In a moment, I'm going to invite one of our members, Miriam Montgomery, to come up.
She's going to read scripture for us.
But before that, I'm going to pray for us as a congregation.
I'm going to bring our petitions before God, the one who knows all our deepest needs.
Let's pray.
Lord, we rejoice that you, the almighty God of all the universe, all-knowing, all-powerful, everlasting God,
you invite us, mere creatures, to call you Father.
So, Heavenly Father, we ask that you'd hear our prayers as we bring them before you this morning,
laying before you the burdens, the fears, the hopes, the requests of your people.
Lord, this morning we pray for all those who are suffering from illness and pain.
Lord, we pray that you would guide those who are caring for them,
that you'd bring healing to them according to your perfect will.
We pray for the families of those who are sick.
We ask that you would draw close to them, bringing comfort and peace that only you can provide.
Lord, we pray for those in our congregation and across the city who are lonely.
Lord, draw near to them, be a comfort to them.
We pray that you would make us people with a heart for the lonely,
so that we can be used in your service to bless others.
But we know, Lord, that you are the friend that sticks closer than any brother could.
Lord, we pray for anyone here this morning who came to church purely out of a sense of duty
or a way of coping with their guilt.
Lord, would you give each of us true joy this morning as we come to worship our God?
Would you show us what it means to worship you with delight,
delighting in your law, delighting in the Scriptures,
not because we want to learn the Scriptures per se,
but because the Scriptures reveal to us who you are, what you're like,
how we are to live our lives in a way that brings honor and glory to your name.
Lord, we pray for those this morning who are here trying to determine where real truth lies.
Lord, would you meet with them today so that they would see you in your word,
that they would see themselves in the light of your law.
Lord, show them and remind all of us of our need for a Savior.
And Lord, would you give us an experience of meeting with Jesus this morning.
Lord, we pray for all the young people in our congregation.
We pray for those who've just gone down to Kids Church,
those who are sitting with us in the service for the remainder of our time together.
Lord, please guide them from unwise counsel that would lead them astray,
lead them away from the paths of righteousness that you've laid before us in your word.
Lord, we pray that you would open up their hearts,
that you'd reveal yourself to them even when they're young and tender in years.
Lord, we pray for all the people in the congregation traveling this summer.
Please take care of them as they go.
Give refreshment to those who are on holiday and bring them back to us again in safety, we ask.
Lord, we pray for all those in the congregation who serve in so many different ways,
some more visible than others, but all to your glory.
Lord, would you encourage and strengthen them in their service this morning and throughout the year,
knowing that when they work for the church, they're working to your glory.
Lord, we pray for all the churches in this city and across our country where the word's been faithfully proclaimed today.
Would you bless those who lead and teach, bless those who hear,
so that your great name would be praised.
And Lord, for all of us here at St. Columbus this morning,
take away from us the pressures of the week past and the week ahead,
so that we can have our minds and our hearts set on worshiping you with our whole hearts.
And we pray, Lord, that you would hear our prayers as we come to you in the name of our beautiful Savior Jesus.
Amen.
I'm going to invite Miriam to come up and read scripture for us.
Miriam's going to read Psalm 1, which if you've got a church Bible, is on page 448.
It's also in your bulletin and it'll also be on the screen.
Thanks, Miriam.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Amen.
This is God's holy word.
Well, years ago I worked in a supermarket,
and one day there was a guy looking for some help,
and he said, excuse me, and I said, hey, how are you doing?
And he looked at me for just a quarter of a second longer than I thought was normal,
and he said, I'm blessed.
And it struck me,
because that is not the way that we typically describe ourselves,
I think, when we walk around the supermarket just now.
In fact, we don't really hear people talking about being blessed
and blessing very much at all outside of church,
unless maybe if somebody sneezes and we say, bless you.
But even then, we don't really know why we say that.
Well, I do.
I looked it up.
It's just superstition.
So when we look at this word blessed in Psalm 1,
we need to take a moment to make sure that we know what we're talking about here.
So in the Old Testament, the Bible,
the Old Testament was primarily written in Hebrew, the majority of it.
And the word for blessed here,
or the word that's translated as blessed in the Old Testament,
is actually, there's a couple of different words that are described
or translated into English as blessed.
And the one that we have here is translated in other places as happy or happiness.
