Psalm 27

well thank you so much praise team for leading Us in worship and centering our focus upon him it's one of the benefits of a midweek service is that we are able to gather back together and recalibrate our minds and our hearts around him and of course as well around his word and around his values and so that's what we're going to do tonight as we look to the word of the Lord I'll let you be seated because I am going to read the entire chapter not of Revelation sister Peggy but thank you for that suggestion we'll just file that for when brother Cardin is able to teach okay you got that one bro but we're gonna we're gonna read Psalm 27 it's 14 verses so it's not too lengthy and we're gonna look to mine the scriptures is the phrase that keeps coming to my mind it came to my mind last week is Brother Brad had us reading second Timothy and what a wonderful study that started out as last week and looking forward to the completion of that and I was uh instructed and tempted by some fellow ministers here too Amber why don't you go ahead and just do second Timothy two so that Pastor Brad doesn't I said get behind me Satan and Michael McGuire oh right there it was man this is this is not good but from second Timothy 3 it does say all scripture is given by the inspiration of God and it's profitable and it works towards or it's good for or helps us with knowing our Doctrine teaching us reproving correction and then that instruction in righteousness and so as we look to Psalm 27 or any time we look to any passage of scripture there is something that it can teach us there is something in there that could potentially reprove or correct us and then there is an extra instruction always in scripture and so we're going to look to Psalm 27 tonight and we're going to be reading from the new King James version I believe that's what brother Eric has pulled up on the screen for us so we'll go ahead and get started verse 1 the Lord is my light and my salvation Whom Shall I Fear the Lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid when the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh my enemies and foes they stumbled and fell though an army May encamp against me my heart shall not fear the war may rise against me in this will I be confident one thing have I desired of the Lord and that will I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his Temple for in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his Pavilion in the secret place of his Tabernacle he shall hide me He Shall Set me high upon a rock and now my head shall be lifted up above mine enemies or All Around Me therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in his Tabernacle I will sing yes I will sing praises to the Lord here O Lord when I cry with my voice have mercy also upon me and answer me when you said seek my face my heart said to you your face Lord I will seek do not hide your face from me do not turn your servant away in Anger you have been my help do not leave me nor forsake me o God of my salvation when my father and my mother forsake me then the Lord will take care of me teach me your way O Lord and Lead Me in a smooth path because of my enemies do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries for false Witnesses have risen against me and such as breathe out violence I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living wait on the Lord be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart wait I say on the Lord a beautiful psalm with so much message and hope and help for us tonight I want us to pray before we go any further and just pray that the Lord would illuminate your heart let the spirit do a work of Illumination turn on a light bulb in our hearts and our minds as it pertains to this passage of scripture can you pray with me now Lord I Thank You for Your word the truth and the hope and the strength and the light and the guide that your word is and I I pray for a spirit of understanding in every individual tonight that we would not only just understand and comprehend what your word is saying but that we would know how to apply it to our lives that we could therefore then gain strength from this and it can save our souls I pray that you would help us tonight in Jesus name amen David begins by declaring some fundamental truths about God the Lord is my light and my salvation these are some core beliefs that David has in his life they are core to who he is they are core to how he orients himself how he interacts with others how he views God how he views circumstances these are core beliefs and values that David is expressing and core beliefs let me Define to you what I mean by that kind of already have but core beliefs are truths around which we Orient Our Lives truths that guide Our Lives guide our interactions with others guide our words guide our priorities core beliefs that guide our actions and that guide our behavior in one of David's core beliefs two three of them actually are in this verse the Lord is my light and my salvation and the Lord being our light what what does light do for us light helps us to see doesn't it it helps us we we walk into a dark room we immediately look for the switch to turn on the light or we immediately fumble with our cell phones to try to find that flashlight because we need the light in order to see and David says of the Lord he is my light he is how I see in this Dark World in this dark situation in this dark scenario that I find myself the Lord is my light he is how I see and so David says I live in his light though I may feel like I'm in darkness the reality is I am living in his light the Lord being our light he makes things plain to us he makes things seeable and understandable to us the Lord is my light I think of it this way the Lord turns the light on when life feels darkened by trials or when my understanding is darkened because of my limited knowledge or my human perspective the Lord turns the light on seeing things from his eternal perspective seeing life with the light of his perspective in fleeting Darkness but we are ever in eternal light his light his guidance his help his illumination will Outlast everything that we are going through what did John say when he opened his book the light shines in darkness and the Darkness comprehended it not the darkness it can't put it out it can't Outlast the light and so I I speak this as an encouragement to you tonight that whatever Darkness you may feel that you're in whatever situation and whatever other label you might put on that it will not Outlast the light of God he will and can and I would