Inland Empire: Riverside
Psalm 3 - Audio
[ Music ] Good to see everybody on this 104 degree Sunday afternoon. I think we're at the point of no return, right? Triple digits from here on out? Shame on whoever built the city right here. [ Laughter ] Let's pray. We'll look at scripture and have a great rest of the afternoon. And go home and enjoy the rest of Mother's Day. Let's pray. Thank you for your love, God. We thank you that you share your love with us through mothers. We see the way you move your people forward by the hands of women, mothers, matriarchs, and it's your power, God. And we thank you for a day in our calendar to think through that and to honor that. We thank you for the scriptures, which continue to speak a word to us, sometimes straightforward, sometimes challenging, but you engage us in our lives and you call us to encouragement and life and love. And for that, we are grateful. We thank you for your son, for his body and blood, with which we will conclude our time in scripture to sit at the table and to see in this what seems like an ordinary thing every Sunday, the mystery of a bounding life. We thank you, God, for the gift of your love. We thank you that you've granted us the ability to believe even a little. Some come into the service full of excitement and enthusiasm, others drag themselves in, but with whatever way we come, God, it's all by the same power you love. We thank you through Christ the Lord, amen. Okay, well, next week, anyone know what next week is? Close, super close, yeah. Pentecost, yeah, Pentecost, very close. One of the three major feasts, yeah. So, after Pentecost Sunday, I think we're returning to the Gospel according to Mark. She got a bit of a start on that in about second week of February. We detoured leading up to Easter, but we'll return to that, but today I want to spend some time with you in the Psalms, one of my favorite parts of the Bible. And I've selected Psalm 3, and I think this little poem prayer, well, it's actually called a Psalm, will engage us in some questions that need asking. And namely, I think, well, I think the first question we'll find asked of us, what do you do when you're afraid? Well, think about that. What do you do when you're afraid? And here's something I'm discovering as I journey through what they call the midlife crisis. I'm not always completely aware of when I'm afraid. Do you find that? Do you find that you're living your life and things feel frustrating, awkward, the peace and joy that all these Christians brag about don't seem to show up in your house? But you're not aware of it, only later to discover that fear has somehow got control of the steering wheel. It's slipped into the driver's seat. And it's easy to see from the outside looking in or in hindsight when fear is in control of my life. And sometimes it's maybe not in control of our whole lives, but in little places it shows up. But the Psalms are one of the great gifts of the Bible to help us identify fear, but beyond that even to give us a way to deal with it or process it. And can you guess how the Psalms would have us deal with our fear? Yeah, go to God, prayer, prayer. Prayer is this challenge as well. How many of you I want to ask you to raise your hand, just raise your hand in your heart. How many of you struggle to pray? A struggle to pray well. Prayer doesn't seem to me to be something that's like, I think I've shared this before, like just downloaded upon your first decision to be a religious person. Or you get baptized, you don't necessarily come out of the baptismal tank fully equipped with the language and insight as to what constitutes a good prayer. And there's ways of praying that are not helpful. And that's kind of intimidating, right? To know that there are ways of praying that are not good for us. And there's ways of praying that are really helpful for us. And in my experience as well, those ways of praying are usually not all that easy. And the Psalms are an invitation. And I would say even in education, like a seminary level education and what it means to pray. They are poems we can study. In fact, the first Psalm alerts us to the fact that the Psalms are things we can study and learn much about God from. But the Psalms are unique in the Scripture because they don't like the rest of the Bible. Scripture speaks to us, right? Do you find that? Hopefully you have that experience where Scripture speaks to you. And certainly the Psalms will speak to you. Here's what's unique. They also speak for you. They speak for us. And this is what I mean by it's kind of like an education in praying. Now in our society where the individual is the king, everything has to be exciting and seismic and from the heart. All of our praying needs to be from the heart and from deep within me or it doesn't count. So the idea of reading an ancient prayer and letting that speak for us is for some of us can be troubling. But I'll submit to you that the Psalms understand what constitutes prayer better than you do. Probably. It's no doubt how Jesus was schooled in how to pray and how to think about prayer. Now Psalms, how are you doing? Ready for an introduction to the Psalms? It feels like a lot. We're going to look at one Psalm and then we're not going to be in the Psalms next week. But I think this will help you. The Psalms in Hebrew, the title of the book is tehilim. Can you hear a word in their tehilim? Hallelujah, right? Praise the Lord. Praises in Hebrew the title of this book is praises. It becomes Psalmoy in Greek and the reason it's called Psalmoy in Greek is because there's a bunch of these poems in this book entitled in Hebrew, Ms. Moore, which means in Greek Psalm. So the translator into Greek