[0:00] All right, Psalm chapter number 34, please head back there. Psalm chapter number 34, beautiful singing this morning. So glad that we get to hear about a worthy, worthy, worthy God this morning.
[0:12] Psalm chapter 34 is where we will be at. I've only tried to be a street preacher on one other occasion, and it was in college at the University of Tennessee. And I can already tell you, you're a much better audience than I had back on the college campus when I gave this a shot.
[0:26] And I don't know what your, I can't see all of your faces, but I know you, I can see your face, Nate, beautiful face, Nate. But I know your hearts, I know your love for the Word, and I look forward to getting to share it today with you.
[0:39] So let's jump right back into this passage of Psalm chapter number 34, verse number 3, as we've already said, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.
[0:50] An invitation that went from individual praise to an invitation for other people to praise. Why would we be people that magnify the Lord? It's because my soul shall make her boast in the Lord.
[1:01] I have nothing in this world to boast in. Psalm chapter number 49, verse number 6, it says, They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches. There's a million different things people can find to boast in the day, but none of them will sustain them in the dark hour.
[1:16] None of them will keep them like the rock that we find in our Christ Jesus. So we magnify the name of the Lord because we find He is all-sufficient. 1 Corinthians chapter number 1, verse number 30, Apostle Paul says, But of Him are ye in Christ, and that's all of us, who is of God, has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.
[1:42] We magnify the name of the Lord because we know there's nothing else that compares to it. We find nothing in this world, we find nothing in ourselves that is worthy of the adoration that He deserves.
[1:53] Psalm 21, verse 13, our pastor read for us in the recording a second ago, Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine own strength, so will we sing and praise thy power. We're coming through a season of life where we've been reminded that the strength of the Lord is more than sufficient to help us through this.
[2:10] And now we enter into a season where we ought to be praising Him and letting people know. It says, exalt His name. Psalm chapter 20, verse number 1, it says, The Lord hear in thee the day of trouble.
[2:21] The name of God of Jacob defend thee. How does a name defend you? Because the name represents all of His attributes, all of His characteristics, and all of His strength.
[2:32] Exalting His name is to magnify His name, is to speak of His name. And we should do this together. We're about to be back together. One sense we're back to be together.
[2:43] Together next we will be back together. We look forward to eating food together. We do that well as Baptists. We look forward to giving hugs. Miss Betty has taught us well in that. We look forward to teaching kids lessons together.
[2:53] But when we come back together, if we don't exalt the name of Christ, then we don't gather back together as a church. That is the purpose in which we are to meet, is to make much of Him. You know, I really like being out here today, because it feels like the message that we preach inside, it's already halfway out to where it belongs, which is into this world.
[3:11] Which if I could speak to this world today, I would let them know that here at Vision Baptist Church, we magnify the name of Jesus. He has saved us. He has brought healing to our pastor. And we magnify Him.
[3:22] And our invitation is, come magnify the Lord with us. As you go out through your week, you need to be inviting people to magnify the Lord with you. If you see another Christian, you need to invite them to magnify the Lord with you.
[3:34] If you meet somebody, if you don't know they're a believer, you should invite them to magnify the Lord with you. Earlier this week, I was at the dry cleaner, and I told the lady, I said, you know what? God has healed my pastor. Will you rejoice with me?
[3:45] And she said, that's nice, sir. All right? That's all she had to say about that. I think I might have scared her a little bit. But my heart is so full, and I want to magnify the Lord. And I know that today, with you people, that we can say that, and you are not surprised that we would be filled with gratitude towards our Lord.
[4:00] So we need to be going around inviting people as David. An individual deliverance in his life led to him inviting other people to proclaim and to magnify the name of the Lord. Every one of you here today, you have or you can have an individual deliverance from the wrath of God.
[4:15] And as Christians, you know what that was like. At the age of nine, I was saved in June 7, 1992, celebrated my Christian birthday not long ago. And I remember telling the pastor, when he said, what happens to you?
[4:26] I said, I feel like I was standing in the middle of the highway, and a truck was going to hit me, and then Jesus saved me. And he said, that's what it was. The wrath of God was headed toward your life, but Jesus Christ delivered you, and I want my individual praise, the overflow, and the praise of other people.
