August 20, 2006: Psalm 27. One Key to Confidence

One Key to Confidence, Psalm 27, August 20, 2006

Big Idea: Seeking God we see His face and seeing His face we know His peace.

She was a world class ballerina who in the words of Martin Laird could blow like silk across the stage…

She was light and grace in human form…

But her own inner life was a stark contrast to the light and grace she personified on stage…

She was an obsessive perfectionist…

Over and over again in her mind, she played a dvd about the fact that she wasn’t up to standard. Not in her ballet. Not in any area of her life…. and at night she’d grind her teeth… And she was angry… her anger registered in a clenched jaw and body completely free of any trace of fat… She was afraid of what the critics would say of her dancing. Afraid that her husband might one day leave her, afraid of being alone.

She had lots of dvd clips from her childhood… One day as a child she sat in her bedroom looking at herself in the mirror. Her mother opened the door and walked in said, “I hope you don’t think you’re beautiful.” In each season of her life… as a young girl, an adolescent girl, a young adult, as a mature woman—she was beautiful, but she believed she was ugly.

When she was a teenager she won a highly prized scholarship to study ballet and her mother said, “Why would they give you that? Everyone knows you have two left feet.”

And though she has danced to the rousing applause of people all over the world, she believes she’s a klutz with 2 left feet.

She took long walks in the Yorkshire moors of Great Britain. If she walked long enough, her mind would begin to settle, her throbbing anger, fear, and pain would start to ebb away.

She described how on one occasion, her anxiety began to drop like layers of scarves,

Suddenly she was aware of a sacred presence upholding her and everything.

While this dramatic experience happened only once, it drew her into the way of prayer.

She discovered there was something deeper in the universe than her anxiety and fear.

All of us, unless we living secluded on a deserted tropical island, relating closely to no-one, have things in our life that we are or could be anxious about. Like that world class ballerina, it maybe we’re afraid of failure, or of not looking a particular way, or afraid of being alone…

Or maybe our fear has to do with our health or the health of a loved one, or fear of the seemingly escalating terrorism in the world.

As that ballerina found solace in God through her prayer walks, so can we…

This morning we’re going looking at the life of someone, who objectively speaking, was experiencing a great deal more stress that most of us here.

He senses that he’s about to be surrounded by enemies who plan to kill him…

And, though this may not be a likely scenario, he plays out the in his mind the possibility of his parents disowning him.

We’re going see how this person through God finds confidence and peace.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Psalm 27, a Psalm of David, written apparently during a time when is in great danger. David is this young man with extraordinary leadership potential, he’s bright, attractive, a fearless warrior, has a heart for God… and he’s seen by the King Saul as a rival to his throne, so King Saul and his army are on search and destroy David mission.

Listen to David’s affirmation of faith and his prayer:
Of David.
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When the wicked advance against me
to devour me,
it is my enemies and my foes
who will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me,
even then I will be confident.
4 One thing I ask from the LORD,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
and set me high upon a rock.
6 Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his tabernacle I will sacrifice with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make music to the LORD.
7 Hear my voice when I call, LORD;
be merciful to me and answer me.
8 My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"
Your face, LORD, I will seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me,
do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
God my Savior.
10 Though my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will receive me.
11 Teach me your way, LORD;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.
12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
spouting malicious accusations.
13 I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

In this Psalm David anticipates he will be attacked by enemies, it may well be this context is one where King Saul and his army are hunting him down.

David is in this place where he senses as we seen in vs. 3 that he may be besieged by an army and that war will break out against him and David proclaims…

God is my light and salvation whom shall I fear?

The LORD is the stronghold of my life of who shall I be afraid?

When wicked enemies advance against me, even then I will be confident…

David in the face of great physical danger has confidence because his heart is focused on God his light, the one who overcomes the darkness, on his salvation, the one who delivers…

David also faces the possibility of great relational pain…

He even if my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me…

We have no significant evidence that he was forsaken by his father and mother, but at least he’s playing out this potential scenario in his mind.

