Let's pray together Father like a river glorious is your perfect peace Over all victorious in its bright increase perfect yet it floweth Fuller and fuller every day Perfect yet it groweth deeper all the way Lord those who's hearts are State upon Jehovah are fully blessed Finding as you promised Perfect peace and rest we pray father that this would be true of us That our hope would be in the Lord that as we stand upon your promises As we find you an all-sufficient God We would know your perfect peace and rest that our souls would be quieted and Calmed trusting in you Grant us that we pray We ask these things in Jesus name a man Let's turn together in our Bibles to Psalm 131 Psalm 131 Title of the psalm is a song of a sense and written by David Hear now God's word O Lord my heart is not lifted up My eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me But I have calmed and quieted my soul Like a ween child with its mother like a ween child is my soul within me O Israel hope in the Lord From this time forth And forever more What are your people of God it can be very very hard to ween yourself off from certain pleasures and passions To be ween it means to grow a custom to Managing without something that you have been fond of or something that you've been depending on for a long time so Increasingly you're you're drawn away from that thing you've been depending upon and and you find your dependence your hope in something else Let me give you some examples. I've never smoked but people tell me and people tell the rest of us how hard it is To quit smoking to go around with a cigarette in your hand to ween yourself from it painful Or think about somebody who has been addicted to pills and how painful it is to break your dependence upon the pills that you think you need To make it through the day To be weened from those pills is hard Where you can think about screen time It's hard to limit your screen time when that has been your go-to for entertainment For fighting boredom For feeling accepted And to work yourself away from that to find those things in someone else is not always very easy Psalm 131 Is an experiential psalm in other words it is telling us about David's experience of learning to put his hope in God He's moving from pride to humility from arrogance to trust he had been ween from self-reliance to dependence on the Lord From having to be in control To learning to let God be in control and to quiet his soul in the Lord Friends, this is a great psalm For power people For people who are used to calling the shots in life This is an important psalm for people like that. This is a great psalm for self-made people People who are used to relying on their talents their looks their accomplishments as a means for reaching the so-called good life This is a great psalm for anxious people For people who want to manage their life in our frantic When they can't manage it the way that they want to manage it And this is a great psalm for afflicted people For people who can't see how God can be working in the events of their life And they're preoccupied with finding out what God is up to and they struggle to find it The psalm says learn to put your hope in God and Live like a satisfied child There are three things in the psalm that David does for us The first is this that David calls us to do something in that is to put our hope in the Lord. This is the heart of the psalm But it's not at the very heart of the psalm meaning it's not right at the middle of the psalm It comes at the end of the psalm and so we start with the end Look how David puts it in verse three. He wraps it up. He brings the application He says oh Israel hope in the Lord From this time forth and forevermore In other words, this is what we are to do We read the psalm and we're saying God. How would you have me respond? How would you have me at? Well hope in the Lord now and always David takes here his testimony his personal experience and he plies it to all of Israel Makes it a teaching lesson David says oh Israel learn from the transformation that has occurred in my life and of course, this isn't just a lesson for oh test him in Israel This is a lesson for all of us This is a lesson for the church for God's people To hope is to put your confidence in God To hope is to trust in him It is to be confident that God will give you what you need and don't yet have It is to believe that God will keep his promises It is to rest rely and be quiet in God's loving sovereign and Provincial care over your life It is to say as we often sing it is well with my soul Because I know that I have a faithful father That's what it means to hope in the Lord There's a connection between This psalm and the psalm that goes just before it psalm 130 and you can see that at the very end of psalm 130 versus 7 and 8 Where we find an echo actually Psalm 131 is an echo of what we find in this earlier psalm The psalm writer there says oh Israel Hope in the Lord same words for with the Lord there is steadfast love and With him is plenty full redemption And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities Psalm 130 is about putting your hope in the Lord for forgiveness For redemption for the cancellation of your sins and Psalm 131 follows that up and talks about putting our hope in God in the circumstances of life Finding hope in God for salvation Psalm 130 ought to lead to a humble trust in God in the everyday Circumstances of your life if you know that you have a faithful father who cancels your sins You can trust him to be a faithful father in all the nitty gritty things that you experience day by day Put your hope in him We've already mentioned that this psalm is a psalm of a scent It was a psalm that was sung by Israel as they ascended up the mountains to Jerusalem for the annual feasts This cluster of psalms Israel would sing as they made their way to the temple and The pilgrimage here in psalm 131 is not just a physical one It isn't just about making your way to the temple, but it's a pilgrimage of transforming grace In which we learn to trust God more and more and deeper and deeper And that's what David is calling us to especially in the circumstances of life that we face that are difficult that are painful that are mysterious Things that we're scratching our head and saying what Lord? What are you up to in my life?
