God Can Be Your Rock and Refuge; Here's How

We are looking at Psalm 71. Psalm 71. The title is, God Can Be Your Rock and Your Refuge.

Here's how. The Bible talks about run to the refuge or God is a fortress. God is a rock.

And as I was looking through this, I realized the rock is the stability and the fortress is the protection. So that's why it gives God different things there. He is the rock, but He's also a fortress.

Well, if you've ever seen Half Dome of Yosemite, that's kind of what I think about. I don't think about a little rock. I think about the rock, the stability.

And then He's also a refuge, something we run to for protection. What we build upon and what we run to. Psalm 71.

He says, In You, O Lord, I put My trust. Never let Me be put to shame. In You, O Lord, I put My trust.

It might be kind of hard to read up on the screen there. We tried to use the title, and it probably didn't work well with this one. In You, O Lord, I put My trust.

Let Me never be put to shame. We must place our trust in the right place. In You, O Lord, I put My trust.

And it's very important. That's why I kind of wish the young adults could hear this, the teenagers. What are you putting your trust into? Even as Christians, we can be swayed in the wrong direction.

You know, my job, my profession, my 401K, I talk to a lot of people. You know, the first thing they do in the morning is they go and look at what? NASDAQ, Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange. Where's my cryptocurrency? Where's my XRP, my XLM, all these? Bitcoin.

And that's the priority. And when that happens, we can become very frustrated because we're putting our trust in the wrong thing. So it's just a good reminder to ourselves.

In You, Lord, I put My trust. And I have to remind myself often, Lord, I'm putting my trust in the wrong things. I'm putting my trust in people.

Or I'm putting my trust in situations. God, help me put my focus back on You. It's interesting though, He said, let me never be put to shame.

And it's a good reminder that shame, there is shame with sin, but not with God. There is shame with sin. Do you ever feel shame? Do you remember that feeling, some of you? You wake up in the morning and you're like, how did I, what happened last night? Or making decisions and living a certain way and there's so much shame and that's what sin does.

But not with God. And I try to, even this week as I was preparing this, I'm thinking, I can't think of one time where I felt shame because of God. Or because of what He took me through.

Or what He's done to me or been to me. Not one ounce of shame. As a matter of fact, He's covered it.

He's covered the shame. He's covered the things that we've went through. And then, so He goes on to say, deliver me in Your righteousness and cause me to escape.

Lord, incline Your ear to me and save me. What a plea, I love the Psalms. He said, Lord, incline Your ear to me, which we might think is rather interesting maybe.

I mean, God hears us and why do we have to say this? Or doesn't He know? I hear that, I have to answer that question. Well, God already knows what I need. He already knows what I want.

Why do I have to pray? Well, there's a very important spiritual principle that says ask in order to receive. And if you look at the Scriptures, you wonder, if I don't ask, I mean, how many promises or how many gifts maybe or blessings are we missing? Because we fell to ask. Lord, save my children before You even give me any.

Lord, I would love to live a certain place or buy that house. And I don't think those are bad things if the heart's right. See, it's never the things that are bad.

It's the love of those things. He that loves the world. The love of money is the root of all evil.

Asking, God, bring me the right spouse for some of you. Or heal my marriage. And if we don't ask, God's not like a genie in a bottle just kind of doing whatever He wants.

Obviously, His sovereign control plays a role in there and He does accomplish His sovereign purposes without us asking anything. But we do see throughout Scripture that there is a need to ask. And so we must ask God to incline His ear.

What does that mean, incline your ear? Well, I immediately thought of Isaiah 59. This says, behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you and your God and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear.

So you'll see here, it could be even a plea, Lord, incline your ear to hear me. I'm repenting of my sin. I'm repenting of my actions.

Lord, would You give me ear? Would You give me an audience before You? And Lord, deliver me in Your righteousness. There's no other way to be delivered. And what's interesting is you can use this in a couple different ways.

Deliver me. Is He talking about physical death? Possibly from His enemies. Deliver me.

My enemies are after me. God, deliver me. Hide me from them.

