[0:00] Psalm chapter 28 is a prayer, as many of the Psalms have been. And they just really have been ministering to us. We need these at this time. We live most of our days, or I should say I live many of my days, just minimizing the role of God in my life and elevating my own importance.
[0:14] But there comes times where I'm just desperate for Him, where prayer is not a formality, but I need Him to hear me. And if He doesn't, then I know that I'm undone. And that's what David says here in this Psalm.
[0:26] Looking at the chart we've looked at before that puts the Psalms in different sections, we see that this is considered a Psalm of Lament. But I don't think it fits there very well, because even though it starts off with a sigh, it ends up with a song.
[0:40] And David communicates some prayer requests to the Lord. He gives a prophecy about what will happen to his enemies. But then he says that his heart trusts in God. God is his strength, his rock.
[0:51] And then God changes what's happening in David's heart into a song. And it's a beautiful thing. And as we go through the Psalm, we'll pray this together. Pray that the same response happens in your life.
[1:02] I can't do the Psalm justice as I read it. It's just so full of emotion as we would read it. And I pray that you'll have ears to hear the day. And the Holy Spirit will speak to you through His Word.
[1:14] I'm going to read this before we pray. Psalm chapter number 28. Lord, if you don't hear me, I will die.
[1:31] Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee. When I lift up my hands towards thy holy oracle. Draw me not away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors with mischief in their hearts.
[1:44] Give them according to their deeds, according to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them after the works of their hand. Render to them their desert. Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up.
[1:57] Blessed be the Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my strength and my shield, and my heart trusted in Him, and I have helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices.
[2:08] With my song will I praise Him. The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving strength of His anointed. Save up people and bless Thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them up forever.
[2:19] Father, Heavenly Father, we come to You today, and we want to hear from You, Lord. Lord, we, many of us may be in the place of David, Lord, with that desperation, but all of us desire to be there, Lord.
[2:30] We want to live lives that are solely dependent upon You, not upon our own strength and not upon our abilities or those of others. Lord, we need You, and we need to hear from You.
[2:41] And Lord, that's what I ask that You do today from the teaching of Your Word. You allow Your people, Your inheritance, Lord, Your people to hear from You. And to be strengthened as a result. In Jesus' name I pray.
[2:53] Amen. So just right off from the beginning, we can see from this prayer, and from all prayer, that prayer demonstrates an attitude of dependence upon God.
[3:04] A lot of us are in our position right now, we're reaching out to one another and saying, what can we do for You, and how can we help? And the answer is, just pray. And that's difficult for a lot of us, because in just praying, we want to do something that we can do, that we can achieve.
[3:18] But we're in a position right now where we are solely dependent upon God. And what a wonderful place for us, though, as Christians, but a place that we often fight so hard to be against. You can recognize His concern and God's ability to help.
[3:32] He says, unto Thee will I cry, O Lord, my right. Unto Thee will I cry. It gives a sense of urgency, this cry, whether it be loud with His voice or just loud there in His heart.
[3:43] But this is just not a, as I said before, it's the formality in prayer, just the normal day. This is David that is desperate for God. And I remind you the personal nature of what David's been going through with the rebellion of His Son and the loss of the kingdom.
[3:58] This is how personal it is with the loss of the relationship with His Son. Many say that they don't believe that David could be referencing that story because of what he says about his enemies.
[4:11] But we find it's these truths that are so intentional. He knows that God is true and he trusts God in the prophecy of what will happen to his enemies. But also later on, later he'll say about Absalom, he'll say that they pray that it will be gentle to him.
[4:25] He knows that his Son is headed towards a bad place and towards a pit. And David says, I don't want to be associated with that, Lord. Strengthen me lest I'll be like my enemies.
[4:36] Strengthen me or I'll just be just like all these people that are coming at me. These people that I am complaining about, the people that are afflicting me. And so verse number one, Lord, hear my pride. Verse six, blessed be the Lord because they've heard the voice of my supplications.
[4:50] How does David know that the sky opened up and the sun shined and that everything changed and Absalom sent him a postcard and say, sorry, none of those things happened. David knew as he prayed that God heard him because of the faithfulness of God.
