Sermon Notes / Transcript

Scripture: Psalm 34
Speaker: Alex McNeilly

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God Saves Those Who Cry Out to Him

Good morning. It's a pleasure and a privilege to get to be with you this morning, and I appreciate the opportunity to preach God's word to you. It's encouraging always to get to fellowship with the body of Christ away from your home and to see God working in other places and even to get to be a part of that work.

So we're grateful to be here, grateful for the hospitality of the Coughlins in particular and for you as a church as well. So thank you. Would you please pray with me before we go to God's word? Father in heaven, I pray that you would please strengthen me by your Holy Spirit.

I pray that you would use me as a vessel to deliver the truth of your word to your people. I pray that you would set aside my weaknesses and my sins that your people might truly be built up from the truth of your word. Would you, by your spirit, work in the hearts of each man, woman, child, each boy and girl here in this place.

Would you work in our hearts to respond to your word with joy, with gratitude, and with peace, knowing that through Christ we can have peace with you. Would you speak to us and strengthen us for walking in obedience to your commandments that we might live as lights and shine in this world.

The glory of your excellency and your truth to save a people out of this world and to be redeeming the whole world through your kindness and your grace. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Well, to start, I want you to think of a time of weakness or vulnerability in your own life.

Think of a time when you felt small or powerless or unable to help yourself. Maybe a time when you were in danger and very afraid of something. Perhaps this was a time of sickness or of injury. Perhaps it was losing a job.

Maybe you were rejected by someone close to you. Maybe you were even betrayed by your own husband or your wife. Maybe you sinned in some way that you couldn't undo or take back. And all you could do is sit back and watch as the consequences of your sin felt like dominoes hurting one person after another in your life.

Maybe someone took advantage of your weakness and sinned against you in some way. And you felt the shame of vulnerability and violation. And maybe the time you're thinking of happened many years ago. Maybe that time of vulnerability is right now and you're experiencing it right now in your life.

The Context of Psalm 34

Our sermon today is from Psalm chapter 34. And this is a psalm for those who have experienced great weakness or vulnerability or exposure or danger. It was written by David, King David, but before he became king. And this was just such a time in David's life that he wrote this psalm, Psalm 34.

A man named Saul, the king of Israel at the time. A man whom David had been completely loyal to. Saul was the father of David's best friend. And actually at this point in the story of scripture, Saul was David's own father-in-law.

So David had married one of Saul's daughters. But Saul was actively trying to kill David at this time in scripture. Now I know some of you have some pretty strained relationships with your in-laws. But this is pretty bad, right?

Very few of us can say our father-in-law is actually actively trying to kill us right now. But this was true for David. And so he runs away from his own family and his own people from his own hometown to try to get away. And the only real option for David was to run into the arms of his enemy neighbors, the Philistines.

And the Philistines also would have loved to have gotten their hands on David and to have killed him. Before he gets to the Philistines, though, David visits a man named Ahimelech. And Ahimelech is a priest in the tabernacle of God, in the tent where God was worshipped and where the Ark of the Covenant was.

And he stops by at the tabernacle and Ahimelech helps David out. He gives him some of the holy bread from the tabernacle is one thing he gives him. And then another thing that Ahimelech gives him is the sword of Goliath. Which they happen to have there at the tabernacle.

Now this sounds like a perfect setup for David to make a heroic stand against Saul, who's trying to kill him, right? Or for David to lay waste to the Philistines and firmly establish himself as the Savior King of Israel. That is not what we get at this point in the story.

And I want to read the context of this psalm. Psalm 34 is from 1 Samuel 21. And I'm going to read this bit of a story. Some of you might know this history, but this is what it says.

Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul and went to Achish the king of Gath. And the servants of Achish said to him, Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands?

Now David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. So he changed his behavior before them, pretended madness in their hands, scratched on the doors of the gate and let his saliva fall down on his beard. Then Achish said to his servants, Look, you see the man is insane.

