Psalm 52

The last time we looked at a psalm, we looked at Psalm 51, right?

That's the one that comes before Psalm 52.

Okay?

Keeping with me so far?

Good.

When we looked at Psalm 51, we looked at David's Psalm of penitence, his psalm of confession.

And in that, one of the things that David says right at the end of the Psalm is he says to God, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

At Psalm 51, verse 17.

Psalms 51:17

A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

That is, a heart that sees its need of God will not be rejected by him, right?

A heart that is humbled before him, that looks to him for mercy, God will gladly and abundantly lavish his mercy and grace upon that person.

And we noted when we looked at Psalm 51 that having a broken and contrite heart was not something that just that you just had when you felt repentant, when you felt sorrowful, but actually it was the it was the flavor of the Christian life.

It was the disposition of your heart all the time, broken and contrite.

That is humbly acknowledging your your need of God.

That was how you move through the world.

You acknowledge that you weren't the creator, that you were created.

And that flies in the face, doesn't it, of so much of how people think these days.

They think themselves the creator of their own destiny, the former and creator of their own identity.

People think that God is not there to exact judgment, that we are able to lift ourselves up, that we are our own judges.

The world doesn't prize broken and contrite hearts.

The world prizes self-reliance, doesn't it?

The world prizes relying on your own strength, making your own way, lifting yourself up.

That's what the world prizes.

And don't you feel that pressure?

That's the pressure that we exert in society, it's the pressure that we exert on our children.

When we say things like, uh, if you were if you were a millennial, you've been told this, you've been told you can be whatever you want.

Which is really saying you need to be something great, something others approve of.

And that's really quite a lot of pressure to bear.

And so there's a huge temptation for each of us to live into that self-reliance, to be that person who's lifted ourselves up from our by our bootstraps and who has made ourselves, we're self-made men and women.

The problem with that is that we lose our dependence.

We ignore the creator who is there.

We ignore the one who made us and who has bestowed upon us the intellect and gifts and talents that we live out of.

The person who is not broken and contrite, the self-reliant person never confesses wrong.

Have you noticed that?

The person who is arrogant, full of themselves, they never confess wrong, right?

They never apologize.

Or they do the kind of politician's apology.

They, I'm sorry if.

I'm sorry if my actions made you feel this way.

Which is basically saying, I'm sorry that you are so emotionally stunted that my actions caused this unreasonable reaction in you.

The self-reliant person never asks for forgiveness because they are their own God.

This self-reliance, this pride, comes at a high price.

The Bible warns constantly and consistently against pride and self-reliance.

It warns us of the danger of pride.

What does Peter tell us in his first letter?

He says that God opposes the pride, but gives grace to the humble.

This man, Doeg.

It's a good uh good name to keep on your list of baby boy names.

Doeg the Edomite.

We're gonna learn a little bit about his pride.

But he's a worked example for all of us because we're all in some ways given to pride and self-reliance.

And here's the danger of pride: pride is a hidden reef that will shipwreck your soul.

Pride is a hidden reef that will shipwreck your soul.

Psalm 52 is written in response to a man who is proud, smug, self-reliant, and arrogant.

And we know that from the superscript.

Let me tell you a little bit of the story, okay?

Because the superscript gives you a little bit of guidelines, but it doesn't tell you the story.

So the superscript is that Doak the Edomite came to Saul, who was he, and said, David has come to the house of Ahimelech.

Okay, well, great.

You're all clear as to what the story is?

Now the story comes from uh the book of uh 1 Samuel, uh chapter 11, 12.

And the story is this so David was the shepherd boy.

Remember like the like the statue in Florence, you know him, right?

Uh he was the shepherd boy who was anointed king, the youngest of his brothers.

And Samuel the prophet comes and says, No, you are God's king, and anoints him, pours a well in his head and said, No, you are the king.

There's a slight issue.

There's already a king on the throne, and his name is Saul.

And Saul gets wind that this new king has been anointed.

Saul isn't overly enamored about that, and tries at various points to have David killed.

David garners more and more of a following, particularly after uh slaying the uh the giant Goliath.

