-Transcript-
00:38 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:43 Thank you for joining me today at KJV Cafe. It’s a great day at the cafe. Hope you’re doing good.
00:47 I’ve got me a cup of some decaf coffee here. It’s tasting pretty good today. Amen.
00:52 Tasting pretty good. Just another wonderful day to get into God’s Word and study it and I hope you’re doing well. I hope wherever you are the Lord is blessing and today I have a blessing for you because we’re jumping into God’s Word and it’s got such valuable truth that’s really life-changing and I say that sincerely.
01:12 Psalm 28:7 is our verse here. This is a second part of a two-part series but don’t worry if you miss the first part I’ll catch you up just fine.Psalm 28:7 is a very short verse but it’s very impactful.
01:25 The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in him and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth and with my song will I praise him.
01:32 So we see a little bit of a cause and effect here from David that God is his strength and his shield. The Lord, capital L. When you think of strength you could look at power. If you think of a shield you look at protection.
01:50 In the last episode I asked the question what level of strength is available to you when you turn to the place that you turn to for strength? What level of strength is available to you?
02:04 Where do you go for strength? Do you go to a friend? Do you go to a group setting? Do you go to a book? Do you go to Cup of Joe? Do you go to the gym?
02:16 Do you go where do you go for strength? And what level of strength is available to you? Because God’s strength is unlimited. And same with protection. Who or where do you turn to for protection?
02:31 You turn to your family, friends, the police, whatever it may be.
02:37 What level of protection is available to you? You know we are vulnerable. The Bible talks about believers as sheep headed to the slaughter. Amen.
02:45 We need protection. And the best protection we can have is God himself who will give protection to those that seek him and ask for it. And we see David so eloquently, so poetically saying, the Lord is my strength and my shield.
02:59 Letting people know, the congregation know publicly that he gets his strength and his protection from God Almighty. And many people, kings that were successful that had many accolades, they would say, I am powerful and I am the one that that can protect myself. But David doesn’t say that.
03:17 Many people today will say, I get to do what I want to do and I am the one that will do my will. But we should not be about my will, but thy will. God’s will.
03:32 We see here in Psalm 28:7, the Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in him. Now many people may just skip past that little section of the scripture.
03:44 But think about it. My heart trusted in him. What is the heart? That’s the deepest part of someone, is it not? When you were speaking of the heart, we’re not talking about a literal heart.
03:52 We’re talking about the deep emotional aspect of an individual. You know, not the surface emotion. You know, you see a sad commercial and you cry.
04:02 And you may say, where do you cry at commercials? Look it up. I think they’re in Thailand. I think it’s Thailand makes these commercials that will absolutely have you crying.
04:13 Even as a church one time, we threw it on the TV at a fellowship event and I swear half the place was just bawling because these commercials will make you cry. And then an hour later, you’re totally fine. 15 minutes later, you’re fine.
04:23 It is a surface emotion. It happens and it’s gone. It’s fleeting.
04:31 Amen. The heart speaks to the deepest emotion. You know, the love you would have for your kids or your parents or your spouse.
04:37 Amen. The devotion you have towards God. Amen.
04:41 The heart is the deepest emotion. And trusting with that deepest emotion, it takes commitment. I mean, how else could you go that deep and trust without a commitment, without a level of courage, right? Because it’s hard.
04:57 If anybody that’s an adult, surely they’ve been let down before. They’ve trusted someone and their trust has been breached. And if we’re honest with ourselves, surely we’ve probably let someone down before or many people down before when they trusted in us and we weren’t able to maintain that trust.
05:17 But God is not human. God is a spirit and God is all-powerful. And God is able to meet our trust and faith in Him.
05:31 Because what is trust if not faith? Faith is trusting God at His Word. Amen. What is God if not able to do that? He is all-powerful.
05:41 He has all strength that he can give to you. He’ll protect you better than anyone. He has all the ability ever needed to give you the protection that you need.
05:52 The Bible tells us He’ll never leave you nor forsake you. The Bible tells us that the righteous suffer many afflictions and God delivers them out of them all. Amen.
06:02 He is the great protector. He is the one that offers power. And here we see David say, my heart trusted in Him and I am helped.
06:10 We serve a living God and He really does help. It’s an understatement but it’s still a true statement. When we receive His help, do we acknowledge it? Do we acknowledge it or do we just go along and say thanks God quietly and never publicly acknowledge it? Or do we try to take credit for ourselves? Blood tests are a scary thing.
06:32 I had to take one recently because of an illness, a little ailment I was having, and you know the symptoms could have been something else. I took a blood test. The results came back very good.
06:47 And I said, I’m helped by God. I told my wife, we’re helped by God. We said to each other publicly in front of the kids, God helped us.
06:58 Praise God. This is God. God did this.
07:06 Amen. And so when we look at when we’re helped by God, are we like David and say, God helped me? Or are we like man today who often says, I did it. You know, says, oh it must have been my special diet or my exercise or whatever.
07:14 And they don’t want to give God the glory either publicly or privately. And so we need to be about our Father’s business and He desires us to praise Him. And so we should praise Him publicly and let people know, hey this is not anything that I did.
07:29 This is God. And if God allowed this to happen, to bring glory to Himself. Amen.
07:34 Glory to God. And we see here, I am helped. And then we see the latter part of Psalm 28:7. I’ll read the whole thing.
07:41 The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in Him and I am helped. Therefore, therefore, so here is kind of the cause and effect.
