2025.02.26 - Reliance - Psalm 4

[00:00:00] Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have relieved me in my distress. Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer. How long, O you sons of men, will you turn my glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness, and seek falsehood? So ah! But know that the Lord has set apart for himself him who is godly. The Lord will hear when I call to him. Be angry, and do not sin.

[00:00:30] Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Salah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift up the light of your countenance upon us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the season that their grain and wine increased. I will both lie down in peace, and sleep. For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

[00:01:00] God, thank you for your word. Thank you that you have spoken to us through your inspired scripture. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for quickening the word in our hearts. Helping us to be led by it. Helping us to see, with renewed eyes, and honed vision, what you would have us to see.

[00:01:25] God, let your will be done. God, let your perfect will be accomplished in our lives and everywhere around us. Give us a zeal, a fire in our bones, a thirst, a hunger for you, for your presence, for your glory, for your righteousness.

[00:01:46] Lord, let us see your power in our lives, in the lives, and in everyone's lives in this generation. God, you are worthy of it. You are worthy of a mighty harvest for your kingdom. So, position us where we need to be positioned. Use everything, Lord, for your glory.

[00:02:11] Lord, there is nothing too small for you to care about, or too big for you to accomplish. Lord, let there be deliverances, and breakthroughs, and salvations, and healings, and the tearing down of strongholds, and the newness of fresh opportunities opened up for your people. Give each and every one of us, Lord, an opportunity to encourage someone else in the Lord today.

[00:02:40] Lord, may we see salvations in our time. May we see miracles in our time. May we see your name brought to prominence, Jesus, in our time. God, don't let this generation go. Break the power of the bands and the bonds of wickedness. Lord, set people free according to your word and according to your promises.

[00:03:07] Jesus, you are good, and your mercy endures forever. Help us, Lord. Help us. Redeem this time. Overshadow me. Forgive my shortcomings and my frailties. And use this to edify, to strengthen, and to sharpen your people. In Jesus' name, amen. How well does the Bible describe our situation?

[00:03:35] Because how well does the Bible describe the human condition? How long, O you sons of men, will you turn my glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood? A word for our time, amongst many others. There is a tremendous love of worthlessness and a seeking after falsehood.

[00:04:02] And in many different ways, it is to be expected from the worldly. It's to be expected from the world operating outside of the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. It's not surprising. It's just a fact of the matter.

[00:04:24] That is, that if the love that we have is not properly oriented, originally and finally, towards God. Love itself. The source of all love. The one who is love and defines it. Then, what we love, what we care about, which must be something. We all have something that we make our top priority.

[00:04:51] Even if we say, oh, I have no priorities. I'm completely disconnected. I don't love anything. I don't worship anything. I don't follow anything. Oftentimes, that in and of itself is what we love and what we follow. It's the counter and contrarian nature of our own identity that we are in love with. And it's not something that we would give up. And that's how we can tell.

[00:05:20] What are the things that are non-negotiable for us? What do we really prioritize? Well, it's the things that we will not give up. That we would give up anything else and everything else to preserve. And in many cases, if our love is not directed first and foremost towards God, then you can say very truly that what we are loving is worthless.

[00:05:50] And it's not just modern culture and social media and technology and all of the standard boogeymen out here that people direct their love towards. It can be inside the church as well with a pet doctrine or a gripe or a grudge that you won't let go of that is just part of people's identity in such a way that they come to love it in a Stockholm syndrome kind of way.

[00:06:19] Where it's just something that attracts their attention and is insurmountable. Seemingly unwilling to be given up for anything. There are things that we love. Things that we cherish. Things that are ultimately worthless. There are things that we do that we're stuck doing that are ultimately worthless.

[00:06:42] And whenever we're doing that, even if we wouldn't want to think of ourselves as this kind of person, we're seeking falsehood. If we love worthlessness, then how can we be said to properly be pursuing the truth? We wouldn't do these things on purpose, right? Nobody is going to raise their hand and say, oh yeah, I love worthlessness. I'm actively seeking falsehood.

[00:07:12] Well, maybe some people actually would say those things, but it would be extraordinarily rare. Certainly, the more common error is for us to have our priorities misaligned and to go forth without knowing exactly where we're going because we're not following the right guide. We're not following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Our paths aren't being lit by the Word of God.

[00:07:39] And we are not being led and instructed by God, willing to accept His correction, willing to accept rebuke and chastening even if necessary. Are we pursuing Him and seeking His kingdom first above all else? Or are we in the camp where we don't even recognize that what we are loving, what we are pursuing, what we are after is actually worthless?

[00:08:04] Now, again, if we prioritize God and we are lovers of the truth, knowing that the truth will set us free, and that it is Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life, and that He is the one who sets us free, if we seek first His kingdom, then all these other things will be added unto us. So let's not pursue secondary things.

[00:08:33] Even if it's subtle secondary things like being right or having others acknowledge that we were right in certain situations, that can be another trap that people fall into. What matters is our pursuit of the kingdom of God, our response to the grace that God has shown us. We have another day. This next day is not guaranteed.

