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Hi, calling family. This is Pastor Michael, and welcome to our church podcast. I'm so grateful for you tuning in today, and I believe today's message is gonna strengthen your faith in Jesus.

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Since I saw you uh last week, I had the opportunity myself to get myself out into the outdoors. I think they have the picture that they may put back here. That was me on Wednesday. Um I got to hike and summit Mount Whitney, which um some people are like, wait, Mount Wilson? No, not Mount Wilson. Mount Wilson's right here. Mount Whitney is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. And so myself and some friends went out and we climbed it last Wednesday, started at 3 15 in the morning, and um got out at around 6 o'clock that evening and uh tops out at 14,500 feet. So it's was quite and then we drove home afterwards, which was insane to be driving home after being so tired. But there's just something about getting into the outdoors that if you know me, you know I like to get outside a lot. And one of the things I like about being out in the outdoors is that I that I believe that creation, and I believe the Bible teaches this, creation reflects the glory of God. It reflects the glory of God. We don't worship creation, but creation does reflect God's glory. And so when you get out there, I mean, right? It's it is, you just get out there. There's a lot, when when people start to worship creation, that's more your new age type stuff. That is not what we are about. But we know the one who made everything that's out there. So when we go out there, it reflects his glory, and it's absolutely incredible. And so, you know, when I was thinking about today as we get into our message we're gonna be talking about in just a few minutes, it's like, well, what part of God's glory did I see reflected out at Mount Whitney? And one part of Mount Whitney, when you're doing this hike, you're about six miles into the hike. The total amount that you end up climbing up for the whole day is uh 21 miles and over 6,000 feet of game. And we're about six miles in, you get to this place where you are now going to do 99 switchbacks. So, yeah, that's I heard some of you groan a little bit out there. 99 switchback. If you don't know what a switchback is, a switchback is one, two, three. Like you slowly climb by going back and forth up the mountain like this. There's 99 of them in one section that's only a little over a mile and a half um long. And I didn't count them, by the way. People are like, Did you count them? No, I'm just gonna believe that they're really 99 because it's hard to breathe. You're up at high elevation, right? And so, but here's the thing when you're at the bottom of it and you're looking up, at this point you can actually see the summit of Mount Whitney where you're going, and the expanse of the rocks um and just the towering rocks around you, and the glaciers and all of that are just absolutely incredible. And so part of what you see in the glory of God when you're doing Mount Whitney is you see the majesty of God reflected. His majesty, you see his power reflected. You you walk there and you're just like, you are in awe. Because as believers in Jesus Christ, we know that we know the one who designed the whole thing. We know the designer, right? And when I know how big my God is, that he just literally was able to speak this into existence, that he created things as beautiful as a Mount Whitney or all the different lakes and the waterfalls and all of that, it bolsters my confidence because I realize then the same one, the same God who made all of that is the same God who is fighting on my behalf, right? It reflects his glory. And so we're gonna come back to that here in a few minutes. But today, we are in a series that your pastor, when he asked me to speak, he said, Dawn, I want I want everyone to be doing, everyone who's speaking this month, to be talking about summer in the Psalms. And so we've each been assigned a psalm, and that today the Psalm that we've got is Psalm chapter 27. And we're gonna get to unpacking it here in just a minute, but we're gonna start first with the last verse of the Psalm instead of the first verse. All right. So the last verse says this wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart, and wait for the Lord. Does anybody in here enjoy waiting? Anybody, anybody like you just get so excited that when you go to Trader Joe's to go do your shopping, you get all your basket all full, and then you go and you're like, where's the longest line? So I can get in the longest line, right? Anybody here get excited when you go to get on the 210 freeway and it's on in a standstill, right? And you're just stuck, it's not going anywhere, and you're just like, oh well, I just can't wait to be stuck in traffic. I just love waiting in traffic, right? Anyone else here like that? I think I lost my pages in some of the wind up here. Hold on just a second. Here we go. There it is. Um, a couple of months ago in April, I was coming back from the Grand Canyon. And as I was coming back, I'd been taking, I'd taken a group of eight women backpacking in the Grand Canyon. We'd been down in there four days or so. That's awesome. I love how it feels, but yeah, it's taking my pages and just so thank you. I appreciate that. Um I was so I'm driving