Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Augustine’s Confessions

In the very early Church there was an African man by the name of Augustine.

Perhaps, outside of the Apostle he is the single most important person in Church history.

Augustine, was not perfect, but he got a lot of things right.

Augustine wrote a book that shocked the world, it was called ‘Confessions.’

The reason it shocked the world is because of his brutal, unrestrained, honesty about his own sin.

When you read Augustine’s confessions you are brought on a journey of a young man struggling through pride, arrogance, lust, envy, idolatry.

Augustine goes where nobody really wants to go.

He takes you inside his mind.

And in vivid details described his thought life.

You almost feel voyeur reading it.

The thing about reading Augustine’s confessions is that it would altogether embarrassing if his story was any different than any of ours.

The difference between Augustine and you and me, is not that his life and his mind were any less sinful, it’s just that he understood of the power of the gospel and it made him unashamed to confess publicly what most of us just hide privately.

Personal

What I desire for this Church.

Authentic bold Christianity.

A people so intoxicated with Christ that love flows out of this room.

A people so full of the pursuit of Gods word, the study of doctrine, the filling of the Holy Spirit, that everyone takes notice.

Do you want that?

Sin will stop you from experiencing that.

Sin will numb you to God.

It will make a church relationship less.

sin will kill authentic Christianity.

Augustine has the keys.

But how many of us have ever gotten that real with God or that real with each other?

Context

Today, we continue our Sermon Series through the book of Psalms.

Remember the Psalms were the Song Book of Jesus.

These are poems and songs written by those in the Old Testament days that reveal all of the emotion and the fulness of life.

These songs are designed to get us to feel the experiences of the writer of the Psalm, and in turn to reflect on our own life and begin to sing the same song.

Today’s Psalm builds quite nicely off of last week’s Psalm 30.

If you recall in that Psalm we particularly lazered in on the idea that ‘God will graciously destroy that which is destroying us.’

It was this idea that God loves us so much that he will do the difficult fatherly work of rooting sin our of your life through discipline, in order that sin won’t kill us.

In a similar vein, David today celebrates God and praises God for the forgiveness of his sin.

I think the Main idea for today’s message is something like this, “The Deeper You Confess, the Deeper You Will Experience the Fulness of the Christian Life.”

Psalm 30 “A Psalm of David.

A song at the dedication of the temple. 1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me. 2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. 3 O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. 4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.

5 For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”

7 By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed.

8 To you, O Lord, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy: 9 “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the pit?

Will the dust praise you?

Will it tell of your faithfulness?

10 Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me! O Lord, be my helper!” 11 You have turned for me my mourning into dan…”

First: What is the Fulness of the Christian Life? (1-2)

The Psalmist begins with a loud and vibrant declaration of the truly blessed life.

It is not hidden.

It is not unattainable.

No matter your story, your background, your intellect, your pedigree, the blessed life is yours for the taking.

And it is found in something that only Jesus can offer you.

The Blessed Life is the life that embraces total forgiveness.

Psalm 32:1-2 “1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”

Three Separate Words For Sin

Notice the repetition of verses 1-2.

David uses three separate words to describe his sin and all three times he talks about his sin being removed.

Verse 1 uses the term “transgression.”

Again in verse 1 we have “sin.”

Then in verse 2 he speaks of “iniquity.”

Three separate words but when used in such quick sequence here in this Psalm they communicate one large truth.

First let’s look at them individually.

Transgression (Departure or Rebellion)

The first word is “transgression.”

You are blessed when your transgressions are forgiven.

This word literally means something like “a departure,” or “a rebellion.”

A transgression refers to something we do that is a direct rebellion against God.

What Christians realize is that underneath every sin, every wrong attitude, every unjust action, there is fundamentally a transgression against God.

This is why King David could cry out in another Psalm when consider all the sin in his life

Psalm 51:4 “4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight...”

Had David harmed others, wronged others?

Yes of course.

But he understood that all sin is first and foremost a rebellion against God, and that made David ache because he loved God.

Sin (Missing the Mark of God’s Law)

The second word is “sin.”

This word has the literal idea of an arrow missing a target.

We might say something like, “missing the mark.”

The emphasis on this word is that of not living up to the law of God that has been revealed to us.

We’ve missed the mark of the divine law

Iniquity (Twisting or Crookedness)

Iniquity has a rather literal meaning of “corruption” or “twistedness” or “crookedness.”

This word really gets at the that sin in relation to ourselves.

It is a corrupting of who we are supposed to be, of what we are supposed to be.

This word paints almost an image of twistedness.

You can imagine a Gollum-like figure that is twisted and its not right.

Well that is what sin does to us, it twists us.

Illustration: 300 Car Pileup

See, most of us don’t get this.

A few years ago I was reading a news article about a car crash that happened during a snow storm on a highway.

The storm was so bad and one car spun out and caused a collision with the care behind them.

But because it was icy, the car behind that car slammed on their breaks, skid on the ice, and slammed into the back of that car.

This began a chain reaction that eventually involved 300 cars skidding into each other along the highway and serious injuries all the way back.

300 cars.

Think about this.

The person who caused that car crash, they had no idea how many people were effected by their fender bender.

It was a blizzard outside, they probably could barely see 50 behind them.

They knew a few cars were involved, but they couldn’t imagine 300.

It was only once the blizzard cleared and the helicopters came out and provided greater vision on the extent of the damage.

In the midst of our, no matter how private we believe it is, there are deep consequences that effect not only people around you, but generations after you.

The Bible says, “I will visit the the iniquities of the Fathers to 3rd and 4th generation.”