Book of Psalms - Psa. 27, vv. 3-14

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Welcome to Sunday School. We're in Psalm 27. I'm already doing it.

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Yeah, we're recording now. We're going to be in Psalm 27 and we started this psalm last week.

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We got through, I think, three verses and the hope is to get through only 11 more today.

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I don't know that's going to happen. The emphasis on hope, yes.

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The joyful expectation that it will happen. Let's start with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

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We thank you that it's truth. We just ask that it instruct us and we apply what we learn in it today to our lives.

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We love you. It's in your name we ask these things. Amen. Alright, so Psalm 27. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

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Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?

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When the wicked, even mine enemies and mine foes, come upon me or came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

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Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will

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I be confident. We talked last week about how kings, we've been talking about how kings instill confidence in their people.

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And David here is talking about a progression of worse and worse enemies that he can face because of the confidence he has in the

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Lord. So we're going to kind of pick up here in verse 4 at this point.

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And make sure my notes are here. One thing have I desired of the

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Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the

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Lord and to inquire in his temple. It's interesting because it seems like three things, right?

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One thing I desire and I will seek and then he names three. The reason being, what do you think?

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Why is it that way? Yes. So the thing that he desires and that he will seek after.

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Take note there. Not only does he have a desire for it, but he takes action on that desire.

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A lot of times we'll say things like, oh, I want this or I desire that. And we think if the

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Lord put that on my heart, then I'm, you know, I'm delighting myself in the Lord. I'm going to get it because I'm his.

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So if I just pray hard enough and just think enough about it, then that's all

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I have to do and God does the rest. What's interesting is David here says he's going to actively seek the thing that he desires.

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So he puts action to it. He's got a personal responsibility. And now granted, if we are desiring or if we are delighting in the

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Lord, he will put certain desires in our heart so that our will will line up with his will.

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And when that happens, we can truly say like we can only do these things because of the

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Lord. He gives us the desire. So it kind of starts with him. It always starts with him. But the things that he does to us and through us should cause us to change and do something ourselves.

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And we're going to see that. In fact today, and if we don't get through all of this today, next week as well, we're going to talk about weapons of war that we have, spiritual weapons of war that David employs here.

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And that's man's responsibility to do certain things. But it starts with God, right?

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It starts with God. So what I shouldn't have had all this cream in my coffee.

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It's going to make me cough a lot. But oh well. One thing have I desire to the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the

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Lord all the days of my life. That's the one thing. The other two things are the purpose of the one thing.

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So Papa's right. They're all part of one thing. The reason why he wants to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life is so that he can

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A, behold the beauty of the Lord and B, inquire in his temple.

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Now to dwell in the house of the Lord is to be within his presence. Like if you go to someone's house, you're going to visit the person, right?

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You're going to spend time with them. You don't typically go visit somebody's house for the sake of visiting the house, right?

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It's like I'm going to go see the house. Jen says I might. She's kind of into interior design and stuff.

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She might would do it. But yeah, like if you came to our house, you might look around and judge whether or not we decorated it well, but you'd be there saying something about what the person, right?

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So it's just a way to visit. I get you. Yeah. All right. We're on the same wavelength. That's good. It's ultimately to visit the person, right?

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And so here David wants to be in the presence of the

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Lord. And when he's in his presence, there are two things that he plans to do. One, behold his beauty.

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Have you ever been to a place? That you went to to behold beauty, a place.

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All right. So what place was that? Grand Canyon, Tyler Rose Garden.

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Those are great examples. Anything else? Think of one.

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I mean, that's obviously one of the first ones that comes to your mind, right? Think of whichever one was the most memorable to you.

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What do you think of? Okay, the mountains.

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Okay, Machu Picchu. What do you think when you think of those places? All right.

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You think about the creator, similar to going to someone's house and thinking about did they decorate well, right?

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But you you look at the beauty. And what?

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Okay, you look at the beauty and you begin to ponder, right?

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That's what tends to happen. That's kind of what David is saying here. I want to behold the beauty and inquire, which is a little bit even more than pondering.

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It's like questioning. Like I want to not just think about it. I want to like explore it a little bit.

