Women of Warren Vlog – Restoration of Shalom

well good morning ladies and happy monday morning i hope that you are having a great start to your week and what's funny is usually we try and record these videos early and i had an idea for one and um i was planning on recording it on thursday and you know how when your schedule just gets busy and you forget well i forgot and so here i am it's actually sunday morning and i'm recording in just fresh out of getting out of service from listening to pastor's sermon and i'm always so amazed whenever god um i don't know why i'm amazed by it because he always does things like this but he just aligns things so perfectly of what i was already kind of thinking about and then heard pastor's message and sure enough he talked about psalm 51 which is exactly where i wanted to land um in thinking about the scriptures this week and so if you haven't had a chance to listen to pastor's message I highly recommend going and listening to it because it is wonderful and we're excited. We've started a new series called Encountering Jesus, Coming Face-to-Face with Jesus, you know, looking at defining moments of life and encounters with the Lord. And so the main thing that I wanted to hit on, and this is what sparked this entire idea for devotion, was from this book, and I don't remember if I have lifted this book up before, but it's called Rediscovering Israel. It's by Christy McLelland, and if you know me, you know I'm a big fan of hers, but she really walks through and breaks down scripture from a western lens. No, sorry, not a western lens, an eastern lens. We're the western lens from an eastern lens, so this this middle eastern lens that we tend to take scripture in with a western lens, you know, in our culture, and how much more eye-opening scripture can be when we read it through the context that it was meant and written for in the cultural context and so she studies that and it's wonderful but she put forth a question um this was coming into I'm now moving into the part um and so she basically walks from the beginning of scripture all the way through and just sort of explaining things and if you've ever been one who gets a little bit confused by the northern kingdom the southern kingdom and what all happens in judges and what happens on that little blank page between the old and the new testament this is a great book and resource to just kind of put down some facts in your mind but she has this little portion it's called god versus satan with a question mark and so she put forth this theory and i want you to think about it she said did you grow up with or know some version of an understanding that the world is in a cosmic battle of God versus Satan. She said, this is awful theology. Satan does exist and is indeed evil. Satan tries to get you off the path of Shalom, but Satan is not the opposite of God. I feel like I'm guilty of that sometimes thinking that maybe you are too. God and Satan are not equals. They are on completely different playing fields. The story of the Bible is not God versus Satan. and she says i want to contend for a perspective that we are about to see play out in scripture so playing out in the gospel and this is what her theory is and this is what um i believe is so true she says jesus did not come to save you from the devil he came to save you from you and that just made me go oh you know because like pastor said today in matthew you know he said that um you know Jesus came he said that came to save sinners I came to save sinners you know they're the ones that need a doctor right he came to save not the righteous but to save sinners and so he didn't say I came to save them I came to he did come to defeat death but he didn't say I just came to just remove sin temptation from this no he came to save us from ourselves to save us from our own sinful nature and so i thought that that was so fascinating and was just a different um maybe not a different perspective i've always had that perspective but it was just a deeper grasp of what the gospel truly means and so like i said i wanted to touch on psalm 51 like pastor did today and in verse 17 he talks about because we know that psalms 51 is a response of david's broken heart after he has sinned against the lord he is a man after god's own heart and yet he has sinned had an adulterous affair and in verse 17 he says my sacrifice oh god is a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart you god will not despise and so i just wanted to remind you today that not only did god come to save you from you but he will not despise he will not turn away he will not neglect a heart that is truly turning to him a heart that is sacrificing own desire and sin right and is turning completely to him and so God will not despise that and what I love about this and this restoration and pastor talked about this today this restoration that happens when we repent is that in verse 12 and I remember praying this over and over and over again. And David says, restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant a willing spirit to sustain me. And so, so many times we think of like when we repent, we're stuck in this cycle of guilt or remorse. But then when there's restoration that happens, I think we often forget what comes after restoration when restoration happens is this returning of abounding and exuding joy and so i want you to think about that today i want you to think about how when you have an encounter with the lord when you repent when you are restored you get this abounding joy and so like david we can say restore so it's you know it's that all these r words there's the repent there's that restoration it's that restoration not only of relationship with god um not that you were ever separated because of, because of sin. After you come to know the Lord, you know, if you sin, you're not, it's not like you lost your salvation, but you are restored to the joy of the Lord. And so I want you to focus on that today and have a heart that turns to him fully and completely. And so I wanted to go back to that one thing that she said that, that Christy McLellan said that she said, Satan comes to steal your shalom. He wants to tempt you in sin to steal your shalom but god then offers the restoration of his joy restoration of shalom so this morning i want you to think about those things um that are disrupting or in some way i guess disrupting i can't think of another word destroying your shalom and instead i want you to lay it down and say, Lord, like in verse 12, restore to me the joy of your salvation. And you can say that with confidence because you know, like David, that your sacrifice is a broken and contrite heart, a broken spirit. And you know that God will not despise it. He will not despise it. So I hope that that encourages you today. I pray that you lay some things down today and remember that Jesus came to save you from you. And that is wonderful news and he can restore your joy so thank you for joining me this morning and i hope you have a great day

Originally published at warren.church.