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SERMON:
Our
sermon reading for today comes from the book of Psalms. The Hebrew word for
“Psalm” literally means “song” (s-o-n-g). The book of Psalms is the “song book”
of the Old Testament.
The
Spirit of God has preserved 150 Old Testament worship songs for us to read. And
of these, about half were written by one man—King David.
David
wrote a lot of different kinds of Psalms. Some were written when he was feeling
crushed by the Lord. Others were written to express David’s sorrow over his
sins, and his deep desire for forgiveness. Some of David’s Psalms are desperate
prayers for deliverance from danger. Others were written when he was joyful and
full of praise after he had been meditating on how the Lord had blessed him or
helped him.
Our
Psalm for today is one of the joyful songs. In it David expresses his
unshakable trust in the Lord.
▬
Psalm 27 (NASB)
A Psalm of David.
1 The
Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is
the defense of my life;
Whom shall I dread?
2 When evildoers came upon me to
devour my flesh,
My adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.
3 Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of
this I shall be confident.
4 One
thing I have asked from the Lord,
that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
5 For in the day of trouble He will
conceal me in His tabernacle;
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me;
He will lift me up on a rock.
6 And now my head will be lifted up above
my enemies around me,
And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of
joy;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
7 Hear,
O Lord, when I cry with my voice,
And be gracious to me and answer me.
8 When
You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,
“Your face, O Lord,
I shall seek.”
9 Do not hide Your face from me,
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not abandon me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation!
10 For my father and my mother have
forsaken me,
But the Lord
will take me up.
11 Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a level path
Because of my foes.
12 Do not deliver me over to the desire
of my adversaries,
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
13 I
would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of
the Lord
In the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.
▬
Now,
to begin with I’d like to talk about how old this song is. The content of the
Psalms is often so timeless, that we read these songs as if they were written
today. But this song wasn’t written today. It was written about 3,000 years ago
in a time and a place that was very different than our situation in America
today.
When
David wanted to go some place, he had to walk. Sure there were chariots and
horses and such, but most of the time a person had to just hoof it from place
to place. Especially if the way you were going was over rough country.
When
the sun went down, there were no streetlights. No flashlights. No Coleman
lanterns. If you needed light in the darkness, that light had to come from the
fire of a torch, or the fire of an oil burning lamp that had a wick and a
basin.
When
David talks about evil men coming to devour his flesh, or host of warriors
encamped against him, or a war raging against him—he wasn’t being poetic. He
was speaking in literal terms.
When
the young David faced the giant Goliath on the battlefield, Goliath told him,
“Come to me, and I will give your
flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field” (1 Samuel 17:44 ESV).
When
King Saul became jealous of David’s popularity among the people, Saul sent real
warriors to kill him. These warriors tracked David’s movements, and pursued him
day by day, camping in the open country as needed.
Throughout
his life, David fought many a warrior on the battlefield. Warriors who carried sword
and shield, spear and javelin. Warriors who did their best to end his life.
David’s
experience in life was very different than ours.
But
despite all the dangers that surrounded David, in this Psalm he expresses an
unshakable fearlessness and confidence. But his confidence was not in his own
abilities as a warrior. Songs were written about how great a warrior David was,
but in his own song he doesn’t sing his own praises. Instead, David gives
credit to the LORD. He says,
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom
shall I fear? The Lord is the
defense of my life; Whom shall I dread?”
(Psalm 27:1 NASB).
▬
In almost every song that David
wrote he speaks of the “LORD”, capital “L-O-R-D.” Whenever you see “LORD” in
all capital letters, that means that, in the Hebrew, David is using God’s
proper name—“Yahweh.” You may have heard this name pronounced, “Jehovah,” but
the more likely Hebrew pronunciation is “Yahweh”, so that’s what I’m going to
use.
The name “Yahweh” is not like the
term “God”. Yahweh is never used of any other deities. It is God’s proper name.
It means, “The One who is.” By giving himself this name God describes himself
as the God who has always existed, and always will. Unlike the universe that he
created, God has no beginning and no end. He just is.
It is this God that David trusts.
