Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 25, 2025 | Summer in the Psalms - Psalm 9: Worship while Waiting

Transcript

May 25, 2025 | Summer in the Psalms - Psalm 9: Worship while Waiting · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: We are continuing our series in the Psalms.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: And this morning we're going to be in Psalm chapter 9.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Our backyard recently we put in some raised beds.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: We wanted to have our kids be able to kind of see what it was like to plant, to grow a garden.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: And right now, mostly it's where a lot of plastic dinosaurs are playing.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: But at some point in time, we hope that squash and herbs and strawberries come out of it and all those things.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: And we we did buy some plants already kind of sprouted, but we used seeds for a lot of them.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Did we do the right thing?
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Like we thought we've gone through the process, you know, we've gotten a lot of great weather for it, and yet they haven't shown up.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: There's a bit of a tension that we live in as Christians, where we hear about the hope and the promises of God, and yet oftentimes we feel like we are waiting for them to come.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: And that we might call it promise and fulfillment that God gives to us, it's seen most clearly when we think about the ministry of Christ, right?
1:15
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus came to earth and he was healing the sick and the blind and forgiving people of their sins and doing miraculous things and preaching about a kind of kingdom that didn't look like this world, we saw glimpses of the kingdom that God has promised to us in the future.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: But we also understand that it's not fully here just yet.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: And when we're in the middle of that tension, right, especially when things get really hard in life, we experience loss, pain, or when evil or wicked things happen to us, we can begin to cry out to God and we're like, where are you?
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Why have your promises not come yet?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: What are you waiting on, right?
1:58
SPEAKER_00: The beautiful thing about the Psalms is that that is a frequent theme that God has included in his word.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Knowing and understanding that we struggle with this tension, right?
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Of God's promises, yet living in hope for them to be fully realized.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: He knows that we struggle with that because we all do at various points in time.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: And he brings us many different psalms that help us in our struggling.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting about Psalm 9 is King David is speaking, or rather singing, because all the psalms are songs, and he is singing about what it means to praise God with a full heart in the midst of waiting.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: And what's so amazing about this is he's going to bring out three different things that he knows and he believes about God that help him to worship fully, right, without reservation, even though his problems are unresolved.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us that sounds like a really hard thing to do.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: How could I ever worship God fully, with a full heart, when I've got this going on in the background?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: And yet how beautiful it is, and how glorious it is when we are able to do what David tells us here.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: So let's go ahead and take a look at Psalm chapter 9, and we'll begin with David as he sings about the Lord in praise.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Right?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: This is how he began.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Later in the Psalm, he's going to get to the hard stuff.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: But look at how he starts.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I will thank the Lord with all my heart.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: I will declare your wondrous works.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: I will rejoice and boast about you.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: I will sing about your name most high.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: I will thank the Lord with all my heart, right?
3:45
SPEAKER_00: On a good week, it can be hard to come before the Lord and worship on Sunday with a full heart.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: That is completely dedicated to Him, that is focused on Him, that has it's not that we don't bring our burdens with us into here, but that is able to fully give everything over and worship and praise to God.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: On a good week, that is hard, right?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: We're thinking about what happened, we're thinking about what's coming up.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole number of things, right?
4:16
SPEAKER_00: It can be difficult.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And yet what David is saying here is I thank the Lord with all of my heart.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Not part of it, right?
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Not the section that I've set aside or the part where I feel obligated, but David says, with all my heart, I go before the Lord in praise.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And this is before he gets into the hard stuff.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: This is how he begins.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And you go, okay, classic, right?
4:38
SPEAKER_00: This is King David, okay?
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, of course, he has an easier time worshiping after God.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: He's got a lot of things going for him.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: But David was, he was a man after God's own heart.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: He was the greatest king of Israel.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: But David was a deeply broken man who experienced a lot of hardship and pain in his life.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: His life was definitely not the easy road the whole time.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: This is a guy who knows and understands what pain and suffering and loss look like and what it means for people to attack you with wicked or evil intentions.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: David knows what it's like, and even still, he is able to say, I worship God with a full heart.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: David is here in a moment going to bring up really three reasons on how that is possible.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: He's going to look back at God's faithfulness.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: He is going to think about God, what it means that God is eternal, right?
