Today we break from 1 John and look to the Shepherd for encouragement in the midst of a the chaos and craziness of life in a sin-fallen world.
Springfield Baptist Church
June 30th 2024 - Pastor James Tyler - Psalms 4 - "Look at This Mess"
Psalm 4 beginning at verse 1 says, "To the choir master," well, I don't have it on there, maybe I do, maybe I do. "Yeah, there we go, "to the choir master with streamed instruments of Psalm of David. Answer me when I call, oh God of my righteousness, you have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. Oh men, how long shall my honor be turned to shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies, Salah, but know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself. The Lord hears when I call to him, be angry and do not sin, ponder in your own hearts on your beds and be silent. Salah, offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord. You have put more joy in my heart than when they have their grain and wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Seemed like a good time in the middle of the summer season to divert from first John, especially since we just finished up chapter three. And I know that technically today should have been a review Sunday, but think how much more useful that will be to you after I've distracted you with the Psalms this week. And then Dr. Kennecott will be here next week to preach for us. So by the time I'm up here again, you'll need a review and so will I. I also, as I like to say, like to get encouragement from the shepherd every now and then. And realizing that the whole body of Scripture is authored by God through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I nonetheless believe that some passages are more oriented around the encouragement of the heart, some are more didactic and teach the mind, and some are historical and narrative and they're not prescriptive for us, and I just needed my heart tended to. So I thought maybe you did too. Verse one, now just the second half basically says, "Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness, you've given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer." Four points real fast and I'm gonna blast through these because we'll revisit them again in a little bit. First, and I will need you to participate a little more than usual this morning. So if you, even if you're not paying attention, if you happen to notice by the tone of my voice, maybe it sounds like a good place to say amen, go ahead and say it. I promise not to trick you. All right. Distress will move you to cry out to God. Trouble in the heart will cause you to cry out to God. I love the way Charles Spurgeon says this in his lectures to my students. He says, "I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages." So we have these things, these experiences, these circumstances that come up in life that just, I mean, that you don't have any choice. It just forces you to the throne because it's so clear that it's out of your hands and out of your control. So when the Psalmist says, "Answer me when I call, O God, of my righteousness," I mean, let's assume he's in some distress, right? So what's the framework of Psalm 4? We don't know. It's not one of those that says a psalm of David when he had a really bad hang-nail or whatever. But if you assume that the circumstances are similar to Psalm 3, and I believe that they are, the beginning of Psalm 3, you might have a notation that says when he fled from Absalom, his son, and the circumstances there are. David, his king in Israel, has been for a while now. He had a daughter named Tamar and a son named Amnon, and Amnon decided he wanted to do things with Tamar that you don't do with your sister, and David didn't really do anything about it after it happened, and so Absalom took matters into his own hands, killed his brother Amnon, and fled and was out of David's sight for around five years. By the time Joab convinces David to let Absalom come back, they're still estranged for a couple of years, and then after a while Absalom gets fed up and incites the people of Israel to rebel against David, and it works. Like the people listen to Absalom, because he had great hair. That's what the Bible says. He had great hair, and they were like, that's the guy. Look at that hair. So David ends up fleeing the throne, while still God's anointed king, and the outcome of that would be, I don't know, might feel like you're in distress if you're David. Even knowing that God had anointed you, King. You're in distress because, gosh, I remember after I committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed, I remember Nathan the prophet coming in and telling me, the Lord's taken away your sin, but here are going to be some consequences from within your own house, a sword will rise. You know that if you're David, so as you're fleeing again into the wilderness, now not from Saul, but from your own son, you can't help but think, you know what? I brought this on myself, and that's a distressing thought, isn't it? When you're in trouble and you look and you go, oh, I kind of made this mess. Distress will move you to cry out to God. Second, your righteousness is not inherent. It's not inherent. What does he say? Oh God of my righteousness. Your righteousness is not inherent. It is imputed. It's yours, but you didn't produce it. Third, can't you remember that God has given you relief before? David says, you've given me relief. You have past tense given me relief when I was in distress. And I'm betting David remembers a few times before that he's been