Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. It is wonderful
that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either
by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray
for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?
The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really,
I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible,
they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will
do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a
non-Christian checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't
hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the
types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.
Just bowing our heads, let's pray. Father, sometimes, Father, we read your Word and don't see ourselves
in your Word. But Father, we confess that the problem is not that your Word isn't addressing
us, but that, I don't know, there's something blind in our eyes and clogging our ears and dull
with our conscience. Father, we ask that you help us to hear your Word. It's a Word directly
to us, a Word that speaks to us as we really are, at the center of who we are, not only at the center
of who we are, but the real life that we actually live day by day. And so, Father, we ask that your
Holy Spirit would do that gentle but very important work in us all the time and this morning now as we
spend some time looking at your Word. And we ask these things in the name of Jesus, your Son and our
Savior. Amen. Please be seated. So the psalm today is going to talk about haters, having to live your life
with people who hate you. And there might be a... Obviously, hate's a very, very strong word,
and for some cases, it might not be hate, but it might be constant irritation. It might be severe.
It might be real dislike, or it might literally be haters. And one of the things is some of us might
say, well, you know, I don't think I'm dealing with any haters right now. I don't think I'm dealing
with anybody who wants me to fail, who wants me to land, you know, on my face, not pick myself up.
I don't know if I'm dealing with people who want to defeat me. I don't know if I'm dealing with haters.
Well, actually, every... Probably every single one of us in this room, in fact, are dealing with haters.
Because there's a range of topics that we, as those of us who are here who are historic,
biblical Christians, that if we were to say it out loud, people would hate us.
And so it's not unusual that if you're in a Starbucks, or a Tim Hortons, or some other place,
and you discover you meet another person who holds some of the same views as you, you talk like this.
And you sort of look around a little bit. Because we don't want to be hated.
Don't bring it up at our workplace. We don't want to be hated. Now I know there's a few people here who,
I don't know, you're built out of titanium, and you go through a life scene, whatever you want.
But for most of us, most of us Canadians, we, in a sense, do have to live with haters.
And we live with them by avoiding them. So this psalm is a psalm that actually talks about how do you
live in a world where there are people who are hating you. And it has some surprising,
counterintuitive advice. So let's look and see what it says. We're looking at Psalm 86. Psalm 86.
And here we go. It begins like this. Once again, I'm not sure if it's on the screen,
but it begins by saying, A Psalm of David. Just want to remind you, those, if you read the psalms
for yourselves, and you know, like in my version right now, there has this thing in the bullet print,
Great is Your Steadfast Love. That's just the editors thinking that that's a good title for it.
But right underneath it, there's usually emboldening bullet print, not always, because they don't always
have an ascription, but something like a Psalm of David. I think I've said this before, but not for
a few weeks. One of the differences between a Hebrew Bible, like a Jewish Bible, and ours,
is they count that as the first verse. So their verses, where there's an ascription at that at the
beginning, their psalms will always be off from ours by a verse. And if that's why, that's why
they consider it. But it's original, a Psalm of David. And then it continues, verse one.
Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Now just pause here before I go any
further. David is the king of Israel, and he's just said he's poor and needy.
So is this political posturing? We all know of people like politicians who try to pretend that
they're working class and just scraping by, and they have lots of mansions that are worth millions
and millions of dollars. I've done funerals for people who live in a mansion in Rockcliffe,
and when they're talking about the deceased, they talk about how they're just managing to get by like
everybody else, as if they're working, living in some of the poor areas of the town, but they
go to elite school. Is that what David's doing here? He's not. And you'll go on and you'll later,
like for instance, towards the end of the psalm, he's going to refer to himself as God's servant,
a son of God's maidservant. What's going on here isn't political posturing. It's not make believe
and pretend. It's, which you'll see as you go through the whole psalm, everybody is poor and
needy in regards to God. It doesn't matter if you're one of the richest people on the planet,
you are poor and needy. You need God for life, you need him for your breath, you can't buy your way
into heaven. And so there's a, this is a type of a humbling phrase of David's, which is important
to notice. It's not a cynical phrase, it's heartfelt, and it's heartfelt in the context of the living God.
So I'll read that verse again. 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, 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, O Lord, to my prayer. Listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my
trouble, I call upon you, for you answer me. So verses one to six are sort of covering some important
things about him in terms of his heart and his attitude, and he's getting to the point right here
at verse seven. I'm in trouble. And we're going to see later on in the psalm that the trouble is that
he's dealing with haters. Haters who don't just want him to fail, they actually want to kill him.
