Psalm 31 - My Times are in Your Hands

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and today's no different.

We'll be taking a look at uh Psalms chapter 31.

Psalms 31 · chapter mention

So if you need a paper copy, just raise your hand and Kevin or Lindsay will get you one.

And maybe you have a brand new device that you unwrapped from under the tree and you're just itching to swipe and get in that Bible, Bible app.

So swipe away, dear friend, swipe away.

And by the way, just in case you're a first-time visitor here today that was here Friday night for our lovely Christmas Eve service, welcome.

I don't know if there are any, but but if there are, boy, we're glad to see you again.

And this Christmas Eve was so different.

You guys remember last year we were out in the parking lot.

It was like 28 degrees and really windy and snowy.

We had fire pits and everybody was in their car with radio turned on.

Equally lovely, just different.

And we're just glad to have you here.

And frankly, I think I have the okay from Jim that anybody that's here this morning in person, we're gonna offer you the uh TBC platinum member package.

I don't know what the rewards are.

I don't know.

We were talking just like leftovers in the fridge, I don't know, a front row for communion service or something.

And and now all you lovely people online that live here that are in your house pants, sorry.

Okay, just kidding.

But as as we're coming to the end of one calendar year and starting another, here's the first thing.

It doesn't feel like one year, does it?

It feels like 2020 and 2021.

It was just like one long year.

It's like a year on Mars, it's 687 days or something.

Doesn't it feel like that?

This is one of those times when we like to look forwards and look backwards.

And Jim used this phrase earlier in the prayer, and we were talking about it.

It's a good time to look backwards at all the events in our lives over last year and just see where God was faithful, where he met us along the way and walked with us through adverse circumstances, to look back and see what delighted us in the Lord last year, how we delighted in him, how we leaned into him.

And then also as we look ahead, you know, what kind of a church do we want to be next year?

I think that's a question worth asking.

What kind of a believer do each one of us want to be?

And how do we want to lean in and delight in the Lord even more next year?

Jim, I think that's a great question.

Um I think these six little words that are the title of the message today, those are six really important words to carry with us into 2022.

Frankly, if you remember one thing, besides the fact that Mars, a Mars year is 687 days long, if you remember one thing, I hope it's this my times are in your hands.

My times are in your hands.

Would you guys say that with me one time?

My times are in your hands.

We heard you down in Franklin and Green Hills.

You said it so loudly in your living room.

So in the Psalms, as Jim has often said, man, we see every emotion known to mankind, don't we?

The psalms call us to praise and worship, they encourage us to lament and grieve, and they remind us of the faithfulness and the sovereignty of God.

Psalm 31 that we're going to go through today, it's part of the first book of the five books of the Psalms.

It's attributed to King David as its author, and he directs it to the choir master, which implies it is to be used in public, that it's not just a private thing that he wants other people to sing this song.

It's a lament psalm, but as many lament psalms go, the psalmist expresses both his doubts and his fears.

He's airing his heart, his lament, his grief, but he's also proclaiming his faith and trust in a God who hears, who saves, and faithfully loves his children.

This psalm is particularly full.

It's a poem, it's a song.

It's full of rich metaphors comparing God to a rock, a refuge, a fortress.

And it's also full of anthropomorphisms, attributing human qualities to God like eyes, ears, hands, face.

These are poetic, but they also describe the personal nature of God and how attentive He is to our needs, our fears, the details of our lives.

David begins this psalm with a statement of faith, and he alternates in this psalm between tones of lament and thanksgiving.

Until later in the psalm, we don't quite know the nature of the distress, but his trouble is real.

It's not just metaphorical.

And there's this repetitive cycle that you'll see to this psalm.

There's some lament and thanksgiving in the first eight verses, and then he turns right around again in verse 9 and starts the cycle all over.

And it could be a literary device, which we see in the Old Testament frequently.

It could be he's describing the same situation, just going back and reiterating it and describing it in greater detail.

But it's also accurate, I think, in describing this undulation that we all have in our lives.

You know, David has just finished thanking God in verse 8 for deliverance.

And then bam, in verse 9, he starts the lament all over again.

And I think our lives are like that.

Sometimes, and Kristen and I call it thankful for the boring seasons, but sometimes our lives are uneventful.

Sometimes we're like little, little gazelles, you know, leaping from one mountaintop experience to the next.

But man, there's a lot of times, and I think we many of us have gone through this the last couple of years where we feel like we've just gotten one traumatic experience out the door when there's another one knocking at the door, wanting our attention.

