Psalm chapter number three, well I get a drink of water.
We started a series last week in Psalms,
and we started in the last Psalm, Psalm number 150.
And what was the theme of the Psalm?
Does anybody remember?
Praise the Lord, say it with me.
Praise the Lord, yeah that's what we learned,
and that really is the theme of this study
that we're doing in the book of Psalms.
We can praise the Lord for who he is.
We can praise the Lord for what he's done
as God does nothing in you and for you, has he?
As God worthy of praise because of what he's done
in your life, that's awesome, half of you, that's great.
An amazing thing.
And we ought to praise him for that,
we ought to praise him with music, Psalms, and hymns,
and spiritual songs, and we've done that this morning.
There are certainly Psalms like 150 that compel us
to praise the Lord.
Sometimes though, who agrees with me?
Sometimes life is a fight.
Somebody over here really believes that.
Sometimes life is hard.
Sometimes life is difficult.
We struggle, anybody here ever struggle?
You hurt? Anybody here ever been betrayed?
Someone been disloyal to you?
This might be hard for you to believe.
Have you ever had someone dislike you?
Yeah, that's happened to me too.
Doesn't happen very often.
I can't understand why anybody wouldn't like me.
I'm a good guy, right?
But sometimes that happens, sometimes,
have you ever done this like we studied this morning
in this morning, we're in Genesis in our Sunday school
time and we're learning, we learned about Joseph
and Joseph went into Potiphar's house
and his Potiphar's wife wanted Joseph to sleep with her.
And when she says, come lie with me and she grabs his coat,
he runs out of his coat, he gets out of there.
And then she uses his coat as evidence against him
for something he did not do.
Has that ever happened to you?
Where maybe not that exact thing, hopefully.
Maybe not that, okay.
But where you're falsely accused,
something that people say happened,
maybe they misunderstood something you said,
maybe they read into your motives,
something that were their motives
and so then they falsely accused you for something,
that can happen and it cost you.
You be falsely accused or have your motives questioned.
So these things happen, sometimes we suffer
because we do dumb things.
Anybody ever have that happen?
Sometimes we don't get it right
and we say something or do something
and we have to pay the piper because we do something wrong.
And sometimes we struggle because of what we have been done
to us but sometimes we struggle
because of something we've done.
Sometimes we struggle because of what's,
like we said, what's been done to us.
Matthew 5.10 says,
blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,
blessed are you when men shall revile you
and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil
against you for my name's sake.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great
is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets,
which were before you.
Paul told Timothy, this is interesting,
Paul told Timothy this,
for thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life,
purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience,
persecutions, afflictions,
which came to me in Antioch and Econium and Derby and Listra.
And what persecutions I endured
but out of them all, here it is,
the Lord delivered me.
Yea, in all that will live godly, here it is,
all they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer
persecution.
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,
deceiving and being deceived.
Paul, who has a pretty good track record
of doing the right thing,
also has a track record of being persecuted
for doing the right thing.
But I think Paul's doing pretty good today, don't you?
And so we know that life isn't easy
and we can get really afraid, we can be discouraged.
And in fact, I found in my life that there's a connection
with fear and worry and anxiety.
Have you ever had that?
And then depression and discouragement.
That fear and anxiety and worry can lead to discouragement
and even depression.
Have you ever felt that?
Sometimes at church we have a temptation
to put on a happy face.
And when you say how are you,
when people say to you how are you, you say fine,
because you understand that that's a greeting,
not a real question, right?
Have you ever asked me, how are you doing?
I am horrible.
I'll go get some coffee, you know,
there's things in the back, right?
But the truth is not everybody here
that says they're doing fine is doing fine.
Sometimes life is just difficult because of our making
or because of the making of others in our life.
Today we're in Psalm three and I hope you notice the theme.
If you're in that kind of situation today,
you're either in that situation
or you're gonna be in that situation eventually
because life is up and down, isn't it?
And I hope that you notice the theme of our music today.
It's the theme of Psalm three that we're gonna study.
We sing about God being our defender and deliverer.
Call upon the name of the Lord.
He's our defender, our deliverer.
We talked about how the battle belongs to the Lord.
And when I fight, I'm gonna fight on my knees
with my hand lifted high
because the battle belongs to you God, right?
