“'Trust In Him at all Times': Hope in God's Trustworthiness (Psalm 62)” | 10/18/2020
Psalm 62 | 10/18/20 | Will Duval
This morning we continue our “Psalms of Hope” series, in what I’ve decided, in preparing this week, has become one of my personal favorites: Psalm 62: ““'Trust in him at all times': Hope in God's Trustworthiness””. The word of the day is: TRUST.
So let’s just start by kind of taking stock: who, or what do YOU trust in?
-Do you trust Vice President Biden when he promises he won’t raise your taxes, if you make less than $400,000 a year? Do you trust President Trump when he promises your pre-existing conditions will still be covered if he kills Obamacare? Do you trust ANY politician anymore?
-How about the MEDIA - Is CNN really “the most trusted name in news?” Or do you trust Fox News to be “Fair and Balanced”? I read a study this past week that said a majority of Americans, it’s now over 50%, believe that “fake news” is a “major problem” even amongst traditional media sources - Who can you trust anymore? (https://www.statista.com/statistics/308468/importance-brand-journalist-creating-trust-news/ ).
-What about social media? That same study cited that 66% of those surveyed don’t trust what they hear on social media. And yet, that’s where 62% of us get our news!! Talk about the blind leading the blind…
-But let’s bring this a little closer to home: do you trust ME? Your pastor? Do you trust the CHURCH? A 2018 Gallup poll found that only 40% of Americans believe that clergy - church leaders - are “generally honest and have high ethical standards”. 40%! That number has FALLEN nearly 30% in the last 3 decades, and frankly, can you blame people? It seems like every time you blink, there’s another story coming out about a priest molesting a child, a mega-church pastor defrocked for sexual impropriety. We pastors rank just ABOVE auto-mechanics now in trustworthiness, and if you can find one of THOSE who I can trust, please let me know… But hey, at least we beat out Congress and used car salesmen, who hover around 11% trustworthy!
This is the world we live in, isn’t it? Another 30-year Gallup study found that on average, levels of trust in almost EVERY institution - the church, the Presidency, the media, big business, public schools, healthcare workers, banks, the police - has DECLINED over the past 3 decades: we are getting JADED. Skeptical. And we’re losing trust. (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx)
The irony is that trust falls even as POSTMODERNISM rises. Postmodernism is the ideology of our day: it claims that truth is relative - that “my truth is my truth, and your truth is your truth” - and yet despite this irrationally ludicrous, self-refuting belief that ALL truth is valid, and in a world where postmodernism presumably says we should trust EVERYONE, because somehow we can ALL be right at the same time, we now trust NO ONE.
So who CAN you trust these days? Maybe in such a world you just gotta trust YOURSELF. But can you even do THAT? The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer 17:9), so you certainly can’t trust your feelings. Proverbs 28:26 cautions us: “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool” so don’t trust your brain either. As for trusting your BODY, Isaiah 40:30 reminds that “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted”, and I can confirm that too - by the end of our church volleyball tournament yesterday, we had some of y’all “youths” - our 22 and 23 year olds - falling exhausted in the sand. Look: we can’t all be Sal Paez, and still be playing volleyball every week into our 70s and 80s. But even Sal’s time will come - gravity and entropy eventually get the best of ALL of us, our bodies will break down, and personally, I think it’s just part of God’s INGENIOUS design as we get closer and closer to the grave, to systematically strip us of everything else in our life upon which we’ve built a feeble foundation. Trust in your health? Osteoporosis. Arthritis. Trust in your mind? Dementia. Alzheimer’s. Trust in your relationships? You better not live too long or you’ll outlive all your friends and be left all alone. Trust in your wealth? You’re running out of time to enjoy it, and even what you try and leave behind to your family: Estate tax!
Man - is this the most depressing sermon EVER?! Or speaking of systematically exposing every false foundation we try and build our lives upon, is God using King David this morning to do just that for us in Psalm 62. That’s how I read this passage: I see David listing for us SIX common idols in which we all too often MIS-place our trust. And he concludes in v8 - the climax of the chapter - that we can and should trust in GOD only, trust Him “at ALL times” and in EVERY way - pour out your HEART to Him, because He is utterly trustworthy. And David closes by offering us FOUR reasons to trust God. So would you turn there with me: Psalm 62, and stand as you’re able...
