So we go to the sermon text from Psalm 14.
I forgot, I remember I forgot to introduce myself.
I'm Chris Bradley.
I'm one of the ruling elders here,
and I'm here because the session has given Matthew the week off
to prepare an Advent series, which starts next week.
So we're taking a break from 1 Peter,
and before our Advent series,
we'll be in the Psalms again for one week,
and it'll be Psalm 14.
So if you open your worship guides or your Bible to Psalm 14,
and if you have your Bible next to you,
it would be good to turn forward to Romans 1 and 3,
because we'll be there too, all right?
As we do that, let's open the Word of God
and hear what He has for us this morning from the Psalms.
Psalm 14, starting in verse 1,
to the choir master of David.
The fool says in his heart,
there is no God.
They are corrupt.
They do abominable deeds.
There is none who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.
They have all turned aside.
Together they have become corrupt.
There is no one who does good,
not even one.
Have they no knowledge,
all the evildoers who eat up my people
as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the name of the Lord?
There they are in great terror,
for God is with the generation of the righteous.
You would shame the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is His refuge.
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion
when the Lord restores the fortunes of His people.
Let Jacob rejoice.
Let Israel be glad.
And may the Lord add His blessing to the reading
and the careful hearing of His Word.
Amen.
So we've been in the Psalms before,
earlier in the summer,
and when Pastor Capone introduced the Psalms,
he introduced types of Psalms,
and all the Psalms have one or more categories
that they'll fit into.
And this is a Psalm that fits into two categories, really.
It's a Psalm of lament,
and it's a Psalm of wisdom.
We've talked about the Psalms of wisdom before.
A Psalm of wisdom gives us answers to
what is wisdom and what is foolishness.
And this Psalm, in particular,
describes the fool and contrasts him with God's people
who are called the righteous.
We are the righteous in the Psalms, God's people.
And it's also a Psalm of lament.
A lament is a complaint
that comes in brutally honest terms.
Now, it's not just another word for a scripture,
a piece of scripture that's a downer.
That's not what lament is, really.
It instructs us how to grieve.
It is when we are down, when we are grieving,
that we can go to the Psalms,
and the Psalms are our instrument that God gives us
to grieve for the sin both in us
and for the sin around us.
And it is both things.
There is the sin in us that we grieve,
and there is the sin around us that we grieve.
The question that's posed by the lament
frequently in scripture is,
how long, O Lord?
And though those words aren't in here,
in verse seven, that is the lament.
How long, O Lord, till you redeem Israel?
Now, before we go into it,
we have to be honest at the outset
of how this Psalm strikes us,
because we are a culture that doesn't like to judge.
We're a culture that doesn't like to call others foolish
and call ourselves righteous.
We talked about this a little bit
in Sunday school this morning.
Judgmentalism is almost the unforgivable sin
in our culture.
But when we read Psalm 14,
we see in pretty stark terms,
God contrasting the fool with the righteous.
And what we're gonna be doing today
is saying what scripture says,
saying the same thing,
confessing scripture about how fools act
and how the righteous are to act.
Starting with verse one,
the fool says in his heart,
there is no God.
So who is the fool, first of all?
The Psalm is describing it for us.
We find the term in the Bible frequently,
and we need to understand its meaning.
We speak of fools
and speak of the term in a different way.
We talk about stupid people or ignorant people,
but that's not the meaning of the biblical word.
The fool is something different.
The fool is ignorant, yes, ignorant of something,
but he's more than that.
The fool is evil.
The fool is corrupt,
like verse two says,
doing abominable deeds.
A fool, in short,
is someone who rejects wisdom.
And you look in the Proverbs
to see that borne out.
The fool is who rejects wisdom
for the sake of their own evil.
It's not how we use the term
when we wanna describe someone
who has just this sort of benign ignorance.
It's a word for someone
who in their malevolent rejection of God
hates wisdom.
That's the fool.
And it's not something benign.
The kingdom of God is under attack
by fools and their foolishness.
And this is what David's psalm was lamenting.
Now, a word about language.
Because kids, you have a role in this too.
I'm gonna call on you in a minute.
But one thing we have to say
about the language we use
in this sermon and in the psalms,
because your parents may have told you
not to call people fools,
not to call people stupid.
And that's good advice.
Let's just say that first.
That's good advice to all children.
Don't call people fools.
It's good advice for adults.
Don't call people fools.
