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I’m going to invite you this morning. We’re going to do just a special message related to just one topic today. Just so you know, in the starting next Sunday, over the next few weeks, we’ll be going over a new series called Believe. And so if you’re in a place at your life where you’re thinking, you know, I just want to get grounded in the Christian faith, I want to know what Christianity is about, the pillars of what it stands for and why you would even stand for that. This series that we’re going to go through on the idea of belief. I’m going to be honest and let you know I have been wanting to do this in our church since we have started, and we’re going to do this from the Book of Genesis, the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis. It lays out the framework of what Christianity is all about. And I have this weird obsession with Genesis, the first three chapters of Genesis, so much so that I decided, you know, because because I love this, these first few chapters so much that I have just refrained from going to this section of Scripture. But as a new believer, when I first started to study these first three passages and I really saw the the totality of the Christian faith laid out in the first three chapters of that book. I just fell in love with it and it just painted a picture for me.
For the rest of Scripture. If you’re like me, you kind of grew up with this, this thought that Christianity is sort of like these Bible stories that that you just show up to a class and they tell you something about Noah and these floods or Moses and crossing the Red Sea or something and tying all those together. It doesn’t necessarily happen in a Sunday school setting. It should, but it doesn’t happen. By the way, your kids classes, the curriculum that are in ties it all together for them. So I think that’s a good and godly thing. So so learning how all that paints itself within Scripture is important because it really opens up to the significance and beauty of who God is. And so that’s where we’re going in the days ahead. Today, what I want to share with you is going to come from Psalm 91, but we’re actually going to start in numbers 13 because Numbers 13 lays the background to Psalm 91. And what we’re going to spell out is what Moses spells out in Psalm 91, which I believe is is a recipe for victory. And when you study a passage of scripture, it’s important to remember context is everything. A passage of scripture to us today cannot mean more to us than what it was intended to mean to the original audience in which it was written to. When the Bible was written, it was first written to a specific group of people at a specific time.
And so the context of a passage of Scripture is is highly significant to understanding what a passage is about. When Psalm 91 is written, you maybe even see at the top of Psalm 91, if you were to look at this in your Bible, by the way, the quickest way to find Psalms is to open up to the middle of your Bible. And that’s where the Book of Psalms is. And Psalm 91, a lot of times won’t have an author tag to the top of it. If your Bible writes authors, you’ll notice that maybe this Psalm particular psalm doesn’t have an author tag to the top. The reason I believe it’s Moses who wrote Psalm 91 is because in Jewish history, Psalm 90 and Psalm 91 used to be combined as one psalm. And if you look at Psalm 90, you’ll see that that’s often acknowledged as being written by Moses. The context to which Moses is writing. This happens around the time of the Book of numbers, the history of what’s taking place in the people of Israel and the situation in which Moses finds himself in writing this Psalm. What he finds the people of Israel going through there. There are certain things like terrorism, accidents, disease, death. They’re on a journey through the wilderness right now for 40 years. And so they’re encountering all of these things around them.
And Moses is encouragement in this psalm is is this pursuit of God. And so what I want to talk about today is a recipe for victory. This is going to sound like very Joel Osteen esque here for a minute. But just just listen to this. And I’m going to I want to just lay some framework to this and talk about why it’s important as we go through this together. But we’re going to talk about the recipe for victory. And what I want to do is I’m going to tell you how to get everything you should want in life. Okay. The recipe for what what what is victory for us in Psalm 91 really lays that out. But the context starts in in numbers 13. And so if I were to begin their numbers 13 this is this is where we’re going in our mind. This story happens 3500 years ago. So this is this is the the theme of ancient right here laying out in life 3500 years ago, the nation of Israel, the people of Israel, I should say, are leaving the land of Egypt. And they have gone through difficulty. They’ve been slaves. They’ve been left in Egypt against their will as slaves serving pharaoh. And now they have been set free. You know the story. Moses comes in before Pharaoh and he says, Let my people go, or at least Charlton Heston does in the song. And God or the Pharaoh says No ten times and the plague follows.
