Listen        Read       Psalm 1  -  Walk With God
 Listen        Read       Psalm 19  -  Worth More than its Weight
 Listen        Read       Psalm 23  -  The LORD Is My Shepherd
 Listen        Read       Psalm 27  -  The LORD Is My Light & My Salvation
 Listen        Read       Psalm 36  -  Steadfast Love for Transgressors
 Listen        Read       Psalm 42  -  Thirsting For God
 Listen        Read       Psalm 46  -  A Mighty Fortress is our God

Listen       

The Resolved Church | www.theresolved.com
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All Rights Reserved © The Resolved Church

Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided you not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.

The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
July 26th, 2009

Psalm 46 – “A Mighty Fortress is our God”
I. A Fortress Against Fear in Time of Trouble (v1-3)
II. A Fortress of Joy When Attacks Mount (v4-7)
III. A Fortress of Praise in Victorious Peace (v8-11)

Introduction
Welcome church family those who are new with us today. In the study of our Bibles together on Sundays we are in summer Psalms series. Today we are looking at Psalm 46.

This is a mighty song, full of gusto. It was a favorite of the great reformer, Martin Luther, who inspired the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” Which is where I stole my sermon title from. The theme of Psalm 46 is the presence and comfort of God in difficult times…a good hospital & funeral text. If you’re having tough time lately it will minister to you or it will prepare and teach you where to go when the tough times hit.

Often times Martin Luther experienced intense spiritual struggle, as most Godly men do. When trouble would hit would say to his friend and protégé, Philip Melanthon, “Come Philip, let us sing Psalm 46.”

Let’s read Psalm 46 and pray over it (read text and pray).

The way this Psalm is divided up is clear with the “Selah” which are musical commencement mark for when this Psalm was sung at church. Selah simply means “so be it” or “forever so.” Each break focuses on a different aspect of God’s presence as a fortress for us…we see how God is a fortress against fear, a fortress with joyful provision under attack, and a fortress of praise and the place of peace.

I. A Fortress Against Fear in Time of Trouble (v1-3)

Let’s look at the first one.

The first line of the Psalm is monumental, one of the most encouraging lines in the Bible. To know that no matter what kind of trouble you face God is present and available…not too busy and far off.

The first line is like the thesis for the Psalm. God is a refuge, a strength, a fortress…and therefore when trouble we can find him and go to him as such.

The Bible is very aware that this world is full of troubles and hardships. In just this last week I talked with a family who has to commit bankrupcy, a man who lost his job, a couple whose marriage is falling apart, and a dude who is extremely discouraged in in the midst of a lot of realational strife. There is a lot of trouble about in the world.

The claim of this Psalm is that there is always a place to turn and run to in trouble. God, he is a refuge. A refuge is a place to run to in order to escape from harm. That’s why we call people who seek asylum in the US from oppressive governments “refugees.”

In the OT story, Promised Land, places of refuge were a big deal…cities of refuge. Cities of refuge were places where a “manslayer,” someone who killed another without intent, could flee to in escape of the avenger. In Joshua 20, these cities of refuge are described. There were 6 cities, the manslayer would go to the gate, explain his situation to the elders, the elders would then take him into city, and protect him until he could stand trial before a congregation.

The reason refuge is needed is because of fear. When the unexpected happens, when things look dark and grim, the affection that fills the human heart is fear.

People fear all kinds of things. Some people get afraid of little things…they just spook. Things like spiders, rats, heights…then there are the real fears… Fear of future (saftey, health etc.), fear of man’s opinion, fear of failure, fear of lonliness, fear of cancer and death.

This Psalm probably not David. Some think this Psalm written either before or after a man named Sennacharib, the king of Assyria came up to assault and take over Jerusalem. The story is recorded in three places in the Bible so it’s pretty likely that it actually happened.

Here’s the story from 2 Chron 32 & 2 King 19…Sennacharib and Assyria are rising to power, defeating everyone, wanted to win Jerusalem. They come up to the city. Jerusalem is protected by a high cement wall all around and is a city set on a hill. Sennacharib taunts them, makes fun of God, and tells of how they’ve defeated all these other nations and cities.

Hezekiah, the king of Jerusalem, and the people of God pray. Then, Sennacharib gets word of a skirmish where he troops need help so they leave. While he’s gone Hezekiah fortifies the walls and he stops up the springs outside the city so that if Sennacharib came back the troops would not have water supply.

But it doesn’t work. Sennacharib hears of it and sends a letter. Here’s what the letter says:

“10 “Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction. And shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?’” (2 Ki 19:10-13)”

When Hezekiah gets the letter he’s torn up. He literally rips up his clothes and goes crying into the house of God. That is, he takes the letter to church, lays it out before God, running to God as a fortress and says these words,

“15 O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 19 So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.”O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 16 Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 17 Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands 18 and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. 19 So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.” (2 Ki 19:15-19)”

Sure enough Sennachrib and his army comes and surround the city and it looks like it will be overtaken. I’m sure it was a dark, scary night. But then something happened. That night the Bible says God sent one, just one, of his angels who went out in the night and struck down 185,000 Assyrian soliders. When everyone woke up there were just dead bodies everywhere.

We’ve heard Hezikiah’s prayer, how he turned to God as a refuge and strength in trouble. Now hear why Psalm 46 says there is no reason to fear. It goes a step further than even the threat of an army.

“…through the mountain be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountians tremble at it’s swelling (Ps 46:2-3)”…even then we will not fear.

Psalm 46 takes it to creation itself. The mountains and the earth, two immutable and impregnable forces, cast into the raging tempest of the sea. This is the picture of a world thrown into convulsion. The very frame of nature coming apart. Not just an army with a vendetta. This is utter catastrophe. Even then, God is a refuge…even if the whole world comes apart at its seams.

This Psalm has been a comfort to many thousands of Christians throughout the centuries who have faced things like earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, floods, and fires. The point is that there is no trouble we will face in this life, where God is never ever ready and present for us to run into and be safe.

II. A Fortress of Joy When Attacks Mount (v4-7)

The next stanza, or verse in the song, says God’s fortress not only quelles our fears but gives us joy…even in the midst of when things are the hardest. Let’s look at it.

Verse 4 is phenomenal. Another sentence full of depth and beauty. Re-read

Water almost always is a sign of God’s Spirit in the Bible. Water is all over the Bible. At creation God hovers over the waters. In Eden there are rivers of water. In Psalm one the righteous are planted by streams of water. In Jeremiah 2, God’s people are to be held is the waters of God’s cistern. In John 4, Jesus says he gives living water. The theme and point is that no matter where we are God’s spirit is able to reach us. Ever been on a hike up a mountain and seen how a river cuts through it? It creates these visible lines that cut down the mountainside. A drop of water is inconsequential but a river is mighty, can’t be stopped by mountians.

This Psalm talks about the city of God. God’s streams make her glad. St. Augustine wrote a book titled the city of God which is essesntially about the contrast between the city of man and the city of God. The city of man is the city man builds by his own ideas, philosophies and experience. Something that is quite popular to do these days, come up with your own philosophy or theology. In contrast is the city of God, the true city, the way things really are, the way God has told they are as revealed in his word. It’s the difference between doing theology from the bottom up starting with God versus doing theology from the top down, starting with God. Augustine and Francis Schaffer are the best on this. I encourage you to read them.

Look at where this Psalm mentions the city. City buildings don’t get glad do they? People do. Cities are people. If that’s true then look at the next words…”the holy habitation of the most high.” it’s claiming that God, who is the most high over all, makes his dwelling place with his people. He habitates with them.

When the people of God were wandering through desert for 40 years after exodus…God was present in cloud by day and pillar by night. In New Testament, Jesus promises the other “comforter” and gives us the deposit of his Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 10:13 we’re told that all believers in Jesus have his spirit. That’s why when you meet a stranger for the first time and you find out they’re a Christian, you feel this automatic closeness.

God inhabits his people. Because God’s habitation is with his people the city, no matter where they go or what they do, verse 5 says, “he is the midst of her” she shall not be moved. Mountain may move and be cast into the sea but God’s people will not.

This is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. One of the most assuring truths of the Bible. Those that know and love God know come to know his goodness and we get roots. Since it didn’t start with us it can’t end with us. God’s city is like a tree, with roots, storm comes, we bend but don’t break because we got roots.

The next part of verse 5 and then including verse 6 states what many of us know pretty well…and that’s that things often get worse before they get better. God’s help comes in the morning. But often before the morning is the greatest attack when the nations rage and the kingdoms totter. In fact the darkest part of the night is self is just before dawn. And it’s in that hour that faith is often born.

Calvin says this, “Faith is really and truly only tested when we are brough into very severe conflicts.”

This is what Christianity offers, hope for the morning. When you face the real evils and sufferings of this world, truly face them, there really is no hope or chance for morning outside of God.

This verse speaks to the power and the might of God. God created the world with a word. “Ex nihilo,” out of nothing. God spoke and it came to be. With one word, he utters his voice and the earth melts. It’s the picture of wax. Imagine a globe made of wax put over top of a flame and it just melts. It’s like something from the Sci-fi channel. Or if you remember the story of when God gave the 10 commandments…what happened? God’s fire descended on the moutains and scorched and melted it.

Itt’s why verse 7 calls him “The LORD of Hosts.” Because of his power. Lord of hosts is literally the commander and chief of all the armies. God not only has great power just in his word, but has a whole army of angels at his command. And as we learned from 2 Ki 19, just one of them can take out 185,000 people.

This Psalm is filled with man named for God. A God of refuge and strength. A God with a city. The Most High. The LORD of hosts. And then last part of verse 7 adds, the God of Jacob.

When the Bible uses the phrase the “God of Jacob” it’s a reminder of the covenant with Jacob. A continuance of his Abraham, Isaac covenant. Jacob, a liar and deceiver, wrestled with God, but God of a promise to make a city for himself not based on our goodness but on his.

That’s why you’ll notice so much in scripture is about the “sake of God’s name.” It’s about him and his glory not ours.

III. A Fortress of Praise in Victorious Peace (v8-11)

The last verse, stanza continues this same line of thought and gets real practical with some good instructions. A Fortress of Praise in Victorious Peace.

Tells three things to do. 1. Behold works of God. 2. be still and know God. 3. Exalt and worship God.

Check ‘em out.

1. Come behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth.

A couple things here. First, it’s the same advice from last week, where you remember the past works of God. One of the biggest tools, weapons, enouragements for the soul is to remember times when God has been good and worked in your life from the past. In fact, the biggest impetus for our praise to God is to consider and remember who he is and what he has done for us. Why we sing about it.

Second, we get another name for God added here in verse 8. Yahweh. As I’ve taught before, all caps is yahweh. It’s the one name God gave for himself that others haven’t given for him. And when he gave it was when he brought some of the greatest desolations on the earth…the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt.

If you’ve ever read the book of Exodus, seen the movie with Charles Heston, “The 10 Commandments” or the movie “The “Prince of Egypt” you know it….Rivers turning to blood, swarms of gnats, frogs and locusts. Hail, darkness, and then the parting of a sea that then collapses on an army and drowns them.

Here in Psalm 46 in verse 9, God, YHWH, is described as a warrior. Ex 15:3 calls him that, it says, “The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name.”

I read an article this week on the the Bible’s theology of YHWH as a divine warrior. Here’s what it said. “Yahweh is a divine warrior, a warrior-king. God swoops down to terrify enemy forces. With smoke, dark clouds, burning coals, and darkness…he mounts the cherubim like a king would a chariot and flies like a bird on the winds. He fights with hailstroms, bolts of lightening, and rain. All creation serves at the command of Yahweh, the commander in chief. He is sufficiently powerful in all situations of life…he has invincible and immeasurable power.”

It’s like “Lord of the Rings” stuff, when the trees start fighting. You can’t beat that kind of warrior. What God has at his disposal if he so chooses to use it!

Verse 9 says he breaks the bow and shatters the spear and burns the chariots with fire. Bows, spears and chariots were the modern weapons of war at the time. Powerless against him. What are our weapons, bombs, guns, f-16′s, and nuclear power. God breaks the bombs, shatters the tanks and burns up the jets. They are no match for him.

I like that kind of God. God is a God of love for sure. He is a good and great father. But he ain’t no panzy. He is mighty.

Peace is his goal. Notice the beginning of verse 9 says he makes wars cease. We’ll come back to the actual peace and how God accomplishes it.

The interesting thing here is that the main tenor of this Psalm is written with the perspective of looking at trouble in front of you, not behind. So actual peace isn’t there yet, trouble is still present, yet because of who God is, knowing his power and his joy and his ultimate plan for peace enables us to rest.

Which is the second specific thing this Psalm tells us to do: be still and know that I am God. Often when we have a lack of peace, when we are overcome with fear, we do foolish, rash, stupid things.

Here we’re told not to. Just stop. Wait. Trust. Be still. Drink in the power of God and his destiny for the world. It is really and truly learning to rest in his Sovereignty. My wife and I joke about it sometimes when we need to hear it from each other. We’ll ask each other when one is struggling, “Do you need some sovereign medicine?”

The result of resting in God’s sovereignty is peace and then worship. Twice here, “I will be exalted, “I will be exalted.” It’s a call for us to exalt him.

I know it sounds upside-down but in time of trouble God is fortress and one of the main ways that we experience his fortressness is worship. Rather than doubt and distrust and freak out…we turn and exalt and worship him. He is with us, no matter what. Several times in Scripture we are promised by him, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Conclusion

Okay, let’s start to pull this together. I think there is one main thing, one question this Psalm begs to be answered, that is lingering in the back of it’s mind and maybe yours.

Here it is. If this is looking at trouble in front. Are the promises of this Psalm only true if God delivers physically and follows through? Is that what it is teaching?

That God is a refuge because he’ll heal me of my cancer? That God is a refuge because he’ll give me back all my money I’ve lost? That God is a refuge because he’ll save me from natural disaster? That God is a refuge because he’ll enable us to win the wars we fight?

I don’t think so. I think the Psalm looks beyond that and I think that’s it’s very point. That even if the earth kills us, even if another country takes us out, even if God himself strikes us…we are safe in him if we belong to him…if we are part of his city.

The end of the Psalm actually gets increasingly prophetic. He’s going to make wars cease. He is going to be exalted. There is a plan in the works.

When Jesus entered the world we saw the divine warrior swoop down like never before. He didn’t fight with divine power and might like we had seen him fight in the past, he fought with the weapons of humility, grace, restraint, and purity…and then he went to the cross to take care of the real reason for all the wars of history and all the turmoil of the human heart: sin.

He went after the only thing which can bring us peace, and that is to make a way for man to be right with God and thus then be able to be right with each other. Col 2:15. Sin, death, Satan and hell no longer has it’s sting or power.

Martin Luther’s hymn does perhaps a better job of interpreting this Psalm and showing how it relates to the gospel then my entire sermon does. Let me read you it’s words.

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevaling. (mortals who need help)
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; (Satan)
his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal. (no match for God)

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, (no strenght in ourselves)
were not the right man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. (we need someone greater)
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; (it’s Jesus)
Lord Sabaoth, his name, from age to age the same,
and he must win the battle. (he will make the wars cease)

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. (the gospel will overcome)
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him. (the one voice that makes the earth melt)

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth; (kingdoms are at his hand)
the Spirit and the gifts are ours, thru him who with us sideth. (the river that makes us glad)
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
the body they may kill; God’s truth abideth still; (it may overtake us)
his kingdom is forever.

Hebrews 12:22 says for those who ” Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering.”

For those who have embraced Christ we have become part of the heavenly city. Where when our life here ends or when Jesus returns we will live forever.

In the book of Revelation we get the picture of Jesus warrior as a warrior. He’s no longer looks like a poor peasant carpenter. He’s got a robe dipped in blood from battle, his eyes are flames of fire, his hair is blown back as he swoops down out of heaven on a king’s white horse, he’s got a sword and golden sash around his chest, and the wind blows back his robe on one leg enough to see a tattoo on his thigh that says “King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev 19:16).” And when Jesus returns like that he will set up his physical eternal city here on earth…an eternal fortress forever.

Whatever going through today, know that the gospel is our fortress. I’ve been reminded this week that we are in a spiritual war. A war for our souls and much threatens to undue us. But our God is great so we look to him.

I’ll close with a word from Luther and a word for the kids.

“We sing this Psalm for the praise of God because God is with us and powerfully and miraculously preserves and defends his church, an dhis word against all fanatical spirits, against gates of hell, against the impacable hatred of the devil, and against all assaults of the world, the flesh and sin.”

For the kids here, the message today is simple. You can trust God, no matter what, even when things are hard, dark, and scary. When you get scared, turn to Jesus, because in him you are safe…because if you love him, he died for your sin and you have nothing to fear.

God is our fortress!

Let’s pray.

Listen       

The Resolved Church | www.theresolved.com
(619) 393-1990 | contact@theresolved.com
All Rights Reserved © The Resolved Church

Permissions: you are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material provided you not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee. For web posting a link to this document is preferred.

The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
July 19th, 2009

Psalm 42 – “Thirsting for God”
I. Thirsting in Isolation (v1-4)
II. Thirsting in Defeat (v5-7)
III. Thirsting at Night (v8)
IV. Thirsting in Death (v9-11)

Introduction

Good morning. It’s hot. Summer is in full force.

Well this morning we’re in Psalm 42 in our summer Psalms series. Psalm 42 is pretty amazing. It is perhaps one of the most emotion filled chapters in the whole Bible. All the sad emo kids got nothin’ on Psalm 42…David outdoes ‘em all. It’s got dark, deep, heartpain, poetry filled, gut wrenching soul turmoil. I thought about titling my sermon “Melancholoy and the Infinite Sadness.”

I didn’t title it that though because sadness is not mainly what this Psalm is about…it’s mainly about God and having a thirst for him. Though there is a lot of sadness in this Psalm, it’s main point is to teach, to teach how to deal with what Saint John of the Cross called, “The Dark Night of the Soul.”

There is so much we can and need to learn from this Psalm. It is so relevant. In my experience it seems that my generation, the people 10-15 years older and younger than me are perhaps more fixiated upon their feelings than ever before. I’m not ready to make a sweeping historical argument but so many people are so caught up in how they are feeling all the time and analyzing how they are feeling.

It seems that in some ways we are living in one of the most narcisstic ages and cultures ever. Narcissus was a greek mythologial character who was said to have been so in love with his own beauty that he got eternally stuck in a trance looking at his own reflection in a pool of water.

If you listen to the popular songs, movies, and books of our culture…everyone everywhere is asphixiated with themselves and how they are feeling. I can’t tell you how many times I have met with people as a pastor and the thing people are struggling with most is how they don’t feel God and they think that is grounds for them not following him.

We had a couple living with us once a little over four years ago and the husband left his wife and his faith because he said he didn’t “feel love” for her anymore. I have had some close friends and people I’ve partnered with in ministry completely quit on God and everything else because they said they just don’t “feel it anymore.”

To be honest when I hear stuff like that it just makes me mad. “So what you don’t feel like it! Go cry yourself a river! Man up! You know?” But as we see here in this Psalm, God is much more compassionate. He inspired a Psalm to be written and put in the Bible to show us that he knows very well the deepest and hardest feeling a human being can feel. It’s all here, and the truth is we all experience it. If you haven’t you probably will eventually. As Charles Spurgeon says, “most have sailed the sea of this Psalm.” I know I have and that’s why it’s one of my favorites…it’s got me through a lot of dark hours.

So let’s read it and get into it (read text and pray).

I. Thirsting in Isolation (v1-5a)

Alright. Well, first off this Psalm was a song meant to be sung, probably with Psalm 43 which appears to be basically an extra verse in the hymn of this Psalm. But we’re just going to do Psalm 42 today. There’s some debate about it, but most likely it was written by David. So I’m just going to assume it was, it just smells like him.

The Psalm starts off by immediately introducing us to a picture…that of a deer. “As the deer pants, so my soul pants…my soul thirsts for God.” So we got a deer…get Bambi in your head or something. Now, it doesn’t say anything about the deer running or being lost, just that the deer is parched. So take you Bambi and put him in the middle of the desert somewhere in the middle east and that’s the idea.

Thirsting for God with an animal thirst. Dry mouthed, hot, sweaty, horrible taste, foamy saliva, must drink or die kind of thirst. That’s the picture here. And David says, I thirst like that…for God. This Psalm is about thirsting for the being of God.