home from the Grand Canyon. We've been backpacking for four days. I'd had eight women, we'd be down in the canyon. I was exhausted, I'd had dinner with them all, and I just thought, you know what, I'm only gonna drive halfway home tonight, and then I'll drive the rest of the way home afterwards. So I made reservations to stay in Kingman, Arizona. Which, if if you've ever been to Kingman, Arizona, you know there's not much there. It's basically just desert, and then there's a there's a city, right? And I'm literally 10 minutes away, it's about it's going on nine o'clock at night. I need a shower. I have not showered in four days. Um, I'm hungry, I'm tired, and they shut the freeway down. Like they shut it down. And I'm out there and uh and I'm getting the alerts on what on the freeways being shut down because they're doing construction, so they're gonna intermittently open it up at various times, and what should take 10 minutes is now going to take me an hour to go. And there are no off-ramps to get off, you know, you're in the middle of the desert. And I literally, this is what I was thinking on the inside. How dare they? They have no right. You can't do this to me. Who do you think you are? This is what I'm literally thinking inside of me. Friends, I was tired, but I had this spirit of entitlement. Like, who do you think you are shutting the freeway down when I'm coming through? You can't do this to me. But I was, of course, completely powerless to do anything about it. Maybe some of you can relate. You've had similar situations like this, right? It's one thing, though, my friends, to be asked to wait in traffic. It's another thing to be asked to wait, you know, for a table at a restaurant, or maybe you've paid to get into Disneyland only to wait in all the different lines. It's one thing to be asked to wait on those types of things. But it's another thing to be waiting on God in the midst of a spiritual attack, or when you're waiting for a breakthrough, right? When the bank account is dwindling and you're like, Come on, God, I know you said, but come on, where are you? When your health is under attack and the doctor is telling you they that he or she has some concerns, and you're like, God, where are you? When you've been believing for that adult child of yours to come back to Jesus and they keep living crazy, God, where are you? What do you do when God delays your breakthrough or your victory? What do you do when he sends you on a detour when a more direct route is actually available? When you can even see, like, you ever try to tell God how to line it up for you? Like, Lord, look, if you'll just do X, Y, and Z, I'll get there. But the Lord's like, let's take you to P, and then you're gonna go to C, and then you're gonna go to A. And you're like, what the heck? This makes no sense. God, I see a direct route. And the Lord's like, no, no, no, no. I've got you, but you're gonna have to trust me. And he starts detouring you a long direction a long way around. It can be very unnerving. But you know what? Waiting in the Bible is something that you see a lot of the key people having to do in different seasons. And we need to remember that when we read the stories in the Bible, we know how they all end because we can read the ending. But the people who live the stories, they didn't know how it was gonna end. They had to live their life moving forward day by day, just like you and I. So imagine yourself, if you've never heard these stories, imagine you're in these stories and how it might feel first to be a part of the Israelites. You've been set free from Egypt. You are so excited, you just got set free from freedom. The Lord is leading you on the way to the promised land. This is amazing. And where does he take you? He takes you right up to a sea, a wall of water in front of you, mountains on both sides, and the Egyptians coming after you. This makes no sense. God led them to this place. It looks like it's a dead end. Remember, there's no stories yet of a God parting the sea. All they see is a bunch of water in front of them, they see mountains on both sides, and they hear the sound of the rumble of the chariots of the Egyptians as they're coming after them to take up. What do you do in a moment like that? God, where are you? What are you doing? God led them there. Or what do you do if you're Abraham and you've been told by God that you're gonna have a son, Abraham and Sarah? And so you're like, all right, I'm gonna have a son, and you do what you need to do to be able to have a son, right? Year after year after year after year. And no son comes, and so then the two of them talk and say, Well, maybe God needs us to help them out a little bit. And so Abraham's wife Sarah says, Why don't you sleep with my servant, my handmaiden? So she gets pregnant, and we'll call that child my son. So they do that, and she gets pregnant, and so Ishmael's born, and then Abraham's look, a son, and God's like, That's not the son I told you you're gonna have. You're still gonna have another son. They tried to help God out. God, they get to be almost like he gets to be 99, 100 years old. Sarah's 90. God, where are you? Season of waiting. Or maybe for you, you're like Joseph. Joseph is a young man, has a dream, and in his dream, he's gonna become a ruler. And as a ruler, he sees his whole family bowing down and he tells his brothers his dream. So, wow, God, this is