Message Descriptions
March - May 2018
3/4 – Exclusive Faith (Psalm 16)
If you’re trying to invest in
the stock market, one thing they tell beginners is that it is good to
‘diversify’. Basically, that means you
don’t want to do all of your investing in one fund or one realm in case something
unforeseen causes that particular area to fall apart. Having your investments spread out can help
you be protected. But with God, that
same principle would bring you ruin. Many through history have tried to cover
all their bases by worshipping many gods.
The thought was that if one god were to be false or weak, at least we
were also serving other gods who could still help us. But the true and living God is not one of
many, and will not be served as part of some spiritual portfolio. Instead, He demands exclusive faith. Much like a marriage only works when the
relationship is completely exclusive of other romantic connections, God is only
truly ours when we worship Him alone.
3,4 – the people I embrace vs
those who chase other gods
Why?
1 – safety
9-11 – my confident hope
2 – anything good,
5 – you alone are my portion,
my cup
6 boundary lines in pleasant
places (what you give is perfect and enough)
7, 8 – guide
QUESTION: Do I honor those
who reject my Lord, aspiring to their life in some way? Is God enough for me? Is He my hope and my trustworthy guide for
this life?
3/11 – Whose Response Matters? (Psalm 17)
Do you remember the show “Who
Wants To Be A Millionaire”? One of the rules of the game was that a contestant
could make a phone call and get someone to help them answer a question. But the contestant had to make the final
call. In other words, it didn’t matter
if the phone-a-friend knew or even gave the right answer…. Only the
contestant’s ‘final answer’ mattered. We
make choices all the time about whose ‘answer’ matters to us. People give us ideas about our value, our
actions, which direction we should choose, and many other areas of our
lives. But whose response matters to
you? David writes this song to declare
his choice.
1. Judge Me (v. 1-5)
2. I Choose Your View (v. 6-12)
3. You Deal With Them (v. 13-16)
QUESTION: Do you know that
the Lord sees everything in your life?
Are you determined that His response is the only one that will
ultimately matter to you? Will you by
faith entrust others (and their opinions of you) to the Lord?
3/18 - When God Answers (Psalm 18)
As Christians, we talk all
the time about ‘praying’ for one another.
And when we face hard times or trouble, we go in prayer to the Lord,
asking Him to help us or to give us answers. This ‘prayer’ stuff can be so
common that we begin to just move from one prayer need to the next, keeping our
eyes towards the problems and trouble.
And it often feels like a never-ending stream! But maybe we have neglected to recognize when
God answers. Maybe our lives are heavier
and darker in part because we never do what David does in this song. When God
answers your prayers, what should you do?
(you make it known!)
Start with ‘intro’ to psalm –
the situation that brings David to write this
v. 1 – I love you Lord – my
strength
v. 2 – Rock, fortress,
deliverer, refuge, shield, horn of salvation, stronghold
v. 3 – I called and He
answered
Themes throughout the Psalm
QUESTION: What can you give
thanks to God for? How should you / will
you give thanks?
How often does God answer and
we react in silent or quiet gratitude?
3/25 – Can Everyone Know God? (Psalm 19)
Palm Sunday
If you’ve ever wondered what
happens to the guy on some deserted island who has never heard about Jesus,
this is the psalm for you! David talks about many different ways that creation
speaks about God. And as we listen to him discuss these realities, it helps us
understand that every single person on earth has an invitation to know
God. How does it work? What is God doing each day to show Himself to
the world? Let’s dig into this song and
find out how David describes God’s self-revelation and look at His response.
1. The Heavens / Creation (v. 1-6)
Universal declaration
2. The Law / Bible (v. 7-11)
Specific information
Acts gives us at least two
stories (there are more) about this process
Ethiopian Eunuch – Acts 8 and
Cornelius Acts 10
Romans 1 includes the same
theme
What David and Paul tell us
is that God’s existence and nature are clearly shown to all the world by
creation – and that God knows how to get the truth to open hearts – those who
have received the truth
3. God Examines Us All (v. 12-14)
You guide me – you decide
what is good and what isn’t
Examine my heart – I don’t
trust myself – see if there is anything unacceptable – help me to do what is
right
How can we believe that each
person has a chance to know God? Can I
make an excuse that it wasn’t clear enough?
