back to indexBerean Community Church Bible Study 4/9/2025
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Oh, Lord, my rock and my redeemer, may all my days bring glory to your name. 00:00:56.780 |
And Son of God, the shaper of the stars, you alone, the dweller of my heart. 00:01:21.380 |
The Father's gift to us, you alone were broken on the altar of love. 00:01:55.560 |
Oh, Holy One, I sing to you, forgiven Savior. 00:02:51.460 |
Jesus, oh, Holy One, I sing to you, forgiven Savior. 00:10:00.660 |
We know that it's because you are a merciful God. 00:10:03.660 |
It's because you are the God who is the Father, 00:10:12.660 |
And then, Father God, we pray that by your Spirit, 00:10:17.660 |
Grant to us, Father God, the perseverance that we need. 00:10:28.660 |
Grant to us, Father God, an endurance that comes from faith. 00:10:31.660 |
Grant to us, Lord God, a constant desire to strive 00:10:39.660 |
At this time, God, as we join our voices to worship, 00:10:42.660 |
this time as we praise you, Father, we pray, God, 00:10:46.660 |
that these things will be pleasing to your year. 00:20:15.660 |
May it affect us, affect our souls, and may we return to your worship that's pleasing to you. 00:20:32.660 |
A couple things that we want to highlight and give to your attention is that on April 26th, 00:20:39.660 |
we're going to be having an all-church cleaning day. 00:20:45.660 |
We would love to fellowship with you guys, hang out, doing a lot of good handiwork around the church. 00:20:56.660 |
And if you guys have done it before, it honestly becomes like a really, really fun time getting together into squads, 00:21:03.660 |
taking care of different arenas of the church. 00:21:05.660 |
So we recommend all of you guys help out and participate in this, okay? 00:21:10.660 |
The next thing is that we have a Berean service auction. 00:21:14.660 |
So once a year, we have a really fun program where people put up their ideas for service and goods, 00:21:21.660 |
whether it's baked goods, babysitting services, or creative things. 00:21:25.660 |
It's going to take place from May 4th to May 10th. 00:21:29.660 |
Please make sure to sign up for that if you'd like to offer up a service. 00:21:33.660 |
As you guys know, this is our annual mission support kind of activity. 00:21:38.660 |
So please go ahead and sign up for that as well. 00:21:41.660 |
And then, this is for those of you guys who are newer to the church, we will be starting our next membership class starting Sunday, April 27th. 00:21:52.660 |
That takes place from 9:30 in the morning in the Youth Group Chapel on the other side, and it will run for eight weeks. 00:21:57.660 |
So please make sure if you are interested in membership, finding out about our foundational doctrines and our church ministry philosophy to sign up for that class. 00:22:06.660 |
And then for everybody, please mark your calendar for May 4th, which is our membership meeting. 00:22:13.660 |
That meeting, we're going to be also having our service fair. 00:22:16.660 |
So then you can go out in the courtyard and meet some of our team leaders, get to find out, you know, where are the places where they have needs. 00:22:23.660 |
And then, there is a men's softball tournament that's taking place on Saturday, May 24th. 00:22:34.660 |
A lot of times, we end up having multiple teams. 00:22:38.660 |
So there's going to be room for you to participate. 00:22:40.660 |
We will be playing other churches in tournament style. 00:22:43.660 |
Please make sure to mark that calendar and sign up for that. 00:22:47.660 |
And finally is our, again, all church retreat that we announced on Sunday. 00:22:53.660 |
Registration is now open for early bird price. 00:22:57.660 |
The retreat will take place from August 1st through August 3rd, out in the desert where it's nice and cool. 00:23:07.660 |
Those of you guys who've been to one before, we've been there before, it's an awesome place. 00:23:12.660 |
Please make sure to take advantage of the early bird pricing and also it helps us a lot when you guys register early and that will make logistics a lot more smoother. 00:23:29.660 |
In terms of beginning questions, we sent out a doc on tips for studying the book of Psalms. 00:23:35.660 |
Please make sure to refer to some of that to help your discussion. 00:23:38.660 |
But you guys can always just go ahead and share your observations and questions on the text. 00:23:42.660 |
We'll be back at 8 o'clock for the teaching time. 01:07:28.640 |
If you're in the rooms, please go ahead and come on out for the teaching time. 01:07:38.360 |
So please come on out if you're in the rooms, and let's get situated. 01:07:58.940 |
