Psalm 62

Psalm 62. I've titled this Psalm, For God alone my soul waits. It says here verse 1,

(Listen to what David says though,)

(ESV) ---

And that last verse is really just another way of saying, stop trusting in what man can do to bolster his fortunes because you're just leaning on a false hope. And then he says in verse 11,

The message of Psalm 62 is somewhat similar to some of our earlier psalms. And that is that God is my only real refuge. But in order to emphasize this, I don’t know if you noticed how many times David used the words, only and, alone as he was making references to God. And the fact that the Lord should have our undivided trust and so forth. And I don't know if you noticed too, but of all the wonderful ways that God, or that David rather, spoke about God in this psalm. I want to put them up on the screen for you because I think that they're very interesting. We do have them there, right? Yeah, we do. Okay, look at this. And here's the places... By the way, when you see a b, or an a, or a c behind a number, that just means, a is the first part of the verse; b is like usually the second sentence or statement of the verse; and c might be the third statement in the verse. And that's just to tell you what the deal is there. But look at all the things that David calls the Lord.  the source of my deliverance (1b, 2a, 6a, 7a)  my rock (2a, 6a, 7a)  my stability (2c, 6c)  my hope (5b)  my glory (7a)  my refuge (7b, 8b)  having all power (11b)  the source of steadfast love (12a) He calls Him, the source of my deliverance. And again, I put the word, deliverance in there for the word that is translated, salvation because typically, David is using it in the sense of being delivered from whatever trouble he's facing. He's not referring it necessarily to his eternal salvation. That's the way you and I think of salvation when we hear the word salvation. David... There were times that he made reference to a broader sense of God's deliverance in his life. But usually it's deliverance for his situation. But he calls God, the source of his deliverance in the second part of verse 1, verse 2, verse 6, and verse 7. Then 3 times he refers to the Lord as, my rock. We come back to that reference or imagery. He refers to God 2 times as, my stability in verses 2 and 6. And the reason I put stability in there is because two 2 in the Psalm, David says, I will not be shaken. Okay. Well, what's the opposite of being shaken? I will be stable. I will be calm. He refers to God as, his stability. In verse 5, he talks about the Lord being his hope. In verse 7, he calls the Lord, his glory. That's interesting. Paul makes reference to his glory as well. In verses 7 and 8, David refers to the Lord as, his refuge. Then he cites the fact that God has all power in the second part of verse 11. And then in the first part of verse 12, he refers to the Lord as, the source of his own steadfast love, the love that he gains from the Lord. I really want you to see these. Can we leave them up for just a bit? Because I want you to look at them and I want you to think about them.  the source of my deliverance (1b, 2a, 6a, 7a)  my rock (2a, 6a, 7a)  my stability (2c, 6c)  my hope (5b)  my glory (7a)  my refuge (7b, 8b)  having all power (11b)  the source of steadfast love (12a) Here's why, I really think that this is what sets David apart from the majority of believers today. David had a way of identifying in the Lord those things which he considered to be assurances in his life when difficulties arose. He identified those things and he called them out in his prayers regularly. He mentioned them, he cited them, he enumerated them in his prayer. I mean, do you, in your prayer, do you call the Lord that many things that refer to how He is operating in your life to bring stability, peace, safety, and assurance? Because I usually don't. I usually don't call out that many sort of attributes or titles or things that... But I'm challenged to do that after going through some of these psalms. I'm challenged to do this more.

Because for David, it was a faith building exercise, you see. I've mentioned this last week and I want to read it, reiterate it again. And that is that prayer was an exercise for David to exert faith in the Lord. And so by identifying these attributes, the power that the Lord had that David felt was attached to his life, he created this fortress of safety. He reiterated this fortress of safety that surrounded him. Because you see, when David talks about these things, these are not impersonal theological points. I know that I've put them up here on the screen as bullet points. And frankly, I've read through a lot of books and systematic theology books by scholars and Christian philosophers that like to talk about these things. And bring them out and make bullet points out of them and say, well, and then there's this passage and this... For David, it was a living reality. For David it was a relationship that he had with God. He didn't reduce it to a theological spreadsheet. And that is why David stands out among the saints who have lived in the history of man as one who trusted the Lord. And one for whom the Lord was faithful. The Lord was faithful to David. Sure, David brought on some pretty rotten stuff in his own life, but even then the Lord was faithful. I share these things with you so that when you're reading your Bible, that you will learn to identify things as they are mentioned in the Scriptures. Obviously, you're going to get a lot of these in the Psalms. But even as you go through the Proverbs and as you read through in the New Testament, you see the things that Jesus did. Identify those things. Identify the way Jesus talked to people. Identify the way He was willing to stick with a crowd until every single person was healed. Identify those things. Make note of them and understand from them that this is an expression of the steadfast love of the Lord. How do you think David came to the conclusion that God was his source of steadfast love? He did it by identifying those things and embracing them in a personal way. You see, you and I have this great ability to recognize things from Scripture, but not apply them personally. You can read the Bible and you can even learn certain things that you tuck away intellectually. And you can say, God is, God is, God is, God is. But unless you embrace that on a personal level, and you say, He is that to me. Right? You could possibly get an A plus on a test about all the things that the Bible says about God. And walk away thinking that you have no one to trust except yourself. That's possible.