in distress and it was his own fault. So he's been thrown against the rock of ages. He's crying out to God, recognizing that whatever righteousness I possess, I have because you're gracious and you've imputed it to me. And he's recalling historically God's been faithful to him. Fourth, grace means you don't let the fact that you don't deserve help stop you from asking for help. The fact that you don't deserve help shouldn't stop you from asking God for. The devil's one of his favorite devices in my mind is to be like, who do you think you are asking God for help? What have you done for God lately? Well, if I had to do something to get help from God, then it wouldn't be grace, would it? It would be wages. Grace means you don't let the fact that you don't deserve help stop you from asking God for help. Verse 2, "O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?" There's two question marks in the English standard version, but there are really three questions asked of man here. Question 1, "How long will you call what is honorable shameful?" I'm taking the liberty of not interpreting this Psalm three ways. And the three ways that you're supposed to interpret every Psalm is first to the Psalm writer, right? So what's their circumstance? Why are they saying what they're saying? This is just good ex-Jesus, okay? Second, you interpret it to Christ. How does this Psalm prophesy concerning the person and work of Jesus Christ? And then third, you can apply it to yourself, your circumstance, your situation, your culture, your community. We don't have time for all that. So know that I know that I'm not doing proper ex-Jesus, but we got to get to things like that we're dealing with this week. And the thing that I'm dealing with this week is not that I've lost my throne to my son, not that I am Christ come down to earth from my throne, that I might redeem sinners. Those are wonderful truths that I could preach on. What I'm dealing with this week is I live in a culture that calls shameful things honorable. That's what I'm dealing with. Isaiah 5-20, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." In Proverbs 17-15, the wise man says it this way, "He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike in abomination to the Lord." Our country, our state, our county, our city, our community. Who isn't guilty of this? It's legal to murder a baby in the womb, but it's illegal to leave a skidmark on a pride mural in the street with your scooter. If that's not calling evil good and good evil, I don't know what is. At the very least, the skidmark on the pride mural is amoral. Certainly not deserving of jail time. I know you're all like, "Oh, help him Jesus. He's going. He's going politics." Romans 1-32 says, "Though they know God's righteous decree, those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but get approval to give approval to those who practice them." In case you're not aware of the context of Romans 1, Paul is talking about homosexuality. He describes men and women abandoning the natural function for that, which is unnatural. I don't know why we have so much consternation and confusion in the church in 2024 about whether homosexuality is permissible and blessed of God or not. And people run to the Old Testament and go, "Well, if any of this else says that you shouldn't eat shellfish or bacon." I'm like the New Testament says, "On repeat, this is a bominable behavior. Don't engage in it. It's not natural. Don't do it." That's the framework in which Paul says, "Though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but they give approval to those who practice them." Malachi 2, 17, you have weirried the Lord with your words, but you say, "How have we weirried Him?" By saying, "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and He delights in them." That's how, so that's addressed to the priests of the Lord. That's who Malachi's talking to, the religious leaders. This is how they've weirried the Lord. By saying, "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and He delights in them." Or by asking, "Where even is the God of justice? Where is He?" The United Methodist Church, one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States, voted to repeal bans on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, and queer clergy and same-sex marriages during its general conference in May, voted to repeal bans on those folks being in the ministry. This decision represents a major shift. After decades of internal conflict and debate over LGBTQ inclusion, the move is expected to reshape the church's stance, allowing LGBTQ individuals to serve as clergy and participate fully in church life. The Episcopal Church, another so-called Protestant denomination, has been known for its more progressive stance on homosexual issues. It's allowed same-sex marriages for years in LGBTQ clergy for years. This openness continues to be a defining characteristic of the Episcopal Church, the evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Lutheran Church in America, ELCA, some of the Missouri Synod, but the more liberal, left-leaning evangelical Lutherans, also support LGBTQ inclusion, permitting LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriages. It's had all kinds of internal conflict. The Baptists are in the midst of fighting about whether or not women should be in ministry. Again, I think the Bible's pretty clear, not that women are less valuable than men, but the instruction couldn't be more articulate. No, women can't be pastors of churches. It cannot be that way and you be consistent