TITLE: A Kiss You Don’t Want To Miss
TEXT: Psalm 85:1-13; John 1:14-17
TOPIC: The reconciliation of truth and righteousness with mercy and peace.
Preached to Point Assembly of God on April 27, 2003 by Louis Bartet.
Psalm 85 can be divided into three sections.
- The first, verses 1-3, describes a previous deliverance for which the Psalmist gives praise to God.
- The second section, verses 4-7, forms a lamentation in which the people plead with God to deliver them from their present distress. Their sin was the cause for God’s anger. They were asking God, on the basis of verses 1-3, to do what He had done before—"Restore us" (v.4), "revive us" (v.6).
- The third section, verses 8-13, proclaims God’s response.
Our text is located in section three, verses which some consider to be a prophetic word of comfort to a distressed people.
Psalm 85:10 - Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
In Psalm 85:10, the Psalmist says, "Mercy and truth have met together".
- What had kept them apart?
- Were they in need of reconciliation?
- What enabled them to commune with each other?
Later, in the verse 10, the Psalmist declares, "Righteous and peace have kissed each other."
- What was the occasion for this kiss?
- Was it a passionate kiss that would have caused onlookers to blush?
- Did it posses any significance or was it merely an action motivated by tolerance?
- Was it a kiss denoting reconciliation?
Jack, the homosexual
Jack, a young man brought up in a Christian home, fought a constant battle with same-sex attractions and activity. He was afraid…
- of what he felt,
- of what he might be,
- of what he might become, and
- of what other people would think of him if they came to know his shameful secret.
Jack lived in a closet with his secret, and with unbearable pain and anger. Because he knew and believed the Bible he knew no peace and constantly experienced the guilt of unrighteousness. Days filled with sunshine were no different than cloudy ones. He was deaf to the cheerful sound of song birds and laughing children. His homosexuality was his only means of coping with the psychological and emotional nausea he experienced constantly.
Bobby, the cancer patient
Bobby was the picture of health, but a yearly physical revealed a possible problem. Upon further examination doctors diagnosed Bobby with lung cancer. Bobby demanded a second opinion, got it and it confirmed that he had lung cancer. He demanded a third opinion and it too confirmed he had lung cancer. Unable to cope with such news, Bobby began to show signs of severe depression. One day, to his wife’s joy and amazement, Bobby emerged from their bedroom with a smile on his face. When asked why he was so happy he declared, "I refuse to believe I have cancer. The doctors are wrong. The diagnosis is wrong. I never have, I do not now have and I never will have cancer." Three months later, Bobby died of lung cancer.
TRUTH IS A PAINFUL THING
Facing reality is a very painful thing.
QUOTE: Philip Dick, author of Minority Report said, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away."
—Philip K. Dick, science fiction author, writer of the summer blockbuster Minority Report
Rather than face reality people deny it, justify their behavior or make excuses.
ILLUS: Boudreaux and Dufrene were drinking a few beers while driving around, when Boudreaux saw a roadblock ahead. He couldn’t turn around, so he told Dufrene, "peel the label off your bottle and put in on your forehead."
"Are you crazy," Dufrene responded?
"No! Just do it and let me do the talking," said Boudreaux.
The officer looked at Dufrene and Boudreaux and asked, "Have you two been drinking and driving"?
"No," replied Boudreaux.
The officer looked at the labels on Boudreaux’s and Dufrene’s forehead and said, "Then what’s with the labels on your forehead"?
Boudreaux drew himself up tall in the seat and explained, "Well, officer, we’re recovering alocoholics and our doctor put us on the patch."
or
ILLUS: A police officer stopped a man driving a ’60 Ford pickup truck.
"Sir," inquired the officer, "Do you know how fast you were going?"
To which the man replied, "Not really, Officer, but if I was speeding I can explain why. You see, I replaced my fourteen inch tires with fifteen inch tires and that makes me go faster. My speedometer is set for 14" tires and these 15" tires make my speedometer inaccurate."
"Sir," replied the Officer, "if we put your tires on the space shuttle it could travel at the speed of light. You were doing 90 MPH in a 55 mile per hour speed zone."