And it's possible because we learn, but we don't embrace. We hear, but we don't respond to the Lord and say, thank You for Your steadfast love. When the Bible says that God is full of steadfast love, that means He's full of steadfast love for you. That means His steadfast love is for you! When God says He delights to show mercy, that means He likes, He delights to show mercy to you! And you and I can list that and embrace it, saying, Lord, that's for me! Your love, Your mercy, Your grace, Your power. When it taught...When you read in Genesis how God created the heavens and the earth, do you ever take it personally? Say, Lord, that's the power You've given me through Jesus Christ and through the indwelling presence of Your Holy Spirit. The very power that called all things into being lives inside of me. Isn't that what Paul wrote when he said, I want you to know this power. I want you to know the power that you have inside of you the very power that God exerted when he raised Christ from the dead. That same power is in you! How many of us have taken that personally? How many of us have received it? How many of us have embraced it? We don't by default. The natural man does not embrace these things. You can learn them; you can know them; and you can do good on a test. But I got news for you an A+ isn't going to help you in any other way than to impress other people. When the rubber meets the road in our walk with Jesus Christ, it's not going to come down to what you know. It's going to come down to what you believe is personally applicable to your life. I know that we have this sort of default sense of pushing things away. I've told you guys before, that there was a time in my early Christian life, when the Lord spoke through another individual, a very simple message to me. And it was at the end of a worship service and we were all came up front. And this brother came over to me, and he said, the Lord has a message for you. It's a very simple message. And I looked at him. He said, the Lord just wants you to know He loves you. And I fell down onto the floor and I bawled like a baby. Now, prior to that happening, if somebody would have asked me, Paul, do you believe God loves you? I just said, well, sure. Check. (Pastor makes a hand gesture of checking off a point.) Right? I'd have gotten that one right on the test. But when I understood it on a personal level; when I began to embrace it as something that was real from Him to me, it changed my life.

And thus it goes with the truths that we have in the Scriptures. It's one thing to see them on the page. It's another thing to assimilate them into our hearts and into our lives to the point where I say, this is mine! This belongs to me. Have you ever been, hearing somebody talking about the love of God, or the grace of God, or the forgiveness, and they seem so happy? And you're like, what's wrong with me? You ever had that happen in your life? I bet most of us have. You hear somebody talk... Oh, sometimes... Oh, some of the notes I get daily from people who write me and just say, I can't believe that God would love someone like me. And they're just... I had this guy write me, I don't know where he was from. The letter came in yesterday. And he just said, I am just full of emotion. Oh, I remember! He's living in Indonesia but he's from India. And he wrote me this long note to say, I'm living in Indonesia because of my sin. I'm here because of my sin and my horrible choices. And I want to go back to my homeland of India, but I can't right now. But he began to talk about how many years he wasted just living after the flesh. And he started talking about how he got a hunger, or no, a gal... He said, I met a gal online who was a Filipino and she started telling me about the love of God. And then when she realized I didn't have a Bible, he said, she sent me a Bible. And I assume she was probably in the Philippines at the time. So, she sends him a Bible in Indonesia. And he says, I started reading it but I couldn't understand it. I got online and I googled, understanding the Bible. He says, and up came your YouTube channel. And he started listening and watching these things. And he said, now I know that I'm a sinner and I need Jesus Christ as my Savior. And I've accepted Him as Lord of my life. And he's telling me all these things and I'm just going, you're kidding me! And he wrote with such powerful emotion in his broken English. But still, I can understand enough that he was just, he was blown away by God's love for him. And you and I read those things and we're like, well, that's cool. How come I don't feel that way? Because maybe it's here (Pastor Paul points to his head) and it's not here (Pastor Paul points to his heart) as much as it needs to be. Maybe it gets down there from time to time, dribble by dribble. Maybe you need a gusher from just what you know down into your heart.

Maybe you need to ask the Lord, would You please take what I know, would You please apply it to my heart? So, that I don't just know it in my head, but I know it in my heart. I want to know in my heart, who You are to me. I want to... I don't want to just know Your steadfast love up here, (Pastor Paul points to his head) I want to know it here. (Pastor Paul points to his heart) I want to feel it. I want to know. I want to experience Your steadfast love. You tell me that You love to show mercy. I want to experience Your mercy. And I want to know, that I know, that I know, I've experienced it. And Your grace, and Your peace, and hope, I want those things. Let's stop being intellectual Christians. Let's start being heart Christians who know it. We know it in our hearts. This is the Lord. That's the way David knew the Lord. God said, he's a man after My own heart. He knows My heart. He knows Me in his heart. And you can see that in David's Psalms. Very personal. Very personal approach. Nothing impersonal about how God, how David approached God. Nothing impersonal at all. Very intimate, very real, very down to earth. I want to be that way with God. Don't you?