Await & Arise Teaching: The true source of peace and vindication is God

The truth of vindication in this world is that it is never really full or complete.  As we study David in his time of running from Saul we see him desire to be vindicated.  He never wanted to harm Saul, he sought only to honor him as God's appointed king until God said otherwise.  But Saul knew that God was calling him out and he did not want to let go of his power and so he sought after David to kill him and thus remove the threat of losing his throne.  

We know that David never got vindication from Saul, but he did get vindication from God.  Many times in our lives we seek vindication from wrong doings done against us, falsities spoken against us or harm done to us only to find that vindication won't come.  Our peace comes from God.  In chapter 120 David says, "I seek peace, but when I speak they seek war."  

God is the only true source of vindication and peace, so why look anywhere else?  

Thanks for joining me, I hope you will go back and read the chapters and enjoy the teaching.  

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Transcript

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Welcome back. So this week we were in Psalm 7, 17, 54, 120, and 123. And we were looking at vindication. And David was definitely falsely accused, unfairly treated. He wanted to be vindicated. Remember the point in the cave where he cut off the cloak of Saul, a piece of it off, and he went out and he was like, My lord, my lord. He just wanted so badly for Saul to tell him, Oh, I'm sorry, I was wrong. You were right. You, and he did to a point. He said, You are more righteous than me. But we know that then shortly after that, he comes hunting David again. And it was seven years this pursuit between Saul and David. This would carry on, and David would have to consistently and constantly go to the Lord for his vindication. He would never get it from Saul. So this week, as we study this, I hope that you'll go back and read those chapters first and then enjoy the teaching. As we too sometimes are treated unfairly or falsely accused or have to walk through situations that are hard and we just want to defend ourselves. But it's more important that we just rely on the Lord and that He will vindicate us in the right time. Welcome to another episode of A Wait and Arise. Join me as we dive into Scripture and just pause in awe of our good God and as we give our souls just a moment of rest and refresh. Good. Good, thank you. This week was on vindication. Man, that's one that hits home sometimes, isn't it? So vindication is the act of cleaning some or clearing someone of blame, suspicion, or doubt, or proving that a person belief or an action was right and justified after being questioned. So how many of you have ever been accused of doing something you did not do? We were all kids once. And how many of you have ever been treated unfairly? Yeah. How many of you have ever been lied about? Yeah, that's a bummer, right? And when those things happen to us, our flesh rises up and we want to defend ourselves. We want the truth to be proven. We want to be vindicated, right? Um, we have this type of righteous anger that this was unjust and it was unfair and it should be taken care of, and everyone should know, right? Sometimes we're not called to make it known. That's frustrating. For people like me, that's frustrating. I don't know. Maybe you all are better at that than me. But I know how that feels. When you know what's right, but it doesn't get to be said right away. What about when somebody it happens to somebody else and you see it happening to somebody else and you want vindication for the other person because it's unfair? So some of us are crusaders, and we kind of look for that opportunity to vindicate others, to raise them up, right? So this weekend my husband and I watched a movie, and it's actually a true story about a woman and her husband who had left Austria during the Nazi infiltration, and they barely made it out in time. Um, but her family was very well-to-do, and she watched as they came in and they um stole and plundered all of her family's artifacts and um artistic pieces and all of that under the guise of uh tax evasion. And it was false. Um, but anyways, so she witnessed that. She was there for it. She was probably in her early 20s when that happened. Um 65 years after the war, she was living in California and came to find out about one of those artistic pieces being showcased at a museum there in Austria. And she pursued legal help to gain it back. The authorities of that museum were very staunch and chose to continue the falsity that her aunt had willed this one particular piece to them and they would not let it go, and it was worth millions of dollars at this point. But in the end, after a long, arduous legal battle, one that went all the way to the Supreme Court in the United States and then back to Austria, she won. She got it back. Um but it was stated in the credits that over a hundred thousand other art pieces from taken from those families