Beth Moore - Substance and Shadow - Part 3
Everybody say hallelujah and amen. Now, while you're on your feet, tell me your two points. Number one is what? Shadows cannot exist apart from life. Doesn't that feel good? Alright, and then number two is what? The strong human bent is to swap substance for shadow. Now you may be seated and you've got Psalm 91 open. As we're thinking about the great swap and how if we find ourselves in that situation, we're here this weekend to swap back and to stay swapped for the rest of our lives, that the Lord would be on to us and he would show us when we're falling into that trap.
I was thinking to myself, I found an old stick note, no telling how old this is, this would have been when my grandson, who is a junior in high school and is in the marching band at his high school, so all the things. Picture him just nearly grown, and so this would have been when he was about three years old. But my son-in-law, Curtis, has always had a practice with his children. It was from the time, I was there right after Jackson, well, I was there when Jackson was born, but I came home with them, so it happened from the very beginning. He would hold him before bedtime.
Now, that was before whatever bedtime, it'd be two hours long, and then the next bedtime, and then the next, you know how the infants are. But he would tell him over and over again, "I'm so proud to be your father. You have everything it takes to be a great man of God. I pray that God will give you a heart to love him and I just want you to know it is my honor to be your dad". Now, I'm hearing him say this to an infant, to an infant who's sound asleep, and he does it over, and over, and over again, and I'll never forget when one time he was saying it to Jackson, he was three years old, and Jackson was listening to him like this, and when Curtis got finished, he said, "You have what it takes to be a great man of God," and Jackson looked at him and went, "I want juice". Sometimes, whoosh. God is still speaking it over us but we're just going, like, "I want juice. I want juice".
So, we're hoping to make that switch this weekend from I want juice to I want you. Lord, I want you. I want you. I'll take juice, but Lord, you are what I want. Now, I want to remind you of what Colossians says before we look at Psalm 91, because of course it's got a direct link to it. So, let me find Colossians. Colossians 2 verses 16 and 17. "Therefore, don't let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day". Are you picturing? You should be right now picturing, okay, these were the things that they observed. They're the day in day out things of their dietary laws, food and drink, and then their annual feasts, and then their monthly new moon and then their weekly Sabbath.
So, he's got it all covered here, and he says in 17, "These are a shadow of what was to come, the substance is Christ". "The substance is Christ". So, our entire goal is to see the difference between the shadow and the substance and appreciate them both but know their order. Psalm 91 verses 9 through 3, now I gotta tell you something. When I am home alone and I've watched a scary movie, anybody just, like, do something dumb like that? Like, that wasn't what I should have watched while my husband was out of town, as far out in the country as I live by myself, you know what I'm talking about? And suddenly, those shadows outside where all those trees are, it's like, did I see someone out there? Do you know what I'm talking about?
Just the vain imaginations, and I'm not really a person that runs scared, but every now and then, if I'm a little undone, this, my Bible is open to these verses during the night. If I'm alone and scared, my Bible is open to these verses. And it says, 91:1, "The one who lives under the protection of the Most High dwells in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say concerning the Lord, who is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust, he himself will rescue you from the bird trap, from the destructive plague. He will cover you with his feathers; you will take refuge under his wings. His faithfulness will be a protective shield". Isn't that gorgeous? Isn't it gorgeous?
This idea of dwelling in the shadow of the Almighty. I've heard it said before that, and from some of my charismatic brothers and sisters, I have heard it said before this is the place of immunity, and I love that, I love that. I'm not negative about that in any way, but what I do want to talk to you about is what exactly does immunity mean? Because many of us have known that through some of our closest seasons with the Lord, we have still gone through immense pain. You may be the closest you have ever been to Jesus, but you are going through chemotherapy for an advanced cancer. I mean, there are all sorts of things. We can be most beloved of God, which all of us are, and be in a terrible car accident. Would anybody agree with me on those?
