Trusting God Through Trials Results in Blessing – Psalm 31

Such a pleasure to see everyone this morning, and I got out and got a bit of sun Friday and Saturday. I was out working a football tournament in Dangerfield, and to my utter shame, I did not use any sunscreen, and so now I’m suffering the consequences of that.

So those of you who have medical backgrounds, you can thoroughly admonish me later if you want to do that. I’ll be happy to take it. But anyway, it was a good weekend, and I did get some exercise, and I’m thankful for that, and it was very challenging.

But this morning, and kind of along those lines, we’re going to be looking at Psalm 31. And really, what this Psalm is all about is trusting God through trials results in blessing. Blessing. Trusting God through trials results in blessing. And this Psalm was written by David. David, of course, had a lot of trials in his life. If you go back and study, you know, what happened between David and Saul specifically and Saul’s envy of David.

And you remember that the young women in David’s time went out and sang a song. And they said, Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands. And Saul just did not like that comparison at all. And he was envious of David. And David tried to soothe Saul with his music, but then Saul got so mad at David at one point, He threw a spear at him. Fortunately, he missed, but then David had to flee into the wilderness, and Saul and his men pursued David. David was an object of Saul’s hatred for a long time, and Saul wanted to kill David. So David knew a lot about suffering. He knew a lot about trials, and he knew a lot about what it means to be hated by others.

Even to the point of those wanting to take your life. Well, I’ve never had anybody in a football game want to take my life because I’ve officiated badly or whatever, and I’m thankful for that, but hopefully I haven’t officiated that badly.

But anyway, now baseball, now that’s a different story. But no, I’m just kidding. But let’s look at Psalm 31 together and think about this Psalm. It’s a beautiful Psalm, a Psalm that has to do with trusting God through trials and the blessings that result by doing that.

So let’s read Psalm 31 and verses 1 through 3. In you, O Lord, I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in your righteousness. Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense to save me.

For you are my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for your name’s sake, lead me and guide me. And when we look at this Psalm, first of all, we think about trusting in God. Why can we trust in God? And the first point here is we can trust in God because He is our refuge. What is a refuge? A refuge is a place where we can go to be sheltered from all the storms of life. For example, over here in the courthouse, there is a basement that we can go to when there are storms come through.

You know, a couple of months back, we had a pretty good-sized storm come through, and the, you know, the meteorologist got on the weather, on the TV station there, said, Hey, you guys, you need to find a shelter. I’m serious about this. And it was coming right at us. And so we said, Okay, well, let’s go over to the shelter, the place of refuge, to the basement of the courthouse, so we could be safe from the storm, right?

But, of course, God is our refuge from not just physical storms, but all kinds of spiritual storms that might happen in our life. And when those things happen, you know, when a tornado comes through or a big storm comes through, what happens?

Things get blown all over the place. And, you know, I heard stories about from that tornado that came through and got James’ house, you know, a couple of years ago. I heard stories from that one that they found pictures of people way up in Arkansas that came from this area, New Boston, because that storm had taken those pictures and sucked them up, you know, and carried them along. Throwing everything everywhere, you know. Storms do that. They make us think, we’re never going to recover.

It’s going to be so difficult, you know, but then when the storms subside, you start bringing things back together, right? Well, while you’re going through those storms, especially those spiritual storms, who are you trusting in? And we’ve got to trust in the Lord. David trusted in God because, number one, God was righteous.

Look at verse 1. Deliver me in your righteousness, he says. Second, because God offers protection. Be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense. God protects and God gives guidance. Look at verse 3. He says, You are my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for your name’s sake, lead me and guide me. God is that solid anchor point that we can hold on to when the storms are coming through.

They’re throwing everything everywhere, but we can hold on to God and He will keep us in a safe place. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. We can trust in God. We can commit to God. Look at verses 4 through 6.

“…pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, for you are my strength. Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord God, of truth. I have hated those who regard useless idols, but I trust in the Lord.” So we can commit ourselves to God.

And I love this Psalm here, especially verse 5. Maybe you recognize that statement. It’s the statement that Jesus made on the cross there when He said, Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit. Luke chapter 32, verse 46. That comes from this Psalm because this Psalm is about trusting God through trials.

And there wasn’t any trial greater than the one Jesus went through, and He trusted God all the way through. And He was greatly blessed because of it. So, into your hand I commit my spirit, the psalmist says. That’s about commitment to God. You know, we can commit our lives to God because God will take care of us.

He has great power. Verse 4 tells us that He is our strength. He gives us truth, and because we have truth, we can navigate this world successfully. Verse 5, He is the Lord God of truth, and we see that when we have truth, that gives us, and we have strength, that gives us the ability to reject false standards.

