In Psalm 102, the biblical author presents us with no fewer than three different ways in which we can view our lives, three ways to assess and size up our lives in light of all the circumstances thereof. And today, I'd like us to consider this threefold approach toward life. Before we actually look at the scriptures, would you join me for a word of prayer? Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we ask your blessing upon our time of reflection upon your word this morning. Now work in our own hearts to see, appreciate, and apply the truth. And we ask this in Christ's name. Amen. The author of this psalm presumably lived during the period of the Babylonian exile. We don't know the author, but he would have been some Jew then who had experienced the trauma of the captivity. And though he lived a long time ago in a place far away, his experience nonetheless resonates with us, and we can learn a lot from this inspired author about how to view our lives. Now, in this regard, the first way in which he assesses his own life, looks at his own life, is through the lens of his own immediate circumstances. That's how he begins in the first stanza, the first 11 verses. but it's not a pretty picture. His circumstances are dire. Spiritually, he is desperate. Notice how he begins in verses one through two, verses one through two. He says, hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble. Incline thine ear unto me in the day when I call. Answer me speedily. You can hear the desperation here when you see this five-fold cry of the psalmist. I mean, repeatedly he cries out to God. He begins by saying, hear my prayer. And then he says, let my cry come unto thee. And then he says, don't hide your face from me. And then he says, incline your ear unto me. And then he says, answer me. Answer me now. Answer me speedily. Answer me immediately. I need help and I need it now. And so repeatedly he is crying out to God for help. And if you've ever felt like that at times in your life, when you find yourself in that place where you say, God, I need help and I need it now, not tomorrow, not in a few months, I need God now to step in for me. And so he is desperate. And as we progress through the psalm, we find that physically, he is very weak. Notice how he describes his physical condition in verses three through five. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as in heart. My heart is smitten and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. In verse four, He is in such difficult circumstances that he has lost his appetite. Physically, he is weak. He doesn't even have the appetite. He doesn't even feel like eating. As he goes on to verse 5, the consequence, therefore, is he's lost a tremendous amount of weight. He's, I'm skin and bones. In verse 3, he says his life is fading away like smoke. Like smoke, it will soon be, you know, it'll vanish, and it will be no more. And so this is taking a toll on him physically. That's not all. There is the toll that he is experiencing emotionally. On an emotional level, here is a very lonely man. Look what he goes on to say in verses six and seven. Verses six and seven. I'm like a pelican of the wilderness. I'm like an owl of the desert. I watch and I'm as a sparrow alone upon the housetop. Essentially, what he is saying here, he's referring here to desert creatures, desert birds, and he says, I'm like this desert owl whose habitat is the wilderness. And so the psalmist says, I live a very solitary life where he has no friends, none who are there to offer hope or help or comfort to him. Nobody is there for him. And so he is lonely. And then socially, socially he is an outcast. Notice what he goes on to say in verse eight. In verse eight he says, my enemies reproach me all the day and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. First part of verse eight, he talks about his enemies here and how they reproach him. That term translated reproach means, in other words, that they are mocking him and taunting him and ridiculing him. So this is the treatment of his enemies. And the second half of verse eight, he says, they that are mad against me are sworn against me. That expression, mad against me, what that means, in other words, is they treat him as if he were mad. That is, as if he were crazy. Insane. He's lost his mind. He's you know, he has no sense Of course the irony of this is they are the crazy ones His enemies are the crazy ones, but they talk about me like like I'm crazy, right? But consider the people who call me crazy, right? These these are the people that worship idols and sticks and stones And they call me crazy Well, and we can relate to that in our day and age, right? It seems like our world, our society has just gone crazy. They claim that a woman can be a man and a man can have a baby. They claim that everything that exists originated from nothing without any cause or rationale. They claim that all life on earth originated randomly from non-organic matter. They are desperate to save the planet while caring less about killing innocent babies. So supposedly, these people are willing to take desperate measures to save the planet for the future of humanity, even while they demand the right to kill the very babies who would propagate the human race. And they look at us Christians and they call us crazy? And you're calling me crazy? So the psalmist knew something about that. the last part of verse 80 says they are sworn against me this means that in other words that they curse him or it could also mean that they use his name as a curse word the basic meaning is the same this is how his enemies treat him but as if the treatment of his enemies weren't enough then there is the rejection of by God himself. Notice what he goes on to say in verses 9-11. He says, For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, because of thine indignation and thy wrath. For thou hast lifted me up and cast me down. My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass. So again, he's in desperate states, and again in verse 11 he reminds us that he feels that death is near, like