Psalm 60

You're very welcome.

I'm Peter.

And yeah, we're going to be looking at Psalm 60 together.

As you can keep that open and we'll make reference to it, and you can read along with me as we go through it.

This is our last.

I don't think it's the last Mictam in the Psalms.

It's the last one for this setup.

So if you haven't been enjoying the Mictoms of the last few Sundays, then this is the last one.

Come back for Psalm 61 next week.

It's uh what's it say?

It doesn't say much about it at the start.

Whatever a micam is.

Anyway, let me pray and then we'll get we'll get into it.

Father, thank you so much that we can gather uh together as your people, that you have united us uh in Christ and that you speak to us, uh you've spoken to us and revealed yourself in your word.

Um we thank you for what you teach us.

Um I pray that you would help us uh by your spirit.

Would your spirit be moving in us as we look at this making us more like Christ for your glory?

Amen.

So um I said to I said to Nicole about my introduction this week was gonna be about uh stubborn people, and she's like, Oh, you're gonna be talking about yourself.

And I was like, Yes.

Um, and as we think about stubborn people, you might think of someone who just has to do things their own way, they don't listen uh to others and they don't want help.

They think they know what's best.

You might know that they're definitely not gonna be able to do what um what they want to do.

You you might know you can see what's gonna happen, you can see what's gonna pan out, and that they're just gonna fall flat on their face or whatever, and and but they're not gonna let you say anything about it.

You might have seen someone who's so stubborn that they actually hurt themselves, say trying to move a piece of furniture, or yeah, just trying to do something themselves.

I've actually um and yeah, we was so we rent from Nicole's parents and I've put marks on the walls by mistake where I've tried to move, tried to bring um a a mattress, a double mattress, up the stairs by myself, and the stairs has a corner, and I didn't think I could mark the wall with a mattress, but I marked the wall with a mattress, so I'll have to I don't think my father-in-law will be too uh worried, but uh I probably should kind of fill that in and paint over it.

Um and I don't know if you've done stuff like that, but even if it's not with even if it's not with like moving furniture or or doing something like that yourself, we all try to fix things ourselves, whether it's kind of somewhat trivial like that, or the much bigger things, we try to fix ourselves, we try to restore ourselves, thinking that we know best.

And in this Psalm, we see the foolishness of trying to do things like that ourselves.

David, he teaches us that it's pointless looking to ourselves or even to others to fix and restore us.

He points us instead to God, who is willing and able to save those who humbly come to him.

So let's get into the text.

Um, our first point, the first thing that David teaches us is to call to God for restoration.

And there's two reasons for this.

So we call to God for restoration because he is able to restore, and because we can't restore ourselves.

So, firstly, because he is able to restore, that's why we go to him for restoration.

In the Psalm, we see that things aren't right.

Just at the start of the description that starts off to the choir master, that bit that might be in italics or smaller writing in your Bible, that makes it seem like everything's going well.

David's just come back from this victory, these victories against uh Aram Naharim and Aram Zobah, and Joab, who was one of his commanders, one of his mighty men, uh, he's come, he's just returned from striking down 12,000 of one of Israel's enemies.

So we think that things are going really well.

And this victory in the Valley of Salt, um, where 12,000 were struck down, is mentioned in 2 Samuel chapter 8.

2 Samuel 8 · chapter mention

Um, and it's alongside in 2 Samuel chapter 8, there's just list um name after name of nations and victories that David has had.

2 Samuel 8 · chapter mention

So it seems like we should be coming into a psalm of praise, a psalm of thanksgiving, saying, Thank you, God, for all these victories, aren't we great?

Uh but when the psalm actually begins, it's clear from the outset that things are going really badly.

Verse 1 there, the people feel like God has rejected them.

They feel his anger towards them.

It's not what you expect in the wake of those victories, and in that description at the start in the title.

The land is broken too, it's torn, the nation totters.

They feel vulnerable to attack because their defenses are broken.

Seems like there's danger coming from outside, but it's you know, there's uncertainty and disunity within, too.

They're not in a good place.

They've been through much hardship, and they say down in verse 3 that you have made your people see hard things.

It's likely that at the start of this Psalm, what David has in mind is how the how the state of the kingdom after King Saul uh was dethroned because of his pride, his arrogance, and his disobedience.

King Saul, who was the former king just before David, he led Israel to defeat and he led them to reject God.

You can read that all of that in 1st and 2nd Samuel.

It actually maybe at the start of the summer um every year we should probably uh read, you should probably read in your own time just 1 and 2 Samuel because there's so much about David there in the context of him writing these Psalms.

