Praise, Prayer & Providence

Let's remain standing now for the reading of

God's word which is from Psalm 9.

Again, Psalm 9.

Please listen now

to the reading of God's word.

To the choir master,

according to,

a psalm of David.

I will give thanks to the lord with

my whole heart.

I will recount

all of your wonderful

deeds. I will be glad and exalt in

you.

I will sing praises to your name, oh

most high.

When my enemies turn back,

they stumble

and perish before your presence,

for you have maintained my just cause.

You have sat on the throne giving righteous

judgment.

You have rebuked the nations.

You have made the wicked perish.

You have blotted out their names forever and

ever.

The enemy came to an end in everlasting

ruins.

Their cities, you rooted out.

The very memory of them has perished.

But the lord sits enthroned forever.

He has established his throne for justice,

and he judges the world with righteousness.

He judges the peoples with uprightness.

The lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,

a stronghold in times of trouble.

And those who know your name

put their trust in you, for you, oh

lord, have not forsaken

those who seek you.

Sing praises to the lord who sits enthroned

in Zion.

Tell among the peoples his deeds,

for he who avenges blood is mindful of

them. He does not forget the cry of

the afflicted.

Be gracious to me, oh lord. See my

affliction from those who hate me.

Oh, you who lift me up from the

gates of death, that I may recount all

your praises, that in the gates of the

daughter of Zion, I may rejoice in your

salvation.

The nations have sunk in the pit that

they made.

In the net that they hid,

their own foot has been caught.

The lord has made himself known.

He has executed judgment.

The wicked are snared in the work of

their own hands.

The wicked shall return to Sheol,

all the nations that forget god.

For the needy shall not always be forgotten,

and the hope of the poor shall not

perish forever.

Arise, oh lord.

Let not man prevail. Let the nations be

judged before you.

Put them in

fear, oh lord.

Let the nations know

that they are but men.

This is the word of the lord.

Thanks be to god. Please be seated.

Well, in Samuel 1st in in first Samuel

17,

you'll find a familiar bible story

brimming with drama,

determination,

and divine intervention.

The Israelites,

gripped by fear,

face the towering menace of Goliath,

a Philistine warrior whose imposing

size inspires terror,

and whose strength

and ferocity

makes him seem all but invincible.

For 40 days, Goliath taunts

the armies of Israel,

defying them to send out a champion to

come and do battle against him.

The stakes are high.

Since defeat

means slavery

and death.

And since the courage of king Saul falters,

a mood of despair

and doom

descends

upon the people of Israel.

But defeat

is not the destiny

of god's people. So in god's providence, a

young shepherd

from Bethlehem,

sent by his father to deliver food to

his brothers on the battlefield,

was destined by god

to deliver victory instead.

So while Israel seasoned warriors

stand in the shadow of the giant, shaking

in their armor,

David takes refuge in the shadow of god's

wing. And armed with nothing but a staff

and a sling

and 5 stones,

he approaches Goliath without fear.

Goliath, standing behind his shield bearer, is in

utter disbelief

at the absurdity of the scene that's unfolding

before him.

So he moves towards David, mocking him and

cursing him,

but David does not back down.

He cries out,

this day,

the lord will deliver you into my hand

for the battle

is the lord's.

As Goliath charges David, the young shepherd from

Israel runs toward the giant and slings a

stone toward him striking the Philistine on his

forehead.

When Goliath falls on his face, David runs

to him, takes his sword,

and uses it to cut his head off.

David's victory over Goliath is a powerful testimony

of God's providence,

reminding us that God will judge the wicked

and vindicate his people even when all hope

seems lost.

This morning, we're looking at Psalm 9, a

psalm written by David and conveying the central

truth

that because God is good and just,

you can have confidence

in providence.

That's the main point that I want you

to remember today, that because god is good

and just, you can have confidence

in providence. And as we explore Psalm 9

together, we'll do so under 3 headings. First

of all, god is worthy of our praise.

