Patience, Peace, and Promises (Psalm 37:7-8) | Worship Service

to worship from I six and seven the people who walk in darkness will see a great light those who live in the land of the shadow of death the light will shine on them for a child will be born to us a son will be given to us and the government will rest on his shoulders and his name will be called one full counselor mighty

God Prince of Peace there will be no end to the increase of his government or to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore the zeal of you earning let's begin our service by singing

Park the Herald Angels sing well good morning just one quick announcement other than the ones that are in your bulletin which

I would encourage you to check out and that is that next week we have a youth concert

Christmas concert to next week next Sunday evening starting at 6 p .m. it says 5 p .m.

in your bulletin that starts at 6 p .m. and this Sunday is the last Sunday that you have to talk to Rachel she was the one in the middle here if you youth want to participate in that concert next week so talk to her if you want to be part of that and that's next

Sunday December 8th at 5 p .m. we turn your Bibles please oh and the youth choir practice is after church today let's practice for that next

Sunday sorry did I say 5

I said the bulletin says 5 it's at 6 p .m. okay that's a 6 p .m. if you're here at 5 you'll still get to be there for it all right turn your

Bibles to Psalm 32 Psalm 32 read together this entire

Psalm 11 verses Psalm 32 the superscript says it is a

Psalm of David a mascal Psalm 32 how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered how blessed is the man to whom the

Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit when

I kept silent about my sin my body wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer

I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide I said

I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him you are my hiding place you preserve me from trouble you surround me with songs of deliverance

I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go I will counsel you with my eye upon you do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check otherwise they will not come near to you many are the sorrows of the wicked but he who trusts in the

Lord loving -kindness shall surround him be glad in the Lord and rejoice you righteous ones and shout for joy all you who are upright in heart we stand with me as we pray let's bow our heads our father the promise of your word is that we are blessed when you do not impute to us our iniquity and instead you credit us with the righteousness of Christ we are blessed because you have not counted our transgressions against us because they have been paid for it in your son so we are reminded here of the benefit and blessing that comes to the one who does not try to hide his transgressions from you but rather seeks your face and finds in you our gracious and sovereign

God forgiveness and righteousness and atonement and complete redemption because of what your son has done and so we thank you again for those graces it is because of that that we gather together here around around Christ around your word around the revelation of your truth to worship and adore you to fellowship with one another to serve one another in love and with thanksgiving to request of you are to make a request of you and to praise you for your goodness to us thank you for your loving kindness to us in your son the

Lord Jesus Christ thank you for redeeming us for taking away our sin and for removing our iniquity for taking away our guilt not just that our payment has been made by Christ but that we have the blessing of a clean conscience through the work of your son so we thank you for these graces and we bow our hearts and our heads before you today and ask that you would be honored and glorified through our worship give us grace to sing with full hearts full of affection and love and praise for the glory of Christ our

King in whose name we pray amen has received him he held his glory glory is of the only grace of truth and turn now if you will please to Psalm 37

Psalm 37 when you found your place we'll begin with the word of prayer and we'll read this here shortly let's bow our heads my father we humbly bow before you confessing once again that we need your grace and your spirit to teach us from your word so that we might not only see what scripture says but understand in the depths of our hearts and soul what it means what it means for our lives for our sanctification for our trust in you we pray that today we would be shaped and molded into the image of Christ conformed to his likeness through your word that you would unite our hearts around this truth help us to understand what is written here and then to apply and to embrace your counsel from your word may you be glorified and honored through our time and our study here for the glory of Christ in whose name we pray was that an airplane or was that humming in my ear it was humming okay waiting is a difficult thing it is difficult to be patient and it is hard sometimes to wait and I have often wondered if my struggle with patience is some something of an artifact of the age in which we live if it is more difficult for us to be patient in our age than it was for Saints of old to be patient in their age and I have to only wonder that because this is the only era in which

I've ever lived I've never lived in a previous era so all I have known is what it is like in my life and what it is like in our day in our culture and it seems as if waiting and being patient is would be more difficult for us than it would be for people who lived in generations past I have only lived at a time when things have been available to me relatively quickly even when

