SCRUBBING BUBBLES
PSALM 130:1-8
JUNE 23, 2002
INTRODUCTION: Farmer Joe decided his injuries from the accident were serious enough to take the trucking company (responsible for the accident) to court. In court, the trucking company’s fancy lawyer was questioning farmer Joe. "Didn’t you say, at the scene of the accident, ’I’m fine’?," questioned the lawyer.
Farmer Joe responded, "Well I’ll tell you what happened. I had just loaded my favorite mule Bessie into the..."
"I didn’t ask for any details," the lawyer interrupted, "just answer the question. Did you not say, at the scene of the accident, ’I’m fine’!"
Farmer Joe said, "Well I had just got Bessie into the trailer and I was driving down the road..."
The lawyer interrupted again and said, "Judge, I am trying to establish the fact that, at the scene of the accident, this man told the Highway Patrolman on the scene that he was just fine. Now several weeks after the accident he is trying to sue my client. I believe he is a fraud. Please tell him to simply answer the question."
By this time the Judge was fairly interested in Farmer Joe’s answer and said to the lawyer, "I’d like to hear what he has to say about his favorite mule Bessie."
Joe thanked the Judge and proceeded, "Well as I was saying, I had just loaded Bessie, my favorite mule, into the trailer and was driving her down the highway when this huge semi-truck and trailer ran the stop sign and smacked my truck right in the side. I was thrown into one ditch and Bessie was thrown into the other. I was hurting real bad and didn’t want to move. However, I could hear ole Bessie moaning and groaning. I knew she was in terrible shape just by her groans. Shortly after the accident a Highway Patrolman came on the scene. He could hear Bessie moaning and groaning so he went over to her. After he looked at her he took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then the Patrolman came across the road with his gun in his hand and looked at me. He said, "Your mule was in such bad shape I had to shoot her. How are you feeling?"
It was then that I said, "I’m fine."
Today, no need to say or lie “I’m fine”. We are not fine. We have been touched by death, because of sin.
Contributed by: Andrew Chan
TRANSITION THOUGHT: How many of you have ever used SC Johnson’s Scrubbing Bubbles? I have bought the stuff for years, but I don’t know why. I hate scrubbing tubs, but somehow, I got the job when Kim and I got married. Actually, in Seminary, it was my stress relief. BUT, that stuff has never worked like the bottle or can said. Just spray it on and those scrubbing bubbles will do the work. YEAH, RIGHT!!
Today our text deals with the incredible power of God’s forgiveness. We, however, often think that God’s forgiveness is like SC Johnson’s Scrubbing Bubbles, the bottle says it removes tough soap scum easily, but instead takes a lot of Scrubbing elbow grease to make it work.
Have you ever asked God to forgive you of your sin, but then felt that He had not? Or, have you ever asked God to forgive you and then thought that you must beat yourself daily for His forgiveness to take place? Today, we are going to learn the reality of forgiveness as found in Psalm 130. SO, let us learn together the truth of Forgiveness!!
THESIS SENTENCE: OUR GOD FORGIVES SIN!
WHERE DOES IT ALL BEGIN? THE PSALMIST TEACHES US…
I. FORGIVENESS BEGINS WITH A CRY FOR FREEDOM (VV. 1-2)
A. A CRY FOR FREEDOM BEGINS WITH SEEING YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES AS THEY ARE!
1. “Out of the depths I cry (verse 1)!”
2. When do you get serious with God?
3. Do you ever get serious with God?
4. The truth here in our text is not that the Psalmist is focused on his feelings, but on his circumstances! He is in a place where he has no control! He is in a situation that he can’t change!
5. Only when you get to the place where you know you are not in control will you be able to find help!!
B. A CRY FOR FREEDOM IS FULFILLED WHEN WE TURN FROM OURSELVES TO THE LIVING GOD!
1. The Psalmist knew whom to turn to!! “O Lord; O Lord,”
2. Twice the Psalmist makes it clear to whom he turned!
3. “Mercy” is the key term here! The Psalmist wanted the opposite of what his sins deserved: Mercy!
