Praying Through Our Fears

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Oh Lord how many are my foes many are rising against me many are saying of my soul there is no salvation for him in God but you O Lord are a shield about me my glory and the lifter of my head I cried aloud to the Lord and he answered me from his holy hill I lay down and slept I woke again for the Lord sustained me I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around arise O Lord save me o my god for you strike all my enemies on the cheek you break the teeth of the wicked salvation belongs to the Lord your blessing be on your people we are continuing in our kind of a second week now of our 90-day series we're doing our summer through the Book of Psalms so we're gonna be camped out in this second - the longest book in the entire Bible for the rest of the summer basically three three months and remember our purpose is much broader than just doing a teaching series in a book of the Bible though that's cool and we aren't committed to doing that but this is this is much broader and more strategic and so the part of this is we want to invite the whole of the church to kind of on this journey of reinvigorating or for some of us it might be just invigorating for the first time our prayer lives and because our commitment as a church is is that part of cultivating our personal connection to God through Jesus is about prayers about the practice of prayer and prayer it's not a simple it's not a simple thing and this it happens really common like when we do all night prayers or our prayer walks and so on lots of different people come from the church for those nights and you know some of you may remember this about your first time praying in front of another person or praying in front of other people and it's actually really nerve-racking if you if you've forgotten what that feels you just need to come to all-night prayer where there's usually some newer people and just remember that experience and it's how do you learn how to do that kind of thing how do you learn how to talk to God and talk to Jesus like what how do you even do that a lot of it we just pick up from watching other people but but the whole purpose of this book of the Bible the Book of Psalms in the scriptures is that for like 2500 years it has been teaching God's people the language of Prayer the language of lament the language of pray is the language of confession how do you do that and so that's that's really the biggest purpose for why we're doing that inviting us collectively and individually to to grow in this area of a following following Christ and so if you weren't here last week you definitely will want to pick one of these up we kind of did something similar that we did with a 90 days last fall reading through the New Testament we made a 90 day kind of reading and prayer journal for the nine the three months of the series and 90 days of the series and essentially what this is we're not doing a 6:00 a.m. gathering or anything because what we want to do is help each of us individually start to form this habit of daily prayer and a specific kind of prayer learning how to pray through the scriptures and so if you've never prayed through the scriptures or praying scripture before if that's even a new category yeah thank you you're welcome thank you you're welcome that's why I mean to say you're welcome here you go so we have a kind of a little introductory page about how to go about doing this some guidance about what it means to pray through Scripture and then for each day of the 90 days which began last last Monday it's essentially assigns to Psalms a day and what we would encourage you to do is actually at least for the 90 days just like an experiment is to build into your lives a habit of having two different times of prayer during the day whether it's morning or evening afternoon whatever you want to do and to pray through each of those Psalms individually through that day there's come some guiding questions space for you to write and process and so on but all of this is an effort to help us grow in this area learning the language of Prayer and these are for free we have them back at the book table if you didn't get one last week be sure to grab one of those and one of the things that we're gonna focus on and that we talked about in the little introductory page is that the Psalms as they teach us the language of Prayer they give pride of place to our emotions the importance of our emotions in our prayer life and what's interesting is I think many of us we grew up if you did or didn't grow up around Christianity or church or whatever it doesn't really matter most of us grew up in one of two kinds of settings when it comes to our emotions based on our temperament or our family of origins or whatever some of us grew up around settings where what you do with your emotions is stuff them that's what you do you just deny Heather that they're even there and so if there's a tense moment at home or with other people you know what you do is not talk openly about it or or release those emotions that are stirring you just stuff it deep down you deny it yeah and you know you just are quiet you leave the the situation or whatever some of us were raised and we respond to our emotions in that way the flip side of that of course so that would be like an example of that was kind of my family and what I grew up in the flip side would be like the family my wife grew up in and so in in her house like the dinner table was like where the volumes at 11:00 I think and that's just kind of the way they and so it's just like everything's out there and if something tense comes up if there's conflict volume goes up and then but they're hugging and and crying afterwards and loving on each other and that's just how they just dealt with it and moved right towards it but often in those settings in