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The River ChurchSermons

Gary Wright · 2 Aug 2026

Gary Wright · Sunday, 2 August 2026 · 36:08 · 4,846 words

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Psalm 142 shows David’s prayer in a cave while fleeing Saul, illustrating how believers can bring their distress to God honestly. The sermon emphasizes that God cares about our struggles, wants us to pour out our hearts, and invites us to trust His mercy and plan even in hardship. It calls listeners to surrender their problems, rely on God’s strength, and respond to the gospel with faith. The message encourages a deeper, honest relationship with God and trust that He will deal bountifully with us.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

david 60 david's 14 hardship 13 alone 20 saul 12 lord 60 cave 10 uh 15 portion 8 cry 12 rely 9 pour 11

Topics

Prayer 7 Faith 5 Salvation 2 The Gospel 2 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Sin 1

Scripture referenced 13

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Psalms 142 0:00 Psalms 150 0:15 Psalms 150 0:22 Psalms 142 1:07 Psalms 142 1:13 Psalms 142:1 1:24 1 John 5:14 16:16 Psalms 142 17:37 Psalms 142:3-4 17:37 Psalms 139 19:20 Matthew 28:20 20:51 Psalms 142 29:00 Psalms 142:6 29:00

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

going to be continuing our series through the psalms we will be in psalm 142 and believe it

or not we're in august already it seems like it was just may yesterday don't it but but next week

is the last week of our sermon series uh we'll be in psalm 150 next week if you want to read ahead

we'll be in psalm 150 okay but let me pray before we begin father we just i just come to you and i

i praise you because of who you are i praise you for jesus and he is worthy lord and uh we praise

you for his sacrifice on the cross for us in the shedding of his blood lord and lord just be with

this gathering today give me the strength to and the wisdom to be able to proceed with you

and i'll see you in the next one

your word but lord just move me out of the way really lord and speak to our hearts and and show

us where we need to better serve you and what our next steps look like we love you lord in jesus name

amen so in psalm 142 if you if i don't know if i told you to ask you to turn there but if you have

your bible psalm 142 um the passage starts off i'm going to read the first two verses but it starts

off with this a mascal of david

when he was in the cave a prayer and then verse one says with my voice i cry out to the lord

with my voice i plead for mercy to the lord i pour out my complaint before him i tell him

tell my trouble before him so david is the writer right this is the same david like who has heard of

david and goliath yeah this is the same david

okay david is writing this and it starts off at the beginning and it says it's a mascal of david

and what mascal means is that it is a a contemplation or an instruction look this is an

example for us to follow that's what that means okay david also says it's a prayer they probably

sang this as well but this is a prayer that david is praying okay

and to really understand this psalm this particular psalm uh and why david is praying the way he is

we need a little backstory i think to to understand it so so what's happening here is david was a

shepherd boy right and the prophet samuel god told the prophet samuel david is going to be

my next king of israel and i want you to anoint him to be the king okay the problem

is this there already was a king his name was saul but god was not happy with saul so god had

had samuel anoint saul but saul was not obedient to god he kind of was uh he was a selfish man

and did what he wanted to do and so god was going to to bring a new king it was david not long after

he's anointed david kills goliath in the battle okay and he becomes after

that he becomes part of saul's military part of his army and king saul at first he loved david

he did and uh because david uh was a man of music he was a worship leader he played the harp

beautiful wrote these beautiful lyrics and saul loved him and he loved that part of him

but what happened is as david began to go to battle with saul

and uh well first of all he came became very popular because he killed goliath

but he god was showing favor to to david and people the people in israel began to love david

more than saul so what does saul want to do he wants to take him out he wants to kill david

it sounds horrible but that is the truth saul was jealous and david had to flee for his life

chased him all over trying to kill him and david ends up during this process at one point he ends

up in a cave and and i don't know if you remember but at the beginning it talks about a cave i

believe we're talking about the cave adulam there was a couple times when uh david hid in a cave

during this time but i believe this is the time that this is referring to so david obviously you

can see in the passage that david's in distress i mean he is uh crying out to the lord he's crying

out to him he's pleading with him and uh but he's in distress and look it says he's crying out like

he's speaking out loud in his prayer he's crying out verbally like a lot of time i mean there's

lots of ways we can pray you know we can pray in our heart we can you know we can think about it but