with the scriptures and mark my words, the Baptists, God love us. We are on the precipice of taking the same plunge as these other denominations. If we don't stand our ground on, well, what does the Bible say? That's what we're going to do. Well, the whole culture is more egalitarian. Good for the culture. We're not the culture. We're supposed to be aliens and strangers. Oh, man. Here's what I think. I think when the church rejects God's morality, she ceases to be the moral authority in the culture. When the church rejects God's morality, the church ceases to be the moral authority in the culture. When the church then continues to issue forth moral edicts, those not only cease to be meaningful, they become fully immoral. So the church says, "We don't care what God says." Okay. Well, then now everything that you say is good or right or acceptable or wrong or evil, now that's all going to be backwards. Psalm 94 verse 20, "Can wicked rulers be allied with you? Those who frame injustice by statute, they band together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death." Let me read it again. That's Psalm 94 20 and 21. "Can wicked rulers be allied with you?" He's talking about God. "Can wicked leaders be an ally of God? Those who frame injustice by statute, they band together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death." Think Pilate. Think Herod. Think the scribes and Pharisees that tried Jesus. The Psalmist is pointing out that wicked people cannot be allied with God and understand what it means to frame injustice by statute. We're talking about legalizing unjust actions. So laws are crafted and interpreted in ways that make immoral behaviors legally permissible, thereby granting immoral behaviors legitimacy, which God does not give those behaviors. This can involve codifying discriminatory practices. Black people are three-fifths of a person or whatever it was. Women aren't really humans. They're servants to men. If the law says that, I would say, well, that's unjust and immoral, right? It can involve suppressing dissent. So let's say you disagree with the government's response to a pandemic and you post so on social media and the government under cover of darkness, which is now, oh, by the way, been proven to have happened, contacts the social media network that you're on and has you banned and your post deleted. That's codifying unjust laws. That's framing injustice by statute in a land where the Constitution says you have the right to freedom of speech when the government suppresses your freedom of speech like that's a problem. If we didn't have the Constitution, then I'd say if you better shut up. How long will you love vain words? That's question two. Question one, how long will you call what is honorable shameful? Question two, how long will you love vain words? Ephesians five verse six, let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Church, your Bible's talking to you. Don't let anyone deceive you with empty words. What would that look like? Well, that would look like me standing up here saying fluffy, feel-good things every Sunday and telling you your sin is no big deal and God just loves you anyway, so don't even worry about it. Live however you want. That'd be empty words. That'd be deceptive empty speech. Matthew 12, 36, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak for by your words you will be justified and by your words you'll be condemned. We cannot use moral language with no moral basis. You don't get to do that. So when a culture rejects the creators, moral authority yet continues to use the creators moral language, the speech becomes meaningless, empty, and even cursed. So our country's leaders right now, in my view, this is my opinion, not gospel, just my opinion, our country's leaders have almost no basis for telling anyone what is wrong or what is right at this point where they have rejected the ultimate law giver. Third question, how long will you seek after lies? The verb here implies to search out by any method, right, but especially contextually in worship or prayer. So the question might be reframed, how long will you worship what is false? Now these three questions are addressed by the psalmist to the people of his day and age, of his culture. How long are you going to call what is shameful, honorable, and what is honorable, shameful? How long are you going to do that? How long are you going to engage in empty talking? I watched two guys argue about whose idea of killing babies is more moral the other night. I don't know if any of you caught that. What difference does it make? It's empty vain speech, it's meaningless. How long will you worship what's not right, what's not true? You know what they worship at my work? Diversity, equity, and inclusion, which means you're fine unless you're a white Christian male. And I know whoa is me. It's a false God. So three questions you could ask to make application. Question number one, because oh, am I ever not about to sit up here, stand rather up here, while you sit there and encourage all of us that we're better than the world around us. What would that be worth? So here are the questions. First of all, what's your prayer life like? Second question, what's your Bible study like? Third question, what is your life producing? I turned that one around on you because I told you a few weeks ago, if you want to evaluate the pastor, you should see what his life is producing. Well, guess what you can evaluate yourself the same way? What is your life producing? Verse three, Psalm