Book of Psalms - Psa. 26, vv. 3-6

well good morning I guess we'll go ahead and get started it's been a minute told

Katie I was just gonna get up here and say as I was saying because it was 12 weeks ago at this point since I've done

Sunday school because we Ben and I started splitting it down the middle since he felt called to preach and stuff and we were gonna do six weeks him six weeks up me and then what happened was it was

I was doing adults or he was doing the adults I was doing the teens for Sunday and Wednesday and then we were gonna switch and I was gonna do the adults and he was gonna do the teens but he got this idea that maybe instead of me doing teens and him doing adults and then switching we should do like half and half

I do the adults and Sunday and he does the teens on Sunday and then on Wednesday we'd switch and I'd be doing the teens you're already confused

I was getting confused so instead of us just doing teens for six weeks and just doing adults for six weeks you'd have a

Sunday and a Wednesday where you switch so when he made that decision he was like so and he kind of got this look on his face like I knew what he was doing he was like so which one do you want and I was like oh so I'm not gonna be teaching one of them for like 12 weeks it is like yeah okay go ahead and keep doing your

Sunday school stuff and he said okay so it's been a while and we stopped right in the middle of a psalm last time so it's done it's in the archives just go watch it listen to it but I'll do a quick recap we are in Psalm 26 so when

I started teaching Sunday school here it was because it was out of necessity really brother

Bill Nichols passed away and he had just started the

Psalms and so brother Bill did Psalm chapter 1 and then he went on to be with the

Lord and I've picked it up ever since and so we are now it's been a while so yeah we haven't been going very fast through these songs but we're in chapter 26 and if you if you want all the details go listen to the archive but essentially we walked through 2nd

Samuel chapters 3 and 4 for some context because it is often thought that this psalm was written after the events of that so real quick recap of those events you have

Joab kind of wheeling and dealing to kill some of David's enemies and David's not happy about it because he has tried to stay above reproach in the assuming of the throne so when when his teammates come and say hey we killed

Saul's son he killed them for it and every time they tried to go outside of his commands he was like now you're in trouble

I know you went after my enemies but you're in trouble now and part of it was that he wanted to do it entirely

God's way he had a complete trust in the Lord that even though he had been anointed

King it was going to be brought about in God's timing and by God's methods and that he wouldn't have to go and take the throne even though in man's eyes he had all the right to do so so we have another instance of that in Samuel chapter 3 and 4 and like what happens anytime there's a change of power there are some people who like it and there are some people that don't and we assume based on David's prayer that he's essentially appealing to the

Lord because there are people that do not like David taking power and they're not happy about it so he has been in the eyes of some accused of some wrongdoing as if he's just another tyrant right now we've got ourselves another tyrant but he knows he's not and so we read through all that and then we got to the first two verses of this psalm and we saw that David starts off by asking the

Lord to judge him which is a pretty big deal ask God to judge you and so we'll we'll go ahead and read the first two verses again judge me

O Lord for I have walked in my in mine integrity I have trusted also in the

Lord therefore I shall not slide and we broke down some of the words for integrity the words for I have walked probably

I have walked was one of the cooler things we learned we found that I have walked if you if you look at the

Hebrew word for it which is halak and you break down what each letter in the

Hebrew means it meant behold shepherds palm and we talked about when we are walking with the

Lord David has preached this a lot you hold on to God's hand like that's how you walk with the

Lord is like you are in a spiritual sense holding on to Jesus's hand so the words for I have walked means behold shepherds hand she's pretty cool integrity meant cross blood now that this is each letter so like in the

Hebrew the word means something and then each letter means something and when you break down what the letters mean they add to the meaning of the word and so if you did that's what we did we just broke down the meaning of each letter integrity was cross blood and cross blood thorn and it just went to show that integrity comes the source of it comes from the sacrifice of Jesus and so we went through all that we talked about how he said

I have trusted also in the Lord I shall not slide trust is but which is bait that jet which those letters mean house surrounding fence or a boundary and when you are trusting in the

Lord you are acting according to the boundaries he's set when you go out and you drive your car you trust going 75 miles an hour down the road even though there's someone else doing 75 miles an hour down the road just a foot or two the opposite direction like we don't worry about it because we are trusting the boundaries that are set you know the lines even though people can go outside the boundaries there's an element of trust that you'll be okay staying within the and so that that's gonna bring us to verse 2 which is examine me