Why have you brought him to me? Have I need of madmen that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house? David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.

Now this was certainly a time of great weakness and vulnerability and danger for David. And his weakness is not just from his external circumstances. This was a time of internal weakness for David. A time of fear and anxiety and I believe even of weakness of faith.

What we get here is not a David and Goliath moment. It's the opposite of a David and Goliath moment. No standing up with great courage to face down the enemies of God. Instead, he pretended to be out of his mind to the point of drooling all over himself.

It's actually pretty embarrassing what David does here. And this is the context of Psalm 34. We're told that specifically, which we'll read in a second. And though it's not really, this isn't really a psalm of confession of sin.

There are a few psalms where David is specifically confessing some sin to the Lord. We think of Psalm 51 after David has been convicted of his sin by the prophet Nathan about his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah. And David writes Psalm 51 as a response, a crying out to God confessing his sin.

And this is not that kind of psalm, but it is a psalm with a context and it's a crying out to God when someone's in danger. And just as Psalm 51 teaches sinners how to come to God, Psalm 34 teaches those who are weak, vulnerable, and fearful how to come to God.

Reading of Psalm 34

I'm going to read Psalm 34. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word? Now, I'm reading from the New King James Version today. Our family's working on memorizing this psalm this summer.

And so that's the version I picked that we're memorizing it in so it was easier to do it in the New King James. This psalm, though, should be pretty similar from version to version. So Psalm 34. This is the word of God. A psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech.

Now, I'll make one comment there. Abimelech was a name, a general name that could be used for a king in the ancient world, in this part of the world. So if you read 1 Samuel 21, you'll see the name Achish. Abimelech is like the king.

Sort of a name, a personal name for a king that could be used for different men. Before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.

They looked to him and were radiant and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Blessed is the man who trusts in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints. There is no want to those who fear him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger.

But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life and loves many days that he may see good?

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and save such as have a contrite spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He guards all his bones. Not one of them is broken. Evil shall slay the wicked.

And those who hate the righteous shall be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of his servants. And none of those who trust in him shall be condemned. Would you please have a seat?

Why Did David Write This Psalm?

So why did David write this psalm? Verse 3 in the psalm is a purpose statement in the form of an exhortation. David says, Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. David's goal in writing this psalm is very straightforward.

It's to get God's people to exalt the name of the Lord with him. I want you to notice a couple of things here. One, David's exhortation in this psalm flows from a personal commitment on his part to praise the name of the Lord. He preaches what he practices.

David himself is committed to blessing the Lord at all times. That's how it starts. And out of that personal commitment comes his call to others to join him in that praise. David's not a hypocrite is one of the things that we can say about David.

Now he says, I will bless the Lord at all times. Now this of course means that David was committed to praising God in the morning, in the middle of the day and in the evening. It's always right to praise the name of the Lord, no matter what time of day or week or month or year it is.

But just as much when scripture says we should praise the name of the Lord at all times, it means we should praise the name of the Lord in all circumstances. Think of David's circumstances at this time. What do you think he's thinking when he says at all times and he's just been running away and pretending to be insane?

I think he's thinking along the lines of the Apostle Paul who writes in Philippians 4. Paul writes, I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased, to be made low. And I know how to abound.

Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. David knows it is right to praise the name of the Lord when he's just won a great battle, like his defeat of Goliath.

And he knows it's right to praise the name of the Lord when he's just drooled on himself to escape from the Philistines. Even though David has changed in his behavior and in what he looks like, God has not. And God is still just as worthy to be praised even when David has faltered.

God is to be praised in times of strength and in times of weakness. In fact, for David, a time of weakness provides all the more reason for his soul to make its boast in the Lord rather than in himself. Coming off of this embarrassing episode, David doesn't build himself up by reliving his glory days.

This is one of the exemplary things, one of the things that makes David a really good example for us, is that no matter whether he's strong and courageous or weak and vulnerable or even caught in outright sin sometimes, for David, it's all glory to God all the time.

