Psalm 41

The Psalms are a collection, right? They're this unified collection of five books of Psalms. And so there's 150 Psalms, but those Psalms are made up of five separate books. They all contribute their own thing to the whole purpose of the Psalms, right? Remember the, the purpose of the Psalms is to encourage and guide our faith.

is to encourage and guide us as we pray, hope, and wait for God to redeem us. And each book within the Psalms has its own contribution to that meaning. Book 1 and Psalm 41 contribute by having this conversation, putting in front of our eyes this, this conversation of faith. Faith is possible even when we can't be sure. That's our primary thought. The thing I want bouncing around in your heads as you go to lunch or as maybe on Tuesday, somebody says, Hey, I missed it Sunday. What was the sermon about? I hope that you remember that that's simple enough for you to keep in your mind. Faith is possible even when we can't be sure.

And King David, the author of our 12 verses plus one writes Psalm 41 in three movements in these three movements of Psalm 41. Help us understand how faith can be possible even when we can't be sure. Here's the three movements. In verses one through three, we see that David remembers God's promises. He remembers God promises.

He puts him, in front of His, focus, his attention. He remembers that God has promised to be near and he has promised to save. In verses four through ten, the second movement, David prays honestly. He prays honestly to God about what he's experiencing, which, what we'll see as we work through Psalm 41, not ironically, comes to us with this strong sense of doubt and frustration, and certainly even pain and loss.

And we also see in the third movement, verses 11 and 12, that David depends on God's faithfulness. Not his ability to maintain faith, but on the faithfulness of God to be near and to save. No, I don't include verse 13 in that, even though we read it together just now. Because verse 13 is kind of the doxology of book 1.

Psalm 41 is the end of book 1 of the Psalms. And every book finishes with this doxology. It, it actually takes how psalm, this, the whole book began, remember Psalm 1, blessed is the one who. It takes that word and it, although it's a slightly different word in Hebrew, it takes that word and it flips it around and it says, no, God, you are blessed.

You have you have blessed us every doxology in the Psalms turns, the blessing of God on his people around and, and we get to bless him back. And so we're just going to work through some, verses one through 12, and then our benediction will actually be the collection of these doxologies. But, let's have this conversation of faith, because faith, in Psalm 41, in life, is about trusting what we believe to be true.

Even, When we can't really believe it, even when we struggle to believe it, even when it seems impossible, when it seems illogical, and even when the voices inside and outside of our heads Seem to be fighting against even the tiniest speck of faith that we have. Now, I just want to, show all my cards here.

I, I'm 34. I haven't lived as long as many of you. And, and praise God that you're here, because the church needs you. And so I don't want to seem obtuse. I don't want to seem, um, Like I, I, I'm talking about something that I think I know. I, I want to acknowledge that I have not experienced this struggle that we're going to talk about in verse, in Psalm 41 to its fullest.

I'm just going to acknowledge that. I'm going to acknowledge that many of you have suffered much more than I have. But what I want to acknowledge in that is that there, there is a, a wide range of people in this room and in our lives, in our circles. Some of us have not experienced Psalm 41 just yet. Some of us are actually on the other side.

Some of us are right in the middle of it, and that's important. Everyone has something to hear and to listen to in Psalm 41, because if you have not gotten to this point where you're doubting, where you're questioning your faith, where that little mustard seed that Jesus talks about, you can't even find it.

If you're not at that point yet, you will be. And you need the truth of scripture to hold on to. So I, I encourage you to listen, even if you're not in that moment. If you have, have passed that moment, and maybe you have more insight than I'm able to have about this conversation of, of these little, almost invisible threads of faith that we can sometimes lose track of, what I want to encourage you is not to, to, to grow in pride over that, But I want to encourage you to love your neighbor with that, to encourage those who are in the middle of Psalm 41.

And those who haven't got there yet, help them when they get there. Because this is why we all have different experiences. I'll talk more about that later, but faith is trusting what we believe to be true, even when we struggle to believe it. Listen to what Pastor Harold Sinkbill says about faith in, in this book titled Christ and Calamity.

What an inviting title.