07:51 Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth. And so the cause here, the cause is that David trusted in God. How did he trust God? He trusted God for his strength and his protection.
08:01 Amen. That’s the cause. And then the effect is after he is helped, he rejoices.
08:10 It says my heart greatly rejoices. There’s that heart word. And so we have again here the deepest part of David rejoicing.
08:15 That heart speaks that deepest part of who you are. You know joy, rejoicing and joy go together. Amen.
08:23 Joy is different from just a happy moment. It’s different. Again you can think of like somebody telling a joke and you laugh.
08:31 You know you’re happy for a season and then it just goes away. Now that’s good to laugh. The Bible talks about how it is good for us to laugh and have that happiness.
08:41 There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s so much different than joy. Joy is something you can have in the midst of great affliction and great trials. You can still have joy in Jesus, in his promises, in his fellowship, in the peace that he provides, no matter what circumstance you are in.
08:56 Amen. And so the deepest part of David rejoices greatly. You trusted with your heart in power and protection and now you’ve reached the benefit and are so joyful for what God’s doing in your life.
09:10 You know think about it. This is the cause and effect, right? You trusted God. That was the cause.
09:15 And the effect of your trust in God is that he helps you and now you’re rejoicing. Amen. And this is what I think God wants us to understand.
09:25 This principle that when we trust him, right? When we put ourselves out there and put our trust and it’s so tender and fragile and it’s so difficult for us as living in this sinful world and all the things we’ve been through.
09:37 When we put our trust in God, then he responds in kind and blesses us. He helps us and then we rejoice inwardly with the Spirit.
09:45 Amen. We rejoice. Now why did I mention the Spirit? Because we see here, and with my song I will praise him.
09:53 That’s how the psalm ends. And what is David’s song? And I thought a little bit about this and it made me think about how God desires to be worshiped.
10:01 John 4:23-24, Jesus speaking to the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman, but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
10:13 For the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit and theythat worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And so we that worship God are called to worship him in spirit and in truth.
10:21 And so that spirit, that rejoicing, is the Holy Spirit. And to bring it full circle, it’s God-given, right? So the saved Christian, they believe on Christ. Amen.
10:34 They get the Holy Spirit living within them. And that Holy Spirit is enriched and happy and joyful to praise God. And it’s giving back praise to the one that bought you for a hefty price.
10:47 And you see that God desires to be worshiped in spirit and in truth. Amen. Going a little bit more with the Spirit, you look at the idea that the Bible talks about grieving the Holy Spirit.
11:01 Well, that would be when we are living in sin. But if we are living apart from sin, we are trying our best to live for God, we’re repentant before him, then we’re not grieving the Holy Spirit and that Spirit rejoices when we are praising God.
11:13 And that joy is deep in our heart and that is a fruitful cycle from God.
11:18 And then we also see truth. God desires to be worshiped in spirit and truth. And truth, a couple things come to mind from the Scriptures.
11:26 The fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 52-53, which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, etc. Again, that Holy Spirit’s enriched, is not grieved, you have trusted God, you’ve received help, you are rejoicing, and now you have these fruits of the Spirit living within you. And it’s creating joy in your life.
11:43 You have love and you have peace in your life, you’re patient with others, you care for others, you realize your calling, you’re departing from the fleshly instincts, and you are taking up your cross and you are living a joyful, peaceful life in Christ.
11:58 And Philippians 4:8, you know, when the Bible commands us to think of what’s true and honest and pure and lovely, is that not Christ? Amen. And that’s what we’re doing when we rejoice in the Lord, are we not thinking on Him?
12:09 And so all of this to say, I know I’ve given you a lot of Scriptures, all of this to say that there is a fruitful cycle that David is pointing out here.
12:17 And the fruitful cycle, and I’ll put this on Facebook, I’ll put an image on there, I also recorded a visual Bible study on this, but if you go to facebook.com forward slash KJV cafe, you can see this little image I made.
12:31 The fruitful cycle of faith in God. You trust God, right? You trust Him, and that’s not easy, because that’s not surface level.
12:41 That’s trusting Him with your heart. That’s trusting Him while you’re being vulnerable. How much more vulnerable can you be than needing power and protection?
12:52 I mean, you need power to move around and breathe and everything else, and you need protection so you’re not killed by someone else or taken out of the way.
12:57 So trusting God with the most important things, being vulnerable before God. You trust God, what happens? God helps. He shows up.
13:03 He gives you the strength you need. He leads you in the paths of righteousness. He helps you, and then what happens after He helps? You rejoice.
13:11 You’re rejoicing inwardly, and that rejoicing inwardly, and that joy leads to praise. Praise aloud, amen. You’re telling others about what God did for you, which is contagious, amen.
13:21 Because as you tell others what God did for you, you are showing your faith and helping increase their faith, amen. And then you go back to trusting God. He helps, you rejoice, you praise Him, and then you trust God again.
13:31 He helps, you rejoice, you praise Him, and this is a fruitful cycle of faith in God, and we see it in Psalm 28:7. Literally, is it even a sentence? I think it’s literally a sentence. I’m looking at it, and yeah, I think it’s just, I mean, there’s some colons, semicolons, and so forth, but I think it’s just one sentence.
13:54 One sentence, one verse, if you would, out of one chapter in Psalms, gives us a spiritual principle that’s so powerful that we can trust God, that He will help, that will lead to great rejoicing, and that will lead to praise to Him, the high God, amen, Christ Jesus.
14:13 And we could do this over and over again. Thank you for listening. Take care. God bless, and amen.