Summer of Psalms: Part 3

Summer of Psalms: Part 3 - A Holy Synopsis

PSALM 103

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in our Psalms. I love being in the Psalms. Sometimes in life and sometimes at church, we're constantly learning new things Sunday after Sunday. And that's good. But there's also such incredible value to returning to something familiar, something comfortable. And so I just love that we come back usually every summer to Psalms. And it's so good to be hearing these themes that, again, we hear year after year. But it's so good to be washed over by the truth of God's character and to hear of His love, His goodness, His justice, and His compassion again and again and again. And so I pray that you guys are enjoying this series, and that it is refreshing and rejuvenating for your souls.

As to why we're in our specific passage this morning: this summer for kids' ministry, we sent out a reading list. So all the kids could read five chapters a week from Genesis to Revelation. And, you know, for the younger ones, they don't have to read; maybe their parents can read or a sibling can read to them. But by the end of the summer, they'll have read a lot of chapters—I think over 50 chapters, which is amazing. And if they do it, they get an In-N-Out gift card. So there's a little incentive there. Yeah. And so our family, sometimes we've been reading it before bed. The girls are in bed and then I'll read whatever passage it is for that day. And sometimes we've been a little bit behind, so I've had to read a lot in one night to keep up. And I have one daughter who's at the age of trying to do anything to stay up later. So it's, you know, like, "Oh, I didn't get my drink of water." Okay. "Oh, you know what? I didn't put that toy away." Oh, you want to put the toy away now? Okay. Yeah. Go for it. And then sometimes when we're reading, she was like, "Can you just read it again and again?" And who am I to say we're not going to be reading Scripture for, you know, two or three times? So this one night we were on Psalm 103 and she just kept asking for me to read it again. And as I was reading it three or four times that night, I was just hit with like, I love this passage. It's such a good psalm. And I was struck with just how great of a little synopsis this is of God's character.

Some psalms focus in on one characteristic of God. And I love those. Those are really good. But I just loved how general this one is. Such broad strokes of who God is. And I love that my daughters were hearing all these things about God in this one chapter. Some of the things are easy to grasp, that God is a loving God. Okay, we can understand that. And some other things we may need to wrestle with a little bit. How is God this? How is God that? David, the author of our psalm this morning, hits on God's forgiveness, God's character, His steadfast love and covenant faithfulness, and even a very famous passage from the Old Testament, God's quote about Himself. And so I'm excited to dive into this psalm with you this morning. And we're going to go ahead and read. If you want to turn in your Bibles there, it'll be on the screen as well. And as I read this aloud, I just want you to have this question going through your mind: Who is God? And then as you read or as you listen, just see how much of this psalm answers that question. I want you all to think, who is God? All right, I'm going to go ahead and read Psalm 103. It says, "Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel. The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not accuse nor will He harbor His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows how we are formed; He remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass; they flourish like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting, the Lord's love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children's children, with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts. The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. Praise the Lord, you His angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding, who obey His word. Praise the Lord, all His heavenly hosts, you His servants who do His will. Praise the Lord, all His works everywhere in His dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul."

Would you pray with me one more time? Heavenly Father, thank You for Your word. And we do praise You, God, for who You are and what You've done. And God, I pray that through Your truth this morning, we would be encouraged, that we'd be empowered to live for You as we go about our days to give You all the praise. So we pray this in Your holy name. Amen. All right. The question: who is God? Did you guys feel like that psalm provided enough of an answer? There's probably a list that you were forming of all these things about God. And I just want to go section by section and kind of break it down a little bit more.

So the first section, verses 1 through 5, David begins with blessing Yahweh and extolling His character. And by the way, if you are newer to the faith and you hear me say Yahweh, that is the Hebrew word for God in the Old Testament. So I just have this little habit of saying Yahweh when I see it in the Old Testament. So do not be confused. Yahweh, God, the same thing. But David begins with blessing Yahweh, the self-instruction, telling himself, praise God. And I think it's similar. I was thinking of what I do now, what seems like every morning, which is I have to tell myself to get up. I do not want to get up. I am tired, and I'm sitting there, and I hear my alarm, and I'm literally telling myself, you have to get up. You need to get up. And I think it's similar to that. Do I feel like getting up? No. Do I want to? Not at all. But I should. I know I need to. And it's the same here. We praise God for who He is. Do we always feel like praising God? No, probably not. Do we always want to praise God with wherever we're at in life? No. But we need to. I like this self-talk: "My soul, all my inmost being, all of who I am, praise God. Praise His holy name. Forget not all His blessings." All of who we are, from our physical bodies and what we do with our body to our inmost being, our thoughts and our feelings. All of who we are, from our head to our toes, praise God. And don't forget a single one of His blessings, or some translations say benefits.

Verses 3 through 5 have this list of God's blessings or benefits. He forgives our sins. Every single one. We'll get some more of that in just a bit. He heals our diseases. Every single one, either here or in heaven. He redeems us from hell. He saves our lives. He crowns us with love and mercy. A heavenly crown. He wraps us in His goodness, this eternal beauty. And He renews our youth. We're always young in His presence. Now, I don't mean like in an ignorant way where we're just children, and I don't mean like in a perfect skin type way, but speaking to what sin brought into the world and how it affected humanity and the negatives of old age, but in our relationship with Him, He renews us, and we feel the life with Him. He mentions the eagle, which is that symbol of strength and speed. So David is saying, praise God and don't forget about all these things about God. He's telling himself, don't forget. And you look at this list and you're like, that's a pretty unforgettable list. That's an amazing list. How would you forget? But we are, we're so quick to forget things in reality. You look at this list and it seems unforgettable, but we are so quick to complain, to worry, to become bitter, to become insecure. We have trust issues. We will spiral in the moment of anxiety, and we become hopeless and forgetful of how good God is, the fact that He sustains us, the fact that He blesses us. So let this be a reminder for all of us today. Don't forget. Don't forget the blessings of God. Maybe set a reminder on your phone, rotating through these truths. Maybe every day, you know, you wake up to your alarm, Monday morning, tomorrow morning, 7 o'clock. Your alarm goes off, and then you see this banner on your phone on the screen that says, "He has forgiven you." And just how would that change your day if you started your day remembering, I'm forgiven. God's forgiven me of my sins. And maybe Tuesday, wake up, 7 o'clock, your alarm goes off. There's a banner on your phone that you've set that says, "He heals the sick." And you're thinking, oh, you know what? I got that neighbor who said their mom's in the hospital. I can pray for them because I know that God is a healer. Maybe Wednesday you get the banner that says, "He redeems me." Thursday, "He crowns me with love and mercy." What a way to start your day remembering that you are crowned by God, the King of kings. He's crowned you with love and mercy. Reminders of God's blessings. Do whatever you need to do to not forget who God is and His blessings to us.

So David tells himself, don't forget. And next we see the works of God. Verses 6 through 14 reflect on God's loving disposition towards Israel. Think of the last time that you had to fill out a resume. Or maybe you've been on the other side of the table and you've received a bunch of resumes. And you're looking at the characters of people and their accomplishments. This is kind of what we get here in this section, is God's resume. We're learning who God is and what He does. And we see it through some highlights. It says, through the works of Moses and the deeds of the people of Israel. So He's highlighting this time in Israel's history, in Moses' lifetime, where they were just getting to know God. So you had things like the ten plagues, parting the Red Sea, manna in the wilderness, heavenly sustenance, providing the law on Mount Sinai, being guided by God with a pillar of fire and a cloud. And that experience for Israel was so foundational to them learning who God was. They had heard of God. They had known Him by, like, hey, He's the God of our forefathers. But that time with Moses was, oh, we're learning firsthand who God is. And how their God, this God, Yahweh, is above all other gods. Verse 8 through 13 is probably my favorite section of this entire psalm. And we could have a whole series just going one week with one verse of 8 through 13. So, so good. Verse 8, this is quoting Exodus 34:6-7. Verse 8 says, "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." The first time that we see that in Scripture is when God is telling Moses. And here's the scene, is that Moses had done all those amazing experiences with God, walked with God, the ten plagues. He had walked through the Red Sea. He had been God's right-hand man as He's leading Israel through the wilderness. And yet Moses had never seen God's face. And you imagine going through some amazing things in life, and you're like, hey, I'd like to meet and see the person I'm working with. I'd love to have that level of intimacy in our relationship here. And so there's a moment where Moses is up on the mountain and says, God, can I see Your face? I just want to know You in a deeper way. And God says, I can't do that. My glory is too much; that if you were to see Me, you would die. But I will tell you who I am. And God says in Exodus 34, He says, "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

So David is bringing us back here, saying this is who God is. From God's mouth Himself, this is who God is. I love that scene. I love that passage. If you've ever been asked the question of, you know, if you can go back in time and in history to experience one thing maybe in the Bible, if you could go back and live a moment from the Bible, this would be up there for me, is hearing from God who God is. I think that'd be just incredible. And it continues in verse 9, all about forgiveness, how much He loves us, a steadfast covenantal love that has no bounds. It tells us that He forgives us. He forgives our sins. Verse 11, "As high as the heavens are above the earth," in other words, it's immeasurable how much He loves us. We cannot fathom how much He loves us. And I think sometimes we dismiss that. We're like, yeah, He loves us a lot. No, think about it. We cannot fathom how much He loves us. Verse 12, it says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." I mean, how comforting is it to know that God loves us more than we can imagine and that He forgives our sins, all of them. And He doesn't hang it over our heads. He doesn't say, hey, you're good this time, but I remember, I know, one more time. No, as far as the east is from the west. He completely removes them. Verse 13 says, "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him." If you were to think of a New Testament parable about a compassionate father, can you guys think of one? Anything come to mind? It's not like a pop quiz. If you thought of the prodigal son, it's exactly what I wanted you to think of. The most compassionate story of a father. And that is hearkening back to the Old Testament and how much God has tried to convey, I am a compassionate God. I'm a compassionate father to my children. The scholars at Bible Project write that the primary word for compassion here is *rahamim*, which is deeply tied to the physical womb. It conveys the unconditional, instinctual love and intense bond a mother has for her child. And that's what God's love is for us. This deep, deep bond with His children. He loves us. And He wants to have compassion on us. We need more compassion in the world today. And the church should be the primary source of that compassion in the world. We as Christians, we in this room should all be a source of compassion in our circles of life, our neighborhoods, our families. We should have and model and give out compassion just like God has had compassion on us. So this section of our passage is a great synopsis, 6 through 14, of who God is.

And then we transition a little bit more. In verses 15 through 19, David compares the brevity of human life to the everlasting God. David shifts to looking at our reality as humans, as creation, showing how finite we are, and emphasizing the contrast between how great God is and how human we are. As a part of God's creation, all of us as humanity, we are truly sustained by God. Colossians 1:17 says, "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Guys, without Jesus, this world would fall apart. Without Jesus, our worlds would fall apart. We would fall apart. He truly sustains us in ways we cannot imagine, but in ways we can. Just to say, how did I get through that day? That's probably Jesus. With you, walking with you, giving you what you needed. How did this happen? How is the world surviving right now with all the chaos? It's being held together by God. If you look at verses 14, you compare 14 to 19. Our reality is that of dust. So fickle, unstable, taken by the wind. But God's kingdom, verse 19, is this reality of a solid kingdom, firm, unchanging, in the heavens. And I love the phrase in verse 17, "from everlasting to everlasting." In this verse, God is being praised for His steadfast character in nature. Whereas humanity is seen as kind of transient. We're prone to wander. But God is always at this fixed point. We have a hard time sticking to the right thing, a hard time heading down the right path. We tend to go off path a little bit, and sometimes our life is like this, and we're sometimes on the right path with God and then all of a sudden we're far off to the right. We come back and then we're off to the left. And God is unchanging. He's steadfast.

I saw this growing up, uh, being embodied by older Christians that I so admire. I grew up in a church with some amazing Christians who modeled to me just the steadfast faith. And if I can put it, I'm going to have to imagine things. I'm a very, I got to see it. So I don't have a graph or I'm just going to use my hands. But if I can put it in the imagery of like wave patterns where God is this constant line up here, this is perfect, right? It's always there. And I think in our youth, whether by age or by spiritual maturity, we tend to have a lot of ups and downs. We're following God, we're reading His Bible, we're praying, and then all of a sudden something happens, school, work, and we're like, oh, I'm not following God. And then we come back up, and it's a lot of this. The wave pattern is up and down, up and down. Maybe it's in our reaction to things, and we're exercising compassion and love, and then all of a sudden something happens, and we're just hateful and judgmental, and we're back down here again. Maybe it's in our relationship to God, and we're feeling close to Him, like I said, we're reading, and all of a sudden, we're no longer close to God. What I noticed about some of these older Christians that I grew up with, one of them, maybe some of you guys know, Bob and Arlene Hughes, that were such faithful saints to me of just constant following God, is that as they got older and wiser, their graph was just kind of like this steady uphill climb. And no matter what happened in life, no matter the tragedies that they experienced or the truly amazing things, they were not like this. It was just this, really. And like, you know, God's straight line up here. And they just kept getting closer and closer. And I think that's what David is talking about. We tend to be so fickle. We tend to be so like this. But really, our desire and our prayer should be a constant growing closer and closer to God. No matter what is happening in life, we are not shaken from holding on to Him and being like Him.

David has brought us back around now in our passage to the divine, where he calls upon the heavenly powers to praise God, just as he did at the beginning of the psalm. So verses 20 through 22 concludes by calling everyone to bless and praise God. Every heavenly being, the hosts, the angels, the mighty ones, all His works everywhere. Anything under His dominion, and we know that everything is under His dominion. Old Testament scholar Robert Alter says, "And in this vast cosmic setting, the speaker repeats the words of his initial injunction to his own being to bless God, now making himself a part of the great chorus of all creation." I just kind of imagine like a big choir, and the conductor or whoever the choir leader is doing it, and then all of a sudden he turns around, and he just starts praising God too. That's what we were supposed to do. Given who God is, what He has done, what He's done for us, the only thing left to do is to praise God. Pastor Lauren and Pastor Chris and myself were in San Diego a couple weeks ago for our district conference, and in our Wesleyan denomination, everyone in the Pacific Southwest area gathered in San Diego. And our new superintendent over our entire denomination gave a brief speech. It was really good. And he was just reminding all of us pastors of the number one purpose we have as churches. And that is that the world may believe in Jesus. So simple, yet so profound: that the world may believe in Jesus. And then the favorite part is that he led us in the Doxology. And the words of the Doxology, if you don't know, are this: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." Already from Psalm 103, right? "Praise Him, all creatures here below." That's all of us. "Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts," everyone in heaven. "Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." If I had a voice, I would have led us right now in singing that, but I don't. No, I can't. God's not leading me in that way right now. I love it, it's so beautiful. I just, maybe those words will stick with you this week. The Doxology will be playing. If you don't know it, look it up. It's short, but beautiful.

I want to end our time this morning with some questions, reflection questions to help us process Psalm 103. The first one is this: Where is your focus right now? Sometimes in life, we feel disconnected, maybe from ourselves, from other people. We're wanting to look inward, get ourselves right, and maybe that's needed to have this inward look of like, what's going on inside of me? But I find it insightful that David focuses on God. There is an internal work that is done, not by us, but by the Spirit in us, without our help. But when we focus and meditate on the person of God and realize and worship who He is, something happens inside of us. Our view of ourselves and our view of our circumstances, whatever we're struggling with, it comes into this holier perspective. I think of a camera. Things come into focus better. I don't know how many of you are familiar with photography; I dabble back there and I twist the lens and I take some pictures. All of you I know have taken pictures on your phone. You can zoom in. You can use your two fingers to pinch and zoom and tap to focus. I think of it like that. When you focus on what you want, usually that's at the center of your screen. And you tap and it focuses. And sometimes if you have that setting, the rest in the background becomes a little bit blurry. Just a little bit. And that's okay. It's still good, right? You captured what you want at the center and everything else that was there. And I think that's how we need to have our relationship with God. Our view of life and God is that God is perfectly in focus at the center. Everything else can be a little bit blurry. That's okay. It's still good, but we need to have God in the center and fully in focus. If we don't, then that means that something else is perfectly at the center and at focus, and God is somewhere blurry on the peripheral. We don't want that. And so I ask, where is your focus in right now? And does it need to adjust to have God at the center and in focus? Maybe it's helpful to focus on something specific. If you're sitting there and you're like, I want to focus on God, how do I do that? Maybe it's the reading of His word and you want to make reading and studying and meditating on God's work a bigger focal point of your life. Do that this week. Maybe it's His creation and you want to focus on Him as creator. And so maybe you just spend more time in creation this week. Get out for, well, it's really hot, but find some shade and just sit in the creation and recognize that God created all of this. How amazing is He? Or maybe it's your relationship with God and you want to spend more time with Him. And so maybe you go on a walk and you pray with God in the morning or you take a break from your work. It's a quick 10 minute jaunt around the building, whatever it is. And you're just praying and talking with God. Where is your focus and how can you bring God into focus more?

Second question: What characteristic of God do you need to grow in? We had a great list here of characteristics of God. And we know that we are called to be like God. Ephesians 5:1 says, "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." We have this long list. Which one do you need to grow in? Take some time, maybe right now, little moment, just search your heart and say, what area of my life needs to reflect God more? If you're struggling, you're like, I don't know. Ask the Spirit. He'll convict you. Don't worry. He definitely will. He'll bring something to mind. He'll bring something to your heart and say, you know what? There's an area that needs to be more like God. Specifically, if you're going to come back to this passage, verses 8 through 10, do you need to be more compassionate? Do you need to be more gracious with other people? Do you need to be slower to anger? Maybe the conviction dial is going up now. Do you need to be more abounding in love? Do you need to not blame others for everything? Do you need to not harbor anger towards other people? Do you need to not treat people as their sins deserve? Oh, it's a hard one. Do you need to be more forgiving? If you're like me, maybe it's all of them. You're like every single one. But if you want to grow to be more like God in these characteristics, maybe you can pray with God and bring one to the forefront of your heart and mind. And with God, commit to being more intentional and growing in that area. Have the Spirit pray that God convict me more. When I have a moment where I'm not compassionate, let me know right away, God, that I could see it and be like, you know what, I should have done that differently. Or maybe as a situation is playing out or as a conversation is happening, pray that God make me aware of what I need to be more. Do I need to love others? Do I need to forgive in this moment? Do I need to not bring up the thing that they did the last 10 times? Do I just need to let and not harbor that against them? What characteristic of God do you need to grow in?

