Alright, Psalm 71 this morning. Psalm 71. We are continuing our look at our theme for the year 2025, and you may have noticed when you came in that we have a banner up now, Only Trust Him. I said that we were going to do something a little bit different this year. We may still have a wooden plaque and move that somewhere else, but we wanted to see what it would be like to have something a little bit bigger, a little more colorful. I think that even the folks in the far corner can see it and read it, which is not always the case when we've had the wooden plaque. So, very thankful that we have that there as a reminder to us, and we want to continue today Thinking about this theme, so far this year as we've worked our way through this from the first Sunday on, we have been looking at different aspects. I'm not going to cover all of those aspects this morning. I don't want to take time for that review, but I hope that you are remembering Genesis 22, etc., the passages we've looked at, the aspects of only trusting Him that we have talked about. And we want to continue doing that this morning as we look here in Psalm 71. And we're going to talk this morning, we want to think about this idea. Leaving a godly legacy. A godly legacy. And I'll say more about why this psalm actually speaks to this very idea as we get into it. What I want to do this morning, there are 24 verses in this psalm. That's a little bit of reading for us, but I think for us to really get the impact of what this psalmist's teaching I need is to simply read it. So we're going to read all 24 verses and then we'll ask the Lord to enlighten His Word to us, to help us understand it and help us make application of it. So, beginning in Psalm 71, verse 1, the psalmist writes, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be put to confusion. Deliver me in Thy righteousness, and cause me to escape. Incline Thine ear unto me, and save me. Be Thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort. Thou hast given commandment to save me, for Thou art my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. For Thou art my hope, O Lord God. Thou art my trust for my youth. By Thee have I been holding up from the womb. Thou art He that took me out of my mother's bowels. My praise shall be continually of Thee. I am as a wonder unto many, but Thou art my strong refuge. Let my mouth be filled with Thy praise and with Thy honor all the day. Cast me not off in the time of old age. Forsake me not when my strength falleth. For mine enemies speak against me, and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together, saying, God hath forsaken him. Persecute and take him, for there is none to deliver him. O God, be not far from me. O my God, make haste for my help. Let them be confounded and consumed that are adversaries to my soul. Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor that seek my hurt. But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more. My mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day, for I know not the numbers thereof. I will go in the strength of the Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only. O God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also, when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not, until I have showed thy strength unto this generation and thy power to everyone that is to come. Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high. Who has done great things, O God? Who is like unto thee? Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. I will also praise Thee with a psaltery, even Thy truth, O my God, unto Thee while I sing with the harp, O Thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee, and my soul which thou hast redeemed. My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long, for they are confounded, for they are brought unto shame that seek my hurt. May God bless the reading of His word to our hearts. Let's ask His blessing upon our service here today. Father, we are again so grateful for the opportunity we have to gather together as brethren, as brothers and sisters in Christ, the redeemed sons and daughters of God. Lord, we come before you this morning, not in our own righteousness, not patting ourselves on the back because we're here. We come before you in humility, acknowledging our absolute and utter dependence upon you today and seeking Father in this service to bring glory to you. to bring honor to your name, to lift you up in our words, in our singing, in our fellowship, in the reception that we give to your written word. Dear God, I pray that you would give us understanding this morning. Help us to grasp what the psalmist is saying. Help us to see the burden that he was bearing. And Father, may we, in seeing that, come to understand the application for us. Lord, he, in this psalm, is testifying of your goodness and your mercies. He is trusting, he is praising, he is hoping, he is resting in you. And Lord, in doing so, he is providing a legacy. a legacy for every generation, not just the one in which he himself was living. but even those which were to come. Help us, Father, to gain insight, to see that vision, to have that desire that by your grace, we too would be considering the legacy that we will leave for those to follow. Help us to honor you and may our legacies bring glory to you. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Nearly 200 years ago, there were two Scottish brothers. You've probably heard of one of them. I doubt that you've heard of the other unless you've read a biography. The two brothers were named John and David Livingston. John had set his mind on making money and becoming wealthy and he did. He was a successful man in his day. But under his name, in an old edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, remember those books? John Livingston was simply listed this way, the brother of David Livingston. Who was David Livingston? Well, while John had dedicated himself to making money, David had knelt and prayed. Surrendering himself to Christ, he resolved, and I quote, I will place no value on anything I have or possess unless it is in relationship to the kingdom of God, end quote. The inscription over his burial place in Westminster Abbey reads, for 30 years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize. On his 59th birthday, David Livingston wrote, my Jesus, my King, my life, my all, I again dedicate my whole self to thee. A godly legacy. And that's not to diminish John Livingston, who was a Christian, but it's to recognize that their lives were lived out to accomplish two different goals for two different purposes. David Livingston, in his day, from the viewpoint of perhaps many of his peers, would have said, who would give their lives to go to Africa? And who would want to be in a place like that when he could have been like his brother and had success? I'm speculating. But the reality is, David Livingston left a godly legacy. We read about him. We talk about him. We quote others. Livingston, I presume? We've all heard that, right? Folks, there's one truth that none of us can escape. Doesn't matter if there's a one month old or a 90 plus year old here today, there's one fundamental truth that every one of us is in the process of experiencing. And it's simply this, we all grow old. Now when you're a teenager, growing old is something you wish for. I can't wait to get my driver's license. I can't wait till I can get a job. I can't wait till I can go to college. I can't wait till I can be on my own. And then after you start adulting, you say, I wish I could go back and live with mom and dad again. Because that's the way of life. Old age can be frightening. Aging bodies, more susceptible to illness, declining strength, feeling useless, the loss of friends and loved ones through death. You know, as the older you get, the more you begin to recognize that, wow, there's a good number of folks that I've known in my life who are no longer living. The reality of one's own death growing nearer. If you're allotted your three score and 10 or if by reason of strength you make it to 80 or 100, it's still an inevitability. Loneliness. I think about senior saints and the fact that as they grow older, oftentimes they feel isolated. There is the feeling of alienation from one's own children and grandchildren who are busy with their lives while mom or dad is sitting at home alone. Financial concerns in our culture. We do not esteem the elderly quite like some have in the past and some still do today. I'm reminded of something a few years ago that was stated by then Colorado Governor Richard Lamb. He made this statement. In a discussion about healthcare costs, he said, that terminally ill people have a duty to die and get out of the way. Now, elderly people. Well, we might not say it that impolitely, but there's an underlying attitude. Healthcare costs would be less if you were 60 and older and no longer got it, because so much proportionally goes to them. And what I'm saying is simply, Growing old is something that we all are in the process of experiencing. You are older now than you were when you got up to come to church this morning. Now, it may seem like, well, what's a couple of hours? But we multiply those every day. As you and I face the inevitable fact of growing old, and I know this is like, oh man, this is a downer message. What are you doing? I'm going somewhere here, okay? I'm just trying to set the table. We need to ask ourselves as we consider this daunting reality of growing older. What should I be doing now, however old I am, to prepare me for old age? Let me put it another way. Here's another fact. What you are becoming now is what you will be when you're old. Now, think about that for just a moment. What you are becoming now is what you will be when you're older. Let me illustrate it this way. Many years ago, Jan and I, we were taking a counseling class from a gentleman named Jim Berg. Dr. Berg is a professor at Bob Jones University, and this was probably 30 years ago. He was facing surgery. heart surgery. And his biggest fear was not would he be able to make it through the surgery, it was not facing the possibility of death because he was ready to go. Lord takes me, I'm just gonna go to heaven. His biggest fear is what he might say under anesthesia. Because he didn't know. Because Jeremiah says the human heart is deceitful and desperately wicked and there is that concern. Think about everything you've poured into your mind in your lifetime. Every word that you've heard, every story that you've heard, perhaps everything you have read or watched in a movie. Think about all that in there and suddenly you are no longer in control of what might percolate up. in those moments. And he genuinely, he shared this with the whole class, he asked us to pray for him. Because he had a genuine concern. I do not want to dishonor my Lord by saying something under anesthesia that I would never say intentionally. He was concerned. I've thought about that through the years and I've thought about it in the context of some older folks that I've known. Have you ever met some older folks that are just a blessing to be around? I mean, they're encouragers, they're smiling, they always have something good to say, they're not always complaining about, you know, they've got this pain or that ache. Now it isn't that we don't share our needs with each other, even older folks. But you understand the point I'm making. There are some older folks that we just enjoy being with. But have you also been with some older folks that are just bitter? That are just judgmental? They're just not happy. They're just grumpy. They're just always looking to pick on other people. Well, here's what I'm driving at. How did that cheerful 80-year-old become a cheerful 80-year-old? Because they were growing in cheerfulness when they were 30. See, we make a mistake to say, well, when I'm older, when I retire, when the