When David was alone in the darkness of the Judean wilderness, it made no
different to Yahweh. Light and darkness are the same to him.
When human armies came seeking
David’s life, it was a small thing for Yahweh to rescue him. The God who
created all life had no problem preserving the life of David, no matter what
was happening around him.
The cool thing for David, was that
he understood this. He trusted in Yahweh to protect him. And the more firmly he
trusted in Yahweh, the less reason there was for fear or trembling.
You and I trust in the same God that
David did. Yahweh, the God who is. Yahweh, the God who transcends this
universe. Yahweh, the God who is above created things, and controls all. The
more firmly we trust in his goodness, the less room there will be for fear and
trembling in our lives.
▬
I just finished reading a book about
Katie Luther, the wife of the reformer, Martin Luther. Throughout the book I
noticed that whenever the Luther family faced some tragedy or danger, Katie was
quick to remind them, “God will take care of you. He is everywhere with you.”
David would have agreed. In verses
4-6 David writes,
4 One
thing I have asked from the Lord,
that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
5 For in the day of trouble He will
conceal me in His tabernacle;
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me;
He will lift me up on a rock.
6 And now my head will be lifted up
above my enemies around me,
And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of
joy;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
▬
We don’t know exactly when it was in
David’s life when he penned the words of this Psalm. But when he talks about
“dwelling in the house of the LORD” he’s not talking about literally living in God’s Tabernacle. Nobody LIVED in
the worship tent that God had the Israelites construct. That worship tent, and
the stone temple that came later, were reserved for worship, not everyday
shelter.
When David speaks of “dwelling in
the house of the LORD” he’s saying that the one thing he wants above all other
things is to continue worshipping Yahweh in his own heart, all the days of his
life.
Jesus once said,
“The kingdom of
God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See
here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21 NKJV).
▬
After Yahweh took the Israelite
people to be his own special nation, the nation the world’s Savior would come
from, he instructed them to build a special worship tent—the Tabernacle. This
tent was designed to be movable, because the people would need to take it from
place to place on their way to the land God had promised to give them.
What a perfect picture of the
Christian life. Once a person has come to trust in the Savior that God sent to
take our sins away, we take that faith with us wherever we go. God’s temple is
within us. When we pause to read the Word of God, we are “dwelling in the house
of the LORD” and “beholding the beauty of Yahweh”. No matter where our physical
form is, when we ponder over God’s Word in Scripture we are meditating in his
temple.
This idea of an invisible house of
God that moves with the believer was very powerful to David. When days of
trouble came upon him, David trusted that God was everywhere with him, and
Yahweh would hide him safely in his own dwelling.
Imagine that in literal terms for a
moment. If your nation was at war in the ancient world, and you were camped out
with the army, the safest place to be would be in the king’s tent. There in the
heart of the camp, on the safest ground. There you would be surrounded by the
kings guards, armed and ready to defend you to the death.
Now imagine the king is Yahweh
himself. That is a safe tent to be hidden in.
▬
David shifts the imagery a bit in verse
5, where he says that Yahweh will lift him up on a rock. In times of
danger, Yahweh would not only hide David away in his tent, but would also lift
David up onto solid ground, high above the scrabbling hordes below who sought
his life.
As New Testament Christians, we
can’t help but think of Jesus when we hear this bit about a rock. Scripture
says that Jesus is our cornerstone.
“Behold, I am
laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes
in him will not be put to shame”
(1 Peter 2:6 ESV).
Because Jesus
took our sins on his soul, and suffered for them when he died on the cross of
Calvary, we are lifted above the condemnation and hell that was coming our way.
On Christ we stand forgiven, and secure, forever in the house of Yahweh, no
matter where our feet take us in this life.
▬
So far, in verses
1-6 of Psalm 27, David’s song has been addressed to God’s believers.
David has be expressing his trust in Yahweh to them. But in verses 7-10
David turns and prays to Yahweh himself. David says,
“ 7 Hear,
O Lord, when I cry with my voice,
And be gracious to me and answer me.
8 When
You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You,
“Your face, O Lord,
I shall seek.”
9 Do not hide Your face from me,
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not abandon me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation!
