Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I want to just spend a few minutes right now and tell you a little bit about what we believe and teach, what the Bible teaches about baptism. And then after that, we will baptize the individuals and then pray a blessing over them.
We believe that baptism is not something that saves you. It is a response because of your salvation. So because someone has trusted in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, realizing that they are a sinner and there is no way to get to heaven and be in a relationship with God apart from the blood of Jesus, because they've trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sin. Baptism is an outward expression, is a picture of what has happened on the inside. And as we baptize someone, the imagery that we have here is, I once was one person, but now because of Jesus, I am a new person. We hear the echo even from 2 Corinthians. It says, there's a new creation because of what Jesus has done. And baptism is a picture of that. I'm going to read from Romans chapter six, just a portion. And then we will baptize some individuals. Listen in. It says this. Therefore, we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in the newness of life. That's what I mentioned earlier, a new life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person has died is free from sin. Now, if we die with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will die again no longer. Death no longer rules over him. And listen to this last part. For the death, he died. He died to sin once for all time. But the life he lives, he lives to God.
So you those being baptized Christian today, so you consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
This very clearly is a picture of the Gospel. The old life is done away with, and now we can experience new life because of what Jesus has done. I'm going to invite the first person to be baptized, Desmond, and ironically shares the same last name as me. Ebensteiner is my brother, and I'm excited to baptize him today.
Well, Desmond, have you.
Do you confess that you are a sinner in need of a Savior?
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: And do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and is the only way that you can be saved?
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: And do you promise to live for Jesus the rest of your life?
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Well, because of your profession of faith, I'm going to baptize you today in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And then the second person was Jaden Wheeler. So, Jayden, come on in.
And Jaden is going to read his testimony for us today.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Hi, I'm Jayden. I'm 11 years old. I have been raised in a Christian home and I don't remember the first time that I believed in Jesus because it has been my whole life.
I believe that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and that God made a way for us to be saved by sending his son Jesus to die for us on the cross.
I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior and I want to follow him for my whole life.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Amen.
Well, Jayden, because of your profession of faith, I'm going to baptize you today in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Always a blessing to be able to do that. If you would join me in prayer as we just pray a blessing for these two individuals.
Well, Father in heaven, we are grateful this morning knowing that you made a way for us to have a relationship with you. And we thank you for the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf.
And as these two people, Desmond and Jane, both proclaim today their faith in you, Lord, we ask that you would strengthen them in their continual walk with you. We're grateful for the grace and mercy that you have already shown them. And we ask that you continue to shower them with that same grace and mercy. Help them to be bold in their witness for you as they live for you as they promised today for the rest of their life. Help us as a church body to come around them and to encourage them as they walk with you in Jesus name. Amen.
Well, welcome again. If you weren't in here earlier, glad that you've chosen to join us today. We're going to get into God's word this morning. If you have a Bible, if you don't find a way to get a Bible in your hands. And we're gonna be in the book of Psalm today and so open up there. If you haven't been with us for some time or at all, perhaps. We have been going through a series in the Old Testament, surveying the Old Testament, starting at the beginning and journeying our way through this year to the end. So Genesis to Malachi through this year. And because of that, we've been digging big chunks of the Old Testament books at a time. And some of them seem pretty overwhelming. The amount of reading that we are doing. Hopefully you're reading through the Bible with us as well, or through the Old Testament with us this year. It's a great way to read. Read through each of the verses and going to Gospel community and talking about all of these things as well.
Today we're gonna be. Excuse me, in the Book of Psalm, like I said. Now, some of the other books that we've covered have been pretty big, right?
Today is gonna be the biggest.
We're gonna do all of Psalm and how many chapters. We're gonna do some pop quizzes here this morning. How many chapters are in the book of Psalms? 151. 50. Now, if you didn't know, now you do 150 chapters. And you might be wondering, how on earth are we going to do that?
You'll find out the 150 chapters, 2,461 verses. That's a lot of verses. And we're going to dive right in. Now. We've been going through, as I said, each of these books. On the screen you can see where Psalm fits in. If you don't know where it is in the Bible or hard to find, it's about. And I don't know if that's. I don't know why there's black letters over that. That's strange. Right in the middle of your Bible. So if you have your Bible with you, you can open your Bible probably halfway, and you will find Psalm. It's about halfway through. And go to the next slide there. We're gonna walk our way through this. What I'm gonna do right now is just give us a brief snapshot of this book, introduce kind of where we're going and what it's talking about, and then we'll pray and we'll get into the outline that you have in front of you. So the snapshot. You don't need to write this down. You can see it on the screen as well. And is this. The Book of Psalms is a collection of prayers, poems and hymns that focus the worshiper's thoughts on God in praise and adoration.
