Good morning. We're gonna be in Psalm 19 this morning. So if you have a Bible, yes And we're gonna be talking about the heavens declaring his glory. I was gonna share a little bit about the smoke And yeah, so Andy pretty much covered it.
So I should just pray and call it a day No, but before we get to that I want to talk about this right here. This is a rose if you don't know And I love roses my wife Sarah loves roses so much So that our daughter's middle name is rose and we're not alone in our affection for roses I promise this is going somewhere believe me. There are no roses in Psalm 19 though So don't go looking yeah, we're not alone in our love for roses are loved around the world They've been loved throughout centuries and centuries. They're a common staple in literature literature and poetry and music and there's good reason for that and if I was going to express or Try and understand why people love roses so much.
How might I go about to that? How might I go about discovering why people like roses? This is a feedback, huh? Fragrance.
Yeah, I smell it. It smells nice It smells like a rose, but yeah roses have a variety of fragrances They go from perfumey to citrusy to fruity all sorts of roses. Yes, honey Pretty colors. This one is pink.
I do like the pink of this rose. I cut this from our yard this morning Anything else I might do talking about roses or trying to understand why people like roses No, no, yeah Shape yeah, it's I love the the slender stem into the full bloom Sometimes their petals are arranged differently. They can be clustered very tightly together or more open Yeah, other things about roses anybody. Yeah Texture, yeah, absolutely.
I love the softness Contrasted with the sharpness of the thorns anything else you guys are crushing you have my whole list almost done yet Yeah, yeah, so they have cultural significance also right like red is a romantic rose yellow is a friendship rose I don't remember all of them, but those are two of them any other things absolutely any other things about roses you guys Do we have one in the back? Thorns yeah, the thorns are pokey. It's this contrast of the soft delicate with the sharp poakiness They defend themselves a little bit any others. I have just a color we have color again.
Yeah, yeah I do like the color blind, but yes My digital properties. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna also say like you sometimes taste them We put them into tea and drink them other things we do with roses are appreciate about roses. You guys are crushing it, huh?
I know I you can smell it if you want Sonny No a couple more so if this rose was still outside on the bush I love watching the bumblebees come to the Rose in the wildlife There's aphids on these things and then we have to buy ladybugs to come and kill the aphids So I get to watch like national geographic take place on this little ecosystem There also if I had some more time I get to watch this bloom or this bud Bloom into this beautiful thing and in about a week it would all die and fall apart and just become a rose hip So it speaks to this temporary fleeting beauty as well, and so it becomes clear why we like roses so much But there are other ways that I could approach describing the beauty of a rose and this is I promise we'll get there One is that I could talk about volatile organic compounds, which are the things that make this thing smell good I could also talk about rose oxides, which are like chiral Molecules and only like one fourth of them actually smell good We can talk about ketones and how those affect color and smell and those things I could rip this thing apart and put it on a slide deck and stick it under a microscope and look at it and see the cells that are Part of it. I could put it in a calorieimeters. That's right word and see how much potential energy this thing has I could give it to James McDonald have him throw it in a mass spectrometer and tell me what the constituent molecules are in this thing And what I understand the rose better if I did those things Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes.