He says, Faith, of course, is foundational for Christians, but faith is not sight. And so, by definition, faith is not the same as knowing for certain. I'm gonna say that again. By definition, faith is not the same as knowing for certain. Because then it's not faith. Then it's science. Then it's data. Then it's analysis.

The Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, gives us a little bit more of an understanding. And he uses this word hope. Now, hope is the object of our faith. Hope is what we are putting our faith in. And so there's this strong relationship between our faith and what we hope, especially when we're grasping at the threads of our faith.

Listen, to the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul in Romans 8, verses 23 through 25. He says, We wait eagerly for adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption of our bodies. This is our hope. This is, this is what we are putting our faith. That we will be adopted and welcomed into the redemption, the fullness of the resurrection.

For in this hope we are saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. By definition, faith is not the same as knowing for certain. Faith is hoping for, longing for, waiting for the nearness and the salvation of God, even and especially when it seems impossible or illogical.

Even when it seems like it won't come. Faith is believing by, by, and ounce that maybe those words he said are true.

And so I want us to get into this space because we all have different experiences. Some of us are living in Psalm 41 right now. Some of us are on the other side and some of us have yet to get there. I want us just to think. Put ourselves in the moment where our faith is, has been made weak. Maybe you're trying to escape that moment.

I want to ask you not to do that. Maybe we're trying to cover up that moment with some other things. I want to ask you not to do that. Maybe you, you have gone past it and, and you just don't want to look back. Maybe you don't want to hope or even think or wonder, be curious that maybe this will come someday.

But let us get in this moment where probably something terrible has shaken you, maybe you've lost something important, you've lost someone important, or you've experienced the pain of trauma,

maybe clinical depression or anxiety has you feeling so lonely that it just seems like this rogue wave of doubt is coming straight for you. Let's get into these moments because the Psalms don't teach us by telling us. The Psalms teach us by living with us.

And if we're not going to live our own lives, we cannot experience the healing that Jesus offers us in the Psalms. If we're going to pretend like, like the life that's happening to me, isn't my life, then we're not going to experience the healing that's. that's available to us in Jesus. So I want us to be in this moment and consider, what is it that we need?

Because faith is possible even when you can't be sure.

Psalm 41 begins, Blessed is the one who. Does that, does that sound familiar?

If you've ever wondered about the unification of scripture, Like, just read Psalm 1, and then go read the rest of them, and you're gonna see we're always coming back to Psalm 1. Blessed is the one who. And this is a Hebrew word, Esher. We translate it blessed, but it means favored. It's an adjective that actually describes the recipient of blessing.

It's saying that person who is near to God, who God is near to, who God delivers, that one's blessed. It's what they, this infamous they. Call those who put their faith in God, blessed.

This word puts us back into the mind of Psalm 1. Blessed is the one who meditates on God's instructions and obeys them. Blessed is the one who's like a tree firmly planted in the water of life, bearing fruit, enduring trial, being saved to the very end. Psalm 41 is an elaboration of Psalm 1. It actually tells us that we are blessed, verses 1 through 3, reminds us that we are blessed and it tells us what to put our faith in.

I'm just going to read it word for word. Blessed is the one who considers the poor. This is a call back to meditates on the instructions of God and obeys them. In the day of trouble, the Lord delivers him. The Lord protects him and keeps him alive. He is called blessed in the land. You do not give him up to the will of his enemies.

The Lord sustains him on his sickbed. In his illness, you restore him to full health. You see, David is connecting the promises of God, these, these things that he's putting front and center to put his hope in. He's connecting the promises of God to his own circumstances. What is it that's weakening his faith?

What is it that's pulling at those threads? Now, consider that David in this moment is weak, he's vulnerable, he's opposed by many, and he's sick.

Consider that, and I hope that now you can find, in some way, how Psalm 41 lives with us.

David begins by putting God's promise to be near to his people, and the promise to save them at the center of his attention.

And he does that as, in part, as an example.

Because what you most need to remember, is what you most struggle to believe.

But scripture has it ready for you. The Holy Spirit anticipated that you would struggle, and he knows what you need. And he gives it to you in, in scripture. And so I want to, I just want to encourage you. Here's a little nugget of application, even though I just, I don't like that word. And, and I know some people do.