those types of temperaments and families it's about giving full vent to your emotions to the you end up your emotions add up in the driver's seat and you end up saying and doing things that you have to say you're sorry for later right and so there you go those are the two spectrums to enter the spectrum most of us kind of grown up or a been around have temperaments on one or two at the ends of those the Psalms do neither the Psalms do neat the Psalms teach us kind of a middle way about expressing our emotions Psalms teach us to give pride of place to our emotions in our prayer life but they teach us neither to deny and stuff our emotions but neither to let them overtake us in ways that we lose control the songs teach us to pray through our emotions in the presence of God and this is about a reflective intentional processing before God about understanding the source of my emotions about sorting through them the cause and effect how they relate to my view of God myself and other people and you just pour out the whole mess in God's presence that's prayer that's a biblical prayer and so what we're gonna see tonight we're gonna we're gonna in different weeks highlight different prayers that are generated out of different very different emotional experience there's every type of experience in prayer you can imagine in this collection of 150 prayers and songs and so tonight what we're going to explore in Psalm 3 you may have already kind of picked it up is is what it what does it mean to pray through our fears to pray through our fears and our anxieties not stuff them and deny them but yet not let them take us over but to pray through them in in the presence of God and to process our fears before before him fear is one of those feelings some some of our huge fear is actually what one of the most primal like primary human human emotions and you can see just I mean it didn't probably take very long for any of you to pick up what this is a psalm of David generated out of a life experience that he had we'll talk about that more and it's very clear that he's terrified the first thing he does in the prayer is draw attention to all the things that he's totally freaked out about there's a whole bunch of people and they want to kill him it's a pretty decent decent reason for being afraid and there's something about fear is the most primary human human emotion not just because it comes up in circumstances where we're out of control or in danger and it's actually I think one of the first emotions we experience human beings period so I realized I'm not sure if I've said this I don't think I've said this in this setting or not so some of you know this and some of you don't but somewhere in the next four weeks I'm gonna like disappear off the map for about a week and a half or so and that's because a human is going to emerge out of my wife where in the text huh like a new human is going so and I have no categories for this I've been through it once and I still really don't have categories for what happened and what's going to happen again it was just so crazy you're like this is how it works this is crazy so crazy so anyway so somewhere in the next month's here where our second son is going to come into the world and we're super excited to meet him but I bet I've been doing a lot of reflecting just of courses we're preparing and you know she's you know over now eight months pregnant so this is the point where you can fully make out like the elbow and the foot you know pressing through the belly and this kind of thing is like that's like an alien or something it's so crazy but so I've just been reflecting on what is what's it like for him right now he's he's fully there you know cuz once he's on the outside he's aware and so on so that's all going on inside - he's a he's a little human being who's aware of his surroundings right now and one of those surroundings like so obviously it's very very close you know and tied in it's very warm he's surrounded by these very soft walls right of the womb and he it's like bath waters very comfortable it's dark he can sleep whenever he wants or whatever he always seems to wake up and jump around about 10:00 p.m. every day not sure what that that doesn't bode well for us the way we're sleeping and and he has its constant supply of food just pumped right into his belly and just gone man that's a setup right there like that who can imagine anything better actually you know it's just gonna go downhill for him and and it isn't go for him because somewhere in the next month I don't know when I'm gonna disappear and that's because his little world starts collapsing right the the walls that were soft and blocked all the noise are gonna get very tight around him start to squeeze him probably very very uncomfortable why is this happening he's going to be pushed he's gonna be pushed out very very slowly over a long period of time but then in the space of just a little while he's going to very quickly come out into this world and just imagine like what's happening there I'm saying light like there's gonna you know there's gonna have to his throats gonna have to be cleared and he's gonna fill his lungs with very will seem like very cold strange substance we call air or whatever and so hidden maybe he's seen his own hands but now there's gonna be these huge big hands handling and so you know I'm saying and what's his first response gonna be cry and this is his cry of like reflective what is happening to me right now I think it's a primal cry of fear fear the first emotion that every single one of us experienced in our first life experience as a cry of fear the unknown what's happening am i safe I don't like this dangerous weird stuff happening to me I'm not in control it's the very first emotion that we experienced and I suppose depending on how your life has gone it could be the last emotions that you experience