Secondly,

God is attentive

to our prayers.

And thirdly,

God is faithful

in his providence.

God is worthy of our praise, God is

attentive to our prayers, and God is faithful

in his providence.

Now as we begin our study of Psalm

9, let me briefly point out to you

that the Greek and Latin versions of the

Old Testament

consider both Psalms 9 and 10 to actually

be one psalm,

together.

This is partly because Psalm 10

lacks a title, which is unusual for the

first 40,

verses for the first 40 Psalms in in

our psalter,

but also because it seems to continue

an acrostic pattern that begins in Psalm 9

and concludes

at the end of Psalm 10.

Each verse in the original Hebrew begins with

one of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet,

and it does so continually from Psalm 9

through Psalm 10 with some gaps in between,

but nevertheless following a pattern.

However, the Hebrew Psalter treats them as separate

Psalms,

and this is supported by many things among

which is the stark contrast between Psalm

9 and 10. There's a significant change in

tone that begins at the first verse in

Psalm 10. So we'll follow the original Hebrew

order, which is preserved in our bibles, and

we'll take Psalm 9 and 10 as distinct

companion pieces that address, on the one hand,

the certainty of our heavenly hope, and on

the other hand, the challenge

of our temporal trials.

So let's focus our attention then on Psalm

9 this morning by considering our first heading

that God is worthy

of our praise.

Notice that in the first twelve verses of

Psalm 9,

David's language is brimming with praise.

In fact,

notice that in the first two verses of

this section, verses 12,

David praises god, and in the last two

verses of this section, verses 11 to 12,

David praises god again by calling others to

praise him. So verses 12 and verses 112

are all about

God's

being praised by David and then by all

of his people. You might say that this

whole section is wrapped up and delivered to

us in glorious language of praise.

In verses 1 and 2, David writes,

I will give thanks to the Lord with

my whole heart. I will recount

all of your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and exalt in you.

I will sing praise to your name, O

Most High.

Notice the manifold ways in which David manifests

his praise for God.

First of all, he exudes an attitude of

gratitude.

He gives thanks to God with his whole

heart.

The Hebrew word for heart doesn't simply refer

to the organ that pumps blood through our

veins,

but refers to the inner person,

to one's will,

to one's disposition.

In other words, true praise of God

entails living with a wholeheartedly

grateful posture.

It's difficult to overstate

the importance of this principle

in our day and age. We live in

a time of unprecedented

levels of depression

and anxiety.

Factors like increased screen time,

the toxicity

of social media,

and reduced physical activity,

together

with fears stemming from,

even the recent pandemic, for example, or the

threat of world war,

or the politicization

of everything in our lives

have all conspired to usher in a new

age of misery.

The emotional ruts

that we experience is exacerbated by a materialistic

social ethic that incentivizes

a pseudo victimhood

rooted in egotism,

covetousness,

and greed.

In stark contrast

to all of this,

Psalm 9 calls us to cultivate gratitude

by lifting our gaze away from ourselves

and toward the Lord.

Even though life in this fallen world can

be very hard,

we always can and we always should find

good reasons to thank God.

In James 117,

our lord's brother reminds us that every good

gift and every perfect gift

is from above, that it comes from above,

that it comes down from the father of

lights.

Furthermore, in Luke 10 verse 20,

Luke 10:20

Jesus says that we should rejoice that our

names are written in heaven.

In other words,

everything good in our lives

from each breath that we take,

even to our very salvation itself,

should motivate us to rejoice

in God's goodness, to be grateful

for the mercies, for the gifts, for the

grace that God gives us.

Imagine what good it would do to your

soul

if each morning you praise god for someone

or for something

in your life.

Maybe you can try that out this week.

You might consider

each day a specific person in your family

or one of your friends

that you can,

that that you can call to mind that

day and consider how that person in particular

is a blessing for your life.

You can praise god for that person.

