Day #135

Sermon - Audio
Pslam 32, 51, 86, 122 - Audio
Pslam 32, 51, 86, 122 - Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

• 32.1: “Covered” means that God has put the sin out of sight.
• 32.2,5: “no deceit” cf. 1 John 1.8-10—if we say we have no sin, we are liars and the truth is not in us. To be free of deceit is to see the reality of our sin. Verse 5 shows this lack of deceit.
• 32.3-4: Sin, once again, has physical consequences.
• 32.5: “I will confess” means to tell God what you have done. In response to the telling God forgives. A great truth, we tell, God forgives.
• 32.6: “godly” is exactly the same word as was translated as “saints” in the previous Psalms. We’re back to covenant and faithful covenant people again.
• 32.8 “Instruct” is a word that speaks of being taught wisdom so that you can prosper in life. The first time this word is used in the Bible Eve attempts to get wisdom, but its wisdom that leads to death rather than life.
• 32.8: “teach” is connected with the word Torah. The promise of this verse is that God, “I” will instruct in the ways of wisdom and the Torah—which are closely related.
• 32.9: “no understanding” doesn’t mean that you don’t know wisdom or Torah, it means you don’t obey it. Compare Jesus’ words about the wise and foolish man in Matthew 7.
• 32.10: God’s unfailing love is, once again, his covenant love (Hesed). When this covenant love surrounds you experience the blessings of the covenant.
• 32.11: Righteous/upright in heart—those who live by the covenant.

Psalm 51

• The Psalm’s caption tells us this is David’s Psalm of confession after his sin with Bathsheba. The Psalm becomes a Psalm for the entire congregation as it reflects the heart of all who have fallen short of the glory of God.
• 51.1: “Have mercy” The word “mercy” is a cry for God’s unmerited favor to come on the sinner.
• 51.1-3: In this Psalm David pulls out multiple words for his failing before God. He speaks of sin, transgression, and iniquity.
• 51.4: This verse seems odd. He has abused his power with Bathsheba and killed Uriah. How can his sin be against God alone. The answer to this problem seems to come in the line “evil in your sight”. The sin of David at its core breaks the standards that God has set. Without these standards there would be no sin.
• 51.6: God teaches David wisdom which means “right moral judgments”. On the other side of his fall into sin comes God’s teaching of the right path (or we might say, “reminding of the right path).
• 51.7: It is God who has to bring about the cleansing of David and of us. Dealing with sin is not a do it yourself project.
• 51.10: Again, the importance of God acting in our lives to set us on the right path in emphasized. On our own we are not capable of pursuing a new and right life.
• 51.13: The 12th step of AA says, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.” David wants to carry the message of his restoration to others to help them follow God faithfully.
• 51.14: David’s cry for God to forgive the murder of Uriah.
• 51.16-17: God does not look for sacrifices i.e. he does not look for works to bring us into right relationship with him. What God is seeking is people who depending on his grace humbly repent.

Psalm 86

The Psalmist cries to God for help in the midst of his trouble. While he professes to be godly (vs 2), he also professes that there is sin in his life (vs 4). Being a godly person is not the same as being sinless. One of the interesting things in the Psalm is the appeal of the Psalmist to God’s covenant love (“steadfast love” esv; “love” NIV both come from Hebrew word for covenant love “hesed). The appeal is rooted in Exodus 34.6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Even though there is an appeal to God’s covenant love the Psalm never uses God’s covenant name, Yahweh or LORD in our english translations.

• 86.1: “Poor” is a term that goes beyond the idea of being in poverty. A truly poor person is one who relies on God for all that they need.
• 86.3: The depth of the need is reflected in the continual cry to God. Those who have had deep struggles can quickly identify with this level of constant appeal to God.
• 86.7: A verse of hope for God’s deliverance.
• 86.9: The nations coming to worship God is seen in those Gentiles who converted to the Jewish faith as the Jewish people took seriously God’s call to Abraham to be a blessing to the nations. This verse finds particular fulfillment in the coming of Christ and the breaking down of the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2).
• 86.11: The on-going desire of the Psalmist to live a godly life is connected with being taught God’s ways.
• 86.14: The definition of insolent and ruthless men are those who do not set God before them. This leads them to being insolent and ruthless because they do not walk in God’s truth or fear his name (vs 11).

Psalm 122

• 122.1: “I rejoiced with” or “I was glad when they said to me…” The word translated “rejoiced” or “glad” means that every part of your being is filled with joy so that there is a light in your eyes that shows your joy.
• 122.1: “when they said to me” This is a Psalm that celebrates being part of the covenant community where people journey to God together. The Psalmist joyfully joins with friends, neighbors, and other travelers as they make their way to Jerusalem.
• 122.3: This verse celebrates the beauty of the city of Jerusalem. The city itself takes away the breath of the Psalmist as he sees the construction and planning of the city.
• 122.4: The tribes go up to the city for celebration, but also because they long to be part of this beautiful city. In the New Testament we see a shift in the picture as the people of God become the building blocks of God’s architecture--especially the temple. We read in 1 Peter 2:4 “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” The important thing to see here is that we are now part of the building, we do not stand off from it or separated from it--we are the building. It is a picture of being in a community and responsible to hold up our part of the community (or we are responsible to hold up our part of the building).
• 122.5: The thrones for judgment refer to the role of the king in administering justice. Again, this picture of thrones of judgment moves into New Testament language with the recognition that justice will be meted out when Christ returns, Rev. 20:11 “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
• 122.6: Praying for the peace of Jerusalem is praying for the “shalom” of Jerusalem. When one prays for the shalom of Jerusalem it is not a prayer simply for the absence of war, but for Jerusalem (and her people) to live the life that God intended as his covenant people. With that in mind it is possible for the people to be at peace from war and even to have a life that is filled with ease and yet not have shalom. This is a truth that keeps coming up in the Old Testament in places like Isaiah 58.
• 122.8: The prayer of the pilgrim is not a prayer for himself, but for his others. He longs for them to have shalom.
• 122.9: The prayer for the protection of Jerusalem is also connected with the temple. God reveals himself to the world and his people at his temple. To have Jerusalem be destroyed would mean the destruction of the place that God shows himself to the world. One of the wonderful things that God did some 30 years before the destruction of the Herodian Temple was to bring the day of Pentecost. On Pentecost God moved his address and the place he showed himself to the world from the temple in Jerusalem to his people.