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Sermons

July 16/17, 2016

Don't Lose Heart

Jason Meyer | Psalms 31:1-24

In you, O LORD, do I take refuge;
     let me never be put to shame;
     in your righteousness deliver me!
Incline your ear to me;
     rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
     a strong fortress to save me!

For you are my rock and my fortress;
     and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me;
you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
     for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
     you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.

I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
     but I trust in the LORD.
I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
     because you have seen my affliction;
     you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
     you have set my feet in a broad place.

Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
     my eye is wasted from grief;
     my soul and my body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
     and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
     and my bones waste away.

Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
     especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
     those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
     I have become like a broken vessel.
For I hear the whispering of many—
     terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
     as they plot to take my life.

But I trust in you, O LORD;
     I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hand;
     rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
Make your face shine on your servant;
     save me in your steadfast love!
O LORD, let me not be put to shame,
     for I call upon you;
let the wicked be put to shame;
     let them go silently to Sheol.
Let the lying lips be mute,
     which speak insolently against the righteous
     in pride and contempt.

Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
     which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
     in the sight of the children of mankind!
In the cover of your presence you hide them
     from the plots of men;
you store them in your shelter
     from the strife of tongues.

Blessed be the LORD,
     for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
     when I was in a besieged city.
I had said in my alarm,
     “I am cut off from your sight.”
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
     when I cried to you for help.

Love the LORD, all you his saints!
     The LORD preserves the faithful
     but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
     all you who wait for the LORD!—Psalm 31:1–24

Introduction

I am asking for prayer as I am out of the pulpit for the next two weeks. I will be visiting some of our global partners with Todd and Tamara Rasmussen in England, Spain, and Morocco. Pray that the Lord would move in power as I preach at the Crowded House in Sheffield, England where we planted a Campus Outreach ministry. Pray that the God of all comfort would powerfully comfort and refresh the hearts of our global partners.

I also have two small pleas that feel very big. First, you have the opportunity to hear campus specific preaching from people on your campus. Take advantage of this opportunity. Make the most of it. Don’t view this as a chance to check out for a couple of weeks, but to engage more in the campus dimensions of life at Bethlehem.

Second, don’t let the summer be a time where you check out financially either. It is all too easy for the summer months to be lean months financially because people are traveling. It takes careful planning to give before you go, or to do online giving so you continue to give even when you are gone. We covenant together:

“…to welcome, and test biblically, instruction from the Scriptures by the elders of the church which accords with the Elder Affirmation of Faith, seeking to grow toward biblical unity in the truth; to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel through all nations” (BBC Church Covenant).

If you are doing online giving or if you give once a month, the question becomes: What do we do when the offering basket comes to us and we are supposed to pass it? Make it a worshipful moment. I either have money in my wallet so that I can participate every week or I take the basket and remember the giving I am doing online. I want my giving every week to be cheerful and worshipful, not out of sight, out of mind.

That was all a prelude to the real introduction—don’t worry; it’s a really short introduction. Events of recent days have left all of us with a broken heart. Quick and easy access to the news has increased the numbers of those nationwide who have experienced the terror that fell upon a few specific places in our country and in our world (France and Turkey). You will remember a few sermons we did on the culture of fear. More people are afraid today, not because the danger itself has increased, but because the perception of danger has increased. What do we do? What does Psalm 31 have to say? Much in every way. In fact, this psalm directly addresses a situation in which the psalmist feels “terror on every side” (Psalm 31:13).

Outline and Main Point

When you feel terror on every side and try to walk through life with a weak and broken heart, the psalm says, “the steadfast love of the Lord strengthens the heart.” That is the main point: The steadfast love of the Lord strengthens the heart.

Here’s an image: The steadfast love of the Lord is like a steroid shot for the heart so it will be strong and wait upon the Lord.

  1. Strong God (vv. 1–8)
  2. Sorrowful Situation (vv. 9–13)
  3. Steadfast Love (vv. 14–22)
  4. Strong Heart (vv. 23–24)

Let’s take a moment to walk through the movements of the text. We start with the view from above (see God’s strength and love), then we descend into the valley of sorrow, then we come back up to see God’s strength and love, and then we conclude by taking what we see with us into the valley with a strong heart.

