PSALM 71 - Vinegar or Sugar?
Summer Psalms 2023 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 41:35
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· 32 viewsThe bitterness of aging is made sweet for the saint that rests in God
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Introduction
Introduction
A couple of weeks ago, we went to see my niece’s high school graduation. It was a beautiful night, and a fine ceremony; watching these students come to the end of their high school experience (and in many ways the end of their childhood as well.) I was sitting next to Caleb in the bleachers, and as we were waiting for the festivities to begin, we heard a gentleman behind us talking about visiting an elderly relative. (We weren’t eavesdropping, this fellow just had one of those voices that really carries—especially when it’s coming from two bleachers above you…)
He said she had just turned 101, and was asking her about what it was like. He said she told him that it was so lonely; that all her friends and family had died long ago, and she had no one left. She said that she was so weak, that her legs didn’t work any more, and her eyesight was failing. She said that everyone thought that living to 100 was some sort of wonderful milestone, but all she knew was that she was tired and lonely and weak, and was ready to be done living. (Caleb texted me, “This guy’s kind of a downer!”)
But you don’t have to be a century old to begin to feel the effects of aging in your life—the physical decline, continued struggles with weakness and sin, burdens of the difficulties and disappointments of living a long life in a broken world. (Like Bilbo Baggins’ feeling like “not enough butter spread over too much bread...”)
The old radio preacher J. Vernon McGee once said that there are two ways to preserve something—with sugar, or with vinegar. And people are the same way—as they grow older, they either get more sweet or more sour. In his poem, Let Me Get Home Before Dark, Dr. Robertson McQuilkin wrote about his fear of aging, that he would someday be known for
The darkness of a spirit
grown mean and small,
fruit shriveled on the vine,
bitter to the taste of my companions,
burden to be borne by those brave few
who love me still.
And he goes on to pray:
No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet,
A joy to all who taste;
Spirit-sign of God at work,
stronger, fuller, brighter at the end.
Lord, let me get home before dark.
(Excerpted from Robertson McQuilkin, Let Me Get Home Before Dark)
Nobody in this room wants to spend their old age as a bitter burden bravely borne by the few that still love them. What one of us here doesn’t want to be known by the sweetness of a life bearing the fruit of God’s Spirit right to the very end? And so the question is, how do we cultivate that sweetness? How do you order your life and your walk with God now so that as you grow older you will be preserved with sugar and not vinegar—joy and not cynicism, love and not grumbling, sweetness and not bitterness?
Psalm 71 is regarded by many commentators as the last psalm that King David ever wrote—it flows so seamlessly from Psalm 70 that it is very possible that David wrote them both together. This psalm is concerned with “the saint in winter”—what old age looks like for the child of God:
Psalm 71:9 (ESV)
9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.
Psalm 71:18 (ESV)
18 So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.
And so this morning I want us to study this Psalm together so that we can see what David tells us here, that
The BITTERNESS of aging is made SWEET for the saint that RESTS in God
The BITTERNESS of aging is made SWEET for the saint that RESTS in God
The world around us fights against anything that threatens to take away its youth and vigor and strength, because the world around us is a result of the Fall, when our first parents traded the life and vigor and youth of Paradise for the false promises of Satan’s lies. As a race we refused the obedience to God that would have secured our eternal youth and strength, and so we abhor and refuse to accept the curse of aging and death that we have brought upon ourselves. If you continually imbibe the rebellious attitude of the world and its attempts to deny the consequences of the Curse brought on by the Fall, you will become increasingly bitter and angry and frustrated at the inevitable declines and frailties of aging. But for the believer, the bitterness of aging is made sweet for the saint that rests on God—and that all begins when you learn to
I. Rely on God’s PRESENCE in your FRAILTIES
I. Rely on God’s PRESENCE in your FRAILTIES
Instead of the vinegar of bitterness over your growing older, David demonstrates in this psalm the sweetness of recognizing that his old age is a God-given opportunity to lean more on Him! Like the old preacher who said he had learned to kiss the waves that dashed him against the Rock of Ages, learn the sweetness of leaning more and more on your loving Heavenly Father
As your WEAKNESS grows (v. 9)
As your WEAKNESS grows (v. 9)
Isn’t that what David prays in verse 9?
Psalm 71:9 (ESV)
9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.
When it’s harder and harder to get up the stairs or get out of bed or stand up out of that chair, the world wants you to grow bitter over your failing strength—but the Scriptures tell you that this is an opportunity to grow in your dependence on God! Sure—in your younger days you could bound up the stairs three at a time, and you could leap out of bed after a mere four hours’ sleep and take on the day. But you were also an idiot back then! You were so full of your own strength and youth and vigor that it was easy to forget your dependence on God, your need to rely on His strength for everything you did. And those worn out knees and dim eyes and arthritic hands that you deal with now make it so that you have to lean more and more on God—and leaning on Him is always more blessed!