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Always there.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And then he's going to understand and appreciate the character of God, one who cares for us.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: As David continues on in Psalm 9, he says, When my enemies retreat, they stumble and perish before you.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: David has over time seen a lot of victory in his battles, in his military engagements, because of his relationship with God and his alignment with his purpose.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: See, we want to be like David, where we are aligned with God's purpose.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: David understands that when he is moving at the speed and in the direction and the way that God wants him to move, right?
7:46
SPEAKER_00: When he's following that path, we might say, abiding with God.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: When David is doing that, he goes, I know now when people attack me, they're attacking God.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: If I'm going off and doing my own thing and I'm not following the Lord and people attack me, I don't have the same security that I do when I understand that I'm following in line with God's will.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: But David says that is what I'm doing.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: You have upheld my just cause, not because David is just, but because God's cause is just.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And so he sees that if he follows in this groove, in this rhythm with the Lord, right, that God is going to deliver him from his enemies.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: All of these things will happen.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that David recognizes is that God is faithful.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: What he is doing is proclaiming what God has already done.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: He looks back on his life with thankfulness, with appreciation, seeing and recognizing all the ways that God has answered his prayers up and until this point.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: You might say he's kind of looking at God's resume here, okay?
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Like he's comparing all the ways that his prayers have been answered and God has delivered him so that with confidence, like anchoring his hope in something real, he says, Well, now I trust even more greatly that you're going to do this in the future.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: You've done it in the past, right?
9:07
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over and over again.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And so I know I have hope, I have faith, but now I have real reason, right?
9:16
SPEAKER_00: I have real confidence in what's going on in the future because of what you've done in the past.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are faithful.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: If you promise something, you do not let it fall away.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: That's really hard to say.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times it can feel like God's promises are delayed in their coming.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: But David says, You've never failed to deliver on your promises before.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And I know you won't do it this time.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: God, I've seen you do this.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: I know you'll do it again.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: The first way that David is able to worship the Lord with a full heart in the midst of this waiting is by recognizing that God is faithful.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: But that's not all of it.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: See, David also recognizes and sees and praises the Lord for being a God who is bigger than he can even imagine.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: The Lord sits enthroned forever.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: He has established his throne for judgment.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: And he judges the world with righteousness.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: He executes judgment on the nations with fairness.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is a refuge for the persecuted, a refuge in times of trouble.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Those who know your name trust in you, because you have not abandoned those who seek you, Lord.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: David is praying to a God and worshiping a God who is bigger than he can possibly imagine.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: This is the same God who visited Moses in the form of a burning bush back in the book of Exodus, and when introducing himself, just said, I am.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: This is not a God who has a beginning, nor does he have an end.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: This is a God that we worship, that we follow, the same God of Moses, David, and ourselves today and tomorrow, who is outside of time.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: He created time, and he is present with us in the midst of it, right?
11:07
SPEAKER_00: In our day to day, in our moment by moment, but yet also he is working out something that is bigger than we can possibly imagine.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, we hear those things and it can feel despairing.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: You're like, how is that supposed to help when I'm saying, where is God right now?
