Don't be stuborn as a Mule with God 06-26-2022
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Does everyone know the story of Adam and Eve?
Who made them?
Where they lived?
What they did wrong?
God came to talk to them.
He asked them about their sins
Were they totally honest
when they told God about what they had done?
No they were not.
They tried to blame each other.
In Psalm 32 this morning the adults will hear about King David urging to confess our sins with integrity.
That means when we say, I did this
we don’t also say,
but it’s her fault
or it’s his fault.
Let’s Pray.
Psalm 32.
Psalm 32.
1 Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.
3 When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave
the guilt of my sin.
6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.
7 You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
10 Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.
11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!
Don’t be a mule
Don’t be a mule
How many of us love to be forgiven?
Is that a nice feeling?
Is that a wait off our backs?
The Bible called the man or women Blessed, when they are forgiven
when there sins are not counted against them
1 Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.
Have you ever been blessed,
that is forgiven by God?
It’s a good feeling to be blessed by God thru His forgiveness.
And what a relief it can be
when, your sin
when my sin
has been weighing us down and sucking all the joy out of our life.
You probably don’t know anything about being slow to repent and having your sin,
just suck the joy out of your life
but I know sometimes I have been stubborn that way.
So was king David. Here is what he had to say
3 When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.
Have you ever felt that?
The weight of your sin weighing down on you
making your life miserable.
It really can be like those hot summer days were you can’t sleep at night
because you can’t cool off enough to sleep or sleep well.
By day you just drag around
because you are behind on sleep
because it’s day and it’s hot again
The weight of our sin can pull us down like that,
if we haven’t dealt with if
if we haven’t confessed our sin to God
with true repentance.
Notice I said
With true repentance.
There is such a thing as false repentance.
verse 2 alludes to false repentance. let’s look at it again
2 Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.
Blessed is the person forgiven and
in their confession, there was no deceit.
There was no blame shifting.
The first living example of repentance with deceit or
blame shifting is in Genesis
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Adam admitted his sin, but was trying to put some of the blame on God and the dumb women God put there with Adam.
Eve then blames the serpent.
But it’s not just Bible characters who try to manage the situation and put themselves in the best light.
Haven’t we all done that at times.
Don’t children do it all the time when they are called to account about something they did wrong.
So when we confess to God
when we confess to our friends
or to our families what we did wrong
We wont get the full blessing
we won’t be taken seriously
unless our totally honest about our part
our sin.
But when we do that freely, without excuse,
here is what will happen with God and
could happen with our friends and family
5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave
the guilt of my sin.
What did God do
God forgave King Davids sin.
God really likes to forgive people and have restored relationships with us.
This is what he said to Moses
6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
God forgave sin in King Davids life, like the Psalm says
God publicly made a way for all to find forgiveness of sins when He sent His Son to die on the cross for us.
If you are honest with Him, and don’t play the blame game, God will forgive your sins too.
So here is the first command in this Psalm
6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.
So the command is to pray to God while he can be found.
That is, Get right with God now, and experience His forgiveness NOW!
By the way, a quick side comment.
Everyone has sin to be forgiven up
The faithful do and
certainly the unfaithful do.
But the faithful are encouraged to come to God for a remedy.
Really, if you come to God, then you will be considered faithful
And if you don’t, you won’t
Do the blessed people get anything more then forgiveness?
7 You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
So what do they get:
Forgiveness
Protection &
Direction
God promises to instruct us, in the way we should go.
It is one thing to be forgiven
it’s another thing to be protected along the way and
to be given direction in how to live.
If you have been taught how to live and have made it your way of living.
You’re not going to falter into sin as easily.
Chip Ingram shared in his video Wednesday night that he was secretly competing with his roommate to learn 60 bible verses better and faster then his roommate and he noticed that after memorizing about 30 of the verses, his problem with lust was greatly reduced.
God want’s to show us the way to live and give us the power to live that way.
One way to do that is to get god’s word in our heads and in our hearts.
Many in the class, including me, can see we need to put more effort into memorizing scriptures.
God’s Farmyard
God’s Farmyard
If you can imagine, God having a farm yard. Many animals might come and mind pretty well
When it’s getting dark, you can call the chickens, through some grain in the hen house and any that have not already gone in, will probably go in then.
and be protected all night from the foxes, possums, racoon and other varmints that would pray on them.
likewise many larger animals will gladly go into the barn for their eveing meal and lock up safe for the night, but not every animal is willing to come when called.