4. A cry for FREEDOM is a Cry for MERCY!
5. This is a cry of Repentance!
6. Forgiveness begins with a turning of the heart, which is seen from a cry for Mercy!!
ILLUSTRATION: Many years ago, executives of the Time-Life publishing organization discovered that the company’s profit margin had shrunk to an alarmingly low level. Consequently, they began an intensive effort to try to cut costs.
Efficiency experts suggested that substantial savings could be affected in the renewal department. There were 350 people working full time sending heartbreaking pleas to readers whose subscriptions were about to expire.
(For example, "Will you dare face your children without "Time” magazine on your coffee table?")
In any case, enormous quantities of these letters were being prepared manually. It was calculated that if a machine could be found to replace the manual labor, millions of dollars in overhead would be saved. In time, IBM came to the rescue with an enormous computer, delivered to Time-Life in a blaze of klieg lights and fanfare. Then the New system was installed.
The name of each subscriber was put on a separate little plate and run through the vast machine. Whenever a nameplate came along that was within six weeks of expiration, a series of dots and dashes at the top of the tab triggered an electronic impulse that caused it to drop into a slot. The name was then affixed to one of the "heartbreaking" letters which was then folded, stuffed into an envelope, labeled, stamped, and dropped down a chute to the basement where a United States Branch Post Office was set up--all without a single human hand touching the operation.
The system worked flawlessly for a while, until that fateful, hot, humid, sticky day in New York City when one of the nameplates stuck in the machine. A few days later a lone sheepherder in Montana received 12,634 tear jerking letters asking him to subscribe to "Life" magazine.
The sheepherder, who hadn’t received a letter in years, took his knife, carefully slit open one of the mailbags and began reading his mail. Three weeks later, red-eyed, weary and up to his hips in 12,634 opened pieces of mail, he made out a check for $6.00, filled out a subscription coupon and sent it to the President of Time-Life personally, with the following note:
"I give up!"
That’s a story to remember, when you begin to wonder about the limit of God’s mercy. You don’t have to plead or beg for it. You don’t have to ask Him 12,634 or 1,000 or 100 times for it. You don’t have to ask him even once for it. God’s mercy is always there, always being offered, always present to you. God has already said,
"I give up: I love you; I forgive you.”
Contributed by: Richard Jones
WHAT ELSE DOES THE PSALMIST TEACH US ABOUT FORGIVENESS?
II. FORGIVENESS CONTINUES WITH A CONFESSION OF FAITH (VV. 3-6)
A. WE CONFESS: GOD KEEPS NO RECORD OF FORGIVEN SIN
1. The Psalmist is remembering the Psalms. Psalm 103 states, “Praise the Lord, … who forgives all your sins…(verses 2 & 3).” and “as far as the east is from the west, so far has HE removed our transgressions from us (verse 12).”
2. “IF You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand (Ps. 130:3)?”
3. The bottom line here is that the Psalmist affirms his faith by acknowledging the truth: IF God keeps a record of sins, we are all doomed!! The truth is: all have sinned!!
B. WE CONFESS: IT IS IN GOD CHARACTER TO FORGIVE
1. Back to Psalm 103, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him (verses 8-11).”
2. “But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared (Ps. 130:4).”
3. It is God’s very Nature; it is within His character to forgive! If not why did HE send His own Son to Die on the Cross for us??
ILLUSTRATION: Dr. Karl Menninger, the famed psychiatrist, once said that if he "could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day."
Contributed by: Larry Sarver
C. WE CONFESS: BECAUSE SIN IS FORGIVEN WE HAVE GREAT HOPE!
1. Waiting is not about unbelief! Waiting here has to do with great expectation!
2. Because God has forgiven sin, and that being the greatest gift of all, what else will He do?
3. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him (I Cor. 2:9/ Isaiah 64:4).”
4. The Psalmist knew if God forgave sin, there is nothing He would withhold from those who love Him!!
D. WE CONFESS: GOD’S WORD IS TRUE THUS FORGIVENESS OF SINS IS ALSO TRUE
1. Remember God’s character! He cannot lie!!
2. God word is true! We believe it and if we don’t we have absolutely nothing to stand!!
ILLUSTRATION: Someone asked Luther, “Do you feel that you have been forgiven?” He answered, “No! but I’m as sure as there’s a God in Heaven .” “For feeling come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving; my warrant is the Word of God, nought else is worth believing.”
