Forgiveness As a Refuge (04/13/2003)

You turn there with me. Psalm chapter 32. We'll finish our study of forgiveness this morning.

We've been talking about the great themes of salvation and all that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us in his finished work and his continuing work on our behalves.

And we've worked our way to this beautiful study of forgiveness.

Let's pray and we'll begin this morning's message. Father, we thank you for the majestic words in that hymn this morning.

We thank you for the word of God that you've given us to study.

We thank you for your hand upon this world in every detail, holding all things together, moving all things in your perfect direction.

We thank you for the safety of our

POWs that were returned to us safely. We thank you for the way that your hand is in the midst of all that seems to be chaos to us over there.

We know that you're in complete control. Lord, we read many scriptures about the end times and we know that the focus will be in that very part of the world.

And so we watch, Father, we watch with eyes that from time to time look up, knowing that you're coming soon.

Lord, we ask you to bless us at this time with the study of your word that your spirit might teach us what you would have us to learn.

Your spirit might move our hearts where you wish to and how you wish to. We ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen. Psalm 32, 1. A psalm of David.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the

Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile.

We've gone through these concepts of forgiveness and if you remember, there are two types of forgiveness taught in the

Bible. The first we call it positional forgiveness to give the theological term, but what it means is it's forgiveness from God's point of view in the heavenlies.

And from that point of view, your sin has been removed as far as the east is from the west.

And really your sins were in Jesus Christ when he was on the cross that day and God has accounted you as if you have the righteousness of Jesus just as he accounted

Jesus as if he had your sins. And that's called imputation. And it's an amazing thing that David from the old testament understood this new testament concept.

Really wasn't revealed fully until the new testament when David says blessed is the man unto whom the

Lord imputeth not iniquity. That's what God was talking about through David.

Yes, if you look at yourselves in time, we know that we sin from time to time.

We know we're not supposed to. We know that we really don't want to. But we do sin from time to time.

And David is saying blessed is the man who even though he knows that's true also knows it's true that from the heavenly viewpoint

God does not impute that sin to you any longer. Now that's an amazing truth, but we have this truth of positional forgiveness.

You could look at it from the point of view of a family that a child even if he disobeys the parents, he never ceases to be the child of the parents.

Positionally, he is in that household when he obeys, but he's also in that household when he disobeys.

So that's the way we discuss forgiveness in those types of verses. There are other verses in the bible that discuss what we call experiential forgiveness.

That brings us from the heavenlies back down putting our feet on the ground and we're walking through time.

And in time, we know that even though every sin we will ever do, you see Jesus when our sins were in his body, we weren't born yet.

So our future sins were in him as well. Those are gone from God's viewpoint. But we know that as we're still walking through this timeline until we go to meet him as we're still walking from time to time, we still sin.

And so from the viewpoint of man's mind, from our psychological viewpoint, we need a way to deal with that sin and God's given us a way.

When you go down to psalm 32 verse 3, it begins to talk about that. When I kept silence, my bones wax old.

It begins to talk about how we have a need, a human need to confess our sins.

Just as a little child, even though on the one hand, it's true that he can sin. It doesn't matter how many times he sins against the family.

He's still a child of that family. He does not leave the family. That's true. But isn't it also true that he needs to have a method to restore fellowship with the father in the family.

They may go back and have a spanking, but he needs to say, I'm sorry. I know

I did wrong, daddy. And then hug and make up and go on as if it never happened.

The child needs that. And I'd have to say some of us fathers need that sometimes, too.

God has ordained that, not that he needs it. He knows we need it, but he has ordained it.

And it is a great part of this, this forgiveness. When I kept silence, my bones wax old through my roaring all the day long.

For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. That's the way it feels if we have sinned that we have not confessed yet.

God's hand is heavy upon us. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer.

It's like a dry desert we walk in as long as we have unconfessed sins. I need all the adults to understand this, but I certainly need the children to understand this, too.

That if you do something that you know is wrong and your conscience is burning inside of you, the way to deal with it is to get away from everybody, get alone and pray and say,

Lord, I know I just did wrong. And name the sin you did to him. That's not easy to do, but do it and agree with him that it's wrong.

