"Be Still My Soul" Psalm 131 Sunday Evening Worship Service

This is Psalm 131.

This is one of the Psalms of Ascent.

And before I read it, let me just remind you of what the Psalms of Ascent are.

They are a group of 15 Psalms, Psalm 120 through 134, that were sung every year as the Jews in exile made their way back to Jerusalem for one of the feasts.

Of course, Jews were expected to go back to Jerusalem three times a year.

Most couldn't afford that, depending on how far away in the exile or in the diaspora they lived.

Many would try to make it once a year, but regardless, all of these psalms were sung at that return, this great return.

Jews that had been spread through Africa, spread through modern day Europe, the Mediterranean basin, some even as far away as you know, the Persian Empire where Daniel had been sent, etc.

They made their way back and they sang these psalms on the way back.

They sang these songs.

They were memorized and they were sung as families.

Some of them were about families.

We've looked at those before.

Psalm 127 and 128, for example.

This one is a psalm for children.

It's a psalm for children to quiet their hearts and to be sung, coming from all kinds of different backgrounds.

Remember, these people are coming from all over the world.

They faced all kinds of calamity, all kinds of difficulty, all kinds of persecution.

And this is one of their songs that they would sing as they approached the temple for worship.

It is a song of ascent.

It's of David.

This is one of the four Psalms of Ascent written by David.

Remember, this is the Psalms of Ascent were compiled until after the exile, but this is a psalm he wrote in his life, and it made it into this portion of the scripture.

Let me read it for us now.

O Yahweh, 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 weaned child with its mother.

Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, hope in Yahweh from this time forth and forevermore.

Even as we read it, I hope you can see why parents would want their kids to memorize the song.

Is there crying in the backseat of the camel?

Hey, a ween child is quiet, okay?

Sing 131 again.

Calm down back there.

A ween child is supposed to be quiet with its mother.

This is an easy psalm to read, but it comes with a very hard lesson.

It's a song about childhood, but it comes from the experience of a very seasoned saint.

This is obviously not a new believer who wrote this.

This is not novice Christianity here.

This is the kind of Christianity that can only be penned by somebody who has had a lifetime of difficulty, a lifetime of wrestling with his soul, a lifetime of talking to his soul in light of hope in Yahweh.

That's the kind of seasoned faith that can produce this psalm.

It's a psalm simple enough for a child to understand, but it is a psalm that will take you your whole life to figure out.

Spurgeon described this psalm as a child's step stool that reaches all the way up into heaven.

What a great Spurgeon line.

Easy for a child to climb up on top of, but when they're on top of it, they realize they're all the way up in the heavens.

It's a psalm written to still the soul that is filled with worry, to calm the soul that is filled with anxiety.

It is not coincidental that earlier tonight I began our service by talking about the Ed Welch book, When People Are Big and God is small.

The title captures what I think is often behind much of human worry, this idea that people are more significant.

We fear people, we give people more credit.

We think that people have the real power in this world.

And the truth is it is God who reigns.

It is God who appoints kings and God who brings kingdoms to an end.

It is God who will be exalted.

It is God, as we sang a few minutes ago, who works providentially, even in mysterious ways.

It is easy to see the workings of God, everybody can, but it is harder to appreciate them.

It is harder to see through the cloud of providence, to understand what he is doing.

This is a psalm that is written to calm your own heart in the face of uncertainty in the world.

That's why it is an easy psalm, but one with a hard lesson.

Let me give you an outline tonight to follow along.

I want to teach you how to wean your soul from worldly worries.

How to wean your soul from worldly worries.

If you feed your soul worldly conflict, worldly strife, you should not be surprised when you find your soul overcome with worry.

The old adage is they say, garbage in produces garbage out.

Your soul does not purify things when it comes in.

When you have an intake of worldly things, when you have an intake of worldly influence, then it's going to produce worldly worries in your heart.

That's what happens.

What you take into your heart ends up defining who you are, what you care about, how you view the worlds.

