SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Andrew Russell.
SPEAKER_00: I apologize for bringing my laptop up here.
SPEAKER_00: My print is not working.
SPEAKER_00: So I promise you this sermon is not brought to you by Apple.
SPEAKER_00: They have not paid me to do product placement in this place.
SPEAKER_00: But it's so good to be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Again, my name is Andrew Russell.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an assistant pastor at Grace Downtown.
SPEAKER_00: We meet in the Chinatown, right in downtown Washington, DC.
SPEAKER_00: And before I begin the sermon, we want to read Psalm 31, which is the text.
SPEAKER_00: So if you can turn to that, and I will read it for us.
SPEAKER_00: In you, O Lord, do I take refuge.
SPEAKER_00: Let me never be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: In your righteousness, deliver me.
SPEAKER_00: Incline your heir to me, rescue me speedily.
SPEAKER_00: Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
SPEAKER_00: And for your name's sake you lead and guide me.
SPEAKER_00: You take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.
SPEAKER_00: Into your hand I commit my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.
SPEAKER_00: I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction, you have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy, you have set my feet in a broad place.
SPEAKER_00: Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress.
SPEAKER_00: My eye is wasted from grief, my soul and my body also, for my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing.
SPEAKER_00: My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.
SPEAKER_00: Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances.
SPEAKER_00: Those who see me in the street flee from me.
SPEAKER_00: I have been forgotten like one who is dead.
SPEAKER_00: I have become like a broken vessel, for I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side, as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.
SPEAKER_00: But I trust in you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I say, You are my God, my times are in your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Rescue me from the hand of the enemies and from my persecutors.
SPEAKER_00: Make your face shine on your servant and save me in your steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: O Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you.
SPEAKER_00: Let the wicked be put to shame, let them go silently to Sheol, let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt.
SPEAKER_00: O, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, and work for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind.
SPEAKER_00: In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men, you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city.
SPEAKER_00: I had said in my alarm, I am cut off from your sight.
SPEAKER_00: But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
SPEAKER_00: When I cry to you for help, love the Lord, all you saints.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
SPEAKER_00: Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you in the mighty name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you that you are a refuge.
SPEAKER_00: And so we hide ourselves in you.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us your ways, teach us your truth, O God, and may your word not return void.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, before I preach, I asked how long are the sermons?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a guest in here and I want to be within the time.
SPEAKER_00: And they told me 30 to 35 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm from the PCA, the Presbyterian Church of America, and we're very conservative.
SPEAKER_00: And so since I'm at the APC, I think I have a little bit more wiggle room, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Is that is I I I feel like y'all are a more spiritual group, especially y'all singing in Swahili.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all are speaking in tongues, amen.
SPEAKER_00: So I feel comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But I do have my stopwatch, so if you're concerned, I am keeping track of time.
SPEAKER_00: So uh as I was talking to your pastor, Chris Six, we he uh expounded to me, he let me know that we're in uh this sermon series.
SPEAKER_00: So this is the second part of a sermon series on uh right feeling.
SPEAKER_00: So today, I believe last Sunday, Pastor Six talked about orthodoxy, which is right thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight uh this morning I'm gonna talk on orthopathy, which is right feeling, and then next week's Sunday, there'll be somebody speaking.
SPEAKER_00: I believe Chris Six again is speaking on orthopraxy, which is right actions, right doing.
SPEAKER_00: And so with through this whole series, we're looking at the mind, the heart, and the body.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to know what it looks like to be a whole person, a complete human being, someone who was more like Jesus, an integrated person.
SPEAKER_00: Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German philosopher of the 18th and 19th century, and the father of the modern liberal theology, said, religion's essence is neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feeling.
SPEAKER_00: He argued that religion was rooted in human feelings, and he described the core of religion as a sense and taste for the infinite in the finite.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, let me say that the essence of religion is not feeling, but faith.
SPEAKER_00: The right of Hebrews says that without faith it is what?
SPEAKER_00: Impossible to please God.
SPEAKER_00: For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
SPEAKER_00: This is from Hebrews 11, chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Our feelings may go up and down, but it is our faith that keeps us grounded.
