As Luke just said, our reading this morning is from Psalm 27.
Psalm 27.
Wait for the Lord.
Be strong and let your heart take courage.
Wait for the Lord.
Hear the word of the Lord.
Amen.
Good morning, everyone.
Amen.
If you're visiting this morning, my name is David.
I'm one of the pastors here.
My name is David every other day in the week as well.
Not just when you're visiting, but will you pray with me as we come to God's word?
Amen.
Father, we're all going to be coming here this morning with different things on our minds and
in our hearts coming from the week we've had and the fears for the week we think we're going
to have.
I pray that you'd give us a stillness to just meditate on your word and I pray that you would
help us to take these rich words of this psalm into your presence in prayer.
So teach us how to pray.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, this psalm has a really special place in my life.
There was a time I was terrified.
I really was terrified.
And I'm going to try and hold it together, okay?
My mind was totally in a panic.
I was absolutely powerless.
There was nothing I could do.
And my mind, like, my mind could not sit for one moment to focus on all the beautiful, precious
promises that we have in Scripture.
Like, I'm meant to be a pastor.
I knew all the promises.
I just, I couldn't get a hold of myself.
Now, Emma, being more godly than me, wanted to open up to a psalm.
And we did what good reformed evangelicals who have been to Bible college do.
And we just flipped.
This will do.
Wait for the Lord.
Sorry.
I tried to hold it together.
It didn't work.
There can be an assumption that someone fully trusting in God won't be afraid.
I think that's a false assumption.
I think we hear it when we talk about, like, an older saint who was on their deathbed, and
they're afraid.
And we talk about it as if they're dying less well than someone who's able to sing in that
moment.
Of course they're afraid.
I think we see it when we look at someone we admire in the faith, and they're doing these
amazing things, and it looks like they're doing them with ease.
But if you knew what was going on on the inside.
What if faith isn't the absence of fear, but it's what we do with our fear that expresses
faith?
Now, Andrew Carr in our Bible study got me onto a quote by C.S. Lewis that he has on his
fridge.
Courage is not simply one of the virtues, one of the Christian virtues, but the form of
every virtue at the testing point.
It is easy for us in this room to believe honesty is good.
It's easy when it benefits you.
But what about when your boss tells you, just be a good team player.
Fudge the numbers just a little bit.
Just, are you loyal to this company?
Fear is going to kick in.
It takes courage to really believe in honesty in the face of the consequences, the potential
consequences.
It is easy to believe in brotherly love when it's mutually beneficial.
But when you've been hurt once by their words, fear is going to kick in.
Are they going to reject you even more?
Are they going to injure you even more?
It takes courage to really believe in brotherly love in the face of fear.
So whether you're totally overwhelmed like that moment I was or anything, anytime you're called,
you're at a testing point.
We've been given this psalm to express our faith.
Because faith isn't the absence of fear, it's what we do with it.
Bring it to the Lord in prayer.
What we're going to see in this psalm is that we're taught to seek the beauty of God in the darkness.
Not once you're out of the darkness, but when you're in the darkness, seek the beauty of God.
Fight.
Fight until you see God's face and know his will.
And you can draw strength by waiting.
And then we're going to finish by asking, how do we see the Lord's face?
How do we see his beauty today?
So that's where we're headed.
If you want to have Psalm 27 open.
Now, you may or may not like the imagery of poetry, but I suspect we've all had times when
we've felt overwhelmed by our circumstances.
And a really compassionate brother or sister says, trust the Lord.
He is sovereign.
Now, that propositional truth, there's times where it's just like,
wonderful truth.
Of course, I believe it.
But they just don't hit you.
Have you ever had that experience?
It's not meeting you where you're at.
There's something about prayer of those same truths that actually bring us into the presence of God.
These images here, they stir our emotions.
They meet us in our emotions.
They don't just give us propositional truth.
They meet me, meet you in our emotions.
They give us words to ignite our imagination and to give us something for our memory to hold on to.
