Psalm 62
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Psalm 62 is the second Pslam we are looking at from book 2 of the Psalms
Book 1 was the case study in Davids life of Psalm 1 & 2
Book 2 is about All of God’s people longing for the Kingdom to Come with all it brings when we are faced with real life
it is about the real life fears that hit people and the paths they turn for help - Psalm 1 if you remember
People longing for hope and wholeness that the Hero we long for will bring in Psalm 2
That is the story and the longing David confronts us with today
We are going to see 3 powerful things in this neglected Psalm
We all long for something, Making the Gospel Yours, And the countless Facets of the Gospel
We all long for something
We all long for something
I am at rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I will never be shaken.
How long will you threaten a man?
Will all of you attack
as if he were a leaning wall
or a tottering fence?
They only plan to bring him down
from his high position.
They take pleasure in lying;
they bless with their mouths,
but they curse inwardly.
Selah
What do you want?
Deep down what do you long to see happen?
What do you long for and want more then anything when you are confronted with a world that isn’t how its supposed to be?
In the Gospel of John, it is the first question Jesus asks those who would follow him.
When two would-be disciples who are caught up in John the Baptist’s enthusiasm begin to follow, Jesus wheels around on them and pointedly asks, “What do you want?”
James Smith says: Jesus doesn’t encounter them—or you and me—and ask, “What do you know?” He doesn’t even ask, “What do you believe?” He asks, “What do you want?” This is the most incisive, piercing question Jesus can ask of us precisely because we are what we want. Our wants and longings and desires are at the core of our identity, the wellspring from which our actions and behavior flow. Our wants reverberate from our heart, the epicenter of the human person. Thus Scripture counsels, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Prov. 4:23). Discipleship, we might say, is a way to curate your heart, to be attentive to and intentional about what you love.
Psalm 62 is a confrontation with our own hearts
It is a challenge to be attentive too and intentional about what we long for and how we long to get them
Things weren’t how they thought they would be
They were in a season of history where they surely asked God what good could possibly come from Roman occupation?
God i believed in you and you really look like you aren’t in this anymore
And right in front of them what they really longed for was talking to them
God himself was in it with them
They never looked back
That is David in verses 1 and 2
I am at rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I will never be shaken.
What does David long for
He says Rest, Saving, Safety and Security
When desperation hits like its hitting David we all long for something
And if we are honest it is the same things today
Addiction is like this
So many people are confused by why someone would self destruct
But if they really understood what drives it it would make sense
Cornelius Plantinga says what drives addiction is longing—a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart
For an addict that can’t handle life on life’s terms it is the same longings David had…sought to be still in self defeating ways
That is why asking ourselves what we want in seasons of desperation is the most powerful thing you can do to find the hope of the Gospel
Because the world has the same longings …but sells us a bandaide that looks good when we are really bleeding out
Sin is like that
It offers half measures to our longing hearts
Plantinga again says: We self swindle. We prettify ugly realities. Then turn around and sell ourselves the prettified versions. Sin has to spend alot on makeup
He says in verses 3 and 4 this is what the world is pursuing and its shaking his world
How long will you threaten a man?
Will all of you attack
as if he were a leaning wall
or a tottering fence?
They only plan to bring him down
from his high position.
They take pleasure in lying;
they bless with their mouths,
but they curse inwardly.
Selah
The world longs for power, so they threaten all that comes in the way
Saul was trying to kill David when he wrote this because of his longing for security and identity through power
The world was lying to feel secure
Envy is like that. Envy doesn’t just want what someone else has
Envy sees the good in another person as a slight at them so we do all we can do destroy them with that we say
David was in it in as he wrote this psalm
His whole life was like this
Yet david knew what he longed for
And from a young age David learned God alone could deliver what he longed for
What is the end you believe the worlds script can bring you instead of the Gospel
David chose long ago this was his story
But right from the beginning, David had made the Lord his trust Psalm 40:4
How happy is anyone
who has put his trust in the Lord
and has not turned to the proud
or to those who run after lies!
