Book of Psalms - Psa. 4, Vs. 1-8 (09/04/2022)

Park Meadows Church

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Well, good morning Today we will be in Psalm chapter 4

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I don't know if we're gonna go through the entire book of Psalms like this, but maybe we will feel like Brother Bill started started us off in Psalms and I just wanted to pick up where he left off I don't know how long he had planned to be in the

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Psalms. Maybe he had planned to go through the whole book I suspect he did because he did say that This may be the last

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Book I get to do because it's so long but he got to do chapter 1 and then he was called home.

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So We just picked up where he left off a Quick recap

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Brother Bill, of course started off in Psalm chapter 1 and we saw the difference between a righteous man and and the ungodly and we saw the difference

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Was manifested in how much time they spent in the word the ungodly was like the chaff which the wind driveth away and the the godly man

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Meditated on the laws of the Lord day and night. It was like a tree planted by the rivers of water

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Which bringeth forth his fruit in his season? that was a What brother bill left us with and then we went into Psalm chapter 2 and saw the the heathen raging against the

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Lord and against his anointed and the people imagining a vain thing and the idea there was

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We we contrasted Well, we didn't really contrast we compared what we see in the world today with what

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David was experiencing in his life And we certainly see the same thing happening where the world rages against God and his people and we saw that while Psalm chapter 2 was

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Specifically about Jesus Christ it had an application for King David and had a application for us

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As also being anointed children of God And then a couple of weeks ago

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I missed last week so I wasn't here last week, but the week before we did Psalm chapter 3 and In that Psalm we saw

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David who had who was at the time running from his son Absalom and the whole the whole of Israel Practically not all of Israel, but many hearts of Israel had been stolen from this power couple

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I had been stolen by this power couple. I should say of Absalom and his in his supermodel wife the two of them were

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Charming especially Absalom You know, he charmed all of Israel and stole their hearts and turned them against David and David had to run

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And at that time We saw David encouraging himself in the

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Lord like he's done so many times so when we were looking at Psalm chapter 3 we saw kind of a transition and we said it was a lot like a roller coaster ride the very

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Beginning of that roller coaster where it goes click click click click click from a low point to a high point

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We see David go from a very low point in his own mindset to a very high point in his own mindset he

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He started off wondering, you know is God for me the people say that there is no help for him and God and that was a

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Radical thought for him and we see the introduction of my favorite word in the Bible, which is Salah And we saw three different uses of it the first was tinged with fear and the second was sparked with hope when he realized, you know,

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God heard my prayers and Then finally we see it crowned with victory as he

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Confidently says come on. Let's bring on 10 ,000 against me because the Lord is with me

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What we're gonna see today in Psalm chapter 4 is kind of a sister verse to Psalm chapter 3 in fact

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Spurgeon says that if Psalm chapter 3 Is the morning

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Psalm then Psalm chapter 4 would be the evening hymn they kind of go together It's actually very likely that Psalm chapter 4 was written around the same time as the preceding chapter

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Which would be around the time David was running from his son Absalom and So it's it's kind of like a sequel if you think about what was happening with David in in the third chapter he was

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Laid out like a soldier wounded in battle and he said that you know

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God is my shield and the lifter up of my head, right? and and the picture we got there was he feels defeat and the bombs keep on Raining down on him the bullets keep flying

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And he's in a position in which he needs a buckler which is more than just a shield

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It's like a force field and we see him begin to understand that you know, oh, yeah

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I'm I'm King because God said I'm King, you know, I'm I am

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God's and he he reminds himself of who God is and who he is in God and it begins to shift his focus away from the problems towards the solution

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And we saw that when man lifted up his voice against David David lifted up his voice to the

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Lord and so we saw this internal shift in David in Psalm chapter 3 and in Psalm chapter 4 we're gonna see

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What he does with that shift, right? So he went from this low point to this high point and we're gonna see him like a soldier in battle

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Stand back up and begin to face his enemy So that's where we are today

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We're gonna be in Psalm chapter 4 and we're gonna try to get through the whole chapter again Like we did with 3 because it is a short chapter.

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There's only 8 verses, but there's a lot to unpack here So we may or may not get through it all So it starts off saying to the chief musician on Neganeth or Neganoth.