And then we came to this passage in Psalm three
which our choir saying, Miss Laurie did a great job reading.
Thou, O Lord, are a shield for me,
my glory and the lifter of my head.
So this is what I've entitled today's message,
my shield and the lifter of my head.
If you're dealing with difficulty, anxiety,
discouragement or fear, I believe the truth
of today's text will help you and be a blessing to you
because the Psalm is a Psalm of David
and you'll find this in chapter three.
You guys have your Bibles open?
Do you see a heading?
In my Bible it says Psalm three,
a Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom, his son.
A few years ago I went to a concert
that was part of a tour called the Stories and Songs Tour,
one of my favorite artists is a guy named Andrew Peterson
and he's a guy that writes a lot of really,
I like his songs.
And a lot of his songs have a story
that go along with them or a background.
He sang with a guy named Stephen Curtis Chapman,
they did that and they did this tour
where they tell stories about what they were experiencing
when they wrote the song, right?
And it was really cool to hear the background of the song.
If you heard Stephen Curtis Chapman's story,
he lost a daughter who got ran over
and then he wrote the song called Cinderella
and there's not like a dry eye in the place
when you tell that story of God's grace
in the midst of that difficulty.
In Psalm three we have a similar situation.
There's a heading here that says that David's a Psalmist
and that he wrote this very personal Psalm
in a time of great distress.
And you can find out the background of the Psalm
in 2 Samuel.
So today let's study this text
and let's do it by seeing the background
against where which David wrote this beautiful Psalm.
I believe that when we do,
we'll be able to see how we can counsel ourselves.
We can counsel ourselves and counsel each other
through our fear, our anxiety and our discouragement.
And so we can deal with internal struggles
when going through difficulty by recognizing
and following the changes of attitude
that we see exhibited by David in Psalm three.
Look at attitude number one
that we're gonna see in these first two verses.
It's an attitude of fear.
Read it with me, it says this.
"'Lord, how are they increased that trouble me?
"'Many are they that rise up against me?
"'Many there be which say of my soul,
"'There is no help for him and God.'"
Say, La.
When David was king,
he committed adultery with a lady named Bathsheba.
And to cover up his crime, she got pregnant.
And to cover up the pregnancy,
he calls Bathsheba's husband back from war.
A war that he should have been at but was not at.
And he brings him back and asks for a report on the war
and then says, I want you to go back home to your wife.
And then tomorrow I'll let you know when you can go.
Uriah does not go and do that.
He does not go to home because he feels like
if my men are out to battle,
I'm not gonna go enjoy the comforts of home,
whatever they may be.
David does a few things eventually
because he tries to get Uriah drunk.
Does this sound like Jerry Springer?
A little bit.
He tries to get Uriah drunk.
And even a drunk Uriah has more integrity
than David does sober.
And he doesn't go in to his wife.
So David writes a letter.
And in this letter it says, take this to the general,
it's a sealed letter.
The letter says, put Uriah in the toughest part of the battle
and when it's in the most difficulty,
tell everybody to retreat but Uriah.
And so it's murder by warfare.
A convenient cover up for David.
That's exactly what happens.
He gets word of Uriah's death.
At getting word of Uriah's death,
he then calls for Bathsheba, makes him his wife
and now her having a baby gets covered up.
Eventually, Nathan, this prophet comes to David
and tells him a story and the story is about
a guy who had one sheep and a neighbor who had a bunch of sheep.
And the neighbor who had a bunch of sheep came to the guy
who had one sheep and said, hey, give me your sheep.
The guy says, no, eventually he does take this sheep
and he kills it.
David, the shepherd king, gets really mad.
How dare this guy who has a lot take from the guy
who has a little, I'm gonna kill that guy.
And Nathan looks at David and I imagine him pointing
a long finger in David's face and says, you're the guy.
You're the man.
And David goes, oh, we're not talking about sheep.
Do you get it?
And then this is what Nathan says.
This is what God says.
The sword won't leave your family.
The sword will not leave your family.
And the baby, it's gonna die.
David writes Psalm 51 in that time
where he cries out to God for forgiveness.
Eventually the baby dies. This is a comfort to some.
After the baby dies, David gets up
and he is in mourning and depression
and sackclothed ashes and the baby dies
and David cleans himself up and comes in and eats.
