Living as a Christian in the United States in the year 2016 is certainly not an easy thing to do. Once you identify yourself as a disciple of Jesus and you commit to live your life according to His purposes, plans, and ways, you are going to immediately face both physical and spiritual enemies in your life. There will be those who will call you hateful and bigoted. Some of your family members and former friends may either shun you or even openly attack you for your faith. You might even be sued or lose your job or suffer financial harm as a result of holding firm to your Biblical values.
And when we find ourselves in the midst of those enemies, it’s often difficult to know how to respond. Do I ignore them? Do I run from them? Do I hide from them? Do I retaliate?
Fortunately for us we’re studying a Psalm written by a man who knew firsthand what it was like to live among those who were both his personal enemies as well as enemies of his God. And this morning, we come to verse 5, where we find the Biblical answer for how to deal with our enemies:
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
(Psalm 23:5 ESV)
There is a noticeable change in the Psalm that takes place in this verse. At least at first glance, it appears that David has changed metaphors here. After all, the sheep don’t sit down around a table and eat a meal that the shepherd has prepared for them. And certainly the sheep don’t drink from a cup.
However, Phillip Keller, in his book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, suggests that David is actually continuing the shepherd and sheep metaphor here. He explains that the high mountain meadows where the shepherd take their sheep in the summer are often referred to as tablelands. Here in the southwest United states and in southern Europe, those high plateaus are known as “mesas” – the Spanish word for “table”. And a number of other commentators and pastors seem to have followed his lead when dealing with this verse.
On the other hand, there are a number of commentators who see an abrupt change in metaphors here in verse 5 where they see God being pictured as a gracious host. But I don’t think that we have an either/or choice here. The author of the Psalm, David, had been a shepherd, but he was also a king, who was expected to be a gracious host. So as David writes these words it is not unreasonable for him to think of God as both a shepherd and a king/host. For us, I think that means that both metaphors have something to offer when it comes to our understanding of this verse.
With that being said, I think that the Scriptures give us a pretty good indication of David’s thinking here. David knew what it meant to sit at a table in the presence of his enemies. He often sat at the same table with King Saul, even though Saul eventually turned on David and hunted him down to try and kill him. There is a good chance that situation led David to write these words in another of his Psalms:
Even my close friend in whom I trusted,
who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.
(Psalm 41:9 ESV)
Many of you may recognize that Jesus quoted those words as he observed the Passover with His disciples on the night before His crucifixion to identify Judas as the friend who was about to become His enemy.
Later in life, David’s own son Absalom turned against him and attempted to take the kingdom by force and kill David. In 2 Samuel 17 we find an account that is particularly relevant to David’s words here in Psalm 23. While fleeing from Absalom, David came to the city of Mahanaim. There, a bunch of guys with unpronounceable Hebrew names prepared a meal for David and his men:
When David came to Mahanaim, Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, and Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat, for they said, “The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.”
(2 Samuel 17:27-29 ESV)
I want you to note the name “Barzillai”, because we’re going to come back to him again. But the important thing to note here is that through those men, God had prepared a table for David and in his men while they were literally in the midst of their enemies. Apparently David never forgot their kindness, because on his deathbed, he gave these instructions to Solomon:
But deal loyally with the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table, for with such loyalty they met me when I fled from Absalom your brother.
(1 Kings 2:7 ESV)
Barzillai’s hospitality when David was in the midst of his enemies made such a long-lasting impression on David, that many years later he wanted to insure that the same kind of hospitality would be shown to his family. So it certainly seems possible, if not likely, that David had that encounter in mind when he wrote Psalm 23 as he thought back to how God had provided for him in such an unexpected way while he was surrounded by enemies.
But regardless of whether David is continuing his shepherd and sheep metaphor or whether he has transitioned into a new metaphor of a gracious host, the main idea is exactly the same either way:
God’s path will never lead me
where the grace of God will not preserve me
As David walked on the paths of righteousness where his Shepherd, the Lord, had led him, those paths often took him through some dark valleys, and he was often under attack from his enemies. But as he looked back on those times, he could rejoice because he realized that the Shepherd had always been present with him during those time, pouring out his grace in a way that had preserved David and even allowed him to prosper during those times.
In many ways, the principles we’ll find here in verse 5 really complement what we learned last week in verse 4 about how to experience God’s presence in our valleys. But this morning we’ll take a slightly different approach and talk about…
HOW TO LET GOD’S GRACE PRESERVE ME
1. Have the right expectations
I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on this idea since I think we’ve covered it pretty well in previous messages. We’ve talked a lot about the fact that being a disciple of Jesus does not make us immune to trouble or keep us out of dark valleys. In fact, it makes it even more likely that we’ll experience difficulty in our lives because we’ll face a whole new set of enemies who will oppose us strictly because of our faith.
