January 25, 2026 | Take Refuge
Take Refuge
Psalm 31 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
In you, O LORD, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me!
Incline your ear to me;
rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me!
For you are my rock and my fortress;
and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;
you take me out of the net they have hidden for me,
for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.
I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols,
but I trust in the LORD.
I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love,
because you have seen my affliction;
you have known the distress of my soul,
and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy;
you have set my feet in a broad place.
Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
my eye is wasted from grief;
my soul and my body also.
For my life is spent with sorrow,
and my years with sighing;
my strength fails because of my iniquity,
and my bones waste away.
Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.
For I hear the whispering of many—
terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
as they plot to take my life.
But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!
Make your face shine on your servant;
save me in your steadfast love!
O LORD, let me not be put to shame,
for I call upon you;
let the wicked be put to shame;
let them go silently to Sheol.
Let the lying lips be mute,
which speak insolently against the righteous
in pride and contempt.
Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
in the sight of the children of mankind!
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.
Blessed be the LORD,
for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me
when I was in a besieged city.
I had said in my alarm,
“I am cut off from your sight.”
But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy
when I cried to you for help.
Love the LORD, all you his saints!
The LORD preserves the faithful
but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the LORD! (ESV)
In “Take Refuge” (Psalm 31), Jed Gillis shows the difference between knowing God is a refuge and actually taking refuge in him. David does not treat refuge as a vague idea. He runs to God because God is truly able to protect, guide, and save. The sermon ties refuge to shame, since the refuges we grab for when we feel unsafe often fail and leave us exposed. Psalm 31 names what we run from: enemies and slander, deep distress and grief, and even the weight of our own iniquity. To take refuge means trusting God with your worship, committing your spirit to him, and placing your days in his hands. The sermon also exposes false refuges as idols, even when they look like normal comforts, and calls you to return to God’s steadfast love and abundant goodness as the only shelter that will not fail.
Transcript of Take Refuge
Refuge in Psalms
Jed Gillis: We're going to look in the book of Psalms chapter 31, but before we read that text, I want you to hear some other texts from the book of Psalms.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Preserve me, oh God, for in you, I take refuge. The Lord is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge.
The word of the Lord proves true. He's a shield for all those who take refuge in him. Let me not be put to shame for I take refuge in you. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. The Lord redeems the life of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. The Lord delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him.
Be merciful to me, oh God. Be merciful to me for in you, my soul takes refuge. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings. Let the righteous one rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. My eyes are toward you, oh God, my Lord, in you I seek refuge. Leave me not defenseless.
And that's not every place in the Psalms that uses the phrase, take refuge With all that Psalms tells us about taking refuge with all of these statements and more than I didn't read, it's important then if we want our souls to really follow the path of the Book of Psalms, it's important to know what does it mean to take refuge in God? How can we do that?
And as you noticed, if you're with us regularly, we're not in the Book of Galatians today. That doesn't mean we're really talking about a different topic. It just means that we're using a different section of scripture to talk about some of the same things. And so my desire as we look through Psalm 31, as we consider what it means to take refuge in God, my desire is that God would take the truth of this Psalm, put it alongside the things we've been looking at in Galatians and hopefully take all of us a little deeper in our understanding.
It's easy when you hear one book, one way of talking about it. You hear the Apostle Paul in Galatians, maybe it's easy for you to hear that, and then you kind of get some blind spots where Paul's language doesn't quite get in all the way to what you're really thinking.
And my prayer is that God will take some of the truths worded like Psalm 31 words them, and hopefully break through some of our blind spots, some of the places where you might say, sure, rest in the gospel sounds wonderful, but I'm not really sure how to do that. I feel stuck. It feels hard. I hope that Psalms will help us with that.
Reading Psalm 31
Jed Gillis: So I wanna read beginning in verse one of Psalm 31.
In you, oh Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness deliver me. Incline your ear to me. Rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me. A strong fortress to save me.
For you are my rock and my fortress, and for your namesake, you lead me and guide me. You take me out of the net they have hidden for me. For you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, oh Lord, faithful God.
I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord. I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love because you have seen my affliction. You have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a broad place. Be gracious to me, oh Lord, for I am in distress. My eye is wasted from grief. My soul and my body also for my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity and my bones waste away.
Because of all my adversaries, I've become a reproach, especially to my neighbors and an object of dread to my acquaintances. Those who see me in the street flee from me. I've been forgotten, like one who is dead. I have become like a broken vessel for I hear the whispering of many terror on every side as they scheme together against me as they plot to take my life.
