Christopher: I have set before my eyes the covenant character of Yahweh. I refuse to let the assaults of this experience obscure my understanding of who God is, as happened so often. So often the hardship comes, the smoke is rising, and it forms this mask over God's face, and we think of him as he is not. We import upon him the pain, the wickedness, the brokenness of our situation.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Christopher: This morning we are continuing our journey looking through the various genres of the Psalms, the various types of Psalms that we've been giving. We are functioning under the conviction that the Psalms, the Psalter, is the prayer book of God's people inspired by God, given to his church to form the soul of the church such that our prayers would mirror his own heart. We're looking through the different genres of the Psalms, getting a taste of how the Psalms shape us, and again, this sermon series is kind of an indivisible companion to the reading through of the Psalms that we're doing as a church. So we've looked at an overview. We looked at the Psalms of Lament for a number of weeks looking at different aspects of lamentation.
Now we're moving to look at the Psalms of Trust, the Psalms of Trust. Now before we dig into this, an initial question is what is trust? We don't want to just assume we know what trust is. I will offer to you a script, but I believe is a biblically based definition for trust that proves itself across a wide swath of texts, but I'm not gonna give all the different texts here. I'm just gonna give you the definition, and you can take this and see if it holds up as you're reading through the Psalms.
I believe it will. This is the definition that I would suggest to you. Trust is a present strength or hope or comfort drawn from the assurance of God's future grace because of his past faithfulness. So trust is a present strength coming from my assurance of God's future grace, and I'm assured of this because I've seen him faithful in the past. That's what trust is.
That's how trust is played out before us in scripture, kind of spanning present where it's happening, future where it's drawing confidence from, past where it has its anchor, it sees this is why I have a faith, I have trust in the future. So two things, two things to say about this definition. First is that trust is something that happens in the present. You can prepare for trust. You can prepare to trust the Lord.
You can have things that are building up in your mind so that when difficulty comes, you're trusting him rather than falling away, but the experience of trusting happens now in the present. Trust is a present experience, specifically in the midst of difficulty. Trust happens now when the thing is happening, when the thing is upon me. That's when I'm trusting. Think about two platforms with a gap in the middle and a rope.
You hold onto the rope. Okay, you've got the rope. It's in your hands, but you're not really putting your weight on this. You're not trusting this rope until you swing out and you're actually over the gap, and your weight is on the rope. That's when you're trusting.
That's when you're trusting, happening right there in the midst of it. So too, our trust in the Lord happens specifically when the ground Of course, ought to always be trusting him, trusting him as a person. We're always depending on him, but what we're looking at today is when the ground of comfort is removed, and I am hanging on that rope of the Lord's faithfulness, holding to it, that moment, including the pressure I'm feeling holding that rope, that is trust, and it's happening right now. It happens when the hard thing is upon you, when the bad news comes, when the difficulty comes. That's when trust is happening.
So that's the first thing to see. It's in the present. The second thing to see is that trust is in a person. So it's in the present, and it's in a person. People talk about, I trust the facts.
I trust science. I trust this, but ultimately really trust is a personal experience. I'm trusting a person. I have a trust in this person because I've seen what they're like. I've seen who they are.
And specifically in the Psalms we're talking about a trust in the person of who God is, proven from his past faithfulness. If the past faithfulness were not there, if the past faithfulness were just religious mythology, well then I'd have no reason to trust him. I trust him because of who he is, because who he's shown himself to be. So trust is happening in the presence, in the present, and trust is rooted in a person, because the definition we're working with, trust is a present strength or hope or comfort drawing upon the assurance of God's future grace because I've seen his past faithfulness. So with that kind of set before us, let me pray for us, and then we'll look more closely at specific Psalms of trust and ask ourselves how do these shape our souls to pray in the midst of hardship?