I would have a different understanding of the rose if I did those things And the reason I bring this up is in relation to how I want to look at Psalm 19 as I've been studying Psalm 19 I've done a good bit of technical study in Psalm 19 And I was starting to leak into my sermon prep for this, but I think it's easy not that it's bad I am a strong proponent of technical rigorous study of the Bible absolutely So don't hear me bashing on that But I think it's easy to dissect the thing to the point where it becomes unrecognizable as its original self And so especially with poetry especially with the Psalms. I want to give a lot of credence to the form I want to give a lot of credence to the fact that this is poetry and so this serves as one a warning that this is not going to be a technical conversation on Psalm 19 We could do that we could talk about the chiastic structure of Psalm 16 through 24 15 through 24 Sorry, and how Psalm 19 is the centerpiece of that we could talk about how it's tied to Psalm 18 as an inclusio We could talk about the inspiration of superscriptions and the translation of them as well And if you want to do that, this is an invitation after the service. I'm happy to do that I'm even happier to point you to smarter people than me to talk to you about those things But that's not what we're gonna do and this also I just want to encourage you West side loves the Bible one of our core values is that we are scripture led and I know a lot of us love rigorous study of the Bible And I love that that is an awesome thing I want to encourage all of us if all of your Bible study is rigorous and feels like homework where you need to Dissect answers out of the text and rip it to shreds Probably take some time to just read the word and appreciate the word take some time to smell the roses as it were And on the other hand we don't all need to be biologists or botanists or perfumers to appreciate roses But all of us as followers of Jesus Christ I think should want to be Bible scholars to whatever extent we are capable So if you have no technical understanding of the Bible if you don't know how to Rigorously study the Bible there are a ton of people at this church myself included who would love to do that with you at some point I feel like I've this is a shout out to Amy Hickman She's not here today, but I feel like there's been several occasions where I just bring up Psalms Amy Hickman And she just knows them off the top of her head like in full and it's very impressive So if you want to talk to somebody about the Psalms, I recommend Amy Hickman She's on the hook now so with that though We are going to get into Psalm 19 and so I hope that even though it's not a technical conversation that it is still a worshipful conversation, so we're gonna get into this I'm gonna read it in its entirety and then we'll go through it verse by verse I'm reading from the ESV to the choir master a Psalm of David the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his hand He worked day to day pours out speech and night to night reveals knowledge There is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard their voice goes out through all the earth in their words to the end Of the world in them He has sent set a tent for the Sun which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs It's course with joy It's rising is from the end of the heavens and it's circuit to the end of them And there is nothing hidden from its heat the law of Yahweh is perfect reviving the soul the testimony of Yahweh is sure making wise the simple The precepts of Yahweh are right to rejoicing the heart the commandment of Yahweh is pure enlightening the eyes The fear of Yahweh is clean enduring forever the rules of Yahweh are true and righteous altogether more to be desired or they've been gold Even much fine gold sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb moreover by them is your servant warned and keeping them there's great reward Who can discern his errors declare me innocent from hidden faults keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins Let them not have dominion over me then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression But the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Yahweh my rock and my Redeemer amen Hey, we'll take it.
All right. Let's get into it Psalm 19 starting at verse one now. I made him Did I know I didn't make a mistake? I thought I did I want to talk real quickly about the Bible I know a lot of us are very familiar with this book But some of us are probably less familiar with this book and so as we get into the Psalms There are weird things at the beginning of the Psalms and those are called superscriptions We're not gonna get too far into it But in my Bible Psalm 19 the top of it says the law of the Lord is perfect and then under that It says to the choir master a Psalm of David.
Do you guys have something similar in your Bibles? Yes, so when we talk about the Bible we hear myself included believe that this is the inspired word of God But with that not every word in here is the inspired word of God and so that first title The law of the Lord is perfect is something that humans put in there as an addition to try and clarify things But the second part is not like that this second part exists on all of our oldest manuscripts It has been regarded as scripture throughout history So these commandments they come consistently through the Psalms to the choir master a Psalm of David is in fact The Word of God if you want to talk about that I'm happy to if you want to argue about that I'm happy to as well But let's get into the meat and potatoes of it the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his hand You work now I want to pause here for a moment and just talk about the glory of God like Andy did this morning I want to ask when you hear the word glory. What is it that you think of? His Majesty of his creation his hand he worked the mountains.
I love it. Yeah, anything else that you think of when you think of the word glory beauty Majesty Happiness and joy wait who said wait? Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did we had magnificent Magnificent power.
Yeah, these are all great splendor is one that also gets brought up frequently with glory But if we're gonna be talking about Hebrew which is the language This is written in the word for glory is Cavode which means wait God is weighty God is heavy and this is an image that we use to this day, right? I if I have to have a serious conversation with somebody I might say that it's going to be heavy if somebody is Demanding of my respect. I am going to say they are not to be taken lightly. We use this metaphor of weight To demonstrate to describe the significance of something how important it is how much respect it commands And our God is a heavy God.
He's the heaviest God not in terms of weight But in terms of how much respect he deserves and the heavens are declaring that to us now I want to pause also real quick and talk about the heavens for a second now When you think of the heavens you might think of a couple of different things one of those things being Placed with pearly gates and golden streets and it probably has clouds for bushes or something like that And there's a throne and God sits on it and that is a fine idea of heaven those images are in the Bible But there's another image of heaven in the Bible and it is simply the sky above us And I think this Psalm is clearly referring to the latter It is referring to the one that we see over and over again if it was referring to the heaven with the pearly gates We don't get to see that so it not be doing a very good job of communicating to us day by day But beyond that beyond heaven being a place as often as it is a setting if not more often than not Heaven is a character in the Bible heaven acts in the Bible and so does the earth in the Bible It's actually very cool if you want to read your Bible and look for what the heavens and the earth's do the earth does I would highly recommend it, but what is the heaven doing here? It is declaring it is declaring the glory of God Can you guys think of anything else in the Bible that the heavens do? No, no perfect perfect. Okay, I'm gonna show you something else that the heavens do now If I was going to ask you if I in Bible times Hopefully today wanted to accuse something of someone of a problem.