It is a wonderful gift of God that he's given us these words to express to him in prayer.
Now, we don't know the precise situation in David's life.
And I think that gives us freedom to apply a lot of this psalm to a whole bunch of circumstances when we're afraid.
This psalm is intensely personal.
Some psalms, it's let us.
But here, it's individual.
I, my.
When the darkness of cancer or depression or you lost your job or someone dear to you is disconnecting from you,
Yahweh is my light.
He's mine.
It's intensely personal.
Light is both a picture of hope and life and guidance.
I have no idea what to do.
When we're feeling powerless and hopeless, the Lord, you, Lord, are my salvation.
My bank account is not the stronghold of my life.
My family isn't even the stronghold of my life.
I have a fortified castle.
Who can assail, who can get past the walls of the Lord himself?
Who shall I be afraid of?
Now, make no mistake.
I think David is very afraid.
He's very afraid.
That's why he's praying.
He begins and ends this psalm.
Speaking to his fear.
Or speaking his fear to the Lord.
Whom shall I fear?
How about evildoers who are like a tiger who want to rip my flesh apart?
Verse 2.
He's afraid.
Whom shall I fear?
How about an army?
I haven't had an army encamped around me lately.
How about everyone abandoning me?
Even the closest earthly commitments of mum and dad.
David is not a stoic.
He's just suppressing and downplaying his emotions.
She'll be right.
She'll be right, mate.
Yeah.
I'm not afraid of death.
Get.
Oh, come on.
Yes, you are.
All right.
Anyway.
Sorry.
It's a bit of a hobby horse.
He's not a stoic.
But he's not being ruled by his emotions either.
He's not paralyzed.
He's not frantically trying to regain control of the situation.
He's praying his fears.
In the safety of the Lord, he can look at his fears head on and call them for what they are.
He's speaking truth into them.
Our God delights when his people express confidence in him for our lives.
If we look to any other saviour, it's turning to idols.
I think if, and this is a critique on me, okay, when we don't pray, we're probably turning to idols.
Why is prayer the last thing I think to do?
Oh, what peace we often forfeit.
Oh, what needless pain we bear.
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
So David's not a stoic.
He's not ruled by his emotion.
He's praying his fears.
And in verse 4 and 5, we see what triumphs over his fear.
One thing have I asked of the Lord.
That will I seek after.
That all the cancer disappears.
It's not wrong to pray that.
Don't hear me wrong.
That I'll be publicly vindicated.
I'm the victim here.
That's my one prayer.
My one prayer is that I keep my job.
That I keep whatever it is.
David's prayer, his ultimate goal, is not changing circumstances.
Don't forget the situation he's in.
He's in extreme circumstances.
One thing I ask, the thing I want most in the world.
I want the cancer gone, but this I want more.
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and into eternity.
To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.
And to inquire of his will to know him more in his temple.
I don't think David is literally asking, can I become a Levite?
Can I become a priest to be literally in the temple?
He wants to experience God's presence.
There's a man named Alan Gardner.
He was in the British Royal Navy and he was a missionary in the 1800s.
He went to Africa and then he went to Chile.
And then he went on another trip to the southern tip of South America.
He went with six others and they had enough provisions for six months.
So this is 1800s.
And they needed to, they took everything with them.
You can't just get another plane the next week.
Although Luke wouldn't come on the plane anyway.
But, sorry, Luke, I don't know why I said that.
All the men eventually died of starvation one by one.
And Gardner kept a journal.
And the last thing he wrote was Psalm 3410.
The young lions suffer want and hunger.
But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
And then he wrote,
I am overwhelmed with the sense of the goodness of God.
His starvation is eating his flesh.
He's failed in his missionary goal.
He's lost his family back home.
He's not just coping.
He's gazing at the beauty of the Lord.
What is that?
I want that.
Religious people obey God to get things from God.
Gardner, David, anyone who's seen the beauty of God,
they serve God to get God.
Do you know God just as useful?
Useful to get that one thing you want.
