This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome today to our look at Psalm 44. It's day four of our
look through Psalm 41 to 45 this week. Psalm 44 is a Psalm about victory and
defeat and about how to trust God, whichever of those you might be facing.

It is a Psalm that reminds us that apart from trust in God, our victory can
become our defeat. And it's a Psalm that reminds us that when we trust in God,
even our defeat can become our victory. So let's look at what this Psalm has to
say.

First, it talks about how to trust God in victory. Now, I want to confess as I
begin to talk about these three truths that we see in this Psalm about how to
trust God in victory, that I have violated all three of these truths. There have
been times in my life when I've turned victory into defeat.

God has done something wonderful in my life, even through my life. But the way
that I handled it, the way that I thought about it, the way that I responded
caused that victory actually to become a defeat. And I find myself falling to a
temptation right after the victory.

Or I find myself falling back into negative thoughts about others right after
the victory. Or I find myself falling into selfishness right after the victory.
And if you can relate to what I'm talking to, you recognize we all need to know
how to trust God in victory.

Three things you need to do. Number one, you give God the credit. You give God
the credit.

Verses three to five. It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did
their arm bring them the victory. It was by your right hand, your arm, and the
light of your face, for you loved them.

You are my king and my God who decrees victories for Jacob. Through you, we push
back our enemies. Through your name, we trample our foes.

So when you have a victory, it's very easy to begin to see how God used you. It
is true that God puts some kind of sword in your hand in the battle. For them,
it was a literal sword.

For you, it's your gifts or your abilities or your resources. And it is true
that God uses your arm in the battle somehow. He uses your energy.

But who gave you that sword? Who gave you those gifts? Who gave you those
resources?

Who gave you that arm? Who created you in the first place? Who gave you the
personality that you have?

So in the end, it's God, our creator, who deserves all the credit in every
victory. Now, you don't have to be fake and phony about this and say, oh, I
wasn't involved at all. My hand wasn't even in it.

No, God did use your gifts. So you can be grateful that God used your gifts. You
just don't take the credit that God used your gifts.

There's a difference between gratefulness and selfishness. And we sometimes
don't get all the way to selfishness, but we start to lean towards selfishness
when the victories come. 'Cause we want to feel good about ourselves.

Maybe because other people have been criticizing us. Maybe because we've been
going through some discouragement lately. So we try to use the victory to prop
ourselves up.

I've certainly done that. And whenever I do that, I've turned a victory into a
defeat. So you give God the credit.

Second thing you do is you refuse to misplace your trust. Verse six and seven. I
do not trust my bow.

My sword does not bring me victory. But you give us victory over our enemies.
You put our adversaries to shame.

Again, God has given you some resources and skills and gifts that he used in the
winning of that victory. But the mistake that we make is not only do we begin to
give ourselves some credit, but then out of giving ourselves credit, we start
trusting instead of trusting in God, we trust in the skill that was given rather
than in the God who gave that skill. And how do you know that's happening in
your life?

A spirit of expectation starts to rise up where you think it's going to work every
time. It's going to happen every time because I'm more skilled than others. I've
got more experience than others.

It can't fail, but it does fail and we do fail. And there are many times when we
seem to have all the resources that we need, you can see this in the battles of
Israel again and again, they had the greater resources than the enemy, but they
lost, they failed because they misplaced their trust. So if I'm going to make sure
I don't turn a victory into defeat, I don't go into this place of misplacing my
trust and thinking it's about me and not about God.

Now, the third thing that you do actually is a protection against the first two.
Third thing that you do is you intentionally boast in God. You boast in what God
has done, intentionally.

You let everybody hear about it. Verse eight, "In God, we make our boast all day
long, and we will praise your name forever. " So in order to make sure you don't
put trust in yourself, you don't give yourself the credit, you take the time to
boast in God.

God's not going to get a big head about it. God's not going to get prideful about it.
We get prideful when people boast in us, but God's perfect, he never gets
prideful.

So you boast in him. You make it his story, not your story. You're a part of his
story.

You don't leave your name out, but you make it his story. Look at what God did.
And when you're doing that, you'll find you're not going to just talk about you,
you're going to talk about all the others that were a part of it.

You're going to talk about the people that prayed that it would happen. You may
have been up in front and everybody saw you, but you just remember, there are a
lot of people behind the scenes praying for God to work through that. And you
were propped up, you were empowered by their prayers in ways that you cannot
even imagine.

And you make that a part of the story. Because you recognize God worked, God
worked through their prayers. And you make God your boast all day long.