But I trust in you, oh Lord. I say, you are my God. My times are in your hand. Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutor. Make your face shine on your servant. Save me in your steadfast love. Oh Lord, let me not be put to shame for I call upon you. Let the wicked be put to shame. Let them go silently to sheol. Let the lying lips be mute, which speak instantly against the righteous in pride and contempt.
Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind. 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. Blessed be the Lord for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me. When I was in a besieged city, I had said in my alarm, I'm cut off from your sight, but you heard the voice of my please for mercy when I cried to you for help.
Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride. Be strong and let your heart take courage. All you who wait for the Lord.
You Can Know God is a Refuge and Not Take Refuge in Him
Jed Gillis: It's a long psalm. I think it's important for us to hear the context of the way David wrote this Psalm. Of the cries of his heart as he is thinking about these truths. And I wanna start with a couple observations.
First, you can know God is a refuge without taking refuge in him. Those are two separate ideas. We see it in the Psalm. We can see, he says in in verse three, you are my rock and my fortress. For your namesake, you lead me and guide me the end of verse four. You are my refuge. He makes a certain statement there.
We can quote Psalm 46, God is a refuge, a present help in times of trouble, but there are many times I find in my heart I can quote God is a refuge while I don't feel any shelter in my soul.
In our minds we know God is a refuge, but there's a a difference between knowing God is a refuge and actually taking refuge in him. I can know this building is shelter from the rain, but if I don't stand inside it, I won't feel that shelter. There's a difference between knowing what he is and actually taking refuge.
You saw David used it and all the quotes I read spoke of taking refuge, but David uses it in this first verse in you, oh Lord, do I take refuge? He uses it again. When you get down to verse 19 and worked for those who take refuge in you, he doesn't say and worked for those who know that you are a refuge for someone. He says God has worked his goodness for those who take refuge in him.
Now it's really easy and, and I want you to, I want you to ask yourself, ask God, do you know he's a refuge or do you take refuge in him? Or maybe I should say, do you only know and only say he's a refuge? Or do you actually take refuge in Him?
Of course, if you believe in the God of the Bible, it's, it's easy to say he's a refuge. Of course, the God who delivers Israel out of Egypt, the God who guarded Daniel in the lion's den, the God who helped David defeat Goliath, the God who guarded Paul when he was attacked and stoned and chased and imprisoned. Of course the God who does all those things, of course he is a refuge, but there's a huge difference between knowing something is a refuge and actually taking refuge in it. And sometimes it's hard. For example, you may know that a submarine is a great refuge in the ocean, but some of you don't want to go anywhere near it because it's very different to take refuge in it.
God is Actually a Refuge
Jed Gillis: Notice the way David puts these together though. Verse three starts with the word four. For you are my rock and my fortress. You lead me and guide me. Verse four, for you are my refuge. If God is not a refuge, then it's pointless to try to take refuge in him. The two work together. It's pointless to say, I'm gonna take refuge in God if God is not, in fact a rock and fortress who is capable of protecting you, that would be pointless. It would be foolish. But it's also pointless and foolish to say he's a refuge without taking refuge in him.
There's a, there's a trend that became popular in the theological circles in the 18 hundreds into the 19 hundreds of, of theological liberalism, which basically one of the points that it would teach was to say that religion in general, and Christianity in specific, they work for you psychologically, whether or not they're actually true. In other words, they would say things like this, they would say, Jesus, the story of Jesus and his cross, and his death and his resurrection transforms you to make you a loving person. It transforms you to give you a great moral example. It does all these things, and what some people did is say, Christianity does that, but they didn't really happen. It's not true. It just kind of works.
And sometimes I think people approach an idea like this that way, and they say, well, you can take refuge in God. It makes your soul feel better, but I mean, he's not really a refuge who can actually protect you. That's not the way David talks about it, and it's certainly not the way Scripture talks about it as a whole.
Christianity doesn't work psychologically, whether or not it's true, it works because it is true.
But also, and maybe the harder question for people like us who sit in Berean Bible Church and have heard God's word often like many of you, if it's really true that God is a refuge, then you really can go take refuge in him and find that it works. Sometimes I think it's easy for us to say, sure, I know that's true, but my life's really miserable. I feel all this distress and I don't know what to do with it. David puts both of these things together and he says, I take refuge in you because I know you are a refuge. You are a safe refuge. You can guard my soul.
So our big first statement is to say, you can know God is a refuge. You can get all the answers right on the Bible test and not be taking refuge in him.
