Psalms 119:141 - The Annoying Little Brother

This is the Truth Network. Now, you know, it's a phenomenal piece of knowledge, I think. I really cherish it.

I hope you will, too. So the verse reads in English, I am small and despised, yet do not I forget thy precepts. So you know, as you may know, King David was like the ultimate little brother. He had all these big brothers that were all not only bigger than him, but certainly much bigger than him in his father's eyes.

And so he was he was in the in the letter Zaddy, of course, is going to be the letter that starts the verse. And that letter small really means younger. That means the baby brother. Maybe you had a baby brother, so you can understand this to some extent. But the idea of despised, you know, when you really think about what this verse is saying is I'm the annoying little brother. And King David was a little annoying little brother.

And another even better picture that might be Joseph, right? He was the annoying little brother. And the thing about this word despise has to do with pointing out somebody's right because we're in the letter Zaddick. So he has this idea of telling them where he's right and you're wrong.

In other words, he's a tattletale. And sometimes you may not realize it just because you're the annoying little brother and small and despised that that is we, you know, are living righteous lives were annoying to those people are not righteous. It just annoys them.

No end because they're like, you know, this is the annoying little brother idea. And this knowledge is actually pretty handy because there's a lot of times I'm annoying people. I have no idea why. Well, it's just because I'm doing something right that they perceive that they're doing wrong and they feel guilty.

But it's not anything that I brought on. It was just how it happened. And as part of the persecution that happens with King David, you can imagine his life the way he lived it, that he was constantly despised by all these people that saw him get up at midnight and praise and and all that he was doing, oh, my goodness, he must have been totally despised. And you know how Jesus was? Although he was the older brother, he certainly had that aspect to it. So interestingly, you know, as he says here, the as a result of him being small and despised, he says, Yet do not I forget thy precepts, even though I'm small and I'm the little brother.

And even though I got a lot of growing to do, I get still get to meet with dad. Okay, that's the idea of precepts. Precepts are those meetings with God and sometimes with other believers, and people that are truly in Christ as you get a chance to go to church or you get a chance to go to Sunday school or you get a chance to belong to that men's group or a band of brothers, however it all works. But those precepts are where you truly meet with God, even when you're meeting with others.

You know, he doesn't miss out on that stuff, even though he's the younger brother. And so as I was thinking about this, I can think of lots of times where I annoyed people because I was doing something right. But I remember this was back before I was a Christian. I worked at a car dealership in Savannah, Georgia. It was Dale Krites. It was a Buick GMC had Mercedes and Datsun back then, because this was in like 1979 or something. Anyway, I worked for the body shop. I was an assistant body shop manager, which, believe me, I was a little brother and my big brother who was the service manager. His son worked there and was one of the body man's body men. Well, you may know that mechanics or body men or anybody like that, they get paid on the times that they work on people's cars.

And so, like, if to replace a fender is supposed to pay one hour or one and a half hours, you know, they get a sheet, like a time sheet, that's called a flagship. And they would get those times for the work that they did well, unbeknownst to a lot of these guys. The body shop manager was taking time from them without them knowing it and giving it to his son. And I caught him doing it, not on just one repair order, but like maybe 10 or 15. And so, I was the annoying little brother because I immediately went to, you know, to the body shop manager whose name was Frank and I was like, Frank, you know, what's up with this?

You know, what do you know you accidentally, you know, and I tried to do it, you know, and he just covered it up, you're out of your mind, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I went to his boss, who was the general manager of all the service and parts operations. And this guy got so mad at me, I'll never forget, don't you stick your nose into other people's business and he fired me right there on the spot. And so, I did something even more annoying. As I recall, I went to the body men themselves and said, hey, guys, they just fired me. And here's the reason they fired me is because Frank's been taking your time and you might look into make sure that you get all the time that's on your tickets. Oh, my gosh, they lost, oh, I was, I, you know, I can't, I don't remember how many body men quit that day as a result of all that happened.

But I was certainly the annoying little brother. And unfortunately, you know, I'm sitting there just totally without a job, feeling totally rejected. And my problem was, I didn't have any way to go meet with God.

I didn't have any way to go see what was the right thing to do under the circumstances. You kind of knew it inherently, what's right, what's wrong. But it doesn't have any value if it doesn't point people back to Christ, right? It doesn't have any value, the way that it works, if you don't have precepts, if you don't have these ways that God can show you, okay, here's what's really going on here. I want all these people to grow in Christ.

And so how can we do that with like we talked about last episode with grace, like what does that look like? You need guidance in order to be small and despised, I'm just saying. Anyway, here's some knowledge for you today, right? I'm small and despised, yet do not I forget thy precepts.