Psalm 71 - A Psalm For Golden Oldies

Well, it seems like it has not quite been that long, but we are now completing tomorrow Book 2 of Psalms. So we are in Psalm 71 today.

Psalm 72 is the last psalm in Book 2 of Psalms. And it's been honestly just a great study. It's been an encouragement to my heart.

It's been a challenge to me. I hope it's been to you as well. We're going to finish out this week with Thursday and Friday, going through the Book of Haggai, which is only two chapters.

And so we're going to be looking at that on Thursday and Friday. But today we are in Psalm 71. There is no inscription on this psalm, unlike many of the ones that we have looked at.

But the psalm says this, Yahweh, I seek refuge in You. Let me never be disgraced. In Your justice, rescue and deliver me.

Listen closely to me and save me. Be a rock of refuge for me, where I can always go. Give the command to save me, for You are my rock and fortress.

Deliver me, my God, from the power of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and oppressive. For You are my hope, Yahweh God, my confidence from my youth. I have leaned on You from birth.

You took me from my mother's womb. My praise is always about You. I am like a miraculous sign to many, and You are my strong refuge.

My mouth is full of praise and honor to You all day long. Don't discard me in my old age. As my strength fails, don't abandon me.

For my enemies talk about me, and those who spy on me plot together, saying God has abandoned him. Chase him and catch him, for there is no one to rescue him. God, do not be far from me.

My God, hurry to help me. May my adversaries be disgraced and destroyed. May those who intend to harm me be covered with disgrace and humiliation.

But I will hope continually and will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell about your righteousness and your salvation all day long, though I cannot sum them up. I come because of the mighty acts of Yahweh God.

I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone. God, you have taught me from my youth, and I still proclaim your wondrous works. Even while I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me.

While I proclaim your power to another generation, your strength to all who are to come, your righteousness reaches the heights, God. You who have done great things, God, who is like you.

You caused me to experience many troubles and misfortunes, but you will revive me again. You will bring me up again, even from the depths of the earth. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again.

Therefore, I will praise you with a harp for your faithfulness, my God. I will sing to you with a lyre, Holy One of Israel. My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you because you have redeemed me.

Therefore, my tongue will proclaim your righteousness all day long, for those who intend to harm me will be disgraced and confounded. Man, what a great psalm. And here it's bringing together a lot of the same themes that we've seen throughout Book 2.

So I won't have to go into like super detail on some of those, but let's kind of take this piece by piece and see what God has for us today.

Okay, first we can see David taking refuge in God, asking for him to not be disgraced, asking for rescue and deliverance. And it is because, verse number 2, of God's justice.

Now, when we think of justice, we can have a lot of different thoughts in mind. Some people, they might be thinking social justice. Other people might be thinking justice on other people.

But God's justice is, frankly, it's universal, that everyone is going to experience God's justice in some way. There is no one for whom God's justice is not in play.

Certainly, as we think about the eternal destination of those that have rejected Christ, that there is God's justice that will be poured out on them, and that will be everlasting. There won't come a time where God's justice will not be there.

As we think about even those that do accept Christ, is it just for God to forgive some people and for other people to not experience the forgiveness of God? And the answer is yes, because of the justice that was poured out on Jesus.

And so everyone that, if you will, places themselves behind Jesus, they will never experience that justice because it was all taken by Christ.

But for those that refuse to be with Jesus, to claim him as their Savior, for those that do not want him as their Lord and do not want God's forgiveness, that is only accepted, that is only possible through Jesus' work.

If we try some other way, we will experience God's justice forever and forever. And those of us that are saved, we are recipients of God's justice, that because Christ took it, we do not have to.

His justice was still executed on sin, but the sin was taken from our accounts and placed on to Christ. And what a wonderful truth that that is.

Here David is asking for this, here earthly, temporary justice, that he says, God, you know what people are saying about me. You know what people are plotting against me. You know what they're trying to do against me.

And God, you know what's right. And you have a timetable in which you will choose to act. And he says, God, would you rescue and deliver me?

Would you bring some of that justice now? Certainly, as we think about eternity, there will be justice. But here on earth, there are times of justice where God makes sins that people have committed.

He brings it to light. You can think of, frankly, even over the past 10 years, many people that in this world's estimation were great and powerful and rich and talented. They were found out for the crimes that they had committed against others.

