God Can Redeem Your Story: Psalm 7

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways.

Good morning, good more morning, Yeah.

Talk all right, Chris is coffee is kicking in. That's

what I'm said seeing right now in the morning in

the Sorry, I never I never go past that mark. Okay,

So dude, you really livened up due caffeine.

Hit.

Send a couple of nice text messages. Feeling good.

He's referring to in between the all right, hey today

this if you don't know, if you're just joining us today,

this is kyleer is standing in for Jeff because Jeff

is out of pocket, and so we are delighted, thrilled, nay,

we are privileged to have with us this week The

Bible Guys with Kyle and Chris.

Yes, it was pretty terrible then first, I don't know

how that happens.

Yes, yes, deserved, but well deserved.

I don't know about that, not at all. But thank you.

Well. Hey, today's desiree wants us to do two truths

in a lie. Yep, and the way she wrote it is,

oh I lost my place now, it says Kyle, we

always enjoy having you as a Bible guy.

She had to write that that's good getting.

To know you more.

Let's play two truths and a lie to see how

well Chris knows you? All right? Can he figure out

which statement is a lie? And she put exclamation mark

question mark as if that's so intense?

Can he find out? I figured us see if we

can figure it out. Okay, we got three things for you, Chris.

Two truths, one lie. First thing is this is that

I graduated from the same high school that your kids

graduated from.

Yeah, I know that's true, buddy.

Wait for me to say.

All three Yeah, Well I'm I'm just calling you out.

Okay, there you go. I am the youngest of my

older of the three siblings in my family, I'm the youngest.

That's the second thing. And then the last is that

the last one's a lie. Okay, the last thing, the

last thing son of a gun.

I already knew.

Okay, I was married in Hawaii, So there are two

truths and a lie in that I was married in Hawaii.

I'm the youngest of Uh.

Hey, I'm proud. I'm really proud because you know we

know each other. But I but you know, obviously I

don't know you nearly as well as some other staff

members because you run staff well before me, right, And

so I'm really proud that I got this.

I knew both of those things.

Yeah. So the truth is I did go to Troy

Athens High School, graduated away before his kids, but went

to the same high school as them. The other truth

is that I actually have six siblings. I'm not the youngest.

I'm right in the middles.

I get it wrong, I get it wrong.

You said that you said you thought that was the truth.

No, no, no, I said, I said the last ones.

Uh, oh, so you are wrong.

Let's go totally misunderstood you. Yes, it's right. So I

actually was married in Hawaii. I really was two thousand

and seven, got married in Hawaii. And uh, and no,

I'm I'm not I'm not the youngest. I am right

in the middle of the six siblings.

I said. I said, I know you're the youngest, but

you're not.

No, I'm not right in the So wow, yeah, I

have two older siblings and then and then three younger

than me. So six of us six. It's okay. You

were getting a little confident, and I actually trusted your

confidence that's the worst part is also you know he's right,

He's got me.

Did you ever see Willie Walker at the end when

he goes wrong, sir wrong? Yes, you get married in Hawaii.

Yeah. So we basically we had the opportunity. When we

were planning our wedding, we were just broke as a joke, yeah,

and we were like, you know, we were talking about

what are options where we could have done a big

wedding in the area and probably spent too much money

that we didn't have. We could have done a small

wedding in the area and left out a bunch of people,

or what we decided was another option was what if

we go to Hawaii and we just invite whoever wants

to come and uh, and then we we stay there

and we get married there. So we ended up inviting

whoever wanted to come and thirteen people joined us. It

was really great two thousand and seven. So my family,

her family, close family. We didn't have anybody stand up

in the wedding. It was just on a beach and

the couple that did we basically hire a couple that

was there. She did the photography, he performed the wedding

and it was really sweet. It was out in the

on a beach where like nobody around us. It was awesome,

very cool, very cool. It was it was a guy

we found like a like a online pastor. We found

rent a pastor. Yep, it was great, very nice guy.

Wow. So a pastor at our church hired a rena

pastor in Hawaii.

Was before I actually wanted to go in the ministry.

So I was just like, I just need to get married.

We just gotta figure this out. There's got to be

somebody we could, uh we could find to do this. Wow.