SPEAKER_00: The songwriter says, On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.
SPEAKER_00: We must be people of faith.
SPEAKER_00: But let's not mistake faith for intellectual ascent or rational doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: Faith involves the whole person, the mind, the body, and the soul.
SPEAKER_00: We must love God with what?
SPEAKER_00: All our heart, all our mind, and all our strength.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh when I talk about emotions this morning, do not think I'm disregarding the mind or the body.
SPEAKER_00: Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are still in play here.
SPEAKER_00: I am merely emphasizing our feelings.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the Reformed tradition, we have a tendency to jettison anything that is too emotional.
SPEAKER_00: We feel like we're being manipulated.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say this: we are integrated beings with rationality of doctrine, activity of mission, and piety of emotion.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot separate our emotions from our humanity, just as much as we cannot separate our mind from our brains.
SPEAKER_00: They go hand in hand.
SPEAKER_00: In the business world, emotional intelligence, that's the common buzzword, for how leaders can connect emotions with strategic thinking and results.
SPEAKER_00: An article out of Yale University discussed how emotional intelligence is an outgrowth of two areas of psychological research that emerged about 48 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: The research sought to find how cognition and emotional processes interacted.
SPEAKER_00: And they found that emotions like anger, happiness, fear, as well as mood states, preferences, and bodily states influence how people think, make decisions, and perform different tasks.
SPEAKER_00: Alan Lindquist, one of the foremost vocal researchers of our time, taught that singing was not just a physical exercise, but also a mental and emotional exercise.
SPEAKER_00: He sought to teach the integration of the mind, the body, and the heart.
SPEAKER_00: He taught that singing is 90% psychological, and that a singer had to achieve physical, vocal, and emotional balance in order to become a total artist.
SPEAKER_00: And he said this, and I quote, the impulse to sing is a spontaneous emotional response free from fear, which expresses in melody and words the moods of man through the simple act of singing.
SPEAKER_00: So why did I bring up singing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because I am the music director at Grace Downtown, and I'm trying to start a choir.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I tell my choir, I'm like, y'all need to emotionally connect with a song.
SPEAKER_00: Because anyone can sing a song on a page.
SPEAKER_00: We all know the song Amazing Grace.
SPEAKER_00: We can sing it.
SPEAKER_00: You know the melody.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved the wretch like me.
SPEAKER_00: But if you listen, if you look at the words on the page and you connect your emotions with it and you integrate your being with it, then you can sing it if, especially if you're in distress, it can sound something like this.
SPEAKER_00: How sweet the sound.
SPEAKER_00: You see, you hear the difference.
SPEAKER_00: So the uh when we when we sing, anyone, like I said, can sing notes on a page, but a few people can communicate the message of a song.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a technically sound singer with no depth.
SPEAKER_00: And many of us are afraid to bring our emotions before God because we're afraid what others might think.
SPEAKER_00: And we're hesitant about going deep introspectively because we might not be able to control our emotions, which takes humility and vulnerability.
SPEAKER_00: This is the level of intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: This is how the psalmist approaches God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, God is holy.
SPEAKER_00: We are reformed, and he cannot stand in the presence of sin.
SPEAKER_00: David wrote Psalm 24, he said, Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: And who shall stand in his holy place?
SPEAKER_00: And we know that this is a rhetorical question because no one can ascend the hill of the Lord, and no one can stand in God's holy presence.
SPEAKER_00: So then here's the question: How can the same person in Psalm 24 approach God and present his shame, affliction, distress, grief, sorrow, joy, gladness, fears?
SPEAKER_00: Because David knew that God speaks to the whole person.
SPEAKER_00: God invites us to be our full human selves with mind, heart, and body.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us bring our mind and bodies to church, and we leave our hearts at home.
SPEAKER_00: We leave our hearts hidden in the closet, in the basement of our souls.
SPEAKER_00: And if our life was a house, we would invite our friends into the front room of the mind and the body, but leave our hearts in the back room.
SPEAKER_00: The back room could be messy.
SPEAKER_00: What if your guests don't like your wallpaper or your carpet color?
