Psalm 29 - Listen for God’s Voice
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Going to introduce a new series. One of the values here at Spring Valley Church is we have this goal of covering the entire Bible over several years. And primarily, we do that on Sunday mornings through covering different books of the Bible and also in our community groups. But we cover-- we want to cover the entire Bible. And one of those rhythms that we have is to cover the Psalms over the summer. And so we'll be doing this for many summers because there's 150 Psalms. So we've done it the past few summers. We're going to keep doing it. but we love this goal of just we want to cover all of God's Word and so summers in Psalm are great it's such a joy to be here in this book as we begin this series I just want to give a general overview again of the book of Psalms and I would encourage you if you want to know more go home YouTube Bible project Psalms and there is a great video it's like seven eight minutes long just summarizing the entire book and they do a far better job than I can do and There's cool animations so you can kind of see what they're talking about. But I'm going to do my best to kind of share what they say.
So Psalms, like I said, 150 ancient Hebrew poems, songs, and prayers that come from all different eras of Israel's history. And there's many different types of poems in these collections, but generally they can be sorted into two categories. Those of lament and those of praise. Poems of lament in psalms are poems that express—or songs or prayers— express pain and confusion and even anger of the poets, of horrible things that are happening to them or horrible things that are happening around them. And they draw attention to what's wrong in the world and ask God to do something about it. And there are a lot of lament poems in the Psalms, which shows, and shows us today, that it's an appropriate response to the evil and the darkness that we see in our world today. An appropriate response is lament, and to take that lament to God. So, lamentation can play an important role in prayer. Now, lament poems make up most of books one through three, which, by the way, in Psalms there are five books. It's kind of separated into five sections, and the first three are heavily, there's praise and lament, but they're mostly laments. But in books four and five, towards the end of the Psalms, you can see that the praise poems are more frequent. And these poems of joy and celebration draw attention to what's good in the world. And they retell stories of what God has done in the lives of his people, and they thank him for all his works and who he is. And so books four and five, praise poems outnumber the lament poems. And it culminates at the very end of Psalms in this five-part Hallelujah to God. And the shift from books 1 through 3 and 4 and 5 in Psalms, they show something about the nature of prayer according to what God wanted the people to go through and what they went through. So there were a lot of hard times, but in the end there should be this praise to God, and there should be this peace that God has worked, and his work is coming to a culmination of good in the world. So, hoping for the Messianic Kingdom, as the book teaches us to do, creates a lot of tension as we live in a world of tragedy, but we know that God is at work and there's a future of hope. And I'll quote this directly. This is from this video, this Bible project. They're very amazing scholars. It says, "The Psalms teach us to neither ignore pain, nor let it determine the meaning of our lives. Biblical faith and prayers is always forward-looking, anticipating the day when God will fulfill His promises and praise Him for the things that are to come. The Torah and Messiah lament and praise faith and hope. This is what the book of Psalms is all about. And so today, I know that we hold a lot of tension in our lives of things that are very hard, things that are hurtful or painful, or we're just around a lot of darkness, And yet we have Christ, who is a light and who is a hope. And there is a future that we look forward to that is hopeful. And so the Psalms really helps us to manage that tension and gives us instruction on how to walk through our day-to-day lives, holding both things as realities.
I want to go ahead and pray before we get into our Psalm. I just think we need - there's never too much prayer. I need prayer. Let's pray one more time. God, if we come before you, We come before you with all that we have, and sometimes that's not a lot. But we know that you accept us just as we are. And so I pray that in this time, through your word, God, that you would fill us up with your spirit, with your joy, your love, your compassion, your grace. And God, that you would give us what we need for this moment, for this day, and we'll just take one day at a time. We don't need to worry about the days to come and all that, all the details and chaos that may lay ahead, but just for this day, we pray that you would provide us with what we need. And in this moment, as we're gathered to hear your truth, that it would be empowering and encouraging for us. Give this time to you. in your name. Amen.