But I'm gonna give you an exception today.
And the exception is this.
When the Bible calls someone a fool,
we need to say the same thing.
And that's good advice for you kids.
It's good advice for us adults.
When the Bible calls someone a fool,
we should say the same thing.
And the reason why you're not
to use that word lightly,
you're not to use it casually
for someone you're angry with,
is because the fool is someone
who's condemned by God.
When you call someone a fool,
you're using the condemnation of God
and naming it among people.
So we don't use that word lightly.
We don't call down God's condemnation on people.
That's up to God alone.
Jesus gives us an example.
This is in Luke 9,
when the disciples are going through Samaria,
sharing the gospel with the Samarians,
and they're rejecting them.
And one of the disciples says,
these were James and John,
they said,
Lord, do you want us to call fire
to come down from heaven and consume them?
In other words,
call down condemnation on these fools
who were rejecting the gospel,
and Jesus rebuked them.
He said no.
So why did Jesus rebuke his disciples here?
Because only God knows the time and place
for his judgment.
And that time was not the time and place.
Jesus' ministry was not the time and place
for judgment.
So we are not to call down judgment on others.
But we are to say the same thing
that scripture says.
Romans 12 says,
Repay no one for evil for evil,
but give thought to what is honorable
in the sight of all.
If possible,
so far as it depends on you,
live peaceably with all.
Beloved,
never avenge yourselves,
but leave it to the wrath of God.
For it is written,
Vengeance is mine.
I will repay,
says the Lord.
The calling of the Christian
is to bear with foolishness,
to call it what it is,
but to bear with it
and not return evil for evil.
And so we don't use the word lightly,
but we must use it
when scripture does
because foolishness can't be ignored.
It's not something benign to be laughed at.
It's a threat to God's people.
It's a threat to God's kingdom.
As the psalmist tells us,
the threat of foolishness
is a real threat to the people of God
because God is concerned
with defending the defenseless
and the weak.
And this is what the fool says in his heart.
Verse one,
There is no God.
Notice what the fool says.
It's not from his lips that he says
there is no God.
It's from his heart.
So is the psalmist speaking of just atheists here?
I think the answer is no.
We could include them
under the rubric of a fool,
but that's not who the psalmist David
is speaking of.
It's not those atheists that say
with their lips there is no God.
It's those who say it in their heart.
And what they're saying is,
there is no God who rules over me.
That's the practical atheism.
Even if it's not atheism professed with one's lips,
it's the heart that says it.
There is no God who is responsible for me,
who I am subject to.
The denial of God
isn't necessarily a verbal denial
of his existence or of atheism.
Though that is what is unique
about our time in history.
There's a movement now in our culture
called popular atheism.
And there's a category for it
that the philosophers call it
rationalist atheism.
All right, that's the category
that they describe it with.
A rationalist,
by rationalist,
I don't just mean rational.
Rational just means using your own reason.
And that's a good thing.
It's a good thing to use your own reason.
But a rationalist believes
that his own power of reasoning
is all he needs to arrive at the truth.
He doesn't need an authority above him.
He just needs his own reason.
That's the rationalist.
And it's an intellectual trend
that's only emerged recently.
It would have been foreign to David.
There would be no atheist
who would speak such with their lips
that would say,
all I need is my own reason.
That's a recent trend.
It's the idea that you need nothing
but your own reasoning power
to show that God does not exist.
And as Christians,
we should see the problem with that.
Because our rationalism
doesn't factor in sin.
The fact that in our unrighteousness,
we suppress the truth.
So as much as our reasoning has power,
it's deceived.
Because in unrighteousness,
we suppress the truth.
So that means those who
outright deny God's existence,
the rationalist atheists,
they're just one special kind of fool.
But they do provide an example
of when the foolishness of man
arrives at its peak.
Rationalist philosophers, for example,
try to deal with this question.
The question that philosophers deal with
is what or why does anything
in the world exist at all?
Or put another way is
why is there something
rather than nothing?
And maybe some of you
have thought about this question.
Why is there something
rather than nothing?
It poses a problem for the atheist.
But it's a simple question.
And it has a simple answer.
And you kids
have learned this question
and have learned this answer.
I'm going to test this.
I'm putting a,
I'm taking a risk here.
But kids, when I say,
who made you?
What do you say?
Yeah.
When I say, kids,
who made you?
God made me.
Right?
You kids know this
and pay attention, church.
