Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Open our Bibles and turn to Psalm 112. Psalm 112. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the day. We thank you for our time together, praying and interceding for each other, being able to fellowship together and feast together.

We thank you for this word. We thank you for the Psalm 112. We thank you for the assurances we have here in your Son, Jesus Christ. And I pray that you would help us as we read, that you would give us the grace to not only understand, but that our hearts would have a hearty amen to this word, that you would do your work in us.

We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, let's read Psalm 112 together. Verse one, praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in his commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth.

The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches will be in his house and his righteousness endures forever. Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness. He is gracious and full of compassion and righteous.

A good man deals graciously and lends. He will guide his affairs with discretion. Surely he will never be shaken. The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance. He will not be afraid of evil tidings.

His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established. He will not be afraid until he sees his desire upon his enemies. He is dispersed abroad. He is given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever.

His horn will be exalted with honor. The wicked will see it and be grieved. He will gnash his teeth and melt away. The desire of the wicked shall perish. When I got the news Stephen Black was in the hospital intubated with sepsis, I thought, another bit of bad news.

It just hit me. I thought, my gracious, more bad news. So I began to think about what it is the believers to do when we have bad news. And when we have this verse, verse seven in Psalm 112, it says, he will not be afraid of evil tidings.

He will not be afraid of bad news. And in the original, it's not to be afraid, a kind of a passive response is an active thing. He will not fear. He will not fear evil tidings. He will not fear bad news.

His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Now, this is an easy question, but have you ever been the recipient of bad news?

Yeah.

We can probably remember those incidents very well. Very well. I remember the day I received the news from my father-in-law that my nephews had been kidnapped and nobody knew where they were. That's bad news.

And that leads me to my second question. Have you ever been the bearer of bad news? You're the person who has to tell somebody else the bad news. Because I had to be the bearer of that bad news to my wife.

There's being the recipient of bad news, but then there's the one that you have to be the bearer of bad news. Sometimes it's required of us to be both. We have to hear the bad news and turn right around somehow and give it to somebody else who needs to know.

He will not fear evil tidings. He will not fear bad news. How often do we wait for bad news? We're just kind of waiting for it. Or when the phone rings, oh, there it is. Especially at certain times of the day or at night, the phone rings.

As a pastor, when the phone rings at very odd hours, I'm always greatly relieved it was somebody with a pocket call. They were fumbling their phone and they called the pastor for no good reason at all.

Do you ever find yourself captivated by bad news? Doom scrolling. Oh, here's another bad thing. Oh, here's another bad thing, right? The algorithm just pumping you full of bad news. Captivated by bad news, sharing it, trapped by it, concentrating on it.

We fear bad news when we do not entrust our hearts to the Lord. We read in our passage that the God-fearer's heart is steadfast, unafraid of bad news. And instinctively, I think we read the verse and we say, hmm, I better trust the Lord rather than being afraid of evil tidings.

And that's a good instinct. But there's a lot of rich context here in Psalm 112 and verse seven that I think will help us in that. I think in rightly understanding and applying this verse in context, first thing is to consider the shadow of covenant blessings regarding bad news.

Now, when we read through Psalm 112, and we are introduced to a man in verse one. Okay, and this man is described in many different ways until we get to verse seven and we read that he will not be afraid of evil tidings.

And we read that this man, his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. But verse seven is just one little piece of the description of this man being described throughout the entirety of the Psalm. The Psalmist is putting before us a man.

Hey, look at this guy.

Here's what he values, here's what he thinks, here's what he does. And here's all the blessings that this man enjoys. It is a man to be put into our imaginations. We're supposed to think about him and consider his standing with God and with others and how things go for him.

And verse seven is part of that big picture. Now I say all this because verse seven, I think would very likely be on a knickknack somewhere on somebody's wall. And that's not a bad thing at all, it's a great verse.

But it is one part, one piece of a description of a whole person being described for us in the Psalm. So what direct descriptions do we have of this man in Psalm 112? What do you see in the text? How is he described?

