Episode Transcript
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Your son, that we might have
rested in his name, that we might
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come as sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore,
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and find everything that we need in
him. We asked that you would
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impress these truths on our heart now, as we come to the reading and
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preaching of your word, and that
as and that your blessing might fill it,
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that we might be called blessed,
that we might enjoy these benefits that
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come to us through Christ. We
pray this in his name. Men well,
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please remain standing if you're able,
and let's turn our attention to psalm
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thirty two. I'm feel free to
listen as I read or turn in your
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own scriptures to Psalm thirty two.
Psalm thirty two, blessed is the one
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who's transgression is forgiven, whose sin
is covered. Blessed is the man against
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whom the Lord counts no iniquity and
in whose spirit there is no deceit.
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For when I kept silent, my
bones wasted away through my groaning all day
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long, for day and night,
your hand was heavy upon me, my
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strength was dried up, as by
the heat of summer. I acknowledged my
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sin to you and I did not
cover my iniquity. I said I will
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confess my transgressions to the Lord,
and you forgave if the iniquity of my
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sin. Therefore, let everyone who
is godly offer prayer to you at a
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time when you may be found.
Surely, in the rush of great waters,
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they shall not reach him. You
are a hiding place for me.
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You preserved me from trouble. You
surround me with shouts of deliverance. I
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will instruct you and teach you in
the way you should go. I will
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counsel you with my eye upon you. Be Not like a horse or a
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mule without understanding, which must be
curbed with a bit or a broughten bridle,
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or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the
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wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the
one who trusts the Lord. Be Glad
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in the Lord and rejoice so righteous
and shout for Joy, all you upright
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in heart. Amen. You may
be seated. Psalm thirty two is kind
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of like sitting down with a friend
who is going to talk from their personal
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experience with the Lord and then give
you some advice. And this friend is
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very reliable, because here in Psalm
thirty two. These are the inspired words
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of God, totally trustworthy, totally
authoritative in every way. We don't need
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to come to Psalm thirty two and
say, well, you know, that's
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your truth. I don't know about
for me. No, this is God's
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truth and it comes to us in
this way so that we might hear it
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and receive it. The lessons of
it, or the desire of our friend
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to teach us, is expressed pretty
clearly in verses eight and nine. Right,
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imagine, you know, you're sitting
at the table and your dining room
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or your kitchen and your friend leans
in and says, I'm going to instruct
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you now, I'm going to teach
you how you should go. I'm going
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to counsel you with my eyes on
you. I know you, I know
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who you are, I know what
you're like, and you need to listen
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to this. Okay, you're ready. Don't be like a horse or a
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mule without understanding. The has to
be curbed with a bit and bridal.
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Don't be stubborn about this. Okay, this is really important and you need
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to hear it. On top of
that, if you don't listen, many
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are the sorrows of the wicked the
consequences of failing to live, failure to
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listen to this advice, are bad
verse ten many are the sorrows of the
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wicked, but the steadfast love surrounds
the one who trusts in the Lord.
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Listen to me, brother, listen
to me, sister. If you trust
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in the Lord, you are surrounded, you are protected, and I've experienced
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this myself, the psalmist says,
and I'll say to you is your pastor.
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I've experienced this myself, and there
are brothers and sisters all around you
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have experienced this themselves, generations after
generations of the steadfast love of the Lord
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on display all throughout the Lord,
person after person after person. Who can
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testify and sing with the Psalmist of
these words? What is the words that
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he would have US know? What
are the things that bring us safety?
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What are the things that, if
we reject, plunge us into all kinds
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of trouble? Well's message all surrounds
the blessing of forgiveness and of repentance.
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Let's look at that. Let's hear
what our our friend, are our holy
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helper, has to say to us. The first thing he tells us is
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what forgiveness is like, what it
likes, what it's like to be a
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person who's forgiven, and he uses
one word and then some other descriptions to
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describe that. He says in verse
one, blessed is the one whose transgression
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is forgiven. In verse two,
blessed is the man against whom the Lord
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counts no iniquity. Being blessed in
the scriptures is a description of of joy,
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of happiness, of pleasure, of
peace and safety and satisfaction. blessedness
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at its highest form is the thing
that we all want. It's the thing
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that we all strive after. Is
the reason why the news is so anxious,
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because we don't have that is the
reason why philosophers go into their writing
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sheds and caves and deserts and spend
time trying to figure out how we can
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get that thing that we want.
