Fear and Trust

Good morning.

If you could turn with me to Psalm 56 for our scripture reading this morning.

If you don't have a Bible, you'll find one in the pew in front of you.

And uh if you don't have a Bible at home, you should feel free to take that with you.

Uh when you leave, write your name in it.

Keep it, it's yours.

Uh bring it back week after week as we study God's word together.

Psalm 56.

To the choir master, according to the dove on far-off terebinths, a micdom of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me.

All day long an attacker oppresses me, my enemies trample on me all day long, for many attack me proudly.

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you, in God, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?

All day long they injure my cause, all their thoughts are against me for evil.

They stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps as they have waited for my life.

For their crime will they escape?

In wrath cast down the peoples, O God.

You have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call.

This I know that God is for me.

In God whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise, in God I trust.

I shall not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

I must perform my vows to you, O God.

I will render thank offerings to you, for you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.

When was the last time that you were afraid?

We're all afraid of something.

We have so many things to be afraid of, don't we?

Fear of not fitting in, making a fool out of ourselves, fear of not getting into the right school, fear of not getting a good job, or fear of losing our job, fear of not finding the right spouse or losing a loved one, fear of something bad happening to our children, fear of our children not turning out the way we hope.

Fear of natural disasters, fear of terrorist attacks, fear of sickness and disease, fear of growing old, fear of being alone, fear of the future, fear of the unknown.

Of course, ultimately we have the fear of death.

And of course, there are so many other things that I haven't even listed.

This psalm talks about two realities.

It talks about fear and it talks about trust.

What we're going to see this morning as we look at the psalm, on the one hand, we have good reasons to be afraid.

We have good reasons to be afraid, but on the other hand, because God is for us, we can trust him with honesty and with patience.

So we have good reason to be afraid, and yet because God is for us, we can trust him with honesty and with patience.

There are things in this world which threaten us, right?

Which threaten our well-being, which threaten our safety, which threaten our happiness, our lives, our jobs, our families, and so many other things.

And what we see as we look at this psalm is that these trials are real, they are ongoing, and they're personal.

And all of that means we have good reason to be afraid.

Let's look at the psalm.

First, our trials are real.

You know, uh the setting of this psalm is found in 1 Samuel chapter 21, where David is on the run.

1 Samuel 21 · chapter mention

He's on the run from Saul, the king of Israel, because Saul is trying to kill him.

And so David runs from Saul and he runs right to Gath.

Now, Gath is the hometown of Goliath.

Goliath, whom David had killed earlier in his career, right?

And so David is so afraid, he's so desperate, that he runs right from one enemy right into the hands of another.

And look at David's complaint.

Look at what he says in verse 1.

He says, Man tramples on me, an attacker oppresses me.

Verse 2, he says, Enemies trample, many attack me proudly.

Verse 5, he says, they injure my cause.

Their thoughts are against me for evil.

Verse 6, they stir up strife, they lurk, they watch my steps, they wait for my life.

You see what David is saying?

He's saying, There are people who are trying to hurt me.

They go against everything I do.

They stir up trouble all around me wherever I go.

David's trials were real.

People really were out to get him.

You know, your trials are real too.

There's no need to deny the difficulties of life, right?

There's no need to brush them off or explain them away.

Jesus said, in the world, you will have trouble.

Now, maybe your trials look a bit different from David's, right?

And you're not on the run from King Saul.

But maybe you have trials at work, right?

You have co-workers that you don't get along with, a boss that seems to have it out for you.

Or difficulties at home, difficulties in your marriage, struggles with your children.

Maybe trials at school, right?

Temptations to cheat or to follow the crowd.

Or even trials with your health, right?

Sickness and debilitating illnesses and loved ones who are on their deathbeds.

You see, like David, our trials are real.

There are real dangers, real threats in this world.

And our trials are ongoing.

I mean, look at David's.

Verse 1, he says, All day long an attacker oppresses me.

Verse 2, all day long an enemy tramples on me.

Verse 5, all day long they injure David's cause, and all their thoughts are against David for evil.

See, David's enemies are persistent.