Please take a moment to pray with me as we jump into the teaching portion. 01:08:05.300 |
Father God, you know, for the last many weeks, we have been looking intently at your word in different places. 01:08:15.120 |
And we just want to acknowledge, God, all of it is so good. 01:08:19.140 |
I pray, Lord, that beyond just the times that we're corporately together, every single one of us would long to experience you through your word, 01:08:30.900 |
to be enlightened, Father God, in such an intimate and personal way. 01:08:36.380 |
God, we tonight tackle a text that is so personal. 01:08:42.000 |
And our prayer, Father God, that it would not only reside on the pages of the book in front of us, 01:08:49.180 |
but, God, that it would be so true of our own heart and our relationship with you. 01:08:57.280 |
So, I want to start off with a little bit of I should have. 01:09:08.260 |
Thank you, you know, Justin, for sending out all the material. 01:09:11.680 |
Just a note, if you guys can tell, like, I kind of wish that I could teach this again differently in a future time, 01:09:18.800 |
and maybe I will, kind of readjusting how I teach it and stuff. 01:09:22.920 |
I realized I didn't give you guys the books I was using from the get-go, 01:09:25.780 |
and I just kept referencing that, hey, these books talk like this. 01:09:28.500 |
So, here are the books, but some of them that really did are helpful. 01:09:34.160 |
The top two, How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth and Grasping God's Word, 01:09:39.520 |
are two really good books on Bible interpretation as a whole. 01:09:43.400 |
The first one is a lot more readable, and it's been around much longer. 01:09:53.840 |
It's like a textbook textbook, and it's huge. 01:09:56.320 |
So, if you want to go all out, do the number two. 01:09:59.320 |
If you just kind of want to review some of the stuff I've been teaching 01:10:02.860 |
and continue to learn hermeneutics, go to number one, okay? 01:10:07.160 |
Now, quickly, as a summary of the previous session that we had in studying the prophets, 01:10:14.280 |
what I said was that one of the errors, just a bad misconception we have of prophecy, 01:10:20.640 |
is that it's all future-telling, forward-looking, mysterious visions. 01:10:26.360 |
But actually, the way that we should be reading the books of prophecy is that it is a literal proclamation of God, 01:10:33.520 |
from God, with a clear message to very specific situations or His people. 01:10:40.120 |
The way we should be reading the book of prophecy is like, if you're at work, you've been goofing around, 01:10:47.080 |
and you get this email from your CEO or boss, and you think, oh, shoot, and you open it up, 01:10:53.980 |
carefully reading the kind of scolding or the reprimand that you know you deserve. 01:11:00.460 |
Sometimes, that's what the prophecies end up kind of sounding like. 01:11:03.700 |
But the reason why the last time I said we have to pay attention to tone, the context, 01:11:09.560 |
and even the covenant in which they're at is because prophecies are a message from God 01:11:15.940 |
interjecting into whatever they're doing, whether they're living wanton lives, carefree, 01:11:21.220 |
whether they are being faithless and adulterous, God is interjecting with a message. 01:11:28.020 |
And so, typically, it comes with incredibly intense tone. 01:11:31.640 |
That's kind of a good framework to help us interpret prophecies correctly, 01:11:39.160 |
We don't make just big jumps and only select, oh, He's got beautiful promises for me here. 01:11:48.840 |
That's the danger of interpreting prophecies. 01:11:51.920 |
Now, the reason why I bring this up is because prophecy and poetry are so different. 01:11:57.940 |
Today, as we're studying poetry in the Old Testament and various parts of Scripture, 01:12:03.320 |
whereas prophecy is a proclamation from God to the people, poetry is actually the opposite. 01:12:11.220 |
Poetry is praise and prayer from the people to and about God. 01:12:18.220 |
Poetry are people who are singing about the wonders of the Lord and telling everybody, right? 01:12:25.980 |
Telling the nations, telling the kingdom, telling the children that's to come. 01:12:33.540 |
These are actually words of the people to the Lord. 01:12:37.820 |
I want to thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. 01:12:45.160 |
Therefore, we shouldn't be reading poetry the same as we actually did prophecy. 01:12:51.740 |
And you would already imagine, you don't read poetry, therefore, the same as you read the Book of Romans. 01:12:56.940 |
Following through a very methodical argument with case and point and rationale and support proofs, 01:13:07.720 |
