This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome back today,
Saturday, the... 14th of March. And as we begin
our episode today, I just want to say if you're
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in the episode description. So all that to say,
let's jump in today. It's Psalm 22. This is Saturday,
so it's our bonus day in our reading culture.
And so we want to share a little bit out of Psalm
22. If you are a big fan of the Psalms, or if
you're not, hopefully what I'm trying to do every
time we look at a Psalm together is help explain
a little bit about the full context or maybe
a little bit of background so when you read it,
it jumps off the page a little bit easier or
a little bit more naturally to you. So Psalm
22. is one of the Psalms of David, and it is
interesting. If you know much about this Psalm,
you will see and hear, okay, this sounds a little
bit like something Jesus said. This sounds a
little bit like something that I hear Jesus quoting
or something that may fall in line with that.
This Psalm is one that David wrote. And again,
the horrors that he explains in this Psalm, nowhere
in the scriptures can we find David actually
dealing with this type of suffering. Now, there
was a time he was running from Saul out in the
wilderness, and there's a time he was kind of
pinned down, and there was a time where the enemy
was around him. We can kind of... Maybe assign
this to that time. I don't know for sure, so
I don't want to give too much speculation. I
do want to say, though, that this psalm has something
really beautiful about it. It's got some prophetic
pieces, maybe some inspiration that happens really
much later on in the time of Jesus. This is a
31 -verse psalm. The first 21 verses are devastating.
They're very difficult. In fact, you read it,
and it's just sorrow upon sorrow. It's brokenness
upon brokenness. It's fear and trembling, and
it just seems bad all the way around. It begins
with the phrase in Psalm 22, beginning at verse
number 1. I want to read this verse to us. My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are
you so far from saving me from the words of my
groaning? Now, again, David is writing this,
and that seems like very— and part of the reason
I like the Psalms is because they're very raw,
right? If you ever want to know how to communicate
with God whenever you're happy or when you're
sad or when you're broken or when you're mad
or when you're angry or when you're happy or
whatever, you can just go to the Psalms. There's
one in there for all the different emotions that
you go through in life. This is one of those
that it just seems—he says, I'm groaning. There's
been this groaning, and you've forsaken me. God,
why have you forsaken me? And if you read those
next 20 verses, so from verses 1 to— 21, you
will just see it just seems to perpetuate, just
seems to get worse and worse and worse, and it's
awful and it's bad. But then verse 22 is a new,
the psalm almost regenerates itself. And I want
to read that verse of scripture to you out of
Psalm 22, down in verse 22. The Bible says this,
I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the
midst of the congregation, I will praise you.
What has happened? Well, the psalm has shifted.
Now, if we look at this Psalm today in the light
of Jesus and what he did on the cross, one of
the most amazing things we will see take place.
Now, I hope and pray you read every word, every
verse, read it all. It's worth it. It's awesome.
It's amazing. You'll see a shift from verse number
22 down to verse 31. And it ends with this wonderful
phrase. The phrase that it ends with in Psalm
22 is found in verse 31. I want to read. just
verse 31 with you today. They shall come and
proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn
that he has done it. Now, depending on the English
translation you are using, that last phrase says,
mine says he has done it. Maybe it says he hath
done this thing or whatever it is. It's a phrase
for us, right? Well, in the Hebrew, it's one
word. It's one word. It's asah. It's this one
word that means it's finished. It is finished.
Do you know, as we look at this psalm, it begins
with, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And it ends with, it's finished. If you go and
read the moments Jesus was on the cross, what
you will hear Jesus say is, my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? And then you will hear
at the end when he says tetelestai, which means
it's finished. With one word, Jesus says it's
finished. You know, I was encouraged today as
I was reading through this text and all the texts
we've been reading this week. And I just want
to. I want you to be able to find encouragement
and hope today to know that I'm sharing this
on Easter in a couple of weeks, but our salvation
is granted by works, just not our works. Our
salvation is by His works, by Jesus' work, and
what He did on the cross, what He did for us,
it is not based on anything we've done. It's
based on everything He's done. He's the one that
put in the work for us. He's the one that was
separated from God when he says, my God, my God,
why are you forsaking me? Why have you forsaken
me? Why have you walked away from me? What's
going on? You love me. And the moment that Jesus
said that was the moment that he looked like
us on the cross. He looked like sin. It was Jesus's
work that saved us, that saved me. I hope and
pray today your faith is found in Christ. And
I hope and pray today that Psalm 22 will bring
you so much joy, so much refreshment to hear
how difficult Jesus experienced the work of the
cross and then how great the reward that he finished
it. He completed the mission. He completed all
of it so that we could be in his family. I hope
you have so much encouragement today. I hope
you can't wipe the smile off your face. It doesn't
matter how goofy you look. You know a truth that
is unbelievable and unthinkable how much our
God loves us. I encourage you today, read Psalm
22, fresh ears, fresh eyes, and allow the Lord
to speak to you and let him reveal to you who
he is truly.