SPEAKER_00: But here's the beauty of God.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to go in the back room.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be in a relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: Not a weekend relationship where y'all go out on Sundays, but a lifelong commitment, an eternal covenant that inhabits every day of your life.
SPEAKER_00: This level of commitment, it doesn't come easy.
SPEAKER_00: There is opposition and deep pain and distress.
SPEAKER_00: So this morning I'm going to talk about how are we going to get in touch with our emotions.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll try to quickly uh tell us in three ways.
SPEAKER_00: So if you listen quickly, then I'll end quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So first, know your God, know yourself, and know your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: The context of the psalm, Psalm 31, David is seeking God for refuge because of his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: They have prepared a net to trap him in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: God has delivered him from his enemy's hand in verse 8, and he has adversaries.
SPEAKER_00: We see that in verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: His enemies scheme against him and plot to take his life.
SPEAKER_00: David also is experiencing grief.
SPEAKER_00: He feels forgotten like one who is dead.
SPEAKER_00: He is in deep distress, and his eyes are wasted away in sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: He felt cut off from God's sight.
SPEAKER_00: And remember the the postscript, it says, if you look at Psalm 31, the postscript says this, into your hand I commit my spirit to the choir master.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't want us to uh to pass that.
SPEAKER_00: David is giving his deep distress, his deep hurts, his he's being vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's saying, God, you forgot me like one who was dead, choir master, brother, is it Val?
SPEAKER_00: Brother Val, can you please sing this song on Sunday morning?
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is uh, and and you we would think, okay, where is this song coming from?
SPEAKER_00: You know, we like holy, holy, holy, but what about Lord?
SPEAKER_00: You've forgotten me.
SPEAKER_00: Lament.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us to get in touch with our emotions this morning and first know your God.
SPEAKER_00: We see in verse one that God is a refuge in time of distress and opposition.
SPEAKER_00: It is in the very nature of God to be a fortress, a well-guarded stronghold that provides safety for the oppressed.
SPEAKER_00: God is infinitely powerful beyond anything we could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews describes God as a consuming fire.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes in the Psalms, God is the Lord of hosts, the Lord Sabah, or the Lord of the armies, this powerful being whose voice roars and thunders and shakes the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: This very God provides safety for those who need deliverance, those who are struggling to believe.
SPEAKER_00: Will God protect me?
SPEAKER_00: Will God lead me to fend for myself?
SPEAKER_00: Will I be ashamed to associate with God?
SPEAKER_00: You know, shame is a very strong emotion.
SPEAKER_00: Shame causes us to hide, shame destroys intimacy.
SPEAKER_00: For God to be our refuge means that we are in a covenant relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: God, as our refuge, that's that's relational language.
SPEAKER_00: That is some love language.
SPEAKER_00: A person will not take shelter with a stranger, especially when you don't know if they're safe or trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: The psalmist knows that he can trust God as his refuge because of God's steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: God has proven to be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: God has eternal, infinite, and cosmic shifting resources that are aimed at your good and your deliverance from the shame that is that you feel like is dominating you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to worry what people think about you, your slanderers, your naysayers, or as the young people say, your haters.
SPEAKER_00: Do not dictate the standards that God has called you and us to live by.
SPEAKER_00: We can be fully weak in the arms of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we are weak, He is strong.
SPEAKER_00: Do you worship out of weakness?
SPEAKER_00: Do you come to God as your only source of refuge?
SPEAKER_00: So often when we come to worship, we we try to keep up appearances, we act as if everything is okay, and that might be the case of some of you, but many of us are hurting.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are under attack from enemies seen and unseen, and many of us were looking for a sanctuary where we can just be honest about our need.
SPEAKER_00: This is why God is a refuge.
SPEAKER_00: Because we've tried seeking other places of refuge and we found that they can't deliver us from our shame, they can't deliver us from our guilt, from the oppression of the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers and sisters, it's okay to run into the strong arms of God like little children.
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to be needy, it's okay to be helpless, because only then can we see God for what He truly is a refuge.
SPEAKER_00: When God is your refuge, you can pray with boldness, knowing that God hears your prayers.
