Fear the Lord

Good morning. Well, as you heard that psalm, it is different than many of the psalms we've been studying together. And we're really looking at two topics this morning, death and money. And just as I see some facial reactions here, it's been fun telling everyone this week who I can see that I'm, that's worth discussing because the response has been somewhat humorous. Really? That sounds like fun. I wanted to take a moment in delighting God's Word and God addresses our greatest needs. God addresses and He does not shy away from the topics that we need to hear about. And to hear about His wisdom concerning. So this morning we're looking at these two topics, death and money. And they make us feel uncomfortable and that really shows how important they are, aren't they? We don't really like to dwell on death. We think, you know, someone's morbid if they just constantly think about death, but death is something we have to think about, especially in light of God's word, because today we're gonna get to rejoice as we think about death from God's word, I hope. Money is also a very, well, popular topic in scripture. Just read through Luke, it's one of Luke's favorite topics to draw out in Jesus' teaching. Both of these are extremely important for us to understand. Death. We will all die. How are we living in light of that truth? Money. It's something that's necessary, but there's a limit on what money can do, and that's really what our psalm gets to. Now you may be thinking there, you know, you may have some objections as to why you feel like you need to listen to a sermon on death and money. So I just want to kind of walk through some possible objections. You might think, I'm too young. I don't need to hear about death, I'm so young, I'll think about that later. No, the younger you are, the more you need to realize you're setting patterns right now on how you're going to live your entire life. If you think, I'm a college student, I don't need to worry about death, I just need to finish my classes. No, you're setting patterns that are gonna determine how you'll live which may determine how you phrase death. You may think I'm too busy. Well, I'm too busy to think about death. Well, this is exactly what you need to stop and think about. What are you so busy doing? And are you actually too busy to really consider what is the right life to be living? And are you too busy to think about the focus and goal of money? Are you making an idol? Are you so busy seeking to make money you're not really living life? Maybe it's fear. Maybe you're just terrified of the idea of death and you want to avoid it. Or you're terrified of the topic of money because of debt. Well, again, we need to hear these things from God's Word so that He can relieve our fears and bring a balm to our discomfort. This morning we're looking at Psalm 49. You've heard it read. And I want to point out, we've been going through different kinds of Psalms, so if you're new with us, we typically choose a book of the Bible and we go section by section or chapter by chapter. Psalms are different. There's 150 of them. These are God's songs that he has prescribed for us to sing to him. They're ways for us to respond in circumstances. And we've done psalms of praise, teaching us how to praise God. Songs of lament, where we learn how to cry out to God in difficulty. Well, this is a unique kind of psalm as well, a different kind of psalm. It's a wisdom psalm. I hope you saw that in the first section there, verses one to four. He's going to speak wisdom, verse three. The meditation of my heart shall be understanding. It's a wisdom psalm. It's seeking to give discernment. Look at the last verse. Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, is like the beast that perished. It's warning us. We need wisdom. Wisdom for all people. It's very much like Ecclesiastes. Only it's a psalm to sing. If you're looking for kind of that one line, that one declaration about what we're looking into today, it's this. God alone can rescue us from death. God alone can rescue us from death. That climactic moment in verse 15. But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol. He will receive me. God alone can rescue us from death. As we walk through our psalm, I want us to begin in verses one to four. The heading here is what every man needs. What every man needs. And you can see the universal appeal. Hear this, all peoples. This isn't just for the Israelites. Every nation every race every ethnic group every both genders all peoples Everyone who inhabits the world low high rich poor together God is giving wisdom hear this listen My mouth shall speak wisdom my meditation my heart shall be understanding. It's for all people And then I love the, I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre, and if I had any musical talent, I would try to sit on a stool and try to strum it out, right? I'd try to strum out the sermon, but I can't do that. Actually, this verse reminds me of Kenny Rogers. I can't stop thinking of Kenny Rogers singing the Gambler here. Someone who gave a wisdom song to us. Now, if you think Kenny Rogers, the Gambler, is about a poker game, you're not getting the song. But this is an example of this from our own culture. This is a great wisdom song. You gotta know when to hold them. You gotta know what to hold on to. You gotta know what to throw away. You don't count your money. The best you can hope for in this life is to die in your sleep. That's what our culture's wisdom song tells us about death. The best you can hope for