Psalm 27 - The Goodness of God
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I'm really excited to be with you guys today. As you know, we're in our Summer of Psalms series, and so we are continuing that through summer. And we're kind of just jumping around to different Psalms. And I like this series a lot because it allows us to dive into scripture and see what the Bible says and talk about that and study it and learn it. But it also allows us to talk about different topics. Because we're looking at different Psalms, we can hit different topics, and we can even dive into characteristics of God, of who God is and really just learn more about his character. And we are gonna focus on that today a lot. We're talking about the goodness of God and a variety of things, but that's really our focus today. Have you ever noticed the confidence level of most children? You know, they are unreasonably confident in a lot of things or in like one thing in particular, They are just so certain that they are the best, that they are so good. And I just wish we could bottle that confidence up, right? Because adults, we kind of lose some of that. We, maybe through experience or something someone says, or even just reality that we know that someone's better at it than us, or we could grow in that. And maybe we're confident in some areas, something we're an expert in or have developed a skill in, but we maybe don't quite have the confidence like a kid. Like when they come up and they're like, "I wanna show you my trick," right? And they are just so confident. And even when it's not executed technically correct, they just, they nailed it in their mind. And they are just so confident in that.
Well, in Psalm 27, we are seeing David in his confidence, but different than kids. His confidence is in God, not in himself. And so my hope today is that we will learn from David in this and develop our own confidence in the Lord. So again, we're gonna be on Psalm 27. This is a Psalm of David. You can go there, it'll be on the screens, but you can look it up, your phone, the Bible's under your seat, whatever works for you. But we are going to just break it down section by section. And we're gonna start with verses one through three. So if you would just read along with me. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besieged me, my heart will not fear. Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident." David knows that he can have confidence in God. He has this the sureness of who God is and that he can be confident in him. You can even see it in the way he's writing. It says, "The Lord is my light and salvation." The Lord is the stronghold of my life. He doesn't use wishy-washy language, well, sometimes or when this happens, he is, he is. There's no if, ands or buts. David experienced a lot of attack from enemies. He experienced a lot of hard times and darkness. I mean, he was the king of a nation. So you can imagine the difficult times that he experienced, but he also experienced God's faithfulness. He saw God come through again and again, whether it was saving him from bears and lions when he was a shepherd, or it was from King Saul when he was pursuing him, or from a variety of other enemies and nations coming against the nation of Israel. God was faithful. He fulfilled his promises. He did what he said he would, And David's trust and confidence in God grew. So he can say this with authority. He can say, "He is my light and my salvation. He is the stronghold of my life." And we noticed that David is calling God these three things, light, salvation, and stronghold. So I want us to take a little moment to look at that and what that might mean for us.
So what does light do? Well, it dispels darkness, right? when you have a dark room, even just a candle or a flashlight disperses the darkness around you. So David is saying, he, God is my light. He is the one who is dispelling the darkness in my life. The dark that surrounds me, the evil that is around me. Light also can show us a way, it can light our path. And so it is David saying, you light the way, You show me which way to go. You are my light. Then he says, you're my salvation. And I really think that David here is meaning both now and eternity. He's saying, God, you are my salvation in the immediate moment when I am in immediate danger and I need saving. And also you are the one who will save me for eternity. You're the one who's going to make a way for me to be with you in heaven. He is David's salvation. And then he calls him his stronghold. This is a place of safety, a refuge. It offers protection. I imagine almost like a castle or a fortress, something that is built well. It is built probably with some sort of stone or rock. It's fortified, it's got really thick walls and it is allowing this protection of whoever is in there. And David called God his stronghold. And David asked a couple of questions. He says, "Whom shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid?" And these are meant to be rhetorical because he knows that when he has light and a savior and protection, there is nothing to fear. There is no one he needs to be afraid of. the confidence is built again. Once again, he adds to that trust and that confidence in God. He goes on in the second two verses and says, talks about his enemies and the armies that come against him. And it says, "The wicked will fall." Again, that confident factual language, they will fall. Even though they come, my heart will not fail. David can speak like this because he's seen God show up. He knows that his confidence is not in himself, but that it's in God. And we learn from David that we can be confident in the Lord. When maybe, especially when we don't feel that confidence, when we are struggling, when we're unsure, we can lean in to him and what he's done and His protection, His light, His saving grace. The thing is, unlike David, we have the end of the story, right? We have the whole Bible. We know what happens. We know that revelation, we know how it works out.
