Auto Generated Transcript
I’m going to invite you this morning to Psalm chapter 19. Psalm 19 is where we’re going to be. And there is a a purpose to to us approaching the psalm. You’ll know if we’ve gone as we’ve gone through these Psalms together, we’ve sort of increased in where we’ve gone in the Psalms. We we started off in, what, Psalm 27 and Psalm. I don’t know where we went after that. 43, 7351 And, and now we’re back down to to Psalm 19. And we’ve been looking at these Psalms together because the book of Psalms is a beautiful psalm in the chaos of summer. Usually it’s during the summer that we have a lot of people that go on vacation and just to do a series that follows one right after another is difficult to to be a part of. And so when you go to the Book of Psalms, they’re really each chapter is unique to itself. Some of the Psalms tie together, but most of the Psalms are written just unique to themselves to teach us not only about some theology in the Lord, but also how we engage God. That’s the uniqueness to the Book of Psalms. The beauty of the book of Psalms is that while 65 books of the Bible are God talking to us, wanting us to know about Him and Psalm, the Book of Psalms is our response back to God. So the 66 book is different than all the other books is learning how to respond back to God and the circumstances that we experience in life through celebration and adversity and everything in between.
How can my heart learn to engage the Lord where I am? And Psalm 19? It’s really more of a simplistic Psalm. It’s why I wanted to end here. But it’s also an incredible psalm in the way that it reaches our lives. It’s sort of a sort of the psalm of reminder, a reviving or refreshing of the soul. In fact, I take away the title of today The Reviving of the Soul, from verse seven, where where the psalmist talks to us about how God’s word does renew and revive the soul. And if you’re new in Christ, it revives your soul to life. If, if, if you’ve been walking with Jesus for years, it just it renews your soul in Christ. You can really translate that word revive or renew in verse seven either way. But but this psalm is this place of reflection to to really bring your heart back to that place, to remind you of how good God is. It happens that often times in life we we recognize the goodness of God and then we get busy with with the the things of life. We replace the God things with with good things. And we just we forget. We sort of get lost in the goodness of life with the greatness of God. And Psalm 19 really has that that image of of King David having a great time in the Lord and sort of it gives the idea maybe on according to verse six, that David has arisen early in the morning and he’s watching the sunrise, reflecting on the the greatness of God and he’s refreshing our soul in the goodness of who he is.
And he starts this this Psalm by beginning with this general idea of God. Some theologians would refer to this as general revelation, and he leads it into to this idea of a really special revelation and then draws your heart into a response. What are you going to do with that? Even the the greatest people of life, they tend to, from time to time, drift from from the greatness of of what made them great. If you look at a great leader, great leaders are people that necessarily know a lot of information. But but rather they get fixated on one thing and they make their life about that cause. And like a dog on a bone, they they don’t want to let go. But but all of us are susceptible just over the the drift of time to lose focus and perspective. And Psalm 19 is that that drawing us back to the restoring of our soul in the goodness of God. And point number one, in your notes, as you think about three areas in which your heart and life can be restored, your soul can be restored in the goodness of God.
Point number one begins in verse 1 to 6 of this Psalm, where David encourages you to to pause your life and remind yourself of the richness of God. And he encourages us this way to see his common grace is to see his common grace. Now, in a very broad sense, we know grace or we should know grace is not something that’s merited. If you try to earn grace, that’s not grace. That’s that’s a wage, right? Ephesians two eight and nine tells us for by grace you’re saved. Not of yourselves. It’s the gift of God, not of works. Lest anyone should boast, Ephesians two eight and nine juxtaposes the idea of grace from works. The faith you have in God. The reason you’re able to have that faith is because of grace, not of works. If it’s about what you do, it’s in your boasting. That’s what Ephesians two eight and nine says. Grace is a a free gift to us based on the the goodness of who God is. And theologians, as they see God’s grace unfold in Scripture, they talk about two types of grace. And we’re going to we’re going to look at that in scripture. And the first that he tells us here, he’s describing for us in in these first six verses is this idea of common grace. Common grace is a grace that that all of us. Have the opportunity to experience. But the question is what do you attribute it to as you live under the common grace of God? What do you attribute that that common grace to? What ultimately gets the glory? And David starts off like this.