In the first section we begin to learn what is giving rise to this thirst. In verse 2 he asks the first of five questions and wants to know when he will be able to appear before God. Most likely this means, when he will be able to be with God’s people and worship God with them again because in verse 4 he remembers when he would sing with a bunch of people in the house of God.

So this tells us David is isolated and alone and he is torn up inside. In verse 3 he says, “tears have been my food day and night.” So, he is so depressed he doesn’t even feel like eating. He just spending a lot of time thinking and his eyes well up with tears often.

If it is David it most likely may be the time when he is on the run from his own son Absalom who turned the people against him and wanted to take over his dad’s throne by killing him. I tell you what, if I had a son who did not love follow Jesus and on top of that wanted to kill me, chasing after me in the wilderness…I don’t think I’d feel like eating and I’d probably shed a lot of tears.

Have any of you ever experienced isolation? Where you get detached from Jesus’ church which has a natural love and support system built into it? Maybe you’re even isolated right now…detached, and your going through stuff and you feel like you’re all alone and God is nowhere to be found?

Have you guys ever been so broken that you just don’t feel like eating and you just cry a lot? I have. If you’ve ever experienced that then you’re right in the middle of this Psalm.

That’s the place that David is at in his life here. But look how David deals with it. Let’s learn from him. In verse 4, it tells us how he responds to what he is going through. First, he begins to remember things…”These things I remember.”

When you are down, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to begin to call to mind past times when God was good to you…past times when you experienced his love and his grace. You bring up those mental movies and you start playing them in your head.

Have you any of you ever read through Genesis and noticed how they are always building these memorials? It seems like when half the time anyone ever talks to God in that book that they go gather a bunch of rocks and build a memorial.

Some of you need to do that. I’ve got a couple ways I do this. I’ve got two journals. One on my computer and the other one is this hand held journal. In each of them I’ve got recorded specific times when I was really wrestling through something, or time when Amy and I were really facing a big challenge or times when God really answered a prayer, or thank you notes from people who have really been ministered to.

So sometimes when things get rough I go back and I just read through some of them. Here’s what happens. You start remembering how you felt then but how you don’t feel like that anymore. And then you start to get encouraged and hopeful about the current situation you’re in.

And that’s what we see happen with David here. Check it out what he remembers. Verse 4, “I remember…how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.”

He might be remembering the time when they brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 6 tells the story. The ark of the covenant was basically this gold box with some angel figures on top of it and in the box they kept the first Bible and some other holy things. During one of the battles with the Philistines, they stole the ark. But when they got the ark back to their place and put it in their temple next to their other holy things and gods, the statues of other gods would fall down and bow before it and then the ark kept killing people who would come in contact with it.

So basically they call up the Israelites and say come get this thing. David is so stoked that makes calls for this big festival with sacrifices and everything and 2 Samuel 6:1-15 says, “David danced before the Lord with all his might.. and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.”

He remembers a great time of worship with God’s people. You know you can sing songs and worship by yourself but there is something so unique and special about worshipping God with his people. It’s truly one of the great pleasures of being the church.

In our family would look forward to Sunday with such an expectancy because we love to appear before our God with his people. As a people we are by nature social people and we get a lot of spiritual help by uniting together in worship.

Now check this out. David’s down. So he calls to memory a past time when God was good to him. Then what is his response? Verse 5, “Why are you cast down O my soul, and why are you in turmoil withing me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, my salvation and my God.”

He’s encouraged. Playing the movie of the past in his mind enouraged him that it could and would happen again. He would see and be with God’s people and he would experience God’s presence again.

II. Thirsting in Defeat (v5b-7)

Now in case we get the wrong idea and think that if we ever hit a rough patch all we got to do is remember the good God times of the past and then all will be well…the Psalm goes on. When you’re in the thick of it, sometimes it just comes in waves and you have to persist in the fight for joy in God. So in the second part of verse 5 (we’ve got a bad verse break here) through verse 7 he dives back in and battles.

So second point, “Thristing in Defeat.” Let’s start with verse 7. “Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.”

A couple of things here. First, notice the personal pronoun “your.” These are “your” waterfall and “your” breakers and “your waves.” Who is the your? The your is God. First he recognizes that the trouble and trial he is facing is ultimately from God. He knows God is sovereign and is the one who causes and allows all things to happen.

Sometimes when people are hurting and having a hard time I have heard other Christians and pastors attempt to comfort people by saying things like…”Oh I’m so sorry. This isn’t from God. He woud stop it if he could.” That’s not true and that does not help. God is not impotent. It is of no comfort to anyone to say God can’t doesn’t have anything to do with suffering and that he cannot do anything about it. That is discouraging and death not life and peace…and that is not the God we serve.

It is much more true and assuring to see things as they really are and say, “God this is from YOU…it is your water that is falling on me and crushing me so I turn to you in my hour of need because YOU are the only one who can do anything about it. So help me Lord. I thirst for you. You are my only hope.”

Now, I know it says waterfalls, so I don’t know if he is imaging falling off the edge and going over the falls. To me that sounds fun. But I’m a surfer and I know the feeling of breakers and waves going over me…I have been so tossed a couple times I thought I might drown.

One time a number of years ago now, I was in Mexico with some friends at this surf spot between Rosarito and Ensenada. The surf was big. Easily bigger than double-overhead. We’re talking like 15-18 foot faces. Some of the biggest waves I’d ever surfed. And it was good. The surf was firing. We had been surfing for awhile and this big set came in.

I remember I paddled out and caught it on the outside and I remember dropping in and seeing two of my buddies just barely make it over the top of the wave. I remember I bottom turned and cut up the face of the wave and by the time I hit the crest of the wave I was too late…it just took me and tossed me.

I remember being underwater all twisted up being thrown about, not know which way was up or down and then I remember hitting my head on something hard, the reef or something. Then, the next thing I remember is my friends shaking me and I’m on the shore and there is blood all over the side of my head. To this day me and my friends still call that spot “lucky’s” even though I don’t really believe in luck.

Now, I tell that story just to say, I really identify with this, “your breakers and your waves have gone over me.” I think what David is getting at is the feeling when life just feels like you’ve been put through the washing machine and you don’t know which way is up or down anymore. You don’t know what to think or feel about anything anymore. You’re just beat up and you’re drowning.

So what’s he do? How do you deal with that? It’s in verse 6. “My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you…from Jordan, Hermon, and Mount Mizar.” Most likely these were all places where David had won military battles before. So he remembers the victories.

David follows the same pattern as before in the first part of the Psalm. When cast down and in defeat. He calls to mind the memories of times past when God had been good to him and delivered him. So what do you do when you don’t know which way is up? You remember how God has delivered you in the past.

III. Thirsting at Night (v8)

Okay. So onto verse 8, and “Thristing at Night.” There isn’t really anything textual to set this verse apart…I just think there is something really signficant about the night and how God often chooses to work in the night.

A pastor named Ron Mehl was once very kind to me and helped put me through college before he died of Leukemia. While he was dying he wrote a book called “God Works the Night Shift.” To answer the question of what to do when I don’t feel? He writes this, “When you find yourself groping around in the dark, you’re going to need a few things nailed down in your soul…(one of them is that) despite the way things sometimes appear, God is continually at work in your life. In fact he often does his best work in the darkness.”

Verse 8, “By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”

I find that pretty regularly, maybe once every couple of weeks or once a month…I wake up in the middle of the night restless. Usually it’s one of you and something going on in your life and I am troubled by it…sometimes it’s a concern with the church as a whole. But I wake up and I am just worried and can’t stop thinking. I try to go back to sleep and I can’t…so after about 30 minutes of that nonsense…I figure the hell with it and I just get up.

It happened to me once this week. I was up at 3:30. So this is what I did. I went out to my office, opened up my Bible and just began to read. I can’t quite explain the experience of reading the Bible in the middle of the night. It is special. It’s all quiet, you’re tired and so it’s sort of surreal.

The other night after reading my Bible for awhile I found that I just wanted to get down on my knees. So I knelt there in my office with the small light by my desk on and just started to pray…and then I started to sing…and then…I felt better. “The LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me…(and I pray) to the God of my life.”

I’m going to use some Spurgeon here. He wrote a book called, “Lectures to My Students” which has become a sort of manual for me as a pastor. He has a chapter titled, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits” where he talks all about dealing with depression. Spurgeon had chronic gout and suffered and battled depression a lot…so he’s not speaking from some high and lofty tower of joy when he writes this. Here’s what he says.

“Any simpleton can follow the narrow path in the light: faith’s rare wisdom enables us to march on in the dark with infallible accuracy since she places her hand in that of her Great Guide…let us not be turned aside from the path which the divine call has urged us to pursue. Come fair or come foul…be it ours, when we cannot see the face of our God, to trust under the shadow of his wings.”

Guys don’t write too much like that these days. Spurgeon wrote with God in his bones. I’m on a mission to build up a church that loves and follows God like that. One full of people who will follow God even in the night of their darkest hour…that such a night will be the hour of prayer and song to our God.

IV. Thirsting in Death (v9-11)

Well the darkest part of the Psalm is here in some of the last couple verses…so let’s follow them and go even deeper yet with this. “Thirsting in Death” in verses 9-11. Here we get David’s last three questions.

In one he addresses God as his rock and says, “Why have you forgotten me?” In one he addresses his soul again, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” And in one he’s either addressing himself or God, I’m not sure. He asks, “Why do I go mourning because of the opression of the enemy?”

The context here is clearly death. Someone is after him, probably his son Absolam, and it’s a real possibilty he might die. There’s the physical oppressoin for sure. But it almost what his enemies are saying that really gets to him. In verse 10 David says his adversaries taunt him. They mock him and God repeatedly. And these words cut deep.

At the beginning of verse 10 he says the words are like “a deadly wound in my bones.” You could translate the Hebrew literally as “murder in my bones.” This is deep and dark when you feel like despairing even to the point where you feel dead or feel like dying. David is really down here.

So what’s he do? Pop some pills? Hook up a bottle of Vodka? Have some girls over to numb the pain? No. He continues to do what he has been doing this whole Psalm: pouring out his heart to God. Remember earlier back up in verse 4 when he says “I pour out my soul” to God.

Have you ever done this? Just laid it all out on the table before God? I think that’s really what’s going on with these questions here. I saved talking about it until now because these questions are so pointed. Many of us have probably asked God this question or at least a form of it, “Why have you forgotten me?” “Where are you God?” “Why don’t you care?” “What are you doing LORD?”

Ever asked that question? Here’s the thing. I think sometimes we get the idea that we got to have it all together to come to God…so we go to him trying to put on our best face and look all good so he’ll be impressed, when really we’re falling apart.

The thing is…God is big enough for our questions. He’s not going to get all offended when we come to him openly and honestly. Sometimes you just have to lay one the table where you at spiritually with God before you can actually really start to pray and have a real conversation with him.

All throughout Scripture we see Godly men asking God questions. David here asks. Moses questioned God a bunch. Job got ridiculous and said he wanted to take God to court. Habakkuk laid out questions before God and then said he would climb up in a tower and wait to hear God’s answer. I think it’s okay to express our frustration to God. I mean you don’t want to start callling God names and cursing at him but I think it is okay to say, “Where are you God?” Anyone remember Jesus’ words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

David’s other form of questions are interesting because they are in the form of this self-communicating dialogue. He talks to himself as if he is two people and wrestles and fights with himself. And then he even preaches to himself. We all know we have an ability to do this. All of us are talking to ourselves all the time. There is an internal conversation going on in our heads much of the time.

That’s probably where that crazy idea of the little devil angel sitting on one should and the little heaven angel on the other came from. In the New Testament we’re told that the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and they are opposed to each other. There is a war for our soul.

So David recognizes this and does what he does well. He’s a warrior and so he battles. He questions and challenges his soul. Why are you thinking and feeling that way? Stop it. Turn to God. Put your hope in him. Some of you may never have done this and you have to learn how to do it. You have to learn how to fight with yourself.

D. Martin Lloyd Jones, was a pastor in London in the last century. He wrote a great book titled “Spiritual Depression: It’s Causes and Cures.” In it he writes, “You have to speak to yourself…the Scriptures teach us how to speak to ourselves…remind yourself of certain things. Remind yourself of who you are and what you are. You must talk to yourself and say: ‘I am not going to be dominated by you, these moods shall not control me. I am going out, I am breaking through.’ So get up and walk and do something…Say ‘no, I do not feel anything, but whether I feel or not, I believe the Scriptures. I believe God’s Word is true and I will stay my soul on it, I will believe come what may.” That’s good.

What has to happen is that we have to get our eyes off ourselves and how we are feeling onto God and his word. You have to become a preacher and preach God’s word to yourself. And when you do that…the darkness will eventually lift.

So when we feel as if there is a knife in our bones, David’s answer here is for us to pour our heart out to God and then preach to our soul and command it to put hope in God. Like in verse 8, “the LORD commands his steadfast love.”

Conclusion

Okay, let me try and pull this altogether for us. What I want to do is step back for a second and look at all the human feelings together that get brought up in this Psalm and then look at the faith in God this Psalm expresses as the answer to those feelings.

In one of my discipleship meetings this week I asked a dude how well he was able to do soul analysis. Are you able to discern your heart, do some heart exegesis, and get a sense of what is going on inside you?

David did. Altogether here is what he expresses:

- There is the feeling of deep longing: a panting and a thirsting.
- There is the feeling of bitter sadness: a lot of tears and no eating for days.
- There is the feeling of nostalgia: the good days of God are long gone.
- There is the feeling of difficult inner conflict: the soul is in turmoil within.
- There is the feeling of being overtaken: the waters of life are drowning.
- There is the feeling of being alone: totally forgotten.
- There is the feeling of being rejected: taunted and oppressed by others.
- There is the feeling of dying: murder in the bones.

Longing, sadness, nostalgia, turmoil, overtaken, alone, rejected, and death. Some intense emotions. Probably too familiar for some of you.

Now lets look at the response to those feelings…how David deals with ‘em in faith. Sometimes your faith will be directly opposite to your feelings. Check it out.

First, the feeling of deep longing and bitter sadness. In response to that feeling faith says, God is still real. The answer to that soul thirst is the living God. I love how he clarifies who God is in the second verse. He says my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Just getting religious or spiritual is not the answer. The only thing which can meet the need of the soul is the real and true God, the one who is an actual person and who actually lives.

For some of you God may just be an out there idea but he is not a living person to you. Hear today, he’s a living God.

Second, the feeling of nostalgia from the past. In response faith says, I will worship God in his house again…I shall again praise him. I love how he is looking backward remembering times of worship and it then it turns into a confidence looking forward to future worship. Just a change in feelings is not the answer. David realizes he needs an entire change of circumstance and needs to be with God’s people worshipping in God’s house.

For some of you, you may have never experienced really being part of a church or it’s been a long time. Hear today, this is a house of God, a house of worship and we invite you in.

Third, the feeling of inner turmoil and being overtake. In response faith says, God is my God, the God of my life. I love that in response to the expression of turmoil David gets really personal. It not just God, he’s my God. And when he prays to him, he addresses God as “the God of my life.” Just solving the problem in your head that’s causing turmoil and making you feel overtaken is not the answer. What we need is a sense of the personal presence of God…he’s my God, the God of my life…even when I’m in conflict and drowning.

For some of you, you may not have ever experience that close personal sense of having a real relationship with God and you don’t see him as the God of your life. Hear today, God allows himself to be yours if you will have him.

Lastly, the feeling of being alone, rejected and like dying. In response faith says, God is my rock. When all have left and all is gone God is there, he is immovalbe like a rock. God is someone you can always count on and plant your feet upon, he is a rock. Just having people like you, having a lot of friends is not the answer. What we need is God as our rock.

For some of you, life may just seem like it is so up and down for you all the time and there doesn’t seem to be anything constant or assuring in the midst of it all. Hear today, God is a rock and you can count on him in the middle of a storm.

Feelings versus faith. It probably doesn’t get more gut-wrenching and raw than this Psalm but at the same time some astounding affirmation of faith in response to those feelings. God is a living God, has a house of worship, is my God, the God of my life and is my rock.

In conclusion, let me ask the question, what does this Psalm have to do with the gospel? How does it point to the person and work of Jesus?

Here how I think it may. This Psalm is about thirsting for God. That we as humans in this life and in this world will experience thirst like what described here. Jesus knew this and this is the reason he came into the world.

Early on in his ministry he met a woman at a well. She went there to draw up water and take it home. Jesus was hanging out at the well and when she came up to it he asked her for a drink. She’s totally taken back by it. First because she’s woman and second because she’s a Samaratin and he a Jew…sort of like Bloods and Crips, they don’t get a long.

So the woman says to Jesus, how can you ask me for a drink?! In response Jesus says to her, if you knew who I am, you would have asked me for a drink and I would have given you living water. Listen to his words from John 4:13-14. “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

How could Jesus say such a thing? Easy. Jesus is the living God in the flesh. Jesus came to give his life so that we might have eternal life and might call God my God. So that he might be the rock in our life in our hour of need.

Just a couple chapters after Jesus talks to the woman at the well he’s teaching and preaching and he says these fairly odd words, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me (Jn 6:54-57).”

The point is this. Jesus came into the world to deal with the turmoil of our souls. Where we have sinned and failed he succeeded and gave up his life on the cross so that there might a once and for all provision for our thirst and live. That is the gospel my friends.

David’s ultimate longing was for the closeness and provision that comes only through Christ.

So as we go to the table today, let’s drink and be satisfied in Jesus for all that he is. There is no feeling or hardship we may face that the cross of Christ does not apply to.

For the kids and bigger kids in us, here’s your take home… Sometimes we may not always feel right about things, we will thirst, but Jesus died so that whatever we are going through he might be present for us to drink from and be satisfied, forever. He is our rock, our salvation and our God.

Let’s pray.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
July 12th, 2009

Psalm 36 – “Steadfast Love for Transgressors”
I. The Workings of Transgression (v1-4)
II. The Salvation from Transgression (v5-10)
III. The Prayer against Transgression (v11-12)

Introduction

Good morning. Good to see everyone. Love you guys…overwhelmed this week at the joy of being your pastor, I love being a pastor…preaching, teaching, discipling, community group, weddings, UFC. I think I have the best job in the world. For those who are new, welcome, we’re really glad you’re here to enjoy our God along with us this morning.

Well this morning we’re in Psalm 36, in our tour through some of the Psalms this summer. There’s Bible’s at the back, so if you need one you can grab it. I’m going to jump right and go ahead and read the text right away. So here we go (read text and pray).

LORD God thank you for your book, the Bible, thank you particularly for the Psalms which speak both with such raw honesty and sound theology. May we learn and grow much today as we spend time taking in its words. In the name of your Son Jesus we pray, Amen.

To begin with, most of you should see in your Bible a little inscription before this Psalm actually starts. The inscription reads: “To the choirmaster. Of David. The Servant of the Lord.” This is telling us two things. One that this Psalm was written as a song to be sung by God’s people when they got together for worship…it is for the choirmaster to use. The other thing it tells us is that it was written by David, whose life we know quite a bit about through other books of the Bible.

The title of this Psalm is literally, “An Oracle of Transgression.” In Hebrew, the first few words of a piece of writing is the title…so if we were to do that with our English translation, it would be “Transgression Speaks” and then the Psalm would begin with, “To the wicked deep in his heart…there is no fear of God before his eyes.”

Kind of weird, I know. I can’t imagine that a song titled, “An Oracle of Transgression” would be too popular of a song to sing. The choirmaster was probably like, “gee, thanks David…yeah, I’ll be sure to use this one…I’m sure it’ll be a big hit.”

What we see is that there are really three parts to this Psalm. There’s the first section where he describes the way transgression works in one’s heart and life, the there’s the second section which describes a continual, committed, steadfast love of God for transgression, and then in the last little section, we hear a prayer in response to God after looking at these two hearts and actions towards transgression, the heart and action of man and the heart and action of God.

I. The Workings of Transgression

The word transgression itself simply means crossing over a line…in Hebrew, it’s Pasha, a trespass or revolt. But the description here in the first four verses goes so much further beyond just saying transgression is something bad because it breaks a rule. It really gets into how transgression works in the human person, how it comes about.

