Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey church, it's John Berenger. I'm the Arlington campus pastor and it's Devo time. So if you've got your
Bibles, open to Psalms chapter 4, the fourth Psalm. That's what we're going to be. And it's only
eight verses. So I'm going to begin just by reading it and then we will get into it.
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame?
will you love vain words and seek after lies. But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for
himself. The Lord hears when I call to him. Be angry and do not sin. Ponder in your own hearts
on your beds and be silent. Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. There are many
who say who will show us some good. Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord. You have put more joy in my
heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep.
For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. This is a fascinating Psalm. It's a fascinating portion
of scripture on several fronts. But one of them is that, I don't know about you, but I took notice
that it seems to kind of bounce around a lot. That David's kind of all over the place.
For example, it begins with David addressing God. And it seems kind of personal.
but then David switches to addressing men.
And you can hear and feel God actually addressing men there.
And then David switches back to addressing God.
This time it's not personal.
He's saying us before switching right back to personal.
And then he ends with beautifully describing this sleep and contentment that it has,
even though we have no reason to believe that verse one,
when he says, answer me when I call, that he got an answer at all.
yet he's able to have contentment.
And even though he's tossing and turning in the beginning,
he's sleeping and resting at the end.
During the beginning of all the virus breakout and economic shutdown,
I found myself with a lot more anxiety than I am accustomed to it.
It was surprising almost.
I'm not a very anxious person,
but I was very, very anxious at the beginning of all this.
And I thought about Colossians chapter 3 to seek the things
that are above because I was not. I was seeking the news every five seconds. And so I went to my
Bible. And usually I go narrative or I go one of the epistles in the New Testament, but I went
straight to the Psalms. And this Psalm, Psalm 4 was especially comforting to me because it felt all
over the place. And I could relate because I felt all over the place. And it was really
assuring to me, reassuring, to see a man after God's own heart, David,
being all over the place, and not only is that acceptable as a form of worship, but that God uses it
as revelation to who he is in Scripture, which might be our first lesson before we even get into any of the
verses, but the form of the Psalm itself, that God wants us to come to him, and we can come to him
even if we are trembling or in pieces. He can handle it, and not only can he handle it, but he can
work through it. So no matter where you are at or where you're going through or how you're
feeling on the outside, come, come to God. He can handle it. And that's exactly what David does.
And we're going to go through it. We'll go verse by verse. Starting with verse one, answer me when I
call, O God, of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me
and hear my prayer. It's interesting to me that David would begin by answer me, oh God. That
part sounds similar, but then almost out loud say what he knows on the inside, his place with
God, both present and past, that I am righteous because of you and you've gotten me through
other times. I think it's a great model for how we should begin our own prayers, that we should
remind ourselves that it's okay. Not only is it okay, but probably it's almost instructional
as a model for us that we begin our prayers by saying, hey, I need to hear from you, but you have
you have answered my call in the past. I know for me it is super helpful to begin my prayers with
gratitude and thankfulness and to even almost begin in some worship of where God has taken me from
in the past, reassuring me of what he's going to do, lest you just say, answer me when I call,
oh God, and your mind runs away with he may or may not. No, David's saying, you have answered
me in the past, so I know you will now. And then David starting in verses two,
switches to talking about men. And if you wished to, you could do a word study and find out that
the men that David is talking about here, that God is talking about is some kind of like higher
or noble men, which this might be a stretch here, but makes me wonder if God is appealing to mankind
almost. Like you were the highest and noblest of all creation. The only creation I made in my
own image. And look what you are doing with it. You've turned my honor and glory in creating you. You've
turned it into shame. And how long will you love vain words and seek after lies? It makes me think
about just what a slave we are to our senses. A.W. Tozer called this the world of sense,
that we live in a world of sense. And he says, the world of senses triumphs over us at times.
That is what is happening to these men, to mankind, perhaps as God is talking to us through
David. And then in verse three, God says, through David.
but we know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself.
God knows who is His are, and they don't act like this.
I set them apart.
I have set you apart as a creation, mankind, and those who are in me have my ear.
If you are in the Lord, you have his ear.
David said before that I am righteous.
That's how he's able to say in verse 3.
The Lord hears me when I call.
More assurance at the beginning, answer me, O God, that he will be answered.
In verse 4 he says
Be angry and do not sin
Which is very good to know that you can be angry and not sin
But it also sounds like one very quickly leads to the other
And God is still here, David too
But God to us is still appealing here
To some kind of control over our behavior
Go ahead and be sin
Be angry but do not sin
And then he begins to tell us kind of how you cannot sin
Or how you can get out of being in that group of men.
in the beginning. And he says to
ponder in your own hearts
on your beds and to be silent.
Perhaps this is
what Paul had in mind.
In Acts chapter 20, he addresses
the church in Jerusalem for the last
time, and he talks to the elders, and he
says that you should watch out for your flock.
But he says, before looking out for the flock,
he says, pay careful attention
to yourselves.
I think Paul maybe
had Psalm 4 in his mind when he
made that address to the church.
and it's excellent advice.