[00:09:03] And so it's important because we need to get our priorities straight. If not now, then when? We need to do it yesterday and the day before that and the month before that and the year before that. And I'm speaking to myself here. Any misalignment in priorities leads to time and effort that is wasted,

[00:09:28] that is spent in service of something other than the highest good. And again, this doesn't mean that every single instant of our waking lives can be spent in some activity that an external observer would call pious. Remember, God doesn't look upon and judge based on outer commitment alone and appearances. He judges based on the heart.

[00:09:58] Which, as we know from Scripture, is desperately wicked. But that has the potential to be miraculously transformed by the Lord from any state into one of righteousness and one of faithfulness because He has those characteristics and is infallible and is all-powerful.

[00:10:26] And then once we understand this need to get our priorities straight and some of these challenges that we face, then we can receive reassurance. It's not going to be easy. You can't just make a decision that says, oh, I'm going to get my priorities straight and then all of a sudden that quote-unquote fixes everything. It's a necessary step.

[00:10:52] But oftentimes it's just the beginning of walking things out. From the next verse, verse 3, we know that the Lord has set apart for Himself the people who are seeking God, who have humbled themselves, who are godly, not because of their own merit, but because they've received the grace

[00:11:20] that God desires to provide to them. And the Bible says, the psalmist says, the Lord will hear when I call to Him. This is David. He has lived a life of many answered prayers. He understands this dynamic of seeing people who are after their own aggrandizement. He is king, after all,

[00:11:47] and even before then he was in the courts of the king. So he saw what people were like in these positions of power. And he knew how rare it was to find people who were truly after God's own heart. And how even if you are in that situation, that that doesn't mean that you are infallible. Doesn't mean that you can let your guard down.

[00:12:16] But it's good advice for us to be angry and do not sin, to meditate within our hearts, on our beds, and be still. Now, notice David doesn't say don't do anything about any bad things that are happening. It just means that we can't get in the flesh. We can't get overloaded with our carnal reactions and our emotions and our psychology

[00:12:44] and everything else like that for a variety of different reasons, chief among which, it's not what God is calling us to do. But then, it's also not healthy, it's not valuable, it's not edifying, it's not what we need to be doing. So what do we need to be doing? Can we be still for just a moment? You're not supposed to do this in a podcast landscape or anything else like that,

[00:13:14] but could we just be still for 20 seconds? And could we just ask the Lord to show us what it means to be still? Ask for His help. Lord, help me to be still and help our ears to be open. Help us to receive. Help us to practice inviting God's presence,

[00:13:43] having the Holy Spirit, the promised seed and guarantee of our inheritance present with us according to the promises of God. Can we be still for 20 seconds?

[00:14:22] Thank you, Lord. Now, admittedly, I did have to look at the clock so that I would come back in 20 seconds, but did you have to look at the clock? Did it feel uncomfortable? Or did it feel refreshing? Did it feel good? Where did your mind go to in that time of being still? Were you able to receive anything from the Lord in that time? Think about

[00:14:51] what your personal relationships would be like if the people who wanted something from you were only willing to receive benefit from you and your presence 20 seconds at a time. It's almost like in many cases when the youngest of my children or my older children when they were young, they would be interested in something I was doing

[00:15:20] or even interested in me, but then something else catches their attention and immediately they're off. And sometimes I think that that's the way that God must see us. We're asking for his help and seeking him and wanting him to move and we keep on getting distracted. We keep on getting dragged into different

[00:15:50] narratives and different components of trying to decipher exactly what's going on in the world and taking care of all the things that we need to take care of and getting dragged into things and sidetracked and distracted and all of the above. But can we just be still before the Lord? Are we willing to bring to him the sacrifice

[00:16:18] of our time and our attention? The world in a technologically driven age has finally figured out that our attention is perhaps the most valuable commodity. that if they can capture our attention then they've captured something immensely valuable. And schemes and systems and structures have been developed for the

[00:16:48] express purpose of leveraging the wisdom that is available and the knowledge about our own behavioral patterns and our own psyches and everything else like that for the sake of capturing attention. And maybe this is one of the modern applications of the scripture that says that the children of darkness are wiser in their generation than the children of light. There are many schemes that have been built

[00:17:18] to take advantage of people without much concern or consideration for the backlash or the consequences or the follow-through. And yet we have the choice to make. We can be still. God must give us the grace to do it. And if it's not something that we have continually been practicing then it can seem difficult.