All day long, all their thoughts, there's this constant pressure on David from his enemies.

And that's the way it is in life, isn't it?

And there is often this constant pressure.

Difficulties never seem to end.

One stops, another begins.

David runs from one enemy, Saul, right into the hands of another enemy, the Philistines.

It's as if this whole life is characterized by trouble.

Which it is.

Do you feel those constant pressures of life?

Does it ever seem like it's never going to give up, no matter what happens?

Our difficulties are real.

And in this life, on some level, they may go up and down, but they're unending.

But our trials are also personal on some level, right?

David did not just face impersonal difficulties.

It wasn't just sickness or sort of generic troubles of life.

He had enemies who sought to destroy, oppress, and trample.

There was a personal enemy out there, out to get him.

We too have a personal enemy, don't we?

We have personal enemies within and without.

You know, all of our trials, all of our troubles started when a personal enemy tempted our first parents.

And the devil, the Bible says, is like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

We have a personal enemy, according to the scriptures.

And of course, he has an ally in our own flesh, in our sinful nature within us, and together they seek to destroy us.

You know, too often we're too quick to point the finger at people around us and say, you know, there's the source of all my trouble.

But of course, the Bible says that our battle is not with flesh and blood, but with the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

And if I could turn that phrase a bit, it's also with the spiritual forces of wickedness in our own hearts.

See, we have enemies.

We have enemies within, we have enemies without.

Our difficulties are real, they're unending, they're personal.

And those all add up to mean that we have good reasons to be afraid, don't we?

There are plenty of things to fear in life.

And that's David's response.

David's response to all this is fear.

In fact, in 1 Samuel 21, uh we're told that David is much afraid.

Not just is he's afraid, but he's much afraid.

Verse 3, after recounting all of his troubles, David says, When I am afraid.

Verse 8 mentions David's tossings.

You know, all day, uh, all night long, David can't stop thinking about his troubles.

He is afraid.

He is afraid of what's going to happen.

When was the last time you were afraid?

What are you afraid of?

What do you fear?

What do you fear for yourself or for your kids?

Or for your job or your spouse or your church or your friends or your community or your country, right?

There's so many different levels to fear.

What do you fear?

You know, just because you're a believer in Jesus, of course, doesn't mean you won't experience trouble.

In fact, quite the opposite, according to Jesus.

David experienced trouble.

Every one of God's people in the scriptures experienced trouble.

We should expect it.

Trials are real, they're ongoing, they're personal, we have good reasons to be afraid.

What's the hinge between fear and trust?

Right?

I mean, what's the what's the hinge?

You know what I mean there?

Like what turns us from fear to trust?

What moves us from one to the other?

I think what we find in Psalm 56, as I mentioned before, is that because God is for us, we can trust Him with honesty and patience.

Right?

Because God is for us.

Of course, we just sung about that, and I think two of the songs that we sung, we sung about the fact that God was for us.

But that's the hinge.

That's what moves us.

That's the hinge between fear and trust.

It's knowing that God is for you.

You know, you find that all throughout scripture, don't you?

There's almost this refrain throughout Scripture.

Uh, do not fear, for I am with you.

You find that all over the place in Scripture, starting in Genesis and Exodus and Deuteronomy and Joshua and so on and so forth.

God coming to his people and saying, Do not fear, for I am with you.

See, only when we know that God is for us can we trust him.

Think about it.

We could know that God is in control, but that actually doesn't give us a reason to trust him.

Not in and of itself.

We could know that God is wise, but that doesn't give us a reason to trust him, not in and of itself.

God could be a wise and powerful monster.

He could be, he's not, but he could be, right?

Just because he's wise and just because he's powerful, those are important things, but that doesn't give us a reason to trust him.

Even his goodness doesn't necessarily give us a reason to trust him, does it?

Right?

Because God is good and he could be good and out to get me because I'm not.

Right?

So God is sovereign and wise and good.

But what's gonna lead me to actually trust this sovereign, wise, and good God?

In the midst of trials, why can I trust him only if I know that this sovereign, wise, and good God is for me?