Parts of this book were used as a hymnal in worship services in ancient Israel. The musical heritage of the Psalms is demonstrated by their title, Psalms. It comes from the Greek word which means a song sung to the accompaniment of musical instruments. And so if you are wondering, I will not be singing at all today, even though we are going through this book. But if you would like to.
Never mind. Later, after the service, if you would like to come up with your own musical tune to these songs, go for it. And as you know, many songs that we sing today are rooted in a lot of the things that we read in this book. Now, the book is written by very real people with real problems, with real dreams, with real longings. And so a deeper study that is much more than what we can cover today would be looking at each of the Psalms and uncovering what was going on in each of those situations, which, again, fantastic study, because to every Psalm there is a story. Now, how should we read the Psalms? How should we read them? It is not a systematic theology textbook like Romans or Ephesians. They are songs, poems full of rich metaphors, imagery, emotion, prophecy. There's artistic flair that we see in them. They teach us deep truths about God as our shepherd and as the Word, he is sovereign.
But they do that through the language of the heart, not through the language of a lecture hall.
Now, why do people like the Psalms so much?
Because we can always find ourselves in them.
When you are feeling lonely, Psalm 13 cries out with you. When you're feeling grateful, Psalm 103 explodes with praise and joy. When you're feeling overwhelmed. How many of you have felt overwhelmed before?
Psalm 8 lifts our eyes to the stars.
When we have failed, we can look to Psalm 51 and it weeps with us. When we're afraid, we can look to Psalm 23 that reminds us that God is our shepherd. The Psalms give us permission to bring our whole selves to God, our highest joys and our darkest nights. And they slowly teach us that our pain is never the end of the story.
This book is given to us because something more should happen to us than doctrinal refinement. We also need emotional health.
We need emotional awareness, depth, correction, and maturity. And this book helps us do that.
This book offers a space where we can realize God's truth very robustly and carry it with us. Not just in a headspace, if you will, but in a heart space. I love what John Piper says about this. He says this. This book is designed to carry, express, and shape our emotions.
So this morning we'll survey the whole book.
We'll walk through. Here's a hint on how we're going to do this. There's five books inside the Book of Psalms, and we're going to look at those themes today.
And then after that, we will see Jesus as the Hero and the king as the shepherd who is drawn out, as the Messiah who's seen in this incredible book. So let's pray, and then we will jump in.
Father in heaven, we are grateful this morning to know that you are here with us right now. We are not alone in this room, but you are joining us as we spend time here as people who profess you as our Lord and Savior. Your spirit abides in us, as our teacher, as our comforter, as our guide, as our counselor.
So we ask, Lord, right now that you would help our ears to be attentive to what you want to say to us as we spend time in your word, your living word, that you would shape us to be more like you.
The things that I say, Lord, will be rooted again in your heart, in your word, in Jesus name. Amen.
All right. On your outline, you see the basics. You could write this in. If you like to write things down, there will be plenty of things that you can write in today. Where are we landing with the date, the author, and the themes? There's a substantial amount of things you could be writing down here. Firstly, psalms. Often we would say that David wrote the Psalms, but that's not actually completely true. There's other authors we're going to talk about in just a moment. And because there's other authors, the time frame is kind of wide. It's almost 1,000 years from the time of Moses, who wrote some of the Psalms, all the way to the time of the Jews being in captivity in Babylon. And so there's a chunk of time from about 1450 or so to about 500, 550 or so years before Jesus. Who are the people who wrote it? I just alluded to David wrote a significant amount. He wrote 73 of the Psalms.
He had a choir director, as you know, that David, he. He liked to do music.
He wrote music. He played. He had a choir director named asaph, who wrote 12 of the Psalms.
The sons of Korah. Remember Korah, the time of Moses?
He led this rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Well, his sons, the sons of Korah, as you'll see in your Bible, wrote 11 of the Psalms.
Solomon and Moses wrote a few, and a few other people as well. What are the things that we see in the Book of Psalms? We see creation being declared confession. We see wickedness and worship. We see man's sin and God's sovereignty. We see man's praise and God's power. We see lament and we see praise. And I want to just pause there for a moment because this Idea of lament. Can we say lament together?