And this this summer I think we're looking completely at Psalms of David.

Um but in in 1st 2 Samuel, I didn't even write it down where it was, but in there we get uh we read of King Saul's death, they're fighting the Philistines, and and uh he's killed, and three of his sons are killed as well.

And so there's been territory lost, and when Saul the king dies, there's a scramble for power, the land is broken, and the kingdom tottered.

And David knows this was as a result of the people rejecting God, led especially by Saul, but he also knows that God is sovereign in all things, and he knows that God uses even these difficult, difficult circumstances to bring about his purposes.

And in this case, specifically, David knows God is using these circumstances to bring them back to the very one that they rejected.

That they rejected him yet and they feel rejected by him, but David teaches them and knows that God is using this to bring them back to him, to the very one who rejected them, because God is the one who is able to restore them.

So the people are facing such hard things, and the natural response would be for them to hide from God, wouldn't it?

To hide from the one that you feel is angry towards you.

What do you do when you feel rejected?

I know for me, I don't want to go near whoever has rejected me in case they'll reject me again, once bitten, twice shy, that kind of thing.

We shrink back for the sake of self-preservation, but we hate rejection.

But the psalmist David here teaches the Israelites to call to God for restoration, even in times such as this, when it seems like he has rejected them.

And of course, David has to teach them that because uh, like we said, it's not the natural response, it's not what we would do naturally when we perceive rejection.

So when do you feel like hiding from God?

Isn't it usually when we've done something to hurt others, or when we haven't loved as we ought, or we've rejected God, when we've decided to go our own way instead of his, putting ourselves before him and before others.

And all that that I'm describing, that's sin, right?

So we feel like hiding from God, it's it's it's easiest to hide and maybe run from God.

I've I've felt that.

I've felt the desire to stay away from God, to stay away from his people, to stay away from community, when I know there's sin in my heart and I've rejected him.

But David teaches us to call to God for restoration in times when we'd prefer to avoid him.

But we can't we can't do it ourselves either.

That's the other side of the coin.

We can't repair the breaches ourselves.

So many people try to restore themselves, they try to fix the situation by themselves, and David teaches us to call to God for restoration, yes, like we've seen because he is able, but also because we can't restore ourselves.

The people are so overwhelmed with what's going on that their judgment was impaired.

That's what we see in verse 3.

That's what David's talking about.

He says, or the people say, You've given us wine to drink that made us stagger.

No one knows what's right here, no one knows the way forward.

So there's no way for them to repair the breaches.

And even worse than that, if you think about somebody staggering like a drunkard, it's it's likely that they're gonna get hurt more and they're gonna damage others.

So if the people of a nation and its leaders have an impaired judgment, that's only gonna make things worse.

So, like I said, there's kind of two things going on here.

There's on the one hand, we have God who is able to restore and repair, and on the other, we have people who cannot do that and even cause more difficulties and more hardship when they try to do things their own way, when they don't submit to God humbly.

How often do we here try to fix things by ourselves, in our own strength, when we try to save ourselves, but we should go to the one who will restore all things.

Listen to David here.

Call to God for restoration, even when you feel like he has rejected you.

So let's continue to look at uh how David instructs us in the next few verses.

He teaches us to flee to God.

That's our next point.

He teaches us to flee to God, running to the banner he has set up, knowing that he saved his beloved ones.

So we should flee to God and run to his banner.

As with many of the Psalms, you might have noticed as you read them yourself, or over uh the last uh few weeks, we've been looking at Psalms.

There's a change and a confidence that begins to emerge as the Psalm progresses.

It often comes, usually comes, as the psalmist is reminded of who God is, God's nature.

So to hear David speaks of how God draws those, draws those who fear him to himself.

That is, he draws those who in humility rightfully place him as the king and ruler of their lives.

And he does so by raising a banner for them to flee to from the turmoil that was described in the first three verses.

Just to make that a bit clearer, those who fear God are those who rightfully place him as the king of their lives, and for those people, God has set up a banner for them to flee to.

Now, this there's um we're talking about military stuff going on, there's battles and um whatnot throughout.

And so this banner would have been the flag or the colours or the standard of an army or a nation, and it would signify a place for soldiers to rally to.

Maybe when the battle was going against them and they needed uh somewhere to regroup.

And it was, as they looked at that, it was a symbol of their identity.

It were it would remind a soldier of who they were.

So, what would it have symbolized for David and for the people in this Psalm?

What would the banner have meant for them?

Well, their identity was that they were God's chosen people.

They were chosen by him to bless the nations and to bring him glory.