10 For my father and my mother have
forsaken me,
But the Lord
will take me up” (Psalm 27:7-10 NASB).
▬
In the Bible, when you went to “seek
someone’s face” that meant that you were going to ask them for help. In Proverbs
29 it says,
“26Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the Lord that a man gets justice” (Proverbs 29:26 ESV).
In Psalm 27 David says the
Yahweh wanted him to “seek his face.” The God who created us, and still
preserves our lives today WANTS sinful people like you and me to come to him
for help. In Psalm 50, Yahweh says,
“…call upon me
in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15 ESV).
As parents, the last thing that we
want to see is our children struggling through some frustrating thing without
coming to us for help. We care for them. We love them. We want to help.
Our heavenly Father is the same. He
tells David to “seek his face” and he wants us to seek his help also.
David’s greatest fear is that Yahweh
will turn away from him. David pleads with God saying,
“You have
been my help; Do not abandon me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation!” (Psalm
27:9b NASB).
David had seen what happens to
people who turn away from Yahweh. King Saul had turned away from Yahweh. And
without God’s help, Saul had no hope. He was full of fear. He started doing all
sorts of things that were harmful to himself and others. Without he LORD to
turn to, Saul even tried to get a witchdoctor to help him out. David knew that
without the God who is, he would have no light, no salvation, no protection. No
solid guidance. He would stand alone as a sinner with no excuse for his sins.
There’s one thing we have to
remember about seeking the face of Yahweh. If you come face to face with
someone, there’s no hiding. When we come before the God of the universe for
help, he sees all. And we must come before him humbly. We can hide our sins
from our neighbors, but not from Yahweh. As one writer has put it, “If we stick
to our sins, then we’ll be stuck with them.” When we come before Yahweh we must
come openly, admitting the wickedness of our choices, and asking for cleansing
through God’s Son Jesus. Then, and only then, will we find the cleansing and
forgiveness that we seek. Then, even if our own parents abandon us, Yahweh will
take us up in his cradling arms.
▬
In the final words of Psalm 27 David
transitions from praying to Yahweh, to addressing his fellow believers once
again. In verse 11 David says,
“ 11 Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a level path
Because of my foes.
12 Do not deliver me over to the desire
of my adversaries,
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
13 I
would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of
the Lord
In the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:11-14 NASB).
▬
Early
in his life David found himself hunted by the king’s soldiers. The jealous Saul
literally sent out assassins to kill David. There he was, out in the wilderness
fleeing for his life. He literally needed a smooth path to get away. A rocky,
overgrown trail would slow him down, and his hunters would close in.
These
hunters were hunting him because of Saul’s lie. Saul insisted that David wanted
the throne for himself, and was waiting for the right time to murder the king.
But
as he fled, David continued to trust in Yahweh. Yahweh’s own prophet had
anointed David to be the next king. And David would wait for the LORD to make
that happen. He refused to take matters into his own hands. And he says that in
all this he would have despaired unless he believed that Yahweh would keep his
promise to make David king, and bring him great blessing.
You
and I aren’t running for our lives like David was. But we face the same thing
in a spiritual sense. The world around us wants us to despair. Satan and all
his forces are determined to make us doubt Yahweh’s goodness. They want us to
doubt the truth of the Gospel, and the forgiveness and future that we have
because of Jesus.
If
David were here today he would say to us, “Go to the LORD! Have him teach you
HIS way again. He will lead you on a smooth path. A path that leads to full
forgiveness, and eternal safety in his house. Just wait for Yahweh! Be strong
in the faith, and take courage. Wait for Yahweh, his promise will not fail
you.”
▬
Dear
Christians, remember who your God is—Yahweh, the God who is.
Remember
that wherever you take your faith, there goes his temple. There you are safe
under the sacrifice of God’s Son.
When
troubles surround you, seek his face. Pray for God’s help. He will not abandon you.
And
always run back to his ways. To his words. To his promises. For in those
promises, especially the promise of forgiveness in Christ, you will find a
smooth path and a solid rock. There you will find a place which thrums with
strength and courage, where you can wait for the LORD.
Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts, and your minds, in Christ Jesus.
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