Lament is just this deep weeping, a deep sadness. And then obviously the opposite side of that would be praise. And what's interesting as you read through the book of Psalm is this is over the course of reading through the book, the book starts off with a lot more lamenting going on, a lot more sadness, a lot more crying out to God for help. And then as the book transitions, there's less and less of that and more and more of praise to God. And the reason that's important for us to realize here today is this is because it's telling us this truth. We don't need to ignore the pain in our life, but it's important that we look to the end, that there's another side of our story, and that's seen all throughout this book. Now, as I said earlier, how many different books are in the book of Psalms?
5. So we're going to look at five distinct books here. And some say that these five distinct books in Psalm actually parallel some of the same teaching in the first five books of the Bible. So we have the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible, some people call the Psalms, and the five books that. That make up the Psalms, David's Torah, because it kind of mirrors this picture of the things that we hear and talk about in the first five books of the Bible. So in your outline, you'll see five points. They will just parallel the five books that we will look at today. And what we're going to do, just to kind of give you a heads up how we're going to handle this, is in each of those points, we're going to look at just one passage. Someone say one passage, One passage. We're not going to look at all of them. Obviously, one passage that captures the theme of that particular Psalm. And I have to warn you, because some of you might say, come to me later and say this. So I'm just going to say it at the front end. I realize that not every psalm encaptures the theme that we're going to talk about today, but generally speaking, most of those psalms will encapsulate the theme that we're talking about today in each of these books. All right, we good?
All right, Book one. Can someone say book one? Let's get into the outline here. Book one is this. You can write this in on your outline. Be rooted in. In a relationship with a righteous God. Be rooted in a relationship with a righteous God. And the book starts off in. What's the first Chapter. Chapter one. Right. Every book starts with that. Verses one through three. Let's just put that on the screen and look at this with me. And then as we go through this first book, which is chapters. Book one of Psalms is chapters one through 41. So if you want to just maybe note that somewhere book one encapsulates chapters one through 41.
The first few verses capture this picture for us. Read it in your Bibles on the screen as well.
It says this.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and what night. He is like a tree. Here's this picture of a tree rooted. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yield its fruit in season.
And its leaf does not wither in all that he does, he prospers. Now, if some of you looked at. Remember your memory verse from last month. This is part of it here. What do we see just in this passage here? A few things. Firstly, we can see that there's a difference between somebody who's wicked and somebody who is righteous. And then we see something else. The wicked person spends time with other people who are what?
Wicked. Right. Scoffers. These people that are not walking alongside the way of the Lord. And then we see something else. He is like verse three in your Bibles. This righteous person whose delight is in the Lord.
He finds his place like a tree planted by streams of water. In other words, a healthy tree. Someone who has fruit in season and. And whose leaf does not wither. So we have this picture of. Follow me here. This picture of someone who says, I want to be rooted in a relationship with God. It's a command to stay. Hold on to him. But there's something else. Remember Psalm 23, right? The verse, the passage we often well know in the book of Psalm. That's a different direction. So one says, be rooted in God. It's calling the reader, be rooted in God. The other is this.
For the Lord is my what shepherd? It's this picture of this. God is gonna stay connected to you. This first section is if we were to look at one theme with one word. This is a psalm. These are psalms of relationships. Can someone say relationships? It's my relationship with the Lord. I'm delighting in his law. I'm staying rooted in the truth. I'm gonna make sure that he is the righteous God that I'M following, not myself.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: And.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: And Psalm 23 reminds us that he's not abandoning me. I'm going to walk with him and he's going to stay connected to me. So the first theme here, if you like to write things down, is this Psalms of relationships in chapters one through 41. It's a relationship with God, not religion, that transforms our hearts. Write that down somewhere, baby. It is a relationship with God, a relationship, not religion, that transforms the heart of mankind. You and I don't change just because we have more head knowledge. It's because we've done the. And let God do the powerful work of moving that about 18 inches from our heads to our hearts. That's when we start to experience change. So book one, rooted in a relationship with the righteous God. Book two. Someone say book two.
All right, look at that. We've just covered 41 chapters of Psalm.
Book two. You can find flipping your Bibles. This is particularly chapters 42 through 72. 42 through 72. This is book two. So if you look in your Bibles, if you flip over to chapter 42, what does it say there? Book two, you see that? So as you flip through, you can even see in your own Bibles that it breaks it up as such. Now, book two has a separate theme, and it's this. Honesty before God leads to what?
