Six Keys To Confidence In God

Well, tonight we're going to be going to the book of Psalms, and I appreciate Braden preaching for me last week. Did he preach Psalm 19 last week? Chapter 8?

Okay. Yeah, I might preach that again. I might just go there tonight. That's such a good chapter. But Psalm 62 is where we're going to go. And this will kind of tie into the theme that we ran into this last Sunday about worry. And I pray that that message was an encouragement to you.

We're going to be doing somewhat of a part two this Sunday with some truths that I am super excited to get into about that. So when you find your place, Psalm 62, we're going to stand and read. Stand and read Psalm 62.

It's just 12 verses long. Anybody like, anybody love this time of year around Christmas? Anybody, anybody like to go drive around looking at lights? Who's got tons of lights up in their house? Yeah, who's got more than one tree in their house up? Okay. Who's got more than two? Notice my hand's still up? Okay. My wife would have 15 up if I did not put a halt to that.

And I don't even know if I have the ability to slow it down. It just, it's Psalms 62. I'm married to a little Christmas girdle, man. She is listening to Christmas music.

If I would let her, it would be June. I mean, it's like that is Psalm 62 verse number one. It says, Truly my soul waited upon God from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved.

How long will you imagine mischief against a man? He shall be slain. All of you is a bowing wall. Shall you be and as a tottering fence, they only consult to cast him down from his Excellency.

They delight in lies. They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly, Selah. My soul wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved. In God my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times, ye people.

Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us, Selah. Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie to be laid in the balance.

They are altogether lighter than vanity. Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. God hath spoken once, twice, have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his work. Father, your word is so satisfying just to read. Lord, what a joy it is to have your word before us. I pray that not only would it be read in our ears, but it would be implanted into our hearts. Grant us wisdom. Open our eyes to behold the wondrous things from your law. I pray that you would give us instruction that we may be wise and not fools in a world of foolishness. Help us to be lights, and may you just continue to do your work for your glory in this place.

We ask it in Jesus' name, and God's people said, Man, you may be seated this evening. When you think of the word confidence, what comes to your mind and perhaps even who comes to your mind? Who would you say I have confidence in that individual and have confidence in that person or those people or that group? You know, in the world today, it seems our confidence continues to get pulled down, doesn't it? It keeps getting infected with disbelief and people we thought we could trust, break trust, people we thought we could rely on, we find out cannot be relied upon. The word confidence is something that is lacking in our world today.

It has synonyms such as trust, belief, and faith. And tonight I want to talk about our confidence in God, our confidence in the Lord. And this is such a vital area of our life because we're all going to be dealing with things that we're going to have to trust a resource that is greater than ourselves to be able to find fulfillment.

And if we don't move to that, we're going to be overwhelmed with more than we can handle. I want to look tonight at a man named David who displayed some undaunting confidence in his God. The setting here is of David when he has come to a really great time of trial, and I'm sure some of you this year, who would say this year has been a challenging year for you in some way? You found some difficulties, and that's a lot of hands tonight.

Different challenges. I think we could go across the room tonight and some would talk about perhaps family issues, maybe children, parent issues, maybe some financial issues, maybe job issues. Many would probably talk about some different health issues, some different struggles.

There's all kinds of trials, and David was somebody that I think when we go to the Psalms we find great comfort in because he's not so much different than us, is he? We find someone who talks about the challenges he goes through in a very raw and real way. Don't you appreciate authentic people? I had somebody recently tell me, I hear this all the time actually. They say, you know, one thing that's different about Lighthouse is people are very open and real.

Like they're very raw. I had somebody say this last week, you know, people are sharing testimonies at Lighthouse and they just share the reality of their life. And people tell me that, you know, the churches I grew up in, everybody was somewhat on guard. They just would not be open about any of their struggles. And I think that begins to cause people to feel somewhat hopeless in an environment where they don't feel like anybody else struggles. It's nice to read about Peter struggling in the Bible.

Anybody with me? It's nice to hear that David wasn't perfect. It's nice to know that when you get saved you're going to face some inward and outward difficulties and trials and struggles and David was not absent from this. And the backdrop of Psalm 62 is David's son Absalom and the difficulties that he was dealing with there. Absalom, his oldest son, was trying to overthrow David and take his kingdom. Absalom is spoken of as being a very handsome man, influential, well-spoken.

He had long, beautiful hair. David did many right things in life. But one thing that David fell short in was he fell short in the area of being a good father.