Oh Lord and prove me try my reins in my heart and the word for prove meant to can continue protect and reveal and the word for truck

I meant to smelt or refine and so it was as if David was saying you know protect and reveal the truth for here are these people who are accusing me of wrongdoing

I'm asking you to look at my insides because they can't do that and maybe it looks bad on me on the outside because my people went and killed those people so I'm asking you to judge me on the inside and to let that come out and be proved or revealed let the truth come out and so at the same time he's asking the

Lord to try him which is to refine his thoughts and feelings about it because if you think about it if if you are being wrongly accused of something and what do you often want to do if you're wrongly what do you guys think seek justice in what way like you want to prove that you're innocent right and so you would want to defend yourself you would want to set the record straight and what is

David done up until this point it has been he's he's always trusted in the

Lord and his methodology he hasn't sought to obtain the throne under his own power so it's as if he's like refine my feelings on this and keep me in that mode you know

I I'm gonna trust that you will reveal the truth I'm not gonna try to fix it myself

I dealt with my people and they can see all right he punished the people that did this so he's he's declaring that I wash my hands of that scenario but I can only do so much

I can't make people believe me so that's the part that I need God to do for me and so now we're in verse three and that's where we'll pick up so if you want if you really want to get into the details of verses one and two you have to go listen to the recording but verse three he says for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes and I have walked in thy truth now

I have as of late felt extremely loved by my wife

Katie in a in a you know you know you feel loved by somebody but then sometimes it just seems like they're going the extra mile and really making you feel special that has been

Katie last couple of weeks told her this last night I have not done as good a job at that as she has for me but she has she's gone out of her way to make me feel appreciated and important it has someone ever done that for you what does that do to you when you feel like they were they're just going extra to make you feel appreciated or important okay makes you

I love that it started with it makes you want right it makes you it changes a desire in you and then that want is followed up with either a

B or a do like I want to be something better I want to do something better and David who's appealing to the

Lord for his judgment has the Lord's loving kindness as his focus and so he's saying your loving kindness or thy loving kindness is before mine eyes and he follows it with what he does and I have walked in thy truth and the lesson there is that in order to walk in the

Lord's truth that has to be your focus is the Lord's love it's all centered around the love that he has for you and what he's done for you when we lose sight of that love it's pretty hard to stay in his truth if you are negligent of a every relationship you are not thinking of how does that person truly feel about me you're not thinking about do they do they love me do they desire to be around me or near me and it's very easy to get to the point where you are not thinking about how you're treating them because you're not thinking about how they've treated you and sometimes we go okay but what about when they do treat me poorly they treat me poorly now

I kind of want to treat them poorly you know the flesh will make me want to do something like that and so that's why it's so important that in our relationships and I I was at a wedding last night

I'm gonna just go completely off the rails here because this this fits really well

I drove down to Buda one of my basketball buddies was getting married and they had a full -blown service with a sermon right in the middle of like the bride and groom sat down for the sermon this is gonna be a little bit long and the pastor had a pretty good message it was that your love for someone else will have to be dependent on someone else's love for you and at first I was like wrong no

I disagree you know but then he qualified it he said your love for someone else is dependent on the love

God has for you that's who the love originates from and so if you make your love dependent like if I made my love for Katie dependent on her love for me it's just not gonna work because there will be times when she will fall short it's very seldom hardly ever but but if that happens then what's that gonna do to how

I love her if my love is dependent on how well she loves me then if she falls short then

I'm gonna fall short and if she's doing the same thing it's just gonna become this continuous cycle down and we've seen this in people we

Katie and I call it the crazy cycle right like you somebody messes up the other person gets even you never want to get even when they mess up because that's going down so he mess up again and they get even and she says oh you just is downward spiral it's terrible but when he qualified it and said your love is always dependent on the love

God has for you that's a never -ending love and if you make the way you love others dependent on that then you're gonna be pretty good at loving others and I was like okay this guy gets it like that's a good message for these two better and then

I'm going well that's a good message for me you know not just easy they're not the ones I need I need to hear that and so I just think it's really interesting that is

