Psalm 86 - Praise Him Anywhere
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
It's going to be an awesome, awesome day. And so thanks so much for being here, joining you. I'm Pastor Chris, part of the team here. And we are in our summer of Psalms, week 10. Can you believe it? You've been 10 weeks in Psalms with us. We got one more week next Sunday. We're gonna wrap things up and then we're gonna head into Nehemiah, which we're really excited about that one. It's gonna be a great book to study together. But summer of Psalms, we've been all over the place in the book of Psalms from the beginning to the end and all around in the middle. We tried, we've done this a couple different summers before We've made sure not to double dip. So this is all fresh stuff for you guys this summer. We're really looking forward to it. And this Psalm today is one that's really, really unique and interesting. And we're gonna be in Psalm 86 today. This is another Psalm of David. And what's really cool about this one is, I call it the Oreo cookie of Psalms. And it is sandwich. So you think of an Oreo cookie, you got your cookies on the outside, you got your cream in the middle. And so on the outside, the beginning and ending of this Psalm is actually prayer and petition to God. But in the midst of all of his prayer and petition for God to save him from what he's going through, he actually gives praise and honor to God. So the Oreo, the stuffing, the good stuff in the middle, is all praise to God. And so if you want an illustration this morning, go grab some cookies after church and you can praise God together. So it'd be a good time. No, Psalm if you have a Bible, feel free to turn there. We have them under the chairs where it's gonna be on screen. But Psalm 86 is in, I believe, it is the third book. So the Psalms is actually divided up into four different books, five books. And each book has kind of its own theme and structure within it. And this one is kind of out of place. This one is more of a prayer of praise to God where this isn't seen usually in this book, this section of Psalms. of Psalms. And so it's somewhat out of place, but I love because in, even in this, of where it's at and what the other theme is, there's a breakout of praise. And I think that's, there's a bit of a theme to that today as we read this together.
So Psalm 86, starting in verse 1, it says, "Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Guard my life, for I am faithful to You. Save Your servant who trusts in You. You are my God. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I call to you all day long. Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love all who call to you. Hear my prayer, Lord. Listen to my cry for mercy. When I was distressed, I called to you because you answer me." Here's the Oreo stuffing. Among the gods there is none like you, Lord. No deeds can compare with yours. All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord. They bring glory to your name, for you are great and do marvelous deeds. You alone are God. Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart. I will glorify your name forever for great is your love towards me and you have delivered me from the depths from the realm of the dead. Arrogant foes are attacking me, O God. Ruthless people are trying to kill me. They have no regard for you. But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Turn to me and have mercy on me. Show your strength in behalf of your servant. Save me because I serve you. Just as my mother did. Give me a sign of your goodness that my enemies may see it and be put to shame. For you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.”
There's three main sections in this Psalm 86. If you guys picked up on that. The first part of the Oreo cookie is in Psalm 86, verses one through seven. And David here is saying he's petitioning for God to hear him and to answer him. And then in verse eight, it shifts to this middle stuffing goodness of praise and thanksgiving to who God is. And then verse 14, we have the other side of the cookie that are petitioned for God to act. It's unique because there's only a few other times in the Bible do we find a psalm like this or a set of a writing that it is parallel in its beginning and ending with petitions in this middle section of almost a song like a hymn like praise and thanksgiving to be given to God. It's not truly known what David is going through at this time. It's very common for David to have foes coming after him, if you know any of his story, even before kingship and after kingship. Somebody seemed to always be coming after him. But there is this prayer that I think affirms for in us kind of a cyclical theme and nature of our lives, ourselves we see. that often praise comes even in the middle of our cries to God. That sometimes we struggle with this idea of sorrow and fear and angst in our lives. But David here shows us that we can still have praise even in the midst of that. This first section, verses 1 through 7, there's this central idea and image of King David asking for God to listen to him, to answer his prayers, to move on his behalf. And this pattern fluctuates between other prayers and petitions and his asking for God. Asking God to guard his life, to be gracious to him, to make him glad. And this last petition is not only to hear and save, but also cause joy to return to his heart. This beautiful idea of restoration, this image of new life in him. This Hebrew root, there's a Hebrew word in here for life or soul that I find interesting. It's called nep̄eš. And it's this idea that David isn't writing this psalm lightly. Sometimes we can read Psalms and say like, "Oh, save my life, Lord, or protect my soul, or restore to me new life." And it's just a simple prayer. But the reality here with the Hebrew word, an nep̄eš, means that David is fearing death. When he's asking for his life to be saved, for his soul to be protected, He is literally pleading with God to keep him alive. He's facing death, he's staring out, and he sees his enemy coming, knowing what's gonna happen. If God does not move, David will no longer live on earth.
