Well, I was reflecting — I was out of town last week — and just thinking over the last several months together. At the beginning of Lent, we started a series called Idol. We spent the Lenten season thinking about what it is the gospel comes to deal with and why it is that we need the gospel. And we framed it this way: we need it because we become what we behold. When we exchange the glory of the Creator for the lesser glory of any created thing, we become diminished. We begin to resemble that which we reflect on and revere. We are shaped by what we give ourselves to in service.
So we unpacked what idolatry was, and then we moved on to eight weeks of beholding through the spiritual disciplines — how do we behold Jesus? Because the same principle that defines the problem of idolatry also points us to the solution of transformation in Christ. We were made to be God's images. We are made by God for God. We are designed to receive the glory of God and reflect it back into creation. So we need to align ourselves, and the disciplines are God's gift to do exactly that.
And last week, Dan did a brilliant job starting us off on our summer in the Psalms. This is the third year we are spending together in the Psalms, and it is truly a continuation of what we have been doing for the last sixteen weeks — spending time together in the Psalms that we might behold God, and that in beholding God we might become more and more like Jesus. Dan did such a great job last week in Psalm 133, and he did a beautiful job of showing how that psalm lays out that the fruit of a people beholding God together is unity. One of the first disciplines we looked at was the discipline of community — that we are not designed to be independent and function alone. We are made by God to be interdependent. We are always going to be better together than we are by ourselves. And so there is this beautiful reality in Psalm 133 that the fruit of beholding God together is unity, and unity is the environment where God has dedicated His blessings to manifest. There are experiences of God's grace and blessing that we are never going to have by ourselves because, functionally, they are only experienceable — if that is a word — in community.
And I don't know about you, but as I was listening to Dan's sermon and thinking about the design of God for community, my heart was just filled with longing. That is what I want. That is what I crave — to be a part of a family, a people, to be in relationships where I am known and where I know others, where I am loved and I can love others. This is what we are made for. It is how God has designed us.
And so this morning I want to continue to wrestle with that by trying to answer this question: what does it take — or maybe better put, what kind of people do we need to be in order to enter into and experience that kind of community? We long for it. We are made for it. It is offered to us in Christ. And yet so often we do not live that way. So what is it that needs to happen to us, or within us, that we might be the kind of people who are actually willing to enter into the kind of community God has designed us for?
Because proximity doesn't equal community. Just being in the same place, being in the same room, does not mean that we are in the same spirit, that we are in the same heart, that we are sharing life together. We can be together and not be together. There is a world of difference between being here open and aware of others, ready to receive, hoping and longing to give, not wearing masks, playing no games, ready to be used by God for others' good — and being here managing your image, manipulating the conversation and the presentation of yourself to others, hoping to control and elevate yourself, ultimately ready to use others for your own advantage. There is a world of difference between those two realities. And it is not a difference that is obvious to the eyes. It is not a difference that is external. It is a difference of the heart, a difference of motive.
So this morning I want to unpack Psalm 62. Before I get into the text, let me give you a word about the genre. The Psalms are not texts about worship or texts about prayer — the Psalms are worship and they are prayer. They are not written to give information about worship or about prayer or about God or about ourselves. They are written as instruction, as an invitation into communion with God. Using the terminology we have been using, the Psalms are written to help us behold God that we might become what we were always made to be — His images. They are participatory. The thing about worship and prayer and many of the spiritual disciplines is that we do not learn about them and then do them. We actually learn to do them by doing them. And that is what the Psalter is. That is what this collection of prayers and hymns and meditations is — a standing invitation for us to enter into the worship of God's people that we might become who He made us to be.
Now Psalm 62 begins with a superscription, and very often we just rush past them and ignore them. But it starts this way:
To the choirmaster: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.
So this is a psalm written by David, and then it was taken by Jeduthun — one of three of David's primary worship leaders, to use our terminology. There were three temple musicians: Jeduthun, Asaph, and Heman, who served leading the people of Israel, the covenant nation, in worship to Yahweh. So David writes this prayer, this meditation, and then gives it to the worship leader, who puts it to music. We see right from the beginning that this is a personal, private reflection that is then shared with the community. It is meant to be experienced together. It works by yourself just fine, and it works together even better.
