The Remedy for Sorrow and Sin

Welcome once again to our series on the Book of Psalms. We are looking verse by verse and expository teaching as well as a devotional teaching. I'm Gary Wilkerson, who's helping lead you through this series. We hope you've enjoyed the first 30 chapters, and we are now on chapter 31, a message we're entitling The Remedy for Sorrow and for Sin. Let's pray, and we'll get right into the word. Father, I thank you for your word being a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We pray you would illuminate the things in our life that you're trying to speak to us today, and I pray that the Holy Spirit, you would empower me to have the words and to speak them in such a way that it not only honors you, but it transforms people's lives, hearts, minds, thoughts, actions, behaviors, emotions, just everything, the deepest part of our life. We give thanks for this because you are good. In Jesus' name, amen. Everyone in this place that is listening to me today, I'm sure is concerned with the same things that all of us are concerned with, that is there a remedy for the sorrow, the struggles, the pain, the hurt that we face in our life? And secondly, and maybe even more importantly, is there a remedy for the habitual patterns of sin in our life, the things that seem to cling on to our life? Psalm chapter 31 has a word for you and I today. It has a solution to the crisis of sorrow and sin that we find in our life, and I want to take the time to go through these with you. Psalm chapter, I won't read the whole 24 verses right now, but by the end of this time we have together, I should cover almost all of these verses, but beginning in the introduction, it says to the choir master, the Psalm of David, verse one, and you, O Lord, I do take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, deliver me. Incline your ear. Rescue me speedily. Be a rock and a refuge to me, for me, a strong fortress to save me. For you are my rock and my fortress, and for your name's sake, lead me and guide me. You pull, or another translation says, you take me out of the net that they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Verse five, you probably recognize this verse, probably one of the most famous verses that has been pulled out of the Old Testament and the Book of Psalms into the New Testament language. Verse five, into your hand, I commit my spirit, for you have redeemed me, O God, O faithful God. David is crying out to God here in the midst of a storm, a crisis struggle that is going through, and it's not a short-lived one. We'll see in Scripture here that it's something that's been lasting for a long time. It would be considered a chronic problem of sorrow, a chronic problem of transgression that he's struggling with. And the cry here, into your hands, I commit my spirit, I believe is the key that unlocks the text of Psalm chapter 31. It's the last word of the seven words of Jesus on the cross. Into your hands, Jesus says, I commit my spirit to you. He uses a word here that David did not use. He says, Father, or Abba, a very intimate form of communication, showing the heart connection of Jesus and his Father. And he says, Father, into your hands, Father, I trust you. Father, in the midst of this sorrowful event, in the midst of this struggle, in the midst of feeling the weight of sin upon me, taking the sins of the world upon my own shoulders, bearing them here, nailing them here to the cross, Father, I'm putting my hand, my spirit into your hands. I'm trusting you with my life. Death is now upon me, the most difficult hour that Jesus faced. And now he is here saying that I'm committed to you, and I'm committed to trust you. This psalm then goes on to speak about things we are facing in our own life. I want to mention three of them. I think they're the three most heartbreaking words we might find in all of scripture, the three most heartbreaking events we go through in our life. One is found in verse 10. It says, I'm spent, I'm sorrowful. One is found in verse 12. It says, I'm forgotten. And then the other one is talking about being broken, the brokenness of the three most sorrowful words that you're going to find in all of scripture. Look at verse 10 with me, if you will. For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity and my bones waste away. We see two things here. One is sorrow with years of sighing. It is found also in verse nine that this is a grief of the soul and the body. Listen to this. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I'm in distress. My eye is wasted from grief. That's part of the sorrow, the sighing. And also my soul and my body also. It's wasting away. This grief is is wasting away my soul. In other words, it's taking part of the vibrancy of my soul. It's taking away the joy of my soul. It's taking away my zest for life, my ambition to get up in the morning and make something of my life and listen to God and obey God and walk in the spirit. It's wasting that away from my soul. And that's affecting my body. I feel tired. I feel weary. I lack of any life or stirring in my heart. And then he says, I'm spent with sorrow. Have you ever had that feeling? You've heard people say that, man, I'm spent. I'm overworked. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I've been gone 24-7. I just can hardly move on. I just feel like I'm about ready to give up. So we see two things here in verse 10. He feels spent because of the many years of sighing. Most of us can endure some sighing a day, a week. When it starts getting into a month, we get really concerned. But what if it's a year? Or look what David's saying. My years are spent with sighing. When it comes to that point, we are desperate for help. We are crying out for help. We'll go to any extent. Oftentimes, people begin to start trying to cover this pain with various forms of addiction, sexual food, spending, fame, fortune, success, popularity, notoriety, addictions of drugs and alcohol. We don't want to live with years of sighing, with years of sorrow, with years of feeling like I'm spent. I'm done with this thing. Oh yes, this word spent is one of the most difficult struggles, one of the most heartbreaking words to hear that people are going through this long-term situation. It could be for years just not finding joy in life, for years having marital problems, for years having physical sickness, the weight upon you, having an ailment that is lasting not just a day or a week, but is going on and on and on. This is a sighing. There's a sighing in our heart. But there's something that David mentions that takes us even to a deeper depth. It reveals something of even a more heartbreaking part of this. I'm spent. I'm done. I can't keep it in. My strength has failed because of my iniquity. Charles Spurgeon said, better to spend your years sighing than your years sinning. So what he's saying here is something David's saying is that sorrow is one thing, sighing is one thing, but my strength that fails, this sense of being spent has something to do with the struggle that I have with iniquity, with transgression, with sin in my life. And again, the word here is with years of sighing. So David is not talking about just one snare that he fell into, one trap that he falls into. No, he's speaking of years of a struggle, years of difficulty. I would say one of the most longstanding difficulties with iniquity I had in my heart comes from a scripture in Romans chapter 14, verse 23. It said, whatever is not of faith is of sin. And I wrestled for many, many years, and still occasionally do, but to a great degree, I've seen the victory that we're going to be talking about here from this text today. But for many years, I've been struggling with a lack of faith. I would get up to preach and didn't really believe I had something to say. I would get a vision for a mission that we were to go on, and then I would second guess myself. Am I really called? Can I really do this? Do I have the capacity? Well, when you're asking those questions about God's call on your life, you're really not questioning yourself. You're actually questioning God. It is a lack of faith. Romans 14, 23 calls this a sin. And so many people have a chronic lack of faith, an inability to trust God that he's going to move and do mighty things in your life, and bring freedom and victory and joy and power, overcoming the darkness and the enemy in our lives. And there's this perpetual lack of faith, and it brings us to this place that we feel spent, just strength has failed, just seeped out of my body. That's why David goes on in verse 10 and says, and my bones waste away. You see, the way our emotional life is affects our physical body. Doctors will tell you, scientists will tell you that much of our physical sickness comes from something in the soul, a depression, a discouragement, a fear, anxiety. Anxiety can cause stomach ulcers and all types of high blood pressure, which cause heart disease. This chronic sin brings chronic physical difficulties we face in our life. Another one of these things that David is crying for the Lord to pull me out of this net is being forgotten. This is found in verse 12. It says here, I have been forgotten like one who is dead. I have become like a broken vessel. I've been forgotten. So the second word here is, it's like I'm dead. It's like I'm invisible. It's like nobody cares for me. It's like nobody invites me to the events. It's like I'm an outcast. My sorrow and my sighing and my strength failing because of my sin and my iniquity just has caused me to be diverted from the group, from the community, from that thing that we were built for, from that longing in our hearts. For many years, as a pastor, I'd always have a heart for those who seemed isolated. They would sit alone in church or sometimes they would come to a community activity or an outreach, and it just didn't seem like they were building many friends. My heart broke for them because this is one of the most painful things you can go through, is feeling forgotten, feeling unwanted, feeling unloved, feeling unaccepted, feeling not like a part of that. You can find it at a school. You can find it university. You can find it in your neighborhood. You can find it even in your church, feeling isolated and alone. This can even get worse. Psalm 31, verse 22 says, and I said in my alarm. See, all these things that he's going through, being spent, being forgotten, being broken, causes his heart to be alarmed. Something's wrong