WHAT IS UTOPIA? How can we enter,
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as a not just individually, but
as a society, as a people,
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into a place of blessedness? Our
shorter catechism, one of the confessions
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of our Church, describes that as
as glorifying God and enjoying him forever.
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That's what blessedness is. It's all
of us together glorifying him, being in
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a perfect relationship with him and enjoying
him. Right. It's a it's a
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thing that fills us with with love
and pleasure, of delight and happiness.
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It's a state of blessing. RIGHT
TO DESCRIBE IT? And there are lots
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of ways we could describe it.
From one place, we might look as
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Psalm one, if you want to
turn there with me, or at least
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listen. Psalm one describes another person
who is blessed. That Psalm begins that
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way. Blessed is the man,
and then it describes him in verse three.
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He is like a tree planted by
streams of water that yields its fruit
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in its season and its leaf does
not wither. Now we know something about
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this, living in the desert.
Right, if you if you go up
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high, let's say you are go
on a trip and you take off from
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the airport and you look down right
on our city, you can see really
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fast where the water is right without
ever seeing any water, because you just
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look at the trees and wherever you
see big patches of green, that's where.
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That's where the water is right,
that happy tree right just being what
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it's supposed to be. It's not
trying to be anything else, it's not
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striving to turn itself into anything else. It just is and it's resting there
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and it's happy there and it's just
drinks up the water. It drinks it
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up and it and it is satisfied, it finds pleasure, it's it's happy,
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it's blessed, it's productive. Other
pictures of trees in the state and
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the scriptures describe birds resting in their
branches, people enjoying their shade and their
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fruit. There's this way in which
these these happy trees in this picture of
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blessedness not only are satisfied in themselves, they have all that they need,
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but then they also are productive and
provide for others as well. This s
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state of blessedness is is wonderful.
The opposite helps us to understand what blessedness
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is. Psalm one has some of
these descriptions, and Soda Psalm Thirty two.
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In Psalm one we have an inverse
for the contrast. The wicked are
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not so. They're like chaff that
the wind drives away. Chaff is waste
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material, it's it's very light.
Right. For a while, while I
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was roasting my own coffee and then
there'd be chaff left over right. And
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to be careful, because if you
roasted this in the House, I don
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get everywhere because it just blows away
so easily. But if you take it
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outside and you blow on it and
it's gone, you don't really care where
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it goes, what happens to it. It's just. It doesn't matter,
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it's not important. It's gone.
You want it gone. This is this
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is like this. The chaff is
just it's gone. Worse than that.
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In verse five of Psalm One,
it says the wicked will not stand in
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the judgment. It's not just that
they disappear, but the wicked, those
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who have sinned, come under the
judgment of God and they perish, they
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are destroyed. Psalm too goes on
to describe some of that. It describes
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the wicked plotting in vain, sneaking
around, whispering, scoffing at the Lord,
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and the Lord just laughs at them. The Lord laughs at them.
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In verse four, He who sits
in heavens this is psalm to laughs and
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holds them in derision. He will
speak to them in his wrath, he
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will terrify them in his fury,
saying, as for me, I have
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set my King on Zion, my
Holy Hill. He then says in verse
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nine, of this son of his, you shall break them with a rod
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of iron and dash them in pieces
like a Potter's vessel. Have you ever
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dropped a dish or a glass,
some sort of vessel in the kitchen?
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You're moving around and it just it's
dramatic right, it just shatters million pieces
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all over. It's like that's the
description of what the Lord will do to
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those who in who sin against him, who don't glorify him, who don't
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enjoy him but instead fight against him, disobey him, hate him. It
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says he will take his rod of
iron and smash them. It's a picture
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of judgment in Psalm thirty two.
