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[0:00] sovereign God over this whole entire situation. And you know what's really interesting here? Look at verse 5. So here's the train of thought. So we have the description of the circumstances that are going on around him.

[0:12] Then we have in verse 3 we have the shift in David's confidence. We have in verse 4 we have David's prayer. And what does he do in verse 5? He goes to sleep. Isn't that interesting? Because how often when we are in the midst of some sort of a struggle, these numerous things going on in our life, what's the most common thing that somebody will say?

[0:37] I slept horrible last night. Why? Because I have all these things going on in my life. Right? I have circumstances. I have enemies. I have problems. David doesn't seem to have that problem.

[0:50] Why do you think that is? He says that later when I slept, I woke again to the Lord's sustaining. Prior to that, he says I prayed and God answered. Okay?

[1:01] So the thought in David's mind is this circumstance, these situations that are going on around me are no longer my responsibility. I have laid this down at the feet of God.

[1:14] And therefore God will sustain me and take care of me. Prayer is answered. Right? Just very simple. It just moves on. I prayed. I answered. I went to bed. That sounds amazing.

[1:26] They have trust completely in the sovereignty of God. Now in verse 5, what does it say? I lay down and I slept. I woke up. Ready to face the day, the things that are coming at me?

[1:41] Confident that the Lord will sustain him. Just as he always has. David takes his cares and he gives them to the Lord. He has placed his circumstances in the hands of the Lord, but he has also, more importantly, placed his trust in the hands of the Lord.

[1:57] That God will lift his head just like in verse 3. And what is going on around here? It's a pretty bad situation. Again, there are thousands of people who have set themselves surrounded.

[2:09] And I think we can take that to mean a literal thousands of people. There's a great multitude of people rising up against David. They've set themselves around David.

[2:21] They've circled around him. They're pressing in on him. They're ready to attack. But David has confidence that he can face the worst. Look at the process here one more time. First, David recognizes that the Lord is his shield, his protector.

[2:35] Second, he recognizes that the Lord is his ultimate glory down himself. Third, he says the Lord will lift my head. Fourth, David prays for help and protection.

[2:46] Fifth, his prayer is answered. And now David has his confidence in his battle. This tribe, David can face them with confidence and he knows, again, that God is sovereign.

[2:57] He knows what is going on in his life. God is aware. God knows what's going on in your life. God is aware. He's not surprised. He's not scrambling when something bad happens to think, what am I going to do now?

[3:15] How much can you rest in that fact as well when we see the things that are coming at us in life and we know that we have a God that helps us. We're not working against him. He's working with us.

[3:27] God will be with us. And then lastly, we see the assurance of God's salvation in verse 7 through 8. Without the Lord, really there's no solution the more success is there.

[3:41] At least none would have had it. Right? Because as we've navigated through these eight verses, there's been numerous times where we could have said, I'll take care of it. Right? I've got it. I'll do it. But this beautiful phrase here in verse 8, salvation belongs to the Lord.

[3:57] Okay? There's two aspects when we look at that of what this term salvation means. But ultimately, God is the author of salvation from beginning to end. And think about it.

[4:10] We won't branch off in all the directions that will come our way, but think about it. If God was not the author of salvation from beginning to end, we would be in a world of trouble. And he didn't just save us and say, go figure it out.

[4:23] Right? We didn't have to earn salvation and catch up to him later on. He's the author of salvation from beginning to end. To quote Boyce again, I use Boyce's commentary a lot on this because I'm through that out.

[4:34] If God has saved you in this great matter of salvation, why should you tremble before the lesser physical dangers of this life, however imposing and frightful they may seem? You should triumph by faith in God as David did.

[4:51] Why? God has saved you and we're confident. We have assurance of our salvation. If we know that, why tremble on the things of lesser danger in life?

[5:04] This really, this phrase here in verse 8, I think it really just sums up what we're doing here. Right? Salvation belongs to the Lord. Let me just, I found a couple of verses and I want to just highlight them real quickly about what salvation belongs to the Lord really means.

[5:19] In Isaiah 43-11, I am the Lord and besides me there is no Savior. Revelation 7-10, crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into the Lamb.

[5:34] Jonah 2-9, but I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you what I have vowed I will pay, salvation belongs to the Lord. Revelation 19-1, after this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out, Hallelujah, salvation and glory and power belong to our God.

[5:55] Throughout the entire canon of scripture you can see traces of that statement, that salvation belongs to the Lord. David knows in this immediate context that his salvation is his deliverance, which is the other way of using this term salvation.

[6:10] He knows that it ultimately belongs to God. It comes completely from the Lord. Ground your confidence.

[6:24] Build your faith up from the fact that you have assurance of your salvation. we go to a conference every year called Basics and Alistair always says, he makes a joke about some sort of doctrine that we would consider to be easy, to use that term lightly, and he says what?