And many of them that paid with their lives, either in prison or in different circumstances, that God is not only just in eternity, but He can bring justice now. He doesn't always choose to within this life. Again, He's an eternal God.

And so as He sees everything that ever has been or ever will be and everything that currently is, He is not nearly as worried about the timetable as we are, because He knows a hundred million years from now, those that will still be experiencing

justice. And so we go, God, like, why isn't this happening within a year or two years or 50 years? And He's looking out 300 billion, trillion years into the future. And He's going, don't worry, your timetable doesn't have to be mine.

It doesn't mean that evil wins. In fact, evil will never win because of the justice of God, that He will do what is right.

Verse number three, David here echoing again the same sentiments that he would even in Psalm 31 of God being a rock of refuge for him, a shelter that he can always go, just as he used to when he was running from Saul, that he's hiding in these caves

and the rocks and animals won't get him there and the elements won't get him there and Saul won't find him there. The Philistines won't find him. It's just a place of safety and warmth and refuge, and that is what God is for us.

When all of this world brings trouble, we can hide in the refuge of the Lord. He says, give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

He says, deliver me, my God, from the power of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and oppressive. This is a prayer request that we can pray. God, I know this world is imperfect.

I know this world's kingdoms are imperfect. I know my boss or my whoever is not holy, is not just like you are. And so God, would you deliver me from these circumstances where I am dealing with wrong from others?

What's the answer to that? Do we try and physically fight and attack others to try and bring justice? No, this happens through calling on God for this work to occur.

You can think even of David and Saul's interactions, that David, even when he had multiple opportunities to kill Saul, he did not take it because he said, I am not going to touch someone that God put in this position. He says, the Lord's anointed.

And certainly, we need to have a mindset. We're here in 2024. In just a couple of months, we've got the election coming up.

The response of a Christian should not be ever, hey, this election didn't go the way that I wanted it to go. What they're saying isn't what I want them to say.

And so I'm going to, you know, in using Bible terminology, I'm gonna pick up the sword and make it so that it is this way. That's not how Christians act.

I think of Jesus, the one who tried by the Jews, tried by Pilate, tried by Herod, and each one of them acting in injustice and sin and wrong, that even though Jesus had some followers that did want to take up the sword, one of his followers was Simon

the Zealot. And you have Peter that even cut off people's ears to try and save Jesus. It wasn't that Jesus didn't have the power or the opportunity to pick up the sword to end all of this world's wrongs. He said, it's not going to happen that way.

It's going to happen as we lay down our lives even as he did. That takes humility. That's not this world's wisdom.

This world's wisdom says you conquer, and that is how the world is won. But Jesus says, if you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. And we are not to be those that engage in fighting and violence and wickedness.

We are to be the peacemakers. We are to be the children of God. We are to be the ones that when slapped on the right cheek, give the other cheek also.

If we are unjustly compelled to go one mile, we sacrificially, lovingly go a second mile for others. So we ought to hear call on God to be the one that brings down kingdoms.

And I think we talked about that a couple of times over the past few days or weeks. Verse number five, he says, You are my hope, Yahweh God, my confidence from my youth.

David here had confidence in God that though the circumstances were saying, I don't know if God's doing a whole lot right now, that David knew God is my confidence. I know that he can act.

I know that if he wants to deliver, I know that if this is on his timetable to rescue and save, that he will do it. Because my confidence is in him. I've seen him defeat the lion.

I've seen him defeat the bear. I've seen him defeat the giant. I've seen him defeat Saul.

And so I know that whenever God wants, he will accomplish his will on the earth. Who is your confidence in? Do you trust that God will take care of America or Maryland or your family?

Do you believe God? Are you acting like it? Are you talking like it?

Are you trying to say that your personal political candidate, like that's the person that's really going to save America, the one that's going to make all things right, the one that's going to prosper you and benefit you?

Do you think it comes through a leader or do you think it comes through the God who places our leader into their position? Let's have confidence in God. From verse 6, I have leaned on you from birth.

You took me from my mother's womb. He realizes that God has always been with him even before he knew the Lord. He says, my praise is always about you.

He says, if I've got the opportunity to talk to someone about all the good things that have happened in my life, it's not because of me, it's not because of how wise or strong I was or all these circumstances, it was God.

This past Wednesday from when I recorded this after music practice, we took probably just about 20-25 minutes and rehearsed some of the amazing things that God has done in our lives. That time of praise was so beneficial.