david was in such distress he was just speaking right out loud speaking to god now david the

scripture tells us david was a man after god's own heart that means he followed the lord and he did

his best to live for the lord and if you read about the early life of david you really can see

that in in him and uh so he was a man after god's own heart god anointed him to be the king of israel

and yet here he is

fleeing for his life fleeing for his life he's serving the lord and yet he's on the run and in

distress here now i would love to tell you when we become followers of jesus that our life is going

to be sitting around in the evening reading the scripture and eating chocolate cake but the truth

is the bible never says that the bible actually says in this world you're going to have

tribulation you're going to have hard times and it's no different here so if somebody ever teaches

you that once you become a believer your life is going to be easier or you're not going to go

through hardships that's a lie the bible doesn't teach that okay so david is going through those

hardships he's an example of this he's an example of a godly person going through these hardships

even though he was serving the lord so even when we as believers

serve the lord we're going to go through hardships as well so what do we do when those things come

our way and i think the thing to do is to follow david's example here and there's a few things

today that i want to look at that davis gives it david gives us a great example of the first one

is this is david when he's in in uh distress the first thing he does is he goes to the lord

right

he look he goes to the lord he makes a declaration to the lord so i have a granddaughter her name is

palmer she is beautiful man and i it's probably probably a little bias here but kim has a picture

of her setting on this piece of playground equipment it is a and if you don't know kim's

my wife uh but she has a picture of uh palmer setting on a caterpillar it's a piece of

playground equipment whenever i see it

i smile right kim says like if i'm having a hard time having a hard day kim says here's a little

pick me up she'll show me a picture of palmy on the cat or on the it's actually not a caterpillar

it's a ladybug he's on a ladybug look picture doesn't take away the struggles that i'm dealing

with but it does make me happy makes me smile at least but it doesn't fix the problem right and a

lot of times i think in our life when we're going through

problems we don't make the declaration to the lord like david did we try to use other things

maybe a picture of your granddaughter or maybe some other things that we use we we you we can

use money or spending to try to cover up these hardships we can use alcohol drugs pornography

food we you know i don't know if i said this but we like to spend money when we're

uh struggling and we use these things to mask the problem

but none of those things are gonna fix the problem they may make us feel better for a minute

but the problem remains there's only one who can take care of our problem and his name is jesus

christ right he is the lord the lord is the one who's going to take away our problems he's the

only one that could do that and david knew that truth and he's making that proclamation as he

starts off i cry out to you lord i cry out to you

and david he he says he's pleading for mercy right he's not pleading for forgiveness of sin

when we think of mercy we think of asking for forgiveness that's not what he's doing he's

pleading for the lord's help in this hardship he's he's alone he's in this cave and he's saying lord

help me help me everything so when we talk about mercy

the only thing the lord does for us is him showing mercy to us guess what i got up this morning and

i'm breathing praise god for his mercy right i i had breakfast this morning praise god for his

provision right those things are all his mercy and david's saying lord i need your mercy in this

hardship david's pouring out his heart because he knew this god the god of mercy is going to

God of the universe cared for him personally.

Got a little newsflash.

Cares for us that way too.

David is pouring out his complaint before God.

He's telling him his troubles.

Now look, I don't want, in our language when we say complain,

it's not the same as what David's doing here.

David is not griping at the Lord because of his hardship.

What he's doing is he's crying out to the Lord

and he's sharing his troubled thoughts with the Lord.

That's what that means, okay?

And he has no problem coming to the Lord honestly

and pouring out his thoughts and what's troubling him.

But here's the thing with us.

When we come to the Lord in prayer,

when we're going through it,

even though the Lord knows everything,

we're leery about sharing what we're going through

with the Lord.

Lord, you feel me?

You ever dealt with that?

You ever felt that way?

Like, man, I don't want to share this with the Lord.

I've had struggles in my life where I'm like,

man, God's got better things to worry about than that.

But the God of the universe cares about us.

He cares about us.

He wants us to talk to him.

He wants us to verbalize with him

what we're struggling with,

how we feel,

he wants us to rely on him.

I also believe sometimes when we pray,

it can become a routine.

I think we all do this.

Father, thank you for this day.

Thank you for this food.

Please be with so-and-so.

Do this, do that, right?

We say the same thing every day.

That's not the kind of relationship God wants.