And that's the trouble that he's dealing with. Now, a couple of things, you know, about this.
Now, the first thing is, you know, I think every one of us, as soon as I said we have to deal with
haters, that maybe some of you right now are consciously dealing with somebody. Maybe it's a
parent, maybe it's a neighbor, maybe it's your boss, that really does, is out to get you and hates you.
And maybe we're just avoiding saying certain things so we don't develop haters. But here's the other
thing about this psalm. You'll notice that David keeps talking about his need for grace and mercy.
And the reason he's doing that, there's a couple of things that we can get from that. The first one is
this. There might very, and so this whole psalm is going to teach us how to pray into a situation
where people hate us. And that sounds like something we're going to look forward to hearing more about.
We need to also remember that there might very well be people praying this psalm because of us.
In other words, there's people in our office or our neighborhood who perceive us as hating them.
And maybe they're in another church, maybe they're somewhere else, maybe they hear about this online
and they watch it and they're thinking, I really need to hear this because that's, I need to deal
with that George. You know, I need to deal with that, you know, Andrea. That's just something in here.
There's implicit within this call for grace and mercy, this double-edged thing that we need to
understand that it might be us that others are praying about. Now, before I say anything else,
I'd like to, if you could put up the first point, Claire, that would be very good. The biggest lesson
of this whole psalm, but especially these first few verses, is this. Life is difficult,
so prayer is necessary. Life is difficult, so prayer is necessary. In Canada, and probably in the United
States, and probably in many other countries, the basic assumption that we're brought up with is that
life should be easy. And so when life is not easy, what's the problem? And many Christians, those of you
who are maybe watching this or are here, and you don't know much about Christianity, a lot of times
Christians, when life isn't difficult, when life is not easy but difficult, they say they're under demonic attack.
Well, maybe they are. But they're operating from the assumption that life should be easy, not that life is
difficult. And often, if life isn't easy, maybe our finances aren't as easy, our relationship, our work, etc.
And then for some of us who are prone to depression, we start to think that the problem is with us.
And we can be overwhelmed with great guilt, because our money isn't the way we would like it,
our relationships aren't the way we would like it, our living situation isn't how we would like it,
and we can start to beat ourselves up. And we can say, you know what, why am I such a bad person?
Why am I so incompetent? Like, why can't I lead well? Why can't I manage well? Why can I do this well?
And we beat ourselves up. But underneath that, we're assuming that life is easy. The more common
Canadian response to when life is not easy is it's somebody else's fault. Dang the government, like,
dang my boss, my parents, my kids, my wife, my husband, it's all their fault. If I could just have
a better one of those, life wouldn't be difficult, it would be easy, because somehow or another,
we actually think that life should be easy. But that's something that idols tell us. And it's not
true. Now, the Bible's not telling us this, so we will be depressed. It's not telling us this,
so we can be like, you know, the sort of person who does the exam, and they think, oh, I probably only
got a, you know, a D plus. So that way, if they get a B, they're really happy, you know, whereas if they
think they got an A and they got a B, they're unhappy, if the Bible's not telling us this is a
weird way to be happy, life is difficult. Like, raising kids can be difficult. I have great kids,
by the way. You know, it can be difficult in a marriage. Being in a church could be, you know,
being a scholar. Life is difficult. And so the message of the psalm is because life is, that's how
you should just begin to expect that life is going to be difficult. And so prayer is necessary.
And this is a really important lesson to me. In fact, if you could pray for me, this would be the
case. I too often fall into the habit that I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, oh, no, I guess
I better pray. Or I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do, and I'm in really trouble, so I pray. But if life is
difficult, not impossible, just difficult, so we need to pray, then we should begin with prayer,
and continue with prayer, and end with prayer, because life is difficult.