How do these Psalms shape us to pray a particular way in the midst of challenge and difficulty? But let me pray for us now unto that end. Father, Lord, you are sufficient. You are faithful, and your word is sufficient, and so in the midst of my insufficiency here this morning to preach these things, to speak authoritatively upon these things, Lord, we look to you and to your Holy Spirit who gives the strength and the grace, who gives the sufficiency. We look to your word which is living and active and powerful and true.
And I pray father that this morning your word would be unfolded and it would give life and light to your people. I pray that your spirit would be present and active right now, Father, to make these next few minutes here upstairs, and as well as anointing the teaching downstairs to make this, father, a truly lasting significant working of your spirit in the lives of your people, that change would be brought to pass, that bonds would be broken, that long standing directions of soul would be redirected in right paths. So Lord, come and heal and build up and strengthen your people for the sake of Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray all these things, and we trust in you. Amen.
So let's begin. Let's begin today by considering the ground of trust, and when I say ground, mean the foundation, the thing upon which trust is built. As we look in the scriptures, what do we find as the ground of our trust? Why trust the Lord? Why trust him?
That was a question that you can ask, and scripture seems to give two overarching answers here. There's trust in the Lord because of his sovereign power, and trust in the Lord because of his covenant character. His power and his character. There's many places we could look to see these things. There's many ways we could break it down, but those two are two big spheres of why we are called to trust him.
His sovereign power, his covenant character. All right, we'll get to covenant character in a second. Let's take sovereign power. This splits into two, his power as the creator and his power as the ruler. So that's what I wanna look at here.
We ground our trust in the Lord. Why? Power and character. Okay, looking at his power. What kind of power?
His creating power. His power is the creator of the universe, and his power as the ruler of the universe. So let me just read a few passages for you here. In Psalm 121, we read this, considering his power as the creator. I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, Yahweh, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. So first of all, just hear those words. I mean, you get in, just hear what the Lord says to you about that, him keeping you, And I know just from a walk I took out earlier today, talked with three people in a row and thought, wow, there is so much that this little congregation is working through right now. There's so much that you all are bearing up under and carrying and facing right now, and hear what the Lord says. The Lord keeps you.
He's your keeper. He's your keeper. But who does this text say the Lord is? That's what I wanna point out. I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come from? From the Lord who made heaven and earth. So what this text is saying is the one who helps me is the one who made all things. And we hear that as Christians, and you think, I mean, as a little kid you think, The Lord God made everything. God made everything.
He's the creator. Right, but think about that. The one who is helping you right now is the one who made the sun, the moon, the angelic host, all the powers of heaven. He's the one who created your body. He's the one who created this world.
He's the one who created all things. He's the maker, and he's the helper. He helps us. Who helps me? The creator of heaven and earth, and he's not just the creator that he sets it going and then leaves it to do what it will.
There's the old example of the clockmaker who makes something and then just lets it go. Okay, God created, but does he just let it run on its own now? No, he creates and he continues to rule. He's the creator and he's the ruler. Let me read for you Psalm 60 five:five-eight.
By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas, the one who by his strength established the mountains, there's the creator power, being girded with might, who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of the waves, the tumult of the peoples. So the Lord is the one who creates and rules. He created the mountains and the sea, and he stills the sea. He rules over the sea. Each wave, each wave is functioning by his command, obeying his rule.
And notice how this links the Lord's rule of creation with his rule of the nations. Verse seven, he stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of the waves, the tumult of the peoples. So just as God rules over the ocean he's made, he rules over the nations. He rules the people, which puts Christ's walking upon the waters in a different image. Christ is walking upon the waters as creator and ruler, but he also is the one who tramples down the nations that oppose him, who rules all nations.
And so Christian, the one to whom we cry out in hardship is the creator of every moment and every molecule of this reality, and he's the ruler of those things. Not one thing happens in the furthest reaches of space, in the most intimate places of our own body, in our nerves, in our cells, in our blood, in our relationships, in everything. Nothing happens apart from him, apart from his purposes and design and authority. He's the creator of all things. He's the ruler of all things.