1. Strong God (vv. 1–8)

In you, O LORD, do I take refuge;
     let me never be put to shame;
     in your righteousness deliver me!
Incline your ear to me;
     rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
     a strong fortress to save me!

For you are my rock and my fortress;
     and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me;
you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
     for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
     you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.

I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
     but I trust in the LORD.
I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
     because you have seen my affliction;
     you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
     you have set my feet in a broad place.—Psalm 31:1–8

These verses have so many metaphors for resting in God’s strength. Refuge (v. 1), rescuer (v. 2), rock of refuge (v. 2), strong fortress (v. 2), rock (v. 3), fortress (v. 3), refuge (v. 4), and redeemer (v. 5).

When David was on the run from Saul, there was no way that his little warrior band could match Saul’s army, which was bigger and better armed. But the crags in the rock were a game changer. He could hide in something bigger and stronger. David’s point here is that God’s strength is the great game changer.

But he is not only strong; he is tender and attentive. David says, “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love.” Why? God has done four things: (1) Seen my affliction, (2) known the distress of my soul, (3) protected David from his enemies, (4) and given him a broad place that was a secure place to stand. These images of God’s tender care are important because David is battered and broken and tired and weary and in terror. If God were strong without being tender, he would be an ogre. If he were tender without being strong, he would be helpless (he would be reduced to good intentions). David started high up on the mountain with God and now he can be honest and tell God what he sees in the valley of sorrow.

2. Sorrowful Situation (vv. 9–13)

Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
     my eye is wasted from grief;
     my soul and my body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
     and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
     and my bones waste away.

Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
     especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
     those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
     I have become like a broken vessel.
For I hear the whispering of many—
     terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
     as they plot to take my life.—Psalm 31:9–13

The cumulative picture of verses 9–13 is crushing. Distress (v. 9), wasting away with grief (eye, body, soul; v. 9), life feels like a sum total of sorrow and sighing—he is spent—emotionally bankrupt (v. 10), strength has given out because of his sin and guilt (v. 10). He is rejected and isolated (reproach, object of dread, those who see me flee from me). He is forgotten (v. 12), broken (v. 12), plotted against (v. 13). He is completely surrounded by terror on every side (v. 13).

David was physically sick and emotionally spent. He was scorned by his neighbors, deserted by his friends, and terrorized by his enemies. That is the view from below. He returns now to the view from above—the mountain of God’s steadfast love.

3. Steadfast Love (vv. 14–22)

These verses are like an art gallery of glory. There are many pictures here, let us just focus on five of them.

1. Sovereign God—supremely in control over the lives of his people (all people) …

“My times are in your hand” (v. 15). He is completely sovereign over every second of David’s life. This is what we call God’s meticulous providence.

2. Loving God—Lover of His People

His face will shine on David; he will save David because of his steadfast love.

Make your face shine on your servant;
     save me in your steadfast love!—Psalm 31:16

God smiles on his people in love. He does not love us because we are lovely. His love makes us loved—He loves us because He loves us.

3. Just God—Defender of His People

He is the God of meticulous justice.

Let the lying lips be mute,
     which speak insolently against the righteous
     in pride and contempt.—Psalm 31:18

He is the God of meticulous justice. People who oppose God’s people are going to be directly opposed by God. He is going to judge even their speech—put a stop to all their lies and insolent words when they run their mouths against the righteous.

4. Good God—Good to His People

His abundant greatness is so great that he has treasure stores of it. He’s just waiting for the right time to bring it out.

Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
     which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
     in the sight of the children of mankind!—Psalm 31:19

I love my kids so much that sometimes I just store little gifts away that I call “just because” gifts. I wait for the perfect occasion to give them. They are hidden and stashed away for just the right time. Did you know that you have a heavenly Father like that, except his heart is greater, his timing is better, he is so much wiser, and his treasure stores are much more vast. Has God surprised you with grace—blessed you with some unexpected gift of grace—you couldn’t assume it, you didn’t feel entitled to it—He just suddenly gave it?

