Psalms 34 | The Blessings of Humility - 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.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

You may remember the story of David with, it's interesting, in your Bible, you'll see as a subscript on Psalm 34, a psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, but then if you go to the passage, which is 1 Samuel 21, it's an Ahimelech who drove him away and he departed.

And this is where David is on the run from Saul.

This is actually before the cave of Abdulam.

So he doesn't even have a following yet.

He's really on his own.

And he comes into some territory that was non-Israeli, a non-Hebraic area.

And he goes into kind of like a, not a tabernacle, but more of a room where they have the sword of Goliath.

And it's from there that he comes into hostile territory and he acts like he's mad.

He has saliva running down from his face.

He's scratching the wall, and he looks like a madman.

So he he fakes everybody out like he's a madman.

And if you can imagine a warrior like David acting like that, you might understand why he wrote Psalm 34.

Because the theme of Psalm 34 is humility.

We could argue that it's humility and the fear of God, because I think both of those are so closely related to each other in the scriptures.

And so, if you've ever been in a situation, I doubt maybe any of us have ever been in a situation where you were in such trouble that you acted like something you weren't, actually acted stupid or acted like an idiot or something like that in order to feign or to fake people up out.

That would be a little bit of what David did.

So that's pretty humbling.

I mean, that's pretty humbling.

I remember one time being in a hospital in a situation where I vehemently disagreed with a doctor about a diagnosis of a situation, and then I remember in my mind going, okay, I can go toe-to-toe with a doctor, or I can act like an idiot.

I remember actually saying, I'm gonna act like an idiot right now.

And so I just said to the doctor, I said, Oh man, you you know.

I'm I I don't know what I read.

That's like ridiculous.

I man, I'm, and you know, you can just see his pride, you know, kind of rise up, kind of like, well, I won this one and everything.

And I remember walking out going, I'm not the idiot in this conversation.

I can promise you that.

But I acted like it.

Well, David acted like a fool.

He acted like a coward.

He acted like one who was losing his mind.

That takes a tremendous amount of strategic thinking and tactical thinking, but it also, he had to humble himself.

He had to be something that he wasn't at the time.

So then he writes somewhere in the days after this, because it's a psalm of David when he pretended madness.

This psalm he wrote, this poem he wrote, and the theme really is the blessings of humility.

There are blessings in being humble.

Folks, there's a time to stand tall and stand strong in a situation, and there's times where standing tall and standing strong is on the inside, but on the outside you humble yourself before people because actually that's the better way.

Now, what he's talking about here is a true, humble heart.

Not faking it, not acting like something you're not, like he had just done with Abimelech or a Himelech, but rather, but rather that God would bless us when we walk with the humility in our spirit of knowing who God is and knowing who you are.

It's really important because humility is impossible if you don't know who you are in the face of God.

So let's begin.

Let's look at verse one.

And I love the beginning because I think this is the essence of humility.

I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord.

The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

Man, there's so much here.

But but blessing the Lord at all times is probably one of the greatest characteristics of humility.

That you could you can go through something that's extremely difficult, you don't know what to do, and you bless the Lord.

You thank the Lord.

We were we were on sabbatical last June, if you remember, June of 2021.

Um it was actually May, June, and this was May.

We'd just gotten to fair play, where we were going to go over to Buna Vista to uh go, I don't know, antiquing or something, whatever Liz wanted to do.

And and I was going along and we're driving, I'm driving my tundra, and boom, I hear this explosion and just blew out a tire.

And so here we are on the side of the road, that windy park going in on 24 into Buna Vista.

And I remember just going, Well, I guess we've got a blown tire, you know, and then Liz goes, bless the Lord.

And I was like, ugh, you know.

But um, so she's that way though.

I mean, she's always thanking God for things that I mean, you really, I mean, 99% of the time Liz is that way, and like 2% of the time I am.

But anyway, so we're there and and we're and we're sitting there and and we're getting stuff done.

And this guy, I mean, we've only been there like 30, maybe 20 minutes.

This guy drives up and he says, Can I help you?

And he comes over and he's got this big jack, and he helps us.

And over the next hour, I won't go into the details, I had the privilege of leading him to the Lord.

And he accepted Christ.

And it was really, really cool.

He just, the guy just opened up everything to me about his life, and about two hours later he prayed to receive Christ.

It was really exciting.

So praising the Lord, blessing the Lord at all times, gives God access into horrible situations that you find yourself in.

