If you'll turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 30, I want to read the first six verses. I titled this, a short title, The End of Self. I suppose a long title could be Self-Encouraging Self in the Lord.

1 Samuel chapter 30, verse one. And it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziglag on the third day. This is after the king, the Philistine that sent him back, not allowing him to fight against Israel as we saw was God's divine providence. But on the third day, when they returned to Ziglag, that the Malachites had invaded the south. and Zigglag, David and his men's home, and had smitten Zigglag and burned it with fire, and had taken the women captives that were therein, and slew not any, either great or small, old or young, but carried them away and went on their way.

So David and his men came to the city, and behold, it was burned with fire. and their wives and their sons and their daughters were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep."

Now, this was devastating to them. They had lost everything. And David's two wives were taken captives, verse six. Ahinoam, the Jezreelites, and Abigail, the wife of Nabal, the Carmelite. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters.

But What an amazing word that is in the scripture, but David encouraged himself in his God, in the Lord his God.

Now, can any of you men listening tonight imagine going out of town on business or any reason for that matter and coming home to find someone has burned your home, taken all your possessions, Taking your wife, your children, well, that's just beyond human comprehending. That's something that we just find it hard to mentally fathom. But tried for just a moment to understand how that would make you feel. And that's what David and his men are feeling. I'm sure that's the same way that Job must have felt. He also lost everything. And we can't help but to ask ourselves why?

Well, the first cause and reason is always the same, because God brings his people to the end of themselves. I tried to explain that in Sunday's message, what that means, coming to the end of self. It means that we, by God's grace, are made to recognize that our own strength Our own wisdom and our own resources fall way, way short. Bluntly put, we're not in control of anything. We are in control of absolutely nothing. God's purpose is for us to rest on his grace alone. It's never by our strength, our strategy, our self-confidence. And this is what God is doing here to David. He's stripping him of every false hope. God does that to his people.

Again, David loses everything. His city's burned, his wives are taken, his children, his possessions gone, his reputation is destroyed, and his own men talk of stoning him. because they hold him responsible for them losing everything too. And in their minds, David is the cause of this. And as we say all the time, this is not bad luck for David and his men, this is divine providence. Before God saves, he empties. Death always comes before resurrection. Before God gives grace, he sends despair. These things picture The human condition in verse six says that David was greatly distressed. He was at the end of self. No options were left, no leverage to muster, no backup plans to consider. David returns home to find what he cannot fix. And he stands where every sinner must stand, powerless. He's hopeless. He's helpless, he's without strength, and the turning point here is not David's courage, the turning point is God's grace. The turning point is divine illumination, divine revelation.

The last sentence as we read in verse six says, but, but David encouraged himself, and the Lord his God. It does not say that David encouraged himself by remembering all his victories. It doesn't say that David encouraged himself by remembering his anointing and calling by God. It says David encouraged himself in the Lord, his God. He's not looking within. Now David's faith is looking outside of himself to his Lord and his God.

Friends, clinging to Christ is where God brings His chosen people when everything else is gone. No confidence in self, no belief in self-potential, nothing left but the refuge that's found in the Lord Jesus alone. And as we've seen so many times in our studies, especially in 1 Samuel, David is the pitcher and Christ is the fulfillment. David's loss points to Christ's greater loss. David is distressed, but our Lord Jesus bled and died. David is rejected by his men. Christ was rejected and forsaken by all. David's city is burned, but Christ bears the fire of eternal judgment.

Now later in this chapter, in a future study, we'll see that David recovers all that was lost, and the Lord Jesus restores all and more than was taken from his people. And I wonder, will mankind ever learn that God saves those who are ruined, helpless, and at the end of themselves? He does so by drawing them to trust in Christ alone. And that's left, that's all that's left for David is God's grace. That is exactly where the Lord brings every chosen sinner and that is to the end of themselves.

I mentioned also in Sunday's message that we live in a world that praises man's strength and man's wisdom and man's self-sufficiency. The world admires the world glories in those who can fix their own problems and overcome their own odds. But the story before us shatters those illusions. David, who had it all, loses it all in a single moment. David's world is destroyed in a blink of an eye. That's just how quick things can change. For us, every believer, every plan he could make, every skill he could use, fails him. So what does he do? Does he curse God and die? No. He encourages himself in the Lord, his God. Verse six. That's what we've got to do. When all is lost, when human strength fails, God alone is the source of hope, deliverance, and life.

