If you would, open your Bibles
to the book of Psalms. If you would open to Psalm 34.
Psalm 34. Let me start this evening with
a little bit of a story or a little background about myself. When I was a kid, I had a really
big problem. Now, I probably had a lot of
problems, but for this point, I had one really big problem
that I want to tell you about. I used to do something so often. It was constant. My parents were
worried every time I opened my mouth, I was going to do this.
that every time I said something, I was gonna be boasting or bragging
about myself. It didn't matter what circumstance
we were in, I was gonna say something to try to make myself look really
good or something about you that would make me look better than
you. Now the word boast or brag means to speak with exaggeration
or excessive pride, especially about oneself. It was such a problem that the
most often, the most quoted verse I ever heard was from my parents
was, pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a
fall. They told me, you gotta stop bragging about yourself.
You gotta stop lying. You gotta stop exaggerating.
You gotta stop going way too far. You're too proud of yourself.
You're not that good. And I remember, the way that
my mother, that probably the first time it really got through
to me, was someone else was bragging, another kid, and I probably was
10 or 11 at the time, and they said something, and she looked
at me and she said, doesn't that sound awfully foolish, what they're
saying? And I said, yeah, it does, they
look like a fool. And she said, well, that's what
you sound like when you do that stuff. And you know, until this
week, I did not realize where that came from. In the concordance,
do you know what one of the words in the Bible that boasts is used
as? Foolish. One who boasts is a
fool. which is a lesson to us parents
that the best way we ever could get something across to our children
is gonna come from this book. Use this when we teach our children
things. But let me tell you how bad boasting is. Listen to these
scriptures. But now you rejoice in your boastings. All such rejoicing is evil. For
man shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Boasting is concluded in all that. And then finally in Romans
it says this, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those
things. And a lot of stuff is listed
here, but one of the words is boasters. The Lord let us be
ourselves and we started boasting. And at the end of that it says,
they that commit such things are worthy of death. It says
boasting is worthy of death. Now, that sounds pretty harsh.
Now, with all of that said, let me give you the title of my message.
The title tonight is Let's Boast. Now, why in the world did I just
tell you that you should not boast about yourself? You should
not boast. It's really bad. The scriptures
tell us over and over again, don't boast. Then why in the
world, all we're gonna do tonight is we're gonna boast. Well, the
problem with boasting is this. It's the little phrase at the
end of the definition. Let me read it again. To speak
with exaggeration and excessive pride, especially about oneself. The problem with boasting is
the same as every other problem we have. It's us. We want to
take credit. We want the glory. So, for example,
when the kids all run outside, I could say, I could say, Klaus,
you are so fast. And that's boasting on him, and
there's nothing wrong with that. But what I would probably say
is, Klaus, you are so fast, but I was faster when I was your
age. Though I have no idea, but I want to take the credit for
it. Another example of that would be someone could say, the Lord
Jesus Christ is my all in salvation. But the phrase you would hear
even more often than that is, I chose the Lord Jesus Christ
to be my savior. We have to try to take the credit
or the glory in everything. That's just who we are. That's
just our problem. Our flesh gets in the way. So
let me read you two scriptures that give us positive things
and things we can do with the word boast. In Psalm 34 here,
look at verse one. It says, I will bless the Lord
at all times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast
in the Lord. It says, my soul will boast in
the Lord. In Psalm 44, it says this, in
God, we boast all the day long and praise thy name forever. The scriptures tell us there's
one thing that we can boast in, or there's one person we can
boast in. In God, we boast all the day
long. The reason my message is titled
Let's Boast is because in this passage in Psalm 27, if you turn
a page or two over to Psalm 27, in this chapter, there is a great
deal of things that are said in here that we can boast about. We have a tendency to say these
things from this passage because it says something about my strength.
It says something about my salvation. It says something about my confidence,
about my desires, my faith. It says all this stuff, and we
can boast in those things, but we're just being foolish because
they're not really mine. Look at the first three words
of this chapter. David quantifies everything he's
going to say. Everything after this is going
to be because of this. The Lord is. Everything that's
said for these 14 verses all follows those three words. So
everything we say the rest of this way follows the Lord is. So the Lord is, right here, my
light and my salvation. What I want to do is take just
a few minutes And I use the word let's boast because I want you
to do it with me. Any child of God, any elect of
the Lord Jesus Christ can all together read these verses and
we can boast in our Savior. We can boast in all these things
that He has done, all these things He's given us. Now, they say
in here very clearly that they're mine, they're ours, we have them,
they belong to us, just in the same way that the Lord is mine. I didn't do anything, but because
He took me, because He chose me, because He saved me, I'm
His. And it says that He's mine. And
we can boast in that. As long as He gets the glory.