When he tells his stories, he's not concerned with making himself look great. David doesn't write in this psalm, And then I obtained the sword of Goliath, and I heard the Philistines talking about my battlefield prowess, and I remembered how awesome I am. He says, I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Sometimes it's easier to do that when you don't look so good. This opening verse is an excellent manifesto for the Christian life. We could use many, many verses of Scripture to instruct our hearts at the beginning of each day, but for me, this one makes the top of the list.

I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. That would be a wonderful way to start your day every single day. I want to talk about the nature of true praise a little bit based on what we see in this psalm.

True praise of God involves the whole person. Verse 2 makes a wonderful connection between our souls, our inner man, and our bodies, what happens on the outside. David says in verse 2, He says, My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. And then he says, The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

When David says his soul, he's talking about the inward man. He's talking about praising God in his heart. And yet that is something that those around him somehow also hear. That's because David is a whole person.

He lives a life of integrity where that which happens on the inside is displayed on the outside. David's soul is engaged in the worship of God, but that soul praise is manifested in his body. God's praise is continually in his mouth. It's not just something that stays in here in the heart.

Other people can hear his praises. And the same should be true of us. In fact, we can make pretty good judgments about what we boast in in our souls by what praise comes out of our mouth. A week or two ago, we've been watching a lot of World Cup.

I don't even know if you guys care about the World Cup. But we have a few sporting events every few years. I'll cobble together some free trials to different TV services and stuff to watch the World Cup. But I was looking up information about Lionel Messi.

Do you guys know who Lionel Messi is? Okay, good. He's a very famous soccer player. And I was reading about Messi's great accolades, all of the awards he's won, all of the goals he's scored, all of the trophies that he's been given. And I realized as I was telling, I think I was telling my family, oh, did you know this about, you know, about Lionel Messi?

My soul was boasting in Lionel Messi, right? And it was evident because I was wanting to share it with the people around me, how awesome this guy was. But how does Lionel Messi stack up to the Lord God Almighty? Who should our souls boast in?

Whose praise should continually be in our mouths? Channel your praise to the one who is worthy. True praise involves our whole person. It involves our soul, what's going on in here, but that comes out on the outside.

And we can actually see what's going on in here by what's coming out of our mouths. And so we should work to love the Lord in our souls and have that be driving the praise of our mouths and our praising God to other people. The true praise involves both body and soul.

It involves the whole person. But something else we see about true praise that's very related, but from the words of David here, true praise is communal. True praise invites other people into it. David says, the humble shall hear of it and be glad.

And then he cries out, oh, magnify the Lord with me. And let us exalt his name together. We should be praising God to those around us. We, the church, God's people, are a special people brought into existence by God with a purpose.

It's so that we may proclaim the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. That's from 1 Peter chapter 2. It says that God has made us a peculiar, a special people, a unique people in this world. And the purpose of our existence is to proclaim the excellencies of God who calls us out of darkness into light.

We are to be a light to the world by proclaiming out loud the excellencies of God. And we're encouraged in this work in this psalm with the kind promise that the humble shall hear of it and be glad. Now, not everyone you boast in the Lord to will be glad when you do so.

Some will get angry and harden their hearts if you praise the Lord. But the humble will respond. And the humble will rejoice when you call out to God and praise his name. And we're called to boast to everyone.

No matter if they're proud or humble, we praise the name of the Lord. And we let them respond how they will respond. And we look for the humble to respond with gladness. God is worthy of praise no matter what and no matter who we're in the presence of.

God is the maker of everyone that we come into contact with. And it is right and good to proclaim the praises of our maker and of everyone else's maker in their presence. So true praise, it involves the whole person and it is communal. It draws others into it.

And that's what the church is. It's us saying to each other, hey, this is what the purpose of Sunday morning is. It's saying to one another, let us exalt the name of the Lord together. That's our calling as a people.

