Wednesday, September 21, 2022 PM

Scarcity as a Feature of God’s World

Sleep. Okay, is that a mother that said that? Okay, that means. Okay, the second question, and this one we should have just as easy a time answering. Where do we find scarcity in the biblical narrative?

Five examples there as well. Droughts. Okay, where can you give me a specific specific drought that you can think of? Okay, Joseph and the drought and the famines there that that he saw in the dreams.

Okay, yep. Anybody else? The intertestamental period. Okay, lack of understanding. Have you not read? Right, like I'm constantly having to say have you not read to those who are supposed to be most learned in the scriptures.

Okay, so Amos. More. Last one. Okay, Canaan. Okay, is that how you spell Cana? I can't remember. C-A-N-A? Okay, thought so. All right, all right. Okay, now the third question I'm going to ask is only going to be partially answered tonight in our devotional.

Why so much scarcity? I would like to posit that it is a feature and not a bug of the world that God has created. Words translated as scarcity are found in only two verses in the Bible, the entire Bible.

I'll be using neither verse. However, I will be focusing on the biblical theme of scarcity in reference particularly to Christ and his bride. I will also be and will also be considering how being members of his bride we are to consider the limited supply of one Savior and one Holy Bride which makes up or with all the saints making up that bride.

This is not to limit our Savior in any way other than the way he has set his own limits. This is to emphasize there's only one way, one truth, and one life. Also, there is only one word that can bring light into this world.

All others who claim to bring the light are merely disguising themselves as an angel of light. To give way to two words or more is to give to an inflation of gods. As we all understand from recent events, once inflation begins, it cannot be stopped or tapered.

Once you open up the faucet to multiple competing voices in your heart and mind, you cannot stop the voices inside your own head. Only the grace of God by his Spirit can bring back the blissful scarcity of voices inside your mind.

And as we consider scarcity or the scarcity of Christ as the one Savior and the only Savior and his church, let us also keep in mind the overabundance of pagan gods and that their harlotry brings about a scarcity in righteousness but an abundance in wickedness.

Scarcity, as I said before, is a feature and not a bug of the world that our Lord created. It screams to us of his sovereignty over all things. We have a finite amount of time to praise one Savior and Lord with one body of brothers and sisters.

Though we may move from town to town and enjoy the company of other brothers and sisters and other saints, we do have a particular time that we were born into that God has gifted us with to enjoy the company of saints, to serve with them, and to honor our Lord with them.

This is the form of scarcity which we should be foremost in our minds. But in our current state as saved sinners, what is the scarcity that is foremost on our minds? Can we think of any examples in our own life where we might worry or have anxiety over things that need to be there for us in excess and yet we find them to be scarce on a daily basis?

Can I get some answers to that? Patience, okay, as a parent I can heartily agree to that. Stillness, okay, again, as a parent there is not a still time of the day. Jenny? Wisdom, okay, lacking in wisdom.

And as we were talking about, our days are some that are scarce on wisdom because of the excess of gods in our culture. Those that continue to worship more and more and more gods and that faucet continually is not turned off.

Anyone else? That were always lacking in them, right? But the Lord is faithful to be abundant in that for us and he is faithful to sanctify those whom he has called. Many times it is the opposite of this understanding of scarcity that causes us to go after other things.

Many times we use the phrase, you only live once, or in biblical terms, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. Let us gobble up those scarce things that we seek after. We selfishly discount the future for the present, the future of our children and our children's children, the future of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

When we ought to be in fellowship, we sow discord. When we ought to be serving, we are resting. And when we ought to be present in worship, we are absent or church shopping for a church that excuses our forsaking the gathering.

We consume rather than produce for the body. And chiefly, I know myself to do the same. But when we consider this, it's not to say that there is no time for division over serious matters, resting from work, or extenuating circumstances that take us away from weekly gathering of the saints.

This is to say that the time for these things is not all the time. For a reference, we can go to Hebrews 10 .25 talking about those who forsake the gathering of the assembly. If we find ourselves frequenting the watering holes of the world for short pleasing drinks, preferring to avoid gathering in order to get more rest and escaping responsibility, or we're focusing on ourselves, we are likely anxious for those things that are temporary, fleeting, and inflated.

