Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to our look at Psalm 56.
The title to Psalm 56 tells us the circumstances in which it was written.
The title is when the Philistines had seized him, had seized David in Gath.
Now let me remind you of something, Goliath was from Gath.
So now he's seized by the people in Gath.
David has now been captured by the people of the giant he defeated.
So this is a Psalm about when your victories seem to have faded into defeat.
We love to talk about turning our defeats into victories and in fact we'll talk about
that as we walk through Psalms many times, but it's just as important to talk about those
times when your victories seem to turn into defeat.
How do you trust God in those days?
They're going to be many, many times in your life when you think you're done with the battle
only to see that the battle continues.
As long as we're in this world, the battle continues.
So what can we learn from David about what to do when it seems like you had a victory
and now it's become a defeat?
Three things we can learn, three choices David made.
Choice number one, when I am afraid, I will trust in you.
Here's one to four of this Psalm, Psalm 56 say, "Be merciful to me, O God, for men hotly
pursue me.
All day long they press their attack.
My slanderers pursue me all day long, many are attacking me in their pride.
And when I am afraid, I will trust in you.
My God, whose word I praise and God I trust, I will not be afraid.
What can mortal man do to me?"
So here's the picture that David gives here.
He says, "Men, they press their attack.
So you feel like you're being closed in."
You may not be in the same circumstances of David, but every one of us knows what it feels
like to be closed in.
And he says, "They do it all day long.
You feel like the pressure never lets up."
When you read the story of David being in Gath, he once had to pretend to be insane
in order to escape this enemy.
These were not good days for a warrior like David.
But he says, "Even in these days, even when it feels like the victory I used to have has
now become a defeat, when I am afraid, I will trust in you."
Now notice, it doesn't say if I am afraid.
It says when I am afraid.
And that's the truth.
It's when, not if.
We want a life with no fears.
There's no such thing.
Your life was filled with fears this last week, if you're willing to admit it.
Big ones and little ones.
Fears about your job or your future or whether you'll be accepted or rejected by this person
or you'll be able to pull out of this circumstance that you're in, fears about what people think
of you or even fears about how you look.
There's no such thing as a no-fear life.
There's only those who are controlled by their fears and those who trust God in spite of
their fears.
This phrase that David used, "What can mortal man do to me?"
It's repeated twice in this passage.
Hebrews 13, 6 quotes this passage and says, "So we can say with confidence, 'The Lord
is my helper.
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?'"
So the ability to look at a circumstance that will bring fear into your life and to have
no fear is to recognize that God is greater.
That whatever a person could do to you, God is always greater.
They can hurt you.
They cannot ultimately defeat you.
They can take many things from you.
They cannot take God's eternal promises.
And so David says, "When I'm afraid, I will trust in you."
Here's a second decision he made when it felt like the victory he'd had in the past had
become a defeat in his life in that day.
The second decision is, "When others are against me, I will know that God is for me."
Listen to verses 5 to 9.
"All day long they twist my words.
They are always plotting to harm me.
They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life.
On no account let them escape.
In your anger, O God, bring down the nations.
Record my lament.
List my tears on your scroll.
Are they not on your record?
Then my enemies will turn back when I call to you for help.
By this I will know that God is for me."
Now David talks about others being against him in the way that they twist his words,
in the way that they plot to harm him.
Well, there are far too many workplaces and even far too many families that fall into
this picture.
People twisting your word, people plotting to harm you.
When you are hurting because others are against you, remember verse 8.
"Record my lament," David says, "List my tears on your scroll.
Are they not in your record?
God pays attention to the details of your pain.
He records your sorrows."
That's what this verse says, "List my tears.
Are they not in your record?"
New Living says, "You collected all my tears in your bottle and list everyone in your book."
There's this sense in the Hebrew word that's used here for this list that God has a
bottle where he's capturing your tears, he's remembering all the pains that are in your
life.
God is for you.
God knows all that you're going through and he is for you.
When verse 9 says, "I will know that God is for me," Romans 8.31 looks back to that
verse and it says, "What then shall we say in response to this?
If God is for us, who can be against us?"
Now David started this thing of others being against him by talking about people twisting
his words and this is especially important when you face criticism, when others try to
twist your words.
God is for you, whatever they're saying about you.
One of the most important tasks of serving God is connecting with how deeply God loves
you so that you know that no matter what they think, God loves you and he'll never stop.
The most important person in your life loves you more than anyone else ever can or will.
God loves you.
So you connect with that.
That's one of the things you do when you feel like a victory has turned into a defeat.
And then the third thing you do is this, number three, "When I have stumbled, I will look
to God for deliverance."
You see, the worst of our battles is within ourselves.
We think we have it all figured out.
We think we have it all together.
We think we've finally dealt with our pride once and for all and then suddenly it raises
its ugly presence once again, maybe in a way that you would have never expected.
Just when you think you're past stumbling, then you stumble.
So what do you do?
Well, when you think you're past stumbling and then you've stumbled, the worst thing
you can do is to pridefully pretend you didn't stumble.
No, you admit you stumbled and you look to God for deliverance.
One of the traps of Satan in my life, in your life, is to tell us, "Oh, you're past
stumbling in that area.
You're never going to struggle there again.
You struggled with patience all your life, but now you're never going to struggle again.
You got that one down.
The minute you think that, watch out, pride goes before a fall, you're going to stumble.
But if it's been a long time since you've been impatient, you're going to be tempted
to feel like and want to pretend that it didn't happen, but it did.
So you just go to God once again with it, and you say, "God, I stumbled," and you recognize
I need His deliverance.
Listen to verses 10 to 13, "In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise,
in God I trust.
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
I am under vows to you, O God.
I present my thanks offerings to you, for you have delivered me from death and my feet
from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life."
David talks here about praise and thanksgiving.
The two keys to focusing on God's deliverance are praise and thanksgiving.
You praise God for who He is.
You praise God for what He's done in your life.
You thank God for what He's done.
You stop trying to prove yourself to God, and you start praising God for the ways that
He has proven Himself to you.
That puts the focus on God and not on you.
And then He gives us this awesome picture of faith, of living without constantly stumbling.
He says, "That I may walk before God in the light of life."
That's the picture.
You are walking before God.
You're not walking on your own.
You're always walking in God's presence, and because of that, He will give you the light
that you need, and light is what keeps us from stumbling.
As we come to the end of our look at this psalm, it's incredible to me all the things
that we go through to secure our things, all the alarm systems and locks to make sure that
our things are secure, and how little thought we sometimes give to secure ourselves.
We need a solid foundation, a solid foundation for those times when it feels like a victory
has become a defeat.
It gives confidence for everyday life and hope beyond this life, and it's found in
knowing that when I'm afraid, I can trust in God.
When others are against me, God is for me.
And when I have stumbled, I can look to God for deliverance.
Let's talk to Him for a few minutes right now.
Our Father, we turn to You, and we recognize in those moments when we feel like something
that has come together now is falling apart, something that was once a victory now feels
like a defeat, something we feel like we had finally conquered seems like it's conquering
us.
We recognize You're still there then.
You'll still guide us through.
And so calm our fears right now with Your presence, and let us know that You're greater
than any circumstance or person.
O Lord, remind us that You are for us.
You know the details of our pain, and You are for us.
You love us more than we can imagine.
And even when we stumble, we look to You for deliverance.
You will lift us up.
You are the God who lifts us up.
So we come to You when we pray that You would.
Remind us of Your greatness, of Your presence right now.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Tomorrow we're going to look at Psalm 57, how to praise God when you're in a cave.