Sometimes the shadows of the valley are long and seem never-ending.

Sometimes it might seem one minute we're full of faith and trust, blessed be the Lord.

And the next we're confronted with such trials that immediately we're just like, help, help, help me, God, send your mercy to meet me.

But the pivotal verse of this chapter is verse 15.

My times are in your hands.

And that's a response of faith to the circumstances of our lives.

It's a faith that knows that in spite of all that happens, and man, I'm praying for that family, Jim, that lost their wee one on Christmas Eve.

Faith that knows somehow, in spite of all that happens, God is sovereignly in control of human history and all the events that all are working together for his purposes.

It's a response of faith that says, I'm not alone in a cold and dark universe.

I'm not just bobbing and bouncing along on the ocean.

I'm not the little ball on the roulette wheel, you know, spinning in a in a wheel of chance or blind luck.

Says, no, my times are in his hands, in the hands of a God who is a rock, a refuge, a strong fortress, my comforter, my rescuer, my redeemer.

Here's what Jay Alec Motyer, who's a Bible commentator, he says this on his commentary on the Psalms.

Hope in the Bible is confidence about what will happen coupled with ignorance about its timing.

Isn't that great?

Hope in the Bible, it's confidence about what will happen coupled with ignorance about its timing.

So let's pray, church, and then read our passage.

And I'm gonna do I'm gonna do something just a little different because I don't know, it's like a snow day, right?

Because it's just us.

I had, you know, I'd copied, copied the text into my iPad last night and made little notes and commentary along the way.

I'm just gonna read the text and then I'll scroll back through and grab a couple of things and a few points and quotes.

Um, but let's pray together, church.

God of all creation, we come to you today with hearts full of gratitude for the birth of your son Jesus.

Thank you for your relentless pursuit of us, your love that will not let us go.

As we get ready to close out one year and begin another, help us turn our hearts to you.

Thank you for your word.

And Holy Spirit, we ask that you would illuminate your word to us this morning.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, so Psalm 31, I'm gonna read out of the ESV.

There's a couple of things that I might like, like in the ESV, Psalm 15 says, My times are in your hand, singular, but in the NIV it says hands plural.

That's not a great difference.

I prefer hands, but in any case, I'm gonna read out of the ESV.

Psalm 31, into your hand I commit my spirit to the choir master, a psalm of David.

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.

For you are my rock and my fortress, and for your name's sake you lead me and guide me.

You 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.

I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.

I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction, you have known the distress of my soul, and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy.

You have set my feet in a broad place.

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, and my years with sighing.

My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.

Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances.

Those who see me in the street flee from me.

I have been forgotten like one who is dead.

I have become like a broken vessel, for I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side, as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.

But I trust in you, O Lord.

I say, You are my God.

My times are in your hand.

Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors.

Make your face shine on your servant.

Save me in your steadfast love.

Oh Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you.

Let the wicked be put to shame.

Let them go silently to Sheol.

Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt.

Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind.

In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men, you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues.

Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously, wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city.

I had said in my alarm, I am cut off from your sight.

But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.

Love the Lord, all you his saints.

The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.

Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.

Wow, and isn't that just fantastic?

So, right away in verse one, there's just right off the bat, all this good stuff, God says, I'm trusting in you.

He's immediately saying, God, man, when I need a refuge, it's to you that I run.

And when he says this phrase, don't let me be put to shame, he's not just meaning like, oh God, I don't want to be embarrassed.

It's not that.

He's saying, Vindicate me, Lord, because I trust in you.

He's wanting the name of the Lord to be publicly lifted up and glorified.

He's wanting to be saved naturally, but he's wanting to be saved because he wants God to be glorified.

And he says, in your righteousness, deliver me, not in my own righteousness.

And church, I've got asked the question: who here can rely on their own righteousness to save them and deliver them?

Sorry to break the news to you so soon after Christmas, but the Bible says there's only one.

None of us are able to deliver or save ourselves.

That's the bad news, but the good news is that we have one who can save us, and that is Jesus Christ the righteous.

He trades our sin for his righteousness.

And that's why when it says, In your righteousness, deliver me, because of Jesus, God's righteousness is something that we can take assurance in.

We don't have to be afraid of.

Amen.

And in verse 2, where he says, Incline your ear to me, rescue me speedily.

Don't you love the honesty of the Bible?

David's saying, Boy, Lord, I trust you, but man, I need your help and I need it right now.