So we could say, happy is the man who.
And that's much easier for us to recognize, isn't it?
Because we use happy all the time.
I'm happy to help, is what I said when I was working in Asda.
Or, I'm very happy for you.
Or we say, you have to do what makes you happy.
We understand happiness in terms of moments and feelings.
But we also understand that there's degrees of happiness.
There's things, kinds of happiness that we treat as like dopamine hits.
So we say, something happens, you feel good, and then that goes away again.
And then something else happens, and then you feel happy,
and then it goes away again.
But there's another kind of happiness.
A true, deep, and lasting happiness.
A happiness that doesn't ping up and down like a Geiger counter in an action movie.
One that underpins you, that grounds you, that roots you,
that gives you hope and joy,
even as you navigate life's most challenging hurdles.
And this brings me to the second reason.
I said there was two reasons that this man saying blessed stopped me in my tracks.
The second reason is because I want that happiness.
I think we all do.
When we look at Psalm 1, Psalm 1 tells us, tells you today,
you can be happy.
None of us want to live an unhappy life.
It's why we work hard at school.
It's why we get stuck in at work.
It's why we forgive our friends when they mess up.
It's why we buy our wife flowers.
It's why we purchase art, read novels, go to nice restaurants,
play five-a-side football, listen to soul music.
We're all involved in the pursuit of happiness.
And that's a good thing.
And the Bible's big on happiness.
God made us to be happy.
He made us for a true happiness.
Not dependent on our circumstances, which can change quickly,
but on a life in relationship with Him.
Psalm 1 doesn't just say that real happiness is possible,
that it's available for us.
It also teaches us how to have it.
So let's go through this psalm together under three headings.
The righteous way, the righteous life, and the righteous man.
First of all, the righteous way.
The great English preacher, Charles Spurgeon, said that Psalm 1 is a text upon which the whole of the Psalms make up a divine sermon.
A divine sermon.
God preaching to us.
And what Psalm 1 presents to us are two different ways of living.
The way of the righteous and the way of the wicked.
And we don't just see this in Psalm 1.
This is the story throughout the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
We're repeatedly shown this image of two paths.
Adam and Eve had a choice to make in the garden.
You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
That's what God said to Adam and Eve when they were in paradise.
And then later on in Deuteronomy,
when God's people are right on the edge of going into the land that God had promised to them,
for years and years, God says to them through Moses,
he says,
I've set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
Therefore, choose life.
And then later on again in the Old Testament,
the prophet Jeremiah,
he sets up the same dichotomy.
This time he does it through the image of two men.
And one trusts in God,
one trusts in mankind,
and he becomes like a shrub in the desert.
And the other trusts in God,
and is like a tree planted by water,
which is almost identical language to what we have today in our psalm.
You see, the psalms are not mere poems.
They're theology that we sing.
So I'm going to say it right here in the middle of Edinburgh.
At fringe time, at festival time,
there is a right way to live.
And there is a wrong way to live.
I know that's incredibly unfashionable.
I know it's controversial to say something like that in some quarters.
But it's true.
Psalm 1 tells us.
One way leads to happiness,
because it leads to relationship with God.
But the other way leads to judgment,
because it's a way of rejecting him.
Let's look at the language of verse 1 together,
because it gives us a clear list of don'ts,
for if you want to walk in the way of the righteous person.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
Notice the progression that we have.
First, we don't walk in the counsel of the wicked.
The wicked here is not necessarily serial killers.
This is talking about anyone who chooses to live their life apart from God.
When I was young, my mum used to say,
if you fly with the crows, you'll get shot with them.
I don't know if anyone says that anymore.
But it means if you hang around with people who are doing wrong,
you're going to become judged in the way that they are.
Notice that Psalm doesn't just say not to walk with people who are ignoring God,
but it says don't walk in their counsel.
As believers, we have to be careful not to walk in the way
that people who don't trust God walk.
Of course we do.
But that begins by not taking their bad advice,
not taking their counsel.
Don't be taken in by the rules that the world,
people in the world make for their lives.
The standards that they think that they should live by.
Right and wrong, according to society,
it's not necessarily right and wrong, according to God.
I think there's a time in everyone's life,
anyone who was brought up in a house
where your parents attempted to walk after the ways of God,
who tried to raise you to know God,
there's a time in your life where you're going to step outside that home.