I wanted to accuse Andy of wrong doing What would I need in the Bible? Does anybody know? Two or three witnesses you need at least two witnesses in the Bible to make an accusation against someone Evidence evidence is less of a thing in the Bible The witnesses are more of the thing that the Bible is concerned with we get this from the book of Leviticus And so we need two witnesses Oh, excess. Oh, this is the glory.
Okay, I'm going back We're talking about glory for another second Moses said please show me your glory and he said I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My name the Lord and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy But he said you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live and the Lord said behold There's a place by me where you shall stand on the rock and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock And I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back But my face shall not be seen so this is the glory of Lord It is so glorious that if you look directly in his face you will surely die All right, that is how heavy our God is but moving on into Deuteronomy a single witness shall not suffice against a person for any Crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses Shall a charge be established so how many witnesses do you need two or three but at least two right? And my question is who is guilty of wrongdoing in the Bible? Everyone we have a yes, we have an everyone. There's one guy who's not you can argue for a couple more But there's at least the one guy who's not but otherwise it's all of us We have all broken covenant all of Israel broke covenant and God doesn't seem to have different rules for himself as he does for his people And so when God brings an accusation against his people what does he need?
Witnesses he needs a couple of them and he happened to make them at the very beginning of your Bible in the beginning God created the heavens And the earth and we tend to just think at least I tend to just think of like oh he created sky and ground cool Let's move on to the next things but these characters continue to show up throughout the Scriptures and perform actions and one of those key actions That we also see in Deuteronomy is I call the heaven and the earth the witness against you today that I have set before you life And death blessing and curse therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live loving the Lord your God obeying his voice and holding Fast to him for he is your life in length of days that you may dwell in the land that y'all always swore to your father To Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob to give them so when God establishes his covenant in the book of Deuteronomy He says you are going to break this covenant and I have this against you he calls two witnesses and those witnesses are The heaven and the earth and they keep doing this thing they keep witnessing are evil our Failures are falling short of what we are supposed to do and that's a little scary Because it's hard to escape as we're gonna learn the heavens They're sort of all around us all the time but continuing in Psalm 19 verse today today pours out speech and night tonight reveals knowledge Now we are talking about the communication. What was that sure? Okay, so we can talk about Hebrew parallelism where I would say that these two things are equated They're both aspects of the heaven the day and the night are both part of what the heaven does and we'll expand on that a little bit As we go But I think that the things that are being shown the hand you work that is being shown is different in each of these things And we talk about the daytime. What do we see during the daytime?
The sign if you're looking up you're gonna get blinded look at the sun, but what does the sun show us? Everything around us right that which is created that is imminent to us the trees You go see a sunset you go see the ocean and its magnificence You go to the Grand Canyon and view its depth and just awesomeness and that is revealed by the Sun Where's the night was revealed by the night? The expansive above us the stars above us we have this transcendent Stave of yeah just stars that go beyond us that also cause awe and wonder for us So the day and the night over and over are declaring the handiwork and the glory of God continuing on there is no speech Nor are there words whose voice is not heard their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world So who doesn't experience the Sun in the world? You could be pedantic and say like Antarctica for a month, but the answer is nobody we all experience the Sun We all experience the day and the night these are testifying around the world all the time to everybody is the message and continuing in them He has set a tent for the Sun which comes out like a bride room leaving his chamber and like a strong man runs its course with joy Now I want to I want to pause here as well and talk about a bride room coming out of his chamber many of us are married I am married to my beloved wife Sarah over there.
