series: renewal: human participation in a divine proc

Welcome to Good News Bible Church. We're a faith community focused on knowing God better and serving Him as a result. We pray our weekly messages provide encouragement & insights for living.

Welcome to Good News Bible Church. We're a faith community focused on knowing God better and serving Him as a result. We pray our weekly messages provide encouragement & insights for living.

When we are blessed with divine renwal, our participation in God's process is not over. Indeed a key part of God's renewal process for His people includes us learning to properly respond to His gracious work in our lives. The proper response to God's grace is joyful thankfulness which in today's text is seen in dedication of renewed areas to God, intentional celebration of divine renewal, and joyful worship through singing, sacrifice, giving, and service.

We are reminded in this text that God's people should actively pursue renewal by committing themselves to obedience. The danger in this is that we are tempted to depend on our performance rather than God's faithfulness. However, when we see rightly, we should take God's faithfulness as our motivation to strive for obedience. Our participation will not save us, but our participation demonstrates that God is at work in us.

The divine process of renewing the people of God can often seem an endless process because human participants invariably fall into cycles of sin and repentance. This has confirmed to the people of God throughout history that they cannot attain nor maintain renewal through human adherance to divine laws. Indeed as sinful humans born of Adam they cannot adhere to divine law because of their sinful natures. Although this may feel like an endless cycle, it is actually only a repetative one meant to point us to our need 1) for the righteousness that only Christ can provide, 2) for a regenerate heart indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and 3) for a complete removal of sin from the people of God. All of these needs are provided graciously from the treasuries of the Father's good will toward men that we proclaim in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whereas the first two are available in this life, the last leaves us waiting and hoping in the return of Jesus Christ.

Understanding God's current renewal of His people is connected to understanding how He has been at work to set aside a people for Himself from the beginning. In praising God for what He has done from the beginning, we remember who He is to His people and what He has the power to do in and through us. The heart of being renewed by God is learning to praise Him and delight in Him above all.

The renewal of the people of God is bigger than their physical needs. Not only did Israel need to return to the land and build up their walls, they also needed to return to the Book of the Law and build up their understanding of their God and their relationship with Him as His people. We see again that this form of renewal is initiated by God who gives and preserves His Book of the Law in the world while it is also clear that this divine revelation is hardwired to interact with human participation. God includes men in the process of revelation including the writing, the reading, the explanation, the hearing, and finally the application of the divine word. The Lord has given his Word for the renewal of His people, and in doing so, He has invited us to participate as listeners who obey and messengers who help others hear and understand the Word of God.