Mercy from A-Z

Last night at Awaken, I taught from Psalm 136. It was the second-to-last message in a series called HeartBlog, a sampling of the book of Psalms in 15 weeks.

Psalm 136 is a unique Psalm – it repeats the phrase “His mercy endures forever” in every single verse (26 of them!). The phrase may seem a little repetitive, until you think about how much mercy you really need. When you grasp the depth of your sin, that phrase will become one of your favorites!

26 uses of the phrase made me think of the 26 letters of the English alphabet. I realized that for every letter I could use to describe sin, there is mercy to cover it.

God’s mercy covers us from A-Z!

Although the Psalmist did not have this in mind as he wrote, it applies to us today. Here’s a sampling of sin and a side dish of mercy to go with each one…

Adultery

His mercy endures forever.

Blasphemy

His mercy endures forever.

Complaining

His mercy endures forever.

Deceit

His mercy endures forever.

Envy

His mercy endures forever.

Fornication

His mercy endures forever.

Gossip

His mercy endures forever.

Hate

His mercy endures forever.

Impure thoughts

His mercy endures forever.

Jealousy

His mercy endures forever.

Kidnapping

His mercy endures forever.

Lust

His mercy endures forever.

Murder

His mercy endures forever.

Neglect

His mercy endures forever.

Offending little ones

His mercy endures forever.

Partiality

His mercy endures forever.

Questioning God

His mercy endures forever.

Resisting the Holy Spirit

His mercy endures forever.

Slander

His mercy endures forever.

Teaching another Gospel

His mercy endures forever.

Unbelief

His mercy endures forever.

Vanity

His mercy endures forever.

Watching evil

His mercy endures forever.

eXtortion

His mercy endures forever.

Yielding to temptation

His mercy endures forever.

Zeal without knowledge

His mercy endures forever.

God HATES sin.

I’m NOT saying that God just winks at our sin, supplies the appropriate amount of mercy to cover it, like Aloe Vera on a sunburn, then moves on. God HATES sin – it put His Son on the cross. However, because Jesus died on the cross, there is mercy to cover every sin.

Repent from your sin from A to Z, recognize that if it weren’t for mercy, you wouldn’t even be alive to repent, then receive mercy with confidence!

Sermon Leftovers #7: The Psalm 19 Challenge

Do you remember Show & Tell at school?

It was basically a chance to SHOW off and TELL everyone how awesome you are.

The best Show & Tell was something that everyone got to touch or take home with them: ice cream sandwiches, marbles, petting your rabbit – those were cool.

Honestly, nobody cared about the kitten sweater that your grandma made for you or that you’re “starting to get good at playing the recorder.”

Psalm 19 is God’s version of Show & Tell – it’s God on display through the world He created and the Word He recorded. The best part is, just like the best Show & Tell, we can take it home with us!

When I taught Psalm 19 last Wednesday, at the end, I issued The Psalm 19 Challenge. It has 2 parts:

1) Spend 15 minutes enjoying God through NATURAL REVELATION (creation/nature).

We all have at least 15 minutes that we can spend enjoying the sights and sounds of God’s creation. After all, “God’s glory is on tour in the skies…” (Psalm 19:1 – The Message). His fingerprints are everywhere you look. I challenge you to do this. Find some time somewhere in the busy-ness of life to separate yourself from technology and all distractions, and just take it all in. If you need an extra challenge, try counting the stars. When you can’t count any more, stop and think that not only does God know exactly how many there are, but He created them, knows them by name, and hold them in place!

2) Spend some time every day for the next 7 days enjoying God through SPECIFIC REVELATION (your Bible).

The world is a great, generic way that God reveals Himself to us, but the Word is a much more specific way. He lays out His plan and His love for each of us in a 66-volume masterpiece called “The Bible.” Most books that you read, you’ll never talk to the author, but the Bible is different – you have a direct line of communication with its Author. So, ask God to speak to you through it.

My prayer this week has been that people would experience God in a whole new way as they enjoy Him in these 2 ways. I also pray that our response to Him would be like David’s was in the closing verses of Psalm 19: repentance and obedience.

So, have you taken The Psalm 19 Challenge? I’d love to hear your thoughts…

HeartBlog: ROCK THE VOTE!

For 40 Wednesday nights over the last year, we journeyed through the Book of Acts. The time has come for something new and I’m really excited about it. Beginning Wednesday, September 22, we’ll be kicking off a new series in the Book of Psalms called HeartBlog. It won’t be an exhaustive study of Psalms (we will do that one of these days), but we’ll be spending about 15 weeks in the book. We’ll finish out 2010 with it and begin 2011.

As I’ve been reading through the Bible this year, the journey through the Psalms was one of my favorite parts. It was so revitalizing each morning as I read through and learned from the honest experiences and heart-cries of many great men. As I prayed about what was next after Acts, I couldn’t stop thinking about the Psalms.

Had the technology been available in David’s day (author of at least 73 of the 150 Psalms), I believe that reading the Book of Psalms would have been much like subscribing to a blog co-authored by David, Moses, Asaph, and a few other great men. The Psalms are honest and open. Some are uplifting and full of joy, others are sorrowful and full of repentance. They’re real. They touch on a wide range of emotions and experiences and the Book as a whole is extremely practical and vivid. It’s basically a book of 150 blog posts written from the heart of each author.

Since we won’t be covering all of them, and there are 150 to choose from, I figured this would be the perfect chance for you to rock the vote and let me know which Psalms you would like to study! Now is your chance. For the next week (Wed, Sept 8-Wed, Sept 15), you have the opportunity to let your voice be heard. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog with your top 3 choices of which Psalms you’d like to study. And don’t worry – if you miss a Wednesday night study or don’t live in Clarksville, each message will be available in our teaching archive like always.

Make sure to join us and bring some friends as kick off HeartBlog on Wednesday, September 22. We’ll hit some very practical subjects and this will be a great study for people in all different places in their relationship with Christ.

So get to it! Thumb through Psalms and pick out your top 3, then let me know what they are. I’ll try to get to as many of them as I can.

Voting is open to anyone – whether you go to Awaken or not!