Hope in God. Chapters 42 through 72. Now, last week, before the book, before Psalms, is what last week Pastor Les preached through the Book of Job.
If you were here for that, you know what I'm talking about. When we experience this tension between a holy and good and righteous God and bad things happening, right?
Or the question that many of us have heard and perhaps asked, why does a good God let bad things happen to good people?
Why does this happen?
God is good and he's kind and he's sovereign. But these bad things are going on, these hard things are happening, this suffering is occurring.
What do we do when we long for something that our gracious God isn't giving us?
What do we do? God, you are gracious and you're good. And I'm asking you for something and you're not giving it to me. Any of you been there before?
This section answers that question.
Particularly let's look at Psalm 42, 1, 3, 11. What do we do?
Here's what it says. This is David speaking as a deer pants. There's a song, right? As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When Shall I come and appear before God? So that first part is saying, God, I realize you are good and I want you. Look at verse three. With me, my tears have been my food day, and what night while they say to me, perhaps his enemies, and perhaps just the weariness and the sadness within him, say to me, where is your God? In other words, you say, God is so good, but why is all this bad stuff happening? Right?
Maybe that's other people that you even heard rhythms in your own life. You say, God is so good, you believe in him. But look at all of these bad things that are happening. Look at all this suffering that you are working through.
And then verse 11 gives us a response for how we should handle that question.
Look what the author says in verse 11.
He's talking to himself. We just sang a song echoing this. Why are you downcast, O my soul? And why are you at turmoil within me? What does he say? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. What do we see here?
That it's okay to tell God that your life feels horrible sometimes.
He can handle that.
You can tell God it feels like there's no hope. There's no end to this. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. There's nothing good about to happen right now. And then verse 11 calls us to do something to remind ourselves of the truth, that God has not abandoned us. That's what we see here, right? Hope in God. Find security in your Savior, not in your circumstances. That's what we see here.
Many of us have found ourselves in situations like this, where turmoil is in our hearts, where there's fear gripping us. We're feeling alone. How does the psalmist respond?
Remember your Savior and hold to your Savior. Don't let your circumstances dictate what you believe about God. What does it mean to hope in God?
You write that question. I've already said it. I'll say it again before we move on. It means to find your security, not in your circumstances, but in your Savior.
That's what that's calling us to do. Psalm 46, still in this and not on the screen. It says this. God is our refuge and our strength. A very present help in times of. Do you know this verse? Trouble.
The Lord of hosts is with us.
So we've seen the first book calling us to have a relationship with God. It's a psalm of relationship, a relationship with God. And God is our shepherd who has a relationship with us. The second book that we're looking at here, this is A psalm of. Write this down somewhere.
These are psalms of redemption.
All through this second book of the book of Psalms, in chapters 42 through 47 through 72, I should say, we see this truth.
The psalms of redemption tell us this. God can recover what is lost, what is broken and what is in pain.
God sees all of that, and he says, it's okay. Bring all of that to me. Because I am a God of redemption. I am faithful to make good things come out of really bad things.
I can do that. So we've seen psalms of relationship. We've seen psalms of redemption. You ready for book three? Someone say book three.
So this is the next big section here in Psalms 73 through 89.
The big idea, the big point here. You could write this in. The character of God comforts his people.
The character of God comforts his people.
Now, this particular portion, much of it is written by David's choir director. His name is Asaph. He writes a lot here.
But also we see people crying out to God who are sitting in captivity in what nation?
In Babylon, crying out to God, saying, don't forget us, don't forget us. Much of these psalms here are truly, and I used this word earlier. Are God's people lamenting or crying out, sad because of what they've done? And so in this, we see that they're confessing their sin, they're realizing their faults. Have any of you realized your faults before? And you've called out to God, like, that's what we see right here.
And in the midst of that, let's look at Psalm 86. We see this chapter. Really, these verses really bring this theme to the surface in your Bibles. Look in Psalm 86, 5, 13, 15. Let's just read through that, because this shows us something so powerful.
When I know I've done something wrong, when I know I've been unfaithful to God, when I don't know how God's feeling about me, you read.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
For great is your steadfast love toward me.
You have delivered my soul from the depths of the Sheol or from death. And then verse 14 goes on.
Even balancing the goodness and the faithfulness of God with life is still really hard right now. Look what it says. Verse 14. Oh, God, insolent men, bad people have risen against me. A band of ruthless people seek my life. They don't set you before them. In other words, they're not honoring God. These people out there. But verse 15.
But you, O Lord, are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in what?