There's a massive urgency here in the scripture. And yet at the same time, David is putting his full trust into God. He's declaring that God is the God above all gods. That God is Lord over all. God is victorious. And I find it interesting that He declares this even before He is saved. That should strike us a bit. Because I don't know that we're like that, right? I don't think that that's our natural bent here. But what a testament that David here is saying that even in the midst of what I'm going on, I am declaring God's victory. I'm declaring God's restoration. I'm declaring God's safety. Even in the midst of what is going on with him, he is giving praise and victory to God as if he has already been rescued. But where does this come from? This comes from who the character of God is. And David here being an Israelite remembers the first time that his people cried out to God. All the way back near the beginning of the Bible we read in Exodus chapter 2 verse 24 that God heard their cries and remember his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Israelite people were in captive slavery to the Egyptians. They were being beaten, they were being killed, they were being used for slave labor to build whatever the king, Pharaoh, wanted to build. And they cried out to God and God heard their cries. So David, you're crying out to God going, "I know who you are, God. You are the same God that saved my ancestors in Egypt under complete slavery and oppressive control. You acted and moved in a miraculous way and you saved us. Please God, do this again.”
Then in verse 8, we have this shift without warning from this prayer petition, and they break out to a moment of praise. I love what it says. "Among the gods there is none like you, Lord. No deeds can compare to yours." It continues on in verse 9, talking about this echo of praise, but declaring that God made all the nations and they all will bow down before God the Creator. 10 again declares that God's deeds are great and God is God alone. This is a amazing picture of all the nations gathered together worshiping God. Verse 10 again declares that God's deeds are great and that God is God alone. that there's nothing that God does not deserve praise for. And that one day, all the nations will gather and they will worship God Almighty for who He is. This isn't the picture of life today, is it? No. When we look around the world, this isn't the case. People are fighting. From the beginning of time, people have hated other people. Nations have hated other nations. People and kings and rulers have tried to control other people. People have been in slavery. People have been killed. People have been beaten down. People have been manipulated, controlled, oppressed. But this picture here that David is talking about saying, this isn't always how it's going to be. God's doing something great here. God is bringing the nations together to being praised. This is just a beautiful image that I'm reminded of the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is a giant teaching sermon from Jesus that he gives. He talks about all aspects of life. And one part specifically in there, he talks about how to pray. And he says to do this and don't do this and don't worry about that and don't think about that, but pray to God in this way. And it's commonly what we've known in the church as the Lord's Prayer. And it says in Matthew 16:10, "Your Kingdom, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus is praying that the kingdom of heaven, God's perfect will, God's perfect grace and worship and love and unity would come to this earth. And to have all the nations gathered together, worshipping God. But we know this won't fully happen until heaven. But this doesn't stop the psalmist from praying for this incredible picture of true, united worship to take place here and now.
But the question is, how does this even begin to happen? David says in verse 11, "Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name." It starts with us. It begins in our heart and in our lives to have an undivided heart and soul for Jesus. I love what another translation says. It says, "Lord, teach me your ways that I will live and obey your truth. Help me make worshiping your name the most important thing in my life. I love that That's where it starts It starts with us choosing to say Worshiping you God is the most important thing in my life And when we live our lives like this in this way of this prayer of David making worship the number one thing our lives look different, right? We will live as a transformed being. The old has gone, the new has come. That this new life we have in Jesus is where our worship comes from. An undivided heart solely focused on our Heavenly Father. And when we have this heart of worship or praise, there's a restoration of ourselves that happens. creating us, changing us, molding us into the image that God has for us, not ourselves, but the image that God has for each of our lives. He says, verse 12, 13, "I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart. I will glorify your name forever, for great is your love towards me. You have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead. This is a prayer for restoration of our heart and of our soul, down to our deepest being. David here is saying, "Save us. Restore us. Make me whole. Bring my life to a completion that I will give everything I have and worship and praise to you.
