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- Hi, this is Pastor Tom,
and I want to welcome you to our look at Psalm 71.
It's a Psalm about trusting God
through all the ages and stages of life.
Psalm 71 has a lot specifically
to say to those who are young,
who are getting started,
who are just maybe out of the blocks.
It also has a lot to say to those who are old,
who maybe you can see some finish lines in life.
And to those in the middle,
you need to learn the lessons from both.
To keep your balance in the middle,
you learn lessons from both sides,
from the young and the old.
Verses one to three in Psalm 71 say,
"In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge.
"Let me never be put to shame.
"Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness.
"Turn your ear to me and save me.
"Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go.
"Give the command to save me,
"for you are my rock and my fortress."
So really the question that this Psalm is answering is,
how do you live this kind of life that we just read about?
The God is my rock, rescued and delivered life.
The going to God instead of being put to shame life.
And the psalmist has some things to say to us
about how we should think and what we should do.
And he addresses it specifically
to those who are young and old.
To those who are young,
when it comes to how you should think,
if you want to live the God is my rock life,
you have to remind yourself,
remind yourself of where your real confidence lies.
And as he talks about this in this Psalm,
he reminds us that your confidence is in your hope.
Verse five, "For you have been my hope, O sovereign Lord,
"my confidence since my youth."
Hope and confidence in your life
are deeply tied together.
If you put your hope in the right thing,
your confidence will never fail you.
If you put your hope in the wrong things,
your confidence will one day suffer.
And when we're young, we tend to,
all of us tend to put our hope in the wrong things.
We hope for success or we hope for a great marriage
or we hope for kids who never struggle.
Those, all of those are circumstantial blessings, actually.
Not hopes, they're circumstantial blessings
that you can and you should pray for.
But one of the greatest lessons of life
is realizing that those blessings
are not where your hope is found.
If your hope is in circumstances that can fail you,
you will face a failure of your hope.
And in that moment, you have to decide,
in that moment that so many of us, most of us come across,
you have to decide, my confidence is not in my circumstances.
My confidence instead is in God's unfailing love,
his certain promises.
You know, through the years, I've known a lot of couples
who have special needs children.
And I've noticed that many of them
have a different kind of confidence,
just a different kind of aura around them
with which they live life.
And one of the reasons is they've learned
that even though they wanted the blessing of a healthy child,
when that blessing didn't come,
it didn't mean they'd lost their hope.
They had to struggle many times to realize this,
but they, through that struggle, have realized
that didn't mean that they'd lost their hope.
In fact, it meant what they needed to do
was relocate their hope from their circumstances
to God's eternal love.
And that's what gives them this different sense
of confidence in life.
Now, as you look through this Psalm,
there's a second reminder to the young
of where your real confidence lies.
Your confidence, it says, is relying on God.
Verse six, "From birth I have relied on you.
You brought me forth from my mother's womb.
I will ever praise you.
I have become like a portent to many,
but you are my strong refuge.
My mouth is filled with your praise,
declaring your splendor all day long."
There are many people,
when it comes to this issue of confidence,
who rely on themselves and they look and they talk
very confident on the outside.
But if you talk to them,
if you really get down to where their heart is
in the private moments of their lives,
they are constantly filled with self-doubt and fear.
They're confident expressions.
They're just a way to mask their private doubt.
And the lesson to learn when you're young
is to stop relying on yourself
and to rely more and more on God.
It's a lesson we learn more and more all through our lives.
The truth is, you rely on him,
whether you recognize it or not.
The Psalmist says, "From birth I have relied on you."
Even when you weren't aware of it,
you were relying on God.
So you recognize that truth and you lean on him
and you realize that's where my confidence comes from.
Now, this Psalm, I said,
has some things to say to those who are young.
It also has some things to say to those who are older.
It's written by somebody who is older,
talking about the lessons through their life.
How do you need to think as you get older
to live this God is my rock life?
Well, here's what he shares with us.
If you want to be living the God is my rock,
he's the one I'm standing on life,
as you get older, you have to remind yourself
that God will never forsake you.
Listen to verses nine to 13.
"Do not cast me away when I am old.
"Do not forsake me when my strength is gone.
"For my enemies speak against me
"and those who wait to kill me conspire together.
"They say God has forsaken him,
"pursue him and seize him for no one will rescue him.
"Be not far from me, O God.
"Come quickly, O my God, to help me.
"May my accusers perish in shame.
"May those who want to harm me
"be covered with scorn and disgrace."
You know, I've talked to many, many saints of God
who as they get older, feel that God has forsaken them.
Now, these are men and women of great faith
who it seems like they would never have any doubts.
And yet they find themselves overwhelmed with doubt
when they're old.
Why does that happen?
Well, this Psalm explains it to us
because their strength is gone.
Don't forsake me when my strength is gone.
They're not able to do what they used to be able to do.
And that can cause you to emotionally feel
as if God has left you.
Because we connect our increasing abilities through life
to a sense of God's blessings.
And when those abilities or those energies
start to decrease,
it feels sometimes like God is no longer blessing you.
The truth is God will never forsake you.
God's blessings are greater than your abilities.
