Sermon Central
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"Open Your Mouth Wide” Series
Contributed by John Newton on Nov 17, 2022 (message contributor)
Summary: One of the joys that my wife and I share is that our house backs onto miles of forest. The result is that our back yard is almost constantly being visited by wildlife—even including a bear! But our most frequent visitors are the birds...
Open wide (10b-16)
Before we leave this psalm today, I would be remiss if I didn’t point you to what I think is one of the most wonderful promises that God gives us in the Bible—and it is so easy to overlook. It nestled in the latter half of verse 10. There God says to us, “Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.”
The words take me back to those birds in our back yard. The picture that it brings to my mind is of a nest of baby hatchlings, their little beaks opened as wide as they can stretch them, waiting, trusting in the mother bird to feed them. Like those little birds, whatever the cause of our spiritual hunger, we have a God we can trust and who is able to fill it.
Indeed, Jesus assures us that God knows our needs before we ask (Matthew 6:8). He once asked his disciples,
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:9-11)
And so the psalm stands as an encouragement to us—a gracious invitation—to trust God, as the little birds trust that the mother will return to the nest. Now there may be some of you who think that this kind of thinking is naïve, that it won’t stand up amid the ups and downs of life in the real world. But let me tell you, it does.
For the last six months I’ve been following the journal of a woman in Ukraine. Again and again I find myself dumbfounded by her faith in God’s provision. Here is something she wrote just the other day:
I am reminded once again of the verses in Philippians 4:11-13. ‘I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.’ … We don’t need to postpone life till after the war. We live it to the maximum now!
Our psalm this morning is an invitation to do just what she says, to live life to the maximum—joyfully to trust in God, who did not withhold even his own Son and graciously gives us all things (Romans 8:32).
