Our family missed each and every one of you last week as we were away with family in Knoxville, Tennessee. The saints at Basswood Reformed Baptist Church just outside of Knoxville send their greetings. We had the opportunity to go and worship at Basswood Baptist Church. last Sunday and really enjoyed our time there, but it's good to be home. Glad to be here. It's always good to go, but it's always good to come back, right? So today as we come back to where we left off two weeks ago, we'll be in Psalm 62 today. And we're only going to take the first seven verses of Psalm 62 because we're going to be talking about silence. Silence. You've heard it said probably at various times that silence is golden. The famous poets of the 60s and 70s said the sound of silence. I personally love silence. I don't get much of it. But I love silence. I'm not even sure the radio in my truck works. And that's not because my truck is old. I'm not sure that the radio has ever worked in my truck, because I have never turned it on with some marked occasions. But usually, I just love to hear the hum of the tires. Don't you? Maybe not. Maybe that would be the greatest, and Asher will appreciate this one. This would be the greatest reason why I might get an EV, for the silence, right? Don't give me that digital muscle car sound. I want a muscle car that makes no noise. Silence. Because in Psalm 62, in the very first seven verses of Psalm 62, David is saying, I wait for you, O Lord, in silence. You see, as I thought about this psalm, as I pondered it, I realized very quickly, as you probably do too, that silence is just not part and parcel of our society. I remember some discussions over the last weekend where we were talking about having to have a sound machine to create white noise so that we can go to sleep easier, leave the fan running so you can hear the sound. You know, we just don't, our culture, our society today is just not one of silence. And yet we find in the scriptures that we are called to times of silence. As a matter of fact, Brother David, Paul David, as he goes through the disciplines, and I believe it's in the new version, I know it's in the old version, silence and solitude is gonna be one of the disciplines that we learn through Donald Whitney's book. That's in the Bible study hour every Sunday morning prior to service. And so we need to really consider what the Bible says about being silent. and sitting and thinking in silence. Psalm 62. For God alone my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not, I shall not be greatly shaken. How long will all of you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall or a tottering fence? They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence. For my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory, my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Father, we thank you for the day that you've given to us. We continue to praise you for your goodness, for your mercy and your grace. We thank you, Father, for the songs that have been sung and the prayers that have been prayed and the word already delivered to your saints this day. And we ask, Father, now in these few fleeting moments, that you would open our eyes and our ears to wait in silence. Strengthen us, Father. In our frailty, we run to the chaos and the noise of this world. We find solace and solitude. We find comfort in the 24-7 podcasts and music stations and ambient noises. And Father, I fear that many times we have drowned out that still small voice And so, Father, help us. Help us as we think about listening to wait in silence to hear that still, small voice that we might know you better, that we might love you more deeply, and that, Father, we might be called to be salt and light in the world. Help us, Father. Show us your way, show us your word, that we might bring you glory in all that we do. These things, Father, we ask in your precious and holy name. Amen. It is said of Aldous Huxley. Now, Aldous Huxley was an English novelist, and he actually was the man who wrote Brave New World. Now, don't confuse that with a book that was written recently, A Strange New World, by, yeah, that guy. I really like that guy. I can't remember his name, but I like him. But Brave New World was a book that Aldous Huxley wrote. And so anyhow, he was well known. He's an English novelist, and he was on his way to a meeting of the British Association in Dublin. But his train arrived late. And as he hurriedly jumped into a carriage, now this is back in the day and time was horse-drawn carriages. That was the cabs. He jumped into a carriage and ordered the driver to drive fast. Some things never change. You get into a cab today, you say drive fast, right? And so the cabbie did exactly what Huxley asked him to do. Away went the cab, jumping and jolting over the streets and around the corners. And after a few minutes, Huxley asked, do you know, dear sir, where you're going? To which the carriage driver said, no, I don't know where we're going. But we're driving fast. In another account a number of years later, it was one of the marchers in what was called the Cox's Army. It was in 1894. It was a labor movement and they moved upon Washington, D.C. to try to bring better working conditions for laborers, and a local newspaper reporter caught one of the marchers and asked them if he knew why that they were marching on Washington. And the particular participant in this march said, well, we don't know what we want, but we want it mighty bad, and we want it mighty quick. Sounds a lot like today, doesn't it? Don't know why we're here. Don't know why we're burning down buildings. Don't know why we're doing this, but we want something and we want it right now. You see, that's our world. And it's nothing new. You know, we look at the news cycle and we go, man, our society is in such bad shape and our world is just falling