And to put it quite particularly in this own season of life, if you feed yourself politics for months and months at a time, or for some of you, even longer than that, then don't be surprised when you find yourself worried about the worlds.

If you are only watching, and let's choose, two networks.

Just choose two.

If you're only watching Mr.

Fox, or you're only watching the liars on CNN, what do you think will happen to your heart?

If that's where you're forming your worldview from, and I know many of you tune in, me, I am politically naive, politically detached until a presidential election, and then I'm all in.

Give me the latest polls right now.

Feed me right into my veins.

And it is a hard cycle to break.

And so if you are in that cycle, if you tune in just for a few months, and then you're like, oh, I am filled with anxiety, I am filled with worry, I'm filled with trouble.

You don't need to go see your doctor.

I can tell you what's wrong with you.

You're putting poisonous lies into your veins, and the poisonous lies is doing its work.

That's what's wrong with you.

You're filling yourself, you're injecting yourself into the with the worries of this world.

Politics are not unique to the United States.

They're not unique to democracy, they're not unique to this era of time.

Because we live in a democracy, we have the idea that we have, I don't want to call it an illusion, because there is some truth to it.

You have influence, you do cast a vote, the person with the most votes likely wins.

And so you get hooked on it.

And you start drinking it, and lo and behold, you find your soul tainted.

But this is not unique to democracy.

This is true in kingdoms that rise and fall.

I mean, in a sense, absent a democracy, it's almost even easier to overthrow the king.

You just got to outmuscle him.

You get outmaneuver him.

You gotta win the army onto your side.

There's no shortage of that.

It's not a I mean, we just finished the book of Esther.

Remember what happened to Artaxerces at the end?

In the end of the book of Esther, he rides off in the sunset.

But we know from history he gets assassinated.

He gets offed by his own people a few years later.

Even in the own, his book of Esther, he was almost, his head was almost on the chopping block.

I mean, that is the nature of politics in a democracy, in a monarchy, in the world.

Nations rise, nations fall, and people get captivated by it.

Captivated by it.

And when you're captivated by it, when you fill your minds with it, what happens to you?

You get overcome with worldly worries.

Politicians have the reputation of being liars.

Not all politicians are, of course not.

But certainly, even the ones who aren't understand that they all have the reputation of being that way, right?

You talk to a godly politician, he's aware of the label.

He's aware of that.

And so by being fixated on that kind of drama, you're fixated on a stage with liars and thieves.

And that's what you watch.

And what happens to you when you watch that?

Your soul gets filled with worldly worries.

Fortunately, I have a psalm for you.

Psalm 131.

And the first way to wean your soul from worldly worries is to humble yourself.

To humble yourself.

Pride is the root cause of this kind of stress and distress.

Pride is the sin that you lift up your own head and you feel like you have the perception of the goings-on of the world that others lack.

That's pride.

That you can see through the cloud and you know you, you know what's really happening.

You have figured it out.

And if only everybody would listen to you, then all of our problems would go away.

That is pride.

That is pride.

Democracy feeds that, by the way, because democracy feeds this idea that you convince the whoever convinces the most people to agree with them wins.

I mean that a little bit jokingly.

That's pride.

Pride is the idea that you have it figured out, that you have cracked the code, and pride leaves you positive that you are correct about things.

Pride feeds itself.

Pride is one of those sins that's so easy for other people to see in you and so difficult for you to feed, to see in yourself.

Other people see you and they see your pride, but you see you and you don't see your pride.

You see you, and you see the person who's finally figured out what's wrong in this world.

And then you start to assimilate everything going on in the world through your own lens of how you perceive things.

And it puffs up your pride.

This is the king of Tyre.

Ezekiel 28 describes him.

He was lifted up in his heart with wisdom.

And he was certainly wise.

He was a wise king, he was a powerful king, he was a rich king.

God had a purpose for him, and God used him as judgment on Israel, even.

But even though he was wise and even though he was wealthy, he added to that pride.

God compared him to the devil and said that he's looking at things that are too lofty for him, and they would consume his soul, and God had him cast down like he had the devil thrown out of heaven.