So, please make sure that poetry is not seen as a precision of doctrine kind of text, 01:13:15.080 |
and it's definitely not seen as a manual for your ethics kind of text. 01:13:19.340 |
Please do not make the interpretive jump of, since King David said it, I can too. 01:13:30.240 |
Like, we just can't be doing that because the purpose is not like that. 01:13:35.900 |
But rather, the purpose of poetry has with it the expression of our heart attitude. 01:13:42.320 |
The purpose of poetry has with it God-oriented experiences. 01:13:46.500 |
Even the text that we're looking at today, the whole of it is an experience. 01:13:51.980 |
We dare not chop up our text and say, oh, I just like this part. 01:13:55.580 |
And the reason why is because it's a full experience of the author King David 01:13:59.340 |
in terms of when he feared, when he trusted, when he felt so courageous in God, right? 01:14:05.860 |
The purpose of poetry is to express our affections, our emotional expressions of how we feel 01:14:12.020 |
and how we respond to the pictures and the experiences of God that we have. 01:14:16.300 |
So, let me take a moment to just meditate on that with you for a second, 01:14:21.420 |
which is to say, do you, as a person, lean more intellectual or do you lean more emotive? 01:14:30.700 |
Now, as you guys can imagine, what I'm talking about is there is a kind of maturity 01:14:34.640 |
that comes from the growth of your understanding of the biblical text and truth. 01:14:40.200 |
There is a kind of maturity that comes from knowing and building up your foundation base 01:14:46.300 |
of the various kind of like truths and knowledge that you should gain from the Bible, right? 01:14:52.240 |
But there is a kind of other maturity that comes from how the scriptures would say, really knowing, 01:14:58.560 |
where it's not knowledge that's puffing up, but rather it's producing an affection in your heart 01:15:05.240 |
that you can call, I have this deep, deep love for God. 01:15:09.560 |
And that's why, even within the scriptures, it tells us that knowledge does make arrogant, 01:15:17.440 |
And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know, 01:15:26.080 |
We know there is a kind of maturity that just comes with an intellectual knowledge of advancing, 01:15:36.640 |
But we know that that in of itself, it's still like doctrinal precision is 100% necessary. 01:15:43.940 |
But we know that in of itself, there could be such an immaturity where knowledge has not led to heart affection 01:15:50.820 |
or has it led to wise decisions or a kind of fruit in the spirit that we hope to see. 01:15:56.260 |
Okay, so I just wanted to make mention, poetry, some people, because their like immediate desire 01:16:05.080 |
when they do Bible study is, I want to find something profound. 01:16:08.580 |
Or, what are the answers to Pastor Mark's questions? 01:16:11.680 |
Like, if we come with expectations like that, where you just want to know what it has to say, 01:16:16.840 |
versus feeling, then we've walked into the space of poetry the wrong way. 01:16:23.020 |
An example that I like to borrow from one of the books is, a lot of times, especially a certain kind of, 01:16:30.380 |
again, if you're more intellectually geared, you don't know what to do when you walk into a museum of arts. 01:16:37.240 |
Some of your friends are walking around, like, reading the background. 01:16:44.740 |
And you're sitting there just walking by all of that. 01:16:47.400 |
And by the time 15 minutes is up, you're like, wow, this was a very short tour. 01:16:52.540 |
And the reason why is because you'd rather be in the other museum where it was, you know, engines and jets and cars, 01:17:01.740 |
I just want to make mention of the fact that poetry is much, much different, 01:17:05.720 |
and it produces a different kind of maturity in our hearts, okay? 01:17:11.180 |
Another introductory note, as you guys know, if you think about it, this, as I was thinking, I was like, oh, shoot, you're right. 01:17:19.900 |
Book of Job is written in that kind of literary form. 01:17:25.440 |
Songs, Proverbs, Songs of Songs, Lamentations, and then the prophets have tons of poetry, 01:17:31.320 |
and then even books of history, like the book of Exodus, has tons of poetry. 01:17:35.860 |
Because it records the songs, because it records praises that are written to God, okay? 01:17:41.180 |
Now, I'm just going to say that, and then please remember that as we're getting to the end of this hermeneutical class, 01:17:48.620 |
there's a sense of repeat because, like I said before last time, 01:17:52.760 |