David certainly understood that. For much of his life, he had either lived as fugitive, running from those who were trying to kill him or, as he did more often later in life, he lived right in the midst of his enemies. But as he matured, David understood more and more that God wasn’t necessarily going to take those enemies away or defeat them, but that what he would do is to walk through those difficulties with David and pour out his grace in a way that would preserve David through those trials.
Roughly 1,000 years later, the apostle Paul learned that same lesson. Paul was experiencing some kind of difficulty in his life that he described as a “thorn in the flesh”. And Paul prayed three times for God to remove that from his life. Finally, after the third time he prayed, he received an answer from God:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
(2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV)
When difficulty comes in our lives and when our enemies attack us, it is obviously okay to ask God to remove the difficulty or to defeat our enemies. But we ought to pray that way understanding that in many cases God isn’t going do that because, as we saw last week, he is taking us through a valley to a better place.
So, in the present, we need to expect that we are going to face difficulties and that there are going to be enemies who will continue to attack us.
But I think there is also a prophetic aspect to what David writes in verse 5 that is consistent with many other Biblical prophecies that promise that one day God is going to make everything right. He will punish evil and reward righteousness. And he will also vindicate His people in front of all those who opposed them here on earth. The word that David uses that is translated “in the presence of” is a Hebrew preposition that means “to place conspicuously or set high on display.” The idea is that one day all of our enemies are going to see the manifestation of God’s grace in our lives and will finally understand that we were right to stand firm on our faith. And God will receive great glory as a result.
So when we think about the future, we can be encouraged that one day, God will give us victory over our enemies and that, not only will they know that God is who He said He is, but that our faith in Him was worth whatever troubles we may have encountered in our lives here on earth.
God’s path will never lead me
where the grace of God will not preserve me
And if I want God’s grace to preserve me, it begins with having the right expectations – not expecting God to remove all problems or defeat all my enemies here on earth, but also having confidence that one day will make all things right and vindicate my faith.
2. Develop an attitude of gratitude
This morning I brought a glass of water with me and I want to ask you a question – is the glass half empty or half full? How many of you say half empty? How many say half full?
Normally based on the answer to that question we would identify you as an optimist if you said that the glass is half full or a pessimist if you answered that the glass was half empty. But I would suggest to you this morning that asking if the glass is half empty or half full is the wrong question to ask altogether. That is because I also have a pitcher full of water available to me, so regardless of whether the glass is half empty or half full I can use the pitcher to fill it up. [Fill up glass] Actually I can even do better than that. I can fill up the glass so that it overflows. [Fill it so it overflows].
In David’s day, a gracious host would do exactly that with his guest’s wine glass. He wouldn’t just fill it to the brim, he would fill it until it overflowed onto the floor. That would demonstrate to the guest that the host was willing to do all he could to make sure his guest was completely satisfied, and even beyond that. So when David writes “My cup overflows”, he is saying that his host, the Lord, has given him complete satisfaction – and more.
Have any of you ever listened to Christian financial guru Dave Ramsey? Whenever anyone asks him how he is doing on his radio show, he always responds with his go-to catch phrase. Do any of you know what that is? That’s right – “Better than I deserve.” I think in a lot of ways that is the modern day equivalent of “My cup overflows.”
Although I don’t have time to go into it in a lot of detail, let me just point out that anointing the head of a guest with oil was also an act of hospitality in David’s day. As people travelled by foot on the dusty roads, they would get hot and sweaty and dirty and the host would apply oil to the head of his guests as a way to soothe them after their travels.
Keep in mind that when David wrote those words, his cup was probably a lot less than half full. As we’ve pointed out before, it is very likely that David wrote this Psalm during a time when his enemies were pursuing him, trying to kill him – circumstances that are quite frankly much harder than anything most of us are going through in our lives. But here is how David survived, and even thrived, in those circumstances. He didn’t really care how full or empty his glass was because he always had a pitcher of God’s grace available to him from which God could always fill his glass until it overflowed.
And David had learned to be grateful for that grace, because time after time in his life, including the events we looked at earlier in 2 Samuel 17 where he was fleeing from his own son, David had seen God preserve him and even prosper him by pouring His grace into David’s life. David had come to recognize that he had done nothing to earn God’s favor. In fact, he was an adulterer and murderer who deserved only God’s justice and wrath. So the only logical response to that grace was to develop an attitude of gratitude.
The apostle Paul, writing roughly 1,000 later, reminds us of the importance of doing the same thing.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV)
This is one of those places in the Bible I talked about a few weeks ago where we find God’s will spelled out very specifically. It is God’s will that we give thanks in all circumstances. And that obviously includes those times where we are going through difficulties and when we are begin attacked by our enemies. As we saw earlier, Paul had learned that God’s grace was sufficient in all circumstances and because of that, he was able to give thanks regardless of whatever trials he was going through.
