Christ’s Trust Amid His Suffering (Psalm 31:1-24)
Karl Marx, an atheist, once said, "Religion is the opiate of the masses". Marx was not suggesting that religion contains opium but that it serves a similar purpose by providing temporary refuge and a sense of comfort that distracts from real problems.
Some others would say that Christianity comprises myths and fairy tales, and at best, Christianity merely contains inspirational stories and teaches good morals but does not realistically deal with real-life struggles and problems.
My friends, I put it to you that Christianity faces real-life problems squarely. It acknowledges the brokenness of this world and our distress, and offers both understanding and empathy. We see this in Jesus Christ and His suffering and distress on the cross. But Jesus does not just offer understanding and empathy. At the cross, God provides a real solution and a sure hope for us.
So if you are visiting, I welcome you. And if you are a non-Christian, I am happy that you are with us. I encourage you to spend the next 30 minutes or so reflecting with us on Psalm 31 and the significance and hope believers in Christ have on Good Friday.
The Gospel writer Luke records Jesus' last word from the cross: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Lk 23:46), following which Jesus "breathed his last" or died on that Friday some 2000 years ago. For Luke, this is not only Jesus' final word from the cross but also the last clue he gives to the true significance of what is happening on Calvary.
Psalm 31 is, firstly, a Psalm (or prayer song) of David, a king who, when faced with deep troubles and much distress, cried out to God and remembered God's promises to Him.
Secondly, Jesus quotes Psalm 31 in Luke's gospel (Luke 23:46), whose prayers and promises Jesus rightly fit His own circumstances as He hung on the cross. As Jesus takes David's Psalm to his lips, the prayers and promises of David take a fuller sense in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Psalm 31 reflects Jesus' journey to the cross and His trust in the Father. It is a powerful passage that resonates deeply with Good Friday, especially in how it points to Christ's suffering and ultimate trust in God.
Trust God for refuge and rescue.
Finally, Christians, when we trust in Jesus Christ for refuge and rescue, we can then take and pray the prayers and trust the promises in Psalm 31 even as we face difficulties and distress in our journey of faith.
The big idea of this Psalm is "Trust God for refuge and rescue".
The outline is as follows:
Cry to God for refuge (Ps 31:1-8)
Trust God to rescue despite distress (Ps 31:9-18)
Ultimate trust in our faithful God (Ps 31:19-24)
What does Jesus do when faced with real-life distress? He cries to God for refuge
Cry to God for Refuge (Ps 31:1-8)
King David cries out to God amid his troubles and distress — making a heartfelt plea. Words for rescue and refuge from danger dominate the first five verses. David cries that he will not be put to shame but that God, in His righteousness, i.e. God acting in faithfulness to his promises, will act to deliver and rescue him. The deeper our desperation, the more urgent our pleas, and we see that in Psalm 31:2, where David cries for urgent help — "rescue me speedily". Desperate, he prays for God to save him and be a "rock, refuge and fortress" — a place of security and safety.
And why is it that David can cry out to God in confidence? Because he knows that God is his rock and fortress (an unshakable truth) and that God will deliver him for the sake of God's own reputation (Ps 31:3). David stakes his rescue on God acting for his name's sake. David trusts that God is a mighty rescuer and a strong refuge.
God can rescue him from the hidden net or traps set out by enemies (Ps 31:4). It is because David firmly knows and trusts that our God rescues so that he can bring his desperate prayers to God.
Beloved, do you see David's trust? He trusts God to the extent that he commits his Spirit — his whole life and being — to God's hands. He surrenders to God because God is faithful and has already paid a price to rescue David in the past. So his prayer is not a wishful shot in the dark but a confident cry to the God who has saved and will save. David pleads for rescue, trusting God, just as Jesus endured the cross, trusting that God's plan would lead to the rescue of many.
Jesus fully embodied the psalmist's cry, showing that even in suffering, God's faithfulness prevails. He trusts in God's faithfulness and commits his Spirit and life to God: "Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit."
My friends, maybe you are not a Christian, and you are visiting: Good Friday is not just about the pain and suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross but about Jesus trusting in God's plan for our rescue. And God will rescue because He is a faithful God who makes and keeps promises to save a people for Himself. If you wonder if God will rescue you, He said He would and staked His name on His promise to save. So, cry out to God for rescue.
