligence or thinking or thought. You get rid of fear with love. You can't argue yourself out of fear. You can't logic yourself out of fear. Instead, you have to turn to the love of God. You hide in God, you're lifted up in God.

[00:09:55] That's what worship and joy bring us to. [00:10:00] It brings us to sacrificing our pride, sacrificing our insurance that we're right and they're wrong, that we're in and they're out, that we belong and they don't. And it lets us give up our me first attitude and begin to offer a hand to someone else, especially someone who's not like us.

[00:10:22] That's acting, that's saying, that's believing that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. How do you do it? Look at the world today. We're told everything is something we need to fear. Our world is falling apart. It seems to be smarter to be afraid and lash out and argue and make sure I get mine and I'll take it from you to do it.

[00:10:50] And that's what the psalm is talking about too. It's a pep talk to get you to where you need to believe. Come seek his [00:11:00] face. That's how to overcome fear. Seek God's face. It's not just something to put on a bumper sticker or make you feel better. It's really truly how you get rid of fear. If we believe that God is at work among us.

[00:11:16] And we believe that God is at work within us, then looking to God's face begins to move us away from fear. It lets us give up and see that person who's serving us lunch, working on our car, begging on the street, and see in them the face of God as well. It lets us see that person that loses their job and recognize That could be us.

[00:11:43] It lets us stop making decisions out of fear, where all we do is lash out and take from everyone else and instead begin to give to others. That's the mission. That's what we're called to do. Fill up our life with the search for God so that [00:12:00] we have no time left for fear. Let me see your face, O God, my light and my salvation.

[00:12:09] Conceal so that what shows is not me and my fears, but rather the presence and the belief and the confidence and the hope and the love of God. Just as Jesus says, if you've seen me you have seen The father. Maybe if we can lean on the God's love and begin to reflect that love, then people will see not us, but the love of God.

[00:12:40] This is what goes on in these passages. The passage from Luke. It's at a different place than some of the other gospels. It's right before the passion happens. It's right before that last moment. But Luke moves it and puts it in [00:13:00] a different place. And don't you notice it's odd. The Pharisees, which are the very same people that have been calling Jesus out now come up and warn him, Hey, Herod's after you.

[00:13:12] These seem to be the guys that come and find tests and try to put questions forward that Jesus can't answer. And now they have Jesus's best interest at heart. And Jesus maybe seems to suspect something because his response is saying, Go and tell. Go back to Herod. Go back to the person that's pulling your strings and let him know that I'm not running and hiding from anyone.

[00:13:38] I'm doing the work that I'm called to do. He's declaring his own sense of belonging, his own mission, his own job, his own task to do. And he's so deep into that journey and that task that, and so filled with love that he doesn't have a moment of [00:14:00] fear in that moment. In fact, it seems that love is so deep that his heart is breaking for those who said no in that moment.

[00:14:12] And he says, instead, go tell that fox, that scavenger, that trickster, go tell him that even the power of destruction that you have has a limit, that I have more power than you because I have love. Luke is giving us an option. Do we find our safety and security in the powers that function out of fear and self interest?

[00:14:38] Do we, even a part of us, even at the littlest part, do we lean first on fear and self interest and security and power? Or do we find our connection and our sense of meaning and purpose in those who seek to define us by looking for the shadow of God's wings? For looking for those who are [00:15:00] broken and poured out through the love for us.

[00:15:04] That's the love that Christ offers, and we need to cling to that love, not just when we're walking through the valley, but all times. We have to cling to that. We need to be in the business of doing that, loving like that, all around us at any given time. Those who feel connected and to those who feel disconnected.

[00:15:27] Those who feel like they're on the top of the world and those who feel like they're on the bottom. Those who feel like no one cares and no one is there for them. We need to love them and let them know that you too are a child of God and you are loved. Thanks for listening.

[00:15:55] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a [00:16:00] subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor. Go over to Facebook. com slash inspired stewardship.

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