179 - For What Do I Wait?

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink.

Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, it's almost New Year's. I guess we're going to set resolutions.

Oh, let's be different next year. Yeah. Do it better. Yeah. Let's make a list of a whole bunch of stuff. People make lots of lists. Let's be really ambitious. Yeah.

Well, we can do ambitious things, but would it surprise you to find out that David only had one thing on his list? Well, we better find out what that is. Let's see what that is today on More Than Ink. Hey, hey, hey, this is More Than Ink. I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we're so glad you joined us on this holiday weekend. We are actually airing this show on the Saturday before New Year's in 2023. So we thought, again, we would push away from Matthew just a little bit. We'll come back to Matthew next week as Jesus continues to talk with the Pharisees. But we wanted to look at New Year's.

Everyone always at New Year's looks forward to the next year. Many people make resolutions, which they keep for maybe a month. But it's always a very healthy time for us as believers to kind of reset ourselves and say to ourselves, what's important? What am I presuming on?

What am I not? What's important here? And actually to turn our eyes toward God. So we're going to look at Psalm 39 today as a way to help guide our attentions into the next year and maybe to get us a little bit more balanced about how we make our plans and what the next year is all about. Yeah, you know, it's become an exercise for me either on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day in the last few years to just kind of hold still for a little while and consider who I am and who God is. And that takes different forms in different years, different scriptures that the Lord brings me to. But this is a very interesting one, Psalm 39, thinking through this.

So it's not going to be what you're expecting. This is a prayer of humility. It's great humility. And I like the humility aspect of it because a lot of people when they look forward to the next year, when they do the resolutions, many times they're very ambitious. Oh, I'm going to get this done by the end of the year.

I'm going to do this. And I'm going to be different this year. It's almost prideful in its presumption about what you will be able to do and what you're going to accomplish. And people always say, well, you need goals.

And I don't mind goals. But David, who's the author of this in a very humble way, is not setting goals. He's just being really measured about who he is and about perhaps the limited amount of time he has left or even the effectiveness of life that he has left. And we're talking about the King of Israel. Yeah, and it's interesting to me that this song, written by David, but it's directed to the choir master, Jonathan. And the place where he occurs is in 1 Chronicles 16, where he's described as a musician who's dedicated by name. And then it says to bang the drums and play the trumpets and be at the gate. And so Jonathan, if you just listen to 1 Chronicles 16, is a guy who makes celebration music.

So David has directed this song to him. Hmm. Yeah. That kind of attracts my attention.

I'm thinking about that as a musician. Yeah. Well, it's always kind of a mind bender to think that the Psalms are all songs.

Right. They're sung. So these are the lyrics to a song that was sung.

And quite an interesting collection of lyrics for a song. We better read it. Let's read it.

Let's just go up through about three and a half. Okay. Yeah.

All right. So starting verse one, I said, I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue. I will guard my mouth with a muzzle so long as the wicked are in my presence. I was mute and silent. I held my peace to no avail. And my distress grew worse.

My heart became hot within me. Do you want to stop there? Yeah. Let's stop right there. Because then he changes his approach.

But isn't it interesting? I mean, this immediately made me think of people who go on the internet and all they do is scream at each other. Just scream at each other. And in that passion, in that emotion, they say some of the most ridiculous things that they wish they could pull back. And that's kind of where he is right here. I don't want to sin with my tongue anymore. He's fully aware that in the presence of the wicked, you can get into a whole lot of trouble with your tongue. Oh, yeah. That just makes me think of James, who says, hey, the tongue is a fire.

You are going to like fires with your tongue. Yeah. And in the end of verse one, he says, I especially don't want to do this when the wicked are going to be listening.

When they're in my presence. Guard my mouth with a muzzle. Right. I'd rather say nothing than speak something in wisdom. So let's just say nothing.

What do you think? And there's another Psalm that David wrote. I didn't look it up where he says, put a guard on my lips. A guard on my lips. Yeah. Oh, well, what is that?

I can't remember right off hand. Our listeners will find it. But if you're a reader of the letter James, I mean, you know that the tongue, oh man, the tongue. And so we're talking about sin that issues from the tongue. And as the king, as God's representative, he's saying, you know, God, guard my ways.