with me. Things aren't getting right. I'm spending years in this sorrow. And then he says in his alarm, I am cut off from your sights. So not only is he feeling forgotten by the community around him, he's feeling isolated and forgotten by God. Like he's been cut off from his sight. God no longer sees him. God no longer has a sense of compassion or mercy upon him. God is not listening to his cry and he feels forgotten. The third of these most heartbreaking words we find in scriptures is found in this verse 12. I have been forgotten like one who is dead. I have become like a broken vessel. Verse 13 says, for I hear the whispering of many. This third one is a broken heart, our strength spent, our sense of forgottenness, loneliness, isolation. And thirdly, I think this could be a progression. I feel spent, but nobody sees me. And so there's pain upon pain. I've forgotten. And then it brings us to this third thing in perpetual movement towards worse things in our life to be broken. I'm a broken person. There's something wrong with me. I'm not only spent and forgotten, but I'm broken hearted. My body has been affected. My mind is overwhelmed. I have anxious nights and dreadful days. And everybody around me is whispering. I hear these whispers and it's breaking my heart, the things I hear. You see, we have these whispers around us, the whispers of Satan. You're not loved by God. You're not accepted by God. You're not righteous. You've not been justified. You're too sinful for God to accept you, to make you, to call you one of his righteous children. We hear the whispers of Satan. We hear the whispers of the world. The voices, maybe they're haunting voices of a memory of what a school teacher or a father or a mother might've said, or a friend might've said on the playground. And those words just got stuck in your brain and your heart and your memory. And at times and in places, they begin to rise to the surface and brought to your attention again. Those whispers replay themselves over and over again in our minds, in our heads, Satan, the world, and then self. We repeat things. I have taught on this before that the accuser of the brethren, the things that accuse you, he's Satan. He's going to accuse you the rest of your life. That's who he is. You can't stop him. But the accusing is not the problem. It's the agreement that we agree with what Satan says about us. We agree with the negative things the world says about us. And yes, I would, in a strange way, suggest sometimes you can agree with what the world or what Satan says about you. You can say, Satan come to say, oh, you failed again. And instead of saying, I'm not a failure, instead of trying to bolster your own self-confidence, you might could agree with him saying, I did fail, but I know who I believed. And I'm persuaded that he's able to keep me to that final day. You see, you can agree with part of what is being said. Yes, I did sin. Yes, I do feel some sorrow. Yes, there is a sighing in my heart. Yes, my strength is failing. But you have to finish the sentence. And finishing the sentence is saying that my God has not left me alone. I may feel like I'm spending all my strength in vain, but Christ is going to lift me up. I may feel forgotten right now, but God will never leave me or forsake me. You're contending in faith for these things that are being thrown at you, these accusations. And you're breaking the agreements you have with them by the power of what Jesus has accomplished on the cross for you. So we see these three problems. And I don't want to spend too much more time on them because I don't want to spend all my time preaching about problems. I want to preach about the solution, the remedy for the sorrow and for the sin, for the sickness, for the forgottenness, for the brokenness. Jesus doesn't leave you without a remedy. And that's why it's so strong in verse four, just before Jesus says he commits his life into the hands, he commits his spirit into the hands of the father. He can do this because of verse four. You see, Jesus understood this whole chapter here and he pulled out verse five on the cross, but he was thinking the whole chapter. I'm sure in verse four says, pull me out of the net they have hidden for me. And so the good news here is there is a remedy. We can be pulled out of the sorrow and the sighing and being spent. We can be pulled out of being forgotten and be brought into community with others and with God. We can be healed of the broken heart. These are the things that we can do. These are the best options we have. The best option we have for being pulled out, to being pulled out of the net. You see, this is important for us about being spent, about being forgotten, about being broken. David is saying here, King David is saying, pull me out of these things. Isn't that your heart's desire today? Pull me out of sorrow and years of sighing. Pull me out of the circumstances that are causing that and the mindset that I have. Pull me out of the grief of my soul and body. Pull me out of my strength failing. Pull me out of being forgotten. Pull me out of being broken. Take me from all of these things. And to say that, I think this is important for us to understand. For us to say, pull me out, means that we're actually