Psalm 32
What if I told you that there is one person who can come along side your life and give you perfect guidance and success in anything God asks you to do! You say, “But I don’t believe that there is a person that perfect and that precise!” With all do respect, I think you are wrong! There is a person and that person is found in Jesus Christ! But that’s not the problem, your rejection is not so much about Him as it is… and here’s the hiccup – here lies the real problem, do you really want His guidance and place of success? Once you decide that you really do want it, the rest is very easy!
Psalm 32 intro…
David was a gigantic saint and a great sinner too! David was top of his class when it came to sin! We can look at his life and his adultery, the murder and then he spends a year running from God’s guidance and best, completely unfulfilled and miserable – Nathan the prophet nails him to the wall and over a period of a year God is slowly breaking him down and repents of his sin.
If you really want to see the emotional roller coaster of sin and repentance – it’s all here in Psalm 32. This Psalm is written after Psalm 51. This Psalm is one of 13 Psalms known as the song of instruction and forgiveness. He writes 13 different ways to appeal to the person whose life is on a crash course… ready to crash and burn! He says, “You don’t have to destroy yourself, find a place of rest!”
Read Psalm 32:1-2
David is saying - this is how you become successful and blessed before anything else!
Let me define success for you = Taking our abundant lives and pouring them into someone else’s life! Anything other definition falls short, any other statement is filled with error – throw it away!
I ask again…do we really want to be successful? Do we really want to accomplish more in life than we could ever think or imagine? The extraordinary life is wrapped up in this definition! The fulfilled life is connected deeply to this thought!
Verse 2: “In whose spirit there is no deceit”
STOP! I want to ask you another question – “Do you really want to be the person that has absolutely no deceit or deception in your heart?”
“Deceit” = fooling oneself, lying, etc.
Now let’s look at 3 verses again and see something very interesting – I want you to see 3 words that are missed by so many of us as we take in this Psalm.
Verse 4 – “Selah”
Verse 5 – “Selah”
Verse 7 – “Selah”
What is that? Well, if any biblical theologian with Dr. in front of his name and he says he knows – he’s not being completely honest! No one really knows! You can ready a dozen commentaries and get a dozen different answers. You find this word used only in the Book of Psalms and once in the Book of Habakkuk! That’s it!
It’s possibly a signal to the musicians, maybe a change in tempo. Time out! Take up the offering! Time for a solo! One scholar said that it was the signal for the congregation to fall flat on its face, in light of what is being sung!
One thing I’m pretty sure of, “Selah” was a “sigh”. It’s as if the worship service is go so great, the glory of God is so there, the singing is reaching the highest heaven and all of the sudden everyone just stop, just stop and take this in, let this worship really sink in to the deepest part of your spirit – that’s when you know you are living the abundant life!
Psalm 46:10, 11 “Be still and know that I am God…The God of Jacob is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.”
“Still” = in Hebrew, rest, to let go, release something
Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (pause, refreshment).” NIV
Psalm 4:4 “…Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah.”
B. J. McComb’s “Red” story is an inspiring one! He was a man reared in Texas grew up picking peanuts, then as a teenager became a mechanic and his pay was a room, 2 meals a day and free chewing tobacco. He was very involved in Texas’s FFA. At 22 years old he started selling cars in Corpus Christi Texas, outselling all other salesmen. Then at 25 year old he laid everything on the table and invested in a used car dealership in 1952 and one year later he started a new Ford Dealership in San Antonio Texas.
Within a few years he owned the 6th largest dealership in America – that made him a multi-billionaire.
Then with his love for sports he purchased the San Antonio Spurs and owned the basketball team for 5 years. Then he purchased the Denver Nuggets and owed the team for 6 years. Then if that wasn’t enough he bought the Minnesota Vikings in 1998 and still owns the great football team.
He was named one of Forbes magazine’s top 400 richest Americans in 2005.
There’s a saying in Texas about Red McCombs touch of success, “If you see Red mounted on a swaybacked mule in the Kentucky Derby, put your money on Red because he’ll find a way to win.”
Red McCombs has shared his faith in Christ with Presidents, Prime Ministers and even witnessed one on one with Donald Trump. Red says this about his success in his long life, “I wake everyday on my knees and find fresh power in the time that I am still so I can get to know God afresh as I wait to hear from Him.”
I ask you again, “Do you really want this in your life”! I can stand before you and wax eloquently and use all the buzz words, but if you…
If we really want to understand the fulfilled life, really experience the 3rd dimension to abundance – we all have to deal with and master the 3 “Selah’s” found in this Psalm!
The capstone to this series is found right here in the SIGHHHH!
1. The Selah of Conscience. Vs. 3,4
David knew how important it was to finally respond to his conscience! Folks, any person, any philosophy, any legislation that desensitizes the human conscience is absolutely evil.
Adolph Hitler posted at the front doors of Auschwitz, “I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality…We will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence – relentless and cruel.”
Sin strips us of everything good, of joy, peace, and leaves us sickly, miserable, and oh so cranky! Everyone has a conscience that evolution can’t explain and only God can touch and stroke at times!
Proverbs 28:14 “Blessed are those who have a tender conscience...” NLT
Phillip Yancy writes, “The human conscience works to register in the deepest place a sense of being off course.”
Ever been where the heavy hand of God was all over you – where life was almost suffocating! Ever been there? If you are a child of God, at sometime you have! You may feel this way today - don’t panic; don’t run from under His hand and for goodness sake - stop pretending that it’s heart burn!
SIGHHHH
2. The Selah of Confession. Vs. 5
See it at the end of the verse? SIGHHHH
Proverbs 28:13 “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”
There’s nothing more powerful next to the blood of Jesus than confession!
Chuck Swindoll once said, “I once accepted a speaking engagement among Christians involved in Twelve Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. As I talked with the attendees and pondered what to say, I finally decided on the ironic title, "Why I Wish I Was an Alcoholic."
SLIDE: “It occurred to me that what recovering alcoholics confess every day—personal failure and the daily need for grace and help from friends –this represent high hurdles for those of us who take pride in our independence and self-sufficiency.”
3. The Selah of Celebration. Vs. 6, 7, 10, 11
He really starts his celebration in verse one with the word “Blessedness” – it’s written as if there was an exclamation mark after it! Can you imagine how this verse sounded with a choir!
This SIGHHHH restores: (verse 6, 7)
• The power of prayer.
• The power of position. We are no longer hiding from God but in God!
• The power of peace.
• The power of praise.
Verse 8 - Personal instructor, counselor, observer! Do you realize that God promises to look out for us! Is that good or what? Did you have a mother that could just move her eye and you knew exactly what she was doing?
But we have to be close to Him to see him, to hear from him and to learn from Him!
Verse 9 - Donkey and horse.
I just wonder how many times God sighs over us.
The 3 dimensions of abundance are freely given to us but so many of us never appropriate the fulfilled life! Why not make up your mind today that you are not going home without claiming it today?
By now you should have settled whose your Savior is, by now you should have settled whose Lord over your life and by now you should have taken a personal sigh in order to let it all sink in!