Beloved, as a believer, do you often call God to deliver, confidently trusting in his faithfulness? Are you open to sharing your needs with others in the church to seek prayers? Your open sharing of your needs demonstrates your faith in God and models faith for others, encouraging them to pray and trust our faithful God.
Only God can save, nothing else can.
Why should you commit your Spirit and life to God in Christ alone? Because only God can save, nothing else can.
Look at Psalm 31:6-8. When David and Christ say, "I hate", there is no malice at play here, rather, it means "I clearly and forcefully distance myself" from the values and lifestyle of those who "pay regard to worthless idols". These idols are powerless to save; they are like puffs of breath in cold weather — here now but gone quickly.
In contrast, we "can trust in the LORD", because Jesus goes before us as one who continued to entrust Himself to God, who judges justly (1 Pet 2:23) and calls on us to do the same (c.f. 1 Pet 4:19). God, in His steadfast love, sees and knows our affliction and distress.
When Christ commits His Spirit into the hands of God the Father, Jesus is confident that He will not be delivered "into the hand of the enemy". Instead, He was raised to life by the Father and finds Himself "in a broad place", away from the cramped distress of the troubles from the opposition He faced. There is much cause for us to rejoice and be glad, for the boundless love of God the Father is poured out on Jesus Christ and now on, all who call on Jesus' name and belong to Him.
Idols are not just made of wood and stones. They are anything that takes first place instead of God. They can be a career, riches or status. Or even good things like relationships. They can be anything we put our ultimate trust in. Beloved, do not trust in idols who overpromise and under-deliver. They are like vapour, temporary and unstable.
Instead, trust in God's steadfast love. My friends, trust in God's steadfast love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to die on the cross, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. The main takeaway from these first eight verses is we can cry out to God in our distress, trusting in our God of steadfast love.
Trust God to Rescue Despite Distress (Ps 31:9-18)
Are we then to expect no suffering and distress?
Psalm 31:9-13 tell us to expect to suffer with Christ, and Psalm 31:14-18 encourage us to keep on trusting in Christ, confident that God will finally judge justly.
Psalm 31:9-13 paint a terrible picture of suffering. Psalm 31:9-10 in particular pointing to Christ's suffering and the physical and emotional agony He experiences on the cross. The cry "Be gracious" is a plea for mercy from Jesus, who suffers the penalty of sinners. Every facet of Jesus' being is in "distress". The "eye" is often used to indicate a person’s life and desire; is "wasted from" the unbearable "grief" of suffering for sinners. The word translated as "grief" means deep distress. The whole person "body and "soul" are grief wrecked.
Jesus experiences and is spent with "sorrow". Jesus "sighs" and groans, expressing His experience of deep and enduring pain of mind and heart. His strength fails, and even His supporting structure, His bones, deteriorates.
We see Jesus experience the sufferings caused by the curse of sin and the world's brokenness.
But how can this be?
Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, fully obedient to God the Father and perfectly following God's commands and instructions (something we cannot say we have done).
How are we to understand this?
Elsewhere in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5:21 explains: "For our sake [God] made [Jesus Christ] to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in [Jesus Christ] we might become the righteousness of God."
Jesus Christ became sin for us — He takes on the weight and penalty of our sins and experiences suffering and distress for us.
My friends, this is what Jesus did for you. The New Testament teaches that Christians must expect to suffer with Jesus in this world and prepare us not to be surprised when suffering comes.
Beloved, so let us not be surprised when suffering comes our way.
Psalm 31:11-13 shift to the suffering caused by others. This hostility leads to loneliness. Again, this reflects the betrayal and mockery faced by Jesus Christ: Psalm 31:11 says, "Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbours, and an object of dread to my acquaintances."
This verse mirrors how Jesus faced opposition, was abandoned by His disciples and mocked by the crowds. Jesus experiences the loneliness of someone "forgotten." He also feels like a "broken vessel" ready to be discarded by others into the rubbish heap. On His journey to the cross, Jesus faced and was surrounded by the plots of the scheming religious leaders who wanted to take His life. They surrounded Jesus "on every side" pressing in inescapably on Him. Can you imagine the "terror" and the feeling of horror that may be similar to how some of us may feel when we are overwhelmed by opposition from every side? Jesus Himself experiences it and can empathise with us.