SPEAKER_00: When God is your refuge, you can worship with the full range of emotions because you know that God is in the trenches with you.
SPEAKER_00: When we bring our full selves to God, God is able to engage all of us, all of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: You know, some of us we're missing out on going deeper with God because we're only giving God half of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: God wants your mind, your heart, and your body.
SPEAKER_00: He wants all of you.
SPEAKER_00: God asked Abraham to leave country, to leave family and friends, to leave land for the sake of God's call.
SPEAKER_00: God took everything away from Job.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God wants to know that when things are at their absolute worst, will you still trust him?
SPEAKER_00: God is not trying to be cruel.
SPEAKER_00: God knows how humans operate.
SPEAKER_00: He created us.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that we will not know the warmth of the summer sun without the winter's dark cold.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that we will not know the blessing of shelter without the pouring down of rain.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that we will not know the value of life unless we've experienced death.
SPEAKER_00: God is a refuge in times of plenty, but he's especially a refuge in times of devastation.
SPEAKER_00: God specializes in protecting the vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: When all around them are enemies, God takes pleasure in sheltering you from the whispers of gossiping tongues that seek to attack your character.
SPEAKER_00: God is a refuge.
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, know yourself.
SPEAKER_00: The psalm is also a psalm of lament, it is a psalm of coming face to face with your fears, your disappointments, your insecurities, your anxieties.
SPEAKER_00: The psalmist is facing the affliction of the soul and deep distress because of his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: The psalmist also feels like God has forgotten him.
SPEAKER_00: And this this verse really hit me.
SPEAKER_00: When I was looking at this psalm, he says in verse 12, I have been forgotten like one who was dead.
SPEAKER_00: I have become like a broken vessel.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever felt like God has forgotten you?
SPEAKER_00: Have you experienced or ever experienced the overwhelming sense that maybe God has written you off as dead?
SPEAKER_00: You know, after God spoke through the prophet Malachi and Malachi, which is the last book in the Old Testament, God did not speak to his people for 400 years.
SPEAKER_00: The period between Malachi and Matthew are known as the 400 years of silence, 400 years of not hearing God speak.
SPEAKER_00: Four generations of children that did not know the prophetic voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: 400 years.
SPEAKER_00: America isn't even 400 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And during the end of that 400 year period, there was a prophetess by the name of Anna.
SPEAKER_00: Do we have anybody named Anna in the room?
SPEAKER_00: Any?
SPEAKER_00: We had any Annas?
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say that's a powerful name.
SPEAKER_00: So Anna, in Luke chapter 2, verses 36 through 38, Luke says, and there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Faniuel of the tribe of Asher.
SPEAKER_00: She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin.
SPEAKER_00: And then as a widow until she was 84.
SPEAKER_00: She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know what service is what an hour and 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine being in this building night and day, fasting and praying and worshiping?
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says, and coming up that very hour, she began to give thanks to God and to speak to him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: This 84-year-old giant of the faith worshiped when God was silent.
SPEAKER_00: She fasted, knowing full well for three generations her family hadn't heard from God.
SPEAKER_00: And she prayed.
SPEAKER_00: She did not know that the very God she was praying to was sending her son to meet her in the temple to let her know that her prayers are not in vain.
SPEAKER_00: She had been praying for decades in the temple for God to redeem his people, and little did she know that God was moving, God was active, God was planning the deliverance not only of the Jews, but of all of the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: The Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, the very word of God made flesh, the wisdom of God made manifest, the blood of God shed for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: That very God would visit her in a quiet temple where hardly no one visited, probably, because God had been silent.
SPEAKER_00: The temple worship was probably a few people sitting in the pews, a church probably off the highway, a remnant of people who had heard the stories of deliverance from the Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: This little church, little temple, 10-15 people, God hadn't been talking, and an 84-year-old woman fasting and praying.
SPEAKER_00: You know, some of us we think, you know, I'm advanced in age, God can't use me.
SPEAKER_00: God used Anna's prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God for if you're in your 80s or 90s, there's still time left.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: There's still time left to pray down the blessings of God.