in it. David is not saying here, keep me from sighing. Keep me from being forgotten. Keep me from being broken. Although that's certainly a very worthy, worthwhile prayer. It's when you're out, pray that, keep me out. But he's acknowledging he's in it. I'm in, I'm in the mess. I'm in the quagmire. I'm in the pit. I'm in the struggle with sin. I'm in the struggle with feeling forgotten. I'm in the struggle with a broken heart. And it's an honest confession to God. I am broken. I am hurt. I am spent. I feel like giving up. It's an honest confession of these things. And it's a cry of hope. I'm going to commit my soul, my spirit, my life into your hands, because I know you and your graciousness will pull me up out of this pit, out of this net that I found myself in. I'm not even sure how I got in it, but I can tell you honestly, God, I'm in it and I need you to pull me out. So the best option we have is to commit our spirit into his hands and make this cry of our heart out to him. Pull me out. Take me out of these things. You see, this was the seventh and final word on the cross of Jesus Christ, because he knew that all that he dealt with, all the victory that he won on the cross, he can now just finish it and say, it's finished. And now I can commit myself to you. I've done the work that you called me to. I have opened up the holy place. The veil has been torn in Luke 23. As soon as these words are said, where Jesus says, I commit my spirit into your hands, it says immediately the veil that covered the holy place where people couldn't get in, where the cleansing of sin was most pronounced, that place was blocked and now it's open because Jesus committed himself. He committed himself that the work was finished, that the blood now would be applied to sinners and they could come into the presence of God. They can come into that temple not made with hands, a heavenly one, and be seated with Christ at the right hand of God in heaven and take our place. Oh, does that not bring joy to your heart? Would that not help you feel not forgotten what Jesus has done for you? Would it not heal a broken heart? Would it not cause sorrow and grief to us and sighing to flee away? Even if the circumstances don't change, you know what Jesus has done for you. He's cleansed you. He's washed you. He's redeemed you. He's freed you. He's become your friend. He's become closer than a brother to you. He's opened up the veil to allow you to enter into God's presence. This needs to bring to us a shout of joy in our life. What does it look like, getting a little more practical here, what does it look like to commit your spirit into the hand of God? Fortunately, we have to not make something up or guess about this because this chapter here not only tells us that we can be pulled of the pit by our commitment to putting our spirit in God's hand, but it gives us methods to move into this. And I just want to briefly touch on three of them. The first one is found in verse 14, but I trust in you, O God, and I say, you are my God. You see, verse 19, let's look at that briefly, says, oh, how abundant is your goodness. And now he's about to describe various ways that God reveals himself as so good that we can with confidence put our spirit into his hands, put our body into his hands, put our life into his hands. And so we see here out of abundance goodness, the first thing is to trust. I believe you're good. I believe you have power to pull me out. I believe you can help me overcome my loneliness, my sin, my grief, my sorrow. All of these things in my life, Lord, I believe you can be the solution. Therefore, I put my trust in you. And verse 14 says, but I trust in you that we're, but right at the beginning of that, I have all these circumstances going on, but I trust in you. It doesn't say I'll trust in you when those circumstances change. He's saying these circumstances are still a reality in my life, but I'm still trusting in you. I'm trusting in that you'll pull me out. In your providence, in your time, you will bring me out to the place you would have me to be. Verse 19 just speaks of the power, why we can trust, because of his abundant goodness. And everything else we might say about what does this commitment of our spirit into his hands look like, and how wonderful it is that in the midst of this trouble that we're in, the crisis, that we hear such things as, oh, how abundant is your goodness. The scripture is just full of these twists and turns that bring delight and joy to our heart, that we can rehearse the difficulties and we can confess them to God, and we can pray that we'd overcome them. But then God just descends and the spirit falls on us and the word of God is open to us. And all of a sudden we can cry, oh, how abundant is your goodness. Oh, how abundant is your goodness. And so out of that goodness, we can trust. Out of that goodness, number two, verse 17 says, oh Lord, let me not be put to shame for I call on you. So I trust you. Number two, I call on you. I'm not going to turn to the things of this world. I'm not looking for self-help book. I'm not looking for a 10 volume series on YouTube about how to overcome these problems. Those things can be an aid to us. They can be a secondary form of assistance, but