kids are out of the house, we always have these things that are benchmarks. Well, when this happens, then I will. But here's the reality. You will not suddenly become that happy, cheerful person when you're 80 if you're not working on being a happy, cheerful person when you're 30. It's not just gonna happen. What you are becoming today is what you will be when you are older. Now, I'm using that as an illustration, but it comes directly to what we're talking about here today about leaving a godly legacy. Psalm 71 is the psalm of an old man. Did you catch that in the reading? That's why I didn't want to leave any of it out. It literally is the psalm of an old man. An old man wrote Psalm 71. He's an old man with many trials, many problems, but he is obviously an older man who is joyful, who is able to put his focus on the Lord in the midst of those trials. This Psalm shows us a godly legacy in old age follows as we develop our walk with him now. If you want to leave a godly legacy, it isn't something that you can focus on when you retire. It is something that you are creating today. We need to be developing a walk with the Lord today, wherever you are in the course of life. And we have some who are children here today, we have some who are on the other end, and they know that they can see that that dark veil is approaching more rapidly. Wherever we are, we have an opportunity today to become what God wants us to be. The reason the psalmist could handle his problems so well as an old man is because he had developed a walk with God in the years leading up to that time. Let me put it this way. He had learned over the course of his life to only trust him. He was not exhibiting that testimony here because he had simply decided here, I guess I should only trust him. He had lived a lifetime of only trusting him and now in this time of trouble as an old gray-haired man, I resemble that remark. He now has the opportunity. to demonstrate the reality that he had been living for all those decades that preceded. He had a proven resource in the Lord which enabled him to be strong on the inside even though his body was growing weaker and his enemies seemingly more powerful. Now, who wrote Psalm 71? Yes. We really don't know. There was one school of thought that Jeremiah wrote it, and if you think about Jeremiah's life and how he was mistreated there leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, there are parts that do fit that. Personally, the way I read this psalm, I think that there's someone else who fits the picture of this psalm even better than Jeremiah, and that would be David himself. So I take the view that this is a psalm that was written by David. It was probably written during the time when David has run for his life because his son Absalom is rebelling. and the soldiers and those who support Absalom in this rebellion want to capture David and kill him. By the way, that's not something that was uncommon to the kingdoms of that day. That was something that happened. How did someone get to the throne? Typically, many times at least, they would kill the person who was blocking their path, especially if that was a family member. Absalom, in order to put himself on the throne, needed to get rid of David. He would never have the throne if David was living. David is running for his life. It's very possible that he could have been on the other side of Jordan at this point, awaiting the outcome of the battle. The psalm pieces together a number of elements. I don't want to go too deeply into this, but there are a number of elements here that lend, I think, to that idea. It borrows from many of the Davidic Psalms like 22, 31, 35, 40, 109, you got that right? Because if you read those Psalms, you'll hear echoes in this Psalm of those Psalms. The reference to praising God on the harp in verse 22, that sounds like David, doesn't it? Because David was known to do that. The reference to having his greatness increased in verse 21, that can refer to David being restored back to the throne. The circumstances in which the psalmist finds himself fit David's time of Absalom's rebellion. Shame, in verse 1. Oppressed by evil men, verse 4. Enemies speaking against him, seeking to kill him, verse 10, 11, 13, 24. A life of many troubles, verse 7 and verse 20. He had trusted God from his youth, verse 5 and 17. He was now old and gray, verses 9 and 18. The fact is when Absalom rebelled against David, David was in his early 60s. David died at 70. So David is in the latter years of his life. And he has lived a difficult life. Think about where he was from his teens up to 30. We've talked about that recently. And so here he is in the last few years of his life. And I think he is testifying here of something very important. And this is what I wanna share with you in the balance of our time. Three aspects of David's walk with God that had developed over the years, which now held him in good stead in this time of trial in his old age. So there are three things that were true of David. that are echoed through this psalm that became the foundation of his strength and his character as he faced this daunting trial. And can you imagine a trial any worse than your own child seeking to kill you? Not to mention all the other heartache that came out of that whole thing. And we could get into, you know, what was Absalom's problem? Remember his sister? Remember his half-brother? We won't get into all that because we're not trying to justify Absalom. We're just simply understanding that David's family is a mess. And David had to live with that. But there are some things that are true about David that are carrying him through this trial. So follow with me, three things. Number one, a godly legacy is developed as you grow in a deeper knowledge of God. A godly legacy, to leave a godly legacy, you need to be growing in a deeper knowledge of God. It doesn't just happen. It's not a take this pill and tomorrow you'll wake up and you'll have a godly