Man this semester at New Tribes has been so so
fruitful. God has indeed been faithful
to continue the good work that he started.
Through classes, homework, my relationships with others, and work, God
has been challenging me over the course of a semester, renewing my mind and
conforming me more and more to the image of his Son.
The most important thing I learned, amongst many things, was
about the sinful heart. God has really
been challenging me with the reality that I am sinful, I am not a good person
who occasionally does bad things, but I am a bad person who does very bad things. I am a sinner and that reality should
absolutely humble me. As Paul says in
Romans 7:18, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh.” The Lord has been faithful to continue to
teach me this very thing, that nothing good at all is in me, nothing. I am a sinner and need God’s grace every day
to walk in Him. If I were left to my own
devices, my flesh would make a mess of things.
Jeremiah says it perfectly it 17:9, “the heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked, who can understand it?” God has been pounding this truth into my head
the entire semester that my heart in the flesh is not good, it is deceitful and
utterly wicked.
Throughout the semester we have been walking through the Old
Testament, from Genesis to Nehemiah, tracking the history of the nation of
Israel. God has been using Israel to
really teach me about my own sinfulness and then just how amazing his grace
is. God has chosen Israel as his chosen
people, his everlasting possession. He
had promised them the land of Israel as an everlasting land too. Through the rest of the Pentateuch they
walked in faith and then walked in sin, ultimately spending 40 years wandering
around the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. In the book of Joshua they go in and conquer
the land, and are told to not mix/marry with the other nations and not worship
their gods. Israel is told to drive them
out and is told to follow God’s commandments in order that they might stay in
the land and receive material blessing from the Lord. Next was Judges, one of the most depressing
books, where Israel fell into cycles of sin where they would sin and worship
other gods then they would be punished.
They would cry out to God and he would, in his grace, restore them. This happened time after time and the nation
of Israel was spiraling downward. In 1st
Samuel, Israel demands a king, they rejected God as their king and demanded a
human king. The monarchy was established
with Saul and most notably David, who was a man after God’s heart. 2nd Samuel records David and his
sin of adultery where the downward spiral of Israel continues. Solomon succeeds David and he was obsessed
with material possessions and women, leading to his downfall. The kingdom is then divided into Israel, the
northern ten tribes, and the tribe of Judah.
Every king of Israel was evil, doing evil in the sight of God,
worshipping false gods. They were an
apostate nation and God allowed Assyria to take them into captivity in 2nd
Kings 17. Judah had a few good kings who
followed the Lord, but many evil kings, who kindled God’s anger. They were taken into captivity by the
Babylonians in 2nd Kings 25.
God taught me three very key things through the history of
Israel. Firstly, I learned just has
sinful I really am. My flesh has nothing
in me that is good. The good that I do
is only what God is doing in me and through me and has nothing to do with my
flesh or my heart, just trust him to work in me. But really seeing Israel and how they just
whored after other gods and how they walked in disobedience and disregarded the
Creator showed me that “wow I’m the same exact way.” There are times where I choose sin over God,
just like Israel. God has been faithful,
however, to teach me more and more about his grace. I mean, Israel deserved to die for all their
sins, all the times they rejected God, even after he had just saved them! Yet, he was long-suffering; he was patient,
loving, merciful, gracious. He allowed
them to be taken captive, yet even then he did not destroy them, he restored
them back to the land after 70 years in Babylon. I, like Israel, am such a wretched sinner,
and I deserve to die for my sins! Yet
God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love for me, made me alive in
Christ, even when I was dead in my trespasses and sins. He has grace.
And he is faithful to teach us, grow us, renew us, and conform us, if
only we would open ourselves to him and allow him to.
Prayer Requests:
1.
Continued focus on God and His Word
2.
That I would be faithful to steward everything
the Lord has given me in a way that honors him
3.
I have a sermon on the 22nd and 23rd
in my youth group, pray that the Lord would use me
4.
That break would be relaxing, refreshing, and a
time where I would be bold in talking, challenging, and encouraging family
5.
That the Lord would be preparing my heart and
mind for how he is going to grow me next semester at NTBI
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