the evening shadow. The sun is setting on his life. But this time, it's not the enemies. In verse 10, it is the wrath and anger of God himself against me, he says. Now perhaps many of his problems were due to no fault of his own, But certainly making matters worse, he has apparently sinned in some matter, for God is angry with him, and he's facing the disciplining hand of God. For what a picture in this opening stanza of the psalm, these eleven verses. Spiritually, he is desperate. Physically, he is weak on death's door. Emotionally, he is lonely with no one to help or care or offer comfort. And socially, he is an outcast. What do we do with all of this? Well, for one thing, we learn something about worship. Note the subtitle to the psalm, how it is characterized. The subtitle will be there before verse one. A prayer of the afflicted when he is overwhelmed and poureth out his complaint before the Lord. See, this is a psalm that is intended to teach us how to pray. showing us how to pray. Prayer as an aspect of worship. Remember the Psalms are kind of the ancient hymn book of ancient Israel. It's the worship book of the nation. We often define worship, I think, in a very restricted and narrow way. We might think of worshiping God as involving praising and adoring God for all of His greatness and all of His great attributes and all of the good things that He has done and His grace and His love. Well, obviously that is a big part of worship, to thank God and to praise Him for who He is and to praise Him for what He has done. Yes, that is a big part of worship, but it is not the only aspect of worship. What we learn here from the psalmist is that worship must also be brutally honest. We come into the presence of our holy God in brutal honesty, expressing all of our fears, doubts, troubles, and all the raw emotion that accompany them. We come acknowledging and lamenting our brokenness, our fallenness, the mess we've made of our lives, and the realities of the pain we experience in this fallen world. That is an aspect of worship. You remember what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, 24? He told her that we must worship God in spirit and in truth, in truth. Meaning, of course, that we must be people who are committed to truth, which the word of God, the scriptures define for us. We must be committed to truth. We must be committed to reality, to the real world as God made it and designed it. So we can't be living in a fantasy world. We can't be making up our own truths, right? There's not my truth and your truth. If you're gonna be a real worshiper of God, there's none of this my truth and your truth nonsense. There is just objective, absolute truth, which we find in Jesus Christ, the living word of God, and in the scriptures, the written word of God. You must absolutely be a person who's committed to living a truth-based life if your worship is to be acceptable to God. So then a part of worshiping in truth would encompass being honest with God about all that you are experiencing and feeling in your life. Recall how Jesus railed against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He did so because outwardly they said and did all the right things, but they were merely going through the motions. just going through the motions. Their actions didn't match who and what they really were on the inside. Their motions didn't match the reality of their lives and their true identity, right? I'll hold your place here in Psalm 102. Of course, we'll come back to the psalm in a moment. But look, for example, at Matthew Chapter 15, the type of thing that Jesus says about them in Matthew Chapter 15, verses 8 through 9, verses 8 through 9, and, of course, the ramification of this for worship. Matthew Chapter 15, verses 8 through 9. Now, in the previous verse, by the way, he calls them hypocrites. Then he's gonna tell us why they're hypocrites. In verses eight through nine, Matthew 15, Jesus said, this people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. They're a bunch of hypocrites. They kind of make up, again, their own truth and their own way of doing stuff, right? So they make up their own stuff instead of going with the written word of God and the scriptures, right? And the whole thing is just a religious game. They're just going through the motions, right? So they draw an eye with their mouth and with their lips, and they say the right stuff, and they do certain things. But the whole thing is just a religious game they're playing, and that makes them hypocrites. Now, although it would not, of course, be the same kind of hypocrisy as that of the Pharisees, I think there's a valuable lesson to learn here, that when we approach the worship of God with the attitude that, well, I have to say the right things and do the right things and put on a happy face, even though that's not really what I'm feeling inside, then we become Christians who are just going through the motions. Well, I'm supposed to say this. I'm supposed to do this. I better do that. And so, and I'll put on a happy face, even though really I'm absolutely miserable, right? Perhaps we might feel that it would be disrespectful to a holy God to express to him our fears and our doubts and our sorrows and our questions, but it's not. What is disrespectful to God is lying to him. trying to put on a happy face and pretend like everything's hunky-dory in your life when it's not. Look, there's no sense in lying to God. God knows what you're really thinking and feeling anyway, right? You're not going to fool God. So there's no sense in playing games with God, right? We should all be honest in our relationship with God, in our prayer life to God, as the psalmist is teaching us how to pray, to do what? To be honest with God about your struggles and your feelings and your questions or whatever it is you're struggling with. You don't honor God by being a hypocrite and pretending like you're just fine and you don't have any questions, when the truth of the matter is you do. Honesty, brutal honesty, is more honoring to God. I do fear sometimes that we, you know, in