before your life ends and dotted in between of course all pretty much all the way and so this is primary if if I'm a follower of Jesus in a part of following and knowing him is cultivating a personal connection to him and Lang learning the language of Prayer we have to learn how to pray through our fears not deny them and stuff them because they'll destroy you but not give rein to them and just let them take over your life because that will destroy you in a different way we have to learn how to face them and pray through them and it's precisely what what David is doing in Psalm 3 so what David what we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna look through this story both the story and then how David processes through this experience and this is a model of prayer for us a model of processing our our fears so let's kind of look at Psalm 3 with me real quick just one thing to clarify so likely in your in your Bible you have a heading that says psalm 3 or 4 10:47 or something and so that's a heading in your Bible to let you know the number you might some of you might have a little summary that says like a prayer of praise or Thanksgiving or something like that and if if that's not in italics most likely that's not an original part of the poem that's a heading that the bible translators have put there for you to help you get the gist of the psalm pretty quickly but then you're going to get this information that says like here a psalm of day when he fled from his son absalom that is an original part of the Ponemon of the psalm and so you're gonna find this many different times there's about 70 prayers connected to David in the 150 in here and of those about two dozen there's little notes about stories the story where this prayer emerged out of and so it was really will pay off as you're going through the 90 days to create some time to stop when you see that and to find the cross reference or whatever and go read that story in David's life and in the books of Samuel first a second and because what that does is that illuminates so much of the background of why David would say the things that he's saying here and that's what we're gonna so we're gonna see here today and so we're told this is a psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom so this was essentially what happened is this was kind of during the ending of David's career and his his son essentially formed a resistance army and staged a coup successful coup against his father and so this whole story it's in 2nd Samuel chapter 15 and following this whole story takes place of how David has to flee his own house the city he established as the capital and he's running into the hills with a few hundred people and we're told he has an army of 12,000 foot soldiers chasing him through the foothills and he was like that's a bad day that's really was a really really bad day and you could just imagine the fear and the unknown that he's experiencing and which is clearly how he begins the poem he praised through his fear by first identifying the source of his fear again we're gonna see this as a model for prayer the first thing he does is bring his fear to God attention and the source of his fear and what does he say right at the beginning here he says Lord and remember when you see Lord and all capital letters that means the the divine personal name of God and Hebrew it means Yahweh so he says Yahweh how many are my foes how many rise up against me many are saying of me God will not deliver him or some of your translations have there's no salvation for him in in God now just look at the repeated words here what's freaking him out the most right now what does he say three times over how many people there are there's 12,000 soldiers on his heels right he's clearly he's identifying the source of his fears it's kind of again this is the model for prayer we're watching him as an example he identifies the source what is wrong with me where's my fear coming from Oh 12,000 people who want to kill me yeah so that's a pretty good reason to be afraid there's a very clear physical identifiable source of fear right his life is in danger many many many but but there's two there's two levels or two because fears two-sided here rise clear-eyed clear physical threat twelve thousand soldiers but there's another layer to it and it's in their propaganda it's in the propaganda the absalom in this army is spreading about david and what are his enemies saying they're saying God's through with David now there's what what what they are saying is not that they don't believe in God the enemies are not saying they don't think God delivers people in general what they're saying is God is through with David there is no more favor or salvation for David left in God anymore and this is a very different kind of attack there's not a physical attack on his life this is it this is an attack on David's identity and on David's sense of his very self and significance and his status and so you have to again this is gonna happen over and over again it will really pay to just go back and read through the life of David as you as you go through and read the Book of Psalms so you have to remember where did David come from how did he arrive as a king that could even have such status that he has to be run out of town and rejected and so on and so some of you may remember the story it's one of the more well-known stories in the Bible he was a no-name shepherd boy that's what he was yeah kind of the runt of the litter and one of the most important prophets of Israel shows up at his dad's house and is like you know you always told me that one of the great kings of going to emerge out of your house and and David's dad jesse is like oh yeah I know I know it's the firstborn and it says he was ready his first son was ready you know what I'm saying who says that anymore ruddy red day what does it means he was