And Saul is even more incensed and wants him dead.

He's jealous of David.

And at various points, David has to flee for his life.

And in one of these times, he flees for his life away from Saul, who's trying to kill him, and he comes to a guy called Ahimelech.

Now, who's Ahimelech?

Ahimelech was a priest.

He was a priest in a priestly town, the priestly town of Nob.

And Ahimelech takes him in and feeds him, gives him bread, looks after him, gives him shelter.

And Saul finds out that this priest and his family, his priestly family, had taken in David.

And Saul looks at all of his Israelite men and says, Who's going to put them all to the sword?

Who's going to kill them?

And all of the guys who are in some way religiously devout, if not superstitious, are standing there going, I ain't killing no priest.

I'm not going into a convent or a monastery and slaying all the monks and the nuns.

Like, I don't care how bad a dude I am, I'm not doing that.

And then Doeg steps up.

And Doeg is an Edomite.

He's not an Israelite, he's not part of God's family.

So he doesn't give a rip, right?

So Doeg sees a chance to advance, to curry favor with Saul, and he says, I'll do it.

And he goes and he slaughters Al Himelech and slaughters his family and slaughters the priestly caste in that town.

And this psalm is written in response to that bloody act.

The easiest thing this morning would be to think that is so far removed from my day-to-day existence.

I have no temptation to go and kill priests, right?

Okay, well, well done.

Congratulations.

That's the that's the that's the baseline interpretation of what you need to leave with this morning if you're taking notes, right?

The easiest thing this morning would also be to stand in judgment over Doeg.

And to say, well, no, no, we're we're all like David.

We all are we're much more just than that.

But Doeg's the kind of guy who is smug and self-reliant.

Doeg is the kind of guy who's a pragmatist, who'll do whatever it takes to get ahead.

Doeg is the kind of guy who doesn't give a rip about God's uh rule over his life.

He wants to live how he wants to live.

And the problem with that is that we are, in some senses, all Doegs by nature.

We're only David by grace.

And that's an uncomfortable thought, isn't it?

But let's see how we are by nature a little bit like doag.

The first point that I want you to see is what you love leads you.

What you love leads you.

Or, you want to put it another way, your heart will always direct your hands.

Your heart will always direct your hands.

In verses 1 to 4, this is where we're looking.

Doeg does this unspeakably evil thing.

And David says that he's gloating about it.

He's boasting about it.

So why do you boast, O mighty man?

He's plotting destruction, he has plot destruction, he is uh he has lied and been deceitful and wicked.

But look at what David says.

Where does David say that all of these wicked, arrogant actions come from?

Well, the answer is there in verse 3 and verse 4, with this repeated word.

David says, You love evil more than good.

Or verse 4, you love all words that devour.

It's not just that Doweg does wrong things, it's that he loves wrong things.

It's not just that Doeg happens to be deceitful from time to time but is otherwise a really good person.

No, no.

He loves deceit.

That is, his heart is turned towards it.

His desire is for it.

Why is he boasting?

Why is he plotting deceit?

Because his heart is set on evil.

The evil actions arise out of his heart disposition.

His heart drives his actions.

What he loves is leading him.

Do you see?

Why would a proud person love to tear others down?

Well, because it lifts them up, doesn't it?

You've probably come across that type of person, I'm sure.

That type of person who loves to tear strips off people, who loves to do other people down.

Why?

Because it elevates them.

It's like you imagine two people in the water and both are treading water, and it's like that person plunges them under in order to push themselves up, do you see?

We understand what that's like.

We've even been motivated to act like that.

If I if I pass the buck to this person, then I will look better.

There is caution here for us.

There's caution here for us in the principle that what you love will lead you.

What your heart desires, your actions will follow.

For Dweg's arrogance and pride in his heart led him to cruel actions.

His heart was filled with his own self-importance.

And so in his speech and in how he acted, he didn't care about others.

What you love leads you.

What fills your daydreams?

What occupies your idle moments when you don't have anything else to really think about?

What do you think about it?

The answer to that question that you've just flashed up in your head tells you something a little bit about what your heart desires.