Many times he failed in that. He also had a glaring sin with a woman named Bathsheba. He committed adultery with her. And though God had forgiven David of the sin of adultery with Bathsheba, David faced some different trials as a result of that.

There were some big issues that came into David's life because of the sin of sexual sin really infested his home. Sexual perversity also happened as one of his sons named Amnon raped his sister Tamar. David had several wives and so Tamar's full-blood brother Absalom found out about what Amnon did to Absalom's sister who was also Amnon's basically half-sister. And so Absalom actually kills his brother Amnon. So David has multiple children and he has his oldest son who just killed his other son Amnon because Amnon raped Absalom's sister. Absalom then flees. David doesn't pursue after Absalom. David did not deal with Amnon after Amnon raped Tamar. And then he didn't deal with Absalom after Absalom killed Amnon.

He just kind of grieved it and he just kind of let it lay. And I've seen people like that where there's problems that rise up and they seem to fear confrontation. And I think earlier in David's life he probably would have dealt with that. But one thing I find with people is sometimes the older they get the less they want to deal with confrontational issues sometimes. They've already fought their battles. You see that in grandparents, right? They've already dealt with the battles of raising their kids. They don't want to battle with their grandkids.

They would just rather be a happy, kind, loving, eat all the fruity pebbles you want, eat all the donuts and candy, go back home and pay back my children that frustrated me through the years. That's kind of what happened. But sometimes that can happen. But I think it's important for every one of us to know that if you don't deal with the sins of your children, you're going to deal with those sins. They will rear themselves up.

They only grow and increase. Like if you play a passive parent, if you play a passive friend and you don't deal with people and you don't confront them about things and you don't mourn over them and come to them and confront them, those things are like infections that increase and they get bigger and bigger. It's really one of the most unenjoyable things I do as a pastor, which is really every week of my life. Preaching is the fun part.

This is like the icing on the cake for me. The difficulty is constantly confronting issues, dealing with people, confronting sin, going to people, counseling, working through difficulties, navigating all that stuff. We may have 600 to 700 people show up on Sunday, but I can tell you we ministered over 1,000 people in this church.

And there's a lot that goes on with that. And people say, why is there unity at Lighthouse? Because when you deal with sin, you keep unity going. But churches that end up falling apart or have divisions and all that strife and schisms that happen, it's when sin is not dealt with. When it's swept under the rugs, when it's ignored, it's exactly what happened to David's family. It was torn apart because he did not confront the sin. It's not enjoyable to confront it, but the fruit is always good.

And I'm always blessed and satisfied with that fruit and just to see how things can turn out and I praise God for that. And so Absalom, to kind of speed up a little bit, he begins to plot against his own father. He begins to win the hearts of the people. What he would do is sit in the town and when people would say there was a problem, Absalom would say, oh, if I was the king, if I was king, I would take care of this.

I would not let this. And he began to win the hearts of the people. 2 Samuel 15 says, so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Finally, Absalom gained enough of a following that he led a revolt and ran David and his followers out of the city. Absalom then goes and sleeps with David's concubines, disgraces his father. Many who verbally honored David turned on David in this rebellion.

David saw many people who would have honored him with their lips, but ended up rebelling against him. Ultimately, Absalom went out with his army to fight against David in the wilderness. But David and the men that were with him were warriors of old. These were aged warriors and they were proven in battle. They defeated Absalom. David had warned his generals and army officers saying, do not kill Absalom, deal graciously with the young man.

But Joab, who was the commander of David's army, did not. He ended up intentionally killing Absalom. And when David hears of it, he mourns. It's one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the Bible. 2 Samuel 18 verse 33 says, and the king was much moved and went up to the chamber over to the gate and wept and as he went, thus he said, oh my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom. Would God I had died for thee, oh Absalom, my son, my son.

And he's so broken. So you just need to understand when you read Psalm 62, it is from this season of life where David had gone through intense trials of afflictions. He lost a son by another son who murdered him. Now one of his sons sought to remove him from the throne and he had to fight against him and that son ends up dying in battle.

Heartache, mistrust, people who turned against him. All of this goes on, but then God ultimately restores David to the throne. And David pens Psalm 62, which I've entitled keys or six keys to having confidence in God. And so tonight I'm going to look at David and I think there's some valuable truths that we can reap from this chapter tonight.

And the first one we find is in verse number one. It says, truly my soul waiteth upon God, from him cometh my salvation. And the first key that I find in David's life and having confidence in God is you have to have a confidence to wait. Does anybody in here like the word wait? Are we a waiting type of people?