thought Psalms is the best way to talk about this book. Although, are you ready for a mind-bender? Not every Psalm in the book of Psalms is actually a Psalm. Only some of them are Psalms. The Hebrew writer or compilers and editors thought the things that characterized all of these poems most, the thing that they all had in common. They're not all called Ms. Moore, they're not all called Psalms. But what does this book, all of them seem to have in common? Praise, praises tehilim. Oh, that's an insight there. The heartbeat of praying, and this is really like a prayer book, is praise, praise. So the Psalms, they get in your business fast. You get in about two, you read Psalm one and Psalm two, you're feeling pretty excited and encouraged. And you get to Psalm three, and all of a sudden, if this is in fact a guide for learning how to pray and deal with our own fear, all of a sudden, it's right in our face asking us questions. Now, the Psalms, and we'll see this today, invite us to be honest with God. You can't actually praise God as I'm discovering and be false. That is, just say to God what you think you should say, because that's what a good church-going person would say. So say that, because that's what really honors God. Psalms don't always do that. They get honest about what they're experiencing. How many of you love to get honest? I think I'm at a stage in my life where I feel so deep. Everything is deep and troubling. I think this is the, I think this is what happens as you get older. I could be wrong. Maybe I'm just a really deep melancholic person. But I get to a point where sometimes I don't even want to share. If I've been seeing someone for a while and they're like, how's it going? I don't even want to tell you to, like it's too much. I don't want to think through all that's happening and all that's in my heart. I think prayer can feel like that sometimes. Sometimes for me, prayer can feel like I don't really want to pray because I don't really want to have to think through how I'm doing. There's a line in Psalm 62 that says, "Poor out your hearts before him at all times, oh people, to which I say no thanks." That's a lot of work. But I think here's the key and it has to do with praise because the Psalms invite us to be honest about what we're experiencing, what we're going through, whether it's good or if it's bad. If you just got cut off in traffic and your first thought is like my grandpa used to say you blockhead, get out of the way or whatever, or you're angry, that's an invitation to be honest with God about how you're feeling. Not to say, I'm not really angry. Praise you, God. And we can do that. I lost my job, lost my dog, but praise God anyways, right? Like, come on, you don't really believe that. The Psalms invite us to be honest about what we're going through. Honest about that. We'll see that today from the Psalm. But there's also an invitation to be honest about who God is. And this is what I think is a challenge about praying well. And this is what I mean by there are ways of praying that aren't always helpful to us. Because I think we find ourselves deepening our understanding of and relationship with God when we learn to get honest in those two ways. And maybe a third way, learning to get honest also just about evil in God's world. But it's learning to get honest about ourselves, but not letting what we're feeling about ourselves or the day or the situation be the only word we pray. But coming back to praying also about the reality, history, goodness, and power of God. And so we're setting before ourselves for our own orientation or for reorienting ourselves the truth of our experience and the truth of God's goodness and power. That's, I think, what that's what we see in the Psalms. Okay, we're almost there to Psalm 3. I think this will help you as we go into it. Now the first Psalm, Psalm 1 and 2, think of it like two pillars that you walk past into an elaborate sanctuary. And before you get into the building you have to go past these first two pillars. Psalm 1 and Psalm 2. And these two Psalms tell you what matters for praying. Here's what you should shoot for and how you should pray. God's teachings, God's laws, God's commands become obsessed with them. They're written in the fabric of the cosmos. Everything that God has said is for our flourishing. Psalm 1 says the man who delights in God is always prospering. Have the scriptures, the teachings, the stories about God always in your heart. That way you won't be tempted to pray to some God who doesn't exist. Number 2, the other pillar you walk past as you begin your journey into prayer is the reign of God. God's King. This is why Jesus said when his disciples asked him about prayer, do you remember the thing? He said, your kingdom come. It will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Learning to pray not just for our little selves or what we hope happens, but this kind of surrendered and active request that God would bring his reign more and more. Before you even encounter the first prayer of this book, know about those two things. How good God's teachings are, how reliable they are, and how God's kingdom is what everything is driving toward. And then we encounter the first psalm. You ready? Psalm 3. Oh Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising up against me. Many are saying of my life there is no salvation for him in God. That is not what I was prepared to encounter. The very first prayer is what we might call a lament or a complaint. I know we don't like that phrase. Here's this person complaining about the dread that's upon him. So this is Psalm 3, verse 1 in English. Do you see that? I don't know if you have your Bibles