Psalm 39 - Psalms: The Heartbeat of God

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Today be encouraged with a word from my guest speaker.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Let's open the Bible to uh Psalm 39.

Now we're going to read a huge chunk of this, so if you've got your Bibles there in front of you, Psalm 39, verse 1.

Psalms 39:1

This is David.

Buckle up, here comes a big portion of scripture.

Psalm 39, verse 1 says, I said.

Psalms 39:1

Alright, let's stop there.

Now, what is there possibly to notice in two simple words in Scripture?

We notice that David was talking to himself.

In fact, a lot of your translations say, I said to myself.

So David's talking to himself.

How many of you here talk to yourself?

Right.

And those not raising their hands are saying to themselves right now, don't raise your hand, it's lame.

Right?

So we agree, we all talk to ourselves.

The question is, what does your self-speak sound like?

What does your inner dialogue sound like?

Is it productive or is it destructive?

Are you building yourself up or are you tearing yourself down?

Are you your greatest advocate or are you your own worst enemy?

What's going on in that pretty little brain of yours?

You see, your answer to this question will have a massive impact on your life.

John Milton said that the mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.

You believe that?

I do, because I've walked it.

You see, you have within your mind the power to create a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.

To see the good in a bad situation or the bad in a good situation.

Point number one this morning is guard your thoughts.

What's going on in your mind?

What are you saying to yourself all day long?

Is the Lord driving your self-speak, or is your sinful nature driving it?

You see, if the Lord is driving it, you can make a heaven of hell.

You can, for instance, count at all joy when you fall into various trials.

There's only one way to do that.

That's with the Lord.

That's James 1, 2.

Or you can say, as David said in Psalm 27, though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear.

He says, Though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.

You see, David had the ability to get through impossible circumstances, and I doubt that he had some big, fake, cheesy smile on his face, right?

Like you get that a lot in the church world.

You come in here having experienced basically a train wreck that week, and somebody comes up to you and says, Hey, how are you doing?

Oh, great, great, wonderful, awesome, amazing, great.

Did I say great?

See, I don't think David had that big fake cheesy smile on his face, but I do believe that he had hope and confidence in the overall outcome.

Why?

Because he walked closely with the Lord.

You'll notice this as a theme today.

It's all about your time with the Lord.

You see, this isn't just pull yourself up by the bootstraps type stuff, or just the fact that some people are glasses half full type people.

You know what it is?

It's it's proximity to the Lord.

David was in desperate pursuit of God's heart.

He was called the man after God's own heart.

He walked closely with him, and so when he faced impossible circumstances, he had within him the ability to make a heaven of that hell, to stand firm on the truth of God's word, to stand firm on what he read in God's word and wait for his deliverance.

In fact, actually, in this psalm that we're studying today, Psalm 39, this is a psalm of David complaining to God, enduring the Lord's discipline, but refusing to despair.

It's not.

But it's always hopeful.

Life with the Lord is always looking at the bigger picture and seeing that there is something greater going on here than just my immediate circumstance.

What you see with your eyes is never the whole picture.

Only God can show you the whole picture.

And in showing you that whole picture, he can show you that there is meaning, there is value in the struggle, that he's producing something in you, that he's creating something, that there is value in what you're going through.

You see, with God, the glass isn't just half full, it's overflowing.

And not just with momentary pleasure, but with eternal purpose.

So is God driving your inner voice or is your sinful nature driving it?

See, because if God's driving it, you can create a heaven of hell, but if your nature, if your sinful nature is driving it, you can create a hell of heaven.

The clearest example that I have of this is the news.

If you turn the news on, gosh, 30 minutes.

We all hate each other, right?

The whole world's ending and the sky's falling.

If you're here today and you're addicted to the news, I dare you to turn it off for two weeks.

You'll find that probably nothing will be missing from your uh your existence, right?

Nothing that is critical to your existence.

Like you turn the news off, you'll probably still remember to eat, sleep, and poop, right?

But I can guarantee you this you'll see a level of negativity leave your life.

See, the nature of your life is the culmination of what you choose to focus on all day.

You have within your mind the ability to create a heaven of hell.