How can David have peace under such adversity?

Because his mind in stayed on God.

Isaiah 26:3 tells us that God will keep in perfect peace the one who’s mind in stayed on God…

Notice HOW David focuses on God.

vs. 4:

4 One thing I ask from the LORD,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.

Not only does David seek the beauty of the Lord vs. 4, not only does David seek God’s face… as we see in vs. 8.

He says, ONE thing I ask from the Lord… This only will I seek…

When we, like David, seek God as our “one thing” we become people who don’t just experience God in a general way but we become people who see God.

Jesus said in Matthew 5, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God…

Purity of heart in the Hebrew culture, meant an undivided heart…

The philosopher Kierkegaard picking on this idea said in his well known quote, “purity of heart is to will one thing…”

If will become people whose “one thing” it is to seek God, if we become people who are pure in heart, we will see God’s face and in seeing God’s we will know His peace…

David is being hunted down by an army intent on killing him, and in vs. 12 we know that while he believes God can rescue, he’s aware there’s no guarantee God will rescue him, so he prays please God don’t hand me over to my enemies, and David envisions in vs. 10 the scenario of being forsaken by his family…

People whose “one thing” it is to seek God, need not be afraid—they will know the peace of God.

Because in seeking God we see His face and seeing His face we know His peace.

But if our “one thing” is not God, but some kind of relationship security…

and we are forsaken by our parents…

or forsaken by our partner

or forsaken by our children, we’ll be crushed…

But if God is our “one thing” of course if we’re forsaken by our parents, partner, children, of course we’ll experience pain, and a certain level of anxiety when we’re losing something is normal, it shows we care, but if that something we lose is our “one thing” we’ll be full of anxiety, fear, and may want give up on life.

But if our “one thing” is to seek God, know peace.

Because in seeking God we see His face and seeing His face we know His peace.

If our “one thing” is our education or our career path and that’s taken from us, we’ll be crushed, but if God is our one thing… of course we’ll be disappointed by not crushed…

But if our “one thing” is to seek God, know peace.

Because in seeking God we see His face and seeing His face we know His peace.

If our one thing is our physical appearance or people’s opinion of us and that does down hill we’ll be crushed…

But if our “one thing” is to seek God, know the peace of God.

Because in seeking God we see His face and seeing His face we know His peace.

So how do we become people who’s one thing is to know and seek God?

Because we struggle over seeking “one thing.”

Ron Rolheiser is his excellent book The Holy Longing compares 3 women’s spirituality: Mother Teresa’s, Janis Joplin’s and Lady Diana’s…

Mother Teresa though frail looking, was described by those who knew her as a dynamo of energy, a human bulldozer, but was very disciplined woman, who life was focused on thing: God and serving God by loving the poor.

She willed “one thing” God and to serving God by loving the poor…

Janis Joplin who died from a drug overdose at the age of 27… Joplin like mother Teresa was a woman of fire and passion, and energy, a great lover, she said when sang in concert she said making love to thousands of people…

Rolheiser observes, that unlike Mother Teresa, Janis Joplin could not will one thing… she willed many things…. Her life was given over to creativity, performance, drugs, alcohol, sex… instead of channeling her energy she dissipated it… She died, in effect, died at age 27 from a lack of rest

Many of us here want in some way to be like Mother Teresa to will one thing: God and the poor, but we also will everything else too…

Most of us, in the words of Rolheiser, are more like Lady Diana, who was half mother Teresa and half Janis Joplin

Lady Di loved fashion, glamour, like being in the best restaurants in London, Paris, and New York, had affairs with “players,” but she was also friends with Mother Teresa, she had a love for the disenfranchised children of the world, particularly those victimized by landmines…

She was neither Mother Teresa nor Janis Joplin, but a bit of both…

She lived with a painful struggle of what to commit to… she gave to things that integrated her but also made choices that tore her apart…

Most us are of like Diana…we will God, but we also will many other things too…

We know what is to experience in words of my friend Elizabeth Archer Klein, the “Tyranny of the Banquet.” So many choices before, so many things we want to do…

How can we become people who’s one thing it is to seek God… For many of us seeking maybe a “good thing” but is our “one thing”?