the primary form of assistance is trusting in God and then calling upon the name of the Lord. Calling on Lord, I'm in a pit. Pull me out. Lord, I'm spent. Give me energy. Lord, I'm struggling with iniquity. Cleanse my unrighteousness and cause me to walk in the strength of your spirit. Lord, I feel forgotten. Lord, I feel broken hearted. I'm calling on you in all these realms and I believe then I can trust in you and call on you and you'll hear my cry. And the third one is in verse 21, blessed be the Lord for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. When I was in these three elements, these three difficulties that we find ourselves in, as David did, he begins to worship. Blessed be the Lord. He has wonderfully shown his steadfast love to me, even when I was in the besieged city. He doesn't say when I got out of the besieged city, it's when I was in it, he showed his love to me. Today, Jesus wants to show his love to you, to demonstrate his power in your life, to show you that he's going to accompany you with the sweetness of his spirit, with words of refreshing, with a clarity of this reality of how abundant this is, goodness, the clarity of the reality of how wonderfully he has shown his steadfast love to you. He loves you. He sent me to say that today. That's one signal of his love for you. He gave you this word more important than whatever I could say to you to prove his love to you. It's not just David that he's showing his love. It's to you in your pain, in your sorrow, in your brokenness, in your sighing. He is saying to you, I have a steadfast love. I don't love you when you stop sighing. I don't love you when you stop having problems with transgression. I love you even in the middle of those things. And it's my love that causes me to reach down and draw you out of these things. Three precious things we can do when we are in these troubles and these trials. We can trust, we can call on, and we can worship and give thanks and know that his presence is near. Then lastly, how does God respond? If we're in this trouble and we begin to call on him and trust him, how does he respond? Well, we've already talked about verse four, you pull me out of the net. We're in it, we confess it, but it's not just God is saying, but I'll be with you there always. He's saying, no, there are times where I pull you out of that. There are situations where I remove you from that dilemma that you're in. The second thing he says is also found as we've read already in verse 19 about the abundant goodness. The second part of that verse says, which you have stored up for those who fear. So number one, he takes you out of the net. Number two, he stores up abundant goodness for you. So when you're in the middle of that sense of sighing and living in the sense of sorrow, you can realize that while you're in that, God is storing up goodness out of his treasure. You may not be experiencing it right now in your emotions, but it's like a savings account that while you are not spending the joy that you might feel like you want to have, while you're not spending that sense of the abundance of God's goodness, while that's not happening, God is raising up an account for you. It's like if you've ever seen the Dave Ramsey course about financial stewardship and getting on a budget. And he talks about this constantly about being willing to sacrifice right now so that you can have something for later. And then sometimes God has us in a wilderness because he's getting ready to move us into the land of milk and honey. Sometimes he has us in the valley because he's getting ready to move us to a mountain. And here we see this, that part of his abundant goodness is that he's storing up good things for us. First Corinthians 2.9 says this, no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of any man. Has he imagined the things that God has prepared? Greek can also say they're stored up for those that love him. The love we have for God is moving the heart of God towards bringing things into our life that we have not seen or heard or even imagined. God's prepared those things that are beyond what our comprehension can contain and he's storing them up for us. And he's going to show them. And most of them are revealed in heaven, but there are many, many, a plethora of them that are restored and given to us here on earth. The good news is that it's priorly prepared. It's not something that he's going to try to run around and get done at the last minute. He's, even though you're in trouble now, he's already beforehand prepared the remedy for you. Another good thing about this, what is stored up is that it never runs out. The supply is more than sufficient for the need. This may sound strange, but I would suggest to you, it's always in stock. Have you ever tried to, my wife and I tried to order a game online on Amazon and we got an email back saying it was out of stock. Small disappointment in life, but the joy of the Lord is never out of stock. The peace of Christ is never out of stock. The presence of God is never out of stock. It's available to you at all times. And I love this too. It won't go to anyone else. It's for you. That's what it says. My goodness is stored up for those of you who fear. It's the word there is