So, what we tend to do, and what I tend to do, especially as I think it's part of the male gender problem that we have, is, and I'm not saying it's bad, but sometimes it is, and in this case it is, where you, you know, you just move to problem solving mode instead of thanking God that you might have something bigger going on here because it's difficult in our lives.

Women seem to be better at this.

You ladies, man, you're such a gift to planet Earth.

You guys are awesome.

You don't tend to move to problem solving as quickly.

And I think maybe because it's the holistic nature of how women are, you begin to see things, I think, in a better perspective than we do.

At least my wife does.

And so to bless the Lord means that you don't jump right into problem solving without thanking God, blessing the Lord at all times.

And that's as easy when it's going well, but I'm talking about when it's really hard.

You bless the Lord at all times, that's a sign of humility.

You can't do that with pride.

It takes humility to bless the Lord at all times.

And then what's exciting about this verse is he explains how to do it.

He says, Praise shall continually be in my mouth, my soul shall make its boast in the Lord, and the humble shall hear of it and be glad.

So praise is a part of blessing the Lord with your life.

So you praise him, you thank him, you make your boast in the Lord.

Look at verse 3, we'll come to that in just a moment, but it says, magnify the Lord.

So he explains what he means by that later.

But I like this last part of verse 2.

The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

Now here's what's, this is one of the great benefits of walking in, trying to walk in humility, trying to walk with praise, is you start having, it's kind of the law of attraction.

You start attracting other humble people.

Prideful people tend to not like to be around humble people, and humble people get tired of being around proud people.

And so you start to attract your tribe.

You attract your tribe, and I say, this is my this is my uh proposition this morning, is that as you walk in humility, you will start having people who are attracted to you because of the life and the character that you have, and you'll have better friends.

You're just gonna have better friends.

This is a humble church.

The road is made up of worshipers and warriors.

We tend to be a humble people, and when I get around people that brag a lot and they're arrogant, it's such a turnoff.

And I know they can tell.

Like I leave, you know, because I don't want to be around, I don't wanna be on that ship, man.

That's a Titanic.

Just you know, write that down, you know, in your notes, write down.

Prideful people are on the Titanic.

They are, you know, and I'm and I want to be with people who are making a difference, making an impact with a walk of humility, that are magnifying the Lord, that are praising God, that are focused on what God can do, not what they can do, and not thinking about themselves so much, you know, and and people are always thinking that everybody thinks about them.

Prideful people think everybody thinks about them.

I got news for you nobody thinks about you.

They do not think about you, they don't care about you, and you care about you, that's okay.

I mean, that's just part of self-preservation, I guess.

But but the reality is most people don't think about you, so quit thinking about so much about you.

Because nobody else does anyway.

And so to really magnify the think about him, magnify the Lord.

Look at verse 3.

Verse 3, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

So I underlined in my Bible, verse 2b, the humble shall hear of it and be glad, and then I drew an arrow down to together in verse 3b.

Because you're attracting your tribe, you're attracting other humble people around you who magnify the Lord.

What's magnify the Lord mean?

I think magnify the Lord means make God big in your life.

Make Jesus big in your life.

One of the greatest compliments you can have is someone saying, Oh, they're kind of a Jesus freak.

I mean, those people are, and you know, in non-creaturity, they're really religious.

Well, what they're saying is you walk, hopefully, magnifying the Lord, making Jesus big in your life.

Now, they don't know what to call it because they're not believers, so they're just thinking, oh, they're really religious.

They go to church a lot, or they're kind of one of those church people, whatever they call it, but you're they know who you are.

Because you're making Jesus big in your life.

You're giving him glory, you're giving him praise, and they think you're weird.

And you need to have a lot of people in your life that think you're weird.

That's really good.

That's not a bad thing.

Unless you're acting weird.

Listen, I like this phrase.

I took it from another place and then I kind of remolded it.

But in setbacks, boast in the Lord.

In your setbacks, boast in the Lord, then setbacks can be setups for comebacks.

In the setbacks, boast in the Lord or magnify the Lord, then setbacks can be setups for a comeback.

Everybody here is going to have setbacks.

You're going to have failures.

So I was talking to someone recently, and they were talking about this decision that they made and how they felt like God led them to do it, and now here they are kind of backtracking on that, and they're just asking me what I thought about it.

And I said, look, man, that's life.

You do the best you can.

You do the best you can.