The idols of our age try to tell us that life should be easy, therefore worship us. The Bible says,
listen, I'm not causing you to be depressed. Life is difficult, so prayer is necessary. Now,
the other thing which is going on in this, if with the whole language of him being, like, asking for
grace and mercy, is another very, very important thing to think about when we're thinking about life
as difficult. And part of the reason that life is difficult is because of, part of the reason my life
is difficult is because of me. What I mean is this, there's a fellow by the name of John Maxwell,
he's, like, famous for a lot of power of positive thinking and leadership stuff, and by the way, he
has a lot of stuff that's worth reading, by the way, and I have to confess, he was very helpful for
a season in my life, and he really was. But John Maxwell, one of the things he famously said was,
he said to an audience one day, you know, if I could kick the person who's causing me the most
trouble, I wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. In other words, he'd have to be kicking himself,
because a lot of times I bring my own trouble upon myself. And this is, once again, why we need to
pray to God, that I not make my own life more difficult than it needs be, in the sense that I
wake up, or be more attentive, or just be a better person. But life is difficult. So, now, just, by the way,
sometimes I mention movies in this, on eSermons, and when I mention a movie, it is not a movie
recommendation, okay? So, one of the things that's, over the last couple of months, some Saturday
nights, Louise and I, with the two of our kids, will watch a movie together on Saturday night,
and often we'll let them pick the movie. And a couple of weeks ago, trying to decide what to watch,
and we decided to watch Mad Max Furiosa. This is not a movie recommendation to people, necessarily.
If you don't like violent movies, don't watch this movie, okay? Anyway, to our surprise, like,
everybody liked it. Even Louise liked it. I liked it. I'm fine with sort of violent, some types of
violent movies, or lots of action, or fighting. So, those of you who know this movie, Mad Max Furiosa,
you know that it just came out. It's a prequel to a movie that came out a couple of years ago.
So, last night, we watched the movie that it was a prequel for called Mad Max Fury Road. Now,
there's this really funny scene. It's very short. It's close to the end of the movie. So, there's,
you know, Furiosa, and Tom Hardy, and Nicholas Holt, and some young women, and they're fleeing a group of
really unbelievably fearsome-looking, cruel, violent people, and they know that if they get caught by
these cruel, violent people, they're either going to be... Everybody except the young women are going
to be killed, and the women are... The young women are going to become sex slaves, and they're being
chased, and it looks like they're going to get caught, and they're in this war rig in the back,
and there's this one young woman at the back, and she's doing... Doing hand signs, and her eyes are
closed, and she's nodding. And Lady A, we'll call her Lady A, looks at her and says,
what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? Lady B doesn't pay any attention, just doing this,
closing her eyes, doing hand motions, and stuff like that. Lady A says, are you praying?
And the woman stops her praying and says, yes. Lady A says, who are you praying to? And she answers,
whoever's out there to listen, which I think is really, really funny. Maybe you guys don't think
it's funny. I just thought it's such a funny answer. So, you know, we say we're going to pray. Well,
the question then is, if life is difficult, so prayers, who do we pray to? Well, that's the next
few three verses. It's just, I mean, in a sense, the whole psalm is letting us know the God that
we pray to, but the next three verses in particular are important. Look at them, verses 8 to 10.
David prays, there is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.
Now, just sort of pause. At a first reading, this makes it look as if David believes that there are
many gods, and in a world of many gods, there's also the Lord. That's what it looks like, but that's
not what he's saying, and I'm going to loop back to it, but you'll see in a moment why that's not
what he's saying. I'll read verse 8 again. 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. Just pause. It's beyond the scope of this one verse, but the psalmist
here is not saying, David is not saying that every single person will come to a saving faith in Jesus,
but it's a very important verse, as Steve, who's with the church, will tell you. It's reminding us
that it's God's heart that people from every people group on the planet and in all of history,
that he is calling people from every people group to a saving faith in Jesus,
and that the church is something which is worldwide, that in a sense we can't just think of ourselves
here as Canadian Christians. We need to remember there's Nigerian Christians, Singaporean Christians,
Chinese Christians. It's one of the reasons why the work that Colin and Gail are doing,
here as missionaries, is so important, is to reach out to international students, not only because
some of these international students will stay in Canada and become Canadians, but some of them
will go back to mainland China, or they'll go back to Iran, and sort of reach out to them and share
the gospel with them as part of how we bring all the nations to come to worship and glorify the Lord.
So just read verse 9. So verse 8 again, 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.
And here's the correction to verse 8.
For you are great and do wondrous things.
You alone are God.
Clarifying what he meant in verse 8.
He means he knows there's lots of, in a sense we would say he knows there's lots of different religions.
But in all of the religions of the world, in all the gods that the religions worship, there's no God like the Lord that he's talking to.