In Psalm thirty two, this is why
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David says, or the Psalmist says, yes, David, in verse ten.
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Many are the sorrows of the wicked. It's a dangerous thing to fall
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into the hands of a living God
whom you have been sinning against, whom
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you have been fighting against. And
if you're going down the road and you're
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going too fast and you see the
lights in your ear of your mirror,
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you you say, oh no,
you might get a ticket. Can you
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imagine what it might be like if, your entire life, from the moment
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of your conception, you have been
sinning not against a temporal authority but against
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the very one who made you?
Can you imagine what the punishment would be
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like if if God took every single
thought, action, word intension and said,
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all right, let's tally it up, moment by moment, day by
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day, let's list them out,
let's see what it all adds up to.
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One sin is enough to earn us
God's wrath, for his perfect holiness
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is perfect righteousness. One sin is
enough to bar us from that place of
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perfection. His presence is heaven,
his kingdom. When we hope in Utopia,
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when we hope in the Kingdom of
God, when we hope and blessedness,
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how much sin do we want there? My Dad always used to say,
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how much of a cockroach do you
want in your milkshake? None,
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Hey, not a little bit,
not not a little leg, not a
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little antenna, it's not big.
None. None, was the point that
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he would impress upon us. It's
like that when we want this for ourselves,
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when we think about blessedness. How
much of your blessedness. And how
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much of your perfected, glorious state
do you want infected by sin? How
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much do you want? You want
a little bit of betrayal, a little
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bit of anger, maybe just one
murder every now and then? Of course,
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none is the answer. That's a
whole point about perfect blessedness, perfect
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and glory, being perfectly in the
presence of the Lord. It's it's perfect.
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We are perfectly who God made us
to be, this destiny that he
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called US toward with no more sin. And so when we sin, we
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automatically bar ourselves from that, and
it couldn't be anything less than that.
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And so we not only bar ourselves
from that, but we come under God's
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righteous wrath. We are expelled,
we are kicked out, we are put
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into a place that is deserving for
us as sinners. Jesus describes hell as
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a place of terror, of Wrath, of punishment, of pain and suffering
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that is eternal. It is the
exact opposite of this position of blessedness.
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This anti picture is experienced in a
way, a kind of many hell,
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a foretaste of hell, is what
David experiences and describes in verse three.
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He says when I kept silent and
I didn't confess my sins. My bones
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wasted away through my groaning all day
long, for day and night. Your
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hand was heavy upon me. My
strength is dried up, as by the
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heat of summer. You get a
sense of this, this anti picture,
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instead of this tree that is healthy
and alive, that is full and productive
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and active. You know the picture
of a man who's wasted away because he's
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kept his sins to himself, because
he thinks he can hide them from the
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Lord and from others, because he's
going to keep silent and handle things on
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his own. He's exhausted. Have
you ever gone on a long hike or
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been playing sports out in the sun
or something like that and you've not been
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good enough water and you just like
you dizzy, you can't catch your breath
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and you're you're feeling off and maybe
you throw up and it's just like you're
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wasting away, you're falling apart.
This is what David describes this kind of
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heat exhaustion, not because of a
physical heat, although he's experiencing this in
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his body. It's a spiritual cause
for these physical things, right, he
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says, I kept silent and then
I felt like this right. It reminds
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us of how our bodies and our
on, our souls are very interconnected.
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They affect each other, where whole
creatures made. I'm in this way.
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And when he kept silent, he
be he ex feerience these things not only
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in his heart and in his emotions
and it, but in his body as
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well. He was wasting away,
he was dried up, his strength was
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gone. It was awful, he
says, he, he says he was
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groaning all day long. And I
know that you all have experienced this as
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well, because you, like me, have sinned and you know what it's
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like to keep things hidden, to
keep things on your conscience, to not
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express them, to not and not
just express them, but confess them,
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to tell them to the Lord,
to seek for His forgiveness or the forgiveness
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of others that we've harmed. And
it just it's it's black, it's dark,
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it covers us at it holds us
down, it makes us feel terrible
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and we cry and we mourn.
