WEBVTT 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:04.100 If you got a Bible, invite you to turn to Psalm chapter 38. 00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:06.950 We're going through a series together called Soul Detox. 00:00:06.980 --> 00:00:14.580 And the important part of this series for us, what we're trying to get across is we're going through the poetic books of the Bible, most specifically the Book of Psalms. 00:00:14.900 --> 00:00:18.650 We're looking at a few other poetic books along the way, but we're sticking to the Psalms. 00:00:18.700 --> 00:00:24.480 And the reason we're sticking to the Psalms is that the Psalms are man's praise back to God. 00:00:25.960 --> 00:00:33.040 They demonstrate for us how we can open ourselves spiritually and response to all that God is, and praising his 00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:33.480 name. 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:36.860 In fact, the Psalms was Israel's psalm songbook. 00:00:36.860 --> 00:00:38.020 It is Israel's songbook. 00:00:38.020 --> 00:00:41.080 It's where they would turn to sing praise to God. 00:00:42.420 --> 00:00:49.420 Our souls are important as God has made you a physical being, and so you need to take care of your physical self so 00:00:49.420 --> 00:00:55.860 it stands with your spiritual self, and what you trust in your soul is important. 00:00:56.960 --> 00:00:59.920 This morning I want to talk to you about the tortured soul. 00:01:01.620 --> 00:01:05.830 There's a man being made famous by Hollywood right now named Louis Zamperini. 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:09.780 He was the man featured in the film called unbroken. 00:01:10.980 --> 00:01:17.180 He was also featured in the book about his life called unbroken, written by Laura Hillenbrand. 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:25.180 Louis Zamperini was captured in World War Two by Japanese forces and was made a prisoner of war. 00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:31.940 And if you were to see that movie, the you would note that at the end of the movie it's just about his freedom from war. 00:01:32.320 --> 00:01:40.060 But what you find is if you read The Life of Louis and what it communicates to us in his book, that his battle didn't 00:01:40.060 --> 00:01:42.760 end when he returned home from war. 00:01:43.940 --> 00:01:51.040 In fact, one of the critics of the film wrote this if the worst things in life were war, torture, and death, then the movie might have done Zamperini 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:51.800 justice. 00:01:51.800 --> 00:01:54.420 Louis himself, though, would testify they are not. 00:01:54.420 --> 00:02:00.760 There are worse evils and worse fates facing all of us, the darkness within each of us. 00:02:02.860 --> 00:02:09.919 The story goes, according to the book, that when Louis returned home, so excited was his family that his sister played an audio clip that she had 00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:12.000 saved of him during the war. 00:02:12.040 --> 00:02:19.480 They broadcasted his voice over the radio, and when Louis returned, his sister played it for him, and it records in the scene in the book that Louis 00:02:19.480 --> 00:02:21.880 immediately dropped to the ground screaming, take it off! 00:02:22.220 --> 00:02:23.780 Take it off in violent convulsions. 00:02:25.420 --> 00:02:31.480 Louis suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, a disorder that led to 30%. 00:02:31.540 --> 00:02:35.580 More likely, those who were POWs would eventually commit suicide. 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:39.100 And Laura Hillenbrand wrote this about POWs. 00:02:39.140 --> 00:02:46.180 They carried unspeakable memories of torture, humiliation, and an acute sense of vulnerability that attended the knowledge of how readily 00:02:46.180 --> 00:02:49.220 they could be disarmed and dehumanized. 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:54.320 Once returning from war, he began to struggle. 00:02:55.480 --> 00:02:56.400 You struggle with depression. 00:02:56.480 --> 00:02:57.610 He struggle with alcohol. 00:02:57.820 --> 00:03:00.360 He struggled with fits of rage. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:09.260 In fact, on page 365 of the book of his life, it says, though Louis returned to America, no one could reach Louis because Louis 00:03:09.260 --> 00:03:12.260 had never really come home. 00:03:13.420 --> 00:03:20.840 Louis eventually came to the belief that in order to fix his situation, that he needed to kill his torturer 00:03:20.840 --> 00:03:24.550 by the grips of his own hands, and only then could he be restored. 