κήρυξον τὸν λόγον

Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed!) Hallelujah!  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen.  David prayed to the Lord of hosts in Psalm 41, You have upheld me because of my integrity, and caused me to stand in your presence forever. Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! Amen and Amen (vv 12-13). 1. Integrity means “whole and undivided.” Integrity indicates original, unblemished condition. Because integrity means “whole, original, and unblemished,” the word also can be used to indicate such beautiful qualities as honesty, faithfulness, purity, reliability, uprightness, honor, incorruptibility, forthrightness, and other noble virtues. David wrote the words ... Because of my integrity ... NOT because he wanted to sing and pray them all by himself. David wrote Psalm 41 because he wanted you to sing and pray with him. He wanted YOU ... all of you ... to say to God in sincerity and truth, You have upheld me, [O Lo...

For the midweek preaching in Lent, we have focused upon Psalm 41, written by David, written concerning our Christ. Although it was written many years before the birth of our Lord, Psalm 41 speaks of history concerning Jesus.  During the days of his humiliation, Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him (Acts 10:38). Thus fulfilled were David’s words from Psalm 41: Blessed is the one who considers the poor (v 1) ... and ... he is called blessed in the land (v 2). Jesus was welcomed and loved by the Galilean crowds but not by the Jerusalem leaders. Many prominent men opposed him, hated him, and conspired against him. Even though Jesus came to give us all the forgiveness of sins, they sought to get rid of Jesus, to silence Jesus. This all took place according to what David had prophesied in Psalm 41: My enemies say of me in malice, ‘When will he die, and his name perish? ’ (v 5) ... They imagine the worst for me (v 7). Psalm ...

David prayed in Psalm 41, Even my close friend whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me (v 9). In the midweek preaching for Lent, I have emphasized two things: (1) First, the Psalms speak about Jesus (Jn 5:39). Therefore ... because the Psalms are about Jesus ... they also speak about you. In Baptism, you were, as Paul wrote first in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians, joined to the Lord (1 Cor 6:17) ... You have become one with him, by virtue of his sanctification of you (Eph 5:31-32). He has made you holy, because the Lord your God is holy (Lev 19:2). ... He lives in you and you in him. It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). Therefore, we can think of Psalm 41 ... in part ... as a biographical sketch about you. Psalm 41 tells your story and mine ... just as surely as it tells the history of first King David, and more importantly, our Lord Jesus.  1. We will start with David. He wrote, Even my close friend whom I trusted, who ate m...