legacy. It is something that takes time to develop. It is the character of your life. It is the history of your life. It is how people will view you in hindsight. So will people view your life this way? The way David's life, with all of his weaknesses, with all the sinful things he was guilty of, He is still a man who is referred to by God Himself as a man after my own heart. So we can learn from David. He grew in a deeper knowledge of God. This Psalm is permeated with a deep personal understanding and practical knowledge of the Lord. I'll just quickly run through these. He had been taught of God from his youth, verse 17. He knew God as his refuge, verse one. Strong refuge, verse seven. His righteous Savior, verse two. God's righteousness frequently is mentioned here, verse two, 15, 16, 19, 24. And I think God's righteousness in this context means simply this. It is referring to the faithfulness of God to His people as He keeps His promises to them. This is the basis of our only trusting Him, isn't it? The basis of you and me as the children of God only trusting Him, only trusting God, is because God has proven Himself to be faithful. He has made promises, and we rest upon those promises. We can only rest upon those promises. We can only trust in Him, and He has proven Himself trustworthy. And we see that echoed in this song. He calls God his rock of habitation, his rock and fortress, verse three, his hope and confidence, verse five. He talks of God's mighty deeds, verse 16, his strength and power, verse 18, the great things he has done, verse 19. He realized that it was God who brought him into trouble and it was God who delivered and restored him, verse 20. God was a source of comfort in this trial, verse 21. God had redeemed his soul, verse 23. He exclaimed, oh God, who is like you, verse 19. He could testify that his mouth was filled with God's praise and glory and righteousness all day long, verse 18 and 22 and 23 and 24. And I'm throwing all this out there because we gotta see what this psalm is saying. This man knew God. The writer of this psalm is not someone who is speaking hypothetically. Well, somebody once told me he is speaking firsthand. This is what God has done. He is testifying to the faithfulness of God to him down through all of those years. It is obvious that he had known him for years and had proved God's faithfulness in several previous difficult situations. And now in this instance, When he needs to trust in God, it's not a matter of, well, God, here's an opportunity. If you're out there somewhere, here's a chance for you to prove yourself to me. He didn't need to take a blind leap of faith. Why? Because he knew God in a personal, practical, and proven way. He had lived a lifetime trusting God. He'd lived a lifetime where he could look back and see what God had done for him. Can you do that today? Do you know God that way? Are you growing in the process of developing such a knowledge of God through His Word and through applying God's Word to your experiences? One of the most important things that each one of us can do in preparing for a future crisis is to spend time now in God's Word getting to know God. You know, I wish I could say, you're a Christian, you will never have any trials or difficulties or problems. Life is always going to be just, you know, apple pie. But we know that's not the way life works. In a sin-cursed world, we may be the redeemed sons and daughters of God, but in this life, we will suffer the vagaries of living in a sin-cursed world. We will have difficulties. God will use all of those for good, talked about that over the past few weeks, but the reality is difficulties is part of life. Whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, everybody grows old, and it's inevitable when you grow old that your body begins to creak. It begins to grow sluggish. Things that, in my case, things that I could do with impunity 40 years ago, My brain says, you could still do all that. My common sense says, don't even think about it. Because I know what's gonna happen. Climbing on the roof of a house wouldn't have bothered me a bit. Today it's like, that's kind of a long fall over the side of that. It's not something I've done regularly for 40 years. So it's something that I have to be aware of. Isn't that true for all of us? We lose strength. We grow weaker. We don't want to admit it. but it's reality. So how do we make it through those difficult times? As you read God's word, ask yourself, what does this passage teach me about God? Can I encourage you to do this? In fact, I almost, I didn't talk to the deacons about this, so they didn't know it, but one of the things I wanted to do this year, because this is our theme, Only Trust Him, is I wanted to get a journal for every person in the church. and challenge everyone in the church this year, reading your Bible, keep this journal with you in your Bible reading, and every time you come across something that is telling you something about God, write it down in your journal. Write it down. Genesis chapter one, what does it tell us about God? He is the creator. He is omnipotent. He is almighty. And you go on from there. How many notations would we make if we consciously read our Bibles thinking, what does this tell me about God? And then what should we do? Then we apply that to our daily problems. If God is love and if God is omnipotent, And if God has told me He will never leave me nor forsake me, then where is God in this problem? He's right there with me. He hasn't left me. I'm not on my own. And when He says all things work together for good, I can rest assured that He is able to do exactly what He said He would do. I may not understand all the specific details, but that's not necessary. What's necessary is trusting Him. The psalmist has come through his life that way. Someone tried to illustrate this from a practical side by talking about a fire extinguisher. Let me just ask this question. You don't have to