tick tock psalm 25 1 7

0:00 So, all that have been me, bless his holy name. I'm Joel Gregory, and it's good to be back this summer at the invitation of Reverend Dr. Ralph Douglas West, Sr. He's been so gracious to let me stand in for him a few Sundays. This is the 10th year for keeping time, and I thank God for Dr. West Hospitality and Trust to open this pulpit, thanking him very much. and I also praise God that this month I mark the 50th year of preaching the gospel. I started when I was two. I was very precocious.

0:52 I want to thank the pastor for helping to observe that right here this month. I want you to open the Word of God with me, if you would, to the 25th Psalm, Psalm 25. Haven't we been blessed by the men today in this chorus as they've led us in praise? Thank you, men. And the title of this message is Tick Tock.

1:26 Psalm 25, I'm going to be reading the first few verses. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in you. let me not be ashamed let not my enemies gloat over me indeed let no one who waits on you be ashamed let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause show me your ways oh Lord teach me your paths lead me in your truth and teach me for you are the God of my salvation. On you I wait all the day.

2:25 Remember, O Lord, your tender mercies and your loving kindness for they are from old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions. according to your mercy remember me for your goodness sake oh Lord living between the tick and the top would you be seated Back before there were digital clocks, some of you remember clocks actually made a noise. They went tick, tock. When you heard the tick, you knew the tock was coming. In fact, some of the digital clocks do that too, just to make you think they're really a clock.

3:26 Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub. Medical students learn that. When they put a stethoscope to your heart, they listen for what is described as a lub dub. And you hope when they hear the lub, they hear the dub.

3:53 Ding dong. Some of us grew up with old-fashioned doorbells. When you heard the ding, you knew you were going to hear the dong. And I know all of this is too simple and not sophisticated enough for some of you, so let me lift it up a little bit. Every 12 hours and 25, and it's the tides ebb, and then they flow. At a time really seen only by God himself, there's a moment when they've ebbed out as far as they go, and they start to flow back in. or the moon waxes and wanes. Crescent moon, quarter moon, half moon, full moon, and then there's that moment when it turns around and goes the other way. Tick, tock, lub, dub, ebb, flow, wax, wane. They all have something in common. When there's one, you can anticipate the other, but you have to live sometimes in between the tick and the tock.

4:52 One reason I like Psalm 25 is it is such an honest psalm along with all of the psalms. It gives you the tick and the talk of life. There's the tick, I lift my soul up, Lord. But then there's the talk, don't let me be ashamed. But then there's the tick, Lord, I'm waiting on you. But then there's the talk, I'm surrounded with enemies. There's the teak, God, remember me. But then there's the talk, don't remember my past sins. There's the teak, Lord, guide me. There's the talk, sometimes I'm so lonely, I don't know where I am. The church continues to love the book of Psalms because it is an honest record of the soul of people of faith. and what they'll tell you is sometimes life has a tick and sometimes it has a tock and sometimes you're caught in between.

5:55 There are some days that are bright and some days heavy with clouds. There are some days that are sweet and other days that are bitter. There are some days when the wind is at your back and life seems downhill and everything's okay and there's some days when everything seems uphill and the stinging wind is in your face. Tick tock. I want to take just a moment from this psalm to talk to you about how to live in between the tick and the talk. God's clock. Well, first of all, there's the tick. The psalmist begins this by saying, Lord, I lift up my soul to you. The psalmist is conscious that he is a soul. That is, there's an I inside the I. There's a me inside the me. There's a you inside the you. That is, you are more than just a blob of protoplasm or chemicals or calcium and water. And you know that every year they estimate the worth of a people based on the chemicals inside of you. I just read the 2014 estimate of what you're worth.

7:01 You've got $10 worth of oxygen and you're 14 cents worth of carbon, a dollar sixty worth of nitrogen and a few cents of helium added up it says a hundred and sixty but you know you're worth more than a hundred and sixty dollars because inside of you there is something called your soul the psalmist talks about it all the time why are you cast down within me oh my soul Psalm 23 restore my what soul and he talks about lifting things up. In Psalm 28, I lift my hands up to you. In Psalm 123, I lift my eyes to you. Here, he is a soul surgeon. He takes it out and says, God, I lift this up to you because I need it to be filled up again. Let me tell you something about life.