David walks in the truth that God has it originates with David's focus being on the love he has for him and so he says my attention is toward your love and my actions are toward your truth those kind of go hand -in -hand what is our part in that process

I mean obviously there's a there's the Lord giving this this unconditional love that just never stops so what's our part in the process of our daily walk what would you say that is okay taking that love and reflecting it to others right letting them see that love that's a that's a good thought because if the love

I have for my wife for instance is completely dependent on the love God has for me then in order to keep showing her that love

I have to keep focusing on that love I have to get a better understanding of that love

I have to study that love I have to go okay if I'm gonna show it to her

I better know what it looks like right and so part of that is actually going to be trust why why is it gonna be trust what do you think yeah no it's okay so you said that perfectly you said that perfectly so like let's say

I'm gonna show any one of you better love right if I'm gonna show you better love in order to know what love looks like I've got to have a source to say okay this is what love looks like right and now

I have to show it to you so obviously the easy answer is well part of my part is to study that right but what's the genesis of that I think is is trust and I'm gonna show you

I think that here in a second but why would you think that the genesis of me being able to look at this love and go okay that's what it looks like I'm gonna show it to Colin I'm gonna show it to Tyler why does that have to start with trust okay we are really relying on him

I was just what I was looking at was the fruits of the spirit and then the first love suffers long time and like so much of that is just it's like it's the fruits of the spirit yep it's he's the one so I think of loving other people there's a certain amount of your yeah right we're just gonna be we're just gonna do better today in and of ourselves that's really hard right good at recognizing when you're not patient or when you're in being or when you're behaving are you loving when you're you know sticking out your tongue just to be able to recognize that the flip side well this isn't how in the moment then you're trusting

God that he's forgiving you and he's also gonna give you his mind and his ability to love that person yep but you have to trust him for that mm -hmm and you have to trust that his way is better than your way and you don't need to get back and you don't have to that didn't sound like you've experienced that at all okay well so think of it like this you know how the scripture did you look like you're gonna say something

I think that we have to trust that God is going to love us really like that well think about what happens when you love and you put someone else first that to do it right requires a sacrifice which is a giving of yourself

I learned back in college I was talking about this pop last night

I kind of went on this journey of like what is love I just had my heart broken lost a bunch of friends and a girlfriend that's a good story anytime

I talk about it with Katie she falls asleep it's pretty fantastic but I decided

I needed I need to know what this love stuff really is because I thought I was doing it the way I'm supposed to as a

Christian and it didn't seem to work just didn't seem to work for me because it did it

I wasn't loved back and I I learned that love is a one -way street which means the world will tell you true love is where you love someone and they love you back but look at what

Jesus did while we were yet sinners Christ died for us you know while we were enemies with him yes because he first loved us so true love didn't require loving back it was going to be a one -way street until it wasn't and so when

I figured that out and I read through passages that I'd already read a thousand times before one of which being greater love hath no man than this than he that would lay down his life for a friend

I had been sitting and struggling with that verse because I was going I was willing to die for the people that I'm claiming to love

I know I would die for this person I know I would die for my best friend who he dumped on me you know and like that guy's a brother you know

I know in my heart I would die for him and I began to realize the verse says greater love then hath no man than this that he that would lay down his life and I'm thinking well but that sounds like dying but really what did

Jesus do before he went to the cross and died he lived for us a perfect life every single thing he did was a sacrifice in life for us he had to overcome the the flesh which

I can't seem to do more than a few minutes at a time sometimes it seems like he did it for 33 years without failing and coming to the point of being in the garden and sweating blood he was fighting it so hard I can't even imagine the kind of struggle that was for him and it was a constant giving and it drains a person we see every time that Jesus goes

I mean his whole life I believe was a spiritual struggle but every time it's highlighted like when he's going out into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan we see him in a state of almost being drained because the angels had to come and minister to him afterwards we see him in the garden sweating blood and we go wow we see him you know walking and power goes out from him when the woman touches his garment and we go it's not like he has less power but it is a giving and for us who don't have an we don't have infinite power we have access to the source of infinite power but when we're giving it's go there's a sense of sacrifice and energy being expended and it can drain us and so if we're dependent on the other person to fill that back up we're never gonna if we're doing it right we're always going to be less full than someone else can make us but if our dependency is on Christ's love we can always get back to full tank and is that making sense everybody following so far and so it's really important for us to trust

