Skip to content 5. Quietening of the Noisy Soul - Part 1 Sep 7 · 27 min ...more
0:09 Hi, Church. It is such a joy for us to study the word of God together in our small groups. Today, we're gonna be talking about quietening our noisy soul, part 1.0:21 I wanna cover this whole message in part 2 as well. But today, we're gonna be looking at the text, Psalm 62. It's 12 verses, and I want us to read it0:33 together so that we get the big picture. Now when you read a psalm, I want you to pay attention to the tone in which things are said. At the same time, look for0:44 the the repeated words so that you understand what is being emphasized. Let's read it together. Psalm 62 and verse 1 says, for God alone, my soul0:56 waits in silence. From him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be1:08 greatly shaken. How long will all of you attack a man to batter him like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? They only plan to thrust him down from his high1:20 position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly, they curse. Verse 5. For God alone, my soul,1:31 wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. On God rest my1:43 salvation and my glory. My mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, o people. Pour out your heart before him.1:55 God is a refuge for us. Those of low estate are but a breadth. Those of high estate are a delusion. In the balances, they go up. They are2:07 together lighter than a breath. Put no trust in extortion. Set no vain hopes on robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart on them.2:18 Once God has spoken, twice have I heard this, that power belongs to God. And that to you, o Lord, belongs steadfast love, for you2:30 will render to a man according to his work. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. I want you to pay attention to Psalm 62. It is a psalm of2:42 David. In other words, you are getting into a peek in peek into his journal where he records the emotional turmoil that he was in, the churning2:54 within. But at the same time, he also records his posture before God and how he poured out his soul before the Lord and how he gained back a confidence3:06 in God. This psalm speaks about silence, and this psalm reminds us that sometimes we need to go into the presence of God to be3:17 silent and to be alone in God's presence. Look at this. In verse 1 and verse 2, David speaks about himself. Then in verse 3 and verse3:28 4, David speaks about his enemies and that they are also speaking. They are speaking judgment. They are speaking curse. And inwardly, they3:40 curse. Externally, they bless. They're speaking something. Then in verse 5 all the way to verse 8, you find David again reminding himself to trust in the Lord,3:52 and he speaks of God this time. And then later on, he speaks about the judgment of God upon his enemies. And finally, he says, I glorify God. Now listen. When you4:04 look at a psalm like this, it is beautiful to observe the repeated words. And I want you to pay attention to a couple of things. Verse 1 and4:15 verse 5. There are twice he says, for God alone, my soul waits in silence. Then he says, for God alone, oh my4:27 soul, wait in silence. So verse 1 says, for God alone, my soul waits in silence. And then in verse 5, he says, oh my soul, wait in4:39 silence. Now when you're studying this, observe this. You and I know that there is 3 terms when a an English teacher will teach you. There are4:51 interrogatives, questions. There are indicatives, statements. And there are imperatives, commandments. Now when you read this, you gotta understand,5:03 is this an interrogative? Is it an indicative, or is it an imperative? Verse 1 says, for God alone, my soul waits in silence. What is that? That's a statement. I'm5:15 waiting in the presence of God, David says. But then in verse 5, he actually goes on to say, for God alone, oh my soul, wait in silence. This time, it's an imperative.5:27 He says, I want my soul to wait in silence before God. And then verse 8 goes on to say, I pour my soul before5:39 God. Pour out your heart before him. In other words, in the Psalm, David is actually pouring his heart before God. But you know he's pouring his heart in silence.5:50 See, you and I have a we can look into his journal, and we are reading this journal, and we recognize that he's singing this as a psalm later. This is a song that he has written for people6:02 to sing later, but this is his journal entry first. And you get a peek into his life. He says, I waited before the Lord in silence, and I commanded my soul to wait before God in silence. And in that6:14 silence, he was pouring out his soul before God. And there is a orientation change, an inward posture change that happens. His soul moved from6:26 restlessness to restedness. Look at the shift that happens in his inner orientation. He says, I shall not be greatly shaken. Verse6:38 2. The word is greatly shaken. Then in verse 6, he repeats the same thing, but this time, after he has poured out his soul before God, and he knows that God is his6:49 salvation, his refuge, his glory, his fortress, and God is his rock, you know what he says? I shall not be shaken. Look at that language.7:01 His inner composure has stabilized from restlessness to restedness. It is because he came before God in silence. Does7:13 this remind you of another psalm we studied before? Psalm 73. Until he entered into the sanctuary of God, then he saw the big picture. You and I, we7:25 need to come before God's God's presence. You and I, we need to come into God's presence. And when we come into