[4:43] And this praise that David had, it brought deliverance for him. Verse number four, I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and he delivered me from all of my fears. When we read this psalm, you would think that David must have been having a great day.
[4:57] As you read it, it's just full of wonderful praise to God, and of the strength of God, and you think David must have written this on a beautiful day when it was in the mid-70s. He was with his church family in a drive-in service, but that isn't where David is at.
[5:10] Second Samuel chapter number five, David is anointed to be king by Samuel, but the problem was they already had a king, and typically if there is a king, he's not looking for a replacement. And so after that time, David is then, he's introduced to Saul, and then the people sang, and they talk about David's thousands, Saul's thousands, and David tens of thousands, and Saul's jealousy bulls in his heart against him.
[5:31] This prized son of Jesse that's anointed king, Saul hates him. Chapter 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel 19, he sends Jonathan and others to go and kill David, but they don't do the job because David had found favor in their lives.
[5:46] And I guess it's the verse number 10 of that, where that's where Saul, in his rage, where he can't control his emotion, throws the spear at David, and we see the hatred. And so now he's an enemy.
[5:56] And so where does David go? Well, it doesn't seem to be very good strategy, but David goes to Gath, and he assumes that nobody's going to know who he is. He was just a shepherd boy. Nobody should know who he is.
[6:07] Well, there's something about when you kill the giant of the land, people recognize you. And that's what happened. People recognize David in the land of Gath, and now here he is standing before a king, and they're going to kill him because they know who he is.
[6:20] So David, he fakes his insanity, and he acts like he's crazy, so they will have mercy on him, and he flees, and he goes back to his land, and his friends and family are captured in a raid.
[6:32] People turn against him, and it's at that point in David's life where he sits down and he writes, Psalm 34, 8, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. If you think that David wrote something when he doesn't understand what you're going through, or you don't think that you can praise God because of your circumstances, David said in the dark hour of his life, he could taste and see that the Lord was good.
[6:54] David did not pray for deliverance from the Philistines. He didn't pray for deliverance from Saul. But what he prayed for was deliverance from the fear of all of his problems. And that's what he said here.
[7:05] He said in verse 4, I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and he delivered me from all my fears. What a wonderful thing to be brought out of.
[7:16] Verse number 2, David is glad in the very dark season of life, he said, The humble shall hear thereof and be glad. David knew that he could be glad no matter what was going on.
[7:27] Because refuge with the Lord in the midst of danger is far better than the comfort of safety without him. Verse number 6, it says, The poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and he saved him out of all of his troubles.
[7:40] Some said this was David speaking of himself, the poor man. Others said there might have been a poor man sitting there that David could point to and mention, or it could have been me, or it could have been you, because any poor man, anybody that comes to God in humbleness, he will hear, and he will save out of all of his troubles, and these troubles of fear.
[7:58] Verse 5, They looked unto him, and they were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. David said the praises of other people, they helped him. It says that their face, they radiated.
[8:10] That the glory of God was to shine upon their face, because they knew that God was their strength. Verse 14, it says, The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous. God is looking after us.
[8:20] Verse, And then it says, And the ears are open unto their cry. God hears us. Our faces are not ashamed. They shine because of God's goodness. Of course their faces should shine.
[8:31] They realize, in verse number 7, The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them, that fear him, and delivereth them. Their face brought encouragement to David. Their face would shine, because they were people that knew that God saw them, and heard them.
[8:47] When I was listening to some messages by the pastor, and made the audio clip that we just had, when he said, Vision Baptist Church, God will hear, and he will answer your prayers, I was overwhelmed with gratitude, because our God has heard, and he's answered our prayers.
[9:03] The face of God has not turned away from us, and because of that, we are people that do not have a shame face, but we're people that can radiate, and people that can praise the God of heaven. David wasn't delivered from all of his problems, but he was delivered from the fear of those problems, and we will see here, that there is a fear that expels all other fears.
[9:22] Verse 11, Come ye children, and hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. It's always great in a passage, where it just comes out and says, Hey, I want to tell you what's being taught right now.
[9:34] And so David says, Hey children, I want to teach you about the fear of the Lord, because this is something that is taught. The fear of the Lord is something that has been taught.