It's interesting though, that he's saying, even though I was mute and silent, I didn't speak into the thing with sin that didn't solve the problem in my heart. Right. Yeah. The fire was still lit with me.

It was making them crazy inside. And I get that. I get that. When someone says something either really foolish or totally wrong and you say nothing, it's just kind of, it's like welling up like a bomb that's going to explode. You know, he says, I was mute and silent. I held my peace, but to no avail. Okay.

So since we're doing this coming between Christmas and New Year's, I'm thinking many people have just been with family members who incited riot. Oh. Right? So some of you are thinking, uh-oh, I shouldn't have said that. Or I wish so-and-so hadn't said that. Or I wish I could have taken this back.

Or I wish I hadn't said that. Yeah. There's all those columns in magazines about how to speak with your relatives over the dining room table at Christmas and Thanksgiving. That makes this passage real pertinent to this particular week, I think. Yeah.

And the fact that even though you can keep your lips from speaking, your heart, he says in three, just becomes hotter and hotter and hotter. And we'll replay for ourselves those things that we said or that we wish we'd said. Right.

Right. Or we wish we hadn't said. So what he does next, I think, is just fascinating. So remember, he's ready to explode inside because he's kept his lips quiet.

But instead of speaking to these people, he does something else. He turns his attention to God. Yeah, let's read that, the second half of verse three. Second half of verse three. As I mused, the fire burned. Then I spoke with my tongue, oh Lord, make me know my end and what's the measure of my days. Let me know how fleeting I am.

Behold, you've made my days a few handbreaths and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath. Selah. Selah always means pause. Take a breath. Think about what we just said there.

So isn't that interesting? Although he's getting ready to explode because he's not letting his lips communicate the distress in his heart, he is going to speak anyway. And I have a quote from Charles Spurgeon, which I love here. He says basically, oh, if my swelling heart must speak, Lord, let it speak with thee. And that's exactly what David does here. I've got to speak, so I'm going to speak to you Lord.

And he speaks something of great humility. He says, make me know my end. What's the measure of my days? Get a grip on who I am.

Let me know how fleeting I am. Yeah, yeah. So he's really gone to a more humble perspective.

It's really good. Because in the beginning of this, when you talk about someone who says something stupid and you want to reprove them, or you're someone who's just a fool in so many ways, you're thinking to yourself, well, I'm right and they're wrong and I'm going to correct them. But in the end here, David says, but no God, I think I need you to kind of cut me down a few notches here. I think I need you to remind me of the measure of my days. He's not saying, tell me how long I'll be before I die. He's basically saying, how accomplished will I really be before I die? Maybe I need to just kind of take myself off the pedestal and think that maybe I'm not the only harbinger of truth. Maybe I need to just calm my soul here. So it occurs to me that David is in really good company here because Moses wrote Psalm 90.

Oh yeah, exactly. And Psalm 90 verse 12, Moses says, so teach us to number our days that we may bring in a heart of wisdom. Remind me Lord, my life is short. I'm dust.

So this is a couple of things in application. One of them is, if my life is that short, should I waste my time yelling about things that really don't matter? Or maybe I should conserve my tongue until I have something really good to say. They used to say that about Mr. Ed, that TV show, he won't speak unless he has something to say.

Boy, that was an old show. But that's been a very hard learned lesson for me, as I am not a woman who bites my tongue easily. But for many years, the Lord has been impressing me that it's better for me not to speak unless I am impelled to speak, unless there's something within me that the Spirit is saying, okay, speak into that.

And choose the things that are important to speak into. Don't waste your time with stuff on the edges. I mean, we're fleeting.

You may not have that much time. You're a hand breath. The hand breath is the width of your palm. I mean, it's just really short. So invest your time with other people well, because in reality, your time as a person to have influence is just a breath.

It's so short. So just think about that. Use your time well. Don't get embroiled in things that don't matter.

In fact, Paul says that to Timothy. Don't get involved in all that kind of stuff. Do important stuff. Talk about important things, not that stuff. And I dare say, the lion's share of stuff that comes up on the internet that really frosts me is the stuff that really doesn't matter too much.

Boy, is that true. So in terms of New Year's directions, this is really a good thing to me to say, you know, I don't have that much time. I better focus on what I talk about and who I talk about, even though my heart might be distressed like his was. And when my heart is distressed, what will I do? If I must speak, I'll speak with the Lord.

