Cited to reassure listeners that their struggles are common to all people
13 No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Referenced to affirm that God is love and that all His attributes are exercised in love
1 Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
3 and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already.
4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
5 They are of the world. Therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them.
6 We are of God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not of God doesn’t listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God.
8 He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.
9 By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.
16 We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17 In this love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love him, because he first loved us.
20 If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
21 This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.
Cited as God's call to parents to teach children experientially as they walk through daily life
1 Now this is the commandment, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it;
2 that you might fear Yahweh your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you; you, and your son, and your son’s son, all the days of your life; and that your days may be prolonged.
3 Hear therefore, Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with you, and that you may increase mightily, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised to you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
4 Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one.
5 You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
6 These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart;
7 and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
8 You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
9 You shall write them on the door posts of your house, and on your gates.
10 It shall be, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, great and goodly cities, which you didn’t build,
11 and houses full of all good things, which you didn’t fill, and cisterns dug out, which you didn’t dig, vineyards and olive trees, which you didn’t plant, and you shall eat and be full;
12 then beware lest you forget Yahweh, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
13 You shall fear Yahweh your God; and you shall serve him, and shall swear by his name.
14 You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples who are around you;
15 for Yahweh your God among you is a jealous God; lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
16 You shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah.
17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he has commanded you.
18 You shall do that which is right and good in Yahweh’s sight; that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land which Yahweh swore to your fathers,
19 to thrust out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has spoken.
20 When your son asks you in time to come, saying, “What do the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh our God has commanded you mean?”
21 then you shall tell your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand;
22 and Yahweh showed great and awesome signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes;
23 and he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore to our fathers.
24 Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are today.
25 It shall be righteousness to us, if we observe to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.”
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Dustin, a friend of Pastor Brad's visiting from Dallas, preached through Psalm 86 on Sunday morning. His central idea was that when we bring our need to God, God brings himself in relationship, and life in union with Christ deepens. It is a message about recovering the awe of walking with God by learning to stop pretending we are fine.
What was said
Dustin opened with a memory from his time as a travel nurse in Coronado Island, California. The first time he crossed the bridge onto the island, the beauty stopped him cold. But after weeks of twelve-hour shifts, crossing that bridge in the dark both ways, the awe quietly disappeared. He used that as a picture of what happens in the Christian life, where the wonder of salvation fades not because God changes, but because we stop engaging him honestly with what we actually need.
The bulk of the message worked through Psalm 86, a lament written by David. Dustin noted that roughly a third of the Psalms are laments, which he defined as complaints to God done in trust. He pointed out that God welcomes this. Verse one sets up the whole Psalm: David calls out to Yahweh by name, acknowledges he is poor and needy, and asks God to incline his ear. That first verse, Dustin said, contains the entire sermon in miniature.
Dustin drew a comparison between David's posture and the way his three-year-old daughter Elle gets his attention. When he zones out from the noise in the house, she grabs his beard and turns his face to hers. She is unashamed of her need. Dustin said that is not what is wrong with her, it is what is right with her, and that David operates the same way before God. He has what Dustin called a right-sizedness, neither demanding nor shrinking, but coming as a son to a father.
Moving through verses three through seven, Dustin traced David voicing sadness, loneliness, and fear, and noted that David begins to shift partway through by recalling how God has answered him in the past. That move, evoking God's character and track record inside the prayer, is something Dustin called experiential knowledge. He argued that good theology has to be earned through lived experience with that theology. You cannot really know the Comforter if you have nothing you need comforting from.
Dustin paused twice to give the congregation a moment of quiet to do what David does. First, to name a need in a single sentence. Second, to give thanks for what God has already done. He framed those as following David's example rather than just observing it.
Verses eight through thirteen show David's prayer changing shape. It becomes a dance, Dustin said, between voiced need and voiced praise. He warned against two ways that dance breaks down. One is focusing only on need, which slides into navel-gazing. The other is wrapping everything up quickly with "but God is good" without ever saying what has made him good to you specifically. David, he said, does neither. The needs and the character of God weave back and forth through the closing verses of the Psalm.