[9:45] You know, as a kid, you were taught things. When you were born, you didn't come out and say, Hey, where's my wallet? As a baby, you weren't worried about financial pressures, but the older you got, the more you realized, I'm going to have to have some money to make it.
[9:56] So you learn the fear, the lack of having money. There's other fears that you learn to have. Little kids don't worry about running out of clothes, but teenagers are always worried about having new clothes or more clothes.
[10:09] The older you get, the more things that you learn the fear. When stress and disappointment and fear begin to drown our hope and our joy in God, Jesus encourages us to be like King David.
[10:20] Matthew chapter number 6, verse number 31, a familiar passage says, Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For all these things do the Gentiles seek.
[10:32] For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Our pastor's life verse.
[10:43] All these things shall be added unto you, not to fear like unbelieving people will, but to put our trust in the righteousness of God. David knew, as it said in Lamentations, that is the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed, because his compassion fails not, that they are new every morning, and great is his faithfulness.
[11:05] The fear of the Lord expelled all other fears in David's life. A fear that will push out all other fears. Verse number 7, we said, Maybe your kids have done this before, but my kids love to scare one another, especially when they're supposed to be brushing their teeth.
[11:27] They love to hide in the closet, where the toothbrushes are kept, and they love to jump out and scare one another. Well, one of the favorite tricks is that when you know you're about to be scared, another one of them likes to scare the other one before they could scare them.
[11:41] They like to have a fear that goes before another's fear. I know that the fear or the scaring that a child would have is not completely similar to the fear of the Lord, but there's two sets of fears in this chapter, and I want to compare and contrast them.
[11:54] Verse number 4 are categories of fear. Delivered me from all my fears. Verse 6, Saved them out of all of his troubles. David had fear from his troubles. Verse 17, Delivered them out of all their troubles.
[12:04] Verse 18, A broken heart and a contrite spirit. David's giving a description of the fears that he has. Let me add some of those to you. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of not being good enough.
[12:16] Fear of comparing or measuring up. Fear of being unloved or unvalued. Fear of guilt. Fear of the unknown. Fear of pain. Fear of losing control. Fear of losing one. Someone you love.
[12:27] Fear of death. Fear of being alone. Fear of heartbreak. There's so many things in this world that we can be taught the fear. And you might believe that the goal in life is to say no fear, but that isn't true.
[12:38] That was a common expression, often a sticker on the back of a car that would say no fear. But you know, as Christians, our response is not no fear. Our response is a proper fear.
[12:50] Our fear of the Lord will chase away all the other fears of our lives. Here's a proper fear of the Lord as described by David. Verse 7, The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them but fear him.
[13:01] Verse 9, O fear the Lord, ye saints. Verse 11, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. So David isn't saying get rid of fear. He's saying have a proper fear, one that is greater, that is towards the Lord.
[13:13] David expresses to us a good understanding of the fear of the Lord. He says, I will bless the Lord at all times. My soul will make her boast in the Lord. O magnify the Lord with me. I sought the Lord.
[13:24] They looked upon me. In verse 13 and 14, he says, The fear of the Lord has led him to obey the Lord. And so he will keep his tongue from evil, his lips from speaking guile. He will depart from evil and do good.
[13:35] And he will seek peace and he will pursue it. So David was able to shift his fears from all the things in life, all the things that were there, that gave him fear. And he didn't go from having no fear, but he turned and he shipped his attention to the greatness and wonder of God.
[13:52] That there was a greater thing to fear. There was a greater thing to wonder at. There was a greater thing to take away your breath. There was something that was bigger than all of his trouble, and that is the Lord God of heaven.
[14:04] Have you learned this today? Have you ever been the awe of God been in your life? Isaiah chapter number six, number five, is that then I said, Woe is me, for I'm undone. And what is common, anytime somebody would say woe to me, because I'm a man of unclean lips, he wasn't boasting in himself, he was humbled, and I will dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips.
[14:22] And this is why he was able to woe and have a healthy fear of God. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. When you look at the God of heaven, and you have that healthy fear of the Lord, and then you go back and you look at all those other things that scared you, you say they're not near as big as I remember them being.