Rescue me. It's such a rich word. And then verse 3, be my strong refuge.

So He's asking God, be my strong refuge. And again, a refuge is something you run to. You run into.

Lord, I need You to be that strong refuge to which I may resort continually. Don't miss this. You have given the commandment to save me for You are my rock and my fortress.

So three things we see here. A refuge, a place of safety, a rock, a place of stability, and a fortress, a place that guards Him. But He said, be my strong refuge to which I may resort.

It means where I will go to continually. Continually. And there's something about the word continually in the Hebrew language, in the Greek language, it's a little bit different, but it's a process.

And I've talked about it before. He is a rewarder of those who diligently, continually, seek Him. That is the Christian walk.

And sometimes we think, well, I did that a while ago, I'm good. Or I had this experience with God and fully surrendered back in 2020. Well, did you know as you're filled with the Holy Spirit, Deomudi reminds us that we're also leaky vessels.

Oh, I'm full today, but come Friday, I'm a leaky vessel. And all the married couples say amen. There's nothing that can leak you more than family life.

And that's why we have to run to Him continually. And that's one reason why we encourage daily discipline of reading the Word. Daily discipline, whether you're a morning person, evening person, it needs to happen.

That's the time where you pray, Lord, incline your ear. Hear me again, God, I'm running to You as a refuge. I'm going through all types of difficulties.

Some people have court cases going on that are heavy. I wish that Trump would run to the refuge right now. I wish this would wake him up, right? I wish Biden would run to the refuge.

I wish people would run to God and have Him rebuild their life and strengthen them. But as Christians, we have to do that continually in these words. If you seek Me, you will find Me.

Guys, it's a battle. It's a struggle. Often we have to do the things that are the most important when we don't feel like it.

It's a continual process. Again, refuge. Run to and hide in it continually.

Wait a minute, I thought Christians were to fight and hold our ground. Yeah, we don't run like a coward, but we run to God. I do, I don't know about you.

Lord, this is coming against me. I'm running to You. I'm running to the prayer closet.

I'm not retreating. I'm running to You to get ammunition. I'm running to the prayer closet to reload my weapon.

Because as you know, you've been coming here, the weapons of our warfare are not physical. You get spiritually reloaded in the prayer closet. You get that clip that's empty and you start putting in those 9mm prayer closet prayers.

And you get reloaded up. And now you're ready. And then you come out.

Alright, I need to run back to the refuge and get reloaded again. And go back. That's the image I run to You continually.

Continually going back and forth to You. We must seek. We must knock.

We must ask. And when He's asking Him, the call, Lord, save me, the call to save requires a response from us. There's something that is required on our end.

Have you ever thought about that? All these great things in the Bible for unbelievers. You know, if you repent and believe, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. If you seek Me, you will find Me.

If you turn from your wicked ways, I will heal your land. If you repent, I will begin to hear your prayers. There's a lot of conditional things in the Bible that we forget about.

And I don't know the exact balance of it, but God's sovereign, but we're also responsible for our actions. And we can tilt the scale in a certain direction based on the choices we make and how we live. Again, a rock is stable.

It is strong. It is unmovable. And you have to remind yourself that those are also the characteristics of God.

What is more stable than God? What's a close second? Nothing at all. I mean, when you think of stability, has God ever slipped? Has He ever tripped? Has He ever made a bad mistake? Has He ever changed His mind and doesn't know what to do? It's stability. It's stability.

That's why you build your life, like Jesus said, he who builds his life on the rock, how do you build it? He who hears my sayings and does them, he's like a man who built his house on the rock. The stability. A rock is strong.

One of the hardest things I've ever, when I was running heavy equipment, whether it's those big excavators, they're just awesome to run. You feel the power. But you couldn't do a lot when you hit a rock.

Just stop. There's nothing you could do. So what do you have to do? You have to dig around it.

Dig all around it. Get the dirt around it. And then here's this big rock and then hopefully you can get it out of the way.

And then hopefully you can put it somewhere and get rid of it. But it's strong. It's stable.

