Is There A Looming Cloud Of Despair? (Galatians 6:9)

VIDEO 

Is There A Looming Cloud Of Despair? (Galatians 6:9)

GIST: Weariness comes for us all, but serving Jesus and shining for Him brings hope!

Manuscript available upon request.

How Do We Face Betrayal? (Psalm 54)

VIDEO

How Do We Face Betrayal? (Psalm 54)

GIST: We can face betrayal by centering our requests on God, focusing on His strength and faithfulness, expecting His movement, and thanking Him willingly.

After taking a week off for what would have been our VBS Family Day, we’re coming back to our study in psalms. Today, we’re looking at the first of several psalms written from a context we know (from the titles) came when David was facing some specific hardship. Today’s topic seems to hit most on betrayal.

Jedidiah is going to read the whole psalm for us in a second, but we can look at the context just in this title: “To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, "Is not David hiding among us?"” This was during the time when Saul was trying to kill David. However, since he had been anointed by God to replace Saul, several groups had started coming to David’s side. Not the Ziphites. They turned David into Saul… twice. You can find them in 1 Samuel 23 and 26.  Interestingly, both times were followed by David having a chance to kill Saul but choosing to spare his life instead. 

What really hammered home this whole betrayal idea was that the Zipphites were from the tribe of Judah…just like David. They were like extended family. Those wounds hurt. This psalm, which is called a Maskil, is meant to teach us what God taught David through this experience. Let’s check it out.

“1 To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, "Is not David hiding among us?" O God, save me by Your name, and vindicate me by Your might. 2 O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth. 3 For strangers have risen against me; ruthless men seek my life; they do not set God before themselves. Selah 4 Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life. 5 He will return the evil to my enemies; in Your faithfulness put an end to them. 6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to You; I will give thanks to Your name, O LORD, for it is good. 7 For He has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.”

Betrayal is hard. Maybe you haven’t been turned over to a violent king bent on your death, but I think most of us know what it feels like to have someone we trusted, someone we thought we could rely on, turn their backs on us. It’s not something I would wish on any of you, but it is a reality many of us will face. God knew that, and this isn’t the only time he addresses this in the Bible. So what does this passage tell us we should do when it happens? Here’s our gist: We can face betrayal by centering our requests on God, focusing on His strength and faithfulness, expecting His movement, and thanking Him willingly. Let’s break that down.

I. Centering Our Requests On God 

“1…O God, save me by Your name, and vindicate me by Your might. 2 O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth.”

Before David says anything about his situation, he orients his heart in the right direction. He doesn’t look to take matters into his own hands (which is where most of us start, right?). Instead, he addresses his requests to God.

God Save, Vindicate, and Hear. This is the right perspective. His salvation (his rescue, the end to this chaos) and his vindication (his name being cleared) come precisely because God hears his prayers and is paying attention to the words of his mouth. 

We’re going to come back to those words here in a second, but as we look at the next verse which leads us into a Selah (a pause to stop and take in what was just said), we see these requests set in context a bit. “3 For strangers have risen against me; ruthless men seek my life; they do not set God before themselves. Selah” Essentially, we see David starting this prayer exactly where we need to start all our prayers. “I need You.” Regardless of what situation you find yourself in, this is true. But he keeps going, “I need You because those who are attacking me have no regard for who You are or what You’re doing.”

God had made it clear what His plans were for David. Obviously, these betrayers were playing into what seemed most immediately advantageous for them, but they weren’t looking to God at all. They didn’t want Him, but David knew better. Guys, just pause for a second. This is going to be real in your lives too. There will be times people will cause a lot of hurt in your lives. They might want nothing to do with God or what He’s doing, but you can’t afford to fall into that same trap! Face betrayal by centering your requests on Him and→

II. Focusing On His Strength & Faithfulness

“4 Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life. 5 He will return the evil to my enemies; in Your faithfulness put an end to them.”

There are several things to notice in these two verses, but let’s start with the implicit one. When David is acknowledging that God is his helper and the upholder of his life, he is acknowledging→

This Mess Would Not Be Fixed By David’s Strength. None of our messes are fixed by ours either. Oh, we expend a lot of energy trying to clean up messes and fix problems people create for us—and when I say we, believe me, I 100% mean me, too! But it’s such a waste of time. For me, it mostly just takes time away from my kiddos and raises my blood pressure. What should we do instead?