argue is shining a light in your Darkness because he is the light and so taking that core belief and and applying it to the dark situation that I am in I can then say you know what this is what reality is right now reality is Darkness reality is a shaded perspective or things aren't quite clear things are unseen but that's my reality but the truth is higher than that reality and that is the Lord is my light and so he will provide understanding for me he will provide guidance for me Proverbs Chapter 30 and verse 5 says the entrance of thy words giveth light it giveth understanding to the simple I was praying through that verse one day and I got kind of offended because I was like is the word telling me I'm simple well the more I thought about it I realized as it always is the word is right and sometimes there are situations sometimes all the time there are situations that just feel too complex for me I don't know the solution I don't have my understanding is darkened I am not able to see the solution I'm not able to see the answer as it needs to be but scripture says the entrance of thy words giveth life that's why it's important for us to attend to the word of the Lord to to read his word on a daily basis and to attend a service where his word is taught or preached or a connect group or a Sunday school class where his word is taught and illuminated to us because the entrance of his words give light and it gives understanding when things are too complex for me to work out on my own David's other core belief is that the Lord is his salvation his core belief that he is safe in God we read the whole entire passage there are scenarios in here that would not make one feel safe right there's enemies round about me there's people coming upon me to eat up my flesh there's issues in this in this Psalm that do not cause one to feel safe or secure but David is saying you know what my core belief has nothing to do with what is tangible or what is physical or what I can see he understood what Paul later wrote about that says we walk by faith and not by sight I'm not looking at things around me I am looking with eyes of Faith the Lord is my salvation and he will save me he will come through for me in this situation the lie that we sometimes perhaps hold to rather than the core belief the lie that we may hold to is that something else is my salvation or I am my own salvation may put our faith or our confidence in ourselves abilities finances education or we may put our uh faith and confidence in other things that are able to do a fraction fractional salvation but God's salvation is full it is Rich it is robust and so I don't want to hold to the lie as I'm in the middle of a circumstances I'm in the middle of something so complex and as I'm in the middle of just not knowing what to do or feeling like I am being hounded by things around me I don't want to think of myself I am my own salvi savior I am not my own savior God is my salvation and so I will trust in him I will rely upon him and rest in him and it was a core belief and it guided David through this his life through this psalm and thirdly in verse 1 he says the Lord is the strength of my life could also be translated or understood to be saying he is my refuge he is the one that gives me strength I run to him and there is strength in him David is saying the Lord is the strength of my life my strength is not found in anything temporal or anything personal it is found in God and in God alone he is secure so I am secure in him and there are situations in your life right now I am not prophesying I am speaking what I know to be the reality of The Human Condition there are situations and circumstances in your life that have knocked you off kelter and you do not feel stable and you do not feel secure it's the nature of life it's the nature of going through situations and circumstances they they cause us to feel uh concerned they cause us to feel that insecurity and we could look at that and we could label ourselves as I am insecure I am unsecure I I do not have the stability that I need whether that be in relationships or Finance or whether that be mentally or emotionally I don't feel that I have the security and the stability but my strength is not in me the Lord is the strength of my life he is secure so I am secure in him when I have and I hold that core belief and when I act from that core belief and so I would just ask all of us myself included do we trust in other things for strength we may find it easy to find security or strength in our wisdom we try to figure it out on our own try to come up with an answer or solution we may try to find strength and Security in our experience well I've I've done this before and so I'll just do what I did before we'll just think or our experience is I don't have the experience and therefore I feel even more insecure about things may find strength and Security in our friends or in our resources but David knew a strength greater than all of those things when he said the Lord is the strength of my life he gives me the security he gives me the Refuge that I need and so because of those core beliefs he could say in this verse Whom Shall I Fear of whom shall I be afraid now you read the entire context of scripture so you go into first Samuel second Samuel and you read about David you know that there were times in his life where he was afraid he was fearful he he had fears and so this is maybe pointed just at me but when I read stuff like that I'm like David said Whom Shall I Fear of whom shall I be afraid so when I get in something and I am afraid I must be really failing at life at this Christian life but no if we look at the entire context of scripture we see that David says this but he also walks through life and there are times when he becomes fearful because fear is just really natural for The Human Condition and so it's not that David is a hypocrite or that he is at worst a liar to say Whom Shall I Fear I'm not afraid of anybody because the Lord is my light and my salvation it's what I see this as is David is just re-centering his thoughts saying you know what I am feeling a little fearful things are happening around me that should cause me to be fearful but you know what this is my core belief that the Lord is with me he is my light he is my salvation he is my refuge I have no need really to fear and he speaks those words of of faith calling things that are not as though they were and so core beliefs can allow us to walk through life in a way that really just seems inhuman it seems um the wow factor is there but it's not to do