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I Think that's how you say it And it says a Psalm of David and So most people read that and they go, okay, so it's telling me it's a

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Psalm of David and it's being sent to the chief musician for whatever this

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Neganoth is which when you look it up you find out it's stringed instruments and one of my favorite things to do in Scripture is to try and look at the things that most people would just kind of gloss over and so I want to just Take a moment and and realize what it means

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For David to be in the state that he is if indeed he wrote this when he's running from Absalom He has written a psalm

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That is intended to go to the chief musician of the stringed instruments

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There's significance there because well one

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David himself is a harpist Right, so he played upon stringed instruments he's

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He's been very He's been on this emotional roller coaster so to speak and There was a lot of drama that was brought about by that word

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Salah in Psalm chapter 3 in this chapter We're gonna see that same word used two more times in different ways than it was in in the third chapter

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But it's also being accompanied it at least the intent David has it's being accompanied with music

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Which we didn't see in the third chapter Often music was used as A way to just express what your body in vocal cords couldn't express

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For you. It was like there's so much Feeling here that we need something to accompany it, right?

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So if we thought that Psalm chapter 3 was dramatic Psalm chapter 4 should be even more so At least in the mind of David and I think it's interesting too that he has an intent to send this to the chief

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Musician of the stringed instruments because if we think about the fact that David was at a point where You know, he wondered or at least questioned is

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God with me Even for a moment He is now so much convinced that yes,

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God's with me and God's for me and who can be against me that at this point He's already preparing his next song for the chief musician

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So he has an expectation To be in charge of sending songs to the chief musician again

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This may even be before he has defeated His son and reclaimed his throne.

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So he already has an expectation of I'm gonna be writing songs for the choir again

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There's a lot of confidence just in the fact that David is writing something that is intended for the chief musician of the strings instruments

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The fact that he wants to send it to the chief tells us this is a pretty important song for him

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Like he this is one that I want the best of the best to be in charge of communicating to others

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And so I think even just that part of the chapter is pretty interesting because it gives us

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Kind of insight into where David's thinking is where his mentality is a man on the run would not expect to give a

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Psalm to the chief musician of the royal choir Right. He just he wouldn't unless he expects to be in charge of that again so Let's let's just take special note of the fact that one

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David has an expectation to send songs back to the chief musician to this particular psalm

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Has a more dramatic tone to it because he wants it to be accompanied by by stringed instruments and Three it is kind of a continuation of what we saw from Psalm chapter 3

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So let's get into the psalm itself Hear me when

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I call Oh God of my righteousness Thou hast enlarged me when

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I was in distress have mercy upon me and hear my prayer. That's the first verse So we're dropped right into the prayer of David in Psalm chapter 3 if if you can

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Imagine what we were looking at in the third chapter. We were we were looking at David We did the whole back story

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David's run from Absalom. He's had rocks thrown at him by Shema he's been cursed at and We see

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David begin to Call out to the Lord and we see him begin to remind himself who

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God is who he is in God what God has done for him in the past and It begins to change his mindset and give him a mental shift of oh, yeah

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God is for me and I could take on 10 ,000 men Right and we see that internal shift

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Now similar to what What I you'll notice I like to do this a lot

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I like to refer back to the drama of TV shows and movies and stuff Imagine we are now in the next episode right and in this next episode

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What do they often do they recap the last episode? To kind of remind us where we are.

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Well here we are dropped into that prayer that David Was praying at the last but this time

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David isn't wondering is God with me this time he is in that place of confidence and So it's almost like a don't forget

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David's praying and Here's the level of confidence that he's got he he calls out to the

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Lord. Hear me when I call And he says Oh God of my righteousness

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What does that mean any ideas we certainly don't have righteousness without God and that's kind of what

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David is appealing to right mom says God is The source of our righteousness and if you'll remember what

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David was doing in Psalm chapter 3 he was reminded of his sin He questioned is God really for me?

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But then he was reminded later that God was his shield in the glory of his head right like he's the glory and the lifter up of David's head remember the glory

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Was that God? Appointed David King God gave

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David the throne. It wasn't that David did anything to deserve the throne It wasn't that David had done anything

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That made him worthy of the throne it was that God made him worthy and that reminded

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David Oh, my righteousness isn't sourced within myself. It's sourced within God.

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So here that's where we're kind of dropped in Is that oh, yeah, God's the source of my righteousness.

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So he appeals to God as The God of my righteousness. There's no other place in the

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Bible. We actually see this verse used but it's it's got a lot of significance because it shows us a

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Kind of a glimpse into the depravity of man. Like we can't do anything apart from God He says apart from me you can do nothing, right?