Well and being the age that we are, we're acutely conscious of the fact that there are way fewer years ahead than there are behind. Sure. And I only got a number, a certain number of breaths. So Lord, let me be aware of how I breathe them, how I spend them. And I take James's admonition to listen before I speak. Be quick to listen. What a great discipline that is.

So yeah, that's not a bad way to go into the New Year. But your ability to change the world is really quite small. And so make sure it's God that's leading you in that.

So let's push on. He talks more about the influence that he has in six. Okay, verse six. So after the breath, after the Silah, verse six, surely a man goes about as a shadow. Surely for nothing there in turmoil, man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather. And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?

My hope is in you. Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool. I'm mute.

I do not open my mouth for it's you who have done it. Okay, he's going to kind of change direction here. So let's pause.

In a healthy way. Because at the end of that Silah, at the end of verse five, he's talking about what he's not going to do, what he cannot do, in effect, really. And so now he says, well, what should I do?

And what's my posture now as I do it? And he realizes at first he says, you know, we go about like a shadow. Well, a shadow has no effect on the ground when it passes by it. I mean, it's fleeting.

It's ineffective. It's, you know, it's his way of saying maybe I think of myself more highly in terms of what I can accomplish than I should. I'm more like a shadow.

Or maybe I just think more of my words than I should. Yeah, yeah. More to just air. Yeah, right. So surely for nothing, they're in turmoil.

But he says men, you know, in air do the following things. You know, they're in turmoil. That goes back to the internet discussions.

They heap up wealth, you know, talking about greed again. So he says, you know, I'm not going to get involved in all this stuff, but what I will aim myself at in verse seven, what I will aim myself at, and now Lord, for what do I wait? That is, where do I look?

Where do I anticipate? My hope is in you. And this is the central verse of the entire Psalm.

Yeah. So, you know, when I read these verses earlier, suddenly I went to Psalm 73, which is about the same thing. It's a Psalm by Asaph.

So it's, but it's on the same topic. Contemplating why do the wicked... Why do they get good stuff? Why do they get good stuff and I don't, right? So let me just read you a couple of verses. For Psalm 73 verse 15 says, if I had said, I will speak thus, behold, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. When I pondered to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight until I came into the sanctuary of God. Then I perceived their end.

And there's exactly the same thought, right? Why am I stirred up and in turmoil over these things? Come to God.

Come into the holy place alone with God. And I so often find myself praying, Lord, I'm looking to you so you can put me in order. Right. And that's what he means in seven, when he says, for what do I wait? And many times we look at that wait thing as being a totally passive do nothing thing.

Oh, it's not at all. No, it's really, you know, where do you look? Do you look to yourself for the next steps or where do you look? I always say it's the same thing as waiting on a train platform. You're looking down the tracks and you're not going off and walking or finding a bicycle or doing anything else. You're saying, no, I've committed myself to this train that's coming. Well, in this case, that train that's coming is God. I've committed myself to look for the coming of God in this matter. And I'm not going to choose an alternative. I'm not going to get a spiritual bicycle and wander off someplace. I'm going to wait for God.

So it's an active. Because he's coming. Because he's coming. It's an active hope. It's a, it's a assurance that he's there. So my hope is in you that he says, well, I mean, couples that with deliver me from all my transgressions, right? So my hope is in you. I have this concrete expectation that you will deliver me, right? Right.

Right. But he's still troubled by, you know, the sin of his lips and all those kinds of things. And instead of saying his new year's resolution in verse eight, God, I'm going to double down and I'm not going to do that stuff anymore. Instead, he, because he's waiting for God, he says, deliver me, God, you deliver me from all my transgressions. From my transgressions, not deliver me from them. From the idiots. Yeah. From the fools.

Because we're always going to have them. That's right. Deliver me from my transgressions. That's my bad, my bad response to people who are fools. Deliver me from my transgressions. And again, don't make me the scorn of a fool.

I don't want to say something stupid. Right. Yeah. I don't want to be the one who delivers us from our own sins. So, you know, it's interesting where he goes from there because in verse nine he says, I am mute.

I do not open my mouth for it's you who have done it. Yeah. Okay.

