Compass Point Church

“Worshipping God In Humility And Contentment” (Psalm 131)

INTRO. Let me ask you as we begin this morning, is your soul quiet today or disturbed? One of the most precious experiences in life is to quiet our soul in the presence of God– to know his peace, his rest, his comfort. God makes that available to us at all times, but we do not always avail ourselves of it.
There may be any number of reasons why your soul is disturbed or agitated; crying out rather than quiet and restful. You may have a guilty conscience; you may be worried about something or envious of someone; you may be distracted or fatigued. But God wants you to have a quiet heart, a soul at rest.
Sometimes we wonder why we have such discontentment in life and anxiety in our souls. The Bible tells us that it has to do with an attitude of pride. We are studying the Psalms of Ascent together, and today we come to the shortest psalm yet. Charles Spurgeon called it “one of the shortest psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn.”

We saw last week that part of coping with and coming out of the pits we find ourselves in life is to humbly acknowledge our sin. Well, Psalm 131 delves a bit deeper into this idea of humility where the psalmist comes to a place of quiet contentment in God’s presence.

This is a psalm of David. David is a good example of someone who learned the truths of this psalm well. When David was hunted by Saul, he refused to take matters into his own hands, but trusted God to make him king when the time was right. David is a wonderful example of someone who learned the twin truths of humility and contentment.
PRAY & READ
My heart is not proud, Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.2 But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. 3 Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.

I. We Worship Most Authentically Out of Humility. (1)
“My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.”
Some people say that you can’t speak about your humility, that the moment you do, you’re being proud again. But it depends on who you’re speaking to and your attitude when you speak. David is not boasting about his humility to others. Rather he is confessing his humility to God. The whole psalm speaks of a sweet, gentle humility before the Lord. David is not boasting; rather he is actually humbling himself before God even as he speaks.
David begins by praying “Oh Lord!” These words come first in the original Hebrew, as he begins by addressing his God, his Lord, his Master. Humility begins with a focus on the Lord. Everything that follows takes place within the context of that single cry, “Oh Lord!” Our worship and our life is to begin, continue, and end with this acknowledgement of our Lord! Life is to be seen and experienced through Him!
A. Humility begins with rejecting prideful arrogance. (1a)
“My heart is not proud.”
This is the idea of pride within ourselves. That’s how David begins his prayer: The word translated “proud” in this verse is a word that means “high, lofty, or tall.” It’s the same word used to describe Saul in the book of 1 Samuel where we are told that Saul was “a head taller than any of the others” (1 Samuel 10:23) When used of the heart, this word takes on the meaning of being proud or haughty, lifting your heart up high. The proud heart is pride in relation to yourself. Viewing yourself as higher or better than others. Arrogance is another word for it.
Our pride is the main obstacle between us and God. Pride is what caused Satan to fall, and pride is what caused Adam and Eve to listen to Satan in the garden. Proverbs 18:12 says: “Before his downfall a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.”
Notice the contrast there in Proverbs 18. Before you fall down, your heart is proud or lifted up.
Proverbs 16:5 warns us: “The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.”

God celebrates and applauds humility in our hearts!
James 4:6 (NIV) But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

But, also, please note that this humility we are thinking about is not worm theology where we beat ourselves up and attack any sense of self-esteem. We are Children of God and we are created in His Image and therefore a beautifully and wonderfully made. God “hand-crafted” each and everyone of us and we aren’t trash. We are His people! We just see here that we must not allow our concerns and efforts for self-esteem to take over as they often want to do. We are to be esteemed as His creation recognizing we personally don’t have much, if anything to do with that. It is all Him!
TRANS: Do you want to practice humility? It starts with your heart. Do not be proud in your heart. Secondly,

B. Humility is correctly seeing our standing with others. (1b)
“My eyes are not haughty.”
We see this in the second part of David’s prayer. The word for haughty in this verse means “to be raised high or lifted up.” It was often used for just lifting up an object, for example, Moses lifting up his staff in the book of Exodus (Exodus 7:20). It is the same word used of the Lord in Isaiah 6:1 where Isaiah says: “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.”
There is a good lifting up of our eyes as we saw back in Psalm 121 where we lift up our eyes to the Lord: Psalm 121:1-2 (NIV) I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

But there is also a wrong lifting up of our eyes where we lift them up only to look down on other people. And that’s what David means by “haughty eyes” here in Psalm 131. Proverbs speaks of Proverbs 30:13 (NIV) - “those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so disdainful;
Haughty eyes are those which are aloof towards other people and come from a place of self-imposed superiority. You can either look up to the Lord or look down on other people. But you can’t do both at the same time.
If the proud heart has to do with pride in relation to our self, haughty eyes have to do with pride in relation to others. This is the pride that is putting ourselves in a position of superiority over others. It involves comparisons and competing with others even in your mind. Regularly convincing ourselves that we are better than others. As Willem VanGemeren says: “The proud person looks, compares, competes, and is never content.”
Romans 12:16 tells us: “Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.”
If you want to practice humility, you need to get rid of haughty eyes. We need to start considering others better than ourselves.
Philippians 2:3 (NIV) Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,

TRANS: Do not be proud in your heart toward yourself. Do not be proud in your attitude towards others. And thirdly, do not feel that you have to know or understand it all.

