Psalm 4:1-8 For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm of David. Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God (lit God of my righteousness). Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer. 2 How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? Selah 3 Know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself; the LORD will hear when I call to him. 4 In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Selah 5 Offer right sacrifices and trust in the LORD. 6 Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?" Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD. 7 You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. 8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
Introduction
Psalm four is a psalm that shows us how David handles it when he has a conflict with some unbelievers who had the upper hand against him. And we saw that David focused first on God, not on his enemies. We tend to think the one who holds the keys to us getting out of our problem is the person causing the problem. That is wrong. If we follow David’s example, instead of focusing on that person causing our problem, we will focus on the One in charge of the problem – God. Instead of behaving as though some human being were in charge of our wellbeing, we will behave as though God and God alone is.
We also saw that the most important question in a conflict is not, “Is that other person in the wrong?” but “Do I have God’s approval?” David had God’s approval. In verse three he places himself in the category of the godly whom God has set apart for Himself and whose prayers God will answer. This means his enemies are God’s enemies, which is bad news for his enemies.
David is known for being pretty hard on his enemies at times. Sometimes he writes imprecatory psalms, which is a prayer that calls for God to send judgment on his enemies. But we do not see that in this psalm. What we see instead is David trying to lead his enemies to God. It seems that the more David thinks about the fact that God will give him decisive victory, and defeat his enemies, the more he starts to feel sorry for his enemies. Defeat at the hands of God is a horrible, horrible thing. So David reaches out to them in this psalm to try to bring them to a knowledge of God.
The main body of this psalm, from verse two through verse five (or, you could even argue, through the end of the psalm), is nothing but pure evangelism. David is showing them the way out of their empty, worthless lives and into knowledge of God. So this psalm is a great model for how you can effectively share the gospel with unbelievers. So that is our focus in this lessong – how to lead an unbeliever to God.
And David’s process is pretty simple – all you have to do is four things. 1) Go first to God. Make sure you are right with God and that you have His approval. 2) Show them that the most important question is “What do you love?” 3) Talk to the person about how God compares to wind. 4) Call for repentance.
I. Seek God’s approval
This first step (explored in the last lesson) is crucial. You may want to review it at this point. The only thing I want to do in this lesson with this first point is to underscore the results that come from doing what was discussed in that last lesson, and how that prepares you to share the gospel with someone.
Before sharing your faith it is essential that you make sure you are right with God. Make sure you are not carrying on with any unrepentant sin in your dealings with this person or anything else. And when you do that, and you are certain that you are right with God, it will do two very important things to prepare you to lead someone to God. 1) It will give you compassion and 2) it will give you courage.
A. Compassion
David was so sure that God was going to make things right, that he started to feel compassion for the men who he knew were going to end up on the business end of God’s rod. And so instead of praying for their destruction, he reaches out to them in this psalm. You can hear the mood of David’s soul in verse two, where he pleads with them. There is no anger – it is obvious his words are coming from an ache in his soul - an ache that comes not just from the fact that they are hurting David as much as the fact that they are hurting themselves and ruining their lives. “How long will you pursue that which is worthless?” He sees their pursuit of emptiness and rejection of the things of God, and it just pains him to see it. And there is a longing in his heart for them to change. And the question “how long” carries with it almost an assumption that they probably will change. David shows a little bit of optimism that they will listen.
Knowing you have God’s approval in a dispute implies that those who oppose you do not have His approval, and if you have a humble heart, receiving undeserved mercy from God will cause you to have mercy on others. And that is the motive for evangelism. Make it your goal to have all your evangelism rise up not out of mere duty, but out of compassion for the lost. Spend time periodically really thinking long and hard about the horror of hell. Study about hell so that you will have compassion on the people who are headed there. And not only hell, but also spend time thinking about how painful God’s chastisement on earth can be. And let that generate compassion in your heart even toward believers who are asking for that chastisement by their actions.
B. Courage
The other prerequisite for effective evangelism is courage. You need compassion to motivate you in the first place so that in your heart you really, really want this person to be saved from God’s wrath, and you need courage to enable you to follow through on what your heart wants to do.