You know what your heart is orientated towards because when when everything else is just flatlining, that's where your mind goes.

It is there that you'll begin to see what you're captivated by.

Another way of diagnosing it might be, well, well, what do you give all of your money to attain?

What do you give all of your time to attain?

You see, uh we always sacrifice to our gods.

And so one of the ways that we sacrifice to our gods is with our money and with our time.

What we give our attentions to.

That will whatever the answer is, that will give you an idea of what is leading your heart.

What you love will always drive how you act.

There's a reasonably famous maxim, but it rings true.

It says this what the heart loves, the mind justifies, and the will carries out.

Let me say that again.

What the heart loves, the mind justifies, and the will carries out.

Don't you see that time and time and time again in people's lives?

That they reason out and justify wrongdoing in their mind because actually it's what they their heart's desire is.

You see that actually really often with Christians when it comes to uh getting involved in a serious relationship with a non-Christian.

They explain it out and rationalize it, but it doesn't start in the mind, does it?

It starts in the heart.

What the heart loves, the mind justifies, and the will carries out.

Doueg's love is obviously wrong.

It's obvious that he is wicked.

But we all by nature have this kind of love disorder.

We love other things.

We love ourselves more than others, more than the God who made us.

We don't love people the way we should.

We don't love God the way we ought.

We love ourselves, we love what's wrong, we love what elevates us, even if it means that others are harmed.

When we love something more than God, it is an idol that is a false God.

Pride is when we love ourselves more than God, but anything can be a false God.

Be our money, our comfort, our success.

Sex, family, our relationship, intimacy.

Anything can be a false God, that thing that leads our hearts.

It can be a functional savior.

You think of the person who hates being single.

That being single is hell.

What's their functional savior?

Well, it's being in a relationship, no matter how destructive and poorly thought through it is.

If you believe that failure is your hell, failure is the worst thing that can happen to you, then success at all costs will be your functional savior.

Doeg is an example of someone who says, I don't need God.

I will raise myself up and I will make my own way.

We know that also from verse 7, what is said about him upon his destruction.

Look at what is said in verse 7.

See you the man who would not make God his refuge.

There's no dependence on God.

What does he rather depend on?

Well, keep reading in verse 7, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction.

And here the Psalm kind of narrows our focus a little bit.

So there's the there's the broad principle of your heart will lead you, your heart will always lead you.

And so it's important that your heart is orientated in the right sort of direction.

That's what we're going to look at right at the very end of the Psalm.

But now the Psalm focuses in on one of the things that we are all tempted to be led by, and that is greed.

What you love leads is the first point.

The second point is this greed deceives.

What you love leads, greed deceives.

You can see, can you, with a moment's thought, that pride and greed go hand in hand.

The self-reliant person is relying on what?

Well, their own ability to create their own security for themselves, for their family.

And that security, for better or for worse, comes in the form of wealth.

That's what we were saying of Doeg.

He trusted in his wealth, in the abundance of his riches.

And if we are honest, greed is something that we are all tempted towards.

It is an idol.

How do we know it's an idol?

Because the same language that is used of riches in this Psalm and elsewhere in the Bible is used of God.

Look at what it says.

What does it say that Doeg did?

Doeg trusted in the abundance of his riches.

Contrast that to David in verse 8.

Verse 8b I trust.

In the steadfast love of God.

To trust in the Bible is to find your security in.

Doweg find his security in his income, his abundance of riches.

Rather than in God.

Do you know Jesus warns us about greed more than any other sin?

He warns us about greed more than about lust, more than about sex.

He warns us about greed more than any other sin.

And why?

Because greed is something that we're blind to.

Greed's an other person's sin.

It's not an us sin.

It's something that we're blind to over and against other sins.

You think of the person who's having an affair.

The person who's having an affair doesn't stop themselves halfway through and think, gosh, I think I might be committing adultery.

No, they're well aware of what they're doing.

Greed doesn't work like that.

Greed is far more insidious.

That's why Jesus has to say, watch out, be careful.

How do we blind ourselves to it, or how are we blind to it?

Well, we compare ourselves to others in our bracket, right?

This is how greed works.