He says, The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge. When David is taking this idea of of glory, he this this word glory means weightiness. It’s it’s heavy. And he’s not saying heavy is in a bad way but it’s this this moment that recognizes in your soul this greater grandeur of something beyond you, something that transcends you, something that captivates you and inspires you. But the question is, when life brings this glory to you, when it’s presented and just this common grace, this general creation, what do you praise with it? What do you recognize? I once heard a joke and this was an old joke of of someone teasing a wealthy individual. This wealthy man was riding into town on the back of a horse. So that already tells you how old this is, right? A wealthy man riding in the back of a horse and he had a a feather on his hat, which apparently was a prestigious symbol in the day. And he was wearing this nice suit, boasting in how great he was. And a man looked at him and remarked, You fool, the glory doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the horse and the bird and the tailor.
And and we we sometimes do that with with the great things of life. We take the beauty for which God has created and we sell it short and we idolize something else. And David is saying in this passage, it’s it’s the weight of God’s glory that we should recognize, that we we ultimately should attribute it to our creator and how wonderful he is. I have yet to, in this world, stand on the precipice of some some beautiful scenery. You know, when you think about whether or not you attribute to God’s glory or not, but I’ve yet to stand, let’s say, on the edge of the Grand Canyon, or look at the beauty of the the Rocky Mountains with someone else and and then simply just say to me, I love how these random atoms and molecules have come together to create this this matter under the illusion of purposelessness or purposeless in this world. Right when we see glorious things, there’s something within our soul that rises up that that longs for more and just finds satisfaction in that beauty. You don’t have to tell yourself really, that there is a creator God when you look at creation, when you embrace it for what it is, it’s magnificent. Abraham Lincoln said it like this. He once said, I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot see how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.
I make sense sometimes when you look at how we treat one another and act in this world to kind of lose hope, get a little jaded in our language and in our attitude. But when you really pause and you look at the grand beauty of creation and how all of it works together to communicate the glory of God, it’s it’s astounding. In fact, he goes on in verse three and four a little bit further, and he says, There is no speech nor their words whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth and the words to the ends of the world. I’ll say the ESV actually translates the Hebrew text a little bit confusing here, but what he’s saying in verse three is creation. It says nothing. But yet, without having a word to say, it says so much to the ends of the earth. There’s no one that can escape this. All of us see this common grace. While creation itself really says nothing in communicating the greatness of God. Yet to us it says so much in the goodness of who God is. I mean, when you when you look at creation, you from that can extrapolate when you consider the the greatness of God, some some characteristics of what God might be like. And as you look at creation, you see the intelligence of a creator because creation has an intelligent design, or you can see the creativeness of your creator.
Seeing how God made things, made things uniquely or the purposefulness of your creator. God designed things with, with purpose or the care of your Creator. The way that He was so detailed on how he structured things or the the power of your Creator that God could do all of this. The transcendence of your Creator that He is He is beyond us. He has other he is unfathomable that that we can’t even wrap our minds around the substance of the things that he has made. And therefore, to to think that we can conceive of all the greatness of God, He transcends us. You know, you can extrapolate those ideas about God from creation. And then in verse five and six, he goes on to then relate it to how we would perceive it. He says in them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man, runs its course with joy. He’s saying, just like you see an athlete performing this, it just mesmerizes you. Or like on a wedding day. Everyone knows the wedding in the community is about to take place. It’s a day of celebration. Or in verse six, its rising is from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them. There is nothing hidden from its heat.
And so he’s saying everyone. Everyone has the opportunity to experience this common grace, the goodness of who God’s God is. And He’s reminding us God’s glory can’t help but be displayed. He is a creative God and for us we can’t help but worship. Because we’re made to belong to him. Your life was created for worship. You are a worship being. You will honor something with the way that you live your life. You can’t help but do that. But the question is, what is it that you honor? Does your heart pause before the greatness of God? Or maybe I could say it like this. Lately. When was. When was the last time? You’ve just sat and reflected on the greatness of who God is and the privilege. It is not only to sit under his common grace, but but point number two is also experiencing his special grace. Because while the psalmist in these first six verses talks about the greatness of God through his common grace and all he created, he’s also going to remind us in this same passage that it’s not enough. It’s not enough for us because we’re created to to know God intimately and personally, to to connect to God through his word. And so this this psalmist starts to to relate this idea for us as he, as he connects verse one and to verse seven, really all the way to verse 14. But I want you to see this in this passage of Scripture, what the psalmist actually does, he starts off verses 1 to 6 talking about the idea of God, and he uses this, this thought of God generically.