Whatever that one thing is, that's your real God.
Or do you know him as beautiful?
He is the one thing.
The beauty of God, it's not just another attribute
to his power and his justice and his mercy.
It's all his attributes are attractive and satisfying.
They're pleasurable.
If you just know doctrine in your head
and you don't have pleasure,
you haven't seen him for who he is.
Because he's beautiful.
Now, I wish in this life we could stay
in that constant enjoyment.
That's going to be heaven
when we're in that constant state
of just enjoyment and bliss.
But have you ever tasted,
taste and see that the Lord is good?
Not just know that he's good.
Have you tasted it?
Beauty is to take pleasure.
When you look out on the ocean,
you're not going,
ocean, give me something to do something.
You're gazing and you can't look away
because you're just taking pleasure in it.
When you open God's word,
if you're treating the Bible as useful
to get through the week,
you're going to find a lot of it pretty irrelevant.
And I'm like,
what is that about?
But if you're looking going,
God, and you're praying,
God, show me your beauty.
It is an ocean.
It is an ocean to see the character
and goodness of the Lord.
And beauty puts all the darkness
into perspective.
It's what triumphs over fear.
When in the true story of Sam and Frodo
on the way to Mount Doom,
poor attempt at a joke,
in The Lord of the Rings,
they're overwhelmed by fear and danger
and Sam is losing hope
and he can't sleep.
And then J.R. Tolkien writes this,
peeping behind the cloud,
Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while.
The beauty of it smote his heart
as he looked up out of the forsaken land
and hope returned to him.
The thought pierced him
that in the end,
the shadow was only a small
and passing thing.
There was light
and high beauty
forever
beyond its reach.
And then he fell into
a deep untroubled sleep.
That's what's going on here for David.
One thing,
if you find the Lord beautiful,
it puts your fears
into perspective.
shadow is a small and passing thing.
There is light and high beauty
forever beyond its reach.
And then you can say with David,
he will lift me upon a rock.
I'll be okay.
I am inside the threshold of his home.
He's not going to let any evil come in.
Now, he's not promising that all the darkness
is taken away.
But we can know we have that one thing
we most want,
is to find God satisfying.
Verse 6,
the enemies are still around David,
but my head is lifted up.
He knows God will get the victory in the end.
All because he's staring at the beauty of God.
He's able to lift his head.
He's able to sing.
Seek his face as the one thing.
Whatever darkness is going on,
seek his face.
Beauty
will mean
you can sing
even in the darkness.
So this psalm teaches us
to seek the beauty of God.
And the second thing I think we're taught to pray
is
to fight.
Now, I'm using that word because
David doesn't fight his external enemies.
He's not plotting and scheming.
How can I get control again?
In verses 7 to 12,
I think he's fighting internally.
He's wrestling with his own mind and heart.
I found it,
I was struggling this whole week
to understand verses 7 to 12
because verses 1 to 6
are just,
aren't they,
they're wonderful declarations of confidence.
And then verses 7 to 12 is,
don't turn me away in anger.
The Lord will,
the Lord will cover me in his house.
And then he's saying,
don't abandon me.
It is my foes who will stumble and fall.
And then he's saying,
don't give me up
to my enemies.
We may not lack the certainty,
we may not like the uncertainty
David is expressing here,
but isn't that exactly where we live?
God can feel distant,
can he not?
It's like our prayers barely reach him.
Our troubles get worse,
not better.
Hear,
oh Lord,
when I cry,
where are you?
I'm not saying I deserve an answer,
be gracious to me.
You say in your word to all your people,
seek my face,
and I can't see you
in the darkness.
I think that's the thrust of these verses.
He's wrestling with God.
I'm trying.
I'm reading your word.
I'm here at church,
and I feel nothing.
The troubles are more real to me
than you are.
Are you abandoning me?
It feels like
everyone else is.
To seek the face of the Lord,
it's an emotional experience.
Now,
those who love their rationality
in this room
are not going to like me saying that,
but if you're wary of your emotions,
it's just what it means.