How would you speak to the Lord

if he was sitting face-to-face with you?

Would you say, thank you for this day?

Thank you for this?

And just go through a routine?

No, you would have a conversation

like you and I would have

if we were talking to one another.

That's the way our prayer life should be.

It shouldn't be a routine, right?

In the Gospels,

Jesus gives us the model prayer, right?

But that's not a prayer that we recite.

That's just an example for us to use

to speak to the Lord.

I mean, is it okay to recite that?

But God wants a relationship

where we share our heart with him,

he wants us to pour out,

he wants us to tell him how we really feel, okay?

This is another thing David believed,

otherwise he wouldn't have came to God,

that God was the solution to the problem.

I believe sometimes we pray,

or maybe we don't even pray,

about the issue we're going through,

and we really don't think God can fix it.

We don't have the faith that he can do it,

but he can.

And if we look at his history,

we can see,

that he is faithful,

and that he can fix things.

Now look, I don't want to tell you

that he's going to fix your problem

like you think he should do it all the time.

He's going to work through that,

and honestly, a lot of times

when he's working through that,

he is teaching us how to rely on him more,

and we'll get into that in a bit.

But David's pouring out his heart here,

pouring out his heart,

and he's showing us how we should pray to God.

This is a great example,

remember the beginning?

This is a great example.

John, actually, in 1 John 5.14,

John records this,

and this is the confidence I believe

we should have when we pray.

And this is the confidence that we have toward him,

that if we ask anything according to his will,

he hears us.

What is his will?

That's his plan.

God has a plan.

He has a plan for each of us.

And if we ask,

and it lines up with his will,

he's going to do it.

He's going to answer that prayer.

That's great news, people.

That is good news.

But sometimes when we pray,

even when it lines up with his will,

we might pray over here,

and sometimes it might be 10 years

before God answers that prayer.

So what do we call all this time in between?

We call it faith.

We call it trust.

Trust in the Lord.

Trusting the Lord.

And we'll talk about that in a bit, too.

But look, David's pouring out his thoughts

before the Lord.

But he goes on in the next two,

and he continues to show us

how to pray.

In verses 3 and 4 in Psalm 142,

he says,

When my spirit faints within me,

you know my way.

He's speaking to the Lord.

In the path where I walk,

they have hidden the trap for me.

Look to the right and see.

There is none who takes notice of me.

No refuge remains to me.

No one cares for my soul.

He's pouring this out to God.

He's speaking what's on his heart.

But he's also telling,

complimenting God in the prayer.

Like, he's pouring out his heart

in his complaint,

but he's not doing it in a rude manner.

We don't want to come to the God of the universe

and be like,

you didn't do this, you didn't do that.

No, we come to him

trying and relying on him

to take care of us.

To take care of what we're dealing with.

But he says this,

David starts off this part

and he says,

Lord, I'm overwhelmed.

I'm overwhelmed.

My tank is empty.

I have nowhere else to turn.

You ever felt that way?

I think we all have.

David knows God knows everything.

He's saying,

God, I know you know my paths.

I know you even know

where Saul has set traps for me.

he's praising him

for being all-knowing.

Actually, in Psalm 139,

I think it was last week,

we talked about how God is all-knowing,

how he is everywhere,

and he's all-powerful.

None of this is a surprise to God,

and David knows that.

David's enemies,

well, I already talked about that.

I need to follow my notes.

David also feels alone.

I would love to tell you,

when you follow the Lord,

that you never feel alone.

That's not always true, either.

Sometimes, I can be in a crowd of people,

and I can feel alone.

And maybe you feel that way sometimes, too.

You feel alone.

And David actually says this,

there's nobody to my right, Lord.

In the scripture, in the psalm,

the people to the right refer to friends

and people who are going to help.

And he's like,

Lord, there's no one to the right.

We may feel alone as believers,

but here's the truth.

We are never alone.

The Lord is with us.

He is with us.

Actually, in Matthew 28, 20,

this is the end of the Great Commission.

Jesus says this,

I am with you always

to the end of the age.

Look, that's a promise from our creator,

our savior there.

He is with us.

We're never alone.

Here's another thing I want to share,

and I share this often

because I think it's so important.

When we are believers,

we need to be part of a church.

And here's why.

Because you cannot live this Christian life alone.

We have Christ,

but we need each other too.

That's what the church is all about.