Verses one through three recount and show us the collapse of self-reliance. In verse one, we see that David and his men returned to Ziglag, that the Amalekites had invaded them. They burned the city with fire. And what a picture this is of our security being destroyed. Our self-security. In verses two and three, we see that David's wives and children had been carried away. And this represents His personal comfort being stripped from him. God's gonna strip your personal comfort from you and cause you to depend on him. In verse six, the same men who loved David now despise him and ready to stone him. Oh, life can change so suddenly. Life can bring sudden ruin, but this collapse. It's necessary. It strips away reliance on self. It exposes our helplessness before God. And coming to the end of self always begins with human failure. You know, we cannot save ourselves. What makes people think they can? Well, the short answer to that is they think way too highly of themselves. And so do we. but God's gonna bring his people down. Not until then can we truly depend on God alone.

Now look at verse four again. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept. Now this wasn't just shedding a tear or two. They wept until they had no more power to weep. Grief is real. David doesn't pretend that everything's going to be okay. He's mourning here. His heart is broken. His despair is total. He weeps until exhaustion. No human help is effective. His men are ready to turn against him and nothing here he can do to reverse this disaster. Or is there?

God allows us to experience total helplessness to teach us that our hope is not in ourselves. That's where true faith begins, at the end of our own strength. Most of you have been taught that, most of you have seen that in your own lives. Salvation's for the helpless. Romans 5, 6 says, for when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. And like David, God must show us our weakness in order for us to fully appreciate his strength.

So as I mentioned a moment ago, verse six records the key moment, but, but David encouraged himself in the Lord, his God. He didn't encourage himself in his past victories. He didn't encourage himself in his wisdom or courage. His encouragement comes from outside of himself. It must. It must. It must come from outside of ourselves. He lifts his eyes and his heart to the Lord alone. That's what true faith is. It's clinging to God in Christ when everything else has failed. It's trusting the Lord Jesus alone for strength and guidance and deliverance because we don't have any.

When life burns our cities, steals our possessions, breaks our hearts by taking the things that we love dearly, what are we to do? To look to Christ alone. Faith rests in God, not our abilities. Helpless sinners are saved by a powerful God. David's trials again point us to Christ. His city is burned, but Christ bore the fiery judgment of sin. David is abandoned by his men. Christ is forsaken of all, as we said. Every moment of human despair points us to the Lord Jesus Christ, because true despair strips away false saviors.

I can't help but to think that the king of the Philistines, Agag, was just a temporary comfort for David. He was a temporary savior. But our Lord himself entered into despair so that we might be saved. And despair ends the lie of our deservedness. We are entitled people by nature. We think we're entitled to all God's blessings when we're entitled to nothing but death, judgment, and condemnation. Despair brought by God is like a billboard that says, you need a savior, not you need improvement. Friends, we need a resurrection. We need a deliverer, not just a helper.

So how do we encourage ourselves in the Lord? I thought about that a great deal the past week. How do we encourage ourselves in the Lord? We don't wait on a feeling, but we act in the truth of scriptures. David didn't seek therapy. David didn't give himself a pep talk. He deliberately turned his soul, his thoughts, his desperate need back to who God is and what God had promised when everything else had gone wrong, when everything else was gone.

How can one who can do nothing do such a thing? Well, for one, we know that it's God's will for his people to trust in him alone, for in doing so, God gets all the glory. True repentance is turning. That's what the word means, to turn. It's God's will for us to turn back to Him. If we leave Him, we must preach to ourselves, not listen to ourselves, because our hearts will lie to us under pressure. They're just desperately wicked. They're deceitful above all things. So we don't, and we can't look within to our own hearts. We look to Christ in the scripture. We seek a specific truth about God's character. We remind ourselves of God's sovereignty, of God's grace and his willingness to show us mercy. We remind ourselves of who God is.

David encouraged himself in the Lord, his God. Don't miss that word. He encouraged himself with the thought, he's my God. He's still my God. He's still mine and I'm still his. And David didn't invent hope, he remembered it. He remembered what God had done in the past. He remembered when God provided and rescued. Don't you know he remembered that lion and that bear that came against him as a shepherd? Don't you know he remembered Goliath the giant? What'd he remember? What he had done? No, he remembered that those were God's deliverances. These were facts, not feelings.