Steadfast love and faithfulness. What do we see here? The character of God is what comforts us. Because God may not change all of the circumstances around us, but when we have those things going on, we can run back to him over and over again, saying, God, I believe that you're good and that you're kind and that you're faithful and that you're merciful and you have not abandoned me.
When you're feeling overwhelmed by fear, sadness, anger, doubt, whatever those things are.
And this is a choice we even see here. This is a choice. Choose to interpret your circumstances through the unchanging character of God, not interpret God's character through your changing circumstances. Does that make sense? God says that he loves me. He says that he's hopeful. He says that he will forgive me. He says, steadfast love, all of those things. God says, that's his character. He does not change in that way. But all of my life is changing. It's upheaval. So does that mean God is no longer faithful? No. We're going to trust God's character, his steadfast character, even though our circumstances are not steadfast.
And knowing that, friends, is what gives us comfort.
So we've seen already a few things. We've seen a psalm of relationship saying, trust in God and God is gonna be faithful to you and shepherd you. We've seen that God is one who sees us in the midst of our brokenness. And he doesn't say, I can't handle your messiness. He says, bring it to trust in me, and I can bring something good out of that. That's in the second book of Psalms, the third that we just looked at here, A psalm of refuge.
God is the best place to run to when we need to be rescued.
Rescued from addiction, from fear, from marital problems, relationship conflict. The list can go on and on and on. He's saying this.
I am the refuge. Run to me. Run to the things that I have already said, that I have taught. Run to my character. Let those things be the place where you find peace, even though the world is literally a storm right now. Come to me, he says, and I want to be your refuge. Over and over in this third book of Psalms. In these chapters, we see the word refuge used so much because God's saying, come to me. You can trust in me.
So psalms of relationship, redemption, refuge. What about the fourth book in Psalm 90:106.
So this is the third section in the Psalms.
What does it teach us? What does it teach us?
The opening chapters of Psalm. If you look in chapter 90, we see.
We see Israel's roots and Moses praying, describing, and pleading to God for mercy. He's saying, like, please remember us. And you are a God who steadfast love. Most likely, this book starts off with remember the golden calf from Exodus? And all of that was going on. How did God feel about the golden calf? Not great. Right? How did Moses feel about it? Not great. Obviously, Moses, we get these glimpses in the beginning of book four of Psalms, in chapter 90, these glimpses of. It's like Moses, Moses is crying out to God, saying, you're a God who is steadfast, who is good and faithful. And these people have done messed up, like, they have done some bad, bad things. But God, don't forget your steadfast love. Don't abandon your people.
And then he tells the story. And what we're gonna do is look at 106, look in your Bibles, in Psalm 106. Here's what Moses does. He writes this psalm as well.
He literally accounts, if you want like, a good synopsis of what happens with the people of Israel from the beginning, from the Red Sea, to like the end of their story with Moses, read Psalm 106. Because what Moses does is he literally accounts, like, back to God. You were faithful here, you were faithful here. You were faithful here, you were faithful here. And at the end of all of that, he says, you are worthy of praise. The front end and back end of Psalm 106 speaks about this. Look with me and read with me here.
Praise the Lord. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good his steadfast love, what endures forever.
Who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord? Who can declare his praise? Blessed are those who observe justice and who do righteousness at all times. And then he talks about Israel's story from Egypt. And it kind of goes almost to their exile into all the problems that they ran into. And then it shows God's faithfulness. And look at verse 48 on the screen here.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
And let the people say what?
Amen.
Praise the Lord. Can we say that together? Amen. Praise the Lord. That's how he concludes. And what I think is powerful for us, maybe you and I can do this as well, is write down, when God shows up in your life, make note of that. God showed up here God did this. God met my needs here. God showed up here because we are forgetful people. I feel like I've said that a lot. Maybe I'm just speaking myself.
When we can look back, just as the author of this chapter does, and see God's hand at work through all of that, you conclude your day, or perhaps your life with this. Amen. Praise the Lord.
Look at how God has been faithful. And we can rejoice in that. And so many of the Psalms in these portions in Psalm 90: through 106 is, Praise the Lord. He's been faithful. He's been worthy of praise. Praise him. Praise Him. Praise him. He's worthy of worship.
So we conclude chapter four here.
We're moving through this, read through psalms, memorize it, sing songs. This week, of all these chapters, we've seen psalms of relationship, of redemption, of refuge. Psalm 4 is this. It's Psalms of Rejoicing. Why?
Because God has done great things. Amen.
