This is the second sermon in our false sermon series called Modern Problems, Ancient Solutions. And here's the idea that we are very modern people. Let me give you an example. There's a book called The Age of Spiritual Machines by a man named Ray Crazile. He makes a number of predictions that for instance within 10 years it will be commonplace to have little computers embedded into our clothing and even into our eye glasses that will, for instance, write directly images onto our retina. He says within 30 years it will be commonplace to have billions of what are called nanobots. You know what those are? I never knew what they were. They're microscopic computerized robots that are really the size of blood cells. We'll have billions of these traveling through our bloodstream. They are there like little agents searching out pathogens with the net result really being that they bolster our immune system. They will also be able to communicate with each other through a wireless network inside of your body. And if that weren't enough, be able to communicate wirelessly to the internet so that when you are communicating with someone through the internet you'll not only be able to see them and hear them, you'll actually be able to touch them and smell them. Now I mean that's pretty sophisticated, very modern and futuristic, right? And yet isn't there irony in the title of his book, the age of spiritual machines because for all of this external technological sophistication that our culture brings to bear on our daily lives, the one thing that that technology cannot do is cultivate mature, seed, the spiritual stuff. So what we sense in our day is this widening gap, this great chasm that is building on the one hand, this great technological sophistication, but on the other hand, a starving soul and what will bridge that gap? And so what many people are turning to, and this is just of our study, is to not look to the presence or even the future to feed the internal side of our lives, but to look behind us way behind us to the ancient world, to ancient stages, poets, prophets, kings, and seek the great wisdom that they had, not because they were inspiring people but because they were truly inspired of God. And today we want to look at something that was written by one of the greatest, maybe the greatest human king that ever lived, King David. And not only was this guy a great ruler, but he was gifted as a poet, the psalm that you can read, Psalm 27, there's already read for us that I'm going to speak on, is something that he wrote that I think deals with one of the things that is symptomatic of that great chasm and that's the issue of stress. So what I want to do is have you either turning your bibles or hold your order of worship up in the Psalm 27, as we look at this first, thinking a little bit about what is stress and then what might be a remedy for it, what would be a good prescription to alleviate much of the stress in our lives. As you're doing that, let me just give you a few of the stats that will not be surprising to you, 43% of all adults suffer adverse health effects due to stress, 75% to 90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints or disorders. Stress has been linked to all leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis, and estimated one million workers are absent on an average workday because of stress-related complaints. I can keep going on and on and on, but you get the picture there, this is a great need. So what is it that David so many years ago could bring to bear upon this? Stress is something that you since David was feeling in this passage. One of the things you find in poetry, of course, is that it's oftentimes difficult to distinguish between figurative and literal, and I'm not sure we really need to, because we don't know the context in this song. We don't know the specific instance that's bringing to bear the difficulties that David is talking about, but that I think is helpful because it makes it much more easy to tailor this to your own life, because you describe the difficulties this way in verse 2 when evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall, and though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear the or break out against me, even then, will I be confident. Do you ever feel that way in life? Figuratively, maybe sometimes literally, that you've got these armies attacking you, surrounding you, and camping around you, shooting darts at you, firing at you, the dictionary defines stress this way, to be subject to pressures or strains, and I like this, a mentally disruptive or disquienting influence. It's like enemies attacking, right, and it can be of all different varieties. It can be relational pressure as well. In verse 10, David cries out, though my father and my mother first say to me, now most commentators say, it probably wasn't intended literally, but really to pick it up, and you use it as something else. Something happening, one of the things that you expect to happen is that the close relationships of your life are supposed to provide a safety net for you, right? Sort of like the flying trap he's on, as well as if they fall, you want a safety net there. And the intimate relationships of our life are to provide that force, the David is saying, what happens if that's not working, if that ain't fair? Then where do you turn? And I'm sure some of you feel that way. There was a old Billy Joel song that talked about this called pressure, and then if you all remember that, he said, you have to learn to pace yourself. Pressure. You're just like everybody else. Pressure. You've only had to run so far, so good, but you'll come to a place where the only thing you feel are loaded guns in your face, and you'll have to deal with pressure. See, that's exactly what David's talking about. These loaded guns in his face, in those days, it's those and arrows I suppose, it spears, but it's the various influences that this world, that Martin Luther calls in the hymn that we're saying at the beginning, with devils filled, all of this begins to press upon our life to create pressure, and what happens there. Now there's of course things about our culture that in particular, make stress stressful. And I think more than anything else, it's just, it's the advances of the devils, the case of life. When I send an email around to people saying, I'm going to preach on this series called Modern Problems, Ancient Solutions, what do you think is a modern