And I remember when I was in Japan moving from Tokyo to Okinawa, I thought that move was going to be like the big move, and that we were going to spend the rest of our life in Okinawa, Japan, ministering down in Okinawa.

Within a year, God had made it clear that He's actually going to move us to Southern California to go to graduate school.

I don't know why that happened that way, but I do know that I would not have made that move without a sense of destiny about going there, that God had to teach me stuff there, though it wasn't on my timetable, that set me up for what he had later for us to do, and then later Colorado Springs.

So sometimes we go through tragedies and really big, huge difficulties in our life that we don't understand because the reality is God's setting you up for the next thing if you'll let that setback be a setup for a comeback.

And so that's that's the choice we have to make.

And it takes humility to make it, it takes humility to say, I don't know why I did that.

You don't have to answer to anybody.

You don't have to answer anybody but God.

So if someone goes, Why'd you do that?

And if you're not sure, then say, I don't know.

I thought I did the right thing.

I did, and that's okay.

Man, take risk.

Risk aren't bad.

Calculated, God-led risk aren't bad.

They're not bad.

It's okay.

So I want to give you a definition of humility.

And I think the best place in scripture is James.

So if you if you can put your finger in Psalm, we'll come right back to it.

Turn to James.

So that means turn to the right and go a long way into the New Testament.

You're almost to the end, almost to Revelation, you'll come to James.

Look at James chapter 4.

James 4 · chapter mention

And I think it's the best definition in the Bible of what I consider to be true biblical, godly humility.

Because what some people consider humility isn't, it's just they're fearful, they're passive.

And then they say they're humble.

Humility is different than that.

And I think James 4, 6 through 10 gives us, I'm gonna give you four aspects as I see it of humility.

But I want you to look at this.

Look at verse 6.

It says, God gives more grace.

Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

Now look at verse 10, I'm bracketing it, 6 and 10.

10, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.

Both verses are basically saying this that when we walk with a humble attitude of seeking God, of wanting direction from and guidance from him in our life, more than just listening to our own desires and our own passions, he gives you more grace.

You get more favor from God.

You get grace from God by trusting in the Lord.

Okay?

Then it says he'll lift you up.

So, in other words, as you are willing to look less at yourself and more at him, he actually looks at you and lifts you up.

Isn't that amazing?

Now here's how he does it.

Here's what he says in verse 7.

Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Verse 8.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded, lament and mourn and weep.

Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

This is really crazy.

This is the opposite of so much of the New Testament at first glance.

But here's what I think he's saying.

Here's aspect number one.

Aspect number one in biblical humility is the humble submit to God and resist the devil.

You cannot do one without the other.

If you choose to submit to God, you're gonna resist the devil.

You are.

There are demons out there planning to take you out right now.

And when you submit to God, you're resisting the devil.

Now listen to the correlation.

It's not resist the devil, submit to God, it's submit to God, resist the devil.

And I think that's really important because as one who has cast out so many demons through the years, I've been demonized in my life, I've had to resist the devil.

I found that the best way is not to focus on the devil, but focus on God, submit to him, and then the devil gets resisted.

He starts to realize, well, this person's really humble.

They're submitting to God and they can't get in.

They can't get in.

The best thing you can do for mice in your house is get a cat.

It is absolutely true.

Okay, two things you can do.

You need to clean your house so you don't have anything to eat on.

And the second thing is get a cat.

Okay?

So you we can spend all our time cleansing our life, which is important, but I would say cleansing your life is secondary to submitting to God.

Submit to God and you will, He will cleanse your house, and you will resist the devils.

That's that's aspect number one.

Aspect number two is the humble draw near to God.

He says, the humble draw near to God.

And we're gonna come back to this in Psalm, in our psalm in a second, because this is really important.

They're drawing near to God, you're submitting to God, you're drawing near to God.

And I'll just say this as a pastor, and I did my seminar yesterday.

So many of you were here.

Thank you for being here.

It was a joy to do on how to study and teach the Bible to change people's lives.

I love doing it, it's fun.

But what I was gonna say in relation to that is that sometimes, especially if you have a teaching gift, we tend to use the Bible as a tool to teach another class or to instruct our family or whatever, which is great, it's all fantastic.

Instead of making the first passion, getting to know God.

So I want to challenge you, as you hear me say this all the time, but I just challenge you again, that you open the word for you each day.

In other words, it's not about just being devoted to God, it's having a devotional life with God.

It's knowing Him and loving Him and seeking Him.

So draw the humble draw near to God.