00:03:24.760 --> 00:03:30.440 A once singularly hopeful man now believed that his only hope lay in murder. 00:03:32.920 --> 00:03:34.620 All this he wrestled with. 00:03:35.820 --> 00:03:36.880 Until 1949. 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:45.400 When Louie's wife, who was struggling just to maintain in the marriage, went to a Billy Graham crusade and 00:03:45.820 --> 00:03:49.900 came to know the Lord, invited Louie to go listen to Billy Graham the next day. 00:03:51.220 --> 00:03:52.720 And when Louis went, he heard this message. 00:03:53.880 --> 00:03:57.300 Darkness doesn't hide from the eyes of God. 00:03:59.600 --> 00:04:06.700 When he thought of his story in page 376, it says what resonated with him now, having heard of Christ, was not all that 00:04:06.700 --> 00:04:11.520 he had suffered, but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him. 00:04:11.620 --> 00:04:18.519 He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that his Japanese captors had striven to make of him in a single silent moment. 00:04:18.519 --> 00:04:22.280 His rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness had fallen away. 00:04:22.280 --> 00:04:24.840 And that morning he believed he was a new creation. 00:04:26.860 --> 00:04:32.500 Years later, Louis was standing in the very walls that held him prisoner and had watched him suffer so badly. 00:04:32.500 --> 00:04:36.240 He now looked into the eyes of many of the very men who had inflicted the blows. 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:37.780 For the first time since the war. 00:04:38.020 --> 00:04:40.490 He was seeing the faces of his pain and humiliation. 00:04:41.180 --> 00:04:42.210 How did he respond? 00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:45.780 Did he devolve into seizures or violent screaming? 00:04:45.840 --> 00:04:48.080 Did he silently burn with fear and rage? 00:04:48.140 --> 00:04:48.360 No. 00:04:49.540 --> 00:04:55.100 Louis was seized by a childlike, giddy exuberance and bewilderment. 00:04:56.020 --> 00:05:02.920 The men who had abused him watched him come to them, his hands extended as radiant smile on his face. 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:12.300 He later wrote a letter to the man who had tortured him, and he said, as a result of my prisoner of war experience, under your unreasonable punishment, 00:05:12.300 --> 00:05:13.800 my post-war life became a nightmare. 00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:22.320 But thanks to a confrontation with God, I committed my life to Christ and love replaced the hate that I have for 00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:22.870 you. 00:05:24.080 --> 00:05:31.130 Forgiveness, not survival, was the victor's crown of Louie's life. 00:05:32.340 --> 00:05:35.500 A man who was once horribly broken by sin. 00:05:36.860 --> 00:05:39.880 But now has been sweetly broken by God. 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:43.400 All of us in our lives. 00:05:45.420 --> 00:05:49.080 Experience some degree of grief within our soul. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:52.220 Some might even call it feeling tortured. 00:05:54.260 --> 00:05:58.500 And all of us are spiritual beings, and all of us then therefore need the Lord. 00:05:58.580 --> 00:06:01.880 Which is why Proverbs 423 says, guard your heart. 00:06:01.880 --> 00:06:03.940 It is the wellspring of life. 00:06:07.880 --> 00:06:10.180 In First Peter chapter two and verse 11. 00:06:11.660 --> 00:06:13.560 Peter describes, there's a picture of Louis. 00:06:13.860 --> 00:06:18.860 I keep forgetting to show that Peter first Peter 211 describes the waging of war. 00:06:18.860 --> 00:06:26.020 And our soul says, dear friends, I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners talking about this earth to keep away from worldly 00:06:26.020 --> 00:06:30.040 desires that wage war against your very souls. 00:06:31.760 --> 00:06:39.100 All of us have battles we face with our soul, and in fact, Psalm 38 represents 00:06:39.100 --> 00:06:40.640 one such battle. 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:47.320 Psalm 38 is included in a cluster of seven psalms found in the Book of Psalms. 00:06:47.700 --> 00:06:50.000 They're referred to as the penitential Psalms. 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:55.540 Penitential psalms or psalms of lamenting confessional prayer before God. 00:06:56.860 --> 00:07:00.840 They're psalms that deal with an individual who is grieved because of sin. 00:07:00.900 --> 00:07:05.120 And it may not be the sin that they lived in their life, but sin has affected their lives. 00:07:07.080 --> 00:07:11.700 And so these penitential psalms express, express brokenness. 