And a hell of heaven.

Who here knows someone that no matter what can just find a way to make anything miserable?

Anybody know anybody like that?

Type of person that if you handed them a million bucks, they'd complain that they gotta pay taxes on it.

Right?

Now that's the funny version of it, but the more real, unfortunate version of it is pessimism, always fearing that the worst is coming around the corner.

Cynicism, like believing the worst in people's intentions, always doubting people, bitterness, being jaded and just refusing to see the good in anything, ultimately depression and hopelessness.

And the determining factor, once again, your time alone with the Lord.

Someone who's stuck in a pattern of creating a hell of heaven is someone who has ventured out away from the Lord and become very easy prey for the enemy.

Now I know because I've spent a good portion of my life flip-flopping between the joy of the Lord and battling depression.

I've spent time taking medication for depression.

And I believe, yes, sometimes there is a place for that.

But if I really examine my own heart, my own walk, I see that, you know, when I struggled the most was when I ventured out away from the Lord on my own.

Buried in busyness, wrapped up in all of the stuff, the circumstances, so much so that the Lord takes a back seat as I try to hold it all together and sneak him in whenever I get time.

You can't win that way.

Your proximity to God literally has the ability to shape your reality and what you focus on.

You see, if heaven is eternity in the presence of God and hell is the eternity in the absence of God, then while on this side of the grave, we have a choice, and every single day, every time you wake up, you have a choice.

Is today gonna be heaven-bound or is today gonna be hell-bound?

Am I gonna walk with the Lord or am I gonna venture out and try this thing on my own?

You literally have this capacity all within your own head.

Do you believe that?

I do.

Because I've walked it.

So, what's your inner dialogue sound like?

What's going on in your head all day?

Because what's going on in your head all day, your inner dialogue is incredibly powerful.

And the more time that you spend with the Lord, the more it will be the Lord driving that dialogue.

The more time you spend in the world, it'll be the world driving that.

This is where all this crazy trying to legalize pedophilia or the gender dysphoria stuff comes from.

Where does that come from?

It comes from spending our time in the world.

Starts as an idea, becomes idealized, and before you know it, you got men thinking they're women.

What?

Where does that come from?

Absence from the Lord.

I always think back to the scriptures in the Old Testament that say it happens a few times in Scripture.

It says, in those days there was no God in Israel, and the following chapters are just total mayhem, absolute chaos.

Time away from the Lord.

I want to give you two examples of an inner dialogue here, and you tell me which one sounds more like yours.

Ready?

Option number one.

It's gonna be a little bit hard to hear.

You idiot.

You blew it again.

You always do this.

You screwed it up again.

I knew you were gonna do this.

Why do you always do that?

It's hard to even listen to, isn't it?

Is that the voice of the enemy or the voice of the Lord?

It's the voice of the enemy, but truth be told, for a real big portion of my life, that was exactly how I felt the Lord talked to me and felt about me, but then I got to know him and realized God's not like that.

So is that your inner dialogue?

Is your inner dialogue sound more like option two?

Well, that didn't go as planned.

That's alright.

God's here, we're good.

God's got this, you're still walking with him.

Which option sounds more like what goes on in your head all day?

Be honest with yourself.

You see, because here's the problem.

Proverbs 23, 7 says that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

So what's that mean?

That means that if in your head all day you're saying, you loser, you idiot, you failure, you blew it.

What's that mean?

That means you're going to be a loser, a failure, an idiot.

You're going to obey what you have taught yourself or what you are telling yourself about yourself all day.

And conversely, if you are telling yourself that as God, God's word calls you, that you are redeemed, beloved, promised a good future, destined for glory, then that is what you will be.

That is the reality that you will obey.

See, Zephaniah 3.17 says that the Lord delights in you, delights over you, and rejoices over you with singing.

So can we really reason that God is delighting in us and rejoicing over us with singing, and then we make a mistake and suddenly he's condemning us and calling us an idiot?

I don't think so.

Just a quick note on that.

God doesn't lead with condemnation.

God does not lead with condemnation.

God leads with conviction.

