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HopeLives365

Mark Finley

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2024: Psalms

01 How to Read the Psalms

02 Teach us to Pray

03 The Lord Reigns

04 The Lord Hears and Delivers

05 Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land

06 I Will Arise

07 Your Mercy Reaches Unto the Heavens

08 Wisdom for Righteous Living

09 Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord

10 Lessons of the Past

11 Longing for God in Zion

12 Worship That Never Ends

13 Wait on the Lord


Welcome back. We're on our last lesson titled, Wait on the Lord. Do you know what the memory verse is for this lesson? Do you know the importance of memorizing the memory verse? Of course, Psalm 27 verse 14, wait on the Lord and he will strengthen your heart.

Again I say, wait on the Lord. You know, Arthur Stella, a really good friend of mine, 1 of the vice presidents of the General Conference, told us this story recently at a retreat of Seventh-day Adventist leadership team. Arthur was born in Kazakhstan, 1 of the former Soviet countries, lived there under the days of communism. During that period of time, the church was not able to conduct Sabbath school. The reason being is that the government said that Sabbath schools were schools and government's responsibility was to educate, not the church.

And so what our church did was had really 2 worship services. The first worship service was a preaching of the Sabbath school lesson, and the second of course was the sermon. Arthur said that during the preaching of the Sabbath school lesson that the individual teaching would ask the congregation, who knows the memory verse? So if they were doing, for example, lesson 13 in the Psalms, they would say, wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.

So people would stand up and give the different, say, the memory verse, you know, repeatedly. And then Arthur made this interesting observation. He said, you know, We were a small church, particularly in Kazakhstan, scattered. And Adventists, if they traveled from 1 city to the next, the pastor often would give them a little slip of paper with the name of an Adventist in the city that they were traveling to. He'd give them the name, give them the address.

When they got to that city, they would knock on the door. Now the person, the Adventist in the home, didn't know if it was a KGB officer, didn't know if somebody was coming to arrest them or what. So they'd often, and the person on The visitor would say, I'm a Seventh-day Adventist. And the person on the other end, the resident of the home, would say, repeat to me the memory verse. Repeat to me the memory verse for this week.

If the person couldn't repeat the memory verse, they weren't an Adventist. And then they would say, now tell me what was the morning devotional? So in those days memory verses were extremely important, and they're just as important today in another sense, to fill our mind with the things of God so that our minds will be captured and we won't live in the captivity of the evil 1. So our lesson, wait on the Lord. What does it mean to wait on the Lord?

What does that mean? Does it mean to wait in idleness? Does it mean to wait in just kind of this calm state where you don't do anything? Waiting on the Lord is active. It's not simply waiting in idleness.

Waiting on the Lord is waiting in trust, waiting in faith, hanging on to God where we can't see answers to our questions. In the lesson on Sabbath afternoon, there's a wonderful definition of what it means to wait on the Lord in the last paragraph. Waiting on the Lord is not an idle and desperate bidding of one's time or biting of one's time. Instead, waiting on the Lord is an act full of trust and faith, a trust and faith revealed in action. Waiting on the Lord transforms our gloomy evenings with the expectancy of the bright morning.

It strengthens our hearts with renewed hope and peace. It motivates us to work harder, bringing in the sheaves of plentiful harvest from the Lord's mission fields. Waiting on the Lord will never put us to shame, but will be richly rewarded because the Lord is faithful to all his promises. I particularly like the sentence that waiting on the Lord is an act full of trust and faith. It's revealed in action.

That waiting on the Lord gives us this hope, this expectancy. It's a waiting in prayer. It's a waiting in hope. It's a waiting expecting that God is going to work. So in Sunday's lesson, the title is The Call of Waiting.

And you know, often in our Sabbath School lessons, the author of the lessons gives us 1 text or 2. But here, notice we've been given 123456789 texts to look up. And I said to myself, what do these texts have in common? Well let's look at just a few of them, we won't look at all 9. Psalm 27 verse 14, that was our memory text of course.

