Psalms from Moses

Preached by Jaren Singh on 8/25/24

Transcript

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Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We're Startup Church. We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together. And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect. Be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more, you can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that. We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today. Uh, we're going to get into the lesson. You can open up to Psalm 90. Yeah. So this is the, this is the last sermon until we're going to pick up a thread again, thread is, uh, you, you all know it. It's an app that, uh, that we really have the opportunity to, uh, every day, really connect with God and his word. And we've been going through the, uh, right now we're in the middle of the Exodus, um, and actually we're going to read a Psalm that is not part of thread, but it is a part of the, uh, the Exodus. And so I didn't know if you knew that. I didn't know it until I started studying it this week is that Psalm 90 was written by, uh, written by Moses. Um, most of the Psalms were, were, were dated or dated around David's time, maybe a little bit before, maybe a little bit after, uh, Moses is, is many years before that. And so he's, he, he writes this Psalm that we're going to dig into and get in the middle of as a reminder, Israel is in the middle, uh, this whole nation's in the middle of this time period between when they were, uh, when, when they were set free and when the red seas parted and when they went through up until, uh, then there's this 40 year gap and then they get to go to the promised land. This time in exile, uh, is, or in the Exodus, excuse me, is a time when they're journeying and they're figuring out what do we, uh, who are we as a people we've been oppressed for this many years. We can't just go from oppressed to, uh, you know, we, we have everything worked out, so we have to figure out what does it look like for us to be a people of God and be united in that way? Uh, in the middle of that, Moses writes this Psalm or we're going to read this one and then we're going to read Psalm 91 just a little bit. And then we, we either, it'll be a, depending on how quickly we get through this, it'll be either a challenge for you to read Psalm 92, or we might be able to read a little bit of that, uh, this morning as well. Uh, the title for today is that God is in control. You know, I'm going to share with you some truths that if you're here, you probably believe, but then I'm going to share the ramifications for these truths and how our, what our response should be to these truths. And so if, uh, what I'm saying right now is not earth shattering. And if none of this lesson is earth shattering, that's okay. And I think it's, it's an opportunity for you to, uh, to just give me a little grace or, uh, or for you to, you to, maybe there's something that you can study in your own time. Uh, but what I would say is I bet there's going to be something in here for everybody. Um, and, and we'll make sense of it, uh, during, during this part where we share about what we ought to do with, with these facts. The first is that he's all powerful. We're in Psalm 90. This is Moses right now. And he writes, Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the whole world from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. You turn people back to dust saying return to dust. You mortals a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by or like a watch in the night. We'll pause here. That doesn't come off extremely encouraging. I don't think the beginning part does, but then it says not only is that true, but then it's also true that you, uh, you, you order our days and you let us know when, when your time is up and you decide these things. But think about the part in the beginning right now, that Moses says, Lord, you've been our dwelling place throughout all generations. He said, he didn't say, Lord, you have created our dwelling place. He didn't say, uh, Lord, you have provided our dwelling place. He didn't say, Lord, you told us to go to the dwelling place. No, he says, no, you are our dwelling place. You are all of it, like our dwelling. And so what, what is a dwelling? Well, a couple of things you think that there's safety inside of a dwelling or a place to be, and there's also sustenance, uh, that, that I can eat some food or I can be relaxed or I can be calm. And this is, this is what Moses saying, God, you, you do, you do this for us for every generation, you provide safety and you provide sustenance for us. Uh, you are that powerful. You're able to do that. There's no time limit or expiration that God has to in, in terms of his connection to his people. Like there's not a time limit where we can go and we know this, but there's not a time limit where you go and you say, okay, I spent the time with God. He said, he's got to hang out with Alec for a little bit. And so God, I'll get back to you in a, in a bit. No, it says he's unlimited. He's able to, you're able to spend as much time as you possibly can dream of, uh, as much time as he gives you with him, you're able to do that. He is all powerful in that way. Then, then there, there's also a truth is that he is the organizer of life and death. He's the mastermind. Think about the idea for maybe we're getting too big brain or too mad or whatever you want to call it, but think about the concept of life and death that we understand is just true. You know, we, we, you know, blade of grass, you pick it off and it turns, uh, it turns yellow over time. All of that like life and death, all of it's organized by God. Certainly in, in terms of our lives and people, it's