I think deep down we all know that being a Christian is not just about doing all the right things like some heaven checklist, even though it’s really easy to treat it like that…went to church – check, read my Bible – check, tried to help a person out – check. The first part of the Psalm really digs in and dives deep into the psychology of sin, how it works itself out in the heart and in the mind…how a certain attitude toward God leads to certain actions against him.

So let’s look at it. First it begins with saying that all sin, all transgression is a heart issue…if you transgress, that makes you wicked, and that wickedness comes from “deep in (one’s) heart.” What’s that mean? I think it means that deep in the core of our being there is a motive issue, both a passion and a thinking which rebels and seeks something other than God.

I say this because of the next line, look at it, “there is no fear of God before his eyes.” So the contrast would be, if one does not have wickedness deep in his heart, then there would be a great fear of God before his eyes. It’s exactly what we were learning last week when we looked at Psalm 27 when it said, “The LORD is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?” When you are fearing God above all else there is no one and nothing else to be afraid of, and your heart is not led astray from him…because he is your primary focus and concern.

This doesn’t tell us much at this point about the workings of transgression, just that it is a heart issue and that it’s a heart that transgresses or crosses God, it goes against him, it rebels against him, thinking God is not one to be afraid of. It’s saying there is an underneath the surface issue, a sin beneath the sin really, a heart problem between us and God.

Let’s see how David works this out for us. He says, “he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.” This is huge and so helpful. Instead of having looking to God one looks at themselves and thinks they are sufficient and comes up with a whole way of thinking to support their way of living…self-flattery.

It’s one of the biggest and most popular things I run across in talking to people here in San Diego…eveyone is their own philosopher. Everyone is coming up with their own theories on life and truth and think that such a thing is okay. It’s the cry of the postmodern mindset. That I am so unique as an individual that I need and can create or pick and choose my own truth or my own God and that this is a right that cannot be judged or as this Psalm says, “hated.”

Friday was John Calvin’s 500th birthday. For those of you who know who he is, he was a great preacher, pastor, family man, and church planter. He is in an elite group of proabably about five men who impacted the face and expansion of Christianity in history more than anyone else. He wrote a ton of good stuff. He writes with a humility and a vision of God that is so raw, and honest, and insightful…I’m floored by it everytime I read it.

Perhaps his greatest work is this book called, “The Institutes of Christian Religion.” Big book. Listen to how he describes how men flatter themselves. “Mingled vanity and pride appear in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves, as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity, and neglecting solid inquiry fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation. Hence they do not coceive of him in the character in which he is manifested, but imagine him to be whatever their own rashness has devised…the dream and figmant of their own heart.”

Wow. I don’t know if you can say it better or more clear than that. With sights set on ourself we conceive of a world and a God by exploring our own curiosity and speculation…and the result is what we have devised on our own, the dream and figmant of our heart.

That ought to make us ask the question, who is our God? How do we see the life and this world? Are you looking through a lens that you have created by your own attempt to philosophize and make sense of things? Have we created our own God in our minds, one that suits us? Romans 12:3 calls this thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. And it is because God is not at the forefront, at the front and center. We are not working from the top down…from him to us, but from the bottom up, thinking we could.

You will always find this principle at work in your life and in the lives of those around you. Listen, it’s an important one. “The one who makes little of God makes much of himself.” Let me say that again, “The one who makes little of God makes much of himself.” Big God equals little you. Little God equals big you.

That principle has an effect on us. David describes three different steps here. This attitude against God begins to lead to action…first in our words, “the words of his mouth are trouble and deceit.” And then in our actions, “he has ceased to act wisely and do good.”

It is so easy to flatter oneself into thinking that we’re really not that bad off, yeah, maybe we mess up sometimes, but we do some good too. It is so easy for us to think of ourselves as generally morally good people. But Jonathan Edwards reminds us this isn’t so. He says our transgression is a far “more dreadful thing then imagined.”

This is the universal view of the Bible. Jesus himself said this is how things work. In Matthew 15, Jesus says, “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

If we think we are going to be able to act wisely and do good and not be connected to the source of good, God himself, we are massively deceived. An attitude and a heart whose eyes do not fear God and instead creates their own life and morality will make one increasingly unwise, self-centered and unable to do any good whatsoever.

It just gets worse and worse. Which is what David describes. In verse 4 he says, you eventually end up laying on your bed imagining new ways of sinning and enjoying it. What has happened at that point is a person has just let go and given in. There is this inner conclusion and decsion and commitment to a certain path and way of life and it sets in. You know it is evil but you do not reject it and you become hardened and set yourself in that way.

Does that sound familiar for some of you? Maybe you know you’ve just let yourself go and today is a wake up call for you? Or maybe this brings back memories in the past when you’ve let yourself go and since then God has graciously brought you to see that he is the most important thing of all.

I know when I read that here in this Psalm…”He plots trouble while on his bed; He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not reject evil.” When I read that I know that is exactly how sin has worked itself out in my heart in the past. I can think of specific times, laying on my bed and plotting trouble for myself…all the while knowing it was not good. Can you think of times like that?

Now here is the thing. I’ve approached this Psalm in a very intentional way…because I believe it is truly what David is trying to teach us…I’ve approached it in a way, where when David talks about transgression like he has here, I’ve approached it as though he is talking about himself, and talking about all of us. I have not approached it in the way where he is looking at transgressors, the wicked, from the outside…saying oh man, they sure suck, I’m so glad I’m not like them.

I don’t think that is what he is doing. Not only because of the title of the Psalm, and because the next section is not a vote of self confidence but rather the opposite, God’s love which is undeserved (I mean the next section doesn’t even make sense unless you see yourself as a transgressor)…those are all good reasons for looing at these words in the way I have…but the biggest one of all is this: it’s too personal.

David talks about transgression’s work in the heart and in the life in a way where he sounds like he knows all too well about it. I don’t know if he could talk about transgression this way unless he had experienced it.

I can’t help but think maybe he had in mind when he fell into sin by sleeping with another woman who was not his wife and then had her husband killed. That happened. David was not a good dude. He very well could have that experience in mind. He’s obviously writing this later in life, after he is king and has a choirmaster, and now God has led him to write this Psalm so that others might learn from what he experienced in his life.

If you don’t know the story, it kind of goes like this. David is out in the evening hanging out on top of the roof of his palace. He’s looking out over the city and down across the way he sees into the window of a house and inside the house he sees a naked woman named Bathsheba taking a bath. She’s hot. So he ends up having some of his servants go and get her and bring her to his house and then they have sex… she ends up getting pregnant. And so David comes up with a plan to have his chief commander in the army put her husband on the frontlines and at certain point have his fellow soliders back away from him so that he gets overtaken and killed.

That’s the story in brief. God ended up using one of his prophets to rebuke and correct David about it. David gets pretty torn up over it, repents, recovers…and God has grace for him. The thing is…I just can’t imagine that David wouldn’t have thought of that situation as he was penning these words here in Psalm 36.

He flattered himself in his own eyes thinking his iniquity of adultery and murder would not be found out and that he could get away with it. But God knew. Told one of his prophets about it and had him go to David and confront him about it. David had done a pretty good job up to that point as a King and lover of God…but then he ceased to act wisely and do good.

I wonder if he was laying on his bed thinking of naked Bathsheba, and that’s when he plotted to have his servants come bring her to him? Or if he was laying on his bed after that when he came up with the plot of how to kill her husband to have Bathsheba to himself and to cover up what he had done? I wonder at which point he set himself in a way that is not good and just let himself give in and not reject what he knew was evil?

It’s a pretty dark picture huh? One I think we know all too well. It’s almost just too personal. Just too much to take.

II. The Salvation from Transgression (v5-10)

It’s at this point in the Psalm when David completely switches gears. The Psalm turns to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and begins to talk about the great love of God. It’s a distinct shift and turn in the whole tone. We go from the dark depravity of man to the light of God’s love and grace. And it’s amazing…it’s one of the most amazing descriptions of God and his love in the whole Bible. It’s this second main section which makes this Psalm one of my favorites.

Let’s look at it here in verses 5-10 and talk about “The Salvation from Transgression.” First off he says, God’s “steadfast love” reaches to the heavens. Our English Bibles have “steadfast love” because our English word “love” is just pretty vague and pathetic. The Hebrew behind it is one word, chesed, which is this constant, loyal, persistant, everlasting, unfailing kindness.

So when the Psalm says God’s chesed extends to the heavens it’s grasping at trying to say that it doesn’t run out. Ancient Jews didn’t have space shuttles. They didn’t know how far off they were the expanse of the sky went when they looked out, but they did know that the heavens were the farthest thing away.

We know a little more. The United States Department of Energy says that the farthest star from earth is about 10 billion light years away. One light year is this many miles: a 6 with 12 zeroes after it. That’s just one. So take that one light year, 6 with 12 zeroes and multiply it times a billion. And that is how far the heavens extend. If you were traveling at about 186,000 miles a second, it would take you about 322 billion years to get there.

Hold that length out in your arms in a straight line, 322 billion years, a kabillion miles…and God says this is how much I love you. That’s how committed I am to loving you. My love is steadfast. The heavens are the farthest thing up there is and God’s consistent and continual love extends that far.

His faithfulness stretches to the clouds. Faithfulness is what keeps God’s love constant. It doesn’t change and doesn’t stop. The idea here with both love and faithfulness is you take something which is far away and say this is the greatest distance I can think of, and that is how great and unfailing, unfaltering, and unforefeiting God’s faithfulness is.

Verse 6, says God’s righteousness is like the moutnains of God. I love this one. Some of you have never been up into the mountains. Just a few weeks ago Amy and I were in Colorado and we hiked way up to these waterfalls in the middle of the Colorado Rockies. Massive, massive mountains. They are just huge. At one point we were hiking and you can see the water running at the bottom and then you look up and the dark, jagged, sharp mountain just cuts straight up way up into the sky…something like 11,000 feet.

I turned to Amy and said…You know when God created the world with just a word and he made these moutains I bet it didn’t happen in a second and all quiet like. I’m sure it was like God spoke and then this thundering sound kchchchchcchchch. Just astounding.

But here’s David’s point with the mountains. Mountains have thunder storms regularly…lighting, wind, rain. Maybe sometimes tornadoes. But no matter how strong the wind is. No matter how hard it rains. No matter how much lighting strikes. …None of it can shake a mountain. The strongest winds of the planet cannot cause the great Alps of France to move an inch.

And that is what God’s righteousness is like. It is immovable. There is nothing and no one that can cause God to sin and do unrightly. He is perfect and holy in every regard. His moral consistency is flawless. He is utterly righteous. Righteousness like a mountain.

The next line says that God’s “judgments are like the great deep.” With steadfast love and faithfulness we went up. Now with judgments we go down. The deepest body of water in the world is the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. It is 35,840 feet deep and could easily submerge the largest mountain on the planet. The ocean is deep.

His judgment is an extension of his righteousness. It means that he is not only perfect in all that he is and does but that his evaluation of others is always perfect. God does not false judge us or misunderstand us. He understands the depth of human heart. He is wiser than the deepest ocean and can see right into our souls.

Which is probably why the next line says, “man and beast you save, O Lord.” David’s amazed that God continues to preserve the world. Save here doesn’t mean spiritual salvation but God’s preservation of life, by creating an inhabitable world and sustaining it rather than wiping it out.

In verse 7, David returns to God’s chesed love, his steadfast love and says it’s like a jewel. That’s what that word precious means, jewel. God’s love is brilliant and the most valuable thing in the universe. Like a perfectly cut diamond it sparkles and shines and draws attention to itself as extremely precious.

Jewels are the most sought after thing in the world. I know. The most expensive thing I have ever bought besides a car is a diamond. This little tiny piece of rock costs thousands of dollars. God’s love is a precious jewel, worth more than all the money of man.

David then seems to expound on why he believes God’s love is so precious and he uses four more analogies. He says it’s precious because because it is refuge as under the shadow of his wings, it is a great feast of food and drink, it’s a fountain that gives life, and it is light which enables us to see.

First the refuge. Have any of you seen an eagle up close? They have a couple of eagle’s over here at the San Diego zoo. I take Adina on a date once a week and half the time she wants to go there. Eagle’s average a wingspan of 7-9 feet. That creates quite a shadow.

The picture here in Psalm 36 is probably of the young baby eagles who sit in the nest, where the eagle sits over top of them protecting them with the shadow of its wings. Eagle’s nest’s are about 18 feet deep and about 9 feet wide. A great refuge for young eagle’s. God’s love is like that. It is a safe and secure place for the children of mankind to rest.

Next, God’s love is like a feast. Food and drink, “the abudance of God’s house.” Some of the best things in life are meals. That’s why whenever we celebrate something significant what do we do? We eat and drink.

Greg and Carrie got married the other day. And what did we do afterward, we ate and drank out of the abudance of Carrie’s dad’s house. J God’s love is a feast, we celebrate and there is an abundant supply in his house.

Then David says, God’s love is the a fountain of life. I’m going to use Calvin again here. Calvin was a big fan of the Psalms…he said it was his meditation in the Psalms with enabled him not to wander. I wanted to give Calvin some props today, he one of my favorites and think it is fitting that we’re thankful to God for him just like we’re thankful to God for food and drink.

Calvin says this, “(God’s) blessings which unceasingly distil to us from heaven, are like streams conducting us to the fountain…our mind cannot conceive of God, without rendering some worship to him, it will not however be sufficient simply to hold that he is the only being whom all ought to worship and adore, unless we are also persuaded that he is the fountain of all goodness, and that we must seek everything in him and in none but him.” Whew that’s good. God is the the fountain of life.

Then in the last comparison David says, “in your light we see light.” It is this little play on words…I’ll explain it for you. If you take a candle and you light it and take it outside and hold it up to the sun, it does not help you see the sun better. So David’s point is this. It is God who enables us to see, not any other thing. Without him we do not see and are blind. But in him we receive light and are able to see.

Isn’t this just an amazing Psalm? I truly think it is one of the most beautiful, poetic, and theologically rich descriptions of God in the whole Bible.

Now it’s really in verse 10, that David breaks out into prayer…but verses 5-10 really all fit together because they are all about God’s steadfast love. Here’s how he erupts into prayer. Let’s read it. Verse 10, “Oh continue your steadfast love to those who know you and your righteousness to the upright of heart.”

Okay, so I don’t think David is appealing to his own moral goodness in this verse just because he mentions “the upright of heart.” In fact none of these descriptions of God’s steadfast love really even make any sense or are really that fantastic if they are deserved, like man earned God’s love for being good. No, it’s the opposite really. It’s almost like, David and us included are astounded that God would have such love because we know we’re not worthy of it. It’s too much. It’s too good.

I think this is simply what David is saying here when he mentions the “upright heart.” It’s those who know God. Notice that phrase, “to those who know you.” So how do you know if you know God. Here’s a test.

When we were going through these descriptions of God’s steadfast love and how amazing God is…did you in your heart rejoice? Did you think wow! God really is amazing. Did you start to drift into prayer in your seat, thanking God and adoring him?

If you did, then that a pretty good indicator that you may know him. If you didn’t you can come to know lovingly today and we’ll talk about that in a minute. But for those who do know him it works like this, when we experience God’s love, we want more. Oh, let it continue God. Continue your steadfast love please God. Thy lovingkindness is better than life itself. I want more of you God. More of you in my life. I think that is the cry of the believer’s heart.

III. The Prayer against Transgression (v11-12)

Okay, last and final point for this morning, “The Prayer against Transgression.” Let’s re-read verse 11-12, “Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the evildoers lie fallen, they are thrust down, unable to rise.”

Alright, this is the “Oracle of Transgression.” He’s just expounded on two ways. The way and workings of trangression in man and the way and workings of God toward transgression. Now he pulls it together for a conclusion. One commentator said David stands here on the ground between wickedness and grace.

He recognizes his plight, potential and proneness to transgression and so he prays to God for deliverance. We began saying that the way of trangression begins with flattery, one thinking they know better and don’t need God and here we return to that idea. Flattery gets called arrogance and is imagined as a foot that comes upon me or a hand which drives me away.

The foot of arrogance coming upon someone is a military analogy. It’s the picture of two men in hand to hand combat and one dude is taken down and the guy who beat him jams his foot into the guys throat. That’s how flattery and arrogance work they just take you down.

We had a bunch of dudes over and watched UFC at my house last night. In the main even Brock Lesner just dominated his opponent. He didn’t put his foot to the other guy’s throat but he put his head in a head lock on the ground and just pummeled his face until the ref stopped the fight because the dude got knocked out.

David looks at that and says that is what the way of transgression is like. Coming up with your own philosophy on life…doing whatever you want…hooking up with Bathsheba…not having a fear of God in your eyes, not loving and knowing God’s love. You get taken down.

And if you don’t repent and turn to God you will become ultimately and finally set in your ways as an evildoer and you will lie fallen, thrust down and unable to rise. God and his love will be cast off from you forevermore. So David prays against that and begs God to work in his life so that he is not given over to that.

Conclusion

Here’s my conclusion to this sermon. The question this Psalm begs is how can God have love for transgressors and what is David hoping for? I mean the dark part of this Psalm is dark and the bright part of this Psalm is bright. They are oceans apart from each other.

How can David go to being such a heinous trangressor and yet God has steadfast love toward him? What is David praying for?

I think this is it…David knew he could not save himself. Notice all the stuff about God’s steadfast love was about God and his person and his work, not how good David was at not transgressing. David knew that his only hope was for God to provide and to work in his life and so that’s what he asked for.

So I think what is going on is David is praying for and trusting God to provide somehow someway. He didn’t know exactly how. In some of his other Psalms he prays specifically for a messiah. What David did know God had steadfast love and trusted that God would make a way.

And that is what God did. God sent his son Jesus into the world, to live a life of free of transgression. Jesus kept a fear of God all the days of his life, always acting speaking truth, always acting wisely, never plotting trouble, and always rejecting evil.

Then Jesus allowed the foot of the arrogance of man be put to his throat. He gave up his life on the cross so that transgression might be dealt with. Jesus died a death for the sins of human beings so that God might extend his steadfast love and still be a just God who doesn’t just let adulterers and murderers get off the hook. God punishes the sin in his own son so that we might not remain fallen, thrust down and unable to rise.

This is the gospel my friends. It is Jesus. He is the answer to David’s prayer. I’m constantly trying to teach us that Jesus is what the whole Bible is about. Everyone in the Old Testament is looking forward to and needing him and everyone in the New Testament and beyond is looking backward to him. Jesus is the peak of the Bible and the peak of history.

Jesus is the savior of transgressors so that they might know God’s steadfast love. I said earlier that if you didn’t know God and his love like the way David did that you could today. This is how, put your faith in Jesus. Embrace his person and work on the cross for your trangression. And you will be given new life and you will rise.

Maybe there’s others of you where you know and love God but like verse 4 describes you’ve just kind of let yourself go in a way that isn’t good and you need the grace and the love of God in your life. Know today that Jesus is for you. Jesus died once and for all for sin and is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us.

Maybe some of you know you’ve just been proud and arrogant, and the hand of the wicked, ungodly people have been influencing you and driving you away and you just need to repent today and turn to Christ. Know that he loves you and cares for you.

All of us need Jesus today. Without him the love of God will remain a far off distant reality. In him the love of God comes close and we find refuge in the shadow of the cross.

I want to conclude this morning’s message with a prayer from Ephesians three. If you’d all pray with me.

God I bow my knees before you Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, I pray that according to the riches of your glory that you may grant us to be strengthened with power through your Spirit in our inner being, so that Jesus Christ might dwell in our hearts throgh that – that we would be rooted and grounded in love, that we may have strength to comprehend together what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge and that we would be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:14-19).

Be pleased with us and minister to your people head pastor Jesus as we come to your table. Be pleased with our financial offerings we give and continue to enable us to spread the goodness of your gospel in this city. We love you and in the great name of your son Jesus I pray, Amen.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
July 5th, 2009

Psalm 27 – “The LORD is My Light & My Salvation”

I. Enemies and the Fear of the LORD (v1-3)
II. Insecurity and the Refuge of the LORD (v4-5)
III. Victory and the Joy of the LORD (v6)
IV. Prayer and the Presence of the LORD (v7-12)
V. Waiting and the Courage of the LORD (v13-14)

Introduction

Okay, so we’re going to do Psalm 27 this morning. We’re hitting random Psalms this summer. A lot of you are in and out with vaction and what not, so it seemed good for us to work through some stuff this summer where each week isn’t dependant on the previous week, like when we go through books of the Bible.