It's from these lips
that God has ordained praise.
They understand
the simple question
and they understand
they're wise enough
to answer simply.
Why is there something
rather than nothing?
Who made you?
God made me.
So take note.
On the other hand,
there are atheists
who answer this way.
They say,
the question,
who made you,
is the wrong question.
Because there's no who.
It's where did you come from?
That's the right question.
And the answers
were from the universe.
And in one instant,
the universe exploded
from nothing.
The stars,
the planets,
life, energy,
everything,
each one of them
created themselves
in effect.
If you want a working
definition of foolishness,
it's this,
that there is no creator.
That everything
just became
of itself.
Now, kids,
again,
if I taught you this,
if I taught you
that the world you live in
created itself,
what does the Bible say
you ought to call me?
A fool.
We know this.
We know this as children.
When someone says to you,
there is no God.
Everything that you are,
everything around you
just came to be.
There's no God over you.
There's no judge.
There's no father.
This is where
you use the words
of scripture.
And you say,
you are a fool.
That is foolish.
And because you're Christians,
you should say it
with gentleness and respect
or you shouldn't say it.
Okay?
That's also important.
But from then on,
you ought to stop listening
because wisdom,
as the Bible says,
is known by her fruits
and a fool doesn't have them.
This kind of fool
will reject
the plainest knowledge
that there is
that all that's around us
had to come from something
or someone.
Someone who is beyond
all of it.
Who isn't just matter.
Who is eternal
and uncreated.
And kids,
you're going to find this.
You're going to find it in school,
especially if you go to college.
There are fools
who teach you
that you came from nothing.
But,
are those atheists
just stupid?
That is not true
because there are
some very important
and smart people
who profess atheism.
No, this foolishness
isn't stupidity.
It's something worse.
This foolishness
is the result
of a heart
that hates God.
Practical atheism
is what we call it.
Practical atheism
is what caused Peter
to deny Christ
because he was ashamed of him.
Remember Peter
who confessed to Jesus,
you are the Christ,
the son of the living God,
the believer
who then,
weeks later,
when Jesus was on trial
and Peter was recognized
as disciples,
he said,
I don't know him.
That's practical atheism.
And believers,
like Peter,
are subject
to practical atheism.
A theologian
said it this way,
all sin
is founded
in secret atheism.
All sin
is founded
in secret atheism.
You see what that means.
It means that
though you are a believer
in Christ
by the Holy Spirit,
you still have a heart
that secretly holds on
to its own atheism.
It does that
so that you can justify
your own lusts
and follow
your own temptations.
and it's very clever
at doing it as well.
One of my favorite authors
is Fyodor Dostoevsky,
a Russian author.
And he said this,
he took a take on
Mark 10, 27
where Jesus said,
with God,
all things are possible.
And Dostoevsky
recorded this ironically
and he said,
without God,
all things are possible.
Do you see his meaning
in that?
Without God,
all things are possible.
It means if you can
just get rid of God,
then you can do anything
you set your heart on.
Because your heart
will say anything
to give you an excuse
to do what you want.
The phrase might never
come to your lips,
there is no God,
but your heart
will say it constantly.
Without God,
you can lie
for what we call
good reasons.
Without God,
you can follow
your own lusts
wherever they lead you.
Without God,
you can live
like you are the only person
that you are responsible to.
Without God,
you can justify murder.
And without God,
you are completely free
from judgment
for all those things.
Then on the other hand,
the very idea
of a righteous God
would ruin your heart's liberty
to justify
its own abominable deeds.
So it's the latent atheism
within you,
within us,
that says,
as you sin,
it says,
I'll never be judged
for this.
Or,
Christian,
when you say in your heart,
God will forgive me
for this.
What is that
but practical atheism?
Though on your lips
you might say,
God will forgive me,
and that's true.
In your heart,
you're doing it
because you're rejecting God.
You're denying
his holiness,
and you're denying
the calling
that he put on you,
the name that he put on you
to live a holy life.
And we rationalize
our own actions
by saying,
God will forgive me
for this.
Our fool's heart
says there is no God
simply because
it's what we want
to be true.
There's no intellectual reason.
It's just what we want
to be true.
When a sinner
wants what's evil,
he or she will always
reject God
to justify their sin.
That's why atheism
can exist.
That's why
Westminster Larger Catechism,
number 28,
says the Lord sent
strong delusions
because they rejected
the truth
so that they would
believe further lies.