organized by him. But just in terms of like the concept that we have, that if you, uh, pick something out, if you uproot a tree, it will, it's dead. It doesn't keep growing. And of course that's true, but God is the one who originated and organized and made that be true. Right. He's the mastermind between, uh, behind rather why some things die in a day. Thank God. I think mosquitoes don't live all that long. Flies neither. Thank God for that. Uh, but he's also the mastermind, but behind why living things last thousands of years, and you can look at different trees or, uh, you know, different plants. So you can look at, um, perhaps not thousands of years, but, but hundreds of years, you can even look at these massive tortoises or the, you know, all, all of this stuff got, got organized, got to organize that. And he's not bound by that. You know, if you, if you, if somebody asked you, uh, do you want to take control of your life? Like you just take control of your life and oh, we have control. Yeah. We have a little bit of control, but I have only control of some of the stuff I can do. I can't control how people will respond. And so do you want control over how people respond to what you do? And I think, I don't know about you, maybe you're a more humble person than I, I would say, yeah, absolutely. Like, I'd love to be able to interact. And somebody just says, Hey, looking good today. Like, like that. Oh, great. Wow. I'm feeling good about myself. And I'd love to be able to go to the store and the person in front of me pays for my groceries. And I'm like, man, it's just my day to day. Uh, we would, I think we'd all love a level of control over our lives. Uh, but if you ask somebody, do you want to be in control of everybody's life? No way. That's overwhelming. Like, think about being in control of your, if you have children, think about being in control of your children's lives, like fully in control. Like that is a scary place to, uh, to live, uh, to get inside of their brains and to, uh, be able to communicate what they should do or what, what their thought process is. Nobody would choose to be in control of everything yet. God is, and he's all powerful and he's able to do that. Then, but sit with me though, here, think about, think about this. So if God is all powerful, Moses is writing it and he knows, God, you're, you've done all of this. Actually you, and, and we won't, we're not going to read the middle part of this Psalm this morning, but it's, it, it's, it gets, it sounds dark. You know, he talks about God, just please like, don't, don't do what you say you're going to do. Like be gracious with us. And he, and he's telling him this, but even this, this part that you turn people back to dust. Consider the relationship that Moses has with God. If he's able to say you're able to do all of this, but then I'm still going to ask some things of you though. You're a, you're so big, you're so massive, but I'm still going to ask some things. Because if we're going to understand God is all powerful. And if that's where it ends, then we ought to be absolutely terrified all of the time. There should be no security that we feel there should be no peace in our lives. We should only be concerned with the straight and narrow and not doing anything wrong. Cause God is all powerful. That's where it stops. That's where it ends. And so that what's the point of anything else? I just have to do exactly what he says. Is there a joy in that? No way. Why would I, why would there be joy in what if I do something wrong? He can just kill me. There's, there's, there's more to it than that though. Uh, the second point is that he cares more than we do. So now we're in verse 12 of Psalm 90. God's all powerful, but then he also cares and he cares more than we do. It says, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent Lord. How, how long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us, make us glad for as many days as you afflicted us for as many years as we have seen trouble. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord, our God rest on us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes. Establish the work of our hands. You see the relationship that Moses understands as well. He says, God, I know you're all powerful. But I know that you also care. And because you also care, please relent. And because you, you also care, it says, make us glad for as many days as you, you have afflicted us. And that's giving God, Psalms is sharing emotions and he's sharing, God, you organize it and so you allowed it to happen. You know, if you talk to someone who is, who has power over you, and if you ask them to stop having power over me, or instead of having this negative power over me, go ahead and give me something good instead, usually it, it, it often doesn't work out that well. Um, especially in, in limited context, you know, I, I playing basketball in high school, I I've shared about this at different points, but my, uh, my coach in high school was, um, he was, he wasn't a very good coach. He like, he, he just, he didn't know too, he didn't know ball like that. Like he just wasn't, he wasn't very good. He was really good at yelling. He was really good at making us run. He, uh, he was a decent motivator and, um, and he had a, a wide vocabulary of words that I'm not allowed to say here, nor do I, nor do I want to say here. Um, I should say, so he, he just one time, I remember we showed up to this winter practice, winter practices were the worst because you've got about, uh, two, two weeks before you're going to play another game. So you've got this stretch where whatever the coach says goes and you think it's winter break and that's great, but it's, it's two days in the middle of, you know, the middle of winter, we're like, well, we're