The bitterness of aging is made sweet by relying on God as your weakness grows, and relying on Him
As your TROUBLES continue (v. 10)
As your TROUBLES continue (v. 10)
The broken world that we live in doesn’t let up as we get older, does it? We still face the same old problems with finances or relationships or conflicts or work or family—this is what we hear from David in verse 10:
Psalm 71:10 (ESV)
10 For my enemies speak concerning me; those who watch for my life consult together
Here was King David, old and frail and coming to the end of his days, but his enemies didn’t pull back and give him a reprieve, did they? They saw this as an opportunity to finish him off! In the same way, the trials and burdens and sufferings of life in this world do not abate as you grow older, they just get harder and harder to deal with, don’t they?
The world’s solution is to get angrier and more frustrated as your troubles continue; but the soul growing in the sweetness of resting in God is quicker to turn those troubles over to Him. The blessing of old age is that you don’t pretend you have the strength to manage your troubles like you used to! You are quicker to come to God and lean on Him to deliver you—you are more eager than you have ever been to “cast your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7)
The bitterness of aging is made sweet for the saint who relies on God’s presence as your weakness grows, as your troubles continue, and
As your ISOLATION intensifies (vv. 11-14)
As your ISOLATION intensifies (vv. 11-14)
One of the most heart-wrenching things about aging is the loneliness that it entails. A few months ago, Dick Van Dyke was in the news because he had been in a minor car accident. A camera crew caught up with the 97-year-old actor as he was walking to his apartment a few weeks after the accident to ask how he was doing. In his trademark cheerful voice, he said, “Well, all my friends are dead!” He was playing it for a laugh, but you couldn’t help but hear the profound loneliness in his remark.
There is something of that heaviness in David’s words in verse 11 of our psalm—as his enemies rally to finish him off, they say
Psalm 71:11 (ESV)
11 ...“God has forsaken him; pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him.”
“David has nobody left to help him! All his mighty men of valor who served him all those years are dead and gone! Now is the time to finally take him down, when he has nobody left!”
Christian, the world wants you to succumb to the bitterness and despair of the loneliness that is your portion when more of your friends are in the cemetery than the social hall. But David knew that even if all of his friends were gone, God would never forsake him!
Psalm 71:12–14 (ESV)
12 O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! 13 May my accusers be put to shame and consumed; with scorn and disgrace may they be covered who seek my hurt. 14 But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.
The bitterness of aging is made sweet for the saint that rests in God—as you rely on God’s presence in your frailties, and as you
II. Rejoice in God’s FAITHFULNESS throughout your LIFE
II. Rejoice in God’s FAITHFULNESS throughout your LIFE
As we get older and begin to experience those weaknesses and troubles and loneliness, we are all too prone to start looking back on “the good old days” when we had our youth and vigor, and life seemed so much less complicated. The more the present world and its darkness closes in on us, the more we wish we could “escape” back to those simpler, brighter times. But that sense of nostalgia (which, if we were really honest, is not the truth about those days) is another form of vinegar—that sense of pining for the days long gone will begin to sour us as we age. We begin to despise the present, comparing it to a past that never really existed the way we have built it up in our minds.
But at the end of his long life, King David did not exhibit the vinegar of nostalgic bitterness; he was full of the sweetness of rejoicing in God’s faithfulness--
Psalm 71:5–6 (ESV)
5 For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth. 6 Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
What does David see when he looks back through his life? He isn’t replaying all his past victories and glories, wishing he could have them back—all he can see when he looks back through his life is how God’s faithfulness never failed him! This is how you battle the bitterness of nostalgia, Christian—rejoice that, all your life through,
He has never ABANDONED you ...
He has never ABANDONED you ...
David marvels that Yahweh has been his trust and his hope from his childhood onwards—he even goes so far as to say that he was leaning on God before he was even born! “Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you” (v. 6)
On February 22nd, 156 A.D., an old man was led through the streets of Rome to be burned at the stake for refusing to offer a pinch of incense to the genius of Caesar. His name was Polycarp, and he had been one of the Apostle John’s disciples. As he was being led to his execution, he was asked one more time, “What harm is there in simply dropping a pinch of incense into the fire and saying ‘Caesar is Lord’? Surely your life is worth a tiny pinch of incense and three simple words??” Polycarp’s answer was full of the sweetness of a man who had spent his life rejoicing in the faithfulness of Christ: “For 86 years I have been His slave, and He has done me no wrong; how can I blaspheme the King who saved me?”