Refuge and Shame
Jed Gillis: Second thing, I want you to notice the connection between refuge and shame. He starts in verse one. He puts these two together and you, oh Lord, do I take refuge, let me never be put to shame. He does that in other places as well. Throughout the book of Psalm, several of those passages I read to you have shame and refuge connected.
So here's how I would suggest they're connected. If you look to something to give you refuge for your soul and it is insufficient, then you feel shame. That's one use of the word shame. There's some other ones as well. Like when people try to put shame on you and you say, oh, I don't really feel ashamed if somebody mocks me for living a healthy lifestyle, I'm like, you can mock me for it. I don't really feel internal shame about that because I think it's right to live a healthy lifestyle and it's good. Okay.
But when you have the kind of internal shame that says, I trusted this and it let me down. That's what David is pointing to here. He says, God, I'm taking refuge in you. Don't be insufficient to guard my soul, please. I'm taking refuge in you. Let me not be put to shame.
We Often Seek Other Refuges
Jed Gillis: So before we keep going in the Psalm, I wanna take a moment and take that to real life, every day in our modern world, you go through your week and something happens that feels bad to you. Probably all of us could think of something from this past week. Let's say somebody criticizes you and it really bothers you. Not so much because you care about their opinion, but because it resonates enough with your fear that says, I'm not good enough.
Have you been there? Someone criticizes you and you're like, yeah, I'm. You're right. I think I fail too. That's not a good feeling. Nobody likes that one. Just like if you were standing outside while it's raining. I think it is. Yes. While it's raining right now, probably most of you wouldn't stand out there and just be like, yes, soak it in like this doesn't feel good. So what do you do? You look for shelter, you go to a refuge, is this language.
And so when we have this kind of negative feeling, we look for something to make us feel better or make us forget. Feel better, or feel nothing, one or the other. We look for something that can be a refuge.
So maybe this is one example, we'll talk about a few others later. Maybe you run to a friend. You think that relationship, that joy, that friendship, that will be enough for my soul to feel okay. So you get the picture. I feel bad because of this criticism, because of my fears that I'm not enough. I run to this friend who's gonna help me. It's like coming over underneath an umbrella and the rain. I'm like, oh good. I'll find a shelter.
Now, let's say that friend lets you down. For whatever reason, maybe they are having a bad day and they criticize you in a way that hurts even more. Maybe they're just not available when you want them to be. Whatever it is. You try to take refuge under that friend and you say it didn't work. Now what do you feel? You feel shame. You feel like, why on earth did I think they could help me?
It can be this vicious cycle because now you feel shame about that and you go, all right, I need refuge from that bad feeling. What can protect my soul, what can help me? And we run to all kinds of different things at that point. So maybe you go scroll down social media, hoping it'll kind of numb you and you won't remember the things that feel bad in your life. And you look at your watch again in two hours and you feel shame 'cause you're like, that didn't do any good.
So you pick another thing and another thing and another thing. And we, we so often can take a distress we feel in our souls and we run to one refuge after another, hoping that it's enough to solve the, the angst we feel. And what we find often is shame because it's insufficient for what we're asking it to do.
What Are We Taking Refuge From?
Jed Gillis: Now, we'll come back to some other specific examples in a minute, but let's keep walking with David and say, well, David, what do you take refuge from? Like, what are we talking about here? Are we just talking about enemies walking up to our city with swords and bows?
From Enemies
Jed Gillis: Well, let's see what he says. Verse four, you take me out of the net. They have hidden for me. Verse 13. I hear the whispering of many terror on every side as they scheme together against me as they plot to take my life. Verse 18, let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt.
We could categorize these altogether and say, David takes refuge from the schemes of his enemies. Those schemes include a picture of maybe a literal net to trap him, maybe a figurative one. They include, they're trying to come and kill him. They include lies which are told about him in pride, David says, there are people who are against me, and they're not just accidentally against him. They're his enemies on purpose. And David says, my soul needs a refuge from that. And it's God.
Sometimes I think we, we act like God can be a refuge from impersonal things, right? Like, God can keep me safe driving on the road. God can keep me safe in a storm. God can handle when there's, uh, sickness, when there's financial need. Like we, okay, God come to you. I can trust that. Well, God's not much of a refuge if he can't handle, handle sinful enemies.
David looks at that and says, look, there are enemies who are scheming to harm me. They're lying about me in their pride. They want to kill me. They want to trap me. But David says, I take refuge from all that in God.