And then the third final question is this: How much are you praising God? Really, this is just an encouragement to praise God more. You cannot praise God, I think it's impossible, to praise God too much. For me, it needs to happen, I need to do it more at the end of the day. It's kind of Becky and I, our habit of before falling asleep, we just kind of connect, we pray, and it's like, what? I need to praise God more in that day. Where did God intervene for me? Where did He bless me? Where were the mercies that I saw from Him? Where did He meet my needs? David wrote this modeling for us that we too need to praise God. So for you, how are you going to do that? Where are you going to do that? Maybe it's at the beginning of your day. And you're going to take a beat before you go off to work, maybe before you get out of the car. And you're going to thank God and praise Him for stuff that hasn't even happened yet. And maybe that will help you look forward in that day and say, God, where are You working? I want to see. I've already praised You, God. I know that You're going to do it. Now I'm aware. God, where are You at? Maybe it's as you go, and as you notice things throughout your day, the mercies of God, the small blessings, you take time to praise God and just stop and say, God, I just saw that that was amazing. Thank you for that. And then you keep going with your day. Maybe it's at the end of your day. Maybe it's at the end of your week and during your Sabbath on your rest day. And you look back over the week and say, God, You did all these things. Thank you so much. I praise You for what You have done. Church, if we were to do this consistently enough and long enough, do you know how much more your heart will be attuned to God? Do you know the benefits that you will experience giving praise to God on a regular basis? You'd have more peace in your life because you'd trust God more, because you would have seen so many more ways in which He loves and cares and provides for you. We'd be more consistent in our relationship with Him. We'd be more compassionate towards people. We'd be more gracious. I truly believe we'd be less anxious and less stressed out, less worried. And then if you're less stressed, less worried, less anxious, imagine your health benefits: better blood pressure, better healthier immune system, lower risk of disease and mental health issues. I'm not saying everything is perfect if we praise God, but it certainly is better if we get into the habit of praising God.

And so this week, church, how are you going to praise God more? That's our action step this week. If you pull out your bulletin, your program, and you see at the bottom it says, "I'm going to be intentional to praise God more," and you're not just going to check this off, well you can, you can check it off and if you want to do that and drop it in the back on your way out. What will happen is this week you're going to get a text from us pastors, and we're going to ask you, what have you praised God for? And it's not convicting. It's not supposed to be like, oh, I haven't. It's just now you get to share. I've praised God for this, this, and this, and we're going to praise God with you. So if you'd like to do that, we would love to praise God with you. If you could check that off, put it in the back, you'll get a text from us. We want to be doing this together as a church, as a body of believers, all following God together.

Summer of Psalms: Part 2

Summer of Psalms: Part 2 - The Goodness of God

PSALM 16

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

But we are on week two of our Summer of Psalms series. And this is such a fun series because the Psalms are so special. They are just a really unique type of scripture. And I love that we're able to just kind of jump around and pull out what God has for us in each of these Psalms. Last week, Pastor Lori was our guest speaker, and she talked on Psalm 73 and what it looks like to have the Lord with you when you are in it—for Him to keep your feet steady, to keep you from slipping down that slippery slope, and that regardless of what is going on in other people's lives, you know that He is with you.

Well, today we are going to be in Psalm 16. And interestingly, this psalm was actually written by King David, so it was a different author than Psalm 73, but there are similar themes. And what we as a staff have actually been talking about is that the Psalms have many recurring themes that you will probably hear over and over. Even though you have different speakers, different psalms, and different authors of the psalms, there are recurring themes that we see over and over in the Psalms, like God's faithfulness, His steadfast or covenant love, lament and crying out to God, and then Him responding. These are very common themes in the book of Psalms.

So we're going to dive in to chapter 16. And as I said, it was written by King David, and it was written during a time of trouble. He was facing some hard times. So we're just going to read the whole chapter together as we open. Verse one: "Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord. Apart from you, I have no good thing.' I say of the holy people who are in the land, 'They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.' Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips. Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup. You make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord who counsels me. Even at night, my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful ones see decay. You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

This psalm, David goes back and forth between talking to God and kind of talking to himself, moderating his thoughts for us. So he starts by just crying out to God: "Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge." He's having a really hard time, and he's just like, "God, I need your help. You are my refuge. I'm crying out to you, please keep me safe." But then right in verse two, he starts talking to himself again. And he says, "I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. Apart from you, I have no good thing." So he is reminding himself that he is not the Lord. God is. God is the Lord. And apart from God, David understands that he has no good thing. Now here's the thing: David actually had a lot of good things. He had wealth, power, family, connections, and a whole kingdom that he was running. He even had the favor of the Lord, but he knew that he had no good thing apart from God. Any good thing he did have was only because of God in his life. He still knew, regardless of all the things that he did have, that there was no good thing apart from God. And so that's our foundation. That's our jumping-off point. That's where we are building everything else upon today: the understanding and the truth that apart from God, we have no good thing.

From there, we can start to see some other themes as we look through the rest of the passage. As with most Psalms, we are able to learn more about who God is and then what our response should be to Him. Because the Psalms elicit a response. Really, all of Scripture does, but I feel like the Psalms do it in a unique way. Some Psalms are songs that are meant to be sung. Say that five times fast. Some Psalms are songs that are meant to be sung. Some are prayers that are meant to be prayed. Some are poetry that are meant to be learned, recited, and internalized. But all of it is meant to create change, to elicit behavior change, to have the heart transformed and changed, and that ultimately our heart posture is made right with God. So that's the starting point: that apart from God, we have no good thing. We're going to just take this section by section, so we're going to jump down to verse 4. It says, "Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more. I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips. Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup. You make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance." David knew that God was enough for him. And so David is preaching to himself and reminding us that we are to have a heart of contentment. We are called to have a heart of contentment. He didn't want to run after other gods, and there were many he could have chosen from. But he said in verse 4, "Those who run after them will suffer." There were so many pagan gods in the surrounding nations that there were many to choose from. But David said, "My God is the one true God. Yahweh is the one true God, and He is enough." The libations of blood that David's referring to were some of the pagan practices that they had in their religious services, including human sacrifice. And David said, "That is not the way of God. Those who seek out those practices or those gods—I don't even want to say the names of those gods because they are not true, they are not real. Only my God is."

David knew that God was his portion and his inheritance, as he says in verse five. Last week, Pastor Lori touched on this when she explained that when the Israelites were given their tribal lands, their promised land, it was divided up into tribes and they were given their sections of land for where they were to live. And that was their inheritance that they would pass on to future generations. But the tribe of Levi, who were the priests, did not get their own land. Now they had somewhere to live and sleep and all of that, but they were given the tabernacle and they were given this space to usher the rest of the Israelites into worship, and God said that He would be their inheritance. And David understood this. He understood that that is the case for us as believers, as those who follow Christ. We are not owed anything. God spared us what we actually deserve, which is the punishment and death for our sins. Our portion and our inheritance is the Lord. What grace and mercy is that? That we are spared what we actually deserve, what our inheritance actually should be, and we are given His mercy and given of Himself. David is talking about being content, and I think it's twofold. I think he's talking about actual, this-side-of-heaven contentedness in our world today: being content with the things that we are given, our roles, our stuff, the people in our lives, the things we are given and called to steward. That we are called to live content. But I think the second part is that we are also called to be content with who God is to us. He, God, is our portion and our cup. It's really hard to live content, especially here in America, in the Western world. But He is our portion and our cup.

I love verse six. We're doing Psalm 16 today because I felt like the Lord laid it on my heart, but also He had me here this last winter for a long time. It kept popping up in random places. I'm like, "Okay, Lord, you have my attention. I will park it in Psalm 16 until you tell me otherwise." And I studied it and I worked through it, and I tried to understand what my response should be to it. But I felt like it had such a powerful message for us that I wanted to share that with you. But specifically, verse six just stuck out to me. And if there's one thing you take away for this week, memorize this verse. Actually, I put it on your Connect card for you to check off and commit that you're gonna memorize this verse this week. Because when things come up, when discontentment creeps in, this is a verse that you can call to mind and remember that the boundary lines have fallen for you in pleasant places. But do we actually believe that? Because some of us have experienced some legitimately hard things. So do we believe that the boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places? Like I said, in America or in the Western church in general, it can be even harder, almost harder than in other places to believe this because we are so often not content with what we have. And the world and culture tells us we need more. We can't possibly be happy with the things that we have now. We have to have the better thing. We have to have more. And honestly, sometimes that just looks really fun, right? Like, they have to—I mean, like, that looks real good. But just because it looks good or even sometimes is good doesn't mean it's right for us, because it is outside the boundary lines that the Lord has set for us. Maybe sometimes we don't even want to necessarily leave the boundary. We just want God to push them out a little bit. Just expand them just a little bit. We want more, but just a little bit more.

The boundary lines are good for us, and the Lord says that they have fallen in pleasant places. Now that is not to diminish the hard that we experience this side of heaven. That is real. But because the Lord is our inheritance, we can believe that the boundary lines are in fact in good places. Now, hear me on this: There is a time and a place to ask for more. There's a time and a place for you to have that conversation with God asking Him for more. Maybe for that promotion you're hoping for. Maybe for more children. Maybe for more influence for the kingdom. Whatever it is, there is a time and a place for that. But I can pretty much guarantee you it's not going to happen if you do not believe that the Lord Himself is your inheritance. The boundary lines are pleasant because He is our portion and our cup. He is our inheritance. We're always left to our own devices. We're always going to want more. But because He is our inheritance, we can know that those boundary lines are good. We even have a lot of freedom in those boundary lines. You know, whatever's in here is free game. But sometimes all we can think about is what we're missing out on, what's out there. But He says the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance because it's the Lord. This week I heard a story about a pastor who visited one of the underground churches in another country. The underground church is what we refer to as the church who meets in secret in countries where it is illegal to worship Jesus and to be a Christian. And he said that everyone who was at this service left at different times and came in different directions so they couldn't be followed or found out. And they met in secret. And because they were meeting in secret, they couldn't worship with song out loud. So everyone was handed a piece of paper with the worship lyrics on. And the pastor of their church would just say, "Paragraph one." And they would silently read those lyrics to themselves. And then he would say, "Paragraph two." And they would read the lyrics to themselves. And the pastor that was visiting said, "I have never experienced a more sacred, worshipful time than worshiping with these believers who were literally risking their life." The thing is, they have the same Bible we do. Their Bible in Psalm 16 also says that the boundary lines have fallen for them in pleasant places. So while I do often struggle with discontent, I have to wonder about myself: how dare I? How dare I believe anything except that the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places and that I have a delightful inheritance? Because if these believers in underground churches also know and believe that to be true, then certainly I can believe that too. He is a delightful inheritance.

Moving on to the next section, verse 7. David, again, is preaching to himself. He says, "I will praise the Lord who counsels me. Even at night, my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shaken." I found this verse kind of interesting because often at night I find that my heart does not instruct me well. My mind will often spiral. And I'm sure that is the case for many of you. Either maybe you have a hard time falling asleep, or if you wake up, you have a hard time going back to sleep because your mind just starts going. The anxiety ramps up, the stressors, the to-do lists. So I had to stop and think, how is my heart instructing me here? But David knew that the night or the quiet was a secret place. It was one of those hidden places. It's a time when everything is still and quiet. But the heart, in order for it to instruct us well, we have to be in the Word. We have to know what God says. We have to place our heart and our mind on Him. Hide His Word in our heart, as Psalm 119 says. We have to allow Him to transform or renew our mind, like Romans 12 says, so that at night our heart will instruct us well. Because we've filled our heart with good things. We've filled our heart with His Word. So that's what David is helping us understand: we need to seek the Lord's counsel in the secret place. Now we can hear God anytime and anywhere. He is capable of breaking through the noise. But it's a lot easier if we're quiet and we're still long enough to listen. And we can take advantage of this natural rhythm of night or early morning to hear Him more clearly. I'm learning that nighttime and early morning, like when you first wake up, that time between sleep and wakefulness—I call it like a thin space—where the divider between heaven and earth is just so thin, you can hear the Lord more clearly. Where you're not quite conscious enough for the to-do list and the stressors of the day to kick in, but you're aware enough to hear the voice of the Lord. I recently heard author Adrian Bevere explain why this is so important to take advantage of this time. And he recommends staying off your phone for 30 to 60 minutes of your day because science is showing this. Stay off your phone for 30 to 60 minutes of your day because you are cutting off that thin space the moment you get on a device, the moment you turn on social media or news or text messages. You interrupt that time, that quality thin space time. There've actually been multiple times recently where I've been woken up by a kid or go to the bathroom and the Lord just like drops something in my brain. And I know it's the Lord because it's usually like some sort of correction or conviction, something I would not want to hear. Or maybe it's an answer to a problem I've been trying to solve in my own power. And I know it is Him speaking to me in that quiet place because I'm not distracted. I'm half asleep. But He's able to speak to me more clearly because I'm quiet enough to hear Him. So we must know His Word and we must keep our eyes on Him in order for our hearts to instruct us well. But we also get to take advantage and seek His counsel in the secret place. Protect that time. Maybe for you it's before you go to bed. Maybe it's on a lunch break at work. Whatever that is, get still. Find your secret place. Your time where you can be still and distraction-free enough to hear Him, to listen for His voice.

The final section in this passage starts in verse 9. It says, "Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will rest secure because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful ones see decay. You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand." Verse 9 starts off with the word "therefore," which means everything that came before it informs everything that's coming after it. So we got to pay attention to that. But if we think about what came before this, it requires us to count the cost of following Jesus. We must count the cost because essentially following Jesus requires us to surrender everything outside of the boundary lines. Even the things we love or that feel good, if they are outside those boundary lines that the Lord has set in place, we have to surrender those to Him. And it's good. If you are not yet a follower of Jesus, it's good to count the cost so you know what you're signing up for. And if you have already decided to follow Jesus, it's good to be reminded of what you have committed to. Because let me tell you, sometimes we want to pick those things back up. The things we've already surrendered, we want to grab them back. The sins that we have found freedom from, we want to pick them back up. The habits that maybe aren't sinful, but are not good for us, we want to take them back. We have to count the cost. We have to surrender what is outside of those boundary lines. But the thing is, the cost is worth it. The benefits far outweigh the cost. The benefit of following Jesus is that we get to experience the goodness of God. We get to actually do that in tangible ways in the here and now. It says our heart is glad and our tongue rejoices. If we are constantly comparing ourselves to everyone who is not a believer or we are constantly looking at everything outside of the boundary lines that we can't have, we will not be glad. We will not be rejoicing. But if we live within the freedom that the Lord has given us, our hearts will be glad. It says there is rest for our bodies, our physical bodies. You know how you feel when you're tense or you're anxious and your shoulders are like up to your ears and your stomach is in knots? It says you get rest for your bodies. It says there is eternal life. There is hope of heaven and eternal life.

Verse 10, David writes, "because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay." Now, David is talking about himself here. He's saying that he is the faithful one in this instance. And we all know that David died and was buried in his body. It was decayed. But David knew. Maybe he didn't know all the details yet because Jesus hadn't come. But he knew there was eternal life with God. He understood that. So he had that hope. He knew that that was for him and that was coming. Some translations have, instead of "faithful one," it says "holy one," and it's capitalized. And some scholars believe that David was inadvertently prophesying the coming of Jesus. That He would have His death and resurrection and that His body would not see decay. And that we as believers would follow suit. And that we would get to experience that eternal life as well. Another benefit is that there is the fullness of joy in His presence. Now I believe that will come to fullness and completeness in heaven. But we get to experience that now. We have His presence with us now. We are filled with the Holy Spirit now. So we get to experience the joy of His presence here and now, this side of eternity. And it says, "with eternal pleasures at your right hand." The place to the right of the person of honor was a place of honor. The Bible says that Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven. That is the place of honor. And it says that we get to have pleasures at His right hand. We get to be in the place of honor. One translation says, "pleasures forevermore." That's a long time. Pleasures forevermore because of Him. And we get to experience some of those now, but we also get to look forward to them in eternity. If we are willing to receive His gift, if we are willing to surrender everything outside of those boundary lines, when we acknowledge that the boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places and believe that God is our portion and we seek His counsel in this secret place, then we get to know that these benefits are ours. This is our reality. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. There's no good thing apart from God. And when we know and believe that He is our portion, He is our cup, He is our inheritance, He makes our lot secure. We can say with conviction that the boundary lines have in fact fallen for us in pleasant places and then we can go out and live like it.

We're gonna have a time of prayer. The worship team is gonna play one more song. Pastor Andre and I will be in the back at the prayer table. If you want to have someone pray over you, pray for you, we try to have this as a monthly rhythm where you can come, share your praises, share your prayer requests, we would love to pray with you. Or you can sit in your seat and worship and pray on your own, that's fine too. We just wanna offer that to you as a time set aside specifically for prayer. Let's pray together as we head into this time. Jesus, we thank you for your word. We thank you that we get to learn more about who you are and our response to you. God, help us when we struggle to believe that the boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places. Help us to remember that you are our inheritance and that it is delightful. Thank you for the freedom we have to worship you, for the freedom we have to come together as a church body. You are so good to us. You are with us no matter what we are going through, no matter what we are facing. We thank you that we get to experience the goodness of God right here in the land of the living. We love you, Jesus. In your name, Amen.

Summer of Psalms: Part 1

Summer of Psalms: Part 1 - From Confusion to Clarity

PSALM 73

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

So happy to be here today. When they asked me what Psalm I wanted, you might've thought this was an odd choice, right? When we started reading it, were you like, "Oh no, what is this?" It's really long. It's bizarre. I don't get it. But this is one of my favorite Psalms, and I'm going to tell you why. There are so many great Psalms. I never really had much use for the Psalms when I was younger. I kind of liked the stories of the Old Testament. Then I'd skip through and read the New Testament, the poetry, and all that stuff. I just didn't really have time for it until I got to a really dark season in my life, and nothing else spoke to me. The writings of everyone else—I mean, I'd flip from the Old, I'd flip to the New. I couldn't relate to anything. And then I found the Psalms again, and found that the people who recorded these things had very human emotions, very much like I did. And they said things out loud that I was either ashamed or embarrassed to say out loud, or didn't have words to say out loud, or didn't want to admit I felt. And Psalm 73 is one of those for me. I love it because the psalmist is just gut-level honest; he just cuts to the chase.

So I have a handout that I made for you. If you don't have one, would you slip your hand up? I know the guys will get you one. On the front, I'm going to read these things to you. If you're a fill-in-the-blanker, I'm going to give them all three right now. It's the silent contract. Silent contract. It's a sobering confrontation. And it's a sure conclusion. So contract, confrontation, conclusion. That's how this psalm reads to me, and that's kind of the outline, I would say, of the psalm. And then as we read through, the bullet points are kind of going to be on the inside, the way I see it and the way God shows it to me. So you can follow along with that. All right, here we go.

