"A Trustworthy God"

That rhyme is what we said or heard at some point on the playground in response to some bully who threatened our young, fragile existences with words. Despite its intention, that childhood rhyme doesn’t actually represent reality. We know that indeed, words do hurt. We know that what is spoken or written about us can cut terribly deep, right to our hearts. And unlike bones that can be set and mended with time, the words that are said about us don’t quite heal as cleanly. In many respects, the wounds that are suffered by what is spoken negatively against us leave behind painful scars that shape so much of who we are and how we navigate situations and settings in our present.

We each know that words hurt. And in knowing this, we can be so intimidated by the thought of our flaws becoming the interest of a bully, that we become like human hedgehogs or we become bullies ourselves.

When we respond to intimidation like hedgehogs, we roll ourselves up into a little ball, concealing the most vulnerable parts of who we are and only leaving the world to see the parts of you that if brushed up against, will cause pain to others as they’re poked. When we respond to intimidation by becoming bullies ourselves, we do so because we’ve learned it’s safest to be the one firing the shots before anyone else can load their guns.

No doubt, in some way, we each understand something of which I speak this morning because it is a behavior of human beings that is as old as time itself to try to bring oneself up by tearing another person down. And one thing we know is that the shout of our mothers or our teachers that says something to the effect of, “Y’all be nice to each other” doesn’t actually do a thing to change any of this.

What refuge is there for you and for me when you find out that others are texting about you? Where do we go when the boys or the girls in the hallway whisper as you walk past? What hope is there when comes those who would seek to kill and bury our very lives and livelihoods?

Text’s Context

Well in the text before us this morning is the recounting of one man’s trials of the kind of which I have asked us to consider as we begin. This morning our text is a Psalm that I was led to in the course of this week’s readings. You may be wondering about the relationship of the Psalms you’ve started to read that seem to interrupt the story that’s being told as you’ve read passages from 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles this week.

To remind us of where we’ve been, as we enter into the time of Israel recorded in 1 Samuel, it is the beginning of the end of the time of Judges. The judges were individuals who were raised up by God to deliver the nation from the downward trajectory they put themselves on by their routine disobedience and disloyalty to Yahweh. And as the book of Judges concludes, its very last verse offers a foreshadow of what is about to change for Israel. Judges speaks to the fact that there was no king in Israel and when Samuel enters the world’s stage, it is Samuel through whom God speaks to identify Israel’s first king - Saul. Saul seems to be the guy everyone could rally behind, he’s from all the right stuff and he’s head and shoulders above the rest. Literally. The narrator of Samuel tells us about his height and looks and despite what would seem to be an outstanding start, God would take the kingdom from Saul. God did this because Saul feared the opinion of man more than he feared the Lord God. So once more through Samuel, the Lord speaks and he anoints David, the youngest son of a man named Jesse, as Israel’s rightful king. Whatever quality stock Saul came from, David did not. If we were talking steaks, we went from an Wagyu ribeye in Saul to thin sirloin whose “best by” date was yesterday in David. He was smaller in stature and lacked any of the qualities that made you the “right stuff” in that day.

So through the end of 1 Samuel you see the story of the relationship of the two kings of Israel, Saul whom God had taken the kingdom from and David whom God had delivered the kingdom to. And though God had taken from one and given to another, Saul is still yet in power and he’s giving David all sorts of fits. He’s saying ill things about David and in fact, he’s threatening David’s own life. Why? Because Saul believes that in order to stay on top, you’ve got to snuff out the competition. With his safety in threat, David flees his homelands to the Philistine city of Gath. I hope you caught that… David has to flee his own and in the course of seeking out refuge, he finds himself in the lands of his enemies. It’s not long before David’s presence is made known in Gath that he is captured and you can read about this briefly in 1 Samuel 21:10-15.

So it’s in the course of fleeing for his life and being captured by his enemies that David is moved to pray. And that’s what this Psalm is, just like the rest of the Psalms you have read and will be reading in the next week that weave in and out of the larger story being told. They are the prayers of David that he prays in response to the opposition and the threats and challenges that he faces.

And in Psalm 56, David opens with his confession to God that he’s overwhelmed by the relentless nature of Saul and his henchmen who would see him killed to Saul’s own benefit. David pleads for God’s grace from the onset of the prayer, for grace is something that he has not received from many leading up to this moment. Certainly, his heart is laid open as he begs of the Lord to show him favor. God’s favor would maybe bring but a moment of comfort to what David’s felt lately. From Psalm 56:3-4, David confesses before the Lord that these threats have given him cause to fear. It’s gripped him, in fact. Again, David’s fled the land and the people that God has given him to rule!

So, in verse three, David speaks the antidote to our fear.

Psalm 56:3 ESV

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

He declares to the Lord himself, “God, when I fear, I will have faith.” It’s as if David is soon to declare what the hymn writer says: Faith is the victory! Faith is the victory! O glorious victory, that overcomes the world.

