SPEAKER_02: Our Bible reading for the morning is in Psalm 61.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to flip there in your Bibles or get it up on your cool app there, I'll be reading this, and this is what Mark will be preaching from in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_02: But it says to the choir master with stringed instruments of David.
SPEAKER_02: And it begins, Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer.
SPEAKER_02: From the ends of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint.
SPEAKER_02: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.
SPEAKER_02: Let me dwell in your tent forever.
SPEAKER_02: Let me take shelter, let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings, Selah.
SPEAKER_02: For you, O God, have heard my vows.
SPEAKER_02: You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.
SPEAKER_02: Prolong the life of the king.
SPEAKER_02: May his years endure to all generations.
SPEAKER_02: May he be enthroned forever before God.
SPEAKER_02: Appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him.
SPEAKER_02: So will I ever sing praises to your name as I perform my vows day after day.
SPEAKER_02: So reads God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: If you've joined us since we've started, my name is Mark.
SPEAKER_01: I'm one of the leaders here at City Church.
SPEAKER_01: It's great to have you with us, especially if you're uh visiting uh with us.
SPEAKER_01: I can see Pierre out into the darkness there.
SPEAKER_01: It's strange to be back after uh after 11 uh weeks away, uh, but it is wonderful to be opening up God's word again with you.
SPEAKER_01: Um the psalms are something that we uh have done every summer for the last uh five or six years.
SPEAKER_01: We started in Psalm one and we have just gone consecutively through uh the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: And uh hopefully one day I'm not quite sure what we're gonna do when we get to Psalm 119.
SPEAKER_01: That might be a that might be a whole summer uh in one Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: We'll see.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but the the hope was that over uh the course of years we might get to do the whole uh book of Psalms, the whole Psalter.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're uh pick up this ongoing series in Psalm 61 uh for the summer.
SPEAKER_01: It's great, it's actually really good if if you are visiting, uh, because you almost get a whole little mini-series because they're contained uh little uh nuggets of uh of goodness uh and of joy.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, one of the reasons why we teach the Psalms and we teach the Psalms every year is because uh they uh perhaps uh more than uh other books, so you've got books like Lamentations or Ecclesiastics, they they teach us about the emotional life of uh the person who is devoted to God.
SPEAKER_01: They teach us about the the emotional life of uh of the Christian and how it is that we can express Christian devotion.
SPEAKER_01: Psalms are uh the Psalms are songs, they're poems, they're full of rich imagery, they're full of emotions.
SPEAKER_01: Some are filled with uh with joy and praise and thanksgiving, others are filled with uh with lament and with woe.
SPEAKER_01: Others are like this one interacting with God uh through times of trial or times of affliction.
SPEAKER_01: And uh that's a really important thing for us to study because, well, you only need to live long enough before trial and affliction uh comes your way.
SPEAKER_01: And I think perhaps that we don't always know how to respond when times of difficulty come our way, especially if we face uh malevolence at the hand of others.
SPEAKER_01: That can be a very destabilizing uh thing to have to move through.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure that some of you sitting here have done that or are experiencing times of uncertainty, trial, uh, suffering, either with you personally or in your wider family circle.
SPEAKER_01: And and one of the things you're wrestling through is how do I interact with that as a Christian?
SPEAKER_01: And I think the Psalms and this Psalm, I hope, to show you helps us with that.
SPEAKER_01: It's very common for us to uh to go to places of despair or anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we we blame shift, don't we, when when things go wrong?
SPEAKER_01: Uh we like to set ourselves up as the uh as as the victim, uh, other people as the as the perpetrator.
SPEAKER_01: Some people uh uh do the ostrich impersonation.
SPEAKER_01: You know, when trial or suffering comes, you just pretend like you're blocking it all out, that it's not there.
SPEAKER_01: You just go silent and quiet and deep, like a submarine underneath the ice caps.
SPEAKER_01: Other people uh go to anger uh frustration.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably it's probably me.
SPEAKER_01: I get frustrated.
SPEAKER_01: You know, some people internalize stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I don't really know what that what that's like.
SPEAKER_01: Not really an internalizer.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask Philip.
SPEAKER_01: I'm much more of an externalizer.
SPEAKER_01: Um other people go to fear.
SPEAKER_01: I'm fearful of the of the future, what it would mean.
SPEAKER_01: The God, the God who made us, the God in whose image we are, understands that we are we're not just brains on sticks, that we're full humans with with an emotional range, and that our emotions can be informed and and guided in the same way that you might guide a river by God and by his scripture and the Psalms help us with with that.