if you do your inductive Bible study form, not the same way you did New Testament epistles, 01:18:00.120 |
but you just read big, you read large quantities, you keep it in context, 01:18:05.780 |
you know how the story is moving, you also know how the poetry is moving, 01:18:16.560 |
What are the relationship between the phrases? 01:18:20.360 |
However, in poetry, because it's not so linear, you constantly go back and forth. 01:18:27.400 |
My recommendation always when reading poetry is actually read through with the details with close eye first, right? 01:18:34.720 |
Because it's one, typically one singular unit. 01:18:37.500 |
In the book of Psalms, you typically have batches of poems, batches of songs, etc. 01:18:42.860 |
But it's okay to look at all the details and then realize, 01:18:46.180 |
well, this whole segment looks like this, okay? 01:18:49.260 |
So that's all I'll say about that and then move now quickly into as a step one. 01:18:53.940 |
You guys got it in my tips of studying poetry? 01:18:57.140 |
Make sure that you are studying poetry phrase by phrase. 01:19:02.520 |
If you, your Bible has, because I know some people with the different versions of the Bible, 01:19:15.640 |
You should be breaking it up into phrases line by line. 01:19:20.040 |
And you want to slow down, taking a look at each line, 01:19:23.860 |
and this is the way that it should look within your text. 01:19:30.340 |
As you guys know, a very kind of well-known term in the book of Psalms is the word selah. 01:19:41.380 |
It doesn't have like a one-to-one direct correlation, 01:19:44.080 |
but when you see that word, you're supposed to actually pause and reflect. 01:19:49.300 |
And that's how you should be reading the poetries, 01:19:52.320 |
is that you should be taking your sweet, sweet time, okay? 01:19:55.980 |
As you do this, you'll immediately kind of see, 01:19:58.940 |
oh, before I couldn't see where the relationship between the phrases were, 01:20:07.240 |
But especially within poetry, you want to see that, 01:20:11.860 |
Step two, you definitely want to label the basic outline and movement of thought, okay? 01:20:18.640 |
You want to label the basic outline and movement of thought. 01:20:27.300 |
It's helped me so much because forcing myself to outline the text 01:20:34.520 |
It makes me wonder, what is the movement of the author? 01:20:38.960 |
It makes me wonder, how can I encapsulate this section? 01:20:45.480 |
Verse 1, 2, and 3, I highlighted in different colors themes that I saw, 01:20:54.580 |
It talks about how the Lord is light, salvation, and defense of my life. 01:21:03.320 |
And then it highlights all the evildoers, the adversaries, 01:21:08.220 |
the enemies, the hosts, which are armies and wars that are rising up. 01:21:13.020 |
But my heart will not fear, and I will be confident. 01:21:33.060 |
Over there, Josh, how did you label this section? 01:22:00.880 |
Before I call on somebody else, I want to, again, force you guys to do that, 01:22:06.820 |
Every time I ask somebody, immediately what they'll do is they'll re-stare at the thing, 01:22:15.900 |
because they're trying to catch, in short words, everything in that text. 01:22:28.020 |
which means saying a lot with few words, right? 01:22:37.680 |
and words that actually have a boundary to include everything that you're doing. 01:22:47.500 |
It doesn't have to be, like, incredibly ingenious or creative, 01:22:50.980 |
but it just has to capture what he's trying to say, okay? 01:23:03.280 |
I wrote, God is my salvation, I shall not fear. 01:23:07.420 |
I broke it up in the next segment, verse 4 through 6, 01:23:11.100 |
seeking the blessings of the dwelling of God, right? 01:23:16.180 |
You guys notice how frequently the word of synonyms 01:23:19.680 |
related to his dwelling, his tabernacle, his tent came up, yes? 01:23:23.740 |
Then, there was so much yearning for God, his face. 01:23:30.740 |
and then finally, the challenge to wait on the Lord, okay? 01:23:36.300 |
Now, I give you this, not because my outlines are pristine, 01:23:43.360 |
but I give you this as a fruit of I sat there meditating and meditating, 01:23:47.800 |
thinking through what is the progression of this psalm. 01:23:56.540 |
Did you guys capture any kind of progression, any kind of movement, 01:24:02.260 |
any kind of thought process, or was it just a bunch of beautiful words, 01:24:19.240 |
You can pass if you really don't want to, but please don't pass. 01:24:27.040 |
Do you think there's any kind of progression in this psalm? 01:24:33.940 |
How about table right next to him, Grace Yellow? 01:24:53.040 |
So, she said, this is King David's just progression of thinking, 01:25:01.020 |
