Song of Repentance

INTRODUCTION

NEW SERIES

GOOD MORNING

STARTING A NEW SERIES TODAY ON THE PSALMS OF ASCENT (Psalm 120 - 134)

I love the Psalms because it speaks to the heart

JOHN CALVIN

“The Psalms are an anatomy of all the parts of the soul, for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror.”

JOSH MOODY, Journey to Joy

“Psalms say things we would rarely say out loud in church. But then, people feel things they would rarely say out-loud in church. We need somewhere to go to process those emotions, to inspect them in the light of God, and bring them into line with his will and his way.”

PSALMS & EMOTIONS

LIST OF GOOD & BAD EMOTIONS (Line down middle of the page)

Love, Joy, Anger, Jealousy, Sadness

EMOTIONS AREN’T GOOD OR BAD - IT’S WHAT WE DO WITH THOSE EMOTIONS

The bible talks about God having all these emotions, including jealousy, anger, and sadness – along with love and joy.

Does God have bad or wrong emotions emotions? NO!

The psalms talk about emotions that Christians and the Church rarely want to say out loud.

THE PSALMS WERE WRITTEN TO HELP US PUT OUR EMOTIONS IN THE RIGHT PLACE BEFORE GOD.

AND - How these emotions lead us into worship.

PSALMS OF ASCENT

VIEWS ON THE PSALMS OF ASCENT

UNCERTAINTY

The 15 Steps ascending into the temple, and sung by the priests

Songs being sung as Jews returned to Jerusalem from exile?

CLEAREST & COMMON VIEW

These 15 Songs were given to the Jews by God as they faithfully journeyed to Jerusalem 3x / year as commanded in the book of Exodus (Ex 23:14-17; 34:22-24).

Jersualem was topographically the highest city in Jerusalem in Palestine.

As people left the routines of their everyday life to make the journey to meet with God - they spent much of their time ascending.

These 15 songs were a playlist on your phone for the journey. A mixtape or CD to accompany the pilgrimage to meet with God.

PRESENT JOURNEY

EUGENE PETERSON, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

“But the ascent was not only literal, it was also a metaphor: the trip to Jerusalem acted out a life lived upward toward God, an existence that advanced from one level to another in developing maturity—what Paul described as “the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus” (Phil 3:14).

In the language of C.S. Lewis in Narnia - “Further Up, Further In”

THIS IS WHERE WE FIND OURSELVES TODAY

#1 | We desire to meet with God.

The be renewed by his presence.

To be strengthened in our inner being by the Holy Spirit.

To understand and experience the immeasurable expanse of his love

As we grow, that we would be continually filled with the fullness of God

#2 | On this Journey, we are carrying a suitcase overflowing with emotions

Some of these emotions we like - expectation, hope, optimism

Some of these emotions feel like a burden

1/3 of our church family is feeling some degree of isolation, discouragement, or disunity

Social Distancing - lack of human interaction

Political arguments overshadowing the substance of God’s Kingdom

Arguments surrounding Race & Injustice - talking at one another rather than with others.

Personal convictions in responding to COVID bleeding over into judgement of others.

JOURNEY BEGINS

Grab your suitcase full of emotions

And let’s hit the road together.

TRACK #1 | FIRST SONG

A SONG OF REPENTANCE

It is full of angst, there is tension in the chord progression, brokenness and rasp in the vocals.

There is discontentment, dissatisfaction, frustration, and desire all tied up together in today’s musical track

READ / PRAY

DISTRESS

DISTRESS (1)

Let’s open the suitcase and pull out that first emotion...

Literally a “closed or confined space” - feel compressed, walls closing in -

A caged or trapped animal

You can’t flee, you can’t leave

A sense of being bound, confined. - Claustrophobia

When you feel uncomfortable and agitated in your own skin

It’s always sleeping with one leg outside covers so I don’t feel confined.

It needing to be near an exit in crowded room.

This is the distress we are bringing to God

When we feel overwhelmed, cornered, confined - wanting to scream and break free

LITERALLY | SLANDER (Lying Lips and Deceitful Tongue) (2)

When people take half-truths, hearsay and mix it together with their own negative view of you and begin to spin tales to others that bind up your character in the minds of others. This is slander.

Lies on the lips of those who speak with conviction but lack wisdom

Deceitful tongues crafting stories of half-truths to re-write reality according to their own perspective.

We become prisoners to their misconceptions, half-truths spoken from self-righteous lips.

We cry out for deliverance.

FIGURATIVE | LIES OF THE WORLD

The lies are bigger than just the ones told about us. We’ve been lied to about the world.

We feel the pain of the lies we’ve been told about the world. Our hearts and minds are tangled in the web lies about how we thought the world would work. To our dismay we realize that everything was a lie.