SPEAKER_01: But we kind of wonder to ourselves, is God even interested in helping us when we are in times of trial?
SPEAKER_01: If there is a God who is out there and he's vast and powerful and well, quite busy, open, you know, upholding the world, upholding the universe by the word of his power, does he have time to deal with your brokenheartedness, your loss of a job, your anxiety about the future, your processing of a of a trauma?
SPEAKER_01: If you're a Christian, you probably said here's how yes.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, God knows the the number of hairs on your head, and so he cares for us.
SPEAKER_01: But how often do we act as though he is too busy?
SPEAKER_01: How often do we act as though he isn't really interested?
SPEAKER_01: And so we don't bring things to his doorstep, we don't petition him in our prayers because we don't want to bother him.
SPEAKER_01: Particularly, we don't want to keep on going to God with the same old thing, the same sin, the same trial.
SPEAKER_01: How do I know that that's the case?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's how I act.
SPEAKER_01: But here, David is afflicted, something has happened to him that means he's uh in trouble.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, thank you, Ben, for uh for reading.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, he taught us something really important there that when you're reading the Psalms, it's important to read the little superscript, uh, the little bit above the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: That's actual Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's not the it's not like the bold title.
SPEAKER_01: The bold title is put in by the uh by the people who compile the Bible, but the little superscript that says to the choir master with stringed instruments of David, that's actual scripture.
SPEAKER_01: You read that bit, that informs you, that teaches you.
SPEAKER_01: And so we know that this is a psalm written by David the King, and the imagery in the Psalm picks that up.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you too for reading Selah.
SPEAKER_01: Selah, if you want to know, just means pause.
SPEAKER_01: Take a breath, pause, reflect on what has just been said or sung or read.
SPEAKER_01: Say lah.
SPEAKER_01: But David is in this time of trouble.
SPEAKER_01: Probably, if you want to, if you want to kind of geek out on it, probably something to do with the time when his son Absalom uh had uh rebelled against his father the king, and David's off the throne and he's away uh in exile.
SPEAKER_01: We know that because of this idea of from the ends of the earth, I cry to you.
SPEAKER_01: We'll come to that in in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: But the point is for now that here's the king, the most powerful man in the land, and that he himself is no stranger to suffering and to affliction.
SPEAKER_01: And he's trying to navigate, he's coming to God with it.
SPEAKER_01: And in doing so, he's teaching us how we can interact with God in those times ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Let me point our attention to four ideas uh in this four ways, four things that David does that helps us, informs us how to interact with God when things aren't right in our world, right?
SPEAKER_01: First, pray expecting an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Pray expecting an answer.
SPEAKER_01: You can think, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01: I know you've been off for 11 weeks, but you could you come back with something a little bit more?
SPEAKER_01: Is that it?
SPEAKER_01: It's quite simple, you know, pray expecting an answer.
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, but how many of us here have just prayed functional prayers?
SPEAKER_01: Just prayed profound.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know that I probably should pray about this.
SPEAKER_01: You never but if God actually showed up and actually answered that prayer, you'd be like, oh, it actually worked.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: David prays expecting an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Verse one hear my cry, oh God, listen to my prayer.
SPEAKER_01: That word listen, it may be better translated as the word attend, attend to my prayer, give attention to what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: Listen and act, attend to my prayer, hear, oh God, listen to me, hear and act.
SPEAKER_01: David is not like us far too often, content with formality.
SPEAKER_01: He's not content simply to have prayed.
SPEAKER_01: He's praying, expecting that God will do something.
SPEAKER_01: If you are in trouble and you don't really think that God would act, well then why would you pray at all?
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, you know, it's my it's my duty to pray, and it's my my duty as a Christian that I should pray.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's true, but that is the very ground level of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We pray because God hears and God acts.
SPEAKER_01: Be careful about a formality in a cold list, coldness that is content merely to have prayed and not to as all the older people have termed it, to sue God, to petition him over and over and over again, expecting an answer.
SPEAKER_01: There is a kind of holy discontentment that is that is good.
SPEAKER_01: Why is it good?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because the world isn't as it should be, your life isn't as it should be.
SPEAKER_01: So don't just pray once and think, well, I've ticked that box.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, we go like the persistent widow that Jesus tells us about, and we go like David, and we say, Hear my prayer, O God, attend, listen.