I’ve said a number of times that the Psalms are very personal for me. I read ‘em a lot, about one a day…they are simply very powerful and very relevant to life in this world if you’re a person who loves God and actually try to deal with things like your heart, people, and Jesus.

This particular Psalms has been very special to me, not only because of the numerous times it has ministered to me, both during times of trouble and times when I was really seeking after God…but this is the first passage of Scripture that my wife and I ever memorized together.

With that let’s read this Psalm together, pray and then get into it.

I. Enemies and the Fear of the LORD (v1-3)

So right of the bat here, David (the author of this Psalm) opens up a ton of huge, immense, deep issues. He calls God his personal light, salvation, and rock and then he brings up one of the most intense human emotions, fear.

In fact throughout the entirety of this Psalm we are pulled from one end of the spectrum to the other…confidence and uncertainty, life and death, light and darkness, joy and pain, abandonement and adoption, distance and closeness, good and evil, waiting and receiving.

Seems a little intense for a July 4th summer weekend…it just worked out that way. It was kind of funny preparing this week because this Psalm really calls for this heart wrenching struggle and trial…and I had a pretty good week. Sounds funny to say, “man I wish I had a real crappy week this week so I could identify with this Psalm better.” Maybe that’s a good thing.

I think what we have here with this Psalm is either the situation that is described in 1 Samuel 23 with David or a situation like it, and David is preaching to his own soul as he deals with it. Several times throughout the Psalms you’ll see David do this. Sometimes you have to preach to yourself, some of you need to learn how to do that when facing temptation, learn how to fortify yourself.

So let me share with you the story and then we’ll see and hopefully learn from David how to face fears, enemies, and insecurities and come out joyful, prayerful and confident.

Most of you are pobably familiar with the story of David Goliath. I shared some of the story a few weeks ago. Saul is the king of Israel. They are in a war against the Philistines. They have this huge Shaquille O’Neal size warrior, who in a time without guns is like having a Nuclear weapon. Everyone is scared of him including King Saul who is supposed to be the strongest warrior of all.

Nobody wants to fight Goliath, little scrappy red-haired David comes in and takes him out with his sling, steals Goliath’s own sword and cuts off Goliath’s head with it. It’s every dude’s favorite story in the Bible.

After that, though Saul is thankful, he becomes jealous because David turns out to be quite a good warrior and gains a following, including Saul’s own son Jonathan. So Saul tries to kill David. David gets back from a tour kicking some Philistine arse and they’re hanging out in Saul’s house and Saul throws a spear at him. David leaves and Saul takes after him with his army.

David gets a head start on him, first hiding out at the priests house, but Saul follows him there, so David goes to Gath. Saul catches up there too so then David goes to a cave in Adullam, but gets word that Saul is on his way, so David heads off into the forest in Nob. Saul can’t find David there so he goes and gets the priests, the pastors of the town and kills them for helping hide David.

This goes on and on. He follows David to Keilah, to the wilderness of Ziph and then to Moan. Now listen to the words of Samuel 23:24-29 and then we’ll re-read these first couple verses of Psalm 27.

Samuel 23:24-29 “24 Now David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Arabah to the south of Jeshimon. 25 And Saul and his men went to seek him. And David was told, so he went down to the rock and lived in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon. 26 Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain. And David was hurrying to get away from Saul. As Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to capture them, 27 a messenger came to Saul, saying, “Hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid against the land.” 28 So Saul returned from pursuing after David and went against the Philistines. Therefore that place was called the Rock of Escape. 29 And David went up from there and lived in the strongholds of Engedi.”

Now listen to Psalm 27:1-3 again.

Psalm 27:1-3 “1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. 3 Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.”

Sounds pretty similar huh? The stronghold, the adveraries and foes against him personally? If this isn’t the situation is one very much like it.

But it’s not the exact situation that matters so much is it? It is any situation where there is a particular person, persons, or circumstance that is seemingly after you…crowded all around you like a great darkness. Have any of you ever felt like that? Just trapped?

Many people feel like that right now with the financial crisis we are facing. A dark force crowded all around you. Some may have experienced situations or season in life when it just seems like nothing is going right. There are fears of failure (new), fears of the future (job), fears of nuclear warfare (North Korea), fear of death (M.J.), fear of the unknown (Stella), fears of conflict (people), fears of change… Few have probably ever faced a situation exactly like David’s, where somone has called you out, your name, and declared and attempted to take your life. That’s intense. But we all experience fear.

With David, he’s got a king and his whole army and war after him, personally, him alone. He says here they want to “eat up his flesh.” That’s like what birds do to carcasses of animals that are killed and left to rot. This is daunting, the level of emtotional turmoil. But in the midst of it he is able to say, “the LORD is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?”

Three times he says he isn’t afraid. “Whom shall I fear?” “Whom shall I be afraid?” “My heart will not fear.” What is the ground of his confidence? Look at it. It’s the LORD. Do you think you could say that if you were in a dark place like this? If you’re there now, are you seeing the LORD as your light, salvation and stronghold?

Why is it that seeing the LORD that way dispells fear? It is this, listen close. Many simply want to get rid of fear altogether. Fear is bad, we don’t like how it feels, so we just need to figure out how to dismiss it. That’s not the answer.

The answer is this: God is the biggest thing to be afraid of. He’s the most powerful. He’s the one who knows and controls everything. He’s the one who spoke the world into existence and he’s the one who can wipe out an army with a word. The beginning of the book of Proverbs starts off with the theme, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7).”

If we truly come to have a knowledge of the LORD, fear of anything else dissipates because we know there is truly nothing and no one else to be afraid of.

But here is the amazing thing. Though God is to be feared and fearing him dispells all fears, being afraid of him is not like a fear where we think he is out to get me, because God is good God. That’s what the next verses are about. How our fears are really our insecurities and how turning to the LORD and in fearing him we find a refuge.

II. Insecurity and the Refuge of the LORD (v4-5)

Look at it, how does confidence instead of fear come about? By this, verse 4. Having, “One thing I ask of the LORD, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and inquire in his temple.”

This is how fearing God is different. Most things that we are afraid of we run from, we avoid dealing with them, whether they are people or situations. But when you fear the LORD, you run to him and seek him out. In fact a primary theme of the Bible is seeking God. Seeking God is one of the primary paradigms of what it means to be a Christian. We are a people who are in pursuit of God.

I love that little phrase, there is one thing, one thing I will seek after…the LORD. Could you say that about your life, that God is the one thing you seek after? Above all the other things you seek after, work for, spend your time and thought on…is God the one thing before and above all those things…the one thing?

Now there are two ways you can look at this little section about seeking the Lord…One that it is a church thing. That the house of the LORD is a church service, it is there that you behold the being of God in his beauty and you come to inquire and study and learn. I think that would be fair and true.

But there is also this little phrase there, “all the days of my life.” And I don’t think he’s saying, you know what I really want is to be able to go to a church service everyday. So I think it is taking what is true about worship services with God’s people and saying, I need a microcosm of what the Sunday experience is supposed to be…dailiy.

Where daily God is at the forefront of everything. Where daily I am looking to the beauty of the LORD. And daily I am inquiring and growing and learning from him.

What happens if you are being enriched by the goodness of God is that it changes you…because you begin to experience God at work in you. Verse 5 tries to say this three different ways, he hides us, conceals us and lifts us up. Hide and conceal are similar, lifts up is a little different.

The shelter and the cover of his tent are probably referring to the royal tent. When there would be a war or a battle between two armies, in the middle of there camps would be the royal tent, where the king would be. It is the most heavily guarded of all the tents and the safest place to be in all of the camp.

This is how it works. When we seek the Lord, there are fears, but as we seek we then begin to experience his blessing…his comfort, his assurance, even his correction shifts our viewpoint and our affections. And the result is we are no longer downcast and afraid but our spirits are lifted and we turn confident. In Psalm 3:3 David says God is ,”the glory and the lifter of my head.”

A pastor named A.W. Tozer wrote a great little book called, “The Pursuit of God” that I read a number of years ago now…I actually have one of the dudes in disicpleship with me reading through it right now. He describes this experience well. He writes,

“Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually, ‘Be thou exalted,’ and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once. His Christian life ceases to be the complicated thing it had been before and becomes the very essence of simplicity.”

Sometimes what we need most is just a big dose of the being of God. John Calvin says often we don’t know how to rely on God because we imagine that he is against us. But if we have experienced his grace then it doesn’t matter what we are facing because we know God and we know God is greater.

If you have ever experienced God as your refuge then it becomes imprinted into you as a reminder for you to call upon when you face an enemy, then you you are able to have a confidence to be able to say, “he will lift me high upon a rock.”

III. Victory and the Joy of the LORD (v6)

Victory is the only possible outcome and it is cause for great joy. Which brings us to our third point, “Victory and the Joy of the LORD.” Look at verse 6. Now maybe at this point you’re like, “Yeah, that sounds good but what if you seek God and he doesn’t answer your prayer and your head is not lifted up? What if your enemies do defeat you?”

Two things. One, well were you seeking God just for what you could get out of him or were you actually seeking God? Two, is what joys your heart other people’s praise and approval of you or God himself?

You see, I get it. You could easily read this in a way where you are saying that David is only turning to God as a talisman, a magical or religious trick to employ in order to beat the guys he doesn’t like…and David will only praise and sing to God if he defeats his enemies in way that they look up to David high on a rock and recognize David’s greatness. So David is really all just about himself and doesn’t really care about God. You could read it like that.

But I don’t think that is what is going on here. I don’t think the Bible is trying to teach us here to use God and be all about our enemies thinking how great we are. Yes, it seems pretty clear that David is concerned about his immediate situation. In the next section he is going to enter into a prayer specifically praying for him not to be given over to his enemies.

Yet, I think it is calling us to something much deeper. The whole Psalm seems to ring with declaration of the goodness and greatness of God…even though God’s attributes are not outlined and his past deeds are not recounted. David seems to care most, not so much for his own name’s reputation, but God’s. David has put his trust in God and he does not want God to end up looking bad, he cares about the glory of God, God’s reputation.

In his prayer we’ll hear his acknowledgement of sinfulness, so David doesn’t think he is great and he’s not in an ego battle just to beat his enemies. He has distinctly embraced God, God’s light, God’s salvation, God’s house, and God’s beauty. I believe what the shouts of joy and the song and melody to the LORD are about here…is praise to God for who he is and what he has done.

It’s what we do here on Sunday mornings. We might sing a song of petition, a prayer like song. But most of our songs are praise, thanking and honoring God for who he is and his works done in history and in our lives. That is the real substance of worship…because if all we sing is petition then we are mainly singing about ourselves.

It’s one reason why I don’t like a lot of songs with me, me, me, and I, I, I…I don’t like singing about myself. It’s much more enjoyable to sing about the beauty and power of the LORD and what he has done in history for us in Jesus’ death on the cross.

Singing is so unique when it is worship to God. It becomes more than just a song that we sing along with on the radio. The song becomes the overflow of the heart that is affected its taking in of God.

IV. Prayer and the Presence of the LORD (v7-12)

I think that is what David is really seeking in his prayer in verses 7-12, he seeks not only a physical deliverance from enemies but an experiential sense of God’s presence. Let’s look at it and talk about “Prayer and the Presence of the LORD.”

This is a beautiful prayer. We can learn so much about people’s relationships with God by looking at or listening to their prayers. They help us know how we are to relate to God in our prayers. There’s some amazing stuff about in this prayer here.

One, he cries. Have you ever really cried when praying? Really got down on your knees and called out to the Lord?

Two, he knows he doesn’t deserve God to answer, so he says “Be gracious.” Grace is getting something you didn’t earn or deserve. When we pray do we treat God like he is wronging us if he doesn’t answer us in the way we want?

Three, he is seeking, hard. He senses God calling him into a deeper devotion, “You said ‘seek my face.’” Maybe God is calling you to seek him more than you ever have before. I was challenged by this text this week, to really, really spend time seeking God more. I’m turning 31 next month, I want to grow deeper this next year in my life with God. Do you want to grow deepr with God?

Four, he recognizes God has reason to be angry with him. He is a sinner. This is recognition that what we deserve is not grace but justice. David really deserves to be put out by his enemies, if God and his holiness was the standard. Do you believe you are a sinner?

Five, he remembers past times when God has helped. God is not one to change his mind, if he’s helped before, why would he have if he didn’t intend to help again. God, you have been the God who is my help, you are the God of help…help again. Do you turn to God as your help?

Six, he calls God father. His mother and father may have died by this point, or worse case scenario had sided with Saul (unlikely from what we know about Jesse, David’s dad) so I think he means they are gone he can’t go to them. But he can go to God. Is God your father, can you go to him like you could a good father?

Seven, he’s humble and asks God for direction…teach me your way and lead me. This one comes up so much in the Bible. It’s probably the one prayer I pray more than any other over and over again…Teach me your ways Oh Lord that I may know you and find favor with you. Lead me LORD. Are you humble enough to realize that you need to be taught and led…in life? We all need discipleship.

And eight, he’s up against ungodly evil dudes. The word for will here is literally lust…the lust of my adversaries. And they’re liars, not speaking truth and wanting to inflict harm to a man who love and trusts in God. They’re corrupt. Do you give in too easy or is there some fight in you?

Each of these parts of this prayer are really intimate. You can’t pray this kind of prayer without some deep heartfelt intimacy with God. The answer to each one of these prayers is God giving himself.

God is everywhere-present. It’s one of his core attributes. He is a Spirit and is constantly aware and knowing of everything that happens all the time. What David is after in these prayers is the manifest presence of God, where the affections of the soul and the frame of the mind become aware and confident of God’s full reality.

I’ll quote Tozer again on this, “The Presence [of God] and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His Presence.”

Often times, what we need most in our lives is to be made aware of the presence of the Lord. prayer, song unto God, God’s word, communion and God’s people are the chief things God seems to most like to use as vessels for his presence to be made known. That’s why you find each of them here each week.

Each week I pray and ask God to manifest himself in a unique way among us as we partake in those thing…I pray that way so that God would be glorified and we would get much joy, confidence and courage.

V. Waiting and the Courage of the LORD (v13-14)

Have you ever noticed something though…have you ever noticed that often God’s presence is not automatic. In fact, as I have got older in my age and in my faith I have found that two things have happened. One, I have to work a lot harder at pressing in, in seeking God. And two, my confidence level in God has multiplied and multiplied.

Which is interesting, because it is both what David describes here and then commands. In this last part, ” Waiting and the Courage of the LORD” David offers a confident confession of faith, saying, “I believe.” And then he switches into preacher mode and commands us to to wait on God and take courage.

Sometimes, in certain situations God is not going to answer your prayer immediately or any time soon, but he wants you to keep waiting on him…allowing him to work in you. For those who have had to really wait on the LORD about some things…you know it’s in those times where God really does a work in you and brands it into your soul. When prayers are answered quickly we tend to forget quickly, but when God takes his time, that when we often really learn and are able to come out of it in confidence saying, “I believe.”

Maybe some of you just need to hear those words spoken directly to you today. Be strong. Take courage. Wait for the LORD. Believe!

Conclusion

I wanted to treat this text fairly before I immediately jumped to the gospel to show how Jesus is all over this Psalm. I guess I’m especially sensitive to that with Old Testament texts since us Reformed dudes are always accused of just reading Jesus into everything without much care.

But it is quite amazing if you look at this Psalm and then look at the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Lord is my light and my salvation…Jesus said ” I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (Jn 8:12).”

An army against you…when a small army came to arrest Jesus he said if he wanted he could When Jesus was arrested he said if he wanted he could ask the Father and he would send 12 legions of angels down to fight for him. One legion is 5,000 angels, so twelve is 60,000 and we see in one story in 2 Kings that one warrior angel is able to take out 185,000 human soliders. So you do the math. Jesus knew the fear of the Lord and was able to see what David most likely couldn’t…when you see 60,000 butt kicking angels what’s youre response? Whom shall I fear?

And yet, what was the chief desire of Jesus life? To smite his enemies when they wronged him? No. To please the father. The very first story of Jesus has him 12 years old, inquiring in the temple. And when it came to the end of his life in the Garden of Gesthamane, what was Jesus doing? Seeking the LORD, getting wrapped in his shelter so that he might be lifted high upon a rock.

And what happened on that cross? It wasn’t just another human being crucified like thousand who died on crosses before him. It was the sinless son of God taking on the sin of the world as if it were his own in order to pay the penalty to God for sin and thereby defeat the greatest enemy of all sin, death, and Satan.

Colosssians 2:14-15 says on the cross Jesus cancelled the record of debt that stood against us, “nailing it to the cross” where he “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

Jesus defeated the enemy once and for all on the cross and that’s why he is our song, he is why we sing and make melody to the Lord. In him every one of David’s prayers are answered for us.

In Jesus, God’s face is no longer hidden from us.

On Jesus, God’s anger unleashed in his own son for us.

Through Jesus, God offers us help so that we might not be cast off and forsaken.

By Jesus, God adopts us into his family enabling us to cry out to him Abba Father.

As Jesus, God teaches us and leads us and takes us into the true and better, ultimate land of the living.

This is the promise of the gospel. The one that can stand against all enemies and all oppostion. Jesus Christ, our light and our salvation.

I conclude with the words of Romans 8:35-39 which say it far better than I ever could.

Romans 8:35-39 “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? …No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Take courage AND believe.

Let’s pray.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
June 21st, 2009

Psalm 23 – “The LORD is My Shepherd”
He Provides, He Protects, He Promises

I. The Shepherd’s Provision (v1-3)
II. The Shepherd’s Protection (v4-5)
III. The Shepherd’s Promise (v6)

Introduction

Good morning, Happy Father’s Day! Probably been the happiest years of my life yet.

My name is Duane for those who don’t know me. I’m a pastor here and I get the joy of preaching most weeks here under our head Pastor Jesus Christ. For those of who know me well good morning, I consider it such an honor that you allow me to be an undershepherd in teaching you the Bible and pointing you to Jesus week after week.

Well we’re in our summer sermon series going through some of my personal favorite Psalms and this week is probably the most famous Psalm, Psalm 23. It shows up everywhere…Songs, TV, Books, Poems…you name it.

Some of you might remember that movie from 1995 “Dangerous Minds” where Michelle Pfiefer becomes a teacher in this hard core, gang filled school. The theme song of the movie is from Coolio, a song called “Gansta’s Paradise,” it’s chorus quotes part of Psalm 23 as a self-reflecting look at a wasted life saying: ” As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I take a look at my life, And realize there’s nothing left.”

If your not into hip hop and are more into punk rock then you might be familiar with Offspring’s song “Hammerhead” where “The Lord” is allegorized as a gun in it’s quote of the Psalm. They sing: “I am the one, camouflage and guns…Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil: for Thou are with me…Locked and loaded…I’m busting through. Bang, Bang.”

Or maybe if you’re just into the more mainstream radio action, you’ve got to be familiar with U2 song “Rescue Me.” It quotes part of the Psalm in resentment suggesting God was not any help in the valley of the shadow. Here’s it’s words: “Yea, though I walk in the valley of shadow,
Yea, I will fear no evil…I have cursed thy rod and staff, they no longer comfort me…(so instead) Love rescue me.” Pretty strong accusation. I’ve heard that song a thousand times and never really thought through what it was actually saying.

This Psalm is huge in movies and TV too. In the original War of the Worlds, the preacher in it is praying this Psalm before he gets killed by Aliens. In Pulp Fiction, Jules quotes a mesh of Psalm 23 along with a passage from Ezekiel right before executes his victims…I guess it’s supposed to comfort them.

There’s a whole Episode of Lost in the second season titled “The 23rd Psalm” because in it a man named Eko quotes it while his friend Charlie find a crashed plane full of drugs and burn it.

In literature, this Psalm is infamous. Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” suggests the 23rd Psalm is just a nice pain killer for people who are dying…to give them a false hope. In Edgar Allen’s Poe
“Edlorado” he cites the valley of death as something one must go through in the supposedly inescapable search for happiness.

This Psalm is everywhere. Easily the most popular and most famous Psalm of the Bible.