After each of those declarations where Pharaoh says no, the last is the death of the firstborn. Finally, the nation of Israel is set free and they take. Off into this wilderness. And, you know, when I when I read the stories of the Bible in in just individual settings and I see how these heroic events take place throughout Scripture. When I was a younger believer coming to these stories, my my approach to them was often, man, that’s awesome. These great things, these wonderful things that happen. And because I’m looking at all this on the tail end, you know, but but now as I, as I grow more in my faith and I start to read these stories, I’m not always maybe it’s something to do with church planting. I don’t I don’t know what it is, but I’m not always the one that necessarily looks at it and goes, That’s such an awesome story. But now I kind of empathize or sympathize with the individuals that that the story is written about, because on the back end of this, they don’t know exactly how things are going to work out. You know, like they can’t they’re not seeing the picture of the miracle that God wants to work in their lives. And so they’re looking at this situation as very challenging and quite a test to their faith to pursue what God has called them to.
And especially when you lay it in the context of the first century, because you’ve got you’ve got the the people of Israel walking out of Egypt in a society where you’re very dependent from the day to day to have the sustenance to sustain life. Right? I mean, you don’t have the grocery store to go buy things. You don’t have the refrigerator to keep things. When you wake up that day, your primary concern is what in the world am I going to eat? And so when you’re leaving a land that’s got the crops and and all the the things required to sustain life and you’re stepping into a place with no food, no way to grow crops, and you’re thinking you’re going to walk out into that desert and you’re going to survive. How apt or how excited would you be to really begin that journey? Right? I mean, especially if they know their history. Well, the reason they ended up in Israel was because of a famine. And Joseph, the story tells us at the end of Genesis, Joseph goes into Egypt as a slave. He rises up in Pharaoh’s household to rule and and he brings his siblings down with him. And from there, we just really get the idea that Israel just stays in that that place and eventually they become slaves to the Egyptians. And so it was because of famine that they even ended up in that land.
And now they’re about to go to this land in a time period in which you’re dependent from day to day, and there is no place where there are crops that they know of that they’re going to head to in order to gather food to supply for their lives. When they get into the land that they are to take over there to conquer this land of Canaan. By the way, if I were to make a comparison to the people of this land, if you’ve studied historically what the land of Canaan was like at this time, if we were to just have some imagery of the people in this area, they operate in life much like something similar to Nazi Germany. In fact, God tells the nation of Israel, the reason I’m sending you into this land isn’t because you’re so good, but it’s because the. The people in this land are wicked. And you study the background of the context of this place. They’re just they’re sacrificing their their children at large, large levels. They have these false gods dedicated to to sacrificing children upon. They would burn kids lives in the arms of these these these false gods. And in the context of numbers 13, which we’re going to look at, it even says in this passage of scripture that that the people are consumed within this land talking about physically their their being consumed within this own land. This is a place that eats you alive.
And Moses is called on by God. To send scouts into this land that Israel has been called to take over. When they’re told to go into this land, to scout out this land, they send ten scouts ahead to look out over the land in which they are called to. And the question isn’t, should we take the land? But rather the question for the Scouts are how. Will we take this land? See as followers of Jesus. The the Christian faith is about this. We say yes to Jesus and we get the joy of figuring out how. But when the scouts go into the land, Scripture tells us that the majority of them were not in favor of of taking this land. And so it says in chapter 13 of numbers and verse 31. But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us. And the interesting thing about this, this land is they didn’t look at it as a bad place for their people, but they just couldn’t see past the obstacles. In fact, the report that they gave in verse 27, just a few verses before that, and we’re talking about the land, they said they they told him and said, we went into the land where you sent us. And it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong. So the scouts going into this place, they didn’t think that this was a bad place. In fact, knowing that that life was dependent upon the day to day saw the ability to have their needs met, their basic substance for life would be met in this area, but they couldn’t see past the obstacles. And this bothered not just the ten scouts, it bothered the nation or the people of Israel so much that it says in in chapter 14. Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried and the people wept. That night, all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron and all the congregation aid to them would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in the wilderness? Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword or wives and our little ones will become plunder? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? To the people of Israel at this point had experienced the goodness of God in their lives. But really in that journey they had now reached a spot where they were they were done right and God, we’ve gone this far. Now let’s just live on the past. Let’s reset. Let’s retell the story of of the Red Sea over and over. Isn’t that good enough? Why are we needing to press further And and it gets they get so distraught over this and they begin to to weep and to wail all night.