1. Remember, He Is More Than Strong Enough. David says, God isthe helper and the upholder of his life. What can God not do? This made me think of Isaiah 59:1, “Indeed, the Lord’s arm is not too weak to save, and His ear is not too deaf to hear” (CSB). Sometimes we say stuff in church about God’s power, but we live like He needs our help, or, really, like He can’t actually do anything at all. The opposite is true. We can’t do anything without Him, but there is NOTHING He can’t do. 

2. Remember, He Is Faithful. We’re going to come back to this a bit in the next point, but I want to point it out here too. David knows God will punish wickedness because He has promised to do that. During the outside service, I made this observation I had heard from Frank Turek. Often, this idea of God punishing wickedness doesn’t sit easily with us in our culture because though we claim to want God to take care of sin, often we’re offended when we hear about Him doing that. But the bottom line is this: we don’t want God to ignore sin. A “god” who is indifferent toward the sin that destroys us is not the God of love described in the Bible. When bad stuff happens to us, we can trust that God cares. In fact, that’s exactly why Jesus came!

On that note, let me add an additional observation here from the text. When David is praying here, he makes a statement that is actually pretty harsh. “Putting an end to them” is a picture of them being killed. That’s raw. Those of the parts of psalms that can sometimes be most challenging to address. But what are we seeing here?

3. Be Honest With Your Prayers. David wasn’t writing this from a place of intellectual contemplation about betrayal. He had experienced the pain. He was in the middle of the hurt. He was learning from and calling out to God while this wound was real. So he is honest about what he’s feeling. The fact that these kinds of prayers make it into the psalter remind us that God doesn’t need us to edit our prayers to make them more palatable for Him. Bring your heart to Him, and let Him do the changing. Being real, there have been times in my life that I have had to ask God to help me love stupid people. I even wrote a song (which helps me focus my prayers sometimes), and the chorus went like this. “God, I know You love stupid people because You died to set me free, so help me see these stupid people the way that You see me. Cuz’ right now I just want to blow up, but that won’t make it any better. Yeah, right now I just want to blow up, but I need to keep it together… so help me love.” I know that’s not a nice word, but in the moment it’s where I was. I was hurting, and I knew only He could make the difference. Trying to hide the pain from Him wouldn’t have made that any better.

So face betrayal by centering your request on God, focusing on His strength and faithfulness, and→

III. Expecting God’s Movement

“6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to You; I will give thanks to Your name, O LORD, for it is good. 7 For He has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.”

We’re going to come back to the beginning of verse 6 in our last point, but first let’s notice this. In the last two verses, David is expecting God to show up. He is giving thanks and looking forward to His deliverance. Why? There are at least two reasons provided.

1. Based On His Character. David starts by giving thanks because God’s name, who He is, is good. We can expect God to be good because He will always be who He is ☺️ (I know that was a mouthful, but it’s true!) That’s what also fueled this second reason→

2. Based On His Track Record. This was true for David. He’d seen God show up in awesome ways again and again. I mean, if he’d only seen God use him to defeat Goliath, he’d probably have been set for life, but God never abandoned him. This is true for us too. There’s never been a moment when God wasn’t moving in your life. If ever we doubt that, look at the cross!

Tim Keller, in his book The Songs of Jesus, connected this to one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books, Perelandra. This is the second book of The Space Trilogy. In that one, Lewis sets the story on a planet very similar to earth where God has created another perfect world like Eden, and there is another Adam and Eve. Lewis wasn’t by any means saying he believed this is what the other planets are like, but it gave him a way to play with questions like, “What if man never fell?”. The main character is from Earth, and he ends up realizing he had been sent to help prevent the corruption of this world. Specifically, he is constantly fighting against another man from earth who had been possessed by Satan. Keller summarizes it well: “The character possessed by the devil gloats over the death of the Son of God until Ransom, the Christian, asks him, essentially, “And how did that work out for you?” The demon throws back his head and howls, because he remembers that in killing Christ he defeated himself and ended death. Evil is not locked in a battle with good. . . . The good has already triumphed and evil everywhere recoils on itself.” Whatever you are facing, remember, you’re facing it with the God who has overcome the world!