Psalm 27 verse 14, we look at it again to emphasize the passage, wait on the Lord, be of good courage, he shall strengthen thy heart, wait I say on the Lord. So here is the admonition to wait, To be of good courage. You know, waiting is tough sometimes, isn't it? You wait for the results of a medical test. You're a little concerned about that.

You wait to see if the application for your new job has been accepted. You're apprehensive about it. Young people, college students, they wait to see if they've got accepted in college, and when they're graduating from college, they wait to see if they get a new job. There's this waiting business. Many of us are impatient.

We want things to happen right now. But the Bible says, wait on the Lord, trust, be of good courage. But let's look at a couple other texts. Psalm 37, and we'll look at verse 7 and verse 9. I want you to see what is the commonality of these texts.

Psalm 37, verse 7, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass." In other words, rest in the Lord, wait patient. You're gonna see evil and wickedness all around you. It's gonna seem that wickedness triumphs, but just wait on the Lord in faith, in trust, in courage. God is gonna work.

Look at verse 9. "'Evildoers shall be cut off, but those that do what? Wait on the Lord shall inherit the earth. So whatever I see going on around me now, evildoers will be cut off, but as we wait on the Lord in courage, in hope, in expectancy, we're going to inherit the earth. Again, waiting brings us courage and hope and joy.

Verse 34, same Psalm, verse 34, "'Wait on the Lord, keep his way, he shall exalt you to inherit the land.'" So this idea of patiently waiting is waiting for God to act, not being filled with anxiety, not being filled with worry, not being filled with tension or fear. God indeed is going to act. 1 more, Psalm 40 verse 1. I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of miry clay, set my feet upon a rock, established my steps, " and he's put a new song in my mouth.

So the psalmist says, I waited on the Lord and he delivered me. Sometimes we go through very great difficulties, big challenges, and it's necessary to wait upon the Lord, to allow His strength, His grace to fill our lives, to transform us, to lift us out of the miry pit that we're sinking in. Sometimes we know that there's no solution. We can't get out of there unless Jesus does something. What's the key in waiting?

It's perseverance. What is perseverance? If you look, for example, at the second paragraph about the second sentence in that paragraph under Sunday's lesson, perseverance is our supreme commitment of refusing to succumb to fear or disappointment that somehow God will not come through for us. God invites us to persevere knowing that He is going to come through for us. Monday's lesson talks about the peace of a weaned child.

I wondered about that when I saw the title of it and I said, what does this really have to do with waiting on the Lord? But the more I thought about it, the peace of a weaned child. This is talking about a child of God who has peace because they trust in God. Psalm 131 points this out. As we wait upon the Lord as children of God, we can have peace, a peace that passes all understanding.

Psalm 131. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

Oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forever. I've calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child." The child who is nursing at the mother's breast is calm and peaceful. So as we wait upon the Lord, we can sense a calm, a peace as we wait there. And Monday's lesson really strikes it. What a picture of calm.

What a picture of peace as the child is nourished there by Mama. In the Monday's lesson, third paragraph, meanwhile the metaphor in Psalm 131, 2, like a weaned child with its mother, is a powerful image of 1 who finds calmness and is quieted in the embrace of God. It points to the loving relationship a child has with its mother at the various stages in the child's life. That's so true of us. That as we learn to trust God, we learn to wait upon God.

Not be over-anxious, but trusting in every circumstance. Psalm 126, Tuesday's lesson, you know that's 1 of my favorite psalms. You know, I've been in evangelism all my life. Psalm 126 really is a soul winner's psalm. Notice Psalm 126, I'm just going to look at verse 1 to start.

When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Our mouth was filled with laughter, our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. God brings back the captivity of Zion. 1 day.

Streets called gold. Place called eternity. God is going to deliver us from the captivity of the bondage of this world. And we're going to sing and rejoice and we're waiting for that day. We're anticipating that day.

We're hoping that day. But notice Psalm 126, verse 5 and 6. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. A lot of times we sow in tears. We sow goodness, we sow kindness, we sow compassion.

We sow in giving out literature, we sow in giving a book out, we sow in giving a Bible study, but we're sowing in tears. At times we don't see the results of our labors, but we're going to reap 1 day in joy. Now notice 3 principles of success as soul winners who wait on God. It says, verse 6, he who continually goes forth, notice it's not spasmodically going forth, we continually go forth. We go out of our cells to share Jesus with others.