We are finding scarcity in the wrong things, but that's because we do not recognize where it comes from. Chiefly found in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for he is the only one who could have come to save.

And his bride is the only one he could have come to save. The gods of our day tell us to be anxious for all things. For all things are scarce in some way, shape, or form. They have this as correct. God has created a world with matter in it, and a finite amount of matter, but we don't realize how abundantly he has created it for us, and for us to use, and to not exploit, but to take dominion over, and to serve him and the saints with.

What in recent memory have we been told to be anxious for because it was lacking or in limited supply? We already have some of them up here, but what on the news or on social media have we been told to be anxious for?

What's lacking? I can think of one right off the top of my head. Privacy. People assume in this technocratic age that privacy is lacking, and I would agree to a large extent. Where else are we finding a limited supply in things in our lives?

Energy. Okay, right, right. Any other examples? Real estate. Okay, real estate shortages. Anywhere else? Rights. Okay. Another one I was thinking of earlier was baby formula. We had a baby formula shortage, and that is of some great concern.

Not everyone is blessed with the ability to produce enough for their children, and sometimes when that lack is felt very deeply within a home, and so baby formula shortages I had great sympathy for, but one I should not have had great sympathy for and fell for was the toilet paper shortage in 2020.

I found the gods of this age or the prophets for the gods of this age calling out on my TV screen to rush to the nearest Walmart or Dollar General and buy up as much as I could at a premium because who knows who knows when everything's gonna get turned back on during the pandemic, and I fell for it.

I fell for their calls and their cries for shortages, and what a ridiculous thing to be anxious for and buy at a premium, right? The false prophets I did not resist. It reminds me of Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal.

It's amazing how pagan nonsense and crying out to their gods can always lead to a good toilet joke. What is Christ's answer to these anxieties, though? We are anxious over very simple things that we do use on a daily basis very many times.

He says in Matthew 26 to 34, look at the birds of the air that they do not sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you, by being worried, can add a single hour to his life?

And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith? Do not worry then, saying, what will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear for clothing?

For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things. For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble on its own. Seek first the kingdom, the King of which is Christ himself, and we the bride are a kingdom of priests.

In Revelation 5 verse 10, in this passage we have Christ's command to seek the kingdom, whose ruler is the only begotten Son and Savior of the only bride, the church. Then what things will be added to us?

What does he say? It does not come out without content. Food, drinks, and clothes will be added to us is the plain meaning of the text. The phrase all these things is not ambiguous as it is sometimes taken when taken out of context.

Are you not anxious for basic things or hungers, Christians? Seek the kingdom, seek the one who is most precious, and his bride, and he finds to be her most precious. Now when we come across a metal or a stone that has a limited supply, what adjective do we give those metals?

Precious. Right, that's right. How do we know the Lord finds his bride to be precious? Can we think of examples of him talking about his bride for a little lost coin? Okay, precious metal. Anywhere else?

Lost sheep. Okay, and in that case we have a limited supply as well, right? We have one that is lost and we have a specific 99 that he leaves to go find the one lost sheep. He has a specific bride because he's a specific Savior, and his blood covers his bride and cleanses them.

And even in our death, he finds us precious, right? You know, and because he knows that's not where it ends anyways. He knows that, we'll talk about this later, but he knows that the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God, and she is clothed in fine linen and her precious stones and metals.

So how do we know he finds his bride precious? Well, in Ephesians 5, which is a wonderful passage and famous for Paul's teaching not only to give husbands practical instruction on how to love their wives in Christ, but also gives them the purpose of or telos for that instruction.

We are told to model our marital relationships after the scarcity, the scarce relationship of the one Savior and his bride. Husbands, love your wives. Why? Because Christ loves his bride. And as we read verse 25 through 30, husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church and all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body.

It's passages like this that should drive our disgust for man's predilections to continually seek to inflate the number of household gods and harlotry, right? Usually we go to the negative verses that we find about judgment of the harlot, Revelation, Ezekiel, places where the prophets have called out seeking after other gods and idolatry.

But here, finding the positive affirmation of how a marriage should work, mirroring God's relationship with his bride, that is where we should find that scarce relationship, seeing the multitude of extra relationships, extramarital relationships, that should be ugly to us, based from this text here.