[5:05] David Livingston, famous missionary to Africa, which was asked about why he believed that God would hear him. And this was his answer. He said, it is the word of a gentleman of the strictest, the most sacred honor.
[5:16] And that is the end of it. Saying that if a gentleman was to keep his word, then most certainly our God would keep his word. And he tells us, Jeremiah 33 verse three, calleth me and I'll answer thee and I shall be great and mighty things which thou knowest not.
[5:28] Our God says that he will hear and answer prayers. And David was taking that by faith. God, I cry out to thee and blessed be the Lord. He heard my prayer of supplication. Supplication, we should take great comfort in that today to know that God would allow us to pray to him and be heard.
[5:44] And so David's prayer was properly, it was directed to the right person at the right time with the right motives and in the right way. You don't see David here with any kind of strategy that he's asking God to bless or calling upon some other surrounding nations to help him.
[5:58] He's at a place that many would say he's at rock bottom, but he's not at rock bottom. He is calling upon his God, the rock, because he knows that he has to be fully dependent on God.
[6:10] Oh, I want that in my life and I pray that you want that in your life as well. So many times I live self-reliant, wanting to do things in my own strength. One of my favorite people to read after is George Mueller.
[6:22] He's best known for his orphanages, but he never started the orphanages primarily for the welfare of the children. He said there's three chief reasons he established an orphanage. I want you to hear them and pay close attention to the first one.
[6:35] It is that, that God may be glorified and should be pleased to furnish with me with the means in its being that it is not vain thing to trust in him, that thus the faith of his children might be strengthened.
[6:48] He said that he hoped to start an orphan house so that people would see the goodness of God and their faith would be strengthened for how God took care of him and those orphaned children. The second being the spiritual welfare of the fatherless and mother's children and the last being the temporal welfare.
[7:05] George Mueller said, I want to live a life that shows that God's a rock. I want to live a life that shows God is my strength, that if God does not meet my needs, they will not be met.
[7:17] He goes on later, he said in the biography this, he says, either we trust in God and in that case we neither trust in ourselves nor in our fellow men nor in circumstances nor in anything besides or we do trust in one or more of these and in that case we do not trust in God.
[7:33] It's one or the other. We either trust in God completely or we trust in ourselves and our fellow man and our circumstances but it can be a mixture. And he says we should rely solely upon the Lord and his prayer journals are amazing time and time again of how God met the needs of him and the children in that orphanage.
[7:51] I think one of the pictures I've asked to illustrate this as well as any we found in 2 Kings chapter number 4. You probably know the story of Elisha and the widow lady who has a son.
[8:02] And when in 2 Kings chapter number 4 verse 2 Elisha said unto her, what shall I do for thee and tell me what house thou in the house? And she said, not handmaid hath not anything in the house save a pot of oil.
[8:14] And from that she gives it to Elisha but he takes it and it just gets multiplied. But she was at a place where she gave everything that she had by faith and then God met the needs at that point.
[8:28] That place of emptiness that is so scary for us is a place where God does an incredible work. We find throughout the Bible that our joy in God is bound together with our trust in God.
[8:41] Our joy in God is bound with our trust in God. When we move away from one, we will inevitably move away from the other. Some years ago I was in South Africa and those that have traveled to South Africa, you know one of the things that Mark Coffey is going to ask you to do is jump off the world's tallest bungee jump bridge.
[9:02] I think I got those words in a weird order. But it's a really tall bridge that you can go bungee jumping off of. So here's a picture of me on the world's tallest bungee jump bridge.
[9:14] And Mark Coffey talks a lot of people into getting, jumping off of this bridge. It's one of his selling techniques for coming to an admission trip with him. And I didn't think that I would do it when I walked out across the bridge that day.
[9:28] I didn't look down because I knew if I'd look down at any point, I'd probably turn around. They showed, they told the math behind it. I could see the rope that they were being used. I read all the stats about it.
[9:39] But honestly, it was right up to the edge when this man in the picture here, he takes me by the collar and he looks at me and he says, You are the safest man in South Africa.