From Distress
Jed Gillis: But it's not just his enemies. Let's look at verse seven. I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love because you have seen my affliction. You have known the distress of my soul. Verse nine, I'm in distress. My eye is wasted from grief. My soul and my body also for my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing.
David's not just saying there's people trying to intentionally wrong me. David is saying internally I feel this distress. It's affliction. It's hard. He's stressed out. These aren't fun feelings. David feels out of control. He feels rejected. He feels like he can't find joy. That's what he says. My life is spent with sorrow. And it's physically affecting him to the point that he says, it feels like my whole life is one big sigh.
We feel like that sometimes, don't we? Maybe for a day or a week or a year. David says, my years are spent with sighing. Imagine the amount of time. I don't know what this, when this Psalm was written, probably wasn't this case. But imagine when David had been anointed and he knew he was going to be king, and he's not king. In fact, he's trying, Saul's trying to kill him for a long time.
David says, I have enemies against me and I have this deep distress affliction. I'm stressed out, sorrow in my soul. And he says, there's only one refuge that can help.
From Our Inquity
Jed Gillis: But I want you to notice one more in verse 10, where I stopped reading. There's one phrase here that I think if you miss this phrase, you'll miss a lot of the comfort that David wants to give us. The end of verse 10, my strength fails because of my iniquity and my bones waste away. David's not saying God is a refuge merely from storms and things like that.
He's not saying merely God is a refuge from enemies trying to attack me. He's not saying merely God is a refuge from those, plus, he's a refuge when I feel distressed. He's saying when I have sinned. Because of my iniquity, because I've done wrong.
I think many times, especially those of us who are in church, often we can accept, okay, yes, God's a refuge for all of that, but I messed up. I did it wrong.
But David comes and says in all of it, when you feel the need for shelter from your soul, which you always have that need, but especially when you feel it, he says, there is only one refuge that will not put you to shame. Only one refuge from the distress that comes from your enemies and from your sin. And it's God who is our rock and our fortress.
What Does it Mean to Take Refuge
Jed Gillis: So let's see what David says it means to take refuge. See, he uses the phrase, take refuge in verse one and 19. But in between, he talks about several other things and he expresses This is what it's really like when you feel endangered. That's why you need a refuge. You feel endangered because you're attacked, or you're distressed, or you're sinful. To take refuges to trust in God for the health of your soul.
Look at verse 14, where he turns after saying, here, my enemies are against me. He says, but I trust in you. Oh Lord. I say, you are my God. That's a statement of connection. It's a statement of worship who trusts God with his worship. He says, I'm not gonna go worship. Power and armies, and money and pleasure and anything else, I'm not gonna go worship these idols. Instead, he says, if I take refuge in God, that means I come to him with my worship. You're the greatest thing that I know. You're the God that I serve. You're the God who keeps me.
What else do we trust him with? Verse five. Maybe you recognize this quote into your hand I commit my spirit. Jesus quoted that, his last words on the cross. He wasn't trusting then that the father would spare his physical body. He was trusting all of who he is at his core to his father, even when he knew he was facing death.
So when we say you take refuge in God, what you're doing is saying, I take all of who I am at the core, my soul. I trust God to care for it. Even if like Jesus, you were facing physical death right now. That's what he means by taking refuge. Jesus was going through the worst imaginable, physical suffering, but he said, my father is a sufficient spiritual and emotional refuge for my soul into your hands I commit my spirit.
So when we are gonna take refuge in God, first we say my worship goes to him. That's part of taking refuge. I recognize he is greater than anything else I could pursue. My soul is protected by him. He's the only one who is sufficient to guard my spirit, to guard me at the core of who I am. Verse 15. My times or my days are in your hand.
We trust him with our worship. We trust him with our soul. Everything we are, and we trust him with our times or our days with what happens each and every moment.
It's easy when I feel I need a refuge for my soul. To trust God that maybe sometime 10 years down the road it'll all work out. I say it's easy. It's probably not easy, but I think it's easier than when today looks really bad. Can I trust that this day is in God's hands?
It's simple enough. The picture is simple. When I say there's a difference between knowing God is a refuge and trusting him. There's a sufficient refuge over here and I'm standing over here and I feel distress. You move under that refuge. The picture's simple. The complexity is getting my soul to rest under God's protection.
