Psalm 132:13-14 – “For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling, saying, “This is my resting place for ever and ever; here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it.”

Psalm 132 is divided into two sections: verses 1–10 is David’s vow and prayer to the Lord where he swears an oath to bring the ark back to Jerusalem, a story told more fully in 2 Samuel 6, and verses 11–18 God’s response of promise to David’s prayer. This dual prayer and promise reveals something about the nature of their relationship, one that includes responsibilities, promises, and blessings. At the heart of this psalm is something that lies at the heart of our relationship with God and how He has chosen to relate to us, the idea of covenant. In order to understand a covenant we first have to discuss what it is not. Lots of people lump the idea of covenant together with that of a contract, yet in reality the two ideas, while related and similar, are very different. Especially when it comes to the kind of relationship they each reveal. In a contract, the focus is on the individual, its underlying principle is individualistic, you make a contract with someone else so that your life will benefit. Contracts are formed out of questions like: how will this benefit me? How will this improve my life? How can I get out of this what I need to? Contracts tend to have built in exit clauses, they can be bent broken. The kind of relationship envisioned in a contract is completely utilitarian, based on my needs, where the other person becomes a means to an end. Unfortunately today many are treating marriage simply as a business contract, founded on the same kinds of questions and priorities. So I have to ask what kind of relationship is envisioned when an engaged couple agree to a pre-nuptial contract? Many in our culture have contract marriages, thinking primarily of themselves, while lots don’t even both with marriage, choosing instead just to live together. We believe that we are a smarter society, more emotionally evolved, so we say, “we can try the relationship out first, just live together and see if we are compatible, if it doesn’t work, that’s ok, no harm done.” Sounds logical right? Wrong, its not logical its ludicrous. If it was so brilliant and really worked, then why can’t I try out that new truck or car that “might” work for me? Why is it that they wont just let me drive it for a year and see if its a fit before I make a commitment? If it doesn’t work economically why would it work emotionally? Today we have a culture that is ok with commitment to riches just not relationship? Taking a temperature of our times reveals the dysfunction of a fevered people, who in their delusion have traded the true riches relationship for trinkets. A selfish society devoid of commitment, desperately trying to deny the costs of their choice, while their children try to deal with the disaster of divorce. We have traded commitment for a contract and now we have traded that for convenience, and all in the name of choice! A covenant is different, it is about our willingness to enter fully into a relationship with someone else. Where a contract is self-centered, a covenant is other-centered, a contract focuses on convenience where a covenant sees commitment. In the Bible we discover that God has made several, overlapping covenants throughout history. He made a covenant with Noah that he would never again flood the earth and destroy all life. He made a covenant with Abraham to bless him and make him a great nation and give him many descendants. He made a covenant with Moses in the form of the Law. He made a covenant with David that there would always be a descendant on David’s throne. All of these covenants tell us at least two things. First, all of the covenants are rooted in God’s character not our capability. While all other covenants in the ancient world were carried out between two equal parties, this is never the case when it comes to a covenant between God and His people, because His covenants are never based on the merit of us. It is God that has chosen to covenant, He has chosen to establish the relationship. They are based solely on God’s grace, founded on His faithfulness, on who He is and not on who we are. Second, God’s covenants show His unconditional commitment to His people, and while God’s people also have responsibilities and commitments, such covenants are not conditional. Yes his people were called to worship the Lord alone and be loyal to Him in every sphere of life, but at the heart these covenants are not based on Israel’s response to God. In Isaiah 49:15, the Lord asks: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” God’s covenant paints a picture of a parent and a child, where the child’s failure does not destroy the relationship. A covenant puts no conditions on faithfulness, rather it is the unconditional commitment to love and serve. Today I wonder how many see Christianity as a contract, with Christ as a contract-god, that if they live up to their end of the bargain, then they will get into heaven? How many people believe that because they’re not living lives pleasing to God, they can never come into His church, that to come they have to clean themselves up first. But we don’t have a contract-God, we have a covenant God, establishing a relationship with us based on who He is. Based on His grace, His steadfast, unconditional love that we could never hope to earn, nowhere do we see this more clearly than on the cross. Reading the bible it doesn’t take long to discover that God’s people never fully responded to God through relationship, choosing instead to rebel. But God persisted, our faithful Father continued to pursue, giving us these words in Jeremiah 31:31–34: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the last of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” Psalm 132:11 reminds us that, “The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back.” Even if we have not kept our promises as God’s people, God keeps His promises, revealed through our Redeemer Jesus Christ. In Christ alone, on the cross, is the culmination and completion of every covenant. God promised Noah that He would never again destroy all life; Jesus is the source of all life. God promised Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him; through Jesus’ blood God is ransoming saints from every tribe, nation, language and people. God gave Moses and Israel the Law; in Jesus the Law is fulfilled. In our Psalm God promised David that “one of the sons of your body I will set on your throne”; to Jesus God gave the throne of his ancestor David. Every promise, every pledge, that God ever made has come true in Jesus Christ. Through covenant God has promised to provide and bless His people, so today will you rest in His covenant relationship?