Have you ever passed up an opportunity to tell someone about God because of lack of courage? Look at how David addresses these men in verse two:
2 How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?
The term for men here is a Hebrew phrase that usually refers to men of high status. David is talking to some big shots here. He has been humiliated by them. They have the upper hand. They have respect in the eyes of people – David does not at this point. So David looks up from his lowly, despised position to these exalted, respected, power brokers, and dares to speak to them. Listen to what he says and see if you hear any intimidation in his voice.
2 How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? (lit. lies) Selah 3 Know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself; the LORD will hear when I call to him. 4 Tremble and do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Selah 5 Offer right sacrifices and trust in the LORD.
It does not sound like David is very intimidated by these people. In that brief statement he issues two rebukes, a warning, and four commands. How do you get the courage to talk that way to people when you are looked down on and they are respected and honored?
You can do that when you have humbled yourself before God and sought and received God’s approval. Once you know you have that, you can be bold. If God is for us who can be against us? If God approves of me what can man do to me? Someone said, “If you bow before God you can stand before anyone.” That is really true.
Lowly Moses can get right into the face of Pharaoh and start giving warnings and making demands. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego could stand before the most powerful king in the world who was demanding they bow down to his idol – handcuffed and about to be burned alive, and say, “Our God is way more powerful than you, so forget it.” When the king decreed that anyone caught praying to the God of the Bible will be thrown to the lions to be eaten alive, Daniel heard that and said, “Hmmm, I better pray about this, but first let me open my window so it is clear that I am praying toward Jerusalem.” John the Baptist could approach Herod – who hardly ever met a person he didn’t kill, including just about everyone in his family, and rebuke him for having a sinful marriage. Paul appealed to Caesar, who he knew would probably cut of his head, just to get the chance to stand in his court and preach the gospel to him and command him to repent - just as he did with Felix and Festus and Agrippa and the High Priest and the Sanhedrin and every other ruler he came across.
How do you get courage to be fearless when you are talking to intimidating people? You make sure first that you have God’s approval and God’s favor. The more conscious and confident you are of that, the more boldness you will have. If you kneel before God you can stand before anyone. Alexander MacLaren said “The lips which by prayer have been purged and cured of quivering can speak to foes without being much abashed by their dignity or their hatred.” That is really true. If you fear God you need not fear any man. But if you fear man you have cause to fear indeed. So point one is to call on the Lord in prayer. Make sure you have the approval of God first, and that will give you compassion as well as courage for the task of sharing your faith.
II. Focus on the main issue: What do you love?
Step two is to compare God to wind. Now maybe some of you have never really thought of that as a key component of effective evangelism. But I really believe it is the most important component there is. So let me explain what I mean. Look in verse two at David’s summary of what these people are doing wrong. Their problem is what they love and seek.
2 How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
The phrase “my glory” refers to David’s honor and the respectability God had given him. (for a detailed discussion of when it is good to seek honor and when it is prideful see the appendix). God had bestowed upon David a certain amount of honor and dignity, and these men had no respect for that at all. They took a man who was supposed to be honored and respected and they dishonored and belittled him. What was good in God’s sight was bad in their sight.
The word translated “godly” comes from the Hebrew word for “love” or “loyalty” (HESED). They are the HASID – the ones loved by God, who love God, and who love those God loves. So David has set up a contrast in verses two and three. It is a contrast between those who love lies and emptiness and those who love (and are loved by) God. The main, central, defining issue is: “What do you love?” It is essential that you get that into the head of the person you are talking to.
What did Jesus say is the greatest of all the commandments? Love God with all your being. (Mt.22:34-40) How many non-Christians do you know who feel guilty because of their lack of love for God? A lot of people feel bad for their anger, selfishness, immorality, dishonesty, but none of those are the most important thing. The things most people think of when they think of obeying God are things that are really secondary. What is primary is your responsibility to love God with all your heart. And that is a completely new concept for most people. But it is crucial that they understand it.
If there is a moral good, it is evil not to love that. When you are sharing the gospel with someone, find a virtue that that person especially admires. And then point out to them that it is obviously evil for a person to see that virtue and fail to love it. If you see a person who has great integrity, keeps his word, loves his wife, helps the poor, adopts needy children, dives on a hand grenade and sacrifices his life to save his comrades in war - whatever the person would regard as a morally beautiful thing; if you see a person like that and you see that virtue in him and you hate him because of it – that points to evil in your heart. That is not hard to explain to someone.
