Waiting, Worship, and Wonder

This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang.! Thank you for joining us. Psalm 27, turn with me if you would there.

This is such a great chapter, and it touches on so many parts of a God follower's life, including singing, which is a very important part of the people of God.

And so, we're thankful for all that they do. We do have in this service, Sarah Stopman is here. Sarah, I don't know where you are. Would you raise your hand if we can see?

There, you're right there. Sarah and her husband, Dustin, were part of our church for a long time. He was on our staff. They are now a part of church. He pastors in Utah.

It's a church that we partner with and support. Just had some of our people there in Utah a couple of weeks ago. She and her girls were in town for the big wedding Friday night.

Miss McKenna is here with us. Always good to have you with us. And so, Sarah, for you and for Dustin, we're thankful for your ministry that you guys have in Utah. And for Ellie and Sadie, your daughters, thankful for them as well.

And if you want to know more about their work, out here on our missions wall, we've got a screen that rotates through our mission partners, along with a card that you could take home to pray for them or any of our partners, and I encourage you to do so.

Well, if you were to be asked to have one wish granted, I wonder what would that wish be? I had a birthday Friday.

No, I had it Saturday. I did it again. I said something about a birthday Friday last week and got a lot of birthday texts on Friday. And my birthday was actually, that's what happens when you get old.

I had a birthday yesterday, and someone asked me on Friday, if you could do anything for your birthday, what would you do? Like, if you could have one wish.

And I got yesterday on my birthday, not just one thing, but I kind of got the one big wish of I got to do just basically all of my favorite things on my birthday yesterday.

I went to the bank. I still, I don't do online banking because I'm a real man. I go to the physical bank. I went to the bank like old men do. I don't know who said that, but thank you.

Yes, yes. I went to the gym. I went to the office to work a little bit. I took a nap. Had dinner with my wife.

I got to see my grandbabies the day before. And so I got to do just about everything I love. The only thing I didn't do yesterday that I would have done on a perfect day is mow my lawn.

But my lawn is dead, and there's nothing to mow. Otherwise, it was just a nearly perfect day. If you could have one wish for your birthday, one wish for anything, what would you wish for?

The first thing that comes to mind for some may be I'd wish for a house or wish for a car or wish for a job or wish to be taller or whatever it may be.

We get a glimpse of the way David would answer that question. It's interesting to me because you don't often get to hear somebody answer a question like that that can be so telling.

What would you wish for if you could wish for anything? You might wish for the impossible to have the wisdom of being older with the energy and vitality of being younger, but it doesn't really work that way in real life.

You might wish for circumstances to be different and problems to go away, but you're not really in charge of that. What would David wish for if he could wish for one thing?

Psalm 27 verse 4. One thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

David's one wish is to enjoy the presence of God.

That puts some things in perspective for us, doesn't it? Of how often the things that we think about and stress over and worry about, not that they're unimportant, but that they're not the most important thing for us.

So much of our time and our energy and our efforts in life are consumed with things that maybe, while not wrong or sinful, are just not the most important things in life.

For the one who knows and loves the Lord, our greatest delight, our greatest desire truly should be to enjoy the presence of God.

That is what Sunday is about week after week after week. That we are enjoying the presence of God, enjoying the worship of God collectively with the people of God.

And as we look through Psalm 27 today and Lord willing next Sunday, I want you to have in your mind that is what is on David's mind when he mentions to inquire of the Lord in the temple or in the tent.

This is before the physical temple is built. And so the worship of God's people in the tabernacle in the tent, it's about the people of God in worship.

To be sure, David and you can enjoy private worship, and we should, but there is just something unique and something special and something supremely delightful about gathering with the people of God and enjoying the presence of God together.

And maybe for you, you see worship on the Lord's day as just something that you have to do or something that your parents make you do or something that your spouse talks you into doing.

Or maybe for you, you would say, I'm not, I don't really enjoy singing. And you just kind of mumble through the first 25 minutes of our service. Or maybe you would say, I love to sing, but I don't want to just listen to one guy talk about the Bible.

And you just kind of try to endure the preaching. Or maybe for you, you would say that you love the singing and the preaching. It's just, it's just all the people around you that you don't like. You'd rather just be alone, but understand that one of the great joys that the people of God have always had together is that privilege of gathering with each other to worship the living God.

And when God's people understand a bit of who He is and how privileged we are, we don't need the world's entertainment to keep our attention.

We don't need to be involved in talking ourself into doing this. This should not be something we just do because we're forced to or have to.

This truly ought to captivate our hearts and our minds and our attention. And it ought to be the desire of our heart like nothing else to say, here's the one thing I can't live without.