So we are being invited, just by this superscription, not to simply study this prayer but to pray it. So let us join the ancient chorus and see what it has to say.
1 For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.
Now, this is technically a psalm of lament, but it does not follow the normal structure of lament psalms. It actually starts where most lament psalms end — with this declaration of truth. One of the things I want you to pay attention to as we walk through this text is who David is talking to. He starts out talking to everybody — to God, to himself, to anyone who will listen — with this declaration: for God alone my soul waits in silence, from him comes my salvation.
The text does not tell us, as some psalms do, exactly when in David's life he wrote this. But there are a lot of clues within it, and many scholars — and I really believe this — think David wrote this most likely during his son Absalom's rebellion. And I think that matters for this reason: it is really easy to say, when life is going well, "God alone, my soul waits in silence, from him comes my salvation." It is easy to say that when you are not facing struggle. But David does not write this after Goliath has been slain. David does not write this after winning another victory over the Philistines. David writes this when he should be enjoying the advantages of age, enjoying his family, ruling the kingdom God has given him. Instead, he has to flee from the city of Jerusalem and hide once again in the hills — from his own son. David writes this in a time of uncertainty, a time of grief, a time of fear, and it has to be a time of guilt, because Absalom's rebellion does not come from nowhere. In many ways it is the consequence of choices David made earlier in his life, coming back to haunt him. And so in this time of brokenness, uncertainty, grief, pain, shame, and guilt, David sits down and says, "For God alone my soul waits in silence. From him comes my salvation."
That word there — alone — is a really small Hebrew word, אַךְ — ʿak. It shows up in these twelve verses six times, over and over again. So much so that Charles Spurgeon, the famous preacher, nicknamed this "the only psalm." ʿak is an adverb with a double semantic meaning and range. First, it is restrictive — it means only, alone. But it is also asseverative — an emphatic affirmation with a solemn, truth-underscoring weight meaning surely or truly. So it is not just limiting the object to God; it is defining and announcing it as God. Surely, truly, only God is the one my soul longs for.
For God alone my soul waits in silence. The Hebrew here, דּוּמִיָּה — dûmiyyāh, can mean silence or stillness. It means to cease, to stop talking, to stop moving, to stop managing, to be still. But it is not emptiness — it is orientation. A soul aimed towards God rather than driven by circumstances. How much energy, how much focus, how much time do we spend reactively to the circumstances around us that are almost always out of our control, versus orienting, aiming, and aligning ourselves to the One who made us for Himself?
The Hebrew is actually really interesting here, because there is no verb. The "waits in silence" has just been thrown into the English. Listen to what it literally says: only toward God, stillness, my soul. Only toward God. Silence, my soul. The syntax, the grammar, enacts the very stillness and silence it describes.
The psalmist does not say "my soul has become still" or "my soul is being stilled." He declares, in effect: my soul — stillness. There is no motion left in this sentence. The grammar itself has stopped striving. I cannot think of a better picture of what I am hoping this summer in the Psalms does for us. A soul so aimed at God that even the sentence describing it has ceased to churn. My soul towards God. Stillness.
And again, this is not the silence or stillness of emptiness. It is towards the fullness of God. Think about what David is describing — it is what a compass does. When you first turn it out, the needle is spinning, looking for true north. And when it finds true north, what does it do? It stops. It points. It has found its direction. That is what David is describing here. A soul that has stopped spinning. A soul that has found its true north, its ultimate direction, in God alone. From him comes my salvation.
In verse two, he continues:
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.
So God — again ʿak, alone — is now described with two important metaphors: rock and fortress. The word for rock is צוּר — ṣûr: an inaccessible rock face, a crag or a cave that is immovable and out of reach of enemies. The word for fortress, מִשְׂגָּב — miśgāb, is a high place, a position of security above the reach of pursuers. So David is saying: when I am still in You, when I am directed towards You, when I am depending on You, You become like this inaccessible rock fortress, a high place that nobody can reach, where I am protected and safe.
