If you would join me in your Bibles in Psalms 142. Psalm 142 is our text tonight.
When you find your place, you're invited to stand in honor of God's Word. We had a great day Sunday, had just a little under 800 people here Sunday, had a good turnout, had 120 kids up here on the stage. There's a lot of little kiddos, weren't they?
They did a great job. If you were in the early service, you can go back and watch that live stream on the late service hour and see those kids, but it was just a blessing. We had over 200 kids each night during VBS, and thank you for everyone who helped out with that. I think I sent out about 15 letters today to some new families that visited Sunday.
We had a lot of new families, and so that was a blessing. It's just a joy to see God's Word continuing to increase. Psalm 142 would probably be good if I opened my Bible so we could read that together. It's always a good idea. Yeah, we are a church that uses our Bibles.
Isn't that true? Psalm 142, seven verses here. Wonderful psalm.
I really felt led to preach through this today. David writes here, he says, I cried unto the Lord with my voice. With my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before Him. I showed before Him my trouble. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path.
In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. No man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord. I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living. Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I. Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy name.
The righteous shall compass me about, for Thou shalt deal bountifully with me. Father, we are so thankful that Your Word is our lamp. It is our light. It is our wisdom.
It has given us life. Through the Word of God, we have understanding. And we pray tonight that the Word of God would give peace and comfort and strength to Your people. I pray for anyone tonight that is going through a trial, the difficulty, a heavy season that can come in many shapes and fashions. And I pray that Your Word would be the relief. It would be the water to the dry soul and the comfort to the weary soul. Lord, I pray that we would find our peace in Christ. And if anyone tonight doesn't know You as their Lord and Savior, whether in the teens or in the kids' classes and the adult service, that they may come to know Christ as their Lord and Savior, we commit this time to You and we ask it in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen.
And then you may be seated tonight. One of the great characters of the Bible that I think we all love is David. He's such an amazing man who was used by God in very magnificent ways. He did some superhuman things. He defeated great armies. He famously slew Goliath. He draws our heart to him for many reasons, one of which is David was a humble man. He was the youngest son of a man named Jesse.
He had seven older brothers. His father had sheep. And David's job was to care for the sheep. And I don't know, has anybody here ever worked with sheep before? Who no longer works with sheep?
Yeah, everybody put their hands down. Sheep are some of those animals that can highly frustrate you. My brother was motivated, he's also a pastor, but he was motivated to get some sheep a few years ago. Sheep, he found they would eat themselves until they died, so like you had to limit how much food they got.
They would follow each other to their own demise. He had one sheep that was really rebellious and it caused so many problems and it just, it was headache after headache after headache and they actually had eaten themselves like a lot of them had eaten themselves almost to death right when he was getting ready to sell them off. And sheep are just, there was a story, I think I've shared this a few months ago, another country where some shepherds were watching their sheep and they had gone down to get some breakfast and there's a mountainside that sheep were up there grazing on, and sheep will follow other sheep and one of the sheep jumped off of a cliff like three, four hundred feet below and the next one jumped off after it and these shepherds watched their entire flock jump off of a cliff. They all, like over, like fifteen hundred or so sheep.
The first three or four hundred died, but the benefit of having that cushion, they started living. I mean, so when God calls us sheep, you getting it? So, you know, I'm a sheep as well. We're all sheep of God.
He doesn't call us like stallions, right? I mean, sheep have no homing devices. If you dropped one off a quarter mile away, they're done. They'd be like, where are we going? You know, they have no fighting and they're just, you can drop a cat off like fifteen miles away and they will find their way back home. Not saying I've done that in the last twenty years, but don't write me a letter, okay?
I'm just saying, I don't want to go into all the details. But David was a humble man and he watched these sheep. And I say that to say that not too many people would be super faithful to watch sheep because it would just not be something that would be classified as a high-level responsibility.