Gathering with God's people to enjoy the worship of our living God. That's better than a birthday wish for a bike or a car or a ring or a job.

There is nothing greater than to be with the people of God and enjoy the worship of our Lord.

That is the heartbeat of this entire psalm. That of all the things you could do and you could enjoy and you could set your mind on, there is nothing greater than this.

No other desire or wish could compare. I just want to be with God's people enjoying the presence of the Lord and dwelling together with Him.

We don't know the exact occasion of the writing of Psalm 27. Scholars have some various ideas of what it could be about. Some feel like this is a psalm that was written during his struggle with Absalom.

Others take this that perhaps it was after a smaller minor victory. And David's aware that greater struggles are ahead.

Some think this was penned when he was fleeing from Saul. We can't be sure exactly when this psalm happens. But we can know what the desire of his heart is as he writes this inspired text.

And the desire on his heart is that he, above all else, would enjoy the presence of God together with God's people. And so we're going to take just a couple of weeks.

We finished Philippians last Sunday. And we're going to start in a couple of weeks on Sunday mornings a study on the church. On Sunday evenings, when we start that back up in two weeks, we're going to go verse by verse to the book of Nehemiah.

So we're going to have just a couple of Sundays in between those things as we look here at Psalm 27. We'll get through a little bit of it today before the Lord's table and then the rest of it, Lord willing, next week.

From this text Jerry read to us a moment ago, write down first of all that there is trusting in the midst of trials. Trusting in the midst of trials.

Verse 1 says, David says, The Lord is his light.

Like a sun that never sets. The Lord is his light. Darkness disturbs us often.

Not uncommon for young children to get anxious in the dark. Not uncommon for people as they age to be uncomfortable driving in the dark.

Just something about darkness that can impair our judgment or impair our ability to respond. You can be home night after night after night with your family and everything is normal and fine.

But when your husband is gone, ladies, and maybe your kids aren't home and you're home by yourself, all of a sudden your house makes noise as you've never heard before. And when it's dark, it creaks a bit louder.

Your mind starts to race. Something about the darkness can make us a bit antsy.

We can feel a bit unsettled in the darkness. Now, some of the dangers in the darkness are legitimate and genuine, but most of the time, the things that we would fear in the darkness are fabricated.

They're exaggerated. There's nobody living in your attic. There's not a host of strange animals outside your back patio.

But you start to hear things and your mind starts to race. And did I lock the door? Did I set the alarm? And pretty soon you can't sleep because your mind is racing to so many other things.

Well, it's not the physical darkness that tends to be the most overwhelming. It's the emotional darkness. It's the seasons of life that feel like the darkness just won't lift.

For some of you, you understand what that means hypothetically. Others of you, you understand what it means experientially because you, right now, are in a season that just feels dark. And when the darkness just seems to not go away, we've got to remind ourselves that the God we trust in the light is the God who will see us through at night.

And David here in verse 1 affirms that in our time of vulnerability, God himself is our light. The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Don't miss the personal possessive pronoun here. He is my light. He is my salvation. This speaks of relationship.

This is the uniqueness of the body of Christ that for those who are Christians in our gathering this morning, your relationship is absolutely personal and direct with the Lord.

But collectively, there's a unique strength and joy that we possess because we, everyone, can call God mine.

And yet, how sweet it is to look around and see other brothers and sisters in Christ who are part of the same family.

And when you're going through your season of darkness, be encouraged by the church who reminds you that the God that you trusted in the light is the God you trust at night.

That when life feels for you heavy and oppressive and frightening, join your voice with the chorus of other believers who are saying the Lord is my light and He is my salvation.

And because that's true, He says, therefore, whom shall I fear? If the Lord is the stronghold of my life, He says, of whom shall I be afraid?

This is based on the theology of knowing who God is and the accurate application of knowing who God is is that there is nothing of man to fear.

Which means that the way, biblically, we deal with fear in our life is by having a proper view of God. This is one of the reasons I find it so frustrating when you see churches or pastors who say things like, we just want to be relevant or we just want to give you sermons that you can apply to your life as if doctrine is separated from that.

Biblically, understand this, it's the knowledge of God, what we would call theology proper, it's the knowledge of God that actually is helping David not fear.

There's nothing more relevant or practical in your life than having an accurate view of God. The greatest thing you could ever do is have a clear and proper understanding of who God is.

That's not something reserved for seminary classrooms. That is something to put a young child's heart at rest.

A weary mother's mind at rest. A frightened father's anxious heart at rest. There is nothing more practical or relevant or helpful for you in any season of life than to have a clear view of who your God is.

