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Jul 04, 2021

Declaration of Dependence

Declaration of Dependence

Passage: Psalms

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Ascend

Keywords: holiness, peace, obedience, security, protection, affections, integrity, stability, uprightness

We know that declaring independence from a tyrannical force aspired to freedom. But what if a true and deep freedom comes from an earnest declaration of dependence?

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: 2 Corinthians 5:14-15
LEADER: 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

ALL: 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

CORPORATE PRAYER: “The Prayer for Our Country” (from The Book of Common Prayer)
ALL: Almighty God, who has given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly ask You that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Your favor and glad to do Your will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and
pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought here out of many nations and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in Your name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to Your law, we may show forth Your praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in You to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

CENTRAL TEXT: Psalm 125:1-5
LEADER: 1 Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. 2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore. 3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong. 4 Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts! 5 But those who turn aside to their crooked ways the LORD will lead away with evildoers! Peace be upon Israel!

BENEDICTION: Jude 1:24-25
LEADER: 24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,

ALL: be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Related SCRIPTURES:

  • Deuteronomy 4:38 / Joshua 1:3
  • Psalm 1:6
  • Psalm 23:6
  • Psalm 46
  • Psalm 48
  • Matthew 24:12
  • 2 Corinthians 5:14-15
  • Hebrews 7:16

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. In what do you find your greatest strengths? In what do you find you are mostly dependent on help? Has that always been the case? What does the Psalmist suggest Israel is dependent on the Lord for?
  2. Wrestle a bit: what might it mean for us today, both individually and as a community, to depend on the Lord for what Israel had to? Why are we tempted not to be dependent for those things? What do we risk if we do not?
  3. Jesus demonstrates what that dependence looks like. How so?
  4. What’s your first thought(s) in reading verse 4? Why those? What good did Jesus do to those who neither did good, nor who were upright in heart? What does Jesus do to see a heart both to want and to do what’s good?

Quotes

  • At first sight there is something surprising in this strange unrest of so many happy men, restless in the midst of abundance. The spectacle itself, however, is as old as the world; the novelty is to see a whole people furnish an exemplification of it. . . . Among democratic nations, men easily attain a certain equality of condition, but they can never attain as much as they desire. . . .At every moment they think they are about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights, they die.
    - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
  • Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or syllable of the Constitution need be altered. It was purposely so framed as to give no claim, no sanction to the claim, of property in man. If in its origin slavery had any relation to the government, it was only as the scaffolding to the magnificent structure, to be removed as soon as the building was completed. - Frederick Douglass
  • I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. - James Baldwin
  • No nation ever had two better friends that we have. You know who they are? The Atlantic and Pacific oceans. - Will Rogers
  • I’ve known people in my life who were the most outwardly secure and confident, who never betrayed a hint of doubt or guilt or remorse, who projected cool at all times, who were quite popular, who received plaudits and positive affirmation from others at all times, who were academically and professionally successful, who had money and respect, and who cultivated the kinds of micro-celebrity that are common to contemporary life. And yet the flow of life revealed that, inside, they hated themselves fully and completely and with a bitterness that I can’t imagine enduring at any time, let alone all the time. None of that stuff mattered. None of it could get at the core self-hatred within. They could never fool themselves. - Freddie DeBoer
  • You have made me so rich, oh God,
    please let me share out Your beauty with open hands.
    My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with You, oh God, one great dialogue.
    Sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp,
    my feet planted on Your earth,
    my eyes raised toward Your Heavens,
    tears sometimes run down my face,
    tears of deep emotion and gratitude.
    At night, too, when I lie in bed and rest in You, oh God,
    tears of gratitude run down my face, and that is my prayer.
    - Etty Hilesum (d. 1943)
  • There is no geographic cure for personal problems or sin patterns. They move with us because we take our character and habits with us. - Tish Harrison Warren