So if that voice in your head sounds condemning, that's not the Lord leading you.

You see, condemnation means guilty and hopeless.

Godly conviction means guided to glory.

Christ took all of the condemnation for us.

That's done with.

God leads with conviction, not condemnation.

Let your inner dialogue be guided by the word, not the world.

Let it be guided by godly conviction, which leads to repentance and glory.

You see, this is so important.

In fact, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10, 5 that we are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Which thoughts?

Every thought.

How many thoughts?

Every thought.

Captive to the obedience of Christ.

What's that mean?

Because if we don't stop and examine that, that can just sound like Christianese and we blow right past it.

We memorize it, but I have no idea what it means.

Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

It means with every single thought that pops into your head, your job is to take it in a chokehold and drag it to the throne of Christ and say, hey Jesus, is this a good one or a bad one?

Every thought.

How many thoughts?

Every thought.

You see, we're not just subject to whatever pops into our head.

We are not subject to whatever we think about ourselves or whatever the world tells us to think about ourselves.

We have the ability to control our thoughts, to control our inner dialogue, and by doing so, control the trajectory of our lives.

Friday morning, Jamie, my wife, she um left to take the girls to school.

And it's never good when they leave, and then like two and a half minutes later the phone rings.

Like, oh gosh, this can't be good.

So she left, she calls, she blew a tire, and it didn't just like poke a little pinhole in the tire, it blew the whole side of the tire out.

Right in the middle of the road between uh the children's hospital and the King Supers up there on Briar Gate, you know what I'm talking about?

Thankfully, she pulled off, and uh I went over there and I was changing the tire for her, and it just was a struggle because we're in a weird position.

She's pinned right up against the curb, so I can hardly get into the truck to jack it up.

And uh it wasn't our truck, it was my father-in-law's truck.

So I don't know where the jack is.

I'm pulling everything out of the back of the truck.

We look like total hillbillies on the side of the road.

Like everything we own is now on the side of the road, and I still can't find the jack.

So now I'm YouTubeing in the middle of the road.

Where's the darn jack in this thing?

Wishing it was a foreign car so I could curse it for being a foreign car, but it wasn't.

It was a Chevy.

And I just felt like the Lord was saying in that moment, Kyle, you got the choice, man.

I know you had your schedule for the day, I know you have your agenda.

But I got a different one.

And so are you gonna get flustered and lose your mind over this thing?

Are you just gonna slow down, change the tire, and move on?

We have that choice in every moment, in every situation.

If we really actually believe the word, if we really believe that God is causing all things together for our good, then I guess I needed a flat tire that morning.

Right?

I had my schedule.

I wanted to stick to my schedule, but God had something else going on.

And that's alright.

Is your life moving in step with the Lord, or is your life moving in step with the world?

Now, one side note real quick, realize we just spent 12 minutes on two words in the Bible.

What I noticed with that is that if you're not getting anything out of Scripture, it's because you're not paying attention.

See, I read this scripture at least 12 times and thought there's nothing here to preach on.

But then I slowed down and I got with the Lord.

And the Lord gives us revelation when we do that, doesn't he?

Let's slow down, let's spend our time with the Lord.

Let's keep reading our verse here.

He says, I will guard my ways, still in verse one here.

I will guard my ways lest I sin with my tongue.

I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle while the wicked are before me.

Point number one was guard your thoughts.

Point number two is guard your tongue.

Scripture mentions the power of the tongue more than 130 times.

How come?

Because in the tongue there is the power to create or to destroy, the power to build or demolish, the power to encourage or to cripple.

Incredible power in our tongue.

Proverbs 21, 23 says, He who guards his tongue, he guards his life from danger.

There's great danger in a tongue left unguarded.

If your mouth is out of control, your life is out of control.

How many here could admit to having caused some damage with their tongue?

David says, I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle.

It's a picture of doing whatever it takes to keep from doing harm.

Saying, I'll literally put a muzzle on my mouth.

And so we're gonna be selling muzzles in the lobby after church.

We got some nice ones.

I got the road logo on them, they look good.

And we'll give you a deal too if you're married.

You get buy one and get one free.

Okay.