Loopholes and semantics….
QUESTION: If God is making
His presence and person known every day, can we join Him? Do we treasure the specific revelation of God
in His Word? And do we respond in faith
like David, asking God to lead our lives?
4/1 – No Mistake / Accident (Psalm 22)
EASTER
This Sunday is the most
precious to all Christians. It is the
day we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. The events of the weekend that
we remember are the basis for our faith and the reason we have the hope of
eternity in heaven. But as the actual
events unfolded thousands of years ago, the disciples and those around Jesus
probably felt like this was a tragedy unfolding. As Jesus was arrested, beaten,
and crucified, the experience of those who loved Him was undoubtedly that this
was all some terrible mistake. But
Easter is an untragic tragedy. A mistake
that happened according to plan. Since
we’re looking at the Psalms, let’s look at a Psalm that shows us that Easter
and the crucifixion were no accident.
And because of that, we can have complete trust in God’s promise of
salvation and eternal life!
1. Before It Happened
Messianic Psalm
Along with Isaiah 53, one of
the most specific passages about Jesus’ death
v. 1
v. 6-8
v. 14-18
v. 24 – hint of resurrection
Psalm 16:10 – not suffer
decay
Throughout His ministry, we
find the gospel writers quoting Him over and over – I will be killed and rise
again after 3 days – the chief priests and the leaders will take me and put me
to death…
He chose this!
He chose to do it FOR YOU!
He didn’t have to – but He
wanted to take your place
FIRST BIG POINT: Jesus chose to die for you – it was no
accident
He did this so that we could
be God’s children
If you’ve received it, live
like you’ve received the greatest gift you’ll ever know
And if you haven’t, receive
that gift today – let Jesus take your place, let His choice to die for you for
your sin wash you clean and bring forgiveness to you
The resurrection was always
going to be the end – because when Jesus finished paying, He was going back to
heaven to be with the Father
And He was going to be the One to bring NEW LIFE to all who believe
Easter is about more than
JUST forgiveness… it is about NEW LIFE as well – your old life can be gone and
you can have a new life for a higher purpose – a pure and honorable life that
isn’t empty or pointless
2. Since It Wasn’t Accidental
God is able to take the most
wicked act ever done and use it to accomplish the most loving and gracious act
ever done
With God, nothing is hopeless
Easter is a celebration of
the resurrection – that death itself could not stop God
It is an invitation to every
man to come and find salvation – to turn from your sin and your lost life and
find new life and eternal hope through Jesus
SECOND BIG POINT: You can trust Him with ANYTHING
Just like the cross, nothing
is an accident or surprise to God
But just like the cross, nothing
is too big or too bad for God to overcome
Chains? Broken
Guilt? Forgiven
Weakness? Strength
Darkness? Light
If your situation seems
hopeless, is it as hopeless as death? If
so, remember, Jesus rose!
QUESTION: Does knowing that
God planned Jesus’ death and resurrection bring you assurance that you can
trust Him with anything? Have you given
your life to Jesus and put your trust in His plan for your life?
4/8 – My Shepherd (Psalm 23)
Do you have a movie that you
can watch over and over and over? Many
blockbuster movies have been made over the last decade, but how many of them
have that special something to allow you to watch more than just once? Whether it is the nuance of story or some
emotional power, a great movie that really resonates with you can be like an
old friend that brings unique comfort whenever you spend time together. The psalm we look at today is kind of like
that old friend as well. It is a very
famous passage of Scripture that has been read and recited innumerable
times. But it has that special something
that always works. Let’s explore this
song together and regrip the timeless truths it gives.