Scripture gives us
these words
to remind us
of the universality
of that foolishness.
Believer,
unbeliever,
Jew,
and Greek,
no one
seeks for good.
It catches up
all of humanity
in its net.
Now as we move
on to verse 4,
verses 4 to 6,
the Bible speaks
of what it is
that the fool
does to the people
of God,
the kind of threat
that foolishness
is to the people
of God.
And he says,
as if he puts
the words
in the psalmist's lips,
have they no knowledge,
all the evildoers
who eat up my people
as they eat bread
and do not call
upon the name
of the Lord?
They are all
in great terror
for God is with
the generation
of the righteous.
You would shame
the plans of the poor
but the Lord
is his refuge.
Here's what God
finds particularly grievous
about the deeds
of the fool
or the one
who rejects God.
They eat up my people
as they eat bread,
he says,
and they do not
call upon the name
of the Lord.
How can they do this
is what the psalmist
is asking.
Have they no knowledge?
It's words of shock.
How can you do this?
It's like you have
no knowledge at all.
Have they no knowledge,
the psalmist asks.
Or in other words,
how is it possible
to be such fools
so consistently?
It's like the reaction
you have when you know
someone's about to do
something monumentally stupid.
And we see this
if you look at videos
on the internet.
This is the way
I think of it.
When I look at a video
on the internet
and it starts with
one of two things.
It starts with
someone on a skateboard
or someone lighting
a firecracker.
That tells you
something very stupid
is about to happen.
We've all seen this.
And you say in your heart,
have they no knowledge?
Are they not even thinking?
And then what happens,
you watch the video unfold
and you watch it
because it's going
to be funny.
That's why I got
on the internet.
And you watch.
But while you watch,
you think to yourself,
don't they think?
What made them think
this was a good idea?
Don't they know
what's going to happen?
So it is when God says,
or that God says,
when someone decides
to do something like
steal from the poor,
and I'm thinking specifically
of payday lenders.
They hang out
around military bases
a lot
where they can charge
36, 40% interest,
up to 500% effective interest
for someone to bring
your pay stub in
so that you can get
an advance on your next paycheck
while they take
a third of it out.
Why do they do that?
Because they've taken
so much money from you
that you have to
come back again.
And you get deeper
and deeper in debt.
They take people
who have a need
and they sell them a loan
and plunge them into debt.
They eat up my people
as they eat bread,
the Lord says.
They steal from the poor.
How can you do that?
How can you do that
and feel like it's okay?
You won't be judged.
Or the evildoers,
the fools,
trap vulnerable people
in addiction.
Think of gambling.
Think of sex.
Think of alcohol.
We used to live in Las Vegas.
You go to the casinos there
and they have ways
of trapping you
into all three at once
because you'll go in there
and all three will be present.
Gambling, alcohol, and sex
because they know
you're likely to get trapped
by at least one of them.
And they want to plunge you
in your temptations.
They want to eat up
the people of God
as they eat bread.
Or they could convince a woman
that she should claim
her reproductive rights
and destroy her child.
That's atheism.
You can't do that
if you believe
there's a God over you,
that there's a God
who will judge.
When this happens,
the Lord says
that these fools
are eating up my people
as they eat bread.
How can anyone be so shameless
is what the psalmist asks.
The psalmist asks,
have they no knowledge?
How could anyone
so high-handedly
do these things
to men and women
who belong to God?
Do they think
that he doesn't see?
Do they think
that he doesn't care?
The problem is
that the fool does know.
It's not a knowledge problem.
It's a sin problem.
The knowledge is there.
In verse 4,
we read it.
All the evildoers
who eat up my people
as they eat bread
and do not call upon
the name of the Lord.
As if the Lord is there,
the knowledge is there,
but they're not calling upon him.
God is holding
all humanity accountable
for calling upon
the name of the Lord.
The first chapter of Romans,
if you'll turn
to your Bibles there,
Romans chapter 1,
and I'm going to read
verses 19 and 22.
The first chapter of Romans
says that each of us,
whether we call ourselves
believers or unbelievers,
we do know God
in an important sense.
Not the sense of knowing him
as a savior necessarily,
but the sense of knowing him
as our creator.
And this is what
Romans 1 tells us.
Romans 1,
and I'll read
verses 19 to 22.
Follow with me.
For what can be known
about God
is plain to them,
and he speaks of the fool,
the one who suppresses
the truth,
because God has shown it
to them.
