Today I want to share a word about what God does as I comment on Psalm 17. Let's begin by reading Psalm 17:1-3.
Hear the right, O Lord, attend unto my cry. Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. Let my sentence come forth from thy presence. Let thine eyes behold the things that are equal. Thou hast proved mine heart, thou visited me in the night, thou hast tried me and shalt find nothing. I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
My father was a heavy truck mechanic, and his shop was always a fascinating place for me to go. I would often go in and see a tool on the workbench or on the wall and it would look like some kind of medieval torture device. To me it looked like a horrifying thing but when I'd asked my dad what it did, he had a very simple and understandable explanation and in fact what those things did what he needed to have done as he worked on a heavy truck.
If we were to ask the same thing about God what does He do then we will find some very good simple and straightforward answers for us in Psalm 17. As we first read in verses 1 through 3, we begin by seeing that His presence searches us.
What does God do? His Presence Searches Us:
God always comes to us when we call upon Him; we're never out of God's sight.
He never ignores us, and He always comes to be with us when we call.
He's not like the person that doesn't return phone calls or doesn't return text messages or start a conversation and then ghost you sometime later.
He is always attentive to us because He loves us and He created us. He wants to have a relationship with us but the thing about God is He knows our ways.
We're able to put up a front with people where we can build a facade like a Potemkin village or like those buildings along the main street at Disney World or Disneyland where they look like a three-story building, but they are really only a one-story building, and the upper two floors are just fake. They're facades and in fact they're shorter than a regular three-story building would be because they're not real.
They are fake and often we are fake; however, God sees through those facades in our lives. We can put on a good face at church or at work, but God sees through all of that.
He's like the person who built your home. They know the materials that went into their home. They know what's under the paint like a mechanic who knows what's under the hood your car. God knows us and he deals with us accordingly. His presence searches us, and he understands us.
The truth is, to deal with a problem you first must understand it. Only after you have understanding can you take informed actions. God acts in our lives with intelligence because he knows us.
I once was a pastor of a church that had a steeple that needed to be replaced.
This steeple had gotten old and had started to leak but, in fact, it really wasn't the steeple that was the problem. It was the installation. Some church members in previous generations of the church had installed it and not done well with it but we had to replace the steeple to solve the problem. One of the people who bid on the steeple for our church the new steeple was the same person who bid on the steeple in the first place.
He knew that job, he knew that structure, and he knew the needs of our church and so he was able to give us an informed bid.
By the way, he had advised the church to let him install it the first time, and he advised us a second time in the same way in the second time. That time we listened to his advice!
God's presence searches us. What else does God do? Psalm 17 verses 4 and 5 tell us that his lips speak to us:
Concerning the works of men by the word of our lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer hold up my goings in my past that my footprints or footsteps do not slip.
What does God do? Our God is a Communicating God:
Some theologians, called deists, believe that a creator God that exists who created our world, but once He spun it off into space, He backed away from it He doesn't have anything to do with it anymore. They believe in the creator God, but they don't believe in the sustainer God; that's not the God we find in the Bible, however.
Our God is the sustaining God of His creation, and He is not a silent God, but He is an active and communicating God.
I talked about my father before. My father could sit for hours and not speak to anybody and be perfectly happy. I remember many road trips where he would get in the car and start to drive. He wouldn't say anything until we got to the other destination, but unlike him, our God wants to speak to us. He wants to communicate with us, and He does that in many different ways.
One way He communicates is through nature. Romans Chapter 1 tells us that there's enough truth in nature to understand who God is and that He wants to relate to us. If also helps us to understand a certain level of righteousness.
He also communicates to us through his spirit that he puts in our hearts once we become Christians and the Bible also tell us that He communicates to us through angels. In fact, the next time we hear a communication from an angel it's going to be the trumpet sound that signifies that the end of the world has come or is coming and that we're going to meet with Jesus in the air.
In these days, however, He communicates mostly with us through His Word. He communicated to us with the Incarnate Word Jesus Christ during the time when Jesus was on the earth but now we have the whole counsel of the Word of God: Genesis through Revelation. That is how God mostly speaks to us today and as He speaks to us, He tells us of righteousness.
God tells us many things, but mainly He tells us how to relate to Him. In order to relate to God, we must be righteous, for God is righteous. God is perfect he cannot abide anything that is not perfect and so we must come to God on His terms not our terms.
- If we follow His Word, we can avoid destruction.
- If we follow His Word, we can avoid sin with its destructive results.
- If we follow His Word, we can avoid following men and their destructive habits.
- If we follow His Word, we can avoid the influence of Satan and his destructive purposes.
We all know the saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Prevention is always the best medicine, and we can prevent ourselves from falling into destructive ways if we would pay attention to the Word of God.
His presence searches us God's Word instructs us and communicates to us.
Also we now see in the next few verses that his right hand saves us.
