What Fires Me Up About Grace:
- I am FORGIVEN ! (Ps 32:1-2)
- I have nothing to HIDE ! (Ps 32:3-5)
- I have nothing to FEAR ! (Ps 32:6-7)
- I have nothing to FIGURE OUT ! (Ps 32:8-9)
- I am LOVED ! (Ps 32:10-11)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
int: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Amen. Open up your Bibles to Psalm 32.
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Psalm 32.
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We're going through this series right now called, "God is Good." And when we get to the end of this series, that's what you need to take away with you.
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There's one simple truth.
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God is good.
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And it is the most disbelieved truth of the Bible.
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I mean, it's easy now when we're in church and we're singing on our laps, but Monday morning, when we're facing trials or the troubles are coming, we all have a tendency - myself included - we have the tendency to say, does God really care?
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Is God really good?
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That's why we're taking our time to get into God's Word to understand what it says about His goodness.
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You're like, well, what is so great about God?
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Well, the answer is everything.
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Because as it pertains to us, there's one thing that really hits us as being good about God, and that is His grace. We're going to talk about grace today. We talk about grace a lot in the church. What does that even mean? I'd like to explain to you first of all what it means by way of illustration so that we understand grace as a little different from some other terms that we use. I want you to imagine that you have a 16 year old son. Okay, some people in our congregation do have children about that age. So just imagine you have the 16 year old son and your 16 year old son goes to a party. And at this party there's another 16 year old boy that doesn't really care for your son.
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and things get heated up and this other boy kills your son. Now if you set out and track that other boy down and kill him, that's called vengeance. If you go out and track that boy down and bring him to the law, bring him to the authorities to go through the legal process, that's called justice. And through that process, if that boy was on trial and there was some some way that you could convince the judge to drop all the charges and let him go free, that's That's called mercy.
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But if you took that boy into your home, and you raised him like he was your own son, that's called grace.
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That's an illustration.
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There's definitions that we can give you about grace.
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Grace is getting something that you don't deserve.
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That's where it's different from mercy.
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Mercy is not getting what I do deserve.
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Grace is getting something that I don't deserve.
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But the best definition I've heard for grace is this, and I want you to jot this down.
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This is the best definition of grace.
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It's God giving to me what He requires from me.
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God giving to me what He requires from me.
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What does God require from me?
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He requires me to be perfect.
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He requires me to be righteous.
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He requires me to be holy.
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I'm not.
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I am so far from any of that myself, but God requires that of me.
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And in his grace, God says, "Jeff, I'm going to give to you what I require from you." And that's what God did through Jesus Christ.
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That God, through Christ, gave us the holiness of Jesus Christ.
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God gave us the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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He imputed that.
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He put that onto our account.
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So because of Jesus Christ, because of Jesus' work on the cross, through Jesus' resurrection from the dead, God gives me His holiness.
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That's getting something that I don't deserve.
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That's grace.
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I could go on and on with definitions, and honestly no one definition can really cover or how awesome grace is.
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So we're gonna look at a Psalm describing what grace means to me and what grace means to you.
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So let's look at what the Psalmist says.
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If you have your outline, the title of this message is "What Fires Me Up About Grace." I get fired up about some things, right?
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I get fired up about penguins hockey and I get fired up about a lot of sports, actually, if you ask my wife.
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But the thing that fires me up more than anything is God's grace.
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You're like, well, what fires you up about grace?
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It's all in this Psalm right here.
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Number one, jot this down.
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What fires me up about grace?
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I'm forgiven.
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I am forgiven.
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Look at verses one and two.
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Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
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Obvious point here, right?
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Very poetically put.
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But there's four words that you need to have circled or underlined in your Bible.
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Transgression, sin, iniquity, deceit.
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He's talking about sin, but he's saying blessed is the man that has this issue settled.
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And there are a lot of Christians that don't understand this.
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And there's a lot of Christians that are walking around without joy because quite frankly, they don't get it.
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When you put your faith in Jesus Christ and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, you are forgiven.
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It's not someday I hope that God forgives me.
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It's He puts me in a state where I am forgiven.
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I'm forgiven.
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Like, well, what if I mess up tomorrow?
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You're forgiven.
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All of your sins are forgiven.
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God has pronounced you not guilty of your sin.
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And I love how Isaiah talks about this in Isaiah 53, in verse six, but Isaiah says that we all like sheep have gone astray, each to his own way.