It was challenging to go, I can trust in God because He is always working. Even behind the scenes when we don't know what He's doing, His kindness is always there for us.

Verse number 7 and 8, David says, I'm like a miraculous sign to many, and you are my strong refuge. People go, whoa, there's no way that David should be alive except that the Lord is with him.

Verse number 8, my mouth is full of praise and honor to you. All day long. I saw someone post something earlier this week that I thought, man, it was just a convicting thought for me.

So the person was saying, you know, sometimes we can have, you know, different signs or things in our yards. We can put specific bumper stickers on our cars.

We can put little things on our profile pictures or whatever on Facebook or Instagram and say, hey, I really love this. I'm for this. This is what I'm passionate about.

And they asked if, in particular for yard signs, if the only thing that, if there's only one thing that people will learn about you from encountering, you know, your vehicle or your lawn or something like that, will it be that you are a Christian, a

child of God, a believer in Jesus, or will it be, hey, here's, you know, maybe my politician, or here's the sports team that I love? Certainly, it's completely fine to have different hobbies and things that we love and enjoy and are passionate about.

But if people can only know one thing about us, then let that one thing be that we love Christ and that we would love for them to know Him as well.

Then I love, I'm going to kind of summarize here a little bit just due to some time, but from verses 9 and on, here David appears to be in some of the later years of his life. And he says, don't discard me in my old age.

As my strength fails, don't abandon me. Then he talks about everything that his enemies are trying to do to bring him down.

But he says, God, even when I no longer have this like strength or ability to defend myself like I once did, he says, I'm going to hope, verse number 14, in you continually, I will praise you more and more.

He says, my mouth will tell about your righteousness and your salvation all day long. Then I love that phrase, though I cannot sum them up.

Here, David says, I could talk forever and ever and ever about your righteousness, about how you've saved me, about how you will save me, how you've promised to save your people and about how good you are.

And I can't tally it up as I think about my life and the lives of those I love and the life of my nation. I can't even begin to compile everything that God has done for us. I love the old song, Count Your Many Blessings, Name Them One By One.

Count Your Many Blessings, See What God Has Done. Count Your Blessings, Name Them One By One. And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Then I love verses 17 and 18. And I know for our church, we've got quite a few people that are like 55 and older and all the way up. I know I've got several of my congregants that are in their 90s.

And I love verses 17 and 18. I know this would be true for many of those in my congregation, but I want this to be true of my life. It says, God, you have taught me from my youth, and I still proclaim your wondrous works.

He says, you taught me these things when I was young, and I'm still talking about it now. He says, even while I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me. Will I proclaim your power to another generation, your strength to all who are to come?

Here David says, I don't want what you've given me to end with me. I want to pass it on to others. I want it to go to the next generation.

And God, will you help me to not abandon my love for you? And God, you don't abandon me. And I think that as we age should always be our hope.

God, I want to pass on the baton to this next generation. We can get frustrated with younger people. We can go, they don't have the manners, they don't have the vocabulary, they don't have the work ethic, they don't have this or that.

And we can bemoan the next generation or we can pass on the faith. And we only have so many words that we're able to give to others, only so many words that they might hear. Let us wisely steward our words to pass on the faith.

We can pass on tons of stuff, but let what is most important and most central to our souls, let that be what we give to others.

Verse 22, he talks about praising God with instruments, something that we've talked about often over the course of this book.

And then verse 24, he ends, Therefore, my tongue will proclaim your righteousness all day long, for those who intend to harm me will be disgraced and confounded.

The one who most intends to harm us, Satan, the devil, he is disgraced and confounded, rendered ineffectual in everything that he wanted to do at Calvary, that Jesus has crushed the head of the serpent.

He invites us to jump in and help in that Satan stomping, serpent stomping, enjoyment activity.

So, I want to encourage you today, have joy, praise the Lord because he's good, he's been good to you, he's been good all of your life, he will be good to you until the day that you die, he's given you something to pass on to others, and he has made

it so that you will never be disgraced and confounded or truly ultimately harmed because Satan has been defeated, and if you live, you live for Jesus, if you die, you are with Jesus forever. What a wonderful life is ours, and this is a praise worthy

God that we can exalt together. Thanks for tuning in today. Hope that be an encouragement to you. Tomorrow we finish out Book 2 of Psalms.