It tells us in this passage of Scripture that their conclusion in verse ten is, Hey, let’s stone Moses, Right? I mean, God keeps talking to him and telling him the hard things, so let’s kill him, and then we don’t have to worry about it anymore. And their conclusion before them was, was that in verse two and verse four, like, slavery is better, right? At least we know. At least we know what we get in that circumstance. So rather than trust in the goodness of God whose hand has been delivered to us in red, in the Red Sea, in the crossing of the Red Sea, and we’ve seen him answer for us in the ten plagues rather than continue in trusting in that. How about slavery? Their worrying concern took them back to the familiar. Rather than the journey of faith with God. Jesus in Matthew chapter six said. Who of you by worrying, can add a single hour to his life. It’s on the backdrop of this that Moses writes Psalm 90 and 91. You can see the kind of position he’s in with his back against the wall with a particular people group that God has called them to lead into a place of victory. And their fear of the circumstances has caused them to look more at the obstacles than they are at their God.
And in the end, they became slaves to fear. Or maybe I could say it in a different way. In the end, they worshipped their fear rather than their God. As human beings in life, it’s impossible not to worship something. And in this circumstance, the obstacles before them were greater than their God. And so they gave in to their obstacles. You know, one of the unique things about this story is what you find in chapter 13 and verse 28. Say to them in their situation, everything looked overwhelming, right? They go into the land with the ten scouts. They the scouts go throughout the land and they see these enormous cities all around. And they’re just thinking to themselves, how in the world could we ever conquer such a place? Now, on the back end, we get the luxury of seeing how God’s hand works in this. But verse 28 really starts to explain it to us. But it says this nevertheless. The people who live in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large. The cities are fortified and very large. And this is this is the from a military standpoint, and that’s what God has called Israel to do into this this land, to to to have a conquest and to take it over. From a military standpoint, fortified cities would say something to a person who’s going into a place to take it over.
During the the time of Moses, there weren’t necessarily these nations set up. The land of Egypt was kind of the ruling the the known world at the time. But outside of that, when people would go to a particular place for protection, they were dependent upon cities. If you read the story of of of Abraham, Abraham was living somewhat as a nomad. And during the time of Abraham, it tells us that his household continued to grow. And the way that his household grew was that Abraham offered a place of protection, a place of justice, a place of righteousness, a place, a place of peace for people. And so people within that area would go into the protection of Abraham. They would fortify that area. And when a city was healthy, it would grow. And what you find in this place is this this area is now devouring its people, but it’s fortified. And the fortification, what it’s saying is that within these cities, established within this this place in which Israel is going to conquer, these people do not trust one another. And that’s why they’re fortifying their cities separated from each other, which means when the nation of Israel or the people of Israel go into this land to take conquest, to establish themselves, that when they go in to conquer it, they’re going to be able to do it. One step at a time.
Each city. Set up. As a place unto itself. And which the Lord could direct their paths. To them, The overall picture of where God had called them to conquer was overwhelming. But their eyes had been taken off. The fact that God had placed a path before them to be able to take it and handle it one step at a time. But it’s on the backdrop of this story that then Moses begins to explain. Psalm 91. In Psalm 91, as Moses is considering where the hearts of Israel has been in the wilderness and wandering and the rejection of God, he’s writing these books. These first five books of the Bible is really written for the next generation of Israel. This next generation of Israel, especially the Book of Numbers, you’ll find is Moses preaching these sermons to the next generation of Israel who was who will go into the conquest of this land? Because what happens in numbers 13 is that Israel chooses to not step into this land. And so God tells them, declares to these people that you will die in the wilderness. Everyone that’s under the age of 20 will survive. Everyone over the age of 20, you’ll die off except for Joshua and Caleb. The only two the only two witnesses, the only two scouts that went into the land and said that we should take this land other than Joshua and Caleb, anyone over the age of 20 will not go into this promised land.