And in the same way it is evil to love moral corruption. Even people who have never thought this through will usually agree with you if you explain that a person who witnesses some horrible evil, like the torture of a little baby – the continued, merciless, brutal torture of an infant - a person who sees that and loves what he sees, is really evil.
God is the greatest good, and so our highest, most profound, most life-dominating love should be for Him alone. And if it is not, that points to serious perversion in the heart and is moral wickedness. The main issue is not how many rules did you keep or break or how nice a person were you. The issue is what do you love the most and what do you not love. And the great thing about focusing on this particular command is it clears up a whole lot of errors in people’s thinking.
Benefits of this approach
1. They won’t deny it
For one thing, failure to love God is a sin that most people will not deny. If you talk about other areas, like, for instance, God’s command that we be kind to people and not cruel, most people can find a way to justify themselves in that area so that they feel they have done pretty well and deserve heaven. The same goes for truthfulness, sexual purity, obedience to God, integrity. Sometimes even the most immoral people have managed to find a way to water down the commands of God so that they can convince themselves that they have actually obeyed those commands. But when it comes to a person’s responsibility to love God with all his being, very few unbelievers will even claim to have fulfilled that. So all you have to do is show them that failure to love God is indeed evil, and there will be no escape for them.
If you get people thinking about right and wrong in those terms it gets awfully convicting awfully fast. Because we all know that our hearts delight in some pretty bad things, and that we fall way short when it comes to having a love for God that would be fitting given how good He is. Most people will readily admit that they do not have a passionate love for God that comes from every fiber of their being.
2. It protects against legalism
Another benefit of focusing mainly on love for God is that it guards people against the error of thinking their repentance and avoidance of sin makes them deserve heaven. That is one form of legalism – thinking that you can earn merit toward heaven. If the main issue in the person’s mind is whether he continues to party and get drunk, then he might start thinking that if he gives that up then he deserves heaven and God owes him. But you are less prone to fall into that error if you see the main issue as love for God; because when you obey the command to love the Lord your God, that does not fill you with pride. Just the opposite – it fills you with humility. The more a person loves God the more clear it will be to him that in loving and enjoying God he is getting something he does not deserve at all.
If I serve someone, I am prone to think that person now owes me a favor. And people think that same way about God. But if I love someone – if I rely on someone and take delight in that person and enjoy him, the more I enjoy him and the more I benefit from relying on him, the more I feel I am indebted to him, not him to me. If there is someone who is just the coolest, funniest, greatest person ever; and I just love being around him, and I get the chance to hang out with him, I do not walk away afterward thinking, “Okay buddy, you really owe me now. You owe me because I loved you and enjoyed what you have to offer.” No, I walk away thinking I was fortunate to get to hang out with him. I do not walk away thinking he was fortunate to hang out with me. Love does not nurture pride. It kills pride.
So make sure people understand it is all about loving God. When you call people to repentance, call them to repent of their failure to love God, and for their loving other things more than God.
You pursue what you love
Now, how do you know what it is you really love? Notice in verse two how loving and seeking are used in parallel.
2 How long will you love delusions and seek lies?
Loving and seeking go together. Every human being loves something, and you can tell what that something is by what he is pursuing with most of his energy. It might be education, or money, or relationships, or prestige, or leisure, or fun, or philanthropy or religion, or helping people, or making people laugh. Everyone is following hard after something in life, and they are following hard after that thing because that is what they love.
Expose their sin by showing them the glory of God
So David’s approach in leading these people to God is to compare the emptiness they are pursuing with the fullness of the glory of God. That is what I mean by comparing God to wind. And it is such a wonderful strategy, because when you share the gospel with someone, at some point you need to show them their sinfulness and their need for forgiveness and salvation. And when you use this method it turns that part into a very wonderful thing. You would expect a rebuke to be kind of an ugly, unpleasant thing. But the way David does it, it actually ends up being beautiful and encouraging, because he uses this method. He confronts their sin by contrasting it against the backdrop of the glory of God.