All right, there is tension. I talked about tension. There's tension of the sin in our lives, the sin in the world, and there's tension even in the voices that we hear. So when God created Adam and Eve in the garden, there was no tension. It was Adam, Eve, and God, and it was just a beautiful relationship, and it was perfect. It's what God intended. And as sin entered the world, then there there became all these sorts of tension. Tension in the human heart of what to follow. To follow sin and to follow selfishness and pride or to follow God. We can put that in another way of what voices to listen to. Do we listen to the voice of God? And when sin entered the world, now there are other voices, the enemy, and other things of the world that are vying for our attention and for our hearts. So the voices of the world, even for us today, can be very loud. things like money, success, worldly values, keeping up with appearances, social media, all these things that are speaking to us, whether we realize it or not, they want our hearts. It may not be a specific voice, as if Satan is just talking to you all the time, but really, Satan, the enemy, is content with any voice that is talking to you that is not God. Any voice that is grabbing your heart, getting your attention, He's fine with that as long as it means that you're not hearing God's voice. Whether it's something neutral or really evil, or maybe even something that in and of itself is actually good, but if we have too much of that good thing that keeps us away from God, Satan is saying, "That's fine. I don't have to work that hard. There's so much noise in your life, you're not able to hear God." In our community groups, we've been covering different spiritual practices, And in all of them, there's this focus of hearing God's voice. So whether through prayer, or silence and solitude, or fasting, or even Sabbath-ing, they are all providing more opportunity to hear the voice of God, to lessen or turn down the volume of all the noise and all the other voices in the world, so that we can hear God’s.
Another way of thinking about this, about the voice of God and the voices of this world, or are we taking time to hear God's voice? Do you hear the voice of God? Now, this is not to guilt trip anyone, and I think it's rare to actually hear the audible voice of God in our daily lives. But if we just think about our day and our routine and our week, do we leave intentional times of quiet where we are just listening for God? Or do we kind of just believe and think that if it's important enough, God will interrupt my schedule. He'll get my attention somehow, and He'll make it clear to me. But I'm just going to go about my day. I got a lot of things to do. And so God, if it's really important, just, you know, make it amazing and make it, you know, I can't ignore it. Which, by all means, He can do, and He does. But shouldn't we, if our relationship with God is just that, a relationship where we speak with God, but we also want to hear from God, do we leave time in our day to hear His voice? Would we even recognize the voice of God in the midst of all the other voices that we hear? In the midst of all the other noise that we have in our day. You know, from getting up in the morning, to going to work, to getting kids to school, to checking emails, social media, to reading the news, keeping up with family and friends, texting, and all those conversations that happen, to getting dinner ready, to getting the kids to bed, to watching the shows that you got to keep up with. Do we leave time in all that day to just say, "I listened for God"? Or is it we look back at the end of the day and we're just kind of saying, "Good night, prayer to God, God, great time today, that was fantastic. Hope you had a good one too, good night." I'm guilty of that sometimes. I'm just like, "God, I should connect with you," but I'm literally falling asleep right now. Like I said, it may not be commonplace to hear the voice of God, but the Bible lets us know about the voice of God, of who God is, and how He speaks so that we can recognize God. We can have this relationship. We can know who we are in a relationship with. And it's so important. The Bible, God wants us to recognize Him and how He might speak to us.
And so that's our Psalm this morning. We're going to be in Psalm 29. You guys can turn there. It'll be on the screen. I'm just going to go ahead and read our entire psalm first, and then we're going to go verse by verse and break it down. So Psalm 29 says, "Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. Or the God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert, the Lord shakes the desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare, and in his temple all cry glory. The Lord sits enthroned over the flood, The Lord is enthroned as King forever, and the Lord gives strength to His people. The Lord blesses His people with peace. This psalm is divided into three sections. In the first section is a call to praise God. This is written by David. Like I said at the beginning, there are many different authors of different psalms. David, I think, is a third of the book of Psalms is written by him. And so this is one of His. And He wants us, He wants the readers, He wants Israel to approach God with a certain heart, a proper view of the Lord, which is praise. We should come to the Lord praising Him. And again, just more questions for us today. How often do we praise God? I know we praised Him this morning. We were singing songs of praise to Him. We probably praise God when things are going well in our lives. Something great has happened. We're blessed and it's good. We should have this reaction of praising God. But how often do we praise God unrelated to the good things that happen to us? And maybe a different way of asking that is, is our praise to God transactional? "God, because you've done this, now I offer my praises to you." And again, we should be offering praise to Him when good things happen, but not only when good things happen. Do we live with the belief that God is good all the time? Unrelated to what state we may be in or how we may be feeling, do we still believe in praising God? This is a lesson that David learned over and over and over again in his life, as he had the craziest stories of hiding in a cave from someone who's trying to kill him, or being on the run from the king trying to kill him, or being in enemy territory, surrounded, completely surrounded, and just trying to survive to being king, and having very bad days in the office as king, and still having to come before God with praise, even when things were terrible. And so the point of these verses is to show us that the Lord is deserving of our praise. Even the angels owe their praise and worship to God, the Creator of all, the Lord over all. All the time. And are we able to, no matter how our day went, no matter how tired we are, or how frustrated or angry or hurt or grieving, we may feel or maybe be going through, can we still see God as Lord of all? And have a moment of praising Him? It should be one of the main starting points as we approach God in that conversation with Him. Now, He accepts us, He wants us. If we're hurting, He wants us to just express that hurt. But in there somewhere, are we still praising Him for who He is and what He does? So, in these first verses, David invites us to praise God, and then he goes on to describe just how powerful God is, reminding us of who Yahweh is. Again, the hope, His hope is spurring greater relationship with the one true God.