God in this process that he will fill our tank he'll make us feel loved like Ashton said but also if somebody comes to you and says hey let me do that for you whatever it is it can be bringing in the groceries or something

I don't know taking out the trash or getting here's a good example getting getting a room in the house clean right the kids come to mommy and say

I'm gonna do that the room for you in order to receive that there is a level of trust

Katie has to put in and if she doesn't put that level of trust then she's not gonna get to receive the blessing of the kids cleaning and really truly doing a good job of the of the room and so trust comes in relinquishing the need to be self -sufficient trust comes in in the ability to trust that the other person will do the thing it comes in having relinquishing a the feeling of duty like no wait that's my job

I'm supposed to clean the house that I'm supposed to do that's that's part of who

I am and what I do doesn't need to be a part of who you are what you do you have to relinquish control of a lot of things in order to trust and so trust is not an easy thing especially for us guys right like men typically have a need for control and a need to say

I'm I am in control in a situation and so a way to help with that is realizing that trust is a form of self -control it's a form of controlling your own fleshly desires to be the man your own fleshly desire to say well

I'm I did it I accomplished it and so when we are trusting the Lord like David says here he says for thy loving -kindness is before mine eyes and I have walked in my truth his actions are trusting that God's truth will help him in the situation his actions are trusting that God will get the job done like if he's anointed

King that is his calling in life think of how much trust it takes to say okay

I'm technically King but I'm not gonna go and take the throne some of us would struggle with well does that mean

I'm not walking in my anointing like it really takes a a man's ability to control his own desire to bring about the thing and get to know

God better in order to walk in his truth otherwise you have scenarios like Abraham who knows he's supposed to be a father and God said we're gonna have a kid and it hasn't happened for years and because Abraham and Sarah are like yeah it's not really working all right let's let's make it happen obviously that's this is our part we got to go do it and you bring about a really tumultuous family's dynamic and of course the

Lord uses it all for good right like when we mess up God can still use that and it's all part of his plan it was very obviously part of his plan to bring about Ishmael before he brought about Isaac man's role isn't just to make sure

God's will is done it will always be done our role is to trust that God will lead us in the way we're supposed to go and that he will make it happen like he says he will make it happen it doesn't relinquish us of responsibility when

God makes it obvious here is here's an opportunity for you to do something like you're supposed to do you go and do it and so think of how much of a struggle it is to know the difference between this is my my role

I'm supposed to step into it or this is my thought that I'm imposing on God's will and I'm gonna step into it because it's there and I could if you don't know

God's truth you're not gonna know which one you're doing you're gonna think oh I'm just it's there it's an opportunity so I should do it because obviously

God put the opportunity there and you do it and you might not be doing it according to God's methodology so how do we do that we get into his word we study his truth we understand what that truth is and we trust that it will come about we keep in this case his loving -kindness always before us and when we do that we go okay now based on God's loving -kindness based on what

God says in his word if I take this step which I could take is it a step that aligns with what

God says a Christian man should do if it is a step that aligns with God's Word and I can take it there's a good chance

I should take it but if it's a step that's a little bit wonky like oh

I should take my wife's handmaiden you know maybe

I should second -guess myself on this right God has made me these promises and I'm leaning into you so it's interesting that I was thinking about David how he didn't kill

Saul at the time because he knew this isn't how God is putting me on the throne.

And it's not that these godly men that are such fantastic examples in many areas.

It's not that they never mend up. But even here, David's taking responsibility for what his men did.

He says he's not at fault, but he is responsible. And he handled them accordingly.

And I think that is an area where a lot of these Old Testament patriarchs are such an example to us.

It's not that they didn't ever stumble. Some of the mistakes are just like, are you kidding me? But they do take responsibility.

David does here and many other times. Abraham took responsibility and they reap what they sow.

David lost a child. I mean the consequences are pretty huge.

And the example that's being set, the Lord has given us layers of this example.

Obviously what you just brought out with these great men of God who go, okay, when

I mess up and I don't do it by God's way, there's a punishment for that.

Or like there's a repercussion, right? But then even

David, who is a man after God's own heart, gives us that example with his men who went outside of his commands, did it their own way.