And the servants say, well, what are you doing?
Why are you eating now that he's dead?
And he goes, well, should I mourn?
He can't come to me, but I can go to him.
I put that as a sign in there.
David repented, yet still had to face
the consequences then of those actions.
First the baby that he father died next
got told in the sword would not leave his family.
David got right with the Lord,
but conflict plagued his house after this.
A series of things happened because of his sins.
He had a son named Amnon.
Amnon raised his son.
And he died in the war.
Amnon, Amnon raped his sister, Tamar.
As a result, another brother, Absalom, kills Amnon.
Absalom, their brother and David's son,
bides his time and then kills Amnon.
Because of this murder, Absalom flees
to a place called Geshe and stays there for some time.
Eventually, a guy named Joab pleads for Absalom
to be able to return to Jerusalem.
David is the king in Jerusalem.
Absalom's in this place called Geshe.
David is upset because Absalom killed his other son,
but they're not talking.
Eventually, Joab goes to David and says,
David, would you let Absalom come to Jerusalem?
Will you not throw him in jail or hurt him or kill him?
And so in 2 Samuel 14, 24, it says this,
and the king said, let him, talking about Absalom,
return to his own house and let him not see my face.
So Absalom returned to his own house
and saw not the king's face.
This is a dad saying, fine, I'll live in the same city as him,
but I don't wanna see him.
Are you with me?
This went on for two years,
according to 2 Samuel 14, 28.
He even had a daughter that he named after his sister.
This Absalom named his daughter
after the sister that was raped.
Absalom pleaded with Joab to get audience with King David.
So Joab is saying, hey, at least let Absalom come see you.
And he eventually was able to have that meeting.
There was a reconciliation that seemed to happen
at that meeting.
You can see that in 2 Samuel 14, 33.
Yet though there was a show of reconciliation,
Absalom was deceitful and used the peace between them
to undermine David.
He questioned David's leadership and decisions for years
with key people in the kingdom.
Absalom, even though he was right with his dad,
would still kinda question David's leadership
to people in the city.
The effect of his treachery,
the effect of this disloyalty to the king,
what is it called?
I should know the answer to a question before I ask it.
What is it called when you undermine those in charge?
Treason, treason.
So he's doing treasonous acts.
And the effect of that treachery is summed up
in the last phrase in 2 Samuel 15, 6.
And on this manner, verse 6,
and on this matter or in this way,
by questioning people about David,
did Absalom to all Israel
that came to the king for judgment.
So, so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
All of this came to a head.
Basically what he would do is he would sit at the gate
and all these people that would come in and he'd say,
hey, how's it going with you?
Yeah, well, if I was in charge, that wouldn't happen.
If I was the one making the rulings,
if I was the one making the decisions,
you wouldn't deal with that.
And so he was undermining his dad,
undermining his dad, undermining his dad.
And the Bible says that he stole the hearts
of the key men of Israel.
Verse 10.
So all came to a head when Absalom took a bunch of
David's men and set up a new place to rule
in a place called Hebron.
And it says in 2 Samuel 15, 10,
but Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes
of Israel saying, as soon as you hear the sound
of the trumpet, then you shall say Absalom reigneth
in Hebron.
You know what that means?
He's saying, now it's time to choose sides.
Now it's time to go against David and to go for Absalom.
The plan worked.
If you get under verse 12, it says,
and the conspiracy was strong for the people increased
continually with Absalom.
It was very likely that this time when David had been
so betrayed by not only Absalom, but by many of his people,
that he wrote the words of today's Psalm.
It was in that moment where he's in Jerusalem
and treason has been declared, his son has betrayed him.
I can't imagine like 20 years from now, Ezekiel, my son,
getting in the congregation and saying,
my dad's a bad preacher.
You should go take, we should go across town
and start a new church.
Then he gets all the mail and sends it out to,
are you with me?
It's kind of the same thing.
You get it?
How good would my relationship with Ezekiel be?
Right?
Not the way to start churches.
Just say that out loud.
Am I not on?
So it's at that time in this kind of situation,
who agrees this would be a tough time for David?
Because think about all the complication here.
Some of the complication, what is David feeling?
Betrayed for sure who feels maybe he's guilty a little bit
because of how he's handled things.
He's upset with his son, he's dealing with all of that.
