💖 *Promo SM*

The sermon dropped out a little bit before the actual end, so I will post the last few paragraphs. I rarely if ever manuscript, but I did this week, and it paid off! "Sound familiar? This should put us face to face with the problem that this Psalm brings to us. Regardless of our love for God, and the best-spoken prayers of our human hearts, we can still fall into the trap of allowing our souls to be contaminated by the circumstances of the world around us. We can buy into our own self-pity and find ourselves playing the victim when God has called us to be the change. To forgive. To be merciful. To love. We can do our best to be forgiving yet not be able to get rid of the poison of resentment in our hearts. We need to be delivered not only from the tongues of other people but from our own. We may speak the language of forgiveness, yet still desire our pound of flesh. We don’t just simply need deliverance from deceitful lips, we need deliverance from our own vengeful souls. We need to be connected yet again to our God, to His goodness, His faithfulness, His love, His forgiveness. And the best and only place that happens in worship. As the Prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 2:3-4: 2It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, 3and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. The true worship of God, both for the Psalmist and for us, is the remedy for this violence. We must learn His ways, we must walk His paths, we must hear and heed His Word, and we must let Him exact His justice, in whatever way he chooses. He is our peace. And we must walk with Him in it. As Romans 12:18-21 says: 18If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Yes, there may be times, just as the Psalmist has experienced when we will not be allowed to be at peace, where the insults and the comments and the innuendo and falseness will chase us around every bend. When the truth will be rejected and our defence of that truth will be costly and painful. We will be slandered. We will be lied about. We will be labeled and we will be ostracized. Regardless, we must seek peace in those situations, and choose the path of most resistance: the path of Godliness. The path of love. The only path available to us that allows us a righteous heart that can worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. We gather together as pilgrims on a journey to worship a Holy God in the middle of a wicked world that stands in opposition to everything we believe. Do we trust our sovereign God enough to speak boldly in the face of falsehood, and to place our faith in His righteous justice? Will we truly be people of peace, and put down our weapons by closing our mouths to anything but God’s truth spoken in love, as Ephesians 4:15 says? As we ascend the hill, we must ask ourselves: Will we make worship, not war, as we seek to serve the Lord? I pray we will. Amen"