And he's like, last time someone did that, I strung them up and they're dead. So guess what?

And then he kills those guys. And so we get examples, just tons of them of like when you do it the right way, things go pretty great.

Do it the wrong way, it's not like, oh, it didn't go as well. It's like, no, things go terribly wrong.

And so we've got to be very careful about just stepping into what we can step into.

Because in all of those scenarios, it was something they could do. So you could justify it in the flesh and say, well,

God made it so that I could do that. He gave me that opportunity. Not every open door is a door that God wants you to walk through,

I guess is what I'm saying. You've got to ask the Lord, is this the open door I walk through? Or do you have a different open door?

And if I don't see the other open door, that doesn't mean I walk through this open door. It means

I keep asking until it's 100 % certain that this is okay for me to do.

And it's good for me to do, so I'll do it. And then I'll trust that I was right. But if I haven't checked that out at all, and I just walk through it because it's an open door,

I could end up really messing things up. So it does take a lot of discernment, because there are a lot of things we can do that we shouldn't do.

If you try to be the whole problem -solving man all at one time,

I just think it has to be referring to different seasons of life. It's a lot.

You can always just say, what would you like me to do, honey, to actually be the head and be the one that has to help navigate that, which is seeking the

Lord first. Yes, I mean, but husbands are a blessing.

So Charles Spurgeon says, Faith trusts God to accomplish

His own decrees. Why should I steal when God has promised to supply my need?

Why should I avenge myself when I know that the Lord has espoused my cause?

Confidence in God is a most effectual security against sin.

So you've got to get to the point where you don't just say, all right,

God made me an able -bodied person, so I'm just going to go do it. You've got to go, all right, God did make me an able -bodied person, and that's a whole lot of power, but with great power comes great responsibility, right?

Now I've got to ask the Lord, how do I wield this power? How do I make sure that just because I can do it,

I don't do it for that purpose? I do it because you've made it abundantly clear I should do it.

And that does take some discernment. So then we have, we'll move on down to verse 4.

I doubt we'll get through the whole chapter, but maybe we'll see. So in verse 4 he says,

I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers.

The word for dissembler means to conceal, hide, or be hidden, which is interesting because you go, well, of course you won't go in with someone who's hidden.

But what that means, a dissembler is someone who has a hidden agenda or a hidden cause.

So enough to hang out with people who are just blatantly rejecting

God. But there is something particularly vile about being, say they belong to the

Lord and don't. People that are pretending to be

Christians, concealing it. And now we have to be careful too because we have all been that person at one time,

I think. At least if you grew up in church, at some point you were probably very much like a pretender.

I know I was. I grew up in church and church was just always a part of life. And I knew how to speak the language of a churchgoer.

I knew how to look like a churchgoer. And when the Lord changed me,

Satan used that time of my life. He'll still to this day try to use that time of my life when

I knew I had this imposter syndrome. When I knew I wasn't following God, but I could make it look like I was.

He'll still use that anytime I slip up to say, that's not who

I am anymore. But Satan will put that label on me and say, ah, there you are.

I remember you, you imposter. And I have to remind myself and trust

God that he does love me the way he says he loves me. And that that's not me anymore.

And so when David says, I have not sat with vain persons, people who are just looking out for themselves.

It's all about them. Neither will I go in with dissemblers. I'm not going to be counted among those who pretend.

So in other words, Lord, I'm not a pretender. It's like he's reminding himself of his true identity.

I am not one of those that acts like he knows God and doesn't. I know

God. He has revealed himself to me. And one of the great callings in our life now is to get to know him better.

Because Satan will use your lack of knowledge of God against you too. Do you know God? Because there's a lot you don't really know about him.

It's going to be that way for a long time. And the more you know, the more you find out you don't know.

And so don't let him use that against you. Part of trusting God is that when he says you're his, you are.

When he says that you have been made new, old things have passed away, you have been.

And you are not this dissembler type person anymore. And so here's what it means.

It means that David looks different on the inside from the people that he keeps on the outside.

So I look different than those people. I won't be counted among those people.

Verse 5. I have haters and will not sit with the wicked.

Now here's another Spurgeon quote. A man who does not hate evil terribly heartily.