churches, we kind of miss that point. Almost like, you know, you shouldn't question or challenge. It's like, come on, we all have questions, and we all at times have doubts, and we all have struggles. And it's okay to express those things. I know in times past I've told you the story, but let me kind of remind you again of a story that happened when I was a young person that profoundly impacted me. It is why in Some other services like on, you know, on a Wednesday night or in Sunday school, I encourage questions when we're teaching through this group, you got a question, let's stop and let's address it. Because if you've got a question, that question needs to be answered and no questions are off limits. Well, I, you know, I'm sure I've told you in times past, part of that I do it because that's just the culture, the kind of church I grew up in, that's how we did it. But more than that, there was one incident in particular as a young person that impacted me and why I decided it's really, really important. that when people have questions about the Bible or about the Lord, they need to feel free to ask those questions. There was this gentleman that my dad had a particular burden for, didn't even know the man. He was driving by his house and My dad wanted to stop and talk to him about the Lord and tried several times. We stopped a number of times, my dad and I, at his house. He never came to answer the door. He always sent his wife. We learned later he actually was home, but he told his wife to lie and tell, you know, he's not home. Meanwhile, he was just kind of down the hallway listening to the conversations at the door. He didn't want to talk to my dad. And then his wife, go talk to that preacher. Well, one night out of the clear blue sky, he just shows up at our church with his whole family. Out of the clear blue sky. Oh, that's that, there's that man. He shows up. And eventually his whole family ended up getting saved. He got discipled and went on to become a pastor. For nearly 40 years, he was a pastor. But there was a backstory to this guy that, of course, later we learned when he started coming to the church, why he wouldn't talk to my dad when we came to the door. He said, actually, he had an interest in the Bible. He had an interest in God and the Scriptures. But he couldn't ever get his questions answered because he couldn't find any Christians who were really serious about the Bible. He said, actually, I'd been to a number of churches. I'd go to these churches. And they seemed like they really were not the least bit actually interested in actually talking about the Bible and wrestling with what it means. I tried to ask a question, isn't this a contradiction in the Bible? And my questions were not welcomed. I was told, don't ask questions, just take it by faith. Why do you care what difference does it make? What difference does it make what that verse means? It's like, what do you mean what difference does it make? You're going to tell me this is the word of the living God and then you turn around and convey to me what difference does it make? Who cares what it means? Or is this a contradiction in the Bible? And the people in the church were looking at me like, who is this guy? How dare you challenge the pastor? Just take it by faith. Fine, then I won't challenge your pastor. I won't ask questions. I won't go to church anymore. I'm done with it. I can see what's happening. I hear this pastor preaching and I'm like, this is not a man who spent hours this week studying the Bible. This is a man who spent hours this week trying to think of a host of good stories he could tell. Hopefully funnier than last week and get more laughs out of the congregation this week than he did last week. This is not a man who's interested in studying the Bible, and nobody in the pew is interested. You know, Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. You're supposed to believe the Bible. You don't believe it. You could care less about it. The whole thing's a game. What you really got on Sunday is you all go and you utter the Christian platitudes, and yes, the pastor slaps a verse or two to make it sound Christian-like, but he's not really interested in getting into the Bible and talking about the Bible. None of you are, and none of you want your lives changed by this book. You don't really care what it means or what the ramifications are. The whole thing is just a game you play. This is what we do on Sunday. We come, we sing some Christian songs, the pastor gets up and tells some funny stories, some Christian platitudes, throw a verse or two, and then we go on and we live our lives and nothing has changed and nothing is different. But we're Christians because we go to church on Sunday. I'm done with church. The only reason is because repeatedly we came back to his house and he got to thinking. He said, I thought, maybe that preacher is different. He just keeps, boy, he is persistent. He seems kind of like he's pretty serious about this. I'm going to give that church a try. And here's what he thought. He said, I'm going to go in that church. They got one chance. I'm going to listen to one sermon. If I don't like what I hear, I will never again darken the doors of a church. I'm done with God. I'm done with the Bible. I'm done with Christianity. I want nothing to do with it. That's why I welcome questions. We would know a lot of people who want to play games with Christianity, right? They just want a nice church with some nice music and some nice programs, but they don't want to really get serious about studying the Bible. You come in and you really get in wrestling with the meaning of text scriptures and thinking, who cares what the verse means, right? We all know the people don't want to play games. But they really don't want to get serious about God, what the word of God means, what are its ramifications to my life. It's a kind of hypocrisy. They're just going through the motions. They want a nice church to go to on Sunday, a nice sermon to listen to, some nice music, and then we go on with our lives. But Christianity means being brutally