you. It's stored up for you. Sometimes you think somebody else might grab it. Somebody else might buy the last one. You might go into the grocery store and feel like, oh, there's no more ice cream that my favorite brand. No, those are small things, but in the large scale, God won't let anyone else take what he's promised for you. This brings us great assurance. This can bring us back to that word trust, to call on God and to worship, even when you're not seeing it fully yet. Continuing on in verse 19, not only do we see that his goodness is stored up, but we'd also see that it has worked for those who take refuge in him. This is, I believe, is David foreseeing the work of Christ. You see, for the greatest work that God has ever done in your life is not make you feel a little bit more comfortable, whisper things into your mind that has caused you to be at peace, but a much more substantial, deep, long-lasting, unchangeable, sufficient work that Jesus did for us on the cross. What Jesus did for us, it causes us, it's the work of the blood of Jesus. It's the work that cleanses us from transgression and wrenches. It's the work that causes our sorrow to be turned into joy. It's the work that says you're no longer alone. You are now reconciled to God and to the body of Christ, the Jew and Gentile. It's the blood of Jesus. It's the cleansing work. It's the power of the cross. This is the work that Jesus has done for us. And I was studying this this week, and I just want to share this. It may be a bit of a sidebar, but it has to do with the work of Jesus on the cross. It's called the double imputation. You see, Jesus didn't just take your unrighteousness and sin away. If he did that, you would be without sin, but you'd still not be righteous, the righteousness of God in Christ. Sin alone, the absence of sin alone, is not the presence of righteousness. And the double imputation is Jesus, our sins were imputed or placed upon, or the word imputation is a word that was originally in accounting and bookkeeping. And there'd be something in the ledger on the left side saying, this is in the red. This is a debt. This is due. There's going to be wages here. There's going to be penalties if these things aren't paid. There's going to be a collection of these things one day. And Jesus had the red imputed to his column of the black. And he took the red. He took the debt upon himself. And that freed us from that debt. But that just cleared the slate. And sometimes Christians feel like, oh, the slate is clear. Now I have to try hard. Now I have to try to get righteous. No, Jesus not only took the red and put it over the black but he took the black column of merit, of complete obedience to the law of God, to complete acceptance in the eyes of his father because of his perfect obedience, sinlessness, spotlessness, completely fulfilling. You see, oftentimes we think of the cross as the only thing that sufficiently caused us to be justified and reconciled with God. But it's not only the cross, it's his righteous life. And that righteous life is now imputed onto us. The black is put into the red column and the red disappears. It's not only empty now of him imputing our sin upon him, but now he's imputing his righteousness upon us. Hallelujah, this is such good news. I have for many years rejoiced over him freeing me from my sin. But it's not been until the last decade or so that I've been able to rejoice more and more of his imputation of his righteousness, his putting in my column his righteousness. When God looks at my account, he sees the full righteousness of Christ. He sees an emptiness of any debt and he sees perfect obedience to the law. So therefore, I'm not striving to keep the law in my own strength in order to be justified with God and made right with God. I already am. And it's out of that grace and it's out of that power, it's out of living in the spirit of that thing that causes me now to want to obey, to live in obedience to the things of God and have a walk with God that is righteous in behavior and in practice as well. So these are the things that God has worked for us. The last two we want to cover today, one is found in verse 20, I believe it's verse 20, yes. In the cover of your presence you hide them. So after God does this work, he puts a cover and it says, this work I'm going to hide you and you're going to be covered by this thing. In other words, I've got you covered. You have a problem in these areas, I got it covered. I've done a work for you that is so sufficient that it covers all of these areas of your life. The scriptures talk about being under the shadow of his wings, it speaks of his presence. And the covering here is not just emotional, but it's his presence that in a very real way, he is with you. Sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don't, but our feelings have nothing to do with the reality of what Christ says. He's not, he's not submitting to our feelings. He's not saying you don't feel my presence, so I'll have to back away. When you start feeling my presence again, then I come and join you. No, he never leaves you or forsake you. He is with you, is present and you abide with one another. I abide in you and you abide in me. That abiding is not a word of