That should lead us to the last point here naturally→

IV. And Thanking Him Willingly

“6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to You; I will give thanks to Your name...”

A Freewill Offering Was Not A Required Sacrifice. That means this psalm eneds where it started—with the right perspective. He started by turning his heart toward God, and he ended by turning his heart toward God. How can we face the pain of betrayal? Start praising God. I know that might seem counterintuitive, but when we praise Him, we’re reminded of all His goodness and all we have to be thankful for, and it pulls from the despair that wants to suck us in. 

Ok, like last week, let’s just recap in our→

TAKEAWAY

We can face betrayal by centering our requests on God, focusing on His strength and faithfulness, expecting His movement, and thanking Him willingly.

Is There Hope For Our Heart Problem? (Psalm 53)

VIDEO

 Is There Hope For Our Heart Problem? (Psalm 53)

GIST: We have a heart problem which makes destructive behavior commonplace and fear a permanent state, but God cares, so both joy and hope are possible. 

This morning, we’re coming to Psalm 53. It’s actually pretty interesting because this is a psalm that is not only famously quoted in Romans 3, but is also almost identical to another psalm. In fact, aside from a few words, they are almost exactly the same until we come to verse 5. Some of you might remember this coming up, but it’s unlikely because it was six summers ago! Honestly, I had forgotten about having this conversation, so I went back to watch the video from that Sunday, and it was like looking into a time capsule ☺️. 

Now, David didn’t just write this psalm a second time because he’d ran out of material. He was inspired at a different time in his life and the life of Israel to bring people back to these core truths. Really, anytime we see something repeated in Scripture it’s not because God forgot He’d already inspired it, it’s meant to draw our attention to the importance of these truths. And though not always easy to digest, these are some key truths. Let’s dive in→

"1 For the director of music. According to mahalath. A maskil of David. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good. 2 God looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. 3 Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. 4 Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour My people as though eating bread; they never call on God. 5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread, where there was nothing to dread. God scattered the bones of those who attacked you; you put them to shame, for God despised them. 6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores His people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!" (NIV for our reader today!)

In case you’re curious, our gist this morning is not the same one we had for Psalm 14 ☺️. We took it as a case study and looked at it in medical terms like “the condition, the symptoms, the cure”...etc. Nonetheless, the truths developed here are still the gospel. Here’s the gist of what we’ll break down: We have a heart problem which makes destructive behavior commonplace and fear a permanent state, but God cares, so both joy and hope are possible.  

I. We Have A Heart Problem 

“1 To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath. A Maskil of David. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good. 2 God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. 3 They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

Again, we have a maskil, so this is meant to be instructive. And it’s meant to be performed according to Mahalath which appears to have either been a specific melody or a musical instrument. So, what does this instructive melody start by teaching us? 

We’re all naturally foolish.  Encouraging, right? ☺️. Listen, I know this can come across as incredibly offensive, but let’s not miss the forest for the trees. This is not calling atheists stupid people as a kind of guttural response to those with whom we disagree. This isn’t about intellect. It’s about morality. Missing out on the truth of God is embracing what Tim Keller defines as “a destructive self-centeredness”. 

And this is a heart situation. Notice he says that the fool says this in their heart. There are actually a few things we could take away from that. First, though you have instances— in fact in some circles it’s kind of in vogue to fall into this camp— of publicly claiming not to believe in God…or at least not the God of the Bible (vague spirituality tends to be much more accepted), this might not be something ever vocalized. You could be a faithful church attender, but in your heart not believe. You could even publicly claim belief, but live as a practical atheist. If God is your “Sunday-thing” but He has no bearing on the rest of your week, that’s where you are right now.

And truthfully, this is our natural state. By “our” I mean all of us. Like I said, this psalm is instructive and it pulls no punches. Immediately, we hit moral ignorance and total depravity. Like in Psalm 51, we’re being given a picture of original sin. None of us our born righteous. We don’t grow into sin. It’s our natural state. None is righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10). 