[9:52] And I don't know why I believe that, but for some reason it just seemed to make sense to me that he said it. And I trusted him and then I just jumped and it was a blast. I really enjoyed it.
[10:04] But for some reason I decided to ignore everything going on around and place all my trust in this stranger that I did not know because I had confidence in him. You know, until we have confidence in God that's settled, that's what we call faith, the confidence in God, our joy in God will always remain elusive.
[10:21] It will always be something that we can never find. 2 Corinthians 1.24 As we stand in faith in our God, we will find joy regardless of the circumstances.
[10:38] He most certainly, unlike the man on the bungee jump bridge that night, our God is most certainly worthy of our trust that we can put in him. And we can stand in faith believing what he says is true.
[10:50] And this dependency on God will take the sigh of, oh God, I cry unto you, and it will turn it into a song. Verse 7, Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, with my song will I praise him.
[11:01] And so God turns a sigh into a song when our dependency is completely in him. Not in anything else, no mixture, but in him completely. In other songs we saw this. We saw it in Psalm 5.11 But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice.
[11:15] Let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them. Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. It says, let them that trust in thee rejoice. That's what David is doing.
[11:26] From the beginning of the Psalm to the end we find him getting to a place where he puts his trust in God. A hope. His dependence is completely upon his God. The Apostle Paul.
[11:37] So David says that he is a rock. And Paul says here he is the God of hope. Romans 15.13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.
[11:51] The thing that was going to change instantly in David's life is not his circumstances, but his perspective. And where he was placing his hope and trust. Apostle Peter says as well, 1 Peter chapter 1 verse number 8.
[12:02] David here refers to God as this rock.
[12:23] Verse 7 he says he is a strength and he is a shield for David. Not as a boulder in the middle of nothing, but as like a mountain that David can get upon and be safe from all of his enemies.
[12:35] And he can find rest in the middle. Not running through the valley constantly in fear, but he can get upon there on the mountain and he can trust his God. Isaiah chapter number 53 is an incredible chapter.
[12:47] We know that God, he bore our sins. But I remind you in verse number 4 it says, Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him smitten, stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
[12:58] He bore our griefs and our sorrows. So we can go to our God as our rock. Because we know that he has carried our sorrows and our griefs. And we can lay them at his feet.
[13:08] We can come to him and find shelter and peace. Because he is one that would carry our sorrows for us. We should have complete confidence in our God. You know, we should know that this word is completely sufficient.
[13:21] Because in him we find that everything is sufficient. He does all things well. And David is reminding him of that. And of all the uncertainty and all that he doesn't know about. And all the ways he has failed God and not been faithful.
[13:33] And the way that everybody has turned against him. He knows that his God is unchangeable. And that he can depend on him completely. David recognized his inability to do anything without God.
[13:44] Not only did he cry unto the Lord, but he says, Be not silent to me, lest if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit. Lord, if you don't answer my prayer, I will die.
[13:57] That desperation, Lord, I need to hear from you. He wasn't looking to anybody else. He knew that it wasn't going to be found in anybody else. He knew that he had to find his answers and his hope in God.
[14:09] I read a story about a textile factor in on the sign that said, When a thread becomes tangled, call the foreman. And so there was a lady working there and her thread became tangled.
[14:19] And she decided she was new to the job. That she would just try to fix it herself. And she tried at it and it didn't work. And so she finally called the foreman over and said, Well, it messed up and I tried to fix it myself.
[14:30] I did my best. And he looked at her and said, No, ma'am, you did not do your best. Because in doing your best, you would have called me immediately when you had a problem. You know, in our lives so many times, I know that when I get myself into a mess, when I'm relying upon my own strength and my own ability and trying to live out my life as a husband or dad or as a Christian, fellow church member, and I do things with my own strength and I make a mess of it, and then I finally take it to God and say, God, I tried to fix it myself and I did my best.
[15:03] And the answer would simply be, No, your best would be always just to come to God immediately and say, God, I need you. I'm desperate for you. Why would we ever attempt anything in our own strength?
[15:14] John 15, 5, it says, I am the vine and you are the branches. He that abideth to me and I am him. The same bringeth forth much fruit. And you know how this ends. It says, For without me ye can do nothing.