And just as a stronger rope warrants greater dependence, okay, I can trust this rope, So too the greatness of his power calls us to trust in him. That's the first thing to see. But then reasonably you might say, Well, hold on. Power itself is not a reason to trust someone. I know a lot of powerful people that I would not trust.
You probably do too. In fact, there's the saying power corrupts. So just because someone is powerful doesn't mean I trust them. Power, for power to result in trust, it needs to be supported by and brought together with character. Power is one thing.
Show me the character that wields it. It's a big sword. It's a sharp sword. It's a strong sword. Show me the hand that wields it.
Then I'll tell you if I can trust that. So we've looked at his power, but the Psalms anchor our trust not just in the Lord's raw power, but in the character that uses that power, in the heart from which that power flows and which wields that power in the world. Specifically his covenant character, which means the way he promises to be for those in relationship to him. God covenants with people just like a marriage covenant and promises to be for them something, and those within that covenant with the Lord trust that he will be who he has said he will be. That's his character.
So let me read to you again a psalm, Psalm nine. We read this, I believe it was last week as we're reading through the Psalms together. Psalm nine:nine-ten, it says this, But the Lord, again Yahweh, whenever you see that all caps L O R D, that's translating the Lord's own covenant name, but Yahweh is enthroned forever. He has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness. He judges the people with uprightness.
There's his power. There's his authority. The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble, and those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. So this says, Those who know your name will trust in you. Now name here doesn't just mean, Ah, I know the secret name of God, so you know it's like this kind of magical name thing.
That's not the idea. The idea is name here means his character, his identity, who he is. So this text is saying those who know him trust him. And again, that's a beautiful thing because we probably know of people where somebody would say those who really know him would never trust him. But in scripture it says, no, no, those who really know the Lord, they're the ones that trust him.
They've seen his character. They know his name, and to know him is to trust him. To know who he is is to say, Well then my whole life is in your hands. Those who know his name, those who know his character trust him, and his character, how do we know it? It's proven by his works.
We see this all throughout scripture. One place I could go to give you a quick example is in Psalm 11, where just listen to the combination of works and name here. Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered.
The Lord is gracious and merciful. So look at his work. Look at his work. Look what he's done. People study what he's done.
He is here's the result of looking at his work. He is gracious and merciful. His work shows me what he's like. And then that Psalm, Psalm 11 ends like this. He sent redemption to his people.
That's something he did. He's commanded his covenant forever. Something he did. Holy and awesome is his name, who he is. Who he is.
So across scripture we have this pattern. What the Lord does shows us who he is. So as we come to know him, we trust him. We trust his character, and we come to know him as we look at what he's done. We look at his works, and as we say, This is what he's done.
This is who he is. We begin to be able to say, I trust that character to wield this almighty power. It is an almighty power. It is a sovereign power that could make you think, Well, I don't know if I can let myself go into that. Don't know if I can trust that.
I don't know about that. I don't know what he'll do. That's where it's tempered by. We know his character. We've seen what he's done, and we Christians, of course, we see these things supremely in Christ.
Christ is where the power and the character of our God are made known such that we can say, My trust is in you. In the midst of this moment, as everything's falling apart, as I have nowhere to go, as I have truly no idea what we're going to do, I trust him because of his power and his character, and I've seen those. This is the step that we take as Christians in Christ. I've seen those in Christ. Now we don't often go to revelation, but I think that this idea that the power and the character of God are displayed in Jesus Christ such that we can trust him?
I think we see that in a unique way in Revelation. So if you want, can listen, or you can turn with me all the way back to the back of your Bible, Revelation chapter five. The reason I'm going here is because Revelation says a lot with images. You can say a lot with a picture. A lot of theology is built into the imagery of Revelation, and so I think this image that Revelation gives us communicates the fairly nuanced and deep theology of Christ as the power and the character of God.
Let me read this passage for you, and then I'll explain what I mean. So it comes in Revelation five:six. All I'll give you here, there's a lot of imagery going on, the lamb is Jesus. Okay? You probably know that, but I'll just make it clear up front.
