From Psalm 56:

David was on the run, chased by Saul and by the Philistines. When David fears, he has a godly reflex response: when he fears, he trusts. When the ungodly are hateful, twisting his words, marking his steps, accusing and laying traps, they don’t do this because they just don’t know better. They do this on purpose, with evil intent. But David knew that God knew perfectly all that his enemies were doing, and all their steps and plans were known to Him. God’s omniscience was David’s comfort, and it should be ours as well. His omniscience is our comfort; it is for our good.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but doing what is right in spite of fear. “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee” (vs. 3). Our God counts our every tear. He tells us to cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us. David responds in faith: “this I know; for God is for me” (vs. 9).

This is the reflex we should have: when we fear, we trust; when we fear, we have faith. This means that fear leads to trust which leads to praise. Christ is our promise and Christ is our grace. So we look to Him and conclude that “God is for me.” “I will not fear what man can do unto me” (vs. 11).

Highlights from yesterday’s sermon on Psalm 52:

If we want to understand ourselves, our people, and our God, we must read the story that God is writing. We all recognize the bad guy in the movie who is snapping at his kids or criticizing his wife, all while telling himself that he is the real victim in the story and not the tyrant. He deludes himself and thinks he’s the good guy, but his kids and his wife see him as petty and malicious.

In this psalm the evil man is described as loving evil, lying, and deceit. Saul had become a persecutor who felt like he was the persecuted one. He felt sorry for himself. And Doeg lied to advance himself in Saul’s eyes and make David look bad. Four verbs describe what God will do to Doeg: destroy, take away, pluck out, and root out (vs. 5). But the righteous will see, fear, and laugh (vs. 6).

When the saints see God destroy His enemies, they are not to react with petty malice or a vain triumphalism; they fear God. Therefore, they can rejoice in a solemn and righteous way.

Seeing the story rightly helps us to know which character we are in the story. Are we a Saul, a Doeg, or a David? David can laugh because God will destroy the one who boasts in his mischief. Likewise, when we see those who put their trust in riches and strengthen themselves  in wickedness, we can laugh.  “Isn’t that the guy who said he didn’t need God?”

Saul did not know who he was in the story. Doeg, no doubt, thought he was the good guy. But David read his story right.

Yesterday my husband finished the book of Romans, and what a rich wrap-up it was! I’ll just select one point that I particularly appreciated, but it’s hard to choose. (You’ll have to listen to the sermon yourself!)

God made us to be small creatures, but He did not make us petty creatures. When Christ became a man, He humbled Himself, but His humility wasn’t in the fact that He became small; it was because He took on our sins.

We, on the other hand, turn small things into petty things. We focus on rules about petty things rather than seeing the big picture. We get all worked up over mud tracked in on the carpet, and that is a petty thing! We let petty things become enormous things.

The gospel sheds light on all the small, ordinary things in our lives and transforms them into extraordinary things. And so we can glory in the mundane. Quoting Thomas Howard, we can find “splendor in the ordinary.”

There are big things afoot in the universe, so we ought to look up! We are going to live forever! When we stare at our feet and the ground under them, we miss what is really going on around us, and we get wrapped up in petty things. Instead, we need to look up! We need to quit looking down and start looking up to Christ, for that is where our life is hidden. God does not want us to settle for petty things or get submerged in the petty things, caught up in shuffling our stuff around. God created us for so much more.

Nothing like the book of Romans to lift us up out of ourselves!

My husband has been preaching through Romans for the past year or so, and we are closing in on the finish line. Yesterday was chapter 16, verses 17-20, and here are a few highlights.

Paul tells the brethren to avoid those who cause division. In other words, divide from the divisive, which at first glance may seem inconsistent. But God’s way to peace is by crushing the head of the serpent, not by calling for a group hug with the serpent.

We are to be simple when it comes to evil and wise when it comes to good.  When it comes to the devil’s kindergarten class, we are to be the kind of students who can’t figure out how to hold the crayon. We are to avoid evil with a very simple revulsion. But when it comes to learning righteousness, we are to be in graduate school because we have asked God to bruise the serpent’s head in us.

We are to keep it simple: love God, hate sin, read the Bible, love our neighbor, and trust in Jesus. Love the good people and fight the bad people, just like God does.

I love the way my husband writes, so I thought I’d just post up one of his good ones from a recent post over on BlogMablog:

“We are born casting sidelong glances, and worldliness is a sin that depends upon the sidelong glance. The devil nurtures the sidelong glance like it was his own precious child, which it actually is, and whenever the Holy Spirit comes upon one, He kills it dead.”

From the sermon on Romans 14:1-4, on May 30.

The weaker brother is tempted to judge the stronger brother, and the stronger brother is tempted to despise the weaker brother. Paul says the weaker brother only eats veggies, so he is tempted to judge and shake his head at his meat-eating brother. And the brother who is grilling steaks on the grill and drinking beer is tempted to despise and look down on the brother who sticks with his veggie burger and lemonade. Both men are breaking the law of love. Love trumps everything. So the judgmental brother gets cranky, but he is called to receive his brother. The one who is despising the weaker brother wants to set him straight, but Paul wants him to receive his weaker brother.

There is always a deeper right than being right. God may not care about whether we eat alfalfa sprouts or not, but He does care about the judging and the despising we do. The more I have thought about this, the more I see how often we can fall into one ditch or the other: either looking down on the weak or passing judgment on the strong. Love trumps everything.