So he's kind of turning a corner now and he's come to realize that when he finds himself in this position, it's God who's in control of it. Yeah. Yeah.

God, God seems to be the one who is metering the lips of the King for his purposes. Yeah. And, you know, even metering the lips of the critics, the fools, those who scorn us. Right. Right.

God is allowing that. So are you ready to read on? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's where he goes, it's you who've done it. Verse 10, remove your stroke from me. I'm spent by the hostility of your hand. When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin you consume him like a moth. Oh, no, you consume like a moth what's dear to you.

What is dear to him. Surely all mankind is a mere breath. Sala.

Sala. Let's wait and think about this for a second. Hold still and think about that.

It's almost like he didn't realize he was thinking that until it came out of his mouth. I know. I know. Oh, hush. It's a fascinating turn in his mind. Did you hear what you just said? Yeah, yeah.

So in 10 he says, remove your stroke from me. He's actually seeing this discipline coming from God. Right. Right.

And, you know, it reminds me of the discipline statements like in Hebrews 12. I know. I have that right here on my page. Oh, do you?

Do you have that? Yeah, why don't you read that? Because it's really good. Oh, it's so good.

It's really good. So, in Hebrews 12, starting in the second half of verse five, the writer says, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord or fate when you're reproofed by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives.

It's for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you're without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you're illegitimate children and not sons. Okay, I'm going to jump down a little bit because he talks about earthly fathers disciplining us. I want to jump down to verse 11. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful.

That's not fun. But sorrowful. Yet to those who've been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Yeah, it's what you always wanted. And in the verse before that I skipped over, I probably shouldn't have it. At the end of verse 10, he says, for God disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness.

Who he is. Right, because Jesus himself endured the vicious words, the accusations, the character assassination of broken men. Peter says, without opening his mouth, he trusted in God who would save him. Yeah, yeah. So these verses he's talking in the Psalm from 10 to 11 are really the struggles in his receiving God's discipline, especially in this area of speaking like a fool.

Yeah, are we willing to accept discipline? It's tough stuff. It's tough stuff. When I've said something and brought down the scorn of a fool on me.

Right, right. Or when you say something foolish and then God corrects you publicly. Oh, that one stings. Yeah, it really does.

I can say that from experience. So in 10 he says, he causes God's strokes. He causes hostility from God's hand. It's not a punishment, it's a discipline because in 11 he says, when you discipline a man with rebukes for sin. Right, we're talking about the consequence of sin.

Right. When I have overstepped, misstepped, missed the mark, deliberately stepped into something I shouldn't have. Yeah, and this is an answer to his prayer in verse eight, deliver me from all my transgressions. And God says, okay, here we go.

So this is actually, you know, you want to use the million dollar word. This is the process of sanctification. It's the sanctification. Right, when God allows the consequences of our own sin to fall on us so that we will not want to do it again. We will be changed. And any of us who walk with the Lord, who love who God is, you know, who we see in Jesus, we want those characteristics in our life. And we want the foolishness to be pushed out of our life.

We just don't figure on the fact that it could be kind of painful. Well, that's what this imagery of, you know, when God disciplines and rebukes for sin consumes like a moth, what's dear to him. That's a great phrase. Oh, Lord.

Yeah. May the things that I hold dearer than I hold you be torched. That stuff, that word is actually called beautiful too. So the things that you consider dear and beautiful, like, Ooh, I love these things.

I love this, my precious. My precious, exactly. And yet, you know, it's got really no value at all. And what's God doing?

I think it's Corrie Tamboum that says what he does is he takes your grip that has all these fingers around it and he peels your fingers off one at a time around the thing that you consider dear, but really is worthless. And in many senses, that's what sin is. Sin is a pursuit of those things that are worthless. We think will bring life, but in the end, they're not.

They'll destroy us. So why would we want to be thinking about this going into the new year? Lord, what have I held precious this year that proves? That's a great question. To the dust. Right.

That went up in flames. Right. God, I want you to consume like a moth the things that are dear to me that really don't matter.

Anything other than you. What gets in my way of my adoration of who you are. Yeah.

And that will be, I guarantee, a painful process. Yes. Because you have attached yourself to these things over the years and you've considered themselves dear. You've also put money and effort into these things.