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I want to really want to ponder. I want to look at this with thought, you know.

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And it's interesting that he says he wants to dwell in the house of the Lord. That's going somewhere.

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Now think of a place that you've been. Maybe it's the same place. And do you have photos of it?

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Or can you find photos of it? Yeah. Okay. When you look at photos, what does that do?

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Yeah, it reminds you of it. When you talk about it just here, we don't even have the photos. But when you talk about it and you remember it, it calls to mind some of the ponderings, right?

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But talking about it or even looking at pictures of it is absolutely nothing like actually being there.

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And David wants to dwell in the house of the Lord. He wants to be there. There's something about that that touches all the senses.

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You look like you want to say something. Dwell and to live, to live there.

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I just moved my note. I stretched them out so I could see them better. But now they look different because they all, instead of paragraphs, now they're all sentences.

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So I got to make sure I'm on the right place. Okay, so why is being there so much better?

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It's because it's like immersion. It surrounds you. It touches all the senses.

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It touches the eyes. It fills the nostrils. It's felt on the skin, you know.

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It passes over your taste buds as you breathe in. Like air tastes different, up in the mountains especially, right?

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I'm thinking of when Katie and I went to Yellowstone. She stood out there. It was

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September -ish, October. And it's just like this winter wonderland with warm rivers that are steaming up in the background.

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It just looks like something out of a movie. And there's bison not far away. You can see them walking and, you know, like fog coming out of their nostrils and stuff.

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And she stood there and just got overwhelmed by the environment. And everything looked different.

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It felt different. When you'd go out and it was under two degrees at night, when you'd walk in the snow, it would squeak different.

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And so sounds were different. Smells were different. Sight was different.

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Feels were different, you know. Like it was all so much different actually being there.

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Now, we look at pictures all the time. We've got pictures up in our closet of the place. And it always jogs our memory about how awesome that was.

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And we talk about it, but there's just nothing like actually being there. And so it's interesting that David is talking about dwelling in the house of the

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Lord. And really what he means is being in the presence of the Lord. But it's not the first time that the

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Lord has been described as a place. You know, it's all throughout

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Scripture. You see him described kind of like a place. Here's some examples in some other

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Psalms. Psalm 91, Lord, thou has been our dwelling place in all generations. In the very next chapter after that, he that dwelleth in the secret place of the

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Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. So to look upon the beauty of the

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Lord is to first and foremost be in the presence of the

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Lord. You can see remnants of his beauty all around you, just creation in and of itself.

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But to actually dwell in the presence of the Lord is a totally different kind of beauty. I've got here

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Matthew chapter 6. I'm not sure why, but I had a reason.

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Verse 22, the light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

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Oh, it's because when you're looking or beholding, perceiving with the eyes, what you focus on is going to determine like how you act, and it's going to determine the way you operate in this world.

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Well, we're about to talk about weapons of spiritual war that we're supposed to use. Those are ways we act and things we do.

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So it's always going to start by beholding the beauty of the Lord, which you do by getting in the presence of the

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Lord. So it starts with him. There's presence, which should shape your perception, and it should cause you to ponder.

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With me so far? All right. Anybody have anything you want to say before we launch into the next verse?

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Cool. Verse 5, for in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion.

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In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me up upon a rock.

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Now, remember back in verses 2 and 3, David had been mentioned this progression of enemies, right?

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The wicked, which anybody who's just not good, right? Any not good force or human or it could be specifically

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Satan, who's often called the wicked, like all evil is against David, right?

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So any evil in general, he says, is his enemy. Then he names mine enemies, who

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Jenny correctly identified as adversaries, anyone who just opposes you, not necessarily physically like they're going to try to harm you, but they just want to mess you up.

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They want to see you fail. They want to cause drama, that kind of stuff. But then he talked about his foes, which are those who actually want to attack or harm.

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And then he had a host, which is a group that would either oppose you or attack you.

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And then ultimately we talked about how war could be upon him, and that could be a nation because wars are started by nations, and nations are not just people, they're ideals.

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And so you can eliminate the people, but the nation not quite die if the ideals still exist and someone else adheres to them.

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So it's just a progressively bigger and bigger enemy that David can endure against.