I was a kid and this has changed for us quite dramatically but when I was a kid you would see the advertisements on one of the two maybe three television stations that you could get and you would tell you to write away for this gimmick this product this whatever it is that they were selling to this address and then wait four to six weeks for delivery and waiting four to six weeks for delivery just seemed like standard fare in that day and it certainly was and if you ordered something from overseas forget it you're waiting months for delivery at that time today we don't wait hardly for anything we have things available to us almost instantly we are used to next day air today shipping getting something from Amazon depending on where you live maybe in the same day or just several hours after you order it now we can have food delivered to us by uber eats we can have our our shopping delivered to us by Walmart we have things that we order on prime delivered to us the next day or two days and if we have to wait if I have to wait for even an hour or sorry a week for something to get to me from Amazon I get upset and frustrated and I check the tracking information did they lose the package why am

I why do I have to wait this long for this book or for this item in our time we have instant coffee and instant hot water fast food quick lube next day air all of that has conditioned us to to get things quickly and to expect things quickly we can say things in our day like this tomorrow

I'm leaving for Europe I'm going to an event and I'll be back by next Sunday you realize that there was a time and it wasn't that long ago when a trip like that would you wouldn't be talking about a week you would be talking about the greater part of a year of your life that you would commit to making such a trip and yet we can do it with seemingly the speed of light it feels like that and we live in a time when we are not conditioned to wait long for almost anything and it is hard to imagine that that agent this age in which we live has not conditioned us in some ways to be very impatient and to struggle with waiting for things to to come that God has promised to us

I know that it has affected me I pace in front of a microwave 90 seconds to warm up my coffee is this the third world do we live in caves 90 seconds and I I sit there and I spend that 90 sections seconds wondering would it be faster for me to go outside and rub sticks together and make a fire and warm it over a stone bowl that I've carved that morning out of granite 90 seconds what kind of an age do we live in that I have to wait beep and then it goes off okay

I'm gonna have my coffee 90 seconds seems like an eternity so I know that this age of instant gratification has conditioned me to expect things quicker than I should expect them and if people today if people last in previous generations needed that kind of reminder to be patient and to wait for the

Lord then certainly certainly it is an aspect of all of humanity as a it is a flaw in all of us no matter what age we live in that we are impatient creatures but I think that this age makes us even more impatient and so we need the counsel that we find in Psalm 37 turn if you will there if you're not there yet Psalm 37 this is our study for these last few weeks and it will be for the next several weeks these first eight verses describe the path to peace in a world where the wicked prosper and not only where the wicked prosper but sometimes the wicked prosper at the expense of the righteous as they carry out their wicked schemes and the injustices and the wrongs in this world can be quite perplexing and vexing to the believer to the righteous and our natural instinct is to fret over such inequities and that is why the psalm begins with a command to not fret in verse 1 and it is why this section that we're looking at from verses 1 to 8 ends with the command to not fret stated twice once in verse 7 and once in verse 8 this psalm addresses this issue of how the righteous respond to the prosperity of the wicked and living in a world in which we are surrounded by the wicked and sometimes suffer at the hands of the wicked we've covered the first six verses and today we're finishing this section looking at the peace that God gives to his people and we're looking at verses today specifically verse 7 and verse 8 so we will read through all of these eight verses and I'll remind you of what we have covered thus far in verse 1 we saw that we must refuse to fret verse 1 do not fret because of evildoers be not envious toward wrongdoers in verse 2 we see that we must remember that they fade for they that is the wicked will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb verse 3 mean what we must respond with faith trust in the

Lord and do good dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness in verse 4 we must delight in Yahweh for our satisfaction delight yourself in the

Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart and then in verses 5 and 6 we must depend on Yahweh for our vindication commit your way to the

Lord trust also in him and he will do it he will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noon day that was the last two weeks today we're looking at verses 7 and 8 read those with me rest in the

