Word of Salvation – June 2026
A GOD YOU CAN TRUST
A Sermon by Rev. John Haverland
Text: Psalm 131
Readings: 1 Chronicles 17:1-5, 10b-20; Matthew 18:1-14
Theme: David testifies to a humble trust in God.
Purpose: To direct us to a humble childlike trust and confidence in God.
We have just sung this beautiful hymn, Amazing Grace, written by John Newton. After his remarkable conversion he became a pastor and had long ministries in two churches until his death at the age of 82.
Every week he wrote a hymn based on the verse he was going to preach. One week he was preparing to preach on the words of David in 1 Chronicles which we read earlier; “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” This question prompted the writing of his hymn “Amazing grace”.
When David spoke the words recorded in 1 Chronicles he was well settled in his kingship over Israel.
God had told him he was not the man to build a temple in Jerusalem, and he accepted this. He was amazed at the grace God had shown to him during his reign as king.
This comes through in Psalm 131, which he wrote, probably later in his life.
Maybe he thought back to how the Lord told him not to build the temple and recognised this as one of the things “too great” that he ought not to be busy with.
As he looked back over this life he expressed humility, trust, and hope in the Lord.
He expressed these qualities in this short but beautiful psalm. We too are called to humility, trust and hope.
- HUMILITY – v 1
a) “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high.”
Your heart is the centre of your life. Everything you think and say and do arises from your heart. Sometimes we say about a person, “His heart is in the right place.” By this we mean he is good hearted and he is concerned about the right things.
If your heart is right then other things will follow.
The psalm expresses this in the usual parallel lines of Hebrew poetry:
“My heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high”.
The opposite of humility is pride. If your heart is proud then your eyes will be haughty or boastful; you will look down on others with a superior attitude.
But if your heart is humble then that will reflect in the way you look at others and treat them.
Pride is a sin of the heart and is the first of the “Seven deadly sins”. Proverbs 6 tells us that “haughty eyes” are one of the seven things the Lord hates (v17). He hates it when we are proud in relation to other people and to him. Others may not know you are proud because it is something that you can hide away inside of yourself.
But it will show in your attitude to others – it will lead to arrogance and boasting.
Pride leads to lust and adultery, as it did with David, to jealousy, blame, a failure to forgive and selfish ambition.
Instead of being proud we must recognize who we are – sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God. We must confess our sins, as David did in Psalm 51 after his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband, Uriah.
God knows who we are and what we are like. He probes into every nook and cranny of our minds and lives.
We need to learn to say, “My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty.”
Spurgeon notes that this might be one of the shortest of the psalms but this lesson of humility takes a long time to learn.
Jesus spoke about this humility in the passage we read in Matthew 18. The disciples asked him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (You can see the attitude of pride even in the question!)
In response Jesus called a little child and had him stand among them. He said; “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 18:3f)
It is not easy to humble ourselves like this. Think about the word ‘wretch’ in the hymn we just sang?
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me…”
A wretch is the lowest of the low, despicable, poor, miserable, inferior, a person to be pitied.
Did you sing that word? Did you mean it? Could say it honestly?
This is our sinful state apart from God’s saving grace.
Apart from God’s love in Christ we are lost and blind and wretched, But in Christ we are found and forgiven and renewed.
Jesus not only taught us to be humble but he led us by his example. He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing – he humbled himself (Phil 2:6). He said, “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 9:35).
b) But verse 1 not only describes humility of heart but also a humility of mind – “I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me.”
Some Christians read these lines as a reason not to read the difficult parts of the Bible, or books of theology; they use it as an excuse not to attend a Bible study, or an Adult Catechism class, or a book reading group.
They claim that being a Christian is not about knowing but doing; it is not about the head but about the heart! But this is a false dichotomy!
You need to know the Bible and do it!
You must engage your head and your heart!
David is reminding us that some things are beyond our understanding. We must recognise that we are only human and limited; we don’t know everything.
The rapid expansion of knowledge makes us very aware of that. Knowledge is becoming more and more specialized.
You may have heard the line that “a specialist is someone who learns more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing!”
Compared to God we know nothing at all.
He is the Creator, we are his creatures;
He is infinite, we are finite;
he is all wise, we are foolish.
David may have had in mind the words of Deut 29:29: “The secret things belong to the Lord but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
There are many things God has revealed to us, and we may and should explore these in depth and obey all he has commanded us; but there are other things he has kept hidden from us that we must not curiously pry into.