is to die in your sleep. Praise God, we've got a much better message that we get to hear from God's song today. Wisdom and understanding, they're being given to all people from God and it's about life, death, and money. Now as we think about wisdom, I wanna back out a moment and just recognize foolishness comes from within us. We are responsible for our foolishness. We have our conflict because of our sin, James tells us. We have confusion based upon our inability. But James 1 tells us, wisdom, it comes from outside of us. It comes from above. It's a gift of God given to us from the perfect giver. God is eager to give. All we have to do is ask. Single-minded. God is a giver of wisdom. It comes out from outside of us. And so as we're approaching this wisdom Psalm, I'm just challenging us. The application is right now, we need to prepare ourselves. What is God going to tell us about our approach to money, our view of money, our use of money? What is God going to tell us about death and how we need to be prepared for it? What is God going to tell us about life and how to live it? You know, usually when someone's speaking, depending on the person, we're always evaluating what they're saying. Like right now, you're evaluating what I'm saying. When God speaks, we don't evaluate what He's saying, if it's right or wrong or true. No, we don't test it. That would make us God. No, when God's Word speaks, when we hear the Word of God, we sit under it. We don't weigh it. We don't test it. No, we're asking God, test us according to your word. Let your wisdom come down and show us our foolishness. Let your wisdom come down so that we might live the life that you've created us for because you're the God of life. So here as the psalmist is calling out all peoples, all inhabitants, that's all of us. Let's prepare ourselves to hear this word. So let me give us a short prayer. God, we praise you. That you're not a God who remains silent as you watch us in our foolishness and sin, but you've spoken and we come asking that you will purify us with your word. We ask help our unbelief, help us to not be so double-minded as we ask you to Change our minds, our hearts, our words, our actions. Change us. Give us your wisdom, Lord, and the grace to follow it. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So first we see what every man needs, wisdom. Our next section actually focuses on what man cannot do. That's our heading for verses five to nine. What every man needs was one to four. What every man cannot do is next. And our psalmist, he actually begins by referencing a very classic problem in the Bible. He makes the observation, the wicked seem to be prospering. How come the bad people have so much money and how come the bad people are given the kind of power and wealth they need to make my life more difficult? He's asking a question. Why are the wicked accumulating all the wealth? And he actually, it's a theological question. If God is righteous, why do the unrighteous prosper? It's a theological question because he realizes whatever is happening, it is according to God's sovereignty. It's happening underneath his sovereignty. And so it's a great question to be asking, as we might feel there's folks who are rising in wealth and power, and they're wicked. And we wonder, why is God letting this happen? Now, he gets to the real problem, and he's really counseling himself. Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the wicked prosper? And then he starts telling himself what he needs to be thinking. Truly, verse seven, truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life. So he's realizing, okay, the wicked, they're growing in wealth, but that wealth has limits, doesn't it? The power of man has real limits. What man cannot do, verse seven, truly no man can ransom another. to give to God the price of his life. For the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit. I ask you as we think about this, what's the price tag for life? How much does life cost? What is life worth? Or actually we're discussing here is the ransom of life from death and sin causes death. So what does sin cost? What's the price tag for life? What is the price tag for sin? Let's lay the theological groundwork for verses 7 to 9. God made every human being, every inhabitant of the world whom he is speaking to right now in this psalm, he made each one in his image. That means we all have a special status. Every human being, just look around. Look around, look at each other. You all have that different status, that same status, with dignity and honor. It's not just something I have, it's what we all have, and it means all peoples, every race, ethnicity, nationality, tongue, the genders. So we have a status, but we also have a purpose. We exercise dominion, and this will be very important very soon. We exercise dominion over all the rest of creation. We're called to worship the creator. We have been given great abilities, gifts, and talents to complete the purpose that God's given to us. But here's the problem. We chose to take all the things that God gave us and to serve our purposes rather than God. We decided we did not want to take all the things He's given us to worship Him and to keep His order. We decided we could probably do it better. And therefore, we embraced foolishness and cast off wisdom. It'll be very clear, the status of the image of God, it continues even though we've sinned. And the purpose of the image of God, it continues even though we've sinned. It's actually pretty amazing what we have the ability to