It's unmovable. Think about those attributes of God. And the reason that's so important is because as Christians, yes, we know God, but also fear comes into our lives.

And doubt and worry. And we have to remember, Lord, help me build on that stability and that strength. And then of course, the fortress, as I said, it's a covering, it's a shelter for us.

And that's what He's talking about. And then He goes on to say, Lord, deliver me. Deliver me, oh my God, out of the hand of the wicked.

Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. For You are my hope, oh Lord God. You are my trust from my youth.

Isn't it interesting? He already knows all this stuff and God knows this. What's He doing? He reminds Himself. I don't know exactly, you know, of course, how it works.

There are people much smarter than me who study the brain in Christians. But if there's a continual focus on the negativity and the difficulties and the struggles, constantly looking at Fox News, right? Or seeing it's like, man, it drains you. And we worry, look at all these people coming across the border.

Not everyone's a good guy. You know, and you see all the stuff and you're watching videos and the more you focus on that, the more your mind goes to negativity and gloom and doom. I understand we have to be wise.

We have to know what's going on. But He's reminding Himself throughout a lot of the Psalms who God is. What's God going to do? He's telling Himself.

You know, they call it self-talk, positive thinking. You know, I'm not into any of that, but I am into reminding myself who God is because something changes in the mind the more you do that. The brain scientists, they call it neuroplasticity where the brain can actually change and begin to, different neurons begin to think differently and you begin to turn from negative Nelly to positive Patty.

Because of what you're focusing on, there's a leap in your step. There's a smile on your face. You ever wonder where that smile went? Oh, man, just driving around upset.

At work upset. At church upset. And so that's why it's so important to read the Word.

Read the daily devotionals and say these very same things. Oh God, deliver me. Deliver our family.

Deliver our nation. Take us out of the hand of the wicked and these ungodly things that are happening in our nation, in our state. Especially what California just passed with parental notification in the schools.

We're in the twilight zone. We're calling evil good and good evil. And He said here, you are My hope, O Lord.

You are My trust. From My youth. From My youth.

So the point I made here is ask the Lord to deliver you. Ask the Lord to deliver you. And remember, there is only one hope.

There is only one solution. And it is God and God alone. You are My trust from My youth.

From My youth marks a continual pattern of trust. He's reminding Himself that even from My youth, even from My youth, I begin to trust You. I've wavered.

I've feared. I've doubted. I've had to fight Goliath.

I've had to fight lions. I don't know if David wrote that. I forgot to even look.

It's a reminder that even from My youth, Lord, I begin to follow You. It's a good reminder for kids and parents that we have to start them at a young age. I didn't bring the statistics with me, but it's so high that when kids become Christians at age 10, 11, 12, it really sticks.

And the older they get, the harder it becomes. The percentage is so low. And it's also very low in the home when only the mom is a Christian.

But when the father is the Christian, the power of influence. And I think our nation needs an incredible wake-up call. I pray that things don't go south.

I pray that there aren't major attacks and things, but we need a major wake-up call to get us back on the right footing. You know, for men to stop chasing all these things and start praying for their families, leading their families. For women too to just be on fire for God.

And we get so distracted. And that's what's happened in America. Our greatest blessing that God has blessed us abundantly can become your greatest curse.

It's a pattern throughout the Old Testament is when there's bondage and you get free from that. And that freedom leads to some apathy and complacency. And that leads back to bondage again.

It's a cycle that we see. And God gives us these wake-up calls. And then verse six and seven, by You, God, I have been upheld from birth.

From birth. You are He who took me out of my mother's womb. When does life begin according to God? At conception.

When that child is conceived, and there is life. God brings the life of that child. Very, very young age.

That's where God views life. I'm not gonna get into biology, many of you know, but when that happens, there's the life that child starts to grow. So this nonsense that they can do things to babies, even up to nine months, is utter embarrassment.

It's shocking. It's murder. It's exactly what it is.

My praise shall be continually of You and You alone. I'm reminded of that. This week I prayed, Lord, help my praise be on You and You alone.

