Crossroads Church

Today we worshiped at Crossroads Church, 1000 Crossroads Drive, Oakdale, PA 15071, 412.494.9999, www.crossroadsumc.org, Steve Cordle, Lead Pastor.

Scripture – Psalm 73 NIV

Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?”

This is what the wicked are like— always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments.

If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

Bob’s thoughts:

It always makes me feel welcome when I come into a church and find a substantial cross in the sanctuary.

Other than the obligatory greeting during the service, the only welcoming was at the door, likely due to multiple services.

There were about a dozen people on the stage for worship but the voice of the lead was the only one I heard; I could not detect harmony with any others.

I believe we all experience a stumbling block to our faith when we try to be “good” Christians and then something bad happens. This is compounded by watching the faithless seemingly prosper while we suffer. We live with an assumed reciprocity: we live being good and God will be good to us by our standards. Sometimes the lesson is extremely painful, as ours was. God is patient with us and helps us through the low point and, like Asaph, we awaken to the big picture.

Following the message we watched a short video witness from the mother of an autistic child. Her all-too-familiar experience supported the message.

It is humbling to realize the Creator of everything knows you and loves you, and I would wish for all believers that moment of understanding that “God knows even me.”

Jan’s thoughts:

We enjoyed our previous visit here, so today we returned to hear the lead pastor preach.

A gentleman greeted us as he held the door for us to enter and another gentleman greeted us with a handshake inside. Signage was good so we found the restrooms easily. We bought a cup of coffee and found seats in the back of the worship area.

The lead singer has a beautiful, strong voice and led well. Possibly some tuning would have made her voice sound a bit softer to my ears, but it could have just been my ears. Scripture was displayed on the screens during the musical bridge of the first song, which is a lovely complement I don’t recall seeing before.

The message was kicked off with video of a conversation between Bono and Eugene Peterson in which they discussed the importance of the Psalms to them personally. Bono’s comment made me chuckle: he said his first impression was “Great words, it’s a shame about the tunes.” He then proceeded to sing part of the 23^rd Psalm. It was quite touching.

The current sermon series is called Honest to God: Praying the Psalms in which they have been looking at how writers of the Psalms poured out their hearts honestly to God. Today’s part 4 was called Questioning When Life is Unfair and is based on Psalm 73. In that Psalm, the author, Asaph, talked with God when he noticed that the faithless prospered while the faithful didn’t.

The proposed answers began with: Rip up the “contract”…the conscious or unconscious agreement we have with God that says if we serve Him, He won’t let anything bad happen to us…because God never signs that contract to begin with.

The next answer is to see the big picture, where we can see that God is good because He gives us Himself, He is with us, He supports us, He guides us, and He gives us eternity with Him. If we take an eternal perspective, watching a faithless person prosper in this life is a small matter. This life is very short compared to eternity.

He pointed out that Psalm 37:4 tells us to “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” If He is the desire of our hearts, then He gives us Himself. What more could we ask for?

We appreciated the time taken for conversation and prayer after the service.

Our prayer for this church:

Lord, we pray this congregation rips up their “contract” so they can come to know Your love more fully. Amen.