00:07:12.440 --> 00:07:12.820 Psalm six. 00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:20.620 Psalm 3238, 51, 102, 130 and 143 00:07:20.620 --> 00:07:27.860 are all considered penitential psalms, a place where the soul is grieved before 00:07:27.880 --> 00:07:28.720 the Lord. 00:07:30.280 --> 00:07:37.580 In Psalm 38, when David writes this psalm, he relates to two areas of his life where he's experiencing 00:07:38.100 --> 00:07:40.370 this grievance in his soul that is like torture. 00:07:40.980 --> 00:07:43.580 And the first deals in the first eight verses with himself. 00:07:45.100 --> 00:07:52.500 His personal actions have alienated him from his relationship to the Lord, and so he is grieved before God. 00:07:52.540 --> 00:07:55.180 And the second is this the reaction of people? 00:07:56.640 --> 00:07:59.760 And so he records in Psalm 38 and verses three and five. 00:07:59.760 --> 00:08:04.360 He says, because of your wrath, there is no health in my body. 00:08:05.340 --> 00:08:06.680 There is no soundness in my bones. 00:08:06.960 --> 00:08:07.600 Because of my sin. 00:08:07.620 --> 00:08:10.240 My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. 00:08:10.540 --> 00:08:14.310 My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:19.080 All of us. 00:08:21.080 --> 00:08:22.570 Experience the effects of sin. 00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:25.250 Whether it be sin we conduct. 00:08:27.260 --> 00:08:30.720 When someone else conducts, or just from the brokenness of the world that we live in. 00:08:30.740 --> 00:08:37.760 We are affected by sin physically, emotionally, relationally, and whatever adversity you face, it 00:08:37.820 --> 00:08:39.860 will affect your soul. 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:43.580 And what you do with your soul. 00:08:45.340 --> 00:08:48.380 Determines how you handle the adversity. 00:08:51.300 --> 00:08:52.790 What's important for us to recognize. 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:59.800 As we look at David's Psalm, what he begins to express to us is that Jesus does not expect you to defeat it on your own. 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:03.520 But rather bring it to him. 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:12.680 Doesn't matter how much of an exemption you think you are or how tough you think you've been built. 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:18.170 There are things that can come into your life and just rock your world. 00:09:20.340 --> 00:09:22.140 Whether something happens to you physically. 00:09:23.540 --> 00:09:26.260 Mentally or through someone else. 00:09:27.380 --> 00:09:28.540 Your soul has to deal with it. 00:09:31.520 --> 00:09:38.600 When it comes to the book of John, it tells us that in our dealing with adversity before the Lord and our soul, that it's important for us 00:09:38.700 --> 00:09:39.560 to walk in truth. 00:09:41.100 --> 00:09:46.740 In fact, it says in John eight and verse 44, you are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. 00:09:46.780 --> 00:09:51.400 He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. 00:09:51.500 --> 00:09:58.440 Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks for those of his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 00:10:02.940 --> 00:10:04.460 Jesus wants you to bring it to him. 00:10:07.340 --> 00:10:09.060 The devil wants you to believe otherwise. 00:10:11.900 --> 00:10:14.640 Exchanging the truth for lies. 00:10:14.660 --> 00:10:17.860 Where destruction comes from for us. 00:10:19.460 --> 00:10:20.900 And it may not even be something right now. 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:26.320 It could be, like Louis, something from even the past. 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:31.380 With the torturing continues to weigh up on you. 00:10:34.220 --> 00:10:37.280 And the twisting of truth comes into your life. 00:10:37.300 --> 00:10:40.780 And it says things like, yeah, but you're not quite as worthy as everyone else. 00:10:43.780 --> 00:10:46.120 And just as they've received God's grace. 00:10:46.140 --> 00:10:47.840 You don't deserve God's grace. 00:10:48.560 --> 00:10:50.240 But the news for us is no one does. 00:10:53.640 --> 00:11:00.720 And even in David's sin, we recognize whatever has brought him to the place of torture before the Lord that he's referred to 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:02.560 in Scripture as a man after God's own heart. 00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:05.020 And God continues after David. 00:11:07.560 --> 00:11:08.580 In Psalm 139. 00:11:08.580 --> 00:11:10.110 It describes the life of an individual. 