When you get your heart back to a place of thankfulness and praise, life is enjoyable. When it's the opposite, it's hard. Life sucks.

Can I say that? Okay, okay. It stinks when you're negative and upset and fearful and been robbed of your joy. Isn't that what the enemy wants to do? When he robs us of our joy, we become ineffective in the Kingdom of God.

Because when we don't have joy, we don't want to do much for God. I don't want to read the Bible. And then what else? We send that type of message to people we know.

Oh, he's a Christian? Wow, I don't want anything to do with that. Or are kids watching us? It's okay if you go through challenging situations. We do as well, but the key is to repent and to get back on track.

I praise You continually, Lord. Give me that joy. Give me that joy, because I've become a wonder to many, but You are my strong refuge.

And what he means by that is, I've become a wonder to many. We would say I've become an outcast to many. I've become a enemy of many.

And this is, as a Christian, so important because you're seeing the dividing line even more, aren't you? I mean, if we're standing up for biblical truth, you're seeing there's a dividing line and people are getting, they just get upset, especially with Pride Month coming up here in June in your workplace and just the arrogance and the in-your-face and the mocking of Christians. But regardless, my praise shall be continually of You, O Lord. Continual praise is a continual challenge.

Did you catch that? Continual praise is a continual challenge because it is a changing of our mind. As much as we want to blame people, blame others, blame situations, shift, blame, blame, shifting, we have to own this, that my praise is up to me. And you can make a conscious effort.

We know it. We know the thoughts that come in. We know we can take those thoughts captive.

Do we choose not to do that or not? Many have mocked, many mocked this person, but he chose to run to God. And he adds here in verse 8 and 9, let my mouth be filled with Your praise. Let my mouth be filled with Your praise and with Your glory all the day.

I had thought about that too. Can you imagine if, obviously we can't do it perfectly and we have other things to do and talk about, but if we focused on seizing our words with grace. Just try it maybe for a week.

How about if that's hard, how about till Sunday? Just encouraging others, praising others, your kids, finding the good things. I don't know why. It's so easy to find the faults, isn't it? It's just like you don't have to do anything.

Yesterday I think it was I decided, it's like, oh my goodness, the dishes are piled up. Anybody else have that? So, all right, I'll do them. And then like 40 minutes, later that evening, I see all these dishes.

I'm like, you guys, what's going on here? When you use it, clean it. And all my joy's gone now. It's gone.

These little things. So, we're gonna try that till Sunday. What do you think? Just encourage people.

Maybe look at the media a lot less for a while. I don't know. Golly, it drives me crazy.

And I don't personally, if you look at how we were created, I don't know if we're even supposed to know what's going on in Nebraska, Maine, Vermont, New York, Florida. This guy stole the car and beat this lady up in Texas and down here in Oklahoma. Are we supposed to know all that? I don't know.

I don't think so. Because that's a lot of negativity coming in. A lot of things that, you know, I think of Philippians.

Take the Philippians 4 test. So, when Paul was concluding his letter to the church in Philippi, he said, finally, brethren, whatever things are pure, okay, let's think about this for a minute, pure, noble, meaning noble, upright of character, positive, pure, noble, upright, things that are worthy of praise, good things coming in. Meditate on these.

And then something interesting follows called peace. And the peace of God will guard your heart. I know it's hard, especially some of our jobs.

I feel for law enforcement, correctional officers. Talk about environment. My goodness.

When you be praying for them and lifting them up, but we can make a choice to continually fill our mouth with praises. So I'm going to work on that until Sunday if you guys want to as well. And then I'll hopefully keep taking it a little bit longer.

The reason that's so important is, again, by default, I say that a lot, but you don't have to do anything and here comes negativity. And here comes this mean, nasty text to your spouse because you're in a bad mood. Or you just pop off.

It just comes naturally. Negative about this. Negative about that.

So it has to be fought for. Joy has to be fought for. It's part of the battle of putting on our breastplate of righteousness and all the gear.

There's got to be a reminder of joy. I know it's hard, but at the end of the day, as we're reading in Revelation, there will come a day when there will be a new heaven and a new earth and God will get vengeance. Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord.