So in looking to the banner, they would remember that if God is their king, if they're ones who fear him and rightfully place him as their king, that they're not rejected by him, that they're his chosen people.

And then what about us?

What's the banner for us?

What's our identity for those of us who are Christians?

Well, it's Christ, isn't it?

Our identity is in Christ as sons and daughters of the King.

When we look to him, we remember who God is.

We remember his love, his goodness, power, and righteousness.

We remember that we remember what he has done in the gospel, and we remember who we are, our our identity as ones chosen by him.

And so we flee to that banner, we run to him who is our identity.

And as David remembered his identity, the Psalm continues to change.

Look at verse 5.

It's the next part of this point.

David remembers that he's beloved, so he teaches the Israelites to say and same, say and sing the same thing.

That they are God's beloved ones who can call out to him for salvation, knowing that he will answer and save them.

He saved, he saves his beloved ones.

And David speaks of God's right hand in verse 5 to show God's power.

He has confidence that God is able and will save his beloved.

So too we remember that we are beloved by him, that he answers us, and that he saves us.

And not only do we remember that, but like David, we have confidence in his power to do it.

And it's good as we're pointed to the gospel in this Psalm to thank God for doing so through David, for reminding us, and through other biblical authors, for teaching us in the first place, and for uh reminding us and pointing us to the gospel.

And God reveals himself and the gospel to us in his word, and we should thank him for that.

But he also graciously uses other means to remind us of the gospel and of our identity.

In a little while we're going to come to the Lord's Supper, where we remember Christ's death, we remember the gospel, and Christ Himself instituted this for us as a reminder.

God also uses our brothers and sisters to remind us of gospel truths and to point us to Him.

And we should often do this.

We should often remind each other of who God is, what He has done for us, and who He has made us to be.

This happens in the formal times we have together, like here on a Sunday or at community groups, when we sing together, when we pray together, listen to God's word, read and preach together, and as I just mentioned, as we partake in the Lord's Supper together.

But it does and it should happen in our daily interactions with each other, too.

We should be encouraging one another and pointing each other to the gospel more and more.

Many times God has used people, has used, he's used other people to point me to him and to point me back to the gospel, and I thank him for those people.

I thank him for many of you.

Some of the times it's actually more like I'm being pushed or dragged by them because of my unwillingness.

But God has given me faithful friends who are undeterred by that.

So flee to God and trust that he will save us.

But why should we trust him?

Why should we trust God?

Why can we trust him to restore and save us?

We've already seen some of God's power and his providence in this Psalm, but the next few verses ramp that up a notch.

And that's our next point.

We can trust God.

We should trust God.

Firstly, because he has power and authority over what's his.

As we hear God speak in his holiness, in verses six to eight, we see his power and authority.

And that's why we can trust God.

Firstly, in uh six to seven, verses six to seven, God reminds his people that they are his.

If you look at the uh places named in these two verses, we have Shechem, the Vale of Sukkoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, and Judah.

They're all part of the land that God had promised to Israel, to his people in the Old Testament.

And here he says that these places are his.

They belong to him.

And this is amazing, because remember the context.

The people, they were talking about the land being torn open.

The defenses are broken.

And so God, in saying that these places are his, the people are reminded that it's not up to them.

God, as the one who promised, will not lose control of his land.

He has power and authority.

Even if the people go their own way, even if they're defeated in battle, seeing territory lost, God is still in control and he has power and authority over what's his.

We see more of that power and authority when we look at uh Ephraim and Judah.

The helmet here is a picture of his power, and the scepter is a picture of his authority and his judicial rule.

God has the ultimate power and authority here.

It's also good to look at the just in general, the places that are mentioned, there north and south, east and west.

It's all inclusive.

And also it's God's to divide up and to portion out as he wills.

He's the one who gives, and he does so in holiness.

Unlike the people who we've seen are unable to judge properly.

Remember, as they staggered, he's the wise one.

And then the next uh verse in verse 8 continues to show God's power and authority.

And we turn our attention away from Israel to the nations uh surrounding it.

We see that he not only has power and authority over what's his, but he subdues the nations easily too.

Now, these neighbors, they weren't really the most neighborly.

Um, they were long-standing enemies, and they caused Israel much hardship.

They were often at war, and they're probably part of the reason, or maybe the full reason, uh, for the dire situation with which the Psalm opens.

You probably know about one Philistine, Goliath, who taunted the Israelites, and this was just one of many battles that they had.

Another battle with the Philistines was, like I mentioned already, with King Saul's death, it was the Philistines who they were battling with when King Saul died, and when his three sons died too.

