Pastor Fredo Ramos: Psalm 82, a Psalm of Asaph. God presides over heaven's courts. He pronounces judgment on the heavenly beings. How long will you hand down unjust decisions by favoring the wicked? Give justice to the poor and the orphan.
Uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and helpless. Deliver them from the grasp of evil people. But these oppressors know nothing. They are so ignorant.
They wander about in darkness while the whole world is shaken to the core. And I say, you are gods. You are all children of the most high, but you will die like mere mortals and fall like every other ruler. And then verse eight, rise up, oh God, and judge the earth for all the nations belong to you. By way of reflection, we see in this particular psalm, the psalmist begins with a question.
How long will you hand down unjust decisions? Who's he asking that to? He's asking God that in prayer. And then we begin to see the reasoning behind that kind of question of how long. He calls for God there in verse three to give justice to the poor, to rescue the helpless, to deal with the oppressors because they are foolish and ignorant, that the world is shaken.
And then we have this unique quote, you are all gods. That is a way to kind of explain, you're all like rulers and people who are in charge, but you will fall like every other ruler. Right? So you have this kind of like, look at the people who are in power, God, and see how they have just utterly failed at what you've called them to do. So please rise up and deal with them.
And I think we hear Jesus inviting us to once again take permission today to freely in prayer ask God, how long? Like, is a place in our lives to realize that we will oftentimes pray the same thing over and over day after day and still continue to ask God how long. But I wanna invite all of us to be reminded of the truth that God oftentimes shapes us and forms us through the waiting. It is in the season of having to ask God how long that he truly begins to transform the way that we respond to him in faith, the way that we have an understanding of time that is from his perspective, and the way that we continue begin to to, like, release the need to carry out our own forms of judgment, and rather allow God to do that in his timing. And so Jesus, we hear you inviting us now to just, with freedom, confess, God, how much longer?
As we look out over the course of our day, the the world today, there's probably many things that would lead us to be frustrated, to exhale, to feel like giving up and just say, God, where are you at? Things are not right. And so we say, how long, Lord? And we ask now too that your Holy Spirit would awaken our eyes and our hearts to see Jesus as the one who is both taken on justice from you and will be the justifier because of his work on the cross. And because of that great work on the cross, God, we can confess now and take hope now that you will continue to carry out what is right in the world.
And so help us to trust in you in that. We pray today in Jesus name. Amen.