And you know what? You can walk from that place and put it behind you and walk forward.

That's what David is talking about here. I acknowledged my sin unto thee. You see, that's confession. I acknowledge my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have

I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin.

It's interesting that he says when I confessed it, you forgave it. But a couple of verses earlier he said you never imputed it to me.

You see, David understands the divine viewpoint, but he lives in the human viewpoint. Isn't that interesting?

That's how we ought to be. We ought to understand the sovereignty of God because that brings us the only peace we can have in this world.

But we ought to walk as if we need to confess sins when we do the sins.

We ought to walk as if we need to pray, as if we can move God with our prayers, even though we know that God has already seen everything and you're not really going to change

God from the heavenly viewpoint. We need to walk as if we're a child asking our father of a request.

Now we understand we shouldn't pray anything unless the Holy Spirit moves our heart to pray. God will not answer any such fleshly carnal prayer.

But as the Holy Spirit moves us, we ought to have our heart into it. We ought to be in this timeline as if a little child coming to a father sitting on his knee and requesting something that the child already knows he wants.

The father thinks he's just coming because he wants to love on you. How many of you have experienced that? The child comes in, he's got that in his eye, and he's going to come sit on your lap.

You're going, oh, isn't this great? They don't do this as much. They're getting older and they wait about 30 seconds and say,

Dad, could I have... That's how we ought to approach prayer from the human viewpoint.

Now, same way with confession. We know full well that if we are born again today, those of us who know we're born again, know that we have no sin upon us, for God has not imputed our sins to us.

He imputed our sins to Jesus, and that's why Jesus died and paid for those sins. He has imputed his righteousness to us.

We stand before God in the righteousness of Jesus. And even though we know that, we still, when we do sin, we ought to come before God and admit it to him and confess it to him and acknowledge sins unto him.

And we've discussed some of this. I'm just reviewing a little bit here. We then go into verse 7 here in Psalm 32.

David now goes... He started in the heavenly viewpoint. He came down to earth. Now he's going back up to the heavenly because that's where it's all based.

He says, thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble.

Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. We see three concepts here, hidden in Christ, preserved from trouble, and delivered.

Now what we have to understand is there's a curious connection here between our forgiveness and this sovereignty of God aspect of the fact that God is in control of us and he works within us.

He is always doing a work. He didn't just save us and then stop, see what we would do. He saved us and now he continues to work in us all the time.

There is a way in which we could say we are saved, but we are still being saved.

That's the present tense of salvation. There's a way we could say we shall be saved. That's our glorification when our body, this physical body is glorified.

So we have a past, present, future tense of salvation and we look at this. David comes back to the divine viewpoint and he says, listen,

I know that I am forgiven. I know I need to confess my sins, but even beyond that I know that I'm really hidden in Christ.

I will confess my sins, but I know it's not my confessing of them that causes me to be saved.

It's the fact that I am saved that causes me to want to confess them. Do you see how people can get the cart before the horse so often in theology?

Above it all, David says, I am hidden in Christ. Colossians 3, 1 says, if you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.

He also says, thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Psalm 37, 28 says, for the

Lord loveth judgment and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved forever, but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.

God's saints don't have to confess their sins in order to be preserved. They are preserved.

They're preserved by God. They're preserved because of the blood of Jesus and nothing more. But it's still appropriate for us to confess sin.

That's why I think David sandwiched this idea of confession and acknowledging sin in between two sovereignty of God passages where he says your sin's already gone.

He wants us to understand both points of view. He does not want us to think for one minute that we have to confess in order to stay saved.

Now, there are many misunderstandings that can come into play with this idea of forgiveness and with the idea of confession.

And God straightens them out if you just read the word. He puts all the information we need to keep it balanced and keep it right.

We're going to see more of that in just a few moments. So we are hidden. We are preserved. And what about this great deliverance that we have?

We read some beautiful verses from the Psalms about that last time. I want to summarize that.

Turn with me to Colossians chapter 1 verse 12. Keep a hand there in Psalm 32.

That's where we're really preaching from. But this is a beautiful little passage in the

New Testament that talks about this deliverance that is connected to our forgiveness.