Contributed by: Evie Megginson
WHAT ELSE DOES THE PSALMIST TEACH US ABOUT FORGIVENESS?
III. FORGIVENSS ENDS WITH A CALL TO FOLLOW (VV. 7 & 8)
A. FORGIVENESS BEGINS PERSONALLY
1. “For with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is full Redemption (verse 7).”
2. How could the Psalmist make such a bold statement? Was it just another confession of faith?
3. The Psalmist had experienced the transforming power of forgiveness in his own life and now speaks from that experience.
4. We speak from the well of where we are! Our greatest testimony is sharing with other where God has taken us!!
B. FORGIVENESS ENDS CORPORATELY
1. “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord (verse 7).”
2. Taste what I have tasted! This is too good to keep it to myself!
3. And why should YOU put your hope in the Lord? “He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins (verse 8).”
5. Without the Lord there is no “REDEMPTION OF SINS.” BUT, with the Lord there is “FULL REDEMPTION!”
6. The reality is that our God’s desire is not just to redeem a few of us or even a lot of us; HE wants to redeem all of us.
7. Do you remember John 3: 16? “For God so loved the world!”
8. How about 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
C. FORGIVENESS IS ONLY COMPLETE WHEN WE CALL OTHERS TO THIS TRUTH AND EXPERIENCE!
1. The bottom line is that the Psalmist knew that this truth couldn’t be kept silent! 2. If you are forgiven, are you calling others to know that they to no longer have to wear the yoke of sin and despair? IF NOT, WHY?
3. Know forgiveness personally and share it corporately!!
4. IF YOU TRULY ACCEPT YOUR OWN FORGIVENESS, YOU WILL SHARE IT!!
CONCLUSION: For many people today the spiritual journey is filled with crushing burdens. I think of the character Rodrigo from the 1986 academy award winning movie The Mission. Rodrigo, played by Robert DeNiro, portrays a slave trader who kills his brother in a fit of rage. He’s filled with such terrible remorse and guilt that, to pay penance and get rid of his guilt he carries his armor through the jungle as a symbol of the crushing burden of his guilt.
Are you burdened like Rodrigo in your spiritual journey today? If so, I’ve got good news that you can lighten your load. It’s likely that many of us are carrying burdens today that don’t belong on the journey, burdens like the armor that Rodrigo was carrying on his journey. Today we’re going to look at how to lighten our load of four specific burdens that crush us in our spiritual journey. Contributed by: Timothy Peck
WILL YOU ACCEPT THE FORGIVENESS OF THE LORD TODAY? WILL YOU PUT AWAY YOUR “SCRUBBING BUBBLES” FAITH AND REALLY BELIEVE GOD FORGIVES SIN? TODAY COULD BE THE MOST LIBERATING DAY OF YOUR LIFE! AS THE PRAISE TEAM COMES TO SING, LET’S STAND TOGETHER AND ASK THE LORD TO SHOW US HOW TO RESPOND. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME AND PRAY, THE ALTAR IS OPEN!
CONCLUSION CONTINUED: In 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was proclaimed in America. The word spread from Capitol Hill down into the valleys of Virginia, and the Carolinas, and evens into the plantations of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. The headlines read, ’Slavery Legally Abolished!’ However, the greater majority of slaves, in the South, went right on living as though there had been no emancipation. They went on living like they had never been set free. In fact, when one Alabama slave was asked what he thought of the Great Emancipator, whose proclamation had gone into effect, he replied "I don’t know nothing about Abraham Lincoln except they say he set us free. And, I don’t know nothing about that neither." How tragic. A war was being fought. A document had been signed. Slaves were legally set free.
Yet most continued to live out their years without knowing anything about it. They had chosen to remain slaves, though they were legally free. Even though emancipated, they kept serving the same master throughout their lives. Yet, so it is with many believers today. They have been set free, yet they have chosen to remain slaves to the same strongholds that have gripped them all of their life.
Contributed by: Paul Berkley
BENEDICTION: JUDE 24-25