This psalmist, Asaph, starts out with his main truth. All right. And this verse is his main truth: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart." And we hear that and we're like, yes, God is good. God's good to Israel. God's good to those who are pure in heart. Okay. So he's got agreement, general agreement from his readers on that. And then he goes into, "But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost my foothold." Now this can be much less like a sermon and much more like a Bible study because I want you to think through what he's saying here. What kind of journey are you on if you're worried about your feet slipping and losing your foothold? Where are you? When I think about losing my foothold, I think of being on kind of a steep path or even maybe rock climbing, where you have to watch it like every second and you do not want to slip, not even a little bit, and you certainly don't want to lose your foothold, right? He's telling us this main truth up here that God is good. I almost stopped believing that. And here's why. And I love verse three because he's kind of slipping into like, "Gather round, children. Let me tell you about my story, right?" In this part, he's reflecting back on what happened to him. So verse three, he diagnoses his problem: "I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." I was jealous. I was envious. These wicked people are doing whatever they care to do, and they're doing great, and I'm keeping the rules, and I'm doing terrible, and I'm jealous. I love that he has the guts to admit that, and it's written down in the Bible, like it's going to happen to us. They put it in their songbook so they could sing about it. It's such a universal truth.

So I put in your handout the wicked; these first bullets. These are the first few things that he notices about the wicked. We'll start with verse four. They have no struggles. Their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from common human burdens. They're not plagued by human ills. Don't we think that sometimes? We watch the news. We watch social media. We see people out there who have complete disregard. They have no problems because they can buy their way out of anything. It seems like their lives and our lives are not parallel. They have such advantage. Therefore, pride is their necklace. They clothe themselves with violence. Because they can. They can act like they have it all because they do. They can be violent because who's going to stop them? From their callous hearts come iniquity. Their evil imaginations have no limits. They scoff, speak with malice. With arrogance, they threaten oppression. That bullet point, I just said, they talk tough. They talk down. They speak to hurt others. They use their strength to threaten others. Don't we see this? We see it in our government. We see it in world governments. We see it everywhere that people who have no regard for God are just out there grabbing and doing it with no consequence, and it can rankle us, right? And you would think if someone had a heart like that, if someone was talking like that, people would be like, "Hey, we don't need association." But you know what happens? Instead, they gather others who are just like them, right? Their mouths lay claim to heaven and their tongues take possession of the earth. "I'll go grab whatever I want." Therefore, their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. They say, "How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?" This is what the wicked are like. Always free of care, they go on amassing wealth. Have you ever looked at people and made that judgment? You're pretty quiet, so probably not. Well, I'm a little more sinful than y'all. I'm a little less holy. I'm so sorry to let you know that before you stand, it's a big, fat sinner. And there are all kinds of feelings I have, and there are all kinds of times where I'm just fed up. I am fed up. I am freaked out. I need to put my phone away for 100 years and never look at it again. There are just a lot of times where I go through this very same emotion. And especially this hits me in verse 13: "Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence." You know the way that that reads in The Message? It says, "I've been stupid to play by the rules. What has it gotten me?" You cannot tell me as a Christian you have not thought that from time to time. You have not. You cannot tell me that you haven't thought, "I'm trying to do everything right. I'm trying to be faithful. I'm trying to raise my kids right. I'm trying to do the good things. I'm trying to stop the bad things. I'm trying, God. I'm trying." Verse 14: "And all day long I've been afflicted. Every morning brings new punishment." It's like, if it's not one thing, it's another. This stuff just keeps happening to me. I don't understand it, God. I don't understand it.

That's what the silent contract is all about. This first part of this passage, that's what the silent contract is all about. You know, when we get saved, we give our lives to the Lord. We're so grateful. He really does so much work in us. He forgives us. He justifies us. He makes us stand guiltless before God. He's sanctifying us. He's actually changing us day by day, bit by bit. Our character, he's trying to grow it. He's given us spiritual gifts. He's preparing a place in heaven for us. He's giving us spiritual gifts. He's set us apart for a calling and a purpose. He gives us a reason to get up in the morning. But man, after you're climbing that rock face for a while, you get tired. And you get weak. And you start to look around at where is everybody else and what are they doing? And how come their lives look better than mine? And this is not where I expected to be at this point in my life. I thought by now I would have [blank]. I thought by now I would be somewhere different. I thought by now I'd be married. I never thought I'd be divorced. I never thought I'd have a health issue that was debilitating and it was going to change my life. I didn't realize the economy was going to go crooked. On and on and on. We start looking at our lives and we all of a sudden pull out this contract that we made with God. And we said, "Hey, look, this is the things I've been doing for you. And you owe me." None of us would ever think that we have that contract with God. Like, because I'm doing this, you owe me this. But let me ask you a question. The last time something terrible happened to you or to someone you love, what was one of your first questions? Why? Why? How? How could you allow this? And there's something in us that thinks like, "You're supposed to be protecting me. You're supposed to be... I'm not supposed to go through this. I thought these problems that happen to everyone else... I thought we had a deal. Like I'm trying to be a good person, so you need to be good to me." We have a silent contract with God whether we realize it or not, and it comes out in times of trouble. So now the narrator, there's a question to ask ourselves right there too. I think it's a good time to ask like, is there something that's making me lose my foothold right now in my life? Like, is there something that makes it harder for me to believe that God is good and that he's being good to me? That's a good thing to think about, good thing to answer.

Now, Asaph's going to interrupt his own story with like a little reflection. And he says in verse 15, "If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children." I think what he means by that is this was all going on in my own head. I never said anything to anybody. But this is what I'm dealing with on the inside of my mind. These are the thoughts and questions I'm having on the inside of my mind. And I couldn't even say that kind of stuff out loud because it doesn't sound right. It might not be accepted. People might think, like, what would people think? Right? I think it's so important when we're struggling with a big concept like the goodness of God. Is God good? That's a big question. And if we are struggling with that question, man, we need to get in the Word, and we also need to talk about it with a trusted counselor or friend or pastor. Like, "Here's where I'm struggling. Help me see. Help me see." Okay, now he's back in the story. "When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply." And of course it did. You know what rumination is, right? Where you just kind of your thoughts are in this loop and they just kind of, you only have to start right here and then you know where it's going to go. And then all day long, you're kind of thinking the same old thing. You're just thinking the same old thing. And we're not going to think our way out of this. As human beings, we're not going to think our way out of it. You're still going to have that financial issue. You're still going to have that problem tomorrow if you have a health issue, most likely. You're going to have that relational issue that's been difficult for you. Whatever it is, we can't think our way out of it. So he was very troubled. Verse 17: "Until I entered the sanctuary of God." I had to get in God's very, very presence to get this thing figured out. That's what he's saying here. It wasn't, "And then I went to church and all was well. The end." Don't we kind of treat it like that sometimes? Like, "I'm really having a tough week. I'm really struggling with this issue. I'm really having a problem, but I'll just go to church and get my spirits lifted a little, and then I'll go out and try to fight it all over again." It's great to come to church. I'm glad you're here; you should come to church. All the time. You should come. But coming to church is one thing. Entering God's presence is another. If we come to church with closed hearts, if we even do our devotions at home, if we're even reading the Bible with a closed heart, I don't know about you. I really believe in holy habits. And sometimes my holy habits come back to me. Because I have read a whole portion of Scripture and I shut my book. And if you asked me what I just read, I could not tell you. Because I wasn't doing it to connect with God. I was sort of doing it to check it off my list and move on with my day. Right? Totally different. Totally different approach than the days where I go in and I'm like, "Okay, God, I am poor and needy. I'm going to be searching this thing to find out what you have for me in this reading today. I'm ready for it. Let me know what it is, and I'll think about it." Right? There's a huge difference there. So anyway, "I didn't understand until I entered the sanctuary of God, and then I understood their final destiny." This is where the sober confrontation happens, is in the presence of God. Sometimes we don't want to get in the presence of God because we don't want him to know how ugly we are on the inside. Or that we are doubting him or that we're not the good girl, the good guy that he thinks we are. I don't know if anyone's told you this, but he already knows. It's pretty obvious to him, right? It's pretty obvious to him. So we have to have this sober confrontation.

Now, on the inside, we're going to show how God sees the wicked. We're looking at the outward stuff. We're like, "Yeah, and you went on that great vacation, and you bought that yacht, and you're problem-free, and you grab that business, and you squash this thing, and you're rising in power and in status, and I'm over here suffering and having all these problems." That's kind of how our minds said it is. Now look at how God sees them. "Surely you place them on slippery ground. You cast them down to ruin." All of a sudden, if I shift to an eternal perspective, everything changes. Everything changes. What I think is important changes. What I want for my life changes. What I want for my kids' lives changes. It goes from possessions and position and power to you. I mean, ultimately, God is saying, "You're not the one on slippery ground. It's over here. It's the people who think this is all there is, and they're grabbing all of it while they can." I have news for you. This is all the goodness they're ever going to get. "How suddenly they are destroyed, completely swept away by terrors. They're like a dream when one awakes. When you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies." That means their lives amount to nothing and they disappear like this and be done. Right? Again, now he's going back into narrator mode, these next two verses. After he's realized, like, "What do I want all this for? It's going to burn up." How many of you are old enough to remember when Star Wars, the movie, came out, the first one? So young people over here, sorry, you're probably not born. It was pretty amazing for that time. It still is pretty amazing. But now they're making the prequels, right? They've been making the prequels, the story before the story that we all know. You guys, we're living in the prequel. We're in the prequel of the epic story. This life is just this life. It has a finite beginning. It has a finite ending, and it is done. And whatever you accumulate, whatever power you get, whatever position you get, however comfortable you want to live, however hard you climb that ladder to scratch and claw and get what's yours, it's gone. It's done. In a heartbeat, in a moment, in an instant. When you receive Christ Jesus as your Lord, your real life started at that moment, at that instant. And you have to live through the prequel, but then you get to go live the real story. That is our life. And that is where we fix our eyes. And that's where our hope is found. And that is what the Lord who sees everything looks at. That's how he's looking at the wicked. That's how he's looking at us. He's like, "Think for a second about what I'm giving you. That's going to go far, far beyond this little thing we're experiencing now." So he says, "When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant." He's realizing. He's realizing. I'm sorry, God, I forgot. I forgot. I forgot what you've done for me. I forgot that I was a dead man walking and you brought me to life. I forgot. I forgot that I was headed toward hell, and you reached out and you snatched me out of the fire. I forgot. I forgot how good you've been to me. I forgot the things you've given me. I forgot that you're speaking to me. I forgot that you're leading me. I forgot that we're on this journey together. I started to feel like it was just me. But even then, even when I was senseless and ignorant and acting like a fool, "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand." You ever had a child you had to drag out of Disneyland? I mean, it's that kind of thing. You're like, you've got this screaming child, and you love them with all your heart, even though you sort of... I'm not going to say what you'd like to do, but you want this to stop. But you've got them by the right hand, or you're not going to let them go. And you know, in the ancient world, the right hand is your fighting hand. It's the hand you have your sword in. So if God's got your right hand, he's got the sword in his. So he's the one that's fighting our battles when we're out here acting a fool, embittered, with our hearts grieved.

All right, well, the simple conclusion. Where do I need to keep my focus? What keeps me content despite what I'm going through? We're shifting to the eternal perspective here; that's what's doing it. "You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory." On here, you're always with me. You hold me by my right hand. You're guiding me with your wise words and your personal advice. There is so much in the Scripture. When I was... I could have made this message six hours long. You're welcome that I didn't. Because I had so... there's so many Scriptures to bring in and to show you like, "Oh, here's how Jesus was speaking about what our life is going to look like once... Oh, here's how the disciples... here's what they're like... Oh, here's the whole book of Acts and what was going on with the early church and the trials and tribulations that they went through... Oh, here's Paul's letter from prison encouraging us to fight the good fight and do all this..." Here's all of these things that we have forgotten because we live in such a cushy American world and we want what everybody else has. And if we don't have it, by goodness, right? No, no, no, no, no. Look at how God is good to us. He's always with us. He's holding me by my right hand. He's guiding me with his wise words and advice. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you." That should be circled in our Bibles with a little star and an arrow next to it. God, give me this attitude that you're enough for me. That you're enough for me. That if I lose everything, and I might. I might. And if I do, you're still enough for me. "My flesh and my heart may fail. Yes, it may. First we had a fire, now we have a pickup." All right. My flesh and my heart may fail. You know, I may be back here again next week, honestly. I may be back in this position. I can't always keep, I don't always stay aligned where God wants me to stay aligned. Left to my own devices, the road gets a little slippery, and I can lose my way. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is a strength in my heart. Guess what? He's not going to let me. He's not even going to leave me when I act the fool and accuse him of things that aren't his problem. God is the strength of my heart and he's my portion forever. You know, when they wrote "my portion," do you guys remember when God was giving out land to the Israelites after they crossed into the promised land? Moses is telling the 12 tribes, God said, "You guys get from this river to that mountain range, and you guys get from here to there, and you guys get there to there," and he's going through all the tribes, right? And he gets to the Levites, who are the keepers of the temple and the people who work and do all the temple service, and he said, "You guys don't get any land. I'm your portion." What if that's what God is saying? Can we handle that? Even if we don't get what we think we need and deserve and require? If God says, "You know what? I've settled my heart on this matter. And you're not going to get that. But you are going to get me." Would that be enough for us? Verse 27, we're wrapping up here. He's just reiterating, like, "Okay, you showed me all this stuff. I'm going to boil it down." "Those who are far from you will perish. You're going to destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it's good to be near God. It's good to be near God. I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge." That's where I'm going to run. That's where I'm going to turn. That's what I'm going to trust. And I'm going to tell people about it. I'm going to tell people of your good deeds. For them and for me.

So I just want to run you through these questions again. Just give us a few minutes of quiet to just ask yourselves, what, if anything, is making me or almost about to make me lose my foothold right now? Is there a situation at work that's just so unfair and they're not going to change it? Ever? Is there financial difficulties that just get harder and harder as the months go by? And you're tired of it and you're stretched thin and you're at your wit's end. Is there relational difficulty? What is it? What is making me lose my foothold? What's making me doubt God's goodness? Is there something that is? If there is, you could write your own psalm. And you should. You should have it out with God because he can take it, and when you're honest with him, he's honest with you, and it's a good thing, sometimes a humbling thing, but it's a good thing. Always have that confrontation. I think one of the toughest things is to figure out what works for you to move into the presence of God to get your heart really ready to hear. It's probably not Fox News or CNN; that's just a tip. It's probably not you know those guys at the office or on the job who always have terrible things to say. It's probably not there. But where is it for you? Can you get away? Can you go to a park? Can you sit and look at a sunset for a minute? Can you talk to God and can you just say like, "I need to know you're here. I need it. I need to know. Help me in the next few days to find you wherever you are. I'll be looking. I'll be looking." And then the sure conclusion: where must I keep my focus? Man, if we don't keep our focus on eternity and what's coming, we're going to be blown about like waves in the wind. We're going to have so many ups and so many downs. We're going to feel like we're in a hurricane that we can't get out of. And I'm not saying don't know what's going on in the world. I'm not saying disregard all the problems in your life. You just suck it up and think about eternity. I'm not saying that. You have to figure stuff out. I'm saying, go to the Lord about it. Seek his face. He loves you. He's good to you. He has good plans for you. He's got your hand, holding you through whatever you're going through. He's not letting go. He'll never let go. I wrote down a few of my favorite scriptures. These were all the ones I was going to print and try to insert in here somewhere. If you need help with this this week, look some of these up. Just look some of these scriptures up and give them a read.

Let's bow our heads. Lord, surely you are good. Surely you are good to Israel. Surely you're good to your people. Surely you've been good to us. God, we can get so caught up in our problems that we lose complete perspective. And it doesn't take much. Doesn't take much time connecting with you to start to see our perspective shift a little bit, and see that we have to make the most of this short time you've given us to become more and more like Jesus, because we're going to enjoy you forever. We're going to be with you. We're going to have everything we need. No more problems, no more tears, no more struggles. But until that time, God, we've got to get through this. And this can be really hard. So I just ask that you would help us remember that you're here, that you're present, that you're holding us, that you're encouraging us, that you're leading us, that you're for us, not against us. Help us not to judge ourselves too harshly. We are fallible, frail human beings. But help us cling to our faith, and help us to grow more and more like you. All God's people said, Amen.

Summer Playlist: Part 11

Summer Playlist: Part 11

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I want to introduce Phil Stevenson who's going to be wrapping up our series this morning. At this time our ushers are going to be coming around giving you a card. Phil, thanks for being here.

You're welcome. It's always a privilege and I feel very honored when your pastoral team invites me to share with you. When you hand out those cards, if you can make sure I get one, I'd appreciate that. In fact, I'll walk over here and just grab one. Thank you very much. We'll refer to this later, but I just want you to have it now. Several years ago, okay, a lot of years ago, I was a youth pastor down in Southern California. This was back in the day when in youth ministry you did a lot of competitions to try to get kids to come to church and the whole thing. So we did this big competition and we had teams, we had co-captains for those, and the award or the result if your team won was the two captains got to go on a hot air balloon ride. I had a friend who was a balloonist. This is back in the day when you used to go to North County, San Diego, an area called Temecula. If you went there now, you would say there's no way they flew balloons around here. You would have been right because there were lots and lots of housing. There is now, but then there was a lot of open field. So we got there early in the morning. Had to go early in the morning. So the basket wasn't that big, so there was enough room for my friend Paul, the balloonist, and one other person. So what he did with the kids is they did what they call box ballooning, I guess. And what it was was fascinating. They understood the currents and so they would get in the balloon, they'd go up to a certain height, and the current would take them over. I think they would take them north. And they'd go for a certain distance that way, then they'd let some air out, whatever they do, and they'd bring it down to another area, and then the balloon would come over to the way where we were waiting, and he would set that balloon right down where we were at. Interesting. So that's what the two kids got to do. And so when the second kid came back, Paul looked at me and he said, "Now, do you want to go on a real balloon ride?" And I said, "Absolutely." So no more of this box stuff. So we went up, and of course they had a car. I remember it was an El Camino. Is that the kind of car that looked like a truck when it was a car? Yeah, El Camino. And they had to track us. They had to follow us. So we went up and he said, "First, we're going to do what's called skimming." He said, "What that is is that we're going to go and try to stay" -- that word "try" was a little iffy at that time -- "but try to stay 10 to 15 feet above whatever the terrain is." So there were some rolling hills over those. Trees would come up, you'd pick that thing up, you'd go over the trees, and we would keep going. So we did that for quite a while. And then at some point, of course, we just sat down. He brought the balloon down. I don't know where. We were in the middle of nowhere. It was just crazy. But it was so fun.

