Honesty with God: Trusting Through Troubling Times

Thank you, Irene.

Gotta admit, when I'm thinking back now, these first two hymns are quite loose. So, here's what we could end on a high.

Um, but we all go through storms in our lives, and obviously, that's kind of what the first two hymns this morning are really speaking about. Speaking about us coming before God, being open and honest about our lives and how we're feeling. And that may mean that we turn up at church and we're not having a great week, and that's absolutely fine because that's the safest place to be. The best place to come is to come before God with our troubles.

The psalm this morning that Charlie read from, Psalm 62, is the theme for the sermon this morning. And it's a Psalm that's attributed to David. There's a huge number of Psalms attributed to him, and it's always David's heart's cry out to God in prayer. Maybe at different times you've dipped in or read through the whole book of the Psalms, so you'll see and know how honest and transparent David is in expressing his emotions. God gave us emotions, and he wants us to express them to him. David holds nothing back, and he's a great example of being open about our lives and our daily situations to God, who sees and knows everything anyway.

If you remember the story of David, he's raised up as a young shepherd boy. He's anointed by Samuel the prophet at God's instruction. He's chosen ahead of all his elder brothers, which causes a bit of division and friction in his family. Not an easy situation. He was the one who slew Goliath, the Philistine, and even at that young age, he understood how big God was and how he'd been trained by God to fight.

David is described by the prophet Samuel in a conversation to King Saul, who he was being trained to replace. David is described as "the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart." You'll find that in 1 Samuel chapter 13. So, in his mid to late teens, God had his eye on David, and God knows what David, the boy David, is made of. And that's not frogs and snails and puppy dogs' tails, as the poem goes, little boys are made of. Instead, God's plans and perfect provisions are being directed to the youngest of Jesse's children, a man after God's own heart. Wow, isn't that a commendation that one day you would hope that God would say to us, "You're a man or a woman after my own heart?"

Samuel comes to anoint David, whilst at the same time questioning God about his choice, in his opinion. David doesn't look like he should be the one, but God speaks to Samuel and he says, "People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." God knows our heart on every matter, and David's life, we'll know from reading through the Old Testament, is not without its troubles. Some of those, admittedly, he creates himself through his own bad choices, and we can do likewise. Others are caused by treachery and opposition to him, and David had many desperate experiences during his lifetime. He lived in a brutal age, and he endured tremendous pressure. He lived much of his adult life with the threat of death looming over him like a dark shadow.

But even when David gets things wrong, God doesn't let him go. God remains steadfast; he doesn't cast him aside. And likewise, that's how God loves us. David remains teachable all his life. Are we so?

Psalm 62, that was kind of the background to the setting. Psalm 62 is set in a time where Absalom, one of David's sons, is seeking to find him and take his life so that he can be king. David's son has turned into a treacherous enemy, conspiring to kill him. And that leads David to be banished in fear of his life. And this is where Psalm 62 sits. His cry from his heart is for God's help. It's like a cry to himself as much as to God, if you read the words. In some ways, I read it as him telling himself to wait for God. David recognizes rightly who is the helper of his soul, his life. And he identifies that person as God. Do we see God as our helper? Who is the first port of call that you turn to when things aren't going well?

Now, David's hiding out in rough country, no kingly residences, no fancy hideout. He's in the caves out in the desert. I recently paid a visit to Israel, and we were shown some of the sites where David possibly would have hidden, in the desert area of Judah, around an area called En Gedi, on the edge of the Dead Sea. The caves are high in the rock faces, carved way above where it seems like it would be almost impossible to reach there, unless maybe you're nifty on your feet and able to climb, like the mountain deer. And that might explain why in Psalm 18, David says that God arms me with strength; he makes my feet like the feet of the deer. He enables me to stand on the heights.

The caves we were shown, as I say, look out across the Dead Sea, and it's not a lush landscape. Quite the opposite, it's dry, dusty, hot, lonely. Where solitude and external conditions, I would imagine, could drive you mad. So, not only is David in this dry and arid place, but he reflects that in saying that that's how he's feeling as well.

And as you move into Psalm 62, I know that in the Bible we distinguish between Psalm 61, Psalm 62, Psalm 63, and similar to where I owe the Bible. But often, in the actual original text, they were just written in complete succession, and it's only later that divisions have been put in. So, in Psalm 63, at the start of Psalm 63, it talks about David being in a dry and arid place where he's thirsty for water, and that comes just immediately after, obviously, what we've just read there.