That's what David is talking about in verse two This is I do not occupy myself with things too great and Too marvelous for me What are those things that are too great to marvel us? Well things that God is up to that are beyond our comprehension Circumstances that we face in life that we don't get the ways of God that are higher than our ways The paths of God in our life that are beyond tracing out and There are those kinds of things that happen to us aren't there Those things that are too great too marvelous too wonderful for us Reminds us of what Moses says in Deuteronomy 29 29 That the secret things belong to the Lord our God But the things revealed it belonged to us and our children forever that we may do All the words of this law The reveal things they belong to us The things that God is revealed the things that God is spoken of in his word the things that God has clearly told us In the scriptures they belong to us God's commands we wonder sometimes Lord. What is your will for my life? And on the one hand we can say what we know what the will of God is God for example tells us that we are to be truth tellers that is his will for the people of God We are to have no other gods before him or beside him that is the will of God. We are to be people of prayer God has revealed his will to us In his word is revealed will and these things belong to us But there are those things as Moses says that also belong to God the secret things His will that we don't get to see into what he might be accomplishing in our life Why we may have to suffer the way that we do? Why God doesn't answer prayers always the way that we would hope he would answer them and We're saying Lord. What is your will? What what are you doing? What are you accomplishing? What are you up to in my life? And God doesn't always give us an answer to those things does he are
longing to have a baby For some of you That remains unfulfilled why Lord our hope for healing that hasn't come our desire to be married that Lord hasn't Granted yet many many other things And those are the things that belong to God Moses says not us These are the things that the kind of things that David is talking about here I do not occupy myself with things that are too great or too marvelous for me But in the middle of all that Again, David is saying where do you put your hope? You put your hope in the Lord Well, how do we learn to do this? Well, we learn secondly from what David didn't do so first of all we have what David is calling us to do But then we see what David did not do and this is the very beginning of the Psalm He was not proud or presumptuous He was not arrogant or overly ambitious look how he says it in verse one Oh Lord My heart is not lifted up My eyes are not raised too high and I do not occupy myself with things too great or too marvelous for me He's describing a move away from pride There's spatial descriptions here aren't there my heart my eyes They're not going up. They're not being raised too high and the image I think here is is they're not rising up to where God is God is on the throne God is sovereign and David is saying here my eyes and my heart are not rising up to rival God They're not rising up to compete with God Letting God be God It's interesting in this cluster of Psalms the Psalms have said Earlier the Psalmist says I do lift up my eyes Right they're familiar Psalms someone 21. I lift up my eyes to the hills Where does my help come from my help comes from the Lord the maker of heaven and earth There it's a lifting up the eyes in humility I'm not in charge my help comes from the Lord It is not me it is God But here it is a looking up of things too great too wonderful And so here's David resisting pride to think too much of himself Pushing back Against presumption to go beyond the limits of his understanding and to press too deep into the ways of God I don't occupy myself with those things he says He doesn't have things all figured out and he knows it He doesn't know the ways of God and he's content with that because his hope is in God He doesn't try to force the painful issues of his life to fix them to solve them through his own understanding and Perspective but he waits on God. He's fighting here. You see To stay small and let God be big to let God be God alone And this was a transforming experience for David There's a movement a dynamic of Moving away from what could have been thought of his pride to humility. That's why he writes in the first person here Because he's showing us the place that he once found himself The psalm doesn't give us does it an immediate context some so sometimes when we're studying the psalms Part of the title of the psalm is a a situation that is referenced and And then we get to know The situation the context that the psalm was was written out of we don't have that here in psalm 131 But a natural fit might be David's experience of coming to the throne He was the youngest of Jesse's sons a David had defeated Goliath the women of Israel where singing his praises Saul had slain his thousands