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But it also shows us that the God that we serve impudes righteousness to us

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His look what he says Hear me when I call Oh God of my righteousness

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David understands that the righteousness he has in and of himself would be the righteousness of filthy rags

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But he's appealing to the author of righteousness itself and Says Oh God of my righteousness like God is the author and the finisher of our faith, but What that faith does is it does it does so many things one of the things is that it imputes righteousness to us

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So like our lack of righteousness is covered up by Jesus's complete righteousness

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So he sees God as the imputer. I guess I'm saying that the right way the imputer

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Like he gives he receives an imputation of righteousness from God and And that is who he's appealing to God has given this to me and now

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I own it. It's his righteousness. It's it's David's righteousness, but it's sourced from the

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Lord If it were sourced from him, it would be as filthy rags You know, but it's not sourced from him.

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It's sourced from the Lord now Wow got through a lot of my notes faster than I expected that may happen today because it's a short it's a short chapter

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The next part thou hast enlarged me when

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I was in distress Thou hast enlarged me when

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I was in distress This is a term That is like a military term think about when a when a military troop is

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Is pressed in or surrounded or trapped They're in distress

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They're in a place in which they they could be captured You know, the their backs are all together.

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They're firing and The enemy is closing in this is how David is feeling remember when

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Absalom had his spies announced Absalom rules in Hebron.

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It was coming from every direction He had sent spies out into all the land and David went from whoa

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My son is rebelling against me to now everyone around me is saying that he is ruling

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He's hearing it from everywhere. So he feels pressed in he feels like he was distressed or at least he did back in chapter 3

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Now he says thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress So God has enlarged the space around him.

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God has pushed back the walls that were closing in He has given him space to breathe he's he has taken

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David's distress and Elevated David above it like now now

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What he's referencing is I I was in a place where I felt trapped.

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I was in a place where I felt Perhaps even abandoned by God at some point

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I was prone it out on the battlefield like a dead soldier and you lifted up my head and You reminded me you are my glory.

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You are my shield and Even though all the attacks were coming from every direction

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You enlarged me like you you protected me and now you gave me room to breathe

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So we're starting to see David's perception of his of his current distress

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Change not only was he In in chapter 3 we saw his perception of how

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God viewed him that was changed his perception of who he was in God Was he was reminded so it changed that I'm not

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Forgotten by God like Saul was I'm not God didn't remove his hand from me like he did with Saul Like oh, yeah,

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I've got favor from the Lord. We saw that happen in chapter 3 now

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We're seeing that transferred to the situation at hand Now I'm enlarged.

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I was in distress, but I'm not really in distress anymore Because you've elevated me above that What is

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David's first ask we see him Call out to the

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Lord the God of his righteousness We see him In chapter 3 remind himself of who

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God was and who he was in God and what God had done for him here We're dropped into the middle of that prayer again like a recap from the last episode and he's still reminding himself of what

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God has Done for him you enlarged me when I was in distress Now we're about to see him make his first ask

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All right What is what is the ask in chapter 4

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Mercy have mercy upon me and hear my prayer.

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It's a reiteration of the very beginning of this chapter Hear me when I call

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Oh God of my righteousness Right, so he begins to To call on the

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Lord and ask for things earlier in chapter 3. We saw him arise. Oh Lord Right and in and do what you've done in the past here.

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He's Interspersing his asks with what God has done for him.

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How many times do we go and pray? And it starts off Emily father

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If we might start say start with like a thank you of some sort. Thank you for this day Now, let's list a ton of stuff we need

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Can we do that? Who I need this we need that can you give me and I find myself doing it all the time you get into a habit of the way you pray

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And anytime I am cognizant of oh, I'm praying out of habit I try to throw in something different because I don't want to just pray out of habit.

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I wanted I want the Lord to to Know that I'm aware of the things

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I'm saying. I don't want to just Recite a prayer, you know It's not that that's wrong to do even

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Jesus when he tells us how to pray He says pray in this manner and he gives us the

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Lord's Prayer right our father Which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come they will be done on earth as it is in heaven

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And he goes on But what he's really doing is he's modeling what we should pray like a

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Structure to our prayer and that's something that would be really good to study sometime But it starts off with Who God is right?

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Our father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name. There's praise thy kingdom come thy will be done.