You don't just throw in a little tip to God. Hey, here's a little boast for God.
No, all day long you're boasting in God.

These are the things that you and I need to do to not turn a victory into a
defeat. That's how you trust God in victory. This Psalm also talks about how to
trust God in defeat.

And he talks about in this Psalm the kind of defeat when you have given your all
and it's not enough. This is the kind of defeat when you've been faithful and it
seems like your faith has not been rewarded. Other places in the Old and New
Testament, we learn about the kind of defeat that comes when we're not trusting
in God, when we're unfaithful to God.

That's not what the defeat is here. It's the defeat of I was faithful, I did the
right things, God. And still it didn't work out, still there was failure.

Verses nine and 10. But now you have rejected and humbled us. You no longer go
out with our armies.

You made us retreat before the enemy. And our adversaries have plundered us.
Then verses 17 and 18, all this happened to us though we had not forgotten you
or been false to your covenant.

Our hearts had not turned back. Our feet had not strayed from your path. There's
a couple of truths when you face a defeat, even when you've been faithful to
hang on to in these verses.

First truth is this. There are times when you will feel defeated, but you cannot
be defeated. You cannot be defeated.

Listen to verse 22 of this Psalm. Yet for your sake, we face death all day long.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

Well, that's a strange verse. Seems like a very negative verse. Seems like a
verse we just want to read by and forget.

But instead of that, it's one of the most powerful verses in this Psalm. It's
the Psalm when God's spirit was inspiring Paul to write the book of Romans, and
he's writing what we now call Romans 8. It's the phrase that he turned to in
this Psalm to write these words in Romans 8, 35 to 37.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword as it is written? For your
sake, we face death all day long.

We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things, we are
more than conquerors through him who loved us. What is Paul saying here?

What is the Psalmist saying here? Even if you face death, it cannot conquer you
because you're following the God of eternity. So even if God has you face
failure, even if God has you face death, he can use even that in his eternal
plan.

I don't want you to face failure. I don't want you to face death, but yet for
your sake, when I'm doing it for God's sake, even if I face persecution or
famine or nakedness or peril or sword, even if I face that list that Paul talked
about, God is still working. You will feel defeated in that moment, but you
cannot be defeated because we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

Satan threw a cross at Jesus, and it became our greatest victory. Even if you
lose your life, it means the immediate glory of heaven. Sin has been conquered.

Death has lost its sting. So even though you may feel defeated in this life, you
cannot be defeated. Never forget that.

And the second truth to remember is this. God knows exactly what you're going
through. Listen to verses 23 to 26.

Awake, O Lord, why do you sleep? Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why
do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?

We are brought down to the dust. Our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up and
help us.

Redeem us because of your unfailing love. We read these words and we think, how
can I make it through those times in life when I feel like God isn't there? And
for the psalmist who wrote this, he did not have an answer.

He was not certain that God was there when the circumstances turned against him.
But you and I have an answer now. We know in Jesus Christ that whatever the
circumstances, God is with us.

We know that whatever we're facing, God is not asleep to our need. Awake, O
Lord, we never have to pray that again because Jesus taught us we no longer need
to have this fear. God is not asleep to your need.

He knows exactly what you're going through. You can cast all your cares on him
because he cares for you. He cares for you.

Awake, O Lord. The word for Lord there is a different word than is used for God
in the rest of this psalm. It's Adonai, which means sovereign Lord.

The God is in control, the God who knows it all. God knows it all and he cares
about everything you're going through. If God cares about the birds and what
they're facing, he certainly cares about what you are facing right now.

So don't forget the last words of this psalm, your unfailing love. And don't let
either victory or defeat define you. You are more than a conqueror in Christ who
loves you.

You are a child of your father. So choose to let both victory and defeat
transform you so that you see God's purpose. You trust God's son.

You know God's presence in the midst of whatever you happen to be going through
in life right now. Let's pray together. Our father, some of us are going through
victory.

Some of us are going through defeat right now. And we recognize in this moment
that wherever we happen to be, you are with us. You are working in our lives and
you have the power.

You have the power to let that victory bring praise to you and to make sure that
in our hearts that victory does not become a defeat as we start trusting
ourselves. And you also have the power to take that victory and out of it, take
that defeat that we're facing right now, that we're struggling with right now
and out of it, bring a victory that only in heaven are we going to see, only in
heaven are we going to rejoice in and we are going to rejoice. So we stand in that
truth in your presence today, Lord.

In Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to look at Psalm 45, which is a
wedding psalm, a psalm about a bridegroom and a bride.