during that time are still not returned to those families at this time, which is really sad. Um, at the one point, her attorney was so invested in this battle that he went back to Austria on his own to continue the fight for her. And she at that point was pretty much given up. Like, I am too old for this, I don't want to fight anymore. Just let them have it. And but he went on and he went so much in, he took it personally that he went into personal debt, he missed the birth of one of his children. Like he really was a crusader for her vindication. He wanted her and her family to be vindicated. Well, David had men who left their lives to pursue vindication for him. He also had men who he had trusted unfairly proclaim him as an opponent, an enemy of Saul, even though he had never put a hand against him. So David understood to the core what it meant to be treated unfairly, to be lied about. He understood that the only true vindication, though, came from God. When the woman won her peace back, she told her attorney, and at this point her friend, she thought it would make things better. But in the end, even though it was a good outcome, it did not right the injustices that they had suffered. So as we studied this week, we were taken back to David in the cave with that opportunity where he could have killed Saul. And um, two occasions actually where he could have killed Saul. And he comes out each time and he's like, My Lord, my Lord, I could have taken your life, but I didn't. And on those occasions, Saul admits David is more righteous than him. But then his pride and his wickedness and his power hungry control takes back over, and he again pursues David for death. So the only vindication then that truly could set him free is from God. David knows it. Maria from the story saw it, and we can aim for uh sorry, we can aim for justice to be served here, but really the only vindication that we can seek in our own situations is from God. And in our situation, especially from Christ. Vindication that truly sets us free is Christ's salvation for you and me. We're gonna rhyme this week. That's gonna be fun, so it'll stick in your head, hopefully. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much that you do offer us vindication, that you come alongside us, and that we might not see it here, but we do see it with your son. And Lord, we know that we are made right by you, and that's all. Lord, that we would put our faith and our trust solely in you so that we wouldn't look to the world for vindication, but that we would look to you. Lord, may you be your words and not mine today. Amen. So, my old teaching director, Carol Boek, back in um Spearfish, she used to say, and I think I've said this before, when people put down dirt about you, don't pick it up because you'll just get dirty, right? Um, our first inclination is to make a defense for ourselves. That's our first inclination. But sometimes when we do that, we pick the dirt up and we smear it all over ourselves and it blurs the situation, and people think, well, maybe you deserve that. So sometimes it's just better, and probably all the time, it's just better if we leave it alone and let God handle it, if we go to God first, and he'll direct us what we need to do. On two accounts, we read that David is pleading with Saul, proving he could have killed him, but he did not. So we must believe that he doesn't want to harm him, right? He doesn't, he doesn't want to kill God's anointed. He didn't even he felt bad when he cut the cloak because he knew that was even too much, too close. So in chapter 7 and 17, we see David ask God to judge his heart. Okay, Lord, look at my heart. If I deserve this at all, show me where, so I can repent from it, so I can turn, so I can be only what you want me to be, only in your will. Remove that sin from my life. And then in 17 we see him say, You have tested me and you find nothing. So I call upon you, O Lord, for you will answer wondrously. Please show your steadfast love. So keep me as your apple, the apple of your eye. He wants to be the center of God's sight. He wants to be in the middle of his will. He doesn't want to be out of it at all. He wants to be close to God's bosom so that all that he hears is what God says of him, how God defines him. Only his vindication is what matters, only his. Sometimes, if a lie goes on long enough in our life, we start to think, did I do something? Did I actually deserve this? We start to believe the lie a little bit. So it is important that we check our hearts, like David does here, that we repent of any sin or anything that is separating us from God, and we focus our thoughts and our hearts on him and his will in our life. And then we'll have direction from him. But repenting of that which the Holy Spirit reveals, and then believing the lies of the enemy that he tries to hold you down with, those are two very different things. When the Holy Spirit reveals places that we can turn over to him to cleanse and to remove, we find freedom and closeness to God. Would you agree? Right. But when the enemy lies to