We like, is there anything that could slow me down a little bit? Because I want to learn to wait more. I like waiting. When you go to the restaurant, what do they tell you? How long of a wait is there? And if it's more than 20 minutes, who leaves the restaurant?

Raise your hand. If it's more than 30 minutes, okay? Anymore they're like, hey, we'll buzz you on your cell phone so you know what happens. Your wife's like, hey, let's go to the store over there, you know, and you're like, okay. But we don't like to wait around very often and wait here speaks about literally waiting in silence. It's the idea of waiting when you don't have a clear answer. The word waiteth there is carrying that idea. It is one thing to wait when you've been told the specifics.

It's another thing to wait when you don't know what's going to happen or what you're going to do. Waiting in silence, friends, is literally waiting in faith. And faith is the ability to trust God when you do not hear God. Waiting is trusting. It is believing that God is good.

He will not leave us nor forsake us. That God will allow all things to work together for good to them that love Him. Even if it doesn't make sense to me, it doesn't fit into my schedule, David had many successes and victories in life because David was one who had learned to wait. Psalms 25 verse 5, David said, On thee do I wait all the day. Psalm 27, 13, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Psalm 40 verse 1, I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined unto me and heard my cry. There is a faith and a trust that is required for people to wait. And because we don't wait, we always get ourselves into more trouble. We try to fix things ourselves because we can't wait.

We don't feel like, sometimes we feel like it's in our hands anyway. We don't have the faith to trust God to work out these things. Now why does David wait on God? Because in verse number 1 he says, From Him cometh my salvation. The soul of David had been greatly grieved by the betrayal of many of those he thought he could trust in.

And that's a hard thing when people you thought were close to you, your friends, they begin to turn on you. I mean this is difficult for David, it's difficult for us. And at this point he realizes that salvation and deliverance doesn't come from his ability but rather it comes from God. From God comes his salvation and deliverance is what he says here. How often we lose peace in life because we think peace will only come when the people and the situations and circumstances get straightened out.

If all that stuff gets rectified and figured out and balanced then my life will have peace. But David doesn't do that. He sees God as being the one who grants those things.

People often have strains in their lives that get increased because they are the ones trying to figure it out. He says in verse number 2, He only is my rock in salvation. I love that phrase, He only. I think Christians we need to learn the phrase He only. David waits because God only.

David could sit in silence because God only. How many messes we would save our life from if we had a He only life. How often we give God a time limit even if that and then we do not think he will pull it off. We so often pray and do instead of waiting. You know in waiting God is working. And I think it's important to know that prayer accomplishes more than you and I can do.

Have we understood that? I think if we believe that prayer accomplishes more than what we can do ourselves physically we would spend more time praying. David was convinced of this. He says in verse 5, My soul wait thou only upon God. Verse 6, He only is my rock.

Over and over it's He only. I think about Christ in the garden. I just remember reading that and studying that and it just dawned on me that you know Christ plan A, plan B, and plan C was going to God in prayer. Going to God in prayer and going to God in prayer saying the same thing only praying over and over and over. There was nothing else he would do. If you came to Jesus and said, Jesus why do you keep praying the same things to God here in the garden? Why are you weeping before him? Because he only, he only and he only. Jesus exemplified a he only type of life.

And let me ask you, do you have a he only type of faith? How often we try to figure things out I think is just such a wrong way. If we have two problems we're working on instead of waiting on the Lord saying, God let me give this a few hours. Let me give this maybe a couple days and really pray about it and see what you can do. Let me see if you can turn that person's heart, my child's heart, my spouse's heart.

Let me see if you can work through this. Instead we get our voice in there, we get our actions in there, we get our attitude in there and we try to fix the problem. We try to change the situation and all the time God says that problem, that trial was not brought in your life so that you could be beat down.

It was so that you could be lifted up. I'm trying to grow your patience Josh or whoever else. I'm trying to teach you to wait upon the Lord. I'm trying to show you your lack of patience.

I'm trying to teach you to wait and have a he only type of faith. But instead we grab the reins and we take, we can effectively take two problems and turn them into four. It's like, man, my life just got a whole lot more difficult. Yeah, because it takes hard work to get into a mess. And then I took four problems and turned them into eight. So how are we going to just keep wrestling with it, wrestling with it?

You ever go fishing? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. You throw it out there and it turns into a big tangled up mess. And after a while you're just like, I think I'm making it worse.

And you begin to pull and you find out you just tied more knots in there and it's getting worse. And boy, that can be very frustrating. Now a he only faith doesn't mean we're lazy and inactive. It may mean we are very active, humbly serving God and laboring in those fields. But we know that any fruit that comes in our job, marriage, children, finances will only come if God produces it. Do you know anything that you produce in your spouse and in your children that is man-made will turn into corrupt fruit? Well, my children were real good when they were at home.