For me personally this Psalm has been a treasure. It was the very first Psalm I ever memorized the whole thing of word for word. I’ve known it as long as I can remember. When I was a little kid I can still remember my mom or my dad reciting it’s words to me as they tucked me in for bed. I still find myself rehearsing it’s words often when I’m going to sleep. It has ministered to me in good times, difficult times, and has been an immense tool in ministering to others.

Right now it’s one of Adina’s favorite parts of her picture Bible we read to her every evening. Her favorite is the picture snake in Genesis…she likes to hit it and say “bad, bad snake.” Then we turn to the page with baby Jesus and say “nice, nice Jesus.” But next to that her favorite is the “hoo, hoo” on page 192… Psalm 23 because on it is a picture of an owl up in a tree along with David and some sheep sleeping under it at night.

So…all that to say, that we all probably have some sort of relationship to this Psalm. Maybe it’s a close personal one like mine, or maybe it’s just a passing knowledge due to some book, film, or song that is popular in the culture we live in. Today it’s my hope that we’ll be able to really reach into the meaning of this Psalm that God intends for us…that we’ll understand some stuff about it which will enable it to help better inform us who God is to us and how relevant he is to very stuff of life.

That’s my introduction…let’s read it, pray over it and get into it. (read and pray over text).

“The LORD is My Shepherd”

I’ve just used the first five words of this Psalm as the title for my message today, ‘The LORD is my shepherd.” And before we get into each of these three things in our outline today: The Shepherd’s Provision, Protection, and Promise…I want to say some things about these first five words just so we feel the weight of this claim about God…before we even get into how he is a shepherd.

So first look at the word “LORD” in your Bibles. It’s in all capitals huh? There’s a reason for that. The reason is that there is no real English word to translate the Hebrew word for God that is behind LORD here.

The Hebrew word is YHWH. YHWH is the name God gave to himself. Most of you are familiar with the story of Exodus, if you’ve read it or seen the classic Ten Commandments movie with Charles Hestone. God permorms these mighty wonders in Egypt in order to deliver his people…there’s the ten plagues of Egypt: the water turned to blood, swarms of frogs, gnats, wild animals, pestilance, boils, massive hail, locust, darkness, the passover protected fristborns, and the the parting of the Red Sea.

Each one of these mighty miracles both attacked the supposed gods of the culture who were said to have control over these things AND they demonstrated God’s sovereign ability to exercise power over nature. Before all that stuff happens God first calls Moses and tells him to go and ask Pharaoah to free the Israelites from slavery. Moses is scared, doesn’t want to do. God pretty much say, sorry I want you to do it anyway. So Moses is like fine, who do I tell the Pharaoh sent me. And God’s reply is, YHWH, which means literally “I AM.”

This revelation of God is breathtaking. The I AM. He is greater than any name can encapsulate! He is always existing and the only God who truly does in fact exist. He is the one that no one has any right or ground to question him. He simply is. I AM.

The Jews held this revelation of God’s name in such high regard that whenever they would be reading their Bibles, to this day, and they come across YHWH, they do not pronounce it but instead say “Lord” which in Hebrew is “adonai.” So what you’re seeing here in English is essentially adonai in captials in order to let you know that the real word behind this is not adonai but YHWH.

Thus, if we wanted to be totally legit here, we would read “The I AM is my shepherd.” Which is astonishing. You’re going to call the great I AM a lowly shepherd! Being a shepherd is low class, low pay, junk job that nobody wants…about the equivalent of working at MacDonalds. Sorry if you work at MacDonalds, you know you’re job sucks…but I’m glad you have a job.

So this claim that God is a shepherd is huge just in and of itself, and then it is so personal…he is “my” shepherd. That word my brings in this tone of affection and love and adoration. David, the author of this Psalm, says straight out that God has this huge personal role in his life. There is an intimate connection between him and God.

I wonder today…how many of us could say that, truly say that from the depth of our souls…”The LORD is my shepherd.” Maybe you can’t. It’s my prayer today that God will become a shepherd to some of you who really don’t have a shepherd in your life or your not following God as your shepherd. Or God is just some distant reality or idea.

This acknowledgement of God as a shepherd is also a hugely humbling thing because it is saying I am a dumb sheep who needs a shepherd. Modern day shepherds will tell you that they are probably one of the dumbest animals around. They cannot do anything for themselves and are simply prone to all kinds of dangers which can easily lead to their death…which we’ll learn about today. Rats really are probably smarter than sheep.

Well with that…let’s get into it and see how the I AM as a shepherd provides, protects, and promises. First, The Shepherd’s Provision.

I. The Shepherd’s Provision (v1-3)

The Psalm starts of “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The phrase “I shall not want.” Everybody today seems to want something. More of this, bigger this, better that. The grass is always greener somewhere else than where we are. I read a quote this week from Paul Tripp who said, “the things that disappoint us the most, show us what we treasure most” …the things we really want.

David here says, if we treasure God the most and trust him above all, we will never be in want. In Psalm 34:10 he says that those who “seek the Lord lack no good thing.” If there is a thesis to this Psalm we’re looking at today that is what is on the table. If we trust and seek the LORD above all else will we still have any want or need.

David is going to take us through physical needs, spiritual needs, and eternal needs and tell us no in every one. With God as our shepherd we will not be lacking in any of these areas.

First let’s look at these physical needs that are mentioned: green pastures and still waters, food and drink. These are things David knew well. Some of you who have read the entire story of David’s life will remember that he was the youngest of 8 boys. We are first introduced to him in 1 Samuel 16 when Samuel is looking for the next King of Israel.

Samuel has seven of Jesse’s sons presented to him as potential kings. Many of them tall and strong, dudes who look like kings. But Samuel says nope, it’s none of these dudes…do you got anymore sons? And Jesse is all, yeah I got one other one but he is this small scrappy red haired kid who is out being a shepherd taking care of the sheep…he got stuck with the crap job.

David is a hero for all you unpopular guys who didn’t make the varsity football or basketball team. David spent years hanging out, outdoors, taking care of sheep…it was the first job he ever had. He knew about being a shepherd.

Who knows how many hours he spent with sheep leading them to green pastures and still waters? Now the interesting thing here is that shepherds lead sheep. My wife Amy’s grandpa used to be a shepherd out in Colorado and I talked with my mother in law for a while this week asking her some questions about things she remembered from when her dad was a shepherd. I found out some interesting stuff.

One, you don’t drive sheep you have to lead them. With most other herds of animals like cows, you drive them. Cowboys get behind the herd of cows and push them. Sheep don’t work like that. The shepherd has to go out in front and the sheep follow. The shepherd names every one of the sheep, usually from a very young age and calls out their names and they come to him and follow him as he lead the way.

Some of you don’t like being led. You want to blaze your own trail and go where you want and do what you want and you get all bent if anyone tries to speak into your life and tell you different. The truth is that we are all following someone or something and it matter who and what where following after…the voice of God telling you where to go and what to do or another voice.

The reason we should follow the voice of God the Shepherd is because only he can lead us to green pastures and still waters. A few other things I found out from my mother in law is that sheep really are dumb. They have to be led to green pastures for food because they if they stay in one place they will just keep eating and eating and eating even when all the grass is gone, they will start eating the dirt…and when that happens they start getting sick from too much bugs and other things and they die.

Sheep have to be led away to where there is fresh food. Are there some things in your life you’re eating the LORD wants to lead you away from so that you can eat real food that’s not going to kill you but nourish you.

What about drink. Sheep also have to be led to where there is water. They have no ability to find it on their own and then on top of it they are super picky about it. They will not drink from running water. It freaks them out or something. So a shepherd has to find a place where the water is not moving too much or if he can’t find that the shepherd has to either cup his hand or use a bowl that he fills up to take to the sheep for them to drink out of.

The shepherd has to do everything for them. Often in the middle east shepherds would have to lead sheep through a lot of mountain and hill country, along narrow ridges and ravines in order to get to places where there was food and water. But a shepherd would never take the sheep on too treacherous of a path, nothing like the kind of paths that an animal like a billy goat could traverse.

And if per chance a sheep fell or got injured…the shepherd would take care of it, sometimes carrying it on his back if needed be. One funny thing is that sometimes sheep fall over and if they end up on their back they simply cannot get up. The shepherd has to come and lift the sheep up back onto its feet.

David most likely thinks of these times and remembers how the LORD has picked him up…he restores the soul, he leads through safe passages, paths of righteousness and when we fall and fail he picks us up. Are you struggling today with direction and you just need the LORD to lead you? The LORD will lead you. Are you just beat up and you need to be restored? The LORD will restore you.

The overall picture here is that God is the one who provides physcially and spiritually for his children. We probably experience this or realize this most when the physical provision looks stark or when we are in an especially dark or difficult spiritual season.

I know for us…it’s when the finances get really tight, which is where some of you may be right now with your job and the economy, that’s when it gets hard to trust and easy to worry. Sometimes it just doesn’t look like God is going to provide. Green pastures, still waters…that’s a long way off…and we can’t even see or imagine how he will provide. It’s then that we begin to think, God is not going to do anything for us. God is completely irrelevant. It is up to me. That’s the temptation.

Instead of going down that road, we are to call upon God and remember how he has provided in the past and how he is committed to taking care of us in the future. In Matthew 6 Jesus addresses our fears and lack of faith concerning God’s provision. He says, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.” He points out birds in the air and how God takes care of them and says God knows what our needs are and we are more valuable then the birds (Mt 6:25-33).

Now that doesn’t mean, “Awesome! Now I can go rack up my credit card bill because God said he’ll provide…it means seek God, put him first, and he’s going to take care of you…he’s a good shepherd…he’ll lead you to a job so you can buy food to eat and water to drink. He will provide, just seek him first above all things. It might not be the way you want or expect it but he will provide. You see the danger is attempting to pay God off…where you’re like, “Okay I’ll pray and appease God so he’ll do for me what I want him to do and perform for me correctly.” That’s not trusting that manipulating. God knows best.

Our job Jesus says is to seek first His Kingdom and righteousness and trust God with the results…he will lead us in a safe path. What we can’t see are the pitfalls and cliffs and dangers God is often protecting us from by not answering our prayers in the ways that we want him to or think he should.

The last thing here in God’s provision is his spiritual healing…God restores our soul, sometimes he even has to carry us when we’re hurt. When you’re weak…when you’re tired and worn out…when you’re bruised and beat up by life…God will restore your soul. We live in a world where sin and pain and suffering run rampant and you will get disappointed and hurt and if you’ll have him and turn to him, God will restore your soul. And the truth is only he can…all other forms of healing really end up leaving you more hurt or messed than you were in the first place. Only God can heal and restore.

God is the shepherd who provides for us, he leads, feeds, and heals us. And he does it all for His name’s sake. That means, he does it so that we will see how great and good he is. So that his name, the I AM will be revered and loved…so that we will be able to know and call the I AM as my Shepherd.

II. The Shepherd’s Protection (v4-5)

Okay, let’s move on and consider, “The Shepherd’s Protection.” This is part of this Psalm that usually gets quoted in all the books, TV shows and movies…”the valley of the shadow of death.” There’s just something about that phrase.

Most the ideas about it are off…it’s not a gun, it’s not a wasted life, it’s not part of a death sentence in excution. It’s a place where there is threat…a shadow has cast and you find yourself seeming stuck in it.

If you’ve ever been in that valley you know right away exactly what it’s talking about. You could actually even translate the Hebrew phrase here, “the valley of deep darkness.” Have you ever been to that valley? Many of Godly people throughout history have gone through periods of deep depression and through it have grown close and strong in the LORD.

The picture here is of the shepherd leading the sheep through ravines, narrow, often precarious slopes that they needed to go through in order to get where there would be green pastures and water. In these types of places there would often be caves and hiding places for threatening beasts like wolves, bears, and lions. Dark dangerous places.

Yet the Shepherd would intentionally leads his sheep through there, in order to take them to places of provision that they could not get through unless they went that way. It’s through going through those places that sheep come to know and trust in the Shepherd’s rod and his staff.

Here’s what the rod and the staff are. They are traditional tools of a shepherd. The rod is like a billy club that the shepherd would stick into the belt tied around his waist. The staff doubled as both a walking stick but a weapon to ward off attacks from wild beasts.

Some of you know the story of David and Goliath. Goliath is this huge Shaquille O’Neal like dude, who back in times when there were no guns, was like having a nuclear bomb in a war. If all there is is hand to hand combat, size usually wins out.

There’s a war and none of the soliders in the Israelite army want to fight Goliath. Little Shepherd David wanders to the army’s camp to bring his older solider brothers some food to encourage them. When he gets there and finds out that the Israelites are losing because of Goliath, David says “I’ll fight ‘em.” Everyone sort of laughs at him at first…oh silly David.

But listen to David’s words in response: “Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine (1 Sam 17:34-36).”

I like David. Ever since I read that story as a kid I’ve wanted to fight a bear. You see David knew how to use his rod and his staff. In Psalm 23 David is speaking from experience. He’s not presenting some high and lofty theological ideas he has.

When he says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” He’s saying that because he’s been in the valley and used his rod and his staff.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a sheep and see the rod and the staff of a shepherd and whatever comfort that brings. But do know that if I’m walking outside in the dark in an unknown place…I feel a lot more comfortable with a bat in my hand.

Now, obviously David is talking about our spiritual security in God. This Psalm isn’t telling us that we should all go out and buy guns and keep ourselves strapped so we won’t fear any evil. Not that there is anything wrong with owning guns. But the point here is that what makes the fear dissipate is that the presence of God. Look at the words in verse 4, “I will fear no evil for you are with me.”

What dispells fear is the presence of God, knowing that he is able and willing to protect us from any and all threats. Here’s a good paraphrase: God has a big bat and a big stick. No one is bigger or more powerful than God. So there is no one to be afraid of but him.

Much of our fears in life is more about fearing other people and situations than a fear of God…it shows that deep down we really do not believe God is powerful enough to do or stop anything that he wants. But if we truly believe that he is then we have nothing to fear anything that happens because it is all under his control and his power! Whatever happens is because God has allowed it and has a reason for it.

Now verse 5 switches gears, I think. Some have tried to tie in the table and the oil with shepherding but those interpretation seem forced and awkward…I just can’t see the Shepherd’s practice of rubbing oil on a sheeps face to protect it from bugs really fits here. What makes more sense is this:

Most scholars think that David is writing this when he’s on the run from Absalom, his third son. If you’ve read through the Bible and know a little bit of history then you know that David is the one who really put Israel on the map. He is the one who united the kingdom together, built the city of Jerusalem, defeated all Israel’s enemies, brought in all kinds of riches and wealth and established Israel as a major world power.

Absalom was an evil man. He desired to be king in his father’s place. So he would go out in and among the people and basically trash talk, saying the king didn’t really care about them and did not really want to listen to their complaints. The Bible says in doing this Absalom “stole the hearts of the men of Israel (2 Sam 15:6).

He is so successful at this that he stages a successful coup take over and King David has to flee the palace and city for fear of his life. He ends up back in the wilderness, hiding in it’s mountains and valley, probably in those same areas where he had shepherded sheep so many years ago. Now this time his life being threatned not by lions, bears, and wolves but by his own son. At one point he even has to climb down into well of a guy who lived out in the country and hide in it.

Perhaps it was that night when he was in that well that God inspired this Psalm in David and he writes this words. In verse 5 of Psalm 23, it seems that David is considering the palace and remembering the fine feasts he would have there. The table, a table full of food and friends. The oil, the perfume and frangrance they would wear during these great feasts. The cup, the abundance of good wine they drank and enjoyed together.

David considers his situation and looks forward to and longs to be in the palace again…free from the presence of his enemies. Now, I don’t think David is being presumptuous here. Last week we read from him another Psalm where he prays against presumptuous sins. I don’t think he is presuming he is going to make it through this alive and get back to the palace…maybe, but I think he is looking beyond that and recognizing that God’s protection goes beyond this present life, as we’ll see here in a second in verse 6.

But first, here is the point: even in the face of perhaps certain death, God is with us, there is a comfort and a protection and a hope which trying people and situations, enemies, cannot overcome. The Shepherd’s protection is sure.

You want to talk about a dark depressing season in life. Imagine this, you are king, your own son wants to kill you and take the throne, you are on the run camping out in the wild, and you get stuck down in a well for fear of your life. Most of us despise tough seasons. Instead we are to turn to our protector, The LORD, our shepherd. In such a situation as this would you turn to the comfort and assurance of the LORD? I pray today that many of us learn from David’s example that God can be trusted as a comfort and protector in time of trouble. The shepherd’s protection is sure.

III. The Shepherd’s Promise (v6)

Okay, let’s finish out this Psalm with the very last verse here. The Shepherd’s Promise: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” It’s short, sweet, and immense.

With God in our lives as our shepherd, goodness and mercy are daily ours the whole length of our life and beyond. It’s one of the interesting things about this Psalm, is it’s clear assertion of eternity. There’s not a lot of talk about heaven and hell in the Old Testament, very rarely. But here David explains where is hope lies…in being with and in the house of the LORD forever.

You see, this is why I don’t think David is just looking toward the comforts of his palace…he’s looking toward the goodness and mercy of God which go beyond death for those who have God as their shepherd. He is looking toward the dwelling place of God, forever.

Sure David wishes to be home again but he recognizes that his earthly palace and it’s feasts are only a small picture of the true and greater house of God and feasts that will take place in God’s coming kingdom.

What we get here is an eternal perspective. Have you ever been in a tough spot and turned to the Lord? I’ve never been in a situation like David’s but I’ll tell you what, his words here have been an immense blessing to me in some of the most trying times in my life. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

When I was preparing my sermon I stopped here and asked myself how do those words function in my soul? I think this is how. They are a promise to me. When I hear those words, however great the obstacle or challenge or difficult thing that is in my way is…the goodness and mercy of the LORD is greater!

And when I remember that, you know that the goodness and mercy of God I am experiencing is not a temporal thing, it is an eternal thing and that there is a day coming when my life and this world will be free all of all sin and evil once and for all and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever!

Okay, I can’t hold back anymore here. I have been trying so hard to keep Jesus out of this Psalm for the majority of this sermon. The reason is because I wanted us to feel the full weight and power of how amazingly Jesus fulfills nearly every word of this Psalm. There is a promise here, but it is open ended…how is the great I AM a shepherd, what about death, what about eternity?

Here we go, Psalm 23 and the gospel. It starts like this.

Isaiah 53:6 “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way.”

For everyone here, the Bible says that we are like sheep. We are foolish, wandering off into dangerous ways that lead us astray, leading us away from God because we think we know better, we think that we can live however we want to or that we have the power to live right.

The truth is none of us are able to find green pastures or still waters…instead we are simply stuck, eating things that kill us. We’ve fallen over onto our backs and have no way to get up. We are sheep in need of a shepherd to pick us up, to restore our souls, and to lead us.

God is first called and identified as a shepherd in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. One of the amazing things about Jesus is how he consistently takes on the names and roles of the great I AM. Listen to Jesus words in John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

How and why did he lay down his life? Back to Isaiah 53. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth… he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt (Is 53:6-7,9-10).

Jesus lays down his life for his sheep in order to deal with sin, death and evil…our going astray and rejecting God. Jesus makes a way so that we may find true comfort for our souls.

Here’s Jesus’ concluding word in John 10, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one (Jn 10:27-30).”

Jesus lives the life we’ve failed at. He doesn’t go astray. No deceit is ever in his mouth. Then he dies the death for our deceit in our place…our iniquity is laid on him and he offers up his life on the cross as penalty for our guilt before the great I AM.

The reward? He takes up his life again, rising from the dead, in order to give us eternal life. What is eternal life? Goodness and mercy all of our days, dwelling in the house of the LORD forever. Revelation 19 says that in that house there will be a great feasts in honor of Jesus, feasts called the “marriage supper of the Lamb” where we will drink new wine and eat rich food, enjoying the presence of our great king and shepherd.

The Shepherd’s promise in Psalm 23 is ultimately a promise that looks forward to Jesus to fulfill it. David doesn’t see and know exactly how at the time, but he knew that God would provide…because came to know him as a good shepherd.

Conclusion

My conclusion today is this. Jesus is the Shepherd. In him you will find rest for your souls. Jesus is the provider. In him you will find the victory over sin, death and evil. Jesus is the Protector. In him is hope for both this life and eternity. Jesus is the Promise.

