Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
ever since the beginning of december we started looking at the book of psalms the idea behind it really stemmed from a sermon that pastor julio preached while i was in mexico with parker which essentially said you got to know god in the day and age that we live in with all of the different ideologies and worldviews and ideas for how to fix our country and our culture and our world and our families and our lives julio essentially said to us know god and he'll take care of everything else and so we i listened to that message and thought you know what there's no better way to just sit in that pursuit of god than through the book of psalms wherever you're at in your life in your pursuit of god in your journey with god through hurt pain celebration thanksgiving the book of psalms has this way to awaken your heart to know god more and so we started that uh in december and then the plan of course was to just like all well uh executed church plans to start a new series in the in the in the bible for january but we are not a well executed church all the time and sometimes i think the lord just says if you want to wait on me can you wait according to my timeline and not according to your man-made calendars as if january 1st is just when i have to move and you're now just ready for a new series and so uh we continued through the book of psalms up until now and we're going to put a bow on it for the purposes of this series but before we do and it'll be really important for the for the study this morning to understand a little bit of what the psalms were speaking to our church if you've been coming you've been listening week by week to a psalm that really points us to another way for us to know god more and so what have we learned what has been the approach to knowing god more through these last couple months so here's an overview for you we started at the end of thanksgiving beginning of december psalm 100 we were to be thankful in all things and that psalm 100 is to say you didn't make yourself god made you and he made you to be a sheep in his pasture to care for your life and to know that he's good so be thankful that was the whole point and it's really important that we understand to know god is to know that he's good and he's faithful and we can thank him in advance no matter what circumstance we're in that was important for us last year and i think that's still going to be important for us this year because just like we didn't end our psalm series in the in the month of january the chaos of our world didn't magically end in january and we got to remember that as we pursue god and try to know him know him with thanksgiving know him and trust him so much that you can thank him in advance and then psalm 105 taught by our boy vince so good vince basically said to know god is to trust him by remembering how faithful he is remember how faithful god has been to his people over the course of all of the revelation that we have about god and over the course of your life because you're going to come into seasons of your life where you start to question things questions the plans that you've made question the idea that you have for how to follow jesus and participate in the body and it's really important to trust in god's future faithfulness to remember how faithful he's been to you so we pursued that and we thought about that for our study in psalm 105 and that led us again to just remember psalm 23 god is our shepherd he cares for our lives in the ups and downs of 2020 we remembered that he led us through the shadow of the valley of death and we didn't have to fear anything he led us to green pastures week by week still waters week by week trusting that he's still god he's still on the throne no matter what unfolds in the course of the history that we're watching god is good and he's leading us to something good in our life so psalm 23 and then we looked at this concept of finding refuge in the storms of life in the in the in the troubled waters psalm 46 says i am your present help in time of need take refuge in god and then it said to be still in all of our attempts to fix our own problems and to try to understand where the course of the politics of our world is taking us we get really excited we get really busy we get we become activists and there's time and a place for that but at the end of the day god's sovereign and god appoints the leaders and god appoints the times and the seasons according to the father's authority by which he restores all things to his kingdom and so we looked at psalm 46 and he said be still trust in god in all of this stuff trust god don't take your eyes off what god has done to remain faithful to promise to redeem the world and he has a future and hope for all of us so we trust him and then we looked at psalm chapter 1 which was such an important psalm for us because it was that fork in the road psalm here's the way of the godly here's the way of the ungodly if you pursue god with your light life if you delight in the word if you love to think about his good will and his plans for your life you meditate on it day and night you're like a tree planted in the waters that will bear fruit in and out of season and your weed your leaf will never wither but the ungodly are not so they're like shaft that are blown with the wind and so we had a question fork in the road who are we in our pursuit of god in knowing him he also reveals who we are do we delight are we planted and sure that we're taken care of by god or are we tossed to and fro with the winds of doctrines and the deceitfulness of man that makes us like we are like shaft uh blown by the wind and we said okay be planted in the word be planted in our love of god our knowledge of god and our commitment to love one another and then last week finally we got to psalm 37. dr john whitaker big shoes to fill because he is an amazing bible teacher i hope you were all blessed