There will be a great white throne judgment and every sin will be exposed. Every evil charlatan will be judged. But we want it now.

Justice now. So let My mouth be filled, Lord, with Your praise. Do not cast Me off in the time of old age.

Do not forsake Me when My strength fails. What a plea. How many are here over 50? Well, I think that's where it starts.

I don't know. But maybe it's me, it's hard to get old. Like I remember at 50, we were at Jet Hawk Stadium four years ago and I'd run all the way to the fence sprinting, racing my son.

Now I'm going to try that? What happened? Four years? Got glasses everywhere just in case? Harder to get out of bed? Lord, this is not good. And as you even get older and older, you start to feel even more disabled, more challenged, more worried. And worry comes to come, doesn't it? Especially if you have those you're protecting.

You know, when I had the little kids at 40, I could do a lot more damage if I had to get into a scuffle than now. It's like I can just tell. Things are not like they used to be.

And your body begins weaker. You begin to digress. You are dying.

And so He's reminding us here, God, even in my old age, do not forsake Me. Oh, what a promise. What a promise.

And I just thought I wrote it down. Many of you have heard the verse, death and life are in the power of the tongue. And I notice a lot of these psalmists, they're negative sometimes, but then they switch to being positive.

In other words, they let it out. It's okay. Lord, why are my enemies doing this? Ah, but then they restrain themselves and focus on God again.

Benson Commentary said, the tongue that loves much talking shall eat the fruit thereof. They shall receive either good or evil according to the quality of their speech. And there's another verse that says, in the multitude of words, sin is not lacking.

Is it just me or have you never noticed that the more you talk, the more you're going to get in trouble? Correct? Correct? The more you talk, the more you're going to get in trouble. It's best to be quick to listen. Slow to speak.

Weigh those words carefully. I'm better now. I still haven't perfected it, but I really think things... Okay, is this even worth it? Is this even worth it to say, where's this going to go? I've got enough battles going on.

But I don't need to have another one. Matthew Henry in his commentary about 300 some years ago, many a person has caused his own death or the death of others by a false or injurious tongue. Just a reminder of the life we speak into even our families, our spouses.

Who has to work on that tonight? Now the rest of you can put up your hand. But just the words we speak are so important. And then he adds, for my enemies speak against me.

And those who lie in wait for my life, they take counsel together. They conspire together. And they say God has forsaken Him.

Let's pursue Him. And let's take Him. For there is none to deliver Him.

Always remember, God always has the final say. God always has the final say. Enemies always say that.

They come together, let's do this. There is no God. And they find out very quickly that there is a God.

I don't know if you were here Sunday, but at the end of the message I talked about that. I looked online and I looked at all the famous celebrities who died in the last couple of years. And it was shocking.

I mean, you think of famous atheists, athletes. I mean, 99% of them shook their fist at God or said there is no God. A lot of them were pretty... what's the right word here? Did not have good political views.

Right? They just, you know, from abortion to whatever, and they're just shaking their fists at God. They're conspiring together. There is no God.

Let's come against these Christians. Let's come against God's Word. And legislators that died.

All of them, all of them are judged by God and have no other opportunity. They will not prevail. The billions of people on the planet, if all of them came against God, they would be but a vapor and dust in the sight of God.

That's how powerful God is. And then He continues, I love this prayer, Oh God, oh God, and this is my prayer tonight for many of us, do not be far from me. Oh God, do not be far from me.

Oh my God, make haste to help me. The irony is God is not far. He doesn't travel to Saturn for a while.

I just watched yesterday a documentary. Have you ever watched about the size of the universe? It's mind-blowing. Like I rewind, what did he say? How many solar systems? How long have they measured? A hundred million light years.

How far light travels in a year at 176,000 miles per second? What? That God? That God is over your life and you're going to worry? Man! I honestly went to bed with a headache. What does a hundred billion stars look like? Why don't they hit each other? Why is this little blue dot out there just that you're sitting on? Supporting life. Out in this little tiny speck of a Milky Way galaxy when there's all other kinds of galaxies too.

