Sermon

THESE Leadership Qualities Change the World: Psalm 72

The Bible Guys

Open publisher episode ↗

Publisher transcript

Transcript

View source ↗
  1. You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

  2. couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

  3. practical ways.

  4. Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in for another episode of

  5. The Bible Guys.

  6. Sing us a song, Chris, good Morning. I knew that's

  7. what you'd say, talk thrown nut through good morning. Good

  8. morning to you and you and you and you.

  9. Wow, well that's the end of You're saying it for

  10. all of us, not just one of us.

  11. That's correct. Wow, because I said.

  12. That's because it's all three listeners, is me and two others.

  13. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's so funny. Oh that's great. Yes, well, hey,

  14. thanks Jeff for requesting me singing.

  15. That was magnificent. And people have been waiting. I mean

  16. we've we've gotten pretty deep into the week.

  17. Yes, well we're at Wednesday.

  18. I know, that's what I'm saying. And so this is

  19. this is uh yes.

  20. So hey, today we're going to start off with a

  21. brand new segment that I've never heard of. Desiree just

  22. decided to make something up called hypothetical Hilarity. Here are

  23. some wild and ridiculous hypothetical situations to discuss. They must

  24. decide on a course of action or solve the problem

  25. and in the most outlandish way possible. So is the

  26. assignment just to answer the question or is the assignment

  27. to answer the question in a crazy, unexpected way.

  28. I'm not sure, but let's just let's go for it, Chris. Okay,

  29. all right, let's go for it because the rules are

  30. are Yes, you want to read in the most outlandish

  31. way possible?

  32. Do you want to read the first one?

  33. If your pet suddenly grew to the size of a

  34. small car, would you let it drive you around or

  35. turn it into a social media influencer?

  36. Yes? Both depends is your petiphish because I.

  37. Don't know what what? What is your pet? It's your pet, Chris, Oh,

  38. my pets, it's literally says your pet.

  39. Oh so this isn't just the listeners pets.

  40. No, so since the listeners can't speak on the podcast,

  41. they just have to listen.

  42. Oh geez, ready to be fine. So this is a

  43. question for me.

  44. If your pet suddenly grew to the size of a

  45. small car. Yes, not a big car, a small car.

  46. I get it.

  47. Okay, okay, would you yes?

  48. Okay?

  49. Fine, Okay, Well then I wasn't receiving it that way,

  50. so you always see Jeff. That shows you how un

  51. selfish I am. I always think of others. Yes, I

  52. don't think of me. I think of others first.

  53. I think it's that you don't pay attention to the words.

  54. That's what I think.

  55. What a terrible response to that, What a terrible response.

  56. I think you wanted to take a credit where it

  57. doesn't belong this time.

  58. So uh okay.

  59. So if my cats, I have two cats, You have

  60. two cats currently, if they're.

  61. Looking for others, so if you can help them, no,

  62. I do, because they're down three.

  63. Now, if my cat, one.

  64. Of my cats rude to be the size of a car,

  65. would I let it drive me around?

  66. I think I would do both. I would definitely ride

  67. on that thing.

  68. It doesn't say would you ride on it?

  69. Well, drive me around? Oh wait a minute, are you

  70. saying that that question means?

  71. The way that it's worded is that it's actually going

  72. to be the driver instead of you. I know that's

  73. what I'm saying, but the wording, I think the intent

  74. is different than the wording. That's all I'm saying. Right,

  75. there's a there's a little lawyer that lives in my

  76. head and the words matter.

  77. Yeah, because what she was meaning was use it.

  78. Would you ride it around? Ride around on it?

  79. Like a YEA, Well, I'm going to go with the intent, Jeff, Okay,

  80. I'm not going to be you know, one of those guys.

  81. I'm just saying, desert needs to use words on purpose.

  82. And would you let it drive you around? Is a

  83. totally different picture across. That's a different word picture. We've

  84. already your size of a car now is in the

  85. driver's seat of your pickup truck driving down the road.

  86. That's what Hey, we already picked on desiret yesterday for

  87. the jokes.

  88. No, that's right, No, no, we picked on the people

  89. who sent them, sent those jokes.

  90. In ultimately we ended up doing that.

  91. Yet we're picking a lot of people this week. So

  92. if you haven't been offended yet, we have two more days.

  93. That's right. Just give us a that's right for this week?

  94. Okay, all right?

  95. So I would say yes for both, honestly.

  96. So you would you would you would let your cat

  97. drive you around? Yes, But you'd also be if you've

  98. got a cat the size of the car, you got

  99. to put it on the internet.