He takes the word Elohim, which is just a generic word for God. They in the Old Testament, they would use this word for false gods and the true God. Just this idea of of Elohim, there is a God creation says to us there, there is a God. You can see his handiwork there, there is a God. But then in verse seven, then you’ll notice the switch in how the psalmist communicates. He no longer uses the generic word God, but rather through the psalm. Now he starts to refer to the Lord specifically L Lord, all in capital letters. Anytime in your Bible, in the English Bible, when when the word Lord is written in all capital letters, it’s using the personal name for God, which is Yahweh. This is the intimate name. The name that the the Jews of the Old Testament wouldn’t even utter. To do so would be considered blasphemy. Lord, this is the name that God gave to to Moses at the burning bush. When God told Moses, Go back to Egypt, you know, the place where they wanted to kill you and declare to Pharaoh, you know, the leader of the world at the time that God is to that that Pharaoh is to let God’s people go, to let the the Israelites set free from slavery into a promised land.
Moses, I want you to go there. And Moses, in that moment is a little concerned and fearful for doing such a thing. And so he’s asks this burning bush, God, who am I going to tell them? Is showing up to declare this message? I mean, who is it that’s saying this? And and God gives him that sacred name. I am. That I am. God is the Self-existing one. The one through which everything created looks to depend upon. I love that it’s this word I am. That I am. That he simply is. He’s saying that he is sustaining in and of himself, that he relies upon nothing. But all things rather depend upon him. Which is why you as a created being, must look to your creator to find the purpose for your existence is why you were made as a worship being and and David is saying in this passage is it’s not enough just to know about God. So creation can give us some knowledge. But but the intimacy of a relationship is that which which you were created for. And so in verse seven, he gets to the particularity of this idea by talking about this special grace. And so that’s what makes it special, is, is the privilege of of connecting to God in this way. And so he uses this this particular name of God, Lord, to to share with us the greatness of who God is.
John Calvin says it like this. He said, From nature, we know only the hands of God, but from Scripture, we know his heart. The heavens cannot tell us that God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son. So we get these general ideas, the attributes of who God is and His intelligence, his creativity, his purpose, his caring. His. His power. His. His transcendence. But what about his love? Is he a loving God? I know people in this world might claim I follow a God and its a God of love. But my question with that would be, well, how do you know? How do you know? He’s a loving God? I mean, when you engage other religions in the world and in our Judeo-Christian American society, I know we’ve had the the the thoughts of Christianity permeated within our culture to the point that people don’t even realize how much it’s affected the way that we think and interact. And so generically, even people that don’t may not have been a Christian or ever belonged to the Christian faith, might see God as a loving God, and they might generalize all religions that way. You know, all religions kind of follow the same God and all religions kind of have a loving God. And that’s the kind of God I follow, a loving God. But do you know if you were to travel to other parts of the world and actually interact with religions and ask them, Is God a loving God? There are many religions in this world have no concept of a loving God, a personal, relatable God.
I think it’s the the permeation of a Judeo-Christian culture affecting the idea of the minds of people with a loving God. But it still begs the question, how do you actually know God is loving? What would make you so confident in such such a claim? And this is where the psalmist wants us to know God in his. His personal name, his. His nature, his his incredible love, his particular plan for humanity. The only way you know that is for God to be more specific. And our understanding of him and the purpose of our creation. And that’s where special grace communicates this to us, where it’s ultimately culminated through a gospel, a freedom and a messiah who came to deliver our life. That’s where we see the tangible nature of who God is. And and so the psalmist is saying to us in verse seven, he says, Look to the word of God, because the word of God is what communicates this to you, where you find freedom in the Lord. So he says, the law of the Lord look is is perfect. Reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. And so he’s saying not not only do you have the common grace of God, which is important, but it’s not enough. You also need to understand the special grace of God, the special revelation of God by which He is His communicated himself to you that you can find the freedom for which you were designed in relationship to your Creator. The word of God and how how sacred it is. He refers to it as perfect, which means it’s it’s a way of saying it’s complete. It’s sort of like the punch line. And if anyone ever tells you a joke or and they get to the end and they just falter in the punch line, just they didn’t tell it. Right. It’s just not the same. And he’s saying this is how God’s word works for us. It’s the punch line. The other day I was watching this video. I don’t know what it was on Facebook or YouTube or something, but it was this guy walking through the streets with a little girl and they’re carrying ice cream cones. Maybe you’ve seen it. I don’t know. But. But. And he gets bumped into by two bullies and the little girl drops her cone, and then they proceed to chew out this guy. And this guy’s just listening to these people. And and he’s he’s kind to the two young punks and kind of walks away and he he puts the little girl in the car and he looks up and a little bit later in the day and he he sees these two individuals off in the distance and he tells her, hey, just stay in this car.