00:11:10.360 --> 00:11:14.980 The psalm is a beautiful psalm from beginning to end, describing us and our creation as people. 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:22.060 But in verse 17 it specifically says, how precious also your thoughts to me, O God, how vast is the sum of 00:11:22.060 --> 00:11:22.440 them? 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:25.940 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. 00:11:25.940 --> 00:11:26.700 When I awake. 00:11:26.980 --> 00:11:28.100 I am still with you. 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:30.340 Search me, O God, and know my heart. 00:11:30.360 --> 00:11:38.620 Try me and know my anxious thoughts, and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 00:11:40.100 --> 00:11:45.240 Maybe we say to ourselves in a lie, if anyone knew your secrets, they would reject you. 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:46.940 They wouldn't accept you. 00:11:47.980 --> 00:11:50.080 You did bad, so you are no good and worthless. 00:11:50.140 --> 00:11:52.110 You failed at something, so you fail at everything. 00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:54.180 You did bad because you are bad. 00:11:55.760 --> 00:11:56.500 And the truth is. 00:11:57.740 --> 00:12:00.180 Apart from the grace of God. 00:12:00.460 --> 00:12:02.580 None of us deserve to be near him. 00:12:04.500 --> 00:12:08.540 There was a story I was listening to as an older pastor sharing when he was younger. 00:12:08.540 --> 00:12:15.680 In college, he went to this religious gathering for college students and he brought a young lady with her that with him that was 00:12:15.680 --> 00:12:16.620 struggling in life. 00:12:16.780 --> 00:12:22.100 And she had been leading a promiscuous life, and he really cared for her, and he wanted her to know God's love. 00:12:22.100 --> 00:12:24.500 And he says he walks in and this guy is teaching about purity. 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:32.340 And he stands up before the crowd and he's opening illustration as he holds up this rose and he says, we'll get back to this in a minute, but I just want to pass 00:12:32.340 --> 00:12:35.300 this rose out throughout the audience, and I want everyone to take a look at it. 00:12:35.320 --> 00:12:36.000 I want you to touch it. 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:37.760 I want you to do whatever. 00:12:37.760 --> 00:12:39.860 Just make sure it comes back up to me at the end of the service. 00:12:40.140 --> 00:12:47.150 And so they begin to pass it around and people fill the pedals, and slowly, one by one, the pedals start to fall off, and by the time it returns to him, 00:12:47.260 --> 00:12:49.780 the top of the rose is broken and barely dangling there. 00:12:49.800 --> 00:12:51.200 And there's just a couple pedals left and. 00:12:51.620 --> 00:12:54.580 And the man holds up the rose and he says, do you see this? 00:12:56.140 --> 00:13:00.280 Men who would want this that's been touched and abused by the world. 00:13:01.680 --> 00:13:08.720 And his illustration was the point back to promiscuous lifestyles and saying, now, who in the world could possibly love someone like this? 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:16.100 And this young man who later became a pastor says he's sitting in this religious gathering just screaming on the inside saying, can't you just be honest 00:13:16.100 --> 00:13:17.190 with your own beliefs? 00:13:19.660 --> 00:13:20.690 Be true to your faith. 00:13:23.040 --> 00:13:23.340 Jesus does. 00:13:27.400 --> 00:13:28.750 The truth is, all of us are broken. 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:32.920 And Jesus wants you. 00:13:34.460 --> 00:13:36.320 And it doesn't matter to him. 00:13:38.980 --> 00:13:43.470 The preciousness of your soul was designed for him as your creator. 00:13:48.660 --> 00:13:50.460 There's a thought within scripture. 00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:56.320 That says this identity brings activity. 00:13:57.600 --> 00:13:59.780 Not activity brings your identity. 00:14:01.020 --> 00:14:08.100 And what I mean is, in a religious type of thinking, we would tend to say as people, we do good so that God would accept us so that we 00:14:08.100 --> 00:14:09.880 can have an identity in him. 00:14:11.540 --> 00:14:18.540 But in reality, it's when we shape our identity in God, and God has shaped our identity through him that we begin 00:14:18.540 --> 00:14:20.200 to live a life of praise towards him. 00:14:22.180 --> 00:14:27.320 And David comes to the psalm and he's recognizing where things went wrong. 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:31.220 Where he left and walked away from the Lord. 00:14:31.260 --> 00:14:38.450 And it says in Proverbs 28, he who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he confesses and forsakes him will find compassion. 