You don't compare yourself to somebody in the two-thirds world.

You compare yourself to somebody in roughly your socioeconomic bracket.

And what you say there is like, well, I don't have as much means as them.

And look at how they're living.

They're high on the hog, and I'm I'm I'm right here.

I only get to you know eat out once a week, and they're out three times.

Um we compare ourselves to other people in our bracket and think, well, I'm much more modest in my means than them.

And so we blind ourselves.

And this is not simply about criticizing people who have money.

The Bible doesn't do that.

You can be very, very wealthy and not trust in your wealth.

You can be very wealthy and not find your security in your wealth.

I know very generous, wealthy people whose security is in God and not in their bank balance.

At the same time, it can be inverted.

You can be very, very poor of meager means and be utterly controlled by what you own.

Utterly controlled by your need to consume more.

So don't, this is not me saying rich people bad, poor people good.

I'm saying all people bad, right?

Welcome.

Um thanks for tuning in.

Uh do you know?

You can be wealthy and have your heart oriented rightly towards God.

You can be very poor and have your heart completely corrupted by your desire for riches and still trust in them.

And so we all need to heed this warning.

You see, money is probably the most common counterfeit God we all have.

And yet it's the one that perhaps we are most blind to.

And how does money control you?

It controls you in two ways.

It controls you by both anxiety and lust.

Anxiety that you won't have enough, that you won't be provided for.

Lust that you need more in order to truly feel secure, in order to truly feel comfortable, in order to feel powerful, in order to feel successful.

And what do we learn from verse 7 of this false trust?

Well, it's paralleled for us there.

He he trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction.

He sought refuge in that thing that would bring him low.

Why?

Because it doesn't last.

It won't save you in the end.

It's like that famous story of uh when John D.

Rockefeller died.

And somebody asked, How much did he leave behind?

And the answer that came was all of it.

All of it.

Not one cent did he take with him.

It is possible.

In fact, it is all too common to be materially rich and spiritually bankrupt.

Doeg was a materially rich and spiritually bankrupt person who trusted in his own wealth and position and gave no regard to others.

And that led him to deceit, cruelty, and murder.

We can easily, can't we, look at our world and see the injustices that are carried out against the poor.

But perhaps there needs to be some reflection on how our own reliance, our own reliance on our wealth can lead us to apathy, unmoved by the plight of others.

It can lead us to lack in generosity.

It is only by grace, by the grace of God, that we can see this idol for what it is and have our hearts reformed and reshaped to prioritize other things.

This is not to say that the world runs on money.

And money is necessary.

We live in an expensive city.

This is not, you would have misunderstood today's message if you go away just feeling beaten down by the amount of rent that you pay or how the kind of lifestyle that you that you live, and think that you need to go into uh you know some kind of abject monastic lifestyle.

You would have misunderstood the passage.

You would have misunderstood the message.

My pleading is with your heart, is with your heart disposition.

Could you suffer the loss of those things and still call God good?

Could you suffer the loss of and reduction of your lifestyle and still say, with Jesus, I'm worth more than the birds of the air, whom the Lord provides for every day, and so I trust in his provision.

Nor is it necessarily about giving more or what you give.

It's not really what you give, it's more about what you keep.

You think of uh Jesus sitting in the temple courts with his disciples, and they the Pharisees come with their huge money bags and they they fill the collection plate, and the widow comes and she gives two small coins.

And Jesus says that she is the one who is blessed because she gave all that she had.

You see, it's not about how much you give, it's about what you keep.

Because what you keep shows you the disposition of your heart.

Do you see?

And so if in your conscience things need to be reviewed in terms of your actions, then fine.

It's more about your heart that I am after, that this Sam is after, that God is after.

What you love leads, greed deceives, but finally God plants.

Couldn't think of a word that rhymes with deceives, leads.

So we're going with a contrasting, non-rhyme.

What you love leads, greed deceives, God plants.

Because the Psalm contrasts planting imagery.

Look at verses uh eight and nine.

David says, But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.

I trust in the steadfast love of God for ever and ever.

I will thank you forever, because you have done it.