answer it out loud, but just out of curiosity, you answer it in your own heart. If there was a fire in the building and you grabbed one of our fire extinguishers, would you know how to use it? I mean, would you pick it up and say, okay, I've got the fire extinguisher. Well, this thing's heavy. Okay, I'm pointing it at the fire. Would you know how to actually use the fire extinguisher. Now, I hope everybody says, well, I sure could. But I wonder how many of us think, well, it couldn't be that difficult. I mean, it couldn't be that complicated. But how many of us really would, in a moment of panic, be able to go through the steps to use it? And I'm not trying to criticize you. I'm simply saying, what good is a fire extinguisher if you don't know how to use it? Right? It's only good if you know how to use it. Well, here's the point. We need to know our God and what He can do so that we can lay hold of that tremendous resource that He is as His children to us when we face the trials of life. That's why it's good to have a journal. That's why it's good to write these things down. Well, I'll remember that. Well, good for you. But you know, I learned through life that it's so much better for me, especially the older I get, to not try to remember everything. But when I can go back and review some things, oh, that's right, I forgot that. Being reminded, having something on paper that you can go back to and say, this is who God is, and I can rest in Him. If we're learning that now, if we're growing in that knowledge now, then when the crises of old age come upon us, we're ready. Number two, to leave a godly legacy, we have to be increasingly demonstrating three habits. There are three habits. that increasingly, we're never gonna master these. So I don't want to give the false impression here that in an absolute sense we have to master these three things. But here are our three habits that should increasingly be a testimony to who we are, all right? What is a habit? A habit is something developed by frequent repetition over a period of time. I mean, this is the whole thing about New Year's resolutions, right? I wonder how many of you had made a resolution for 2025 and you've already broken it. Because the fact is, now I don't know, I've never tested this out in this sense, but supposedly it takes about a month to establish a habit. You know, repeating every day for 30 days. Okay, that may or may not be true, but it's probably fairly close, isn't it? And the point I'm making is this. If you develop a habit, once it becomes a habit, it becomes almost involuntary. Our attitudes, how we respond mentally and emotionally to the problems of life tend to become habitual responses. What do I mean by that? Well, some people are habitual worriers. because that's how they've responded. It's become a habit that whenever there's a problem, they just worry over that problem. Some are habitual complainers. They've just learned that this is how they tackle life. If you wanna complain, can you find something to complain about? Everywhere you go. I don't care how professional the organization is, nobody is perfect. And if you wanna find something to complain about, you can. If you wanna find something to worry about, you can. Some people become habitually negative and pessimistic and angry. Well, I don't wanna be that person. But some people become habitually cheerful and positive. Because it's just their natural disposition, right? Some people are just born that way. I've had conversations with folks through the years, sometimes in husband-wife counseling situations. And it's like, well, this is just who I am. Whether it's the wife or the husband, they're justifying some kind of behavior that is damaging the relationship and they use that excuse. It's just the way I am. But here is a fundamental truth for a redeemed child of God. You were born a sinner, but by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit, who now indwells you, and the blood of Christ having defeated sin in your life, you can choose to be different. By the grace of God and through the power of the Holy Spirit, you can become that cheerful person. You don't have to say, well, I was just born to be this negative person. You can become positive. But you have to decide by the grace of God, I want to be a person who brings glory to God and that means I need to work on this disposition. The habits we develop in our younger years tend to take us further in that direction as we grow older. So if you're cheerful when you're 30, you've got a good chance of being even more cheerful when you're 70. But if you're grumpy, you're not gonna become less grumpy unless something changes. A word repeated in verses 3, 6, and 14 is the word continually. You can see that in your Bible. Continually in verse 3, continually in verse 6, continually again in verse 14. He's talking here about, he's tipping us off to habits that he had developed. They're not habits we pick up naturally, they're deliberately cultivated. He even says in verse 14, but I will hope continually and I will yet praise thee more and more." And the idea there is one of firm resolve. It's the idea that, as for me, this is what's going to be true for me. So these are habits that stem from that deliberate choice, but even more so, they stem from a knowledge of God. Because David, I think, was learning about God, He was learning about how he should then be a reflection of God to the world. So, with that in mind, very quickly then, the habit of trust, verse 3. He says, Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort. Thou hast given commandments to save me, for Thou art my rock and my fortress." He would continually resort to the promises that God had given. The whole psalm is actually an affirmation of his trust in the Lord. I like the way Spurgeon, speaking of this psalm, says it. He says, here is the utterance of a struggling but unstaggering faith. I like the juxtaposition of those two words. Because