here, uh, we'll practice in the morning, which is, uh, mostly skill work, running stuff. And then, uh, but like individual. And then in the afternoon is like the team concept type of things. And so that's how, how we had, we, that was just organized this way. And so there was, uh, one practice in particular where, um, there was some, there was some players on my team that came. Um, I don't know how to say this in the best way. Uh, well they were high. Um, and so they, they, they came and they were ready to play basketball. They were making a bunch of mistakes though. And so our coach said, okay, everybody get on the line. So now when everyone gets on the line, we know we're running. And I were, and we ran, um, you have to run like 16 side-by-sides in a minute, basically. And, um, and then we missed it. And usually what happens when that happens is then you go to 12, uh, 12 side-by-sides in 45 seconds and then eight and 30, and then you kind of work your way down and some, at some point you make it and you're like, we're good. We ran the 16 and one of the guys, uh, says something like, what are we doing this for? What's the point? Stock, you know, let's just play basketball. And, uh, instead of relenting, the coach said, keep a minute on the clock. And what that meant was that we were running another, another full minute. And we, until we make this time, we can't stop, uh, rather like it's going to stay at a minute basically. And so we, we ran more, it took, it was 25 minutes of straight running and we're sprinting. There's people, uh, there's people that got sick. Um, and then at the end of this, you know, 25 minute stretch, he, he says, okay, get out of my gym, we're done. And then he, and he kicks us out and locks the door and all of that. And I, what I mean to communicate is when we, you talk to people and you, you ask them, they have power over you and you ask them to relent. Um, often, often they, they don't often do that. Moses understands something different about God though. He understands God really cares for me. Uh, we, we can get it mixed up. Uh, the idea of having power and that we can go to spots where if you have power, you're automatically going to oppress. You think about, uh, your boss and they have authority over you. They don't, they don't always do this, but they could use it to oppress, uh, your teacher, your professor, they have authority. They can wield it unduly. Uh, the government has authority over us in, in some, in some ways, and they use to, uh, further their interests at the expense of ours. And I'm not, that's not a political statement, uh, one side or the other, as much as it is just a reality. And you can look at almost perhaps every single government that's ever been created, uh, operates in that way. What separates this from our Lord is that he cares about us. He has all the power and yet he really cares about us. He cares more about you than you do about yourself. He cares more about, uh, here we go. Uh, yeah, he's more gracious with you are, than you are about yourself. Yeah. Um, he expects more of you as well though, than, than you do of yourself. Yeah. He cares more about your family than you. He cares more about your friends than you do. He cares more about his relationship with you than you care about your relationship with him. Yeah. Consider the humility of that for a second. We just talked about God being so powerful. And yet we also say that he, that he cares more about if I walk with him, then, uh, then I care if I walk with him like that, that doesn't make any sense in any stretch of our imagination. Yet it is true. So these are the two, the two things that are holding up this last statement then to this last thing that I want to put before us is that if we understand these to be true, then the only proper response that we can possibly have is gratitude. You can, you can turn one Psalm over to Psalm 91 says whoever in verse one, whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the almighty. I will say to the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God, and whom I trust. Surely he will save you from the fowlers snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings, you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrows that fly by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, 10,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you say the Lord is my refuge and you make the most high you're dwelling, no harm will overtake you. No disaster will come near your tent, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the Cobra. You will trample the great lion and the serpents because he loves me says the Lord. I will rescue him. I'll protect him for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him with a long life. I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. This, this Psalm in our Bibles is not, is not attributed. The first one is attributed to Moses. This one is not. However, most historians and Bible scholars agree that this is written by Moses as well. So he just said, God, you've done all these things. And, but then he says, God, you, if we serve you, nothing bad is going to happen to us. Uh, God, I'm so grateful for this. You know, we see, uh, the, the, the idea of joy and being grateful all over the Psalms, but particularly in this one saying, God, you've done so much for me. And I'm so grateful for that gratitude. That's not, it's not celebrated in our world today though. Uh, maybe we're this one, the first, the first little bit, like the idea of government or the idea of authority, uh, being wielded, uh, improperly that I think is probably universal, um, gratitude and especially the idea of, uh, you know, comparison, um, that stuff is maybe a newer, newer thing. And this is why I say that. And I think