SPEAKER_00: There's still time to hold to God's promises because uh the younger folks, we're depending on someone praying.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh don't discount your age because God visited Anna.
SPEAKER_00: There was no announcement, there's no preparation, only trusting in God's covenantal faithfulness that for his name's sake he will not rest until Jerusalem is a praise in all of the world.
SPEAKER_00: For God's name's sake, he will not allow his people to be put to shame.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalms 42, verse 3, the psalmist said, My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, Where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: Where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: are the whispers of the doubters who saw uh Anna praying in her 30s for the redemption of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: When Anna turned 40 and 50, she could hear the murmurings of her community, where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: When Anna turned 60 and 70, surely she would have given up by now, and maybe some of the priests had left the faith and followed after other gods.
SPEAKER_00: Where is your God?
SPEAKER_00: But in the 84th year of Anna's life, when the reality of death was maybe a decade away, when she had surveyed her life and her decision to pray and fast night and day in the temple, when her enemies had encamped around her and showed her evidence of God's inactivity and silence.
SPEAKER_00: When the news in Jerusalem was only suffering upon suffering, God broke the silence in a very nonchalant and gentle way.
SPEAKER_00: I can imagine hearing the cry of a baby, a cry she had never heard before in this temple.
SPEAKER_00: And even if she did, I believe the cry of Jesus was different.
SPEAKER_00: I can imagine that the cry of baby Jesus were the cries of a mighty God who had come to deliver Anna in her time of need.
SPEAKER_00: It was the cry of deliverance and redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Anna knew that faith is the currency of heaven and she was about to cash in.
SPEAKER_00: God was no longer silent because he had come down himself.
SPEAKER_00: He would silence the mouth, a prophet, so that God could speak.
SPEAKER_00: Not through an intermediary, but face to face.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reason we pour our hearts out to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reason we bring before the very throne of grace our distress, our difficulties, our doubts, our impossibilities.
SPEAKER_00: Because if God heard the cry of David, if God heard the cry of Anna, if God heard the cry on Jesus on the cross before he breathed his last breath, quoting Psalm 31 and verse 5, which says, Into your hands I commit my spirit, then my brothers and sisters, if you have made God a refuge, God will hear your cry.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reason we worship when it seems like God is silent, because God always delivers on his promises.
SPEAKER_00: It is God's reputation on the line, and he won't fail his people.
SPEAKER_00: Because God's fame and God's name is at the stake.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we live in a time where we have a lot of professional athletes that do crazy things during the off season.
SPEAKER_00: And the organization, and you know, if it's the chiefs or it's the if it's the cowboys or if it's the saints, the organization stands up and says, no, we don't, we don't condone this.
SPEAKER_00: This is not who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And for the organization's namesake, an athlete might be fired, he might be let go, he might be put on probation, he might be fined because this is the organization's name who's at the stake.
SPEAKER_00: So you can't come into a professional NFL team and act any kind of way because their name is at the stake.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how God takes his name.
SPEAKER_00: God takes his name very seriously, and God will not deny himself the glory and honor of delivering his people for his own glory.
SPEAKER_00: You know, people are looking at God's people, and God is not silent, he's moving and he's active.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we worship God with all of our hearts, because God always keeps his promises.
SPEAKER_00: He is gracious when we withhold mercy, he is just when we withhold justice.
SPEAKER_00: He alone is trustworthy even when we fail to keep our words.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the psalmist can say in Psalm 30, verses 11 and 12, you have turned for me my mourning into dancing.
SPEAKER_00: You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
SPEAKER_00: I know we are reformed folk, but when was the last time you danced in the presence of God?
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you just cried, I mean, ugly tears, in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: David's the first, the second king, sorry, Saul was the first, the second king, the uh the Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us are saying, you know what, that's too emotional, that's too much.
SPEAKER_00: And that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Look, we could worship God in our own ways.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been silent in God's presence?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever knelt and fallen prostrate in God's presence?
SPEAKER_00: Have you lifted your hands?
SPEAKER_00: Have you danced?
SPEAKER_00: See, we can bring the full range of emotions because we know where God has brought us from.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, knowing your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: We have enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the psalmist had literal enemies.