SPEAKER_01: I need an answer to what I'm asking you.
SPEAKER_01: Some might say, Well, if you believe that God is sovereign over all things, which we do, that not one sparrow uh falls from the sky apart from his decree, which we do, that at all times and all places and for all peoples, he has ordained the world, which we do.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if that's true, why pray at all?
SPEAKER_01: Never mind, be discontent and persistent in our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the answer, very briefly, is that although our God is sovereign and is control, is in control of all times and all peoples and all places, our God also elects to use means.
SPEAKER_01: He uses prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Let me illustrate it this way.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that uh you dented your car on a uh on a bollard, or you pranked it in the car park uh into the car in front and it and it dented the bumper or your side panel.
SPEAKER_01: Did God ordain that dent?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Yes is the answer.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then you say, why didn't the dent just appear of its own accord?
SPEAKER_01: If God ordained it?
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't your car just go like some sort of matrix moment?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because God uses means, he uses the ball art.
SPEAKER_01: God is sovereign over all times and all places, but we pray because he uses means.
SPEAKER_01: James uh the uh the brother of Jesus says something remarkable in his letter.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You do not have because you do not ask, or you have not asked.
SPEAKER_01: You do not have because you haven't prayed.
SPEAKER_01: You haven't asked God.
SPEAKER_01: That is not to say that whatever we want, as long as we are persistent enough, we will get it.
SPEAKER_01: But it is to say that every persistent prayer gets an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Pray, friends, brothers, sisters, I'd like you to believe that there is a God there who will answer you.
SPEAKER_01: Because there is.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, pray where you are.
SPEAKER_01: Pray where you are.
SPEAKER_01: Where does David pray from?
SPEAKER_01: Well, well, we're told that in verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: From the end of the earth, I call to you when my heart is faint, from the end of the earth I call to you.
SPEAKER_01: David, in this in this time, in this moment, he's far from the people of God, he's uh far from the temple where God's presence was sent to particular said to particularly dwell.
SPEAKER_01: But he's realized that even though he's not in proximity to those things, that he is not far away from God.
SPEAKER_01: God's not like that.
SPEAKER_01: He is not partially present anywhere, he's fully present everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Say that again.
SPEAKER_01: God's not partially present anywhere, he is fully present everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I like to I like to bake.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've noticed that.
SPEAKER_01: Um you know, sometimes with the kids we do.
SPEAKER_01: Um we made pasta.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody here, uh one day we uh bought us a pasta making kit uh while we were uh off on sabbatical.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh some afternoons we would make our own pasta, which is uh which is wonderful, but quite hard to get right.
SPEAKER_01: And you're rolling out this uh this pasta dough or you know this pie crust or whatever it is, and you're rolling it out.
SPEAKER_01: And as you roll it out, it it gets thinner and thinner and thinner at the edges.
SPEAKER_01: It stays kind of fat at the middle and starts to kind of dissipate out at the edges.
SPEAKER_01: And some people think that God's presence is a bit like that, that it's particularly concentrated in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: But the further you get away from, the further you get out, the thinner it gets.
SPEAKER_01: No, God's not like that.
SPEAKER_01: God's presence is not like pie crust or pasta dough.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't get thinner at the edges.
SPEAKER_01: God's not partially present anywhere, he's fully present everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: This is not only just true geographically.
SPEAKER_01: It can be true for us, I think, probably relationally, spiritually, mentally.
SPEAKER_01: There are times and seasons when God feels very distant.
SPEAKER_01: We might not be, we're all far away from Jerusalem right now.
SPEAKER_01: But some of us can feel in our own selves, in our own spirits, like we are very far off.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know everybody here, and I don't know where you're at with faith.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is that you're simply questioning and exploring.
SPEAKER_01: We're so glad that you're here.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is that you have been a Christian in some times, but or for some time, and you're in that more dry, more arid, more fallow season of uh of spiritual vitality.
SPEAKER_01: Feels much more like a desert than an oasis.
SPEAKER_01: And God feels distant.
SPEAKER_01: Whether you feel close to God or like he's further away, verse two helps us.
SPEAKER_01: When David prays from the ends of the earth, he teaches us something foundational.
SPEAKER_01: The ends of the earth are not the ends of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: The end of yourself is not the end of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: You could flip it around and say that, but the end of prayer would be the end of you.
SPEAKER_01: Because to become prayerless is to lose something of who you're meant to be.