The bitterness of aging is made sweet by rejoicing in God’s faithfulness throughout your life—rejoice that He has never abandoned you
...even when you have FAILED Him (vv. 7-8)
...even when you have FAILED Him (vv. 7-8)
This seems to be what David has in mind in verse 7:
Psalm 71:7 (ESV)
7 I have been as a portent to many, but you are my strong refuge.
The word “portent” is tricky to translate—the Hebrew word (mo-PHET) is used in Isaiah 20:3 to describe Isaiah’s walking naked and barefoot as a “portent” (a “warning”) against Egypt—and the same word is used to describe the “wonders” that Moses performed before Pharaoh in Exodus 11.
I think the idea behind David’s words here in verse 7 is that he feels as though his life has been the same—his example has served as a warning to others (such as his sin with Bathsheba and the heartbreak of his son Absalom’s rebellion and death), and his life has also served to demonstrate the wonders of God’s glory (slaying Goliath, writing and singing the Psalms). Christian, look and see that your life is just the same—a whole life of trials and blessings, perils and deliverances—but in all of those ups and downs, through those sins and failures, through those triumphs and joys, you can look back and rejoice over God’s never-ending faithfulness throughout your life!
The bitterness of aging is made sweet for the saint who rests in God—rely on His presence in your frailties, rejoice in God’s faithfulness throughout your life, and
III. Recognize God’s CALLING for TODAY
III. Recognize God’s CALLING for TODAY
Another reason that we can become sour and bitter as we age is the vinegar of regret. We become bitter when we look back on all the things we wish we had done; “fretting for a task God never gave” as Robertson McQuilkin says in his poem. You can easily think of people you know (of any age) who are stuck in that past, saying, “If only I had gone to college, my life would have been so much better...” “If only I had married Bill instead...” “If coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind… You better believe things would have been different...”
But as David pens this last psalm, you don’t hear any of that regret about the past, wishing God had given him different opportunities. Instead, David looks ahead to what God is calling him to do now--
Raise the GENERATION of WORSHIPPERS (vv. 16-19)
Raise the GENERATION of WORSHIPPERS (vv. 16-19)
Psalm 71:16–19 (ESV)
16 With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone. 17 O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. 18 So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come. 19 Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?
David doesn’t live in the past of “what-might-have-been”; he looks to the work that God has for him even now. And he realizes that one of the most significant things he can do in his old age is testify to the never-ending faithfulness of God. Grey hair gives a great deal of weight to that testimony—
Psalm 37:25 (ESV)
25 I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.
How many times, Christian, do you inadvertently communicate to the next generation that God is faithless—when you complain about your state, when you act as though old age is some kind of living death, when you have to make sure everyone around you knows just how hard your life has been and how miserable you were in it—the vinegar of your unbelief tells the generation that follows you that it is not worth it to worship God.
But David rejoiced to tell those coming behind him that God has always been faithful—He has never abandoned him. He proclaims God’s wondrous deeds in his life; his mouth is full of praise for God and delight in His righteousness. This is a life that sweetens the bitterness of aging by resting in God’s faithfulness in such a way that it breeds a new generation of worship; children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren that marvel in the wonders of the everlasting faithfulness of God!
But that doesn’t mean that David is in denial about how hard his life has been—a saint who has had the bitterness of aging sweetened by resting in God is not some in some disconnected, unrealistic state about the true trials and hardships and despair they have experienced—they look squarely and uncompromisingly at all of a lifetime of pain and struggle and they
Rest in God’s WISE PROVIDENCE (vv. 20-21)
Rest in God’s WISE PROVIDENCE (vv. 20-21)
David makes it crystal-clear where his troubles have come from:
Psalm 71:20–21 (ESV)
20 You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. 21 You will increase my greatness and comfort me again.
He says, Yahweh is the One Who has brought these troubles through my life; His is the hand that has delivered them to me.” But he doesn’t respond with the vinegar of cynicism or despair, that God is some uncaring bully, saying, “Oh well, whatcha gonna do? He’s bigger and stronger and He always gets His way, so you may as well just go with it...”
David wasn’t sour over the calamities and troubles God had shown him; he rested in God’s wisdom and control! If he was afflicted by God, he was sure that he would someday be comforted again—he could let go of his anxiety and frustrations and let his heart be glad in what God had done, and what He had promised to do.
David ends this psalm—very likely the last one he ever composed—with a promise that he will never stop praising God for His faithfulness to him:
Psalm 71:22–24 (ESV)
22 I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. 23 My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed. 24 And my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long, for they have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt.
Through all of the joys and pains of a long life full of terrible heartache and tragedy as well as magnificent heights of holiness and victory, through all of the darkness of a broken world guided by the light of God’s Spirit, David finished his race in the sweetness of a saint who knew what it meant to rest in the faithfulness of God.