So this psalm opens with David's commitment to praising the Lord. His personal commitment and his exhortation to everyone who will listen to join him in that praise. But he doesn't stop there. A call to praise someone or something naturally comes with a why attached. Magnify the Lord. Why?

Is he worthy to be praised? Tell me why. There are many reasons why God is worthy of our praises. But this psalm focuses on one main reason that his praise should be continually in our mouths. And here's how I would sum it up.

The Lord Saves Those Who Cry Out to Him

The Lord saves those who cry out to him. The Lord saves those who cry out to him. Who does God save? Let's look at the second part of that.

Who is it that God saves? He saves those who cry out to him. We see this all through this psalm. In verse 4, David says, I sought the Lord and he heard me.

David begins with his personal testimony of God having listened to him. The statement in this psalm is particularly sweet because it's clear that David does not see God's willingness to listen to him as stemming from God's being impressed with David. David doesn't think that God has to listen to him because David's awesome.

David makes no claim here that it is because of his strength or his valor or his courage that God listened to him. He simply proclaims God's graciousness to listen to those who earnestly seek him. And he gives his personal account of experiencing how God listened to him when he cried out.

Verse 6, David says, This poor man, referring to himself, this poor man cried out and the Lord heard him. God is to be praised for the grace he shows by opening his ear to those who call on him. Even and especially when they are poor, which means they have nothing to bring to him.

Now, generally, we're all ashamed to be needy or to be poor. None of us wants to be a beggar who relies on the charity of other people to survive. And it's true that we should provide for ourselves and seek to not be an unnecessary burden to other people.

But you do not get to come to God as anything except a beggar. If mighty King David, who slew his ten thousands, was a poor man to God, then so are you and so am I. We must acknowledge our need to God, which is to say we must come to him humbly, not thinking that he must be impressed with us, but pleading his mercy and his grace.

But we must not only acknowledge our need to God. It's really interesting that David, the Psalms are often very personal, but David, especially in leading God's people, he led the praises of God's people. He organized choirs in Israel for people to give glory to God. Sometimes his Psalms are headed with to the choir director.

So this is a personal Psalm where David's talking about himself, but he's also opening up his weakness to the people of God that he's leading. You even see it in the heading that's here, that he says to everyone, like to the church, to the people of Israel, he says, here's why I wrote this Psalm, because I was terribly afraid and drooling all over myself.

You guys remember that? Yeah, okay. That's when I came to God. I was weak. I was poor. This poor man cried out. And that's what he brings and calls the other people to join in with acknowledging their weakness to God.

But David's not just acknowledging his weakness to God. He's acknowledging it to everyone who's reading this Psalm, even the people of Israel who were underneath him. And we need to acknowledge our need for God, not just to God, but to one another. And the only way to do this is to acknowledge your own weaknesses out loud to other people.

But man, that is scary. But there is great freedom and strength in being honest about how weak you are. If you're unwilling to admit your weakness, you will never cry out for help. And if you don't cry out for help, then God will never hear you.

God saves those who cry out to him. But if we're too proud to cry out, we do not have God's listening ear. Listen to this from Isaiah 40 from the prophet Isaiah. One of the ways we exalt the name of the Lord and his power is by declaring our own weakness and our own need for God to him, to one another, and even to the world.

Now, David uses another word besides poor to describe those who cry out to God. And that is the word righteous. In verse 15, it says, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry. The righteous cry out, is verse 17.

The righteous cry out and the Lord hears. How can both these things be true? That God listens to the poor, the weak, the vulnerable, the needy, and it's the righteous who he listens to. Well, who are the righteous?

The righteous are those who are right with God. It's those who have God's approval. Now, amazingly, we learn in Scripture and in this psalm that this can be those who have a right standing with God can be those who are weak and poor and needy. That can be the same person somehow.

David clearly puts himself in both of these categories, right? He says, This poor man cried out. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears them. David knows his weakness, even his sin.

And yet, he also considers himself righteous in God's sight. We'll come back to that in a minute. But remember, hold that in the back of your mind that the righteous can also be the poor and the needy. What does the Lord do when the righteous cry out to him?

