This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:01] One of the great things, the enjoyable things about living in Southern California is our proximity to this place known as the happiest place on Earth. Any other Disney enthusiasts in the room with me this this morning? Disneyland is here in Orange County. And very exciting. And it's it's been exciting for us even to get to go to Disneyland a few times. And, you know, so we're just introducing our kids to this wondrous place of Disneyland. And we went there last week and we had the opportunity. When you have young kids like I do. You're window of time at Disneyland is kind of limited, right?

[00:00:46] The whole like get there when it opens. Stay till it closes. Thing doesn't really work with two year olds as much. And so we've been kind of like doing little things here and there and, you know, slowly but surely kind of experiencing most of the things that that are there to do at Disneyland. And so this last week, we came in and evening and we got to do something really special, which was watch the fireworks show. I mean, that is an impressive fireworks show. I mean, that is no small production. That is epic. And it's so epic that if you've been there around that time that really everything in Disneyland kind of comes to a stop once the fireworks happen. Right. The music is being broadcast all over the park and it's just no matter where you are. It seems like your attention is drawn to the center, to the fireworks. Right. And they're they're kind of above everything else. And you get to see them. And if you've ever taken your kids to Disneyland, like I went to Disneyland as a kid. But I think it's actually more fun to watch my kids experience Disneyland than even like thinking back to when I was doing it as a kid right there. My my two young twin boys are just looking up at these fireworks and they're just like, oh, this is awesome. And you could tell, like, one of them starts dancing. It's just like this special time for us as a as a family. Now, if you've been around our church for any number of time, you know that there is something that we are committed to continually praying for at our church. And that is revival. Right.

[00:02:19] And I think even the fireworks metaphor is a good example of what we are actually praying for God to do. Right. That we want God to make himself known in such a way that many, many people are looking to him, that he is setting his name high, that it's being hallowed, that it's being lifted up, set into a category all its own right, that we long to see sinners saved by Jesus Christ so much that we are continually praying for and we're praying for specific people to get safe. And we love to see it so much. And God is glorified through it so much that we want to see numbers of people come to faith in repentance even at the same time.

[00:02:58] Right. We would love it to see hundreds of people turning away from their life of sin and putting their trust in Jesus Christ. And we have committed to pray for it. And it even seems that this psalm are Psalm of the day that we read today. We are actually going to preach from the song of the day today. So open your Bibles up again to Psalm 57. We've been going through the Psalms and reading through them and even kind of having a conversation online on our church Web site and talking about them interpersonally with other people. And today we have gotten to Psalm 57 being our Psalm of the Day, and we're gonna just focus on it for the rest of the time in our sermon.

[00:03:37] And if you remember, as we read it earlier in the service, there's kind of a chorus, there's kind of a refrain that is repeated that I think kind of ties this whole psalm together and it's in versus five and 11, the same thing that's repeated two times where David asks, be exalted. Oh, God, above the heavens, let your glory be over all the earth. Right, that we want God to be lifted so high that his name to be known so clearly that it's like you can't ignore him when you're at Disneyland and the fireworks start, you know that it's going down. Right. Even if you're trying to, like, be those people that go on rides during the fireworks, it's actually a pretty good strategy. I like those people. It's like you're in line, but you're really like looking at the fireworks as you're walking in line. Or even if you're trying to get out of the park, you can't help but notice it.

[00:04:27] Right. You can't ignore what's happening. And that's what we're praying for. We're praying for God to do such a work of salvation that even people that don't love God are taking note of what he is doing, what he is accomplishing. And that is the prayer that David ask God to in this song, that his name will be lifted high. And that's what we want. We want in Huntington Beach and SEAL Beach in Westminster and all of the one point two million people that live within a 20 minute drive from our church. We want them to know our God and we want. Them to know that Jesus saves. And that he died to save them from their sins.

[00:05:05] That's what we want to proclaim as a church together. And we want that to make such an impact on our community that everybody's talking about it.

[00:05:14] And I think if we think about what's going on right now, we have to agree that we haven't seen it happen yet. We have seen God do great things. We have seen God save people. But we would like to see more. That's what we're praying for here at our church.

[00:05:29] And I think that this psalm really gives us some really hopeful things to think about as we think about that continued prayer for vibe. We have people who are saying, hey, I'm going to continue to pray for revival until I see it happen here at our church. And I think if we want to see that revival happen, if that's something that we're united in praying for, this psalm has got a lot to teach us about how it's going to happen. Right. We see that that's kind of the key theme of the psalm. Is God's glory being lifted by God's name being set apart.

[00:06:00] But it doesn't start off that way. It starts off very personally. Look with me in verse one.

[00:06:06] Right. David cries out and he says, Be merciful to me. Oh, God, be merciful to me. For in you, my soul takes refuge in the shadow of your wings. I will take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by. Now, the context of this psalm is when we'll get into it even a little bit more later that David is hiding from King Saul, who is searching him out to destroy him in this song. And he's writing this psalm even while that is happening. And you can see some of the details up there right at the beginning of the psalm that it's to the choirmaster according to Do Not Destroy. I really want Ryan Pierce to learn that tune so we can get some songs singing to that. But it's a mic Tom of David or a song of David when he fled from saw in the cave. Right. At the circumstances that are going on or not. Hey, widespread revival is happening right now. It's David. My life is actually I'm being hunted by the king of Israel at this point. And David's cry is be merciful to me. Oh, God be merciful to me. And he talks about finding refuge and even uses the illustration of in the shadow of your wings. I will take refuge until the storms of destruction pass by. Right. That David is comparing himself to like a little chicken who is finding like comfort and church and shelter under like mama chicken. Right. That is not the most manly of metaphors. And if you realize that David is actually kind of a man's man, like David is as macho as it gets. Right. That that David, you know, he could have been having a lot of confidence in himself, that he could have been saying, well, hey, I I've killed lions, I've killed bears, not tigers, but. Oh, my right. Like, I've killed the giant, the philistine Goliath. I chopped off his head and then started walking around with it in my hand. People have sung songs about me saying David has killed his ten thousands. Right. David actually is very, very humble in this song. He could have been saying, hey, Saul's coming after me. I got this. That's not the way he he thinks about himself at all. Right.