00:14:40.750 --> 00:14:41.800 What's David do? 00:14:43.920 --> 00:14:45.720 David starts to worship. 00:14:46.940 --> 00:14:53.940 In fact, it tells us in Psalm verses 38 and excuse me, chapter 38 and nine and ten, all my longings 00:14:53.940 --> 00:14:55.400 lie open before you, Lord. 00:14:56.440 --> 00:14:57.980 My sighing is not hidden from you. 00:14:57.980 --> 00:14:58.880 My heart pounds. 00:14:58.880 --> 00:14:59.980 My strength fails me. 00:14:59.980 --> 00:15:02.060 Even the light has gone from my eyes. 00:15:02.260 --> 00:15:03.820 Lord, I wait for you. 00:15:03.820 --> 00:15:06.580 You will answer, Lord my God, Lord, do not forsake me. 00:15:06.580 --> 00:15:13.040 Do not be far from me, my God, come quickly to help me, my Lord and my God. 00:15:15.340 --> 00:15:22.360 David turns his complaining a situation of loneliness into worship before 00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:23.890 the Lord. 00:15:26.100 --> 00:15:30.000 my family, created a theme verse for 2015. 00:15:30.100 --> 00:15:30.780 Well, we didn't write it. 00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:31.300 It was in the Bible. 00:15:31.520 --> 00:15:33.180 So the Bible created this theme verse. 00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:35.910 And so we made it our theme verse. 00:15:36.520 --> 00:15:43.560 it's first Thessalonians 518 and then we got a matching verse in Philippians 214 because it's like the opposite of 00:15:44.640 --> 00:15:47.420 518 518 says in everything give thanks. 00:15:48.280 --> 00:15:51.200 And Philippians 214 says, don't complain and grumble, right. 00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:53.650 So let's, let's get I get the negative and the positive. 00:15:53.960 --> 00:16:00.340 It's funny because this year as it started, every time my wife and I, if we start to say something that might sound like a complaint, we wrote this verse above our fireplace. 00:16:00.620 --> 00:16:04.000 So we tell each other, go stand in front of the fireplace and read, read that verse. 00:16:04.700 --> 00:16:11.910 But the great part is the verse says in everything give thanks not for everything, give thanks meaning. 00:16:12.760 --> 00:16:14.130 The life of Louis Zamperini. 00:16:14.640 --> 00:16:17.300 It was because of his despair that he found Jesus. 00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:19.460 And so in the circumstance, he can be thankful. 00:16:21.020 --> 00:16:24.400 But if you ask a man, are you thankful you're a prisoner of war? 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:28.000 In everything. 00:16:30.220 --> 00:16:32.780 Give thanks, but not for everything. 00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:36.220 I'm not thankful that bad things happen. 00:16:36.500 --> 00:16:38.680 And I don't think Jesus is neither. 00:16:38.820 --> 00:16:44.760 But I am thankful that despite the bad things, Jesus gets the victory over them, over them all and he is good. 00:16:44.760 --> 00:16:48.520 And therefore the bad work out for good because God is good. 00:16:50.100 --> 00:16:57.160 I'm not thankful that I have emotional and physical scars in my past, but I am thankful that God uses those scars to draw me 00:16:57.160 --> 00:16:59.380 to him and lift me in him. 00:17:01.020 --> 00:17:06.490 Though life may not go the way that I desire, desire God is bigger than all of it. 00:17:08.020 --> 00:17:10.400 First Peter dealing with a persecuted church. 00:17:10.599 --> 00:17:17.599 Peter says this, and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that he might die to sin and live to righteousness. 00:17:17.800 --> 00:17:20.160 For by his wounds you were healed. 00:17:21.780 --> 00:17:23.619 For you were continually straying like sheep. 00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:26.730 But now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. 00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:30.980 The picture goes like this. 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:36.980 Jesus spiritually heals us. 00:17:38.620 --> 00:17:39.520 And physically he could. 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:42.780 But one day he will also resurrect. 00:17:44.620 --> 00:17:46.080 And he will do away with sin. 00:17:47.500 --> 00:17:50.460 And he will make us completely whole. 00:17:52.280 --> 00:17:59.640 And Peter says in this passage that he's tending to the soul, that whatever we go through as individuals, beginning with worship, 00:17:59.780 --> 00:18:06.300 presents ourselves in an open, raw way before the Lord that he may minister to our souls. 00:18:10.100 --> 00:18:11.060 And so, David. 