It gets it gets into our into our
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bones. Maybe some of you are
experiencing that even now, feeling the weight
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of your sin, feeling no relief, feeling in your very body is the
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the shakiness and the frustration and the
dangers even holding on to your sin,
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when you tell yourself, well,
maybe later, all confess it someday or
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when the time is right, or
all take care of it first, or
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I'll handle it, or it's not
so bad. But you know these are
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just lies and you know it's just
getting worse and worse worse. That's not
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blessedness. That's a kind of many
hell. It's a it's a feeling and
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a foretaste of the worst things that
are to come. If you do not
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confess, if you don't find forgiveness, if you don't find relief, if
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you don't come into the state of
blessedness, you will stay in this spot
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and it will get worse and worse. If David experiences this in his life
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at this moment in time, can
you imagine what it will be like for
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all eternity to have God's hand heavy
upon you for your sins? That is
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the anti picture of blessedness and it's
not just a picture, it's a reality.
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It's the experience here of our friend
WHO's trying to help us, who's
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trying to say you have to confess
your sins. You must forget, confess
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your sins, and when you do, you will be blessed, you will
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be happy, you will be at
peace. Don't hold on to them any
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longer. So that's the condition that
we receive. This is the the the
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what it's like when we are forgiven
and what it's like when we are not.
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We are blessed. This is the
place to be, this is the
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thing that you want to be blessed. Well, how do we receive that?
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What is the nature of our forgiveness? First of all, what does
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it mean to be forgiven? Why
does it bring us into this state of
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blessedness? Well, David describes it
in this way. He says Transgression is
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forgiven, sin is covered. In
verse two, he says blessed is the
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man against the whom, against whom
the Lord counts no iniquity. This is
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a judgment. Right. To not
count iniquity against a person means to not
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hold them liable for the things that
they have done. Right, imagine that
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you owe money to someone and the
person comes to you and says, I
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want you to know the debt is
forgiven. I am not going to hold
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you liable for this amount. You
don't have to pay it back because you're
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not liable to it anymore. I'm
not going to count it against you.
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Or imagine you do something at work
that really was something you should not have
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done, and you come into your
annual job review or something like that,
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and your manager sits down with you
and says, Hey, you know,
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I had it. We got you
got written up for this and for this
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and for this. I want to
tell you that I'm not going to hold
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it against you, I'm not going
to count it against you. What a
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relief, right, what a wonderful
thing to expect and to know that you
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deserve punishment, to deserve, know
that you deserve to have the consequences,
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to pay the debt or whatever it
is. But the Lord will count no
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iniquity. He is going to remove
the debt that you owe, he is
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going to cover it up, he's
going to take care of it, and
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what that means is that in his
eyes, you are no longer a guilty
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person, even though you sinned.
Might Imagine, for example, you got
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a traffic ticket or something like that, and then, let's say the government
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for some reason decided to expunge all
records of traffic tickets for a year.
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It was a hard year. Everything's
forgiven, all right. And then you
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imagine you come back the next year
into the court to pay your ticket.
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Right. You say, I'm here, I got a ticket on such and
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such a day. I was speeding. I'm here to pay the ticket.
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What would the court say? The
say you owe nothing. You're like,
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but yeah, I know, but
I at this ticket. I was there
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on the day. The officer handed
it to me, told me how much
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I was speeding and it was all
true. I did it. I'm ready
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to pay. There's nothing to pay. We your debt was forgiven. There's
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nothing here. You can leave now, please leave now, right right.
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They they wouldn't understand you being there. It wouldn't make sense because the iniquity
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had been forgiven. You are no
longer guilty. No one's coming after you
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know, there's no threat of of
not paying. And it's just like that
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with the Lord. When he forgives
our sins, when he covers them up,
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when he takes care of them,
there's nothing that needs to remain in
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our minds as say, what if
he changes his mind? What if he
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comes again? Or what if he
he decides that he is going to hold.