[00:08:21] If we're going to see revival. Right. And really what we're what we're praying for in revival is we're not praying for God to get better. Do you guys understand that? Right. That guy that David is not saying when he's saying God be exalted above the heavens and let your glory be over all the earth. He's not saying, hey, God, if you could just improve yourself just a little bit more, just a little bit higher than you'd be high enough and everybody would take notice of you. Right. That we we really understand that God is perfect. Right. God is not getting more glorious. Right. As he goes along, he's not improving. He existed in full and complete glory even before the world was created. Right. So David is not saying, God, if you could just kind of step it up a little bit, if you could just kind of get better. He he's basically asking he's saying, hey, I want people to acknowledge who you are. I want people to see you high and lifted up. He's not saying you can do it. God, he's saying God. I want people to start treating you as who you really are. I want people to start seeing that God is high and exalted and glorious and that they would worship is greatness and adore him. Right. Like, right. Don't even a few versus just so we can make sure that we're clear on this Psalm 81, another psalm that David writes, he says in the first verse, he says, Oh, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth? You have said your glory above the heavens. Right. David is not asking God to do a new thing. Right. God is already glorious. Right. He is already worthy of praise in Isaiah. Chapter six, verse three. When Isaiah has this vision of of God exalted in the temple and the creatures are crying out. And they called the. Another saying, holy, holy, holy is the lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. So when David is praying for revival, he's saying, God, I want everyone. I want a wide number of people over all the Earth to see you and to acknowledge who you are. But he starts off by asking for refuge, asking for mercy. And I really think that if we're gonna see revival happen, if we're gonna see God answer that prayer request on a large scale, it's going to start where it's going to start here in the church.

[00:10:34] Right. If we want to see revival happen, we're going to write down a few things that I think would go along with that. And the first one, write it down on your notes that if we want to see revival happen, I need to be a revived person. I need to be a revived person. I know if you realize this, but the revival's that we've seen even happen in church history, they start by people who are already going to the church.

[00:10:57] Right. Who already know some things about the Bible, really being quick and really being stirred up, really being excited about who God is and what God can do. And I think that perhaps the greatest hindrance to revival in our day and age might be the lives of professing Christians.

[00:11:16] You realize that like the thing that might stop everyone from seeing God as the glorious and exalted God that he is, is the way that people who call themselves Christians live. Unbelievers can hear us talk about God, right? They can hear us say things like, God is glorious. He's majestic. He's worthy of worship. But do they see it in our life? Do they see that we actually believe that? Did when they look at you, do they say that's a person that's revived, like they've got this life, this spiritual life, like really pulsing through their veins? It's just like losing out of them all the time that something's going on with that person. They have joy in these difficult circumstances that I can't quite comprehend how that's even possible.

[00:12:02] What is going on there? Right. That they seem like they've got something worth living for. Like I'm trying to decide whether my life is worth living and they've got something that's really worth living for. Right. They get excited about God and the Bible, like they get excited about an ancient book, like how does that happen?

[00:12:21] They can't stop talking about it. There's a power that is showing up in their life that I've never experienced anything like that before in my life, that really revival where it's going to start, it's going to start in the church. It's going to start when God's people really get fired up about our God. And we we put our confidence not in ourselves, but in God.

[00:12:41] Right. That's what it's going to look like to be a revived person, David. Here is is in the midst of some pretty rough circumstances. Right. People are hunting him down to kill him. But yet there is this confidence that he has. Do you see it? I cry out to God most time, verse two to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me. He will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness. Right. What what David is saying is not. Hey, I got this. Saw his armies. He's got thousand more guys than I do. No problem.

[00:13:17] That's not what he's saying at all. He is really jettisoning all his confidence. Write that down on your notes that the first the first to ash under point number one, if we're gonna be a revived person, we have to have a lack of self-confidence. And if you're going to be a revived person that that God's gonna use to really see his glory set on high for other people to take notice of, you can't be confident in yourself. That's not something that you have the power to do. Even turn over to Matthew, Chapter five with me.

[00:13:50] Matthew, Chapter five, which is on page eight hundred and nine. If you've got one of our Bibles, let's go and see Jesus talk about this at the very beginning of probably the most famous sermon of all time, the Sermon on the Mount. Right. That Jesus is is talking here. And there's this section that's commonly known as the Beatitudes, where Jesus kind of repeats the same phrase at the beginning of a number of different lines. And it says in Matthew, chapter five, verse two.

[00:14:17] And he opened his mouth and taught them saying blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. And then he continues right there that weren't blessed, right hashtag blessed. We could really call that happy. Or you could even say revived. Right. Full of life and vitality and joy is the person who is poor in spirit.

[00:14:43] Is the person who mourns? Does that seem like a contradiction to you? What is Jesus saying? They're like, what's this weird deal like? We're happy when we're sad kind of thing that Christians should just kind of mope around all the time. That's not what God is saying it all. Is that really to be a right revived person? You've got to be spiritually alive and you're not spiritually alive until you realize that you're spiritually dead right before you get saved through Jesus Christ.