00:18:12.480 --> 00:18:14.700 In Psalm 38 and verses two and four. 00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:20.250 He starts with worship by beginning with confession. 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:22.400 He says, your arrows have pierced me. 00:18:23.480 --> 00:18:26.240 And your hands have come down on me because of your wrath. 00:18:26.340 --> 00:18:27.700 There is no health in my body. 00:18:28.480 --> 00:18:29.730 There is no soundness in my bones. 00:18:29.900 --> 00:18:33.640 Because of my sin, my guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. 00:18:33.940 --> 00:18:35.960 I confess my iniquity. 00:18:35.960 --> 00:18:37.560 I am troubled by my sin. 00:18:40.900 --> 00:18:45.340 Sometimes it is other things that torture our soul, and sometimes it's within ourselves. 00:18:46.940 --> 00:18:49.170 What David does here is he just worships. 00:18:50.680 --> 00:18:52.450 And he uses this word confession. 00:18:54.520 --> 00:18:58.560 And confession for us is important to think about what God thinks about as it relates to that word. 00:18:58.760 --> 00:19:05.900 Because sometimes the word confession can attach itself to religious thinking, which isn't necessarily healthy or 00:19:05.900 --> 00:19:06.000 biblical. 00:19:07.840 --> 00:19:08.940 And what I mean by that is this. 00:19:09.140 --> 00:19:14.860 When we talk about confession, there is a part of us that does feel grieved as God feels grieved when we confess. 00:19:15.820 --> 00:19:17.880 But confession isn't just about feeling bad. 00:19:19.340 --> 00:19:26.760 I was reading a story about a man who had done something wrong, and so to pay penance for what he had done, he decides he is going to isolate 00:19:26.760 --> 00:19:31.540 himself for 40 years to punish himself for what he had done wrong. 00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:35.740 Confession is not about punishing yourself. 00:19:38.520 --> 00:19:42.680 Confession takes an attitude of humility, but it's not about beating yourself up. 00:19:44.800 --> 00:19:48.780 Confession really carries an attitude of agreeing with God. 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:52.420 And sometimes in our lives when we recognize I haven't agreed with God with what I've done. 00:19:52.420 --> 00:19:59.800 Sometimes within our hearts there's this attitude of pain and hurt that we could stand against 00:19:59.800 --> 00:19:59.900 God. 00:20:01.780 --> 00:20:06.660 But the important thing about confession isn't about how you feel. 00:20:08.260 --> 00:20:08.660 It's about restoration. 00:20:12.460 --> 00:20:14.140 Confessions about unity. 00:20:17.500 --> 00:20:24.620 Sometimes in our lives we can't get relationships right because we don't have our relationship with God, right? 00:20:25.020 --> 00:20:31.020 I mean, you look at Louis Zamperini, who comes back from war and none, none of life is working for him. 00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:33.260 His wife is looking at leaving him. 00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:37.180 And the hope that he needed. 00:20:39.380 --> 00:20:43.900 Rested in his relationship to God. 00:20:45.060 --> 00:20:46.880 Confession about restoration. 00:20:46.900 --> 00:20:51.790 We get this right so we can get our relationships with each other right. 00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:55.720 Confession isn't about abuse. 00:20:55.800 --> 00:20:57.200 It's not about beating up. 00:20:57.280 --> 00:21:00.740 It's not about walking around feeling guilty and paying penance. 00:21:01.100 --> 00:21:06.240 Confession is about agreeing with God and seeking restoration in him. 00:21:07.840 --> 00:21:14.920 And so David starts with worship that leads to him in confession, and he recognizes something along the way 00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:19.200 that in the midst of his pain and hurt, sometimes people don't respond well in it. 00:21:21.860 --> 00:21:29.320 Like we're people and we're messy, and we tend to live life in messy ways, and we all need 00:21:29.320 --> 00:21:30.080 grace. 00:21:30.120 --> 00:21:34.620 And he comes to Psalm 38 and verse 19, and he's saying, they're kicking a dog while he's down. 00:21:36.220 --> 00:21:38.650 It says many have become my enemies without cause. 00:21:38.900 --> 00:21:40.840 Those who hate me without reason are numerous. 00:21:40.840 --> 00:21:44.240 Those who repay my good with evil lodge accusations against me. 00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:47.280 Though I seek only to do what is good. 00:21:50.740 --> 00:21:51.480 David is saying. 00:21:53.600 --> 00:21:55.120 God before I even get this right. 00:21:57.260 --> 00:21:58.740 I need to make sure that we're right. 