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No, no, the Lord's not
a liar. He said your sin
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is forgiven. He said your iniquity
is not counted against you. It's over,
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it's done. This is the life
we live as Christians. We live
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as forgiven people. Because we're forgiven
people, we can confess to the things
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that we've done, and we should
confess to the things we've done. We
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don't hide them or blanket over them
or pretend like they're not there. We
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say, yeah, I did it, but also I've been forgiven of it.
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We are in a new state,
we're in a new position. We
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are those who were guilty and in
fact do those things, but against whom
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that is no longer counted against us. That's the nature of this benefit and
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it's so comprehensive. The scriptures tell
us that when God forgives our sins,
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it's everything, everything that we could
do past, present in future. And
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if you have any doubt about that, you can just look at some of
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the examples of scripture. Think about
David himself, murder, adultery. Think
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about Peter Denying the Lord three times
after saying he wouldn't, on the very
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night Jesus was crucified, after saying
he would never do this and would you
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know, die for him. The
Lord forgave it. The Lord Forgave Paul
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after persecuting his church, after persecuting
him, is how Jesus put it.
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He forgave Paul. Can you imagine
somebody who is essentially a terrorist to the
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church all of a sudden becoming one
of the leaders in the church? How
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does that happen? Through the forgiveness
of God. In these examples, of
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many others. We could think about
the thief on the Cross right I'm was
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running out for this man. He
is actively dying a tortuous death next to
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Jesus. He didn't ask for forgiveness. You know, five years back this
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was the last moment, the last
opportunity, and he took it and he
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believed in Jesus said to him today, you will be with me in paradise.
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There's no history too long, no
sins so awful that the Lord won't
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forgive this. There's no thing that
you have done that he can't take and
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cleanse it away, forgive it and
bring you out of the death and the
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misery and the the the wrath and
the judgment into this happy, blessed state
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that's the nature of this forgiveness that
we receive. It's life changing in every
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way. It changes our eternal life
as well. It's why, as Christians,
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everything centers around this. It's not
just this aspect that sort of we
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incorporate into our lives. It is
at the very center. Well, how
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does it come to us? Well, all, it comes to us through
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the Lord himself. Notice the Lord's
work and all of this in the Psalm.
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This is my third of four points. The Lord says it is his
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work. First of all, it
is he who counts no iniquity. You
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can even ask where does this repentance
come from, and you can point to
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the Lord, whose hand was heavy
upon David as he suffered. It was
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the Lord. Where does our change
of heart come from? Where does our
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our our our change of attitude and
and a desire to just let go of
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all the pain and the suffering and
to give ourselves over to the Lord come
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from? It comes from him.
It was his hand that was heavy upon
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him. It was the Lord who
did the work of changing his heart and
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turning him to himself. It was
the Lord who will save him, the
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Lord who will preserve him. Listen
to verse seven. You are a hiding
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place for me. You preserve me
from trouble, you surround me with shouts
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of deliverance. You ever seen a
little animal or hug or something like that
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go into hiding? We ever tried
to get one that was in hiding and
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it's really hard to reach like it. Can't get your fingers in there because
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they're all backed in and protected.
It's amazing thing to be sheltered, to
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be preserved and protected, and that's
what the Lord does for us when we
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come to him. The rush of
great waters shall not reach him, this
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great flood of judgment, like like
Noah or like the Egyptians in the Red
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Sea. No, God will protect, he will he will hold fast,
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he will preserve and more than that, on the other side of that there
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will be shouts of deliverance. This
baptism through the Red Sea, which brought
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judgment on the Egyptians, brought salvation
for Israel. And then we have Miriam
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and all of Israel praising God,
shouts of deliverance on all sides. We
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don't just hunker down, we celebrate, we praise, we rejoice, we
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cry out. Verse Eleven. Similarly, be glad in the lawyered Lord,
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and rejoice, O righteous and shout
for Joy, all you upright in heart
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again, because this is at the
very center of our lives. We don't
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just say, well, that was
a really nice thing to be forgiven of
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that traffic ticket. Right. All
of our sins against the holy and righteous
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God have been forgiven. We are
no longer going to hell, but we
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are going to be resurrected to the
newness of life in the Kingdom of heaven
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forever to enjoy a utopia and a
blessed state in the Lord, glorifying and
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enjoying him forever. But shout for
joy, let's say our men, let's
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Sing Hallelujah, let's praise God with
all of our hearts all of our strength,
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because we've been saved, we've been
rescued. What a wonderful, wonderful
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thing it is. And this comes
to us again through the Lord, through
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the Father, giving his only begotten
Son, placing him in this world to
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take on human flesh, to become
like one of us, to become a
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representative for us, so that he
might die for us. If you want
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to know what forgiveness costs, just
look at the cross. If you want
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to know how serious are sins against
God are? Just look at the Cross.