well-built and really attractive and what is God's response to the well-built attractive son yeah sorry not not so much that guy and so he goes all through the sons of Jesse and sees like is there not anymore I'm like well I have this rent he's like out in the field watching the Sheep and he's like yeah that guy yeah that guy and so that's the story of David alright just out of sheer grace and generosity God elevated him to the most the highest status in the land right and he's he's golden boy in the first part of his career God protects him and blesses him from Saul he comes into the kingship everything's going great everything's great and there's this key moment this turning moment in the life of David where you can see in his heart he begins to take all of these gifts that God has given him his status the big family that he has and something turns in his heart he begins to take them for granted and he sees those gifts as something now that he can he can use towards a self advantage instead of using them as a chance to serve the people right that he's that he's over and so this takes the form of him seeing a woman that he wants he forces himself on her he gets her pregnant and then he conspires to kill her husband which he does successfully and from that moment in the David story his whole world just falls apart his family falls apart his kingdom falls apart his life falls apart and so what what what Absalom and the enemies are capitalizing here on here the propaganda they're spreading is that God is through with David he was God's chosen King but not anymore look at him now he's fleeing look at this exalted King he's fleeing for his life from his own son into the woods and so what what's what there's what's being threatened here is not his life that although that is happening - it's his identity who is David now if he's not a successful King and father and he's none of those things so that's what they're calling into question and I think I just want to camp out here because I think this is really he begins praying through his fear by identifying the source of his fears and there's a very clear source there's people chasing him won't kill him but then there's this thing all of a sudden his very sense of his own value and identity and status is in danger and wrapped up here and there's - there's two layers of this and I want to I want to camp out on this because I think I think this is really an important process of praying praying through our fears one of one of them I think most significant kind of steps forward in insight in psychology the study of psychology in the 20th century was in the study of fear and learning that human fear is actually a really really complex experience and there are different sources and kinds of human fear and so on and the most common one the kind of distinction and language to talk about fear was actually it was given to us by a guy whose name is Rollo which is just awesome in and of itself that his name's Rollo right but his name's Rollo may you guys heard of roller May before if you took anything about psychology in school or anything you will have learned about roll ma first of all you'll notice the heat 1967 was his book look at him you know what I'm saying he's just he isn't he the part you know of like the 1960 psychologist he's missing a beard but that's a he usually wore turtlenecks and yeah so this is Rollo made and he he is responsible for the concept and the word of anxiety that's just such a household word for us now and ways of talking but he was the one who pioneered research in anxiety and that is different from other types of fear and he had a whole bunch of ideas that I think we're not helpful but he had a couple that I think we're really important and we're helpful and and it's this he said fear is an instinctive response to a very clear and present danger so fear is about when there's an identifiable source of danger or threat and it's an instinct that turns on all your adrenal glands right and floods your body with adrenaline so that you get this burst of energy this burst of clarity to respond and save your life so whatever a drunk driver you're walking on division driver swears onto the curb headed right for you your glands are gonna flood your body with adrenaline and your Superman or superwoman right whatever you get you know these stories right and so all of a sudden you know there's this incredible burst of strength you were able to grab someone and jump out of the way or leap really far these things this very common story so what happens to fear and so ro LeMay said this is a positive constructive emotion because it saves your life and when you're when you're in danger but he said there's a there's all kinds of different types of fear the most common and complex one is what he called anxiety and his definition of anxiety was what was both in contrast to fear fear is temporary it's a flood of intensity and energy and so on anxiety is very vague and diffused it's a feeling of dread and of weakness and fragility and it has no clear identifiable source you it's just this feeling and what we heat what he interpreted essentially as a dread of death and of how death ultimately in his worldview renders all of your life and relationships and accomplishments totally meaningless and not only that he said anxiety is about the wear and tear of what he called a thousand little deaths that we all die every year in just the disappointments and failures and hardships that hit our life and shatter our dreams and so he said what's at stake with anxiety is not our physical well-being it's our very sense of who we are our identity the idea that I'm a meaningful person in my story has meaning all of that gets called into question through this perpetual ongoing descents of weakness and fragility so we called anxiety and so if fear is like a lightning storm that comes through