And so Moses is writing these stories, encouraging the next generation to think about their unfaithfulness to God and how God has led them and God has provided for them, and God has been there with them and God has laid out the steps before them to be able to to live in victory. And so Psalm 91 is a song that that shares the recipe for what victory is about. Reminding us of the miracle of God’s hand. In fact, he starts it this way. He who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. You know, it’s funny how different terrains or different places that you live, I should say, make certain verses in scripture impact you in different ways than they have before. Because I got to be honest, when I would read something like this before I moved to Utah, I didn’t quite understand it because I was from the East Coast and in the East Coast, everything’s human. It’s like wearing a wool sweater all the time. And it doesn’t matter if there’s a cloud in the sky or not. You just can’t escape the wool sweater that is humidity. And so shadow, who cares? It just you just need an air conditioning in that humidity. Right? But then I moved to the West Coast, and when I first moved here on the East Coast, it’s like the natural moisturizing of the air that is your lotion.
You don’t have to put lotion on it over there. Everything is all it is. It is it just moisturize your body. I mean, people do, but but not like the West Coast. When I first moved here, I my first experience was I am with a guy who is, you know, the typical Harley riding biker looking dude, Right? I mean, he looks like he he is well, he’s a part of clubs, biker clubs, and I’m with him. He’s like, tough guy. And he’s the first guy I meet. And I’m thinking, this guy, he could beat me up. I don’t know what he’s about. He could. I don’t know what you know, I’m judging, you know, on the outside. And we’re going to the store together and he stops off at the store and he starts putting lotion on. And I have not ever been with a biker dude putting lotion on it. It rocked my world for a minute. But after living here for a little while, I began to learn, Man, the desert is dry, right? Like I moved here in the end of the summer and you look up in the sky and you’re like, Will there be a cloud here at one point today? And you go back east and it’s like this natural moisturizing, your body fills back up. I come back here and it’s like lizard, you know, like what happened to my feet kind of thing.
And then I began to appreciate the luxury of a cloud, right? I’m out here in the West. The terrain out here is a lot like Israel and when a cloud just comes across the sky and it covers that sun, there’s like this thank you Jesus moment that comes out. You’re like, Oh, Lord, that feels so good. Don’t go Cloud, Please don’t go. That’s just the shelter. And these people of Israel, in a time where everyone did live in the one room house, they drove each other crazy, right? They want to get outside, maybe away from that at some point. There is no air conditioner. And one of the one of the benefits to my day I know, like even if I’m outside all day, at least at some point for just a couple of minutes, that air conditioner is going to hit me. You know, you jump in your car after a hot day, you just turn it on and the air just blows in your face. You’re like, Yes. Psalm 91. He who dwells in the shelter of the most high will buy it in the shadow of the Almighty. It’s the resting place from the beating of life. Right? The way that sun may pound into you. The way that life may pound into you. This. This is the place you were created for. This is your cloud on a sunny day or your air conditioning when you’re feeling warm.
In fact. Moses goes on further. He says, I will say to the Lord, My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. Remember, during this time, the fortification of cities were important because it’s what protected you from the outside. But Israel, if you’ve learned anything from the Lord, the land of Egypt, that thought it was so well fortified. I’m the place that dominates the day. It. Even that place couldn’t stand against the hand of God. And really, how safe are you behind a locked door? It might be a temporary prevention point, but if you really want to know where protection is, the Lord is my refuge and my fortress in whom I trust. For it is he who delivers us from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you up with pinions and under his wings you may seek refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a bulwark. This idea of pinions is actually it’s its wings. As a mother hen just hides the chicks under its wings. That’s. That’s what God wants to do with his people. It’s this Psalm is a psalm of of victory for God’s people. You know, when you read about the miracles in scripture and the joy of the miracles that are found within Scripture, the miracle itself isn’t isn’t the end, it’s the miracle. Or the greatest part of the miracle isn’t the task that is accomplished.