so these are all the things I'm going to ask him for, right? 01:25:07.080 |
You don't have to have one singular right answer sometimes, 01:25:10.380 |
in the sense that, now, just be cautious as I say that. 01:25:14.480 |
I know I've said there's one intended meaning of the author, 01:25:26.940 |
For sure, he's starting off with, this is God. 01:25:29.760 |
He is my light, my salvation, and my defense, right? 01:25:42.180 |
I prayed, I yearned, I, do you not see what I'm saying? 01:25:45.780 |
You could see almost a progression of his thought. 01:25:48.300 |
What's more, you can regularly think that a psalm in the Old Testament 01:25:53.740 |
is an experience, is a very personal, private experience, 01:25:57.940 |
and it's kind of someone like experiencing an incredible crisis in their life. 01:26:05.420 |
But you're talking to him after it's all happened, right? 01:26:10.000 |
He'll say, God is amazing, but oh my gosh, I was in despair. 01:26:17.740 |
He's taking you through his experience with God, right? 01:26:22.520 |
And that's why you have to kind of see psalms as a unit 01:26:25.940 |
because he's taking you through a journey of his experience, 01:26:29.340 |
very intimate experience, of pleading with God, 01:26:33.400 |
feeling like, oh my gosh, if God rejects me, I'm dead. 01:26:41.580 |
that it's a personal, very private experience. 01:26:57.460 |
Seeing the progression of the psalms is important. 01:26:59.680 |
Typically, it's not as random as it may appear. 01:27:03.340 |
All right, step three, identify the literary devices. 01:27:10.320 |
Okay, identify the literary devices of poetry. 01:27:20.320 |
And you go back to grammar and like, you know, English lit 01:27:24.600 |
and all that kind of stuff back when you were younger. 01:27:26.420 |
And you remember there are different tools used by the author 01:27:37.880 |
And clearly, parallelism is the most frequently used thing in poetry. 01:27:44.760 |
You have three lines, four lines, whatever it may be, 01:27:47.560 |
used right next to each other to get the point across. 01:27:55.140 |
you can see that the first line in verse one, 01:28:09.500 |
So synonymous parallelism is the most frequent thing that you'll see. 01:28:18.640 |
Look at the use of two similar and mimicking lines 01:28:30.980 |
God is the defender against all of these enemies. 01:28:34.280 |
And it just repeats the question rhetorically. 01:28:39.140 |
And you're supposed to sometimes answer that. 01:28:50.900 |
which I'm not going to go into for the sake of time, 01:28:53.540 |
but you don't actually have to know all of them. 01:29:02.080 |
Like, you know, the Lord blesses the path of the righteous. 01:29:06.560 |
It's like, oh, these lines come in with compare, contrast, compare, contrast, okay? 01:29:11.780 |
And so you'll see it, the juxtaposition of two very different thoughts, okay? 01:29:15.460 |
But I just want to highlight that as a literary tool for you common in poetry. 01:29:21.780 |
Next, the other thing we see are metaphors and analogies, okay? 01:29:26.820 |
So you guys know what they are, and I don't have to explain it, 01:29:31.020 |
but sometimes just give an example, make you feel like, okay, I understand. 01:29:39.440 |
So when we talk about the wrath of God, a text can say, 01:29:44.620 |
And you're supposed to picture it in your head and visualize, 01:29:49.700 |
The metaphor, it just skips it and goes more directly to say, 01:29:56.060 |
And a direct analogy is like, the storm of God punishes the wicked. 01:30:00.200 |
It just jumps to so quickly you picturing that storm, okay? 01:30:07.060 |
Again, going back to the first verse, even this idea is like, the Lord is my light. 01:30:13.880 |
It's very vivid in the imagery you're supposed to get, okay? 01:30:24.200 |
A hyperbole, you can just use or think as a conscious exaggeration for the sake of effect. 01:30:43.040 |
I mean, if you close your eyes and picture, have you ever cried so hard, 01:30:47.480 |
all the tears start running into your mouth, and the snot's coming down, 01:31:00.760 |
It's a figurative way for you to visualize how much agony and pain there is. 01:31:10.020 |
the evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh. 01:31:14.140 |
If you just kind of pass that up, you may just be like, drama boy, you know? 01:31:22.020 |
But then you start thinking and you start meditating. 01:31:24.960 |
It's like, why is King David talking like this? 01:31:31.600 |
But King David, you know, has experienced the kind of crazy fear and anxiety 01:31:39.500 |
of the king of the land trying to spear you to death while you're just a child. 01:31:46.440 |
