Please turn your Bibles with me to the book of Psalms chapter 61. Psalms chapter 61. We are going to read the whole chapter. First, I would like to thank the eldership for according me this opportunity to stand before you tonight. It is such a great honor and a humbling thing. Psalm 61, and we are going to read the whole chapter. And the Word of God reads, Hear my cry, O God. Listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge and a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings, Selah. For you, O God, have heard my vows. You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name. Prolong the life of the king. May his years endure to all generations. May he be enthroned forever before God. Appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over him. So will I sing praises to your name as I perform my vows day after day. The past two or three years now have been some of the most difficult that many of us have ever experienced. Just the effects of COVID-19 upon us, upon our families, upon our communities, upon our country and even just globally, the effects have been quite overwhelming. We have seen how our whole lives have been turned upside down and we have seen how COVID has robbed us of our loved ones. We have seen how our jobs, our businesses, our health, and even our fellowship, indeed our fellowship, we know times when we've had to stop meeting physically and have had to go completely virtual, all because of COVID. The last couple of years have been troubled times. But I don't want to seem to restrict these troubles to what COVID alone has done, but to think of whatever troubles or whatever troubled circumstances that we go through. It may be trouble through our health failing. And indeed there are many among us, we pray all the time for their health, that God would heal them. Or it may be you've lost a loved one, not related to COVID-19. or it may be you've been going through depression or some persecution somewhere, whatever troubles they are, what must be our attitude as Christians as we walk through these troubles? I believe in this passage that we are looking at tonight, we can learn from David's attitude as he passed through his own moments of distress and trouble. Now, it is not very clear in what circumstances David wrote this psalm, although some thought points to it being the period when he was fleeing from Absalom, his son, after Absalom had rebelled against him. And if so, if that was the situation, then this must have even been a more troubling time because Absalom was his own flesh and blood, his own son. It must have been very distressing for him. But whatever the circumstances in which this psalm was written, there is one thing that is clear. David was in a time of trouble. And so for tonight's message, the title is The Christian's Attitude in Times of Trouble. The Christian's Attitude in Times of Trouble. And we are going to focus on the first three verses, verses one to three, as we look at this topic tonight. And there are three things we must take notice in the verses, in verse one to verse three. The first thing to notice here is the prayer in times of trouble. The prayer in times of trouble. Verse one to verse two reads, hear my cry, listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth, I call to you when my heart is faint. Hear my cry, oh God. David calls out to God for help in his distress. And he comes to God asking for God to attend, to listen to his prayer, to give him an answer, to respond to him. He does not come to God demanding for God to give him an answer, but he prays with a humble attitude, asking that God would attend to his prayer. God would listen to his prayer. God would answer his prayer. Even as a man after God's own heart, he knew he had to humble himself before God. Even as a king of Israel, he knew he had to humble himself before God, who was the greater king. There was no declaring before God to demand that I declare this happens in God's name. David did not come demanding anything of God. He simply came with a heart of surrender and a plea for help. As he cries out to God for help, he says, from the end of the earth, I will cry to you. From the end of the earth, I will cry to you. And if this was a time when he was fleeing from Absalom, he was outside of Jerusalem. and Jerusalem, the center of worship, where the temple was, where the very presence of God was. He must have felt so far away from God. He had fled to a far away place to save himself. He was far from a place of safety, from a place of comfort. He cries out to God to attend to his prayer. David understood the importance of prayer in his life. He did not seek after other gods or solutions first. He didn't seek other gods or solutions first, but he went to God alone. Even though he may have felt God's presence being far from him in his time of need, in his time of trouble, as we often do when we are faced with different troubles, When times are hard, haven't we sometimes said, it feels like God is far away from me? And yet he did not turn to other solutions. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. Psalm 20 verse seven. There wasn't a case of when all else fails, try God. Ever heard that before? When everything else fails, try God. Not for David, not for the Christian. Some may trust in money. Some may trust in their riches, in power, in possessions, in their friends, in their spouses, in their family members, in their connections. But we must trust in the Lord our God. God is not the last solution when all else fails. He is the only solution. And David understood that, praying to God for help in the moment of his trouble. He doesn't walk away from God seeking help elsewhere. Aren't there times when we are faced with so much trouble, we feel like what others are offering is the best solution for that time? and we forget to come and bring all our cares before God himself. But David knows better. He runs to God. He cries out to God for help in his time of trouble. He doesn't walk away when his heart is faint and overwhelmed, when he's feeling depressed, when he's feeling lost, when he's feeling afraid. He goes to God. He cries out to God. in our times of despair, in our times of trouble. And when life seems so hard and it feels like we are at our world's end, we feel like this is it. We must not stop praying and turn our back on God. We must cry out to God. We must seek the face of God. We must keep knocking. We must keep crying out for help. We must continue praying. Pray without ceasing, not turning to other solutions that other people may seem to offer. David did this. He prayed to God. He cried to God to help him in his time of trouble. So the first thing, the prayer in our time of trouble. But notice in the second place, the need in times of trouble. The need in times of trouble. In verse two, as he prayed, part B of verse two, he says, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. And notice what his prayer is like here in verse two. He realized that there were three things that he needed. The first thing, he needed God to lead him. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. He needed God to lead him. He could not find his way through the troubles that he was going through. Imagine in the middle of the night, pitch black, no moon in the sky. You don't have any light, a very narrow road. There are rocks, there are thorns and thistles on a very narrow path. You have to walk that. I believe the best thing we would do is we would sit down and wait for the sun to rise so we can safely walk. And David must have been in a similar place. where he felt lost in his troubles. He knew he could not make it on his own, and so he cries out for God to lead him. Just like he used to be a shepherd and lead the sheep for his father, he now needed the good shepherd to lead him on this journey where he was surrounded by so many troubles. he finds it hard to maintain. But as a Christian, as a Christian goes through times of trouble and he finds it hard to go on, his or her attitude must be one of looking up to God as the good shepherd to lead him. Psalm 23, verses one to three, famous Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me into paths of righteousness for his name's sake. So David prays for God to lead him in his time of trouble. But notice the second thing that he needs. In his prayer, he says, lead me to where? To the rock. lead me to the rock. So David needed to be led to the rock, a solid place, a place of steadfastness, a place of strength and security. When the ground under his feet was shifting and shaking and sinking in all around him, and he was in danger of being swallowed up, he longs for that one place where he would always find a firm footing, on the rock. For we see in the Psalms, the imagery of the rock is presented elsewhere. Psalm 62 verse two, he is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved. Psalm 71 verse three, Be my strong refuge, to which I may resort continually. You have given the commandment to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Psalm 144 verse one. Blessed be the Lord my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. And so even though David was king, He held the highest position in the land, having the greatest influence, having great wealth, but he came to a point where he realized none of those mattered. There was nothing that could give him the firm footing that he needed, only God. We can have wealth, we can have the best paying job in the world, the best friends, the most influential friends, But all those things do not matter when the day of trouble comes. And the Christian's attitude should be like David's. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. We will not put faith in human strength. Humans fail. And they will continue to fail and fail and fail. That is a fact. They will leave us, they will abandon us when things get tough. They also have their own overwhelming issues they're going through, and they will tell you, I'm sorry, I'm dealing with my own things right now. But not this rock. Ever faithful, ever strong, never busy, neither sleeps nor slumbers. a trustworthy rock, and we need this rock. And David knew that God had to lead him to this rock where he would find the security he needed, where he would find a firm footing, where he would find a solid ground where he could stand. So he needed God to lead him, to lead him to the rock, but the third thing he needed Look at this, what this rock is like. It is the rock that is higher than I. He was the king, but he needed someone greater, someone above him, something way above him. He needed a place above himself, above his own wisdom and abilities, above his understanding, not a place of earthly origin, not a place with human wisdom, but one that was divine, perfect in every sense, without weakness, without blemish, the perfect picture of Christ. And is that not whom we should be looking up to? The very God who humbled himself and became like us, suffered and shared in our weaknesses, and yet perfect in every sense, and he relates with what we go through, standing as the perfect rock for us who are broken so we could come and stand on. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15 to 16 tells us, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in all points was tempted as we are and yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. This is the rock that David needed in his life, the rock that was higher than himself. The foundation, the firm foundation on which we should stand on, the very rock David knew was higher and worthy of clinging to. And so we notice the prayer in times of need. We notice the need in times of our troubles. But finally, in the third place, notice the confession in times of trouble. the confession in times of trouble. Look at verse three. He says, for you have been my refuge and a strong tower against the enemy. For you have been a refuge or a shelter. For me, a strong tower from the enemy. So David remembers and confesses God's past faithfulness to him. He erects a memorial in his mind and looks back reflecting on his life and what he had been through. He remembers how as a young shepherd looking after his father's flock, he faced off against lions and bears and he killed them. He remembers how he was not the strongest or better looking of his brothers and yet God chose him who was the weakest He remembers how he stood against the giant Goliath with just a sling and a stone and God delivered Goliath into his hands. He remembered how Saul wanted to pin him to the wall with a spear and how he pursued him to try and kill him, but God delivered him through all those troubles. Past testimonies of God's faithfulness. He confesses, this is what God has done for me. And he believed that God would do it again. He recalls how God has been a shelter or a refuge. And a shelter can be defined as a place or a structure or a building that provides protection from the elements or the environment. It can also be defined as a place of safety and of retreat. Think of someone who is a refugee fleeing a war. But it may also be defined as a covering. And so David