Okay, yeah, fear is the Lord, that's very, very important. It's put up there in verse one for a reason. Somebody who thinks of God's first and thinks of him most in every situation. Yes, he delights greatly in God's commandments.

Makes sense if he's thinking of God first and thinking of him most, he'd be thinking and delighting in what God has to say. Yeah, in verse two, he's called upright. Verse four, he's upright. Verse three, we hear about his righteousness.

Verse four, it says that he's righteous. In verse six, we hear that he's righteous. And in verse nine, we hear about his righteousness. I think maybe the psalmist is trying to get something across. Here's a man who fears the Lord and is righteous and he delights in God's commandments and he looks to be pretty blessed.

Anything else that we see about this man? Yes, he is gracious and full of compassion. You know, I kind of want to meet this fellow, you know? This guy sounds like a really great guy. Sounds like the kind of neighbor we'd all like to have, right?

Somebody we would be very blessed to know. We see how he relates to God in verse one in that he is blessed, blessed is the man, right? The Lord is blessing him. This man fears the Lord. He's thinking of God first.

He's thinking of him most. He's delighting in God's commandments. We see how the man relates to his own people like there in verse two, right? So what about his descendants? What about the generation that comes after him?

What about the people close to him? Well, he deals graciously with them and he lends to them and he's influencing their lives with wisdom. How does he deal with the poor? Well, he's gracious and compassionate to them.

In verse nine, we hear that he gives freely. So there's those who are close to him that he deals well with and then there's the needy around him that he deals well with. And then how does he deal with the wicked?

How does this man interact with the wicked? Verses eight and 10. Yeah, on what? Taking out his enemies. Look at the second part of verse eight. This guy's no joke. You see that? His heart is established.

He will not be afraid until he sees his desire upon his enemies. Down you go. The last part of verse nine talks about his victory in classic ancient Israel terms. His horn will be exalted with honor, right?

When you get two rams facing off with one another, what are they gonna do? Boom, right? And one set of horns is gonna best the other set of horns, right, as a classic scene of conflict. And whenever you hear the poets and the prophets asking for the horn to be exalted, it means this set of horns besting this set of horns, okay?

Well, how do the enemies take it in verse 10? Oh, they're just sick. They're fit to be had. So we see how he relates to the wicked and we see how he relates to his possessions in verses three and five as he gives and as he lends and as he is very generous and he's very wise with what God has entrusted to him.

And I think it's important that we think about all of those different vectors of relationship and remember the context because here in the Old Testament, here we have the psalmist writing about a man who is blessed.

Why is he blessed with the Lord? Well, because he fears God and he's upright, he's righteous, he's righteous. Look how righteous he is. You see how he relates to God, how he relates to his own household, how he relates to the poor, how he relates to the wicked and how he relates to his own stuff.

And this is a wonderful profile of what it means to find a man who is upright and righteous according to the covenant standards that God gave to his people Israel. This is a pretty good Israelite. He's on task, he's on target.

And because of that, he is blessed. He is very, very blessed. Let's put one of our bookmarks there, Psalm 112 and let's go back to Leviticus 26. Leviticus chapter 26. And while you're looking that up, I'll read for you a really quick summary of what is going on here from Deuteronomy 6 verses 24 and 25.

Moses is saying to the second generation, and the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes. Remember, he's just given the 10 commandments and plus. And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God.

And that's at verse one of Psalm 12, isn't it? Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. Notice he says to fear the Lord for our good always. How are things going for the man in Psalm 112? Pretty good. That he might preserve us alive as it is this day.

Verse 25 of Deuteronomy 6 says, then it will be righteousness for us, if what? If we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God as he has commanded us. That's what the man in Psalm 112 was doing, right?

The commandments that God gave to Israel were drawn across the same lines as what it means to be made in his image. Therefore, the man in Psalm 112 is loving God supremely. He's loving others rightly.

He's stewarding what God has entrusted to him responsibly. And he's following all those commandments that God gave. And it is righteousness for him. Not in the sense of he can stand before God and have a forensic declaration made over him that he is not guilty and acceptable to God based upon his performance and his works.