We go forth into the harvest field. We don't simply sit in church waiting for God to do something. We come to church, we pray, we are filled by his spirit, but we go to serve. We go forth. We go out of the fortress of the Church into the real world to share His love.

With weeping. What does that mean with weeping? A heart burden for souls. Symbolically, our tears are that which waters the seed of the Gospel. We have this burden for souls, this passion for souls, bearing seed.

What's the seed? According to Luke 8, 11, the seed is the Word of God. Shall doubtless come again. Don't you like that? With rejoicing.

So we doubtless come again, without a doubt. There's no doubt about it. If we go forth out of ourselves, sharing the gospel with others, with a passion for souls, sharing the seed of the Word of God, we're gonna do what? Come again. With what?

Rejoicing. Bringing Yeshivas with him. What comes first? The going forth or the coming again? What comes first?

The weeping or the rejoicing? What comes first? The going out or the bringing in the sheaves. We go out with a prayer in our heart, with a burden in our soul, to share God's love with others. And God says, 1 day you will come in without a doubt rejoicing, bringing your sheaves with him.

We bring in the sheaves because we have waited upon the Lord. He has placed a burden in our hearts to save others and we find in Christ and through Christ the passion to work for others through angelic guides that are unseen to human eyes. He guides us to the right people. We recognize that all over the world men and women are looking wistfully to heaven with tears and prayers. Their hearts are longing for the truth of God and we go and touch them with God's grace and share the Word of God with them and we bring in the sheaves.

Wednesday's lesson, Waiting in God's Sabbath rest. Psalm 92 is a psalm about the Sabbath. It's a wonderful psalm that talks about the peace and joy that comes to us as we worship God on the Bible's Sabbath. It's 15 verses, we'll just look at a few of them. It says, this is a psalm, the heading is, A Psalm for the Sabbath Day.

It's good to give thanks to the Lord and sing praises to the Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night. What is the psalm about? We come on the Sabbath acknowledging that God is our Creator, acknowledging He's our Redeemer, acknowledging that He's going to make a new heaven and a new earth. And we give thanks to him. We come praising his name, we thank him for his loving kindness.

Verse 5, O Lord how great are your works, your thoughts are very deep. We come to learn the deep thoughts of our Heavenly Father. We come on Sabbath to open our hearts to the thoughts of God's Word. Look, verse 12, the righteous shall flourish like a palm, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

They shall bear fruit in old age." You know I love that 1 at 78 going on 79. I want to bear fruit in my old age. They shall be refresh, they shall be fresh and flourishing. Oh I want to be fresh and flourishing. To declare that the Lord is upright.

He is my rock. There is no unrighteousness in him. He is my rock. There's no unrighteousness in Him. I just praise God for the fact that as we come to worship Him, that we can praise His name, we can thank God that We can flourish whatever age we are in.

And on Sabbath, it's a symbol of what? That we are waiting, waiting, waiting for the day that Jesus will come. We worship on Sabbath, we remember him as creator, we remember him as redeemer, but also we anticipate that the 1 that created the world once will recreate the world and there will be a new heavens and a new earth. Notice in the last paragraph on Wednesday's lesson, it's not surprising to find thoughts about consecration in a psalm that is dedicated to the Sabbath because the Sabbath is a sign that the Lord sanctifies his people. So Psalm 92 talks about not only praising God, giving God thanks, giving thanks to him, not only recognizing that the righteous are going to flourish, But it is a psalm of consecration, it's a psalm of commitment, it's a psalm of dedication.

And that shouldn't surprise us because the Sabbath is a sign that the Lord sanctifies his people. The images of palm trees and cedars of Lebanon portray God's people growing in faith and true appreciation of God's wonderful purposes and love. The Sabbath is the sign of the Lord's eternal covenant with his people. Thus the Sabbath rest is essential to God's people because it empowers them to trustingly wait upon the Lord to fulfill his covenantial promises. We wait, we wait, we wait upon the Lord to fulfill his promises.

