Answer Me

Psalm 4 “Answer Me”

We are now ankle deep in a section of lament psalms, stretching from Psalms 3-7. Psalms 1 and 2 introduce the book of Psalms. They picture life from heaven’s perspective. The righteous flourish, the wicked perish. The Lord has set up his king. Enemies are crushed. We are safe in Jesus, the true King. Suddenly, the scene changes. David, God’s chosen King, is fleeing before his foes. Enemies surround him. They taunt him: “there is no salvation for him in God.”

In Psalms 3-7, David faces enemies, trials, anguish, and distress. These lament psalms depict the believer’s journey from despair and confusion to hope and confidence in God. Last week we talked about the stages of a lament psalm: disorientation, reorientation, and orientation. Step by step, God through the psalmist leads us by the hand, as a parent a leads a child. He acknowledges this evil and twisted world. He points out the folly of wickedness. And he takes our head and turns it toward our Savior. When we stumbled, he picks us and reminds us: God does indeed hear his children. He will rescue them.

It is easy to read a lament psalm. It only takes a minute. But the process in your life is often and heart-wrenching. We need these psalms…because life is hard and God is good.

Psalms 3 and 4 go together. Psalm 3 is a morning psalm- see verse 5. Psalm 4 is an evening Psalm- vs 8. In Psalm 3, David faces vicious enemies. Foes, not friends. In Psalm 4, the people causing him trouble are of a different nature. Psalm 4 could be divided up several different ways. Here is the way the makes most sense to me.

1. David responds to his distress (verse 1)
2. David responds to the leaders (verses 2-5)
3. David responds to the “many” (verses 6-8)

1. Response to his distress (vs 1)
We are not exactly sure what David’s distress is. The enemies of Psalm 3, the naysayers later in Psalm 4? Maybe all of the above. David is not playing games. He is not merely blessing his meal in this prayer. He wants an answer from God. Hear me! Answer me!

David has two reasons that he can be confident of God’s answer to his prayer.

A. God is righteous
David calls the Lord, the God of his righteousness. In the OT, God’s righteousness refers to God’s covenant faithfulness to his people. Faithfulness is not a feeling. Faithfulness is an action. Sometimes God’s righteousness is used as synonym for God’s salvation. God will respond a certain way to his people in accordance with his covenant. He is faithful to his promises. He will keep them. In other words, he is righteous. If he says “I will save you,” he will save you. That’s why God’s righteousness is precious to David in his distress.

Back before our transition from IL to NY began, I was reading through Winston Churchill’s history of WWII. It is sad to see how many treaties Germany broke, how many allies of Britain were overtaken by the German army, before Britain declared war on Germany. At least according to Churchill, the leadership of Britain was weak and indecisive. That’s not God. When he says- I am on your side. He will save you. When he claims you as his own, he will keep you. He is righteous.

David had some special promises from God. We as believers have many as well. I love the words of I John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God is faithful and just- he will forgive the sins of all those who confess them and trust Christ. He will not turn back on that promise because he is righteous.

I think also of Hebrews 6, which makes sure we are doubly confident of God’s promises. God made a promise to save his people and he guaranteed it with any oath. A promise and an oath in which it is impossible for God to lie. If we have fled to Christ for salvation, we can have strong encouragement to enter God’s presence. There he will hear us through Jesus Christ. God will answer his children when they call because he will not go back on his word.

B. God has given relief
The second reason David has confidence in God answering his prayer is that God has answered him before. “Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” The word for distress means constricted or confined. Pressed in from every side. And God gives relief by giving us space. Giving us room to breathe. It’s like stepping into a very small creaky elevator. It goes up, the gets stuck between floors. HELP! You are rescued and you walk out and feel the breeze and look up at the blue sky. The picture of these words is helpful- Lord, I just need some space here! And God had rescued David. He would do it again.

We can have great hope when we cry out to God, because he has answered us in the past and because he has promised to do so.

2. Response to leaders (2-5)
The term “sons of men” in verse 2 is referring to prominent citizens and wealthy landowners. The movers and shakers of that day. They are against David and against God. The glory or honor that God had given the king, these men despised. They loved vanity and lies. They loved what God hates; they despised God’s appointed leader.

We don’t have to think that hard to imagine these kind of people today fitting this description. There are prominent people, exalted in the world’s eyes who oppose Christ. They love what God hates. They call shameful what God treasures. Some leaders in government, Hollywood stars, and other who have a voice in our culture fit this description. I think of the atheists that say teaching your kids about God is immoral. Politicians and “Christian” leaders celebrating gay marriage. An entertainment culture that revels in sexual immorality and life free from the constraints of God’s law.
Their reversal of what is good can be wearisome and discouraging to followers of Christ. They make us feel like losers for loving God.

God has a response for such people- verses 3-5. These verses are David’s response to these prominent people in society. (Read)

There are 7 imperatives (commands) in these verses that charge these people to repent and trust God.