One way we can become “one thing” people is by establishing a life rule, a pattern, a model for living…

Saint Benedict who was named Saint for the first 1000 years of the Christian church, lived in the 5th-6th centuries. Part of the reason why he was so influenced so many people was he wrote a document called the Rule of Benedict… that help monks to organize so they could seek God…

Anyone whose ever excelled in some of sport, art, craft: Tiger Woods, Yo-Yo Ma, Emma Thompson… live by a kind of rule…pattern…

Thomas Moore has written that every thoughtful person has a rule of life, or some pattern or model for living.

If we, like David want our “one thing” to be seeking God, we’ll pattern our lives to make that happen…

David in vs. 4. says one thing I ask of the LORD, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life…

Now it’s only the priests, those from the tribe of Levi, who could dwell in the house or tent of the Lord all the time, not someone like David from the tribe of Judah, not someone like David who was a shepherd, then a warrior, then a King… He was what we would call a “lay person…”

But David does to want to structure his life so can focus more intently on the face of God…

Now someone might say, isn’t God everywhere? So why do we need to seek God’s face? Yes, of course, God is every where and we’ll explore that more next Sunday from Psalm 139. But we are called as David points in vs. 8 to seek God’s face. We have been in the presence of Lincoln today as he has led us in worship, but if you really want to know Lincoln, you have make an effort to connect with him face to face… So it is with God, we always in God’s presence but in order to really know him personally and fully we must structure of lives so as to be able to seek God’s face.

Is there a rule a new pattern that we could establish with our lives to make that possible?

A rule of life typically includes: time when you will rise and when you will sleep:

Time to rise and time to sleep (this is something I’m working on. I fairly good at getting early. I’m not so good at getting to bed early, but I’m working on it).
Scripture (Always an essential part of the Spiritual diet of people who long to know God deeply. Sometimes it involves meditating on short phrase, sometimes it involves reading longer sections).
Solitude and prayer (words, silence)
Study (sacred and secular reading that opens us up to God).
Exercise and diet (the body affects the soul).
Work (work can be act of worship, we can under work and over work).
Sabbath (a 24 hour period or rest from “work, work…” students are included)
Play and Recreation (mellowness of heart key to a healthy spirituality so play matters)
Friendships, family, community
Service and Mission

Basil Pennington, in his book Centering Prayer, says A rule is not to be lived, but to be lived out of.

It needs to be built gradually.

If you leave this service, and say I’ve been a lazy bum! I been haven’t praying or exercising… Starting tomorrow, I’m going to start getting up 4 in the morning, I’ll spend one hour in prayer and an hour in Bible reading, then I’m go Stanley Park run the Sea Wall, then I’m come home make a really nutritious breakfast, then I’ll go work… I’ll come home by 6 p.m. eat dinner with the family, help Johnny with his homework, do my email, watch part of the ball game on TV, start reading War and Peace, and be in bed by 10 p.m.

If you try to do that what’s going to happen? You first day… you’re probably late to work… and sweating because you had no time to show… and up till 1:00 a.m. trying to do everything, the next morning when the alarms goes off at four, you hit snooze button, you pray while your dressing and going to work… The next day when the alarms goes off at 4, you’re unplug your alarm clock…. And you’ll give up…

The key to building a rule of life to build slowly… one category at time.

Is there one thing you can do to enable structure your life so that become more attentive to God?

It’s often said, if you can do something for 6 weeks a habit…

The rule will develop for every person, a single mother with 3 mother with small children rule will look different that some a single, retired man with no children.

A rule is not just adding more, but about subtracting too.

Jim Collins, a very insightful writer on organizational leadership has said, some of you need to “to do list” and some of you need a “stop doing list.”

If pattern our lives so that we can optimally seek God’s face and become people who will one thing… and we’ll become people of peace, because in seeking God we see His face and seeing His face we know His peace.