David says, because I know the Lord, because He's my light, because He's my salvation, because He is my stronghold, I have no one to fear and I have no one to be afraid of.

It's not circumstances that drives His heart to peace. It's His knowledge and relationship with God.

This is why the greatest thing you can do for your family is let it be a non-negotiable that on the Lord's day you gather with God's people to worship.

Sometimes you're sick, sometimes you're out of town. I may not understand that. I don't talk about being legalistic. I'm just saying that all things being normal and equal, let it be a non-negotiable that your family's here Sunday after Sunday, not because it's earning some ticket to heaven, but because you recognize that it's in the gathering of the people of God as they think of Him and worship Him that it helps you get a clearer view of God and drives out the fear of man.

And if there's something this world needs, including those who name the name of Christ in our world today, it's to be more bold and confident in the Lord, not ourselves, but in Him, and to have less fear of people.

We are such a wearied, anxious people because we are so concerned about what everybody else thinks of us and what everybody else says of us and who likes us and who doesn't like us and who's not talking to us and who may have said something unkind about us and what kind of thing might this person have thought about us.

And all the while, we can give such little thought to the power and the presence and the delight of just knowing who God is. Parents, you'll do nothing greater for your children than to raise them in a home where the joy of gathering with God's people to think about God and sing to God and study about God is not only non-negotiable, but it is a delight.

because David understands who God is, he is able to be trusting even in the midst of trials.

You say, well, perhaps he says that because everything is going great. That's not the case. Verse 2, when evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.

In verse 1, we notice that God is his light, his salvation, and his stronghold. But in verse 2, it's the triplicate of evildoers and adversaries and foes.

David has real struggles too. David has real threats he deals with like you do. David's circumstances are not perfect either.

But David's mind is not ultimately set upon evildoers, adversaries, and foes. His mind is set on the Lord who is his light, his stronghold, and his salvation.

He is confident of the Lord. Look at verse 3. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.

Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. Circumstances don't shake his confidence. Enemies don't shake his confidence because he understands that even in the darkness of affliction, it is the Lord who is his light.

It is the Lord that is his salvation and his stronghold. And I want you to remember that too. One of the things that makes darkness so unsettling for us is that we can't generate light on our own.

It has to come from outside of us through electricity of a light switch or of a light bulb or of a fire that we start. We can't generate our own light.

And when you walk in the darkness literally, physically, you're reliant upon a source outside of you to provide light. And that light provides safety and warmth and protection.

And so it is for the believer that it's not something we generate ourselves that gives us confidence and hope and joy.

It's something outside of us, namely the power and presence of God that then through the gift of faith takes up residence inside of us.

The way that you overcome in this life is not by just trying to be tougher or stronger or smarter. It's by knowing more of who your God is.

And Sunday after Sunday in preschool classrooms at this church and children's classrooms and youth classrooms and adult Sunday school classes, no matter the age, that is the focus of every single classroom.

How can we know God through the study of His Word? That's the focus of every gathering and every ministry in our church. How can we know God?

Because the clearer view you have of God, the less frightened you are of this world. And it's not because the world is easy.

Verse 2 makes that clear. Verse 3 makes that clear. And yet, because of the power and presence of God in verse 1, at verse 3 He says, yet, even though, in spite of this, right in the midst of these circumstances, yet, I will be confident.

We can be trusting in the midst of trials. verse 4 we see a second reality. We find David asking in the midst of anguish.

Things aren't easy and things aren't perfect, but he is still asking in the midst of anguish. One thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after.

Here it is. that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.

The tabernacle is a place of sanctuary. It's a place of rest. This is an expression of longing to be in the continual presence of the Lord.

As one man wrote of this, David finds no place more satisfying, no sight more gratifying, no information more edifying than what he experiences in Yahweh's presence.

Church family, I want to challenge you and ask you, encourage you, and beg you to approach the public worship of God, what we do on Sundays week after week here, with a mindset that would say there's nothing more satisfying than this, nothing more gratifying than this, nothing more edifying than this.

But to approach it that way, you have to understand the significance and the priority that worship needs to have in your life and your family's life.

That you don't come to church just because you feel like it. You don't stay home just because you're tired. But instead, you say, there's a kind of joy, there's a kind of encouragement, there's a kind of edification that I only get with the gathering of God's people.

So that when you wake up on Sunday and you are tired, your heart and your mind would say, though I'm tired, I long to go because it's there I find spiritual energy.

And though you feel weak, you say, I long to go because it's there that I find strength. And though you feel discouraged and frightened, you say, I long to go because it's there that I find hope and joy.

And I ask of the Lord what I need right in the midst of my anguish. When your heart is broken, when your family is a mess, when your circumstances are overwhelming, that is not the time to retreat from the gathering of God's people.