Psalms 29:3 says, "The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters." I love this. Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm sorry. Hold on. Keep that in mind. Keep those verses in mind. What we're about to read, what I just read, is in comparison, David, the people of Israel, He writes this this song because he knows that his people are starting to hear other voices around them, the other false gods that are in the surrounding nations, and their hearts are starting to be pulled to especially this false god named Baal, or Baal, of other surrounding countries. And Israel just has this tendency, you'll see it over and over again in the Old Testament, where they just, they're there, they're with God, they're following God, it's going great, and all of a sudden, just slowly, they just start drifting, and they're like, "God's great," but also this other God could be awesome. And they start bringing that God into their lives. And so David sees this and he writes this psalm about the voice of God so that he can tell them, "This our God, Yahweh, is greater than any of the other gods that are out there. You need to remember this voice, this voice of God." So that's why some of these descriptions of God over the thunder, we'll get to this, is trying to help the people contrast. Like, you think that God is great, that God of the sky, or that God of this land, or the God of the waters. You think that they have power, but they have nothing compared to Yahweh. All right, now I read the verse about God. "Of glory thunders over the mighty waters." And again, in Hebrew, in the Hebrew mind, all these verses, we read this in English, and it is beautiful in English, but in Hebrew, the beauty of it is more complex, and it's very deep, and it would challenge the listeners, the Israelites, to recall certain things in their history. So it may just seem very poetic, and it's like, "Oh, God is the God of nature to us. He's in control of everything.”
But in all these examples, David is recalling very specific situations that the Israelites would know and recognize. And so we hear the God over the waters, thunder, and a couple things would come to mind. First is creation. And in Hebrew, we have the Spirit hovering over the waters at the very beginning of time. And so we see that God, David wants the people to see that God has power over creation, as the Creator. Not just power over creation because He's that powerful, but because He is the Creator. He created everything. And then as thunder, the God of glory thunders, thunders over the mighty waters. This idea of thunder would bring the Israelites to God's voice in the desert with Moses. And in Exodus 19, 19, you won't turn there right now, you can go back and check out this whole scene where the Israelites were gathered at the base of Mount Sinai, and God called Moses up to the top of the mountain to give Moses the law. This whole scene in Exodus is Israel becoming a nation. They had no really law, they had no distinction to make them, besides they were all of the same family and their family was huge. But in this moment, at the base of Mount Sinai, God is giving them their identity. He says, "You are mine, here is my law, which if you follow this, it means that you are living rightly. You are living in the way that I intended you to live." And so he's hearkening back to that moment as Moses went up to the mountain, and as God was speaking to Moses, it says that the thunder grew louder and louder as God spoke. And so the people at the base, Moses is up on the top and the people are all gathered. And it's a very scary moment for Israel. They've never seen this before as God. Just the thunder on that mountain is like trumpets, loud, loud trumpets. And it's the voice of God. So as David writes this, they're recalling this. And so it's a voice that has authority. And it's a voice that demands obedience. And instead of just saying that, they're like, "Hey, God's voice demands this." He recalls this whole moment so that Israel is thinking of, "Oh yeah, God gave us a lot. God gave us, instructed us on how to live, and that was a terrifying moment. This God, Yahweh, was up on that mountain, and his voice was thunder." God's voice has authority and demands obedience.