[6:45] We always need to go back to the basics. And to be a follower of Christ, I think we need to remember the basics. That we build our foundation, because think about it, okay?

[6:58] If you believe in the sovereignty of God, you believe that your salvation is secure, and he will hold you, right? Or the hymn says, he will hold you that list. But tomorrow, I don't have to wake up and try all over again.

[7:15] There's a confidence that I have, that you have if you place your faith in Christ, that tomorrow when you wake up, God will sustain you. He still has your salvation. And David, again, in this situation, he knows that his deliverance will come from the Lord, not from his troops, not from the armies, not his friends, especially not even his own strength, but salvation comes from the Lord.

[7:42] We cast ourselves completely on that statement, I think, that our salvation belongs to the Lord, our redemption and our deliverance belongs to the Lord. Now remember back in verse 2, David's enemies were the word mocked on him, right?

[7:57] There's no salvation. But now David turns and he shouts back and he says, look, salvation is of the Lord. He has gone from trial to trust to triumph.

[8:13] But really, isn't that, isn't that all we need? Just think about it. It's great to be delivered from a circumstance, whatever that circumstance may look like.

[8:24] It's great to be protected and cared for and provided for. Those are fantastic things and God does that for us. But that's not ultimately what man needs, is it?

[8:36] What does man ultimately need? Man can be saved. And it's great as we look that God is our shield and that he is our glory and he is our lifter of our heads, but it's not good enough to stop there.

[8:51] Because theoretically, God could have done that. He could have said, I'll protect you and I'll take care of you and I'll watch over you and I'll provide for you and all these things. He could have put a period there and he could have been just to do that.

[9:03] He's God. He can do whatever he wants to. But he doesn't. What does he do? He says, I will be also your savior. There's only one way to do that also.

[9:14] Right? We trust and we believe in the finished work of Christ. The finished work of Christ on the cross. And what did Christ say with his last breath? He says, what?

[9:24] It is finished. The work that is required to be done is done. The work on the cross on our behalf is finished. Right? We can't trust in our good deeds.

[9:37] We can't trust in our ability to get ourselves out of these circumstances. We do what? We trust alone in God. Trust alone in God.

[9:48] We trust completely in God for our salvation. This is a lifelong trust as well because think about it this way. Think about how often if you get into this mindset of I'm going to do it, I'm going to get myself out of this circumstance.

[10:02] What you've really said and we, because I've said it myself, what we've really said is we trust in God at the beginning of our salvation but what we'll do is thanks God but we'll take it from here. Right?

[10:15] Because in a situation like this, like David faced and in situations like you faced, how often would we say thanks but I'll get myself out of this situation?

[10:29] And we don't even necessarily do it intentionally, it just sort of comes naturally. How do we avoid that? And then we cast ourselves completely on Christ daily.

[10:40] Like Paul says in the book of Romans chapter 12, he says, renew your mind. And that renew your mind is, he has this idea of an ongoing transformation.

[10:52] Not just one son and you're fine, right? But an ongoing habit of renewing your mind. And so as we close here, you'll see these things and you might wonder how do I do this?

[11:05] How do I cast myself completely on the Lord? How do I bring myself out of this mindset of, I call it performance based mindset that you want to do it and you want to lighten up the way, you want to try, you want to be the one that gets the praise.

[11:19] How do you get yourself out of that situation? And I think it's to fully commit yourself to the study of God's word. to give yourself over to the scriptures daily because faith comes by what?

[11:32] Hearing. And hearing what? The word of God. There's not another option. Pastor Brent's not going to come up in a couple of weeks and go, we really messed it up, right?

[11:44] There's a new way. We have to start all over again. That's not going to happen. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.

[11:55] Give yourself over to the lifelong pursuits. Lifelong, that's key as well because it's real easy to get frustrated and think, I'm going to figure this out on the weekend. Right?

[12:08] To use our term, you can't binge watch the Bible. You can't get it all figured out on the weekend. And that wouldn't, that wouldn't even be, I hate to use this term, but that wouldn't be fun.

[12:22] Right? We had it all figured out. Let's think about it. If the takeaway from this song is to catch your confidence and trust completely on the Lord, if you could figure this out this weekend, come Tuesday, who's your confidence and trust in?

[12:40] Yourself, right? If you've gotten it all figured out, what is your need to rely on this sovereign God that we just talked about? Take heart to know, and Pastor Brent briefly touched on that, but there is a community of believers all around the world who are involved in this lifelong pursuit as well.

[13:01] That we've been adopted into the family of Christ, that we are co-heirs with Christ, that we will be raised with Him one day, but that this wall, this dividing wall of hostility has been broken down, is no longer separate, but for all of those who have placed our faith in Christ, we are all one family.

[13:19]  So take heart and know. Cast yourself completely on Christ, David. Let's pray.