Now, that doesn’t mean there is nothing good in this world that isn’t produced by Christians, but it does mean there is nothing good in this world that isn’t produced by God. He works good amongst even those who reject Him as an act of common grace. And He’s placed eternity within all our hearts. If He were to completely remove His hands from this world… well, you think it’s bad now…

So, we have this heart problem→ 

II. Which Makes Destructive Behavior Commonplace

“2… They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity… 4 Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up My people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?”

Bad stuff keeps happening. I don’t know that I need to break that down any further, right? Have you had a week where you didn’t see pain in some form or another? We live in a hurting world. Guys, this is one of the main reasons we try to always emphasize the importance of going out. Life is hard. Naturally, we’re both perpetrators and victims. We need the light and hope of Jesus. If we have that light, then we’ve been called to shine it brightly.

Naturally, sin will just remain commonplace. That’s the picture we get here with this idea of eating people like bread. The picture might be lost on our culture a bit now because some of us just don’t eat as much bread. For ancient Israel, it would have been part of every meal. It was definitely like that when I lived in Belarus too. In fact, even my grandparents would always have bread on the table regardless of what we were eating. It was just… normal. For those of us who are still trapped in sin, that's exactly what sinning is like. It’s natural. It's part of our everyday life. We seek ourselves at the expense of others, and we don't even think about it...because it's just what we do. 

When you look at this too, it does say that His people are the ones being eaten. I think that’s at least worth noting. Sin will naturally oppose God’s work. Why? Because it has no regard for Him. Notice, there is no calling out to Him. Why would there be when we’re living like He doesn’t exist?

So, we have a heart problem that makes sin commonplace→

III. And Fear A Permanent State

“5 There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror! For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.”

This is where the psalm diverges a bit from Psalm 14. They both tell us missing out on God leads to fear. I feel like this psalm emphasizes it even more though. 

It paints a picture of needless fear without hope. Each word there is important. They are in great error where there is no terror. God did not design for us to live in fear, but look at our world. How prominent is fear? And there are plenty of reasons to be afraid. Our world is a scary place. Terrible atrocities happen all the time. Anxiety is at an all-time high. Yet, if we’re walking with Jesus, we have a source of hope and stability in the midst of these storms. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever struggle. Oh, we will. But we have a firm foundation to stand on when the onslaught comes. But if you live like God isn’t real? 

He wants to come to your rescue. That’s the picture here. We’re afraid, but Jesus came as our overcomer. But if we turn away from Him, it’s to our own detriment and shame because we’re rejecting hope. As a result, we will stand in the rejection we’ve chosen. That’s a disheartening place to stand, but it was never meant to be where we stay. That’s our natural state→

IV. But God Cares

Look back at verse 2. I skipped this because it ties into the point David wraps up with really well. 

“2 God looks down from heaven on the children of man…”

God isn’t some distant God who just doesn’t care about the pain of the world. He’s the God who looks. Man says in their heart there is no God. Naturally, we look away from Him, but He doesn’t look away from us! I love how David Guzik puts it: “While man may wish to forget about God, God never forgets about man!” God cares→

V. So Both Hope And Joy Are Possible

“6 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores the fortunes of His people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.”

We have this picture of hope leading to joy. He is longing for salvation to come from Zion, and it has. Jesus, God in flesh, came and died and rose again as the ultimate fulfillment of this hope. Because He has, His people can rejoice and be glad. Do you see the contrast here between needless fear and joy?

TAKEAWAYS

Let’s just look at those points again real quick.

1. We have a heart problem which makes destructive behavior commonplace and fear a permanent state. This is true for all of us. This is the natural state of our world… but it doesn’t have to be. 

2. Nonetheless, because God cares, both joy and hope are possible. Will you come to Him?

What Should We Do When People Are Awful? (Psalm 52)

VIDEO 

What Should We Do When People Are Awful? (Psalm 52)

GIST: Trust God to judge the wicked, and let the power of His love change your life.