apart. And yes, our society is in bad shape and the world is falling apart, but it's nothing new. It's been falling apart for a very long time. and we are in a world of hurry, scurry, panic, worry, joy to the world. That's a line out of a song that we used to sing at Christmas at church. Hurry, scurry, panic, worry, joy to the world. That's the world we live in. We don't know what it means to be silent. As a matter of fact, It is rather common in oral discourse, common as you give messages and speeches and as you speak publicly, that a prolonged silence is seen as awkward. Perhaps the speaker forgot what he was going to say. And we feel a bit uncomfortable for him or her and for ourselves, when silence at times so violently invades what's being said. And yet here in Psalm 62, David says, my soul waits in silence. You see, our silence in waiting on God is an indication of just how much we trust him. And I would suggest that as we have looked at least at part of David's life on Wednesday nights in 1 Samuel, that of the biblical writers in particular of the Old Testament, David is the best qualified to say, I'm waiting on God and I'm waiting on God in silence. David is probably the best qualified to be the one that we would look to to see what does it mean to trust God? You know David's story. He was a shepherd. He was one of about 12. He was the youngest that he was anointed at an early age as the king. He was gonna be the king of Israel, which all sounds good except there is a problem. Saul was already king of Israel, and Saul got a little worried about that and decided he was gonna try to ensure his dynasty by trying to kill David. And for a number of years, David was on the run, as we've seen, living in caves, living in the wilderness outside of his home, away from his wife, taken away from his position, taken away from his responsibilities at court, and really a man on the run all the time with the promise of God that he was going to be king. And we've been looking at, in that narrative of David's life, we've been looking at the episode where David cuts the corner of Saul's robe off in the cave, right? If y'all have been there on Wednesday nights, you know we've been talking about that. He didn't kill Saul when he could have. He didn't kill Saul even when the men around him said, you need to kill him. He said, no, I will not raise my hand against God's anointed. And it's a picture of David's trust in God, his faith in God. Though the world around him was under the clamor of war and the voices around him were saying, do this, do this, do this. And even saying God has sanctioned this by bringing your enemy into your presence. David, in silence, waits on the Lord. Now I don't believe that Psalm 62 was written in the wake of that occurrence in the cave. Certainly it is in perhaps the back story of David's life. Biblical scholars are not really sure at what point Psalm 62 was written. Okay. Don't know that there's anything super special about that. But if we understand David's life and we understand how David approached things, then we can begin to see him pinning these words in which he says, my trust in God, my faith in God is of such a level that when things are not coming about as you have promised God, I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to grumble, and as my brother Lamar so aptly gave me the word on Friday morning, I'm not going to whine about it. Because we do, don't we? I don't know what I want, God, but I want it right now. Right? I don't know where I'm going, God, but I'm getting there really fast. And when I hit a red light and the carriage comes to a screeching halt and I have to sit there and wait for the endless lines of traffic over the next three seconds, I'm gonna whine and complain that things are not going the way I want them to go, right? We should wait in silence. Psalm 62.1, for God alone my soul waits in silence. Not that the end goal is accomplished. I think sometimes we think that waiting on God is just waiting on that end result. Right? Oh God, please give me a godly spouse. and I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and I'm waiting, and we have friends that have waited a long time for a godly spouse, and they, by what we can tell, are godly people. They're not living in the world. They're not doing those things that would be contrary to God. They're waiting. They're constantly waiting, but sometimes I think that as we wait, we're hoping for that end goal as opposed to just trusting what God's gonna do. Does that make sense? There's a difference there. Because if I'm just waiting for the end goal, well then what happens when the end goal comes? What happens when that godly spouse shows up? Does my faith in God somehow stop at that point in time? Well, if all we're doing is waiting on a godly spouse, then we're in danger of our faith stopping when that promise is fulfilled, right? For David, as he became king, Did his faith in God stop? No, David was not perfect. He did some things in his kingly position that we would clearly say are wrong. But David's faith, David's trust in God continued even after he became king. And so if we're waiting on God, and not just hoping for some end result, but actually trusting and having faith in God, when that end result comes, as God might bring it, then our faith continues on past that, even though God has brought us that thing that we were asking for. But what do we do in the meantime? Do we complain that God has not answered my prayer? Do we complain that God somehow has forgotten me? You ever felt that way? You ever felt like God has forgotten you? Maybe God's more concerned about other things. Maybe there are other things in the world that God finds to be more interesting, or his glory, he's gonna glorify himself in a greater way by doing this, that, or the other, and we feel like God has just left us behind. There's a