He saves them. He delivers them. He rescues them. We get many words just in this psalm alone for this saving work. And save is one of those words that we can use so much that I think it just becomes... I sometimes edit books and I'll do things like I go through, I do a search and find in a document for every instance of one word.

I remember doing this with the word church one time. And I was just clicking through to check the capitalization of the word church all through a book. And I kept clicking and clicking and seeing church, church, church, church, church, church, church, church. And it just started to look like this nonsense, you know, collection of lines and things.

And I started wondering, wait, is that how that word's even spelled? You know, it just becomes so... your mind just gets kind of numbed to it. That can happen with words, even good scriptural words like the word save. Save. Sometimes we use it so often.

And it's good to have some synonyms in our minds that the Lord saves those who cry out to him. He delivers them. He rescues them. And sometimes we have more vivid picture in our mind of what rescue looks like when we think of someone drowning in the sea.

We think, oh, rescue. Okay, yeah, real danger. Real danger. But what does God save his people from? Well, the Old Testament builds a rich theme of salvation, of rescue, of deliverance for the righteous people of God from beginning to end.

So, starting in Genesis, mankind is saved from being snuffed out after the fall through the birth of a son. God graciously grants Adam and Eve more children because he had promised that a savior would come through their descendants. God saves. He rescues Noah and his family from the flood through the use of a giant boat.

God saves Lot and his daughters from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by sending angels to draw them out of the city that was to be destroyed. Abraham's son Isaac is spared from being sacrificed by God. Israel, that's to say Jacob and his sons, are saved from famine, from dying of hunger, through Joseph ending up in Egypt and saving his own brothers by giving them food.

Israel is saved in the Exodus story from their slavery in Egypt. They're saved from the sentence of death at Passover as the angel of death passes over them. They're saved immediately after that from Pharaoh and his army tracking them down to try to continue enslaving them or even to destroy them.

Israel is saved from hunger, from enemies, and from fiery serpents in the wilderness through God's kindness. When they enter into the promised land, Rahab and her family are saved from being destroyed by the people of Israel, by God. The people of Israel repeatedly are delivered from their enemies in Judges.

Ruth, after Judges, is saved from famine. She and her mother-in-law, Naomi, are saved from famine. And then Ruth is redeemed by Boaz, a man named Boaz, who draws her out of her poverty. And then she becomes the great-great-grandmother of David.

David then is saved from the lion and from the bear, which he says was God's help of him to be saved. And then he has confidence to be saved through God's power from Goliath and from the Philistines. And then we get to this account in David's story where he is saved from Achish, the king of Gath, and from Saul.

David, in this psalm, wants us to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with him, because this is the God who saves. He says that God saved him from all of his fears in verse 4. The Lord delivered me from all my fears. What was David afraid of?

Well, mainly of those who wanted to kill him, of Saul, of the Philistines. Later, David would be afraid of his own son trying to kill him and take the throne away from him. In verse 5, David says that God saves from shame. It says, They looked to him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.

David had much to be ashamed of, both from his own sin and weakness, as well as the shame that comes from the violence of others. And yet when he looked to God and knew God loved him and would take care of him, and that God was not ashamed of him, David had no need to be weighed down by shame.

The Lord was the lifter of his head, as he says in Psalm 3. David says that God saved him from his troubles. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. David is surely considering his own troubles and dangers, as well as those experienced by the people of Israel and the history leading up to him, of God saving them from slavery, from their enemies.

In verse 9, he says, God saves his people from hunger, from poverty, from thirst. He also saves them from their enemies. Verse 21 says, Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned. David trusted God to deliver him from his enemies.

Now we may look at this particular episode and diagnose David as being weak in faith, considering his fear of Achish and the way he dealt with that fear. But what does David see when he looks back on this incident? God graciously delivered him from his enemies. Now sometimes we look good and strong when we're delivered from our enemies.