And what did God do for David? He allowed many situations that forced David to make the Lord his one trust, his one rock, his one source of salvation. He forced David to wait for him alone.
desperation creates our longing for rest in a world that isn’t how its supposed to be
On June 27th my worst fear came true for a pastor from Bremerton Washington
Pure desperation hit
American Airlines flight 2275 from Charlotte to Seattle commanded the crew to brace for impact after engine failure
What did he do when confronted with our complete powerlessness, lack of any control…what hope did he have on a plane full of cries
He looked to his wife and repeated The answer to the first question of Tim Kellers Catechism…what is our only hope in life and death?
Answer: “I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in both life and death, to God and to Jesus Christ my Savior.”
He asked his wife...“Did you do anything for God to save you?”
She said, “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Christ did it all.”
In the face of the cries and terror anchored in the hope of Psalm 62
As the New City Catechism says…In LIFE AND DEATH I AM HIS
Kyle stood and gave a 30 second sermon…a message of hope in the face of death
He says the plane landed as as soon as people could they turned to their phones and distraction
But the hope for those in Christ was poured out because it was poured in day after day of everyday life lived knowing more and more the deep truth of Psalm 62
What is your hope in the desperation we cannot run from?
What is the hope of your story?
We all have one as James Smith said- you cannot not love something as ultimate the question is what do you love as ultimate
Verses 3-4 connect with us even more if that wasn’t enough
David didn’t seem to be feeling like his faith was growing stronger.
He was feeling weak and vulnerable and fragile.
This is how we often feel when we are learning to make God our only trust. Tests of our faith often feel in the moment like threats to our faith. Whatever form of adversity we’re experiencing, it feels overwhelming. We too feel weak, vulnerable, and fragile, like we’re going to topple over and crumble. We might feel tempted to panic.
So, what do we do?
We make the Gospel Ours
Making the Gospel Yours
Making the Gospel Yours
Rest in God alone, my soul,
for my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I will not be shaken.
My salvation and glory depend on God, my strong rock.
My refuge is in God.
Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts before him.
God is our refuge.
Selah
8 Times David says the Gospel is MY hope
David shows us by putting on a clinic in Psalm 62.
He preaches to his troubled, weak, vulnerable, fragile soul (and ours):
We saw this last week
No one talks to you more then you do
As Paul Tripp says: When the unexpected, the unwanted, the unplanned, the hard and the difficult enters your life, you will always preach some kind of gospel to yourself.
David is not listening to himself …he is talking to his own heart
This is the prescription through the daily wars we saw last week
David is telling his soul to remember the source of his hope: God.
In this Psalm more precisely, what God had promised him.
And clinging to those promises in his worst days changed david from a boy who knew God to a man who had seen Him
My anchor is the words of Tim Keller. That in the gospel everything sad will come untrue and will somehow be better for having once been broken
But it is the broken that drives us to hope this will be made right
That’s how David got to this point
All of it came through waiting through brutal seasons we can relate too
waiting changes you.
You are put in seasons where if God doesn’t do it nothing will change
And that is where God does his best work in us
Waiting on God is not purposeless.
It’s not just about what you get at the end of the wait; it’s about what you become as you wait!
David has lived it and seen it and seen it change him
He wasn’t just giving us something he never did
Then he turns to us in verse 8
His experience is something to share.
What he has found in one crisis will save at all times;
what God has been to David he can be for us
For all of us , hope in God is grounded on the promises of God.
The promises of God, his word to us, is the fortress we flee to when we are afraid.
That’s why David says in Psalm 56:3
When I am afraid,
I will trust in you.
Most people don’t run into a fortress unless they’re faced with real danger coming their way.
Helms Deep in Lord of the Rings wasn’t simply the best vacation spot
We run to a fortress when the army is coming for us
I don’t say this lightly
I believe it because I have lived it
I have gone from simply hearing about God to truly seeing Him
It is the greatest gift of my life for God to take me through seasons of life where everything else i ran too failed so that he could be all I had in the end…and he never failed me
So I know he won’t fail me tomorrow
They have been the hardest of my life.
