Rev. Sean Carroll: Well, today we're continuing our sermon series through the book of Psalms. Before we dive in today's psalms, Psalm one, 31, I think it's important for us to remember what the Psalms actually are. The Psalms are a songbook of God's people, written primarily by one person in poems. They are to be sung for thousands and thousands of generations. You see, when God wrote this book, he could have just given them a book of theology.
He could have given them a list of commands and regulations and rules to follow, and and he did. Okay? He did. But he also gave his people stories. He gave his people songs because life is more than just head knowledge.
The Psalms are a book dedicated to our hearts. But why songs? What's so important about songs? But songs have a way of getting into our hearts that normal words just don't have the same effect. I think we can all agree dementia is is an evil disease.
Nobody wants to have it. No one wants their loved ones to get it. One of the heartbreaking realities of dementia is that people lose names, conversation, memories, all stories of the ones that they love, but they remember the songs. They remember every word of hymns that they used to sing as a child, even if they haven't sung them in fifty or sixty years. They can't remember what they had for breakfast, but they can still sit down at a piano and play music.
See, music has a way of staying with us. Long, long before neuroscience ever discovered this, God knew it. God knew that songs would stay with us, and so God gave his people songs. Sometimes we don't know what to say. When fear came to the Israelites, there was already a song.
When grief came, there was already a song. When hearts were breaking, there was already a psalm. And when guilt came hey. Who's preaching this morning? You guys or me?
Did you know, Ward Church, that on our website right now, ward.churchnews, there is 150 songs, one for each psalm. It was curated by our very own small groups director, Sarah De Jong, and it exists to help you memorize God's word and to hide God's word in your heart so that you can have it forever with you. If we're going to fulfill the mission of Ward Church of leading generations to love and live like Jesus, we need to share our stories. We need to share our songs. We need to pass it on.
Psalm 31 is one of those songs. It is a song for people whose hearts are breaking. And maybe that's you this morning. Maybe you're here today and no one around you knows it, but your heart is breaking. And if that is you, David has a song for you.
And for those of you who say it's not, we are to remember it today so that someday, when our hearts break, we have it with us. Let's dive in. Verse one. In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame.
In your righteousness, deliver me. Incline your ear to me. Rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. Notice how David starts.
Even though this is a song about broken hearts, he doesn't start with his feelings. He doesn't start with a situation. He doesn't start where he's at. He starts with where he's focusing, and he wants to make sure that his focus is on God. Now for some context, for those of you who don't know David, he is not writing this in a gazebo by a lake with a nice breeze on a Sunday afternoon with a lemonade in his hand.
Okay? David's life was marked with suffering. He was hunted. He was misunderstood, betrayed. He literally spent years of his life fleeing, living in caves.
Then he becomes king of Israel, but things don't get any better. As soon as he becomes king, he now gets betrayed by his own son who wants to overtake him for the throne. This man's life was broken. And yet and yet his first instinct is not to run away from God or to accuse God for the situation he found himself in. It is to run towards God, to reach out and to grab God.
Do you notice all the images that David uses in these first couple of verses? Refuge, rock, fortress, shelter. He's looking for safety. And do you see where he's looking for it? In the one place he knows that it will be.
He's looking not because life is comfortable, but because it isn't comfortable. One of the first things that suffering does is it exposes where we run. Some of us run to work, or we run to entertainment. Some of us flee, and we run to isolation. COVID was great.
Some of us run to food. Some run to alcohol, to anger, to control. Friends, David runs to God. He knows that he doesn't have the answer, and he knows any of the things that I just listed don't have the answer either. He runs to God because he knows that God is the only one that has the answer.
So that's where David is focusing. Now let's look at some of his situation. Let's look at verse four and five. Take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit.
You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. Take me out of the net they have hidden from me. David doesn't pretend everything is okay. All right? Sometimes I mistakenly think, I think, man, if I have faith, I gotta be okay with life.