You can lose it all and still not lose
what's most important, God's love for you.
And that's a truth that you have to remind yourself of
as you get older to remember that God is my rock.
Verses 14 to 16.
"But as for me, I will always have hope.
I will praise you more and more.
My mouth will tell of your righteousness,
of your salvation all day long,
though I know not its measure.
I will come and proclaim your mighty acts,
O sovereign Lord.
I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone."
That's the confidence that comes when you realize
God will never forsake you.
Now this Psalm also has some things to say about
life lessons to those who are young
and to those who are old
and also to those who are in the middle looking both ways.
When you're young,
here's what it has to say about life lessons.
"Let the Lord teach you and declare what God is doing."
Verse 17, "Since my youth, O God, you have taught me.
And to this day, I declare your marvelous deeds.
Let the Lord teach you."
You have to be taught to live a life of relying on God.
It doesn't come automatically to any of us.
And God is your teacher for that life.
Now there are many teachers
that the Lord's gonna use in your life.
Pastors and college professors and family and friends.
But remind yourself that it's the Lord
who's using them all.
He ultimately, He ultimately is your teacher.
And this keeps you from relying too greatly
on one person for all your teaching.
If you rely on one person for all your teaching,
what if that person moves away?
Or what if that person disappoints you?
What if that person has a moral failure?
So you realize God's the one who's teaching me
and He's using these different people in my life.
You let the Lord teach you.
So you need to listen,
but you also need not only to take in God's truth,
you need to speak.
You need to declare God's marvelous truth and deeds.
It's not enough just to listen to others talk about it.
You have to tell your own story as well.
When you're young, that's how you take in God's truth,
take in God's life lessons.
And when you're old, what do you need to do?
Well, you need to share what God has taught you.
You need to share what God has done in your life.
You need to declare God's power.
Keep declaring His power.
When you get older, as you get older,
there are some lessons
that the Lord has taught you through life.
For all of us, those lessons came most likely
to the pain of problems, the pain of your mistakes.
Share those lessons.
Help others to not have to face
the same pain in their life.
Listen to verses 18 and 19.
Even when I am old and gray,
do not forsake me, O God,
till I declare your power to the next generation,
your might to all who are to come.
Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God.
You who have done great things,
who, O God, is like you.
When you feel weak,
he talks about when I'm old and gray,
when I feel like I might be forsaken.
When you feel weak,
that is the greatest time to declare God's power,
because God's power is greater than our weakness,
greater than our circumstances.
Now, when we talk about life lessons,
there are two things that the writer of this psalm says
that God had taught him through his life,
two things that you and I may need to hear today.
In fact, this may be the part of this devotion
that God needs you to hear.
As the psalmist writes, he says,
"One of the lessons I've learned through life is this.
God has the power to restore."
Verse 20, "Though you have made me see troubles,
many and bitter, you will restore my life again.
From the depths of the earth, you will again bring me up."
Right now, you might feel that all is lost,
that there's no recovery from what you've done,
from what has happened,
from what somebody else has done to you.
I hear stories of God's power to restore every weekend.
God has the power to restore.
Just last week, I heard a story as I was walking out of church
of a family that was restored after seven years apart
because of sin in one of the person's lives,
a family that was restored.
I hear it every week.
God has the power to restore, and he wants to restore you.
You will restore my life again.
God has the power to restore.
He also says he learned through his life
that God has the power to increase.
Verse 21, "You will increase my honor
and comfort me once again."
There are times in life when we feel completely depleted,
as if the tide is out and it's never gonna come back in.
If you're feeling that way right now, don't give up.
And I want to encourage you also,
don't try to control the tide on your own.
We can't control tides.
Instead, you rely on God.
You rely on God for him to bring the right increase
into your life at the right time.
God has the power to restore and increase.
These are powerful truths that we need again and again
through our lives.
When we've lost a job, when we've lost a relationship,
when we've lost our enthusiasm, when we've lost our way,
God is the one who has the power to restore and increase.
You look to him.
Now, I found that God's power to restore and increase
often run in different directions than we expect.
Even when you don't get the job that you hoped for,
that you wished for, God can restore you to serving him
in ways that will last forever, more than you hoped for.
Even when your finances don't increase
the way that you so wanted,
the Lord can increase your depth of hope
and your strength of character even through that struggle.
And because of that, because we have a God
who has the power to restore and increase,
we give him praise.
The last of this Psalm, verses 22 to 24,
"I will praise you with the heart for your faithfulness."
Oh my God.
"I will sing praise to you with the liar,
oh holy one of Israel.
My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you.
I whom you have redeemed.
My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long.
For those who wanted to harm me
have been put to shame and confusion."
Let's end by taking a minute to just look to the Lord
together and talk to him.
And Father, in prayer, we want to just take a moment
to thank you, to thank you for the lessons you teach us
when we're young, when we're old and in the middle,
that God, we can rely on you as our rock
and that you are a God who has the power
to restore and increase.
So I pray today, help us to rely on you.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Tomorrow, we're gonna look together at Psalm 72.
It's a Psalm of Solomon on how to bless others
with the blessings that God has given us.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)