You are the only God.
If you could put up the first point, Claire, that would be, the next point, that would be very helpful.
And it's this, as a Christian we would say the triune God is the only God.
The triune God is the only God.
The God revealed in the Bible is the only God.
Now, obviously, that's one of those statements that if I was to say it very loud in the average coffee shop,
I would get haters.
Because it's a very un-Canadian thing to say.
It is considered to be impolite.
It is considered to be imperialistic.
It's considered to be implausible.
But just because the fashion makes us want to be silent, fashion isn't an argument.
Never is.
And in fact, there's very, very good reasons to say that the triune God is the only God.
Just a couple of things.
First of all, the very fact that the text uses the word gods rather than religions is very helpful.
When we look at religions, we might say, well, like most, lots of religions like candles.
Or lots of religions like silence.
Or lots of religion like prayer.
Or lots of religions like this.
And it can sort of get us a little bit confused about all of these things.
But if you talk about gods, you'll see that that's actually a far better way to talk about the issues.
Because all of the gods that peoples on the earth believe, they can't all exist.
It's just impossible.
Because they describe, the gods that are described, are radically different.
It would be a little bit as if I was to say that I'm married to Louise.
And some of you might think that that means that I'm married to an elephant.
Some to an alien.
Some to the Rocky Mountains.
Or some to the person named Louise who's, you know, beautiful and, you know, this tall and all of that.
Like, the difference between the gods is just as big.
The difference between Brahmin and the difference between pagan religions with many gods.
And the difference between some types of philosophical Hinduism where God is everything or God is in everything.
Or where there's, frankly, just lots of different idols.
And the God of the Trinity.
They're radically different descriptions of God.
And it can no more be true that they're all describing the same being than for me to describe my wife as either a person, an alien, the Rockies, or an elephant.
Like, the differences are just as big.
Nobody would say that those are all describing the exact same thing.
And so, it's completely reasonable to say that they can't all exist.
We can maybe say that maybe none of the gods exist.
That's what our atheist friends say.
But you can't very well say that they're all describing the same being.
And in this psalm, if you go back and look at verse 8, when it talks about God being, the Lord being his works,
it's referring to the fact that he's created all things.
When you look at verse 9, it's talking about the nations.
It's implying that he's sovereign over all things.
And when it looks at verse 10, and it talks about his wondrous—how does it say here in verse 10?
You do wondrous things.
It's talking about his miracles.
The fact that he comes and he speaks by revelation.
Or he does things like deliver the nation of Israel.
Or now, for us as Christians down the road, the death and resurrection of God.
You see, why—
Why do I say that only the triune God exists?
Well, there's two basic reasons.
The first one is love, and the second thing is evidence.
In our culture, love is huge.
In fact, you know, in a few more verses, we're going to talk about how the psalmist is asking us to pray to fear God.
And for Canadians, that's just not something that makes any sense to them, that you should fear God.
Fear just seems to be something you have when you don't have love and intimacy.
And love is very, very important.
We say, you know, love is love, and all of those things.
It's a very, very profound value for us.
Well, once again, think of love in the gods.
Only the Christian faith has a God that you could really say is a God of love.
Well, why is that?
Well, if God is ultimately everything, how can everything be love?
Like, you need another person for love.
Like, I can love Louise because she's not me.
I can love my kids because they're not me.
I can love you because you're not me.
And if everything is God, then that, by definition, can't be love.
And if you think of Allah, if Allah is all alone and there's no God, how can he be a God of love?
Who is there for him to love?
Does that mean that he's needy?
He really wants to love somebody, and he can't find anybody to love, so he creates people so he can love?
Well, if that's the case, that's like a very imperfect type of love.
That's not even really love at all.
We would sort of think that's a bit cringy.
Don't you think?
That if you had a God that's so lonely that he has to create people?
It would be sort of like if you discovered that, you know, somebody to get some partnership, they get an inflatable, you know, a guy gets an inflatable woman and sits and has supper with them or something.
That's really weird, like having an inflatable woman that you can hug at night.
Like, you probably need to see a therapist.
But the triune God, Christians say that when you know the triune God is to know love loving.
Because from all eternity, you have the Father loving the Son, loving the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit loving the Son and the Father, and there's this constant interplay.
There's only one God, the triune God, the unity of God, but there's three persons.