Next, verse 4, it says, "The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic." So again, continuing to draw on God's power, but also this word "majestic" makes us think of the royalty of God. To the people of Israel who desperately wanted a king, there was a time, there in the desert, through the judges, that God was effectively Israel's king. They had no earthly... Moses was their leader, Joshua was their leader, but God was their king. And then, as we know in the Bible, the Israelites grew tired of not having a king. And they looked at all the other nations, they're like, "Hey, they have human kings, we want a human king." And God's like, "I am the king, and I'm better than any human king." They're like, "That's not good enough. We want a human king." And he's like, "Fine." And he tells them, "It's not going to be good. You are going to suffer. You're going to go through pain. These kings will not make good decisions. I am perfect. They are not." And they're like, "Yeah, we get it. We still want that human king."
And so David had a beautiful heart, and this is why David is one after God's own heart. He recognized his own failures as a king, and God was perfect, and he knew his shortcomings. And so He's reminding the people of God's royalty that He is the King. And first, how awesome God is. I don't mean that in like the surfer way, like, "Oh, so awesome." Like, it makes us full of awe towards God. His voice has a reaction in us as He is King. And we don't really get this, I don't think, in our Western culture, and definitely not, I wouldn't say, in America, but think like medieval times or even before that. The king's word was law. Whatever he said was truth. And that's the language that David is using here, that when God speaks, it is truth, it is law. It is something that we are to live by, and it is good. Unlike the earthly kings who, it could have been terrible, but because it was law that you had to follow it, God's word is true, it is good. And so that's all wrapped up in this word "majestic". And 5 and 6 say, "The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon leap like a calf, Syrian like a young wild ox." Now I read this, and I'm like, I don't know what's happening. What are we talking about here? Cedars making Lebanon leap like a calf. But we dive further in. It's again just referencing God's power, His power as Creator over creation. The cedars of Lebanon are trees that maybe we can think of the redwoods that we have in California. Just known for standing the test of time. They're huge. They're strong. Cedars of Lebanon are the same thing. Whenever the Bible says it was like something was made from cedars of Lebanon, it's supposed to help us be like, "Oh, that thing is like finest quality. That is up there." And so it points to God's power as Creator that He has power over His creation. that even the strongest thing on earth that we can think of, these trees, God has power over them. It's nothing for him. Or he makes Lebanon leap like a calf, searing like a wild ox. Again, just things that humans have no control of. No human could make that happen. God could make that happen. That is how powerful he is.
In verses 7 and 9, read, "The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert. The Lord shakes the desert of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare, and His temple all cry holy." David, again, is thinking of that foundational moment in Israel's history, of being in the desert of Mount Sinai, in that pivotal moment of Israel getting to know God. And he's reminding the people, again, of just how much higher and more powerful Yahweh is than any of the other gods that the surrounding nations worshipped. Then he brings in this place of Kadesh. And this is the place where the report of the Promised Land came back. Moses had come to the edge of the Promised Land, and he sent spies in to say, "Hey, are we able to go in? What does it look like? Let's see this land that God has promised. Let's see what it looks like." And the report came back, and you may know 12 spies went in, and only two said that God would give them the victory. The other said it's not possible. Too much. The people are too big. The fortresses are huge and they didn't believe. And so this moment of God shakes the desert of Kadesh, I think can be interpreted in a couple different ways. But I like that it's just bringing back this moment where God's voice wasn't listened to. God spoke to two of them strongly and said, "No, tell Moses that we can do this. That God will provide whatever is needed to go and conquer the Promised Land." But ten didn't believe and kind of ignored the voice of God. And then Israel's future was changed. They had to go wander in the desert for 40 years. And so we have this contrast of it's a voice that demands authority, or demands obedience and has authority. But we also have a moment of seeing the consequence of when it's not listened to, there are consequences. If God's voice is instruction, if you don't believe in who He is and what He can do, your life is going to be worse. And it brings to mind the wandering of the desert for 40 years. It's also a voice that brings judgment. And so as they wandered the desert for 40 years, and that was a punishment, God continued to sustain them. He didn't just leave them out there to die and say, "Now you got to go wander, and if you make it great, but if not too bad." No, He sustained them. He started bringing manna and quail, and He helped them in those 40 years.