7:52 It takes a toll on your soul. Souls diminish. They digress. They decline. They can almost be demolished and it happens insidiously. You go to sleep at night and you dream. Even your dream can diminish your soul. You wake up in the morning, you put your bare feet on the cold floor, and anxiety attacks you before you ever get out of bed. It takes a chunk out of your soul. You go downstairs, there's a table full of bills. How am I going to pay them? Your toll takes a hit. You open the front door to get the paper for the morning. You unwrap it, you read the headlines, and there your soul is diminished again. You go to a workplace where there are demands on you that are unreasonable or people beneath you who will not help you, and your soul declines some more. You say, well, I'm going to go home and at least try to relax a few minutes and watch some sports, and then even that can take a chunk out of your soul. Our souls can decline.

8:50 You need to understand, like this psalmist did, I've got to lift up my soul so God can restore it. It's interesting how many things can be inflated today. You know you can buy an inflatable church? Look it up. You can buy an inflatable pub. You can easily buy an inflatable television. There's an American performance artist named Christo who made the biggest inflatable thing in history. He made it over in Germany just to say, I blew up the biggest thing that was ever blown up. But you know, everything that can be inflated can also be deflated. Our souls get deflated. And the psalmist begins with this, I'm lifting it up, Lord. Let me tell you something, you cannot restore your own soul. Nor can anybody else restore your soul other than God himself.

9:46 The most complicated restoration surgery today is a face transplant. fascinating Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston Massachusetts have been transplanting faces. A man named Dallas Ween received the first one several others have received them it takes the most skilled team of surgeons they can assemble to transplant a face but I'll tell you something that no human artifice or dexterity can do it cannot restore your soul only God. And let me encourage you every day to lift it up to him and say, God, this morning, restore my soul. The psalmist begins with the tink. Restore my, I'm lifting it up, Lord. But here comes the talk.

10:40 This psalmist, getting his soul restored, remembers why he needs it restored. This psalmist is surrounded by enemies. He's got a lot of haters. Look at verse 2. Let me not be ashamed. Let not my enemies triumph over me. Even as God is restoring his soul. There's a talk. I've got some haters around me. In fact, he's very conscious of this. In the remainder of this psalm, he says in verse 15, They're putting a net around his feet. That is, they're laying traps for him. In verse 19, look at my enemies for they are many and they hate me with a cruel hatred. Here's somebody who even as he lifts his soul up to God, tick, there's this talk. He's conscious that he has some haters.

11:38 Now it may be that only one of you and I are the only one who've ever had any haters. But just in case there's a few others of you, let me let you into what the psalmist has to say about this. There are those who are watching him. It is not a matter that he'd be ashamed privately or personally or inwardly. No, the psalmist says, they're watching me so that they can publicly humiliate me. Why would they want to do that? Well, verse 11, for one thing, the psalmist honestly says, pardon my iniquity, for it is widespread. This psalmist has slipped. He's left a track record. And it may be that some of those haters are out there with smartphones taking a video of him last night. And when they catch him at his weakest moment, they're going to post it so everybody will see what kind of person he really is.

12:37 But I think there's something more profound than that here. When the psalmist speaks, God, don't let me be ashamed. What he means is, Lord, don't let unbelievers around me say, God didn't come through for me. Oh, yeah, that's what he means. Here they are. Oh, he goes over there to the church without walls every Sunday. She gives her time. He serves over there. Seemed like every spare moment over at the church house. There they are listening to Dr. Webb. And they circle around like vultures saying, There you were. God didn't come through for you. That's what the psalmist is worried about. Tick! I'm lifting up my soul, but talk! I'm surrounded by folks. One of the most famous sermon illustrations ever. If I say the name Horatio Spafford, most of you have heard this story a hundred times.

13:37 Horatio Spafford, a lawyer in Chicago, 1871, lost everything he had in the great fire. 1873 sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to England. You've heard it. There out in the Atlantic, the Ville de Havre, their ship collided with the English, very lucky, and 12 minutes it sunk. All four of his daughters drowned. His wife was saved alone. they sailed back out to that place and he wrote the famous hymn it is well you know that story but that's only part of the story you see for much of the rest of the life he was surrounded by haters they said there must really be something wrong with Spafford if he lost everything in the fire and all four kids were and then he had a little boy named Horatio after that and the boy died with scarlet fever.

14:36 And even some people in his church began to say, wonder what's wrong with Spafford. Let me tell you, worse than that. Xchristian.net, a website. You can go to it and even 130 years later an ex-Christian is saying, look! God didn't come through. Look what happened to Spafford. What the psalmist meant was I've trusted you, God. Well, thank God not only does every tick have a tock, every talk has a tick. And look what he said. Let no one who waits on you be ashamed. Let me tell you the best thing to do with haters, be one of God's waiters. and say, Gregory, you don't know how mean my haters are. Oh, I know about some mean haters.

