church

INI
Twelfth Sunday After Trinity
August 30, 2009
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

Memo From an Aged Believer:
THE LORD NEVER FORSAKES HIS SAINTS
Psalm 37:25-29

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen. Today's text comes
from the Book of Psalms, chapter 37, beginning with the 25th verse, as follows:

I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous
forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lends;
And hi s descendants are blessed. Depart from evil, and do good; And dwell
forevermore. For the LORD loves justice, And does not forsake His saints;
They are preserved forever, But the descendants of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever. These are the
Words.

In Christ Jesus, who promises, "I shall never leave you nor forsake you," Dear
Fellow Redeemed,

In my previous parish I served an elderly Christian woman named Opal
Baumann. She was born in 1895 and lived to be 104 years old. Talking to her
was fascinating; it was like a lesson in American history. She had two uncles
who fought in the Civil War. She once shook hands with Theodore Roosevelt.
She was 16 when the Titanic went down, a young woma n at the time of the
First World War and middle-aged by the Second. She lived through the nuclear
age, the space age and the computer age. She was born in the era of the horse
and buggy, and died in the era of the space shuttle. Mrs. Baumann had seen a
lot and experienced a lot in her long life. What most impressed me, though, was
her gentle wisdom and her Christian faith. She had been through a lot of
adversity, but one obvious fact shone through when you talked to her: here was
someone who obviously had learned, from long experience, that she could rely
upon her God.

In our text for today we meet another elderly believer with a similarly long and
eventful life. He too has wisdom to share with us, only this message is inspired
by the Holy Spirit and intended for our salvation. He’s an old man named
David, and he teaches us a principle that is always true - a rule to which there
are no exceptions. Consider with me, then, a

Memo From an Aged Believer:
THE LORD NEVER FORSAKES HIS SAINTS!

I. So says all the evidence of the past.
II. So say all His promises for the future.

God's grace toward His children never fails. -Now, that statement's not wishful
thinking, and it's not some kind of inflated claim or exaggeration. Our text
states this as a simple fact. And this is one fact that's backed up by mountains
of historical evidence!
0A

By the time King David wrote the Thirty-seventh Psalm, he was an old man,
probably nearing the end of his days on earth. He could look back over many
action-packed years of life - his fight with Goliath, his rise to the throne of
Israel, his battles against the Philistines. His were days of trouble and triumph,
heartbreak and victory. David had seen a lot in his time - much more than you
or I will probably ever see! And yet, looking back, there was one thing he said
he had never seen: he never once saw the Lord forsake His saints. I have been
young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his
descendants begging bread.

By the way, we'd better make sure we're straight on a couple of the terms in
this text. David's subject in this passage is a group of people he refers to
alternately as "the righteous," or as "saints." Now, there are two ways to
misunderstand those terms. There are a lot of self-righteous people who think
they must be saints, because of all the good works that they do. On the other
hand, there are a lot of humble sinners who think they could never be saints,
because of all the sins they've committed. Well, they're both wrong. When the
Bible speaks of "the righteous," and "the saints of God," it's simply referring to
Christians. If you're a person who trusts in Christ alone as your only Savior from
sin, then you are a saint! You belong in that group called "the righteous," not
because you’re righteous on your own, but because God has bestowed upon you
His perfect righteousness. It's not the righteousness of good works, but, as Paul
calls it, "...the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all
and upon all them that believe." -- Rom 3:22.

These pe ople, David says, God never forsakes. I have not seen the righteous
forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread. Does that mean that there was
never a Christian who experienced hunger? Hasn't God in His wisdom ever
permitted some faithful believer somewhere in the world to become so destitute
that his children were reduced to begging for food? -- Who knows? David's just
saying that he's been around for a long time, and he's never seen it happen once.
Have you? I haven’t!

All the evidence of the past says that the Lord never forsakes His believers.
And I'd be willing to guess that that includes YOUR past, as well! How many
times in the past have you succumbed to anxiety and sleepless nights because
you thought something terrible was going to happen. With your family finances,
for instance - am I going to be able to buy food next week? Is my paycheck
going to stretch enough to cover our budget next month? How will we ever pay
those doctor bills? -If you're like me, you've probably had those kind of fe elings
more than once, perhaps many times. Now I'll ask you a different question: in
how many of those cases did your fears actually come true? Has it EVER
happened in your life that the Lord has forsaken you - I mean really given up on
you completely and left you to fend for yourself in your time of need? I know
what your answer is; it's the same as mine, and the same as David's. All the
evidence of our past history proves that the Lord never forsakes His saints!

In fact, isn't the very opposite that often takes place? For a million dollars, I
don't think I could come up with a single instance in my life where I could say
the Lord withheld His assistance from me when I needed it. But I could stand
here all day long reeling off instance after instance in my life when the Lord got
me out of trouble, delivered me from some severe sorrow or hardship, helped
me recover from a setback. Times when I thought I was going to go broke, and
God actually made me prosper abundantly instead! Has your experience as a
child of God been the same as mine? It has, hasn’t it? I’ve been your pastor for
a long time, and I know man y of your stories almost as well as my own. And
you know, that's the way God has always treated His believers, throughout
history. We weak human beings go on whining and worrying and wringing our
hands about what’s going to happen in the future - and God just goes on
pouring blessings into our lives! Indeed, in another Psalm we read, The
righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, 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 still bear fruit in old age; They shall be fresh and
flourishing, To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no
unrighteousness in Him.-- Psa 92:12-15.