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But how does he do it? He does it with first focusing on the presence, pondering the beauty of the

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Lord. Now he's saying that he's going to be hid from all those enemies.

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Now what does it mean to be hid? Does that mean the trouble just doesn't come? What do you guys think? Ashton's shaking her head no.

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Comes but doesn't find or doesn't reach him perhaps. Okay. Yeah.

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That's good. So Matthew chapter 10 reads, or chapter 10 verse 28 reads,

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And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

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And that's kind of what Ashton's getting at, is like there is safety and protection where it actually matters, which is at the point of the soul.

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When you think about being in the presence of the Lord, we often think about, well, when we get to heaven, right?

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And we are with him physically, right? And we get to see Jesus and give him a hug and bow down at his feet and worship him.

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That's how we tend to think of it. But we can be in his presence spiritually here right now.

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And so when he is hid, it's a spiritual hiding. And like Pop said, the trouble can come, but maybe it doesn't even reach you.

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A pavilion for a king is often pitched in the midst of the army, right?

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So the army completely surrounds the king's pavilion. And you've got to go to the pavilion to get to the king.

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And the king's servants could do that. They could go to the pavilion. His soldiers could go and visit him at the pavilion.

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But he was at the center of the army during encampment so that he was the most protected there, right?

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What's interesting is that there's this element of going to the king.

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When David says he will hide me in his pavilion, in order to be hid in the pavilion, you've got to go to the pavilion.

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And so there's this idea of personal responsibility. But then he says, in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me.

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Now, what's a tabernacle? And the secret of the tabernacle would be considered like the

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Holy of Holies, the place in which the Lord resides.

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But what's interesting is the tabernacle is where the Lord came to his people and lived with them.

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So you have kind of both sides of the equation here. You have a place where man goes to the pavilion, but then also

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God comes to man in the tabernacle. Now, in order to go to the tabernacle, especially to get into the

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Holy of Holies, this is, of course, prior to the cross, you had to be the high priest and you had to be the most sanctified.

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And if you weren't sanctified properly, then you would die when going into the

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Holy of Holies. And they would have to drag you out by a rope. So they would tie a rope around the priest, and he'd go in, and he'd sacrifice unto the

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Lord, and he would be in the presence of God. And they'd tug on the rope a little bit, and if there was a little tug back, then okay, he's still alive in there.

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If there was no tug back, they might start pulling out a dead body. Like, you got to make sure you are completely sanctified in the presence of the

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Lord. What does David want to do? He wants to always be in the presence of the Lord, which implies he wants to always be sanctified.

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He knows that he has a responsibility to do that, which we'll see here in a little bit.

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He shall set me up upon a rock. Now, in battle and with armies, this is considered the best position.

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It's not just on solid ground or in a fortified place, which a rock would indicate.

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I think of that movie, The Rock, with Sean Connery, right? That's a fortified prison there, but it was very hard to storm a place like that, right?

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And being on a rock or in a castle, that would be a fortified place.

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It's very hard to get to, but it's not just upon a rock. It's up upon a rock.

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It's also the high ground. So it's the perfect place for all conflict.

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Whenever you're in war, you want the high ground. You want to be in the stronghold. This is a stronghold on high ground.

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It's perfect. And notice he says, he shall set me up upon a rock.

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There's a dependency there, right? That's something that the Lord does for his soldiers.

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None of our weapons will work without God first providing his presence. This should cause us to perceive him.

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It should cause us to ponder the fact that he is here. And the more you dwell on the presence of your God, the more you will begin to employ the following weapons of war.

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So there's a verse in Ecclesiastes that goes well with this concept.

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It's Ecclesiastes 7, 14. In the day of prosperity, be joyful. But in the day of adversity, consider

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God... And by the way, consider is like pondering, right? God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.

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So what do you consider? God. And what he does. That's what you ponder.

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Alright, we're in verse 6 of Psalm 27 now. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me.

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Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea,

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I will sing praises unto the Lord. Now I'm going to give you a little hint. We've got a theme of alliteration going on here.

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First, the presence. It starts with the presence of the Lord. It goes to your perception of that presence.