Jeremiah 6:16 “This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

The prophet Jeremiah called the people to repent and return to God, with a ministry that spanned the reigns of five of Judah’s kings: Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah. It is here that we find the people once again at the crossroad of choice, to follow God’s plan or continue down their own path. It reminds me of Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken”:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as far,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

One of the reasons that we find so little rest today is that we ignore God’s road. Crossroads always call us to make a decision, today God is calling to us at the crossroads of life and death. Yet the sad reality is that their choose involved ignoring God’s invitation. Unlike Frost who took the path less traveled they chose the well traveled road of culture. Today we stand at the crossroad of culture and Christ, which will we listen to, will it be the Lord or the lies? The crossroad of choice between traveling the highway of materialism or the Master. In our society it is easy to buy into the lie of money and more, yet we find fullness of life through faith in Jesus Christ. It’s not through anything we can buy or become, its not found in acceptance or our achievements but in the Almighty. Which path will we choose, in what direction will we go? The Bible is filled with God calling to His people to make a decision. In Joshua 24:15 Joshua challenged the Israelites to “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” A few hundred years later, on Mount Carmel Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him….” 1Kings 18:21. Why does God seem to constantly be calling to His people to make a choice? Because to decide not to decide, is to decide. We need to make a decision, a choice, make up our minds. This path comes with a promise, it is a road that results in rest, rest for your soul, a choice with eternal consequences. Will we chose the road of rest or restlessness? Today many say they want the path of peace yet instead they choose a path plagued with problems. Here we find God giving us four commandments, stand, see, speak, and seek:

STAND
If we want to experience rest for our souls then we need to listen to the one speaking, we need to stop and stand. The command of standing requires us first to stop, a call that runs counter to our culture. A culture that calls us to go first and figure it out later, we want to walk not wait. The value of standing is that it creates a pause where we can ponder and ultimately pursue God’s plan. Standing creates room for stillness, something our culture is growing increasingly uncomfortable with.

SEE
Pausing provides an opportunity to look and see the choice before us, but in the call to be counted successful within our society or just survive it we fail to pause and often just pass right on by. In the rush to come, conquer and consume we miss the crossroad, failing to see our choice. The call of Christ is drowned in the turbulent currents of our culture. We fail to see because we never really look, we don’t take time to smell the roses. We miss the rose of redemption with its sweet sent of salvation, its perfume of peace. Trudging on instead we miss the truth, while the lingering oder of death and decay swirls around us. There is no rest for the soul stuck in the swirling stream of sin. In the midst of this mad rush comes the compassionate call of Christ, stop, stand, and see, consider what is and what could be. Without stillness we will never really see. Today will you purpose to pause, will you linger long enough to look and really see?

SPEAK
After standing and seeing we are next called to speak, what is interesting here is that only after stillness are we invited to speak. As the words of the Savior soak in, stand, see and then speak, we soon realize how reversed our lives really are. I fear that today most of our speaking is not done out of stillness, yet it is only after stopping standing and seeing that we are invited to speak. The word “ask” is repeatedly used in Scripture to express making a personal request for God’s guidance. Israel and Judah often faced divine judgment because they continually failed to ask for God’s guidance. Just like our modern day man refusing to stop and ask for directions, preferring instead, because of pride, to drive around refuse to admit they are lost. But not all ignored the advice of the Almighty. In I Samuel 23:1-2 David asked for God’s guidance before going to battle against the Philistines. The Scriptures tells us: “Now they told David, ‘The Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and are robbing the threshing floors.’ David inquired of the LORD, ‘Shall I go and attack these Philistines?’ The LORD said to David, ‘Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.’” David was victorious because he did not run ahead of God in his own strength and power but sought the Lord’s guidance through prayer. Whenever I wait upon the Lord and seek His direction, I am never disappointed, but whenever I run ahead of God and do it “my way” its always a mess. At all your crossroads in life, “Stand still, and ask for God to guide and direct you in all your decisions before you take any action. Notice what we are to ask for, “ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is.” We are to ask for the good way not the golden one, today I fear that in our pursuit for happiness we have missed holiness. We ask God to fix our problems, to smooth out our rough roads, to make the ride comfortable, without any recognition that we may be on the wrong road. The call here is about asking which road to take, not fixing the one we want to take. How much of what we ask for would change if we would first stopped and see the good path? Today how much of your asking is done on the run? Christ’s call is for us to be proactive in our prayer not reactive, ask first then proceed. Yet many instead cry Lord rescue me while running headlong into ruin. Today we don’t ask we demand. So let me ask you, are you praying while pausing or just in passing?

SEEK
As you contemplate the call of Christ, you see it is both, logical and loving, stand, see, speak and then seek. Yet we rush past the crossroads without ever contemplating the call of Christ, we forge our own path while ignoring His plan. We only call on Him after we crash, and then only for a quick fix, failing to even considering that what we may need is not new parts but a new path. If that is the path we want to pursue then may be what we need is to be left stranded in our stubbornness. Many while stuck on the highway of their own foolish desire, grow angry with the Almighty, questioning His love, while failing to see that they ignored the sigh to His highway of hope, clear back at the crossroad. So to whom will you look? This is God’s invitation to turn to Him for guidance and direction in life. Yet His people would respond “we will not walk in it!” Instead of responding to His redemptive plan they rebelled. Today we too find ourselves at the crossroads of choice, between rest and ruin. Which path will you pursue, Christ’s or the cultures? The Almighty is inviting us to take the ancient path, this is not some new philosophy but a proven path to rest. Moving forward involves looking back, yet today in our pursuit of progress we often ignore the past. God was reminding His people to look back, to consider the path their forefathers had pursued. As we submit to stand at the Crossroads, looking to Jesus, asking for His guidance, and walking in His ways we will find rest for our souls. We will experience peace of mind and freedom from worry, regardless of the trials, hardships, difficulties hurts, pains, sorrows, or problems we may face.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one CHRIST traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Which road will you take, rest or ruin?