Jon Bloom again: Part of me doesn’t wish them on anyone. But the wiser part of me wishes them for everyone. To be brought to a place where God is our only real hope is a merciful experience.
Why?
Because it makes us fall in love with the Gospel
What Hope Will You Choose
What Hope Will You Choose
Common people are only a vapor;
important people, an illusion.
Together on a scale,
they weigh less than a vapor.
Place no trust in oppression
or false hope in robbery.
If wealth increases,
don’t set your heart on it.
God has spoken once;
I have heard this twice:
strength belongs to God,
and faithful love belongs to you, Lord.
For you repay each according to his works.
There are 2 choices drawn out from Psalm 1 here
There is the right and the wrong place to hope in a world that isn’t how its supposed to be
Path one is to follow what man can do for you or what you can do for yourself in verses 8-9
Common people are only a vapor;
important people, an illusion.
Together on a scale,
they weigh less than a vapor.
Place no trust in oppression
or false hope in robbery.
If wealth increases,
don’t set your heart on it.
These verses are the warning that in waiting and hard days to trust in other things then God is perilous and will never deliver
We place the weight of our hopes on things and people that can never hold up under the weight
He is saying to run to riches or play the victim is no better then the other in our waiting and distress
Plantinga says - If we try to fill our hearts with anything besides the God of the universe, we find that we are overfed but undernourished….this kind of thing happens all the time. People hungry for love, people who want to “connect,” will often open up a sequence of shallow, self-seeking relationships with other shallow, self-seeking persons and find that at the end of the day they are emptier than when they began
Singleness is a season of waiting but we all know all kinds of those seasons
Sin hurts other people and grieves God, but it also corrodes us.
Sin is a form of self-abuse plantinga says
It is self abuse in the end to run to anything other then God and His ways in seasons of distress no matter what that season looks like
Theres another way to what you long for
it is the only way that can deliver
The other path he lays out is the pursuit of the God who saves in our seasons of waiting
God has spoken once;
I have heard this twice:
strength belongs to God,
and faithful love belongs to you, Lord.
For you repay each according to his works.
The psalm ends with a belief that God has the power and the love to come through on the promise that in him alone everything sad will come untrue.
From one event God has done there are two things that summarize all that God is,
God is both strong and gives steadfast or unconditional love
David is saying we need both to have the anchor we need in the midst of waiting on the hard days of exile to end
Any guess what this is pointing too?
Where was God on display as the strength we long for
The Cross and Easter
The great Apostles creed says after he died he descended into hell
What does that mean
Joe Rigney says Following his death for sin, Jesus journeys to Hades, to the City of Death, and rips its gates off the hinges to free those who are His
The psalmist asks in Psalm 89 ‘Who is the person who shall live and not see death, shall rescue his soul from the power of Hades?’ (89:47 nets [89:48 mt]).
According to Revelation 1:18, Jesus is ‘the living one’ who ‘has the keys of death and Hades’. His resurrection decisively answers the psalmist’s longing for hope
Where was his power displayed?
When he ripped the gates of where we were without him off its hinges and led the greatest jail break the cosmos will ever know
His divine strength will not crush us, but will be used for our good in unfailing love
Where was his unfailing love on greatest display?
For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.
Where is the anchor you long for
It is the Cross
Paul Trip brings the point of Psalm 62 home: You see, waiting changes you. You begin to learn that there is no salvation apart from God, that there’s no rock to stand on in life apart from him, that there is no fortress to be found outside of the Lord. You learn that hope in him will never disappoint you. You learn that you can pour out whatever is in your heart to him, and he won’t reject you, and he won’t turn his back on you. You learn that power is fading, and riches are fading, and you put the rich man and the poor man in a balance, and there’s not much difference, that real power and real steadfast love belong to the Lord.
That is Psalm 62 for us today
Lets Pray