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And a couple of weeks ago, we talked about sheep, right?
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Like who's a sheep?
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Who's a sheep?
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Yeah, we're dumb sheep.
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The Bible says we are dumb sheep by nature.
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We're wayward, we're rebellious, we're defenseless, and most importantly, we need a shepherd.
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And Isaiah 53, six says, we all like sheep have gone astray, each to his own way.
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I love the second half of that verse.
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He says, "But the Lord has laid the iniquity "of us all upon him." And I'd like to illustrate that for you.
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Just imagine that instead of being a Bible, imagine that this book has written down every sin that I've ever committed.
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And it would have to be a much bigger book, okay?
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It would have to be several volumes of books.
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But we're just going to pretend that all of my sins are written down in this book.
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And you see, when God, let this hand represent me.
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When God sees me, what God sees is my sin.
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Like, look Jeff, look at all of the sin that you've committed.
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Now let this hand represent Jesus Christ.
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The Bible says in Isaiah 53, six, that the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all upon him.
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So when Jesus offered himself on the cross, what he did was he took my sin on himself.
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So now what does God see when he sees me?
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The answer is no sin.
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Nothing.
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He sees me as being perfect and complete because Jesus came along and took my sin on Himself.
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The Lord has laid the iniquity of us all upon Him.
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And you're like, "Well, that sounds fantastic." If you're visiting with us, you're like, "What does it look like when somebody receives He's that forgiveness of sin.
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And they want to give public profession of faith that they've received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
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What does that look like?
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It looks like this.
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Rachel Molchan from our church last Wednesday night making the public profession of faith in Jesus Christ through baptism.
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What a beautiful picture of baptism.
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You're identifying with the death of Jesus Christ and you're identifying with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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What's all the celebration about?
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The celebration is, I'm forgiven.
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I'm forgiven.
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God does not hold my sin against me anymore because of what Jesus Christ has done.
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I'm forgiven.
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And some people think that that's where grace stops.
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Like yeah, God in His grace forgave me, but grace goes way beyond that.
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We have more psalms to get through.
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But number two, write this down, to hide. I have nothing to hide. Look at verses 3 and 4. First of all, he says, "For when I kept silent," meaning about his sin, obviously, "for when I kept silent, my bones wasted away. Through my groaning all day long, for day and night your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer." Some of you can give first-hand testimony to this, but the most miserable person in the world is a Christian that's stuck in sin. True or false? The most miserable person in the world is a born-again believer that's stuck in sin.
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It's miserable. And see, here's the good news. It is a grace of God to pursue you.
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You see, he's talking about the guilt and the agony that he felt.
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That guilt and agony that you feel, that doesn't mean that you're out of God's family.
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It doesn't mean that I need to pray and ask Jesus to forgive me again, because we already talked about that.
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The forgiveness issue is settled.
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You're like, "So why is it that when I'm stuck in sin, why do I just feel so, 'Ugh!' Why do I just feel, 'Ugh!' Like, 'Ugh!' Why do I feel like that?" Well, the answers actually, I've got this reference down, the answers in Ephesians 4.30.
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As Christians, that's called grieving the Holy Spirit.
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In that passage, the Apostle Paul says that when we're in sin, what we're doing is we're grieving.
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He says, "Don't grieve the Spirit of God." We're grieving Him when we're stuck in sin.
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He says, "For day and night your hand was heavy upon me." Your hand was heavy.
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What's that like?
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Jesse, will you come up here?
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Will you help me out?
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Please?
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Ready, please?
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Thank you.
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What does it mean?
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It says, "For day and night your hand was heavy upon me." I don't even have to illustrate this, because if you're a follower of Christ that's ever been stuck in sin, you know what this feels like.
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The hand of God being heavy upon you.
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And you just feel miserable.
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"Why do I feel so miserable?" Because your heavenly Father has his hand on you and you're not involved in any sin.
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We're not gonna confess that here, but I'm not gonna put you in the spotlight yet.
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But if Jesse were involved in a sin that he's not dealing with, that he's not taking to the Lord, God's hand is on him saying, "Jesse, that's not who you are, man." See, the Holy Spirit within you is going, "You see, you're doing this, "but you know that's not the way of the Lord." And you feel the heavy hand of God upon you.
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And sometimes we kind of feel like, well, I'm just gonna step out of that.
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And God's like, no, I'm right here with you, man.