with us and it's not because we don't have issues and because we don't have problems or or because we're perfect or we've reached this certain level of spiritual maturity no it's it's when we come back and say you know what I am struggling with fear I am struggling with anxiety or depression or whatever that may be but here's my core belief I'm just going to gather my thoughts from everywhere that they've run off to and say you know what the Lord is my light and he's my I'm going to go back to my core beliefs when I feel shaken and when I feel insecure when I feel very uncertain I'm going to come back to what I know and what I know about God doesn't change Jesus Christ the same yesterday today and forever who he is does not change based on my circumstance and my feelings will change my thoughts will change but God does not change and so we we need and we should have some core beliefs settled in our lives and again that core belief is a truth that I firmly grasp and treat every competing I other competing idea as a lie everything that tries to compete with the truth of the Lord is my light my salvation he's the strength of my God is good all the time is one of my core beliefs God is my shepherd that's one of my core beliefs others are in my life for a a reason is a core belief and it's worded better in my journal but that's the bulk of that's the gist of the core belief that I need others in my life it's a core but it's something that I go back to and I let it Orient the way that I interact and how I plan and prioritize and live my life and so I would just ask you what are some of your core beliefs you don't have to shout the answer but I would encourage you to either write it on that piece of paper that you've been given or in a journal or think about it and be able to articulate brother Reaver says I always give homework um three is that too many it's not too many you can borrow David's if you need to because those are true they have to be true about God not the whims of our flesh or the whims of our feeling but true about God so what are some of your core beliefs because core beliefs will guide us in moments of suffering and affliction and turmoil they can help to orient us and secure us and stabilize us and so I encourage you try to articulate those core beliefs in your life and David Goes On he said when the wicked came against me to eat up and devour My Flesh they stumbled and they fell again he's he goes on in verse three as well though an army and Camp against me my heart will not fear though War may rise against me in this I will be confident in this in what in the Lord in this core belief that I have about God I can be confident in that I can't be confident in the circumstance and how things are going to turn out or how I'm going to be tomorrow or in five minutes because my feelings fluctuate and change so often but I can be confident that the Lord is my light and he's my salvation and any other core belief that you compose that will guide and Orient your life the intention of the wicked in verse 2 says came against me to eat up or to another translation says to devour My Flesh the intention of the wicked was to devour him to completely overwhelm and to leave nothing untouched in David's life it wanted to affect everything but that scripture declares that it was unsuccessful and why was it unsuccessful because the enemy couldn't devour what was under the protection of the almighty remember the Lord is the strength of my life he's my refuge and so David had run to that Refuge had hidden himself there and so the wicked could not cause him the harm that they intended and then of course probably the most familiar of this passage is verse 4 one thing I have desired of the Lord and I will seek it that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his Temple all the days the good ones and the bad ones the joyful ones and the sorrowful ones the ones where I have a handle on things and the ones where things are spinning wildly out of control David said I want to dwell in his house in his presence in all the days of my life we know it wasn't about the physical structure of the temple for David wasn't about the surface or tangible physical things it was because that place was inhabited by the glory of God his presence and his fullness read one quote that said this it was not the Earthly Temple itself that Charmed David but rather the beauty of the Lord that was to be found at the temple in a special way if you'll allow me to say it like this the temple was the shell the glory of God the beauty of the Lord was the substance the temple the place was just the shell the substance was the glory of God and David's desire wasn't for the shell it was for the substance because he said I want to behold the beauty of the Lord and I would submit to you that his beauty comes to us in many ways even through the difficulties of Our Lives he is using and can use those things to display his Beauty and this verse is also a good reminder for us to not dwell so Heavenly on the physical the temporal or the tangible things but to seek for God's glory in it his purpose in what's going on in the victories we can discover his Beauty and in the defeats we can discover his Beauty as well the thing is not the important part the thing being the victory or the defeat or the weakness or the the success or the failure the thing is not the important part it's the shell it's the glory of God that we find within those things that is the important part is that making sense our struggles and our trials our opposition our difficulties our adversities are the thing and in that thing there is beauty that God can reveal about himself even within the messed up situation that presents itself in our lives and so David was saying I've desired one thing I want to dwell in a place think of this mentally I want to dwell in a mental place in a spiritual mental place that I'm not so focused on the things around me that I can't see the glory of God in even this and how God is working through the adversity how he is revealing himself as a beautiful savior as a beautiful refuge in the the midst of the turmoil and the struggle that I am currently in to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his Temple the New Living Translation says the last half of that verse like this delighting in the Lord's Perfections and meditating in his Temple I love the New Living Translation the Lord's Perfections delighting in the Lord's Perfections so rarely can we Delight in our Perfections or life's Perfections or our relationships Perfections but the Lord is