He said, You have your wealth, you have your wisdom, and now you're adding to that pride, thinking you are going to be like a God, he says in Ezekiel 28.

And God tells him, Because you've set your heart up against me, because you seek to be the one in charge of kingdoms rising and falling, you will be cast down.

That's what God tells the king of Tyre.

And this was not God talking to the Hoy Poloi in the country.

This was God talking to a king who God was actually using to exalt other kings and cast down other kings.

And God tells him, Because you have exalted your heart up into the world where you're playing the kingmaker, even though he really was the king maker, because you're playing that, you will be cast down.

David is aware of this very acutely.

Verse 1, O Yahweh, my heart is not lifted up.

What a contrast.

The king of Tyre, his heart was lifted up, Ezekiel 28 says.

David says, My heart is not lifted up, not lifted up.

David's repeating to the Lord, my heart down, God, my heart down.

If you're looking for kings to overthrow, my heart is in the ground, Lord.

Don't come knocking on my door.

I am low, God.

I am low.

It's so difficult to say that, isn't it?

It's so difficult to call yourself humble.

It is.

I mean, try it.

I just want you to know my greatest spiritual strength is my humility.

I'm going to write a book after, you know, once things die down and the election season over, I'm going to write a book, you know, Four Steps to Being as Humble as I Am.

It's going to be great.

I mean, that's the trick here.

It's very difficult.

Moses did it.

Moses labeled himself as the most humble person in Israel.

And it's very interesting.

I'm sure Moses was too.

I mean, the scripture says that, but it's very interesting that it is that weakness in Moses that led to his downfall.

When he hits the rock with his staff member and says, water's going to come out.

How long are you going to bicker with me in the Lord?

Whoa, hello.

With you and the Lord, Moses?

Okay.

And because of his pride, God punished him.

It's often in the humble people when pride does break through that you see it the most.

The same will be true with David's life, by the way.

I'm sure you know how his story goes, but David exalted himself.

David took advantage of Bathsheba and murdered Uriah, and that led to his own downfall.

But here, in the Psalm written towards the end of, I mean, we don't know when the Psalm was written, but most people say it was written towards the end of David's life after his own exile.

Remember, David ended up being exiled from Jerusalem.

They drove him out of Jerusalem.

He was, first of all, ordained king and had to spend 20 years or so on the run, probably more than 20 years, on the run from wicked King Saul, and David is trying to stay humble while knowing that he's the rightful king.

Imagine that dynamic.

You want to talk about an election being stolen.

Saul is on the throne in Israel, and David has been anointed, and he has to hide out in caves while Saul is trying to kill him, and David has the opportunity to avenge himself, and he does not avenge himself.

He sheathes the sword, puts it away.

Because he is not going to strike the Lord's anointed.

If the Lord wants Saul off the throne, the Lord has no shortage of ways to get Saul off the throne, and it's not going to be from David's sword.

Imagine.

And then David is finally king.

And he's reigning in a powerful way.

He sins with Bathsheba, sins with Uriah.

He seems to have recovered from that.

And then his own son betrays him.

Absalom betrays him and drives him out of Jerusalem.

He's forced to leave.

He has to cross the Jordan River.

He's exiled from his own nation unjustly.

I mean, the actions Absalom accused him of weren't true.

It was lies.

The counselors were corrupted.

It was people were fed lies and they believed them.

And David had to flee for his own life.

And remember, people are hurling insults at him and cursing him.

And David's mighty men are saying, Do you want us to strike them down?

Do you want us to defend you?

And David says, No.

No.

If the Lord wants to defend me, the Lord can defend me.

He knows the truth about me.

And he's put off in exile.

So when David says, Oh Yahweh, my heart is not lifted up, he knows what he's talking about here.

He really does.

He did not defend his throne when he was exiled.

My eyes are not raised too high, he says.

Oh, I want to keep my eyes down on what I'm supposed to look at.

And just that little picture there, that little picture that David has his own little domain.

And this is a I love that David was a king and writes this because it's so easily applicable to us.

David is describing himself, though a king, with terms that apply to any occupation, any family.