For his invisible attributes,
namely his eternal power
and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived
ever since the creation
of the world
and the things
that have been made.
So they are without excuse.
For although they knew God,
they did not honor him
as God
or give thanks to him.
But they became futile
in their thinking,
and their foolish hearts
were darkened.
Claiming to be wise,
they became fools.
They knew God,
but they didn't call upon God.
And God is holding those accountable
for calling upon him.
And he's holding those accountable
for following him
and defending the defenseless,
because that's who God cares for.
God is caring for the defenseless.
So though they knew God,
they were completely blind
to the fact
that there is a just God
in heaven.
Yes, knowing God,
even having that knowledge,
they became fools
because of the evil
that they wanted to follow.
This is a fearful psalm
for the fool,
but even as it admonishes us
for the foolishness
that still lives in our hearts,
it's also a great comfort
for God's people.
Because though they are reckless
and shameless in their evil,
devouring people,
as the scripture says,
in a manner of speaking,
like it was their daily food,
God sees.
God is not standing aloof.
God will put an end to evil
for the sake of his people.
He isn't just watching,
aloof and uncaring.
What is God doing?
God is watching judgment
pile up on evildoers
for his judgment,
his righteous judgment.
Because what does it say
in verse five?
God is with the generation
of the righteous.
Who are the righteous?
Own it, people of God.
You are God's righteous
if you are in Christ.
Foolish as your heart is,
you are God's righteous.
Here's where the lament
of scripture is so needed
for God's people,
and that's right there
in verse five.
For God is with the generation
of the righteous.
Among all the fools of humanity,
God has still called
to himself a people.
And if you are a believer
in Christ,
though you know
your own foolishness,
you are also his righteous.
And we need Psalm 14
because we need to say
that to ourselves.
Because we don't say
that to ourselves.
We don't like to consider
ourselves a holy huddle,
to be holier than thou
when we look at the world
around us.
But we need scripture
to say that to us,
that God is with the generation
of the righteous.
And when I speak the psalm
in my lament,
when I speak the psalm
when I'm suffering
for my own sin,
when I'm suffering
from the sins of others,
I need to look at the psalm
and say,
I am God's righteous
and God is for me.
And he will put an end
to evildoers.
In the meantime,
we lament.
We lament with the psalmist
who says,
how long, O Lord?
That's the lament
of scripture.
And it's in different words
here in verse 7.
The psalmist says,
oh, that salvation
for Israel would come
out of Zion.
When the Lord restores
the fortunes
of his people,
let Jacob rejoice,
let Israel be glad.
When he says
that the Lord
will come from Zion,
he's meaning
God's holy hill,
not necessarily
the physical location
of Zion
and present
earthly Jerusalem,
but God is going
to come from
the capital of his kingdom,
in this case from heaven,
to rescue the righteous
and put an end
to evildoers.
And that should not
terrify us
because we are
his righteous
and we need to have
confidence in that.
When we lament
over our own sin
and we lament
over our own foolishness,
the word of God
has to have priority
because we have
to call ourselves
righteous
when scripture
calls us righteous.
Though we know
our own foolishness.
So that's how
and why
we ought to lament,
particularly when we lament
with Psalm 14.
Because when we do it
on our own,
we grieve on our own,
we lament on our own,
what do we do?
We do one of two things.
We either devolve
into self-pity
because we have
no hope for ourselves
or we absolve,
what's the word,
devolve
into self-righteousness
because we look
at all the sin
around us
and we call
ourselves better.
We don't look
at the foolishness
in our hearts,
we look at the foolishness
in others
and we get self-righteous.
We could be
in self-pity
as we lament
or we could be
in self-righteousness.
Scripture doesn't allow
either error to happen.
When we see the foolishness
of unbelief around us,
we are sometimes tempted
just to wag our fingers
but then we look
at the words
of the psalmist
and he says,
when God looks from heaven
down on the children of man,
what does he see?
No one.
No one who seeks for good.
And what does Paul say
that we read earlier
in the preparation
for worship
in Romans 3?
Jew and Gentile alike,
educated and uneducated,
professing atheist
or professing believer,
all alike,
do not seek God.
If we are to have
any hope
to be saved,
it's not in our hope
of finding God,
it's in our hope
of God seeking us.
He is the one who seeks
and he's the only one
who seeks.