God wants us to bring our needs and our hearts and our fears and anxious thoughts to him.

He wants to hear us when we're like, I need help.

I need help.

He wants us to be real with him.

So in verse three, where he says, You are my rock and my fortress.

For your name's sake, you lead me and guide me.

For your name's sake, lead me and guide me.

I've got to confess that sometimes, maybe even a lot of times, when I'm asking for God's leadership and guidance, I'm actually, what I'm wanting to do is have him guide me for my sake and my benefit.

You know, I a lot of times I actually have to pray, okay, when I'm saying, show me your ways, O Lord, what I'm really saying is, God, I want to want you to lead me.

But honestly, a lot of times I'm just saying, I just want you to let me have my way.

In verse 5, where David says, Into your hand I commit my spirit, you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

Sound familiar?

That's one of the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross.

Just before Jesus dies, he utters this phrase of absolute trust and abandonment to the Father.

He says, Father, into my hands I commit my spirit.

And isn't it amazing that a thousand years before Jesus says those words from the cross, David says those words, and then he follows them with, You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God, which is just what Jesus does for us on the cross.

And in verse 6, where David says, I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, again, hate to break the news to us.

The question is not whether or not we're going to worship or trust in something or put our times in someone's hands.

The question is not whether or not we're going to worship, it's who are we going to worship?

And we are all worshipers.

And I looked up this Bob Dylan song last night that I remembered from gosh, the 80s or 70s.

He said in his song, you're going to have to serve someone.

Yes, indeed, you're going to have to serve somebody.

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to have to serve someone.

So, friends, my question is for all of us, who are you serving?

Whose hands are your times in?

So those first eight verses, it's that cycle of trust and faith, of lament and thanksgiving.

And then verse 9, man, he starts the whole cycle right all over again.

And he talks about, it's a little more in-depth, a little more graphic this time.

He says, My why I is wasted from grief, my soul and my body also, for my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sign, my strength fails because of my iniquity and my bones waste away.

And man, I've got to say, I know that some of us over the last couple of years, we have experienced so much distress and so much grief that it feels like this, that our eyes are wasted, our souls and our bodies too.

We feel like our lives, our whole life is just spent in sorrow.

We're worn out with grief.

And I'm thinking of some specific people from TVC that I know that have personally gone through so much sorrow in the last couple of years.

It's like we don't even know how to take the next breath.

We don't even know how to be alive.

And Jesus says to that, Come to me.

All you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.

Put your times in my hands, let me care for you.

That's his response because he hears and sees and knows our distress, knows our afflictions.

So verses 11, 12, and 13, at this point, he's talking about all he's become a reproach, especially to his neighbors.

People see him and they they flee to the other side of the street.

And at this point, his distress, it's actually getting personal.

His friends are abandoning him.

He's facing terror on all sides, and there are those who are plotting his death.

He honestly laments the current situation and calls it for what it is.

But here again, man, he's expressing so much faith in a living God that he knows is mighty to save.

Verse 14, but I trust in you, O Lord.

You are my God.

And the doozy of a verse in verse 15, and my times are in your hand.

Facing distress and danger and death and persecution, that's his response.

My times are in your hands.

In verse 17 and 18, David says, O Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you.

Let the wicked be put to shame.

Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteousness.

And he's still not worried about his own reputation.

He's still saying, Vindicate me, God, for I've trusted in you.

He wants the Lord to be glorified.

And here's an extra thing that I read in a commentary where verse 17, where it says, Let me not be put put to shame.

Let the wicked be put to shame, let them silently go to Sheol, lest we take vengeance into our own hands, or righteousness, self righteousness into our own hands.

God wants to remind us that it's His righteousness.

Vengeance is His.

Leviticus 19 says this.

It's so powerful.

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord.

It's pretty powerful.

Verse 19, where David says, Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear in you, and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind.

Don't you love that?

I have this picture of like a giant, giant Amazon warehouse just filled with God's goodness, stored up for those who fear him.

And as we take refuge in him, that goodness comes running to meet us.

In verse 21, blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city.

So now we're seeing that there was actual danger, not just metaphorical danger, right?

We may not ever see this kind of physical danger ourselves, but whatever we face, this is how God cares for us.

When we are besieged and beset, he still wondrously shows us his steadfast love.

And that's why David in Psalm 23 says, You have set a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

That's what God does for us when we trust in him.

A couple of other things from the passage.

Verse 22, David says, I had said in my alarm, I'm cut off from your sight, but you heard the voice of my pleas when I cried to you for help.