He's saying, I have my own little domain here.

And that's where I'm keeping my eyes focused.

My eyes are on what my eyes need to be on.

I am responsible for what I'm responsible for, David said.

And I'm not gonna look at things on the other side of the wall.

I'm not gonna look at things in other people's fields.

They can be responsible for their fields.

My eyes are in my own fields.

I will work where I need to work.

I will worry about what I need to worry about.

I will be faithful where I need to be faithful, and I will let the Lord deal with the others.

And then this phrase, this phrase should convict your heart.

If your heart is open to the word of God tonight, this phrase should convict it.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous for me.

Wow.

Does anybody say that anymore?

Have you ever heard somebody talk like that?

David says, that thing, that's beyond my knowledge.

I don't know.

I don't need to know about that.

It's too great for me.

It's too marvelous for me.

I need to stick with what I need to stick with, David says.

And he is king! This should be convicting for us.

It should be convicting for us.

David says, I'm gonna focus on the domain that God has given me.

I'm not gonna look at things that are outside of my grasp.

Remember, God is working behind the cloud of providence.

He is at work in all things in the world.

He's doing something.

And David says, I'm not gonna try to penetrate that with my eyes.

I know the Lord is at work, and I'm gonna be faithful to what he's laid in front of me, and I'm not gonna get caught up with the rising and falls, rising and falling of kingdoms, rising and falling of nations.

I'm gonna focus on my own dominion.

That phrase, things that are too great and marvelous for me.

It's an idiom that means talking about, you know, the issues of the day, talking about what God is doing providentially in the nations of the world.

That's where that idiom is indicating.

There are things that are greater than your own dominion.

There are things that are greater than your own home and your own family and your own occupation.

The Lord is at work in those things.

We are citizens of a country, and the Lord is at work in our country, and God is doing something.

And David says, even though God is doing something, I'm not going to look at that and try to perceive what it is.

I'm going to let God do what God's going to do, because otherwise I will take my eye off where I need to be focused on, which is here in my own field.

Now let me give you, before I talk more about the election, let me give you a big asterisk, okay?

Because I know where our church is, and I know I know that.

I know that there are people, I'm talking specifically about let's this most recent presidential election.

I know there are people whose job it is to investigate fraud in elections.

It's his job.

And some of you, this is my asterisk.

This is where the asterisk was going.

I forgot about it.

I'm catching it back up again.

I know some of you work in that department, and some of you it is your job to uncover things that are wrong and crooked in the world.

And so for you, it's not putting your eyes on something too marvelous for you to look at.

That's your job.

Go do it well.

And the fact that we know there are people who are doing that job well gives the rest of us the ability to say, I don't need to worry about that, because I know you're figuring it out.

So go figure it out.

Do your job, if that's your job, and do it well.

And do it well.

Okay.

Um, I mean, that's just the way it is.

Uh I look at uh Buzz over here, he's an airline pilot.

Uh I don't need to worry about how to fly the plane.

I don't need to worry about that.

The fact that I know there are Christians that are able and good and confident that can fly planes, I can get on them and just feel like I can be a passenger and not worry about what's happening over there.

I can go to sleep or I can read the Psalms, Psalm 131, and go to sleep.

Because I know somebody's flying the plane that knows what they're doing, okay?

And I just want to submit to you the same thing is true at the government level.

There are people whose jobs it is to sort that kind of stuff out, and it's not our job unless asterisk, unless it is literally your job.

Okay.

But if it's not literally your job, then it just falls into that category.

It's not your job to worry about it.

It's not your job.

It's not your job to spread the latest Facebook myth that your aunt told you who has a cousin in some city that really saw it with her own two eyes.

Hundred thousand ballots stuffed from the back of that Toyota.

Your aunt's cousin saw it and she swears.

Oh wait, that screenshot was from four years ago.

Never mind, delete.

Don't get swept up in that stuff.

It will poison your soul.

It will poison your soul.

It is drinking lies, and it will hurt you.

It will hurt you.

This is a play that I have seen before.