And so only in Christianity is it actually the case that you can have a God that can really be described as a God who is loving.
Only in Christianity.
If you value love and you want there to be a God of love, there's only one option in the entire planet and the entire history of the planet.
And that's the God that's revealed by Jesus.
And this gets us to the second thing, which is evidence, which is that Jesus changes everything if what is said about him is true.
He really did die on the cross.
He really did get buried.
On the third day, the tomb was empty, but the grave clothes were there.
And on the third, they never found his body, and Jesus appeared alive.
And there's good historical reasons to believe that all of these things are true.
And if Jesus actually did die on the cross and rise from the dead, it changes everything.
It's the most reasonable thing in the world to believe what he says.
And he reveals the Trinity to us.
He reveals God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
It's completely reasonable to believe this.
Those are part of God's wondrous works.
God is love-loving.
Now, we still have to get to this part about how does this all fit with dealing with haters.
Well, the psalm is very wise.
First, it's just reminded us life is difficult, so prayer is necessary.
Secondly, it's reminding us that there is a God that does exist.
There is a God that you can pray for, pray to, and this is a God of love.
And by the way, just a small but very important point.
One of the problems we have when we're dealing with haters is that when we deal with haters or enemies
or just people who really want us to fail, they can seem so huge.
I know that sometimes when I'm dealing with a conflict, that other person can seem so big,
it's hard for me to have any mental or emotional space to do other things,
to get the emails done that I need to get, to just to do anything,
to even concentrate on a book that I'm reading or to work on a sermon.
These things can become really huge.
Because you see that often when we have people who are hating us,
we're really opposed to us, they seem really big.
And when they seem really big, it means that God is small.
So one of the really wise things that this psalm is doing is reminding us of proportion.
God is big.
The hater is small.
And so to spend time thinking about God
is a way to put other human beings and other events that are troubling us
in their proper perspective.
They're not that big.
I mean, they might be bigger than me.
And maybe they're going to win against me.
But I can pray to the God who does exist who's way bigger.
He's the one who created all things.
He's sovereign over all things.
He reveals his words and does miracles.
That's the God who really does exist.
And everything else is small.
But what the psalm is going to do now, it's going to be very, very wise.
Because you see, one of the things that we want,
there's two types of things that we want in our lives.
One of them is that we want surface change.
Right?
We want to have, you know,
I used to have a problem of really putting people down in conversation.
And I wanted to stop that.
That's like a surface type of change.
That, you know, you're going to say something
and you just have that ability to zip your lip for a second.
You know?
And there's that type of surface change, immediate change, which we'd like.
But what we also want is deep change.
We want to be changed at the level of our being,
at the level of deep habits,
the level of deep character,
of the level of deep affections.
We want that double change,
the immediate and the deep.
And so now, for the rest of the psalm,
the first three verses are going to,
the next three verses are going to talk about deep change.
And then the last four verses are going to talk practically
about five things we can pray for dealing with haters.
But let's look at the deep change.
And it's really interesting,
because the deep change is going to go in a direction
which we would never have expected.
Let's look at what happens.
Verse 11.
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth.
Unite my heart to fear your name.
Whoa.
Fear your name.
We're going to talk about it.
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 toward me.
You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
If you could put up a point.
We're going to put up the point,
and then I'll go back to look at the verses.
The point of this thing is,
be formed for day-to-day life and for eternity.
In a sense, the Bible is forming us
for day-to-day life and for eternity.
Now, just to go back and look at these verses 11 to 13,
like, on one level,
if you get nothing else out of the sermon,
verses 11,
and you get over a little bit in a moment
this fear of the Lord thing.
Actually, I'm going to say this one thing.
If, I don't know,
I mean, there's lots of things
if I could get modern Christians
and Canadian Christians to do.
I guess there's lots of things I'd do,
but you know one of the things
that would be really high on my list?
I know I'm weird.
I don't think enough Christians
pray for the fear of the Lord.
I don't think that's part of our worship services.
It's not part of our worship songs.
I don't think it's part of how we think.
It's not often part of counseling
and spiritual advice.
And it's so all the way through the Bible.
If there's one thing I would encourage Christians to do
is just, you know,
maybe you're going to be fearful of doing it at first,
but there is something really powerful
about praying to fear God.
I know this is something
that's not fitting in with our culture,
but I, you know, forget the culture.
Like, don't care what Oprah says.