Excuses! It’s easier to make them than it is to admit the truth.
We are reluctant to admit that we are getting older or that we’re over weight.
Scripture has diagnosed the human race to be guilty of sin and worthy of death. God says, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God" and "the wages of sin is death."
Pastor Brian Coffey’s great-grandfather was a coalminer in the hills of eastern Kentucky. His mother called him Grampa Joe. By all accounts Gampa Joe lived hard, worked hard, and drank hard most of his life. When he was sober, he was the loving and beloved patriarch of the clan; he told wonderful stories, and the grandkids loved to sit on his lap. But when Grampa Joe was drinking, he would disappear for weeks at a time, choosing whiskey and brothels over wife and family.
Late in his life, Grampa Joe contracted liver disease from the alcohol and black-lung disease from the coalmines. He was hospitalized, waiting for death to come. Brian’s mother, who was 19 years old at the time and a brand-new Christian, went to visit her beloved Grampa Joe. She cared about him and wanted him to know that God loved him. She wanted him to have the chance to respond to the forgiveness available in Christ. So she sat by his bed and gently outlined the message of the gospel to Grampa Joe.
After listening politely to her presentation, Grampa Joe looked up and said, "I don’t believe I’ve ever sinned."
She was shocked, because the whole family knew about his lifestyle. She said, "But Grampa, we’ve all done bad things. Can’t you think of just one thing you’ve done that was wrong?"
He pretended to think for a minute, and then said, "I take it back, I take it back. I have sinned—once. I voted Republican one time."
Citation: Brian Coffey, from the sermon, "How Bad Is Too Bad?" (2-24-02); submitted by Kevin A. Miller, vice president, Christianity Today International
How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?
How will you respond to God’s charge against you? What will you say?
- "I didn’t do it; I’ve never sinned!"
- "What I did wasn’t a sin!"
- "I had every right to act that way!"
- "Yeah, but you don’t know what they did to me!"
Sister Saxlid use to say, "An excuse is a skin of a reason stuffed with a lie."
D. L. Moody said, "Excuses are the cradle in which Satan rocks men to sleep."
It’s amazing the excuses people come up with.
When two-year-old Keri’s mom asked her why she wasn’t eating, she replied, "I can’t eat; God told me not to." Her mother chided: "God wouldn’t tell you not to eat your supper." Keri looked up at the ceiling, then conceded, "Well, maybe it was Moses."
When God confronted Adam about his sin, Adam replied, "It was the woman you gave me."
Some child named Sara missed school one day, and came in the next morning with this note from her mom:
"Please excuse Sara for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot." (Thanks a lot, Mom!)
Citation: "Strange World," Campus Life, Vol. 55, no. 2.
In his book with Ken Blanchard, Everyone’s a Coach, Don Shula tells of losing his temper near an open microphone during a televised game with the Los Angeles Rams. Millions of viewers were surprised and shocked by Shula’s explicit profanity. Letters soon arrived from all over the country, voicing the disappointment of many who had respected the coach for his integrity.
Shula could have given excuses, but he didn’t. Everyone who included a return address received a personal apology. He closed each letter by stating, "I value your respect and will do my best to earn it again."
There are two ways to gain respect. One is to act nobly. The other is, when you fail to act nobly, make no excuses.
David tried covering his sin, but when He was confronted by God, he confessed, "Against You and You only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight" (Psalm 51:1).
According to John, confession is the only antidote to sin—"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1Jn. 1:9).
You don’t have to confess it to everyone, but you do need to confess your sin to God.
OUR ENEMIES BECOME OUR ALIES
As long as we deny reality of our sin, then "truth" is an enemy that stands ready to oppose and expose us.
As long as we deny reality of our sin, then "righteousness" demands our punishment.
As long as we deny reality of our sin, "peace" will be an elusive thing.
As long as we deny reality of our sin, "mercy" cannot come to our aid.
The Psalmist reports, "Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." John tells us "the law was given through Moses" but "grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
Where did mercy meet truth, and where did righteousness kiss peace?
- At the Cross where the righteous demands of God were met in the death of His Son.