I am not that old and wise, but I have seen this act before.

And I know what happens.

You get sweat.

Wrapped up in the drama of it, and you're convinced that everybody else is wrong, and why won't people just get as angry about it as you are angry about it?

And when you phrase it like that, you see the answer to your own question, don't you?

Why won't people get as angry as you are?

Because then they'll be as angry as you are.

I will not look at things too marvelous for me, David says.

I won't do it.

He doesn't say he won't be tempted to do it, but he says, I'm not gonna do it.

I'm not gonna get swept up in it.

It's the Lord who appoints kings, and it's the Lord who tears them down.

It's our job to be faithful.

It's our job to be faithful.

And again, it's so remarkable.

This is David who's saying this, who knows what injustice is.

He was driven, he was robbed of the throne of Israel.

Not once, but twice.

But he says, I won't do it.

It's too marvelous for me.

Like I said, Americans don't often think like that, and it's probably not just Americans, human beings don't often say that.

When was the last time you heard somebody say, oh, you know, that's just too marvelous for me?

What do you think about that election?

Oh, that's outside of my knowledge.

It's too great for me to know about.

Yeah, right.

Social media has done that to us, though.

I mean, you can become an expert in anything, you know.

I I read a tweet that summarized an article about a chapter of a book.

And so I'm an expert in that field.

What?

I read a Wikipedia article, so I know all about it.

All right.

All right.

And David says, no, I'm gonna stay focused on things that are in my domain.

I'm gonna stay focused on things in my domain.

I'm gonna humble myself.

The key to this is humility.

The key is being humble and realizing that honestly, it's the old adage.

When you're 20 years old, you're just consumed by what other people think about you.

When you're 40 years old, you you've given up caring what other people think about you.

And when you're 60 year old, you realize nobody was ever thinking about you anyway.

That's a Winston Churchill quote that I stole, by the way.

That was Winston Churchill, I think.

I mean, that's humility.

That's humility.

That honestly nobody cares your thoughts on it.

So don't consume yourself with it.

You know what is important?

Your relationship to the Lord.

You know what is important?

Your family.

What is important is you raising your kids for the fear and admonition of the Lord.

That's what's important.

You know, we were I kept my kids up late watching the election.

We were up for 72 hours straight, no I'm kidding.

11 30, I shooed them to bed.

And you know, we're filling, they got the electoral maps and they're filling it with colored pencils, red and blue.

It's homeschooling, I love it.

Um and one of them asks, you know, which which is our team again?

This is like, you know, like 11 o'clock at night.

Which is our team again?

It's important for me, for my girls to understand that we're on team Jesus here.

You know.

I mean, I said red, but I did tell them.

You know, these are not our teams.

These aren't our teams.

They're not our teams.

They just aren't.

And the quicker you understand that in life, the better you will be.

Asterisk, footnote, unless it's literally your job to be on one of those teams.

Martin Luther wrote this, and Martin Luther, by the way, saw kingdoms rising and falling.

Protestant Reformation led huge civil unrest in Germany, huge civil unrest.

The annihilation of the peasant revolts, it was insane.

And Martin Luther just coined a phrase, because Martin Luther waded into it for a while.

His biggest regret of his life was wading into telling the protectors and the kings to put down the peasant revolt.

And he regretted it the rest of his life.

And he just said his new adage will be mortal, cease from toil and sorrow.

God provideth for the morrow.

Cease from toil and sorrow.

O Yahweh, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high.

I will not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous of me.

That's your first step.

Humble yourself.

Second step, hunger for the right food.

I've calmed and quieted my soul, he says.

Like a weaned child with this mother.

Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

I have calmed and quieted my soul.

One of my favorite genres of songs is songs where people are singing to their soul.

I love those kind of songs.

It was Martin Lloyd Jones who said the secret to overcoming spiritual depression is to go from listening to your soul to talking to your soul.

Telling your soul, hey, soul, wake up and get in line.

Soul, you've been pushing me around long enough.

Now I'm gonna push you around, soul.

You're gonna remember what we believe here.