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It's the things you've done Just like David did in Psalm chapter 3 in Psalm chapter 4

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And he begins to remind himself of what God's done and then he talks about here are the things

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I need right? Give me this day my our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive our our trespass horrors.

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I Think it's debts and debtors in the King James So here's

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David praying and I want you to understand that in this chapter

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He's not this is not gonna just be him talking with God like it was in Psalm chapter 3

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We're gonna see him kind of go from This this deep intimate connection with the

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Lord in his prayer to being aware of his surroundings again and So here he is.

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He's talking with the Lord and he says Have mercy upon me

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Hear my prayer One of the things we don't realize is that God has mercy on us

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Every single time we open our mouths and talk to him That is mercy The fact that he listens is merciful

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Because we're fallen sinful people even even in our renewed state the father who sees only his son and Sees that we we have been regenerated in Christ.

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He sees us as perfect because of the Son Our level of perfection in time right now is no match for his level of perfection

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Right, like we're still being sanctified. We're still being changed. We're still supposed to go.

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All right, I'm I'm not the way I'm supposed to be I should be a little bit different.

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I should be I Should I should be striving for perfection the scripture tells me

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Be holy is your father in heaven is holy be perfect Well, gosh, we're far from that, aren't we?

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So if we look at ourselves and go I'm not perfect yet Then it's merciful for the infinitely perfect God to bend his ear to us and he does

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He gives us some He gives us his attention And it's incredible that he does that but it's merciful that he gives us attention

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He begins to go from all right father you hear me

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When I call Have mercy on me Hear my prayer to all of a sudden

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It's like he opens his eyes and begins to look at the battlefield again and sees the enemy and Here's what he says.

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Oh you sons of men How long will you turn my glory into shame?

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How long we love vanity and seek after leasing? Salah there's that word.

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We'll get to that in a sec. But let's start with OE sons of men This is a term that's reserved for the mightiest of the mighty like David is

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He is actually Addressing the mighty men of the earth here like that He knows that his foe is formidable, but watch how he begins to talk to this formidable foe

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How long will you turn your glory in my glory into shame Here's what

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I picture Chapter 3 we saw David laid out like he's about to die right like he needed

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Jesus to come lift his head Bullets are still flying God has protected him with the force field a buckler right a shield and no matter how many attacks there are

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Like he's protected then we see God enlarge him and really it's in his heart

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He is enlarged his heart neck could be read that way Like when I felt in distress and felt pressed in and felt like I could go on no more

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You did something you enlarged me I picture So many different movies it happens this way where the hero is

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It looks like all hope is lost and he's laid out and you're like, oh, is he gonna win?

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And then what happens is he is reminded of someone in his life who remarked who told him something and It it reminds him.

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Oh, yeah. I'm the hero. Oh, yeah, I can't be defeated Oh, yeah, I can I can win this and what happens next is he begins to Drive his knuckles into the ground and he pushes himself back up and it's like he stands up when he should be down Right.

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This is what's happening with David, but the the one reminding him that he can go on is

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God He's enlarged him when he was in distress and that's the picture

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I get when I'm reading this is that David is beginning to stand back up and face the enemy and the way he does it is

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While he's standing up he's communicating with the Lord Hear me when

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I call right Oh God of my righteousness You enlarged me when

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I was in distress and he's getting up Have mercy on me and hear my prayer and then boom

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I'm looking out at the enemy. Oh, he sends him in How long will you turn my glory into shame?

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This is another one of those times where David While he's speaking for himself is really using words that would come straight from Jesus right think about like in in Chapter 2 we realized that Jesus was his anointed

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Right. He was the anointed King and the whole chapter is really about Jesus well, the same can be said for any chapter in any book of of the

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Bible like David told the Pharisees you you search the scriptures for in them.

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You think you have eternal life But they are they which speak of me like all the scriptures are about Jesus.

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So this Chapter 2 is about Jesus We could almost picture

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Jesus saying. Oh you mighty men of the earth. How long will you turn my glory into shame?

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But really this is this is Jesus is anointed King David Standing up in the place.

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He's a type or picture of Jesus here and He says how long will you turn my glory into shame?

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What is that? What does that mean my glory into shame? Any ideas right they're mocking the kingship of David Remember what

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David said in chapter 3 who was his glory? God Remember, he said you're the glory and the lifter up of my head my glory in the lifter up of my head

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So now he's telling them the sons of men the mighty men of the earth. How long will you?