left behind for you right there. Right? But David says, for God alone, my soul waits in silence. And that silence is not complaining, is not grumbling, is not whining, even internally, even in our hearts, because our goal is the glory of God. Our goal is to see God exalted. We wait. for God alone and whatever God is doing and whatever God is hoping to accomplish in our own lives so that in our example of a godly spouse, if God never brings that spouse, then we are still glorifying God because he is God, right? Because from him comes my salvation is the next phrase, salvation. Are we gonna be so shallow to say that salvation is only the fact that I escaped hell and that I live in heaven for all eternity? Is that all there is to salvation? You know, Paul Washer once said that most people want to go to heaven. All people really want to go to heaven, they just don't want God there when they get there, right? And I fear that we have made salvation about the pearly gates and the streets of gold and seeing ma and pa whoever and our favorite pet and just doing what we want to for all eternity and that's what we've made heaven out to be that's what we made salvation out to be but salvation It is not a play. Salvation is a person. That we are in the presence of Christ for all eternity. That we are praising God with the saints and with the angels and with the created order for all eternity. We are in the very presence of God and that is what we call salvation. Not streets of gold and gates of pearl. But when we take a temporal view of even our salvation. that we no longer have pain and suffering, we no longer have sin, that it's in a wonderful place that the Bible does describe as having streets of gold and gates of pearl, whether those be metaphorical or not, we can talk about that later, but it's a wonderful place. If we make our salvation about that, then we're really gonna miss the point. Because when we don't have that in the here and now, or somehow we begin to doubt that we will have that, streets of gold and so on, in the days to come, then we begin to complain and gripe and whine. But David says, no, for God alone my soul waits in silence, for from Him comes my restored relationship with Him. I am with Him. I live with Him. I worship Him. He is everything to me. That's what David says. And because he is everything to me, I am willing to wait on him and not worry and not doubt and not complain and not grumble and yes, not whine. I think for many of us, we have a real life corollary to this, married couples. In the occasions, however frequent or rare they may be, when one is at home and the other is away, maybe they're just out to a meeting in the evening time, or maybe they're on a trip, or maybe they just run to the store. Do we sit at the front door pining, wondering if they're going to come back home? Do we sit at the front door fretting over the fact that maybe they went to the store and just decided to keep on going? Is that how we act? No, that's not how we act. Now, obviously, if they go to the store and four hours later they're not back, that's a different issue. Okay, I got that. But if they've just run to the store to run an errand, we don't normally stand at the front door waiting with bated breath for them to pull in the driveway because we know that they're coming back, right? And I would argue that if in your marriage that you don't want to let each other out of your sight for 10 minutes, then there's a problem there, right? We have a security, we have a surety, we have a steadfast understanding that though the car left 10 minutes ago, it's going to pull in the driveway. And even if it's delayed a few minutes, it's no big deal. We don't worry, you see? We don't complain, we don't write, we don't whine, waiting for that person to return. And so why can't we address Christ that way? Why can't we quietly, silently, expectantly, hopefully, wait for Christ to return, or wait for Christ to do his work in our life, wait to feel the warmth of his presence as he fulfills his will in our lives. And maybe he does it in our time, maybe he doesn't do it in our time. You know, Abraham never saw the city that God prepared for him, right? You know, writer of Hebrews says that he trusted by faith his entire life, but he never saw it. Right, Abraham? To wait in silence for what God is going to do because as we're waiting for God to do it, he is with us. Right? So do you really think that Christ is with you more closely when you're having your prayer time than when you're not? Do you really think that Christ is more attentive to you as you're reading your Bible and studying your Bible as you are going on about your day? Does Christ's presence with us ebb and flow with the degree of our actualization or our self-discipline that we're studying right, we're praying right, we're doing right, so Christ is nearer? Or could it be that we're just a little more attentive to Christ's presence, which is there all the time when we're praying? We feel his presence a little more closely. Or we hear his voice a little more clearly as we're doing our meditations and Bible studies. But Christ's presence never leaves us. It's always there. Christ is always with us. His spirit resides in us. Man, you can't get any closer than that, can you? For the spirit of the living Christ to indwell you and live within you, the resident helper, the paraclete, the advocate, the one who gives us wisdom, the one who shows us the way, the one that grants us discernment. Christ's spirit is with us all the time. And because Christ is with us and Christ's spirit is with us, then not only do we have the charge, but we have the ability to wait on God in silence. James chapter 5 verses 7 through 11 puts it this way. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it while he receives the early and late rains. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door." As an example of suffering and, yep, you guessed it, patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those who remain steadfast or those who were patient. You have heard of the patience or the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. If I counted it right, there are six verses there. Seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, yeah, five verses. And patience, or a word related to patience, is mentioned six times in five verses. What do you think James's point was? Anybody know? What's James's point in this passage? Patience, right? knowing that everything's not going to go the way we want it to go, but that we have a God who will never leave us or forsake us. We have a God that brings the early and the late rains. We do the planting, we do the tilling, but he brings the growth. An example in the prophets who were some of the most despised and rejected people on the face of the planet, short of the Lord Jesus himself, who were faithful to proclaim the day of the Lord, but in many cases never saw the day of the Lord that they were proclaiming, right? Let me put it in different words maybe to make a little more sense. The prophets were the one that were sent by God to proclaim, turn, revival's coming, revival's coming, revival's coming. If you will pray, if you will seek the Lord, if you will turn from your wicked ways, if you will do what God has told you to do, revival was come. And guess what? They never saw the revival. It never came, though they were proclaiming it. And they did it with patience. In a lot of ways, they did it in silence. They didn't whine, they didn't complain. They just trusted God because their faith was strong enough to do so. Samuel Rutherford put it this way. He said, the way to overcome is by patience. Wait upon Christ as the night watch waits for the morning. He will not tarry. Go up to your watchtower and do not come down, but by prayer and faith and hope, wait on. Those who believe do not make haste. What does it say about us when we are just consumed by the clamor of this world, the noise, the chaos, the constant bombardment of sound bites and rhythmic notes, music, that we just can't stop and be silent? Do we have to go up to the watchtower and take our iPod with us so that we've got music to listen to while we're standing on the wall watching? Do we really need that? Or why can't we just watch and wait and think about what God has done? You know, that song says, count your blessings, right? Count your many blessings, see what God has done. Well, if I'm constantly having all kinds of input put into my brain, either audibly or visually, or I'm being stimulated somehow by this world, how hard is it for me to count my blessings? Rutherford says, go up on that watchtower, pray, wait, watch, and don't come down too quickly. I think. it will prove just how much we trust Christ. Well, that sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds like something that we would want to do. Sounds like something that might be easy to do. However, the problem is that we live in a world that is not waiting and not silent, right? Our silence in waiting for God when everyone around me, who is not waiting and they're not silent, is a testimony to our unshakable faith in God. Again, there's nothing new under the sun. David lived in a world of clamor and chaos, of sound bites, so to speak, constant temptations, corruption, Deceit, betrayal, it's all over the place. We live in the same kind of world. So can we not take the wisdom of the scriptures that David gives to us and apply them in our lives as well? Yeah, I think we not only can, but we should. It's our call, it's what makes us different than the rest of the world. As a Christian, I follow what the Bible says, right? And so our silence that we sometimes think is an awkward thing, an uncomfortable thing, a bad thing, actually is a very good thing. That we live in a world where everybody is pursuing the latest, but we do so quietly, silently. Now look, I don't mean, as I had written this morning, I don't mean that we ought to all take vows of silence. That's not what I mean. But we should wait on God without complaining, without grumbling, without doubting. Psalm 62 verse 3, how long will all of you attack a man to batter him like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse." At one level of understanding, we can see that David is describing a world in which there's the dog-eat-dog mentality, the survival of the fittest, you know, only the strong survive. It's a world that he lived in. people involved in political intrigue. There were those that were saying one thing and doing something else, trying to take the kingdom away from him. People from his own family who were trying to take the kingdom away from him, right? How many of y'all have got somebody in your house, your family, who's trying to kill you right now? Anybody? Want to raise your hand? Probably not. David had it. Isn't that funny? It occurred to me that David lived most of his life with somebody trying to kill him. Talk about stress. But there is this environment that David is describing where all these people are kind of doing things that are very worldly and not very godly, but then we come down to the end of the section, they bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. You see, I just don't know that that is exclusively a description of the enemy without. I don't know that that's necessarily just a description of the physical enemies of David. It seems to me that it might be a description of the enemy within. The old man within each of us. You see, because the old man wants to bless, I trust Christ, but inwardly they curse, he curses. I trust Christ, but he better hurry up because my trust is running out. Why has God gotten me here? Why is it that God doesn't love me anymore? Why is it that God makes me go through