I gotta be okay with my circumstances, that I'm not depressed, that I'm not discouraged, that life isn't hard. First world problems. Right? Can't be that bad. But the Psalms completely destroy that idea.
David is brutally honest about his situation. He becomes even more honest beginning in verse nine. He says this, Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress. My eye is wasted from grief, my soul and my body also, for my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.
Do you hear do you hear how comprehensive his suffering is? Spiritually, he's crying out to God because he's so desperate and doesn't know where to turn. Emotionally, he says, my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. This is not a rough weekend. Okay?
This has gone on for years. Physically, he says, my strength fails, my bones waste away. You see, David recognizes something that that we often separate, that our souls and our bodies are connected. When your heart hurts long enough, your body begins to hurt too. Stress affects our sleep.
Grief drains our energy. Anxiety changes our bodies. Depression can affect your appetite, concentration, and physical health. God is not surprised by this. Again, he is way, way, way ahead of time.
He made us. He understood how deeply connected our souls and our bodies really are. You see, the Bible never minimizes our reality, so neither should we. And then David takes us even deeper. Verse eleven and twelve, he says, because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach.
Those who see me in the street flee from me. I have been forgotten like one who is dead. I have become broken become like a broken vessel. His friends are backing away from him slowly. See, sometimes in life, everything in our own life is messed up, but we have our friends to pick us up and to rely on, and all of David's friends were fleeing from him.
His family was nowhere to be found. He had no one to turn to. Now I'm not a potter. Okay? So don't quote me on this.
But in verse 12, he says, I've become like a broken vessel. What do you do with broken pottery? Again, I'm no expert, but I think I think you throw it away. Alright. One time, Terence gave a great sermon about how God puts broken vessels back together.
Was a great sermon. I encourage you, go listen to it. But for the most part, what we do with broken pottery is we put it in the trash and are sad about it for a second, then we turn around and we forget about it, and we never think about it again. That's what David says his life is like. That's how I feel.
I feel broken and discarded, forgotten, and alone. He's bringing his petitions to the Lord. Finally, verse 13, he says this, for I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side, as they scheme together against me. Can you feel the weight of this psalm? David is not having a bad, very bad, no good, something something day.
It's a great book, by the way. You should read it. I obviously need to read it too. Every part of his life is unraveling, everything in his life. His heart is breaking over and over and over again.
And perhaps what makes this psalm so comforting is that God didn't edit it out of the Bible. God didn't say, David, that's a little bit too emotional. Tone it down. No. God preserved these specific words for thousands of years because he knew that his people would need them.
He knew that you and I need to remember this song. Every one of us, myself included, walked into this room today carrying some kind of anguish. Maybe it's grief, anxiety. Maybe it's depression or loneliness. Maybe it's a wound nobody else knows about.
You haven't ever told anybody. We all walk into this room with something. Can I tell you something that I hope encourages you? That your pain does not disqualify you from coming to God. It qualifies you to pray this Psalm.
David teaches us something beautiful, that God is not looking for polished prayers. He's looking for honest hearts. He's looking for us to bring him our fears, our tears, for us to bring our questions and confusions, to bring him our grief, bring him our broken hearts. Because there's something that David knows that he doesn't yet fully understand, that there's someone greater coming, that someone who won't merely write a song about suffering, but who actually enters into suffering himself for the sake of others. David knew that someone would not really write a song about suffering.
He would live it out, and that reality changes everything. Because Christ entered our suffering, we never suffer alone. The Psalm points us somewhere. David knew that someone was greater was coming even if he couldn't see it clearly. He knew that there was a Messiah, a rescuer coming.
And I think, personally, one of the most beautiful things about Psalm 31 is that Jesus actually sang this song. As Jesus hung on the cross, his final recorded words before he died came from Psalm thirty one five. Into your hands, I commit my spirit. In the darkest moment of his earthly life, Jesus reached for a psalm. The song that David had written a thousand years earlier became the prayer that Jesus prayed as he entrusted himself to his father.