Dustin closed by returning to his arrival in Jackson. He said he stepped off the plane Thursday and was immediately struck by the mountains the same way he had once been struck by that island. But he knows from experience that the awe will fade if he stops surrendering and starts seeking to live independently. He tied that back to the sermon's main idea: being needy is not what is wrong with us, it is what God made right about us, and bringing that need to him is how the relationship stays alive.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Dustin described how the awe of Coronado Island faded as it became familiar, and connected that to how our sense of wonder at God can fade over time. Has that happened in your own walk with God, and what do you think caused it?
Dustin said that being needy is not what is wrong with us but what is made right about us, and he pointed to his three-year-old daughter grabbing his beard to get his attention as a picture of how David approaches God in Psalm 86. What makes it hard for you to come to God with the small, everyday needs, not just the big ones?
Speaker 3Okay, everybody. Welcome to First Baptist Church. We're glad you're here today. Things are a little bit different. Normally, this is a contemporary service with guitars and all kinds of other instruments.
But Ray, Carl, and Mike are all gone on spring break. I am the only staff member on duty today, so be gentle, if you would. We we have three lovely singers, and Judy's playing the piano for us. So we're gonna we're gonna take it back a little bit and sing some traditional hymns. It's good for the soul.
It's good for all of us. Would you join us? Why don't you stand with us? The words will be on the screen, and, we'll get started today.
DustinGreat thou art. Today, I don't have a great voice. I barely have a voice at all. So I am very thankful that these two women are to my left carrying these tunes. But welcome, everyone, and let's sing again, How Great Thou Art.
Alright.
Speaker 3Yeah. Everybody have a seat real quick. We're gonna do announcements. Before before we do, let's let's pray. Let's welcome the Lord in here today.
God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for all your provisions, for the chance to be here together as your church, Lord. People from all over the world gathering together in this moment to worship you, Lord God. Thank you for your grace and your salvation that is available to us for free. Lord God, thank you so much for all these wonderful people.
May we glorify you today even if it's imperfect, Lord God. May this moment be for you. Amen. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to First Baptist Church.
We are delighted to have you here. It is Hill Climb. Do we have any hill climb people here today? Wow. Nobody?
Okay. Alright. Never mind then. We're glad they're out there, I guess. I don't know.
But we're glad we wanted them here. There is no Awana. Tomorrow, every Monday, we usually have Awana, but we're taking a break off for spring break. Vacation Bible School has been announced. We would love to get volunteers and people signed up as soon as possible.
If you need help with this, let me know. There's a QR code, and all the information is on our website as well. And we'd like to like to take a moment from missions to let you know what's going on in the world. Paco and Didi are some of our own homegrown missionaries who were from Jackson, and they're over there in Spain trying to start churches to encourage people to to know the Lord. And they're doing great stuff, but we need to pray for them if we can.
So would you would you mind joining me? Lord God, thank you so much for Paco and Didi and their burgeoning little family, God. And I just pray that you'd bless them today with your joy and your spirit. Lord, would you open up doors in Spain for people to come to know you, to be alive in you, Lord God, and that you would would just start up a wonderful heart for people to have for you, Lord God, in Spain. That they and that they would be provided for, Lord God.
Thank you thank you for those people and their joy for you, Lord. May you may you keep that going. Amen. They're wonderful. So if you have any more questions about them too, their information is on our website as well or come chat with me if you would.
And all the other information you need is pretty much on the website except for Nevaeh. Would you mind standing up for me real quick? She is starting a welcoming group here. Yeah. Let's give her a round of applause.
A welcoming committee trying to get things set up in the church, ready to go in the mornings, and then greeting people out there. It's an easy way to serve. If you're interested, please come see Nevea, and we'll try to have her information up soon. Just didn't get done. On our church email as well, we're trying to get volunteers to do some little things around the church to help out.
As I mentioned, I am the only one here for this week. So if anybody's looking for something to do, I will give you something to do. That would be great. And our weekly email also has a benevolence update, which is great. It's helpful as well.
Faith app is looking for somebody to help move. So if you have some time, would you check-in with her next next Sunday? She needs some people to help her move. And then also, we're gonna get some practice in for for the summertime. In the summertime, it gets bananas in here and there are no extra seats.
