Sermon Central
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The Blessing Of The Compassionate.
Contributed by Christopher Holdsworth on Sep 1, 2024 (message contributor)
Summary: "The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive" (PSALM 41:2).
THE BLESSING OF THE COMPASSIONATE.
Psalm 41:1-4.
This is a Psalm of David. It is quite possibly about David. It is also about our Lord Jesus (except that Jesus has no personal sin to confess, unlike Psalm 41:4).
Psalm 41:1. “Blessed is he who considers the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.” This is the outworking of a Biblical principle (cf. Proverbs 19:17; Matthew 5:7).
To “consider” the poor is not simply to throw a coin at him, but to look at his afflictions not so much as a thing he must somehow have deserved (a common error, cf. John 9:1-3), but to recognise him as a fellow human being who has fallen on hard times. It is interesting to notice that our Lord Jesus ‘became poor that we might become rich’ in Him (cf. 2 Corinthians 8:9). And He taught, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ (cf. Acts 20:35; Luke 14:12-14).
The Psalmist goes on to develop the thought of the LORD’s deliverance:
Psalm 41:2. He shall “preserve” his soul (cf. Psalm 121:7). He shall “keep him alive”: an abundance of life in the here and now (cf. John 10:10). “He shall be blessed in the earth”: the widow’s cruse of oil did not dry up ‘for many days’ after she had fed the prophet - not until the drought was over (cf. 1 Kings 17:14-16)! “Thou wilt not deliver him unto his enemies” (cf. Psalm 37:32-33).
Psalm 41:3. “The LORD will strengthen him in all his languishing” and, literally, “make his bed” in his sickness. The tender bedside manner of the Great Physician (cf. Psalm 73:26), who died on a Cross on our behalf! It is in such times of affliction that we find ‘grace sufficient’, and ‘strength in weakness’ (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9).
Psalm 41:4-10 takes the form of a lament. Even Jesus had to go through the dark night of Gethsemane. But Jesus had no personal sin to confess: He ‘knew no sin’; He ‘did no sin’; and ‘in Him is no sin’ (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5).
Psalm 41:4. The first stop for David (and us) was confession of sin. ‘Against you, you only have I sinned’ was his former plea (cf. Psalm 51:4). All sin is against God, but He stands ever ready to “heal” all our ‘backsliding’ (cf. Hosea 14:4).