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And your pondering of the presence. So we've got a bunch of Ps. What's the next weapon of war?

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The first weapon you should employ after perceiving the presence and pondering that presence.

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There is something that you do. And it tells us here in verse 6.

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Mm -hmm.

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Praising. Got it. Yep. And you praise by doing things like sacrificing.

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Sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. See, there's a visualization here that David is showing us.

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This is part of his perception. His perception has been changed due to the presence and the pondering of the

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Lord. He is already seeing victory. The victory isn't yet here, but he already sees it.

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And that's so important. You can ask anyone who's been successful with anything. They have to have the ability to see success before success is actually there.

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Like when you go in the locker room and you're getting ready to go play a big basketball game, they're telling you, like, they're talking about we're going to win this championship.

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We're going to be lifting the trophy. We're going to go out there and we're going to win this next quarter.

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We're going to win this next play. And you visualize each thing, right? You're dribbling up and you're getting ready to try and score, and you're already visualizing, like, where do

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I go to score? Everything is a future visualization, and what you see will often be what comes about.

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Now, it's not like you've got prophetic vision or anything like that. That's what some people do is they try to take it to a giving man credit for some kind of spiritual superiority or something like that.

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It's not that. It's just it's actually a type of faith. The Scripture tells us in Proverbs 29 where there is no vision, the people perish.

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And so if you don't have a clear, like, in business we call it having clear goals.

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Like, this is where we plan to be. And if you're not clear on that, you don't have purpose.

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It's very hard to be intentional when you don't know where you're going. So, like, if I want to go from here to Florida, or I want to go here to somewhere, if I just say

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I want to go from here to somewhere, where am I going? But if I say I'm going to Florida, okay, well, now

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I have a direction. I got to go if I'm going to go to Florida. I could go any direction, but there's going to probably be a specific direction, right?

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And so this visualization occurs because his perception has changed, right?

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And so he begins to praise the Lord because he is expecting that victory.

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Psalm 42 says, and this is another version of David directing his thoughts intentionally, 42 .5.

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Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

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The help of his what? His countenance, which is his face. You see his face when you're in his presence.

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The countenance is often used to show favor, right? Like if the

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Lord shines his countenance upon us, it's to depict that we have favor with God.

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And so where does this help come from? It comes from the presence of the Lord. So perceive

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God's presence, ponder it, praise him for it. Verse seven, hear,

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O Lord, when I cry with my voice, have mercy also upon me and answer me. Now, this confidence that David is showing, it's not based on any personal merit.

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We know this to be true because he asks for mercy.

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Someone who is righteous and awesome doesn't need mercy. He's asking for it.

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He's asking for mercy. David is what you'd call poor in spirit. He's dependent on the

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Lord. He definitely has multiple abilities.

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Like he's a very capable man. He defended his sheep as a boy from a bear and a lion.

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He defeated Goliath, a giant that would crush armies. Did it, you know, out there with a pebble and a sling.

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But he didn't do it alone, did he? He's always been dependent. And when he went to meet

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Goliath, he recalled the things that God had done with him in the past.

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So he he's always very aware of the presence of the Lord because he's dependent on that presence.

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What's interesting about being poor in spirit is that that's what it means. It means to be as if as if a beggar, like begging for help.

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And if you'll remember in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Those who are poor in spirit receive dominion. Which is kind of the whole point of war.

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You know, like if you're going to be winning in war, you're taking ground, you're obtaining land.

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David doesn't seem to employ weapons of mass destruction like he's capable with the sword.

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He's capable with a pebble like he can use just about any physical weapon. But his first weapons are weapons of spiritual warfare.

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He's poor in spirit. He's dependent.

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Philippians 4, 8 gives us an idea of how he how he portrays this poor in spirit attitude.

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Be anxious for nothing, but by what? Prayer. There's our next P. By prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

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There's your praise. Let your requests be made known to God. So when we are aware of God's presence, when we perceive it and it changes our perception, we begin to praise him.

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But then our next weapon of war is prayer. Verse 8.

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David has used prayer. But it's not his only weapon of war. He's praised

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God. His second piece that he goes out there with is the weapon of practice.