David had slain his tens of thousands and if there's ever a moment where you think you'd be given over to pride or arrogance It might be a moment like that But when it came to the throne David relied upon the Lord Samuel had come along from God's promises through Samuel David You are going to sit upon the throne the throne will be yours You remember that From the time of that promise to the time when David actually sat upon the throne was about 10 years 10 years of waiting 10 years of holding on to the promise of God 10 years of saying Lord But you promised Lord when when is it going to happen Lord is it really going to come true and you think about all those opportunities But David had to take out Saul there he is in the cave And Saul is with him could take him out of the way the throne can be as Davis's my hope is in the Lord He did not jump ahead of God's timing when He had these opportunities who waited upon God Learned not to be preoccupied with things too wonderful for him How the Lord is that work someone said it like this that spiritual pride Is the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives Achieve our own sense of self-worth and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life without God Let me say it one more time spiritual pride is the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives Achieve our own sense of self-worth and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life Without God and spiritual pride takes over our heart Is lifted up our eyes are raised too high we have become like God's over our own life Setting our course being in control defining our own existence determining how things are going to happen I Have it in my hands Friends you know that there's hardly anything that God opposes More than pride pride is right at the top of the list Of the things that God hates
Second Samuel 22 verse 24 you saved the humble But your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low Psalm 101 5 whoever has a haughty look in an arrogant heart I Will not endure James 4 6 God opposes the proud But gives grace To the humble and you see God hates pride Because it rivals his glory and God will not share his glory with another At least of all us He will not share it He will not let us find our contentment in anything other than himself a So we're called to hope in the Lord alone Put your hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore
Finally one more point what did David do if Fighting pride is what he did not do he would not be proud or presumptuous what did David do? We see the answer to that in verse two The very heart of the Psalm Verse two, but I have calmed Inquieted my soul Like a ween child with his mother like a ween child is my soul Within me, you know what a ween child is a ween child is a child the baby that is no longer nursing So a nursing child obviously is quieted by its mother That we're part of the Psalm we'd say well, that's obvious right because the child is getting everything it needs from mom Neurishment food feeding everything it needs and so it is quieted But here David says I am quieted like a weened child a child that was a custom to feeding from his mother But no longer does that I am quieted Like a ween child. Well, how is a ween child quieted? How is David quieted? Well, they're quieted not by what the mother gives But they are quieted by the mother herself It isn't what the mother is feeding the baby that quiets the the nursing milk that the baby receives that quiets the baby but a ween child Is quieted by mom herself Her presence or reliability her faithfulness her care The lap that the baby lays in Having mom is all that that ween child needs to be quieted and this is what David had learned He was weened from pride to trust From being preoccupied with great things to leaving things with the Lord From arrogant control to quiet rest in God I have learned to be quiet and still like a ween child David says Now friends that is not without pain isn't to be weened is painful There's a resistance the baby resists. There's tears. There's flailing. There's tantrums I want it. I want it. I want it. The baby is crying out Sometimes even the mother resists and so it is hard to be broken of our independence and self-reliance When God is weening us we want to go back to being in control We want to return to the comfort of our life our circumstances our plans for the future all these things that we felt like we had in our hands Lord, I want those things back It is painful. It is difficult to be weened It's one author said it It is this is one of the shortest Psalms to read But it is one of the longest Psalms to learn This is hard One of the shortest Psalms to read that this is one of the longest Psalms to learn in life How does God do it? How does he weenus well? He often does it through suffering and trial through loss Things are taken away from us. He's weening us from the things that we have relied upon and drawing us to lean on him He opens the grip of our hands So that we cling to God and we put