For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.
3 How long will all of you attack a man
to batter him,
like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?
4 They only plan to thrust him down from his high position.
They take pleasure in falsehood.
They bless with their mouths,
but inwardly they curse. Selah
5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
6 He only is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
7 On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us. Selah
9 Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
10 Put no trust in extortion;
set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, set not your heart on them.
11 Once God has spoken;
twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God,
12 and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.
For you will render to a man
according to his work.
This is the word of the Lord... (LET’S PRAY…)
-
I told you Psalm 62 is identified as a “psalm of DAVID”; he’s the author. And the superscription in your Bibles specifies that this is a psalm “according to Jeduthun”; we know from 1 Chr 16.41 & 25:1-3 that Jeduthun was one of the chief worship leaders appointed by King David in Israel. So like MOST of the psalms, ch.62 was written as a SONG. But more importantly, contextually, it was written, like so MANY of the psalms, out of a place of PAIN. Of PRESSURE. We’re gonna discover in vv3-4 here that once again, David is writing Psalm 62 from the proverbial furnace. We think the context is probably Absalom’s rebellion, but we’re not entirely sure, and it doesn’t matter too much, because the message is the same in any case. Pastor Jon Bloom exposits it this way (“Waiting for God Alone”, desiringgod.org, Feb 7, 2020): “To be brought to a place where God is our only real hope is a merciful experience. But I don’t say that lightly. Because almost always it’s also a desperate experience. Some external circumstance, or internal crisis, forces us into a place where our other comforts and hopes are removed or fail us. In these moments, we keenly feel our weakness and vulnerability, and we usually long and plead with God for escape. But it is in these seasons that enduring faith is forged. And, usually in retrospect, such experiences — ones where we discover that God really is our only rock, that our only real hope is from him — prove to be among the sweetest of our lives.”
So what are the six FALSE hopes that we mistakenly put our trust in, that REMIND us our only true hope is in the Lord, here in Psalm 62?
#1 - We Trust in God when…
* Life is CHAOTIC. (vv1, 5)
Our false hope, our trust idol here, is BUSYNESS. In David’s case, his life is TUMULTUOUS. He’s under ATTACK, v3. From his son Absalom trying to usurp his throne, v4: “plotting to thrust him down from his high position”. So what’s our natural reaction in such a situation? Remember: it’s hard-wired into our biology; we talked about this in a recent sermon too: how do we naturally respond when threatened? The 3 “F”s: Fight, Flight, Freeze… but to those, we added a fourth possible response: FAITH. That’s what God desires of us, and that’s what David MODELS for us once again here in Psalm 62 - in the midst of the onslaught, he cries out: “For God alone my soul waits in silence”. Yes: David was human, just like us. So I am CONFIDENT, like us, he was tempted to take matters into his own hands. To fight, or to flight. To get busy, either fighting back, or packing his bags and running for the hills. But before he does ANYTHING, he says, “I’m just gonna WAIT for God in SILENCE.”
Listen, friends: There is no time when we NEED to wait on God in silence MORE, than when life gets really chaotic. And yet, there is no time when it is more DIFFICULT to wait on God, in silence, than when life gets really chaotic, is there? I HAVE to believe this is one of the primary reasons God allowed the world to come grinding to a HALT for so many months with COVID - to remind us of the value and the importance of QUIET. Of REST. Of Stillness, silence, waiting. These are under-valued virtues in our society, aren’t they? In fact, I’d go so far as to say that BUSYNESS may be one of our biggest IDOLS, which would then make its OPPOSITE - rest - by definition one of the more DISPARAGED, frowned-upon traits out there. We almost look DOWN on people who don’t have a jam-packed schedule. We assume that people with whom we have to book meetings or schedule dinner dates at least a month out in advance must be SUPER important and successful, right, to fill all that time. But God says, “You don’t impress me. In fact, you DE-press me. So I’m gonna give you a gift. Here is a global pandemic. Why don’t you just take the next 6 months off. I’m just gonna clear your schedule FOR you, cuz you need to re-learn the value of REST. Of Quiet. Of Waiting. We’re picking back up where we left off LAST Sunday at the end of Psalm 46: “Be still, and know that I am God.” When was the last time you were “still”, friends? I mean really still. Sleeping doesn’t count...