Which is why David says
in verse 7,
oh, that salvation
for Israel would come
out of Zion.
It has to come from him
because we don't seek him.
When the Lord restores
the fortunes of his people,
let Jacob rejoice
and let Israel be glad.
So when we lament
with the scriptures,
we're not given
the option of self-pity
and we're not given
the option of self-righteousness
because it wraps up
all men alike
under the same umbrella
of the fool
and it rescues
God's people specifically
from the fool.
God's spirit
takes away
our self-righteousness
and in its place,
he gives us hope
in God's righteousness.
The Lord gave us
this psalm
as a lament
that his people can share.
When we follow
scripture's laments,
we hear God
expressing words
assuring us
that he sympathizes
with our weaknesses
and with our sufferings.
Because, after all,
God knows
what it's like
to be eaten up
by evildoers
like bread.
Now, don't let those words
escape your notice
when they eat up
God's people
as they eat bread.
That's what the evildoers
are described as.
Did that occur to you
that we lament
the evildoers
who want to eat up
God's people?
Because God himself
gave his body
as bread
to a people
who previously hated him.
I don't think
those words
are an accident
when the psalmist
uses the metaphor
of bread
because Jesus Christ
was willingly
eaten up like bread
by fools
who did not
call upon his name,
who did not seek him.
He sought them out
and he gave us
the Lord's Supper
as a symbol
of how he has sought us
and what it cost him
to seek us,
to bring people
who hated him
into his kingdom.
The symbol
of our communion
with Christ
is even given to us
in this picture,
that Christ
was eaten up
like bread
for people
who in their foolishness
did not
call upon the Lord.
In fact,
this is the Lord's Supper.
It's many things,
but one thing it is,
it's God's people
remembering
how we in our foolishness
ate up a just man
just like bread
because God knows
that of this human race
on whom he looks
down from heaven,
there is no one
who seeks for God,
no one
who does good.
Every one of those
that God calls his,
they are his
because he sought
them out himself.
The Lord is the one
who seeks.
Before you were
sought by God,
all of you,
without exception,
whether you came
to faith as a child
or later in life,
all of you,
without exception,
everyone were by nature
haters of God.
Practical atheists,
we could say,
who don't say
there is no God
with their lips maybe,
but they say it
in their hearts.
Knowing God,
but pretending not to.
We pretend not to know God,
so we can follow
our lusts.
So for all us
who suffer with evil,
God sympathizes
because God did more.
He knows what we endured
because he endured it
himself in Christ.
He also knows
how powerless we are
over our own foolishness,
which is why he gave us
wisdom from himself.
He rescued us
from our foolishness,
not by making us smarter,
but by giving us
the Holy Spirit,
his Holy Spirit
who enlightens us
to know wisdom.
And more important
than knowing wisdom,
loving wisdom.
He had to give us
a heart to love wisdom
before we would
seek wisdom.
So when we lament
with the words of Scripture,
we lament rightly
and with hope.
And this kind of lament,
the lament in Psalm 14,
brings us nearer
to the gospel
because it culminates
in this hope
that salvation will come
from Zion,
from God's holy hill.
We've seen the first fruits
of that salvation already
when Paul in Romans 11 writes
and he declares
what the psalmist says,
the deliverer will come
from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness
from Jacob,
and this will be
my covenant with them
when I take away
their sins.
That salvation is not
just freedom
from the evil around us,
though that is part
of our freedom,
it's the freedom
from the evil within us.
That when the psalm
makes believers face
the practical atheism
that's even in themselves,
what comes out of us
is a lament for deliverance
from our own evil
finally and for good.
And this God will do
because he promised
that God is with
the generation
of the righteous.
Let's pray together.
Father in heaven,
it's you who teach us
through the Holy Spirit.
So do that now
as we reflect
on this lament
from your word.
Accept the pleas
of the fools
that you saved
and be pleased
with the feeble
attempt at obedience
that we're making
as we're inspired
to give it to you
and to give you glory.
And we do indeed
give you glory
as the one who sought us,
the only one who sought us.
When we of ourselves
wanted nothing else
to be free
from our sovereign king
and judge,
to follow our own desires,
to follow our own rule,
you rescued us
from our self-will.
Now keep us firmly
in your hand,
not allowing our foolish hearts
to draw us away
from the love
that you showed us
in Christ.
Now make the praises
we give in song
now be pleasing to you
as we repent
and are assured
that you have called us
your righteous.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.