I, what I don't want, the reason I don't like that word is, is because what I don't want is for,

for you to experience your life and then just have this like strength of, all right, well I know what to do now. I'm going to go do it and it's going to get better. It doesn't work that way. We're talking about faith,

but faith is possible because of movement one, right? The first movement of faith is to remember the promises of God and where else do we have them other than the words of the Holy Spirit in scripture? These are what we cling to. So I want to encourage you just to turn to the Psalms because they live your life.

My wife said the other day, um, if you live long enough, you'll find yourself in the Psalms. You'll find every circumstance, every pain, every prayer, every cry, every joy in the Psalms. So just keep reading them. But also, like, the New Testament is incredibly encouraging. And Paul, just like David, is, like, excuse my language, a disaster of a human.

Just like us, okay? So we can find a place to relate here. David's so honest that in his prayer in the next movement, He says, God, um, will you be gracious to me so I can kick these guys in the teeth? I want them to feel the way they make me feel. Now, caveat, just because scripture says it, doesn't mean it's an imperative.

It's not an instruction. God also repeats in scripture, vengeance is mine. I will repay. But what we see in that is just the honesty of David. That, that, the people that the Holy Spirit chose to write Scripture are people.

That first movement is a place where we begin when, when all we can do is wonder, do I even believe what I struggle to believe anymore? We remember the promises of God. So turn to the Psalms, turn to Romans, turn to Paul's letters, but ultimately turn to your community, turn to your neighbor. And ask them to pray scripture over you and then ask them to give that to you so that you can pray God's words back to him yourself.

Praying scripture is the most relieving thing when you don't have the words to pray for yourself. But even when you do, scripture's better.

You'll find it and you just wait. You don't even have to say anything to pray.

The first movement of Psalm 41 is to remember God's promises. The second movement is in verses 4 through 10 is to pray honestly.

There's times where I think I have courage and then I read David in the Psalms and this guy just copy paste his journal entries into the liturgical hymnal book, the worship book for all of Israel. He gives An entire nation knowing also that, that later people who aren't Israel will be grafted in. He gives all of humanity his journal entries to sing in perpetuity forever.

Anybody else want to do that? Yeah, no thank you. I'm going to be vulnerable in secret for just a quick second. And then I'm going to close the door on that. Alright? But the point of me bringing this up is, is to show that David prays honestly. Because there's no other choice with God than to be honest, because he already knows it.

Verses 4 through 10 read like this. I'm not going to read them all, but it reads like this. My enemies say of me, he utters empty words, they tell it abroad, they whisper about me, and imagine the worst about me. My close friend even joined in and lifted his heel against me.

God be gracious to me and just let me repay them.

Verses four through ten, connected to a really

deep moment in my life that I've lived in the last five weeks. Being so captivated by what might happen that I can't even wrap my head around what's really happening.

Being so, so curious about the what ifs and the who says. And what, what really happened then? That my mind just makes up its own stories. Have you ever believed a lie that you knew was a lie, but it was harder to believe than the truth? Good. I'm so grateful for that.

That was necessary. Thank you. Friends,

you, and me, and the person next to you, and King David, and all of Israel. Guys, we suffer through intrusive thoughts. Don't we? Like, can I just name that? And say, just cause it's in your mind. It doesn't mean it's true. And guess what? You're not the only one. You're in a room full of people that suffer intrusive thoughts.

And if you don't, you will.

Things you don't want to be thinking about, but are the loudest voice and often the only voice in your head.

But I want to encourage you. That through David's honest prayer, we see a gift. There's a gift in the intrusive thoughts, y'all. And the gift is that these thoughts expose to us our need. It just strips away all the fluff. It takes away all the perceived security that we've built up for ourselves internally.

All the vapid comforts that we find in the world. Like, those can't give us what they promise. And the enemy in our head reminds us that he's a liar. But we need something bigger than whatever we built for ourselves in here. We need someone better.

These intrusive thoughts and these honest prayers reveal to us our need for the grace of God in Jesus. Just to get us to the point where we say, I can't do it anymore. All I have is a tiny seed of faith that I can't find, I can't name it, I can't say it out loud.