honest with God. And a part of being honest means, hey, we welcome the questions. We welcome the challenges because we worship God in a brutally honest way. Moreover, in going to God honestly, the whole point is, however, that we are going to God. Rather than trying to solve the problems and deal with the difficulties of life in our own strength or looking to others, The whole point is that we are looking to God. We cast our cares upon Him. And to do so is an act of worship. It is an expression of our faith and confidence in God, rather than in the arm of flesh. So what we learn here from the psalmist is, hey, I'm not going to other people. I'm not crying out to other people. There's only one person that can help me, and that's God. My absolute faith and confidence is in God. So yeah, I might sound quite pessimistic here, But he's going to the right source. He's going to God. That's how you worship. That's how you worship in truth. Well, returning our attention then to the psalm, if this were all there was to it, it would be a rather pessimistic psalm without much hope. But as it is, there is much more to the psalm, two additional stanzas. And so as we turn our attention to the next stanza of the psalm, we'll find that the psalmist becomes much more optimistic. And why? Well, because he switches his focus. He begins to view his life through the lens of the bigger picture of what God was doing in this world. See, God had a plan that he was working out, a good plan. And there are several aspects of that plan that the psalmist identifies as he brings it into focus for us. The first is that he was going to rebuild Jerusalem. Remember, Jerusalem had been destroyed, burned to the ground by the Babylonians, and here's a guy now living off in exile. But he knows God isn't through with Jerusalem. He's going to rebuild that glorious city. So look at verse 13. And 14, verse 13 through 14, thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her, yea, the set time is come, for thy servants take pleasure in their stones and favor the dust thereof. And likewise, notice the first half of verse 16, when the Lord shall build up Zion. He's absolutely confident that God is going to rebuild that city. God's got plans for Jerusalem. Jerusalem is at the very heart and center of his plans, of his work in this world. of this kingdom. So that's a part of God's plan. That's part of the bigger picture. And of course then along with this would be the restoration of the Jewish people to himself. The conversion and restoration of the Jewish people. Restoration to their land, restoration as a nation, but more important restoration spiritually to God and their relationship to him. Notice what he says in verses 17 through 21. 17 through 21. He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come, and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord. For yet look down from the height of his sanctuary, from heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed to death, to declare the name of the Lord in Zion and his praise in Jerusalem. Verse 17, the prayer of the destitute. Well, that's the Jewish people. They were destitute. They had gone off into captivity. But he says God, from the heights of heaven, is yet working in this world. He's not just tucked away up there in heaven doing his own thing while we're abandoned down here on earth to kind of fend for ourselves as the deist thinks. No, he looks down, he sees, he's got a plan, he's working it out. And it involves the Jewish people, the destitute Jewish people. God will hear their prayers. He loosens the prisoner and the captive from their captivity. And he is going to declare his name once again in Zion. Once again, Jerusalem will be a place that Jewish people sing the praise of God and worship God. And of course, the plan is even bigger than that, for it involves not only the restoration of the Jewish people, but the conversion of the Gentiles. Notice what he says in verse 22, when the peoples are gathered together and the kingdoms to serve the Lord. He's here talking about the various peoples of the world, the Gentile nations, and the kingdoms plural, not just the Jewish kingdom, all the various kingdoms of the world. What are they going to do? They're all going to gather together and they will serve the Lord. He anticipates this day when Gentiles will come to faith in the God of the Jews. And they too will be honoring and worshiping Him. And in this regard, notice again the first part of verse 15. Verse 15. He says, So the heathens shall fear the name of the Lord. This is God's plan. to convert Gentiles from all around the world to faith in Him. And there's yet one more key aspect of the plan that the psalmist identifies, and that is for God to manifest His glory in this world here on this earth. Notice again the wording of verse 15 through verse 16. Verse 15 through 16. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth, thy what? Thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory. Jehovah God himself in the flesh, for Jehovah God will be incarnated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and he will appear in his glory. A few of his disciples got a preview of that glory, you recall, on the Mount of Transfiguration. That's exactly what he was showing them. He said, let me show you what, you know, you used to see me like this, but let me show you what it's going to be like when I come again to set up my kingdom. And they saw him shining in all his brilliance and his glory. And so he will manifest his glory here on this earth from the throne of his ancestor David right there in Jerusalem that he will have rebuilt. So you see, God has big plans for the world and the Jewish people are at the very center of it. And remember that the psalmist, he's a Jew. He is one of them. That means he's a part of this plan. Viewed from this perspective, then, there are several key ramifications for us. First of all, we have to remember that we are but one small part of a much bigger plan. Now, in the case of the psalmist, he knew the big picture. For us, we don't always know the whole picture of what it is that God is doing and accomplishing in the world at any given moment. We don't know all that God is up to. We just have a very small part of the picture, a small part that relates to us, and even that we don't fully grasp and understand. We simply don't know all that God is up to. God doesn't come down and explain to us everything, step A, step B. But we know that God is up to something, we're a part of that. And therefore we can't be hasty and assess our circumstances solely in light of immediate circumstances, especially the troubling and difficult ones. To do so would be very short and narrow-sighted. We have to recognize that God is up to something good. So as difficult and trying and as bad as the immediate circumstances may seem to us at times, we have to recognize that ultimately it is a good plan that God is working out. And those difficult and bad circumstances are actually a part of the good plan. We must always remember that. And moreover, I would suggest that we must not be self-absorbed, though, and pretend as if it's all about me. How often when we struggle, especially with difficult and trying circumstances alike, do we find believers saying things like this, and boy, I know I've been prone to this, right? Why is God doing this to me? God, why are you doing this to me? What am I supposed to learn from this? What am I supposed to be getting out of this? But what does such a question assume? It assumes that in fact, it's all about you. That God is trying to teach you something, or show you something, or do something for you. Why do you assume it's about you at all? Why is it every time something bad happens in our life, we assume God's trying to teach us something? or accomplish something in our lives. Maybe it's not about you at all. Maybe God has allowed those circumstances in order to teach something to somebody else through you, and you're nothing but the vehicle of the lesson. There may be some unsafe person who's watching this believer go through these difficult trying circumstances, and yet manifesting the grace of God in his life, and that becomes a testimony to the person. God's not trying to teach you something. He's just using you. It's this unsaved person he's trying to reach. That's the person he's trying to teach something. That's the person whose life he's trying to do something. You're just the vehicle. Why do you always assume it's about us? It might be about that other person. I think very commonly God is using us as a vehicle to be a blessing either to another believer or perhaps to an unbeliever. When Daniel was sent off into captivity, why did God allow that to happen to him? I mean, boy, you don't get better than Daniel. What a wonderfully good, godly man. Why did he have to go off and live in captivity? Couldn't he have at least stayed in the homeland? Why did he have to go off like a captive? Was God punishing him? Was God trying to teach him something because Daniel had some, you know, some bad character flaws, and so God was trying to... I don't think Daniel had many bad character flaws. I'm sure, of course, he wasn't perfect, right? Nobody is. I'm pretty sure Daniel was a pretty rock-solid person who didn't have too many character flaws. I don't think God was worried about Daniel's character flaws. So why did God do that to Daniel? I don't think God was trying to teach him something. I don't think God was trying to work on his character. I think it's precisely because he was such a great godly man that God wanted to use him to be a blessing to the larger nation. God put him there in Babylon and then raised him to a position of power and privilege and influence with the king and used him furthermore as a prophet to convey his word to us in scripture. Oh, that wasn't God doing something to Daniel, it was God using Daniel. Daniel was a part of the plan. So I think we have to recognize that whatever is happening in your life, it's part of a big plan. It may or may not be about you. And even though the circumstance itself may be trying and may seem bad, it is part of a good plan. The second ramification is that we must, however, be patient. We must let God work, give Him time to do what He's doing. He's not finished yet. Nor has his plan reached its fulfillment or its climax. Notice in this regard, in fact, the wording of the psalmist in verse 13. He says, Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her. Yea, the set time has come. He's recognizing that God in his plan has a time. There's a time for everything. There's the set time. There's the right thing. The encouraging thing, therefore, is that although God's plan awaits completion, even now it is in progress. In the case of the Jewish people, though Zion would indeed be rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity, the ultimate restoration of the Jewish people that the psalmist here anticipates would not come until the end times. Thus, God is still at work. After more than 2,000 years, he's still at work, working out this plan. For the Jews have not yet been restored. God has not yet appeared in his glory. This plan is still in progress. So we need to be patient. You see, the point is, it's not a plan that God would just begin to work in the end times, but that he's already at work and he was in the days of the psalmist. Even then, he was using the Jewish people. Remember, they're at the center of this great grand plan that he's working. And therefore, even then, he was using the Jews. For example, he used the author of this psalm, who suffered as a captive in exile, the author of this psalm to give us this portion of scripture. So even now, God was working through this Jew. Moreover, not only was he using them, he was in the process of preparing them. That preparation of bringing the Jews to that place where finally as a whole, as a nation, they would truly come to faith in the Lord, involved the severe disciplining hand of God, it involved the captivity. And ultimately, it would involve their ultimate dispersion around the world after the fall of Jerusalem at the hand of the Romans in AD 