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Written by Super User

Published: 08 December 2013

1 Corinthians 9:1-27

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

1 Corinthians 9:24-25

is the take away from this that faith in Jesus is always characterized by success snatched out of jaws of defeat,

is the guarantee we'll win whatever races we enter into in life if we follow Jesus

No matter how many people we have to step over

One thing we know about life is to expect hardship

Like with what Paul does this morning
The Christian faith isn't about coming first
It's about finishing the race not giving up or giving in

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Written by Super User

Published: 03 November 2013

Ephesians 4:1-6

When the heats on - the tensions high
You can fight, you can take flight - or you can pursue peace.

In those moments do we ever think that God has place at the centre of it

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Written by Super User

Published: 27 October 2013

Colossians 1:15-20

do you ever find yourself wondering about God's priority or even his passion for peace.If you ever want to see just how hungry people are for peace next time you get a chance type "peace" into Google.millions of websites out there devoted to peace.they're a mixed bag of formulas for finding it. Nearly all of them tell you peace comes only with my effort to resolve conflict and get along with others. The classic win-win formulae of conflict resolution

Even though some of these efforts encourage temporary peace, few can report genuine, lasting results. nearly all of them fail to address the ultimate reason there is so little peace in this world. Most of these approaches are described all too well by God's indictment in Jeremiah 6:14,

"They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace."

Fortunately, we don't need to sort through 632 million pages on the internet to find the path to real peace.

God has

With the only path to genuine, lasting peace.
beautifully described in Colossians 1:15-20:

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

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Written by Super User

Published: 21 October 2013

1 Corinthians 7:1-40

In a recent poll to discover which magazine
had the highest male readership in Australia.

What do you think it was?

I can tell you what it wasn't Not Sports Illustrated, or Time Magazine not National Geographic, or That's Life

It was you guessed it - The Australian Women's Weekly.
Can you imagine that?

More Australian blokes read Women's Weekly than any other magazine.

More to the point, it's hard to believe how so many guys admit it!

you can't argue with statistics
whatever men may say to their wives about it,
at some point they're sneaking a peek in at the Weekly -

whether they're on a visit to the barber's or doctor's surgery,
or a casual flip-through at home when you're not looking
while they're looking for a bit of the 'bathroom reading material'.

One of the features you'll find it most women's magazines
(or at least so I'm told!) is the 'relationships advice' column
some self-appointed Agony Aunt or relationships expert,
fielding readers' questions about love and romance,
conflict and suspicion.

It's always interesting to see both the questions people ask,
the answers they get

Well, there's a sense in which
what we're reading here in 1 Corinthians 7
is something of an 'Agony Aunt' column
Paul writes to the confused conflicted Corinthians to set them straight on issues of love, sex and marriage,

we find clear indications that this isn't unsolicited advice.

Some members of the Corinthian church had written to Paul
as a kind of Agony Aunt,

they were looking for his helpful advice to pick their way through the minefield of marriage and sexuality.

trouble is the Corinthians were taking exception to Paul's responses

for a church that prided itself on its apparent wisdom & knowledge
they keep coming back with "why can't we attitude"

there were a number of issues they wanted Agony Aunt Paul to solve

in 8:1 they had questions about food sacrificed to idols
whether Christians can eat it or not

in 12:1 about spiritual gifts

in 15:1 questions about death and what happens after I die

in 16:1 about a collection being take up for the Christians struggling under the weight of persecution in Jerusalem

so back to 1 Corinthians 7 where we're concentrating on this morning

as we read in 1 Corinthians 7:1-2

1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry. 2 But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.

marriage, remarriage & singleness

as we've just got past Paul dealing with all the negatives
in chapters 5-6 on how to follow Jesus in a sex mad world

Paul turns to the positives
affirming marriage
affirming singleness

Marriage & Singleness is where we find ourselves parked

I think it's fairly summed up by Paul in verse 17

17 Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.

Then back up to verses 3-7

3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

Then down to verses 25-28

25 Now about virgins: I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. 26 Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. 27 Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this.