us and he convinces us that we are unworthy, that we are the problem, that all the things that he is trying to convince you about yourself, we feel shame and we feel distant from God. That is not God. Would you agree? He it's easy to find ourselves in these places of despair. Very easy. Just this week, my husband and I um had a financial meeting to go over our investments. That was so fun. So we have to like, you know, make sure that the track that we're on will get us to the retirement in about 20 plus years, right? We're like at that point. I told him, I said, I feel like we're at that point of a marathon where you're like, seriously, there's still like 14 miles left. I mean, I felt like we were kind of close, but we're not close at all. But, anyways, so in this conversation, this is the endurance part, this is where you like cling in, right? It's going well, but you gotta keep trucking along. Um, my contribution monetarily was brought up. Oh, all of the things that I believe about myself sometimes, the things that bring me down, the worldly accomplishments I haven't arrived at. Those become what define me. And in that moment, I felt so worthless. I felt more like a burden on my family. Here I am with all these accolades, and what am I doing? Not any of that. Yeah, that's a lie. That's a lie. But for a minute, it gets to take hold in me. For a minute, I believe it. And I'm in the kitchen with my husband, and I am not happy, and I am upset, and I and he's trying to speak to me like, these are the things you have done. This is good, this is, you know, this is right. It is right that I will bring more to the table. And I'm like, but I feel like. And so I'm yelling at myself, and he's trying so hard to comfort me. But in that moment, my daughter came in, my 16-year-old daughter, and she said, What happened? And I said, Nothing. And she's like, No, something happened. Like she thought we were in a fight. I was like, No, we are not in a fight. Like, this is just your mom feeling real worthless right now. And I said, and I said some things to her, and she said, she just wrapped me up and gave me a hug, and she said, Mom, you're my biggest inspiration. And I said, You should get new inspiration. But truly, those are lies. And can you imagine where David is as he's in the wilderness? He was told that he was he was anointed. That was all he did. He got anointed, and then his life went to poop. You know, it just crumbles around him. He feels like it's getting there, and these anointing, that anointing is for real, and God is moving him up. Look at him, he's in day, he's in Saul's kingdom, and and then all of it just goes away, and he thinks, what have I done wrong, Lord? Only God can vindicate him. He's never gonna get that vindication from Saul. He's not gonna get it from the world. And if I too look to the world for my vindication, I will come up so short and lacking. But if I look to God for my vindication, I know that the place that he has called me to be primarily is here with you ladies. And I know I'm in his will. And the world might not take that and think, woohoo, good job. But God does. And God is the one that vindicates me and you and David. And that's where we are today. So we are looking at David. He's wandering in the wilderness, he's pursued by men who want to kill him. If he had any aspirations of the throne, at this point, he's like, This is not what I had in mind. How many of us have been there at that point? This is not what I had in mind. That's where I was. I'm 45 years old. This is not what I thought I would look like. But that's okay. Because I'm not supposed to look like what I thought I was gonna look like. I'm supposed to look like what God has me to look like. And my focus isn't on what the world thinks, it's on what he thinks. And I have to be reminded of that on occasion because the pain, this problem, this whole confusing mess that David is in was not his doing. It was his pursuit of God that put him through this struggle. And that is the right pursuit. You see, vindication that is truly setting us free is from Christ and his salvation that is for you and me. I am sure that all of us have had people who've wronged us. Right? We've had people take the side of those who wrong us. And it throws us off, it shocks us. I've had the fortune and unfortune of walking through divorce with friends, my husband and I, and counseling and advising as they go through this process. And it's a terrible process. And trying to remain neutral and loving to both parties is very difficult. It kind of feels like you get a little bit sordid with the furniture, right? David is off hiding among his own countrymen, the place he was raised. But these men turn him over to Saul. They divulge that he's hiding there. And this betrayal had to be deep because these are his countrymen. He thought he could take refuge in them with them, and he's reminded: nope, the only refuge you have is with God. Period. That's it. Not even from your own people. Chapter 54, 4 says, Behold, God is my helper, David says. So much like divorce, I am