You cannot disconnect forgiveness from the fact that God has delivered us from all sin.

Colossians 1 12 giving thanks unto the father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Now this little passage, I'm going to read four or five verses. It really summarizes a lot of the concepts we've already studied so far in this lesson on the finished work of Jesus.

It will discuss the eternal plan of God. It will discuss redemption. It'll discuss reconciliation, propitiation, but thank but also forgiveness.

He says giving thanks unto the father which hath made us fit. Meet means fit.

He has made us fit to be partakers. You see where the sovereignty of God comes in? The Bible always looks up first, always looks from God's viewpoint first.

Then it will come down and give us the human viewpoint because that's where we live. But it's God that made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance.

We didn't do that ourselves. I don't care if you confess sin or forget to confess sin or remember to confess sin.

You can't make yourself fit for heaven. The confession of sin makes you feel better on the earth and also fit for service perhaps, but it doesn't make you saved or more saved or less saved, you see?

And he points this out. It's God who makes us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who has delivered us from the power of darkness.

It's God who delivered us from the power of darkness, not we ourselves, not any work that we do, including confession of sin.

Confession of sin does not deliver us from anything that has to do with the powers of darkness. God does that.

God does that on our behalf. Jesus did that on the cross. It's his work that delivers us.

Who hath delivered us? Who is the father? The father has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son.

We were in the wrong language when we were born into this world. We were born into the language of the world, in the bad sense, and God has translated us into the heavenly language.

He's made us to be fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light by translating us into the kingdom of his dear son, in whom we have redemption through his blood.

We've covered that theme, but look, it's tied in directly with forgiveness of sins.

We have the redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. You see how this is forgiveness from the eternal viewpoint?

God, from God's viewpoint, our forgiveness is tied with the redemption, which means we were bought with the price of Jesus's blood and it's finished.

It doesn't have to do with us confessing or not confessing. That's God's viewpoint.

It's tied in with the blood. It's tied in with the finished work of redemption, set free by paying a price.

The price that was paid was the blood of Jesus, who is the image of the invisible

God, the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible, invisible, whether they be thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, all things were created by him, but also for him.

And he is before all things, and by him he holds all things together. That's what it means, all things consist.

And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.

For it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell. And look at this, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, by him

I say whether they be things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.

It's all past tense. It's finished. He has reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death.

It's the finished work of Jesus Christ to present you holy and unblameable, that means totally forgiven, holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight.

Now what's very interesting to me is the next verse, the first word in the next verse, because most

Baptists love to put a period after verse 22 and stop right there, close the Bible and preach the sermon. And I would prefer to do that myself, quite frankly.

But all this means is we're shifting to the human viewpoint now. We've been in the divine viewpoint from verse 12 all the way through verse 22.

And now we're shifting to the human viewpoint. We're shifting not from God being the judge, but from how your fellow man judges us, and it says you will be holy, unblameable, unreprovable in his sight if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof

I, Paul, am made and ministered. Now some would take that and pervert it and say that that means, well, only if you do good works are you unreprovable and unblameable in his sight someday.

That's not what it's saying. What it's saying is, is that if you have verse 12 through verse 23 applied to your life by faith, if you have

Jesus Christ in your heart, if you have his blood upon your life, then you will continue in the faith grounded and settled.

But there are those among us who profess to be saved, who profess to be a

Christian, who don't have it. Because there are still those among us who are who are either religious or depending on works or depending on some good thing that they're going to do or depending on somehow pleasing

God for their salvation. And this verse is put there for them because you know, what's true of them every time?

They can only go a season and they go right back to the pig's lot. They only, they make a profession of faith.

They may get baptized and they may flourish for many days.

Oh, just have the great personality, the great testimony, just bubbly for Jesus and all of a sudden you never see him again.

And the next thing you go, a year later, you look out there and they're down at the beer joint or they're off somewhere just living for the devil.

And you say, my soul, they didn't continue. You know why they didn't continue? Jesus tells us why.

He said, for they have no root. Yeah, they sprung up quickly like a seed that falls on soil that has a rock underneath it.

And it can't get any root, but it springs up quickly. But as soon as the sun comes out, it scorches it and it dies for it has no root.