I will wait for your name, for it is good in the presence of the godly.

Our world is full of examples of men and women whose pride and drive to lift themselves up, to lift themselves up for a season, and who are forgotten.

I'm sure, with just a moment's thought, if I asked you, who's the most prideful, smug, arrogant person on the world stage right now?

We don't need to take a straw pole.

I know we're all thinking the same thing right now, probably.

Okay?

Prideful, smug, arrogant, egotistical men and women will be a footnote to history.

They will be a footnote.

Because they will not endure.

David meets the smug injustice of Doeg with sarcasm.

Verse 1 says, Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?

The steadfast love of God endures all the day.

David is saying to Doeg, Why are you so pleased with yourself?

God will outlast you, his steadfast love will endure all the day.

Your wickedness doesn't stop him from being good.

Your arrogance doesn't thwart his covenantal promises.

And then he gives a serious warning to us all in verse five.

This smug, prideful, greedy, arrogant person, God will break you down forever, verse five.

He will snatch and tear you from your tent.

He will uproot you.

There's the planting image.

He will uproot you from the land of the living.

What's he saying?

All that you trusted in will come to nothing.

All that you have built up, God will tear down.

Again, it's like the uh the story that Jesus tells, isn't it?

About the man who in his arrogance desires to build bigger and bigger barns for all of his wealth.

And God comes to him and says, Oh fool, tonight your soul is required of you.

And what will be left of his barns?

For all that you seek your own permanence and security.

God will tear you from it.

And this is what we find so often that people hold on so tightly to what gives them security, to their wealth, their possessions, those people that they love, and what ends up happening is they see that it's like sand and it falls through their fingers.

God will uproot you.

At the start of the summer, we uh we planted sunflowers.

Uh we planted them from seed.

And we have uh we have two particularly that are about 10 feet tall.

They are insane, like they are huge.

I can show you pictures afterwards, but a few of them didn't last.

And the reason why they didn't last is because uh we have a little demigod at home.

His name is Owen, and he, if he was pottering around outside, would uh would come into the kitchen uh with a with a with a plucked up sunflower, the root dangling there you go, like, no, we're trying to put it back in, and I just died.

God will pluck up the arrogant, self-reliant person as easy as a toddler plucks up that sunflower shoot.

That botanical image is contrasted later at the end of the Psalm when David says that he is planted in the presence of God.

He compares himself to this green olive tree.

Green olive tree is often used as an image for the people of God, but more than that, perhaps, uh, the olive tree in the in the Bible's I don't know what we're saying, uh, index of flora and fauna is uh regarded as the longest living of the trees.

And so there's a contrasting of endurance to be plucked up from the root by relying on your wealth, by relying on your own status and station, and enduring by being planted by God.

This is how you last, not by trying to create a legacy for yourself, not by destroying others in order to lift yourself up, not by trusting in your material wealth.

It comes from faith in God, finding yourself planted by Him.

And what does that plantedness look like?

And this is where we finish.

Four things to note by being planted by God.

First, you are planted in the midst of God and his people.

So he says, verse 8, I'm like a tree, uh a green olive tree in the house of God.

That's the an image of the temple, the very epicenter and presence of where God is.

He's there.

It's a good place to plant your life.

It is a dangerous thing to find yourself more than six inches away from the cross of Jesus.

You plant yourself there.

And he says at the end of verse 9, I will wait for your name, for it is good in the presence of the godly.

He's with God's people, and he's planted himself there.

It is good to establish yourself in the midst of God's people.

You who are watching, when you return to Dublin, come join us.

Be planted in the midst of God's people.

To be in the community of faith is how you grow in that enduringly established way as a believer.

The second thing that David points to is that contrasting to trusting in the abundance of your riches is that David says, I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.

That is, I'm making my security, the promises of God.

What are the promises of God for you in Jesus?

That you are loved, that you are accepted, that you are forgiven, that you are made a child, a son and daughter of God, an heir of his kingdom, that you have been given a new heart, that you have been renewed and reshaped, that you have a new family.

Those are the promises of God for you who trust in Jesus, that he will see you endure to the end and come like refined gold that we saw last week into his presence, and that all of that you hope in will be realized.

