This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to day four of our look through Psalm 36 to 40. We're
looking at Psalm 39 today. It's a Psalm about when you do right and things get
worse.

We've all had that happen. You do what's right in your work and you don't get
the raise, you don't get the promotion. In fact, maybe even you get fired for
doing the right thing.

You do what's right in your family and it feels like everybody's angry at you.
You do what's right in your neighborhood and it feels like you're rejected for
it. Jesus sure understood this.

He always did what was right and things often got worse all the way to the
cross. So when you do what's right and things get worse, how do you handle it?
You need a new perspective, obviously.

And this Psalm turns on the question of that new perspective in verse seven.
Psalm 39, seven, listen to what it says. But now Lord, what do I look for?

My hope is in you. When life is falling apart, when you are falling apart, you
ask yourself the question, what do I look for? That's the perspective question.

What do I look for? Where am I looking in this moment to find the strength that
I need? And in this Psalm, he tells us first a couple of places not to look and
then he tells us what to look for.

First, some places not to look. David asked the question, do I look within for
the right perspective? Well, David tried that and his anxiety only increased.

Listen to verses one to three. I said, I will watch my ways and keep my tongue
from sin. I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wickeders are in my
presence.

But when I was silent and still, not even saying anything good, my anguish
increased. My heart grew hot within me. As I meditated, the fire burned.

So as he looked within, as he tried to deal with it within himself, things got
worse and we've all experienced that. I'm going to work this out. I'm going to deal
with this.

I'm going to not say anything. I'm going to say too much. Things get worse.

You look within and you find within there's anxiety and not peace. If you have
ever laid awake through the night trying to solve all the problems that are
running through your mind, you know exactly the feelings that David was talking
about here. Do you look within for the right perspective?

No, he says. So do I look to this life, the circumstances of this life to give
me fulfillment and give me the right perspective? Well, David says this life is
too short for that.

Beginning in the last half of verse three, he says, and then I spoke with my
tongue, show me, oh Lord, my life's end and the number of my days. Let me know
how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere hand breath.

The span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath.
He's saying this life can't give you fulfillment.

You can't look to your circumstances to get what you need when life isn't
working out like you hoped it would because life is too short. Even if your life
was perfect and it's not, you would face the fact eventually that it's all going to
end up too soon. So you gotta have a perspective that's greater than this life
'cause this life is not long enough.

It's not big enough. David here is obviously discouraged and he's pouring out
his words of discouragement to the Lord. So when you're discouraged, when I'm
discouraged, I need to not only feel it, I've also gotta tell it.

I gotta talk to God about it. Pour out those words of discouragement to the
Lord. And as David does this, in the midst of that discouragement, he recognizes
I'm not going to find my answer within myself.

I'm not going to find my answer within anything in this life. I need to recognize
that to change my perspective, I gotta look to God. I gotta look to God as my
only fulfillment and hope.

When life isn't turning out as you expected, you need to expect in God in a
greater way because he is the only one in the end that's going to do all that you
expected. Let me read verse seven again from the Amplified Version, Psalm 39,
seven. And now Lord, what do I wait for and expect?

My hope and expectation are in you. So essentially this Psalm is telling us, if
you wanted to put it in one sentence, plan to have problems, expect God to be at
work. If you're planning to not have problems, that's unrealistic in this world.

If you think I've already had my share of problems, I wish that were true 'cause
you probably already have had your share of problems. But as long as we live in
this planet, there are problems we're going to face. There are trials that we're
going to have.

So you plan to have problems, but you also expect God to be at work. And David
gives us an extremely powerful truth about how to trust God as your only
fulfillment and hope in verse 12. In verse 12 he says this, hear my prayer, O
Lord, listen to my cry for help.

Be not deaf to my weeping, for I dwell with you as an alien, a stranger, as all
my fathers were. So there's this phrase in this Psalm that's unfamiliar to us.
First it uses the word alien.

I dwell with you as an alien. We think of Martians or people from another
galaxy. The word alien there was somebody from another country, a stranger.

It was somebody traveling through. I dwell with you, he says, as a traveler, a
stranger. He says, as all my fathers were.

I mean, Abraham, he's looking at his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, all of them
were traveling in a foreign land. What does it mean for you and I to dwell with
God as an alien or a stranger? Well, in that culture, a stranger was somebody
who was on a journey who showed up at your house.

And you would take them in and you'd give them food and water. It was expected
in that culture. Because if you didn't give them food and water, they were going to
die in that desert culture, in that desert climate.

If you didn't give them the food and water they needed, they had nowhere else to
turn. Someone taking them in was their only hope. And so David says, God, I
dwell with you as an alien and as a stranger.

I'm showing up on your doorstep. You are my only hope. I've got nowhere else to
turn.

If you don't take me in, there's no other houses around, not for many, many
miles. I'm going to die of thirst, physically. That's what the alien and stranger
would have thought in that culture.

And you and I spiritually, we're saying, God, I'm on your doorstep. There's no
one else for miles. In fact, in this case, there's no one else anywhere who
could take me in.

And unless I find your house, I am lost. But once I find your house, I recognize
that I find hope only in you. There's something about this Psalm for me as I was
reading through it.

I don't know about you, but every once in a while, I get a glimpse, as in this
Psalm, as I was reading through it, I get a glimpse of how deeply it is true
that my only hope is in the Lord. I know that's true. I see that that's true.

I teach that that's true, but sometimes I get a glimpse of how true that really
is. Because as we walk through life, we can feel like, well, I'm doing okay.
I've got enough food and I've got these entertainments and I've got these
ministries, and those are things that I can hang on to.

But every once in a while, when some of those things get taken away, or maybe
when you recognize the greatness of who God is, you get a glimpse of the fact
that my hope is not in any of those things. My only hope is in God. A life
without God is a life without hope.

Because without God, it's only a brief life. Whatever you do, however much you
have, it's only a busy rushing that ends in nothingness. It's only gathering
wealth for somebody else to spend.

My only hope is in God. But it's more than enough. Because he wants to give you
a hope, he is willing to give you a hope that goes for eternity.

More than I'll ever see on this earth, than we'll ever see on this earth. Our
only hope is in God. So let's talk to him.

And Father, we want to say to you today, this life is so short, and the
opportunities are so wonderful. We want to hope in you. We don't want to hope in
things, or in ourselves, or in other people.

Our hope is only in you. So instead of selfishly using our lives for ourselves,
trying to get hope, or stressfully living our lives for others, hoping somehow
they'll give us some kind of hope, we recognize today that our only hope is in
you. And we decide once again to worshipfully give our lives to you.

You are our only hope. Praise you for your hope. In Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow we're going to look at Psalm 40, and how faith combines waiting and
acting.