32:1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up2 as by the heat of summer. Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah 6 Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. 7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. 10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. 11 Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
Footnotes
[1]32:1Probably a musical or liturgical term [2]32:4Hebrew my vitality was changed
32:1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up2 as by the heat of summer. Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah 6 Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. 7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah 8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. 10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. 11 Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
Footnotes
[1]32:1Probably a musical or liturgical term [2]32:4Hebrew my vitality was changed
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
Good morning, everybody. As the kids are making their way out, if there's any extra space in your pew, or any empty spaces up there, if you could scoot in because we are we're out of space right now. We got some people looking for seats, so be a big help. Thank you. My name is Jeff, by the way.
Jeffrey Heine:
I know there have been a lot of different faces up here preaching, this summer. My name is Jeff. I'm the pastor of teaching and discipleship here at Redeemer. And if we haven't had a chance to meet before, I'd love to meet you, after the service at the common meal that we're gonna have together. We're gonna be continuing our study in the Psalms.
Jeffrey Heine:
The sermon series is called the anatomy of the soul. And and the primary belief that we go into with this study is that throughout the Psalms, we see the entirety of the human existence played out before God. And that that is what we are called to as worshipers. As children of God, we are called to live our lives, every aspect of it, the good stuff, the bad stuff, and everything in between to live our lives completely in front of the lord, honestly and openly. And so this week we will be in Psalm 32.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a teaching Psalm of David, and so let us listen carefully for this is the word of God. Psalm 32. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no inequity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
Jeffrey Heine:
For day night, your hand was heavy upon me, and my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Surely, in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.
Jeffrey Heine:
You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with shouts of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Jeffrey Heine:
Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, oh righteous. Shout for joy, all you upright in heart. The word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
Please be to God. Let's pray together. Oh, God, whether we know it or not, we are all desperate for you, desperate to know you, desperate to be near to you. And in this time together, as we hear from your word, Lord, speak to us through your spirit. Instruct our hearts.
Jeffrey Heine:
Lead us to truth. Bring us rest for our weary souls. Reveal your grace to us in our savior, Jesus, and teach us to repent, lord, through Christ who lights the way to life everlasting. Amen. I'd like to begin by asking a question.
Jeffrey Heine:
What do you think of when you hear the word repent? Lots of different images can come to mind, some that are helpful and some that are not so helpful. In my own life, there was a time that I had unhelpful pictures of repentance. And the best way that I can give that image to you, to convey that image, is to direct your attention to the 1971 classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The Gene Wilder wonka, not this Johnny Depp business.
Jeffrey Heine:
Right? And the picture comes from the end of the movie. So the end of the movie, there's going to be a spoiler here. Now, it's been out for 45 years, so it's on You've had you've had time. So for years, I envisioned God to be a lot like Willy Wonka, one part candy maker, 3 parts insane person.
Jeffrey Heine:
I pictured God to be this giver of delights, and that heaven was like the chocolate factory. But we broke the rules. A few kids disappeared down chocolate rivers, and some turned into blueberries. And if you haven't read the book or seen the movie, I sound like the insane person. But if you recall, Charlie broke the rules too, just like all the other kids.
Jeffrey Heine:
He broke the contract, the covenant that he signed upon entering the factory. He lived as he wanted, and he transgressed against Wonka. And at the climax of the story, Charlie goes to Wonka and asks him about getting heaven, about getting a lifetime supply of chocolate. And Wonka responds with condemnation. He says, it's all there, black and white, clear as crystal.
Jeffrey Heine:
You broke the rules, so you get nothing. You lose. And Charlie, feeling the weight of his sin, repents. He lays down the everlasting Gobstopper on Wonka's desk as a symbol of his regret and his sorrow, and Wonka receives the sacrifice. He places his hand on the candy, and he quotes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, so shines a good deed in a weary world.
Jeffrey Heine:
Charlie, my boy, you won, you did it. I knew that you would, I just knew it. And Wonka embraces Charlie like a son, and he gives Charlie even more heaven than he had asked for. He gives him the keys to the chocolate factory kingdom. Is that what God is like?
Jeffrey Heine:
Angry that we broke the rules, waiting for the right words of repentance, that he's hot and he's cold, that he's angry and exuberant, is that it? Is God some maniacal candy maker in the sky just keeping score of all the rules that we're breaking, 1 by 1 by 1? And unless you say you're sorry in the right way, and unless you promise never to do it again, down the chocolate river you go. Is Is it about being sorry enough or doing enough good things to make up for the bad, to go to church, to clean up your life, to try harder, to be better? As a teen, I was always terrified by that youth group reminder that God was keeping a record of all of my wrongs, and they would play out like a movie when I died.