I was thinking as Christians, I think the goal and what happens. As people mature is some of this becomes more natural in some situations. It's like when we used to live in Florida near Orlando, one of the things that was always interesting to me, if you are standing out after church or whatever in a parking lot, I would say on a summer day, but it's Florida. They're all summer days. And the heat is coming down on you and the sun is blazing on you. When I first moved there. I just stood there and we talked and then I'd get done. I'm like, I'm sweating. It's so hot. But you watch and you could tell the people who were used to Florida, because if they started talking, they never talked about it. They never said anything. The two people just migrated to shade. It was natural. You got so used to it. You don't park at the closest parking spot. You park at the shady parking spot. It could be the back end of the parking lot. Nobody cares. You still walk because you don't wanna get back in your car at 120 degrees.
You get used to recognizing, here is the distress, here is the challenge. Now here's the shelter. And part of our goal, part of maturing as believers is that over time, this stress, this anxiety, this difficulty, these enemies, these sins, all of these things come and you say, I need shelter. And you. By God's grace, sometimes you just naturally go to God.
The False Refuge of Idols
Jed Gillis: But it doesn't always work like that. Sometimes we look to other things for. Refuge and whatever else you look to besides God to be the true refuge of your soul. You'll find like he describes in verse six, it really is idols. He says, I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.
You see how he contrasts taking refuge, trusting worship. The opposite of that is to pay regard to worthless idols or false refuges, false shelters.
So I want to ask you to think about the patterns of your life. And you won't have enough time to really think about them this morning. So I'd encourage you to use this as a jumping off point to keep thinking about this in your life with God. Think on the patterns of your life when you feel attacked, what do you run to? When you feel distressed, how do you solve that distress?
We have a almost shocking variety in the ways we do this. When you know you have sinned, what is your refuge? And I don't just mean how do you deal with the objective guilt. Like, I've sinned, but oh good. God's taken care of the guilt, so I don't have to pay for that in hell. I don't just mean that. I mean, when you sinned and you feel shameful and awful about it, where do you go? To either make your soul feel better or try to forget that you feel bad. Either one of those, there's a million ways we can do it. Some of 'em sound worse than others.
Do you run to your willpower as your refuge? I'll do better next time. So I feel better about myself, except I've seen too many next times.
Do you run to your track record as a refuge? You say, yeah, I messed up this time. I sinned, but I usually do what's right. I've done some pretty good things. You see what I can be doing. Now, that might be true. You may have done many good things. This may have been very out of character, but what I can do is I can run to the track record. My soul feels bad, so I go, oh, good. Good thing. I've done all these good things. That becomes my shelter.
Do you run to your pride as a refuge? I can't believe I did that. I'm better than that. Why do we say those things? Because we're trying to make our soul feel better.
Do you run to your defensiveness? If somebody probably, especially somebody in your family, points out something you did that's wrong, is your instant reaction. You just don't understand. It was somebody else's fault. It wasn't really me. It wasn't really bad. What is that defensiveness doing? It's becoming a shelter for my soul. My soul feels distressed. I feel sin. I feel this angst, this sorrow. If I can just defend myself strong enough, then I'll feel okay.
Do you run to your reasoning? Like, I feel like I messed up here, but here's all the rationalizations, why it wasn't really a sin. We do that because we want shelter. And those might feel less significant than some.
When you feel distress in your soul, are you tempted to run to drugs? Or drunkenness or sugar or caffeine. I know, I know. Stepping on toes. I got it. I'm not suggesting those are the same. Hear me. I am suggesting we can develop a similar unhealthy pattern of our souls that say, I feel this unrest is the word I've been using from Galatians. I feel this fear, I feel this danger, this lack of safety, this awful feeling, and I usually feel pretty good about three donuts in. Donuts can be a wonderful gift from God. I'm not saying they're sinful. I am saying to use it as a refuge for your soul won't work and is sinful.
Cause these kinds of things are powerful enough to make us feel better in the moment or to make us forget that we feel bad. Humans will do anything, even if it harms us. We will do anything to find refuge from the kind of emotional danger and distress that we feel from our enemies, from our circumstances, or from our sins.
Do you run to social media? Scrolling, YouTube, funny videos? Not saying that's always wrong. I am saying it's a sinful refuge. Maybe it's other digital habits that are more destructive. Or obvious sins like lying, complaining, arguing.
Why do we do all these things? Because our souls feel something, some distress, and we need a refuge somewhere. Maybe it's good things again, not sinful, but do we run to a good book and a blanket for our souls to feel better faster than we run to God? Do you run to vacation or Netflix? Or your friends or your spouse or sex or productivity, it really doesn't matter. Put anything but God there. They can all feel good. Many of them can be very good things, and if you pursue them as good gifts from a gracious God, who is where your soul is ultimately safe, they are wonderful gifts.