David did at one point, right? We look at David in a previous episode and say, Man, David was awesome. And we acknowledge that it was his faith in the Lord that delivered him. But sometimes we don't look all that wonderful and courageous, and yet we still end up delivered from our enemies.

And it's still God's work. David sees God's hand at work even as he's weak and faltering in this instance. And he still says, It was God who delivered me from my fears. And look, I really was afraid.

When I fought Goliath, it didn't look like I was afraid. This time it did. Scripture says he was terribly afraid. And God delivered him out of that predicament as well.

Either way, God is to be glorified. Now the New Testament is written against this backdrop of the Old Testament. And it picks up this theme of salvation from the very first chapters of the Gospels. I'm going to read a selection of things from the New Testament here that pick up this theme of salvation.

God did not, this is John 3, 17, God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him. John 10, 9, Jesus says, Yeah, I want you to say it. He will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

Matthew 18, 11, The Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. Luke 9, 56 says, The Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Acts 2, 21, And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be.

Acts 4, 12 says, And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be. Acts 13, 47 says, I have set you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.

All of the salvation in the Old Testament builds up to and culminates in salvation in Jesus, whose name itself means the Lord saves. That's what the name Jesus literally means. It's the name Joshua in Hebrew, and it means the Lord saves. And what is the salvation that is so desperately needed?

Salvation from what? Well, Matthew 1, we're told, An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, interestingly enough, Do not be afraid to take to you, Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy, It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. We need to be saved from our sins and from the consequences of sin. This salvation from sin and its consequences, namely the wrath of God, is the core of salvation from which all other deliverances or rescues emanate.

After all, what would be the use of being delivered from tribulation or distress, or from persecution, or from famine, or from nakedness, or peril, or sword, or shame? What would be the use of being delivered from those things if we are not saved from the wrath of God and would be finally damned?

Those of you who are in Christ, you are saved from your sins and made righteous, right with God, approved of by God, loved by God. You belong to him. You are his beloved child. Even in your weakness and vulnerability and sin, you are God's and he will take care of you.

It is a trustworthy statement. Christ Jesus came to save sinners. And as God's righteous ones, which is to say ones who have been saved from your sins in Christ, you have many promises of salvation that belong to you in Christ. In fact, the promises of this psalm are yours in Jesus Christ.

And that's because this psalm is actually about Jesus. I want you to look at verses 19 to 20. David writes, Does anybody recognize that from somewhere else in scripture? John 19, the apostle John writes about the crucifixion of Jesus.

It says, And again, another scripture says, God the Father orchestrated the fulfillment of Psalm 34 20 to ensure that we would know that Christ is the righteous one spoken of in Psalm 34. Jesus, far more than David, is the one who cries out to God and is heard by him.

And God preserving Jesus' bones shows us that Christ's death on the cross was not God losing control or even God giving up control, but that God was accomplishing exactly what he intended to accomplish in his righteous servant, which was the salvation of his people from their sins. God kept his bones from being broken, even in the midst of his body being beaten and abused, to show that in Christ we have salvation from our sins.

The Psalms are about Jesus before they are about us. I often find myself, I don't know if you have this struggle when you read scripture, but I will often read the Psalms and it will talk about the righteous man. And I'll try to map it directly onto myself, you know, and see if I can check the boxes, like, am I righteous?

And it's a very frustrating and discouraging experience because you don't get very far without realizing that's not me. This says God blesses the righteous and I'm not righteous. And so that's very discouraging, right? Because then you think this Psalm says God saves the righteous. Here I am. I'm not righteous.

This Psalm is not about me. Well, it's not about you. It's about Christ. You can save yourself a lot of my self-righteous angst if you learn to see Christ in the Psalms first. And then when you see yourself in him by faith, knowing that the righteousness doesn't come from you, but comes from him, then the Psalms do belong to you in Christ.

He is the righteous man whose cries, his righteous cries are heard by God. And if we want to be heard by God, we must be right with God in Christ so that Christ will cry out for us. Hebrews 7 says this. It says that Christ is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.