by his teaching psalm 37 said okay you've trusted god with your life are you certain that it's not better to just be someone who does whatever you want with your life it's not better to just be greedy for gain and live this life and eat drink and be merry and maybe the resurrection life and the hope of heaven is not the best plan for the treasures that you live for psalm 37 says god is faithful and no one who pursues him will be let down so we come to all of that and it's important we do kind of a recap of what the word was speaking if we believe that the word's alive and that god is drawing us to himself and that the pursuit of god is really because god is pursuing us we from time to time we should say okay like is this us are we doing this with our lives are we people who are taking refuge in the word and trusting god with our lives are we people who are being still in the knowledge of god that he's god and we're not and the answer without you even having to take inventory of these last two months the answer is sometimes that's the answer and i say that because we're about to preach some really good news this morning that i do believe will be another version of the good news that will set us apart in our attitude and our spirit and our hope from the world because we are about to preach something that is so important to your pursuit of jesus and it's found in verse one and two it can be a summary of psalm 32 and it can also be some medicine for your soul when you think about the inventory of how we've done in pursuing god so that we keep going and don't give up because you make commitments in your life january is a great month to think about commitments but you know what february is february is a great month to think about the fallout where all the things you wanted to do this year and you're like it's february and i did nothing i did the opposite actually gained weight in january i actually i actually ate worse in january and i spent more money in january and so you get to february like is it even worth it should i keep going um the answer is don't ever give up and the theology that you believe in is that there is grace for all of the ways that you know what you should do and don't so this is what it says in psalm chapter 32 verse 1 and 2. blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven blessed is the man to whom the lord does not impute iniquity and blessed is he in whose spirit there is no deceit again the psalm is pointing us for a way for our soul to be blessed or to find joy or to find satisfaction contentment and happiness the psalm is full of it why because when you fully pursue god and you learn how to worship him you find his presence where there is joy where there is satisfaction where you are aligned with your design of how god made you to live in his presence and what this says is surprising it says blessed are you when your sin is forgiven this is why it's surprising and this is why i preface this whole sermon by saying here's another way for us to be set apart as lights in the dark of our world this is not saying blessed are you when you finally stop sinning it doesn't say that you will be blessed when the lord finds someone who has finally been perfected now and sometimes we feel that in our pursuit of jesus sometimes we feel like i'm not doing well right now and i want to withdraw a little bit because the people at church are doing well uh i'm kind of dry and we'll get to something that david describes as the drought of summer in his soul and sometimes when we feel like that we feel like we're failing and we've got to really work harder to get back to where we were so we can come back to fellowship and that sediment that feeling is maybe more prevalent outside the church right now than in which is surprising because this is this is a burdensome religious type feeling that is prevalent wherever you find religion and the religion of our day right now is a religion of pharisees whether they go to church or not whether they believe in church or not what we have found in our culture is a an entire tribalistic way for people to say this is how you're supposed to live and if you don't you're out if you don't you your debt cannot be forgiven you are so far gone that we will make a tribe with people who have not messed up in the way that you have so you better have the right political views otherwise you can't sit at the table you better have the right social media engagement otherwise we're going to cancel you better say the right things publicly otherwise you're going to be shamed publicly and in a way i think we've all felt this fragile truth that we carry and say how do we live it stand up for it preach it say it without offending people to the point where we've lost them all together why because the culture we live in has no concept of where forgiveness comes from they have no concept that there's actually joy in forgiveness and so what we're going to talk about today in reviewing the psalms and also looking forward to genesis is in all of the ways that for the last two months the lord has been drawing us to himself know me through my word know me through these gatherings learn how to worship more and more through the circumstances of your life and in all the ways we've said sometimes we're on fire and sometimes we're dry the message today is rinse and repeat continually come to the lord and then go through the sunday excitement to the monday hangover and learn this amazing spiritual discipline for what sets us apart with our theology is that there is no one here that is so far gone that made so many mistakes that said so many wrong things that you can't rinse this morning through the power of forgiveness you can't find new joy and new happiness because all of the ways that you fell the grace of the lord wants to pick you up this morning and so today we'll talk about sin repentance and joy three things that maybe don't sound like they go together in one