You ever been in that place where you just felt, "Blah? Maybe you felt that this week. Maybe you woke up that this morning. I don't know. But you just feel that just like, "Ugh, ugh." There's not even words to express, it's just a groaning noise. This is where David's at. He's got the pressure of the world around him pushing on so hard. And he just feels like he's just going to crumble under it. And he cries out for God, "Save me. me." And at the same time, he says, "You are God. I believe that you can do this. I remember when you did it for my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa when he was stuck in Egypt. He felt even worse than this, and yet you created a--you made a miracle happen. You parted the the Red Sea so that he could be restored to have life to give you praise and yet here I am in my life I know you can do this for me and I think there's something supernatural that happens in our lives When even when we're in the midst of that, "Ugh." That we give praise to God. I know there's times when life just seems so heavy. Where that literally, sometimes I can't even have words. And all I do is I just go and I put worship music on. Because I'm like, "God, my soul aches right now." And there's, I can't even pull the words together, but I know that this song resonates with who I am and what I'm going through. And I'm just gonna let this song speak for me for a little bit. I'm just gonna let the words of this worship from someone who wrote this song who has no idea who I am, but knowing it is a gift of grace from God. I'm just gonna let this pour over me, like cool water on a hot day. And sometimes in life, that's exactly what we have to do. Well, you're like, "Ah, well, Chris, I just, "I don't feel like it." Yeah, I don't think David felt like it either. And yet he chose to praise God. See, God just isn't this impersonal big guy in the sky or big man upstairs. He's a personal relational God that wants to know how our soul is doing. Actually, he already knows how our soul is doing. He just wants us to tell him. It's like if you have kids, you know when they're having a bad day as a parent. But sometimes you just want them to share what they're going through in that day. To just have a relationship with them. Why? Not for the sake of yourself. Not for the sake of, "Oh, I got all this time to kill. I just want to hear your story." No, because you love them. You care for them. It's the same way that God loves and cares for us.
Verse 14, as the other side of the Oreo cookie, again, David shifts back into from this praise to giving back to fear and worry about what's happening on, but has this different tone than the first half of the cookie, right? There's this tone of asking God to move and to act, but there's more faith behind it. And we get a little bit of a glimpse of what's going on here with the offer. There's some sort of group of people that don't like God, that despise God, and are coming after David. We still don't know why, but he's facing imminent death. All is not well in David's life right now. He's not posting on Instagram a happy picture from the past year going, "All is well out here." Like, he is stressing to the max. prayer and praise doesn't always work out the way that we want, right? God isn't just this magic genie where we can rub our hands together and pray and poof, He shows up and says, "What's your prayer for the day?" And we give it to Him and He goes, "Okay." And He turns around and He runs off and He does it. That's not who God is, right? God asks for us to act in obedience to the with Him and that our faith and belief in God must stand with praise even when our world is broken. It says in verse 15, "But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness." If that's not an incredible image and picture of who God is, I don't know what other verse shares that with us. Compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, thank you, Jesus, abounding in love and faithfulness. I do find this verse a little strange at this moment. When reading this psalm, you would think at this point, David would be more focusing on praying for God to, "Hey God, people are coming. "I need you to do something, they're getting closer. "Okay God, now they're really closer. "They're getting closer now, what are you gonna do?" But David goes, "No, you're compassionate, "you're gracious, you're slow to anger, "abounding to love, faithful." David goes back to who he knows God is. Yes. Under the greatest pressure, under the greatest stress, David says, "You are an unchanging God." Because the reality is, God's the same. It's us in life that has ups and downs and twists and turns and things that change in our lives in an instant. God is the faithful, steady one in our lives. And sometimes we just need to press into that steadiness when our life seems to be spinning at a thousand miles an hour. And we don't feel like we can barely hold on to anything. We just gotta reach out and to hold on to dear life for God.
I think of this image of like barely having to reach on to hold on to something. You're being swept away, whether it's waves or wind or something, you're barely holding on. And you're so focused and worried about where your hands are holding on to something. And the whole time you don't realize is that you have a full safety harness, five point harness on. All the locking carabiners and strength of a rope in the world and God's holding on to that rope. And we think we're holding on there that we have to hold on for dear life. God's like, "I got you locked in, man. I got it taken care of. Just let go and let me." Is what God's asking us to do. This message is a message that only God can rescue us from our trouble. that there's no promise of the world. There's no other person in our lives. There's no political leader. Can I say that? There's no nothing else that can rescue us the way that God can. And David here, in the midst of it all hitting the fan, just puts all his chips in on God. on God and says, "You're my redeemer. "You're my rescuer." Verse 17 ends with, "Give me a sign of your goodness "that my enemies may see it and be put to shame "for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me." I read that and I thought, oh, that's a little aggressive, put to shame? But what David here is saying, His rescue isn't about himself. David already knows that he's locked in with God. David here is actually asking for God not to necessarily rescue him, but asking that God's glory would shine through his rescue so that others may see and believe. That others would look in on his situation and go, man, his back was against the wall. There was nothing left. He was at the end of his rope. It was all but for sure gone. And God came through. And David wants even his enemies, the ones that are coming after him, to see this rescue from God, not to put them down or to embarrass them or to make them look foolish, but for them to be able to see in that moment that God rescued him, that they may turn and put their faith in Jesus Christ alone. It's more about God saving and helping David rather than us, 'cause mostly what we do in life, right? Most of us in life will go like, hey God, get me out of this jam, man. Like I will be, my butt is gonna be in church on Sunday. Promise you. If you get me out of this jam, God, I will love you. I will serve you. I'll become a pastor for the rest of my life, God. Just get me out of this situation, please. That's not how it works, right? God here is asking for us to step in faith and trust in Him in obedience. And then He moves.
