A Private Life With God • Psalm 138

1:00:03 Teaching begins

Notes

Have you ever been overwhelmed? Everyone has.

I’m going to show you the biblical way to be encouraged when you are overwhelmed.

That is, you have a private life with God. This is apart from what you do for God. When you are alone with God, you receive what God has spoken into your heart. You grasp it with your understanding.

That understanding encourages you so that you can be strong to resist all opposition to do what God wants you to do.

Let’s read Psalm 138.

1. David begins this psalm with praise and thanks to God. He cried out to God, and God answered him.

2. God’s answer shows us what David prayed for.

A. David says You answered me and made me bold with strength in my soul.

B. I would think David was not bold at the time, and feeling weak in his soul.

1. David was an extremely capable man, skillful, experienced. It’s hard to imagine that David was ever overwhelmed.

2. But if you look at David’s life, he is almost continually being attacked. His enemies included his father-in-law, armies, nations, his own children.

3. Another enemy was Satan, in 1 Chronicles 21. In this psalm he mentions “the gods”. I don’t think David believed in other gods, but there are spiritual beings who want to be treated as gods. Satan is their leader. Every nation had their own god. They all attacked Israel. Remember that Israel’s big problem was worshipping false gods. Today we face spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

C. David was always outnumbered. He was overwhelmed quite often in his life.

2. David resists his enemies through his relationship with God.

A. Notice in verse 2 the phrase, “lovingkindness and truth”. Those words together are the ideas that mean “relationship”

1. Lovingkindness is the Hebrew word chesed, means strong, faithful, covenant love. God is chesed.

2. Truth is the Hebrew emeth. It has the idea of faithfulness that never changes. Truth never changes. There is no idea of, well, that’s your truth and I have my truth that’s different, and we can all agree to disagree. No. One of us is true, the other one is a liar. Truth is true for everyone, at all times, under all conditions, and it never changes.

3. You need covenant love and unchanging truth in a relationship. Love and truth are the foundation, the bond that keeps at least two together in relationship.

B. David cried out to God because he had a relationship with God.

1. David doesn’t fight back in the same as his enemies, with schemes and plans and more people and more weapons. He relies upon God.

2. You pray because God is your God; He listens to your prayer and He answers your prayer. In prayer God’s strength becomes your strength.

C. I’m sure David cried out, “God, help! I’m afraid! Make me bold with strength in my soul!” I would have been happy with bliss, with euphoria, with feeling good about myself. I don’t want to feel afraid, I want to feel fearless, confident, not afraid of anything.

D. In God’s lovingkindness and truth He spoke His word to David, a concrete word about what He will do in the future.

E. In response David says, You have magnified Your word above Your name. God binds His word together with His name. If He doesn’t fulfil His word, He has no name. He speaks with no effect.

3. God gave David a specific word, a true word. God promised that He would listen to His people’s prayers and overcome every enemy.

A. It’s there in verse 4: All the kings of the earth will give thanks to You, O Lord, when they hear the words of Your mouth. Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord. Though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly; but the proud He knows from afar.

1. This has never happened before in history. When have all the kings of the earth listened to the Lord, obeyed Him, and sang for joy? This requires a complete change in the governments of the world, till every nation becomes godly.

2. It won’t happen until God overcomes all His enemies. That means Satan, false gods, and death itself.

B. God will save His people who cry out to Him because they know His name. Though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly. That’s His name.

1. The name of God is like a reputation or a brand. It’s everything you think about when you hear the name of the product. Companies pay millions to plant the idea of who they want to be in your mind. When you hear the name “Tesco” you think, “Every little bit helps.” When you hear Nike, you think, “Just do it.” What would you rather have, a Mercedes, or a Ford Fiesta?

2. We have the name of God in verses 5-6. Though God is on high, yet He regards the lowly, the weak, the one who trusts in Him. He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger. He is abundant in lovingkindness and truth. This is His name! Exodus 34!

C. The wicked will not take the earth for themselves. Not Iran, or Russia, or China. Not the United States, nor the UK. Only the ones who trust in Jesus will inherit all things because God gives it to them. Only the meek will inherit the earth and heaven.

D. David received that word from God into his heart. As he thought on that word he grasped it. If God is going to overcome every enemy, then I’m going to make it. He’s not going to lose me. He’s going to win. I’m going to win through Him. That concrete word of God about the future helped him right now in the present to wait for God and not lose hope.

4. Remember I said to you, you need a life in private with God? Verses 7-8 show us what that life looks like.

A. All the verbs in these two verses are in the imperfect tense. It means the action is continual, without an end in sight. So here’s how you read these verses: (read).

B. A private life with God means I continually walk in the midst of trouble. I live with opposition and attack all around me because I belong to God. They fight dirty and unfair. I cry out to God.

C. A private life with God means You will continually give me life inside me that is greater than the attacks outside me. I pray, and You will continually give me Your presence and Your word to put in my heart.

1. You can take a specific word from the Bible and think on it constantly, and receive it in your heart. What if you woke up in the morning with verses 7-8 in your mind? As you think on that word, God writes it on your heart.

2. You will come to know the name of the Lord, not just in your mind, but in your heart, because with the heart man believes, not with the head. You can know all kinds of things in your head but not believe them in your heart. You’ll know that when you pray, God hears you, because that’s who He is.

3. As you think on that word you receive it into your heart, and it gives you life and boldness. Remember when Jesus taught the two disciples on the way to Emmaus the morning He was raised from the dead? They said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” They were discouraged and upset; now they had life! They were bold and confident!

D. You will continually stretch forth Your hand against my enemies, and Your right hand will continually save me. My enemies never stop attacking, so You never stop defending me. You will bring me safely to Your heavenly kingdom.

E. The Lord will continually accomplish what concerns me, because He fulfils His word. Read Psalm 139:16. My life was written by God in His book before He made the world. He composed my life. He plotted it. He already knows what He wants to do in me, in you. I want what He wants because it’s better than what I want. Don’t you want what He wants? That’s our life now.

F. Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting. Only His love can satisfy your heart. Have you ever been filled with His lovingkindness? When you think on God’s word, you will receive His love for you.

G. When you have a negative before an imperfect verb, it means do not begin. Do not begin to forsake the works of Your hands. Because God loves you with everlasting love, He cannot lose interest in you. He must finish all His will because He loves you with everlasting love.

H. Every day, you live with God, He lives in you. Every day you put His word in your heart, He writes it there with His finger and He gives you life. He defends you as you wait for Him to get everything and you where He wants.

Every day you need a private life with God.

Let’s pray.