5. Timely God—he is always on time and never late when his people need him ...

He always gives us what we need when we need it. He has wondrously shown steadfast love, even when David thought it was too late and he was too far gone, God came to the rescue right on time.

Blessed be the LORD,
     for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
     when I was in a besieged city.
I had said in my alarm,
     “I am cut off from your sight.”
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
     when I cried to you for help.—Psalm 31:21–22

Have you come to realize that God gives you what you need—not when you want it, not even when you think you need it, but when He knows you need it?

Now David tells us to take what we have seen in the view from above and take it with us into the valley of sorrow. Here is the conclusion: He calls the saints to have strong hearts.

4. Strong Hearts (vv. 23–24)

Love the LORD, all you his saints!
     The LORD preserves the faithful
     but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
     all you who wait for the LORD!—Psalm 31:23–24

The structure of this psalm is a gospel structure that says, “We love because He first loved us.” The psalmist shows all the ways that God shows his steadfast love for us and now he says, “You see how much he loves you—love him. Embrace him back. Express your adoration for all of this undeserved affection and kindness!

“Be strong” means having a courageous heart. This is the Joshua 1:9 command to all God’s people: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

He also gives us reasons not to worry about the things we see that trouble us. It looks like the wicked are getting away with their wickedness, but David sees that God will be abundant in repaying wickedness with punishment. He stores up an abundance of undeserved kindness for his children and he stores up a just punishment for those who are not his children—those who arrogantly go their own way and do not bow to Him (v. 23).

Application: What Do We Do When We Are In the Valley?

Do not doubt in the dark what you have seen in the light. Don’t forget in the valley what you have seen on the Mountain.

1. Remember Waiting Is Necessary (You Are Not in Control)

But notice why this is a call for courage and strength without losing heart—we are called to wait upon the Lord (v. 24). We don’t like to wait because we want to be in control. We feel a little helpless and vulnerable when we need to depend upon someone else’s sense of timing.

We live in a day in which people perhaps have a harder time waiting than ever before. We have greater control over when things happen than ever. Snail mail used to take weeks; now we have email and direct messaging. And if a package needs to get there we can overnight it. Food used to have to be made from scratch; now it is prepackaged, precooked, or just eat-out. Can’t wait long enough to order and eat in? Just go through the drive-through. Is that too hard? We will deliver it to your door.

So often we have to walk by faith and not by sight. Faith has to fill the gap between what God promised (our hope) and what we have experienced (where we are). Faith takes God at his word and says, “It is as good as mine—God does not lie—I am going to live like this is already true and I am going to keep asking for it and anxiously awaiting what has been promised.”

We are called to walk by faith and not by sight. But in the valley of sorrow we begin to walk by sight and not by faith. We lose heart because we lose sight of God. Our trials and troubles are in our face and they obstruct our view.

2. Remember His Steadfast Love

Don’t use your circumstances to pass judgment on God’s love. We can say, “God must not love me anymore—what I am going through shows his disfavor and displeasure toward me.”

He loves me when I’m lovely. Wrong! We get caught in the lie of responsive love. He responds to my loveliness. His love is creative, not responsive. In other words, his love makes us loved. Listen to Deuteronomy 7:6-10:

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.—Deuteronomy 7:6–10

3. Remember His Sovereign Care and Control

When we walk by sight and not by faith, we take what we see in our circumstances, and if things look out of control, we conclude that God is not in control. But this is exactly backwards. We are supposed to interpret our circumstances in the light of his steadfast love and sovereign care, not interpret his love and care in the light of our circumstances. Don’t get your theology from your circumstances. Use your theology to interpret your circumstances.

There are no maverick molecules or stray bullets or random events. God is in control. What does that mean for his people when circumstances are bitter? If he is sovereign and loving, what do we do?

“So far as personal sorrows are concerned, it would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by His hand, that my trials were never measured out by Him, nor sent to me by His arrangement of their weight and quantity. Oh, that were bitterness indeed! But, on the contrary, the prophet here sees the hand of God in all his trials, and I pray that you and I may do the same. May we see that our heavenly Father fills the cup with loving tenderness, and holds it out, and says, ‘Drink, my child; bitter as it is, it is a love-potion which is meant to do thee permanent good.’ The discerning of the hand of God is a sweet lesson in the school of experience”—Charles H. Spurgeon, “Woe and Weal” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (vol. 57; London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1911), 99–100.