four, know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself, the Lord hears when I call to him. So there's two things the shepherd wants us to know in the midst of this troubled world, this troubled life, and perhaps the troubled heart that we have. First is the Lord has set apart you if you're his child. So I would say that means you're supposed to feel out of place at work. You should stand out like a sore thumb. You shouldn't feel all that comfortable. You shouldn't feel like the culture accepts and adores you. You shouldn't feel that people will always take your side. You shouldn't be surprised when the world hates you. I don't think we can, on the other hand, overstate enough what a great blessing it is to get together with like as many as 80 other people every Sunday and look and go, there's somebody that loves me. There's somebody that loves Jesus too. There's somebody that agrees that it's more important to kill sin and love righteousness and love people than it is to fly a flag outside my house that signals how virtuous I am in our culture. What a blessing we have to get to do this every Sunday. I love coming to church. It always kind of cracks me up. You go to pastors conferences and pastors are like some of the most Eor people on the planet when they get together. They're just like, "I know the ministry is tough, brother, how's it going for you?" They compare who has the worst people. Very strange. I have a little group of pastor friends that we're just like, "Yeah, no, we're fine. We're great. We love our churches. We love getting together with our people." I pray for the brothers who don't because I'm like, "Maybe you need to get a job." You know what I'm saying? Love getting together here every Sunday. We get to meet with a few dozen other people who understand that pride is an abomination and we get to do it every Sunday in June. Some of you are pulling back. That's weird. Second, so that was first, the Lord has set you apart. Second, the Lord hears when you call to Him. Might not feel like it some days, right? Because what we want this verse to say, what we want this verse to say is, the Lord says, "Yes, when I ask Him for whatever I'm asking Him for." It seems like we skip right over the value of knowing that Jesus hears us. Psalm 66, 19, "Truly, God has listened. He's attended the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because He's not rejected my prayer or removed His steadfast love from me." Jeremiah 29, 12, "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek and find me. You seek me with your whole heart." When I made the decision to resign my last pastoral position, I didn't make it until I had heard from a number of counselors that that was probably the thing that I needed to do. There's wisdom and an abundance of counselors, so I've tried to accumulate in my life people who will look me in the eyes and tell me what I need to fix about me and tell me how I'm being perceived and then give me good advice, like good counsel. In the process, unwittingly have accumulated some pretty influential people as my counselors. So I've got, obviously, the men in this church who I know you occupy different roles and different offices, and some of you are retired. But all of you have walked miles that I haven't walked because you've gone a different path, different directions. So you come to our Sunday morning gathering, our Tuesday night gatherings, the elders' meetings with all of that wisdom, and I get to just dip into those wells and take what I need, what a tremendous blessing. And then outside the framework of just the church, I've got my close friend group that I filled with men who love Jesus. And so when I'm going through it, you know what I get from those guys? I get truth. I get scripture. I get gospel. I don't get feel sorry for yourself and yeah, you're a victim. And then outside that, I've picked out pastors out in the world who I think are way better at this job than I am. I don't just think it, I know it. They're really talented men. So when I made the decision to resign, I started talking with some of you know Ryan Johnston, who's the, he's basically the director of missions for the Heartland Church Network. The Southern Baptist have a missionary arm called the North American Mission Board. And so Ryan's employed by them, and he's like the church planting catalyst for Nebraska and Iowa and Kansas I think. I don't know. Maybe he's just Kansas and Nebraska. It doesn't matter. But I started talking to him. We had known each other for a couple of years, and he realized, oh, this dude's going through it right now. So he started getting together with me once a week. We would meet at Scooters for Coffee. And I just talked to him about, you know, what kind of input and advice I was getting from my my council group and that I told him that he'd now been dialed into it. And one of the names that I would bring up from time to time would be Mike Crawford, who some of you know. And he never seemed all that responsive when I would bring up Mike and whatever Mike said. And then we missed a week of meeting together because he was in Atlanta for some kind of a North American Mission Board Conference. And so we got together the following week and we sit down. The first thing that happens is we get our coffee. And the first thing that happens is he says, hey, when you said you knew Michael Crawford, I was like, yeah, okay. He knows Michael Crawford. So Ryan's at this conference and Mike is one of the keynote speakers at this conference. And Ryan has to stand in line after Mike gets done with his