Running the Race for Holy Reverence!

Running! While most of us aren’t connected to a running regiment at the community center or our neighborhood streets, we are certainly guilty of what seems to be an endless task. Running! We aren’t chasing a finish line per se, we are chasing our shadow and we are chasing life in general. Chasing our kids in their perpetual sports events and social gatherings. Chasing our spouse and the responsibilities of life in and around a marriage covenant. Chasing our careers. Chasing our hobbies as we attempt to carve our time for ourselves. Chasing the ever emerging product of self-care and or our mental health care. Finally, our Sunday’s have become our second Saturday as we chase family time and taxiing our children to scheduled sports events that we’ve paid far too much for in the first place. Somewhere in the chase of life we have forgotten our blessed Savior and Creator. We have pushed Him down to pretty close to the last rung on the ladder of what we consider successful living. Big mistake! And most of you who have found yourself at this place spiritually…know it. You just don’t have the intentional strength to change it. But the bottom line is that if you don’t you won’t survive.

Scripture reveals that for us to know to do good and fail to do it – “it” becomes a sin for us. The “it” becomes a life plethora of choices we make that we are consciously aware of that will be sin in by the sacred standards of God for our life. Not our standard but His according to His Word and not ours.
“Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17, NASB)

The simple definition of sin is to “miss the mark.” We miss the center of knowing and doing the will of God. We know better but we just don’t take the time to intentionally hit the center of the target. We miss. We “sin.” We fault the will of God for our lives. We sacrilegiously blame God for our exhaustion. Deep down we know it’s not His fault…but it gives a sense of false justification to do so. We do what is so hard for many of us to admit, we fail. We commit an error and we know it. We miss the mark established by God his will and Word for our lives. And we can’t stand the idea of accountability for the miss. That would mean a confession of wrong doing and Lord knows we don’t want the guilt of voluntarily making a confession of missing the mark. I only wish we were as concerned about His feelings of our failure instead of the fear of what others might think of our failure. But thankfully, the Holy Spirit brings a nudge of conviction (not condemnation) for our sin (John 16:7-11).

Chasing God doesn’t have to be a difficult task. He’s an easy chase. Seriously! Let me point you to two men in scripture who made decisions either to chase God or chase promotion (re: success in life).

“Now David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. And David arose and went with all the people who were with him to Baale-judah, to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the Name, the very name of the LORD of hosts who is enthroned above the cherubim. They placed the ark of God on a new cart that they might bring it from the house of Abinadab which was on the hill; and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were leading the new cart. So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark. Meanwhile, David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the LORD with all kinds of instruments made of fir wood, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, castanets and cymbals. But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of the LORD burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God. David became angry because of the LORD’S outburst against Uzzah, and that place is called Perez-uzzah to this day. So David was afraid of the LORD that day; and he said, “How can the ark of the LORD come to me?” And David was unwilling to move the ark of the LORD into the city of David with him; but David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. Thus the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household. Now it was told King David, saying, “The LORD has blessed the house of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, on account of the ark of God.” David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness.” (2 Samuel 6:1-12, NASB)

This is a familiar passage to most of us in the faith community. I am not the first to discover some life principles in this passage and I will certainly not be the last! But I do want to point out a few things about chasing God…that one thing that we seem to have such a hard time connecting with.

The Casualness of Irreverence
I don’t care who you are or what your title is, most believers conclude that his judgement is harsh! It may seem that way on the surface. To be honest, most of us have a hard time with the action of God here because we know, deep down in the core of who we are, we find ourselves replacing Uzzah, knowing that we have only by the grace of Jesus, been where Uzzah was. Seriously! Be honest about this one!

The principle that stood out to me today as I read through this passage was the shear casual approach to handling the presence of God. The ark was symbolic of His presence. First of all, there was the “congregational” unity toward dismissing the presence of God. No one took responsibility to question rather the method of handling His presence was wrong. The people of God had become so casual with His presence that there was almost a recreational attitude toward it. Remember my statement above? Sunday has become, in too many churches and in too many households, a second Saturday! We have not only grouped ourselves together to approve such casual acceptance of His presence, we have taught our children to have a secondary, casual idea of the presence of God. We have missed the mark on this one!