SPEAKER_00: There were people that were after him.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we don't know the specifics of what was going on, but we know David.
SPEAKER_00: We know that the Bible says that David could not build the temple because he had bloody hands.
SPEAKER_00: He David was a fighting man, and he always was getting in fights and in wars.
SPEAKER_00: And so he had enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you might have enemies, some of you might have people on your job, or people uh in your classroom, or people uh whatever, whatever you do for profession.
SPEAKER_00: You might have people who are gossiping, you might have people who are backstabbing, you might have people who are trying to assassinate your character.
SPEAKER_00: But I really want to focus on two enemies.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to discount that they, yes, y'all might have trouble at the workplace.
SPEAKER_00: Even right now, you might go to work and make like, man, I hope I don't have to see this person.
SPEAKER_00: I hope that person.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to focus on two enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And the two enemies I want to focus on, we know our enemies are the world, the flesh, and the devil, and I'm gonna focus on the devil and the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We have enemies and they are relentless.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 6.12 tells us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: These spiritual forces of evil plot, they scheme, they strategize against every human being, especially those who are followers of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: These demonic forces are laid by Satan, who is the enemy of our souls, who goes about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
SPEAKER_00: We are his food.
SPEAKER_00: He is the predator, and we are the prey, and his only mission is to steal, to kill, and to destroy.
SPEAKER_00: In John 14, verse 30, Jesus calls Satan the ruler of this world.
SPEAKER_00: He has power and spiritual military forces that do his evil bidding.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2, chapter 11, that we are not unaware of Satan's schemes.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what those schemes are?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you have an enemy like this, roaring like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, who's plotting and scheming, who's older than any one of us in this room, who has seen sin sideways, backwards.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's seen all types of sin.
SPEAKER_00: From Noah all the way to now.
SPEAKER_00: And do you know his schemes?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you have an enemy?
SPEAKER_00: So, what are his schemes?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are many, but I'm gonna focus on three.
SPEAKER_00: One, he tempts us with things that we desire, he tells us that they are the ultimate things in life.
SPEAKER_00: Like money, marriage, happiness, a good job, a promotion, children, friendship, pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 4, Satan tempted a hungry Jesus to turn stone into bread.
SPEAKER_00: His second scheme is that he's the father of lies and he distorts the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says that God's word is no longer relevant, and that the Bible is an ancient book made up of fallible humans and therefore is faulty and problematic.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say this real quick because I'm running out of time, but I do a skeptics group that meets in our church office every other week, and I I just felt called to just reach out to the lost and the DMV.
SPEAKER_00: And so I went on meetup.com.
SPEAKER_00: I've never gone on meetup.com in my life, but apparently this is how people connect.
SPEAKER_00: So I I said, you know what, I'm just gonna call it Washington, DC Skeptics Group, to see who would show up.
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't know anybody, I just put it online, I paid the subscription, and I'm like, Lord, just do your work.
SPEAKER_00: And to this day, we have over a hundred people in that group.
SPEAKER_00: The group has been going on for about a year and a half, and I've seen all types of people.
SPEAKER_00: My I've seen Satanists, I've seen people who grew up in the Jewish church, I've seen atheists and agnostics, I've seen people coming from cults, and they're coming to a church office to talk about God.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times when I talk about them, they were like, Why does a pastor bringing me to a church office?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember we had this Satanist, and this Satanist, you know, I didn't know what to expect.
SPEAKER_00: I never meet, I never met in the flesh an actual devil worshiper.
SPEAKER_00: And he came in our he came upstairs in our office, and we fed him pizza and Coca-Cola.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I bet you've never been in the church office eating pizza and Coca-Cola.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Nope, I haven't.
SPEAKER_00: And we began to just talk and talk about hell.
SPEAKER_00: And it was amazing to see how God used that time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I'm going off script here, but he he said, he said, Satan only has one law, one rule.
SPEAKER_00: And he says that rule is to do whatever thou wilt.
SPEAKER_00: That should be the whole of the law.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he said.
SPEAKER_00: Do whatever thou wilt.