and flashes and so on and then it's gone anxiety is like the June gloom that we're headed into here in Portland you know so like the three to four weeks of just perpetual gray drizzle of 54 degrees you know and it just never seems to go away and it's like where is there any one cloud in the sky no there's just the whole thing's gray yeah that's it's anxiety and I think that help this helpful kind of category for what David is getting at here he has a clear identifiable threat 12,000 people want to kill me but the propaganda of his enemies is eating away at his very sense of himself his status is king his status as father it's all falling apart now and who is he what meaning does his life have if he's not King right that's the whole way that his story took shape who is he if he's not a king if God has now abandoned him it causes fear and anxiety and that's what and when fear and anxiety collide it can destroy a human being and so how does he pray through that is very insightful identification of his fear and so how does he pray through it in God's presence he does it in the in the next few verses and it is brilliant and is very powerful look at verse 3 he says but you Yahweh you are a shield around me you are my glory you were the one who lifts my head high I call out to Yahweh and he answers me from his holy mountain you can see the tone shifted right here something really profound just took place inside of this very fearful anxious man and it has to do first of all you see he moves his attention from his circumstances on to God and on to God's character as part of it how he processes through identify the source but then he turns his just attention laser-like on - unto his God and he he speaks of God in these images here and this is one of the challenging thing about the Psalms is there's full of metaphors and images and we kind of just read them and they sound like Bible like images or whatever and we move on and so no you got to stop this poetry you got to read it slowly and remember Psalm 1 it's about meditating day and night on the meaning why would David choose these 3 metaphors to describe God in this scenario right here so let's look at him a little a little more closely look what he says he says first of all he says Yahweh you are a shield you're a shield around me though to stop and think about that for a second if you we typically think of an image of a shield and we think protection a shield keeps bad things from happening to you so okay yeah what are you saying here is you are gonna protect me and rescue me out of this so that bad things won't happen to me but if you just stop and think about that that's way way more going on here and just think about I don't never actually had to use a shield for anything but if you if you intentionally strap on a shield as you begin today what is your assumption about how is your day going to go is your assumption this shield is going to prevent horrible things from happening to me no it's not what you put on a shield why do you put on a shield because you assume horrible things are going to happen to me right or on yeah or here on your way to mount tabor so you know they're talking about with the wooden stabs and swords and they're up there it's just like two weeks ago I was walking up there and there's like they're wearing capes and this this whole castle and night scene and so anyway it's great they were filming each other anyway I love those guys so so okay so either you're on wait do mount tabor sir they're silly I'm I'm trying to deflect from the seriousness of it this is very this really profound why do you strap on a shield a shield doesn't prevent bad things from happening to you you put on a shield because you know bad things are coming what a shield does is protect the most vital part of who you are from being totally annihilated when the bad things happen you see the difference here so a shield and look it's especially the shield he's describing it's around him so it's clearly it's not describing a little circle here for sword dueling or something he's talking about a big massive thing that covers him and so what he assumes that things may get better they're likely going to get a lot worse he does after all have 12,000 people chasing after him right so he assumes it's going to get worse but yet he can sit in the same breath say but you are a shield about me in other words you always not going to prevent bad things from happening but Yahweh is going to be right there so close to him protecting the most vital part of who he is from being swept away in this horrible onslaught so and these are gonna see here he reckons with the fact that he could die but yet he can still say Yahweh is my shield and say what this speaks to as in as we pray through our fears as we identify the source of our fears I think for many of us and this is true for me too when hardship hits your life or there's a season of confusion or tragedy one of our basic assumptions that we go to is this is a sign that God's abandoned me this is a sign that God's no longer present with me and so you have to as you pray through that you have to dig underneath and say okay what's my assumption there my assumption there is that God's role in my life is to keep bad things from happening to me because if he really was good and it really was powerful he would never let anything bad happen to me so that I'm always content and happy and you're welcome to believe in that god I would just urge you that to not connect that God to anything to do with the Bible so really and I said well actually I would say let's just make this quick and easy just become an agnostic okay or an atheist so just make the whole transition of not of being disappointed by God much quicker you know because that God doesn't exist and that's not the promise of this God the promise is that when life in this broken world broken by human