Sermon Cloud

1.  I. When Heaven Kissed the Earth. 1-7

We have been restored. 1-3

Story: They remembered deliverance and salvation.

• ● Favor. cf Ps. 106:4 “Visiting with salvation.” 
• ● Restored. Ezra/ prophets talk @ return from Exile.

IL:  Kiss as it is supposed to be.

• ● Friends. Jonathan and David. 1 Sam. 20:41
• ● Couples. Song of Sol. 1:2

Us: Do we remember deliverance?

• ● Sin covered – forgiven. (Blessed Ps. 1, 32)
  • ○ We have sinned. Rom. 3:23
• ● Turned anger – propitiation
  • ○ We are forgiven. Rom. 3:25
• ● Peace is coming in 8 and 10 and needs propitiation.
  • ○ We were enemies. Rom. 5:10; Eph. 2:3; Col. 1:21

IL:  Kiss the son, Ps. 2.

Pt: Have you been converted? Has there been a point in time where you have asked to forgive your sins because Jesus died for you? Where you turned from all else to trust and love him?

• ● Speak to kids. You are learning and will need to decide.
• ● Speak to teens. Time to decide.
• ● Speak to parents. Your job is to prep and help them decide.
• ● Speak to young adults. Have you decided?
• ● Speak to adults. Have YOU decided?
• ● Speak to our mission.
  • ○ Not 4th type events.
  • ○ Not church goers.
  • ○ Converts!

 Heaven kisses Earth in Jesus. Do you know Jesus?

We could sure use some reformation. 4-7

Story: They strayed and looked back to covenant.

• ● Restore. 4 cf 80:3,7.
• ● Revive. 6 cf 80:18
• ● Rejoice. 6 cf 126 - “The Lord has done great things for us.”

Pt: We stray.

IL:  Kiss as it is NOT supposed to be.

• ● Judas. Luke 22:48
• ● Adulteress. Prov. 7:13

Us: We stray...why?...and look back to...what?

What happens to the passion of that first kiss?

• ● We stray because of success.
  • ○ Money. Paul concerned about the love of money.
  • ○ Power. Prophets concerned about money & power.
  • ○ Worldly values – doing well if...job, home etc.
  • ○ Ministry. My downfall.
  • ○ These cause us to look back with arrogance and we see our own attractiveness rather than the kiss.
• ● We stray because of pain
  • ○ An insulting slap replaces the kiss. Esp Church.
  • ○ A knife in the back replaces the kiss. Betrayal.
  • ○ Feelings of rejection replace the kiss. 
  • ○ Bitterness replaces the kiss. 
• ● We stray because of sin.
  • ○ The lure of other things.
  • ○ Which starts with FACE turning away.
  • ○ Heart captured, then action.
  • ○ The immoral kiss. 
• ● We stray because of complacency.
  • ○ Life just gets going. 7 days a week.
  • ○ Busyness.
  • ○ Fed a diet of garbage from TV, Christian books.

IL: Kiss becomes almost entirely physical, the passion is gone. 

The aim of this Psalm is personal and corporate reformation.

That is my aim too.

Don't lose your first love.

Be revived. 

Pray, seek, beg that God restore your passion. The passion and fire of the day that heaven first kissed earth for you.

George Barna, January 10, 2006

• ● Pastors contend that 70% of the adults in their church consider their personal faith in God to transcend all other priorities.
• ● Not quite one out of every four adults (23%) named their faith in God as their top priority in life.

I DO NOT WANT TO BE THIS FOOL

The unifying thread running through pastors’ responses...was that the most common measures do not assess much beyond the superficial participation of people in church. On average, a pastor might seek information as to attendance relative to previous years; how many people, if any, had accepted Christ as their savior; and whether there were enough people involved in the church’s ministry to keep existing programs going. 

Perhaps the most telling information relates to the measures that are not widely used by pastors to assess people’s spiritual health. Less than one out of every ten pastors mentioned indicators such as the maturity of a person’s faith in God, the intensity of the commitment to loving and serving God and people, the nature of each congregant's personal ministry, the breadth of congregational involvement in community service, the extent to which believers have some forms of accountability for their spiritual development and lifestyle, the manner in which believers use their resources to advance the kingdom of God, how often people worship God during the week or feel as if they have experienced the presence of God, or how faith is integrated into the family experience of those who are connected with the church.