Remember, soul?

We made a deal, you and I.

We made a deal, soul.

We made a deal.

We were gonna put our faith in God.

And now here you are, all troubled, soul.

What's the deal?

Why are you troubled, my soul?

Stop it.

Remember our promise.

Remember our Savior.

Hope in him, soul.

You need to listen to him.

I love those kind of songs.

We're gonna close the service with one tonight.

That's what the psalmist is doing here.

I have calmed and quieted my soul, he says.

I've told my soul, oh soul, you gotta calm down.

The soul's in the backseat of the car crying, soul, you gotta calm down.

Like a weaned child, it says.

A wean child.

I want you to just think about the beauty of this analogy, like a weaned child.

A weaned child is a child that has gone from looking at his mother as a source of food to looking at his mother as a source of comfort.

That's the difference there.

A child that has not been weaned, I know moms might disagree.

Mom, the baby, oh, the baby loves me for who I am.

Okay, maybe.

But likely when the baby is crying, the baby loves you because you are the source of food.

A wean child is now suddenly drawing his comfort not from you as a source of food, but you as a source of comfort, period.

A wean child trusts his mother.

That's this image here.

The wean child has made the transition.

I'll say it the same truth, but a little bit on the flip side.

A weaned child would rather have his mother with him than food from his mother.

That's what gives comfort.

A child has confidence that his mother will meet his needs even if it's not what he wants at the moment.

That's a weaned child.

You can't reason with an infant.

You can't reason with a nursing infant.

But you can with a weaned child, with a child that is old enough to learn that mom is gonna give you food when it is time to eat.

And mom knows what's best.

You know, it's five o'clock.

It's five o'clock, and the kids come into the kitchen.

We are hungry, can we have a snack, particularly the Halloween candy?

Okay?

That's what we're after at 5 p.m.

Now, the right answer is to say, parents, no, because we're gonna have dinner soon.

And if you have the Reese's, oh whoops, dad already ate those.

Okay, if you have the Snickers now, you will not be hungry for dinner.

So it is better for you, child, that Snickers bar that you want is better for you, child, to have that after dinner.

So if you eat more of the food that is healthy and you're not eating that food now, you're gonna eat that food in an hour, and so no.

Okay, that's the right answer to the child that's crying.

I say that just because it's a little parenting lesson on the side.

You don't want to be the parent that tells, oh, I don't know what to do with my kid.

He only wants to eat candy.

Well, I know what you do with that kid.

You tell him no is what you do with that kid.

Unless you're a grandparent, in which case you give the kid candy when the parents aren't looking.

I know how that works.

This is the dad that wouldn't give me candy ever, is somehow feeding my kids candy.

A weaned child has confidence in that.

So they come in and say, I need the candy now, and the mom says, No, we're gonna have dinner soon.

The child knows the candy's not going anywhere.

It'll be there for dessert, and I'll have more food now.

That food is better for me.

A weaned child understands that.

Do you see David's point here with the analogy?

You're so confident you want one thing from God and you want it right now, and that's what's best for you, God.

So give it to me.

Why is my soul so anxious about it?

And then you tell your soul, chillax, soul.

Like a weaned child, God will give you what you need when it is time for you to have it.

And suddenly your comfort goes from the candy and what you wanted, the comfort goes from that to just knowing the Lord is with you.

Matthew 7, Jesus picks up on this.

Which one of you, if your son asks him for bread, we'll give him a stone?

Or if you ask for a fish, we'll give him a serpent.

Children know that.

If they ask for Snickers, you might give them a steak.

But if they ask for a steak, you won't give them a snake.

That's the point.

The same principle applies to our relationship with the Lord.

And it's not a big, I say hunger for the right food here because the way you feed your soul then becomes you feed your soul not the lies of the world, not the things that are too lofty for you to understand.

You feed your soul what is nourishing to your soul, the solid food of the word of God.

That's what you have to feed your soul in.

You need to spend your more time praying than on social media, for example.

You need to spend more input with the word of God than with the news.

Otherwise, you'll starve your soul.