There are those like that among us. That's why God gives us verses like verse 23.

It's not to say that you as the born again true children of God have to worry about whether you will continue or not.

Listen, how can you believe that when you have thousands of verses like the verses that say that God continues the work in you that he began?

And you have all the verses that says God worketh in you. And all the verses that say just as you were saved, so walk.

It's by faith. And how could you believe it means that if you read the verses right above it from 12 to verse 22.

22 where it says that you're saved by redemption, by the blood of Jesus, not by anything you do.

But what it shows clearly is that those that are saved will continue in faith. They will be grounded and settled.

They will not be moved away from their hope no matter what trials and tribulations come. I'll give you a verse to prove that if you want to see one.

I know I don't have to prove that i'm preaching to the choir this morning on this issue. But Hebrews chapter 10 verse 38 and 39.

Very interesting passage. You should mark a big the biggest star you've got in your bible should be beside Hebrews 10 38 and 39.

Because the first time someone tries to tell you that Colossians chapter 1 verse 23 means that you could lose your salvation.

Take them to Hebrews 10 38 and 39 and you can teach them because they are foolish. You don't have to tell them that but you can know that they are.

Anyone who comes to you and tries to argue with you that you could lose your salvation is a fool and you can know that.

But you don't have to tell that to them to their face. All you have to do is read Hebrews 10 38 39 and explain to them because what they're doing is they're living by sight not by faith.

See God has said that he keeps his children. He says of all whom he hath given me

I shall lose nothing. But shall raise it up the last day and 50 ,000 other verses

I could read. That's my favorite subject is eternal security. I could go on and on with verses. I won't do that this morning, but it's there.

But rather than living by faith of what God says in those verses there are those who live by sight.

Here's what they see. They'll come to church. They'll see somebody come up give a testimony. They just got baptized. They come give a flowery testimony a strong testimony of how usually they'll mention all the gory details of their sins.

And then they'll come out and say but God's changed me. And then six months later they're out living for the devil and that person sees that and by his eye he says therefore he lost his salvation.

Hebrews 10 38 deals with that very issue and look what it says. Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back it implies that some men do draw back.

Some men do give a profession and then draw back and go live like they used to. If any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him and this is

God talking. But look at look at the next verse. But we this is the author of Hebrews talking we believe it's probably

Apostle Paul, but we are not of them who draw back unto perdition.

Perdition means utter destruction. It's talking about hell. We are not of that group that draws back to hell, but we are of them that believe unto the saving of the soul.

There are two groups even in churches. There's God's seed Satan's seed if you want to put it that way.

There are the elect and the non -elect if you want to put it that way both biblical ways to put it.

There are goats and sheep if you want to put it that way. If you want to put it that way there are three groups.

There are lost goats lost sheep and saved sheep. Unless you study, you don't know the difference.

You'll be confused by your sight. But listen those around us are confused. We don't need to be. So we see that very clearly

God has in fact delivered us. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness?

How could you read Colossians 1 13 that says he has already in the Greek tense past tense

He's already delivered us from the power of darkness. He has already Translated us into the kingdom of his son and then read verse 23 to say if you continue in the faith

Grounded and settled means you're gonna lose that. It doesn't mean that. It does mean we are delivered from the power of darkness 1st

Thessalonians 1 10 says and to wait for his son from heaven who hath who he raised from the dead

Even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come we're delivered from the wrath to come not if anything

There's no if in that verse 2nd Timothy 4 18 and the

Lord shall deliver me from every evil work Listen this if 1st Thessalonians 10 1 10 says he has delivered me 2nd

Timothy 4 18 says he shall deliver me. Listen. I'm covered on both ends and And The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and will

Shall that's in the future. We don't have to worry. Say, okay. I'm up. I'm okay up till now This is Church Christ doctor.

I'm okay to now he's forgiven my past sins, but boy, I got to worry about tomorrow. I Could fall it's like God be surprised if I went out there tomorrow and did something, you know

Why would God save you in the first place if he saw out in the future you're gonna sin and if that were a problem that's not a problem, you know why it's not a problem because it's paid for once and shall never be paid for again and Everyone for whom that was paid will be found in heaven.