And it's against this backdrop that he writes this verse.
Lord, how they increased that trouble me?
Literally at that point, more and more people keep being
allegiance to Absalom instead of to David.
People he thought were on his side
are now going to Absalom side.
Many are they that increase that trouble me.
Many are they that rise up against thee.
Many there be which say of my soul,
there is no help for him in God.
As we study this verse, it's starting in the background.
I just want to point out a couple of observations.
One, David's assessment of his situation was accurate.
It was accurate.
There were people that were, he was not merely being dramatic
in writing this as a creative and a songwriter.
There may be a tendency for the more engineer
and scientific mind to think he was being overly emotional.
This is not the case.
His son had betrayed him and taken people with him.
The kingdom was put into jeopardy
and the threat was increasing.
It's like David was reading 2nd Samuel 1512
and putting that into a Psalm.
They are increasing that trouble me.
They think that there's no hope for me and you God
that I have no hope.
David's sin in circumstances
were at least partially self-induced.
He had introduced sexual sin into his house
through his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.
He had gone against God's desire
and having multiple wives,
which complicated family life to the point
that you had brothers and sisters
from different mothers dealing with jealousy, rape,
and yes, even eventually murder.
There's resentment and bitterness
that leads to conspiracy and revenge.
And David didn't take care of his house as he should.
And the resulting chaos created problems.
Who agrees with me?
That's what happened.
But the third thing I noticed is that
in this Psalm, David does something
that when we're dealing with difficulty,
we ought to do.
He goes to God in prayer.
He goes to God.
Notice the first word of the Psalm.
Lord, how are they increased?
That trouble me.
You know, when you shouldn't just go to God
when things are difficult, who agrees with me?
You shouldn't just go to God when things are tough,
but when things are tough, you should go to God.
It ain't wrong.
It's the right thing to go to God
when you're dealing with difficulty.
So David's experiencing this thing.
In fact, we find out that he's run out of Jerusalem.
And while that's happening, he goes to God in prayer.
He went to God with his mess.
I don't believe that David's called to God in his distress
was the claim that he was completely innocent.
He merely told God about the reality of his circumstance.
God, this is what I'm dealing with.
And this is what people are saying.
In that moment, what they were saying may have felt true.
They were saying there's no help for him in God.
Who knows, maybe David was even tempted to believe it.
You ever prayed and thought that your prayers
were just hitting the ceiling?
Maybe David was tempted to believe that too.
At least at the beginning of the Psalm.
Maybe he thought, man, I have messed up royally
and now I'm dealing with the end of all my sins.
Maybe the sins of my past are coming back to haunt me.
David could have thought that he couldn't take this
to the Lord because he was at least partially to blame
for some of his circumstance.
But he doesn't avoid God.
What he does in this moment is he cries out to God.
What a good plan for us.
Hey, this isn't just a history lesson.
This isn't just a story.
If you're going through difficulty,
you need to pray.
Your hope isn't in your bank account.
Your hope isn't in some great strategy
you can come up with yourself.
Your hope is in God.
There's a time to call out to the Lord.
What a good plan for us to rightly assess our situation.
To own our sin.
To own our own sin.
Where have I messed up?
I want to get it out right.
To face it and then to go to God in prayer for our struggles.
Now what's interesting about this Psalm,
Psalm chapter number three, it's eight verses.
And it was kind of reflected in the song.
Did the choir do a good job on the song, by the way?
I thought it was so good.
The first couple verses, many are they increase,
I'm not going to sing it.
Which trouble me, many are they that rise up against me.
Many are they would say of my soul,
there is no help for him in God.
What was the mood of the music in that first part?
Was it in a major key or a minor key?
It was in a minor, who agrees it was in a minor key.
Did you guys remember that?
But then he goes to this next verse
and in the song it does the same thing.
But thou, oh Lord, are a shield for me.
My glory and the lifter of my head, right?
It goes from minor to major.
In the song and in the Psalm.
When I was writing about this Psalm,
there was a young lady in our church
who was facing a lot.
And she kept talking about these moments
that were but God moments.
Where every time you face something difficult,
then God shows up and does something else.
That's kind of what's going on here.
David is experiencing this difficulty.
He's focused on all these people
that rise up against him and my relationship
with my son is trashed and my family is against me
and my nation's starting to be against thee.