this? What in the world is God trying to do to me? The whole time we sing the hymns with a smile on our face, right? You see, our heart betrays us. Our heart, if we don't do what David says in the last part to his heart, oh my soul, wait in silence. If we don't command our hearts to do what we're learning today, if we just live by default, then we're gonna bless outwardly and we're gonna curse inwardly. We are guilty of being our own worst enemy. And the reality is is that that's true. We are our own worst enemy, right? We do a lot more damage, a lot more harm, cause a lot more pain to ourselves than anybody outside of us have ever done. And we need to be careful of this. I think there's a warning in this verse, in verse four, the back half, back phrase of verse four, that we need to be careful that we don't, that we're not double-minded, as James says. that we're not like that fountain, that spring, that well. You know, James says, you don't get saltwater and freshwater from the same well, right? Either the well has got saltwater in it, it's no good to drink, or it's got freshwater in it, which means everything that comes out of it is good. We can't be double-minded. We can't play the odds. We either have to recognize that we are, or we aren't, that we are trusting Christ or we aren't trusting Christ. And whether or not we complain and gripe or whine may be an indication that we really aren't trusting Christ as much as we want to think so or as much as we're trying to lead everybody else to think that we do, right? Does that make sense? I mean, we're confronted with our own impatience and our own lack of faith We're confronted with the fact that though we say all the right things, really we're not living or exercising the right things. This is an area of our life where it just cuts to the quick really quick. Yeah, cuts to the quick really quick. It doesn't mince words. It doesn't beat around the bush that either we are waiting in silence or we are not. Either we're trusting Christ or we're not. In Matthew 17 we find We find a very similar idea that I think will help us understand our context when it relates to Psalm 62, verses three and four. It's Matthew 17, starting at verse 17. Now, you may remember, they had just come down off of the Mount of Transfiguration. And when they came down, there was just this clamor and this chaos going on, right? And Jesus and Peter and John that were on the mountain with him, they come down into this, and they're trying to determine what's going on. Well, what had happened is that there was a man who had a son who was demon-possessed. And the man had brought the son to the disciples, and the disciples were trying to cast out the demon, and they couldn't do it, right? And there's all this discussion going on, and the arguments, and the clamor, and the chaos surrounding this moment. And we pick it up in Matthew 17, 17, and Jesus answered, O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? So it seems that Jesus I'm not gonna say he's frustrated, but it just seems like that they're just not getting it, right? And he says, bring the boy to me. So they bring him. Jesus, verse 18, Jesus rebukes the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. And the disciples came to Jesus afterwards privately, and they said, why could we not cast him out? Jesus, we're disciples, right? We're your peeps. We're following you around. We go to town. Everybody knows that we are your guys. We even have the name disciple, right? So what's the story, Jesus? Did we just not say the right words? Did we not use the right incantation? What's going on? And Jesus said to them, because of your little faith, you don't believe. You say you believe, but inwardly, you don't. You don't really get it. And you're trying to do this really, really big thing when you don't actually believe you can do it. Now, they weren't complaining. They weren't griping outwardly, but their hearts were not believing. So back to the Psalm 62.4, they were blessing with their mouths, but inwardly they were cursing, because they really didn't think they could do it. But listen to what Jesus says after this. He said, because of your little faith, for truly I say to you that if you have faith, just a little bit of faith, like a grain of mustard seed, you would say to this mountain, move from here, and it would move, and nothing would be impossible for you. If you just believe me just a little bit, then nothing would be impossible for you. So what do we do? What's our takeaway? How do I use this? I mean, what do I do with this verse? Well, it calls us to examine our faith. It calls us to examine, when we say we trust God, do we actually trust God? Again, I think for many of us, we would never voice doubt. We would never voice a question in our faith, would we? We might in certain circumstances, at certain points where we become you know, just completely broken, we might in confidence go to somebody and say, look, my faith is failing. I need strength and I need to be encouraged because I just don't know if this is going to work. But normally in our kind of day-to-day life, we say we trust Christ and we don't necessarily trust Christ. Or we don't trust Christ to the degree that we ought to trust Christ, right? We don't have the faith of a mustard seed that we really need to follow through and do the things and see God do the things in our lives that he has called or said he would do, right? And we need to examine our faith in that way. We need to examine, are we actually trusting as Christ has called us to trust? Because, he says, if we do trust just a little bit, then nothing's impossible. Now, I don't mean to tell us, I don't mean to lead us, or to give us a wrong impression, in thinking that all we have to do is say that we believe God, asking for something, I believe that God's gonna give it to me, and then have it happen. Right? On