He has experienced being chased, running away through the mountains. 01:31:53.520 |
He's experienced the usurping of his power by Absalom and his son. 01:31:58.240 |
He's experienced so many different scenarios. 01:32:00.340 |
It makes you wonder, like, wow, what is he talking about? 01:32:06.920 |
People are literally either jealous, so jealous they're willing to kill him. 01:32:11.240 |
They're embittered with him, and they want to take him. 01:32:17.740 |
So, as a next step, step four, if we see literary tools as a painting to visualize, 01:32:26.060 |
make sure you visualize the painting and meditate on the emotional experience of the author, right? 01:32:33.380 |
A theme for our interpretive methodology is we always want to place ourselves in their shoes. 01:32:42.280 |
We don't expect the scriptures to answer my question from my shoes, right? 01:32:47.060 |
Let me meditate and think about and visualize what's happening. 01:32:51.320 |
If we take a moment to visualize verses one, two, and three, I mean, what an incredible scene. 01:32:58.460 |
Like, he starts off with just like, I was surrounded. 01:33:13.200 |
And then, it almost makes you ask, like, how? 01:33:22.500 |
And then, it goes down to this scene, where if you picture this, 01:33:28.220 |
you see him asking and seeking, and what does he want most? 01:33:32.180 |
And you're supposed to imagine the dwelling place of God, his tabernacle, his beauty, his temple filling. 01:33:39.280 |
And from that, the repetitive word is, I'll conceal you, I'll hide you. 01:33:48.400 |
And once you picture it, my guess is you will remember it, right? 01:33:53.700 |
Once you picture it, my guess is you'll remember it. 01:33:56.860 |
So then, finally, as a step five, we, I said, you read it through in kind of detail first with poetry. 01:34:06.500 |
Take a step back, and you summarize the big movements, okay? 01:34:10.800 |
And then you look at the detail again, and you're like, oh, these are the brushes, the literary devices. 01:34:17.840 |
And then you step back, and then you start visualizing it, putting yourself into his shoes, experiencing his emotions. 01:34:23.660 |
And then, you kind of broaden out even more, and you summarize, these are the principles that I should take away, 01:34:31.480 |
not because it was, you know, touched me here, but rather, this is what David emphasizes, okay? 01:34:38.840 |
As a reminder, principles should always be biblically tied to the text. 01:34:44.160 |
If you give me a principle, I will immediately ask you, which verse? 01:34:50.500 |
Next, it should be universal to all, and it should be timeless truths. 01:35:03.380 |
This is the next section where he's crying out, hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. 01:35:12.280 |
And then he says, you said seek, so I sought your face. 01:35:15.660 |
And then he goes down this, like, boom, boom, boom, where he says, do not hide your face. 01:35:23.660 |
So, again, he is not actually specifically telling us what we should do. 01:35:34.400 |
He is giving us a sight into an intimate moment of brokenness before God, saying, God, I need you so much, right? 01:35:45.120 |
But then now we have to actually ask the question of, what are the principles that I should draw out from this? 01:35:52.280 |
Well, just in case you guys are confused, like, I don't know what he means by principle, you know? 01:36:01.800 |
Observation is you just looking at the text and saying, that's there. 01:36:10.320 |
Principle now goes to every Christian or every person who fears God. 01:36:19.820 |
Now, the first one I kind of did as a case in point what not to do. 01:36:25.040 |
David told God, don't hide your face from me. 01:36:36.460 |
God's people should seek his help in times of fear. 01:36:42.040 |
It's like, yeah, that's what this whole chapter is all about, okay? 01:36:45.820 |
Or contrasted to even our closer relatives, God will not abandon. 01:36:52.500 |
For even my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me up. 01:36:57.500 |
I mean, you could sit there and just meditate on that, like, what did David go through? 01:37:04.360 |
How many times have you been hurt by, not like circumstances, but just like people you cared for the most, disappointing you, right? 01:37:16.440 |
Principles kind of move in the direction of application as kind of like rules for life. 01:37:26.460 |
And the reason why that's important is because we're taking a look at his experience as a whole and then drawing the take-home, okay? 01:37:34.020 |
Now, I did highlight that one as what not to do because there was a time when I was listening to a pastor preach on Psalms, 01:37:50.820 |
Like, yes, David took us through his whole experience. 01:37:55.420 |