And the confines and the care and the love of your parents,
the influence that they have over you,
you're going to be confronted by ideas and advice
from people who are firmly opposed to God
and people who are just ignorant of who God is,
what he is all about.
And the thing that we have to be careful of
is that often that advice can be cloaked
to appear like wisdom.
Sometimes this perceived wisdom
isn't about telling us what to do,
but it's telling us what we can and can't have our faith in.
Maybe you've heard arguments like
you can't believe in God because of science,
which is a twisted argument
that doesn't actually hold up when you interrogate it.
But if we're not in the scriptures,
if we're not trusting in God,
then it's easy for us to be swayed.
Or maybe you've heard people say things like,
yes, the Bible says right and wrong,
but that's just not an acceptable way to live
in modern society.
This wisdom, it's not true wisdom at all.
Notice that walking,
after walking in the council of the wicked,
we progress to standing in the way of sinners.
You see, if you let these voices,
the voices of the people who don't know God,
who don't trust God,
who don't want anything to do with God,
move you in that direction,
sooner or later,
you're going to be standing with them.
You're going to be doing the things that they're doing.
You're going to be one of the crows
who's likely to be shot,
to go back to my mum's old adage.
Until finally,
you're sitting with them,
permanent and comfortable
in the way of scoffers.
You see, the danger is that
if you let yourself be swayed
by people who don't know God,
you just end up becoming them.
scoffers are like the ones,
are the ones who pour scorn on believers,
people who trust in God.
And these scoffers are saying now,
you're one of us,
pull up a pew,
come sit with us.
The picture is somebody
gradually moving
into rebellion against God.
And so this morning,
we have to remind ourselves,
we've only just got to verse one.
We have to say,
hey,
are we walking in the council
of the wicked today?
Do you recognize anything
of that in yourself?
Are you living by advice
that you've seen
in places other than from God?
Because it seems intriguing.
Because it seems interesting.
And today the pressure is so intense,
you don't have to walk
outside your door.
Your radio, your TV,
your smartphone,
all these things are desperate
to offer you counsel.
And so often that counsel
is counsel that is not
good for your eternal soul.
Do you find yourself
being swayed by it?
Maybe you find yourself
this morning in a position
where you think,
I know that this isn't right.
I know this isn't good for me,
but I've been drawn in.
Or maybe you find yourself
thinking,
it's okay,
I've got a handle on it.
I can switch it off
anytime I like.
Or Psalm 1 reminds us
that we must follow the voice
that is going to lead us
to God.
Because when we listen
to any voice,
there's a danger
that that voice
will lead us somewhere.
You've got to ask yourself,
who am I being most shaped by?
How am I being influenced
by what I consume?
In the news,
on social media,
am I being discipled
by scripture
or by sin?
Because Psalm 1 teaches
that while happiness
is available,
God wants happiness
for your life.
Sin will not make you happy.
Scripture doesn't just
describe the dangers,
it also gives us
the solutions.
Part two,
the righteous life.
So we move on
to verse two together
and it tells us
a blessed,
a truly happy person
delights in the law
of the Lord.
Delight is the thing
that your heart
most desires.
The thing that you want
more than anything else.
So while the warnings
about the wicked path
were about walking,
standing,
and sitting,
godliness
is about your heart.
This verse emphasizes
law twice,
it says God's law twice.
Law here includes
God's law as we find it
in the book of,
in the first five books
of the Bible,
in the Ten Commandments,
but it extends
to the whole of scripture.
Every word that we're given
is a word from God
and good for us.
So how can we make,
so how can God's law
make us happy?
There are lawyers here
and I'm sure that you enjoy
studying law,
but the rest of us,
we don't enjoy
studying law books.
Well, first of all,
the reason God's law
can make us happy
is because God's law
reveals so much to us
about God himself.
It shows us what God
is like.
It shows us the things
that matter to him.
It shows us the things
that he wants for us.
When we think about the law
as revealing God
as he is,
it changes things
dramatically for us
because we're not
believing in the Bible.
We're not delighting
in the Bible alone.
We're living for the God
of the Bible.
The law brings us happiness
because it brings us
closer to God.
Who he is,
what he's like,
what he's done for us.
We don't worship the Bible.
We worship the God
of the Bible.