What a great lesson this is for us to learn how to confront sin. When you need to rebuke someone, rebuke him. But when you do it do not focus just on the sin. Focus mainly on the glory of God. Do not just tell him he falls short; show him how wonderful the thing is that he is falling short of. Do not just point to the ugliness of his evil; let him see how ugly it is by showing him how beautiful God’s holiness is. When you are rebuking someone talk more about God than you do about that person’s actions. If you want to convince someone he is at a low elevation; do not point him to the ground he is standing on – point him to the mountain peak that towers so far above him.
Think about what you are trying to accomplish when you share your faith with someone. You are trying to make that person become a lover of God, right? And what better way to do that than to show him the gloriousness and beauty of God? Do not just spend all your time giving proof that Christianity is true. And do not think sharing the gospel is only a matter of conveying all the information about how to be converted. That is important, but it is even more important to spend time showing the person how wonderful God is. My job is to be His witnesses – to testify to the glory of God. So we need to do all we can to show people His magnificence and beauty and splendor and glory and goodness and loveliness and majesty and power and awesomeness, and desirability, and wisdom, and perfection and sovereignty and that He is superior to all other treasures, and is satisfying to the human soul.
My goal is to bring this person to become a lover of God, which means I need to appeal to both the mind and the affections. If you want to sell someone on the idea of moving to Colorado, one approach is to email that person the statistics on average yearly precipitation and number of days of sunlight per year, but if you really want them to come you will take them for a drive through the mountains. Show people the glory of God. And make sure they understand that their chief sin – their most egregious evil - is their failure to love such a glorious God.
III. The result of the pursuit: fullness or emptiness
Now let’s explore a little further how to show people how God is superior to what they are seeking after. People love what they love because they think that is the thing that will fulfill their deepest desires. So the only way they are going to love something else more than what they currently love is if they see that new thing as a greater source of happiness and satisfaction. So David shows them how what they are pursuing will deliver only emptiness, but God will deliver fullness. When you have your sights on something and you are pursuing that thing that you think will make you happy, it will either turn out to be a sweet, refreshing oasis in the desert, or a mirage. And David wants to show these men that they are running after a mirage when right behind them is an oasis.
2 … How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?
The Hebrew says, “Seek lies” not “seek false gods.” And the word translated “delusions” means “emptiness” or “nothingness.” It is a chasing after the wind. So David says, “Whatever it is you love; whatever it is you are pursuing in life because you think it will make you happy; if that thing is anything but God it will not deliver. It will turn out to be emptiness and lies.
That is what I mean by comparing God to wind. Show them how vastly superior God is to the emptiness and nothingness that comes from what they love and pursue. One of the biggest favors you can do for an unbeliever is to show him the emptiness of what he loves. People who live for temporal pleasures need to be shown how ultimately empty and unsatisfying that will turn out to be. People who live for money need to be shown what a worthless, powerless god that is. People who believe in some false religion need to be shown where the beliefs of that religion break down into inconsistency and contradiction. But do not stop there. Contrast that emptiness with the fullness that comes from God.
Right after David asks “How long will you continue in your error?” he immediately goes on to tell them something of what God is really like. Show people the glory of God. Everyone has some ability to appreciate true beauty and goodness. So find out what areas of true goodness the person is able to appreciate, and focus on those. If you are talking to a person who loves justice and hates evil, capitalize on that and show them just how lovely and perfect and delightful God is in that area. If you are talking to a person who is awed by the creation, spend some time showing them that those very things they love so much about the creation are found in a an even greater way in God. If you are talking to someone who loves people, show them that what is lovable in people is the image of God.
Use the glory of God to show them how empty and worthless are the things they love and pursue. Compared to the true God the things people pursue in this world are powerless, deaf, dumb, lame, blind, ignorant, dormant, helpless, needy gods. And they are liars. They pretend to offer great rewards. They even claim to be compatible with serving the true God. But in the end they are all lies and smoke and mirrors.