But for David, it was. First Samuel 16 and 11, it says, Samuel said to Jesse, Here are all thy children. He said, There remaineth yet the youngest. Behold, he keeps the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Sin and fetch him.
And he was going through all of his kids. He says, One of these boys are going to be anointed king. And he left David out there to watch the sheep while his other seven brethren are being brought before Samuel, the last great judge of Israel. And David's left out there. He ends up anointing David as king. Saul's the king at that time. David was, though, anointed by God. And David was a servant. When Samuel came over to anoint him as king, he was watching the sheep. And he also watched them faithfully while his seven older brothers came before Samuel. After he was anointed king in the Bible, what's interesting is David went back out to watch the sheep.
He did not see that below him. After King Saul had him come and play music to ease his spirit, if you remember, Saul began to be tormented by this demonic oppression. David came and they said, Hey, can you bring somebody that can play music and ease my spirit?
And they said, Yeah, we know this young man, David, he plays. So he would come and play for King Saul. And then when he went back home, it says he kept the sheep. When his father sent him to bring his brothers food during the battle against the Philistines in 1 Samuel 17, it says that he made sure that the sheep were taken care of and somebody was watching them. He was even made fun of for being so faithful watching the sheep by his brothers. He was willing to sacrifice everything and defend those sheep from a lion and a bear, put his own life on the line to defeat those two great animals to protect the sheep.
You never read of David complaining about watching sheep. David's care of the sheep reflects Christ's care of his sheep, that even though Christ is anointed as king over all, the Lord still cares for his sheep. And David was not only humble, but we are drawn to him because of his incredible love for the Lord. He was very authentic.
He was very real. And he loved the Lord. When David heard the Philistine champion Goliath, who came out and began to defy the God of the armies of Israel, when David heard that for the first time, it stirred something in him that he said, How are you allowing this guy to do this? And all the Israelites were hiding and David said, I'll kill this man. I'll cut his head off. And I mean, he just like a warrior poet, he goes out there and takes five stones in a sling and he does something that I would love to see the rerun on in heaven one day.
Can I just see what David does? But he ran down a mountain and he slew that sling and he hit Goliath in the forehead. And he took Goliath's sword and cut Goliath's own head off and held it up. And for all the ladies, they're like, ew, that's gross. And every guy is like, that is legendary.
I mean, isn't that like, get to heaven, you see Jesus, you worship the Lord, and then it's like, do you have that video of that scene, you know? This is David. I mean, I was just reading this week in 1 Chronicles, where it has David's 30 mighty men. I mean, some of these mighty men, it said they slew 300 guys in certain battles.
I mean, the guys around him were not like the, I probably shouldn't go into the Secret Service discussion at this point, but they were like 30 mighty men that could just wipe guys out. Do you remember when Absalom was like trying to kill David and David like left the palace? And do you remember the guy, like Abishag, I think his name was, and he's like cursing David? And David had his 30 mighty men around him. And this guy's like throwing dust in the air, he's cursing David as David's like fleeing away from Absalom.
And Shimei, one of the guys, it's like his third mightiest man, and this guy has like killed giants, like he's just, you read about him in the Bible, you're like, oh, that's the guy? Like this is a guy you would not want to mess with. He's like, David, why are you letting this guy talk to you like that? He said, let me go over and cut his head off. Like who says stuff like that, right? And the only reason the guy lived was because David said don't go cut his head off, you know?
I mean, these are the kind of people around him. And David hears Goliath do this, he goes down, defeats Goliath. In such an incredible way, the Israelites, the nation of Israel come around him, he had such courage, but he had such love for the Lord. And Psalm 42, verse one and two, he says, as the heart panteth after the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, my heart thirsteth for God for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? I think about Psalm 63, O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee, my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee as for water in a dry land.
I'm like a thirsty soul just longing for thee. And David's love for God was incredibly intense, but yet with the great victories God gave him, the great courage, his great love for God, he was such a humble man who loved God and did these amazing things. But one of the things that attracted us to David is how raw and real he is. He was not a man of fluff.