This is an illustration
that I heard credited
to Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones,
who was one of the great
preachers of the 19th century.
And he spoke about a man
who had to go away
on business.
He went on a long journey.
And if you're under 40,
you're going to have to
use your imaginations
that there's a world
that existed
without smartphones.
This guy's gone
on a long journey,
and he's taken with him
a photograph of his wife.
And he doesn't put
his photograph of his wife
in his hold luggage.
Of course he doesn't.
He needs to keep it near him.
He puts it in his wallet.
He puts it in his breast pocket.
So it's close to his heart.
And when he goes to bed at night,
he takes it out
and he looks at it.
And he thinks about it
and he dwells on it
and he longs for it.
But this guy's not longing
for a photograph.
He's longing for the thing
the photograph is the picture of.
He has a photograph,
but he's longing for his wife.
And that's the same principle
as what Scripture does for us.
We love to be in Scripture.
We want to read the Scripture.
The Bible is so important
to our lives,
but not for the sake
of the words on the page,
for the sake of the God
who's behind those words.
Psalm 1 is pointing us
to the law.
But it's pointing us
to the law
so that we can see God.
His word allows us
to be closer to him,
rest in him
while we're traveling
through our arduous journeys
in life
so that we can have happiness
knowing that he's there.
Second reason that the law
is a delight
for the righteous person
is because it shows us
how to live.
So if we want to get blessed,
truly, deeply,
eternally blessed,
then we follow God's law
to get it.
You see,
God's law is not like
national laws.
You should keep
the laws of the land.
Of course you should.
The Bible tells us
that we should keep
the laws of the land.
But the best abiding
by the laws of the land
can do for you
is keep you
from trouble.
But Psalm 1
doesn't begin
by offering us
immunity from punishment.
It begins by offering us
blessing.
So the righteous person
meditates on God's law
day and night.
And that doesn't mean
checking in twice a day
like brushing your teeth.
It means
all day,
morning,
night,
every moment
in between.
And we know
that meditation,
therefore,
in this case,
can't be about,
you know,
a class
in a spa
where you sit
for 10 minutes
and empty your mind.
But it's also
not just reading
the Bible.
It's lingering
on what the Bible says,
turning those ideas
over in your mind,
letting yourself
be infused by it
every day.
I don't think
modern life
is set up for this.
When I've drank
too much caffeine,
I switch to
decaf coffee bags
and on the box
it says
to leave it
for four minutes.
Man,
four minutes?
Four minutes
seems like a lifetime
when you're waiting
for your coffee
to brew.
I think that's
silly,
but it's symptomatic
of our culture,
right?
We want everything
now.
We're so rushed,
we're so pressured.
We don't have time
to contemplate God's word.
We don't have time
to carry it with us,
to think about it.
We're constantly
bombarded
by messages
and interference.
I think that by nature
what we want,
what people in our day,
maybe every day,
I don't know,
but in our day,
what we want is
a planner
for the day
that looks something
like read Bible,
collect dry cleaning,
pay cancel tax,
meet Brian for lunch,
kids' football practice,
read Bible.
And we want that
so we can go
tick, tick, tick, tick
and we can clear them off
because once it's done,
it's done
and we can forget
about it
and move on.
Maybe that is actually
quite a good way
to handle the tasks
that you have
in your life.
But it's not
meditating on scripture
as it's described here.
The Hebrew word here
for meditates
not about 15 minutes
of quiet time
in the morning
and then 10 minutes
of quiet time
at night.
This word can also
be translated
as moaning
or to mutter.
This isn't a nice
tidy slot
that you fit
somehow
into your day.
This model
of meditation
is a whole
life posture
towards scripture.
So practically,
it might mean
reading the Bible
in the morning
and then
bringing it
before your mind
all through the day.
When you're in the queue
of the supermarket,
when you're getting
your lunch,
instead of waiting,
instead of instantly
going to your pocket
to see who's emailed you
since you left the office
or to see who's text you
to see what's going on
later on today.
Maybe it's thinking
about God's word,
the word that God
gave to you
that morning
for that day
to carry you through.
I promise you
that God knows
what you need
to be happy
much better
than your Instagram
algorithm does.
And look what
that heart posture
leads to.
Verse 3 tells us
the righteous person
is like a tree
planted by streams
of water.