Again understand what Paul is getting onto
We have to get our heads around something ancient as well
culturally most marriages were arranged

the crisis was some rioting where the Roman rulers usually put that down at the end of sword

also many in the Corinthian Church coming from a Gentile Pagan sexually primiscous society in Corinth it was common to divorce frequently, also most marriages were made to cement family standing

What do you do now you have become a follower of Jesus
now belonging to the household of believers

in the Corinthian Church they were trying to sort out what do you do when - they didn't know - so they asked Paul

we soon learn what some of their whacky teachers were saying
putting the pressure on to dissolve their marriages
or force others who were single from ever marrying at all

some were teaching sexual abstinence
married people should not sleep with their spouse

Paul weighs in to finish off what he started back in chapter 5
Holiness matters in every bit of our lives
In our church, in our heads, in our bedrooms

Holiness matters in the life of a follower of Christ
Not so much that we think we can somehow
live in sinless perfection

But to really deal with the sin in us honestly, seeing the ongoing and progressive work of God in and on our souls, own up to our sin

At the heart of sin is the evil in our desires
often it's not so much what we want,
but that we want it so much

The deceitfulness of sin is that we so often deceive ourselves
what we let rule us comes out
what comes out reveals what we are letting rule our lives

Holiness is lived out faith
Holiness is the touch point of my vertical relationship with God
In the very practical life I live horizontally
in relationship with other people

especially here in this household of believers
how we support each other
as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ matters

Marriage matters
Singleness also needs support

supporting and strengthening those of us who are married
caring and supporting those of us who are single

listen to how Paul engages these Corinthians
stay as you are - treat marriage or singleness honourably

verses 17-24
17 Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 18 Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts. 20 Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called them. 21 Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you-although if you can gain your freedom, do so. 22 For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. 23 You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men. 24 Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to.

Stay in place
Work out how you will intentionally honour God
Know you heart - where you run to
Be sympathetic to how you are drawn and tempted

Being in training for the resurrection to come
Starts with attitude - our attitude
It reaches into our behaviour
It's tested with what we let drive us - ready now!

Verses 29-31
29 What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
Paul points in the way of thinking of how will we live now
Looking to the eternity we will spend then

A kingdom of God that looks upside down
A new heaven and a new earth
Where there is no more death or mourning
No more loss or disability
No more sadness or sin

So how will we balance that desire to live like spending eternity matters

Notice where Paul draws our gaze in the theatre of God's glory
With something like marriage

Verses 32-35

32 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs-how he can please the Lord. 33 But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world-how he can please his wife- 34 and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world-how she can please her husband. 35 I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

Broaden your horizon on God
test it - how well you doing in the balance of the tension
in pleasing your spouse and pleasing the Lord

How are we consciously seeking to bring glory to God
How am encouraging and sharing my life with my spouse
that points them the way of Jesus

time is short
How will we spend it to give the glory to King Jesus

in marriage how am I showing myself to my spouse in giving into their life - not because of what I have demanded from me

what do I do, say, think or affirm
That tells my spouse I am seeking for their encouragement

Am I single or divorced or widowed
Paul draws our gaze elsewhere
understand your own heart

How are you devoting your soul, body and spirit to following King Jesus

Sexual temptation is real it can create a prison of passion
That revolves around guilt and deception
Know yourself - are you accountable to godly brother or sister with how you are going at pursuing purity

If you're struggling sexually
seek marriage than remain single
than find yourself burning out of control

Paul concludes these questions about Marriage, Singleness and Divorce to the Corinthians

the advice is plain
remain as you are
if you're single stay it if you can

if you can't -- seek marriage find a partner
who shares the same love and passion you have for Jesus

if we became Christians after we'd married stay as we are
share your story about Jesus with your spouse

point the way to Jesus in how we live

in all things Paul reminds us
we were bought at a price,
we are not to become slaves of passion

but as responsible to God remain in the situation God called us to

Let's Pray…

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Written by Super User

Published: 14 October 2013

1 Corinthians 6:1-20

In America a pastor sued his denomination for age discrimination
Apparently he couldn't find a church willing to hire him
for the salary he demanded.

In another case a pastor sued his own church and the church board,
claiming they were interfering
with the performance of his duties.

The board of trustees of a Baptist church in Louisiana
filed suit to remove their pastor from his position.

A few days later, another group, claiming to be the real trustees,
filed a counter suit, to keep him

They asked for those who had filed the previous suit be removed as church members.

in Illinois a family sued their church for injuries
that their 15-year-old son suffered at a church picnic
when he fell out of a tree.

