Dwelling in Psalm 32
Notes
Transcript
Prayer/Welcome/ Intro
Prayer/Welcome/ Intro
Opening Prayer:
Opening Prayer:
Would you join me in preparing our hearts to receive what God has for us this morning in prayer?
Yahweh King of the Universe, We come before you this morning hungry. Hungry for more of you. We might even be aware of our hunger, but its there. We may have tried to satisfy it with things that will perish and rot, but we are hungry still. We ask that you provide for us now, the Spiritual food that we need to grow up in maturity in Christ. May we be transformed by this encounter with the written Word, each other and the Living Word, Jesus. May we walk out of here with the courage and power to Go be the church sent to live and love like you Lord! AND ALL GOD’S PEOPLE SAID?
Good Morning Church! How is everyone doing this morning?
Series Introduction
Series Introduction
Does anyone know what season of the Church calendar we just started this past Wednesday? LENT.
LENT- is a time to slow down, reflect, and consider our relationship with God. We reflect on our need for a savior. Pastor Steven Jaynes who was ordained at Bossler Last Sunday said it so powerful, I was struck by his words when he shared, the only thing that WE contribute to salvation is the SIN that makes salvation necessary!
LENT- a season where we prepare for Easter! God wants us to prepare for the Joy of Easter, but I think as we get older this can get more difficult.
Illustration: Think about Christmas when we were children and how we think about Christmas now. Christmas used to be a wonderful, drawn out season that each day in december we got more excited.
We had intentional ways to prepare for Christmas. Advent Calendar. Countdown at School. Family Activities. This preparation is part of what made Christmas so exciting.
In this series we will slow down with the Psalms and intentionally prepare to celebrate easter, by reflecting on a Psalm each week together. We are going to Dwell Deeply in the Word together.
This morning’s sermon is the fruit of me intentionally doing this with Psalm 32.
Walking through the Text
Walking through the Text
There are three things that I want to share with you that I gleaned from Dwelling with this Text for the Past Week. 1. The Blessedness of Forgiveness 2. Confession and Forgiveness should be a daily part of our faith. 3. God desires us to be a guide into a deeper relationship with Him and with others.
THE BLESSEDNESS OF FORGIVENESS: David opens the Psalm with an unusual phrase, He says blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven and who’s sins are covered
This is a strange thing to say because its usually we think of people who are blessed are those who’s life is going perfect and things are just going right for them. But, scripture doesnt teach that does it Church?
David says blessed is the one who is forgiven. Who’s transgressions are forgiven and sins covered. In other words, there is a profound freedom in receiving forgiveness. Have you ever experienced the freedom of being forgiven by someone raise your hand? Its like a weight lifted right?
illustration: The time I broke the french picture frame. Accidentally. Jess was hurt. I did something wrong. The same day Jess did not hold that against me. The feeling still remained as I was reminded of something I broke. But that was lifted the day that the picture frame was fixed. The weight of that broken was lifted off of me.
There is a word in Hebrew that helps us understand this concept of its AVON, Can we see avon, it means iniquity in english, its essentially the consequences of our sin.
When we sin, it can often feel like a burden that we carry, but God’s response is to carry that burden for us, so we might find freedom from the burden. This is what it means in 1 Peter 2:24, when its says he bore our sins.
I want us to pause for a moment all of the sins weve ever committed as little stones that we carry on our back, each lie, each hurtful word, each time we judge someone, imagine every little sin as a weight on your shoulders. How heavy do you think that would be? Yet, God bore that weight for us.
Praise the Lord, the bearer of our sin and burdens amen?
Transition: In verses 3-5, David gives us an example of this from his own life. Which signals that confession and Forgiveness.
Confession and Forgiveness Should be a Daily Part of Our lives
Question: How many of us struggle with asking for forgiveness sometimes raise your hand? What about Struggling to extend forgiveness to others raise your hand? We all do, but Forgiveness is the core of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
David Describes the weight of unconfessed sin. He says my bones wasted away, his strength was sapped away. When you know that you have wronged someone How does it feel? Terrible, its God given feeling to feel that way when you've wronged someone.
This is a good place to pause and talk about the difference between guilt and shame.
Shame is defined as a self-conscious emotion arising from the sense that something is fundamentally wrong about oneself. Shame is feeling there is something wrong with us, that we are no good, that we are irredeemable. Shame is a tool satan uses to tare us down. Guilt is different
Guilt- a feeling of worry or unhappiness that you have because you have done something wrong, such as causing harm to another person. Guilt and shame can share similar feelings, but there is a big difference. Guilt has to do something you knowingly or unknowingly did. Shame is a how you feel about yourself. Shame leads to self destruction, but Guilt leads to Growth.
I want us to pay attention here: What about if I dont feel guilty? Do I need to confess and ask for forgiveness What I dont think I did anything wrong, but someone comes to me and says I hurt them? Do I need to confess or seek forgiveness?
Lets say I picked up this vase here and accidently broke it? and I dont feel bad at all beacuase it was an accident, is the vase still broken? Did I cause brokeness? Yes
Let me share a story with you from Saylors: Lady with the Mask.
David gives us an example of how to deal with our sin!
He acknowledged it, He did not try to cover it up. He didnt say, well, I dont think I did wrong or you shouldnt be hurt God.
He confessed it.
Then God bore the weight of his sin.
This process of confession and forgiveness is something we should be doing every day. Confessing to God. Confessing to each other. Extending and Receiving forgiveness. Daily. But this process of confession isnt the only thing God has for us. In Verse 8, the speaker switches from David to God. Here we see a glimpse of God’s heart for us.
God desires to guide us into deeper relationship with others.
God desires to show us the way that he wants us to Go.
God will give us counsel, basically give us input.
But lets be honest for a moment, how many of us like to be told what to do and follow someone else’s instructions? Most of us dont!
God knows this thats why he says, Dont be like a Mule or a Horse
Both of these animals Naturally want to go there own way ant they must be controlled with a bit and bridle.
Bit goes in the Horses Mouth. 2. Bridle is the head gear.
Both of these are used to force the horse or mule to go in a certain direction.
God says, I dont want to have followers like this, but he wants followers that are like sheep who hear his voice and come, who trust HIm.
Yet, this forgiveness and listening to the Lord wont only lead to a deeper relationship with him, but with others as well.
We can all think of people who we’ve hurt that we should confess to.
We can all think of people who have hurt us, and we have a burden we carry that we should seek to reconcile with.
We must Admit, this is hard, but its what God desires for us.
In fact, there is no reason for us to refuse to ask for or receive forgiveness. That means if someone comes to you and says, what you did was wrong, our first response should be asking for and extending forgiveness. This is how we have healthy relationships.
This is what David means when he says blessed is the one who’s transgressions are forgiven!
Transition: Church, God used one Psalm, 11 verses to reveal all this. Imagine how much more He has for us in the coming weeks?
Modeling Dwelling in the Word:
Modeling Dwelling in the Word:
I want to take a moment to walk through this practice of Dwelling Deeply in the Word
On this sheet of paper is the Psalm of the week. What I every should do to deeply in the word is to repeat these 4 things every day. Pull from 32
First Reading, Example
Second Reading, Example
Third Reading Example
Fourth Reading Example