emotion. It's not a word of, it's not a temporal word. It's a strong word that is the lasting presence of God to his children who have been repentant and put their faith in him. He will abide with them and cover them under the shadow of his wings. And the last one then is found in verse 23, love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful. This is what ancient writers in church history have called the perseverance of the saints. And it sounds like we're saying the saints are going to persevere, but it's God's persevering upon us that this is speaking of. It's not our work to persevere ourselves so that God will continually accept us. It is God persevering to show his acceptance, his righteousness imputed to us, that his work is finished in us. Here's some scriptures that if you have a struggle believing that God's going to keep you, that he who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it. These are some scriptures that prove that. First Corinthians 1.8 says, Jesus will sustain you to the end guiltless. Philippians 1.6, I just mentioned that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. He's going to complete the work he began in you. First Peter 1.3-5, a little bit of a longer passage, so listen carefully. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Verse four, to an inheritance that is, underline this in your Bible if you have it open, verse four of First Peter 1.4 says this, to an inheritance that is, underline this, imperishable, undefiled, unfading. Not only is it imperishable, in other words, it's not going to go away, it's not even going to fade. From God's perspective, it's an unfading inheritance. It's not based on your feelings. It's not based on your performance. It's not fading away when you're not doing as well. When you're suffering these things we talked about, being spent, being forgotten, being broken, when you're in that net, caught in those things, the exciting news is that that inheritance that is imperishable is not only imperishable, it doesn't even fade. He's keeping it at his full measure. And he says, goes on to say that, it's kept. It's kept. You are kept. That's similar to the word stored. He's kept these things stored for you in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith. You're being guarded by the power of God and the faith that he's given you for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time God is there for you. And it is good news. I hope this just frees you. I hope it makes you sense the power of the work of God in your life. I trust that it causes you to not be stuck in that wallowing in that net, to know that the work of Jesus has pulled you up. It's not something he's just going to do in the future, but he's provided all the things for us to be pulled up into a newness of life. What joy, what delight, what freeing, what rest, what ability to put a once anxious head on a pillow and find comfort and peace and sleep that is without anxiety or stress. What delight it is just to know how much Jesus has done for you. No matter what you're going through right now, that he's present to you. And I urge you once again, trust, call on, worship him. And as a result of that, this psalm not only ends with this, but it encourages us with this. Verse 24, be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. It's like a stamp upon the things we've just said. It's stamping on this. Be strong and take courage in these things that I've just told you that I can pluck you out of the net, that goodness is stored up for you and great treasures that I have worked on your behalf to cover you and to protect you and impute into you my righteousness. And now I'm going to preserve that. I'm going to keep you. If that doesn't make you want to shout, then dig once more into this scripture and say, God, quicken this to my mind and my heart and my soul, my spirit, that I might know this and that I could truly be strong in these things. And I could truly take courage in these things and truly wait on you. My prayer for you is that this remedy that God has provided you by faith will take hold of. You'll take hold of just like the woman in need, the woman bleeding for 14 years, how much sorrow had she had, how much sighing that it lasted for years. And she takes hold of the hem of the garment. I'm saying take hold of last verse here, be strong and be courageous and wait upon the Lord. So Father, I thank you that you're going to help people trust you. You're going to help people call upon you and you're going to help people worship Lord. And it's not something that happens at the remedy of these crisis we're in. It happens in the middle of it. And yet you do pull us out of these things. And then our heart has a double sense of rejoicing that you enabled us to rejoice in the battle, in the wilderness. And then you brought us out and you're able to help us rejoice when we're on the mountaintop as well. And to give you thanks and not to think we did it ourselves, that we overcame ourselves. It was entrusting you. It was looking to you and the work that you've imputed to us. We give thanks for this in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you. Grace and peace. Look forward to joining you in our next episode, Psalm 32.