But, for example, you know that famous psalm I love to preach out of was the Psalm 73, the Asaph saying, like, oh, my gosh, the wicked are always so right, sorry, are always so blessed. 01:38:08.380 |
They're fat and they're arrogant and there's no consequences for them. 01:38:21.940 |
Again, our interpretive lens says just because you see it doesn't give permission. 01:38:28.780 |
There is a passage in Ecclesiastes that says, guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools for they do not know they are doing evil. 01:38:38.940 |
Do not be hasty in your word or impulsive in the thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. 01:38:45.200 |
For God is in heaven and you are on the earth. 01:38:53.800 |
We have, because of Christ, the open door to go boldly before our Father. 01:39:02.800 |
The Psalms has with it a very candid and honest depiction of the journey of faith that King David went through. 01:39:16.320 |
So, as a concluding thought, some closing comments on the chapter of Psalm 27. 01:39:22.360 |
I just want to say, man, if you think about, I asked the question, like, what is he driving home, you know? 01:39:29.140 |
If you think about the bulk of it, think about how he says, God is my salvation. 01:39:35.820 |
Earlier in my text I showed you, I highlighted all the red of the enemies, the hosts, and the people who are rising up against him. 01:39:54.580 |
But King David said, you know, there is one thing. 01:39:58.920 |
And this chapter is chock full of, I seek God's blessing. 01:40:12.640 |
I pray for his guidance and I wait on the Lord. 01:40:16.200 |
There is a powerful challenge for us asking whether in the midst of our troubles, in the midst of our pains, what is it that you're seeking for as the highest priority, as the solution? 01:40:30.660 |
And you and I know that the presence of God, the complete satisfaction of God is oftentimes the solution to every pain and trouble we grow through. 01:40:45.120 |
But for us, the nearness of our God is to us the satisfying good we seek for. 01:40:58.740 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you, God, for, again, your scripture text that does teach us. 01:41:05.420 |
It teaches us to point our eyes on the Lord above and beyond the circumstance, to know, Father God, that the answer to all of the various situations, 01:41:18.520 |
all of the complicated and troublesome times that we experience, God, ultimately, when we are with you, they fade away. 01:41:27.260 |
Help us, Father God, to learn what it means to be seeking, yearning, and praying and waiting for you. 01:41:32.780 |
I pray, Father God, that you would grant to us this humble patience and trust. 01:41:40.820 |
Okay, so as kind of like a summary point for poetry, again, as kind of the guidance of how to look at it, 01:41:51.680 |
poetry should go line by line, follow the movement of the experience, appreciate all the brushstrokes of literary devices, 01:42:00.040 |
visualize the author's experience, then summarize the principles emphasized by the author, okay? 01:42:07.300 |
Following that kind of pattern of narrow, broad, narrow, broad will help you avoid some of those kind of wayward interpretations. 01:42:14.800 |
Next week is going to be Passion Week, so please make sure that you are participating in all the various events. 01:42:21.540 |
The calendar is already, you know, set for what, you know, for the devotions and what time they start, so please make sure to look out for that. 01:42:30.660 |
But also, our encouragement is we are going to be posting up the verses correlated to the events of those days. 01:42:38.120 |
Our encouragement to you is follow along, you know, follow along all the movement of where Jesus is and how determined he was to go, 01:42:46.100 |
all the suffering he experienced, and then ultimately, too, the great accomplishment of redemption, okay? 01:42:52.000 |
Please know that we will be studying Proverbs chapter 3, verse 1 through 10 in the following week, 01:42:57.040 |
and then the article that we wrote for you guys is a little longer. 01:43:03.820 |
We're talking a lot about interpretive differences, 01:43:06.920 |
and there is two major camps that is the broadest, like, overarching camps. 01:43:14.000 |
When I talked about Old Testament prophecy, and when I talked about different elements of even, like, the law, 01:43:22.020 |
I referenced that there is a difference between covenant theology and dispensational theology. 01:43:27.400 |
That article will give you just a brief, brief summary on what Berean believes, 01:43:37.380 |
Hope you guys have a good, fruitful time in your groups.