But does opposition and suffering have the final say? No! We see the promise of God's final judgement and are urged to go on trusting Jesus Christ with confidence in Psalm 31:14-18. When facing distress, it is easy to give in to the voices of despair, but here, Jesus recalls the many echoes of confident trust expressed earlier in the Psalm.
Our troubled souls need repetition and reminders of God's promises and His character. We turn from troubles and distress with an emphatic "but I" in Psalm 31:14. We turn to address our relational God with "you are my God" — All of David's and Christ's hope and our hope in Christ is on our God, who desires a relationship with us. We trust God with our times and our circumstances (Ps 31:15). To say, "My times are in your hand" (echoing the “hand” of God in Psalm 31:5) is to declare, by faith, that every circumstance of life lies in the all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving hand of the Father God.
Jesus believed this. David believed this by the Spirit of Christ. We, too, may hold on to this, especially when our “times” feel out of control. We trust God's hands even when we cannot see His face. We pray this, as did Christ, even when pursued by "enemies" and"persecutors", we can be confident that if we belong to Christ, their "hand" cannot "determine [our] times".
Amidst our proclamation of our trust, we can anticipate the promise of God's "face" and presence seen in Christ Jesus and can trust in God to "save [us] in [his] steadfast love" (Ps 31:16). And we can pray, when we are in Christ, Psalm 31:17-18, that we will "not be put to shame", just as Jesus takes on this prayer, fully expecting God to vindicate Him.
The wicked, those who reject God, will be consigned to judgment and sent silently into "Sheol" - the grave, while those who rely on Jesus Christ will be saved from the penalty of final judgement. God will be just in His judgement, and those who lie and speak insolently in pride and contempt will be mute without excuse. Jesus Christ was vindicated and raised from the dead (as we will hear about his resurrection this coming Sunday), and God silenced all His opponents and enemies. In every cruel detail, it was all as God had planned. And in every cruel detail, it was all endured for us by Jesus Christ.
We can trust God's rescue despite facing real distress.
The bottom line is that we can trust God's rescue despite facing real distress.
Beloved, the way of the cross will involve pain, loneliness, and hostility, that is why we need each other. When we gather as a church, we need to remind one another to turn away from the voices of distress and turn to hear the voices of confident trust in God. We hear God's Word preached and receive it joyfully as God's word. We sing God's truths in songs and hymns to one another, encouraging each other. We observe the Lord's supper and baptism, seeing the beautiful gospel on display. We speak God's Word to one another before and after the service in our conversations, reminding each other to hold fast in confident trust. We take time to huddle in twos and threes, praying that we will persevere in confident trust despite the voices that say otherwise.
In addition, just as we remember, we are recipients of His steadfast love and part of God's people; we pray for other parts of God's people who are suffering. We remember to pray for the persecuted church that they will hold fast to confident trust in God.
So, what happens when we go to God in earnest prayer? We find assurance and joy.
Ultimate Trust in Our Faithful God (Ps 31:19-24)
Though circumstances may not change, there is joy. The joy that floods through the Psalm from now on is the joy of believing God's promises; it is a joy of faith, whether or not the evidence of “sight” yet shows its truth.
We see this well in Psalm 31:19 — "Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!"
Psalm 31:19 gives us the reason for trusting. God's character is good, and he does good to those who fear Him and take refuge in Him. One day, God's display of mercy and goodness will be made clear in the sight of all mankind, but for now, these promises are revealed to those with ears to hear. For now, those who take refuge in God will be protected (Ps 31:20). We will be kept in a safe place "from the strife of tongues". Just as Jesus was kept safe from the lying, accusing tongues of the religious leaders and His opponents on His journey to the cross, we, too, can find safety.
These blessings are known by faith — the Holy Spirit of God can wonderfully give us joy under troubles and trials as we hope for the ages to come, when God's promises will be fully fulfilled.
How do we know that God's promises will come true?
It is because God has heard Christ and will hear us in Christ, and we can bless God for His faithfulness.