SPEAKER_01: You're meant to be in relationship with God, you're meant to be in this in this communicative, dialogical relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_01: And so the end of prayer is the end of something that is vital to what it means to be a human being.
SPEAKER_01: But to be far off You cannot move yourself further away from the center of God.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that wonderful news?
SPEAKER_01: You cannot move yourself further away from the center of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do not wait, therefore, to feel like you're closer to him because he's right there.
SPEAKER_01: Do not wait to feel like you need to journey further into him because you cannot get closer to the center than you already are.
SPEAKER_01: And so David would say, No, no, no, pray not.
SPEAKER_01: Cry out now.
SPEAKER_01: Plead with him now.
SPEAKER_01: If what is on your heart is big enough for you to be concerned about, God wants to hear about it.
SPEAKER_01: If what is on your heart is big enough for you to be concerned about, God, the sovereign of the universe, wants to hear about it.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly.
SPEAKER_01: So what have we seen?
SPEAKER_01: Pray expecting an answer.
SPEAKER_01: Pray wherever you are.
SPEAKER_01: Third, pray, you could probably summarize this as pray big prayers.
SPEAKER_01: But I'll double-click on that.
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is pray and ask God to do what only God can do.
SPEAKER_01: Pray and ask God to do what only God can do, or pray big prayers.
SPEAKER_01: What does David pray?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 2b.
SPEAKER_01: So start at verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: From the end of the earth I cry to you, where my heart is faint, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
SPEAKER_01: For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: Let me dwell in your tent forever.
SPEAKER_01: Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings.
SPEAKER_01: Say La.
SPEAKER_01: What is uh this image?
SPEAKER_01: What does this image mean?
SPEAKER_01: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
SPEAKER_01: Well, imagine in your mind's eye that there is a uh a cliff face rising up from the ground, stretching into the sky.
SPEAKER_01: You might think of somewhere like the uh the white cliffs of Dover or like the cliffs of Moor.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever done the uh the boat ride uh that that takes you uh from the scanner or from Dulin uh around the cliffs, and you see this vast wall of rock stretching up above you.
SPEAKER_01: And imagine that you're looking up at that rock and you catch a glimpse behind you, and what you see is that there is a wall of water coming towards you, and that you are about to be drowned and swept away.
SPEAKER_01: In order, therefore, to be safe, what do you need?
SPEAKER_01: You need to be put on top of the cliff.
SPEAKER_01: It is much better to be standing at the top of the cliffs of Dover or the cliffs of Moor on some of those windy days than it is to be on the boat at the bottom.
SPEAKER_01: You need to be set up on the cliff, on the top of the rock.
SPEAKER_01: That rock, which is what?
SPEAKER_01: It's higher than you.
SPEAKER_01: It is higher than you, it is higher than the circumstance, the wave that is coming your way, it is higher than you.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what is the rock that is higher than I?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's God's deliverance, it's God's salvation.
SPEAKER_01: So I need you to save me.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing when David prays these words, he knows that there is a rock.
SPEAKER_01: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that there is a rock.
SPEAKER_01: Just like everyone who looks at the world or at their life and says, there's gotta be better than this, there's gotta be a way out of this, there's gotta be more, there's gotta be more joy, there's gotta be more meaning, there's gotta be more value, more goodness.
SPEAKER_01: Than this, but they they don't know where to find it.
SPEAKER_01: David knows that there's a there is a rock, but he doesn't know how to get there.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says, lead me to the rock.
SPEAKER_01: David knows that there is a deliverance, that there is a salvation, but he cannot find it himself.
SPEAKER_01: So he prays to God, lead me to that rock that is higher than I.
SPEAKER_01: And what's more, this prayer of lead me cannot just mean lead me to the base of the cliff.
SPEAKER_01: How awful would that be?
SPEAKER_01: How awful would that be if God, if God brought him to that beach in Dover and said, right, there's the rock, there's the wave.
SPEAKER_01: You better get a move on, sort it out.
SPEAKER_01: No, that can't be what David's praying.
SPEAKER_01: It can't be just lead me to the rock that I now have to climb with my own exertion and my own effort.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when David says, lead me to the rock, he's like, take me to that place of full deliverance and set me upon it.
SPEAKER_01: How do we know that?
SPEAKER_01: Because he knows that there's a fortress up there, like a lighthouse on top of the rock.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I need to be in there, doors shut, fire on coffee pot bubbling, because that storm is coming.