And look, when we are feeling alone

and we belong to a church,

guess what's going to happen?

I'm going to go tell Paula,

hey, will you pray for me?

And I'm going to go to Jim

and I'm going to say,

will you come alongside and help me with this?

And you know what they're going to do?

They're going to pray for me.

They're going to do it.

Why?

Because they have experienced the love of Christ

and they're going to pour that into me, right?

When people know that I'm struggling with stuff,

you call me and you text me during the week

and you encourage me.

When we belong to Christ, we have Christ.

But when we belong to Christ

and we belong to his church,

we have one another to do that as well.

We're never alone.

We don't have to be alone.

We're always with Jesus,

but we don't have to be alone.

We don't have to be alone as believers

in anything we're dealing with.

Matter of fact, in our story about David,

David's in the cave of Dulem.

He's crying out to God.

What does God do?

He sends his family.

His family, here's where he's at.

God sends David's family to him.

And then he sends a bunch of other people

that really are like kind of,

they're not really followers of the Lord.

They're kind of on the fringe, if you will,

or maybe they're people

that need to know more about the Lord.

And when these people come,

these men come,

David disciples them in that cave.

That cave is a picture of the church, right?

We got a family of believers here.

But when new people come

or people don't know Jesus,

what do we do?

We are to disciple them.

That's what we're called to do.

We show them who Jesus is.

Look, these men became David's mighty men.

They took him.

Eventually, they went with him

when he became king.

They were the mighty men.

You should read about the mighty men.

I love to read about the mighty men.

But that's a picture of the church.

Don't have to walk alone.

Actually, if you're a believer,

you're not walking alone.

Sometimes it feels like it.

But if you are a believer,

you also have the Mike Wings,

the Paul Bars, the Jim Aspens,

the Julie Johnsons to come alongside you.

David was in distress,

felt overwhelmed, felt alone.

But the truth is,

David trusted God through all of it.

If we look at the next verse, verse five,

David says this again.

I cry out to you, O Lord.

I say, you are my refuge,

my portion in the land of the living.

Now, I don't know if you remember verse four.

David says this.

Where is verse four?

It's right here.

It says, verse four says,

look to the right and see.

There is no one who takes notice.

No refuge remains.

Verse five, God, you are my refuge.

You are my portion.

The refuge means, God, you're my safe place.

I listened to one pastor speaking this week,

and he said that a refuge is kind of like our home.

Like he said it this way.

He said, we decorate it and we make it all like we want it.

But the truth is, our home is a shelter

God is our safe place.

He is our home.

And he is our portion.

A portion means, it's kind of like thinking of an inheritance.

David's in this cave.

He's lost everything.

His wife has even been taken away from him.

He's like, I have nothing but this.

He says this, God, you are my inheritance.

I trust you more than any person.

I trust you more than any person.

I trust you more than any person.

I trust you more than any person.

I trust you more than any person.

I trust you more than any person.

I trust you more than any possessions.

More than anything else.

You're my home.

You are my safe place.

And you are my inheritance.

A lot of us think satisfaction comes from wealth.

But truthfully, satisfaction doesn't come from wealth.

Honestly, sometimes stress comes from wealth.

He is what we should desire the most.

Now, I'm not saying that you don't have to make money

to make a living and things like that.

But God is our portion.

So when we're feeling overwhelmed,

when we're feeling overwhelmed and alone,

and we're going through it,

my question is this.

David trusted God.

Do we, do you really believe that he is your safe place

that you can run to, that he is your portion, right?

And David says this, in the land of the living.

That means on this earth.

Like we look forward to being with the Lord in heaven,

but David's saying, no, you're my shelter,

you're my safe place, and you're my portion right now.

Do we really believe that about God?

This is probably a lame example.

There's a song called Jesus Take the Wheel.

You say, Jesus, take the wheel.

Well, here's what happens.

If you're like me, when I'm riding with my wife,

I want to take the wheel back, right?

Not that she's a bad driver,

just I'm a terrible backseat driver, it's the truth.

We want to, the truth be told.

We're like, Jesus, take the wheel.

And then we're like, oh, there's a right turn coming up here.

God, are you going to turn, give me the wheel.

All right, we want to take it back.

We quit trusting God at some point.

We get impatient.

God didn't go anywhere.

We gave up.

We quit having faith.