  100. Of course, Yeah, and you'd be rich. I'd have to

  101. quit my job.

  102. Just yeah, and what a noble what a noble cause

  103. look at the size of my cat as opposed to

  104. you know, twenty people to Jesus for eternity, that's.

  105. What it would be. Quit your job. Okay, that's really funny.

  106. If you had to be stuck in an elevator with

  107. one celebrity, yes, and you're more focused on celebrities than me,

  108. so this would be good. Yes, but you couldn't talk. Yes,

  109. who would it be?

  110. And why Bob Ross? Because I couldn't talk, which means right,

  111. and he would teach me and I would sit there

  112. for hours and as long as we had canvases.

  113. Right, uh, you know in the elevator.

  114. Once again, the words say, but you couldn't talk, correct,

  115. he could write, which means like I could listen even

  116. if he didn't, even if he didn't have a canvas.

  117. He could just talk and just teach me how to paint,

  118. which would be great. I'd love to listen to that guy.

  119. I think it would be. I don't know he's not

  120. TV anymore, but I think he's dead actually, okay, well.

  121. Old as Bob Ross. I didn't get Siri. How old

  122. is Ross died?

  123. July fourth.

  124. Uh huh, he died.

  125. They're interrupted.

  126. Yeah, he died. You were talking, that's the problem.

  127. Chris and Siri were interrupting each other. That's pretty amazing.

  128. You were talking when I was talking.

  129. Yeah, I'm sorry.

  130. So so he died. So can I still choose him?

  131. Sure?

  132. All right?

  133. Yeah? Yeah, because it said any celebrity, right, one celebrity? Okay, okay,

  134. I would pick maybe Da Vinci.

  135. Oh that's why you said I can choose Bob Ross

  136. because you wanted to go back into the archives.

  137. Yeah.

  138. Yeah, well he's the original renaissance man and I'm very

  139. intrigued by that. Okay, yeah, yeah. Or the other one

  140. that was thinking is Mark Twain. Oh I think Mark

  141. Twain to be a neat one. He'd be a jerk though,

  142. Why he's hysterically funny he was. Yeah, but in your opinion,

  143. Mark Twain to be a jerk.

  144. Can you pick up a skeleton hand and move it? Yeah?

  145. Yeah? Yeah, Well I mean you picked up Bob Ross.

  146. Hey listen, Uh.

  147. Why would Mark Twain be a jerk? Well, because he's

  148. an American treasure. To be honest, you're not going to

  149. like this answer.

  150. Actually probably, I am not none of my listeners are

  151. gonna like this answer.

  152. I don't think so, maybe you shouldn't give it.

  153. In an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, Captain

  154. Picard and Data, we're in the holiday, yes, and they

  155. decided to create Mark Twain who ended up being a jerk. Okay, well,

  156. but they were basing off his character, like his personality

  157. and it's like being snippy, right and uh and so

  158. I in mind, I see I see Mark Twain in

  159. my mind played out.

  160. By this actor.

  161. All right, now we have to ask, because you just

  162. took it to the space age. Everything.

  163. All I did was tell you the reason why was

  164. Mark Twain a jerk? Oh? That's so subjective, check gipt.

  165. He's not going to answer that.

  166. Mark Twain was famously witty and known for for his

  167. biting humor.

  168. Oh sarcasm.

  169. But but opinions on whether he was a jerk are

  170. mixed and widely subjective. He was humorous and sarcastic. He

  171. critiqued authority, and he was very demanding, in particular with

  172. his family and friends. He's he struggled with financial issues

  173. and put stress on relationships or sometimes intense personality and wow,

  174. he had complexity. I think and compassion.

  175. I think if you looked up Webster's definition for a jerk.

  176. It sounds like me. This sounds like me. Complexity and compassion.

  177. Hey, you said nobody else said he's.

  178. A little stressful on everybody else, constantly critiquing authority with

  179. humor and sarcasm. That's I think he'd be great to.

  180. Hang out with, you know, Forrest Gump when he says

  181. and that's all I have to say about that.

  182. There you go, Okaye, Betinos, everything that's so funny. Okay,

  183. well we should move on from here. This next thing

  184. for those of you who hung on this long and

  185. we're waiting for us to get to the Bible, so

  186. that Hey, that segment wound up being more interesting. I

  187. thought it was gonna be Yeah, me too, Yeah yeah, okay.

  188. You know, speaking of segments being better than you thought

  189. they were going to be, this is a psalm about

  190. a king that is the best king. In fact, it

  191. actually says the perfect king. So that segment was almost perfect,

  192. but this psalm.