So what we're gonna try to work on, and you don't have to do it today because we have extra seats, but I would like everybody to start sitting in the middle of the rows and then work their ways out if they can. And we're gonna do with the same challenge we did last year and have no first few people, if possible, in the last four rows. If we can do that, it's gonna be great. And we'll start bribing you with fun things if you'll sit in the front row. We've got two wonderful volunteers who are smiling because life is good in the front row.
So come experience it if you would. But we just wanna make room for extra people. When new people come in, we want them to be able to easily access the side rows and be able to take those seats in the back where the shy people are. So would you would you open up that opportunity? And as we welcome you back into song, would you stand up, greet one another, and we're gonna come back to some wonderful hymns again with our wonderful singers.
DustinMorning.
Speaker 2So let me invite the ushers up. And we're one of those crazy churches that actually believes in prayer. So I'm gonna I'm gonna pray for the the offering here before we start passing plates. Father, thank you for the way that you have provisioned each and every one of us uniquely. And whether that's time, whether that's talent, whether that's treasure, Lord, we help us to recognize that it is from you and not of ourselves.
So, God, as we pass this plate, Lord, would we also open our hearts to you? We love you, God. We pray for our time and worship together. Amen. Now as Judy starts is is about to play, I do wanna remind you that if you're new to first b, we don't expect you to put anything into this plate.
We don't expect you to be investing in a church that you don't know. But if you trust us, if you're a part of this church, if you're a part of this family, then consider, as Paul says in second Corinthians nine seven, not to give under compulsion, but to be a cheerful giver. So thank you. Kids, get out of here. Okay.
Now we're good. And while they're leaving, I wanna invite my friend Dustin up. So you guys are in for a treat. Dustin is a friend of mine, from Dallas, that I've that I've known for some time. And Dustin is going to share a little bit of his own intro, so I won't spend too much time on that.
But I do wanna pray for Dustin, and I wanna pray for us as he teaches for us. So, father, thank you for bringing my friend Dustin to town. And, God, I pray for each and every one of us that we would open our hearts to you, that we would open our minds to your word, that we would be open to receiving more of the spirit and being more sensitive to what you are calling each and every one of us into. I pray that you would give dust in the words that you want your people to hear and that anything that is not of you, we would forget, but the the stuff that is of you, Lord, that it would fundamentally change our lives. We love you, God.
Thank you. Amen.
DustinAmen. Thank you. Howdy, folks. It's very, very sweet to be with you. If I'm out of breath, it's because I'm adjusting to the altitude or I'm slightly anxious, but it's like a healthy jitters, you know, pregame stuff.
But really, really great to be with you. My name is Dustin. Like Brad said, I'm I'm from Dallas, and we're gonna be going through a sermon today called Psalm 86, the the neediness of man and the faithfulness of God. This is my family. This is the best part about me.
If you wanna know about me, this is the best part. My wife, Callie, we've been married for fifteen years, and we have five kids under nine, so pray for us. We are extremely buried. Rose is nine, and then Isla is seven. Jude the dude, he just turned six, and then Elle in the backpack there, she's three.
We need a lot of prayer there. And then Opal is our little bundle of joy. Everybody she's everybody's favorite. So she's five months. And so, yeah, she's really sweet.
I hear her. She's in that yelling phase, so I hear her on the phone yelling nonstop. And so I want to tell you
Speaker 3little bit about
DustinI've had a lot of careers in my time, one of which was a nurse. And so I was a nurse for a while in the pediatric ICU, and we did some travel nursing. And one of the assignments was in California, and it was specifically in San Diego, but not only in San Diego, it was in Coronado Island. So that's I worked across the bridge in the city, but we we lived on the island together. And I had never been there.
And so as I was getting there, you take this really big bridge over that just kind of careens into this little island that is I mean, it's it's kind of out of a movie. It's half residential, it's half navy, it's about the most American you can ever feel. You're there, the jets are screaming by, there's battleships out in the ocean, the sun is setting, the palm trees are there, it's a balmy 73 year round. And I remember the first time coming over that bridge, I was my breath was taken away. It beautiful, like full of awe.
I'd never seen anything so beautiful in my life. The common question is, right, are you a beach or a mountain person? I realize I'm sitting with a whole lot of mountain people right now. But in that moment, I became a beach person, and I was like, this is amazing. And it's interesting, a phenomenon that happened not long after that was as my wife bopped around town with her two little kids going to the beach, I would take the bridge over and go work twelve, thirteen hour shift and then come back.
