Sermon Extras

SERMON NOTES

Summer in the Psalms: “Remembering what God has Done” Psalm 9

INTRO> INTRO VISION SERIES STARTING SEP 12th On February 24, 1989, United Airlines Flight 811 took off from Honolulu on its way to New Zealand. The 747 had climbed to twenty-two thousand feet when the forward cargo door of the jet blew open, tearing a huge hole in the side of the plane. Nine passengers were immediately sucked out of the plane to their deaths. The two right engines were damaged by flying debris and taken out of commission. The plane was one hundred miles from land. The captain, DAVID CRONIN, brought all of his wisdom and thirty-eight years of piloting experience to bear. He would have to land the plane at 195 miles per hour, compared to the normal speed of 170 miles per hour. The jet weighed 610,000 pounds, well above Boeing’s recommended maximum stress load of 564,000 pounds. Nevertheless, Captain Cronin made one of the smoothest landings the rest of the crew could remember, amid the cheers of the passengers. Airline experts called the landing miraculous …. A few days later an interviewer asked Captain Cronin about his first thoughts following the loss of the cargo door. He said, “I said a prayer for my passengers momentarily and then got back to business.”

CONTEXT> In Psalm 9 David, the author, is teaching us how to respond while in a crisis, in v9 he says, “The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.” That word for “trouble” is only used two times in the Bible here in Psalm 9 and then in Psalm 10:1 and it actually means “death” David is facing a very serious situation. Psalm 9-10 in some Hebrew bibles is actually just one psalm, the language is very similar. In Psalm 9 David is in a situation, and like our pilot, miraculously is able to land. How? Well… there is a thread that runs all through Psalm 9.. v1 and v14 give us a clue along with the title.. “I will recount all of your wonderful deeds…” The word “recount” it means to “re count or re-hearse or re-tell” something what is David retelling himself? “your wonderful deeds…” 

Big Idea > When I don’t know what to do, I must remember what God has done.

1) Remember, my circumstances don’t control my attitude. v1-2

• Do you see right there in v1-2 there are 4 “I will” statements. 1) I will give thanks 2) I will recount 3) I will be glad 4) I will sing. Spurgeon said of this Psalm, “With a holy resolution David begins this hymn, it sometime needs all of our determination to face the foe and bless the Lord in the teeth of his enemies, vowing that whoever else may be silent we will bless his name!”- Spurgeon

APP> I Know what you are saying and or believing.. that somehow your situation or experience is so unique that there is no way that you can control your attitude… What if i told you i could show you the absolute worst conditions and from a physiologist this very point… 

*ILL> Victor Frankl (Pic) He was a Holocaust survivor and clinical physiologist, he wrote about his experiences in those concentration camps in his book “Mans Search for Meaning” In the book he talks about how no matter what they were facing, uncertainty, they made it through. He said that there was one thing that made the most difference: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor Frankl

APP> I can’t choose my circumstances but I can choose my attitude in my circumstances.

2) Remember, God is sitting on the throne. v3-16

• Do you see in this Psalm the amount of times that throne, judgment or God’s judgment is mentioned? v4,v7v8v11v16 Don’t you think David is trying to tell us something. 

APP> How is this applicable to us? Our only hope of justice is in the judgment seat of God.

APP> God will make it right. 

APP> “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and my job to love.” Billy Graham 

3) Remember, God hasn’t forgotten you. 

• I want you to notice another thread in the text, it’s one that we mentioned at the beginning but look at how many times David mentions the fact that God doesn’t forget. v10,v12,v18

APP> The reality is this, God has not forgotten us, we have forgotten God. 

The most haunting verse this week, in light of world events, in light of a president misusing scripture for his own advantage… v17 has haunted me, “The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.

ILL> In 1863 President Lincoln designated April 30th as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. With all of the division, blood-shed and heartache that had gone on in the civil war, Lincoln said these words: 

“By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God.”

Big Idea > When I don’t know what to do, I must remember what God has done.

Many of you in your life are asking this question, “What do i do right now in my life?” I want you to ask this question…. “What has God done for me in my life?”