His parents watched the boy climb the tree
warned him to be careful because it was dangerous,
when he fell out and injured himself,
they still sued the church anyway.

division drives out love among the household of believers
like ripping a shirt in 2 even if the shirt's repaired
it still shows up the stitches

or like scar tissue from a wound
where that part of our body never really performs as well again

how we act towards one another shows how seriously our relationship with Jesus is

why not rather be wronged
than to strike out to be proved right

in the Corinthian Church factions had formed
they were being taught some peculiar teachings

some were teaching Jesus had already returned the second time
so you could do what you liked

others taught the Church in Corinth was far superior in wisdom & maturity, now all they needed to do was leave the basics behind

follow new -- more spiritual paths, by these more spiritual teachers

for all this apparent wisdom & maturity Corinth was a divided church

there were improper and indecent sexual relationships
a man who was having an improper relationship
with his fathers wife
court actions
divisions over rival preachers

misunderstandings and false teachers
improper relationships
with Christians visiting the temple prostitutes

Corinth as a town known for its vices

it was a port town full of the sordid rich who lived life to the full
the miserable poor wanting what they couldn't have

even they were shocked by what they were hearing coming out of this church family

as we read in 1 Corinthians 6:6-8

6 But instead, one brother goes to law against another--and this in front of unbelievers! 7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.

Be reconciled - seek to handle the relationship that has broken down with Godly Christlike counsel

Rather than trying to settle the dispute whatever it was with the help of godly people from the church family these parties were running to outsiders to try and push their cause their self justification

GIVE IT UP - STOP BEING SO SELF INTERESTED _ BE CHRIST CENTERED INSTEAD - be reconciled as you have known the reconciliation of God's grace in your life of your sin

As Jesus puts it Stop trying to pull the speck our of your brother or sisters eye when you have a great big log stuck in yours

Ken Sande puts it in his book The Peacemaker

"Instead of blaming others for a conflict or resisting correction, trust in God's mercy, take responsibility for our own contribution to the conflict, confess our sins to those we have wronged, ask God to change our attitudes and our habits that lead us to conflict and seek with God strength to repair any harm we have caused"

So often in conflict it's easy to use attack responses to resolve it
Where we are more interested in winning a conflict
Than we are in preserving a relationship

When we forget to see one another
looking down on one another instead
Love one another
Forgive as we have known God's gracious forgiveness
of our sin

It's easy to just focus on selfish me
Where it's about my rights - my control
my grip on the situation
There is no we in adversarial conflict

Which is what was happening in Corinth they were selfish and self interested

They had to see one another

Instead of reaching for Christ honouring reconciliation
The warring parties were seeking to be proved right
Without regard for their fellow brother or sister in Christ

the more you engage another's heart, really see one another as people, broken sinners saved by grace, people who are inconsistent performers and the less you declare his or hers wrongs, the more likely they are to listen to you

The Corinthians thought they were wise full spiritually alive
So full so proud

Just like the angry man is the last person to see the anger that wagers war inside his soul so the Corinthians had a lost a sense of how spiritually sick they had become

Take a hard look at yourself - A really hard look at yourselves
Paul says

cutting through the tendency we have to be vague or blind or too general with what we have done and how we affect those around us

We have to cut through the propensity we have to self justify in sin
Recognize that I do what I do and I want I want

There was evil among them and instead of mournful prayerful dealing with it they were just standing by and trying to look the other way

Paul says it's not on
he takes them on - remember the cost of your holiness now

verse 11

11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Everyone of us deserved eternal punishment
everyone of us was destined for death
we were all evil doers so remember grace is the work of God

forgiveness is what God brings to us in the very costly person of his son who gave his life so that we might know the forgiveness of God

our freedom was bought at a price, we are not our own
so knowing forgiveness how do we show it
knowing the love of Jesus how do we demonstrate that

5 times Paul rebukes these Corinthians what they do not know

verse 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
verse 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels?
verse 9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the
kingdom of God?
verse 16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a
prostitute is one with her in body?
verse 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the
Holy Spirit,…

what it all proves
is that these Corinthians don't know much

DON'T BE LED ASTRAY is the warning splashed large in all this is

Paul quotes back at the Corinthians what they had been saying among themselves

As we read in verses 12-13

12 "Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food"--but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

What are the things you really love at the moment
What moves you or drives you to tears
What do you find your mind most preoccupied with?
The pressure is Paul says to lower the standard
The brush off the pervasiveness of sin

It seems we run in one of two ways
We either run to where everything is on
Miss out on nothing - live it up and through expressing your freedoms expect to find a greater glory

Or we run to starve ourselves from everything
Cut it off, cut it out - be stoic and through suffering
expect a greater glory