That shouldn't surprise us. Jesus knew the Psalms. He sang the Psalms. Jesus prayed the Psalms, and ultimately, he did one thing that you and I could never do. He fulfilled the Psalms.
Now as we go back and we read David's word, we begin to realize that Jesus didn't just quote and sing it. He lived it. He lived this Psalm. David knew betrayal, and Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends. David knew physical weakness.
Jesus carried the cross until his body literally gave out. David felt abandoned, and Jesus watched one by one as his disciples left him to hang there alone. David described sorrow consuming his life, and Jesus became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. David cried out to God in anguish, and Jesus sweat drops of blood in the Garden Of Gethsemane as he prayed to his father. Friends, no one understands a broken heart better than Jesus because he didn't do a single thing to deserve it.
Sometimes people will say, no one knows what I'm going through. No one can relate. And you might be right that no one knows the situation exactly that you are going through. Nobody around you knows, but Jesus knows. Jesus knows you, and he loves you.
There's one more important distinction between David and Jesus, and this is the key to our faith, that David was a faithful man, but he wasn't perfect. David failed. David sinned sometime in spectacular ways. It was bad. David's trust was genuine, but it wasn't flawless.
But Jesus, Jesus trusted his father perfectly. Every moment, every temptation, every hardship, every tear. When Jesus said, into your hands, I commit my spirit, he wasn't simply quoting David. He was succeeding where David and where you and I have failed. So then why does that matter?
Well, because it means that our hope isn't ultimately found in how tightly we can hold on to God, how good we are as people. Our hope is found in that Christ held perfectly on to his father for us, for you, and for me. He obeyed where we disobeyed. He trusted where we doubted. He remained faithful when we often become fearful.
Then he willingly went to the cross, not merely to sympathize with our suffering, but to save us from our sins. Where the greatest problem that we face as humanity is not ultimately depression. It is not anxiety. It is not grief. It isn't even broken hearts.
All of those are real, and probably a lot around us are experiencing those today. But our greatest problem, our greatest problem is separation from God because of our sin. Jesus entered our suffering so that he could conquer our greatest enemy. Through his death and resurrection, he defeated sin. He defeated death.
He opened the way for us to come back to the father. And that means that every person who belongs to Christ, suffering never has the final word. Death never has the final word. Depression never has the final word. Jesus does.
Because Christ entered our suffering, we never suffer alone. So what does this Psalm teach us? Well, first, tell God the truth. Tell God everything that's on your heart. One of my favorite things about the Psalms is that they give us permission to pray honestly.
David doesn't hide. He doesn't edit his emotions before coming to God. Again, sometimes we can think that Christianity is about hiding where we're really at, pretending that everything is okay. This Psalm says the exact opposite. Bring him your fears, your disappointment, bring him your anger.
If you're mad at God, tell him, bring him all your tears. Bring him your broken hearts. God is not intimidated by our honesty. In fact, he invites it. He wants it.
It makes him all warm inside when honest with him. He likes it. And the reality is he already knows your heart better than you do, so don't be afraid to bring him all of you. Second, receive the help that God provides. I know that there's a variety of broken hearts.
It it affects many people. Depression and anxiety are complicated. Sometimes there's a spiritual component. Sometimes it's unresolved grief. People have deep relational wounds.
Sometimes there's significant physical or biological factors. Often, it's probably some combination of all of those things. That's the reality of the broken world that we live in. The Bible doesn't ask us to ignore reality. We live in a world that is broken by sin.
Our bodies get sick. Our minds become weary. Our emotions can overwhelm us sometimes. That is just a painful consequence of being alive and being human this side of heaven. But I wanna be clear on this.
Trusting God doesn't mean refusing the ordinary means through which he often cares for us. There's a story about a guy. It's not a personal story. He died, and he went to heaven, and he and he got up to heaven, and he started arguing with God. And God's like, are arguing with me?