Can we get really practical, and really personal this morning. And some of y’all are about to hate me - I’m warning you right now: here comes the spirit of conviction. Cuz we ALL know what Enemy #1 is, in our day and age, when it comes to busyness displacing God’s call to be still, to be silent, to wait for Him. What is the single most busy-ing, chaos-inducing weapon that is actively fighting your ability to rest, in your life… in your pocket… everyone pull it out and let’s all hold them up high in shame together. The single greatest THIEF of your time, your energy, your rest and your peace... is your PHONE, isn’t it? Go ahead, pull it out, seriously. Half of you had em out already, checking Facebook, Instagram… We Americans spend on average 5 ½ hours a DAY on our phones. We look down and check our phones 58 times a day. And I can guarantee you I beat that number almost every day. One third of Americans report they are online “almost constantly”. And listen - those figures were from February: PRE-COVID. Just imagine how much worse it’s gotten in quarantine, for most people.
Now, some of y’all are getting REEEEEAL nervous, that I’m about to make some reference to Gideon destroying idols and tell you to smash your smart phone on the pavement. Relax - I’m not gonna do that. But I DO want to caution you. As I said, I am preaching to myself first and foremost here; I am chief of sinners. But listen: we will not be Psalm 62 people, we will not “wait on the Lord in silence”, if we are constantly falling prey to our need to fill every last second of the day on social media, if we are constantly scratching our itch to stay in the know in this world of 24-hour news that we live in, if we are constantly feeding our ADDICTIONS to our phones. Let’s call it what it is: many of us, perhaps even MOST of us, are ADDICTED to them. Let me ask you: how long do you think you could go without yours? Be honest with yourself. I dare you to try this week...
Here’s what I’d like us ALL to try this morning. While you’ve got your phones out - turn them off. You should turn ‘em off when you’re at church anyway. If you use a Bible app - just put it on Airplane mode, and let us give you a free, real Bible instead. I mentioned last week, the Hebrew word “Selah” at the end of vv4 and 8, denotes a PAUSE in the singing of the psalm, for the purpose of intentional reflection on the meaning and power of what you’ve just sung. But I don’t want to wait until we get to verses 4 and 8. It seems appropriate if we’re talking about the idol of BUSYNESS and needing God to save us from life’s CHAOS, that now is as good a time as any to take a Selah, a pause, and just rest for a moment. So with your phones off, and your eyes closed, I don’t want you to PRAY, at least not in the sense that we ordinarily mean, unfortunately, when we use the word “pray”; I don’t want you to “talk at God”. No, I want to give you a moment to LISTEN FOR God. He might not speak to you audibly. That’s fine. But I can almost ASSURE you that He won’t speak to you if you never slow down and quiet your soul long enough to actually LISTEN for Him. So I’m gonna give you a moment to do that. To wait for the Lord, in silence, right now...
Amen. That could be a really healthy, practical, new spiritual discipline for you. I challenge you, every day this week, to take 60 seconds - don’t set a timer; you may actually find you get better and better at it, and you appreciate that quiet time more and more; maybe by the end of the week you’re up to 2 or 3 minutes. But I challenge you to put that kind of resting, waiting, silence into practice this week. And see if the Lord begins to speak to you in new ways. If nothing else, I can almost promise you you’ll feel most rested and at peace.
#2 - We trust in God when the world is SHAKY. (vv2, 7)
Let’s zoom out from “my life” personally to consider “the world” generally; in vv2 & 7, David contrasts God’s reliability with the world’s uncertainty: He says, “God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken… On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.” His repetition of the rock and salvation language brings to mind Jesus’ own words from Matthew ch7: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Think of all the glorious truths we’ve already proclaimed together in song this morning: “How firm, our foundation
How sure, our salvation
And we will not be shaken
Jesus, firm foundation”
“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus' name”
“I will build my LIFE upon Your love
It is a firm foundation
I will put my trust in You alone
And I will not be shaken”
Or that great old hymn we sang last week: “On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.”