NO WAY Paul says
Neither way is right - you are not your own,
We - you and I were bought at a price -
so honour God with your body

some sins Paul tells us we need to know the way our souls tick
FLEE - Keep running don't think you can stop

18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. Verses 18-20

Who we are, Paul tells us,
We are a temple of the Holy Spirit
How we live, what we do matters

What Paul throws back for the Corinthians is - let me paraphrase their logic

You say the stomach is for food and food is for the stomach
So having a stomach points to the need for food - so you indulge it

Their same logic was being played out sexually
Having genitals are for sex and sex is for genitals

We have come back to the world of porneia
Porneia isn't just about watching a crude explicit sexually exploitative video - it's a heart word

porneia is sexual immorality that sweeps up every single activity of sexual activity outside of marriage in attitude and action

Godly marriage is the right place for the expression of sexuality
That God created for us as sexual beings

Flee from everything sexual outside marriage
Don't twist the freedom you have from Jesus
Forgiven - redeemed - precious in God's sight
Now to be a licence to sin

what nails you most
where do you find you take refuge when the heats on
or find your heart running after
when the heats turned up
and its not what you wanted

we are a sensual age, we talk more now about the sexualization of children, or the softy porn ways the media advertisers to more graphic sexual images of the movies we watch or the books we read

As Colin Buchanan wrote the words to the song
Be careful little eyes what you see

Know yourself, the way you throw your heart at the world
Know the danger now
Be careful Paul says Flee, turn from what is sexually tempting, run, seek the counsel of a wise follower of Jesus be accountable

It's so easy to fall into a trap where sexual addiction becomes a prison

It's time to bring it to the light - confess
Grace means forgiveness is real
Change is possible, a clean heart
is something only God can bring

God's view of comfort is twofold

With the discomfort of sin and the awareness of struggle and failing

It is also that we are boldly loved and that God reaches in to the ordinary and the significant parts of our lives with mercy grace forgiveness and love

God's spirit is the compelling force that helps us see ourselves as we truly are and fills again with life affirming hope that God is fully into us with radically generosity

We need a movement of faith
To ask God to turn our heads and point our feet
look and really see his gracious fearsome forgiving love

to have a constructive displeasure of sin
and be captured by the joy of Christ overflowing in our souls

Honour God with your body

Let's pray…

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Written by Super User

Published: 07 October 2013

Psalm 32

Aged 19, one of the great American theologians
Young Jonathan Edwards
decided to make a list of resolutions.

Like many of us try to do when we come up to a new year
Or about turning a new page or taking a new direction
Edwards instead took a whole year to pen all his
He went for 70
Here's how he starts it all off

"Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake."

Edwards was seeking an intentional forward gaze
What was he going to let shape his soul

We might not talk the same way as him now
Yet Edwards was onto something with his 70 resolutions.
his 22nd resolution reads,

"Resolved: To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea, violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of."

Getting a real grip on my soul's bearing
Owning up to the total landscape of my soul accurately

Or as Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians
Living now like we are in training for the resurrection to come

1Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
The stand out word Edwards called Happiness
King David calls blessed

Blessed isn't just a single personal encounter
Blessed is a community experience
A household sharing - it's a plural experience of us together

Blessed points us to the abundant, overflowing, profuse grace
blessedness is what God showers upon those who love him.

grace is nothing less than God's gift of faith and repentance, the desire to die to self so that we gain life in and only through Jesus .

Looking more and more to Jesus while becoming more and more like Jesus

God's grace reshapes and transforms us to be like Christ
That's where God turns our face towards him
The question is will we be happy in God's holiness.
It is costly
David points the way

What is happiness made of
Whose happiness is it
Where is happiness found

What are we to make of Psalm 32
what is happiness made of?
As we read in Psalm 32:1-2

1Blessed is he
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
2Blessed is the man
whose sin the LORD does not count against him
and in whose spirit is no deceit.

True happiness is forgiveness for transgression.
our sin covered.
Sin is the want and waste in our lives
We are used, misused and abused
We crave and want and throw our heart at the world
Our bodies can make us miserable
We face general hardship or troubles or limitations
We grumble and complain about what isn't

It's that place we find ourselves
What we so often do next is sin

God opens our eyes to see the theatre of his glory
Grace is God breaking open
the messy broken stumbling world of our lives
where Jesus steps in to redeem us as we are

as we so often seem to think that we have to look good for God to want to chage us

True happiness we find is in Christ

Verses 3-4
3When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4For day and night
your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer. Selah

look at the consequences of keeping silent.