1. My Provider
My Shepherd – no lack /
chosen viewpoint
Lie down in green pastures /
quiet waters – provision
2. My Protector
Refresh my soul / guide me
Dark valley – Fear no evil
Prepare a table before me –
safe from enemies – anoint my head with oil
3. My Promise
Goodness and love will follow
me – SURELY
Eternal life
QUESTION: Is the Lord your
shepherd? Do you trust Him to provide
for your needs so that you lack nothing?
Do you trust Him to protect you in the darkest moments? Do you believe in His promise for your life?
4/15 – The King Of Glory (Psalm 24)
What makes someone a
king? In the most literal sense, it is
the power they hold over the people they rule.
But we’ve attached the title ‘king’ to other realms too. We called Michael Jackson the “King of Pop”
and Aretha Franklin the “Queen of Soul”.
Elvis of course was the ‘King of Rock and Roll”. In these terms, we use this title to talk
about someone who is incomparable in their talent and ability. And we honor that! This psalm is about the incomparable nature
of God Almighty. In it, David talks
about the way that God is so much more than we think, and calls us to consider
His greatness. Let’s do that today!
1. Incomparable / no rival or equal (v. 1-2, 7-10)
Earth is the Lords / He made
it and owns it
Who can ascend to him on the
throne?
Almighty -
Glory
Temple filled with His glory
– had to leave
Moses sees His glory –
description of glory
2. False / small god (v. 3-4)
3. SEEK HIM (v. 5-6)
QUESTION: Have you had a
‘small’ view of God? Are you willing to
humbly acknowledge His greatness and glory?
Have you acted like something is comparable to Him, even though nothing
is?
4/22 – Do We Trust God? (Psalm 25)
Do you have ‘trust
issues’? Maybe you grew up in a home
where things were unstable or even unsafe.
Or maybe you have been through relationships where what was said turned
out to be far from the truth. For some
of us, trust is difficult simply because fear has such a big voice in our
lives. But did you know that your
ability to trust is KEY to a relationship with the Lord? You cannot have a healthy, life-giving
relationship with Him without trusting Him.
So those trust issues that you’ve been carrying all this time have a
higher price tag than you might expect.
David writes about trusting the Lord.
He had plenty of reason to be scared of what God would do to him for the
mistakes he made. And he could often find reasons to think that God’s plan for
his life was a terrible plan. But David
writes this song to declare that he chooses to trust the Lord. Do we?
Trust (v. 1-3, 19-22)
I put my trust – thoughtful,
deliberate, chosen
Two areas where this proves
out in real life:
For Guidance in Life (v. 4-5,
8-10, 12-14)
Is God’s way good and
best? Is it trustworthy?
Do is the path of your life,
when entrusted to God, a place of rest, peace, and joy?
Are we content and satisfied
with God’s way?
For Forgiveness of Sins (v.
6-7, 11, 15-18)
That God would be merciful
That God would save the
unworthy
Will He? Does He?
Has He?
The purest way of living by
faith is by trusting God’s promises for your deepest problem and letting Him
steer your life
QUESTION: How complete is your trust in the Lord? What else seems to offer security and good to
you?
4/29 – Courage (Psalm 27)
In the famous movie, The
Wizard of Oz, one of the characters is looking for courage. Ironically, that
character is a lion! He goes with the
crew to ask the wizard to give him courage.
But in the end, he finds out that he had courage all along. He mistakenly thought that since he was
scared in the face of danger that he was lacking the ability to be
courageous. Being a Christian can be
quite the same. We are faced on many
fronts with dangers and threats, both big and small. And our world adds their voices of panic to
our own internal ones on a daily basis.
So we can be scared – and often with good reason. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be
courageous. In fact, our mission as
children of God depends on us living with courage. Let’s look at how David thought this issue
through and see if we can learn from one who has walked this path before us!
1. I Will Not Fear What I See (v. 1-3)
2. What Confidence Looks Like (v. 4-13)
3. Wait (v 14)
How often God stacks the odds
– deliberately, visibly, obviously
Paul / Silas chained to a
wall in prison – released
Elijah on Mt Carmel
Lazarus in a tomb (waiting
for him to die!)