He was not a man that put on a show. David was authentic. And I think sometimes we like to read the Psalms because he talks like we feel sometimes.
He lays things out. It's like, that's how I feel about that. Like that I've been there. I thank you for not putting a facade on and saying things are easy and wonderful and it's always, you know, blue skies and sun and 75 degree weather all the time. He had incredible victories, but he also had great defeats. He had great mountain tops and he had big valleys that he had to walk through. And one of the great beauties of the Psalms are they are like a reservoir of wisdom, strength and solace for people who go through trials. You know, we've buried some precious souls in our church family over the last year. And that's heavy.
You know, that's a hard thing, seeing loved ones pass on and it's a joy knowing they're with the Lord, but it's a heaviness being physically separated from them. And David faced some heavy valleys in his life, some difficulties and some challenges. He faced some big giants that he did not defeat. After he killed Goliath, you would have thought that his fame would have just allowed him to become king and propelled him after that.
And it actually did cause him to be very famous after that. But the problem with that was King Saul became very jealous. And if you remember, the people began to sing, Saul has killed his thousands, but David is ten thousands.
That may sound good in lyric, but it's not good when you're not the king. And when they're describing to you ten thousand and only saw a thousand, and Saul got upset and he actually tried to kill it. And what's interesting is David begins to flee for his life from Saul and he has to live in caves and in mountainsides for a long period of time. Years later, when Saul died and David ascended to the throne, he saw great victories, but he also found defeat when he sinned with Bathsheba. And he opened up a floodgate of consequences that affected him throughout his life. He faced health issues, personal, physical health issues.
He faced family problems, and his health issues were so bad he said people don't even want to come around him at times. His son also raped one of his daughters, and then later his older son Absalom killed that brother, whose name was Amnon, for sleeping with his sister, raping his sister. Because of his adulterous sin with Bathsheba, his family was torn up. He had to live with great consequences of sin. And then finally, at the end of his life, his son Absalom tried to kill him and he was so grieved, not because Absalom wanted to kill him, but because Absalom ends up dying by David's armies. Now Joab ends up killing Absalom, and it just so grieved David.
He said, I would have died for my son. And he just writes with a heavy heart. And when we read Psalm 142, I just want you to know this is a heavy season in the life of David. He wrote Psalm 32 and 51, if you ever read those two Psalms, in regards to God's conviction and bringing him to repentance for his sin with Bathsheba. But then he wrote eight Psalms during times where he fled from Saul, and he's literally hiding in a cave for his life.
He writes Psalms chapter 7, Psalms 34, 52, 54, 56, 57, 59, and here 142, while he's fleeing for his life, living in a cave. And when we go through valleys in life, David is like a companion that has blazed the trail before us and we're able to feel his suffering and trials. And we feel like we can be in a companion with him and he can help us in those journeys.
And maybe you're here tonight and you're dealing with him one of those seasons. And I pray tonight that the Word of God would be a place of solace for you and a place of refuge. I've entitled this sermon tonight, When God Is All You Have. And I do want you to know that there will be a time in your life when you'll feel that God is all you have.
When you'll feel alone, when you'll feel like there's no one else you can really turn to and there can be a season like that. And you may not feel like you need this sermon tonight, but I can tell you this is a sermon you will need in life. And so the Lord, when God is all you have, the first thing we see here in verse one and two is the Lord hears our prayers. Psalm 142 verse one and two, it says, I cried unto the Lord with my voice, with my voice unto the Lord. Did I make my supplication? I poured out my complaint before him.
I showed before him my trouble. That phrase, I cried unto the Lord, is a crushed soul crying out. This is not a half-hearted appeal to God. This is a loud, fervent plea.