But thou, oh Lord, are a shield for me.
My glory and the lifter.
That's what's happening.
David describes God here in three ways.
First, God is described as David's shield.
We all understand the concept of a shield.
It's something that protects from harm.
It's something that puts danger at bay.
David says that God is his protector.
He also calls God his glory.
When something is described as my glory,
the idea is that this is what brings them honor
and notability and the like.
It's what is good about them.
It's what they take pride in.
It's how David would want to be identified.
His identity was wrapped up in his relationship with God.
David was called a man after God's own heart, right?
Why?
Was it because he's perfect?
No.
What made David a man after God's own heart
is that David repented.
David acknowledged his sin and understood
that God was his protector, that God was his helper.
He trusted in God.
So he's described as a shield, his glory.
And then third, he's described as the lifter up of my head.
You guys heard that phrase today?
What does that mean?
You're the lifter of my head.
One way this phrase is used in a similar fashion
is found in Genesis 40, 13,
in reference to the butler getting restored from prison
to his former position.
You remember when Joseph was put into prison
and there were two guys, the baker and the butler,
that had dreams and Joseph's interpretations
of the dreams were this, you are gonna die.
You're not gonna go back to your job,
but you are gonna go back to your job.
Your head is going to be lifted up,
meaning you're gonna be restored
to the position you previously had.
So what David was saying is in this situation,
God, if you want me to be king,
you're gonna make me king again.
God, you made promises to me and I'm trusting
that you're gonna do what you promised.
You know what that's called?
Faith, faith.
In this situation, David was fleeing Jerusalem
because of a threat of his son Absalom.
David was claiming that if he was to be restored,
it would be God that would do it.
God would lift his head back to his former stature
and authority.
And so there's some clear application here.
We must know that our ultimate protection is Christ.
Wear the seatbelt, buy the gun, put the security system in.
Those things can help, don't be stupid.
But ultimately your protection is in God.
Ultimately Christ is our shield, he's our protection.
We don't have to live in fear, we can trust in Christ.
We must know ultimately too that our identity is in Christ.
Sure you're a husband, sure you're a wife,
sure you're a dad or mom,
sure you're a brother, sister, boss, employee, manager,
writer, musician, athlete.
But our first identity should be that we are in Christ.
He is our glory.
He is our protection.
He is our identity.
What should be most notable about us
ought to be our relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jeremiah says it this way,
thus say it, this is a great verse.
If you haven't memorized this verse,
you should memorize this verse.
Thus say it to the Lord,
let not the wise man glory in his wisdom.
Neither let the mighty man glory in his might.
Let not the rich man glory in his riches.
You know why?
Smart people can get dumb.
Rich people become poor, it happens all the time.
Strong men become weak.
But let him that glory, glorious in this,
that he understand and knoweth me,
that I am the Lord which exercise of loving kindness,
judgment, righteousness in the earth.
For in these things I delight, sayeth the Lord,
sayeth the Lord, we must trust in God.
David's trust for his future was in God himself
and this trust was well placed.
God was the one who could affect his restoration.
The same is true for us.
Our trust and hope for our future
should be in Christ first and foremost.
Here's a third attitude.
We'll go through this quickly.
Attitude number three, hope.
Hope.
He went from free, from fear to the realization,
hey, wait a minute, I do have protection.
God is my glory, God is my restoration.
And so now I've got hope.
Look at verse four.
I cried unto the Lord with my voice
and he heard me out of his holy hill.
I laid me down and slept.
I awake for the Lord sustained me.
David was certainly dealing with circumstances
that could cause high levels of fear and anxiety.
Anybody here ever deal with that?
I mean, yeah, fear, anxiety.
Certainly people in lesser circumstances
have lost sleep when dealing with worry and with anger.
But you see three steps in this passage.
You see, David, what does he do?
He cries to the Lord.
He cries into the name of the Lord as God.
He prays passionately and trusts that God hears him.
And then he's able to do something
that a lot of people that have anxiety can't do.
He sleeps. He sleeps.
Here is a great application for you this afternoon.
Take a nap.
Who's gonna, like that's the only thing
you'll ever apply from the sermon
is you're gonna go take a nap.
Why would it be hard for David to take a nap right now?