open. But do you know this was written in Hebrew, like I mentioned. And in Hebrew, that's not verse 1. In Hebrew, verse 1 is a psalm of David when he fled from Abshalom, his son. That's verse 1 in Hebrew. Now when we translate it into English, we think that's not as vital a part of the prayer, so we make it like verse 0 and we set it apart in a different font and it doesn't really feel like it's a part of the psalm. But it is. The psalms are a heavily edited book. It's not like someone sat down and just wrote 150 psalms. This has been compiled. There's smaller compilations within. It's structured in five books, probably reminding you of the five books of Moses. This is a heavily edited part of the Bible. And at a certain point, someone went through and they added these, they call them superscriptions or directions or historical insight as to what the prayer is about. You follow me? So you'll see things at the beginning of a psalm, beginning of a psalm for the choir master. That is, that's the one that Robin takes up and leads us since we sing the words of that one. And it's written to the tune of dough of the morning, like Psalm 22. You'll get that kind of information added to it. But here in the first psalm, it's called a psalm of David. This is the kind of prayer, maybe even one that David himself, king David, the great king. This is the kind of prayer he wrote or prayed. And here's the kind of situation that David prayed this prayer in. When he was, when he fled from his son, Absalom. Do you know this story? This is amazing. It's amazing that the first psalm that we encounter, this first prayer of David is from a time that's near the end of David's story. And it's not at a moment when David is, like Psalm one said would happen. Everything is prospering in David's life. This prayer begins, this first psalm begins at one of David's most painful moments. Now David, good guy or bad guy? You, good guy or bad guy? Right? This is how the Bible portrays all humanity. Even the great patriarchs of the faith are very, very, very human. They're not walking two feet above the ground, impenetrable to moral failure. David had a really big falling over at one point. David is presented as, when we first meet David, we're told he's ruddy. If you're wondering what ruddy looks like, it's like me. Handsome. Just kidding. That's right, just kidding. That's the most to me you're ever going to get out of me out of here. Handsome, but just a kid. He's the youngest of his brothers. And in fact, God is looking for a king and he sends Samuel to this family. He says bring out your oldest kid. Is this the guy God choose? No, no, no. How about the next one? No, no, no. Well, we've been through all the brothers. There's only the little one left out in the flag. That's the one. That's the one I want. And God chooses the youngest. Why did God choose the youngest? That's what he does. He chooses the smallest so that we wouldn't boast too loudly. God chooses David and he raises him up. And David has this tremendous relationship with God. He learns to trust God. Even though he's been told he will be the king, he has to live for years under a really compromised king. David learns to walk with God and God lifts him up and blesses him. There comes a time when I think the blessings went to David's head. Does that ever happen to you? You like a little bit too much being a married man. You like it a little bit too much to be the father or mother of a huge family. You like it a little bit too much to be the successful CEO of a business. You like it a little bit too much to be the best player on the court. Do you know what I mean? Here's these gifts we get from God and we somehow find a way because we don't pay attention. It's easy to turn them into idols. And David, there's a moment when he falls over. It's a very dark chapter in the Bible, but he lets you read about it in 2 Samuel 11 and 12 if you're interested. But it involves taking another woman and killing her husband. It's bad. And the prophet who makes him aware of David, you're not doing well. You are not walking before God as you used to. The prophet tells him, because you've done this, you will be shamed. Your own kids are going to sleep with your wives in broad daylight. Even though you did this dark thing in secret, you're going to be shamed publicly. So David, this is how we get to this story about David fleeing from his son, Absalom. He's put himself in this situation. He wasn't the best father. If you go read about, in fact, a little later, David's oldest son rapes his daughter. And then the third oldest, Absalom, gets mad about it as you should. And he kills the older brother. And then Absalom has to run because he's scared of his dad. That talk about dysfunction. Do you have dysfunction in your family? You're in good company. The kings of Israel struggle with that. But there's this moment when his son starts to campaign to become king. And he gathers around him enough support to become king. And he drives David from the capital city where David set up a place for God to live there in the hill. He drives the king, David, is on the run from his son. Now David is not a wimp. I don't understand why David didn't just turn and engage his son in battle and wipe him out. But instead, David leaves. He refuses to engage his son in battle. But his son gathers 12,000 men and chases David. Now imagine you had the world. You were the CEO of the company. All of your kids were doing great. You had a great reputation. People thought of you as the one. You were the one in the church, the one in your neighborhood, the one in your community, the one in your networking circles. You were the one. And now all of that is gone. And