So in verse 1
we were walking,
then we were standing,
and then we were sitting,
but now we're planted.
Planted
is much more
than sitting.
It's deep,
it's rooted,
it's grounded
and connected.
The other thing
about being planted
is that it's deliberate,
it's being deliberately
put somewhere.
And then even
the word streams,
this can be translated,
I think,
quite accurately
as a channel,
a water channel
or a canal.
So even
these waterways
that come
to refresh you
are deliberately
placed there.
Do you see
what this means?
This means
that God himself
plants his people
by streams
he himself
provides.
So being planted
is not just about
not being moved,
having roots
so you're not blown
around in the wind.
It's also about
being nourished.
A tree that's not
planted
beside streams
of water
is so vulnerable.
To survive
you have to pray
that the rain comes.
But the blessed tree
has the security
of being beside
constantly flowing
streams
of fresh water.
There's no need
to be anxious
about where the next
rain shower is coming from.
Your day-to-day
circumstances
when you're rooted
in God
are inconsequential
to your overall
blessedness
because you're
planted
beside streams
of water
that he himself
provides.
And so free
from the anxiety
of circumstances
with the constant
feeding and blessing
that this
water provides,
the blessed tree
brings forth fruit.
fruit in a person
we know
from the New Testament
manifests
as things like
love, joy,
peace, patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
self-control.
This is the fruit
that the blessed person
who meditates
on God's law
produces.
These are the evidences
that God
through his spirit
is working
in your life.
Changing you.
Become more
like the character
that you read about,
the character of God
that you read about
in his word.
Not only
do the Psalms
tell us
that the blessed person
prospers,
that the blessed person
brings forth fruit,
but they prosper
in everything they do.
Everything that they
turn their hand to
is a success.
It's nothing to do
with gaining wealth.
It's nothing to do
with getting a promotion.
It's nothing to do
with adoration
from other people.
But a flourishing life
living by God's law
does mean
a better life.
It really does.
It makes you
a better husband
or wife.
It makes you
a better parent.
It makes you
a better neighbor.
This is in complete
contrast,
we see,
to those who are not
in relationship
with God.
The Psalmist tells us
that they're like chaff.
That's the waste product
that's produced
when grain
is threshed.
They're empty husks.
There's nothing to them.
They have no roots.
They don't bring forth fruit.
They're just waiting
to be blown away
by the wind.
We see the righteous
become increasingly
stable
and the wicked
increasingly unstable
until the wicked
meet their ultimate end,
which verse 6 tells us
is destruction.
You have to be careful
not to think
that living by streams
of refreshing,
flowing,
pure water
means that our life
is therefore
going to be easy.
That's not
what we're saying.
But,
the one who trusts
in the Lord
remains fruitful
even during
the harshest of rites
because God is with them
and they take refuge
in him.
We know this.
If we've been
around church,
if we've read the Bible,
we know this.
We know this is the case.
We know that God's law
provides refreshing
and blessing.
We know that sin
leads to damnation.
So why are we still sinning?
Anyone who's here
who's compromised
their faith in some way.
Maybe you've reported
inaccurate figures
on your tax return.
Maybe you've laid
somebody off at work
to appease your boss
even though
what they did
wasn't really anything
worth getting rid of them for.
Maybe you told a lie
to avoid getting into trouble
from your parents.
That was a choice
that you made.
You did that thing
because you wanted to.
Maybe you didn't want
to compromise.
You didn't want to have
to compromise
on your faith.
But you wanted the thing
that compromising
could get you
at that moment
more than you wanted
to walk
in the paths
of righteousness.
righteousness.
the praise,
the promotion,
the pacifying somebody else
at that moment
was more important to you.
You wanted that thing
more than you wanted
to walk with God
at that time.
Look, I think
all of us
are maybe feeling
uncomfortable
when we think
about that truth.
I am.
Who's ever
walked
and not been
strayed
by the influence
of those
who don't love the Lord?
Who's ever
perfectly delighted
in God's law?
Well, don't despair
because someone
isn't pointing
accusingly
at you.
It's pointing
hopefully beyond you.
Which brings us
to our final point,
the righteous man.
Someone once said
that classic literature
are all the books
that everyone
wants to have read
but nobody wants to read.
Sometimes we feel
that about scripture.