SPEAKER_00: And he talked about how he hated his father and he loved his mother.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I hate my dad, but I love my mother.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Sounds like your dad was following the first rule of Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Because why would you hate your dad if he's just doing whatever he wills?
SPEAKER_00: So I was showing him that Satan's law breaks down.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can do whatever you want, but it affects other people.
SPEAKER_00: And so even a Satanist can hate his father for doing whatever he willed.
SPEAKER_00: And this is how people attack God's word.
SPEAKER_00: They twist it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Satan works silently and deadly.
SPEAKER_00: Third scheme: he uses lust, pride, unforgiveness, doubt, envy, greed, jealousy, among other things.
SPEAKER_00: Satan doesn't fight fear.
SPEAKER_00: He attacks us when we're weak.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to us when we're vulnerable and in despair.
SPEAKER_00: He works silently but deadly, and he knows the scripture better than we know it our own selves.
SPEAKER_00: He tempted Jesus by quoting Psalm 91, but Jesus didn't fall into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: And our other enemy is our own flesh, our own sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 8, Paul calls it the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh wars against the spirit of righteousness that God seeks to develop in us.
SPEAKER_00: Paul diagnosed our problem in the most accurate way.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
SPEAKER_00: For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing.
SPEAKER_00: Does anybody do that?
SPEAKER_00: We deceive ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: I know I do.
SPEAKER_00: We deceive ourselves into thinking that we can deliver ourselves from our own lust, our own pride, our own selfishness, greed, or racism or unforgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot deliver ourselves from our own sins, that's why we need a deliverer.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot build for our own selves our own fortresses that would keep away sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we need a refuge.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot outsmart or outwit ancient enemies that knows every trick in the book.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we need supernatural wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: David knew that only God could save him from his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: He could not save himself.
SPEAKER_00: David knew that only God could rescue him from the terror, the schemes, and the plots.
SPEAKER_00: David knew that only the steadfast love of the Lord could save him.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the beauty of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The good news of Jesus Christ is this David was not struggling with any known sin in the Psalm.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, David appeared to be righteous.
SPEAKER_00: He said in verse 6, I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols.
SPEAKER_00: My brothers and sisters, we are the ones who pay regard to worthless idols.
SPEAKER_00: Every time we seek another refuge, another form of security, another love other than God.
SPEAKER_00: And here's how God treats idol worshippers who cry out to him in the time of need.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't reject them.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even call us enemies.
SPEAKER_00: But he treats us with mercy.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we can rejoice and be glad, because he gave his only son as a refuge for sinners oppressed by the world, the flesh, and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why we can commit our hearts and emotions to God because He is our refuge.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is the chief worship leader.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you, O God, for your word.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask that you would help us to hide ourselves in you.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we come before you naked.
SPEAKER_00: You know us, Father.
SPEAKER_00: You know our thoughts, you know our struggles, you know our distress.
SPEAKER_00: And so I pray that you would have mercy upon us and that you would hide us underneath the shelter of your wings.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe at this time I'm gonna sing.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so I wrote a song as a response, kind of, and just want to show you from a songwriter's point of view what does it mean to express yourselves emotionally?
SPEAKER_00: When we fall down, he picks us up.
SPEAKER_00: When we're dying of thirst, he feels our woe is me, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I'm calling evil good, and good evil.
SPEAKER_00: I suppress the truth for lies.
SPEAKER_00: I'm wise in mine own eyes, but this pride in me must die when we fall down, he picks us up when we're dying of thirst, he feels hard.
SPEAKER_00: But we run away like who cares with words of eckless prayer, but when we fall out, he picks us up.
SPEAKER_00: Have mercy, oh Lord, we'd rather see the proof than to live by faith, we condemn the rich with scorn, we do not love the poor, and said we turn away and when we find out the pisses up when we're dying of thirsty feels like we run away like who cares with words of fabulous praise when we fall out in place holiness is your name to see you rain before the throne is the one and make us do we know not what we do Please watch us in the truth when we find out it is when we're tired of thirst, he feels hot for the Lord is full of grace, he will always make a way so that when we fall down, he will pick us up.