70. He will still be preparing them during the tribulation period. So, He's been using them. He's also been preparing them all along for the last two and a half thousand years. It's a plan in progress. So we have to be patient. But in this regard, I'm reminded of the story of Job. You know, the great irony of the story is that the whole time throughout the book of Job, Job is crying out to God, God, why won't you vindicate me? People are saying terrible things about me. They're saying, oh, this stuff happened because I've sinned. They're attacking my character. I'm a terrible person. Why won't you vindicate me? Why won't you show the world my true character? hold the while, missing the whole point that that's exactly what God was doing through that whole trial, revealing Job's character. Look back at Job chapter 1. Let me remind you what we're told in Job chapter 1. The rest of us The rest of us all just stand in absolute admiration of Job. When you read in chapter 1 all the terrible stuff that happened, all the losses he endured, and then you get down to the end of the chapter, verses 20-22. All of these losses in chapter 1, verses 20-22. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell upon the ground, and worshipped, and said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. The man who lost everything still would not curse God nor sin. The whole rest of the world, we all read this and say, wow, what a man of character. Job goes down in the entire history of mankind as one of the best people, one of God's top people. I mean, he is top shelf. We all stand in absolute admiration of his character. So here's the irony. God, why won't you vindicate? Why won't you show the world my true character? It's like God is saying, Job, I am. That's why I allowed all of this to happen. Because if I just blessed you with a life of health, wealth, and prosperity, right, it's what Satan says. Well, yeah, no wonder he loves you, Lord. I mean, you look at all the stuff you give him. He's living on Easy Street. But when he loses everything and he still blesses God, That was the task that revealed his true character. So the whole time he's complaining, God, why won't you vindicate me? God is saying, Job, I am vindicating you. And you don't even have eyes to see it. It was the one thing he couldn't see it. This is why you and I must be patient. We just don't often see the whole picture of the good that God is doing. And the third ramification of this is that we must let scripture, however, define what the plan is. How did the psalmist know what the bigger picture was? Well, because he had access to the writings of the prophets before him. Some of these things he says about the future of Zion and the conversion of the Gentiles, he's simply echoing the words of the prophets. Look, for example, at Isaiah chapter 2. His hope, His confidence is found in the prophecies like we find here in Isaiah chapter 2 verses 2-4 about the end times, what God is going to do. Isaiah chapter 2 verses 2-4. Isaiah 2, 2-4, he says, It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and the nations shall flow into it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. This is what the psalmist is talking about. All the heathen are going to be converted, and we'll all go up to Jerusalem and worship God there. Or look later in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 59, Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59, verses 19 through 21. Isaiah 59, verses 19 through 21. Isaiah 59, verses 19 through 21. So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against them, and the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, says the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit that is upon thee and my words which I put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, says the Lord, from henceforth even forever. And so again, You see, verse 19, the conversion of the Gentiles anticipated. Thou fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the farthest reaches to the east where the sun rises. All the world fearing the Lord. Or just one more passage, jump over to chapter 62, Isaiah 62, verses 1 through 3. Isaiah 62, 1 through 3. For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake will I not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and the kings thy glory. And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. what glorious plans God has for the Jewish people. Again, all the Gentiles will look to Zion and be ministered to by the Jewish people. You see, this, this is what defines the hope and the expectation of the psalmist. This is the big picture that he gets from the wording of scripture. And that's why we must consistently return to scripture and be reminded of God's work and his ways in this world. If not regularly taking in the scriptures, you begin to lose your way. You begin to lose the big picture. And as a consequence, you can quite easily get discouraged. For example, we could look at circumstances today in America, and it could be discouraging if you just looked at the statistics of what we see is happening spiritually. For example, We have fewer young men going into the ministry today. They're just not answering the call to the ministry. The average age of pastors is going up. Pastors are aging. There used to be a median age. It used to be the median age of pastors would be 40s. And about half of them were older than that. They were in their 50s and 60s. And half of them were younger, in their 20s and 30s. But that has moved way up where the median age is now in the 50s. because young people aren't answering the call to ministry. We see it in our seminaries. Seminaries across the country are struggling. They're having to cut budgets, they're having to let faculty go, because they just don't have as many young men coming in and studying for the ministry like they used to. All of this despite the fact that our population continues to increase, right? So while the population of America is increasing, we have a larger population than we've ever had in the country, right? It continues