[00:15:09] That that's what she's talking about here is saying that when people look at God and they see how holy he is and they see that they're his his standard for acceptance of people is not just them being better than other people, but actually them being perfect people to be acceptable before him to be allowed into his presence. When I look at that God and that standard, I realized how spiritually bankrupt I am, right.

[00:15:33] That I have nothing that that really merits me. Entrance into God's presence. Right. To have a relationship with him. I can't pay that price. I can't pay that entry fee with all of my good works because I have fallen so far short of God's standard of perfection. Right. And when I see that when I see that that on my own, even though I could kind of look around to some other people and be like, wow, maybe I'm better than that person. When I compare myself to God, I've got nothing.

[00:16:03] I am spiritually bankrupt. And when someone really realizes that it causes them to more.

[00:16:10] It causes them to weep.

[00:16:13] It causes them to actually search for some means of attaining a righteousness that they don't have that that can make them acceptable to God. That's what Jesus says down in verse six. He says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

[00:16:33] Like, if you're going to be a revived person, you've got to be alive spiritually and you're not alive spiritually until you realize that without Christ you're dead. Have you realized that about yourself? Have you come to the spot where you've really realized your your brokenness that like before God, you can't make yourself acceptable to him, no amount of good deeds that you could ever try to do whatever like make you OK with God unless he sent his son Jesus Christ to die in your place, to save you from your sins and to give you life.

[00:17:04] Is that happened to you? I really think we've got so many people in the church that they're here and they think that they're good enough. And that's really keeping the revival from spreading because we kind of feel like we've already got what we need. We don't need anything else. We don't need to be saved from our sin by other people out there. They may not be as bad as they could be. But overall, they're pretty good, right.

[00:17:25] We need to abandon all amount, any amount of confidence in and of ourselves. Go back to Psalm 57 with me, and that's what we see David do, right? He had done some great things for the Lord. But still, what he's crying out to the Lord for is mercy. He's saying, God, I don't deserve anything good from the Lord. What I deserve from the Lord is punishment. Someone's coming to hunt me down and kill me. I deserved to die. I really don't deserve to live because of my sin. And it's only God's mercy. It's only his grace. It's only him withholding something that I really deserve the punishment for my sins, that I can have any kind of life at all. Right. We really have to have a lack of self confidence. Right. We can't put any amount of confidence in ourselves and what we can do to save ourselves or even to face what what it was going on in our lives. But that doesn't mean that Christians don't have confidence. That doesn't mean that we just kind of mope around all the time and we're like, well, we can't do it right. Christians should be the most confident people that exist on this planet. It's just their confidence is in someone besides themselves. Right. Our confidence is in our God. That's what we see in verse two. David says, I cry out to God most high.

[00:18:44] He will send from heaven and save me. He will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness. Is that sound pretty confident to you?

[00:18:55] That sound like David is pretty sure that it's going to happen? Right. And this is really because David knows God. He knows who God is.

[00:19:03] He doesn't have confidence in himself. But he knows who God is. He knows what God is able to do. And he knows what God has promised to him.

[00:19:12] Now, let me catch you up on kind of the history of the nation of Israel that's going on at this time. Right. That really God had been the king, the ruler of the nation of Israel. And pretty soon the nation of Israel was saying, hey, we don't want that anymore. We want to be like the other nations. We want a human king to rule over us. And so they go and they say, we want a king and God allows them to choose a king. And it's Saul is this king that we read that is pursuing David. But it doesn't take very long until it's very clear that Saul in his life is not willing to obey the law. And he really wants to pick and choose what what of what God has said that he's willing to do and not do. And so very soon, God rejects Saul as being the king over his people. He's saying, I'm not going to continue your line on the throne. Right. I am going to declare a new king. So that's actually when David is anointed as the next king of Israel. He's not made king right at that moment that he is anointed as this guy is going to be the next king of Israel. And this is obviously going to create some tension between David and saw that Saul wants his heir to sit on the throne after him. Saul doesn't want this guy, David, taking a taking over. But so now we we see that because of this, that now Saul wants to kill David, that he is hunting him down and he's hunting him down repeatedly. So turn and then we'll actually read this story a little bit in First Samuel, Chapter 23, which is on page 246. If you've got one of our Bibles first, Samuel. Chapter 23. Actually, the chapter right before for Samael, 24, talks about the context of the song that David is writing right here. But I want you to see what's happening right before this. Right immediately. Right before this happens in David's life, something else happens. That's very key that God had anointed David and said, you are going to be the next king of Israel. And in verse 15 of First Samuel. Twenty three. It says, David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. And David was in the wilderness of Ziff at Horesh. And Jonathan Saul's son, who is actually David's good friend, Rose, and went to David at Horesh and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, Do not fear for the saw. The hand of saw. My father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel. That here is even David's good friend coming alongside him and encouraging him, saying, hey, I know my father is seeking you out, trying to destroy you, but it's not going to happen. Right? You will be the next king. Just like God has promised. Right, that God had made a promise to David and Jonathan saying, hey, keep trusting that promise. But then something happened that it's pretty crazy down all the way in verse 25. Right. That he's in this area of zipf in the wilderness and the zip fights.

[00:22:06] The people in this area, they rat David out to saw. They narc on him. Right. They really go to song ways and they say, hey, we know where David is hiding. Come get him in. And insults like what can you make really sure where he's hiding? So he's got like detailed intel on David's location. And it says in verse 25 and so on, his men went to seek him and David was told. So he went down to the rock and lived in the wilderness of my own home and saw heard that he pursued after David into the wilderness of my own and saw one on one side of the mountain, David and his men on the other side. David's got a few hundred men. Saul's got thousands with him.

