What If Your Life Stinks Right Now? (AM Sermon Notes)
GIST: Remind yourself of the truth of who Jesus is in your life and commit yourself wholeheartedly to Him who committed Himself to saving you!
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 31:1-13
Today, we’re starting our third “Summer in Psalms”. I love this time of year, and I love diving into these psalms with you. As I’ve said each year, this will not be a fast process. In fact, when I did some rough estimating at one point, I figured it might take us about...15 summers ☺️. However, I don’t want this introduction to feel like it took that long as well, so let’s just dive into our passage for this morning ☺️.
We’re going to look at the first portion of Psalm 31. My driving question for our discussion today is: What if your life stinks right now? However, I think we’ll be able to see that though these verses speak especially to that condition (one that is very common for mankind by the way ☺️), the truths they’re presenting are ones we need to be reminded of no matter the circumstances. And the truths laid out here aren’t new to most of us. In fact, I feel like we addressed several of them last week even ☺️. Being honest with you, sometimes when I notice that, the teacher in me wants to try and make sure it sounds different than the week before. Then, I’m reminded of two very important truths. 1) You probably don’t remember what I preached last week anyway ☺️. 2. If God has led me to a passage that expresses something we’ve recently addressed, clearly we still need to hear it! So, here’s our gist for today. In times that make you very aware of your lack of control: Remind yourself of the truth of who Jesus is in your life and commit yourself wholeheartedly to Him who committed Himself to saving you! Let’s break that down. First→
I. Remind Yourself Of The Truth (1-4)
Look at how he starts here. “1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me!” He starts by saying he’s done this. He’s taken refuge, found safety and belonging, in God. But then he basically asks God to be who He is and come to his rescue. I really think this speaks to David’s condition while writing this. He knows the truth, but he needs to be assured of it. Why? Because he lived in this broken world too.
I love where he goes next. “2 Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily! Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me!” Please listen and come rescue me quickly. Be my place of safety and protection and belonging because… you already are ☺️! “3 For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me; 4 you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge.” See how he is reminding Himself of this core truth here? ‘Please be who I know You are. I know You can’t be anyone else, and the world needs to see You, and You have poured out your redeeming love.’ We need to remember this and tell ourselves this. Our world is constantly changing. God is constant. Remember Him, and→
II. Commit Yourself To Jesus (5-8)
This first part might sound familiar. “5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.” These were among the last words spoken by Jesus (Luke 24:46). That actually throws a whole different light on this psalm for me. Jesus spoke these words and then took His last breath on the cross, so we could speak these words with complete confidence. See, there’s a call to commitment and an expectation of God’s faithfulness. Because Jesus conquered sin through His resurrection, we can commit our lives wholeheartedly to the one who redeemed us, the one who rescued us from ultimate destruction! That “redeem me” part has been fulfilled, and that “faithful God” part never changes. How about our side? Have you committed yourself to God?
Verses 6-8 gives us a little picture of what that will look like. “6 I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the LORD. 7 I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul, 8 and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.” Let me break this down just a bit. If we’re committed to God, we’ll:
1. Trust in the Lord instead of devoting our lives to empty pursuits. In fact, the language here is strong. It says he hates empty worship, the worship of anything except the One true God. And we know this could be the worship of false gods, which though not as common in our immediate area is still a reality in our world today; or it could be the worship of material possessions, professional pursuits, personal relationships...etc which we set up as our gods. David hates these. Some ancient manuscripts actually seem to have the pronoun here referring to God hating this which is also true, because all such pursuits are not just alternatives of preference, they are paths to Hell. We spoke of this just a few weeks ago. If you worship emptiness, you will come up empty. Instead, like David, we are called to throw off our selfish idols and trust wholeheartedly in the Lord as we→
2. Rejoice in His love and provision. His love that doesn’t leave us in times of affliction and distress. His provision that doesn’t leave us to our enemies, but instead gives us a firm and safe foundation to stand on. Guys, that’s a picture of salvation! We have this new hope in the face of whatever comes because death has lost its sting! Our ultimate enemy is the sin within us that condemns us, and He took that condemnation in our place, so we can rejoice and be glad! How do we face devastation? Remember Him. Commit to Him. And→
III. Experience Hope Because Of His Sacrifice (9-13)
I want to wrap up this morning by looking at these next few verses in a couple of different ways. First, we see that David lays out what his condition was at the time of writing this psalm.
“9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. 10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. 11 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. 12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. 13 For I hear the whispering of many-- terror on every side!-- as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.” We don’t know the details of what he was facing, but we know from our study of God’s Word that David had many times when his life was in jeopardy. This psalm which screams, “I will trust you with everything!” was written in one such time. To me, that’s incredibly encouraging because that’s not always my reaction when times our going down the drain. But it should be ours. In fact, even more than David, we should be able to say this because Jesus fulfilled this perspective ultimately for us.
Remember, Jesus quoted this psalm right before He died. Though He only quoted one verse, it was common practice to do that as a way of referencing the whole text. So look at these verses again in that light.
“9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.” Do you hear echoes of Jesus in the garden here praying before facing Hell for you?
“10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.” He had no iniquity of His own, but He took on the sins of the world. Before that, He faced persecutions and hardships we’ve never had to because He loves us that much.
“11 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. 12 I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. 13 For I hear the whispering of many-- terror on every side!-- as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.” He was despised and rejected to bring you hope. This was David’s condition, but it was Jesus’s position in a far more meaningful way, and because it was, this cry of confidence can be ours!
I’m not going to cover these verses this morning, but I want to leave you with what the psalm says next to wrap this up with a final encouragement and as a bit of a sneak peek for next week ☺️. This should be our heart no matter the circumstances. “14 But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, "You are my God." 15 My times are in your hand... ”.
Let’s recap in our→
TAKEAWAYS
- In all life’s moments, you need to speak God’s truth to your heart. This is a lot like what we said last week as we wrapped up James. Regardless of your external circumstances, be they awesome or terrible, you need your perspective redirected to His truth. That being said, do this! Actually remind yourself of who He is and what He’s done and what His promises mean to your life. That’s what we see David doing here, and that’s modeled all throughout Scripture. Don’t let empty voices speak into your heart. Be deliberate about filling it with the saving truth of Jesus.
- This truth will call you to actual commitment. When Jesus committed Himself to God the Father on the cross, it wasn’t a halfhearted affair. Those weren’t just words He uttered. He gave everything and took on Hell in our place. That’s amazing grace poured out in amazing love. We’re called to follow after Him and love Him and others with the same kind of wholehearted love.
- This commitment will result in true HOPE which Jesus secured for you! There is hope in no other. We can live with Him because He died for us. We can cry out like this knowing He hears because He already conquered Hell in our place!
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