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Mock my glory who are they really mocking? God So that's the place that he begins to speak from Like the hero in a movie where all of a sudden he starts to tell the bad guy.

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Oh, no, you can't win You thought you were gonna beat me and he starts to do the whole the victorious speech while he beats up the bad guy

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Right, like this is kind of the picture I get here is now all of a sudden David is

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Speaking victorious words to his opposer How long are you going to mock

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God? Essentially is what he's saying How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing?

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What is that? What is the vanity? well, if you'll remember when when

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Adam and Eve were created They had this this character flaw about them they were created the creature was created with vanity and the idea here is that there is a there is almost like a

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There's room in the human spirit for The desire to be in control of his destiny

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Like that's that's what Man wants it is the original temptation that Satan Presented to man you can be as God's Knowing both good and evil

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This this vanity. Hey you you can be like God and There's this idea

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That's floated about that poor Adam and Eve They only ate of the fruit because they wanted to be more like God.

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How is that wrong? right They wanted to be more like God. How's that wrong for them to to eat of the fruit?

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It's wrong because they were told not to see we tend to think of God as Being God because he is all -powerful and all -knowing

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Those are attributes of God But what does God lift above his very name his word?

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One of the things that what does God show us when he sends his son who is

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God incarnate What is the thing that he shows us? He is able to do that. No one else is able to do keep the law a

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Radical thought that you should struggle with it. At least you should at least ponder this at night is

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That the the attribute that God chose To Challenge man with Where man ultimately failed and the attribute of God that God said you failed and I won't is

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The attribute of obedience to his own word That's what that's what

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Jesus did. He was completely obedient to the Word of God He fulfilled the law.

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He didn't come to destroy it But to fulfill it See God being all -powerful

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We think means he can do anything he wants But but he's already told us

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He can't lie right He can't fail

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He can't sin because if he did those things He wouldn't be God So what is it that makes

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God God? He's perfect, but what does that mean it means?

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when he says Something is a way that it should be he adheres to that When he says that things need to be done this way, he will do them this way 100 % of the time

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So when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit Maybe they were thinking we'll be more like God because we'll know more

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But they totally missed the point because to be more like God you got to be able to adhere to the Word of God If we want to be more like God, we got to know his word

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And we've got to adhere to it. God tells us do you want to be more like me do what I say?

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He showed us Here's how I am me perfect example

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Jesus Christ Here he is. He's the standard He is the most like me.

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He said if you've seen me you've seen the father So Watch what he does.

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He's perfectly obedient to the Word of God to the point of sweating blood

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So watch what David does he begins to bring out begin the beginning of this

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He brings out you're the God of my what my righteousness. What is the righteousness? It's the ability to adhere to the

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Word of God when we fail We get grace from Jesus Covers the parts where we mess up praise the

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Lord for that, but we're supposed to try and be more like Jesus We're supposed to be reminded that God is the author of that righteousness

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We should adhere to it like he did himself He's the perfect example of it we there's so many things we would say make

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God God, right He's all -knowing. He's all -powerful. He's all omnipresent But one of the things that I had never really thought of before is the fact that He obeys his himself

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Like that's a weird thought. I don't I'm not even sure it's the right way to say that but He sets forth the law and then he fulfills it

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How incredible is it that God makes the rules and then he keeps his own rules

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Most people's perception of God is because he makes the rules. He's allowed to break the rules, but he doesn't do that And if he does that He implies that he's no longer

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God so it's it's really super important when when we're told to be holy or set apart and We're told the way we do that is through Obeying the

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Word of God We tend to forget How important obedience is we rest so much on grace that we go?

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Oh, well, it doesn't matter what I do because I've got grace. God's gonna he's gonna Protect me and save me right?

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Well Paul said should we sin that grace may abound God forbid? Right. I'm getting on some bunny rabbit trails there.

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So we'll keep going here Humans love the idea of ruling their own destiny

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Vanity is I want to be in control But it really takes a lot of courage a lot of self -discipline and it's not easy to do to give up The the idea of autonomy

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To a higher being in America. It's probably the hardest place to do it Because we love freedom.

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We love the idea that we're in charge. We're the master of our own destiny But In other places in the world you've got monarchies

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Where the king owns everything including the people? We're not used to being owned here

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If you're owned Then you're not your own. You're bought with a price. There's scripture that backs that up certainly

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And we don't live like we're owned We live like we have complete autonomy and that God just has to forgive us anytime we mess up That's dangerous, isn't it?