So how much more confidence should we have than even David did? At the end of verse three, David says, "Even then I will be confident." I will be confident. This kind of struck me. It doesn't say, but it kind of felt a little bit like David was reminding himself of this. He was saying it factually, like I will be confident when this happens. And also I will be confident. I will be confident. I will be confident. He needed that reminder that he can be confident in the Lord. Years ago, my family went bowling. I remember nothing else about this bowling experience except for this one part. And we still, our family still talks about it to this day. We were getting set up. We were just getting our shoes on, getting our bowling balls. And all of a sudden I turn towards the back and I look, and this little boy, probably no more than five years old, is running from a lane back to the shoe counter. And he has this little pair of shoes And he's going, "12, 12, 12, 12, 12." And I just thought it was the cutest thing. And it was so funny to me. And he was just, his mom probably told him to go tell his dad at the shoe counter, "You need a size 12." And he didn't wanna forget. So he just kept repeating it over and over and over again. "12, 12, 12, 12." So whenever my family and I were talking about needing to remember something, we just say, "12, 12, 12." And I imagine this is kind of what David's doing here. I will be confident. I will be confident. I will be confident. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of the truth in God's word. We are a forgetful people. I think we make fun of the Israelites a lot for forgetting God's goodness, but we do too. We forget how he's come through. We forget his faithfulness, the promises he's fulfilled, the prayers that he has answered. We need to be reminded. We need to remember. And sometimes that just means preaching to ourselves and telling ourselves the truth of what the Bible says. So I think this is a reminder for David. And I think it's also a prayer, a recommitment to the Lord. I will be confident in you. He's reminding himself and he's committing to place his confidence in God. Maybe we today need to remind ourselves of that. We need to recommit to being confident in the Lord.
All right, going on to verse four. David, really this next session, he transitions from these statements of declaring, of declaration to more of a contemplative time. So read along with me in verse four through six. It says, "One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. For in the day of trouble, He will keep me safe in His dwelling. He will hide me in the shelter of His sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me. At His sacred tent, I will sacrifice with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to the Lord." The one thing He would ask is to be in God's presence. This is a king we're talking about. He could pretty much ask for whatever he wants. And that is what he would ask for. How often is that our response? That if we were asked that question, if there was one thing you could have, what would it be? And we would think, be in the presence of God. I pray that God works on my heart so that that does become my response, but it's usually not. But David knew the value of being in God's presence. He talks in a variety of ways about being in the house of the Lord. He says, the house of the Lord, his temple, his dwelling, sacred tent. He was just describing a variety of words for God's house. You see, in David's time, The tabernacle was literally where God dwelled. God had the Israelites build him a tent. I guess it would be more erect a tent, construct a tent. He knew that the Israelites could do nothing to come to him. There was nothing that they could do. So he had to go to them. And the way he did it was he went to them in the way they existed. They lived in tents. When they were wandering in the desert, they lived in tents. So while his was bigger and grander and more ornate, he still dwelled in a tent with his people. He also had them craft the Ark of the Covenant. And this is essentially just an ornate box that had the tablets with the 10 commandments on it, as well as some other things in there. And the cover is also called the Mercy Seat. And that is where God dwelled in this tent. That is where they could go and encounter Him. He wanted to maintain His holiness while also being with His people. And this was His way of doing that. He had His home built and He invited them into it. See, the Holy Spirit had not been given to believers yet. That people were not in dwelled yet by the Holy Spirit. And so this was God's way of coming down. of stooping to their level, to our level. 'Cause the gospel is clear and David knew this too. Humanity could do nothing to get to God. They couldn't be enough, do enough, make themselves holy enough to get themselves to God. It was only by His goodness and kindness that He came to us.