He says, while the wicked are before me.

Now, this is just me.

Initially, when I read that, it's like, hmm, that's a that's a kind of a qualifier there.

While the wicked are before me.

Does that mean I can say whatever I want when I'm around believers?

Just being honest.

You know, you see, what's happening here is David, David's in a season of being of being disciplined by the Lord, and so he's complaining to God about God's discipline, right?

And he's saying, I'm gonna watch my tongue while the wicked are before me.

Why?

Because if he just goes blabbing off about his complaints about God to an unbeliever, he's gonna mislead an unbeliever.

So what's that mean?

It means that we need to be in true community with real believers.

Because we face struggles inevitably.

We wrestle with the Lord inevitably, because his discipline is hard sometimes.

And that's okay.

It's okay for us to wrestle with the Lord and even complain about our wrestling with the Lord.

But we need to be able to do that with real believers in real community.

Why?

Because they know the Lord.

They know God's word and they can remind us in the truth in his word.

Amen.

He says, I will hold my tongue while the wicked are before me.

Now I think there's one more element to this piece of scripture here, this whole while the wicked are before me.

I think there's a prophetic element to it.

I think he's saying, I hold my tongue while the wicked are before me.

And in other words, I will hold my tongue until Christ comes back to wipe the earth of all wickedness.

So yeah, it could sound like a qualifier, but it's pretty much all-encompassing, right?

Until Jesus comes back to wipe the earth of all wickedness, or in other words, until Jesus comes back to remove the wickedness from me, that I can no longer even speak with wickedness.

Ephesians 4 29 says, Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth.

But what is good for necessary edification?

That to me makes me think that maybe there's some unnecessary edification.

That it may impart grace to the hearers, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

Do you believe that you have the ability to grieve the Holy Spirit by way of what comes out of your mouth?

By whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.

He says, Let no unwholesome talk proceed out of your mouth.

Yeah, we all like to be the life of the party.

We like to cut it up with the guys, right?

Make everybody laugh.

But would you believe that that can be done with wholesome, edifying, God-honoring talk?

Let no unwholesome talk proceed from your mouth.

That's that's pretty finite.

Let no unwholesome talk proceed from your mouth.

I'm gonna I'm gonna commit to getting better at that one.

Anyone else here with me?

That's a high bar.

It's a high bar, and I think it's one that's kind of easy to write off, like, hmm, you know, giving God a lot of my time, tithing, doing pretty well in all the other categories of Christianity, right?

But the the whole talk thing, he's probably okay with that.

I'm just joking with my buddies at the church.

He's he's probably okay with that.

This is kind of a high bar set, but I think it's one of the barriers to holiness, one of the barriers to God really being able to lead us to that point.

David goes on in our verse, he says, I was mute with silence.

I held my peace even from good.

Marriage comes to mind here.

Anybody?

How many spouses here, both husband and wife, know that sometimes, even when what you have to say is right or good, sometimes it's better to just hold your peace.

You don't have to die on every mountaintop.

Yeah.

I got one.

He gets a t-shirt or something.

Sometimes it's just better to hold your peace.

Wives, sometimes you gotta let your husband drive off the cliff in order for him to realize he needs to stop and ask for directions.

And husbands, sometimes it's not about the nail.

Sometimes it's not about solving the problem.

It's about just listening.

David says, I kept my peace even from good.

There's great wisdom in that.

He goes on, he says, My heart was hot within me while I was musing, the fire burned.

And then I spoke with my tongue.

You see, he doesn't just say whatever pops into his head.

He has a threshold.

He holds back speaking until it is absolutely necessary, until he can't hold it anymore, until the fire in him is burning too hot to hold it back.

And then finally he speaks.

Some of us need to increase our capacity, our threshold to hold back speaking until it is absolutely necessary.

You know, I always have the utmost respect for the guy at the table that sits there quietly and waits patiently to be called upon.

You see this a lot in men's group, especially.

You get into conversation about something, anything really, and everybody kind of wants to share their part, and there's good to that for sure, but there's always the guy that just sits there and waits to be called on.

And then when he's called upon, finally, in like two sentences, he he solves all the world's problems, right?