What you have said to me. That is what I will pray, preach and push for.

1.  II. In a beautiful life...heaven still kisses Earth. 8-13

Story: The solo voice breaks the silence to seek God's word.

• ● Note plurals prior, singular here. I will listen.
• ● Speak peace. Salvation, reconciliation. The Kiss.
• ● To his godly ones, the ones set apart for the work of God.
• ● Folly. Prov. 9:6 contrasted with way of understanding.
• ● Those who fear. Prov. 1:7 beginning of knowledge/ wisdom.

• ● Earth/ heaven. 11, Produce. cf Ps. 1. 1, Way. cf Ps. 1/ 2. 13

Pt: Fruit of salvation...favor...restoration...setting aside of wrath.

For them this way was a grand utopian hope.

Us: for us this is a finished work, an accomplished act...a new life.

In Christ, love & truth meet, righteousness and peace kiss each other.

In Christ,you have been born again. And there is a holy huddle that surrounds you. A love song...about a kiss. A powerful and affectionate kiss. A life transforming kiss. 

Peace - שָׁלוֹם

•  Completeness, wholeness
•  The world is in chaos of sin – individuals, relations, creation.
•  Peace with God is first reconciliation.
•  Peace with God is next inward. Don’t have this? Not first.
•  Peace is lastly outward – social.
•  Peace is only through Christ.
•  We are peacemakers. Matt 6.
•  For our mission...we share the peace of Christ, we make peace, most importantly, we reconcile.

Righteousness - צֶדֶק

•  No peace w/o righteousness. In sin, we are still enemies.
•  Righteousness in Christ.
•  For our mission...we demonstrate the righteousness in just living, most importantly, we rely on Christ's righteousness, not ours.

Love – חֶסֶד

•  Steadfast love, loving kindness, mercy.
•  In Christ, we know definitively the love of God.
•  For our mission...we love with Jesus' love, unselfishly, generously, as we serve one another and our community, we actually do care about the real people in our lives. Most importantly, we point to the cross where God has proven his love once and for all.

Truth - אֱמֶת

•  Faithfulness
•  Truth that stays true
•  United with love and mercy, no saving love without truth.
•  For our mission...we show the beauty of a life rooted in truth, that is becoming mature in the knowledge of the Son of God, no longer tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine. Most importantly, we passionately BELIEVE. Do you know how powerful it is in our relativistic day to BELIEVE the truth that the one true God is reconciling the world to Himself in Jesus? That through Jesus' people He is establishing peace, righteousness, love and truth. 

If we believe like this, if we are growing in this belief...then heaven still kisses the earth...through Christ, in us.

Conclusion:  

A beautiful life is a believing life that passionately renewed by Jesus day to day. Its like a kiss good morning or a kiss goodnight.

Its life following the bridal kiss. You have been restored. Enjoy him!

Live now w/ him consistently...to the Word (listen) and to prayer!

No book in existence contains the framework and importance of directing our daily life as does the Bible. The Bible alone gives a true and faithful account of man, of the beginning and end of the earth on which we live. The Bible alone gives us true views of God; that He only has made a full, perfect, and complete provision for the salvation of fallen sinners. That the atonement by the sacrifice and death of His own perfect, unblemished son upon the cross completed the just for the unjust. The Bible promises a new heart and new nature to all who will hear and follow the God–man, Christ Jesus. Oh, how important is the knowledge of the great book! How precious are the promises, which the Bible contains for those who love God. 

“Can we suppose they pray against the world, when they are entirely absorbed band taken up with its pursuits? Can we think they really ask God for grace to serve Him, when they do not show the slightest desire to serve Him at all? Oh, no, it is plain as daylight that the great majority men either ask nothing of God or do not mean what they say when they do ask, which is just the same thing. Praying and sinning will never live together in the same heart. Prayer will consume sin or sin will choke prayer.”

JC Ryle.

• ● Prayers of thankfulness for conversion.

● Prayers for the conversion of others.

● Prayers of thankfulness for past – good and bad.

● Prayers for reformation and revival.

● Pray for his kingdom to come, as you do his will.

A beautiful life is a believing life...today.