My children were real, well, yeah, because they lived under your thumb in absolute control. You had their obedience but you never had their heart. You know who gets a hold of their heart?

It's the Lord Jesus. You know, my wife was really, yeah, but my husband, yeah, that's called manipulation. And sometimes you can get them to do things or they can bow down, but it's the Lord that changes the heart. And if you understood that, you would spend more time waiting upon the Lord, not speaking to other people or to your spouse, but instead speaking to God and mourning to God and saying, God, here is this thing.

I know that if I touch it, I'll only make it worse. I need you to step in. I need you to come and be God in this situation.

I need your hand upon this situation. But instead we grab it and we wrangle it around and we just turn that thing into a mess. And God says, how much pain are you going to have to go through until you learn a he only type of faith and a waiting upon the Lord situation here? Because there is a point where you just stop and you say, I've just broken the whole thing. I've just made this a wreck.

Anybody else have done this in their life? OK, yeah. Myself and you included, right? David was not inactive in slaying Goliath, but David's faith wasn't in his sling and stone. And first Samuel 17, 45, it says, Then David said to the Philistine, thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield. But I come to you with a sling and a stone. Is that what he says? Some of you guys are like, what did you see it?

You guys reading along? OK, he didn't say I came with a sling and a stone rather, he says, I came to the name of the Lord of Hosts. The God of the armies of Israel, whom thou has defied this day, the Lord, this day with the Lord, deliver thee into my hand. You see, he only type of face shows up in these battles and God delivered him. And he's like, I'm going to chop your head off to, you know, any I mean, he goes down.

It's just so awesome. Verse two, it says, He is my defense. Talking about being a strong tower in David's life, I shall not be greatly moved.

The word move there also carries the idea of being shaken. The picture of one is one of stability, a high tower of strength, security, looking at God as your defense. God is my defense means we don't take vengeance into our own hands. David had many who stabbed him in the back, many adversaries who rose up against him. But David was not a vengeful person. One thing you don't find in David's life is a vengeful person. He surrendered vengeance into God's hands when David and those loyal to him were fleeing from Absalom. There was a man named, in King Saul's descendants named Shimei who came out and began to curse David.

In 2 Samuel 16, 7 it says, Thus saith Shimei, when he cursed, Come out, come out thou bloody man and thou man of Belial. So David's at like the lowest point in his life. His son's overthrowing the kingdom against David, doing all these things. And Shimei kicks David verbally while David's down. Which is not smart because David had guys like, he had some mighty men around him like Abishai who was a warrior. This guy had killed like over a thousand people.

He's one of the top, I think he was number three in David's mighty men. Look how Abishai responds. I mean these are warriors. Shimei's a crazy person. Verse number nine says, Then said Abishai the sons of Zeruah unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head. I mean he literally was going to go over and chop his head off. And he would have done it if David said do it.

Shimei's head would have rolled. And look what happens. And the king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruah?

So let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. Wow. That is someone who understood sovereignty.

That's incredible to me. The Lord, you know I've asked people this multiple times. That's somebody the other day who came to me with a great stress in their life. Somebody in their life that is producing a lot of anxiety.

A lot of frustration. It's not somebody who goes to church here. But it's an unbeliever of somebody who's in their city near them.

Causing a lot of pressure, a very sinful person. And I said, what if God sent them to test you? I said, you're looking at this like they're the ones doing this to you. But what if God sent them?

And they had not thought about that. Yeah, because God sends people like Shimei to come and curse at you. Well, God's putting curse words. No, God's not putting curse words, but God's turning them up to go. Didn't Paul deal with this? Paul said, there's a messenger of Satan buffeting me.

Let me ask you a question. How would you deal with your boss, your coworker, your neighbor, your whatever situation, that person, if you knew God was authoring the trial? God was turning that heat up specifically in your life.

What would you do? Well, look what David did. He said, the Lord sent him and said, who then shall say, wherefore hast thou done this? And David said to Abishai and to all servants, behold, my son, which came forth of my bow seeks my life.

How much more than this Benjamite do? Let him alone, let him curse for the Lord has bidden him. It may be the Lord will look upon my affliction that the Lord will requite me good for the cursing this day. Look what he does. He turns it all over to God.

He wasn't inactive. He just didn't take those things and try to control them. So what happens, David, when you have your man go over and chop his head off? What happens, David, when you keep taking control of these situations?