We’ve been told that people are basically nice and good…

We’ve been told everyone is born equal and innocent…

We’ve been told the world is pleasant and harmless…

We’ve been born free and if we are in chains it is someone else’s fault…

We’ve been told that our graduating class would change the world…

We’ve been promised that this next election will bring change or disaster… yet, the world keeps spinning, kingdoms have risen and fallen for millenia and not a single human leader has prevented the corruption in our hearts.

We’ve been told that things will get better with enough time, intellect, technology, etc.

Eugene Peterson, “Christian consciousness begins in the painful realization that what we had assumed was the truth is in fact a lie.” Prayer of desperation to God is immediately on our lips, “Deliver me from the liars. They smile so sweetly but lie through their teeth!”

Do you believe the lies or are you crying out for deliverance? As we begin this journey… will you stay, content to dwell in the land of lies or do you have a holy dissatisfaction and desire for more.

TANGLED IN LIES

If you are placing your hope in the upcoming election one way or the other… you are tangled in lies

If you believe that everyone is basically good and if you just leave them alone they will do the right thing - you are tangled in lies

If you feel like in our own effort we can create a world that is just and all people will be treated equally then you are tangled in lies.

If you believe that given enough time, education, enough work that everything will be better...

DELIVERANCE

If we are tangled in the voices - and we cry our to the LORD - he illuminates the truth

We can not deliver ourselves - we are bound

OUR DELIVERANCE

DELIVER ME (2 - 4)

SPEAKING TO THE SLANDERER (3)

SEEKING JUSTICE (4)

God is a Warrior

Arrows of Justice

Poetic Justice because the root of the word “deceit” (as in deceitful tongues) is “to throw” or “shoot”

Now the Psalmist is asking that God bend the bow of justice against the slanderers.

Coals of the Broom Bush

Also known as the Juniper Tree

Was popular source of firewood in ancient times because it burned longer than other types of wood.

Ancient texts said the embers could burn for days after the fire went out.

OUR REPENTANCE

The first step toward God is a step away from the lies of the world. It is turning our backs to the lies of the world and setting our face toward the City of God.

SOJOURNERS

Psalm 120:5 ESV

Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!

STRANGERS, EXILES, IMMIGRANTS

Meschech is a a far-off tribe, thousands of miles from Palestine in Asia Minor

Kedar was a wandering bedouin tribe of barbaric reputation along Israel’s border.

They represent the strange, hostility toward God,

It’s saying, “The world is broken. The culture hates God. I don’t feel at home here but I’m bound and I want out!”

Dissatisfaction

Discontentment

Rightfully So...

TOO LONG I HAVE MADE MY DWELLING...

Will you dwell in a deceitful land of hate...

Or… with you journey onward - further up, further in.

Will you ascend the hill to meet with God or dwell in lies?

MAY THE FRUSTRATION AND DISSATISFACTION WITH OUR BROKEN WORLD LEAD US TO PULL THE STAKES OF OUR TEMPORARY DWELL AND CONTINUE THE JOURNEY - FURTHER UP, AND FURTHER IN - TO BEGIN/CONTINUE THE ASCENT.

REPENTANCE

This idea of turning away from one thing and turning to another is where we get the biblical word, “REPENTANCE.”

Repentance isn’t a feeling

It’s not just being sorry for our sins.

It is an action

Turn away from sin

Turn turn and move toward God

ACTION | TURN AWAY FROM LIES

EUGENE PETERSON

“A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquillity, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.”

ACTION | TURN TOWARD JESUS, YOUR DELIVERER

Will you set your face to Jesus?

Will you take that first step

APPLICATION

WHAT LIES ARE YOU BELIEVING?

What are the lies most often in your ear?

Do you struggle to recognize the lies you are told?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FLEE TO GOD?

In what ways do you practice fleeing to God?

In what ways can you practice fleeing to God?

SERIES RESOURCES

PLAYLIST

Brokenness Aside by All Songs and Daughter (SING OR JUST LISTEN)

I’m a sinner

If it’s not one thing it’s another - caught up in words, tangled in lies

But you are a Savior and you take brokenness aside - and make it beautiful

Will you call me child - when I tell you lies

BOOKS

DEVOTIONAL (MEN & WOMEN)

COMMUNION

REPENTANCE

1 Corinthians 11:18–19 ESV

For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

1 Corinthians 11:26 ESV

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:27–32 ESV

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

JESUS OUR DELIVERER

1 Corinthians 11:24–25 ESV

and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS

NEW TO CROSSPOINTE

GIVING

SERIES RESOURCES

Books - Eugene Peterson’s ‘Long Obedience in the Same Direction’

Devotionals (Men’s and Women’s)

Audio Bible App - Psalms of Ascent Playlist

Music Playlist - Apple Music / Spotify is coming

COMMUNITY GROUP

Webpage - Connect / Groups (Button, Help Me Get Connected)

App - More / Groups / Find a Community Group

BENEDICTION

Psalm 18:2 ESV

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.