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Practicing obedience to God's commands. We too must come first in prayer to God and we should leave such prayer with all intent to obey

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God and his commands. Here's what he says. My heart will say time to seek.

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If you tell me to knock, my heart will say it's time to knock. If you tell me to ask, my heart will certainly formulate the questions and out of my heart, my mouth will speak.

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He's obedient. You told me to seek you. That's what I'm going to do. And it's like instant.

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So after you praised and prayed to the Lord, focus on your practice. Obey his commands.

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Which means, how are you going to know how to obey? You've got to know what to obey.

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So you have to know his commands and where do we find his commands? In the word.

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Right there in scripture. In fact,

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Hebrews 1 tells us that God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.

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His son is the word made flesh. You're reading the scripture. You're reading

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Jesus's words. That's why when he talked to the Pharisees, he's like, you search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life.

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But they are they which speak of me. It's like they're not just words, they're my words.

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And so when David goes out of prayer, he goes straight into practice.

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But as Christians begin to practice and they begin to do good things, what happens sometimes?

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Huh? The enemy will come against you. But what do we tend to do when we start getting on a pretty good streak of being good?

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This is the P you try to avoid. Pride. Right. And how does

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David avoid such pride? Verse 9. Hide not thy face far from me.

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Put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help. Leave me not.

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Neither forsake me. Oh, God of my salvation. Certainly there is not one ounce of pride in David's declaration here.

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Why? Because he knows God could have reason to be angry with him. I mean, I've certainly sinned before.

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It would be just of God to be angry with me. He must know.

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Think of what preceded David. King Saul, who wearied the Lord and ultimately had the hand of God removed from him.

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Like, he has precedence to go, I am very dependent on God sticking around.

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If I mess up and I have messed up, he could rightfully leave me.

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So with that in mind, David constantly is aware of God's presence.

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So when you begin to practice, and you get pretty good, the antidote to the pride is to remind yourself of the presence.

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And he says it in four different ways here. He says, hide not thy face far from me.

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When you hide something, it's like it's there, but it's concealed. It's like if your presence is there,

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I don't want it concealed. I want it known. I want to be able to see it. I want to dwell in the presence of the

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Lord, in the house of the Lord, right? But then he says, put not thy servant away in anger.

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So don't cause me to have to leave your presence. That's different, right? Like the presence could be there and I'm not aware of it, but at least it's still there.

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Don't send me away from your presence. Then he says, thou hast been my help.

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He reminds himself and he tells God, the only reason why I'm able to practice what

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I practice is because you're helping me. And he says, leave me not. Now, leaving is different than sending away.

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Like, don't take your presence away from me. Don't leave me here and you go. Certainly don't send me away and you stay here.

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I want to be where you are. Neither forsake me,

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O God of my salvation. Don't take your presence leaving me, which is different.

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You know, if, think of it like this. Here's the difference.

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It's a very nuanced difference between leave and forsake. Because you know how the scripture says, I will never leave nor forsake you?

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Always made me go, well, isn't that the same thing? Is it just being redundant? There's actually a nuance here.

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There's a little bit different flavor. So like, when I was a kid, probably 11, 12 years old, something like that.

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We went to church and we were going to a little bit larger church called Believers Fellowship.

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And when we got done, I went and hung out with all the kids outside and I was playing.

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And mom thought I went with pop and pop thought I went with mom and my parents left me. But they didn't forsake me, right?

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They just left. It's like they moved on, they had things to do, and it was like, oh,

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Dave got left behind. It wasn't like this intentional, like, you leave him there.

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You know what, he didn't come, just leave him. Maybe, right?

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They say that now. I remember the story vividly. I'm like trapped. I'm gone.

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Like, they're gone. I'm not getting home. I'm like, what do I do? Turns out they just left me.

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But that's different than forsaking. Forsaking is, no, leave him there. You see the difference?

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Like, when David says, don't leave me, it's like, don't get so busy that you forget about me. Don't go on without me.

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Yeah, you could. You could forsake some. That's a weird thought, pop. You could forsake someone without leaving them.

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Because you could just forsake, turn your back on them and stay. Oh, man, good thought there, pop.