[00:22:41] And it says this. And David was hurrying to get away from saw. And as Saul and his men were closing in on David and his men to capture them like, well, God has promised that I'm going to be the king.

[00:22:56] Jonathan's trying to encourage me. But look at what's happening like like Saul and his men. They're closing in on me. We're scurrying to get away. But it's like they've got us trapped and it's about like where they're about ready to capture us. And I know exactly what Saul wants to do to me. He wants to kill me. He wants to end me.

[00:23:13] But then something happens. Right.

[00:23:16] That it says in verse 27. A messenger came to Saul saying hurry and come, for the Philistines have made a raid against the land. So Saul returned from pursuing after David and went against the Philistines. What's going on? You realize, like David and his men, like they're they're being closed in on and trapped in all of a sudden, like the whole army turns around and starts going in the other direction.

[00:23:44] David, these guys have got to be like say they're going like, what's happened? Like, how cool is this? Right. The guy had made a promise that I am going to be the next king of Israel. And even at a moment where it seems like there's no hope left, I'm about to die. God comes through in a miraculous way. And David, at that time, he doesn't even really know that it's a messenger that came to saw the hey, that there's these Philistines. All he sees as is here's the army closing in on me and then, poof, they're gone and we're safe.

[00:24:13] That happens right before Saul returns to seek David again. That David didn't want to have a confidence in himself and in his own abilities, but he wanted to have a strong confidence in God.

[00:24:25] Write that down as your next Dasch on your notes, that being a revived person, being a person who's excited about what God can do and eagerly seeking it, that's going to have to be a person that doesn't have self-confidence but has confidence in God and who he is and his power and what he has said he will do.

[00:24:47] This present confidence that that David has, it's not just like him being an optimistic person. Have you read David's Psalms? They're pretty real right there. They're pretty realistic, maybe even almost a little pessimistic at times. Right. David isn't like one of these young guys today that just thinks everything is awesome and everything. Right.

[00:25:05] David is is actually like hoping and his hope is not like a thin thread of hope. I really hope that our confidence in God isn't just kind of like hanging on by a thread. I really hope that our confidence is God and God is strong, that we have an anchor really tied to our soul and it's Jesus Christ and our confidence is in him.

[00:25:26] We've got to have that confidence in God if we're going to ask God to lift his name high so that everyone's taking note of it. All right. We've got to believe that he can do it.

[00:25:35] We've got to believe that he is able to do what he has said that he is going to do. And I think that's something that we need to fuel that confidence. Right. There are times where we need a confidence boost to really understand all that God is able to do and what he has said he's going to do. And you want to know where you're going to find that.

[00:25:53] Know, find it right here, right?

[00:25:55] You're going to see God's promises made and God's promises kept. As you read the Bible, you're going to be blown away by his power. As you hear his word proclaimed. Right. We've been doing this thing at our church. We've been encouraging everyone to read through the Book of Psalms together over the over the summer and a little bit into the fall. We've actually included in your bulletin today, even kind of an updated like here's the passages that we're going through just for the end of this month, May. And the next month of June. I know that many of you are already committed to jumping in on this with us and reading God's word together and talking about it together. But if you haven't done that yet, I would really strongly urge you to commit to reading the Psalms.

[00:26:41] Right. Even if you just commit to this next month. This next like 30, 32 days. If you do it for that, you'll be so hooked that you won't be able to stop. Right. You won't be able to say, I was great for June. What's on for July? Right.

[00:26:53] You will stay with us because God, as he as we see what he is doing time and time again, we're just going to grow in our confidence in him. We're going to grow less and less in our confidence in ourselves. Right. Because we're just going to realize more and more how weak we are and how sinful we are and how limited where we are really to accomplishing anything without God's help, without his power working in and through us. And so I hope that you'll commit to that. And maybe some of you guys, you're like, okay, I'm going to do that. And then you open up to some. And you're reading it and you're like, what is going on in this song? I do not know how to understand what I'm reading. Right. We are actually going to start a new series in our Sunday school class, our adult Sunday school class, next Sunday during the first service. You guys are all second service people. You could do it right. You could go to the first service since school. And we are going to be going through the Psalms in such a way that we're not just gonna be preaching from them. We're actually going to be trying to equip people how to study their own Bibles so that when you open your Bible and you're reading it, that God is just showing you his glory as you as you read the Bible. We're gonna be tanning through the Psalms. I think we even have a graphic here right now. That's one of the acronyms that we've used to even think about how to study the Bible, to think about the context and the truth that God is proclaiming and how God wants that to affect my life right now. We invite you to join us. We meet right over in room one of two during the first service starting that next Sunday. Right. That is, you read God's word, your confidence will grow and who God is and what he's going to do. And you will see promises that God will be faithful to. Let me ask you, has anyone in here been promised by God to be king over the nation of Israel?

[00:28:42] No, you haven't.

[00:28:44] Right. But has God made promises to us in his word, right. Turn to Psalm Chapter. Eighty four. Right. One of the ones that we will get to twenty seven days from now, maybe even a little bit of excitement to continue on in Psalm 84 11.

[00:29:04] We see this promise from God that is so, so crucial. I remember one of the first times I was reading all the way through the Psalms. This was one of the verses that really just stuck out to me. And God taught me so much through this verse that it's it's stuck with me for years and years, some 84, Levin says, for the Lord, God is a son and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk up rightly.