always perfect he is always without flaw he is always beautiful the central Focus that I want to bring from this and we're not going to go word for word through this entire psalm but verse 5 through verse 8 is really there's some just real meat uh that I that I want to highlight here David says having just said I want to behold the beauty of the Lord and I want to inquire I want to Delight in the Lord's Perfections and be in the presence of God and he says for in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his Pavilion in the secret place of his Tabernacle he shall hide me he shall set me high upon a rock and as I I read that having already read verses two and three where there are enemies round about there's enemies and the wicked are trying to devour and David says in that time of trouble he's going to hide me he's going to set me up upon a rock I'm going to be close to him in that time of trouble there's an invitation that that God issues to us in our time of trouble and that invitation is to seek him and to abide with him he doesn't push us away because we struggle with things he doesn't hold us at arm's length because we have issues in our lives in our relationships but no there's an invitation to come close he wants to hide me in his Pavilion he he wants to be the Refuge that I run to he wants to be that secret place that I go to in the midst of all of the turmoil and all of the chaos there's an invitation in all of that if we will just hear it and it's for me it's sometimes hearing it above the noise of everything that's going on because I get frantic about how do I need to act what do I need to do what do I need to say how do I need to respond to this and and that noise just reverberates in my ears and I sometimes can't hear the invitation of the Lord saying just just come and be with me come and abide with me and find that I am that secret place that I am that Refuge that you need he says he shall set me upon a rock it might be easy to read into this that if I do the right thing X Y and Z then I am promised things will go my way with no opposition or struggle but that is not the case it's not what David is saying I'm not exempt from the struggle because I trust in the Lord but in seeking him I can have a different and a better perspective because I am seeking him in those things I'm seeking to see God where is your beauty in all of this how are you revealing yourself to me and all of this that's going on what what am I what am I missing Lord help me to see what I am not naturally seeing in verse 6 follows up he said I will offer sacrifices of joy well when will he offer them up he said and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me there's enemies all around so when is he supposed to offer this sacrifice of joy in what context well in that context with all of the enemies round about him while things are still troubled and imperfect while trials persist and opposition digs in its heels I will offer sacrifices I will sing I Will Worship I'm going to worship Him how can I do that in the midst of all of that because I'm beholding his Beauty I'm not looking at and focusing on what's around me I'm focused on the beauty of the Lord even in this moment and that's how I can worship verse 8 is where I will end things if you want to come offer hope to the masses this verse hit me and it hit me in the New Living Translation so that's I'm going to read that to you even though the new King James is on the screen this is the verse that this lesson study was born out of my heart has heard you say come and talk with me and my heart responds Lord I am coming my heart has heard you say come and talk with me come process your grief with me come process your anger with me my heart has heard the one who loves me and the one who cares for me and the one who has plans for me the one who died for me my heart has heard you say come talk with me but Lord don't you see that I'm carrying all of this other stuff I'm weighed it down by all of these other things and I I'm I'm falling short in so many areas and I'm just not Measuring Up and I'm trying to be transformed and be more like you but I I'm but in all of that my heart has heard you say come talk with me come spend time with me come abide in my presence come receive what you need from me he issues an invitation in the middle of our struggle I would say by our struggle because of our struggle he uses that to issue that invitation you feel heavy you feel burdened you feel weighted down come talk with me about it come pour your heart out to me because I am you will find me to be the strength of your life your light and your salvation I'll give you a Way Forward I'll give you the path that you need to walk I will show you I will illuminate it I will not keep it dark because I am the light in your life my heart's heard you say that and my heart says back to you Lord I'm coming I want to offer you an opportunity tonight to respond to the invitation that the Lord has sent through Psalm 27 and 8. would you stand with me right now and remain reverent in his presence I believe that the Lord has you have heard that invitation not through my words I believe the spirit has impressed on you that invitation that is from him if you want to respond to him by if you want to come to the altar if you want to turn around and kneel but I want us to take a few moments and respond Lord we're coming we're coming to talk with you your face I'm going to seek your face right now I'm going to behold your beauty in the midst of all the mess and the ugliness and the chaos I am responding because I hear your invitation Lord this is not just an issue this is not just a storm it's not just a struggle this is where you're trying to reveal who you are and your beauty and your glory and you're inviting me to lay upon on you all of the burdens of my heart thank you for responding to that continue to respond to him he is listening he is hearing that Lord we're coming your face is we're seeking your face your beauty your glory in this moment Jesus I thank you for that invitation thank you for your invitation Lord would you lift your hands and would you surrender to him some worship right now because he is beautiful he is glorious he is good to us and well we cannot see it with our natural eyes we see it with eyes of Faith Lord we're beholding your beauty Lord oh we've got some time right now to continue in this vein let's just continue to seek him his word is calling us to do that tonight I'm going to put this mic down and do it myself let's just take a moment and continue to seek his face