a great destiny. And what happens next? His brothers pick him up, throw him in a pit, then they sell him into slavery. As a slave in Egypt, he does the best that he can for his master, only to be accused of a crime he didn't commit, and now he's thrown into prison, and he's left in prison for a couple of years, not hearing anything. God, where are you? Now, if you know those stories, you know in each and every one of them God showed up on God's timing, and breakthrough happened, right? But for today, we're gonna focus in on one other story, and this is a story that comes from the author of the psalm that we are in. Psalm 27 was written by David. Now, some of the scholars think that the background for this psalm will either be the story that I'm gonna tell you through, or it could be, which is the story of David running from Saul, or that it could be reflecting, David reflecting on when his son Absalom came after him. Either way, there's a lot of the similarity there on what we learn. So let's focus on this first part because David, when he was still a young man, maybe a teenager, he gets anointed to become the next king of Israel. Like that's amazing. He's a shepherd boy, the youngest of all his of all the sons. And God chooses him. And you know what? Things start to look like that promise is coming true really quickly. He ends up going out and he fights against the Goliath, uh, the giant Goliath, and he slays him. Like, that's a that's a pretty big deal. Look at this, man. God's God's opening up doors towards this kingship. The current king Saul takes a liking to David, brings him on board, makes him part of his bodyguard. That's like an elite position, a leadership position in the army. It's like, wow, look at God opening up the doors. And then, oh, he also given one of Saul's uh daughters to marry. He marries into the family. Like everything seems to be lining up. Have you ever had that for your life where God gives you a promise and you start to see things lining up, and then all chaos breaks loose. Remember the message from last week? We talked about what do you do when all chaos breaks loose? Well, that happened to David. You see, Saul becomes madly jealous of David, and so he starts trying to kill him, throwing spears at him, trying to take his life. And David, who's not done anything wrong, has to run for his life. And in running for his life, Saul lies about him. Saul, it turns him into basically says he's an outlaw. He can't go home anymore, he's having to sleep out in the wilderness, he doesn't get to see like all his family all the time. He's on a run on the run as David is being chased. And it's going to be now years until he becomes king. He's on the run, he's chased. And here's where we're gonna we'll pick, we'll go to Psalm 27 in a minute. Let's take a little bit more look at actually what happens with David out in the wilderness. In 1 Samuel chapter 23, it says, David stayed in the safe places in the desert. So he's running around the desert. Can you imagine running around our desert in this kind of heat today? It'd be like that for him, running around in the desert. And he stayed in the hill country in the desert of Zif. And Saul looked for him every day. But God did not give David to him. Every single day, Saul is hunting him down. He can't put his guard down. God, how long? How long do I have to wait? So we pick up the story in 1 Samuel 23. By the way, we're gonna read a lot of Bible today. I hope y'all love the Bible. We got a lot of Bible today. Psalm 23, verse 24. Then they got up and went to Ziph before Saul. Now David and his men were in the desert of Maon in the Arabah, south of Jeshovan. Saul and his men went to look for him, and David was told about it. So he went down to the rock in the desert of Maon. Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the mountain. David was in a hurry to get away from Saul, for Saul and his men were closing in upon David and his men to take them. So Saul's getting closer, closer, closer. David's running for his life, right? He doesn't deserve this. But a man came with news to Saul, saying, Hurry and come, the Philistines have come into the land by surprise to fight us. So Saul returned after going after David and went against the Philistines. So they called the place the Rock of Getting Away. I like that name. That's cool. And David went from there and stayed in the strong places of Nangeti. So here's Saul and David, right? David's running from him. Saul's chasing him down. He almost gets to him, and God sends Saul on a detour for a season to go after another enemy. Don't we love it? When I mean God knows where you're at. When the enemy seems like he's breathing down your neck, and the Lord's gonna protect you, just like he's protecting David, but David's still on the run. But Saul goes off for a season. Then what happens? Pick it back up with me in Psalm 20 or Samuel 24, verse 1. When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he's told, David's in the desert of Engedi. So Saul takes 3,000 chosen men, all of them from Israel, and he goes to find David and his men in front. Here's another cool name of the rocks of the wild goats. He came to the places where the sheep were kept on the way. There's a cave there, and Saul went in to get rid of his body waste. That's a more polite way of talking about the fact that he went in to go to the bathroom. Alright? So Saul goes