problem? Do you know what the number one problem was that came back? Bizziness. Bizziness. It's just this accelerated pace of life, right? With wonderful inventions, like the internet, even automobiles and airplanes, how about outpatient surgery. I mean, these are great things, but what do they do? They just escalate, they increase the rate at which life happens. And it removes one of the barriers that people in ages past have had, and they even had to think about it, which is a question of time, another safety net. I just finished a great book, a biography on our second president, John Adams, and one of the things that impressed me over and over again, as I was reading about this, is how spoken things happen. I mean, particularly if he was overseas, it could take months for correspondence from President Washington to reach him. Why would things like this, why would that happen? What would that cost? It would cause there to be at least some removal of that pressure. It allowed your soul, the angst in your soul, to deal with it over a period of time, but that's removed in our day. And that means we're like, do any of y'all remember the cartoon, The Jetsons? Remember the beginning of The Jetsons, meet George Jetsons, you know, what's he doing? He's walking on his treadmill, and actually that's at the end of the show, and then what happens? Well, the treadmill gets out of control, and he's like, James, stop this crazy thing, you know, it's just going out of control, and that's what you begin to feel like in life, that stress, in a particular way, that our culture brings to us. And this contributes to physical debilitation as the statistics bear out, but also spiritually. When David cries out, the Lord is my light and my salvation. What is he saying? Well, these pressures that are assailing me have made me feel like I'm in the dark. By myself, if it were not for the influence of the Lord. So it's like, not only are there these enemies attacking you, but I'm blindfolded, and I'm bumping into walls, and I can't get out of this maze that I'm in. And one of the things that happens when we get stressed out is people get in our way. Right? I want to escape from the pressure that I'm in, and so when someone gets in my way, and what is it called on edge? Well, don't talk to the boss today, he's a little on edge, well, it's that he's stressed out, the pressures are there, he's in the dark, the enemies are attacking, and people get in his way. Well, what do you do with this? The first thing I think that we do in terms of a remedy is to be able to recognize what our natural inclination is, which is to escape. And of course, there are healthy diversions, this sermon doesn't cover everything by any stretch, and so things like exercise and developing a good, healthy hobby, these things are great, but the problem is, in our culture, living in a free, affluent, capitalist culture, it's like there is a veritable cafeteria line of options for us to escape. And the problem is many of them are tempting and alluring our soul and do nothing, but temporarily relieve that pain and then produce a further debilitation of the soul. And so we have to, instead of escaping and running away from these things, run in a right direction toward God. And I think that's one of the things you see in this passage. One of the things that impresses me about David is how active he is as he's going through the turmoil here. I mean, he's not sitting back and letting things happen. Look at the words seek. I mean, it's used repeatedly in this passage. And one thing I do, this is what I seek after, there's an intention here, there's a confidence that he's bringing to the table. Now I was discussing this past week with Mayo Thompson, who was a veteran of World War II, one of the leaders of that greatest generation. And Colonel Thompson told me this, he said, he win battles by movement. In fact, there was evidently an old artillery expression, you win battles through fire and movement. Do you ever heard that before? You know, people who sit back and let the enemy come to them tend to be defeated. But you must have a strategy, you must be to use a contemporary lingo proactive and have a posture that recognizes that the enemy is there present and at intentional attitude, that singleness of purpose. What David says, one thing I ask of the Lord in verse 4, it's a relentless pursuit. It's saying, look, I know everything is enclosing around you, but don't be passive. The best defense is what, a good offense, and that's what David shows us. And he shows us this in a couple of ways, to seek the way of the Lord. In verse 11 he says, teach me your way, O Lord, lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. The idea here is that you're sort of like an airplane that is flying through the midst of terrible fog, and there's turbulence to boot. You can't see anything if you're the pilot, and so you've got to fly strictly by the instruments. The Lord has given us instruments to navigate by. Like his word, die word, O Lord, is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path, right? This saw him itself. What is it? And so it reminds us that, like Paul told the Philippians, when you're anxious, pray in everything. That is, open up the communications lines with God. They're open from his name, but open them from your end and communicate with God, seek him in his way in your word, and recognize that while you appear to be in the dark, when you do, he does become your light and your salvation. So prayer and Bible reading and quiet time and things like this and going to church, they're not spiritual rabbits, but feet. It's not God if I scratch your back when you scratch mine, it's not that sort of pit for task. These are avenues of mercy. He cries out, be merciful to me, O Lord. These are avenues of mercy that God has opened up for us to pursue to seek the way of the Lord. You think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? I mean, imagine the pressure, the moment of stress that that was right before he would go to the cross. And so he cried out, Lord, let this cut pass, but not my will, but I will be done. And so what this is talking about is sort of a yielding to God, which is the most unnatural thing to do in a moment of stress and pressure, isn't it? I mean, you want to remain captain of your own state because you feel out of control and need your reaction as well. I better get back in control. And frankly, that's one of the reasons why people