In ancient Israel, these words were not simply metaphors or abstractions. The tabernacle in David's day — and then Solomon's temple once it was built — functioned as a literal place of sanctuary. An Israelite being chased could run to the tabernacle, to the altar, and grab the horns of the altar and be granted safety and refuge. I think David is pulling all of that imagery in. When I am in the presence of God, when I am in the sacred space, when I am still and silent, when I cease striving, when I am with You, God — then I know salvation, I know rescue.
That word salvation is the Hebrew יְשׁוּעָה — yešûʿā(h). It means rescue and saving. David is saying the only one that can ultimately save him is God. He is not looking to his army to deliver him. He is not looking to his physical strength or his wisdom or his battle prowess. He is at a place where none of that is going to help him. The only way forward is with God. He says it again: I shall not be greatly shaken.
So it is a great start — this declaration, this pronouncement, this announcement that God is the one who saves. And the way we experience that is by stilling and silencing and orienting ourselves to Him.
Then in verse three, things go south fairly quickly.
3 How long will all of you attack a man to batter him, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? 4 They only plan to thrust him down from his high position. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. Selah
"How long" is standard lament vocabulary — but here, David is addressing not God but his enemies. How long are you going to keep attacking me? There is some irony here, right? Because he has just said, "I am in this high place. I am in the fortress. I am in the rock. I shall not be shaken." But now he finds himself in a place where he actually has been shaken. He is not in Jerusalem. He is hiding in the wilderness. His future is uncertain. He does not know what is going to happen because he is being attacked. And he says, "How long will you attack me, batter me like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?" The imagery is vivid — I am like a wall that is being battered and battered. I am still standing, but the structural integrity is not good. I do not know how many more hits I can take before I go down.
He says they only — there it is again, ʿak — they only want to thrust him down from his high position. The word for "high position" refers to one's dignity, one's elevation, one's standing. So the goal of this assault as David sees it is not simply physical. They are not just trying to kill him. They are trying to kill his image and his reputation. You have to understand: in the ancient Near East, perhaps even more so than in our culture, identity mattered profoundly. One's honor, one's reputation, one's name was the most important thing about you. He is saying: you are trying to tear me down, to strip away my honor, my dignity, my glory.
And notice how they attempt to do it. They take pleasure in falsehood. They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. You have heard this in the church before, right? "Oh, bless their heart." You know how that functions — you can say the worst thing imaginable about somebody and then just tack on "bless their heart," and think it is okay. It is not okay. There is this subtle reality — not outright violence, not in your face, but the behind-your-back gossiping and slandering: "Have you heard? Did you see? What do you think about?" And then flat-out lies. Maybe you have had that friend in your life, the one who, when you are with them, laughs at your jokes and tells you how great you are, but behind your back is mocking you and belittling you. Maybe you have experienced it at work — a colleague who tells you how brilliant you are and how great your ideas are, and then tries to steal them, take credit for them, and tell the boss that you are just not quite up to snuff. The enemy who appears as your friend but is not — that is the reality David has been living through.
See, Absalom's rebellion did not start with swords. It started with whispers. Absalom would stand at the city gates, and as the people would come in and the elders would gather, he would whisper. He would plant seeds of doubt and distrust about his father. He would woo people, speak words of honey, win them over slowly but surely — always saying, "Oh, I serve the king," but everything he was doing was undermining the king. Eventually Absalom comes to David and says, "I need to go pay a vow." David says, "Sure, go pay a vow." And then Absalom goes and gathers an army. A messenger comes to David and says, "Absalom has won the hearts of the people." And so David has to flee Jerusalem before there is outright violence in the streets.
This is what David has been living through. And the plan actually worked. The lies, the falsehoods, the whispers had become a mighty shout. David, who one minute is saying "I will not be greatly shaken," is now shaken. His reputation, his honor, has been tarnished and broken. He is once again hiding in the wilderness.