sin by the sin of other more mysterious dark powers that were at work when horrible things happen God's right there what he's saying essentially this season of tragedy might be the closest that he's ever felt God's presence before this tragedy might be what draws him closest to God than he's ever been before and that's part of the paradox of suffering in the scriptures and the God of the Bible sometimes rescues his people out of very difficult situations but sometimes he doesn't sometimes that's precisely the tool he's using to shape the hearts and the minds in the character of the people he loves so dearly and so this is very powerful what he says he begins here whatever happens yahweh's a shield protecting the most vital part of who I am I could die but you're always still my shield and so what what does it mean what is the most important part of who him who he who iam who he is that needs protecting and that's the next two metaphors here that's very powerful he says you are my shield you are my glory I just stop and think about that you are my glory why first of all what does that mean and why would he need to say that what it what does it mean to say something like that as you pray through your fears now part of it has to do with the word glory might kind of trip some of us up because again this is another kind of religious Bible ease kind of word and that none of us really know what it means anymore and so this is a very important concept it comes up all over the Bible and of course I'm going to teach you the Hebrew word because that's how I do things so you see the other words there it's kavod once you say it with me kavod kavod here's what's interesting kavod it's most literal meaning is something that's heavy it's heavy in the book of Judges there's a king of Moab called egg blown and he's a horribly overweight man and he's called kavod all right he's cooked it's heavy it's heavy but that image of heaviness gets used as the image or a metaphor for something that's significant or important or weighty so we say this thing of just say oh that's so heavy right I'm feeling feeling so heavy or that's a really weighty matter you know do I grasp the gravity of the situation we use this in English too if something is heavy it's kavod it's important it's of status and significance and so to to say that God has glory or to glorify God or give Him glory means to all of us get together and we say out loud God is the most significant important thing that there is to know and and be aware of so it means to glorify God but humans can have glory too and David had kavod near the end of his life we're told this is from first Chronicles we're told David the son of Jesse he was king over all Israel he gets restored to his role as king after this he ruled trope for is real 40 years he died at a good old age having enjoyed long life wealth and kavod kavod so kavod is about your status it's about whatever it is in your status and position that gives you significance and importance and so for David obviously from the rags to riches story what defined him is who he was his whole story was about the you know the poor no-name shepherd boy becoming this great King but see now all of a sudden he doesn't have that kavod anymore right any illusion that he was a successful father of a large family yeah that's been shattered I'm saying so Absalom actually murdered one of his other sons for raping his sister I mean as families completely fallen apart he's not a good father he's a successful nation builder well yeah not anymore he's a powerful King yeah clearly not anymore at least he has his moral integrity as part of his status and honor not anymore and so why would David have to come at this low point in his life and say in a new way you Yahweh you are my kavod you were the thing that gives me significance identity and meaning and purpose life clearly he has to say this because something else has been his kavod and you can just see it in the story of his life his wealth his power his status and significance he was his own kavod this role as king and father and he squandered it right he ran he ran it he didn't catch a milk it for everything it was and it leads up to a wrecked life that did not give him the kavod the that he was made to experience as a creature made in God's image and so praying through his fear as he realizes that he has misplaced his kavod he's misplaced his glory and because all of his eggs were in the basket of being the king all of a sudden once his kingship is called into question he crumbles right anxiety and fear because of who is he if he's not a king and so as he he recognizes God's going protect the mill his vitals the most important thing about him in the midst of this and he says it strips that hardship strips the rest of his life away and all he has left is to say yeah I way you are the only thing that's important and significant about me the fact that your attention is towards me your care is on me that's all I need to give me meaning and significance it's a very powerful confession and so essentially what's happened you can see his anxiety is like a cloud of smoke there's just a symptom of a fire burning and that fire is his misplaced kavod and so he prays through it and he has to identify that that misstep that he took and and restore God would be the in the place of glory in his life and it's it's connected to the what he says next year you are my glory you're the you're the one who lifts my head which means the same thing as it does you know in English when we say hold your head high it means to be confident and so essentially he's saying I don't have any reason to be confident in myself anymore so I took what God gave me and I ruined it and made horrible decisions and so he directs his attention away from itself you were what gives me significance and identity you were the one through whom I can hold my