That's not the issue. The question is, is this man being faithful to the covenant? Question isn't whether or not he is gonna earn his way into heaven, right? We have a different consideration in mind.

Because if the people of Israel were doing the right things according to the covenant, they would also be offering sacrifices for their sins, right? They would be going and asking God for forgiveness and offering up sacrifices and working through those feast days.

Not a one of them saying that they have no sin. That would not be keeping the commandments. But if they were following through on all of those commandments that God gave, then God would say, yes, you are keeping covenant.

And therefore, here's all the blessings. Here's all the blessings. Now, that's why I had you turn to Leviticus 26. Because having read Psalm 112, this expanded examination of covenant blessings, I think we'll find some similar themes.

Leviticus 26, verse three. If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, you know, the ones that man was delighting in, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season. The land shall yield its produce and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

Your threshing shall last to the time of the vintage and the vintage shall last to the time of the sowing. You shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely. All right, talk about the man who had a wealthy household and he did not, it doesn't look like he's going anywhere.

Verse six, I will give peace in the land and you will lie down and none will make you afraid. Sounds rather familiar. I will rid the land of evil beasts and the sword will not go through your land. You will chase your enemies and they will fall by the sword before you.

Five of you shall chase a hundred and a hundred of you shall put 10 ,000 to flight. Your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. Sounds like the horn that is exalted over the enemy and puts them all in despair, right?

For I will look on you favorably, right? I will bless you. I will make you fruitful, multiply you. I'm the generation of this man's household and confirm my covenant with you. You shall eat the old harvest and clear out the old because of the new.

I will set my tabernacle among you. My soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God. You shall be my people. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt that you should not be their slaves.

I have broken the bands of your yoke and made you walk upright. What does it say to the man? He walks upright. He walks upright.

He is righteous.

He does the right. So Psalm 112 is a poem that is profiling the covenant-keeping man. And look how blessed he is. And look what he values. And look what he's after. And that's where verse seven comes in, that this man who's enjoying all of these blessings, one of the blessings that he enjoys is that when evil tidings come his way, he says, oh, I'm not scared.

Right?

His heart is steadfast. He's trusting in the Lord because he's the covenant-keeping man. So he's not scared. He fears the Lord. He's not fearing the bad news coming his way. He's a very steadfast, steady kind of guy.

This righteous, covenantally faithful man will not be afraid of evil tidings. Now, what if he was an unrighteous, covenant-breaking man? Then he'd be plagued with fear. He'd be jumping at his own shadows.

How do we know that? Well, verse 13 says, here's the blessings for the covenant-keepers, but then it goes on to say, here are the curses upon the covenant-breakers. So in verse 17, God says to the covenant-breakers, I will set my face against you and you shall be defeated by your enemies.

Those who hate you shall reign over you and you shall flee when no one pursues you. That's the complete opposite. Verse 36, again to the covenant-breakers. And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts, into the lands of their enemies, the sound of a shaken leaf shall cause them to flee.

They shall flee as though fleeing from a sword and they shall fall when no one pursues. See the opposite? In Psalm 112, one of the blessings of the covenant-keeping man is that he's just not afraid of those evil tidings.

He can't be unsettled. He can't be dissuaded from his sense of trust and calm and being at ease or in shalom with his Lord. So that's what Psalm 112 is showing. This is one of the things that the Israelites would be reflecting upon and the Levites might say a word about before they all sing it together.

And yet, given that we are invited in verse 12 to consider the consummate covenant man, the most faithful man, who is the most blessed man, what descriptions stand out to you as reflecting Jesus in this psalm?

Because isn't he the most faithful covenant-keeping man to whom all the blessings have been granted? I mean, just look at Psalm 112 again and look at some of these descriptions. Which ones do you think just kind of shout Jesus?

Don't be shy.

Yes, his righteousness endures forever. That one really shouts out Jesus, doesn't it?

Yes.

Yeah, and so that's it. When you have the time, read Psalm 111 along with Psalm 112, and you'll see that the descriptions of the Lord, Yahweh God, are also being used of this covenant-keeping man as well, which also speaks to us of the incarnation.

