We are continuing in the Psalms, and today is a short one, Psalm 131. Psalm 131, a song of a sense of David. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore. Again, as we’ve been week after week, recently we’ve been going through the songs of a sense, and this is a song of a sense of David.
And this psalm tells us that every trip involving ascending up to God starts with our going down. It starts with our humility. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, which is on the Mount, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
He could have said blessed are the lowly. The poor in spirit means you’re down, you’re on the bottom, you’re looking up. And Jesus was never poor in spirit himself because he was sinless, and yet he was still lowly as an example to us because he became a man.
And we are to be lowly, humbled before God, because we are not only creatures and mere creatures, which Jesus was the Son of God, the eternal Son of God, and he was not a sinner, but we are sinners. Nebuchadnezzar, we studied Nebuchadnezzar on Wednesday nights, had to be humbled before he really knew God. He had seen miracles, he had seen men walk in fire and not get burned, but it wasn’t until he was humbled himself that he came to know God, and I believe we all need to be humbled in some way or another before we come to God.
Many of us, if we tell our testimony, our real coming to God came at a hard time, at a difficult time, at a lowly time. So this is my first point tonight, and this will be a short message tonight. But the first point is ascending in God’s kingdom means first descending.
It involves humility. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty, neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound with me. And this is David who wrote this psalm.
And David, if you think of most people in Scripture, he might be one who you could think of as maybe being haughty. He was the one that defeated Goliath. He was king of Israel.
He wrote all these psalms, and God used him in mighty ways, and yet here we see him humble. Here we see him with a heart that’s not haughty, and I believe this isn’t just David at the beginning of his life, but this is David probably more toward the end of his life looking back, and he’s been humble through the years. Part of his humility probably came through his own sin, but probably even earlier than that, he realized he needed God in order to do everything he would do.
He would not defeat Goliath in his own strength, but he had learned to depend upon the Lord. Note this psalm is a psalm of ascent, and we usually in our culture, and I’m thinking our culture, not our biblical culture, but our general culture in America, connect ascending to looking out for number one. We connect ascending with being aggressive, fighting, throwing our competitors down, even maybe stepping on them on our way up like the king of the mountain when we were kids, but that’s not what the Scripture teaches.
That’s not what we see in this passage. Jesus teaches us that it’s the meek, just a couple verses beyond that other one in Matthew 5. Blessed are the meek, Matthew 5, 5, for they shall inherit the earth. When we’re humble, when we’re meek, then we’re prepared for God to bless us, not only with heavenly things, the Lord and Spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the earth. For Jesus’ meekness is not weakness, and many of you probably heard this before, well, not many of you, two of you, but it’s strength under control. Humility is repeatedly recommended in Scripture.
Psalm 25, verse 9 says, The humble he guides in justice, and the humble he teaches his way. And so if we want to learn from God, if we want to know what is right and wrong, if we want to know his way, humility is the key. Proverbs 16, 19, Solomon, who was also a king, the son of David, who had this amazing wisdom, he said in Proverbs 16, 19, Better to be of humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud.
I could hold her. There’s no other sermon that I’d ever be able to do that with than tonight. You can let her walk around.
Yeah. Selena, yeah, I’m talking to you in the middle of a sermon. I’ve never really done this before, but I’m talking to you, little girl.
Okay. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud. That means if your team wins, it’s sad for you with God because it’s better to be with the humble spirit than to divide the spoil, which is almost totally against everything we think.
We always want to be winners. We always want to be on top, but God says better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly. Isaiah 29, 19 says, The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
Why do they have such joy in the Lord? Well, they don’t have joy in anything else. They have to have their joy in the Lord. James 4, 6 says, But he gives more grace.
Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. There’s not only humility is recommended, but pride is put down. And then later in that same chapter, Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.
And that’s James, who’s the brother of Jesus. And Jesus said very similar things. And I believe James got these things from his brother, half-brother, that is.
He learned these things from Christ. Here is the key to ascending in God’s kingdom, humility, which is fitting for our weakness, which is fitting for our sinfulness. We should be humble about ourselves, but confident in God, he will lift us up.
The second point is, We too often go crazy, like a screaming baby, but we must be like a successfully weaned child, truly calmed, even calmed within. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child, my soul is my soul within me.
This is about going for something for which we have a strong desire, like a babe desiring mama’s milk. And there’s typically a loud cry when we’re denied these things. And I’ve seen it not just with children, but with adults.
And I know I’m not going to tell all about myself, even though it’s my family, and only Zenora here, only three of you. But there was times, even though I might have been outwardly calm, inwardly I was pounding my fists, wanting something. And I had to learn to grow out of that.
And the Lord is the one who controls these things. Sometimes this cry is heard by all the world, definitely heard by God. In Numbers 14, 26 through 29, it says, And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against me? I have heard the complaints that the children of Israel make against me.
Say to them, As I live, says the Lord, just as you have spoken in my hearing, so I will do to you the carcasses of you who have complained against me shall fall in the wilderness, all of you who were numbered according to the entire number from 20 years old and above. The people who walked with Moses in the wilderness, those who saw the Red Sea parted, those who probably saw a lot of the miracles in Egypt, the plagues that were brought upon the Egyptians, they complained again and again. Oh, there’s no water.