into this cave to take care of personal business, and it says David and his men were sitting farther back in the cave. He doesn't know David and his men are in there. Right? Now, what would you be thinking if you're David or his men? Oh my gosh, there's my enemy right there. Saul's relieving himself. He's completely vulnerable. This is the guy that's trying to kill him. David's done nothing to deserve this. So while Saul is in there taking care of things, it says, David's men said to David, See, this is the day the Lord told you. See, I'm about to give you the one who hates you into your hand. You will do to him what you think is best. So David gets up and he sneaks up while Paul, while Saul is going to the bathroom, sneaks up behind him, and it says that he cuts off a piece of Saul's clothing in secret. That's how close he got to him. He doesn't kill him, he just cuts a piece of his clothing off. After this, David felt guilt in his heart because he had cut off a piece of Saul's clothing. So he said to his men, May the Lord not let me put out my hand against my leader, for he's the Lord's chosen one. David stopped his men with these words. He did not let them go against Saul. So Saul stood up, left the cave, and went on his way. Later David shows him the piece of the clothing. But think about this. Think about how the men with David are like, Come on, David, this is God has set you up. He's delivered your enemy into your hands. Go ahead, take it into your own hands, David. Force it. The only one keeping you between you and the promise is this guy Saul. And you know God's anointed you, so take him out. God's put him there for you. But look at it, I mean, David's heart in the midst of this. His heart is like, no. Saul is the Lord's chosen leader for this time. God anointed me, sure, but God has not appointed me yet. I will wait for God's appointment. There may have been an anointing, and just think about this for a minute. You might have some type of promise upon your life, an anointing that God has put upon your life for something. Maybe it's a position that you're really believing God's gonna bring to you. Maybe it's an opportunity, maybe it's a role, maybe it's a level of authority, and you know that God has this for you. But your appointment has not yet come. You're anointed, but the appointment isn't there yet. David was called to wait in this season and to trust. And during the season of waiting, it can be super uncomfortable, it can feel very unjust. This was not just for David to have to run around like this. It was very unjust. But this is where David is exercising what is called naked faith. Naked faith is when the feel goods are gone and all of the testimony of it looks like you're going the right direction isn't there. Because it's one thing to have faith when everything's going well, when you're slaying giants, when you're a member of a bodyguard, when you're married to the king's daughter, but it is another thing to have faith when the king is trying to take your head and it's destroyed your reputation, when all you have to hang on to is him. And sometimes, and for maybe many of us here in this room, this is where we find ourselves today. Where you're just like, I know there's a promise, I'm not seeing the fruition of it yet. I know I'm not called to force it, I'm gonna just trust in God, and that is where Psalm 27, which is our actual text for today, this is what David writes concerning this. Here we go. Verse one. David writes this the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Look at this confidence in David's in his in his words. Do you remember maybe being a kid and having kids, and maybe you were one who did this, who would stand up and say, My dad's bigger than your dad. My dad's stronger than your dad. I used to talk about the my dad. My dad was never bigger than anybody else's dad. My dad was five foot seven, okay? So he was not taller than anybody else. But my dad in the 1970s got in. This is when bodybuilding started off, and Jackly Lane's became some of you old timers might remember the Jackly Lanes that was out. And my dad would go to Jacqueline Lane's and work out, and my dad, and I still will tell you this, my dad was probably stronger than your dad. My dad had these huge muscles, and he had hands, even though he was five foot seven, he wore a size 12 ring. All right. And my dad, I'd watch him at church, and I would and I'd tell my friends, my dad's stronger than your dad. And we go to church, and my dad would arm wrestle two men at once, and nope, and they couldn't beat him. I would watch him do these like physical things like that were just crazy, and all the young guys in the youth group would gather around to watch my dad. And I was fully confident my dad was stronger than your dad. Right. That's how David seems right here. David's just like, hey, you know what? You can bring it against me all you want. When the wicked advance against me, you want to you think the wicked's gonna devour me? Not a chance. My enemies and my foes are gonna be the ones who stumble and fall. That kind of confidence in who his God is. In the midst of it all. Hey, Saul, no, it's not gonna be me who falls, Saul. It's gonna be you. I'm not gonna do it in my hands. God will take care of it. Whatever your enemy is, the enemy that's trying to destroy you right now, the fear, the anxiety, whatever it might be, you know that our God is bigger, our God is stronger. And so the the Psalm goes on to say this. David's writing this though an army, remember he's being chased by an army of 3,000 men, though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear. Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident. Where do you get this kind of confidence? Now this next verse is going to appear like David's taking a turn, changing the subject. But it's actually the key to what it looks like to actually have this confidence. It says this. Verse 4. One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. Let's just stop on that for a moment. David's talking about the one thing he's asking for. And in the context of the story, as he's running from Saul, you might think, and I might think his one thing would be, Lord, the one thing I want. Just take out Saul. Oh Lord, the one thing I want, just fulfill your promise, make me king. Come on, God. That's the one thing I want. But he's like, no, the one thing. And actually, maybe before I get to the what the one thing is, our context might be this Lord, the one thing I want is just give me the promotion. Come on, Lord, give me the opportunity. That's the one thing. Come on, Lord, the one thing I want is the breakthrough. Lord, the one thing I want, resurrect my bank account, heal my body. The one thing I want. David said this the one thing I want is to be in God's presence. More than anything. Because God's David did not chase the promise at the expense of the promise giver. Did you catch that? Sometimes we get a promise from God and then we just start chasing the promise and we start forget to chase God. David did not chase the promise at the expense of the promise giver. He did not chase the anointing at the expense of the anointer. He knew that the fulfillment of the promise is the byproduct of the relationship with God. The fulfillment of the promise will happen, but that's not the main thing. The main thing is in God Himself. David wants the promise giver. Remember that David spent lots of time in the wilderness. And I'm not exactly sure of what the wilderness looked like. I mean, having just come from the Sierra, I picture all the rocks and just the wildness of everything. And David had spent all this time in the wilderness there in Israel. And he'd been able to see the reflection of God's glory, just like I saw last Wednesday at Mount Whitney. And as he looked at that, he knew that he knew the designer, and that that designer would fight his battles for him. Remember that we looked a little bit last week at Exodus 14, 14, for the Lord will fight for you. You need only to keep still. Right? He knew that God was going to fight for him, the God who had created everything. Therefore, his heart's desire was to gaze on the beauty of the Lord. Is that our heart's desire, friends? It goes on to say in verse uh verse 5 for in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling. He will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. In other words, David's is like, Look, God has made me untouchable. You can come after me all you want, enemy, but God's gonna protect me. He's gonna put me up high on a rock out of the reach of your hands. He goes on to say this. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me. At his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to the Lord. What's he talking about here? He's asking the Lord, here he realizes that his pursuers, um, or actually, here's where he's at. He's because he pursues the anointer over the anointing, he knows that God will exalt his head. He's pursuing the one who anoints. Now he's on the run right now, and he can't actually go to the place of worship. The place of worship in those days, the temple had not yet been built. So there was a tabernacle, which was his tent, that was set up where they would go to worship in those days. And while he can't go there physically at this time, he is confident that he will have a day that he will go to the sacred tent to worship the Lord because his Lord will protect him. Verse 7. It says, Hear my voice when I call, Lord, be merciful to me and answer me. And I love this verse. Verse 8, I think is probably the best verse in this entire passage. My heart says of you, Seek his face. Your face, Lord, I will seek. This is David. This is the heart of David. This is what made David a man after God's own heart. This is what gave him confidence when he was being pursued, when he was in a season of waiting and not understanding God's timing or the desire or the direction God was sending him. His heart was, Lord, I just want to seek your face. Verse 8 or verse 9, do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my helper. Do not neglect me or forsake me, God my Savior. You see, when we seek God's face, what it actually means in the Hebrew to seek one's face is to seek his favor. The favor of God. If God turns his face towards you, and you see that in scripture, anytime when it's talking about God's turning his face towards someone, it means he's giving you his favor. All right? Now, the favor of God, what is that? It's what God can do for you that you cannot do for yourself. That's what God's favor does. It's what God can do for you that you can't do for yourself. It's his favor that opens doors of opportunity. You're waiting for an opportunity with a job promotion, or maybe getting hired on somewhere, getting into a