Lord and wait patiently for him do not fret because of him who prospers in his way because of the man who carries out wicked schemes cease from anger and forsake wrath do not fret it leads only to evil doing so we'll see in verse 7 that we must wait patiently and then in verse 8 we must walk peacefully or 7 waiting patiently rest in the

Lord and wait patiently for him do not fret because of him who prospers in his way because of the man who carries out wicked schemes

I want you to notice a couple of observations before we jump into verse 7 once you notice first of all that the idea of fretting or more specifically not fretting brackets this section verse 1 begins with this this is how the psalm starts off do not fret because of the wicked do not fret because of evil doers and then this first section that talks about living at peace and the peace that God gives us ends with a similar command in verse 7 to not fret and then again in verse 8 it is repeated a third time do not fret so it brackets that that command that idea of not fretting sort of brackets the whole section it is a parentheses as it were that tells us that everything in here is is a cure a cure for fretting next

I want you to notice that this is the last what I would call the the Lord commands or the

Yahweh commands though the passages filled with commands there are four of them specifically address the name of God Yahweh those four are verse 3 trust in the

Lord verse 4 delight in the Lord verse 5 commit your way to the Lord and verse 7 rest in the

Lord and the NASB and other English translations translate those as the Lord and it is

Yahweh that is the name of God so it's trust in Yahweh the light in Yahweh commit your way to Yahweh and rest in Yahweh and then third

I want you to notice that these four verbs these four commands trust delight commit and rest really that is there is a natural progression that is laid out there this is the path to peace trusting comes first resting comes last we have to trust and delight and then commit and then we rest and there's no shortcut to resting so this

I find very helpful to remember when I struggle with anxiety or affliction or am

I am some way disquieted by events going on around me that there is a progression here I first must come to the conclusion and resolve that God is worthy of my confidence that he is able that he is trustworthy

I can put my faith and my confidence in him because of who he is because of what he has promised because of his infallible track record he is worthy of my trust and then second

I can move on to that and make him the source of my delight and and and mortify the sin that seeks to find its joy and delight in other things to make

God my focus so having trusted in him then I am to delight in him and then having trusted and delight

I commit my way to the Lord trusting in him and we saw last week that verb means to roll on to the

Lord our burden to commit our way to roll it on to the Lord by casting our concerns our cares our burdens upon him so I trust him because he is worthy of that trust and my confidence in him and then

I can and then I can delight in him seeking my joy my satisfaction in him and him alone committing my burdens and my frustrations and my anxieties to the

Lord and then the fourth step I can rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him that's verse 7 trust delight commit and then rest and when

I find myself getting to the resting part and then my mind or my heart fixing on my problems and the difficulties and the things in this world and resting seems difficult

I come back to step one and I say who is my God he is trustworthy so I can delight in him and I can roll my burdens on to him and now

I can tell my heart to be at rest and then when I'm restless I go back to step one again now you say you might say

Jim that sounds like a lot of work to do those four things it is a lot less work than fretting over a thousand things that you cannot control and you cannot change that's a lot of work trying to run the entire universe and keep control of everything out there that you can't control and you can't change that's a lot of work trusting delighting committing and resting those are those are simple commands those are simple things to do compared to trying to control everything we can't control so we are commanded in verse 7 to rest rest in the

Lord and wait patiently for him do not fret because of him who prospers in his way because of the man who carries out wicked schemes the word that is translated rest there at the beginning of verse 7 is a word that means to be still or motionless that you might expect that still or motionless but it means a little bit more than that it means to stand still and to keep quiet in fact it is the

Hebrew word Dom sounds like our word dumb D -u -m -b and not in the sense of being ignorant or not knowing something but in the sense of being deaf and dumb that is unable to speak or silenced so this is a command not just to be still and unmoved and not moving but to rest and to keep silent to grow dumb or silent to stop speaking now this does not mean that we are to stop praising