But if you pursue them as a substitute refuge. It will let you down. You will feel shame because it let you down. Because at the core, to trust anything that I can control as a refuge for my soul, it's self-reliance and not faith in God.
How Can We Tell If We're Seeking the Wrong Refuge?
Jed Gillis: So maybe you say, how on earth do I know if I'm looking at those things like a refuge or if I'm looking at them like a good gift from my true refuge.
So I'd leave you with this one to ponder. If you're seeking refuge in an unhealthy way, it produces unhealthy fruit. If you find yourself looking back on your week or your day and you say, I really shouldn't have done that, if you say, I really shouldn't have binge watched Netflix that long, I kind of knew it at the moment. I found myself right back in the same patterns. Chances are you're seeking some kind of refuge for your soul. That's why you ran back to it when you already kind of knew it wasn't great.
If you find yourself responding in sinful, hurtful ways to the people around you, when your defensiveness comes out as insults to somebody you say, I love them, I don't want to insult them. That's not just a willpower problem. That's, I'm looking for refuge in my, for my soul, somewhere that can't give it to me.
So unhealthy refuge seeking produces unhealthy fruit, which is the same thing as Galatians five saying the flesh and its desires produce the work of the flesh, which hurt. And the spirit and its desires produce the fruit of the spirit, which is peace.
So I want to encourage you, spend some time and ask God, God, when my soul is in distress, where do I run? And when it's not him, ask him to help you see that and to turn, because the other refuge you could try will never satisfy. It will never give you rest.
Why Can We Trust God?
Jed Gillis: But I love that David gives us one other thread. Why can we do that? Because really, if you hear what I'm saying, it's it's radical. I am saying all the distress you feel in your soul, you can put all of your trust in God to protect you. You don't have to protect yourself in that distress, and if he does not protect you, you will not be protected. That's what David said, right? I put in my trust in you. Let me not be put to shame.
It's radical, so why can we trust him? Why can we take refuge? David gives us that. Verse four starts. He says, you take me out of the net. They have hidden for me. Your enemies may have hidden traps for you and you don't know where they are. That's the whole point. It's hidden. God knows.
Why can we take refuge in him? He knows the dangers you don't know anything about. I try to take refuge from a tiny slice of things that could harm my soul that I happen to know about. God knows about far more. And He protects his people from the hidden nets.
Verse seven, I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love because you have seen my affliction. You have known the distress of my soul. God has seen and knows your distress. When you say, I have this bad feeling of distress and angst and anger and danger, I have this bad feeling. God knows it. And not only does he know it. He knows it in your life. He knows it because he came and lived in a fallen world so that he would feel the distresses that we feel.
We can take refuge in him because he's a God of grace. This text uses it in verse nine, be gracious to me. But the idea of undeserved favor is really what's built into steadfast love. All throughout the Psalms, verse seven says, he has steadfast love. Verse nine says, be gracious to me. Verse 16 says, make your face shine on your servant. Save me in your steadfast love. If we put it in the terms we've used in Galatians, God my soul feels in danger, save me, protect me. Give me rest in your grace, in your undeserved favor to me.
We can take refuge in him because God is a over flowingly, abundantly good refuge. God doesn't just say, Hey, I'm a refuge. Come over here. I've got this broken down tin roof. That'll mostly keep the rain off of you, and if you huddle in a corner. Maybe your soul will be safe. Look at verse 19, where he returns to this phrase, take refuge.
Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up. He's not running out, he's not low. The cupboards aren't bare. You have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind. He has stored up goodness for all who take refuge in him.
I can't tell you that if you take refuge in God right now today, that you'll never feel distress of your soul again. In fact, I would tell you that's absolutely not true. But I can tell you that there's only one refuge sufficient to guard your soul, to give you peace. And he's not only practically sufficient, his refuge is so wonderful that your response shouldn't just be, oh, good, I can hide in a corner. It's the way he ends the Psalm Verse 23, love the Lord. Rejoice, like love him. Because of the love he has sheltered you with Love the Lord all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride.
So be strong. And let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. That doesn't mean be strong in yourself. It means at all costs. When your soul feels the need for a refuge, whatever it takes, run to him. Run to the only refuge that can deal with your deepest fears and your deepest longings. And know that none who take refuge in God will ever be put to shame.
I invite you to bow and respond to God. Ask him for wisdom to see where you run in your life and ask him to show you the beauty of his grace.