This is true of doctrines such as God’s election and predestination and how that relates to our responsibility. This is also true of God’s providence in our lives and in the lives of others.
This is true of the may questions we have:
Why does God allow pandemics, or severe flooding, or young people to die?
Why do
The truth is, we do not know.
These are “things too great and too marvellous for me.” These are above and beyond us.
In these matters we need humility of mind.
Job came to understand this after his time of great suffering. He had complained to God and raised many objections and questions about what God was doing to him! Then God spoke to him.
After that Job said;
“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42:3).
We need this same attitude of mind; we must accept that there is much that is beyond our understanding.
We need humility of heart so that we are not proud,
and we need humility of mind so we do not pry into matters that are beyond us.
- We also need to TRUST in God– verse 2
We know from the Bible that God is trustworthy, he is reliable, he is dependable.
David put his trust in God:
I have calmed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child with its mother,
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
It is not easy to quiet your soul, especially in the rush and turmoil of our hectic world.
But it’s not only the pace and fury of our world that makes this hard, but also what goes on in our own hearts and minds.
We are easily irritated, carried away by our emotions, quickly angered; by nature we are prone to worry and anxiety.
Spurgeon wrote that it is easier to calm the sea, or rule the world, or tame a tiger, than to quiet your soul.
Yet David had learned to do this – to be composed, to be calm, and to still his heart before his Lord.
He gives us a picture of this: that of a weaned child with his mother. A weaned child is one who has finished breastfeeding. In that culture mothers breastfed much longer than today, even up to the age of four or five.
Babies who are breast or bottle fed can be very impatient and demanding; they can’t wait to get their milk; they want it now! Little babies are not calm and quiet, but rather are selfish and self centred!
But a child who has been weaned is older, and has learnt to trust his mother and to be patient.
Studies show that the first 18 months to three years are critical for a child to develop bonding and attachment to his parents. “The child learns that if he has a need, someone will gratify that need, and the gratification leads to the development of his trust in others.” (Adoption and the Hurt Child, Keck & Kupecky).
As a baby gets older he knows that his parents will pick him up, hold him, feed him, look at him, and talk to him.
This cycle of need and gratification during those first few years builds trust. The child feels secure in this relationship with his father and mother.
David uses this as an image of our relationship with God. It is a picture of trust, security, and peace.
Through our experiences of God we learn to trust him, depend on him, and lean on him. We believe he will look after us, provide for us, and care for us.
This is based on what we know about God. The more you get to know him the more you will trust him.
As you get to know God better you will find that he is utterly reliable, completely faithful and totally dependable.
You can trust him, like a weaned child with his mother.
We know this especially because of what God has done in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. God has kept his promises. He has sent his One and Only Son, Jesus, to be one of us, to teach us about the Father, to demonstrate his love for us.
Everything that Jesus has done and is doing is proof that God is faithful, reliable and dependable.
You can trust your Triune God in times of sorrow and grief, in loneliness and sadness, in trouble and trial, in sickness and pain.
We sang the hymn by William Cowper, who was a neighbour and contemporary of John Newton, and a fellow hymn writer. He wrote about God’s providence;
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.(SttL 195)
In this psalm David expresses a humble trust in God.
We trust in God through the Lord Jesus.
We are not proud in our hearts or presumptuous in our minds. We trust him as a loved child trusts his parents.
- Humility, trust, and HOPE – v 3
David expands this to address all the people of God:
“O Israel, hope in the Lord,
From this time forth and forevermore.”
The psalm rises from deep humility to great hope.
This hope in the Lord looks back to verses 5 & 7 in the previous psalm….
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope….
O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.”
This hope in the Lord is not merely wishful thinking or vague desires. Rather it is a firm and sure confidence that God is always there and will always look after us.
The people of Israel put their hope in the promises of the Lord about the coming of David’s greater Son, the Messiah, the One Promised.
They looked to him for salvation and redemption, for freedom and life. They looked to him as their Star and Sun, as the Light shining in a dark place.
We know that Jesus has come, has completed his great work of salvation, has returned to heaven, and will come again. We too put our hope in the Lord.
We trust him and hope in him here and now, in our present circumstances.
But we also trust him and hope in him for the future.
We trust in him for today and tomorrow, this week and next week, this year and next year.
We put our hope in him knowing that one day he will come again. We know that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed, that each day brings us closer to our eternal home.
Be humble in your heart and mind.
Trust in the Lord like a child with his mother.
Put your hope in the Lord, both now and forevermore.
Amen