David got the throne back, not by his own power, but by God's grace. Question, are you the kind of person that seeks retaliation? What do the responses of your life to those who offend you say about your heart in waiting on the Lord? Romans 12 19 says, dearly beloved, avenge not yourself, rather give place unto wrath for its written vengeance is mine.

I will repay, say the Lord. And so he says, David says in verse two, I shall not be greatly moved. It's because you trust in the Lord doesn't mean trials don't come. It just means you won't be greatly moved.

You may be moved, but you won't be greatly moved. Psalms 37 23 says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. And he delights in his way that though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him with his right hand. It's the exact same thing in second Corinthians four eight when it says we are trouble in every side, yet not perplexed, not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed. David's confidence in waiting on God gave him courage against his enemies. Look at verse number three.

How long will you imagine mischief against a man? He ye shall be slain. All of you is a bowing wall. Shall you be and as a tottering fence, the only they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. They delight in lies.

They bless with their mouth. They curse inwardly sale it. So he says, How long will you imagine mischief against a man? The word mischief here is a word that speaks of rushing upon falling upon attacking a man. It is a violent opposition against someone. David is asking, How long will you attack me?

Come against me in violent opposition. David's faith in God causes him to let his enemies know they will not win. He says ye shall be slain.

All of you is a bowing wall. Shall you be in a tottering fence in verse two? He talks about how he will be stable, but his enemies here in verse number three will not be.

In verse four, David sees that they have consulted against him to cast him down from his excellency or his position as king. But he saw them delighting in their lies. He sees how they bless with their mouth, and they curse inwardly. And that's reflective of Christ. Jesus said, You honor me with your lips, but your heart's far from me.

He would point that out over and over to people. And so how does David respond to all these things? David here isn't found arguing with his enemies or trying to tell God what to do. Rather, he confidently trusts in the Lord that God will be the one who brings victory, that his enemies will not triumph over him. And then a second truth we learn here is in verse five through seven, we see David having a repeated confidence. Look what he reiterates in verse five. He says, My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. In verse six and seven, David repeats to his heart all that he had declared in verse one and two and even expounds upon it.

David's confidence in God needed repeating. Anybody ever find that you do good one day and you thought you gave that thing over to the Lord the next day it's like in your lap again? You're like, I prayed about that, but then the next day, guess what?

You need to pray about it again. You turn it over to the Lord yesterday, today you need to turn it over again. And what we declare on Sunday and commit to God needs to be reminded of in our hearts on Monday.

Just because you make a commitment doesn't mean you don't need to make a recommitment. Charles Spurgeon said, When we have already practiced a virtue, it is yet needful that we bind ourselves to continuance in it. The soul is apt to be dragged away from its anchorage, or is readily tempted to add a second confidence to the one soul and share ground of reliance. We must, therefore, stir ourselves up to maintain the holy position which we were at first able to assume. Sometimes we pray and are trusting God in the morning waiting on the Lord, but we need reminded later in the day to wait on the Lord.

So often a plan B comes along and a God-only faith is replaced because we don't remind ourselves of what we had committed to, how often we don't need new information, we just need to be reminded of the old information. And I like David, what he does here in verse 5, he talks to himself, My soul, my soul, he is telling his soul to stop, like, wait thou upon God. And I think he needed to do this because I'm sure anxiety, fretting, nervousness, all the things that we deal with in life, I think his soul was pressured and he had to speak to himself. Psalm 42 5, you know, sometimes people deal with depression. The Bible uses the word cast down, a cast down soul. Has anybody here ever dealt with depression before, just feeling really down?

And you're not quite sure why. If you can identify why it's not really depression because you're usually, you know, people are like, you know, I feel so down, well, what do you feel down for because my, you know, my time of the year, I remember my mother passed away here or my, you know, they, well, that's actually called mourning. That's, it's not depression, it's mourning, that's a biblical term for that.

You're, you know, there's a time to weep and a time to mourn, isn't there? But the Bible also talks about a cast down soul. And what you find in Psalm 42 is David talking to his soul, questioning his soul's attitude. He says, why art thou, Psalm 42 5, cast down, O my soul, and why are thou disquieted in me? You ever lay awake at night and you're just down and your soul is disquieted in you? He says, hope thou in God. You know, hope is what gets people out of oftentime depression.