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You can't go anywhere.
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I'm gonna walk with you.
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I'm gonna walk, we're gonna deal with this, okay?
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This isn't who you are.
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This isn't how a born again follower of Christ is.
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And I'm going to keep my heavy hand on you.
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And we're gonna deal with this together like father and son.
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That's what David's saying here.
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In the hand of heavy, thank you so much, Jesse.
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The hand of God was heavy upon him.
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And that's why you have to understand there's great freedom in these verses because what he's saying is, you know what, I have nothing to hide.
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I thought in my stupidity/arrogance/whatever, I thought that I could hide my sin from God, and then I realized that God had His hand on me.
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He wasn't going to let me.
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I wasn't going to let me keep hiding this thing.
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There's great freedom in that.
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You don't have to hide anything.
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Because God knows.
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God knows.
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And if you're a born-again believer here today, and you're stuck in some sin pattern, whatever it is, whether you're involved in a relationship that you shouldn't be involved in, or you're looking at stuff on the computer that you shouldn't be looking at, or you've been taking some shortcuts at work that you really shouldn't be taking, and you felt that God's hand has been upon you like, "This isn't how we act.
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This isn't who you are in Christ.
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This isn't the way you are." I've got some fantastic news for you.
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You don't have to stay there.
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You don't have to stay there.
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What do I do about it?
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Well, look at verse 5.
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He says, "I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity.
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I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,' and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." Here he talks about confessing his sin.
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What does it mean to confess your sin?
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It doesn't mean that you go into a little phone booth without a phone and there's some clergy person on the other side, and you tell him what you did, and he's going to give you some prescription of "just say these things and everything's great." That's not biblical confession.
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What's biblical confession?
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It's just this.
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Biblical confession means I agree with God.
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That's confession.
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I agree with God.
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Because you see, when we're involved in sin, we try to rationalize it, don't we?
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Like this isn't so bad.
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Well, I can get away with this.
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I'm really not that bad.
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Confession is when you get to that place that you say, God, You're right.
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This is sin.
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You're right, God.
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I should not be doing this.
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You're right.
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This is wrong for a born-again believer in Christ to be acting like this.
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You're right, God.
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I should not be doing this.
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That is what confession is.
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Confession is saying, thank you for the forgiveness that you already purchased through Christ.
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God, please give me the victory over this sin by realizing that victory has already been won.
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So if you're stuck in sin today, you don't have to stay there.
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You don't have to stay there.
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God wants you to confess.
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He wants you to agree with Him.
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He wants you to thank Him for the provision that He's already made in Christ.
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He wants you to make things right with someone you may have wronged.
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And then, you move on.
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You move on.
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You deal with it.
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You trust God for what He's done to deal with it.
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Make any human restitution that you need to make - whether I need to apologize to you for the way I acted, I need to repay you for something that I took from you.
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You got to do that, do that, and then move on in forgiveness.
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I'd like to pause right now and just have a quick prayer.
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Because I really feel that there's somebody here right now that this is really resonating with.
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Like, yeah, yeah, I've been stuck, and I can't get unstuck.
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Well, today's the day that you can get unstuck.
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OK, will you just bow with me quickly?
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Father, I don't know people's hearts, but you do.
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And I would be foolish to think that in a group of people like this, there's not someone here today that just feels stuck.
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I know I shouldn't be doing this and this is wrong, but they've been foolishly trying to hide their sin when you've already dealt with their sin.
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And what you want is like a child coming to his dad saying, "Dad, I messed up." You're looking for that, Father.
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I want them to know that Christ has taken their sin away.
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And there's no condemnation.
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In Your grace, Father, You're going to keep Your heavy hand on them.
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Father, we thank You for that.
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I pray that today is a day of a fresh beginning for somebody here.
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Because they get to the place today where they say, "I've got nothing to hide." God already knows.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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So I'm forgiven. I have nothing to hide.
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Look at number 3.
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I have nothing to fear.
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I have nothing to fear.
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Look at verse 6.
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Not only is God not against me, but God is actually for me.
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Look at verse 6.
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"Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to You at a time when You may be found.
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Surely in the rush of great waters this month, reach Him.
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You see, if all of this is true about God's forgiveness and about the way God will pursue you even when you're in sin, if all of this stuff is true, if this is how God is, then why wouldn't I pray?
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See, he says, "offer prayer at a time when God may be found." The godly that he references here will pray to God How God has promised to answer.