Welcome to our service in the park! Today, we’re continuing our Summer in the Psalms and coming to Psalm 52. This psalm is called a Maskil of David which implies that it is a song meant to be instructive. It’s also a psalm that comes with context. The title of the psalm tells us it was written “when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, "David has come to the house of Ahimelech."” You can read this account in 1 Samuel 21-22. It’s pretty bad. This is during the time when David was fleeing for his life from King Saul who was jealous of David because he knew God had chosen him to be king of Israel. While fleeing, David came to the city of Nob and spoke with the priest there, Ahimelech. He and his men were starving, so he lied to the priest and told him they were on a special mission from King Saul. Now, this could have been because he didn’t want to put the priest on Saul’s bad side, but either way, it was a lie. Ahimelech then gave David and his men food, and even gave him the sword of Goliath that was being stored there.

The head herdsman of Saul, Doeg the Edomite, was also in Nob and saw this all go down. He ends up telling Saul who calls for Ahimelech and lays into him for supporting David and trying to usurp the throne. Ahimelech responds with, “I had no idea anything was wrong between you too. David is your most honored servant. Of course, I would help him.” However, Saul wasn’t hearing it, and told his men to kill all the priest at Nob. They wouldn’t do it, so Saul ask Doeg to do the honors —which he did gladly. In fact, he killed 85 priests and then went to Nob and killed the women and children and livestock. 

One priest survived and fled to David. When he heard about this, he felt responsible for this and swore to protect this surviving priest. However, his deception didn’t cause Doeg and Saul to kill masses. That was their sin. The psalm we’re coming to this morning was written with this situation in mind. Let’s read it→

 “1 To the choirmaster. A Maskil of David, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, "David has come to the house of Ahimelech." Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day. 2 Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. 3 You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah 4 You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. 5 But God will break you down forever; He will snatch and tear you from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah 6 The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, 7 "See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!" 8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. 9 I will thank You forever, because You have done it. I will wait for Your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.”

Now, there are several truths we could glean from this passage. However, what hit me most this week was what it has to say about how we handle wickedness in our lives. I know we’re outside in this beautiful park, so it might seem more fitting to talk about something like God’s creation (also worth our time!), but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much we need this message. We live in a world broken by sin. Because of that, there is a lot of junk that happens. Not only do we see this from a distance as we watch the atrocities reported on the news, but we also witness it firsthand. People can be cruel. And with the rise of social media, the prominence of this cruelty seems to have increased. It now chases us everywhere we go. It seeps into our homes and wrecks our hearts.

So, how do we face this? This psalm points to the right perspective. In fact, the entire psalm is almost summarized in the first verse where we have this contrast of might.  “1… Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day.” Everything I referenced said David was probably referring to Doeg as a “mighty man” sarcastically. Doeg felt mighty, but there was nothing mighty about killing innocent people who could not defend themselves. In fact, as priests, they would likely never have even held a weapon. God, on the other hand, displays true might with His enduring, steadfast love! So again, how do we face wickedness? Here’s our gist: Trust God to judge the wicked, and let the power of His love change your life. Let’s dive into that. First→

I. Trust God To Judge The Wicked. 

This in itself, doesn’t come easily. Naturally —though we are definitely fans of mercy for ourselves —when we’re the offended party, we want to be hands-on with the judging! But, let’s build up to this a bit. The passage actually starts with a description of wickedness. 

Wickedness Described (2-4). Now, this isn’t the only description of wickedness, but it gives us a picture. Really, it hits at the heart of sin. “2 Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. 3 You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah 4 You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.” What’s the picture here? Destructive intentions that come from loving sin and bubble from our hearts and become who we are. It’s the natural progression we see throughout Scripture about what goes into the heart coming out. We might be able to keep it down for a bit, but when all we’re feeding our hearts is junk, it starts to define us. 

This is structured with a Selah which we’ve noted before is kind of like a call to pause and let it sink in. We should. Sin is destructive. We’re quick to call this out in others, but let’s never forget that we’re all born with a self-destructive sin-nature. I know that might be another conversation for another day, but remembering our own brokenness is a big step in the right direction when it comes to facing the effects of brokenness in others.