I’ll be right back. And he walks down the alley where these two punks were and you’re like, oh, he’s about to teach him a lesson. You got to watch it. And all of a sudden, the video stopped. The video stopped. I don’t know why that’s that’s a popular thing to do now. But you can watch these short videos online. And before it gets to the punch line at the end, they don’t even they don’t reach the conclusion. And it’s like when you look at creation and you just end there, you’re selling yourself short of the goodness of who this God is as he’s desired to, to make himself known in your life in a particular way for which you can discover your purpose in life in him. And so he says the the law of the Lord is is perfect. I mean, even this morning, if we share the text of this passage and let’s just say this is the worst message I ever share in 2023. You know, the beauty of God’s word is it doesn’t return void that the messenger can do an awful job. But but but what matters isn’t necessarily where it comes from, but that you see the truthfulness of what it said.
I mean, God can talk. We even see in scripture through a donkey, even when we’re not listening, God can talk through a donkey. He tells us in scriptures, even the rocks can cry out the glory of who God is. But what matters is that your soul receive it, that you let the Word of God work in you. And so he says it’s perfect. It’s complete, that you would know him encouraging your life, that in the busyness of what things become that you would you would pause and let the goodness of God, as it says in verse seven, revive your soul. Renew your soul. In fact, he tells us in verse eight that the Word of God, it’s right. And the way this word translates is actually viewed as a straight edge. And if you ever want to build a building, you want to make sure that when you build the building, you’ve got your lines plumbed right? It’s straight. You don’t want to build a crooked building. And so he’s saying the way God’s word works for us is this straight edge to measure your life against, to examine If you’re in line with the Lord, you know who he is and therefore who you’re called to be. The only way you know, if you’re living life the way that God has called you to live is to know God himself. It’s to know Him.
It’s the straight edge of of your life. Every culture that’s ever existed has had something within his culture that was contrary to the of God. And even the people in culture by majority will try to push you and force you to think the way that they think. But it’s not necessarily how God thinks and it’s not necessarily what what God says. So he reminds us that God’s Word, it’s perfect, it’s complete, it’s right, it’s clean for us. It endures forever. It should be the foundation. Of your soul. And he goes on and he says to us in the second half of these verses, it’s it’s sure. It makes wise the simple. It’s pure, it’s enlightening the eyes. It’s true and righteous altogether. And what the psalmist is saying the first half of the verse is you come of each of these verses, you come to God’s word and you receive the knowledge of His word. But it still doesn’t mean you’re wise. In fact, there are people that that are trained well beyond their their obedience. They’re intelligent, beyond their obedience. Like we we call them sometimes college professors. I’m just kidding. Not college professors. But we’ve got some good college professors here. I don’t know. Not college professors, but sometimes we become intellectual, but we lack we lack absolute wisdom. It’s not just knowing about God. But intimately knowing God personally. And then living out the purpose for which he has designed me in him.
That’s that’s wisdom, the proper application of truth. And so he’s telling us in this passage that that in our lives we’re we’re not to just simply have the knowledge, but to to pursue God with this wisdom. And this wisdom transforms our life as we look at the the truthfulness of God, Wisdom has the power to to navigate us through through the goodness of life. If you think this morning as maybe an illustration, like if you today, no matter what age you are. I’m we’re to go back 20 years from now. Maybe you are maybe you’re too young for that to even be able to do that. So if you’re if you’re above 20 and you were to go back 20 years from now and you were to look at 20 year old self, would you say that that 20 years ago are wiser than you are today? You know that life has this opportunity to to be a great teacher in some things, and some of us learn lessons harder than others. Right. We’ve got to learn the difficult way and and and do the sometimes the dumb things before we embrace the right things. And and this passage, it’s the reminder that. Let the truth of God. Saturate. Revive your soul. That had just simply not be something you do, but it becomes who you are. And as God churns that within you over time, you grow in this this wisdom of who the Lord is, and you begin to to make wise, wiser and wiser decision.