But God is true. In the end He is shown to have been reliable. What He offers is real substance, not wind. What He gives lasts forever. Following Him gives your life meaning and significance. And it never leaves you with regret. No earthly treasure can make that claim. Have you ever made some sacrifice to pursue money and ended up regretting it? Have you ever given up something precious in order to pursue success in your job and ended up regretting it? How many times have you made a decision to run after physical pleasure and ended up plagued with regret? How many times have you put your hope in another person and ended up disappointed? How many times have you sacrificed something for the sake of your job and regretted it? I could go on and on, because there is nothing in this world that you can count on to always come through for you when you seek joy from it. There is nothing and no one that will not frequently leave you devastated with sorrow and regret, except God.
Have you ever sought hard after God - made some sacrifice in order to pursue intimacy with God, and ended up plagued with regret? Have you ever in your entire lifetime found yourself weeping and kicking yourself and saying, “Oh I wish I hadn’t decided to seek my joy from God last night!” This world offers you joy and satisfaction from a thousand different sources. And every one of them is a lie. But when God offers joy He speaks the truth.
Joy: God vs. Grain
The question they are asking in verse six is exactly the right question. Who can show us good? (the word “any” is not in the Hebrew). What is the source of good? What is the source of wellbeing in life, and joy and satisfaction for the longings and desires of the soul? Whether they know it or not that is the question everyone in the world is asking.
First we see David’s answer to that question and then we see their answer.
6 Many are asking, "Who can show us any good?" Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.
That is David’s answer. What is the source of wellbeing? The light of God’s face shining upon you. That is a Hebraism for a smile. The source of good and wellbeing is the smile of God on your life – God’s favor. David believed that if you have the smile of God on your life you have absolutely everything you need for joy and satisfaction of the desires and longings of your soul. And that is true even if you are in horrendously painful circumstances.
That is David’s answer. Now look at the next verse and you will see their answer to the question of what is the source of good.
7 You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.
They have their maximum joy when their grain and new wine abound. In an agricultural society that is another way of saying, “wealth.” They desire, more than anything else, earthly treasures. When they feel the pangs of the longings of the soul – the appetites and desires of life, they think those desires and longings and appetites will be satisfied by earthly things - things like money or relationships or sex or jobs, etc.
And when they get a whole lot of those earthly things they desire and love and pursue, that gives them their highest level of joy. And David says, “I am even happier than that. I have more joy right now from the smile of God then they would have even if they got everything they wanted – everything they regard as good.” In Ps.63:3 David said that favor from God is better than life itself – better than all that life at its best has to offer.
So it turns out this whole thing really amounts to a happiness contest. And David wins. Just like in Elijah’s time there was a contest between the false gods and the true God. Remember – Elijah gathered all the prophets of Baal and said, “You set out your sacrifice and I will set out mine and we will all watch to see whose God sends fire from heaven to burn up the sacrifice.” (1 Ki.18) David is doing a similar thing. He is saying, “You pursue wealth and earthly treasure with all your ability and I will pursue fellowship with God, and we will see who ends up with more joy.” And David gets the same results Elijah got. Even when the earthly pleasures are all stripped away from him David has more joy than they have when they have all the earthly pleasures.
The reason they were pursuing the earthly things back in verse two was because they loved those things. And the reason they loved them was because they saw those things as sources of good for their lives and spring from which joy flows. And David loved and pursued God because he saw God as the source of good and the spring from which joy flows. And it is David that wins the happiness contest, which shows God to be the true source of joy.
So suppose a person loves money. He thinks if he could make a half million a year he would be happy. You need to show him that the only way a half million a year can make you happy is if you also have the smile of God on your life. The Bible talks about two kinds of wealth – the kind that comes with trouble and the kind that comes without trouble.
Pr 15:6 The house of the righteous contains great treasure, but the income of the wicked brings them trouble.
Ecc.5:19 Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work-- this is a gift of God.
If you get all the money in the world but not that gift – not that smile of God that enables you to enjoy the money, this thing you loved and spent your life pursuing will deliver trouble and not happiness. What good are riches when all the things you buy cause you nothing but trouble and headaches? What good is a million dollars when you get terminal cancer? What good is money when depression takes over your soul so that you are unable to enjoy anything?