He has done great things.
I told you at the beginning.
We see this rhythm through the book of Psalms, of a lot of lament, a lot of crying out to God, of asking for his help. And as it goes further into the book, you get more praise and more worship of God. Maybe you've picked that up already in these first four points, starting off with, like, God, I need your help. To God, you've been helping and you've been making things better to hear. Book four is, he is worthy of worship.
And then we look at book five, the last portion of the Psalms in Psalm 107 through 150, flipping your Bibles to Psalm 107, 150. In this section here, we see many passages that you and I are familiar with. For example, Psalm 139 in this section of 107 to 150, 139, 23 and 24 says this, Search me, O God, and know my what heart.
Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, with 176 verses. We see this whole chapter reminding us to stay rooted in God's word. We see verses like this in 119, 11, I have hidden your word in my what heart, that I might not sin against you. We see in Psalm 119, 105, another verse that many of us know. I have hidden your word in my heart.
I'm sorry. Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
Psalm 136 is that chapter that goes back and forth with the faithfulness of God. And then it Says this, your love endures forever. It's this call and response psalm.
Throughout this we are reminded of this truth. And you wrote this down already, perhaps. Book five. God remembers, he rescues and he should be rejoiced in. And that's what we see all through this. Let's look at 107 in your Bibles verses 4 through 9 specifically.
Some have wandered to desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in. They are hungry and they are thirsty. You have this picture of someone wandering in the wilderness.
Nothing good is going on.
Their soul fainted within them.
Then someone say, then.
Then they cried to the Lord in their what trouble? And what did God do? He delivered them from their distress.
Cause God does not forget us.
And then he rescues. He delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in.
You have this picture of somebody wandering aimlessly. Then they're realizing, I have nowhere to go, there's no one to sustain me, there's no one to help me. They cry out to God and God shows up. He rescues them. And then what's the response in verse 8 and following? Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. For he satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul he fills with good things. This calls us to remember that God is one who doesn't forget us. God is one who sees us in the midst of our wandering and says, I have the power to rescue you, but what do we have to do in order to be rescued by him?
Call out to him, right?
Call out to him, say, I need your help. And maybe that's you today, wandering, hurting, struggling. And you feel it inside of you right now.
I need help. But I don't want to tell anyone that I need help.
And God says, tell me that you need help.
And even not just telling the Lord that you need help, but tell the Lord's people that you need help.
Because God said, right? Many of us have kind of heard this analogy, right? You're swimming in the ocean, you need help. There's sharks coming around you. And a boat comes by and you're like, I've called out to God, it's okay, he's gonna save me. And then another boat comes by and they say, do you want help? And he says, no, God's gonna help me. And then what happens when the guy drowns? He shows up in heaven. He says, God, why didn't you help me? What does God say?
I Sent boats. I sent people.
And for many of us today, we're like that, like, God, I need help. God, I need help. And God's like, I've given you all this help. You're like, yeah, but I don't want those people to be the ones who rescue me.
The Lord's people are a gift to the Lord's people.
The Lord's people are a gift to the Lord's people.
At the end of psalm the last 5 chapters, maybe flip in your Bibles, Pastor les, read Psalm 140 from these last five chapters. A portion there. 146 to 150.
These last five chapters are significant because we've journeyed from lament to praise. And the last five chapters are all about praise. Can someone say praise?
The last five chapters are all about this. It starts and ends the same way. Each of these last five chapters in Psalms. And it starts, it starts like this, and it ends like this. Praise the Lord. Can someone say praise the Lord?
And in Hebrew, it's this. It's Hallelujah. And if you look in the Word, what you see is this.
Hallelujah. Praise the Lord is not something that, as you read it, it's not something directed towards God.
It's directed towards other people.
Now, oftentimes when we sing songs and we say hallelujah, Hallelujah, hallelujah, we're looking up praising God, right?
But when you look at the words in the Bible, you look at how Scripture uses the word hallelujah. It's not an act of praise, if you will, it's an act of instruction for the people next to you.
So the author does this in these last five chapters. He says, hey, you, praise the Lord. And you stars, praise the Lord. And you trees, praise the Lord. And you oceans, praise the Lord. And. And here, even for us, as we realize this truth, we're commanded not just to express praise to God directly from us to him, but also tell other people he's worthy of praise. Amen.