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What He's saying here is the ungodly wait until it's too late.
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I can give you a lot of Bible passages talking about that.
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The ungodly wait until it's too late.
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They just put it off, put it off, I'll deal with this later, I'll deal with this later, I'll deal with this later, and then it's too late.
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They go, "Oh man, when is it too late?" Well, I can tell you this, it's not today.
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It's not too late.
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If there's something that you need rescued from today, fall out today.
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Look at v. 7. He says, "You are a hiding place for Me.
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You preserve Me from trouble.
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You surround Me with shouts of deliverance." These personal claims are just expressions of joy.
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I have this circled in my Bible.
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The word "Me" - do you see it in v. 7?
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It comes up three times.
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He says, "You're a hiding place for Me.
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You preserve me from trouble.
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You surround me with shouts of deliverance.
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You've got to get from concepts about God on a page, or concepts about God in a sermon, to this applies to me.
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That's why some people are walking around without joy because they haven't personalized these promises of God.
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Yeah, yeah, God is gracious.
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I see that in like Billy Graham's life.
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And yeah, God makes great provision.
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And I see that in my neighbor's life.
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Notice he says me.
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God's good to me.
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He's good to me.
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And we're gonna have a whole sermon about that at the end of this series.
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But God is good to me.
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But we can't ignore it because it's in the text.
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God's good to me.
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And because of that, I have nothing to fear.
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Do you know that there is nothing, there is nothing that's going to happen to you God's permission. Did you know that? God has said a lot of things in His Word, but there's one thing that God has never said, and that's "whoops." He's never said it.
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God's never been over here like, "I'm taking care of the Mastorinos here." "Oh my gosh, what happened to Mucko? I wasn't even paying attention!" That's never happened. That's never happened. There is not one thing that's going to happen to you outside of God's permission, outside of God's sovereign permission. Nothing That's why David says, "I have nothing to fear." I have nothing to fear because I know He's watching me.
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I know He's taking care of me.
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I'm not afraid of anything.
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He went from groaning earlier, verse 3, groaning all day long, to shouting, being surrounded with shouts of deliverance, knowing that God is for him and God is for you.
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So what fires me up about grace?
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Well, I'm forgiven.
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I have nothing to hide.
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I have nothing to fear.
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Fourthly, I have nothing to figure out.
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I have nothing to figure out.
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Verse 8 is a shift actually.
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God is talking in verses 8 and 9.
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He says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go.
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I will counsel you with my eye upon you." God's grace, He doesn't just forgive us.
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God doesn't just say, "Okay, you're forgiven in Christ.
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I'll see you when you get to heaven.
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Good luck figuring things out." Notice these words.
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He says that He's going to instruct.
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He's going to teach.
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He's going to counsel.
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And what that tells us is that God doesn't just forgive sin.
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God changes sinners.
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Like, well, as God's children, we always get it, don't we?
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We always do everything perfectly.
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We always have everything figured out.
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And we always do what's absolutely appropriate in every circumstance, right?
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That is certainly not my experience.
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Sometimes my experience takes me to v. 9.
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Where He says, "Do not be like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curved with bit and bridle or it will not stay near you." He's saying don't be stubborn or stupid like a horse or a mule.
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God says you're not an animal.
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You are a child of God.
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You have understanding.
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You're not an animal, but the truth is sometimes we act like it.
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Sometimes we act like we have no understanding.
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And I don't have a horse or a mule.
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Anybody here have a horse or a mule?
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Anybody?
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Nobody here has a horse or a mule?
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Okay, great.
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So it's not just me.
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So sometimes when you're reading the Bible, you're like trying to figure out like, I wonder what that's like or what that's talking about.
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And I'm reading this this week, and I'm like, well, this is kind of hard because I don't have a horse or a mule.
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But do you know what I do have?
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Children.
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And quite honestly, sometimes that's like having a mule.
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And I was thinking about this this week.
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The Lord says, "I want to instruct you and teach you, don't be like a horse or a mule." He says, "must be curled with bit and bridle." Basically, what He's saying is you shouldn't be like an animal that I need to snap the leash on to keep you close to Me.
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I was thinking about this week.
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we have family rules just like you have family rules, but one of our family rules is we call it the parking lot rule. You know what the parking lot rule is? When we get out of the car anywhere, like, "Don't run off boys, my boys are 10 and 9.