Jeffrey Heine:
We can easily end up with this picture of God. And maybe for some of you might think you might think that it's pretty accurate. Maybe this is what you think of when you think about God. But for this not to be our picture of God, we have to see and actually become wholly convinced that sin is not just arbitrary rule breaking, and that God isn't simply keeping score in the sky. And to undermine and eradicate these lies about who God is, we have to we need to remember 2 things.
Jeffrey Heine:
1st, that sin isn't mere rule breaking. Sin is not missteps or a simple breach of contract. Ultimately, sin is the rejection of God's love. Secondly, we need to remember that at all times and in all ways, in his justice and his mercy, God is displaying his love for his children. When we rightly understand sin and when we rightly understand repentance, we will approach God as he actually is.
Jeffrey Heine:
And if sin is the rejection of God's love, what then is repentance? Repentance, at its foremost, is the receiving of God's love. Because repentance demonstrates our trust in the mercy of God. You display trust in His gracious mercy when you come to Him, and you acknowledge your need, and you trust that He is kind and faithful to forgive. 499 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg door, and that 95 Theses begins with this statement, the whole of the Christian life is a life of repentance.
Jeffrey Heine:
He is saying that repentance is the central activity, the ongoing regular activity in the Christian life. And if Luther is right, that the whole of the Christian life is to be a life of repentance, then we must learn the way, the path of repentance. We need to be instructed in what this path looks like. And Psalm 32 is a Psalm of King David. And a few weeks ago, Josh Howson preached on Psalm 51, which is also a Psalm of David.
Jeffrey Heine:
And it's believed throughout the centuries of the church that Psalm 51 and Psalm 32 are companion poems. They go together. And as Josh taught a few weeks ago, Psalm 51 is this hymn of repentance after David is confronted by Nathan about his sin against Bathsheba, against Uriah, and ultimately God himself. You might recall that when when all this starts to break loose, that first sin, instead of being confessed before the lord, David tries to fix it. And by fixing it, he sins again.
Jeffrey Heine:
And then by fixing that, he sins again. And in this place, that's where Nathan comes to him. He tells him this story and opens his eyes to his sin. And David responds, I have sinned against the Lord. It's out of this confession that David writes Psalm 51.
Jeffrey Heine:
And toward the end of that psalm, he says this, restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Psalm 32 is David making good on these words to the Lord. Psalm 32 is a teaching psalm, and in it, David instructs transgressors in the way of repentance, how to return to the Lord. And so he's teaching us.
Jeffrey Heine:
David is teaching us the way, the path he had to walk and be aware. This journey, this path of repentance will take us through weakness. But in the end, like David, we will arrive in blessing. So with our time today, I I want us to understand the lesson of this psalm, the the progress of it, how it unfolds. I want us to listen to what David is trying to teach us, and then I want us to consider how we might respond together.
Jeffrey Heine:
So look with me in verse 1. Here's the big claim, the the David's principal truth statement. The big claim is here in verses 12. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the one against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Jeffrey Heine:
Blessed is the one who is forgiven. Some translations even say, happy is he whose sins are forgiven. David is describing true happiness. He says, this is how you are truly blessed, to know true happiness. It's the deep satisfaction in your soul that comes from being forgiven.
Jeffrey Heine:
And it is only knowable when we know the deep weakness found in the conviction of sin, because sin promises satisfaction. Sin promises that if you cheat, oppress, hate, destroy, discriminate, steal, then you will be satisfied. But we know all too well that there is no true satisfaction in sin. If sin was truly satisfying, there would have been one spring break, and then it would have been over, like, one trip to Fort Lauderdale, and then it's just done. But, no.
Jeffrey Heine:
Sin does not satisfy. True satisfaction is only found in forgiveness. Forgiveness settles and restores, completes and fulfills. And a fundamental tenet of the Christian faith is that we confess that we are sinners, and to refuse this belief means that the entirety of the faith will make no sense. Why did God become incarnate?
Jeffrey Heine:
Why did the Son suffer on the cross? Why what did he even accomplish on that cross? Remove the belief that we are sinful and the whole of redemption history, the whole of the Bible doesn't make sense. Therefore, we cannot be timid when it comes to talking about sin. And we cannot miss that repentance is a necessary part of the everyday Christian life.