head high even though by everything around me it looks like I'm an utter failure right and everyone knows it and everyone's saying that I mutter failure you are my glory you hold my head high it's he hint as you process through how could he even know something like that so we might against your life's in shambles around you we might see that as a sign of God's like lack of favor or that he's angry at you or something and yes David is working out the consequences of his stupid decisions but he's really confident that God is with him and for him in that moment how can he know that look at what he says next verse 4 he says I called out so Yahweh he answered me from his holy mountain I mean he's just I'm praying to you and I know that you're answering me I mean he's just super confident he just got shocked he's running for his life first of all and he's totally a morally compromised failed father and King how could he be so confident that you always answering him and it has nothing to do with him it has to do with where Yahweh is answering from and what it where's that he says his holy his holy mountain or some of your translations might have his holy hill beside me have that holy hill what's he talking about yeah this is kind of strange there's one of those things this come the holy hill the the mountain of Zion this comes up all over the Book of Psalms he's referring to the City of Jerusalem and specifically with just a city that he built as Israel's capital and on the highest hill in the city of Jerusalem David set up what he set up the very Wehling place of God the tabernacle where the big temple was later built and so essentially what he's saying here is he saying I'm out here in the woods failure you are my glory you're the one who gives me confidence I'm praying to you and I know that you answer me because you're answering me from the temple from the very hot spot of your presence in Jerusalem now what what is it that happens on a regular basis is all kind of background to the poem that you got to bring out to get the significance of what he's saying what is it that happens in the temple or in the courtyards of the temple on a daily basis weekly basis monthly yearly basis that it would allow a very sinful selfish man to look towards God but know that he's been forgiven and shown grace what's happening in the temple that could give him that confidence right so that's where the sacrifices were offered that's where animals were offered as a substitute for people sins so the animal died is in in the place of the the sinner or the wrongdoer the animal bears the guilt instead of the perpetrator and so the and in essence the death of that substitute covers over the failure in the sin of the one who's praying and looking towards God at the temple and so that's precisely what could possibly give a man like David who's squandered everything God gave him right and has made horrible decisions confidence that the goddess for him that God would even stoop to be wanting to be his glory yet yet once more and he says because you're answering me from the temple he's looking towards the substitute that's covered over his sand that gives him confidence that Yahweh's for him and is forgiving him don't you wish this 3000 year old prayer don't she wish it was relevant relevant to modern people right so see all so we're we are standing on the other side of the cross as we as we read this poem David's praying this prayer looking towards Jerusalem looking towards the substitute and he sees that Yahweh will answer him and be gracious to him because of what happens in the temple you and I on this side of the cross this is something you're gonna have to do as you read through the Psalms there's a lot of language about prayer and temple and sacrifice and you got to kind of reframe it from this angle that we were reading from because our conviction is that Jesus was the ultimate substitute and that his life and death and resurrection on our behalf covered over our sins because Jesus absorbed into himself what we deserve and and in his resurrection he both provides a covering and a source of new life and grace for those who would turn towards him this other son of David who was executed by the Romans near that holy hill and so this allows us to pray through this prayer as followers of Jesus but to go in exactly the same journey which allows him to do what verse five he can finally get a good night's sleep he's identified the source of his anxiety of his fear he's aligned his priorities again he's looked to the substitute that's done for him what he couldn't do for himself and now he knows he rests in God's mercy and grace so he says I lie down and sleep I wake up again because it's Yahweh sustaining me he's not gonna engineer his future he's not gonna make how he feels about God or himself dependent on his plans turning out it's just you know it's to Yahweh's hands and so look what he can say in verse six he says you know even though ten of thousands might assail me on every side I will not be afraid and we read that and we think honestly really you know ten thousand people surrounding you spear through your chest you're not afraid but they I mean you were reading his prayer apparently he's reached a place that many other like the Apostle Paul is able to reach who lived a very difficult horrible life precisely because of his commitment to Jesus and every ounce of that hardship and HUS suffering he could see as yet one more act of God's grace to make him more dependent on Jesus and he and he died for it he died for that commitment and you can only imagine owes what went through his mind in that last moment but David apparently has of the conviction that even if a spear goes through his chest and he doesn't wake up tomorrow morning he's not afraid anymore because he knows that Yahweh's his school hurry that you always commitment to him his love for