And so in verse five, he comes back to where he started:
5 For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.
This is where grammar matters. There is a big difference between “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!” This verse sounds exactly like verse one, but there is a change, and this change is everything. Verse one is a description — a settled state declared in the indicative: my soul is silence toward God. But verse five is a command. The vocative, נַפְשִׁי — napšî, "O my soul," is followed by an imperative: be silent, O my soul, toward God. David has turned from talking to his enemies and is now talking to himself. And you only command your soul toward a posture it has left.
The stillness and silence of verses one and two, the bold declaration "I will not be shaken" — it is lost in just two verses. David has been shaken. He has lost his stillness. So now he has to talk to his own soul. And notice he does not beat himself up. He does not shame himself, does not throw a pity party. He directs himself. He leads himself. He has taken his eyes off the salvation offered in God and now has to reorient himself to look back to God.
I love what Martyn Lloyd-Jones has to say about this. It is worth quoting at length:
"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday… Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now …(DAVID) instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself… The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself… and say to yourself: 'Hope thou in God.'"
Lloyd-Jones is right. That is exactly what this psalm is doing — orienting, directing, and leading our hearts back to that which they were made for.
Now let me be clear. This is not positive affirmation — not "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me." It is certainly not the name-it-and-claim-it of the prosperity gospel or the fake-it-till-you-make-it approach. It is the fight of faith. It assumes that we have been given the freedom to direct our lives and our souls. It assumes that our feelings do not dictate reality, and that when we direct ourselves towards God, He is happy to meet us and help us — because He loves us and He is for us.
And that is why the shift from verse one to verse five matters. In verse one, David is just declaring: He is my salvation, from Him comes my salvation. But now in verse five he says, "My hope is from Him." The Hebrew תִּקְוָה — tiqwāh means expectation, hope. From the root קָוָה — qāwāh, meaning to wait, to look for, to hope. It is the posture of expectant waiting for God's action, oriented toward a future reality that is trusted but not yet visible.
God is my salvation, but I am not experiencing it right in this moment in the way that I need. So I am hoping in Him for the salvation that only He can bring. This is an honest prayer. Salvation is deliverance experienced. Hope is deliverance expected. For David, the crisis is not over. The enemies of verses three and four have not dispersed. The psalmist is not claiming resolution he does not have. He is holding on to what he knows against what he does not yet see. That is what commanded stillness sounds like in the middle of a storm — not "It is finished," but "My hope is from Him."
So having talked to himself, reoriented and realigned himself, and restored his hope in God, David continues in verse six with the same declaration as verse two:
6 He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken.
Which is, when you think about it, the craziness of faith sometimes — to once again declare "I will not be shaken" when you have been shaken. But what he is saying is: yes, the circumstances around me have been shaken, but that does not mean my soul has to be shaken. Now that I have oriented, now that I have stilled and quieted myself, now that I am looking to God — you cannot shake me, because He is my fortress. He is my rock.
And then David concludes this section in verse seven:
7 On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
His rescue, his salvation, and his glory. The Hebrew here is כָּבוֹד — kābôd. It means heaviness, weightiness, substantialness. God is the one who gives David meaning. God is the one who gives him value. God is the one who grants him reputation — the only reputation that ultimately matters. God is the one who gives him any kind of glory he may ever experience. He cannot lose what God has given him, and man cannot take from him what God has given him. On God rests my salvation and my glory.
Some of us need to hear that this morning so that we might be set free from the constant, never-ending quest for man-made glory. Some of us are flat-out addicts — we need people to like us, we crave affirmation and attention, and our mood and our experience of reality are completely determined by whether somebody says something nice or something mean to us. And one of the many problems with living for man-made glory is that it is never enough. Man changes constantly. You get five people to love you — great — but then you need ten. You get ten — great — but then somebody else has twenty. It just never ends. But God is more than enough. The glory that God offers is more than sufficient, more than abundant. It is a call for us to really consider who and what we are living for, and whose affirmation truly matters in the long run.