And it was dark in the morning and dark at night. And slowly but surely, the beauty of it and the breathtaking nature of it and the awe started to fade. And I start there because I think that's common to our experience as as humans. We tend to take for granted the things that are closest to us, and, it's like that in our relationships. I mean, if we're honest, we really do take for granted a lot of the things that are are close to us.
And I think it translates even to our relationship with God. As as we continue to walk with God, the, the beauty, the breathtaking nature of when you first were saved, the awe that you experience with God slowly starts to fade, and it's part of the human experience. And, we we really need to recapture that as believers. We need to recapture the awe and the wonder of our relationship with God. If God the Father designed us, the Son redeemed us, and the spirit now indwells us, we should not be bored with God.
And yet at times, for many of us, myself included, specifically me, we move from the breathtaking to the boring, the beauty to the blah, the awe to the And I want to submit to you that one of the ways that we can recapture this awe with God is through embracing our neediness before God. Now, quick poll, you don't have to raise your hands. Anybody love the feeling of being needy? No. That's the laugh of familiarity.
We do not love being needy. It is there's something in our flesh that doesn't want to be needy. We have a massive difficulty as people in the American church today. We encourage independence at, probably the highest it's ever been. We promote self made men and women.
We we idolize that in some ways. But Church, I wanna I wanna tell you, when we bring our need to him, he brings himself in relationship. Big needs? Yes. Suffering, pain, grief.
Those things are not hard to call out for help. But I'm talking specifically the little things, the day to day things. Lord, help me. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say.
I can't find my keys. I lost Brad's truck the other day. I couldn't find his couldn't find his truck. I finally found it. Forgot where I parked.
Lord, help me. Quite vulnerably, Lord, help me with this talk. Help me. I need your help. It's not it's not within me to do it.
I need help from without me to help me. I'm talking about a practical down to earth spirituality in which we encounter God in the mundane and familiar parts of life, which leads to our big idea for the day. We're just gonna you're gonna hear this a lot. This is the summary of our sermon today. And so if you don't remember anything, just remember this.
When we bring our need, God brings himself in relationship, which is what we really need. And life in union with Christ deepens. Okay? So where we're headed today is we're gonna be in a psalm. We are gonna be in psalm 86.
So if you have a Bible, you can turn there. If you're not sure where Psalms are, just drop it right in half. You're probably gonna be hitting it. Okay? And I'll read it here in a moment, but some of the context around this is, it's written by King David.
Well, one of the things I love most about the Psalms, God kinda rigged the system for us, and so he gave us an entire book of prayers to just pray back to him. The the Psalms capture the human experience, all of the emotions, the the highs, the lows, everything in between. And so if you are struggling to pray, just pray the Psalms. It is a wonderful way. It's been given to you to pray back to him.
But Psalm 86 is what we is what we call a lament. It's beautifully written. About a third of the Psalms are laments. So near 50 of them are laments, and laments are basically complaints to God that are done in trust. Okay?
Did you know that you had permission to complain to God? He welcomes that. He welcomes it. And so David is gonna walk us through this. I'm gonna pray, and then we'll I'm gonna read Psalm 86, and then we'll jump into our three points today.
Okay? Well, father, will you please help us? Help help us to embrace our neediness here. We ask you to be with us. We know you are.
And so give us grace and be with us. Minister to us in this time. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright. I'm gonna read because that's a little small.
Alright? I'm gonna come over here. Incline your ear, o Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my life, for I am godly. Save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God. Be gracious to me, o Lord, for to you do I cry all the day. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, o Lord, do I lift up my soul. For you, o Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, oh, Lord, to my prayer.
Listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble, I call upon you, for you answer me. There is none like you among the gods, o Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, o Lord, and shall glorify your name. You do great and wonderful things.
You alone are God. Teach me your way, o Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, o Lord, my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love towards me.
You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. The last part here. Oh God, insolent men have risen up against me. A band of ruthless men seek my life. They do not set you before them, but you, oh Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Turn to me and be gracious to me. Give strength to your servant, and save the son of your maidservant. Show me a sign of your favor that those who hate me may see and be put to shame because you, oh Lord, have helped me and comforted me. Okay. So verses one through seven, it's it's broken up pretty well, is when we bring our need.
