Psalm 24:1-10 God's Ecology

Psalm 24:1-10 God’s Ecology

“The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord; for He laid its foundation on the seas and established it on the rivers.” (Psalm 24:1–2, HCSB)

In environmental science, we learned that in order to take care of the Earth that God has given us, we can do three things: reduce, re-use, recycle. From this text, I want us to see how God takes care of us. God does three things to take care of us – what I call God’s ecology: reduce, re-use, recycle, and redeem.

REDUCE SIN

“Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not set his mind on what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.” (Psalm 24:3–5, HCSB)

“For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age,” (Titus 2:11–12, HCSB)

In environmental science, in order for us to take of the world God has given us, we are called to reduce our pollution or our ecological footprint. When we would go camping, we were encouraged to reduce our environmental footprint. We would pick up our trash, and try to leave our camp as disturbed as minimally possible. In God’s ecology, we should reduce our sin production, or sin footprint. So a Christian learns to reduce sin. The second way to live by God’s ecology is to re-use.

RE-USE FAITH

“He will receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah” (Psalm 24:5–6, HCSB)

Righteousness means the right way to live. God has pointed us away from sin production to right-living production. How do I produce right-living in my life? The first way to produce right-living, also known as good works is to re-use what God has given me – I need to re-use faith.

We are not called to do good works to get saved. God calls us to good works to show that we are saved. Just as people will model how to take care of the Earth, Christians are called to model the change in their life from sin production to right living which includes good works. Right living which produces good works happens when we seek God in faith. We are always picking up our faith and reusing it. Our faith never goes to waste.

In Germany, we bought drinks in glass bottles at places that were called a “drink supermarket”. The entire store was filled with different kinds of bottled drinks. There were beers, mineral water, flavored drinks, Coca-Cola and other bottled drinks. You paid a deposit which insured that the bottles were returned. The returned bottles were rinsed cleaned and refilled at the factory. They reused the same bottles for water, and for each separate drink.

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16, HCSB)

“For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10, HCSB)

You reuse your clothes every day. You don’t go out and buy a 365 sets of clothes for every day. No, you buy a set and you reuse it everyday. You wash and dry the clothes and then re-use them. The same is true with a car. You don’t buy a new car every day. No, you buy one car and use it for years. You might even buy a used car and re-use it for years.

Just as the bottles were cleaned up and reused, God wants clean me up and help me to re-use my talents and gifts. God has SHAPEd me to used by Him. And then He wants to reuse me. We might buy something and use it one time and throw it away. But God doesn’t do that. God reuses me and my faith as He sees fit.

RECYCLE LOVE

“Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates! Rise up, ancient doors! Then the King of glory will come in.” (Psalm 24:8–9, HCSB)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17, HCSB)

“For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation.” (Galatians 6:15, HCSB)

In Germany, we had to put our trash in three different containers:

We used a yellow container (yellow sack – Gelbesack) was for plastics, cans, and packaged material. We used a blue trash can was for paper. Unlike the bottles that were returned and reused, these items were recycled. To recycle something means to take something and make it something new. My milk jug may end up later as part of a tire for the car. That used tire may end up later as bedding for a playground. When something is recycled, it is repurposed. That is what Jesus does to us. We are made new. Jesus works our lives like compost.

Compost is death in a container. But compost death is alive, breeding, simmering, cooking up an overly ripe soup that is absolute dessert for plants and shrubs. It is that capacity for death and decay to enrich life that arouses my lust for a compost bin. Perhaps the compost bin illustrates what I’ve intended to do with the garbage in my own life—
recycle it. I would love to take my undesirable, painful, embarrassing, and disappointing experiences, and instead of trying to disassociate myself from them, heat and churn them into some new and useful material. It reminds of a Japanese proverb that says, “Do not waste your pain. Burn it as fuel for your journey.” 1

God turns your material and let it be re-made into something new (2 Corinthians 5:17). God recycles my past when I come to Jesus. He takes my past and makes it His potential. When I worship, I am recognizing God’s power to recycle my love. The psalm is recycling his love back to God in praise. The reason is because the King Jesus going to return.

Right now, God is in the business of recycling love in my life. I am finding new ways to use love. The commandment that God is love is from the beginning.

“So now I urge you, dear lady—not as if I were writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.” (2 John 5, HCSB)

So the commandment to love is an action that continues – it recycles forever. Christian love may take different forms, we may learn new ways, but love itself is something that has been part of God’s nature from the beginning. It is something we are expected to recycle in our lives.

““I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.” (John 13:34, HCSB)

The ultimate form of love to God is worship. We will recycle this love to God until Jesus returns. We will take every expression of love which God showed us and recycle it back to Him in praise.

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