And it truly IS, isn’t it? COVID is exposing our idols - highlighting just how flimsy and tenuous the things that we are so quick to trust in really are? We want the world to be predictable. We want to be able to book vacations without spending the extra money on trip insurance. We want to be able to contribute to our 401k and BANK on it being there in 10, 20, 30 years when we need it. We want to be able to COUNT on the fact that if I spend the time and the money and incur the debt to get myself through college, there will be a JOB waiting for me on the other side; a light at the end of that tunnel. I just have to laugh when I talk to young married couples, who tell me their timeline for getting pregnant and having kids, that they have all mapped out. That’d be really nice, wouldn’t it - If God followed our plans?
Friends, this stuff is SINKING SAND. And if you continue to put your HOPE, your TRUST, in sinking sand, you better be ready to be MAJORLY disappointed, at some point in life; it’s coming. Maybe it’s all working for you... for now. You’re building your sand castle higher and higher. But the rains are a’coming. We ALL encounter storms in this life, sooner or later, and they WILL test your foundation. The world is shaky, uncertain, unpredictable. But the LORD never changes; He is an immovable rock, an unbreakable fortress, an unshakeable refuge. Put your trust in HIM. And you will NEVER be disappointed.
Psalm 40:4 declares “Blessed is the man who makes
the Lord his trust”
Nahum 1:7 “The Lord is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
he cares for those who trust in him.”
#3 - Trust in God when Enemies ATTACK. (vv3-4)
David says, “How long will all of you attack a man
to batter him,
like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?...”
We spent a whole week on the theme of God’s DELIVERANCE, specifically from our enemies, when we studied Psalm 31, so I’ll refer you back to that message and I’ll be brief on this point. But in the context of exposing idols for their untrustworthiness, let me just name the BIGGEST one that comes to mind here: the idol of SECURITY. First, security. In the same way that we want to believe the world is predictable, point #2, we ALSO want to believe that we are SAFE. The reality is, we no longer live in the days of David, when the average life expectancy was somewhere between 25 and 30 years of age. Because if it wasn’t the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Philistines or the Ammonites or the Moabites or fill in the blank with the regional rival power of the day, coming to take your land, rape, kill and enslave you, if it wasn’t THOSE enemies after you, literal enemies, there were always the enemies of death from infection or hemmoraging during childbirth; we estimate infant mortality was 40% in the ancient world. Only 25% of kids made it to age 10. The VAST majority of people never made it long enough to face our biggest enemies in the developed world today: heart disease, stroke, dementia. And it’s just not cool to go around killing people and taking their land anymore. So we live in a VERY different time, and it can be easy to get lulled into a false sense of SECURITY and safety, out here in West County.
And with NO intent to instill FEAR or anxiety in you this morning, because remember Psalm 27: If “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”... remember Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer… let your requests be made known to God”, so if we trust in God, we don’t have to be ruled by fear or stress, but that’s NOT because there aren’t any THREATS out there. David reminds us that our false sense of security, our IGNORANCE of the threats out there, actually DIMINISH our trust in God, because we’ll tend to trust in ourselves instead. We put God out of a job; we fool ourselves into thinking we don’t NEED Him to be our protection and strength.
Friends, do you realize you have an Enemy - maybe not warring armies or deadly pestilence; although - maybe that too! COVID is an enemy. Death is the ultimate enemy, and it’s coming for us all. But Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.[d] Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (Jn 11:25); have you trusted in HIM today?
#4 - Trust in God when YOU DOUBT. (v6)
I’ll be brief again here, because the point is very subtle in the text. But look with me more carefully at verses 2 and 6. They are almost identical. But can you spot the difference? In v2: David had said God is “my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.” But here in v6, he says: “I shall not be shaken”, at ALL. It is as if David’s trust in the Lord is actually growing AS he is writing the psalm. He felt the need back in v2 to specify, the last word of the verse, in Hebrew - rabbah - it’s like David is feeling confident - “God’s my FORTRESS; I won’t be shaken…” and he starts to put the pen down… but then he realizes the truth of vv3-4, that he’s still got enemies assaulting him on every side… and he can’t in good conscience claim absolute unshakeability, so he adds that word “greatly”. I mean, after all, EVERYONE gets a LITTLE shaken sometimes, right?