God that we are to stop praying to God that we are to stop thank giving him thanks or worshiping him or trusting him it is not advocating that we stop all communication with Yahweh and cease speaking to him about anything that's not what the psalmist is saying the psalmist here is commending silence as opposed to the murmuring or complaining spirit that characterizes those who fret over circumstances they cannot control so here's your two options you can fret over it be anxious hot bothered angry over it indignant over the circumstance of the situation or you can remain silent and rest and be patient with the

Lord this is not the opposite of praising it is the opposite of fretting that the author deals with in verse 7 and verse 8 this is describing the quiet mind that rests on God and trust in him and submits its way to him and does not murmur against God or complain against his way it is the opposite of fretting we are to wait patiently the text says first phrase of verse 7 that word that is translated wait patiently this is a very interesting word you're gonna find this curious it is used 47 times in the

Old Testament it is translated sometimes as wait it is also translated in the

Old Testament as writhe travail tremble shake anguish and be in labor

I didn't let that settle in for a second wait and travail wait and writhe how is it that this same word could be translated both of those ways is it not true that sometimes when we are waiting we are writhing so this is not suggesting that waiting and resting is going to remove the travail or remove the labor or the anguish or the trembling or the writhing

I think that the author uses this word to remind us that there are some times that we have to wait upon the

Lord while we writhe under the affliction or under a circumstance that we don't want to be in we have to wait in writhing and so we are to wait patiently and to writhe patiently to travail patiently and to endure that affliction or that injustice that inequity and we are to do that with a heart or soul that does not murmur and is quiet before the

Lord so we rest in him silently before him and we writhe patiently travail patiently the author is reminding us that sometimes we while we wait the pressure of living under the wicked in a wicked world is still there we still groan we still moan we still are in labor as it were waiting patiently for the end of it but just because we rest and just because we wait does not mean that the difficulty goes away we're waiting really for the end of the story and that will clear up the plot you don't judge a story or a book or a narrative halfway through you have to wait until you get to the end of the book and see the final chapter being written or you have to wait until you see the final curtain come down before you can judge what the author has written and it is the same way in our life and in our world we have to wait until the final act we have to wait till the final curtain and then we can have a conversation about whether this was all really worth it or not and I promise you we will say that it was the author tells us not to fret in verse 7 do not fret because of him who prospers in his way and it's the same word used in verse 1 it's the same word repeated in verse 8 we saw a couple weeks ago that 35 out of the 93 times that that word fret is used it means to become hot or angry it describes burning or being kindled to burn with anger the noun form of that is used in Psalm 2 verse 5 where it describes the anger of God that terrifies the wicked who who cast off his cords and want to be free of his fetters one commentator describes this as heating oneself into vexation do not heat yourself into vexation this is what fretting is fretting is lighting the fire under ourselves and then complaining when we are too warmed by it it is is heating yourself into a state of indignation it can be used to describe the anger of man and the anger of God and when it is used in a context like this it is suggested that it expresses a passionate intensity a consuming indignation and a frustration about the power and the rule of God so it is not just the anger of man that is in view here it is the anger or indignation of man toward God over how he disposes of his creation and how he rules in the affairs of men this is the type of anger that looks at an injustice and says

God is to blame for this and so I'll bring him in on the dock as it were and judge him and try him and accuse him and expect

God to give a defense of himself before me for how he is ruled in my affairs that is what it means to fret to be angry and anxious and to be indignant over what

God has done and we are tempted to fret because of him who prospers in his way verse 7 that is really what causes the vexing it's not necessarily the presence of the wicked that makes the righteous fret it is the prospering of the wicked that makes the righteous fret it's the success of the wicked that makes the righteous fret that's what causes us angst nobody worries about an evil man who fails with his plans we laugh at that when evil man does something that is evil he plots and schemes and and and plans out his course and then he tries to execute it and he fails in it and it falls down upon his own head when the bird is caught in its own when the man is caught in his own net like a bird and he hang sets up the gallows to hang somebody else on like Mordecai no more yeah