The lamb is representing Jesus, okay? So now let's read this and see what this is telling us, what the imagery is telling us about Jesus as the power and the character of God such that we can trust in him. Starting in verse six it says, And in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a lamb standing as though it had been slain with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed a people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you've made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.
Then I looked and heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever, and the four living creatures said, Amen, and the elders fell down and worshiped. Now why are we here? We're here because I want you to see what the New Testament says about Jesus as the power and the character of God, because all the way back to what we're doing today, in knowing the power and character of God we trust him. What does this say about the power and character of God in light of Christ?
Well, first of all, look at where the lamb is. He's in the very midst of the throne. He's in the center of the throne. If you have a translation that says between the throne, that is unfortunately demonstrably incorrect. It is in the midst of, and there are NIV and NASB and others would do that.
NET, I believe, does it as well. In the midst of the throne, that is where the lamb is found. So John has this vision of the throne of God. There is no more potent image of power than the throne of God, and at the center of that throne he places the slain and risen Lamb, Jesus Christ. He is saying with his imagery, this one is ruler.
This one has all power. And then look where the throne is. The throne is here, and orbiting the throne are the living creatures, and the elders, and the angels, and all of heaven, and all of earth, and all of the sea, all of creation orbiting in worship around the center point, and at the very center, the Lamb. John is saying with the imagery, All power is his. He is the anchor of reality.
So Christian, if we would see the power of God, look at Christ anchored at the center of time and space on the throne of God as the center of everything. If you would know the power of God, we look supremely to Christ who is that power, but then again, what's the kind of character that wields this? Well, look at the lamb. Look at the lamb. John is very careful in this passage not to say anything about what God looks like.
He leaves this big open spot on the throne. Who's there? And then in chapter five he puts the lamb in that spot. So he's saying, You don't see God? Here's his image.
Here's what he looks like. Here's his face, the slain and risen lamb. In doing that he is saying, You want to know who God is? You wanna know his character? Look at the lamb.
Look at this one. What do we learn when we look at this one? Well, first of all, we see that the wounds of our death are at the very center of who God is. At the very center of the throne is the slaughtered lamb. God does not hide that he died for his people.
He doesn't hide the suffering of Christ. Front and center, the crown jewels of eternity are the wounds of Christ. At the very center of who God is are the wounds that declare this is the one who bears the sin of his people unto damnation, and heals them of it. This is the one who bears the punishment due his people. This is the one who carries the suffering, and the death, and the sin, and the lostness of his people.
This is the one who does that. That's set at the very center of who God is in this image of the lamb, but then consider something else. That wound that is at the center, that death that is at the center, that's pointing to the crucifixion, which is what? The most horrific sin ever committed. Rightly understood, the darkest day of human history is the crucifixion, the murder of God, and yet at the center of the throne of God is the reminder of that moment, And in fact, listen to the songs of heaven.
What are they singing about? The crucifixion. Worthy are you because you were slain. Worthy is the lamb who was slain. I saw a lamb slain.
So not only does God set at the center of who he is the love of the cross, the faithful love of the cross, but God sets at the center of who he is the character that raises death into life, the kind of character that turns the agonies of Calvary into the worship of heaven, the kind of character that turns the suffering of the Savior into the song of the saints. That transformation is also front and center to who God is declaring himself to be in this vision, such that he's saying, I am the one who gives myself entirely for you, and I am the one who transforms death itself into a celebration of life. I'm the one who turns the brokenness of this world into the beauty of my name, taking the most horrific event in human history and so fundamentally healing it through the resurrection that it becomes the song of creation's joy. So this vision in Revelation and in a flash of imagery is saying to us, that's who God is in Christ. In Christ, that's who he is.
