Encountering God // How do I respond to Troubles // Pastor Josh Evans

And I tell you, I love that song. I love all the music that we sung today. And I tell you, that's a little glimpse of what heaven's going to be like. And so if you don't like to sing, you don't like to sing your praises to our Father, our Creator of all.

Listen, you better get used to it because we're going to be singing His songs for eternity one day. And I'm looking forward to that day. Well, if you have your Bible, go to Psalm chapter number 25. I did want to say, man, there's a lot of good things happening in our church right now. And I know the ladies, Abby was talking to me a lot yesterday, just about yesterday and how well it went and how appreciative she was just of everybody that helped and had any part in that.

And ladies, I hope you had a good time yesterday. And you are valuable to us. And we appreciate you. And so I appreciate you taking the time to come.

And, and I'm telling you, you can plan a lot of cool events, but you cannot control the weather. And I'm grateful that you were able to show up even though it was a little bit of a rainy, rainy morning. And I know Pastor Bailey mentioned this earlier, it is good to have Lisa Messer with us. And we are grateful to have them and they mean a lot to Abby and myself. And that was Abby's childhood, her childhood pastor's wife that she grew up with. And so they mean a whole lot to us and our family.

And most of the time, I know Pastor Messer, he told us yesterday that he has spoken here at Union Grove six times over the years. And I don't know if Lisa has been here at all. And so we get the better of the two of them this weekend. And I'm glad that she could be here.

I pray that you will pray for them. They're traveling home today. My mother-in-law was able to drive her up here. I asked Abby, is there anybody else in Jacksonville that could drive her? That's a joke.

That's a joke. And I'm getting myself in trouble right here. I might need to hit the altar if you guys can just wait for me for just a minute. And but no, we are so grateful to have her as well being up here for the ladies event that we had this weekend.

But there is a lot of good things happening. I'm so excited, like Pastor Bailey said about Starting Point next week. I think we have seven or eight families attending that wanting to learn more about the church, thinking about joining. And so if you're in our audience today, and or if you're watching online, and and you've been attending, we would love to invite you if you're interested in making Union Grove your home, we would love to get to know you tell you a little bit about our church, we could talk about our church all night long. And but we would love to invite you that's next Sunday. And we are looking forward to that. So make plans to be here if you can, or at our house for that.

And you can sign up online or in the Welcome Center. But when I say all that just to reiterate that, you know, church is more than just a building. It's a people that we get to be a part of.

It's a local assembly. That's why we say here at our church all the time that relationships matter, community matter. And it's important don't don't make church just pop in, nobody will get to know you.

And then you pop out and and nobody even knows that you're here. No, jump all in, be a part of it. And come to things you know, and be a part of that man sign up for the men's event. You say I don't know anybody.

That's the perfect way to get to know people. And so I encourage you to sign up for our men's cookout coming up here in a few weeks. And we are looking forward to that. But before we jump into the message, I did want to say another great thing. Many of you I know you look forward to my weekly emails that I try to send to you. And that's kind of a joke as well. Some of you say I send too many of them, but I'm just making sure you're paying attention.

All right. And but we did announce this this past week. And this is no real big news. I don't think anybody in here but I am super super excited to introduce they'll be here this summer we have hired a David Iverson to be our pastor to students and outreach. That's going to be what he is going to be while he is here. And David Iverson has over 20 years of youth ministry experience. And we are super excited about having them his wife, Shanna, and their kids. You know, you've kind of told me here at our church like, hey, how are you going to grow the church? I'm just going to hire people with lots of children.

Okay. And, and that's a joke, but we are super excited to have them. He is going to work primarily with our youth ministry.

And so that is your seventh through 12th grade. And that's going to be his main point of emphasis. He's going to work right there with Daniel Morgan, who's done a phenomenal job as well during this interim season. They're going to work hand in hand as we kind of seek to just reach as many students as possible, and to disciple them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus. Shanna is going to be working in our school. So we're excited to have her as well leading in our school.

And I'm just looking forward to it. David has a lot of experience there in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and doing a lot of different things. And his heartbeat is our heartbeat as a church. And he has a lot of great ideas as well. He's not only going to be doing students, he's going to be doing outreach. And that's one of the things that right when I got here, I wanted to try and put somebody over outreach because we have a great opportunity right now, with so many new developments going up around us. And we need a strategy, we need a plan to try to see what we can do to serve them, but not only just these communities, but our schools.

You know, I can say this to our church, because I think this is real. We have a Christian school here. And we have, you know, 570 students here at our Christian school.

And sometimes when you have a Christian school, you forget that there's a lot of other schools right around us that also need what Jesus has to offer. And I would love he's going to actually help us try to get into schools and partner with some of these local schools that a lot of our kids even attend and things like that. And so we are super excited to have them. You say when are they going to be moving here?

We are still trying to figure that out. But it's going to be this summer. Avery, the oldest boy in the picture there with his Florida State sweatshirt on. That's the one thing we got to change when he gets here.

Okay. He might be the only Florida State fan. This might be the only Florida State fan in our church. But Avery's graduating in May from high school. And so they are going to move sometime in June. But I mean, they've lived in Chattanooga for 20 years. And so there's a lot of things that have to be in order for them to get here. And I ask that you pray for them.

This is the big thing. So as we're rejoicing here, there's a lot of people that are heartbroken there that have grown to love them. And and so they're leaving a lot of friends behind us, their kids, they've grown up there, all of them. And that's hard.

And me and Abby kind of understand that because like we moved a couple years ago, and we understand that it is, it is a challenge. And and so they need your prayers. So I encourage you to pray for them, support them. If you get a chance to reach out to them, message them and just let them know you're praying for them.

I'm sure that they would appreciate it, but they'll be here in June. Their two youngest kids are going to camp with us at the wilds, which I'm excited about our junior camp. And then David's going to be going to Word of Life with our students. And so students, I encourage you, if you're a teenager in here and you have not registered for Word of Life Camp, get signed up. Camp is a great opportunity for you to grow and make life decisions. And so I encourage you to be a part of that. David's going to go to that. And we're looking forward to the summer.

It's going to be a great time as we transition for that. But I just wanted you to be aware of that here this morning. Well, Psalm chapter number 25, Psalm chapter number 25. And we've been in this series. I know we broke out of our series because we were talking about vision. And we were talking, you had Easter in the middle of that. So we broke out of our series entitled Encountering God, a study through the Psalms.

But we have been back in it last week, as well as this week. And I'm super excited about Psalm 25 and what God is teaching me. And one thing, especially being a young pastor, kind of new to this, speaking each and every week, one thing I love as much as anything is being able to study passages for the very first time. And that is something that I really enjoy.

And so this is a passage that I've never preached from. And so I'm excited about that. I also want to give a brief plug that if you don't do anything on Wednesday nights, I would encourage you to be a part of our Wednesday, we call it midweek here. And our midweek programming, you say what happens at midweek, we have something for the entire family, we have kids ministry happening. And that is, I mean, it's hands on, they do a lot of different things, your children are going to be learning verses, memorizing verses, doing quiet time, spending time with the Lord, learning about that, having a small group leader.

I mean, it is a great opportunity. So if you have children, I encourage you to get them there. Our teenagers, we call that the grove. And they have youth ministry where they have over 50 kids most weeks, and where they worship, they have a whole worship service for teenagers, that's seventh or 12th grade. And then the rest of us adults, all ages, by the way, we meet right here in the auditorium for Bible study, and we're studying the book of Nehemiah, we just started it last week. So I encourage you maybe pop in on a Wednesday, be a part of that. And I believe God's going to do something great. But you like I just segwayed right into that, you know, kind of promoting it and everything.

So that was pretty good. But I want you to be here and be a part of that. And and but today, I'm excited because I've never preached on Psalm chapter number 25. So we've learned about this that Psalms, it is a book of songs, they are written to be sung to as praises to our to our God. And I believe that our culture is drawn so much to this book, because many times we can relate with the different emotions that we find in the book of Psalms, right? Many of the emotions that we experience in life, the highs and lows that life throws at us, I think a lot of times we can look to the book of Psalms, and we can find exactly what our soul needs and what our soul is looking for. Each Psalm speaks directly to some of the most practical questions that we face in the Christian life.

We've looked at many of those questions. And today, the question that Psalm chapter number 25 is going to look at is this, how do we respond to trouble that comes into our lives? How do we respond to trouble that comes into our life? So you say, trouble is that that we get ourselves into trouble a lot of times we do.

But that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking more specifically about trials, the valley experiences of life, how do we respond and what do we do when we have found ourselves in, in trouble? Isn't it interesting when I was studying this, I was thinking about my children and us as adults, as adults, isn't it interesting that when you're young, suffering and trials, valleys, trouble, conflict does not seem to be as big of a deal as when you get older. Isn't that interesting that my children, they don't stress about a whole lot, right? And when they have conflict with their friends, they get over it pretty quick, right?

And when they experience trouble, they kind of just move on and, and things that they move on quickly about, it takes us years and years to kind of move on from. Prime example, my son, he plays video games. And when he's playing video games, he has this headset on and, and he's talking to his friends, right? He's talking to his friends and things. And, and from time to time, he's talking to his buddies and, and my son can be a nice guy, but there are times when he's got those headphones on and he's playing his game, playing his game. And he'll say things like this. And I am going to say the kid's name just because many of you might know who he is. He talks to Isaac and Noah barrier all the time. And here's what, here's, that's his first mistake. Okay.

No, I'm just kidding. But here's what he'll tell them. And this is how mean my son can be. He'll say on there, he'll be like, Isaac, I'm not talking to you ever again. And then he'll hang up. And then 10 minutes later, he's back on there talking. And I'm like, like Cameron, who are you talking to? He's like talking to Isaac. I'm like, I thought I heard you from the other room that you're never speaking to Isaac ever again. And he's like, dad, we're fine. You know? And, but I'll tell you this.

If, if I ever told you, I'm never speaking to you again, I'm running the other way. And I'm going to avoid you every time you're in this church, because we struggle to get over things, right? Kids, they move on through things so much different than us, but trouble and trials, they don't worry about stuff. They don't worry about things like you and I, right? I mean, like a lot of times my kids, they eat out every single meal.

My daughter would, she would never cook at home ever. She always is like, can we go out? Can we go out? Can we go out?

Can we go out? And so I'm kind of turning into my parents where I think about money. And so I'm just like, babe, we're not made of money.

We can't eat out every single night. She's not worried a thing about it because she knows that her parents are going to take care of her. You remember when you were a kid and, and you felt like your dad could do anything, right? When I was growing up, I thought my dad could fix everything. I thought my dad knew everything.

I believed everything he said. And that's why kids don't worry and stress out about trouble and trials and valleys and things like that because they trust so deeply that their parents are going to take care of whatever they need in life, right? That's how our kids function. Well, in scripture, in essence, that is how we are supposed to be with our heavenly father. We are supposed to be trusting him with everything that we have to do in life and leaving all of the results up to him.

Just like as children, we trust that our parents are going to provide, protect, look after us and handle everything. That is in essence, we as children of God are supposed to act with our heavenly father. And this is exactly what David is talking about here in Psalm chapter 25. Before we jump in, I want to mention a couple of things about this Psalm. David is clearly writing this Psalm at a time where he was experiencing trouble.

He's going to reference things such as his enemies and asking God to protect him from his enemies so that they won't triumph over him and things like this. It is unsure which trouble he was talking about because we know that David experienced a lot of different troubles, right? He had many different seasons in his life where he was finding himself in trouble where he needed God, like when he was running from Saul, right? And Saul was trying to kill him and Saul had an army with him looking for David and David's hiding in caves and things like that.

And Saul was literally trying to kill him. And here in Psalm 25, he mentions how we should respond to trouble that comes in our life. Now you may say, well, I don't have anybody that's trying to kill me today, right?

So how do I relate with David? I want you to think about the trouble that you have going on in your life, relational conflict that you have. You know, many of you may have gotten bad news at a doctor's visit or you're experiencing loss and grief. It can be anything.

Somebody gets promoted over you and you're wondering why and you're angry and bitter and frustrated because you felt you worked so hard that you deserved whatever that is. You see, we all experience different types of trouble that comes into our life and Psalm 25 gives us the ways that we can handle the trouble that come into our life. And so let's look at it. The first thing he mentions that we need to do when trouble comes in our life is this. We have to believe in the provision of God.

If you take notes, I want you to write this down. You got to believe in the provision of God. If you look at verses one through seven of our text, here's what he says. David, remember he's praying, he's singing this unto God. He says unto thee, O Lord, that's Jehovah, do I lift up my soul?

Now I want you to pause right there. Soul, we looked at this specifically last week when we were in Psalm 23, but our soul is every part of us. That's the inner you.

That's the most important part of you. And David says, I lift up my soul. In other words, when he says I lift up my soul, he's coming to the father in full surrender.

It's as if David is singing this with his hands stretched wide to the heavens saying, God, I commit all of me to you. What if we approached every time we pray to God like that? Instead of just approaching God, hey God, I need you to do this. God, I need you to meet this need.

God, I need you to give me an A on this test. God, I need you to provide for my need over here. But what if every time we came into the presence of our father, we lifted our hands and just said, God, here am I. Here am I, God, all of me.

It is yours. He goes on in verse two, O my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be let me not be ashamed. Let not mine enemies triumph over me.

Yay. Let none that wait on thee be ashamed. Let them be ashamed, which transgress without, without cause. Now we, how many of you hate to wait on things? Raise your hand. You can be honest in here.

Okay. There's no judgment in this room. We all hate to wait. I can't stand waiting.

I love things to be, be fast. The other day I went through a drive-through and I believe God is testing me because he knows I, I don't like to wait. And you know, those drive-throughs where there's two lines, right?

You know what I'm talking about? And I feel like God is really testing me because for some reason I picked the slowest line. And does any, do you ever get frustrated when like you're, you're sitting there and these other people that have come in after you, they're kind of like two or three cars in front of you. And I don't know if you're like your pastor standing up here, but sometimes I crack my windows a little bit and I complain about him really loud.

I'm loud anyway, but I try to complain just to see if they'll kind of turn around and if they could hear me. I'm just curious, right? Because I get upset about that, but we hate waiting. None of us like to like to wait, but here David is saying that waiting, it's like when you're waiting on God, it's as if you were at a posture of total dependence on him. Total dependence on him that you trust him.

Not only that he's going to work things out, you trust him with the outcome of whatever it is that you are experiencing. Verse four, show me thy ways. Oh Lord, teach me thy, thy paths.

Even though David wanted vengeance and shame and protection from his enemies, he wanted God's will more than anything else. So even though he's saying, God, don't let my enemies triumph over me, don't let them overtake me. He says that, listen, but more importantly than any of that, God, I want you to teach me your paths. Verse five, lead me in thy truth and teach me for thou art the God of my salvation.

On thee do I wait all the day. Remember, oh Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindness, for they have been ever evolved. In other words, God's proved himself. Isn't it amazing how we struggle to trust him today? I don't understand why we struggle to trust him today when you look at scripture and you have a whole book that proves that he has been faithful time and time again. He has been good time and time again. He has been gracious time and time again, but yet we still struggle to trust him and David's reminding, he's saying, listen, you have been merciful to me.

God, it's ever evolved. Why should we trust you now? Verse seven, remember not the sins of my youth. That's my life first, by the way.

Not my, that's a joke, not my transgressions. According to thy mercy, remember thou me for thy goodness sake, oh Lord. Here in these seven verses, David, I believe if we were to summarize the seven verses, he is trusting and believing in the provision of God. If you're in a valley today, or if you're in a trial today, or you're experiencing trouble in your life today, let me tell you this, that you, if you're going to come out on the other side of that, and you're going to live trusting God in the middle of it, you have to be willing to believe in the provision of God. You say, what does the provision of God look like? He mentions three different ways God provides for us. First in verse two, God protects us. God protects us. Verse two, oh my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed.

Let not mine enemies triumph over me. Now here's what you have to understand. When we look at God's protection, this is super important for you to understand. God's protection is not always from problems. Sometimes God's protection is through problems.

Now that's hard for us to swallow, right? We think, because we're parents, we think that if you're going to protect your kid, you're going to shield them from everything that's going to be thrown their way, right? That's what we like to do as parents, because we don't want them to experience hurt. We don't want our children to experience pain. We don't want them to experience trouble. So what we naturally are inclined to do is to protect and shield them from all of those things.

Well, let me tell you this. The Bible speaks to this time and time again. That's not the way the protection of God works. Sometimes God is wanting to teach you something and show you His protection in the middle of your trouble.

As you walk through your trial, as you experience life in the valley, God is wanting to show you His protection. 2 Samuel 22 verses 2 and 3 says, and He said, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. The God of my rock in Him will I trust. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge. My Savior, thou savest me from violence.

Let me ask you this. What would your life look like today if you truly believed that you were under the protection of God? You know what I think that life would look like?

And I want you to imagine it with me for a moment. Your life would probably be less stressful. We stress over everything, right?

Your pastor's no different. I stress about stuff all the time. I worry about things.

Like, it consumes my mind. Sometimes I lay in bed at night worried about whatever it is, church-related or school-related, that we're dealing with. Any of your leaders here at our church would tell you that's a real thing, but in your life it's no different.

You probably lay in bed at night stressed out about whatever it is in your family or whatever trouble you're experiencing at work, and we experience that. You see, there's a better way. There's a better way that scripture says, listen, we can live a life that is not stressful, where we're not worried, where we're trusting God with the results, that we're not bitter, that we're not angry all the time, and that we can be filled with joy even when times are not good.

You see, that's what we can do. That's the life that God offers you. That's the life that God has prepared for you, that you can live a life that is just fully reliant and fully trusting in Him and His protection, knowing that even if you're in the valley, even if you're in a trial, even if you experience trouble, you are still under the shield of protection that He has placed around you. You see, He provides for us by protecting us, but secondly, in verses four and five, He also guides us. He also guides us. If you look at verse four and five, He says, show me thy ways, O Lord, teach me thy paths, lead me in thy truth and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation.

On thee do I wait all the day. You see, not only does God protect us, God guides us. How many of you have been in a situation at some point in time where you had to make a decision and you did not know where to go?

It could be a work-related decision, it could be a move, a career move, it could mean, hey, should we choose this house or should we put our kids in this school or that school? We all experience different times in life where we have to walk through things that God has just not made it abundantly clear which way that we can go. In verse four, here's what I want you to understand. He says, show me thy ways and teach me thy paths. Or in other words, He's saying, God, I want you to show me your way and God, I want you to show me your paths.

And here's what I think. If you're like me, sometimes we struggle. We think that our relationship with God and the will of God is like, you remember the magic eight balls?

You remember those things? It's like you shake it and that's what we get a decision from, right? Should I move or should I not? And so you shake the magic eight ball and it says no and so you stay put and you think that's what the will of God is like for you. Let me tell you, that's not what the will of God is like. If you're looking for guidance in a situation and you're praying about, you know, do you do this or that?

Should you take this move at work or should you move houses or move schools or whatever? Whatever it is that you're experiencing that you need guidance on, the way that you find guidance is through the word of God. That's the point.

That's the point. It amazes me how many decisions we try to make without diving into the word of God. You're not going to know the will of God for your life if you are not daily in the word of God. You see, we have to saturate ourselves with the word and then we will learn his ways. So he provides for us by protecting us, by guiding us, but then in verses six and seven he provides for us by forgiving us.

Look at what he says, verse six and seven. Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindness for they have been ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions according to thy mercy.

Remember thou me for thy goodness sake, O Lord. Listen, when you are honest before God and you expose yourself before him, it opens up the door to receive God's guidance. It opens up to the door to receive God's provision in your life when you reveal your sin before him. You know, it amazes me how much we think we can hide our sin, right?

The creator of all things that we can somehow hide our sin in front of him. In my Bible fellowship class that I teach downstairs, we started a series in Genesis and it amazes me that when Adam and Eve, we all know the story, Adam and Eve, when they sinned before God and they took of the fruit that they were not supposed to, they sewed fig leaves together to clothe them, but then it says that they hid in behind the trees. They hid behind the trees. It's as if they're going to hide behind these trees and the creator of all things is not going to be able to see.

The creator of the tree is somehow not going to be able to see that they're on the other side of it. They felt that they could hide their sin. And let me tell you this, for you and I, we treat our sin so much that way all the time. We come to the father in prayer and we ask him to do all of this stuff, but yet we kind of reveal and tuck away the sins that we're committing each and every day. What David is saying, in order to receive guidance in the midst of troubles, David is saying that if I want guidance in the midst of difficulty, in the midst of the trials and valleys, I have to fully expose myself in front of a God who knows all things. That I have to fully confess all of my sin in front of him, knowing that it is all under the forgiveness that he has freely offered us. You see, some of you, this might be the important thing that we look at here today. Some of you think that you cannot move on in your life because of past sin that you've committed.

That you live each and every day defeated. Pastor, if you only knew what I've done, or if you've only knew the sin that I've committed, there is no way God can use me. Let me remind you that the person writing this, he was an adulterer and he also was complicit in a murder. He conspired about it.

And guess what? After all of that, God the father used him, he forgave him of all of those things and he continued to use him. Let me tell you this, if you're in here today and you feel defeated because of your sin, you're going to be in a fight because of your sin, God can still use you, but it takes you exposing yourself and confessing all of your sin to him and allow him to forgive you and use you. You see, you have to believe in the provision of God. Number two, you have to trust in the character of God.

You have to trust in the character of God. Verse 8 through 14, he says this, good and upright is the Lord, therefore will he guide the sinners in the way. The meek will he guide in judgment and the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies for thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity for it is great.

What man is he? By the way, all of our sin is great. That's not talking about the amount that he had sinned, but let me tell you, he became great because of who you sinned against.

That's the point. That's what David understood. He wasn't saying that I've sinned this amount of time, so therefore it is great. No, he recognized my sin is great because of who I sinned against. Then he goes on verse 12, what man is he that feareth the Lord? That's just reverence to him, respect for God. Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.

His soul shall dwell at ease and his seed shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will show them his covenant. So first, if we want to live in the valley and we want to work and walk through the troubles that we have experienced, we've got to believe in the provision of God, but secondly, we've got to trust in the character of God. David mentioned several things about God's character here. First, he mentions that God is good.

He is good. Aren't you thankful for the goodness of God? Listen, he is good to you, even in the midst of trouble. I know sometimes when you experience trouble, it's hard for us to see the goodness of God because all we see is the problems that are in our life. That's what we view, that's what we can see, but I want you to know if you look at the totality of your life, you are goodness of God. God is good in the fact that he gave you a way of escape.

He is good enough if that's the only thing he ever did for you. And David is writing about the goodness of God while he is running from his enemies. Notice life is not on the mountaintop when he's writing this. He's writing about the goodness of God while he is actually asking for victory over the enemies that he's experiencing. Our father is good in trouble. You see, God's goodness is not always about keeping us from trouble. Sometimes his goodness to us is the relationship and joy that he gives us in the midst of trouble. You see, we think that if God is good, then no trouble is going to come to my life. And what God is saying is, no, no, no, no, actually I'm good to you because I'm going to show you that I'm going to walk with you and be right there beside you in the midst of the trouble that you're experiencing. You see, that's what the goodness of God is in our life. He is good, but not only that, he mentions in verse eight that he is upright, the character of God. He is good, but he is also upright.

You say, what does that mean? Here's what I want you to know about our God. There is absolutely no wickedness in him. There is absolutely no evil in him.

He has your best interest at heart. He is righteous. Verse 10, we see that God's character is merciful.

You see, mercy is withholding what we deserve. That's the God that we get to serve. That's the God that invites us to walk with him as we go through trouble.

That's the character that David is mentioning. He mentions in verse 10 as well that his paths are truthful. You see, God doesn't just contain truth. He is the source of all truth. There is absolutely no falsehood in him.

He is perfect. You can trust what he says in his word. You see, David is reminding himself as he prays and sings this song to his father. He's reminding himself of the character of God, and when he dwells on the character of God, it helps him to persevere through whatever trouble he embarks on. So we've got to believe in the provision of God. We've got to trust in the character of God.

Thirdly, we've got to rest in the peace of God. For some of you, you've been in a trouble. You know, they say that you're either going into a trouble, you're in the middle of trouble, or you're coming out of a trouble, like trial in your life. And for many of us, that's true. I know, I mean, I pastor this church, and I have people talk to me every single week about the difficult experiences that they're experiencing in life. And I don't want you to miss what David says here in verse 13. It's so important here when he's talking about the peace that God gives us in the midst of trouble.

It's not keeping us from trouble, it's walking right through it. And here's what he said, if we dwell on the provision of God, we trust in the character of God, here's the result of what that looks like. Verse 13, his soul shall dwell at ease. His soul shall dwell at ease.

Think about that. You see, if you fear God, and you walk with God through the troubles, and you stop focusing on the trial, stop focusing on the valley, stop focusing on the trouble, but start focusing on the God of the trial, the God of the valley, the God of the trial, the God of the valley, the God of the trouble, then what you get on the other side is rest, is rest. He says that if that's what you'll do, your soul will dwell.

That word dwell just means to live. Your soul will live at ease. Could you imagine that?

That's what I want. Can you imagine what your life would look like if you had that? If you went through life and your soul was at ease because you trusted in the provision of God, because you trusted in the character of God, you knew God, and you knew he was over all those things. And so can you imagine what your life would look like? We would be way less in a hurry. We would be way less stressed. We would be way less worried about things. We would be way less uptight about things.

We would be less worried about all the different things that we experience in life because we have given all of them over to him, and as a result of that, he offers us peace where our soul can be at ease. Listen, some of you, what you need more than anything is rest, and we're not talking about physical rest. Some of you are searching for that, right? You're looking forward to your vacation, and you can't wait to get down to Disney World and get all the rest that you can find, right? Isn't it funny how we're like, man, I can't wait to vacation, man.

I've been so busy, and so we go on vacation, and then we come back, and we're like, man, I can't wait to get back to work so I can rest. You see, some of us think that the summer vacation is what we're searching for, and that's where things are going to be good, and if I can just get to this point in my life, or if my kids can just grow up and move out of the house, then I'm going to get rest in my soul, and all of this stuff, and is that just mine, or are there other people who believe that? And we think that if we can just get to that point in life, then it's going to be okay, and our soul's going to be at ease, our soul's going to be at rest, and what David is saying here in this psalm is he's saying, listen, it's not found in a vacation.

It's not found in a circumstance. The rest that we need, it's not found in something that happens at your job. The rest that your soul is looking for, it is found in a person, and his name is Jesus, and in a relationship with Jesus, once you trust in Jesus, your soul can be at ease with him. You see, physical rest is good and needed, but that's not what David is talking about. He's talking about inner soul rest, where your soul is at peace, peace with the Father, peace to where you're not trying to impress people. You're only living for the audience of the Father.

Man, that's the kind of rest that I want. Many of you this week, you know, I've been many of you this week, you know, in Christianity, we lost a couple of really key people that have influenced many of you over the years through preaching and stuff like that. I know we lost Ron Hamilton, you know, this past week, and many of the songs that, you know, he wrote, we still sing in kids' church and things like that, and so we lost him, but another hero of the faith, if you would, that many of you would know is Charles Stanley passed away this week, and so this week, any time like somebody who has been preaching for many, many different years, you know, I kind of, Dr. Stanley, I've heard him preach numerous times, but I didn't know a ton about him, and so I wanted to learn about him this week, so I sat down, and I was watching some things from him that kind of jumped off the page, something jumped off the page at me. He famously said this statement, my responsibility is to obey God and leave all the consequences to him, and when I read that, I thought that's exactly what David is saying here in Psalm 25. Now what's interesting about Dr. Stanley, he said that when he was running in the 80s, he was running for the Southern Baptist Convention president, and when he was running for the president, he got put into this room with some people that were hostile towards him that did not think that he deserved or was qualified to actually be the SBC president, and so he got asked about all of that, and he responded back with that statement that all he is supposed to do is obey God and trust him with the circumstances. They went on to ask him about that statement and what he means, and they said, so are you saying that that you would not be disappointed if you do not win? And he said that's exactly what I'm saying because I'm not running for this office, I'm only trying to obey God. So if I obey God and he doesn't let me win tomorrow, that's up to him because all outcomes are his. You see, that is what David is talking about here. It's about living a life to where our responsibility is just to do each and every day what God has put in front of us and obey God with whatever it is and leave the outcomes to him.

You say, what does this look like? It means that we should be able to lay down every night at peace knowing that we obeyed God and we are not him and that he is in full control of us and full of control of our lives. It's getting up each and every day knowing that the creator of the world, he oversees your life, that he is actually the one that is sovereign and in control of your life, and our responsibility is just to obey him and leave the consequences to him. You see, that's the rest that he offers to every single one of you. So I asked you today, like, where is your soul at today? You say, pastor, I'm in a valley. I can't seem to get out. I'm surrounded.

Everywhere I look, it's a mountain and I don't know what the way out. Obey God and leave the consequences to him. You say, pastor, there's something at work that I can't over say. I deserve something at work and I didn't get it and everything. Obey God. Leave the consequences up to him. You can believe in the provision of God. You can trust in the character of God and if you do that, you get to experience the peace of God. Would you bow your heads with me this morning?