That's one to contemplate. We hear the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the

Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. In Proverbs it also tells us that the people who hate evil.

And so we need to practice that at times. Old man that's still attached to us and that old man will never hate evil.

He will always try to pull you back into evil things. So we have to learn to really keep

God's loving kindness at our forefront. In order to walk in his truth, which is we are not that old man anymore.

We're someone new. And so when we begin to understand that we will begin to experience what

God's word says that it divides. Even into the like divides the bone from the marrow.

We begin to have a separation between identities are who we used to be and who we are now.

And when we recognize that we are no longer who we used to be.

You are someone else. You will have to act like something else when you begin to believe you are something else.

It's just because the way your psychology works you will always move towards congruency.

And so it's very difficult and I think we've all experienced this too.

If you have experienced the imposter syndrome. It's tiring. It's hard to keep acting a certain way when you know you're not that way.

And it will drain you. And so understanding the difference between who you are and who you were will begin to change the way you act.

So you have to trust. You have to trust that you are somebody different because God has told you you are somebody different.

I will wash. Oh wait no I've got another cool Spurgeon. I got a lot of Spurgeon quotes this week.

Obviously David this is not a Spurgeon quote here. David has said I hate those who hate you.

Because he's beginning to identify more with the Lord. And I am my cause is his cause.

Therefore his enemies are my enemies. And if his enemies are wrongdoing. If his enemy is anything evil

I will hate evil. And so Spurgeon says let each reader see.

This is a cool one I think. Let each reader see well to his company. For such as we keep in this world we are likely to keep in the next.

Make sure you keep some good company there. Alright verse 6.

The washing of hands is a sign of complete disconnection from a deed.

We have an example of that Pontius Pilate questions

Jesus. Sees no fault in him. He comes out and he says this guy seems innocent to me.

What do y 'all want to do? Crucify him. I wash my hands of this.

This isn't going to be on me because I don't see any fault with him. And so you have here

David. Obviously long before Jesus walked the earth. He's washing his hands in what he says is innocency.

Now Pontius may have done the act of washing his hands and saying no

I disagree. But he still gave Jesus up to the crowd. He was not innocent.

He portrayed an act of innocency. What does that make him? Maybe like a dissembler.

Right? But he wasn't innocent. David has started this chapter saying look on the inside.

I am a congruent human being. I'm not just acting innocent. I am innocent in this.

I had no knowledge of what Joab went and did. I had no knowledge of my men going and doing something outside of my commands.

The world looks at me and goes sure you didn't. But on the inside I'm washing my hands of this.

But on the inside it's a true thing. I'm innocent. So David is washing his hands with not just of the guilt of accusations placed against him but with a clean conscience that it's not just a sign of innocency.

It's true. He has true innocency and the washing of the hands is just a congruent act from what's true on the inside.

He says so will I compass thine altar O Lord. What do you think that means? So will

I compass thine altar. It's one of those phrases where it's like I think it's just a

Bible word. That's just some Christianese or something there. I get the whole

I'm going to wash my hands in innocency but so will I compass thine altar. What's the word compass mean?

Surround. Be around. There is there is a well let me tell you what the word means first.

The word compass means to surround or march around. If you look it up it actually means to march around.

So if that's what David is doing marching around the altar. What comes to mind?

What's one of the first things that comes to mind when you hear the phrase march around? Yeah like that's the first thing that comes to mind is

Jericho. Well what do we learn from Jericho? First you have an impossible impenetrable fortress.

There's no way that the Israelites can overcome the walls of Jericho. It's just it's impenetrable.

And so this is the task at hand the impossible. By the way loving a human being is an impossible task.

To love a human being properly it's impossible. You can't do it by yourself.

Jesus had to come and show us even what it looked like to do it. And he did it and he did it perfectly and our goal in life is to do it.

Kind of sort of somewhat resembling what might look like an inkling of perfection in a moment.

And then try to string as many of those moments together as possible. So that we can say well we kind of look like Jesus but as best as we could.

It's an impossible task. Jericho impenetrable.

Israelites how do they overcome the impenetrable? They start by listening to God. Joshua just listens to the

Lord. If you go and read about Jericho he is receiving instruction from the

Lord. God is commanding Joshua what to do. And it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Just like when you're trying to love a person. Sometimes it makes absolutely no sense what you're supposed to do.