sense it's probably good that i'm preaching this message in this hour because we are starting to fill back up again and maybe this is going to take some crowd control to thin out the crowd a little bit because sin and repentance is a message that maybe some of you church shoppers did not come to hear but i think if we really hear this if we really hear that sin and repentance are inseparable from joy the church would actually grow this is the counterintuitive uh feelings maybe of a preacher that says that i really our church is sensitive right now or in the middle of a pandemic should we really do anything to rock the boat and make anyone not feel like they could just grab roots here so let's just preach all about prosperity and goodness and happiness and let's just let other stuff come up once we're settled the paradox is this the more that we figure out how to find sin that leads to repentance that leads to joy the more the lord will increase not decrease but it has to be heard with ears to hear with hearts to receive that sin to repentance is inseparable from joy so first we talk about sin verses three and four are going to give us a picture of sin at his extreme some of you will listen to me read verses 3 and 4 and think that is me not all of you but some of you look what it says when i kept silent in other words when david was going through this season of his life where he knew what he had done but he didn't let it out it was just in there and he was trying to figure out how to cover it many commentators think psalm 32 and psalm 51 were written in the same season of his life detailing sin of adultery and murder he said when i kept silent my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long it was just living inside of me and it was eating me up inside it was like my bones were withering away i was just groaning at the burden and the shame and all the math i had to do to try to figure out how to stay silent how to clear my browser history how to tell this person where i was how to how to try to mend fences and also keep people at their distance when i tried to keep it all in i was groaning all the day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me that the holy spirit it says convicts us of our sin and when we are in that season of secret sin inside the burden of that sin you will feel the heaviness of that burden as a blessing from the lord he says your hand was upon me and my vitality my spirit my life my joy my contentment my satisfaction turned into the drought of summer so this is sin as it extreme some of you are in that season now some of you listen to that and you're like wow that is the year 2008. i remember it clearly i was on my bed and i couldn't get out because i was so burdened and i never knew how i was going to go i thought i'd take it to my grave i was so burdened by all this so you have a reference point for it or you're in it now and some of you are thinking wow glad that these people came to church today but that's definitely not me two things that i want to say about this particular season of david's life and what happens with sin as an extreme one we must not think that what david is describing is supposed to only apply to the crusades in the altar calls for when we call sinners into repentance for the first time into the kingdom of god to be made new creations sometimes that's where our brain goes yep i remember when i hit my rock bottom that's when the lord saved me and now i'm on the solid path out of the miry clay onto the solid rock and hopefully someone who's going through this season that just got out of jail or prison or they're addicted and they're just in sin hopefully they find jesus they meet him they accept him as their lord and savior and he makes them a new creation and then he sets them on their way that is certainly one of the ways that this can be applied where there's sin that burdens non-believers unto salvation but that's not this context and it's also not for the majority part this context today it says transgression why is that important transgression is a term for sin that you knew what was right but you didn't do it or you knew what was wrong and you did it anyway transgression is to say there are certain boundaries and rules that are agreed upon that you broke on purpose so when we look at the context of david's life this is probably coming as a season when he's already been anointed king he's already been called the man after god's own heart and yet he still fell and he hit his own rock bottom in a new way he transgressed he did something that he knew he shouldn't do and this is so often the sin that we sometimes feel like was part of the old us and not part of the new us there are sins of transgression all the time that's why we looked at the whole overview in psalms and we said believers god's calling us to believe in him in a new way to awaken our souls to give us new life and life more abundant for this season now how are we doing and we should all have looked back at times and thought yeah sometimes i did really well and sometimes i chose my own way i was like a sheep and went off in my own direction because we all have seasons of our life that are imperfect in the way that we express the love of god and the love of people to the perfection of who god's character is and we all have seasons of our life where we need to get picked back up and cleanse the new and find a new wave of god's grace for our life this is not a call for sinners to repent for the first time this is a call for believers to continually be washed by the word this is transgression the other thing that i'll mention about this as we look at sin to the extreme and some of you give yourself a pass so grateful i'm no longer extremely sinning and so grateful that i'm no longer extremely guilty this is all sin and guilt that i can kind of i can kind of deal with these are more bee stings than the knife wounds remember the nature of sin is not