To seek the face of the Lord
isn't asking for a vision
when you go to sleep.
It's for what you know in your mind
to sense it on your heart.
It's like you've talked to someone
over video chat.
You know them.
You know what they look like,
but you meet them in person,
go,
great to finally meet you
because you're just getting
more,
more of them.
There's something about
the face of someone.
It's just,
it's not necessarily new knowledge,
but it's just more.
It's not only to know
that God is loving
with your head,
it's to sense his love
on your heart.
It fills you sometimes
with a joy unspeakable
and you don't go into
your relationships
and into the world
needy anymore
because you're content.
It's gripped you.
I think David is fighting
in these verses.
It feels like
you're abandoning me.
But with every cry,
he comes back to truth.
You have been my help
in the past.
You have been faithful.
Oh God of my salvation.
He's wrestling
until he gets to the end
of verse 10.
He finally feels the love
of God on his heart.
Even if all other human love
reaches its limit,
even if my father
and mother abandon me,
you, Lord,
will take me in.
It is one thing to know
Jesus will never abandon you.
It's another thing
to feel it.
I will never leave you
nor forsake you.
In verses 11 and 12,
he does want vindication
over his enemies.
He wants all the trouble
to be put right,
but his main fight
is for what he does.
Teach me.
How do I please you
in this situation?
Teach me your way,
oh Lord.
I think the main fight
when we're going through
hard times
and troubled times
isn't what's happening
on the outside,
it's what's happening
inside in my heart
and mind.
And I think this psalm
is given to us
to fight,
to wrestle with God
like Jacob
until we feel him.
Until you sense
the depths
of the Lord's
steadfast love,
I will never leave you
nor forsake you.
Yes,
you could lose your job.
Yes,
you could lose everything,
but I will take you in.
It's going to be okay.
We're fighting
until we're asking
the right questions.
What is going to please you
in this situation?
So this psalm helps us
to seek the beauty of God
as our one thing
and it helps us
to fight in prayer
until we sense
God's face
and we're seeking
his will.
and then he finishes
by drawing strength
by waiting.
I think he's speaking
to his own fear.
No doubt he's counselling
others to do the same.
Wait for the Lord.
Be strong,
let your heart
take courage.
Wait for the Lord.
Now,
I don't think waiting
means inaction,
although if you're
anything like me,
you need to close
your mouth more often.
It can mean inaction.
We're going,
do I do this,
this,
this?
Sometimes it's just,
just stop.
I think most of all,
waiting is a condition,
it's a,
it's a settled heart.
I know I'm loved.
I have confidence
the Lord is a stronghold
of my life.
He's in control.
And David draws courage
from that.
I can move into this
situation precisely
because it doesn't
depend on me.
I'm going to wait
on you.
I think waiting
on the Lord
is a settled heart.
I think waiting
on the Lord
is a settled heart.
because once you're settled,
you will act wisely
then.
It's in fear
and panic
that we say
and hurt each other
and do really
stupid things.
Or maybe it's just me.
So we seek
the beauty of God
as our one thing.
We fight
until we sense
God's face
and we wait
on the Lord.
So I just want
to finish.
How do we seek
the Lord's face
today?
Where do you see
the beauty of God?
Everyone,
believer or not,
is captured
by the beauty
of creation.
The heavens
do declare
the glory of God.
We live in a beautiful
part of the world.
There's so much
water to look at.
It's quite a privilege.
The whole earth
is full of
his glory.
You probably heard
the interview
of the commander
on Artemis 2,
Reid Wiseman.
He said,
when the sun
eclipsed behind
the moon,
I turned to Victor
and I said,
I don't think
humanity has evolved
to the point
of being able
to comprehend
what we were
looking at
right now
because it was
otherworldly.
It was amazing.
I'm not really
a religious person
but there was
just no other
avenue for me
to explain anything
or to experience
anything.