[00:29:31] You see that promise. You see that that nugget of gold in there, right. That that for those who are walking with the Lord, that God is not going to withhold any good thing. I guess that is just going to bring a whole bunch of of revival of like just excitement and joy into your life this week that, hey, if I'm walking with the Lord, God is is not going to withhold anything that's good for me. That might cause me to realize that if there's something that I want and I don't have it right now, that God actually knows better what's better for me than I do.

[00:30:08] Right there. His plan for me is better than my plan for myself. There's so many of us. We we kind of feel like once we get to that next spot in our life, things will be better. Right. Right now, it's kind of rough. But once this happens, once I get that promotion, once our kids grow a little bit older, once our kids are gone and out of the house. Right.

[00:30:26] Whatever it might be that we say, hey, it's going to be better than God saying, hey, I'm not going to withhold anything that's good from those who walk up. Riley, that's going to fill you with such great joy this week. If you meditate on that, if you're thinking, hey, this is something that God has promised that he will do and I can take that to the bank and cash it in multiple times this week, anytime I'm Bohman, anytime I'm feeling low, I have to remember who God is and what he's promised to do for me, that he's going to satisfy me. He's going to do what is good for me and maybe even as a church, another promise that we need to continually remind ourselves. Go to Matthew, Chapter 28.

[00:31:07] You've been with us for a while, you know exactly what passage I'm Going to Matthew, Chapter 28 versus 19 and 20, the last words that Matthew records Jesus saying before he ascends into heaven, really words that have given us kind of our marching orders for our church and what God wants us to do. Where where Jesus says go therefore, and make disciples of all nations in verse 19 of Matthew, 28, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And that's what we've set out to do. By God's grace, here at our church.

[00:31:43] But is anybody else feel like there's times where you can grow weary in disciple making that, hey, striving to see people get saved is a challenge at times. And in the end, it can just start feeling like, man, this is hard. I'm talking with a number of people and a number of people just aren't aren't really choosing to turn to Christ from their sin. They want to continue to live their life apart from God. And it just bums me out.

[00:32:08] Right. Or, hey, I'm trying to help someone else grow in their walk with the Lord to obey everything that Christ commanded. And that's hard. Sometimes that's a challenge, sometimes right there. Even as we think about our church and God has done many great things and we're asking God to do many great things in the future where we're praying for a third service, we're praying for more people to come. And I think if we grow. Be easy for us to grow weary.

[00:32:31] If we didn't remember the promise that Jesus includes at the end, he says, and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age when I'm knocking on somebodies door on a Saturday morning and I'm trying to talk to them about our church and about Jesus Christ. And I realized that they opened the door and they don't like me right immediately just because I knocked on their door like they despise me. And I just see at that moment, like how little likability I have, how little my how little my persuasiveness is going to affect them. And I've got to think that, hey, the real reason that this could work. The real reason that someone could get saved. Come to our church by just from someone knocking on their doors that God is with us in this, that the power that we bring to all of these things is not our own power. It's not our own abilities. It is the divine power of God, the most high that is working in and through us as we seek to be obedient to him here at our church, the zakat, except get you excited to make more disciples. I hope so. I hope so. Rick is doing it on our own. I would get discouraging very, very quick. But God is with us, right? That this is a purpose, that he is really established, that he is going to build his church and not even the gates of hell are going to prevail against it. That's what God is saying. Hey, I will do this. Right. We know that Jesus has not returned yet. And so we know that God has planned for more people to be saved. We know that for sure.

[00:34:01] So let's go talk to people about Jesus. Let's talk to them about repentance and faith in the gospel. Let's invite them to our church, just hand them free ice cream and befriend them because we know God is still going to save people.

[00:34:16] I'm fairly confident that we will not see revival spread and and not see God saving hundreds of people at a time if God is not reviving us. Right. If God is not causing us to abandon our self-confidence and be so excited, so confident in what he is going to do, that we step out in faith and we actually pursue it, that that's the first thing we go back to, to Psalm 57, Psalm 57. We got to see more from this passage of. The first thing is that even David personally is just at this spot where he's got no confidence in himself, but he has great confidence in who God is and what God has promised to do. And then the song continues in verse four where he says, My soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down amid fiery beasts, the children of man whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords be exalted. Oh, God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth. They set a net for my steps. My soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way. What does that does that seem like that contrast right there. Does that seem like verse five actually fits right verse for my souls in the midst of lions, people whose tongues are sharp spears verse verse six. They said a net from my steps. My soul was bowed down and in the middle be exalted. Oh, God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth that seem like it's kind of a weird contrast to anybody else. You're kind of start thinking like what kind of songwriting school did David go to write like this doesn't make sense. He must have gone to one of these modern songwriting schools where none of the lyrics really make sense these days. They just sound good and you want to sing along to them. Right. What's going on here?

[00:35:56] And I think we've got to realize that at the point that David is writing this song, this is a very low point in the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel had many low points. And this is one of them. Right? I think about it for a second. Right. Like the like the people have really rejected God by asking for a king. The king himself has rejected obeying God and God has kind of rejected that king. God has anointed David to be the next king. And the whole nation is uniting together to do what? To try to kill the king that God had anointed as the next king over the nation of Israel.

[00:36:32] Right. And it seems like most of the people are on Saul's side rather than David's side. Right. These zip fights are narking on him. They're they're selling them out. Right. Like everybody is against David. And here David is in this cave and turn back to salt for Samuel.

[00:36:45] Twenty 24, because we've got to see actually the context of this story where in first Samuel. Twenty four after you know you know, Saul kind of takes care of the Philistine raid and the philistine threat.

