David’s psalm invites us to worship the Lord with him. This is a wonderful call to worship. Are you part of a fellowship that will answer this call with you? This is a call that you cannot answer alone. You will need brothers and sisters who love the Lord as you do. Private devotions are life-giving, but they create a longing for worshiping together with others. Isn’t this the goal of the gospel? That there would be worshipers called out from every tongue and tribe?
Bible reading and exposition was a central feature of the worship of the returning remnant to Jerusalem. The sense of the Word so affected them that they began to weep. This is still the calling for today, that the Word of God would be read and clearly preached with a goal of understanding. The timeless principles of the Word are to be understood in context, carried across the “Bible bridge” and applied to today’s congregation in the power of the Spirit. The New Testament preacher is to be “devoted” to the public reading and exhortation of the Word (1 Tim. 4:13). In like manner, the members of the body of Christ are to be devoted to the Word as well.
Our existence is “from” and “for” God, the Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ. He made us for Himself. As Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” Do you know the One to whom you belong and for whom you exist? Come, and find perfect rest and purpose in Him.
David described how he felt when he had unconfessed sin in his life. Keeping silent about the sin, he felt a sense of heaviness and separation from the Lord. He suffered a kind of spiritual arthritis in his bones, so that his prayers turned into groaning as he tried to bend his stiff knees before the Lord. Yet when he acknowledged his sin, the Lord forgave him. God’s steadfast love surrounded him. Why did he wait so long to confess? Why not admit the sin as soon as he felt the Spirit’s conviction? Why wait for the spiritual dryness and heaviness before crying out to the Lord?
When Nehemiah heard the report about the broken down condition of Jerusalem’s walls, he fasted and prayed with weeping. As he poured out his heart to God, he reminded God to “remember” His Word. This seems a little strange doesn’t it? Asking the omniscient God to “remember” His own Word? Yet, many biblical prayers contain similar language. Like a child who goes to his father saying, “You promised I could have a cookie if I ate all my broccoli.” Nehemiah called on the Lord to remember His promise that if they returned to Him, He would “gather them and bring them” back to Jerusalem and make His Name “dwell there” again. Nehemiah called on God to remember His promise. The truth is, God loves it when His people repeat His Word back to Him in prayer. Of course, this implies that we know His promises, so that we are able to pray them back to Him. What promises are you asking God to remember?
When Paul wrote this to the Corinthians he was primarily addressing the problem of sexual sin that was so prevalent in their culture. Believers were to live differently than the culture around them. This was not a call to an outward asceticism, but a reminder of an identity change. They were no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to Christ. Their bodies were purchased by His blood and had become God’s holy temple where His Spirit dwelled. This word is as relevant today as it was then. We are no longer to be identified by our sexual orientation or sinful enslavement, for we have been bought out from under sin’s mastery. We have a new Master and a new identity in Christ.
It was reported to the apostle Paul that a man in the Corinthian church had taken his father’s wife and that the incestuous affair had not been addressed by the church. Paul instructed them to put the man out of the church for at least two reasons. One, the man was unrepentant and his ongoing sin was hurting the church. And two, the man needed to be corrected for the sake of his own sanctification. Paul used judicial language. They were to “deliver” the man outside the protection of the church where the Lord reigns, to the world for Satan to administer discipline of his flesh (his sin nature). Hopefully, the man would come to his senses after seeing the “destruction” that following the flesh would bring on him, and he would repent. Notice that Paul was not speaking of the man losing his salvation, but of losing his place in the fellowship of the church until he might repent, or until the Day of the Lord.
David knew what it meant to grieve a loss. Yet, he experienced the touch of the Lord that could change his “mourning into dancing.” Not just that his grieving was abated, but that it was replaced with abounding joy. Are you grieving a loss today? Bring it to Jesus. Leave it with Him. Let Jesus turn your mourning into dancing.
The word “ascribe” means to “give credit” or “recognize.” The Lord’s name is worthy of our recognition. We are to ascribe appropriate glory to Him. This call from David’s psalm is similar to the Lord’s Prayer which teaches us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name.” The first movement of prayer is the upward movement, we lift our eyes to the Lord, seeking His face. This moves us to consider the attributes of God. When we ascribe the glory due his name, we list His character traits and call on His many names as revealed in Scripture. When our view of God is thus enlarged, it moves us to worship and it reduces the size of our troubles in view of Him.
After contrasting the difference between the “natural man” and the “spiritual man” in chapter two, Paul addresses a troubling third spiritual category, the “carnal man” (“fleshly”). This person has received Christ as Savior (note Paul’s use of “brothers”), yet doesn’t yield to Him as Lord. Their behavior is not unlike that of the unbeliever. They do not desire to dig into the Word of God to be fed with meat, but want someone to bottle feed them with milk. They are divisive, jealous and hypocritical. Paul warns them of the coming Day which will expose their works. This is a miserable place to be spiritually, knowing the Lord, yet not fully surrendered to Him. They must stop being spiritual babies and grow up to maturity in the Lord.