So I asked
for the chaplain
of the Navy ship
to just come
and visit us
for a minute
and when that man
walked in,
I never met him
before in my life
but I saw the cross
on his collar
and I just broke
down in tears.
It's very hard
to fully grasp
what we just went through.
It's a wonderful
testament.
The creation
declares the glory,
the beauty of God
but fortunately
you don't have
to become an astronaut.
It's in the temple
David sees the beauty
of God.
In his house,
in his tent,
we read again
and again,
it's the blood,
the blood in the temple
over the mercy seat
that God would pay
for sin
to make us one
with him
so that he will
never abandon us.
Anzac Day yesterday,
we all intuitively
know no greater love
as anyone
than to lay down
his life for his friends.
We know that is beauty.
It's in the temple.
Now we have
something much better
than the temple today.
Charles Spurgeon
famously said,
Jesus Christ
was up on the cross
nailing,
bleeding,
dying,
looking down
on the people,
betraying him,
forsaking him
and denying him
and in the greatest
act of love
in the history
of the universe,
he stayed.
If he didn't
abandon you then,
he never will.
Whatever darkness
is happening,
the shadow of death
is hitting you
and your family
or injustice,
your inner sense
of failure
and shame,
anything that makes
you feel like
I'm abandoned,
we can just gaze
on the beauty
that he stayed
on the cross,
that he will
take you in
precisely because
he abandoned
his son.
And Jesus' head
is raised up
over all his
enemies
and all our
enemies.
He's conquered
the devil
and sin
and the world
and even our
death.
So where do we
see it?
We see it
in his
substitutionary
death.
That's how we
gaze on his
beauty.
And it's by
faith now.
it's going
to turn
to sight
one day
when we
see him
face to
face.
That's what
we're doing
here today.
We're trying
to help
each other
gaze on
the Lord
Jesus
afresh.
That's why
we sing.
That's why
we study
the Bible
together.
It's why
you need
a brother
or sister
who actually
knows you
knows your
doubts
and your
fears
and can
speak
Jesus
and the
cross
into your
heart.
It's what
we're doing.
We're just
constantly,
I want to
gaze on you
all the
days of
my life.
John Newton
who wrote
Amazing Grace
also wrote
this,
this hymn.
I asked
the Lord
that I
might grow
in faith
and love
and every
grace,
might more
of his
salvation
know and
seek more
earnestly
his face.
But
with his
own hand
he seemed
intent to
aggravate my
woe,
crossed all
the fair
designs I
schemed,
humbled my
heart and
laid me
low.
Lord,
why is
this?
I trembling
cried.
Will thou
pursue thy
worm to
death?
These
inward
trials I
employ
from self
and pride
to set
you free
and break
the schemes
of earthly
joy that
you may
find
your
all
in me.
fear is
an opportunity
to seek
his face.
David
only had
the temple.
We get
the glory
of God
in the
face of
Jesus
Christ.
So can I
just encourage
us, take
these words,
take them
as you pray
and think
of Jesus.
Jesus is
my light
and my
salvation.
Whom shall
I fear?
one thing
I ask,
to gaze
on the
beauty
of the
Lord.
That's
the one
thing.
I'm going
to fight
until I
feel your
beauty
again,
to know
that I'm
loved by
you.
Even if
this goes
horribly
wrong
tomorrow,
I know
you'll
take me
in because
of the
Lord
Jesus
and I'm
going to
wait.
I'm
going
to
act as
if it's
all
in my
control.
I'm
going
to
wait
for
you
Lord.
Will
you pray
with me?
Let's
pray.
Let's
pray.
Let's
Father, we can sit under your word.
We can study your word.
We can come to you in prayer.
But unless you, by your spirit, just press these truths into our heart, we won't feel them.
We won't see your face as we really desperately want to.
So I simply ask that for whatever's going on in each of our lives, you would help us to seek your face and feel you.
So that we won't be acting as needy people and acting out of fear, but acting content in your love, confident that you are the stronghold of our life.
That if you gave your only son, you'll give us everything else as well.
Teach us to pray like this.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.