11:23
SPEAKER_00: That he is bigger than I can imagine.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: But for David, the fact that God is eternal, that was comforting for him.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: David said, actually, when I begin to despair and wonder when God is going to move, when God is going to do something, he goes, It comforts me to know that I have this all-powerful, loving God who is working something out.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Like I can trust that my confusion of the problem is not the end of the situation, but rather that there is a greater answer.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: I might not understand it.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: I might not even agree in the moment with the timing of it.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But I can have faith, knowing that He has that I worship a God who does not think in hours and minutes, but in lifetimes and generations.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: That God is pulling things out and he is working out a plan that has begun perhaps hundreds of years ago.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you were the beginning of something that he is going to work out with your grandchildren or your greatest friends, or something that you can't even possibly fathom at the moment.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: That your and my conception of God's plan, if it was up to us, would be too limited and finite.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: We have something, we can trust that he is working these big things out.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And for David, that was a big deal.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't this like theological concept that he's like, yeah, God is eternal.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, that's present for me.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: That's a real thing for me.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: That he is with me in the moment, but he is doing bigger things than I can imagine.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: And specifically in that passage that we looked at, right, David is talking about how good it is to have a judge, a righteous judge, sitting on a throne who is eternal.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Where his consistent and fair judgments are something that David can rely upon back then and even today.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: And then furthermore, that those who need refuge, that those who need help, that those who are oppressed and poor and needy, that they also can rely on a judge that is not going to be gone tomorrow or the week after, but they can go to over and over and over again and trust in.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: This is part of the way that David was able to worship God with a full heart.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: But even in the waiting, even in the midst of all of these things, there is one more element that David rested his hope on, and it was the character of God.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: It says, Sing to the Lord who dwells in Zion, proclaim his deeds among the nations.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: For the one who seeks an accounting for bloodshed remembers them.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: So David worships a God who is faithful to carry out all of his promises.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: He worships a God who is eternal.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: But the key element that you add to all of those things is that he is good and he cares for his people.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: You can have a God who fulfills promises and a God who is eternal and does not bring comfort or love those that he is presiding over, if you will.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: David knows that God cares.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: He knows that it's going on.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And when you look out into the world and you see the poor and the needy and the oppressed and those people who are trafficked and facing injustice and being abused, God cares more about those people and those things than you do.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: He cares more and has a greater heart for all of them and far beyond what we can even imagine and fathom, because it is happening on a scale that is truly incomprehensible for us.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: That God knows each and every one of them because he made each and every one of them in their mother's womb.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: In his image, and they are suffering, and that breaks his heart.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: We often get caught up in the, I mean, the things like God is eternal or God is this righteous judge, and they can sometimes distance us from the character and the heart of God.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: That we forget that God cares for us, and that that should be a foundational element when we say, How can I worship God in the midst of my pain and suffering?
16:16
SPEAKER_00: One of the key answers is because I know that he cares for me.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: He's not distant, he's not far off, he's not uncaring, he knows my situation deeper than I know it myself, and he loves me more than I can imagine.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: This is part of who God is.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, that this waiting that we have, right?
16:37
SPEAKER_00: It's uh each thing builds upon one another.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And for David, here in this passage, he says, like, I know that these promises are going to come true because I know that God hates to see people oppressed.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, because I know his character, on top of him working things out and on top of his faithfulness, I just know simply because of his character that these things will not last forever.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: And that helps me in the midst of waiting.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: God's nature remains constant, even though our situations change.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: So after reflecting on God's history, God's timing, and God's character, David has a measure of confidence.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: He has the ability to lean into this situation.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: He goes, My problem is not fixed yet, but I can still worship God with a full heart because I know these things.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: In verse 13, though, as you'll see in the text, uh things switch up just a little bit.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: We move from praise to prayer.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: And David now gives us kind of a model of prayer that we can use as we are sort of trying to worship with a full heart while waiting for God to move.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Here is an example of what we can do.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: David says, Be gracious to me, Lord.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Consider my affliction at the hands of those who hate me.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Lift me up from the gates of death, so that I may declare all your praises.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: I will rejoice in your salvation within the gates of Daughter Zion.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: So, Zion, you might have heard, if you're unfamiliar, that's it's kind of another word for Jerusalem.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so daughter Zion, within the gates of Daughter Zion, David is saying, He lives in Jerusalem.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: He's like within this city gates of the place where your tabernacle, your, your future temple, where the Ark of the Covenant dwells, David says, I will rejoice in your salvation here in Jerusalem.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: He says, Be gracious to me, God.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Consider my affliction at the hands of those who hate me.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Does God need David to pray to him to understand a situation?