Right?

That he is with me, that he's got my back.

Then I can trust him.

And that's what David did.

David could trust God for one simple reason because he knew that God was for him.

Look at verses eight and nine.

Verses eight and nine say, You have kept count of my tossings.

Put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call.

This I know, that God is for me.

Now consider the terms of intimacy there.

God kept count of David's tossings.

Right?

God not only knew about David's fear, but he paid attention to it.

He paid attention to David's agony, to David's trials.

More than that, he put his tears in a bottle.

I mean, just think about the special care that that implies.

God cares about David's trials so much.

He cares about his sadness and his fear so much that he collects David's tears.

None of them are in vain.

Not one of David's tears is meaningless to God.

He's gathered them together, so to speak.

They're all so precious to him.

Because David is precious to him.

And yet, if if that one metaphor about collecting tears in a bottle, if that wasn't enough to express God's extreme care for David and intimacy and involvement with David and his troubles, God gives us another metaphor.

He says, Are they not all in your book?

See, not only does God keep David's tears in a bottle, so to speak, right?

Expressing God's care, but he's recorded all of David's sadness, all David's fears, all his trials in his book.

God has kept a journal of David's tears.

That's what verse 8 is saying.

Again, that's those are metaphors, it's poetic language, trying to get at the fact that God so cares for David.

Now, if God cared for you that much, if God cared for you that much, couldn't you trust him to watch over you?

Couldn't you trust him to keep you safe?

If he was there collecting all your tears, writing down all your troubles because he loved you?

Okay, so how do you know?

How do you know whether God is for you?

I mean, we know he's for David.

David says so in God's word, but but how do you know?

Well, how did David know?

We're told actually in verses four and ten, God had, David praises God in both of those verses for his word.

He says, in God whose word I praise in verse 4 and verse 10, in God whose word I praise, in the Lord whose word I praise, in God I trust.

Why is it that, how did David know that God was for him?

Because God had told him.

God had told him, God had spoken to him.

David had God's word, and he could trust God's word that he was for him.

Well, how do we know that God is for us?

The same way.

We have God's word, don't we, in the scriptures?

Think about these verses from Romans.

Romans 8, 31 to 32.

What shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not, along with him, graciously give us all things?

God is for us.

He gave his own son for us.

Or 1 John says, By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

In this is love.

Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

See, how do we know that God is for us?

How do you know that God is for you?

He gave his son, his only son, whom he loves, to die for our sin, that we might have life.

God is for us.

How do we know God is for us?

He has acted on our behalf sacrificially for our good in the cross.

That's the only way that you know God is for us in the cross.

We see God acting for us, for sinners like you and me.

Because God is for us, we can trust him.

And we can trust him with honesty.

We can we we because God is for us, we can be honest to him.

You know, as we've seen, David doesn't hide his troubles or pretend to be not to be afraid.

He doesn't pretend.

In fact, he even goes back and forth.

He wrestles here in this psalm.

There's there's this what what uh is called an A B A B pattern, right?

He goes from one thing to another, back, and then back again.

Verses one and two, he starts talking about his difficulties, right?

Man tramples on him all day long and so on.

And then verses three and four, he expresses trust.

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

But then in verses five and six, he goes back to his difficulty again.

He says, All day long, they injure my cause, all their thoughts are against me for evil.

And then in seven through eleven, he goes back to trust.

You see, David's wrestling the same way we might wrestle with difficulties in life.

We we face the realities of life, we see how hard they are, we cry out to God in the midst of them, and then we we trust him.

God, I know I can trust you for this.

And then they come back into our mind and we start wrestling with them again, and we start thinking all day long all this trouble, all this pain, all this difficulty, and then we remember who God is again.

In God I trust, in God whose word I praise.

See, back and forth David is wrestling.

It's true again, you know, of course we're not to we're not to grumble against God.

That's not what David is doing.

He's not grumbling against God, he's being honest to God.

Right?

David talks.

He talks to God, he really talks to all of us through this psalm.

He wrote this psalm, recorded it for all of history to know his troubles.

We need to express our fears.