Israel at the Red Sea
QUESTION: What seems most powerful to you… your
challenges or your God? What if God has
chosen to stack the odds in your life so that you learn how to have courage and
faith even when it looks hopeless? What
if that kind of courage is what it takes to fulfill your great purpose in this
life?
5/6 – Repentance (Psalm 32)
COMMUNION
How many times do you keep
going in a wrong direction simply because you don’t want to admit you’re
wrong? Men have this reputation in
driving, but all of us tend to do it in life.
We are scared of unknown reactions or opinions of others. We are dreading the drama that comes from the
conversations that follow an admission of wrong. Or we just don’t want to face the
uncomfortable of the unknown, so we choose the uncomfortable of the known. Spiritually, it is a life or death issue. We call it repentance: the willingness to
turn from godless ways and turn to the Lord.
It is coupled very often in the New Testament with the call to
salvation. In other words, if you want
eternal life, you have to repent. You
have to choose to turn away from what is wrong and allow God to forgive
you. But there is a huge barrier in most
people to this great gift. David talks
about repentance in this psalm, and describes the journey from hiding to
confession and forgiveness!
1 Blessed (v. 1-2)
2. Hiding (v. 3-5)
3. Lesson (v. 6-11)
QUESTION: What approach have
you taken to your sin? Is the heaviness
convincing you to stop covering and hiding and come clean with the Lord? How
much does God’s forgiveness mean to you?
5/13 - Eve’s Value (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:20-23; 3:20)
Mother’s Day
On this day, we honor and
celebrate our mothers and the role of being a mother. God designed this role to be an example of
His care and love for each of us. And He
made us helplessly dependent on our moms when we were born. Yet the world has taken to treating women
like property or trash. We objectify
them and use them in media and around the world as sex objects. This affront to God’s heart and design for
women matters to God’s people. We’re
going to take a look at the value that women and moms have. And then we’re going to have a chance to join
the fight to stand up for women who are helplessly trapped by those who would
use and abuse them. In honor of our
mothers, let’s stand with millions of mothers around the world who don’t know
where their daughters are today. And
let’s do something about it.
Genesis 1:27-28, In God’s
Image
Genesis 2:20-23 – bone of my
bones, flesh of my flesh – interdependent and intertwined male and female –
cannot devalue one without wrecking the other
Genesis 3:20 - Role – Mother
of all living
Connection to mothers….
There are children whose
mothers have failed them – and kids who don’t even know their mother
There are mothers who can’t
sleep at night and agonize every day because they don’t know where their
daughter is
Our world has devalued life,
honor, and especially women
As believers, some of what we
know is that MAN and WOMEN have value before God
And we want to stand for that
Children matter – and women
matter
But today, we’ve grown as a
society to a place where we overlook the abuse of children worldwide – not even
aware of what is happening
And we’ve been educated as a
society in the ways that men have treated an entire gender as object and
servants who are here for the pleasure of men
Does this have an effect on the way mothers operate today? Do the scars
and the cumulative effect of this society do anything to the way kids are
mothered today?
What
does a teenage girl thing being a woman means? Will she pass that on to
her daughters someday?
What does a Christian think?
How should we live?
Many mixed messages given to
us – through mainstream movies like 50 shades, through cable shows and series,
through straight up porn
Does no mean no – does being
a man mean that we don’t take no for an answer?
How do we know how to live –
how do we have any framework to pass on (as moms AND dads) a viewpoint that
will honor God and people?
Men – when will we see the
cause of honor here and engage? When
will we step up to teach our sons? Where
will we step into the work that needs to be done!