So to you, when is the last time that you have done that?
When is the last time that you pondered in your own hearts on your beds and you were silent?
When is the last time that you took alone, quiet, and still time to ponder your own heart?
If you're not sleeping at night, for example, something David is able to do at the end of this,
if you're not sleeping at night, you find yourself up at night or super in the early men,
Maybe there's something to that and you should pay attention to it.
And maybe there's some soul work that unconsciously or not, your soul knows it needs to be done.
And for whatever reason, Netflix, video games, phone, news, you've just not been doing it.
But when is the last time that you took a moment, that you let some time pass between questions and answers
and did some soul work laying down, being still and silent in your bed?
And the reason that I think this is important work to do is not only is it a
important for your relationship with yourself. And not only is it important in your relationship with
the Lord, but also because you need to wake up in the morning, just like verse 5 says, and offer right
sacrifices. Get to the work that Christians are called to do individually and then as a faith.
We have a calling to work out our salvation. And you maybe can more effectively do that, maybe only
do that if you're doing some of that soul-searching, silent, pondering heart work.
And then maybe you can do what David says he's doing to put your trust in the Lord.
Maybe that's how you're able.
John, how can one actually put their trust in the Lord?
Well, maybe first do that pondering, repenting heart work and see if you can get to it.
And that's what David seems to do.
And it leads them to verse 6 and 7.
He says, there are many, you can almost feel like he's saying, many around me.
There are many who say, but who will show us some good.
lift up the light of her face upon us, O Lord.
And we're right back to the world of senses, aren't we?
We are trained in this world.
It's interesting to me that we are trained in the world around us
to worship a God, to worship gods,
that we have to see and touch and smell.
Yet the scriptures instructs us to worship a God who is unseen
and not ruled by the flesh and ruled by these senses.
And it's out of David's obedience.
It is out of his pondering work. It is out of his getting up in the morning and getting to work.
That he is able to have joy not in the wine and grain that abound, but in something that the senses can't always touch and feel and taste.
A joy, a happiness, and almost a contentment that goes beyond understanding.
And it leads to verse 8. In church, I pray this for you. I pray it for myself and I really honestly pray that you
find what's happening to David in verse 8. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep. For you alone,
O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Having done all the hard work of repenting and pondering and all
that quiet stillness work in your bed and then getting up in the morning and getting to work
despite all the anxiety, despite everything that's going around you, you're getting up and getting
to the work that you're called to do and you're putting your trust in the Lord out from that
comes this verse 8 piece where you can lie down and sleep
and dwell in the safety of the Lord.
Imagine if you could actually get some rest, if you're not resting,
if you're restless, if you find yourself waking up or unable to sleep
or get your mind off of something.
It's possible. It's possible to rest and sleep.
I think about how Jesus did that.
There's a story of Jesus on the bottom of a boat,
and outside the disciples are freaking out.
There's a storm, and the water's, it says the water's crashing over into the boat,
and they're having to pour the water out, lest the boat sink, and they come downstairs,
and they find Jesus sleeping.
I think Jesus was dwelling in the safety of the Lord, and that's how he was able to sleep.
But he wasn't dwelling in the safety of the Lord because everything was going on fine around him.
It wasn't.
Just like with David who wrote the song, if you go read his story,
it doesn't seem like David had almost any time of rest and peace.
His story is insane, and yet he's able to dwell in the safety of the Lord and sleep.
I think the reason that God gives us the ability to dwell in his safety,
that David, even though his life was surrounded around chaos,
was able to sleep and rest, the way that Jesus was able to sleep on that bomb and the bone
isn't because the storm and chaos isn't right around the corner.
It is. It's all over the place.
But because when you dwell, when we dwell in the safety of the Lord,
we're dwelling not really in our beds at night we're dwelling in the hands of god that he is holding us
that our future our present time rests in his hand and that is possible because god did some very
unsettling chaotic work in the cross and then miraculous work in the resurrection from the dead
he did that for us that is how we are made righteous like like david says when he begins it
I'm thankful for you. It is I am righteous because you have made me righteous. And if we are in God,
if what He did on the cross counts for us, then it's possible for us to get real rest and real peace
to dwell and the safety of the Lord. That is my prayer for you. That is my prayer for myself.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for transforming the raw, transparent work of David into revelation
into who you are, that it guides us and teaches us, that one, we can come to you in pieces,
we can come to you trembling, that when we come to you, although you may have some hard words
for us, you may have instructions for us, you may have correction for us, we can get to the place
where we do the work of pondering, we do the work of seeking into ourselves and finding out
the work that needs to be done in our heart, that we have the ability to get up in the next
morning and get to work and that we can put our trust in you to find a joy that is not ruled by
the flesh or the senses and that when we get there there is a refined real rest and peace and we can
dwell in the safety of the Lord. Lord right now nothing feels safe it feels like our world is
cracking open but here in Psalm 4 you give us the instructions on how to sleep and rest and work
among it. Thank you Lord
Amen.