Sermon Tone Analysis

BIG IDEA: Bless the Lord of Love who is ours all-forever.

What do we have to know?

Why do we need to know it?

What do we have to do?

Why do we have to do it?

Of David.

A 1  Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

B 2  Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

3  who forgives all your iniquity,

who heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit,

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

5  who satisfies you with good

so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

C 6  The Lord works righteousness

and justice for all who are oppressed.

7  He made known his ways to Moses,

his acts to the people of Israel.

D 8  The Lord is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9  He will not always chide,

nor will he keep his anger forever.

10  He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

E 11  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

F 12  as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

D E 13  As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

D 14  For he knows our frame;

he remembers that we are dust.

15  As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field;

16  for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

17  But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,

C and his righteousness to children’s children,

18  to those who keep his covenant

and remember to do his commandments.

19  The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,

and his kingdom rules over all.

B 20  Bless the Lord, O you his angels,

you mighty ones who do his word,

obeying the voice of his word!

21  Bless the Lord, all his hosts,

his ministers, who do his will!

22  Bless the Lord, all his works,

in all places of his dominion.

A Bless the Lord, O my soul!

ME

is one of those Psalms which you hear on many occasions, but often in parts.

Case in point, this past Thursday I conducted my first small part of a funeral service with Pastor Lou for a congregant’s mom, and this small part is the committal service where a ceremony is conducted at the gravesite before the casket is lower into the earth, to signify the departure of the earthly body and looking forward to the renewed body raised from the dead because of what Jesus did.

And there I used

13  As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

14  For he knows our frame;

he remembers that we are dust.

15  As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field;

16  for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more.

17  But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,

and his righteousness to children’s children,

18  to those who keep his covenant

and remember to do his commandments.

It reminds us of course that life on earth is temporary, brittle, vulnerable, unpredictable, but God’s love is forever.

Yet how does this part of the verse relate to the overall Psalm?

What is David trying to say?

If you have a bible turn with me to , in the pew bible it’s page 502.

WE

When we take apart parts of a Psalm, it can work sometimes but we may loose context.

Just like pulling a paragraph from the novel and use it as a quote, without the context, like a chorus with the verses, like the climax of a movie without the many scenes which sets up and builds up the tension.

Imagine if the Lord of the Rings started with Frodo struggling with Gollum at the mountain edge of Mordor.

Sure it's intense, but it misses the whole journey from Frodo being called by Gandalf on the quest to carry the ring and bring the Fellowship together, and the perilous journey in between.

When we take apart into verses which support our needs, we lose the overall message.

So just what is in its entirety?

Nothing BUT an epic song or poetry which is heightened by multiple contrasts, and also as was the last spoke about, , a chiastic structure.

GOD

And a chiastic structure for those who already forgot or did not remember is where a poem is a symmetry of itself if you take the middle verse, which would be verse 11 or 12 roughly as the center.

Everything else that spring out of it has a similar theme and counterpart.

E 11  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

F 12  as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

As we look at this key verse, you realize verse 12 echoes verse 11, but verse 11 has an element which links to verse 13, which is "those who fear him."

13  As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

Hence as you work your way out, the chiastic structure looks more like this:

(show diagram).

You see clues from time to time, keywords that are repeated.

Some are not as obvious unfortunately because while the Hebrew word is the same, the editor of the English bible may change the word.

But let us now focus on verse 12 then.

What we have is a poetry of extremities.

is intensely personal at times, and at the same time cosmic and grand in scale at other times.

The key speaks of two opposing direction which never meets as a metaphor for how sin has been removed, and not just removed, but removed far from us.

Easiest way to understanding is if we are at the westest of west, sin is at the eastest of east.