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We're gonna see the the folly of that here in a little bit but he says How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing what does that mean seek after leasing

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Lying, what is the lie that we're looking for? Because that's what it says. You're looking after lies

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How long will you love this idea that you're in charge and you'll look after lies

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I Believe it's the lie of sin Anybody know what the lie of sin is

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You've experienced it and if you think about it, you'll start to go Oh, I do know what the law the lie of sin is.

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I've just never thought of it Mm -hmm

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So the lie of sin exactly pop pop says you think it's gonna be good and it's not

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You know like Eve thought if I eat of the fruit, it will make me more like God.

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Did it fulfill that? No, did it make her no good and evil? Yes, but it didn't make her more like God It made her less like God because to be more like God you have to adhere to his word

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All right, it made her less like God so the lie of sin any sin you name it

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It can be it can be lust it can be envy it can be Fear the you know succumbing to fear it can be lying if he cheating it can be stealing it can be you name it

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Can be murder whatever the sin is There is a lie in it that it's going to fulfill some need that you think you have

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The lie of sin is oh, this is going to make me feel good in the moment. Oh This is going to make me feel better.

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This is going to make my life a little bit easier this This is going to get me through this moment This is gonna make me

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Smarter this is a necessary evil so that I can achieve XYZ The lie of sin is that it fulfills something but how many of us have experienced this time and time and time again where we sin and Then the emptiness

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The emptiness which is vanity by the way emptiness the emptiness hits see when we think we can be in charge of our destiny and We think we can fulfill whatever

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Need we have in our lives by our own accord That's when sin gets us.

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We we see instead of looking to God to fulfill the need we go This will do it and we fall victim to that lie.

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We seek after the lie of sin and It results in the vanity

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That we love so much. I can fix it. I got this I can fix it and at the end it feels empty

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That's what this verse means how long will you love vanity and seek after leasing and there's where David puts the the word

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Salah in there Remember in chapter 3 it was tinged with fear.

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It was sparked by hope and crowned with victory here It's almost a Salah of disbelief

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Here it's like Wow Okay, you have emptiness and lies

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I Have God I'm I'm literally while I'm talking with you and connecting with God That's how

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David seems to be is like hear me when I call Oh God of my righteousness thou has have

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Enlarged me when I was in distress have mercy on me and hear my prayer. Wow. You guys are in trouble.

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Yeah, I I can't believe what's going on with you.

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You've got nothing The you think you're gonna overthrow God's throne

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I am a representative of God being on the throne and and you want to be in charge

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It's a picture, right? The world wants to be in charge. They want to cast away the cords from us

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Like it said in Psalm chapter 2 and now you think you can be in charge by overthrowing me but you didn't put me there to begin with God did and So you're gonna try to fulfill this emptiness this need you have in your life and it's lies and it's vanity

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There's the Salah Next it says but know that the

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Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself The Lord will hear when I call unto him So now it's like I get this picture of babies when they're around their parents right and a stranger comes and The baby's been running around and they're all excited and you know life is good and all of a sudden stranger danger

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What does a baby do they run to mommy? They run to daddy and they'll hide behind his leg and peek around Like oh,

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I still see the stranger right this is this is the picture I get of David is that he's he's now clinging to God and peeking around God's leg going.

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Whoa Y 'all are in trouble. Look who's with me, you know It's like a kid trying to be tough on the playground and says my daddy can beat up your daddy

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That's kind of the picture I get here And He says but know that the

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Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself. It's like I'm chosen you're not

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I'm special not you Like I'm forgiven.

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I'm favored. I am the king and Who made me that God?

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He set me apart and made me different from you And He hears when

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I call to him. So it's like tugging on the on the pant leg You know, he's hearing me.