And this is the common New Testament principle, 1 Corinthians 3.

Paul says, he's rebuking the Corinthians here.

He says, I fed you with milk, not solid food.

The Corinthians are all divisive and they're arguing.

And Paul is a little bit blaming himself because he says, I only gave you milk when I was with you.

I didn't give you even solid food because you weren't ready for it.

I mean, this is a full undressing down Paul's giving the Corinthians.

And even now you're not ready, for you're still of the flesh.

Well, there's jealousy and strife among you, you're not of the flesh.

You're behaving in a merely a human way.

1 Corinthians 3 verse 4.

1 Corinthians 3:4

For one of you says, I follow Paul, another says, I follow Apollos.

Are you not being merely human?

He's telling the Corinthians, you guys are acting like babies because you're not feeding your soul the word of God.

It's all about personal divisions and the church politics.

And one group in the church believes in the Apostle Paul, and the other group believes in the Apostle Apollos, and Apollos and Paul were friends.

They ministered together.

They weren't on rival teams, and yet the Corinthians were dividing over them.

And Paul says, you're just acting like babies because you're not eating the right food.

What a contrast with Hebrews 5, verse 12.

Hebrews 5:12

Also a little bit of rebuke in here, too, though.

He says, For by this time you ought to be teachers.

You need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food.

So the Hebrews had gone beyond the milk stage.

They had been weaned, apparently, and now they're regressing.

They were thinking about recapitulating back to Judaism.

And Paul rebukes them and says, though you had matured, you can't go back.

But their problem, everyone, verse 13, everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he's a child.

Solid food is for the mature.

That's the main reason I wanted you to go to this verse on the screen.

Solid food is for the mature.

For those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

That's the point.

You feed your soul the right things, and your soul gets big and strong and able to discern true from false.

Your soul is able to be trained in godliness by feeding it the word of God.

That's a sign of maturity.

It's also a cause of maturity.

This is one of those things that sign and cause go hand in hand.

You feed your soul the word of God, your soul will grow big and strong.

An element of your soul being big and strong is that it likes the word of God.

And you know this with the weaned child.

Back to Psalm 131.

A weaned child, the appetite of a weaned child actually grows when he starts eating the right food.

He actually starts eating more.

That's the point.

I've calmed and quieted my soul.

The soul knows what it needs, and so it's calmed like a weaned child.

So first, you humble yourself, second, you hunger for the right food, and third, you hope in God forever.

Oh Israel.

Just this cry from David here, O Israel.

Hope in Yahweh.

From this time forth and forever.

Hope in Yahweh.

Hope is this it's a word, it's a it's a it's a Christian virtue, of course.

Hebrews 13, faith, hope, and love remain.

It's a Christian virtue.

Oftentimes the word hope in the Bible is used in desperate situations.

It's used in hopeless situations where you're trying to find hope in the middle of hopelessness.

It's used of Gentiles in Acts 17, where Paul in his sermon at Mars Hill tells us in Acts 17 that God made the nations different, let them go their own ways, set their boundaries for their dwelling place, that they should seek God in the hope that they might one day feel their way towards him.

It's a very hopeless picture, isn't it?

That God let the nations go so they could hope that they might one day feel their way towards God, when the point of Acts 17 is that they can't.

They can't.

Nevertheless, there are some Gentiles that do try to find the Lord.

This is Matthew 12, the words of Jesus.

I mean, the words of the prophet Isaiah, quoted in Matthew 12, verse 21, in his name the Gentiles will hope.

Matthew 12:21

The Savior will not quarrel, he will not cry aloud, people won't even hear his voice in the streets, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice and victory, and in his name the Gentiles will future hope.

Romans 4 18, it's the word used for Abraham, that he believed against hope that he would become the father of many nations.

He was old and didn't have a child, and God tells him your offspring will be numerous, and he bel he hoped against hope is the phrase.

In other words, I'm telling you these verses to let you know the word hope in the Bible means you're in a dark and difficult situation, does not seem to be a way out.

So hope becomes very similar to faith.