Black holes. It's just like, are you kidding me? And so God is not far, but sometimes it feels that way. Can you relate? Things are going good.

Prayers are being answered. Blessing and John and Madeline are in worship together. And you're just at the altar.

You're just feeling, oh, God, You're so close. You're so close. And then comes Monday.

And the letter from the IRS. And the letter from your landlord that your rent is going up. And Southern California, Edison says you owe $800 because you went over your... That's my life.

What? Where's Scott at now? And so he doesn't leave, but sometimes we feel that distance because of what we're going through. So he says, God, make haste. Help me.

Help me. Don't worry, the IRS thing was a good thing. Finally a refund.

Let them be confounded. In other words, he's saying let my enemy be confounded and confused. They are my adversaries.

Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor. Those who seek my hurt, but I will hope continually in you and I will praise you even more. In other words, this is amazing.

The more I go through the fire, the deeper my worship becomes. That's the secret to success. But as a pastor, I see this all the time.

The deeper people go through the storm, the more they run from God. Very few people. Very few people run to the fountain of living water when they're going through hell.

They usually allow bitterness to set in and distance from God. And they dig their heels in. And they're victims.

Have you heard the victim mentality? What does that mean? Everybody's responsible except me. They're the problem. And my mouth will tell of Your righteousness, God, all the days of my life.

I will go in the strength of the Lord, God. I will make mention of Your righteousness. Oh God, You have taught me from my youth and to this day, I will declare Your wondrous works.

He said I will go into the strength of the Lord. And I want to just talk about that briefly. What does it mean to go into things, go in the strength of the Lord into your day, for example? I'm going into my day with the strength of the Lord.

Because as believers, we can walk into things, even as believers, in our own strength. That means I'm going to handle it. My way.

I'm going to do things my way. My attitude's a little off. I'm going to handle this.

I'm a little angry. I'm a little feisty. I'm going to go into my own strength.

I'm going to chew them out. Versus, I'm going to go in the strength of the Lord. I spent some time in morning in prayer.

I'm not rushing into this. I'm reading the Word. There's some Scriptures that come to mind.

Lord, I give this to You. I'm going in Your strength. So this, He will give grace to.

That, He says, I resist the proud. I resist the proud, but I give grace to the humble. So when you go into situations, you can go into the strength of the Lord.

You ask Him, Lord, help me. I need Your help. I know this might sound bad for a pastor, but I'm just going to be honest.

I'll pray sometimes, Lord, I need Your strength. I need You to handle this because the old chain is not good right now. I might say some things that are not too nice.

You might get angry. You might get frustrated. And Lord, I need to go in Your strength.

So what you do is you repent. You humble yourself. And that allows the freedom of the Holy Spirit now to work in your life.

You give up control of self, and you allow the Holy Spirit then to now guide you. And now you go into the situation knowing I'm prayed up, and there's a calm. There's a joy.

So even if you're yelled at or misunderstood, you go into that knowing I'm in the strength of the Lord. But when I go into my own strength, this side again, there's problems usually. Ever been there? A couple of days later, you're apologizing.

Man, I don't know what happened. I don't know what came over me. Flesh.

Yes. So I just want to be honest, nobody's mastered this. I try.

But it's difficult, isn't it? I could give you so many examples, but I've put myself out there enough. And He says, now also again when I am old and gray-headed, reminding Himself of aging, God, do not forsake me. Do not forsake me.

This has been my prayer too. Until I declare Your strength to this generation. In other words, Lord, I'm ready when You say I'm ready.

I want to give my strength to this generation. We want to reach the masses. I want to give Your power to everyone who is open.

Also, Lord, Your righteousness. Oh God is very high. You have done great things, oh God.

Who is like You? Who is like You? And this is interesting, as we get older, we know that retirement can be something we look forward to, but when it comes to God's work, we never retire. That's actually a good time to do God's work. Statistics, I don't have the exact numbers, but we can handle, without even coming up short, all the counseling needs here, all the discipleship, everything would not even be a problem if men and women who were retired would step up.