he's acknowledging as he speaks of this psalm. The psalmist, his faith is struggling. The problems are real. But his faith is unstaggered. Do you see the picture? And isn't that the way faith works? Sometimes it feels like we're taking a whole lot of blows from the enemy And we may be tempted to be staggered, but we can stand strong against him because Jesus is our rock. And he ultimately is the one taking those punches because we can trust in him. He was struggling because he was in a difficult circumstance, but he was unstaggered in his faith because he knew whom he believed. Such faith stems from a knowledge of God, true knowledge dispels doubt and fear. We fear and mistrust what we don't know. We're more inclined to trust what we do know. A gentleman named Tim Hansel, some time ago, wrote a book called Holy Sweat. This is an older book, back in the 1980s. So, Holy Sweat. But he told a story in that book about a day when he and his son, Zach, were out in the country climbing on some cliffs. And he said that as he was climbing, he heard a voice from above him yell, hey dad, catch me! And he said he turned and he saw that his son had jumped off a rock straight at him. He then recounts how he felt like he was in a circus act. He twisted and caught his son and they both fell to the ground and for a moment he's trying to catch his breath and trying to figure out what in the world got into my son. And finally he asked the question. He says, Zach, can you give me one good reason why you did that? Now, dad, you could understand asking your son that, right? But here was his son's response. Sure, because you're my dad. Why did Zach jump off a rock and not even tell his dad until he had already jumped? Because he knew dad was trustworthy. He knew dad would catch him. He trusted in his dad. Now, trusting in a human father could turn into a problem. But Tim Hansel used that as a challenge for us. He said, my son knew he could trust me. But isn't that even more true for us in trusting God? Because God knows when we're gonna let go of that cliff. And it may be voluntary, it may be involuntary, but God knows. He's not a human father who has to hope he has reflexes that are quick enough that he can twist and turn and catch his son. God is the omnipotent God of heaven and earth. And He is omniscient. And He said He would never leave us nor forsake us. We can trust Him. Because the psalmist knew God, he had learned to trust God through tough times in the past and he knew therefore that God would see him through this time as well. So again, are you developing a habit of trusting God in the difficult times of your life? Are you frequently filled with worry and doubt and fear? You have trouble trusting. Concentrate on getting to know God. Review what God has already done for you. That's why I mentioned that journal. Having something. When God answers a prayer, write it down somewhere. I mean, we live in a marvelous day. We have all kinds of technology. And if technology is too much for you, paper and pen still works. But make a history. The older you become as a Christian, the more opportunity you have to look back and say, I remember when God did this, and I remember when God did that, and I remember how God met our need here and how God met our need there. And we've shared with you before when Deborah was a newborn, and I was bivocational at the time, and there was a strike in the coal industry, and so, We have this newborn child and not a whole lot of money coming in and we're just trusting God and here's a bag of groceries on the porch. We weren't expecting it. Where did it come from? Now we can look back and say, you know, God met our needs at a time when we were absolutely vulnerable. But God has done that down through all the years in between. And isn't it a blessing to be able to count your blessings? That's why we sang that song this morning. Count your many blessings. See what God has done. Review what God has done. There's a tremendous emphasis in this psalm on what God had done. Verse 5, 6, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24. Do you get the point? That's what strengthens our faith. Has God preserved your life? Has He saved you from your sins? Has He sustained you? Then you can trust Him. So trust. That should be a habit of your life. You need to develop it. You need to be growing in trust. Number two, verse six, is the habit of praise. By thee have I been holding up from the womb. Thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels. My praise shall be continually of thee. My praise shall be habitual. We may grumble and complain and say, well, we do that by nature, but God wants us to be a people of praise. Even when difficult time comes, God wants us to learn to praise Him. And the psalmist deliberately developed that habit. Verse 8, 14, and then 22, 23, and 24. How can we learn to praise God when trials come? The answer? To learn to trust Him. It keeps coming back to this point, doesn't it? Just as trust stems from knowing God, so praise stems from trusting God. Do you get the relationship? Trust stems from knowing God. The more deeply you know Him, the more stronger you will trust Him. And your trust is what leads to praise. The more you trust Him, the more you will praise Him. Doesn't mean your problems evaporate. Doesn't mean they go away. The problems are real, they're still there. But your attitude, your outlook, your view changes. Why? Because you trust Him. and you know he is trustworthy. Because just as trust stems from knowing him, praise stems from trusting him. This is true on the human plane as well as the divine. Think about it. You don't praise a person you don't trust, right? I mean, if you go to a dentist and the dentist doesn't do a great job and you would never go back to that dentist because you don't trust his work, are you gonna praise him to other people? Oh man, he did a great job. I'll never go back there again, because he messed me up big time. But I