So what I'm saying is that what we're going to do this morning, we're going to take a look at Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 17. If you have a Bible app with you or on your phone you have a Bible or it will be on the screen, I'm going to be using a new living translation. And what we're going to do in the first 15 verses, we're going to kind of do a flyover. We're going to skim over that to get ready to go into the last two verses, 16 and 17, and there we will set down and spend a little bit of time there. So if you have your Bibles or you see right there, first of all, I want us to know this. The big idea of Colossians 3, 1 through 17 is that we have a new identity in Christ. We have a new identity in Christ that we need to live that identity out. When we gather in community like this, we need to live that identity out. We go out into the world where in reality we spend most of our time in our work, in our school, in our playtime, our recreation, that kind of thing. We also need to live that identity out daily.

Now, verses 1 through 4, Paul talks to us about that if we're going to live out this new identity, we need to change our focus. He says in those first four verses, he says "since." Now, what that implies is that it's happened pretty soon, not when this happens. He says, "since right now you have been raised to new life with Christ." Then he says, "set your sights or change your focus from what it's been to something else." He goes on and talks about on the realities of heaven where Christ sits in the place of the honor of God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth, for you died to this life and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. Now, when he uses that phrase, "hidden with Christ," he's referring to our security in Christ. He's referring to our identity that is in Christ. So he says, "if you want to live out this identity, change your focus." Focus on your identity in Christ. Focus on your security in Christ. Walk closely with him. And then he says, "change what matters." Verses 5 through 11, he says, "first of all," he says, "so put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you." Put that stuff to death, he says. Be done with that because you have a new area that matters more than that. So that's where you need to be living. He says, "have nothing to do with them." The old you, he says in verse 7, the old you, in other words, the things that used to be, you do not do those things any longer, but now is the time. The new you, put your new nature on, verse 10. That no longer matters what you were before. What matters is what Christ is doing in you as he lives in you and through you.

Now, right at the hill here, actually buried behind safe credit union, there is a, I know it's not really a fitness gym per se, but it's called plyometrics. And I got involved in this exercise method a year in September. And I got involved in it through my oldest grandson who plays football and he got recommended to that, so I took him on his first day, watched what they were doing and I said, "I think I'll give that a go." So I've been giving that a go for almost a year and here's what happens. Dave, who's the coach, drives me nuts. So we'll be doing some things and all of a sudden he'll say to me, "Phil, I want you," and he'll give me a certain amount of reps to do or a certain weight to use. And then I always say, "well, you know, Dave, the last time I did this," and I give him a lower weight and a lower number of reps. And then Dave says, "Oh, yeah, but that's the old Phil. This is the new Phil." And I said, "Well, a lot of times I just feel like the old Phil. If it's okay with you, I like to do this." And he never lets me do that.

But that's what we're talking about here. We have an old us and then we have a new us. And Paul is telling us that old stuff, that's gone. Don't live in that any longer. Be the new you that Jesus has formed and is making you into. Then he comes back and he talks about having to change your clothes. And he talks about the fact that when he talks about clothing, he's suggesting it's putting on our new identity. It's an intentional action. Usually when we put on our clothes or change our clothes, we do it intentionally. And he talks about what we should clothe ourselves with in verse 12. And then he tells us more about verse 13 and 14, how to clothe ourselves. I'm going to tell you a story. You're going to say, "That is not right." And I'm going to say, "It is and it's sick." I'm going to tell you. So again, before we had kids, our kids are all in their 40s, got grandkids, three teenagers. But before we had any of that, I had this buddy, and he had a new baby in his home. And his wife did the first trip away from home, like shopping or whatever, not like a long trip, but for a big chunk of the day, and left him in charge of their infant baby. And he was telling me this. He said, "Of course, what happens when you have an infant, sooner or later they poop." And they just poop. And he didn't want to change the diaper. You know what he did? He put a new diaper over the old diaper. "Thank you, yes." I said, "You're kidding me." He said, "No." He said, "Then they pooped again and I put another diaper." So he had his wife come home, and this baby's got like five diapers on her. And she said, "What are you doing?" And he tried to explain to her. By the way, that did not go over well. So we talk about having new clothing on.

We're not talking about taking new stuff and putting on the old stuff. It's disrobing, taking off the old clothes, and putting on new. When Christ rules in our hearts, we are at peace and thankful. It says in verse 15, "And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your heart." Now, Burger King--I don't go to Burger-- I don't go to Burger King very often, but they got this new little tagline. Maybe you've seen it on advertisement. Talk about Burger King, what they have, and they say, "You rule!" That's their thing. My oldest son was telling me about this before I ever heard an advertisement. He said, "You know that Burger King has a new tagline?" I said, "No." He said, "You rule." It's supposed to be like the response to Chick-fil-A. You go to Chick-fil-A, and you ask them for something, and they say, "My pleasure. My pleasure." And they do it for you. Evidently, I should go just to see if this happens. If you go to Burger King and you ask for something, they're supposed to say, "You rule." Now, wouldn't that be fun? Give you a little crown, you realize you rule? Well, you know, you and I, we may rule if we go to Burger King, but Christ rules in us. Christ rules in us, and we need to know that He's in charge of our life. So that's the flyover. We kind of skimmed over those first 15 verses to talk about our new identity in Christ and what that means for us.

Now we're going to just kind of set down, if you please, in verses 16 and 17. And take a look at this, because the name of the series is, I think, is--it hits? What? Ah, Summer Plays. Okay, good. And we're going to talk a little bit about that and how it applies to us. We're going to talk about inside out Christianity. And the first part is verse 15. It talks about the inside part of us as believers of Christ. What does it mean to come together, worship together, celebrate God together? And as we do that, what does that-- what should that do? Prepare us to live outside. As I already mentioned in the beginning of my sharing is that we actually spend more time not here than here. So as we're here, we need to be preparing for out there. And when we're out there, we begin to understand the need for us to gather together on a consistent, regular basis. And so we're going to take a look, first of all, about the inside part of it. Verse 16, it says, "Let the message about Christ in all of the richness fill your hearts. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts." Now, when Paul writes this phrase, "in all its richness," he's talking about the abundance, the depth, and the generosity of Christ. The gospel ought to saturate every aspect of our life, not just our church life, not just our community of faith as believers, but all of our life.

I have a friend, I've just gotten to know him the last, I'm going to say six months. His name's Roger. And I like Roger because he's older than me. That's kind of a commodity now for me, people older. He's in his mid-80s, so he's a lot older than me, frankly. But I love being around Roger because he is an encourager. He has got energy. He has the kind of appearance and energy that I hope tomorrow I'll have. But definitely when I'm in my mid-80s. And so we started this thing. You know, when you're younger, you might get to know somebody and you find out you have a common interest. And so you might go do that. Oh, we find out, oh, we like racquet ball. Go play racquet ball. Oh, we like to run. You go run. There's something like that. Or like cars. We go to car shows. You know what Roger and I have found that we like? Donuts. So we go get donuts together. And so when we were out -- actually, we went out this last week. Thursday we went to a donut shop out in Lincoln. And over there I said to Roger -- and I think some of you know this. I think I might have shared a little bit about this before here. I said, you know, Roger, when I was in college, one of my many jobs was to make donuts. I said, I was a donut maker. He said, really? And I said, absolutely. And I said, here's what's interesting. The guy who taught me how to make donuts was Vietnamese. And he did not have a lot of English skills, except for he knew two English words very, very well. And here's what they were. Not good. That was his primary English. And so I learned from him how to make donuts through negative reinforcement. He would show me something, and then I would try to do it, and he would either go -- or more often than not in the beginning -- not good. So I went through this whole process. So finally I got my first day making donuts. Now, this donut shop was not a 24-hour donut shop, and so I would go in 10 o'clock at night, make donuts all night, 5 o'clock in the morning, open the shop, handle any customers that might come in for that first hour while I'm cleaning up. 6 a.m., the morning lady would come in to deal with the rest of the morning. So this is my first evening alone making donuts. And somewhere in the not good conversations, I never picked up that when you make raised donuts, of course you have to put them in a heater area, it would kind of warm the -- so they'd rise a little bit. But if you leave them in there too long, I'm going to tell you what happens. They become a sponge. And therefore when you drop them in the grease to deep fry them, they just -- my first shift making donuts by myself was not good. These donuts were completely saturated with grease. They were terrible. I'm surprised I kept my job. But the analogy for that is that we, as followers of Jesus, need to be saturated. We need to absorb the gospel into our life so it impacts all of who we are and all of what we do. That's what we need to do.

And then we go on and let's break this down a little bit. He says to teach. That's not only understanding and hearing about truth, but it's instruction in truth. And then he says there are times that we need to have counsel and admonish one another, which is correction and exhortation when someone strays. Sometimes when, as followers of Christ in the community of faith, there are times that we have to confront one another in love about some of the lifestyle things that you might have seen or been aware of and help each other and encourage each other in those areas. Then he says with all wisdom. That's taking the idea of truth and applying it to our lives with grace and discernment. And then they talk about Psalms. A lot of the commentators will say this probably refers to the Hebrew Psalter, of course. And so I would put that in our parlance. That would be the traditional music of the church. So there needs to be some of that in the worship. And then they talk about hymns. And again, commentators would say this could be early Christian composition that's focused on Christ, person, and work. Or what we might say today, the contemporary worship. So you have traditional worship, contemporary worship. And then they talk about spiritual songs that suggest spontaneous praise and worship that begins to bubble up. So the up and coming things that we see, just trying to apply it to our day. So we have traditional music, contemporary music. We have new, new kind of music that's starting to come on the scene. And the thing is, worship should never be for us as entertainment, although it should be done with excellence. And that it should be word-centered, spirit-led response to the truth of God's gospel in our life. Singing as we sing together is not necessarily designed to elicit an overly emotional response, although it can result in emotions. Every time I hear the song, he has been faithful. I've sung that song for years. And usually I've just sung that song. But I've got to tell you, most cases now, because I'm in my 70th year, as I sing that song, I am reminded of the faithfulness of God throughout my life. It's almost like a near-death experience. You know, they say, "It's not even getting near-death yet." Your life flashes before your eyes. For me, when I sing that song, sometimes my history flashes before my eyes quickly, and God reminds me of his faithfulness throughout my life. It's incredible. All that he talks about there, hymns, psalms, spirit-led worship, is designed to have the community of Christ become a singing, worshiping, learning, loving family. I heard this pastor who pastors a church in the Scottsdale area. His name is Mark Driscoll. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. I don't agree with him on all things. But he said a statement that I think is wonderful. He says, "If anybody comes to their church and says, 'I don't like your worship,' and he's aware of it and he's able to talk to them, he simply says, 'That's okay, because we're not worshiping you.’"

And here's what I know about worship. All of us have preference, don't we? Some people love the hymns, older songs. Some people love contemporary music. And some people love a certain format and style of worship. We all have our preferences. But here's the thing. If you're in the celebrating of God, if you're together as a faith community, and on that particular Sunday, your preferences aren't being met. Here's what I would say to you. Your question should not be, "Why are we not doing fill in the blank?" Instead, the only question you should be asking is this glorifying God. And it may not be in your area of preference, but if it's glorifying God, you should participate and be with that. That's the inside stuff. And that inside stuff begins to, or hopefully should flow into the outside part of our life.

Inside, outside Christianity. And then they come back in the same passage in verse 17. It says, and I love this, "And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father." And whatever, that's pretty wide girth, isn't it? "And whatever you do or say." Paul is breaking down sometimes the self-imposed barriers that you and I put up. The barrier between the sacred and the secular. We might say it that way. The church and the world. And Paul says, "No, that's gone. And whatever you do, whatever you say, do it all for the glory of God." When we say whatever, we live our life by His authority in alignment with His character. And we give, as a result of that, what we begin to do, we give thanks for all things. We give thanks for all things. We learn to live a grateful lifestyle. It says in Psalm 32:8, these words. The Lord says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you." Galatians 5:25. "Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives." See, the outside part of our Christianity, it's living in the whatever. Whatever we do, whatever we say, we do it all for the glory of God. And His Spirit will guide us in what that looks like. He will watch over us and teach us our pathway as we go forward. You know, in Ephesians 2:8-10, we begin to understand that whether it's our beginning point of our relationship with God, our walking point with our relationship with God, that sooner or later we understand it's all by grace. Ephesians 2:8-10. "God saved you by His grace when you believed." And you can't take credit for this. It's a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. Verse 10, "For we are God's masterpiece." He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago. It's by grace we have been saved. It's by grace we have entered into a relationship with God. It is by grace we live out that relationship with God. Grace cannot be earned. It cannot be repaid. The response to grace is to live a life of thankful obedience. That's what the response to grace is. Not how can I earn it, not how I can repay it fully to God, but can I live a life of thankful obedience to God, the grace of God. And I can't remember if we'll have these up on the screen or not, but I have a couple things about things to ponder or think about as you go into this week. How can I cultivate daily thankfulness to God for His grace? What can you do? What can I do this week to cultivate this thankfulness? How can I honor Jesus by my actions in words this week? What needs to change in my habits so my life better reflects His name?

Now, that card that was handed out just before I came up here, it's a prayer that was written by Susan Wesley. Susan Wesley was the mom of John Wesley. John Wesley was not the founder of the Methodist Church, but he was instrumental in the Methodist Church coming to light back in the day. This church, Spring Valley Church, is part of that history of the Methodist Church/Wesleyan Church. And what I have in this prayer, I want you to have this card, and I want to encourage you, actually I want to challenge you, that this next week you will put this someplace where you will literally see it every day. It may be someplace where you go to spend the time quietly reading Scripture. It may be just in your car because you're in your car regularly early in the morning on your way someplace. Maybe in the refrigerator. Maybe wherever you put it so you'll see it every day, and then I want you to not just see it. Ideally it can be done in the morning. It doesn't make any difference. Maybe at lunchtime, maybe in the evening, but ideally in the morning, that you will simply read this prayer. And as I wrap up, I want to take this prayer, and I'm going to frankly read it, but I'm going to make it more generalized and just specifically so you'll just take a moment and just pause, be quiet. “Help us, Lord, to remember that religion has to be confined to the church or closet, nor is exercise only in prayer and meditation, but that everywhere we are in Your presence. So make our every word and action have a moral content. May all the happenings of our life prove useful and beneficial to me. May all the things instructed us and afford us an opportunity of exercising some virtue and daily leaning and growing toward Your likeness." Amen.

Summer Playlist: Part 10

Summer Playlist: Part 10

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I am really excited today to jump in and talk through the very first song that was ever recorded in the Bible. This is pretty cool. And this was one that's kind of been on my heart this whole time in this series. And God led me other places. And then this week I was like, "Hey God, how about, how about can I do this one?" And he's like, "Yes, you may do this one." And so we're going to jump into the book of Exodus this morning. But I got a question for you. When you think of God, and I want to just audible response here. When you think of God, what do you imagine? Or how, how might you describe Him? What would be a word that you would use to describe Him? What was that? Glorious. That's awesome. That's good. That's good. What else? Powerful. What was that? An infinite. Yes. Everywhere. Always. Forever and ever. What was that? Loving. That's a good one. Any other words you might, maybe something, maybe personal to you. What was that? Genius. Yeah. Savior. Good one. There we go. Savior.

Have you ever thought about God as your warrior? Have you ever thought about God as a warrior-like figure with His warrior-like power? Well, we're going to come this morning to Exodus chapter 15. And before this, I'll give you a little recap, really short recap of what has happened. The Israelite people for so many generations have been enslaved in Egypt under Pharaoh's reign. And he has kept them oppressed. He's abused them. He's used them to build everything that he wants in his mighty name. They are being killed. They're being just absolutely destroyed as a nation. And God raises up a leader by the name of Moses. And he calls Moses, who actually grew up in Pharaoh's house through a whole other miracle, if you want to read about. And he calls up Moses to come in and to free his people, God's chosen people, from the power and the reign of Pharaoh. And Moses comes in and begins to have a series of 10 different plagues. There's locusts. The Nile River turns to blood. The livestock died. Just absolute chaos over these 10 plagues. And Pharaoh's like, "I'm not going to let him go." And Moses says, "Okay, here comes another plague. If you won't let God's people go, he's going to send another plague." And Moses finally gives up and he said, "Fine. Take you, the Israelite people, just get out of town. I'm sick and tired of all of this stuff happening that's centered around God being your God, being angry at me. Fine. Just go." So begins this journey of all of these millions of Israelites traveling east out of Egypt. And after a while of travel, Pharaoh goes, "It's too quiet around here. I don't got anybody to be building all my temples and pyramids and doing everything that like, I don't want to have to lift a finger. I need to go get those people." And so Moses sends his entire, or sorry, Pharaoh sends his entire army after Moses. It says in Scripture, he sent 600 of the best chariots and all the other chariots and every single person who was in the army, Pharaoh sends after Moses. And by this time, the people of Israel have kind of gathered along the Red Sea. And God has led them by day, by a cloud and a pier of fire by night. It's been this amazing moment for the, that God's deliverance. And then all of a sudden they realized, here comes Pharaoh's army. And they're kind of pinned in at this place with their heels on the waters with no way to escape, no place to go, and they start freaking out. They're crying out, they're screaming, they're yelling at Moses, "How could you lead us out here in the desert just to die? I wish I would have died in Egypt."

And God calls Moses. He says, "Okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to split this Red Sea in half." And Moses is like, "Are you kidding me right now?" God's like, "Yeah. I'm going to split the sea and you and all of my people are going to walk on dry ground and cross the sea." Moses is like, "There ain't no way, dude. Bro, this isn't happening." God goes, "Yeah, watch." God splits the sea. Israelite people walk through on dry ground. Can you imagine? You're walking through and you're just like this wall of water. Like the original walk through aquarium is like right here that they're experiencing. Dry ground, they're not getting stuck in the mud. Just God makes this miracle and then they get to the other side, but then here comes Pharaoh's army. Keep saying that. Pharaoh's army. And they're like, "Sweet. Thanks, dude." And they start churning through and all of a sudden the dry ground ain't no dry no more. The chariots start getting stuck. Men start falling down. And as the Israelites make it through, God closes the water in on Pharaoh's army. Every single man in Pharaoh's army drowns in the Red Sea before the eyes of the Israelite people. Can you picture that? You're standing there on the side, the other side of the Red Sea, where you just came through and Pharaoh's army just disappears. And the Israelite people begin to realize who God is. In that moment, they realize what God has done for them on the banks of the Red Sea. A miraculous moment has happened right before their own eyes.

And then we come to this first song of Moses and the Israelite people here in Exodus chapter 15. The song itself is divided up into three sections. The first of which rejoices in who God is. And the second part goes into rejoicing in what God does for his foes. And then it finishes with jubilant celebration talking about what God does for his friends. The song of Moses reveals that God is a warrior who fights for his people and demonstrates his unmatched power, his justice, and his salvation. And calls for his people to respond in worship and to continue to trust him. This praise recorded here is just a beautiful picture. As the spirit of inspiration records this so happy song with elaborate care.