  193. Is more perfect, is more perfect? Wow?

  194. Okay, it was the worst cheese segment so so far.

  195. If you if you're new, we've been trying to have

  196. cheesy segues from our goofy segment.

  197. I'm sorry, I said segment.

  198. From our goofy segments into our thing. And that was

  199. That was about as cheesy as it gets. So we

  200. were reading Psalm seventy two and this is Most of

  201. the psalms were written by David, Solomon's father, who was

  202. a great king, but a few of them were written

  203. by Solomon. And this one, Psalm seventy two, is it will.

  204. Read the theme because because it supports my cheesy segue,

  205. it says the perfect King.

  206. I was going to read it. Okay, good, Yes, it

  207. was written as a prayer and this is the end

  208. of the Book of Psalms was divided into five books,

  209. and this is the end of I think book two.

  210. And David had prayed these prayers and so either this

  211. is Solomon praying about the king or it's more likely

  212. that Solomon is recounting a prayer that David prayed for

  213. his son. Is what it seems like.

  214. He Do you think this had music to it?

  215. Oh? Absolutely all of the psalms did because they were singable. Okay, yeah, yeah.

  216. So anyways, we know Solomon wrote it. We think it's

  217. likely that he was writing what his dad prayed for him.

  218. But it says here the theme is the perfect King.

  219. In this psalm, a king asks God to help his

  220. son rule the nation justly and wisely. It looks forward

  221. to the endless reign of the Messiah, who alone can

  222. rule with perfect justice, and whose citizens will enjoy perfect peace.

  223. Which is pretty awesome. The perfect King, the perfect.

  224. King, so he go. Psalm seventy two says, give your

  225. love of justice to the King, Oh God, help him

  226. judge your people in the right way. Let the poor

  227. always be treated fairly. May the mountains yield prosperity for all,

  228. and may the hills be fruitful. Help him to defend

  229. the poor, to rescue the children of the needy, and

  230. to crush their oppressors. May they fear you as long

  231. as the sun shines, as long as the moon remains

  232. in the sky. Yes, forever, May the King's rule be refreshing,

  233. like spring rain on freshly cut grass, like the showers

  234. that water the earth. May all the godly flourish during

  235. his reign. May there be abundant prosperity until the moon

  236. is no more. May he rain from sea to sea,

  237. and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.

  238. Desert nomads will bow before him. His enemies will fall

  239. before him in the dust. The western kings of Tarsish

  240. and other distant lands will bring him tribute. The eastern

  241. kings of Sheba and Siba will bring him gifts. All

  242. kings will bow before him, and all nations will serve him.

  243. He will rescue the poor when they cry to him.

  244. He will help the oppressed who have no one to

  245. defend him. He feels pity for the weak and the needy,

  246. and he will rescue them. He will redeem them from

  247. oppression and violence, for their lives are precious to him.

  248. Long live the King. May the gold of Sheba be

  249. given to him. May the people always pray for him

  250. and bless him all day long. May there be abundant

  251. grain throughout the land, flourishing even on the hilltops. May

  252. the fruit trees flourish like the trees of Lebanon, and

  253. may the people thrive like grass in a field. May

  254. the King's name endure forever. May it continue as long

  255. as the sun shines. May all nations be blessed through

  256. him and bring him praise. Praise the Lord God, the

  257. God of Israel, who alone does such wonderful things. Praise

  258. his glorious name forever. Let the whole earth be filled

  259. with His glory. Amen and Amen.

  260. And then it wils and then it says this ends

  261. the prayers of David's son of Jesse.

  262. That's correct.

  263. Wow.

  264. So there's a note here in our life application study Bible,

  265. which is a Bible that we recommend.

  266. Oh yeah, we love it.

  267. We love it.

  268. Get yourself a good study Bible.

  269. Yes, And it says, what qualities do we want most

  270. in our leaders? God desires all who rule under him

  271. to be just and righteous.

  272. Think of how the world will.

  273. Change if leaders would commit That's the thought, isn't it

  274. themselves to these two qualities?

  275. Pray fore and righteousness?

  276. Right, Pray for.

  277. Leaders that you hear about them on the news. Ask

  278. God to help them see and then it just blah

  279. blah blah blah.

  280. Help them see their need for him. Yeah, ask God

  281. to help them lead with justice and righteousness.

  282. Yeah, which is really great.

  283. Yeah. Yeah, So that's what Paul tells us in on Timothy.

  284. There's a note there, right, pray for our kings, Pray

  285. for our leaders. Yeah.