When they're doing something that's making you feel like doing everything except love.

You mean I'm supposed to return good evil for good? Like I'm supposed to be good to this person?

They're really getting under my skin right now. If you have a task at hand to accomplish even let's put love aside for a second.

Any task that you have in life that you have to accomplish. You can only do things because of God.

How do we know? Apart from me you can do nothing. So anything you do in life is impossible for you to do it.

At least for you to do it in God's way. You might be an able -bodied person and have opportunities to do stuff.

But you're just going to mess it all up. You're always going to choose the wrong things. So impenetrable fortress.

God's people listening to God. And following his methodology even though it makes no sense.

It's also very specific. The methodology that the Israelites have to follow to overcome

Jericho. It's like we're going to get real specific. You're going to march around this number of times. On the last day, the seventh day you're going to march around.

I think it was six times or seven times and then blow the trumpets. And break the glass.

Like okay, break the lamps and blow the trumpets. This is war? Okay. And they have to follow very specific instructions.

That's something that you should take note of. Because often when God tells people to do things.

Go read Leviticus. Go read Deuteronomy. He has very specific instructions. He's not a

God who leaves it up to you to guess what to do. And so if you're going,

I'm supposed to guess what to do. There's a good chance you haven't consulted the Lord on what to do.

So then they march around day one.

All right. How many rocks fell down? Do you see any cracks in the wall yet?

Nothing. Okay, we're going to march around day two. How about now? Stomp your feet harder tomorrow.

Okay. Stomping our feet harder tomorrow. Any shakes? Did somebody fall off a wall and die?

Is this working? They have to wait on the

Lord. They follow His specific instructions. And then they have to wait. Which is, by the way, what

Abraham did. You know, they stopped waiting on the Lord. And in comes the handmaiden.

Finally, after seven days with zero signs of success. Which is a long time in a battle, by the way.

The other guys are probably laughing at us at this point. Like, hey, they're playing music for us.

Yay. After seven days with no signs, how many people charged the wall and broke it down?

None. Who broke it? God did it. Trusting that God will accomplish

His means by His methods. It's not that you don't have a part. You've still got to go walk around.

It's just we tend to, as humans, think that our part is supposed to mean us in the moment.

Like, I'm that wall, because that's what you would do to break down a wall.

And if my part makes no sense to me, and I can't see how it would work, why would I do it? That doesn't matter.

You do it because God told you to do it. So you do your part when it doesn't make sense, and you just trust.

And you probably won't see anything happen at first. Which makes you go, well, did

I do it right? Do it again? And again?

But nothing happened yesterday or the day before that or the day before that, and I've got to do it again? Isn't that the definition of insanity?

God doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results? We're day seven now. Oh, we get to do something different.

Why didn't he just have us blow the horns on day one? Couldn't we just break the lamp Sunday? That's not how

God said to do it. So you keep doing what you know the Lord has told you to do until he either tells you to do something different or something happens as a result of you doing it.

That could be years. You just keep doing it and just keep plugging away and see what happens.

Then you get to that principle that Myron has taught so many times.

There's work you do on work, and then there's work that work does on you. Because for those seven days,

I promise you the Israelites were getting worked on. Like, I'm not even going to go out there tomorrow.

This is stupid. You mean I've got to get up in the morning and walk around again?

I look so dumb out there. Like, that work was working on them. It was doing something to their psychology.

And when it finally worked, okay, I'm going to do it. Joshua says do it.

He says that God says to do it. I'm going to do it. And when it finally happened and the walls came tumbling down, what did we do different?

Like, how did that work? And you realize, okay, it worked because God made it work.

And I did what God told me to do, and He accomplished that for me. The work that we do in our relationships, in our work, it matters because obedience matters.

Even if we don't know why it matters. Because God's Word will never return void.

His Word always works. So when God's Word is for us to repent, when the

Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, when His Word is to confess our sins, when it is to come unto me, all you who are weary, when it's to cast your worries, we do it.

Even if we don't see results at first, we just do it. Why? Because we are His. It doesn't matter what the odds are.

It doesn't matter what the outcome is going to be because we trust that the outcome is for our best interests.

Because all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. We listen, we follow, we wait, we watch.