We need to be honest about our trials, not hide them, but but crying out to God, expressing our troubles, our difficulties, our fears.

Again, some people think that as Christians we shouldn't experience difficulty or we shouldn't be afraid.

But of course, that only leads to hiding our trials or stuffing our fears or putting a smile on our face and pretending that everything's great.

That's not what David does.

The example of David is the example of one who expresses his fear, who is honest about his trials.

Because God is for us, we can trust him.

We can be honest to him.

And we can wait on him.

We can be patient.

Because God is for us, we can wait on him.

You know, one pastor in a sermon on Psalm 56 said his strategy, and most of our strategies for dealing with trials is this.

First, we ignore them as long as possible.

Then, when we can't ignore it any further, we talk to somebody about it and try to get help.

And then if all else fails, we go to God.

First, we we trust ourselves, right?

That that's that's why we ignore our trials.

That's why we try to stuff it and ignore it as long as possible, because we think we can handle it, we can get through it, we can figure it out on our own.

Then if that doesn't work, we turn to other people, we look for this worldly solutions.

How can we make this work?

And then we go to God as a last resort.

Not David.

David really Runs to his father.

In verse 1, be gracious to me, O God.

Verse 7, in wrath cast down the peoples, O God.

See, David looks for God to care for him in the midst of difficulty.

That's why he cries out.

That's what it means when he says, When I am afraid, I will trust in you.

He's looking for God to deliver him.

He's looking to God for deliverance, not to man.

And yet it's a specific kind of deliverance.

See, too often we look for the wrong deliverance, actually.

Too often we expect deliverance from God to be immediate and complete in the here and now.

God just take it all away right here, right now.

And if it's not taken away, we think God is either letting us down or maybe he's just a fraud.

Because he didn't do what I asked him to do.

That's not what David looks for.

Look at again verses 3 and 4.

What does David look for?

It's interesting.

He says, When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

In God whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?

And then he repeats that in verse 11.

What can man do to me?

And then think about that.

Really, David?

What can man do to me?

I mean, David, you've just spent half the psalm telling us about what man can do to you, right?

Man can do a lot.

Man tramples, man oppresses, man attacks, man injures, man distorts, man stirs up strife, and watches David's every step looking to take his life.

How can David say, What can man do to me?

Well, David doesn't have rose-colored glasses on.

He's not blind to the realities of life.

He knows there is trouble ahead, but he also knows that this is not the end.

He knows that his enemies will not get the final word.

Verse 7 says, For their crimes will they escape?

And of course, David's answer is no.

God will judge them, he will cast down our enemies.

That doesn't mean there won't be long times of trouble at first.

In the world, you will have trouble, Jesus says.

See, man can do quite a bit, but he can't touch what is of ultimate importance.

He can't touch our soul, he can't touch eternity, he can't touch our relationship to God.

God will deliver in his timing.

And so we wait.

We wait on him.

Do you see how knowing that God is for us leads to both honesty and patience?

Right?

If God is for me, I can be honest without fear of rejection.

Right?

If God is for me, I don't have to worry that when I'm honest about my troubles, when I'm honest about my fears, I don't have to worry that God's gonna get fed up with me and just reject me, because he's for me.

And if God is for me, I can be patient, knowing He is going to work this out in His time.

He is going, He's for me.

He's going to work it out in His time.

And do you see how important both honesty and patience are to this?

I mean, if you're just honest, that might merely be grumbling, maybe even demanding, right, under the guise of honesty.

But if you're just patient, right, then I have to deny, I have to deny my humanity.

I have to pretend to be a robot without any feelings.

I have to pretend that everything's alright.

But no, these two things go hand in hand, right?

God wants us to preserve both our humanity, even while proclaiming his sufficiency in the midst of the threats of this world.

And so we cry out, God, I'm in trouble and I'm afraid.

But I know you're big enough and I will wait on you.

See, because God is for us, we can trust him with honesty and patience, knowing he won't reject us and knowing he will deliver us in his time.

Now, of course, if we want to understand this better, we just need to look to Jesus, don't we?