Tonight, I just want to boast in Him. And I want to look at
these verses, just go right over them and just look at a couple
things in them, and let's boast together. Let's be proud of this. Now that definition, says the
first part is to exaggerate. Now, that doesn't apply. We cannot
actually exaggerate anything about the Lord. If I were to
use the...if I looked in the dictionary for the longest and
the greatest words that describe something, they're They're way
too low. They're not nearly high enough.
So we can't exaggerate. But the second part where it
says excessive pride, that's what we need to have for our
Lord. When someone says something about Him, we can play the one-up
game. Someone said the Lord is wonderful.
It's okay to be like, I know it, the Lord is unbelievably
wonderful. We can one-up that. We are proud
of Him, excessively proudful of Him. So look in the first
verse, and let's just go through this. The first thing it says,
the Lord is my light. In John it says, the Lord says
this, I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our light. He's our life. We are in complete
and utter darkness. Most of the people in this world,
and even us at a time, we were just in darkness. We couldn't
see anything. We couldn't see in front of our faces. We couldn't
read a word in this book and have a clue about anything about
our Lord. But once He opens our eyes and He lets us see the light,
see Him, we can see everything. We can glory in Him. Then it
says the Lord is my salvation. Is there anything better? The
Lord saved us. The Lord saved His people. He
did it. There's way too much of this,
my salvation in religion today. And we even say things that we
shouldn't say, but everything in salvation is of Him. We have
no part of it. We have nothing to take credit
for. He gets the glory. And then thirdly,
the Lord is my light, my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
the strength of my life. The Lord is my life. He created
us. He breathed us into existence.
And we don't renumber our days because we just don't know. We're
so fragile. We have no idea how long our life lasts, except when
we're in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have life, everlasting life. Isn't that worthy of boasting
about? That in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have life. In the
middle of that verse, it says, Whom shall I fear? Why are we
not afraid? I'm afraid. I mean, there's plenty
of things I'm scared of. I'm afraid all the time. Well,
then how can we say that we're not afraid? That's because we
have light from Him, He saved us, and we have life in Christ.
The scripture is so clear when it says these things, and we
just don't see it. It says, whom shall I fear? And we take that
upon ourselves. Like, you know, we just need
not to fear stuff. We don't need to fear this world.
No, we don't fear because we have light, we have salvation,
and we have life in Him. That's why we're not afraid.
Look at verse two. This might be the best example
we see here of our insignificance. Look at verse 2. When the wicked,
mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat upon my flesh,
they stumbled and fell. Do you know this phrase says,
mine enemies and my foes? Do you know that we're so insignificant
that we cannot actually have our own enemies and our own foes?
No one would actually look at us as being worthy of being disliked. We are so insignificant. It's
the way that we would look at, like, an ant. Like, I don't have
time to worry about that. I don't hate ants because it's
just there. It doesn't affect me. Listen
to this verse. The world cannot hate you, but
me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof
are evil. The Lord says, the world cannot
hate you. You are so insignificant, the
world doesn't even bother with you. But they hate you because
I testify of the evil in the world. And what happens to those
enemies and those foes at the end of that verse? They stumbled
and fell. Now, if we're so insignificant
that no one would actually ever dislike us or even think about
us, we can't actually say that they stumbled and fell because
of us. Everyone who opposes the Lord stumbles and falls away. If you're in the Lord, you have
nothing to fear because He is the one that they hate and He's
the one that they will fail against. He is our protection. Verse 3,
though when hosts should encamp against me, my heart shall not
fear. I am so glad that it's not this
heart and this body because it is weak. It is fearful. It is so feeble. Our heart, oh,
it's so bad. But the heart that the Lord Jesus
Christ gives us, the new heart, the new spirit that the Lord
Jesus Christ gives us, that is what my heart shall not fear. What he gives us, he causes us
not to fear. Then it says, the war should
rise against me, in this will I be confident. What am I, I
mean, my confidence? Are you guys confident? I feel
nervous plenty of the time. I'm not confident about anything.
What will I be confident? Why would I be confident? At
the end it says, in this will I be confident. We just go right
back to the top. The Lord is my light, my salvation.
He's my life. He is everything. That's why
we're confident. We're confident in Him. He is
our confidence. The moment that we look to ourselves,
we're just boasting. But the moment we look to Him,
that's where we find everything. Look in verse four. One thing have I desired of the
Lord that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of
the Lord and to inquire in his temple. I desired. He makes us to desire. There's
so many examples in the scripture. That verse we read about how
everything that we do, all our thoughts are evil continuously.