15:33 Let me tell you about haters. You say waiting sounds so passive. When the going gets tough, the tough need to get up going. No, waiting is not passive in the Psalms. It means active, vigilant, keen, watchful, waiting that God is going to act. It's not passive. It means keeping your eye on him because he is going to act. It's the waiting of a sentry posted outside the troops, vigilantly watching the perimeter. It's the waiting of a mother watching a sick child all night long. It's the waiting of a farmer out in West Texas in that drought, scanning the clouds to see if there's any rain on the way. It's active waiting. Let me put it this way. It's being a dog Christian and not a cat Christian.

16:24 Some of y'all are looking at me funny. Here's what I mean. You feed your dog, pat your dog, love your dog, house your dog, and your dog looks at you and says, you must be God. you feed your cat pet your cat house your cat and you know what your cat says I must be God We got to sleep, dude. That's why dogs have a master and cats would like an entourage. They can't help it. No, no, we have a little dog. That little dog, that little dog. When we leave that little dog, literally, we've got a camera, watch the dog while we're gone, waits by the door until we come back. Vigilantly, every sound.

17:21 Is this Joel and Joanne coming back? At night when we sit down to look at television, that dog is over there. If we move, that dog moves. That dog looks at us waiting for us to do anything. Do you understand that there are dog Christians and cat Christians? The psalm is talking here about a dog Christian. Somebody who vigilantly says there's haters, but I'm going to be one of God's waiters. In fact, he even invites God to keep an eye on his enemies. Look, look, look at verse 15. I put a bombshell by this. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. This psalmist has a sense that his enemies are laying secret traps for him.

18:17 Some of us have experienced that planting plotting. Here it is, midnight, the moonlight filtering through the leaves of the tree. you can't tell, is that a leaf or is that a net? Is that a stick or is that the trigger to a trap? I can't tell. So the psalmist says, I'm going to keep my eyes on the Lord. Now look what he says in verse 19 to the Lord. Lord, you look at my enemies. Now here's a wonderful covenant to make with the Lord. I'm going to keep my eyes on you while you keep your eyes on them. Let me tell you something. You cannot watch your enemies close enough. Anybody here remember cottonwood trees? They're poplar trees. They're out in the country here in Texas. They have seed pods that are like puffy clouds.

19:21 This season of the year, they blow off the tree and they carry the seed. It's like a big puffy cloud, a cotton ball. And if you ever try to reach out and catch one, it blows into a hundred little ones and they go everywhere. You can't catch cottonwood. And let me tell you something, you can't catch your enemies either. Reach out and try to get them. They'll just spread out. Two and a half decades ago, 25 years ago, I had a season, an epoch, an era. a time, a spell, whatever you want to call it, where I had vindictive, vicious, venomous enemies. I tried to catch up with them. That'll give you more blood pressure. They're like cottonwood. I had to learn I'm going to keep my eyes on the Lord, and the Lord will deal with them. Now let me tell you something about that.

20:14 I don't wish anybody ill. I pray for my enemies, as Jesus said, but let me tell you what God can do. God, some of them who tried to shame you, they wind up in a bunch of shame. Keep your eyes on God. He'll keep his eyes on them. Some of them have just gotten taken out. Some of the haters have gotten so old they're just too tired to hate anymore. But let me tell you something else. Let me tell you what God can do. Let me tell you what he can do for you. He can use the very people who are haters to make other people love you. keep your eye on him let him keep his eye on them tick tock uh oh here comes the talk this is so true to life tick I'm lifting up my soul talk I've got some enemies tick I wait on the Lord uh oh talk Well, verse 11, right in the middle of this psalm, is 22 verses.

21:19 It's an acrostic psalm in Hebrew. Every verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Aleph, Beth, Gema, A, B, C, we would say. Right in the middle of it, the pivot of it, he remembers, Oh God, for your namesake, forgive my iniquities because they are widespread. this psalmist when he thinks of the haters around him says ah God I'm waiting on you but I've got widespread sin behind me this psalmist has left a track record the Hebrew word literally says my twistedness is widespread my iPhone has one of those little apps on it that you can say what's around me and it'll pop up everything around you. If the psalmist had put in that, there'd be sin everywhere.