Jeffrey Heine:
The normal Christian life is to be characterized as a repenting life, is to be a life that recognizes honestly and openly that we are sinners, both in our actions and sins and in our condition. David uses transgressions, sin, iniquity, and deceit to describe this manifold problem, and it's not supposed to be this way. Cornelius Plantinga defines sin this way, sin is always a departure from what is to be the norm, and it is assessed accordingly. Sin is deviant and injustice or iniquity or ingratitude. Sin is disorder and disobedience.
Jeffrey Heine:
Sin is faithlessness, lawlessness, godlessness. Sin is both the overstepping of a line and the failure to reach it. It is both transgression and shortcoming. Sin disrupts the vital human relation to God, end quote. See, eternal judgment is not about God counting up all of our sins and reporting that we broke the rules.
Jeffrey Heine:
See, no one goes to hell simply because they broke the rules. Hell is the desired end for the individual who rejects the love of God. And we need to understand this. We need to have this reality in mind. We need a greater understanding of our sinfulness, because when we understand our sinfulness, the better we understand our forgiveness.
Jeffrey Heine:
And when we understand our forgiveness, the better we understand who God is and why He must be worshiped and obeyed. Amen. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the one against whom Yahweh counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. This is David's big claim, that the truly blessed and happy person is the one who is forgiven by God.
Jeffrey Heine:
And then he goes on to testify how he came to learn this truth, the hard road that he had to journey to know that the blessed person is the forgiven person. Verses 3 through 5 are part of that testimony. King David, a man of great power and authority, testifies to his own weakness before the Lord. Look with me in verse 3. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
Jeffrey Heine:
For day night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Notice the juxtaposition here when he says, when I was silent, meaning when I was silent in confession, I was groaning. The Hebrew can be translated roaring all day. The Hebrew scholar, Robert Alter, noted that attempts to resolve this contradiction between silence and roaring here have been unavailing.
Jeffrey Heine:
But I doubt that I have to describe this to very many of you. I'm sure that many of you have felt this before, perhaps not with God, but with other relationships. Think of the time when you truly hurt someone that you love, when your words or your actions wounded them deeply. You can't fix it. You can't go back and undo it.
Jeffrey Heine:
There isn't anything you can say to put everything back into the place it was before, and you silently scream on the inside. That's what David's talking about. He says, I kept my mouth shut, and inside I roared all day long. And it felt like my very bones were crumbling to dust. And then David says, day and night, your hand, he's speaking to the Lord here, your hand was heavy upon me, and my strength was dried up as by the summer heat.
Jeffrey Heine:
He's saying that I kept my mouth shut, and day and night, I felt the heaviness of your divine hand upon me. Your hand was so heavy upon me, it felt like the heat of summer drying up all of my strength. Have you felt this before? Have you felt the draining that comes from neglecting confession, where you've been silent on the outside and roaring on the inside, where you have felt the weight of the hand of God in conviction. Maybe you were silent because you were angry.
Jeffrey Heine:
Maybe you were silent because you didn't think that God would actually forgive you, no one else has. Maybe you're silent because you're trying to convince yourself that you didn't do anything wrong. Maybe you're silent because you think you're good, and your good outweighs the bad, and you don't need to bring God into any of this, just try harder in the future. Maybe you're silent because you're waiting for someone else to apologize to you first. Whatever the reasoning, the results are the same.
Jeffrey Heine:
Neglecting confession has consequences. We can feel too drained to worship, too drained to meet with other believers, too drained to read our Bibles, or to go to God in prayer. And we want those good feelings to come back. We want that closeness to God to come back. But we don't know how to make it happen, and we resist.
Jeffrey Heine:
And we don't think that confession has anything to do with it. We think that pretending to be perfect on the outside works with God too, but it doesn't. David feels his guilt. He feels the heavy hand of God. And when we feel our guilt, it's easy to begin thinking that God is turning into that angry wonka.
Jeffrey Heine:
Right? But we have to keep in mind that as a child of God, as sons and daughters, when we feel this heavy hand upon us, it is not out of punishment. It is the love of God bringing us to repentance. Remember, it it it is a conviction against the sin that rejects his love. The heavy hand of conviction is also the heavy hand of love.
Jeffrey Heine:
This is how God deals with his children. The author of Hebrews says it like this. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons and daughters? My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him, For the Lord disciplines the one He loves.
Jeffrey Heine:
He corrects every child whom He receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as children. For what child is there whom the father does not discipline? The weight of conviction is not the weight of condemnation.