Okay. So we're gonna go kind of verse by verse for most of this Psalm as we as we kind of figure out what David is doing. He's gonna show us a model. Okay? Verse one says that incline your ear, oh Lord, and answer me for I am poor and needy.
And the way that this is kind of the thesis of the whole talk, it's kind of summed up in this first verse. Verse one tells us that our three points, and we'll unpack it further as we go, but answer me. I am poor and needy, like I bring my neediness. Oh, Lord, anytime you see Lord there in all capitals, he's referring to the God by name of Yahweh. Okay?
So he's a personal God. I can go to you. I know your name. You're personal to me. And then incline your ear.
Here's what I need you to do. And so that's the summary of the whole entire sermon in that first verse. This first verse reminds me of when I told you to pray for my three year old. She's a handful, but we love her. But in a lot of ways, what David is describing is kind of what my daughter, Elle, does to me.
I have a spiritual gift when there's so much noise in my house, which there's a lot. I it kind of tends to sound like the peanuts teacher of and it just it almost sounds like white noise, and I just I can't I just don't hear it. And so my daughter can be next to me going, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, and my wife will drop a pan and be like, for the love, just answer your daughter, please. And I'm just honestly, I don't. But what she does if I don't answer is she will reach up and grab my beard and move me to her eyes.
And she'll either do that or she'll she'll say, dad, look at me. She could tell me what she wants, but she's saying, look at me, incline your ear or your eyes to me. Dad, I'm hungry, or I want to show you this bug, or I need to do whatever. And she knows she's poor and needy, and and she's unashamed of that. And that is not what is wrong with Elle, that is what's right with her.
She can come to her dad. Verse two, he goes on to say, preserve my life for I am godly. Save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God. David is saying similar to El, am I not yours?
Am I not your son, and and are you not my father? Can I not come to you? I trust you. You're mine. I'm yours.
Please save me. I have done no wrongs here. I'm on your side. Save me. Notice the plea.
He's calling his identity in terms of relationship into this with God. Now I would tell you pleading with God is is is vulnerable. It takes courage to admit your need, but David does it with great confidence. He has what I call healthy shame, if there's such a thing, healthy shame or rightsizedness. He's not overinflated of going, I demand you listen to me.
And he's not under inflated of saying, I'm not worthy to come to you and to talk to you. There is this right sizedness that he explains to us. I'm your son, and I can ask you anything. Just like my daughter says, I'm your daughter. I can ask you anything.
I can come to you. And so he continues in his neediness. Verse three and four, he says, be gracious to me, oh Lord, for to you, do I cry all the day, glad in the soul of your servant, for to you, oh Lord, do I lift up my soul. He sounds sad. He sounds hurt.
He sounds lonely. He sounds fearful. He's saying comfort me. Pay attention to my hurts. Be with me.
Make me less lonely with you. Basically saying, when's this going to end? I don't know how many times David, maybe somebody knows in here. I don't know how many times his brother was on the run trying to get, you know, about about to get killed. It was quite often.
It doesn't give us the specific example of where why this is in here, but he's he's on the run. When is this going to end? Can you turn the page on this on this grief? Now I have worked with people in ministry long enough to know that the majority of people in this room fall into this category. That's one of the greatest lies I think that the evil one has cast upon the church is that no one else experiences what you're experiencing.
And I'm here to tell you that we are all in this human experience together. Peter Scazaro out of New York, he wrote a book called Health Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. He talks about this phrase that I can't unhear, and it's we we walk around and we compare our insides to everybody's outsides. And we think that they have it all together and we don't. First Corinthians first part of first Corinthians ten thirteen tells us that no temptation has overtaken you except for what is common to man.
That is to say, you're not that unique. We're in this together. Our God came down and put on flesh to to to experience what we experience to help us know that he knows what we are going through. Jesus experienced sadness, hurt, fear, anger, gladness, loneliness. He was sad, to see people imprisoned by sin.
He was hurt by those who betrayed him. He was fearful about the cross. Father, is there another way, but not my will, yours be done. He had anger and zeal towards cleansing the temple. He had a lot of gladness around his dealings with the disciples.