Sin - not confessing, not owning up, letting the sin stay dark, deep and untouched
David outlines some of them for us:
There was a physical destruction.
"My bones wasted away. . ."

David's conscience was plagued daily.
"Through my groaning all day long. . ."

David sensed God's fatherly displeasure. "
Your hand was heavy upon me. . ."

It hit David hard with depression of the spirit.
"My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer . . ."

Unconfessed sin makes us fugitives.
We become fugitives from God,
from the person we've sinned against,
fugitives from ourselves.
No wonder that it leads to such physical and spiritual torment!
That fugitive life is also the life of a lie.

Think about it - during that time of David's silent, what did David do?

Surely he prayed. He would have gathered with others for worship. He would have written songs, counseled others, poured himself into his appointed work as king,

David may even have participated in general confessions during worship. Yet all this time he concealed his sin. He kept silent.

through it all he tells us he was a stranger to true happiness
he was miserable, because he was estranged from God.

David tells us he realizes he was running away from God
Maybe you know that feeling even now
Release is possible
But it takes a courageous step of hope

Verse 5
5Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"-- and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

As someone puts it this way

"How does God's grace meet you in your sufferings? We can make the right answer sound old hat, but I guarantee this: God will surprise you. He will make you stop. You will struggle. He will bring you up short. You will hurt. He will take his time. You will grow in faith and in love. He will deeply delight you. You will find the process harder than you ever imagined - and better. Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life. No matter how many times you've heard it, no matter how long you've known it, no matter how well you can say it, God's answer will come to mean something better than you could ever imagine. "

Grace means courage

The truth is
We work very hard at landscaping our "front yard lives"
so that we look good to others.

We may even allow people into our living rooms
so they can see around a little bit of us,

yet our lives are really lived in the inner rooms, the dark, inner parts.

The Lord wants truth in the inner parts because that's where he lives.
He is the God of change and progressively
Invites us to ever deeper awareness of his loving kindness
As all change comes through Jesus

David brings us in to something that's quite personal
He brings us into the world of secret sin

The call of David is to step out from whatever it is from in the dark corner of your soul

Bring that sin that's been hiding and bring it out into the open under the light and gaze of God

Confession isn't about us feeling good about ourselves
It is a turning
A Godward movement
A work of God in us

David's warning is silent sin is cancerous to the soul
It rots us from the inside out
It makes us slaves

the heat of the spiritual battle that rages around us is significant
if we keep silent
We soon find ourselves another casualty
David tells us to take action
confess

verses 6-7
6Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. 7You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah

the heat will come on us
we will feel it and see it

David here looks his sin squarely in the eye
He starts working backwards

Let me show you what I mean
Actually I claim no originality to it

A bloke by the name of Ken Sande in his book The Peacemaker puts it better than I ever can…

"When you find yourself in conflict work backwards through the progression of an idol to identify the desires that are controlling your heart. Ask yourself these questions:

How am I punishing others?
How am I judging others?
What am I demanding to have?
What is the root desire of that demand?
…Pray daily that God would rob your idols of their influence in your life by making you miserable whenever you give in to them"

King David reminds us God wants truth in the inner parts because that's where he lives. That's exactly where his Holy Spirit locates us

Secret sin is corrosive
It eats up relationships
It frustrates our desires and plans
It hides in the dark and is deceiving

Address it squarely, without excuses
As David does identify what's happening
My reaction is me
nothing and no one makes me live the way I do

in confessing - do the seven A's

Address everyone involved
Avoid if, but, and maybe
Admit specifically
Acknowledge the hurt
Accept the consequences
Alter your behaviour
Ask for forgiveness

As God's grace is fully yes for us through Jesus
Delight in God as he has chosen to delight in you
To see you and me and see his Son's love
Who gave his life and shed his blood

To redeem us before God
He did that knowing full well what was in us

Like Paul Silas & Timothy advise us in 1 Thessalonians 5:14-18

14 And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. 16 Be joyful always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Challenge: Just as David needed Nathan, we also need others to help us see the sins in our lives. This week, ask a respected friend to help you identify a stumbling block in your life.

On August 10, 1723, at the age of 19, Jonathan Edwards resolved in #68 of those 70 he penned: "Resolved: To confess frankly to myself all that which I find in myself, either infirmity or sin; and, if it be what concerns religion, also to confess the whole case to God, and implore needed help."

Let's Pray…