So we need to practice this. Look to the person next to you because we need to say some Hebrew words here. Hallelujah is the same as praise the Lord. So it's not just hallelujah, hallelujah, in other words, praising the Lord. Tell the person next to you to praise the Lord. So look to your neighbor and say, hallelujah, Hallelujah. Say it with gumption, like you mean it.
You are telling them, praise the Lord. That's how the Book of Psalms ends. It says, look at God's faithfulness Look at God's goodness. Even though your life is falling apart sometimes, even though you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death at the end of it all, praise the Lord. Don't forget his steadfast love through it all. He will not abandon you. So we've seen through all of this. Psalms of relationship, Psalms of redemption, Psalms of Refuge, Psalms of rejoicing. In book five, the last book is this Psalms of Revival.
Telling us this truth, God will bring to life and give a reason for life to all in creation. God has the power to make dead things come back to life and things that feel dead or dying. He says, I have the power to bring it back to life, so I am deserving of praise.
We need to realize something else.
This book is not just written for us, but it's also rooted in the reality of Israel's history who regularly walked away from God.
And they knew they needed a Savior to help them.
They knew. And that's why in much of psalms written by very broken people, sinful people, they look forward to a Messiah's coming reign, a Savior who would meet them in their brokenness and give them a reason to continually praise the Lord.
They're looking forward. And so there's actually, throughout the Psalms, references to the Savior, to a coming Messiah, to a coming Redeemer, to a coming refuge with a capital R, if you will. Who's going to bring about peace to a broken and terrible world. And this transitions us to the Savior. Where do we see the Savior in all of this? Now, Jesus referenced the psalms at least 11 times, and there's at least 17 references to Jesus in the Psalms, probably more. Actually, today we're not going to look at all of those. We're just going to look at three. Someone say three. Three. Let's look at three on your outline underneath. Savior. You could write this in Jesus we see here in Psalm 2:7 and others, we'll just look at one. Jesus is God's son.
Jesus is God's son. It says this in verse seven of chapter two. And Hebrews 1:5 tells us this is actually a dialogue going on between God and the Son, Jesus. He says, I will declare.
I'm sorry, I will tell of the decree the Lord said to Me, which Hebrews 1:5 says, Me is actually Jesus. You are my Son. Today I have begotten you.
We could spend so much time on the reality of the divinity of Jesus. But I'll just say this. The identity of Jesus as God, as divine is vital to the salvation message. If Jesus Isn't God?
Then the very foundation of our faith crumbles.
And Psalm teaches us this. Secondly, Jesus is God's son, but also Jesus is our shepherd. He is the good shepherd.
Psalm 23, obviously we speak about oftentimes. John 10, 11 tells us this. Jesus speaking. He says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life.
Psalm 23, a chapter in this book that we just surveyed, reminds us that we see the Lord God as the shepherd of David. And also Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. I'm not just a shepherd. I'm not just somebody along the list of other people who can look out for you. I am the good shepherd. This is a beautiful and powerful, even rich song that we sing.
And Jesus in John 10 tells his people to remember, just as a good shepherd doesn't abandon his sheep when they're in danger. That's me too. That's me too. And I provide for you and I'll lead you and so on with all the attributes of a shepherd.
Thirdly, Jesus is not only divine, that is God's Son. He's not only the good shepherd who will never leave us, even in the midst, as we walk through a valley of a shadow of death, he will stick with us. He's also the Forgiver of Psalm 130, 11, 12 teach us this as well as many others. Actually, it says this. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love to those who fear him, it is those who realize his power and authority over all things. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. That's what Psalm 131, 2, 11, 12 say. And then Ephesians 1:7 echoes this. Look. What? It's on the screen as well. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses of our sins according to the riches of his grace.
Jesus says this, even though you have done all these horrible things, all these bad things have happened, I am one who makes you new.
You don't need to carry the burden of your past into the present or into the future anymore. I can wash you clean, white as snow.
In the midst of all this, we see that Jesus is someone who we can trust in, who we can depend on. And Psalm teaches us that he's also not someone who says, you just need to tell me the facts. I can only handle the facts. As I started off this whole message with this reality.
Psalm teaches us that we need more than doctrinal refinement. We need emotional health. And Psalms lets us come to God with all of our emotional messiness and say, help me, help me.
What's some application that we can look at here before we close?
You like to write things down. You can write this in if there's enough room on your outline. So far, I put one thing that we can learn about God, about humanity, and about us personally on the screen. There's many, many more in all 150 chapters that we looked at here.
Let's look at one. What does this teach us about God? God can handle our feelings.