It's a desperate cry. And it's directed to, notice it's capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. When you see that, that differentiates the Hebrew word Yahweh from the Hebrew word Adonai. Lord is capitalized sometimes, other times it's just capital L, lowercase O-R-D, that's Adonai. The covenant name of God is Yahweh. Even new translations today like the Legacy Standard Version translates all of it as Yahweh in the Old Testament, but you can understand that that's what's being said here by the capital L-O-R-D. But that is the name of God who He is the I Am. He is the eternal self-existing one.
That's the idea of Yahweh, the self-existing one, the all-sufficient God. I cried unto Yahweh with my voice. He said I poured out my complaint before Him.
The word I poured out means to spill forth. This is the same kind of phraseology you would use to bring a drink offering and pour that out before God. He's saying I'm pouring out this complaint before God. And the word complaint doesn't mean He's complaining to God, rather it means His meditation, what has preoccupied His mind, what has filled His thoughts. He's pouring those things out to the Lord. What we often do is when we get filled up with strain, anxiety, and pressures is instead of pouring them out to God, we pour them out to other people. And we do need to bear one another's burdens. That's part of the Christian life. But the way we help bear each other's burdens is to say, you know, thank you for sharing that with me, now let's take that to the Lord.
Right? Bring them to God. Don't be an obstacle for them to get to God. What can happen is if you're a listening ear to somebody who's always sharing their burden and if you never bring them in prayer to the Lord, you may be actually keeping them from going to the Lord because you become God instead of the God they are turning to.
Does that make sense? So instead of them going to the Lord, they keep going to you and you need to train them, no, you need to, let's bring this to the Lord and now what I want you to do is I want you to reach out to me but I want you to spend a few minutes in prayer about this before we talk just because I want you to know that how important it is for you to take this to the Lord and how much more He can give you comfort than what I can. So that's an important reality you have to understand now.
It's important for us as Christians to learn to take our anxieties and the things that overwhelm us to the Lord and verbally speak them to God in prayer. You need to verbalize that. You need to get that out. You know, when I do funerals and services for folks, I will tell the family, I'll say, listen, I want you to write a letter to your loved one. I want you to get alone when nobody's around and I want you to sit down and write that letter and I said you need to get off your heart. It's so healthy to be able to express like who is that loved one to you and share that and, you know, sometimes I'll read those and I said if you want me to read it, I can.
If you want to read it, you can, but you could even put that inside of their casket with them. But that's, you need to get that stuff out. You need to be able to share and express that. I can tell you it is damaging when we hold stuff in. Anybody have a problem with holding stuff in sometimes? I've done that in life.
I think I, instead of always expressing, sometimes I'll just kind of hold it in. It's not a big deal. But then when you begin to hold that stuff in, it begins to cause problems, does it? Like, yeah, it's not that big a deal. I'm not gonna worry about it.
And then it kind of grows. Am I telling anybody else this morning, confession's good for the soul, right? There's usually a spouse that like wants to talk about everything. They're like, let's just talk about it. Let's talk about it. They just flow like water. And the other person's like, hold up. You know, the dam's up right now.
Give me a moment to open the door. I gotta just throw all this stuff out. And so, but it's important to be able to share those things. You know, the Bible says in 1 Peter 5, 7, cast all your care upon him for he cared for you. Learning to take your burdens to the Lord. And again, I think about Galatians 6, 2, which says, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. It is a blessing to have a Christian friend in your life that can let you share their burdens without them pounding you with judgment.
Right? When you're going through a season and you're just needing to bear your heart to them, where they're not interrupting you every five words or 10 words, but they're looking you in the eyes and they're listening and they're like, is there anything else? And just letting you get it out. I know in a lot of counseling situations, especially if you have somebody that's going through a difficult season with their spouse or somebody else, you don't want to interrupt that.