You can pray for that person. You might

even call or text that person to let

them know that you prayed for them and

that you're thankful for them. Can you imagine

what that would do not only to your

heart, but for that person's heart?

Again, you would be cultivating an attitude of

gratitude that is appropriate

for the Christian.

Secondly,

David praises god by declaring his wonderful deeds.

This encourages us to recall and recount

God's marvelous works.

Reading through your prayer journals, as I know

some of you keep prayer journals, which is

a very good practice, as you read through

those,

that might bring to mind

how God has answered prayers in the past,

and this can serve to increase

your

gratitude

for your Lord

and also strengthen

your faith as you do that.

And this might cause you to proclaim

God's goodness to others. And as you proclaim

these things, not only will that serve to

give you hope and to give them hope

by pointing them to Christ, but it will

also serve to complete your joy

because joy is not complete until we express

it and share it with others.

This is why going to a ballgame in

a stadium in person, for example,

is a much better experience than watching it

on a screen.

Because in because in going, you you are

physically there, and you share that experience, and

you participate in that experience with others, and

it makes it that much more joyful. The

great English author, C. S. Lewis, puts it

this way. He writes, I think we delight

to praise what we enjoy

because the praise not merely expresses,

but completes

the enjoyment.

It is its appointed consummation.

It is not out of compliment

that lovers keep on telling one another how

beautiful they are.

The delight is incomplete

until it is expressed.

Therefore, we when we recount

God's wonderful deeds to others, not only do

we bless them by sharing with them the

source of our hope, but we ourselves are

blessed in that very process of sharing.

Finally,

David praises God by rejoicing and exalting in

him,

which culminates David's,

in David extolling,

God's name through singing.

The truth is

that as we praise God for all the

good gifts that he gives us and we

praise God by recalling and recounting

the wonderful deeds of the Lord,

the reality of his goodness,

his power, and his love are ever before

us.

And this inevitably

lifts our spirits

to a joyous crescendo of hope,

compelling our lips to sing praises to God.

Brothers and sisters, is this not a beautiful

illustration

of what our disposition

ought to be when we gather for worship

on the Lord's day.

This is what it means to worship God

in spirit and in truth. The joyous lifting

of our voices in song,

recalling and recounting

his marvelous works, having our hearts shaped by

his transformative grace. This is how the Christian

ought to praise God on the Lord's day

and how the Christian ought to praise God

every day.

In verses 3 to 6,

David praises God because he has defeated the

wicked. He writes,

when my enemies turn back, they stumble and

perish before your presence,

for you have maintained my just cause.

You have sat on the throne giving righteous

judgment.

You have rebuked the nations.

You have made the wicked perish.

You have blotted out their names forever and

ever.

The enemy came to an end in everlasting

ruins. Their cities you rooted out, the very

memory

of them

has perished.

In verses 3 4, David praises God

for being his deliverer.

And in verses 5 and 6, he praises

God for being the deliverer of his people.

This last point can be seen

by David's mention of God's judgment on the

nations.

Now this is not a racist or xenophobic

statement by David in mentioning the nations. The

nations simply represent the enemies of God,

the enemies

of God's people.

God's people

bear his name,

and people from every tribe, from every language,

from every tongue, from every race have been

adopted

into his family.

The reason why God's name is not forgotten

is because he preserves his people who bear

his name and with our lives and with

our words give him glory.

In contrast to this,

the names of the nations,

those in rebellion against God, those outside of

the household of God

are blotted out

and their memory is forgotten

according to Psalm 9.

This teaches us to praise God for our

personal salvation.

He's the one who delivers us from the

dangers

in this life,

from those who seek to do us harm,

but especially

from the one who seeks to destroy

our souls.

God is the source,

the strength,

and the seal of our salvation.

The father elects us,

the son delivers us,

and the spirit

regenerates us.

We simply receive

this amazing gift.

The credit and the glory for our salvation

are entirely

his. He is the alpha and the omega

of our salvation.

This also teaches us to praise God for

defending and preserving the church.

What great confidence

this gives us as we plant this church.

The forces of Satan will oppose God's plan

for this church plant,

but God will cause us to prevail

against them.

God has called us to recall and recount

God's marvelous deeds in this place, and he

will rebuke,

repel,

and root out all who stand in our

way. Not because we're any better than any

other,

but simply because we are his

and because he has given us a sacred

mission to be salt and to be light.

This is why in verses 7 to 10,

David praises God for vindicating

his people. He writes,

the Lord sits in throne forever.

He has established his throne for justice,

and he judges the world with righteousness.

He judges the peoples with uprightness.

The Lord is a stronghold

for the oppressed,

a stronghold

in times of trouble.

And those who know your name

put their trust in you, for you, oh

Lord,

have not forsaken

those

who seek you.

Think about this.

In acts 17,

we read that when Paul was planting a

church in Athens,

he goes up to the Areopagus,

otherwise known as Mars Hill, a place that

was full of idols

because all sorts of false gods were worshiped

there.

And his audience

was made up

of many arrogant people.

For Athenians, consider their city to be the

epicenter of culture,

enjoying a legacy of scholarship that had been

forged over centuries by philosophers

of great renown.

What chance

did the message of the gospel have against

such formidable foes?

A band of nobodies

from a scarcely known people

who were renounced

by their own families

and ruled and repressed

under the power of Rome.

What did they have to offer

before the glory of Athens?

And yet Paul

unashamedly

and unreservedly

proclaimed

the gospel

in that place.

He does so, by the way, by quoting

this very Psalm

when he tells the Athenians the following. He

says, the times of ignorance,

God overlooked.

But now,

he commands all people everywhere to repent

because he has fixed a day on which

he will judge

the world in righteousness

by a man whom he has appointed.

And of this, he has given assurance to

all

by raising him from the dead.

All the philosophies

in the world will hit a dead end,

lest they follow the one who is the

way.

All the learning

in the world

is ignorance,

lest it receive the one who is the

truth.

All the lifestyles of the world

shall end up in judgment and death,

lest they be transformed by the one who

is

the life.

The gospel

points us to the way,

the truth, and the life. And Paul preached

this gospel on Mars Hill.

He was rejected.

He was reviled.

He was ridiculed.

But in the end,

through his message,

many were redeemed

from sin and rescued

from the flames of judgment.

Because neither will the gates of hell

nor the minions of Satan prevail

against the church of Jesus Christ.

The Lord is the stronghold of his people.

We can hide in him and be safe,

and he will never leave us nor forsake

us.

This church

exists today

and the pagan religion of Athens does not

because God is true

to his promise.

This is why, as we do our work

here,

in the midst of many idols and many

dark forces who would oppose us, we can

praise God for this call.

Because even when we meet opposition

and when things

aren't going the way that we would prefer,

we can be sure that God's justice will

prevail and that he will vindicate his people.

Therefore, David concludes this section of praise with

verses 11 and 12 saying,

sing praises to the Lord who sits enthroned

in Zion. Tell among the peoples his deeds,

for he who avenges blood is mindful of

them. He does not forget the cry of

the afflicted.

Recall that David began the Psalm by praising

God with gratitude,

proclaiming the wonderful deeds of God and singing

praises to his name.

Now, having demonstrated that God is worthy of

praise because he judges the wicked and vindicates

the righteous,

he calls upon you this morning

saying, go and declare his deeds, unashamedly

joining

the joyous

chorus of praise.

We don't know when exactly David wrote this

psalm, but we know that David witnessed

many times,

God's wonderful deeds,

such as when God rescued his people from

the hand of the giant, for example, and

from the scorn

and the abuse of the Philistines.

So he writes this hymn of praise,

not

just for himself,

but he writes it to glorify God,

to encourage his people, and to invite others

to join him in this heavenly

chorus.

That was David's mission in writing Psalm 9.

And now he reminds us that this is

also our mission as God's people. He says,

be assured that God is mindful of you,

that he will not forget your cries.

And you know this is true

because he has already proven his steadfast love

for you in redemptive history when he sent

his son to deliver you,

when he has taken you out of darkness

and into his marvelous light. That's the whole

reason you are here this morning. You know

that God is faithful, that he does not

forget the cry

of his people. The Woodlands Reformed Church exists

to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus

Christ

through the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's our mission.

And even though it's not easy to plant

a church,

requiring all of us to contribute,

all of us to volunteer,

all of us to declare God's good deeds,

and to invite others to join

our joyous chorus, we can be confident that

we will succeed

because God is faithful

to his promises

to subdue

all opposition

against him, all opposition against the gospel,

and to redeem his people, and to vindicate

his church.

So

in this first section, we saw that God

is worthy of our praise. Let us now

consider our 2nd section in which we see

that God is attentive

to our prayer.

If you look carefully at verses 13 to

20,

you notice that they parallel verses 1 to

12, but instead of being written in the

form of a praise,

they are written in the form

of a prayer.

Just like the previous section of the Psalm

was enveloped or bookended

by praise,

this section

of the Psalm

is

enveloped or bookended

by a prayer.

In other words, the first two verses and

the last two verses of this section

are an explicit prayer.

The middle verses on the other hand are

a prophetic expression of confidence

in God's providence.

Look at the prayer that bookends this section,

verses 13 and 14 and

1920. David writes,

be gracious to me, oh lord.

See my affliction from those who hate me.

Oh, you who lift me up from the

gates of death, that I may recount all

your praises,

that in the gates of the daughter of

Zion, I may rejoice in your salvation.

And then verses 19 and 20. Arise, oh

lord.

Let not man prevail.

Let the nations be judged before you. Put

them in fear, oh lord. Let the nations

know

that they are but men.

In verses 13 and 14, David prays for

god's grace,

asking God to rescue him

from affliction at the gates of death, so

that he can rejoice in salvation

and praise God at the gates of the

daughter of Zion.

In antiquity,

the city gates were places where the rulers

of the city would gather to adjudicate legal

matters.

Therefore,

the gates represented

the threshold

between right and wrong,

between guilt and innocence.

They were the dividing wall between blessing and

curse,

between communion

and exile.

When David prays

to be rescued from the affliction at the

gates of death,

so he can rejoice and praise god at

the gates of the daughters of Sion.

The gates of death represent the dominion

of the godless world,

and not merely the people and the forces

that depose and persecute god's people,

but also

they represent the temptations that allure us,

the desires

that entangle us,

the addictions

that enslave us,

the priorities

that deceive us.

These are all deadly weapons against our souls

because they are forged by the values that

sever us

from God and from his people.

The gates of the daughter of Zion, on

the other hand,

represent the place where God's law is proclaimed,

promoted,

and practiced.

In other words, the gates of the daughter

of Zion

represent the church,

the assembly of god's people.

They are the place where god reigns and

rules in righteousness,

where sinners are

redeemed from their bondage to the flesh,

where their fallen nature

is regenerated,

where their broken image

is restored,

where they are rescued from the pit of

despair,

where they are received

into the loving embrace of their savior,

where their souls are refreshed

by the healing balm of the gospel,

and where their bodies shall be renewed in

the radiant splendor of the royal sun.

Can there be a more stark contrast

between 2 gates,

between 2 kingdoms, between two ways of life?

Most people we meet

are hopelessly imprisoned

behind the gates of death.

But that's why God has called us to

plant this church

and enlisted us on a rescue mission

to storm the gates of hell,

which cannot and will not prevail against the

church of Jesus Christ.

By God's grace,

through the mission of this church, God will

rescue the captives and bring them into the

safety

of the impenetrable gates of the New Jerusalem.

Does this not excite you?

This is more important than the presidential election.

Is more entertaining than any sport,

is more exhilarating than any music concert,

and more meaningful than any other call

that may be upon your lives.

And just like David knew that Israel would

prevail against the Philistines,

you can be certain

that this church will prevail in her mission

because we have the same champion

fighting for us

that David did and that Israel did.

The living God

is the one who fights.

This is why in verses 19 and 20,

David's prayer calls God to arise that his

adversaries may tremble in fear and be humbled.

Oh, may our prayers

for this church plant and for one another

be modeled after Psalm 9,

praising God for his goodness

and appealing to his justice with hope.

So having looked at the headings of praise

and of prayer,

let us consider our final heading that God

is faithful in his providence.

The reason David in Psalm 9 can praise

God

for his marvelous deeds

and appeal to God's justice when he is

confronting adversity

is that David has confidence

in God's providential

care and rule over creation.

The confidence in providence is especially clear

in David's prophetic words in verses 15 to

18 where we read,

the nations have sunk in the pit that

they made.

In the net that they hid, their own

foot has been caught.

The Lord has made himself known. He has

executed judgment.

The wicked are snared in the work of

their own hands.

The wicked shall return to Sheol

all the nations that forget God.

For the needy shall not always be forgotten,

and the hope of the poor

shall not perish forever.

Such is David's confidence in God's providence that

in the middle of his prayer for justice

and vindication,

David speaks of the future fulfillment of those

very things as if

they have already taken place.

As he did in Psalm 7,

he says that the nations have been caught

in their own net.

This is not a fortuitous occurrence but rather

it is an execution of God's justice because

this is God's world,

and He is in complete control,

and He will not be mocked.

It is worth reflecting

on how different our destiny is from that

of the wicked.

God's justice ensures

they are ensnared

by their own net,

While the great fisher of men

rescues us out of the terrible tempest

with a net

woven with threads of mercy

and of love.

The nations forget God

and lose their way in their prideful self

imposed

amnesia.

How many people willfully forget God living as

if He doesn't exist,

as if His commandments don't matter,

as if they get to live by their

own rules, pursuing

their own pleasures.

David says that that kind of forgetfulness

leads to Sheol, the place of the dead,

which is apparently the natural habitat

of those who choose to forget God since

David doesn't only say that they end up

there, rather he says that they return

there.

In the definitive example

of poetic justice,

God's providence ensures

that those who willfully forget God

shall

forever forget

the way to heaven

and will end up

forgotten,

forsaken,

and forlorn.

Yet god does not forget his people.

And though we suffer, we shall not perish.

We shall not be forgotten

because our names are written in heaven in

the indelible

blood

of Christ.

The Bible tells us that Goliath was armored

in a coat of mail

or more precisely in Hebrew, a coat of

scales.

But those scales were no match to the

stone

that cracked his skull

and the sword

that severed

his neck.

Before every Christian

and before every faithful church

stands a giant

in a coat of scales,

a menacing dragon

that threatens to devour us in its blasphemous

and revolting flames.

But like David in Psalm 9, we can

rest in God's providence

because that dragon is already dead.

Its coats of scales offered no protection

against the mighty rock of our salvation,

who already crushed the dragon's skull, and who

with the sword of the cross, slayed the

dragon

and severed its neck.

So beloved Christian,

take to heart the lessons of Psalm 9.

1st, because god is good, fill your days

with praise.

2nd, because god is just,

when trials have you in the fray,

pray.

And finally,

because god is good and just,

have confidence

in providence.

So the honor is for you who believe.

But for those who do not believe,

the stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone,

and a stone of stumbling,

and a rock of offense. They stumble because

they disobeyed the word as they were destined

to do.

But you

are a chosen race,

a royal priesthood,

a holy nation,

a people for His own possession that you

may proclaim the excellencies

of Him who called you out of darkness

and into His marvelous light. Let's do that

together. Let's pray.