Why would it be hard for him to lay down?
His son and his armies are taking over the nation.
Do you get it?
Is he worried?
Is he worried for his life?
He is, but you know what?
I'm gonna do something.
I'm gonna pray and give everything I can to God
and then I'm gonna go sleep
because it's not my trust is in God.
That's what he's saying.
Verse five tells us that after he prayed,
he went to sleep.
The implication is that through prayer,
he placed his trust in God.
He did not lose sleep over his situation.
He laid down and slept.
And then step number three, what happened?
He awoke.
He woke up.
Everything was fine.
What he had made it through the vulnerability
of the night and sleep.
How did it happen?
He attributes it to the Lord saying,
for the Lord sustained me.
You know, God's mercies are new every morning.
God didn't have to make it so that you would wake up today.
Who here is thankful you woke up today?
God did that for you.
What a practical example for us.
When we deal with anxieties and pressures,
we deal with worries.
If you don't have any worries,
you must not be watching the news.
There are certainly events and information
that can inflate our fears.
David's example reflects what Paul
through the Holy Spirit commands us to do
in Philippians four, six, and seven.
Be careful for nothing.
Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything through prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding,
shall keep or guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
When the Lord keeps our hearts and our minds,
as a result of the peace of God coming through prayer
and trust, then we're able to place,
get to the place where we can sleep again.
Trusting God and receiving His peace
is so much better than worry and fear.
There are some of you that I've even counseled and said,
listen, you need to stop thinking about your problem
and start thinking about the solution.
When you focus on the problem and the fear,
your fear gets bigger and your God gets smaller.
But when you focus on the Lord, when He is your shield,
when He is your, the lifter up of your head,
you can have peace.
That leads to this last two attitudes,
attitude number four is confidence.
Look what he says, verse six,
I will not be afraid of 10,000 of people
that have set themselves against me roundabout.
David says that even though there are many people
that are against him, he will not be afraid
of all those people.
He has just said that because of his trust in Lord,
he can sleep knowing that God's the one
who protects and sustains him.
In this text, he has a security about his status,
even though circumstantially it looks like
there's a lot of people that are against him.
He will not fear even though there are a large quantity
of people who seem to be against him.
And here's how this applies to us.
Fear of man can come as a fear of an individual person
and it can come as a fear of a group of people.
Here are a few ways we can fear people.
One is fear of individuals.
We can find it in questions we ask ourselves.
You ever ask yourself, man, what will she think of me?
What does he think of me?
Anybody ever been worried what other people think?
I have to do X because of what he will think.
I have to buy this kind of car
because I want to be accepted by those people.
Anybody ever see that on social media?
People, you're trying to keep up with these people online.
What happens is it can be sinful
when it causes us to idolize others,
disobey God and live in sinful fear.
Sometimes it's not a fear of a particular person.
Sometimes it's a fear of an invisible they.
Sometimes fear can get generalized and vague.
What if they don't like that?
What if they don't accept me?
Sometimes I'm worried about what people think
and if we're not careful,
this invisible group of people
will impact our behavior in sinful ways.
Sometimes it's a visible they.
This is the one Dave is talking about here.
There are people that have set themselves
against me round about, he says, in the Psalm.
This might be the category
that could produce the most fear,
both legitimate and illegitimate.
When facing all of these fears,
our trust in him must be the antidote for the fear of man.
This Lord, the Bible says the fear of man brings a snare,
a trap, it's not good.
The Lord is the one who will sustain this.
The only way to stay faithful to God in the midst
of this kind of fear is to have a proper fear and trust
in him and to get that confidence in him.
That leads us to this last one.
This last attitude is an attitude of trust.
Here's the last part of the Psalm.
Arise, O Lord, save me.
Oh my God.
Arise, O Lord, save me, oh my God.
For that has smitten all my enemies upon the cheekbone
that was broken the teeth of the ungodly.
Salvation, be long as unto the Lord,
thy blessing is upon thy people.
By the end of the Psalm, you see David counseling himself
and declaring his trust in the Lord.
He calls on the Lord for his salvation.
This isn't a salvation from sin for eternal life.
This is a salvation out of the circumstance.
And guess what?
Sometimes we need saved out of our circumstances.
We need God's help.
So what do we do?