And let me give you some counsel as couples too, is if they're carrying something they feel it's a big enough deal to sit down and talk about and go to counseling about, they got to get all that out. And even if you're like, yeah, the detail of that wasn't actually accurate yet, you don't need to interrupt all those 15 things as they go through. Just let them pour all that out. Let them get it all out so that you know where they're coming from. If they don't get it out, you don't know where they're coming from, right? But once they get it all out, now you can respond accurately. You know, I appreciate you sharing this and now I can see why you felt that way. One thing that I feel like has maybe been miscommunicated is this.
And if I can clear that up, it's so important. But what we do is we short circuit that and we cut it off and then that frustration stays inside of them. And then they sometimes feel like, why should I ever open up because they will cut me off before I can even get it out.
And so it creates isolated people and frustrated people. I tell you, it is an unhealthy thing to hold things in. You've got to begin to learn to get that out. So he says, bear one another's burdens. That is an important thing.
Learn to look people in the eyes and listen and care and ask questions. And then he says this, I showed before him, before God, my trouble. The word trouble here means a tight place, like a narrow restricted way. And what kind of tight place was he in? Well, David was a young man at this time. He was a faithful young man who had watched sheep, who God sent Samuel to anoint him as king. God called David a man after his own heart. He kills Goliath and Saul loved him for that. But one day after a battle when the Philistines were being defeated, the people said, Saul killed his thousands, David his ten thousands. And Saul got jealous and began to try to kill David because of it. And David had to flee for his life. Now there's two areas where caves are specifically mentioned. The cave of Adullam in 1 Samuel 22 and the cave of Angedi in 1 Samuel 24. I've been to Angedi and that region right near the Dead Sea in the exact location where David would have been.
It's an incredible thing. We were looking to do an Israel trip, but everything flared up over there. But we want to take the church on a trip over there sometime. But you can go back in there and there's caves all along the way and there's like a natural spring that kind of flows out in the very back. But looking out, you can see like the Dead Sea. It's a beautiful layout, but you could see like when you read in the Bible where like Saul went into a cave and David cut off part of his, you know, it's like it would have been in like one of these locations. I mean, you can see where they would have been hiding out and running away from him.
And so David is hiding in a cave. It's a dark, damp place. There's no grocery stores there. There are no bathrooms. There's no showers. There's no police.
You can call. No hospitals. There's no health insurance.
No checking savings account. He had no cell phone. He couldn't call for help. He has no neighbors to stay with him.
He's literally fleeing for his life. And according to different commentaries and commentators, this went on for between eight to 15 years of his life. Eight to 15 years of his life. David's valley lasted that long.
And here's the amazing thing about it. David was faithful to God when he went through that. It wasn't some sin that put him in the valley.
It was actually his obedience that put him there. It's one thing when your sin causes you to go through a hard trek. It's another thing when you've been so faithful to God that it puts you on that road. Sometimes we go through valleys because of our sin, but sometimes we face valleys because of our obedience. You know, Jesus didn't face the cross because he did anything wrong. He faced the cross because of his obedience. If you follow the Lord on earth, if you are obedient to him, there will be crosses that you and I face in our life. I think about 2 Timothy 3, 12, it says all that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
Think about Paul who lived an obedient life to the Lord and he faced such persecution. 2 Corinthians 11, 24, he says of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck.
A night and a day I've been in the deep. And he goes through all this stuff that he went through, just difficulty after difficulty. And he faced all of that because he was obedient to God, not out of any disobedience. But Paul describes the hardships compared to the eternal rewards in Romans 8, 18 and he says this, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present life are not even worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. And all that he went through, which would be more than all of us combined, he says all of that is not even worth bringing up compared to what lavish glory the Father is going to bestow upon us when we are in his presence.
That's comforting, isn't it? It lets you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. It's important to understand that Psalm 142 is written by an obedient servant of the Lord who was in hiding in a cave because he was faithful to God. You know, if he didn't live for God, he wouldn't be in the cave. If he was disobedient and just kept his mouth shut and didn't kill Goliath, if he wasn't so courageous and bold for God, his life would have been a lot easier up to that point.
But it was the cave in the valleys that David went through that prepared him for the palace. That was the road God had for Joseph in the Old Testament. You know, Joseph in the Old Testament spent at least 15 years in a prison for nothing he did wrong.
Can you imagine going to prison for 15 years? And prisons in those days are unlike prisons in our days. It was his faithfulness that put him there. And yet it was from the prison that allowed him to go to the palace and be what he needed to be. And it is interesting, David's struggles interestingly wasn't staying faithful to God in the valley, his struggle was staying faithful in the palace. I truly believe that the hardest things in life sometimes to handle are not the challenges of life, but it's the blessings of God. I think when God blesses us, sometimes we struggle to handle that. David's struggle with sin was when he became king.
Bathsheba didn't happen in the cave. One of God's great mysteries, and I would call it a mysterious grace to us in life, is to allow us to have enough troubles to keep us dependent because too much ease would cause us to live independent of God. Think about your prayer life. When did you spend the most focused, intense prayer in your life?
Was it when everything was so easy or when life became bumpy? Difficulties came. God doesn't bring those in our life to hurt us, he does it because pain is better than pride. Paul said, he's given to me a messenger of Satan to buffet me, a thorn in my flesh to keep me from pride. This season of David's life became a season in which I believe he really learned to pray and lean on the Lord. This challenge also taught David wherever there is a mountain, there's also a valley. Some thoughts on that to take away, valleys come in both times of obedience and disobedience. Valleys can be both chastenings of God as well as places to grow and mold us.
Valleys prepare God's faithful servants for greater tasks he is wanting you to do in life. You know, sometimes people say, why is life so hard? But if you ask yourself, what if all the hardships of your life were removed, what kind of person would you be? What if life never handed you a callous? What could you actually do with your hands without getting hurt? We'd be so soft, right?
We would be so tender. Valleys, I was about to say, it's like the difference between a poodle and a mutt. You know, poodle can't survive anything. You've got to give it shots.
You've got to keep it in 72 degree weather all the time. If you have a poodle, don't write me a letter, seriously. But we always grow up with mutts. They're like, what kind of dog you got? I'm like, I don't know. It's just dog.
What's his name? Dog. Hey, dog, little dog, big dog. You know, it's dog. But I can tell you, my dog get hit by a car and it'd be bouncing back the next day. It's like broke your leg.
Yeah, but it's back in place. That thing was tough. Then people are like, I take their dogs to the vet every three weeks. I'm like, what is a vet?
Our dogs ate anything and everything and they lived. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Don't raise your hand if you don't, because I know where you stand. I've already got some eyes on me. I feel the pressure. But you know, when you go through life facing some challenges, you can handle more.
It's just, you know, who wants to get on a boat that never was tested, right? And if your faith cannot be tested, how can it be trusted? So in our valleys, learn to bring those to the Lord. Secondly, the Lord knows our struggles, verse three and four. Verse three and four, notice this. He says, when my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path and the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me. I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me.
Refuge failed me. No man cared for my soul. You ever felt like no one understands the trials you're going through? I mean, anybody ever felt like that?
It's like you just feel like that. And I think we probably all have at some point where we feel like our situations could be a little bit unique to our situation in life. You know, other people can go through heavier things. We understand that. And sometimes we don't feel like other people can sympathize with it. They don't understand.
And that can be true. Other people can pray for you and reach out. But from a human standpoint, sometimes people don't always know exactly what you're facing because they didn't live the life you went through.
They didn't grow up like you did. And, you know, when it is such an encouragement when you can talk to somebody who's been in in your shoes or been down the same road. You know, it's it's one thing for me to talk to somebody who's been in the military in combat and struggling with survivor's guilt. It's another thing for somebody else who's been down that road and says, man, I know exactly what you're talking about because the other guys in our platoon died. And, you know, I lived through that.
And I know it's a totally different level of of connection and comfort that they they're able to immediately have. And the word is sufficient, obviously. And I can bring truth into that.