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Look at what God had to do
to cover our sin. The son
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of God came into this world and
lived the life that we were not able
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to because of our sin, and
die to death we could never endure,
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so that you could be forgiven.
Listen to how the author of Hebrews describes
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this in chapter two. Let me
turn there and read this to you.
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Hebrews two, verses fourteen and fifteen. Since, therefore, the children share
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in flesh and blood, he,
that's Jesus, himself, likewise partook of
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the same things, flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy the
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one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver
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all those who, through fear of
death, were subject to life long slavery.
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What is it like to not have
the forgiveness of your sins, to
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not confess, to not be forgiven, to not be blessed? It is
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to live in a life in fear
of judgment and therefore to live as one
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who, through that fear of death, is a slave, crouching around,
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cowering around, constantly hiding, constantly
afraid that fear the Lord breaks, he
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shatters it just like that pot,
by having victory through his death, over
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that fear, over that slavery and
over the Evil One, Satan, all
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those who gather with him. They
are those people who hide in dark places,
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who snicker and mock at God and
who will say we can do what
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we want, we can break apart
the Lord's bonds and his annoint and he
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says will really no, you're not. And when Jesus went to the cross,
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it was exactly that. He said, Oh no, you won't,
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and he died to death and then
he rose again from the dead, victorious,
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proving himself Victor, coreous over that
death, so that all who put
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their faith in him would have their
life in him. He is the way
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in which it comes to us.
We can have confidence in the forgiveness of
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our sins, because Jesus, Christ, God the Son, died to forgive
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you of your sins, and nothing
can take that away from you. On
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top of all of this, the
Holy Spirit is given to us and fills
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US and unites us with Christ to
assure us of these things, to bring
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about this a prepenence, to bring
about this faith. And that brings me
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to my last point. Is How
do we receive this? How do we
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become those who are forgiven? How
do we receive this, this cleansing,
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in this forgiveness? But David tells
us. He says acknowledge your sins,
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confess your sins and believe that your
sins are forgiven. Imagine those picture the
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imagine those people, picture those people
on the side of the road and on
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the roof of the house and various
places throughout Jesus's life, who recognized they
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are needs and called out for him
to help them. It's that simple.
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It's that simple. Jesus doesn't say
if you will be saved. Here is
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a the a list of like fifteen
objectives that I want you to complete with
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all of their subcategories, and once
you do all of those things, then
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come to me and we'll check them
all out, see how you've done,
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maybe go back, have you do
them again. Then you come back again
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and we'll review and then, after
all of that, will compare you against
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other people and then I'll forgive you. Let's say anything like that. What
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do we see? What do we
see in these people who were who were
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helped by Jesus? They say things
like Lord, help me, and he
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helps them. Say Lord. I've
been sick for a long time, I
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can't get to the pool, I
can't see, my ears don't work.
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My My, my, my relationships
are broken. I've committed all of these
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sins. Your sins are forgiven.