you can't point to it and be like, "This is how awesome I am. This is how I know I'm doing well." You can't point to any of it. Instead, you're on the run and you're being chased by an army led by your kid. You were the great king of Israel. Don't you think that would be a humbling experience? Yes. This is the kind of thing David said to afraid. Now we're given that story. Well, let me ask you. You can think about this. I'll give you an answer. But why do you think they added that little line that this is when this prayer took place? Why do you think it's important that we connect this prayer to this painful moment in David's life? They want to engage us. Because we, too, understand what it means to run and be afraid. It'd be easy for us if there was no story surrounding this, to just look at the words and maybe use them in some way. But now that we have a story for how this prayer came about, well, now it becomes really meaningful. And it helps me identify some things. We're almost there. How are you doing? Good. 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, oh 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 in sleep. I woke again for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Arise, Lord. Save me, oh my God, for you strike. All of my enemies on the cheek. You break the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord. Your blessing be on your people. What a prayer. But from a dark hour, what's David afraid of? In these first couple of lines, look at them. I mean, I think you'd be scared if 12,000 people were after you, led by your angry son. You'd be afraid of losing your life. But what's he anxious about here? What people are saying about him? Do you ever worry about what people say about you? I am terrified about that. I recently in the last year or so my life realized how much I care what y'all and anyone else thinks about me. Was that a good enough sermon? What do they think that? Am I a good enough leader? Am I a good enough dad? Maybe you're like me. You worry way too much about what people say about you. David's worried about what people are saying about him. He's all washed up. You know what they're saying of him, the people he used to reign over? No salvation for him in God. God is done with David. He's moved on. Absalom's the one now. And you have to sit with that. Your identity. You can't be a king or a ruler of something and not let it get to you to tell you who you are. And if he's not the king of Israel, who is he? I remember encountering that question. Sounds stupid. I've shared this before. But when I became a Christian, one of the biggest deaths that needed to take place in my life, it was not swear less. Smoke less. Drink less. Those things felt easy to me, honestly. It's not easy for everyone. I don't mean to say that. But you know what I was really addicted to? My ego. I couldn't conceive of not being immediately associated with HIPAA. Big Jason needs to always, if you think Jason, you think turn table-less. That's it. That's all he is. And I couldn't fathom. It scared me to death. Is there a guy in town getting better than me? Is there a guy in town that can't do as well as me or that can do as well as me? It's always this competition. I'm always trying to manage the image. And I realize after trying to follow Jesus, I could not do both things. I could not worry so much about what people thought of me. Spent so much energy into curating this image so that they saw this guy I wanted them to see. I couldn't do that and die to myself and participate in the resurrection of Jesus. This is hard. It's hard when who you think you are is messed with. If you have a false identity that's not rooted in the love of God and that starts to become compromised, you are scared. And David is voicing that fear. David is voicing the anxiety. This is what they're saying about me. Who am I now? But look at the way he turns. It goes from a complaint, a lament, this struggle to but you, Lord, you are a shield around me. You are my glory, the lifter of my head. I mean, this is such a statement here. It's a trust that his reputation isn't something he needs to fight for. He doesn't need to figure out a way to be his son, to keep his reputation. He doesn't need to have a plan in mind to preserve and continue to maintain what others thought of the great David. He could let that die. The question is, who am I if I'm not an awesome dad? Who am I if I'm not an awesome preacher? Who am I if I'm not an awesome turntableist? Who am I if I'm not XY or Z? That question, David crossed that bridge. He said, God gives me my reputation. God will give me the reputation I need. He's the one that protects me in the battle. He's the one that lifts my head in sorrow. It's a surrender of who we are at the deepest level, not worrying about even what others say of us. God knows who I am. God defends my reputation, my glory. How freeing. Maybe I'm late to the game, but I feel like I'm just in the last few years of my life beginning to experience the freedom from knowing that God is the one who gives me my reputation. I don't know if that tracks with you, but I spend a lot of time trying to build a reputation. He's almost like in verse 5, he finds so much peace with knowing that even though he can't control tomorrow, he can't control what people back in Jerusalem think of him, he can't even control if he's going to lose his life. He says, I'm going to bed. Ever struggle to sleep? Now David, he's running from 12,000 people and he's like, I'm going to bed. Can you sleep? There's a peace. I go to bed, I wake up, and if I wake up, it's because of you. Ever think about how useless we are in our sleep? We don't do anything. We