Before we jump in, would you pray with me one more time? Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, thank you for our worship and praise that we already had. God, as we learn about the praise and worship that happened the first recorded in the Bible. God may our hearts join in unison and praise with your Israelite people. God, we thank you for the miraculous work that you did thousands of years ago. And that God, we too get to share in that same miracle today. And you saving our lives when all hope seemed to be lost. We love you, Jesus. Amen.

It says in Exodus 15, starting in verse 1, it says, "Then Moses and the Israelites sang the song to the Lord. I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my defense. He has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him. My Father is God, and I will extol him. The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is his name. Pharaohs chariots in his army he has hurled into the sea. The best of Pharaohs officers he has drowned in the Red Sea. The deep waters have covered them. They sink to the depths like a stone.”

The Israelite people are celebrating with everything that they have for the victory that they had just received at the hand of God Almighty. The power of God's victory over the Egyptian army and the sea showcases his sovereignty, his strength in the day of battle and song and victory. In the ancient world, the sea symbolized chaos. The sea was untamed. The sea was wild. There was nothing that could control it, and anything that was on it or in it just fell to the will of the waves. Tossed to and fro. Nothing could control it. Nothing could have power over the sea. And yet God. And yet God parted the waters for Israel's salvation, and he used it to destroy Egypt. It's pretty impressive. That one singular moment, God changes the world's power in a moment. He is the God of our fathers and our own. The mighty champion of his people. This reminds me of the story that we would read just a few books later in 1 Samuel. Of a boy that would show up and face a Philistine giant. The Israelite people at that point were in battle against the Philistines, and the Philistines had this Goliath dude. Over nine feet tall, just a massive human being. And every day he would come out and he would taunt the Israelite army knowing that there was no chance that the Israelites were ever going to defeat him. And this kid, this boy by the name of David shows up. And God brings him onto the scene. And he, by the leading of God, say, "I am sending you out to defeat this giant." So David goes, he grabs a handful of small stones. He is a marksman when it comes to a slingshot. And he comes out and he says this to, "I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty." David whips his sling. God guides the stone. And he kills this giant. Chaos ensues. David cuts the head off of the giant. The Philistines go fleeing to the hills for their own lives. Knowing that all they had was this bro. And God just knocked him down like nothing. Pharaoh's best officers and warriors and fighters went after the Israelite people. And yet God goes. And they're gone. There's no match for our God. And this song sung by God's people reflects of this power of God's triumph. And reassures us that in our chaotic and threatening circumstances, that we can claim His strength as our own in the battles that you face. So church, today, claim the power of God in your life. Be reminded that when you might be facing the biggest battle of your life, your heels may be back against the wall. You might be stuck against the waters that are trying to take you down. I don't know what you're facing today or what you will face this afternoon or tomorrow or the day after that. But know that the power of God's triumph leads you to a declaration of His unique greatness.

Continue on. Verse 6. “Your right hand, Lord, was majestic in power. Your right hand, Lord, shattered the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you threw down those who opposed you. You unleashed your burning anger. It consumed them like stubble. In the blast of your nostrils…" That is a sweet line right there. “In the blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up. Surging waters stood like a wall. The deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy boasted, "Ha ha ha! I will pursue! I will overtake them. I'll divide their spoils. I will gorge them. I will draw them. My sword and my hand will destroy them. But you blew your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders. You stretch out your right hand, and the earth swallows your enemies.”

The power of God's unparalleled strength and majesty distinguishes him as salvation each and every single time, always and forever. And all the while, his foes are covered by the engulfing waters of destruction. The power of God's majesty for all to see. Everybody standing on the shore thinking, "I just made it through the water just to die on the other side of this sea." And God performs a miracle. This word or this phrase, "Yahweh is a man of war," emphasizes God's warrior-like power. His right hand shatters the enemy. His majesty is unmatched. All human efforts that oppose or resist God are ultimately futile. It highlights this overwhelming power and sovereignty of God. Think of another story from the Old Testament. This picture Elijah on Mount Carmel. He's standing against 450 prophets of Baal and first kings. He's remembering back to this moment for 10 generations. His great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents have passed down this story, this moment of God allowing them to cross the Red Sea and to deliver them from the hand of Pharaoh. And this nation of Israel is watching Elijah, and the King Ahab is looking at Elijah, who has challenged this false god Baal. And in these false prophets, they begin to shout, and they're dancing, and they're cutting themselves. They're trying to call for Baal to bring down fire from heaven and to light this altar of sacrifice on fire. And they're screaming, and they're shouting, and nothing is happening. And Elijah, when they finally get exhausted and fall over, it's Elijah's turn. He comes up, and I don't know if you know, but water isn't something you put on something you're about to try to catch on fire. And Elijah, by the direction of God, pours water all over the wood and the altar and everything. And in his unwavering faith, he prayed. And suddenly, fire from heaven came down, lit the wood, the wet wood, lit the sacrifice, burned the altar, and took out all the other water that was on the ground surrounding that. And the people fell down before God and worshiped, knowing that everything that they could have done in their perfect world with Baal had just been outshined by God Almighty. The people fell on their faces, these prophets of Baal, changed their tune. They realized, "Who's God?" And proclaimed, "The Lord, He is God." Baal's prophets were defeated, just as Egypt's army was swept away, providing that no one can stand against God's majesty. Church, trust in the power of God's majesty over your own strength. Sometimes we like to think that we got it all figured out, right? Right? No, I'm the only guy in the room who thinks we got it all figured out. No? We come up with these plans. We come up with these agendas. Five-year, 10-year, 12-year, 15, 20, 30-year plans. You got it all figured out. Trust in the power of God's majesty over your own strength. Recognize God's salvation in your life. And this foundational truth that will always shape how we respond in worship and how we live our lives in confidence of God's child. The power of God's majesty not only defeats enemies, but also secures His people's future.

Keep reading in verse 19, or excuse me, verse 13. "In your unfailing love, you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength, you will guide them to your holy dwelling. The nations will hear and tremble. Anguish will grip the people of Philistia. The chiefs of Edom, they will be terrified. The leaders of Moab, they will be seized with trembling. The people of Canaan will melt away. Terror and dread will fall on them. By the power of your arm, they will be as still as stone until your people pass by, Lord, until the people you have brought pass by. You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance, the place, Lord, you have made for your dwelling. The sanctuary, Lord, your hands established. The Lord reigns forever and ever.”

The power of God's warrior-like strength leads His people to safety. This wasn't a thing where it just happened and then God said, "Peace out, guys. Enjoy the other side of the Red Sea." No. This was the beginning of a journey. God was taking His people to what we call or know as the promised land or the land of Canaan. God was delivering them out of Egypt to take them to their home He had planned for them, guiding them, establishing them. God's steadfast love leads forth the people He has redeemed, guiding them in His strength to His holy abode. See, His victory causes other nations to tremble. Did you guys catch that in there? And that His reign is forever and ever. God had a place and a purpose for His people. They weren't to remain in Egypt. They weren't to remain under the slavery of Pharaoh. They weren't to remain on one side of the Red Sea. They weren't to remain on the other side of the Red Sea. They weren't to remain on the other side of the Red Sea. God had a plan and a purpose for them.

This journey to the promised land, I think, is awesome that it's kind of bracketed by crossing water. At that moment when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, little did they know that about 40 years later they would have to cross the Jordan River as well to enter into the land of Canaan. And after their journey, they came to this place where the Jordan River was at flood stage. There's no way you could pass it. There's no way you could go around it. They had to go through it. The enemies against them were coming after them, just like Pharaoh coming after them. And Joshua, who had walked through the Red Sea himself, was leading the Israelite people at the edge of the Jordan River. And the priests were at front, and the tabernacle, and the Ark of the Covenant was right at the front of the procession. And God told Joshua, the priests have to get into the water. And I can imagine Joshua going, "Hey God, could you just do like the whole like part of the Red Sea that we did with Moses? Can we do that one again? You mean my guys carrying the Ark of the Covenant have to get into the raging waters?" And God goes, "Yeah, that's how it's going to happen this time." Joshua goes, "Okay, you've never failed me. I trust you, God." And they step into the waters, and the waters part in dry ground, just like God did with Moses and the Israelite people years before. And as they crossed through the Jordan River, the Israelite people stepped into the land of Canaan, the promised land that God said, "This will be your home." I find it amazing that God shows up in such powerful ways when we are at our wits end. Right? I think there's something about being at the end of our rope that allows God to shine through even more. Right? Because if we're not there, then who can take credit? Right? We can take credit. We can say, "Oh yeah, God, you know, I was running out of some time, but you know, I still had that last plan. I had that last idea in my back pocket." But God sometimes leads us to a place where we ain't got nothing left. And He goes, "Watch me now." He says, "Watch what I'm going to do." I want to challenge you today that the same God who brought the Hebrew people out of their slavery in Egypt, brought them through the Red Sea, brought them through 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, brought them through the flooded Jordan River into the land of Canaan, is the same God that we serve today. Okay, I don't think everybody heard that. Let me say it one more time. The same God who brought the Hebrew people out of their Egypt and brought them into the promised land of Canaan is the same God that we serve today. Come on. Let's go. I love it. That's it. So I want to say, whatever you might be facing in your life right now, it's probably not a Red Sea. It's probably not a flooded Jordan River. I don't know. Maybe it is. But I know that I, the God that I serve, the God that cares for me, the God that loves me, has a promise to pull me through. It might not show up the way that you think it's going to show up, right? Joshua wanted the Red Sea parting of the Jordan River. And God said, "No, I'm gonna put a little twist on it. I'm gonna do water part in version 2.0 for you." But you can trust in that power, in His guidance, when we face uncertain times because He is a faithful God. Amen? He is a faithful God. And this power of the God's guidance calls us to respond with an unfiltered, unified worship and celebration. That's what the people did.

It says in verse 19, "Pharaoh's horses, chariots, and horses went into the sea. The Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them. But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron's sister, took a tremble in her hand, a tambourine. And all the women followed her, and the tremble and the dancing of Miriam, saying to them, 'Sing to the Lord, for He has highly exalted both horse and driver. He has hurled into the sea.'" They have an impromptu worship service break out on the banks of the Red Sea right after God performs His miracle. This is the only proper and true response when God moves in our lives. It should let out praise from our hearts. We should shout with celebration. We should worship our true God, both personally and corporately. It's not a coincidence that we gather once a week. We gather to celebrate. We gather to praise God for what He has done in our previous week. We gather to encourage one another for the raging waters that are coming for us this coming week to look back and to remember what God has done through our lives, through our hearts, time and time again so that we can face those raging waters that He is going to guide us through tomorrow. Amen? The celebration shows the importance of communal worship in response to God's victories. Miriam leads the people in this song recorded here in Scripture, the very first worship song recorded in Scripture. And we, too, in 2025, get to celebrate and worship with that very same song. I don't know how the song goes. Nobody has any music to it. You could probably write something yourself, come up with a melody line and some chorus.

But these milestone moments are times that we celebrate what God has done. In the Old Testament, you might read as you read through these times where people would have a milestone moment and they would build an altar to God, wherever it was. They would stack stones and they would create something to signify that something happened here. And I think it's twofold. I think it's one, for that person who would ever walk by again, they would see that stack of stones and they remember, "God did something here in my life." But two, it would also be a witness to others that as they would pass by, they would say, "God did something here. I may not know what it was, but God did something right here." A milestone moment, a milestone marker to show the world that God had moved. I remember back the times in my life growing up, maybe it was youth camp, maybe it was a youth conference. I remember times in college where there was hundreds of people gathered together, sometimes thousands, and we would break out in worship. And sometimes all the instruments in the band would just stop and you would just hear these voices being lifted up in praise to God. These incredible milestone markers in my life to remind me of the times when I feel all alone by myself and lost. God goes, "Remember that time? Remember that milestone where you stood with 2,000 other people and you praised God together and the Holy Spirit swirled in that room in such powerful ways? Lives were transformed. People were called into ministry. Lives were changed. Salvation happened. Rededication. People were healed. Amazing things happened." God says, "Don't forget those times." A professor in college, he had this great way of saying, you call them thin moments. A moment when the space between heaven and earth and God's throne and our hearts felt so thin. Because the reality is sometimes it can feel really far away, right? God can feel so far away, so distant, maybe like he doesn't even exist at times. But it's these milestone moments in response of worship that remind us of the power of God, his warrior-like strength in our lives, these thin moments where we feel like God is right there. God's always right there. We're the one that makes the space.

I want to give us some questions as we close out. First of which, just think through these, maybe write these down, and maybe this week just kind of talk with God about them. But how does the power of God's triumph, majesty, and guidance encourage you to claim his promises in your current battles? Maybe you can look back on a battle that you faced before and you think about how does God's triumph, majesty, and guidance build your trust in him? That you can look back, you can remember what God had just done to know that God's going to move here and now. That God isn't just going to disappear. He's not here one moment and gone the next. That he's there faithfully every single time.

And then two, what milestone moments of God's rescue and redemption can you celebrate through the power of worship just as Israel did? Or maybe say it another way, what moments of God's deliverance can you celebrate through worship? What can you maybe write down right now? You're thinking about what's God done in your life? How has he rescued you? How has he split waters in your life? How has he pulled you through? That you then can, this week I encourage you, take a moment and pause your life. Put on a worship song, maybe a song you know, maybe it's got words on the screen. And think about those times and just sing a song of praise to God. And then make this a habit going forward as you have those milestone moments where God comes through. And instead just going, "Hey, thanks God. Just going on with your life." But pause, worship God. Maybe write a song. I don't know. My daughter came into our room last night. She knows I was talking about this and she's like, "Hey, Daddy, have you ever written a song?" I said, "Yes, I've written one song in my life." And she goes, "No more?" I said, "Baby, songs are really hard to write. I just don't have the gift. I know people who can just like pop one out. I can't. The only song I ever wrote was to my wife when I proposed to her. That was it." Oh yeah, I know. But then she and her sister, they go into the garage, the only quiet space in our house, and she literally goes and writes a song. And she comes in and her and her daughter, it was just a precious moment. Her sister, sorry, there's daughter, my daughter, her sister. And they just start singing the song. And it's literally like two chords on the guitar. That's all she feels comfortable playing. But their heart of praise shine through. And I know how proud I was. I could only imagine how proud their Heavenly Father was. Looking down on them, seeing them give praise to God.

The power of God's triumph over chaos, His majesty, His salvation, always against His foes, guiding His people, bringing them home, call to corporate worship. Trust the power of God in your life today as your warrior. The one who fights for you, the one who stands tall, the one who has unmatched strength. And claim His promise to lead you to your promised land of Canaan. And to celebrate His victories through your worship. If you find an opportunity this week, share with somebody what God has done in your life. You don't have to sing to Him. That's okay. Maybe you would. Maybe we have some theater people in the room. Maybe you want to just do a little theater production and sing to somebody. But share. Maybe it's a family member, a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker. Don't keep inside what God has done in your life. Boast about this amazing God who deeply cares for you.

Let's pray. God, we thank you for how incredibly amazing you are. And I pray for us, God, today that we would recognize your power, your strength, your love. That we would trust you in our battles and that we would worship you wholeheartedly, Jesus. God, the reality is that maybe some of us, we kind of struggle with this warrior, God. We don't understand and we have questions that this side of heaven we just don't understand of why does a loving God allow so much bad in life and why doesn't God answer our prayers when we pray or questions about heaven or hell or evil or pain or suffering, God. I pray that your grace would overcome those. Not in the sense that you're not willing to wrestle or to answer them, God. But I pray that as they worship you, they spend time with you, they commune with you, they spend time in your word, they spend time through worship, they spend time in prayer, God, that you would begin to reveal those answers, you would begin to soften their hearts, you would open them up, God, for who you are in their lives. And Jesus, I pray for those of us who who need to invite you in as our warrior. For those of us who would say, God, I need you. I'm all alone, I'm by myself, I'm lost. I need you, Jesus. I need your strength, I need your triumph, I need your guidance. God, I don't have a heart of worship. I need you. I need you to put that worship into my heart, God. I'm backed up against the wall, my heels are in the water of the Red Sea. I don't know how I'm going to make it through. I don't know how I'm going to serve I've got God, I need you. I'm at the end of my rope. God, I pray that you would speak to their hearts, even right now. God, that you in this moment right here, right now, this is a divine appointment. We're not here by coincidence. We're not here by chance or happenstance. You're here, God, because you want to speak to their hearts. So if that's you today, you'd say, Chris, I need you to pray for me. I need Jesus in my heart. This is the first time I've done this. I've tried to figure this whole God thing out. I need you in my life. You just look at me and just make eye contact so I can pray for you. Thank you.

God, I pray for those who are needing you so deeply right now. God, I'm praying for those who are exhausted from trying to fight on their own. God, I also pray for those who are just celebrating in your victory. God, we're all at different seasons in life and that's okay. Sometimes we find victory and sometimes we feel like we're getting beat up. That's the amazing picture of a family. That we not only have you to encourage us, but we have one another who can pray for us and care for us and love for us. And so for those of you who would say you want Jesus this morning, just pray a simple prayer after me. And I would ask that nobody prays alone, that everybody who has accepted Christ in their lives, you would say this prayer out loud along with me. You would say, Jesus, thank you for your salvation. Thank you for your triumph and guidance. Thank you for your victory in my life. Jesus, I'm sorry for the sins that I've committed. I'm sorry for the way that I've chosen my own. God, I ask you, Christ, to come into my life. You would make me whole again. You would make me Lord or make you Lord and leader of my life. And I will live for you from this day forward in worship and celebration for the milestone moments where you delivered me. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Summer Playlist: Part 9

Summer Playlist: Part 9

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are in the end of our series, towards the end, not the very end, we're nearing the end. I wanted to shift gears this week a little bit. So far, we have talked a lot about music and songs, but mostly in the past, how God created it originally, what it's intended for, how Israel used songs to worship God, also for lament. And so, I want to look forward about music in the future. Not like, far future and like techno synth type of future music, but music in eternity, music in heaven. Have you ever wondered what role music plays when we get to heaven? We're going to take a look at that today. We're going to be in the book of Revelation. How many of you are intimidated or just like, Revelation's a little, yeah, I'm putting my hand up there. It's always kind of a book that's like, "What is going on? I'm a little intimidated." Well, we're going to break it down today a little bit. So hopefully that this chapter at least is just more palpable. You're easier to understand. That's the goal afterwards.