18:47
SPEAKER_00: No.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Does God want that?
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And God wants you to do the exact same thing.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: He knows what's going on in your life.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: That is one of those great things about him being all-knowing.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Is like you don't need to explain to him the details like you do to your best friend.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, listen, I've just got to like dump for like 15 minutes and then you can.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: God's like, I know, I understand.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: I was present with you in the midst of all of it, right?
19:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't need all of the details yet at the same time.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: I love that we are talking.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: I love that you are giving this to me.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: I love that you are reaching in our relationship to me, knowing that I love you and I care for you.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And so David does the same thing.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Consider me, Lord.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: God considers David all the time, but he wants to hear David say it.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: But then David says, Lift me up so that I may declare all your praises.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: There's a fine line here that's kind of tricky between faith in prayer and conditional prayer.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean is that what David is showing is his faith in God.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: He goes, I know you're gonna do great things.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: I know, Lord, that you are going to deliver me from this.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know when, I don't know how, I don't understand the details.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: I know it's gonna happen, though.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: It might even be something that lasts me until the day that I die, but I know that the wicked will ultimately be punished.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: I trust in you.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, I'm excited and anticipating my praise.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: I look forward to the day when you answer my prayer because I know I will just have another thing to add to the list of things that you are worthy of praise for.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And I am excited to do that in your city, in your holy city, to give you praise for the things that I know that you will do.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: That is faith expressed through prayer.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: What it is not is a condition that he places upon God.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if you answer my prayer, then I will praise you.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if you do these things, if you answer me, if you help me, if you get me out of this jam, well, then I'll do the stuff that I know that you want me to do, then I will go to church, then I will pray, then I will actually take this thing seriously, then I will do whatever.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: That's conditional.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: That's not what God wants to see.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: What he wants is faith expressed through prayer, and as David does saying, and I look forward to that time because that will be another thing that I can rejoice over.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: David recognizes that God might answer his prayers in ways that he might not understand.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: David's fighting armies, right?
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Typically, when you're fighting armies, there's sort of like a win-loser draw, right?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: There's a pretty clear way that we might want God to help us out if we were fighting a war.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: But David broadens his vision, right?
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Sees that there might be other ways that God is going to deliver him from the wicked and the evil in a manner that he might not understand or expect.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Says, the nations have fallen into the pit they made.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Their foot is caught in the net they have concealed.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has made himself known, he has executed justice, snaring the wicked by Work of their hands.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: David's point here is that evil often backfires on the evildoer, and the schemes of the wicked often trip them up.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: But it takes time to see that happen, right?
22:15
SPEAKER_00: A snare and a noose that slowly encircles its prey is not something that often happens immediately, right?
22:23
SPEAKER_00: They have to step into it, they have to apply pressure, then it draws tight.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: David sees that God might be doing more than he could imagine.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And he looks forward to it.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: The nations have fallen into this pit that they might have created a situation that is going to come back upon them.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And Psalms, let me say this.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: The Psalms often give us things and say things that you go, Am I allowed to feel that?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Am I allowed to say that?
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Am I allowed to like say that I'm excited for the wicked to face destruction?
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: It's part of God's character, right?
22:59
SPEAKER_00: The wicked and the unrepentant and evil in this world, we want to see it destroyed.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Totally cool with saying that you are excited about that.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: And David says, I look forward to the wicked falling into the traps that they have set for other people.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: A person speaks false rumors at work to undermine a coworker and gain a promotion.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: When the truth comes out, they lose the trust of their boss.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're eventually fired.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Someone cheats financially, they're embezzling money or they're dodging their taxes, and they appear to succeed for a while.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And that house, that car, those vacations, but eventually they're caught, prosecuted, and lose more than they had to begin with.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: A leader or a public figure preaches about morality but lives a secret life.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: When the truth comes out, the fallout is worse because of the perceived deception.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: A parent rules their home through fear and manipulation, thinking it will produce obedience, and instead it drives the child away and ruins the relationship.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Esther, you might be familiar with the villain Haman, who built gallows to hang Jewish people on.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: And spoiler alert, at the end of the book of Esther, Haman is hanging from his own gallows.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: The thing that he made to kill other people, he is killed upon.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: But the greatest example of this in the Bible is certainly the cross of Christ, where we see that it was part of Satan's scheme and desire to kill God.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: This is why Judas gets involved, right?