We see in the Old Testament that He dwelled in the tabernacle on the Ark of the Covenant. And then in the New Testament, We see that he took up residence in the person of Jesus, in a physical body, met us where we were, in our shape and form. And then the Holy Spirit, after the death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit came and in dwell believers, he took up residence in a tabernacle, in the person of Jesus and in believers. David was confident in this. Even before half of that happened, he was confident that the best place to be was in the presence of God. We can have that confidence too. In the Lord's presence is the absolute best place to be. What did David do in the presence of the Lord? Well, he talks about, he said, he would gaze on his beauty and seek him. He would be kept safe in the Lord's shelter and he would worship. So gazing on his beauty. Well, God didn't have a physical body. So what did he mean by this? Well, I believe he was referring to his environment, his home, the tabernacle itself, the ark. I think he was also referring to his holiness. God's holiness and his goodness was beautiful to his people. David wanted to just experience who God was. His beauty, he wanted to be in awe of him. He wanted to seek him and be around him. How do you get to know someone? By spending time with them, right? He wanted to get to know who God was even better. He wanted to just be with him. Just spend time with his creator. He sought shelter and refuge in God's presence. Again, David had a lot of enemies. He had a lot of dark times, and he knew that in God's presence was the safest place to be. When we are in God's presence, when we are in His will, when we are following Him, that is the best place that we can be. Even if it's a little uncertain or scary, or we don't know the next steps, it's still the best place that we can be. And in his presence, David worshiped. The tabernacle of David's time is known as a place of worship. They danced and they sang and they played instruments. They worshiped God in new and creative ways. 'Cause what else are you gonna do when you're in the presence of the Almighty? And we get to do that too. We get to come here and worship and be with other believers and hear the word, but we also get to go out and worship with our lives. Paul talks about worshiping as a living sacrifice. We get to just worship by the way we live and act and move and breathe and interact with other people. That is our worship. This is great too. Like be here, I love that. Be, come and participate here. But we also get to worship in how we live. We get to experience God's beauty through His holiness and His goodness. And because of that, we will worship Him. Being in the Lord's presence is the best place we can be.
David goes on to cry out to the Lord. He moves into this time of really calling out to God and asking Him for help. Verse seven, "Hear my voice when I call, Lord, be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says, if you seek his face, hear face Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my savior. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Teach me your way, Lord. Lead me in a straight path because of your oppressors. Do not turn or because of my oppressors. Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations." In these several verses, we see that, although David had a lot of confidence in God, it wasn't all easy. It wasn't all just smooth sailing, roses and daisies. There were times where he struggled. He had difficult seasons and he just cried out to God. I'm sure there's times for us, like for David, that it feels like God is silent. That you're praying and you're asking and you're seeking and it just feels like no one is listening. So in this section, David is actually reminding God of what he told his people. He's saying, "You told me to seek you. You told us, seek my face." He's like, "I'm doing it, I'm here, I'm seeking your face.”
Jeremiah 29:12-13, the Lord is saying, "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your hearts." David is begging God saying, "I am seeking you, please hear me." even kings and giants of the faith wavered in their confidence at times, not because God changed, but because maybe their circumstances changed. Fear got real big in their hearts and it wavered. We know though from other places in the Bible, like in Joshua, it says that he will never leave us or forsake us. And sometimes God's silence can feel like that. I can feel like being abandoned or forgotten, but God will never leave us. So he's asking, he's praying and reminding God of the promises he's given and also asking for more of him. He wants God to lead him and guide him, teach him his ways. He's reminding himself that God did it before, He can do it again. Seeking the Lord reminds us of His faithfulness. Not only do we need reminders of the confidence we have in God, sometimes we just need the reminders of His goodness and His faithfulness. And the way we do that is by getting with Him, by seeking Him, by pursuing Him, by allowing Him to work in our heart and lives. And that takes proximity. That's why we get in His presence. That's why we get in the Word. God is not playing some cosmic game of hide and seek. He wants to be found. Jeremiah says, "You will be found by me." We just have to be willing to show up and pursue that relationship with God, with our heavenly Father, to learn more about Him, about His character, about who He says He is. He's not, David here is not asking for the easy way. It says, later on it says that he asks for the straight path in verse 11. Straight here doesn't necessarily mean easy or without problems. It just means level. It's like a firm foundation that he will be firm. It also refers to uprightness, that he would be on a level ground so he can live in uprightness. And he knows that God is faithful to do that. He knows, David isn't stupid. He knows life won't be easy. He knows there's gonna be trouble, but he also know that God in his goodness can provide a way for him to live upright, live on level ground. So even when our confidence ravers, even when we are facing hard seasons, We can remember that when we seek the Lord, we will find Him and we will be reminded of who He is, of His goodness and His faithfulness.