So yeah, it was not. I mean I had I

had other pastor friends I could have invited.

But let's pretend that you were single up until now. Uh,

and let's just say you just met Kristen right and

you guys are going to get married. Uh. My question is,

would you be okay hiring a rena pastor now or

would you like say, gosh, I just can't do that.

I have to have whoever special in your life.

So you're saying you want to go to Hawaii. Is

that what you're saying? No, I'm just no, no, no, My mindset

is definitely different, but you have to I was very

very young, we did not like, we didn't have much like,

so I'm trying to think of, like what's the most

easy and efficient way to get this thing legally taken

care of.

That's why people hire rena pasters.

Yes, yes, so now I would say I definitely want

to fly out somebody who'd be important to me and

have them do the wedding one.

Yes, yeah, okay, yeah, even though that'd be a more

expensive Yes, absolutely that point, you might as well stay

at home and yes, so but but wow, that is amazing.

So so yeah, you probably have incredible photos.

Yes, it's great and also was it was before the

age where like everything's digital, right, so we have a

lot of great printed photos, we have a few digital

photos and some really just good good memories from that. Actually,

I'll tell funny. I know we're probably run out of

time for this segment, but we were on this beach

and it was like totally like like the rent to

pastor helped find us the spot, and it was beautiful beach.

No one's around, and there's this guy in a speedo

that's ceremonies about to start runs by a speedo and

my dad is like kind of like, I mean he's

a very nice, kind guy, but he also has an

aggresive side. Don't want to mess with him. So sure enough,

like the guy runs by and we all kind of

got to laugh, right then the guy runs by again,

second time. By the third time, he's just running laps.

My dad was like, I honestly might tackle this guy

in the speed home and into the ocean. And so

just a funny thinguse we were just like a memory

that we have is just some guy making laps. He'd

run like a football field link running back. And finally

Mike had to say, can you please leave? There's a

wedding happening because we're standing up there about to get married,

about to exchange vowels and some guys running behind him.

Did he say please?

Yeah, I think he said in a more firm way

than that. But and then the guy did not come back,

that's for sure, but it made for a really funny

Dad's also muscular. Yes, yes he's not. He's not messing around. Yeah,

he's not messing around.

Your dad said to me leave, Yes, I would leave, yes, yes.

And this guy, I mean again, we're in the middle

of nowhere, in this beautiful spot, and this guy thought

it was a good idea to run across where the

photos were being taken so many times, yeah, three different times.

Yep.

Yeah.

So anyway, all right, we should probably talk about the Bible.

Yep.

Yeah. Well, I mean, hey, we did good.

We were within our time, all right, A right, So David,

as we know, many of us already know that David

wrote many of the psalms, right, almost exclusively, all of them,

and many times.

What he did was he.

Wrote them, you know, throughout his journey and and and

it'll literally tell us when he wrote them, right now,

each psalm had a tune. They were actually songs, right

and we don't have the charts, we don't have the

chords of the melodies. But he actually would write music.

He was a musician. And this one says a psalm

of David which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush

of the tribe of Benjamin, which is right where we

are chronologically in his life.

All right, So right there in Psalm seven, i'll read

it today. It says, I come to you for protection,

O Lord, my God, save me for my persecutors. Rescue me.

If you don't, they will maul me like a lyon lion.

Tearing me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

Oh Lord, my God, if I've done wrong, or I'm

guilty of justice injustice, if I betrayed a friend or

plundered my enemy without cause, then let my enemies capture me.

Let them trample me into the ground and drag me,

drag my honor in the dust. Arise, o Lord, in anger,

stand up against a fury of my enemies. Wake up,

my God, and bring justice. Gather the nations before you

rule over them from on high. The Lord judges the nations.

Declare me righteous, o Lord, for I am innocent. Almost

high End the evil of those who are wicked, and

defend the righteous. For you look deep within the mind

and heart, Oh righteous God, God is my shield, saving

those whose hearts are true and right. God is an

honest judge. He is angry with the wicked every day.