Our desires are awful. But the Lord makes us desire
this. If it's not Him, we won't desire
this. But what do we desire? We desire that I may dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. We desire to behold Him and we
desire to inquire of Him. I want to boast in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord gives us this desire,
and that's the only way we'll do it. But in Him, is it not
worth just shouting from the top of the mountains that in
the Lord Jesus Christ, I will dwell in His house forever. I
will get to behold Him and to inquire of Him. That's mind-blowing,
to inquire of Him, to speak with Him, to entreat Him, to ask Him
things. Look at verse five. For in the
time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion. He shall
hide me? I need a hiding place. I need
somewhere of safety. We've read above this that I'm
not gonna fear, that I'm confident and all that stuff. I sure do
want a hiding place. That's why we don't fear, because
we're in him. We're hidden in him. It says
in his pavilion, we're hidden in his tent. He covers us, he
protects us, he shields us from everything. In the secret of
his tabernacle, shall he hide me? We didn't know where to go. He hid us. The secret, that word
could be implied there that we didn't know anything about it.
We couldn't hide there because we didn't know it existed. We
didn't know where it was, anything. He hides us in his secret place.
He shall set me upon a rock. We sung that song. That rock
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He puts us on him. Now go to
this next line and keep that in mind. And now shall mine head
be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Those who are religious so often
feel like they're a little bit higher, a little bit better than
those that are against them. We heard about the Pharisees
this morning. We love trying to act like we're just a little
bit better, sometimes way above. But why here, and is it number
six, or verse six, and now shall mine head be lifted up? Why is
that? Look at the last line of verse five. He shall set me upon
a rock. We're higher than our enemies
because we're in him. We're on him. He's put us in
a place that we're higher than him. Verse six, therefore will
I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing ye, I will
sing praises unto the Lord. I offer sacrifices of joy." This
word here, therefore, right at the beginning of that, that's
a word that implies a couple things. First, it says that because
of something, something else. Therefore. First we need to see
that He did it. He did, He put us on the rock
first. None of this stuff after has
any effect on Him saving us. We didn't do anything to save
ourselves. And secondly, this word therefore is not something
that we get credit for. This is not one of those things
that say, well, you got me a present for my birthday, so I feel like
I need to get you one for yours. Like, it's not an obligation.
This, therefore, is signifying we're doing it because of what
He did. It's out of love and gratitude. These two things, sacrifices
of joy or shouting, and singing praises unto the Lord. We shout
to Him and we sing His praises because we love Him. Because
what He did for us, that's the only reason we do those things.
I have an awful singing voice, but praises unto the Lord are
beautiful no matter which of his children are singing them."
When we sing these songs, and we sing songs that are from the
scriptures, we sing songs that are based in the truth. When
we sing these songs, if we believe what they say, we should sing
them. Now listen, I don't yell because
I'm scared somebody will actually hear me singing, but we need
to sing the songs. If we believe in Him, this tells
us right here, because of what He did for me, I must sing His
praises. We sing to Him, we celebrate
all the things He's done. Look at verse seven. Hear, O
Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer
me. Do you know there are two things
that have to be true for us to truly cry out? And I don't mean
like just a little, hey, hey over there. No, I mean, cry,
like a please, a plead. Two things have to be true. First,
we must need something. We don't cry if we have everything
we need. We must need something. And the other thing that must
be true is we must think that someone will help us. You never
cry out if you think no one's going to hear you or no one can
help you. That's pointless. But we cry because we need something
and we think someone will help us. So what does the Lord do? Look at the second part of verse
seven. Have mercy also upon me. We need something. He will have
mercy on us. And secondly, we think someone
will help us and answer me. All of our problems are crying
out to him. All of them are summed up in
this two little things. Lord, will you have mercy on
me? And will you answer me? And we see in the scriptures
that he will. He has already had mercy on his children. We
can't see that sometimes. He's already done it. And he's
answering our prayers. Oh, he answers us every time
we speak to him. Look at verse eight. When thou
saidst, seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord,
will I seek. We only seek after things that
we want to find. What if I said, hey, this is
what I want everybody to do. When church is over, I want us
all to go out, go over to the field over there by the renaissance,
and we're gonna find the biggest stick we can. I wanna find the
biggest stick we can, all right? Now, I have seen three faces
in this room right now that seem really interested in doing that.