Hebrews also talks about how Jesus, God listens to all of Jesus's prayers. Because when he cries out, he really is righteous and God the Father's ear is completely open to Christ's prayers. Do you think that God the Father responds to Jesus when Jesus cries out to him? Would you rather cry out yourself to God or have Jesus cry out for you?

Jesus cry out for you, right? This is what it means to have Jesus as a priest and a mediator is that we know God listens to Jesus. And scripture teaches us that he will pray for us if we cry out to God in him. This is why we pray in Jesus' name.

Because we don't even have a right to approach God apart from the name of Christ Jesus. Now God's salvation of us in Christ goes beyond the salvation of us from our sins. When Christ is the author of our salvation, as Hebrews refers to him, that salvation of us manifests itself in many other deliverances and rescues as well.

In fact, the deliverances of Psalm 34 do belong to us in Christ. Now what am I talking about? David says that God delivered him from all his fears. What fears has God delivered you from?

What are you afraid of right now that you can give over to God and be free from? How about the fear of being hurt by other people? In Psalm 118, David says, The Lord is on my side. I will not fear.

What can man do to me? This doesn't mean that we will be delivered from all hurt by others, but that we can be free from being controlled by the fear of what other people can do to us. If God is for us, who can stand against us? Christ Jesus died for me.

The worst anyone can do is kill me. And if they do, I get to see Jesus. God can deliver us from our fears through Christ. Faith in Christ can also deliver you from the fear of the wrong people being in power.

This is something that we're very tempted by, right? But think about David. Saul, good person that he liked being in power. No, Achish, he's in a city ruled by the Philistines who want to kill him.

You think David was afraid, right? We too can be delivered from being ruled by a fear of who happens to be in power right now. It is better to trust in the Lord. This is also Psalm 118.

It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. The death of Christ delivers us from the fear of death and the many other fears that go along with it. Fears about our health.

Fears about sickness. Fears about pain. Fears about making the wrong choices about food or about medicine. I praise God. He's really helped us. So my wife had cancer a couple of years ago. And we praise God that he has delivered her from that sickness and that she is well and getting better now.

But we had to make certain choices about what kind of treatment we were going to pursue, right? And you're not a medical researcher yourself and you're just presented with these options from doctors. And you have to make a choice. What toxic chemicals are we going to pump into her body and hope that they do what they're supposed to do, right?

That's something, a very fearful thing to have to do. And we made a choice and there have been things about the results of those toxic chemicals that got pumped into her body that have made us wonder, did we make the right choice? If we had chosen a different path, would it have been easier, right?

Did we make the wrong choice? Is a fear we often live with, but we don't have to. And I praise God that he's helped us to know, you know what? Even if there was a better or easier or more comfortable path we could have chosen, we know that God is even using the pain and the discomfort for our good.

So this path over here might have been easier or more comfortable, but this one is more sanctifying. And God is using it to actually make her and us more like Christ, which is the better path. And you can pursue this path even without having to be afraid or from living in fear.

Are you afraid of pain? Are you afraid that pain is going to last forever? Well, this promise belongs to you in Christ from Revelation 21. God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away. God promises in Christ that there will be an end to pain. And along the road, God assures you through Christ's own sharing in real pain.

That's why he came and took on our flesh was to have the fellowship of our sufferings. God assures you in Christ that your pain has purpose to make you more like him. But it's not just fear that this psalm tells us that God's people are delivered from. It says that God delivers us from shame.

It says they looked to him and their faces were radiant. How does the gospel of Jesus Christ deliver you from shame? In the gospel, God tells you in Christ that he is not ashamed of you. He is pleased to call you his son or his daughter.

And Jesus is not ashamed to call you his own brother, his own sister. Because he did everything that was necessary to tear down the wall of guilt and shame that stood between you and God. God delivers us from troubles, from war, from persecution, from famine, from nakedness, from death.