They, because they typically go in a four-step cycle. It goes from being disappointed to discouraged to despair and then to destruction. You know, they, somebody lets them down, they get disappointed. You repeat that long enough, you get discouraged, which is, I don't have time to go into the details of that, but you get to a weightier place of just really having a discouraged heart about things. And then if you just continually get discouraged, you go into despair. That's where it's dark, you don't feel like you'll ever get out, you're in a hole. And then that turns into destruction, which for, a lot of times girls hurt their own bodies, guys will hurt somebody else, and it could even lead to ultimate death. But this cast down soul, it needs some hope, it needs to see that, hey, there's a way out of this.

That's why people like hearing testimonies. They're like, man, that person was in the situation I was in and they got out? You mean there's a way of escape? You mean there is hope? Yes, hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. Psalm 40 to 11, he goes on, why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?

Hope thou in God. He repeats it again. You ever had somebody say this, you tell them, you know, here's something the Bible teaches, oh, I've done that before.

Really? Well, then do it again. Do it a hundred times in a row.

What do you think, you figured it out because you did it once and you go right back into your mess? Do it again and again and again and again and again and again. Just do it over and over. I know in scripture memorization, that's what I've done in my life. People say, oh, you know, I can't memorize scripture.

Well, you read it a hundred times, you will. There are chapters of the Bible that I chose to memorize, so I prayed them every single morning for months. I would pray it until I memorize it, then it stuck.

I've read some chapters in the Bible, I bet well over a hundred, maybe 200 times just repetitiously. And the reason I could recite those portions of scripture is because I've just read it enough. You don't have to be that smart. You don't have to be good at memorization. You just have to be good at discipline.

That's all it is. You just do it over and over and over again. Turn the TV off and just read it up. Carry verses in your pocket, you pull them out and you read it over and over again. Fall in love with the scriptures. You know, one place I love reading the Bible in my heart and mind is when I'm exercising.

I like to get up in the morning around 4.30, work out from 5 to 6 and then get my day going. But for that hour, I listen to scriptures and I can listen through like 20-some chapters. Then I'll read after that, but I just fill my mind up with scriptures and it's just so relaxing to me.

It's just, ah. Then I'll listen to them again and I'm like, yeah. It just flows in my heart and it's so, I need it. Fill your heart up with the word of God. You've got a 20-minute drive to work, listen to the Bible. I mean, we have these phones that you, why listen to stressful things?

People deal with stress, turn the news off. We'll all miss it. No, you won't. You'll feel so much better. You want your soul to be cast down, listen to the news. You want it picked up, listen to the word.

Heaven's news is better than Earth's. I would challenge you, do it for a week. Do it for a week.

Say your drive to work is 20, 30 minutes. Why just like to listen to 700 W-O-W? Nothing wrong? Well, sometimes there is, but nothing wrong with listening to news stations. Nothing wrong with some of that stuff, but there's some things that are okay. Some things are just better.

Choose what's better. Thirdly, there's a continual confidence. Look at verse 8. He says, trust in him at what?

Okay, we'll try that one more. Okay, you guys are picking it up, yeah. In all times, yeah, in all times. It can be easy to trust God when the sun's shining. What's the gentle breeze? What happens when the storms come and you're being thrown around? You know, faith is not evidenced in sunshine.

It's evidenced in furnaces. What pours out when your life gets pushed over? David declares here of the believer's confidence, it needs to be continual. Trust in him at all times. Trust God when your health's good and when your health's bad. Trust God when your family's good and when it's not going well. Trust God when the account's full and when it's empty. Trust God when you can see him at work and when you can't hear him. Do you have an at all times kind of trust in God?

Does your trust waver like it's riding upon a wave? Do you have a faith built on positive circumstances, or is it built on the greatness of God? The key to having continual trust in the Lord is found in verse 8. He says this, pour out your soul, pour out your heart before him. God is our refuge. God is a refuge for us.

Selah. When faith is struggling, don't hold in those struggles in your heart. You need to learn to pour them out on Facebook. Pour them out on whatever other social media places that you can go.

No, that's not what it says. He says pour it out before who? Why would I pour it out before those who cannot help? God knows what is weighing us down and he wants us to know it.

You know oftentimes God puts weight on us to teach us to come to him. Three days with no water in the wilderness, does God know? He's like, oh, I better get some water for them. They could die. He's trying to teach them to come to him. Not in doubt, but in faith. He does it on purpose repeatedly.

Goes out a week with no food, another three days with no water. I mean, he just keeps repeating this, trying to teach them some things. He takes the disciples in John 6 and he says, hey, there's a large crowd of people here, 5,000 men plus women and children, 15 to 25,000.