sure that as those situations arise and circumstances play out, it can feel like your own countrymen are betraying you in that situation. It can feel like you have lost trust with people. Relationships are broken as you walk through those difficult situations. But really, what we hope happens is that these, like these men, they divulge David's whereabouts, and we don't know why, but what we do know is that it thrusts David closer to God. And I hope that in those difficult situations of separations and times like that, that we are thrust into trusting only God. Reminded that our vindication, our refuge is only found in Him. Vindication that truly sets us free is Christ's salvation for you and me. So for you and I, we are under the new Christ new covenant. So we have Christ's salvation, and that vindicates us. That offers us refuge from this world and its lies. We have the promise of eternal life, but with persecution, with suffering, with heartache, we still have to face hardships in this world. We still have to struggle, which I hear builds character. So you should all have some great character. But but we can be safe. We can take refuge in his salvation for us. We get to be safe close to his bosom, focusing on him. As it says in um chapter 120, we see the psalmist mention Meshech and Kadar, and those are far-off places, places of um non-Israel Israelites, right? And so he says, They um, I long to dwell with those who hate, or I long to dwell. Sorry. Verse 6 says, Too long do I dwell among those who hate peace. I am for peace. But when I speak, they are for war. He feels ostracized outside of things. He feels like he's in the wrong place, he's hearing the wrong voices. I want to be for peace. How do I hear the right words? Well, my focus has to be on God alone. Man is not doing it for David here. We might find ourselves not fitting, and that is good. Good. That's a good reminder because as children of God, you shouldn't fit. You shouldn't, we are not made to look like the world. We are made in God's image, which means we're like little salmon. We're swimming the wrong way, but it's the right way. And if it feels like you're going against the current, you're doing it right. Keep swimming. Just keep swimming, right? So we might find ourselves there. Just remember, in 123, it says, To you I lift up my eyes. As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, so our eyes look to our God until his mercy has come upon us. What a great gift! And if David knew it there before Christ would come, how much more do we know it in the salvation of Christ? Our eyes are not on this world, our eyes are on our mouth. Our eyes are on Christ because truly only vindication comes to set us free through Christ's salvation. That is for you and me. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much. You are such a good God. And as you continue to pull David closer and to steer him into your will, Lord, continually we get to watch him walk through these struggles and these times where he feels so outside. But Lord, he is inside your will. And may we too recognize that the times we feel outside of things, that we are focusing on you and we are inside your will, and that our true vindication, our only true vindication comes from Christ's salvation for us. Amen. Thanks for joining me today. If your soul was refreshed by this pause in the word, then I hope that you'll continue to join me weekly for these await and arise meditations. My hope is that this podcast space will be a reprieve for you to just take a pause away from the world, to be refreshed in the word, and to await in the presence of a good God. Would you go to the comment section and leave a word or a scripture that's lifted you up this week? I really do love to see how God is working in all of our lives. And my desire is to see that this space just grows as a community of people who come together and encourage each other in the word. I want to see him working in all of us. It's just such a sweet reminder that we are all in this together. And God, he goes before us. So until next time, I'm praying your heart stays anchored in his truth. A Wait and a Rise podcasts are available on all podcast players. If you would like to see Ange, me as I teach weekly live, click on my YouTube channel or go to my webpage, angela.com, and you can find those episodes there. Meditations come out each week on Thursday, and live teachings are weekly on Monday, and I post those on Tuesday. We hope that you'll subscribe and feel free to share this episode with family and friends and on social media. For more information for connecting with a community Bible study in your area, you can also click those links below. You can join a connect group online or you can find a community Bible study in your town or in your area that you can join in person. It is so important to be in the Word, meditating on it and studying it for yourself. So it is my encouragement to you to find a Bible teaching church and an in depth Bible study and dig in. Thanks for listening. Now await in his presence and arise to his call.