So, Revelation, a little bit of background, is written by John. He received divine visions and instruction from the Spirit, and he writes as an authoritative prophet, kind of like a prophet from the Old Testament, giving instruction and calling God's people to follow him in the midst of whatever's going on. The book's genre is a mashup of apocalyptic, prophetic, and an epistle. So it's got futuristic scenes. It's got John calling God's people back, and it's got instruction for the churches at the time. It's a book that helps us remain present in the midst of whatever circumstances we face because of the certainty that we have in Christ and the hope we have of the future with him. Outside of the teachings of Jesus, when Jesus is walking the earth and all the parables that he talks about, outside of that, this is the book that we get to learn most about heaven. So it's got a lot to offer, a lot that makes us think and ponder about what it's saying, but the picture and message are clear. It encourages and strengthens believers to hold fast in their testimony about Jesus, to steadfastly endure trials, and to resiliently hope in God's present and future reign. I want to repeat that because if you want to take anything away, if you're a note-taker, jot this down. Revelations, this is the point. To encourage and strengthen believers to hold fast to their testimony about Jesus, to steadfastly endure trials, and to resiliently hope in God's present and future reign.

Today we're going to look at one of these scenes about Jesus' reign. So we're going to be in Revelation 5. If you turn there, it'll be on the screen, but before we do that, would you pray with me one more time? God, thank you again for your word, for your truth, that we get to study it and learn it, and God, I pray that through your word today that we'd be drawn closer to you, that we'd have a deeper understanding of who you are and what you can do, and the future that we have to look forward to. God, I pray that we would be filled with hope and encouragement and joy. We pray this in your name. Amen. All right, so Revelation 5, this is John's second vision. We skipped all the first. You can read that if you want. Revelations 1, 2, 3, 4, and then we come to John's second vision, and I want to go verse by verse, and I want this to play out like a movie in your head. So if you guys want to, if it's helpful, you can close your eyes as I'm reading or if it helps you imagine, I guess we can say that you get a pass. If you're falling asleep, I won't know. I'm just going to be assuming that you're envisioning the movie of heaven playing out. I'm going to look at you and be like, "Oh my goodness, look at them. They're so into it right now as their head is down. They're complete." No. Just this one Sunday.

We'll start in verse 1. It says this. This is John's vision. It says, "Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals." We'll stop right there. We're going to literally go verse by verse to help us understand. All right, so the sealed scroll is God's plan. It's got seven seals on it. Seals on the scroll mean that it is an ancient document, authentic. It's been unaltered. There's no change to it. Once it was written, nothing compromised it. And then seven, if you see seven in the Bible, in the New Testament, Old Testament, that is the number of completion. So a lot of things that are described as being seven or have seven means it is whole. It is not lacking anything. And so if we're to translate this into words that help us understand, we see in your movie so far that you're envisioning, God sitting on the throne and in his right hand is a scroll that is perfect and it's a plan of judgment and redemption for humanity. Judgment of sin, redemption for humanity. So there he is. We got God sitting on the throne with the perfect plan. Verse two says this, "And I saw a mighty angel," this is John envisioning, "I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?'" So he makes this call out to everyone there, "Who's worthy?" Everyone is needed to open the scroll, to reveal and carry out God's plan. And it's assumed and implied that whoever can open the scroll is the one who will carry out God's plan. So we kind of have a sword in the stone moment. I don't know if you're familiar with sword in the stone. If you've been to Disneyland, there's that sword and you can, I've never been able to do it. I'm not worthy. But in the movie, you know, in all the land of England, you have all these nobles and knights and all these strong people trying to pull out the sword and no one can do it except for pure-hearted, in the movie it's a little boy, little Arthur. Well, we kind of have that. In our passage, there's a similar dilemma.

Verse three, it says, "But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it." So we're made aware of the problem now. No one is worthy to be the mediator of God's plan. And if you're, John, envisioning this of heaven, just imagine how disheartening this might be, getting to understand what's at stake. This is God's plan. And then comprehending that no one can do it. No one can open up this scroll, can carry out God's plan. No one on the earth or under the earth. So what does John do? He cries. Verse four, "I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or to look inside." The opportunity for redemption seemingly right there, but it's impossible in this moment to acquire it. He's weeping like an Old Testament prophet too. These Old Testament prophets oftentimes in their writing, they said, "I cried for Israel." Seeing the answer so close, seeing what had to be done, but then no answer there. It's for no one's doing it in the Old Testament. And here, no one's able to do it, it seems.

We get to verse five, "Then one of the elders said to me, 'Do not weep. See the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.'" The elder tells John to look up, to see that there is someone that can open the scrolls, that can do what God says needs to be done. And he references some prophecies from the Old Testament from Judah and David to help give context as to who this is. Now that word in verse five that says "see," there's other translations use "behold." And I like that a little bit better because I think it conveys what's really happening. But in Revelations, there's often a stark and meaningful difference between what John hears and then what he turns and sees. And so in this moment when the angel said, or the elder said, "Behold," we could also translate that to "hear." Hear the lion. He is able to open the scrolls.

But then when John turns and sees it's not a lion, verse six, "Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth." Now, maybe at this point we're starting to feel overwhelmed because this is getting weird. We have a weird-looking sheep. And let me break it down so it's not going to be so weird. So he turns, and at this point the slain lamb is the conquering lion. The lamb imagery relates to Jesus' death on the cross, the tradition of viewing his death as a sacrifice, like the sheep's sacrifice in the Old Testament. The early church applied the title "Lamb of God" to Jesus, understanding that his death was the substitute for their sin. So the victory spoken about in verse five, it says, "He has triumphed," was brought about, we know that that triumph was brought about through sacrifice. And so imagine being the persecuted church in the early church history, what hope that this would build, knowing that persecution might bring about more victory through sacrifice. Being like Jesus and what he went through would have brought hope to them. And so, okay, back to our movie, there's a lame, slain lamb who is the conquering lion standing at the center of the throne, encircled by four animals. All right, what are these four animals? Well, they are four animals that represent four things. One, the noblest animal, which is the lion, the strongest, which is the ox, the wisest, which is the owl, and the swiftest, which is the eagle. So the best of the best in their regards in this moment. You're saying, "Andre, how do you know that?" Well, I too had a vision last night. No, I'm just kidding. It says in chapter four. You read chapter four, it's there, it explains all the animals. So John's just carrying on saying, "The animals that I talked about earlier, they're there now." So four animals, and then we get to the weird lamb, right? The seven horns, seven eyes. So seven, again, do we know now? The number of completion. So horns, throughout the Bible, they mean power, they represent power. So we know that this is complete, whole, or all-powerful. And eyes represent wisdom. Being able to see everything is this imagery of being wise. And so we have this lamb who is all-powerful and all-wise. See, a lot less creepy. This lamb is not weird. It's just an all-powerful and all-wise lamb, who is Jesus, right? Makes sense. Now we have the seven spirits that are sent out. Well, at the beginning of Revelation, there are seven churches. Seven again, meaning complete. So some scholars believe that this is just another... There were seven specific churches, but it's also just a way of saying that this is all the churches in the area, Asia Minor, that this is written to. And so again, meaning complete, that this is John's way of saying that the spirit, God's spirit, is complete. It's enough for all the churches, for all the believers. All right. In our movie scene, you guys are following along, we have God on the throne with the seal scroll in his right hand, his perfect plan for redemption, and at first, no one on earth could open it. And then you kind of see, like, you can see this in the movie, like, the camera's panning through the crowd and there's no one and everyone's kind of downcast, it's like no one can do it. All of a sudden, there's like a spotlight and it's like working your way through the crowd and there is the lamb. The slain lamb, who sounded like a lion, surrounded by the four animals, and this lamb is special because it's the all-powerful and all-wise lamb.

Verse 7, "He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne." So the lamb approaches, takes it, verse 8, "And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people." So a harp is a common temple instrument, so that's kind of clueing us in that this is a very worshipful moment right now. And the incense, like it says, symbolizing the prayer from God's people. And so then the four living creatures and the 24 elders bowed down in worship, and now we get to the good part. It's so good, all right?

Verse 9, "And they sang a new song saying, 'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.'" This is so good. This is like that hero scene where the hero has entered the movie now. We know that everything's going to be okay, because Jesus is here. Jesus steps forward ready to serve God, to carry out the plans, to open the scroll, and to do what needs to be done. Jesus is the only one who is worthy, the only one who could do it. The Lamb of God steps forward to the explosive praise of heaven, prepares to break the seal and carry out God's redemptive plan. By his sacrifice, with his blood shed on the cross, through Christ's death he redeems. He bought with his blood souls from every tribe, language, people, and nation. He sacrificed himself for us and for a purpose.

Says in verse 10, "You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth." Church, this is to you today. You have been made, you have been redeemed for a purpose, to be a kingdom and priests with God, to serve God. I was talking with a pastor friend of mine, and we were talking about this, our role as Christians. And he said, "The human task is one of partnership with God. We continue the work that God was doing back in the garden, Genesis 1 and 2. And that work is to bring order into the world and to bring life. God says to subdue the earth and to fill it. Subdue another way of saying that is to bring order and then to fill it, to bring life. So in our lives, as we are partnering with God, how are we bringing order to the situations we are in? How are we bringing life to the situations that we are in? And that task of doing this is a priestly task. We are doing what God intended us to do. This is the purpose that you have been redeemed for, to be a part of the work that humanity was originally made for, to reign with him. We're going to get to more of that in a little bit. But this is the song that is being sung to Jesus. Jesus is worthy. Jesus has made us to be a kingdom and priests. Can you feel the hope in this moment? Can you feel the joy, the relief, the newfound purpose, the awe and wonder of this heavenly scene? Well, it continues. It gets even better.

Verse 11, "Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands and ten thousands times ten thousand." That's the Bible's way of saying innumerable. "They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying, 'Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.'" So heaven is joining in. "Then all of earth joins in. Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them saying, 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb to be praise and honor and glory and power forever and ever.' The four living creatures said, 'Amen,' and the elders fell down and worshiped." Oh man, this is so good. If you're imagining this scene, I mean, it's filled with light, it's filled with the echoing praise of all of creation and all of the angels. It is a glorious, glorious scene. And I wish we could all have been there. I think this would have been the coolest thing for our faith and for our souls to have been present in this moment, to see Jesus step forward, do what he was made to do, give us hope and life. I hope this chapter makes better sense. I hope it's less intimidating. The creepy lamb is no longer creepy. That's Jesus you're talking about, so be careful there. But John directed our attention to God's heavenly throne room where the living creatures and elders declared Jesus the slain Lamb as worthy to execute God's plan of judgment and redemption and to the praise and glory of all of heaven and earth. It's a scene where Jesus is acknowledged and revered and praised and honored as he should be for who he is and what he's done and what he is still doing in our lives today. It's a scene that gives hope and is cause for the biggest rejoicing that we can offer. So now that we've covered this entire passage, I would, by the way, this scene continues if you want to in your week read chapter 6. It just keeps going. And it's, I mean, there's more that you might have questions on and that's okay. Feel free to ask. But hopefully this makes a little bit more sense as to what's happening in this vision. But now that we've covered this entire passage, I want to focus on just a few things, bring them back before us, especially about music and how songs play a role in our lives now and in the future.

So the first thing, first point, is that Jesus is him, as the youths say. Look at my youths in the room. Or for the generation below that, my generation, Jesus is the goat. Except he's a lamb. But he's the goat. He's the greatest of all time. Okay, some people are laughing. But for everyone, Jesus is the only one. That's the point. We should have had that on the slide. Jesus is the only one. In a scene that is a bit mystifying, kind of strange, I think even for John this would have been very different. It is so clear that Jesus is at the center of this scene. That Jesus is at the center of God's plan. That Jesus is the world's only hope. And therefore our only hope. And it reminds us that this plan of God is as good as done. Jesus who is all powerful and all wise is the only one who can carry this out and he does and he will. We don't have to wonder if this will actually happen, if he's going to figure it out. No, it's done. There's no mystery. We know that Jesus has defeated sin and death. Jesus is the only one who can carry out God's perfect plan. He's the only one who can save us from our sin. Jesus is the only one who can give us eternal life. Who can restore us into right relationship with God. Jesus is the only way to heaven. Jesus is him. It's a simple truth yet profoundly deep in its meaning and what it conveys. He's the only one worthy of our praise.

Secondly, is this reminder that you were made to partner with God. We're meant to partner, to be a priesthood. And you might have heard that before, but do you know what that means? To live it out in your everyday life. Do you know what it means to partner with God? This idea of priesthood is throughout Old Testament and New Testament. I think Peter says it best in 1 Peter 2, which says, "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." Church, he called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light and for a purpose. Not just so that you can be out of darkness and be in the light, but so that you can work with him. I mentioned this earlier that our task is to continue the work of God, which again, he says is to bring order to the world, just as God did out of the chaos, he brought order and to bring life to those around us and in the situations that we find ourselves in. Again, just as God did, he brought life into the world. And this task, when we do it, it's always a priestly task. Priests are people who represent God to people and people to God. It's a two-way street there. And so how do we look at what's in front of us in our lives as a way to partner with God, to do one of those things, either to represent those that were around to God or to represent God to the people around us? So if you're a parent, you might be wondering, how do I fulfill my priestly task in bringing order to my life, to my family? Well, as you do that, in whatever way you do that, you are partnering with God. It might be simple as keeping a clean house. If I keep order in my living situation, some of that might be partnering with God. Think of your friendships, your relationships. How do I bring life? Maybe by pushing for peace and unity rather than gossip and division. By doing that, you're fulfilling the task of your priestly duty. The other part of that that Jesus talks about or that God instilled in Genesis is to fill the earth. That's part of our duty. And if you're parents, you're like, "I did my part. I filled the earth. I made more life." Good job. But how do you help them flourish? How do you continue to bring life to them? How do you continue to help and encourage them to have a good life? How do you encourage what God encourages, bringing joy, being a source of goodness and of truth? And again, this doesn't have to be the biggest things in life. It could just be whatever is in front of you that day, what's in front of you with that hour. How do you partner with God in that moment and bring order or bring life? Here at Spring Valley, you can ask the same thing. How do you continue the work of God? By representing God to others and others to God. Well, one way we do that is by praying for each other, bringing others before God, saying, "Hey, I know this person. I've been talking with them. I know what's going on in their life. And I want God on their behalf. I'm coming before you. Can you intervene in what they're going through?" Maybe it's by volunteering in kids' ministry. Thank you to everyone in the room who volunteered. I know there's so many of you who volunteer in kids' ministry. You are representing God to those kids. You are teaching them by the words you say, by the way you act. You are being God to them. I want to say this too. Our time as volunteers and serving the church is not about making the church a better experience for people. I think sometimes we think of, "Oh, we just want more volunteers so that the church can look really good to a newcomer." It's not what it's about. It's not at all what it's about. Everything here at this church is about, it's an opportunity to partner with God and to have spiritual formation take place inside of us, in our hearts, as we serve as Christ served. Again, if you're a note taker, maybe this is the second thing you're writing down. This is important. I want us to make sure that we're not have this jaded heart and thought about why people serve at the church. It's just so that Spring Valley looks really good. No, it's not what it's about. If that happens, that's great. We're very thankful for that. That's not the reason. The reason is we want to provide opportunities to partner with God so that you, the Holy Spirit, is forming within you a heart that is more like Christ's. Because as you serve, you are going to need God. We are going to run out of strength, of patience, of compassion, of grace, of love to have with other people, and so we rely on Him. And as we do that more and more, as we serve and as we rely on God, our hearts are being formed like Christ's. So we want those opportunities here. That's why we encourage. Get involved. Be serving so that you and God can start working together and partnering. You were made to partner with God. You don't have to wonder about what calling that might be, what grand thing that might be. You can just do it in your everyday life and the decisions that are right before you. And you can do it here at this church. So partner with Him and His kingdom work.

Thirdly, respond with worship. When confronted with the truth of Jesus and what He has done for us, we worship. When we feel like it and when we don't feel like it, but in the midst of a scene like this, where Jesus steps forward to carry out and fulfill God's plan, the only right answer, the only thing left to do is to worship Him. To sing our hearts out. To give Him all the praise that we have. A little aside here. I think it's really cool to know that there are going to be new songs in heaven. I think that's awesome. We've made a lot of songs. There are a lot of songs that have been written on earth. A lot that we don't sing anymore. But there's going to be new ones. I think that's just to know that there is opportunities for creativity and for newness in heaven is awesome. I think some of us have this idea that heaven is just like we sing like the one line over and over again for millennia. And it's like, that's kind of boring. But no, there are new songs. There are going to be cool new songs in heaven, new opportunities to be creative, new opportunities to worship God, new ways to respond in worship. And we're going to be in God's full presence like never before. We don't have that down here on earth. We get glimpses of it. We have moments of seeing part of His presence. But we will be in His full presence. And how much more are we going to worship Him? So respond with worship. It's natural and good. We're going to have a chance to do that in just a second.

But this week, you've had multiple encouragements throughout this series of what to do with music. I want to offer you another one. This week, I encourage you to respond in worship, specifically through song. You've already had the encouragement to listen to worship music on your way to work or on Saturday night and Sundays before church to listen to worship music. So let's, another one is when you see God work, when you feel His presence in your life, or when you just have a moment of recognizing Him and how worthy He is to be praised, give praise. Take a moment. Put a song on, sing a cappella, whatever you've got to do, but actually give praise back to God. And then continue to give your whole life as a means of worship to Him. That sound good to anyone in this room? Sound like possibility? Yeah? Okay. If you do it this week, do me a favor. Text the church. Chris and I are going to see this. We're going to praise with you. And we just want to, this is going to be awesome. We're going to rejoice with you. And whatever moment you have where you were like, "Hey, this happened and I just thought of God and I wanted to praise Him really quick and I was on my way home from work, I popped on this worship song and I was just singing." Like, we would love to know that. We'd love to know when God is having a moment with you, we want to share in that moment with you. If we get no text this week, we'll be a little sad, but we'll be okay. Chris and I will just text each other, like, "Hey, I'm worshiping again." Okay. We're going to chance to respond in music here as the team comes up to finish. But before, they're coming up, but before we actually worship, we're going to partake in communion together as a church. So you guys have the elements at your table. You can go ahead and start serving yourselves. I have to serve myself. I'm going to take with you. So go ahead and pour the cup. Make a cracker. You guys can listen as you're doing that. I want to say this, as we see how worthy Jesus is, it's natural to see how unworthy we are with all of our sin, with all of our rebellion, pride and selfishness. And that's humbling to be in the light of Jesus and to see how amazing He is and to see how short we fall. But it's humbling to know that God still loves us, that God still wants us, and there's no better way to come to the table of Jesus than with humility and gratitude. So let's humble our hearts as we recognize what Christ did on the cross for us, taking on our sin and the death that we deserved and shedding His blood to give us eternal life, that by His grace, we might be saved. And let's be grateful for the opportunity to be partners, co-heirs with Christ until He returns and for our lives that we're being redeemed now and we're going to be made perfect in heaven.