What are we going to feed these guys? And he says he said that knowing what he was going to do, that's what the Bible says, he knew what he was going to do, but he asked them anyway. Why did he ask them if he knew what he was already going to do?

What do you think? Why would he ask them? If he already knows what he's going to do, why waste the breath to ask them? Because he wants to see where their faith is. Let me see what your response will be because omnipotence has already figured this, already has the power, omniscience already figured it out.

It's about to be put on display. I just want to see how your response to, how far out can your faith reach? You know, well, you know, we only have a few amount of resources here. Well, there's five loaves and two fishes. Well, his faith went a little further than yours. And so he's testing them, he's challenging them, and I think God does this to us. I think about Hannah. We don't have time to read through there tonight, but 1 Samuel 1, I would encourage you to read that this week. And in 1 Samuel 1, you know what Hannah does? When she could not have a child, she mourns before God. She weeps before God. And the Bible says this, she pours her soul out before the Lord. And she got up and she wasn't crying anymore. She was at peace. She turned it all over to God. And she went home with peace and God gave her the answer.

She got a child named Samuel. We need to learn to pour out our soul to God. Number four, we have a lack of confidence in man here in verse 9 through 10. This is another key to having confidence in God. Have a lack of confidence in man, verse 9. Surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie. To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

It's just great. Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. David's confidence in God caused him to see the foolishness of putting his confidence in man. David sees man's social position, their pedigree, and concludes that it means nothing. It says the word vanity means like without any weight, no heaviness to it. It's like why you take God's name in vain, it means saying his name with no weight to it. So when he weighs man in the balance with God, he says man doesn't weigh anything. They have no substance to them.

They have no, they have nothing. People can sometimes get in a pinch and instead of trusting in God, they devise some sinful, foolish method to gain money, resources they need. He says in verse 10, trust not in oppression.

Don't get into being a robber. Verse 10, he goes on to say if riches increase, don't set your heart upon them. Didn't our founders try to teach us that? They wrote on the bills of our country and God we trust and how frail that is in our country. A couple of last points, we see number five, a confidence in God's power, verse 11. It's a great verse. He says God has spoken once, twice, have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. God has the power. David is saying he has heard this over and over in his life and then he saw it displayed in nature in Psalm 8, verse 3 and 4.

If you've never read that, there's a good chapter. I said that as a joke because we thought on Psalm 8 last week or I didn't. Anyway, Psalm 8, verse 3 says when I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, that is just so unbelievable to me. Stuff like that makes me stop and I just, because in my mind I see what Hubble sent back in the telescope and the images of insane glory and it's just the work of his fingers.

He literally holds the cosmos like a marble in its pocket and that's making the cosmos too big. He says the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that thou visitest him? He knew it as a shepherd boy killing a lion and lamb. He knew it as a young man killing Goliath. David knew it as a king as he defeated his enemies. Do you realize tonight that power belongs to the Lord?

I praise God for that, amen, that it's not us, it's not people. Power doesn't belong to Biden or Congress or previous presidents or coming presidents. God doesn't simply have power, God is the power. He is the power. All of it comes from him. I mean, he is the massive generator doing it all. If God has all power, I don't need a plan B, I just need an only God faith, right?

And then number six and we'll be done. We see him having confidence not only in God's power in verse 11 but confidence in God's mercy in verse 12. He says, also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy. You know, it's one thing to consider God's power.

That almost just causes you to stay on your knees in shuttering fear. But then you get to verse 12 and you find out that the one who has all the power is a merciful God. Wow, for thou render'st every man according to his work.

Well, that makes me want to live. I think in some ways have confidence in God like a Calvinist but have works in your life like an Arminianist. Maybe those terms don't work for you, maybe I'll say it a different way. Believe that God is a sovereign worker and trust him for the outcome but work like it would even depend upon you. Labor faithfully, be humble, be trusting. God's going to work it out but you don't sit lazy, you labor forward.

He says, he will render every man according to his work. So how many Christians do not have confidence in the mercy of God and his great abundance? And I didn't really realize this till probably years into the ministry here in Zinnia that some people have been just so weighed down by their past sins that they've been ineffective in the present for God.

They just can't get past their past. And I think it's often a lack of faith, a lack of truly believing God will do what he says. Sometimes people say, I just need to forgive myself. Well, you never find that in the Bible. People don't forgive themselves, that's never found. But what you do find is God's people believing him for his forgiveness. I actually don't need to forgive myself, I just need to realize God forgave me.

The prodigal son didn't come home and needed to forgive himself, the prodigal son came home and realized the father forgave him. 1 John 1-9 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Hebrews 10-17, and there are sins and iniquities we ought to remember no more. Christian, why carry what Jesus has already forgiven?