He delivers us from want and lack. Has God provided you what you need in terms of food and clothing? He certainly abundantly provided for us. And he delivers us from our enemies.

What do we know God will do to those who hate the righteous? Which should be a good definition for us if we're trying to even understand what enemies are. Those who hate the righteous. This psalm promises us that they will be destroyed.

If God could preserve Jesus' bones from being broken by the wicked, then he can ensure that the wicked will not go unpunished and that we too will be delivered from the violence of our enemies. We do not have to be afraid.

Living as the Righteous in Christ

One last thing. Being called righteous by God comes with commands and obligations.

Are you right with God in Christ? If you are, then keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.

When you are grounded in the love of God in Christ Jesus, you have nothing to fear. You are free to do things like tell the truth without being afraid of the consequences of telling the truth. Whether it's speaking the truth of God's word or telling the truth of confessing your own sin.

Knowing that God approves of us in Christ gives us the freedom to tell the truth and to turn away from being deceitful. You know no matter what that God has you so you can honor him in how you speak. Jesus himself only ever told the truth. And if we're in him, we should live like him, right?

What motivated Jesus to tell the truth? He had the love and approval of his father and he knew he had that. From the very beginning of his ministry, before he even started publicly teaching, God out of heaven said, this is my beloved son. Jesus lived his life out of the approval of God the Father.

He knew he could speak the truth, God's word, because he knew he belonged to God. We get to live that life in Christ. Knowing that we have God's approval and therefore not afraid to speak the truth. Not a fearful life of trying to earn God's approval through being righteous, but a peaceful one that flows from the knowledge that we already have God's approval in Christ.

Now unlike Christ, we fall into sin, right? Jesus lived perfectly, we do not. But that's the wondrous blessing of Christ's death on the cross. As ones who have God's approval in Christ, we have an advocate in heaven pleading our forgiveness at the throne of grace.

One who is specifically appointed for that purpose, to intercede for us when we sin. God knew he was saving sinners when he saved us. And he knew we would continue to sin even after he saved us. But that did not keep him from following through and saving us.

Sinners who are righteous in Christ acknowledge their sin, repent, and continue on in faith and hope and obedience. We even see that in this psalm. In verse 18 it says, The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit.

And this is how righteous and poor come together. As Jesus says, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, right? And those who have a contrite spirit, who come to God confessing their sins and turning away from their sins. That's who God counts as righteous in Christ.

What a blessed verse to be in this psalm, this verse 18, that says he saves such as have a contrite spirit. It's a great relief to be taught even here that the righteousness of God's approval is not through our own perfect keeping of his commandments, but that God is near to those who are sorry for their sins.

He is near to those who trust in Christ's payment for their sins. And then that leads us to obedience and walking in his ways. So with this psalm, I think a good summary is to bless the Lord at all times. God saves those who cry out to him.

That is why he is worthy to be praised. So may our souls boast in God and let his praise continually be in our mouths.

Closing Prayer

Father in heaven, our souls exalt in you.

And we lift up the name of the Lord. We lift up your name and especially the name of your son, Jesus Christ, who is the righteous one who cries out to you. And you always hear his prayers. Lord, we rightly lack confidence that you will hear our prayers because of our sin.

But we know that you listen to Christ. And so as we honor his name and pray to him, we pray that you would hear our prayers and his prayers on our behalf. I pray that you would help us to be willing to acknowledge our weakness and our sin, to tell the truth about you and about ourselves, to our families, to the lost world around us.

May we not be ashamed to confess our own shame and your removal of that shame in Christ. I pray for this church, for Moral Baptist Church, that you would cause it to be a light to this community in northeastern Kansas. I pray that as people think of this church and the people in this church, that they would think of people with radiant faces who delight in the approval of God and Christ.

And they would think of a people who are continually praising your name. Would you strengthen us for the week ahead? Help us to honor you in how we pray and how we live. Would you remove falsehood and lies from our lips?

Grant us truth in the inward man that comes out and how we speak and even how we sing. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.