our hope in him This past week Sharon I were in Michigan visiting our Children and grandchildren and we got to spend an evening with some friends from our old church. We could go Sunday night And at the end of our time with our friends. We gathered and we prayed over One of our closest friends this man lived on our street work also worked for the church 50 years old And he was just diagnosed with stomach cancer this past Friday He began chemotherapy for 16 weeks And then after that To have a stomach removed We laid hands on this brother and we prayed over him Along with some other friends This brother sobbed in his wife's lap and he said Jesus died and ununtimely death as well, but he But I won't have to face a judgment like he did and he said I don't want to leave my family There's a weening This brother's not proud by the way, but there's a weening And it hurts since it's painful and it's hard That someone asked me just this past week from church here It said what have you learned through your accident and said well, I've learned a lot of things But one of the things that has come to my mind in the last within the last three weeks Because we're embarking on this capital campaign and remember our theme verse from Philippians one that he who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion And that verse struck me and began to think to myself Was I laid there on that sidewalk and I woke up I didn't die woke up. There's not completion yet. I'm not complete The Lord will bring me to completion But the Lord saying that day not yet They've been meditating Lord. Okay Then what is it between today and completion that yet needs to be complete What is it Lord between now and then that you need to work on in my life? Your good work will continue on Then one day It'll all be finished and I've been thinking about the psalm and the Lord said Tom You know, there's not very often that your soul is quiet and still it is agitated. It is so agitated Agitated over money. I would just ate it over your job. I'd agitated over this over that Would you put your hope in the Lord?
Friends, there's only one way only one way as a path to a quieted soul David says the thing that brought quiet to his soul was when he learned to trust in God not for what he could get from God Like a nursing baby But for who God is for God himself and you see it's when we've learned to love God for himself and Find our soul satisfaction in God not in all that God gives us But to be like a ween child and it's enough God you're not Then He gives us the quiet and the calm child's version said there comes a time when the ween child is no longer angry He's over being weened, but he buries his head into the mother's chest. He is weened on his mother rather than from her He's weened on the mother rather than from the mother still quieted resting in the presence and love of our God. How do we know him this way? How can you trust him to be one that You settle into and say God you're all that I need we come to know as God this way through the cross Not only see does God weeness through suffering and trial But he also weens us through the cross and maybe we could put it this way. He actually woozes through the cross Through the cross he seeks to feed us with himself The weeness from whatever else we might draw comfort from Remember the food the milk of Christ He said is to do the will of my father in heaven. This is what I came to do This is the food. This is the milk that I drink from It is to do the will of my father who sent me and so all the way to the cross he went for us Soon we're gonna be there aren't we? 10 days or so Less than two weeks. We're gonna be there good Friday at Calvary Suffering for Satan condemned Crucified Shouldering the wrath of God against our sin Christ bore it all So that we can know God as our father So that it is true that God is like a mother to us As I say it says in 66 13 as One whom his mother comforts so I will comfort you
Friends God is saying this this morning. I'm enough God is enough Jesus is enough is grace is enough Will you rest your soul in God alone? Well, you put it there from this time forward and forever more wherever you are Whatever you are facing against virgin He said when we cease to hanker for the world We begin hoping in God And then he gives this prayer may this be our prayer O Lord as a parent weans a child so wean me and then I will fix my hope on you alone May that be your prayer. Let's pray together So father and heaven we do pray for this We do pray Lord as a parent weans a child so wean me So that I might fix my hope in you alone father with all the other things that we hold on to that we grasp for that we put our hands around to find hope in We pray Lord that we would learn to be like a wean child to grow accustomed away from those things to put our hope in God alone Help us with that by your grace and your holy spirit Forgive us when we turn back We want milk again And father may we know you as our loving father are all powerful savior We pray this in Jesus name a man