I got married after 10 months of dating So kind of quickly we I called her on my birthday on April 28th And by February 29th of the net following year we were married and on our wedding day I don't remember all the details. I'm not good at that stuff, but I was excited I was not but grudging this duty that I had I was not Treating it like a chore I was elated excited looking forward to being united to my wife And similarly the Sun looks forward and longs to declare the glory of God We also have a strong man who runs its course with joy now This one may feel a little weirder to you This is the same word that's used of like the Nephilim or the great warriors of the Old Testament These are strong guys who are good at fighting and I don't know about you men But I would not consider myself a strong man I'm not the weakest guy in the world, but I wouldn't call myself a strong man and especially growing up I was quite small. There's been two instances in my life that I remember that I've passed out one was after a road trip I stood up and got a head rush passed out hit the ground But the other time was during middle school football. There was a kid named Mark Morris and Mark Morris I would say was a strong man.
He came from a family of Morris's Luke Mark and Jake who are all strong men And they weren't mean but they liked to fight they liked to show off how strong they were and I was small on football team He was big on football team. I played wide receiver and cornerback because I think mostly because they get hit the least I didn't like hitting and I didn't like getting hit so football was not a great fit for me But for the most part I could avoid these things But every once in a while we would do tackling drills and it was sort of just a random one person up against the other And then you cycle through lines and you try and tackle each other and at this point I'm probably 4-8 I would guess and Mark is pushing six feet I would guess And I am not looking forward to this thing, but Mark again nothing against this man. He's a as far as I know a fine guy He is looking forward to this He loves every minute of this and he loves it when he comes up against somebody his size And they like really clash with each other and so when I think of a strong man who runs his course with joy I think of Mark Morris who loves every minute of wiping me out He knocked a wind out of me and I did lose consciousness just for a brief time But it was a traumatic memory so the the Sun the Sun is not but grudgingly doing this thing The Sun is not just like well This is the job that God has given me to do to go across this guy and declare his glory The Sun longs to do this the Sun looks forward to doing this and the Sun does not lose joy in doing this thing It's rising is from the end of the heavens and it's circuit to the end of them and there is nothing hidden from its heat again It goes from one end of the earth to the other and there is no escaping the Sun It is declaring God's glory to everything everywhere And this is reflected in the book of Romans Paul writes the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people Who suppress the truth by their wickedness since what maybe known about God's plane to them because God has made it Plain to them for since the creation of the world gods invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from What has been made so that people are without excuse God has been revealing himself through nature to all creations that humans are without Excuse I struggle with this verse sometimes, but it is what God says so I'm going to trust it I'm now continuing on we're gonna take a bit of a hard pivot We're changing themes here a little bit the law of Yahweh is perfect reviving the soul now Does my thing up here look different than anybody's Bible? Okay, why?
Yeah, yours probably says Lord my actual Bible says Lord I edited it and I'm not sad about that now the reason that I did is if you're familiar with the Bible you know this I'm sure Andy has brought this up before but if you see capital LORD in your Old Testament It is Yahweh it is the name of God that was given to God's people at Sinai It is the name of God that he has asked to be called by his people It was replaced by Lord out of respect not wanting to take the Lord's name in vain so it's understandable But it is important. I think that this is of Yahweh anything else that looks different from your translation to mine up on the screen Torah, what's your say? The law this is another thing that you may be less familiar with but in your Old Testament This doesn't true of the New Testament if you see the law singular not laws the law it is almost always referring to Torah Who here can tell me what the Torah is? Yes, the first five books of the Bible Genesis access Leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy now How here can tell me how much of those books is laws?
Any guesses? No, the answer is very little of it. All right, Genesis has no laws Exodus you could stretch and say maybe has one or two laws Leviticus has laws for sure It's got lots of them numbers not many laws Deuteronomy not many laws So the bulk of the Torah is not law which is why I have chosen to translate it as Torah I think law misrepresents what this is about the Torah is God's instruction for his people And it is yeah more than just a series of laws to some of them It isn't narrative. Yeah, it's predominantly narrative that has how he predominantly reveals his instructions to his people absolutely The testimony of Yahweh is sure making wise the simple if you want to grow in wisdom Read the testimony of Yahweh the precepts of Yahweh are right rejoicing the heart I don't know how many of you when you read your scriptures rejoice in your heart I do sometimes but not all the time and I should do it more the commandments of Yahweh is the commandment of Yahweh is pure enlightening the eyes now We talk about eyes in the Bible there seems to be there is this theme throughout the Bible that our eyes aren't very good From the time of Genesis 3 which is the fall of humanity onwards our eyes are bad We don't see things the way that God sees things we see evil as good and good as evil We see ugly as beautiful and beautiful as ugly our eyes are bad So if you want your eyes to be good read God's word the fear of Yahweh is clean and during forever And this is like a ritual cleanness The same kind of cleanness that we have for clean animals in the Old Testament The rules of Yahweh are true and righteous all together more Oh, yeah more to be desired are they then gold even much fine gold sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honey comb now We've had these two distinct sections in Psalm 19 that are approaching a similar thing from different witnesses again What was our first thing that was declaring the goodness of God the heavens the heavens and I think expanded out to creation Specifically the heavens here, but creation Communicates the goodness of God and the glory of God and what's the other thing that is declared here or that is declaring here?