And so many times, it’s when we accept false standards, that’s when we get into trouble. That’s when we have so many problems. And we can see that happening in the world around us today, you know, those who are accepting false standards today in their lives, and as a result, their lives are in turmoil, they’re in chaos, because they have those false standards that they’re going by, and they don’t understand why things aren’t going so great for them, you know.

But it’s because they haven’t rejected those false standards. But notice what the psalmist says, “…I have hated those who regard useless idols, but I trust in the Lord.” The false standards, the useless idols, things that we shouldn’t be elevating in our life to a place of prominence, we’ve got to put those away and we’ve got to put God in the number one spot. Commit your way to the But then look at verse 7 and 8. We can rejoice. He is our refuge because we can trust. He is our refuge because we can commit. He is our refuge because we can rejoice. I will be glad and rejoice in your mercy, for you have considered my trouble. You have known my soul and Now, this is a remarkable thing that David writes here. He can rejoice because God is merciful to him. You know, if we are seeking God, putting God in the number one place in our lives, we’re going to see the mercy and grace of God working in our lives, and it’s going to bring us great joy.

And we need that joy each and every day. And even David, even though he is being pursued by Saul, even though he had a lot of troubles and trials, he still said, I will rejoice. I will rejoice because of God and who He is. And we can rejoice in God’s mercy. We can rejoice in God’s knowledge. I think that’s a great thing. You know, God knows everything. He sees everything.

And He understands what we need. And He will take care of us if we put our faith and trust in Him. And that brings joy to our lives and in the placement of our lives. Look at what verse 8 says, that He has not shut me up into the hand of my enemy, but He has set my feet in a wide place. What does that mean? Well, a wide place is a stable place. It’s a flat place, okay? It’s unlike the mountains.

If you’ve ever been hiking, you know that when you go hiking in the mountains, there’s rocks, and most of the time they’ve got a nice little trail, but then sometimes they’ve got some very narrow trails that you walk on. You look down one side, and it’s way down there, and you look up the other side, and it’s way up there, and you’re like, you know, I don’t have a very wide place here to walk on. I’ve got to watch myself.

But when you have a wide place to walk on, then it’s easy, isn’t it? You don’t have to worry about falling off the cliff or a rock coming and crushing you from up above because you’ve got a wide place. And that’s what God does for us. He sets our feet in a wide place and where we can walk easy and we can enjoy the blessings that He has for us. And we can rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. Philippians 4 and verse 4. And again, I say rejoice.

We can trust in God because He is our refuge. But then, we can trust in God because He sees our reproach. Look at verses 9 through 13 here. 9 through 13. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. My eye wastes away with grief, yes, my soul and my body. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.

I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and am repulsive to my acquaintances. Those who see me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man out of mind. I am like a broken vessel, for I hear the slander of many. Fear is on every side while they take counsel together against me.

They scheme to take away my life. Well, have you ever felt like that? I don’t know that many of us really feel like that today, but David did. And why did he feel like that? Because Saul was after his life, and Saul was the king, and he was marshalling all of his forces against him, and David’s neighbors wouldn’t have anything to do with him. David’s friends wouldn’t talk to him, you know. He had to run away into the wilderness.

Jonathan was about the only guy that loved David and wanted him to escape so that he wouldn’t get killed by Saul. But now Saul turns the whole world against David. And even those people who fought with David side by side, now they’re fighting against him. And they’re coming after him. And he’s asking for mercy.

Does the Lord see our reproach? You know, sometimes we have troubles. We have difficulties. Other people say nasty things about us. You know, they’re not coming after us with a spear usually, but then sometimes, you know, others will say things and do things that aren’t very friendly to us, and we have trouble. Look at verses 9 and 10.

The trouble that David had. He had tears. My eyes waste away with grief. He had grief. Verse 10, I’m fainting. I’m so grieved. It’s just weighing me down so much. And my bones waste away. I can’t hardly move, he feels like, because he’s so grieved with this situation.

And then there’s guilt on top of all that. You know, when people turn against us, I think one of the natural inclinations is to look inward and say, well, what have I done wrong? And we start thinking of all the wrong things we’ve done. Everything comes crashing down on us and the guilt can be overwhelming, you know, when that happens. And David felt that too. He’s like, I feel the guilt.

So the tears, the grief, the guilt, all of those things, that’s the trouble that he’s experiencing. And then rejection. His enemies, of course, rejected him, verse 11. But then his neighbors and the members of the community, they all rejected him here.

And David was feeling pretty low when he had to run away from Saul because he was rejected. You know, the Bible talks about Jesus being rejected by men. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and we did not esteem Him, Isaiah 53 and verse 3 says. And so He’s borne our griefs. He’s carried our sorrows. He knows what it’s like to be rejected by others.

And, you know, we experience rejection sometimes. It can be difficult, you know, if we lose a job or maybe one of our friends abandons us and leaves and we don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know what’s wrong. We can feel like that, too. But just know this, that God sees our reproach.

He sees what’s happening in our life, and then He is there to help us along, just like He helped David. And David had to deal with slander, verse 13. Rumors about what was going on, and internal fear that he felt, and the conspiracies that were happening.

And sometimes as Christians, we have people talk badly about us and spread rumors about us and make up things. 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 15 says, If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

On their part, He is blasphemed, but on your part, He is glorified. And you see, God turns us all around. You know, David was feeling pretty bad. He was being reproached. He had trouble. He had rejection. He had slander. But look how God turns this around. We’re looking back at David’s life now, and what are we doing? We’re learning from this. God gave us David’s life, and He gave us these Psalms through David, and now we look at these Psalms, and we think, hey, God was with him. God saved him. God protected him. God helped him. And guess what? He can turn it around in our lives, too, even when we have trouble, when we have difficulties, when we have We have problems. He can turn it around and we’ll look back on it and we’ll say, boy, that sure was tough going through that. But you know what? God was with us and He helped us and He brought us through it and we can be brought through that same thing. God turns reproach into glory if we have the right attitude toward those things. He sees our reproach. But then verses 14 through 18, notice what happens next.

He provides rescue. So we can trust in God because He sees our reproach and because He provides rescue. Notice what He says. But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord. I say, You are my God. My times are in Your hand. Deliver me from the hands of my enemies and from those who persecute me.

Make your face shine upon your servant. Save me for your mercy’s sake. Do not let me be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon you. Let the wicked be ashamed. Let them be silent in the grave. Let the lying lips be put to silence, which speak insolent things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.

So think about God rescuing His people now. You know, when we own Him as God, That’s when He rescues us. But we’ve got to prioritize God within our lives. You know, that’s what David did. He said, look, verse 14, I say, you are my God. You know, he took ownership of that relationship. He owned God as his God. And he wanted that, wanted it that way. And when we do that, there is no stopping God.

God is going to work mightily for us, and He is going to rescue us from the trouble we are in. But we’ve got to prioritize Him. We’ve got to give Him our lives. Look at what He says in verse 15. My times are in your hand. My times are in your hand. I’m giving you my life, Lord. I’m giving you everything that I have. My time. That’s all David had, you know. He didn’t have any money. He didn’t have any wealth.

When Saul was chasing him, he had the clothes on his back and his time. And he said, I’m giving you my time, O Lord. I give you my times are in your hand. And he gave everything to God. And he acknowledged God’s grace. Look at verse 16.

Make your face shine upon you. Save me for your mercy’s sake. And when we recognize we need God’s grace and we’re not there to lift ourselves up by our own bootstrap, so to speak, we’ve got to trust in God, prioritizing Him, giving Him our lives, acknowledging His grace.

And it makes me think about, you know, what Jesus said in Matthew 6 and verse 33 about all the struggles we go through, you know, to provide, to put food on the table and clothes on our backs and to take care of everything that we have. And He says, wait, wait, wait, just slow down. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. That’s really all we need to do. Seek God first and His kingdom, and He’ll take care of everything.

And so when we own Him as God, He will give rescue. And He will rescue us from the wicked, verses 17 and 18 tell us. They do not call upon God. They don’t have that place of refuge that we have in the Lord. They lie. They don’t have the truth.

And they’re proud. It’s their pride that lifts them up. But of course, God is contemptuous toward the proud. And then they blaspheme the righteous, verse 18 says. But remember Romans chapter 8 and verse 37. What did Paul say there? Yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. And that’s the attitude we need to have. It doesn’t matter what our enemies say. It doesn’t matter what they think. It doesn’t matter how much they pursue us. In Christ, we are more than conquerors. And that needs to be the attitude that we have.

Christ is going to rescue us, just like He rescued David. And then finally, God delivers results. We can trust in the Lord. Number one, He is our refuge. Number two, because He sees our reproach. Number three, because He provides rescue. And number four, because He delivers results.

You know, I used to work for a mechanical engineer, and we made communion cups. He had a big plastic injection machine, and this was back in the days when those things were still all mechanical. We didn’t have any electronics hardly in it at all, except for a button that was on and a button that was off, and that’s pretty much it.

But then this machine had all kinds of hydraulics in it, and the oil tank was as big as, you know, one of these pews, and it was constantly pumping out communion cups. You know, every eight seconds or so, the cycle would go through. And this guy was a mechanical engineer, and he said to me, he said, there’s a lot to be said, he said, this is mechanical engineers have this saying, and this is the saying, there’s a lot to be said for something that works.

There’s a lot to be said for something that works. And Richard’s laughing because he knows, he’s a farmer, and he knows about things that work and how much can be said about that and putting together tractors and trucks and all of that. A lot to be said for something that works. Well, guess what, folks? God works. He delivers results, okay? That’s what verses 19 through 24 is about. Let’s read that.

Oh, how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have prepared for those who trust in you in the presence of the sons of men. You shall hide them in your secret place of your presence from the plots of man. You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

Blessed be the Lord, for He has shown me His marvelous kindness in a strong city. For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before your eyes. Nevertheless, you heard the voice of my supplications when I cried out to you.

Oh, love the Lord, all you His saints, for the Lord preserves the faithful and fully repays the proud person. Be of good courage, and He will strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord. So the Lord delivers results. He works. God delivers results, first of all, because He is good. And God’s goodness delivers results. Look at verse 19 and 20.

It’s to those who fear Him. You have laid up for those who fear you, he said. That’s what God’s goodness is for. It’s prepared for those who trust in Him. That’s what God’s goodness is for. When we fear Him, when we trust in Him, we receive the results of His great goodness. And what does He do? He shields us from the plots of men, verse 20.

Now, I don’t know all about the plots of men. I know there’s been some men who’ve made plots against me, I’m pretty sure, at some time in my life or another, but I really didn’t know what was happening, you know, until it was all over.

I remember, my very first job, we had, I had a, I won’t say who it was or who it was with, but I had a co-worker who didn’t like me very much, tried to get me fired, and I was just doing my job and trying to contribute, you know.

And fortunately, the manager saw what was going on, and the co-worker was the one who ended up getting tossed. And you know what? I didn’t know anything about that. At the time, I was pretty ignorant of it. But someone was plotting against me. But you know what? God saw all that, and He worked it out. And it worked out in a way that was very good for me at the time.

And so, that’s something that I look back on, and I think, you know, God takes care of His people, and He will take care of us. He shields us from the plots of men, verse 20 says, and we think about the goodness of God, and we think about James chapter 1, verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

God is the greatest giver, and He gives good gifts to those, number one, who fear Him and who trust Him. And that’s who we want to be, those who fear and trust God. And so God delivers results. And He hears our prayers. And that’s what David says here in verses 21 and 22.

“‘Blessed be the Lord, for He has shown me His marvelous kindness in a strong city.'” I said, you know, from David’s perspective, he said, “‘I am cut off from before your eyes.'” But what did God do? He heard the voice of my supplications. God heard David’s prayers, and God responded to David’s prayers. And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

1 John chapter 5 and verse 14. And God saves the faithful. Notice verse 23 and 24. O love the Lord, all you His saints, for the Lord preserves the faithful. God saves the faithful, and He will save us if we are faithful to Him.

And we can trust God because He is worthy of our love, He deals with the proud, He strengthens the heart, and He gives us hope. And we can have a wonderful life with God in our life. Now, David went through trials. We go through trials sometimes, too. Trusting God through trials results in blessing. And David had some trials, but he trusted God, and it ended up very good for him, and he was greatly blessed.

And you know, when we put our trust in God, as we’re going through trials, if we do that, we can end up in a very blessed place as well. Don’t let the trials of life, the storms of life, the winds of life throw you all about any which way. Don’t let that happen.

Hold on to the Lord. He will strengthen you and He will guide you. Romans chapter 8 and verse 18 says this, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

We can trust in God, first of all, because He is our refuge, second, because He sees our reproach, third, He provides rescue, and finally, He delivers results. God is working for us today, and He’s working for you, and He wants you to respond to His Holy Word this morning through hearing it, believing it, repenting of sin, confessing Jesus as Lord, and being baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

If you haven’t done that yet this morning, then you need to own God, just like David said. You are my God. How do I say that today? How do I own God today? By obeying Jesus Christ, by doing the things He said to do to be faithful to Him, and we own God that way in our lives.

Now, I don’t mean God will do what we tell Him to do or anything like that, but we have a relationship with God in which we can say, You are my God, and that’s what we want to say. And if you need to do that this morning, we can help you with that.

We would love to do it while together we stand and while we sing.

End of transcript. Thank you for reading along!