And Then There Was One -- Psalm 73 Series

And Then There Was One

Psalm 73:25-26

How many of you have prayed something similar to this: “Lord, I am a sinner. I confess my life is a mess and I ask You, by the blood of Jesus, to wash away my sins. I desire to have you be the Lord and Savior of my life. I no longer want to run my life because I’ve done such a poor job. I now turn over the rule and reign of my heart to You.” Raise your hand if you have prayed to ask Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of your eternal life.

Now keep your hands up if you were surprised that God took your prayer seriously and saved you? No hands? You prayed a prayer of faith to be saved from the penalty of your sin and God said, “Okay.” You asked God to be your Lord and Savior and God said, “Okay.” Then why is life harder in so many ways after you prayed that prayer than before? Why do you seem to be facing so many difficulties – difficulties you don’t remember facing before you asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior? I’ll tell you. It is because you asked Him to be your Lord and Savior that life got difficult, for even though you asked God to be your Lord and the Master of our life, God still needs to educate you on how many other things in your life you are putting in the place of God. Your old gods don’t die so easily.

God never intended there to be anything in our life that takes His place in our hearts. God also loves us enough to bring us to the point where we can sing this morning’s passage, “Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26). He does this by removing the idols and crutches in our life that show we do not rely solely on Him. He does this because He did not create us to function as a fully developed human being by putting anything in His place. He loves us enough to take away those things that would distract us from making God the true Lord and Savior of our life and living below our created potential. For when all the idols are put away, we finally realize that there is One in Heaven that we desire more than anything on earth. Bit by bit God wants to remove all our crutches and alliances that we think give us comfort and answers so we will learn to seek Him first. He wants us to learn to put away everything that would hinder putting Him first and when we do we can finally say, “And then there was One, and He is God.”

What I want to do is take us through the five things that David had to let go in order to know that God was the only One he could truly rely on. God loved David enough, and He loves us enough, to remove our crutches so we can truly sing Psalm 73 and say we desire God more than anything on earth. For only when we put God and His kingdom first in our life will we finally be living that prayer when we asked God to be not just the Savior but the Lord of our life. So, the first thing David had to lose so God could truly be God in his live was—

1. His good position (1 Sam. 18:10-18; 19:9-10). Last week we saw how Saul first became suspicious of David, then he became jealous, and then he became violent, hurling a spear at the harp-playing David with the intent of pinning him against the wall. But David escaped to live another day. And another day arrives to find David once again playing the harp for Saul, which is not a move I would be comfortable making myself, nor would I ever let my kid head back into that situation. But David must still be hopeful that Saul will amend his ways or he wouldn’t have returned. David is one of those eternal optimists, which I like. He is also a bit naïve, which I understand, for I can be both overly optimistic and at times a bit naïve. So after the first time David dodges a spear, Saul sends David out to battle the Philistines and David is again victorious. So in chapter 19 Saul urges his servants and his son to assassinate David, but Jonathan sends David into hiding and then defends him by reminding Saul of everything David has done for Israel, and Saul vows not to kill David. Jonathan then brings David back to the Saul and once again David is serving in the court, killing Philistines and playing the harp. A weird kind of bi-vocational life, I know, but that was David.