Dear friends
The Psalms are a wonderful gift to us. They display the whole range of human emotions – from elation to despair, and everything in between. However. these experiences are always engaged with in the context of relationship with God.
This morning I read from Psalm 71:
Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
you who have done great things.
Who is like you, God?
Though you have made me see troubles,
many and bitter, you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up. (Psalm 71.19-20 NIV11)
The Psalmist has faced many, bitter troubles. He cries to God for deliverance from the hand of the wicked and the grasp of those who are evil and cruel (71.4), who conspire to kill him (71.10). However, while there are human agents at work, he declares to the Lord, “you have made me see troubles”.
This is not an accusation, but an acknowledgement that God rules everything. He calls to God for deliverance, because it is God who is sovereign. It is because God is the ultimate author of the Psalmists predicament that he can be the ultimate author of the Psalmists salvation.
As we read Psalm 71, we see not only the experience of the Psalmist, but ultimately that of our Lord Jesus. He is the righteous one who suffered unjustly, yet trusted his Father to deliver him. Scripture testifies that his trust was well founded as the Sovereign Lord brought him up from “the depths of the earth”.
This should give us confidence that God will also deliver us through hardship and even death so we also will praise God for his salvation.
Cameron Munro
Pastor | Trinity Church Brighton
0432 578 460 | cameron.munro@trinity.church | Day Off Fridays