do. We've sailed across the ocean. We presumably landed on the moon. We've performed successfully open heart surgery. These are just a few things. Just think about the abilities God's given to us. It's amazing how He has equipped us, given us gifts, talents and abilities to do things that are remarkable. Think about if we actually use those gifts for his purpose, for his glory, to bring about his dominion. What's actually amazing is not what we can do, but what we should be doing. We could be seeing the face of God in worship. That's what we were created for. What God's given to us is amazing. Now one thing we cannot do, we'll never be able to do is escape sin. We do not have the ability to pay the price for our life and to pay the price for our sin. Let me be very clear, our lives are too precious for any kind of purchase from other men. Verse seven, truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life. If we just think about this historically, this is what makes the slave trade just gross. Paying to own human beings, putting a price tag on somebody based upon what you think they'll be able to provide for you and your plantation, that's gross. To put a price tag on someone made in the image of God, or even, Very likely, many of them were purchased with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. To put a price tag to own that human being? We look at that and we say it's gross, and that's exactly what our son was saying. Who can put a price tag on how precious life is? Man ownership is out of bounds for humans. Secondly, our sin is too great. We cannot outdo our bad with good. We cannot pay our way out of sin and its consequences. What can wash away my sin? Human beings have not come up with the currency to actually pay the debt for our sins, and we cannot. It's arrogant to think that we can somehow stop sinning long enough to actually undo all the sins we've committed. That's just more sin. We've just created more of a problem. Yes, money can buy us comfort, money can provide us safety, money can provide us many things, but it does not take the punishment that we should receive because of our sin and death. The goal is to live forever. If man lacks the power, money is not the currency, well, how do we get life? Thankfully, our psalmist is here to give us that answer. The first point was what every man needs. The second, what man cannot do. And so, praise God, we come to the third point. What only God can do. Verses 10 to 15. What only God can do. All kinds of people die, wise people die, stupid people die. That's what verses 10 and 11 said. Actually, 11, there's three lines to it. We've been looking at parallelism, that's how Hebrew poetry is written, usually two lines that say the same thing. Verse 11 is a three line. It's three-line poetry. Notice the first two lines pretty much say the same thing. Their graves are their homes forever. They're dwelling places to all generations. So they're saying that they're going to be in their grave for all time. They say the same thing. And then the third line, it shows the irony. Though they called lands by their own names. Even though they had the wealth and the power to name a place after themselves, their dwelling place forever is death. The riches, the power of man cannot solve that problem. Then we look at verse 12. That's a key verse. It gets to the arrogance. Man in his pomp will not remain. He is like a beast. He's like the beast that perish. He will not remain in his palm because when he dies, he'll face God, the true, great, glorious God, and his arrogance will be revealed to him. We cannot be arrogant face to face with God. There's a mockery here. He's going to be like a beast. We were created in God's image. We were created on the sixth day with the beast. But with that sixth day, we were a special creation. God didn't just speak us into creation. He formed man from the dust. He breathed his own life into man. There's supposed to be something unique, special about us. But in our pomp, we lower ourselves to being like beasts. In our foolishness, we take on a status lower than ourselves. Look at verse 13. This is the path of those who have foolish confidence. Yet after them, people approve of their boast. There's nothing like a confident fool. Someone who's just committed to their foolishness and there's no talking to them, and of course, they always have an entourage. That's the second part of verse 13. The important thing about being confident in your foolishness is you've gotta find somebody who's going to help you be confident in your foolishness. All right, verse 14, this is terrifying. Like sheep, they're appointed for shale. Death shall be their shepherd. And the upright shall rule over them in the morning. Well, let's think about that one line there. Death shall be their shepherd. Death is personified. And given it a ruling authority for those who who have the pomp to remain in their arrogance who do not listen to this wisdom Death will shepherd them death will watch over them and protect them from life death will have a rule Think about the contrast here with Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd. Even though I walk the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. How sweet that is! Contrast to your grave will be unto all generations. Death shall shepherd you. Destruction, you will know all the days of your life. There's two ways to live, there's two ways to die. Either death shepherds you and you remain in destruction forever, or the Lord shepherds you and you reign with life. Now we