I have called upon thee for thou wilt hear me O God incline thine ear unto me and hear my speech show thy marvelous loving kindness O thou that save us by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.
What does God do? His Right Hand Saves Us:
Even the best of people even the most righteous of people even the ones that walk closest to God will have bad days.
- Adam and Eve failed even though they walked with God in the cool of the day and saw him face to face.
- Noah failed after the flood.
- Abraham failed twice by calling his wife his sister and lying to the kings who granted him sanctuary.
- Lot failed. He offered his daughters to a perverted mob.
- Isaac failed. He also called his wife his sister (Like father like son I guess).
- Jacob failed who cheated his father and his brother.
- Moses failed. He first committed murder and then later, in an act of anger against God, hit a rock instead of just speaking to it. God prevented him from going into the Promised Land because of this disobedience.
- David failed and committed adultery and murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
When this happens to us, we need to be saved by Our God and it is His right hand that saves us.
Why is it important that it is his right hand that saves us? Right implies goodness and morality. Right implies honor and right and it implies righteousness.
When we trust Him, he will save us. We must turn to Him from our ways, however. We must seek His help. The Scriptures say that God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness when we confess our sins. When we seek His help He will help us.
So, God searches us with His presence. God communicates to us with His Word. God saves us by His right hand, and also, we see in verses 8 through 13 that He shelters us in His wings.
Keep me as the apple of the eye. Hide me under the shadow of thy wings from the wickedness that oppresses me from my deadly enemies who encompass about me. They are enclosed in their own fat. With their mouth they speak proudly. They have now compassed us in our steps. They have set their eyes bowing to the earth like as a lion that is greedy of his prey and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places. Arise O Lord disappoint them cast him down deliver my soul from the wicked which is thy sword.
What does God do? He Shelters Us in His Wings:
When we follow God what we find is that people will oppose us. They opposed Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. They opposed David. They fought them. They tricked them. They persecuted them and, according to Jesus, they'll do the same to us.
Jesus says that because they hate Him, they will hate us, and we can see the example of Peter and Paul and other disciples in the New Testament, all of whom faced opposition.
All of them who followed God in the Bible faced people who would try to defeat them and to try to overcome them. What tells us here though, is that God is will shelter His people in His wings.
Jesus said that He would love to shelter Jerusalem like a hen sheltered her chicks under her wings and gathers together her chicks.
God not only has masculine properties and qualities, but we need to see that he has some feminine qualities as well.
God is a complete God. He lacks nothing. He's not limited like we are. He's not afraid to be hard. He's not afraid to be soft. He is not afraid to be a warrior but He's also not afraid to be a nurturer. He's not afraid to be someone who plants and sows but also, He's not afraid to be someone who rips up what is sown.
Like a mother bird He hides us from danger. He covers us with His wings. He holds us in His hands. He hides us in His bosom.
Often, men think they have to be macho, but when you're a parent or when you're taking care of your elderly parents, or even when you're just dealing with employees at work or church members at church, men can be tender too, because God was tender, just like that hen that gathered her flock.
Finally, the last thing we see from the perspective of the Psalmist is that His likeness satisfies us.
Verses 14 and 15 say,
For men which are thy hand, O Lord, from the men of the world which have their portion in this life and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure, they are full of children and leave the rest of their substance to their babes. As for me, I will behold thy face and righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.
What does God do? His Likeness Satisfies Us:
Remember again, that God is a complete God. Because He is complete, we find all that we need in Him.
- We find structure and we find freedom.
- We find correction and we find affirmation.
- We find shelter and we find challenge.
- We find strength and we find meekness.
- He makes us complete.
In Christ we have access to all of who God is, and access to all of what God does. If we grow closer to Him, we will become more like Him. The more we are like Him the more complete we will be. We were created in the image and likeness of God and the more like Him we become the more satisfied we will be.
Paul learned to be complete and content in his situation because regardless of whether he had physical freedom or not or because of whether he had prosperity or not he had everything he needed in Christ.
We were made in the likeness and image of God and He has what we need, and He has what we enjoy.
You know a cow what does a cow need? A cow needs a pasture and a cud to chew.
What does a fish need? A fish needs a pond in which to swim.
What does a newt need? I had a friend who had a newt, and one day I asked him what a newt needs. He replied that a newt needs newt food. Who could figure a newt needs newt food?
We are people. We are made in the image and likeness of God and what we need to satisfy us above all things is God.
Conclusion:
From the Psalmist today we have seen what God does and we have to ask the question in God is there anything that we lack? The answer is nothing because if we are lacking all we need to do is seek Him and we will find Him. All we need to do is seek Him and He will satisfy us.
Will you seek God today?
Will you search Him out as He searches for you? Will you let Him do these things for us that He did for the Psalmist?
What does God do? He does many things, but what He wants to do is to bless us with a relationship with Him and be a blessed presence in our lives.
Will you let him today?
Every blessing,
Dr. Otis Corbitt