Not the earth not the earth this whole second section For a testimony precepts commandments fear and rules. What do these all get to I put it at the top? So word of God it is this thing that you have here your scriptures declare the glory of the Lord Both of these things are declaring how good God is to us and it's a beautiful beautiful thing now Why would we say that the this is more desirable than gold than fine gold or honey than honey dripping from the honeycomb? We have all the reasons here.
What was that? Everlasting life. Yeah, and how do we get everlasting life? This is Sunday school 101 Jesus Christ now, this is slightly technical.
Hopefully not too technical in the book of Psalms There are three Psalms about the Torah about God's instruction. Does anybody know the three 19 is one of them? One 19 is the famous one. It's all about God's word.
It's the longest chapter in the whole Bible Does anybody know the other one? Psalm one. Yeah, let's go. All right.
We have Psalm one Psalm 19 and Psalm 100 and 19 now This is my not too hot of a take but I think that beyond each Psalm being inspired by God I think the Psalms are collection collected in a particular order that is inspired by God And so can anybody tell me what comes after Psalm one? This is like bones. Okay, Psalm two is the yes well done If you tricky if they put in Psalm 1.5 right? Yeah, they're just quick patch in there No, can anybody tell me what Psalm two is about we talked about it last week Michael can you tell me?
Jesus Christ is thinking about the Messiah. It's about the anointed one of God now If you had to guess what Psalm 20 and 21 the chapters after Psalm 19 might be about what might they be about? Jesus Christ the Messiah. That's a good guess Michael.
Thank you very much now after Psalm 119 get Psalm 1 20 through 1 34 which are known as the Psalms or the songs of ascent and guess who they're about Jesus Christ our Lord and Messiah and that is I think the true reason that this is more valuable than gold than fine gold it is sweeter than honey we should be willing to trade anything for the word of God not To gain facts or anything like that But because they point to Jesus Christ the Messiah who does in fact lead to eternal life And I don't just say this Jesus Christ the Messiah says this as well He says then he said to them These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in a law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled Jesus Christ says this book is about him over and over and over again a second Corinthians 3 12 Through 18 getting back to this glory idea a bit since we have such a hope we are very bold not like Moses who would put a veil Over his face so that these your lights might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end But their minds were hardened for to this day when they read the Old Covenant that same veil remains Unwifted because only through Christ is it taken away? Yes to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts But when one turns to the Lord the veil is removed now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there's freedom And we all with unveiled face be holding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory To another for this comes from the Lord who is the spirit. So what does this tell us about Jesus and his glory? Was that it's great.
We get a look at it All right Moses had to veil his face But we are those who look at the scriptures unveiled and we see Christ in them and we look at God unveiled in the person of Jesus And not only that but we are being made more and more like Jesus Christ through his holy spirit So the glory that was his that was brought in Jesus Christ is now in and amongst us It's a beautiful beautiful thing this book that you have but only because of the person that it points to Also, okay, so this is the word of God. Hopefully didn't read too fast That was our second witness in Psalm 19, but what was our first witness to God in Psalm 19? The heavens the heavens do the heavens point to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior specifically Yeah, good. Yes.
Good. Yes. The answer is yes We have Matthew 2 1 through 2 now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king behold wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem saying where is he who has been born king of the Jews For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him So how do the Magi the kings of the east come to know that the Messiah has come to the stars? The heavens are declaring the king is here and they listen and they come to him and this isn't just an ancient example Like I said, I was gonna talk about smoke and the Sun a little bit I was driving home from Idaho with my family this week And it was indeed smoky on the way home But about as we got to the dows I could see a clear break in the smoke It was like a line in the smoke and throughout this whole time We could see the Sun but it wasn't shining as much as it was just a red Circle up in the sky obviously still giving us the light But it didn't do what the Sun normally does but I saw this break in the clouds and as we continued on the road There was a definite moment where the Sun was revealed from behind the smoke and maybe just because I've been reading Psalm 19 a lot It could be but you should read your Bible more and then maybe the more of these moments will happen But it gave me such hope in Christ Jesus that there is nothing that is going to stop his promises the day and night cycle Is a promise to us that God is faithful to us?