1. Know- that God cares for his people and hears them
2. Stand in awe (be angry)- probably best translated- tremble
3. Do not sin
4. Commune or ponder in your heart- think on you ways
5. Be silent
6. Offer right sacrifices
7. Trust in the Lord

Summed up:
-Verse 3- God’s people have God on their side
-Verse 4- repent before the Lord
-Verse 5- Put your repentance into action by worshiping the Lord and trusting him

This response is important for us. When prominent people despise God and his people, the response is not to cower in fear, but to counter their lies with the truth. The truth is that there is a God in heaven who takes of his children. The only response appropriate for people who despise God is to repent and trust in the Lord. The temptation is to let the words of prominent people to have clout in our minds. We may be tempted to think- “It made its way into the news, so it must be important.” They make us feel this way: “Only fools and the intolerant don’t believe what we say.” No. Counter the lies with the truth. Remind ourselves of the only reality that matters- God. These people need to come in line with what God says, not the other way around.

3. Response to the many (6-8)
We have another group of people introduced. “Many.” Perhaps the people on the street? Perhaps David’s supporters questioning him when things went bad in Israel? My translation: “everybody’s saying!” I imagine a kid coming home from school: “But mom, everybody’s doing it!”

The challenge is: where are God’s blessings? Is God really being good to us? If you look at verse 7, it seems that these people are defining “good” in what is material: grain and wine. Two vital components to their survival and celebration. They are saying: we don’t have the stuff we want! Who will show us any good? God surely hasn’t.

These people are joyful during the TIME when the grain and wine abound. When they have an abundance of food they are happy. When the food runs out, they question God’s goodness and existence. We have seen people like this. Perhaps we have seen it in our own hearts. When things are great, they are happy. God is forgotten. When things are bad, they are sad and question if God really is good.

What is David’s response?

He pleads for the light of God’s presence to shine upon him and his people. He indeed wants God to bless the people. But with more than food and drink. With the fullness of God’s favor. For Israel, part of God’s favor on them was providing them with food. But David wants more than food- he wants God and all his blessings. If David has God, he is quite happy. And it wouldn’t be a joy that depended on material blessings, on the peaks and valleys of life, but a joy based in God.

People may say: “the economy is bad, what shall we do?” Or, “I got my house paid off and money in the bank. I couldn’t be happier.” When we root our joy in God and his favor toward us, we don’t have to ride the emotional rollercoaster the world does. It is a battle to find our joy in God. We are surrounded by people whose joy is found in material goods. We see their despair over financial lost and their happiness over material possessions.

When I was in seminary, I worked as an electrician in some the rich suburbs around Chicago. This was right after the economy tanked. You wouldn’t know it meeting some of the people I worked for. My first day on the job, I was changing outlets in a 5 million dollar house. The owners didn’t like the color of the ones already installed. And that was their summer house.

I spent months at this other house that the owners completely gutted and redid, just to redesign it, while they lived in their condo in the city. They actually got onto the front cover of some interior design magazine. I would walk in the front door, and the first thing you would see is the spiral staircase with curved glass bannisters. I pretty sure each piece of glass cost more than what I made in one year. When encountered with such wealth, sometimes I felt like a surf working in a muddy field outside the castle wall. Is it really worth it to serve God? David’s prayer: shine your light on us. When we see the light of God’s presence, we see that it is 100 times better to serve him them to serve stuff.

Or, when see your neighbors having a party…if you can actually see your neighbors from your house. They have the bounce house for the kids, the kegs for the adults, and lots of food and music. They look happy. You look out and say- I wish I was that happy. That is the peak of their joy. If we have Jesus, he gives a gladness that is better than what they could ever experience. Again, this is not easy. We are surrounded by false pleasures and joys. That’s why we pray for the light of God’s presence to shine on us. To pierce through the darkness of what this world calls joy and give a rock solid joy…rooted in God.

The middle of this week was gray for it seemed 3 days in a row. I would look out the window hoping for sunshine. Finally, Saturday afternoon it did. LIGHT. Light pierced through the clouds. That’s what we are praying that God will do in our souls. It reminded me of the hymn we sang this morning:

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day!

When the light of God’s presence fills our soul, we can lay down in peace and sleep. Look at verse 8. After calling out in his distress, after being trampled by prominent people, after everybody challenged God’s goodness, David can lay down in peace and sleep.

When we know God’s presence, we can do this. When we have God’s favor toward us in Jesus Christ, we have all that we need. And we can lay down and sleep. And that’s faith at work.

Faith pleads for God to give us space when life presses in from every side. Faith says to the naysayers: “No! God is what matters, not your confident assertions.” Faith clings to God’s goodness even when everybody says, “Who will show us any good?” And faith cries out for God to break through the clouds of sin and sadness and fill us with the light of day.