So, what does it mean to dwell in the safety of the Lord's shadow? Now, sometimes when we talk about spiritual things they're hard to convey. Now, I'm gonna say this to you and I wish I had written down how I wanted to say this because this can be a trap. This is another place that I get into big trouble, but I wanna try to say it. We want so much to work all the mystery out of the walk with God. In fact, there are pockets in the body of Christ where you just don't get any of that. You can't say that the Lord said anything to your heart, you can't convey any of that, because it's like I object, I object. They'll call it mysticism, and there would be things like that, like people that are just, like, they don't open their scriptures at all, they're just going for a word of knowledge. We're up in the sky somewhere.
How would we recognize a word like that if we don't know the scriptures? We've gotta be in the scriptures, but I do want to tell you that we can't always convey everything we sense in our relationship with God. We can't, but there is a place where abiding any time you see in reference to God or Christ, the words "abide" or "dwell," let your mind go. Remember, we are new covenant people, so we're over here, we have all the Old Testament, the old covenant so that we can learn from their examples. We can know our history, that according to the scriptures these things have been fulfilled. We can't detach the New Testament from the Old, we have to have both, but we are over here on this side of the cross and resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit.
And so, over here when you hear the words "dwell" or "abide," think immediately John chapter 15 when Jesus says to them, "Now, I'm gonna tell you something, without me you can do nothing, but with me you are meant to produce much fruit to the glory of God your Father and to show yourselves to be my disciples". And then he says, "If you abide in me and I abide in you," and he says then, this is so important, listen carefully, "abide in my love". Abide in my love. Same exact meaning when he says, this is John 15, "Dwell in my love. Dwell in my love".
Okay, okay, okay, stay with me here. We are meant to walk so closely in fellowship with the Lord that no matter what happens, the thing that we know are absolute unshakeable is that we are loved by God. That that is immunity. It doesn't mean that it protects us from ever getting hurt, it means that there is no hurt that comes to us that makes us conclude we are unloved and unknown and unnoticed by God. That somehow we are held in that place. Am I making sense to anybody in the house today? It's a beautiful place, and in fact I'm not sure that we can know the intimacy of it, the preciousness of it, unless we know what it's like to be in that place and be in pain and be in peril and somehow unexplainably feel completely loved by God.
That's the shadow of the Most High. That's this place where you abide, you live right here, you live right here, where you know. And Jesus said it so beautifully in John 15, "As the Father has loved me, so I love you, now abide in my love". Okay, listen again. As God the Father loves God the Son, God the Son loves you. I'm not talking about the person sitting next to you, I am talking to you. You're gonna tell me, "You have no idea what I've done". You have no idea what I've done. This is the power of the cross, the power of the cross. You could not have earned that grace for anything in this world, and neither could I. This is about the power of the cross, this abiding place.
Now, I wanna draw it back to the wording. I want you to hear, let me think, no, I don't want you to turn away from the Psalms yet, so I'm going to read it to you. I'm going back to Colossians chapter 2 and I want to read you a portion of it that we have not really settled on yet. Remember that says, 17, "These are a shadow of things to come, the substance is Christ". Eighteen, "Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices in the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind. And he does not hold on to the head," and in many of the translations capital H, "From whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with the growth from God".
Okay so, if we have to be attached to the head in order for there to be a growth that is from God, could we all agree then that there is such a thing as a growth that is not from God? I am convinced absolutely that there is, and I'm gonna tell you this, what happens when we do this to go ahead and mix these metaphors of substance and shadow, and of body and ligaments, and the head, here's what I want to tell you. What in effect what we have done is chosen a shadow to be our head. A shadow head. We're detached from the real head who is Christ and we have chosen shadow things, all the religious trappings, to give us what we think we need to find ourselves excellent and worthy.