It doesn't work in that also if you want to talk about day night cycles in the Bible I'm happy to do that as well, but it's not just me The heavens are still declaring the glory of Jesus Christ this past Easter something kind of strange happened Does anybody remember what was novel about this past Easter? Was that the eclipse? I don't remember. I don't think so nobody nobody is a big moment for us as a country Lots of people paid attention to it nobody Okay, okay, the Artemis 2 mission was going on during Easter and I don't know if you know this But there was an Easter message a very short impromptu one given from the Artemis 2 on the other side of the moon Oh, which is kind of wild that you have a Christian who's up in space saying You are insignificant on that rock except that God says you are significant on that rock floating through space And he's made a special place for you because he loves you That's a cool thing that happened, but it's not just to him the heavens don't just declare the glory of God to his people They declare the glory of God to all people and so does anybody catch the interview afterwards from the Artemis 2 mission?
They're a lot of them. All right I'm gonna play it for you regardless of whether you have or not so so catch this And had a little bit of time to sit with it Do any of you feel as though you had an experience similar to what Mitchell described the sense of universal connectedness? And did you experience somehow a shift in consciousness somehow? Thanks?
Yes Chris it's a it's a great question. I'll just let the only thing I can do is just share one quick story when I got back on the ship I'm not I'm not really religious person, but there was just no other avenue for me to to explain anything or to experience anything So I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come visit us for a minute and when I walked in I never met him before in my life But I saw the cross on his collar and I just I broke down in tears like this It's very hard to fully grasp what we just went through and in these short You just said it's been a week since we've been back, but it's been a week of medical testing physical testing doctors science objectives I would like we have not had that decompression We have not had that reflection time So I'm basing this on what we saw and when the when the sun eclipse behind the moon I think all four of us I turned to Victor and I said I don't think humanity has evolved to the point of being able to comprehend what we're looking at Right now because it was otherworldly and was amazing The only thing I would add is I'd be able to thank first of all thank you for sharing that That was a really special moment I was in the bed right across when the chaplain came in and the only thing I would add is I am a religious person But everything else is the same It was there's something in there and as we start the process I'll have to tell you next week, but I haven't had a chance to really unpack it all yet Right it's incredible in my view and I don't want to make this bigger than it is as I was looking at There are lots of YouTube videos of like man experiences God on the other side or comes in contact with God But I also don't want to diminish what this is you have an astronaut who's clearly very trained in his field clearly very smart Who goes on this mission experiences the cosmos from a new perspective and his response is I need to see a chaplain And when you see the cross of Jesus Christ he breaks down in tears God is revealing himself God is revealing Christ the heavens are declaring his glory to us and to the people around us It's a beautiful thing. I don't think he's confessed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, but we can pray for him Because there's maybe some openness there. So what do we do?
What do we know? That's gonna play again? What do we do in response to this? Let's continue in song who oh oh more over by them is your servant warned and keeping them There's great reward who can discern his heirs declare me innocent from hidden faults keep back your servant also for presumptuous sins Let them not have dominion over me then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression So we start off with this rhetorical question who can discern his heirs and I think the answer to this Sometimes I can just turn my errors, but sometimes I can't sometimes I don't know the wrong things that I am doing And the Bible makes space for this if you sin accidentally Is that held against you in the Bible?