SPEAKER_01: Lead me to the rock, set my feet upon it.
SPEAKER_01: It would be a tragedy to spend your whole life in church, serving, hearing the Bible taught, going to community groups, singing songs.
SPEAKER_01: Never actually coming to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Never actually resting in him.
SPEAKER_01: That would be like coming to the beach in Dover and saying, This is good enough while the wave is coming towards the shore.
SPEAKER_01: When we pray to God, lead me to the rock, we're asking God to do what only God can do.
SPEAKER_01: Only He can get David up on the rock that's higher than He is.
SPEAKER_01: He cannot do it by his own exertion.
SPEAKER_01: Cannot do it by his own effort or merit or goodness, and neither can we experience salvation, that full deliverance, by simply knowing where the rock is and trying to exert ourselves to get up upon it.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, God must lead us and set us in that fortress.
SPEAKER_01: Each one of us has an inbuilt instinct, I think, to try and sort out problems ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: I know personally that I first turned to planning, to fixing, to try and uh make somebody else's life better or my life better.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if they if they did this and then this, and it's like, you know, Jesus loves you, but Mark has a wonderful plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: So if then, you know, I'm I I like to fix or think that I can fix, but the Psalm here is a correction to that.
SPEAKER_01: There are some things that are beyond our power.
SPEAKER_01: There are some things that cannot be all on us.
SPEAKER_01: And salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Being saved from that oncoming tidal wave of God's judgment is not on us.
SPEAKER_01: We were never made to bear that weight.
SPEAKER_01: To try and to fix and to solve without prayer is to live as though God does not exist.
SPEAKER_01: There are things that are in this world that are beyond our control, beyond our power to heal, and chief among them is our own soul.
SPEAKER_01: The answer?
SPEAKER_01: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
SPEAKER_01: Set me in that high fortress eternally safe and secure.
SPEAKER_01: Set me in that high fortress of forgiveness, acceptance, and love.
SPEAKER_01: Lead me to the rock.
SPEAKER_01: Set my feet upon it.
SPEAKER_01: Ask God to do what only God can do.
SPEAKER_01: Pray big prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly, you think, well, I just got to the end of verse three.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly.
SPEAKER_01: Pray knowing your situation and knowing your God.
SPEAKER_01: What motivates David's prayers?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think there's there's two things.
SPEAKER_01: There's the there's the circumstance that motivates David to pray, and then there's the God that he knows.
SPEAKER_01: Both of those things go hand in hand in this Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: The God that he knows, the God who has proven himself through past faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: His circumstances uh motivate him because, well, brothers and sisters, friends, there should be a direction to our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Like I said in point one, I want to elaborate a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01: When you there should be a direction to your prayers, put it another way, when you're sick, pray to be healed.
SPEAKER_01: When somebody who you love is sick, pray for their healing.
SPEAKER_01: Pray with a direction to it, not just uh, oh God, uh, I'm sure you're aware of this and uh please give peace in this situation.
SPEAKER_01: That is fine as far as it goes, but there can be a pointierness to your prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Pray in a direction, pray to be healed.
SPEAKER_01: If you're sad and alone, pray for comfort, for fellowship and and for love.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't know what to do, pray for wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: If you've run out of money, bring that need to God.
SPEAKER_01: Pray with a direction.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because the whole world is moving in a direction.
SPEAKER_01: All of history is moving in a direction where one day all sickness, isolation, folly, and poverty will be no more.
SPEAKER_01: We're all moving towards the renewal and restoration of all things.
SPEAKER_01: And so when David prays, rescue me, oh God, he is praying along the trajectory of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see?
SPEAKER_01: When you pray and ask for deliverance and ask for help, you are, in a sense, cutting with the grain of reality.
SPEAKER_01: You are praying in line with that grand story of deliverance that every Christian can be assured of, that one day there will be a new heaven and new earth, or one day all tears will be wiped away, all sickness and death will be no more.
SPEAKER_01: And so we pray along those lines.
SPEAKER_01: We pray with our eyes fixed on that trajectory.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, there are moments when God does not answer in the way that we would have wanted.
SPEAKER_01: The person that we loved still died.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't have that need met in the way that you thought was best or the way that you wanted.
SPEAKER_01: And the temptation there is to become bitter and sad and to cry out, why God?
SPEAKER_01: First thing to briefly note about that is God is big enough for your why questions.
SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of psalms where the psalmist cries out and just like that, why have you done this?