school, or some type of opportunity with your business. God's favor opens doors you can't open. All right? His favor. His favor turns opposition into support. When those that are against you all of a sudden begin to support you. That's the favor of God when even your enemies look to support you. So how do you find favor? The short answer is basically this short God's favor is found when we walk in obedient trust, waiting on God. When we're obedient, when we're trusting in Him, we position ourselves for the favor of God by walking in humility and purity, fully trusting Him. David goes on to write in verse 10 Though my father and mothers forsake me, the Lord will receive me. Now, his father and mother most likely had not forsaken him. He's just saying, like, even if they did, even if those closest to me did that, God won't. The Lord will receive me. He'll always take me. I hope you have that confidence as well about the Lord. You know that he loves you dearly, that even when others have abandoned you, even if maybe you were an oops and your parents uh they never planned for you, and maybe they even let you know something like, hey, we we didn't plan for you. God planned for you, He chose you. I remember, and I'll just share this real quickly when I was a park and recreation leader in the city of Glendora back in my college days. I was serving at the church as a junior high leader, and so I would take these park kids to church to church with me on Wednesday nights. This was before it was against the law to put kids in the back end of a pickup truck. Um, this is a long time ago. And so I would take all these heathen park kids to church. I mean, they were heathens. We would drive to church on Wednesday night, and these kids would be flipping people off as we're driving by, and I'd be like, you know, I could see them in the mirror, right? As they're flipping people. I'm like, we're on our way to church. Maybe we don't want to flip people off, you know, on our way to church tonight. Anyway, I got to know all these park kids, and I'd take them to church with me on Wednesday night. And this one girl would come up to the park all the time, and she her home life was pretty hard, pretty hard. And one day she comes walking up across the park. It was a really cold day, I think it was probably like December, nobody else was there, and I'm running the little hut, like where you check the balls and the all that stuff out, right? That was my job. And she walks up and she's got tears coming down her face. And I said, What's wrong? And she said, Today, my mother told me that when she was pregnant with me, she almost aborted me. And then she looked at me and she said, And dawn, then she told me that she wished she would have. I don't like, what do you even say to something like that? And with her tears streaming down her face, I just remember telling her grabbing onto her and just saying, Listen, you need to understand. Your mother might have said that, but your heavenly father, he planned for you to be here this whole time. And so you're here and you're chosen by him, and he has a purpose for your life, a plan for your life, and and you're not some surprise, you're not a mistake. Whatever your mother says. And you know what's really cool in that story, because that woman, she was 12 then, right? She's only not much back then, you know, a 12-year-old, and I was probably 21. Um that would seem like a lot of years. Now, I mean, we're basically almost the same age. She's probably 50 years old now, right? Anyway, I got in touch with her years ago again through Facebook, and I mentioned to her, I said, I remember your mother's this happening. And do you mind if I share the story? And she said, Don, she had come to Christ in the youth ministry, was still walking with Jesus, loving the Lord, married into an amazing family. And when I brought it up, she said, You know what, Don? I had forgotten that that even happened. The Lord has so healed my heart towards my mother, and I've been able to forgive her because she knew who she is in Christ, right? So, no matter that, that's all praise to the Lord, right? Whatever you might think in regards to like being abandoned or anything like that, the Lord chose you. He will not leave you, he will never forsake you, he will not abandon you, he has a purpose for your life. He has a purpose, he will receive you. So it goes on to say this in verse 11 teach me your way, Lord. Lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. David's writing this because his enemy is lying in wait, trying to take his life. So he's like, God, show me, teach me which way to go, both physically in my steps I'm gonna take. Let me know when I need to run away from here because Saul's coming, but also in my life as a whole, show me which way to go. Verse 12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations. Remember, his reputation has been destroyed by Saul. False witness. Verse 12. Oh, verse 13 and 14. Ah, powerful ending verses. I, this is David writing, I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. My friends, against all physical odds, David trusted God. And David received what he was looking for, which was God's presence. And in God's timing, the appointment came to kingship. And that was a byproduct of that relationship. Because his primary search desire of his heart was God Himself. And in the waiting season, there is purpose in