He was truly God and truly human. We usually emphasize the God part, and that is right, and we absolutely should. He retained his sinfulness and deity, but we would do well to understand that a transcendent God entered into our experience and lived it perfectly and yet still had needs in his humanity. He was needy and he was okay with it. He was unashamed of it.
And so if you,
Speaker 2I think I skipped a page here.
DustinHang on. Verse five, basically says you can do it. So he says, oh Lord, you're good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. I'm doing the thing. I'm calling upon you.
You can do it. Please help. Meet me here, verse six and seven, more of the same. Give ear, oh Lord, listen to my plea for grace in the day of trouble. I call upon you for you answer me.
Here's what David does a really important move in this Psalm. Did you kinda notice that in the last phrase there? He says, for you answer me. He starts to move into how God has listened to him in the past. He starts to evoke God's character into his his plea.
It's very challenging to have a relationship with God if you're not willing to talk about what you need. Remember, being needy is not what is wrong with you. It is what is made right about you. I was with Carl over at the refuge over there. We're watching some of the bighorn sheep kinda clear some snow and eat some grass, and I'm just I looked at Carl and I go, isn't it amazing that they just know what to do?
They know how to find food. No one had to tell them how to do that. I go, I wish we could be like that a little bit. Life would be a little more simple. And he goes, yeah, this is where Carl is so great.
He goes, yeah, but then we wouldn't be dependent. And I go, bingo. That's it, man. That's it. But you are designed intentionally by God to be needy.
We were the only creatures that he created that he needed instruction, and that's telling. And so it's almost like, if you don't show up with your need, it's almost like showing up to an ER. Okay? Imagine I showed up to an ER and I broke my leg, and I went in there hobbling in pain, wincing, and I just go, hey. And the guy looks at you and goes, what's your emergency?
That's what they say when you go in. And I go, I know you can help me. I know your doctors are trained. Praise God, your doctors are trained. You've got medicine back there.
You've got all the things that I need. You've got it. You can do it. You can do the thing I need. You can imagine the guy's face going, okay, so why are you here?
No, you go in there and you go, my leg is broke and I'm about to vomit. I need some medicine. Put me under, put me out. I don't care. Fix my leg.
Set the bones. Cast it. Help me. I would go as far as to say that the savior doesn't isn't much to you if you don't know why you need saving. Obviously, he saved us from a salvation standpoint, and we should rejoice in that a lot.
Hallelujah. But what is he saving you from today? Or are you just kind of good till you get to heaven? He saved he saved you and is saving you and will ultimately save you. So the is saving you piece is what I'm talking about.
What is the comforter comforting you in today? What is the counselor guiding you in today? What is the helper helping you in today? So if you want really good theology, you must have lived experience with that theology. Okay.
I call it experiential knowledge. David is gonna talk about that through, verses eight through 13 in a moment. And and those things about God are gonna pop in his heart and in his mind because he's dealt honestly with what he needs in the moment. Okay? This takes courage.
David had that courage. He was unashamed, much like my daughter, and that's why the scripture refers to him as a man after God's own heart. He would just go after it. He went honestly with his needs. And so this is what I wanna ask you to do.
This is this is a little bit of experiential. This is out of the lecture and into the lab a little bit. Okay? So I'm gonna ask you. I'm just gonna give you a minute to just sit with the Lord.
Be quiet. Close your eyes. And ask yourself, what do I need right now? What do I need? And then sometimes it can be really ethereal and and just it can it can exist out there.
I want you to pull it in close and and create a sentence out of it. Reduce it to a simple sentence that you can remember. God, what I need from you is blank today. Okay? So take a take a moment.
Sometimes a minute up here feels like eternity. But I wanted to give you some space. So I don't know what you come in here with, if you have needs around finances or needs around relationships, fears, guilts, things being uncertain to you. The things you just talked about are what exactly what God wants to talk to you about. Now that we've uncovered those needs, hopefully everybody has something in their their heart, in their mind that they need.
We're gonna do and follow David's example into this next part. Okay? And so when you bring your need to God, he brings himself in relationship, and life in union with Christ will deepen. Okay? Verses, eight through 13, pardon me, is that God brings himself in relationship.