SPEAKER_01: Why have you acted like this?
SPEAKER_01: But what I would encourage you to do is to remember that you are in a bigger story that is moving to a glorious end.
SPEAKER_01: All of life is a comedy.
SPEAKER_01: I mean that in the old technical sense.
SPEAKER_01: You English people, as in those who are studying English, will understand what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_01: It's a comedy, not a tragedy.
SPEAKER_01: As in, everything will end well for the Christian, for the believer in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Where are we going?
SPEAKER_01: We're going to a wedding.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to a place of renewal and reunion and restoration and resurrection existence and every tear wiped away, all of life is a comedy for the believer in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so what I would encourage you to do is to not judge the movie by one freeze frame.
SPEAKER_01: Do not judge the movie by one still.
SPEAKER_01: You do not know what God is doing and what he will unfold in his strange and bitter providences for your good in this life and in the life of those around you.
SPEAKER_01: But you do know that everyone who is led to the rock finds themselves eternally in the fortress that he has set upon it.
SPEAKER_01: David prays because he knows the character of God.
SPEAKER_01: That is what is woven throughout the rest of the Psalm.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that God is not capricious or malicious or distant or disinterested.
SPEAKER_01: He is not an absentee landlord.
SPEAKER_01: He looks back in verse 3 and says, You have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: And then, in a sense, he looks forward in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: So let me dwell in your tent forever, let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings.
SPEAKER_01: He looks back at God's past faithfulness and he allows that to inform his situation now.
SPEAKER_01: If God was faithful in delivering me or delivering my people here, this is the psalmist, the psalmists forever look back to the Exodus, to God's rescue out of slavery in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because that informs them of the character of God and it allows them to interpret their circumstances in light of that.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Dave's David, Dave, mean King Dave, uh, maybe one day, uh David is looking back at the character of God, and that's informing us.
SPEAKER_01: You have done this in the past, and so I'm going to continue to trust you, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: How how faithless and cold are we that we uh we go through a season of trial and God delivers us?
SPEAKER_01: We're like, yes, come on, let's go.
SPEAKER_01: Two weeks later, in another season of trial and go, oh, will I be rescued?
SPEAKER_01: This is terrible.
SPEAKER_01: How could this have happened?
SPEAKER_01: You know, oh if you look back, do you see God was faithful there?
SPEAKER_01: So often we forget God's character, that he has been a shelter, a mighty eagle under whose wings David has fled for refuge in the past.
SPEAKER_01: And God has heard him before, and so he takes that past faithfulness and it stirs him again.
SPEAKER_01: It stirs him to pray to that faithful God all the more now.
SPEAKER_01: But of course, for Christians, by grace, uh his grace to us extends far beyond the temporal fortnight ago circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is good to kind of look back at, and we can all do for being Christian for any length of time, you know, look back to other things.
SPEAKER_01: Gosh, you you you really came through for me there.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't see it in that in that moment, but looking back in hindsight, I can see your hand at work.
SPEAKER_01: It's good to have that, but we have something more objective than that.
SPEAKER_01: As Christians, we have the the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus to look back to.
SPEAKER_01: That when we wonder about God's faithfulness, when we wonder about God's love for us, when we wonder about God's ability to uh to rescue and save and deliver and to set our feet upon the rock.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what is the rock?
SPEAKER_01: The rock's Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01: He was the rock that followed the people of the Old Testament through the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: The rock's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so we look back to the cross that happened in history, to the resurrection, the bodily physical resurrection of Jesus that happened in history, not a metaphor, actual historical reality.
SPEAKER_01: And we look back to those things and we go, oh, God was faithful in that.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm trusting in that son whom he loved.
SPEAKER_01: And if he raised his son, how much more will he raise me and deliver me in the end?
SPEAKER_01: And that is so good and so necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the things that David refers to twice here in the Psalm 1 in verse 5, and then again at the at the very end in verse 8 as he talks about his vows.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You know, you've heard my my vows, I have committed myself to you, and I'm gonna I'm gonna perform my vows, my my oaths of faithfulness and obedience.
SPEAKER_01: I've done that, uh, I've done that, and I'm gonna do that again.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's sit here and you step back for a moment, you realize you haven't kept your vows.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't kept my vows.
SPEAKER_01: We're so faithless.
SPEAKER_01: We've broken faith with God.
SPEAKER_01: We haven't done what we've said.
SPEAKER_01: We've done what we ought not do, we've failed to do what we should do.