get to the glory of the passage. Verse 15. But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive. You see, we've talked about what man cannot do, that's verse seven. Truly no man can ransom another. And then we go through how death is imminent, death is scary, death is dangerous. We get to verse 14, their forms shall be consumed in Sheol with no place to dwell. There will be no comfort that will be undone. And then verse 15, but God, he changes everything. But God will ransom my soul from the power that's more powerful than me of Sheol. He'll receive me. Now, the key change here is, but God, right? He stops what's supposed to happen, and He brings about a different action. But God, He interferes. We were dead, but God makes us alive. This is very similar to Ephesians 2, one to 10. But here we see God will ransom. Let's think about this word ransom. What does it mean to ransom? Well, ransom is simple. When somebody has taken something that belongs to someone else, they say, I'll give it back to you for this price, the ransom. So if a pirate kidnapped me or captured me, he'd say, all right, you got to pay his ransom. Sorry, anytime you can impersonate a pirate, you should do so. But the ransom, it's a price you have to pay to free someone who's been taken captive. We weren't created for life. We weren't created for death. Death is not the way it's supposed to be. One of the most amazing passages in scripture is when Jesus is going to the memorial service for Lazarus. The shortest verse in all Scripture. Jesus weeps. The God who created life. The God who is going to rise again from the dead. The God who knows he's going to call Lazarus out of that grave. He weeps for that moment, seeing death, its consequences, and the pain. Death is painful. It's not the way it's supposed to be. We were created for life. We are taken in the power of sin to death where we're not supposed to be. So God says, but God, I'm going to rescue you. Now God is going to have to pay a ransom. So we have to ask, who does he pay? Who holds the power of Sheol? And Sheol here, I believe, is referring to hell. So verse 15, a ransom is a payment, a payment for a person, and it's a ransom from the power of Sheol. So who has this power? Now, the early church got confused on this point. Starting with origin in the third century, they began to teach that God makes a payment to Satan to free people from hell. Now, I think he's wrong, but I kind of appreciate where he's coming from. Satan was the first tempter. Satan led them into death. Satan is connected with hell and deceit and in the power of sin. So I appreciate some of the theology that went there, but I think the main problem is, is that if God has to pay Satan, does that make Satan more powerful than God? Or more so, we can look at 1 Corinthians 15 that teaches on this very topic in relation to the resurrection. Paul tells us that the sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. You see, death has a sting to it because we rebelled against God. The sting of death is that we will have to face a God and we will have to come face to face with what we have done and not done in light of His glory. The power of the law, the power of sin is the law. God is the one who's given us commandments. We've broken those commandments. Our sin debt isn't against, it's not with Satan. Our sin debt is against God. The power of Sheol, I believe, is in God's power. Now, this is where it gets a little confusing. God pays a ransom to himself to free us. Now, if you're not a Christian, I appreciate that that might sound a little confusing. But this is the truth of the Christian gospel. God pays a ransom to himself to free us from a forever destruction in the grave. Now, let me explain why that makes sense to us as Christians. We're gonna need to start with God is perfectly righteous. God has given perfectly righteous rules and expectations for us, and we have rebelled against them. And God, as a perfectly righteous God, must punish sin. When we're sinning against, we love the God who is perfectly righteous and punishes all sin. The problem is we all sin. And God, in His righteousness, must perfectly punish all sin. Death is necessary. The sting of death is sin. The only way we can be ransomed from that punishment of eternal death is if somehow God's wrath could be satisfied by being poured upon somebody else. So God the Father sent God the Son. That's Jesus Christ. He took upon our life, our flesh. He lived a perfectly righteous life that we have not. So that when He died on the cross, all of God's perfect punishment, His wrath, is poured upon that Son. So that His wrath is satisfied, the ransom is paid because Jesus bought us with His blood. He gave a life for our life. That's the beauty of the gospel. Whenever we sin, whenever we die, we should face a judgment. But God sent his own son so that the power of hell would be loosed so that our sin would no longer stand against us. And this is the beauty of it. Jesus Christ died in our place so that we could be forgiven, so that God's wrath could be satisfied, and then he rose again to give us new life. Jesus is risen. He is risen. Hey, you called on the queue. If you're not a Christian this morning, you're aware that this world is not the way it's supposed to be. I don't think I have to convince you of that. There's sin, there's evil everywhere. And if we really see it, we really recognize it, we're gonna see we have the same kind of coveting hearts, each of us. We've not honored God, we've not given thanks to God. And as a righteous God, he does have to punish us. But he's given a way to be saved, and it's only by repenting of your sin, turning away from it, believing in Christ, you can do that by simply crying out, I'm a sinner. Save me, I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe he died on the cross for my sin. If you have questions about that, please do not leave without talking to someone else here. All right, I want you to see the structure of this Psalm. What every man needs, wisdom. What man cannot do, ransom another man. What only God can do, pay our ransom from hell. Then we're gonna come back. What man cannot do, part two. See, the center of the psalm is the most important. We're gonna come back. What man cannot do again, just in case we missed it the first time. And look, he brings back that same concern. Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. For when he dies, he will carry nothing away. His glory will not go down after him. So he's counseling himself again. When the rich prosper, that doesn't mean God's not righteous. This man is just worshipping something he shouldn't be worshipping. Look at verse 18. This is the terrifying part of riches. For though while he lives, he counts himself blessed. I remember I was reading some old pastor from centuries ago and there was a warning to pastors. And it was very similar to what our son was saying. He said, pastors, the greatest danger you could actually have is a successful ministry. Because if you have a successful ministry, you could think, my sin isn't hindering God's ministry, it must not be that bad. And that's terrifying to think about. But it's the same kind of warning we have here. If your riches continue to accumulate, We can think, God must be really happy with me. And we stop taking our sin seriously. Riches do not mean blessing necessarily. That doesn't mean that God is please. No, if we really wanna count our life blessed, we should go to scripture and look at what God says the blessed life is. This is one of Jesus' most central teachings. Let's just hear what Jesus says the blessed life is. Matthew five, blessed, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Are we counting it blessed today when we're persecuted? Are we counting it blessed today when we're poor? When we're hungry? Are we counting it blessed today when we're mourning? See, scripture and its wisdom creates a transvaluation. It changes what we value and how we view ourselves in light of God. Finally, as we come full circle back, verse 20, our fifth heading, what every man needs. Verse 20, man in his pomp. yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish. Verses one to four, God's offering wisdom and understanding. He's shown us how nothing can keep you from that inevitable death. Nothing can keep you from the end that is destruction and being undone and being consumed except for verse 15. God can ransom us. We need more understanding. We need less pump. We need to look up and ask for discernment. We need to repent of the sin that clings to these things that are gifts from God, but we treat like idols, like they are God. This is the beautiful truth. Christ came to give life and life more abundantly, that we might enjoy the life he created us for. Christ came to give us eternal life, so there is no fear of the grave. As we think about this and as money has been a key element, I want to just kind of point out just a few things about money. Money is not the root of all evil, it is a root. Money in itself is not evil. God does bless us with a currency. But what we need to realize is coveting, it's that last of the Ten Commandments. Coveting, it leads to stealing. Coveting, it leads to adultery. Coveting, it leads to lying and bearing false witness. Greed is a powerful sin. And when we look at money, we often think, look what I've earned, and let me think about how I can spend it on myself. See, the problem with money is that we do not recognize where it comes from. The problem with money is we do not recognize how it is to be used. And the problem with money is that we do not recognize its limitation. It cannot save us. It is not an ultimate end in itself. It's just a means to the end for food and shelter. This is the blessing of money. It allows us to live a simple, quiet life. This is what Paul says we should pray for in 1 Timothy 2 too. Pray for a king who's not mean to you, so that you can live a quiet, simple life. Not living the luxurious life, but to live the simple life. The blessing of money is it gives an opportunity to thank God, because anything we have has been given to us from God. The blessing of money is it allows us to bless others. And I'm thankful for a church that's very generous in doing so. The blessing of money is it helps us see we need something better and more powerful to save us. Brothers and sisters, rejoice today. Verse 15. God has ransomed us. He's paid. Our penalty has been paid. He is risen. We have no fear of judgment. We have no fear of death. We know what the value of our life is because Christ has given us a value. He's purchased us with his precious blood. We can rejoice in his resurrected life. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for your kindness that in our hopelessness, In our inability to save ourselves and one another, in our inability to recognize your good gifts, and in the way we've not given you thanks or honor, you still have shown mercy. You've interrupted our sprint to hell by sending your Son to save us from ourselves, from our sin, and in that we rejoice. In His name we pray. Amen.