Christian, how do you want to be preserved? What do you want your legacy to be in your old age? Do you want your live to be characterized by sourness and bitterness, angry at the world for changing and disappointed in God for the way He has governed the seasons of your life? Or do you want to be a Christian that delights more and more in God’s everlasting faithfulness, always telling stories of the great things God did for you throughout your life, that He has never failed you and never will—and that He is worthy of all your trust, because He will never leave or forsake His own!
If you want to be preserved with sugar rather than vinegar in your old age, then start now. That means that you repent of that bitterness that you have allowed to fester, confess it for the sin that it is. Repent of the complaining and pining for the nostalgia of “good old days” that you have created in your memories—if you are going to tell stories about the good old days, make them stories about all of your Savior’s goodness to you!
Whether you have kids and grandkids or not, make it your aim that whenever you talk to the generations behind you about your life, you will always make it clear to them that your God is worthy of their praise! Tell them the stories of His rescues, of His kindnesses, of His answers to your prayers, to His faithfulness to hold you through the bleakest and blackest times of your life; show them that even when their lives are falling apart and they cannot understand how God could bring such calamity upon them that He can be trusted to revive them again! Tell them how He did it for you, and how He will be faithful to do it for them—raise up the next generation of white-hot worshippers of God’s glory by showing them His faithfulness in your life!
In the closing verses of this psalm that we just read, David declares the reason that he sings praises to God—the reason for all of his delight and his joy over God’s unfailing faithfulness:
Psalm 71:23 (ESV)
23 My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed.
David was so eager to praise God until his final breath because he was deeply aware of what he had been redeemed from. In this psalm where he sings of all of the ups and downs, all of the joys and sorrows that God had seen him through, one of the most profound episodes of his life was the shocking and shameful sin of his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah (one of his most trusted “mighty men”). David sang of God’s faithfulness because God had forgiven his sin—he had been redeemed from the death-penalty that he deserved under Moses’ Law as an adulterer and murderer.
Friend, you might be here this morning bearing the guilt and shame of your own crimes today—you may not have actually slept with someone who is not your spouse, but Jesus says in Matthew 5:28 that if you have looked with lust on someone else, you are already an adulterer. You may not have actually taken the life of another human being, but Jesus says in Matthew 5:22 that if you hate your brother in your heart you are already a murderer. And there is only one way to pay for breaking God’s Law against murder or adultery or lying or stealing—you owe your life-blood to God to pay for your sins, because there is no way to redeem sin apart from shedding blood (Hebrews 9:22).
But the grace of God has appeared in the person of Jesus Christ, the One Whose blood will redeem you. He died on that Cross as a completely innocent sacrifice—He had no sin of His own to pay for, and so that means that His life’s-blood is sufficient to pay for your sins. This is the Good News; this is the Gospel. That when you come to Jesus Christ in true repentance for your sins against God’s holiness, forsaking them and leaving them behind, and you call on Him for forgiveness, He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness! (1 John 1:9).
You can have that cleansing today! You can have that freedom from the guilt of your past and the shame of your filthy deeds—you can put on the very righteousness of God in Christ today! And the faithfulness that David sings about here in his valedictory psalm will be your song for the rest of your life! Don’t turn away from the magnificent gift of grace that He is offering you today—this can be the day that you begin to build a sweet legacy of joy and satisfaction and life and light and peace for you and for all who follow you for generations to come. So come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!
BENEDICTION:
Hebrews 13:20–21 (ESV)
20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
Think of an older believer you know who is characterized by a sweetness in their life—how do they speak about God’s faithfulness to them? When they talk about their lives, how do they describe God’s work for them? How can you begin imitating that kind of attitude in your life?
Think of an older believer you know who is characterized by a sweetness in their life—how do they speak about God’s faithfulness to them? When they talk about their lives, how do they describe God’s work for them? How can you begin imitating that kind of attitude in your life?
How can a Christian inadvertently communicate to others that God’s faithfulness cannot be trusted? What does a believer with a grumbling or complaining or bitter spirit say about God? Does that kind of an attitude make a young person more or less likely to entrust themselves to God?
How can a Christian inadvertently communicate to others that God’s faithfulness cannot be trusted? What does a believer with a grumbling or complaining or bitter spirit say about God? Does that kind of an attitude make a young person more or less likely to entrust themselves to God?
David was a man who committed murder to cover up his adultery—two shocking crimes from someone who claimed to love God. Why was David still able to love God and rejoice so wholeheartedly in His righteousness? What does it mean to be “redeemed” by God? Have you experienced that redemption from your sins through Christ? Contact us at bbcsykesville@gmail.com if you want to learn more!
David was a man who committed murder to cover up his adultery—two shocking crimes from someone who claimed to love God. Why was David still able to love God and rejoice so wholeheartedly in His righteousness? What does it mean to be “redeemed” by God? Have you experienced that redemption from your sins through Christ? Contact us at bbcsykesville@gmail.com if you want to learn more!