So, David looks at his surroundings, and yet, he manages still to find praise to God in them. He sees the rocks around him, and maybe he reflects on how long the rocks have stood there. Myra mentioned in her prayers this morning about, do we take time to stop and look at creation, what God's actually placed in front of us? There are constant landscapes sometimes around us, and in our changing world, do you ever wonder when you see maybe old trees or you marvel at the landscapes in the mountains, do you ever wonder the stories that they could tell? The sights that they've seen, that they've stood throughout time. We might change, times change, but the landscapes often around us stay the same.

So, David sees God as his rock; he stood the test of time, and he will continue to stand after we've gone, just like creation. And David calls God a fortress, a refuge. In Strong's Concordance, the word for stronghold fortress is a Hebrew word, miscope. It means stronghold, a high place, a refuge, a retreat, a defense, a high fort. That's who God is to you. He's your fortress, your refuge. What image does that conjure up in your own mind? What does a fortress look like to you? Maybe it's Edinburgh Castle, high up on the main on the mind there, or Stirling Castle. These were always built on high places that were difficult for your enemies to reach you in. And similarly, the caves that hid David were refuges carved out in the hillsides, offering him safety spaces where he maybe only had to consider defense from one direction, the doorway, and from the heights, he could see trouble approaching.

So, David seeks to buoy himself up and calls to his inward person, his soul, to remember who he's trusting in. "Come on, soul," he says, "Come on, soul, rise within me." In another time of great distress in 1 Samuel when his own people were talking of stoning him. And maybe when you read some of the stories, you realize that we're not so hard done by at times. But anyway, in this particular passage in 1 Samuel 30, the Bible says David strengthened himself in the Lord, his God, when everyone else was against him. And I mean everyone. If you read the story, you'll discover that David had no choice but to strengthen himself in the Lord.

So, we can all be experiencing difficult circumstances; we find ourselves in that need God's input. Find rest, oh my soul, in God alone. The word for rest is dormant in Strong's Concordance, and it means to be dumb, be silent, be still. Be dumb means to be unable to speak, to be mute. So, be dumb, oh my soul, before God. We can all use a mute button at times. And maybe you'd like to mute me just now. The sense is that only when we truly quiet ourselves, when we wait on God's terms and not on our own, to be dumb in the waiting silence, shutting out our brains and all our own plans, switching off the noise in our own brains and submitting to wait and hear from God, for direction or whatever.

Another good example of this is the prophet Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 19. He's just defeated the prophets of Baal, a huge success in his spiritual life. And then he experiences the real depths of a low when Jezebel threatens to take his life. Elijah goes to the very pits of his own emotional life and talks to God, even about taking his own life. He's so low that he considered death the better option. But God hears and sends an angel to strengthen him with food and water for the next journey. And as he is listening for God in the quiet depths of desperation in a desert place, Elijah talks of God and hearing from God, not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in a low whisper, a still small voice. To be quiet and listen, to wait before God, to fall dumb before God. God hears our cries.

Now, I know how hard it is to be still and to be silent, especially in our Western world where we are bombarded continually with noise. We've forgotten actually the practice of being still. And I speak very much for myself when I say this as well. So, how to still ourselves? To put off our phones, to switch them off, computers, TVs, even not pick up the newspapers to read. But to sit in silence, to empty our minds and make way to hear from God.

And when David goes dumb here, when he goes silent, what we then see is that he's able to see the right perspective. He sees who his hope is in. And then, he too is able to see the futility of those who are his enemies, those fighting against him. He's able to reason that God can take care of them in verses 9 and 10. "The God perspective enables him to see the lack of purpose or meaning in the things that men seek after. 'Don't take pride in stolen goods or set your hearts on riches.'"

But why are we afraid to be dumb before God? To be quiet? I considered that, and I thought, well, maybe I'm afraid that God's going to hit me over the head. Maybe I'm fearful of what he might say to me. Maybe he'll ask us to do something we really don't want to do. But do we really believe that God is only ever good? That's a big question. But God isn't afraid of our big questions, our "why, God, why?" He's not afraid of our big questions. In fact, he wants us to take them before him.