Like that ballerina, life David regardless the pain or our past or the adversity of our future, if become people whose “one thing” is not some good thing, but the living God, we can says with the Psalmist:

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

For in seeking God we see His face and seeing His face we know His peace.






Benediction:

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May He cause His face to shine upon you.
May He lift up His countenance and grant you peace.

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)

Aug 13. 2006 Windows into God: Psalm 19

Psalm 19 Windows into God August 13, 2006

Big Idea: Creation reveals God’s power, the Word his person. KSS

This past summer Sakiko and I were driving on winding country roads in Burgundy, France passing vineyards and occasionally a field of sunflowers.

It’s was cool to see the sun flowers all facing the direction of the sun…

and when it was cloudy, the sunflowers would all droop their faces…

As a sunflower was made to open to the sun, so you and I were made to open to God…

In Psalm 19, David, the warrior-poet of Israel, gives us two windows into the reality of the one for whom we were made.

If you have your Bibles please turn to Psalm 19 (near the middle of your Bible).

The Psalms were the ancient hymn book or prayer book for the people of Israel…. and serve as an ideal guide for our prayers.

I sometimes find that I don’t know what to pray or that I’m distracted in my prayers and the Psalms help to focus my prayers… (and they can for you as well).

Psalm 19: C.S. Lewis considers this to be the greatest poem in the Psalms…
Psalm 19
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
[a] 1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
5 which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the LORD are sure,
and all of them are righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb.
11 By them your servant is warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.
14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
In the first section of this Psalm, David speaks of how the heavens declare the glory of God and how the skies (or expanse above) proclaims the work of God’s hands…
Day after day they pour forth speech and night after night they display knowledge…
Like many of you, I live here in the city. There’s a street light in front of our house, one on the side of our house (we live on a corner), and street lights in our back alley. So, it’s never completely dark.
But when I’m out in some place in the interior, on a clear night, I love to stare up at the star spangled sky…
Sometimes I think of the words of Abraham Lincoln, “I can see how it might be possible for a man (or woman) to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how you could look up into the heavens and say, “There is no God.”
Sometimes I think of the words of Rick Bragg, a journalist who grew up in the Deep South, which he describes as the kind of place where grandmothers sit on their front porch, rocking their babies to sleep and pointing up at the stars and saying, those are holes in the floor of heaven…
David, perhaps under star spangled night in rural Israel or maybe under an indigo blue sky in the afternoon, says the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of God’s hands…
Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge, they have no speech, they use no words, no sound is heard from them…Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
David goes onto say…
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun…
5 which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
David here isn’t attempting to make a scientific explanation of the movement of the sun but as a poet, he describes the movement of the arc of the summer sun as he sees it—like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber…
David was from the small village…. He may be envisioning a scene where the groom, dressed in his finery, leaves his home accompanied with his friends and walks through the streets to his bride’s family to deliver the bride price and receive the father’s permission to marry. The whole village would be on the streets to witness the joy of the groom making his way to the home of his bride.
David says, the summer sun is like the bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion, in peak stride, running his or her course….
The arc of the sun, the moon, the movement of the stars all reveals something of the glory of God…
Is there a place, part of creation (where you’ve been or maybe just seen in a photograph of) that takes your breath away?
Think about that place for a moment…
Look in your minds eye…
Now think of what it tells you of its maker….
Part of way we come to know the character of God is through creation…
Philip Toynbee, as he was coming to faith in God, wrote in his journal:
The basic command of religion is not “do” or “do not do that”
But simply “look.”
“Absolute attention is prayer,” said Simone Weil.
By looking at what God has made we get a glimpse into the character of God.
This past summer, my wife and I had an opportunity to visit an art gallery in Paris called the Musee du L’Orangarie closed for 6 years and recently re-opened.
We were told it was worth seeing, but didn’t know what was inside… and we walked into a large, elegant, white, oval shaped room. As we looked, almost 360 degrees around us on the walls were original murals painting by Monet of the water lilies in his garden… (the paintings were about the length of movie screen and about 1/3 the height). We walked into another large oval shaped room… Again paintings of Monet’s gardens, for nearly 360 degrees. Walked into another oval room: more of Monet’s garden painting all around us, and another room and more of his garden paintings.
I found out later that Claude Monet had in his final will and testament requested that these masterpieces painted at the end of his life would be placed in a setting that would create “a haven of peaceful meditation,” for modern men and women and for their “overworked nerves.”

