Waiting

Introduction

Kent Hughes in his commentary on Psalms tells of a story that one night a fire broke out in a home. A young boy who was in the home could not make his way safely to the front or back door to escape and so he was forced to flee to the roof of the house. His father had made it outside safely and was now standing in the yard looking up at his son on the roof. He stretched out his arms telling his son to jump to him for safety. He kept telling his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you!” But surrounded by flames on every side of him and smoke all around the young boy was fearful to make that leap. The danger was paralyzing him. The father kept shouting, “Jump son! I will catch you. Trust me!” But the boy shouted back, “I’m scared daddy! I can’t see you.” To which the father said, “You don’t have to see me! I can see you!” And that was all that was needed for the young boy to have the faith to jump safely into the arms of his father.

There are often many days or seasons in our lives where we feel like that young boy who was trapped on the roof. You may be saying, “Yeah, that’s me right now in my life!” “I can’t see forward; I can’t see anything next to me. I’m surrounded by affliction and hardship, trouble, and suffering, pain.” And you’re crippled or paralyzed by fear, worry, anxiety. And so, what do we do in those moments? How do we respond in those seasons of life? Where does our confidence come from and how do we walk in abundance of life? The abundance and joy of life that Jesus purchased for us through his life, death, and resurrection.

Psalm 31 is the answer to those looming questions. David is facing flames of various degrees of intensity all around him. His nation is continually at war, he’s facing betrayal at home, even from his own children who are trying to take the throne from him, friends have abandoned him, lies are being spread about him, he’s confronted with his own sin and brokenness and so he struggled with deep discouragement and bouts of depression causing him to think, as he says in verses 9 and 10,

Psalm 31:9-10 “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.”

This was a man who understood difficulty. He understood suffering. He understood betrayal and loneliness and yet David was a man who hoped in the Lord and so we need to learn from him in this Psalm of how to approach life with a confident hope and trust in the Lord.

What we need to hold fast to is the truth that abundance and vitality of life is not found with the absence of trials or suffering but in the presence of God as we wait for the Lord.

Psalm 31 is a remarkable Psalm in that it is one that is quoted often in several other places of Scripture. The prophet Jeremiah, often dubbed, “the weeping prophet” quotes the phrase “terror on every side” found in verse 13 at least 6 times when describing the danger he was in. Psalm 31 must have been a comfort for him as he himself faced suffering.

Jesus himself, from the cross, nails through his hands and feet, bearing the weight and punishment of sin, forsaken by his Father, at the height of his suffering, about to die, quotes Psalm 31:5, “Into your hand I commit my spirit.” Jesus, the greater David endured suffering on a level that we’ll never fully grasp and yet, he identified with David and entrusted his soul to God to save him.

Make no mistake, Psalm 31 is a psalm of hope and comfort for those who are enduring suffering. But it’s also a call to be strong in the Lord.

Abundance of life is not found with the absence of trials or suffering but in the presence of God as we wait for the Lord.

And so, let’s learn together from this Psalm today of what it looks like to wait for the Lord.

This Psalm is a prayer. And the reason why it is a prayer and not some motivational talk is because motivational talks are intended for you to find strength within yourself. A prayer is a call to find strength outside of yourself in someone else.

This is not a Psalm for you to find your inner strength to persevere, but rather to empty and humble yourself to find strength in your God who fights for you. And so, this Psalm is a prayer of faith, a prayer for grace, and a prayer of praise.

Number one:

A prayer of faith.

Look at verse 1.

Psalm 31:1, In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me!

Notice who David turns to, to find refuge? He doesn’t turn to himself; he doesn’t turn to his wealth or his family. He doesn’t turn to his title or position of power and authority. No, he turns to the Lord. “In you, O LORD, do I take refuge.”

How often do we turn to that which cannot deliver us for hope and assurance?

If you and your friend were both drowning in the ocean and a rope was thrown to you, a lifeline, what would you turn to for deliverance? Would you turn and cling to your friend or would you take hold of that rope? We’d grab that rope with all our strength and then grab our friend to go to safety.

Why wouldn’t we cling to our friend in that moment of despair and danger? Because they’re also drowning and can do nothing to help you.

But that’s so often what we do in seasons of suffering and hardship. We turn to things that cannot help us.

Instead, our prayer needs to be one of faith. We turn to our God. And that’s what we see David do in verses 2-8.

In verses 2-4 David is asking God to hear his cries for help. This is a prayer of faith. What David is saying is, “God, right now it doesn’t seem to me that you’re listening, in my flesh it feels as though you are far away, but I know you are there.” “Be that rock and refuge for me that I know you are.”

This was David moving from mere intellectual knowledge of God’s character and nature to a firm-held belief and experience of that character. Meaning, David was saying, “I know you are my rock and my refuge, now my God, help me to believe it and experience that truth.”

This past year we took our kids for the first time to see the Ocean. Now, leading up to that time we had told them how big the ocean is and how awesome and powerful and beautiful it is and so in their minds they had a concept of what the ocean was. But nothing could compare to that first moment of actually seeing it with their own two eyes and stepping into it and feeling the waves wash over their feet. They experienced it.

David is saying, I know these truths about you. Help me to experience it right now. You are my rock and refuge.

Charles Spurgeon once said,

“We must pray to enjoy in experience what we grasp by faith.” – Charles Spurgeon

We pray for God’s truth and character to be alive to us. Yes, God is my rock and my refuge, and I have experienced it.

Listen to the faith of David in verse 5.

Psalm 31:5, Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.