the waiting. So let me just give you a few of these before we close this up here today. Because maybe a lot of you are in a season of waiting and you're like, but why does he make us wait? Why doesn't he just rush along? Why doesn't he just fulfill it? Why do I have to be in this season? Here's a couple of different reasons of what happens in the season of waiting. First of all, if you remember I mentioned the whole Israelites coming to the Red Sea and having the Egyptians coming after them, sometimes your season of waiting, God is using it to draw the enemy out so that the enemy can be destroyed. Because the Egyptians came after the Israelites to that point, and then God parts the Red Sea and they go through, and then the Egyptians think, Oh, this is cool, we're gonna go through too. And they get in the middle of the sea, and the Lord allows the water to crash down on them and destroys their enemy. Sometimes God's using it to draw the enemy out, so that the enemy of your soul, you know, which is the which is we have an enemy of the soul, which is Satan and all his the demonic, he pull, he'll pull things out to bring destruction to what they're doing. Why else does he allow waiting? When we're in a season of waiting, it develops our character. David's character was developed in the wilderness. So was Joseph's in the prison. I'm convinced that David would not have been as good a king, nor Joseph as good a ruler had they not gone through their season of waiting. Because it's in the season of waiting, our character becomes developed. You see, it's in the season of waiting where we learn to trust God at a deeper level so that the promise that we're going to inherit does not destroy us. The promises of God, the promised land for the Israelites, it was an amazing place. But there were giants in the land, and they had to have a big enough faith and trust in God to take on the giants before God was going to bring them in. So they had to spend time in the wilderness developing their character and their trust in God. David's character needed to be developed as well. And ours does as well. God loves us too much to give us the promise too soon. Because if the promise comes too soon, it just might destroy us. So if we'll just wait and trust him and let him build us so that then we're able to steward the promise well, he actually is doing it out of mercy for us and out of his grace. It's a gift to be in a season of waiting. It may not feel like it, but it is a gift. Why else does he do it? To deepen and purify our relationship with God. Are we more interested in the promise than the promise giver? He wants us to fall more deeply in love with him. David fell deeply in love with God. Why else? Well, it develops our confidence. Our confidence. Because here's the deal. If you force something, if David had forcefully killed Saul, how would he know that the appointment was the right time? If you forcefully undermine or take over, take over something that God hasn't yet given you, how do you know God's really in it? When you force something and make something happen, now you've got to make it stay with you. You got to clench it. But when you trust God's timing and he provides it, you can trust he's gonna guard it because you didn't force it to happen. Trusting him. Two more quick ones. What else? Why else? Because it brings glory to God and not us. Because he does it in crazy ways. And people go, well, that couldn't have been you, Don. That couldn't have been you. And it wasn't me. It was him. It gives him the glory. And in the meantime, what else does it do? It humbles the proud. The proud. Those who think they can do it in their own way, in their own timing, right? No, it humbles the proud. And we begin to be people who are truly humble before the Lord. You see, the real battle, my friends, is in waiting and not war. The real battle is the wait. It takes courage. Remember, we talked about courage last week. It takes courage to wait. David Bowden says all this. He says, We are a waiting people. Can you be courageous in your waiting and trust him? And in your wait, may this be your declaration as you command and encourage your soul. And it's those two verses at the end of that passage. Can you command your soul and remind yourself, I remain confident of this. I will see, put your name in there. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord. Wait for him. Now I'm closing today. I want to do something a little bit different. Um, I want you to see what happens, but it's like because you might be like, okay, I'm waiting, but like, what does it actually look like in the spiritual realm when you cry out to God? What is God doing? And I love this. I'm gonna take us to another Psalm, it's Psalm 18, and I'm gonna read this to you out of the message version of the Bible. And Eugene Peterson, who did this translation of the Bible, he made this read like an epic saga. All right, an epic saga, like all warfare. I don't know if you've all been following this in socials or not, but I really got caught up in the rivalry between Norway and England the last week. It was like a lot of fun. And so, like, they were taking the soccer players from Norway, which you know, they're descended from Vikings, and putting them, they used AI to put them all in these, all in these Viking like costumes and such. And then they put the English people all in like what they would wear and