Haman like Haman set up gallows to hang Mordecai and then he is hung on his own gallows nobody vexes or frets over that we laugh at that we think that's justice poetic justice that's the kind of thing we like to see and we wish we could see that more often but we don't see it that often and so when the wicked prosper in his way as verse 7 describes that's what causes us to fret it is when the wicked succeed and gain by their their evil that's when the righteous are tempted to fret that is what is vexing that is what is fret worthy

I'm not sure fret worthy is a word but it should be it's fret worthy Spurgeon said this the ground for grief is that the ungodly appear to achieve their end the reason for comfort is that our end shall be achieved also and that in the best manner by God himself close quote in other words what

Spurgeon is saying is what causes us to fret is that it appears as if the wicked are succeeding in this life in their evil schemes but our comfort is found in the reminder that it is ultimately the righteous that will succeed in their way and God himself will see to that and he will make sure that the righteous succeed in their way the way he has planned and he will do it himself in the best way possible but you say what if the righteous plan and their own designs their own plans fail listen to Spurgeon again quote determine now this is good sound advice determine let the wicked succeed as they may that you may treat the matter with indifference and never allow a question to be raised as to the righteousness and goodness of the

Lord if the wicked succeed in their devices and your own plans are defeated there is more love of God in your defeats than in the success of the wicked close quote in other words one of the ways that God loves his people is by seeing to it that their plans which do not please him fail because he accomplishes something through the failure of the plans of the righteous that is for their good and for his glory and the success of the wicked is no indication at all as to God's love or approval of their ways or of their persons so Spurgeon says let this let the with wicked succeed and determine in your heart not to raise any question at all about the righteousness or the goodness or the love of God that is what the psalmist is saying when he says don't fret because of him who prospers in the way instead rest in the

Lord and wait patiently for him because of the man who carries out wicked schemes verse 7 says notice there's a contrast by the way between the ways mentioned in verse 7 and the way mentioned in verse 5 in verse 7 there is the wicked man who prospers in his way and in verse 5 there is the righteous man who commits his way to the

Lord two ways the way of the wicked in the way of the righteous where have we heard about that before remember

Psalm 1 verse 6 the Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish see

Psalm the book of Psalms has with this theme woven through it there is the way of the righteous and there is the way of the wicked and here you have contrasted in these first eight verses the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked the righteous man the righteous person commits rolls his way onto the

Lord and trust the Lord in his good timing to work out everything for his good according to his purposes the wicked man may prosper for a while in his way but the measure of righteousness and wickedness is not which path prospers in the short term but which path will prosper in the long term this is why the psalmist says in Psalm 1 verse 6 the

Lord knows the way of the righteous because we commit our way to him we can expect and trust in him waiting patiently for him to settle out everything that concerns us which is why verse 5 says if we commit our way to the

Lord we trust in him he will do it he will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday he will establish the verdict he will he will vindicate his people he will settle accounts he will make sure that every last sin is punished and every last deed of righteousness is rewarded and that in the end the righteous will perish or prosper and the wicked way will perish the

Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked perish and so lamentations 325 and 26 says the

Lord is good to those who wait for him to the person who seeks him it is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the

Lord that's lamentations 3 so we must wait patiently second we must walk peacefully verse 8 cease from anger and forsake wrath do not fret it leads only to evil doing so here's the prescription cease from anger forsake wrath there is never a justifiable reason for anybody to be sinfully angry over anything nothing justifies sinful anger it doesn't mean that we don't fail in that way it doesn't mean that we are not tempted to be angry it doesn't mean that we don't lose our patience or our temperament but it does mean that it is never excusable because we are always commanded to cease from anger and forsake wrath the type of anger that is described here in verse 7 is the kind of anger that is inherent in the the word fret which again means to light a fire under yourself to to turn under yourself in an indignant wrath or anger toward God for his dealings with humanity in this world thus the command to cease from anger and forsake from wrath is right sandwiched in between the mentions of fretting in verse 7 and 8 do not fret verse 7 cease from anger verse 8 do not fret verse 8 we're to turn away from wrath and forsake it to abandon it to mortify it to kill it and to put it off and to take no part in it and it needs to be abandoned just like any other sin just like you battle the sin of lost or greed or selfishness or pride so it is that you must battle the seat that the seed and the sin of anger do not fret verse 8 says because this leads only to evil doing fretting really is opposed to everything else that we've read in these first eight verses it is opposed to your peace to trusting in the