God's presence, we come in solitude and in silence. And when we are7:37 silent before God, we can empty our soul. We can pour out our soul before God even in that silence. And there is a transaction that takes place.7:49 As a result, we our inner life is being repaired and restored. Now this is something you and I, we need to understand. The Bible says in the Old Testament,8:00 Hannah was praying in God's presence. She was actually weeping and crying and pouring out her soul. She was in so much pain, emotional pain, inflicted8:12 by people around her because she was barren. But she was crying out to the Lord. Her lips only moved, but she was quietly that no sound came out. When others looked at her, they thought she8:24 was drunk. But here is a woman who was silent before the Lord. Have you ever been silent before the Lord? Have you ever been in8:36 solitude, alone with the Lord? You know, silence and solitude go together. Do you know this is not part of our nature? Wayne8:47 Oates, the man who researched a lot about noisy hearts, and he says this, silence is not nature to my world. Silence is more than likely8:59 a stranger to your world too. If you and I ever have silence in our noisy hearts, we are going to have to grow it. You can nurture silence in your noisy heart if you value9:11 it, cherish it, and are eager to nourish it. You and I, we need to recognize that silence is foreign to us. In fact, many people equate silence9:23 to helplessness. They need to have some sort of noise in their house, either a TV on or a radio on. Young people these days have to have something pumping9:35 music in their ear with their AirPods. I want you to listen to me. Why? Because we we we equate silence to helplessness and being alone to loneliness. But the Bible says people of God who wants to9:47 continue to mature in Christ and wants to have a grip of their inner life, wants to have a good, stable, healthy cultivate a healthy inner life, they need to learn what it means to have silence and9:59 solitude. It is a discipline. So let's talk about the practice of silence and solitude. Let me define it first. The discipline of silence is about abstaining10:10 from speaking and shutting out the chatter around us in order to hear God speak. You shut down every other noise so that you can hear his10:22 voice. That's the discipline of silence. Secondly, the discipline of solitude is about withdrawing from others to be alone so that we can enjoy10:34 intimacy with God. We need to come away from others. We need to draw ourselves away from others, wean ourselves from others, from10:46 other noises, and come before God alone in solitude so that we can quieten our noisy workshop of our hearts, and we can hear him10:58 clearly. It's the discipline of silence and solitude. Now why do I say this together? Because they are a pair. You can't separate them. You can't have silence without11:09 solitude, and you shouldn't have solitude without silence. They go together. And when you combine these 2 disciplines together, it is powerful. Now I'm not promoting a monk style11:21 lifestyle. You cannot always be silent and always live in solitude. The Bible, in fact, says, you and I, we need to be part of a loving fellowship. So there is a balance.11:34 We need to be in a loving community. We need to do life together with other brothers and sisters, and we need to share our burden. We need to share with 1 another. We need to be able to laugh and cry and do things11:45 together. But at the same time, it is equally, vitally important for us to withdraw and be alone and be silent before God.11:56 Now I wanna give you some examples from the scripture. So let's look at the purpose of silence and solitude. It is to follow the example of Jesus.12:09 In fact, the Bible says in Luke chapter 4 and verse 1, after Jesus was baptized by John, the Holy Spirit came upon him. And the Bible says Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit,12:21 he was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. And you and I know how many days Jesus spent in the wilderness. 40 days and 40 nights. And when he came back12:33 from that season of solitude, that season of being alone with God, being silent before God, the Bible says in verse 4, in verse 14,12:45 Jesus returned in the power of the spirit to Galilee. Look at that. He went into the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit, yielding to the Holy12:57 Spirit, being led by the Spirit. But when he came out of that silence and solitude time, he was empowered by this Holy Spirit. He was empowered. There was a power that was made manifest in13:09 his ministry. Now this is why Jesus has a regular practice. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 14 and verse 23. It says, after he had dismissed the13:20 crowds, he went up to the mountain by himself to pray. See, Jesus sought the father's help by himself. When evening came, he was there13:32 alone. He was having communion with the father. He was having intimacy with the father. And to do that, he needed to pull away from the crowd. Look at another passage. Mark chapter13:44 1 and verse 35. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. This is a pattern in Jesus' life.13:56 You will always see him either get up very early, and he will find a place, a desolate place, a lonely place, and there he will spend time with14:07 the father. See, I wanna give you a principle. Take this down. Whenever you want to do silence and solitude like Jesus, there was a regular place, there was a regular time,14:20 and there was a regular pattern. You and I, we need to discipline ourselves to find these rhythms in our life. He had a regular place where he would go. He had a regular time where he14:32 would go, and he will have a regular pattern, what you do when you're there alone. And this is what I want you to explore together with me. In fact, Mark chapter 1, the whole chapter speaks about how14:44 Jesus was so busy from morning till night. Jesus had a busy day, long day of ministry. But the very next day, Jesus withdraw himself to go alone to be14:56 in the Father's presence. Silence and solitude was necessary even for our Master. Secondly, to hear the voice of God better. You15:07 know, when you are surrounded by noise, it is very difficult for us to hear what God is saying. See, we are so overconnected.15:20 In fact, our mobile devices, we can see the whole world in our mobile devices. You can watch movie after movie. You can watch advertisement after advertisement. You can watch cat videos after cat15:32 videos. People waste their time surfing the Internet, flicking through 1 video after another in their Instagram or in their Facebook. They are always connected. There's so much going on in the world.15:44 But you and I, we need to hear the voice of God. We need to disconnect and come away and be in God's presence. Now the Bible says in first Kings chapter 1915:56 and verse 11 and verse 12, Elijah Elijah was in the mountain. It's Mount Sinai. There are 3 times the Bible says that God16:08 was not in that thing. 3 times. I want you to read this passage. He says, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains, broke in pieces16:20 and rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And16:31 after the fire, the sound of a low whisper. And the next verse says, and the Lord spoke to Elijah. Now listen to me. Why did God say he's not in the wind, not in the fire, not in the earthquake? It is16:43 for your benefit and my benefit that God sometimes doesn't speak to us in the spectacular manner. These are spectacular things, but God speaks to us in a gentle,16:54 quiet whisper. That's why you may miss hearing the voice of God if you do not come to a place of silence and solitude before him. Habakkuk17:06 chapter 2 and verse 1, the Bible says this. I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower and look out to see what he will say to me and what I will answer concerning my complaint. You and17:18 I studied Habakkuk together. Here, this is what he says. I will go and set myself up alone in the watchpost, and I'll watch for what he will say. Listen. When you17:30 are in in a silence and solitude, you will hear God better. Jonathan Edwards, the famous preacher, wrote in his journal17:42 about his wife. When she was a teenager, he observed this, and he wrote this in his journal. And I'm giving you this journal entry so that you know17:54 how to read other people's journal and get edified. You write your journal. 1 day, your family will be edified by your journal. Keep a record of what God is saying to you. Look what he writes about his18:06 future wife as a teenager. She hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have someone18:17 invisible always conversing with her. I love it. She's conversing with someone always. She loves to be alone. Fields and groves. We don't have fields and groves, but18:29 you may have a reserve next to you. You may have a park somewhere where you can go and take a walk with Jesus and have that time alone with him. Thirdly, it is to seek the will of18:40 God. See, many times people want to know the will of God, but in the busyness of schedule, in the frantic life that we have, We are living so fragmented lives, distracted lives, overloaded18:52 lives, hurried lives. We don't have time to seek the will of God. We don't know what is his will. See, the will of God, you cannot discern it when you are19:04 hurried and overloaded and frustrated and distracted and fragmented. You need to come away and be in God's presence in silence and solitude. Look at what the Bible says in Luke chapter 619:16 and verse 12 and verse 13. Jesus spent all night in prayer. Why did he spend all night in prayer? Because verse 13 says, when the day came, he called19:28 his disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named apostles. 12 people are being chosen to be apostles. This is a major decision that Jesus has to make. Why? Because these 12 will be with19:40 him always. 1 of them will betray him. 1 of them will deny him. 1 of them will doubt him. 1 of them is from the devil, the Bible says.19:52 How much more Jesus needed to discern who to bring closer to him. He spent all night in prayer. Listen to me carefully. Through that prayer, he discerned who he needs to20:03 bring closer to him. Story was told of Hudson Taylor. Hudson Taylor, the missionary from China. He was on leave, on sabbatical20:15 in the in England, in a city called Brighton. And there, he was filled with restlessness because he felt in his heart that God was saying to him, take the missionary20:27 work inland in China. See, up to that point, all the missionaries stayed on the coastal cities. They only ministered in the coastal cities, but God was placing within him, go into inland and20:39 preach the gospel. And he knows it's a huge endeavor. It'll require a lot of funds, and he knows that there are so many challenges. So he was restless. He was young. He20:51 was exhausted. He was not even feeling well. So he went to stay in Brighton with some of his friends. And 1 Sunday afternoon, he went for a walk near the beach.21:03 And as he was walking in the beach, suddenly, he