David goes into, there are none like you. No works are like yours. You created it all. You made us. You sustain us.
Worthy are you to be praised. Verse nine, he says, all the nations that you've made shall come and worship before you, oh Lord, and shall glorify your name. He rightly understands the purpose of his people. They were blessed to be a blessing. That goes all the way back to the Abrahamic covenant.
You see it in first Kings eight, Ezekiel 38. All people from across the world would be able to come and know who God is and how to have relationship with him. And that work continued into the church and is still continuing. And we even get a glimpse into Revelation 21 where one day all tribes, tongues, nations will be together and worship him in spirit and truth in the new heavens and new earth. It is beautiful.
He understands that. And now David starts to invoke more of God's character as we continue. He says, you are great. He says, you are great. You do wonderful things.
He's like, you're powerful. You're transcendent. You're all knowing. You're all the omnis of God's attributes. You're immutable.
You never change. All of those things are true, and you love. You are love. First John four, you are love. And so all of those things that you are God, you do all of it in love, and not just to the world, but to you and me.
Praise God. Praise God. That means that he can come to us, that all that God is, he comes to us and has real help for us. He can actually do something about it. The thing that we need is himself.
And so he begins to inject hope into his plea in verse 11. He says, teach me your way, oh Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name. You may have don't if you've seen this, but this is called Edgar Dale's Cone of Learning. Edgar Dale.
But basically, what he did is he is he's a psychologist, but he he was talking about how how we retain information in terms of knowledge. And the top two are the least, okay? We retain the least through reading and lecture, reading and lecture. And which I think is obvious why God encourages us in scripture to, continue to meet together every single week, to read our Bibles, to to the drip drip drip drip drip slow, gaining of knowledge week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade of sitting under the teaching of the word of God will have its impact. But this seems to say that when he's like, hey, teach me that I may walk with you.
It seems to be this active dynamic relationship between us and him. As we walk through life confessing our needs to him, he brings us in real relationship out of the lecture and into the lab. He puts his arm around us and walks with us. It's very much like God calls parents to do in Deuteronomy six, right? Hey, as you get up and as you sit down, as you walk about the way, as you, as you do those things, teach your children these ways.
It would be really, really hard on any kid and any parent really just to lecture kids as you walked. No. You're going, this just happened. Let me show you how that ties together what I have been talking to you about. You're experiential together.
And likewise, he promises us to teach us every single day that he will teach us. His spirit will teach us day by day as we are transformed into one degree of glory to the next. Verses twelve and thirteen, he says, I give thanks to you, oh Lord, my God, my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love towards me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
So David is saying, as I ponder how you have met my needs in the past and continually give thanks for your character, I give you glory because your love towards me is steadfast. It does not change. You've done a great work in saving me. So I'm gonna ask you to get back in the lab again. Okay?
We're gonna do another minute, and I want you to start to talk about with God, knowing that he knows the sentence that you just created in terms of what you need. I want you to start to talk to him and give thanks for him for what he has done in his past towards you. Okay? So do that now. When we bring our need, Church, he brings himself in relationship and life with union life in union with Christ deepens.
David now aware of his need and having voiced them honestly with God, God meets him and they begin to kind of dance together in this last portion of this Psalm. As I read it, I'm not going to exposit it. I'm just going to read it again, but I want you to pay attention to it. I've kind of labeled it up here too of how his his prayer starts to change. It's not just please and it's not just praises.
It's this dance of them together. A more balanced heart of like, this is real life and the character of God. And so he says, oh Lord, insolent men have risen up against me. A band of ruthless men seeks my life. They do not set you before them.
I have needs. I'm needy. But you, oh Lord, are God, merciful and gracious character, slow to about anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, character. Turn to me and be gracious to me. Give strength to your servant.
Save the son of your maidservant, needy. Show me a sign of favor, needy, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame, because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me. Notice the dance in that, where portion the first portion and the second portions kind of weave together, and they start speaking back and forth about those two things. And I think that dance is really important in the Christian life, and I'll tell you why. I think because there's there's two potential dangers that can happen is one is that you will only focus on what you need, and it will become self infatuation, potential navel gazing, this not worthy type of living, like it's only this is just this is me and all my needs.