Aspect number three, verse eight, the humble cleanses their hands and purifies their hearts.

See the progression?

Submit to God, seek God, then cleanse your hands and purify your hearts.

You see, legalism is getting it out of order.

So Christian, I'm gonna call it Christian legalism.

So Christian legalism is that the main point is that you cleanse your hands and purify your heart to be able to submit to God.

I say that the grace perspective is you submit to God and through God working in your life, you cleanse your hands and you purify your heart.

That's what's worked for me, guys, for 40 years is that when I'm not doing well, when I've got some stuff in my life, yes, I do need to deal with that, but usually the culprit is I'm not seeking God.

I'm not walking closely with Him.

And then aspect number four, verse nine, the humble have a lifestyle of repentance.

I've always not liked this verse.

I don't like verse nine of James 4.

I've never memorized it.

I just want to memorize this verse, you know, to encourage myself throughout the day.

Lament and mourn and weep.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to glimpse.

I've never known anybody who's memorized that.

But what he's saying is a lifestyle of repentance.

That means that you're quick to repent.

You're quick to say you're sorry, you're quick to apologize.

Isn't that hard?

If anybody, does anybody think that's hard?

I don't hear too many yeses.

The rest of you guys are so deceived.

You know, no, it is hard, right?

It's hard to say you're sorry.

It's hard to repent before your wife or your husband or a colleague at work.

And yet that's that's really what humility is.

It's a lifestyle of repentance.

And what helps me in regards to this is to realize God's gonna lift me up.

If I don't promote myself, God will promote me if he wants me promoted.

And then why would you want to promote yourself if God doesn't want you promoted anyway?

Because all you're doing is just wasting precious energy trying to promote yourself.

So don't promote yourself.

Promote God, magnify God, and then if God sees fit to promote you, wonderful.

Then it's easy because if you promote yourself, you have to keep promoting yourself.

That's what drives me crazy about Facebook and all these social media.

It's all about promoting themselves.

So I haven't looked at Facebook in probably two years.

Anything you see on mine, I just give it to uh Isaac and Anna and they post it.

Or they post something that they want to post or some verse.

I give them all my notes on everything that I write, and then they derive things.

I never look at it.

But last night, it was two o'clock in the morning.

I woke up with a start and I saw a light on in the bathroom.

That's where I charge my phone.

And I went, okay, could be, because Liz is in Vegas right now with Samuel taking him back to law school yesterday.

So I thought just make sure everything's okay.

I went in there and looked at it, and there's some reason it was on Facebook.

Okay.

So then I saw somebody I knew.

Now I know none of you guys do this, but this is two years, man.

I've been like fasting from Facebook.

It's been awesome.

And I start flipping through and I go, this is so narcissistic.

I mean, I don't care about what you had to eat.

I don't care about where you went.

I don't care about your vacation.

This is like, who cares about that stuff?

And so, okay, you guys, I know a lot about kind of trucks you guys drive now.

Because it's always a guy, always guys got trucks.

And then women are always like hugging and kissing somebody.

You know?

You guys, you women, you're you're passionate about relationships.

You guys, you're into things.

So you know what I posted, if you saw it, because I gave it to Isaac and Ann.

And that's what came up, was because I guess there were some responses to me cutting wood with my grandson, my through her grandson.

So I'm sitting on the, I'm like this with an axe, and I just thought it was super cool.

And he had helped me stack all the wood after I'd cut the tree down and split the wood.

And that was it.

So that's the reason that came up, and then I got like kind of fascinated by people's stuff and everything.

Anyway, stay humble, all right?

All right, go back to uh Psalm 34, verse 4.

Psalms 34:4

I sought the Lord.

So here he is.

He's talking about, he's talking about seeking God.

I sought the Lord and he heard me.

He delivered me from all of my fears.

Let's just stop right there.

Some of you are captive to so many fears.

And um, God can set you free.

He really can, no matter what your background.

Maybe some really bad abuse or some, or you've been really hurt by a spouse or something like that, and it creates fear in you.

I understand that.

I'm telling you, the answer is not to focus on your fear or getting rid of your fear or taking more drugs or whatever, it's seek the Lord.

Seek the Lord.

He says, I sought the Lord, he heard me, he delivered me from all my fears.

They looked at him and were radiant.

Their faces were not ashamed.

This poor man cried out, he's talking about himself.

This poor man, David, cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

I mean, he was in a pickle, you guys.

Saul's moving in on him.

And I think the biggest thing he came away with with Abimelech was he got Goliath's sword.