understood about shelter or refuge most as he had spent a lot of his life in the early years running away. finding refuge even in foreign lands, finding refuge and shelter among the caves. So he had a good understanding of what shelter or refuge was and how it helped him when he was fleeing from danger. He learned to find peace and safety in God at all times. Psalm 27 verse five says, For in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret place of his tabernacle, he shall hide me. He shall set me high upon a rock. Psalm 31 verse 20 says, in the cover of your presence, you hide them from the plots of men. You store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues. A shelter. But not only is God a shelter to him, not only has God been a shelter to him, but he also remembers and confesses that God had been to him a strong tower against the enemy. And in ancient times, a strong tower was a central place where people could run to when they were facing danger and they would find protection and safety in there. And so God had been that to him in his many troubled times. He remembers this of God, and he encourages himself in God. Based on God's faithfulness, past faithfulness to him, he encourages himself. And you know, this was something that David was constantly doing in his times of distress. In 1 Samuel chapter 30 verse 6, When the people, God, were angry with him and they threatened to stone him and the army, and he was feeling so much in distress, it says that he encouraged or strengthened himself in God. In Psalm 42 verse 11, he says, why are you downcast, O my soul? And why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. He recalled past testimonies of God's faithfulness to him, and he preached to himself. He encouraged himself in God. The Christian's attitude in times of trouble should be one of remembrance. Remember how God has been faithful in the past. And here's something I would like to propose to you this evening. In the day of distress and overwhelming trouble and weaknesses, remember, meditate on God's past faithfulness to you and preach to yourself. Encourage yourself with God's word. Remember how God has been faithful in the past. Erect that memorial. Remember his past faithfulness. If we forget God's past faithfulness to us, we will turn back. Look at Israel in the Exodus. God saves them from Egypt, from slavery. But the moment they leave the land and they see the Egyptians are following, they start grumbling. Moses, have you brought us here to die in the wilderness? And there are many records of their grumbling against God, easily forgot how God had saved them in Egypt from Pharaoh's hand. And if we forget we are prone to do the same. And so we must remember God's faithfulness. And this is why David would always run to God and would always worship him despite his circumstances, because he remembered. And the final verse, verse eight of this chapter, finishes with, so I will ever sing praises to you, to your name. Because he knew he had a faithful God, he served a faithful God, he recalled God's faithfulness to him in the past. He would do nothing but worship him. And isn't worship one of the things that suffers the most when we are going through trouble? We may sit down and those troubles become the center of everything else. And instead of keeping our eyes on Jesus, we start focusing on our troubles. And it starts affecting our worship. We don't want to read the word of God anymore. We don't feel like coming to fellowship with the saints. We don't feel like praying anymore. But not David. David remembered, my God has been with me from the start. He has done this for me. and I will give my vow to worship him. He did that for me, I know he will do it again. And so he sings his praises to God. Our prayer in times of need. Our confession in times of need. Our need in times of troubles or need. But let me close off this way with these final thoughts. David shows us the attitude we must have in times of trouble. If there was one person in the scriptures who endured so much, it was David. And yet through his life, God was the center of all that he did. And so we are encouraged looking at the life of David here and his attitude in the troubles he was going through. We are encouraged as Christians to pray. We do not stop praying. We do not start looking at other solutions. When we are faced with these troubles, we cry out to God even more and more and more. We pray without ceasing. We trust in his faithful name. We plead with him to attend to our prayer and provide relief and deliverance. But we also must seek his face as our refuge and as our safety from these troubles we endure. We are going through every time. The only one who can calm the storms and give us peace. Our rock, our wisdom, our safe retreat. On this solid rock, we must place our trust. And finally, we must remember God's faithfulness. Remember God's faithfulness in ages past. In times when we are away from other saints, and we've had to do that a lot in this COVID period, many of us, I believe, have felt very vulnerable. But God's past faithfulness is enough to help us. But even right here, right here at LBC, We have the blessing of having many believers who have gone through or are going through much trouble and affliction. Cling to them. Cling to them and learn from them. They are still faithful after years of suffering, of troubles. They are still faithful to Christ. They are still serving Christ. Cling to them. Learn from them. And if you ask them how they do it, I believe their answer will not be too far from what David wrote here in Psalm 61. You see, troubles are certain. On this side of eternity, troubles are certain. There may be those who say a Christian shouldn't suffer. That's not in this Bible. Nowhere does Nowhere does anywhere, is it written anywhere in the Old Testament from any of the prophets or the patriarchs, nowhere does our Lord say anything about Christians not suffering. Nowhere does Peter or Paul or anyone speak about Christians not going through suffering. If there's anything they spoke about, was we should expect trouble. In that office space, that office place, where there's corruption and you want to stand as the right one, do you think your workmates will like you? They will create trouble for you. But whatever troubles it is, we must know that troubles are certain. But we can learn from David here. We cry out to God. We cry out that he would lead us and lead us to the rock and the rock that is higher. And indeed, that rock is Christ Jesus, our refuge and our salvation. Amen.