And though these things are disgusting and grotesque on a gut level, they should primarily be disgusting because we're forsaking that which is most precious, Christ. And we're forsaking him for that what is most basic, our present desires.

The Lord limits the marriage relationship to one spouse, because it reflects the limited nature of Christ's relationship to one bride, the church. There are not many brides, and those included in the bride are not the unrighteous, but the righteous.

When we consider talking about preciousness and clothing and adornment, we get pictures and images given to us to further understand the preciousness and uniqueness of the bride, as opposed to all other options.

In Revelation 18, beauty, craftsmanship, and production are stripped from the harlot. Those things that we have found scarce in current times. Production, craftsmanship, and beauty in our world. A lot of work, a lot of production has slowed because of our own selfishness and our own seeking after other things or other gods.

And I would say that we are incurring judgment for a lot of the things that we have sought to go after, other than seeking after the kingdom and seeking after his bride. But in Revelation 18, we see her stripped of all these things, as she has gone after all the nations.

Earlier in the book, she is described quite beautifully though, but beauty is fleeting and leaves us much quicker when we play the harlot and go after other gods. In the very next chapter, the bride is described as such.

In verse 7 of Revelation 19, if you want to turn there. Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean.

For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Righteous acts. That's a great contrast to Babylon, who has just had her works and gifts stripped, rightfully stripped, from her and her deeds are laid bare for the world to see and mourn.

In chapter 21, later on, the bride is also described again as being ready for her husband and this time she is clothed in light and glory. Precious stones and metals all the way down to her foundations, from the top to the bottom.

This reminds me and makes me think of Christ being the cornerstone and also the capstone of the church and everything in between he's going to clothe in glory. She is covered with scarce things. Anytime we have a picture of gold, silver, precious stones, these are scarce things in the world and we should be thinking about how he finds her so precious that he gives all these scarce things to clothe her in.

These passages are filled with scarcity and preciousness and it should point our eyes and affections to the one who has clothed us so gloriously. So finally, I would like to offer before you a statement that was originally coined in the discipline of economics as it regards money, but can only be true in economics if we find its roots in the truths of Scripture.

The statement reads, an abundance of gods leads to scarcity and righteousness and the scarcity of the triune God leads to an abundance in righteousness. Meaning that a fixed standard in Christ alone gives true direction, meaning, and righteousness.

The original statement, inflation of money leads to scarcity in goods, we are watching this statement play out in real time. Though we were originally unsure of its validity, but in Christ we have the hope and surety that he clothes us, the church, in righteous acts and deeds.

So seek after that which is most scarce, saints. Seek after Christ and his bride. I hope to follow up this devotion with somewhat of a paradox of a devotion to what I've just laid out later on in October and it will be entitled, Out of Scarcity Abundance.

Questions and Clarifications on Scarcity

Now are there any questions before I close for prayer and then we can take prayer requests? Yes, limited supply. A feature not a bug? Okay, so I yeah, feature not a bug. So it's a feature and not a problem.

Okay, so it's yeah sorry if I didn't clarify that before. Everybody didn't understand the whole way through, right? No, it's a feature of what God has put into play throughout history. He has used scarcity to show and prove himself most worthy and most holy.

Yeah, it's not a flaw in the design at all. Whereas today, you know, we're being told that all of our natural resources are so scarce, we're going to burn it all up. It's all going to be used up by this date.

The oceans are going to rise by this date, right? And time and again those claims, those prophecies have fallen through, right? And he said that was by design, right? He said, I speak in parables so that some may not hear, right?

So and even in that case, scarcity is by design. Anybody else before we close with prayer? Okay. Father, we do bow before you asking for your mercy to bring us to the right conclusions about your word, that we understand what you're clearly communicating, and if any fault is found and what was been delivered denied, it is only mine.

I praise you, Lord, for your word and that my time in enjoying the study and delivering what I've learned to the Saints has been most precious, and it has been a joy to understand things about you, which previously I did not.

And I hope, Father, that you continue a good work here at Sunnyside, for I know my time here is limited, and I know that I would have it no other way and with no other people. I thank you for them. I thank you for their listening tonight and their prayers, for they are sweet.

And we thank you again, Father, for a wonderful meal and wonderful servers in our church, those who are diligent to come at every call. And we praise you for them, for all the Saints here at Sunnyside.

It's in the Lord's name we pray. Amen.