Have you ever done a trust fall? You stand up on a chair or a ledge with your friends behind you with their arms spread out to catch you as you fall backwards. But you’re not looking as you fall. You’re trusting them to catch your entire body before it hits the floor.

To a much larger degree, it’s what David is praying in faith for here. He’s committing his entire spirit, his life into the hand of God. It’s the faith to believe that even if death overtakes him, he is secure in his God and knows that he will continue to live even if his physical body dies.

This is why Jesus quoted this Psalm from the cross. Jesus was engulfed in the flames of suffering; he knew death was approaching and yet he found solace in the hope of God and that there was resurrection life coming. Death would not win.

This is the hope we rest in today. There is no suffering, no pain, no hardship that will overtake the goodness, faithfulness, and love of our God. As one author put it, “Life does not end at death. God’s promises extend beyond the grave.”[1]

(Gospel proclamation – call to believe)

And what are these promises that God gives to his children?

Look at the first part of verse 7, “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love.”

1. Steadfast love.

Do not believe the lie when difficulty comes that you are not loved. God’s love for you, for his children is steadfast, unmovable, unshakeable.

Continue in verse 7, “You have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul.”

2. God knows us.

He knows your hurt, he knows your pain, he sees it all and is with you.

Verse 8, “You have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.”

3. Deliverance from our enemies.

Because of Jesus, our enemies have no authority or power over us. Christ is risen, death is defeated. And so, in faith, we walk in victory.

Let’s look now at,

Number 2:

A Prayer for Grace.

Verse 9,

Psalm 31:9, Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.

There’s tension in what I’m saying today as we walk through this text. Are you picking up on that? On one hand, we walk in victory and faith, Christ is risen and yet there is still the recognition of pain, suffering and as we just read, sadness and grief.

Life is filled with tears. In John 11, Jesus weeps over the death of his friend Lazarus, even though he knew that in just a matter of minutes he was going to bring Lazarus back to life.

And so, why is there weeping if Christ has won?

Two things:

1. Because sin and the brokenness of life still stings.

Even though the outcome is secure, the victory assured, the path toward that goal line is filled with hardship. There’s coming a day when yes, death will no longer have a sting, but until that day, death has a sting to it.

2. The residue of sin is painful.

In John 11, Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave but as we just saw, before he did, he wept over Lazarus. Why? Because sin had corrupted and perverted God’s good design for his creation. Death was not part of God’s design for his people. But the residue of sin still covered God’s world. And so, I have to believe that one of the reasons Jesus wept was because he was witnessing sins effects on God’s creation.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. God has given you a new heart to believe and eyes to see and behold his glory. You are his child. And yet, we all still can understand the residue of sin that remains on us and on others.

And so, what we need is grace. We needs God’s favor, his mercy, his love, his kindness, his acceptance.

What David was experiencing in this Psalm was the residue of sin and corruption, not just in his life but in the lives of others.

Because of David’s adversaries and enemies, his friends abandoned him. In verse 12 he says he feels like “he has been forgotten like one who dead.”

In verse 13 he says he “hears the whispering of many.” We know what that is right? That’s gossip, slander, division. And David hears that all around him.

Have you ever walked into a room where the people in there were talking quietly and then stop as soon as they see you? What’s your first thought? They’re talking about me.

This was David’s world. Everyone was talking quietly, whispering around him and about him. Plotting his demise and takedown.

But what’s his prayer?

Verse 14,

Psalm 31:14, But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.”

Verse 16,

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

He prays for God’s grace. The promise we receive from Scripture is that in and through faith in Jesus, God has extravagantly rained down his grace upon us.

Ephesians 1:7-8a, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us.

If you were sitting by a pool on a 110 degree day, 100% humidity, sun beating down on you and you had two options to cool off – a half-filled bottle of water sitting next to you that you could dump on your head or the large, cool, refreshing swimming pool that you could dive into, which one would you choose? We’d choose the pool of course.

Why? Because the amount of water in that pool is abundant in supply and able to continually cool you off every time.

That’s God’s grace. It is abundant in supply; it’s been lavished upon us. It never runs low and will always cover every need that you have. He doesn’t trickle his grace upon you, it’s poured. There’s no sin, there’s no need, there’s no past that’s God’s grace will not be ample in supply every time to cover you.

Which leads to,

Number 3:

A Prayer of Praise.

Verse 19,

Psalm 31:19, Oh, how abundant is your goodness.

Verse 21,

Psalm 31:21, Blessed be the LORD for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me.

Verse 23-24,

Psalm 31:23-24, 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!

As we walk in faith and receive God’s grace our response will be to love our God, and praise God for his goodness and steadfast love as we wait for him.

To wait on the Lord means to walk with confident assurance. We often view waiting as a nuisance to us. “I had to wait for this person to get their work done all day.” “I had to wait forever for them to arrive.” But that’s not what waiting in Scripture is referring to. It’s a confident hope in a certain reality. God is not delaying, he’s not behind schedule. He’s at work continually in our lives and we grow in grace by patiently resting in the hope of his goodness and mercy.

As we experience his character more and more, he is good, he is our refuge, our strength, our deliverer we respond in praise because even though we will walk through pain and suffering, he is present and is at work in our lives. And so, we wait on him to finish what he has begun in our lives. Are you waiting on the Lord?

[1]Johnston, J. A. (2015). Preaching the Word: The Psalms: Rejoice, the Lord Is King—Psalms 1 to 41. (R. K. Hughes, Ed.) (Vol. 1, p. 320). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.