If a person does not repent, God will sharpen his sword,

he will bend and string his bow. He will prepare

his deadly weapons and shoot his flaming arrows. The wicked

conceive evil. They are pregnant with trouble and give birth

to lies. They dig deep pit to trap others, then

fall into it themselves. The trouble they make for others

backfires on them. The violence they plan falls on their

own heads. I will thank the Lord because he has

just I will sing praises to the name of the

Lord Most High. It was a good, good psalm of David.

Yeah, it is, yes, And you know, it's interesting to

me how whenever you read a psalm like this we

eat today on the other side of the cross. We

try to obviously apply that. We try to say, Okay,

what does this mean for me not to be selfish

because we're trying to you know, obviously, you know, sort.

Of become like Christ, become like God, what God wants

us to be.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess what I was going to say is,

you know, we're trying to receive it. You know, when

it was written with what intent was it written for?

Yeah?

What did it mean to David?

Right?

Oh, you're saying that's the correct way to approach it.

Yeah, I'm saying, yeah, that's we have to understand the context.

The stuff that doesn't relate to us, it's they're still important.

I guess this is what I'm trying to say. There's

a lot of stuff in the Old Testament remember yesterday's

story he stabbed into the gut and split out his guts.

You're like, what does this have to do with me today,

in my life in twenty twenty four, Right, So we

have to appreciate it for what it is and what

it means and how it applies to the life of David,

is what I'm saying. But then also you sort of

have to short of apply and say, Okay, God, what

does this mean for me? Because every verse, you know,

there's there's a sermon in there somewhere, right, every verse

can lead you to Christ. But anyway, what I was

just going to say is, sometimes when we are trying

to receive a psalm for us today in twenty twenty four,

we come across things that could be a little discouraging.

You know.

Sometimes it says He's angry with the wicked every day.

God is an honest judge. If a person does not repent,

God will sharpen his sword, he will bend and string

his bow, he will prepare his weapons, the weapons and

shoot his flaming arrows.

And it's like, holy cow, it's like those.

Of us who have a past, those of us who

currently struggle. You know, I can imagine that there are

probably some people listening to the podcast even right now,

They're like, that's me. I'm the wicked person, right Like

I try to be good, i just can't. Or I

try to be good, I'm just not as disciplined as

I want to be, right, Ye, And so let's just

be reminded. Here's the here's the statement of the day

that God still does hate wicked things every day. So

the Bible says that, you know, God is the same yesterday, today,

and forever. So God does not change God. Whatever sin

that God hated in the Old Testament, God still hates

in the New Testament. Right. There's nowhere in the Bible

does it say that God has changed his stance on sin,

nor does he feel about sin any differently than he

did even back then. The only difference is, and trust me,

it is a massive difference, is God's response to sin

changes greatly. So God's response to sin is different because

of Jesus Christ. Right.

So in the Old Testament we see the.

God of wrath, right, you know, like, you know, God

executes his judgment on the spot for sin, you know,

and he just boom, just lays it out.

You know, we're going to strike people down.

And again he struck people down in the New Testament

and in Iis and Sephirah in.

The Book of Acts.

Right like, there's still execution, you know, happening in the

New Testament post Christ. But for the most part, we

have to understand that God's response to us in twenty

twenty four for our sin is radically different than it

was before Christ, because Jesus Christ came to pay for

our sins. Right, So, what happens in the Old Testament is,

you know, they would live trying their best to please God,

and obviously because of their sin, they would sacrifice an animal.

The Bible says in the Book of Hebrews. Without the

shedding of blood, there is no repentance for sin, there's

no forgiveness of sin. And so they would, excuse me,

they would have to offer a blood sacrifice. In those

blood sacrifices they would have to offer continually. But the

Bible says that Jesus Christ was the one and only

an ultimate sacrifice. He was the Lamb of God. John

the Baptist said that takes away the sins of the

whole world. When his blood was shed, it covered all

of our sins, not only all the sins that we've

committed in the past, but all the sins in the future,

all of our future sins. God's one sacrifice is enough

to forgive everything that we will ever do for our lives.

So I just want to say, as we receive the psalm,

just know this God is still a God of justice.

He's still a God who hates sin. He's still a

God who, by the way, will have us answer for

our sins. Right, we have judgment in our lives. Judgment

is still relevant. We have to answer for our sins.