Far from destitution, our text says, the believer most often has an overflowing
surplus of goods and blessings from the Lord. And he reflects his Savior's mercy
by sharing that surplus with others: He is ever merciful, and lends; And his
descendants are blessed.

Well, we've spoken about the past, and in a moment we're going to talk about
the future -- but our text has a word about the present, as well. Depart from
evil, and do good; And dwell forevermore. Examining the original Hebrew
reveals that the Lord is telling us to physically turn around from sin and go in
the other direction! We dare not make any compromise with sin in our lives,
tempting as it may be to do so. The evil ways of the world around us are very
alluring. We're tempted by the lifestyles we see portrayed on TV and in movies
– sometimes we’re tempted to admire and even envy the godless lifestyles they
exhibit. They sure seem glamorous sometimes. They sure seem to have a lot of
fun. -But don't be fooled. Our text says that the descendants of the wicked shall
be cut off, cut off from God's favor, and cut off from everlasting life. No
amount of earthly pleasure is worth that! The Apostle Paul agrees, as we read in
Galatians, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows,
that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap
corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if
we do not lose heart.-- Gal 6:7-9.

-- And that brings us to the future. As we've said, a lot of people spend a lot of
time worrying about the future. "You never can tell what's around the next
bend," they say. But for a Christian, that's not precisely true. In fact, in this one
little passage God reveals to you quite a bit about your future! He says that you
are going to "... dwell forevermore. For the LORD loves justice, And does not
forsake His saints; They are preserved forever. The Lord never forsakes His
saints. So says all the evidence of the past, and -- so say all His promises for the
future!

&nbs p; You may have noticed a paradox in there, though - something that
seems a little out of place at first glance. In one breath it says that the Lord
loves justice, and in the next breath it says that He will not forsake His
believers -- us, in other words. He’s talking about us. And that’s a little hard to
take in. Because it’s easy to imagine God protecting and prospering a model
Christian, isn’t it? Someone who’s upright and pure, someone who truly loves
God with all his heart and loves his neighbor as himself. But it’s hard to imagine
God doing that for someone like me. Someone who’s weak and sinful, who’s
tried to serve God and keep His commandments but has failed time and again.
Maybe you feel the same way. But there’s good news here in our text. Who does
God never forsake? His saints. My fellow Christians, that’s us! It's talking about
weak, sinful believers exactly like you and me, people who despite our faith still
have to confess that we "daily sin much and indeed deserve nothing but
punishment." And that brings us to the next question: is that justice? For you'd
think that if the Lord really cared about justice, He'd have no choice BUT to
forsake us - to reject us as totally unworthy of His favor! -- But again the Good
News: God found a way to satisfy justice and save us too. Justice demanded
that someone be forsaken by God and suffer His wrath over sin. So God had
His Son Jesus bear that punishment in our place. Peter says, For Christ also
suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us[a] to God,
being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit. -- 1 Pet 3:18.

With His sacrifice on the cross, Jesus has brought us to God. By shedding His
blood, He has paid the price to redeem your soul and mine from every sin we've
ever committed -- or ever will commit, for that matter. In Christ, everyone in
the world has been justified - declared "not guilty" of their sin. And by putting
faith in our hearts to believe that, the Holy Spirit has made that salvation our
own. So you see, now, as a just God, the Lord really has to prosper and preserve
and protect us Christians. Ask yourself – can the Lord punish you for sins for
which His Son already paid? Obviously not. This is one good reason why we
know our Lord could never – and will never - forsake His saints!
0A

Finally, the most beautiful promise of all: The righteous shall inherit the land,
And dwell in it forever. What "land" is David referring to? You remember how
the Lord promised His Old Testament people - while they were still slaves in
Egypt - that they would have their own country one day. It would be the
promised Land of Canaan, beautiful, flowing with milk and honey. Well, here
and elsewhere, Scripture uses that land as a picture of the eternal Promised
Land that our Savior has won for us. Here is one promise that ought to fill us
with comfort and joy, especially when we hear our Master Himself repeat the
promise in His own words, "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were
not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that
where I am, there ye may be also." -- John 14:2-3. Heaven! This is the Land
David's talking about, the sweet and blessed country where the redeemed in
Christ will dwell in happiness forever!

Two young schoolgirls were sitting on the curb talking, when one of them
remarked happily that she had ten pennies. The other girl was puzzled when she
looked in her hand and only saw five. She said, "You only have five pennies!"
Patiently the first girl explained, "No, you see: I have five here, and my father
told me he would give me five more tonight. So I have ten." That's what faith
is, says the writer to the Hebrews: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen." -- Heb 11:1. In another place the holy writer
says, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for GOD IS
FAITHFUL THAT PROMISED." God is faithful that promised! In Christ
Jesus, all our heavenly Father's promises to us are "yea" and "amen." And He
has promised to give us, at day's end, the eternal inheritance of the saints. God
grant that we each may trust in that promise with a simple, childlike faith. We'll
get there. We will get there! Because there's one thing we know for sure: the
Lord never forsakes His saints! AMEN.