The answer is yes, the answer is yes in the Old Testament very specifically even if it's an accident a tome it must be made for you And so we might sin without knowing it we might have hidden faults, but we also have presumptuous sins and presumptuous Just means arrogant or overly confident So they're the sins that I know I'm sinning they're the sins that I know I'm committing and I do them anyways And I do those sins and I know you do those sins Hopefully we do them less and less, but we do them let them not have dominion over me Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression now who here? Is innocent from hidden faults and discerns their errors Not it not we have no hands who has been kept back from presumptuous sins and not let them have dominion over themselves Not it no all right who is blameless and innocent of great transgression Hey, man Jesus Christ that is consistently going to be the answer for today And it is consistently the answer for the Bible There's a reason it's the Sunday school answer and it's consistently the answer for the book of Psalms the book of Psalms is pointing to Jesus Christ And I am not that servant I have failed at being that servant But there is one who has not failed at being that servant and his name is Jesus Christ and he brings me into relationship with him and the Father And that's what we're all about let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight Oh, Yahweh my rock and my redeemer now I want to close with just a couple of things the first thing is how should we respond to this? We're not the Savior But I think there are good ways to respond to this song as there are to all the Psalms And I think one of them is to rejoice with those who are rejoicing it is easy for me And I'm getting increasingly easy for all of us to not spend time with the heavens And I'm not talking about like some hippie weirdness where you're like naming the stars and having conversations or anything like that But I think we should be involved with nature We should know the world around us the world around us is testifying to the glory of God And I should not be okay with sitting at my computer all day every day That's truly pointing at me. I am okay with that and I did not be and the other one is that I should be involved with the word of God It is more precious than fine gold.
I should be willing to trade anything to know God better when Jesus talks about a man It's a parable discovering the kingdom of heaven or a treasure in a field. What does he do? He sells everything he has to go and get that treasure And I should deal the same way not with like a physical Bible but with knowing God I should be willing to give up anything for this relationship with God and to know him better and honestly oftentimes I'm not I let other things get in the way so again I'm preaching at myself and I one of the profound things about that parable at least to me again talking about Jesus Christ As when Jesus saw a great treasure, which is us. He loves us so much.
What did he do? He gave up everything to come and get us. He gave up his position in heaven He gave up well He became a baby all for the sake of us He loves us so much and we'll get everything give everything to be with us And so I should be willing to give everything to be with him another Response that I want to have what the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight I was convicted this past week by my four-year-old my four-year-old Adelaide. I love her so much We talked to her about the scriptures quite a bit And so we were going to visit family and Boise and family and Boise are not Christians They do not have a relationship with Jesus But on this trip or before this trip, Adelaide was talking about her cousin and she said yeah, he's my cousin and my brother in Christ and Sarah was just like well, he's your cousin, but they don't believe in Jesus So he's not your brother in Christ and she said well why would they want to know Jesus?
I forget the whole extent of it but the end of the conversation was well, that's okay dad knows about Jesus So he can tell them about Jesus, which is just so innocent and beautiful and that should be my perspective I know about Jesus So I should tell people about Jesus this book is telling people about Jesus the heavens are telling people about Jesus Why on earth am I not telling people about Jesus now? This is confession time on our trip I did not talk to them about Jesus. I told the preaching group about it. I asked them to pray I'm sure they did pray for me because they're faithful guys, but I didn't do it I was unfaithful and I can make excuses for why I was unfaithful to do that but at the end of the day I was unfaithful to do that Thank God that God is loving and patient with me, but I am convicted of that on the other hand I was able at the memorial that we were at Another family member who's also not a Christian struck up a conversation with me about Jesus because he found out I was a pastor So I did get to talk to Jesus talk about Jesus to someone there So God gave me a little redemption moment, but I still need to talk to them about Jesus So that is my other Take away for you my thing that if the heavens declare the glory of God and the Bible declares the glory of God So should we we should be declaring the glory of God everywhere that we go and finally I just want to express That if you are here, and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior This is I'm gonna say it boldly.
This is God communicating to you. You are here. You're in a church Hearing the word God because God wants to be known by you You are on an oasis of a rock flying through space because God loves you and made a place for you And so if you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, I would love to talk to you about that There are other people that would love to talk to you about that as well So I encourage you to do that. That's all that I have so I'm gonna go ahead and pray for us again If you want to talk about more technical stuff, I'm happy to do that But let's pray God.
I just thank you for this day and I do thank you for your word I thank you that you desire to be known by us that you gave us your name to call you by and I pray that we would come Close to you that we would not keep our distance that we would not Cling to the things of this world, but that we'd be willing to give them all up for our relationship with you I think you also for the heavens that declare your glory and I pray for the people around us for my family For the families of those in this congregation to have softened hearts to hear your call to them that they might turn to you And find life in you And yeah, I just I do thank you for weddings that are coming up And babies that are coming up and for all these things that you've given to us that are so good help us to rejoice in them Because they're good gifts that you've given to us. We love you help us to love you more and thank you for loving us Since you just name I pray amen