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Don't run off." Why? Because there's always some maniac flying through the parking lot like they're at the Indy 500. Like, "Don't run off. Stay close. I want you to stay close to me. I want you right here as we're going through the parking lot." Okay, we don't need to mow down while somebody's trying to do like the the Target 400 or whatever. Like, stay close to me. And if your kids are anything like my kids, your kids are probably perfect, mine aren't, they don't always stay close to me. So you know what that is, right? Like, if my kids won't stay close to me, I'm just like, you are staying close to me and I will take their hand and I will hold their hand across the parking lot. You're do that? It's because I love them so much that I'm not like, "Look, I'm going to give you some instruction. I want you to stay close to me, okay? And if you don't, well, that's your problem. It's I love you so much, I am willing to grab on to you and I will drag you across the parking lot instead of risking you getting hurt because I want you to stay close to me." And you see, folks, sometimes God's like that with us. Sometimes God grabs us by the hand and says, "Look, I'm going to keep close to me, I'm going to hold your hand across the parking lot and I shouldn't have to do this. You should know the way you should go. I should instruct you and I counsel you and I teach you, but sometimes you're just not quite getting it. But God says, I love you so much that I'm not going to let you cross the lot without holding my hand. Because I don't want you to hurt yourself. Sometimes he does that.
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Isn't that great news? Isn't it great news that God doesn't discard us, he deals with accordingly.
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That's why this is so fantastic.
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You know, being instructed, being taught, being counseled.
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That's good news.
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You don't have to figure life out.
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I wonder how we're supposed to do things in the church, and I wonder how God would have our household, and I wonder what kind of employee at work God would have me.
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We don't need to figure that out because God says, "I'm going to be right there and I'm going to instruct you.
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I'm going to counsel you." That is great news.
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What that tells me is I have nothing to figure out because God is my Teacher.
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And finally, I am loved.
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I am loved.
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Look at v. 10.
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He says, "Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord." So the choice is laid out.
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You can enjoy everything that he's been talking about in this psalm as a child of God.
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Or, you have the option of forfeiting all of this.
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You have the option of not receiving Christ by faith.
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You have the option of rejecting God.
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You have that option.
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But taking that option means you're still guilty of sin.
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You're still going to live in shame.
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You're going to live in fear.
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You're going to constantly be trying to figure things out on your own.
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That's why he says for the people that want to reject the grace of God, he says many are the sorrows of the wicked.
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Without Christ there's not only no hope for eternity, but you don't have hope in this life either without Jesus Christ.
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But look at verse 11.
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But be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
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But if you are in the Lord, stand up with me please.
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If you are in the Lord, if you're in the Lord, let's get some music going here.
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If you're in the Lord, who is ready to celebrate?
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Is there anybody here today that can say, "I'm forgiven"?
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Is there anybody here that can say that?
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I am forgiven in Christ.
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Let me hear you.
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Anybody here forgiven in Christ?
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Come on.
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Are you free from sin and death?
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Are you free?
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Come on.
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Does grace fire you up?
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Is there anybody here today that says, "You know what?
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I got nothing to hide.
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God loves me and he deals with me when I say this." Is there anybody here that can say that?
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Come on.
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Is there anybody here today that says, "I got nothing to fear.
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When I walk out these doors today, there's nothing that's going to happen to me outside of God's permission.
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Anybody here say, "I got nothing to fear, nothing to fear." Is there anybody here today that says, "You know what?
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I am so glad I don't have to figure life out.
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God is my counselor and God is going to protect me no matter what." Anybody here glad that the Lord is your counselor?
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And then is there anybody here that says, "You know what?
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I'm loved.
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I am loved and you know what?
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I've felt a lot of times in my life that I wasn't loved, but I see God in his word has revealed that he loves me with an infinite and eternal love.
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Is there anybody here that says, you know what fires me up about grace?
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I am loved.
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Anybody, anybody?
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Well, the psalmist says what we need to do in response is to be glad and to rejoice and to shout.
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Are you ready to shout?
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Are you ready to shout?
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Let's get fired up about Grace, come on!
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Psalm 32
Define "grace" - what does it mean and what does it mean to you?
God has promised to instruct you and teach you (Ps 32:8). How does He do that? How has He been doing that for you?
Share a personal testimony of why YOU are thankful and celebrate God's grace!
Breakout Questions:
Confess anything you have tried to hide from God. Pray for one another.