The Bible says, our sins are going to find us

out right. Whatsoever we sow, we're going to reap.

We understand those things. But just know that his.

Anxiousness to sharpen his sword and get you back because

of your sin, that is not the spirit in which

we live under the Blood of Christ. Right. God is

not out to get us. God is out to love us.

God pursues us, He loves us, He forgives us, He

invites us into a loving relationship with him, offering us

continual forgiveness for our sins.

Right, especially when you figure the context of who's writing this, right,

it's David a man after God's own heart, yet has

so much like things that honestly to feel a lot

of shame or reret and pain over of his own

sins and mistakes. And the verse that stood out to

me that is kind of a beautiful verse, but also

like a scary verse, kind of like you're saying, sometimes

people read this stuff and they're like, oh, my goodness,

this applies to me. But in verse nine it says,

for you look deep within the mind and heart. You know,

reading that, some people can take so listen that they

can say, man, the God he just sees my heart,

and he just knows my mind, what I'm thinking, he

knows my intentions or pure whatever. But then others maybe

read that and they're like, wow, that's that's scary to

know that that the God actually knows deep within your

mind and heart. He knows your motives, he knows you

know what you're thinking, he knows your temptations, your struggles

and that sort of thing. And that part of it

feels a little bit convicting. It feels a little bit like,

you know, a little bit revealing. It feels like, you know,

a vulnerable moment. But I think it's also a reminder

that as Christians we can kind of live with like

the mask off, pretending not you know, stop pretending to

be something or not, Stop pretending like you're perfect, right,

stop pretending like you know, all this rightiousness you walk around,

self righteousness you walk around with because end of the day,

no matter what it is, we have a God who

sees deep within the mind and heart, and that's what

matters most. And we see right here we have someone

like David who's considered a man after God's own heart,

and yet he's being completely real about the fact that

God sees him, knows him, knows all his issues, and

yet still deeply loves him. Yeah.

Well you know, I mean, you know, he's not claiming

perfection right to you to the point he's just made.

But when he does say that, at the very beginning,

he says, hey, you know, if I've done wrong, if

I'm guilty of an injustice or portrayed a friend, then hey,

let the enemies capture me, tramp me in the ground,

drag my honor through the dust. What he's talking about

here is his reputation. You know, I love this note.

In the Love of Life Application Study Bible says this,

Have you ever been falsely accused or so badly hurt

that you wanted to take revenge? Instead of taking matters

into your own hands and striking back, David cried out

to God for justice. The proper response to slander is prayer,

not revenge, because God says I will take revenge, I

will pay them back, and then it gives some cross

references and it says, instead of striking back, ask God

to take your case, bring justice, and restore your reputation.

I'm not sure if you could relate to this, but

I could relate to this in.

A very massive way.

Something you know well.

I mean, I don't want to get into details, because

people who know me personally and they know the church

that I came from, they know that there was some

of that involved in leaving my other church. And as

long as you've known me, even personally in conversation, how

many times have you ever heard me mention this? And

the answer is almost zero? Right, I never talk about it.

I certainly never say anything publicly. And the reason why

is because my goal isn't to slander other churches. My

goal isn't to say bad things about people. Right, There's

no good that'll come from that. You know, sometimes when

we leave churches, sometimes it's a really good leaving and

sometimes it's not.

And it's complicated, right and so and so my.

Goal is not to slander anybody listening who knows anything

about my leaving. But I will say one thing, and

and again, this is one thing. This is a very

it feels like a very safe comment. Okay, a very

safe comment. Uh. There was there was a thing that

happened where, you know, I spoke up against you know,

leadership and had some attitude issues against leadership and things. Well, anyway,

I was put on a leave of absence and and

and all I said was all I said was I

just said this. I just said, hey, listen, I said,

do me a favor. I said, just make a statement,

and make the statement that says, hey, the reason why

Chris is on leave absence has nothing to do with

anything illegal, immoral, or unethical. Because when you hear that

a pastor gets put on leav absence, that's where everybody's

brain goes.

Right, I said, you filmed the gap.

I said, so yeah.