says, his spirit lifted and his thought became clear, and he quickly penned this down. And this is his journal entry. I want you to read this.21:15 Why, if we are obeying the Lord, the responsibility rests with him, not with us. Thou, Lord, thou shall have all the burden. At thy bidding, as thy21:27 servant, I go forward, leaving results with thee. How restfully I turned away from the sands. The conflict ended. All was joy and peace. I felt21:38 as if I could fly up the hill to mister Pierce's house. And how I did sleep that night, my dear wife thought Brighton had done wonders for me, and so it had.21:51 Beautiful, isn't it? He was restless. But as he was silent and solitude, taking a walk in the beach before the Lord, the Lord put in his heart. The22:02 conflict ended, he says. He could even fly up. Wow. When the clarity comes into your heart, all the confusion leaves, the clarity comes, your22:14 compass is now steadied. There is a sweet composure in your soul. That's what he had. Silence and solitude brings this into our lives.22:26 Lastly, to seek the salvation of the Lord. Look at Lamentations chapter 3 and verse 25, 26. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks22:37 him. It is good that 1 should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. See, many times, we struggle. We we want to do things on our own. We wrestle in our flesh. We want to do things. We wanna help22:49 God. We want to make things faster. But you know what God says? Those who wait for him quietly, they will experience the salvation of the Lord.23:01 Now salvation of the Lord can be interpreted in 2 ways. For a pre believer, salvation is salvation from sins. You are redeemed, saved.23:13 But for a believer, salvation means that you're going through a dangerous situation. You're going through a crisis, and you need to be rescued. You need to be saved. And God says, for a believer,23:25 it is good for you to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. I wanna give you a sermon snippet that Charles Spurgeon23:37 you know, he is a man who writes his entire sermon. So this is a sermon snippet. This is also in his journal entry. I want you to read together with me. I commend solitude to any of you who are seeking salvation.23:49 First, that you may study well your case as in the sight of God. Few men truly know themselves as they really are. Most people have seen themselves in a looking glass, but there is another looking glass which gives24:00 true reflections into which few men look. To study oneself in the light of God's word and carefully to go over one's condition, examining both the inward and the outward24:12 sins, and using all the tests which are given us in the scriptures would be a very healthy exercise. But how very few care to go through it? You know what Spurgeon was24:24 saying? If you really want to be godly, if you really want to be delivered and saved and rescued and redeemed, you need to have this discipline of having silence24:36 and solitude where you are looking in the looking glass. What is a looking glass? It's a mirror. Mirror mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all? You look at it daily.24:48 You and I, we need to look at the mirror. The word of God is the mirror. As you read, let the word of God read you. As you study the word, let the word of God study you. Let it bring forth your24:59 thoughts. You know, 1 thing I've always discovered is this. When I'm reading the scripture in silence and solitude before God, my inner thoughts, my inner25:11 aspirations, ambitions, my inner drives, my inner frustrations, anxieties, they all surface. And the Lord usually uses the word of God and help me to reflect25:23 upon my life and cleanse bring cleansing. See, you and I, we need to be silent and alone for us to be even hear our own thoughts25:36 and more importantly, what God says to us. That's why this is an important thing. So we establish the principle. We establish the practice, the25:47 purpose. Now let's talk about the product of silence and solitude. The product of silence and solitude is threefold. But before I go into that, I want to read a couple of scriptures with you. Read Isaiah25:59 chapter 30 and verse 15. Look at this. For thus said the Lord God, the holy 1 of Israel, in returning and rest, you shall be saved. What is returning? In other words, you repent. You come back to him. You26:11 return to him and then rest. Do you know your Christian life begins with a rest? You rest in the fact that Christ has done the work for you. The more you rest, the more you're saved. Hallelujah. In quietness and26:23 in trust shall be your strength. In other words, the more you are established in that quietness, there is a soul that is at rest. There is a quietness before God, and there is a absolute surrender and a trust before26:35 the Lord. It will become your strength. In other words, you will overcome anything in your life. The word of God says, that is something you and I need to develop. Quietness26:45 and trust, we need to develop. But you cannot develop if you're running around doing things. You have to come away to be able to do that. Every now and26:57 then, take a time to pause hit the pause button. Go into the presence of God.
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Rev. Paul Jeyachandran leads the Intentional Disciple Making Church (IDMC) Movement, which is all about calling churches back to its disciplemaking roots. Visit us at idmcmovement.com
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Paul Jeyachandran
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