Call upon the name of the Lord.
He's our defender, our deliverer, right?
Right?
Too often, I've tried to face the difficulty on my own
to pull myself up by my bootstraps.
When there's a problem, I open up a spreadsheet,
I open up a Word document, I go to my to-do list,
and I try to figure it out myself.
And when you look for human solutions,
that's exactly what you get.
Sometimes God wants to destroy your to-do list
in your spreadsheet, and he wants to come in
and do what only he could do,
so that at the end of it, you don't get the glory.
He gets the glory.
It's not about you.
It's not about me.
It's all about him.
Salvation belongeth to the Lord.
God has made promises to David, to the children of Israel,
and he's a promise keeping God that could be trusted,
and the same is true for us.
Is anybody in here dealing with any anxiety,
any trouble, any worry, any difficulty?
Call on the name of the Lord.
Now, you gotta trust him enough to let him do
what he wants to do.
Right?
Don't call him the name of the Lord,
and then God, you gotta do exactly what I want.
That's a bad plan.
God, I want what you want.
That's a good plan.
Are you with me?
Are you going through something difficult?
Is fear, worry, and anxiety, and difficulty,
and discouragement plaguing you?
There needs to be a time of prayer.
That prayer could be a prayer of repentance.
It could be a prayer where you go,
you know what, God, I've messed up.
And at least in part, that is why I'm in this situation.
So I wanna ask you to forgive me, and I need your help.
I need your help from this difficulty,
or I need your help through this difficulty,
but either way, I need your help.
I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
That's what he says.
For those of us who know Christ,
he's gonna be with us, even until the end of the age.
So there may need to be that prayer of repentance.
There may be a prayer of deliverance.
What did David do?
He admitted his fear.
He came to the realization
that where his deliverance would be found,
and he put his hope in God,
and as he put his hope in God,
his confidence in God grew, and so did his trust.
And then he was able to sleep and awake.
Why?
Because God sustained him.
And that what we need?
That's what we need.
God is his deliverer, and God will be our deliverer too.
Now while I said that this salvation he's talking about
is not just a salvation from our sins to eternal life,
I want you to know that our God is that kind of deliverer.
Our God is a deliverer who has made provision
for you and I to not go to hell, but to go to heaven.
Maybe the reason you're going through something difficult
is God wants to get you into a posture
where you actually consider him at all.
And the ultimate thing he wants for you
is to know that you're a sinner,
but God loves his enemies, those who sin,
and he sent his son down to this earth
to live a perfect life and to never do anything wrong.
And to always do what's right.
Jesus always did what was right,
and this Jesus lived this perfect life,
but then died on a cross.
And dying on that cross wasn't just bad
because when you get nails in you, it's not fun.
It's not fun.
And when you've been whipped and scourged and mocked,
and when you had that crown of thorns put on you,
that's not a good thing.
It wasn't just the physical pain that he dealt with.
He also dealt with the separation from God that happened
when God poured out his wrath for your sin and mine on him.
He took on him the sin of the world.
He became sin who knew no sin
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
And what he wants, why did he do it?
So that we, like that thief on the cross,
could look to Jesus and say,
Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
I'm guilty, he's innocent,
he can get me where I can't get myself.
He's my deliverer, the lifter up of my head.
And so if you're here today,
there's never been a time where you've believed
in the name of the Lord,
where you've called on the name of the Lord,
appealed to him for salvation,
not just from your circumstance, but for your sin,
that is the ultimate thing you need to do,
to recognize your sin,
to recognize his provision,
and to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
If you do that, the Bible says this,
he who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out.
Today is the day of salvation.
If you're here today and you know Jesus as your savior,
you know for sure if you were to die, you'd go to heaven,
that's awesome, are you going through something difficult?
Are you trying to do it on your own?
Don't do that.
Cast all your care upon him,
for he cares for you.
Put your trust in Jesus, not just for your salvation,
but for your life.
Go to him in prayer,
and seek, what does his word say about what you're dealing with?
Is there some place to obey?
Don't try to be disobedient and get him to deliver you anyway.
He's got a plan, are you with me?
If you've got a problem in your life,
call on the name of the Lord,
he's our defender, he's our deliverer,
the battle belongs to him.
Would you stand with me?
Who has this victory over me?
Friends of God...
Great