So regardless of how full your glass is, you need to develop an attitude of gratitude because God’s grace is available to you to fill that glass to overflowing.
God’s path will never lead me
where the grace of God will not preserve me
And if I’m going to let God’s grace preserve me I need to develop an attitude of gratitude.
3. Spend my time feasting with Jesus, not fighting my foes
If you were to go to one of the finest restaurants in Tucson, where would the most coveted table in that restaurant be?
I suppose if you were to go to Vivace, which is known for its views of the city as much as the quality of the food, the best table would be the one that gave you the best view.
If you were to go to the Melting Pot for a special occasion and wanted some privacy, the best tables are the ones in the back that are curtained off to give you privacy.
If you were to go to Mr. An’s, the best table would be the teppan table where the cooks put on a show while they prepare your food.
But did you realize that in the most famous restaurants in the world, the most coveted table in the restaurant is actually the one in the kitchen, where you can watch as the chef and his or her staff prepare your meal and, if you’re really fortunate, where the chef might even invite you to take part in the preparation of your meal.
When I think about God preparing a table for us, I think that is what He wants for us in a spiritual sense. The Hebrew verb translated “prepare” describes the idea of arranging, ordering and preparing. The picture here is of God arranging and ordering our lives so that they display His character even in the presence of those who stand against us. We don’t choose the menu or the ingredients or try to prepare the meal ourselves because God is the master chef and only He has the knowledge and wisdom to do that correctly. But God wants us to hang out in the kitchen with Him while He does that. He wants to converse with us and show us what He is doing and even have us join in that preparation.
But unfortunately, we live in a microwave, fast-food world where we don’t want to wait around for the gourmet meal. So instead of savoring our time with God, we get distracted by our enemies and we spend all our time figuring out ways to fight back against our foes. To carry the restaurant analogy a bit farther, we waste time creating our own recipes and trying them out on our enemies. And those recipes rarely work, but even if they do to some degree, we end up missing out on that time we could have spent in intimate fellowship with God.
It’s really instructive that here in this Psalm, all of David’s attention is on the one who is preparing the table for him and not at all on his enemies. David is content to let God take care of his enemies in His time and in his way and to just enjoy the meal of grace in the meantime.
Before I began to work on this sermon this week, I never considered all the ways that I try to fight with my foes that take time away from my feasting with Jesus. I know that none of you have a problem, but let me share a few of the things that God brought to my mind in the unlikely event that they might jog your memory:
• I tend to get worked up about things that people on Facebook that I disagree with. And that causes me to spend way too much time figuring out how to respond to their ideas.
• Although I don’t do it near as much as I used to, I place way too much faith in the ability of our political system to fix problems that are really spiritual issues. I even ran for office myself one time – and unfortunately got elected. So I spent a lot of time fighting with people over political issues. I don’t waste much time doing that anymore because as I’ve matured I’ve come to understand that these are spiritual issues that can’t be solved in the political realm. Jesus spent all his time dealing with people’s hearts and not their politics, and I need to learn from that.
Let me once again what I’ve said often before. I am not in any way suggesting that we shouldn’t participate in the political process by voting and trying to elect people of godly character to office or even to make our views known to our politicians in a respectful manner. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t put our trust in any politician or let our politics take away our time and attention from that which is far more important.
• Although I’m getting much better at this, I still have a tendency to hold grudges against those who harm me in some way, or even worse, who harm my wife. And when I do that I spend way too much time figuring out ways to get even with those people.
God’s path will never lead me
where the grace of God will not preserve me
But if I’m going to let God’s grace preserve me I need to spend my time feasting with Jesus and not fighting my foes.
At the beginning of this message I posed a question to us –
How do we respond to the enemies of Jesus and our own personal enemies who are all around us in this culture?
My prayer is that after the message this morning, you have a much better handle on how to answer that question. The long term answer is not to run from them or hide from them although it might be prudent to do that at times. Isolation is not the answer. Nor are we to just ignore them. David was certainly aware of his enemies but he still chose to live in their midst. The messages from the last 2 weeks from verses 4 and 5 make it clear that we are not to fear them. And while there are times we ought to take prudent steps to protect ourselves from them, we are certainly not to retaliate against them.
What we are to do is trust that God knows what He is doing and that He will pour his grace into our lives in a way that will not only protect us, but that will also bring glory to Him as our enemies see how works in the lives of His people.
So as we close this morning, I can think of no better way for us to apply what we’ve learned this morning than by taking a few minutes to pray for our enemies, asking God to reveal Himself to them through the preserving work of His grace in our lives. If it helps, you might want to jot down the names of anyone God brings to mind so that you can continue to pray for those people this week.