I mean, Jesus experienced the same troubles we do.

He had enemies.

Herod sought to kill him as a small child.

Satan tempted him.

The religious leaders of Israel seek to argue with him and trap him and arrest him and eventually murder him.

Jesus experienced trouble, didn't he?

He suffered and he died.

He was crucified and buried.

And Jesus was not delivered in the sense of not experiencing trouble.

Jesus faced suffering and death as we do, really, like we never will.

And Jesus was honest about his emotions in the midst of trouble.

We've seen this as we've talked about these Psalms the past couple weeks.

Jesus says, in the garden, my soul is very sorrowful even to death.

And Jesus cries out to God in the midst of that trouble.

He says, If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

And he entrusts himself to the Father's timing.

He says, Into your hands I commit my spirit.

See, Jesus experienced deeply the trouble of this world, but he didn't ignore it, he didn't deny it, he didn't pretend it didn't exist, he didn't put on a happy face.

He was honest and he cried out to the Father, waiting on the Father to act, even at that point on the cross where he was ready to die.

And the Father did act.

The Father did not abandon Jesus, but raised him from the dead.

You see, the deliverance that we look for is not necessarily in the here and now.

God may give us temporary relief from our troubles in this life, absolutely, but the deliverance that we look for is ultimate and in eternity.

See, we follow the pattern of Jesus, our Savior.

First suffering, then glory.

Death leads to resurrection.

See, now is our time of suffering and difficulty.

It's true.

We live in the valley of the shadow of death.

But at Jesus' return will be our experience of glory.

Jesus says, In the world you will have trouble, but take heart.

I have overcome the world.

See, you will have trouble.

You will have trouble.

Don't be taken by surprise.

Don't be shaken.

Don't be disturbed.

Don't think God has abandoned you or that he's fallen asleep or that he's not for you or something like that.

You will have trouble.

But you don't have to fear.

Not because there are not real physical, spiritual, emotional, relational dangers in this world.

There are.

You don't have to fear because Jesus has overcome this world by his death and resurrection.

Which means whatever the world does to us in this life, even if it looks like crucifixion and death as it did for Jesus, whatever happens, we will rise from the dead just like Jesus did.

We have hope of an eternity in a new creation without trouble, without pain, without tears.

Notice how David puts it in this Psalm.

It's even in this Psalm, in the very last verse, Psalm 56, 13.

David says, For you have delivered my soul from death.

Yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.

See, when we read these words, we understand that God will deliver our souls from death in the resurrection, just like he did for Jesus.

God will deliver us.

We will live with God in that new creation where there will be no Son, you remember, because God Himself is the light.

We will rise and walk with God in the light of life, in God's light one day.

That's our hope.

That's our final deliverance.

Dwelling with God forever.

If you get all this, I think over time there will be a shift.

We actually see the shift in verses three to four.

Verse three says, When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

And then verse four says, In God I trust, I shall not be afraid.

See, David's afraid in one verse, and then in the next verse, he's saying, I'm not going to be afraid.

You see, we all fear.

We all fear, we all have things we're afraid of.

Put your trust in God.

And as we trust Him in the midst of our fear, as we meditate on God, as we set our eyes on the cross, as we cry out to Jesus, we often find that fear dissipating.

Maybe it takes a moment, maybe it takes weeks, maybe it takes years, maybe it will take a lifetime for you.

I don't know.

But look to Jesus.

Right?

In the cross, we see that God is for us.

We can trust Him.

So when you are afraid, put your trust in Him.

Let's pray.

Our Father, our difficulties are many.

In the world we will have trouble, but our Savior has overcome the world.

He is greater than all of our difficulties.

And He cares for us.

And He's with us, Father.

Help us to remember these things.

Help us to cling to these promises.

Help us to cling to our hope.

That we would see this world in its rightful context.

That we would see our troubles in their rightful context.

And that when we are afraid, we would run to you.

We wouldn't pretend not to be afraid.

We wouldn't think that we shouldn't be afraid.

We would just run to you in honesty and wait on you.

Because of your your love for us and your son.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.