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And whether we want to say he influenced him or he possessed him or he convinced him or manipulated him, whatever it is, Satan moved Judas to give up Christ.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Satan was thought that Jesus dying on that cross was his victory.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that Jesus willingly dying on the cross, giving up his life for the rest of the world, was the very nail in the coffin for Satan.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: It was the sure sign of his defeat.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: The very thing that he thought was going to bring him victory brought about his demise.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: God loves to do these kinds of things.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: To bring about, we might even say is a satisfying and a beautiful, tying a bow, right, around.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: It's not just the wicked are put down, but it's that their fall is good to watch.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: God likes to do that.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: But it might not happen in the timing that we expect or in the way that we expect.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And so David here, he gives it up.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: He says, I know that you're an eternal, righteous judge, that you're working things out.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: I trust that you're working things out in a way I don't even understand.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Maybe, Lord, maybe you're doing something that is bigger than I can imagine and is better than I can imagine, and maybe you shouldn't take my advice in the moment.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just earthly punishment that David is anticipating.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: He knows that because he worships an eternal, all-powerful, righteous judge, and that gives him so much confidence, right?
26:13
SPEAKER_00: It is also the thing that should make the wicked and those who are attacking David quake.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: The wicked will return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: For the needy will not always be forgotten.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: The hope of the oppressed will not perish forever.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Rise up, Lord, do not let mere humans prevail.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Let the nations be judged in your presence.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Put terror in them, Lord.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Let the nations know they are only humans.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Get it, David, right?
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 9 and Psalm 10, a lot of people think that they're actually one big Psalm that got separated a while back.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of very similar language that David uses in both of them.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 9, right, where we're on today, is about how can we worship God in the midst of waiting?
27:02
SPEAKER_00: How can we worship him with a full heart, even though things aren't perfect just yet?
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 10, though, if there's any part of this message you've been listening to me and you're like, yeah, but you don't understand the weight that I have that is on my shoulders.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: You don't understand my situation.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: God has not answered my prayers or been faithful to me.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Come back next week.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Because Psalm 10 kicks it up to 11, right?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 10 begins with, God, why are you so distant and far away from me?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: David answers those emotions perfectly.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: If you feel any sort of anger or frustration with Lord, come back next week.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: But for this morning, what I want you to see though is how David, this is how he finishes the psalm, that his prayer here is that not only he, but that the world would recognize what it means to trust in a God who is carrying out his will.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: And he's doing it in a timeline that he understands, and he's doing it in a way, though it is still filled with compassion, and that is faithful to all of his promises.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: And David says, I know there is a day that is coming when the oppressed will no longer be oppressed, when the in those who have experienced injustice will find justice, and those who are poor and needy will be lifted up in my kingdom.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: David says, I know those days are coming.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: I see glimpses of them now because God does minister and move in the world today and tomorrow and yesterday and all of those places to let people see his kingdom as it is right now, but then also foretaste of what is coming in the future.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: David says, I look forward to that and I praise you in the moment right now.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: I am anchoring my hope in something that is real because of who you are, God.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: And I know that ultimately it is not just this world that you are delivering, but it is an eternal deliverance that I can trust in.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: So because David trusts in God, knows the way that God is working in his timing and his holy character, David has a kind of trust that is informed by personal experience, yet is strengthened by faith.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: And that is the kind of thing that we can have.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: You say, How is it possible for us to worship God with a full heart, even in the while we are waiting?