- At the confession of the truth about our sin, mercy rushes to meet truth.
- At the confession of Christ as our Savior, peace runs to kiss the righteousness imparted to faithers.
QUOTE: David Morrison, in his book Beyond Gay wrote:
My first counselor wore John Lennon glasses, jeans, and a thick sweater with a collar that cradled his inscrutable face. During the first three 90-minute sessions, he didn’t say anything except to ask, quietly, "So how can I help you?"
He was the first person I told about the same-sex attraction in my life. "I think I’m a homosexual," I blurted at the beginning of the second session. There, I’d said it, but then came The Silence. I looked up at him and he didn’t say anything. His face registered neither approval nor disgust.
"Well," he finally said, "go on."
My life’s revolution started in that nondescript office. I had carried this huge, unbearable secret and denied it even to myself for many years….
Now, years later, this is one of the only things upon which advocates for same-sex activity and I agree: life is far better outside the closet than in it. The power the attraction holds over life drops sharply when we first admit its existence to ourselves and then to at least one other person whom we trust and know loves and supports us.
Citation: David Morrison, Beyond Gay (2000); quoted in Men of Integrity (Jan/Feb 2001)
Again, I remind you of John’s statement, "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1Jn. 1:9).
In like manner James exhorts us, "confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed" (James 5:16).
It is our fear of being exposed by the truth and rejected by the righteous that keeps us from experiencing the relief and remedy brought by mercy and peace.
The peace we long for and the mercy we need are ready to run to our side, as soon as we admit the truth and faith God’s grace provision in Christ.
Actually, there is no other context in which I can handle the truth about me, but in the context of GRACE. There is no other place to experience peace, but in the place where we come to faith in God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
ILLUS: Early in 1993 British police accused two ten-year-old boys of the brutal murder of two-year-old James Bulger. The two boys pleaded innocence. The young defendants responded to police questioning with noticeable inconsistency. The climax came when the parents of one of the boys assured him that they would always love him.
Confronted with irrefutable evidence linking him with the crime and the assurance of his parents’ love, the boy confessed in a soft voice, "I killed James."
The miracle of God’s love is that he knows how evil we are, yet he loves us. We can confess our worst sins to him, confident that his love will not diminish.
He is the way, the truth and the life, but He is also full of GRACE.
CLOSE
Scripture tells us that after Peter denied Jesus, he went out and wept bitterly. The hours that followed must have seemed like years. Judas, unable to cope with the emotional pain of his betrayal of Christ, ended a similar experience by taking his own life with a rope and a tree. Peter’s experience must have also been extremely painful, but his encounter with the Living Christ brings restoration. Instead of being rejected by the resurrected Jesus or put on probation, Peter was embraced by mercy and kissed by peace. He was forgiven and commissioned. It was Jesus who commanded him, "Tend My lambs…Shepherd My sheep…Tend My sheep" (John 21:15, 16, 17).
INVITATION
I don’t know what reality you are being called to deal with, but I can assure you that mercy and peace are waiting to smother you in hugs and kisses. Before this encounter can take place, you must first deal with truth and righteousness.
Confess your sin to God—your sinful attitudes and your sinful actions. He will tear the heavens and come down on you in ways that you cannot comprehend or contain. Do it now! This is a kiss you don’t want to miss.
PRAYER
Father, I have sinned and done evil in your sight. My fear of being banished and rejected has kept me from admitting my failure, but my own guilt and inner pain have driven me from your presence. There have been moments when Judas’ rope and tree seemed to be my only means of gaining freedom from the agony of soul that I live night and day. In this moment I realize that my answer is The Tree, not that of Judas, but Christ’s tree—The Cross. I believe Jesus died for my sins. I confess that but for His death I deserve to be separated from You forever. I declare that Jesus alone is my righteousness! I thank You for lavishing your grace and mercy on me and for sending peace to smother me in kisses of acceptance. To You, oh God of all grace, be glory and honor and power forever!
(c)2003 by louis bartet
May be used for non-profit purposes only. Please obtain permission before reprinting in magazines or such like.