Just, like, pray, or The View,
or Jordan Peterson, or whatever.
Like, be equal about, you know, people.
Like, pray for the fear of the Lord.
Like, if you just think about it,
well, I'll try to get over the,
talk about the fear of the Lord more in a moment,
but just, if all you get out of the sermon
is that you're going to maybe
put in your Bible somewhere
that every day or once a week
you're going to pray verses 11 to 12
or 11 to 13.
Like, what a brilliant thing to pray.
Teach me your way, O Lord.
Like, I can, like, this,
David has put,
God has written a prayer for you to pray.
Teach me your way.
Like, a way means in terms of how to live,
how to do each day.
Teach me that, Father.
Teach me your way.
You're the one who's created all things.
You sustain all things.
You're sovereign over all things.
You're the miracle-working God.
As we're going to see in a moment,
you're the God who redeems.
You are love,
and you are love itself loving.
So teach me your way, O Lord,
and that I may walk in your truth.
What a good thing to pray.
Like, you know, we live in a world
that increasingly values lies.
Misinformation, disinformation
are two really fancy words for lying.
That's what misinformation is.
It's lying.
Disinformation is lying.
You know, we live in a culture
that says the end justifies the means.
So if lying gets what you want,
go ahead and lie.
But that's not the way of Christ.
That's not the way of God.
God is inviting you to be a people of truth,
people of the truth,
and people of truth,
that I may walk in your truth.
Unite my heart to fear your name.
Now, if you think about it,
if I was, like, this is a whole other sermon.
Just this last little bit
and the first bit of verse 12.
Many of us here,
many of us here,
would say there's been times
in our hearts,
our hearts have been broken.
Our hearts have been bruised.
Our hearts are scattered.
Our hearts have a hole in them.
Something has happened
to rip something right out of our heart.
Our hearts feel like they're poisoned.
Our hearts, like,
that's a really big thing.
Our hearts don't feel whole
and they don't feel united
and they don't feel healthy.
This is talking about
the very center of who we are.
And the Bible here is saying
that it's asking God
to unite my heart.
Knit my heart back together
so it is whole and healthy.
What a good thing to pray.
Well, what is this thing
about fearing your name
that's fearing the Lord?
And here's the whole,
here's part of what you're praying for
when you're dating.
Like, and why is the word,
well, here's the word,
the word is there,
is partially fear.
Is that because what you want
to really know
is when you,
you want to know
how moral God is,
how just God is,
how God is love-loving.
And if you start to really see
that, like, goodness is untamed
and it's deep
and it's real
and it's of God
and to do something
which is not good,
to have that sense of horror
of what you've done,
to know the importance of truth
and then when you say a lie,
to not just say
that it's just a lie
but to have a sense
of the horror
of the fact that I have lied.
That love is so important
and so to show indifference
or hatred
and to have a sense
of the horror of that.
To understand the importance
of others
and to be selfish
and to have a sense
of the horror of that
and to know God
and to know Him
so that you know Him
in these ways
and that you can start to see
when you do things
that are not that
and have an appropriate emotion.
I mean, that's part of,
those are good words.
And it has a sense
of reverence
and honor
to know love, loving.
Why wouldn't you want
to honor and glorify
love, loving?
And also,
it's implying,
this is why all of the things,
it talks about God's love
and His steadfast thing
and about knowing Him
and knowing His grace
and it talks about fearing Him.
It's one of the most profound things.
As we all know,
one of the hard parts
about parenting
is us not being able
to understand
that a parent
is different than the child.
And it's too easy
for us to see
the child reflecting on us
or have our fears
and foibles
transferred
and translated onto them
or want what we think
is going to be successful
for our kids.
My parents did not want me
to be a minister.
They were Irish immigrants.
I'm the oldest son.
I was really good
in math and science.
Up until my conversion,
I told everybody
I was going to be
an engineer.
They were in seventh heaven
to hide the idea
that they'd have a son
who was an engineer.
I was going to be a minister?
Like, they were Christians,
but they were disappointed.
And so it's so easy
for us to confuse ourselves
with other people.
It's even more easy
for us to confuse ourselves
with the invisible,
immortal,
transcendent,
but imminent God.
And the fear of God
is a growth
in knowing
where I begin and end
and where God begins and ends
and that I am not God.
Wouldn't that be better
if more people knew
that they weren't God?