Oh, there’s no food. Why did you bring us out here? And that first generation, they all died in the wilderness because they weren’t happy campers as they went through. And some of that, I think, is symbolic spiritually.
It’s the first birth that doesn’t make it. It’s the second birth. We must be born again.
We must be changed from that kind of people. And yet they all died in the wilderness, this entire group. And this is because their hearts were not right.
They weren’t right with God. Yet God hears the unrighteous, complaining, heartaching, discontent, even if we keep it hidden in our hearts, our souls, while also creating anxiety is the way of the world. That’s what the world has.
It has no solution for real pain and trouble, but God gives us inner peace. Philippians 4, 6, and 7. If the kids were here in this room, I could refer to Kung Fu Panda, inner peace, inner peace, inner peace, and they would all know what I’m talking about, at least a little, but they would not need to know what Christ gives us. And Philippians 4, 6, and 7 says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.
And part of this is understanding that God is in control. God rules. Charles and John Wesley were traveling from England to America on a boat.
They were going to minister with George Whitefield at a prison colony, and they were on a boat with a group of Moravians, and Moravians at that time were a very godly group of people. And while they were traveling, the great storm came up, and John and Charles were worried, crying for their lives, but they witnessed the Moravians who calmly prayed in the midst of the storm, and everybody made it, even with the storm. They made it safely to America, but John and Charles say that was when they were truly converted.
Even though they were going to be missionaries, even though they considered themselves ministers of the gospel, they weren’t really converted until they saw those Moravians, they saw that those men and women had that peace that passes understanding, even as you say, they would walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and this is a valley that was in water, and yet they feared no evil, and John and Charles knew they did not have that. Weaned from what? Weaned from self-sufficiency, self-will, self-seeking, weaned from worrying, from creatures and things of the world. John Jay says, not indeed as to their use, but as to any dependence upon them for happiness and portion.
When he says creatures of the world, he’s talking about everything. Our food, our drink, our wealth, our companions. Obviously, God knows we have need of things, and we have so much, but are we dependent on them to where we worry about them, and fret about not having them.
I’ve known some very godly people who fret about money. Oh, I don’t have it. Oh, I’m in trouble.
Oh, this, and that’s not the way we should be. Thirdly, this is a lesson for all God’s people. Hope in the Lord.
Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. David trusted in God. David had his heart weaned from this world, from the things of this world, from dependence on them, and he was calm in the sight of God, and he had seen, I think some of this was his experience.
He had been in the wilderness, chased by Saul, and in that danger, and yet he came out of it. And when he came out of it, he was anointed king. And he, at that time, during that time in the wilderness, there were times that he thought it was hopeless.
Times that he, you could say, he almost complained against God. God kept him from too much complaining, but he grew through that experience. And hope is always for things that we do not see, feel, or taste yet.
We hope for something that is future for us. Something that we hope for, but we don’t have. Psalm 42, 5, David again wrote that.
He says, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. There David gives us an example of speaking to his own heart, speaking to his own soul, saying, hey soul, you’re getting too wild. You’re acting like a baby.
Calm down, trust in God, you know the Lord. And we have to do that ourselves sometimes. Hoping in God means all of his providence in our life, or seeing all of his providence in our lives positively.
And this is hard to do sometimes. Corrie Ten Boom says to Betsy Ten Boom, I won’t thank God for the lice, but Betsy Ten Boom, in prison camp, thanks God for the lice. And later they find out the lice protect them so they can read the Bible and study scripture in the midst of a German prison camp.
Only because the guards weren’t allowed, or weren’t wanting to go where the lice were. First Thessalonians 5, 18 says, In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Real permanent disappointment is impossible for those who know God.
And I’ll close, this is going to be short, but I’m closing with this poem from Edith Lillian Young. Disappointment, his appointment. Change one letter, then I see that the thwarting of my purpose is God’s better choice for me.
His appointment must be blessing, though it may come in disguise for the end, from the beginning, open to his wisdom lies. Disappointment, his appointment. Whose? The Lord who loves me best, understands and knows me fully, whom my faith and love would test.
For like loving earthly parent, he rejoices when he knows that his child accepts unquestioned all that from his wisdom flows. Disappointment, his appointment. No good thing will he withhold from denials we oft gather, treasures of his love untold.
While he knows each broken purpose leads to fuller, deeper trust, and the end of all his dealings proves our God is wise and just. Disappointment, his appointment. Lord, I take it, then as such, like the clay in hands of potter, yielding wholly to thy touch, all my life’s plan is thy molding, not one single choice be mine.
Let me answer unrepining, Father, not my will, but thine. Disappointment, his appointment. Change one letter, then, dear friend, take in cheerful acquiescence all thy father’s love may send.
Soon will faith be lost in vision, then in glory thou shalt see his appointment, and that only was the right way home for thee. Well, that concludes the message for tonight. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you that you’re a God who would wean us from this world and dependence on it, and wean us from worrying and crying about things that we might not have that we desire. And Father, help us to trust in you in all circumstances, even in the difficult ones, because you are in control and you work all things together for good for us who love you.
And Father, help us to understand that and help us not only to understand it in our heads, but to know it in our hearts that as we go step by step through this world, Father, we might know that you were holding our hands and carrying us and helping us all the way through. Father, we pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