Don't you love his honesty?

He goes from saying, Woo, blessed be the Lord, you've rescued me, you've showed me your abundant goodness and love, and immediately back to, man, panicking, and said, in my alarm, I'm cut off from your sight.

And I do that myself.

I go pretty quickly sometimes to praising God and being just joyful and excited to panicky, like, Lord help me.

And again, God hears us, he sees our affliction, he sees our distress, and he comes running to meet us.

And then I love how David finishes this psalm out with this exhortation to other believers love the Lord, all you his saints.

The Lord preserves the faithful.

Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.

Let your heart take courage as you wait and hope in the Lord, who is faithful to all his promises.

So, whose hands are our times in?

I think that's a question worth asking as we look ahead to the new year, right?

As we leave this year behind, we start all over again.

Psalm 31, it encourages us to put our times in God's hands because he's trustworthy.

He's trustworthy because he's sovereign, he's faithful, he's good.

God is trustworthy because he's sovereign.

And there is only one God, as Jim has said so many times, big old fat line down the middle of creation, you know, on this side is God, and on this side is everything else.

There is only one God.

All the events of our lives, past, present, future, are lived out under the shadow of his sovereign grace.

When the angel Gabriel told Mary, Jim talked about this in his Advent sermons just a few weeks ago, Luke chapter 1, when Gabriel comes to Mary, visits her, and tells her about having the baby Jesus, listen to her response.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

Behold, I'm the servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

In other words, Mary's saying, My times are in your hands.

She's saying, You're God, I'm not, and I trust in you.

I just love that.

And sadly, in contrast, I saw this ad somewhere in the last week or so.

Um, Oprah Winfrey, she's promoting an interview that she did recently with the artist Adele, and Oprah says, I'm always interested in interviewing people who are willing to speak their truth.

Not speak the truth, not testify to the truth, but to speak their truth.

And the only problem with that statement is, okay, if we all speak our truths, which is the truthiest, right?

Which is, especially in the conflict, right?

Who wins the Nobel Truth Prize?

You know, it's uh it just it really struck me when I saw that.

I went back and rewound it so I could write down exactly what she said.

Well, here's what Calvin has to say about that in his Institutes.

It is an absurd folly that miserable men take it upon themselves to act without God when they cannot even speak except He wills.

And I think absurd is the exact right word there because try as we might, we have no control over our next breath, over our next heartbeat.

God is sovereign.

Eighteenth century British pastor and theologian John Ryland said it this way: I love this little poem.

Sovereign ruler of the skies, ever gracious, ever wise, all my times are in thy hand, all events at thy command.

Plagues and deaths around me fly, till he bids, I cannot die.

Not a single shaft can hit till the God of love thinks fit.

God is trustworthy, first off, because he is sovereign.

Our times are in his hands.

Psalm 31 reminds us too that God's trustworthy, not just because he's sovereign, but because he is faithful, we can trust that he will hold us fast, that his righteousness is enough to deliver us, that he will do what he said.

And if you think about it this way, because he is sovereign, he's the only one that can be faithful.

Spurgeon said it like this the even place on which our foot stands is the sure covenant faithfulness of the Lord of hosts.

There is no fear of falling, no fear of falling from this solid basis or of its being removed from under us.

Isn't that great?

The one who created all that is out of nothing, he's the only one who can truly be faithful.

So this next quote, I what's funny is I thought I heard it from either Jim or Alistair Begg, but it's part of the Heidelberg catechism.

Somehow I missed that because I looked everywhere, and then you had it right with you this morning.

This is so good.

We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for the future, we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature will separate us from his love.

Boy, amen.

That is solid, solid ground, isn't it, guys?

Because God is sovereign, because he is faithful, we can trust him and put our times into his hands.

So the last thing, last point here out of Psalm 31 that we're reminded of, God's trustworthy, not because only because he's sovereign, because he's faithful, but because he is good.

And aren't we glad he is good?

We can put our times in his hands because he is good.

We can trust him with all of our life, all of our circumstance because he is good.

In chapter 8 of C.S.

Lewis, the line, The Witch in the Wardrobe, Mr.

Beaver, if you'll remember, he's telling Susan and Lucy about Aslan and the girls are seeking reassurances about Aslan.

Here's Lucy.

Is he a man?

asked Lucy.

Aslan a man, said Mr.

Beaver sternly.

Certainly not.

I tell you, he's the king of wood and the son of the great emperor beyond the sea.