00:22:00.460 --> 00:22:02.140 So before these challenges that I face. 00:22:04.120 --> 00:22:05.020 I know that you're with me. 00:22:08.100 --> 00:22:15.620 The truth is, when it comes to the life of David, not not only was it his enemies opportunity and his sin to 00:22:15.620 --> 00:22:17.040 rise up and pound them down. 00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:20.140 But he also found it happening among his own friends. 00:22:22.700 --> 00:22:27.300 He says in chapter 38 and verse 11, my friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds. 00:22:30.020 --> 00:22:30.810 The word for wounds. 00:22:31.020 --> 00:22:32.360 Some translations say saw. 00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:33.760 It literally means diseased. 00:22:35.380 --> 00:22:36.140 The nation of Israel. 00:22:36.140 --> 00:22:43.100 If anyone had a disease, they were considered unclean and they weren't allowed to be to touch other people or have that human contact. 00:22:43.100 --> 00:22:47.620 When they when they walked in society, they had to yell unclean, unclean so people would stay away from them. 00:22:47.620 --> 00:22:49.400 That's what David's saying has happened in this passage. 00:22:50.100 --> 00:22:55.900 Because of my sin, rather than my friends rallying around me to encourage me, they have all fled from me. 00:22:58.980 --> 00:23:06.120 I can imagine if David's enemies are rising up, that they are looking at David thinking, these enemies look pretty strong, David, I think they're going to overthrow your kingdom as 00:23:06.120 --> 00:23:06.580 a possibility. 00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:10.700 I don't want to be anywhere near you because when the king goes down, so do the people that follow after the king. 00:23:14.500 --> 00:23:15.080 Have you ever been in a situation? 00:23:17.070 --> 00:23:19.200 Where you've seen a soul that's grieving and. 00:23:20.260 --> 00:23:23.090 And something within your human nature just rises up to just want to help out. 00:23:24.280 --> 00:23:25.820 I think. 00:23:25.900 --> 00:23:31.940 I think we experienced that when we see, I don't know the dog that sat on TV or the little kid that needs help or whatever it is. 00:23:32.620 --> 00:23:37.880 There's something about the human sentiment that's drawn to that and wants to rise up and do something. 00:23:39.780 --> 00:23:47.420 But there's also a point in our lives, too, sometimes where we pass this situation of torturous looking in environment 00:23:47.420 --> 00:23:49.940 that it makes us uncomfortable. 00:23:49.940 --> 00:23:53.300 So rather than just figure out what to do, we just hurry up and turn a blind eye to it. 00:23:54.600 --> 00:23:55.680 Maybe we could call it Nazi Germany. 00:23:59.180 --> 00:24:00.340 Maybe we could call it slavery in America. 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:05.040 Oh, maybe we can call it homeless people on the street. 00:24:07.820 --> 00:24:15.320 Sometimes there are situations that seem so overwhelming to us, and so difficult that we and our souls don't 00:24:15.320 --> 00:24:16.000 even want to look at it. 00:24:16.040 --> 00:24:17.880 We don't face the reality of our own brokenness. 00:24:20.540 --> 00:24:22.100 David is saying that in verse 11. 00:24:24.580 --> 00:24:24.920 God. 00:24:25.060 --> 00:24:26.720 I'm a person and I feel isolated. 00:24:28.180 --> 00:24:30.610 You created me for relationship, but yet I'm lonely. 00:24:32.520 --> 00:24:33.760 In order to desire to be near you. 00:24:36.860 --> 00:24:38.900 I look at guys like Louis Zamperini and realize. 00:24:39.840 --> 00:24:44.760 I don't have the power to fix that, man. 00:24:44.760 --> 00:24:49.540 I think his family realized they didn't have the power to fix him, barring some miracle, intervene. 00:24:50.740 --> 00:24:53.060 And he couldn't get back what he lost in the war. 00:24:54.840 --> 00:24:56.730 But Jesus can redeem him. 00:24:58.260 --> 00:25:04.300 And so he starts with worship, and he starts by laying down his sin and let his situation lead him to. 00:25:04.520 --> 00:25:06.590 That led him to anger and resentment and alcoholism. 00:25:06.860 --> 00:25:08.100 And he let it all go. 00:25:08.340 --> 00:25:10.320 And he stopped believing that he was damaged. 00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:13.220 And he came and he just trusted in the Lord. 00:25:15.700 --> 00:25:16.590 In this psalm. 00:25:16.780 --> 00:25:24.180 In Psalm 19 and verse 21 and 20, David begins to describe his 00:25:24.180 --> 00:25:24.920 enemies. 00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:24.960 He. 00:25:25.180 --> 00:25:32.160 He sets this difference between him where he stands in weakness, and his enemies are before him with strength. 