But sometimes because we're retired, that means I'm retired from anything. Hey, can you help with this couple? I'm retired. That means you have a lot more time than me.

So we can plug people in and say, hey, I'm available now and then. Maybe just meeting with a couple, meeting with the wife, meeting with the husband, and just coming alongside. Can you imagine? Hundreds of people go here.

Hundreds of retired people. And what a blessing. Talk about the wisdom.

And I know I try to tell people this because there's right now four people I still need to meet with, they want to meet with me, and I want to let them know I don't have some special magic power in my prayers. I'm being pulled to my daughter's this, my son's this, leading the church, a radio transmitter. I can get you somebody who can actually do a much better job helping you and discipling you and walking through life with you.

And it's hard because they want the pastor. And I understand that because you're up here. But I would set you up with my mom ten times more than me.

The wisdom, right? The wisdom, the knowledge. We've had counselors here. They would sit and talk.

I don't know, is Raquel here? Maybe she's here. Or Roger, I know you've helped. Even when she was here.

I'm like, I'll say, how'd it go? Good, we spent about three hours with them. Three hours? Yeah, we had a great time. We looked to the Word.

They broke. They repented. It's incredible.

And there's a discipleship because the time to invest. Discipleship is not quick. And that's my concern for me.

It's hey, I've got 30 minutes. I can't. I disciple the body.

Did you know that? This is a big shocker for people. My job is to equip you. But everybody wants to give to me.

No, no, no. You disciple too. And I disciple our leadership team, our deacons going to lunch, having this and working with them.

We've got situations all the time I'm discipling, I'm working, I'm leading. But then ultimately, the body is who does the greatest work. So think about that.

If you do have some time, let the office know. And it's not a lot. We get calls in that people stop me.

Hey, I need some marriage counseling. My family is just not good. Can somebody help me? We need somebody to come alongside.

30-minute lunch with me is not going to fix the problem. We need somebody to come alongside them and help them be available. We've had other people that are suicidal.

Not right at that moment, because that's a very serious thing, but they're going through depression. Someone to walk alongside of them. And that's Christianity 101.

But usually, we can't because we're too busy. We're actually not too busy. It's how we spend our time.

Because we have plenty of time for this thing. Hey, let me see your phone. How many hours have you been on social media this week? Oh, four hours on YouTube every day.

Oh, yeah, you're a pretty busy guy. Let me see your Netflix schedule and your Amazon Prime. See, we have the time.

And some of you older, retired people, you have a wealth of knowledge. That's why the Bible says the older women train the younger women. The older men, the elders who have been through hell and back.

That's why it's funny, even now, when I talk with my teenagers, I don't want teenager jokes. They might listen to this, but I remember this age, like you think you know everything, right? Remember that? At 17, my dad, yeah, whatever. But by 29, I'm like, God, if I could talk to him again, he knew what was up.

He warned me of this and that. Don't do this to your truck. Don't get a six-inch lift and put big old mudder tiles on there.

You're going to regret it. Oh, yeah, yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. Every single thing they said, they knew what they were talking about.

Everything. Why? Because wisdom. I've been through it.

They've been through it. You've been through it. That's what wisdom is.

Knowledge is knowing it. Wisdom is applying what you know and going through things. So that's not even in my notes.

So if you feel compelled, let the office know you'd like to help or just mentor a disciple now and then. It would be a great help. And then verse 2, we'll close up here.

You have shown me great and severe troubles. Lord, You have shown me difficult things. But You shall revive me again.

There's that word. There's that word. And bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

You shall increase my greatness and comfort me on every side. God, revive me. I have a confession to make.

I got upset on Twitter a couple of days ago. This lady posted, I don't even know. She said, I don't know why pastors are always talking about revival.

America's going to hell and we're in destruction. We're waiting for the rapture. Jesus is coming.

What's the point? Number one, that's not biblical. Where's one verse that says give up. Give up.

Let the unfruitful works of darkness pervert all your kids. Don't say anything controversial. Just sit and wait for Jesus.