So look to Jesus today. The Great I AM and have him as your Shepherd. If you need provision today, look to Jesus. If you are in a dark place and need some protection today, look to Jesus. If you need hope and a promise for the future, look to Jesus.

It’s my prayer that you would know him so lovingly and so closely that you could say as the first words of this Psalm, “The LORD is my shepherd.”

Let’s pray.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
June 14th, 2009

Psalm 19 – “Worth More than its Weight”
God’s Word in a World, a Book, and a Heart

I. God’s Word in a World (v1-6)
II. God’s Word in a Book (v7-11)
III. God’s Word in a Heart (v12-14)

Introduction

Good morning, my name is Duane for those who don’t know me. I’m a pastor here and I get the joy of preaching most weeks here under our head Pastor Jesus Christ.

This summer we’re preaching through various Psalms and this week we’re going to study Psalm 19. Psalm 19 was written by King David. It was written as a song intended to be sung when God’s people got together each week for worship. In some of your Bible’s you might even see a little annotation at the top of it, “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.”

For thousands of years God’s people have been doing what we’re doing here today…getting together, singing some songs under the direction of a choirmaster (otherwise known as a worship leader) and then studying God’s word with the help of a pastor.

We didn’t sing today because we’re currently choirmasterless. We’re looking for one…in fact next Sunday after service we’re having a bbq at our house, we’d like to invite any musicians or those interested in the future of our music worship here to come over and get to know a guy we’ve been spending some time with who may be Jesus’ man for us to oversee our music worship.

Well, let’s read Psalm 19 and pray over to ask God to teach us this morning.

Lord God we thank you for your Word. It is incomparable. I pray today that as we study this chapter in your book that it would effect us and cause the increase of our affection and worship of your glorious name. In the name of your Son Jesus, Amen.

So there are really three main sections to this Psalm as you can see from the outline. There is God’s Word which speaks to us through the world he has made. There is God’s Word which speaks most clearly and directly to us through the book he has inspired and compiled together for us. And there is God’s word which speaks into the very heart and soul of our being, convicting us of sin and drawing us unto himself who redeems us.

I’ve titled my message today, “Worth More Than It’s Weight.” The very first line starts off by saying, “The heavens declare the glory of God…” The word “glory” literally means weight. It is my conviction today that the weight and the worth of God’s word as it points us to our maker and our savior is the greatest treasure a person could ever possess. I mean that.

It has been a precious treasure to many people throughout the ages. C.S. Lewis said this particular Psalm, Psalm 19: “I take this to be the greatest Psalm in the (whole) Psalter.” Of all the Psalms this was his favorite.

It’s inspired a lot of poets to write their own forms of it.

John Milton wrote:

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! Thine this universe frame,
Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt’st above these heavens
To us invisible, or dimly seen
In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.

Poetry upon poetry. Amazing.

This Psalm has also been a really special one to me personally. I’m an outdoors guy. If I have a choice I’d much rather be outside doing something then be inside in front of a computer or a TV screen. All growing up I was always into sports…my favorite one of all, the only one I still regular do…surfing. Because I get to be outside, in the water, in the face of the sun, connecting with the power and beauty of God at work. This Psalm talks directly about that.

Then on top of that, which is great in and of itself…other than Psalm 119 there is probably not a Psalm written which more expresses my personal feelings about the Bible itself and its place in my life. The Bible truly is my source of wisdom. It rejoices my heart. Open my eyes. Puts holy fear into me…warns me and rewards me. It is sweet to my taste and is my most valuable possession. I love the Bible.

And perhaps most of all…this Psalm addresses my heart. It points out that despite the wonders of God’s creation and God’s words that there is much meditation and words of my mouth which do not reflect a love for God’s world and what he has written…I need a rock and a redeemer. This Psalm very vividly points me to Jesus.

So, like most the Psalms I’m preaching through this summer, they are very intimate and special Psalms to me.

I. God’s Word in a World (v1-6)

Okay, well let’s get into these verses. First, God’s Word in the World. What these words in the most simplist form are saying is that there is a message to be heard from the things of the world…the heavens, the skies, the day, the night, the earth and the sun have something to say. They are as Mathew Henry described them, “natural immortral preachers…(who) speak in their own tongue the wonderful works of God.”

Now obviously, or at least hopefully obviously, we realize the Bible isn’t telling us that we’re supposed to talk to the stars or the clouds or the sun. Most people would think you were crazy if you were like, “Dude guess what the sun told me today…I’m going to win the lottery.”

Some have made that mistake. Ra Annu or Shamash was the sun-God worshipped by thousands of ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians. Today, many who are into astrology either seriously or causally think that the stars have a message to tell us…depending on whether you’re an aries or a virgo or an aquaries or whatever your horoscope sign is.

Others, go to the extreme opposite end and say that there is no message to be discerned or inferred from what we see and experience in the world. What is just is. Questions about where everything ultimately came from or started are simply unknowable. Richard Dawkins, a famous athiest says that suggesting God is simply, “a great excuse to evade the need to think.”

His idea is something called panspermia, a widespread seeding of sperm in the universe by aliens. To suggest God as a source is considered weak, foolish, silly, unproductive and unhelpful.

When it comes to value judgments of beauty, significance or meaning…they are just seen merely as the projection of human emotion. A colorful flower isn’t more beautiful or meaningful than a bag of trash…it just looks different and has a different function.

Nothing can be significant because then there would have to be something outside of it all ascribing significance and worth to the world. God.
,
The Bible says here that all of creation is in fact a creation by a creator and is ringing with praise for its creator. There are four things it does, and the Hebrew words are participles which mean they are ongoing…so literally: the world keeps on declaring, keeps on proclaiming, keeps on pouring out speech, and keeps on revealing.

So what is this knowledge coming from the world that has inaudible words which can be heard by all humans who speak all kinds of different languages. For sure there are all different kinds of languages but every language and dilalect has a word for “sun” and it means something. The question is what does it mean?

Perhaps thinking about the heavens and the sky and the sun will help.

Do you know how many stars there are? Experts say that with the naked eye we can see about 5,000 stars. That’s how many David would have been able to see when he was writing this. I took an astronomy class at SDSU several years ago now. The school has an observatory out near alpine…one evening we had a field trip out there. They have a couple of these big telescopes out in the forest away from the city lights, they look like big huge dome balls. You walk into them and go up into a spiral staircase and look into the eye hole of a telescope the size of a car and you can see way off into space.

In the milkey way, the galaxy we live in, there are a lot more than 5,000 stars. If you multiply 5,000 by 80 million that’s how many. 400 billion stars. But that’s just one galaxy. There are 125 billion galaxies, the largest one being thirteen times the size of the milkey way. That means that the amount of stars in the universe are approximently the number 10 with 21 zeroes after it.

The sky above proclaims his handiwork. In the passage we read together from Isaiah 40 this morning, it says God knows their exact number and has named every one of those stars. I looked it up last night on the internet and discovered that you can buy your own star at buyastar.net for $39.95. Apparently God is selling them off.

But have you ever thought about what stars are? They are powerful, burning, balls of fire. The sun is a star. Verse 6 says nothing is hidden from its heat. I heard theologian Wayne Grudem speak once about the power and heat produced by the sun.

He suggested that to give us an idea of this power and heat to begin by thinking about our vehicles, the car you drove to get here this morning. Think of that power and think of all the power produced by all the cars and semi-trucks and trains and jets of the whole world. Think of the power of all the hydroelectric dams across the world, turning the flow of water into electricity. Think of all the nuclear energy plants. Think of all the dynamite that has been used to build tunnels and coal mines. Think of the power of fires that can sweep across acres and acres of land burning them up in an instant. Think of all that power across the whole world and put it all together and then add that with all the power ever produced in all of history. It would only be equal to power and energy that the sun produces in one second.

The sun is tens of thousands of nuclear explosions continually going off. God made the sun to telll of his glory. Do you know how big the sun is? If you hollowed out the sun, 1 million planets the size of the earth would fit into it. It burns at 29 million degrees farenheight. The message of the sun is that there is something greater than it, something greater than a galaxy full of stars, and something greater than a universe full of galaxies…God, the skies are saying I am made by a powerful God.

God’s imprint is everywhere. It goes out, verse 4, “through all the earth…to the end of the world.” The smallest plant speaks to the glory of God. One of the smallest things most immediate to us is the human cell…too small for my eye to see. But under a microscope it can be seen and studied. Inside every cell is my own personal DNA, a code full of information…which if I could unravel it and hold it in a straight line would be about six feet long. And if I then took out a pen and began to write down ever letter written on that six foot long strand of DNA it would take up about 75,000 pages of the New York times. It is pouring out speech, I am made by an intelligent God.

The last little illustration David throws in here is so funny to me because it’s about sex. He is thinking about how great God’s creation is and how the sun is shouting out with joy that God is great and what comes to David’s mind is his wedding night. It’s comedy. Look at it, the sun comes out verse 5, “like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man, runs its course with joy.”

I’m not sure if I quite get the picture here but it kind of sounds like after his wedding night he gets up and leaves in the morning and then runs through the town full of energy and joy yelling, “I’m not a virgin anymore, yes!!!” J I don’t know you tell me.

Either way, what is unique about what he adds here is that the message of creation is a message of joy. The heavens and the earth delight to give praise and glory to God. Remember that, we’ll come back to it.

But get this point for now, how God’s Word is at work in the world and intended to effect us. Here is how it works…when we see shades of green and colorful flowers we are to hear the voice of God saying, “I am the God of color.” When we see thick billowy clouds we are to hear “I am the God of the clouds.” When we feel the heat of the sun and have to shield our eyes from it’s bright light, we are to hear, “I am the God of the sun.” When see the oceans waves swell up and roar, we are to hear, “I am the God of the seas.” When we see the starry sky we are to hear, “I am the God of the stars.” The world is shouting of word of God who says, “I AM!”

II. God’s Word in a Book (v7-11)

And yet that is not all that God has said. As great as God’s word is in the world he has yet given more, specific written words in a specific language, put down on paper and compiled together into a book.

You would think that God’s Word in creation would be enough but as you and I know, sadly it’s not. With so clear and bright displays of his glory, we ought to be ravished with awe at God’s infinite goodness, wisdom and power but instead we are blind to his glory. So God writes a book…which if creation itself is so great, has got to say something about how great the book he makes is. Greater than the sun and all the stars and greater than all the earth.

God’s word is great. There are essentially five different synonymns here for God’s Word: law, testimony, precepts, commandment, rules…they are used specifically to point out that the written words did not have their origin or intention in the will of men, like the way other books. Notice with each word it is combined with the phrase, “of the LORD.” Law of the LORD. Testimony of the LORD. Precepts of the LORD. Commmandment of the LORD. Rules of the LORD.

Now obviously, none of the books of the Bible were written by the very finger and pen of God, except the ten commandments, and Moses lost his temper and broke those. So when the Bible attributes words written by the hands of human men, whose personalities and writing styles we can pick up, it’s saying that through the ages God superintended the writings, instructing the writers what to write and preserving and keeping them from making sinful human errors. So that the real author, is the author behind their pen, the divine author…it is of him, of the LORD.

Which his how the books were collected and compiled. The ones which obviously bore the imprint of the divine author behind the human author were for the most part easily recognizable and had already been circulating among God’s people being used in worship services.

Knowing this alone, that the Bible is the very Word of God ought to be enough to compel and quicken our hearts to want to read it and invest ourselves in it. But God is gracious with us and so here in Psalm 19 he tells of the practical benefits of reading the Bible. If maybe you’ve been like, “yeah I know I’m supposed to read the Bible but does it actually do any good?” Here’s your answers of how it will.

Let’s go through them quickly. There’s eight things it does: it revives the soul, it makes wise the simple, it rejoicing the heart, it enlightens the eyes, gives us fear, gives us truth, warns of evil, and it enables reward.

In reviving the soul, the Bible is the perfect means which can address the healing we need from the scars and damage of our own sins and the sins of others against us. In it and through it the soul is renewed.

When Jesus was speaking with a couple dudes one time about the Bible after Jesus left one commented to the other…”did not our hearts burn within when he opened up the Scriptures to us?” The Bible is the key to keeping us from burning out. When we begin to burn out it’s because God’s Word is not burning within.

In giving us wisdom, the Bible is a sure guide to tell us what we need to know for life and godliness. We are not left to speculate and have to sort through the mass of every whim and idea that is out there on google.

And on top of it the Bible is an open book, it is available to anyone to test and try. This is called the perpescuity of Scripture, most often it speaks plainly and clearly. You don’t have to be a well educated person to be able to read and benefit from it.

In giving us joy, the Bible offers and points us to the right pleasures, how to be satisfied and happy. We live in a world where so many things seek our attention promising us pleasures. But they are fleeting and leave us unsatisfied. The Bible is right and its words bring us true and lasting joy.

In enlightening our eyes, the Bible is pure, without corruption in what it shows us. There is no danger of seeing things falsley is Scripture is the lens through which we see everything. It enables us to have a perspective which is not all-knowing but does view the things which matter correctly.

In giving us fear, the Bible properly places what we should be afraid of and what we shouldn’t. Often we fear things we shouldn’t and often we don’t fear things we should. Fearing the Lord is the only fear that truly matters.

In giving us truth, the Bible is righteous all together. It doesn’t just argue to tell us what is right but tellls us why things are right and how they relate to God…and it does in remarkable fashion, weaving together one big, overarching story of God and his grace.

You get a feel for the great unity of the Bible here. One of the most amazing things about the Bible is the great unity and uniformity it speaks with concerning who God is. You have a 66 different books, 40 different authors speaking with one unified voice. That is unparalled. You put forty Psychologists in a room and even let them talk to one another and come up with who God is. There would be a huge lack of unity.

In warning us, the Bible tells us in advance what the pitfalls and traps men and women of God have made throughout history so that we might learn from them and know not only how to avoid them but how to repent and find grace when we do fall.

And lastly in rewarding us, the Bible promises that it will bear fruit in us. In Isaiah 55:11 God says, “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Sometimes it might not seem like reading the Bible is doing anything for you…but God promises it will, it will change you and work in you as it continually points you to himself.

In the middle of stating these practical benefits, David sort of breaks out and cannot contain himself and erupts into expressing his love for the Bible. Look at with me, verse 10, “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings from the honeycomb.”

This statement is amazing to me. More than gold, sweeter than honey! It seems that the pursuit of so many in our day and in our cutlure and in our city is the pursuit of gold.

At the group home for teenagers that I work at on Thursdays and Fridays they are super into listening to “Lil’ Wayne” all the time. Most of his stuff is pretty foul…but I guess I appreciate the honesty in one of his songs about what the pursuit, hope, and goal of his life is.

I need a Winn-Dixie grocery bag full of money
Got money and you know it
Take it out your pocket and show it
Here we go, one for the money, two for the show
Now clap your hands if you got a bank roll
Got money and you know it
Take it out your pocket and show it

I was talking to a guy at 7-11 the other day about lottery cards. I’ve never bought one but I was asking him about it. Things are pretty tight financially for us right now so I have to admit I was tempted with the thought of hope winning the lottery and thinking that would solve all my financial problems. I didn’t buy one, but here is what I found out. Last year California made $3,049 billion dollars off people buying lottery tickets.

More to be desired than gold, even much fine gold…I mean think about it. The game shows on TV, MTV cribs, the fasincination with celebrities and their homes, cars, their clothes and how they spend their money. It seems like riches is the things everybody wants or wishes they had most.

Actual gold is expensive. I know. I bought a gold ring for my wife over eight years ago now. I not only saved up a bunch of cash but sold all my baseball cards, my electric guitar and amp and weight set in order to buy that thing.

A gold bar, which weights about 25 pounds and is in most central banks is worth about $382,000 dollars. Now imagine what David is saying. If I had a choice to have just one gold bar versus have the Bible…I’d take and want the Bible in a second. That’s an expensive Bible.

Think about the time and the effort and the energy that is put into the pursuit of money. If even a fraction of that was energy was spent in pursuit and desire of God’s Word, our lives and our city would look a whole lot different. More to be desired than gold…

If a friend called you up and told you that you would get one of those gold bars for free if you simply drove across town to go pick it up, no strings attached…what would you do. You’d anxiously drive over there in a second. What if you saw your Bible like that? When you wake up in the morning, when you come home from work, desiring the Bible, more than gold.

When you experience the goodness of the Bible you will come to love it and want and need it more and more. That’s when you cross over into the place where it becomes like honey…it is sweetness to you. Its taste is a pleasure.

The Bible speaks louder than creation itself, it speaks right into our lives and shows us how to live and how to love. It is at once both the most profound and theological book ever written and at the same time the most poetic and practical book ever produced. God’s Word in God’s book is simply unparralled.

III. God’s Word in a Heart (v12-14)

And now we come to our last main point, “God’s Word in a Heart” with the words “Who can discern his errors?” in verse 12. Here’s the way I take those words.

I take them as a summary of everything said up to that point in the Psalm. I think David looks back upon what he has written that God has given him…a great poem and song about the glory of God shown in the world and the Word of God given in written form…and I think he’s both amazed and crushed at the same time.

He’s amazed at how wonderful God is and all that God has done, God is perfect, without error. As Anselm said, the being of which none greater can be conceived. He’s amazed at God. But then his words move immediately to contrtion, to humble brokenness. He’s immediately convicted of his own sinfulness.

Look at it. Beginning with the second half of verse 12, “Declare me innocnent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocnent of great transgression.”

David is crushed. He realizes that despite how great God’s Word is in creation, it wasn’t enough to bring him to rejoice in God along with the sun. Remember I said we’d come back to it. The heavens and the earth delight to give praise and glory to God. But David realized it barely moved him like it should. How easily numb we grow to the greatness of God’s glory shone all around us.

Then he realizes how great God’s written Word is. How it ministers to his being so kindly and preceisly. He remembers times when the Bible was worth more than gold to him and was like honey to his mouth…but he realizes that even with the immense aid of God’s Word that it too failed to keep his heart and life free from sin.

So what does he do? Start complaining about that creation just isn’t good enough or that the Bible is hard and boring and difficult in some places? No. He turns inward and realizes that it is his own sinfulness which has corrupted him.

And so he moves to prayer. The whole tone of the Psalm changes…it moves away from declaration to all out petition.

Look at what he says,

Verse 12 he realizes he’s guilty. What he needs is to be declared innocent…but he has hidden faults. Things maybe no one else knows, but he knows God knows, who judges the thoughts and attitudes and intentions of the heart.

John Calvin says these secret sins are “blind faults we don’t think are sin.” But the more we examine ourselves the more we would find “an abyss of sins so great as to have neither bottom nor shore (in the ocean).”

Presumptuous sins in verse 13, are when presume you know better than God and intentionally go against what you know he has directed you not to. Rather than ask, seek and submit to God we go against him on our own.

Look what he says here, he realizes that unless God keeps him from going that way, it’s the way he’s going to go, the sin will have dominion. Without God’s restraint we will sin. Sometimes we want so bad and defend our supposed “free will.” We don’t want that, because our will is to immediately move away from God and into sin if God does not hold us back.

Lastly notice the end of verse 13 where he realizes what he needs is full aquittal. Blamelessness. God is holy and cannot be in the presence of sin and sinful men. And the transgression is great. Dismission God’s glory in the world all around us. Not trusting and desiring but rather slighting God’s Word?! It is a great transgression.

So what does he do…he casts himself before the mercy of God. God’s Word is most at work when it is at work in the human heart to humble the children of men and to cause them to feel great remorse and to call upon God for salvation. And that’s what David does here.

David was a wicked man in his life. He was an adulterer, cheated on his wife with another man’s wife and then had that man murdered. But the Bible says David was a man after God’s own heart. I don’t think it’s because of his adultery and murder but because God is pleased to see repentful men.

David says here, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.” He’s asking God for a heart change. If you’re wondering where Jesus is in this Psalm, this is it. Here’s where the gospel comes blazing in.

Change my heart oh God my rock and my redeemer. David realizes the he needs redemption and that only God can redeem him. His life is a mess, so up and down. He needs a rock and a redeemer.