Faith is the ability to see the unseen, faith is the ability to have confidence in God's promises that are true, even though when you can't see them.

Faith is the ability to store up treasure in heaven, knowing that what you do for heaven is more valuable than what you do on earth.

Hope is looking forward to seeing that treasure there.

That's how they work together.

Faith is the confidence of what is hoped for, in other words.

That's Hebrews 11.

1 Corinthians 13, verse 13.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Now faith, hope, and love abide.

These three, the greatest of these is love, of course.

Ephesians 1, verse 18.

Ephesians 1:18

You should have the eyes of your heart enlightened so that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.

So faith opens your eyes, your mind believes in the promises that there is hope.

The hope is always in Christ, isn't it?

The hope is always in Christ.

The hope of the Old Testament is that Christ would be the Savior for the nations and the savior for Israel.

The hope in the New Testament is that we are on our way to heaven where our treasure will be.

The hope in the New Testament is what we read earlier from Revelation 21.

There's a new heavens and a new earth, and your hope is fixed there.

Hope becomes personified in the New Testament.

Hope is a person, Jesus Christ.

And so again, this is why it is so powerful that David ends this psalm with this.

Oh, Israel, hope in Yahweh.

Place your hope in Yahweh.

David knows the Davidic covenant.

He was there when it happened.

He knows the Savior is going to be his descendant, and he's telling people, hope in Yahweh.

From this time forevermore.

Not even from this time until the Savior comes.

This is not a limited hope he has.

Hope in Yahweh from this time and forever.

In other words, David is just giving you one more indication here that the Savior will be David's descendant and David's Lord.

David does not see conflict in telling people to hope in this descendant, the Savior that will come from him, and also in Yahweh forever and ever and ever.

David sees those two hopes as one.

So the great mystery the Pharisees couldn't figure out.

The Pharisees were stumped about this.

When Jesus wanted to show up the Pharisees, he asked them that question.

If the Savior is also his descendant.

How can they both be true?

Jesus asked the Pharisees.

How can you hope in those two things when they're contradictory?

And here is one of the many places that is drawn from.

Oh Israel, hope in Yahweh.

Their hope was going to be in Yahweh, their covenant-keeping God.

Their hope is also in David's descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is God in human flesh.

He is the object of our hope.

We place our hope in him.

We know that one day hope will change and will become sight.

Faith will pass out and will become reality.

We will no longer need faith, we will no longer need hope when we have received the object of our faith, which is Jesus Christ.

But in the meantime, if you want to wean your soul off of worldly worries, if you're tired of being anxious about the things in the world and there's nothing you can do about it, there's nothing you can do about it.

If you're tired of being there, follow these steps.

Humble yourself.

Hunger for the right things, and make sure your hope is in God forevermore.

Lord, we're thankful that you have given us a person worth hoping in, Jesus Christ.

Kingdoms rise, kingdoms fall.

Kings come and kings go.

But our hope, let our hope be in you and not in the things of this world.

Let our hope be in you.

Jesus, you took our sin in yourself.

Everything else is secondary.

You took our sin.

And so that brings it all together.

You directed history towards the cross, and you've directed history from the cross to our salvation.

You will keep directing it to your second coming.

Keep our eyes from looking at worldly things.

Fix our eyes on you.

As we come before the Lord's table now, give us an appetite for the right things.

Help us see your body represented by the bread, your blood represented by the wine.

That is what matters.

That you came to earth, crucified under Pontius Pilate.

Your blood was shed, your life poured out for our sin.

That gives us our hope.

Your empty grave three days later, that gives us our hope.

Our hope is indeed built on you, our Lord Jesus Christ, and your righteousness.

Lord, we know that we can't just tell our souls to stop worrying.

We have to take off worry and put on hope.

Help those here tonight to do that.

Help them take off worry and put on hope.

And help this meal that we take, this communion, this piece of bread and this wine.

We know you won't take it again until you take it with us in your kingdom.

So direct our hope to heaven.

We turn our affections there.

In the name of Christ we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to meet you personally at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master's Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.