[00:36:57] He goes back and starts pursuing David again. In verse one, Saul returned from following the Philistines and he was told, behold, David is in the wilderness of in Ghetty. And then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the wild goats rocks. And he came to the sheep folds, by the way, where there was a cave and saw went in to relieve himself. It's a nice way of saying it right. And David and his men were sitting in the inner most parts of that very cave.

[00:37:26] Right. David cannot just get away from this guy who's after him to kill him, that in this part of Israel, there's a lot of like really rocky hills. And and so there's a lot of caves. And some of these caves are actually quite large. There's some that haven't really fully been explored because people are too afraid to get lost in the labyrinth of the caves. And so Saul goes into this cave and here are David and his Mary men, and they're all kind of camping now in the cave.

[00:37:52] And look at what the men of David say to him in verse For the men of David say to him, Here is the day of which the Lord said, Do you behold, I will give your enemy into your hand and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you. They're saying, David, go get him killer and him, he wants to end you. You end him. God has delivered him into your hand and says. Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe. And afterward David's heart struck him because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe. Even just that minor thing of cutting off a corner, even getting anywhere close to killing the king of Israel. Right. Who still is the king of Israel, God's people. It's like David is cut to the heart. And he said to his men in verse six, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord. The Lord's anointed to put out my hand against him, saying he is the Lord's anointed. And it even seems like like David's men aren't satisfied with that. Right? It says in verse seven. So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack. Saw. It's almost like some of these guys are Rambold up and they're ready. They're saying, hey, if David's not going to do it, I'm going to do it. And it's like David in the cave. I mean, I don't know how big this cave they can, like, go discuss it somewhere else. Or if David, like, you know, kind of just like using hand motions. But basically he's saying like, no, I'm. Going gonna do this like here's a point where where even the small band of of men who are loyal to David are asking David to sit right there.

[00:39:25] They even want him to kill the king of Israel. That's a low point where everyone is rejecting God's plan. And even those that seem like they're following God's plan are are telling David to go sit to do what would make things easy for him.

[00:39:42] That's a low point.

[00:39:44] Is it almost kind of seem like we could be at a similar point in our in our country?

[00:39:49] Right.

[00:39:50] Made me here. I hear a lot of people talking about how this is a low point in American history, usually every four years around this time of the year. There's some excitement on the part of people who call themselves Christians. Right. And this excitement about politics, it's excitement about who could be this next president, that once this person gets to be president, then everything's going to be great in America will be great again. Right. They get so excited about this. And this year it almost seems like it's been a little bit different. Right. I hear more and more people saying, like, I'm not really excited about anyone. Maybe we even need to start some kind of third party that people are kind of losing their hope in politics. And I say, praise the Lord.

[00:40:31] Right, because maybe, just maybe, it will cause us to pray. Right at this low point in the nation of Israel, David came to the full realization that I need to ask God to do something about this. This isn't something I can fix. This isn't something I've got the power to deal with. We need God to set his glory above the heavens.

[00:40:54] We need him to do a work that is so powerful and so noticeable that things change in our nation.

[00:41:02] I even think about the great revival in the seventeen hundreds in America, the great the Great Awakening that started in on the East Coast and really was a widespread work of God where many people got saved. Everyone who talks about that time and talks about the churches that were there at the beginning of it, they all say, hey, it was kind of dead and lifeless churches where people were just kind of going through the motions where it where it just kind of became impressed upon a number of people all at the same time that we're at a low point in America and we need God to do something. And so those people started praying for God to do something. And the result of that is we call it the Great Awakening. Right. This great revival that even the effects of of which have lasted for hundreds of years in our country. So point number two on your notes is that we need to pray for revival. No matter what your thoughts are about America right now, maybe you're feeling like, yeah, we're kind of at a low point in America thinking about moving to Costa Rica or someplace like that. Has that caused you to pray? Have you actually, like, realized that we're at such a low point just in our nation where people are calling good, evil and evil good? And even in the churches, the biblical gospel is not being faithfully proclaimed through a number of churches. And there are even a number of churches that are, you know, giving license for people to continue living lives of sin and not to repent and serve God with their lives.

[00:42:30] We're at a low point in our nation. And I hope it breaks us. I hope it breaks us to the point where we realize our only hope is God. And we cry out to him.

[00:42:41] We cry out not for what we can do. We don't try to plan something and put on some slicker program that everybody's going to get excited about. We ask God to do the work that only he can do. Are we there in America? We need to be praying for revival, that God would lift his name high, that he would do such a work that everyone would take notice of it. Right. And even those who don't want to repent and put their their trust in Jesus Christ would not be able to ignore what God is doing. And to do that, we need to pray, need to pray that more people would see God as he really is, that they would worship him, that they would turn from sin against him and serve him with their lives. And I really hope that this summer, even in the life of our church, that we see more people get saved this summer than we have ever seen, get saved in a summer before in our lives. I am praying for that, but I don't think it's going to happen unless we're asking God to do it. We need to be begging him to do it. We can't do it. He must do it. So let's beg him to do that.

[00:43:45] Are you.