Just such wisdom in sitting there and waiting.

I want to be like that guy.

Waiting, not needing to be heard.

See, some of us, myself included, are like yappy lapdogs that just need to be heard.

We need to increase our threshold, our ability to hold back speaking until it is necessary.

David says, My heart was hot within me.

You see, here's the most convicting part of it all.

Jesus said in Luke 6, 45, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

The words coming out of your mouth are the product of what is in your heart.

So, what do the words coming out of your mouth say about your heart?

You've all heard it said that if you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice.

You squeeze an angry person, you get anger.

If you squeeze somebody that's full of the Lord, you get the Lord.

Are the words of your mouth shouting Jesus, or are they shouting something else?

I'll never forget in Chicago, um, one of our other worship leaders came up to me, and this was such a subtle thing, but it was so profound.

Um she said to me, Kyle, I can really tell that you've really been going after the Lord lately.

And it was such a compliment because I mean I wasn't walking on water or raising people from the dead.

It was literally just in our conversation.

Just something that subtle that she could tell that I was really going hard after the Lord in that season.

Now, it also makes me wonder what she thought of me the rest of the time, but she should probably tell that I was too busy and short on time with the Lord.

But you see, here's the thing: whether you are present with the Lord or absent from the Lord, that is driving your tongue.

I have to admit that controlling my tongue has probably been my greatest struggle, both inwardly to myself and outwardly.

In marriage, as a dad, at work.

In fact, I was I was studying for this sermon and I hit a total roadblock when I got to this point, and I wrestled long and hard with the Lord, and he said, I'm not gonna let you just pontificate on this point as if to suggest that you've actually learned the lesson.

I felt like the Lord said, You're gonna actually learn the lesson this time.

See, in all of my trying to be a good Christian and a good Christian husband and a good dad, and doing all the pastoral work and keeping up with all of the busyness, I became distant from the Lord.

And unfortunately, you can't do the Lord's work without the Lord.

Yesterday's manna is stale today.

Just as the moment that you leave the gas station, you are already starting to burn up the fuel that you just got.

The moment you leave your time alone with the Lord, you're already starting to burn up the fuel that He just gave you.

You see, I wish I could say that, well, we could just walk with the Lord all day, every day, right?

And yes, we should.

But is there not greater power, greater fruit that comes from your time alone with the Lord than in your daily walking with the Lord?

I know there is because Jesus constantly went away.

Why?

To pray and to be on his own, to be alone with the Lord.

Why?

Because he knew he needed refueling.

Dude, is God?

And he knew he needed to go alone and be with God.

Jesus said, I do only what I see and hear the Father doing.

I can't tell you how many times I've prayed that prayer.

God, I I just want to say what I hear you saying, and I just want to do what I see you doing.

What's the answer?

Spend time alone with him.

You can't say what he's saying if you're not hearing him.

You can't do what he's doing if you're not seeing him.

Al talked at Men's Group this week about how exhausting it is doing all of the things that God never called you to do.

And how invigorating it is to do only the things that God did call you to do.

What a life.

I want that schedule.

I want to sit with the Lord and make my agenda for the week.

You see, I could spend hours convincing you to try and control your tongue, but your tongue, what comes out of your mouth, is a byproduct of your time alone with the Lord.

Our first point was guard your thoughts.

Second was guard your tongue.

Third and most important is guard your time.

You see, if you get this one, you will pretty much accomplish the other two.

That's why I haven't spent a whole lot of time on advice on how to accomplish the first two.

Because this one will accomplish those.

But without this one, the other two are just behavior modification.

Look at what David says.

He says, Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am.

He's saying, God, show me how short my time here is.

Help me to number my days.

Did you guys know that the average lifespan right now is 79 years?

I heard a sermon on this once.

It was a really good sermon, and the pastor was talking about numbering your days, and I may have taken it a little bit overboard, so I took it literally and I went and numbered my days.

And I said, okay, Lord, if the average lifespan is 79 years and I was born on December 13th, 1986, then I will die on this day.

I'm not weird, you're weird.

Yeah, it's a bit morbid, right?