But rather the greatest part of the miracle is it’s the transforming of the heart that takes place through that circumstance. Let me just give you a few examples. When God conducted miracles to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. The the point of that miracle wasn’t that God would just do a miracle in of itself. The concern of the miracle was the heart of the people expressing the worship towards God. Meaning when Israel came to the Red Sea and they needed to cross the Red Sea, they didn’t just walk up to the Red Sea and God’s like, Hey, I went ahead and parted this thing because you don’t know this, But there could have been some difficult situations ahead of you. So go ahead and walk across, you know, or God didn’t wait till they get into the wilderness and be like, Hey, this man is just going ahead. And I just went ahead and put it there. It’s just laying around for you. Go ahead and pick that up. Right. Or you you think about stories of David and Goliath. He didn’t just like they walk up to the battlefield and Goliath is laying dead and he’s like, hey, I went ahead and took care of that just because just so you know, something bad may have happened around the circumstance. It was taken out of the way or in in the New Testament. When the disciples are in the water and the waves are coming up, he he didn’t just say, hey, the waves are calm today.
Just so you know, there was going to be rough waves. But I went and calmed that down. I was I’m good at miracles, you know, But rather what God did is he let the nation of Israel get to the Red Sea and they could see Egypt coming behind them. And he let the nation of Israel get into the wilderness where there was no man and no food. And their concern of not having food in a day to day society, they they they were there for that. They experienced what it was like to not have food. And when when God slayed Goliath, it took Israel being afraid and and David showing up and and then God working his miracle that way or or when? When Israel or excuse me, when the 12 disciples were in the water and the waves were going wild, God waited in that moment until the disciples had this concern because. The point of the miracle isn’t the miracle itself. It’s that opportunity that God uses those circumstances to incline our heart to him. And God uses those situations as as tools to magnify his glory and our relationship towards him. It’s the transformation of the heart that is what makes miracles so incredible. Miracles end. But it’s his glory that shines forever. The people of Israel in this circumstance, what what God is demonstrating to him through Moses as he’s declaring this situation, is to understand that everything that God has worked in this moment isn’t just this miracle as an ends to itself, but it’s God’s desire to work his greatest miracle through you.
I mean, don’t undermine what God is going to do through the people of Israel as they go into this land. God is setting up his great story of redemption for all people. And sometimes we look at stories like that and we think that was great for them, right? But God is still establishing his story for redemption for people in you and in me today. And so when Moses writes this psalm, the thing that he begins to express at the very beginning of this psalm is the first thing that Israel needs to recognize is the need to jump on board with him. That he is the shadow. That he is the protection. That trust belongs to him. That he gathers you under your his wings and and your in refuge under him from pitfalls and deadly things. God isn’t working this miracle for Israel just to keep them safe. He’s working this through Israel, that his story of redemption moved through all people, groups and all nations for all eternity. To not undersell the significance of this moment, but to understand how God continues to use. Now, if you read the rest of the psalm, you’re going to see that that what Moses says to the nation of Israel is how how God promises them to protect them from from arrows and from attacks and from pestilence and and God’s going to keep them safe.
Now, I would say in the context of this passage of scripture, God has particularly called this people group to conquest, this nation or this area of land. Now, for us today, God does not call us to do this. In fact, in the New Testament, what God says is that we will endure suffering. We will endure hardships because of our faith in Christ. There will be adversity. So rather than just look at this Psalm, as you know, God’s going to make me not sick and wealthy and give me all my plans. That’s not what this psalm is saying at all, right? When I’m talking about a recipe for victory, it’s important to recognize that that victory is measured by what God calls victorious. And so this is not a plan for a get rich quick scheme or get everything you want that you think you need to tell God will make you happy. That’s not what this psalm is. But it is to recognize that that same God that showed up for Israel still shows up in our lives. And maybe sometimes his will. Is to stop an era. But at other times is promised to us. Is to give us the strength to endure. That in the midst of circumstance, there is joy.