Uzzah, in Hebrew, means “strength.” In other words his own spiritual strength, as God intended for him (remember the meaning of sin), became weak with casualness. He didn’t exercise his faith correctly and what was intended for strength became his weakness. I could mention another who found himself weak under the assumption of strength. His name was Samson. When he realized his strength had become an unrecognized weakness, it cost him dearly. Take a look at this passage of scripture: “She said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.” (Judges 16:20, NASB). The tragedy of his verse was not that he couldn’t recover from his error of missing the mark, but the frightening fact that he “did not know” the Lord had moved away from him. Are you there? Are you at a place where when you think you can casually grab hold of the presence of God like a golf club or a baseball bat or glove, and suddenly your realize that He is not there? This is the irreverence of the sin of casualness. This is the awakening moment for us if we are there!

The Seed of Irreverence
We “sought” him not after due order!
“”Because you did not carry it at the first, the LORD our God made an outburst on us, for we did not seek Him according to the ordinance.”” (1 Chronicles 15:13, NASB)
“For because you did not do it at the first, Jehovah our God made a break on us, since we did not seek Him in due order.” (1 Chronicles 15:13, MKJV)

Seriously! Some of us have so weakened the conviction of reverence for God in our lives that we totally miss the mark of sacred reverence! Honoring Him! I think this is what Paul meant when he wrote this passage of scripture:
“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5, NASB)

Read that again…this time real slow! Tell me there are not some issues that Paul wrote to Timothy about that we aren’t dealing with today. The whole idea in this passage is a casual approach to holiness, to who who God really is in our lives. We have created a “form of godliness” culture and lived by it’s mandates for so long that we think casual is normal. It is not. Casually approaching God is actually missing the mark. He is holy! He is absolutely holy! His holiness took men to their knees! The word form here means to have an appearance, to have an external semblance. One author writes that it is like a mannequin dressed in religious garb. The idea comes from the old ancient priestly garments that were worn in the days of Christ. Paul used that terminology to speak to our sense of creating an appearance of serving Him.

This seed of irreverence is very much alive and well in our churches today. Let’s not fall for the delusion that that will move away from a committed life of conviction in serving Jesus. We have created idols of irreverence and convinced ourselves its all good. I am reminded of the Word of the Lord to His people in Jeremiah.
“Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the LORD, “Do not learn the way of the nations, And do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens Although the nations are terrified by them; For the customs of the peoples are delusion; Because it is wood cut from the forest, The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. “They decorate it with silver and with gold; They fasten it with nails and with hammers So that it will not totter. “Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot walk! Do not fear them, For they can do no harm, Nor can they do any good.” There is none like You, O LORD; You are great, and great is Your name in might. Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? Indeed it is Your due! For among all the wise men of the nations And in all their kingdoms, There is none like You. But they are altogether stupid and foolish In their discipline of delusion—their idol is wood! Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, And gold from Uphaz, The work of a craftsman and of the hands of a goldsmith; Violet and purple are their clothing; They are all the work of skilled men. But the LORD is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, And the nations cannot endure His indignation.” (Jeremiah 10:1-10, NASB)

Did you catch that? They became foolish in their “discipline of delusion”. Oh man! If only they had disciplined themselves after the righteousness and holiness of God with a pure sense of reverence!

Chasing God! Chasing His presence! Chasing His holiness! Understanding why the Holy Spirit convicts of us sin…missing the mark! I want to challenge you today to become intentional about your chasing after Jesus! He is there! He is there for us! He is ahead of us! His arms are open wide!

Run the Race with an Intentional Win in Mind!
“I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.” (1 Corinthians 9:23-27, NASB)

I, like Paul, do not want to be disqualified by the gospel that I have preached and taught for over forty years. This takes focused and intentional discipline! Come on folks! You can do this! It takes effort! Run the race to win! Run the reverence race to win! Don’t give in to intentional irreverence where your trophy is perishable! Run the reverence race to win the imperishable trophy!!