I see a lot of people who are kind of like, what? Why would
I do that? I'm not going over there to find
a stick. But I saw a couple faces in here that thought, boy, I
sure hope he's really asking us to do that. We only seek after
things that we want to find. So many people have absolutely
no desire to seek the Lord. We must be thankful for the desire
to seek Him. It's not enough to have a desire
or goal, but the Lord must give us the desire. But we must also
go after it. We must try to attain it. We
must reach out for it. Now, this is not me saying with
this verse, And this is a tough verse. When I used to see this,
it said, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, thy face,
Lord, I seek. It kind of feels like I'm getting
a lot of credit for this. You asked a question. I'm going
to do it for you. Now, what this verse is saying here, that when
the Lord says, Seek ye my face, it's a commandment that is impossible
to refuse. We cannot decide not to do it. This is not one of those things
where the Lord says to a sinner, and says, seek ye my face, and
we have to think about it, or we have to ponder it. If the
Lord says, seek ye my face, we just naturally, our mind just
says, I gotta go seek after him. I gotta go see him. He gives
us the desire to seek him, and he makes us to seek him. He performs
the action. He does everything. We don't
boast about seeking his face. We boast that he cares so much
for us that he told us to seek him and that he makes us to seek
after him. We celebrate that. That's so
wonderful. Look in verse nine. Hide not
thy face far from me. Lord, please don't hide from
me. Put not thy servant away in anger.
Thou hast been my help. Leave me not, neither forsake
me, O God of my salvation. The middle of that verse says,
Thou hast been my help. We first need to analyze that
the word help here is not we're doing something together. Oftentimes
when my kids ask me, will you help me do something, it's something
that they're trying to do and they just need a little help.
Maybe that they got almost all of it done and they just need
me to put the last thing on top that they can't quite reach.
No, no, this help is help me, I can't do anything. I don't
even know what I need to do. When we ask the Lord to help
us, we don't really know what we're asking. There are a lot
of times when I'm praying and I get to a point in it where
I think to myself, will you just help me? I don't really know
what I'm trying to ask for here. I think I need this and I think
I need that. But since I'm probably missing everything important,
will you just help me? Just do all of this. Just do it all.
I can't do anything. So first off, we realize that this is
help, as in you have to do everything. And how has our Lord helped us?
It says he's our help. How has he helped us? Well, this
verse gives us four things right around it. The first one, hide
not thy face far from me. The Lord is not hidden from us.
He is there for us. Secondly, put not thy servant
away in anger. Our Lord sends his servants to
us. Not only does He send people
to preach to us, He sends people to comfort us. He sends people
to help us, send people to guide us. And even more than that,
the Lord Jesus Christ, God sent His Son to do what we needed. He sent Him to be our sacrifice,
to be our righteousness. Look after that at the third
one, leave me not, neither forsake me. Don't leave me, He's always
with us. and then neither forsake me.
The scriptures say, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
It's so comforting. It's so, it's so wonderful to
think that the Lord Jesus Christ will never forsake his children. That's another reason for us
to be so excited and brag on him. You know, we can say these
things with this assurity in the back of our mind saying that
even if I mess up bragging on him, he won't leave me. He's
not going to forsake me. Look at verse 11. Teach me thy
way, O Lord. Teach me. We have a teacher in
the Lord. Now, school teachers are great,
and they're very important. And those that teach our children,
and as parents we teach our children, that's all very necessary. But
I'm talking about the Lord Jesus Christ teaching us His way. The Lord shows us that he is
the way. The Lord Jesus Christ is salvation. He's everything. And then it
says, oh Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of mine
enemies. Lord, lead me. We have a leader. The Lord will lead his children
in his path. let us boast that our teacher
and our leader are the same person. And let me expound upon that.
To think that the person who's leading us is also teaching us,
or to think that the person who is teaching us everything is
also leading us. Now, why is that important? Well,
it makes us to understand that we don't actually have to know
anything to be led in the right way. And we also don't have to
find the path in order to be taught something. These things
are the same person. So the Lord teaches us and he
leads us. And this is not, again, another
one of those to help and all that stuff. This is not lead
us as in the fact that we're just wandering around and every
once in a while he gives us a hint at the right direction. This
is more like someone who's walking their dog and they're going in
a direction and you try to run that way and run that way and
it's just being pulled the whole time. Like, you're going the
same way that your master's going. You can't avoid this. You can
try all you want to get away, but you're going in his direction.
You're going with him. Look at verse 12. Deliver me
not over unto the will of mine enemies. Lord, deliver me not
unto my enemies. We so often think of things that
we say, Lord, deliver me to something or delivering me somewhere. We
must ask our Lord to deliver us not into the other things.