But Jesus is good to us to say, it's all you need. All you need is a mustard seed. You ever put a mustard seed in your pocket? Have you ever held a mustard seed? It's like a grain of sand. Don't set it down. You'll lose it forever. It's a good analogy.

I wanna, I wanna remind you. Also, that, the gift of the intrusive thoughts, this, this revelation that we're needy people, we need the grace of God and Jesus. That's also the remedy.

Don't be fooled. There's no quick fix in the kingdom of heaven. Um, you ever seen the show Scrubs? Terrible show. Yeah. Oh, but there's one thing. I'm going so long. There's one thing. In that show, that has stuck with me my entire life, nothing worth having comes easy.

They didn't mean to say scripture in saying that, but they did. The gift of our neediness is also the remedy. It's slow work, but God is faithful to do the work. Okay? What you most need. Now, let me, let me ask you this question. I'm not gonna tell you. I'm gonna ask you. What do you most need when the only voices in your head are doing violence to your soul?

Grace. I just, I just need some grace today, God.

Look at verse 4 and verse 10. David's honest prayer is a grace sandwich. As for me, I said, Oh Lord, be gracious to me. I've sinned against you. And then he says, Oh, Lord, be gracious to me because I want to sin. I want to punch him in the mouth. I want them to feel what I felt. God, be gracious to me. The honest prayers of David reveal our need to be honest with God, right?

And we trust that he's gracious enough to take it.

God's grace was was sent to us, and it's hard to believe in grace, right? It's hard to believe that we would get the grace of God. Grace being a good thing that we didn't deserve to get. Well, God sent us the ultimate gift of grace in Jesus. And Jesus lived Psalm 41 too, because he even quotes it in John 13.

John 13, 18. Jesus quotes Psalm 41 to tell everyone, Guys, this is my life too. I'm, I'm just like you. I'm human. I am fully God, but I am fully man. And Jesus enters into our humanity when he says, Let the scripture be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me. Betrayal. Accusation. Whether true or false.

Intrusive thoughts. Jesus lived those with us. Psalm 41 lives those with us. But you know what? Jesus lived those things. He took the betrayal. He took the accusation. He took the sin and the death and all the intrusive thoughts. And then he put them up there on the cross with himself. And he died with them.

He put death to death.

And he did it. So that Romans 8. One would be true. There is, therefore, now, not in the future, not when you finally get it together, not when your mustard seed of faith finally grows into a big old tree, now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And how do you end up in the now? You just trust Him, even and especially when you can't. Faith is possible even when you can't be sure. Here's my point. Jesus became our actual guilt. So that we would be given his actual righteousness.

The grace we need is the grace we get in Jesus. Freedom from the accusation. Freedom from the intrusive thoughts. Freedom from the anxiety. Freedom and forgiveness of what actually makes us guilty. Because the betrayal Jesus experienced, we like to throw stones at Judas. But guys, this is Genesis 3. We all betrayed God.

Those intrusive thoughts exist because we are guilty. Maybe not exactly what our minds want to condemn us of, but we are guilty. But you know, there, there's a righteous judge that has promised that he'll come again. This is why we celebrate Advent. That the righteous judge will come, and he will judge the living and the dead.

And how will he judge them? He'll judge them based on whether or not they are in Christ. When you know that everyone you're going to judge is guilty, who do you give forgiveness to? The ones who accepted your forgiveness. And so we trust and we believe that on the cross, Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and bought our freedom and forgiveness so that we would be found in him.

So that when the judge comes to judge rightly, Romans 8, 1. Therefore, we would be found in Christ. Therefore, we would be given righteousness. Therefore, we would be in the presence of God forever. I like saying that.

Don't you want to be found in Christ rather than guilty?

This just pulls and tugs at that tiny little thread in me. Faith. Because this is the gospel. When we use the word gospel, this is what we're talking about. What Jesus did for us. And It's hard to believe. I'm gonna be honest. I rarely find it easy to believe this incredible truth. It is true. It is simple.

It is a light load to carry. It is everything Jesus says it is.

But when you suffer, and you're honest about that suffering, there's times in your life where You recognize just how logically impossible that is because the truth of the gospel is upside down and backwards and illogical to everything that we've learned about how to survive this world. It doesn't compute in our data obsessed brains, does it?

