Our desires don’t always line up with God’s choices. And when there’s a mismatch, conflict—and sometimes catastrophe—is not far off.
This past weekend in worship at Zion, we looked at a story from Numbers 16 about a man named Korah. Korah is a Levite, which means he belongs to the tribe God has chosen to care for the tabernacle—the tent where God dwells among His people. This is no small calling. Korah has been chosen for holy work.
But Korah does not want the holy work God has given him. He wants the holy work God has given to somebody else.
He does not want to serve near the altar of the tabernacle. He wants to stand at the altar. He does not want to assist the priests. He wants to be a priest.
As news broke about the Central Texas floods and the loss of 27 girls at Camp Mystic, this was the picture that got me. A first responder – clearly tough as nails – with his head in his hand sobbing at what – at who – he has just found.
When I first saw it, I started sobbing, too.
I am no mind-reader, but I can tell you with almost 100 percent certainty what he was thinking as the tears flowed: “If only I could have saved her.” In fact, even more than that: “I would have willingly given my life for hers.”
There is something in the human instinct and drive to save others, especially children, that profoundly reflects the God in whose image we are made. It’s why mothers leap to the ground to cushion their toddlers from a fall. It’s why firefighters rush into burning buildings. Tears for Fears told us, “Everybody wants to rule the world.” Maybe so. But there’s something even deeper in us that wants to save the world.
I can’t imagine a more exhilarating feeling than saving a life. The mixture of joy and relief that rushes through the soul can’t be described – only experienced.
But the inverse is also true. I can’t imagine anything more soul-crushing than losing a life you desperately wanted to save. Hence the haunting thoughts:
“If only I could have saved her.”
“I would have willingly given my life for hers.”
I know these thoughts because they are universal. We’ve all thought them in one form or another when loss visits us. And they’re ancient. This is why the Psalmist complains: “No man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life” (Psalm 49:7). But oh, how we wish we could.
The gospel has something to say to that first responder – and to us – when we cry: “I would have willingly given my life for hers.” It says, “Thank you. And I know you would have. But Someone already has. She’s taken care of.”
This is why this is the other picture that brought me to tears.
This picture reminds me that the girls who lost their lives at Camp Mystic still have their lives – because long before floodwaters surged down the Guadalupe River on a Friday in the twenty-first century, one Man gave His life on a cross in exchange for theirs on a Friday in the first century.
That doesn’t stop our tears. But it promises us that our tears are not final.
It was Francis Bacon who ostensibly was the first to say, “Knowledge is power.” Whoever actually said it first, it’s been repeated many times – and it’s been believed for much longer than it’s been said.
When Satan shows up in the Garden of Eden, he tempts Adam and Eve with nothing less than knowledge. He tries to get them to eat fruit from a tree that God has forbidden, because it will open their eyes to the knowledge of not only good, but also evil. But Satan says this knowledge will also give them power:
God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)
Satan implies that if Adam and Eve can gain the knowledge of God, that will give them power over God. And they fall for it. But instead of gaining power, their new knowledge instead results in death.
One of the wisest men who ever lived, King Solomon, sternly warns against gossip:
The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts. (Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22)
We are still enticed by gossip, however. Why? Because we believe that knowledge about someone may afford us power over someone. From blackmail to shaming to even manipulating someone with knowledge we know about them that they don’t know we know about them, we still believe knowledge is power. But, like Adam and Eve, such knowledge often leads to nothing but death – death in our relationships, death in our trust of another person, and the death of our ability to talk to someone rather than about someone.
Satan gossiped about God to Adam and Eve and look where it led them. There are some things that are simply none of our business. We don’t need to know. In a culture that loves to know, sometimes, ignorance isn’t just bliss; it’s holy. So, let’s reject gossip about others. For by rejecting gossip about others, we can know God better. And He’s someone we do need to know.
Credit: The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo (1511) / Wikimedia
When God creates the plants, fish, and land animals in Genesis 1, He speaks to the land and water He has already created to bring these creatures forth:
Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. (Genesis 1:11)
Let the water teem with living creatures. (Genesis 1:20)
Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind. (Genesis 1:24)
God calls to the land to produce plants and animals and to the water to produce fish. Why? Because the land is where plants and animals belong and the water is where fish belong.
And yet, when God creates human beings, things change. Rather than speaking to the land, where we will live, God speaks to Himself:
Let us make mankind in Our image, in Our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. (Genesis 1:26)
If the land is where humans will live and belong, why doesn’t God call to the land to bring them – to bring us – forth? It’s because ultimately and in a very unique way, we don’t belong to the land, but to God. We are created in His image:
God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)
Yes, we will live on the land. And yes, the first man Adam is even created from the ground. But he belongs – and we belong – to God.
This is why Adam’s fall into sin in Genesis 3 is such a tragedy. He goes from belonging to God to wanting to be like God, which shatters his relationship with God. But God does not give up. Through the prophet Jeremiah, He envisions a time when:
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel…” declares the Lord. “I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)
God will make sure we belong to Him. We will be His people. He will be our God.
God loves you so much that, when He created you, He had a conversation with Himself about you. You belong to Him. And nothing can change that.
On the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, there is inscribed a famous maxim: “Know thyself.” But knowing one’s self can be hard. Solomon writes, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters” (Proverbs 20:5). In other words, we often don’t understand our own hearts – our own selves. Or, as the apostle Paul puts it: “I do not understand what I do” (Romans 7:15).
Knowing thyself is key. After all, if we do not understand ourselves – including our hidden motives and perverse incentives – it will be very difficult for us to love others rather than use them. So, what is the key to knowing ourselves better?
Scripture gives us some critical practices to help us know ourselves. The first is that of confession, or self-examination. In confession, we grapple with what we know we’ve done wrong – those things that nag us with guilt and regret. The lie we told. The lust we indulged. The addiction we engaged. The person we hurt. Confession brings the parts of ourselves we would rather pretend not to know into the light. It is the first step to knowing ourselves.
But there is more. For we need not only confession, but counseling, or cross-examination. Oftentimes, our motives are so mixed, or our sin becomes so opaque to us, that we cannot see it for what it is. We become strangers to ourselves. We have all had the experience where we offended someone, often justifiably, and we did not even know it because we did not see how our words or actions hurt others. Those who counsel us – and not just professionally, but as friends, spouses, and neighbors – can help us identify our blind spots. After Solomon writes, “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters,” he adds, “but one who has insight draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5). We need people of insight around us to draw out what we cannot ferret out for ourselves.
Both of these practices can help us know ourselves. But, of course, knowing yourself is quite different than liking yourself. When we become aware of the depth of our brokenness and sin, it can be easy to fall into despair or self-loathing. This is why one more practice is needed – that of compurgation.
Compurgation was an early common-law method of trial in which a defendant could be acquitted on the endorsement of friends or neighbors. In other words, if enough people interceded for someone who had been accused of a crime, he could be exonerated on his friends’ testimony.
The apostle Paul asks:
Who is the one who condemns? No one.
Paul says that no one can condemn us in our sin. Why? Because:
Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Romans 8:34)
Christ is the one who testifies on our behalf. And His testimony is all we need to be exonerated by being forgiven through Him. His compurgation is enough.
So then, who are we? We are children of God through Christ. We are sinners by nature, yes. But we are also saints through faith. How do we know this? By knowing ourselves – and, even more importantly, by knowing Christ.