[14:42] You might have seen some different things in the world that took your breath away. I've been blessed to see many different things in my life. The Krispy Kreme sign when it was on, I've seen that before, and that's pretty wonderful, isn't it?
[14:54] I've seen the Grand Canyon, seen the Great Wall of Chinam, but for me, the thing that took my breath away probably the most was the Redwood Forest out in California. I had some friends that were living there in Kentucky, and they said, Trent, we want to take you to see the Redwoods.
[15:06] And I said, come on, man. We grew up in the woods. There's not another tree that I want to see. I came to California. Let me see buildings. Let me see something else. But I didn't come all the way out here to see a tree. And when I was walking and I wasn't paying attention, the next moment, I'm standing beside a tree that was so massive that I could not decide if I had shrunk or if trees had got bigger.
[15:25] But seeing that tree and its size brought me down to realize the God of heaven is huge. The God of heaven can create a tree in any size that He wants and it makes us recognize our size.
[15:38] And that's such a wonderful thing. And so there's a tension between woe of Isaiah and the Psalm 17, verse 7, show thy loving, marvelous kindness, O thou that saveth by thy right hand. So there's a tension in the fear of the Lord that's between the woe, the powerful God of Isaiah, and then just wow.
[15:55] Wow God, you're amazing. The woe that God, you're so powerful that if you wanted to, you could wipe us off the earth at any moment. You're so great and powerful. But then that same God, He loves us, that says woe.
[16:08] The powerful God that loves us brings a healthy and a wonderful fear of the Lord. What have we learned about the fear of the Lord from David? We've learned that it is something that's learned.
[16:19] He said, little children, let me teach you. We also have learned that it's something that brings security. Not the cave that he was in and not anything else, but he found comfort, David did, in the midst of all the craziness because of who God was.
[16:32] But it also teaches us patience. I almost overlooked this verse and I'm so glad I did it. In verse number 20, He keepeth all of his bones, not one of them is broken. You might recognize that because John in chapter number 19 and verse number 36, this is something that he said about our Lord.
[16:50] He said that none of his bones were broken as prophesied in the Bible. You know, you may read that and say, well that doesn't sound like much protection, does it? I mean, Jesus does die even though why does it matter that his bones weren't broken even though he died?
[17:04] It matters because it was a fulfillment of promise that things were going just according to God's plan and that even death would not stop God from being glorified.
[17:15] That three days later, Jesus Christ would rise again. And so this fear of the Lord, it teaches us patience that in no story God is going to win. No matter what you think has happened, no matter what you think is going on in your life, our God will still win.
[17:30] When we look to God and his promises, it brings more comfort than what we are able to understand about our condition. It's a reminder. Our God is able to live her even through death.
[17:42] Our God's, in the word of our pastor, in the end, God will win. He always has. The fear of the Lord teaches us patience because despite what you think you see in your life, our God wins.
[17:54] And that even death will not stop him from winning. Three days later, he rose again and no matter what you have in your life, even death will not separate you from the love of God.
[18:06] So the fear of the Lord is to shift our focus from the things we fear in this world to a preoccupation with the only one who can rescue us. And so let's do that today. Let us taste and see that the Lord is good.
[18:18] Blessed is the man that trusts in him. We are blessed when we trust in him. Verse number 10, The young lions do lack and they suffer hunger, but they seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.
[18:30] In the song that we sung right before, it talked about God, talked about the lion, the lion of Judah that is all powerful. Here in this passage, when we think about the lion, he may be the king of the jungle, he may be at the top of the food chain, but even the lion will suffer.
[18:44] But you know who doesn't suffer? Those of us who come to God and we seek him, we should not want. The poor in spirit, the broken in spirit, when we come to him, unlike those that are wealthy in the world, those that are strong in their own ability, those that have got wealth by their own strength, I should say, all those people, they will lack.
[19:04] But who doesn't lack? It's God's people that come to him with a broken spirit, not our own strength. You know what God's done wonderful in my life and I've shared it with many and I'm not going to stop sharing it. You know, when I was, in the two weeks when this building was closed and I felt like I was completely of no use to any of you, I felt like I was of no use to anybody else, you know what I realized is that the God of heaven remains strong and his love for me never wavered.
