Do Promises in the Psalms Apply to Me?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Pastor John, in episode 101, we looked at Jeremiah 29 11,
00:00:07.980 | which is a very popular verse for a lot of Christians.
00:00:10.680 | And one listener asks if the promised blessings to Israel
00:00:12.940 | can rightly be applied to the Christian life,
00:00:14.760 | and if so, how?
00:00:16.280 | As a follow up question to that episode,
00:00:18.340 | how do the blessings promised to the psalmist
00:00:20.860 | apply to us today, or do they at all?
00:00:23.460 | - This morning, Tony, I was reading in Psalm 18.
00:00:28.060 | In fact, I read the whole Psalm, it's a long Psalm,
00:00:30.140 | 50 verses, and the question that rose is,
00:00:35.140 | what does this have to do with me?
00:00:37.540 | Because this is really, really about David.
00:00:41.580 | This Psalm 18 has, I think,
00:00:44.380 | the longest introduction of any Psalm.
00:00:47.460 | It goes like this, "To the choir master,
00:00:49.420 | a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord,
00:00:51.680 | who addressed the words of this Psalm to the Lord
00:00:54.460 | on the day when the Lord rescued him
00:00:56.320 | from the hand of all his enemies
00:00:58.740 | and from the hand of Saul, he said,"
00:01:00.860 | now that's a long introduction.
00:01:02.980 | So we know this is really about David,
00:01:05.780 | it's about his situation, and when you read it,
00:01:09.860 | it's just full of God's salvation for David
00:01:13.740 | from his enemies, and then it ends that way.
00:01:16.980 | "Great salvation he brings to his king
00:01:20.100 | and shows steadfast love to his anointed,
00:01:22.740 | to David and his offspring forever."
00:01:27.240 | So I got finished reading it, and I was happy for David,
00:01:31.240 | and I know that Jesus is the true David,
00:01:37.000 | the final David, and the final king,
00:01:39.320 | and therefore I'm celebrating the triumphs
00:01:41.920 | of Messiah as well, but I wondered,
00:01:44.240 | can I take these verses?
00:01:47.440 | I mean, here they are, I mean, things like,
00:01:50.440 | "He's my strength, he's my rock, he's my fortress,
00:01:53.500 | my deliverer, my shield, he saves me from my enemies,
00:01:57.180 | he brings me out into a broad place,
00:01:59.660 | he rescues me and he delights in me,
00:02:02.100 | and he's a light and my lamp, and he lights my darkness,
00:02:07.100 | I can run against a troop, I can leap over a wall,
00:02:12.220 | your right hand supports me, you delivered me
00:02:15.360 | from the strife of the peoples."
00:02:16.940 | So when I read that, can I say, "Yes, God does that
00:02:21.940 | for John Piper because it says so here,"
00:02:25.760 | or do I have to say, "Well, yeah, it says so here,
00:02:28.120 | but really I have to go over and find some nice text
00:02:31.440 | in Matthew to find God's care for me."
00:02:34.920 | And here's the thing I'd love to share,
00:02:38.420 | 'cause God just did it for me this morning
00:02:41.200 | in a very precious way, when it says at the end,
00:02:45.240 | "Great salvation he brings to his king
00:02:49.420 | and shows steadfast love," and that's what I want every day,
00:02:53.180 | I want God to love me in a steadfast moment-by-moment way,
00:02:56.900 | and I wanna be assured of that from the Bible
00:02:59.500 | in a warranted true way, I don't wanna just make it up,
00:03:03.500 | and he says he does that to David and his offspring.
00:03:07.180 | And when I read offspring, I thought,
00:03:10.860 | okay, is that just Christ, is that just the line of kings
00:03:15.860 | who have a right to the throne,
00:03:18.640 | or is more going on there for me than I might think?
00:03:23.640 | And the Lord brought back to my mind,
00:03:29.320 | 'cause I worked on this years ago in a pretty concerted way
00:03:32.960 | when I preached on Isaiah 55, goodness,
00:03:34.820 | must have been 10 or 15 years ago, I don't know,
00:03:37.480 | the first verses of Isaiah 55,
00:03:40.820 | and a lot of people know these verses,
00:03:42.420 | they're really precious,
00:03:43.620 | "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters."
00:03:48.000 | So now, when I read that, I think, everyone who thirsts?
00:03:50.740 | Okay, I'm there, and I'm thirsty, so this is about me,
00:03:54.980 | he who has no money, that's me, come buy and eat,
00:03:58.900 | come buy wine and milk without money, without price,
00:04:02.420 | so this is incredibly broad, you don't have to be a Jew,
00:04:05.780 | you don't have to be smart, all you have to be
00:04:07.960 | is hungry for me, come to me,
00:04:10.760 | why do you spend your money for that which is not bread
00:04:13.700 | and your labor for what doesn't satisfy?
00:04:16.140 | Listen to me, incline your ear to me, come to me,
00:04:18.740 | and here's the promise,
00:04:20.300 | I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
00:04:24.260 | my steadfast, sure love for David.
00:04:32.120 | I thought, okay, I think what you're promising me there
00:04:36.760 | is that if I'm just a hungry, thirsty, bankrupt,
00:04:41.760 | needy person willing to turn to God,
00:04:45.840 | he will make a covenant with me,
00:04:48.080 | and the covenant is his love for David,
00:04:52.080 | which is absolutely stunning promise,
00:04:55.320 | because what it says is, all the promises I make to David,
00:04:59.640 | all that verse 50 of Psalm 18,
00:05:02.080 | the steadfast, sure love that I have for David
00:05:05.240 | and to his offspring is yours, because you've come to me,
00:05:10.240 | I've grafted you into that,
00:05:12.400 | and then you can go over to the New Testament,
00:05:15.640 | where all that's worked out for us and how that works,
00:05:19.140 | but the truth of it was really there in Isaiah 55, 3
00:05:22.920 | and Psalm 18, 50, and in the New Testament,
00:05:27.040 | if we endure with him, we will reign with him,
00:05:31.320 | we will sit on his throne, Revelation 3, 21,
00:05:34.320 | and so you start to feel the incredible implications
00:05:37.960 | of being the offspring of David
00:05:42.960 | and having the covenant with David made to us.
00:05:47.240 | So what God did for me this morning
00:05:51.080 | in regard to Psalm 18, Tony, was really quite precious,
00:05:55.560 | and I would just commend the Psalms to all of our listeners
00:06:00.560 | that they might enjoy the way they really are meant
00:06:05.120 | to be taken for God's people.
00:06:09.480 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:06:10.320 | Those sermons on Isaiah 55 are titled,
00:06:12.400 | "The Great Invitation," and they were preached
00:06:15.040 | in the months of July and August of 1998.
00:06:16.920 | There's a total of five sermons in the series,
00:06:18.920 | which cover Isaiah 55, 1 through 13,
00:06:21.640 | and they can all be found
00:06:22.800 | in the desiringgod.org sermon archive,
00:06:25.320 | along with 1,500 other sermons, all for free.
00:06:28.720 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:06:29.640 | Thanks for listening.
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