Judgment Described (5). As the passage continues, we then move into seeing judgment described. However, though David is mad about this atrocity, he’s not the judge. That is reserved for God. “5 But God will break you down forever; He will snatch and tear you from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah” 

Remember, Doeg feels mighty. He appears proud of his sin. Many walk around like this—causing pain but feeling no remorse. In fact, they often feel justified and full of vanity. But what is the end of that road, the road of following your desires, doing things in your own strength, and ignoring the plans and purposes of God? Judgment… from God. It’s described in vivid language here, but the picture is one of instantaneous and permanent punishment. God is good and gracious. Jesus came and took Hell in our place so that we might be forgiven and receive the rescue of His grace. However, He is also just, and the wages of sin is death. The Hell we’re running towards will be our eternal destination if we don’t turn to His grace.

This is something people in our part of the world struggle with a lot more than people who are faced with the more brutal forms of sin. When you’ve watched your family die at the hands of wicked people, then knowing God takes sin seriously is a comfort. A few weeks ago, I heard an apologist (whose name I do not know) make this point. He said something like: “We all want God to punish wickedness, but then we’re often offended when He actually does.” This part ends with a Selah, as well. And, yeah, I think we need to let that sink in. 

Reactions of the Righteous Described (6-7). The last part of this section shows us the reactions of the righteous, those who are following after God, those who have been forgiven. These people aren’t “better people”, they are those rescued by grace. “6 The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, 7 "See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!"” 

We need to break this down a bit because it almost seems like these righteous people are kind of jerks. They’re laughing at this man’s eternal condemnation. However, this is a picture we see all throughout the Psalms, and it’s not about rejoicing in judgment. It’s about two things. 1. Taking God seriously. When it says the righteous will see and fear, it means they will remember who God is —His power and justice. It’s also about→ 2. Finding joy in God’s provision. This isn’t joy in the judgment of Doeg, but joy knowing God is not ok with sin. When God’s Word tells us He is loving, it means it. He loves us so much, He isn’t ok with the sin that takes us away from the blessing we were made for —being with Him.

So, when people are awful, remember your own situation (that’s like a bonus point for today ☺️), trust God to be God and judge the wicked, and→

II. Let The Power Of His Love Change Your Life

Look again at how this psalm ends: “8 But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. 9 I will thank You forever, because You have done it. I will wait for Your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.” What we have is a→

Contrasting Description. Instead of embracing sin or letting anger get the best of us —even when facing people being awful toward us, we should turn our hearts toward Him. If you’re around me often, you’ve probably heard me say something like this a lot. It might sound redundant, but it’s so true, and it’s something I really want to get ahold of in my life, as well. Turning our eyes to Jesus, taking His Word seriously, digging deep with Him —changes everything. It brings hope in the midst of heartache, and it gives you the right perspective when you see awful things happening all around you, even to you. 

David could have turned his attention to getting revenge on Doeg. Instead, he turned his heart toward his walk with God. As a result, he’s described as alive. He’s a green olive branch. Green means it’s not dead. Olives we’re a big part of this society too. Olives were used in so many ways. So we have this picture of David being fruitful. He’s being used by God. He’s also protected. If you’re an olive tree in the House of God, no one is going to come dig you up! He’s securely planted exactly where he belongs. Man, think of that description. We all want that. We want to be where we’re supposed to be, where we’re accepted and loved. Come to Jesus. 

Instead of seeking revenge, he is also trusting in the steadfast, never failing love of God. The fact that he’s trusting in this forever and ever is also a cool picture of salvation because when we trust in Jesus, we will be with Him forever. Notice also how this changes his heart. From angry to thankful… because God has done it. David’s eyes are looking at what God is doing instead of being frustrated by all the junk happening.

And he’s… waiting. If you’ve ever gone through the Psalms with us in the summers, you’re probably familiar with this idea. Waiting isn’t a picture of sitting still, but eagerly expecting God to be God. David is looking forward to God showing up. And he’s not waiting alone. Instead, he’s surrounded by God’s people. Anger is easy. It’s harder when you have a support group pointing you toward the love of Jesus!

Ok, we’re outside, and it’s hot, so I’ll try to just hit a few highlights in our→

TAKEAWAYS

1. This world will hurt.

2. Leave judgment to God.

3. Draw near to Him and let His love change you.