In the book of Colossians, Paul tells us to set our minds on things above, not on things that are on earth. So maybe time out with God, being still, practicing being still before Him, allows us to get heavenly perspectives on the circumstances in our lives. As in heaven, so on earth, we say in the Lord's prayer. Jesus teaches us to pray; He wants us to call out of heaven what He desires to see on earth. In heaven, there's no sickness, no pain, no suffering, no dying. That's the kingdom that we are being called to declare here on earth. Jesus is our salvation.

David goes on to say, "God alone, for from him comes my salvation." He alone is my rock and my salvation. He repeats himself. "My stronghold," and then in verse 6, "My refuge." The rock of my strength. The word for salvation that David uses here is the word Yeshua, Yeshua. A combination of the word Jehovah, meaning the self-existent, eternal one, the Lord, and Yasha, which means to be wide open, to be saved, liberated, to be set free. And we know Jesus opened his arms wide on the cross to bring in the way of salvation to us.

And only because Jesus was willing to set aside his own agenda and listen to his Father's will, going in the way of the cross, we have access. Jesus is salvation. That's what his name means. Yeshua, the wide open, loving arms of Jehovah, Lord spread wide enough for everyone to enter. So Yeshua, David says. He is my rock, my salvation.

David says on that basis, he won't be greatly shaken; he won't slip. He won't totter. With God as a stronghold, quite the opposite, those who oppose him will be the ones who find that they totter. When God deals with them, he trusts God will deal with his enemies. "It is mine to avenge," says the Lord. So leave any justice you feel is needing served in God's hands. He's the judge, not us.

So, David encouraged himself; he talks himself up. He declares what he knows to be the truth, in spite of what his circumstances say. His expression of his feelings to God reaffirms his own faith to himself. And when we pray and cry out, we can release our attention in times of emotional stress too, trusting God to be our rock, our salvation, our fortress. And that would change our entire outlook on the situations around us. No longer might we be held captive by resentment towards others when they hurt us. We have choices about how we use our words, especially against ourselves. Especially how we do self-talk. We can talk negatively; we can bring ourselves down, or we can talk ourselves up.

No, I'm not saying you just pretend everything is okay with whatever is confined in you right now. I'm not making the circumstance less serious than they are. But what David is doing, and what I'm suggesting, is which is bigger? Our circumstances or our God? David pours out his full emotion and situation. He holds nothing back. Whatever he sees the situation to be, he tells it like it is. He pours forth the issues and he tells us, "Pour out your heart," he says in verse 8. He literally spills his guts before God; the word 'pour' means to spill forth, blood. To shed blood. This reminds us of Jesus in Gethsemane when his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. Jesus knew there was power in honest prayer, and he used God's own words to call on his promises.

All God's promises are places of refuge, fortresses where we can flee when we feel weak, vulnerable, and fragile. God's word is the sword of the spirit, and knowing the word, speaking the word, gives you strength and power to conquer. Learning the word so that it's in your mind for when times of trouble do come along and you've got the word to hand, ready to use. Jesus used the word to fight in the battles that he went through, and we're being made like him. That means we have to fight the same way.

So, David brings all he's facing without missing a beat before God. The one he's learned to trust. Before God, who has proved faithful and trustworthy in the past and who he's declaring will be reliable, successful, and victorious for him again. And we should do likewise. We can look back in our lives, remember, and stir ourselves up for where God has been good and faithful and kind and true and generous and giving and merciful and gracious and long-sufferingly patient with us.

And on and on and on, we need to bless the Lord for how good he is to us. To wait upon the Lord. Our souls, take heart and wait for him. People, strengthen yourselves in the Lord and in his mighty strength. Let us be ones like David who see, "O Lord, I am convinced that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

"We're to stand on the promises of God in the desperate seasons when something or someone is threatening our hope and when we feel on the verge of collapse. We must turn from looking at the threat and instead, look to our source of hope and say with David, 'My salvation and my honor depend on God. He is my mighty rock, my refuge.' Verse 6 and some translations write, 'And I shall not be moved.' So, can we get to the point where, as the song says, 'We shall not, we shall not be moved. We shall not, we shall not be moved, just like a tree standing by the water, we shall not be moved.' Amen."

Thank you. We're now going to join in our next song this morning, the hymn is "My Jesus, My Savior."