Our Hearts

And what a wonderful message! “I’ve just gotta have faith. Do we get to go home now, preacher?” No! Why? Because what differentiates this conclusion that faith is the answer to all fears from the calls to faith that take place outside of the Bible? If it were as simple as just conjuring up some faith, we could just as easily sing “Faith is the Victory” as George Michael’s “Faith” from 1987. What exactly are we to have faith in? George Michael’s song speaks to faith in his own ability to survive a break up and faith that there’s another woman who will come along who’s better than the one he’s faith-ing himself along to break up with. And if you know anything about the lifestyle George Michael leads, there’s great irony in that song of faith.

We have misunderstood faith. Or maybe it’s better said, there are many misconceptions of what faith is. It’s asked, what is faith? Those who are cynical about the claims of Jesus Christ would claim it to be simply a crutch for weak people. Are we to answer the question in describing faith like the little boy who asked his mother if faith is believing something even when you know it to not be true? Are we doing justice with an answer to the question, what is faith?, by statements like, “as long as you have faith, that’s all that matters,” or “as long as your sincere in whatever it is you believe, that’s what counts”?

Just before fleeing to Gath, David is handed the sword of Goliath, the Philistine giant who he killed in battle some time before praying this Psalm. What if David sincerely thought that between in that giant’s sword he could take Saul’s head? What if David had faith in his ability to gather an army to defeat Saul just by trotting out the sword and motivating men to follow him? Sure, both of those are reasonable outcomes to the circumstances that have given cause for David to flee, but they actually do nothing to speak to the fear that David had or the fears that you and I may have in any lasting way.

And maybe for some of you, this return to considering fear is disturbing. It’s disturbing because you’re uncertain of how to reconcile fear and faith.

Maybe you’re convinced that fear is the opposite of faith. Maybe you have been known a time or two to say something like, “faith and fear cannot co-exist.” If that’s true, if I have an intense fear of heights, which I do, does that disqualify my faith? Maybe I don’t pray this Psalm enough like the Christians who have come before me. This particular Psalm, if you didn’t know, is a prayer that has been referred to by Christians as they drew near to being killed for their faith.

One such Christian is a man named Justin Martyr who declared before his death, “You can kill us [Christians], but you cannot do us any real harm.” Another Christian named Offrus Greizinger is quoted before his death as saying, “You can take from me no more than my life.”

These are profoundly brave statements by men offered moments before death came to them, but as inspiring as these words may be, do you see yourself saying them when you think about the eventuality of your own death? Maybe no one in this room will be martyred for being a Christian, but could you really say something like, “Hey cancer, you can take from me no more than my life.”?

Is faith really the absence of fear?

How Jesus Resolves This

I want to invite us to think about Jesus for a moment. During his thirty-three years of life, Jesus was just like us, he experienced life as a human being. In that, he lived and felt exactly what you and I feel. Despite what we sing at Christmastime, he cried as an infant when he hungered or needed a nap. He scraped his knee as a boy. If they had worn closed-toe shoes then, Mary would have wondered how one boy could collect so much sand in one shoe. He knew the intensity of the emotions of love - we see this as he’s gripped with grief and tears at the death of his friend Lazarus. And during his thirty-three years of life, Jesus was nothing like us, because while he was a man, upon him the fullness of the godhead dwelled. He never sinned. He kept the law of God perfectly. If you saw Jesus, then you had seen Yahweh.

Over the course of his ministry around Palestine, the evangelists often record Jesus teaching about fear and anxiety. This leads Paul to later teach in 2 Timothy 1:7 that we haven’t been given a spirit of fear when in Christ. In other words, fear should not control, it should not grip the child of God. And certainly, that’s what Jesus was calling others to - an awareness that fear should not grip a child of God. But did Jesus experience an absence of fear?

Well, we don’t ever hear the Lord expressing concern over what will happen or what will not happen. He’s never anxious or worrying about the reaction of others. Even hours before Jesus is to go to be unfairly accused and arrested, hours before he is to be unjustly tried and convicted, hours before he is to judged by the world in his brutal execution on a cross, Jesus goes to pray. Jesus knows the terrible nature of what he is just hours from. The Lord had read Isaiah the prophet and knew that he was to be pierced for the transgressions of humanity and crushed for our iniquities. He knew the most horrible and humiliating of deaths awaited him.

In that prayer of anticipation, Jesus prayed Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.” That cup that Jesus is referring to, is the wrath of very God that was to be poured out on him as he, the righteous judge of all earth, was to be judged guilty. Jesus was to be condemned by a lie in order to bear witness to the truth. To say that Jesus didn’t feel the effects of the emotion we know as fear would be to deny his human nature, but how he responds to it is everything.