I know many of us probably think of Monet’s work as a cliché because his work is reproduced in so many places, but there’s something about walking into the oval rooms at Musee de L’Orangerie and seeing his original work in 360 degrees that will elevate your opinion of his gift.

When we step into the gallery of creation, particularly a part that has not been spoiled by we humans that space can speak to us of the power, creativity, and artistry of our maker…

Paul in Romans 1:20 says that since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature have been seen through what he has made…

The world can offer us a window in the reality of God…

And so does His word…

Walking in the oval rooms at the Musee de L’Orangerie—I could infer that Monet was an artistic genius, you don’t have to be an art critic to understand that… but beyond that I still don’t know much about him personally… If I could read stories about how he interacted with people, if I could get a copy of journals and see what he was thinking and feeling, I could come to know much more about him…

And in the same way, when we walk into the gallery of nature we can infer something of the creativity and power and artistry of God, but there’s a lot we still don’t know…

And that’s why we also need the Word that tells stories about God and “journals” that give us windows into God’s mind and heart.

Nature is a window into God that gives us a general picture, but if we want to know God personally and fully we also need the book that contains the “stories, the journals.”

David acknowledges creation reveals God, but the Word reveals God’s person.

It’s interesting in the Hebrew that when David speaks of God being revealed in creation he uses, the term Elohim, the general word for God, the divine… but when he talks about God being revealed in the WORD, he use God’s personal name, Yahweh, translated “LORD” in caps in our English versions…

Creation reveals God’s power, the Word God’s person.

Notice vs. 7
7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul (or innermost being)
I think some people think the law of God… as being constrictive and deadening…
Earlier in the summer, I was giving a series of chapel talks at a private Academy in the Philippines, where many of the students are from backgrounds that are not Christian.
I was doing a Q and A in a grade 11 class and a student Diana stood up and she asks… she said at the chapel this morning you said that living for God is the greatest life in world, but God has rules… so how can that be?
I said, as a fish was made for water so you were made to live in a way that is consistent with God’s principles. A fish is restricted to water, but in that limitation the fish is free. So it is with us, when we live in way that is consistent with the way God made us our soul is revived, our relationships and work flourishes.
Creation reveals God’s power, God’s Word reveals his person and will.
David says…
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
We tend to think of the simple person as naïve… Particularly in an urban context, noone wants to be considered naïve… In Hebrew the range of the word “simple” can mean simple in the sense of not having grown up and matured, but it can also refer to those who don’t know ways of God.
A professor of political philosophy at the University of Chicago was saying how every one of his cousins had doctors either Ph.Ds, or D.Eds, or M.D.s
His tone was respectful, but he said my cousins are bright and well educated, but the not wise…
He said, I have these great, grandparents… they didn’t have much formal education at all… they lived very simply, honor certain traditions, about the only book they really knew was the Bible, they read it everyday… They were not very sophisticated in worldly sense, but they were wise…
Education is a gift, but even if you don’t have much or formal education, this book can make you wise, in the most ways: as you get to know about your maker and your design and purposes and what makes a person truly wealthy…
Creation reveals God’s power, God’s Word reveals his person, his mind
David says…
8 The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
The image of light to the eyes simply means that the Word enables us to see. As Jesus said, in Matthew 6 if your eyes are healthy your whole body will be full of light, meaning if your eyes are healthy they let light in and you can see… If your eye is unhealthy they will not let in light you can’t see…
God’s word causes our eyes to receive light so we can see…
C.S. Lewis Oxford scholar, and author of Lion, the Witch and Wardbrobe and many other books said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Creation reveals God’s power, God’s Word reveals his person, his persective.
10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
As a teenager, I used to walk around our house with a football tucked under my arm, it was very important to me… occasionally, when no one was looking, I’d throw the ball into a section of the couch, the football was precious…
Sometimes, in the house now, I’ll grab my Bible hold Bible like my old football, as a sign it is precious to me…
I know of some people who never put the Bible on the floor as sign of respect…
I know of some people who occasionally will kneel as they read certain parts of Scripture, perhaps as they pray a Psalm.
I don’t encourage you to be superstitious about the Bible, but is there any sign in your life the Bible is precious to you?
Reading 5x times a week would be a sign.
When I meet who has voluntarily memorized sections of Shakespeare… I think (if they are not in acting or in love) that they love Shakespeare…
One way to show respect for the word is to memorize parts of it…
David says the word is precious…
In vs. 10 David says:

they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb.
The word is sweeter than honey… vs. 8 gives joy…
Some of us grew up thinking, if it’s good for you, you can’t enjoy it…
I remember as a kid seeing this commercial about LIFE cereal.
Mikey, this finicky young boy who’s about 4 years old, and his older brothers 8 or 9 years old are sitting at a table for breakfast. The only thing they can find is Life cereal. One brother says, "It’s supposed to be good for you". "I'm not going to try it… me neither." The brothers say. The boys cast their eyes towards little Mikey strapped down in his highchair. They exclaim, "Let’s get Mikey. He won't eat it. He hates everything!" Mikey's brothers pour a bowl and add milk and wait. Mikey is chomping it down like it’s the last meal he’s going to eat all week.

The brothers say, “He likes it, Hey Mikey.”
The word is good for you, but it also brings joy…
11 By them your servant is warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
Thomas Cahill in his book The Gifts of the Jews, says obedience is its own reward…
There’s a kick to sin, but long term it breaks a person… as Dorothy Sayers says you never break the law of God you just break yourself over it…
Keeping the word has its reward… I have a very talented, accomplished friend. In a recent conversation, I encouraged to pursue what he’d be great at. He said, “I have no great ambitions in life, just one really… I want to be whole…” The Word can make us whole…
Creation reveals God’s power, God’s Word reveals God’s person and plan for us…

12 But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
When I was living in California, I became acquainted with a person named Tom Philips, then president of a group ministry called ISI, International Students Incorporated.
Tom has written about spiritual revival and has prayed that God would bring revival to his own life. Tom said, I confessed to God all of my known sin. And as far as I was aware, I wasn’t committing any known sins, but I would find myself driving or cutting the grass and weeping. Tom said, I think God was cleansing me of my hidden sins, the sins that I wasn’t even aware of.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
One of the images used in Scripture for sin has come from word harmartia, image of an archer missing the mark… We’re trying, but we don’t hit the target…
Another image of sin, comes from the word paraptoma, which can mean choosing to cross a boundary… The sign says, no fishing off the balcony of this beach front hotel, and we say, “what the hell, where’s my rod.”
We are morally responsible for both missing the mark and for intentional transgression, but according to the Bible, to willfully transgress, to cross a line, is much more serious sin, much more damaging to the soul.
I’ve committed both kinds of sins… I know there’s a much greater sense of alienation from God and myself when I have willfully transgressed….
The Psalmist says…
Keep me from willful sins
Then I will be blameless…
innocent of great transgression…
Blameless doesn’t mean absolute perfection; it does mean that we walk with integrity of heart… This is the way I want to live…
David senses, God’s power, creativity and artistry in creation, and God’s wisdom and will in his word. He longs to open to God, in way that a sunflower yearns to open to the sun.
So he prays may I keep from willful sin, he prays may there be no cloud between me and thee… And so David closes with these words
14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight…
Benediction:
May God open your eyes, that you may see God in everything… in the gallery of creation and in pages of his Word…

(The sermon can be heard online at: http://www.tenth.ca/audio.htm)