Here's what I wanna tell you. What in effect we have done is chosen a shadow to be our head. A shadow head. We're detached from the real head who is Christ, and we have chosen shadow things, all the religious trappings, to give us what we think we need to find ourselves excellent and worthy. And here's what I want you to write down, this is number three. Number three, when we make a shadow the head, the growth will not hold. Here is Jesus's idea of growth. He says in John chapter 15 here's how you're gonna grow. I'm gonna cut you back until you think I am killing you. I will prune you back. If I see that you're a good fruit bearer, wonderful, I'm gonna cut you back until you think I have almost taken every limb you've got and you're gonna think it's because it's the end of you and I'm telling you, oh, no, girl, this is a beginning. This is a beginning.
So, here's the thing that we have a hard time understanding, in God's economy, growing looks a whole lot like shrinking. We are living in such a difficult time. A lot of people are just, like, over it. They're over the reputation of Christianity, and even though, thank goodness we can't get rid of Jesus if we're in him, I mean, we think we're walking away from him but he's going, like, "You know, I'm right with you. I'm hard to get rid of".
But there's so much baggage now, then the pandemic, and it seems like for heaven's sake, it's like Friday the 13th. It's like Eddie Kruger. It just keeps coming back. It's like, you know, when do you give up? When do you just give up? But it's just one thing after another, turmoil, one right after another, but what if, and a pastor's gonna be thinking that's so much easier to say than do. What if, I say this to you if you have a ministry, if you have a nonprofit organization that you think it is dependent entirely upon you serving the gospel straight out, and you think what if I run off all these people? What if we actually trusted God?
I'm not saying that as a, like, doesn't that feel good, isn't that a feel good philosophy and it's very sweet? No, I'm talking about what if we honestly went, "Lord, I may watch this congregation come to 25 people. I'm gonna have to lay on my face on the carpet in this sanctuary and say to you I don't even know how we're gonna pay for all this. I don't know what we're gonna do. I don't know if we'll end up selling it, I don't know what, I don't know what".
If you will be faithful to the Lord and if I will be faithful to the Lord, should he give us 20 people to serve, what he will do in discipling those 20 people with what God wants to say to them instead of what they want to hear, because what God wants to say to you is really what you wanna hear, you just don't know it. You want to know that you are holy in him. Yeah, you do. That you're worth something, and more than someone just to give away, that you have quality. You are women and men of substance.
Number four is this, goes with that Psalm 91:1 passage. Number four, "Our refuge is in the shadow of the one who is both substance and light". Right there you have all our concepts, all in one, and to realize that our refuge is in the shadow of the one who is both the substance, the substance and the light. And that we live over here in the shadow behind it. What does that look like? What is that like? I said, "Lord," I wrote it down in my notes, "talk to me about refuge. Talk to me about refuge". And this goes so well with what we were talking about just a moment ago with that place where we just know we're loved, that we know he's with us, that he's right there, that he goes, "You know what? I'm gonna tell you something, in this storm why don't you stand behind me? Because they're gonna have to come through me to get to you".
It is a wonderful image. Then Psalm 57 gives us a little bit of a different image. Turn with me to Psalm 57. Now, this is, if you want something to memorize, oh, man, this chapter is so, so good. I'll not get into the whole thing, but there are a couple of places that I wanna show you. Psalm 57, I wanna read verses, let's see, 1 through 3. "Be gracious to me, God, be gracious to me". Do you feel like you can pray that way? I mean, even to come to him and go, "Have favor on me, Lord, have favor on me. I was asking for just like an outpouring of grace. Be gracious to me, God, be gracious to me, for I take refuge in you. I will seek refuge in the shadow of your wings until danger passes. I call to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He reaches down from heaven and saves me, challenging the one who tramples me. Selah. God sends his faithful love and truth".
What beautiful, beautiful words. "I will seek refuge in the shadow of your wings". So, now we have it where we feel the warmth of the actual warm-blooded body. Does anybody understand what I'm saying? So, we've got the shadow image here, and then we've got the shadow of the wing where we're held close. Part of the picture of this, and in human terms I'm thinking about my children, certainly, but more recently my grandchildren. That when they topple and are hurt, or they're sick, or whatever it may be, and I still do that every now and then, I will tell Jackson that as soon as I get to the house, I'm gonna need to rock you, and he just laughs. He finds it so awkward, and I know that it is, and he never does let me, but I chase him all over his house.