[19:28] That my God's love for me has never been contingent upon my ability because I'm not a lion. I am a poor man and God, he will meet all my needs. It's so wonderful.
[19:39] We're invited to taste and see that the Lord is good. The first invitation of Genesis chapter number 3, Adam and Eve were invited to taste and see of the fruit and it left them unsatisfied and it always will.
[19:52] But when our God says, come unto me all you that labor and are of heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your soul.
[20:04] When God invites us to taste and see he's inviting us to find refuge in him, he's asking us to submit our lives to him and find wonderful peace there. Peter quotes this in 1 Peter chapter number 3 and then verse number 13 after quoting this passage, he says, who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good?
[20:24] Who is it that's going to harm you? What is there the fear in this world when you look at the fear of the Lord that we have? What is in comparison the hymn? What is so unbelievable and so chaotic that the wisdom of God cannot handle?
[20:38] What is so strong and powerful that our God cannot take care of? Who is it that can harm you when you have Jesus as your Lord? I got one more verse here and I'm going to ask Kristen to come.
[20:49] She'll play a piano and I'm asking you to meditate upon the truth of God's word. But Romans chapter number 8 verses 33 and 34, we have a question and an answer, a question and an answer and then I'll give you an application.
[21:01] Romans 8, 33 Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect to us? Answer, it is God that justifieth. Who is it that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again.
[21:14] Who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us? What is the application? We should only fear God and let it cast out all other fears.
[21:27] Any of the fears that we have in our lives that have seen the growth so big? They've only grown so big because you haven't walked into the redwood forest and you haven't seen the mighty oak, the mighty trees that are there.
[21:40] You have not walked through the word of God and realized these things in my life they seem so gigantic but wow, look at the wonder of God. Look at the strength of God. There's nothing that compares.
[21:51] The fear of the Lord, it will push out any other fear in this life. And how do we focus on the fear of the Lord? We taste and see that He is good. We find our strength in Him.
[22:02] So believers that are listening today online are in here. I want to ask you this or challenge you in this area. The troubles and the fears of your life shall not overwhelm the people of God but through prayer we will be delivered out of them.
[22:18] We have been delivered out of them and through praise we will instruct others to live by faith and experience the goodness of God. Church family can I invite you we are a people that have been delivered through salvation.
[22:31] We are people that God of heaven has heard our prayers. Now let us be people that instruct others by living in faith and showing praise.
[22:41] Let praise be the distinctive mark of this season in our church. Let us praise God for His goodness. If you don't know Jesus Christ today can I tell you this story started off with a king who was acting insane.
[22:55] A king that was trying to escape death. A king that was looking after himself but the day when we end let me tell you about a king that came a thousand years later and that was King Jesus and he didn't look to get out of his death.
[23:08] He did not pretend to be insane. He didn't pretend to be sinful but he took his sin upon us and he died upon a cross and because of that we have the fear of the Lord and we can find our rest in Him and so no we don't fear the things of this world because our fear is found in the Lord and so if you don't know that fear of the Lord today if you don't know why we say woe to Him and wow to Him we would love to tell you and so would you contact us in some way and allow us that opportunity and the last time believers before I pray the troubles and fear of life should not overwhelm you we are the people of God and through prayer we have been delivered and through praise we will instruct others to live by faith and experience the goodness of God I'm going to pray I'm going to take a moment we're going to meditate on that truth then I'm going to give a few announcements before we leave Heavenly Father Lord we come to you today as people that we know that your face is upon us that you shine upon us Lord we're people that we know your face is near and your ear is bent towards us that you have heard and you have answered our prayers and Lord you have made us a people of praise
[24:10] Lord I pray that our individual praise of deliverance Lord it will multiply throughout this city it will multiply around the world Lord we invite people to magnify the Lord with us Lord you are so worthy of praise the fear that we have of you Lord it makes all the failures of this world it disappears you are great you are wonderful you are powerful you are all knowing Lord you are all loving you are all never changing Lord and you are a personal God that has met with us Lord and you continue to do and I love you so very much Lord thank you for expressing your love upon your people and doing a wonderful work upon our behalf and I love you so much