literally duck out of the world for a period. We achieve nothing. You don't know if you're going to wake back up. You may or may not. He says, I wake up because of God. I can rest. I don't have to worry even in the darkest moment. I will not be afraid of many thousands. This is, for me, such a helpful little prayer. It's a way of leading us to process the kind of fears that I think we all encounter. I want to close with this. Many of you might know of J.D. Salinger's book, Franny and Zoe. I'm familiar with this. It's a little book. It's really great. Here's a little scene I want to read to you because I think this gets at some of what David is doing here. There's a young girl, a college girl named Franny. She's talking to her boyfriend about why she decided to drop out of the theater department. He can't wrap his head around why she's wasting this gift she has. She's a little rough around the edges, a little arrogant like you are when you go to an Ivy League school out east like these guys, but listen to what she says. All I know is I'm losing my mind, Franny said. I'm just sick of ego, ego, ego, my own and everybody else's. I'm sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere. Do something distinguished and all. Be somebody interesting, it's disgusting. It is. It is. I don't care what anybody says. Lane, her boyfriend, raised his eyebrows at that and sat back the better to make his point. You sure you're just not afraid of competing? He asked with a studied quietness. I don't know too much about it, but I'd lay odds. A good psychoanalyst, I mean a really competent one would probably take that statement. I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete. That's what scares me. That's why I quit the theater department just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values and just because I like applause and people to rave about me doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. She's a great mood, huh? I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of splash. Now, Franny's a dark sort, ain't she? She sounds like a fun time at the party, right? And I don't know her spirit if it's the greatest, but wow is she hitting into something there. This has stuck with me for years, the first time I read. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. What a thought. I think that's where David's at. I'm sick of not having the courage to just be nobody. Just gods. Just loved by God. I might not be able to be the king anymore. I might not be able to be the most fruitful one in the bunch. I'm sick of being afraid of that. I trust you, God. This is so counter-cultural, in my opinion. This notion of surrendering the deepest part of ourselves. But we do this, according to the Psalm, not through working really hard, not even just through therapy. I see a therapist on a regular basis. I'm not saying it's not helpful, it does help. But we do this through an address of God. Bringing this kind of honesty before God. Sitting in the light of God's love and goodness. And learning to let go of more and more of ourselves. So we're not afraid to be no one. Joe average. Now some of you hear me say that and you think, well does that mean we should all be mediocre? Maybe. Maybe we love being awesome a little too much. Maybe some of us should be great and have a great splash. The reality is that those things can, even if you're the king of Israel, go to your head. And this is what we see in Christ on the cross. The Great King. Becoming a nobody. Worse than a nobody. He took whatever reputation he should have and he submitted it to the status of the lowest scum of society. He gave himself to the cross. You only crucify the most pathetic and disgusting in society. And Jesus, the Great King, is fine with being named among those. He's fine with you misunderstanding his reputation. We see the trust that David is hinting at fully embodied in the cross of our Lord. And I think that is what he means when he says carry your cross and follow me. Don't be afraid to lose who you are. Give it up. Lose who you are. Because how does the story of the crucifixion end? God lifts his head. God gives him his life, the kind of life that only God can give. I wish we're spending, I say that every time I go, I wish the passage I was looking at is what we're going to spend the rest of the year on. But we're not going to be in the Psalms for long. But since I had the freedom, Psalm 3. Let's pray for the bread and the cup. We thank you, God, for this prayer. We thank you for all the stories of people who like us stumble around in the darkness looking for you. And we thank you that in that darkness we find such a bright light. That you free us. That we might live lives of hope and freedom and joy. I thank you that prayer is for us. That we might bring before you those things which shackle us and give them to you. And to work through them with you, and it doesn't annoy you, but you invite it and desire it like a father does to children or appropriately for today as mothers do to their children. You welcome our situations, God. We thank you, we thank you for the cross, we see in the cross not only an example, but a way of life which we can participate in. And we do that through the bread and the cup here this afternoon. God help us to be unafraid. Help us to be strong in your grace. Help us with each passing communion meal to grow deeper and deeper in our love for you and in our commitment to live our lives before you. God show us those places in our lives which stand in the way of us and you. And help us God to rid our lives of those things. Thank you for your son. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Inland Empire Church of Christ