SPEAKER_01: We have broken our vows.
SPEAKER_01: We've broken faith with God.
SPEAKER_01: I have.
SPEAKER_01: You have.
SPEAKER_01: In thought and word indeed.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's really hard for us to say with David in verse 5, I've kept my voice and I will I'll perform them again.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you kind of shrink back and go, don't look at me.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the gospel is good news.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the good news of Jesus is such good news for us.
SPEAKER_01: For us oathbreakers, for those of us who have broken faith with God, because we have a king who kept faith.
SPEAKER_01: We have a king who kept his vows and who performed his vows.
SPEAKER_01: We have a king who did not break faith.
SPEAKER_01: We have a king who is perfect in obedience, and he's perfect in obedience for us.
SPEAKER_01: The good news of Christianity is there is a king who keeps his vows on our behalf for us.
SPEAKER_01: King Jesus is the unwaveringly faithful and obedient King who stands in our place.
SPEAKER_01: He is the rock that we are to be led to.
SPEAKER_01: He is the strong tower that we need to be placed in, sheltered by his perfections, given access to God so that we can pray these holy discontent prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine how audacious and how offensive it would be to come and to pray with such holy discontentment.
SPEAKER_01: If God hadn't already sheltered us under his wings, if he hadn't already made us his, he allows us to come and to speak in these sorts of ways to him, and he invites it all because of Jesus, all because we are sheltered in the fortress of his perfections and grace.
SPEAKER_01: And so we can pray with persistence and holy discontentment, expecting and knowing that God will hear and act, that he will answer according to the counsel of his good will at all times and in all places.
SPEAKER_01: That we can ask God to do what only He can do, because Jesus is our faithful King, our solid rock, our strong tower, and that we will get answers from heaven, because on the cross heaven's voice fell silent.
SPEAKER_01: Fell silent as the king who crowned with thorns upon a cross and died for us.
SPEAKER_01: We have broken faith, we have broken our vies.
SPEAKER_01: But in three days he rose again, and his resurrection shites answers to the biggest prayers that we might pray.
SPEAKER_01: His resurrection shit answers to the biggest questions in all reality.
SPEAKER_01: Can I be fully known and fully loved?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Jesus says yes and amen.
SPEAKER_01: Can I have a hope for the future?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Jesus says yes and amen.
SPEAKER_01: Is there hope and peace in the face of trial?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Jesus says yes and amen.
SPEAKER_01: Is God concerned for me now and every day?
SPEAKER_01: Does he care about my daily bread?
SPEAKER_01: Is he concerned with what I'm concerned with?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Jesus from the dead says yes and amen.
SPEAKER_01: Will he bring us in the end to his heavenly kingdom?
SPEAKER_01: Will he finally renew and restore all things?
SPEAKER_01: Will he in the end wipe away every tear?
SPEAKER_01: Will he in the end perfect us fully?
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection of Jesus says yes.
SPEAKER_01: And amen.
SPEAKER_01: Brothers and sisters, can I encourage you now and in this week to pay close attention to your rhythms of prayer, to how it is that you pray and to pray now, expecting that God will act and answer.
SPEAKER_01: To pray, even though you may feel distant, and pray that as a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Say, God, I don't feel like I'm anywhere near you.
SPEAKER_01: Feel like you're nowhere near me.
SPEAKER_01: But that guy up the front who hasn't turned up in the last 11 weeks, he says that I couldn't be further from the center of your presence.
SPEAKER_01: Would you would you help me to see that and to and to know that and to know what that means?
SPEAKER_01: Would you pray such big prayers is to ask God to deliver you, say, save me, set my feet upon that rock.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be, I don't want to be standing at the foot of that cliff constantly, it's so exhausting, trying to get myself to the top.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I that's in part what I was doing.
SPEAKER_01: When I'm when I'm getting all of my joy and identity from from my ministry, that's me trying to climb the rock.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I learned over the last seven weeks, God, I need you to set my feet on the rock.
SPEAKER_01: And he does.
SPEAKER_01: Because he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: You pray that.
SPEAKER_01: Pray asking God to do what only he can do.
SPEAKER_01: And pray because you know of his past faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: It is here objectively in his book.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord Jesus died for you, he rose for you, he is alive, he is seated in heaven where he is ruling and reigning as that eternally faithful King.
SPEAKER_01: He invites you to draw on that faithfulness and allow that to propel you forward in your walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: If you find this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.