He's already nailed it to the cross. Psalm 32-5 says, I acknowledge my sin and to deem my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord and thou forgaveth the iniquity of my sin.

You never see David having to forgive himself or anything else. He just needed to know God forgave him and he says, and I worshiped him. I'm always amazed at Psalm 32-5 because you see here, I acknowledged my sin.

All these are personal pronouns, I, my sin. He takes full accountability, my iniquity, I have not hid. I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord. And then look at the last statement, and thou forgaveth the iniquity of my sin. David spends that last statement and the rest of the chapter worshiping God for the forgiveness God gave. I wonder how much worship of God gets neglected by God's people because we don't believe the first part of the verse. Instead, we're praying it again, God forgive me, God forgive me, God forgive me, God.

And we're way down and God's like, why don't you come over here and worship me for the forgiveness I gave you? Stop disbelieving me. Is that making sense? You know how liberating that is?

Some of y'all ain't getting that tonight. You're not, you don't understand what I just said. I know it because I've counseled enough in my life where people are like, oh, what did you mean by that? Well, you're going to need this truth in your life. When you sin, you need to understand that 1 John 1, 9 is true. Hebrews 10, 17 is true. Psalm 103, verse 12 is true. You need to know that Psalm 32, 5 is true. You need to know Psalm 51 is true.

You need to know that when you confess to God true and humble repentance, sincerity, and you turn away, you cast from that your life, those sins, and you turn to God, he forgives you, and then you can begin to worship him for the forgiveness that he has presently already given you. God is both just in sentencing sinners to death, and he's just in sentencing sinners to life. Tozer said this, when God justifies a sinner, everything in God is on the sinner's side. This is incredible.

I just so love this. He said all the attributes of God are on the sinner's side. It isn't that mercy is pleading for the sinner and justice is trying to beat him to death. All of God does all that God does. When God looks at a sinner and sees him there unattoned for, he won't accept the atonement.

He thinks he doesn't apply to him. Justice says he must die. But when God looks at the atoned for sinner who in faith knows he's atoned for and has accepted it, justice says he must live. The unjust sinner can no more go to heaven than the justified sinner can go to hell. Oh friends, why are we so still?

Why are we so quiet? We ought to rejoice and thank God with all our might. Justice is on the side of the returning sinner.

And now that is so rich. The same justice that condemned us as sinners that caused us to go to hell forever when you get saved is the same justice that now defends you forever. Do you truly believe God is merciful? Do you truly believe God forgives? Do you realize that God rejoices over your repentance? When is the last time you stopped basing forgiveness on your feelings but based it rather on God's word? When is the last time you acknowledged that God did forgive you and you truly worshipped him for it? Perhaps tonight you need to come and do that. Maybe tonight you just need to kneel down and say, God, I just need to worship you for what you've already forgiven me for.

Maybe you're carrying something for years, months, or many years, or decades even, and you just need to come and say, God, thank you. You have fully forgiven me for that broken relationship, that broken situation, that hurt I did to that person, that whatever it is, you can just say, God, thank you. You have fully forgiven me, and I just want to stop carrying any guilt about that and start carrying your word and worshiping for it. You can lay all that down. You don't need anyone's forgiveness but God's.

You don't. David didn't. He said, against you and you only have I sinned and done this iniquity. I need God to forgive me.

So let me ask you a question. What happens when everything is okay with God? Can you sleep good with that? You think you could? You think if God said, you know what, you're exactly where I want you to be. You think you'd sleep good on that thought?

What if the world said, I don't like you, I hate you, you've offended me, and God says, you haven't offended me. I'd love where you're at right now. You think you'd be all right with that?

I think I'd be all right with that. We get right vertical, we'll get right horizontally, but I can tell you this is our biggest need, friends. Confidence is a belief and one we can rely on, firm trust. How's your confidence in the Lord? Are you a waiting upon the Lord kind of faith, a he only type of faith? That's what we need tonight, confidence in God. Let's all stand tonight. Father, we thank you for your Word tonight.

It's a present help. Your Holy Spirit has written a perfect book. This is tremendous. Thank you for men like David who had faults like we do.

His confidence was strong. Let us walk in those kind of steps. Perhaps tonight, somebody's heart's heavy, life's going through a trial, difficulty. Bring peace, comfort, and healing. May we find our confidence in you. You are our hope. We praise you. Lord, if anyone tonight needs salvation, I pray they might come and be saved. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.