As we close, I got three truths for us today from this. One, praise no matter the circumstances. We are to praise God. No matter what we're walking through, no matter what is happening in our lives, no matter what is coming at us, we are to praise God. This ain't easy. But when I see people who have followed Jesus for decades, this is their mindset. They've learned, they've gone through it. They have been to H-E Double Hockey Stick and back, and they still give God praise. It blows my mind. But there's this foundational truth they understand who God is, how much they were blessed by His love and His grace and His mercy in their lives, they go, "There would be no place I'd rather be." Praise is a language of the heart that speaks at all times. It's not dependent on circumstances or happenings in life. It is a soul language that that we are to give praise to God. And sometimes all we can do is believe that the joy is coming in the midst of it. David says that, he says what? Verse four, "Bring joy to your servant, Lord." Sometimes we just have to believe that the joy is coming so that we can even take another step forward. Greatest advice, second greatest advice I've ever been given in my life is in my marriage and in parenting and in just life in general is a statement that it won't always be like this. Good times and the bad times. The good times won't always be like this. It's just life. Reminds us to be present where we are. And on the flip side, the hard times, it won't always be like this. Hard times will come. Storms will come. Storms don't last forever though, right? Sometimes they last a long time. I look around this room and I see people who have gone through seasons of storms. But the storm never lasted forever. And David here is reminding us that we can praise God no matter our circumstances because it won't always be like this.
Number two, our praise is amplified in in community. Sure, can we praise God on our own? Absolutely. Can we pop on some headphones, crank it up in the car, listen to our worship music, read God's Word and our quiet time, our one-on-one time with God? Absolutely, yes. And this should be your rhythm in life. But a rhythm that you cannot miss out on is worship in community. This. See, this here takes our praise that is great on our own, but it comes in here and it cranks it up a thousand percent. Praise in community is a rhythm that is necessary for our life with God. Psalm 86, 9, David all the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord. They will bring glory to your name. Sometimes we need the church family to remind us why we praise, to remind us who God is, remind us of those who have gone before us and survived and got the t-shirt, those how to praise even in the midst of heavy life, lean on to others for their praise to echo in our hearts. Sometimes we need the praise of others to hold us up. Just like this picture of Moses with Aaron and her holding his arms up in the midst of the battle of Joshua and the Amalekites. When his arms were up the Israelites were winning but when they fell down they began to lose. And so this beautiful picture image of Aaron and her literally holding Moses's arms up so that the victory through God would happen in that battle is a picture and image for us of when we can't even raise our hands in worship. Sometimes we need people to come around us and just raise our hands for us knowing that joy is coming. This is how our praise is amplified in community. Sometimes coming to church isn't about you. Sometimes coming to church is for the person you're sitting next with, the person in the row behind you. The person who pulled into the parking lot and was about to leave but then saw you and got out of their car and came inside. Sometimes church ain't about us. Now does God speak to us and give us something when we're here? I believe it, absolutely. Absolutely, every Sunday, let's have open hearts, open minds, open souls. But sometimes coming to church and getting your butt out of bed in the morning, say it in the most lovingly way, it's not about you. Sometimes it's for the person here at church. I've had those Sundays, guys. I'm the one in charge, I'm probably not supposed to say that. I've had those Sundays where I wake up and I'm like, "God, I'm tired." And you know what happens? and I have a conversation that blows my mind. And God goes, "That's why you got out of bed this morning. "It's not about you, Chris. "It's about me.”