Summer Playlist: Part 8

Summer Playlist: Part 8

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

There are so many songs out there. It is wild to think about how many songs there are. Typically, at least for me, when I want to pick a song on a playlist or when I'm going through the radio, I want something that is uplifting, that makes me feel good, that maybe gives me energy to clean the house, or that we can have a little kitchen dance party too, or gets me out of a funk. We like the uplifting, the feel-good music. But sometimes, you're like, "That is not what I need right now. That is not what I'm feeling." And we have, at least what my generation calls emo music, right? We have the more emotional music that elicits these raw emotional responses that, you know, maybe it's depression or anxiety or grief even. And these, what the Bible would call, are laments. And so we have both. In music, we have both the upbeat, energetic, feel-good songs, and we have the hard, emotional, expressive songs. And so does the Bible. There's all different kinds of songs in the Bible.

Now, last week, Pastor Andre talked about a lament. He talked about Psalms 42. And we had it originally intended to do two laments back to back. We were like, "That's kind of a downer, right? Let's not do two laments back to back." But the more we talked about it, the more we realized that our sermons, although very different, were kind of a part one and part two on the topic of lament. Now, if you weren't here last week and you didn't hear his sermon, that's okay. You're not going to be lost today because it's very different. But it's really hitting on two important key things with lament. He touched more on this idea of lamenting when things are hard, when the world comes at you, when life is just hard and the circumstances are maybe even out of our control. And today, we are going to be talking about lamenting when it's our own fault, when we are the problem. Sounds a bit like a downer. I know. Okay. But hang with me. There is good news. There is hope. Okay. We'll get there. But I think this is a really valuable and important thing for us to talk about. There is hope, even in the lamenting. And there's hope because we don't grieve like the world grieves. First Thessalonians says that we don't grieve like those with no hope. We grieve with hope. And that's really what a lament is. It is a form of grief and we grieve because of our sin. We grieve because we sin against God. We grieve because it puts a rift in our relationship with God. Maybe because we hurt others in our sin. And because the things that grieve or break the heart of God should break our hearts too. But because we know the end of the story, we know Jesus came and is coming back again, we can grieve and lament with hope. So we're going to be in Lamentations today. It's only five chapters, but it is dense. It is a lot happening in that. And we will not be covering all of Lamentations today. Don't worry. We won't be here till 4 p.m. We are going to be really focused in on chapter three.

So the Book of Lamentations is made up of five poems or songs. And it's believed to be written by one author. And we think it's Jeremiah who wrote the Book of Jeremiah. It was written as a lament regarding the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. when they were attacked and the city was destroyed and the people were taken into captivity. So the first four of the poems are actually written in an acrostic, which is a cool literary way for the author to do it. But we don't actually see that in our English Bible because it was written in Hebrew. But if you look at the Hebrew of it, the first word of every line in the first four poems or songs is their Hebrew alphabet. So if it were English, the first line would be A. The second line would start with B. The third line would start with C. And so it's a really cool fact about this song. But one commentary mentioned this about it being in an acrostic. It said that the use of the alphabet symbolizes that the completeness, the A to Z of grief is being expressed. And I love this because lament is just not one thing. It's not just stating facts or it's not just complaining or crying out to God or it's not just praising Him and asking Him for rescue. It's all of those things. It's the completeness, the wholeness, the A to Z-ness of it. It was often sung by the Israelites, usually on a yearly basis as a remembrance for the destruction of their city. And to remind themselves of the sin and the choices that got them there, as well as God's faithfulness during that time. So Lamentations kind of builds a little bit. The first couple chapters are really just about the destruction of Jerusalem. The pain, the consequences of their actions. But in chapter three, it shifts a little bit. The narrator turns more to a personal voice, talks more individually, and speaks more of God's justice and His mercy in the hope that we find even in the darkness of it. Books of the Bible, like Lamentations, are really hard to read because we see the destruction. We see the pain. We see the reality of the ramifications of our sin. It is plain as day in black and white. We see that the destruction came on Israel because of their own choices. They chose to disobey God and live in their own way. And that brought consequences. Now for us, on this side of the cross, we have to remember that Jesus already paid the price. He paid the debt. Justice has already been served. Praise God. But this is not a reason or excuse for us to keep on sinning. We know that we're forgiven, so we should live in that forgiveness, not just think, "Oh, well, I can keep on doing what I'm doing because God will forgive me." We don't have the license to keep doing that. And we have to understand that while we are forgiven and we live in freedom, we're gonna mess up. We're gonna fail. We're gonna fall. And there will be ramifications to those sins. So Lamentations is brutal and it's beautiful. It's brutal. It's a tough one, guys. But there's hope. Paul David Tripp writes, "The Bible never denies reality. The Bible never plays it safe. The Bible never offers you a cosmetized view of the fallen world. The Bible never tricks you into thinking that things are better than they are. The Bible is straightforward and honest, but not void of hope. While it is very candid about the hardships of life in this broken world, the Bible is also gloriously hopeful. The honesty does not crush the hope, but neither does the hope negate the honesty." The Bible pulls no punches and we might step on some toes today, but we're gonna see the hope too. So instead of going verse by verse through chapter three, we're actually gonna kind of jump around and we're gonna go more topically through this. And we're gonna pull out what we can learn from this lament, from this song.

So first we're gonna talk about the ramifications of our sin. So turn with me to Lamentations 3. We're gonna start in verse 13 and pull it up on your phone or your Bible. It'll be on the screens as well. So verse 13, "He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver. I became the laughing stock of all my people. They mocked me in song all day long. He has filled me with bitter herbs and given me gall to drink. He has broken my teeth with gravel. He has trampled me in dust. I have been deprived of peace. I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, 'My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I will remember them and my soul is downcast within me.'" That can be really hard to read. And it may seem obvious, it probably is, but I think it's important for us to understand that our sin has consequences. The author here lists a few, that his heart was pierced, he had no peace, there was bitterness, his soul was downcast. And those are just personal, internal consequences. That doesn't even account for external consequences. Things like broken relationship, financial hardship, a variety of things that can cause consequences outside of ourselves, physical consequences. Our sin has consequences, even if we don't think it will. And the reality is that we don't sin in a vacuum. So our sin also has consequences for other people. It affects those around us. If you flip back to chapter 2, verse 19 says, "Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children who faint from hunger at every street corner." The kids of Jerusalem weren't the ones sinning. They weren't the ones going after other gods, but they still suffered the consequences of their parents' sin. That's hard to hear, but it's true. Because we don't sin in a vacuum, other people will experience consequences of our own sin. And I guarantee you, everyone in this room can think of a consequence they suffered because of someone else's sin. And vice versa. I bet you can think of a consequence someone else suffered because of your own. Sin has consequences and not just for ourselves. All the things that we think of in sin that maybe are the struggles we have, we think maybe are just personal. But it's not. There are far-reaching consequences. I think of extramarital affairs that they think, "Oh, it's just between me and this person." But what about your children? What about your friendships? What about your co-working relationships? I think about addictions, things like porn that it's done in secret, but it has ramifications beyond what maybe we can even fathom. Sin has consequences. Second ramification is that we become unfit for use. That's a tough one. Limitations three, we're gonna jump down to verse 44. It says, "You have covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through." He's talking to God here. "You have made a scum and refuse among the nations." When we are choosing to live in sin, our prayers become ineffective. Now, when we are crying out to God from our sin and asking God to restore us, that's different. But when we are actively choosing sinful behavior, our prayers will fall on deaf ears. They become ineffective. They can't get through because you're intentionally separating yourself from God. The Hebrew word here for the scum, he says, "You have made a scum and refuse." The Hebrew word here, it's a descriptive term that in context really denotes anything that is rejected as unfit for use. The Lord, hear me on this, the Lord can use anyone. And the reality is he wants to use people. That's how he designed it. He wants to use us as people and everyone is a sinner. So his only option is to use sinners. So he can use us. But it's our heart posture. When we are choosing to live in sin or ignore sinful behaviors, we become unfit for kingdom use. And when I say unfit for use, it's not that God can't use you, it's that you're making yourself unavailable. I said that intentionally that way. You're making yourself unavailable. It's a choice. Our sin puts a rift in the relationship. It hardens our hearts and makes us unavailable for kingdom work. It makes our prayers ineffective. So God can't use us for kingdom work.

So we must lament these things. We have to grieve them because they grieve the heart of God. And when we take the time to lament, we become aware of our sin and of God's justice. That's the next thing we're going to look at today. The reality is of God's justice. The first thing I want us to understand, though, is that God doesn't delight in punishing us, but wants to restore us back into right relationship with him. God is not some vengeful God maniacally laughing at our pain or circumstances or the consequences that we are suffering. He is a loving God who understands that the consequences of our sin can bring us back into right relationship with him if we allow them to. If we are open to that. Sometimes we go through the valley of the shadow of death. Pastor Chris talked about the Psalm 23 a couple of weeks ago, walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And Pastor Andre talked about last week walking through and lamenting when life is just hard. But sometimes we walk through the valley of the shadow of death at our own fault. Sometimes we go through that. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death because God led us there in order to bring us to repentance. Repentance is just a church word that means to turn. To turn away from your sin. Do a 180 and go the other direction. Sometimes we're too stubborn or stuck in our sin or too comfortable in our sin that we need to be led through that dark valley in order to be brought to repentance. Praise God we serve a God that goes through that with us. He doesn't leave us alone. He walks through it with us and he delivers us from it. But he doesn't delight in punishing us. He just allows justice to be served and for us to experience those consequences in order to restore us. The second thing about God's justice is that just the fact that God is a just God. And so it would be against his nature to leave sin unpunished. It would be against his nature to leave sin unpunished. This is why we see the punishment of Israel played out in these verses. God could not leave their sin unpunished. That would not be just and he cannot be anything but who he says he is. That's also why he sent Jesus. To take on our punishment for our sins that justice required. In order for God to be who he says he is justice had to be served. It had to be served by either by the person who sinned which would be us or by a perfect sacrifice which was Jesus. Thank God for his loving kindness that he chose his son to serve that sentence for us. But the penalty had to be paid in some shape or form. It had to be paid because he is a just God. And it's good news. That's good news that Jesus paid that price for us. This is hard stuff. It's heavy stuff to confront our sin, to confront our our natural human nature, to go against God. But like I said, there is hope. We're getting to the good part guys. Okay? We have the hope of God's mercy and restoration.

Read with me Lamentations 3:21-26. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope because of the Lord's great love. We are not consumed. Amen? For his compassion never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, the Lord is my portion. Therefore, I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those who hope whose hope is in him. To the one who seeks him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. First thing we can draw out here that gives us hope is humility. Humility brings hope. If you back up a little bit into verse 19 going into 21 it says, I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I will remember them and my soul is downcast within me. I am turned down. I am humbling. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Jeremiah humbled himself in order to call to mind the things that were hopeful. We've talked about humility before and it is having a right view of ourselves and a right view of God. It is putting us in our proper places that he is God and we are not. But more than that, it positions our hearts in such a way that we can actually see the hope. When we are humble, we are not blinded by our pride. We are not blinded by our sin and we can actually see hope for the future. We are at the beach this week and I was hanging out with my mom and the kids were off in the water with Chris and my dad. We were just chatting and I took some pictures and I was looking at my phone and my mom says, "Sis, you're missing the sunset. Turn around." 37 years old and she's still telling me what to do. Okay? But she was right. I had taken some pictures and I was looking at them but the real thing was right there. The ocean wasn't different. It wasn't gone. It didn't change because I wasn't looking at it. The sunset was just as beautiful whether I was looking at it or not but I had to turn around and look at it to enjoy. And I did. And the sunset was beautiful and the light was like crystals on the water and I got to enjoy it. But I had to change my position to see the view. We have to change our hearts position to see the hope. We have to humble ourselves to see the hope. The second thing to give us hope is that God is merciful and compassionate.

Verse 22 says, "Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, although we should be." Romans 6 23 says, "For the wages of sin is death." That's the cost of our sin. We should be consumed. But it goes on to say, "But the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord." Because of his love, we are not consumed. One commentary said, "There was still a remnant." As in referring to the Israelites. There was a small group that was left in Jerusalem. Most were taken into captivity or killed. But there was a small remnant that was left in Jerusalem that eventually took part in rebuilding the city and rebuilding the temple. He says, "There was still a remnant and a remnant with a promise of restoration." Wherever God leaves life, he leaves hope. If we're not dead, he's not done. There is hope. So we are not consumed and his compassion never run out. Some translations say mercy, some say compassion, but they never run out. Verse 23 says, "They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness." His mercies are new every morning because we need them to be. They don't change or expire every night at midnight. Like they don't run out. But because we are sinful and forgetful, we need his new mercies every single day. We need them to be freshly available to us. And they are. Because he is merciful, because he is compassionate. They are freshly available to us. The third thing that gives us hope is God's covenantal love compels him to redeem and restore. That's why he made a way for the Israelites to make things right through sacrifice. He gave them the law. He gave them the sacrifices that they could do in order to atone for their sin and get into right relationship with God.

It says in verse 22, "His steadfast love." This is a covenantal love. It's covenantal language because he made a covenant with his people back in the Old Testament. And because he did that, he was compelled to make a way to redeem and restore them. He did that personally through their sacrifices and atonement, but then he also did it corporately when he restored the city. But it's also why he sent Jesus to be the ultimate sacrifice for us. He brought in a new covenant. We are under a new covenant through Jesus' death and resurrection. His steadfast love, his covenantal love continues to redeem and restore to this day. That gives us hope. So we know this sin has consequences. We know that God is just and that he must serve justice in order to be who he says he is. And we know that there is hope. We see that through these verses that there is hope. So how do we move forward now? How do we walk in that freedom and walk in this truth and walk in that hope? Well, the first thing is we must reflect on our behavior, confess our sins and repent. We have to reflect and ask the Lord to search our hearts to identify where sin may be taking root. We have to be honest with ourselves about what's really going on in our hearts.

Verse 40 says, "Let us examine our ways and test them and let us return to the Lord." That's reflecting. That's confessing. That's repenting. That's turning away from our sin and back to him. We have to identify the sin and die to it in order to return to the Lord. See, sometimes sin is sneaky. We think that if we're not murdering someone or robbing a bank, we're good. We're not doing the big ones, right? We're okay. But the thing is, Satan knows that if we're trying to actively follow Christ, we're not going to do the really obvious illegal things. He's going to be more sneaky about it. Do you have anger, pride, selfishness in your heart? Do you covet what others have? Do you let your thoughts run wild instead of taking them captive and submitting them to the authority of Jesus? We have to reflect and allow the Lord to search our hearts, and then we have to confess and repent. But we can't just stay on the reflection piece, right? I heard one teacher, a preacher, talk about this. She said, "So often I would recognize the sin, the Lord would identify in my heart, and then I would learn all about it. I'd read the books and listen to the podcast and read the Bible about it, and I would know all about the sin. I would intellectualize the sin, but I wasn't putting it to death." We can intellectualize our sin. We can know all about it. We can know why it's there. We can know how to combat it. We can know all about it. But unless we are putting it at the foot of the cross and dying to it, we haven't done anything. We haven't truly repented. So reflect, confess, and repent. I fully believe that revival comes after confession and repentance. Not before. Revival in our own hearts, in our homes, in our church, in our communities. Revival won't come until we confess and repent. The second thing to move forward is remember that He is our portion.

Verse 24 says, "I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for Him.'" I think that the main reason we sin is to fill something in our lives. Either something we think we need that we're lacking or something we think we deserve. But when we operate from the truth that the Lord is our portion, that He fills us with what we need, then we won't have to go looking for those other things to fill that need. Those sinful behaviors, even the good things, the friendships, the relationships, the stuff. Those aren't necessarily sinful, but if we idolize them or we turn to them without turning to God, then they become a problem. He is our portion. He is enough. He is so good. He is our portion. And lastly, we must put our hope in Him and seek Him. Verse 25 and 26 says, "The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." We have to keep our eyes on Him. The Israelites took their eyes off Yahweh. They put them on the culture around them. They turned to the lesser man-made gods. They turned to the sinful practices of the nations around them. They didn't live in the law of the land that God had given them. They chose their own way. Scripture says over and over again that they were wise in their own eyes instead of keeping their eyes on God. So we put our hope in the Lord. We keep our eyes on Him. We lament the things that break God's heart. And then we move forward in the redemption and the freedom that we can only find in Him. Amen.

Let's pray. Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your covenantal love that compels you to redeem and restore. Thank you for your gift of salvation, for the hope of a future that we have with you. God, open our eyes to the reality of our sin. Convict our hearts and help us to move forward in repentance. God, we pray for revival in our hearts, in our homes, in our church, in our communities. But God, we have to go first in confessing and repenting of the things that go against you and your word, that break your heart, break those in us, Father. We thank you for your goodness, that your compassion and your mercies never run out or expire. They are new and freshly available to us every day. Help us live in those graces. Father, we love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Summer Playlist: Part 7

Summer Playlist: Part 7

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Let's get into our series. We are continuing in our summer playlist series. If you're new this morning, we've been enjoying covering different songs of the Bible. We've covered songs of praise, Hannah's song of surrender, a song from Isaiah about God the Father. We've talked about a song that reminded us of God's protection. And then last week we covered a classic song, Psalm 23, how God is our shepherd. So we've been enjoying the different songs that the Bible has, seeing how each can help us draw closer to Him, help us understand ourselves and give us instruction in how to live a life that is pleasing to God. And really that there's a biblical song for every experience in life. I know that we have playlists sometimes, if you're a musical person, you have a playlist for your mood and you, you know, if you're working out, you're going to put on that heavy stuff to get you pumped up. Or if you're more in a contemplative mood, you put on the slower music to help you meditate or be in that moment. So the Bible has songs that are also in the same vein.

Today is going to have a different tone. As I said, there are times in our lives of celebration and joy. There are times of quiet reflection and contemplation. There are times of focus and preparation, but there are also times of despair, distress and depression. Now on Sundays, as we gather as a church, we more often than not spend time talking about joy and for good reason. But today, if it's okay with you, I hope it's okay. We're going to spend some time together discussing moments in life when we feel agony and anguish. Talking about emotions that the human body wasn't created to handle, but that sin brought into the world and therefore we must deal with. We're talking about situations in life that bring us to the end of ourselves and in desperate need of divine help. It's an unfortunate belief that some people have that hold that the church or Christians are a one-track singular emotion people of joy. That like, if you're a Christian, you just got to be joyful all the time. And in reality, we sometimes go through seasons where joy is the farthest thing, the farthest emotion that we feel. Where darkness seems to me more closely surrounding us than anything else. And we need to know as believers what the Bible says about those times. Whether you're in it or not right now, it's still important that you know that the Bible addresses those darker human emotions. And looking around this room, I know that many of you through conversation, getting to know you have been through a lot in life, maybe even recently. I know that many of you have wounds, pains, deep sorrows that you are working through, are processing, or maybe haven't even yet begun to process. But when we were preparing for this series, as pastors, we knew that we wanted to cover a song of lament. We knew we needed to because we knew that you needed it. So is it okay this morning, we take a pause on the joy, and we enter into the grief and anguish together? Is that all right?