Real wisdom is to know where to listen. And therefore know how to follow. I heard it jokingly. An angel. Showed up to a faculty meeting. And the angel appeared before the the dean at this faculty meeting. And he asked the dean, he said, Dean, I’m I will give you one wish to Grant. And it’s one of three things. I will either give you wealth, wisdom or beauty. What would you like? And the dean said, I choose wisdom. And so the angel imparts wisdom and it begins to float away and disappear. And all of a sudden, everyone, everyone’s eyes fixed, fixated on the dean. And the dean now has this aura, this halo. He’s glowing. And they’re waiting for this wise words to come out of him. And he says, I should have chose the wealth. That’s not just kidding. I kid wit. Real wisdom is is learning where where to look and and to to to know enough in the knowledge to to follow with your life. And so the psalmist is encouraging us not to not to just know this information, but to to seek God in his truth. It’s experiential that our hearts would know God and and not just in a in a general revelation or a common grace, but in this special revelation and special grace. And then he encourages them. Point number three, and this is the last point, your notes that we would respond in humble worship.
Truthfully special grace should lead us to humble worship because special grace culminates in Christ. And verse 11, you start to see how the psalmist unfolds. This, and this is incredible. He says in verse ten, More to be desired as they than gold. Even much, much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. He’s saying about God’s word that it’s more rich than the richest wealth this world has to offer and sweeter than the the most sweetened. Whatever you can think of. I know they had honey back then, but we’ve got we’ve stepped up our game, I think, in the deliciousness of sweet things. But he’s saying, however sweet you think life is and the sweetest thing you can think of and however wealthy you think life is and the greatest wealth you can think of in this world, God’s Word is better. And then he goes on and says, Moreover, by them is your servant warned? In keeping them there is great reward. And notice this in this Psalm up unto this point, he’s talked about God generically. He’s talked about God personally. But now in this psalm, he’s going to talk about himself. How he’s called to respond in this humble worship back to the Lord. Your servant warned. In keeping them there is great reward. Verse 12. Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.
Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. In verse 11 and 12, the psalmist is He’s doing something interesting with God’s word. He’s saying, Look, when I, when I go to God’s Word and I start to understand who God is in light of who I am, God’s Word lays me bare. I’m not just reading it. But it’s reading me. And it tells me who I am and the darkness of my own heart. And in verse 12, he even says that there’s there’s hidden things in his own life. And who who can declare him innocent from his faults and discern his errors and keep back. Verse 13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Who can discern these errors that he’s in and keep him innocent? He he he recognizes his own faults and his his life that the word of God just completely exposes him and his brokenness. There are some people that come to God’s Word and treat it with disdain. I often find some of the most religious people, even though they might not belong to a religion, will hate God’s word because God’s word it will do a number on ripping you apart and your own faults and failures. It doesn’t just speak to the things that you do, it speaks to the things that you do.
Or excuse me, that doesn’t speak to the things that you just do, but it speaks to the matters of the heart, the things that you might desire. What you think. How you might want to act, but you restrain yourself. There’s something wrong in the core of who we are, and God’s Word exposes that. And the reason we wrestle with that from a religious perspective is because we’ve learned as human beings, apart from the Lord, that the solution, if we’re not looking to God, is within us, and therefore you need to try harder. But, you know, if you walk that road and trying harder and adding more of you and giving more effort and more work, that in the end what you find is you constantly falter. You can never be good enough. They don’t measure up. And here’s one of the beautiful things that we find in this psalm is that David has his heart is exposed. He knows that. He knows the answer isn’t more of him. But rather to let go of him altogether and turn to the Lord. And how do we know David is saying that? Well, the answer is because where David goes in verse 13 and 14. The point is that the Bible isn’t pushing you to to just simply an idea or an act or just a modification of your behavior. The Bible, rather, is is pushing you to a person in in humble surrender and worship.
As you look at the truth of God’s word, it’s not it’s not simply just about learning knowledge and truth and and behaving wisely in a certain way, but rather what spurs all that on. I had my my ten year old just a few weeks ago. We were driving down the road and he says to me, Dad, what’s more important truth or Jesus? That is an important question. What is more important truth than Jesus? Here we are, philosophically waxing, waxing elegant, waxing eloquent, waxing eloquent with with this this question here, This It’s a deep theological question, I think. What is more important truth? Or Jesus. And the Bible certainly says the truth will set you free. But. But can I tell you, we. We don’t have truth without Jesus. John 14 six. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. He is the source of truth. He is truth itself. To not have Jesus is to not have the truth. And I think David knows this and he’s looking down the corridors of time, longing for the opportunity of a messiah that would set him free. And so David is not just simply putting his hope in the word of God, but what the word of God declares for freedom of the soul, which is not found in an idea or a thought or modification of your behavior. It’s found in a person.
So that’s why we say for us as a church, the goal of you this morning is not to walk out and just be better. The goal for this morning is to know the Lord and to make your life about something completely different. David And this prayer, He’s not asking God, make me better with me. In fact, in verse 13, you see it, keep back your servant also from the presumption of sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression. He’s saying, God, he’s not saying God, give me more strength so I can perform better. But rather He’s looking to the Lord and he’s saying, God, you do this in me because the answer is not more of me, but rather more of you in me. I don’t want to make life about me. But about you. Because I was created for you. And so in verse 14, he says this Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. At the end of this verse. What what David is really saying, these these words that he chooses, these are these are pictures of who Christ is. The words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. This word for acceptable is actually a the word that they would use throughout the Old Testament for for a willful sacrifice.
A decision to surrender your life. And David, in this passage, he is surrendering his life to the Lord. But ultimately, what David is doing is he’s personifying what Christ would do for us. That the reason we’re able to surrender our life to the Lord is because Jesus became a willing sacrifice for us. He became that ultimate sacrifice and demonstrated himself as as our rock and our redeemer. In fact, listen to this In first Corinthians ten, verse four, it says this about the Israelites as they were wandering from Egypt into the promised land, it says, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they all drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. And the rock was Christ. In Titus chapter two, verse 14, Jesus gave himself look, willing sacrifice. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people, for his own possession who are zealous for good works. And God certainly made us to do wonderful things. But before I can do anything for Christ, it’s essential that Christ be in me. And this is what David is saying in this passage. He goes from the idea of of the greatness of a God. To the special grace of knowing him personally and not just knowing him. So that David does has more knowledge and and simply changes his behavior. But rather David comes to this place of absolute surrender in who he is to the glory of this God, because this God desires to be made known in David’s life.
And so this becomes David’s prayer at the end. Lord, let the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19 reminds us that it is it is easy for the soul. To look at the good things of life. And not attribute it to the greatness of God and His glory. How important it is to not treat gathering on Sunday as a mundane thing that you do. But for your soul to be mindful of the goodness of a creator, not just a creator, a savior who becomes personal, that you you could know him and walk with him and delight with him through the truth of his word that promises a message of freedom in Christ. And with this, there was a there’s a story of a single mother who was she’s. Has a lower income in life. She struggles to make ends meet. She’s from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. She’s raising her her daughter, and she knows notices as her daughter enters her teenage years that she, as they’ve struggled together, her teenage daughter has developed this particular love for the world, and she constantly warns her daughter and she loves her daughter. But finally, one night, the mother went to bed and when she wakes up the next morning, her daughter is gone.
And the mother is in grief and she’s stricken and she she’s at a loss. But she finally she digs through a drawer and she finds one of the most recent photos she has of her daughter. And she runs down to a local store and she makes copies of the photo to go around all around Rio de Janeiro and post that her daughter is missing. And she goes anywhere she can think of. If she finds a light pole, she hangs it. If she finds a wall where it’s possible, she puts it, she goes to soup kitchens and and she she goes to shelters and she goes to sleazy motels everywhere she can think of and anywhere she can find to hang these pictures, she hangs it. And after searching all over the city and spending everything that she has, what little income she has, she still can’t find her daughter and she goes home. She sets distraught. But days go by, months go by, and still no sign from her daughter. Then one one morning, her daughter walks down from the upstairs of a sleazy motel, and she as she’s going down the stairs, she sees a mirror and she sees her reflection. And she recognizes that her youthfulness has just quickly faded. No longer does she glow like she did in her early teenage years, but rather her eyes are sunken in and she is worn out by life. And right beside that mirror, she glances over.
She happens to catch out of the corner of her eye a picture of herself. And she grabs the picture immediately and she pulls it down and she can’t believe that there’s someone out there looking for her and she knows it’s her mother. But she happens just to flip the picture over. And when she looks on the back side, she. Handwriting and the handwriting. It’s from her mother. And it says, I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care where you’ve been. All is forgiven. Please. For us, guys, I would say God’s Word reads us the same way. The things of this world destroy the soul. And if we’re being honest, even ourselves. We pick a path of destruction contrary to the reason which we are created in God. But when you engage the Word of God, not only does it expose the brokenness of our soul, we see the beauty of a creator and a savior who still pursues us, who still loves us, who still desires to not give up on us, to give us both his common grace and his special grace that we might find freedom in him. The solution is not in you, and it’s never been in you, but rather in the goodness of this God who is desire to make himself known that you can find freedom in Him. God let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your eyes, my rock and my redeemer.