The Psalms of Trust say, Trust God because of his power and his character, and Revelation and all the New Testament say to us, Yes, and that power and character is supremely seen in the crucified Jesus who is risen as the power of God ruling all things, and the character, the name of the God who loves his people to the end, and who so profoundly heals the thorns of our curse that they become the flowering myrtle trees of his name that are cause for praise for all eternity. That's who he is. That's who he is. That's who he is. That's the heart that wields the sovereign power, and that's why we trust in him.
Now we've considered these things. Let's turn to look specifically at Psalm 16 as we turn the corner now moving toward the end. Let's look at a specific Psalm of trust, Psalm 16. Just a few things to point out for you here. Now, if you're reading along with us, you read this Psalm this week, and if you were listening, you heard this Psalm today in our worship service as Pastor Caleb was leading us into this.
So let me point a few things out for you about the Psalm, Psalm 16. First, notice that this Psalm is being prayed in the midst of hardship. It's being prayed in the midst of hardship. Look at the beginning of it. 16 verse one, Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, you are my Lord. I have no good apart from you. And then again, up in verse 10, look what it says, For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption. What does that mean when we put those things together? Well, he's saying, Preserve me, which means he's in the midst of a situation where he needs to be preserved.
He's in the midst of a situation where he feels like, I might not make it through. Preserve me in the midst of this. And then verse 10 where it says, You will not abandon my soul means that's on the table. The option, It feels like I might be abandoned, but I know you won't. I know you won't abandon me.
But he wouldn't be saying, You won't abandon me, unless he's in the midst of a situation where it feels like, I feel like I could be abandoned, but I'm not going to be. I won't be. I'm trusting him. So this psalm is coming in the midst of hardship. Now have you ever been driving your car, you let go of your steering wheel I'm not telling you to do this, but I'm sure you've done it before.
You let go of your steering wheel just for a moment, and you see it's veering in one direction or another direction, and you realize, wow, there's a misalignment here. I let it go and just, it shouldn't do that. There's a misalignment. I need to put my hand on it and pull it back to the center. In a similar way, if we let go of the wheel of our soul in the midst of hardship and just pray on autopilot, likely our prayers are going to veer into complaining, wallowing, despair, or just silence.
If I just say, I'm just gonna wing it in the midst of hardship, probably that's where your prayers are going to go. The Psalms of Trust are like a hand on the wheel saying, Let me show you how to pray in the midst of this, because I know you'll kind of go in the wrong direction, so would I. And these are saying, Let me show you how to pray. Let me give you words to pray in the midst of this situation, teaching us, these Psalms teach us to speak truth. They teach us to trust the Lord, to say, You will not abandon me.
Read this Psalm when it's hard and it forces you to say what you might not feel. It forces you to say, You won't abandon me, and then to feel that tension and say, Okay, he won't. He won't. He's teaching me to say this. He won't abandon me.
So this psalm is happening in the midst of difficulty, and don't underestimate what a gift to your soul it is to have a psalm telling you what to pray when you don't know what to pray, when you're so confused, or afraid, or in pain, or just completely discombobulated because this thing has happened, and you can't think straight. It is a gift to say, Just tell me what to say. I'm just gonna read it as my prayer, and he gives us these words. He gives us these words. So first, it's coming in the midst of hardship.
Second, it is trusting in the Lord's character and power, just as we've been looking at throughout the whole sermon today. This psalm also is anchoring trust in the character and the power of the Lord. Look at verse five and six where we see that perhaps most clearly. The Lord, you see how it's all caps? Yahweh is my chosen portion and my cup.
You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. Let's look at that character piece first. Wherever you see all caps, L O R D, you're seeing the covenant name of God.
Yahweh is probably something like how it was pronounced. You're seeing the covenant name of God. That's important. That's a name that bears with it the character of God as he's in covenant with his people. So when the psalmist uses the name Yahweh, he's importing into that name all that God has promised to be for his people.
