Waymaker - a fresh perspective and an age old invitation.

 

For those who don’t know, my family is in the process of moving to the UK for a season of our life. Last year when we made this very tough decision to step out in faith a song that gripped my heart was the gospel song – Waymaker. I listened to it often and found comfort in a God who is way maker and a promise keeper. I found delight in proclaiming His faithfulness and His presence over my own life and its problems and decisions that it was encountering. I know many of you who love the song do the same as me and just like me you too have been encouraged and comforted by the truths of the song. Over the year however God has been moving in my heart to even grander and deeper truths regarding these lyrics and I would love to share them with you. 

The truth is we all have areas where we want to God to be a way maker for us. These can be one or a combination of many things. Things like relationships, marriage, finances, employment, health etc. But at the end of the day for all the different struggles we might have the one common struggle we all share is a struggle and battle against sin. Many of those that sing this song or are moved by this song are also those who still carry the weight of the guilt of their sin on their own shoulders. Others grapple and wrestle with temptations and this almost depressing proclivity to sin that resides within our flesh. The truth is that Jesus is that way maker for us in this regard first. The word of God says in Ephesians 1:7 “in Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” He has made that way – by His own death, by His own sacrifice on that cross Jesus made a way for us to be forgiven. Not only this, but Ephesians goes on to say in Eph 2:18 “through Him we have access to the Father.” We have access to the highest throne, the very presence of God the Father Himself and that access is given to us by Christ Jesus. He makes a way for us to be in relationship with heaven where we were once enemies (Col 1:21). Jesus is that way maker.

He promised He would forgive, He promised He would die for our sin, He promised He would rise again and cause us to share in his great victory – and He did exactly that. He is that promise keeping God. He has promised to fight for us not just against the difficulties of life but more than that – he has promised to fight along with us against the power of sin in our life. For many of us that battle can become intense at times and at times we can feel like Paul did when he wrote “what a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body?” (Rom 7:24). But Jesus words of promise ring out in that same thought of Paul’s as he goes on just a couple of verses later to say “there is now therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.” He comes into that darkness of our battle and gives us armour for it (Eph 6:13-18). He strengthens us and trains us for the war we are in (Ps 144:1) and by His strength we fight and we share in His victory over darkness. He truly is that light in the darkness – the light that cannot and will not be overcome by the darkness (John 1:5).

In Jesus we also come from death to life. Scripture clearly teaches over and over again that it is in Jesus and only Him that we are brought from death to life (Eph 2:4-6; John 5:24; 1 John 3:14). But if this was not enough he gives us that eternal life and then gives us an eternal place in his family where the Father in Heaven adopts us His own, his very own and this miracle too is only because of Jesus Christ through whom we have this great miraculous adoption (Eph 1:5). 

So my submission and my invitation to you is to not settle for the experience of Jesus as the way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper or a light in the darkness only in the realm of your finances, relationships, health, employment etc. Celebrate Him and praise Him and experience Him as all of these and more when it comes to your deepest battle – the battle of sin, guilt, shame, belonging and even death. That is the true heart of God, the true story of the gospel – Christ crucified and now our risen Saviour, Redeemer and Lord. Let's not miss the biggest way that He made, the biggest miracle that He does, the most mind blowing promise that He keeps and the most glorious way His light shines in darkness. 

And just as a footnote (or a bridge) He did all this even when we didn’t know it or feel it – He was still and is still and will always be working. Let's respond to His working with praise,with love, in faith.

 Amen.