And so it's a voice that, yes, brings judgment, but it's also a voice that sustains and provides and saves. Verse 9, there's a couple different translations here. Some say, "In the strips the forest bear, and in this temple all cry holy." And other versions that say, "The Lord makes the deer give birth." And this is a reference to Job. And God is just trying, David is trying to say that God has control, again, in ways that humanity does not have control. God has power over His creation in a way that as humans can become such experts in things, and especially today where we have a lot of control over things, and science is amazing, and does so many things. God is far beyond that. God has the Creator. This can't be stated enough, and I think Israel, this is why David just keeps harping on it. As Creator, God has control, complete control, and it's effortless. It's of such ease over all of creation. Nothing stresses Him out. Nothing gives Him like, "Oh, this was a really hard one for me." No, God has complete control. And all those who are in the temple, all those who are living in right standing with God, can recognize this, can see this, and the response is glory. Glory to God. Once you see God at work, once you see what He's doing, the response is one of praise. Glory to God. And so after describing God's power and the power that His voice has, now David describes Yahweh as King.
And in verses 10 through 11, "The Lord sits enthroned over the flood. The Lord is enthroned as King forever. The Lord gives strength to His people. The Lord blesses His people with peace. David puts in the reader's mind, in the listener's mind, Yahweh on the throne as King. And he says, "King over the flood." And now this word is only used in the Bible one other time. In the flood, back in Genesis, with Noah. And that flood experience, that flood story for the Israelites, is a mix of God's terrifying judgment and also his plan of salvation. The power that God had to flood the entire earth is scary. The fact that everyone could die and that God had control over that is, I mean rightfully so, that's a lot to take in. And at the same time, in that same story, we see God's rescue plan, his salvation plan at work by saving the family of Noah. And so He is, again in the Hebrews mind, they're saying, God has control over the most, like one of the most terrifying judgment experiences the earth has ever experienced. One of the most destructive forces, God has control over that. And yet He also works salvation through anything. And unlike earthly kings, David writes that the Lord is enthroned forever. Every earthly king has an end, has a beginning and an end. And David's writing this as a good king. He had a time of flourishing. His kingdom was a good one. And he even recognized that, well, this is going to come to an end. But God is king forever. We see David say that God gives people what they need. He gives them strength. and He gives them peace. So even though He brought up this flood, which would bring up maybe some anxiety for Israel, so like, "God, is God going to judge us? What kind of judgment are we going to face?" God also gave peace to Noah, and God gives peace to His people. It brings to our attention that God causes us to look towards God. It causes us to look heavenward, with awe. It helps us to look forward with faith, as we know that God is good and He'll give us everything that we need. And it reminds us of who God is, so that as we go about our day, hopefully we can recognize the voice of God. Whether it's through what He does, or things that are happening around us, all of that can be God speaking to us.
So I just want to remind us as we close, that Psalms is a prayer book for the people of Israel and for us today. And sometimes the point of prayer or a psalm Is simply to draw our minds back to God just to draw us closer to Him as life Really pushes us away from God and we feel that tension of I feel distant from God. I've been so busy And so the point of psalms and a prayer is just to simply bring us back to Him And so today and this week my encouragement would be for all of us to listen for God's voice For our minds to be drawn towards him and for us to praise god for who he is. So if there's a couple things It's can we approach god with praise despite how our day is gone when we've had the worst day the worst week Can we still praise god? And then are we making time to listen for god's voice? We want to be able to recognize it we may not hear an audible voice of god if you do Amen, praise god, please share. I would love to hear that Truly, that'd be amazing. But we will probably hear God's voice in other ways. Maybe through other people, through the reading of His Word, in the silence, just the nudging of the Spirit within us. We want to be attuned to that. We want to be ready for that so we can follow God with everything that we have. Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you again for your Word that guides us, that is true, that is steadfast and faithful and never changes. And God, I pray that this week truly that you would speak to us. And really we know that it's really on us. We need to make time to listen. So I pray that you would help us to do that. That you would make that a conviction, a priority in our hearts. That there would truly be desire. And that we would make time, whether that's quiet time in the morning, or on our drive, or just a moment where we're just silent and listening. God, I pray that we would all hear how you are leading us and guiding us, calling us to live for you, to love others. Maybe it's just a voice that provides comfort as we're going through hard situations and difficult times. But God, I pray that we would feel closer to you, that we would feel in your presence, and the love and the peace that you provide in that time. Sustain us God, carry us this week. We trust you and we love you. We pray this in your name. Amen.