presentation to go up and shake his hand and visit with him. And he walks up to Mike and he shakes his hand. He says, hey, my name is Ryan Johnston. I'm in Omaha and I've been visiting with James Tyler every week. And Mike says, come with me. And the rest of the line is now out of luck. And they go off for two hours and just talk about what's going on here. And this church and the other church and the whole situation. And Ryan is like blown away. He's like, you really do know Mike Crawford. I had no idea though, nor did I really care how influential Mike was because he's just my friend. We're just buddies and just have been since 2007 long before he had become wildly influential and then been cast down from that height by a divorce and a horrible situation and had his reputation basically destroyed long before any of that happened. He and I were just friends. And more to the point, I get up every day and you know the first person that I talked to you. Before I see another human being, the first one I talked to you is the God of all the universe and he hears me. I don't know if he says yes all the time, doesn't seem like it, but he doesn't promise to. He promises to hear me and brothers and sisters like that's pretty amazing. That should be enough. When I call to you, you hear me, which means he must be leaning down because I'm not getting to the height. Don't dismiss the profound treasure of being heard by God when you pray. Verse four, "Be angry and do not sin, pondering your hearts on your beds and be silent, salah." Yeah right. We should have a response to the insanity of the world around us. "And be angry, can be rendered, be afraid, stand in awe, be in disquiet, fall out, fret move, provoke, quake, grade, shape, tremble." It can be all those things. And the verb from which the ESV gets ponder is actually, probably more often translated, say, say. In Ephesians 4, 26, Paul writes, "Be angry and do not sin, and do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil." So, we need to be doing something with our angry, like frustrated, worried, trembling, fretful, provoked hearts at the end of each day. Come on, that was an obvious one, right? So the verse says, "Be angry and do not sin ponder in your own hearts on your beds." So if ponder, if it said say, say in your own heart on your bed, be angry and do not say, like be angry for sure. It's an imperative, like do it, be angry, but don't sin. Know this, this is important. I told somebody at work this week and I watched his brain explode out of his head because, in mind it too, the first time I realized this. We were talking about sometimes you get in a mood and you want your boss to notice, right? Because he's a manager and he's like, "I don't ever notice." And he's like, "And I realize my boss never notices either." And I said, "You know what, man? One of the most important things that I ever learned is that anger stops being righteous when you're kind of having fun with it. It stops being righteous when you're kind of enjoying it. Anger is involuntary almost. You just feel it. Something happens to you or you see something that vexes you and you're like, sometimes though we like to let it linger and we're kind of like, "I hope somebody sees." Say in your heart, in your bed, while you're angry, rather than ranting and raving to everyone in your church who will listen about injustice and how evil, fauci is and how he's a liar and Biden belongs in a nursing home and Trump is immoral and a narcissist. Like if I stood up here and did that, you might be, but I bet this joint would be full of some red meat eating, gun toting, right-wingers, right? If that's what the church was supposed to be, I think I could fill it up. That's not what it's supposed to be. So if I think those things in my heart after watching a debate and I'm laying in my bed thinking this culture is toast and I don't know what to do about it, the Lord's going, "Say it in your heart to me." Or if you're troubled about work or marriage or the kids or your friends or people who did you wrong or the county assessor or cops or homeowners insurance, inflation, Ukraine, the roof, weed, sickness, pain, heartache, rather than complaining to your friend about it or your spouse about it, say it in your heart, ponder, say it to the one who promises to hear you, who bends down and listen. And what do you find happens? I don't know, maybe this is just me, I don't think so, but what do you find happens when you start pouring out your gripes to God? When you're like, "Wah, wah, wah, wah," and "wah, wah," like whose sin tends to take center stage when you're complaining about somebody else's sin to God? What work does the Holy Spirit do in your heart in the midst of your prayers? What do you notice about yourself so then you look at verse 5? Offer, write, sacrifices. I don't want to. I want to offer my political opponent's head on a platter as a sacrifice. I'd make for some justice, wouldn't it? Kill him. Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. So let's do this. Let's flip for it. Hold your place in Psalm 4, but let's flip forward. I think it's Psalm 51. 17, 16, let's start at 16. 15, let's start at 15. Oh Lord, open my lips. Say it while you're laying in your bed, irritated, frustrated, anxious, trembling. Open my lips, my mouth will declare your praise, for you will not delight in the head of my political enemy or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering of the Supreme Court. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise. Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. Maybe it's just me again, but when I start complaining to God, I'm pouring out my heart to my Father in heaven. He usually reminds me with haste how much I've contributed to the mess with my own sin and recall the first four points we got from verse one, distress will move you to cry out to God and that's a good thing. Two, your righteousness is not inherent, it is imputed. Three, hasn't God given you relief before? Yeah, but it went away. That's because you're dumb and he needs to make you hurt so you'll go back and ask him again. He's more interested in you being in relationship, in communion with him than you being comfortable all the time. But I was already miserable with this once before and I prayed and he took it away and now the next day I'm here with it again. Yeah, because you already forgot you need him. Grace means you don't let the fact that you don't deserve help stop you from asking for help. All right, so instead of complaining, I want to offer right sacrifices to God. So instead of whining, I confess instead of moaning, I repent verse six. There are many who say, we're back in Psalm four, verse six. There are many who say, who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, oh Lord. Oh, where are these people? Not on Sunday morning at church, we don't. We come in here and we're like, how are you, sister? I'm blessed. How are you, right? Because that's what you're supposed to do at church, but then I know you'd be driving home, cussing at your kids. Me too. Well, not anymore because they drive themselves, but we're all hypocrites and we're all going, who will show us some good? Like when you're by yourself, you do. You might not say it to Cecil. Cecil will be like, I'll show you some good. Let's pray. Come on, get on your knees. And he'll be like, no, that's not what I want. Where are you looking for good to come from? If you're looking for good at work or at school or at play, at church, at home, if your heart is groaning for someone to show you some good and you think you're going to see some good when your circumstance is improved, listen, I'm not even joking. I didn't get the promotion. I should have. I earned the promotion. I was all but promised it when I took this position. I didn't get it. Some other people got it and you know what I think of their work ethic and what they produce, right? I didn't get it. My property valuation came through though. I got that and that thing is stupid. I watched the presidential debate the other night. Where are you looking for good to come from? I'm raising three teenagers at the same time. And some of you are like looking at me and going doing the math and you're like, oh, no, that's going to be me. And then I think of like Trish. Trish who tunes in like this is Trish looks like an iPhone 12 mini to me now because this is what I see when I like I just that's just Trish. That's Trish sitting there. I think Trish, where is she looking for good Andy? Carrie Darcy. Are you waiting for healing? Are you asking who will show you some good? Some of us are crushed by anxiety. Crushed. Some of us are consumed by anger. Some of us are preoccupied with the opinions of others. Some of us are barely like hanging on financially. Some of us are frustrated at work. Some of us are wondering why we even got married. Not me. We're good. But I know some people are. Listen to me. Philippians 4, 5, B. This is the part of Philippians 4, 5 that nobody pays any attention to because it's the end of the verse. 5, B says, the Lord is at hand. Did you hear me? Your Bible says, the Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And we've read it before and we've heard it before. We've probably heard sermons on it before that we left that sermon. We're like, I think I finally get it. Right? And then and now fast forward to this moment right here and you're like the peace of God. I don't guard my heart. I don't know. I'm anxious about everything. Psalm 4, 7, you've put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound in peace. I both lie down and sleep for you alone, Lord. Make me dwell in safety. All right. So here it is. Joy does not come from your circumstances. Joy does not come from your circumstances. It comes, look right at me. Joy comes from you belonging to Jesus. He puts joy in your heart because in your sin he shows you mercy because in your situation he pours out grace because in your sorrow he is present because in your silence he hears your heart because in your solitude he is present. In your suffering he shows his power. In your suffering he shows his power. In your struggle he carries you. In your sadness he is working. In the shadows he's your light. In your shame he doesn't reject you. In your squalor he pours out the riches of his grace. In your starvation he is the bread of life. Do you hear me? In your spirit and your soul he is your peace. The property taxes are the property taxes. The job is the job. The sickness is the sickness. The nursing home is the nursing home. In your soul, in your spirit Jesus brings the joy. And you can lay there when you get to the point where your spouse can't understand you anymore, locked in your own mind by a stroke or whatever ends up happening. You can lay there and know that even if he doesn't make it better he hears you and he loves you. And that will fill up your heart with joy it has to you. And besides that eventually like that last breath will go out and you'll be with him in glory and then it's all going to be good. Your joy is not in your circumstance it's in your Savior. All right let's pray.