Asaph, the psalmist, wrote in Psalm 77, 11, and 12, I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work and talk of thy doings. That's how we encourage ourselves. We remember the works of the Lord for us. We remember his wonders of old, his past mercies. We meditate on all that he's done, and we talk about what God has done. We submit the outcome to God. You see, encouragement isn't hoping that everything's gonna be fine. True encouragement is knowing that God will be faithful. Did you hear me? Did I hear me? Encouragement isn't hoping that everything's gonna be fine. Encouragement is knowing that God's gonna be faithful to His word and His promises.

David sought the Lord and then he acted. That's right. Encouragement that doesn't lead to obedience is no encouragement, but just an attempt to self-soothe. Look at verses 7 and 8. And David said to Abathar, the priest Amalek's son, I pray thee bring me hither the ephod, and Abathar brought hither the ephod, I'll get it right here in a moment, to David. And David inquired at the Lord, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, the Lord answered him, Pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.

You see, friends, encouraging yourself in the Lord is an act of faith against despair. It's dragging your soul by the collar back under the authority of God's Word. And it's then that hope will follow. Anyone who knows anything about man's nature and God's sovereignty understands that this cannot be accomplished any other way than by God's doing. We grab our soul by the collar and encourage ourselves in the Lord because the Lord enables us to do so. Neither the lost or saved, the believer or unbeliever, pulls themselves up by their bootstraps. It's God who enables us to encourage ourselves in Him. He is the one who brings back, brings Himself back to our remembrance.

So, have you ever had to encourage yourself in the Lord your God? I'm somewhat convinced. Well, no, I'm convinced. There comes a time in every believer's life that their encouragement dries up. A time when it seems like everyone is gone except God, and then we struggle with the thought that He may have forsaken us to That was the case with David, who was the apple of God's eye. David lost everything that was dear to him. And listen, in addition to being away from his people in Israel, in addition to being in a land of the enemies, In addition to zig lag burning, his wives were taken, his children gone, his men ready to stone him. In addition to those things, no prophet was there to speak, no priest to intervene, no friend stood up. God intentionally stripped David down to one support, himself. God himself.

Often in our disobedience and strained nature as sheep, God removes external encouragement so that we learn to live on internal faith. You know, without faith, it's impossible to please God. This is not judgment, friends, this is chastening. This is not condemnation, this is salvation. If our walk with God only goes well when others are cheering us, it's not true faith.

This encouragement's not positive thinking. This is not motivational psychology. This is not, you've got this. Again, it's recalling who God has revealed himself to be. It's standing on what God has already promised. It's trusting God when nothing or no one else agree. Oftentimes we endeavor to encourage ourselves about ourselves, but that won't work. We must encourage ourselves in the Lord our God.

Sometimes our faith's got to reach back before it moves forward. David didn't have any new revelation here. He received no fresh word from the Lord. He saw no sign of immediate change. He reached back. What did he reach back to? God's faithfulness, his past faithfulness, to God's covenant promises, to God's unchanging character. And if we lose sight of God working ahead of us, then we've got to look behind us from where we came. The cross of Christ alone should silence every doubt that we have. Does not the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ prove God's love for us? If it doesn't, nothing else will.

Encouragement always precedes direction. Did you notice the order of things there? David encouraged himself in the Lord. Then David inquired of the Lord. Then God gave David direction. And as we'll see, then God gave him the victory. There's no guidance from God apart from faith in Him. We don't get any answers from God without trusting Him. We get no direction from God without total dependence on Him.

So, can we trust God to deliver us when everyone else and everything else seems to be against us? Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. When God is all you have, He's more than enough. And people won't find God to be enough until He's all that they have. All they have left is Him. When strength is gone, God is enough. When answers don't come, God is enough. When all else fails, God remains as enough. I believe that. And thank God that He helps thou, my unbelief.

Lamentations 3, verses 24 through 26 says,

the Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in Him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

On the cross, our Lord Jesus stripped of everything, comfort, friends, reputation, even the felt presence of His Father. He trusted God alone. And because of that, sinners who have nothing to offer but sin receive everything by His work of grace. We either collapse when people fail us or we stand when God is all we have. Oh, may the Lord teach us to trust in Him regardless of how things may seem. Things aren't always as they seem. Christ is always enough when there's nothing else for us to lean on.