The final thing we see, this truth, is there will always be victory in Jesus. No matter what happens, we have victory in Jesus, either this side of heaven or the other. Christ has overcome. David knew that. David knew that. David understood that. David saw that. And so I honestly, I see his prayer at the end of 86 here, and I don't think he cares if he lives or he dies. He just wants people to see God. Wow. Why? Because he knows there's always victory in Jesus. Verse 5, "You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you." We know that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. It says right there in Romans 10, 13, "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." So my question for you today is have you called on the name of the Lord? Have you truly, with your heart and your soul, called on the name of the Lord? And if you haven't, right now you can bow your head, you can pray, you can say, "Jesus, I need you. I'm sorry for trying to figure this all out on my own. I've messed up. I've sinned. I need your grace and your mercy and your love to come into my make me right, and I need your saving and redemption, and your perfect, perfect love for eternity. It's that simple. Doesn't have to be complex. And if you make that decision, if that's something you're doing today, or you've done recently, or you wanna have a little bit more conversation, see Pastor Andre or myself, please, he was the good looking guy up here earlier, please talk to him. Talk to myself. Talk to anybody who got a green name badge. They'll find us. I promise. We want you to know that. I love this psalm. It's just a powerful example of prayer and praise united together. That no matter what we're going through, no matter where we are, we can give praise to God. God has offered this incredible gift to each of us when he died on the cross. That the saving isn't not only for our enemies, but it's also saving from us and ourselves. Just because you've called on Jesus, you've prayed the prayer, doesn't mean it's life's daisies and roses and unicorns. There's still gonna be bad days. David, one of the people on earth who walked so closely with God, still had those days. We're going to have those days.
But the question becomes for us, how do we need to increase our praise? I think each of us probably has maybe an idea of what that might look like. Maybe it's coming to church when we don't feel like it. Maybe it's putting worship music on when we just feel like, "Buh." Maybe it's praying for our enemies. Maybe it's just trusting in God deeper, that God's got it under control, that we don't have to fix it. I like to fix it. I'm a fix-it guy. I fixed a chair, a reclining chair in a microwave yesterday. I feel like a boss. Only cut two of my fingers. Sometimes we just need to just trust in God and just let him fix it, rather than us try to make a bigger mess out of it, right? 'Cause that usually what happens, let's be honest. Just gotta trust in him. This isn't a natural flow for us, praise in tough times, right? We're reactionary. We don't take the right action of praising God. It's a habit a rhythm that has to be learned and Then it'll begin to more naturally flow from our lives Something you have to work on be reminded about kind of practice it just doesn't happen and to another question.
How will your praise be a witness to others I first wrote this, I was typing this out. I was like, how can your praise be a witness? I was like, no, there's too much space in there for maybe if not. We're called to be witnesses. And a big portion of our witnessing to others should be in how we give praise to God, no matter what's happening. So how will your praise be a witness to others in your life? Maybe it's your family. Maybe it's that neighbor that just, ooh, that neighbor. We all have them, right? Maybe not, I hope you don't. I've got a couple of those. How will we actively think about giving praise to God as a witness to others? David sets an incredible example for us. In this way of giving praise, even the midst of what's going on, he's pointing to Jesus. Say that's why I'm here. That's why I exist. This is my calling. This is my purpose. David says to give praise to you God, no matter what's going on around me. May we be a people that give praise no matter what.
Let's pray. Jesus, thank you, God, for your servant David, for his word and his example for us. Jesus, I pray that you would speak to our hearts today. God, you know who's heard this in this space. God, we know who's heard this online. Maybe listen to the podcast later this week, Jesus, that they would hear the words of your servant David and his praise that was given no matter what. Whether you rescued him or you didn't rescue him, he gave you praise. So, Jesus, I pray that we would be in the same heart, in the same mindset, same rhythm as David to give you the praise no no matter what's happening in life. God, we've... We're in the midst of some hard times. Different things happening in life. Grief, loss, struggle, financial burdens, loss of jobs, unknown future, pain, physical pain, hurt, emotional brokenness, relationships, disasters. God, I pray that that wouldn't stop our praise. I pray that our hearts would still eke and groan the praises of you, God. And that in that we may be a witness to those in our lives, maybe people we don't even know are watching us, might see us and go, "There's something different about them." They shouldn't be happy right now. They shouldn't be giving praise. They shouldn't be worshiping. They should have walked away from the church by now. They should be so angry at God and yet they're still there giving praise to you. God, may our praise be amplified in community worship. May we make it a priority to be here each and every Sunday, community groups, different events. God, to give you praise and glory in our community. God, help those around us to lift us up, to hold us up. That we know we won't be there forever, but then we may be able to share with others when they are going through similar situations, how you, God, saved us and pulled us through. Jesus, may we just be an incredible witness of praise and honor and glory to you, Jesus. We love you. We thank you. Everybody said, amen. Amen.