22:18 He's just telling the truth. He lives between the tick and the top. Here's my soul. I'm surrounded with enemies. I'm waiting on you, but oh God, there's not just stuff around me. There's stuff behind me. In fact, in verse 7, he looks back and he says, Do not remember the sins of my youth. Literally, it means my young adulthood. The psalmist is getting older and crowding into his memories in the middle of the night. As he thinks of lifting up his soul, he thinks of the sins of the past. Sometimes I hear people testify. Say, don't go where I used to go. Don't do what I used to do. Sometimes I think, yeah, you just can't get there anymore and you couldn't do it if you did. Mmm. The psalmist is honest. He says, God, don't remember.

23:22 Isn't that the call of every one of us? But I'm not going to stay with that talk. That talk needs a tick. And let me tell you what the tick is. It's the best one of all. In verse 6, he says, Lord, I want you to remember your resume. Look at your curriculum vitae. Have you seen your own biography? Remember, O Lord, what kind of God you are. You're a God of tender mercy. It's a wonderful word. The Hebrew etymology literally relates to the word womb, W-O-M-B. At your heart, Lord, you feel about me like a mother feels about the one who came out of her. Whoa. Remember, you're that kind of God. Aren't you glad that God's a God of tender mercy? Oh, I've had some of that tough mercy stuff. Well, I'll forgive you, but I'll never forget.

24:28 No, he's a God of tender mercy, loving kindness. And then the psalmist said, remember your resume God. You're a covenant keeping God. It's that word, the wreath, covenant in Hebrew. That is, even though I may forget you, you'll never forget me. so God I don't want you to remember my sins but God remember your resume one of the sweetest words in this psalm is the last words in verse 6 remember your mercy and loving kindness because they are of old it's if he said God have you read your autobiography recently you're that kind of God Our first parents, Adam and Eve, you told them one thing, just one thing, don't do it. And they did it anyway.

25:25 Remember God, you killed an animal and covered them. God, if you'd cover them, remember me. He's reading God's own resume. You understand God? Here's Abram. You called him out of earth, the father of all of those who have faith. And yet when he got on to Egypt and Pharaoh cast his eye on Sarah and put her in his harem, Abraham lied. And he said, she's my sister.

25:53 But then God, you let him come back to Bethel. You took him back to the house of God. God, remember me. Oh, here's Rahab. We know what Rahab's business card said. Rahab ran a house of prostitution in a Canaanite city. Not only was she not a Jew, she was a Canaanite prostitute. The madam of the house. And yet when the Hebrew spies came to her, told her about God, she believed and wound up in Hebrews chapter 11. Do you know what the psalmist is saying? God, if you can remember a Canaanite prostitute, God, remember me. Here's David.

26:40 We all know whose picture was on David's Facebook page. Bathsheba killed her husband in order to get her and cover it up, and yet God forgave him. Do you know what the psalmist is doing? He's saying, God, read your own resume. I'm pleading with you, God, forget my sins. Please don't remember them, but remember me. Uh-uh-uh. There's a tic to this talk. Yes, verse 11 says, It says, best of all, for your name's sake, God, pardon me. You need to drop your anchor there. He's saying, God, your very name is at stake in pardoning me. Matthew 1.21.

27:33 Joseph is heartbroken because of what's happened to Mary. He doesn't know what to do. You remember what God said? No, no, no, no. She's going to have a baby and call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Now, did you hear that? God's name is involved in that. Jesus. Jesus. Write that on the birth certificate, Joseph, because he will save his people from their sins. If you turn to God and say, remember me. The name of his son is at stake. That's why the gospel is good news. Church, isn't that what you want at the end of the day? God, remember me. Here I am, this tiny, fragile, sinful, mortal, failing creature.

28:34 living between the tick and the talk. God, remember me when I hear a noise at night and I don't know what it means. Remember me when I'm so lonely that you could put my picture in the dictionary by the word lonely. Remember me when I'm so tempted. I shake with the temptation. God, remember me. Lord, when I'm up in the air 39,000 feet, turbulence hits a jet and even the flight attendants begin to cry. Remember me! Lord, when I'm in some distant city all by myself, remember me! When I'm in a little pale green room waiting for a doctor to come out with a diagnosis, remember me! When all of my friends have gone, God, I need you to remember me!

29:29 My mother and father are gone, they're with you, remember me! When people walk down the other side of the street and avert their eyes, remember me. Myrtle Jackson, the great gospel singer of Chicago, said, remember me when tears are falling down. Remember me when trouble's all around. Way down yonder on the Jordan when calling the roll, remember me. I'm going to tell you he's the kind of God who will remember you between the tick