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So yeah, there's a difference. You see the intentionality there. David is saying, like, don't get so busy that you go on and do your thing like I'm just left in the dust.

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Don't do that. But also, don't go, you know what? I'm done with you. Certainly don't do that.

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So there's like this progression of I want your presence in every way.

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If it's there, I want to know about it. If it's there, don't put me away from it.

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If it's there, don't take it away from me. You know? And certainly don't forsake me.

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Don't turn your back on me. Here's a good example of forsaking.

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This just popped in my mind. Like when I think it was Katie and Paul and Jenny were at the store, and they knocked the tubs over.

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So Katie and Paul knocked these tubs over. They just fall over on top of these. They were little at the time. Fall over on top of them, and it's like this big pile of stuff just fell all over the place.

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And Jenny was like, I'm not sticking around for that. That's a good forsaking, right? Jenny's like, out of here.

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She was not going to stick around and be embarrassed. Yeah, that's a good example. That's true forsakenness right there.

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That's a good picture. Oh, goodness. So verse 10, he says, when my father and my mother forsake me, then the

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Lord will take me up. Sadly, in the days that we live in now, we hear of mothers and fathers leaving their children, like forsaking their children.

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And it's truly evil times. Like while this has happened to some kids,

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I mean, even with it happening, I think it's still considered just the most appalling type of forsakenness.

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Like it's truly just going to rock people's world to have a mom and a dad.

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Of all people, they're the ones that typically would stick around for you, right?

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They're the ones that would typically be like, I'm not leaving you for anything. You know, I'm not forsaking you for anything.

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In fact, like even in a time when we've got divorce, what do the parents often do?

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Stick around to stay near to the kids, right? So to forsake for a mother and father, like David is saying here, to say my mother, when my father and mother forsake me, it's like when there is zero love left in all of mankind for me, because if mom and dad forsake me, then certainly everyone else would.

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When it gets to that point, the Lord is still there for me. He won't forsake me.

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There's one that sticks closer than a friend. You know, there's one that's better than a brother.

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The Lord will always be with me. That's like the source of his confidence. And he has to remind himself of God's presence to keep that confidence.

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Verse 11, teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies.

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Now, David takes on kind of a subservient role of student here, which is to say,

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I don't even know what to do. Now, how many of us, when we're met with some kind of frustration, we're like,

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I don't even know what to do at this point. I mean, that is a type of spiritual warfare.

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It can be tiny things, but like anything that opposes God's people, whether it be tiny or huge, it's spiritual warfare.

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And there are times when you're like, I really don't know what to do. There are other times when we think we know what to do and we just go and do it.

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And sometimes we'll get so caught up in our own doing that we forget about the presence of the Lord and we end up doing something wrong.

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Or we go, man, I could have done that way better. It's because we weren't focused on his presence. And so David here is saying, no,

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I want to know, I want you to teach me what to do. There's zero self -reliance here.

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Not only does he want to be shown what to do, he wants it to be simple. He's like, teach me thy way,

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O Lord, and lead me in a plain path. Like, he's not even going to say, just show me what to do.

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And I got it from there. He's like, show me what to do and make sure it's simple enough for me to understand. Because your thoughts are not my thoughts.

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Your ways are higher than my ways. Like, let's keep this simple for me, God. And if that wasn't enough, then he's like, lead me.

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So show me what to do. Keep it simple so I can understand it. And then could you please do it with me?

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Like, you do it and then I'll follow. I'll just copy what you're doing. It's so poor in spirit, which is awesome.

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Like, he's so just dependent on everything for the Lord to not just show him what to do, but to keep it simple and then actually do it first.

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Like, do it where I can see how you did it. And that is why it is so important to remember the

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Lord's presence. It's not so that you go, well, God is watching me. It's so that you go, oh, yeah,

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God's doing it with me. And he says, because of my enemies.

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He's reminded of the problem. And he always thinks first of the Lord, and then he directs his attention to the problem.

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First God, then the problem. So when problems arise, we tend to go the opposite direction.

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We sit there and we worry and we worry and we worry until we feel trapped and there's nothing else we can do. We've tried everything we could.

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We go, now I'm going to have to go to the Lord. When really what we should do is go, oh, man, that could be pretty bad.