comparison is so easy now because a few hundred years ago, we didn't know how people lived before us that much. Uh, we didn't know how people lived, uh, on the other side of the world, uh, as much right now, comparison is very easy. You can go on any kind of media, in your phone, you have all the opportunities to compare yourself to somebody else. You can, you know, and comparison in terms of your IQ, you can look at, Oh, what's my IQ. Am I smart or not? You can look up, uh, you know, how do I look, uh, all of this stuff. You can, you can compare yourself until, uh, until you don't want to anymore. Comparison is the enemy of gratitude. Yeah. If you're, if you are going to be somebody who is grateful in your understanding of God and really truly feels joy in your relationship with God, then you've, you've got to die to this comparison. Another metric or another way that you can gauge your gratefulness is your richness towards God. And how rich are you towards God? Richness can be in a number of different ways. I'm not just talking about financially, uh, but financial finances is a part of it. But with your time, are you rich towards God with your time? Would God say, yeah, he's rich towards, towards me with, with my time, with your time, with your speech. Are you rich towards God with your speech? It is inviting people. Yes, that's part of it, but it's not just that, uh, it's, it's how you walk and carry yourself and what you tell people. And when you go to the store, are you willing to be, to be burdened by smiling at somebody and asking them how their day is and giving them a little bit of the joy or the gratitude that we ought to be living with? When I asked the question, are you rich towards God? I, I would say there's a couple of places that we can go to that are, that are unhealthy, that, that probably communicate. We don't understand the first two things very well. The first place you can go, if I ask, are you rich towards God? And if your immediate jump, are you rich towards God? And you, your immediate jump is, uh, you know, this is a different season in my life. I don't have to be super rich towards God financially because I got this going on. You know, I don't gotta be super rich towards God. He knows what's going on in my heart. And so I, I, I don't know if my time, you know, it's kind of, I'm kind of pressed, right? I don't have to be. And you, if you're going to give yourself every out, then I bet you're missing how powerful God is. If you immediately go to, I can't, I can't spend my time doing this because what's going to happen if I spend my time here with God or with God's people, then I'm going to get behind them in this area. Then then perhaps you're just missing how powerful God is. Now on the other end, if your response is, uh, are you rich towards God? I am. This is how I'm rich towards God. I do this and I do this and I do this and I do this. Perhaps you're missing how much God cares for you. I give so much money and I I'm always with God's people and I'm always talking about them and I'm doing all of these things. God. So of course I'm rich towards God. Look at all of what I've done. You can live like that for a bit, but it's never going to be a life that, that is powerful, uh, that, that you were going to continue to grow closer to God. If all you're doing is looking at ways and the things that you're doing instead of who you're serving, you're missing how much he cares about you. I know he cares about me, but no, no. Do you really know that though? Do you feel that God cares about what you do? So we say, well, how, how do you know? How do I know if I'm grateful then? I didn't go to either of those places or I went to both of those places just a little bit. And how do I know if I'm grateful? I think it's, uh, it's not really a checkbox as much as it is a gauge and an opportunity to grow. Right. And because it's same way. So how do you know, how do I know if I'm humble? How do I know if I'm loving? How do I know if I'm joyful? Well, it's kind of like you just keep growing in it. Right. You can identify that you're not good at it. Probably. How do I know when I'm grateful? What keep growing in it is, is the response. You can ask somebody, but regardless, we got, we got to grow in our gratitude. Yeah. You may ask, and we're going to, we're going to, uh, lead in, um, to special missions contribution, but you may ask, well, how is it possible then? Like, how do I grow in my gratitude? Um, I, I think that it's, it's, I really believe it's not by mistake that Psalm 90 and Psalm 91 are followed by Psalm 92. And it's a Psalm that's for the Sabbath day. I think we're going to grow in our gratitude. It's to understand that we are not all powerful, understand that, that we don't care as much as we want to care and then feel great about giving the rest to God. We'll read just a little bit in Psalm 92. It is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name. Almost high proclaiming your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night to the music of the 10 stringed lyre and the melody of the harp for you. Make me glad by your deeds, Lord. I sing for joy at what your hands have done. How great are your works, Lord? How profound your thoughts. Senseless people do not know. Fools do not understand that though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they'll be destroyed forever. But you, Lord, are forever exalted for surely your enemies, Lord. Surely your enemies will perish. All evildoers will be scattered. You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox. Fine oils have been poured on me. My eyes have seen the defeat of my adversaries. My ears have heard the rout of my wicked foes. The righteous will flourish like a palm tree and will grow like a Cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age. They will stay fresh and green, proclaiming the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no wickedness in him. How do we grow in our gratitude? We understand that we can't do what God is able to do and then we start identifying all of the ways that that God is able to do it and that we are not and all the ways that God has worked in your life already. You notice the Psalmist, he, he shares, Hey, my enemies, they got removed at some point that you, you made straight my paths. You organized all of this stuff. And for that reason, I can be grateful to you. Sabbath is a time for us to, to praise God Sabbath, you know, being this time of rest for us to praise God and just be in his presence and trust that he's going to work it out. And so we don't have to worry. I, I put before us that we have the opportunity to do that every week as we give contribution as well. And, and right now in a special way as we, as we collect a special missions contribution offering we have the opportunity to give to God and, and know that he's going to do more with our less than we would if we were not to give it all. Our, our goal as we, as we collect this special missions, our goal is $20,000 and we're going to collect through the month of September. And just a reminder that that 10,000 of that is going to go overseas to foreign missions. And we saw a bunch of different videos about that. That where's, where is it going? And we saw videos of people sharing their small churches being built up by, by what we've been able to give by some of what we've been able to give. And then 10 of it stays local as we're we're working to become a self supporting church that we're going to use that for staffing needs or for other other opportunities to continue to grow our, our outreach in Kalamazoo. 20,000 is a lot. We've been, we've hit it every single year that we've, we've done this. And I feel, I feel really humbled that, that, that our group has, has done that. I'd say we know it, but financial giving is probably one of the easiest gauges to identify where your heart is. And I don't mean the number, but the number counts. You certainly, you can give financially and have your heart not be in it. I don't, you know, we, we've all been in situations where we've given and we're like, man, I just hope, I'm just giving them money so they don't ask again. Maybe it's spiritual, maybe whatever reason. But if your heart is connected to God, then you're going to get financially to the point of pain. That, that, I feel so confident in that. And I see, I've looked at the lives of people who I'm closest to or who I admire most and all of them have given in a way that it causes them, it causes them pain. It causes their career planning pain. It causes their, their kids can't get the absolute best potentially. But you give to the point of pain. I we're, we're gonna, we're going to pray for the special missions contribution and you can give online at Kalamazoo.church slash give, but then there's going to be a, there's a check, check whatever, like a list basically where you'll just do special missions. My, my heart in sharing all of this is not that you feel like, man, if I, I'm, I'm, I'm a bad Christian. That's not my heart in going on an extended time of sharing it. My heart is just to try to bring, like, I think this is some of my job as a minister is to be able to share all of what God is saying and all of what Jesus says in the Bible specifically about money. And so we'll we'll pray, we'll collect special missions. And and Spencer will have a little, a little bit that you can share. If you, if you have a check, just make it out to you can make it out to Kalamazoo church of Christ, put in the memo, special missions. If you don't have it with you or if you're like, I need to study this more, I don't feel convicted. That's okay. You can talk to me or talk to somebody and we can, we can work through that. Why don't we pray for our, our giving right now and then we'll be dismissed. Amen. Dear God, Lord, God, we come before you. And I, I know that, Lord, we're rich father. We're rich. We're rich with with our time, with our health, with our intellect, Lord, we're, we're rich. And with our, our connection to, to each other, Lord, we are, we're rich in so many ways. Father, we're so grateful for, for you, for providing for us, deciding that we're worthy to be good stewards of what you've given us, Lord. What a great man. What a great honor. What a great responsibility, Lord. I want to pray for our giving. I just want to pray for our hearts, maybe more than even our giving Lord. I pray that our hearts can be those that just out of the overflow, there's great gratitude, Lord, out of the overflow. There's a desire to help to the point of causing us pain, Lord. And to the point of, of messing with our plan for ourselves, Lord, I pray that you will, you'll compel us to do that, Lord. I pray that, Lord, I pray that we'll get on your time. We'll get on your calendar. We'll get on your budget, whatever that looks like, Lord, we, we know that you're King. We know that you're good. We know that you're big. We know that we can't out give you Lord. I just want to pray for us to grow in what the Bible says in our grace of giving Lord. Thank you so much for the opportunity to give. Thank you God that we are in a spot that we're able to give Lord. Father, we love you and Jesus. This is in your name that we pray. Amen. Awesome. Um, yeah. C. Spencer, if you need with that, we are dismissed parents. Please pick up your children. Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast. If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected. Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on. In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.