The Dignity and Value of
Women in a world that trashes them
MeToo – TimesUP
So much damage, wreckage –
but we have a Redeemer and Healer
Psalm 34:18 – the Lord is
close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit
What can we do – we are
praying that God would unleash His healing power at Hope through relationships,
worship, the Word, and any other way
Hope For Justice – Hope
Sunday – response
2 children sold into slavery
in the world EVERY MINUTE
But let’s attack the root –
let’s get to the very lowest fallout of this reality
Human trafficking
This is how we do our part to
join with the church rising up to change the world
Slavery must end –
traffickers must be put out of business and made to answer
5/20 – Sing! (Psalm 33)
Elizabeth
Barrett Browning wrote a short sonnet titled “How Do I Love Thee” which has
been famously quoted many times. She is
trying to capture the heart that overflows with love for someone. The words that she finds don’t seem to be
quite enough, no matter how big they are.
And the love she’s expressing is all-encompassing: from youth to old
age, from joys to sorrows. While we can
understand this concept in romantic love or infatuation, we often do not
associate it with our worship. Yet David gushes about God in this psalm. His love and praise seem to search for
descriptions big enough to capture what he is thinking and feeling. But if you had to sum up his point, it could
probably be done with one word: sing. We
are invited to sing and make music to our Lord for more reasons than we can
count. This song is destined to be one
of joy and gratitude. But before we find
our way to hearts that are full, we have to be ready to use music with
everything we have to express our love for our Lord!
1. Ways To Praise Musically (v. 1-3)
Sing – joyfully TO the Lord
God’s people should sing
Praise Him
With musical instruments
Sing a NEW song –
A new song –
Even ‘old’ songs are new each
week
But not just a dusty old
history of songs – music coming from the response of the soul TODAY and NOW
Play skillfully
Shout
2. Reasons to Sing! (v. 4-19)
3. The Choice to Sing (v. 20-22)
Close: 34:1-3 – let this be
our choice! Our decision… our
determination
Extol the Lord at ALL TIMES –
always be on my lips
Glorify the lord WITH ME –
exalt His name TOGETHER
5/27 – Taste and See (Psalm 34:4-17)
A money back guarantee is a
very useful marketing tool. It suggests that the seller is so confident in the
quality of the product and in your satisfaction with it, that they will undo
the sale if you are dissatisfied for any reason. They are inviting you to
basically do a ‘taste-test’ on their product because they are convinced you’ll
want to keep it. David found himself in a moment of life when he was unsure of
what the future held. And in response,
he wrote a song that invites his soul (and ours) to simply taste and see that
the Lord is good. Basically, he says
that every time he takes a step of faith in the Lord, God always proves His
goodness. And so in dark moments or times when we are lost, we are invited to
come and taste again by faith. The
guarantee is much stronger than the advertisements we see because this one is
based in the very character of God.
Our God saves (v. 4-7)
The Lord is Good (v. 8-10)
I Will Teach You (v. 11-17)
QUESTION: Has God proven Himself to you yet? Have you given Him a chance to (recently or
ever)? Will you take a step of faith let God show you His goodness and
faithfulness?
6/3 – The Desires Of Your Heart (Psalm 37)
How many times have you
thought you knew what you wanted, only to find out later that you were
mistaken? Desire can be a tricky thing.
We want what we THINK we see and we imagine what it will be like when we
have it. But reality is a stubborn
thing, and our fantasy idea of what it will feel like or be like when we have
what we want can dissolve in the face of what actually is. So is desire wrong? Absolutely not! In fact, one of the promises of God is found
in this psalm, and it says that God will give us the desires of our heart. But
it isn’t just some magic formula where God becomes our genie and gives us
whatever we wish for. This promise is
based on some simple choices about where we set our heart.
1. Three Steps (v. 3-5)
Trust
Delight
Commit
2. Ignore the Evil (v. 1-2; 9-11)
3. Wait Patiently (v. 7-8)
QUESTION: Will you trust in
the Lord, delight in Him, and commit your way to Him? Do those who do wrong distract you and make
you discontent? Can you let God teach
you to wait patiently before Him?
6/10 - Communion
6/17 – Father’s Day