Our Lord is our deliverer. In this life, we can say with
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, if it be so, our God, whom we
serve, is able to deliver us. But in reference to our souls,
we can say this with Paul. The Lord shall deliver me from
every evil work and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom
to whom be glory forever and ever. Our Lord delivers us in
this life and he delivers our souls. Our Lord is our deliverer. He does everything for us. All
right, look at verse 13. I had fainted unless I had believed
to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." It
says there in italics, I had fainted, so we could read that,
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord. It's
important that we see what they're referring to, meaning that we
wouldn't have made it. Like, we would have fainted.
In other words, we would have just fallen at the wayside if
it hadn't been for Him. unless I had believed. Apart
from the Lord giving us belief, from the Lord making us believe,
we would have fainted long, long ago. We never would have made
it anywhere without Him. Look at verse 14. Wait on the
Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart.
Wait, I say, on the Lord. Never ever stop looking to Christ. We will find good courage. We'll find courage that isn't
from us. You ever heard the phrase, you
gotta find some courage? Well, that sure doesn't work
very often. I've said that to my kids and I've had it said
to me so many times. You just gotta find some courage.
You just gotta toughen up. You just gotta find something
within you and you can do it. How foolish is that to think
that we can just sum something up? And when it comes to this,
about our salvation and everything in this life, we must just look
to Christ. We must depend on Him for our
courage. If we're looking anywhere else,
especially within, we will find nothing. But if we look to Him,
if we search for him, we will find our courage. And it also
says he will strengthen thine heart. The Lord will provide
everything we need. And at the end there it says,
wait, I say on the Lord. This implies patience. That phrase
patience is a virtue. Patience is something that we
greatly lack and we struggle with. It seems so often that
the person who's going through something is the one who doesn't
have the patience. It's so easy for someone who's
not in a situation to tell someone who is, just have patience. And we do it all the time. If
you tell that to me when I'm going through something, I just
want to look at you and be like, just be quiet. You don't know
what you're talking about. And then I say it right to someone
else right after it. Let me say this about patience.
it can feel completely impossible to achieve. So instead of focusing
on patience, just do what it says here and look to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Just look to Him. Don't just
have patience yourself and try to wait for something to happen.
Look to Him. It says, wait on the Lord. Look
to the Lord. If you're waiting on something,
we have that prodigal son story that we see so often. I have
a feeling that that father had a lot of days where he was looking
for that son to come home. He, despite everything that happened,
and he didn't even know everything that was going on, he was hoping
every morning he woke up, I sure hope my son comes over that horizon,
and he was looking. It says he saw him from afar
off. You don't see somebody from afar off unless you were looking.
we must look to the Lord. If we know that's the only place
that we'll ever find our light, our salvation, our strength,
our courage, the rock, all these things in here, if we know that's
the only place to find it, you know what we'll do? We'll look
for it. We'll look at Him. We'll look to the Lord. If you
know the only place to find an answer is in a certain book,
where are you gonna go? You're gonna go to the book.
You're gonna search for it, you're gonna go, I mean, isn't everything
else just a complete waste of time? If the answer to a question
is only in one place, why in the world would we go all over
the world to try to find it? It's right here, just look to
Him. Now, I skipped verse 10 on purpose. And this'll be our last verse,
the last thing we'll look at. The first part of this verse
says, when my father and my mother forsake me, There's no better
illustration or example that we can give in this world of
someone that should actually care the most about us. This
is not just generally saying if your father or your mother
forsake you. This is saying those who love you, those who cared
for you, those who are the closest to you, have the connection,
you're of their blood, all that, when they forsake you, Everything
on this earth will forsake you. That's who we are. We're sinners.
That's all we will do. We will be forsaken. It's making
sure you see that. When all that happens, because
it will happen, it doesn't say if, it says when it happens,
the last part of that verse says, then the Lord will take me up.
Now listen to this slowly and carefully. The Lord will take
us up. We're boasting right now on our
Lord. The Lord will take us up. What if I'm not there? What if
I'm not in the right place? Look at the center margin. The
Lord will gather me up. Every child of God will be taken
up by the Lord. They will be gathered up. wherever
they are, whatever they're doing, whatever it is, every child of
God will be taken up by the Lord, taken with Him. We're not put
somewhere, we're taken with Him. Every child of God will be with
the Lord Jesus Christ forever. I don't know of anything that
is more worthy of us to boast, to brag, to be excessively proud
of, than that the Lord Jesus Christ will take his sheep up
with him and spend eternity with him. May we always look to the
scriptures, wait on the Lord, and by his will, may he please
take us with him, that we may be with him