[00:43:45] Are you praying for people to be saved? You have a list of people that you know, don't know Jesus Christ, and you are begging God on their behalf for him to save them right there in your life. You've got a regular habit of just getting away to a place where it's you and the Lord and you are interceding on behalf of our of our country, of asking for mercy for our country, God, that we have turned away from you. We don't actually deserve for you to revive America. We deserve for you to judge American. We pray that you would be glorified not through your judgment on America, but through you extending grace and mercy to our country. I hope that that's something that you're just praying to the Lord in the secret place, that you've got a pattern of prayer. But I also hope it's something that you're gathering together with other believers and asking God to glorify his name, asking God to save people. We've got a prayer meeting that usually meets on on Monday nights. We would love to see more people to come to that. But I would love to see, like, rogue underground prayer meetings, like popping up all over our church, that there's just like a couple of people who are like me. I just want to get together with a few other people and spend time asking God to do work, maybe even like in connection with the Sunday morning that what we want God to do in our midst right now is something that I can't do, something that Bobby can't do. It's something that only God can do. We need to be asking him to do it. But I would love it off on a Sunday morning. Right. We've got all these extra rooms where, you know, we're not necessarily using them on Sundays. We use them a lot more throughout the weeks. We have fellowship groups that would love it if I like, randomly went into those rooms, if I might. Well, there's people praying in there. Had to shut the door. It's almost kind of awkward, right, because we just want to pray. Right. If we want this to be the somewhere where God saves more people than we've ever seen him save in a short period of time, we have got to pray for it. We have got to beg God to do it. We should pray for God to send revival, but then we should seek to spread it. That's point number three on your notes. Write this down is that we need to spread the revival.

[00:45:44] If we're praying for God to revive us and our confidence is in the Lord and we are praying for God to do a widespread work of revival of many people seeing him as who he is. How is God going to answer that prayer request through you?

[00:45:59] Talking with other people about the law. Right. Look at what David says, it seems like he is really going before the Lord in prayer in Psalm 57. He's asking God to do things. But then he continues on in verse seven, he says. My heart is steadfast. Oh, God, my heart is steadfast. Right. He's saying this isn't gonna be a one time prayer request that I bring before the Lord. I'm going to keep praying until I see God revive Israel, until I see the revival happen. And I'm going to continue obeying the Lord no matter what. Even when all of my compadres are trying to get me to sin, my heart is gonna be steadfast. And I want to do what God wants me to do all the time. My heart is steadfast, my heart is steadfast. And that's where a lot of Christians kind of stop. And they're like, Okay, I'm gonna pray. Maybe I'll pray. I'll do it in secret. Nobody's even knowing that it's going on. And I'm going to live my life as a good example to other people. Like I'm into, you know, kind of wait for people to ask me about what's going on in my life. And it seems like David is committed to it more than that. Look at what he says. He says, I will sing and make Melody a wake my glory. Oh, harp in there. I will awake the dawn. I will give thanks to you a lord among the peoples. I will sing praises to you among the nations. It seems like David made.

[00:47:16] God's glory. His priority. Have you made God's glory your priority?

[00:47:21] It doesn't seem like this is something that David is saying. Yeah, I kind of do this on the side. I look at the way he talks about. It's like he's really like calling everything about himself. He says, oh, wake my glory or my whole person. He's really trying to rouse himself and saying, like, hey, I want everything about who I am to be dedicated to this one purpose, which is God's glory being lifted. I for everyone to worship him. And he say, not only am I going to, like, try to rouse myself, I'm going to get some instruments involved awake. Oh, harp and liar. David had not only game on the battlefield, but he was a musician as well. And so David's like, I'm going to write songs. I'm going to sing God's praises. And I'm going to spread those songs about God and what he has done and who he is far and wide. I even want people from other nations who aren't even a part of the nation of Israel to hear about this God who is so great.

[00:48:13] And you realize some of the results of that right here that we're studying through today.

[00:48:18] Write songs that David wrote that he basically wanted to spread God's glory. He wanted to spread the news about who God is and how great he is so that everyone would worship him. We're still talking about that today. And now you might not have skill with music, right. We need to be praying for Ryan Pierce to write more songs that we can rejoice in and worship God, too. But you might not have skill in that department, but. But think about yourself. Like what part of your whole being. Right? Are you. Are you going to ask God to awake. Hey, God. Revive me. Revive me in this purpose for your glory that I want to wake up.

[00:48:54] I want. I want to get excited about this. I want to. I want to make God's glory my priority. And everything in my life really is for that goal. Why do I go to my work so that God is glorified so that I can talk to my coworkers about the gospel? Why do I love my family so that God is lifted high and people are like, hey, here's a dad who isn't like all these other dads who are just selfish at the end of the day that he actually loves his wife and his kids and is willing to sacrifice for them. Why is that? Is because God is loved him and he just wants to imitate God's love for himself.

[00:49:25] Right, it seems like God has his call. David and David right here is responding to make commitments to see God glorified. Right. That if we want this revival to spread, if we want everyone to know, God's going to bring that message to other people through you.

[00:49:44] That's what God wants you to be a part of. Right, every week we've got people who don't know the Lord right here at our church.

[00:49:52] Right.

[00:49:54] You're going to go talk to him after the service today. You're going to find someone that you haven't met before and go meet him and and ask him like, hey, do you know God like this guy that we're talking about? Do you know him? Are you. Are you saved? Have you come to the end of yourself and and really put your confidence in Jesus Christ to save you? Because you're not a good person just like me. Right. Are you going to go talk to that person? Maybe they already have done that. It's like, oh, sweet. Let's rejoice in that together. Or maybe there's someone that God has brought to see the light for a limited time and he wants you to go talk to him. We've got the ice cream truck going out every Saturday morning, every every Tuesday night. We've got coworkers. Right. This is the summer that's coming. People will be outdoors. Right. If you want to go find people that you can spread God's glory to go to a park and you'll find you'll get in conversations with other people just by going to a park. If you've got young kids, take them to a park and just get to know the other parents there.