Just as soon as he petitions for the cup to be taken from him, Jesus also says, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” Jesus was in agreement with the Father’s plan to redeem the world. Is this a sign of his godly nature overriding his human nature? No, absolutely not. Jesus is bearing perfect witness to what David is doing in this psalm. When we look to this Psalm and the evidence from Jesus in the Garden, we might conclude that there is merit to those cliches that faith and fear cannot co-exist, but in actuality, that’s not true .

Again, turning our attentions once more to Psalm 56:3 “3 When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” It sure does seem like faith and fear are co-existing there. David writes that when he is (present tense) afraid, he trusts in God (also present tense). That also means that fear and faith aren’t really opposites if David is experiencing both at the same time. David and Jesus both lift their prayers as expressions of their understanding that God is sovereign over everything, and there is nothing that catches God by surprise. Jesus could march to Calvary because he knew that God is sovereign over all. Consider what Jesus says to Pilate in John 19:11 “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”

In a similar vein Psalm 115:3 says “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” God is in control, he has power, he has something to get done and he gets it done!! God’s ultimate will cannot be hijacked. Jesus knew this, so he lived this.

Jesus also knew that God is good. Not only is he all powerful but he is also good, even being the very picture and standard of goodness. It would be one thing to be sovereign and powerful but also bad or evil. We have seen this in dictators like Putin and Hitler. This is not comforting at all but instead is fearful. But with God we have a Sovereign who is “good and does good.” God’s goodness reflects his heart and is representative of his glory.

What’s going on here? Is faith the absence of fear? No. Faith is the confidence that God is greater than my fears.

How do we get there? How does David get from a place of fear to no fear? How does Jesus for that matter?

Psalm 56:4 “4 In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?”

Psalm 56:10 “10 In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise,”

What gets us to a place of no fear, is trust! What takes us from fear to no fear is trusting in God. It is developing the confidence that God is greater than my fears.

Application

Trusting in God is what is required! Faith is the victory when your faith is in Jesus Christ! There is refuge from all that the world can throw at you or say about you in the tender and loving arms of Jesus.

How can you find this refuge, practically? Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to him, he’s calling you. Then follow the outline of this Psalm:

Admit your fears. So often we approach our fears convincing ourselves it’s not bad. David doesn’t do that in this Psalm. He doesn’t try to escape his fear by downplaying the circumstances - his fear is real, he confesses this when he says, “when I am afraid.”

Stop running from your fears and hand them over to God. You have got to decide whether your fears will control you. David decided he would no longer give them control. There is nothing wrong with being afraid or anxious. It is what we choose to do with those feelings that can become sin in our lives.

Trust that God is going to do what he has said he’s going to do. For David, that meant trusting that God had promised to make him king even though his circumstances didn’t make that seem likely. David chose to view his circumstances in light of God’s promise rather than viewing them through his experiences. Look at what David says in Psalm 56:13 “13 For you have delivered my soul from death.” Delivered. That’s past tense. By the end of this prayer, David was confident that God had already done what God promised he was going to do even though it hasn’t happened yet. Without God’s Word, you and I will constantly evaluate things based on our feelings and our experiences and our limited perspective. We must trust what God has said he will do.

Stop running from your fears. There will always be those who would hurt us with words or things that come our way that will hurt us.

A spouse will leave us

We will lose our jobs

Our financial security will be threatened

Our air conditioners and our cars will give out when there’s nothing in the checking account

We will go months between rain

Someone will say untrue things about us

We will get seriously ill

We will die

When we face these circumstances, our only hope is Jesus. We must cling to his Word and the promises that God has made to us.

The promise to never leave nor forsake us

The promise to meet our needs

The promise to be with us in the storms of life

The promise that he will take care of our enemies and vindicate his children

The promise that Jesus will return to bring about the resurrection and make all things new

David asks, Psalm 56:4 “what can flesh do to me?” and in Psalm 56:11 “what can man do to me?” Answer? A lot. Man can imprison, beat, torture, and even kill. But David understands that there is more to his life than just his physical existence here on earth. He reinforces that understanding in Psalm 56:13 “13 For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.” As we pray about our fears, we need to keep in mind that nothing we experience here on earth can possibly take away the eternal life that Jesus made available for us on the cross. Nothing.

Is faith the absence of fear? No. It’s the confidence of knowing that God is greater than all our fears. It’s arriving at the place of David, with circumstances so grim that his life is in danger, to say Psalm 56:9 “This I know, that God is for me.”

Is God for you? Well, are you his?

2 Corinthians 4:6 “6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Has God done this in you? There's a difference between saying “I believe in God”, or “I believe in the resurrection”, or “I believe in Jesus Christ”, or “I believe in this or that” and God making his light shine in our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. If he has, then you are his and when you face the haters, when you face the worst that the world throws your way, you have the Holy Spirit to rely upon who gives you the ability to focus on the trustworthy God, who in his great mercy, grants you the favor to declare

Romans 8:31 ESV

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

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