Shouldn't that be something
we should pray for ourselves?
It would horrify us
if we saw that somebody else
said he thinks he's God.
No, that should cause a fear
that that would ever be within us.
This is why it's such
a brilliant thing
to know him and honor him
and the horror of idols.
Don't we all want this?
And it's all done
in the context of hope.
Look at verse 13.
It's the context of hope.
You know, we can pray
verses 11 to 13
in a way that
David couldn't pray it.
David has this prophetic
vision or sense
and the verb tenses here
are this prophetic tense.
Look at verse 13.
For great is your
steadfast love toward me.
You have delivered my soul
from the depths of Sheol.
Now, David hasn't died yet
and he's not talking
about metaphors.
But the verb tense there
is there's a tense
in ancient Hebrew
and a tense in Greek
where something in the future
is so certain,
the only way to communicate
the certainty of the future
is to use a past tense.
Canada was founded in 1867.
Jesus has come back.
Now, Jesus has come back
would be a bit confusing
confusing in English.
English doesn't have that sense.
But that's what
they're talking about.
This is so,
David is so certain
that he's going to be delivered
from Sheol by God.
Now, we as Christians
understand that in some ways
he's prophetically
seeing Christ
that he doesn't understand
and we can say that
in Christ.
You know,
there's an Anglican minister
who is also a Puritan
and he has a hymn
and I'm just changing
the line a little bit.
I love this line.
What's the significance
of the cross?
In the cross,
love to the loveless shown
that loved and lovely
shall you be.
That's what Jesus
is doing in the cross.
Love to the loveless shown
that loved and lovely
you shall be.
So,
five ways to pray,
right?
So,
life is difficult
so prayer is necessary.
Begin with prayer,
continue with prayer,
end with prayer.
The triune God
is the only God.
He's the one
that you should pray to.
He is big,
everything else is small.
We ask God
not just for the superficial things
which we're going to pray
for right now,
but we ask for those
deep changes in our character,
the deep changes in our heart,
the wholeness of our heart,
the unitedness of our heart.
The heart would be alive
and strong
and rooted in him
and now we still have to pray
for the situation.
So,
in a sense,
if you could put up
the fourth point right now
rather than a few verses,
the fourth point is
how to pray
when faced with haters.
And the first thing,
given all that we've just said,
is 4A,
if you could put it up,
Claire,
pray for the fear of the Lord.
Pray verses 11 to 13.
And pray,
the 4B is pray honestly.
Look at verses 14 to 15.
O God,
insolent men,
can be translated as arrogant men,
insolent,
arrogant men
have risen up against me.
A band of ruthless men
seeks my life
and they do not set you before them.
In other words,
they have no time for God whatsoever.
But you,
O Lord,
are a God
merciful and gracious,
slow to anger
and abounding
in steadfast love
and faithfulness.
Now,
I mean,
sometimes people
really are out to get you.
Like if you think
people are out to get you,
maybe you should talk to somebody
and you talk to them
and say,
you know what,
maybe when your dad said that to you
it's not because he hated you.
Like maybe he just meant that.
But really sometimes,
you just need to be honest.
I'm dealing with haters.
I'm dealing with people
who want me to not succeed.
I'm dealing with people,
everybody in my office
is trying to climb
the greasy pole
and the best way
to climb a greasy pole
is to kick other people
who might want to climb above you
so you can climb on their faces.
And that's what I'm dealing with.
And you pray into it.
Right?
Pray honestly.
Verse 15
is going to be
pray for strength to act.
Look at the first part of verse 15.
But you, O Lord,
are a God merciful and gracious.
Sorry,
verse 16.
Turn to me
and be gracious to me.
Give your strength.
to your servant.
Pray for strength.
Right?
First one is
pray for the fear of the Lord.
Pray honestly.
Third,
pray for strength to act.
Fourth,
pray for God's help.
Verse 16.
Turn to me
and be gracious to me.
Give your strength
to your servant
and save the son
of your maidservant.
That's asking God's help
to save him.
And finally,
if I give my life to Christ
and I understand
that Jesus
takes,
Jesus died on the cross
because he wants me
to be the father's,
the child of the father
adopted
by his grace
and the power
of the Holy Spirit.
And if I come
to realize
that that's the heart
of the father,
the heart of the son
and the heart
of the Holy Spirit
for me,
it should be my heart
for others.