We want to have read it.
We want to want
to read it.
But we simply don't.
We want to meditate
on God's law.
We want to be
the kind of people
who have that discipline
but it just evades us.
We don't have
that desire
that burning
aching
to be in God's word
like we know
that we should have
that the Bible describes.
It's because
our hearts are corrupted
and our desires
are distorted.
Even though we want to
even though we want
to want to
we can't.
Who could?
And if you read
the Bible like this
it's either going
to crush you
with the weight
of expectation
or you're going
to be eaten alive
by guilt.
But the Bible
isn't about us.
It's for us
but it's about
Jesus.
You see
it's not you
who resisted
every temptation
to walk
in the counsel
of the wicked.
It's not you
who never sinned.
It's not you
who delighted
perfectly
every moment
in the Father's will.
It's not you
who always
bore
healthy fruit.
It's Jesus.
The New Testament
book of Hebrews
tells us
Jesus took delight
in the law
of the Lord.
That's why
he's constantly
withdrawing
to lonely places
so that he could
be in communion
with his Father.
Even at the most
arduous points
in Jesus' life
when the devil
takes him
into the wilderness
and tempts him
it's scripture
that comes out
of Jesus' mouth.
When he's on the cross
the most agonizing
moment of his life
it's scripture
that Jesus speaks
because he loves
God's law.
Jesus is the blessed
man of Psalm 1.
And the Bible
tells us
Jesus is our wisdom
and he's our righteousness.
When we're in him
when we trust in Jesus
he fulfills
the demands
of the covenant
obeying perfectly.
He does it for us.
And yet
to our human minds
the unthinkable
happens
doesn't it?
The righteous man
suffers
the fate
of the wicked.
On the cross
Jesus bore
the judgment
that was due
for the wicked people.
Jesus bore
the guilt
and the shame
that was ours
to have.
God
experienced
the curse
of the godless.
Why did he do that?
So that sinners
like you
sinners like me
can receive
the blessing
that belongs
to him.
Paul says
Christ redeemed us
from the curse
of the law
by becoming
a curse for us.
See Psalm 1
finds its ultimate
fulfillment in Christ.
He was the tree
that was planted
by streams of water
but he also hung
on a tree
and was refused
water
and he did that
for us.
Jesus is not
simply our example
then.
He's our substitute.
He stood
in judgment
in our place.
One commentator
wrote
in Christ
we hear Psalm 1
not as a manifesto
for self-righteousness
or as a sentence
of miserable moralism
but rather
as glorious
gospel.
When we understand
Psalm 1 like that
it saves us
from three
big errors.
It prevents us
from trying
to portray
a superficial
righteousness.
Jesus had harsh
words for the scribes
and the Pharisees
in his day
who tried to act
as though
they had everything
sorted out.
We're free
to be honest
before God
because of what
Jesus has done.
Secondly
it saves us
from the futility
of becoming
a zealot
becoming a person
who
overwhelmingly
tries
to fulfill
all the things
that Psalm 1
demands
by strength
of our own will
our own determination
because that's crushing
and thirdly
it saves us
from despair.
We can never
attain
this level
of godliness
through our performance.
Jesus has attained
it for us.
In Jesus
the true righteous man
we're free
of all these errors
and now because
we're united
to Christ
through faith
his walk
becomes our walk.
His standing
becomes our standing.
His righteousness
becomes ours
and this is how
we can begin
to become
the kind of people
Psalm 1 describes
because the Holy Spirit
works in us
increases in us
not so that we can
earn his blessing
but because we've
already received
blessing
through Christ.
God give you
this song
because he wants
you to be truly
happy
and he knows
your only path
to true
and everlasting
happiness
is through his
son Jesus.
Let's pray.
Lord God
we thank you
for the truth
and the wisdom
contained
in your holy law.
Lord
we lament
that we do not
love your law
in the way
that sometimes
we wish
our hearts
wish that we
could
but we rejoice
that you knew
this.
This is not a surprise
to you Lord.
You sent your son
Jesus
to come into the world
to fulfill
the law
perfectly
to obey
your demands
fully
to die
in the place
of sinners
so that we can
be reconciled
to you.
Lord we
praise your
glorious and
great name
this morning
and we ask
that you would
hear our prayers
in Jesus name.
Amen.