to grow. Meanwhile, the exact inverse is happening. You'd expect with a growing population, we would have more churches and more pastors. Instead, the more our population increases, the more churches are closing their doors and the fewer people are going into the ministry. We see the same thing with regard to the mission field. Missionaries are aging. They're retiring, coming off the field, and where's the next generation of young people to take their place in the mission field? They're not answering the call to missions like they once did. Have Americans become too materialistic, too consumeristic, that young people anymore are just more concerned about stuff? They're more concerned about I don't know, their iPads and their iPhones and all the latest gizmos and gadgets, then they are going to the mission field and sharing the eternal, everlasting gospel. You could look at this and say, well, this is a discouraging thing that seminaries are closing their doors, churches are closing their doors. Meanwhile, the population is increasing. Have we failed? Have the people of God failed? Has the church failed in its mission? Has the church failed? Well, fortunately, we know the answer to that question. Look at Matthew chapter 16, for example, Matthew chapter 16. Rather than simply looking at statistics, we look to the scriptures. We let scriptures define the plan. And here's the plan. Here's what Jesus told Peter, Matthew 16, verses 17 through 18, Matthew 16, 17 through 18, Jesus answered and said unto him, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father, which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus did not say, I might build my church, or, you know, depending if you work with me, and if the church will be faithful, the work will go forward and it'll get done. No, this is not the plan. It's not a maybe, it's not a might. It is, I will build my church. The gates of Hades will not prevail, period. That's the plan. That's what God is doing. He's still doing. He is building his church. Now, the world tends to judge success by size and level of activity, but all of that, of course, is a fleshly way of looking at things. And Jesus prefaced his remarks with, you know, Peter, you're blessed because God has opened your eyes to see things not through the eyes of flesh, right, but by the Spirit of God. You look at the eyes of flesh, You'll see things differently through the eyes of flesh. Yeah, you'll look at, oh, look, here's a ministry, it's really big, it's thriving, it's growing, oh, there's a lot of activity, God must be really blessing. Why is it so often people assume if a church is growing, God's blessing rests upon it? It may or may not be the sign of God's blessing. It might just be a lot of manufactured activity and a lot of people coming in, it's not really God doing anything. It might be God doing something, it might not be. But how can we equate that with the work of God? If you're part of a small church that doesn't see souls getting saved every week and people being baptized left and right, publicly identifying themselves with Christ and just bursting at the seams, is God at work? You may wonder, well, God's not at work in that ministry. Look, people aren't being saved. There's nothing happening there. God's not doing anything. No. God is still at work. God is still building his church. And yes, even the small church that doesn't seem to have a lot going on is a part of the bigger picture. It is a part of the body of Christ. If it is an assembly of true believers, born again people, it is a part of the body of Christ. It is a part of the church. It is a part of what God is doing. And therefore, it has not failed. Because God's people don't fail. God's people are winners, period. That's the rest of the story. We win. It is absurd for a small country church to think, we're not growing by leaps and bounds, we have failed. That's not the big picture. No, the big picture is, we win. The devil loses. Period. Period. God's people are winners. You see, when you look at things through the lens of scripture, you become an optimist and like the psalmist. You don't get discouraged. God is still in the business of saving souls. He may not be building his church the way we wish, the way we might think he should, the way we might expect, but the work is going forward. Christ is still building his church, and even small little churches are a part of that. And I think it's unbiblical and ungodly to try to define any small ministry by the appearance of the flesh rather than in light of Scripture, the bigger picture. But returning our attention back to Psalm 102, there's yet a third way to view one's life. It involves taking an even larger view, a view beyond even the work of God in this world, of which we are but one small part. You see, the third way in which you can view your life is through the lens of eternity, beyond what God is doing here now in this world. And it is to eternity that the psalmist turns his attention, if you look back at Psalm 102, in the third and final stanza of his psalm. The third and final stanza, verses 23 through 28. Notice what he says in verse 23 through 28. He weakened my strength in the way He shortened my days. I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days. Thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure. Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment. As a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end. The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee. God has dealt harshly with the psalmist. He feels he's on death's door. His initial prayer reflected in verse 24. He said, God, I don't want to die now. I don't want to die young. Nobody can help me but you. Nothing in this world can help me. You're the eternal one. If anybody can give life, you can. So he turns to God, but in this very context and in this very recognition that God is eternal comes that very point of contrast. Nothing in this world can help him. This whole world is extremely limited. It itself is temporal. The whole world is temporal. And that's why he said, this world is going to pass away. God, you're going to fold the whole thing up. Heaven's in the earth. Boom. Roll it away. It's going away. See, it's a fallen world that is under a curse. But it is destined to pass away. We are fallen people living under the curse of death. It is an inevitable reality. And so no, the eternal God who has the power of life is not going to preserve the life of the psalmist indefinitely. He is a fallen being living under the sentence of death. And the truth of the matter is, we're all gonna die sometime or other. And God was not going to make an exception for the psalmist. And in the end, before it doesn't really matter whether you live 30 years or 100 years, you're going to die sometime or other. And I say no difference whether you live 30 years or 100 years, because the issue is not how long you live, but rather how you live. It's not the length of your life, but the quality of your life that matters. In the early 1700s, remember the pioneer missionary David Brainerd, lived only to the age of 29. He only got saved when he was in college, so he was a believer for only about one decade. A pretty short life, he didn't even make it to 30. And yet, his life and his ministry to those Indians, the Mohicans, the Delawares, His life inspired countless other missionaries. William Carey, India, Adoniram Judson, Jim Elliott, and on and on we could go. To this day, people are still being inspired by the example of David Brainerd and answering the call to missions. His life is still impacting people 300 years later. I only had 29 years to make a mark in this world, That's okay, 29 years is enough. He made quite a mark. Christ only lived to about the age of 33. He didn't have to be here for 100 years, right, to really accomplish something of value, right? 33 was enough for him to do the job. So then there are really two important ramifications of this truth. When you kind of put your life in perspective, realize, you know, this is temporal. Number one, therefore, I should not be invested in this world. Instead, I must be invested in God, the eternal one, my identity, my investment must be in him and my relationship with him, rather than this world that is so temporal. The world's gonna pass away. Remember what John tells in 1 John 2.17? The world passes away and the less thereof, but he who does the will of God abides forever. Psalm 102, verses 25 through 27 here, where he talks about how God, it's God who created the heavens and the earth, and it's God who's gonna fold them up someday. You know, that passage is quoted by the author of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter one and applied to Jesus Christ. He says, that's who the psalmist was talking about. Of course, Jesus is actually the creator. By the power of his word, Jesus spoke everything into existence. Jesus is the one who created the heavens and the earth. It's Jesus who's gonna fold them all up. Jesus is the eternal one. Only if you are identified with him do you really have a future. So you don't want to be too invested in this life. You want to be invested in the eternal king and his kingdom. Look at Hebrews chapter 12. The author of Hebrews comes back to this concept in the 12th chapter of his epistle, verses 25 through 28. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 25 through 28. Hebrews 12, 25 through 28. He says, see that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape not, he refused him that spake on earth. Much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth. But now has he promised saying, yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signified the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. And he reminds us, look, this world's going away. God's gonna shake the heavens and the earth. Meaning, in other words, he's gonna remove the whole thing. But in this place will come his kingdom and his kingdom will never be shaken. His kingdom will never be moved. His kingdom is the eternal one. So what are you invested in? Are you invested in this temporal world? You know, hung up in this world, are you invested in eternity? Christ, the eternal king and the kingdom of Christ, the eternal kingdom. And there is a related ramification of this perspective of looking through the lens of eternity. It's a good reminder for us, as you may have heard it said this way before, don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff. All the things in life that we get so stressed out about, worried about, In light of eternity, those temporal things will soon be passed. This too shall pass. And they'll mean nothing to you. In light of eternity, it's just small stuff. So remember to take the wide view. And so in conclusion, there you have it this morning. Three ways of viewing your life. Three lens through which you can assess it and all that's happening and going on. All three are legitimate. But as with the psalmist, I think we should utilize all three perspectives, as we have seen. If you look just at your immediate circumstances, you get quite discouraged, right? It is appropriate, but you don't want to focus just on immediate circumstances. It helps to widen to the bigger picture of what God is doing, recognizing you're part of a bigger plan. You might not know all the aspects of it, but to what extent God has revealed to us in scripture what he's up to, we know we're a part of that. And it's a good plan. And beyond that, to widen our scope and even to eternity. And yet, on the other hand, a legitimate aspect of honest prayer and worship is acknowledging and lamenting our grief and our pain. So you can't just ignore that perspective. So it's not an either-or approach. Focus on your immediate circumstances. Focus on eternity. I think it's a both-and. And that's what the psalmist shows us. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity we've had to hear your word this morning. Help us to apply these truths and follow the example of the psalmist this morning as we learn how to look at our lives and assess the circumstances we deal with. And we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.