[00:17:49] But this is a time of grand obsession. People are obsessed with things. And that's even entered the lexicon as a positive word. Being obsessed with something. Typically and traditionally it had more of a negative connotation. It's an unhealthy obsession. But when people these days say, oh, I'm obsessed with this, it's just an exaggeration. the same

[00:18:18] way that the word love has been diluted a little bit. So let's not be obsessed with anything. But let us continually and regularly seek to ground ourselves entering into the presence of God and inviting God and his Holy Spirit and his presence into our lives through worship, through thanksgiving, and through being still. If we

[00:18:48] want to receive from God, then we need to create the space in which that receiving can take place. And it's a challenge. We don't want to be obsessed by anything in the world. I

[00:19:19] the proper language of scripture. We want to have the fear of the Lord. We want to love our God with everything we have. And we want to see his will accomplished. And yet, we look around and in verse 6, we can see the parallels to today. There are many who say, who will show us any good? Bad thing over here, bad thing over there, bad

[00:19:49] bad thing just happened, bad things going on right now. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. We call it blackpilling, I suppose, but it's the same cry, who will show us any good? On one hand, there's the tendency that we have to fixate on the bad because that's what gets amplified. But then there are people who are desperately seeking the good. This isn't

[00:20:19] just one type of person, a person who's caught up in the news cycle in a way that has always led in the past couple of decades and especially in recent years to turmoil and a sense of impending doom and dread and everything else like that. And there is some sense in being

[00:20:49] cynical in terms of the knowledge that we develop and that we have about the nature of evil and what is really going on and how things work out there in the world. But that is troublesome to a large extent. We have to know how to balance these things. We are actively called by scripture to be full of peace and to be full of joy and to be full of love. And

[00:21:19] these characteristics being as aware as we should be of the nature of evil and how it functions and how it is impacting the world to be awake to those sort of things. To be wise as serpents but innocent as doves it's just not something that we can do in our own strength and this is one of the pitfalls. Who will show us any good? Maybe it's

[00:21:48] because we don't actually want to see that because we say well there's nothing good to be seen and so nobody can show us any of these things or perhaps it is people who are just looking for something to distract them. Just show me anything that's pleasant. Show me anything that is light-hearted. Take my mind away from all of these things. That's not the balance either. But there are genuine seekers who

[00:22:17] say well who will show us any good? And the answer is implicit in the rest of the psalm. It is God. God will show us something good. God will. And the good thing that is available to us is God's presence. It's God himself. God alone is good. God alone. So we should join with David

[00:22:46] and say Lord lift up the light of your countenance upon us. Isn't that the only way that we will be shown true goodness? And when that happens David reflects and declares you God have put gladness in my heart. It didn't come from the world. It didn't come from a sentimental emotional feeling. It came from God. This

[00:23:16] gladness, this goodness, this godliness. David refers to God in the beginning of the psalm, oh God of my righteousness. The righteousness that Jesus carried and carries has been transacted and infused upon us such that when God looks upon his children who have placed their faith in Christ, he sees Christ

[00:23:46] in them. And Lord, forgive us for not appreciating our salvation. Forgive us for neglecting so great a salvation forgive us Lord, if we have treaded underfoot the blood of the cross and the sacrifice of the new covenant. If we have failed to appreciate and appropriate what the atonement

[00:24:15] actually accomplishes, what our salvation actually represents, forgive us Lord, if we have ever treated it flippantly, if we have ever grown blase day, if we have lost our first love, if we are no longer overwhelmed by what you have done for us. Lord, restore us to gladness of heart. Lord, give us

[00:24:44] peace and sleep. It is right what David says, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. we can and should do what we ought and what we must in order to protect ourselves and our families and everything else, but unless the Lord builds the house, he who labors labors in vain. God is the one who gives us safety, and our safety,

[00:25:15] ultimately, our eternal safety, is in Christ. Christ. So are you there? Are we there? Will we be found in Christ, standing on the rock, on the firm foundation, taking shelter in the strong tower, in the bulwark, under the wings of God? Will we be found at the right hand?

[00:25:45] Will we be the sheep who know his voice? Will we be set apart for him? Or will we continue to love worthlessness? Will we continue to seek falsehood? Will we continue to cry out, who will show us any good? Or will we be still? Will we invite the Lord to fellowship with us, to speak to us, to heal us,

[00:26:15] to correct us, chastise us, to transform us through his word? Will we allow him to use us, to dream for us, to establish his will in our lives? He is gracious and good and full of justice and truth and mercy. let us

[00:26:45] be motivated by love for God and love for those around us to find the balance between an understanding and awareness of the nature of the battle that we are in, including the tougher, more challenging components of understanding what evil is and the real ramifications

[00:27:14] of sin and corruption and vice. Let us balance that in a way that only God can help us with. Only God can do this. To have genuine, unspoiled, unbroken, unblemished joy because of the Lord. Gladness in our hearts because of what God has done. Even if

[00:27:43] anyone else in the entire world would look at one of us and say, why on earth? There's no reason that you have to be glad from external appearances. We can have gladness in our heart. We can have peace and sleep. We can have the security of safety knowing that we are the Lord's and we can be still and be set apart

[00:28:13] for God. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for this psalm. Thank you for your presence, God. Thank you for your direction. God, help us to just be the people who you have called us to be in every station of our lives. Let us put down what needs to be put down. Let us pick up what needs to be picked up. Let it be abundantly clear. Holy Spirit,

[00:28:44] speak to everyone listening. Speak to me. Speak to my family. Speak to this audience. Lord, show us if we are off track in any way. Seek us. Search us. You know what is in our hearts. Lord, we pray that you would transform us. We pray that you would be glorified in everything, every aspect

[00:29:13] of our lives. Use our lives for your kingdom and let your will be done. Help us, Lord, to be still. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen.