We Seek To See The Kindness Of The Lord (Psalm 27:1-14) Series

Every so often in life, we find ourselves in a really tricky spot because we've picked up an enemy, for one reason or another. Someone has it out for you. Sometimes, the reasons for that enemy are almost entirely your fault. You picked a fight. You offended someone. You wronged someone. And now, someone actively dislikes you, and is looking for reasons to harm you.

Other times, you might find that you've picked up an enemy, and it wasn't your fault at all. Someone is envious of you, or of something you have, and they want to bring you down. I know a guy who lives in the corporate world, who once worked for a company that designed software as part of a larger team. This guy was much better at his job than everyone else, including his boss. He understood faster ways to do things, so that what would take everyone else 8 hours, would take him 30 minutes, and the end result was the exact same. You'd think that this would result in him being celebrated, and promoted, and being given a raise. You'd think he would be invited to lead a workshop, so that the whole team could become 10 times more efficient. None of that happened.

Everyone was insecure about him. People told him he did things the wrong way, and he shouldn't do that. He was hated. People looked for reasons to get rid of him. He was treated so poorly for being efficient, that you'd expect he worked for the government. But that's how life sometimes works, even in the private sector, inside cubicle world. People sometimes come to hate you, for all manner of reasons: because of your skills, and giftings. Because of what you own. Because of your successful business, your happy marriage. They will hate you, sometimes, because you seem content and happy, in a way that they are not.

This psalm talks about a third reason why we sometimes pick up an enemy. In one single line, all the way down in verse 9, David acknowledges that God is angry with him (with Artur Weiser here, against Goldingay). David has done something to set God off, and make God view him with some hostility. And what God seems to have done, as a result, is to send human enemies against David. So David finds himself in a tough spot, because God has put him in that tough spot.

So in this psalm, David is able to put 2 and 2 together. He knows that his human enemies are the result of God disciplining him, judging him. And when God disciplines you in this way, the question becomes, "What next?" The immediate concern, depending on how bloodthirsty your enemy is, might seem to revolve around the question of what your fate will be. Is this something you'll even survive? Or will you be rejected like King Saul, and find that this is the end of the line for you? But somehow, the bigger concern, the more important concern, revolves around your relationship to God. When you find yourself being disciplined by God because of something you've done, what's next? Is this something, where your relationship with God can be patched up, or is this the end of the line for you with God, at least on this earth?

So that's the situation our psalm describes. What we see in this psalm, is that David starts his song, by singing about his situation. In the first six verses, he sings about his enemies, and God, and about what his response will be to all of this. Then, starting in verse 7 (Hebrew numbering, sorry, may or may not line up perfectly), David turns to God directly, and sings to God. He then wraps up in verse 14, by offering some advice. Maybe he's talking to himself. Or maybe, he's talking to you, for when you find yourself in that same spot. Maybe David's situation, is something you can learn something from.

Let's start by reading the first verse:

(1) Of/for David.

Yahweh [is] my light and my salvation/deliverance;

from whom shall I fear?

Yahweh [is] the stronghold/fortress (Isaiah 17:9) of my life,

from whom shall I be afraid?

David finds himself in a really tricky spot, but he doesn't start by addressing it directly. Instead, he sings about who God is for him. God is David's light. God is the one who makes it so that you're never really in the dark, uncertain about what lies in the shadows. In the daylight, there's no real surprises about what's coming to you. There's no uncertainty about what you're facing. In the daylight, you always have a chance. So God is the one who gives him light.

God is also his salvation. When we hear salvation, we tend to think immediately about Jesus, and that's fair and true. But we can also talk about salvation, and Jesus, in a way that misses half the point. In the psalms, when people sing about God's salvation, that word really means something more like, "his rescuing you from really bad situations." It's not just about being rescued from Sin, and slavery, and Satan, and death. God rescuing you, is God coming through for you in the really hard times in life, when everything falls apart, and by human standards, you look doomed. God is the one who rescues you from a boss who has all the power over you, who is actively looking for reasons to fire you. God is the one who rescues you from an enemy who is looking to commit fraud against you, and falsely accuse you. God is the one who rescues you from false accusations of abuse. Or if you're actively trying to free people from their slavery in the sex trade, God is the one who rescues you from all the violent pimps. Any time you hear language about God being my salvation, that's the kind of thing that the psalmist has in mind.