And so can we just be honest that it's hard to believe that the creator of the universe, who is holy, would become a person and be like us to then die for us.

I, I, I struggle to get there. Like, on, on this incredibly, like, deep feeling. The, the, the emotion that I should feel, I don't often feel. And I have to confess that to God. And trust that even though I don't feel it, it's still true. I live in Mark 9, the cry of the helpless father, and I know there are some helpless fathers and mothers in this room.

You know what he cries? I believe, help my unbelief.

And I know I'm risking making a lot of you feel uncomfortable. I know that in the guy with the mic, the pastor who, who is supposed to say all the the right things and, and put on this projection, um, it might make you uncomfortable to, to hear me say that it's hard to find that faith.

But if you live long enough, and you suffer long enough, then, then you start to, okay, yeah, I get that. And then Jesus calls you into community so that you can suffer everyone else's stuff too.

Like, there's a point where you just stop feeling guilty, or the Holy Spirit just gives you the freedom to stop feeling guilty and ashamed that you ever doubted. Because then you realize you're not alone. You're free to just be honest. You're free to confess your need. You're free to say, God, I need your grace.

And then we're free to depend on God's grace, on His faithfulness. And so, we're gonna move into movement three. Faith is possible even when you can't be sure. Remember how faith is possible through these three movements. Remember God's promises, right? And I, I encourage you to turn to Scripture. Pray Scripture.

Have someone pray Scripture over you. Remember God's promises. This is movement one. Movement two is to pray honestly because God is gracious enough to handle it. And then movement three is to depend on God's faithfulness, not yours. That's the thing about faith. It's not dependent on the one with faith.

It's dependent on the object of faith. This is why Jesus is so good to say, All you need is a mustard seed, and I'll give you the mustard seed.

So I'm not going to preach, uh, verses 11 and 12. I'm going to pray them. I'm going to pray them over me, because I need it. I'm going to pray them over you. I'm going to pray them over us together, and the people in our, our faith family that aren't here. I'm going to pray them over us. But I'm going to pray in the first person.

And so, when I pray, pray with me.

God, you delight in me.

I find that incredibly hard to believe, but you say you delight in me. And I know that you delight in me because you won't let Satan's sin and death win my soul. You won't believe the accusations and intrusive thoughts. I know you delight in me because you will shout and triumph over our enemies. God, you even hold me upright.

You see the unseeable seed of faith in me because you put it there and you say it's enough. It's your faithfulness to be gracious and kind to me that keeps me right in your hand, that keeps me in your presence, a presence that's not bondage but is impossible to escape. Thank you, God, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Amen. If you're in Psalm 41 right now, what you need to know is that God delights in you.

That, that whole verse 11 and 12 is actually describing what the word Esher means, blessed. It's saying, blessed is the one who God delights in. He delights in you. His favor is on you. He will not let you go because he delights in you. He will hold your hand through the valley of the shadow of death because he delights in you.

He will save you till the end because he delights in you. And the gift of the resurrection is presence together forever. We make a big deal about the fact that we get to be with God forever, because that's a big deal. But let me just flip it around and give you the other perspective. He wanted to be with you forever!

He delights in you.

Pray those two verses over yourself. Faith is possible, even when we can't be sure. Remember God's promises, pray honestly, and depend on God's faithfulness. And we're gonna take communion, and we take it individually. In our own seats, but we share a moment together because the Psalms, they're very communal.

They're written for the people to share together. And because they're communal, they help us go deep into our own personal experiences at the same time together to remind us that we're not alone. And so we share communion. We take the bread and the cup to, to remind one another and be reminded by one another that we're not just going through the motions or maybe we're refusing to go through the motions and that's okay.

But we do this to remember that the fullness of the grace of God has come to us in Jesus and that he's taken all of the condemnation to the cross and he's killed it. He's put it to death, and we say yes to him. So, as you take communion, I just want to encourage you to look around and watch everyone else do it.

We take the bread and the cup as a confession that the life of Jesus is our life. That he is a part of us, we are a part of him. His faithfulness is our faith. His righteousness is our righteousness. His death is our death, and his resurrection is our resurrection. We take and eat to remember the Lord's death until he comes back for us.

Please join me at the table.