Stand up and walk now. You can
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see. That's it. It's deceptively
simple and because it's so simple, and
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because of our pride and we want
to contribute to all of this, we
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don't believe it. We say well, no, I'll get my you know,
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I'll get my sins forgiven another day. It's crazy. Can you imagine
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being one of these people who we
who couldn't see, couldn't hear, limbs
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that didn't work, and then them
saying, yeah, I can see that
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he heals, I can see that
he's been healing people. I can see
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these people I know who have been
healed. But as for me, I
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don't know. I just don't really
like seeing. It's ridiculous right to say,
403
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well, it's been very painful and
I'm hungry all the time and or
404
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the the weight of my sins and
my broken relationships, that the weight on
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me is really heavy, but another
day. You know, this is what
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we do, but this is not
what we have to do. The Lord
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offers to each of us this opportunity. He calls to US and while there
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is time before the great judgment comes, and he says to us in this
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palm, confess your sins. Verse
Five. I acknowledged my sin to you.
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I did not cover my iniquity.
I said I will confess my transgressions
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to the Lord, and you forgave
the iniquity of my sin. He tells
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to us to acknowledge our sin while
there is time. This one who has
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the power over death, Satan,
who holds us in bondage. He does
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not want you to confess your sins. He wants you to be worried instead
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and just live your life and anxiety. He wants you instead to be distracted
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and just sort of cover it up, in a non permanent way, but
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just ignoring kind of way. Just
keep scrolling, don't pay attention to it,
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don't feel it, let it go. He wants you to replace True
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blessedness and true happiness with false versions
of it. He brings opportunities into our
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lives. He tempts us with various
less the say this will help you to
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feel better, but you all know
to a purse, that it's a sham,
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it's a lie, it doesn't work, and we end up, when
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we don't confess our sins and we
fall into these tricks, plunging deeper and
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deeper into the darkness. But what
this psalm promises to all of us,
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but the Lord's death and resurrection promises
to all of us, is that we
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don't need to cover our sins anymore
and that when we confess them, God
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forgives them. Why? Why would
he do that? Why would he forgive
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the sins of people that don't deserve
it, that haven't done anything for him,
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that have lived their lives against him? The scriptures tell us because he
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loved us. He loves you.
He loves you before time began, he
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loves you when Jesus came into the
world, he loves you now, and
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that's why he offers us to you. And so let's not be stubborn,
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let's not be ridiculous, let's not
be hardhearted and prideful, let's not plunge
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ourselves deeper into sin, but instead, beloved, let's just reach out and
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confess our sin and receive the forgiveness
that is promised. Blessed will you be
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let's pray, our heavenly father,
as we consider this psalm and your promises
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to us, impress upon our hearts
that there is nothing more important than this.
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There's no leftover task, there's no
thing in our lives, eating itself,
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sleeping. Well, all of it
is of lesser importance than finding forgiveness
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of our sins through Jesus Christ.
Lord, open our silent mouths, soften
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our stubborn hearts that we might receive
from you life and life everlasting. We
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thank you for the trouble that you
lay upon us. We thank you for
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your heavy hand and for your teaching
and for your discipline that does not let
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us stay where we are, but
instead helps us to feel the pains of
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our sins so that we might turn
to you and repent and find the free
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forgiveness of them in Jesus Christ.
Well, Holy Spirit, I asked that
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you would work in our hearts,
that you would impress these things upon us
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and help us to turn with faith
to Jesus, knowing that he has the
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power to remove, by his own
work and his mediation, all of our
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sins, past, present in future. And as we find forgiveness in him,
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Lord, we ask that you would
help us to experience that blessedness here
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and now as a foretaste of the
things to come, and that even in
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our trials, even in our repentance, even in our struggles in our souls,
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that you would be at work and
we would see your blessing in it,
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your hand upon us. You're moving
us, you're guiding us, you're
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00:43:05.119 --> 00:43:09.880
changing US and helping us to grow
into creatures are more and more like you
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and less and less like the sinful
selves we were once were. We also
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ask, Lord, that is you
do these things in our hearts, that
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you would help us not only to
keep not only to help us to not
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just remain silent in our confession,
but help us also to express ourselves in
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praise, that our hearts would be
filled with gladness and rejoicing, that there
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would be times where we would shout
for joy, that we would realize and
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recognize until all the world that we
have been saved and that salvation is possible
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for all who believe. We pray
this in Jesus name, the author and
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perfector of our faith. Amend
