“Psalm 27: The Song of Hopeful Faith” (Part Three)

As we have been walking with David through one of his great songs, we have seen how he responded to heartache and trial, and how those circumstances drove him to his God. Today we close by focusing on how he learned the lessons of both hope and faith in those hard times. Today we see:

The Lessons of the Lord (vv.11-14)

Experience is not the only teacher, but it is a skilled one indeed. David has endured trials, and…

• By seeing God as his Light, David has learned spiritual confidence.
• By focusing on the priority of worship, he has learned the joy of His Presence.
• By crying to the Lord, he has learned the lessons of suffering that drive us to God.

What lessons do we need to learn? David himself gives us three points of application that he continues to make in his own life…

The Lesson of Going God’s Way (vv.11-12)

“Teach me Your way, O Lord”- We must learn (as David did) the power of God to protect us from that which would destroy our lives. However, it is also critical that we learn how to walk in His ways, so that we can live effectively for Him in the world.

The Lesson of Confident Faith (v.13)

“Unless I had believed”- David had to learn (and so must we) to believe that God has something better in store for us- even if that is not the experience of the moment! Rom.8:18 affirms this, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

The Lesson of Patient Hope (v.14)

“Wait for the Lord”- How important is this? Some psalms end with a response of fulfillment, a burst of praise, or a doxology that implies that the problem was solved, and that everything is fine now. NOT HERE! Here the psalmist must walk by faith through the pain of life without all the answers. It is the patient hope in the strength of the Lord that pulls him through!

In the same way, we must not forget that there are few quick fixes in life. Weiser wrote…

Here faith is the power which enables the faithful to endure the tension between his present affliction and his future deliverance from those afflictions.

The answers don’t always come quickly or easily—we must learn to walk by faith! David has no other options. He only has the assurance that God is worth waiting for—and that is enough! The application is given by the psalmist, not to others, but to himself…

Wait on the Lord- He is worth waiting for!