Neither are all people willing to come when God calls so here is some more advice,
another command.
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
Sometimes horse and mules have quite a bit of understanding
when it comes to what they don’t want to do.
A neighbor had a horse that bumped it’s head once,
getting in a trailer.
from then on,
it would buck and jump and shy away from the trailer
and of course it hit it’s head many times more.
Mules are also known for being stubborn.
Knowing what they don’t want to do
and refusing to do it.
The farmer may know that a huge storm is coming
or golf ball sided hail is headed there way
the agreeable animals will go get in the barn,
even thought it’s early but the
stuborn ones with an independent will
just might make the farmer
find them
catch them
make them get into the barn
Or have to leave them to suffer the consequences.
We can follow God’s way by the path of honest repentance,
or we can experience life like a hired hand,
roping us,
bridling us and
riding or leading us back to God’s shelter.
Self reliance is a good thing.
Except when it keeps us from getting help we need like
forgiveness
Protection and
Direction.
Verse 10 is somewhat a summary verses of what King David was saying already
10 Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the Lord’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.
Imagine the farmer with sugar in one hand for the horse that comes quickly and
ropes, bridle and spurs in the other hand
That is the choice we have
to come to God freely
Or to resist.
My advice to you is
11 Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!
Call the children back for communion
Let me tell you a story about some copper nails
Copper Nails
Copper Nails
There is nothing that so takes the joy out of life like un-confessed sin on the conscience.
Pastor F. E. Marsh was preaching on one occasion on un-confessed sin and urging his on his hearers the importance of confession of sin
and wherever possible, of
restitution for wrong done to others.
At the close a young man, a member of the church, came up to him with a troubled countenance.
“Pastor,” he explained, “you have put me in a sad fix. I have wronged another and I am ashamed to confess it or to try to put it right.
You see, I am a boatbuilder and the man I work for is an not a Christian.
I have talked to him often about his need of Christ and have urged him to come and hear you preach,
but he scoffs and ridicules it all. Now, I have been guilty of something that, if I should acknowledge it to him, will ruin my testimony forever.”
He then went on to say that sometime ago he started to build a boat for himself in his own yard.
In this work copper nails are used because they do not rust in the water. These nails are quite expensive and the young man had been carrying home quantities of them to use on the his boat.
He knew it was stealing, but he tried to salve his conscience by telling himself that the master had so many he would never miss them and besides he was not being paid all that he thought he deserved.
But this sermon had brought him to face the fact that he was just a common thief, for whose dishonest actions there was no excuse.
“But,” said he, “I cannot go to my boss and tell him what I have done or offer to pay for those I have used and return the rest.
If I do he will think I am just a hypocrite.
Yet those copper nails are digging into my conscience and I know I shall never have peace until I put this matter right.”
For weeks the struggle went on.
Then one night he came to Dr. Marsh and exclaimed,
“Pastor, I’ve settled for the copper nails and my conscience is relieved at last.”
“What happened when you confessed to your employer what you had done?” asked the pastor.
“Oh,” he answered, “he looked queerly at me, then exclaimed,
‘George, I always did think you were just a hypocrite,
but now I begin to feel there’s something in this Christianity after all.
Any religion that would make a dishonest workman come back and confess that he had been stealing copper nails and offer to settle for them, must be worth having.’ ”
Dr. Marsh asked if he might use the story, and was granted permission.
Sometime afterwards, he told it in another city.
The next day a lady came up and said, “Doctor, I have had ‘copper nails’ on my conscience too.”
“Why, surely, you are not a boatbuilder!” “No, but I am a book-lover and I have stolen a number of books from a friend of mine who gets far more than I could ever afford.
I decided last night I must get rid of the ‘copper nails,’ so I took them all back to her today and confessed my sin.
I can’t tell you how relieved I am.
She forgave me, and God has forgiven me. I am so thankful the ‘copper nails’ are not digging into my conscience any more.”
[1]Harry Allen Ironside, Illustrations of Bible Truth (Moody Publishers, 1945), 104–106.
Which reminds me
It was nails are what held Jesus to the cross.
We are going to take communion now.
Be sure to talk to God in your heart this morning if you are experiencing that
bone weariness of un-confessed sin.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 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.”
25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Prayer