They've been waiting for Jesus for well over 150 years. And we don't know exactly when He's returning. Obviously, it looks like things are getting very difficult and challenging.

But God always says, now in your generation, expose the unfruitful works of darkness. And I think, just let me vent here for a minute, I think people don't understand when I talk about revival, other pastors, we're not saying, God, bring utopia back. Bring it back where we can leave our doors unlocked and ride our bikes and kids walk to the... No, that's over.

There's no 1940s, 50s coming back again. We're not praying for utopia. We're asking for God to rend the heavens, come down in specific moments of history, upset this whole evil system and revive some families, revive some drug dealers, stop the sex trafficking.

Lord, bring some revival in the midst of the darkness. That's all that means. And the prophets would pray, oh God, revive us again.

He says here, oh God, revive us again. Psalm 85, Wilt Thou not revive us again that my people may rejoice in Thee? It's a prayer. It's a call.

God, give us spiritual resuscitation. Fill me so overflowing with your spirit that I am contagious with your love and with your grace and your joy. God, I wanna be able to go and I wanna pray for people and I wanna see them set free.

I wanna have discernment. I wanna pray over my children. I wanna get rid of all this social media that's pulling me away.

Oh God, revive me again so I can rejoice in you. Very biblical, very sound. Revival is God reviving His people, not putting things back to a perfect state.

That's not coming soon. But as the enemy comes in, we need revival. That's what holds them back.

The floods of revival usher in the power and presence of Christ to hold back evil. It's very biblical. And then he concludes, also with the loot, I will praise you and your faithfulness.

Oh my God, to you I will sing with the harp. I guess it's okay to get a little expressive during worship, isn't it? Think of these, the loot and the harp. I mean, it would be incredible to see in the temple these musical instruments that were praising up to God and using the instruments to usher in that power and presence of God.

It's interesting, Saul, the distressing spirit from Saul would leave when David would come in and play the harp. There's something to that. There's nothing wrong with instruments.

But make sure you're a worshiper before you're a worker. There's too many workers in the church and not enough worshipers. Too many workers.

It's easy to work, isn't it? I wanna serve, I wanna be whatever area of ministry I'm serving, I'm serving. I don't wanna be a worshiper. Let me stay outside the sanctuary and work.

It's much easier, it's comfortable. But all good service must flow first from a heart that is a worshiper. Any Scriptures you can think of on that one? Jesus said, oh, Martha, Martha.

Oh, Martha. You guys remember that one? Jesus, I'm working, I'm working cleaning this house and my sister, she's just sitting here at your feet. Tell her to help me.

Oh, Martha, Martha. You're worried about all these other things, but she chose the best to worship me. And then from out of that worship comes a heart that is able to work even better.

And He said, my lips will greatly rejoice when I sing to you. And my soul which you have redeemed, my tongue shall talk of your righteousness all the day long. Remember, He said for Him to revive Him, this is the fruit of that.

And Lord, confound my enemies, bring them to shame. And again, worship flows from a thankful, holy heart desperate for more of God. So I'm gonna recap so you can remember these six things and we will be done.

The rock and the refuge. Here is how, as the title said earlier, God can be your rock and your refuge. Here's how.

Number one, at the beginning, put your trust in Him. Sounds simple, but it's not easy. What are you trusting in? Here's how you know.

What upsets you when it doesn't go your way? It's irritating you, it's not going my way. Because when you trust in God, it doesn't matter what way it goes. When you're trusting in God, you look at NASDAQ and you've lost $500,000.

Not a good thing. But my trust is not in that, it's in God. Or whatever, you can fill in the blank.

There's many different things. Put your trust in God, that's how it becomes your rock and your refuge. And then number two, incline your heart so He inclines His ear.

You position yourself so God can hear you through repentance and brokenness. Respond to His call. Run to Him and seek Him continually.

Number four, ask Him to deliver you as you line up with His will. And then number five, attitude determines your altitude. Praise Him and pursue Him.

And then finally, worship flows from a joy-filled, thankful heart. And that's how you make Him your rock and your refuge. You make God the refuge and the rock of your life.