Now verse eight makes a turn in the psalm, from the private to the public. David reorients himself towards God. He renews his faith. He is now resting in the glory that only God can give, and that moves him out of himself to consider others.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah
So David starts talking to everybody. He talks to God, then he talks to his enemies, then he talks to himself, and now in verse eight he begins to talk to the people. This experience of soul stillness with God, the salvation and hope that is offered to David in God, is not for David alone. It is for all. It is for everyone that God has called to Himself. So as David is encountering and experiencing this reality, he is moved to invite, to welcome, and to call the people.
Remember, I started with the question: what kind of people do we need to be in order to experience the beauty of community, the kind that experiences God's blessing? I think David shows us here. The kind of person who has stilled themselves, silenced themselves, oriented themselves to God as their hope, their salvation, their glory — that is the kind of person who is free to enter into authentic community. Without that stillness and quietness of soul, without God being the source of our identity, our glory, our meaning, other people are either a threat or an audience. We are either competing for the same glory, or we need them to give us glory so we can feel good about ourselves. If I am not getting my glory from God, then the only way I can get it is to be better than you, or to impress you, or to manipulate you in such a way that you give me the glory I crave. I do not really love you. I need you. I am using you. Authentic community and love become possible when our souls have been stilled in God — when our hope, our salvation, our glory has been bestowed upon us by God so that we do not have to look to anyone else to give it to us.
He says, "Trust in God at all times." Not just in favorable circumstances. Not when it seems reasonable. At all times, in all circumstances, orient to Him. And then he says this remarkable phrase: pour out your heart before Him. The word is שָׁפַךְ — šāpak, and it means to pour out. But it does not mean a little bit at a time. It does not mean pour a little here, keep a little for yourself. It means to empty out — dump it out before God. Why would you hold anything back? Why would you take only some of your burdens to God and leave the rest on your own shoulders? Pour it all out, because God is a refuge for us. This implies a total emptying — nothing held back or managed.
Notice how this is the exact opposite of how David's enemies acted in verse four. They blessed externally and cursed internally — disjointed and broken. But the community that is trusting in God can be authentic, hiding nothing. One might even say naked and not ashamed, what we were made to be — because we have given everything to Him and He has given everything to us.
I mentioned Spurgeon before. Listen to what he had to say of this verse:
"Turn the vessel of your soul upside down in His secret presence, and let your inmost thoughts, desires, sorrows, and sins be poured out like water. Hide nothing from Him, for you can hide nothing."
There is such a logic to this. We like to think we are logical, but we tend to live by our emotions rather than our logic. So we convince ourselves somehow — I can hide this from God. I'll cover this myself. The God who is omniscient, all-knowing. The God who is omnipresent, everywhere. The God whom nothing gets past. And somehow we convince ourselves we can sneak something past Him. The tragedy is that we keep holding on to that which we cannot do anything about, when God is ready for us to give it all to Him.
In many ways the psalm could end here, but David does not stop. In this final section he names the two great alternatives to stilling our souls in God.
9 Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.
This is wisdom literature thrown into this psalm — proverbs, basically. David starts with this Hebrew parallelism: the lowest people, the marginalized, the ones nobody thinks matter, they are but a breath, a vapor. The people of high estate, the kings, the rulers, the mighty warriors — well, that is a delusion. They think they are something, but are they really? And then he does something remarkable. Put them together on a scale — the high and the low, put all of humanity on the scale — and it does not go down. It goes up, because it is a vapor, a breath, a mist, a delusion. Put all of them together and the scale rises.
This is not David being cynical about people. It is not telling you that people do not matter. But it is bringing definition and clarity to what human beings are designed to be and what they are not designed to be. Human beings were not designed to anchor a soul. When you make a person your refuge or your glory, you have not honored them. You have assigned them a job that no creature can fulfill or accomplish, and you have guaranteed the collapse of the wall you are leaning on. The person who anchors their soul in another human being cannot love that human being. They can only need them — monitor them, manage them, grip them — and the relationship will ultimately bend under a weight it was never meant to carry. Your spouse cannot be your savior. Your child cannot justify your life. That is not love. It is extraction wearing love's clothes.