C. Humility is acknowledging we don’t have all the answers. (1c)
“I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.”
It’s interesting, in the first part of verse one David talked about the heart. In the second part he talked about the eyes. And now here metaphorically he talks about the feet, because the word translated “concern myself” is actually the Hebrew word for “walk.” It can be used for physically walking, but it is also used in the sense of how you walk or conduct yourself through life.
The word that is translated “things too wonderful” is used many times in the Psalms and is especially used to speak of God’s wonders or mighty deeds. In other words, these are things that are too high for us, things that are beyond our power or too difficult for us to understand.
So, what is David saying in this verse? He is saying: “I have learned not to walk above my means. I can be humble enough to admit some things are above my paygrade as we sometimes say. I don’t have to be concerned about or pretend to be the smartest person in the room.
I am willing to admit that there are things I cannot do, and many things I do not understand. And that’s okay, because my walk is humble, not proud. I’m not caught up in greatness, or achievements or accomplishments seeking men’s approval and adoration. I maintain a lowly, humble walk before the Lord, and I bow my knee to his great power and understanding.”
Do you want a simple translation of all that? David is basically saying: “I quit trying to play God.” If the proud heart has to do with pride in relation to self, and proud eyes have to do with pride in relation to others, the proud walk has to do with pride in relation to God.
How about you? Have you quit trying to play God? Or are you still desperately trying to control everyone and everything around you? Are you able to surrender to His authority and Lordship in your life? I saw a great sign once on a wall that went like this:
Good Morning!
This is God,
I will be handling all of your problems today.
I will not need your help.
So, relax and have a great day!
I like that. Chill out. Relax. Let God be God. Deuteronomy 29:29 says: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.”
You don’t need to know or understand it all. And you don’t have to inform everyone else what you think about every issue that comes along. It seems everyone’s got an opinion these days whether we know the facts or not, and social media makes it even easier to broadcast those opinions to others. So, chill out; relax. You might be a wonderful person, but let me assure you, you make a terrible God.
It’s okay to admit you don’t know it all. When God confronted Job at the end of his trial, Job was appropriately humbled. He confessed: “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” (Job 42:3) Our knowledge is not like God’s knowledge. David writes in Psalm 139:1-6 (NIV) You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
… Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely … Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

Psalm 131 also has to do with our ongoing desire to be important. Our culture and our social media encourage self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. People simply want to be “liked” and the more “likes” the more important we feel. We end up spending a great deal of time, whether consciously, or sub-consciously thinking a lot about ourselves! I like how CS Lewis looks at humility. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but rather, thinking of yourself less.”
Psalm 131 teaches us to be humble in our walk before the Lord. Be content with who God has made us, and be content with the gifts God has given us. And use them for His glory and honor and praise, and not your own.
Trans: So enough with playing God. It’s time to practice humility. Do not be proud in your heart. Do not be proud in your attitude toward others. Do not feel that you have to know or understand it all. God knows, and that is enough. So, that’s the first part of this psalm. Practice humility. The next part tells us what happens when you practice humility.

II. Humble Worship Brings Deep Contentment. (2)
“But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
And there are three instructions about learning contentment here in vs 2.
A. Contentment requires stillness before the Lord. (2a)
“I have stilled and quieted my soul.”
The word translated “stilled” in this verse is a word that means “to make still or level or smooth.” Here it refers to ceasing from motion. Imagine a rough sea with the waves chopping up and down, and then imagine the still surface of a lake or pond. That’s what this word means. And here David speaks of calming or soothing your own soul. David is saying that he has eliminated those things which agitate his soul, those very things we just looked at in verse one – pride in self, pride towards others (comparing), and pride towards God (trying to run your own life).
And if we want to learn contentment, we need to do the same. We need to find a way to level our soul before God and smooth out all the conflicting stressors and distractions. A big part of this is fighting against the natural tendency we have to always be engaged in the things of this world. We are under constant attack when it comes to being still. Surely Satan devised a plan to have people so consumed with everything but God when he put into process all our electronic gadgets! From or TV to our smart phones we are always plugged in! Constantly distracted by our screens!
However, God tells us, in His Word that it is crucial that we learn to just be still before him and acknowledging that he is God and we are not. As Psalm 46:10 says: “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

B. Contentment comes as we Quiet our soul. (2b)
“I have stilled and quieted my soul.”
The word “quieted” here means to be motionless or silent, to be at rest. So, David has stilled his soul – no more agitation. And he has quieted his soul – no more noise. No more distractions.
Scripture teaches us that a quiet soul only comes from God. It his gift to us. David writes in Psalm 62:1: “My soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.”

Jesus offers rest for the soul to all who come to him. He says in Matthew 11: 28-30 (NIV)“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This “rest” is this idea of calming and quieting the inner self. Part of this is consciously choosing to stop the treadmill for a bit. Taking time aside the usual ongoing, never ending, consumption of life. Do you want rest for your soul? Come to Jesus, and he will give you rest.
When you practice humility, you find you are no longer so driven to focus on yourself and instead, focus on God. We learn contentment. And part of that contentment is having a still and quiet soul.
TRANS: And, as a result of getting this right, the Psalmist gives us an image of a young child perfectly content in it’s mother’s arms.

C. Contentment is found in maturing to know God. (2c)
“… like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
The repetition of the lines here (“like a weaned child”) is a common poetic device to put an exclamation point on something.
What is it that a weaned child experiences that is similar to have a stilled and quiet soul?
Well, a child who is being weaned from his or her mother’s milk is, for the first time in their life, experiencing a dramatic change in their world view. The result, as could be expected, is they are often agitated and cranky and noisy! Their routine is being changed. Status quo is being upended and they don’t like it! The result is a fussy, screaming baby. Continually wanted more milk from mom! Up to this point, that was mom’s main contribution to this relationship. Mom was mainly the source of what the baby wants and wants NOW! FOOD, satisfaction, comfort, a source to go to a get what you need and want.
A baby going through the weaning process is the exact opposite of the still and quiet soul we have just been talking about.

But David in this psalm makes the point that there is a calm and contentment that can come after going through the weaning process. David discovered something about stillness and quietness of his soul in the Lord.
This picture of the weaned child in verse two is a picture of wonderful peace and contentment. What used to provoke fussing and crying and desperation, now no longer affects you. When you let go of your pride, humble yourself and stop your comparing, and your trying to run your own life, you too can be quiet and still. You don’t need to be driven by those things anymore, because you are learning to be content in Christ. The weaned child has reached a new stage of maturity. And if we are to grow and mature as Christians, we must still and quiet our own souls. Rethink our stressing and anxiety and fretting. Whether personal things or things we see in the news. We can rest in knowing God.

Unfortunately, some of us are still trying to learn this lesson of letting go and resting in His arms.
That’s really the point of this whole image. The weaned child is content with the mother, and we are to be content with God. Arthur Weiser has a wonderful section on this in his commentary on the Psalms. He writes this about the person who has learned to rest like a weaned child with its mother:
“His soul rests on God’s heart and finds its happiness in intimate communion with him, not like an infant crying loudly for his mother’s breast, but like a weaned child that quietly rests by his mother’s side, happy in being with her. Here his heart has found rest; he knows himself to be safe with God and to be sheltered in the love of his heavenly Father. No desire now comes between him and his God;

for he is sure that God knows what he needs before he asks him. And just as the child gradually breaks off the habit of regarding his mother only as a means of satisfying his own desires and learns to love her for her own sake, so the worshiper after a struggle has reached an attitude of mind in which he desires God for himself and not as a means of fulfillment of his own wishes.

His life’s center of gravity has shifted. He now rests no longer in himself but in God.”
This restful state of the believer contrasts sharply with the restlessness of the wicked. We read in Isaiah 57:20-21 (NIV) “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’”

TRANS: There is no peace for the wicked, but there is perfect peace and contentment for the child of God. So, stop your struggling. Stop your restlessness. Be still before the Lord. Quiet your soul. Practice humility, and learn contentment and the result is…

III. We Can Live and Worship Through Our Hope in God. (3)
“O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.”
David closes the psalm with a word of blessing or prayer for or about Israel. Borrowing language from three of the earlier Psalms of Ascent (121, 125, and 130), David encourages and invites all Israel to put their hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.
A. Hoping in the Lord proves our humble faith in Him.
Like last Sunday when we looked at Psalm 130:7 “O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.” Once again, David invites others to come share the same restful peace that he has experienced within his own soul. We, God’s people, can be those who provide hope for those we know and even those we don’t know. We can show the world what it means to have “peace” beyond human understanding!
Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV) 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We are the hope for everyone struggling with no peace during these difficult days of covid and elections, and racial strive and political unrest. We must invite others to know what it means to Be still and know He is God! Psalm 46:10 says: “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

B. This peace and contentment is eternal.
The “now” tells you that you can trust in God for all your present needs if we can get over ourselves and the “forevermore” tells us that you can trust in God for all your future needs.
It’s interesting, David began this psalm by addressing God: “O Lord!” Now he closes the psalm by addressing God’s people: “O Israel!” When we stop looking at ourself and start looking at the Lord instead, we will then begin looking around to see how we can help and encourage others as well.
CONCLUSION: Psalm 131 teaches us a simple but profound truth. Those who practice humility before the Lord find contentment and rest. But when we are proud in our hearts, when we are arrogant in our attitude towards others, when we demand to be like God and know it all, our hearts are restless and filled with discontent.
Do you want a quiet and restful soul? Then you need to confess your pride before God. You need to repent of a proud attitude towards others. You need to let go of the need to know and understand it all. Practice humility. Learn contentment. Live in hope.
There is no peace for the wicked, but when you come to Christ and practice humility before the Lord, you will find rest for your soul and contentment in your heart.