escape in unhealthy ways to gain control again. I mean, psychologists will tell you that's the primary issue behind eating disorders, for instance. And various other unhealthy state mechanisms to get back in control when you feel out of control. The scriptures say you can be, you can be aggressive, you can be in movement and yet lay down your hands at the same time to let King Jesus give you guidance and direction in control. But he goes further and he talks about seeking the face of the Lord. There's metaphorical language here. It's also in verse 4 when he talks about the half-order, the date of the theological kindergartener, he understood that being of the line of Judah, he could not dwell on the house of the Lord. Literally, that was for Levi's, for priests. So this is figurative language. He's basically saying, I want my life to be consumed with what being in the temple symbolizes, which is what? The presence of the Lord, the beauty of the Lord, the face of the Lord, but that does something to you when you come into the presence of the Lord in that way. According to our nation's Bureau of Standards, this is very interesting, I think. A dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of a hundred feet. Get how much water that contains. All right, that is a dense fog covering seven city blocks, depth of a hundred feet, it contains less than one glass of water. That's amazing. You and I, when we feel stressed out, it's that fog, and it seems immense, it can produce fear, anxiety, anger, bitterness, gotta be in control, because you can't see. And yet, we're fretting over less than a glass of water, comparison to the greatness of the presence of God. Some of you heard me talk about this before, but the word glory in the Old Testament, cobbled in Hebrew means heavy, the weightiness of the Lord, the grandeur and glory and weightiness of the great God of all the universe up against a low glass of water. He is able to bust through all the pressures of life and bring peace. What a stressed out person needs more than anything else is a grand vision of God. But the last thing that I want to leave you with is my favorite emphasis in this song. In verse four, he says, not just that he wants to dwell in the house of the Lord, but what does he want to do there? He wants to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. Now, he's not talking about revving your life up religiously or spiritually. He's not talking about adopting certain principles that are going to help you alleviate stress. He's saying that the enemies are assaulting as things seem dark, seek beauty. That's interesting. Now, you can think about this. Have you ever been stressed out, tunneled visions in your perspective and you run across something that's absolutely magnificently beautiful, a sunset? I asked my wife, what's the most beautiful thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word beauty, a sunset? And you just go, ah, it sort of takes the pressure off right here, doesn't it? It doesn't even have to be something physically beautiful. It could be music, an incredible song or book or play. Beauty is something that's like an anesthetic to our soul. It begins to extinguish those fiery darts. And what he's saying here is that you've got to begin to think of God. To you tend to think, when I say God, most of us think of God in very abstract terms. It's understandable. We don't see him, right? But he's saying come in to the temple of the Lord and seek his beauty and things will drastically change. It's got to be a relentless pursuit. It can't be just occasionally the little encouragement. Many of you, and this is a charge to members here. Many of you are here on Sunday morning, far too infrequently. There must be this regular, singular devotion to come into the presence of the Lord where the Lord is. And yes, you can meet with the Lord individually. But clearly, the pattern of the scripture in early church is, God is most present, most visible and therefore most beautiful and satisfying to our souls. When we gather together, when we break bread together, God is there. Now, the thing that I don't want you to miss here is specifically what happens in the temple by the tabernacle of the Lord. And you think, well, there was great hymns that were sung and various things like that. I'm not sure that did happen, but that question. But what was the primary thing that happened in the temple? It was a slaughterhouse. Is there anything beautiful about a slaughterhouse, sacrifice after sacrifice, killing after killing, all that death, all that blood, what's beautiful about that? It's only beautiful because of what it pointed to. What is most beautiful about the Lord is what we find in the book of Revelation, where all of the angels and elders and everybody is assembled before the throne of God. And what are they beholding and what are they worshiping? What John saw behold the lion at the tribe of Judah, the root of David has prevailed. And I beheld him and in the midst of the throne and in the forebeast in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as if it had been slain. If you have difficulty, as I do, making this concrete, making it truly meaningful, the beauty of the Lord, in such a way that it does extinguish those pressures, then maybe it's because we need to come back in a fresh way, some for the first time, but many of us in a fresh way to the fact that the Lord of God not only takes the way the sin of the world, but he takes the way your sin and my sin. And there is nothing more beautiful. Nothing more rapturous, nothing more healing and satisfying to a disquiet and soul. Saint Teresa of Avila, one of the great mystics of the Church, has a beautiful quote. She said, the first moment, talking about heaven, the first moment in the arms of Jesus, is going to make a thousand years on earth look like one night in a bad hotel.
You'll have the opportunity if you are a believer in Jesus Christ in a moment to come for it and receive what God has given a special place where you can meet with Jesus and it is a foretaste where Jesus, in essence, throws his arms around you and in doing that makes all the pressures, all together, nothing more than a bad night, one night in a bad hotel. Let's pray. Our Lord, you are beautiful. Beautiful because of your glory and weightiness and splendor, but most beautiful to us, because you were slain, Lord Jesus. Slain for our sin, that you might bring light and salvation to ourselves. Okay.