And this is how our world functions. This is what we are all looking for. I know it is an old reference, but you remember the Jerry Maguire movie and the famous line: "You complete me." That is what every Hallmark movie, every romcom is about. Where is the one? My soulmate. Where is the one who is going to satisfy me, complete me, rescue me, give me meaning, give me everything my heart is hungering for? "You complete me" is an absolute formula for failure, because they are just human. They are going to disappoint you. They are going to let you down. They are going to break your heart. We are made to find our identity, our satisfaction, our meaning, our value in God alone. David says: if you are looking for it in people, you are not only going to damage yourself, you are going to end up damaging them in the process.
Then he turns to wealth:
10 Put no trust in extortion; set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, set not your heart on them.
Extortion here means unjust gain through the systemic exploitation of leverage. Robbery means outright seizure by force. So if you cannot find security through unjust gain or power — and some of us, like me, might go, "Oh, that is not me, I do not extort people and I have not robbed anybody, so I am fine." But then he goes here, and it is interesting how he proceeds. If riches increase, set not your heart on them. David says, "If riches increase" — not through extortion or robbery, not stolen wealth, but increased wealth, the legitimately earned kind, the kind that is abundant in this room.
Set not your heart on it. We live in a time and an age and a culture of unprecedented wealth, and the blessing can become a burden so quickly. The moment we think our retirement account or our Bitcoin or our portfolio is what makes us secure — set not your heart on riches. That too is a formula for failure. I think all of us in the culture we inhabit have to constantly be asking ourselves a reflective question: do I own my possessions, or do my possessions own me? What is the relationship I have to the things that God has granted me? Do I use them as a steward, enjoying them and using them meaningfully as God's image-bearer, or am I ultimately owned by them? Part of how we answer that question is asking ourselves things like: what settles your soul? What do you reach for when you feel anxious? What is it that you tell yourself, "If I could just have this, then I'd be okay"? David says: people and possessions, good in and of themselves, are not substantial enough to give the glory that only God can give. They are vapors. They cannot sustain the human heart that was made for God.
So he concludes this psalm with a proverb, a wisdom formulation:
11 Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, 12 and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.
Once, twice — this wisdom literature formula is not introducing two different things. It is designed to introduce a single truth so important that a single hearing is never sufficient. It is what you say before you say the most important thing, and here it is: power belongs to God. Faithful love belongs to God.
This is not a random declaration of two of God's attributes. This is the summarization of God's foundational self-revelation in Exodus and His covenant reality with His people. God is sovereign. God is powerful. And God is loving, faithful, and loyal. Both are required for us to still our souls before God. Both are required. If God is only powerful but not loving, you can never be still before Him. He can help — but will He? He can deliver — but does He want to? You can only brace yourself before raw power. There is no resting in a God who is absolutely loving but not powerful either. A God who sympathizes but cannot rescue cannot offer rest to the soul.
And this is the heart of the psalm, and the heart of why we can still our souls in God. We can pour ourselves out to God because He alone is strong enough to handle it, and He alone is good enough, loving enough, faithful enough that we can trust Him with our hearts. We can still our souls before God. We can hope only in Him. Why? Because He is sovereign and He is loving. He is powerful and He is faithful.
Which brings us to the very last line of the psalm:
12 For you will render to a man according to his work.
Now that can sound a little jarring, almost like a threat. It is not a threat. It is actually the promise of freedom. Here is the logic: if power belongs to God and steadfast love belongs to God, then outcomes belong to God. We read, "You will render to a man according to his work," and in our narcissistic cultural moment we go, "Oh, I better get to work." No. The emphasis is on the first part — the God of all power, the God of faithful love, is the One who will render according to what we have done. And what David is calling us to in this psalm is to hope in Him, pour out our hearts to Him, still and silence our souls that we might look to God and God alone for our salvation. God is the true giver of salvation and hope, and we can still our souls and trust in His power and His love, leaving the results in His hands.