But other than that, he's in big trouble.

He doesn't have any men supporting him at this point in his life.

This poor man cried out, but the Lord heard him, because it's right after this that he goes into the cave of Abdul, and 400 men come to help him out.

I wonder if he cried out, God, where are the fighting men that went with me against the Philistines?

Where are they?

Have they all abandoned me?

No, 400 gather to him.

So he might be talking about that right now.

Verse 7 the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

So the humble make seeking God their highest priority.

So you might ask the question Am I walking in humility?

Well, do you seek the Lord on a regular basis?

If you don't, you're not walking in humility.

You're walking in pride because you don't need God because you got it all figured out.

And you wonder why these things are happening or why you're encompassed with fear and surrounded by fear.

I'm telling you, you gotta slow down.

Slow down, okay?

And seek the Lord.

God, I'm fearful of this.

I'm so fearful about the future.

I'm fearful about my 401k.

I'm I'm fearful about my kids at school.

I'm fearful about this situation or that situation.

Seek the Lord.

God, I'm fearful about my physical body.

It just seems like I have one problem after another.

Seek the Lord.

God, I'm I'm hurt by this relationship.

I feel betrayed by this relationship.

Seek the Lord.

You will not figure out what to do without seeking the Lord.

He will give you wisdom.

So I've got a bunch of speaking engagements this fall that are on my heart.

And last night, that's the reason I woke up, I think, at 2 a.m.

And I'm thinking about I don't know if that message will work or this message will work.

Maybe I should create a whole new message for that church.

I don't know anything about that church.

And then it was like the Lord said, Seek me.

Just seek, just calm down and seek the Lord while he may be found.

And here's how we seek the Lord.

Look at verse 8.

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Blessed is the man or the woman who trust in him.

Fear the Lord, you his servants.

There is no want to those who fear him.

The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.

The path of true humility is really about tasting the Lord.

And I think the word I would use, experience God.

Encounter God.

Experience God, encounter God on a regular basis.

And that means almost like, you know, where we go into situations in which we eat food and you you taste and see.

I find it fascinating that look back at verse 2, the humble shall hear of it and be glad.

Now, verse 8, taste and see.

He's using all these metaphors of our senses.

God wants you to experience God with your senses.

To taste his goodness is to experience his goodness.

And you can't experience his goodness without seeking him.

So his goodness is all around us.

But we have to seek it.

There's something valuable, evidently, to God to see a man or a woman who chooses to seek him.

He does not invade your life.

He's waiting for you to seek him.

He's waiting for me to seek him.

It's getting alone each day, somewhere in your house or wherever it is, and God, I just seek you.

Lord, would you speak to me and you read a psalm or you're going through a book of the Bible and you challenge the Lord to show his faithfulness to you.

He loves that.

God loves that challenge.

Say, God, I don't know what to do.

I'm not sure what's happening here.

But Lord, I ask you to come.

I want to taste and see that you are good.

I need your goodness right now because there's a lot of badness.

There's a lot of badness happening.

I need your goodness.

And so that's how we get a fiery heart.

That's how God gives us a fiery heart.

Our heart gets lit on fire by getting close to the flame of God.

When we get close to the goodness of God and the love of God through the Word, through prayer, through praying, through seeking Him, the fire jumps on us and we get lit up.

And so if you're not feeling that fire, which I haven't felt that in a while, to be honest, that's the way I prayed last night.

God, I need the fire again.

Light, remember that vineyard song, Light the Fire Again?

I love that song.

That's the reason I always love that song is because I always feel like I'm praying that prayer.

Like I go, I go for a while and I feel like the fire is going, and then it just drifts away.

I have to come back and say, Light the fire again, Lord.

Light the fire again.

That's where I'm at right now.

So taste and see.

And then he's talking about fearing God.

And I've done a whole message on the fear of God.

Look at verse 11.

Come, you children, listen to me, and I'll teach you the fear of the Lord.

Who is a man who desires life and loves many days, and he may see good with his life as someone who fears God, so he's fear God.

Three times he's talking about fearing God.

The fear of God is mentioned over a hundred times in the Old Testament and over 20 times in the New Testament.

Paul says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

It was said of Cornelius in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

He was a devout man, one who feared God with all his household.

He gave many alms to the people and he prayed to God continually.

Interesting that here's Cornelius.

Look at Cornelius, he's a Gentile.

Everybody in the village knew Cornelius feared God.