I like this and To wait for his son from heaven. This is 1st

That's the only 110 whom he hath raised from the dead even Jesus which Delivered us past tense and 2nd

Timothy 4 8 and 18 and the Lord Shall deliver me from every evil work that goes out into the future and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom

That's all the way up until I'm there To whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen. We will not get the glory for having kept ourselves saved You can say well,

I live this verse 23 up here in Colossians 1. I continued I worked hard at continuing I continued in the faith grounded and settled and didn't go back to that pig slop.

So I'm here I'm here. Aren't you proud of me? That won't happen Because what will happen is it will be shown that we try to go back to the pig slop a few times of our own will

But God never let us fall. It says though they fall They shall not be utterly cast down for the

Lord upholdeth them in his hand It's God that will get the glory when we get there because we would have lost it if we could have lost

Our salvation that is but he won't let us because we've been his children from before anything was made that is made

And God doesn't let one of his children go to hell. I Can't understand why the world doesn't understand.

I mean, I understand the world Why doesn't the world of Christianity understand it? How can you have so many denominations in this very city that preach that you can lose your salvation?

It is sad, but it's foolishness and there is no excuse for it

Hebrews 2 14 it's because they don't understand forgiveness David in the

Old Testament before Jesus ever came understood it better than the Church of Christ friend Understands it better than the first Pentecostal friend better than the

Methodist friend David understood it better before Jesus ever came read

Psalm 32 Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputed not sin

How could you go to hell if you don't have any sin in your account? All you have is the righteousness of Jesus in your account

Makes me glad makes me glad. We have a heritage of people who believe

Jesus blood saves Jesus blood is all -sufficient Hebrews 2 14 for as much sin as the children are partakers of the flesh and blood

He also himself likewise took part of the same that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death.

That is the devil. How can he take a saint to hell if he's destroyed? Satan is destroyed the same death that that redeemed us destroyed

Satan and Listen to this. Not only is Satan destroyed the one who has the power of death

That is the devil but and delivered them through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage

Jesus Christ not only destroyed the devil, but he delivered us all in the same blow

We are delivered 2nd Peter 2 7 even delivered just lot. You remember the lot

Lot didn't have the most saintly lifestyle lot did not perform as many good works as some would like to see

Lot would be one of those that say well, I don't know about him. He didn't really look safe It Proves salvation is not by works

It proves that we're not the judge of who is saved God is it also proves that if you were of the elect and Jesus died for you

You're going to be saved. You may be a disobedient child, but you're in the family Listen, how many of you have more than one children raise your hand?

Okay, were they all the same? Would you say maybe some of them have a nature that just slightly tends to obey more than some of the others?

Okay, do you love the one that obeys more the most Tell me truthfully Shake your head one way or the other if you have more than one child one obeys

The other one tends to get in trouble. Do you love the one that obeys the most shake your heads? I want to see oh, they're going this way

Why is that? Because it's not because of what they do that makes you love them is because of who you are

You're the month. You're the mom It's not because of what you do that makes God love you it's because of who he is he's your father he knew you before the foundation of the world if You have received

Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior Or if you're sitting here this morning and you haven't but you're worried about it and you'd like to and you're thinking about it

God knew you before the foundation of the world And he's your father

And if that's the case, he'll deliver you just whether you're like lot or whether you're like Abraham you think about that now

That's a powerful statement You don't have to be like Abraham to be delivered and be

God's child. You could be like lot I'm not advocating that but there are all degrees all in between I'll tell you this you're like whoever

God made you to be because he wanted you to be that way Did you know God wanted a lot to be a lot? I'm not saying lot wasn't responsible for his bad choices.

We're all responsible for that But God wanted an Abraham and a lot

Second Peter 2 7 God delivered just lot who was vexed with the filthy

Conversation of the wicked people that lived around him for that righteous man. God calls him a righteous man.

How can he call? I Can't comprehend that I mean that I just That is far beyond my ability to comprehend how any man in any society whether that's a soul.

I don't know what that was That's the devil If you ask me the devil in lot, you know And God calls him a righteous man verse 8 for this righteous man dwelling among them you know why because David said blessed is the man and to His sins are not imputed

God from the heavenly viewpoint looked down at lot saw him as Jesus. He saw him all dressed up in Jesus This righteous man dwelling among none among them in seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul

How do we as humans even know that lot was saved? Well, he didn't live, right? But you know what we could tell he was not at peace with it

You see if you get saved you may still go out and sin, but you won't like it anymore Oh You may like it for a moment, but two seconds after it you won't like it and thinking about the next time you say

I'll never do that again because I didn't like it. You will not like it You'll be vexed by sin a lost person is not a lost sheep and a lost goat both love sin.

I Suspect the lost sheep probably doesn't love it quite as much as the lost goat Yeah But I'll tell you this a saved sheep hates sin

He hates to be in the mud and if he gets in it, he wants to get out of it as quickly as he can That's why

God gives us confession on the human level The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations.

That's what it says about lot You know how he delivered lot He sent angels and he went and grabbed him and took him out physically when he didn't want to go

He delivered this man out of temptations and God knows how to reserve

The unjust under the day of judgment to be punished. That is an equal truth now

What have we seen this morning? We see that God that David in Psalm 32

Understands that the man is blessed Whose transgression is forgiven?

The man is blessed unto whom God does not impute the sins that he does But then we see that David says even though that's true

If I keep silence in my heart and don't confess my sin I'm like in a desert because that's my relationship with the father.

It's not my salvation It's not anything to do with whether I'm in the family or not. I'm in but but my

My fellowship I should say not my relation has been affected and I want that to be right.

And so David deals with that And he deals with it in verses 2 through 5.

I acknowledge my sin and to thee my iniquity have I not hid For this shall everyone that is godly pray into thee in a time when thou mayest be found

We see confession is important But we see David ending up with the idea that thou art my hiding place

Thou art the one who preserves me from trouble thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance

Selah He goes back to the divine viewpoint. That's where we rest

We've been hidden We've been preserved Next week.

We're going to go 8 through 11 We're going to talk about Confession from the point of view of 1st,

John 1 9 And we'll end this study I thought we might get there today, but we didn't but we'll end this study with 1st

John 1 9 which is the most famous verse on confession of sin in the New Testament And we'll take a look at that from the point of view of a word study and then it will bring all of this together

There are many misconceptions about being forgiven many misconceptions about Confession and when we do the study on 1st,

John 1 9 by the time we finish it We'll see that the Bible itself in the verses that are around verse 9 in that chapter

Will do away with every false belief about Forgiveness and confession.

There are people who abuse it People say well, I'll just go sin now because I know

I confess later. I'm covered. So I'll be alright that kind of heresy

All of that is discussed in the verses surrounding 1st John 1 9 That's what we'll discover over next week.

And then we surely will be Completed with this idea of forgiveness. Let's stand and have prayer together

Father we thank you so much for the scriptures that you give us. We thank you for the ones that deal from the divine viewpoint

Where you promise us that we are hidden in Christ and therefore we are preserved and delivered

Preserved forever unto your kingdom to our inheritance that you've given us in Jesus Christ We thank you that our forgiveness cannot be separated from this deliverance from this preservation

We thank you that your Holy Spirit Opened David's eyes one day to these things when perhaps he was contemplating his own sin perhaps he was

Holding a musical instrument thinking about writing you this song That we studied from today and you gave him these words that were way before his time way before the cross

But you gave them for us in these last days as well We thank you for the precious blood of Jesus that has cleansed us from all sins or ever

We thank you for giving us a Way to fulfill our human needs

Giving us the idea of confession and telling us that we are to come to you as little children and admit we did the sin and to name the sin specifically and acknowledge it before you and then you

Clear our hearts and we can walk together hand -in -hand with you Thank you for all these things.

You've given us. Thank you for giving us each other the comfort that we have the fellowship we have and the wonderful Memories we're creating every moment as we walk through this time together

Protect those of ours who can't be with us today We think of Roger we ask you to be with him every moment.

We know you are Protecting give him bravery. Give him protection Help him to be watchful, but also have those that are watching over him both in the world and in the heavenly places