4. Remember His Strength

Our hope is not how strong our faith is, but how strong the object of our faith is. Our text warned about pride twice. Pride and faith are polar opposites. Faith is preoccupation with Jesus. Pride is preoccupation with ourselves. We spend our time focusing on our successes or blessings (high thoughts), or we spend our time focusing on our failures or challenges (low thoughts). The net result is that we think lots of thoughts about ourselves. Quit doing a strength test, evaluating yourself—Am I strong enough, smart enough; am I waiting well enough? As long as our faith is fixed on Jesus, we have a strong Savior for a weak heart. Our hope is not in how strong our faith is, but in how strong the object of our faith is. He is the strength of our heart (Psalm 73:25–26).

     Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
     My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.—Psalm 73:25–26

5. Faith is not the absence of struggle, but a return to rest after the struggle …

Martyn Lloyd-Jones used the illustration of a compass in order to picture the dynamic of faith as it plays out in both agitated doubting and final resting.

“Faith in this matter is remarkably like the needle of a compass, always there pointing to the magnetic north. But if you introduce a very powerful magnet at some other point of the compass it will draw the needle over to it and cause it to swing backwards and forwards and be most unstable. But it is certain that the true compass needle will get back to its true centre, it will find its place of rest in the north. It may know agitation, it may know a lot of violence, but it will go back to its centre, it always finds the place of rest, and the same thing is always true of faith. So the mere fact that we may be tempted to doubt, the mere fact that we may have to struggle and bring out all arguments, and go over the whole question again, does not mean that we have not got faith. In a sense it is a proof of faith, as long as we always arrive back at the position of rest” —Lloyd-Jones, Assurance: An Exposition of Romans 5 (Banner of Truth, 1998), 23-24

The gospel is what gives the hope in our struggle. The gospel gives hope for our hearts because it alone can answer the accusations of our conscience concerning our guilt before God. The Bible says that God is going to bring vengeance against sin and all injustice. Therefore, being in the hands of God is not a light, sentimental picture. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

Gospel Hope

Here is the hope. Jesus cast himself into the hand of God. He was murdered in the flesh, but entrusted his spirit to God. We have hope because Jesus did not quote the rest of the psalm. He is greater than David. David entrusted himself into God’s hands saying, “You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God” (Psalm 31:5). Jesus did not need to be redeemed, he entrusted himself to God in death in order to be the redeemer. Therefore, I plead with you not to fall into the hands of the living God in judgment, but fall into the hands of God in Christ as redeemer.

Do not doubt in the dark what you have seen in the light. Don’t forget in the valley what you have seen on the Mountain.

Conclusion: Pray

1 Kings 19 gives a strikingly parallel picture.

God gave Elijah a great victory on Mount Carmel (God shows up in the fire and the false prophets are defeated). Then a threat on his life from evil Queen Jezebel sends him running into Beersheba and then a day’s journey into the wilderness where he asked the Lord to take his life. He was supernaturally sustained (cake baked on hot stones and some water) in that place and then he journeyed forty days and nights to Mount Sinai. God meets with Elijah and first gets Elijah’s perspective. Why does Elijah think he is there, meeting with God?

He said, “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.”—1 Kings 19:10–11a

You remember that God passed while Elijah was in the cleft of the rock. There was wind, earthquake, and fire—but God’s presence came with his voice as he spoke to Elijah.

And the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”—1 Kings 19:15–18

He told him to go back into the wilderness and get busy. God was in control, setting up world leaders and his prophets and keeping his people (7000). He kept them for himself—they have not bowed the knee to false gods.

In the valley of sorrow (terror), we are tempted to believe we are all alone and God is not in control. He is in control and he calls us to take that perspective (the view from above) back into the valley and do his work.

We further engage to watch over one another in brotherly love; to remember one another in prayer.