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Let's not give it any attention whatsoever and even think about how bad it is until we first go to the Lord. Let's focus on his presence.

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Let's praise him. Let's think about it. Let's ponder it. Let's pray about it. Let's practice obedience to him.

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And then we'll come back and see just how bad this problem is. Maybe it's not as bad as we thought. Verse 12, deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.

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He says, my enemies give false witness. What is a witness? Seeing something.

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And if you can testify to it, it's probably because you've seen it. What does it focus around? Sight. That's why we call it a witness.

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You sit up there and you are a witness because you witnessed with your eyes something.

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It's interesting that David brings up his enemies and their use of eyes because he says it's essentially to say what they see isn't true.

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It's false. They're using their eyes. They're looking with their eyes and they're bearing false witness.

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So it's not even true. And as a result of that false witness, all they know to do is to breathe out cruelty.

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Like cruelty is as common with them as breathing. In contrast,

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David says how he operates. Verse 13, I had fainted.

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I'd have been toast. That's how I read it. I would have been toast. Unless I had believed to see.

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Now, that's an interesting way to put it. What comes first? Sight or belief?

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Belief. So there's an element of faith here. Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the

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Lord in the land of the living. So here again, we see faith giving

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David his sight. It's the vision of victory. It's the perception, the hope for goodness, a land of living, not doom, not destruction, not death.

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In verse 12, we saw the enemy operating from what he saw, which is false.

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David operates from faith, which changes what he sees. Hebrews 10 .38

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tells us, Now the just shall live by faith. Habakkuk 2 .4,

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Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith.

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Second Corinthians 5 .7, For we walk by faith and not by sight.

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You see the contrast? Like the enemies, they're operating with their eyes and they give false witness.

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And cruelty is like breathing to them. David could not see God's goodness unless first he had faith.

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And the faith, of course, comes from the Lord. And he walks by that faith first.

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Then he worries about what he sees. How much better would we be tackling problems that get us worried if we'd stop looking at the problem and start looking at the presence of the

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Lord first? And then verse 14, Wait on the Lord. Before we say that, before we say that, when

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David recognizes that it's the Lord who helps him.

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And it's the Lord who gives him the faith to see the goodness of God constantly throughout all of this.

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Even when he's doing his practice, he's remembering the presence of the Lord. What does that show us? Like God is helping through the whole thing.

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And it's kind of tough sometimes to depend on God helping because his timing is different than our timing.

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You know, we go, well, all right. I asked for it and it didn't happen immediately. So now God must mean that I'm supposed to do it all myself.

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That's the trap that Abraham fell into, isn't it? Like, well, I'm supposed to have a child of promise.

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No kids yet. What do you think, Sarah? Well, let's just go into the handmaiden that caused a world of hurt.

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Right. And so we tend to not be patient. And that's our next weapon of war.

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Because we're not waiting on the partnership of the Lord in the present.

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Yep. Wait on the Lord. Verse 14. That's the last verse of the chapter.

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We did it. Yes. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart.

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Wait, I say, on the Lord. There's a whole lot of waiting there. We see here the fourth powerful weapon of war of the man of God.

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He starts with the presence. Maybe my numbers are all wrong here. But he starts with, like, the presence, which is not something that you can create.

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The presence comes from the Lord. He has to be in it. You go and seek it.

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Right? Like going to the pavilion. He'll come to you, and you go to him.

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There's a joining of the sovereignty of God and man's will perfectly together there.

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Like, if you try and go, and he doesn't come, then it won't work.

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That's why when Jesus said, you'll seek me, and you won't find me to some. Right? Like, that could happen.

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That's what David fears most is, like, if I go and seek, I want to find. Take not thy presence from me.

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So be aware of God's presence. Allow it to change your perception so you will see victory even before it happens.

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Ponder his effect on your life and on the situations around you. Praise him for being there.

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Pray to him for victory. Practice obedience to his commands. Partner with him to actually get it done and be successful in that obedience.

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And patiently wait on him for the victory to come. And that is Psalm 27.

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You have anything else you want to add? We went through 11 verses, guys. Good job. Wow, that's a record for us.