something that will ever be content in a small version of the way it controls your life look what it says in james chapter 1 we're going to look at two scriptures about the nature of sin james chapter 1 verse 13 says let no one when he is tempted say i am being tempted by god for god cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one okay but each person is tempted when he is listen to the progression when he is lured and enticed by his own desire then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin and when it is fully grown gives way to death that is the nature and progression of all sin all sin qualifies under john 10 10's uh a verse that jesus gives people of the good shepherd overcoming the evil thief that says the thief comes to kill and to steal and to destroy that is the nature of sin in your life and to get a picture of what this looks like for all of us to come today and say let us be cleansed anew and let us continually pursue god and to be to remove anything little or great small or big from our lives that is not giving us the full version of a worship the worship of god that he's called us to let's look at genesis chapter four this will be the overlap from psalms to genesis this will point us to wednesday i hope and in genesis it gives us a picture of the nature of all these little things in our lives that we come this morning to worship and lay at the feet of the cross or the foot of the cross genesis chapter 4 is really the history of the unraveling nature of sin because remember the chapter previous we get the fall we get sin coming in the package of what a piece of fruit so innocent so small and in that package it came with a temptation to violate the will of god to trust him to be obedient to know that he is god and you're not and an apple turns into disobedience turns into the fall of man turns into now what will be the second generation of sin that has unraveled the world of until this day so in genesis chapter 4 we're introduced to adam and eve's first kids cain and abel and cain and abel bring their offerings to the lord abel's was accepted and cain's was not another preaching but the reaction in cain's heart was that he was displeased he was upset with god he had a heavy heart and he had a long face and so what does the lord say the lord said to cain why are you angry and why has your face fallen if you do well will you not be accepted and if you do not do well sin is crouching at the door its desire is for you but you must rule over it sin desires you cain and it's crouching at your doorstep it's lying in weight for you and it what it wants more than anything is to control you and own you and take you all the way to death to take your life it's true of every single one of us sin crouches and lies in weight something starts so small jesus says you think that sin is big you think adultery and murder are the sins i tell you now that it starts with your mind if you even lust after a woman that's not your wife you've already committed adultery because it's in there if you hate somebody and you put a curse on them you've already committed murder in your heart because that's where it starts it doesn't start giant it starts small and i love this picture of the crouching sin as i was preparing this message i took my family to the zoo this week great time to go to the zoo by the way totally empty all the animals are super happy to see me they're all coming out i was like babe i haven't seen the animals this happy in a long time the last exhibit that we stopped at was the tiger exhibit and it was really interesting because i've got this concept on my mind i'm already thinking about this picture of sin crouching and when that tiger saw me and my family specifically my little kids staring at the glass it looked at us and it crouched and it was going into its design given by god in nature tigers are designed to be hunters and what hunters have to do before they attack their prey they have to look a lot smaller than they actually are they can't give away all that they've got can't give away their position they can't give away their power they can't give away their strength i mean a tiger's teeth they had the skeleton you guys know tigers they have huge teeth i don't need to educate you on tigers and they have stripes and it was so interesting to watch as it looked at us and it got down so small and it looked so friendly and i thought that is the picture of crouching the picture of sin is that it wants to appear so small and wants to hide its teeth it wants to hide his attentions intentions and it wants to look as innocent as a kitty cat but it's not and for that moment i looked at my daughters and i just it dawned on me like if you ever see a tiger in the wild do not try to pet it because it's not your friend and then i looked at my littlest one rosie and i said do not try to climb in this tiger cage because it will eat you and i will do not want to see you go that way that would be such a shame on my fatherhood if you got eaten by a tiger but i took the picture and it's in me now and i give it to you because there is something in your life that is crouching and it starts so small and that's why we talk about it this morning this morning all we're talking about is how the lord is calling us to worship and there are tiny things in your life that are crouching that are saying not this morning not today not this person not here at your job that's for church there are tiny things in your life that look so small and they try to look so innocent and they're trying to come across in your life as something that could even be good but their intention is to take you from your worship of god and to destroy your life i can't help but think of what i'm holding right here it is so small and it is so full of temptation and we all walk around with a crouching tiger sitting in our pockets and if you have a phone like mine i
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.