Yeah, 112 and 111 are their own little prelude, but 113 through 118 are the great hallel. Yes, that sounds familiar. He is gracious and full of compassion and righteous. What a great description of our Lord.

You know, as you're reading through this, and you're like, man, what a guy, what a man. This is exactly the kind of person I would like to know, that I would like to be in a relationship with. Why are we drawn that way?

Because here we're seeing the image of the invisible God made manifest in a single person. And isn't that Jesus Christ? Isn't he this way? When we think of Jesus as our perfect covenant keeper, we remember that at the crucial moment, the dearest test in the most fearsome situation, Jesus entrusted himself to his father, didn't he?

As we consider verse seven and what it has to do with Christ. Didn't he entrust himself to his father? Father into your hands, I commit my spirit. And so this is what gives us the surety, the scene of Christ's beauty related to the bad news is what gives us the surety of courageous believers when we respond to bad news.

How can we be sure? How can we be steadfast? How is it that we can be confronted with bad news and yet still be steadfast? Well, rather than isolate the verse from its psalm, from its context or from the Old Testament, I mean, it'd be easy to take verse seven and just kind of turn it into one of those daily affirmations that you yell at yourself in the mirror.

But having located it in the psalm and located it in the old covenant and then located it in Christ, we have our surety that we can face bad news. All the covenant parameters, all the promises, all the blessings are fulfilled in him.

All the blessings are his and he mediates those blessings to his people by his spirit. What are some promises that Jesus has made that give us courage to stand fast in difficult times? What are some of the things that he has said to us, things that we've memorized?

I will never leave you nor forsake you, Hebrews 13 .6.

Yeah.

I mean, just John 14 through 16, all three chapters. Fear not for the Lord is with you. We have many promises. We have Matthew 28 .20, and lo, I am with you, even to the end of the age, right? Courage, courage.

We need to locate ourselves in Christ. He is the covenant-keeping man and we're in him. That's why we have the blessings. He's borne our curse, taken the curses away. The blessings are in him. And so we must trust in his capacities.

We must trust in his capabilities. We must trust in his credentials. We must trust in his compassions and rightly see ourselves as crucified with Christ. Given the nature of the atonement, we may confidently say that the worst thing that could ever happen to us has happened to us in Christ on the cross.

So Christ faithfully entrusted himself to God, so may we when the bad news comes. Paula shared a story with me, was it Sunday night, about G. Campbell Morgan, about how a woman came up to him and asked, well, how can I trust God with my large concerns?

And with a twinkle in his eye, he told her,.

Well, they're all small, right?

Given the size of God and given the reality of Christ,.

They're all small.

But what will we do when bad news comes? Well, just a thought, having a look at the covenant-keeping man in Psalm 112. Hebrews 2 .10 calls Jesus the author of our salvation. It's an interesting word.

It has the sense of the trailblazing captain of our salvation, that through his sufferings, through what he has endured, he brought many sons to glory, that he's the one who charted the path through suffering to glory.

So think of Jesus as the captain of our salvation. You know, if you're in a terrible situation, and let's say, let's just hypothetically, lost in a forest in a blizzard rolling in, and you look over at the captain of the expedition, and you find him smiling and at ease, oh, this happens all the time, we'll be fine.

How does that affect you?

Right?

A little closer home to the Bible stories. In the middle of a sea with great waves, boat about to sink, checking in with the captain, and he says, oh, we're fine. What does that do for you, right? In this sense, that's why we don't have to fear evil tidings, that's why we don't have to be afraid when the bad news comes, and we can be steadfast because of our Lord.

He's the captain of our salvation, and one look at him, he knows it's fine, so we know it's fine. He's our rock. In the valley of decision, in the dungeon of despair, in the crowds of Vanity Fair, crossing the river, our captain's heart is steadfast, and ours may be as well.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the time you've given us in your word. I pray that you would help us to be ready to trust in Christ and to rest in him when bad news comes, remembering that you have given us Christ.

As our captain, we pray these things in his name, amen. And we're dismissed.