A terrible loss for Israel.

And Moab and Edom, they too both sought the downfall of Israel.

But God says that he has power and authority over these nations.

In fact, he subdues them easily.

Despite all the military might, the countless soldiers and weapons that they may have had, God's control of these nations is remarkable.

He barely lifts a finger.

He can subdue them the same way that you might throw a shoe into the corner.

And mighty Moab, that probably thought it was on the verge of defeating Israel for good, God says is but a vessel that holds the dirty water he uses to wash his feet.

And Philistia, that thought it could declare victory over Israel, is another nation God shouts in triumph over.

And all this metaphor is there to show that God is powerful.

And it juxtaposes with those first verses, with the fact that these nations were the ones that, like we've already seen, they caused the kingdom of Israel to totter.

When humans like Saul try to go their own way and trust themselves, that's what happens.

But God is in control.

The contrast is just black and white, day and night.

We can trust God because He has power and authority over.

Everything, even over the fiercest of enemies and those who cause destruction and hardship.

As David closes out this Psalm, he ties together what he's already said.

So let's recap quickly and then we'll look at verses 9 to 12.

We've seen that in times of feeling like God has rejected us, we call to him for restoration because we can't do it ourselves.

But he can and he will save, restore, and deliver his beloved ones, those who fear him.

So in this final section, David reinforces this, and this is our final point call to God, not to man.

In verse 9, he continues on from the previous verse by talking about Edom.

In in verse 8, it was God who was speaking now, David speaking again.

And here David asks, how will they defeat Edom?

You see Joab, who's mentioned right at the top in the description, he had defeated 12,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.

And that's probably somewhere between Israel and Edom.

But this wasn't complete victory for Israel.

It's just on the border.

Maybe the Edomites were trying to uh invade or or just even damage Israel.

And so it wasn't complete victory for Israel.

The Edomites had a fortified city that they thought no one could overcome.

That fortified city you might be interested in, they think it might be Petra, if you know Petra.

You can think of how difficult it would be to uh, I don't know if you know, if anybody's been to Petra in the Lebanon, I think, but how difficult it would be to uh get those cities that were basically built into the rock and and the only there's like two small, like the smaller than Irish roads leading up to the city, and how you'd have uh armies, you know, whoever whoever's defending there probably really easily able to defeat you as you try and go there.

And David says, Who will bring me to the fortified city?

And then in verse 10 he says, Have you not rejected us, O God?

You do not go forth, O God, with our enemies.

And so David's saying that no human can defeat the enemy, only God can.

And David himself had firsthand experience of this throughout the accounts of his life, and especially when he was king, which you can read in 1st and 2 Samuel, we read that the Lord gave victory to David.

And again you'll read, the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went.

You read that over and over.

It's so it's impossible to miss as you read the accounts of David's life.

David knew that the success was not down to him.

He gave the rightful credit to God who gave the victory.

In verse 11, David then calls to God for help against Israel's enemies.

He says that there's no point looking to man for salvation, for someone to save.

Even if even if you have Joab who strikes down 12,000, don't look to him.

Even if David, who is this amazing king, don't look to him.

For Israel as a nation, David is also teaching them not to look around to the nations around them.

Not even to look to Joab or to himself, the most experienced and successful of commanders who they might think will save them, but only God can.

They should only go to God.

And again, he says this with such confidence that God will bring about victory, that he will tread down our foes.

Same is true for us.

We're foolish if we think that someone else might save us.

We're foolish if we think that we can save ourselves.

But with God we shall do valiantly.

It is he who will tread down our foes.

In fact, it's he who has done that, isn't it?

Jesus has crushed our biggest foe, our biggest enemy.

He's defeated sin and death on the cross and in his resurrection.

So we call to God for salvation, knowing that it's in Christ alone that we're saved from all enemies.

And when we try to fix things in our own strength, when we go our own way, when we trust ourselves instead of him, we turn from our self-reliance and pride and we flee to him.

He will restore us.

Let's pray.

Oh Father, thank you for how good you are.

In your power and authority, and being the creator, being over everything.

You draw near to us and you restore us and you repair the breaches, and you've saved us.

We're sorry that we go our own way, that we try to fix things ourselves, and ultimately that we try to save ourselves.

We try to save our own souls, but you are willing and able, and you have done it.

We thank you for Christ.

We thank you for his death and resurrection, for his sacrifice to restore us to you.

Would you remind us of that over and over?

Thank you for being able to gather together, for making us part of a body that we're all united in Christ and help us to point each other to you.

Amen.