Lord it robs you of your ability to delight in him it makes you resentful towards the Lord and not able therefore to enjoy the lot that God has given to us and to dwell in the land and to cultivate faithfulness fretting makes resting in God and being patient impossible how does fretting then lead to evil doing this

I think you will see between verse 8 and verse 1 that the author is now coming full circle with an idea it's not just that do not fret brackets this section but the author begins with a warning and ends with a warning that are really two complementary warnings how is it that anger leads or fretting leads to evil doing fretting makes one angry at God which quickly becomes angry at those who prosper in this world sinful anger leads to hatred and eventually murder of the heart sinful anger keeps us from loving our enemy loving our neighbor it distracts me from trusting

God it brings anxiety worry and angst it keeps us from doing good and cultivating faithfulness and living in the land and enjoying what

God has given to us anger or fretting creates envy jealousy greed strife covetousness and it makes you angry and resentful towards those who ought to be our mission field instead of our enemies and anger and fretting will eventually tempt you to compromise the truth and your own integrity to right the wrongs that you feel that you have endured you will end up doing what the wicked do in order to get what the wicked got that's what fretting does when you fret you become angry that I don't have this and so you will end up doing what the wicked do in order to get what they have our sinful hearts then convince us that this was the necessary and right way to perceive or to write a perceived wrong we've attempted to use violence as a solution to deal with the wicked when

God doesn't deal with them to vent our anger and our wrath upon the wicked to blow up on social media over something that is going on out there in the world that we can't change that we have no part in so I James 1 tells us everyone must be quick to hear slow to speak slow to anger for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God Ephesians 431 says let all bitterness wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice fretting begins with a murmuring disposition thus the command in verse 7 to rest in the

Lord to be quiet or dumb before the Lord and to wait patiently for him it begins with this murmuring disposition of heart

Spurgeon said many who have indulged a murmuring disposition have at last come to sin in order to gain their fancied rights right the murmuring disposition is where it begins and then once we have once we have allowed that we are willing to sin in order to gain what we fancy that we deserve anger leads on to other sins and the murmuring spirit leads to transgression it starts with somebody thinking or saying in their heart

I deserve this thing this thing is not given to me I don't enjoy this thing and these people or those people or this person has an obligation to give me this thing and if they don't give this to me then

I'm going to be angry over that and then I will murmur over it and eventually convince myself that I can sin against that person or others in order to get what

I perceive that I deserve or that I need so a spouse thinks that the other person owes them something and you want that thing then you fret over not getting it anger stirs in you and you murmur over it and stew in it become indignant and embittered over it and then along comes another person who will provide you what you are seething and think that you're seating over and think you deserve and think you should get and then you are willing to sin over that thing in order to get that thing fretting leads only to evil doing and here's where we come full circle verse 1 you start off fretting because of evildoers and in verse 8 you're fretting makes you an evildoer you see the circle fretting leads only to evil doing so we see somebody who prospers in their way and in their sin you get angry over that and then you won't delight in the

Lord you won't commit your way to the Lord you won't trust in the Lord you won't wait patiently for the Lord you won't do good and dwell in the land to cultivate faithfulness you won't find your rest your satisfaction in him and instead you will get angry and seethe over that and if you don't forsake that wrath then you will end up committing sin and becoming the very thing that you loathed in the beginning so you start off loathing the evildoer and resenting what they are doing and prospering in it and then by the end of that cycle you become the very thing that you hate you have turned into the enemy as the great prophet

Harvey Dent once said you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain that's what you end up with I fret and I get angry and then

I become the very thing that I loathed in the beginning and so you can see the fretting is no answer to the injustices of the world you become the thing that upsets you a sinful response to evildoers will turn you into an evildoer and therefore verse 8 cease from anger and forsake wrath do not fret it leads only to evildoing why should we seek why should we forsake those things why should we put off those things why do we not want to become an evildoer look at verse 9 evildoers will be cut off those who wait for the

Lord will inherit the land I want you to notice in verse 9 there is a promise regarding the evildoers mentioned in verse 1 and 8 evildoers will be cut off and there is a promise there for those who wait for the

Lord as mentioned in verse 7 those who wait for the Lord they will inherit the land we'll deal with verses 9 through 11 next time because ultimately those verses describe a promise to the righteous the destinies and the ultimate end of both the righteous and the wicked for what are the righteous to wait we are to wait for the promise of the land what do the wicked get the wicked get their due which is they will be cut off and that promise of the land the wicked being cut off and the righteous inheriting the land that is traced all the way through Psalm 37 that is the central promise the central prosperity that the righteous enjoy in in the world that is to come and we'll look at that next week let's bow our heads my father we thank you and we are grateful for your goodness and grace in giving us your word and in reminding us again of your eternal purposes your mercy we thank you for the promises that we have in your word regarding the salvation that is to come the salvation that is found in you we thank you for the promise regarding the reward that comes to the righteous who wait patiently for you and rest in you trust in you delight in you and commit our way to you and we pray that you would conform us to the image of Christ through these words through our time here and through your word may you be glorified through the patient endurance of your people as we wait and hope in you help us we pray to forsake our wrath to forsake anger to not fret lest we be drawn into the very evil that we loathe so may we walk in righteousness as we rest in you and trust waiting patiently for you to bring an end to all affliction and suffering to bring in your kingdom to usher in the age of glory that is to come we will inherit the land help us we pray to wait patiently as a testimony to those around us be honored and glorified through us we pray in Christ's name we come out to the

Lord's table before us and I would just want you to turn back if you will to Psalm 32 couple pages in your

Bible as we prepare our hearts for observing the Lord's table we're gonna read together verses 1 through 5 that describes the blessing of forgiveness and righteousness as well as the confession of sin

Psalm 32 how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered how blessed is the man to whom the

Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit when

I kept silent about my sin my body wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer

I acknowledged my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide I said

I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin verse 6 therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you in a time when you may be found surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him you are my hiding place you preserve me from trouble you surround me with songs of deliverance the psalmist there in Psalm 32 is describing another blessed man the blessed man whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered blessed is the man verse 2 to whom the

Lord does not impute or credit his iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit so we are blessed not because we are sinless but because we confess our sin and by confessing our sin we have our sins covered or taken away so this psalm is looking forward to the day when one would have their sins covered and taken away through a sacrifice and that is the time that is the day which we enjoy now living after that sacrifice was made in the person of Christ on the cross outside of Jerusalem 2 ,000 years ago we are among those who are blessed because our sin is covered and not just covered but taken away forever for there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus Romans 8 verse 1 says our sins are removed as far from us as the

East is from the West through that one sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ we are able to be not counted as those who have committed iniquity but accounted as those who have done nothing but righteousness not because we have done righteousness but because another who lived a perfectly righteous life in our place his righteousness has been imputed or credited to us and all our sin has been imputed and credited to him so he takes our sin and we get his righteousness blessed is that man the psalm says whose transgression is forgiven so it is the joy and the delight of those who are in Christ Jesus to know that all of their sins past present and future have been forgiven in the one atoning sacrifice of the

Lord Jesus Christ that there is for the believer in Christ no debt that remains to be paid not because we have paid it and certainly not because we deserve it but because another came and lived a perfect life in our place and then died a sacrificial and atoning death to pay the penalty that we deserve and when we keep silent about our sin verse 3 says our body wastes away or were grown all day long there is liberty and forgiveness and redemption for those who will confess their sin so now scripture calls us or commands us to confess our sin to acknowledge that before the

Lord and to thank him for the forgiveness that we have in Jesus Christ and for the righteousness that he provides through his death and that is what we're going to do now before we partake of communion so I'll ask the ushers to come forward at this time we'll stand up front of a few moments of silent prayer