I said, we don't have to talk, details have to slander,

We don't have to say anything bad orbout anything about anybody.

I said, just do me a favor and make sure

that you're able to say this. Well, you know, they

refused to make that statement. And I won't get into

the reason why. I have my opinions as the reason why,

but anyway, but that statement was not allowed to be said.

And so consequently I remember doing a funeral down way

down in Saint Clair Shores, which is, as you know,

like forty five minutes away, right. I remember a funeral

director heard me, heard my name, and he says, hey,

are you Chris Arbo? And I said yeah, and he goes, oh, man,

he goes. I heard from a from a good friend's

daughter's friend.

Who used to go to it, who said that you

had an affair with your secretary.

Oh gosh, yeah.

And I was like, and there it is, right.

So it's it's the false thing accused part, right, It's

the it's the it's the it's the part that says,

you know, it's exactly what we're talking about here, And

it's like, hey, we could have avoided everything just by

being able to say the reason why he was on

leave absence has nothing to do with anything illegal, immoral,

or ethical, just please make that statement, because people are people, right, Uh.

And so I I have dealt with a lot.

I have dealt a lot with this, Yeah, being falsely accused.

Yeah, because even though I wasn't technically accused, I was,

I was not given the chance to So so yeah,

there was a lot of defeiding that went on. And

uh and and I again, I don't want to get

into it, but uh and so again I've not said

anything bad about previous leadership at all. The one thing

that I've said is I've dealt with feelings like David

has right, which is like, hey, if I if I've

done these things, hey, God, then go ahead and drag

my honor through the dust. But if not, then do

me a favor God, through your power, restore my reputation.

Yeah.

And you know what, I've always believed. I have this

on my desk for years, years and years and years,

like twenty years. Woodrow Wilson, our former president, said something

that I'll never forget, and I've lived by this my

whole life.

And here it is.

He says, if I take care of my character, my

reputation will take care of itself.

That's really good. That's great quote.

Right, Yeah, and so I have no choice in that

situation to say, hey, it's not my job to go

public and say hey, blah blah blah blah. No, it's

not my job to do that. Right. My only job

is to love God and to take care of my character.

And if I take care of my character, my reputation

is going to take care of itself.

And I really do think, you know, reading this scripture,

you see David, I think God is going to bless him.

He's gonna bless you, he's gonna bless me, He's going

to bless our listeners. When our first response is to

speak back or try to you know, to try to

make things right or try to you know, do that.

But instead David completely surrendered it over to God and

cried out to him and asked for the evil to

be the wicked to be dealt with. And he's asking

for God's judgment. And that's the best way to go

about it, right, to talk to God, to like to

cry out to God, pray to God, release it to God,

and try not to take retribution into your own hands.

I think that's that's a really good takeaway from this

from this section here.

Yeah, and you know what, there's not too much we

can do. There's so many things that are out of

our control, and ultimately we have to get to that

point to where he's like, God, I can't fix this.

I can't control this.

I can't. Can you imagine had I tried to, you know,

fix it in some way in my own power.

It might have made it worse.

I would have made it worse. I would have made

it worse.

And so the best thing I could possibly do is,

you know, here it is, you know, five years later,

and never once publicly, this is That's the most what.

I just said.

And I didn't say anything. The only thing I said

was I wanted a statement to be made and it

wasn't made. That's the only thing I said here. But

that's the most I've said publicly since I've been gone

five years. And uh and and so in those kinds

of cases, we just say, Okay, it seems incredibly unfair

and undeserving, but God, please just do what you're gonna do.

You take cand of that, You handle this, you take

care of it. And that's the only thing we can

do is just to say, God, please just step in

on my behalf and take care of it, because you know.

That's that's all I can hope for.

Yeah, that's really good. That's really good wisdom right there. Yeah.

So, hey, well that looks to be our time. And

my wife's gonna be mad that I said all those things.

Nah, it's okay. Just forgive him. Forgive him, Liz.

He's gonna be mad. I can't believe he's that guy.

But you know what, Hey, I didn't think I said

too much.

So no, it's all good, buddy.

All right, buddy, let's let's go ahead and sign off,

and we'll see you next time on the Bible.

Guys, see tomorrow