Wednesday nights, we pray constantly that God would heal people. Right? Don't we? You've been there. We have people that have been on our list for years that have cancer that we've prayed that God would heal them. And there's been positive, God has done some things in their lives, and then the cancer comes back. Does it mean that God failed? No. Does it mean our prayers failed? No. It means that God is just doing something beyond what we really understand. But we still pray, don't we? And we pray in faith that God are going to heal marriages, or God is gonna bring jobs, or God is gonna fix broken relationships. We pray for that all the time. And we see God do some pretty miraculous things, don't we? I've heard more than one story of people being concerned of a particular medical condition. The doctors tell them that this is what's going on. They do an initial diagnosis. They do initial CAT scans, all the evidence is there. There's a tumor, there's a clot, there's a something or another. But in between the time, the initial diagnosis to the time they actually go to the appointment to find out what's going on, that God took it away. Right? That they go to that doctor's appointment where they're gonna set up the protocol, they're gonna decide what medicines they're gonna use and what procedures they're gonna follow. They do another CAT scan, they do another MIR, MRI, and they find out all of a sudden the tumor's gone, the blockage is gone, the clot's gone, and there is no explanation for that other than God has intervened. I believe firmly that God answers prayers, don't you? I hope you do. But you know, yes, the person who received the miraculous healing is a beneficiary of that, I agree. But you want to know who else is, I would argue, probably the bigger beneficiary of that particular circumstance? It's not the one who reads about it on the prayer list, but the ones who have been praying. Right? Wouldn't you agree? I can tell you that, at least for me, over the last, I don't know, three, four, five years or so, we've had some very marked cases of that happening, right? We had one with a lady not too long ago, that I have been more greatly encouraged to take things to the Lord and pray and trust the Lord with it than I have ever been. How about you? But you see, I have to be involved in the prayer process. I have to be willing to pray and pray fervently that the Lord would move in this way. And yes, for those that God healed, they're the beneficiary of it. But you know, my faith was strengthened too. And my encouragement to all of us practically here at this point is if we want to have faith as a mustard seed, then we're gonna have to exercise that faith in very real and tangible ways. And I can't think of a better way to exercise your faith in a real, tangible, material way than to join us on Wednesdays as we pray for people. I've seen it. I've seen it in my life. I've seen it in other people's life. So you have to ask the question, what's more important, life or faith? Is that fair? Because we live in a world that is not waiting and is not silent. We live in a world where this is going on and that's going on and we got this happening, we got this requirement, we got this obligation, we got all kinds of stuff. So what's most important to us? You see, I want my faith in God, my unshakable faith in God to be a testimony in the world. Don't you? Don't we all want to be salt and light in the world? Don't we want to be known as a person of unshakable faith? I hope so. But it doesn't just miraculously show up because God has saved you. It doesn't just miraculously show up because you now are called a Christian. It's a discipline. We have to work through it. We have to exercise that faith. We have to work that faith out. And that's what was going on with the disciples in Matthew 17. They thought they had an association with Christ just because they were his guys. And Jesus is saying, but you just don't have the faith, the underpinning faith. You're blessing with your mouth, you're saying the right thing, but your heart is just not there yet, guys. Doesn't mean it won't be. Taking this lesson, hope you take this lesson. I can hear Jesus saying to his guys, now look, I want y'all to learn a lesson here. You can move forward, you can have faith like a mustard seed and even bigger. And you can do some things that are impossible. Matter of fact, they did, didn't they? Didn't the 11 disciples, plus the one they added, didn't they change the world? Right? 12, as we said this morning, ordinary guys, through their relationship in Jesus Christ and the work that he did in and through them, those 12 everyday guys changed not only the world, They changed history. Acts says that the scribes and the Pharisees were perplexed that these guys were uneducated guys. They're just everyday Joes. They're Joe the plumber, and yet they've turned the world upside down. They didn't start off with faith to move mountains. But they certainly grew into having a faith to move mountains. And if they did it, you can too. The question is, are you willing to? Which brings me to the last thing, number three. Our silence in waiting for God is the proof of a right estimation of just how little we can actually do. Our silence in waiting on God is the proof that we have a right estimation of just how little we can actually do. David comes back. Psalm 62, verse 5. David comes back. He's made that statement at the first that my soul waits in silence. He's talked about everybody around him who's not waiting and not silent. And then he comes back in verse 5 and he actually gives a charge to his own heart. He says, for God alone, oh my soul, wait in silence. It's hard to pick up on the phraseology, the difference in the English, but he challenges himself. He realizes that if I don't keep a watch over my soul, then I'm going to bless with my mouth and curse