So I've talked about this before, but in a nutshell, I'd say this: the fear of God and the love of God are the boundaries to intimacy with God.

Let me say that again.

The fear of God and the love of God are the boundaries to intimacy with God.

You cannot have intimacy with God just with the love of God.

You cannot have intimacy with God with just the fear of God.

You have boundaries of the fear of God and the love of God.

And they're boundaries to our life.

And I know this partly because of the metaphorically thinking of my relationship with my dad.

My dad's, many, most of you probably here have met my dad.

He's 90 years old now.

He's a super kind guy, beautiful person.

He really hasn't changed through the years.

He's the same as he always was.

But sometimes I got his ire up on a few occasions.

And I remember mom saying, When we wait till your dad comes home.

And you may have heard that.

I mean, it's kind of a 1960s phrase, you know, back when you had moms and dads in the same home.

And um, wait till your dad comes home, and that fear, like, oh no.

And I think for me, with dad, because dad was not an angry person, he was not abusive at all, but he had standards.

And the fear of my dad was based on disappointment, not on some abuse I was gonna get.

Now, I mean, he he whooped my tail a few times, there's no doubt about that.

But it was disappointing my dad.

I I feared disappointing my dad.

I love my dad.

I didn't want to disappoint him.

And I think the fear of God is when we feel like we've disappointed the Lord.

In other words, he has given us so much and he's blessed us with so much in our life, and yet we did that.

That sense of disappointment.

I think that's the fear of God.

I think it's a beautiful perspective to the fear of God.

The fear of God is the dread discipline on one side and delight and desire on the other side.

You have to have both.

So, what happens with those who are in churches especially, maybe that where it's just always on the love of God.

Everything's about the love, the love of God.

Love God.

Everything's about love.

That's not love.

Tends toward licentiousness.

Other churches that are highly on the fear of God, legalism, discipline, commitment tend toward legalism.

And I believe the balance we want to have is that there's a side to God that definitely is a disciplinary side, but there's also a loving side.

We can walk in that, we can walk in joy most of the time.

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Depart from evil.

Do good.

Seek peace and pursue it.

I think he's saying here, guard your tongue by attempting to be as much as you can a peacemaker.

As much as you can, try to be a peacemaker with your tongue.

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.

Here we go again.

Here we are back to the senses.

This is amazing to me how David just pictures tasting, seeing, hearing, magnifying.

Here he says, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, his ears are open to their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, delivers them out of all their troubles.

The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart.

And he saves such as have a contrite spirit.

So David's not saying that if we walk in humility, everything just goes our way.

It's just easy street.

Fear the Lord, walk in humility, and it'll be, you know, victory unto victory.

No, he's saying here it's tough.

Life is hard.

People betray you.

You get hurt.

You experience failure.

And God notices your broken heart.

And some of you today, even at the sound of my voice this morning, you have a broken heart over something.

And God wants to minister to you.

He loves you.

And he cares about you.

And he wants to restore your heart.

And the more you let him come, and we'll do this at the end of the service for prayer.

If you let him come, he will come and restore you and give you a contrite spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous.

He's not living in some fantasy world.

David is firmly planted as he writes this about how hard life can be.

But the Lord delivers him out of them all.

He guards all his bones, not one of them is broken.

Evil shall slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.

The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of those who trust in him shall be condemned.

It feels like that David is comforting his heart with this phrase God wins.

Isn't that good news?

God wins.

God wins in the end.

But sometimes in the process, it seems like we're not winning.

You're trying to do the right thing, you're trying to be righteous.

David reminds us here, ultimately, God wins.

Nobody's even going to remember the unrighteous.

They're going to be wiped off the face of the earth.

And there's a time coming when the righteous will be lifted up and the condemned will be dropped down.

And those who are humble and contrite in spirit, God will lift up.

And when he lifts us up, when he lifts us up, you're with him.

We're in communion with him in that.

And those that have done unrighteous, they seem to be winning.

And the Psalms are full of examples where David tells himself, he preaches to himself don't envy the wicked.

Don't admire the wicked.

It seems like their life is so easy and my life is so hard.

That's why comparisons are so bad, so hurtful.

They're counterproductive.

That's why we run the race with endurance.

It's set before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.

Because if we don't stay focused and we start looking around, we start to lose ground.

Don't look around.

Look at Christ.

Magnify the Lord.

Magnify the Lord.

Thank you for listening to the Foreign 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 Steveholtonline.org.

God bless.