But it's an eye-opener.

Helps us to see that we're not going to be around forever.

That our time here is short, so we better use it wisely.

He says, Indeed, you have made my days as hand breaths, and my age is as nothing before you.

Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.

How long does a vapor last?

Gone just like that, isn't it?

Verse 6, he says, Surely every man walks about like a shadow.

Surely they busy themselves in vain.

He heaps up riches and does not know who will gather them.

David, how dare you insult my American dream?

My dream of heaping up riches and hoping that I will be the one to enjoy them one day.

And how much of our time is spent in vain pursuit of things that we may never even enjoy?

How many RV lots are chock full of RVs that sit there?

You know how many days a year the average RV is used?

Twenty days a year.

Imagine paying for 345 days of storage and 20 days of use.

That's a terrible deal.

Even worse are the storage units that sit chock full of stuff that the people probably don't even know they own anymore.

Like if the place burned down, you wouldn't even know what you lost.

Over two billion square feet of storage space in America.

You know that?

Most of which is stuff piled up that the owner will probably never even enjoy.

I'm not condemning having stuff, guys.

I'm condemning stuff having you.

The accumulation of stuff having more of your time and heart than does the Lord.

David says, Surely they busy themselves in vain.

He heaps up riches and does not know who will gather them.

And watch where he goes from here.

He says in verse 7, and now, Lord, what do I wait for?

He says, My hope is in you.

Guys, the purpose, the value in your time is the Lord.

Imagine the foolishness of having a bar of gold and trading it for a Tootsie roll.

Your time is the gold bar, and God is what you can afford.

Don't waste it on lesser things.

Again, having stuff is not wrong.

In fact, I believe that the Lord richly blesses those who richly bless Him by spending their time with Him.

Don't let the enemy distract you by getting you to spend your time on lesser things.

Dedicate yourself to spending time with the Lord.

Can you go with me on that?

Let's spend our time with the Lord.

Like more time and richer time with the Lord.

Dedicate yourself there.

Put it on your daily calendar and let's treat it with the importance that we do a flight.

You guys book a flight.

Is there anything getting in your way of that making that flight?

No.

You'll plow through traffic, jump on the shoulder to pass through the deadly accident just to make it to your flight on time, right?

You paid for that flight.

You're getting to the gate on time.

Let's treat our time with the Lord with that kind of importance.

That nothing is getting in the way of it.

You see, the danger here is that you leave here with a head full of knowledge and no plan for action.

So let's actually do something about it right now.

You guys have your phones on you.

I know you do.

Let's take our phones out right now.

Tomorrow is Monday, September 19th.

Let's schedule our time with the Lord.

Some of us already have this done, but I think if we're being honest, most of us could use a little work here.

Monday the 19th.

Let's take our calendars out.

Let's schedule our time with the Lord tomorrow morning.

And I'd encourage you to do it early in the morning.

Because if you jump out of bed and start sprinting without God, you're going to trip.

So what time tomorrow morning?

Let's put it in there and down on the bottom where the notes are, what are you going to do with the Lord?

You can read and reread a chapter in Scripture.

You can keep rereading it until something pops out at you.

And then camp on that and pray.

Spend that time.

You can memorize a single scripture.

You can worship whatever you feel the Lord is calling you to do.

Let's be real.

Let's really schedule our time with the Lord tomorrow morning.

Imagine first service and this service.

I think that's about a thousand people total, all tomorrow morning, starting our day with the Lord.

Every one of us.

Can we commit to that, guys?

Might mean you got to get out of bed a little early.

That's alright.

I know I'm being a little pushy, but I spent a lot of time writing this message.

And you spent a lot of time listening to it.

You could have been watching football this whole time.

But we're here, guys.

Let's not let this be a waste of time.

Let's not play church.

Let's not play Christianity.

Let's go after the Lord.

Let's watch Him transform the way that we guard our thoughts.

We guard our time.

We guard our tongues because we're walking with the Lord.

You squeeze a Christian, you squeeze somebody who's really walking with the Lord, you're going to get the Lord.

Let's watch Colorado Springs get that out of the road tomorrow.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless.