← Back to sermon library

Good evening. The text for this evening will be Psalm 131. But don't turn there just yet. If you would please first turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. I felt uh very honored or privileged to be present for the signing of the founding documents for the association that's recently been formed here in Western Canada. Our church, Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, from on whose behalf I bring you greetings. We pray regularly uh for the association churches here in Western Canada. We we prayed for you before you were an association, but now all the more as an association. And as many of you will know, our church is also part of a local or regional association. And I've been a a pastor in an association church for some years. And I I know personally the benefit and the joy and the blessing that it is and can be. It doesn't always seem so exciting. Sometimes regular meetings are quite simple and sound very much like the last one you had and the next one you had. But those regular meetings become a platform, a relationship within which the more serious things can take place both posit positively in cooperative e efforts and negatively when one church has serious issues and needs help and they know whom they can trust and who will help them. So I want to encourage you in what you have begun that you would continue it and rejoice in what the Lord has given to you. In in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 11, Paul says, "You also must help us by prayer." In our local association in Southern California, some of the churches, we're we're blessed to be very local, but some of the churches are still three hours away from each other. And I feel like I don't see them as often and I feel like I don't help them very much. Not that they need my help, but I feel like what what are we doing for them? And it's passages like this that encourage me. Paul says, "Help us by prayer." We pray for your churches in Canada and we would ask you to pray for us. You can help your sister churches here and you can help other churches simply by striving with the Lord in prayer on their behalf. And turn over to Colossians 4:12. In Colossians 4:12, Paul says, "Epis, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers." If he's sending greetings, he's not with them right now. Now, Apapaffris isn't there, but he can still struggle for the Colossians from wherever he is through prayer. So, please be assured of our prayers, our struggling for you, our helping you to use the language of 2 Corinthians. And we would ask you to do the same for us. Well, let's turn our attention to Psalm 131 for this sermon this evening. And I would ask you, have you ever embarrassed yourself? Well, I'm sure many ways. Have you ever embarrassed yourself in this particular way where you read a passage of scripture and you think to yourself, I've reached this point in my life and I don't remember ever having read this before. And you feel ashamed. I'm sure I've read this, but I don't remember ever having read it. This was my experience with Psalm 131 some years ago. And it was as though as soon as I read it, I loved it so much. How could I not have seen it before? I just didn't know what to think. And maybe you're very familiar with Psalm 131. But it's a a wonderful short psalm, a medicine. It's so short that you can memorize it in a day. You and your children can memorize it in a day. You can hide it in your heart and always have it ready to go for your own heart, your own soul as you listen to God's word day by day by preaching to yourself. Psalm 131 is perfect for this. Let's read the psalm and then we'll study it. Psalm 131, a song of a sense of David. Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up. My eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul. Like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever more. I have this psalm painted on the wall in my study and it's become very precious to me over the years. What I'd like to do to study it is to move through three points and then we'll have three more points of application at the end. So notice with me in the first place what David did not do. Point number one is what David did not do. If you look at verse one, there's four things that David says he did not do. What are the four things that David did not do? First, he says that he did not lift up his heart. David did not lift up his heart. And this refers to his inward disposition, the way in which he looks at himself and thinks about himself. His heart, he did not lift up his heart. His heart is not hotty. That's another translation. Oh Lord, my heart is not hotty or proud. He doesn't look at himself and say, "I'm the man." He doesn't think of himself as of great importance or weight. He's not wise in his own eyes, over inflated and puffed up in his self-perception and identity. He doesn't think he's God's gift to the world and the greatest thing that ever happened before sliced bread. So his heart was not hotty. He did not lift up his heart. Secondly, he did not raise his eyes too high. He did not raise his eyes too high. If to lift up your heart is an inward disposition, then to lift up your eyes is an outward disposition of pride. If your heart is lifted up within you, you are proud in your own heart with regard to yourself. If your eyes are lifted up, then this is an outward expression of pride that is expressed towards others. To lift up the eyes, to raise your eyes high is an outward hottiness, an outward pride expressed to other people. So think about a business context. When you're doing business with someone, oftentimes eye contact is important. Not necessarily in a negative way of trying to challenge someone, but it also could be they there's even the phrase maintain eye contact, assert dominance. Dominance is sometimes expressed through eye contact, locking eyes with someone. And so if you're doing business, if you want to show confidence in your speech with someone else, your interactions with them as a businessman or or businesswoman, one of the things you can do for better or worse is to maintain eye contact or use eye contact to connect with that person. Hopefully not for dominance, but to connect with them. And it could be used to assert dominance. if you were in the military. And we all know what it's like to be in the military because we've seen the movies. No, we don't. We don't know. But when someone stands at attention, do they look their commanding officer in the eyes? Do they follow him around the room? Or do they look straight ahead when they're standing at attention? They they intentionally do not lock eyes with a commanding officer, but rather look straight ahead. Because if they were to lock eyes with their commanding officer, it would be interpreted or could be interpreted as breaking rank, as disrespect, as putting yourself above your rank and above your station. You are supposed to look look down or ahead. Those who have been in the military can tell you exactly how it should be. But you understand that a recruit is not going to stare eyeball to eyeball with a drill instructor or a drill sergeant. That would be to lift up your eyes in pride. In parenting, what happens when you're parenting your child and they look right at you? Well, then the battle music starts and it's like, "Okay, choose your Pokemon." And they choose their Pokemon and the battle begins. When a child, if a child really wants to show disrespect to their parents, one way in which they might do that is looking right at you. Now, do we want our children to look at us and talk to us? Of course. But, you know, the look, the look that I'm talking about, where as a parent, you say, "Oh, here here we go. It's begun." All right. You know, buckle up. It's time. Last year, I had the opportunity to go to Singapore. And Singapore is a a very fascinating place. It's very small. It's a small little island with many, many people. But within this small island, they do have a nature preserve. And in the nature preserve, they have monkeys. Even monkeys understand this. There are signs that say, "Do not make eye contact with the monkeys because they will interpret that animal to animal as a challenge." And then they will mob you or throw things at you that you don't want them to throw at you and so on and so forth. Even monkeys understand that eyes lifted up are a way of challenging someone. But David says, "I didn't do this. My eyes are not raised too high." He says, "Now, is raising the eyes always a bad thing?" No. Think about Psalm 121. I lift my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help. That's not challenging. Or in Psalm 130, from the depths I cry. It's not always a challenge, but it often is. To raise up your eyes to to demand to challenge is an an outward expression of pride. David says, "I did not lift up my heart and inward disposition. I did not raise my eyes too high, an outward disposition. And then he gives us two more things together. The third and fourth thing go together. He did not occupy himself with things too great for him, nor did he occupy himself with things too marvelous for him. Those are the third and the fourth things. And the word that's translated to occupy himself or to occupy oneself is is to walk around in something. Where I live, there's a a wonderful place called the Huntington Library and Gardens. And at the Huntington, you can go to a desert garden and a subtropical garden and a Shakespeare garden and an herb garden and a Chinese garden and a bonsai garden and a Japanese garden and an Australian garden. You can go to them all and if you walk through each one and if you look at each flower or each succulent or each tree or each little bonsai or each lotus and so on and so forth, you will be very occupied as you walk around the entire place. And David says, I did not occupy myself with things too great for me or with things too marvelous for me. What's the difference between too great and too marvelous in this case? Well, I believe that it's a distinction of quantity versus quality. Some things are difficult for us because of quantity. If I gave you 10 sheets of paper and each one had 100 simple math problems, it would be difficult for you. Not because any one of those math problems is difficult, but because there are so many of them. 10 sheets, 100 problems. That's a thousand math problems for you to solve. In quantity, you would be occupying yourself with answering, okay, 2 plus, what is 2 plus? Oh, four. And then you would go to the next one. So, it's difficult. It's too great for you because of quantity. But some things are too great for you because they're too marvelous in quality. I could give you a piece of paper and it has just one calculus problem, just one, and it will still be too much for you. It would be for me. There's no way that I could solve a complex math equation. It's too marvelous for me. David says, I do not exercise myself or occupy myself in great matters. There's it's too big. It's too great for me. Or in things that are too marvelous. It's beyond my comprehension. It's beyond my understanding. It's beyond what I can possibly grasp. Sometimes we say to people, "Okay, walk me through it. Take me through the steps. Help me to understand by going through all the details." David says, "I did not occupy myself. I did not walk through every last possible little thing. I did not occupy myself with things that are too great or too marvelous, too grand in quality. So what did David not do? We see that he did not cultivate an inward disposition of pride. His heart was not hotty. We see that he did not have an outward expression of pride. His eyes were not lifted up or raised too high. And he did not occupy himself with things too great or things too marvelous for him. Which brings us in the second place to what David did do. You might think David is very clever. He lives a hakuna matata life. It means no worries for the rest of your days. You think David is so smart. He doesn't deal with difficult problems. So he lives a happy, carefree life. And then you remember he's not just David. He's King David. He can't avoid difficult problems in his life. He can't just say to his counselors and to his his sons or his family members or his advisors, his war counsel and so on. He can't say, "No, no, no, no, no, no, guys. Too great, too marvelous. Not me. He's king. So what did David do? How did he avoid the things in verse one? He didn't do certain things in verse one. What did he do? Verse two. But rather you you see that here the contrast. Instead of the things of verse one, this is what I did do. Rather, I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother. like a weaned child is my soul within me. So instead of the things he could have done in verse one but did not do, we find that what David did do is that he calmed and quieted his soul. He calmed himself. The word calmed, he it's leveling something out, bringing it to balance, smoothing out the wrinkles. Think of a gymnast on a balance beam and someone puts out their hand to touch them and give them balance. They're disqualified then, but they at least can balance now. Or a father that helps his son to learn to ride his bike or his daughter as as she or he begins to teeter and totter on the bike. The father puts out his hand on their shoulder or on the bike and suddenly it's calmed. The the the instability is brought to stability. Other translations are I behaved myself or I refrained myself. I calmed my soul and he quieted his soul. We know what it means to quiet something to to reduce it to silence or to to lower its volume. But there are different kinds of silences. What kind of silence did David achieve? There's a silence of fear. I've been to Cuba twice and people are af they're they're quiet. They don't speak out against the government because they're afraid. They have no power. And so they don't speak out against the government because of the power of the government over them. So there's a silence of fear. I'm quiet, but I'm still trembling. There's also a silence of authority. That's not fearful. It's just respectful. For example, right now I'm speaking and you're not speaking. I hope it's not because you're afraid of me. It's just we understand right now is not the time to speak. There's a a respect and authority relationship here in a teaching environment. And so you're quiet. There's a silence that comes from authority and respect. But then there's another kind of silence. And David tells us what kind of silence it is. I calmed and quieted my soul. Like here's the silence that I brought to my soul. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Like a weaned child with its mother. What's the difference between a weaned child and a nursing child? Might say, "Well, it's in the words. One is nursing and the other is weaned." But what's the difference? The difference here is that the weaned child has reason. You can talk to the weaned child. God made babies so that when they are in pain or when they are hungry or when a number of conditions, what are they supposed to do? What did God make them to do? They cry if they're tired, if they're hurt, if they're hungry, and so on and so forth. They cry without reason. By nature, they cry. And you can't say, "Baby, my dear, sweet, darling little baby, stop crying." You can't reason with them. The nursing child has has an intellect, but not yet one one that is not yet capable of of reasoning with you, talking to you. The wean the the nursing child just cries as soon as it feels something. it just cries. Whereas the weaned child can sit beside its mother, his or her mother. And and this is what he says, like a weaned child with or beside his mother. The weaned child understands. The weaned child waits. The weaned child listens. And so if you find that your children don't wait or don't listen, then they're not weaned yet. They could be 16 years old and they're not. Mom wins dinner. Mom wins dinner. Mom wins dinner. The weaned child can can make this complex logical argument. My parents have fed me every day of my life, multiple times a day. Therefore, they will feed me today also. and so I shall wait for this food which most certainly will be given to me. But sometimes they skip that logical argument. They just say, "Mom's mom, when's dinner? Mom, what's for supper?" When what they should say is, "Oh most dearest progenits, at what time shall we suck?" And then mom will say, "Wow, when you ask me like that, I'll tell you. What was the point? The point was the nursing child just cries and doesn't wait. The weaned child listens, understands, and waits because of trust. Because of trust, my mother will feed me. My mother loves me. My mother will take care of me. It's a silence of trust. It's a silence of peace. It's a silence of contentment. David says,"I calmed and I quieted my soul with peace and patience and contentment." So what did David do? As a king who faces many difficulties, indeed the difficulties of an entire kingdom, he's king. It all comes down or up to him. In the midst of difficulty, he calmed and he quieted his soul. He actively and intentionally calmed his soul in such a state that it is comparable to a weaned child beside his or her mother knowing and trusting and waiting patiently. But how did he do this? How did David do this? Did he have some incredible amount of self-will and self-control so that he can simply dictate his state of mind? And he says, "So be quiet." And his soul goes, "Okay, all right. Okay." Does he have some incredible power of self-determination? Is this just David willing himself into this state? How did David avoid the things from verse one and do the things from verse two? Well, verse three explains it to us. And in verse three, we find our third point, what we must do. The first point was what David did not do. The second point is what David did do. And the third point is what we must do. And it's what we must do because it's given to us as a command. David now addresses the nation. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever more. What did David do truly? And what must we do? Hope in the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Rest in the Lord. And to hope is to wait like the weaned child. But not just to wait, but to wait with confidence, to wait with expectation and trust. Hope in the Lord. But of course, this is true hope. This is not I hope the Canucks make it into the playoffs next year. Every year you hope that. Every year I hope that my team will make it into the playoffs. Neither of us got our hope this year. Okay. Neither of us. My team's not in the playoffs. Your team's not in the playoffs. Big bummer. But when we say I hope the Conucks or I hope some other team, the word hope there is rather hopeless, especially if you're a Canucks fan. Just kidding. My team did terribly this year. So, anything I say comes back to me. Okay. When we say that, we're hoping in an organization and managers and ultimately the players on the ice and the goalie in the net. And that hope does not go very far because they're just men throwing a puck around on the ice. I hope such and such. I hope there's not much traffic. I hope the flight isn't delayed. I hope that we're having ribeye medium rare for dinner. It's not going to happen. But David tells us indeed commands us to hope not with some abstract general hope and I don't know what and I don't know whom. He says hope in the Lord. Hope in Yahweh. He directs our hope to Yahweh. Who is Yahweh? The being of Yahweh, the unchangeable I am that I am. But not just the being of Yahweh, although that is sufficient to ground our hope. But why trust in Yahweh? Because he's made promises to us. Indeed, he's covenanted with us. How is it that David is king of a kingdom in a small little country surrounded by superpowers of the ancient world? How is it that he can live safely and sleep peacefully at night and calm and quiet his soul when he's a rather small king of a very small kingdom surrounded by superpowers? It's because God had made a covenant with him. God had covenanted with him. David, I will build you a house and one of your sons will sit upon the throne forever. I will establish the throne of your son forever and ever. So David knows however difficult things become, God has made a promise about the stability of the throne of my dynasty and our kingdom, his kingdom over which he has made us kings. David points our hope to the Lord, to his promises, and indeed to his covenant. And you say, "But that's that's real nice. But I'm not David. God's not promised to build my house and a dynasty of my sons enduring forever. But you know what? You do belong. Because David's faithful son was Jesus Christ. And his house was built up and you are living stones in it. And that throne endures forever and ever. You do live in that house. In fact, you're a part of it. And God has made a new covenant with you. He has promised to you certain things such as what? I will remember their sins no more. When you hope in the Lord, that's the promise you need to go to his new covenant promise with you that comes through the great son of David, Jesus Christ, that he will remember your sins no more. I will be merciful to their iniquities, God says, and I will remember their sins no more. So we hope in the Lord in who he is and what he has covenanted with us or promised to us in covenant which is the new covenant whose promise is I will be merciful to their iniquities and their sins I will remember no more. Our hope therefore is not just in Yahweh but specifically in Yahweh through Jesus Christ. Hope in the Lord through the Lord. Hope in the Lord in Jesus Christ. If you hope in the Lord and and through Jesus Christ, will your hope be fulfilled? If you hope for the forgiveness of your sins from God through Jesus Christ, will that hope be fulfilled? Will you come to judgment and find out that God says, "I did remember some of your sins actually because I just don't like you." Or will his everlasting love and the perfect blood of Jesus acquit us because of what Christ has done for us and say, "Your sins, your sins, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, your sins, not in part but in whole, have been washed clean in the blood of Jesus Christ. If you hope in the Lord, in the promises he has made to you, will your hope be fulfilled?" Yes. He who promised is faithful. Well, I want to conclude with three applications. But what these three applications really are are three ways in which we will lose our hope. If if we do the next three things, I'll give you three points. If we do these three things, we will lose our hope. The command here is to hope. But you will not hope. You will lose your hope if you do the following three things. Number one, if we refuse to humble ourselves, if we refuse to humble ourselves, in other words, if you do the things from verse one, you will lose your hope. If you lift up your heart in hottiness, if your heart is lifted up inside of you, and if you raise up your eyes with defiance, and you contemplate all the things that surpass you in both quantity and quality, then you will find that you are stirring up your soul. You will find that you are challenging God. You're saying, "I deserve to be exempted from this. I shouldn't have to suffer this. That's a proud heart." or eyes lifted high. God, release me from this. Not how long, oh Lord, but how long, oh Lord. You see that? Explain to me. Justify to me the afflictions that you have permitted in my life. Tell me, I'm waiting. If you refuse to humble your heart and you lift up your eyes, does that person sound like they're hoping in the Lord? Or are they defying the Lord with a hotty heart and eyes lifted up too high? Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 13 says this, "Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what he has made crooked?" Who can make straight what he has made crooked? You say to yourself, "I want to go this way." And God crooks your way. He bends your path. You say, "No, I want to go that way." But if it's God's work, if he has made it crooked, can you make it straight? That's the question. Who can make straight what he has made crooked? Now you have a battle of wills. God has willed that this be crooked. He's put a crook in your lot. Wonderful book, Thomas Boston. You say, "I want to go that way because in my heart I think I deserve to go that way and I want to go that way and God shouldn't have crooked my lot in this way. He should not have permitted it to be bent." Now you're defying. Now you're challenging. You are not hoping. If you do not humble your heart and submit to God's providential hand and the afflictions that he permits or sends in your life, you're going to be fighting against God and you cannot make straight what he has made crooked. Remember that this is a psalm of asense. The pilgrims going to Jerusalem would have started very low and ascended quite a height to get up to Jerusalem. And so a psalm such as this perhaps would have helped them to be in a the journey perhaps would have helped them to be in a humble frame. We are starting very low and we are going very high to the house of God. We are low and he is high and we are huffing and puffing and wheezing to get up there. They need to remember who they are, that they are creatures, and they need to humble themselves before the Lord. If you refuse to humble your heart, you will not hope in the Lord. Do you remember God's question to Jonah twice? God asked Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry?" Jonah says, "Yes, you burned my gourd. I had shade. I do well to be angry. But he's asked again, do you do well to be angry? And we often need to be asked that question. Do you do well to be angry or is your heart puffed up and raised up and your eyes are lifted high? We ought to humble ourselves. bring our hearts down to the level of the afflictions that God has permitted or sent in our lives. Secondly, we will lose our hope if we expect what God has not promised. If we expect what God has not promised? Children, do your parents give you a new Lego set every day? Raise your hand if your parents give you a new Lego set every day. None of you. No one gets a new Lego set every day. That's sad. My son gets a new Lego set every day. Things are good in Los Angeles. Of course not. Of course not. But do your parents feed you every day? If they don't, please raise your hand, too. We'd like to talk to them and care for you. Your parents feed you every day, and you expect them to feed you every day. It's part of their love and care for you. And in in a sense, they owe it to you. It's their responsibility. So, you expect to be fed by your parents every day. And it's it's right for you to expect that food. Even if you shouldn't be demanding and say, "What time? What time? When? When? When? What? What? What? Mom. Mom." Try, "Oh, most esteemed progenetrics." And then you'll then you'll get the result that you want. Dearest mother darling, that's the way. If you but if the child does expect if the child gets this thought in their head, I should have a new Lego set every day. I should have that. They're going to live a very frustrated life because they're not going to get it. We say a child would be so foolish to expect such a thing or think such a thing. And then we as adults think, I should have health. I should have some degree of wealth and comfort and a life free from major stresses and difficulties. My church should have no problems. My marriage should have no problems. My family, my children shouldn't give me problems. My work should be fine. I should be exempted from these things. And then we're like little children who expect a Lego set every day. God has never promised us those things. God has never promised you will have perfect health, you will be wealthy, your marriage will be perfect, your children will be perfect, your job will be perfect, your church will be perfect. Has he promised us those things? Or has he said in this life, you will have tribulations. So if our proud hearts expect what God has not promised, we