29:30
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Because we know that God is faithful, that God is eternal, and that God cares for us.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And that does not remove the pain from your life necessarily, but it helps you to live in that waiting.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, Psalm 9, it comforts us in two different ways, right?
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Or really, I should say, it comforts us, and then it allows us to comfort others who are struggling in the midst of all of these things.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: See, Psalm 9 brings comfort for us in the fact that we can, we can have a type of faith and worship that David had.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: You are not doomed to be frustrated and angry with God while you are going through suffering.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: That's certainly the easiest route to take.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's the most common.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: But it is glorifying and beautiful and praiseworthy if in the midst of your waiting for God's promises you are able to say, I lift up praise with my whole heart.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: And as you do that, and as you understand these things, the same things that they're not, none of this is rocket science in the sense that when I tell you that God is eternal, you're just like, woof, news to me, right?
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Like most of us know these kinds of things.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: But rather it's about applying all of them to our life in a way that does bring us the kind of comfort and outcome that David is discussing here, right?
30:57
SPEAKER_00: This psalm is for you if you are struggling in the waiting.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Next week, that psalm is for you if you are angry and frustrated with God.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: But my challenge to you, though, is that you would not allow the waiting to ruin and undermine your faith with God.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: That is what the enemy wants more than anything else, is that as your faith and my faith at times, right, begins to waver as God's promises aren't arriving as soon as we might like them to, that what happens is we just become apathetic, we grow distant, and we don't do any of the things that God has called us to, right?
31:34
SPEAKER_00: That's not good for his kingdom, and it's not good for us because we're not living out the purpose that God has designed us for.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: And so might we draw deeper in so that we can live this out?
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Let thankfulness for God's blessings change your worship and fix your heart on what is going well rather than what isn't?
31:55
SPEAKER_00: How has he helped you through difficult situations before?
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask, I don't mean this to be a rhetorical question, when was the last time you thanked the Lord for waking you up in the morning or for letting your heart beat?
32:09
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time that you thanked him for the fact that you could walk or that you could see or that you could hear?
32:17
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time that you thanked him for the kinds of things that we take for granted every single day?
32:23
SPEAKER_00: But that many people across the world do not have.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: We constantly move the floor on our thankfulness, such that the things that God consistently gives to us as a blessing daily just become our expectation.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying, what if we drop the floor a little bit and do practice a little bit of David's thankfulness here, looking back at all of the things that God has done for us, all the ways that He has provided for us, all the prayers that He has answered, all the ways He has moved in unexpected fashion that were actually way better than we would have thought it could be if we were following our own plan.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And might we carry that forward into our suffering in the midst of pain right now?
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Right?
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Allow that to change our worship and to be more thankful to God.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: And as we are comforted, as we think about these things, Psalm 9 also helps us to bring comfort to other people.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: You say, what, if there's any place in this world where God's kingdom should be made manifest and the things that He says are important are emphasized, it should be in the church.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: It should be with Christians, it should be with people who say that they love Jesus and want to live like Jesus.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: And so you go, okay, if somebody is suffering and they need a little bit of God's kingdom here, they need to see these things, they need a little blessing, they need to experience that love of Christ, they need to know that they have community and fellowship and they they need somebody and they need something.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Where should they go?
34:02
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is that the church should be one of the first places that they should be able to find blessing and comfort in the midst of struggle, right?
34:10
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, our job is not to passively wait for God to deliver upon his promises, but rather to actively live out what he has called us to do.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: And when we do that, when we are effective and faithful in living out God's plan for our life, we become a blessing to other people.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: That you can be a part of God's blessings and the way that he is answering somebody else's prayers.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that neat?