with my heart, okay? I'm gonna be in that boat like everybody else. So David, challenges his own soul to wait for God alone. No additives, not somehow trying to augment or make God's plan better, not trying to help God along, not trying to somehow make it, I don't know, more palatable to my world. He says, no, God and God alone. We pick it up in the Reformation as sole deo gloria, right? Sole deo gloria? For the glory of God alone, right? Are we actually living for the glory of God alone? I'm not gonna take a straw poll. You don't want me to, because if we were honest, we've got a lot of other agendas in there, don't we? We have, to some degree, a health, wealth, and prosperity agenda. We want to be healthy. We want to be wealthy. We want those around us to be healthy and wealthy. And there's nothing wrong with that, but are we really living for the glory of God? Would we still do what we do if we knew we were going to be broke as a tick? I'm not sure how broke a tick is. I've broken some ticks before, and that's not very pretty, but would we still do what we do if we knew that the result of it was that we were gonna be despised and rejected? Would we still live for the glory of God even though we knew that it was gonna be a life of being by ourselves? That there is no fit spouse in this world? for truly godly people? There seem to be very few. Are we still gonna live for God's glory even though the things that we want, our hopes, our aspirations, our dreams, are not gonna come true in this life? Would we still live for the glory of God alone, sole deo gloria? Or are we willing to compromise? We're gonna live mostly for the glory of God. Not only, but mostly. I'm gonna live mostly for the glory of God, but over here in this thing that's really important to me, I'm gonna live for my comfort and my security and what I want, but I'm mostly living for the glory of God. I'm mostly repenting of my sins, right? Do you think Christ buys that? Mostly repent? Nine out of 10, Jesus. I've repented of nine out of 10 of my sins. Okay, I'll go one better than that. I've repented of 9.5 out of 10 of my sins. That's mostly, isn't that good enough? I've trusted you mostly. We know that doesn't work, does it? We have to trust Him completely. We have to repent of all of our sin. We have to throw ourselves at Jesus' feet. And when we throw ourselves at Jesus' feet, when we come to Him just as I am without one plea, that thy blood was shed for me. When we come to that point where we are completely undone as Isaiah was, where we have no other hope, no other strength, can we come to Jesus and say, I'm gonna trust you mostly? If we're trusting mostly, then we're not broken and we're not to that point yet. For God alone, my soul, wait in silence. For my hope is from Him, David says. He only is my rock. He's my only security. He's my only strength. He's my only refuge. He's my only salvation. Do you see that in Psalm 62, five? My salvation, my fortress. And when I'm trusting in Christ in everything I have, if it's not just mostly, but it's absolutely, it's soul, it's only, Christ only, then David says, I will not be shaken. How many of us here want to live with the surety that tomorrow's gonna be okay? You know, we're in a season of time in our culture where I think there is a lot of doubt. There's a lot of fear about tomorrow. There's a lot of people who are being shaken. If you were to ask them, is everything going to be okay? I think for a lot of folks who call themselves Christians today, they would say, I'm not really sure. If we don't want to be shaken, then we have to wait on Christ and Christ alone without complaining, without griping, without whining. We have to exercise silence outwardly, but also inwardly. It is the greatest expression of our trust and faith in God to wait on him as a lamb taken to the slaughter, right? 1 Timothy 1, verse 12, I thank him who has given me strength. that is Christ Jesus our Lord because, Paul says, he judged me faithful in appointing me to his service. Though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ overflowed me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah. What a savior. Paul says, I didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it. But yet he called me and appointed me. He judged me faithful. Isn't that funny? You look at that text, and I wish I had time to go through it in some detail, but we don't. Paul says, he judged me faithful. And everybody goes, well, yeah, Paul, you're Paul. He said, yeah, but you don't know the Paul that I was before Christ got a hold of me. And he says, I was insolent, I was a blasphemer, I was a persecutor. I did all kinds of things. If there was a way to go against God, I found it and I did it and I invented some. And yet Christ found me faithful. And he appointed me to this service. I think Paul had a right estimation of himself, don't you? And we need to have that estimation too. We need, and not just as a mantra, but really to believe that, like Paul said, among sinners, I'm the worst. I'm confounded in my own life why I even stand before you today bringing the word of God, because if you really knew who I was, I shouldn't be here. God's put me here, Christ has put me here. And I forget myself many times. I think more highly of myself than I really ought to. And that's when the times the Lord chastises me and disciplines me and reminds me of just how bad I actually am, right? We gotta have a right estimation of ourselves. And waiting on God in silence helps us to see that, that I can't do it. If God doesn't do it, it ain't gonna happen. If God has not brought it about, it ain't gonna happen. And I'm trusting him that what he has promised he will do, that he'll do. And he'll do it in his timing, he'll do it with the people that he wants to do it with, he'll allow me to be part of it as he has already seen fit, and he's not gonna