  286. By the way, as you were reading through this, I

  287. mean Obviously I've read the Bible before, I've read Psalm

  288. seventy two before, but I think it's been a while

  289. since I've paid attention specifically to this particular psalm, And

  290. my thinking was sort of wandering, thinking, I wonder if

  291. he wrote this when he before he was king, or

  292. do you think that it's we're addressing this now because

  293. chronologically it's supposed to be after he was king.

  294. Yeah, so I think this is he wrote it after

  295. he was king, I think. But what I understand it

  296. Psalm seventy two is it seems like he's remembering the

  297. prayer that his father prayed for him. He's realizing that

  298. God gave him all that his father prayed for. It

  299. prays for wisdom. He prays that his son will care

  300. for the poor, that the whole nation will prosper before him,

  301. that the world will will, that the enemies will submit,

  302. that the rest of the world will bring him tribute.

  303. Even it mentioned Sheba a couple times, what the queen

  304. Sheba does. I think a lot of theologians believe that

  305. Psalm seventy two is Solomon realizing the blessing in his

  306. life was passed to him from his father. And the

  307. prayers of his father, and that he has realized these

  308. things to be true.

  309. So if that's the case, then that means that David.

  310. Would have spoken this into his son prophetically, prophetically and saying, like.

  311. One day, pray over his son this way.

  312. The Queen of Sheba will give you gold.

  313. Yeah.

  314. And so he's remembering as the Queen of Sheba, which

  315. we read and yes Day's podcast comes and gives him

  316. were two podcasts ago where the Queen of Sheba comes

  317. and gives him what was it five hundred.

  318. Yeah, three and three hundred and something billion dollars? Yeah,

  319. or a million million dollars. She gave me nine thousand

  320. tons of gold, yeah, And I looked that up. Let

  321. me let me find out nine billion or something. No, no, no,

  322. this was three hundred and something.

  323. Yeah. Well, whatever it was, I made a joke and three.

  324. Hundred and forty three million dollars.

  325. Yeah.

  326. So the bottom line is is, you know, it could

  327. be that here he's finally seeing it all come to fruition,

  328. and then he's going back and saying, son of a gun,

  329. my father prayed this over. I remember when I was

  330. nine years old. I remember when he spoke over me,

  331. and he said, one day this is going to happen,

  332. and it.

  333. Could be maybe the catalyst.

  334. If this is true, If this is Solomon who's praying

  335. and remembering a prayer that his father prayed for him

  336. with so many specifics, then that would be an incredible thing, right.

  337. You know, we pray over our kids all the time,

  338. and when God answers the prayers and it actually comes

  339. to fruition, it's like there's nothing better, is it, right,

  340. There's nothing better.

  341. I've had conversations with my mom and my dad about

  342. how they prayed over me, and I'm not going to

  343. get into specifics, but so many of those things have

  344. come true in my life. You know, I'm fifty three now,

  345. but my mom and dad you know, began praying over

  346. me when I was eight, and they pray for me often,

  347. and many of those things have come true, and not

  348. long ago, I don't know, a year or two ago.

  349. My mom and I were talking about that and how God.

  350. She feels like God has answered so many of her

  351. prayers in that. So it's a really humbling thing. So

  352. I think that you kind of pick it up because

  353. he is saying, you know, as you read it made

  354. the King's name never passed from the earth and all

  355. these things. It sounds like a big deal, But that's

  356. him remembering that's what his father prayed for him. But

  357. then Solomon seems to have written these last verses, praise

  358. the Lord God of Israel, who alone does such wonderful things. Right, right,

  359. So this is Solomon at his very best, saying, my

  360. dad prayed these things over me, But praise God, right,

  361. the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does

  362. such wonderful They praise his glorious name forever. But the

  363. whole earth be filled with his glory, right, amen and amen.

  364. And so there there's a humility that Solomon is expressing

  365. here that my dad praied these things, and look, God

  366. gave us this. Yeah, and really, God's the one that

  367. should get all the glory.

  368. So my daughter is married and she lives in Saint Pete, Florida.

  369. And a few years back, five years ago or so,

  370. my son in law took me out to a restaurant

  371. to ask my permission for him to ask Sarah to

  372. marry him.

  373. So, you know, and gosh, that moment was pretty surreal.

  374. You know.

  375. I remember what we ordered, I remember where we sat,

  376. I remember what restaurant it was, and he sat there

  377. and just talked about you know, he just had his

  378. speech all prepared, and he was crying, and afterwards he

  379. sort of said, hey, I love your daughter all these

  380. different things. And then when he get done, he says, Okay,

  381. I'm done crying. I promise no more crying. And then

  382. I said, let me tell you a story, because it

  383. was my turn to respond and say yes, right, And

  384. I said, the day that Sarah was born, nineteen ninety four,

  385. this is how long ago it was. I said, we

  386. brought her home from the hospital, and I described the

  387. nursery and I said, and my wife and I later

  388. in her crib. I said, and that in that very moment,

  389. we got our knees and we prayed, and we went

  390. through this laundry list of things that we prayed for her.