Moses. The reason he’s able to write this type of psalm is because he found joy in victory in his relationship with God. So how do we find victory or what is the recipe? Because when you look at the rest of the Psalm, as it explains what’s what’s happening in the lives of the nation of Israel, they’re called into this conquest. And God says in verse five, You will not be afraid of the terror by night or of the arrow that flies by day or of the pestilence that stalks in darkness or of the destruction in the last days. Waste at noon, a thousand may fall at your side and 10,000 at your right hand. But it shall not approach you. God is providing the physical protection for the nation of Israel as they follow him into the land of Canaan. Right. What about us? Because Jesus also said to us that we will endure hardship for our faith in Christ. We will endure persecution because of our faith in Christ. What about us? Where’s our victory? How do we have a recipe of victory? And the measuring tool for us is to first establish what God calls victory. Because the rest of this psalm, you see Moses peppering the thought of victory in him in verse nine, verse 14, verse 15, it says this for you have made the Lord my refuge even the most high, your dwelling place, because he has loved me.
Therefore I will deliver him. I will set him securely on high because he has known my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. Well, Moses says in this passage. Victory of life isn’t based on what you accomplish. The victory of life isn’t measured by your accomplishments. Ready to get this? Victory in life is measured by your faithfulness. Victory in life isn’t isn’t determined by your accomplishments, but rather by your faithfulness. You know, all of us in life have have God has given us different abilities, put us in different positions. And so when we get to heaven, God’s not going to be like, okay, how much money did you make? How much education did you receive? How big was your house? How many cars did you drive? God’s not going to measure victory by the things that you accomplished. But rather by your faithfulness through what you’ve been given. Moses’s statement in Psalms and verses nine and 14 and 15. It’s explaining that for you have have made the Lord my refuge the most high your dwelling place because He has loved me. Therefore I will deliver him. I will set him securely on on high because he has known my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. The measurement Moses is proclaiming is the faithfulness that Israel is demonstrating towards God.
In fact, in Matthew chapter 25 and verse 23, when Jesus shares the story of the talents and sending out individuals to serve the representation of his kingdom, and when he comes back for his people, he says this, his master said to him, Well done, good and faithful. Servant. When. Jesus. When we see him face to face in eternity. The words that we want to hear from God. They’re not well done for living in such a big house. Well done. For having such a tremendous amount of money in savings. Statement. We want to hear from Jesus. Well done, my good and faithful servant. God’s recipe for victory in our lives. It’s different from the world’s recipe. What God desires for us. It’s faithfulness. I’m going to just close with just one thought. I was reading a good a great book this past week. I can’t remember the name of it now, but I’ll tell you what the author was saying. He said, you know, he used to look at people and encourage them in the Lord, and he would just tell them, go represent Jesus in their city. Go represent Jesus in their city. And he realized and sang that the way people often heard it. And so he changed it. And so the way that people often heard it was, Now it’s all on your shoulders. Go and do what you need to do for Jesus to represent him, and hopefully you don’t fail.
Right. And so he decided, rather than just tell people to go represent Jesus in the city, he just said, Let Jesus be in you. For the sake of the city, right? Just let Jesus be in you for the sake of the city. The difference in what he was trying to express to people is this. We all come here on Sunday morning at different places. Sometimes we feel like we’re the people that just came across on the back end of the Red Sea celebrating. And sometimes we’re the people on the other side of the Red Sea looking at Egypt bearing down on us. But the same Jesus is at either place, right? And the miracle isn’t the way that God parts the sea. The miracle. The real miracle is what God does in the heart. And in your weakness. People can see the sufficiency of Jesus. And in your strength, people can see the sufficiency of Jesus. And so when you’re going through hardship, lean into Jesus. And when you’re celebrating. Lean unto Jesus. Either way, let Jesus be in you. Right? Surrendered to the God that determines victory different than the way that we do in this world. His victory at the end of this life. What our hearts should long to hear from our king of kings. Well done, you good and faithful servant.