[15:26] Not a little, not some, but we can do nothing. It's our tendency is to strive for a high measure of independency where everything seems to be under our control, but underneath there's always this fear that it will all crumble.
[15:41] We forget that genuine peace comes from full dependency upon God who has all in his control. Trust and joy are eternally connected.
[15:52] We should trust him. We should be completely dependent on him in our lives. On the bad days when we don't have an option in it and in the good days when we think that we do, we should be dependent on him.
[16:04] So David here, his prayer is showing his dependency of God. But also we see that he's totally dependent on God on his outcomes. Verse number 3, Draw me not away with the wicked.
[16:17] David is saying that you saved me, Lord, from my enemies and their devices for me. Verse 7, The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
[16:27] He knew that God would help him from the things that are coming down upon him. He knew. He knew it before he even saw it. After he got done praying, he said, I am helped.
[16:38] Because God would be his strength. But not only that, but he knew that God would protect him and guide his steps, as we saw in the previous Psalms, and save him from the traps and pull his feet from the net.
[16:49] But he knew the fate of his enemies were in God's hands. Because they regard not the works of the Lord nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them and not build them up. Some people call these a predatory Psalms where he's saying something against his enemies, but this is just him stating the facts of life.
[17:05] Is that those that sin against God and do not repent, the wrath of God will be upon them. And this is going to be true even of his own son. He knew that God was unmovable and unshakable.
[17:16] He wants his son to yield and to not go in his direction, but he knows confidently that God will not change and that God will deliver his enemies in his hands. And now he's praying and says, I do not want to ask God, I don't want to be part of that.
[17:29] I don't want to be part of that wrongdoing. So God, save me from that. David takes cover in the fact that God doesn't change it here, but he's praying and saying, God, I don't want to be that person.
[17:40] Put me upon the rock. You know, you are the rock. He's saying, don't cast me upon the rock. Don't put me in the pit. I want to be on the rock, Lord. I don't want to be in the pit. And if you don't strengthen me, then I may be just like my enemies.
[17:52] I might compromise. I might do the wrong things. I may go about life in a wicked manner. I may not treat people in the proper way. God, if you don't strengthen me, I may be no better off than my enemies in the way that I care for other people.
[18:05] David asked God to be his strength and to save him from that same path. Verse 3, draw me not away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity and speak peace to the neighbors with mischief in their hearts. He's describing the things that he wants to be saved from.
[18:18] I don't want to work iniquity, Lord. Save me from that, Lord. Holiness is separation from sin, but unto God. Lord, draw me away from the wicked. Draw me unto you. I want to live a holy life, not one of iniquity.
[18:29] Lord, I don't want to be as a hypocrite. I want to be speaking peaceful to my neighbors, but then doing mischief in my heart. We've seen that all throughout the Bible. We see what it's like when people, they don't trust God and they make decisions not based upon faith.
[18:42] Though our faith cannot be ultimately like that of an unbeliever, our eternity is secure in heaven. Our life here on earth can resemble that of unbelieving people.
[18:52] We can be people that don't live as people that have faith. David wants, he does, he wants to overcome and he needs the strength that only God can provide. He needs God to be his shield.
[19:03] You see that David craves a fellowship with God. God's silent to him is the worst possible scenario. Be silent to me. I will die, Lord. I will be like them. If you're silent to me, I'll go down into the pit.
[19:15] But in verse number eight, you can see that he craves that fellowship with God. That's his greatest good. The Lord is their strength and he is their saving strength of his anointed. God, you are my strength.
[19:26] And he finally, he craves that fellowship with God. The Bible is filled with examples of people who do not act in faith. Abraham doesn't trust in God for his son and Ishmael was born. He doesn't trust in God as he heads into the town and has his wife lie.
[19:40] Every time we find when there's a lack of trust, we see all the consequences that come from it. But then we see men like Noah who builds an ark even though he's never seen rain and how God blessed.
[19:50] And so Hebrews 11, 6, I'll be very clear to us that without faith it is impossible to please him. And so we want to live lives completely dependent upon him. And whatever situation in life that puts us here where we're desperate and completely dependent upon him, we are grateful because we know nothing of any significance will ever be accomplished if we're not dependent on him.
[20:11] And then lastly, dependence on God is our only way forward. Verse 7, The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in him, I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices and with my song will I praise him.
[20:24] This is how we get from a sigh to a song. David recognized that God was his source of strength. David's heart trusted in God. David was helped. David was rejoiced and now David shares that with other people.
[20:38] What a common theme throughout the Bible. Anytime God called somebody to do something, He never called them to do it in their own strength. Zechariah 4, 6, talking about Zerubbabel, who was called to rebuild the temple.
[20:48] He says, Then he answered and spake unto them, saying, This is the word of the Lord and the Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might or by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. The rebuilding of the temple was done not by their strength and power, but by God's strength and by the Spirit.
[21:03] God wants the word in and through us. That's what is pleasing to God is what he produces in and through us. Anything else is as a tinkling symbol. Only what he produces in and through us. We depend on God for our very existence.
[21:17] Colossians 1, 16 and 17, For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him and it is he before all things and by him all things consist.
[21:33] We live and have our sustenance made completely by God. So why would it be difficult for us to trust him and the work that he has given us to do and to live out our lives?
[21:44] We can depend totally on our God today. Verse number 9, Save thy people and bless thy inheritance. Feed them also and lift them up forever. Calling the children of Israel there his inheritance.
[21:56] Pray, calling them the prize of his possession where his affections are sent. It's just a reminder that God cares for us as his people. We know certainly we've seen the greatest demonstration of his love towards Jesus Christ dying upon the cross for us.
[22:10] And we can trust him and we can put our dependency upon him. So how do we do that? How do we depend totally upon God? We follow example David. We pray and we really pray and we say God if you don't answer then we are undone.
[22:26] We need you to work. Of all the things that really matter in life the physical illnesses we may face or the salvation of our loved ones or to see our kids raised up to honor you none of those things are done in our own strength.
[22:39] And so when God we come to you and we pray and say God we need you to answer if not we are completely without hope. And we trust him without hope. Just like David here says God I know that you're going to be your laws are immutable.
[22:51] God we trust you. We praise you. You know what is best for us and we trust you. And then we recognize that who we are is by the grace of God. 1 Corinthians 15.10 but by the grace of God I am what I am and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not a vain but I labor more abundantly than they all yet not I but the grace of God which was with me.
[23:13] That's how we come to our God in prayer. We stop relying upon ourselves and say God we need you. David's prayer dependence upon God and we're going to pray that together. I'm going to pray that you're going to let all those other things in your life that are keeping you from just fully relying upon God and I pray that you'll move them to the side that you'll no longer put any stock or trust in them because they will always disappoint.
[23:34] I'm going to pray and then some music we'll play and then there'll be a couple of review questions on the screen for here to think over and are you truly dependent upon God today?
[23:45] Are you trying to accomplish things for God that can only be done through his power? If you're not we can live lives in our own strength but that's not what we were made to do. We're made to live fully relying upon him and allowing him to work in and through us.
[23:59] I know some of you are desperate and tired and you know that you must hear from him and I pray that you'll cry out to him today knowing that he'll answer your prayers and that he will give you the strength that you need.
[24:10] Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you today and we cry out, Lord, and we ask you, Lord, to work and to strengthen us and to be our shield and our protection. Our dependency, Lord, is completely upon you today.
[24:21] Lord, we do not look upon our own individual strength. Lord, we don't look upon our collective strength as a church body, but Lord, there's things in our lives that we need you to work in and if you don't work, Lord, we are completely undone, Lord, and so we're begging you to work, Lord, knowing that you hear and answer our prayers.
[24:39] Lord, we take comfort in the fact that you do not change and that you punish wicked and Lord, we're praying that you would watch our steps and that you would keep us from that. Lord, that you would keep us from compromise and from sin, Lord, and we want to live lives of integrity and Lord, we trust you and we rejoice and we share this story with other people of how you have blessed and you have hurt us.
[24:59] In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.