And he's like, well, I was swimming, and I prayed, and I prayed that you would save me because I was drowning in the ocean and you let me die. And God's like, I did. He's like, because I remember sending some guy with scuba gear there to help you, and you said you didn't want help. And then I remember sending you a boat, and then I remember sending you a helicopter. What more do you want?
You see, sometimes we think that God is gonna save us, but we forget that we're not alone. God can use the things around us to come alongside of us. That's why God gave us physicians. It's why God gave us medicine and counselors. Those aren't competitors to faith.
Those don't mean we have weak faith. They are expressions of the grace of God in our lives. Here where we believe deeply in walking alongside people who are suffering. We regularly refer people to trusted Christian counselors. Each fall and each spring, we offer support groups for those battling depression, anxiety, grief, emotional burdens, divorce.
We offer prayer each week because we believe that prayer works. If if you're out there and you're hurting today, please don't go through the burden alone. Let us walk with you. If you want, we can set up a time to grab coffee. I'm available.
I'm around. I would love to talk with you. And if you want any more information about these groups, can stop by our connection center, or if you're in Farmington Hills at the welcome center outside and to the right of the room that you're in. Friends, one of the reasons that God gave us the church is so that we can be there for each other. And so finally, entrust yourself to your father.
Verse 15 says, my hand my times are in your hands. I love that verse. David doesn't say, my good days, those are in your hands. My successful years, those ones are in your hands. I know you got me there.
He says, my times, all of them. The joyful seasons, the confusing seasons, the painful seasons, the silent seasons, the seasons we understand, and the ones that we don't. They're all in his hands. David didn't know how his story would end, and neither did we. Most of us wish we knew what next year looked like.
Right? Shoot, I'd settle for next month. I'd settle for next week. That would be great. We don't know.
David didn't either, but David knew something better. He knew whose hands held his future. And if you're in Christ, so do you. And if you want today to be the first day that you put your life in the hands of Jesus, come and find me, and we will talk about what God's word says and shows us how. Now I wanna go back to the beginning of the service.
Do you remember the beginning of the service? We just kinda stood there awkwardly with each other. Silently, some of you were like, did he forget what he was gonna say? The production people were like, what's wrong with the sound? The security team was like, is he having a heart attack?
And I I'm sorry for all you empaths out there that were just felt, like, awkward for me. I love you. Okay? Thank you. I appreciate that.
Here's the reality, though. We don't like tension. Tension is like a lesser suffering. Right? And that it does something in our bodies, and we run away from it as fast as possible.
But I'll tell you something. Standing up here, that was awkward for me too. Alright? I saw your eyes. There was pain and fear and panic in your eyes.
I wasn't somehow removed from the silence. I experienced it the same as you. I experienced that super awkward thing. I never wanna do that again. But there was one difference.
I knew there was a purpose in it. I knew we weren't gonna stay there forever. I knew it was leading somewhere. I knew how it was going to be used to explain God's hands in our lives when we're going through broken hearts. Friends, when we are in hard times, we are not in it alone.
God knows where your story is going. Listen, I don't don't know how your story ends. I don't know when your prayer is gonna be answered. I don't know when his grief is gonna beginning to lift. I don't know when her depression will ease.
I don't know when our relationships will heal. I don't know when the diagnosis will change. I don't know. I want you check out really briefly some of these stories from the Bible. When God was preparing Moses, he gave him the gift of exile.
When God was preparing Joseph, he gave him prison. When God was preparing Jeremiah, he gave him depression. Esther, a literal extinction level threat. They didn't know where God was taking them, but they trusted that God did, and neither did David, and neither do we. But here's what you can know, that your father has never left you.
Christ has already gone before you. The one who cried into your hands, I commit my spirit. That's the same risen savior who now holds your life. The father's hands that received his son are the same hands that hold your and my future. Our circumstances may still be unresolved.
Those tensions may be real. The questions, they will still remain. But because Jesus walked into suffering, trusting his father, He conquered sin and death. And so now we don't stand there by ourselves. Because Christ entered our suffering, we never suffer alone.