It’s the idol of self-assurance. The false hope of “faith in your own faith”. So many people today claim to have faith, but if you begin to ask them questions and really drill down to their actual foundation, they don’t trust so much in GOD, as they do their own BELIEF in Him, they trust in their RELIGION. Their religious convictions about God. It’s this Oprah Winfrey, Joel Osteen “faith in faith” - the “power of positive thinking” gospel. Where the most important thing is to always keep doubt at bay. Did you see the movie, Doubt? I think of that powerful scene at the end, where Meryl Streep, the nun who has devoted her entire life to this rigid religious system, and her ability to make sense of it all, when she breaks down at the end, and confesses to Amy Adams: “Oh, Sister James, I have DOUBTS!”
And friends, while we’re not here to CELEBRATE doubt - Jesus says in Matthew 21 that if we have faith and don’t doubt, we can move mountains, James 1 exhorts us to pray in faith without doubting - but at the same time, maybe you need to be set FREE this morning from the false gospel of faith in your own faith. Ephesians 2:8 assures us that it is “by grace you have been saved through faith.” But then IMMEDIATELY, like before we have ANY opportunity to start developing some perverted doctrine of faith in our own faith, because God knows our sinful tendency to want to take at least SOME of the credit for anything GOOD that comes into our lives, ESPECIALLY the best thing of all - our salvation - IMMEDIATELY, Paul specifies: “And this is NOT your own doing; it is the gift of God”. Jesus Christ, and the salvation he offers us, the forgiveness of sin that we have in Him, is a grace, He is God’s GIFT to a desperately needy world. But we’ve also got to BELIEVE in Him; John 3:18 - “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned”. But here’s what God’s telling us in Ephesians 2:8 - even your ability to BELIEVE in Jesus, even your faith IN me, is a gift FROM me! Listen: it better NOT come from us, because given the chance to screw up our faith in His grace, you and I will do it in a HEARTBEAT! If my salvation relies on MY OWN ability to believe hard enough… to have faith and not doubt… I am in trouble. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t moved any mountains recently. According to Jesus, that means my faith must be TAINTED with all kinds of doubt. But hear the good news this morning, brothers and sisters: 2 Timothy 2:13 - that even “if we are faithless, he remains faithful”.
#5 - Trust in God when People FAIL you. (v9)
David says: “Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.”
The “high estate” and “low estate” language isn’t there in the Hebrew; this is one of those rare, bad translations in most of our English Bibles. The Hebrew just says the “sons of adam” (“humans”) are a breath; the “sons of ish” (“man”) are a delusion. Derek Kidner explains: this is just a “poetic way of saying “all men” (241). All people are gonna FAIL you. It’s the false idol of trusting in PEOPLE. David says: you can put ‘em all on a scale together, all of humanity’s trustworthiness, and the balance goes “UP”, it actually RISES, because their WORD isn’t WEIGHTY; “they are together lighter than a breath” - people are just a bunch of hot air! The Hebrew word for “breath” is that common refrain from the book of Ecclesiastes - hevel - it means “vanity”, “nothingness”, literally, “vapor or mist”.
You know how I know it’s almost winter? Because I take a hot shower to try and warm up, and by the time I turn the shower off, I’m already cold again. Anybody else play that game, of “race against the steam”, where you frantically try and towel off before all the nice warm steam in the shower disappears? And who always loses? Because how long does it take for steam to vanish - it’s like [snap] THAT! David says: that’s what you and I are. All people are vapor, breath, an illusion. We’re not even sinking SAND. I mean, at least sand you can build on for a season, until the rain comes. How do you build on BREATH?!
Psalm 146:3-4 “Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.” → hmm, anybody else need me to re-read THAT one in this election cycle… “Put not your trust in princes!!” in whom there is NO salvation…
Micah 7:5 goes even farther: “Put no trust in a neighbor;
have no confidence in a friend” - even your closest friends and family will let you down, won’t they? Now, the Bible does call us elsewhere, in some sense, to trust fellow believers; 1 Corinthians 13 says: “Love one another… Love bears all things, believes all things”. We have to be able to believe, to trust one another in SOME sense. But we always do so recognizing that even the best of people, the most trustworthy amongst us, are fallible. We will let each other down.