We're going to be in Psalm 42. If you have your Bibles with you, you can go ahead and turn there right now. We'll have it up on the screen as well. Psalm 42. You might recognize this song as we read it. It's often sung with a gentle tone. It's a very pleasing song. But it's a song that brings up some of life's hardest questions. Questions like, "Do I have what it takes to keep going in life?" "God, where are you? Are you even there? Why do I feel this way? Why can't I be normal like everyone else seems to be? Why don't I feel as happy as I once was? Why is whatever I'm going through, why is it happening?" If you've ever found yourself in a season of life where these questions are constantly running through your head, take some comfort in knowing that you're not alone. And not just with the people around you. That's a huge comfort too. But know that it's a question that's been asked since sin entered the world. There's a song about it in the Bible. And maybe it'll put words to some of the feelings that you've had. And I want to be honest with you up front. This song, this song, it doesn't answer any of those questions in full. But it does communicate to us that we're not alone in how we feel. And it's a song that shows us, just its existence in Scripture shows us that God cares. I believe he put this in the Bible because he knew that as long as we struggle with sin, as long as sin was a part of our world, that people would continue to suffer, continue to despair, and that they would need to know that they can and should turn to God.

So let me go ahead and read our psalm this morning, Psalm 42. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the mighty one, with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me, therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Herman from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, where is your God? Why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Let's pray one more time. God, we know that you are there for us, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it. So I pray for anyone who is in that moment right now, where they have some very serious questions about what's going on, the feelings that they're feeling, where you're at. God, I pray that you would meet them in this moment through your word, through Psalm 42, God, a Psalm that you included in scripture for a reason. I pray that it would speak to us today, that we would feel your presence, we would be comforted to know that you are there and feel your peace. Even if our situation and circumstance doesn't change, God, I pray that our hearts would change knowing that you are standing there with us in that moment. Be with us today. Amen. I want to go verse by verse. I also want to make... Oh, thank God. I was about to pray for some air. I'm warm. Are you guys okay? It's warm? It's warm. It's back on at like 65? Okay, good. I didn't know if I was that nervous or it was just the heat. It's the heat. It's totally the heat. A little... No, just the heat. Okay, there it goes. Okay. I want to go verse by verse to dive deeper into this... I'm trying to be like a somber picture of the psalm. Verse one talks about this deer panting for streams of water. And it's a desperate picture. This is death is at the doorstep for this deer. And you may know the song, "As the Deer Pants," that many of you are familiar if you've grown up in church or been around the church for a while. It has a very gentle tune. And when you YouTube that song, "As the Deer," it's always like a video of a deer next to a quiet stream in a forest. And it's just very serene and peaceful. We were just in Mendocino this past week on vacation and we saw a lot of deer. And it was very peaceful. And I was like, "If I'm a deer, this is where I would want to be. This is ultimate deer country." I don't know if they have any predators. I didn't see anything. Maybe there are. But just peaceful deer in meadows. You got the ocean. It was beautiful. There's mountain lions? All right. I didn't see anything. Thank God. But this is our deer in this Psalm is in a totally different situation. This is a more dire situation. This deer is fighting for its life. I got a talk with Bob and Kris Lindsey working at the fireworks booth and they witnessed literally what is happening in this Psalm in their backyard. They live out in Loomis, I believe. Yeah. And there's this creek that runs through their backyard. And one summer day, they came out to find what this is describing, which is a deer sprawled out in its sight. You can see the breathing, the heaving, and the tongue is out. And it is literally fighting for its life. It's trying to regain its energy and composure. It had maybe smelled the water or something, and it was trying to make it to the stream, and it didn't make it. Now they reported that the deer left at some point, so it did regain its energy in that story, and the deer lived. But it is a very serious-- this is not a deer. We think of a dog panting. Maybe we read this and it's like, "Oh, it's just hot. It went for a run, and it pants to cool." You know, no, this is-- it's on the ground. It's side, you can see it gasping for air. The tongue is out. It needs water to survive. This is what the Psalm is talking about. Instead of the picturesque deer in the middle of the forest with a babbling brook, it's more of a wilderness setting. The waters are hard to come by, and the terrain is of desolation. Life is hanging in the balance here.

Verse 2 continues, it says, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with Him?" Our souls long for things. That's what our soul does. Sometimes our souls long for sinful, worldly, fleshly pleasures, and our soul can have a terrible appetite. But there are also times when our souls long for God, for good, for our Maker, to be in the presence and to feel the goodness of God. And yet, sometimes when we're longing for Him, we know we need Him, it seems like He can be nowhere to be found, like He's just not there. The Psalmist writes, "Where can I go to meet with God?" We get a sense of wandering here, looking and searching and striving to find the source of renewal and restoration. And given what we know in the rest of the song, we know that they have experienced, the person writing this, who's living this terrible situation, has experienced being in God's presence before. And so the question is, "Where can I go to meet with God?" It seems like it's a place out of reach. I know what that's like, and it doesn't seem like it's possible right now. It doesn't seem like it's nearby.

Verse 3 says, "My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, 'Where is your God?'" It's one of my favorite lines. It's just real and raw emotion. My tears have been my food day and night. The only liquid that the author has been able to consume are his own tears from crying about his situation. Have you ever been in a situation where the memory of what you need, the memory of a good thing, or just the thought of a good thing, is both food for your soul? It's not super nourishing, but it's just enough for your soul. And yet at the same time, the thought of that good thing is also the source of agony because you don't have it. I think tears that we cry sometimes serve two purposes. We can be mourning our lack, our loss, our pain, while also getting the smallest amount of maybe joy or relief or sustenance, just enough to keep us going, all from the thought of the thing that we're missing. It's a truly desperate and despairing place to be, to experience. But I know that many of you know exactly what I'm talking about. When we're in that stage of life, when we're in the midst of anguish and agony, it can be hard enough just to wake up and get through a day. And then sometimes we're even conscious of how our suffering seems like evidence that there is no God to other people around us. Again there are those who believe that a believer's life is exempt from hardship and pain, and it's just simply not true. It's how we deal with all that that shows people our faith in the everlasting God. But how others view us in our worst times, in our most deepest struggle, can be an extra burden on top of everything else that we're trying to manage. Verse four continues, "Where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One, with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng." Continues this thought of remembering God's presence. And the writer isn't currently there, he seems far from the presence of God, but he remembers how he used to frequent the temple with the protection of God, how safe and peaceful and sound that time in life was, how smooth everyday life seemed. And as their soul is heaving and crying and just trying to survive, they remember the joyous celebratory shouts and praises that they used to partake in. We just had a psalm a few weeks ago, Psalm 121 about the ascent to the temple, and how everyone would sing together as they entered the temple. And he's remembering that exact time of, "I used to be in the crowds, I used to sing praises to God." And again, there's both, it's causing both sorrow, because it's not a reality for them in that moment, but it's also giving the writer the slightest bit of hope and relief. Just the memory of it is anchoring them at this time in life.

Verse five says, "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Now the author turns to reflective questions, to self-reflection, which if you've ever been to counseling or therapy, you know that that self-assessment, that time of looking within is essential to making any progress in processing what's happened in life. So I don't know if you've ever paused to ask yourself, "Why, soul, are you so downcast?" As an aside, I love the self-talk. I think we all do this, we talk to ourselves, right? We talk to, "Soul, why are you downcast?" Or, "Mind, why are you so anxious? Heart, why are you feeling so heavy? Why so disturbed within me?" And then comes the self-motivation, calling yourself up, or sometimes we say preaching to yourself. Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Now in my time of study this past couple weeks, I read this over and over again, and I think it can be read in a couple different ways. It can be read with this defeatist mentality or tone of kind of like an Eeyore. You guys remember Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, how he always talks like this, "Downward, hmm." And maybe the author is saying, "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him." Maybe it's that, I don't know. Maybe it's this sudden champion spirit, he's been feeling depressed and down, and he's like, "All right, why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed? Put your hope in God, we got this. We're going to go forward, we're going to win the day." Maybe there's that sudden change of tone. Or maybe it's more like a coach in sports, he's like, "Hey, why are you down? We got this. We're going to be okay. Keep your head up. It's going to be fine.”

There's probably even more ways to read this, verse five. And I think it's got to do with maybe personality, however you read it, whatever type of personality you are. Maybe it's the opposite of what your personality is. Maybe you're the Eeyore and you're like, "I need the other personality. I need the coach. I need the champion spirit to get me through this time." Read it in whichever one relates to you. I don't know how the psalmist intended it. But I do know, and it's important, is that they know what should be done. They know what has to be done, and they know what they're going to do. And in times of such despair, when in reality our minds are a fog and we don't know what we're going to eat or remember if we've eaten, every decision we have seems to be overwhelming and the to-do list is mounting and the weight of the world is crushing. To know just one thing you're going to do is such a win. And the psalmist knows, "I'm going to hope in God, and I'm going to praise Him." I don't know the answers to the rest of my life's problems right now. They seem insurmountable, but I'm going to hope in God, and I'm going to praise Him. So we continue in verse 6. It says, "My soul is downcast within me. Therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, and the Mount Mizar." The perspective shifts again from talking to God to back to talking to Himself. Or sorry, the other way around. Talking to Himself, talking to God. And it seems like the writer is hitting another wave of sadness, another wave of depression. Why am I solely downcast? Therefore God, I'm going to remember you. And maybe there's frustration there. Maybe there's frustration that the pep talk didn't work. I don't know if you've ever been there, if you've had a moment of really being intentionally like, "Okay, we got this." And then an hour later you're like, "This is even worse. Nothing helped. I tried everything and I'm back down at the bottom again." And then it feels even worse than before. But it says, "I will remember you, God." The writer knows he can place his hope in God. It doesn't ease his despair, but it draws him closer to God. In fact, it's the very tribulations that drive him toward God, not away from Him. And I think that's ironic, right? It's the very tribulations that cause us such pain, such anguish, that can also bring us closer to God. Verse 6 ends with, "The land of Jordan, the heights of Hermon, the mount from Mount Mizar." Then verse 7 says, "Deep calls to deep and the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves and breakers have swept over me." So from the heights of the mountains to the depths of the sea, we get now more of a tumultuous picture from the deer at the beginning of the passage fighting to survive on the verge of death trying to get a drink. Now the psalmist paints this picture of the highest heights to the lowest lows and the chaos waters and the waves and breakers sweeping over him. It's a mental picture of wave after wave. There's no escape. There is no break. And the psalmist feels like drowning in the hardships is inevitable. The song of laments, it can be hard to read. Songs of lament can be hard. We can tend to skip over them because, again, we want the joy. We see God and we're like, "I know I should be," or we have this idea of like, "I should be joyful." But it's also necessary to bring all this heavy stuff that we're feeling, the pain, the loss, the sorrow that we carry, and bring that before God. For whatever reason, we may believe the lie that feeling those type of emotions makes us weak, that we would feel shame if people were to know the sorrow that we're carrying and the pain that we feel. We never really want to be vulnerable and share that with other people. But it's real and it's not meant to be suppressed. And of anyone on earth, God understands how you feel. Verse 8 continues, "By day the Lord directs his love at night, his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life." Again, we see further hope in Yahweh. By day and by night, this is the Bible's way of saying 24/7, "God is with me and he is protecting me, he's looking over me." And maybe we read this and we're thinking, "Oh, the author is feeling hopeful again, he's feeling positive.”

Well then comes verse 9, "I say to God my rock, why have you forgotten me?" Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning oppressed by the enemy? Again, even though the psalmist maybe had a moment of hope, despair is in full effect and now they are starting to question God's absence. He feels as though he's forgotten by God. I think we've all, at one point or another, felt forgotten by God. Maybe some of you are in that position right now, not sure where God is in your life, wondering why it's been so long since you've heard from him. Maybe you've had these nagging doubts, "Has God abandoned me?" Maybe in whatever hard situation you're going through or went through at one point, at first you knew that God was there. Your faith was strong, you're like, "God is with me, I know this is tough but God's with me." But as that difficult situation just kept going and going and going, maybe the longer it went on, maybe that whisper became louder of, "God, are you there? Have you forgotten me?" I appreciate that we can sit in this uncomfortable position for a bit. The psalmist doesn't immediately fix or address the truth that God has not left him, which God hasn't. God does not leave us, he doesn't abandon us. But the emotions that we feel are valid. And the writer continues, he says, "My bones suffer mortal agony, as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, 'Where is your God?' My bones suffer mortal agony." What a picture. I don't know if you've ever been in such a state of distress or depression or agony where the emotional and mental strain is actually having a physical toll on your body. Where the food that you eat doesn't taste like anything. Where you have no energy and sleep isn't actually refreshing, it's just a gap between feeling the pain. You can't really think and your head is maybe either throbbing or maybe it's just a fog. But living in agony is not what our bodies were made for. It hurts. It sucks. The writer here is writing a song about it just saying, "God, I don't know where you are. My soul is aching right now." Once again, the author is strengthened just a little bit by hoping in that which is unshakable. That's Yahweh, God.

And he ends in verse 11, "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." Anytime anything is repeated in Scripture, it's important. It means that we're supposed to pay extra special attention to it. And especially in something like a psalm where it's more poetic and there's more creativity, the placement of it means something. And I think we can maybe gather that if verse five was this pep talk that kind of failed as the verse is after it, he's back in despair. Maybe he comes around to verse 11 and maybe he's strengthened just a bit more. Maybe it's not a full-on, "I am so confident," but it's just a little bit more hope. It's a little bit more pep talk. He hasn't given up. That's our song. It's not the most uplifting song. And in fact, if I knew music and could write music, all of this would be in a minor key, something that's painful and doesn't sound great, but kind of conveys the pain and the sorrow that I'm feeling. Even though the joy of the Lord is the farthest emotion that this psalmist is relating to, he knows that God is there somewhere and that he's worth putting hope in. He's worth putting his trust in. And so I just want to reiterate the truth that God does care about us. He knows about our pain, our suffering, and he has not abandoned us. And again, even though the joy of the Lord is maybe the farthest thing that we feel, that love and grace is still for you and given to you daily by God. So continue to put your hope in him and praise him.

I want to ask a few questions for us to consider this morning. First is this, are you thirsting for God? Are you panting for God? Are you thirsting for him? In your most desperate despairing and in your anguish, are you thirsting for God? Like it says that deer does at the beginning. One thing we noticed in our psalm was that despite the agony the author is experiencing, the joy does not come from a better situation, but specifically from the presence of God. It can be easy in our difficult times in life to ask God just to make it better. God, can you just... You guys awake? Ask God, we tend to ask God, "God, can you just undo this? Can you make it? Can you reverse this? Can you make this better?" We just desire non-difficult times. Even I'm guilty of just praying, "God, can I go back to the season of life where it was good and enjoyable? God, can you take away the pain? God, can you make this whole situation better?" Those prayers aren't wrong. And in fact, we should pray some of those prayers. But it should be in addition to a prayer that asks for the presence of God, to be in the presence of God. We need to yearn for Him, to thirst for Him, recognizing that He is the only thing that will quench our heart's deepest desires. It's not the good times that we should want as the end-all be-all. It's being in His presence that is best for our souls. That may mean still dealing with life's difficulties, dealing with pain, but doing it in the presence of God. So are you thirsting for God? Are you praying for His presence in your hardships? And the second question is, are you intentional in your seasons of celebration and joy? There's a part of this psalm that really speaks to me, and it's that memory of the joy and celebration and the presence and protection of God. And sometimes those memories of a good time can stir bitterness. We're upset that we're not in that good time, that our situation isn't a better one.

But really, I think we need to view the good times, the good memories, the positive experiences and life situations as gifts from God, as anchors for our minds and hearts, as a future oasis in a future desert that we're going to be in. Don't let the bitterness rot your heart. Don't let the lack of good times close the door on God and distance you from Him. Rather, let it be one of the things that draws you closer to Him. You are sowing seeds for your life when you are intentional in your seasons of celebration and joy, when you make the most of your relationship with God, when you practice healthy spiritual rhythms, things like spending regular time with Him, praying and meditating on His Word, loving others and being generous with a heart of service, Sabbath-ing regularly, thinking of others like Jesus would, fellowshipping with the body of believers on a weekly basis. Just like the psalmist remembered doing, build up those memories. Store them up within your heart so that you can remember the preciousness and joy of being a part of God's family for moments when you feel so far from Him. So are you intentional in your seasons of joy and celebration? I want to close with this as the team comes back up. I know I said that this song doesn't resolve, but there is more. Scholars think that originally Psalm 43 was a part of Psalm 42 as one longer lament psalm. In Psalm 43, the writer continues looking to God for vindication and imagines his joy in the presence of God. One scholar writes, "Throughout Psalm 42, there has been a growing reliance on the things that cannot be shaken, although the storm of suffering has given no sign of relenting." And in 43, "Homewhere bound or not, the poet can praise God as his exceeding joy, not merely his help, but God's salvation is there. Outwardly nothing has changed, but he knows that God is with him." So my encouragement and my challenge to you is this week, read Psalm 43. Read it a couple times. Maybe you read Psalm 42 and 43 together, but see what the Spirit is helping you process and understand how you might draw nearer to Him in your seasons of life. I love that this week is a prayer Sunday. I think it's perfect. Whatever you're going through, whatever, maybe it's in the past, maybe it's months old, but we all have things that our hearts are heavy for. Sorrow, pain, loss. We would love to pray for you in that time. So we're going to enter this time of prayer. In this next song, you are invited, Bob and Chris are here as our prayer team, and they would love to pray for you. So you are welcome to come up, and they would pray with you in this next song. You can sit quietly and reflect and pray if you would like, but worship God freely, but know that you're not alone, that God is here for you, and therefore we as a body of believers and as a church, we are here for you too. So I'm going to go ahead and pray right now, and then we're going to sing this song and pray however you feel led.

God, thank you for your Word. Thank you for being there for us. Thank you for not leaving us, not abandoning us. And I pray for those who feel like you are so far from them, I pray that they would feel closer to you today. Even if it's just an inch closer, just a step. God, I pray that they would feel your presence even more and be reminded of the truth that you love them, that you are there for them, that you protect them. God, be with us in our sorrows and our hardship. May we remember that you are always there, ever-present, with your love and grace. Amen.