And then Thursday's lesson, this whole series ends with just so climactically with joy in the morning. Joy in the morning. Let's look at it. And that's repeated repeatedly through the scripture. Psalm 5, verse 3.

Psalm 5, Verse 3. Here we go. My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning I'll direct it to you, and I will look up. What's this in the morning? In the morning.

Yes, it's the literal morning, in the morning as we wake. Before we get out of bed, our hearts and minds go to God. We thank him for taking us through the night. We thank him and we praise him, we tell him that we're going to wait upon him all day, and that we're going to trust him each moment of the day. But this idea of in the morning is something else.

If you continue to study the Psalms, when it's talking about here in the morning, let's look at Psalm 30, verse 5. Psalm 30, verse 5. For his anger is but for a moment, his favor is for life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Look, this is another morning.

The darkness of the past is over. I've gone through sorrow and disappointment. Hang on my brother. Wait for the Lord my sister. Trust, because weeping may endure for the night.

It's the night of sorrow, the night of difficulty, the night of darkness, the night of sickness. But joy is going to come when? In the morning. Psalm 49 verse 14. See this idea of night often represents sorrow, suffering, disappointment.

But joy comes when? In the morning. Psalm 49 verse 14, you'll notice, like sheep they are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them. The upright shall have demeaned over them in the morning, and their beauty shall be consumed in the grave, far beyond their dwelling. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, and he shall receive me." Often, loved ones pass away.

Often, tears stain our eyes because of the death of those that are sacred to us, that are important to us, that are significant to us. A father, a mother, a sister, a brother. But joy comes in the morning. This 1 day Jesus will come. The dead will be resurrected.

I love what Paul says, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, the trumped of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. And we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air." What joy there is of knowing that we can see our loved ones again. You can see your wife who's died of cancer. You can see your husband who was killed in a car accident.

You can see that child died prematurely. That father, that mother, that dear friend. Death is not a dark hole in the ground. The grave is not a long night without a morning. Because for the Christian we sense that Jesus is coming and that weeping will be for a night, but there will be joy, joy in the morning.

Let's look at the last text given in our lesson, the book of Revelation. And how does the book of Revelation end? Revelation 22 and verse 16. Revelation 22 and verse 16. It says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you of these things in the churches.

I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star. When do you see the bright and the morning star? Just before sunrise. There's the, It's the darkness of night, but Jesus, the bright and morning star, is there. We've studied the book of Psalms together through 13 weeks.

We've seen Jesus as our creator. We've seen Jesus as our Redeemer. We've seen Jesus as our Judge. We've seen Jesus as our coming King. He is our Rock of Ages, The 1 who steadies our feet when the ground beneath us is shaking.

He is the Rose of Sharon, the 1 who perfumes our life. He is the Pearl of Great Price, the 1 who's worth more than anything to us. He is the living water that satisfies our soul. He is the bread of life that nourishes our spiritual being. And he's the bright and morning star.

The 1 who brings for us spiritual life and hope and courage as we wait on him in the discouraging dark periods of our life. Hold on my brother. Hold on my sister. Never give up because the bright and morning star will shine in your darkness. Let's pray Father in heaven, we thank you for these lessons in the Psalms.

We thank you the blessing that they have been to us We open our hearts to you. Oh Jesus Be near to us May the bright and morning star illuminate our darkness and we thank you for that in Christ's name, Amen. This media was brought to you by AudioVerse, a website dedicated to spreading God's Word through free sermon audio and much more. If you would like to know more about Audioverse, or if you would like to listen to more sermons, please visit www.audioverse.org

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Series

Sabbath School 1st Quarter 2024: Psalms

13 Wait on the Lord

Parent Series

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Other Teachings in Series

01 How to Read the Psalms

02 Teach us to Pray

03 The Lord Reigns

04 The Lord Hears and Delivers

05 Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land

06 I Will Arise

07 Your Mercy Reaches Unto the Heavens

08 Wisdom for Righteous Living

09 Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord

10 Lessons of the Past

11 Longing for God in Zion

12 Worship That Never Ends

13 Wait on the Lord

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