Jeffrey Heine:
Be sure of this. It is the weight of God's love. And this is the beautiful work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, that we would not go along blind to our sin, but we would see it, own it, confess it, and see it flee from us. The heavy hand of conviction is the heavy hand of God's love, and it would be unloving for me not to tell my children when they are wrong. An unloving God would never convict you of sin.
Jeffrey Heine:
You would do as you wish, when you wish, as you wish, and you would not have a loving God. The parent that lets their child do whatever they want is not a loving parent. God's love and your identity as a child of God is demonstrated. It is made evident in your conviction of sin. When you feel convicted of sin, that is an evidence of the work of God in your life, God loving you enough to show you the depths of the forgiveness he offers you in Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:
When you feel conviction, when you feel the heavy hand of God, that is an evidence of your status as a child of God and his love for you. Have you felt that heavy hand? Do you feel it today? The hand of God's love. David testifies that he felt this weakness before the lord, that he felt conviction all the way down to his bones, and then he broke his silence.
Jeffrey Heine:
Look at verse 5. I acknowledge my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. David says that he didn't cover his guilt any longer. He acknowledged what was already known.
Jeffrey Heine:
He had sinned against the Lord, and he confessed his transgressions to the Lord. And God, being rich in mercy, covered his sin. Look back at verse 1. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. When David stopped covering his sin, God covered his sin.
Jeffrey Heine:
When David stopped hiding his sin, God hid his sin. God did what David could not do. He made the guilt go away. God forgave the guilt of David's sin. He kept no record of the sin.
Jeffrey Heine:
His iniquity was no longer counted. David confesses. He breaks his silence. He stops covering up, and he acknowledges his sin before the Lord, and the Lord forgives him. And in the joy of this truth, David then turns his direction to us, sinners in need of instruction.
Jeffrey Heine:
He he speaks to us. Verse 6, Therefore, let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Surely, in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. He says of God, You are a hiding place for me. You preserve me from trouble.
Jeffrey Heine:
You surround me with shouts of deliverance. David's transitioning from that testimony to this instruction, and here, David is telling us, instructing sinners in the way that we must go. He encourages others to seek the Lord, because God deals graciously with those who trust Him. Confess now, he pleads. Offer your prayers.
Jeffrey Heine:
Open your mouths. Do not resist any longer. His testimony describes that that madness, that painfulness of resisting confession, and now he calls his listeners to confession, to go to the Lord in prayer now. He declares, again, the trustworthiness of God, that he is a hiding place, that he preserves, that Yahweh surrounds him with shouts of deliverance. And just as there is a parallel with the covering, when David stopped covering, God covered.
Jeffrey Heine:
David's silent roaring, when he was refusing confession, as he roared, screamed, shouted inside, now he is surrounded by shouts of deliverance from the Lord. When was the last time you heard the Lord shout deliverance to you? When did he last surround you with shouts of deliverance? And perhaps another necessary question, when was the last time you listened? The Lord is a hiding place for David.
Jeffrey Heine:
The Lord preserves David, and the Lord shouts deliverance, forgiveness all around David. David continues his instruction in verse 8. I will instruct you, now he's speaking to us as the listener, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule without understanding, which must be curved with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.
Jeffrey Heine:
A few months ago, my wife and I went to a farm in East Tennessee, and being from Kentucky, I marked that I am an experienced horse rider. And that is not true. But I felt like I would be, to see I I would be bringing much chagrin to my heritage if I said I was a beginner. But as I got up on a horse named Van Winkle, yeah, that's right, a horse named Van Winkle, I had signed us up for a trail that would actually take us over water. Like, we we would go through rivers on a horse that I had no idea how to ride.
Jeffrey Heine:
And there was a difference between Van Winkle and I. The primary one is that, he wanted to eat clover, and I wanted to not die. And as we were making our way, there was a path that we were supposed to be on. There was a way we were supposed to go. And we were supposed to be following this leader on horseback.
Jeffrey Heine:
And as he kept wanting to eat clover, the instructor kept yelling at me that I wasn't pulling on the reins hard enough. And I said, he's £2,000. How hard is enough? But as I kept pulling and kept pulling and kept pulling, finally, the bit and the bridle, the reins worked, and this 2 £1,000 animal went in the way it was supposed to go. And David says, don't be like a horse that doesn't understand where it's supposed to go and has to have this bit in the bridle.
Jeffrey Heine:
It has to have reins and steering you stubbornly to repentance. Don't be like that. Run to the love of God. Resist him no more. This is the path, the path of confession, the path of repentance.