That is a faith statement to say Yahweh. That's saying, My covenant, Lord, and all that you've promised to be for me. David, when he says that, he's likely thinking of Exodus 30 four:six-seven, where the Lord comes down before Moses and proclaims his name, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. He's remembering that name when he says Yahweh, when he says the covenant name of the Lord. And so we see that being repeated here, and look at what he says also in verse Which verse is this?
Hold on. Where he says, I have set the Lord always before me. Yeah, verse eight. I have set the Lord always before me. He's not just saying, I remember God.
God's good. He's saying, I have set before my eyes the covenant character of Yahweh. I refuse to let the assaults of this experience obscure my understanding of who God is, as happens so often. So often the hardship comes, the smoke is rising, and it forms this mask over God's face, and we think of him as he is not. We import upon him the pain, the wickedness, the brokenness of our situation.
But the psalmist is saying, I set before my eyes Yahweh, his character, his covenant, who he is. I'm anchoring that, and that's an action. I set it before my eyes. Not just, Oh, I'm sure it will happen, right? No, I am laboring to keep before my attention who God is.
I'm laboring to keep him before my eyes, and Christian, for us, this means we are laboring to keep before our eyes who he has declared himself to be, not primarily on Sinai, but on Calvary. Set before your eyes, Christian. Labor, pray to keep before the waking vision of your mind who God is in Christ. Consciously, tirelessly let us remember Christ before our eyes, seeing his love, seeing his body broken for us, his life poured out for us, his death given for us, seeing the very wounds of our sorrow now raised up to bless us, see Christ anointed with the oil of gladness rejoicing, the man of sorrows rejoicing, the crucified one risen. He is our Lord.
He is our God. He is our truth. Labor to set him before us and not to let our eyes be pulled away from him by all the thorns and the things that we're walking through. I have set who he is ever before me. May it be so for us.
And then the sovereign power of God is here. The Lord is my portion. You hold my lot. That might sound like a simple statement, but saying you hold my lot is saying everything's yours. Everything's yours.
All I am, all I have, all I will ever be, all that I love, all that I fear, all that I think I control, all that I know that I don't control, all of this is in your hands. You hold everything. Now, if you don't know his character, it's terrifying to pray that. Terrifying. If you know his character, if you're seeing his heart in Christ, and none of us know him completely or perfectly, we're growing in that, if you are seeing his character in Christ, then you can say there's no safer place than to take this most precious thing of my life and put it in his hands.
Your dream that you're living for, your health, the health of those you love, your family, your spouse, your children, they're held close like this, and for some crazy reason we think they're safer with us than with him. We think they're safer in here. I can keep them safer than you. I protect. I know it's good for them more than you.
But as we learn his character, as Christ wins our soul, we learn we can take this most precious thing and say, It's safer with you. It's better that you hold it. It's better that you keep it. In your hands I commit all that I am. You hold my lot.
That's when trust is beginning to happen. I'm giving him this because I trust his character. I trust his character. And then building from that, the ability to say this comes as we are convinced that he is our great good. That's what the psalmist says here.
I have no good apart from you. Do you see that in the beginning? I have no good apart from you, and then remember how it ends? In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Do we believe that? Do we just say it as Christians, Oh, all my joy is in you, or do we believe in our marrow, You are my great good. You are my great good. You are my treasure, because if we don't believe that, then all of our prayers of trust are going to be tainted with this fear of, But what if he takes this? What if he takes this?
If there is something else in my life besides God and Christ of which I say, I need this to be happy, I need this to live, then all my prayers of trust are gonna be half hearted. Like, I trust you, but just don't touch this. I trust you, but don't do anything with it. Don't do anything with my dream. Don't do anything with my home.
Don't do anything with my health. Don't do anything with my children. And the Lord knows those are heavy things. He's not like, Oh, none of that matters. That's not his character.
He knows those things are painful to place in his hands, but also scripture resounds with a statement, He is your great good. He is your great good. He is the treasure of his people. So may it be so that we would be able, like going back again to this, taking this most precious thing and saying, Lord, my whole life is bound up with this, and yet you are my life, and I put it in your hands, because even greater, even deeper than this is you, is you. As he begins to become for us not the means to an end, but the end itself.