So if you have money but not the smile of God you get no happiness – only wind. But what happens if you have the smile of God and no money? Everything you are hoping to get from the money, God can give through other means besides money. And so if you have the favor of God and no money, you get joy. If you have money and not the favor of God you get misery. So what good is money? By itself it is worthless. It promises joy, but it is a liar. All it has to offer is wind.
And you can go through that same process with whatever it is the person loves. Show them that it is ultimately empty without the smile of God on their lives, and with the smile of God that thing is not needed.
Peace: false security vs. real safety
One of the main things people are seeking from whatever it is they are pursuing in life is joy – another thing is peace. People want peace and wellbeing. David not only contrasts the joy that comes from the smile of God with the emptiness of what they love and pursue, but he also contrasts the peace that comes from God with the false security that comes from what they love and pursue.
8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.”
When your wellbeing in life comes from a false, impotent, powerless god like money or possessions, then you cannot just lie down and sleep in peace at a time when powerful people are out to destroy you. Because those worthless gods you are serving have no power to protect you while you sleep. You have to supply all your own protection in life. Money can buy a nice security system for your house, but it cannot do anything about that heart attack that may or may not hit you next month. The false gods of this world that people are so committed to are ultimately powerless when it comes to their overall wellbeing. But David says, “I serve a God who is just as powerful when I am asleep as when I am awake. He doesn’t need any of my help at all.”
The world thinks their safety nets they have in place will protect them, but any peace they have in their hearts is based on a false security. It is like entrusting your life to a security guard who is dead. You might sleep just fine because you think you are safe, but that does not mean you actually are safe.
So David tells them to lie awake at night in verse four, and then in verse eight he says, “Meanwhile I’ll be sleeping like a baby.” When there is unrepentant sin in your life, sleeping peacefully is evil. When there is a clear conscience, lying awake and worrying is evil. They say couples should never go to bed angry, because of the massive damage it does to the relationship. That is even truer with God. Do not ever go to sleep with a guilty conscience.
But on the other hand, when the conscience is clear there is absolutely nothing to fear - nothing. No pillow is as soft as His great and precious promises. And if your anxieties keep you awake even when your conscience is clear, it must be that your head is not resting on that pillow. Bishop Nicholas Ridley was one of the 16th Century Reformers in England. He signed a document opposing the supremacy of the Pope, and when he wouldn’t recant they burned him at the stake. He burned very slowly and it was an exceedingly agonizing death. The night before it happened, his brother offered to stay with him and spend his last night with him, but Nicholas declined the offer. He said he planned to go to bed and sleep as quietly as ever he did in his life. What a beautiful ending to this psalm.
Philip Bennett Power said, “There is something here which should be inexpressibly sweet to the believer for this shows the minuteness of God’s care, the individuality of his love; how it condescends and stoops, and acts, not only in great but also in little spheres; not only where glory might be procured from great results, but where naught is to be had save the gratitude and love of a poor feeble creature, whose life has been protected and preserved, in a period of helplessness and sleep. Learn to love the feeling of being cared for by God while you sleep. Learn to wake up each day with joy as you experience the sensation of having been watched over during the night. Instead of waking up with anxiety about all the work you need to do, wake up with joy over all the work God got done while you were asleep. Glorify Him by the peacefulness with which you sleep.
We need to ask the Lord’s forgiveness for the hours we have spent fretting when we should have been sleeping. And we need to ask His forgiveness for the hours we have spent sleeping when we should have been awake weeping. So often I have been relaxed when I should have been alarmed, and alarmed when I should have been relaxed. I have feared that which was no threat and have failed to fear the one thing that is a threat – estrangement from God. If you are right with God and you still worry you make God out to be an unreliable caretaker. And if you sleep soundly while continuing in unrepentant sin you make Him out to be irrelevant, powerless and unworthy of obedience and fear.
Conclusion
Last week I talked to you about how experiencing the attributes of God is like having a feast for your soul. And this psalm presents just the right mix of ingredients to give us just the right meal we need to prepare you to share our faith. What a feast! David is a gourmet who has mixed together just the perfect combination of attributes or us - He delights in His people – it is possible for a sinful person like me to have His approval and favor! (v.3)
• His smile is the only source of good (v.6)
• He is a source of greater joy than earthly pleasures (v.7)
• He satisfies the human soul
• He provides inner peace for His people (v.8)
• He protects His people from danger and gives them real peace (v.8)
Let’s go tell the world!