will live a very frustrated life and we won't be hoping in the Lord. will be hoping in some other thing that we want that God simply's never promised to give us. Now flip it around the other way. If you do hope for what God has promised, will your hopes ever go unfulfilled? Will your hopes be dashed? Will your expectations go unmet? God cannot lie. God cannot deny himself. God is faithful and his steadfast love endures forever. the God who keeps covenant to a thousand generations. If you hope in him and in his promises in covenant, will your hope ever be unfulfilled? I'm sure you purchase things on the internet and they come to your home. You open them up and you say, "Why did I buy this? Why? I even read the reviews. It's just not what you hoped for. You were influenced, clickbaited. Our hopes and expectations are often dashed because we hope in the created things in the stuff of this world, that which is made as opposed to the creator as opposed to the maker who does not change and who does not wear out as we saw this morning in Psalm 90, who is from everlasting to everlasting God. If you expect what God has not promised, do not be surprised that your hope has disappeared because you're hoping for nothing. Thirdly, and lastly, if your hope is in anything or anyone other than God through Jesus Christ, in other words, if you don't do what was commanded in verse three, the command is hope in the Lord. So if you hope in someone else, you will lose your hope. Hope in the Lord in and through Jesus Christ. I love that example of Peter walking on the water. Peter was walking on water. I I guarantee you've never walked on water. It's it's a contradiction of the laws of nature. It's a miracle. But Peter walked on water to Jesus. Or did he? What happened? Peter began to sink. Why did Peter begin to sink? It's because he began to look at the depth of the water and the height of the waves and the strength of the wind. when he started to contemplate the created things, the creature rather than the creator, when he took his eyes off of Jesus who's standing on the water, then he began to sink. And so also we when we take our eyes off of Jesus and we do not hope in him, when we do not hope in God through Jesus Christ, that's when we begin to sink under the water. Not because God has failed us. Jesus is standing on the water, but because we've taken our eyes off of him. One of the things that Jesus has given to us so that we will not take our eyes off of him is bread and wine. So that every Lord's day, he says, "I want you to feel and see and taste and smell my promises, what I have done for you. I want you to see me. I want me to be in your eyes and in your mind, in your faith every single time that you come together. Remember me and remember my promises and remember my covenant. Hope in me and hope in my promises and hope in my covenant. Take this bread. Take this wine. Delight in it. Delight in me. Remember me. Hope in me. The Lord's supper is an assault on the senses so that Jesus says, "I'm giving you my word in a different form. It's in bread now and it's in wine now, which you all partake of the same promises. You all partake of the same precious covenant together to redirect our hope back to Jesus Christ. Don't look at the depth of the ocean. Don't look at the height of the waves. Don't think about the strength of the wind or the coldness of the air. Think about Jesus Christ who's standing on the water. In conclusion, oh Israel, hope in the Lord for how long? We're told from this time from this time today forth. For how long? Forever more. hope in the Lord today, tomorrow, the next day, and forever. Because God is from everlasting to everlasting. So our hope will never be dashed. Our hope rather will be fulfilled in a way greater than we could have understood because what we're hoping for is greater than the mind can comprehend. The glory that God has promised to us, the glory that Jesus has won for us, the object of our faith, the object of our hope is greater than our faith and greater than our hope. is greater than we can conceive. And so it's not just that our hope will be one to one fulfilled. It's that our hope will be filled and overfilled for all eternity. So hope in the Lord. Humble your hearts. Do not lift up your eyes in defiance. Lift up your eyes in petition and prayer. Do not contemplate the things that are beyond you in greatness and marvelousness. Contemplate the one who made all things and who has saved us from our sins. His promises will take us through life and death and unto eternal life. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord, in the Lord from this time forth and forever more. Let's pray. Our father in heaven, in the first place, we must confess to you that our hearts are hottaughty, that our eyes are often lifted up in defiance, that we do often occupy ourselves in things too great and marvelous for us, and that rather than calming and quieting our souls, we often stir them up. Please forgive us. Please help us to be like weaned children. Please help us to wait patiently with trust and confidence. That is, help us to hope. To hope in you, to hope in your son, to hope in your Holy Spirit, to hope in your promises, to hope in your covenant, to hope in all that you have done and are doing and will do for us. We thank you and praise you that you are not like us, that you endure from everlasting to everlasting, that you do not change, and that your promises therefore are sure and certain and stable. Please bless us, we ask, and help us to grow in our faith and our hope and our love. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.