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I'm looking at you, but he's hearing me. So you're in trouble He hears when

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I call on him Stand in awe and sin not the word stand in awe the word for it

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Is raw gauze, I don't know that I'm saying that right either but It's translated

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Sometimes as rage or to be angry some translations will say be angry and sin not

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I think it's a terrible translation even stand in awe isn't oh, it's an okay translation

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But if you really look up what it means It means to tremble right, so if you if you

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Stand in awe. It's almost like You need to be scared Be scared and don't sin

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Right tugging on the pant leg of God He hears me when I call on him and you're after vanity and unleasing you better be scared because look who's here

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Standing on sin not too often man Sins and trembles not that's what

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Spurgeon said They take that counsel and flip it on its head and they they sin and tremble not

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Really we should Tremble and sin not you've heard the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge or the beginning of wisdom, right? What is the fear of the

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Lord? any ideas trembling perhaps

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If you'll go to Proverbs 910 you'll find that verse the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy is understanding

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And then skip back a chapter and you'll see Proverbs chapter 8 literally defined the fear of the

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Lord. It says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil

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To hate evil and then it goes on to In Proverbs chapter 8.

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It's kind of given us It's as if wisdom is talking to us, right? So it's like the fear of the

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Lord is is to hate evil and then it tells us what wisdom hates It hates pride and arrogancy and the evil way and the froward mouth

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So those are examples of evil Any type of evil you should hate so here's

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David. He has appealed to God First and now he begins to talk to man so before he ever responds to the raging of man he goes to his

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Lord and Reminds himself of who God is and who he is in God and what God has done for him And now he begins to operate from that zone when speaking to man, but look at what he does instead of You know,

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I'm gonna beat you and you don't stand a chance or anything like that It's almost as if he's a little bit scared for those guys like Y 'all are chasing after emptiness and daddy's here.

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You're like you're in trouble I've got God on my side so you need to be scared and stop sinning and What do

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I mean by scared you need to hate any evil thing that you're thinking or doing or saying or feeling like you need?

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To get rid of all of that He begins to almost give them the key in a sense to becoming

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God's children if you think about it, but really The only key to becoming

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God's children is Jesus loves you, right? Jesus loves you and he died for you and as a result

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We end up loving him, right? We loved him because he first loved us

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So that's the real key but what he begins to show is the transformation process that a new

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Christian goes through like they They all of a sudden receive a hatred for sin

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They receive this fear of the Lord that's like the opening of the eyes and this hatred of sin is where they they go if I need to get right with God and They try at that point to stop sinning think of Paul on the road to Damascus He's on his way to kill

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Christians and he stopped immediately in his tracks when God opened his eyes now

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It's like okay, then what do I do and God begins to instruct him on things to do? so he gives

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He gives his enemies an exhortation. He says standing on sin not commune with thine own heart upon thy bed and be still

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Communing with your own heart upon thy upon thy own bed. Think about what that's like. Yes, sir

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Sure Yes Yeah, that's a great question, so the question is

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It seems almost like there's there's a couple of different kinds of fear, right? So there's the fear of like one of the most common commands by God is fear not it's all throughout

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Scripture He tells us not to fear but then we're told to fear God So there has to be two different kinds of fear and what it is is there's a fear of anxiety

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Right anxiety is exerting energy towards an undesirable outcome, right?

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So I this is the outcome I don't want and I'm gonna I'm going to dwell on it exert energy on how do

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I avoid? It how don't you're thinking about it so much. That's the type of fear. We're told not to have Don't exert energy towards an undesirable outcome.

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Why we got scripture after scripture that tells us the outcome is desirable Jeremiah 29 11

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I know the plans I have for you sayeth the Lord Plans to prosper you not to harm you plans to give you a hope in a future

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So ultimately the outcome for us is good So we're not supposed to have that kind of fear but then this fear which

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Proverbs would Would define as a hatred for evil is a fear that manifests as a reverence for God kind of like with With your kids like Sam.

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Oh He will he will obey daddy because he fears the chastisement of his daddy, right?

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It's a good fear. It's like a Daddy daddy's telling me what to do.

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I need to do it because Otherwise, I'm outside of that obedience and there's consequences like there were for Adam and Eve in that moment

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When they took of the fruit, they didn't fear God, you know that they

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Satan took their took their reverence off of the Lord He took their focus off of what

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God said to do and said no No, you can be more like him if you just do it you say so does that answer your question?

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It's kind of a it's a different fear for sure. It's a reverence it manifests as a reverence and it should manifest as Obedience to the word and so David tells him like you need to You need to commune with your own heart upon your bed.

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What does that mean? It means like when you go to bed, you know You always kind of recount the day What happened today was today good.

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I used to always think this when I went to bed. Did I have fun? Yes, then it was a good day, you know

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If I had fun, it was a good day Now it's changed a little bit. Did I accomplish something?