So Psalm 118, v8 summarizes for us: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man.” Amen!
Lastly, #6 - Trust in God when Riches TEMPT. (v10)
V10: “Put no trust in extortion;
set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, set not your heart on them.”
This really boils down to a war of worldviews, doesn’t it? I mean, if the skeptics are right, and God is a lie, the afterlife is fake news… then even the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes admits: there is nothing better “under the sun,” down here on this sad, spinning ball, than to “eat, drink, be merry”; and guess what: you can eat more, drink more, and have more fun with more money; it’s like Gertrude Stein joked: “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ didn’t know where to shop.”
If this life is all there is, your best bet is to spend your life chasing riches, because let’s face it: money is king around here. BUT, but... if this life is but a shadow of the one to come… if there really is eternity at stake here, and the prospect of ETERNAL riches awaits us in Heaven, then it makes absolutely NO sense to store up treasures for ourselves here on earth where moth and rust destroy. Jesus said, “The rich tear down their barns and build bigger ones to make room to store all their crops”, But God says, “FOOLS! This night your soul is required of you; and who are you gonna leave all those barns to?” (Luke 12). Jesus says, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:21) So the apostle Paul exhorts us not to “set [your] hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy… Do good, be rich in good works… thus storing up treasure for [yourselves] as a good foundation for the future, so that [you] may take hold of that which is truly life.” (1 Tim 6:17-19)
Spend THIS life - the next 50, 60, 70 years... investing in the life to come: ETERNITY!
So in conclusion: don’t trust in your busyness to fulfill you, don’t trust in the world to be predictable, don’t trust it to be SAFE (it’s not!), don’t trust in your own ability to trust sufficiently (“faith in your own faith”), don’t trust in people, and don’t trust in money.
So who CAN you trust? The Lord. For 4 reasons, in closing:
1) God is ABLE. v11: “power belongs to God”. Job 42:2 “[God] can do all things, and no purpose of [His] can be thwarted.”
2) God is WILLING. v12: “to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.” If God were able to help us, to be our rock and refuge, but not willing to do so, He’d be no help at all to us. He wouldn’t be worthy of our trust. But God says in Jeremiah 32:41 “I rejoice in doing [you] good”. John Piper calls that the most glorious promise of God in all of Scripture. To know that our good and perfect heavenly Father assures us: “If you know how to give good gifts to your OWN kids - and you’re WICKED! - how much more so will I do good to you - MY children, my adopted sons and daughters, purchased by the blood of my only begotten Son.” If you were worth DYING for, you are worth providing for. God will not let you down.
Please ADD, #3) We can trust God because He is FAIR. v12: “You will render to a man according to his work.” It brings up another VERY important “trust IDOL”: our own good works! Far too many people trust in their own perceived goodness. IF God is fair, and my good deeds outweigh my bad ones, He’ll let me into Heaven. And I suppose they think heaven is just like a marginally better version of this world, filled with, ya know, not-so-terrible people. God says, “Oh no - heaven is WAY better than that; it’s PERFECT! But the problem is: that means I can’t let YOU in, even if you were 99.99% good, because then you’d ruin perfection, you’d taint it, with your sin. So the only way to get in is to find someone WITHOUT sin who will willingly lay down HIS life and trade his righteousness for your unrighteousness, satisfy God’s just WRATH against your sin, and die the death you deserve in your place. And friends, on the cross, Christ Jesus suffered the most un-FAIR punishment in history so that God could show YOU love and grace instead of wrath and justice. But it all comes down to this: you have to TRUST him. And he is PERFECTLY trustworthy.
#4 - That’s about as simply as you can put it: Trust in God, because God is utterly TRUSTWORTHY. V8: “Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.”
“Pour out your heart” - 1 Peter 5:7 says “cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” What a beautiful invitation. Will you receive it this morning? Will you receive JESUS?
God declares ““Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever trusts in him will not be put to shame.”” (1 Peter 2:6)
Will you trust in Jesus today? Let’s pray...