But I've not been in physical combat on foreign soil. In those situations here in verse three, David says there is no one who knows what he is going through. He says, when my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then he says, you or thou knew my path.
The word newest here is the Hebrew word Yada. It means to know intimately. It's not intellectual knowledge. It's experiential knowledge.
It's connection knowledge. It's God's with you in that. When David is ready to give up, he looks up to God and anchors himself to the God who is with him. Like, you knew my path because you're with me on the road. You're the God who yokes up with me. You're the God who is with Hanani, Azariah, Mishael in the flames. It's very important when you're in a tight place and distressing place in life to know that someone cares. Yet for David, outside of God, he didn't see anybody else. He said in verse four, he says, no one cared for my soul. There's no one that my refuge failed me.
He's fleeing for his life and no shelter was given to him. And maybe you've been there, you know. It grieves me when I visit folks in nursing homes and hospitals, you know, went to see somebody the other week and, you know, they were, they just had suffered a stroke. And I found out, went out there that evening and they were crying because they couldn't open their phone because they had a stroke and their hand was not stable enough to open their phone up when their husband was calling.
And they kept trying to open it up with tears rolling down their face. And I just want to, I mean, that's tough. We think sometimes, what did you, did you go through today that was so frustrating?
And you know, they say getting old is not for wimps, is it? Body starts hurting in places you didn't even know you had nervous system running to, difficulties in life, physical pain. You know, when you're laying in a hospital bed, sometimes you feel like maybe is there anybody that cares for me? I'm so thankful for the nurses we have. You know, this precious lady in our church was just going on and on about how good those ladies were coming in and talking to them.
And I'm just so thankful for that. But maybe family pain, trials you've gone through, financial, emotional loss of a loved one. We must always remember we are in a valley in life when we are overwhelmed with loneliness, when our spirit feels overwhelmed, that there is a God that knows what we're going through. Often Paul found himself alone in ministry because of persecution. In 2 Timothy 4, 16, he says, that my first answer, no man stood with me, all men forsook me.
I pray it would not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. Isn't that interesting? Everybody left Paul except for the Lord. Jesus said in John 16 32, behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone. And Jesus says, yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.
So just some points there. Sometimes in life you'll feel alone like no one's there, like you're isolated in your trial. But I want you to know that there is a God who says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Realize when God is all you have, he is all you need. There will be times when God wants you to know he's all you need, just so you know he is enough and he is sufficient for you. He is Yahweh. Not only is he self-sufficient, but he can bring you sufficiency for all your needs.
We can be confident that God is working all things together for good and for his glory. And then thirdly, the last thought we have from this passage is in verse five through seven, the Lord will meet our needs. In David's isolation in the cave, he said in verse five, I cried unto the Lord and I said, thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.
You know, those alone times are blessings from God that he uses to teach us that he is our source to turn to, that we must depend upon him. In this season of life, David had lost his family. They're not with him. He's not with his wife.
He's not with his friends. Jonathan, he was isolated from everything and the only one sustaining him was God. In first Samuel, David had about 600 men who he was leading when he had fled from Saul. One day, all those men were away from their camp when their possessions were taken. Their wives and children were taken by the Amalekites. And the men were so distressed when they came back and found that an entire camp besieged by these Amalekites, all their children, all their wives taken, all their possessions taken, they had talked about killing David because of it. And listen to what David said in first Samuel 30 verse six. And David was greatly distressed. That is a under, if you could underestimate how serious he must have felt. For the people spake of stoning him because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters.
So what do you do when everybody's talking about killing you? But David encouraged himself in Yahweh, his God. He then led the men to recover all the possessions. He went off after them. He slaughtered the Amalekites.