This is why David can say in the midst of it all: "I will not be shaken. The circumstances around me are chaotic. I am still hiding in the wilderness. My son is still trying to kill me. But my hope is in God. My hope is in God."
I could not help it this week — time and again as I was working through this text I was drawn to think about Jesus. Not because it is my job, but because this psalm so beautifully points to Him. Jesus, across the scope of His life, illustrates the reality we just read in Psalm 62. He shows us what a stilled and quieted soul before God actually looks like.
Think about the battle for stillness that Jesus fought in Gethsemane. Jesus is about to be betrayed with a kiss. Is there a better example of blessing with the lips while cursing in the heart? Jesus is about to be handed over, and He goes and invites His three closest friends to come and pray with Him — and they fall asleep. The enemy is coming at Him with full force. Jesus is sweating blood. If you thought you were having a bad day. That is the beauty of Christ's example for us — He is able to sympathize with us in our weakness. Jesus knows what it is like to have everything around you shaken. And Jesus goes to the Father: "Father, if there is another way, maybe we could do something else." But see, this is the prayer of a soul stilling itself — "Not My will, but Yours be done." He goes back and wakes the disciples. They fall asleep again. He goes a third time. He comes back: "All right, we have to go." And Judas comes to Him with a kiss. And what does Jesus do? He lets him. Peter is not having it — he pulls out a sword and starts cutting off ears. Jesus says, "Put the sword away," and heals the ear. He heals the ear of the very people who have come to arrest and destroy Him. That is what a soul stilled in God looks like.
And then He is put on trial. Betrayed. Arrested. Beaten. Mocked. False witnesses brought in, all trying to tear Him down with falsehood and lies.
11 Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus said, "You have said so." 12 But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. 13 Then Pilate said to him, "Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?" 14 But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
I don't know about you. I hate it when people lie about me. I hate falsehoods. I hate betrayal. And when somebody says something about me that's not true, everything in me needs to correct it, to fix it. I don't think I'm the only one in the room that feels this way. You don't think Jesus felt that in the moment? As the very ones that he came to save are betraying him, as the one that is the way, the truth, and the life is being lied about? But his hope isn't in what those people think about him. His hope: “Not my will, but yours be done.”He gave no answer.
13 Then Pilate said to him, "Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?"
Pilate's trying to get Jesus to defend himself. “Don't you hear what they're saying?”
14 But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.
Not even to a single charge so that the governor, Pilate, was greatly amazed. He was greatly amazed. That image is just so beautiful and striking to me. Not Jesus standing up and defending himself and calling out the falsehoods and establishing the truth. That wouldn't have amazed Pilate. That's what Pilate expected. That's what the world does. That's what sin and pride does.
What was amazing about Jesus, what amazed Pilate about Jesus was the settledness of his soul and his hope in God - not in controlling the circumstances around him. And church, that's the example that we are called to follow.
Isaiah actually prophesied the response of Jesus 750 years before it happened.
7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.
This is the example of a true imager, of true faith and true hope, looking not to control that which only God controls and looking to God alone to be our salvation.
You might say, well, it didn't work out that well for Jesus because they killed him. They did. As mind-boggling as it is, that was the plan. But that doesn't mean that Jesus' hope failed. Because it's not the end of the story. He stayed silent. He stayed trusting. He put himself in God's care, and he died. But that's not the end of the story. Because God raised him from the dead and He will not be shaken.
This is the example for us. I know it's not what you want to hear because I know it's not what I want to hear. I want to hear if I still my soul, then everything's going to work out the way that I want it to. That's not what David is saying. That's not what the scripture is calling us to. It's saying if you will still your soul, everything will work out the way that God wants it to. And at the end of the day, that's going to be better than what you could have imagined.
So church, I want to encourage you this week. Pray Psalm 62 every day. If you can, start your day with it. Start your day by settling the question, who am I looking to? What am I hoping in? Where does my glory come from?
Let the psalm bring you in to the stillness of soul that we were made for.
Scripture in this sermon
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