wanna, no, you're not gonna praise that dentist, and you could put any other vocation in there. You have to know the person is trustworthy. It's the same with God. If deep down inside you doubt God's goodness or faithfulness in a time of trial, then you won't trust him. And not trusting him means you cannot honestly praise him. So we come together on a Sunday morning and we sing our singing is an outgrowth of our living a life of trust the previous seven days. Because I trust Him when I come here on a Sunday morning, I can lift my voices with others of God's people and we can praise God together because I trust God. If I'm not trusting Him, then I cannot truly praise Him. If you're a complainer and you have trouble developing a habit of praise, then I suggest some steps very quickly. Concentrate on getting to know God and His ways. We've already touched on that. He is good and faithful even when He brings troubles and distresses, verse 20, into our lives. Get to know Him. If you want to change your outlook, focus on who God is. And then secondly, Review what God has done for you. Count your many blessings, name them one by one. We tend to forget His many benefits, and we fail to praise. But if you will begin making a record, if you will begin cataloging, if you will begin remembering, if you will begin truly thanking God for all the blessings, and folks, I am, I can say dogmatically, if you're a child of God here this morning, then you have reason to praise God because He has blessed you. Are you saved? Need I say more? I mean, it goes far beyond that. But if you are a redeemed child of God today, you have reason to praise. But have you thanked Him for saving you? Is that something every day? Now, number three, the third habit is the habit of hope. This is verse 14 again. but I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more." Hope continually. The psalmist had developed habits of trust and praise, but also of hope. And we know this. There's a big difference between secular hope and biblical hope, right? They both contain an idea of future expectation. But secular hope is uncertain. It's uncertain because its object is uncertain. I'll give you an example. If I were to say, well I hope my investments give me X amount return, that's uncertain because the stock market is uncertain. Nobody really can say for sure whether it's going to go up or down tomorrow. We can say, well, you know, I hope that our country is moving in the right direction. But can I say that with certainty? No. I can only say uncertain people are in control. God, you are the only one that can work in their hearts. Because only God is certain. When I say, I hope that Jesus Christ will return bodily, that is certain. Yet to be realized, but it's not like the uncertain hope of the world. I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow. I hope all the snow is finished for the season. Don't you? But that's uncertain, isn't it? We've had blizzards in March, folks. But the reality is, I can say that I trust Him to return bodily. It's called the blessed hope. because He is certain. It's going to happen. This biblical hope is built upon trusting God and His faithfulness. Believers should be people who have a habit of hope built on the promises of God. Adoniram Judson was one of the pioneer missionaries. He suffered from fever in a wretched prison in Burma and a friend wrote him a letter and said, Judson, how's the outlook? And Judson's reply, a fever in prison, and he says, the outlook is as bright as the promises of God. How would you have answered that? Oh, I have a fever of 101.5. And I'm in prison, and I'm starving, and I'm hurting. He didn't say any of that. He said the outlook is as bright as the promises of God. Many Christians have picked up the negative, hopeless spirit of the world because we focus on our problems and not on God and his promises. So, develop that habit. Develop the habit of hoping in God. And then I want to close quickly. To leave a godly legacy then, developing these three habits, develop a lifestyle of ministry for God. This is the last thing I want to say, so just bear with me. You want to leave a godly legacy. You want to leave a legacy that has impacted others, that when that day comes, whether it's when you're 40 or 50 or 60 or 80 or 100, you wanna be able to look back and say, I have left a legacy that honors God. And let me lay this before you, all right? Serve Him. Serve Him. And again, I know when you have children, you find yourself passing yourself coming and going, right? I mean, we live in a world with all of the technology we have to make life easier, it seems like all we've done is make life busier. And it's hard with all the busyness of life to sometimes know where to invest the little bit of time we have, but can I say this as lovingly and kindly as I can as a brother in Christ? If you want to leave a legacy that brings glory to God and impacts your family, your children, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors, then serve Him. The psalmist is old. We saw that. He could have kicked back and said, you know, I've done my part. I mean, if this is David, he could have said, you know, I've been on the throne now for over 30 years. I think I'm due for a little vacation. Maybe I'll just hide away in a cave again." I mean, after all, that's what he did the first time after he was anointed. He could have come up with an excuse, but what did he say? He said, I am still concerned for ministry. That's why I wanted to read this, because you read the last part of the psalm, and he says he wants to testify to others of God's faithfulness and power. As long as he had breath, he wanted to keep telling people about God's greatness and glory. The attitude that infiltrates the church is, I work all week, I'm busy, I don't have time. But if we give God the benefit of the doubt and we say, Lord, I love you more than I love anything else. That's why I started with David Livingston. Anything