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Did I have fun is still a big part of it Did my kids have fun? You know Did it was it was

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Katie? Like was she happy today? So those are the things that I recount

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David is telling him like when you recount your day You need to be thinking about the things that you're thinking about think about all this evil and this autonomy that you think you have or you're gonna overthrow

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God's appointed King and Then he says be still which means to be struck silent

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Again like in the in the movies where you have two characters arguing and this is so unrealistic you know how one of them always gets the last word and Katie and I laugh about this all the time someone gets the last word in and the other person is almost like dumbfounded like You just you said something.

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I have no response to and that's when the scene changes, right? like It's as if David is saying you need to let that happen to you be struck dumb

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At what God is saying you need to just stop Everything that you think you're gonna do you need to let

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God win the argument here and just stop and that's what it means to Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still and that's when he says

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Salah like that It is so important that you stop Everything that you think you are going to accomplish.

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It's vanity. It's lies So just stop And it's interesting to me because then he goes on to say offer the sacrifices of righteousness and put your trust in the

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Lord And what is that? It's like change what you're doing

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Sacrifice what you think, you know and begin to pursue righteousness and in order to do that You're gonna have to trust

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God That's the only way any of us can do it because we can't

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We can't just change our situation we think we can but the only one who's really gonna change our situation is

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God and So it tells us in other places lean not under your own understanding

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Right to trust God means to say. All right. Here's what his word says now I'm gonna go do it and see what happens

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Even if it's gonna be hard like it was for Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane Right.

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It was hard for him to continue to be obedient in that moment But he did it and he trusted his father in heaven

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Yes, sir Right.

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Yeah, it's it's another It's another reference, of course to the beginning of this chapter, which is you know,

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God is the God of your righteousness We can we can skip right through the last three verses and we'll be done because we're out of time but There be many that say who will show us any good

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Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us people are constantly looking for something good

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Constantly and they are so susceptible to The wolves in sheep's clothing

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But we talked about the wolves being in sheep's clothing. They come and The whole purpose they have is to devour the sheep.

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But what do they do? They look good So man is always looking for something good and He's constantly disappointed

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In all the places he looks ultimately the trap is he becomes jaded. He becomes skeptical

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Christians are that they are Massively attacked in this way

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They they think something's good in the business world and that doesn't work out

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So now they think oh the wise thing to do is be skeptical But that's not what

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God calls us to do Love hopes all things believes all things right? That doesn't sound like skepticism to me and so we we begin to fall into the trap of skepticism and The only way we're going to see anything good is if God Shines his the light of his countenance upon us when his face countenance means face, right?

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When the light of his face is upon us when he's looking at us that is when we feel good

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That's when we are fulfilled. That's when we when he hears us from heaven That's when things get better is when

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God's looking at us when we have his attention Think of Jesus hanging on the cross His biggest moment of despair was when the father turned from him and the light of his countenance was turned away

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And he says my god my god, why have thou forsaken me? And this is

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David calling to the Lord saying just let your the light of your countenance shine upon me Thou has put gladness in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased so in other words if all

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I have is you and The light of your countenance. I have more hope and joy and gladness than when things are going great for my enemies

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While they're driving me out of this land and I'm having to run from them and I'm being cursed by them

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Because I've been reminded of who you are and who I am in you and what you've done for me I am so much richer than they are.

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They may be sitting on the throne, but I'm still king Because you put me here. I will both lay me down in peace and Sleep for thou

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Lord only makest me dwell in safety The last thing I want you to take from this is that David has absolutely nothing to even fight

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He's not fighting. He's saying guys y 'all are in the wrong and you're in trouble with this guy my father

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So I'm gonna go lay down and take a nap Because when I wake up, you're probably not even gonna be there

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I'm gonna go lay down in peace. Y 'all are raging. I'm in peace And I'm gonna sleep that's the level of confidence he has he's safe he's got his buckler the lifter up of his head his glory and Then he turns he turns from telling them this to talking to God for thou

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Lord Only make me dwell in safety. The only thing that you do for me is keep me safe Right, and I don't mean that's the only thing

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I just mean there is no other outcome You can't not be safe Safety is your only place with the

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Lord peace safety Confidence the whole nine yards. So that's

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Psalm chapter 4 Sorry, I went a little overtime there we got started a little bit late but Hope you enjoyed it.

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I guess we don't have much time for For Comments, so we'll just close in a word of prayer somebody like to dismiss us in a word of prayer pop