Benediction: Rev.22:17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.
Appendix
The term “my glory” most likely refers to David’s honor.
Genesis 45:13 Tell my father all about my glory in Egypt
Job 19:9 He has stripped me of my glory and removed the crown from my head.
Job 29:18 - 30:1 18 "I thought, … 20 My glory will remain fresh in me, … "Men listened to me expectantly, waiting in silence for my counsel. 22 After I had spoken, they spoke no more; my words fell gently on their ears. 23 They waited for me as for showers and drank in my words as the spring rain. 24 When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it; the light of my face was precious to them. 25 I chose the way for them and sat as their chief; I dwelt as a king among his troops; I was like one who comforts mourners. 30:1 "But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs.
So the phrase “my glory” most likely refers to honor and respect in the sight of men. And for David, respect in the eyes of men was precious to him because David saw it as coming from God.
It’s OK to seek glory from God
There is nothing wrong with desiring and enjoying honor and respect in the eyes of men as long as the reason you enjoy it is because it is a gift of God. Seeking honor in the eyes of men is a great sin if you do it in any way that competes with God’s glory. When Herod accepted for himself the honor that was due God, the Lord struck him dead on the spot and he was eaten by worms. When Nebuchadnezzar sought his own glory God struck him with insanity and he crawled around on all fours like an animal for seven years. But on the other hand there is a desire for glory and honor that is not evil. In fact, not only is it not evil, it is the mark of whether or not you are saved. If you do not seek honor from God you are not even saved.
Ro.2:7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.
People who are self-seeking go to hell and people who seek honor from God receive eternal life in heaven. There is a built-in appetite in the human soul for glory and honor. That is how God made us. Hungering for honor is no more evil than wanting some food after missing a few meals.
The evil comes only when you are self-seeking, which means you desire your own glory in a way that competes with God’s glory. The righteous kind of glory seeking is when you seek the honor that will increase and magnify and draw attention to God’s glory. And in order for that to happen you need to seek the honor that arises from being clearly seen as a beneficiary of God. Sinful glory is honor that comes from being a beneficiary of yourself, having received what you have from your own hand. Righteous honor comes to you when you are seen as having been lifted up and blessed by God’s merciful, gracious hand even though you did not deserve it. When you seek to be respected and looked up to and honored, always ask, “am I seeking something that will point men to God’s greatness rather than obscuring their view of it or distracting them from it?”
You do that when you care only about honor from God and from no other source. That is the way David was. In fact, if you just look back one Psalm you will see exactly what was in David’s mind when he talked about his glory.
Ps.3:3 But you, O LORD, are a shield around me. You are my glory, the lifter of my head.
David’s glory was precious to him only because it came from God.
Desire glory only from those who honor God’s work
By choosing to stand by a great king, you gain the honor of those who love that king, and you gain the distain of those who hate him. By choosing to stand by another king you can have honor from a different set of people. The man or woman after God’s own heart will be happy to be despised by those who despise God or to be ignored and marginalized by those who would ignore and marginalize God as long as they are honored by those who honor the things of God. And that includes some unbelievers. There are non-Christians who have a certain amount of respect for the things of God. If you have the respect of those types, but that is not enough for you because you are still being mocked or looked down upon by the others, that is a great opportunity to test your heart. When that happens, what do you do? Do you do what you can to try to win the respect of those who hate God? Or do you do what David did and turn to God for His approval?
If you look at David’s words here you will see that he is not really all that concerned about the fact that they are dishonoring him. He is concerned because their dishonoring of David shows the fact that they despise the things of God (note the rest of verse two)
Dear Lord, make my hunger for honor be a careful, precise, carefully targeted hunger only for the good kind of honor – the kind that shows You as a great benefactor. Teach me to crave the honor of a murderous, idolatrous, adulterous, rebellious beggar who is pardoned, forgiven, and adopted into the family of the great King I sinned against. Let all my honor shock people because of how obviously undeserved it is. Let my heart delight when You give me favor in the eyes of men, but let me only delight in the fact that it is a gift of honor from You, not because of treasuring man’s applause.