all that, and they would have like this epic, like it was this big old. Because if you don't know the history of all of that, you know, the the Vikings came in and raided and sacked the English back in the year, like 1000 or 800, I don't know, somewhere. Anyway, it was like this epic saga, right? This reads like an epic saga, only this is talking spiritually what happens when you cry to God and what's actually happening in the heavenlies. Listen to this, picture it, if you will, like an epic saga, and know that this is what is happening when you cry out to God. It says this, Psalm 18, beginning in verse 4. The hangman's noose was tight at my throat, devil waters rushed over me, hell's ropes cinched me tight, death traps barred every exit. A hostile world, I call to God, I cry to God to help me. From his palace, he hears my call. My cry brings me right into his presence. A private audience. Earth wobbles and lurches, huge mountains shake like leaves, quake like aspen leaves, because of his rage, his nostrils flare, bellowing smoke, his mouth spits fire, tongues of fire dart in and out. He lowers the sky, he steps down, under his feet an abyss opens up. He's riding a winged creature, swift on wind wings. Now he's wrapped himself in a trench coat of black cloud darkness, but his cloud brightness bursts through, spraying hailstones and fireballs. Then God thundered out of heaven. The high God gave a great shout, spraying hailstones and fireballs. God shoots his arrows, pandemonium, he hurls his lightnings, a route. The secret sources of ocean are exposed, the hidden depths of earth lie uncovered. The moment you roar in protest, let loose your hurricane anger. But me, he caught, reached all the way down from sky to sea, he pulled me out, out of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning. They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me. He stood me up on a wide open field. I stood there saved, surprised to be loved. God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before Him. When I got my act together, He gave me a fresh start. Now I'm alert to God's ways. I don't take God for granted. Every day I review the ways He works. I try not to miss a trick. I feel put back together and I'm watching my step. God rewrote the text of my life when I open the book of my heart to his eyes. What a view of what God does for us when we cry out to him. Friend, he's not ignoring you, he's not ignoring you in the wait. And he'll put you up high on a rock out of reach of the enemy, and he will put your life back together as you surrender the parts to him that need to be surrendered. He is a good God. If you're in a season of waiting, crying out to God, he hears you, and you can be confident that he fights for you, and in the right time, that appointment will come. You will see breakthrough. But today, as we close this off, is there anybody here who needs the text of their life rewritten? I love how that says that in that passage. Will you want to bring before the Lord your brokenness, your waywardness, and just say, Lord, take this. I want to surrender my life to you today. The Lord is in the business of redeeming our lives. He does an amazing job with it. Today, if you just go across the auditorium here, here with just close your eyes. We'll just be in a space of waiting before the Lord in prayer. And if you'd say, you know what, Dawn, I need to get my life right with God. Maybe you've never given your life to follow Jesus, and as you've heard this, you're like, I want to know this God, this God that hears me, this God that fights for me, this God that I can trust. Or maybe you've served him in the past, but for whatever reason you've wandered away and you've taken things into your own hands instead of trusting him. Today is a day to give your life back to him. So if there's anybody here today that finds yourself in that situation, I just simply want to do this. I want to pray over you. I'm gonna invite you right now, if that's you, where you're just saying, I need to get my life right with Jesus, then will you just open your eyes, look up at me, and so that I can see you're looking at me for this reason. Will you just raise your hand so I can see you? I'm not calling you forward right now or anything like that. I see two hands here, amen. Anyone else here today? I want to pray over you and come into agreement with you. I want to ask this, everyone, we've got two, there may be more of you. Maybe you've just been a little shy, but you know in your heart you want to do this. I'm gonna ask us all to repeat this prayer after me. And if you repeat this prayer and you mean it from your heart, God hears it, He is faithful. But let's all repeat it together so that we're standing with a brother and sister who are doing this for their heart as well. And we just simply say this, dear Lord, I want to be a Christian. Everybody, you can all repeat this after me. I acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for me, that He rose again on the third day, that He's alive today. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, cleanse me of my unrighteousness. I want to be a follower of Jesus. I give my life to you today, and I thank you for that forgiveness. I thank you that I can trust you. I thank you that you love me today. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

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