Not the giver of gifts, but the gift itself. Not the one who saves my life, but my life itself. Then we're able more and more to take those precious treasures and say, Into your hands I commit even this. Into your hands I commit my spirit. And that leads to the very last point we need to see about the Psalms of Trust, which is that ultimately the one who prays these perfectly is Jesus himself.
Jesus is the one who says, Into your hands I commit my spirit, and when I'm too weak to pray that, and I can't pray that because I'm terrified of what that means, we just enter into Jesus' praying of it. Jesus prayed it perfectly. Jesus prays the Psalms of Trust perfectly. If you've thought of that, he is God and man, and as man, he perfectly trusts God. As man, Jesus perfectly trusts God.
He's the perfect and ultimate truster of God. He prays these psalms perfectly through the night of Gethsemane, through the agony of the scourging as his back is being torn open, through the hell of the cross. Our Lord Jesus prays these psalms perfectly. He trusts perfectly. His trust is never broken, and that matters for us.
Why? Well, think of this. When it rains, someone opens an umbrella, makes a space in the rain that you can come into. When the suffering, when the hardship is raining, Christ's prayers to the Father open a place of trust. He's trusting perfectly.
His perfect trust opens a place of trust even in this situation into which we can enter through union to him. You think, I can't trust you in this, Lord. I can't trust you in this. And he would say, Jesus trusted me. Just go into him.
Just enter into him. Maybe you can't trust me. Just throw yourself on Jesus. Throw yourself on him. Throw yourself on him.
I always remember in one of the most traumatic moments where my younger brother had a thing happen. He was being taken to the ER, and my mom, I was like five years old, she just kept repeating in the car, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. She didn't have words. She didn't say, Well, I trust you because that No, she just said, Jesus. I throw myself on Jesus.
He's done this perfectly. Throw yourself upon him, because ultimately Christian, our trust in God is nothing other than our union to Christ in his trust in God. And just as his trust has been vindicated by his resurrection, the resurrection seals his trust was true. He made it through. The Lord was faithful.
Just as his resurrection proves and vindicates his trust, so too Christian, your trust in him will bring you through the night into the joy of the risen Son, so let us trust him, and we trust him also as we come to this table. This coming to this table is not, Oh, we do that at the end of the sermon. This is enacting what we just talked about, because you can't come here unless you trust him. That's what I say. When I say you have to be trusting in Christ, you have to be a Christian, you can't come to this table unless you're saying, I trust you, and coming to this table is saying, I trust you.
As you're walking up here today, think, With my health, with the health of the one I love, with the people I love, with the question on my heart, with the burdens, with all of this, with all of this, I trust you, I trust you, I trust you. And when you take the elements, you're saying, I trust you. I trust that you're the one who did this. I trust that you're the one who gave your life and poured out your blood to secure me from death and bring me to yourself. I trust that this is your power.
I trust that this is your name. I trust that you are this God, and I trust that you will bring me through just as you've brought Christ through all things. So we will do that in a moment, but let me pray for us before then. Father, we thank you that you are invincibly, infinitely, eternally trustworthy. And each one of us here, Father, has something that our soul needs to bring to you.
We need to trust you in it. Forgive us, Father, where we've born up under the weight of it apart from you, and help us to collapse our whole self into you. We trust you. Thank you, Father, for the Psalms of Trust that gives us words of trust in the night. And thank you supremely, Father, for Jesus Christ, the perfect truster, who has trusted you through every darkness, through the night of the cross, and who is risen, risen now bearing witness in his own body, you are faithful.
You will be faithful. Just as the head, Jesus Christ, has been brought through every torment into joy, so to the body, the church, your people, those right here in these pews will be brought through. Praise be to your name, Father. We thank you, we thank you. And may the taking of these elements now be a seal upon these things in our hearts.
We pray in Jesus name, amen.
Caleb: Thank you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.