All right. I can't get queued the music. I was going get ushered off stage there. Amazing. Was that Star Wars?
Okay. Jurassic Park. Yes. There we go. Or too much focus on on only the God piece without vocalizing your needs.
We tend to get in this and and hear me. We tend to get into this this rote, intellectual, hollow admiration of God that never really tends to touch our hearts. And I don't think that honors him. He wants to talk about the things you need. And so when we wrap it up in a bow with like, but God's good, yes, that's true.
And it I'm not saying it's not. Please hear me. I'm saying what has made him good to you today about that. That's different. And David is dancing really well with that Psalm.
Where are we at here? Remember, this is a lament, okay? It's a heavier topic. There's around 50 of them, and so it makes again, laments are are meant to help us make sense of the world that we're living in and what God says is good. A complaint done to God in trust.
For the believer, we're not promised by Jesus to have an easy life. John sixteen thirty three even tells us in this world, you will have trouble. You will have it. Not maybe, not if you work really hard to avoid it. No, you will have it.
But he says, take heart for I've overcome the world, and that means that there's nothing in this world that will separate you from him, from his love to the very end, but not just to the end of life. Today, he is with you, that you can take your needs to him like we just did. And the spirit of God will take those needs that you just brought to him. He will even interpret them to a better degree than what you even know how to pray, and he will bring them to your mediator, king Jesus, who's at the right hand of the father. And he will dispense grace upon grace to you, back to the spirit to you.
Real help come to you. It's like, and and I would just tell you, it's because he wants to be with you. It's much like oxen. In Matthew eleven twenty eight through 30, when He says, hey, come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. That's not just a select few.
He's saying, you needy people, come to me, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am lowly and gentle at heart. That experience, that shared experience of being an oxen, how they used to do it is they would lock a young oxen and an old oxen in the yoke together. And the young oxen would learn how to do the thing from the old oxen. The young ox isn't trying to lead.
You're in it together. And the same thing is true. You are fixed in it together with Jesus if you are in Christ. That is a spiritual reality. If that is not your reality and you do not know Jesus as your savior, we would plead with you today to put your trust in him.
God had you in mind and desired you into creation, but we were born into a sinful line. And then by choice, through our own sin, it separated us from relationship with God. But our God did not leave you there. Jesus, the son of God, came to earth, truly God, as to be sinless and truly man, as to atone for man and take the place of your punishment from walking away from him. He died in your place, rose again, defeating sin, Satan, and death, and says that if you put your trust in him, by faith alone, he will save you.
He will seal you with the Holy Spirit and guide you into relationship again with him. He will yoke himself to you forever and save you. Praise God. That is good news. Amen?
Amen. And so if you know him, the only application step there is just to tell somebody, a spouse, a friend, a child. One of the most humbling experiences of being a Christian is that he loves to use his people to minister that grace that he dispenses, to feel like we're not alone in this experience. Because when we bring our need, he brings himself in relationship, and life in union with Christ deepens. Guys, I got off the plane here on Thursday.
I'm just saying. I don't I still haven't seen the top of the grand yet. It's been the weather has been tough, but I was blown away. I had never been here. It was breathtaking, beautiful, full of awe.
And I just scratched the surface when I got here. It was but but I think in a moment, I became a mountain person. So you guys did it. But I know from experience that that that that beginning of of seeing it will fade, much like my relationship with God fades due to me not asking for help. He never left.
I just stopped surrendering. I seek to live independently. But that's not how he made me. Remember, being needy is not what's wrong with you, it's what's made right about you. So bring your need, and he'll bring himself in relationship, and we'll continue in life with union with Christ together.
Can I pray? Alright. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you. Thank you for this time.
Lord, I do pray by your spirit that you would continue to minister to us as we go about. As we stand, as we sit, as we go about our way, would you be with us and minister to us in Jesus name. Amen.
Speaker 2So we're gonna close actually with the doxology here. But I just wanna say thank you again one more time to Dustin, if we could welcome him. He's gonna be he's gonna be heading home this afternoon, but he's he's gonna do this again at the eleven. So hang out, bend his ear, tell him how great mountains are, and and how great this place is in between services. So thank you again, Dustin.
I won't hurt you guys by leading the singing of the doxology. I'm gonna let the professionals