And God's saying, you know, it's just not a good use of your time or your money or your resources. And chances are, we're coming up to the new year and some things that we thought would happen that we had placed our hope in, went up in flames. Right. Yeah.

Or went down in flames. Yeah. So God, consume like a moth those things that I wrongly considered dear to myself. Yeah. That's good. Well, let's push on.

We're running short on time. Verse 12. Verse 12. Hear my prayer, O Lord. Give ear to my cry.

Hold not your peace at my tears. Oh, that's great. I'm a sojourner with you, a guest like all my fathers.

I want to pause there for a minute because that idea is, it comes out of Leviticus when God says, hey, you're a sojourner in my land. Right. Right.

I own everything. You're here as my guest. Yes. Yes.

So, you know, this is kind of a recalibration. I get it. I'm just a visitor here.

I'm not making a home here. All yours. Yeah. So I'm a sojourner with you, a guest like all my fathers. Verse 13.

Look away from me that I may smile again before I depart and am no more. Right. Right. Okay.

So that presents us a little bit of a puzzle. Uh-huh. Right? Yeah.

What was he asking for? Right. Because don't we long to see the face of God? And scripture says, in Christ we look into the face of God in Jesus. But isn't this this idea of the penetrating gaze that you can't squirm out from under, right?

You're fully exposed. Yeah. Yeah. It's also a longing for the day where our preparation, our sanctification is completed.

Complete. You know, it's like, you know, this has been a hard thing walking this earth, you know, before I come to you. Because that's what his metaphor here is all about. Right. He's talking about coming to him after dying before I depart and am no more. He says, you know, this is a tough road, but I understand in the sanctification you're changing me.

Right. And there's the longing of Paul in Romans 8, you know, who's going to set me free from this? This body of death. This body of death, this sin. And so he's saying, you know, I'd like to have a little time before I die where we're not working on this.

But, you know, let's work on it because I want to be shaped into your image. So he really, you know, in the end of 12 is you can broaden that to a much bigger spiritual sense of saying, you know, I'm a sojourner here on this earth. My fleshly experience here is a short one. We already know that.

It's a hand breath, but it's really necessary and it's very valuable in terms of God transforming us into the image of his son. So I'm just a sojourner here. I'm a guest here, but my real home is not here.

It's in heaven with God. So his attitude is really good. Hear my prayer. Give ear to what I'm crying about. You know, hold not your peace at my tears. I mean, this is tough stuff he's talking about. And so this next year in 2024, maybe a tough year, but recognize the fact that any father who loves his child disciplines, and this may be all about discipline, to transform you into the image of his son, which David himself said in eight, deliver me from my transgressions.

That could be an offering for this year. And in silence, we can know that God is God, right? We don't always have to speak into everything.

Oh, where's that verse that says you're God in heaven and I'm here on earth. So let my words be few. Oh, I just looked it up last week. Okay. Well, I just quoted it. Exactly. I just can't put the reference on it.

I think it's Ecclesiastes. I think it is too. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But you know, our time here is short, but our time here is extraordinarily valuable in terms of God changing us in his image. It is important. And it's going to be a tough road. It's not a comfortable road, but it's a road toward God changing us and transforming us in the image of his son, which in our deepest core is exactly what we want. We want to love like Jesus loved. We want to have compassion like Jesus had compassion. We want to think nothing of ourselves and everything about God and the people that he loves. That's what we want. But he's going to have to pry your little fingers off one at a time over those things that you consider dear.

So let's face into the new year with humility and with a quietness before God and allow him to show us what needs to be consumed like a moth to the flame and let's not hold onto those ashes and carry them into the new year. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe as he started at the outset, maybe you need to cut back a little bit on your foolish time on the internet. On your foolish.

Well, David didn't say that. Well, you know, that's how I take it. You know, invest yourself well in the next year.

That's what he's saying from the beginning of this. Invest yourself well, but don't overestimate what you're capable of. You know, you're a shadow. You may not be as capable as you think you are, but what you need to do, the focus of the whole thing, God, this is what I wait for. My hope is in you. So that's our hope for you and coming up in the next new year. And we pray you join us again as we come back and look at Matthew here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I like that.

I just didn't know what to say. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Rhythm City.