That is the time to run together where the saints are gathered to sing and to pray and to read and to study and to be reminded right in the midst of foes all around me, it is the Lord who is my light and my salvation and my stronghold.

Sunday worship for the church in the church age, this is not the gathering of perfect people who have it all together to come celebrate how fantastic our lives are.

this is the gathering of real people with real struggles and real heartache to gather together to be reminded that in Christ we have all we need.

In Christ our greatest problem has already been met on the cross as we have sung about. In Christ we have hope and we have victory and we have assurance and our greatest desire in this life is to enjoy the presence of God and when this life comes to an end we will without sin or shame enjoy for all eternity the unbroken fellowship of God.

I beg you to give to your family the stability that your teenager doesn't ask you on Sunday night are we going tomorrow?

I beg you to give to your children the gift of never one Sunday morning even thinking I wonder if I can talk mom and dad into sleeping in today as if you're going to find something on your phone or computer or television more helpful more soul satisfying than what you would experience here in the house of God gathered with his people but it's not just because of legalism or it's not just because of thinking you're earning points with God it's because your heart in verse 4 delights in him which means for us it can't just be about Sunday as important as that is if your heart doesn't delight in God in the week it won't magically delight in God on Sunday either and so in your home cultivate a love for the things of God talk about what you're reading and talk about what you're learning and talk about what your needs are and talk about what you're trusting the Lord to do and let it be the desire and the delight of your home to enjoy the worship of God all during the week and then gather together with his people at the place where God's people assemble and to ask the Lord even right in the midst of your anguish there's a third thing we'll just introduce this they're singing in the midst of suffering they're singing in the midst of suffering verse 5 for he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble he will conceal me under the cover of his tent he will lift me high upon a rock and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy

I will sing and make melody to the Lord they're singing even right in the midst of suffering we sing because it teaches us it instructs us it encourages us and can I just say to you on those Sundays where you would say I don't feel like singing is an indication in your heart that on that day you need the singing more than ever before because the reason we don't feel like singing is because we're discouraged we're sad we're frustrated we feel overwhelmed we're grieving we're lonely it's hard to sing in those circumstances and yet the singing of the people of God is one of the things the Lord uses to bring hope and strength and joy into the heart of his people when you don't feel like singing

I get it I understand but let me just say learn to embrace even that feeling and emotion as a reminder that on that day you need to participate even more when you feel like that on those days you're discouraged dial in even more tightly because if life is easy and everything is going your way and you've got no problems and you've got no worries in your heart and I say to you the Lord is your light and your salvation and your strength you can believe that and you can affirm that but you may move past that too quickly when everything feels easy but when your heart is broken and your life feels like it's coming apart at the seams to be reminded in the midst of that trial that God is your strength and your light and your salvation is sweeter than any other time the people of God have always been a singing people not because we're wonderfully gifted musicians but because there is something that unites our hearts together when we sing when we're here at the in a worship service and we're all reading the Bible it's a blessed thing when you're hearing the

Bible explained and your heart is absorbing the truth it's a blessed thing when you hear the choir sing and you're able to hear lofty truths sung beautifully it's a blessed thing but it's when the people of God sing that every single one of us is participating at the same time in the same way saying!

singing things there's a unifying effect of the people of God singing and we can sing even in the midst of suffering song it will be in your days of suffering where songs will be your greatest friend it will be in the days of loss where truths like great is thy faithfulness and is well with my soul may be sung with tears and pain but those words will come alive to you like no other time in your life and if your heart is hurting you don't have to come to church on the Lord's day and pretend if someone says how are you today it's okay to say to be honest with you

I'm struggling a bit but I'm where I need to be when somebody says how was your week it's okay to say to be honest with you it's been tough it really has but I'm glad to be in the house of the Lord today when somebody says how's how's things it's okay to say if I were to be honest with you life's kind of heavy right now it really is but I've come today because I believe God has a word for me and you sing right in the midst of suffering not pretending everything's easy not pretending things are perfect but believing that if you could only have one wish granted there would be nothing better for the Lord to provide for you than direct access to him together with the people of

God recordings this is the greatest blessing of God's people that even when you find yourself in trials you can trust that even when you find yourself in anguish you can ask of him and even when you find yourself suffering there's a song to sing as he says in verse 6 I will sing and make melody to the Lord it is the knowledge of God that gives your mouth a song to sing it is the knowledge of God that gives you hope in the darkness it is the knowledge of God that will give you joy in every season get out of who can get out of en fathers with every love of all this is this is in e is this for in and it it it can be not do it it it can be or this have an've

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