Sometimes people ask me what about people in the Old Testament before Jesus, how were they saved if at all. This is a great text because it shows how. David called out to God to be his redeemer. So David was looking forward in time to Jesus, when God would come down and do what he needed to do to redeem men. David looked forward to Jesus in the way that we look backward to Jesus, the redeemer.

How did Jesus redeem? He declared the glory of God every day of his life. He lived by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. And then he went to a cross to take on the punishment that such great transgression deserves.

Conclusion

Let’s conclude. Here’s my conclusion. This Psalm is ultimately about Jesus.

This Psalm is about Jesus because he is God’s Word in creation. Colossians 1:16 says, ” by (Jesus) all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” Jesus is the glory of God that the heavens declare. They declare worship of the Son of God who according to Heb 1:3 continually upholds all things by his powerful Word.

This Psalm is about Jesus because Jesus is God’s written Word which became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus spoke and his words were Scripture. It is Jesus and his word alone which can revive the soul, make wise the simple, rejoice the heart, enlighten the eyes, give us holy fear, give us righteousness, warn us of sin, and give us great reward.

This Psalm is about Jesus because Jesus is God’s Word to the human heart. Only in Jesus is there no error or sin and thus only he can take our place and pay the penatly we owe for our sin. And it is only through him that our hearts get changed so that its meditation and words become pleasing in God’s sight.

So my plea today is to worship Jesus along with the rest of his world. My plea is to love the Jesus of the Bible and read him often. My plea is to confess your sin to Jesus and have him continually change your heart and redeem your life.

Without Jesus life is a up and down unstable mess. We need a rock under our feet. It’s Jesus. Jesus died on a cross set on a rock so that for all time we might have the strength and stability he provides for us.

Let’s go to him in prayer.

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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
June 7th, 2009

Psalm 1 – “Walk With God”
Two Ways, Two Pictures, and One Jesus

I. Two Ways: The word of the wicked & the word of God
II. Two Pictures: The tree and its fruit & the chaff and the wind
III. One Jesus: The one who walked, died, rose and reigns

Introduction

Today we begin a new sermon series for the summer, Psalms: praises and petitions. The Psalms are that fat section in the middle of your Bible and are a collection of 150 different prayers, songs, prophesies, and wisdom pieces all compiled together into one book. King David of Jesse wrote most of them along with a few other dudes who wrote some too like Asaph, Jeduthun, Heman and Ethan.

The Psalms are a very unique genre in the Bible because they so vividly portray human emotion as it relates to God and wrestles with the things of this world. John Calvin called the Psalms the “Anatomy of all parts of the soul” because of how they address all facets of life…griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, and emotions.

For me personally I was telling my wife Amy the other night that this will probably be the most personal sermon series I have ever preached because I live in the Psalms…they are like my life-blood. I probably read a Psalm at least once a day on top of any other Bible reading I do…I just live in the Psalms. They are the goods.

So what I’m going to do is just preach through some of my personal favorite Psalms this summer. There’s no way we could tackle all 150 in just this summer, that’d take us a few years. So I’m going to preach through the ones that have had the biggest impact on and continue to teach me, set my course, and minister to my soul.

We’re starting off with the first Psalm because in many ways it is like the thesis or the preface to the entire collection. Just like you have prefaces to books and to some movies which sort of introduce and set up the story of what it is going to be about, many have noted that Psalm 1 sort of functions like that and was probably intentionally placed at the beginning of the collection for that reason.

We’ll talk about what that thesis is that sets the tone for all of the Psalms in a minute but first let’s read it and pray over it. (read and pray over text)

I. Two Ways: The word of the wicked & the word of God

Okay, so structurally there are two main parts to this Psalm. There’s the first two verses which are the thesis and then there are two pictoral illustrations given to help explain the thesis. I’m just going to follow that natrual break and then bring in a third point and show us how this Psalm points us to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So first point, “Two Ways: The word of the wicked and the word of God.” The reason this Psalm is placed at the beginning is because it so clearly just puts out the resounding appeal of the entire Psalms and the whole Bible…that there are two ways to approaching life. One way where it is all about you your own way and the way where everything is all about God and his way.

We get this throughout Scripture. In Deuteronomy 30 through Moses God said a choice is set before us, life and good, (or) death and evil.” The good life comes “by loving the Lord God (and)….walking in his ways.”

King Solomon in Ecclesiasties and Proverbs said the same thing, there is the life which pursues our own individual pleasures under the sun and there is the life which is lived in the fear of the LORD which is the beginning of wisdom.

Jesus said the same thing. He starts off his famous sermon on the mount with the same words as Psalm 1, “Blessed are those who…” And right near the end of that sermon one of his concluding points is that this kingdom life of blessing is a way of life which is distinctly opposite to the most common way, so he says there are only two ways…here’s his words, “the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and thosw who enter by it are many…the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few (Mt 7:13-14).”

The implicit acknowledgment right off the bat is that life here on earth is in many ways like a journey we walk through. It is one of exploration and discovery. Tons of people all across the board of have recognized this.

You’ve got Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” the story of a man who goes on extensive travels in order to find themselves. That idea is super strong in our culture today…many people think they need to travel across the world in order to discover who they and and what life’s about.

You’ve got some amazing poets who note this theme of life being a journey as well. Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken” says, ” Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by.”

Frank Sinatra’s most famous song considers a man at the end of his life who says, “I’ve lived a life that’s full. I’ve traveled each and every highway…I planned each charted course; Each careful step along the byway…But more, much more than this, I did it my way.”

You’ve got some sweet 70′s rock ‘n’ roll. Fleetwood Mac, “You can go your own way.” You got a band called “Journey” singing an awesome song about a girl meeting a boy who take a midnight train going anywhere. You got the early 90′s goodness, Tom Cochrane singing, “Life is a highway…” You know, all the songs everybody wants to karaoke to.

The Bible is no stranger to the metaphor that life is like a journey. It seems we as human beings know deep down that this life is short and temporary and that there is much much more. The Bible’s schtick is that how we live here and now matters.

In fact recognizing life as a journey is exactly how Jesus calls his first disciples. He asks them to what? Follow him. To walk with him, following him and his way in order to learn a new way of living. That’s why the early Christians were called “followers of the Way” before they were even called Christians.

What David here in Psalm 1 says is that all the different ways, different ideas, and different philosophies of the world can all be boiled down to two paths, one under God and his Word and one which is not. And his first word, “blessed” is really a challenge to the way which does not follow God…”Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.” So in other words you will not experience blessing if you do not follow God and his word…in fact, the only way you will experience real and true delight in life, is if you are constantly dedicated and directed by God’s Word.

Let’s look at it closer in verse 1-2. First the way of the wicked. It says three things about it. One, there is wicked counsel. Two, there is a sinful group way to get caught in so your standing in the middle of it. And three, there is a commitment to that way, you sit down in it, commit yourself to it to the point that you begin even scoffing at the way of God and his word.

The first one about wicked counsel is so insightful. What it points out is that we are always following the advice, counsel or word of someone. Sometimes it may be a conscious thing but most the time I don’t think it is a direct one to one connection. We hear things either from our friends and family, or we implicitly pick up ideas from books or movies or music and then when we have to make decisions about something those are the things which inform our way of thinking. The counsel has just been latently sitting there and then we listen to it.

So you follow what you think is “your own way” but what you’re really following is the word and advice of someone else who has told you that what you really need is to just do your own thing.

Everyone believes in a Bible that they listen to and they follow. It’s either the Bible that God has given us or it’s the Bible which we compile together in our heads from our supposed collected wisdom and experience. Not walking in the counsel of the wicked means you should never listen to or take advice from someone who does not know and love Jesus and follow his word. That’s it plain and simple.

I say this because wicked doesn’t just mean “not a good person.” In our cultural context most everybody thinks they are good. Only really really bad people are “wicked.” But wicked people in the Bible are people who reject God. And the reason we’re not supposed to listen to them is they cannot see objectively. Their vision is skewed because they are spiritually blind.

The second point about standing in the way of sinners addresses how easy it is to just go along with the flow…you can very easiy just get caught up in the way of the world. It’s more of a passive slipping, where you just are not really that serious about life and about God and you’re just kind of going along aimlessly.

If someone could see you and your life, like if they were outside of time but up in a helicopter looking down…they’d just see you getting bumped and pushed and moved along by the crowd. The way of sinners is just moving you.

It’s just how things work, it’s unavoidable. The Bible states it super clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:33 “Bad company corrupts good morals.” If you’re spending all your time with people who don’t love Jesus then this is what will happen. Since they have a different value set then you, they will start to rub off on you.

It’s not that we should not love everyone and be on mission and befriend those of bad company…but we are meant to go out of the strength and love of our church community. Because if it’s not, you will not influence you will be influence and find yourself in that wide path that leads to destruction.

The third point about sitting in the seat of scoffers is the result of buying into ungodly counsel and getting caught up in the way of sinners…you sit down in it. This is where you actually commit to the belief against the God of the Bible. You get confirmed in it and take a stance. So much so that you look down on those who follow the God of the Bible. You scoff in your heart and join in chorus with those who say that Christians are stupid and ignorant. What was once a passive disinterest turns into an active assault and resentment.

That’s scary. It’s not a happy thing. Which is the Psalmist point, that the word and the way of the wicked does not bring blessing or delight. So let’s look at the way which does.

It’s funny because the text actually spend a whole lot more time on the way of the wicked. Maybe that because deep down we just know God’s way is true and right…it’s the way of the wicked which is much more deceptive and confuses us. God’s way is clear and simple. Put him first and follow his word.

So let’s read it like this…”Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.” This is a beautiful and concise statement of the Christian life. If you’ll have it and take it as your own it will function as a rudder to direct your ship and guide throughout the course of your entire life. I delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night.

Several people are Christians or think they are Christians but they have not reached maturity because they have not learned how to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. It’s rare if they even read their Bible one or two days a week other than Sunday. Maybe that’s you today. If so I pray you learn from this verse.

The normal, regular, every day way for those who follow the narrow path that leads to life is to seek delight, satisfaction, fulfillment, motivation through meditating on God’s Word all day long from the morning to the evening.

This use of the word delight here is a very clear presentation of the doctrine of Christian hedonism. Christians are not against pleasure. In fact we are in hot pursuit of it. We are hedonists…of a very particular kind. This kind: we are convinced that there is more pleasure to be had in God than in anything else. Our delight is in God and his way revealed through his word.

Now, the “law of the LORD” here is simply the Bible. It’s a euphemism. It’s not trying to say read the ten commandments or read the Torah everyday. It’s pointing all that all of the Bible comes from and is handed down from God…it’s his law. And we live through it. Jesus said it this way, “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that procedes out of the mouth of God (Mt 4:4).”

We live through the Word of God. But maybe you’re like okay, how do I do that practically? I understand that question. I’ve worked a lot of jobs. I worked construction for a few years back before we started this church and I can remember hanging drywall and asking the question, God how am I supposed meditate on your word while I’m swinging hammer?

I got some answers. One of them is in this word meditate itself. So let’s talk about meditation. Meditation is pretty common, cool, hip, generally seen as a positive thing here in the eclectic city of San Diego. You’ve got it in yoga practices where the goal is to get ones self in a deeper state of relaxation. You’ve got the tantric new age practice of centering. And you’ve got the eastern forms which involve chanting and the repitition of the word “om.”

Now for those who are like me and grew up with some sort of Chrsitian background you’ve probably were taught that meditation is bad and evil. We don’t meditate. That it will reincarnate you into a cow or something.

But surprisingly here in our passage for today we are told to meditate…all day long. So what does the Bible here mean the same things as these popular practices when it uses the word meditate?

Here is a good description of eastern meditation which is essentially the source of these popular practices. This is a passage from the book Siddharta written by Herman Hesse. He describes meditation as the process where one “ponderingly, of a purified spirit, loses or empties himself of Atman (his humanness).” So eastern meditation and it’s popluar forms is essentially attempting to empty oneself.

This is not what the Bible means here when it uses the word meditation. The word itself here in Hebrew is hagah which means to murmor, imagine, or ponder. There’s a good word picture that goes with it. It’s the picture of a cow chewing on its cud. You guys know how a cow does that?

Cows eat the grass and they start chewing on it. Then they swallow it but instead of digesting it right away they regurgitate it back up and chew on it some more. Then they swallow it again and then throw it back up and chew on it some more. They do this several times before they actually allow the food to go through their digestive track. That’s what it means to chew on the cud.

This is the picture of Biblical meditation. You take in some of God’s word and then you chew on it. Apply it. Chew on it some more. You imgaine and ponder it’s weight and depth…think hard of how it applies and what it means. You chew, you chew and you chew. It’s talking to yourself.

Paul Tripp, a Christian counselor, says no one else has more influence on you than you because no one talk to you more than you do. So what are you conversing about in your head? What are you chewing on during your days? Is it God’s Word or is it something else?

There are a lot of practical ways you can do this. One of the main ways I do it is I read a verse in the morning and I train and discipline myself to be thinking about it all day. I chew on it. And then in the evening when I get home I usually try and talk to Amy about it.

That’s one of the ways you know if you’ve been meditating…if you can remember what you read in the morning. If you can’t remember what you read in the morning by dinner time or the time you went to bed then you haven’t really been meditating on God’s Word that day.

Now I know for some of you that sounds crazy. You haven’t even got into the habit of reading your Bible everyday much less learning how to meditate on it throughout the day. Maybe what I’m talking about today you’ve never even heard of. That’s okay, it just means you were never taught well. And now you’re learning so that you can mature in your faith.

This is the normal way for the follower of God. It’s not about adjusting priorities but having your whole life oriented this way. I’m not making this up. One of the most famous verse in the Bible, “to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and strength” says that parents are supposed to teach this to their children from the time they rise up, go on their way, sit in their house and lie down (Deut 6:6-7).

That’s meditating on God’s Word all day long. If you don’t do that it just means that you haven’t had parents or spiritual parents that taught you how to do this and hopefully I’m teaching you now and you’ll endeavor to medtitate on God’s Word everyday all throughout the day.

Meditation is really at the center of the life of the person who is pursuing delight in God. The difference with the Bible’s form of meditation and the eastern forms of meditation is that Biblical meditation is an attempt to fill your mind, instead of empty it. We want to fill our hearts with thoughts of who God is and what he has done for us. Emptiness ourselves and disconnecting ourselves with reality simply will not cut it. We need more, we need God.

Okay, let’s pull this together. There are two ways of living and pursuing life. One according to the word of the wicked and one according to the word of God. Both have results and to help us get it and understand, the Psalmist here gives us an agricultural analogy with trees, water, fruit, leaves, chaff and the wind. So let’s check it out.

II. Two Pictures: The tree and its fruit & the chaff and the wind

Let’s re-read it. The blessed one, who delights in God by meditating on his word will be “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season and leaf does not whither, in all he does he prospers. The wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”

First let’s think about the tree and its fruit. Now I know our context here in San Diego is urban and we have a lot of buildings and beaches but we don’t really have a lot of lucious trees with big fruit. Here in central San Diego fruit trees don’t grow so well next to salt water.

But, if you drive out towards Palamor Mountian about 30 mintues away you’ll see something interesting off the side of highway 76. It’s all super dry and brown out there right now…but in the middle of all this dry dead grass there’s a creek that cuts across the valley, I think it might be called Cedar Creek. And what is on each side of the creek. Bright lush, green grass and trees.

What this verse teaches us is that the Bible is like that water which feeds our soul and enables us to grow strong and mature, bright big green tall tress, even if there is dry deadness all around us. But if we are not near water, having it continually flow into us…we will die out spiritually. We have be planted in the water of God’s word. That’s how you meditate and find blessing and delight. Cool picture huh?

Now I want us to look at the next phrase because its an important one, look at the words, “that yields fruit in its season.” That’s a key phrase. What’s key about it is that it has time in view.

Seasons do not happen immediately. Fruit does not come automatically. It’s not like everytime you read the Bible you’re going to have this amazing experience and think God is so awesome and incredible. That may happen sometimes but often times the spirtual fruit will come later. That’s what spirtual maturity is like. You become mature when you become regular and consistent in God’s word, constantly drinking its water. Then you grow fruit…in time.

Galatians 6:9 says it this way, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Some of you give up so easily. You need to learn how to stick it out and get committed to God’s Word.

The benefit is fruit. I love this picture because what is fruit for? It’s for eating right? So what the Bible is saying to us here is that when we follow God’s way and are in his Word then we will bear fruit that other people will come pick off us and eat! I love it.

One of the ways you can ways you can tell if you are maturing in your faith is if other people are coming to you to learn from you. Are they coming to you for fruit? So if you really want to love people, you have to be in God’s Word so that you will have something to give them to eat.

You know what the awesome thing is? I really suck at being a pastor. I’m more of a preacher than a pastor. The word pastor means shepherd, the guy who lead sheep to food and water. He’s a nice guy. I just like yelling at people. If makes me feel better. I like the prophets. I’m reading through the book of Jeremiah right now in the mornings and he’s awesome.

Three days ago I was in chapter 19. God tells him to go buy a flask. So he does and then God tells him to take it to church. So he tasks the flask to church. Then God tells him to break the flask and say I’m going to break you because you have stiffened your neck and refused my Word.

That’s tough. That hits me. That breaks me. Some of you don’t like it when I’m direct or when the Bible’s direct but sometimes it’s what we need because our hearts get hard like rock and then need to be broken with a hammer.

Anyway, so I suck at being a pastor because its hard for me to be compassionate. I just want to swing a hammer. So when people come to me with problems usually I’m not sure what to say. Sometimes when I’m standing at the back after service and you come to me for prayer…I have no idea what to say. But you know what I do know from reading the Bible all the time? I know God’s Word. God’s Word has been at work in my life. So I just give it. I tell people what Scripture says and I pray the words of Scriptures. I’ve got fruit. I’ve got fruit to give. And I’m consistently amazed to see how God’s word ministers to the souls of his people.

I’m doing discipleship now with 8 different dudes. We meet every other week to talk about life, talk about Scripture. They’re memorizing Scripture and reading theological books, and then we pray together. It’s awesome. I say that not to bragg but to hopefully inspire you so that you will want to bear fruit to and have some people that you can disciple and give fruit to.

Some of you are older and have been walking with Jesus for a long time. You do delight in his word and meditate daily but you don’t have other people who are not as far along as you that you are discipling and I want to challenge you today to be looking for those you can give away your fruit to. Bear fruit and give it away.

Okay let’s move on. Trees. Fruit. Water. Good stuff. Now let’s look at the last thing. The chaff blown by the wind. This is the result of the way of the wicked. They don’t become trees, they become chaff.

You guys know what chaff is? It’s the flakey shell loosely attached to the head of a piece of grain. When farmers gather wheat together they throw it on a thing called the threshing floor and winnow it, which means they throw it up in the air to loosen the chaff so that the wind carries it away. It’s a light, flakey, brown, good for nothing thin piece of a shell which will quickly break apart and disintegrate into dust.

It’s not even on the same playing field as a tree. It’s got no roots and no color. The puritan Matthew Henry describes it this way, he says those who are chaff have “…no certain end, no certain rule, only the command of every lust and they take no advice.” They go their own way and are blown about.”

Ephesians 4:14 describes this well, it says when we’re like chaff we’re “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.” Whatever new idea comes along we jump on the bandwagon and buy into easily hook line and sinker…instead of trusting the ancient, ever true, proven Word of God.

Growing up my dad taught me a phrase I like a lot…”If it’s new it’s not true and if it’s true it’s not new.” God’s Word is true and it has stood the test of time. You can count on it.

The last two verses of the Psalm tell us the spiritual outcome of not following God’s way. Judgment. We will give an account. Hebrews 9:27 says this, ” And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”

Everyone in this room will die one day. And when we die we will stand before the judgment seat of God on the throne. And the wicked will not be able to stand.

The wicked will not be received, they will be dismissed and crushed and brought low. They will not be admitted into the congregation of the righteous. But they will perish, which doesn’t just mean not exist anymore…Jesus says that means being thrown into a lake of fire to burn for eternity.

Hard words huh? The Bible takes your joy, your delight, your happiness seriously. One of the chief lies that we can buy into, one of the bad wicked counsels we can listen to is to think that we will escape judgment. That somehow everyone will be saved. Clearly here, we see that is not the case.