Everything was retrieved. And David learned that when God in those moments was all he had, God was all he needed. And I'm not sure what you're going through tonight, but you need to understand tonight that when God is all you have, he is indeed all you need. God allowed David to feel the weight of having his enemies, not only against him, but those that were around him to turn against him. Psalm 142 verse six, he says, attend unto my cry for I am brought very low. Deliver me from my persecutors for they are stronger than I. Why would it be a blessing to have a situation bigger than you can handle?
Because it's in those seasons that you would have to trust God, right? And how have you responded to situations that were greater than you? What lessons did you get out of it?
What lessons did you learn from those difficulties? I would suppose that some of you are here tonight in your faith walk is where it is, is because you came through those valleys. Notice David's desire to be delivered from this place of hardship in verse seven. He says, bring my soul out of prison that I may praise thy name. The cave that he was in was not a literal prison, but he felt like it was a prison. It was like solitary confinement.
One of the hardest things in life is to be isolated, to feel all alone. That's where he was. And what's interesting, instead of just simply wanting to be delivered so that he could be at ease, he says, deliver me so that I can praise thy name. I want this to be an opportunity for me to glory in you because of the deliverance you brought to me. David also trusted in God to deliver him. He says at the last part of verse seven, the righteous shall come pass me about for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.
I want you to get this. It is very important to believe when you are in a valley, when you are praying that God will work through that for your good and his glory, that God desires to bless your life. God is not a God that's like, hey, let me make their life miserable. Jesus said in John 10, 10, I am come that they might have life and life more abundantly. When you till soil and plant seeds, you expect a harvest, don't you? And so when your life gets tilled up, just know that there is something God's doing to do a greater work in your life.
And so David said, you're going to deal bountifully with me. He had a positive outlook and often outlook can determine outcome. You ever been around a negative person? Like, man, it's just always goes bad for me. It's like, well, you always think it's gonna go bad and that's all you expect and that's all you're probably gonna get.
But you ever been around somebody that's a positive person? It's like, man, they just, things always seem to be a little up for them and they see the cup always half full, you know? And so it's like Eeyore versus Tigger, right? Going back to our childhood. So just learn to say, God, I trust you're gonna deal bountifully with me. I trust you're going to work this out for my good and your glory. I'm looking forward to how you're going to turn this for good. Lord, I don't see it now, the valley is heavy.
I don't have the perspective to see what's past this. This is a difficult time, but I know that you walk with me even through the valley of the shadow of death. And so some points to take away is that God is the one who will meet your needs. When circumstances get bigger than we can handle, it allows us the opportunity to trust God. We need to seek God's deliverance from our trial, not so life gets easier, but so that we can worship Him for what He alone has done. And we need to trust that God will bless and bring us out of our valleys and deal bountifully with our lives as we remain faithful. And so from this Psalm, friends, we learned that the Lord hears our prayers, He knows our struggles, and He will meet your needs.
I'm not sure what challenges, again, you're facing, what isolation you may feel or loneliness or hardships, but you just need to know tonight God's with you, like He's intimately with you on the road. He doesn't like know about it only. He is there with you. He's a companion. He says, cast your care on me, I care for you. He says, come and learn of me, come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.
And what a yoke was, was it was a device designed for two animals to be walking under, and it was not one animal, but two so that they would help carry the load for one another. And Jesus yokes up with us. And He says, come and cast that weight upon me.
Isaiah 26 three, I close with this verse. He says, thou will come will keep him in perfect peace. Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on the because he trusteth in thee. What tonight do you need to come and trust God for? What do you need to come tonight and say, God, you may be all I have, but you are all I need.
And to lean into Him. Maybe you've been calling somebody or sharing a burden with somebody, and I know you may be here tonight saying, did you talk to the preacher about that? I know nobody told me anything. I don't know about anything.
But just know this. Let's bring that to the Lord first. Let's let's earn to take that to God. Amen. And that means when somebody comes to you that you listen, you care, you bring it all in, you ask questions, you help get that off their heart. But then when they bring it to you, you say, let's bring that to the Lord. That's a good friend, isn't it?
