Thank God For Teachers!

Thank God for Teachers!

Psalm 25:1-10

Sermon by Rick Crandall

McClendon Baptist Church - August 15, 2010

*Today is Teacher Appreciation Day in our church. And we ought to appreciate our teachers! Week after week our Sunday School teachers help us grow closer to the Lord and to each other. Week after week they help us grow spiritually through the Word of God. Thank God for teachers!

*Let’s look into the Word of God this morning to see some of the best things teachers do for us.

1. First: Godly teachers help us trust in the Lord.

*In vs. 1-3, King David was trusting in the Lord. There David prayed:

1. To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

2. O my God, I trust in You; Let me not be ashamed; Let not my enemies triumph over me.

3. Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed; Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause.

*By the time David wrote these words he had trusted the Lord for many years. And now, something had gone terribly wrong in his life. Charles Spurgeon and other Bible scholars theorize that it was the great rebellion of David’s son Absalom. And that makes sense.

*In his younger years, Absalom was a great favorite of his father and the people as well. He was handsome, charming popular and persuasive. Terrible family trouble started when his half-brother, Amnon, raped Absalom’s sister Tamar. King David shut his eyes to this great crime, but two years later Absalom carried out a successful plan to avenge his sister, and Amnon was murdered.

*To avoid punishment Absalom fled into exile for 3 years, before being allowed to come back to Jerusalem. Two more years passed before he was allowed into the royal presence. By that time Absalom had determined to rebel against his father, and he was able to convince so many people to follow him that David had to flee Jerusalem.

*The Lord gave David time to raise an army that fought a great battle in the forests of Ephraim. There the rebel army was utterly defeated. Twenty thousand men were killed in the first part of the battle, and many more died in the forest that day. One of the men who died in the battle was Absalom. He was riding on his mule when his long hair was caught in the branches of a tree. Then, in spite of the fact that his father had ordered Absalom to be taken alive, he was killed with three light spears through his heart. David's heart was broken. (1)

*What a horrible chain of events. Perhaps David was still on the run from Jerusalem when he wrote this Psalm. We see his anguish in vs. 15-19:

15. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, For He shall pluck my feet out of the net.

16. Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me, For I am desolate and afflicted.

17. The troubles of my heart have enlarged; Oh, bring me out of my distresses!

18. Look on my affliction and my pain, And forgive all my sins.

19. Consider my enemies, for they are many; And they hate me with cruel hatred.

*Have you ever been betrayed by someone close to you?

-Maybe not like David, but has someone you loved stabbed you in the back?

-If so, let me tell you this: The Lord understands what you are going through.

*In 1 Corin 11:23-24 the Apostle Paul teaches us about the Lord’s Supper. And Paul began by saying:

23. I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;

24. and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.''

*Jesus instituted this special supper on the night before He died on the cross. And of all the things Paul could have said, it is striking to me that the Holy Spirit led him to stress Jesus’ betrayal by one of his own disciples. On the same night in which Jesus was betrayed by Judas, he took bread. Jesus surely understands the pain of being betrayed, and you can trust Him to help you through it.

*Terrible things had happened to David, but he had learned to trust in the Lord, so in vs. 20 David prayed again: “Oh, keep my soul, and deliver me; Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.”

*Thankfully, most people will never have to go through horrible drama like David did.

-But rebellious children can break our hearts.

-And family trouble always brings heartache.

*All of us will go through times of trouble.