34:40
SPEAKER_00: That's so neat.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: That we get to be a part of God's plan, that it's not just him answering, though that would certainly be enough, but that we are able and have the privilege and opportunity to be a part of his ministering to somebody else who is suffering.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: I read a great book recently called Spurgeon and the Poor.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: And the author said perhaps more would be one to the faith if Christians showed a commitment to compassionate concern for the poor and the afflicted, not necessarily as a means of transforming the culture or eradicating poverty from the world, but simply as a way of living out their new nature in Christ.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: We have an opportunity in front of us to actually take part and be, it have an active role in the things that God is doing in this world.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are a little bit more concerned with finding comfort ourselves than comforting other people.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And to be true, right?
35:45
SPEAKER_00: You can't pour out of an empty vessel, all those kinds of things.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: God does bring us these psalms so that we might be comforted.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: But the healthiest expression of this is that as we are comforted, this is the way the gospel message flows, right?
36:00
SPEAKER_00: As we reflect on the gifts that Christ has given to us and his love for us, we feel that and then we pour it out into the world around us.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: That in fact, at any time we look in the Bible and it says, hey, what's your motivation for doing all of these things for his kingdom?
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, why should you give?
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Why should you share?
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Why should you pray?
36:19
SPEAKER_00: Why should you love others?
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Why should you care for your neighbor?
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, why should you do all of those things?
36:23
SPEAKER_00: It always flows back up to the cross.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: And so now we're just kind of reversing that.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: We're saying, God has comforted us, and now we are able to comfort others.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: This is what David did.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, he was in his best moments a great king who found the comfort of God in his own life and then was able to help other people and be a blessing to them as a great ruler.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, right?
36:53
SPEAKER_00: The knowledge of God's power, his faithfulness, his timelessness, his character, like I said, these things do not pluck your problem out of your life immediately, but they give you the tools to walk through this life focused on God.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: There is going to be pain and suffering in this world.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: You know that, I know that it's a lived experience for all of us at some point in time.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of that, there is inevitably going to be the questions of why now or why not now, right?
37:31
SPEAKER_00: There's always this matter of timing and where is God?
37:36
SPEAKER_00: God has not left you.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: God knows what's going on in your life, God is present with you in the midst of all of these things, but there is a responsibility, a beautiful responsibility that we have to seek him out.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And if you're going to allow the wickedness of this world to divide your heart and keep you from worshiping God, you have to know that there is something greater in store.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: There's something beautiful, empowered by the Holy Spirit that we can have, which is the power to say, even though I'm waiting, I'm still going to worship God, and nobody and nothing can take that from me.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful and God-honoring thing to say.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: We come before you as your people who are, Lord, oftentimes we just need the Psalms because this life is not always roses.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: We don't always feel the blessings.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: We don't always recognize the gifts that you give to us.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's overcome and we are overwhelmed by just the hard stuff.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: People doing things to us, falling into the mistakes that we make ourselves.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we just we see it a lot, we feel it a lot.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, God, it is really hard to come to you with a full and undivided heart and say, I praise you and I thank you.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: Yet, Lord, we we know that's a possibility, and we know that in fact it's a beautiful thing to worship you with a full heart, even in the midst of pain.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: God, might you give endurance and comfort and peace to those who are waiting right now?
39:23
SPEAKER_00: Lord, to those who say that they have been waiting a long time.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: God, might they feel your touch?
39:30
SPEAKER_00: Might they understand and know?
39:33
SPEAKER_00: Open their eyes, Lord, to see how you have been, even in the waiting, you have been giving them blessings upon blessings upon blessings.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Lord, there is always something to be thankful for.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: Might we be better at recognizing it so that we can be comforted and then help other people?
39:53
SPEAKER_00: Lord, finally, I pray that as we go through this series, as we look at Psalm 10 next week, that you would help us to see how you have given us these kinds of psalms to minister to our hearts.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: Because, Lord, you have not left us waiting.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: You have simply, you are simply working something out that we cannot imagine in the moment.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: When we see it, and when you fully lift the scales from our eyes, and when we go to be with you in heaven, Lord, and reveal your great plan, we will say, Wow, what a beautiful thing you were doing.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, until that time, when that's not always our response, help us.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us and give us strength, Lord, to move forward.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name that we pray.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Love you.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.