Save Your People Lord!

Today the message is entitled “Save Your People Lord!”
As this message was developing, it started out to be about King David’s plea for the Israelite people and how we should have the same plea today. Now that it is finished, the message is about our finding God and standing with God in this world today.

Many of us said goodbye to an old friend yesterday. It was Dale Price’s memorial and meeting a bunch of my old friends from a different era, that changed where this message is going. I realized that in all the hurriedness of today, that the simple love for God and His people, my friends, was lacking.

The Scripture God pointed me towards for this message has several themes that I want to point out to you. They are simple and direct and quite literally forgotten in our daily struggles. Seeing my friends and talking about memories and current health made this so much more real for me today.

Psalms 28: 6-9 NIV

6 Praise be to the Lord,
for he has heard my cry for mercy.
God truly hears our cries, we do need to praise Him

7 The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
My heart leaps for joy,
and I will give thanks to Him in song.
We need to thank God for being our savior, protector, helper!

8 The Lord is the strength of his people,
a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.
We can rely on God for the power to be His anointed ones. Did you realize that as a Christian, you are anointed by God?

And then verse 9 sums up the original thought for this message.

9 Save your people and bless your inheritance;
be their shepherd and carry them forever.
King David pleas for God to save the Israelites and to keep them safe forever.

Sigmund Mowinckel, in his book “The Psalms in Israel’s Worship,” makes two statements. First, “When Yahweh saves the king from distress, in Psalm 28:9, it is at the same time the salvation of the people of Yahweh.”

Also, “Psalm 28 is, in all probability, a psalm referring to the king’s sickness, … The suppliant presents himself as ‘Yahweh’s anointed’, and it is suggested that Yahweh by saving His anointed would manifest himself as the ‘saving strength’ of His people. Hence the petition for the recovery of the king, and the confidence expressed in it, concludes as a prayer to ‘save thy people and bless thine inheritance.”

We need to plea for the people of this world! God wants all to know Him, so we are to tell all people about this God who has saved us.

The apostle Paul says the same thing in his letters to the different churches.

1 Cor 1:2 NIV
2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

Colossians 2:6-7 NIV
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,
7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

In Abdu Murray’s book “Saving Truth,” there is a reference to 17th century French religious philosopher, Blaise Pascal. He wrote about drifting societies with profound insight. “When everything is moving at once,” wrote Pascal, “nothing appears to be moving, as on board a ship. When everyone is moving toward depravity, no one seems to be moving. But if someone stops, he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point.”
Abdu goes on to say, “There is One who stepped into the river of human history to provide an immovable fixed-point of reference, even in the strongest of currents.”

He is talking about Jesus Christ. He could say the same thing for everyone that has accepted Jesus into their lives. It is for us to be the guides, the fixed point for all those who have not found Jesus yet.

So, let us reminisce on our faith for a moment to get our bearings so we can be the fixed-point for others.

The state of the Christian – By God’s Grace – saved – For Good Works!

Romans 10: 9 NIV
That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Romans 10: 13 NIV
For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Ephesians 2: 8-10 NIV
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

As Christians, God chose us to be His ambassadors to the people. We are to show them the way to God and give them their bearings to walk with God.

The title of today’s message “Save Your People Lord” has a dual meaning. On one side, it is Jesus who gave us the way to salvation, to save His people.
On the other side, God says to us, go show the people the way to me so I can save them.

God is saving His people, by using us! Be the fixed point in this fast-moving world.