Jeffrey Heine:
David cautions us once again in verse 10. Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. David knows this sorrow. He knows the sorrow of the wicked, but he also knows what it's like to trust in the Lord. David says, steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
That means the one who believes, the one who trusts. Not the perfect person, but the repenting person who trusts in the Lord. You are surrounded by shouts of deliverance and steadfast love. Are you surrounded by sorrow or steadfast love? Are you surrounded by shouts of shame or shouts of deliverance?
Jeffrey Heine:
The one who trusts in the Lord, who trusts Him with their confession, who trusts that He is good enough and gracious enough to forgive us, we are surrounded by shouts of forgiveness and shouts of love. Verse 11. This is the big therefore. Therefore, if all of this is true, if this is the God that we serve, if this conviction is not a hand of judgment, but a hand of love, if this is who he is and this is what he does, be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. Oh, righteous, he calls you.
Jeffrey Heine:
He doesn't call you sinner, he calls you righteous. He calls you upright in heart. How? Where did these sins go that were hidden? Where did they go, those sins that were covered?
Jeffrey Heine:
Where did they go? Because if they're still up there, if there's still a reel to reel of my sins that's just waiting to be played when I get up there, I'm in trouble y'all. So are you. Where did they go? My sin that I spent so much of my life trying to hide and still do is hidden, put away, placed upon Christ our lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
Amen. This is the only way that this path is possible. The path is only possible because Jesus made a way. He cleared the path. He cleared the path for David because David is saved by grace, and that grace was one established in Christ's blood.
Jeffrey Heine:
What does this mean for us today? We need to honestly listen to David, not just intellectually agree, because it's easy to nod our heads approvingly of the things that we hear in a church setting, but not just agree with our nodding heads, but in our hearts, in our souls to go before the Lord, to follow the path of repentance that David points out to us. We repent. That's the first thing. We we we listen to the spirit as he leads us to truth, truth about who we are, truth about what we've done, and the supreme truth of who God is, father, Son, and Spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:
This path is possible because of Jesus. And so as we as we follow through with that first response that we would repent, that we would move as David does and rejoice, to rejoice that our sins are forgiven, that we bear them no more, and that we are actually, truly, completely forgiven. The way that we will demonstrate this together, that we will walk this path together today, is through the table. I love when I get to preach and we go to the table. It takes all the guesswork out of how we're gonna wrap this sermon up.
Jeffrey Heine:
Right? This is how we respond. This is what we do. We recognize, we honestly hold before the Lord that we are sinners, that we actually have need. Coming up here, making your way from your seat to this table is not a parade of the perfect.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a parade of the repentant. You coming to this table, you are saying to everyone around you, to yourself as well, and to the Lord, that you are desperately in need. If you're good, if you if you don't have need, if if this is not something your behavior is not something that you bring God into and you're just gonna do better from here, then I would say stay in your seat. If you're good, if you have no sin, stay in your seat. But if you are broken, if you are busted up and sinful, if you are desperate and needy, then I say welcome.
Jeffrey Heine:
Come to the table. Hear the shouts of deliverance. Hear him shouting from the bread and the wine. Hear him. Hear the voice of the one who made you and has rescued you from sin.
Jeffrey Heine:
Hear him shout forgiveness and be glad. Be happy. Be blessed. Make your journey to the table a testimony of your journey of repentance. Confess your need.
Jeffrey Heine:
Confess His steadfast love. Shout with rejoicing that He is who He says He is, and He has accomplished what He says He has accomplished in your life and in the life of his children universal. Shout that though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. The way that we will partake is, we'll have 2 lines coming along here.
Jeffrey Heine:
We'll have, 3 different stations set up. You'll break off a piece of the bread, dip it in the cup, and receive. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it. As he broke the bread, he said, this is my body. It's broken for you.
Jeffrey Heine:
And, likewise, he took the cup, and after giving a blessing, he said, this is the cup of the new covenant that is established in my blood. The apostle Paul tells us that as often as we come to this table and we eat this bread and we drink from this cup, we are proclaiming the death of Christ until he comes again. There is an end date to this meal until he comes again. Let's pray, and then you come as you feel led. Oh, God, we need you.
Jeffrey Heine:
Help us to be a church, a people, a family that's quick to confess, quick to declare that we need you in every part of our lives, We're never going to be good enough on our own. We are desperate to be covered by the blood of Jesus. And in this time, as we come forward, as we partake of these elements, will you shout our deliverance to us? Will you surround us with your steadfast love? We pray these things in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.