That is the promises of God for you that endures all the day.

Make that the place where you build your life, make that the rock that you build your life on.

Again, to allude to a story that Jesus says, don't build your life on the sand of wealth, the shifting dunes of your own identity and status.

David trusts in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.

And he trusts, when he says forever and ever, he trusts in the steadfast love of God, even in those times of hard providence.

I was reading an email this week.

Uh, as most of you here will know, we're part of a church planting network called Acts 29.

And uh in Acts 29, we suffered a bereavement.

A pastor called Edward Nelson, uh, who was a church planter in France, who'd helped plant 10 churches in and around Paris.

He was hiking with his family in the Alps and he slipped and he fell.

And he suffered a catastrophic head injury, and he died, leaving a wife and four children, teenagers.

And our network director here in Europe, our vice president, a man called Philip Moore, wrote us all an email.

Philip works with Edward in Paris, labored alongside him for some 20 years.

He was his best friend.

And in that email, something struck me.

He said, This is a hard providence.

A hard providence.

It has come from God, it's not caught God by surprise, and but it is hard.

But it doesn't stop him from being good.

The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.

What have we said before?

Is the moon always round?

Yes.

Do you always see that the moon is round?

No.

But is the moon always rind?

Yes.

Is God always good?

Yes.

Do you always see with perfect clarity the goodness of God?

No.

But is God always good?

Yes.

David trusts in the steadfast love of God forever and ever, even through those times of hard providence.

The third way that he is planted, or an expression of his plantedness might be a better way of talking about it, is that he is thankful.

Arrogant, self-reliant people rarely show gratitude.

They don't need to.

Because if you've made your own way, if you've pulled yourself up, if you've made your own wealth, then why would you be thankful to anybody?

Least of all, God.

One of the markers of the Christian is enduring gratitude.

One of the markers of your Christian discipleship is to be thankful more.

I need to hear that as much as anybody else here.

We have so much to give thanks for.

And thankfulness is an expression of dependence, it's an expression of trust.

Arrogant, self reliant people don't see the need to thank anyone.

People who have had their hearts changed by God see the goodness of Of thanking him.

See the goodness of thanking others who bless us.

And finally, he waits.

He waits, and we have this strange expression, he waits for your name.

He waits for God's name.

Basically, what David here is saying is, I'll wait for you to act.

Because in the midst of this time, there is an injustice.

There's murder and bloodshed.

God's priests have been killed.

And what's David saying?

He's saying, I know that you will vindicate yourself one day.

I know that justice will be done.

I don't need to take things into my own hands.

I don't need to be consumed by bitterness and anger and vengeance, because I know that you're good, and I know that you will act and you will vindicate your name and you will be shown to be just, and that all that was wrong will be undone.

And you need to hear that.

That's emotionally healthy for you when you have been wronged, when you have suffered injustice, how easy it is to be consumed by bitterness and thoughts of vengeance.

It is because of a changed heart that Jesus gives you that you can come and say, I'll wait on your name.

I'll entrust myself to you, the one who judges justly.

We are all Doeg by nature.

We are only David by grace.

Trusting in Jesus roots us eternally.

It allows us to endure those hard providences.

Jesus died to save you from your from yourself.

From your self-obsession.

He died to reorientate your heart away from self-reliance and to dependence on him, and that's good.

Because that means that you can have a life that now overflows with gratitude and that will endure.

Let's just be silent for a moment.

Oh Lord, open the eyes of our hearts that we might see with spiritual clarity those things that captivate us, those things that we are trusting in other than you, those ways that we are shaped by our desire to consume or to find our comfort in what we have.

And help us to come with faith and to lay those all at the cross of the Lord Jesus and to find forgiveness, to find that we are changed.

Help us to live a life that is rooted in you, rooted in the community of faith, that trusts your promises no matter the season, that is thankful, and that entrusts all of the things that we experience to you and to your care, knowing that you are just and that you are good.

Pour out your spirit on us.

We pray that we might have hearts that are soft like that.

We ask it for Jesus' sake.

Amen.