Don't you know who is the king of the beasts?

Aslan is a lion, the lion, the great lion.

Oh, said Susan.

I thought he was a man.

Is he is he quite safe?

I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.

That you will, dear, and make no mistake, said Mrs.

Beaver.

If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just or else silly.

Then he isn't safe, said Lucy.

And here's the best paragraph.

Safe, said Mr.

Beaver.

Don't you hear what Mrs.

Beaver is telling you?

Who said anything about safe?

Of course he isn't safe, but he's good.

He's the king, I tell you.

If we ask, why does God allow evil and suffering to continue, and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is.

However, we know what the answer isn't.

It can't be that he doesn't love us.

And then biblical commentator J.C.

Ryle, and by the way, we're starting the study of the book of Matthew in January, and we'll be reading some from him.

He's got a great commentary on Matthew.

And he says, if God has given his son to die for us, let us beware of doubting his kindness and love in any painful providence of our daily life.

That is how we know that God is faithful and that he can be trusted and that he's good.

He was willing to do whatever it took to rescue and redeem us, including becoming flesh and blood, living a life that we're not capable of living, dying a death that we actually deserve.

And here's where I seek to persuade us, myself included, that only Christianity has a proper answer to our suffering.

All of our circumstances, especially our suffering, they're only rightly framed by the shadow of the cross.

The atheist, he has no way to give any meaning to suffering.

If we're all here by random chance, right?

It's just a cosmic accident.

You know, whether we live or die has no meaning.

Whether we're rich or poor, smart, not smart, healthy, sick, none of it has any meaning.

Some things might be more or less pleasant.

Who wouldn't want to be rich and healthy, right?

But it has no meaning.

The deist, the deist has no answer for suffering, only that we're abandoned by the creator who at one point kind of wound up the universe and he's walking out the door and throws away the key and kind of says over his shoulder, see you guys later, hope it all works out.

That's what the deist thinks.

The Stoic says we should just grin and bear it.

Really, the only thing that matters is how we respond to stuff and suffering.

And karma, karma says, our suffering's our own dang fault, you know.

You got another chance next time around, maybe you'll do better.

But only Christianity acknowledges the reality, the brutal reality of our suffering and our grief.

Only Christianity says, yeah, that's real.

It's not the way it was meant to be, but it's real.

And only Christianity encourages us to grieve and lament and bring our cares to Jesus.

Only Christianity promises that there is a God who is reconciling all things back to Himself and will finally and fully one day make all things right.

So this thought occurred to me reading this really amazing psalm this week that, church, we can we can finally put our times in his hands because with the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, it's not just metaphor and anthropomorphism anymore.

Because God came, became flesh.

My times are in your hands.

Those hands were the hands that were reaching out of the manger, out of the cradle.

Those were real hands nailed to the cross.

My times are in your hands and became the crucified and resurrected Jesus, telling a doubting Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands, and put out your hand and place it in my side.

Do not disbelieve, but believe.

In his book, David's Crown, the English poet and theologian that we've spent some time with Malcolm Guide, he has a poem that's actually part of Psalm 13, but man, I think it is so appropriate here.

The psalmist says to Christ, place your wounded hands in mine and raise me up that even grief itself may turn to grace.

Friends, that's why we can trust Jesus.

He takes all that we have, all that we lack, he trades our sin for his righteousness, and by his cross and resurrection turns even our grief into grace.

I'll finish with a quote from Tish Harrison Morrison, Harrison Warren in her book, Prayer in the Night.

When we see the love of Jesus, we see the fullness of God.

There is no shadow side of God, no hidden deception or darkness behind the God revealed in Jesus.

The God we pray to is a God who loves us endlessly, relentlessly, patiently, and powerfully.

And friends, that is why as we look ahead to 2022, no matter what lies ahead, whether it's pleasant circumstances or unpleasant circumstances, we have a God who loves us, a God who is faithful, who is completely worth trusting, and a God who without reserve or regret, we can we can just say, my times are in your hands.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Lord, you are so good.

We are grateful that you are trustworthy, grateful that you are sovereign, that you are faithful, and that you are good.

We are grateful that you see and hear our afflictions, that you turn your ear to us when we grieve and lament and are afraid and run to you.

Are grateful that your hands became real flesh and blood hands that reach out to us and pull us from the pit.

Forgive us our sins and turn our grief into grace.

Lord, we ask that you walk with us in this coming year and help us be mindful that our times are in your hands.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.