him is stronger than death and so it puts him in this place of Perpetual peace which doesn't cancel out his emotions look at verse 7 he says arise Yahweh deliver me my god strike all of my enemies on the jaw break the teeth of the wicked and some of us are we're kind of like now David you know you know we mustn't speak like that or anything you know some of us are kind of bothered by this you're gonna come across this all all over in the Psalms where there was a clear enemy and we're praying for justice to happen on their enemies and so what would you have him do would you rather he stuff his emotions and just totally deny the fact that there's real injustice that's taking place would you rather him just totally give full vent to it like he did on one occasion in his life and he um the story of Nabal and Abigail he's so ticked off but somebody dishonours him he's like I'll have his head you know and it's this really he's this violent vengeful man he could go that route which which route should he take he takes neither he pray through it and like don't be so prude you know I mean like his his emotions are raw there are some things in this world worth being angry about can I get an amen seriously and so what are you supposed to do with that just act like it's not there no you pray through it and so as a profound act of faith he commits his enemies over to God's justice and he asks God to take care of them and it bears itself out in the story David didn't lift one finger to defeat Absalom Absalom had an obsession with his long hair he was a very vain man we're told he wanted to make a staff he'd made a statue of himself and his long hair and so what while he's actually in the middle of the battle his hair gets caught in a tree right and and leaves him vulnerable for a second for somebody to throw a spear Souris Chester so through this crazy series of events Absalom meets his own doom David didn't lift a finger and so you I mean you could actually argue that it's David giving just full vent not letting it control him but just venting and processing his emotions before God that actually allowed him to cope with his anger and just hand it right over to God and that's what's happening in these prayers God can take your anger okay you have to be afraid of it but don't let it take you over but you don't need to stuff it you pray through it which leads him verse eight to say this it's if deliverance is going to come from anywhere is not for me it's from Yahweh from Yahweh comes deliverance may your blessing be on your people do doesn't this prayer rock this is so powerful this is so profound so I mean this this is gonna land in so many different ways with us but as we as we kind of move into the hour time of of singing and of prayer and of quietness as we recognize Jesus as presence here you know I would just encourage you to to think through what would it look like for you to take the same journey how many of you have a very clear identifiable source of fear in your life right now it's a person it's a situation and what would it look like for you to identify that to really dig to the root of what's freaking you out and what you're so afraid and actually comes come through this experience of turning to God's character turning those circumstances over to God turning that enemy over to God to find peace how many of us know that gray cloud that's over our lives right and it's that sense of like where is my life going what's happening nothing's working Who am I what am I about is anxiety that that sense of dread and some of us might need to do some real soul-searching because it could be that that anxiety and fear comes from misplaced glory so none of us is the tribal chieftain of a small nation state in the Middle East okay so obviously we don't have that problem to deal with but we we find our glory we find which just means status and significance we find it in all kinds of silly places if we just had eyes to see we're trying to get our meaning and significance out of these whatever it is it's that relationship you think that relationship is going to give you what you're looking for and I finally make you validated and important if I could just get that step in kind of my job search or career well and and other very very more much more superficial things about what trying to attain a certain look or a certain edgy ironic tone and all of your jokes or whatever you know what I mean like it's just we build we build our sense of who we are on the silliest things and on the most meaningful good things too and there will come a day what whether it's something like David's as traumatic horrible as David's or whether it's simply our deathbed where every person you built your sense of worth on won't be there or it may be the thousand little deaths that Roland may spoke about a disappointment and hardship and see those as opportunities to replace your glory in the right location and some of us some of us might need to pray that prayer tonight and so wherever Psalm three meets you whether we need to confess about misplaced glory we need to find hope that that Yahweh might not prevent bad things from happening to me but he will protect the most vital important part of me from being annihilated in the storm whatever wherever you're at Psalm three can say it to all of us in all their different life circumstances so let me close in a word of Prayer and let's just asked Jesus to to speak to us in the time that we have left you
Info
Channel: Door of Hope Southeast
Views: 922
Rating: 5 out of 5
Keywords: Tim Mackie, Door of Hope, DoH, Church, Portland, PDX, Oregon, Sermon, Bible, Scriptures, Preacher, Christian, Christianity, Jesus, God, Psalms, Jewish history, Prayer
Id: mXGflXCh0a0
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 49min 17sec (2957 seconds)
Published: Mon Jul 08 2019
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