There is no tricking God. That’s what those words, “The Lord knows” are about in the last verse. God see and knows all. Hebrews 4:13 says, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

The Lord knows what way, what path you are walking on today. Are you walking with him according to his word or are you walking your own way? Maybe some of you need to make a road change today. You’ve gotten lost and off track and you need to take the next exit off the freeway and get turned around. Know that there is grace and mercy for you this morning.

III. One Jesus: The one who walked, died, rose and reigns

Let’s move to our last point to so we can all see that. We’ve looked at two ways and two pictures of them…let me show you the one Jesus in this passage.

Back up to the very first line, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.” Saint Augustine, around 400AD, writes a commentary on the Psalms. The very first words of his commentary are on this first line of this first Psalm. Here are his words, “This man is to be understood as our Lord Jesus Christ…(for only he) hath not gone away in the counsel of the ungodly.”

Wow. If you’ve been listening to this sermon and you’ve been sitting there and you’re like…”yes, I get what you’re saying but it just seems really impossible to do.” Then, you are on the right track because the truth is none of us can do this. To never listen to bad counsel? To never get caught up in another way? To never scoff at God? To meditate on his Word day and night? And if I don’t do all those things I’m going to receive judgment and get thrown into a lake of fire? Come on!

The truth is there is not a single one of us in this room who can do what this Psalm calls us to. Who here has never followed bad advice…has never followed the way of sinners…has never wrestled with belief and trust in God…has always meditated on God’s Word day and night? No one. None of us. Only one person ever has. His name is Jesus.

Augustine cuts straight to the heart of the matter when he says this man is understood to be Jesus. This Psalm points us directly to the gospel, it looks to the messiah and calls out for a savior. Jesus.

1 Peter 2:2 says, “(Jesus) committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” He walked not in the counsel of the wicked. And he walked all the way to the cross in order to die for all of us who have. All of us who have gone our own way and deserve not to stand but fall on the day of judgment.

Jesus took judgment on himself on the cross so that we might not receive the judgment which calls for us to perish. Jesus forged a new way and allowed himself to be cut off and executed so that we might be allowed into the congregation of the righteous.

And Jesus did not just stay dead but he rose. Because Jesus died for our sin, Scripture says that Jesus rose and that God has exalted him above all and given him the name of above all names, so that whoever would believe in him would not perish but receive everlasting life.

This is the gospel my friends. Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life…for us. We get to belong to him and he changes us and our hearts and enables us to truly bear fruit.

What I left out earlier is what the fruit is? We didn’t talk about that. What is the fruit that comes from being in the water of the Word? What does the fruit look like that people come to pick off and eat?

Galatians 5:22-24 tells us. It says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And that these only truly come about through belonging to Jesus.

In fact here are its exact words, right after it lists the fruit it says, “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” The point is you can’t bear this fruit unless you belong to Jesus and get connected to his cross.

Conclusion

I’ve been chewing on this, meditating on it all week…the fruit of the gospel and belief in what gospel my fruit reflects. And I’ll conclude with this thought… When these fruits are not at work in us, its showing areas where we lack belief in the gospel and put faith in other gospels.

For example:

When I feel hatred instead of love, it’s because I don’t believe God has truly shown love toward me in Jesus.

When I feel apathy instead of joy, it’s because I don’t believe that I can be satisfied in God.

When I am at war within instead of having peace, it’s because I don’t believe I’m no longer an enemy of God.

When I am rash and impatience instead of patient, it’s because I don’t believe that God has been patient with me.

When I am mean instead of kind, it’s because I don’t believe God has shown me kindness.

When I am just bad and evil is at work in me instead of goodness, it’s because I don’t believe that God is good and put an end to evil on the cross.

When I am flippant and unreliable instead of faithful, it’s because I don’t believe God is ever at work and committed to me.

When I am harsh and not gentle, it’s because I don’t believe God has treated me gently but instead believe he is harsh and hard.

And when I lose control instead of keeping it, it’s because I believe that God is capricious and just flys of the handle.

The fruit and unfruits of the Spirit…you guys see how that works? Everything is about Jesus, belonging to him and his way and following his word. That’s how we will bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control instead of the opposites.

So church, let’s not follow the way of the world but follow the way of Jesus and allow him to continually change our hearts and our fruit as we put our faith in him. It is the blessed and delightful way.

Let’s pray.

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introduction
I. who God is
a. omniscience v.1-6
b. omnipresence v.6-12
c. omnipotence v.13-16
d. omnibenevolence v.17-18
II. our response
a. spiritual warfare v.19-22
b. humble confession v.23-24
conclusion

introduction

we started this church almost exactly a year and half ago. since that time we have preached 72 sermons. we began by studying the book or romans and out of those 72 sermons only 8 have not been from romans. so it is a rare thing when we depart and preach from a different part of the bible. we think that the best and most honest way to deal with the bible is to go through a single book and wrestle with it so that we can really try to understand what the author was saying. but today is one of those days rare days when we are going to take a break from romans.

we are in the middle of this intense section of romans about battling sin in our lives. romans sometimes can just have this weight to it and it can start to feel very heavy and its good but you just need some air. so hopefully today is some air. next week justin will be back and we are going to have one of our services with extended time with music and singing and communion and then we’ll have our family meeting afterward. in the two weeks after that i will finish up romans 6 and then it will be december and we are going to preach through the four weeks of advent on jesus. so that’s the plan.

today i wanted to preach on something that would be encouraging to us and when i thought about my life and what has been most encouraging to me i realized the most encouraging times are when i have been reminded of who God really is…what he is like. and it is those times when i walk away from whatever it was that sparked those thoughts and i have a smile on my face and a sense that everything is okay.

in all the bible there is perhaps not a better passage that describes some of the key attributes of God and how seeing those things about him causes us to adore him than psalm 139. and psalm 139 is a beautiful psalm that reminds us what sort of being this God is and how good it is for us to know him.

About this psalm an old puritan named George Gilfillan said this, “Here the poet inverts his gaze, from the blaze of suns, to the strange atoms composing his own frame. He stands shuddering over the precipice of himself. Above is the All encompassing Spirit, from whom the morning wings cannot save; and below, at a deep distance, appears amid the branching forest of his animal frame, so fearfully and wonderfully made, the abyss of his spiritual existence, lying like a dark lake in the midst. How, between mystery and mystery, his mind, his wonder, his very reason, seem to rock like a little boat between the sea and sky. But speedily does he regain his serenity; when he throws himself, with childlike haste and confidence, into the arms of that Fatherly Spirit.” let’s read psalm 139.

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. [1]
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.

19 Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God!
O men of blood, depart from me!
20 They speak against you with malicious intent;
your enemies take your name in vain! [2]
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with complete hatred;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts! [3]
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! [4]

there are six stanzas or verses in this psalm, which was actually written down and sung in hebrew during ancient worship services, and what i would like to do is to look at what about God and about us as human beings that each of these stanzas point to. i’m not going to get down and dirty and deal with every single word and phrase here like we do in romans because if we did that we’d need to spend a month on this psalm at least.

now, a couple of things first to know. one is, this psalm is a prayer. you can learn a lot about what people believe by listening to the things they say when they pray. and sometimes other people can pray the most amazing things that encourage you so much. that is why it is good to regularly get together with other people (like in the men’s or women’s midweek bible studies) and to pray outloud together. but this psalm was most likely written by david, son of Jesse, after he became the king of Israel, the king whom God had said was, “a man after God’s own heart.” and because of that and because of the kind of man we come to know david as in the bible and because he is an inspired writer of holy scripture, there is something very special about this psalm. it seems to not only teach us so much about God but it also reflects a certain intimacy with God which draws us in strikes a chord within us because we know and feel such similar things.

the second thing i want to mention is that the words of this psalm describe who God is and what he is like but it isn’t written the way that modern western philosophy text books are written when the speculate about who God is. there is a ton of philosphy in these words but they are really written much more like fredrich neitzche writes in his book, except that he is writing to say that there is no God. david says in another psalm, “the fool has said in his heart there is no God.” so let’s look at this psalm and see what david’s God is like.

omniscience

i have a reputation for using big words so i am just going to roll with it this morning because it is good for us to learn some things and big words just sound cool. so “omniscience.” the first stanza, verses 1-6 is about God’s omniscience. the word “omni” means all and “science” means knowledge, so omniscience is all-knowing.

A.W. Tozer says this about God’s omniscience. “That God is omniscient can be inferred…God perfectly knows himself and being the source and author of all things, it follows that He knows all that can be known. God knows instantly and effortlessly all matter and all matters, all mind and every mind, all spirit and all spirits, all being and every being, all creaturehood and all creatures, every plurarity and all pluralities, all law and every law, all relations, all causes, all thoughts, all mysteries, all enigmas, all feeling, all desires, every unuttered secret, all thrones, all dominions, all personalities, all things visible and invisible in heaven and in earth, motion, space, time, life, death, good, evil, heaven, and hell.”

that is a little philosophy for you but listen to the personal tone of david’s psalm. “O LORD you have searched me and known me! you know when i sit down and when i rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

there is a very personal sense about God here. that God searches us. and he watches us. he somehow sees all that happens in our lives from when we get up in the morning until we go to bed. and not only that but he is able to somehow discern our thoughts. and the sense here isn’t like some sort of foggy psychic reading but rather acute and awareness. there is no answer to how he does this, but he does. hebrews 4:12-13 says that God “discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. and no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to his eyes.”

listen to the next line in the psalm, “you search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.” God’s personal interest seem to not only involve his immediate knowledge but that he takes an active interest in us. he searches out our path and all our ways. 2 Chronicles 16:9 says, “the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to strengthen those whose hearts are fully comitted to him.” so he knows all our activities, what we are doing or not doing and he takes an effort, excercising his energy to do this. and not only does he know all that but he even knows what we will say when we encounter what we encounter in life.

david’s response in realizing this starts to make sense when you think about you hem me in, behind and before and lay your hand upon me. such knowledge is too wonderful for me. it is high. i cannot attain it.” we can’t even conceive of such a being with this kind of knowledge. no human being is like that. God is wholly other and what he is is wonderful! God is an amazingly omniscient (all-knowning) God. this is fun! it brings almost an automatic joy to the heart for us to know that God knows us with such intimate detail and care.

omnipresence

let’s look at the next omni word, “omnipresence” so that means all or everywhere present. louis berkoff says God’s omnipresence is “that perfection of the divine being by which he (is beyond) all spatial limitations and yet is present in every point of space with his whole being.” the eastern religions, animistic tribes and other pantheists rightly recognize that there is something spiritual to everything that we encounter on this planet and that there is an enormous unity in God but they fail to see that God even yet greater than that. as the great saint anselm said about God, “nothing can be without you, not in place or time but all things are in you. for nothing contains you, but you contain all things.”

listen to David’s words as he realizes that God’s presence is not only wherever he goes but even beyond. “where shall i go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” the question of a heaven or a hell when we die is one that mankind has wrestled with for ages and david recognizes that God is something is not done away with after this life on earth, his presence extends beyond this life. God is not a God who is bound by the limits of space and time. coming to know him is an eternal thing that extends far beyond what we begin to experience of him here and now.

and his presence on earth is the same, “if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” david recognized that though God did not manifest himself in clear ways all the time that his presence was everywhere unlike humans who can only be in one place at a time. david had probably read the words of the torah in Deutoronomy 10:14 where Moses said, “Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it (Deut 10:14).”

i believe it is a great encouragement to us to know that wherever we go and whatever we do that God is here for us. many of you here are in college or have graduated from college recently or have just started your own family by getting married. and your minds change about things, about where you will go and what you will do. and that is okay, we as the resolved want to support you in whatever and wherever God calls you and hopefully a few of you he put it on your hearts to rise up and help build this church and expand God’s kingdom in this city. J

but david words here are so cutting, even in the uttermost parts of the sea, God will be with you. no matter where we go God is there. i love God’s words to moses’ protégé joshua, i wrote it on the little white board on our refrigerator the other day for amy, “Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go (Josh 1:9).” God is with us, even when it doesn’t seem like it.

david knew that too. look at the next words, “if i say, ‘surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” anyone here had some dark times? maybe you are in them now? but God knows the dark times and those are the some of the times when he shines the brightest. it is the dark times when we often question and cry and cuss and scream “where are you God!?!” and he is right in the middle.

it is a true thing and if you learn it now it fix it in your heads it will help you your entire life…the best and brightest glimpses of the glory of God most often come the trials of hardship and pain (repeat). so what are we to do when all is dark? run to God. he is there. like psalm 46 says, “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be cast into the heart of the sea, though its water roar and foam, though the mountain tremble at its swelling…The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress (Ps 46:1-3,11).”

omnipotence

the third omni word, “omnipotence.” potens is latin for power and so omnipotence is all powerful. Wayne Grudem states, “There are no external constraints on God’s decisions, God’s omnipotence is reference to his own power to do whatever he decides to do…(which) is also called God’s sovereignty (meaning free, sov, free reign or rule).” God is the only who is completely limitless in all regards. A.W. Pink invites us to “consider that distant period before the heavens and the earth were created” and he says this, “God might create or not create according to His own good pleasure. He might create this way or that way. He might create one world or one million worlds, and who was there to resist His will? He might call into existences a million different creatures…and who was there to challenge His right?”

david recognizes that we are creatures created by God’s omnipotent power. look at his words, “for you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. i praise you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made.” our scientific knowledge of the human body increases and increases but the complexity and the beauty of the way our organs work together could not be more properly descibed as being knit together. no loving parent cannot look at a newborn child and think what a wonder the thing is that was made inside of them. from sex to inception to 2 trimesters of pregnancy and all that is involved and happening inside a mother’s womb. fearful, careful, wonderful making! and david sees God in that. he sees the design. no one could ever look at the car motor and not think there was a designer that made all those parts to function together. and birth is infinitely more complex than a car motor. God designed our bodies to function in such a way that we are able to make babies.

and even beyond just the mechanics of it, there is this train of intimacy that runs through this psalm. you formed my inward parts…there is this interactiveness, an exertion of God’s power, in birth where God is working and putting things together, setting them up. and indeed scripture sees God as always acting in his creation. Hebrews 1:3 says that God sustains or “upholds the universe by the power of His word.” it is as if he let his hand go for an instant everything would come tumbling down. he is always acting. always involved. he is the all-powerful God.

david recognizes his power in everything. “wonderful all your works; my soul knows it very well.” yesterday morning i sat outside on an upstairs patio drinking coffee and talking with jason while we watched the waves roll in on pacific beach. a wonderful work of God. as i looked out across the water and saw the swells coming in i couldn’t help but think of Isaiah 51:15 “I am the Lord God who churns up the seas and makes its waves roar.” yes, i know waves come from storms but i don’t think storms come from the flap of a butterfly’s wing in south asia, like chaos theory thinks. no, everything comes from the power of God.

lastly look at the power of God described in verses 15-16 of our psalm, “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.” wisdom and maturity in faith will teach us that God not only owns everything we lay eyes on but that he owns us to and made and determined us for his glory. in jeremiah 1:5 God tells him, “before i formed you in the womb i knew you.” and in ephesians 1:4-5 we read that God “chose us…before the foundation of the world…(and) predestined us…according to the purpose of his will.”

now people get all bent out of shape about this and start talking about possible worlds and about God looking into the future or God not knowing the future or what’s fair and what’s free all these other stupid things. let me just tell you this. life is much easier if you give up thinking that everything ultimately depends upon your foolish, feeble, and sinful decisions. if we, like david, instead say, i am yours…every one of my days you have laid out for me even before they happen, then the pressure is off. we can be free to worship and follow God and when we screw up or when we are confused or hurt we come running to him and know that he planned this and since he planned it everything will be okay. just do that. don’t try and get God off the hook and think that our small little brains could comprehend an infinite diety. he doesn’t need you to do that. just love him and adore such a God that could even orchestrate so many details not only of one person’s life but billions and billons throughout the planet and throughout all time. that is amazing. that is a God who is worthy of our worship.

omnibenevolence

lastly, we have our final omni for the day. there are many other attributes or characteristics that are wrapped up in the being of God but omnibenevolence is the last one reached for by this verse we are looking at today. benevolence means good, so omnibenevolence means all-good. i’ve really been into quoting a bunch of dead guys today so i figured we’d go to one of our favorites, jonathan edwards to introduce our last omni word.

here is jonathan edwards on the goodness of God, “there is an infinite fullness of all possible good in God – a fullness of every perfection, of all excellency and beauty, and of infinite happiness…[and] this infinite foundation of good sends forth abudant streams…[this] foundation is in itself excelent, [and] the emanation, increase, repetition, or multiplication of it is excellent…[it] shines forth in beams of communicated knowledge and understanding and holiness, moral excellence, beauty, joy and happiness…[and] this disposition…[is] his own fullness and was what moved him to create the world.”

no one writes things like that these days. the arrangement of words and alliteration reflects this groping for something so good and so great it is beyond description. david felt that. verses 17-18 are david’s words marveling at the goodness of God. listen, “how precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”

look at that word, “precious.” it comes from the hebrew word yeqar, which is something that is costly, valuable, rare and rich. it is used in hebrew writings to refer to things that have intrinsic worth like jewels such as onyx, gold, and jasper, very precious and desirable things. david here explodes in praise to God because he realizes that the goodness of God is so precious it is unending…God’s goodness is so vast he compares it to the sand.

some students at the university of hawaii tried to come up with some estimates of how much sand there is on the earth. they took a spoonful of sand and using a magnifying glass determined how many granules were in that spoonful. then based on estimates of the sqaure feet of sand on the ocean they came up with a number. seven quintillion five quadrillion grains of sand. that’s a seven with 18 zeros after it. that’s a lot of sand. but it is a tiny amount compared to the unending quanity of God’s goodness.

how precious God is. his goodness is unparalled. and and it is what we need. there is this tone of satisfaction in david’s voice. it is like this at long last, at the end of a journey accomplishment or discovery…”ah! how precious to me…O God! I am with you.” whatever and wherever we are in life, no matter what we are going through…the answer is that we need God.

conclusion

let’s conclude this morning by reading the rest of the psalm. “oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain! do i not hate those who hate you, O Lord and do i not loathe those who rise up against you? i hate them with complete hatred; i count them my enemies. search me O God and know my heart! Try me and see my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!”

after reflecting on all these great and glorious things about who God is david all of the sudden feels the tension inside him and he hears the voices of those around him and he ends this psalm by casting himself upon the mercy of God.

in life there will be battles. battles of heart. our affections can be some of the most formidable enemies but at the same time give us some of our greatest delights. there are battles of mind. there are all kinds of ideas and philosophies running about theses days and there comes a point when we must decide what we think and why and begin to believe something and build our lives on it. there are battles in relationships. people are made for relationship and relationship with others is what we were made for. but relationships will inevitably bring trial and difficulty and strife because we are sinful human beings. and some relationships have to end because they are death to us and some just need healing. but battling is something we will not escape. the question is how you battle. will you turn to the all-knowing, everywhere-present, all-powerful and all-good God? or will you walk away trusting in your own knowledge, your place and power, thinking you know what is good for you? that is the question this psalm drives at us.

look at the example of david. what does he do? search me and know me O God…lead me. be my God and let me follow you because i cannot determine my own path. if i try on my own i will surley fall victim to wickedness.

douglas coupland wrote this little book called, “life after God.” which is this great story of him traveling and interacting with life and people. and the theme of the book is that there is no God and that there is no reason to believe in him. God is an impossibliity. you read all the way to the very end and on the second to last page he says this, “now here is my secret. i tell it to you with an openness of heart that i doubt i shall ever achieve again, so i pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. my secret is that i need God. i am sick and can no longer make it alone. i need God to help me give, because i no longer seem capable of giving. to help me be kind, as i no longer seem capable of kindness. to help me to love, as i seem beyond being able to love.”

what a great confession. and that is my confession and my plea this morning. we need God. he is great, an all-knowing, everywhere present, all-powerful, and all-good God. be encouraged. keep following after him. keep embracing the gospel, adoring his son Jesus Christ who radiates the glory of God to us. if you haven’t ever really made that turn to follow Jesus, do it now while you may as coupland said it, have an openness of heart. if it has been awhile and God has become a distant figure to you. be renewed. let the sweetness of his grace cover you. he loves and accepts you. he took all of our sin and punished it in jesus on the cross for us. now all that is left is the bounty of his mercy…and it is a wonderful mercy.

Let’s pray.