I have, I want it to be used to bring glory to God. to further the kingdom of God. That was his heart, that was his spirit. And I say that speaking of retirement. Does the Bible, is there a verse in the Bible that says, when thou art 65, thou shalt quit thy job and live off thine investments. I think that's in Hezekiah 4.5. And if you find Hezekiah, please show that to me. Because the reality is retirement is a modern concept. And I'm not saying if you're retired that you're doing something evil and sinful, so please don't misunderstand me. But what I am saying is you may retire from a vocation, but do we ever retire from serving God? No. In fact, I think in the body of Christ, when you read Titus and it talks about the older men teaching the younger men, who are the older men? Well, you know, when you reach 50, you can no longer really talk to a 20-year-old. Is that biblical? I think 80-year-old men can teach me a lot. I think 70-year-old men can teach me a lot. I hope I can teach some 60-year-old men. You get the point, right? Because in the body of Christ, we don't retire. We serve. Now, let me ask you this. Some people say, well, you know, when I retire, then I'm gonna serve the Lord. But if you haven't been serving Him until you're 65, are you gonna serve Him when you're 65? The parallel here, I think, is very important. I know you can only use the time that you have. But you know, in the body of Christ, every one of us has been gifted by God with some ability to be a blessing to others. Every one of us. And it is the will of God that we exercise those gifts for His glory and the benefit of other people. Loving others as we should means that we put their benefit ahead of ourselves. So we sacrifice of our own time so that we can be a blessing to them. If that means mowing the lawn, if that means picking up a piece of paper that you see in the pew from Christmas program that nobody has gone by and picked up, if it means washing a window, It means teaching a Sunday school class. I mean, you get the point, right? It's simply serving God. I'm gonna quickly go down. Someone made this statement. Old librarians never die, they just check out. That's for Brother Tom. Someone else said old janitors never die, they just kick the bucket. I saw those and thought I have to do that because that's what Tom would be saying, right? But here's one quote that I did find very interesting. Ty Cobb. How many of you know who Ty Cobb is? I see some of you older folks know Ty Cobb. Ty Cobb was before our time, wasn't he? Ty Cobb was one of the great baseball players of 100 years ago. I wasn't alive 100 years ago, before my time. He was asked one day by a reporter, what do you think your batting average would be if you were playing today? Do you think you could get close to your lifetime average of .367? .367 is tremendous. Cobb replied, I'd probably hit around .290 nowadays. The reporter followed up and said, well, is that because of the intense travel schedules, night games, artificial turf, new pitches? He said, no, it's because I'm 70. I read that and thought, OK, I like that guy. Because, you know, a 70-year-old can't do what a 25-year-old can do, doesn't have the energy. We are growing older. But can a 70-year-old still serve God? He can still make a difference. So, I think that's the challenge of this passage. George Whitfield and some of his friends, George Whitfield was a preacher back during the Great Awakening, they were in their old age sitting around talking one day about the difficulties of gospel ministry because they were growing older, they were weary, etc., etc., and they couldn't wait until God just finally took them to heaven. They all expressed those feelings except one man, Mr. Tennant. Whitfield tapped him on the knee and said, well, Brother Tennant, you're the oldest one here. Don't you rejoice to think that your time is near? and God's gonna call you home and you don't have to do all this anymore." And Mr. Tennant answered bluntly, I have nothing to do with death. My business is to live as long as I can and as well as I can and to serve my Savior as faithfully as I can until He thinks it time to call me home. Whitfield took that as a good rebuke. Rather than sitting around saying, oh God, I'm just too tired, take me home. It was, I'm gonna serve God with whatever energy I have as long as I can until God calls me home. Old age. It's inevitable. We're all getting there. Some of us are closer than others. But we wanna stand before the Lord one day and hear Him say, well done. Well done. And that can happen if you are seeking today. At 13, at 25, at 40, at 60, at 80, wherever you are, say, Lord, beginning today, I want to live my life remembering who you are and building on these habits. I want to trust you. I want to praise you. I want to live a life that is founded upon my hope in your promises, and I want to serve you however I can. And by the grace of God, if that's our outlook, one day we can look back and say, Lord, thank you for using a wretch like me. Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank you for the opportunity we've had to think through Psalm 71. And I pray, Lord, that it will have a positive impact upon our lives. We're not all old men, and some of us never will be an old man, but Lord, we all suffer from the same issues of aging. And we're all tempted and distracted by all the things in this world that would draw us away from remembering who you are, from trusting you, from seeking to praise you because of that trust that grows out of that trust, and living a life that is founded on hoping in you. Serving you until the day you call us home. Father, I thank you for your care. I thank you for your provision. I thank you for using people like us. and help us, Lord, to live out our theme for this year, Only Trust Him. May that be true not just today, but for however long we have left in this life. May we live every day trusting you. We'll give you the glory in Jesus' name.