The last two verses, probably my favorite in this chapter, it is a statement and then it is an encouragement from David. Let's read it together. I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. This phrase land of the living can refer to a variety of things, some think David was referring to Jerusalem, that this is where the people of God were, this is where God dwelled. And so this was the land of the living as opposed to the pagan nation surrounding them where people were dead in their sin. It also something it's just David referring to heaven, that in the kingdom to come, that is the land of the living. And we get to be with God forever in that. And we will see His goodness when we get to heaven with Him. The third option is that David is referring to this world, the here and the now, that even in our broken and fallen world, he believes that he will see God's goodness even here. And honestly, it could be all of them, but I really do think that David is talking about this world, the here and the now, and here's why. First of all, the Hebrew word for land here, it literally means earth as opposed to heaven. It's literally talking about our world. He's saying that despite our troubles, despite our struggles, despite the sin in this world, we can still see God's goodness. The Bible is full of faithful people who had hard times. They struggled, they sinned, they fell, but they still experienced God's goodness. But how could he say, I will see the goodness of God?
How can we be so confident in that? Well, we've said it before, it's because he had seen it before. He had seen God's faithfulness and his goodness in his life before. He had seen God come and dwell among the people of Israel. He saw how God made a way for himself to be with his people and for the people to be near him, even despite his holiness, through sacrifices and rituals and atonement, he made a way and he had saved him. He had saved him from previous difficulties and seasons of hardship. He had seen God's goodness before. So how can we be confident? How can we stand with David and say, "I will be confident and I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living." Well, like David, we have seen the goodness of God. I guarantee you that everyone in this room has experienced the goodness of God, whether you've realized it or not. So maybe we need to take a moment and think back, look back, remind ourselves of the goodness that he has brought in our lives. But also unlike David, in the same way, we have the church. We have the body of Christ. And how many of us have experienced the goodness of God through someone else in the body of Christ? Whether it was through prayer or support, just a smile, accountability, reaching out to you, that God uses his people to show his goodness. So we know that we will see the goodness of God in the land of the living because the church in the year of our Lord 2024 is alive and well. We are alive.
Romans 6:11 says, "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Believers are alive, we are alive. We, the church is the literal land of the living. We get to be the land of the living. We get to experience life in Christ and be a light to other people of that truth. So despite the world around us, despite the culture that we are living in, that is full of darkness and celebrates death and calls evil good and good evil, despite all of that, we get to be the land of the living. We will see the goodness of God in the land of the living. I promise you. Now, I am sure that there is someone within this sound of my voice, whether here or online or podcast or whatever, that is thinking, how? I can't. Lauren, you talk about this land of the living, but I'm more in the valley of the shadow of death right now. Maybe it's depression or finances or relationships, you name it, but it feels dark and heavy and nothing like the goodness of God. You will see His goodness. Things may not work out the way we're praying for. They may not work out the way we hope. They may not even work out 'cause we live in a fallen world, but he is still good because his goodness is not determined by our circumstances or by our outcomes in life. He is good regardless. And we have to remember that the phrase, the valley of the shadow of the death is from Psalm 23 and it continues on. It says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me." So even if you are, even if you are walking or maybe you will in the future, maybe you are in that valley. It is dark, it is hard, but He is still with you even then. Even when He feels silent, even when it feels like you've been forsaken, He is with you and that His presence, Him being with you is His goodness. So if you can't believe it right now, hear me and hold on to the words that I'm saying and hold on to the words that God said in His word and ask Him, God, reveal yourself to me. Show me your love, show me your goodness. Walk me through this valley of death so that I can experience your goodness in the land of the living. (silence) We need to seek His face and that will help build our confidence because David goes on to encourage us and it says, "Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Waiting, the word wait here does not mean just sit around and hope something happens. It's an active participation. It means to look for, to hope, to expect. We're not doing nothing. We are actively waiting. We are expectantly hoping and trusting that God is gonna come through. That's through being in the word, coming to church, being a part of the body, participating in the land of the living, writing down all the ways that he has been faithful as just a reminder for yourself, sitting in his presence, just being still or worshiping him, seeking his face and whatever expression that looks like for you. 'Cause what David knew and encourage us to do is that when we wait for the Lord, we will see His goodness. Amen.
Let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your church. You knew what you were doing when you established the body of Christ. And we are so grateful that we get to see your goodness in the land of the living. God, I pray for those who are in a valley right now where it just feels dark and heavy. God, I just pray that you will make your presence so palpable to them that they will know that they have not been forgotten or forsaken. Build their confidence, build their belief as they walk through this difficult season, God. Remind them that they will see your goodness. You are so good, God, and we are so grateful to you. We love you, Father. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.