You Made Me (Part 2)
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Dr. Paul Tripp writes, It is impossible to do justice to the wonder of the creation of the world and everything in it. You and I have to work hard to make anything. Even when you buy a piece of furniture from IKEA, with all the pieces properly designed and a booklet of instructions, you are driven to the edge of your sanity trying to follow the instructions and assemble what you bought.
All of our DIY projects require mental focus, physical dexterity, and perseverance. We struggle to make things, even though we always start with raw materials, are following instructions, and have collected the appropriate tools. But you and I have never created anything; we do not make something out of nothing. C. S. Lewis said it this way: "Creation, as it is for God, must always remain totally inconceivable to man. We only build. We always have materials to build from.”
The truth of creation should fill us with awe, humble us, and drop us to our knees. God, with nothing more than his will and his word literally spoke the universe into existence. Think of huge galaxies and little ants. Think of the body of an elephant and the translucent creatures that swim in the deepest trenches of the sea. Think of huge towering trees and microscopic organisms. Think of the technology of the human eye and the intricate design of your hand. Genesis 1 and 2 are meant to put you in your place and insert God in his proper place in your heart and life.
And it is in this proper place that sin likes to get us out of. Ever since the garden, we received what some call a gift and what I call a distortion. A desire to be independent from God. The reality is that we think we know when we actually do not know. And the only way to know is called a book full of myths and legends that is dismissed and made fun of by the influential and tv channels in the world. But it does not matter how smart you are… without the Lord there is no clarity.
Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him.
It all started with the Lord and our lives are gonna be fruitful with the Lord. And our fruitful lives are dependent on the grace of God. The power of the Spirit and the truth of the scriptures. As we have been going through Psalm 119 we have witnessed our psalmist displaying the true sufficiency, authority, perspicuity, inspiration, and power of the scriptures. And he shows us how we will continues to find the benefits of the scriptures even during times of difficulty. He made us and He is near. Lets take a look.
Now let your unfailing love comfort me,
just as you promised me, your servant.
Surround me with your tender mercies so I may live,
for your instructions are my delight.
Bring disgrace upon the arrogant people who lied about me;
meanwhile, I will concentrate on your commandments.
Let me be united with all who fear you,
with those who know your laws.
May I be blameless in keeping your decrees;
then I will never be ashamed.
The grass withers the flower fades but the Word of our God stands forever.
Mercy Be for My Comfort
Tender Mercies
His Great Mercy
The first thing we will look at today is the wonderful meaning of God’s mercy being our real comfort. Second, we will understand what is meant by tender mercies. Finally, we will look at the salvation that comes from the Great Mercy of the living God.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of the this world causes us to lose hope and sight of the beautiful special revelation of God it is the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the Holy Scriptures that will cause us to see that hope is and always will be in Christ and in Christ alone.
I. Mercy Be for My Comfort
- It is what we need during time of difficulty.
A. This is the context of what we are hearing from the psalmist. He is speaking during a time of difficulty. And what he says is full of astonishing things to be grasped. He does not ask for the rod of discipline to be removed, he is asking for mercy to be comforted under it.
Spurgeon, “Righteousness and faithfulness provide us no consolation if we cannot also enjoy mercy, and blessed be God, we can expect this, for this is promised us in the Word.”
So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.
The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.
Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will live in the house of the Lord
forever.
Because of God’s tender mercy,
the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
B. One commentator writes, “Therefore, let us pray for these to the Lord, whom we have grieved by our sin, and let us plead the word of His grace as our sole reason for expecting His favor.”
C. In modern evangelicalism we pray for ejection when we suffer. We look for answers as to how we can get out. We look for reasons to quit and start over. We look for reasons to disconnect and reconnect elsewhere. We look for ways, things, resources to make the pain go away. But its this very ejection that will cause us to never become what it is that we need to be.
- A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth and took it home so he could watch the moth come of the cocoon. One day a small opening appeared. The man sat and watched the moth for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. To the man it appeared as if the moth had gotten as far as it could in breaking out of the cocoon and was stuck. Out of kindness, the man decided to help the moth. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon so that the moth could get out. Soon the moth emerged, but it had a swollen body and small shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the moth, expecting that in time the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would simultaneously contract to its proper size. Neither happened. In fact, that little moth spent the rest of it life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly. The man in his kindness and haste didn't understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle require for the moth to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings, so that the moth would be ready for flight once it achieved it freedom from the cocoon.
D. Just as the moth could only achieve freedom and flight as a result of struggling, we often need to struggle to become all God intends for us to be. Sometimes we wish that God would remove our struggles and take away all the obstacles; but just as the man crippled the emperor moth, so we would be crippled if God did that for us. God doesn't take away our problems and difficulties, but He promises to be with us in the midst of them and to use them to restore us, making us into better, stronger people. Making us into the likeness of Christ. Making us disciples of Christ.
II. Tender Mercies
- More beautiful than rescue. Really?
A. So stressed out was our psalmist that he understood that if he did not receive the mercy of God he would not be able to live. It is the life giving power of the one who created us and will bring us through any affliction. Because here it is… if mercy is what we need then God is overflowing with it.
The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
B. And this is what we need to receive if we are to live. Now we look to other things in the world to rescue us from struggle. Now we may find rescue from the things in this world. If we are struggling with suffering in finances, someone giving us more money can feel like a rescue. If we are struggling with relational issues it can seem like someone who meets that need will feel like a rescue. Suffering with identity, that which could give us one would be like a rescue. Even a chemical that takes the pain away can feel like a rescue. A distraction can rescue us from boredom. Shopping can rescue us from our past. Social media can rescue us from feeling alone.
C. So many things in the world could rescue us from our affliction. This is why our hope rests in the things of the world… it gives us relief. It rescued us. It saved us. But it saved us from living. It saved us from growing. It saved us from life and life more abundant. It saved us from getting all that the Lord has for us. Yep we did not struggle but now like the moth we will never fly.
D. It is when one who has struggled a great suffering and has experienced the tender mercies of God that has truly experienced the life of God and something truly out of this world.
III. His Great Mercy
- Salvation from the grace and mercy of God.
A. We experience and witness the wonderful display of the grace and mercy of God in the gospel.
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation, and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.
B. And here we have the wonderful out of this world truth from the delightful word of God. His mercy gives us life and life more abundant. Being born again, life with great expectation, a priceless inheritance that cannot be destroyed. Nothing in this world can bring such a wonderful thing. We can find comfort in the mercy of God. From the word of the living God.
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.
C. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.
I. Our psalmist delighted in the word of God. Millions in gold and silver will never bring that kind of hope that can only come from the promises of God. Jesus is our Lord and He is our all and His Word is as awesome as it gets. He is good and all he does is good. As told to us by the very thing the living God says is more valuable than anything in this world. Heaven and earth will pass away but the Word of God will remain forever. This is why it is worth sooo much more.