We don't have to hide them from God. We can take them to him, whatever they are. His steadfast love will not shake under your sin, your suffering, or your insecurities.
God can handle whatever that is. And as people, as God's people, as people, you and I in the church, let's mirror that, Right? Let's mirror that. If God can handle all of our messiness, let's also be brothers and sisters who are willing to handle the messiness of other people. You with me? When other people come and have, here's all my baggage and I need help, you're like, no, no, no. Just clean that up a little bit and then I'll handle that. Like, give me some good theology and then we can talk. They're willing to say, I'm willing to hear even sometimes your messy theology and all that because you're carrying your heart to me. Let's be people that reflect this attribute of God, if you will, to God's people.
What does this teach us about humanity, about the world around us?
It's this scripture. This is particularly echoing Psalm 119.
Scripture, not spirituality, is what grounds humanity in reality.
Without something to point us to true north, we should not be surprised when the world around us is confused or lost or misaligned.
So often, friends, we look at the world around us and we're like, it's messy over there and it's broken over there. And they're doing horrible things over there and horrible things over there. How could they think that that's okay?
Why would we assume any different when they don't have something to point them to true north?
Why would we assume any different? Friends, we can look at the world around us and see brokenness. We don't have to be surprised or angry at it. We can be burdened knowing they are lost, they're broken, they're misaligned, they're insecure, whatever those things are.
And we can come over to them, say, I have a compass that can show you what true north is. You look lost.
Some people who don't feel lost, they aren't going to look at your compass.
But the people who are feeling lost lean into those situations, lean into those circumstances where you're experiencing relationship with other people and they're feeling lost or broken or confused and you're realizing they need truth north. Show them God's word. Bring God's word to them and say, look, this is the compass for me and it's directed me towards the right path. It's directed me towards stability, it's directed me towards hope and towards love and towards grace. Use this as the compass.
God's people have to use God's compass if we want to go and help the world around us.
And then lastly, me application.
Hard stuff will come.
You know this, I know this. Sickness, betrayal, fear, the list could really go on. Death in the end, I don't need to deny or ignore those realities in this broken world.
The question is, will I allow the hardships to throw me from God or will I choose to run to him as my refuge, as my rest and as my hope.
I have to make that decision even as we see the writers of this book did over and over and over again.
Life is hard. Choose like right. What David said. Wake up, O my soul, like hope in God. Tell yourself, I'm not going to abandon him. Even though these things are going on, I'm going to trust in him.
I'm not going to abandon the truth when my world comes crashing down. And God can handle that. And he promises, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. Let's close in prayer.
Father in heaven, we're so grateful right now that you remind us here that we can bring all of our burdens before you and lay them before you and know that it's not going to be too much for you.
Help us to be people who reflect your heart. That we see here in this book a God who is gracious and kind, loving, a God that we can trust in as we think through this book, even as we read through this book.
Help us to not just be doctrinally informed, but to grow emotionally with you, to entrust ourselves more and more to you, to experience and to believe the deep love that you have for us, unshaking, steadfast love that you have for us. Not dependent on our actions every day, our mistakes, our sins every day, but rather steadfast love that you would help us to be rooted our identity be rooted in our relationship with you.
For those here today, maybe who don't know you, who aren't in a relationship with you, Lord, I pray that you would show them your profound.
Your profound love for them.
And the work that you did is enough to draw all of us here today and those not within these walls to a right relationship with you.
In Jesus name, amen.
Before I close in prayer, I want to give a baptismal certificate to both Jaden and Desmond. So if you could both come up, that would be great. I think they're cool. They're both still here. They haven't ducked out early or anything.
Jaden, here you are. And then stay up here for just a minute before you leave. And then Desmond as well.
Cool.
Awesome. Let's. Let's pray. And I'll just again pray for them before we take off. Father in heaven, so grateful for your goodness, for your greatness that we can declare. Thank you for the blessing of being able to trust in you, to declare publicly, as Jaden and Desmond did today, their faith in you.
Thank you that you have done the work so that we can be forgiven. So that they can be forgiven. And I just pray again, as they have shown today, publicly, before all those here today, that they trust in you. I pray that we would have that same boldness today as we leave.
We could publicly, in all those spaces that you put us, declare your goodness, your faithfulness in our life, that you would give us boldness to walk into those conversations where people are confused and lost and show them true north.
You would also show up in our lives, your spirit working, giving us words in those conversations to declare your goodness and your faithfulness. We thank you that we're able to be ambassadors of you in this world. In Jesus name, amen.