So, I said, "Come right here, right here, right here on my lap". But one of the things I just love to do is hold my grandchildren in my arms where it's nice and warm. They're just crying, crying, crying, but in a little while they just kind of settle in, and it's warm, and she's old, and there's something about that. It's kind of hard to bother, hard to upset, not very stressed, just old and calm, and you know, I'll say to him every now and then, "You want down"? "No, no". Why, because I'm just safe and warm. It's the most beautiful picture. This attachment to him, I wanna show you part of the Psalm, it really doesn't have a tremendous amount to do with the topic, but I just love it. It's so important.
So, you're in the same chapter, but I want you to look at verse 7, verse 7. Psalm 57 verse 7, it says, do you not just love how this feels? "My heart is confident, God, my heart is confident". Have you ever just, like, needed, like, you're walking into a job interview, you've been praying for it, you got an opportunity, or you know, you're just so scared about something you're about to do, you're gonna go serve somebody and I'm not sure they want serving, all the things, all the things, to just go along. I believe this is what the Lord has led me to do and I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it with all the courage he gives me.
"My heart is confident, God, my heart is confident". I just love that, that he invites us, he gave this verbiage, gave this language to the psalmist that we could pick it up and say it. And then he says this, "I will sing, I will sing, praises. Wake up, my soul, wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn". Okay, notice with me that this is a Psalm of David, so let me give you this picture because he's talking about being eaten by lions and being torn apart by lions, but you can tell he's talking about that the lions in Psalm 57 are people, because he said peoples whose lips are like spears and arrows, whose tongues are like sharp swords.
So, there's all this metaphor going on. Now, this has been a shepherd, so out in the night, out in the shadows, out where it's scary, out where he doesn't have Psalm 91 in a Bible to lay on his chest, he is one that writes it. Anybody getting that with me? Just this gorgeous picture of the psalmist out under the stars, and I want you to think, so here's what he's saying because I say this to the Lord so often.
You can tell he is wanting to be with the Lord first thing in the morning, and I'm a big believer in that. I got to be calm before the Lord, be restful before the Lord, and I use a tiny little light, and it's dark. I use a tiny little light straight on my Bible and straight on my journal so that I'm not thinking about anything else but just this one thing, just this one thing, just this one thing.
But when I'm really sleepy, when I'm really sleepy, it's like I'll do the same thing. "Wake up, my soul, wake up, and wake up harp and lyre". You know what he's saying to himself? "Where's my instruments"? So, it's early in the morning, the sun is about to come up, he knows he wants to be with the Lord, he knows he wants to start the day in praise, and so he says to himself, "Wake up, wake up, wake up, harp and lyre". So, he's gonna grab his instruments like this, and he says, "I will wake up the dawn".
I love the thought that I am praising God while that sun is coming up. I love just the metaphor of thinking to myself that the sun was like, but I got so loud with my praise, not with volume necessarily, it's in my soul. I got so loud with it that the sun shook off its slumber and awakened and came up. Maybe that's dumb, but I love the thought of it. Isaiah 49:2 says this, "He made my words like a sharp sword. He hid me in the shadow of his hand. He made me like a sharpened arrow. He hid me in his quiver".
Isaiah 51:16, "I have put my words in your mouth, and covered you in the shadow of my hand, in order to plant the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, 'You are my people.'" To his people he says I have held you and covered you in the shadow of my hand. Alright, do your precious hand, just cup it like this, and do it until, now cup it until you can see in any way you have to turn it to get it with the light, make a shadow in it. You see it? And so, this picture is I'm gonna set you right there. So, where have we gone? The shadow of the Almighty. The shadow of his wing. And now, see right there, get right in the shadow of my hand, and I will cover you there.