[00:50:47] And David is doing all this. He's saying, I really want my whole being my Gloria Harben. I will awake the dawn like in the morning. The most important thing for me to do is I want to see God glorified.

[00:50:58] That's what I'm about. And he says all of this. And he says in verse 10, he says, for your steadfast love is great to the heavens and your faithfulness to the clouds. David didn't have to try to drum up this excitement. It wasn't that he was doing it just because he was obligated to do it or he felt like he had to. He was experiencing God's faithfulness and his goodness and his truthfulness of his promises over and over, day by day, all the time in his life, that it was like, I can't help but talk about this with someone else. Right. If you're if you're being revived. Right. Really revival in your life is gonna come from the Bible. Right. You see God's promises. And as you're trusting in those promises, as you're seeing God be faithful to those promises day after day after day, you won't have to, like, drum up that excitement.

[00:51:49] You'll be there. You'll be ready to talk to other people about the Lord. Right.

[00:51:54] So even this week, I'd encourage you, like if if God if he's saying, hey, I'm gonna do this for your steadfast love is great to the heavens and your faithfulness to the clouds.

[00:52:02] In what ways is God shown his steadfast love and his faithfulness to you that you should take out a piece of paper and a pen or a pencil and write down. How is God been steadfastly loving me? How is he been faithful to me even when I've been unfaithful at times to him?

[00:52:20] Right. That will cause you to rejoice in him. That will stir up your soul so that when you want to talk with other people about him. Right. This can't be something that we're trying to fit into our spare time. And I really want to I really want to encourage you. There is nothing that you could get more excited about than seeing a revival happen, seeing God save numbers of people even at the same or similar amounts of time.

[00:52:42] I mean, how excited would you be if we saw God saving hundreds of people this summer through the work of our church, rather people in like Los Angeles. So like what's going on in Orange County. Right. And people down in St. Commend. You're like. Is that even Orange County up there? Like, what's going on up there? Is that Los Angeles? Right. People all over the place are like, what is happening because God is lifting his name.

[00:53:04] Hi. Do you want to see that? We've got a seat that we've got a spread that we've got to pray for, that we've got to ask God to revive our hearts and our souls. Turn with me to one more passage. First Chronicles, Chapter twenty nine.

[00:53:19] So the history of Israel is kind of recorded in 1st and 2nd, Samuel, first and second kings and first and second chronicles in it. At the end of David's life is really what's recorded here. And First Chronicles twenty nine. You know, the story we read of David writing this Psalm Psalm 57 is when he's younger, before he's king and he's king for many years. And he wants to build a temple for God in the nation of Israel so that, hey, we have a spot to worship the Lord because he is worthy of worship. God tells him, no, I'm not gonna have you do that. I'm gonna have your son Solomon do that. And so David basically sets out for the rest of his life to be preparing everything that's needed so that once Solomon becomes king and David dies, it's like, hey, we can start construction on the temple. Like that very day because everything's ready to go for it. And at the end of his life, David is charging Israel before he dies, charging his son and the whole nation gets together and saw the first chronicles. Twenty, nine, ten says. Therefore, David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said, Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel, our father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the Majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the Earth is yours. Yours is the Kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head. Above all, both riches and honor come from you and you rule over all in your hand, our power and my in your hand. It is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you our God and praise your glorious name. Does that sound like the answer to the request that he wrote in Psalm 57? This seemed like even in that address, that God's name is being put on display and lifted high in all, the nation of Israel is assembled together there. And even if you were to continue on, go down to verse chap or verse twenty, where it says then David said to all the assembly, like the whole nation of Israel, bless the Lord, your God and all the assembly, bless the Lord, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid Omeish to the Lord and to the King. And they offered sacrifices to the Lord and on the next day offered burnt offerings to the Lord, a thousand bulls, a thousand rams, a thousand lambs, and with their drink offerings and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel. And they eat and drink before the Lord on that day with great galette.

[00:55:47] It took his whole life. But David got to see the revival that prayed for. Like where we went from the spot where the whole nation is against the Lord in disobedience him to him to where the whole nation is gathering together to worship God. What would it be like if in a couple years, the Fourth of July parade here in Huntington Beach is a worship service because everyone wants to worship God because his name has been lifted so high that everyone wants to come together and give him the glory that he deserves.

[00:56:24] Would you pray for that?

[00:56:25] Would you seek that? Would you be steadfast? Even if it takes your whole life right? I really believe that if we are praying for God to save people, God will save people. We are praying for God to lift his name high. He will do it. So let's continue steadfastly and pray. Let's pray together. God, we thank you, Lord, that that you are glorious Lord. That your glory is above the heavens. And so, God, we would cry out to you to the God most high. Even now, Lord, as we see the state of our nation where so few people care about you, so few people want to obey you, Lord. It seems like we are at a spot where there is little hope but God. Yet we have hope because we hope. And you, Gabby, as our confidence is in you and in your power and what you are able to do for your glory. And so, God, we pray, along with David Moore, that you would lift. Hi, your name God, that that your glory would be flying above the Earth, Lord, that it would be so profoundly noticeable that no one would be able to ignore God. Would you do that? Would you choose to display your mercy and your grace in reviving our nation? God, would you choose to turn people's hearts to you in repentance? And God, would you continue to use our church to proclaim the good news? God, we want to stir ourselves up. God, we want to wake up and really get excited to make your glory our top priority. Can we want that to be everything that our lives are about? And so we pray that you would do this work, Lord. That's your work that we get to participate in for your glory. We pray.

[00:58:00] Hey, Matt.