Psalm 31:21-22 make this clear. David and Jesus bless the LORD God with adoration. For God has "wondrously shown his steadfast love," especially when we have been "besieged".
We are filled with wonder and faith at how this "steadfast love" has been demonstrated to David, Christ, and us. On resurrection morning, we, too, no matter how much we may have believed about it, will be awestruck at the wonder of what God has done. When we are filled with "alarm" and feel that we have been "cut off" and left alone, God still hears us just as He hears Jesus Christ (Ps 31:22). Though we may not immediately see or feel it, God, who has heard Jesus cry, will listen to our "pleas for mercy."
This help is a promise.
King David concludes this Psalm with an exhortation in Psalm 31:23-24. He speaks of us as "his saints," "the faithful" (those loyal to God), and "you who wait for the Lord" with patient perseverance.
And what is the exhortation? It is to "love the Lord" with loyal delight and to "be strong" with our hearts taking "courage".
We are to take heed for a double-edged reason: The Lord "preserves the faithful" on the one hand, and, on the other, he "abundantly repays the one who acts in pride" (c.f. Ps 31:18). The headline here is to "love". God gives this command but also provides us with the power to do it. The people of Jesus are drawn into the fellowship of eternal love between Father and Son by the Spirit (e.g. John 17:25–26). It is because He first loves us that we can love God back.
It is no surprise that despite the suffering, Psalm 31 ends with hope: "Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!" Some versions of the Bible translate "wait" as "hope," which I think better reflects the text.
Our journey of faith through Psalm 31, following Jesus' prayer and meditation, ends in hope. This reflects the victory of Good Friday — Jesus' death was not the end but the beginning of God's plan of salvation. At the end of the day, we can ultimately trust in our faithful God of steadfast love and mercy.
Beloved, as a believer, Psalm 31 shows you what God is like and how He works. At the end of it, it turns on you and asks, "Do you love God?" Beloved, how has Psalm 31 moved you to a loyal love for God and Jesus Christ? How can we cultivate this love? Individually meditate on the whole Psalm, in particular Psalm 31:19-20.
We do have this long weekend for reflection and journaling. Read Psalm 31 and John 11:1-44 in our homes as part of family worship. When we gather as a church, we speak of the goodness and grace of God and how God has been your refuge. Speak it often to one another in our testimonies because the recognition of the goodness and grace of the Lord, when felt in one's experience, can captivate our hearts. One way to love God is also to love His people, so make it a priority to gather as a church and love and serve each other.
I speak to believers struggling with trials. Because of God's love for us in Christ (Ps 31 c.f. Rom 37-39), the Holy Spirit moves us to a resolute, passionate, loyal love for God the Father and the Lord Jesus. So, we courageously walk through our trials and believe in the promises in Psalm 31. In what ways will you trust God and seek refuge in His rescue, knowing that God has got you in your circumstances?
Beloved, if you are in distress right now, and would like to be prayed for, you can stay behind for a while, and approach the pastors or staff elders at the front or the back of this worship hall after the service. We will be happy to pray together and cry out to God with you.
My friends, maybe you are not a Christian, and you are visiting — please consider the message of Psalm 31. I urge you to take refuge in Christ and trust in His rescue. If this is your desire, firstly, acknowledge that you once opposed Christ and rejected God. You have sinned in doing so, and you deserve God's judgement as an opponent of God. Secondly, believe that Jesus Christ accomplished God's plan for our rescue, by dying as a substitute in our place on the cross to turn away God's wrath against sin. And when we trust in Jesus Christ, Jesus makes amends for our sins and brings us back into a relationship with God.
Lastly, "if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (Rom 9:8)".
My friends, if you have any questions and would like to find out more about the rescue and refuge Jesus offers, after the service, feel free to approach the pastors or staff elders at the front or back of this worship hall. We also have free books and resources available at the table outside the worship hall — you can take a copy with you to read.
Finally, in closing, we remember what the Bible reminds us in Romans 8:37-39.
When we trust in God, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
On Good Friday some 2000 years ago, Jesus loved us and obeyed God and stayed on the cross — He was crucified, died and buried, and was raised again, so that our final enemy death is defeated.
When we trust in God, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. So, trust God and seek refuge in His rescue.
Let us close in prayer.
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