We quit trusting him.

We're going to trust the Lord.

We need to surrender to the Lord.

The Lord wants us to surrender.

He wants us to trust him.

In Matthew, he says, anyone who follows me

must take up his cross and follow me.

That means you need to die to yourself to follow me.

You need to surrender.

Surrender to me.

In our passage, verse 6, Psalm 142, it says, attend to my cry.

David says, attend to my cry.

I am brought very low.

Deliver me from my persecutors, for they're too strong for me.

David is surrendering here.

He's like, I can't do this, Lord.

I can't do this.

I'm very low.

He's humbling himself to the Lord.

He's surrendering to the Lord.

David understood his weakness.

There's a passage where Paul asked Jesus to take the thorn from his side.

And Jesus says, in your weakness, I am strong.

In our weakness, when we realize our weakness and we humble ourselves to the Lord and we

rely on the Lord, he will be our strength in the weakness.

Second Corinthians, or I'm sorry, yeah, Second Corinthians, verse 6.

Verse 8 through 9, Paul writes this, I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the

affliction we experienced in Asia.

Here's what's going on.

Paul and his group of followers are sharing the gospel throughout Asia Minor.

But they're experiencing an affliction.

They're experiencing a hardship.

And he says, for we were utterly burdened beyond our strength, that we despaired for

life itself.

Like, we thought we were going to die.

It was so rough, we thought we were going to die.

Indeed, we thought we had received the death sentence.

But that was to make us, listen, rely not on ourselves, but to rely on God who raises

the dead.

You think God raised Jesus from the dead?

You think he can't fix our problems?

You think he's not there?

Look, sometimes we go through these hardships, and that's what David said.

David's going through.

We go through hardships.

Why?

So we can learn to rely on Jesus.

He wants us to rely on him.

And sometimes we go through these things just for that purpose.

God usually has, I feel like he's working in a lot of ways in these hardships, but it

helps us to rely on him.

That's what Paul's saying.

And that's what David knew.

God wanted David to fully depend on him.

And listen, he wants us to humble ourselves.

And fully depend on him as well.

It's hard to do, but it's possible.

And it is the way to peace in our hardship.

Many times we're in the valleys of life.

We feel overwhelmed.

We may even feel that God has forgotten us.

We may even ask, God, where are you?

I want to encourage you with this.

God is still working.

Our lives are full of high points and low points.

We always like to pray.

We always praise God on the mountaintop.

We tend to forget about him in the valley.

He's still working in the valley.

And he is still good in the valley.

The valleys are not the end of the chapter.

They're the beginning of where God is leading us.

That brings us to the last verse.

Verse 7 says,

David says,

Lord, bring me out of this, out of prison,

that I may give thanks to your name.

The righteous will surround me.

For you will deal bountifully with me.

David began this passage with a complaint.

Now he's looking forward to what God's going to do

so he can praise him.

In verse 4, David says he's alone.

And in this verse 7, it says,

the righteous self shall surround me.

And he begins with feeling overwhelmed.

And at the end, he knows that God will deal bountifully with him.

Honestly, this passage reminds me

of the gospel.

The gospel of Jesus Christ.

All of us are sinners, the scripture tells us.

We've all rebelled against God.

And that sin is like a prison.

And I love what David says.

Bring me out of prison.

Look, Jesus came to this earth.

He was God, the second person of the Trinity.

And he took on human flesh.

And he went to the cross to die for our sin.

He went there to pay the price we owe.

The scripture says that,

the wages of sin is death.

Separation from God.

And Jesus came to make that right.

He died in our place.

He took our place.

He took our punishment.

And he died.

And praise God, he rose again three days later.

He did that to pay for our sin.

And what is our response to the gospel?

What should our response be?

How do we accept the gospel of Jesus Christ?

We do it through faith.

The scripture says,

because if you believe with your mouth,

oh, I'm going to have to look it up.

If you confess with your mouth,

Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart,

God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved.

When we surrender to the Lord,

we realize, you know what?

I am a sinner.

We humble ourselves and realize that.

And we turn to Jesus as our Lord.

And we believe that he took our place on the cross.

And that he, God raised him from the dead.

The scripture promises us this.

You will,

Saved from what?

Saved from the wrath of God.

You will be saved.

You will be,

have a relationship with God on this earth.

And you will spend eternity with God in heaven.