00:25:33.860 --> 00:25:34.420 He was sick. 00:25:35.540 --> 00:25:38.550 The Nsabb says they were vigorous. 00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:44.580 But what David does is he clothes himself in the Lord. 00:25:46.060 --> 00:25:47.980 He says in verse 21, God be with me. 00:25:48.020 --> 00:25:49.580 In verse 21 again, God be near me. 00:25:49.840 --> 00:25:53.360 Verse 22, be for me and help me God. 00:25:56.420 --> 00:26:03.420 In the Book of Luke, chapter 11 to 19, there's a story about Jesus traveling between Samaria and Galilee. 00:26:03.860 --> 00:26:07.940 And as he's going through that land, he passes through ten by ten lepers. 00:26:08.040 --> 00:26:12.740 And they begin to scream, these lepers begin to scream for the Lord to come near to them and to heal them. 00:26:14.080 --> 00:26:16.880 And the story tells us in verse 14, listen to what? 00:26:17.080 --> 00:26:17.880 How Jesus says. 00:26:18.360 --> 00:26:21.700 And he looked at them and said, go show yourselves to the priests. 00:26:22.060 --> 00:26:24.720 And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy. 00:26:26.800 --> 00:26:30.060 During that time they would have been unclean, and people would have to stay distant to them. 00:26:30.080 --> 00:26:34.240 If the priest gave them a clean bill of health, then they could interact in society once again. 00:26:34.240 --> 00:26:36.140 And so Jesus says, go back to the priest. 00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:38.800 And as they were going, they were cleansed. 00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:43.040 But then the story goes on a little further beyond the cleansing. 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:49.640 And he says, and one of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus shouting, Praise God! 00:26:50.500 --> 00:26:54.040 He fell to the ground at Jesus's feet, thanking him for what he had done. 00:26:54.980 --> 00:26:58.850 This man was a Samaritan, and Jesus asked. 00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:01.560 Didn't I heal ten men? 00:27:02.540 --> 00:27:02.880 And we're. 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:03.910 Where are the other nine? 00:27:04.920 --> 00:27:08.780 Has no one returned to give God glory to God except this foreigner? 00:27:09.740 --> 00:27:12.060 And Jesus said to the man, stand up and go. 00:27:12.320 --> 00:27:14.900 Your faith has healed you. 00:27:16.620 --> 00:27:18.240 The beauty of the story works like this. 00:27:19.900 --> 00:27:23.360 Ten people come before Christ and they were cleansed. 00:27:25.260 --> 00:27:30.110 One man comes back to Jesus and he was healed. 00:27:34.200 --> 00:27:35.000 For us in our lives. 00:27:38.580 --> 00:27:40.080 I think there's something more important. 00:27:41.760 --> 00:27:43.730 And the physical environment around us. 00:27:46.060 --> 00:27:47.220 And that's what deals with the soul. 00:27:49.980 --> 00:27:51.260 Because when your soul is healthy. 00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:54.500 And when your soul trusts in the Lord. 00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:57.170 In the midst of adversity. 00:27:58.820 --> 00:27:59.910 Their strength to be found. 00:28:01.980 --> 00:28:05.500 And in that as people, as we struggle to respond. 00:28:06.500 --> 00:28:10.010 The sin of the world around us, the things that we react with in our own lives. 00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:12.260 We find healing. 00:28:15.340 --> 00:28:17.900 The lepers who had leprosy were simply cured. 00:28:20.500 --> 00:28:21.930 But the man who put faith in Jesus. 00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:24.600 He was healed. 00:28:27.360 --> 00:28:31.070 There is something deeper to us than just surface level. 00:28:33.020 --> 00:28:34.880 Something God created within us. 00:28:34.980 --> 00:28:42.300 That when the rest of the world seems to fall away, fade away, or cause pain, there is something within you, your 00:28:42.300 --> 00:28:43.160 soul. 00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:45.640 That endures. 00:28:48.300 --> 00:28:55.680 God has created us to place that trust in him, and whatever adversity 00:28:55.680 --> 00:28:58.420 you face, it will affect your soul. 00:28:59.880 --> 00:29:05.620 But what you do with your soul determines how you'll handle adversity. 00:29:08.080 --> 00:29:09.720 The penitential psalms for us as people. 00:29:12.100 --> 00:29:19.160 Demonstrates to us in the midst of grieving, rather than take vengeance on our own, rather than depend upon 00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:26.370 our own strength just to fall to ourselves and trust in the one who provides Christ.