And that we can see
in the final verse.
Pray that the Lord
will turn
the hearts
of the haters.
Look at verse 17.
Show me a sign
of your favor
that those
who hate me
may see
and be put to shame
because you,
Lord,
have helped me
and comforted me.
So because you have
helped me
and comforted me,
it's a good thing
that others
who are hating me
will be ashamed
of what they're doing
and hopefully
out of that shame
turn to Christ.
Very wise way
to pray.
Very wise psalm.
Encourage you
to pray
into deep change.
To know Jesus
who's died
on the cross for you.
He died for you.
Love to the loveless
shown that you might
loved and lovely be.
That's why he died
for you.
And to give yourself
to that love.
And to use the words
of verses 11 to 13,
not all the things,
to remember
how big God is
and to pray
that God
would show you
his way,
that you'd walk
in his truth,
that he'd unite
your heart
to fear your name,
that you can pray
with your whole heart
not only every day
but into all eternity.
Brothers and sisters,
let's do that.
Let's stand right now.
Father,
we give you
thanks and praise
that Jesus came
and died on the cross,
that you,
Father,
and Father,
Son,
and Holy Spirit,
three persons,
one God,
that you are love-loving,
and that you showed love,
Father,
in the cross
and the person
of your Son,
so that loved
and lovely
we will be.
We were loveless
because we turned
our back on you,
but your Son
came and sought us
that loved
and lovely
we might be.
And we ask,
Father,
that you help us
to see you as big,
haters as small
in comparison to you,
that you would help us
to begin with prayer
and continue with prayer
and to end with prayer.
And we ask,
Father,
that you would
teach us your way,
help us to walk
in your truth,
unite our hearts
to fear your name,
so that with our
whole hearts
we might glorify
and praise you
each day
and every day
into all eternity.
And we ask these things
in the name of Jesus,
your Son and our Savior,
and all God's people said,
Amen.
I invite you
to take a posture of prayer
as we go into a time of,
oh wait,
so there's not
any intercessions
at this time.
Actually,
I'm going to just say
a short prayer.
Take a posture of prayer
and we'll just say
a very brief
extemporaneous prayer.
Father,
we give into your hands
our city
and our nation.
We thank you,
Father,
for those who are
in government.
We thank you,
Father,
for those
who are in the civil service.
We ask,
Father,
that you help them
to do their jobs
honorably and honestly,
to be very good
at what they do,
and that you would use them
for the true flourishing
of this land,
of this city.
We ask,
Father,
for our neighbor
to the south
in the midst
of a very important election.
And we know,
Father,
that tempers
and spirits
are very high.
And we commend
that country
into your hands,
Lord.
They are important
in and of themselves
and they are important
for the rest of the world.
And,
Father,
we ask that you would have,
just as we will have
an election next year,
and,
Father,
and for our American
brothers and sisters,
we pray for both countries,
Father,
that you have mercy on us
and that you do not give us
the governments we deserve.
But that you would give us
a far better government
than we deserve.
That you would raise up
men and women in office
who would seek
the true good
of their people,
the true good Father
of the world community,
that would seek
true prosperity
and justice
and righteousness
for all.
And we ask,
Father,
for each of us
that you help us
to be very faithful
in the task
that you have given us,
that you help us
to be faithful in prayer
and sharing the gospel,
help us,
Father,
to be financially generous,
to have a deep life
of prayer
and to read your word.
And show us,
Father,
how we can do things
both in the church
and in the world
and in our community
that bring you glory
and are good
for this city.
We commend into your hands,
Father,
our partner churches
around the world,
in particular,
I think today,
Father,
of the missionaries
that we support.
And I commend
into your hands
B as he prepares
to go to Asia.
We commend
into your hands
N and K
in Northern Africa,
Trish in Uganda,
Norm and Audrey
in Angola,
Judah and Jesse
in Colombia,
and also,
Father,
for Samir
and his work
in Afghanistan
and amongst
Afghani refugees.
Father,
we ask
that you would
help these missionaries,
that you would
bless the churches
that they partner with
and are involved with,
in particular,
Father,
for the underground church
in Afghanistan
and Iran.
We ask your blessing
upon them.
These are brothers
and sisters in Christ.
And we ask
that you help us
to be faithful
in praying for them.
And we ask
all these things
in the name of Jesus,
your Son
and our Savior.
Amen.