  391. In her life.

  392. Among them was the very first time that we prayed

  393. for her future husband, and we prayed for her future

  394. husband her entire life, and we prayed that God would

  395. send her somebody who and we just listed all these

  396. different things. And I explained all this to him and

  397. I said, so, I said, this moment is the answer,

  398. and I believe that God has sent you to her.

  399. I believe you have the answer to these prayers. I said,

  400. We've been praying for for you before you, before we

  401. met you, your whole life. And then he started crying

  402. and he goes, dang it, he said, I said, that

  403. was the end of my crime. And but you know,

  404. obviously it's a pretty emotional story for me. But but

  405. here's the point. The point is is that there is

  406. power and a parent's prayer. Yeah, right, So think about this.

  407. Think about him Solomon looking back and saying, I never understood.

  408. I never I'm marveling at the fact that this is

  409. what my father prayed and this is what God has done.

  410. And I believe that that's something that definitely Sarah and

  411. Brandon can say powerful.

  412. Yeah, that's powerful. So I mentioned I know the prayers

  413. my mom and dad prayed for me, and I'm living

  414. out I think the benefit of those prayers. Yeah, you

  415. mentioned the prayers you prayed for your daughter, and your

  416. daughter's living those out. For some of our listeners, you're

  417. praying for your kids and you're wondering. So let me

  418. tell you. The story of my dad is. You know,

  419. my dad adopted me when I was eight but his

  420. mother prayed for him for forty years before he became

  421. a Christian. So we have some listeners that are frustrated

  422. that God hasn't yet answered their prayers. And they'll often

  423. say God hasn't answered my prayers, and I always say,

  424. not yet. Right, He's in the process of answering your prayer,

  425. and you're praying a prayer that glorifies him. Right, if

  426. your child is far from God, don't give up. My

  427. grandmother told me because eventually after her my dad's dad

  428. died when my dad was a teenager, and she remarried

  429. when her second husband died. We had a little house

  430. behind us. We had a little homestead, and there was

  431. a little house that the original owner had for like

  432. a rental house. But after her husband died, she moved

  433. into that little rental house, and so she lived one

  434. hundred feet behind me. We worked out in the same garden,

  435. we picked the same apples, we did all the same stuff.

  436. So ited always hanging out with my grandmother's house. And

  437. she told me one time she just couldn't believe the

  438. change of my dad's life. You know, I'm fourteen years old,

  439. probably fifteen years old at the time, and So this

  440. was a six or seven years after he became a Christian.

  441. And she said, for forty years, I thought there was

  442. no hope, but I never gave up. She said, two

  443. things I've always done. She always was listening to Christian

  444. music on a radio. Her church had a radio station,

  445. so she always listened to it. Am twelve thirty and

  446. I'll appear. And so she's always listening to Christian music

  447. and praying for my dad all day, every day for

  448. forty years. And she said, I never thought it was

  449. going to happen, and now thank God for it. So

  450. my dad now is eighty six, so he's now been

  451. a believer six years longer than he was a full

  452. on pig. And you know, so this this so I've

  453. lived it. You've prayed over your daughter, she's lived it

  454. my dad. You know, my grandmother prayed for my dad.

  455. And so you may feel like, in this microwave popcorn

  456. kind of a world that you prayed a couple times

  457. and it just didn't happen. And I would say, it

  458. hasn't happened yet. Don't give up. And James says that

  459. the fervent prayers of a righteous man accomplishes much that's right,

  460. So you know, stick with it. God's on your side

  461. and he's for you. And so David this prayer. There's

  462. similar wording to this in that prayer that David prayed

  463. over his son right towards the end of his life,

  464. very similar words to this. This may be Solomon's recounting

  465. of that prayer we read a few weeks ago. If

  466. that's the case, David had lived his life. He wasn't

  467. a perfect guy, but he knew who God was and

  468. he believed God would answer prayers. Yeah, and then Solomon

  469. isn't a perfect guy, but man, Solomon really did see

  470. all of the things that David prayed over him for.

  471. Solomon sees these things happen in his life. So pray

  472. for the people you love and God hears those prayers.

  473. That's great.

  474. All right.

  475. Well, hey, that's our time, so hopefully we will see

  476. you tomorrow on the Bible Gush