He's going to allow me to be part of it in exactly what He wants me to do, nothing more, nothing less. And when I begin greedy and I want more, then I'm stepping outside of His will. Right? Why can't I be everything to everybody? I don't think I really want to be everything to everybody, you know? But you know, sometimes that greed kind of gets in there. We like the notoriety. Preachers like notoriety. We like to be known. I'm just as known as God wants me to be known, and not one minute more or less, right? So who am I to complain? Who am I to gripe, to whine? I'm nobody. It's Christ who's given me strength. There's a story. And as I read the story, it really, it resonated with me personally. It's a story about a pastor, Dr. Stower. He was pastor of First Baptist Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma for 20 years or so. And he was talking to somebody one day and he said, look, I'll tell you a little secret. Three times a week, if I'm able to, I go into the church and I take a seat. Nobody there. Just sit down in one of the pews. Don't turn on the lights. Probably turn on the air condition, but that's a whole nother issue. And I just sit there. And I listen to the muffled sounds of the traffic outside and everything going on around the church. And he says, in my mind's eye, I begin to see the people who come in on Sunday morning. He says some are as if God was to be congratulated when they come in, that God ought to somehow be thrilled that they're there. There's some that chit-chat and chatter. There's some that chew gum. They come in like they're coming to the movies. Others have an air of strangeness, as if they had not been in the church for years. They feel uncomfortable. They're very hesitant. He said, but as I sit here and I just kinda, in my mind, see the congregation fill in, he says, there's a majority who come in, they're eager, they're members, they're glad to be there, they're the household of faith, those his words, and they're coming to their father's house. He said, I see those who have grown gray over the years since I first started ministering here, I see couples that I've married, I see their children, their children in the baptismal font. I see many I've known. I see many that I've shared the words, let not your hearts be troubled. I see those who call me pastor. I see those who call me pastor with a new understanding. There are those with good fortune and who are grateful for it and there are those with hurts that no one's ever known. There's a man and his wife whose home is a living hell, and the cause of it, that they've gained victory over it. They sent just a few pews from me. There are those who have known sin for a long time, been set free. There are those that are still struggling with it. And Dr. Stover says as he kind of surveys to the congregation, all the victories, all the pains, all the struggles. He says, and seeing this, I cry out to God, who is sufficient for these things? God, be merciful to me as sinner, save by grace. He says, as I leave my seat on those occasions, I find myself strangely free from the thorns of the flesh. His grace is sufficient, is what he says. It's not Dr. Stower any more than it's me. It's Christ. It's the grace of Christ in all our lives. It's the commitment to say, thus saith the Lord, but beyond the simple words, it is the strength and the power and the grace of God himself in you, in me. And as I was reading that story, I've done that. I've come in here at times. Even here, I've sat here. I've thought about each of you, where you sit. I've prayed for you. And I've walked away many times saying, How? How? How does this happen? How do we go from where we were to where we are? How is it that we've all grown together in grace over the years? It's Christ. But I guess my point in bringing that situation up is this, that that whole transaction Sitting here thinking about you, thinking about our church, praying for God's grace in our church is done in a moment of silence. No music, no message, just sitting, thinking about what God is doing in each of us. And I am so thankful for that. I'm thankful that you've entrusted me with this task for the last 17 years. I'm thankful that the Lord has been gracious to see us grow. I pray that God would continue to see us grow. I'm thankful for those moments of silence. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you, Father, that you've called us to this. We thank you that you have shown us that silence is golden. What sweeter time to sit at your feet in your presence, thinking about all that you have done. And Father, we ask that as we reflect upon what you're doing in each of our lives, that we would not be guilty of blessing outwardly but cursing inwardly. Father, would you convict and confront us with our doubt and our fears, our faithlessness? Would you stamp it out? Would you cut it off, remove it from us, that we might live faithfully and that our silence and perhaps in the worst of circumstances would be a testimony to the world around us that you have not forsaken us, you have not left us, you've not abandoned us, that you know exactly where we are because you've put us there and we recognize that. Help us in our moments of weakness, in our frailty, Strengthen us, Father, that we might walk and live with a faith much greater than a mustard seed, and that we would see you do the impossible. And Father, we pray that you would help us to be salt and light in the world, that we would call others to that same level of faith and walk and trust. We pray, Father, that you would fill this place with those that love you and are called according to your purposes. and that, Father, you would help us to go and find even more. Father, we thank you. We praise you. We glorify you. And we ask these things in your precious and holy name. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we ask. Amen.